Magus Handbook: Pathfinder Class Guide – RPGBOT (2024)

Introduction

The Magus is everything that the Eldritch Knight wants to be; a potent combination of the Wizard’s offensive magic and the Fighter’s martial prowess. In combat, the Magus is defined by Spellstrike, which allows the Magus to deliver spells through a weapon attack. The Magus can serve the party as a Striker and Librarian, but has the spells to serve as a Support should the need arise.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Disclaimer
• Magus Class Features
• Abilities
• Races
• Traits
• Skills
• Feats
  • Metamagic Feats
• Weapons
• Armor
• Magic Items
  • Weapons
  • Armor/Shields
  • Rings
  • Staffs
  • Wondrous Items
• Multiclassing and Prestige Classes
• Example Build – Generic Rapier Magus
  • Abilities
  • Race
  • Skills
  • Traits

Disclaimer

We support a limited subset of Pathfinder’s rules content. If you would like help with Pathfinder options not covered here, please email me and I may be able to provide additional assistance.

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks. Also note that many colored items are also links to the Paizo SRD.

• Red: Bad, useless options, or options whichare extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
• Orange: OK options, or useful optionsthat only apply in rare circ*mstances. Useful sometimes.
• Green: Good options. Useful often.
• Blue: Fantastic options, often essentialto the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

Magus Class Features

Hit Points: d8 hit points is hard for astrictly melee class, so be sure to keep your AC high.

Base Attack Bonus: 2/3 BAB isacceptable,and if you keep your weapon well enhanced and your Dexterity high, it willbe plenty.

Saves: Strong Fortitude and Will savesare great, and your high Dexterity will compensate for the low Reflexsave.

Proficiencies: All of the weapon andarmor proficiencies that you will need. The late introduction of medium andheavy armor proficiency are annoying because they introdcue components tothe build much later than you need them in order to take advantage ofthem.

Skills: 2+ skill ranks isn’t much, butyour high Intelligence will let you get whatever skills you need. Don’tforget that increasing your intelligence retroactively awards you skillranks, and Headband of Vast Intelligence grants you one rank per characterlevel in one skill for every 2 points of enhancement bonus. What? Didn’tknow that? Yeah, no one beleives me when I tell them that, but it’sright therein the core rules.

Spells: The Magus gets 2/3 casting,similar to a Bard, but is much more dependant on spells. Spell Combat andSpellstrike are the Magus’ two most iconic combat options, and theeffectiveness of those abilities is entirely defined by the Magus’ choiceofspells.

Spellbooks: Spellbooks are what make theMagus and Wizard so much more versatile than the Bard and Sorcerer. You cancompletely change your list of tricks every day to fit whatever you need,and much like a Wizard you can have a functionally infinite number ofspellsknown.

Arcane Pool (Su): Arcane pool fuels alotof really cool abilities for the Magus, especially his ability to enhancehis weapon. If you really like enhancing your weapon this way, be sure topick up the Enduring Blade Magus Arcana to help stretch your Arcane Poolpoints. Avoid using Arcane Pool to get the Keen property: you should have a+1 keen rapier without Arcane Pool, and supplement it with Arcane Pool.

Cantrips: The Magus doesn’t get a lot ofcantrips, but that doesn’t make them any less awesome. Be sure to bringDisrupt Undead when you get Spellstrike because you can channel DisruptUndead into a Spellstrike for a free attack even if you aren’t actuallyattacking an undead.

Spell Combat (Ex): This is the reason theMagus uses a Rapier instead of using an Elven Curve Blade. Being able tocast a spell and use a weapon at the same time gives you a lot of potentialfor damage output. You can also take a penalty to your attacks to get abonus to Concentration, which is nice at low levels when your Concentrationchecks haven’t begun to outpace your spell levels.

Spellstrike (Su): This is why you want touse a rapier. I can’t think of another way to get a 15-20 critical threatrange on a spell, and the idea of doing 20d6 damage with an IntensifiedShocking Grasp is very enticing. You want to make sure that you’re going tohit with this attack, so don’t let your attack bonus fall behind. If you’rehaving too much trouble hitting, switch to using regular Spell Combat sothat you can use your spells as touch attacks.

Magus Arcana: The Magus’ pseudo-feat.Similar to Rogue Talents and any number of similar abilities, Magus Arcanaare a great way to customize your Magus, and many options are better thanmany feats. For help selecting your Magus Arcana, see myMagus Arcana Breakdown.

Spell Recall (Su): This will eat yourArcane Pool very quickly, so don’t plan to use this on a regular basis.

Bonus Feats: This really helps with ourearly feat dependency, especially if you’re not a human. Combat Feats andMetamagic Feats make up most of your important feats, and 5th level isrightwhen you want to get Intensify Spell and use it on Shocking Grasp to keepthe damage relevant for another 5 levels.

Knowledge Pool (Su): You can go out andbuyscrolls to learn knew spells. Unless you’re somewhere that you can’t dothat, this really isn’t useful. If you can’t find a scroll or spellbookthatcontains spells you want, you can use this to bypass the requirement forsource material.

Medium Armor (Ex): Medium Armor is asmall improvement to your AC. See the Armor section below for helpingselecting your armor.

Improved Spell Combat (Ex): By now yourConcentration checks should be decent. Your highest DC is 18 (15+3), andwith at least 16 intelligence you have a better than even chance. If youhaven’t found other ways to improve your Concentration checks (SpellguardBraces are a fantastic choice), taking a -1 penalty to your attacks for a+3to your Concentration check is a pretty fantastic trade.

Fighter Training (Ex): There aren’t alot of Fighter feats that you really want at this point.

Improved Spell Recall (Su): This hugelyimproves your versatility because you can call up all of those weirdobscurespells that you learned thinking you might use them once or twice in yourlife. You can also recharge an Intensified Shocking Grasp for a singleArcane Pool point.

Heavy Armor (Ex): Unless your Dexteritybonus is +10 or greater, Heavy Armor is your best option, and upgrading toMithral Tatami-Do will get you a nice +2 AC boost.

Greater Spell Combat (Ex): The offer iscertainly tempting, but by now your Concentration check is 14+intelligence.Assuming a very modest 18 intelligence, you can roll a 1, score a 19, andcast a 4th level spell guranteed. At level 15 you are guranteed to succeedwhen casting 5th level spells, and at level 16 you are guranteed to succeedwith 6th level spells. This ability is completely unnecessary unless youarefighting someone with the Disruptive feat.

Counterstrike (Ex): The free attack isnice, but not being able to disrupt the spell really handicaps thisability.If you don’t have Step Up, you probably will never get to use this.

Greater Spell Access (Su): The Wizard hasa much better spell list than the Magus, and access to a whole bunch ofthose spells gives you a ton of great options.

True Magus (Su): The ability to foregocasting defensively is a token gesture because at this point you couldautomatically cast any of your spells defensively with an Intelligencescoreof 10. The flexible bonus is nice, though.

Abilities

The Magus has some problems with MAD, especially if you want a lot of Strength for damage, but it’s manageable if you understand that you really don’t need a ton of Strength.

Str: Because the Magus starts with onlylight armor proficiency, you need to invest in Dexterity. If you’re goingtoinvest in Dexterity, you should use weapon Finesse. If you’re using WeaponFinesse, you don’t need Strength. You might take a bit of strength fordamage and to open up Power Attack, but it’s not strictly necessary becauseyour damage primarily comes from your spells.

Dex: Your primary combat stat. BecausetheMagus starts with only light armor, Dexterity is crucial, and the Magus’only bad save is Reflex.

Con: As a front-line character, theMagusneeds all of the hit points it can get.

Int: Your spellcasting ability, and itfuels your skill ranks and knowledge skills. While you don’t need it asmuchas a Wizard because you only get 6 levels of spells, it’s helpful for bonusspells, especially at low levels.

Wis: Helpful for Will saves, but Willisone of the Magus’ good saves, so don’t invest too heavily..

Cha: Useless for a Magus. It only affectsyour Use Magic Device skill, and if you want to use UMD, take the PragmaticActivator trait. Dump to 7.

Races

Bonuses to Dexterity or Intelligence are great. Small size doesn’t matterbecause the Magus doesn’t need Strength or a big weapon, and being smallprovides a nice bonus to AC and Attack.

Dwarf: The Dwarf is great defensively,but doesn’t give us any options that actually contribute to the Magus. TheDwarf favored class bonus is tempting, but the few arcana which can only beused once per day aren’t very good.

Elf: A bonus to both of the Magus’ mostimportant stats, and a whole bunch of other spellcasting benefits that willreally help the Magus. The penalty to Constitution hurts, but Elven Magiccan take the place of Spell Penetration, so take Toughness if you need hitpoints. The Arcane Focus alternate racial trait is a must because the Magusalready gets proficiency with everything important covered by weaponfamiliarity, and the favored class bonus is great if you need a few moreMagus Arcana slots.

Gnome: If you want to be small,Halflingis strictly better. Gnomes don’t really get anything useful to the Magus.

Half-Elf: The flexible ability bonus isall that we really get from the default Half-Elf. You can get some more bytaking alternate racial traits like Ancestral Arms and Dual-Minded, and thefavored class bonus boosts the Magus’s Arcane Pool a little bit, or you cantake the Elf favored class bonus for extra Magus Arcana.

Half-Orc: The flexible ability bonus isnice, and Darkvision is always great, but that’s really all that we get.Thefavored class bonus won’t be reliable because the Magus depends so heavilyon Shocking Grasp for damage, so take the Human favored class bonus toboostyour Arcane Pool.

Halfling: Small size gives you bonus ACand attack, and Halflings get a bonus to Dexterity and their penalty is toStrength, which is useless. The favored class bonus gives extra MagusArcana, which is great. If you want to play a small or sneaky Magus,Halflings are great choice.

Human: The ability bonus can go intoeither Dexterity or Intelligence, and the bonus feat is always excellent.The favored class bonus boosts the Magus’s Arcane Pool a little bit, so youcan rely on your Arcana a bit more.

Traits

• Anatomist (Combat): You probablydon’thave enough extra feats to spare for Critical focus, so a small bonus toconfirm critical hits could be nice when you start swinging that KeenRapier.
• Deft Dodger (Combat): A bonus to yourbad save, but your Dexterity should be high enough that this isn’tnecessary.
• Fencer (Combat): A Magus is not aDefender.
• Nature’s Mimic (Combat): With goodIntelligence, the Magus can make an excellent Librarian, so moreknowledgeskills are great.
• Reactionary (Combat): Going firstreally isn’t very important to the Magus.
• Reckless (Combat): With light armor,sometimes it’s nice to be able to get around without drawing attacks.
• Resilient (Combat): Bonus to one ofyour good saves, but more never hurts.
• Child of the Temple (Faith): With goodIntelligence, the Magus can make an excellent Librarian, so moreknowledgeskills are great.
• Devotee of the Green (Faith): WithgoodIntelligence, the Magus can make an excellent Librarian, so moreknowledgeskills are great.
• Indomitable Faith (Faith): Bonus toone of your good saves, but more never hurts.
• Arcane Revitalization (Magic): Oneextra Arcane Pool point per day is half of Extra Arcane Pool, which ispretty great. Of course you need to confirm a critical hit, so either hitsomething with a rapier or take a Coup De Grace and remind your GM that aCoup De Grace is an automatic critical hit.
• Arcane Temper (Magic): The Magusreally doesn’t have a lot of trouble with Concentraiton checks, and goingfirst isn’t all that important to the Magus.
• Bladed Magic (Magic): A full extraminute on top of the duration of your Arcane Pool enhancements is great,especially at low levels when your pool is small and you haven’t pickedupEnduring Blade.
• Cross-Disciplined (Magic): Many of theMagus’ most important spells are also Wizard spells. Shocking Grasp andVampiric Touch are both excellent examples.
• Focused Mind (Magic): Nice at lowlevels before your Concentration bonus becomes reliable, but largelyuseless after you get Improved Spell Combat.
• Magical Lineage (Magic): There are manyexcellent Magic traits for the Magus, but this is far and away the best.Throw it on Shocking Grasp, and you can do some truly ridiculous thingswith it as a first level spell. There are a ton of fantastic magic traitsfor the Magus, but this is simply too good to pass up.
• Malleable Magic (Magic): You can use aPearl of Power to recover a first level spell for 1000 gold. No such itemexists to recharge your Arcane Pool.
• Pragmatic Activator (Magic): UsingyourIntelligence in place of your Charisma for UMD makes it considerably morereliable.
• Life of Toil (Social): Bonus to oneofyour good saves, but more never hurts.
• Forlorn (Elf Racial): Bonus to one ofyour good saves, but more never hurts.
• Warrior of Old (Elf Racial): Goingfirst really isn’t very important to the Magus.
• Elven Reflexes (Half-Elf Racial):Going first really isn’t very important to the Magus.

Skills

• Climb (Str): Too situational.
• Fly (Dex): Gaining a Fly speed getsyou a free +8 racial bonus to Fly, and your Dexterity will be good, soyour Fly bonus should be excellent. I wouldn’t spend more than one rankfor the +3 class skill bonus.
• Intimidate (Cha): Charisma is a dumpstat.
• Knowledge (arcana) (Int): One of themost important Knowledge skills, and your Intelligence will be good.
• Knowledge (dungeoneering) (Int): One ofthe most important Knowledge skills, and your Intelligence will begood.
• Knowledge (planes) (Int): One of themost important Knowledge skills, and your Intelligence will be good.
• Ride (Dex): You don’t get a mount, andyou can cast Fly. Why would you want a horse?
• Spellcraft (Int): Essential forscrolls,enemy spellcasters, and for crafting magic items if you choose to doso.
• Swim (Str): Too situational.
• Use Magic Device (Cha): Helpful forwands of Wizard spells that aren’t on your spell list. If you want to usethe Wand Wielder or Wand Mastery Magus Arcanas, this may be a goodchoice.You can also take the Pragmatic Activator trait to use Intelligence inplace of your dumped Charisma.

Feats

• Arcane Strike: It’s not a ton ofdamage, and you can enhance your weapon to be magical before DR/magicbecomes a problem, but it’s a good use of a swift action.
  • Riving Strike: Most of the spellsthat the Magus uses against enemies won’t allow a saving throw, butthere are some exceptions. Inflicting a -2 penalty to saves canreallyhelp to offset the different in DC between the Magus and theWizard.
• Combat Casting: You still need to castaspell when you use spell combat, likely drawing an attack of opportunity.Expect to spend a lot of time casting defensively.
• Combat Expertise: You have theIntelligence and Dexterity for it, but you need attack bonus more thanAC,and you aren’t going to be using combat maneuvers.
• Dimensional Agility: Due to the wordingof Spell Combat, you can use this to get a Pounce-style effect. SpellCombat allows you to cast a spell with a Standard Action casting time(like Dimension Door) before or after making a full attack. WithDimensional Agility, that means that you can cast Dimension Door toteleport, make a full attack, and potentially use a Swift Action if youhave something with which to use it. I wouldn’t take this until fairlyhigh level once you’ve got several 4th-level spell slots, but level 15 isprobably a good time since you get a third attack from your base Attackbonus and have 4+ spell slots to spend.
  • Dimensional Assault: Not terriblyuseful, but you can avoid attacks of opportunity and terrain, andlookridiculously cool.
    • Dimensional Dervish: Fullattack and move twice your speed in one round. Dimension Door isa4th level spell, which is hard, but this can have a lot ofapplications and looks ridiculously cool.
      • Dimensional Maneuvers:CombatManeuvers really aren’t a thing that Magi do.
      • Dimensional Savant: Thiswould be much better if you had Sneak Attack, but a free +2tohit is nice too.
• Extra Arcana: Unfortunately, mostMagus Arcana are pretty bad. There are some fantastic ones, but they allhave level requirements which are arranged in such a way that you can getall of the essentials at the level they become available with noconflicts.
• Extra Arcane Pool: Not completelynecessary, but if you like to use your Arcane Pool, more points arealwayswelcome.
• Lunging Spell Touch: You generallywant to be within reach of your enemies so that you can use Spell Combator Spellstrike, but
• Improved Initiative: The Magus isn’tasave or suck caster, and it isn’t a Rogue, so going first isn’tparticularly important.
• Lunge: Reach is great, and it canallowyou to hit a whole bunch of extra people without moving.
• Power Attack: 13 Strength isn’tparticularly hard to get, and Power Attack can be a lot of extra damage.However, the Magus generally gets damage from spells, and because we onlyget 2/3 BAB, you won’t get nearly as much from Power Attack as othercombat classes.
• Preferred Spell: Pick Shocking Grasp,and you can apply whatever fancy metamagic feats you want when you dropspells.
• Spell Focus: Most of the spells whichthe Magus depends on don’t depend on a saving throw, but Evocation couldbe a good choice.
  • Greater Spell Focus: See SpellFocus.
  • Spell Specialization: 2 casterlevels doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a nice bit of extra damage.
    • Greater Spell Specialization:Youwon’t be able to get this until very high level, and it’s hard topick any one spell which you will like enough to justify this.Preferred Spell is strictly better, as it allows you to applymetamagic feats.
• Spell Penetration: At high level SpellResistance can really shut you down, so Spell Resistance becomesextremelyimportant.
  • Greater Spell Penetration: SeeSpell Penetration.
• Spell Perfection: If you don’t takethisfeat, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice. Its prerequisites aresteepfor good reason. Add one metamagic feat to the spell for free, allowingyou to cast effectively 9th-level spells despite Magi not getting spellshigher than 6th level. Unfortunately you can only take the feat once, soyou need to be really sure about the spell you choose. Irecommend selecting a spell of 5th level at most so that you can quickenit, but 6th level has some great options for Maximize Spell.
• Toughness: With d8 hit points, theMagus is a squishy front-line character, so more hit points reallyhelp.
• Weapon Finesse: The Magus really needsDexterity, so using Weapon Finesse is almost guaranteed.
  • Slashing Grace: This requires adip into Swashbuckler for Swashbuckler Finesse unless you want to usea whip. The damage bonus is great, but remember that the Magusdependson spells for damage, so Dexterity to damage isn’t crucial.
• Weapon Focus: Not fantastic, butrequired for Slashing Grace.

Metamagic Feats

This section does not cover all metamagic feats. For more help with metamagic feats, see my Practical Guide to Metamagic.

• Dazing Spell: Dazed is a good statuscondition, but 3 spell levels is very hard.
• Elemental Spell: This hugely improvesthe versatility of Shocking Grasp. If you take Preferred Spell, you candrop a second level spell to cast Shocking Grasp as any element you needwhenever you want.
• Empower Spell: Not your best option,but good at high levels when Shocking Grasp starts to taper off.
• Extend Spell: Magi aren’t really big onbuff spells, with a few notable exceptions.
• Heighten Spell: Avoid spells whichrequire a saving throw.
• Intensified Spell: Perhaps the mostimportant feat to the Magus, Intensified Spell allows you to continueusing Shocking Grasp long past where it should have stopped being viable.For only one spell level, this is a fantastic investment.
• Maximize Spell: 4 spells levels is overhalf of your spell level range. You could Maximize a second level spell,but the results will disappoint you.
• Piercing Spell: Spell Penetration ismuchbetter.
• Quicken Spell: Take the “Quicken Magic”Arcana instead.
• Silent Spell: Very situational.
• Still Spell: You need to be good enoughat Concentration to Cast Defensively in almost any situation, so StillSpell becomes much less useful.

Weapons

• Falcata: If you can spare a fea togetproficiency, the Falcata is a very scary weapon in the hands of a Magus.19-20/x3 crits can really mess someone up, but remember that Spellstrikeonly allows you to do x2 damage with spells.
• Longsword: 19-20 threat range isdecent, but critical hits with Spellstrike are about the scariest thingthat a Magus can do, so you really want a better threat range.
• Rapier: 18-20 threat range, and itworkswith Weapon Finesse. You can’t use it with Slashing Grace because it’snota slashing weapon, but it’s a good choice until you can get SlashingGraceif you choose to go that way. If your DM is nice they might let you takeFencing Grace even though it goes beyond my “official SRD only” rule.
• Scimitar: 18-20 threat range, and youcan use it with Slashing Grace, but doing so requires a Swashbucklerclassdip.
• Whip / Scorpion Whip: While it lacksthe Rapier’s threat range, the whip has the added benefit of 15 footreach, allowing you to hit your enemies from a nice safe distance. Youneed to use a Scorpion Whip to deal normal damage, and Scorpion Whip is alight weapon, so be sure to pick up Whip Mastery if you also want to useSlashing Grace. Of course this means that you need 5 feats to make theWhip a good weapon, so be very careful when considering it.

Armor

• Studded Leather: Probably yourstartingarmor, studded leather is adequate until can afford something nicer.
• Mithral Buckler: For 1015gp, themithralbuckler is +1 ac, no check penalty, and no spell failure. Literally everyarcane spellcaster should have one. It costs half as much to enhance as aring of protection, and provides just as much AC. Get this before youenhance your armor because you won’t have to abandon it when you getbetter armor proficiency.
• Mithral Shirt: Your best bet for ACearly on, and if you go up to 22 Dexterity it can remain your best betforyour full career.
• Haramaki: You only need to upgrade toHaramaki if your Dexterity bonus ever hits +10, which is prettyunlikely.
• Mithral Kikko: When you hit level 7,Mithral Kikko becomes your best option. It has one more point of AC thanaMithral Shirt and has the same +6 maximum dexterity bonus. Because it’smithral it’s still treated as light armor, so you don’t sacrificespeed.
• Mithral Tatami-Do: When you hit level13, upgrade to heavy armor. Unless your Dexterity is high enough tojustify using Haramaki, this is your best AC option at a total of +12.Yousacrifice a bit of speed, but by this level you can cast Fly or use anynumber of other options to address poor walking speed.

Magic Items

Weapons

• Nullifying (+3): An interesting way tohandle enemies with spell resistance, but +3 is ridiculously high forsucha situational effect. Pick up Spell Penetration and call it a day.
• Spell Storing (+1): An excellentcomplement to Spell Combat. Throw one of your overpowered Shocking Graspspells into it after every fight so your first hit will be especiallynasty.

Armor/Shields

• Celestial Armor (22,400 gp): Unless youhave heavy armor proficiency and a Dexterity modifier of at most+5, Celestial Armor is the best armor in the game if all you need fromyour armor is AC. For more, check out myPractical Guide to Celestial Armor.
• Clawhand Shield (8,158 gp): This is aweird item. It’s a bit more expensive than your typical +2 shield, so itmay not be worth the cost compared to a mithral buckler. However, itallows you to perform somatic components with the hand holding theshield,which means that you can hold a weapon in your other hand without issue,and because it has no armor check penalty or arcane spell failure anyonecan use it without issue. The ability to automatically damage enemieswhile in a grapple is a helpful deterrent for small or physical weakcharacters, but ion’t go looking for excuses to use it.
• Spell Storing (+1): That’s right, theMagus’ favorite weapon ability also works on armor! The original textstates that activating the ability is a swift action, but it’s intendedtobe an immediate action because it activates on another creature’s turn.Shocking Grasp is always your go-to for spell storing, but Vampiric Touchmay also be a great option because it can restore the hit points you lostwhen you were hit to trigger the effect.

Rings

• Arcane Mastery: At high levels wherethis ring’s cost is less problematic it can be a great way to expand yourArcane Pool. It also allows you to use the effects of Pool Strike andReflection without knowing the appropriate Arcana, thereby removing yourneed to learn them.
• Wizardry I: Your 1st-level spells areyour bread and butter. For 20,000 gp you can cast twice as many of them.At 20th level you might reasonably have as many as 8 or 9 1st-level spellslots, which means doubling them is pretty great. The problem is that forthe same price you can buy 20 1st-level pearls of power, which will getyou more uses of shocking grasp and don’t require you to dump every bitresource you have into Intelligence to justify their cost.

Staffs

It’s difficult to recommend specific staffs without knowing your individual character, so instead I want to make a general endorsem*nt of the concept of magic staffs in Pathfinder. If you are a 3.5 native, go read Pathfinder’s rules for staffs because they have improved dramatically.

Staffs are a reliable, rechargeable source of extra spellcasting that can give spellcasters easy and reliable access to spells from their spell list which they might not want to learn, or which they might like to use so frequently that they can’t prepare the spell enough times in a given day. On days when you’re not adventuring (traveling, resting, etc.) you can easily recharge any staff even if you can only cast one of the spells which the staff contains.

• Spark Staff: Includes both ShockingGraspand Intensified Shocking Grasp. A tempting option for the Magus, but forthe same cost you can get 12 pearls of power, which would get you morethan twice as many uses of Intensified Shocking Grasp, and you wouldn’tneed to recharge them.

Wondrous Items

• Boots of Speed: At just 12,000gp theseare a steal. Activate them as a free action one round at a time, and youcan easily stretch their use throughout an entire day. An essential fornearly any martial character.
• Cloak of Resistance: Too crucial toforgo.
• Headband of Vast Intelligence:Essential.

Multiclassing and Prestige Classes

The Magus really gets everything that it needs to be functional, and it’s very dependent on class level both for spells and for Arcane Pool. If you take 6 levels and get the Broad Study Magus Arcana, you might be able to do something crazy with another class, but it will take a long time to come anywhere near the power level of a straight Magus or really any other single-class character. 6 levels is not a class dip.

• Swashbuckler: Swashbuckler Finessesaves you a feat on Weapon Finesse, and opens up Slashing Grace. A humanSwashbuckler can get Slashing Grace at first level, then switch intoMagusfor the rest of their build. This is nice at low levels, but at highlevels you may notice the loss of spellcasting and Magus class features,and once you can spam Shocking Grasp all day long the Dexterity bonus todamage will seem puny.

Example Build – Generic Rapier Magus

Shocking Grasp all the things!

This is, conceptually, a very simply build. It takes all of the essential Magus options, and should be reasonably effective at every level.

Abilities

We will assume the 25-point buy abilities suggested above, but the other suggested abilities can also use this build without any problems.

Race

Elves provide a lot of fantastic bonuses for the Magus. Humans would work very well here too, and their free bonus feat is certainly welcome. Being an Elf gives us a +2 to Dexterity and Intelligence, but a -2 penalty to Constitution. Because the increased intelligence gets us extra skill ranks, we can afford to spend our favored class bonus on additional hit points to compensate for our low Constitution. Unfortunately, Elf doesn’t get a bonus feat, so we can’t get Slashing Grace until evel 5.

Skills

With 18 starting intelligence, we have 6 skill ranks per level, which is more than enough. As we increase out intelligence with our headband, pick up Knowledge (Nature), Knowledge (Local), and one other skill that makes sense for the campaign using the bonus skill ranks granted while wearing the item.

• Fly: One rank at some point, but no more than that.
• Knowledge (Arcana): Max.
• Knowledge (Dungeoneering): Max.
• Knowledge (Planes): Max.
• Knowledge (Religion): Not a class skill, but very important, so max it.

• Perception: Not a class skill, but still extremely useful. After your one rank in Fly, spend the rest of those ranks on Perception.

• Spellcraft: Max.

Traits

Forlorn, combined with spending our favored class bonus on hit points, completely negates the racial penalty to Constitution. Magical Lineage (Shocking Grasp) allows us to do some very interesting and powerful things with Shocking Grasp.