One of the options you can select in the survey is the kind of Magus you'd want to see.
One of the options was a focus point Magus. I thought the class could potentially take advantage of this.
Give it focus point mechanics of the Oracle. So you start with one and get Auto scaling focus points as well as refocus feats.
Then, let's get crazy. You still get 5 cantrips. And still get spells known, however. You don't get spell slots. Rather the spells you learn become focus spells, and the cantrips can be used with a focus cantrip while the focus spells might work slightly different in a uniform way.
For cantrips. Let's take produce flame. You get the option to imbue cantrip focus cantrip ) lol). That lets you imbue yourself or your weapon until the end of your turn. When you do this you lower the actions required by one to a minimum of 1. You lose ability mod to damage, reduce it's heightening by half It uses the miss/hit/critical effect of the strike itself. This imbuement lasts until the end of your turn *meaning you could potentially get this damage along multiple strikes. If you critically hit, choose whether to use the cantrips critical modifier or your weapons, not both (this is in case you get critical specialization via ancestry or something)
So at 1 that's one action to add 1d4 fire damage to your strikes for the rest of that round. And if you critical you add 1d4 persistent fire damage.
At 20 you'd do extra 5d4 per strike (less than sneak attack, costs an action, but can target weaknesses)
Now for spells. You just gain the ability to cast then via focus points. But uses the same number of actions it normally would. You can get a feat or later feature, letting you use the spell as part of a strike but it becomes a action strike. And same deal for critical effects, goes off your weapon. Make it a level 12 feature it feat, so a fighter can't MC for it. And casters wouldn't want to automatically MC into Magus because they'd need to use their martial to hit and you can cap the cantrip damage scaling via magic imbuement similar to sneak attack with a feat later to increase it slightly.
Thoughts? Was merely an attempt to provide the idea of a Magus who uses focus points but also retains the identity of using spells.
If my post is too rambling or convuluted. The general idea.
Was to combine the idea of the focus point oriented Magus with the idea of a spell Magus.
The idea is to still get cantrips but also get a focus cantrip that interacts with said cantrips to combine them in some way with a strike. And to still get spells known but have them work with your focus pool instead of spell slots.
Maybe too good maybe not. Probably would require revision that only paizo would know for sure.
Slot spells being cast from the Focus pool is not something that would work within the confines of 2e. There are far too many spells that become too powerful if allowed to be recharged on a 10 minute basis.
You'd have to make a curated list of which slot spells that can be cast through focus points without becoming game-breaking. However, by that point, you are just creating a list of focus spells, so might as well make proper focus spells instead.
If Magus does become a focus-only class, it is inevitable that they will lose the identity of using spells, since slot spells are clearly balanced around the spell slot paradigm, with extremely limited recovery during the day. Personally, I think it would be a huge loss of identity for the class, because no focus spell list will ever be able to match up to the Arcane spell list in terms of variety and versatility.
Slot spells being cast from the Focus pool is not something that would work within the confines of 2e. There are far too many spells that become too powerful if allowed to be recharged on a 10 minute basis.
You'd have to make a curated list of which slot spells that can be cast through focus points without becoming game-breaking. However, by that point, you are just creating a list of focus spells, so might as well make proper focus spells instead.
If Magus does become a focus-only class, it is inevitable that they will lose the identity of using spells, since slot spells are clearly balanced around the spell slot paradigm, with extremely limited recovery during the day. Personally, I think it would be a huge loss of identity for the class, because no focus spell list will ever be able to match up to the Arcane spell list in terms of variety and versatility.
Maybe, but only 4 slots means you won't ever really have said variety or versatility. And if you get more slots you just end up like warpriest and I don't think anyone wants that but maybe I am wrong on that.
Rock and hard place is what it seems like to me.
Slot spells being cast from the Focus pool is not something that would work within the confines of 2e. There are far too many spells that become too powerful if allowed to be recharged on a 10 minute basis.
You'd have to make a curated list of which slot spells that can be cast through focus points without becoming game-breaking. However, by that point, you are just creating a list of focus spells, so might as well make proper focus spells instead.
If Magus does become a focus-only class, it is inevitable that they will lose the identity of using spells, since slot spells are clearly balanced around the spell slot paradigm, with extremely limited recovery during the day. Personally, I think it would be a huge loss of identity for the class, because no focus spell list will ever be able to match up to the Arcane spell list in terms of variety and versatility.
Maybe, but only 4 slots means you won't ever really have said variety or versatility. And if you get more slots you just end up like warpriest and I don't think anyone wants that but maybe I am wrong on that.
Rock and hard place is what it seems like to me.
Yes, the four spell slot paradigm is also a problem. But I do believe there is wide ground for a middle approach between current four slot casters and Warpriest on that end. Warpriest is a full caster with level 10 spells, and an immensly powerful class feature in the form of their font, while Magus caps at 9th level and has no equivalent to the cleric font. There is definitely room for Magus to recieve more slots (like the "Wave" progression idea for instance) without the class becoming overbearing or another Warpriest.
Also, while I personally hate relying on consumables for a character build, many people around this forum have shown that wands/scrolls/staves can go a long way for building Magus' tactical options even with the four slot version we currently have, but a Focus Magus would lose access to all of those by virtue of not having a spell list.
Overall, I think removing spell slots from Magus would probably result in something less interesting than the playtest version, even if it does become stronger overall.
Current isn't overly interesting I'd argue. Not in actual play at least unless your just pumping true strike every way you can and your party caters to your tactical whims