Help with my Magus "monk"

[digiman619]

I'm getting ready for a game and have decided that using a Magus with the Esoteric archetype makes a decent monk, especially when you flavor your spells as martial arts abilities. Slight problem, however, is that I still need to be a prepared caster, which isn't as flavorful. Is there an archetype that I can stack with Esoteric to make me a spontaneous caster?

[Psyren]

RAW, no. However, I would definitely allow a player to stack Esoteric and Mindblade (i.e. the psychic magus) at my table due to the fluff synergy between them.

You would just need to tweak the Tattooed Spell ability since you don't prepare spells anymore. The easiest way would be to forget that line of the class feature and just make your tattooed spells into psychic SLAs.

[Kurald Galain]

I'm getting ready for a game and have decided that using a Magus with the Esoteric archetype makes a decent monk, especially when you flavor your spells as martial arts abilities. Slight problem, however, is that I still need to be a prepared caster, which isn't as flavorful. Is there an archetype that I can stack with Esoteric to make me a spontaneous caster?

Well, the esoteric may be flavorful, but in terms of mechanics it doesn't really do much (since any regular Magus can already use all his abilities with unarmed strikes). So instead of esoteric, take the Eldritch Scion archetype and you'll be a spontaneous caster.

Magus guide, FYI (www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?423754-Myrrh-Frankincense-and-Steel-Kurald-Galain-s-Guide-to-the-Magus).

[Hogsy]

I'm getting ready for a game and have decided that using a Magus with the Esoteric archetype makes a decent monk, especially when you flavor your spells as martial arts abilities. Slight problem, however, is that I still need to be a prepared caster, which isn't as flavorful. Is there an archetype that I can stack with Esoteric to make me a spontaneous caster?


If your DM is flexible and can be persuaded to allow 3.5 content, you can go with Eldritch Scion(like previously mentioned), multiclass with Monk and pick up the Ascetic Mage feat to have all monk class features scale with Cha instead of Wis, and you're also a spontaneous caster. Another route if 3.5 is allowed, something I recently did, is go Monk -> Sorcerer variant that has 3/4 BAB(I have a homebrew of that so I was fine) and pick the Empyreal bloodline to have all your sorc class features scale with Wisdom instead of Charisma. Then I picked up the Enlightened Fist prestige class which is technically a monk magus. It allows you to cast a spell as a free action whenever you make a full attack with unarmed strikes. With Magical Knack(PF trait) and Practiced Spellcaster(3.5 feat) you can have up to 6 levels of monk without losing CL. My current build is monk 4, Warmage(homebrew class that replaces Sorcerer) 1, Enlightened Fist 5. My CL is 10 and I can cast as a 5th level sorcerer. Not bad if you ask me.

If none of that can be available to you, consider playing an Eldritch Scion with 1 level of Cross-blooded Sorc, picking Draconic and Orc bloodlines in order to deal +2 damage per die with elemental spells of your choice. By doing that, you get a very strong blaster and since shocking grasp is your bread and butter, you can go the monk route(i'd recommend Unchained for your purposes) to pick up the monkish stuff. Or you can just go 19 magus 1 Cross-Blooded Sorc and roleplay it like you're a monk. Both would work just fine either way since Maguses are quite strong damagers imo.