This new Magus Subclass is CRAZY STRONG - Tian Xia Character Guide - Pathfinder 2e

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I'm a bit late to the party, but the Tian Xia Character Guide has some incredible content in it! My favorite being the brand new MAGUS SUBCLASSES! One of which is absolutely CRAZY strong!
Get the Tian Xia Character Guide Here: paizo.com/prod...
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[@undrhil]

What are you talking about? You new about this book 3 weeks ago when you did the Starlight Sentinel video, you know.... the " you can now play a magical girl in Pathfinder 2E" video.

[@loap4634]

I think this was made long before, and he just decided to post it now.

[@Nonat1s]

Yeah, let's go with that...and not my awful memory. 🙃

[@jaredrosa3415]

​@loap4634 the book for the Starlit Sentinel wasn't even out when that video was posted. I know, I watched that video and had to wait for the book to be released so I could buy it lol

[@connergish9060]

Use a cloak as your bladed scarf..... Become....... The cape! SIX SEASONS AND A MOVIE!

[@sapphirII]

The show I knew(from around 2010) didn't even last a season.

[@connergish9060]

@@sapphirII that's cause it's a reference to Abed from the show community when he was obsessed with the cape kzbin.info/www/bejne/l4nUfXaDZcljhdUsi=sYURFU6g5nfZIvHm

[@connergish9060]

@@sapphirII that's cause it's a reference to Abed from the show community when he was obsessed with the cape.

[@PFiction24]

@@connergish9060I didn’t watch community but I ams going to steal SIX SEASONS AND A MOVIE for any show I enjoy.

[@shrimpisdelicious]

My Magus casts SWORDS OF REVEALING LIGHT!!!

[@sapphirII]

"Lasso magus" oh no! Now, I want to make a cowboy magus.

[@KalaamNozalys]

Careful about that Aloof damage bonus, it is only on a single strike after doing a leap/jump/fly action. So it's still on a single strike per round whereas Laughing Shadow is on any strike against a flat footed target.

[@ihatevnecks7015]

Plus LS doesn't provoke a reaction when they use their conflux spell to teleport to and strike an enemy, even when they're not in stance.

[@KalaamNozalys]

@@ihatevnecks7015 The focus spell for Aloof does state it doesn't provoke anyway just in case.

[@ihatevnecks7015]

​@@KalaamNozalys Nope that's not accurate. Aloof Firmament itself has the passive benefit allowing the use of leap/fly/jump movements without provoking a reaction, as long as you're in Arcane Cascade. But (afaik) the leap/fly/jump actions don't provoke a reaction anyways, again long as you're using them to move *into* an enemy's square - and Sky Laughs at Waves' text does explicitly say you have to fly to and end your movement adjacent to an enemy or the spell's disrupted. The problem is that SLaW also has the Manipulate trait. So if you're not in reach of any enemies when you cast the focus spell, then you fly to your target safely, because entering their reach wouldn't provoke a reaction regardless. But if you cast that spell while already in reach of an enemy, then you're provoking a reaction because you're Casting a Spell with the Manipulate trait. Compare this to Dimensional Assault from Laughing Shadows, which also gives a no-reaction move benefit, even when used in reach of an enemy - since it lacks the Manipulate trait. Its only drawback is only giving half speed. but then you get +5 speed if you're in stance, and +10 if you're also unarmored, so that drawback is also largely mitigated.

[@KalaamNozalys]

@@ihatevnecks7015 Ah okay I had misunderstood what you were initially talking about. This makes more sense, thanks

[@skeletalgaming4198]

My immediate thought upon hearing the description of the first subclass: "I can build Agent Whiskey from Kingsman now. Hell yeah!"

[@andrellnogueira]

You know, that, the thousand blades thing, is exactly what I want more for the magus. More magic spells or spell like abilites that incorporate weapons and weapon attacks. The only ones that come to mind are this one, and the one that you raise your sword, lightning strikes it, and it reflects to enemies above you. That is the cool flavor that the magus is missing more of.

[@JudgeAlan501]

Great, now we just need an updated version of inexorable iron magus so two handed weapon builds won’t suck as much

[@KalaamNozalys]

Unsheathe the Swordlight is basically Devastating Spellstrike but better (splash damage equal to 2+arcane cascade damage, so tops off at 5 splash damage on foes adjacent to the target vs double spell level (so max 18damage) in a 10ft emanation.) The advantage that Devastating has is that it can be done with any spellstrike, even with cantrips or focus spells, and it only hits foes.

[@JudgeAlan501]

@@KalaamNozalys Oh I was more referring to Thunderous Strike focas spell rather then Devastating Strike

[@KalaamNozalys]

@@JudgeAlan501 Oh yeah Thunderous is flat out terrible, but it has its uses. I managed to finish of an ennemy with the area while attacking another once

[@benjaminjane93]

I know they said "No Samurai" but it seems like they are taking the opportunity to create subclasses and archetypes that play more to archetypes of Samurai in fiction. Like the second one sounds very much like a mystical samurai or a wuxia swordsman. Seems really cool.

[@weylins]

I like that there won't be a proper Samurai class... it always reeked of exoticism and ignored that samurai is a social class not a profession. Having archetypes that let a player lean into the samurai tropes is a much better choice. It means you can have a samurai who is more a courtier [Scoundrel Rogue or Bard] or a priestly samurai.

[@nyrukdaerog3973]

​@weylins Well, you could argue the same for knights, who had to be nobility and are "exotic" to eastern audiences (like in Final Fantasy games), and the champion is the fantasy knight. Really, if one wants a fantasy samurai, take a fighter with spirit warrior subclass, done.

[@anzol4523]

@@nyrukdaerog3973 you SHOULD argue the same about knights as they ARE also highly romanticized and unlike the historical equivalent and in fact samurai were done the same for that reason... by european (english) colonizers, which is the difference for how the knight got exotised for eastern audiences, they neither created that romanticism nor did they enforce them on a people they went full imperialism on. they did however do that over, for example, china and korea. their tropes about chinese and korean people as exotic people... those are also better off going away (not that they will any soon... but different can of worms)

[@firewolfandrewb]

Aloof Firmament is 100% a Wuxia Swordsman

[@firewolfandrewb]

@@weylins Honestly the only thing I'd want out of a Samurai is something that reflects the fighting styles used by irl Samurai, and those used in Kurosawa films.

[@MrBakersdozen2020]

Hey Nonat, I love your content to death bro! I am proud that you're figuring out the right stride to take for both twitch AND youtube, you are seriously one of my favorite people ever and a great content creator, keep up the great work dude!

[@Gristoufle2]

I just love how often you missed your words stuttering in this video; and how it ends up in the final cut. Love it ^^

[@Luluthebluemoon]

I mean... they can still reactive strike you for doing a spellstrike... which is how a lot of melee magus drop to dying

[@caihly2443]

Okay now I have to play a centaur spider beastkin flavoured as a drider, who is an unfurling brocade magus and uses some of her web as a bladed scarf

[@draconicwererabbit]

I was thinking almost exactly the same thing, I haven't looked at it, but I think you could throw in FA Spirit Warrior for some additional damage/unarmed attack options with your free hand

[@danielarmstrong7944]

I'm playing a magus with witch free archetype who has Grandmother Spider as my patron. Absolutely retraining into unfurling brocade with a cloth made of Grandmother Spider's Silk. I think NoNat is sleeping on how good that conflux spell is. Getting to recharge spell strike, hit from reach AND immobilize so you eat at minimum 1 action to escape is huge. Yeah, the level 4 feat is pretty unimpressive, but vermilion threads gives another good crowd control option to the already very good athletics options.

[@tristanmitchell1242]

You don't have to have a completely empty hand to get Catfall. It says right there that you only have to not be carrying a shield, and be wearing light or no armor. You don't even need an empty hand to get the Quick Jump benefits or the lack of reactions for fly/jump actions. You only need the completely empty hand for the one-strike increase to the Arcane Cascade bonus damage.

[@Milk-unfunny]

Yooo Fabian Seacaster goin' crazy with this one

[@eduardoarancibia169]

**Countless swords of light** rain on a 10 foot emanation dealing 3 damage. So basically its something like Gilgamesh summoning foam swords with his noble phantasm.

[@ragnarogk]

Home among mulberry leaves note: bladed scarf is finesse so It can happen your strenght is lower than your int if you dont Focus on damage, also maybe you dont whant to pump athletics for whatever strange reason

[@KalaamNozalys]

"Monster Hunter doesn't play itself" Challenge Runners: Are you challenging us ? *race for "can you beat monster by letting the monsters kill themselves"*

[@thatoneguy1477]

The only word I wanted to hear in this video was BANKAI! the disappointment is real...

[@ihatevnecks7015]

One thing I'm surprised you didn't touch on with either of these two hybrid studies, especially aloof firmament, is that their unique conflux spells (unlike every previous hybrid study) come with the manipulate trait. That means when you cast Sky Laughs at Waves you're always going to provoke a reaction from the spellcast portion, (again) unlike any previous study's conflux, even the similar move + strike spell Laughing Shadows gets. IMO it's really weird how they added that trait for both of these new hybrid studies, but didn't errata it back in for the prior ones.

[@trailboss1899]

Sleeves of storage: think wands...you can hold 50 and it doesn't cost an action to take it out or store it. Very useful for my wizard build.

[@trailboss1899]

I imagine alchemist would have a similar benefit; though I think there is an alchemist feat that solves this.

[@alicebunnymera]

Unleash the swordlight can be used quite easily with this specific magus subclass because you can long jump in, unleash the swordlight in the middle of an enemy group, then reaction to long jump back out to safety

[@CommissarMitch]

Can we also maybe have Livestream Highlights? Becauee I do not really like the Livestream format and would prefer highlights. Hell maybe just clips.

[@baldrellupusneiva7911]

Mate, I enjoy this content. Thanks fornthe video.

[@collin4555]

The only thing that would make Aloof Firmament more anime is if it wanted a two handed weapon instead of one handed

[@alarkhar]

Sadly, ropes aren't fabric. Fabric is woven, ropes are spun - or, sometimes, braided. The fact that they're both made of cloth-like materials doesn't apply - I mean, a knife and a spoon are made of the same material, but their uses don't overlap, right?

[@KalaamNozalys]

What about a silk rope ?

[@JamesTillmanjimthegray]

I think most dms would be fine with it

[@firewolfandrewb]

Seems a bit more pedantic than what the devs were going for.

[@justinchandler-holtz7206]

Now I want to make an aloof firmament magus as Mario

[@SpringDryad]

Tried watching the live of book review and it was just too rambling for me... I like these more focused vids, tho I understand it's a lot more work with editing and whatnot.

[@djosh2001]

Yeah I got about an hour in and almost no content was covered. Prefer these videos by far.

[@soldier660]

All that i gonna renember " Spelltrike, Leave " Spellstrike... Leave... "

[@miguelmontero4133]

Yo, I saw a previous video where you were playing some Monster Hunter game I haven't played. And considering I've played everything that isn't an online one, and that I don't recognize the monster in that brief clip, I was massively interested. Now I know it's Frontier. As a veteran from the very first Monster Hunter on PS2 but someone who has never played the online games, it made unreasonably giddy and happy to see someone I like playing the non-Western Monster Hunter games, so I'll have to go check out your Twitch. Anyway, I love this video because my first PF2e character was a laughing shadow Magus that I absolutely loved, despite the constant heartbreak of missing my spellstrikes and feeling like an abject failure. So I'm glad that Maguses/Magi are getting a little bit of thought and attention from Paizo, because they reaaaally need the love. Poor class is awesome as a concept but damn punishing as an actual player. Also.. how much money do I have to shill out to join you on that Frontier server? Asking for a friend.

[@myustic1771]

Aren’t you more often than not going to trigger the reactive strike with spellstrike anyways? Kinda invalidates the free jump without triggering reactions feat

[@CyberScorpio94]

“Get over here”

[@freejazz2404]

Paizo seems to be in an everything goes vibe for launching new content and subclasses. And somehow is still way better than anything wotc -- with bigger team and all the Hasbro machine behind -- manages to elaborate for 5e

[@Blizz3112]

the Magus remains to be a very weird class to implement in a party... :-P

[@KalaamNozalys]

Also: Monster Hunter is just a party of 4 fighters with different builds. With sometime an inventor or gunslinger.

[@besteger]

Rope Magus as Singing Cowboy! You know you want it!

[@FirstLast-wk3kc]

Spirit Warrior dedication literally grants Flury of Blows on lvl 2. Plus extra

[@hazekarmata]

So you're saying I can play as Best Jeanist...

[@adrasteiaturing5054]

So when will the next update on Sinclair's be? We need an update or closure on the status of the project.

[@proffingers]

They made Kamui a real thing and you're laughing?

[@Cptbaron]

Cool vid!

[@devondriggers3580]

Doesn't spell strike trigger reactive strike? Wouldnt that make the aloof firmanint less appealing since your likely to trigger the reactive strike from spell strike?

[@DanateDMC]

From what I understand it doesn't. You hit someone and that's what applies the spell effect and all that because it's imbued with the attack.

[@ihatevnecks7015]

Essentially yes; the benefit of the Distant Waterbird's Poise feat is somewhat invalidated by the fact that your spellstrike has already provoked a reactive strike. Unless you're fighting one of the very rare multiple reaction enemies (or a monk?), the feat's just a free move. It doesn't even help against multiple targets since the no-reaction benefit only applies to your spellstrike target.

[@LizardWizard77]

@@DanateDMC Spellstrike has the manipulate trait which triggers reactive strikes

[@devondriggers3580]

@@ihatevnecks7015 that's what I thought. That's a bit disappointing.

[@AdamX222]

​@@DanateDMC@LizardWizard77 (I'm working on pre-remaster knowledge so apologies if there's information on remaster Magus that invalidates this) To be more precise, during Spellstrike you actually Cast The Spell, which has all the traits that are normally associated with casting the spell, so you can avoid triggering a reactive strike if you Spellstrike with a spell that doesn't have Manipulate (somatic or material components pre-remaster), but there aren't a lot of those and I don't know if there are *any* that also make attacks.

[@MultiracialLion]

Today's episode brought to you by "jungle gyms".

[@ThatReplyGuy]

Bumble bees don't bounce.

[@soldier660]

if you are spellstriking and leaving so much when do you recharge ?

[@tylerbowers3373]

does jumping not trigger reactive strike?

[@bijnahonderdeuro]

I think you're overhyping the aloof study quite a bit. It is cool as a flavour, but I don't think it is as good at avoiding reactive strikes compared to other options as you make it out to be. Spellstrike requires you to cast a spell as part of that action - and if said spell has the manipulate trait... You can see the problem. The level 4 feat gets around it at least, assuming your DM lets your reaction trigger first. Which for the record, I believe they should, but reactive strike is triggered by taking an action and distant bird is triggered by hitting with the spellstrike. Soooo..... The damage consistency isn't what this is made out to be either. Being locked to unarmored or light armor means you are going to most likely want to raise your DEX as your primary. This means that even if you raise DEX/STR at all costs, you only have that +2 flat bonus levels 5-9 and 15-19, with the remainder it being at a +1 (assuming no apex items). While shortswords and rapiers are fine, something that would help you avoid reactive strikes on your spellstrike like a halberd, is not an option for you. Sure you *can* go human, unconventional weaponry, chainsword, but we're stretching ourselves pretty thin here. Being DEX-based also means you don't want to be enlarged, which means your chainsword by itself will still trigger reactive strikes from monsters with reach. Aloof study is hypermobile, which is amazing, and really frees up early skill feats to play around with. It certainly has its selling points, but if I want to not die to reactive strike on a magus, iron, targe and starlit are all better at this.

[@AdamX222]

10:39 "forced to play Laughing Shadow if you wanted to be a melee Dex based Magus" I haven't had a chance to play PF2 yet so my knowledge is entirely theoretical, but is there a reason Dex-based Magi can't go Sparkling Targe or was it just forgotten? Also, I feel like you disregarded that the extra Arcane Cascade damage for Aloof Firmament only happens *on your next strike* after flying or leaping *before the end of your turn* . So you only get that extra damage on one attack, *if* you leap into melee.

[@The_Yukki]

You could, you could iirc also play the 2handed one with few finesse weapons, but neither was really designed with that in mind. Both giving either "big armoured guy with a hammer and magic" and "spellbreaker" respectively.

[@rayvalkren1950]

I'm confused where does Aloof Magus get bonuses specifically to Dex-based 1h Magus?

[@adamlawther6356]

The Cat Fall feat only works for them if they're wearing light or no armour, thus incentivising higher-DEX builds.

[@rayvalkren1950]

@@adamlawther6356 Thanks! I somehow skipped over that clause. That's such a small "bonus" though, I think I'll still go STR based + an Acrobatics - Cat fall background. Unless I want to go DEX based of course.

[@The_Yukki]

​@@rayvalkren1950due to the wording in the subclass, even if you had catfall from a background (or any other source) you dont get the benefits unless you light/naked.

[@KaminoZan]

I have never read/seen/heard about clothes having a hardness or HP before. Since when has this been a thing in this system?

[@aneldritchdreamgames5925]

Since day 1, material statistics and hardness rules (Sarch "material" on archives of nethys)

[@AJBernard]

The meme image on the thumbnail is pretty cringe.

[@Duskull666]

I know you want watch time, but we would really like it if you add timestamps to your videos

[@KOkami03]

Nonat1, I must disagree. Unfurling Brocade is soooo much better than Aloof Firmament. Aloof Firmament merely lets you 'jump good'. Unfurling Brocade lets you whip people to death using scarves (hello, LITERAL Scarf of Asskicking!), ropes, and even towels (hello, Ford Prefect!). That is so much cooler than 'jump good'. Dear lord, I wish there was a feat that let you use Unfurling Brocades base ability. For any class. How I wish it oh so dearly.

[@somekidonline1242]

Why is this in shorts?

[@feelingfuzzied9942]

Opener of this video proves he's just catering to his algorithm and doesn't actually like pf2e that much. Content creator that is unaware of upcoming content.

[@Nonat1s]

Damn. You got me. It's true. I'm only covering Pathfinder 2e because it makes millions of easy views so I can chill in my mansion 😎

[@Zedrinbot]

bruh this isn't 5e

[@SemkOld]

@@Nonat1sThat’s funny. We all know you couldn’t afford a mansion off the living wage you paid yourself from an incomplete Kickstarter that you’ve distanced yourself from.

[@MsStriga]

Just a fought: Anadi web weaver unfurling brocade magus.