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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.

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