Mad Hamish
First Post
Magus is actually another class I'm strongly considering. However, reading over these and the paizo boards the last couple weeks, I've gotten the impression that a fighter can perform much better than a magus in dealing raw damage, so figured that might be something to explore.
It's probably fair to say that the fighter is the king of dishing out consistent damage in Pathfinder of the melee classes (Paladin's might challenge while smiting, Ranger's might do a touch more against a favored enemy) but a fighter really needs to be either 2 weapon (including shield as a possible weapon), 2 handed weapon or archer to really pump their damage up.
The impression I've gotten (and I haven't seen a Magus in play) is that they can do good burst damage but they don't have the ability to do the damage for as long as a fighter does.
How would Dervish Dance work with a fighter? Hrm. I suppose he would still have trouble with armor and his dex not meshing well, wouldn't he? Grrr.
Normally Full Plate and max dex mod gives you +10 to AC, a breastplate and max dex mod for it gives you +9 to AC (needing 16 or 17 dex to hit that which if you're going for a dex based combatant you probably will have at 1st level)
as a fighter they'll eventually go up to +14/+13 for the plate/breastplate but you'll probably be bumping dex up.
The heavy armor gives better flat footed defense, the light and more dex gives better touch defence...
The bigger issue is that a dex based fighter won't get * 1.5 damage from str or power attack or the additional attacks with 2 weapons to make up for it.
The airship concept definitely has me wanting to go with lighter armor. On the other hand, my powergamer nature doesn't want to give up a lot of effectiveness for fluff.
Hrm. Perhaps in this case the magus wins out just because it's a better compromise between the two...
Lighter armour for a fighter isn't a big issue, and isn't really an issue at all for a dex based fighter. The issue is power attack not boosting damage as effectively (and without the additional attacks of a 2 weapon fighter).
It's an offense problem rather than a defense problem.
The Magus gives you offense in other ways so it will probably be more effective as a dex based combatant (and also has the chance to learn feater fall)...