The Genius Guide to: the Magister is an update and expansion of Genius Games’ earlier product then called the Magus, the name was changed to avoid confusion with the Pathfinder base class of the same name. The Magister is an interesting class, but not one for casual play. It will take study of the available options, spells especially, and a careful build to use the class effectively. The Magister does provide a unique path as a dual-natured caster base class which is quite intriguing and should appeal to players looking for an interesting challenge.

The Magister is a full 20-level base class combining arcane and divine spell-casting in one class. The Magister is light on physical defense and offense but they have access to both sides of the magical coin though they must focus on one side or the other. The Magister has a choice of eight paths each focuses on differing types and subtypes of magic. The Magister is a spontaneous caster and, while they can choose spells from almost any source, they can only know and cast a small number of them with so many options, spell selection is going to be the most challenging part of designing a Magister character.

Twelve new feats for the Magister are provided allowing them to gain limited access to some the specialized powers of the other spell-casting classes allowing for greater ability to customize each Magister and support a theme in character construction. Lastly, there is a good sized section containing advice for using the Magister class in a campaign.

Disclosure: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThroughRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review.

This product is 10 pages long with 1 page for OGL.

d6, 4 skills, low BaB, very few weapons and light armor. They can wear light armor and cast all spells with no failure chance. The Magus cast spells like a Sorc, they learn a certain number of spells. First they choose a primary spell list Cleric, Druid or Sorc/Wiz list. At least half of their spells known must be part of that list, the rest can be from any spell list.

1 page with 5 new feats and 1 page with advice on how to use a Magus in your world.

Closing thoughts, if you like combined divine/arcane casters then i think you will like this. This is one of the better and likely best balanced one I have seen. My one big worry is that it in a way kinda replaces the Sorcerer. Since one of the class options allows the Magus to get a Sorc Bloodline with most but not all the benefits of the bloodline. I would need to see it in play to be sure but after a read it is a minor worry, I don't think it would. For the price it is a good buy for those looking for a divine/arcane caster or something new and different.