The Magus

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The Magus when it first came out was the absolute wet dream of Gish fans all over the tabletop online community, a little bit like when the Duskblade made its first appearance in 3.5. Since then it carved itself a place as one of the strongest damage dealers in the entire game. With these five builds however, I intend to show that this is far from the limit of what the Magus is capable of.

A Note on Magus Spells Known

Magus can learn any amount of spells into their Spellbook and prepare them like Wizards. Thus, in theory, Magus can learn all their spell list. I will strictly put in each build the free spells each build will learn, but do keep in mind that unlike Spontaneous Spellcasters, this is not your limit of spells known. As they automatically know all their Cantrips, I will not repeat it each build either, just assume they do unless specified otherwise.

The Base Magus

This build will be a demonstration of the raw damage capability of the Magus, from the get go all the way to 20th level.

Class

Magus 20

Race

We will be going for an Elf here, we will take the Fleet Footed Alternate Racial Feature.

Ability Scores

15Point-Buy

Str 13/Dex 18/Con 11/Int 15/Wis 10/Cha 7

Round up Intelligence, then everything in Dexterity

20Point-Buy

Str 13/Dex 18/Con 12/Int 16/Wis 11/Cha 7 Everything in Dexterity

25Point-Buy

Str 13/Dex 19/Con 12/Int 16/Wis 10/Cha 9 Everything in Dexterity

Traits

We will take Warrior of Old which will give us a +2 to Initiative, along with Magical Lineage, with which we will take Shocking Grasp to pair with. This is a particular shenanigan involving the feat Heightened Spell which lets you count your spell as a second level spell while it still being only a 1st lvl spell, meaning the damage cap of Shocking Grasp goes from 5d6 to 10d6, letting you maximize the effectiveness of this 1st lvl spell for 10 levels instead of 5 which is amazingly good and pairs ridiculously well with your Spell Combat and Spellstrike abilities, and also lets you keep your more valuable higher level spells ready for when you need them.

Favored Class Bonus

Look, let’s be honest here. Despite the fact that they make only 13% of the melee characters population, magus commit 56% of all the melee damage, meaning that you will get a massive crosshair on your back from the enemies. Put that darned thing in HP and thank me later.

Skills

Pick Spellcraft and Knowledge(Arcana), everything else is really up to you, though I would recommend picking up Use Magic Devices and Perception.

Feats by Level

1-Weapon Finesse Elf

Bonus-Run

3-Weapon Focus(Rapier)

5-Heightened Spell Bonus

5-Fencing Grace

7-Power Attack

9-Arcane Strike

11-Empower Spell

Bonus 11-Quicken Spell

13-Improved Initiative

15-Maximize Spell

17-Enlarge Spell Bonus

17-Widen Spell

19-Toughness

As we will be using primarily Dexterity, Weapon Finesse+Fencing Grace increase our damage significantly, unfortunately the Rapier not being a Light weapon, we cannot apply Piranha Strike to it meaning we needed to invest at least 13 in Strength for Power Attack. Swift Action Arcane Strike further increases our damage. Finally, various Metamagic such as Empower Spell, Heightened Spell and especially Quickened Spell will let us do even more damage.

Magus Arcana by Level

3-Familiar (Pick a Scorpion for +4 Initiative)

6-Close Range

9-Accurate Strike

12-Hasted Assault

15-Quickened Magic

18-Reflection

Familiars are nice. Switch Ranged Touch spell to melee touch spell, enabling their use with Spellstrike. Accurate Strike lets you attack against Touch AC, Hasted Assault lets you use your Arcana Pool to cast Haste on yourself, Quickened Magic lets you Quicken a spell for free once per day and Reflection allows you to throw back a spell at sender which is hilarious.

Spells Learned by Level

1-Shocking Grasp, Blade Lash, Corrosive Touch, Shield, Infernal Healing
2-Keep Watch, Long Arm
3-Mirror Strike, Enlarge Person
4-Cat’s Grace, Mirror Image
5-Acid Arrow, Raven’s Flight
6-Scorching Ray, Shadow Claw
7-Fly, Vampiric Touch
8-Fireball, Haste
9-Water Breathing, Wind Wall
10-Black Tentacles, Stoneskin
11-Dimension Door, Fire Shield
12-Forceful Strike, Greater Invisibility
13-Greater Bladed Dash, Cosmic Ray
14-Vampiric Shadow Shield, Wall of Force
15-Telekinesis, Monstrous Physique III
16-Hellfire Ray, True Seeing
17-Explode Head, Sirocco
18-Disintegrate, Chain Lightning
19-Flesh to Stone, Stone to Flesh, True Strike, Color Spray, Invisibility, Spider Climb, Dispel
Magic, Slow, Animate Dead, Scrying, Cone of Cold, Magic Jar, Contingency, Eyebite
20-Contagious Flame, Wall of Iron

Equipment

A Rapier and a Chain Shirt. You could get yourself a Shortbow for first few levels range support, a Spellbook and a Component Pouch. You want to get a Rapier of Spell Storing.

Final Thoughts on the Build

Let’s examine your regular combat round vs a prepared combat round and their damage at lvl 20.

Regular Combat Round:

Swift Action activate Arcane Strike, Spell Combat cast Cosmic Ray and deliver it via Spellstrike for an attack routine that will deal 24d6+80 for an average of 152 damage. Impressive, pretty nice. Let’s see Paul Allen’s Prepared Round Damage Output.

Assuming a Rapier +1 of Spell Storing which contains Cosmic Ray, a Haste spell precast and a Contingency that states “Cast Cosmic Ray on any target I hit with Spellstrike”.

Prior round cast Cosmic Ray and hold it. You will deliver it next round with your full attack action via a Spellstrike.

Round start, deliver your prior round’s Cosmic Ray via Spellstrike with your Full Attack+Haste, which will also deliver your Contingency and your Spell Storing, Spell Combat will let you cast Cosmic Ray again and deliver it via Spellstrike again. Then use your Arcana Quickened Magic to cast Cosmic Ray again as a Swift action and deliver it again via Spellstrike. Your damage in one round is now:

106d6+96, for an average of 414 damage in one round.

Add a Wandweapon prior casting with a Wand of Arcane Mark to even leave a watermark on your target.

We still get to a maximum damage of 732 damage and that’s assuming we haven’t buffed even further here and no other magic weapon than a mere +1 Spell Storing.

The Athame Wielder

So now that we have seen just how busted we can get the damage on Magus, let us examine our other options. What if we wanted to focus on spellcasting and buffing/debuffing instead of going full Supernova?

Well, the Spellblade Archetype exchanges your Spellstrike ability for a magic dagger that you can summon in exchange for a spell slot that deals Force damage and cast spells from it as if you were not holding anything in that hand, technically letting you two weapons fighting(although we will not be going there with this build). To compensate for our lower damage, we will multiclass into the Eldritch Knight Prestige Class. Our Leveling should look like the following:

Class

Magus (Spellblade) 7/Eldritch Knight 10/Magus (Spellblade) +3

Race

We will go for Human here. Put that floating +2 into Intelligence.

Ability Scores

Put everything into Intelligence

15Point-Buy

Str 10/Dex 14/Con 10/Int 18/Wis 10/Cha 10

20Point-Buy

Str 10/Dex 16/Con 10/Int 18/Wis 10/Cha 10

25Point-Buy

Str 10/Dex 16/Con 14/Int 18/Wis 10/Cha 10

Traits

River Rat which gives us a neat +1 Damage with daggers(like our Force Athame). Reactionary gives you an Initiative bonus and that’s great.

Favored Class Bonus

You guessed it correctly, it is HP.

Skills

We need at least 3 in Knowledge(Religion) here but we want to max as many Knowledges as we can, otherwise, Spellcraft.

Feats by Level

1-Weapon Finesse

Human Bonus-Improved Unarmed Strike

3-Deific Obedience(Pharasma)

5-Weapon Focus(Dagger)

Bonus 5-Slashing Grace

7-Kirin Style

Bonus 8-Piranha Strike

9-Kirin Strike

11-Improved Critical(Dagger)

Bonus 12-Weapon Specialization(Dagger)

13-Combat Expertise

15-Improved Trip

Bonus 16-Agile Maneuver

17-Improved Grapple

19-Improved Initiative

Weapon Finesse+Slashing Grace+Piranha Strike makes our daggers surprisingly efficient, and Kirin Strike lets us add double our Intelligence modifier on damage against creatures we have identified via Kirin Style. Later on, Improved Trip and Improved Grapple opens up our combat options, especially against spellcasters.

Magus Arcana by Level

3-Pool Sourced Athame

6-Familiar

19-Throw Athame

We can now summon our Athame by using our Arcana Pool, we get a Familiar yay!, finally we can throw our Athame if a target tries to flee.

Spells Learned by Level

1-Chill Touch, Color Spray, Shield, Feather Fall, Grease, Magic Missile, Mount
2-Obscuring Mist, Ray of Enfeeblement
3-Shock Shield, Vanish
4-Web, Telekinetic Volley
5-Mirror Image, Glitterdust
6-Cat’s Grace, Bladed Dash
7-Fly, Haste
9-Fireball, Vampiric Touch10-Gaseous Form, Water Breathing
11-Black Tentacles, Dimension Door
12-Stoneskin, Greater Invisibility
13-Wreath of Blades, Telekinetic Maneuvers
14-Telekinesis, Baleful Polymorph
15-Greater Bladed Dash, Banishing Blade
16-Teleport, Wall of Stone
17-Decapitate, Flesh to Stone
18-Greater Dispel Magic, Form of the Dragon I
19-True Seeing, Walk through Space
20-Umbral Strike, Transformation

Equipment

Chain Shirt, Start with a Rapier but drop it as soon as we hit level 3 anyway, a Spellbook and a Component Pouch

Final Thoughts on the Build

So, our dagger can do some massive levels of damage. By spending 5 Arcana Pool, our dagger deals 1d4+31 damage per attack if we have Kirin Strike up. That’s Force damage too so almost nothing will block it. And with The Goddess of Death’s Obedience our attack rolls with our Athame are actually pretty darned high (+17 BAB also means 4 attacks per round pre Haste). And if we crit, we can swift action cast a spell on top of our Spell Combat. We focus however much less on damage with our spells and more on controlling the battlefield.

The Witch-Knight

So, remember the Inquisitor Witch? Yeah this is her older sister. Two of the three sisters are up now. We are making her a Hexcrafter Magus straight from lvl 1 to 20.

Class

Magus (Hexcrafter) 20

Race

Changeling with the Witchborn Alternate Racial Feature. We’re also taking the Hulking Changeling Racial Trait.

Ability Scores

Put everything in Strength.

15Point-Buy

Str 16/Dex 10/Con 12/Int 16/Wis 10/Cha 10

20Point-Buy

Str 17/Dex 10/Con 12/Int 17/Wis 10/Cha 10

25Point-Buy

Str 17/Dex 10/Con 14/Int 18/Wis 10/Cha 9

Traits

We are taking Bruising Intellect to get Intimidate as a Class Skill and key it off from our Intelligence. Flame of the Dawnflower adds fire damage when we crit with a Scimitar.

Favored Class Bonus

It is, indeed, HP.

Skills

Intimidate, Spellcraft, Acrobatics, Knowledge(Arcane), the rest is pretty much up to you here.

Feats by Level

1-Toughness

3-Power Attack

5-Intimidating Prowess

Bonus 5-Weapon Focus(Scimitar)

7-Cornugon Smash

9-Dazzling Display

11-Improved Critical(Scimitar)

Bonus 11-Weapon Specialization(Scimitar)

13-Arcane Strike

15-Empower Spell

17-Shatter Defenses

Bonus 17-Quicken Spell

19-Improved Initiative

Power Attack+Cornugon Smash+Shatter Defenses is a stupid good combo, and keying it off both Intelligence and Strength via Intimidating Prowess+Bruising Intellect means that it will land fairly often, adding yet another debuff on our enemies. Arcane Strike adds a bit more damage, and Improved Critical combined with a Scimitar will mean we will activate Flame of the Dawn considerably more often.

Magus Arcana and Hexes by Level

3-Familiar(Pick a Toad for more HP)

4-Slumber

6-Evil Eye

9-Accurate Strike

12-Cackle

15-Quickened Magic

18-Animal Skin

We get a familiar which is very nice, we get access to Cackle, Evil Eye and Slumber which is stupid good. Quickened Magic lets us Quicken a spell for free once a day which is extremely clutch and Animal Skin is just very witchy and thus both good and thematic.

Spells Learned by Level

1-Shocking Grasp, Shield, Enlarge Person, Blade Tutor’s Spirit, Corrosive Touch, Duelist’s Parry
2-Flare Burst, Vanish
3-Hydraulic Push, Infernal Healing
4-Bull’s Strength, Invisibility
5-Acid Arrow, Web
6-Alter Self, Bladed Dash
7-Bestow Curse, Fly
8-Gaseous Form, Water Breathing
9-Vampiric Touch, Dispel Magic
10-Stoneskin, Black Tentacles
11-Shout, Dimension Door
12-Blightburn Weapon, Caustic Blood
13-Baleful Polymorph, Acid Burst
14-Teleport, Telekinesis
15-Greater Bladed Dash, Corrosive Consumption
16-Major Curse, Acid Fog
17-Form of the Dragon I, Cruel Jaunt
18-Walk through Space, True Seeing
19-Flesh to Stone, Stone to Flesh, Protection Against Evil, Alarm, Rope Trick,
Blindness/Deafness, Haste, Fireball, Animate Dead, Scrying, Cone of Cold, Arcane Eye,
Eyebite, Contingency
20-Greater Dispel Magic, Disintegrate

Equipment

We’re picking a Scimitar and a Chain Shirt, but eventually we’ll work our way to Full Plate Armor. Spellbook and Component Pouch.

Final Thoughts on the Build

So not only can we Spellstrike people for more damage, we can also deliver Curse spells such as Bestow Curse through them for hilarious debuffs. Combine that with our very powerful spell list, our already fairly significant damage and the fact that we have some of the best Hexes the Witch gets.

The Hexcrafter Magus is one of the best Archetypes for the class by far. Add Cornugon Smash shenanigans.

Also, fun fact: Combine Accurate Strike with Shatter Defenses, and you are always attacking against an AC of 10(with maybe Deflection Bonuses applying).

Fun times.

The Puppet Lord

So you saw the previous build and thought “It would be great if we could do that, but with Enchantment Spells to absolutely mess with the enemy”?

Puppetmaster is the Archetype for you. We will also get levels in the Enchanting Courtesan Prestige Class for additional shenanigans involving Enchantment and Illusions. Our leveling should look like the following:

Class

Magus (Puppetmaster) 5/Enchanting Courtesan 10/Magus (Puppetmaster) +5

Race

We’re going Half-Elf and putting our floating +2 in Intelligence.

Ability Scores

Round up Constitution if odd, then everything in Intelligence.

15Point-Buy

Str 14/Dex 10/Con 10/Int 18/Wis 10/Cha 7

20Point-Buy

Str 14/Dex 10/Con 12/Int 19/Wis 10/Cha 7

25Point-Buy

Str 14/Dex 10/Con 13/Int 20/Wis 10/Cha 7

Traits

Cosmopolitan to get Linguistics as a class skill, Reactionary to get a bonus on Initiative.

Favored Class Bonus

Skills, actually. While capable of getting in melee as any other magus, this really ain’t our main goal here, and so our HP can take a small hit.

Skills

Linguistics, Spellcraft, Sense Motive, we need five ranks in Bluff even though we won’t really roll it, your choice of Perform(dance) or (act) and you’ll need Knowledge(Arcana), otherwise Sleight of Hands, Stealth, and also grab a few Craft, including (Alchemy) and (Sculptures).

Feats by Level

1-Orator

Half-Elf Bonus-Skill Focus(Linguistics)

3-Spell Focus(Enchantment)

5-Craft Wondrous Items Bonus

5-Combat Expertise

7-Craft Magic Weapons and Armor

9-Craft Construct

11-Greater Spell Focus(Enchantment)

13-Extra Arcane Pool

15-Craft Wands

17-Extra Arcane Pool

19-Extra Arcane Pool

Orator turns our 7 in Charisma Magus suddenly into a masterful social character. Everything else is geared toward getting Craft Construct because we want actual puppets and golems to shield us while we mess with the minds of our targets. Extra Arcane Pool helps increase our Enchantment and Illusion DCs through the damn roof more regularly.

Magus Arcana by Level

3-Familiar

16-Wand Wielder

19-Wand Mastery

We get a familiar(Raven for Linguistics), and we are really good with wands if you catch my meaning.

Spells Learned by Level

1-Charm Person, Sleep, Shield, Magic Missile, Cure Light Wounds, Detect Secret Doors,
Disguise Self
2-Identify, Hypnotism
3-Vanish, Silent Image
4-Suggestion, Demand Offerings
5-Detect Desires, Detect Relationships
7-Invisibility, Bull’s Strength
8-Charm Monster, Martial Marionnette
9-Haste, Fly
10-Dispel Magic, Crushing Despair
11-Dominate Person, Scrying
12-Contagious Suggestion, Dimension Door
13-Hallucinatory Terrain, Hold Monster
14-Unwilling Shield, Teleport
15-Covetous Aura, Cloak of Dreams
16-Greater Invisibility, False Vision
17-Animate Object, Yellow Sign
18-Waves of Ecstasy, Disintegrate
19-Greater Shout, Project Image
20-Hellfire Ray, Explode Head

Equipment

Get yourself a Longsword and a Chain Shirt, your Spellbook and a Component’s Pouch.

Final Thoughts on the Build

We get many nasty enchantment spells and when we affect a target with a spell we can immediately target em with another Enchantment Spell, meaning we can truly and utterly end an encounter very, very rapidly. Plus we are investing heavily into getting multiple constructs to shield us, and our Enchantments and Poisons, of which we will coat our constructs from head to toe, have very difficult to resist DCs, which we can further boost, and we can camouflage our spellcasting. We are a fantastic social character that can control the battlefield with great efficiency, and we have quite a few get out of jail spells to escape situations that are getting out of control. A wild direction to send the Magus into but works surprisingly well actually.

The Sword Saint

So, what if we wanted to put everything into blastingsomething/someone into complete oblivion? What if we wanted to scream EKUSUCALIBUR at the top of our lungs when we spellstrike someone?

We’ll take the Bladebound Archetype because it gives us, starting at lvl 3, a Noble Phantasm Intelligent Blade weapon that is near indestructible and has a ton of fun stuff tied to it. We’ll also get the Variant Multiclassing into Paladin because duh.

Class

Magus (Bladebound) 20

Race

Human, putting our floating bonus into Strength.

Ability Scores

15Point-Buy

Str 16/Dex 10/Con 10/Int 14/Wis 10/Cha 14

Increase Int to 16 and then everything else in Strength.

20Point-Buy

Str 16/Dex 10/Con 10/Int 16/Wis 10/Cha 14 Put everything in Strength.

25Point-Buy

Str 18/Dex 10/Con 10/Int 16/Wis 10/Cha 14 Put everything in Strength.

Traits

Reactionary for more initiative, Heirloom Weapon because…well…obvious reasons.

Favored Class Bonus

Undeniably going straight into HP here.

Skills

Spellcraft, Intimidate, Ride, Knowledge(various). The usuals.

Feats and Variant Multiclass by Level

1-Toughness

Human-Intimidating Prowess

3-Detect Evil at Will

5-Power Attack

Bonus 5-Arcane Strike

7-Lay on Hands

9-Cornugon Smash

11-Smite Evil

Bonus 11-Weapon Focus(Longsword)

13-Dazzling Display

15-Mercy(Fatigued)

17-Shatter Defenses

Bonus 17-Weapon Specialization(Longsword)

19-Divine Bond

Power Attack+Cornugon Smash shenanigans, we get a Smite Evil for even more damage,

Arcane Strike just piles even more on that.

Magus Arcana by Level

3-Close Range

6-Wave Step

9-Ghost Blade

12-Concentrate

15-Quickened Magic

18-Reflection

We can walk on water, throw back spells, cast a Quickened Spell once a day and make our weapon Brilliant. I…don’t know how else to illustrate this tbh.

Spells Learned by Level

1-Shocking Grasp, Expeditious Retreat, Vanish, Shield, Disguise Weapon
2-Hide Weapon, Keep Watch
3-Weaponwand, True Strike
4-Bull’s Strength, Bladed Dash
5-Hidden Blades, Scorching Rays
6-Effortless Armor, Spider Climb
7-Haste, Vampiric Touch
8-Force Punch, Displacement
9-Spellsword, Greater Thunderstomp
10-Stoneskin, Forceful Strike
11-Tailwind, Shield of Dawn
12-Fire Shield, Elemental Mastery
13-Cosmic Ray, Greater Bladed Dash
14-Dimensional Blade, Telekinesis
15-Teleport, Mask from Divination

Equipment

Chain Shirt, Longsword, eventually a full plate, Spellbook and a Component Pouch.

Final Thoughts on the Build

So, remember the fun from the first build? Now we do it with Disintegrate. And Smite Evil.

For a prepared round, our damage, including Haste and a +1 Spell Storing Longsword, Quickened Magic-Disintegrate, prior round casting and holding disintegrate+Smite Evil and This round’s Spell Combat Disintegrate plus Spellsword with a Staff of Many Rays, Spell Storing Disintegrate and Contingency-Disintegrate.

We are hitting 6d8+240d6+185 damage.

For an average of 929 damage in one round. Because Noble Phantasm I guess.