benwilsher18's page

I think the Remaster removed any mention of how long "Investing an Item" takes? So we now have a activity you have to take, without any indication of how many actions or how much time it takes.

Making it a Free Action would mean you at least need to be able to act. An optional trigger (so you can do it during any meta-action that equips a investable item) would also be nice.

This is covered in GM Core. Archives of Nethys is missing this sidebar for some reason, but it is on Demiplane.

"You invest your energy in an item with the invested trait as you don it. This process requires 1 or more Interact actions, usually taking the same amount of time it takes to don the item."

https://app.demiplane.com/nexus/pathfinder2e/rules/investing-magic-items-rm ?srsltid=AfmBOopkO6rSk2VxZVMV26AgndxYkSVgCaxA4O7iv3Q3AOfzqwwwuNrD

Exemplar's Dominion Epithet "Of Verse Unbroken" inflicts the Stupefied 1 condition against enemies that fail a Will save, but it has no listed duration. As far as I can tell the Stupefied condition never ends on its own if no duration is listed, so this seems to be an oversight?

The concealment from the Mythic feat Become Shadow seems like RAW the concealment it grants lasts forever, as there are no durations, caveats or prerequisites listed or described. Which surely isn't right.

"You unleash your mythic power to shroud yourself in darkness and silence to stalk your prey. When you attempt a check to Hide or Sneak, or when you roll Stealth for initiative, you can spend a Mythic Point to become concealed and to attempt the check or roll using mythic proficiency."

If the concealment is meant to only be for the check, then it is nearly useless as you already must be concealed to Hide and hidden to Sneak, making the concealment it grants pointless. Which also surely can't be right.

The resistance to all becomes a bit confusing to me.

If I have a level 6 PC with a Charm of Resistance (fire 5) and I get a Resistance to All from a champion (all 8) and I get physical (13) + fire (7) damage and electricity (8), what will happen?

— I will sum the damage and then reduce all of it by 8?
— I will reduce the physical or electricity damage by 8 and the fire damage by 5?
— I will reduce the physical and electricity damage by 8 each and the fire damage by 5?
— I will reduce the physical damage or electricity by 8 and the fire damage by 8?
— I will have to choose if I will reduce the physical or fire or electricity by 8?

This is the relevant rules text from the errata:

"A single effect can activate more than one resistance at a time, but subtracts each of the subject’s resistances only once. If the subject has more than one resistance to the same damage type, they apply only one, usually the highest. For a resistance to a category including multiple damage types, like resistance to physical damage, to spells, or to all damage, if the subject is taking damage of multiple types included in the category, the subject can choose which damage type to use the resistance against."

In this case, you apply both of your resistances only once - but you apply them however you like, to reduce as much damage as possible. So in your example, your best bet would be to reduce the fire damage by 5 with your fire resistance, then you can choose to either reduce the electricity damage by 8 to 0, or the physical damage to by 8 to 5.

I don't feel like this is too complicated. I quite like it actually.

I mean, this is exactly what Foretell Harm does, and it effectively works like a focus spell. Similarly, ancestral memories is just a pure buff to your spell's accuracy, and therefore its damage. I also think it's really simple: focus spells take on a lot of forms, for sure, but every time, they offer power superior to that of cantrips in a manner that is limited within an encounter, yet replenishable in-between. Many of these focus spells deal damage, as well, so focus spells are absolutely there to help with damage-dealing and act as substitutes for slot spells...

...So, weapon surge for cantrips? Explosion of Power in much more limited form? No, I don't see the big deal with this, because clearly this kind of damage booster exists already. Why do you ask?

In fairness, every single thing you just mentioned costs an action except Foretell Harm, which is great - but it is significantly weaker than the 1d6/rank difference between Gouging Claw and Fire Ray.

If Spellstriking with a Focus point cost an extra action or only added 2 damage per spell rank, I think far fewer players would go out of their way to get it and do it, so I think my point still stands with this one.

Everything else you said makes sense really, so I'm happy to concede the points - although I will continue to have doubts about Focus Spellstriking surviving the Remaster given the recent changes to Amps. I guess we'll have to wait and see; as others have said, the changes are likely already decided upon, so these kinds of discussions, suggestions and speculation are interesting but probably not worth getting too involved in.

What exactly do you believe focus spells are for, if not this exact kind of situation? The entire point of focus spells is that they're stronger than cantrips, but still replenishable in-between encounters. The replenishable nature of focus spells is why players pick those on the Magus, so that they don't have to dip into spell slots to Spellstrike for better-than-cantrip damage.

Focus points do so many different things for different classes and archetypes that it's impossible to really sum up what I think they are for in general. What I don't generally think they are for is just adding a tonne of raw bonus damage to something you would already be doing, without any additional action cost. Only Magus (and Eldritch Archer) have this option - and Psychic, but they work very differently to other classes in general.

Like, imagine if there was a free action Focus spell that just said "Your next attack roll cantrip this turn deals 1d6 bonus damage if it hits." with a +1d6 per rank heighten on it. Doesn't that seem excessively strong compared to other Focus spells? Isn't that kind of what people seem to want to use Focus Spellstriking for right now?

I can't help but feel that the complaints about debating people on math and white-room scenarios carry a bit of projection with them at this point.

Part of the reason I don't do maths discussions much is because I make a lot of mistakes trying to get my ideas down in text format, and people are quick to jump on mistakes here. I made a mistake and mixed up 1d6 and 1d8 here and you were right to point it out - but you didn't do it in a nasty way, and you still covered other reasons why my proposal doesn't work well, so thanks for that at least.

The idea of the feature is to simultaneously bring cantrip Spellstriking closer to the current damage of Focus Spellstriking, make expending slots on Spellstriking feel a bit better at higher levels, and compensate a bit for Magus having a lower spell attack bonus/spell save DC by letting their attack spells deal some more damage when they aren't Spellstriking. I don't think it fails to do any of those things, but you're right that it does probably push Spellstriking over the top a bit as it is at low levels.

To put it another way: your proposal would likely induce many more instances of Maguses one-shotting boss enemies at early levels, something that already happens now and leads to anticlimaxes.

I agree with you now that you have broken it down like that. Perhaps it would be better as a 7th level class feature improvement to Arcane Cascade, improving by 1d6/1d8 every 3 levels? It is around the level when Magus starts to fall significantly behind casters with offensive spells, and the current version of Arcane Cascade stops feeling like a relevant amount of bonus damage so it feels like a good point to introduce such a feature anyway.

benwilsher18 wrote:

True, but not every other class has to limit their choice of archetype Focus spell to one specific and very narrow pool of spells

Because other classes get the focus spells that cater to the players' desires from the get-go. The Magus is exceptional in that they do not. Specifically avoiding giving players something they clearly want, and taking it away to boot, does not strike me as the optimal solution to this problem.

But why does the "Spellstrike, but stronger than with a basic cantrip, but also without expending daily resources" design space have to be filled by spending Focus points on it though? I'm not convinced that people are so glued to the idea of spending Focus points on Spellstriking that they would reject it being removed, if the damage boost it provided was replaced with a way to get to that level of power or close to it while getting to keep their Focus points for other things.

Ultimately, I think people are just doing it because it feels good to do damage equivalent to spending their spell slots while not spending their spell slots, not because it feels good to dump the whole Conflux mechanic in the trash. Do you disagree?

A 1st-level Magus using your version of Arcane Cascade with shocking grasp and just a d8 weapon would deal an average of 26 damage in one hit, meaning a crit would on average one-shot most PL+2 creatures at that point and even quite a few PL+3 creatures.

My suggestion would only be responsible in this situation for an average 3.5 of that total damage, or 7 on a critical hit. I think it's a bit hyperbolic to say that it is my suggestion pushing this combo into overpowered territory when it's only contributing about 15% of the total average damage, and it requires both Casting a Spell and spending an action entering Arcane Cascade to get there.

Because literally every other class with focus spells can opt into other focus spells without their focus spells needing some kind of special protection to not feel inadequate.

True, but not every other class has to limit their choice of archetype Focus spell to one specific and very narrow pool of spells - ones with spell attack rolls that scale better than Gouging Claw in this case, of which since the Amp changes there are very, very few options. Wouldn't it be cool if Magus could pick other Focus spells from archetypes without it feeling like a bad decision? For example Athletic Rush or Qi Rush or could be a great openers to follow with Arcane Cascade, or Lay on Hands to provide some team support, or Weapon Surge to increase your hit and crit chance with Spellstrike, or Scholarly Recollection to make Magus's Analysis far more likely to work... I'm sure you get my point.

...unlike Kalaam, whose proof of concept at least includes quality of life improvements to the class..

I haven't submitted any proof of concept, because much like Kalaam I get frustrated when I try to debate anyone using actual maths and examples on this forum and it feels like a waste of time, as the assumptions they make about how the game is played and comparisons they make to other classes can be so far inside the white room that it is literally blinding. If you wanted an example of an idea that I have though:

(add this text to the bottom of Arcane Cascade)

Additionally, while in Arcane Cascade you deal increased damage with your Arcane spells, including when you cast them as part of a Spellstrike. This bonus damage is 1d6 with cantrips and 1d8 with spells cast from your spell slots, and it is of the same type as the bonus damage that Arcane Cascade is adding to your Strikes. The bonus damage increases to two dice at 5th level, three dice at 9th level, four dice at 13th level, and five dice at 17th level.

I would not trust you to balance the Magus, because I don't believe you have the best interests of other players at heart.

I don't understand how you came to this conclusion at all. This feels like you are attacking my personal character because we disagree about this.

If the Magus class can Spellstrike with Focus spells, that indirectly makes Conflux spells weaker because they compete for the same resources. I don't get why people don't understand this reasoning and push back against it so hard.

Is it so hard to imagine this "nerf" actually ending up feeling like an overall buff to the Magus that opens up far more build choices and options for everyone, as long as the damage difference between Spellstriking with Magus spells and Spellstriking with archetype Focus spells is made up for in some other way that doesn't involve spending Focus points on it? For example, by buffs to the lackluster Arcane Cascade, better Magus class feats, more spellcasting resources, or whatever.

Nobody's really asking for a spellstrike upgrade. We're arguing for an action economy improvement (to maybe hit those numbers more often) and against the spellstrike nerf that so many people seem to want to implement by removing focus spellstrikes.

People aren't asking for a Magus nerf when they say they want Focus Spellstriking to go. They are asking for archetyping for Focus spells to not be something that feels as necessary as it does, and to have Magus be able to reach similar numbers or overall power without it by buffing their other class features and feats.

It annoys me as a player that when I build a Magus that starts at low levels, archetyping into anything that doesn't have an attack roll Focus spell feat to pick up is actively and objectively making my character weaker. No other class has this problem.

ScooterScoots wrote:

Sounds like you either got quite lucky rolls or were over-determined to win by having a strong party. Doesn't mean that the fights that are hard for that party won't be long.

Not entirely sure but: ** spoiler omitted **

That certainly could have influenced the encounter.

I've honestly almost never started a combat without the frontline being between the squishies and the enemies. Do you advance with the casters in front at your table?

Perhaps I phrased it wrong. Frontliners do usually start at the front in terms of the party positioning, sure. But very rarely do they start positioned so perfectly that they are obstructing as many enemies as possible with the threat of their reactions, without having to move at all. And if they roll low on initiative and enemies get close enough to threaten the backline before the frontliners gain their reactions, it is expected that the frontline martials should do something to help deal with that rather than spending their turn on setup that might not even matter.

And at least in Paizo APs, maps are generally not so big that all enemies consistently start very far away from the party, even at higher levels. And you will often start positioned in such a way that your only movement options to remain in line-of-sight with the battlefield are forwards, not backwards, so the squishies can't easily back away from you to create space.

Not to mention that the higher level you get, the more mobile enemies generally are - so even on the rarer big maps, letting the enemies all do whatever they want on their first turn when you had reasonable way to interfere is likely going to make the fight harder for everyone.

I don't think it's worth us derailing this any further by arguing more when it's clear we're never going to agree ScooterScoots. The tables we play at must be completely different, because in my groups if a frontlining Fighter spent the entire first turn of any combat, especially a boss fight, not positioning themselves between the enemies and the squishies and just buffing themselves repeatedly, that would probably result in 2 or 3 of the other players having to waste a bunch of actions and resources running away and getting annoyed about it.

Both characters are quickened because it's cheap and worth it to pretty much always do at 13th level. Yes, this benefits fighter more than magus. That's just what quickened does. Draconic barrage is included because most fights (and especially the hardest fights) are long enough for it to more than pay off, and since a magus wants to activate their quickness potion round 1 (therefore preventing spellstriking unless the enemy literally starts next to them) it's a pretty direct comparison.

I have a screenshot of our 4-player party literally defeating Treerazor, the strongest monster ever printed, at the end of Spore War before round 3 was even over. It really isn't true that all difficult fights last that long that spending an entire turn buffing is worth it. It's only worth it if the enemies start more than 1 Stride away from you - and in tough fights enemies often get to go first and mess your party up massively, meaning spending a whole turn buffing and setting up essentially gives them 2 free turns. I don't think this sort of thinking should ever be used for damage comparisons.

All damage bonuses Ive added to certain strike are allowed. The feat removes damage die on failure, not flat bonuses. Go pull it up if you don't believe me. Shockwave on a slashing weapon was a legit error, but not one that really matters for the exercise as this character could just switch to something that deals bludgeoning damage

Quoted directly from the book:

"Your attack deals any damage it would have dealt on a hit, excluding all damage dice.(This removes damage dice from weapon runes, spells, and special abilities, in addition to weapon damage dice.)"

Perhaps you're right on a closer reading, but I highly doubt Paizo are balancing this feat around a Fighter having a million flat damage bonuses (and splash damage) to their Strikes when normally the only bonus they can easily get is Strength + Weapon Specialization. In my opinion Certain Strike not removing bonus damage from that isn't from dice is probably an oversight, that your build abuses to the maximum. I think using this specific setup with a specific ancestry feat from an uncommon and otherwise pretty bad heritage, a Rare archetype bonus to damage that most GMs and PFS don't allow, a weapon rune which is bad in every other scenario, and a focus spell from a second archetype and a setup turn in a damage comparison is disingenuous personally.

I'm not sure I even have the words to describe how scuffed that example is. Why does the Fighter get a free 2-action Draconic Barrage bonus to their damage set up and a free Quickened condition, which significantly benefits Fighter more than Magus? Why is the Magus making a Strike at MAP -10 without something like Certain Strikes to actually make that worthwhile, when it is pretty much the least optimal thing to include in a damage example ever? Why are you adding a bunch of status bonuses, circumstance bonuses, ancestry feat damage bonuses and rune damage bonuses to your misses with Certain Strike when it explicitly does not add any of those? Why do you have a Shockwave rune on a slashing weapon when that isn't even allowed?

Not to mention, a fair comparison based on what I originally said would be to compare a Fighter dealing damage with 2 actions vs a Magus using Spellstrike for the same number of actions. My entire hypothetical was based around making Recharge essentially free, because a lot of people want to action compress it into things like Stride or Raise Shield and actually good actions like that, which are good uses of a 3rd action for either a Fighter or a Magus or whatever class - unlike existing Recharge options. I was trying to explain why that is not a good idea to give out for free, as all existing Recharge compression either gives MAP or costs a Focus point for a good reason.

You also should probably just stick to actual Magus spells for a comparison, as Fire Ray might not even be sticking around as a Spellstrike example after the Remaster - so the miss effect might not be relevant.

EDIT: Did you also remember that Critical Failures with Certain Strike deal 0 damage? I can't see that mentioned anywhere in your example, despite two of the Strikes being made at MAP-10 and so having a significant chance to do nothing, especially to the higher AC enemy.

Also, with your reading of a holy weakness; would this construct take damage for being in the aura of an Angelic Halo spell?

https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=2093

I would say no. But it's in the area of effect of a Holy spell (that doesn't normally deal damage, and in fact normally does nothing at all to foes); should it take 20 untyped damage? Each round?

I would say in this case no, because the creature is not targeted by and thus not "affected by" the spell. I would generally say that in order to be affected by a spell, a creature has to be attacked and hit, fail a save against it, or take some damage from it in some other way. I personally think if any of those 3 things happens and the spell has a trait that matches a weakness, it should trigger.

That does call to mind some other weird interactions though. If a Witch used Elemental Betrayal to give a creature a weakness to Wood, and then cast Entangling Flora, when would the weakness trigger? Each time it fails a save? Each time it moves in the difficult terrain? Every round regardless of both?

Weakness to traits could really use some better wording...

It would only be untyped if the attack dealt no damage but still triggered a weakness.

I guess the argument stems from the fact that this is actually not 100% clarified anywhere. It uses the phrase "If you have a weakness to something that doesn't normally deal damage, such as water" which could also apply to this situation - "holy" does not normally deal damage, and a construct does not normally take spirit damage so you could also consider spirit to be "something that doesn't normally deal damage" in this instance.

To look at some other examples then, what about the Water trait? There are spells like Hydraulic Push that deal damage and have the Water trait, so a creature weak to water would take additional damage from these spells equal to their weakness.

But the Water trait itself says that while submerged, "Creatures with a weakness to water take damage equal to double their weakness at the end of each round." This shows how untyped damage can occur because of a trait weakness.

Now what if you targeted such a creature with Tidal Surge?

https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1848

I would rule that if it failed the save, it would take damage equal to its water weakness, because the spell has the Water trait and it has been affected by it. What would you rule here?

The creature is this scenario isn't weak to spirit damage though, it is weak to the holy trait which is not a damage type. So I think "weakness to something that does not normally deal damage" does actually apply.

"If you have a weakness to something that doesn't normally deal damage, such as water, you take damage equal to the weakness value when touched or affected by it."

Being hit by an attack with the holy trait should count as being affected by it surely? The same as if you threw holy water at the creature and hit, which deals no damage to creatures not weak to holy.

Spellstriking with cantrips does on-par or sometimes even better single-target damage than hitting with max-rank attack roll spells or max-rank basic save spells at all levels, while being significantly more accurate in general because of weapon potency runes. When you factor in Spellstriking with slots or even just 2d6/rank focus spells, Magus comes out significantly ahead.

Spellcasters don't have to target AC and can also target an area which is the main balancing factor, but their limitation is daily resources instead of being limited by a recharge mechanic which is better on some adventuring days and worse than others when compared to Magus.

In a hypothetical situation where you made changes to Recharge that made it something you can just pretty much do for free every turn while still guaranteeing a Spellstrike, Magus would basically end up being the strongest single-target damage dealer in the game in every situation, even compared to a caster expending a max-rank slot every single turn somehow. The only exceptions would be situations where the enemies all have Reactive Strike that the Magus can't work around, or immunity to their spells. Having a bunch of high rank spell slots on top of this would make the class overpowered for sure.

If a creature is immune to spirit damage (e.g. construct) and also has a weakness Holy 20, and is hit by a Divine Lance (Holy trait) that causes 10d4 (=17 points) of spirit damage with the Holy trait, what damage does the creature take?

37 points (i.e., the spirit damage + the damage from the weakness) or only 20 points (= damage from the weakness)?

It would take untyped damage equal to it's Holy weakness and nothing else l I'm pretty sure. Weaknesses to traits and not damage types can be triggered by effects that don't normally do damage.

My party recently fought a monster that had 4 reactive strikes.

Fortunately, my Bard cast the 6th level version of Roaring Applause, and all of the enemies either mearly succeeded, or crit failed their will save. If not for that, the party could have been cut to ribbons.
So , yes, there are monsters that have reactive strike...or worse.

I think you missed the point of our little debate. JiCi was saying that a melee Magus should move away from enemies to use Recharge - which is an action that cannot provoke a Reactive Strike, as it doesn't have the Manipulate trait or Move traits. I was wondering why he thought it was necessary.

Recharging Spellstrike has the Concentrate trait and Casting a Conflux Spell has the Manipulate trait. Those can trigger reactions of all kind. Fortunately, Reactive Strike or similar abilities don't work at a range.

I don't think there is a single creature that I have ever seen in print that could react to you using Recharge while standing next to them. The only thing in the whole system that I know of that could is specifically a Fighter in Disruptive Stance, but that isn't likely to be fighting against a player's Magus character. If I've missed some common reaction though, let me know...

It's also worth noting that 5 out of 12 of thr Conflux spells printed actually do not have Manipulate/Somatic traits.

However, there are hundreds of monsters that could react to you wasting actions and effort moving away from them to use Recharge. Or they could just react to you using Spellstrike itself...

Clarification on what happens when a strike has no base damage but extra damage needs to be added. Such as throwing a glue bomb with a rangers precision edge or united assault?

I don't think this needs clarifying. Both of these are covered in the Damage Rolls page and sidebars in Player Core.

1. Precision damage increases an attack's listed damage, and uses the same damage type as that attack. If there is no listed damage or damage type, there is nothing to apply precision damage to.

Relevant text: "Sometimes you are able to make the most of your attack through sheer precision. When you hit with an ability that grants you precision damage, you increase the attack's listed damage, using the same damage type, rather than tracking a separate pool of damage."

2. United Assault gives a circumstance bonus to damage rolls. If there is no damage roll, it does not apply.

Relevant text:

"For damage rolls with spells, alchemical bombs, and similar items, you don’t add an attribute modifier unless otherwise noted.

Spell (or similar effect) damage roll = damage die of effect + bonuses + penalties

As with checks, you might add circumstance, status, or item bonuses to your damage rolls, but if you have multiple bonuses of the same type, you add only the highest bonus of that type."

People have been asking for special ways to recharge Spellstrike in the Hybrid Studies, such as "Striding with Laughing Shadow", "Raising your shield with Sparkling Targe" and "Reloading with Starlit Span".

The problem with implementing literally any of these things is that it would both allow and encourage Magus players to use Spellstrike every single turn, if they can use these special recharges an unlimited number of times - because none of these things increase MAP. I think all of these things would either have to be once-per-minute abilities locked behind a feat, or they would have to be 1-action Focus spells with the Conflux trait, in order to be balanced with existing recharge options.

Just implementing these with no thought would be a straight buff to an already good class, and it would also take an entire set of class features and feats with a lot of power budget behind them (Conflux spells) and just make them mostly all worthless.

Finally, recharging Spellstrike paints a target on you. This isn't like Reloading where you're likely gonna be at a distance. Unless you selected Starlit Span, you're gonna need to back away from your enemy to recharge.

As much as people insist that "you shouldn't use Spellstrike every round", the thing is that combat in Pathfinder is all about dealing damage. One round recharging is one opportunity for the enemy to hurt you for free.

I don't understand this train of thought at all. How is spending an action to Recharge or use a conflux spell "painting a target on your back"? Why would you need to Recharge far away from enemies if you are playing a melee Magus? How is a turn where you use offensive options that are not Spellstrike so bad that you consider it basically giving your enemies a free turn?

And then they have to sustain both these spells, taking 2 actions to do so.

I did edit my post to reflect the need to use Circle of Spirits to pull this off before you replied, but I think you quoted me before I was finished editing. Even then, one turn of setup easily beats two.

Also, both Gifts of the Anemos and River Carving Mountains allow you to move while you Sustain them while having useful secondary effects, and at higher levels Devouring Dark Waters allows you to Strike when you Sustain it - plus Medium/Liturgist saving you actions in their own ways with the level 9 features.

I think the horrible action economy, MAP management, and the spellcasting lockout are by far the worst things about playing an Untamed Form Druid. Being ~2 behind martial accuracy is rarely the difference between your first Strike hitting or missing, especially at higher levels. Being 2 actions behind everyone else in combat, while abandoning what feels like 90% of your class features for the privilege, is what makes it feel bad to play.

Compare Untamed Form Druid to polymorphing Animists for example. On turn 1 they can set up a sustainable 1-action spell, shift apparitions with Circle of Spirits, and then set up their polymorph, all for 3 actions (or 2 if they are a 9th level or higher Medium). Sure it costs two focus points not one, but if you're planning on spending the whole battle polymorphed, you weren't going to cast another focus spell anyway in all likelihood. This feels great in practice, because even if your Strikes are less accurate, you have a way to just not bother Striking with MAP pretty much ever from turn 2 onwards. Not only that, it costs them no actions to drop their form if they need to - why Dismiss when you can just not Sustain?

For a Druid to set up something equivalent, they need at least 5 actions - two on the first turn for the sustainable spell, two on the second turn to transform, and then one to sustain the spell cast on turn 1. The whole fight might be over before you even have the actions to make a single polymorphed Strike! Not to mention the action cost to leave the form if they need to.

The easiest fix to make Untamed druid more viable would just be to make three simple changes:

1. Allow Untamed Order Druids to cast Untamed Form or a battle form spell from their spell slots as a free action, triggered by rolling initiative.

2. Allow them to gain a reaction when they roll initiative that they can only use for Druid reactions. If they use a Druid reaction triggered by transforming as a free action as in point 1, they become Slowed 1 until the end of their first turn.

3. Give all druids a low level feat like the Barbarian's Moment of Clarity which costs 1 action to use, and lets them Cast a Spell while they are in a battle form.

Rather than focusing on buffing Untamed Form itself to make it compete with martials, just make the Druid not spend actions to transform, while also not completely crippling itself from casting, so that transforming actually feels more natural - while not directly actually any stronger than it is now.

Then, add an actual martial Shifter class or class archetype for those that want to spend all their actions doing transformed stuff and don't care about spellcasting.

...Like I said, you want the Magus to be less awful?...

I don't think a single person in this thread (except you?) thinks the current Magus is "awful" lol. Giving them a long list of straight buffs and action compression without any thoughts to how good Spellstrike already is will likely make them too powerful.

The obvious thing to do, as several people in this thread including Kalaam have repeatedly pointed out, is to have focus Spellstriking in its entirety follow Amped Psi Cantrip Spellstriking and become a thing of the past, while buffing the class in other ways so that players don't miss it.

If Magus players all want their Spellstrikes to be more powerful than base cantrips, shouldn't Paizo just make that possible without archetyping using Magus class features or spellcasting? They could also make Starlit Span have to either jump through more hoops to get this power boost somehow, or just have it be weaker for them than the melee subclasses, and that would help shore up that design issue too in a simple way.

Then players don't feel pressured to take an archetype if they don't want to (as new players often won't) and they won't be objectively making their character weaker because of it. Or, they are free to grab an archetype to improve their flexibility, defenses, skills, spellcasting, or to grab more interesting focus spells, and not feel forced into a small number of specific archetypes to grab one of the few good attack roll focus spells that are left.

Right now archetyping for these attack roll focus spells is a linear power boost to the Magus's strongest class feature, and that isn't how archetyping works for any other class in the game.

How about using the Battle Harbinger's bounded casting as a sort of base for the Magus?

Make an actual functioning Class DC that scales better than the Magus spellcasting proficiency, but that is only used for "Spellstrike Font" slots. You could also while also give them Critical Specialization that works with all Strikes while they are in Arcane Cascade

I really don’t get this mentality where we’re expected to just lay supine and expect disappointment, all under the implicit expectation that we’re meant to continue paying for a luxury product that may not deliver its expected value.

This isn't what I was trying to say at all. I'm hopeful that the Magus remaster will be good and will significantly improve the class. However, I think those improvements are likely to come at the cost of changes to Spellstrike specifically that people won't much like - particularly changes made relating to focus spells from other classes, and changes made to Starlit Span.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't want the entire Magus playerbase to be instantly outraged if Spellstrike gets "nerfed", even if every other change the class receives is positive. I want players to fairly evaluate the changes outside of DPR/white room scenarios, and I'm worried that they won't.

The reason I am advocating for attrition-free Spellstrikes above cantrip level is because in addition to making the Magus feel significantly better to play without overpowering them...

I would argue that this probably isn't an opinion shared by the designers, and judging by how limited Spellstriking with spells besides cantrips was when the class released, they probably thought that Spellstriking above cantrip power should actually have daily limits. Focus points were not attrition-free back then.

Also consider that they very recently made a change to Psychic amps that stops them working with Spellstrike, which was definitely a targeted change as that specific tweak didn't really affect anything else. I believe this indicates that their opinions on Spellstrike balance have likely not changed, and that we will probably see changes to Spellstrike or focus spells generally that people will not like.

Whether they are right to be balancing the Magus like this isn't really what I'm trying to argue here. I just think people should bear it in mind, and temper their expectations for the remaster.

benwilsher18 wrote:

"I want to Spellstrike every turn for an entire adventuring day"

and

"I never want to Spellstrike with a spell as weak as a standard cantrip".

If people really want both of these things as they seem to, then I think that their expectations for the remaster are way too high.

I think it's less this, and the fact that people don't want to have to contend with the opposite of both. If you can only Spellstrike half the time at best and are also largely relegated to cantrips when you do, what's the point?

I agree that as the Magus is now, if you Spellstrike once every two turns instead of every turn, and only ever use cantrips to do it, you won't feel like a very strong damage dealer compared to other martials that are easier to play and much more durable.

But I don't think that they will try and solve this by making it easier to Spellstrike every turn, or by making resourceless Spellstriking stronger or easier to acquire. I feel like they will buff things like conflux spells and class feats instead, and probably give Starlit Span a slap on the wrist at the same time. And I think people will likely be upset about this...

The feat seems perfect for the image of the class as I see it. Since it is Jackie Chan the class.

Considering the playtest is called "Risk and Reward" and the Daredevil in particular is all about actions with a trait called "Risky" and Press actions that both require you to have MAP and also have punishing critical failure options, I don't think having an option like Caroming Charge that is just guaranteed damage with no upside or downside fits the class description or themes at all personally.

Remastering the Magus, keeping it balanced, and making everyone happy with the changes all at once seems to me like it will be impossible for Paizo; and the reason for that is, it seems like the vast majority of Magus players seem to want for both of these things to be possible simultaneously:

"I want to Spellstrike every turn for an entire adventuring day"

and

"I never want to Spellstrike with a spell as weak as a standard cantrip".

If people really want both of these things as they seem to, then I think that their expectations for the remaster are way too high. I think that the reason people want both of these things to be possible for the Magus is because Starlit Span can currently get close to achieving both - but only if it goes out of its way to steal an attack roll focus spell from an archetype.

However, I don't think that Paizo ever intended for this playstyle to be as easy as it is for Starlit Span, and I don't think the remaster will make it any easier. In fact, I expect Starlit Span to probably be changed to make it harder in some way, to bring it in line with the other hybrid studies.

I have my fingers crossed the compromises and changes that the designers come to don't blow up in their faces. I hope people don't see Spellstriking being nerfed in some way, and immediately get mad and write off the whole remaster without looking at every other change that gets made.

It could probably use some wording to clarify that the damage is only once per target per Caroming Charge.

And while this theoretically can deal a lot of damage, in much the same way a fireball could if every square was filled with an enemy, it doesn't scare me or mean much to me as a GM.

Especially in an extreme boss battle. Good luck using this as your main tactic against the party level +3 boss and his party level lieutenant. The two enemies present will enjoy all the tickling you're doing.

That said, it does probably need to have either an attack roll or save included with like almost everything else in the game.

What you're calling "tickling" is roughly on par to Sneak Attack damage though, which you know... requires both an attack roll to achieve it, and also has the prerequisite of the enemy being off-guard, and to trigger it more than once a turn requires you to interact with MAP in some way. Being able to both Strike or trigger your Stunt damage against a boss with your first action without MAP, and then guarantee Stunt damage again with Caroming Charge will actually be quite effective damage if that boss has high AC or saves, all things considered.

Also, a fireball affecting a 20 foot burst can still affect way less squares than this ability can in theory (stacking movement speed is pretty easy in this game), plus it deals damage to allies and this does not, and it uses a resource. This might do less damage than a max-rank spell, but as it is resourceless it should be compared to cantrips or stuff like kineticist impulses lacking the Overflow trait, both of which it is WAY stronger than.

Light armor in melee combat pushes the Daredevil towards high Dex. But due to one of his core abilities Daring Stunt being limited to strength-based attack actions, it's hard to build a nimble, purely dexterity-based Daredevil.

Adding Dirty Trick to Daring Stunt as an option would negate the overwhelming need for Strength. And making it Acrobatics-based instead of needing Trickery would be the cherry on top, though I guess it's not striclty necessary.

I think honestly the class by default should be able to use Acrobatics to Trip, Climb and make jumps, and use Athletics to Tumble Through and Balance. Just make it a class feature and not a feat so that other classes can't poach these perks, and it is definitely not going to break anything.

About your 1:

The way it's written it already only applies once per target regardless how many times you pass through them.

Quote:

and you deal stunt damage to each enemy you move through

It doesn't matter how many times you move through them only IF you moved through them.

I would lean towards interpreting it like that too, but I have already seen several posts and comments on Discord and Reddit interpreting it otherwise - so it could use more precise language just to make it 100% clear. You do move twice during the activity after all.

I'm concerned that as written Caroming Charge is going to cause players to optimize all of the fun out of the Daredevil class, by just building around only using this feat every turn forever. Let me explain:

Let's assume our Daredevil has +4 Strength, and 25 movement speed. At level 2 once he has picked up Caroming Charge, he has the ability to do this every single turn:

Daring Stunt - Stride next to an enemy and perform an Athletics maneuver (probably Shove to deal Stunt damage if possible, but Trip if not).

OR just Strike if they are already next to an enemy, for probably 1d8+4 damage with a longsword, warhammer, etc.

Then once they have MAP, they use Caroming Charge - Stride 25 feet twice (or even 35 feet if they start both Strides next to a Prop), dealing a guaranteed unreduceable 1d6+4 damage (average 7.5) to an unlimited number of targets as long as they are within 2 Strides distance.

The damage ceiling for this damage is massive if there are multiple targets. Compare it to the best cantrip in the game Electric Arc, which does 2d4 damage (average 5) to 2 targets within 30 feet with a basic Reflex save for example, and and you can see how strong Caroming Charge is. Press is not a downside at all as this doesn't have any kind of roll involved. I'm also not including that RAW Caroming Charge doesn't seem to prevent you from affecting the same target multiple times properly.

By level 6, the Daredevil now deals 2d6+4 damage with Caroming Charge. Electric Arc is now dealing 4d4, which is still lower damage, and the Daredevil now can have Fleet and potentially Tailwind online to expand how many creatures they can target. On top of that, they now have Rushing Strike - which they can use with a D12 weapon like a greatsword if they want. So now every turn they can Stride, Strike with a weapon and deal 2d12+4 damage, and then run around everywhere dealing a guaranteed 2d6+4 damage to multiple foes.

This definitely needs to be reworked. Personally I think there should be two changes:

1. It can only effect each target once. This is probably intended anyway and just not written into the feat for some reason.
2. Creatures get a basic Reflex save against the higher of your Athletics or Acrobatics DC (or maybe just Class DC?) against the damage, and if a creature critically succeeds then you stop moving.

Stunt Damage seems to mean that Shove is a lot better than other Athletics actions. Also, it being explicitly keyed to Strength hinders Dex-based daredevils.

I actually think on my first read through that a Dexterity-based Daredevils have some great feat options that will probably make them better overall than Strength ones.

- Daring Stunt does not require you to use an Athletics maneuver after you finish moving. It's basically a Stride that gives you Adrenaline if you don't, which is still good. From level 2 on you have the option to use Tumbling Tricks instead, but Daring Stunt allows you to Leap too so it remains useful. Plus your Strength will eventually catch up as you level up, so making those action-compressed maneuvers will stop feeling like a bad choice at higher levels.

- Breakaway Strike is pretty strong! A D8 Finesse attack with Deadly D8 is pretty strong, and it even gives you a good ranged option that scales with Handwraps runes too.

- At low levels, after you move in with Daring Stunt or Tumbling Tricks and Strike, Dirty Trick or Breakaway Strike, your followup options are pretty good. Both Forceful Kickoff Stunt and Rebounding Fall Stunt are pretty solid options that don't require good Strength at all. Forceful Kickoff Stunt in particular can trigger your Stunt damage and allow you to retreat after your attack even if you fail, which really enables a nice skirmishing playstyle - move in, attack, move away and annoy/damage your enemy as you do.

- As you level up, your Strength will naturally start to catch up to your Dexterity a bit because of the way attribute increases work, making Athletics maneuvers useful even if you started out with +4 Dexterity and only +2 or +1 Strength. I think starting with better AC, Reflex and Constitution in exchange for a little bit less damage and being a bit worse at Athletics at low levels is definitely worth this tradeoff.

- Even if you leave your Strength very low, the feat options you have as a Daredevil that is not focusing on Athletics are pretty good even at higher levels for increasing your damage.

good points

I would agree with you if it weren't for the fact that fighting these as a level 1 character is just so miserable (speaking from player and GM experience). Dealing 10 points of damage to break the Hardness is almost unfeasible for some parties before it downs one or more PCs, as spells literally deal 0 damage to it unless it critically fails (and sometimes even if it does) and even perfectly reasonable melee combatants like a Champion or Magus with a longsword are dealing on average about 1 damage per hit (even factoring in Spellstrike!). You really are just hoping for that crit, which is likely to need an 18 or higher without MAP even with flanking factored in. It is much more likely to critically hit level 1 characters in comparison.

If you don't have a 2h weapon user, Runic Weapon/Body, or just better luck than the GM, even one of these is a TPK risk. And they keep putting them up against level 1 parties in APs, who are often going to be new players and not understand the system nuances at all. Something needs to be done.

I don't think treating Hardness for creatures as something that should be balanced differently to Resistance makes sense. Breaking a hazard is a last resort, but you can solve that problem with skill checks much more easily or sometimes just avoid interacting with it altogether by spotting the hazard before it triggers. A construct creature that is trying to kill you doesn't provide an alternative solution that doesn't involve engaging directly with their Hardness. At the very least, this monster's Hardness being nearly double the suggested maximum resistance is egregious, especially at a level where new players are likely to encounter it and not have had to deal with resistances higher than 1 or 2 before.

Please fix the Hardness value of the Animated Armor monster so that it follows the "Building Creatures" guidelines, which recommend a maximum Hardness value of 5 for level 2 monsters. The Animated Armor for some reason has a Hardness of 9, which is nearly double the recommended maximum, and which is actually enough to completely nullify spell and ranged Strike damage dealt by level 1 and 2 characters until someone gets a lucky critical hit.

The fact that both Shades of Blood and Myth-Speaker put level 1 parties up against Animated Armors indicates that Paizo plans on using them frequently going forward, so it would be better if it were actually designed properly according to Paizo's own guidelines. I have seen new players bounce off the system entirely after encountering one of these things in APs and getting frustrated that it is invincible to everything they can do unless they roll a 20 against it.

I'm hopeful the classes end up more than what I'm envisioning from the descriptions and the stream. I can't shake my first impressions of "Gymnast Swashbuckler with Punishing Shove" and "Ranger but better because you can't Hunt Mark Prey in combat", which feel like very shaky and toe-steppy concepts to make whole new classes around...

Yeah, you have Slow and now Paralyze, but at Rank 3, you also have Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Levitate, Vampiric Feast, Haste and any heightened Rank 1 or 2 spell you may want. No Magus is going to pack all Slow spells, come on now...

Trust me when I say there are many tables that would definitely end up with a Magus that prepares mostly debuffs every day if Paizo implemented guaranteed failures or critical failures on saves for Spellstrike hits or critical hits.

After all, no amount of damage can compare with removing a target's ability to act completely, unless that damage kills the target outright. And when you need single-target damage, Spellstriking with focus spells and cantrips does just fine.

The one caveat I would say about elemental betrayal, which is also still a confusing issue with the damage instance errata, is that fire as both a trait and a damage type creates a problem in the “elemental weakness triggering” game because none of the other elements get to work as damage types. If fire could only invoke at the trait/categorical level, and how that is supposed to work is that it can only trigger once per strike, then there would be no concerning exploit with elemental betrayal.

Actually a lot of damage types have a trait with the same name. The only ones that don't are bludgeoning, piercing and slashing, which all fall under the "physical damage" trait (which basically never gets listed anywhere except in monster statblocks as a resistance or immunity).

For example, Caustic Blast has the Acid trait and deals acid damage, Force Barrage has the Force trait and deals force damage, and Frostbite has the Cold trait and deals cold damage.

Elemental Betrayal probably needs errata regardless of how weakness triggers stack with the new rules in my opinion. It specifically calls out the elemental traits of Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Metal and Wood, of which as you say only Fire has a damage type that matches it. But the other weakness options in the spell that lack a damage type can actually be triggered by things that do not normally deal damage - as described under Weaknesses (which uses water weakness as an example).

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2317

"If you have a weakness to something that doesn't normally deal damage, such as water, you take damage equal to the weakness value when touched or affected by it."

So if you give a creature a weakness to the Air trait and it is a creature that needs to breathe, does it just trigger constantly unless it holds it's breath? If you give a creature a weakness to Metal while it is wearing full plate armour, does it take damage every time it moves or touches anything? If you give a creature a weakness to wood, does it get hurt when I Shield Block it's fangs Strike with a wooden shield?

And so on. Elemental Betrayal's effects (and the weakness rules in general when it comes to traits) are really loosely defined and open to abuse. The latest errata is just throwing more wood on an existing fire really.

I agree with the take that the last thing that needs buffs or changes in the Remaster is Spellstrike itself. Magus definitely could use some changes, but mostly it is their other features that need looking at - Arcane Cascade is rarely worth the setup, their class feats are mostly bad compared to other martials, the quality of most of their focus spells is pretty low, and Starlit Span is a balance outlier because of how much more easily it can spare actions and focus points to recharge because it rarely needs to move.

Generally, both for the benefit of Magus and just to help spellcasters out in general, I hope Paizo add a variety of attack roll spells of varying ranks and damage types in Impossible Magic, including some which debuff the target a bit or have other effects like Briny Bolt. I hope they also add some kind of item to give item bonuses to spell attack rolls too - which might actually make them worth using outside of edge cases, like Holy Light against demons, or spell attacks with interesting critical hit effects against oozes (like Ignition).

Whatever changes they make to Spellstrike, the worst possible result for the game would be for the Magus to be able to apply the critical failure effect of save spells more reliably than full casters already can.

The last thing the game needs is a way to allow a Magus to essentially allow you to target the AC of a boss with crippling debuffs like Slow or Synesthesia, especially with how you can easily stack circumstance bonuses and status bonuses to your attack roll with things like Aid and Fortissimo Composition Courageous Anthem, how you can get "advantage" on attack rolls with Sure Strike and Hero Points, and how easy it is to get enemies Off-Guard compared to the equivalent for saves of Frightened 2/Sickened 2.

AC is also NEVER the highest defense on any monster. If you consider that, then even guaranteeing a regular failure when Spellstriking with save spells is potentially super strong. You could force debuffs that a full caster might have a ~20% or lower chance of applying.

I personally don't think anything outside of at most a -2 to -4 circumstance penalty on the save would be fair. Adjusting the degree of success wouldn't be balanced however they tried to make it work in my opinion.

- Doesn't work well with fighters because you use weapons of 2 different groups.

Just to say, there are several weapons in the Brawling group (which the Fist attack is in) that actually would work well with Overwhelming Combination - the pantograph gauntlet, the fangwire and the tri-bladed katar are pretty good weapons in their own right, and the various Free-Hand weapons are pretty good in a lot of cases if you build around having free hands.

Also notice the Overwhelming Combination gives a double cost problem once that it cannot benefit from Doubling Rings nor Blazons of Shared Power unless if you are playing a ABP/ARP game.

Spirit Warrior has a feat to deal with this at level 6 called "Cutting Heaven, Crushing Earth", so runes are actually less of a concern for this than they are for regular dual-wielding honestly.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=7024

benwilsher18 wrote:

Tridus wrote:

It's significantly worse, though. The only class it's "a bit worse" than is Summoner. It's a lot worse than anyone else.

Have you never seen a Monk, Ranger or Champion targeting save DCs with focus spells or spells from dedications before? Magus is on par with all of their casting options (or at least can be if it raises Intelligence).

I said they're the worst casting class in the first comment and this is a continuation of that thought. A Ranger deciding to use an archetype spell is not a caster class.

But no, I pretty rarely see that. Those classes usually have something better to do with their actions until pretty late in the game when they could theoretically cast something like Synesthesia, but if the group has a caster they can probably do that instead and then those folks will pound the debuffed enemy into the ground.

If your Monk is casting attack spells, something has gone sideways.

I'm honestly surprised to hear someone say this. These classes all get focus casting without even considering dedications that scale to Master, and they all get access to good Focus spells via their own class feats that target enemies - examples include Slime Spit from Ranger, Qi Blast from Monk and Destructive Wave from Champion (via domain spells).

Grabbing more focus spells from Dedications that have the same KAS as your focus casting is great and I see a lot of players do it - for example a Ranger that picks up Crushing Ground or Tempest Surge from Druid Dedication, or a Champion that picks up Spray of Stars or Tempest Touch from Oracle Dedication. These dedications also give cantrips that will scale to Master as well. You can make highly effective gish characters by doing this - particularly for Monk and Ranger who can Strike twice for a single action and put themselves at maximum MAP while still having two actions remaining.

It's significantly worse, though. The only class it's "a bit worse" than is Summoner. It's a lot worse than anyone else.

Have you never seen a Monk, Ranger or Champion targeting save DCs with focus spells or spells from dedications before? Magus is on par with all of their casting options (or at least can be if it raises Intelligence).

Ironic considering you're talking about specializing too much and lacking versatility, but cramming your spell list this full of different kinds of attack spells leaves no room for anything else like utility things.

I don't see how preparing Electric Arc and Frostbite (or grabbing them from cheap level 3 spellhearts) actually lowers your utility options at all personally...