Eldritch Archer and Striking Spell

[siegfriedliner]

So it seems a problem that shooting Star Magus is probably going to want to arctype for eldritch shot because it gives them a stronger version of their core class ability.

It seems also a bit of a problem that you induced a spell strike option from an arctype which is much closer to how the original ability worked than what your giving the magus.

[Xethik]

Mathematically, Striking Spell does more damage over two rounds than Eldritch Shot, unless your Int is super lacking compared to your Str/Dex.

At least according to my calculations

[Xethik]

Xethik wrote:

Mathematically, Striking Spell does more damage over two rounds than Eldritch Shot, unless your Int is super lacking compared to your Str/Dex.

At least according to my calculations

Actually, after running more numbers, it does seem like Eldritch Shot can also be superior if your spell damage is significantly higher than weapon damage, but they are really quite similar values in the end.

[The-Magic-Sword]

Xethik wrote:

Mathematically, Striking Spell does more damage over two rounds than Eldritch Shot, unless your Int is super lacking compared to your Str/Dex.

At least according to my calculations

How is that possible? its the same action cost, the attacks themselves have the same chance to hit, but Spell Striking has a higher chance to miss, since its a separate roll with a lower hit chance. I don't see a mechanism by which those lines could possibly intersect.

Unless your factoring in the half damage on miss for Striking Spell as if it was using a save? But then that means you're using different spells for each feature?

[Xethik]

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

Xethik wrote:

Mathematically, Striking Spell does more damage over two rounds than Eldritch Shot, unless your Int is super lacking compared to your Str/Dex.

At least according to my calculations

How is that possible? its the same action cost, the attacks themselves have the same chance to hit, but Spell Striking has a higher chance to miss, since its a separate roll with a lower hit chance. I don't see a mechanism by which those lines could possibly intersect.

Unless your factoring in the half damage on miss for Striking Spell as if it was using a save? But then that means you're using different spells for each feature?

Ah, yes sorry. Partially due to me assuming the spell is a saving throw based spell rather than an attack roll one. That is probably an unfair advantage, but unfortunately Striking Spell works better with saving throw based spells than spell attack ones (and generally, saving throw based spells are better overall).

The comparison I was making is:
A 3-action Eldritch Shot style attack. Critically hitting means the enemy critically fails their save; successfully hitting means the enemy fails their save; missing (either fail or crit fail) the Strike means no damage. This seems most similar to how Striking Spell handles saving throw spells vs attack spells, but I could see an argument for a fail (but not critical fail) on the Strike giving an enemy a success roll on their save would be the most similar to Eldritch Shot and most fair compared to Striking Spell. That definitely pushes the favor easily over to Eldritch Shot style.

Vs.

A Striking Spell discharge ability, as the ability works now. You have the initial MAP 0 attack to hit, but then also three attacks (MAP 0, MAP 1, MAP 2+) the following round to attempt to hit with the spell. The enemy rolls a save as usual, but their degree of success is one worse if the triggering strike was a critical success.

The enemy has moderate AC and moderate saves. Some things that probably unfairly boosted the Striking spell was that I was checking low, mid levels. But the saving throw DC does fall behind quite a bit at high levels, so I should also math that out.

[PossibleCabbage]

It would seem reasonable for the Shooting Star Magus to just replace Striking Spell with Eldritch Shot.

Since thematically the reason striking spell gives you multiple chances to hit is that you've put the spell in your sword, so if your sword doesn't hit anything the spell doesn't discharge and the spell is still there. If you put the spell in an arrow, then if the arrow sticks in the ground, or a tree, or rolls and lands in the gutter or whatever then even if the spell is still in that arrow it's no use to you since it's down range now.

[Xethik]

Xethik wrote:

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

Xethik wrote:

Mathematically, Striking Spell does more damage over two rounds than Eldritch Shot, unless your Int is super lacking compared to your Str/Dex.

At least according to my calculations

How is that possible? its the same action cost, the attacks themselves have the same chance to hit, but Spell Striking has a higher chance to miss, since its a separate roll with a lower hit chance. I don't see a mechanism by which those lines could possibly intersect.

Unless your factoring in the half damage on miss for Striking Spell as if it was using a save? But then that means you're using different spells for each feature?

Ah, yes sorry. Partially due to me assuming the spell is a saving throw based spell rather than an attack roll one. That is probably an unfair advantage, but unfortunately Striking Spell works better with saving throw based spells than spell attack ones (and generally, saving throw based spells are better overall).

The comparison I was making is:
A 3-action Eldritch Shot style attack. Critically hitting means the enemy critically fails their save; successfully hitting means the enemy fails their save; missing (either fail or crit fail) the Strike means no damage. This seems most similar to how Striking Spell handles saving throw spells vs attack spells, but I could see an argument for a fail (but not critical fail) on the Strike giving an enemy a success roll on their save would be the most similar to Eldritch Shot and most fair compared to Striking Spell. That definitely pushes the favor easily over to Eldritch Shot style.

Vs.

A Striking Spell discharge ability, as the ability works now. You have the initial MAP 0 attack to hit, but then also three attacks (MAP 0, MAP 1, MAP 2+) the following round to attempt to hit with the spell. The enemy rolls a save as usual, but their degree of success is one worse if the triggering...

And in case people want to check my math, I've got my spreadsheet viewable here:

Xethik's Ugly Magus DPR Sheet

The sheet labeled Level 11 - Eldritch Shot vs Striking Spell is the one I've created as reference here. You can make a copy and play around with things if you'd like, but to explain some numbers:
- Weapon is a +2 striking longbow (deadly d10) with a flaming rune (or similar)
- Using a heightened Sudden Bolt as the main spell, and an Electric Arc as a cantrip
- Each build uses the Sudden Bolt initially, and then a second round with Electric Arc (which may not be applicable with Striking Spell).
- The damage of the two rounds are added together and compared.
- Eldritch Shot with a save spell in this case is a crit fail saving throw on a crit success strike, fail saving throw on a successful strike, and no damage on a miss.
- I'm not taking into account things like Bespell Weapon (which I believe does not work with Eldritch Shot) or any tricks like True Strike.
- Quickened is also ignored as a potential buff, but heavily favors the striking style build.
- And to make clear, the level I chose is somewhat favorable for Striking Spell and it just barely cuts ahead. I did some reaccounting on the two builds (previously "Eldritch Shot" was calculated as a spell cast round 1, and then triple attack round 2). There are definitely level breakpoints where Eldritch Shot is slightly ahead (high levels, generally) and breakpoints where Striking Spell is slightly ahead (lower levels, generally). For the most part, they are nearly identical. But even at level 13, when weapon proficiency jumps ahead of spellcasting proficiency, I'm only seeing a difference of about ~5% in expected damage in favor of Eldritch Shot. At level 4, there is roughly a ~6% advantage in favor of Striking Spell. There aren't huge differences.

Hopefully this just shows that it isn't so clear cut that "Eldritch Shot > Striking Spell" from a mathematical perspective. I am fallible though, so it's more than likely that I've made some kind of mistake. Take a look and let me know if anything seems fishy!

[citricking]

Eldritch shot being limited to spell attack spells is really really limiting. Spell attack spells are not well supported, they are worse than normal spells, they need true strike to be effective.

So magus being able to use any spell makes it so much better, unfortunately there's not much reason to use it (only against very low Ac targets) because it delays the spells effect.

[CrypticSplicer]

Eldritch Shot is better in pretty much every way over spell striking, except in scenarios where you're hitting with a really high damage saving throw spell. On one round, that breaks down as follows-

A Magus at level 7 with a +16 to hit (+1 striking weapon) has the following success chance on a hit against a 25 AC (average for level 7):

19-20 crit (10%)
9-18 hit (50%)
1-9 miss (40%)

Using Eldritch Shot that's also the same breakdown of success for the spell. That means that the average damage the spell deals is 0.7X (e.g. 0.7 * 4d6+4 for Telekinetic Projectile).

If instead they chose to use striking spell with an attack cantrip with +13 to hit the probability of getting a crit would be:

19-20 crit (10%) on strike:
12-20 crit (45%) on spell
3-11 hit (45%) on spell
1-2 miss (10%) on spell

9-18 hit (50%) on strike:
20 crit (5%)
12-19 hit (40%)
1-11 miss (55%)

That comes out to a 7% chance of critting (10% * 45% + 50% * 5%) and a 24.5% chance of hitting (10% * 45% + 50% * 40%) on the spell. That means that the average damage the spell deals is 0.385X (e.g. 0.385 * 4d6+4 for Telekinetic Projectile).

If instead they use striking spell with a saving throw cantrip they would have a 23 DC versus an average of 15 Reflex Saving Throw:

19-20 crit (10%) on strike:
1-7 fumble (35%) on spell
8-17 fail (50%) on spell
18-20 success (15%) on spell

9-18 hit (50%) on strike:
1 fumble (5%) on spell
2-7 fail (30%) on spell
8-17 success (50%) on spell
18-20 crit (15%) on spell

That comes out to a 6% chance of a critical failure (10% * 35% + 50% * 5%), a 20% chance of a failure (10% * 50% + 50% * 30%), and a 26.5% chance of a success (10% * 15% + 50% * 50%). That means that the average damage the spell deals is 0.45X (e.g. 0.45 * 4d4+4 for Electric Arc).

When using eldritch shot with a 2d6+4 weapon and a 4d6+4 spell you would do an average of 20.3 damage. Remember this number- it's important! When spell striking using a 2d6+4 weapon with a 4d6+4 spell you would do an average of 14.63 damage. If you just attacked three times because you missed the last turn with a 2d6+4 weapon you would do 13.75 average damage. Now, I don't want to do the complicated math to figure out the exact damage you'll do if you miss the first turn and hit the second turn. I'd have to account for every strike the following turn, the probability that the spell is already discharged, the gradual reduction of map each strike and the impact that has on the chance to crit and then auto-increase the success of the spell. However, there is no world where two options that could play out over two turns with an average damage of 13.75 to 14.63 average damage would do better than using eldritch shot with its 20.3 average damage twice.

[Xethik]

CrypticSplicer wrote:

Eldritch Shot is better in pretty much every way over spell striking, except in scenarios where you're hitting with a really high damage saving throw spell. On one round, that breaks down as follows-

A Magus at level 7 with a +16 to hit (+1 striking weapon) has the following success chance on a hit against a 25 AC (average for level 7):

19-20 crit (10%)
9-18 hit (50%)
1-9 miss (40%)

Using Eldritch Shot that's also the same breakdown of success for the spell. That means that the average damage the spell deals is 0.7X (e.g. 0.7 * 4d6+4 for Telekinetic Projectile).

If instead they chose to use striking spell with an attack cantrip with +13 to hit the probability of getting a crit would be:

19-20 crit (10%) on strike:
12-20 crit (45%) on spell
3-11 hit (45%) on spell
1-2 miss (10%) on spell

9-18 hit (50%) on strike:
20 crit (5%)
12-19 hit (40%)
1-11 miss (55%)

That comes out to a 7% chance of critting (10% * 45% + 50% * 5%) and a 24.5% chance of hitting (10% * 45% + 50% * 40%) on the spell. That means that the average damage the spell deals is 0.385X (e.g. 0.385 * 4d6+4 for Telekinetic Projectile).

If instead they use striking spell with a saving throw cantrip they would have a 23 DC versus an average of 15 Reflex Saving Throw:

19-20 crit (10%) on strike:
1-7 fumble (35%) on spell
8-17 fail (50%) on spell
18-20 success (15%) on spell

9-18 hit (50%) on strike:
1 fumble (5%) on spell
2-7 fail (30%) on spell
8-17 success (50%) on spell
18-20 crit (15%) on spell

That comes out to a 6% chance of a critical failure (10% * 35% + 50% * 5%), a 20% chance of a failure (10% * 50% + 50% * 30%), and a 26.5% chance of a success (10% * 15% + 50% * 50%). That means that the average damage the spell deals is 0.45X (e.g. 0.45 * 4d4+4 for Electric Arc).

When using eldritch shot with a 2d6+4 weapon and a 4d6+4 spell you would do an average of 20.3 damage. Remember this number- it's important! When spell striking...

Well, you don't have to complicate yourself and try to do the branching math yourself! I have a spreadsheet for that.

According to my math, Eldritch Shot deals 23.2 DPR, while Striking Spell does 23.4 DPR.
Again, they are pretty much equal.