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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.

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