Myrrh, Frankincense, and Steel: Kurald Galain's Guide to the Magus

[Triskavanski]

Though wearing armor does give you access to Spellscribed Armor. And Heavy gives the best.

A suit of fullplate mail would be able to hold 6 ninth level spells, that you wouldn't need to spend a round or so pulling out of your bags.


I think one of the better things though for a Magus is the Gauntlet style. You treat a gauntlet as a buckler, but your hand is still free and open.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Not too opposed to the 'arcane pool enhances armor' thing, there is a 3rd-party arcana called Warding that did that. Do they ever get spell combat back?

[Triskavanski]

Nope. They don't get it back.

Pretty much the archetype is you are a heavy armor arcane spellcaster.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

... So just being a normal magus would grant you the same thing. Well. At least that dwarven one gave you some abjuration spells...

[Slithery D]

Though wearing armor does give you access to Spellscribed Armor. And Heavy gives the best.

A suit of fullplate mail would be able to hold 6 ninth level spells, that you wouldn't need to spend a round or so pulling out of your bags.

I thought I saw someone claim those cost 4x cost, though. A 9th level scroll effect would cost you 7650 gold each (crafting, not purchasing cost) at minimum caster level. At low levels they are a trivial benefit, at high levels they are very expensive. No thanks.

[Triskavanski]

Yes, but you wouldn't get the Armor Training bonuses.


And viewing it deeper... Since you're a magus and not a fighter, even with fighter training, you don't get a lot of bonuses from advance armor training, since many of them give bonuses based on fighter level.Like Armor Specialization that gives you eventually +5 to havey armor.. but is solely based on fighter level.

At least you do still have spell casting. :/

[Kurald Galain]

Well for starters they lose spell combat. In return they get early access to medium and heavy armor and they get a fighter's armor training.

Losing spell combat is a big strike against the archetype already. The sad thing with heavy armor is that it doesn't give you a much better AC than light armor does, and dropping from 30' to 20' movement is a big drawback for a melee class.

A suit of fullplate mail would be able to hold 6 ninth level spells, that you wouldn't need to spend a round or so pulling out of your bags.

That's going to be a DC 37 UMD check, good luck with that.

... So just being a normal magus would grant you the same thing. Well. At least that dwarven one gave you some abjuration spells...

Did you see any good abjurations that weren't on the Magus's list already?

[Cieyrin]

Not that it's much of a benefit but one of the benefits of Fighter Armor Training is that you can move at normal speed in medium and heavy armor. So Heavy Armor Magus won't be slowed down.

[Triskavanski]

I was wrong. You could have up to nine, ninth level spells inscribed on the armor.


But The UMD check is easy enough honestly. Its going to be passing the Arcane spell failure that'll be hard.because there is absolutely no cavette that prevents it.

As opposed to the weapon masters guide, I'm noticing a lot more thing in this book where it was like they had an idea and started to go with it, and just before they got it to great idea.. they stopped.

Even without spell combat, if it had just made it so you counted as a nearly fighter for things like the advance armor training, it would have been an okay archetype.

The rune armor - There was no real reason to increase the price so much to begin with, and they never put in anything for the ASF

[Ninjaxenomorph]

I thought there was no ASF for using scrolls? It is a spell completion item, yes, but...

[Kurald Galain]

But The UMD check is easy enough honestly. Its going to be passing the Arcane spell failure that'll be hard.because there is absolutely no cavette that prevents it.

37 is no joke, especially considering charisma is generally a dump stat for the Magus. Neither armored battlemage nor deep marshal stacks with eldritch scion, and while you could use items like the Circlet of Persuasion, those don't do anything else for the Magus and take up item slots that could be used elsewhere.

That plus the cost of scrolls does not give me the impression that using scroll-inscribed armor is going to save the armored b'mage.

And yes, "Using a scroll is like casting a spell for purposes of arcane spell failure chance."

[Ninjaxenomorph]

And its four times as much? Damn, just go with spell tattoos, those are twice as expensive as normal scrolls. Only downside is explaining to the GM how you have skin free to read it, which, being fantasy, isn't that hard. My bladebound in Society utilizes an assortment of magic tattoos, and he just goes sleeveless.

In elysian bronze fullplate.

[Triskavanski]

37 is no joke, especially considering charisma is generally a dump stat for the Magus. Neither armored battlemage nor deep marshal stacks with eldritch scion, and while you could use items like the Circlet of Persuasion, those don't do anything else for the Magus and take up item slots that could be used elsewhere.

That plus the cost of scrolls does not give me the impression that using scroll-inscribed armor is going to save the armored b'mage.

And yes, "Using a scroll is like casting a spell for purposes of arcane spell failure chance."

Yes there isn't much that can save this one. if you counted as a fighter for advance armor training and if you could actually use scrolls in heavy armor without the ASF and if the cost wasn't completely jacked up, then I can make an argument for it other than "At least it can cast spells".

[Cieyrin]

37 is no joke, especially considering charisma is generally a dump stat for the Magus. Neither armored battlemage nor deep marshal stacks with eldritch scion, and while you could use items like the Circlet of Persuasion, those don't do anything else for the Magus and take up item slots that could be used elsewhere.

Actually, there is an answer to that for Magus without being Eldritch Scion: Clever Wordplay from Pathfinders Society Primer is a trait that lets you trade a Cha for Int with one skill. So doesn't matter if you dump Cha if you have Clever Wordplay (UMD).

[Triskavanski]

Yeah, A level 14-17 magus (cause honestly, why are you trying to UMD 9th level scrolls earlier than that anyways?)

You're going to have something like 17-20 from ranks and class skill If you even start off with a modest amount of Int, like 16, you're looking at 20-23. Get an item of int and you have 22-25 for the +4 version. (Cause I'm assuming you don't even have the best stuff yet. )

So we're looking at 12-15 on a d20, and we've not even begun to optimize basic Magus stuff. Unless 20 int on a magus is "good"

If UMD was a big enough concern for the player to warrent its need, It shouldn't be too much expense to spend one feat on skill focus "UMD" to knock it down to 6-9.


But the ASF kills this whole armor thing with anything other than divine casters.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Theres also a wand key ring. If you regularly use certain scrolls which you NEED to succeed on (or have one in particular you want to cinch) they give a +10 bonus for 3,000 gold. My magus carries one for the Limited Wish scrolls he carries.

[Kurald Galain]

Oh, I'm sure it's doable. But the whole point of using a scroll-written-on-armor is that you didn't have to spend an action on drawing the scroll, meaning you want to use it in combat at a point where you're short on actions. This would make it problematic if your odds of activating it are only around 50% or 60%.

I think we can agree that Spellscribed Armor is not a particularly good pick for a Magus, and that tentatively (I haven't seen the full writeup yet) this armored battlemage archetype is not a particularly good pick either.

[Triskavanski]

Of course the main thing is we, at least I, keep focusing on the idea that you'd use Spell scribe armor to cast arcane spells that were written on the armor. Divine and Psychic spells on the other hand don't have ASF.


There is another few reasons beyond drawing the scroll why it could have been good to have spell scribed armor. A few actually..

1) Its much harder to pick pocket armor you are wearing.
2) Armor doesn't burn as easily as parchment.

And its 50-60% of the time for a character who didn't increase his int beyond 20 by level 14-17 (Which is when the 9th level spells start becoming active for the actual casters). Provided you can get pragmatic activator or clever word play.

Considering by this time, you'd have around 3-4 stat increases at least, you're looking closer to 40-60% and if activating things is your bag, I have a hard time not seeing someone spending just one feat on skill focus UMD, knocking it down by another 30% by this left, leaving you with a 10-20% to fail to activate it.

At that point it becomes more of the cost of spell scribe armor being the more prohibitive thing than making the UMD check.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

There are niches for it. Magus spells don't require a UMD check if you can cast them normally, and the magus has situational spells. I would just stick to spell tattoos (or spell scars if you took the arcana), since those cant be disarmed period without an Erase spell.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Just picked up Armor Master's Handbook; there are indeed some things a magus could look into using. I also noticed something, when I was bemoaning how Shielded Mage doesn't really help a magus, but I realized that even without the feat its possible to play a shielded magus: Quick Draw, plus use a quickdraw shield. 2-feat investment (Shield Proficiency and Quick Draw, possible for a human at level 2. Just put it away to cast spells. While shield might be a better bonus, at low levels it could be useful to save a spell slot, plus it's all the time as opposed to 1 min/level. At higher levels, it can do things shield can't do; with Shield Focus and a +2 shield, you have the same bonus from the shield spell, plus anything else on the shield. Shielded Mage is useful so you don't have to bother taking the shield off if you are not using Spell Combat, but isn't necessary.

[Triskavanski]

There is two ways you could get a shield bonus.. Be wielding a shield and yet not.

The first is the gauntlet style. You gain the defenses of a buckler, your guantlet deals more damage and a few other things along those lines. But you're also not wielding a gauntlet nor are you actually holding a shield.

The next is unhindering shield. You gain the AC bonus of the buckler even if you use the shield hand for any other purpose. When you wield a buckler your hand is considered free, for class features and casting spells. I personally would go more with this, as the buckler is capable of getting shield enhancements instead of just weapon enhancements. And overall is cheaper.

Overall though, I don't know how much of a help it would be, and likely you're best to sticking with the tried and true

[Ninjaxenomorph]

That one is good, but it comes online later than my quickdraw shield idea. You could do that as early as 2nd level if you're human and are retraining.

[Triskavanski]

So you could start off with the quick draw, and then switch to unburdening shield.

If you've got that one feat that lets you shield bash with a buckler, would you be able to use the shield bash to channel the energy through it?

[Ninjaxenomorph]

In theory, though if I actually wanted to shield bash, I'd just go Skirnir. I'm not too sure, but as long as you put away the shield at the beginning of your turn and put it back on at the end (free actions with quick draw and quickdraw shield) you should get the normal bonus? Or am I wrong, and casting a spell (with Spell Combat or just casting normally) count as using your hand for the entire round? There are more ways than one would think to utilize a shield as a magus (for starters, mithral buckler) but it's its harder to keep it during spell combat. Unhindering Shield is a good way that explicitly works, but doesn't come online until 8th level.

[charcoalninja]

With a Monk 3 dip ki arcana opens up Spell Blending: Ki Leech for the Magus which turns the red Monk into effectively unlimited spells as you crit and kill to refill your ki pool which you spend to regain spells, so personally I feel such a build deserves more of a mention.

Can do the same thing with ninja 2, or Stalker 1 as well. Stalker 1 / Magus 7 / Bladecaster X is crazy strong as it can freely use its Bladecaster features due to never running out of spells.

[Kurald Galain]

Ok, let me see if I can get my hands on the armor master's.

With a Monk 3 dip ki arcana opens up Spell Blending: Ki Leech for the Magus which turns the red Monk into effectively unlimited spells as you crit and kill to refill your ki pool which you spend to regain spells,

That's counterproductive. You need to score at least three crits or kills just to break even on the Ki Leech spells you just cast (and you won't reliably get that many in every combat), and that's not even getting into the loss of spells for taking three levels in monk. A straight Magus 10 has almost twice as many spells per day as Monk 3 / Magus 7 with KL up.

At any rate, running out of spells is really not a concern for a moderate-level Magus, which means that getting more spells per day just isn't spectacular.

[diablodevil2]

Heya again!

So, I had a GM mention that Bladebound and Hexcrafter don't stack, I think because of this line in the FAQ for the APG; http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fn#v5748eaic9thg

Archetype Stacking and Altering: What exactly counts as altering a class feature for the purpose of stacking archetypes?
---
This even applies for something as small as adding 1 extra round of bardic performance each day, adding an additional bonus feat to the list of bonus feats you can select, or adding an additional class skill to the class. As always, individual GMs should feel free to houserule to allow small overlaps on a case by case basis, but the underlying rule exists due to the unpredictability of combining these changes.
---

This likely applying to BB removing the first Arcana, and HC giving the extra option to pick Hexes for Arcana? I'd like clarification, because I actually made a BB/HC for PFS. Is there some other source that updates or counters that?

[Kurald Galain]

Heya again!

So, I had a GM mention that Bladebound and Hexcrafter don't stack, I think because of this line in the FAQ for the APG; http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fn#v5748eaic9thg

Good question. It is my understanding that Magus Arcana is not "a class feature [that] grants multiple subfeatures", therefore the two would stack. For example, bardic performance has a pretty big block of text explaining how performing works in general, and then it has subfeatures that say e.g. "at level 8, you can perform to play a Dirge of Doom". Clearly Dirge of Doom requires the main class feature of performance in order to do anything, hence it is a subfeature. This does not apply to Magus Arcana, which stand on their own.

Indeed, looking over the Paizo site, this appears to be a popular combination with not a lot of discussion or controversy about it. While it is obviously debatable (clearly you've met a GM who disagrees) as far as I can tell the forum consensus is that yes, the two do work together. HTH!

[diablodevil2]

Alrighty, neat neat. I was looking, and I found next to no one saying 'these don't work', and at least a couple saying they do, so I wasn't so sure. But it seems like at least as far as my PFS guy goes, it's good for now. No one in PFS has had issue with it, so whoo.

Thanks!

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Since I've had the shielded magus on the mind recently, I took a closer look at the Shield Gauntlet Style from Armor Master's Handbook. It's actually not too bad, all things considered; the first feat is just a tiny +1 shield bonus, the second allow for a free AOO using the gauntlet that can also be a disarm or steal combat maneuver (but you lose the shield), but the last one is where it takes off: you keep the shield bonus when you attack, and the gauntlet's enhancement bonus is added to the shield bonus. Still a fan of my quickdraw shield+Quick Draw idea, though.