There have been a number of threads so far proposing ideas for how to fix striking spell's action economy. While I liked some aspects of the ideas I've read, they also changed striking spell in ways I didn't like.
I don't remember seeing anyone post this idea before but my proposed change is to let the player either choose to gain the benefits of their synthesis as part of casting the spell or choose to use a single action ability as part of casting the spell. For example, the player could use striking spell and cast a two action spell and gain the temporary hit points from sustaining steel, or they could choose to strike as part of casting the spell instead of gaining the temporary hp. This would also mean they could choose to stride, step, spell parry, recall knowledge, or use any other one action ability.
Sliding synthesis would need to be changed to give another benefit (like giving spell parry) but I don't think that would be too much of an issue.
After playing with the Magus for a bit, I've been thinking about what I like and what I don't like.
The first big issue was that it felt like I had very few options if I decided to use striking spell. It was hard to get in actions like recall knowledge or defensive options while also keeping pressure on the enemy with attacks. The second issue I had was the synthesis benefits not feeling useful when you got to certain points of combat. Sliding would lose benefit once I was in a good position and sustaining steel didn't feel useful if I was far away and nothing would reach me. And a third issue was how squishy the sliding magus felt which was magnified by how difficult it was to use spell parry and striking spell together.
Some of the things I did like were how I could buff a strike for next round if I wasn't able to reach an enemy in one round. And I liked the feeling of being able to cast a spell into a weapon while also moving around the battle field.
I think this change could help these issues by allowing more choices of either defensive, offensive, or tactical options being used in conjunction with striking spell.
