Menu
![](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125850797/452507878.jpg)
Problems?For everything about the Pathfinder Tabletop RPG! (Not administered by or affiliated with Paizo Publishing® in any way). Posts not related to Pathfinder are subject to removal at the mods' discretion.Official Discord Server!Weekly Threads!Monday:Wednesday:Friday:Saturday:Sunday:And theRule 1: Don't Be A Dick.Rule 1a: Be civil, even when disagreeingRule 1b: Be reasonable with your languageRule 1c: Don't EscalateRule 2: Don't Post Copyrighted MaterialRule 3: Keep Things PathfinderPlease click the rules header above to read a more comprehensive breakdown of our subreddit's rules.We require post flairs.For Spoilers: !This is a spoiler.
With Pathfinder's newest source book, Ultimate Magic, the people at Paizo. Do note that you can combine archetypes (like a bladebound hexcrafter magus),.
![Pathfinder magus bladebound build Pathfinder magus bladebound build](https://i.warosu.org/data/tg/img/0530/87/1494039832842.jpg)
Don't read it! If you're playing Kingmaker and following Talia Reven around this is not the thread for you.Moving on, I'm GMing a campaign for mostly new players. I'm leveling them as it fits into the story, and between levels 3 and 4 it is a convenient opportunity to swap/rebuild PCs if they'd like.
My player playing a Magus decided to pick up the Bladebound archetype.My question is; Does the black blade's enhancement bonus progression unbalance the game? I'm okay giving the others more gold to enhance their weapons and giving enemies a boost, but I wanted to hear your opinions. If anyone's GMed for a bladebound Magus and has any suggestions they would be greatly welcomed. Here's the thing with classes that get 'free' things. Monks don't need to buy weapons (they get their fists which get better as they level), Alchemists and certain witches get potions they can make at half price. Wizards get many scrolls at half off.
Forgepriests get magical weapons and armor at half off.The classes actually account for this balance, as does pathfinder. Classes that get crafting feats generally will have better gear than their non-crafting counterparts. This is intentional.Let's compare a wizard who uses a sword to hit things and a fighter who also uses a sword to hit things.
Both are made at 6th level (because it makes the math easier). Now this means a fighter won't be allowed to spend more than aproximately 25% of his wealth on his stick, which ends up being a +1 sword. (2300 and change).Now the wizard gets a +2 sword (half price, so 4300 and change). You'd say: That's unfair. BUT, by this time, the fighter has had 4 bonus feats (weapon focus, weapon specialisation, yay) and weapon training.Sure, the wizard got a cheaper sword, but the fighter got a +1/+1 from weapon training to compensate. 'But Valthek,' you might say, 'that's not a fair comparison. Wizards and fighters aren't equal.'
Okay, consider the following. Two swashbucklers, one spends his feats on Weapon Focus and Weapon specialisation. The other spends them on Master Craftsman and Craft Magical Arms and Armor. Sure, one gets his weapons and armor at half off, but the other gets a similar increase in power (+1/+1 compared to +1/+2).The same goes for a black blade magus. He gets his weapons for free, but it costs him 1/3rd of his arcane pool. In addition, the most important weapon-ability for a magus (keen) isn't included and relies on a finite resource. So yes, his weapon is cheaper, but it's much less versatile and by level 20, it's actually less powerful than just buying a sword.If you end up giving him less gold compared to the rest of the party, you're just punishing him for making a certain choice which seems wrong to me.
After all, you don't punish a player for deciding to play a fighter or a Bard Archeologist?. I've been playing a Bladebound Myrmidarch magus weekly from 2nd to 16th level. The black blade is nice, but pretty much equivalent to the arcana that they're giving up for it, so don't give the rest of the party more gold to compensate.
![Kensai magus pathfinder Kensai magus pathfinder](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125850797/113552655.jpg)
If the player has optimized his character for exploiting what the black blade does, he'll be doing the most damage in the party until level 9 or so, but he'll be really squishy. After level 9, he'll be roughly on par with the rest of an optimized party.My advice to you is: Look at the kind of damage he is doing. Is he stealing the spotlight from the rest of the players?
Do they care? If you need to solve the problem, have the monsters target him a little bit more after seeing the damage he puts out-it's reasonable for them to target the hardest hitter, especially if he's wearing light armor and looks a little squishy. This will force him to rely on the party a little more tactically. If the party is dealing with foes easily, increase the CR of their encounters by +1-4. You can also give out hints to the party to better optimize their sheets if they need to catch up. The Black Blade's gold-saving feature is neat in low-wealth campaigns, or those where the PCs simply have neither time to commission magic items nor easy access to Ye Olde MagicMart™ because they're too busy saving the world to go shopping.Kingmaker isn't one of those. At all.Out of all the published APs this is by far the most crafting-friendly one and getting to Restov for expensive stuff isn't that big of a deal either.
Which means that keeping a PC's primary weapon properly enhanced is to be expected. Especially in case you use the kingdom building rules as published in the AP rather than the revised ones from Ultimate Campaign, as the magic item economy can easily be exploited for increased character wealth.The Bladebound on the other hand cannot pay gold to increase their Black Blade's enhancement so it is bound (heh) to the class feature's own slightly slower progression.Also, the Bladebound doesn't get their Black Blade for free. It 'costs' the first arcana as well as diminishes the Arcane Pool. All in all, it's fairly well balanced and not really one of the strongest options for either the magus nor the Kingmaker AP.
![](/uploads/1/2/5/8/125850797/452507878.jpg)