The proverbial stick in the mud


Round 1: Magus


Not to be a nag, but with all the discussion that's been going on about the balance of the Spell Combat ability nobody seems to have noticed the redundancy of the ability.

Let me elaborate a bit:
The Spell Combat ability seems to be designet to let you get a spell off while doing some sweet melee full attacking. But as things are, you won't have more than one attack until level 8 (where the Spell combat ability becomes much easier to handle anyway). So you'd be much better off throwing around some weight with your Spellstrike ability until then, since the result wil be the same - i.e. 1 weapon attack and 1 touch spell cast.

I haven't had the time to test this yet, since I had to go to work, but I'll look into it one of these days.

Or did I miss the point of the awesome awesome level 2 power? ;)

Liberty's Edge

Rocket Surgeon wrote:

Not to be a nag, but with all the discussion that's been going on about the balance of the Spell Combat ability nobody seems to have noticed the redundancy of the ability.

Let me elaborate a bit:
The Spell Combat ability seems to be designet to let you get a spell off while doing some sweet melee full attacking. But as things are, you won't have more than one attack until level 8 (where the Spell combat ability becomes much easier to handle anyway). So you'd be much better off throwing around some weight with your Spellstrike ability until then, since the result wil be the same - i.e. 1 weapon attack and 1 touch spell cast.

I haven't had the time to test this yet, since I had to go to work, but I'll look into it one of these days.

Or did I miss the point of the awesome awesome level 2 power? ;)

Well spellstrike doesn't give you a free attack just because you cast the spell. So going the spellstrike route you cast round 1, then attack round 2. Spellstrike is a great move if you can prep a spell and hold the charge or quicken your casting.

Sovereign Court

Less a stick in the mud, more of a fly in the ointment :D

Grand Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
James Fenix wrote:
Well spellstrike doesn't give you a free attack just because you cast the spell. So going the spellstrike route you cast round 1, then attack round 2. Spellstrike is a great move if you can prep a spell and hold the charge or quicken your casting.

Yup. Since casting a spell is (usually) a standard action and making an attack is (at least) a standard action, at 1st level, it takes 2 rounds to spellstrike (cast round 1, strike round 2).

Spell combat lets you do both as a full-round action by taking a penalty to attack and making a spellcraft check. At 2nd level (up until 8th level, as you point out), this lets you effectively pull off 2 standard actions in a round. Once you hit 8th level, you can get a standard action plus a full-round attack in the same round.

-Skeld


Still contributes to the motionless combat syndrome. I hate fights where nobody does anything but 5' step: it just feels ridiculous.

Grand Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Fax Celestis wrote:
Still contributes to the motionless combat syndrome. I hate fights where nobody does anything but 5' step: it just feels ridiculous.

Spellstrike as a standard plus a move plus a swift in a single round would seem a tad over-the-top.

-Skeld


Skeld wrote:
Fax Celestis wrote:
Still contributes to the motionless combat syndrome. I hate fights where nobody does anything but 5' step: it just feels ridiculous.

Spellstrike as a standard plus a move plus a swift in a single round would seem a tad over-the-top.

-Skeld

Duskblade did it just fine. You're still trading the ability to target touch AC for regular AC, and you've a very limited list of what spells you can use.

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