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I agree with you that the design of spell casting in PF2 is ruffling a lot of feathers as it makes the transition to a single target damage specialist like the magus.
Spell casting in PF2 is one of the most complex mechanics that can completely derail a player's game experience when their spell selection runs against the grain of the encounter.
What I mean by that is that targeting the wrong defenses, running up against resistances and immunities, and not taking advantage of tactical advantages in play can easily kill any casters effectiveness in combat. This complexity is what drives a lot of players of casters to the safest options of buffs, and reliable debuffs that have decent effects on successful saves, like fear and slow, and goblin pox.
A clear game design goal of PF2 has been to make martials dynamic and fun in every encounter, and much more difficult to render irrelevant by casters. It is very difficult for any caster to rival the damage output of martials without using their highest level spell slots and sinking a fair bit of your gold budget into things like scrolls and staves to maximize your spell casting accuracy and sustainability. Even then, it is often your ability to target multiple opponents that keeps you on par with martials, when the goal is offensive casting, and you are almost always sinking 3 actions into your casting by tagging on metamagic spells to increase your range, area or eventually damage, or by needing to use true strike with your spell attack roll spells.
A lot of those factors are hard to port over onto the magus, since their classic shtick is essentially close range single target striking, and adding a weapon attack into the mix makes for a very complicated action economy to damage output dynamic.
I know my love of the concept behind the current striking spell mechanic is not incredibly popular on these boards, but at the very least it does push the magus that using spell attack roll spells to tactically seek out all the possible attack bonuses that they can to the weapon attack roll, and that those same bonuses will port over to helping the spell attack roll spell land more accurately as well. Tactically it is not requiring you to try to accomplish 2 separate goals at the same time, which can be the case when you are trying to blend a weapon attack and a saving throw spell, and trying to figure out what is their weak save and how to most effectively debuff it.
The same stays true with many of the minor modifications they could potentially make to the striking spell mechanic, including condensing into just one roll, or boosting the accuracy of spell attack rolls with an item bonus or focus power, so the developers have a whole lot of options for addressing this pretty wide spread complaint.
I just hope that it doesn't turn the mechanic into something that rules saving throw targeting spells out entirely, or if it is going to, then we need to get about 2x as many spell attack roll spells as we currently have, especially at higher levels, and they need to not drop the ball on their critical effects, because when you do land a big crit on a spell attack roll, the damage really should double so you don't end up feeling like your crit didn't really accomplish anything (like can happen fairly easily with polar ray).
The only problem I have with introducing a whole bunch more spell attack roll spells at higher level, is that it is just going to trick more newer wizard, witch and druid players into picking up spells that require a fair bit of work to use successfully, and it is going to incredibly double down on the importance of all casters getting access to true strike and using it before casting spell attack roll spells.
As far as cantrips and lower level spells, it is just such a dangerous road to make options that can keep up with runed up 2 handed weapon attacks because tactically focused attacks that can bring the full weight of multiple actions worth of attacks into one roll can be a real breaking point in the game. Power attack as a feat had to be turned down below par for most attack situations (i.e not the same damage as just making two attack rolls) because accuracy plays such a large roll in damage output with the +/-10 crit system. The importance of accuracy and how much little changes can have big effects on the overall game balance was a very contentious issue in the original game play test as well.
Hopefully, some relatively minor changes can give people the satisfaction they are looking for in being able to combine weapon and spell attacks.
Currently Spellstrike uses what seems to be standard "MAP only escalates after both attacks" wording. The problem there is it means if you don't trigger spell on 1st weapon attack in round, but do so via attack suffering MAP, that MAP does apply to spell attack normally... Which makes Attack spells much less reliable in terms of not wasting a spell slot, where they already are inherently worse compared to 4-degree Save spells (when weapon doesn't Crit and target Save for half but Attack spell Misses for nothing). Changing this so spell attack never suffers MAP (but would still escalate MAP for later attacks) would remove that "double whammy" and put Attack spells on more equitable footing with Save spells, while still being inherently more risky. Perhaps this could be tied to Spellstrike, but I could see it just being general thing for Magus as well.
I've also considered "math fixes" to make Attack spells more attractive for Maguses, namely allowing Attack spells to use weapon proficiency instead of spell proficiency, OR Attack spells use weapon attack stat instead of casting stat. Although superficially similar with Stat seeming to have less effect than Proficiency, I think Proficiency is probably better approach, since Stat swapping may encourage people to dump casting stat in favor of resilience (DEX, CON, WIS) and solely using Attack spells instead of Save spells. I actually don't see a reason to tie that change to Spellstrike, if a Magus wants to cast them independently then why not? Regardless, stat/proficiency swap would make Attack spells relatively stronger than Save spells ON AVERAGE, albeit still riskier than 4-degree Save spells.
It occured to me that it might be weird balancing Attack spells for general usage, when their most enthusiastic audience may be Magus... But given there are other roll upgrade effects in game, Magus having one built in (that isn't 100% reliable) isn't that distorting of an effect. Magus Spellstrike Crit upgrade just makes them more likely to use Truestrike on triggering weapon strike... While a Wizard would just use True Strike directly on Attack Spell. Combining Proficiency Swap with Spellstrike crit upgrade, Magus would probably be statistically superior at spell attacks compared to Wizard, but given Magus' focus and limitations that seems reasonable, and it's probably good for SOMEBODY to especially like Attack spells (not that benefits of reliable 4-degree Save spells would stop being relevant to Magus).
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I don't feel like I would be enthusiastic at going any deeper than that in terms of buffing up core math. Reinforcing auxiliary abilities seems where remainder of attention should go, whether casting or weapon related Feats or baseline abilities, or other useful abilities... Recall Knowledge being one area, and the Raise Tome Feat seems like it could be worthwhile even if I don't fully "feel it" right now in it's current state (I'm not even sure if it's intended to work like a Shield that would allow Shield Block, or not). Reactions/AoOs seem fair game to have at least via Feat (which also helps Spellstrike).
Personally I felt that tying into Specialty Schools feels appropriate for Magus, developing it's specifically "Wizard" identity further... I don't know if that should be separate baseline ability, Feat(s), or possibly tied into Synthesis... Having each Synthesis be related to Spell School seems interesting angle. Doing something with Familiar also seems a nice gesture to Wizard heritage, probably being a Feat (although perhaps could be a Synthesis in parallel to School based ones?).
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Tldr: as it currently stands. The only time I use a non save based offensive spell with my magus is when I don't have the correct damage type needed with them.
So I'd use produce flame simply because chill touch, daze and electric Arc don't do fire damage. (That's right I took offensive cantrips and shield)
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We can use a lot of math to fix accuracy issues. Make target flat footed against the spell attack roll, add weapon potency rune to the DD/Spell roll, etc etc.
But something to consider is that it's a lot of little maths to keep in mind constantly. It's bound to slow down the table especially with beginners.
And don't say "Well magus IS an advanced class after all" this is not a valid argument. Even advanced tables sometimes forget a modifier and only remember after their turn that "oh wait, I was supposed to have +2 on that roll, it should have hit and killed the thing!"
It was a constant issue in PF1 to keep track of all micro buffs and situational modifiers. It slows down the game considerably and I think it should be avoided as much as possible in favor of simpler, more streamlined solutions.
If it isn't fun, you're doing it wrong, and while those solution could probably work just fine in a video game, where calculations are handled by a computer (which is why pf1 translate pretty well in Kingmaker, as you don't have to bother keeping track of numbers) we are humans around a table. Even in virtual ones we have to add and remove modifiers manually.
So keep the simpler solution: consolidate attack rolls into a single one. Maybe add a feat later that gives you a little buff, like adding INT to the Strike with a focus spell or something.
But think of keeping something fun first.
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I had somewhat of an epiphany about spell attack roll spells and it really changes my thoughts on the magus. PF2 doesn’t have high level spell attack roll spells that don’t also grant a save and that do double damage from criting.
Eldritch archers are mostly dependent on lower level spell, and heightening them as you level up. I think the Divine list actually offers the highest level spell attack roll spells like this (not disintegrate and polar Ray for the reasons presented above). But that is not relevant to the magus.
I believe the reason this is the case is because spell attack roll spells are much more dangerous to PCs than to NPCs. I won’t repeat myself entirely here, but having the big damage spells target saves means that some in the party is likely to be very tough against a specific spell and everyone can use there heropoints to reroll a single bad result.
If that is true, and it means we are unlikely to get more higher level spell attack roll spells, at least ones without some kind of damage mitigating factor, it is doubly important that striking spell work well with saves, but also it means that giving the magus an item bonus to spell attack roll spells delivered through striking spell should be possible and not game breaking, because we are not likely to be getting super powerful versions of those spells. It will primarily be abot making a few low level options stick a bit better and boosting attackroll cantrips up significantly up past saving throw ones.
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Nice insight!
I think this could justify an improvement in the Magus’ accuracy in whatever way the Devs see fit. Myself, I’d go a bit deeper than just the item bonus due to the different pace in which proficiency scales! I am amenable to the idea of just turning the striking spell spell attack into another martial attack if we were to preserve most of the ability (two rolls, etc).
An adjustment in whatever line they end up choosing could be a much needer incentive for the Magus‘ cantrip + striking spell routine to really shine!
That's true. But then, improving the spellstrike on attack rolls (single roll) isn't that bad, right ?
But yeah then improving DC would be important, then adding the potency rune to the DC would be a pretty good buff I think?
We can use a lot of math to fix accuracy issues. Make target flat footed against the spell attack roll, add weapon potency rune to the DD/Spell roll, etc etc.Stop with this nonsense. Making an enemy flat-footed isn't a "math fix" to a class. It's a proper tactic for the game that ALL classes ought use. It doesn't, at all, change the fact that spell attack rolls are far behind a martial's attack roll.
What is needed, if this version of Striking Spell makes it to print (and let's hope it doesn't), is both of an item that gives a bonus to spell attack rolls at the same pacing as the weapon runes, and a "correction" for spell proficiencies lagging behind martial proficiencies. The former is easily printed; the latter is not so easily solved.
You misunderstood my point.
I meant to address the suggestion that "the target is flat-footed to the spell" this is a math fix, a justification to give a +2 to hit.Of course players should use strategy to maximize their efficiency. But once again, you shouldn't need it to function. You won't always have flanking, or time to buff etc.
I aggree that Casters should get a way to increase their spell attack rolls with some kind of magic item (maybe make it a new trait of staves? or a specific rune like Rune of Magical Sharpness/Accuracy/Focus that gives +1/2/3 to spell attack rolls and replaces the standard potency rune on a weapon, or is a property rune.)