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I find myself extremely underwhelmed by the Magus's Striking Spell. It fails to be anywhere near as amazing as 1e Spell Strike and Spell Combat combined. Meanwhile, where Flurry of blows decreases two attacks to a single action and Double Slice negates the multi attack penalty fighting with two weapons, Striking spell doesn't feel any different than a normal wizard casting a spell and striking in the same round. Where 1e sacrificed a touch attack for the chance to get 15-20 crit range or x3 crit multiplier on a spell combined with the appropriate weapon damage in addition to strength, 2e requires you to attempt to attack twice. You need to have enough strength or dex to be able to hit the target and you need enough intelligence so you can also hit the target with the spell. Even if you do score a crit, there is a chance of not critting with the spell. Ultimately it makes spell casting less effective. I swear, if a player ever tries to cast magic missile into their sword they are dead to me.
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But since your Spell prof is usually lower once you start levelling up, it's about -3 or -4, so equivalent to MAP with an Agile weapon.
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But if you cast an attack spell and attack in the same round normally, either the attack or the spell takes an additional-5 for MAP vs Striking spell.. Performing the strike discharge spell routine woukd eman that -5 applies to the lower spell attack roll, making it a benefit with that one type of spell.
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A marginal benefit. If the spell misses it is lost, not an issue with cantrips, but still. You now have to recast it again to try a new spellstrike. You would prefer missing your weapon strike because that gives you another chance than landing it and missing the spell.
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It's not the biggest effect, is less imperssive than the Eldritch Archer's similar ability and provides no benefit if you expend the spell on your next turn, but it's comparable to most two-weapon effects in Pathfinder 2E.
Just pointing out that there is benfit vs casting and striking normally. Whether that's good enough is another matter entirely.
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True, there is a benefit.
That benefit is however too small compared to the cost, and often ends up not doing enough when compared to 2 weapons actions (which often take 2 actions where this takes 3)
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But you still get only two "hits" out of it, if you compare the damages it's nothing impressive and takes a whole turn to do something. Where a 2 actions double attack leaves you with one action to move, raise a shield, intimidate etc
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Striking spell just doesn't have the feel of the 1e version. He is very It feels a little stoic, like the fighter. The old magus had a bit more flare. Here's an idea! The sliding magus has a few abilities that make it act like the swashbuckler (requiring 1 hand free) perhaps if it had some feats with the finishing or flourish traits that involved channeling spells. Might make it flavor a little more like its own class, rather than a fighter with wizard dedication?
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Because casting a spell takes two actions for most spells. So it’s using the same number of actions as to cast a spell and strike, as two weapon feats use the same number of actions to hit tiwce, flurry being an exception.
It also can't benefit from metamagic because striking spell is itself metamagic.
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It's still WAY to complicated for just avoiding MAP.
Striking Spell: 3 actions Level 1 Magus feat
Cast a Spell a spell that has an attack roll and takes 1 or 2 actions to cast. Then make a Strike. Each using your current multiple attack penalty. You can also Strike first and then Cast.
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Making it 3 actions makes its use very complicated until you have access to Haste. Plus it's so... bland. It's not even a Spell Strike, it's just casting then Striking. Cool you avoid MAP if the spell had an attack roll, but that's really a very, very, very minor benefit not worth a whole feat.
Just make SpellStrike a free metamagic that makes you replace the somatic component of an attack spell by a Strike, and use that single roll for the results. It's simpler to understand, more streamlined and it won't slow down the table as much.
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I built out a skeleton build of a level 5 magus (dex-based, slide casting, agile weapon) and ran her in several fights against my level 5 champion (Switch hitting melee/thrown weapon build) with different start positions and different tactics. She fared well when she won initiative and went all out using spell slots. But if she doesn’t land a big hit right away, the champion can mostly nullify striking spell by just attacking once and moving twice. That keeps even Slide Casting from letting her striking spell. Which turns the fight into the champion throwing a trident vs her casting electric arc and trying to close distance. Given that the champion has significantly more hit points (78 via 16 con and toughness vs 59 via 14 con and toughness), unless she’s landed a vampiric touch in there somewhere, the champion came out ahead more often than not. If she’s trying to win using just cantrips, it was almost always the champion that won. I’m going to start giving her the benefit of more and more buffs (false life, longstrider). She has mirror images, but spending time casting that was usually a waste, since the images are so easy to destroy in 2E. Crit misses are rare, even with a second attack, and not that common on a third attack, so it was more of a delaying tactic than anything actually productive. I suspect it’s a better spell in something different than a 1 on 1 fight.
MAP is short for "Multiple Attack Penalty"
I built out a skeleton build of a level 5 magus (dex-based, slide casting, agile weapon) and ran her in several fights against my level 5 champion (Switch hitting melee/thrown weapon build) with different start positions and different tactics. She fared well when she won initiative and went all out using spell slots. But if she doesn’t land a big hit right away, the champion can mostly nullify striking spell by just attacking once and moving twice. That keeps even Slide Casting from letting her striking spell. Which turns the fight into the champion throwing a trident vs her casting electric arc and trying to close distance. Given that the champion has significantly more hit points (78 via 16 con and toughness vs 59 via 14 con and toughness), unless she’s landed a vampiric touch in there somewhere, the champion came out ahead more often than not. If she’s trying to win using just cantrips, it was almost always the champion that won. I’m going to start giving her the benefit of more and more buffs (false life, longstrider). She has mirror images, but spending time casting that was usually a waste, since the images are so easy to destroy in 2E. Crit misses are rare, even with a second attack, and not that common on a third attack, so it was more of a delaying tactic than anything actually productive. I suspect it’s a better spell in something different than a 1 on 1 fight.
Why not move further back and pepper the champion with Ray of Frost? Lower odds of dealing damage, I'm sure, but those range increment penalities on the trident seem like they hurt the Champion much more.
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Also please explain what you mean by "MAP".
Multi-Attack Penalty.
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Why not move further back and pepper the champion with Ray of Frost? Lower odds of dealing damage, I'm sure, but those range increment penalities on the trident seem like they hurt the Champion much more.
At that point you're not really a Magus anymore, just a worse Wizard. I assume the idea was to see how the Magus fared using its exclusive tools.
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At that point you're not really a Magus anymore, just a worse Wizard. I assume the idea was to see how the Magus fared using its exclusive tools.
Why not move further back and pepper the champion with Ray of Frost? Lower odds of dealing damage, I'm sure, but those range increment penalities on the trident seem like they hurt the Champion much more.
Yeah, pretty much this. The champion also has an AC advantage, despite not being optimally built for AC (scale mail and 16 dex), because he's got Reactive Shield from a Viking MC, so can always get his buckler into place. If I give him an actual shield, then it gets worse for the Magus. Her spell attack is +11 vs +14 with the weapon. The Champion is +13 throwing, so with the AC difference, she has to get to 45 feet away to get an advantage on the hit chance.
In the long run, though, 3d4+4 for two actions loses out against 2d8+4 for 1 action if the attack bonuses are equal. The Champion also has the option of just taking out a striking shortbow if things move to a long distance. Come to think of it, he should probably have a composite longbow instead of the shortbow, since he'll only use it when someone is out of decent range for the trident.
I suspect that Longstrider will make a difference, and that's perfectly reasonable to assume a 5th level Magus has, since it's 150 gold for a wand to basically always have it when you're expecting a fight.
Of course, I can do things to make the Champion more optimized like giving him a sturdy shield or seeing what happens if he switches to his katana 2-handed. And I can make the magus more optimized, but I'm trying to test characters I'd actually play based on concept to see if the class can support a concept that I would want to play. IE something similar to a Magus I played in 1E. It's worth noting that it falls far short of that, since my 1E Magus was a trip build. If you assume a kukri can be used to trip with Dex, and I devote 1 or both of her 2nd level spells to true strike, then she can start to do some of the things the 1E Magus could do at 1st level in terms of battlefield control.
Anyway, I'm going to play around with the build some more. Sticking to feats in-class looks like it's going to be disappointing until the mostly required Martial Casting. I'm planning to try to build out my other 1E Magus, who was a mind blade who ignored Spell Combat and crit fishing by wielding an Earthbreaker. He'll take Bespell Strikes, be strength based, and use the two-handed synthesis for a different feel. But I fear he will struggle mightily with the action economy due to not getting the free stride. I might give him a reach weapon, since he often would have had long arm going. At some point if I do enough testing, I'll split off into a different thread with the details.
At that point you're not really a Magus anymore, just a worse Wizard. I assume the idea was to see how the Magus fared using its exclusive tools.
Why not move further back and pepper the champion with Ray of Frost? Lower odds of dealing damage, I'm sure, but those range increment penalities on the trident seem like they hurt the Champion much more.
Yeah, but not every situation allows you to use your unique tools. A barbarian is just a worse ranger when they use a longbow, but that doesn't mean they won't have to against fliers sometimes. And as a gish there's gonna be times when you need to rely on one side of the equation or the other. If someone drops an antimagic field, I wouldn't expect a Magus to back pedal and try to make casting work. I'd expect them to wade in and put that martial proficiency to work.
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Yeah, but not every situation allows you to use your unique tools. A barbarian is just a worse ranger when they use a longbow, but that doesn't mean they won't have to against fliers sometimes. And as a gish there's gonna be times when you need to rely on one side of the equation or the other. If someone drops an antimagic field, I wouldn't expect a Magus to back pedal and try to make casting work. I'd expect them to wade in and put that martial proficiency to work.At that point you're not really a Magus anymore, just a worse Wizard. I assume the idea was to see how the Magus fared using its exclusive tools.
Why not move further back and pepper the champion with Ray of Frost? Lower odds of dealing damage, I'm sure, but those range increment penalities on the trident seem like they hurt the Champion much more.
It's also worth pointing out that standing still was not a better situation for her, either. Then the Champion is getting his full melee attack bonus and can take three attacks or two attacks and something else (lay on hands, draw a potion, drink the next round, etc.), since Reactive Shield lets him aways have that AC bonus. She would only occasionally win by critting at some point on an actual spell slot spell. A lot of rounds would just go Striking Spell, attack, miss, leaving her there to be attacked with no AC boost.
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Yeah, but not every situation allows you to use your unique tools.At that point you're not really a Magus anymore, just a worse Wizard. I assume the idea was to see how the Magus fared using its exclusive tools.
Why not move further back and pepper the champion with Ray of Frost? Lower odds of dealing damage, I'm sure, but those range increment penalities on the trident seem like they hurt the Champion much more.
While true, its kind of a problem if the situations that DO all you to use your tools are either in the minority or non-existent. Its not like EVERY fight is against fliers without the party being able to fly themselves. Its not like EVERY fight is inside an anti-magic zone.
While true, its kind of a problem if the situations that DO all you to use your tools are either in the minority or non-existent. Its not like EVERY fight is against fliers without the party being able to fly themselves. Its not like EVERY fight is inside an anti-magic zone.Yeah, but not every situation allows you to use your unique tools.At that point you're not really a Magus anymore, just a worse Wizard. I assume the idea was to see how the Magus fared using its exclusive tools.
Why not move further back and pepper the champion with Ray of Frost? Lower odds of dealing damage, I'm sure, but those range increment penalities on the trident seem like they hurt the Champion much more.
Sure, but those scenarios are less contrived then "a champion kiting me to death." The two standing and trading blows is a lot more relevant, though the Magus should need to leverage their spell slots to do that. And ideally shouldn't have to by playing wizard games, relying on Flight to avoid ever being in melee range in the first place or whatever.
Though "can this class beat another class PvP seems like a poor metric of performance. Monsters rarely have the sort of "treat successes as crit successes" abilities that make PCs resilient to magic. How the class performs in actual encounter alongside teammates is much better, though I suspect the answer is "not very well" here from what has been said.
Though "can this class beat another class PvP seems like a poor metric of performance. Monsters rarely have the sort of "treat successes as crit successes" abilities that make PCs resilient to magic. How the class performs in actual encounter alongside teammates is much better, though I suspect the answer is "not very well" here from what has been said.
I agree.
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Though "can this class beat another class PvP seems like a poor metric of performance. Monsters rarely have the sort of "treat successes as crit successes" abilities that make PCs resilient to magic. How the class performs in actual encounter alongside teammates is much better, though I suspect the answer is "not very well" here from what has been said.I agree.
Yeah, I’m hoping to get the builds into some party situations where I’m not running both sides.
Yeah, I’m hoping to get the builds into some party situations where I’m not running both sides.Though "can this class beat another class PvP seems like a poor metric of performance. Monsters rarely have the sort of "treat successes as crit successes" abilities that make PCs resilient to magic. How the class performs in actual encounter alongside teammates is much better, though I suspect the answer is "not very well" here from what has been said.I agree.
Better off running both against the same monsters. Instead of PvP.
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Better off running both against the same monsters. Instead of PvP.Yeah, I’m hoping to get the builds into some party situations where I’m not running both sides.Though "can this class beat another class PvP seems like a poor metric of performance. Monsters rarely have the sort of "treat successes as crit successes" abilities that make PCs resilient to magic. How the class performs in actual encounter alongside teammates is much better, though I suspect the answer is "not very well" here from what has been said.I agree.
Can try that as well, yeah. My other characters are just what was conveniently already built in roll20.
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It's kind of worse. Apparently when I leveled my Champion to 5th, I didn't change his weapon proficiency to Expert. So he had actually been attacking with a +12 (+11 thrown), not a +14.
Giving the Magus longstrider seems to help. I swapped her two class feats (Combat Assessment and Spell Parry) for Swashbuckler (Battledancer) Dedication and Precise Finisher. Near as I can tell, nothing stops you from using Tumble Through on the free Stride from Slide Casting. With a 35 speed, that gives her a lot of free chances to get Panache for a small damage boost and the finisher to use for when a big hit is set up. It's also thematic in keeping with the old Kapenia Dancer style.
The Champion has still won both fights so far. And that's before I adjusted his attacks. I'm going to pull in a level appropriate monster and run them both against it to see what happens. I feel like the choice of monster will affect things greatly. Something with an AoO is going to really hurt the Magus's options.
Ah, so it is. Shoot. Any ideas what to do with an extra Stride when you don't need to move anywhere? To get some kind of benefit out of it?
Spend the 30 feets side stepping very fast to confuse the ennemy.
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Ah, so it is. Shoot. Any ideas what to do with an extra Stride when you don't need to move anywhere? To get some kind of benefit out of it?Spend the 30 feets side stepping very fast to confuse the ennemy.
1000 Serious Side Hop Repetitions
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1000 Serious Side Hop RepetitionsAh, so it is. Shoot. Any ideas what to do with an extra Stride when you don't need to move anywhere? To get some kind of benefit out of it?Spend the 30 feets side stepping very fast to confuse the ennemy.
It's just a jump to the left...
I appreciate the help so far. I'm going to move future posts about this build (and others, if I have time to make them) into a new thread when I've done more testing. I've already taken this one over enough, and the OP deserves to have it back to discuss their character.
Making it 3 actions makes its use very complicated until you have access to Haste. Plus it's so... bland. It's not even a Spell Strike, it's just casting then Striking. Cool you avoid MAP if the spell had an attack roll, but that's really a very, very, very minor benefit not worth a whole feat.
You think +5 to hit is not worth a feat?
It's basically Double Slice.
Just make SpellStrike a free metamagic that makes you replace the somatic component of an attack spell by a Strike, and use that single roll for the results. It's simpler to understand, more streamlined and it won't slow down the table as much.
So save an action AND +5 to hit both? Too much IMO.
Or do you mean using Str/Dex in place of Int? That would be fine.
Striking Spell, Free action, Metamagic.
If the next action you do is cast a spell with an attack roll, you can instead use your weapon roll instead.
It's not worth it when your spell attack modifier is normally about 5 less than your strike attack modifier without any MAP. It's basically like the magus is giving up all the unlimited use damage increasing feats or features of the other martial classes to get 2 uses of a feature that makes a spell attack -5 instead of -10.Making it 3 actions makes its use very complicated until you have access to Haste. Plus it's so... bland. It's not even a Spell Strike, it's just casting then Striking. Cool you avoid MAP if the spell had an attack roll, but that's really a very, very, very minor benefit not worth a whole feat.You think +5 to hit is not worth a feat?
It's basically Double Slice.
If you stat yourself optimally it's -2 to -4 behind depending on your level.
Also, use save spells. They are not themselves subject to map and get half damage on save and have good Rider effects on crit and you can target weak saves while AC is normally higher
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Also, use save spells. They are not themselves subject to map and get half damage on save and have good Rider effects on crit and you can target weak saves while AC is normally higher
Just...use...the...spell...normally.
Damage now is almost always better than the chance of a little bit more damage later. The difference is like 3 points.
Also, use save spells. They are not themselves subject to map and get half damage on save and have good Rider effects on crit and you can target weak saves while AC is normally higher
Just...use...the...spell...normally.
Damage now is almost always better than the chance of a little bit more damage later. The difference is like 3 points.
Kinda depends on your build no? Have to factor in feats as well as the scenario.
I'm slide casting Wich means I'm performing 4 actions with 3 basically. 5 with spirit sheathe at the beginning of combat.
If I used a spell slot, I'm already locked in to using spell strike or losing the spell anyway.
If I critical with my weapon I improve the success of the spell by one step, save spells have 4 degrees of success usually.
Later I'm taking fighter dedication, lunge and portal slide. Letting me teleport ten feet away and still hit them with my spell strike.
Spell sweep let's me apply a single target spell to two targets and essentially doubles my value,. Plus I'm using an orc necksplitter.
Quicken spell strike works with spell strike.
Etc etc etc.
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Spell sweep let's me apply a single target spell to two targets and essentially doubles my value
You're not doing this first turn (unless you also quickened it). Spell Swipe takes 2 actions. Oh and those enemies have to both be adjacent to you and adjacent to each other.
You could have just used chain lightning.
There probably are situations in which it works out, but baseline? At level 1? I can't see it.
And if I can't see it then, I'm not going to bother with addons. Its the same reason I don't mod Skyrim: the game isn't good enough to want to play more of.
Spell sweep let's me apply a single target spell to two targets and essentially doubles my valueYou're not doing this first turn (unless you also quickened it). Spell Swipe takes 2 actions. Oh and those enemies have to both be adjacent to you and adjacent to each other.
You could have just used chain lightning.
There probably are situations in which it works out, but baseline? At level 1? I can't see it.
And if I can't see it then, I'm not going to bother with addons. Its the same reason I don't mod Skyrim: the game isn't good enough to want to play more of.
I do agree Magus has some issues. But I'm not sure how they can improve upon the current spell strike and keep it as flexible and as in line with current game mechanics.
I assume the critical effect in place is due to them considering it too powerful to consider it all as one strike with one roll. So this was their half measure.
But at level 1, if you need to get into melee, spell strike with slide casting.
But also, probably just magic weapon lol.
I do agree, there needs to be more reason to actually use it. A Magus using spell strike should be better than a Magus casting a spell and striking. Right now that is only situationally the case.
I just don't know how they fit it into their budget for the feature.
Pretty sure that's intentional, to prevent magic casters from casting more than one offensive spell per turn.
The only 1-action attack spell I can remember off the top of my head is the 1-action version of Magic Missile. Which just feels like a waste.
I have a thread graphing the damage of the playtest striking spell against an at level median AC creature with a flurry ranger for comparison. I also graphed what changes to striking spell would to the damage like adding the potency rune item bonus and having the spell attack have the same degree of success as the strike. Here's the thread link.I do agree Magus has some issues. But I'm not sure how they can improve upon the current spell strike and keep it as flexible and as in line with current game mechanics.
I assume the critical effect in place is due to them considering it too powerful to consider it all as one strike with one roll. So this was their half measure.
But at level 1, if you need to get into melee, spell strike with slide casting.
But also, probably just magic weapon lol.
I do agree, there needs to be more reason to actually use it. A Magus using spell strike should be better than a Magus casting a spell and striking. Right now that is only situationally the case.
I just don't know how they fit it into their budget for the feature.
So, I have minor issue with this comparison. I think I get why you used it (using all your actions to attack), however. Flurry ranger, from what I've seen, has some of the highest damage in the game with the least versatility and variation from round to round as they realistically use every action to attack becoming a stationary turret.
I think a better comparison will be a swashbuckler as they have setup actions and damage actions and their playstyle revolves around that gameplay loop.
Not too invalidate your information, I'm sure it has value.
Pretty sure that's intentional, to prevent magic casters from casting more than one offensive spell per turn.
The only 1-action attack spell I can remember off the top of my head is the 1-action version of Magic Missile. Which just feels like a waste.
Heal, Magic Missile, Sudden Bolt (iirc), and a couple others. But yes, it makes me sad that there aren't very many. Magic Missile has great interaction with the 3-action system, so yeah, while it feels best doing 3-action version, there might be scenarios where 1-action is 'worth it'.