
richienvh |
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So, today was probably the last time I got to playtest the Magus before the playtest window closes and it was the most disappointing of all my experiences (find them here) .
Today's session saw my Magus at level 14 fighting alongside a Dragon Barbarian, a Bard and a Beast Summoner versus two Black Scorpions. It was bad (I was outclassed and outshined by both the Summoner and the Barbarian) and I'm not going to detail the issues, because they were the same recounted over multiple threads in these forums, including mine.
With that, said, I think I can conclude my own playtest evaluation of the class.
The way I see it, there are several issues plaguing the ability: first is that it has an action economy tax. I don’t necessarily think that that tax needs to go, but it becomes problematic when it is coupled with the current two-roll system and the fact that the Magus does not have a caster’s proficiency. The only benefit we get from it is the much discussed crit-fishing mechanic and the ability to hold the charge for an extra turn.
However, these boons never felt like they compensated for the action economy and accuracy tax I was paying, especially when I was up against level + creatures.
I have seen people argue that tactics could diminish or nullify the Magus’ issues, but I felt that there were some flaws in those assumption, mainly because I got the chance to playtest Magus alongside other martials (Barbarian, Ranger and Fighter) and these classes were improved by these tactics while the Magus was becoming functional instead.
I have to be honest and say I did not encounter this issue when fighting weaker foes. My Magus (and my players’ Magi, because I GM’ed as well) felt as competent as their martial counterparts against those foes, but less competent against more powerful enemies.
To exemplify, my last playtest experience saw my Magus dealing 109 damage over a 6-round severe encounter against two level+1 foes while the Barbarian had 284 and the Eidolon had 139. And what saddened me was that I had Hero Points, Inspire Courage and Dirge of Doom and still felt like a considerable amount of my damage was from the 3d6 fire damage I got when hit while under the effects of fiery body.
I know damage is not all, but when spending several actions to set up a routine, that routine has to consistently cause an effect and in none of my experiences did it feel rewarding.
I had two of my encounters replayed having the Magus’ spell attack result be determined by their martial attack result – i.e. one roll and that felt a lot better to play. I honestly fail to see the reason why these two rolls cannot be folded in this manner.
I could also live with an action economy fix that allowed the Magus to deliver their strike as part of casting their spell, while maintaining the two roll system. This would mean you would essentially Strike at 0 MAP, Spellstrike at -5 MAP (because the difference in accuracy is floats between -2 and -5 anyway) and possibly Strike again at -10 MAP or Stride in an ideal turn. I am less fond of this solution and this is not a thread about mechanical solutions, so I will carry on..
The point is: I felt like a solution was needed in either front. To me, the class did not feel unplayable, but did not feel satisfying to play at all
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I feel like all Magi could benefit from some version of the Slide casting ability (maybe allowing a Step or a half Stride when triggering Striking Spell
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I felt there was an issue with low-level feats in that the Magus benefits a lot from either a caster or a martial multiclass dedication. Perhaps a few flavorful or unique alternatives to incentivize those that go ‘vanilla’ Magus could help.
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Conclusion or TLDR I got to play and run the Magus on about six sessions with different characters of different levels. I felt like the class was heavily taxed from three fronts: the fact that it had the 4 slot casting system and was expected to rely on cantrips for its routines, the action economy costs of Striking Spell and the accuracy of Striking Spell when applied with Attack Spells (basically all but three of the damaging cantrips the class had access to). I feel that if we are going to keep the same design philosophy moving forward, one of those three taxes needs to go:
- If Striking Spell is to require the same action economy investment and the Magus is not to get an accuracy boost on its spell attacks, then it needs more slots for debuffs, buffs, utility spells and spells meant to improve its routine. That means cantrips are not the Magus’ routine and they need versatility to compensate for those two taxes.
- If Magus is to have four slots and keep the current Striking Spell, then the two rolls system for spell attacks needs to go. This felt to me like the most reasonable alternative to making the class’ expected cantrip reliance justifiable and viable. You could get a very workable Magus that way.
- If Magus is to have four slots and keep needing the two rolls to hit with its spell attacks, then the action economy needs to be improved to bring its routine to something that at least harkens to other characters’ routines.
I know one could argue for changes in those three fronts (and maybe I would), but I think that a substantial fix in either of them could make the class go from meh to enjoyable.
With those considerations, I'd like to thank you all for the discussions, the inputs and insights. It has been a nice experience for me (I was mostly a lurker during the 2e and APG playtests and only came out due to the fact that Magus is my favorite class) and I am looking forward to seeing the final version of the class.
Will continue to lurk and ocasionally post, but will refrain from tackling the Magus as whole from now.

VictorFafnir |
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After reading this it feels like it is kinda gathered knowledge and potential improvments from this forum that we all want. You could say this post speak for most of us, and I belive it will be good source of feedback for devs. Especailly that you spend more than one or two fights as a magus also having 2 other characters to compare to. My experience was kinda the same, especially with higher lvl oponents. Good job !
Spell strike should be improved version of Eldritch Shot in 2 actions and then letting us decide whenever we want to attack on the same turn or afterwards (withing few rounds).
I personally think that 2 taxes of magus needs to go to make it playable and some low lvl feats redesign (with maybe 1 or 2 higher) together with some changes with synthesis of shooting star, when synthesis is much worse than archetype then it is a problem.
And somethins should be modyfied allowing us to have reason why int is important to magus.

Lightning Raven |

I'm all for improving Striking Spell through the action economy side. It keeps INT relevant, it allows more freedom for the class to move around, which is one of the new paradigms of the system and it also gives them a chance to engage with the other actions of the system, namely, demoralize actions, Bon Mot, etc.
Rolling the success into the spell strike only may be a good change as well, but I think it will create a Magus that doesn't need INT for anything combat-related, because then the meta will shift from casting saving throw spells to Spell Attack spells, except in the occasional situation when a Magus would need the range, which would never come up for a Shooting Star Magus.
Also, anyone feel that the level 10 feat. Comet Spell, for Shooting Star should definitely be added to the Synthesis? It certainly doesn't feel like a good level 10 feat, that's for sure. I think there has never been a situation in all of our sessions where there was more than two enemies in a suitable row that would make this feat deal more than meager damage to the extra targets, certainly wouldn't make it better than just casting a line spell anyway. Meanwhile, Sustained Steel and Slide are getting great feats that greatly enhance their respective styles. Hell, if the feat just made the spell range match the weapon's it would make it a lot better, it would still feel like a tax, but at least it would be better.

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Could probably make the synthesis upgrades just part of the core features at level 11.
Other than that, not having a 1st level feat kind of sucks if you want to build a non human unarmed magus, cos you gotta wait til second level for your concept to start working.

Unicore |
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Could probably make the synthesis upgrades just part of the core features at level 11.
Other than that, not having a 1st level feat kind of sucks if you want to build a non human unarmed magus, cos you gotta wait til second level for your concept to start working.
In my opinion, if unarmed magus is going to be supported, it should really be supported at the synthesis level, in the same way that other weapon choices are, rather than as a 1st level feat. Otherwise it doesn't really make sense why shooting star is a synthesis and not a first level feat either.

HumbleGamer |
The current Magus has a solid martial chassis and gets the proficiencies it is aiming for. Only two nitpicks: I wished Magus got Juggernaut sooner and that there was an option to choose Int as the main stat for those Magi that want to focus on their spellcasting..
I also agree on this.
But more than having sooner the Juggernaut feat, they should simply swap it with Resolve, mostly because of the class itself.The magus has either spellcasting and martial proficiency, and also a slightly better armor progression than a non tank class. But being in melee it would definitely make a better use of Juggernaut rather than Resolve.
As for Int, it might be a good idea, but if they are going to give the magus that choice they also have to do the same with the summoner, giving it STR and DEX as possible choices ( to also enhances the eidolon ), since both classes are hybrids 2/2 spells.
I began feeling the need for more low-levelled slots in order to have the Magus apply buffs and utility spells, which is why I ended up focusing on getting rings, scrolls and staves to suit my needs.
The need is subjective, but I understand that a player might desire to have some extra slot to use for not combat purposes during the day.
In my opinion, given the fact the magus already has good spells as well as a martial proficiency, the role is partially covered by the "Martial Spellcaster" lvl 6 feat.
To sacrifica lvl 6 feat to have utility spells is well balanced, an this includes its fair progression.
An alternative might be renoucing to magus feats to take a caster dedication, in order to have more spells ( this will cost you 4 class feat or 5 if you plan to also take arcane bredth ). Given the trade off, it's extraordinary balanced. You will have more spells than a pure magus, but you will have to pay much for them.
I'd also like to see an enhanced "Martial Spellcaster" feat.
Something meant to increase the slots and the kind of spells.
A lvl 14/16 feat would probably do the job ( won't impact low levels and will forbid the magus from taking a mid/high class feat ).
I found both Sustaining Steel and Slide Casting to be playable and did not like Shooting Star at all. My players all went and replaced it with Eldritch Archer’s Eldritch Shot as soon as they got to level 6
I feel like all Magi could benefit from some version of the Slide casting ability (maybe allowing a Step or a half Stride when triggering Striking Spell
Yeah, unfortunately eldritch archer's dedication destroys shooting star. In my opinion, they should review the eldritch archer dedication because it's off if compared to spellstrike.
To give a free step to all magi might work ( as far as I can tell, plenty of us are in agreement with this ).

richienvh |
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Yeah, unfortunately eldritch archer's dedication destroys shooting star. In my opinion, they should review the eldritch archer dedication because it's off if compared to spellstrike.
I'm going to disagree a bit. I think the Eldritch Archer plays fine. I feel that they should work on improving the way Striking Spell and/or Shooting Star works rather than reviewing an already functional archetype to support a subsequent class feature.

HumbleGamer |
Humblegamer wrote:Yeah, unfortunately eldritch archer's dedication destroys shooting star. In my opinion, they should review the eldritch archer dedication because it's off if compared to spellstrike.I'm going to disagree a bit. I think the Eldritch Archer plays fine. I feel that they should work on improving the way Striking Spell and/or Shooting Star works rather than reviewing an already functional archetype to support a subsequent class feature.
It's overwhelmingly better, not "already functional".
Obviously, If any of us were to choose between spellstrike ( shooting star ) and eldritch shot, all of us would choose the latter.
The magus already obliterates creatures with a -2/-1/0 lvl difference on a critical hit ( I aknowledge the possibility not to crit the spell, given the lower hit chance and the possibility to have a "bad roll", regardless your bonus ), so giving all for a single roll will boost it would in my opinion too much.
I also understand that eldritch archer was not meant for the magus class ( it came out earlier, and given the magus they probably didn't think about spellstrike yet ).
If the dedication itself were just available for all non magus classes it would probably be ok.

richienvh |

If the dedication itself were just available for all non magus classes it would probably be ok.
The problem is you can get it as a Fighter, as a Ranger, as a Rogue and even as a Wizard with Fighter MC at a later level. I don't think the Archetype breaks anything on these classes.
Reading your post, I feel the problem does not seem to be on the Eldritch Archer side, but rather on the fact that the current Striking Spell plus Shooting Star makes it so much enticing for ranged Magi. Shooting Star is already weird without the EA, so I think it would be much productive to tailor it to work better.
I mean, the issue's not that Eldritch Shot is uber powerful (it's a single shot that only applies to attack spells and unleashed via a 3 action activity that you can't combine with True Strike), but that the Magus ends up with a way worse version of it.
What you're suggesting is toning down an archetype that applies to multiple classes due to a problem with the execution of a single class' ability.
I don't know what your feelings are on Striking Spell, but I honestly don't think it's fine as is and look forward to seeing what adjustment Paizo gives it (I don't know what would be ideal, which is why I suggested several fixes on these forums).

HumbleGamer |
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HumbleGamer wrote:
If the dedication itself were just available for all non magus classes it would probably be ok.
The problem is you can get it as a Fighter, as a Ranger, as a Rogue and even as a Wizard with Fighter MC at a later level. I don't think the Archetype breaks anything on these classes.
Reading your post, I feel the problem does not seem to be on the Eldritch Archer side, but rather on the fact that the current Striking Spell plus Shooting Star makes it so much enticing for ranged Magi. Shooting Star is already weird without the EA, so I think it would be much productive to tailor it to work better.
What you're suggesting is toning down an archetype that applies to multiple classes due to a problem with the execution of a single class' ability.
I don't know what your feelings are on Striking Spell, but I honestly don't think it's fine as is and look forward to seeing what adjustment Paizo gives it (I don't know what would be ideal, which is why I suggested several fixes on these forums), but I don't think that the problem lies with the already published and established parts of the rules, but instead with the rule that's being introduced.
I am not entirely sure I made my point in the correct way, so I'll try to sum up things in order to make more clear my point.
- I think that even rolling twice with spellstrike is ok, simply because a Magus annihilate enemies with lvl -2/-1/0. It's true it has harder times against bosses, but given how fast he deals with equal or lower levels, I can see a trde off. I know that the magus spellstrike ( expending a spells ) might not be the right choice against a boss, but if the class is designed to obliterate non boss creatures, I am fine with it ( against bosses, other classes might excell ).
- I think that when they thought about the eldritch archer, they didn't even considered the magus ( I can only guess they started working on it later ), and that the eldritch archer dedication was meant for Full Martial or Full Casters.
A) A Martial would have been access to spells way later than casters, but its chance to hit would have make the difference in delivering the blow.
B) A Full spellcaster ( bad martial proficiency ) had have access to many spells, but its chance to deliver them would have been slightly less if compared to a martial. On the other hand they would have had way more spells, and more spell power.
Creating a class like a magus, which has spells and also the martial proficiency, complicates the already present balance.
- I think that there's currently no harm in the eldritch archer, if you use that dedication with a non magus class. If you use it with a magus class, it's way more powerful and also invalidates the spellstrike mechanics. That's why I'd like them to leave eldritch archer as it is for any other classes but the magus ( but I am also aware it won't be possible, and because so we might find ourselves stuck with a dedication which is better than the mechanic of a class ).

graystone |
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I'm going to disagree a bit. I think the Eldritch Archer plays fine.
I agree: it's Shooting Star that does nothing other than allow crit fishing for a spell bump. When just shooting the bow and casting electric arc is superior to using Shooting Star with electric arc most times I see that as an issue with Shooting Star. IMO, Shooting Star is just bad and needs tuned upwards instead of looking around for things to lower so it looks better.

Unicore |

If the striking spell feature is changed to work more like eldritch shot, then I think the class really doesn't need spell slots anymore and would be better built around having spell attack roll focus powers and access to cantrips only. There are just too few spell slot spells that meaningfully interact with the structure of the eldritch shot mechanic for it to be strong blend of features, especially as the odds of getting higher level, really powerful spell attack roll spells is pretty slim (they will kill your Party when cast by NPCs, and you won't be able to do anything about it).
I really like Eldritch Archer as an Archetype, but it is a feature that you get stacked on top of a full class build already, is a single, 3 action activity that can't be used with the kinds of activities granted by class feats, and is only available at level 6. Making this work from level 1 as a centerpiece feature of class is going to quickly run into power balance issues and a very static class and action routine. Giving the class spell slots and a competitive spell casting proficiency is just so much energy towards something that won't meaningfully interact with the class' main feature.

kripdenn |
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If the striking spell feature is changed to work more like eldritch shot, then I think the class really doesn't need spell slots anymore and would be better built around having spell attack roll focus powers and access to cantrips only. There are just too few spell slot spells that meaningfully interact with the structure of the eldritch shot mechanic for it to be strong blend of features, especially as the odds of getting higher level, really powerful spell attack roll spells is pretty slim (they will kill your Party when cast by NPCs, and you won't be able to do anything about it).
Why not have it work with spell slots and a focus spell? I don't see why it needs to be an either/or situation where they can only have spell slots or only have focus spells, but not both.

Martialmasters |
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I'm going to disagree on the assumption that the Magus is meant to focus on mooks. Because if it is. Every single full caster, some mc casters, and even a summoner or Magus casting a proper AOE spell, massively outpace spell strike to an absolutely devastating degree.
Spell strike as it is currently is a steep action investment into a single target action. It should work well vs bosses and be more like overkill vs underleveled mooks.
Regardless having to succeed at two rolls to do your one thing will always feel bad. See swashbuckler.

Martialmasters |
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What if magus could cast any spell with spell strike ?
That would solve the problem, and considering that he alredy have 4 spell slots only it wouldnt be bad thing, its 4 power moves and other than that are only cantrips
How would that work narratively. Why would you store haste on yourself rather than just casting it? I'm all for mechanics but I'm not sure how to justify this.

VictorFafnir |
Let's take teleport for example, you target yourself by imbuing yourself with a spell what lead to you being teleported, if it would be haste you need to be 1 of possible targets.
Chain lightning, target of your weapon becomes first target of spell if spell can target multiple creatures. Versatility, is that when melee you will be limited to options who you can hit and if multiple enemies are close enough for you to risk casting spell targeting 3 creates or use shocking grasp for example or vampiric touch.
If it would be haste or another spell that would target friendly creatures it is the same, you have to be one or first target of your spell. Being in first line and with limited spell economy you can chose to buff yourself along your teammates or let other spellcaster handle it while you be more focused on dealing dmg or surviving.
As Melee you would want to chave some options, Using fireball is Kamikaze and buffing aren't that worthy if you need to keep concentration spells and front line don't come very well together, but are always a choice for something,
Slide pethaps would want some more dmg or protection and because of them being mobile you can get away more easly using multiple target spells, while sustaning steel could focus more on single target spells
It open new way to play your magus, for sure you would chose spells diffrently when playing ranged magus, perhaps more aoe combined with your arrows being center of spell.
One of restrictions that can help balance it out is that you would need to hit with your spell strike, if you miss then spell is lost. Its stupid one but currently its only fair when melee synthesis miss then they lose spell. But if we get fix on spell strike letting us hold spells for rounds then instead of that letting shooting star discharge their spell when they miss is fair enough IMO. But feel fre to critic
Second one is leaving "one target or creature when spell deal dmg or require attack roll" on shooting star, but that would be lame, but yet again you could use some kind of ammunition that deal non lethal dmg as arrows without tip or something like that when casting buff on your party, of course that would be poor choise because you should be more on distance side (currently you are fighting along side other casters what's kinda lame, you should be able to attack from bigger distance like 30ft more at cost of something)
Its just idea but letting it life can benefit players and magus class in an interesting way and don't force pressure on some players to go spell strike with shocking grasp like in previous edditions.
And biggest benefit are feats, 2 of them require you for it to be attack spell that deals elemental dmg, 4 of them are on the same lvl and 3 are tied to you synthesis, so its more like you benefit from 2 feats, slide casting already can do it with 4 specific feats that only work with it and some of them being able to be use by monk feat.

Unicore |

I think that it is important that the spell striking mechanic not be any more complex than the playtest one already is. A mechanic that changes the way you target one creature with a spell but then switches back to a different mechanic after resolving the first target feels like it might push the boundaries of "desirable complexity." This is also my concern about casting fireball into the weapon, but then have what comes out of the weapon not be the basic fireball spell. With the way that spells work in PF2, it really feels like it would be better to make special spells that interact well with whatever the final striking spell mechanic is, rather than requiring the player and the GM to interpret what it means for a spell not designed for the mechanic to work with it.
The problem with that is that the magus is not going to get its own spell list, so either these spells would probably end up being focus spells and focus cantrips, because they really wouldn't work for anyone that didn't have the mechanic.
To answer the earlier question about why not have striking spell work like the eldritch shot mechanic and have the class have spell slots, It would be because there are a total of 8 total arcane spells (from a spell slot) in the game that require an attack roll and 2 of them also grant a save, and we are unlikely to get more at higher levels that don't also grant a save because they are too good against PCs. It would be unfortunate to shackle the Magus to a spells that require an attack roll when that mechanic is primarily reserved for focus spells and cantrips and not big nova attack spells.