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Arrakiz
2012-12-07, 04:53 AM
Before we begin- we're talking Pathfinder here. So I've been thinking and hear me out on this one: from purely optimisation point of view- is a mounted combat oriented magus worth looking into? Couple of things I need cleared out before I even begin elaboration on stats, feats, spell and general tactics are as follows:
1) Does Spellstrike work with two-handed weapon? And does it deal normal attack damage on a successfull strike? The wording of this feature is still unclear. As I see it, if you can use two-handed weapon with Spellstrike it makes Spellcombat obsolete because of low BAB (Arcana's can work around it, but that requires spending points and there isn't really a lot of them).
2) Can touch spells be delivered with a charge attack via Spellstrike?
3) Can you use external limb that does not grant attack but can be used to hold and manipulate objects (like Prehensile Tail of some races or Tentacle) to use rods or wands? It all comes down to a question of: can I use a quicken rod with a tail?
4) Exactly what damage is multiplied on a mounted charge? Does it double/triple damage from weapon enhancement, Smite Evil or precision damage? What about critical damage with a charge- does it triple TRIPLED damage or should I multiply the basic damage by 5 (standard rules for critical multiplayers)?

Ok so now that it's out of the way let's talk numbers. Mounted combat offers greatest possible damage potential due to the multiplying capabilities of Spirited Charge feat and also it allows for great speed, maneuverability and range. However it has some pretty big drawbacks, namely- the need of a mount. Magus has an ability to work around this limitation by summoning a Phantom Steed and can pack an amazing punch with Spellstrike. Now that requires couple of things: firstly, huge str. score to be able to keep up with the more traditional martial classes. Unfortunatley he still needs high int. and dex. for spell-casting and AC (and ride checks which are the core skill checks for this build). Then he needs a lot of feats that are pretty useless at lower levels, before you can summon a Phantom Steed. And of course a propper race to proppel this tactic. Now starting with a race there are a couple of some great choices for Magus: first and my favourite- Tieflings. They have bonuses in all the right places and a drop to charisma which is a magus dump stat, they have dark vision, spell-like abilities, resistances and, probably most important of all- Prehensile Tail, which can greatly help. They don't get bonus feat and their skill bonuses are useless, but you just can't have everything. Also- the option of getting mora Arcane Pool points with levels is also nice. Then there is human, which is always a strong chocie- extra feat, extra skills, nice stat bonus, which can go to str. Lack of special vision DOES hurt but nothing not to like overall. Half-elves are also great, having low-light vision, some nice resistances and Skill Focus, which can supplement ride. Cool. At the other races I didn't even look- tell me if there is something worth looking at. Now when it comes to stats- str. should be primary, int. a strong secondary on pair with dex. Con. tertiary and then the rest. The feats however are a problem and a big one- it requires a bare minimum of three- Mounted Combat, Ride by Attack and Spirited Charge to make this build usefull. We're talking 3rd level for humans and 5th level minimum for anything else. Then there are feats that can supplement it further- Power Attack, Trick Riding and of course metamagic feats- Intesify Spell being a minimum (this feat is AMAZING for what it does) and this can fortunatley be taken as a bonus feat at 5th level. Hoorey. Enlonged Spell can expand the duration of Phantom Steed and Empower can create some big nukes out of low-level spells. Also- I've calctulated that charging with a greatsword on a mount is better then charging with a lance- doubling base damage, power attack bonus and 1.5 str. does more then tripling base damage of only one handed attack (obviously this is impossible to acomplish without an aditional appendage- hence, the Prehensile Tail). So let's talk numbers shall we? At 5th level with an 18 score of str. The mounted charge of a Tiefling magus hits with a +10 bonus (that is his BAB, his str modifier, charge bonus and higher ground bonus and he does that without spending points of Arcane Pool) and deals (1d8+4)*3- not overwhelming BUT this guy has an ace up his sleeve and that is Spellstrike. At this level he already has Intesify Spell so he uses it to prepare Intesified Shocking Grasp- which deals a whooping 10d6 points of damage- and he then proceeds ot use quicken rod to cast this monster as a swift action and charges in the same round. Ride by Attack allows him to stay out of threatening area as he prepares for another ride. So we're looking at 54 points of avarage damage with this attack- and that's a lot for 5th level and it's only getting bigger and bigger form here. The most obvious problem for this guy is availability of his mount- since Phantom Steed can be from 7th level and it's duration as well as the frecuency with which it may be cast (and it would be nice to cast Haste here and there from time to time, just for some team-play if nothing else) is not overwhelming so it would be usefull to fill this gap somehow- scrolls, wands and assistance of other spell casters can help, but so far- I haven't found a solution that would be both fool-proof and not more trouble then it's worth. Magus can't summon monsters and he has no mount or animal companion class feature (which CAN be solved by multiclassing, but it would leave the mount super-weak and push all of this guy's abilities by at least a level). Also- AC is wanting. Using an animated shield or wielding one and using a lance (provided you can pull off the rod-wielding-tail trick) is an option, but a pricy one. And lastly- it's gonna be very feat-tight. At some point taking Combat Casting will become a must (around the time when full attacking with a mounted charge becomes viable), so it has to be carefully planed in advance not to mess things up and make it useless by later levels. A viable tactic I came up with was to start off by aquiring basic martial feats (Powr Attack and such) and fosuing on usuing Spellcombat to a bare minimum (it's not good before you can get a second ttack at 8th level anyway) and focusing on using Spell strike and the gradualy changing to a mounted combatant so I would expect a huge bump in damage output at some point. However I can't see when exactly would that pay off. So here is my dilema forum- can you help? Any suggestions that would make this build playable?