CaffeinatedNinja's page

I don't think that secondary critical effect auto-success wont be a problem. There are many classes and feats that's allow some additional effect when hit without additional checks to normal hits. I don't think that do the same in a critical effect from a weapon trait would be a problem. The only strange thing it's this happen only to hammer/flail, specially to trip, the best "maneuver" effect.

Shove one polearm for instance doesn’t need a save because it is situational. I have a fighter with a polearm, more often than not I choose not to shove on a crit, for various reasons. I never chose not to knock someone prone.

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

Gortle wrote:

Karmagator wrote:

The hammer/flail crit spec definitely should be changed. I would prefer to have something that doesn't require extra rolls, though. Especially at higher levels, a single crit often already triggers multiple additional rolls via runes and feats. I'd rather not add to that, if at all possible.

I agree about the not triggering extra rolls. The amount of detail in the game is nice but sometimes it just gets too much.

Not going to disagree about too many crit effects lategame hah. But if guns and unarmed can tolerate a roll, hammers can too.

I don't suppose it would be too much to ask that we go in the other direction? Remove the rolls from the other weapons instead of adding them to hammers and flails.

If so you really need to boost every other crit effect a lot as those three (slow, stun and prone) and massively stronger than the rest.

Karmagator wrote:

The hammer/flail crit spec definitely should be changed. I would prefer to have something that doesn't require extra rolls, though. Especially at higher levels, a single crit often already triggers multiple additional rolls via runes and feats. I'd rather not add to that, if at all possible.

I agree about the not triggering extra rolls. The amount of detail in the game is nice but sometimes it just gets too much.

Not going to disagree about too many crit effects lategame hah. But if guns and unarmed can tolerate a roll, hammers can too.

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

Why is it overpowered? Serious question. A general feat for armor/weapon is considered balanced for the first 11-13 levels of the game (Depending on class)

Why is it suddenly OP to scale it for the last levels?

And sentinel still has a place. First off it gives light AND medium so that is two general feats worth on casters. For people wanting heavy it gives useful things like armor specialization and improved bulwark.

Also, depending on the build you might rather spend a lvl 2 class feat on a lot of builds than give up a general feat.

Because it's a lvl 1 general feat. This means that's a feat that everyone can take no matter its class/archetype, ancestry or skill. Making the proficiency general lvl 1 feat auto-progress this way will surpass feats like the already cited Sentinel Dedication that's no only requires a lvl 2 class feat but also locks your dedication feat until you use 2 more of same archetype feat or the ancestries weapons feats that are ancestry locked feats that applies to small list of weapons and that's requires another lvl 13 ancestry feat to increase it's proficiency level.

Actually you only need the lvl 1 ancestry feat. It makes advanced martial, and martial simple for proficiency purposes. Another reason why a general feat would be fine, as lvl 1 ancestry feats are generally considered weaker (why the human general feat for ancestry is so good)

The lvl 13 feat just scales it for classes that just get training in certain groups instead of martial/simple. Basically it is for fighters to have weapons in a second group keep up with their main weapon group. For instance an Orc (or human) that wants an Orc Necksplitter, advanced weapon, can take the lvl 1 ancestry feat and nothing else and it will scale with them all game.

Also, those ancestral feats give access which is important in some games, general feats don’t.

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

First, congratulations on the brilliantly done errata, and your new process. A+ in all seriousness!

Now, since errata is back on the board so to speak, I have a few thoughts for future changes.

Proficiency from General Feats - The proficiency you get should scale just like from Sentinel. A general feat is a considerable investment, and having it just stop working around lvl 13 feels weird. You have spent thirteen levels using a longsword as a wizard and suddenly you are bad at it? I have houseruled this, and it has never been a problem. General feats are often more precious than class feats, you pay a heavy price.

I disagree here. This would change the General Feats to something very overpowered and as pointed by 25speedforseaweedleshy this would turn Sentinel Dedication almost useless.

Why is it overpowered? Serious question. A general feat for armor/weapon is considered balanced for the first 11-13 levels of the game (Depending on class)

Why is it suddenly OP to scale it for the last levels?

And sentinel still has a place. First off it gives light AND medium so that is two general feats worth on casters. For people wanting heavy it gives useful things like armor specialization and improved bulwark.

Also, depending on the build you might rather spend a lvl 2 class feat on a lot of builds than give up a general feat.

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

Spell Casting Proficiency - Everyone, including MCs, should scale fully. I know this sounds odd, but hear me out. Spells are "gated" by both level, stat, and number of spells. All giving MCs bad proficiencies does it force them to use non DC spells, which are among the best in the game already. If a lvl 20 fighter with wizard MC is able to use a single lvl 8 fireball at legendary proficiency, great! My lvl 20 wizard with a lvl 10 spell, 5 lvl 9 spells and 4 lvl 8s and better DC due to main stat int is not bothered in the slightest.

I disagree here. This is in the same design choice of Weapon Proficiency progression. The main idea is that you can't be good as a caster class using a martial class.

Yeah, I get that in theory, but the difference is any class can grab a fully runed up weapon and swing away if their weapon proficiency was good.

Spells are controlled by both number and level of them. AND lots of the best spells don't care about DC. For example a lvl 20 fighter with MC wizard can use dissapearance and be awesome, but using a lvl 8 chain lightning with decent DC would be too good?

Nah, all this does is limit the types of spells non mainline casters can use, it doesn't weaken them really.

I think most of the clarifications and necessary fixes have already been heavily discussed, so I've set my sights on something more in the design changes area. A difficult topic for this type of product, but you never know, maybe Paizo can make it happen ^^

1) Recall Knowledge and Mastermind

I agree entirely. For such a relatively niche action you need a lot of skills kept up. That and int doesn't help since it doesn't get beyond trained which doesn't scale. Maybe if they gave INT a long needed boost and let it scale to at least expert we would be in a better spot.

2) Spellshot really doesn't have to be a class archetype

The spellshot class archetype should be changed to a regular Way. The only change is that it makes your character worse by tying your class DC to INT. That is not usually part of a Way, or at least that is the only mechanical explanation I can see for this oddity. Not that I see that as a particularly good reason, especially given the additional downsides.

Yes, agreed, but changing a class archetype to a way seems beyond what we can expect from errata. I think Spellshot could be fixed by making the dedication feat actually useful, and removing the "must take 3 feats in this dedication" etc before leaving. The INT to DC thing should go away, straight downgrade.

I had a crazy thought about what if spellshot changed gunslingers key stat int and let it use int to hit but also beyond the scope of errata I think.

First, congratulations on the brilliantly done errata, and your new process. A+ in all seriousness!

Now, since errata is back on the board so to speak, I have a few thoughts for future changes.

Proficiency from General Feats - The proficiency you get should scale just like from Sentinel. A general feat is a considerable investment, and having it just stop working around lvl 13 feels weird. You have spent thirteen levels using a longsword as a wizard and suddenly you are bad at it? I have houseruled this, and it has never been a problem. General feats are often more precious than class feats, you pay a heavy price.

Hammer/Flail Spec - Elephant in the room. It is just way, way too good. Prone is insanely powerful, and getting it with no save? Make it a reflex or fort save and it is still good but not by far the best.

Armor Proficiency - The "gappy" scaling on this for martials could be smoothed out. Every martial should go up at 11 and 17. Right now champion being the same AC as fighter for 2 levels, and barbarian being -2 behind (not even counting heavy armor) for 4 levels just doesn't work in a game with math as tight as this.

Spell Casting Proficiency - Everyone, including MCs, should scale fully. I know this sounds odd, but hear me out. Spells are "gated" by both level, stat, and number of spells. All giving MCs bad proficiencies does it force them to use non DC spells, which are among the best in the game already. If a lvl 20 fighter with wizard MC is able to use a single lvl 8 fireball at legendary proficiency, great! My lvl 20 wizard with a lvl 10 spell, 5 lvl 9 spells and 4 lvl 8s and better DC due to main stat int is not bothered in the slightest.

Same for summoner, no reason it should be -2 worse a few levels but not others, and Magus having full proficiency will still be 1-2 behind a full caster anyways, what does it hurt?

Just my thoughts!

More good general feats and skill feats. Good as in generally applicable. Except for a couple the few skill feats we have gotten have been very very niche.

More class feats. Most of the expansion of feats are archetypes, which lock you in pretty hard to a particular path. A lot of classes, particularly the newer ones, need more class feats in their class.

I think a lot of this could be handled by making archetype feats backwards compatible with the right class. For instance just tag Quick Shield Block with the Magus tag too (No reason sparkling targe should have to archetype to improve it's blocking game so much.)

Or just general feats that some classes can take.

Also, proficiency scaling is weird. An errata that general feats granting proficiency all scale would be amazing.

I think the issue I see over and over again is that people want dex martials but don't care about stealth, thievery or ranged.

They want to be a dex sword wielder and go fight in melee. Which is fine but you are going to be a lot worse than a str martial at it.

Even if you don't want to use them, all those benefits are built into dex, and it is budgeted for it. If you want to be a melee martial, str is there for you.

I do agree that str martials are a bit too good before you get striking runes, ranged characters suffer there too.

If you want to make a melee martial, finesse is not as good as str in combat. Full stop. Exceptions include of course classes designed for it, like swashbuckler.

And this is how it SHOULD be since dex does a lot more than strength does.

Now, if you want to make a stealthy fighter who is also equally good at range, dex is your friend.

I agree. This is one of the first things I noticed when I read psychic. I think it is one reason psychic falls off at later levels.

High level spells are really good, having less of them hurts, and you lose your focus point advantage.

Sorry versatile 2 damage types is clearly better than shove trait

Well, if we are debating about it one clearly isn't superior. But piercing instead of slashing is useless 99% of the time so /shrug.

gesalt wrote:

Well the flickmace had it coming I suppose, but if they were going to go after anything I'd have thought it'd be the overwhelming dominance of flail and hammer crit spec rather than a damage nerf that still leaves it the best one handed weapon in the game.

Nerfing the crit spec would screw over the war flail and maul, which would be clearly inferior choices for 2-handers without it. The die size is a big deal, you're basically paying the feat over the Asp Coil for that flail crit spec now.

Why would they be inferior choices?

Maul is still better than a greatsword. I will take bludgeoning over slashing any day and shove over versatile P.

Flail just depends on if you value disarm.

Very nicely done, overall an incredibly positive set of changes for the better.

The visuals of using a tripod while mounted is amusing. But I don't see anything in the rules that forbids it.

You can't benefit from flanking with a ranged weapon, but you can still benefit from flat-footed as long as you can get it some other way. With monk, perhaps Grabbed by the monk or psychic (Distant Grasp?)

For damage, d8 has an average damage of 4.5 on a hit. d10 has 5.5. d12 has 6.5. Generally if you are fighting something where you are needing to squeeze every last drop of damage out, it is something a level or three higher than you - which means needing at least an 11 or 12 on the d20 in order to hit and only crit on a nat-20.

So - running the numbers assuming you need a 12 to hit, a 20 to crit. Also running for each of the tiers of striking runes.

8 results of the d20 are a hit (12 - 19). So 40%. 5% chance of crit.

1d8 deadly d12 arquebus: 4.5 x .40 = 1.8; 6.5x2 x .05 = .65 => 2.45
1d10 harmona gun: 5.5 x .40 = 2.2; 5.5x2 x .05 = .55 => 2.75

2d8 deadly d12 arquebus: 4.5x2 x .4 = 3.6; 6.5x5 x .05 = 1.625 => 5.225
2d10 harmona gun: 5.5x2 x .40 = 4.4; 5.5x4 x .05 = 1.1 => 5.5

3d8 deadly d12 arquebus: 4.5x3 x .4 = 5.4; 6.5x7 x .05 = 2.275 => 7.675
3d10 harmona gun: 5.5x3 x .40 = 6.6; 5.5x6 x .05 = 1.65 => 8.25

So yeah. The harmona gun does slightly more damage generally. But when the arquebus crits, it will really hurt.

2d12 arquebus crit => 6.6x5 => 33
2d10 harmona gun crit => 5.5x4 => 22

This is absolute worst case for the arequebus. Deadly fights often aren't just against a +3 with high armor. The more you crit he better the arquebus does.

Shield -> cascade -> strike/stride/use potion is a perfectly viable turn one.

You don't need to spellstrike every turn to deal good damage

Also, if you are really that close, basic tactics is waiting until the enemies come to you, then spellstriking and entering cascade. Winning initiative means choosing when to go, not going first, and sometimes it's better to wait

Problem is the benefits of cascade are so minimal that using your spellstrike round one instead of a strike is the superior option. As is moving to flank, etc.

For instance, the game I am in now, spellstrike is not a stance so you can have it up before a fight. I can actually use my hybrid study moves, it flows better, and in no way is magus too good now hah. Starlit still the best anyways!

My overall point is that using cascade, most of the time, is a bad use of the action which just isn’t fun.

Yeah, I've used the common sense reading where the cast a spell requirement is to use the action and not an actual requirement to maintain the stance.

Personally, I don't think the action of entering the stance to be an issue. Most battles I've been in or ran start with enough space in between the forces where only the ranged characters open up with attacking; the melee people usually close in; this first round works well for gishes and alchemists to buff up since the melee enemies are busy advancing. Most of the time, when I hear complaints about the action economy of it from the tables I'm in, it's because the player wants their gish to play like a regular martial and all of the power of a gish with none of the drawbacks, or they just don't want to use tactics and just want to cut straight to slaughtering things

Problem is that, at least in my experience running lots of APs, this is not the norm. Most battles start in fairly close quarters and the enemy is amongst you right away. And in those situations ignoring cascade is pretty much optimal sadly as you want to flank and spellstrike or whatnot.

Plus, magus isn’t exactly overflowing with spellslots to buff before each fight.

Not to necro (but I totally am) it has occurred to me recently the easiest way to fix cascade is just to remove the stance trait. Then you can have it running pre-fight, but still costs an action to change the element.

My current GM has let me play that way and I have to say magus just flows a lot better now.

Sparkling Targe Magus really wants quick shield block from Bastion (even though the dedication is a lesser version of their lvl 4 feat.)

I think it is fair since you are specializing in a very very narrow application of the craft skill.

I think of it as a seasoned soldier in the field on independent assignment. He might be exceptionally good at maintaining and repairing his gear, but not be an amazing crafter that can build pretty much anything from scratch.

As for one or two skill feats, it depends. If it is adding another function to an existing skill feat (like warfare) then 2 feats is fair. One for warfare, one for the added functionality.

I like it as one, with a lore that can only be used for repair, to show the niche usage of it.

Another, called Battlefield Repair that lets you use Warfare Lore or an appropriate lore skill to make repair checks on weapons, armor, and shields, and use your proficiency for that lore for determining how much hp is restored

This is kind of brilliant! I’m going to steal it. It never sat right that you have to skillup crafting just to use a shield. This is what I am thinking.

Skill Feat
Battlefield Repair - Req - Trained in Crafting
“You specialize in repairing armor and equipment in the field. You are trained in “Battlefield Repair” lore. This lore increases to expert at level 3, master at lvl 7, and legendary at lvl 15. It may only be gained from this feat unless specifically stated otherwise.

You may use this lore in place of crafting when repairing armor, shields or weapons. You use the easy DC when doing so.”

Sanityfaerie wrote:

Some sort of dex-based combat maneuvers, or some way of getting maneuver-style effects off of dex.

Given that the devs went out of their way to reverse course and specifically torpedo this, I don't see it happening.

Has left dex based characters (especially dex based melee) feeling kind of stripped down a bit. It's weird because Dex is objectively an amazing stat but from my experience and the experience of players in my games, dex based melee is profoundly unsatisfying, especially at low levels and generally avoid it unless they have something that pushes them specifically toward that playstyle.

Here is the thing about dex. It has never been designed (in 2e ar least) as a melee stat. Unless your class very specifically supports it as such. (Rogue, Swashbuckler)

It does allow you to make a very versatile character, good at range, stealth, thievery, great reflex saves, and ok at melee.

But lots of people just want a dex melee character and don’t care about that stuff. That is fine, but that is all budgeted into dex so it isn’t going to work out.

I advise new players who want a pure melee but want dex for some class fantasy to just make a str martial and flavor it as dex hah.

I think part of the issue is you basically have multiple skills that do the same thing. Nature, Religion, Arcana and Occultism are all the "know about magic" skills. Except knowing about magic isn't that useful most of the time and surely not when split into four skills.

In comparison medicine does healing. Simple. You want to heal, do medicine. Athletics does its thing, acrobatics, etc.

One thing I would like to see is a whole branch of skills, gated by int, like skill training.

Intelligence kind of doesn't have much of a place right now, and doesnt do much, so making some great skill related skill feats, gated by higher int, gives it more of a place. Here are a few thoughts!

"Lifelong Learning - Req. 14 Int - You apply your intellect to the study of all kinds of topics! Gain the additional lore feat for each point of your int modifier."

"Deep Study - Req. 16 int - You have learned to apply your intellect to a broad range of fields. You may use your intelligence modifier in place of the existing modifer to recall knowledge using any skill."

"Adanced Skill Training - Req. 14 Int. - You gain two skill increases. One may be used to increase a skill to trained, one may be used to increase a skill to expert."

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

WWHsmackdown wrote:

keftiu wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

I know it's not how Paizo likes to do things but I really want a way to make Int based medicine a thing.

Int is kind of a crusty stat already and it bugs me to no end that academic doctor is just not something Paizo thinks should exist.

Plus like... Alchemists? Investigators? It feels like they should be good at anatomy and stuff like that.

I've rallied against Wisdom as a bizarre umbrella stat longer than most of my friends have played tabletop; it's so strange that it's not only a Franken-hybrid of perception, piety, and willpower, but also arbitrarily covers certain fields of knowledge that are deemed to be "folksy." It's pretty insulting to say that those who understand medicine and nature aren't using their Intelligence!

Nah I'm good. I'd rather druids have nature skill keying off a key stat and clerics have religion keying off a key stat. I think that's well worth any weirdness

Oracles, Sorcerers, Bards, and half of Psychic would like to have a word...

I get it, I was quite annoyed as a sorcerer that I was horrible at my class skill hah.

I think the issue is that Int doesn't really have a function, and wisdom is super super strong.
That's fair. I'm a 5e immigrant, though. I really hated the wizard and rogue being better at religion than my cleric. Between the two I prefer p2e, but they could've just had stat swapping on a case by case basis as noted above. If you're going with the hammer approach over the scalpel, I prefer wisdom over intelligence

keftiu wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

I know it's not how Paizo likes to do things but I really want a way to make Int based medicine a thing.

Int is kind of a crusty stat already and it bugs me to no end that academic doctor is just not something Paizo thinks should exist.

Plus like... Alchemists? Investigators? It feels like they should be good at anatomy and stuff like that.

I've rallied against Wisdom as a bizarre umbrella stat longer than most of my friends have played tabletop; it's so strange that it's not only a Franken-hybrid of perception, piety, and willpower, but also arbitrarily covers certain fields of knowledge that are deemed to be "folksy." It's pretty insulting to say that those who understand medicine and nature aren't using their Intelligence!

Nah I'm good. I'd rather druids have nature skill keying off a key stat and clerics have religion keying off a key stat. I think that's well worth any weirdness

Oracles, Sorcerers, Bards, and half of Psychic would like to have a word...

I know it's not how Paizo likes to do things but I really want a way to make Int based medicine a thing.

Int is kind of a crusty stat already and it bugs me to no end that academic doctor is just not something Paizo thinks should exist.

Plus like... Alchemists? Investigators? It feels like they should be good at anatomy and stuff like that.

Yeah, kind of weird. Like who thought wisdom needed more skills attached to it?

Honestly you could take medicine, nature and religion and switch them all over to INT.

INT would STILL be way worse than wisdom hah, hard to compete with perception and will saves.

Hmm, what do I still need.

Skill Feats - A lot of skills have minimal skill feats. I want an explosion of good skill feats for each skill. Give me good reasons to take them!

Stat Sub like Bulwark - Stats subs can get out of control, but some limited once would be nice. Right now some classes are so crazy MAD. Bulwark works perfectly for this, more of them!

Intelligence - This stat is so bad. Give us some awesome intelligence dependent skill feats to give us a reason to take it!

More Good General Feats - See above

Weapons! More cool basic weapons. I want a reach 2 handed sword (Zweihander) good reach spears, etc etc.

Excellent guide! I really enjoy it, and agree with virtually all of it, which is a rarity hah.

I will note a couple things I saw that I disagree with, feel free to ignore me!

Aasimar Ancestry Feat 9 - Celestial Strikes
You have this yellow, I would say blue unless you are in an evil campaign. +1 isn't a lot of damage but it is good damage, which a magus doesn't have natural access to and triggers a LOT of weaknesses on evil stuff.

Lvl 6 Feat - Attack of Opportunity
I would say blue for Laughing shadow, green or blue for sparkling targe. A free mapless hit is SUCH a damage boost.

Lvl 8 Feat - Runic Impression
Yellow. This will come up so rarely, and magus can hit the elemental damage types through cascade.

Literally all that popped out at me. Great guide!

Aldori dueling sword has been changed to be 2gp. It was accidentally printed with the old starting cost of 20gp in Kingmaker. So just buy one for 2gp and enjoy!

As for the best class to use it, it is a melee dex weapon. So probably Fighter, Swashbuckler or Ranger. Could also work with a laughing shadow magus or a few others.

The entire reason why PF2 made familiars into pet rocks is to prevent PCs from scouting safely. The eidolon was made severely restricted for the exact same reason (remember when they could go 1000 ft without dying?).

In both cases the reasoning is the same "its bad if players scout so let's prevent that". In both cases the reasoning is complete BS as scouting should 100% be possible.

Saying "oh the eidolon is better because it can scout and maybe touch objects" is pure copium and only possible because Paizo decided to make familiars into a funny shape spell battery. In any game were those restrictions are removed or meaningless the eidolon becomes strictly worse due to increasing your wounded/dying count. Which people always seem to conveniently forget.

I don't know if that is true, but being able to scout with no risk is a bit problematic. If you want to scout, send in your rogue.

I don't think Starlit Span Magus is overpowered. They are good, particularly when built well, but they are no Bard or Cleric.

That being said, Starlit Span is absolutely the best Magus. If you think about it, their ability lets them take melee spells and use them at 60 feet or farther. Even Force Fang is flat out superior when a starlit span takes it for that reason.

I really think they should have just made spellstrike not require a recharge or something in melee. Give you a real reason to want to do it in melee and not at range. But too late for that.

I agree with Squiggit. But more importantly, any player that says he will leave if you don't give them the ruling you want is toxic. Let them leave.

And if you want to bring in ranged abilities - Magus has cantrips & spell slots which can allow for ranged combat with the added benefit of potentially targeting saves as well (Magi I've seen in play personally have kept a backup save-targeting cantrip in addition to their spellstrike cantrips). Not to mention scrolls/wands of buff/utility spells, etc.

Cantrips are poor damage and magus have delayed attack/DC scaling (and they don't main int) means they are quite bad on them. At that point they are just a poor caster if that is what they are doing.

Kineticist has their standard attack which works at range and pretty much all of their impulses are ranged. So if anything their whole kit works fine they just have to step back.

As for ranged spells, I think people forget both that magus are not great at offensive spells, and they only have 4 spell slots. Can't really pack in a lot of variety there.

I think a fallacy a lot of people fall into (not necessarily you, just in general) is thinking casters always have all these spells prepared. Your options are pretty limited.

I think the logic applies to both Kinet and Magus as far as AoO. A melee kinet wants to be in melee, that is why you play it. Having a significant number of enemies shut that down pretty hard just is not fun and absolutely not necessary for balance.
A Melee Magus wants to be in melee too, etc etc.

We are playing EC and AoA ( we also played one scenario I forgot the name).

Are you saying in those other APs you mentioned there are several encounters where every single enemy in a given encounter has AoO?

I have to say it's kinda weird in terms of balance.

Here is the thing. Even if not everyone has it, you are still badly impaired in the fight. If your party is focusing on one enemy, and you go fight another, you just made the fight way harder. Focusing down an enemy is always the way to go.

I am not saying you can't contribute, it just isn't fun. And frankly, even in a situation without AoO, no one is saying melee magus is top tier in power. So why make it even worse in AoO situations?

CaffeinatedNinja wrote:

HumbleGamer wrote:

I don't see the magus as "handicapped" While facing AoO enemies, because even the flat damage from arcane cascade gives their 2* strikes a good overall damage.

They can also rely on spells like draw the lightning, enhancing their first strike, invisibility, dealing with AoO, or even the usual swap target.

Going with multiclases offers a some possibilities too:

- gravity weapon is pretty cool in similar situation ( it synergies well with cascade too, being a 1 action cast)

- power attack, especially with a 1d12 weapon, gives an interesting alternative to spell strike, especially if the enemy has high AC ( a boss fight, for example).

I can also accept one fight over 6 book where every single enemy has AoO, though it would be quite rare.

But lvl 8+ it would be 4* heightened +2 invisibility per day, plus scrolls or wands, which would mostly solve all the AoO issues.

Having to do very suboptimal things and use limited resources to get around a problem that other martials ignore is the definition of handicapped in a fight.

I haven't witnessed a single encounter with all enemies with AoO, meaning the magus would be forced to go against enemies with AoO.

It's more a hypothetical white room s enario than a real issue ( or a DM making encounters without consider balance).

If eldeitch tricksters can do it, so can the magus.

Eldritch Trickster is kind of universally considered really bad, so not the best example.

And I have seen PLENTY of fights where the single +3 enemy has reach and AoO. It is absurdly common at higher levels. Seen quite a few where everyone has AoO too.

AoO is kind of weird in it's frequency. I mean, if it was an ultra rare ability that messed with you, well, that is annoying but happens. There are plenty of those floating around.

OR if everyone had it like in 1e, then it could just be factored into balance.

But it is in the middle. So if your campaign has lots of AoO enemies, magus suffers badly. If not it is fine. I don't think that is a good place for it to be.

And frankly it just isn't FUN to get punched in the face for doing your cool melee moves. In fact it feels counter to the fantasy. Spellstrike is literally designed to be used in melee combat, who on earth would design a move that lets the enemy hit you first?

Also, I tend to think it is one of those rules that is ignored a LOT which isn't really a good thing. Outside of us super nerds posting on the forums or discord/reddit, I suspect most people don't even think spellstrike triggers AoO since it is not spelled out.

I don't see the magus as "handicapped" While facing AoO enemies, because even the flat damage from arcane cascade gives their 2* strikes a good overall damage.

They can also rely on spells like draw the lightning, enhancing their first strike, invisibility, dealing with AoO, or even the usual swap target.

Going with multiclases offers a some possibilities too:

- gravity weapon is pretty cool in similar situation ( it synergies well with cascade too, being a 1 action cast)

- power attack, especially with a 1d12 weapon, gives an interesting alternative to spell strike, especially if the enemy has high AC ( a boss fight, for example).

I can also accept one fight over 6 book where every single enemy has AoO, though it would be quite rare.

But lvl 8+ it would be 4* heightened +2 invisibility per day, plus scrolls or wands, which would mostly solve all the AoO issues.

Having to do very suboptimal things and use limited resources to get around a problem that other martials ignore is the definition of handicapped in a fight.

The big difference I see between the Magus and the playtest Kineticist is that Spellstrike is only part of the Magus kit (even if a standout part) while everything the Kineticist could do would provoke an AoO.

Thus a Magus could still contribute to an encounter while avoiding AoOs (even if their damage was lowered), while the Kineticist couldn't do anything (including gather power or their basic attack).

Actually a Kineticist has a fully functional ranged attack roll with the same to hit, so if anything they are less effected by AoO than Magus, they just have to move back and use their range attack.

The recent playtest analysis of Kineticist was great, and I particularly liked that melee attacks triggering AoO, a longtime complaint for other classes, was finally addressed.

"Manipulate Trait: There was a lot of conversation about the manipulate trait triggering Attacks of Opportunity and putting the melee kineticist in danger. This isn’t a factor in most combats, but in combats against many monsters with Attack of Opportunity, it’ll get you dead in a hurry! The discussions about this reinforced that the inclusion of concentrate and manipulate on all impulses was carried forward from how spells work... and these aren’t supposed to be just like spells! So, it’s likely the final impulses will still include concentrate, but manipulate will only appear on impulses where it’s essential to the action taking place in the story."

Now personally I would LOVE to see Paizo take a look back at some other classes that have melee attacks triggering AoO and perhaps errata that too? I am looking at you poor melee magus and spellstrike...

Hmmm ... I'm very keenly interested in this conversation.

Squiggit & HumbleGamer, you both sound as if you are speaking from actual play experience with Iron Magus which is bang on what I was hoping for from this thread.

Would you be so kind as to go into a little more detail as to the experiences you're describing ? Any info you can give would be very much appreciated.

Esp to questions like:

How often were you finding the temp hps really seemed to make a difference ? How often were you entering cascade ? Did you find cascade difficult to find the action for to activate ? Did you do it early and often or only when it seemed necessary or you had actions to spare ? Where there any build options that made it more effective ? Does the Witch Life boost really make much of a difference (isn't it only 8hp of healing?) ? Does it rely on being paired with a spell slot for Stoneskin ? Did it work well at low levels or only high ?

I played an Inexorable Iron Magus for awhile. The temp hp had a couple issues. First was the miserable action economy getting into it, a spell and an action is your whole round, I fairly rarely found that to be optimal to use.

The second is the nature of temp hp. You need to be hit every round to get value out of it. I found all too often when I did use it I would take a crit one round, and nothing the next round, etc, so it made very little difference. If the temp hp could stack with itself so you could build up a buffer it would be a lot better.

Incidentally, Starlit Span tends to give up damage for ease of use-- it loses both strength modifier damage (partially correvted by propulsive, but then you still need dex and strength for less benefit) and multiple points of average damage off its weapon dice being so much stronger, multiplied by level of striking. You can still leverage that action econ to do nice things with it, but imo, securing kills through those extra points of damage is def competitive.

I also see it as positive in terms of the 3-action econ, because it actually uses it to sell the fantasy of the magus as setting up these massive spellstrikes as a fighting style, you're not just a magicky fighter who plays like a fighter but magic. You're making a tradeoff to use this sick technique that heavily restricts your fighting style, but when it pays off the enemy gets hit much, much harder.

Thats a form of interaction to ne, because the alternative is for every class to use their 3 actions the same ways, the modularity could actually make it homgenous. So a blend of classes that have super freefrom action econ and classes who don't, or have to get it back in other ways is nice.

I feel this way both about Maguses and Reload.

As to the damage, Magus suffers the damage drop far less than most. Losing str to hit and a smaller damage die don't matter much when you can spellstrike for a bunch of bonus damage and spellstrike more easily/often than melee counterparts.

And unless you are using a slotted spell, spellstrike doesn't come out much ahead of a fighter just swinging a sword twice. A lot of people think magus is a high damage melee class because of the occasional big crit, but over the course of a fight.. not really.

That is kind of the complaint about the action econ. You NEED all three actions to do your thing, while other classes really only need 1-2, leaving one free for stride, defensive action, etc. When your "thing" isn't really any better than one of those classes just attacking, it makes it a bit frustrating.

Magus has all the hallmarks of being rushed. Please bear in mind I am not knocking the designer, designing a class is a ton of work, and Logan did a great job. But Magus was almost totally redesigned from playtest, and this is around the same time the union came out with demands for more time to playtest properly.

It needed another pass or two to smooth out the rough edges, but time wasn't there I suspect.

Main thing I think melee needs (other than free action cascade) is either more HP, or really some action compression. Magus is fragile in melee range and does not have the actions to take proper defensive action. A single use action compression focus spell just doesn't cut it.

Give melee magus the ability to stride and spellstrike for 2 actions or SOMETHING.

Ninja u made cascade a free action in your games, right ?

Did it bridge the gap abit or how does it feel ?

I started doing it. It feels a LOT better. My PFS character is basically never in cascade with the normal rules because it just isn't worth an action in like 80% of fights given how restrictive it is.

I actually tweaked it further in my house rules, so arcane cascade isn't a stance. That way it can interact with other cool stances from archetypes, and you can be in cascade before the fight starts. (I treat it like having a weapon out, you can be in cascade if ready for combat to start, but not at a nar.)

That also gives it a higher action cost to switch damage types, which seems fair as exploiting a weakness is really good.

Getting rid of melee AoO triggering on spellstrike helps some too. But it is still hard to compete with hitting 90% as hard at 60 feet at doing it at melee range.

Starlight is better. Magus just doesn't give you much reason to go in melee. And if you think about it, regular magus can use a ranged spell in melee! Yay? Starlit can use a melee spell (which tend to be stronger particularly early) at 60 feet out, huge bump.

Arcane cascade I THINK was intended as a buff to melee magus to compensate, but the action economy on it is so bad.

Common homebrew fixes for melee magus.

Make arcane cascade either always on if your weapon is drawn or a free action. I prefer the former, but still takes an action to switch damage types.

Also no AoO on spellstrike.

You will find melee magus "flows" a lot better while not being overpowered at all.

I generally allow players to add property runes when they get the next level of fundamental rune.

For instance, if a specific magic weapon starts at +1, you can't add a property rune. When it goes up to +2 you can add one. So a weapon that starts at +1 will always have one less property rune.

That is since presumably paizo thinks it is balanced in its base form, this is just to help it scale.

Realistically, the value of damage drops off the more targets you hit. Damage to a second target is worth less than the first, damage to a third less than a second, etc. Since damage doesn't impair an enemies ability to kill you until it is dead.

Late game HP is already really high, even on mooks, and TKR is just a tickle at that point. Add that to the fact that your odds of needing an extra 5 foot burst drop pretty fast, as enemies clump up and most fights don't even have that many enemies.

Which is why it is odd that TKR is so so good amped at lvl 1. 2d6 damage in 2 bursts is a lot better than flaming hands, a lvl 1 slotted spell.

For example, at lvl 13 (which is a good level for TKR as it just got one of it's +2 level bumps) You are doing 8d6. 28 damage on average on a failed save. 35 if you are in unleash. A -2 level enemy (a mook) with only moderate hp has about 200hp. You barely tickled it.

Also, unleash is a little tricky to use with TKR since you can't unleash on your first turn. And TKRs only arguable value is blasting enemies while they are spread out and scattered, that first turn. Once they mix with you flanking starts, bit trickier.

It just makes for an unsatisfying experience as distant grasp STARTS are a really good blaster, then just tapers off.

I'm curious, is it the same situation for Secrets of Magic, which released shortly before Guns and Gears?

Oh for sure. Tbh, I wouldn't have a beef with it at all if the average damage was just a little bit higher, like 1d8/level. That would put it in similar range to other flexible blasts like a wizard's weapon storm or shadow blast, and in unleash, the average damage would be right at an unamped maxed out fireball.

Funnily enough, unlike many, I actually feel as an unamped cantrip, it's actually not half bad; as far as a zero resource cantrip goes; its essentially daze damage on two small bursts; this, plus the ability to poach electric arc, and pick up daze or Mind Blast, and TK projectile and you can hit every form of defense, which is really nice weakness targeting

Yup. Also remember you get these in lieue of more spell slots. It is always better to focus down targets, which is why AoE has such issues. Doing half damage to maybe more targets is BAD. TKR really needs better scaling, and preferably at +1 not +2.

One of my GM babies became a level 5 Thaumaturge for Society play. Have played her four times now and loved every second!

Decent to good damage, VERY good skills, as well as flexibility for those skills with Tome Implement. Being able to get a relevant lore for an adventure (for things that are not recall knowledge) or fill a void in the party setup (which can happen in society play) is amazing. And the Weapon Implement's AoO-like ability for thrown weapons (I am using a returning Chakram) has surprised GMs more than anything I can remember in recent play.

I also made a Psychic, which is currently Level 2 and has been played once so far. It was good. Distant Grasp / Emotional Acceptance has some nice offensive potential. Single target is nothing special yet, but will become much better at level 3+, but Amped Telekinetic Rend is very good at this level of play. The healing from Emotional Acceptance isn't very much, but it is nice and can be an interesting third action. Or be used for more actions if more offense isn't needed.
Not sure about the long term potential of the character, though.

Yeah, amped telekinetic rend sadly falls off hard.

Scaling is super weird though, at lvl 1 it is better than any other damaging spell in the game when amped. But it gets bad with that horrible scaling.

I think your biggest issue is that a psychic in melee combat is not going to hit at all accurately or hard and is going to be super squishy.

Your plan to wade into combat in round 4 isn't bad, but those are usually (not always) cleanup rounds after the threat is mostly dealt with, so might work?

I wouldn't go fighter though.

I would use unconventional weaponry as a human ancestry trait to get a martial weapon that will scale with you, at a cheap price! Warhammer should work, that is definitely common in other cultures hah.

Then instead of fighter take Champion. That is a lot easier for stats, since you just need str and cha, and you can use cha as your primary psychic stat.

That gets you heavy armor, access to lay on hands, etc etc.