I was thinking of simple stuff like, getting close, Striking and using control spell like Grease or Gust of Wind (for lower levels let's say). If the Strike is a crit (and "Spell Combat" mostly works like Striking Spell and increases the degree of success of the spell) you'd get a pretty interresting combo here. Yes you have to spend 2 actions on a turn first, but if you have more than 1 turn to use the spell it can be useful. It's not something you'd do *all* the time, just a tool.
Maybe your Strike downed the target, but you could still benefit from releasing the spell to attack someone at a distance or control an area and infuse another spell instead next turn.
So, we are looking at it as all of nothing I think that's the wrong way to go.
Storing a spell as one action. With the caveat that you can only cast said spell with a 2 action strike. This inverts the current way spell strike works where you spend two actions to store the spell then one action to deliver the spell and strike.
One small change I'd make.
This 2-action strike would work like Double Slice: You roll both attacks at the same MAP and combine them for damage. If the melee misses but the spell hits, the spell still hits.Maybe make the spell remain held if the spell misses, though with the cost of the action I'm not sure this matters.
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This. I don't want to have to play 4 dimensional chess in order to reach the lofty heights of "almost as good as the other members of the party".
And therein lies the problem, doesn't it? No matter how much 4D chess is required for your class to function, it can never be allowed to be significantly better then any other class, or the game as a whole will suffer for it.
On the other hand, if a class even requires some system mastery to even function, it is not fun to play.
But then again, how hard is it really? At its core, the Magus is a martial class. Master weapon proficiency, Greater Weapon Specialisation... Apart from not being able to max out your melee stat at lv.1 they are a full martial class.
They just happen to use an attack spell as their off-hand weapon.
Incidentally, that also means that an honest comparison to other melee classes would need to compare Spell Strike damage to their second melee attack...
Okay, an honest comparison. It takes 3 actions to perform compared to a martial's 2. It's not any more accurate than an agile weapon past like, level 10 so it gets worse as you level. You can't even MAKE the second attack unless you hit with the first. It doesn't do more damage than a weapon either due to other classes applying mechanics to those as well. (better accuracy, rage, sneak attack, etc.) Right now the crit function effectively makes it useless most of the time, except when you crit at which point it becomes overbearingly powerful. It's been exhaustingly explored at this point. If you force the party to work around it, it can kind of be workable (albeit still extremely inelegant) and if you don't then you're pound for pound better off just attacking twice. It NEEDS to be reworked. Keep the crit stuff in its own synthesis for the people who like that kind of thing, and let the rest of us have fun with something that functions more than once a session.
And how do other classes get better second attacks then -4 for agile? With feats.
So the Magus needs those. Or ideally, a class feature, 'Eldritch Accuracy' maybe, that scales with level and makes their Spell Strike competitive.
They then can have Expert weapon proficiency to compensate.
I expect the magus to get a feat that allows to add intelligence modifier to weapon attack rolls.
I expect the magus to get a feat that allows to add intelligence modifier to weapon attack rolls.
While that would certainly help, that might well be a feat tax, as much as I consider "MARTIAL CASTER FEAT 6" to be a feat tax. :(
my effectiveness went WAY up when I focused on Energizing instead of Striking Spell.
That tells me that Energizing Strikes should be the core class feature you get for free at level 1 and Spell Strike should be a feat. Possibly reworked so that it's actually good, but it can be the system-mastery option.
my effectiveness went WAY up when I focused on Energizing instead of Striking Spell.That tells me that Energizing Strikes should be the core class feature you get for free at level 1 and Spell Strike should be a feat. Possibly reworked so that it's actually good, but it can be the system-mastery option.
That would be cool, for any class that isn't a Magus.
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That would be cool, for any class that isn't a Magus.my effectiveness went WAY up when I focused on Energizing instead of Striking Spell.That tells me that Energizing Strikes should be the core class feature you get for free at level 1 and Spell Strike should be a feat. Possibly reworked so that it's actually good, but it can be the system-mastery option.
You are probably not wrong, but that's the situation the Magus is in right now: Their always-available class-granted ability has low utility.
Its like the Ranger during the core playtest, where it was an action you took in order to enable everything else, but the "everything else" was balanced compared to other classes's abilities that didn't need that toggle-on action (that is, ignoring Hunt Target, all of the abilities it enabled were all identical to abilities other classes had, but with the additional requirement: Your hunted target), so it was actually lagging behind.
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So I couldn't find any place to put this, but there's something I felt the need to point out after looking at items on AoN.
Spell-Storing is, as it stands, outright a better version of Striking Spell. You can store any single-target spell in your weapon, it uses the same results as your attack roll (meaning a hit with your weapon is a hit with the spell attack), and spells have a flat DC of 30. For comparison, a full caster of the same level has a DC of 32.
Reading this, I couldn't help but be slightly annoyed. Yes, it requires one minute of casting a spell into the weapon. That means you can only use it once per combat, and you'd need your caster to sacrifice slots to empower it. And at 3rd-level or lower, the spell is never going to have a lot of raw power. But it's nonetheless a more functional and feasible version of Striking Spell.
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So I couldn't find any place to put this, but there's something I felt the need to point out after looking at items on AoN.
Spell-Storing is, as it stands, outright a better version of Striking Spell. You can store any single-target spell in your weapon, it uses the same results as your attack roll (meaning a hit with your weapon is a hit with the spell attack), and spells have a flat DC of 30. For comparison, a full caster of the same level has a DC of 32.
Reading this, I couldn't help but be slightly annoyed. Yes, it requires one minute of casting a spell into the weapon. That means you can only use it once per combat, and you'd need your caster to sacrifice slots to empower it. And at 3rd-level or lower, the spell is never going to have a lot of raw power. But it's nonetheless a more functional and feasible version of Striking Spell.
I really find it annoying that Eldritch Archer or anyone with that rune get a way to deliver their big shinny attack spells using the same roll as the martial attack while Magus gets stuck with having to roll twice.
In my opinion, it is the Magus that should be able to easily deliver high level attack spells and the characters with the archetype and the item that should have a harder time, not the other way around.
This is akin to locking divine font in the Blessed One archetype and saying that Clerics should prepare heal with their own slots because they might abuse being able to pull a big level two action heal during a boss fight