Ok, it makes sense that Spell Striking is sort of designed to be a Dual-Slice of the weapon/spell situation. A lot of people are clamoring and concerned about how frequently a magus will be able to successfully get their spell to hit.
Unlike Dual-Slice, Spell Strike requires the first attack to hit, for the second attack to be able to be rolled. This seems to make it weaker in use, since it is a significant weakness/requirement.
Granted, the fact the charged-state remains, so it isn't lost first try is important, and appreciated. Without that, it would seem like it was vastly under-powered and ineffective as it would be extremely hard to get it to trigger. The combination of it remaining on a miss, and being usable up until the end of your next round are important.
So the whole question aside of what percentage of time you would successfully get your spell off, I have another perception to point out.
I loved the Investigator concept, and while we went through a playtest of all the playtest classes going through a conversion of the Lost Star and Black Fang's Lair, I saw how frustrating it could be with the investigator having to make two rolls to get their 'combat' thing to work. I was the GM, but I saw the player frustrated when they tended to only succeed with one of the rolls (generally the first) and frequently enough to get a critical success on that roll. But almost invariably failing to hit with the followup attack. About the only time the second roll was a hit, was after failing the first roll.
So I was exited when the new devise a Stratagem mechanic was revealed. It reduced the number of rolls, and made the rolls you made more meaningful.
So here is a couple questions, is the second 'strike' roll absolutely necessary? Would making it be tied to the first strike hitting acceptable, while allowing misses a chance to still be reattempted with another strike?
If we still need to test the spell strike being a hit against the opponent, would it be impossible to use the same roll used for the physical strike. (just add the other set of modifiers to resolve the spell strike) Could even offer the option of the attacker to re-roll its own roll, but allow them to use the same roll. It would reduce the required number of rolls, and would help a good roll carry through.
What if on a successful physical strike, the spell strike is considered by default a hit, but the attacker can choose to roll a separate roll for it. On spell strikes the attacker chooses to roll, the spell strike roll determines the hit. (i.e. can be a hit, despite the physical attack hitting) If the physical attack was a Critical, the result of the roll, if made, is improved one step. (so a hit becomes a critical hit, a miss becomes a hit, etc.)
If it has to be a fresh roll untied to the physical strike, what about having it have a MAP penalty of 0, or bypass MAP for purpose of resolving the spell strike. Meaning that even if it took you 3 physical strikes to land your spell with the weapon, finally getting it to hit, the spell strike has as good a chance to hit as a fresh strike. (after all you already hit your opponent to trigger it, why not allow the strike without MAP) Go ahead and consider the attack an attack after resolving it for the purpose of calculating MAP for other attacks, but don't apply MAP to the spells attack roll itself.
Yes, making the die roll for the physical attack determine the status for the spell attack roll alleviates a die roll, but that doesn't resolve spells that are based on a save, however, since it is a different person making the roll, I find the number of rolls required is less important when shared between individuals, but as pointed out might make attack roll spells preferred over save spells.
It seems like pulling off the spell being cast through a physical attack is the main thing for a magus, so I'd hope that it would be able to be pulled off relatively often, and hopefully would not require tons of rolls each time. [requiring lots of rolls, typically make it hard to succeed at all of them, but also can feel cumbersome, even if the rolls end up being relatively easy]
So I'm going to say, I'm hoping you hit us with a new mechanic like you did with Devise Stratagem that carries the flavor, but makes it more fun, and less work to do a spell Strike.
I feel the same! As pointed in this and other threads, Spell Striking seems to feel odd as written.
Mechanics aside, I find the whole idea of imbuing a spell to a weapon to deliver it through it and then not actually deliver it while hitting with said weapon a mess to justify.
Another idea that has occurred me is (assuming Paizo want to keep the dual striking aspect) to not limit the charge’s duration. Sure, let’s assume they really want you to hit with your spell proficiency, why not say that the spell stays on until you actually manage to discharge it?
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Indeed, this is a bit like the original Investigator. Too many rolls, the mechanic needs straightforwarding.
I much appreciate Eldritch Archer, despite the limit to attack spells only, and I understand it's an attempt to increase the variety of spells available to Magus, but rolling multiple hits per attack only causes the game to slow down (and the failure chance to grow exponentially).
I'm not sure how this should look in final, but I am sure it cannot look like this.