Just thought I would share some testing I did last night. I did a comparison of a magus with a fighter MC that focuses more on fighting, using spell slots for buffing and cantrips for striking spell about every other round (2 handed sustaining steel) vs a magus wizard MC that invested feats into gaining as many spells as possible (including martial caster), so that the upper level spells could be for nova attacks, (sliding magus using whip for finesse and reach). Both at level 7 as that is what I have most often seen presented as the level where casters really start feeling like their own unique class.
Some observations:
For me, Magus was a lot more fun as a martial with supplemental casting and the occasional set up for a weakness targeting striking spell than it was trying to build a caster who delivered big attack spells through a weapon. Part of it is that Secrets of Magic is going to need to introduce at least 2 to 4 new attack spells that have the ability to target 1 creature because there is just not enough versatility in spells to select for the striking spell feature to be exciting from the spell selection side of the power. We need more higher level spell attack roll spells that don't also stack a save on top, but do have decent critical effects.
More fun than lining up big spell hits (for the caster focused magus) was using a whip and tanglefoot (lasts 1 minute at level 4) and acting as a battlefield controller. I didn't think of it until after the test run, but picking up Battlefield Control spells like grease and shifting sand, while the rest of the party does the damage would probably have been a lot more fun to play, even if it would have just resulted in using striking spell every other round, as you'd probably be sustaining spells. Also, the casting magi would probably be more fun outside of a combat area as they have enough spell slots to pick one or 2 utility spells and keep the kinds of utility scrolls, potions and wands they find to use for fun instead of selling them for more combat buff scrolls.
From the martial side, striking spell is fun because it can stack on top of any strike action. I cannot stress how cool it is that that the feature works that way! Powerattack was the most fun I had last night, and even lining it up with a cantrip fun because produce flame's crit rider is so devastating at higher levels, although Lunge on top of the halberd made the movement issue a lot less of a problem when I used it. With Energize strike, setting up the weapon with the focus power and then casting haste in round 1, round 2 could feature cast produce flame, move if necessary and attack, or attack and then energize strikes and that was a pretty typical first 2 rounds. rounds 3+ were pretty flexible of striking and moving or casting and striking or carrying over a missed attack into a charged power attack. With a d10 weapon, boosted to a +2 striking weapon with magus potency, the one time I crit with the weapon and the spell for 52 points of slashing damage with the weapon + 24 fire damage from produce flame + 14 persistent fire damage against the Desert Drake was definitely the hit of the night. The creature fled and spent two actions putting itself out the following round, and then just decided to flee afterwards. It was pretty much a one shot to a level +1 creature, and would have made a barbarian jealous.
In retrospect, I think taking Opportunist at level 4 instead of lunge would have been the best build, but I should point out that the Martial Magus started off with a 18 Str 14 Dex and 14 Int. So had a +17 with the weapon attack but only a +12 with the spell attack.
I have noticed with all of the magi that I have tested in the battle arena that they do tend to miss with the spell when they do not crit with a weapon more often than they hit with the spell, but they crit with a weapon almost 25% of the time they attack, and I never missed with a spell after critting on any of my test runs. The caster magus had 2 weapon crits + spell crits, but they were testing out more debuff spells so while still cool (once on slow and once on tanglefoot), it was quite as overpowering as it was with a power attack 2 handed weapon. If, once the final book is out, the magus has a similar striking spell feature, I would be begging one of my friends to be a bard because the two synergize better than any other class combo I have seen. A bard that focuses on buffing and debuffing makes the magus even more powerful than it does a barbarian. At least as far as I have seen.
Overall, I think that the sliding Magus is going to want to do whatever it takes to get access to a flickmace, because the damage die is just too puny on the whip and none of the maneuver features of tripping or disarming are really possible with the magus because of action economy and MAP. You don't really need to start off with one though because the shifting rune can turn any 1 handed weapon into one which you can usually get by level 7 without a problem.
A reach weapon makes striking spell much, much better than even other weapon traits I thought would be fun like deadly.
Also I think the hype around wanting to MC into caster to be more castery is probably always going to result in a disappointing build. Lower level slots for buffing are just dirt cheap to provide through scrolls, wands and a staff. A wizard with a decent ancestry weapon is more capable of doing cool stuff with spells, and occasionally using a weapon effectively up until very high levels, at which point the number of spells they have just make the "swing a weapon" action a quaint little nostalgia thing. I really wanted this to be the cooler magus, but the martial magus was just so much more fun.
Edit: Also Magus feats start getting almost essential from level 8 onward so keeping up with the spell casting stuff just makes you lose too much magus-ness.
I am actually ok, and in fact, for the average class build to prefer the classes feats over the multi class. That's good design imo as I think multi class should be for concepts you cannot realize through class feats alone.
Your experience with the critical/hit issues make me just feel more and more that it's the wrong feature for the class itself from a balance perspective
I was, almost exclusively using spell attack roll spells with the martial focused Magus and striking spell. I did use a fair number of saving throw spells with the caster focused Magus, and didn't really mind getting the success value when I didn't crit with the weapon, but that was because I was using spells like slow that are not a whole lot worse on a success than a regular failure.
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I am actually ok, and in fact, for the average class build to prefer the classes feats over the multi class. That's good design imo as I think multi class should be for concepts you cannot realize through class feats alone.
Your experience with the critical/hit issues make me just feel more and more that it's the wrong feature for the class itself from a balance perspective
And I agree with you that it is good that the magus feats feel worth taking. I just see a lot of people talking about "needing" to MC for spell slots and that actually (in my playtesting experience) leads to a bad magus and a bad caster. Magus, light many other martial characters, is pretty dependent upon its class feats for full class based functionality. Martial casting might even be a pretty overrated feat.
And I agree with you that it is good that the magus feats feel worth taking. I just see a lot of people talking about "needing" to MC for spell slots and that actually (in my playtesting experience) leads to a bad magus and a bad caster. Magus, light many other martial characters, is pretty dependent upon its class feats for full class based functionality. Martial casting might even be a pretty overrated feat.I am actually ok, and in fact, for the average class build to prefer the classes feats over the multi class. That's good design imo as I think multi class should be for concepts you cannot realize through class feats alone.
Your experience with the critical/hit issues make me just feel more and more that it's the wrong feature for the class itself from a balance perspective
Ooc utility is great, just not always at the expense of your core performance, I agree. Classes like the Magus feel so good in free archetype
Ooc utility is great, just not always at the expense of your core performance, I agree. Classes like the Magus feel so good in free archetypeAnd I agree with you that it is good that the magus feats feel worth taking. I just see a lot of people talking about "needing" to MC for spell slots and that actually (in my playtesting experience) leads to a bad magus and a bad caster. Magus, light many other martial characters, is pretty dependent upon its class feats for full class based functionality. Martial casting might even be a pretty overrated feat.I am actually ok, and in fact, for the average class build to prefer the classes feats over the multi class. That's good design imo as I think multi class should be for concepts you cannot realize through class feats alone.
Your experience with the critical/hit issues make me just feel more and more that it's the wrong feature for the class itself from a balance perspective
A multiclass caster gets 1 level 1 spell at level 4.
A level 1 scroll costs 4 gp. A level 4 character should have about 140 GP of wealth, at the start of the level. Being able to cast 1 level spell a day is a nice feature in a campaign that has built in a lot of overland exploration or something similar that might spend weeks or a month leveling up, but it is a lot of character investment that might end up only really mattering for 4 to 6 days of actual adventuring. Especially with how the magus doesn't really need to be trying to keep up on the razor's edge of weapon runes until 8th level when they might want to start being able to use runic impression every combat, scrolls are really a much better way to keep up with out of combat utility that dumping class feats on top of class feats into caster archetypes.