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The spell doesn't suffer from MAP, but you have to hit with the 1st attack or you don't get to make the spell attack roll at all.Copy/pasted from a discord conversation, but here's basically my gripes with Striking Spell and why it's poorly designed.
Striking Spell in general. In actuality it offers very little benefit, Sliding not withstanding
You're still spending 3 actions to cast and strike, now with the added setback of needing to succeed on 2 rolls for the spell
At least in the case of saving throw spells, you're better off casting the saving throw spell and attacking separately
If you spend 2 actions to store a spell, you have to get into position before you can actually attack which is probably coming the next turn. Initially I misread it as letting you also strike at the same time which is why I was like "this is okay" but you don't even get that benefit.
Combined with only 4 spells a day AND the slower than MC proficiency progression it's overly harsh
When the proficiency was super slow I was like "Yes this makes sense, you are encouraged to spell strike to circumvent that, it allows you to play with AoE and ranged save spells but you're worse than dedicated casters, but better at delivering through melee, this is good design"
Except you're not even better at that since you're still relying on your spell proficiency the whole way through, you're not more accurate, you have less spells, your action economy is exactly the same, I'm struggling to see why I shouldn't just play a Fighter who multiclasses Wizard
I get better attack rolls, faster spellcasting proficiency, WAY more spells per levelFor the same reason you would dual slice and not make 2 strikes each with a different weapon.
Basically, the spell doesnt suffer from MAP
it is not lost if you miss the attack.
if you miss, you have a full round afterwards to hit with just 1 attack to have it go off.
That's something to consider, but it's not as simple as saying it makes you 25% more likely to hit with the spell. Or the spell may not be a viable option by the time your turn gets around again.
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I think a Magus/Monk combo is going to be very strong with this action economy, and could potentially be broken if it were any better.
Considering your turn could be Cast + Stride + Flurry + Stunning Fist, that's a pretty devastating turn - especially since you're getting both your spell and your flurry off at regular MAP.
And if the first strike of the flurry misses you get an instant second one... and at high level it allows to retry the spell attack if it misses on the first strike even if it did connect but the spell didn't.
This would take 3 feats to use it with weapons tho', and even then you're limited in your selection. But it's a cool synergy.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you're going Magus with Monk Dedication, that comes online at 10th level. For some games, that would be fine. For things like PFS, getting to 10th level can take a long time.I think a Magus/Monk combo is going to be very strong with this action economy, and could potentially be broken if it were any better.
Considering your turn could be Cast + Stride + Flurry + Stunning Fist, that's a pretty devastating turn - especially since you're getting both your spell and your flurry off at regular MAP.
Sure, but have you seen the amount of unarmed support the Magus has? You aren't going to be suffering in the mean while, imo.
And honestly I don't think the action economy can possibly be any faster than it is; getting a spell and a strike in just two actions with no MAP would break the basic balance assumption of the game. If you look at similar "composite action" abilities they either a) are faster than the component actions but still apply MAP (Ranger and Monk) or b) are the same speed as the component actions but don't apply MAP (Fighter, Barbarian, etc).
I think we can all agree that suffering MAP on your strike + cast would be no fun, so the action economy really can't be any faster.
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So, if they were to make it a 2 action activity to Cast+Strike, then either the Strike would be at -5 or the spell would be at -5, which would be much more terrible.Gonna hang my entire response on your phrasing. "Much more terrible."
Based on the early responses in this thread, it seems like no option within this is appealing or good.
Not if they make it a single attack roll. Or if they make it work like Double slice and you take a reduced penalty on the spell. Or give the Magus a benefit akin to the Flurry Ranger, but only for striking spell. There are lots of other options.
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So, if they were to make it a 2 action activity to Cast+Strike, then either the Strike would be at -5 or the spell would be at -5, which would be much more terrible.Gonna hang my entire response on your phrasing. "Much more terrible."
Based on the early responses in this thread, it seems like no option within this is appealing or good.
Given the limited spell slots, I don't really see why they can't have it both ways. 4 times a day you get to do something with much better action economy than other classes that get to do something every round if they want.
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Given the limited spell slots, I don't really see why they can't have it both ways. 4 times a day you get to do something with much better action economy than other classes that get to do something every round if they want.So, if they were to make it a 2 action activity to Cast+Strike, then either the Strike would be at -5 or the spell would be at -5, which would be much more terrible.Gonna hang my entire response on your phrasing. "Much more terrible."
Based on the early responses in this thread, it seems like no option within this is appealing or good.
Not four times a day for two reasons: 1) cantrips; 2) you can Striking Spell with spells from a multiclass dedication.
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Given the limited spell slots, I don't really see why they can't have it both ways. 4 times a day you get to do something with much better action economy than other classes that get to do something every round if they want.So, if they were to make it a 2 action activity to Cast+Strike, then either the Strike would be at -5 or the spell would be at -5, which would be much more terrible.Gonna hang my entire response on your phrasing. "Much more terrible."
Based on the early responses in this thread, it seems like no option within this is appealing or good.
It's not better action economy than Monk or Ranger get.
However, you can do it with cantrips, so you can do it more then 4 times per day.
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Not four times a day for two reasons: 1) cantrips; 2) you can Striking Spell with spells from a multiclass dedication.Given the limited spell slots, I don't really see why they can't have it both ways. 4 times a day you get to do something with much better action economy than other classes that get to do something every round if they want.So, if they were to make it a 2 action activity to Cast+Strike, then either the Strike would be at -5 or the spell would be at -5, which would be much more terrible.Gonna hang my entire response on your phrasing. "Much more terrible."
Based on the early responses in this thread, it seems like no option within this is appealing or good.
Sure, but cantrips are hardly gamebreaking and will never turn the tide on their own. As for multiclass archetypes, that's a huge investment and could be fixed by making Striking Spell only apply to Magus Spells - a trade I'd make right now and sign in blood if it got us 2 actions for cast+strike and 1 roll.
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The proficiency issue is a much bigger one than the action economy, IMO.
The Magus' core gameplay feature revolves around hitting someone with your sword and then a spell and right now Magi are bad at hitting people with spells.
This is on top of Spell Attacks already having a reputation for having accuracy issues and the Magus not really having a way to combine True Strike with Striking Spells (which is the commonly touted solution for spell attacks).
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The proficiency issue is a much bigger one than the action economy, IMO.
The Magus' core gameplay feature revolves around hitting someone with your sword and then a spell and right now Magi are bad at hitting people with spells.
This is on top of Spell Attacks already having a reputation for having accuracy issues and the Magus not really having a way to combine True Strike with Striking Spells (which is the commonly touted solution for spell attacks).
I can't really disagree. The action economy issues would have alleviated it, but the main issue is that it's bad as is - for the reasons you've stated. Not needing a second roll would fix that, but might make attack spells too much better than save spells. The lagging proficiency hurts even more with this - though I could see that being alleviated by using the weapon's potency rune as an item bonus for the spell as well (after all, that's how it's being delivered).
Yeah the spell attack roll issue os huge with the current version.
And getting a critical hit with a weapons is rare enough that I doubt it would make any difference.
I will always say that crit effects are not real mechanics (when used like this). They aren't reliable enough to matter, especially in the fights where things aren't already easy.
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I think it feels really awkward right now, but its not like I've seen it in play yet. We need some calculations on hit chances for the weapon and spell portions of the class as is before I feel comfortable making a recommendation myself on 'fixing' Spell Striking.
It might be better than expected depending on how the damage numbers shake out.
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There's no way magus is actually this bad, they must've released like some pre-edit draft on accident.
I mean who would willing not put a way to avoid Aoos on a melee caster?
Who would willing make spell combat, a magus' main feature, do virtually nothing?
Who would willing make a spell caster get master spellcasting after someone who multiclassed into a spellcaster?
Don't worry guys they'll upload the real magus soon, its April 1st somewhere in the world!
:')
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The proficiency issue is a much bigger one than the action economy, IMO.
The Magus' core gameplay feature revolves around hitting someone with your sword and then a spell and right now Magi are bad at hitting people with spells.
This is on top of Spell Attacks already having a reputation for having accuracy issues and the Magus not really having a way to combine True Strike with Striking Spells (which is the commonly touted solution for spell attacks).
Don't forget Magi get another hit to their spell accuracy (and therefore DC) by virtue of being unable to use their key ability to determine the bonus of their spells.
All in all, this is starting to feel awfully similar to the accuracy issue that plagues Alchemist, but without the saving grace of splash damage.|
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There's no way magus is actually this bad, they must've released like some pre-edit draft on accident.
I mean who would willing not put a way to avoid Aoos on a melee caster?
Who would willing make spell combat, a magus' main feature, do virtually nothing?
Who would willing make a spell caster get master spellcasting after someone who multiclassed into a spellcaster?
Don't worry guys they'll upload the real magus soon, its April 1st somewhere in the world!
:')
yeah, it's a bit of a joke. not a funny one either. Completely missed that they have no defense against AoOs.
The proficiency issue is a much bigger one than the action economy, IMO.
The Magus' core gameplay feature revolves around hitting someone with your sword and then a spell and right now Magi are bad at hitting people with spells.
This is on top of Spell Attacks already having a reputation for having accuracy issues and the Magus not really having a way to combine True Strike with Striking Spells (which is the commonly touted solution for spell attacks).
Don't forget Magi get another hit to their spell accuracy (and therefore DC) by virtue of being unable to use their key ability to determine the bonus of their spells.
All in all, this is starting to feel awfully similar to the accuracy issue that plagues Alchemist, but without the saving grace of splash damage.
ugh, it is feeling too much like the alchemist again. and we all saw how poorly that was handled.
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So here's a question: can you Magic Missile into Striking Spell? If so, does that change the value at all?It does appear that can, as the criteria is just: can target one creature or object. Magic Missile can be target a single creature.
Magic Missile gets no benefit from a crit, so all you are doing is making it dependent on an attack roll.
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Yeah, if the Magus has an issue, I think it's proficiency rather than action economy.
Or rather, because of the comparisons I've mentioned to Monk, Ranger, Fighter, etc., I don't think there's any way at all that the Magus can get better action economy than this.
I think they could get slightly better proficiency, though, especially with their limited spellcasting. At the very least matching their spell proficiency to monk/champion would feel less bad.
You at least get to avoid MAP, but the other major feature of TWF is getting to break the action economy. For example, the Ranger's Twin Takedown gives you two strikes in a single action. But if that's what they were going for with the two attack rolls, it takes one too many actions to activate.
You don't get to do both though, as I've already said. Twin Takedown has better action economy, but suffers MAP.
Dual Slice has the same action economy but avoids MAP.
There is no 1st level ability in the game that both gives better action economy AND avoids MAP.
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You at least get to avoid MAP, but the other major feature of TWF is getting to break the action economy. For example, the Ranger's Twin Takedown gives you two strikes in a single action. But if that's what they were going for with the two attack rolls, it takes one too many actions to activate.You don't get to do both though, as I've already said. Twin Takedown has better action economy, but suffers MAP.
Dual Slice has the same action economy but avoids MAP.
There is no 1st level ability in the game that both gives better action economy AND avoids MAP.
And Striking Spell avoids MAP but requires the first attack to hit and uses a lower proficiency, making it a much smaller accuracy increase than Double Slice.
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Fair point, but it also doesn't place any limitation on where the Strike comes from, and gives you multiple chances to make up a missed attack.
It can be comboed with things like Flurry or Twin Takedown.
For that matter, it can literally be comboed with Double Slice.
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And Striking Spell avoids MAP but requires the first attack to hit and uses a lower proficiency, making it a much smaller accuracy increase than Double Slice.You at least get to avoid MAP, but the other major feature of TWF is getting to break the action economy. For example, the Ranger's Twin Takedown gives you two strikes in a single action. But if that's what they were going for with the two attack rolls, it takes one too many actions to activate.You don't get to do both though, as I've already said. Twin Takedown has better action economy, but suffers MAP.
Dual Slice has the same action economy but avoids MAP.
There is no 1st level ability in the game that both gives better action economy AND avoids MAP.
Requiring to hit with any attack this round or the next one.
it may not be full 25% increase in accuracy, but it's not that far off.
Add flank, and i think we need to actually playtest to see the average accuracy and if it's an issue.
Which then becomes up to 6 actions to deliver the spell and assuming that your target stays in one place to let your sword crackling with electricity hit them. I'm still not seeing how that's much better than just casting the spell like normal.
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The main reason I ask is I was looking at a similar ability in Channel Smite, which basically staples 1 Action Heal/Harm onto a melee attack. Magic Missile is a similar 1 to 3 action spell, so I wondered if being able to staple a 1 action Magic Missile into a melee attack (or bow shot with Shooting Star) while still maintaining a spare action to move or Shield (which then kinda turns the ability into Sudden Charge for Slide Magus) could be factored into the thought experiment here, and if that changed anythingMagic Missile gets no benefit from a crit, so all you are doing is making it dependent on an attack roll.So here's a question: can you Magic Missile into Striking Spell? If so, does that change the value at all?It does appear that can, as the criteria is just: can target one creature or object. Magic Missile can be target a single creature.
But there's no reason to put the magic missile in your weapon. Just cast a 1 action magic missile and let it do its damage. If you put it in your weapon,, you're adding the need to make an attack roll to a spell that doesn't have one.
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After reading up on some of the Magus feats, I think what we may be missing is that it seems like a lot of Magus stuff kinda assumes you will cast a spell one round and deliver it the next.
Spell Parry works much better with that strategy, and feats like Dispelling Spellstrike outright require that strategy.
Taking that approach also fixes the AoO issue... while I can certainly see where the Magus wants to cast+deliver in the same round when possible, it seems like they really don't need to, and that kind of frees up their action economy a bit.
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Well, you could look at it as doing something useful every other round, or you can look at it as doing two rounds worth of stuff every other round.
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What strikes me most about the feat is that you still need an attack/save for the spell
eldritch shot is in that point straightup better
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I think Eldritch Shot is different, not better.
For one, Eldritch Shot loses the spell if you miss.
For two, Striking Spell gives you much better action economy and combo potential. You can combine Striking Spell with Dual Slice or Flurry, for example.
For three, Striking Spell works with spells that don't require an attack roll.
For four, Striking Spell works with 3-action spells, and works better with 1-action spells than Eldritch Shot does.
EDIT: You know what just occurred to me that would be really nice? An option to Sustain a spell prepared with Striking Spell if you haven't discharged it yet, maybe up to a minute.
That would give the Magus some nice ambush potential, and a way to recoup their losses if they have bad luck.
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It does sort of seem like the intent though. The Magus has a "spellcaster round" where they cast a spell and do a thing, then a martial round, where they attack.
Of course, the problem is that if you spread it over two rounds, then the MAP saving aspect of Striking Spells gets diminished in value as well.... and the Magus still has to deal with kind of a terrible spell attack stat.
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It does sort of seem like the intent though. The Magus has a "spellcaster round" where they cast a spell and do a thing, then a martial round, where they attack.
Of course, the problem is that if you spread it over two rounds, then the MAP saving aspect of Striking Spells gets diminished in value as well.... and the Magus still has to deal with kind of a terrible spell attack stat.
And the thing that you might have killed with a spell attack or a melee attack on the first round gets to live another round to do its actions.
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And the thing that you might have killed with a spell attack or a melee attack on the first round gets to live another round to do its actions.It does sort of seem like the intent though. The Magus has a "spellcaster round" where they cast a spell and do a thing, then a martial round, where they attack.
Of course, the problem is that if you spread it over two rounds, then the MAP saving aspect of Striking Spells gets diminished in value as well.... and the Magus still has to deal with kind of a terrible spell attack stat.
Or it gets killed by someone else and the next enemy is out of reach
'Hey! I wanted to kill that! now I wasted one of my highest spellslots'*barbarian shrug*