The players found a trapped door, but didn't have the skill to disable it. Necromancer summoned a thrall, but since the trap triggered on the door opening, all the thrall could do was stand there with it's nose on the door and stare. The players thought it was absolutely stupid that they could make the thrall attack somebody, but couldn't teach it how to simply push on a door.
I believe it was on reddit someone gave a good example:
- Your a necromancer
- You can summon thralls
- You're walking through a presumably trapped passage
- You cast create thrall every 5 feet to trigger any traps along the way
As opposed to
- Your a necromancer
- You can summon thralls
- You're walking through a presumably trapped passage
- You cast create thrall and command it to walk forward
To be honest, with this thread I packed in too much. I originally just wanted to focus on the separation of Create Thrall and Command Thrall. I included the rest because it was on my mind. If I take all of that out, this is what I’m left with.
You animate an expendable undead thrall. If you have the Expert Necromancy class feature, you can animate up to two thralls, increasing to three if you have Master Necromancy, and four if you have Legendary Necromancy.
When you cast this spell, you may choose to invoke the effects of Command Thrall at the spell's rank.
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Command Thrall
Traits: Uncommon, Cantrip, Concentrate, Grave, Necromancy, Thrall
Actions: 1–3
Range: 30 feet (or varies, see below)
You command your thralls within 30 feet.
1 Action: You may move thralls under your control a total distance of 20 feet, divided among them as you choose. If you have the Expert Necromancy class feature, this distance increases to 30 feet, 40 feet with Master Necromancy, and 50 feet with Legendary Necromancy. Alternatively, you may use a thrall to make an unarmed melee Strike using your spell attack modifier. This attack deals 1d6 damage of your choice: bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing. This Strike applies to and counts toward your multiple attack penalty.
2 Actions: You may issue up to three commands. If your thralls make three Strikes as part of these commands, this spell gains the Flourish trait.
3 Actions: As the 2-action version, but you may command thralls at any distance.
Heightened (+2): The thralls' Strike damage increases by 1d6.
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Then we can just add feats to give the thralls additional actions like manipulate, shove, grapple, and etc. Really I just want a bit more control over the thralls!
I posted this on reddit regarding the Undead Master's companion as I wanted to highlight companions are actually going to be a struggle for the Necromancer as they already have a three action rotation; thrall into focus spell.
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It's possible that commanding Undead Master's minion might compete unintentionally with create thrall. Consider, the Necromancer will want to create thrall and then tribute the thrall to cast a stronger spell, that doesn't leave a lot of room for commanding. Tbh, I'd argue that is likely going to be a trap and support should probably be built in as it is an expected fantasy.
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If they want Undead Companions to be more workable something will need to be built into the Necromancer's kit for it I suspect.
Another thematic solution to not depend from corpses is that necromancer could use "material components/locus" to create the thralls like bones for osteomancers, pieces of flesh for caromancers or piles of funeral ashes for vitamancers. And the rest of the undead body grows from magical energy. These components doesn't really exists mechanically being part of manipulate trait.
This means that thrall would keep their current mechanic of being created from nowhere but with a better explanation of how it's made.
Does my rephrasing to Martialmasters match that expectation?
```
Create Thrall
Traits: Uncommon, Cantrip, Concentrate, Grave, Manipulate, Necromancer, Thrall
Range: varies
Actions: 1
From sealed souls, bones or cadavers you animate an expendable undead thrall adjacent to you. If there is a corpse within a corpse within 30 feet, you may consume the corpse to animate the thrall there instead. If you have the expert necromancy class feature, you can create up to two thralls, increasing to three if you have master necromancy and four if you have legendary necromancy. When you cast the spell, you can choose to invoke the effect of Command Thrall. Attacks originating from a Thrall animated from a corpse have +1 circumstance bonus.
```
Then since Command Thralls provides movement and attacks you can reposition the thralls and strike with them to some degree. The thralls starting near you discourages you from spamming the thralls to the point the battlefield is unworkable, yet, it doesn't create an impediment to creating thralls to use as a resource.
You thrall adjustment would effectively kill the class mechanically in certain encounters in favor of narrative flow.
Outside of the animation being restricted is there any other reason you believe this to be the case, and if so, in what style of encounters?
Without the adjacency restriction this would be a flat buff, no? With more versatility to boot?
Calculate the intended weight in material needed to raise endless thralls.
There isn't always going to be a dead body lying around.
Some creatures don't have bodies.
Etc
There isn't a material component. I see the confusion, I meant that as flavour to explain the adjacent placement. In my mind it's easier to suspend a player's disbelief if the default is for Thrall's to spawn adjacent to the player as they can come up with a simpler narrative device to explain it. I didn't intend for player's to have to add skeleton bones or cadavers to their inventory though!
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Create Thrall
Traits: Uncommon, Cantrip, Concentrate, Grave, Manipulate, Necromancer, Thrall
Range: varies
Actions: 1
From bones and cadavers you animate an expendable undead thrall adjacent to you. If there is a corpse within a corpse within 30 feet, you may consume the corpse to animate the thrall there instead. If you have the expert necromancy class feature, you can create up to two thralls, increasing to three if you have master necromancy and four if you have legendary necromancy. When you cast the spell, you can choose to invoke the effect of Command Thrall. Attacks originating from a Thrall animated from a corpse have +1 circumstance bonus.
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Do you think this wording makes it clearer that was flavour text?
Because they manipulate the boundary of life and death through theory, rather than vibes or intuition.
What what is this internal dirge supposed to be? If they are studying why have a dirge at all.
That's a fair point.
IMO, I wouldn't be opposed to just giving the Necromancer a spell book like the Magus / Wizard since I still see the Necromancer as a variant of Wizard. However, you're right an `internal dirge` doesn't jive with intelligence.
Encounters with swarms of weak enemies aren't uncommon, so the 'players would never stand for this' bit doesn't make sense.
As a GM I just don't really see the issue. Yeah it's something I'm going to probably have to help a player manage, but thralls are as low overhead as this mechanic could possibly be and have a number of ways to deal with or outright ignore them.
While I understand issues with token spam and game speed, it seems that thralls being unable to act after their conjuration does pose a role playing problem.
If we put aside mindless or instinctual creatures as I agree they'd likely attack the corpse in front of them despite its lack of threat, I do think intelligent enemies are going to be a weird experience. You would expect them to want to fight the thralls, however, once they realise they're incapable of acting they'd ignore them only to reprioritise them when they realise the thralls are fuel for the Necomancer's actual abilities. It is completely at odd with how we'd expect adventurers to treat the thralls of a Necromancer.
Observations
The necromancer class in this playtest has a lot of potential, and I really appreciate its unique flavor and mechanics. However, there are a few areas where the implementation feels slightly out of sync with the expectations of a necromancer. Here’s what stands out to me:
Thematic Concerns: The focus on thralls being primarily sacrificial feels at odds with how necromancers are often depicted—commanding undead servants to carry out their will directly, rather than treating them as resources to fuel auxiliary abilities. When this does happen, it is typically a secondary rather than primary use case for their thralls.
Creation Mechanics: The ability to create thralls from anywhere, without requiring nearby remains, feels disconnected from the imagery and process associated with necromancy. Using existing bones or corpses to animate thralls reinforces the idea that these are undead beings, not conjured constructs.
Lack of Movement: Thralls being stationary unless specific feats are taken makes them feel more like totems or objects than mobile, undead minions. This can diminish their impact as integral tools for a necromancer.
Inability to grapple and trip: What is more iconic to undead than a horde of zombies grasping and pulling down their prey before consuming them? I may have missed it, but we seem to lack the capacity to recreate this with our thralls!
Suggestions
To address these points and expand on the class’s strengths, I’d propose the following changes:
Add a Second Grave Cantrip: Introduce a Command Thrall cantrip that focuses on moving and striking with thralls after they are animated. This would encapsulate the behaviour of commanding undead.
Adjust Create Thrall: Require bones or cadavers to be within range for thrall creation, keeping the thematic focus on raising the dead. For the Spirit Monger grim fascination, allow thralls to be summoned without corpses, reflecting their incorporeal nature and reinforcing their unique identity. The cantrip will also interact with Command Thrall.[/b]
Add Feats for Manoeuvres: Add a feat allowing thralls to Grapple or Trip instead of making melee Strikes, using the necromancer’s spell attack modifier.
Detailed Features, Spells and Feats
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Create Thrall
Traits: Uncommon, Cantrip, Concentrate, Grave, Manipulate, Necromancer, Thrall
Range: varies
Actions: 1
You animate an expendable undead thrall from a corpse within 30 feet or from bones and cadavers you place adjacent to you as part of this spell's casting. If you have the expert necromancy class feature, you can create up to two thralls, increasing to three if you have master necromancy and four if you have legendary necromancy. When you cast the spell, you can choose to invoke the effect of Command Thrall. Attacks originating from a Thrall animated from a corpse have +1 circumstance bonus.
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Command Thrall
Traits: Uncommon, Cantrip, Concentrate, Grave, Necromancer, Thrall
Actions: 1-3
Range: varies
You command action from your thrall
[1 Action]Within 30 feet, you may move thralls under your control a total distance of 10 feet, divided among them as you choose. At the end of their movement a single thrall may make an unarmed melee Strike using your spell attack modifier. This attack deals 1d6 damage of your choice: bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing. This Strike applies to and counts toward your multiple attack penalty.
[2 Actions] You may issue three commands, if your thralls strike three times this spell gains the flourish trait.
[3 Actions] As 2 actions but you may command thralls within any distance.
If you have the expert necromancy class feature, you can move the thralls a combined distance of 20ft, increasing to 30ft if you have master necromancy and 40ft if you have legendary necromancy.
Heightened (+2) The damage increases by 1d6
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Spirit Monger
Thrall Enhancement: Your thralls, while still being tied to the physical world, have an incorporeal essence. Whenever one of your thralls would deal physical damage, you can choose for that damage to be spirit or void damage instead. Additionally, your thralls can not be created from corpses but you can always create thralls within 30 feet of you rather than adjacent.
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Feat: Deadly Grasp
When commanding your thralls, you may choose to attempt a Grapple or Trip instead of performing a melee Strike. Use your spell attack modifier for the Athletics check. The grapple is maintained by other thralls adjacent to the target if the grappling is thrall is killed before it ends.
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Considerations
Why would someone use the one action version of Command Thrall? It doesn't have the manipulate trait so commanding rather than animated the dead may be situationally beneficial.
Isn't this weaker due to the low movement and tight summoning radius? Yes and Spirit Monger is probably too strong relatively now, however, I don't have the time to tweak the balance.
Hope everyone is having a lovely time testing the classes!
But that's beyond the point really. This isn't 1st ed, and the world has changed a bit.
The versatile B is a holdover from when guns did P and B damage.
Very much this. There's actually a survey question where we talk about this, as it was a point of discussion among the design team.
A bullet deals both bludgeoning and piercing damage as the game understands it; it would be very weird if shooting a skeleton in the skull was less effective than hitting it with a club. But PF2 also doesn't support a weapon simultaneously dealing two damage types unless we split the damage types out, and base weapons still need to measure their damage in single-die increments, so we decided to keep versatile as the closest approximation to the functionality of a firearm. There are other options that we explore in the survey and talked about among ourselves, like just having separate piercing and bludgeoning ammo types, but I worried that was a level of fiddly and unnecessary that would make the game experience less enjoyable for players by giving them two different pools of ammo to manage and also kind of ignoring the way guns actually work (bludgeoning damage concentrated to a small enough point that it has a piercing effect).
So versatile B isn't perfect and we know that, which is why we ask about it in the survey, but it's the closest we could get to properly embodying the story of a bullet leading up to this playtest.
Wouldn't a new keywork be appropriate under these circumstances? Something like:
Fallback:
If the target of a Fallback weapon is resistant or immune to the type of damage listed in its Damage entry it can deal a different type of damage than listed. This trait indicates the alternate damage type. For instance, a piercing weapon that is Fallback B will deal bludgeoning damage if the target is resistant to piercing damage. If the target is resistant to both damage types use the least resisted.
When a rouge swings their shortsword they are choosing to swing or stab with their weapon so versatile makes sense, in contrast, a gunslinger isn't choosing to shoot in a 'Bludgeoning' manner against a skeleton.
If a Magus using Striking Spell or Spellstrike spends more actions and still deals less damage than the spell+attack something is seriously wrong with the class.
The entire point of Spellstrike is that the you have better action economy for the same damage. Not a worse one for less.
Also if saving an action is too much at level 1 make it a level 2 or 5 feat/ability. But the combined roll is needed.
I think most people agree that Striking Spell is a little weak, the only player's that have praised the ability have maximised its potential by stacking various effects (Flanking, Haste, True Strike and more). While its nice to know its possible to utilise the ability it can't be balanced around stacking a cornucopia of auxiliary effects.
That said, I'm fairly certain the LD is aware of that and is looking to improve the viability of Striking Spell (While searching the forums for the rare mention of something other than Striking Spell).
Unless I'm missing something, I fail to see how better accuracy with the same action economy can be detrimental to your build. A one roll Striking Spell would keep the second round held charge and the action economy, so it wouldn't affect how your character functions. You'd still crit, apply sneak attack and do everything else that is described in your character sheet in the same manner. If anything, it would improve it.
Edit: I think that what you seem to be going for is applying sneak attack to the strike and to the spell with Magical Trickster. It seems possible. I don't know how I'd rule it as a GM. I don't know if that's the case, but then this is an extremely specific approach as opposed to every vanilla Magus needing to rely intensily on buffing and true strike routines to function just so that one build gets to use sneak attack twice...
On the Int issue, I don't how if that's how it'd go, because a Magus that focuses only on attack spells is pretty limited. There aren't many of such spells and they are not that powerful (those that are require saves as well, which would require Int). And, well, what you described is already possible. Any Magus could hang on until level 6, take Eldritch Archer and never worry about Int again in their lives.
Also going to disagree on the one roll being powergamey, especially if you take away True Strike. Like Kalaam pointed out, white room simulations appear to show that it's more about bringing the Magus' damage to be slightly below a martial and slightly higher when burning one of their precious slots, which IMHO, is fine.
"If the spell required a Spell Attack Roll, resolve the effects of the spell with the same degree of success as your strike." is likely similar to the wording of a single roll Striking Spell, I included it in my suggestions and I've seen the same wording in several other suggestions. Under this wording I would rule that Magical Trickster applies as the Spell Attack Roll is effectively being resolved with the Strikes result. Perhaps the phrasing could be something like "resolve the roll of the spell" to ensure Magical Trickster applies?
I agree the testing implies a single roll Striking Spell isn't overpowered and in line with other abilities, assuming it has the Fortune trait. Therefore, I suspect this Magus / Trickster build would maintain its power or receive a mild buff.
Narrative Implementation
Before I proceed the definition of narrative implementation will be demonstrated by exploring the spell ‘Disintegrate’. When casting Disintegrate you make a Spell Attack Roll and the target makes a Fortitude Saving Throw, the Spell Attack Roll determines whether Disintegrate hits the target and the Fortitude Saving Throw determines how much damage is applied to the target. The Spell Attack Roll and Fortitude Saving Throw come together (among other things) to form the mechanics of Disintegrate. To understand the narrative implementation, consider the following scene:
A green ray shoots from the Magus’ finger, the air ignites around it and the smell of ash is thrown forth as it soars towards its target. Energy surges from the target’s chest as the ray collides, it crackles like a roaring flame as it engulfs the target but soon sputters disappointingly as it dissipates harmlessly.
The scene fits with the mechanics outlined earlier. The Spell Attack Roll determined that the Magus’ Disintegrate hit and the Saving Throw determined that the target received no damage, however, the Saving Throw has influenced the scene beyond determining that the target received no damage. Disintegrate’s Saving Throw is a Fortitude Saving Throw and so the scene describes the target resisting an attack that has hit them as Fortitude Saving Throws describe how well you can ‘reduce the effects of abilities and afflictions that can debilitate the body’. If Disintegrate used a Reflex Saving Throw the scene would be different as Reflex Saving Throws describe ‘how well you can respond quickly to a situation and how gracefully you can avoid effects that have been thrown at you’. These descriptions of the Savings Throws are their narrative implementations, even if game masters chose not to describe scenes a games’ narrative implementation will shape player perceptions.
Often mechanics and narrative implementations are highly intertwined as mechanics are the tools used to traverse the narrative of games. If the mechanics and the narrative implementation of games contradict it can be jarring for players. For example, substitute a Reflex Saving Throw for Disintegrate’s Fortitude Saving Throw and reimagine the scene presented earlier, as Reflex Saving Throws represent how ‘gracefully you can avoid effects that have been thrown at you’ you have likely imagined the target avoiding Disintegrate’s ray or you have become frustrated as a Reflex Saving Throw following Disintegrate’s Spell Attack Roll suggest a target can be hit by Disintegrate’s ray while simultaneously avoiding it. That contradiction is an example of mechanics and narrative implementation working against one another.
Striking Spell:
[free-action] Traits CONCENTRATE, MAGUS, METAMAGIC
Frequency once per round
You drastically alter a spell to combine it with a martial attack. If the next action you use is to Cast a Spell that can target one creature or object, instead of casting it as normal, you place its magic into one melee weapon you’re wielding or into your body to use with an unarmed attack.
If you hit with a melee Strike using the receptacle for the spell, the spell is discharged, affecting only the target you hit. The spell still requires its normal spell attack roll or saving throw, but you don’t increase your multiple attack penalty until after attempting both the discharging Strike and the spell attack roll. If your discharging Strike was a critical success, the degree of success is one better than you rolled for a spell attack roll or one worse than the target rolls for a saving throw.
If you don’t expend the stored spell with a Strike before the end of your next turn, it is lost and dissipates harmlessly. The same thing happens if you take the Striking Spell action again or if the weapon is used for a non-melee Strike (such as a thrown weapon Strike). A spell stored with Striking Spell can’t be discharged by anyone but the caster.
When reading Striking Spell my initial understanding of the narrative is as follows, the Magus casts their spell into a weapon and upon the weapon contacting an enemy the spell is discharged. The Spell Attack Roll contradicts this narrative as it implies the spell is not transferred to the enemy upon a successful strike but must be aimed or timed, if the Magus had to time the discharge of their spell or released the discharge as a projectile the spell wouldn’t require a successful strike to occur. This isn’t to say the Magus having to time their Striking Spell’s discharge or the Magus discharging spells as projectile couldn’t occur, in fact I have seen solid alternatives proposed that would match that narrative, but I do believe such an implementation makes storing the spell in a weapon rather redundant. If timing or aiming is intended I believe Striking Spell should be re-flavoured as the Magus using Strikes to open opportunities to use their spells, this would serve as a successor to Spell Combat.
Feats
The feats of the Magus ooze with flavour and I am impressed by the narrative they portray; Raise a Tomb, Spirit Sheath and the Entire Spell Parry tree are personal favourites of mine. However, I feel some of the feats need a little tuning (Raise a Tomb) so they can be used more readily.
Resource Preservation
Currently the Magus has a low number of Spell Slots and a variety of ways to mitigate it; Striker’s Scroll, Capture Spell, Second Chance and Double Spellstrike. However, the ways to mitigate the low number of slots are either inconsistent or require such a high level which make them irrelevant for most of a player’s experience.
Having a low number of slots effects players in two ways, it encourages players to save their slots for high value moments and it makes succeeding or failing with those slots more impactful. In my games this led to my players preserving their slots for higher level enemies which is unfortunate as the Magus’ Striking Spell works best against lower level enemies.
Action Economy
Currently the Magus has a lot of setup; Focus Spells are used to setup the Magus and Striking Spell is a core ability that takes several actions to resolve (sometimes two turns worth). This is not a problem when taken alone as plenty of activities take many actions, requiring many actions only becomes a problem if the number of actions invested is not reflected in the outcome. Right now, it feels as though Striking Spell and the Magus’ setup do not reflect their investment. If outstanding issues are resolved I think the Magus’ action economy would be fine.
My Suggestions
STRIKING SPELL:
[free-action] Traits CONCENTRATE, MAGUS, METAMAGIC, FORTUNE
Frequency once per round
You drastically alter a Spell to combine it with a martial attack. If the next action you use is to Cast a Spell that targets a creature or object, instead of casting it as normal, you place its magic into one melee weapon you are wielding or into your body to use with an unarmed attack.
If you hit with a melee Strike using the receptacle for the spell, the spell is discharged, affecting only the target you hit. If the spell required a Spell Attack Roll, resolve the effects of the spell with the same degree of success as your strike. If the spell required a Saving Throw, the target takes a –1 Circumstance penalty to its saving throw if the strike was a success and a -2 Circumstance penalty if it was a critical success. You do not increase your Multiple Attack Penalty until both the spell and strike are resolved.
If you do not expend the stored spell with a strike before the end of your next turn, it is lost and dissipates harmlessly. The same thing happens if you take the Striking Spell action again or if the weapon is used for a non-melee Strike (such as a thrown weapon Strike). A spell stored with Striking Spell cannot be discharged by anyone but the caster.
This version of Striking Spell is flavoured around the Magus storing a spell within their weapon and that spell being immediately transferred into the Magus’ target upon a successful hit. As a result, Spells with a Spell Attack Roll resolve said roll with the result of their Strike and targets take a Circumstance penalty to any Saving throws. Since this version of Striking Spell modifies rolls it requires the Fortune trait.
The remaining suggestions are feats directly related to Striking Spell so you'll be able to utilise several variants if you are a fan of this.
Somatic Spellstrike:
Traits MAGUS
You have learned to substitute striking for the somantic components of spells altered by Striking Spells. When casting a spell altered by Striking Spell you do not have to provide Somatic components.
This feat is a simple one that removes the Somatic Component from Striking Spell. I've included this because its nice to think the shifting of the Magus' weapon could count as the somantic component of the spell.
Sustained Spellstrike:
Traits MAGUS
You have learned to extent the duration you can store Striking Spells for. You can Sustain a Spell to extend the time a striking spell is stored for, treat the stored spell as though it has a duration of "sustained up to 1 minute" when determining if you become fatigued from sustaining the spell.
This feat is intended to be one way a Magus can mitigate the low number of spell slots. While the Magus may miss their strikes they can extend the time their spell is stored for and keep charging at their target. You could break this feat into several, the first feat extending the stored spell for an additional turn and the subsequent feats extending that sustained duration up until a minute. If the feats break even with taking a dedications spellcasting feats the end result should be balanced.
Repeated Spellstrike:
Prerequisites Sustained Spellstrike
Traits MAGUS
When you Sustain a Spell altered by Striking Spell you can choose to spend an additional action, treat the sustained spell as though it had been cast again for Magus abilities such as Sustaining Steel or Portal Slide.
This feat is meant to accompany Sustained Spellstrike, by spending an additional feat the Magus can gain the benefit of using Striking Spell. I am uncertain if this would be balanced and I suspect it would not, however, it was too interesting to avoid mention.
Extracted Spellstrike:
[one-action] Traits MAGUS Requirements You have a spell stored in your weapon or body from Striking Spell.
You extract the spell altered by Striking Spell from its receptacle so you can discharge at will. Make a strike, the extracted spell is discharged even if the Strike misses. If the spell required a Spell Attack, you make the Spell Attack Roll with +1 Circumstance bonus on a Success, a +2 Circumstance bonus on a Critical Success and a -2 Circumstance penalty on a Critical Failure. If the spell required a Saving Throw, the target makes their Saving Throw as normal taking -1 Circumstance penalty to their save if your strike was a Success, a -2 Circumstance penalty to their save if your strike was a Critical Success and a +2 Circumstance bonus to their save if your strike was a Critical Failure.
This pulls upon the alternatives I mentioned earlier and provides the Magus with a variant of Striking Spell. This version of Striking Spell would be ideal if your INT is higher and you want to be sure the spell attack goes off this turn, perhaps you have a target than needs to be hit this turn?
Ranged Spellstrike:
[one-action] Traits MAGUS
Requirements You have a spell stored in your weapon or body from Striking Spell.
By imitating a strike with your weapon you release the spell altered by Striking Spell. Target one creature within the spells range and resolve the spell as thought it had just been cast.
This is yet another variant of Striking Spell and allows an emergency ranged attack. This certainly isn't efficient in regards to action economy but it would allow the Magus a way to deal with a distant enemy if they've already committed their spell to a Striking Spell.
Timed Spellstrike:
[one-action] Traits MAGUS
Requirements You have a spell stored in your weapon or body from Striking Spell.
Make a melee Strike using the receptacle for the spell, if the Strike hits you may choose to discharge the spell. If the spell required a Spell Attack, you make the Spell Attack Roll with +1 Circumstance bonus on a Success and a +2 Circumstance bonus on a Critical Success. If the spell required a Saving Throw, the target makes their Saving Throw as normal taking -1 Circumstance penalty to their save if your strike was a Success and a -2 Circumstance penalty to their save if your strike was a Critical Success. When discharging a Striking Spell in this manor you can ignore the Fortune trait.
This is a variant of Striking Spell that incorporates the idea of the Magus timing the release of their spell. This variant has been tailored to allowing a critical fishing style.
Magus Dedication
In order to insure the Fighter isn't a better Magus than the Magus, when granted through a dedication Striking Spell should expire at the end of the turn it is cast and it shouldn't be extendable through feats such as Sustained Spellstrike. This would be similar to the Investigator's Devise a Stratagem which imposes restrictions upon those who take it as a dedication.
I hope this feedback is helpful and would love feedback on my feedback.
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Striking Spell
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Concentrate, Magus, Metamagic, Fortune
Frequency: once per round
-
You drastically alter a spell to combine it with a martial attack. If the next action you use is to cast a spell that can target one creature or object, instead of casting it as normal, you forgo any somatic components and place its magic into one melee weapon you are wielding or into your body to use with an unarmed attack.
If you hit with a melee Strike using the receptacle for the spell, the spell is discharged, affecting only the target you hit. If the spell required a spell attack roll, the target is hit. If the spell required a saving throw, the saving throw is conducted as normal.
If you don’t expend the stored spell with a Strike before the end of your next turn, it is lost and dissipates harmlessly. The same thing happens if you take the Striking Spell action again or if the weapon is used for a non-melee Strike (such as a thrown weapon Strike). A spell stored with Striking Spell can’t be discharged by anyone but the caster.
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However, I'd be tempted to also do the following.
I would give the Magus a Spell Combat Stance that allows you to cast a spell and strike in the same round without a Multi Attack Penalty.
Remove the ability to forgoe Somatic components and provide it through a feat or upon level up. Really I just added the freedom from Somatic components as it fits within the fantasy of a Magus. I'd be entirely fine with it being unlocked later or it requiring feat investment.
For the class's dedication I would make the effects of Striking Spell last until the end of the turn it was cast. This should ensure fighters don't become better at Striking Spell than Magus, they may hit more often in the first turn but they'll waste more slots than the Magus does. To that end the Magus would be the more consistent caster.
You could also make a spell potency feat tree or features that gives a penalty to the target creatures Saving Throws against Striking Spell. I think staggering this penalty makes the most sense.
