Yes but fatal and deadly don't apply to hits, only crits, and the spell specifically goes out if its way to say that you don't treat a crit spell attack as a crit melee attack...
The main point I wanted to make was that non - damage definitely don't apply, since it seems that OP thought they do and no one corrected them.
That being said I do think that reading the spell such that crit traits don't apply is a valid RAW approach, but probably unintended due to the subtlety of the phrasing it hinges on. A good candidate for an FAQ or errata.
1: Not necesseraly, Spell Strike could still work with saves (which would be an incentive to raise INT)
2: Depends if you wish to use your spells for other things or if you want to use saves. Some spells also gain damage based on your ability modifier. It should be possible to play a Magus that doesn't rely heavily on INT, their saves would suck and they'd lose some damage on cantrips, and in exchange they'd gain whatever they want. More HP, social abilities or wisdom saves.
Focusing on these two... you've just made the optimal Magus build one that ignores INT (since it's a weak stat otherwise) and limits themselves to attack spells so they can ignore INT in favor of things that affect more of their basic combat - like HP, WIS saves, better perception/initiative, etc.
INT doesn't really do anything else for the class, which makes it seem really counter-intuitive that a (partial) caster could ignore their casting stat to almost no detriment.
I think as is INT is way too important for the Magus. They all ready need STR, CON, DEX probably too. I think there’s nothing wrong with leaving high INT to only some of the Magus builds, letting the rest be front liners.
That's more or less how the Warpriest can function now, where a 14 WIS (maybe even a 12) with Heal/Buff spells can function pretty effectively as long as they aren't throwing out save spells on the regular.
A Magus that chooses to go with low INT removes options from themselves (and if you're going DEX based, not exactly a smart choice).
The main contenders are STR, DEX, CON, and INT. And Dex and Str are opposed, so they have options to grab the three they like.
Now how high they go on those 3 depends, but I wouldn't hate the idea of a 14 INT Magus being viable, which honestly as is, not possible.
This is a great point; INT shouldn't be more important for a Magus then WIS for a Warpriest. As things currently stand INT is mandatory in order for a Magus to use their main class feature.
For those who dislike having both the spell attack roll as well as the normal strike roll. I am fairly certain this exists to make the magus' spell attack modifier matter, while still having an advantage of gaining weapon proficiency faster. If it was just the one roll, the strike roll, then there's very little reason for the average Magus to invest in Intelligence at all. They simply focus spells that don't care about their spell attack/ability mod and flail away.
In fact its also a balance against multi-classing, or gaining innate spells, and not caring about ever getting above trained in that particular spell list.
Even with auto hits Int is still valuable - many of the best spell strike options are save spells (crit fishing for daze comes to mind), bonus damage on cantrips, the occasional AoE. It won't be mandatory anymore, bad the Magus is MAD as hell right now.
I found an error in the crit weapon hit contribution, and recalculated everything both for one round and two rounds.
Using the new calculations for one round routines Striking Spell is sometimes beneficial in weapon to hit >=60% range. In this range you could lose 10% damage output or gain up to 20% in some sweet spots. No damage ratio or to hit in range is always beneficial.
In the two rounds routine I took the second round to always be three strikes. Striking Spell turned out pretty beneficial in this calculation, giving a 5%-15% boost in most situations. There were some with less, and some with more, but overall an improvement.
My conclusions? Striking Spell can be beneficial, but it does so at great cost to action flexibility due to requiring all actions in round one and possibly many in round two; slide casting helps a lot with this issue, but the other syntheses don't.
The next question to answer is how does a base Magus compare with other gishes (either martial classes with caster dedications, casters with martial\combat style dedications, or some focus spell based builds). I'd like to see a comparison with the Eldritch archer in particular. I have to say I doubt the Magus will fare well against any of these, but we will see.
I think by this point it's evident that Striking Spell is lackluster, but I didn't see any in depth calculations. I had some time on my hands so I cracked open a spreadsheet, and set out to answer the question: How does spell strike with a damaging attack spell compare to other 3-action combinations?
In short? Badly. In fact, out of all the options I checked, spell strike never improves round damage by more than 5%.
In the linked spreadsheet I calculated the ratio between damage dealt with striking spell and the best of the other three action options the magus has:
-Strike then spell
-Spell then strike
-Strike three times
As parameters I took the chance to hit with a weapon attack (0.3-0.7), difference in hit chance between spells and weapons (0-0.25), and ratio between damage of spell on a success and damage of weapon success (0.5-5). The calculations don't take into account anything else.
Of the 2,484 options I calculated Striking Spell improved damage in only 39 cases, all in the 65%-70% weapon hit range
I've got to say, this is extremely disappointing. Not only is this ability just plain bad, it was an easily avoidable problem; it only took a couple of hours to do this calculation.
I know the team likes to low ball playtest abilities , but this is just sad.
One correction - the universalist has one less spell slot than the specialists. A universalist has one arcane bond each level. A specialist has one extra spell slot each level and one use of arcane bond.
I don’t see what the problem is. Excluding the Paladin mc (which I think is problematic) it takes three feats for a caster to get heavy armor, and their proficiency never improves. Definitely balanced against the melees, and has a steep enough cost not to be essential.
Produce flame is far better than the hand crossbow. You need to load your crossbow, so it also takes 2 actions, hit AC instead of TAC, and you do less damage on a hit. Not to mention you need to spend loads of money on the crossbow for it to keep up.
Cantrips do okay amounts of damage; they’re there in order to make sure you don’t wast turns or spell slots inbetween uses of your real spells.
First, as an aside, in each case I think it's important to allow for heightening and lowering -- it just feels wrong to me to be able to (say) be able to cast a powerful Heal spell but not a weaker one.
I'm still not sure I know what you mean by lowering spells. Your example with the heal spell didn't help. Heal is a 1st level spell it can't get much lower. Are you suggesting to be able to cast it as a cantrip?
Or are you suggesting that sorcerers should be able to cast level 2 fireballs?
The meaning is that if you learn fireball for the first time at character level 7, meaning as a level 4 spell, you could still cast it using a level 3 slot.
I specifically didn’t mention lowering in my post since I’m still going back and forth between auto lowering and only being able to learn spells at their lowest level.
It’s also important to remember the bard when discussing these things, as any structural changes to spontaneous casting will affect them too. I’d say any change to heightening and number of spells known will have to apply to both classes.
Then again I can see an argument for bards to be prepared, since their magic comes from rehearsing performances; this will make the sorcerer even more unique, while letting the bard keep most of their flavor (of which they have spades).
A heighten metamagic feat is an option that’ll sidestep the resource problem while remaining balanced.
Here’s a few other options (desiderata satisfied in square brackets)
- Heightening using spell points as suggested, coupeled with the ability to burn slots for points. This has the added value of further connecting the sorcerers’ innate magic (bloodline powers) with their learned magic (spell slots); it’ll also make sorcerer mc builds really interesting. [1,2,3?,4?]
- Free heightening and lowering, and reducing the spells known by one per level. [1,2,3?,4]
- Change bloodlines so you can only choose spells with the appropriate traits (from all lists), with complement powers. [1,2,3?,4?]
Examples that are not be balanced but show what I mean: Fire bloodline only gets fire spells (duh), one of the powers bypasses some resistance; Fey chooses from spells with the charm or plant traits; Celestial gets all good and light spells, and one of the powers grows wings.
This option needs some elbow grease to be balanced, and I put it here because I think themed magic fits the idea of sorcerers really well.
I personally think low number of themed spells known with a bunch of metamagic and free heightening is the best option (and one that can fill loads of splat books), but it might be a bit out there for others.
I think I saw this suggestion on the other thread, and I liked it. The DC should be based on the level of the creature you're healing, rather than your own level. For most cases this would be the same thing, but it would allow for high-level NPCs being able to easily heal the party, or low-level PCs struggling to save a high-level creature. That seems more interesting to me.
The problem with this Idea is that it penalizes characters in need of healing for being higher level, leading to the kinda absurd “Frank died becuase he leveled after that fight!”.
I'd like it if the amount healed would simply go off the number rolled. It probably means giving up on the four tiers of success here, but I don’t mind it not applying to everything.
I get the power issues with having automatic heighten, but I think they aren’t as drastic as the confusion from having a spell but not being able to cast it at all levels. I’m not talking about things like invisibility, that basically have a greater version, but about things like fireball or heal, that just have an “add this many dice when cast at this slot”. It also feels wrong to have heal at level 1, being able to cast it using a level 5 slot, but still getting the level 1 benefit.
The only solution I can think of that doesn’t give too much of a power boost but avoids this confusion is splitting up some of the spells back to regular and greater versions, while leaving the spells that only change the strength of their effects as one spell and giving them auto-heighten.
First off I’d like to say that I really enjoyed this blog, and most of the others, and am excited and grateful by being able to play PF2 soon. I like the bloodline change in particular.
That being said, the way spontaneous casting deals with heightening is concerning to me. It feels like solving a physics problem (I’m a physicist) and getting a solution that lacks some symmetry or aesthetic property. When that happens it not only feels icky and gives me a headache, it almost always means the solution is wrong. I believe this is the case here.
I understand and agree with all points made against automatically upcasting or downcasting, how they eat up time or may be stronger than prepared casters etc. But, I believe they are an order of magnitude less disrupting than the confusion from not being able to cast spells that you have and get the appropriate effect. A sorcerer with heal can now cast it at 5th level but not get the effect that it says it has at 5th level.
I think the issue with spontaneous casting has to do with how spells behave in general now; with spells being unaffected by caster level, collapsing spell chains into the heightened mechanic that affects both the magnitude and the scope of spells, having opposing effects being resolved through spell level, and so on, spontaneous casting needs to jump through too many hoops.
Maybe you should re-split some of the spells? Keep heightened effects like additional damage/healing and the opposing effects resolution , but re-split things like invisibility where the effect of the spell changes. This means that auto upcasting will involve a lot less bookkeeping (just the number of dice or the rare level comparison), be less confusing, and give what I think is the right sort of flexibility for this type of casting: that of magnitude, not scope.
Another option is to give heightening through spell points, though this doesn’t resolve the confusion of not having a spell you know, and will need to be done on a class by class basis.
As a last note, I’d like to thank you all for being so responsive. These blogs, your continued commenting in them, and of course the various faqs, errata and support in general are a huge part in why PF is my RPG of choice, and the main reason I’ve been excited by PF2 even before any details were announced.
I like what I see with the structure of the archetypes, though my Spidey sense is tingling as to the power level. Just using the pirate dedication as an example, what if I already have acrobatics as a signature skill and am already trained with those weapon? Both of those seem like things easily gained through class (especially ones chosen for a pirate character) and greatly reduce the appeal of the dedication feat.
I worry issues like this will deter players from going with archetypes, but I withhold judgment until I have the playtest in my hands.
Feats:
Bloatmage Initiate (+1 CL to school)
Irrisen Icemage (+1 CL to cold descriptor, -1 to other elements; 3/day change spell damage to cold)
Flame Heart (+1 CL to fire damage spells)
Traits:
Secret of the Impossible Kingdom (+1 CL to one spell)
Items:
Voidfrost/Shocking/Blazing Robe (+1 CL to cold/electric/fire spells)
Conduit Rod (constant +1 CL to electricity descriptor)
Alchemical Reagents (variety of effects depending on the reagent and spell used, including +1 CL and +1 dmg/CL)
A rod of intensify or intensify spell and blood intensity become more and more crucial the more of these options you choose, so watch out.
I'm surprised no one mentioned Knowledge Is Power yet. With some system mastery you can get your CMB to none dreadful levels (still won't recommend the multiclass though).
Are there any plans to release more VMC options? I would love to see a Kineticist option. The best thing about it is that they give single class-locked characters, like casters and such, more options to versify. It's a shame it's not legal in PFS...
Btw, did you see my post about Dragon Style? There were quit a bit of conventions, so I thought you may have missed it.
No one is talking about US, please stop bringing it up. I know the discussion on how US it works under these conditions is a heated one, so I opened this thread to discuss natural weapons only.
But ... but something something unrelated comment about unarmed strike!
5 people marked this as FAQ candidate.
3 people marked this as a favorite.
First of all, this post is for natural weapons, not unarmed strikes. There are several discussions about unarmed strikes, and this is not one of them, so please steer clear of them.
Let's say I have two claw attacks, Power Attack, Feral Combat Training (claws) and Dragon Style. Does my first claw attack benefit from -1\+3 PA? What if I have Dragon Ferocity? Do I then get -1\+3 to both attacks?
It's my opinion that the answer is yes to all, but I am biased, and I can see it argued that the claws aren't really 1.5 STR weapons, even if they do get 1.5 STR to damage.
An idea I've been toying with while researching a different bloodrager (won't post here, since he's definitely not "simple") is an arcane bloodline snake style blood conduit. Mixing Snake Fang, 50% miss from Greater Arcane bloodline and Spell Conduit is a blast. You can get some natural attacks and make a single casting of frostbite or chill touch a nightmare.
If you want to go dex based, for combat reflexes for example, Blood Conduit stacks with Urban, and an Agile Furious AoMF will take care of the rest.
The biggest draw back here is that the main feature of the build is Displacement+Snake fang, that you only get at 9. Pretty late for PFS.
If you are going dex based, there is a new archetype in one of the newer book (can't recall the name) called the Urban Bloodrager, which basically lets you gain +4 dex like the urban barbarian.
Your stats are fine, but of course you could optimize. The extra spell per day at level one that you get from 20 int is pretty valuable, and helps pulling your weight until higher levels. If you were starting at level five or so starting with that 20 would be less important I wouldn't worry about getting your con over 12, since the toughness feat is an effective +2 to con (and is even better at first level).
A suggestion if you want to be a face character, which may be with that 14 cha:
Dump cha, take as high an int as you can, take skill focus linguistics and Orator. This will make you better than a face sorcerer or bard. For further optimization of this side be a human with the focused study alternate racial trait.
The feat is better than the trait since you get the class skill, one skill to get your points into, and one skill focus (plus intimidate for fun). Back to the post.
I think it should be noted that the arcanist is the best enchanter and/or illusionist in the game.
Let's say a duelist with two-weapon fighting forgoes his off hand attack to parry, and then ripostes, do any of his attacks get the -2/-4 penalty for two-weapon fighting? I think that he doesn't because of the answer to
this FAQ::
Two-Weapon Fighting: If you use this on your turn to attack with two weapons, do you also take that penalty on attacks of opportunity made before the start of your next turn?
No. The penalties end as soon as you have completed the full-attack action that allowed you to attack with both weapons. Any attacks of opportunity you make are at your normal attack bonus.
Generally speaking, penalties on attacks made during your turn do not carry over to attacks of opportunity unless they specifically state otherwise (such as the penalty from using Power Attack or Combat Expertise).
and
this FAQ::
Multiple Weapons, Extra Attacks, and Two-Weapon Fighting: If I have extra attacks from a high BAB, can I make attacks with different weapons and not incur a two-weapon fighting penalty?
Yes. Basically, you only incur TWF penalties if you are trying to get an extra attack per round.
Let's assume you're a 6th-level fighter (BAB +6/+1) holding a longsword in one hand and a light mace in the other. Your possible full attack combinations without using two-weapon fighting are:
(A) longsword at +6, longsword +1
(B) mace +6, mace +1
(C) longsword +6, mace +1
(D) mace +6, longsword +1
All of these combinations result in you making exactly two attacks, one at +6 and one at +1. You're not getting any extra attacks, therefore you're not using the two-weapon fighting rule, and therefore you're not taking any two-weapon fighting penalties.
If you have Quick Draw, you could even start the round wielding only one weapon, make your main attack with it, draw the second weapon as a free action after your first attack, and use that second weapon to make your iterative attack (an "iterative attack" is an informal term meaning "extra attacks you get from having a high BAB"). As long as you're properly using the BAB values for your iterative attacks, and as long as you're not exceeding the number of attacks per round granted by your BAB, you are not considered to be using two-weapon fighting, and therefore do not take any of the penalties for two-weapon fighting.
The two-weapon fighting option in the Core Rulebook specifically refers to getting an extra attack for using a second weapon in your offhand. In the above four examples, there is no extra attack, therefore you're not using two-weapon fighting.
Using the longsword/mace example, if you use two-weapon fighting you actually have fewer options than if you aren't. Your options are (ignoring the primary/off hand penalties):
(A') primary longsword at +6, primary longsword at +1, off hand mace at +6
(B') primary mace at +6, primary mace at +1, off hand longsword at +6
In other words, once you decide you're using two-weapon fighting to get that extra attack on your turn (which you have to decide before you take any attacks on your turn), that decision locks you in to the format of "my primary weapon gets my main attack and my iterative attack, and my off hand weapon only gets the extra attack, and I apply two-weapon fighting penalties."
In other words, you make a one-handed full attack, so no penalty, and then you make an AoO, so no penalty.
And on a related note, did the question on whether or not the precise damage applies in the aforementioned situation get resolved?
