Magus – D&D 2024 (5.5e) Class Optimisation Guide

Sterling Vermin’s take on an intelligence half-caster is powerful and functions well as a class that’s perhaps more spellcaster than martial.

At a glance

Magus features

Esoteric eye (Lv1) – 5/5

You should be able to use this quite often as your intelligence should be fairly high. It’s excellent on save or suck spells so you can just dish out disadvantage when you want to cast banishment or hold person. it’s a little like a sorcerer’s innate sorcery in some ways and makes your spell saves nastier than a wizard’s (at least sometimes).

Spellcasting (Lv1) – 5/5

A magus’ spellcasting is more like an artificer’s than a ranger or paladin in the sense that you also get cantrips as standard and it actually makes sense to be using these alongside attacks (more on that in a later feature). There are some notable differences though.

Artificers get their 4th cantrip a little earlier (level 14 rather than level 16, though the text and the table disagree on this). A magus also gets more prepared spells than an artificer (reaching 20 at level 20 rather than 15). In fact, this beats rangers and paladins too. It’s also worth pointing out that the magus has a much more combat-focused spell list than an artificer. Their spell list is more like a condensed wizard’s spell list than anything else.

There’s plenty of great spells to choose from and some new options exclusive to the magus release as well.

Weapon mastery (Lv1) – 3/5

Weapon mastery is a really solid way to grant enhancements to your weapon attacks. Magi typically make a fair few weapon attacks so enhancing these is a decent boon. It’s less useful though, than it is for fighters or even paladins and rangers. That’s because the magus doesn’t have extra attack. They’re usually not making more than one attack in a turn. Instead, they have ways to combine spells and attacks in the same turn, so this is useful, but less so on a magus than more typical martials.

Fighting style (Lv2) – 5/5

Fighting style is generally great and you’ll want to pick one that fits the types of weapons you’re using. Mystic warrior also happens to be an excellent option. Not only is your concentration boosted a decent amount, but if you fail a concentration saving throw, you get some temporary hit points to make up for it.

This makes the magus perhaps the best concentrator in the game as you also have constitution proficiency. The problem is, it’s hard not to take mystic warrior, but you may just want to grab a second fighting style feat to improve weapon attacks (which you can grab when you might ordinarily take a general feat). Of course, with just one weapon attack per turn, this may actually be less crucial for a magus.

Mystic mark (Lv2) – 4/5

If you use this for enspell, I’d just apply force damage to your attacks. It’s almost never resisted. When it comes to aegis, you’ll want common damage types to be resistant too like poison or fire. In theory, this could work with weapon damage types too like bludgeoning, piercing and slashing if you have an appropriate spell, but I couldn’t see anything on the magus’ spell list that would qualify.

Handily, this is a really adaptive type of resistance so you can prepare in advance with a 1hr duration or just adapt when a creature starts using lots of a certain damage type, it only takes a bonus action so you can just adapt mid-combat too. The fact that the spell slot isn’t wasted and you can just use it too is even better. It’s also worth noting that if you’ve chosen a spell that requires an action to cast, you can actually cast it with a bonus action while stored in this way. The way a magus works though means that this may not necessarily help more than casting the spell with your action anyway (as they can eventually make attacks with their bonus action too).

Arcane ability (Lv5) – 3/5

The magus isn’t exactly a skill specialist, but this makes them really reliable and if you lack a bard or a rogue, the party might want to consider a magus (especially one specialising in dexterity) to take up the role of skills wizard. A carefully chosen species, background and feats could help out here too. But this is quite a big boost to the odd ability check and you can use it when an ability check is really important. This is strong for what is kind of a ribbon feature.

Sword and sorcery (Lv5) – 5/5

I really like this as an extra attack alternative. You’re never going to be making 2 weapon attacks in a turn (unless you’re duel wielding or multiclassing), but you can make sure you’re usually casting spells and making attacks. It’s sort of like what the eldritch knight has where you can attack and cast a cantrip with the same action, and if I’m honest, you’ll usually want to be doing that anyway as the cantrip scales better than individual attacks in damage. The fact you can still attack after casting an action spell with your bonus action is nice too.

The one thing to be aware of with that is esoteric eye can conflict with that attack (and potentially other things you might do with a bonus action too). This is still great for a spellsword class.

Magical recovery (Lv6) – 4/5

This is basically what a wizard has with arcane recovery, but gained a bit later than a wizard. It also adds to the fact that you are the most spelled up half caster of the lot as you already have more prepared spells, now you can restore some spell slots too.

Rite of return (Lv9) – 2/5

A nice little bonus to mystic mark where you get back the spell slot used for it if you don’t use the spell. Not a big deal as you could still kind of use the spell anyway, but a nifty little bonus, if a little negligible in the grand scheme of things.

All-seeing eye (Lv10) – 4/5

It’s important that someone can deal with invisibility and a few other problems and truesight is great for this. The duration isn’t loads so time when you use it carefully. It’s nice that esoteric eye won’t be depleted while this is active so I’d be using that as much as you can for the duration as those save or suck spells are going to suck a lot more while you’re using it (for your enemies, not for you).

Sigil surge (Lv11) – 4/5

Some nice boosts to your mystic mark. The damage boost is decent and note that if you make multiple attacks, that it will be boosted further. You might want to consider dual wielding and the nick weapon mastery to benefit from this more (if you need spell components, it’s easy enough to stow and draw weapons now and war caster can also help).

With aegis, those temporary hit points are great for keeping you more resilient so you can switch these up depending on whether durability or damage is the priority.

Sorcerous shielding (Lv15) – 5/5

This is some serious magical resilience! A changeable resistance, and one that changes so easily, is great for adapting to a combat. If you need a default, necrotic is your most common damage type from the list. They’re not the most common bunch, but four options you can switch between is great.

Spell parry is even better with an always on defensive boost against spells!

Spell surge (Lv18) – 5/5

Now the magus has access to level 6 spells which is a pretty big boost compared to their rival half casters. They can cast it once per day and it recovers a level 5 or lower spell slot. So basically, 2 additional, high-ish level spell castings is pretty nice.

Archmagus (Lv20) – 5/5

This is another way in which the magus is almost a more competent spellcaster than their full-caster cousins. That intelligence boost will make their spell attacks and spell save DCs +1 vs the maximum available to other spellcasters, plus they can boost their dexterity or strength too. This isn’t necessarily broken. Advancing levels from level 19+ means you can exceed 20 in an ability score through epic boon feats, but this puts you one step ahead of the other classes.

On top of that is more magical recovery allowing you to recover even more spell slots. This definitely makes the magus the king/queen of half casters (at least when it comes to spellcasting).

How good is the magus?

Considering that the magus is only a humble half caster, they are remarkably good at casting spells. While their spell slots don’t achieve the lofty echelons of full casters like wizards and sorcerers, they are more reliable when it comes to actually making a spell work (though a sorcerer can give them a run for their money here).

They aren’t necessarily classically resilient either (with a d8 for hit dice), but up against spellcasters, they happen to be one of the most resilient around. I also like how they can easily weave spells and attacks together making them more adept at this than the other half casters (though similar to an eldritch knight and a warrior of the mystic arts).

All of this adds up to a class that is really potent. There’s no fluff or ribbon features in here, it’s all strong with the odd average feature. None of this is broken or bad, but it’s definitely a case of power creep and will likely overshadow a ranger or an artificer (though a paladin will hold its own at least). I would happily use this class at my table, but perhaps with discussion with my players that it’s a little on the powerful side, making sure everyone’s OK with that.

5/5

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Optimising a magus build

You’ll want to build a magus that is capable both with their spells and their sword. This will mean a little compromise, likely in the resilience department. Because of this, you may also need to build for some amount of evasiveness too. Depending on your party needs, you may want to either build for ranged combat or a backup melee warrior. Just beware that the magus is not like a paladin. They’re not built for being the party tank.

Ability scores

Recommended options

• Strength: You’ll need one of strength or dexterity for weapon attacks, but without heavy armor as an option, you’ll want at least 14 in dexterity anyway so I’d lean towards a dexterity build (especially if you go for ranged combat). Strength is an option though.
• Dexterity: You’ll want at least 14 to get the most from medium armor which makes this the better of the 2 weapon ability scores. It’s also better for skills if you need to moonlight as a rogue (and magi are quite reliable with skills). If you’re building for ranged combat, this is even more crucial.
• Constitution: Constitution will not only increase your HP for better resilience, it also enhances your concentration saving throws. You do get a boost to concentration through your features anyway, and if you’re playing evasively, could be an ability score you don’t need to invest in as much.
• Intelligence: Essential for your spellcasting capabilities and some features. It will also help with some knowledge skills.

Options to avoid

• Wisdom: Not much need for wisdom other than for saving throws.
• Charisma: You’ve got too many ability scores to worry about already, you’ll need to dump this.

Ability score	Point Buy	Standard Array
Strength	8/14	8/14
Dexterity	15/14	14/13
Constitution	15/12	12/12
Intelligence	15/15	15/15
Wisdom	8/8	8/10
Charisma	8/8	8/8

Skills

Recommended options

• Acrobatics: A dexterity build is best for a Magus but if you have built for strength, go with athletics instead.
• Arcana: Solid knowledge skills and you’re one of a few classes that can back this up with intelligence.
• History: Another solid knowledge skill.
• Investigation: There are few intelligence builds and this comes up a fair bit so a good option to take.
• Perception: Good for anyone, especially if you plan on moonlighting as a rogue. You’ll need to compensate for that low wisdom.
• Religion: Another solid knowledge skill.

Species

As a magus, you’ll likely want your species to help you with certain aspects of your build including:

• Toughen up: A Magus can work as a support melee combatant, but they’re not especially tough so some extra resilience can help.
• Evasiveness: Alternatively, you can take traits that aid evasiveness like flight to help you fight at range.
• Damage dealing: You also want to deal as much damage as possible meaning traits that can improve this will help.
• Spellcasting: Species that enhance your spellcasting further can help like with extra spells known and free castings. For example, you may want a species that can grant true strike as one of your best cantrip options that the core class doesn’t grant.

Recommended options

• Aasimar: 2 resistances will help you toughen up and you get some light healing or crowd control which all works well for the magus.
• Dragonborn: A choice of a resistance and a breath weapon for some crowd control works great. Flight is also great for evasiveness.
• Dwarf: Extra HP and poison resilience will help with the durability side of things.
• Elf: A flexible bunch of extra spells. High Elf will give you a choice of cantrip and true strike could be a good option.
• Goliath: some strong options from evasiveness through cloud’s jaunt to extra damage on attacks or extra resilience against hits.
• Human: It’ll be hard to grab many feats with so much need for ability score increases but as a Human, you can grab an extra origin feat. The extra skill is useful as you’re quite reliable with skills and more heroic inspiration is always good.
• Shifter: I’d go for beasthide for the increased AC and temporary hit points or swift stride for evasiveness. I’d avoid longtooth though, you already have better uses for your bonus action, including a better attack.
• Warforged: Great for extra resilience. +1 AC and poison resilience are both great for this.

Backgrounds

I’d recommend focusing on backgrounds that can boost dexterity, constitution and/or intelligence (though strength can be an option on some builds). I’d say dexterity and intelligence are your higher priorities with a magus. This gives us the following backgrounds that combine good ability scores, origin feats and skill proficiencies for a magus:

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Charlatan	Dexterity, constitution, charisma	Skilled	Deception, sleight of hand	Forgery kit
Cosmic dawn experiment (AU)	Strength, dexterity, constitution	Transmuted anatomy	Athletics, survival	One kind of artisan’s tools
Criminal	Dexterity, constitution, intelligence	Alert	Sleight of hand, stealth	Thieves’ tools
Crucible storm chaser (AU)	Strength, constitution, intelligence	Arcane overload	Athletics, nature	Glass blower’s tools
Familiar trainer (AU)	Constitution, intelligence, wisdom	Familiar friend	Animal handling, arcana	One kind of gaming set
Guard	Strength, intelligence, wisdom	Alert	Athletics, perception	One kind of gaming set
Guide	Dexterity, constitution, wisdom	Magic initiate (druid)	Stealth, survival	Cartographer’s tools
Horizon weaver initiate (AU)	Dexterity, constitution, wisdom	Portal jumper	Acrobatics, survival	Weaver’s tools
Mulhorandi tomb raider (HoF)	Dexterity, constitution, intelligence	Lucky	Investigation, religion	Mason’s tools
Noble	Strength, intelligence, charisma	Skilled	History, persuasion	One kind of gambling set
Sage	Constitution, intelligence, wisdom	Magic initiate (wisdom)	Arcana, history	Calligrapher’s supplies
Scribe	Dexterity, intelligence, wisdom	Skilled	Investigation, perception	Calligrapher’s supplies
Spellfire initiate (HoF)	Constitution, intelligence, charisma	Spellfire spark	Arcana, perception	One kind of gaming set

Choosing your subclass

At level 3, magi get their subclass. There are 6 to choose from which are:

Feats

Origin feats

I’d recommend the following origin feats for a magus:

• Alert: Ensures your initiative rolls are higher allowing you to go earlier in combat. Means you can close the gap on enemies quickly, disable them if possible or even kill them outright before they can take their turn.
• Arcane omens (AU): Can enhance both ability checks and saving throws.
• Familiar friend (AU): Enables you to cast find familiar with enhancements like more HP and assisting with ability checks.
• Lucky: Great on any class to gain advantage on some rolls.
• Magic initiate: Gain a couple more spells known and a free casting of a level 1 spell. Could be a way to grab some spells not on your spell list, like true strike.
• Musician: A generally excellent origin feat for helping your allies out with some heroic inspiration (kind of like a slightly better lucky you give to your friends).
• Portal jumper (AU): A damage resistance for more resilience and you can teleport with movement which is great if you want to not get tangled too much in melee.
• Skilled: Good way to make up for your lack of skill proficiency and make good use of arcane ability.
• Spellfire spark (HoF): Some decent resilience and you can sometimes cast sacred flame as a bonus action for extra damage output.
• Tough: Really valuable extra hit points as you can expect to take a bit of as beating.
• Transmuted anatomy (AU): Improved speed and constitution saving throws which will be great for your concentration.
• Vampire’s plaything (ABoH): Good if you want to use hit and run tactics as you can sometimes disengage as a bonus action. You can also create a potion of healing each day.

General feats

From level 4, you can grab a general feat in place of an ability score increase. With quite a few demands on your ability scores, taking a feat can be tricky to fit in, but there still are some great options. I’d recommend the following for a magus:

• Abjuration adept (AU): Abjuration spells make a lot of sense for some protection for your magus. The extra spells known and temporary hit points will be quite useful too.
• Defensive duelist: If you’re playing a melee dexterity build, then this can give you some much need durability, at least against melee attacks. The alternative would be using spell slots on something like the shield spell.
• Divination adept (AU): Manipulating d20 tests is great and the extra divination spells known can be great for information gathering.
• Evocation adept (AU): Lots of great damage dealing spells and you can enhance them by expending hit point dice. This will be best on AoE spells. Fortunately, this feat will give you a few of these.
• Fey touched: More spells known is great and one of those is misty step, really good when you get tangled amongst too many creatures or stuck in a grapple.
• Genie magic (HoF): An extra spell to cast with a really flexible range of spells and it can be upcast at later levels.
• Heavily armored: A great way to get around the dexterity requirements of medium armor if you want to play a strength build. This way you can dump dexterity and just build for strength.
• Illusion adept (AU): Illusion spells are great if you want to get your magus doing more subtle things like stealth. This will let you cast your illusion spells silently and you can do so with a bunch more illusion spells at your fingertips.
• Mage slayer: Great for handling spellcasters and gives you a kind of legendary resistance that makes you even more resilient against saving throws.
• Magic connoisseur (AU): Get more spells known and some free castings. Great way to grab spells from other spell lists.
• Ritual caster: Great way to add some extra utility casting to your repertoire if you lack a spellcaster with lots of options like this.
• Shadow touched: Invisibility is a great spell and another spell as an option will be useful to expand your repertoire and have a few more spell castings.
• Speedy: The extra speed can help you close down enemies quicker and slip in and out of melee range more easily. You’ll also impose disadvantage on opportunity attacks.
• Spell resistant (AU): If you want to get really resilient to spells, then this will combine with sorcerous shielding. It also means you can get some spell resilience earlier in your progression and gain a damage resistance.
• War caster: Become really good at concentration saving throws and deal with spell components while holding other things (especially useful if you want to use a shield).
• Warlike familiar (AU): If you have familiar friend and want a familiar that’s even more enhanced and can add damage in combat, the battle familiar spell is excellent and doesn’t even require concentration.
• Zhentarim tactics (HoF): More opportunity attacks will increase your damage output a fair bit and a changeable expertise is great, especially for a class that works well building further into skills.

Weapons

Most magi work best as dexterity builds. This means taking finesse or ranged weapons. A rapier can be a great option for a higher damage melee weapon, but your choice may depend on the weapon mastery you want.

Magi aren’t really built for resilience, so you may want to grab war caster and a shield or build around ranged attacks. You only get 1 weapon attack per turn, so loading isn’t an issue so you might want to go with higher damage options than a longbow like a heavy crossbow (if you have the strength) or a musket. You could go for a pistol if you want to use a shield at the same time.

Armor

The armor you choose will depend on your dexterity and gold. If you’re a dexterity build, light armor might be sufficient, in which case, take studded leather. If your dexterity hasn’t reached 18-20 yet, you may find that medium armor is better. Once you can afford it half plate is best for defence, or if you want to stay sneaky, a breastplate is better for retaining decent stealth.

Alternatively, if you’ve gone for a strength build, you could go for the heavily armored feat and go for plate armor instead (once you can afford it).

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