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All,
I know there are countless threads across the web about converting the Pathfinder Magus into a 5e equivalent, and a lot of us are very well aware of the numerous discussions on how adding in something like that could "break" or "disrupt" the mechanics of ability-economies of other classes.
However, I've been wondering, how could we actually create something other than the 5e Fighter's EK, while still maintaining game balance, and still bring in two primary themes:
Part 1: The ability to convert a touch spell into a melee attack
Part 2: The ability to cast both cantrips and spells and make melee attacks (multiple if possible without augmentation like haste/action surge/and other non-class specific buffs).
For Part 1:
The ability to cast a touch spell and convert the delivery of the spell into a melee attack with the damage from the spell as part of the attack (whether it be part of the Action/Bonus/Reaction/etc), what is known in Pathfinder as "Spellstrike".
For Part 2:
The ability to make both a single spell attack (cantrip/spell) while also getting the opportunity to make melee attacks (multiple if possible) without the need of augmentation. By augmentation, I'm including things like Haste, Action Surge, and other buffs or spells that give an attack. HOWEVER, I am "NOT" including things like EXTRA Attack (This is primarily, for this part, what I want to discuss).
Question 1:
What I would like to know is how would that hinder the overall gameplay with other players of varying classes? Or would this be seen as a nice perk but not really damaging to the overall game?
Question 2:
What's the consequence of giving somebody the class perk of being able to, per round, Cast once a Cantrip/Spell and also allow them to attack, potentially, multiple times without the benefits of augmentation (as stated above) from spells and abilities? I want to know how damaging to either the game or the group it would be to have a player have the standard ability to cast a cantrip/spell and attack, and if they have Extra Attack from their class, still allow them to make that extra attack!
Question 2 Example:
Our character is Bob, for the sake of this example let's imagine he's part of this pseudo-class we're discussing. Depending at what level Bob gets the ability to both cast and attack as well as what level Bob gets the ability to make multiple attacks, how does that hurt/hinder or even break the game or make it a show stealer from other players?
Potential Work-Around:
Weapon Based Approach: What if the class was item specific? IE, what if the class was bound to a singular item but the player created it based around basic concepts. Much like a the classic psionic concept of generating their own weapon. But in this case, this class "Made" an actual weapon that grew with them as they leveled into this class exclusively. By making the Weapon itself the reason for the benefit and perks, and allowing the weapon to grow over the course of 20 levels, could that offset some of the impact that Part 1 and Part 2 create?
Potential Work-Around Example:
If our character Bob started off at level 1 they could choose a single simple or martial weapon to be their weapon of choice, and for the sake of argument the weapon would also count as an attuned item. As they level up the weapon grants them these perks of being able to cast and do multiple attacks in a single round continuously.
Overall, I liked the community's advice on understanding the impact of each of these topics. I look forward to discussing further. Thank you very much for your input and thoughts.
So, you've got hurdles.
Touch attacks don't exist in 5e, not in the way they exist in 3.x. There's no Touch AC. There are melee spell attacks, that target the same AC as everything else.
So here's an example to try to understand what you want better.
Say the Magus is lvl 5.
Cast Shocking Strike into a longsword, attack for 1d8 slashing + 2d8 lightning + Str.
Then use Extra Attack to attack with the longsword again for the regular 1d8+str slashing (or would they attack with the longsword twice more)?
Exactly, Petty Alchemy!
I was originally considering your example as follows:
Cast Shocking Strike into a longsword, attack for 1d8 slashing + 2d8 lightning + Str. And then attack with the longsword again for the regular 1d8+str slashing. To be treated as Dual Wielding. And if they eventually get "Extra Attack" they can do one more melee hit.
But I do kind of like the idea of potentially converting the "Extra attack" into something like being able to make a maximum of two melee, or one melee and one spell attack.
I'm aware that the Touch AC is not in 5e, and I'm fine with that. But I was trying to think of any spell with a range of "Touch" be utilized for Part 1.
And I figured something like that shouldn't be "too" much of a nuisance, so long as it follows a decent placement as far as "when" a character could have access to do something like this in their level progression.
Whoops, I meant "Shocking Grasp", but I'm glad it made sense anyway.
It certainly would be best for balance if they could not attack 3 times, since that's something special the Fighter gets to do (or the Berserker Barbarian pays a high price to do).
Right out of the gate, this is a high damage class, hitting for 1d8 more than others (and preventing their reactions allows you to dodge aside).
Have you seen the cantrip spells Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade, which when cast allow you to immediately make a weapon attack roll with a magical rider? If so, what are your thoughts about how they would interact with a Magus class?
Yeah, I've looked at both of those spells, and I like them as Cantrips!
BB
Since Booming blade is not based around a range of "touch" it would be considered as part of Part 2 that we discussed.
So in that case, Bob would cast Booming Blade and immediately make a melee attack (still using the longsword as mentioned before) so that would be:
(1d8+str)+1d8 Thunder Damage.
And then if Bob had "Extra Attack" they could perform one additional Melee attack of the standard 1d8+str.
GFB
Because this too has a range of 5 ft, it doesn't fall under the category of Part 1's prerequisite of being a range of "touch". So this too would fall under Part 2's category:
So in this case, Bob would cast GFB and immediately make a melee attack (again, with the same longsword) so that would be:
Before level 5
Initial Target: (1d8+str)
Second Target: Would take fire damage based on spellcasting ability modifier.
At Level 5 and beyond
Initial Target: (1d8+str)+1d8
Secondary Target: 1d8+spellcasting modifier
And with this, if the character did acquire "Extra Attack" after they have resolved this, they would have one melee attack left of the standard (1d8+str).
And I see where this could start to look like too powerful. But let's say for level progression in this "class" you don't get to do both a Melee and Spell attack at level 1, that would be too unfair. But maybe once they acquire "Extra Attack" within that class, and call it something like "Magus Attack", and possibly push that to level 6. How would that stack up against other players? So up until that point they could either do a single melee attack, or a single spell attack.
Thoughts?
Oh absolutely, they should not get more attacks than other martials, since their single attack is going to be stronger than another class's single attack.
What do you think about the Paladin's Smite ability?
They can expend spell slots to add 1d8+1d8/level of slot to the damage of their hit, to effectively do burst damage with magic, similar to how the Magus worked in PF (since Shocking Grasp was a lvl 1 spell then, rather than a cantrip).
I actually think reflavoring the Paladin would hit those notes well, since between their class feature, and the Smite spells (which deal some extra damage and have some status condition), you're pretty close to the Magus.
Funny you bring that up, I had planned on playing an Oath of the Ancients Paladin in my next campaign.
But as much what you said completely makes sense, there are still components to this "Magus" that I want to eventually bring in as well. And this very well could be a rehash of the Paladin, but one of the additional items would be to add in the Magus Arcana (which I could see as being somewhat like, but not the same as, the Warlock's invocations, or the Sorcerer's Metamagic).
Granted, the Paladin has some really beefy spells as well as buffs, but if, in my mindset for this character, they had to align to anything, it wouldn't be religion or an oath/path, it would be the pursuit of Magical Knowledge and its Use. This character devotes their time to harnessing the actual essence of magic into their own use, thereby emulating multiple classes in different ways.