I think you can make a passable "gish"-like character with a martial class, especially the twin-takedown ranger and monk(b/c of flurry).
I'm not sure the same is true of spellcaster classes. Age of Ages has a character with a spell-strike ability, that I suspect is the start of a magus. The way it is implemented suggests it would work well as an archetype, and that lets you do it with any spellcasting class.
So here is my first draft attempt:
MAGUS FEAT 2
|ARCHETYPE|UNCOMMON|
Prerequisites ability to cast spells from spell slots, Strength 14, one of Intillgence 14, Wisdom 14, or Charisma 14
You become trained one martial weapon. You become trained in Athletics; if you are already trained in this skills, you instead become trained in a skill of your choice.
Special You can't select another dedication feat until you have gained two other feats from the Magus archetype.
SPELL STRIKE [free-action] FEAT 4
|ARCHETYPE|
Prerequisites expert in skill associated with spellcasting tradition, Magus Archetype
Frequency once per round;
Trigger You begin to Cast a Spell that targets at least 1 creature; You have one hand free
You channel your spell through an attack. You make a melee Strike with a weapon or unarmed attack against a target within reach. If the Strike is successful, the target is automatically subject to the spell. If the spell required an attack roll, the target is hit. If the spell required a saving throw, the target takes a –4 status penalty to its saving throw instead. If the spell could target multiple creatures, it targets only the creature you hit with your Strike. This counts as a number of attacks equal to the number of actions spent casting the spell when calculating your multiple attack penalty.
MAGUS RESILIENCY FEAT 4
|ARCHETYPE|
Prerequisites Magus Archetype, class granting no more Hit Points per level than 6 + your Constitution modifier
You gain 3 additional Hit Points for each magus archetype class feat you have. As you continue selecting magus archetype class feats, you continue to gain additional Hit Points in this way.
BESPELL WEAPON [free-action] FEAT 6
|ARCHETYPE|
Prerequisites Magus Archetype
Frequency once per turn
Requirements Your most recent action was to cast a non-cantrip spell.
You siphon spell energy into one weapon you’re wielding. Until the end of your turn, the weapon deals an extra 1d6 damage of a type depending on the school of the spell you just cast.
• Abjuration force damage
• Conjuration or Transmutation the same type as the weapon
• Divination, Enchantment, or Illusion mental damage
• Evocation a type the spell dealt, or force damage if the spell didn’t deal damage
• Necromancy negative damage
STEADY SPELLCASTING FEAT 8
|ARCHETYPE|
Prerequisites Expert in a spellcasting tradition, Magus Archetype
Confident in your technique, you don’t easily lose your concentration when you Cast a Spell. If a reaction would disrupt your spellcasting action, attempt a DC 15 flat check. If you succeed, your action isn’t disrupted.
MASTER OF STEEL AND SPELL FEAT 10
|ARCHETYPE|
Prerequisites Expert in a spellcasting tradition, Magus Dedication
Whenever you gain a class feature that grants you expert or greater proficiency in certain weapons, you also gain that proficiency in your chosen martial weapon.
Thoughts: The idea here is to soften the proficiency challenges and action economy issues. Hence spell-strike, and the martial weapon proficiency.
No armor proficiencies, you'd have to pick up general feats and one of the armor archetypes coming in the APG, and I think that's okay as it's a problem that starts occuring after you have likely taken all of the Magus feats you want anyway.
I added the free hand restriction to make it harder to use reach weapons, or two handed weapons, or shields. So you can use your sword and spell, but that's your fighting style.
The -4 on a saving throw isn't nearly as powerful as it seems, as you'll be -1 to -2 to hit compared to martials until at least level level 13, and if you miss the attack, you lose the spell. Saving throw equal to DC-10, 10 to hit AC:
5% Critical Fail | 40% Fail | 50% Success | 5% Critical Success
->
11% Critical Fail | 25% Fail | 17% Success || 47% Critical Success or miss
So it's more swingy, but also worse vs above level enemies.
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The -4 on a saving throw isn't nearly as powerful as it seems, as you'll be -1 to -2 to hit compared to martials until at least level level 13, and if you miss the attack, you lose the spell. Saving throw equal to DC-10, 10 to hit AC:
It's the equivalent of +2 ranks in spellcasting tradition at level 4.
Your first hit will be plenty good enough to hit most time, especially if true strike is on your list.
If master at level 4, legendary at level 7, extra-legendary at 15 and super-legendary at 19 sounds like too much it probably is.
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I would do spellstrike this way:
SPELL STRIKE [free-action] FEAT 4
|ARCHETYPE|
Prerequisites expert in skill associated with spellcasting tradition, Magus Archetype
Frequency once per round;
Trigger You begin to Cast a Spell that targets at least 1 creature; You have one hand free
You channel your spell through an attack. You make a melee Strike with a weapon or unarmed attack against a target within reach. If the Strike is successful, both the weapon and spell hit the target. If the spell required an attack roll, the target is automatically subject to both the weapon's damage and the spell's effects using the same success levels (a critical hit is a critical hit for both the weapon and the spell). If the spell required a saving throw, the target still gets to make a saving throw against the spell, but if the Spellstrike's attack was a critical hit, reduce the quality of the save result by 1 step (a crit success becomes a success, a success becomes a failure, a failure becomes a crit fail). If the Spellstrike's attack misses, the spell is wasted as normal.
It isn't free, and it isn't two proficiency ranks, because it only happens if you hit. You effectively add 30-45% to the chance that your opponent gets a critical success, just by swinging your sword.
If you are level 7, started with 16 now 18 strength and 18 now 19 Int. This is a good level, because you JUST got a spellcasting proficiency bump, so it's almost as good as it gets at lower levels.
You want to cast a fireball, on an even level foe who has Moderate Reflex save. Fireball isn't super efficient vs one single foe.
5% Crit Fail | 40% Fail | 50% Success | 5% Crit Success (21 avg.)
Now you use Spell-Strike with a 4th level fireball. The foe also has moderate AC, but you are not expert with weapons, so need 10+ on your first attack. That's a 45% chance of them getting effectively a Crit Success.
This means you effectively get:
11% Crit Fail | 25% Fail | 17% Success | 47% Crit Success (23.34 avg, including 2d8+4 from strike hitting)
You trade reliability and AoE, for single target very swingy damage. It scales quite a bit worse against foes higher level than yourself, so it's most effective against same or lower fows that you want to kill quickly by blowing through resources. Now maybe true strike makes that too reliable, or allows you to nova too many resources against one foe too well, but then the issue is more about true strike than the -4 to the save.
For context if the ability only imparted a -2 to the save, you'd end up with
5% Crit Fail | 25% Fail | 22% Success | 48% Crit Success (19.68 avg, including 2d8+4 from strike hitting)
Same chance to get the double damage as just casting the spell, less likely to get any other kind of damage, 9 times more likely to do no damage with your spell slot.
Now maybe there's an argument that it's too strong with all spells, etc.
But again the answer is not that the -4 is too strong on pure damage spells, it's that you might want to restrict Spell-Strike to spells that do damage.
I would do spellstrike this way:
SPELL STRIKE [free-action] FEAT 4
|ARCHETYPE|
Prerequisites expert in skill associated with spellcasting tradition, Magus Archetype
Frequency once per round;
Trigger You begin to Cast a Spell that targets at least 1 creature; You have one hand free
You channel your spell through an attack. You make a melee Strike with a weapon or unarmed attack against a target within reach. If the Strike is successful, both the weapon and spell hit the target. If the spell required an attack roll, the target is automatically subject to both the weapon's damage and the spell's effects using the same success levels (a critical hit is a critical hit for both the weapon and the spell). If the spell required a saving throw, the target still gets to make a saving throw against the spell, but if the Spellstrike's attack was a critical hit, reduce the quality of the save result by 1 step (a crit success becomes a success, a success becomes a failure, a failure becomes a crit fail). If the Spellstrike's attack misses, the spell is wasted as normal.
Crit bumping success is certainly in-line with other abilities that require a hit, then save. Did you intentionally remove the AoE to single bit?
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Crit bumping success is certainly in-line with other abilities that require a hit, then save. Did you intentionally remove the AoE to single bit?
I don't know if I'd really allow AoE spells to be used with Spellstrike. In 1e it was only supposed to be used with Touch range spells. In 2e, I'd either say it must be a single target spell and using the feat reduces the range to your melee attack's range, or, if the spell could normally affect other targets, casting it with the feat reduces it to a single target spell.
I don't know if I'd really allow AoE spells to be used with Spellstrike. In 1e it was only supposed to be used with Touch range spells. In 2e, I'd either say it must be a single target spell and using the feat reduces the range to your melee attack's range, or, if the spell could normally affect other targets, casting it with the feat reduces it to a single target spell.
Crit bumping success is certainly in-line with other abilities that require a hit, then save. Did you intentionally remove the AoE to single bit?
Sure, that last is built into the AoA NPC's version as is.
Sorry to necro your thread, but having just reached the point in Age of Ashes when Rinnarv comes into play and having read your homebrew, I was wondering if it would not be better to replace Bespell Weapon with the Fighter Dedication’s Opportunist feat.
Although presumably built upon a Sorcerer chassis, the character seems to be able to make Attacks of Opportunity and most, if not all Spellcasting Classes get Bespell Weapon.
Anyway, the Archetype reads great.
Crossing my fingers that the Spellstrike appearing means we will get an official Magus option sooner, rather than later.