Lenaris Vaerin
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I've started playing a Magus fairly recently, fell in love with the class instantly and haven't had much chance to play it till now. I've just hit level 2 so I came to the boards to check out the interpretations of spellstrike and though I saw plenty of discussion during the playtesting I didn't see any final thoughts on it once it was finalized. I'm just putting what I see as the way the rules work and the benefits that may have been overlooked.
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"Spellstrike (Su): At 2nd level, whenever a magus casts a
spell with a range of “touch” from the magus spell list, he
can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as
part of a melee attack. Instead of the free melee touch attack
normally allowed to deliver the spell, a magus can make one
free melee attack with his weapon (at his highest base attack
bonus) as part of casting this spell. If successful, this melee
attack deals its normal damage as well as the effects of the
spell."
Starting here, this means that you cast the spell as per the normal rules, provoking attacks if you do so in melee range and the like, but the free action you get during that round to cast the spell can be either a touch attack as per normal or with a melee attack. This is something that should be decided on when the spell is "cast" as it will determine where the charge is being held.
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"If the magus makes this attack in concert with spell
combat, this melee attack takes all the penalties accrued by
spell combat melee attacks."
The older versions stated that you do not gain a free melee attack when using these two abilities, and I think that this is still implied.
Normal spell combat you could cast the spell, provoking if in melee range already (five foot step in if not), attack with weapon, melee touch attack.
With spellstrike assuming no free attack. You cast the spell and make a full attack action, as per normal spellcombat. The difference is that each swing of the sword is now holding the charge so one hit will result in both hits. This becomes more beneficial as you gain more attacks, as the non spellcombat use of spellstrike is better with only a single attack action. As soon as you gain multiple attacks the spellstrike + spellcombat combo becomes more powerful.
With spellstrike assuming a free attack. You cast the spell and make a full attack action, as per normal spellcombat, with a free melee attack in addition. As described above, spellstrike + spellcombat truly shines when you have multiple attacks in a round as it grants more chances to hit with melee and thus more chances to discharge the spell. That being said, a second level magus should not be able to get an effective 3 attacks in a single round (one weapon, one free weapon, a spell discharge if hit). Granted, a melee attack is less likely to hit than a touch attack (against armored opponents) so one could argue the extra attack is fair but if you look at the above example, proper use of spellstrike + spellcombat, this version is clearly too powerful.
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There was also a great deal of complaining about how useless spell combat + spellstrike is. The above should demonstrate that it is in fact quite powerful, but only with multiple attacks right? Lets not forget the other benefit of spell combat, which is combat casting bonuses. If you are already in melee range with an enemy, you can't five foot step away to cast the spell, then step back in to spellstrike, you simple don't have the actions. Now you could either provoke the attack, cast defensively normally, or if you are concerned about wasting the spell but still need the attack now (say life or death situation) you can use spellcombat, utilizing this aspect of it:
"If he casts this spell defensively,
he can decide to take an additional penalty on his attack rolls,
up to his Intelligence bonus, and add the same amount as a
circumstance bonus on his concentration check."
This may not be the greatest benefit, and I would certainly prefer a normal spellstrike over a spellcombat + spellstrike with only one attack, but the situation could be quite dire and you may need this.
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"This attack uses the weapon’s
critical range (20, 19–20, or 18–20 and modified by the keen
weapon property or similar effects), but the spell effect
only deals ×2 damage on a successful critical hit, while the
weapon damage uses its own critical modifier."
Yes, this does encourage a spellstriking magus to use high crit range weapons while providing no extra benefit for a x3 or x4 weapon, but lets be realistic here. If you crit with a rapier for double damage and double spell damage, that's a pretty impressive hit. If you crit with a scythe for quadruple damage and quadruple spell damage, at higher levels that becomes completely and utterly game breaking with no downside whatsoever.
The gunslinger Wizard variant released in ultimate combat grants spells a 20 x3 crit, which is quite powerful, but at the risk of completely destroying yourself on a crit fail, or for an AoE if one enemy crit succeeds (more likely the more targets you include!) so the downside to this powerful feature is high. The magus needs the crit capped at x2 else another seriously powerful downside to make the higher crits more dangerous to make up for the game breaking potential. I don't think that would have been a good choice. The class is complex enough without making this ability even more difficult to understand and with so many upsides and downsides you can't keep it straight.
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That is all! Hope this helps clarify for those who don't understand the wording and helped show the benefits more clearly for those who didn't see the use.
| Kazejin |
Edit: Had to reread your wording.
The reason you don't see much discussion over the interpretations is because its not hard for anyone to understand. The old versions do not matter, they are old, and outdated. Stick to what Ultimate Magic says, not what the playtests say.
Yes you can combine Spell Combat with Spellstrike, and its far from useless. No one needs to be told this.
At lv2, you'd have two weapon attacks + the delivery of the touch spell. Pretty simple, I don't think anyone is confused about this.