u/Kalaam_Nozalys

Hi, for a SoT campaign i'm planning to join I had the idea of playing a Nagaji magus with the Resurgent maelstrom study.

I know it has issues, that its focus spells is more of a detriment than a benefit and so on, but I like the thematic of it and figured it'd fit pretty well in that campaign.

Any advice for it ? items that might be useful or things you know from experience ?

From what I understood, with the level 6 and 8 feats you could grab an improvised weapon, immediately use the focus spell to break it but keep it together with surface tension and now have a somewhat stronger weapon until you shatter it with spellstrike, right ? Is that how you're meant to play it ?

Honestly dunno how to title it, and this may get a tad rambly but i'll do my best to organize and format.

Preface : I prefer scaling that's more conservative and follows the story and events in a media.
As such, I don't buy for a second MFTL Golden Sun characters, or full on star buster stuff from them (exceptions can be discussed in regard to Iris specifically but it, to me, is an outlier)

So I will try my best to explain how I scale most characters from those games.

TLDR: Peak human to superhuman (like, say, Captain America) on the physical level and building/town levels with spells. Summons are another matter that i'll get to later.

The reasoning: There is a couple of canon moment where character strengths are pushed to their limits. And I think they make for good indications. I'll also be using in game numbers to push my reasoning further.

First let's take Saturos. During the intro he very easily, along with Menardi, wipes the floor with Isaac and Garet. It makes sense, both are young teens (about 13 or 14) with no training or magic, against two well travelled warriors who are the absolute bests of their clan.

Three years later, at Mercury Lighthouse, Saturos fights alone against the whole party. Isaac and Garet trained for three years, have had their first battle experience on their travel to that point. Mia is a trained water adept and Ivan, while not trained, is innately talented at wind magic.
They also have djinn boosting their abilities. At this point they don't have much but given what we see in the manga where one djinni provides a sizeable boost to matthew, the two djinn each of them have + being at 4 against 1 + the lighthouse actively nerfing saturos they are able to beat him.
After the fight he is exhausted and unable to continue until Alex buys him time to recover enough to stand and retreat. The party isn't visibly exhausted, but Alex does note that they are not in a state where they could fight both he and Saturos.
Garet also notes before the fight how strong Saturos is, just from his presence, and before knowing he is nerfed.

So it makes sense that at this point, he is still stronger than any of them individually even while weakened. I will get back to that, and his stats, later.

The second important fight for this scaling is the colosso finals.

In it Isaac competes alone, with loaned equipment. It's perfect to gauge his strength.

There, he fights against actual peak human gladiators. People who trained for decades specifically for this tournament.
One of the qualification challenge is to powerlift a carved stone pillar.

The pillar is about one and a half or twice the size of the people around.

Assuming it's made of marble, given its smooth surface, it should weigh a bit over 1.5 Tons. This already gets into the superhuman category on lifting strength (world record is about 400kgs)
So far in the story this doesn't cause issues, Isaac and co have already been pushing similar pillars along the ground in puzzles, but never lift anything that heavy themselves, instead relying on psynergy.

What matters then is that during the final round, Isaac canonicly faints from exhausting. Regardless of wether he wins or loses. This here is a good point to see his limits at this stage of the story.

At this point, Isaac has at most 6 djinn on him. The reason why its important is that without them... he gets folded stat wise.
At this point of the story, Isaac would be about level 20 and have an average atk stat of 90 (without weapon). The final opponent of the colosso has an atk stat of...204 without weapons.

Now, the ATK stat doesn't represent only raw strength, as Navampa (the finalist) actually made it third on the strength score of the qualifiers. So it also represent martial prowess overall.
If Isaac gets the best weapon before Navampa, the gap narrows (Isaac gets to 160 and Navampa, with the weaker weapon, to 232) but he still is no match.

That is, without counting the djinn. With them (assuming a very simple full Venus loadout) he jumps to 224. Now a much more even match. And at this point the fight remains a cointoss, with both defeat and victory being possible canons that leave him exhausted.

With this we know that canonicly, closing in to the end of the first half of his journey, Isaac (and his team) have about peak human ability without djinn, and start standing into superhuman with them. This tracks with djinn ability descriptions like Flint's granting you the strength to cleave a stone in two with a single strike.

Now the final fight for this essay is the first part of the final boss of the first game, the final rematch against saturos and menardi.
Here, they fight at full power, 2 against 4. And are defeated. Like in Mercury Lighthouse they are left exhausted and without the strength to fight.
While individually stronger than each member of the group, the gap isn't wide enough anymore for them to win. On average the party will be at around level 25, while Saturos and Menardi are level 38 (actually the average level you are to finish the second game).
Stat wise Isaac would be at around 370 atk and Saturos at 409 to give an idea. (235 if Isaac has no weapon). By the final third of the second game, Saturos' successor is intimidated by Isaac and thinks himself lucky to have beaten him in an ambush. And at the end of the game Isaac overtakes Saturos' stats at the same level, breaking the 500 mark when equipped with the best possible weapon. And equalling him with a normal sword.

All this to show that the numerical stats tend to stay consistent narratively.

The feats we see in game also align with superhuman physicality (Saturos jumping over cliff faces in the intro, Isaac and co jumping down several stories tall building with no issues...).

But it always remain into a plausible range. All displays of wide destructive abilities are through spells or weapon special effects.
Some of which are pretty large explosions that visibly would level buildings a couple stories tall.
The few aftermath damage we see in the third game seem to correlate with this as well.
The mountaintop and cliff faces of the Roc's nest are visibly damaged after the fight, and the Luna Tower exploration reveals a room that got brute forced by other people before, propelling extremely durable stone golems deep into the magically reinforced walls.
We also see in the Lost Age how Alex sends soldiers flying with geysers as a show of strength.

In that scene, he claims to be able to take on the whole Tolbi army, which is composed of former colosso finalists (so all peak/above peak human fighters).
In Dark Dawn, the Kaocho army actively tries to recruit the party because of their magical abilities, wanting to use them as weapons of war able to turn the tide of their current conflicts.
If the spells have the scale displayed in combat, outside of numerical values, this does track to treat the party as extremely powerful artillery in what is otherwise a medieval setting.

So there you have it, my reasoning as to why Golden Sun characters are, for the most part, Super Human with large buildings/town destructive spells.

Of course, summons are different beasts, but it is difficult to determine how litteral each of them are. Especially when reaching tier 4 and above summons.
Judgment appear to lay waste to a whole country or continent, as do Catastrophe or Charon.
And obviously Iris creates a large star to throw ennemies into.
However Iris typically requires two people worth of djinn to be summoned (unless, as I tend to do for vs debate specifically, you allow a single character to hold onto everyone's djinn). And is intended as a bonus reward for 100% completion. Though she is a canon deity, given statues of her exist in the mercury lighthouse.
On that point, it'd have to be a discussion...how litteral are the summons and what should we use them for ? Not direct AP from the characters. Possibly durability ? Given we see their magic protect them from powerful curses, and their innately resist magic, this could also be how they survive most of those attacks.

Anyway, I've been at this for a good 2 hours now. I should hit Post