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1. I loooove having ranged, one handed, and two handed options built right in.
2. Raise a Tome is both hilarious and awesome. "Hmm, yes, hold on while I check my notes."
3. Losing your lower level spell slots is certainly one way to make a limited spellcaster. I wonder how it'll feel to have a spellbook full of spells you almost never use.
4. Spirit Sheath is pretty cool. It reminds me of some of the D&D5e warlock antics I saw on Critical Role.
5. Striker's Scroll is a cool mechanic, but imagining someone wrapping a scroll around their sword is goofy as all heck.
6. Gaining back a few spell slots with the Martial Caster feat seems like a nice half step between multiclassing into wizard for more low level slots.
7. Unarmed style magus is supported as well!
8. You can parry a spell and store it in your weapon to use yourself!
9. Looks like the Magus might have some nice damage dealing options, getting Spell Swipe and Cascading Ray as multi-target options.
10. Got teleporting as a 10th level feat. Nice.
11. Magic Sense gives you an ongoing detect magic, which is nice since it frees up your cantrip slots to use for varied elemental damage.
12. School Shroud is maybe the coolest thing ever. Getting a buff while casting another spell is very powerful.
It's interresting that, in concept when you take all the Spellstrike feats, the idea is that you cast only very few spells, but when you do...everyone better take cover.
However until you get those feats, 4 spells per day feels very, very limited, having to choose 4 spells within all of the Arcana list will be challenging to say the least xD Gotta try that. I would have expected a Spell Recall focus spell to alleviate that, something akin to "By spending 1 Focus point, recharge one spell slot you have expanded during this encounter." with a frequency limit of 10 minutes or "once between each refocus" or something.
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It's interresting that, in concept when you take all the Spellstrike feats, the idea is that you cast only very few spells, but when you do...everyone better take cover.
However until you get those feats, 4 spells per day feels very, very limited, having to choose 4 spells within all of the Arcana list will be challenging to say the least xD Gotta try that. I would have expected a Spell Recall focus spell to alleviate that, something akin to "By spending 1 Focus point, recharge one spell slot you have expanded during this encounter." with a frequency limit of 10 minutes or "once between each refocus" or something.
I've had a player comment with concerns about highly limited casting, as well; on the one hand I totally get the need for limiting them (master weapon prof, decent armor, and decent casting prof), but on the other that does seem a bit strict for the slot limitations. The martial caster feat seems all but required for them to get the most bang for their buck with most of their toys, and even then is 6 slots enough?
That's what playtesting is for, for sure; it may feel fine between focus spells, multiclassing, innate spells, and cantrips, and I really hope so because I like every other aspect of the class so far!
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I'm not seeing enough to make me prefer the Magus to either Fighter/MC Wizard or Sorc/MC Champion (or Sentinel). The action economy issues and the double hit requirement feels punitive, compared to the other options.
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The "number of spells" thing is going to spawn a lot of hot takes, but actual playtesting is going to be needed to figure out how much mileage you get from cantrips and focus spells as opposed to spell slots.
What they did get right is that at higher levels "lower level spell slots" are for utility (i.e. the martial spellcaster feat) not for "I want to hurt that thing real badly". The PF1 calculus of "I have a bunch of different shocking grasps prepared, which one am I going to use in this fight?" always seemed too gamey to me.
2. Raise a Tome is both hilarious and awesome. "Hmm, yes, hold on while I check my notes."
I kinda wanna see more feats that riff on this. There are a lot of characters in various fiction who fight with a tome in one hand as a spellcasting implement or focus but it's pretty much the worst idea in Pathfinder.
Sword in one hand and book in the other sort of reminds me of Robin from Fire Emblem and that's neat.
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Raise a tome is problematic, because of the hand economy the magus has.
If you're wielding a one-handed weapon, you need a free hand for fun feats and electric-sliding around.
If you're wielding a two-handed weapon, you need a prehensile tail.
So you can only really raise a tome if you're an unarmed magumonk.
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Raise a tome is problematic, because of the hand economy the magus has.
If you're wielding a one-handed weapon, you need a free hand for fun feats and electric-sliding around.
If you're wielding a two-handed weapon, you need a prehensile tail.
So you can only really raise a tome if you're an unarmed magumonk.
Right, I forgot about that. That's kind of unfortunate.
NGL all the "must have a hand free" mechanics are really kind of a buzzkill.
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I think Raise a Tome should also qualify you for the 8th level "Stealing Spell" feat.
I mean you're using a grimoire to protect yourself from a spell, it makes sense !
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My first impression is...less than impressed. There are things I like, absolutely. But there are some things that make all of those kinda suck.
I don't really like Striking Spell. I think without dropping the second attack roll it is no better than just casting and attacking. After we consider that you have slower spell progression and no item bonuses, you're looking at something closer to a second normal attack with an agile weapon for accuracy. Sure there's a crit effect, we can ignore that - I don't see more than 2 crits per session per table from players. I could also live with not needing another action to Strike, but as is I'm not a fan of one of my top 2 favourite 1e classes.
My second gripe is Magus Potency. It's awful. If you buy actual gear you get about 4 useful levels out of it from 1-20. For a mandatory Focus Power, yuck. I know that's it's trying to emulate the Arcane Pool weapon enhancement, but it's both more restrictive and worse than that ever was. I really expected a Focus Cantrip or Focus Stance for the class made to sling spells through steel.
As for things I do like, it's pretty much everything else. A few feats seem a little off, but overall I like it. The Magus Synthesis is an amazing way to deliver on the different styles I wanted to see from Magi (even though it's not my pet idea of Focus Stances). I like the Synthesis options too, though Slide Casting stands out right now (but that is probably just because of the action economy issues I have with the core features).
Spirit Sheath looks fun, so does Portal Slide. Spell Parry delivers on the Magus' theme so well - it's excellent, it delivers the spell-sword fantasy in a satisfying and meaningful way (except you don't usually have enough actions to do it...)
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I like the only high level spellcasting as a way to make a limited spellcaster. I think 3/3 would be better than 2/2 (or maybe 2/2/2) but I think it's a good concept overall
I think striking spell is a little clunky in execution. It feels like it is trying to be both spell combat and spellstrike in one feature.
Might be better to split it something like spell combat that lets you cast an attack spell without suffering from or incurring MAP and maybe something else more similar to eldritch shot.
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I think the Magus will get martial feats in the final version, the playtest is more focused on the magus "exclusive" mechanics, so magic abilities.
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My take on the Magus, and really both classes at this juncture:
PF2 is a game where the design team tried to expand the adventuring day. Mundane Healing is viable, Focus Spells give caster's some spellcasting available even when their slots are tapped.
The Magus and Summoner both feel like steps backwards, simply due to their spell slot reductions. The summoner can kind of avoid using spell slots much of the time by just boosting or reinforcing their eidolon and playing as a martial. But the Magus really wants to juice up their attacks with spells. Cantrips help a bit with this, but to really perform up to it's potential, the Magus wants to be casting their slotted spells.
On the brighter side, we now have a Caster that can qualify for Eldritch Archer by 6th. So that's neat.
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A couple of first pass impressions:
Martial feats are available in abundance through archetypes at this point. It would be a lot of redundant feats that can be gained through archetypes with almost no entry cost.
3/3 spells would be too many. 2/2 with a flex feat option for 1 extra casting could work, but only the wizard and the sorcerer really do better than that with spells that they actually want to cast in combat (excluding clerics and heal).
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I really don't like how it seems to me you are heavily incentivised to take a spellcasting archetype. For the price of five class feats, you get slightly faster spell proficiency progression, access to focus spells that synergise a lot better with your main features, and you get to triple your number of available spell slots, granting you more utility, power, and versatility as well as more uses for some of your class abilities.
I feel like most Magus feats don't compare positively to the power boost from a spellcasting dedication given the large amount of synergy between the core Magus kit and spellcasting archetypes.
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Very initial thoughts after a glance:
1. I like that arcane archer is a thing right off the bat, at least to some degree.
2. The two-hander synthesis is DoA and the sliding one to move as part of the actions should just be the default. I firmly believe that a 3-action "spellstrike" is untenable. Add a trait to the ability that makes it so you can't use any other abilities with the attack trait if you think it's too strong (personally, I don't: see Flurry of Blows), but P2e is too mobile and not being able to make use of three actions and also "do your thing" feels bad.
3. The Battle Spells are extremely underwhelming and feel very uninspired. And there are four of them? I think we can do better than that. If the class is going to have restricted spell slots--something that looks interesting to me--then it should be able to fall back on its Battle Spells to be "on" all day.
4. Master/Master on proficiencies and Medium to start looks good to me. I think this is the right move.
5. Clean up the economy on Striking Spell (not "Spellstrike"; really?), make the syntheses more interesting instead of an economy fixer and a lousy temp hp boost.
6. For class feats, I'd say take some cues from Monk, except using focus points to do magically-enhanced combat moves. Not getting combat feats like other classes is fine, I think that's a decent move, but I'd like to see focus spells let the Magus do some cool things with their magic + sword.
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The first thing I noticed - arcane tradition only :-(
That aside, My first impression is that Magus isn't trying to be a general gish class. It has a specific focus - powering up your weapon attacks. If you want to build a character like Gandalf wielding staff in one hand and Glamdring in the other, you should probably stick with multiclass or combat style dedications.
That isn't a bad thing. If Magus was a general purpose gish class, it would invalidate all of the multiclass and combat style archetype options.
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My first thoughts and personal opinions on reading the class - I like it way more than I thought I would.
The good - I'm someone who thinks striking runes are the biggest mistake in the game, that property runes and potency runes are strong enough on their own. I hate how much power comes from having a weapon or wraps. So seeing the magus potency focus spell made me very very happy. I also love the way striking spell works. Cantrips seem to be the main way this class will damage enemies, and I'm fine with that. The other slots will be either for oh shit moments or nuking enemies. The support for unarmed magus is something I didn't see coming and am very very grateful for. I'll also list my favourite feats, just so my voice is heard on them - arcane fists, energize strikes, every level 8 feat but capture spell, every level 10 feat, school shroud, and everything of 18th level and up. Special mention to whirlwind spell, probably the coolest capstone I have ever seen.
The meh - sustaining steel sounds cool, and I love the concept, but is way worse than the others. There are a few feats or features that trigger when a spell is cast from spell slots, which feels a little trappish when you only have 4 spell slots. Would be nice if feats were more centered on any spell, like cantrips.
Contributor
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Alrighty, from the top:
Proficiencies etc: Seem fine. Right between Fighter and Wizard in most cases, which is perfect.
Spellcasting: Absolutely awful (I'll come back to that).
Battle Spells: These have a lot of potential. The Rune stuff is expected and seems fine. There'd need to be a lot of really outstanding spells here to make up for the slot-starved spellcasting though.
Striking Spell: ...why isn't it like Eldritch Archer's Eldritch Shot? 2 action ability, cast a spell, deliver with stabby thing. At least it isn't restricted to certain weapons anymore. Magus used to be all about action economy rolled into a cool mechanic, and now it's the same mechanic with more limitations and no increase in action economy. Making it Metamagic cuts off a lot of options, especially when it doesn't even give the Strike action built in to the Cast. Bonus points for building in unarmed attack support though!
Magus Synthesis: Wonderful approach to the class. I love that the flavor of the class has evolved from stab-with-shocking-grasp to merging spellcasting and combat in various forms.
* Shooting Star is ok, mostly since it's available at level 1 for supporting bow-mage builds. I'd still prefer it to be closer to how Eldritch Archer handled it.
* Slide Casting is the real winner here for me; here's that action economy I was hoping for, and it's done so well! A simple method of mechanically empowering the character in a substantial way with cool flavor.
* Sustaining Steel seems... weird. It helps with survivability, but Magus is still an 8hp class with medium armor, and since it requires a two-handed weapon you can't use a shield with it. So... not a lot of synergy I guess. Very cool idea! A little lackluster in execution.
Feats:
* Arcane Fists: always good to see easy ways to vary your builds.
* Raise A Tome: Silly, fun, but possibly in need of a little... more?
* Spirit Sheath: Great ability, very useful, and super fitting.
* Bespell Weapon and Bespelled Persistence: Fitting, but nearly useless with your four spells a day. Also potentially messy with Striking Spell?
* Spell Parry and Capture Spell: Very cool! Fitting for a master of manipulating spells in combat.
* Spell Swipe and Cascading Ray: Fun and thematic but... if most spells take two actions, and Spell Swipe also takes two actions, you aren't using the two together very often.
* Comet Spell, Healer's Steel, Portal Slide: Great extensions of their respective Synthesis form. Hope to see more things like this to spice up the different forms.
* School Shroud: SUPER cool ability... let down by that pesky 4 spells per day. I feel it should specify the level of the spell effect you get.
* All the 18+ feats: Fine enough capstones, but honestly a lot feel like they are just trying to fix things that the class is shaky at.
Now, the spells... Good golly gosh I hope this doesn't stick. I don't care how good cantrips scale, I don't care how amazing the class's focus spells might be; if you get the most versatile spell list and only 4 slots per day, you might as well just not have it. Personally, I'd rather the class be all cantrips and focus spells with no slot-casting more than its current set up. What'd be best in my opinion is keeping the number of spells to 2/day/level but with all spell levels. It still puts the class well behind existing spellcasters without utterly crippling it.
I've seen a lot of comments about how multiclassing or taking an archetype to get a handful of additional spells can make this really excel. That's great. I don't want a class that requires dedicating to a DIFFERENT class just to function.
I feel like this iteration of Magus scores around a C- (sorry, am teacher). It's got great ideas, but it doesn't see all of them through. It has amazing flavor, but it's very spotty at actually using it. It tries to strike a balance, but in doing so it sacrifices a lot of its uniqueness.
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About School Shroud, it also works with wands, staves and scrolls since the condition is "non cantrip" and not "from a spell slot". I also think 4 slots a day are too little, but I assume the intention was to make the Magus use a lot of magic items and that's what they'll spend their gold on rather than their weapon, since they can give it a relevant fundamental rune as they level up. So rather than investing in that +2 striking longsword, how about getting that ring of wizardry Mk II ? They both cost 1000 Gold.
That's just my assumption tho'.
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I also think 4 slots a day are too little, but I assume the intention was to make the Magus use a lot of magic items and that's what they'll spend their gold on rather than their weapon, since they can give it a relevant fundamental rune as they level up. So rather than investing in that +2 striking longsword, how about getting that ring of wizardry Mk II ? They both cost 1000 Gold.
That's just my assumption tho'.
Magus Potency and Runic Impression are situational bandaids for when you don't have an appropriate weapon for the situation, you shouldn't be relying on them as replacements for a level-appropriate magic weapon.
As right now it feels like Striking Spell is a penalty you eat to trigger a (pretty cool) synthesis effect, Shooting Star seems pretty pointless: in exchange for eating the penalty, you get to give yourself a penalty with ranged weapon attacks.
I see shooting star as, essentially, a way to access Eldritch Archer as a casting class at 6th and nothing more.
Actually, if you really like putting all your eggs in one big ol'basket, you could store a Striking Spell, then use Eldritch Shot, which includes a Strike on the subsequent turn to have 2 spells go off in one big attack, with one of them having it's effect determined by the attack roll.
If that's not enough of your spellcasting resources, use a level appropriate Spellstrike Arrow for these shenanigans. Then you could in theory Poison the ammo.
If that's still not enough, get yourself an Alchemical Crossbow and slot in an appropriate bomb for that extra d6.
For 3 turns and 3 of your 4 Spells, this gives you a SERIOUS punch... that can completely miss with one roll.
Sorry, I was thinking this up as I was writing it. Seriously not worth it, but someday I'm going to make this character. And the one session I play him in will be glorious.
Edit: I will name him: Gene Starwind.
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Magus Potency and Runic Impression are situational bandaids for when you don't have an appropriate weapon for the situation, you shouldn't be relying on them as replacements for a level-appropriate magic weapon.
Best use I can think of for them is to do an end-around the ridiculous pricing on high-level special materials. Turn your cheap silver sword into +X Striking when you need to fight a silver-vulnerable enemy. Runic impression still keeps rune limits, so is less useful for that application.
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The good news is that they're going to change the Magus in response to your survey feedback, the bad news is that they're going to hastily playtest them privately and give you what you said you wanted good and hard, just like the Witch.
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That's why everyone should try to do this seriously and discuss solutions to make things work while being civil and constructive and not just constantly negative and go "everything is lame I want it to be OP but if it is it'll be lame 'cause it'll be OP"
Thankfully I have yet to see people like that.
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The good news is that they're going to change the Magus in response to your survey feedback, the bad news is that they're going to hastily playtest them privately and give you what you said you wanted good and hard, just like the Witch.
That's something I'm pretty worried about. needing to reword the core feature of the class without a second public playtest? just sounds real easy to miss the mark.
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All the more reason to give detailed and constructive feedback.
The rework will only be as good as the feedback the playtest gets.
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Best use I can think of for them is to do an end-around the ridiculous pricing on high-level special materials. Turn your cheap silver sword into +X Striking when you need to fight a silver-vulnerable enemy. Runic impression still keeps rune limits, so is less useful for that application.
Magus Potency and Runic Impression are situational bandaids for when you don't have an appropriate weapon for the situation, you shouldn't be relying on them as replacements for a level-appropriate magic weapon.
Its not a bad focus spell. Its a great focus spell.
It just doesn't fill the niche that the magus actually needs: something to spellstrike with.|
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Best use I can think of for them is to do an end-around the ridiculous pricing on high-level special materials. Turn your cheap silver sword into +X Striking when you need to fight a silver-vulnerable enemy. Runic impression still keeps rune limits, so is less useful for that application.
Magus Potency and Runic Impression are situational bandaids for when you don't have an appropriate weapon for the situation, you shouldn't be relying on them as replacements for a level-appropriate magic weapon.Its not a bad focus spell. Its a great focus spell.
It just doesn't fill the niche that the magus actually needs: something to spellstrike with.
And it's definitely not in the range of a core class feature. As a level 1-4 feat, yeah it would be great. baked in? mandatory? not doing what they need, I agree.
And it's definitely not in the range of a core class feature. As a level 1-4 feat, yeah it would be great. baked in? mandatory? not doing what they need, I agree.Its not a bad focus spell. Its a great focus spell.
It just doesn't fill the niche that the magus actually needs: something to spellstrike with.
It would be an alright feat.
I'm not sure I'd ever take it over Cantrip Expansion, Spirit Sheath, or Spell Parry, though.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
That's something I'm pretty worried about. needing to reword the core feature of the class without a second public playtest? just sounds real easy to miss the mark.
Investigator had a pretty major change to their core combat feature between the playtest and the APG release and the difference is pretty clear -compare Study Suspect/Studied Strike to Devise a Stratagem/Strategic Strike and it really feels like they pulled off something fun.
However, take that with a grain of salt -I only minorly looked through Oracle and never had a chance to play Witch or Swashbuckler, so I'm not as aware of if there were any playtest to release issues. But going from playing the playtest investigator to release has been a lot better and easier I've found
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Investigator missed the mark mechanically just because their shtick was mostly out of combat and in combat they couldn't do a whole lot of anything (their actions existed as an effective time-waste to make up for their deficits, rather than being actual bonuses in the playtest, but they were very thematically appropriate).
Oracle and Witch are still broken as far as I'm concerned, but I'm not sure Oracle can be fixed (its better than the playtest, I hear, but the risk/reward feature is still very risky and not very rewarding).
Magus is closer to being non-functional. When its better to not use their primary ability than it is to use it, something's Very Very Wrong Indeed.
Ah, this quote covers it nicely:
So the major problem for the Magus isn't the action economy, it's how inaccurate the spell attack is. At level 13 a Magus is going to have +26 to their weapon attack and +22 to their spell attack. That's a -4 for the other attack that they need to hit. That's bad for something that's supposedly dealing with MAP. You're not saving on actions, and you're not ACTUALLY more accurate than if you'd just attacked twice with an agile weapon. You're not gaining any benefits from anything and you have the chance to waste precious resources.
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That's something I'm pretty worried about. needing to reword the core feature of the class without a second public playtest? just sounds real easy to miss the mark.
Investigator had a pretty major change to their core combat feature between the playtest and the APG release and the difference is pretty clear -compare Study Suspect/Studied Strike to Devise a Stratagem/Strategic Strike and it really feels like they pulled off something fun.
However, take that with a grain of salt -I only minorly looked through Oracle and never had a chance to play Witch or Swashbuckler, so I'm not as aware of if there were any playtest to release issues. But going from playing the playtest investigator to release has been a lot better and easier I've found
Just because they pulled it off there doesn't mean they'll pull it off here. I'd say they didn't pull off big changes with the Alchemist so they don't have an amazing track record - not even getting into Witch and Oracle because I haven't spent a lot of time looking at them (though my looks so far have been disappointing).
The good news is that they're going to change the Magus in response to your survey feedback, the bad news is that they're going to hastily playtest them privately and give you what you said you wanted good and hard, just like the Witch.That's something I'm pretty worried about. needing to reword the core feature of the class without a second public playtest? just sounds real easy to miss the mark.
I mean, what could go wrong? Hastily reworking mechanics clearly worked great for the alchemist... :P
Investigator missed the mark mechanically just because their shtick was mostly out of combat and in combat they couldn't do a whole lot of anything (their actions existed as an effective time-waste to make up for their deficits, rather than being actual bonuses in the playtest, but they were very thematically appropriate).
Pretty much.
Oracle and Witch are still broken as far as I'm concerned, but I'm not sure Oracle can be fixed (its better than the playtest, I hear, but the risk/reward feature is still very risky and not very rewarding).
IMO, it's kind of like what people are saying about the 4 spell system: muliclass feats can save it! Blessed one gets you a 3rd focus point, a GOOD focus and one that doesn't activate curses at second level! after that, just ignore the whole curse thing and never look back: this allows you to use most class feats on archetype feats and you get the oracle's improved focus recovery. :P
Magus is closer to being non-functional. When its better to not use their primary ability than it is to use it, something's Very Very Wrong Indeed.
Yep, when your action economy and accuracy stays the same with or without the feature [without a crit Strike], it seems kind of pointless.
I feel like this iteration of Magus scores around a C- (sorry, am teacher).
* gives a quizzical look* Are you grading on a curve?
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What'd be best in my opinion is keeping the number of spells to 2/day/level but with all spell levels.
Really hoping Paizo doesn't cave and make them normal casters like you're suggesting. Literally anything but this.
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What'd be best in my opinion is keeping the number of spells to 2/day/level but with all spell levels.Really hoping Paizo doesn't cave and make them normal casters like you're suggesting. Literally anything but this.
Agreed, especially because there are some feats that let you fill in lower level slots with specific spells if you want. I think that's an interesting space for the Magus to have a tailored spell list without too much fiddling. It can also be expanded going forward to suit different archetypes, traditions, etc.
After looking at it a bit more closely, I think my main issues are:
(1) Action economy needs to be advantageous for the Magus when compared to a Warpriest or a Fighter/Wizard (or any Martial/Caster MCD) casting a spell and making a strike. This is the Magus class' thing and it should be noticeably more efficient, interesting, and dynamic than just a martial with a dedication;
(2) I think Battle Spells need to be expanded significantly, and need to fill in the cool combat maneuver space that other martials have;
(3) The 1hand and 2hand Syntheses need another look so that the sliding isn't just a huge economy boost and the 2hander isn't just a middling (and frankly boring) temp hp boost.
There are some interesting ideas, but it looks clunky. I want it to be smooth like the Monk, something that feels like mechanically effortless sword + sorcery.