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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.
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.
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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.
Can you imagine the heartache if they gave us dex/int as your primary stat and took away strength?
Oh Gods, please no!
The only way I'd live with that is if the Magus got to apply its Int to attacks in the way that the Investigator does
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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.
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Please I don't want everyone to push for playing dex magus *again* xD
I like being a heavily armored mage knight Q_Q
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).
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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I'll be honest. While I LOVE that spell strike works with different action attacks from multi class options.
If I had to give it up for a consistent spell strike, I'd drop it like it's hot.