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I think the problem with this is that you have to do it while making sure focus Monks and Champions don't get invalidated by Magus. As it is, a Monk is able to spend every single class feat on ki spells if they so wish (at the cost of getting no martial class features outside of the few they get from their core progression), and a Monk who made this choice should not be significantly worse at focus spells than a Magus who only invested a portion of their class feats into focus spellcasting, so the upper limit on how much power can be packed in a martial focus casting Magus is not too high.If the Magus was made into a focus only class, it would have to be different from Champions/Monks. It needs to be more magical. That means Focus Cantrips and plenty of Focus Spells with ways to regain focus points. Focus Cantrips alone make a huge difference because it gives you a round to round ability to do magical attacks. As I mentioned before, this could work like 5E's Booming/Greenflame Blade cantrips. For example, let's say Magus can get the "Burning Blade" Focus Cantrip. Its a 2 action spell that requires a weapon attack as part of the spell. If you hit, you deal normal weapon damage plus 1d4 fire damage. On a critical hit, you also deal persistent fire damage. A necromancy version could cause the Enfeebled condition on a crit or let you gain temp HP on a crit (Vampiric Blade). Essentially the focus cantrips let you do magical weapon attacks that deal magical damage plus cool secondary effects on a crit.
Then plenty of Focus Spells inspired by the 4E Swordmage powers. You can have feats to easily regain focus points such as the Champion's 1st level feat that lets you as a free action, once per day, regain a focus point. Maybe regain a focus point on a critical hit with a Focus Cantrip. Lots of ways to do this.
I think the Magus could be the iconic "focus" martial. Give them 8HP to offset their higher "casting" ability since they would get Focus Cantrips and plenty of Focus Spells. Focus focused Champions and Monks are tougher in fights, while a Magus relies more on its magic to get by in a fight. I would also not give the Magus legendary in anything, which is another advantage for Champions and Monks get. Its a matter of making sure the benefits of Focus Cantrips and plenty of Focus Spells is offset by some costs (lower HP than standard martial, no legendary in anything, etc). Its way easier to balance than a Magus with actual spell slots
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I think a 2e Occultist has a better shot of being the iconic "focus" martial, and has a much stronger narrative argument for firing off a variety of focus spells from their different, unique Foci.
Magi are a marriage of fighting and magic. I think you need more magic than a Champion or Monk, and I think having limited spell slots is a fine way to balance that out if needed. Spell slots are important, I think, for scaling with new releases and also opening up plenty of build options for a class touted as being both a martial and a caster.
I also think part of the excitement of the Magus is loading up your weapon with a big ol' nasty spell, slapping a monster with it, and watching it explode into their face. That, or casting a buff and seamlessly leaping into combat. Focus spells can do that, but they're going to fundamentally be limited by what's on the Magus class feat list rather than a much larger and much more diverse spell list.
I think there's a place for a(nother) focus martial. I'm not sure that the Magus is it.
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To broadly address some of the concerns brought up in this thread:
The note about needing to be more magical than the Monk or Champion is well taken in the abstract but I'm not sure it would be a concern for the Magus-- I think the reason the Monk and Champion aren't especially magical has less to do with their casting style, and more with their magical abilities being deliberately understated. Neither has very flashy magical abilities (at least until very high level) with Ki Blast and Sunblade being the only really flashy abilities that either gets at low level. I think thats because both classes were designed to simulate characters relatively light on magic, as well as those with more-- Sturm Brightblade of Dragonlance is very much an inspiration for Paladin, and he had no magic at all. Meanwhile Monks have the likes of Ryu, or Goku, to thank for their ki blasting, who both use primarily regular fighting moves and draw on their explicitly magical blasting techniques as their pièce de résistance.
It wouldn't surprise me if "Heavy Ki Monks" and "Super Magical Champions" was still considered an open design space for the designers for future content, that they haven't addressed yet specifically because not everyone wants the core of those classes to revolve around that sort of material.
The Magus meanwhile could very easily have much flashier focus powers that really emphasize its magic, comboed with specially designed focus cantrips that let it be super magical, all the time. This is enhanced by making more of their feats actually magical. With Oracle focus point progression (or marginally better?) it'd be able to nova for two full focus spells in a single encounter, and can use at least one pretty much every fight regardless even at level 1. later, it would be able to pop off 2 full focus spells per encounter. In each of these instances, you could supplement with focus cantrips such that you are, in reality, taking the cast a spell action just about every turn. Wouldn't it feel super magical to have a focus cantrip that let you teleport half your speed every turn and gave you a small bonus on a strike you take after doing so? Then the next turn drop a big focus spell to blow your opponent away with a shocking grasp style lightning blade? or use the teleport to reposition, and follow up with a burning hands style blade? All nicely curated to work well and be powerful, and balanced around a use for every encounter?
Someone brought up Oracle curse drawbacks, but I don't think that's necessary here, simply because nixing the class's actual slots leaves a heck of a lot of power budget, which is normally covered by features like Rage, Sneak Attack, and Hunter's Edge-- whereas the Oracle is still a full caster. So long as the Focus Spells are balanced in such a way that the Focus Spells let you do a bit more, and the Focus cantrips let you do a bit less, than those features in a mechanical weight sense, it would be perfectly balanced without the drawbacks (which comes with their own benefits anyway so...?) the Oracle uses.
My biggest concern with spell slots is that spells don't translate well to being crammed into a weapon-- much of the benefit of them, in regards to range, area, saving throw, don't really make much sense this way. When I allude to it being clunky, I'm referring to the idea that there's probably going to be a very sharp meta where your options are constrained by "which spells happen to actually be good when you deliver them through a melee attack" I guess its not the worst if its converted to be like the Eldritch Archer, since then most single target attack spells suddenly become good. Nevertheless, its weird to have this system that intersects with this other system in this particular way that doesn't quite fit together. A lot of spells just become damage as you try to swing and land them, which I think is tactically less interesting than focus spells designed to be used by us.
Additional Idea: To help compensate for the lower number of spells, each focus spell could be action variable-- thinking of a generic Magus Fire technique, one action could involve hitting them with a flaming sword, two actions could involve a cone as a homage to burning hands, and three actions could be a burst or emanation ala fireball. An electric focus spell could invert that, starting with a low damage emanation, moving to a concentrated line in a homage to lightning bolt, and then finally to a high-damage single hit that costs all three actions.
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I don't know about that. I personally think the Paizo designers have been pretty good at listening to feedback from the past playtests and there have been many complaints about the lack of magic and lack of damage of the magus. So I think the class changes are going to push more in the direction that I was expecting (at least I hope).On another class I wouldn't be opposed to this, but I don't think it fits a magus at all. I'd rather see the magus get more spellcasting, as part of my hope for the class was to get a comparable number of spells quicker than a multiclassing martial and be better in combat than full casters.Won't happen from what I've seen.
Anyone that participated in the APG Playtest can tell you they clearly listened and a lot of what ultimately went into the game were things the community had discussed (4 list witch, hex cantrips, don’t change swashbuckler too much, Investigator needs INT incentives, Oracle going unconscious sucked, familiar was too flimsy, swashbuckler basically fine as is, etc)
As for whether they had planned to solve those problems anyways or identified them in their own circles is another thing, but voices were definitely heard IMO. The stream they did last year with Logan and Mark was great (and Liz’ stuff was awesome too, even though she didn’t make it on stream).
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I think the problem with this is that you have to do it while making sure focus Monks and Champions don't get invalidated by Magus. As it is, a Monk is able to spend every single class feat on ki spells if they so wish (at the cost of getting no martial class features outside of the few they get from their core progression), and a Monk who made this choice should not be significantly worse at focus spells than a Magus who only invested a portion of their class feats into focus spellcasting, so the upper limit on how much power can be packed in a martial focus casting Magus is not too high.
Completely disagree. Things like ki monks, even if you put all your feats into the ki elements, are barely supernatural. "I do one supernatural thing per fight" is pathetic.
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The idea of a focus cantrip for the Magus, similar to D&D's green flame blade and booming blade would represent an excellent fusion of martial and magical ability. Having a cantrip specifically designed to work with Striking Spell, as well as focus spells in the same vein, could enable a slotless Magus.
That said, I still like for Magi to have some spell slots. They don't really fit the idea of being a master of both martial and magical abilities without some classic spellcasting.
The idea of a focus cantrip for the Magus, similar to D&D's green flame blade and booming blade would represent an excellent fusion of martial and magical ability. Having a cantrip specifically designed to work with Striking Spell, as well as focus spells in the same vein, could enable a slotless Magus.
That said, I still like for Magi to have some spell slots. They don't really fit the idea of being a master of both martial and magical abilities without some classic spellcasting.
I think a way to make that work is to have Striking Spell compatible with any spells, not just Magus focus spells (which also should be "usable" without striking spell.
Then, either give the Magus a few high level spells slots with a high level feat (like level 18 gives you 2 level 9 slots and that's it), or (since Striking Spell is compatible) MCD for actual slots (maybe a magus synthesis would give you a MCD Caster for "free" at level 1?)| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think the problem with this is that you have to do it while making sure focus Monks and Champions don't get invalidated by Magus. As it is, a Monk is able to spend every single class feat on ki spells if they so wish (at the cost of getting no martial class features outside of the few they get from their core progression), and a Monk who made this choice should not be significantly worse at focus spells than a Magus who only invested a portion of their class feats into focus spellcasting, so the upper limit on how much power can be packed in a martial focus casting Magus is not too high.Completely disagree. Things like ki monks, even if you put all your feats into the ki elements, are barely supernatural. "I do one supernatural thing per fight" is pathetic.
Yes, that was my point. Ki Monks don't give out the magic warrior feeling a Magus would need, but a hypothetical focus Magus would still have to be balanced against them, putting a very strict and definitely unsatisfying upper limit on how magical focus Magus would be allowed to be.
Yes, that was my point. Ki Monks don't give out the magic warrior feeling a Magus would need, but a hypothetical focus Magus would still have to be balanced against them, putting a very strict and definitely unsatisfying upper limit on how magical focus Magus would be allowed to be.I think the problem with this is that you have to do it while making sure focus Monks and Champions don't get invalidated by Magus. As it is, a Monk is able to spend every single class feat on ki spells if they so wish (at the cost of getting no martial class features outside of the few they get from their core progression), and a Monk who made this choice should not be significantly worse at focus spells than a Magus who only invested a portion of their class feats into focus spellcasting, so the upper limit on how much power can be packed in a martial focus casting Magus is not too high.Completely disagree. Things like ki monks, even if you put all your feats into the ki elements, are barely supernatural. "I do one supernatural thing per fight" is pathetic.
Well, that limit is partially due to the fact that the monk has a lot of attack feats, different ways to strike (one inch punch etc) and stances.
I assume the Magus' feats in that situation would be heavily leaning toward magic (through focus stuff) and have some "martial" focused feats. Like the reverse of the monk, champion and ranger.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So, I put together some ideas along the lines that we’ve been discussing. After some thought my idea would be not to nix spellcasting, but rather striking spell.
Magus would still have their martial and spell proficiencies along with slots in numbers and power slightly better than an MCD character. That way, their spells could be focused in buffing and ordinary casting.
However, the spellstriking department would be handled via unique focus cantrips and spells. The focus spells could allow broader or more powerful effects like The-Magic-Sword proposes while the cantrips would be greenflame and booming blade style.
These focus powers would have the flourish and spellstrike traits. Spellstrike means that tou deliver a magical effect through a martial attack, resolving it through the attack’s degree of success.
To be clear, I am not proposing that Magus gets the ability to imbue caster spells and cantrips. Their blade magic would be that of their focus spells and cantrips.
I tried to come up with some focus cantrips ideas based on the following premises
- the cantrips would be two action activities
- For damage, I thought that they coukd lag a bit behind regular cantrips. To that end, I adopted a model of spellcasting modifier at first level and +1d4 when heightened every level.
- Like Martialmasters pointed out, we’d still need an incentive to spam them over Striking twice and that’d be that their accuracy would depend on an single roll and that your map would only increase after you resolved them
- So a Magus could cast a spellstrike focus cantrip (which would include an attack) and then make a second regular strike at -5 MAP on a regular turn. another option would be combining that with true strike
Which brings me to a first proposition: change Bespell Strikes to work with any evocation spell (maybe lower its damage to 1d4), so that, at level 4, a Magus could cast a spellstrike cantrip and then strike at -5 MAP with Bespell.
Plus you’d trigger Synthesis each time you perform an activity with the Spellstrike trait.
So, I’ve come up with the following cantrips ideas:
Burning Strike (not flaming for avoiding confusion with the Divine spell): fire damage, persistent fire on a crit.
Freezing Strike: cold damage, -10 foot speed penalty on a crit.
Thundering Strike: sonic damage, 10 foot splash damage on a crit
Shocking Strike: electricity damage, flat-footed on a crit
Tangling Strike: temporary clumsy 1, temporary clumsy 2 on a crit
Chromatic Strike: temporary dazzled 1, dazzled 2 on a crit.
Necrotic Strike: negative damage, enfeebled on a crit
I know this is probably unbalanced, but could be fun.
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It won't ever realize greatness that way though as it will always hit the power budget wall while being weaker than everyone at everything.I'd hate it, I'd much rather they remove spell strike.
Spell slots + martial proficiencies is what a magus needs.
I'd settle for good enough. It should be weaker than martials at fighting and weaker than casters at casting, that's the point.
It's just a question of what kind of split is fair, 80% martial fighting + 80% caster casting? 90% seems a bit too high, 85%? I think that can be fun and effective, and is impossible with multiclassing. That's the whole point of having a gish class to me.
so i have been giving this thought, and i hope others read this reply.
while yes the magus shouldn't be as good at spell casting as a wizard or as good at fighting as a fighter/barbarian. it should have unique class feature that lets it excel in a way that neither can, and find a home in terms of mechanical performance within that niche.
that is spell strike, that thing you are ok with being removed. without it, magus is just a debatably better martial caster multiclass and i do mean debatable. there will be no reason to bring you to the party as you provide nothing someone can not do better.
spell strike as it stands, isnt TERRIBLE, but it does need tweaking to be more consistent/accurate. because with spellstrike, you have that niche for the magus to shine, we just need that ability to be good enough to allow that.
summoner has niche narrative power by the virtue of having two bodies and limited teleportation as you level. it can do unique things that no other class can.
if you take away spellstrike, magus loses any chance at having something it can do that no other class can. and thats bad imo.
so i don't think removing spellstrike is the right call. 2e wont ever give you or others the half/half caster of 1e dreams. we have seen that truth laid out in multiple ways already prior to this playtest.
now if you think they could use something OTHER than spellstrike or a different variation of it, in order to achieve power without breaking the games carefully curated balance diagrams, lets hear that.
I think the problem with this is that you have to do it while making sure focus Monks and Champions don't get invalidated by Magus. As it is, a Monk is able to spend every single class feat on ki spells if they so wish (at the cost of getting no martial class features outside of the few they get from their core progression), and a Monk who made this choice should not be significantly worse at focus spells than a Magus who only invested a portion of their class feats into focus spellcasting, so the upper limit on how much power can be packed in a martial focus casting Magus is not too high.Completely disagree. Things like ki monks, even if you put all your feats into the ki elements, are barely supernatural. "I do one supernatural thing per fight" is pathetic.
focus spells is 1-3x per combat+focus cantrips=potentially every round.
champions and monks dont have focus cantrips.
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richienvh
is their a reason the focus cantrips need to be 2 actions? why not 1 action and scale their damage accordingly? they don't need to do on level damage of a regular cantrip if they are meant to be combined with a strike.
Martialmasters,
That could work, maybe having their damage scale akin to Daze and have them become 1 action?
I really don't dominate the system's expected damage and balance diagrams, so I was more of picking upon a concept than instrumentalizing a solution.
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Martialmasters,
That could work, maybe having their damage scale akin to Daze and have them become 1 action?
I really don't dominate the system's expected damage and balance diagrams, so I was more of picking upon a concept than instrumentalizing a solution.
you could have them scale at half the rate or something. so instead of heighten+1 it could be heighten+2.
then at maybe heighten+3 it lets you add in your caster mod to damage or something.
Maybe then something like this then, with maybe an option to add the spellcasting ability modifier at some point.
Burning Strike
Cantrip, Evocation, Fire, Spellstrike
Cast: (One action) Somatic (?)
Targets: 1 creature
You imbue your weapon with fire.
As part of the casting this spell, you must make a melee Strike against one creature within reach, otherwise the spell fails. On a success, the target suffers the attack's normal effects and you deal 1d4 fire damage. On a critical success, the target takes double damage and 1d4 persistent fire damage.
Heightened (+2) Increase the damage by 1d4 and the persistent damage on a critical hit by 1d4.
Maybe then something like this then, with maybe an option to add the spellcasting ability modifier at some point.
Burning Strike
Cantrip, Evocation, Fire, Spellstrike
Cast: (One action) Somatic (?)
Targets: 1 creatureYou imbue your weapon with fire.
As part of the casting this spell, you must make a melee Strike against one creature within reach, otherwise the spell fails. On a success, the target suffers the attack's normal effects and you deal 1d4 fire damage. On a critical success, the target takes double damage and 1d4 persistent fire damage.
Heightened (+2) Increase the damage by 1d4 and the persistent damage on a critical hit by 1d4.
see i think thats fair because it loses the mod to damage making it substantially weaker than a normal cantrip at level 1, and since it scales at half the rate, it will remain behind normal cantrip damage.
wich is ok! because its part of a single action strike. if you want to be able to use other strikes while retaining magical damage tyhpes you have runes and energized strikes could easily be retooled to still work. plus it would be more consistent damage without drastic spikes of damage.
Maybe it could be cheated by making a thing like "Combat spell" where you chose a limited number of spells to become focus spells for you. That way the Magus still has a very wide variety of choice, that'll get richer with new books.
Thats actually pretty cool, kinda like an idea I had when 2e first came out. Maybe Magus could still have a spellbook like a Wizard, but he prepares his spells as "Focus" spells(or Combat spells) for the day. They'd end up with a small Spells known list that uses Points to cast instead of Spell slots. So the Magus trains for lasting power and auto-heightening throughout the day as opposed to having a ton of different spells. Kinda Arcanist-y.
Maybe then something like this then, with maybe an option to add the spellcasting ability modifier at some point.
Burning Strike
Cantrip, Evocation, Fire, Spellstrike
Cast: (One action) Somatic (?)
Targets: 1 creatureYou imbue your weapon with fire.
As part of the casting this spell, you must make a melee Strike against one creature within reach, otherwise the spell fails. On a success, the target suffers the attack's normal effects and you deal 1d4 fire damage. On a critical success, the target takes double damage and 1d4 persistent fire damage.
Heightened (+2) Increase the damage by 1d4 and the persistent damage on a critical hit by 1d4.
see i think thats fair because it loses the mod to damage making it substantially weaker than a normal cantrip at level 1, and since it scales at half the rate, it will remain behind normal cantrip damage.
wich is ok! because its part of a single action strike. if you want to be able to use other strikes while retaining magical damage tyhpes you have runes and energized strikes could easily be retooled to still work. plus it would be more consistent damage without drastic spikes of damage.
My concern here is that you're basically getting a very buffed Strike. Even with the slow heightening, that's an extra 5d4 by 19th level, plus an extra 5d4 persistent fire damage on a crit. That seems a lot for a single action since you're also getting your weapon damage.
A regular 2 action cantrip deals 1d4+mod damage. This cantrip would deal weapon dice + Str mod + 1d4 fire damage, which is significantly higher, and costs 1 less action. It scales better too since your weapon will get striking runes in addition to the cantrip's heighten effects. By 19th level, with a greatsword, that's 4d12+6+5d4 damage (44.5 on average) vs produce flame's 10d4+6(31 average damage). So the proposed single action focus cantrip is dealing much more damage than the 2 action cantrip. It is melee only, but that's not enough of a penalty to balance out its strengths IMO. The focus cantrips should be 2 actions or nerf the 1 action version's power.
After comparing the damage, I think the Burning Strike focus cantrip works well as a 2 action ability. It out damages normal cantrips at the cost of being melee only. For a martial character, it gives you magical damage and nice crit effect too. It also scales nicely too. You could use this model for other cantrips like Freezing Strike that on a crit reduces the enemy's speed. Or Mental Strike that deals mental damage and debuffs the enemy on a crit. Lots of fun design space.
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Maybe then something like this then, with maybe an option to add the spellcasting ability modifier at some point.
Burning Strike
Cantrip, Evocation, Fire, Spellstrike
Cast: (One action) Somatic (?)
Targets: 1 creatureYou imbue your weapon with fire.
As part of the casting this spell, you must make a melee Strike against one creature within reach, otherwise the spell fails. On a success, the target suffers the attack's normal effects and you deal 1d4 fire damage. On a critical success, the target takes double damage and 1d4 persistent fire damage.
Heightened (+2) Increase the damage by 1d4 and the persistent damage on a critical hit by 1d4.
see i think thats fair because it loses the mod to damage making it substantially weaker than a normal cantrip at level 1, and since it scales at half the rate, it will remain behind normal cantrip damage.
wich is ok! because its part of a single action strike. if you want to be able to use other strikes while retaining magical damage tyhpes you have runes and energized strikes could easily be retooled to still work. plus it would be more consistent damage without drastic spikes of damage.
My concern here is that you're basically getting a very buffed Strike. Even with the slow heightening, that's an extra 5d4 by 19th level, plus an extra 5d4 persistent fire damage on a crit. That seems a lot for a single action since you're also getting your weapon damage.
A regular 2 action cantrip deals 1d4+mod damage. This cantrip would deal weapon dice + Str mod + 1d4 fire damage, which is significantly higher, and costs 1 less action. It scales better too since your weapon will get striking runes in addition to the cantrip's heighten effects. By 19th level, with a greatsword, that's 4d12+6+5d4 damage (44.5 on average) vs produce flame's 10d4+6(31 average damage). So the proposed single action focus cantrip is dealing much more damage than the 2 action cantrip. It is melee only,...
Rogue sneak attack
Barbarian rage damage
And no the cantrip wouldn't, it would just be a part of your weapon strike. The cantrip isn't the strike damage, it's the added damage. Easy solution is only doing it once per round, or making the cantrip one action to use and you still need to use an action to strike but it lasts until end of turn.
There are adjustments to be made always add we are not devs, this is not likely our vocation. But the idea itself is sound.
I myself when filling these playtest surveys decided to go with the focus point/more martial aspects selection it gave me. Mainly because I'm aware of 2es power budget and recognize it's limitations when it comes to such class.
This would be an example along the lines I originally proposed (2 actions, heightened +1)
====
Burning Strike
Cantrip, Evocation, Fire, Spellstrike
Cast: (Two actions) Somatic, Verbal
Targets: 1 creature
You imbue your weapon with fire.
As part of the casting this spell, you must make a melee Strike against one creature within reach, otherwise the spell fails. On a success, the target suffers the attack's normal effects and you deal fire damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier. On a critical success, the target takes double damage and persistent fire damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier.
Heightened (+1) Increase the damage by 1d4 and the persistent damage on a critical hit by 1d4
=====
You'd lag behind a cantrip caster (produce flame, by comparison, will always do an extra die per level) in damage but would get the action economy + spellstrike benefit
...Maybe then something like this then, with maybe an option to add the spellcasting ability modifier at some point.
Burning Strike
Cantrip, Evocation, Fire, Spellstrike
Cast: (One action) Somatic (?)
Targets: 1 creatureYou imbue your weapon with fire.
As part of the casting this spell, you must make a melee Strike against one creature within reach, otherwise the spell fails. On a success, the target suffers the attack's normal effects and you deal 1d4 fire damage. On a critical success, the target takes double damage and 1d4 persistent fire damage.
Heightened (+2) Increase the damage by 1d4 and the persistent damage on a critical hit by 1d4.
see i think thats fair because it loses the mod to damage making it substantially weaker than a normal cantrip at level 1, and since it scales at half the rate, it will remain behind normal cantrip damage.
wich is ok! because its part of a single action strike. if you want to be able to use other strikes while retaining magical damage tyhpes you have runes and energized strikes could easily be retooled to still work. plus it would be more consistent damage without drastic spikes of damage.
My concern here is that you're basically getting a very buffed Strike. Even with the slow heightening, that's an extra 5d4 by 19th level, plus an extra 5d4 persistent fire damage on a crit. That seems a lot for a single action since you're also getting your weapon damage.
A regular 2 action cantrip deals 1d4+mod damage. This cantrip would deal weapon dice + Str mod + 1d4 fire damage, which is significantly higher, and costs 1 less action. It scales better too since your weapon will get striking runes in addition to the cantrip's heighten effects. By 19th level, with a greatsword, that's 4d12+6+5d4 damage (44.5 on average) vs produce flame's 10d4+6(31 average damage). So the proposed single action focus cantrip is dealing much more damage than the 2 action
You bring up a good point about Rogue/Barbarian damage. The only benefit is that magical damage is nice for bypassing resistances. But after looking over the Rogue and Barbarian, I think a 1 action focus cantrip could work since the bonus damage is somewhat comparable.
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Those homebrew examples could work, someone mentioned magical stances, those might not be a bad touch either. I will note that mechanical strength =/= amount of magical feeling, in regards to the conversation about the Monk as an example of a focus caster. The Magus would be balanced with the Monk, but that has nothing to do with with feeling the same amount of magical at all.
Its interesting the thresholds some players seem to have about what constitutes magic, or how certain elements of the game can be used. Like that spell slots are necessary for something to actually be 'magic' where for me, those are just a mechanic by which a certain kind of magic (traditional spell casting) is described, focus magic, spell like abilities, and even abilities that don't use the spell system at all but are narratively magic, are still very much magic.
I'd really like to see Focus Spells be pushed to do more in the system for some classes, and I actually think given its particular constraints, this is actually pretty ideal:
"Needs to be Magical all day, on as many turns as possible, I should Striking Spell every turn" + "Needs to be worse at Magic than full casters" + "Needs to still be balanced" + "Needs to be a full Martial"
Focus Spells are Spells, so they're pretty directly a part of the Magic System-- when a Sorcerer uses Hellfire Plume, or Elemental Toss/Motion, or any of their other abilities in that vein, or an Oracle uses Whirling Flames, or a Champion uses a Sunblade, its unquestionably Magic.
Its Magic that you can recharge with a 10 minute break that you tend to get (and with my model would immediately get) multiple uses of, which means you can typically use it in every encounter-- the round to round logistics depend on the existence of focus cantrips, but even if you left them out and left the Magus striking normally (which is not my suggestion) at higher levels you'd still spend the majority of time in combat spending resources to cast magic. The game already has interactions with focus magic that we could draw on from a character building perspective as well.
This would have a very intuitive place in the power balance, and everything could be nicely balanced and curated around the Magus being a passable mundane martial who constantly uses magic to match a barbarian, rogue, swashbuckler, ranger etc. blow for blow.
The relative paucity of all at once spell casting power (and typically weaker magic) inherent to Focus Spells, perfectly characterizes what makes the Magus less focused on casting than the other casters while still leaving them an auto-heightening, powerful option. The fact that they make up for that in the design by presumably being paired with weapon strikes that would otherwise fall short of the other warriors, perfectly encapsulates the Magus's blending of Martial and Magic, that makes up for what they lack in both.
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Whether or not the Focus Point system is realized or not, I would be super happy to see Magical Stances of some kind.
Honestly, Gish classes (well, the old 6 casters anyways) would be a really cool place to do that to differentiate them further as the between two worlds thing.
It's interesting to read some of the ideas here, even if I don't know that I prefer it over slots. A lot of good ideas can be implemented in a multitude of places, even if the place intended isn't where it ultimately ends up.
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Like that spell slots are necessary for something to actually be 'magic' where for me, those are just a mechanic by which a certain kind of magic (traditional spell casting) is described, focus magic, spell like abilities, and even abilities that don't use the spell system at all but are narratively magic, are still very much magic.
In my opinion, if a magus can't perform "traditional spell casting" then it has failed as a concept. It's certain that such a class could be fun and good, but it would not be a magus, and I'd have to go back to waiting for my 50-50 martial-caster to arrive.
It's fine to want that type of class, but don't try to paint those of us that want a half martial half traditional caster as narrow minded.
Also, if spontaneous and prepared are different enough to make classes distinct, imagine how different slotless casting and traditional casting are. We're talking about wide gulfs in expectations of the class.
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"Needs to be Magical all day, on as many turns as possible, I should Striking Spell every turn" + "Needs to be worse at Magic than full casters" + "Needs to still be balanced" + "Needs to be a full MartialBut that doesn't require their spell slots being removed. They can have focus cantrips and focus spells and still have spell slots.
This. Personally, I think one of the best ways to go is to replace Striking Spell entirely with specifically designed melee focus cantrips like the ones proposed above, and keep the rest of the class as it is now apart for minor tweaks.
Of course, you'd lose the ability to put any spell into your weapon, but so would a hypothetical focus Magus anyways.In addition to that, the melee focus cantrips would take less of the Magus' power budget than Striking Spell due to being far more predictable and limited in scope (after all, it would be a curated list of cantrips, which is obviously infinitely more limiting than having most of the Arcane list at your disposal to Spellstrike with) compared to current Striking Spell, leaving room for weaker aspects of the class to be buffed up.
In the end, you'd have a magic warrior who has specfic magic/martial techniques he can use at will, and who also has the versatility of a (limited) spellbook to fall back upon.
I was thinking more of giving the Magus focus spells but keeping the ability to use Spellstrike so it synergize with taking MCD casters.
What makes the magus the magus is also using spells in a strike, not using spells specifically made for that (like Weapon Storm).
A Magus repurposes an existing spell into a close range melee attack, but can use it as intended if he so chooses.
That's why I was thinking of making "Combat Spells" Spells from the Arcane list you chose to become Focus Spells for you. (with limitations, like they are weakened or something or you get them later). So the Magus would grow as new spells are added without needing *specific* additions.
I was thinking more of giving the Magus focus spells but keeping the ability to use Spellstrike so it synergize with taking MCD casters.
What makes the magus the magus is also using spells in a strike, not using spells specifically made for that (like Weapon Storm).
A Magus repurposes an existing spell into a close range melee attack, but can use it as intended if he so chooses.
That's why I was thinking of making "Combat Spells" Spells from the Arcane list you chose to become Focus Spells for you. (with limitations, like they are weakened or something or you get them later). So the Magus would grow as new spells are added without needing *specific* additions.
Slot spells being cast as focus spells is something the game isn't built for. The four spell lists are clearly built around the assumption that there are very few ways to regain spell slots outside of daily preparations, and that said ways have very strict limitations. Regaining even a small number of spells every ten minutes would have immense implications for the balance of the Arcane spell list, and would require a Magus-specific rewrite of many spells (and class specific spell lists are the very thing the unified spell lists were created to avoid).
If Magus is relegated to being a Focus only caster, it is inevitable that it will lose access to the Arcane spell list, so Striking Spell would become obsolete anyways.
As for keeping it in for the purposes of MCD, I would argue that it's not great design for a class to have an ability they can only ever use through multiclassing.
I said to have to compatible with it, not only usable with it.
I said to have to compatible with it, not only usable with it.
And what else would it be usable with? The only other thing Magus would have are class-specific focus cantrips and class-specific focus spells. At this point, why would Striking Spell be needed when it can simply be integrated as a base feature of those spells, just like how it is in the Strike cantrips people have already brought up?
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I haven't called anyone narrow minded, I'm just discussing the idea being proposed that a lack of spell slots is a non-starter in terms of magical flavor/ magusness. It was in response to people asserting that the monk and champion define the bounds of what possible feeling you can evoke with focus magic.
The whole "if it doesn't have spell slots it isn't a magus" does kind of strike me as a weak, and somewhat narrow position to take though.
The platonic ideal of a Magus just doesn't strike me as demanding a specific mechanical implementation, so much as a particular fantasy of using magic-infused weapon attacks.
A simulationist perspective might like to see the class focus on taking already extant spells and delivering them from a blade, rather than inventing new powers that abstract that process because it interconnects those mechanical elements, but there's no significant conceptual difference there-- though I'll admit there's some value to it, I just think the way that system might work is somewhat questionable.
I don't even think focus points actually even have a meaningful narrative niche that positions them differently than slotted casting, i think they're just a useful mechanical abstraction for some of your abilities.
Overall, it seems more like a rhetorical tactic than a position.
Of course, it should be understood that a "narrow position to take" isn't a commentary on anyone's character.
I was thinking more of giving the Magus focus spells but keeping the ability to use Spellstrike so it synergize with taking MCD casters.
What makes the magus the magus is also using spells in a strike, not using spells specifically made for that (like Weapon Storm).
A Magus repurposes an existing spell into a close range melee attack, but can use it as intended if he so chooses.
That's why I was thinking of making "Combat Spells" Spells from the Arcane list you chose to become Focus Spells for you. (with limitations, like they are weakened or something or you get them later). So the Magus would grow as new spells are added without needing *specific* additions.Slot spells being cast as focus spells is something the game isn't built for. The four spell lists are clearly built around the assumption that there are very few ways to regain spell slots outside of daily preparations, and that said ways have very strict limitations. Regaining even a small number of spells every ten minutes would have immense implications for the balance of the Arcane spell list, and would require a Magus-specific rewrite of many spells (and class specific spell lists are the very thing the unified spell lists were created to avoid).
If Magus is relegated to being a Focus only caster, it is inevitable that it will lose access to the Arcane spell list, so Striking Spell would become obsolete anyways.
As for keeping it in for the purposes of MCD, I would argue that it's not great design for a class to have an ability they can only ever use through multiclassing.
Personally, I'd add class feats that replicate the basic/expert/master spell casting from archetypes-- you can take them for the standard two slots per level, you do it easier than other people do since you don't need a dedication feat, and the whole thing just adds to your overall magical vibe by letting people who want those spells for utility magic live that fantasy.
I'd do it sans the striking spell mechanic (and I'd coop the name to refer to the built in focus spells as "striking spells") and just have them be spells you can cast.
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[snipped for space]
I feel like adding MCD-like feats as something you can pick would create a nigh-mandatory feat, at least for the first one. Over all the discussions on these forums, one thing that's become apparent is how much benefit Staves, Scrolls and Wands have, not only for all classes, but especially for Magus and Summoner, so a feat that grants you Cantrips, some low level spell slots, and access to all the spellcasting items all in one package seems like far too much power to put in a single feat.
And overall, as was pointed out above, this is attempting to solve a problem that doesn't need to be a problem in the first place, since nothing prevents Magus from having both focus spells and normal spells (as it already does after all), and focus cantrips could easily just be added on to the current chassis as a replacement for Striking Spell.
[snipped for space]I feel like adding MCD-like feats as something you can pick would create a nigh-mandatory feat, at least for the first one. Over all the discussions on these forums, one thing that's become apparent is how much benefit Staves, Scrolls and Wands have, not only for all classes, but especially for Magus and Summoner, so a feat that grants you Cantrips, some low level spell slots, and access to all the spellcasting items all in one package seems like far too much power to put in a single feat.
And overall, as was pointed out above, this is attempting to solve a problem that doesn't need to be a problem in the first place, since nothing prevents Magus from having both focus spells and normal spells (as it already does after all), and focus cantrips could easily just be added on to the current chassis as a replacement for Striking Spell.
Fair, although it should be pointed out this thread was in response to the proposition in the survey that removing the slots completely is an option and to encourage them to consider doing so in favor a focus implementation.
I also don't think those feats are as powerful as suggested, but it depends whats on the offing for that level, and what level they would become available at. I'm thinking that if other options are combat useful at all, or offer utility unique to the magus, the spell-casting feat is a little worse.
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A magus is literally what you get when a wizard splits their focus between hitting the books and hitting the gym. If they do not behave at all similar to how wizards learn and cast spells, the class will have failed. You'd have to go far out of your way to explain why they're so different from a lore perspective, and at that point you'd be far better off just making a new class.
I wouldn't terribly mind a class with unique casting, or even an archetype of magus that does so, but I do not at all want to see them totally abandon the "ready made 50-50 martial-spell slot caster that starts at level 1"
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A magus is literally what you get when a wizard splits their focus between hitting the books and hitting the gym. If they do not behave at all similar to how wizards learn and cast spells, the class will have failed. You'd have to go far out of your way to explain why they're so different from a lore perspective, and at that point you'd be far better off just making a new class.
I wouldn't terribly mind a class with unique casting, or even an archetype of magus that does so, but I do not at all want to see them totally abandon the "ready made 50-50 martial-spell slot caster that starts at level 1"
Are they? that doesn't seem like a Magus, that seems like a Wizard who hit the gym, or more accurately, a Wizard with a fighter dedication and maybe a special archetype.
A Magus should be a Magus not a Wizard, I'd rather it really be its own thing.
Edit: Also, Wizards have Arcane Bond and Focus Points and Such, so maybe we could split the difference and write them as an amplification of the Wizardly Focus Magic?
I'd like to point out something.
In 1e the Magus had the ability "Knowledge Pool". Costing from your arcane pool you could add a spell that wasn't in your spellbook to your prepared spells.
I think this would translate pretty well to choosing some spells from the arcana list to become focus spells.
Just sayin.
Turning a real spell into a focus spell might not work that well, their damage scales differently, that's why I was thinking of the focus spells we might get as 'variants' of spells the game has, so they can be recustomized. I also prefer the idea that our "Striking Spells" have melee attacks and such built into them. For me it would be enough if the Magus is declared an arcane caster the way the Monk can choose occult or divine for their spells. Any class feat support for spells after that would be icing.
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I'm not super fan of the magus not having real access to arcane spells.
It would limit his movepool too much imo. There is ways to adjust the scaling. Like "to calculate those focus' spell heightened effect, consider them at -2 spell levels" or something.
Having *only* specific spells, means that the magus won't be able to full enjoy or benefit from new books adding more spells, unless they add specific spells for the magus. Which in the end makes more work.
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I'm not super fan of the magus not having real access to arcane spells.
It would limit his movepool too much imo. There is ways to adjust the scaling. Like "to calculate those focus' spell heightened effect, consider them at -2 spell levels" or something.Having *only* specific spells, means that the magus won't be able to full enjoy or benefit from new books adding more spells, unless they add specific spells for the magus. Which in the end makes more work.
I'll be honest. I am terrified that if we are given more slots. We will become an arcane warpriest with spell strike instead of a font. I'd be absolutely crushed if that were to happen. And I don't see it not happening if we got more slots.
I'll be honest. I am terrified that if we are given more slots. We will become an arcane warpriest with spell strike instead of a font. I'd be absolutely crushed if that were to happen. And I don't see it not happening if we got more slots.I'm not super fan of the magus not having real access to arcane spells.
It would limit his movepool too much imo. There is ways to adjust the scaling. Like "to calculate those focus' spell heightened effect, consider them at -2 spell levels" or something.Having *only* specific spells, means that the magus won't be able to full enjoy or benefit from new books adding more spells, unless they add specific spells for the magus. Which in the end makes more work.
I'm not particularly asking for more slots. Just having access to actual spells (even if we can only have like...4, or 3. and need a week to change them) so each magus can have completely different setups and actually learn from finding spellbooks, scrolls etc.
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I'll be honest. I am terrified that if we are given more slots. We will become an arcane warpriest with spell strike instead of a font. I'd be absolutely crushed if that were to happen. And I don't see it not happening if we got more slots.
I agree. While I'd prefer at least 1 spell/spell level I fear if they did do they'd 'balance' hammer the heck out of everything else.
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I'll be honest. I am terrified that if we are given more slots. We will become an arcane warpriest with spell strike instead of a font. I'd be absolutely crushed if that were to happen. And I don't see it not happening if we got more slots.I agree. While I'd prefer at least 1 spell/spell level I fear if they did do they'd 'balance' hammer the heck out of everything else.
I agree as well. I think Magus has had too many encounters with the nerf hammer as is.
Having perused a bit of info on my 1e Magus characters, I'd also favor being able to cast at least 1 spell of each level.
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The only thing that makes the existing striking spell (or any similar mechanic) an interesting class feature is that the magus' weapon proficiency is as good as any other non-fighter martial. Any step back or slowing down of their weapon proficiency would require an entirely new striking spell feature that would probably kill the "channel a spell through a sword" concept.
Getting only 1 of lower level spell slots may happen, but only because spells of that low a level are nearly trivial in cost to carry around with scrolls or even wands, so it is not like something that the magus is not pretty much capable of doing now. If they do that, it shouldn't take up too much of the class's power budget to do so, although, if I were spending class budget points, I'd rather see spell accuracy (at least through striking spell) increase rather than number of spell slots a day, and I think doing both might be a bit much.
Using focus points to cast lower level spells is a bad trade off for the magus. Personally, I think the existing focus spells are situationally very good and it is nice that their effects last for the whole combat, but the action cost is prohibitive to using striking spell, so I could see having some single action spell attack focus powers being a good way to enable striking spell, but they would need low powered focus cantrips, about on par with the witch, to make the class work without spell slots, and I think people would be disappointed with the overall power level of the focus cantrips (like, attribute modifier damage on a hit, and either double damage on a crit, or a mild status effect on a crit). If they go that route though, I think we lose spell slots.
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I'll be honest. I am terrified that if we are given more slots. We will become an arcane warpriest with spell strike instead of a font. I'd be absolutely crushed if that were to happen. And I don't see it not happening if we got more slots.I'm not super fan of the magus not having real access to arcane spells.
It would limit his movepool too much imo. There is ways to adjust the scaling. Like "to calculate those focus' spell heightened effect, consider them at -2 spell levels" or something.Having *only* specific spells, means that the magus won't be able to full enjoy or benefit from new books adding more spells, unless they add specific spells for the magus. Which in the end makes more work.
That's my fear as well, looking at the survey options the 'more casting' option involves losing martial weapon proficiency, which is pretty much alluding to the niche they carved into the game for the Warpriest and such. maybe they could go with the 9th slot casting Mark alluded to during the panel, where the progression itself is just slower by two levels. Which could work but...
My biggest problem with the way striking spell works right now is that it's basically a big gamble, it does lots of damage when it goes off, but you can't get it off reliably which feels bad-- so people want it's reliability increased, but then the spell slots we're using probably do too much damage (I'm unclear on why this isn't a problem for eldritch shot, maybe because you're either dropping your accuracy for more slots, or dumping lots of class feats for casting when you use it to get only two slots per level?) as far as I can tell, this somewhat links into how spell attacks are balanced in the first place. We talk about them being bad, but technically they're just swingy and my feeling's been that they're fine on average.
Normally, for this reason spell attacks are either unused, or primarily used with True Strike, which raises their accuracy by 25% (going from 50% to 75% against standard at-level AC, as per the GMG), they're a little worse when used by the Magus because the miss chance of the attack itself stacks with the miss chance of the spell, and you have lower casting proficiency. For something that was already a coin flip on at-level creatures, that's not great, and trying to patch it through true strike (higher crit chance on the attack means higher chance of bumping the spell up from failure to success, or success to crit success) is far too niche to be acceptable (as alluded to by Logan in one of their forum posts) so the accuracy more or less has to increase, its also clunky because of the action economy of it taking two full rounds to pull off.
But then, if the accuracy increases, the average damage just skyrockets-- which means we need a way to cut it, one way of doing so would be to drop the spell levels you have access to so that they just don't do as much damage. 9th level casting would accomplish this, but I'm not sure if its enough, it'd only knock off one level of heighten-- shocking grasp would lose 1d12 at whatever character level the Magus is, relative to a normal caster, in exchange for multiple dice of weapon damage. If we switch to eldritch shot style striking spell, they also have higher accuracy by +1ish (-a Rank of Prof +Item runes) at any given time. But then again, maybe it would be fine since you're spending like 3 actions to do the full combo either way? The damage of one strike, and one spell, for the cost of the actions normally used by one strike and one spell should be fine by definition, and the higher accuracy would be cancelled out by the lack of 'extra' bonuses to the strike and the reduction of spell damage from not having top level slots.
Also this calculation is if you are using your highest level spell slots, which you have a limited number of, so maybe over the course of your adventuring day its especially fine, the further down you have to go in your slot level, the less damage the spell does with the practical floor being cantrips / whatever attack based focus spells you do happen to get (your infinite, and easily renewable resources.)
Of course, dedicated 'Striking Spells' that use focus points bypass this question as the spells are just designed to have the output Magus's need to be powerful and not overbearing. There's no gamble, and resource management is relatively simple, the downside being the need for specific focus spells to expand the Magus's repertoire, rather than their options just expanding directly with the arcane list.
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TLDR, I'm worried about that too, but maybe if they go with a slowed casting progression, keep master prof, and even fix striking spell to work with that proficiency, it could be balanced. I'm imagining 9th level casting (on full spell level behind at any time) and 2 slots per level to make this iteration work.
Focus 'Striking Spells' bypass this trade off, but some dislike that it doesn't hook into the overall magic system and it's ever-expanding spell roster, or want the dynamic of high level slots for fighting and low level slots for utility magic for the class.
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Weird Thought-- what if Focus 'Striking Spells' actually used your spells, and there were different variations of spell strike for different kinds of spells. E.g. Eldritch Shot style, Spell Combat Style, whatever, i'm just spit-balling. You spent a focus point and the correct slot, so that your focus points were bottlenecks / additional costs on your big booming attacks.
The base chassis would set up the infrastructure of full casting + full martial progression, or whatever it has to be to be balanced (less than full casting), and then the Magus Class Feats revolved around adding new ways to combine your spells, movement and martial techniques. That would make a pure Magus have everything it needs for everything everyone wants, gives it a limitation (focus points, maybe slightly reduced casting), the cool s&$@ it can do like Spell Strike is offloaded into Class feats, which lets people have options between 'Spell Strike' and 'Spell Combat' and other styles, and even lets the Warpriest et al loot the Magus for some activities *they* can use to combine magic and Martial through multiclassing, though they still wouldn't have master martial, so the Magus would still be special.
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maybe they could go with the 9th slot casting Mark alluded to during the panel, where the progression itself is just slower by two levels.
Where was this discussed? or is this a previous panel?
What did mark suggest? What does "slower by two levels" mean?