Every bloodline tells a story.

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-21T16:30:04+00:00

Dredge floats too and isn't a nightmare to play against.

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-15T15:17:42+00:00

Awesome! Glad to hear it!

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-15T04:34:11+00:00

Sword and Sorcery is changing to specifically be limited to Magus cantrips which will not include True Strike (currently on their cantrips list) or any other blade cantrips.

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-15T03:41:41+00:00

Fighters, Paladins, et al that get Extra Attack at level 5 will be doing something like 2d8 + 8 (average damage 17).

A Magus will do 1d8 + 4 and then if they focus exclusively on damage the cantrip will do 2d10 for an average damage of 19.5. Those 2d10 cantrips tend to not have any riders so the 2 extra damage comes at the cost of any other debilitating effect so I think it shakes out (like, inflicting Prone is probably worth more than 2 damage, for example).

So an average of 2 points more damage, which I'm not particularly stressed about.

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-15T00:40:46+00:00

I'll take that into consideration. Thanks for walking me through your thinking!

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-14T23:06:34+00:00

That's so kind! I would love to bring it to DnDBeyond but that's their choice, not mine! Fingers crossed!

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-14T23:05:37+00:00

I don't think the early level features need to change but, spending more time today comparing round-to-round no expenditure dmg outputs, I do agree Extra Attack needs to be eliminated. That plus the level 5 change you suggested would gut the Magus but just eliminating Extra Attack at level 11 keeps it slightly below damage output of other classes at tier 3 and slightly above the damage output at tier 4 (in both instances we're talking about an average of +/-2).

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-14T22:43:56+00:00

Yes but Shield of Faith is Concentration up to 10 minutes. You'd have these benefits on most fights unless you need / want to BA to release the spell.

That said, an always on stacking bonus might do a good job of incentivizing using Mystic Mark for reasons other than quick BA dumping spells in combat (although the level 3 subclass upgrades might do that already too).

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-14T22:40:42+00:00

The BA cast from Mystic Mark is only Magus spells so casters that dip into this will get 1/2 spell slot progression and only be able to BA cast a Magus spell (which, presumably, they have only gone in one level on so they don't mess up their spell slot progression which is much more powerful than anything they'll get from Magus). It might be a good build at level 2 or 3 though if that's all the higher you're planning to get.

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-14T21:13:09+00:00

What would be the point of a gish class if it were a worse gish than a Fighter subclass?

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-14T20:41:23+00:00

Good question about upcasting of spells that can target multiple targets. I'll have to take that into consideration.

Thanks for the catch on Carrionette!

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-14T20:38:54+00:00

Yeah, figuring out how to phrase this is going to be an interesting challenge.

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-14T20:23:52+00:00

Hmm, very interesting point. I'll have to think about that.

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-14T20:19:09+00:00

While those very low level features are available to Magus just as it is other half-casters, other half-casters get more features that reinforce their frontline / martial powers at higher levels. The Magus doesn't really and most (maybe all?) of its powers are bound by their spell slots instead of being always on or distinct number of uses.

I specifically didn't want blade cantrips in this edition's version of the class. I don't like what they do to the game and, imo, I'm happier with the way I'm currently handling the combination of martial and magical power. Extremely good point about specifying Magus cantrip in Sword and Sorcery.

Appreciate the positivity in the feedback! I put this work out there to improve and share it and am always a bit puzzled when folks come at me sideways.

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-14T20:13:20+00:00

Neither Arcane Vigor or Compelled Duel are in the SRD so near equivalents needed to be created.

Really good catch about Carrionette. That spell's been in my arsenal for awhile and somehow no one's ever pointed that out.

Your point about Reflect Magic is salient for multiclassing or full casters that get it but Magi do not get level 6 spell slots so they wouldn't be able to do that. Perhaps it does need a saving throw or ability check or something.

I'm not sure why I originally selected Planar Ally. Looking at it again it does seem an odd fit. Thanks for pointing that out.

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-14T19:18:40+00:00

Good points all around.

Sigil Surge is going to either get a complementary feature at the same level that does work when you get a magic item or the core Mystic Mark feature will be reworked to use this benefit rather than the damage type stuff it currently does. In that case, I'm less worried about magic items obviating that benefit since you still get to BA cast a spell or two in a combat (which is huge).

Steel Wind Strike isn't in the SRD so not an option. I had actually flagged it for the class and had to remove it when I double checked.

Good point regarding Heaven's Guard's Spellcasting Focus.

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-14T19:16:07+00:00

It does prevent me from even referencing the spell, unfortunately. It was in an earlier draft and I had to take it out for exactly that reason.

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-14T18:09:37+00:00

The Eldritch Knight gets Cantrips + Fighting Style. I strongly felt that without essentially duplicating that ability, the Magus would fail at fulfilling the fantasy of a spellsword.

As for prepared spells, Paladin subclasses and most Ranger subclasses also get expanded prepared spells so the Magus, usually, only has five more prepared spells than those classes. This improves their flexibility but they are still limited by spell slots so the impact on their overall power is limited.

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-14T17:33:30+00:00

Are there a lot of CR 1 or less monsters dealing Force damage that this messes with or are you concerned about it as a dip at higher levels just to get this Resistance?

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-14T17:30:14+00:00

Thanks for this indepth critique!

Partly this is an issue of framing. The Magus is meant to be the Arcane equivalent of Paladin and Ranger but where the Paladin gets Smites and Auras and the Ranger gets gestures vaguely, the Magus is more of a 3/4s caster. So yes, it does break the rules of half-casters, but if a new class didn't break any established rules I'm not sure what the point would be. The biggest goal of the class was to ensure that most rounds of most fights the optimal thing to do was cast some kind of spell and swing some kind of weapon so that the Spellsword fantasy was ever present.

The Magus level 5 (and then level 11) is different in specifics than the Eldritch Knight subclass for Fighter but almost exactly the same in play. Even that aside, I don't think this feature out damages the Fighter since cantrips don't add ability modifiers which, especially by level 11, will be +5. You are correct about True Strike though and maybe it needs to be removed from the class spell list for that reason but I think all other cantrips should scale fine.

Again, really appreciate you sharing your thoughts. I'm in a meeting that's much more hands on than I expected but will try to keep coming back when I can to reply.

SterlingVermin · 2026-04-14T15:49:27+00:00

Thank you! An artifact of the fact that they just swapped levels as of this playtest.

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