Capn Cupcake's page

Personally I would love to know how Gunblades work. I'm a huge Final Fantasy fan, and I've got machinations (hah) to pitch a Gunblade wielding Magus to my DM when SoM comes out and I'd like to be able to do so without homebrewing, or at least as little as possible.

Inquisitive Tiefling wrote:

Since it has your attention I'm actually curious; what do you think of the Magus and the feedback you've gotten so far? (snip) Anything else in particular that's stood out as an issue for players?

I'll avoid talking about the solutions we're looking at. The main reason I appreciate this thread is that there are a few people saying the same things about Striking Spell and/or lower number of spells in every thread, which makes finding other information tough to find. Having a spot dedicated toward everything else gives room for the rest to get some attention.

I think the main thing is that the class was set up to allow for more variety in the spell effects you're putting out by allowing more spells, but folks on this forum are more interested in dealing damage. Nothing wrong with that, but I do think some of that is primed by both the P1 magus and by eldritch archer. The playtest magus is a way to try broadening that formula a bit, but hits the action economy wall.

The posts of people who do like Striking Spell often rely on a pretty intense buff and true strike regime to get the results they want. That's not ideal. We don't really want players to only get full enjoyment out of the class with that level of complexity and, often, repetition.

I think this is slightly untrue. We're not *just* worried about doing damage, we're worried about general accuracy. Our saving throw spells are also quite inaccurate so we're running into a situation where both debuffs and damage options are lackluster. I would honestly love to play a non-damage focused hexblade style build, where I debuff and cripple the enemies with my Striking Spells, but my DC being a full -3 compared to "full" casters makes that an impossibility. I'm not going to use my spell slots on 30% accurate debuff spells any more than I will on 30% accurate attack spells. Neither option is attractive which leaves self buff and attack spam.

Stands have few options, but Eidolons are supposed to have many options.

That is the problem with the current system.

Eidolons are not supposed to be stands, they are supposed to be their own creatures with their own abilities.

You're moving the goal post. The initial argument was "What if stands were all similar" and the rebuttal is "they ARE all similar and they all feel completely different from each other".

I have said before and I stand by this, I think Eidolons could use *some* customization at level 1. Not a ton, just enough to make it feel more like mine from a mechanical sense. I honestly get where Verzen is coming from. Two things that are completely identical mechanically feel the same, at least to me. Right now, for my personal tastes, there's not enough to differentiate one Angel from another, or one Beast from another.

All that said, I do not think another subsystem is the answer. It's clumsy, inelegant, and honestly sounds like a headache and a hassle. I still think the correct, simplest option is a small list of keywords and you can pick 1 for each weapon. That would be *massive* in terms of making them feel different.

Pathfinder weapons are almost all the same aside from a couple keywords tied to each. Just apple the same philosophy to the edilon's attacks. Giving one trip or disarm or backstabber isn't going to break anything at level 1, and you get an entire layer of customization for a pittance of design space.

Jojo was the progenitor of a lot of shonen tropes. If there's an aspect of action manga you like, chances are Jojo did it first.

I'm so bored of seeing people say "But trying to stack every advantage under the sun to reach a baseline competency everyone else already has is fun!" And seeing swathes of people explain that it's bad design to deaf ears.

Angel Hunter D wrote:

The math is about as debatable as wearing a mask, and everything else you've said has just shown how poorly the crit mechanic works for Striking Spell. The math is off if we can only under or over perform.

I think in general, people generally expect a bell curve of value. Most of the time decent, sometimes bad, sometimes really good.

Now, there can be hiccups and bumps in that bell curve, and its generally preferred that there is to create variation between classes. Circumstances then help vary the curve further.

I'm with you in feeling the curve may average to be a "good number" but that the curve feels inverted a bit for Striking Spell and a bit polarizing (in both senses).

Eldritch Shot is mathematically on point for instance, but if Striking Spell were to work that way and Class Paths were to stay the same I don't know that'd feel satisfying to me personally either.

Some people see the Magus as a big risk class (though I'd argue they should feel less "risky" than at least the Swashbuckler). I personally don't see them that way always (Kensai definitely) but they did derive a lot of value from Keen weapons and critical hits, so that theme was present.

How risky do you think the Magus should feel?

I think that would be a good indicator of how often each of us expect them to succeed and how great that success should be when they do succeed.

I personally want them to be a very low risk class. I want to feel like I outwitted and out maneuvered my opponents, not out lucked them. I think there's a place for high risk/high reward play as the default, but I don't want Magus to be it.

graystone wrote:

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure

And my interest suddenly fades after reading this.

We disagree here gray.

It's my favorite anime of all time and how I will imagine every summoner I ever make

I'm playing a Summoner tonight and it took all my will power to keep my Eidolon as a dragon and not a STANDO.

I think a quick and rough fix would be to just bump the damage dice to d10 and d6 and remove boost entirely. This gives the equivalent to a static +1 and no additional actions required.

Tangentially related since this is somewhat about damage math, I'd like to be able to get backstabber on one of the attacks either via feat or otherwise. It's a fun way to shore up the math further and adds an element of positioning into the mix.

I think saying the design is bad just because it doesn't work for specifically evil characters who want throw away minions is a little hyperbolic. You can literally do that now. This is for a different type of playstyle, with a different type of relationship with the Eidolon. You two have to watch each others backs and shore up each others weaknesses. Nobody is expendable because if something happens you're both screwed. I find it very engaging and I'm excited to explore that design space.

And I mean if you really want that, you can still do it. Just play anything with an animal companion, or use the existing summon spells. This just isn't for that specifically, but there's still plenty of fun to be had if you're willing to explore the options presented. :)

sharkmanley84 wrote:

Also is the lack of a 1st class feat a typo?

...smh I've built 4 summoners and never realized they were missing the Lv1 Feat.

Real answer is probably yes, there are a handful of classes who skip the level 1 class feat.

I'm pretty sure it's only casters that skip it, so they didn't give it to the Magus or Summoner. Man they really piled on the drawbacks to these classes in this playtest huh?

im to the point where i view shared hp as the smaller issue

i find boost/reinforce eidolon to be a much bigger issue. as you feel like you are playing a bard (only one right answer for your third action) without the power of the bard.

feels bad to play

This I sort of agree with. I think Mark's proposed variable action version of Act Together helps and I think one more small tweak would make it perfect. Not sure what that tweak is currently but I really do feel like the class is close to being amazing.

Posted this in a couple of other threads but given that this has now devolved into arguing about Eidolons, I'm adding it here as well. For the record I think Eidolons could use a *little* more customization, but honestly I don't really want to go through a ton more than that. Just a choice or two would more than do it for me, which is why I came up with the below.

I think a lot of customization can be built in by just giving a small list of keywords you can apply to your weapons at level 1. Suddenly my 1d4 Bludgeoning Tripping Tail attack is completely different from your 1d4 Slashing Disarming Crab Claw attack.

Weapons in Pathfinder 2e are, largely, very similar to each other but they FEEL different because the mechanical differences carry enough weight for our imaginations. Just give us some keywords to play with so we can attribute some of that weight to our own Eidolons and make them feel that much more tangible.

Shared HP just feels like a more elegant way to do life link. My only issue right now (I've yet to actually engage in playtesting, since real life has gotten in the way) is that it feels weird for the Summoner to care about Con while the Eidolon can nearly ignore it.

That's a valid criticism I feel. I'm not sure how you'd fix that though. I feel like taking the higher of the two is too powerful but I'm not sure how else to tackle that.

To preface: I know some people don't, and they're entitled to their opinion. This thread is not to say they're wrong for feeling the way they do or anything of the sort. I just also want to share my own personal feelings on the subject and provide positive feedback for a feature I like.

I actually really like this feature a lot. It changes combat in a way that hasn't been done in 2e yet. It allows me to essentially occupy 2 spaces at once, each occupation bringing different values. I've got a meaty bruiser up front and a squishy caster in the back, and my positioning on both makes for a strong departure in traditional tactics. If an enemy crits my eidolon, the healer doesn't have mess up their own positioning to heal them. They can take a safer position in the back with me and heal me from there. That's *so* cool. Likewise, I can send my Eidolon up to beat some face while I shift to another part of the battlefield and provide buff support. Regardless of fluff, regardless of canon, regardless of previous lore, this is a mechanic that I really want to explore and work with. I'm a tactical person by nature and this is a whole paradigm that I've never gotten to work with before, and the possibilities are deeply interesting to me.

I do think the Summoner needs work. Act together needs a change. A couple days ago Mark suggested making it between 1-3 actions to allow you to still use spells with it, and I think that's a great, elegant way to free up actions and allow some more turn by turn versatility without actually giving it any more raw power or abilities.

I also think the Eidolons themselves could use just a hair of customization, but that can be as simple as "pick from this list of keywords. Apply 1 keyword to each of your Eidolons weapons" So now my 1d4 Bludgeon Trip tail feels different from your 1d4 Slash Disarm crab claw. It's a very small, very easy change that makes the weapons feel much more tangible instead of feeling like carbon copies of each other.

I definitely support Undead. I thought it would be a sure thing to play a straightforward necromancer. And if we don't get it, it should be very easy to homebrew.

Mellored wrote:

Kalaam wrote:

Making it 3 actions makes its use very complicated until you have access to Haste. Plus it's so... bland. It's not even a Spell Strike, it's just casting then Striking. Cool you avoid MAP if the spell had an attack roll, but that's really a very, very, very minor benefit not worth a whole feat.

You think +5 to hit is not worth a feat?

It's basically Double Slice.

It's not worth it when your spell attack modifier is normally about 5 less than your strike attack modifier without any MAP. It's basically like the magus is giving up all the unlimited use damage increasing feats or features of the other martial classes to get 2 uses of a feature that makes a spell attack -5 instead of -10.

Don't forget that

1) You don't even get to make the spell attack if you miss with the weapon (different from double slice)

2) The spell attack is still affected by MAP so if you hit with your 2nd swing instead of the first the spell is still at an effective -10 (-15 if you somehow hit with the 3rd attack).

I think the share action and HP are interesting but they dont work for the Summoner.

It should be given to another class that is built around that. The summoner is built around having two creatures. And the current system does not feel like that.

You know were sharing actions/HP would make sense? A Stand/Persona class. Now in that context yeah, shared action and HP would make a lot of sense.

Dude it's taken ALL of my effort not to just say screw it and play a stand user lol. I'm playing a dragon summoner but my heart says otherwise.

I think I actually partially agree with you on point 1. It doesn't feel so much like a summoned creature as it does an extension of your character. I think the key difference is that that's an interesting angle for me to explore because I have no attachment to the PF1 summoner and it's a frustrating departure from the types of characters you want to be able to build. I don't necessarily think either of us are wrong for feeling the way we feel.

As a thought experiment, how would you remedy this? Something like, 6/8HP per level for the summoner, Summons get their own HP pool, Synthesis summoners get 10HP per level but their summons function the way they do now?

Capn Cupcake wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

ExOichoThrow wrote:

I for one, love the direction summoner has gone in, barring the lack of customization in the playtest.

I really think Paizo should listen to people who buy their products and support it, rather than people who throw tantrums over playtest not being what they want and then admitting they dont really play the game anyways and have just waited for it to "get better"

I'm really tired of 1e grogs expecting everything ever created to be catered to 1e players only.

I supported PF1 for all the years it was out. Bought tons of books and APs. I guess I'm the customer they want to lose. The one who played the summoner 6 or 7 times. Bought all the books like Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Magic, APG, so many books I can't even remember all their names I still have sitting in boxes at my house. Kingmaker, Runelords, Carrion Crown, Giantslayer, Wrath of the Righteous, Mythic Adventures, and the like.

Sure. I'm just some grog that shouldn't be listened to by Paizo.

That's an incredibly entitled opinion. They're not making the game for YOU specifically. If the summoner looked like the PF1 summoner I wouldn't have given it a second look, but this new direction and idea? I find it interesting, it tickles my imagination, I want to see what can be done with it. I don't think it's perfect, not by a long shot. It needs tweaks and work, but the core concept is enticing and enchanting and I want to play with it. I threw out my idea to play a Magus (my own personal PF1 favorite class) to play this instead in an upcoming campaign. But I certainly don't feel entitled to the Magus despite disagreeing with the current design choices. I realize its a bigger world than me, there are more people than me, and I'm willing to accept that things move on. I'm still gonna play the system because honestly it's amazing even if there are things I disagree with. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not a great view. If you want

...

Sorry, I didn't elaborate properly. I think that would also be fun, and one of the things I would change about the current iteration would be better Eidolon customization. But the shared action pool and shared action economy are VERY interesting to me. Enough that I really want to toy around with it. I like your ideas quite a bit and wouldn't be disappointed at all if they implemented it at all. :)

Edit: Apparently your quote got eaten in the quote chain. This was directed at Verzen. I'm really, really bad at forums.

I was responding to when you asked me about my opinion on your evolution points. I want there to be more customization, I like the shared HP pool/action economy. Okay now I'm done lol <3

Honestly in the boot. I don't know why, but the image of someone kneeling down, and then rising with a huge honkin' sword is rad as heck.

ExOichoThrow wrote:

I for one, love the direction summoner has gone in, barring the lack of customization in the playtest.

I really think Paizo should listen to people who buy their products and support it, rather than people who throw tantrums over playtest not being what they want and then admitting they dont really play the game anyways and have just waited for it to "get better"

I'm really tired of 1e grogs expecting everything ever created to be catered to 1e players only.

I supported PF1 for all the years it was out. Bought tons of books and APs. I guess I'm the customer they want to lose. The one who played the summoner 6 or 7 times. Bought all the books like Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Magic, APG, so many books I can't even remember all their names I still have sitting in boxes at my house. Kingmaker, Runelords, Carrion Crown, Giantslayer, Wrath of the Righteous, Mythic Adventures, and the like.

Sure. I'm just some grog that shouldn't be listened to by Paizo.

That's an incredibly entitled opinion. They're not making the game for YOU specifically. If the summoner looked like the PF1 summoner I wouldn't have given it a second look, but this new direction and idea? I find it interesting, it tickles my imagination, I want to see what can be done with it. I don't think it's perfect, not by a long shot. It needs tweaks and work, but the core concept is enticing and enchanting and I want to play with it. I threw out my idea to play a Magus (my own personal PF1 favorite class) to play this instead in an upcoming campaign. But I certainly don't feel entitled to the Magus despite disagreeing with the current design choices. I realize its a bigger world than me, there are more people than me, and I'm willing to accept that things move on. I'm still gonna play the system because honestly it's amazing even if there are things I disagree with. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not a great view. If you want to stop playing because they didn't do one class exactly how you want them to, that's your prerogative but again, it's a very entitled position to take.

Thanks for the feedback folks!

I am pondering changing to a state where Act Together is a variable action activity (one to three actions), where one of the two characters can use all the actions, and the other one does a single action. So for instance, Act Together for three actions, the summoner casts summon animal, and the eidolon Strikes once. This would also allow Summoner two-action-spell via Act Together while eidolon Strides, then eidolon Strikes, so it increases flexibility significantly.

This sounds like an awesome change. I showed my GM and he's enthusiastic about it, so I think we're going to play it this way and see how it turns out. It's funny I went into this playtest super hype for the Magus (my favorite PF1 class) and ignoring the Summoner entirely and it's completely flipped for me. I find the Summoner to be oozing with flavor, and I really want to play one. :D

This thread has been a heck of a journey.

In PF1, magus is hands-down my favorite class and summoner is hands-down my least favorite, so this playtest is particularly wild for me. The former feels like a very fun hybrid with a lot of interesting flavor choices due to archetypes, and the latter feels like The Eidolon Show with a walk-on guest role for your PC.

So imagine my surprise when I read the playtest document and was more or less unimpressed by the magus and got the anime starry-eyed squee face when I read the summoner.

As to both classes, 4 slots a day poses some really weird issues, which I guess makes sense for a really weird design choice (but I love weird.) But the solution to one class's problem is not a solution to the other, I think. Granting more spell slots is a simple fix, but not necessarily the right one. I think it would grant the summoner the ability to over-buff on a given adventuring day, whereas a single slot at the "abandoned" spell levels would give the magus some much-needed opportunities to buff without adding to their blast options (while a 4th level shocking grasp will still do more damage than electric arc heightened to max at 19th level, it's probably still better used with, say, a second haste or slow spell for the day).

Until I get a chance to hop into the playtest and get behind the wheel of these classes (which may not even happen, due to life constraints) obviously everything is speculation, but just based off of the read-through, I feel like a few basic alterations would probably help even these classes out.

** spoiler omitted **...

Ooh I *love* summon spell as a focus spell, that would be so cool. Personally I would like that as a feat so you're not stuck with it if you want to go all in on Eidolon beatdown goodness, but I think it's a super cool idea :D

I feel like the general consensus (I'm certainly not saying everyone feels this way) is that Summoner with shared HP pool is interesting, but the Eidolons need more customization and I largely agree with that. I'd like to see more support like that currently. Right now Eidolon design reminds me a lot of the fluffier indie ttrpgs my friends prefer, with loose mechanics that can be reflavored how you want but my issue is the whole reason I like Pathfinder 2e is my decisions have a tangible, crunchy consequence to them. They mean something, and if I just scratch out unarmed claw attack and write in cool two handed sword from the heavens they both mean the same thing mechanically. I'd like to see just a little bit more crunch to the eidolons.

Honestly, I actually really like the Summoner. I think it's undertuned, and it needs some more bells and whistles to play with on its turns, but I think it's *almost* there. I'm really excited to play one in an upcoming campaign.

I know this is probably a big ask, and I don't see it coming to fruition, but I think it would be a genuinely good idea, at least in the extreme case of the Magus.

I think it would be a good idea to give us a couple of potential fixes straight from the devs to try out and report back on. To at least give us a baseline to try out, see how they feel, and report back on. It's become mostly clear that Striking Spell isn't working at intended, and is only usable in extreme corner cases that require a fair bit of min-maxing and possible item abuse.

So rather than letting us test this version further, but instead of doing an entirely separate playtest, I believe a stickied thread of some alternate ideas to try from the devs would be a good middle ground. It allows us alternatives to test against a baseline (The Magus as is).

Those numbers don’t include the chance that the spell fails to hit/enemy succeeds at their save. That is a 13% chance that you never make that roll at all. It’s not the chance that the spell fails. It’s the chance that there is no spelll, despite spending 2 actions to cast it.

This. Spending 2 actions to never even cast the spell in the first place is the fundamental issue. If you got a *significant* boost (say, if the spell was automatically successful on a weapon strike) then it woudl be fine, but adding in a significant chance that you won't even actually cast the spell is terrible.

Edit: You know what this reminds me of? DnD 3.5e Arcane Spell Failure. For anyone who's unfamiliar, every piece of armor gave a chance that arcane spells would just fail outright even though you spent the time and actions to cast them. You got the benefit from the armor, at the expense of just outright losing spells for no benefit. That's *exactly* what this feels like.

graystone wrote:

Salamileg wrote:

graystone wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I feel like the speed at which people go from 0 to "literally unplayable"/abusive is a large part of why the developers assiduously avoid the boards thee days.

It wouldn't be as bad if there wasn't people that, in response to those people, go from 0 to "it's literally the best thing every and should never change!!! [and you're a bad person for think anything else]". When you have those diametrically opposed camps posting, it's like watching political ads... There are some people here that will jump in an the slightest bit of critical... :P

I haven't seen anyone say they wanted no change.

I never specified I was talking about a class as a whole: it applies to the parts debated in a specific thread. Some people LOVE 4 slot casting and don't want it to change for instance. Those people might take suck an extreme stance there and then advocate for change elsewhere.

now there are some fairly rabid pro-paizo people around ARE pretty much like that for everything paizo but I haven't seen them posting for this.

So, the big difference here is you're talking about stuff like specific things people dont want to change, versus people saying a class is unplayable.

I love the four slot idea, and I love certain aspects of the Magus. I think spellstrike isnt great but it isnt as bad as most people act.

I've been called essentially a shill for saying that multiple times. It makes it feel like playtest discussion is pointless because no matter what I say, people just want to hate it.

Striking Spell been mathematically proven to be the worst use of your time under any given circumstances. If you're still insisting it's not that bad I think people are in their right to be frustrated with you. The concept is sound and delivers on a fun fantasy. The execution needs a lot of work before it's in a workable state.

I don't think their is anything wrong with unicore requesting you playtest the class before you judge it...

There isn't anything wrong with requesting someone playtest it before you judge it, but they've been systematically shooting down every possible criticism of the core mechanics behind the class with "I think playing this way is really fun", even to people who HAVE playtested it like myself.

It's not just in this thread, it's been systematic across multiple threads, across multiple days and it's been really exhausting trying to have a conversation about possible improvements to the class and its shortcomings without someone coming and and talking about how much fun they have when the bard buffs them and they have flanking and the enemy is clumsy and they can cast true strike and-

And any attempt to explain that a class shouldn't fail under less than perfect conditions is met with constant, draining opposition.

TheGentlemanDM wrote:

I'd rather have a reliable class.

Having a class that misses more often than not, especially in situations where they've dedicated multiple actions and resources towards that attempt, results in a great deal of frustration and dissatisfaction.

I don't want to be useless two-thirds of the time just because I might crit the boss into oblivion with a spell.

I'd rather put out damage steadily and consistently and feel like I'm properly contributing.

Misses how? and with what? The ranger is a class that misses about as often as it hits. The barbarian is a class that misses even more often, especially if you are assuming that it will attack 3 times a round in your comparisons the magus.

Have you tried playtesting it yet? It is actually pretty fun in play to see your tactical choices cascade into a pretty impressive round. Being a full martial that can also cast spells, but does so better than a wizard when you are most successful as a martial is pretty cool.

Even just making sure you pick up flanking (something made not too difficult with sliding synthesis) is enough of an accuracy booster to make a noticeable difference.

Misses because unlike Rangers and Barbarians, you don't GET to make your second attack if you miss with the first with Striking Spell. You can't just wind up and take another shot, you're done. And dude, we know you like setting up and novaing, but please stop telling other people they have to enjoy it. If other people don't like that playstyle, that's their prerogative but you insisting that it's fun is really draining. It's great that you enjoy it. That playstyle shouldn't be the default, it should be the option. It'd be great as a synthesis for people who want to work with their party and make it happen, but the class *needs* to be able to stand on its own two feet at the base level and currently it doesn't.

So have people tested out a higher level magus using fiery form to have a one action, damage boosted cantrip? because that seems exactly what people are asking for.

So at 13th level, the level this comes online attack bonuses are +26 for the weapon and +21 for the spell. The average damage on a d8 weapon at that level with no other bells and whistles will be 20.5, and Fiery Body bumps the damage on Produce Flame to 24, so it is technically better than attacking twice with a normal weapon, not sure what an agile weapon does to the calculations but that is better. Problem is, Fiery body is a 2 action spell to cast itself which sets you behind a turn, and for that same turn you can Electric Arc/Energize Strikes for a +3 damage boost to weapon attacks which is a net +6 to damage across 2 strikes compared to Fiery Produce Flame's net +3 so it's still behind Energize and strike spam, and at the cost of a spell slot compared to Energize Strikes' no resources at all.

If you wanted to you could do it, but it's probably not worth the resources. Fiery Body does give some other benefits which may or may not be worth it to you though.

((And to be clear, I know we've clashed on other threads so I want you to know I came in to do these calculations in good faith, I really did want to see if it was better))

I see. I hadn't realized so many of the combat cantrips were save based not attack based.

It's not just that. Spell Attack math is currently pretty flawed for the Magus. They have lower int, no (meaningful) master spellcaster proficiency, and spell attacks don't get weapon mod which means the higher level you go, the worse off spell attacks are. It's true that Striking Spell doesn't apply MAP. That doesn't mean much when your spell attacks are already at -5 compared to your weapon attack. At level 13 your weapon attacks are at +26, and your spell attacks are at +21. It's pretty flawed from the ground up.

I don't really see a lot of people being angry about the class itself (a couple people are, but they're wrong). Most of the frustration I've seen and experienced myself stems from trying to evaluate and find the problems in the playtest, you know, as you do, pointing out those flaws, brainstorming solutions with people and having a couple of very loud, very insistent people yell that the class is fine the way it is. I'm not mad that it's in an incomplete state or needs work, it's a playtest. That's what they're for. I'm just getting frustrated that this forum which very much is for pointing out problems is becoming a shouting match against people who don't like it when we do that.

Ligraph wrote:

Uh, no? Save spells work like this, attack spells (i.e. Shocking Grasp, Polar Ray, almost all cantrips) don't. The difference between save and attack spells does need to be considered here, but its not that great even with save spells currently (someone's ran the numbers, I don't have them handy).

And it can't be allowed to be 'great', lest Magus would invalidate all other martial classes.

Bit of a conundrum, but what would you rather see? The Spell Strike hitting more often, but for middling damage outside of crits, or swingy damage with the potential of really massive crits?

As for the accuracy issue: Apart from not being able to max out your casting stat on lv. 1, a Magus has a better chance to hit with his spell then a martial (other then Fighter) has with their second attack. It is basically equivalent to a Double Slice with a non-agile off-hand weapon.

And as an unique feature, a critical melee strike also boosts the effect of the attached spell one tier. This is not nothing.

You have to remember that Master weapon proficiency and Greater Weapon Specialisation are things that a Magus gets. So their primary melee attack is as potent as any other martial's, save for maybe hanging behind -1 to-hit half of the time on account of non-maxed melee stat.

And that means that Spell Strike has to be measured against a martial's second attack in a turn, with the caveat that the action tax they pay is severe and better results in a decent payoff.

But the chance to actually land their spell is only -2 compared to a full caster, which is equivalent to a second melee strike at -2 to to-hit compared to the first attack of any martial. You can't consider the Magus in a vacuum here, you must consider how they stack up to other martial classes. And most martial classes don't get a second attack at a generous -2 to to-hit.

Except they don't have more accuracy with their spell than other martial do with their 2nd attack. Because they don't (reasonably) get master casting, and they don't get item bonuses to their spells it stays as bad as an agile attack. Starting at level 13 you're always at either a -4 or -5 compared to the weapon. At level 13 your weapon is at +26, your spell at +21. It starts middling at low levels, and due to the way spell attack math works, it can only get worse from there. This is a class that, in its current iteration, does not and cannot scale properly.

Unicore wrote:

Well one big advantage of being able to wait until the next round to unleash the spell, and not having the action of casting the spell tied to the specific strike roll you use to make the attack, is that you can use striking spell with a lot of interesting MC martial abilities this way on that second round, pretty much any one that gives you a strike, and it lets you use true strike on the attack without haste. Going 2 hander and charging up your weapon with a spell, then unleashing it with a true strike power attack can be pretty devastating and epic. If you try the class in play, you will see that really setting up your powerhouse round can be pretty fun, especially when the bard uses inspire heroics on you. It also doesn't prevent you from doing it all at once when the situation is right for it.

I've playtested this exact thing. It's not fun no matter how many times you insist.

This. I don't want to have to play 4 dimensional chess in order to reach the lofty heights of "almost as good as the other members of the party".

Edit: To be clear, I do think this is a valid way of playing, but it needs to be an options and currently it's the default and it sucks. This kind of play would probably be fine as a synthesis if they could somehow balance it, but as an entire class it's alienating, frustrating, and requires the entire party AND the DM to cooperate to make it work. That's not fun, that's frustrating.

TheGentlemanDM wrote:

AestheticDialectic wrote:

Forgive my ignorance I'm less familiar with the game and the rules than everyone else, but I do agree with the idea that the attack landing should deliver the spell. However I can't help but ask what intelligence would do for the class without it being a part of the spell attack role? It's pretty bad already that max int is 16 for a magus due to how stat arrangements work, and that you also have to choose between int or str apex, potentially putting you behind another +1 in addition to master instead of legendary spell casting. That's +4 less than a dedicated caster. That's 20% less accurate when spells only had between 45 and 65% chance of hitting in most cases anyways... Idk seems super unreliable but at the same time I'm not sure what else a Magus uses int for. Int could be unnecessary if you don't need it to hit

*edit* I do however absolutely find the way the spell casting is handle super cool and interesting and if too few slots is a problem I do think 2/2/2 or 2/2/2/2 is a better solution than full slots

You are absolutely correct to point out this issue.

The short answer is that auto-hit isn't the answer, but a strong buff from the hit is.

I don't think so. They still need intelligence if they actually want to cast a spell normally, or use save-based stuff. Int dump would be possible if the weapon attack was used for the spell attack... but it would cut off a large swath of their options in doing so.

That's true actually. You can already play casters and dump their casting stat if you don't take saving throw spells. This isn't all that much different.

Yep. There's a saying in retail that applies here. "People never know what they want, but they always know what they don't want."

Squiggit wrote:

Hard disagree on a lot of fronts. A Paizo that's unwilling to innovate and try new things is a company I'm definitely not interesting in. Imagine if every class in PF1 looked like the CRB classes because they didn't want to "reinvent the wheel." Sounds miserable.

Turning them into generic spellcasters, with the way PF2 does spellcasters, sounds awful and like it would suck much of the flavor out of the classes and throwing around hyperbolic buzzwords like "disaster" constantly doesn't make that sound any more fun.

I don't agree with the radical view of the OP, but I do agree with the basis behind it, in that the new spell progression seems weird and not very intuitive or appreciable from a balance and sense standpoint.

The spell progression table had me confused, and with the Spells being so limited, it literally turns the Magus and Summoner into cantrip practitioners and focus fanatics. They can only ever have 4 slots at a time is silly design for someone who is supposed to be some super awesome variant spellcaster, since even a Magus who can debuff with spells like Slow or Phantasmal Killer at their head would still be welcome and meaningful gameplay, and Summoners, as they stand now, have a dead primary attribute since their bread and butter is healing and buffing, both just like in PF1.

We had a Magus in PF1 who enjoyed being able to bring Wizard versatility and blasting to the table while at the same time being able to go toe to toe with their spellcasting, the only parts they hated were the convoluted rules for their main schtick (which is mostly fixed in PF2, but still too action-reliant for my tastes). Also had a Summoner that required our GM to nerf them to make them not so strong of a buff bot, yet even then the Eidolon was very strong and useful in that group without having to sacrifice actions or own HP to make effective.

Paizo can reinvent the wheel for classes all they want. They should be told if it starts to look like a trapezoid, though, and in my...

Personally I'd be fine if the focus spells they had were more up to snuff. A Magus with focus spells as strong as domains or Oracle Mysteries would be a lot of fun but a +1 to your weapon that doesn't even work most levels? It's insulting.

Nymel wrote:

richienvh wrote:

Since they have only four slots per day, a better way to keep the mechanic as it currently stands and improve it would be for the spell not to be spent when the Magus misses the spell attack roll, remaining on for the duration you proposed.

To be clear, Striking Spell would still have the same action economy and mechanics, but attack spells would not be lost if you miss the respective spell attack rolls.

That would be an action economy buff for them since they would not "waste" actions or spell slots on failed spells.

It would effectively halve the number of actions they need to spend on casting spells and double the number of combat spells they get per day.

There is also a secondary problem where it would increase the power of spells with spell attack rolls compared to standard spell DCs. This is because on a failure spell attacks would miss completely and could be retried on the next action for full power, however spells with standard DCs would have half-effect and be expended.

I agree that they might have too few spells, but I think the best fix for that is to simply give them additional spells per day.

I think that the core design of the current implementation is well thought out and will work well. It just needs a few tweaks since right now it's too punishing when things go wrong and not rewarding enough when things go right.

richienvh wrote:

Personally I would change Striking Spell to Spell Combat, and allow the use of any spell with it. Making it so when you invest a spell in yourself, you can then release it a single action (or a reaction upon landing a Strike) up until the end of your next turn.
I'd probably also add a "Hold the Charge" action with the concentrate trait, allowing the hold the spell in for one more round (up to 1 minute, after which you'd be tired) and triggering your synthesis by doing so.
That way it opens up more flexibility since you have a wider choice of spells to use, the bonus on crit is

...

This opens up its own problems though. If you hit on your 2nd attack in a round the spell is cast at the same MAP. It's not a problem save spells but it's a major problem for attack spells, and that really needs to get ironed out in any solution that gets implemented. Saving the spell no matter what just means you'll be multi attacking more on subsequent rounds, but your 2nd attack, if a hit, will almost always result in a lost spell.

Some quick math on that:

At level 13 you're attacking at +26, and spell attacks are at +22. Already very bad. But if you hit with your second strike that drops to +21 and +17 on the spell. The spell is at an effective -9 basically guaranteeing it can't hit on a 2nd Strike. Again this doesn't affect saving throw spells, but I would really like a solution that doesn't make attack roll spells the objectively worst option in every situation.

Yeah I like the direction and concepts presented. The math is all out of wack but the core ideas are really solid and interesting. I'm excited to see what the final products look like.

Capn Cupcake wrote:

RexAliquid wrote:

Capn Cupcake wrote:

graystone wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

Also, the ignoring MAP bit means they can use spells that normal gishes can't effectively combine with strikes.

This isn't really true. First, the MAO of the strike you hit with if also the MAP of the spell so you hit on that -5, so is the spell. Even without MAP's, you have a lower casting stat and proficiency so you have a pseudo-MAP from that. Now if you hit on that -5 hit you get both that AND the lower from your casting.

This is what I see a lot of the Magus defenders ignoring. If you hit on your 2nd weapon strike your spell is at an effective -8 to -10 due to lower ability mod, lower proficiency, no potency bonus, etc.

Trying to hit on your third Strike with a charged weapon is truly an act of desperation.

I didn't say 3rd strike, I said 2nd.

Your second attempt should be at 0 penalty if you are spending a spell slot for it. Are you trying to waste your spells?

You didn't read what I said properly. Saving MAP is effectively meaningless when your spells are ALREADY lagging behind your weapon attacks by -4 or -5 due to slower proficiency, a lower stat, and not getting item bonuses. Even at a 0 penalty they're still wildly inaccurate. Saving map just makes them less bad, but it's still the worst use of your turn you can make.

Edit: To clarify again, if you Striking Spell, miss, go to next turn, miss, and then hit with your SECOND STRIKE your spell is at an effective -8 to -10. -5 from MAP, -1 from Int being lower than dex/str, -2 from proficiency being behind, and -x based on your weapon rune which isn't getting applied. At level 13 you should be attacking at a +26 on your weapon strike and a +21 on your spell strike. If you hit with your second weapon strike for the turn then that drops to +21/+22 on weapon (not agile vs agile) and +17 on spell. That's 9 lower than your initial weapon strike, which will never, ever, ever hit. Your 2nd strike is useless for landing spells.

Having just got done with doing a playtest at level 8, this is my current take on the best way to play it.

At level 6 take Energizing Strikes, and never use Striking Spell at all. If you spent turn 1 to cast a cantrip and Energize, you get a full fight's worth of +2 or more to weapon damage rolls which is a far better use of your time. Once I switched to this method of fighting I was hitting more often, and still had an action left over to use how I saw fit. It didn't feel satisfying, but I was merely bored instead of constantly frustrated that my core class feature didn't work.

Captain Morgan wrote:

Also, the ignoring MAP bit means they can use spells that normal gishes can't effectively combine with strikes.

This isn't really true. First, the MAO of the strike you hit with if also the MAP of the spell so you hit on that -5, so is the spell. Even without MAP's, you have a lower casting stat and proficiency so you have a pseudo-MAP from that. Now if you hit on that -5 hit you get both that AND the lower from your casting.

This is what I see a lot of the Magus defenders ignoring. If you hit on your 2nd weapon strike your spell is at an effective -8 to -10 due to lower ability mod, lower proficiency, no potency bonus, etc.

Angel Hunter D wrote:

First, your fighter does all of that better than any other class due to proficiency - and has access to unique options as well. Fighters don't really have a "main class feature" but they can do all the combat stuff and do it better.

Second, Sudden Charge happens in 3/4 combats I've run and seen in Age of Ashes and PFS.

Third, how is it different from a wizard casting a spell and using a bow? It's worse than that, that's the problem.

All of that? Really? The one thing Fighters have over other martials is +2 accuracy. With one weapon group. No rage or totems, no Sneak Attack, no Inspiration or Panache. And no spells of course.

And in case it eluded you: Trip and Disarm, while counting as attacks, are still very much skill checks, where a Fighter has no advantage over any other class at all.

As for Sudden Charge, table variance is a thing. I can not say I did get to use it often.

As for third... Spellstrike is basically Double Slice for an attack spell/cantrip and a melee strike. With the downside that you only get to roll your spell attack if your melee attack hits, but both rolls are made at full attack bonus. And seeing that a Magus gets Master proficiency in weapon attacks, just like any martial class, the fact that their casting proficiency lags a tier just means their second attack isn't made with an Agile weapon (for comparison with Double Slice).

So what the Wizard lacks in weapon proficiency, the Magus lacks in spell proficiency. Looks like an even trade.

graystone wrote:

Not at all: you asked what was different. The Magus doesn't have those attack options OR those the number of spell slots to cast their spells more than 4 times. THAT is what if different: the magus DOES NOT have interesting options past basic Strike/skill checks and 4 spells per day if you ignore their main class feature. The fighter/wizard has much, much, much MORE to do.

Uh what? The Magus gets 2 slots per spell level and, like any other caster, can...

Once again, the math has been done for every scenario, Spell Strike is objectively always worse than attacking twice or attacking and casting. Striking Spell is broken, it does not work. It punishes you for using it.

Actually a - means you dont have access to those slots. Like a Ring of Wizardry would give you no benefit. If it was a 0 I would see no issue with it. Upcasting is not the same as having first level spells but being able to cast a lower level spell in a higher slot making it a higher level spell.

I hope I am wrong in this line of thinking.

I think it's important to follow the rules as closely as possible, even if it seems unreasonable. That's the point of these stress tests: To test the stress. It might be the intent (and probably is) that you can still use staves and such, but the way it's currently written you can't and that ambiguity should be addressed for the final product.

Similar to the Summoner's Primal Roar taking a penalty on the demoralize because the beast isn't speaking the correct language (or any language at all). Probably not the intent, but that's what's written and it needs to be pointed out and addressed, not left to DM fiat.

I was accounting slide, but at this point it's semantics.

An action to give a passive boost to damage may or may not be better than a second chance to land the strike. That "may or may not" is directly tied to how many attacks you will benefit from it. And as i said, due to how magus work, not many.

Not a bad feat, not a great one either, i actually agree with your rating (but for slightly different reasons).

That said, i still disagree on the other ones i pointed out for the reasons i wrote in the first post (all in good faith though, i assume the rason why you asked opinions about your ratings in your post was exactly that)

I'm not advocating this as positive health for the class but rather trying to salvage what we've been given

Would it be better to just...cantrip and Energizing Strikes then spend future turns attacking twice? I honestly feel like that might actually be the best way to play the class as frustrating as that is.

So I think one major issue that the magus is running into in play testing, is that a bunch of armchair designers have had a year now to imagine how the magus features were going to look, that when it dropped, and it looked different than they expected, they are spending their time on these boards trying to argue that their idea is better, rather than looking honestly at what is present in the class and how to have fun with it.

For me, the ability to crit fish like no other class in the game, and do so with spells that have some of the most fun and interesting crit riders in the game is incredibly new design space I had never considered before. I haven't even started to look at what you can do with martial MCs that do cool things with your ability to make a strike.

One thing I really respect and enjoy about PF2 is that most of the core mechanics are all very similar to each other, but the classes give you very small ways of really turning those mechanics on their head. The ranger and the hunted shot for example. Subtle, but overall quite game changing.

The Magus is similar in that, on the surface striking spell is relatively subtle and not that different from a caster/martial casting a spell and making an attack roll. However, the sliding synthesis and the crit slider of on the weapon attack actually add a lot of difference, if you set yourself up to exploit it. I don't want the magus to invalidate MC gishes as a waste of time. I don't want them to just be flatly better than cast a spell and attack in a turn. I want them to do something different than that in a way that previous Gish builds cant. The current spell strike does that.

True strike is the obvious stand out way to exploit that. The keen weapon rune on the runic impression is another, less grand, but viable option for dealing with enemies that you can't get the accuracy advantage on. A familiar and familiar focus can be a good way to exploit what you can do with your focus powers, which again, it seems like people are trying harder to...

There's a large gap between "This isn't what I wanted so I'm upset about it" and "Crit fishing is an inherently unhealthy design because the highs are too high and the lows are too low and it's just too swingy to be healthy for the game" and insulting people who recognize that probably isn't doing you any favors. You like crit fishing. Good for you. Most people don't. Right now the only way to make the Magus even remotely viable is to twist the campaign into knots around the Magus's whims and I'm very glad you get joy out of doing that but that's not viable or healthy for most tables.

But you need to stop insinuating people who are aware of the inherent flaws in its current design are somehow disingenuous or unreasonable just because you find joy in something that's going to frustrate 80% of the people who play the class.

I'm not sure that we shouldnt.

Staff of divination is arguably the best way to crit fish in this edition and Magus is still a critfishing class like PF1.

Any consideration for class balance has to account for that.

Then my argument doesn't change. Striking Spell is badly designed and it shouldn't be designed this way.