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While reflecting on the Magus, I had an idea that could maybe help the Magus. Like them or not, the Syntheses are significant effects that I would rate as ‘somewhat to very powerful’ to use survey terms. However, I don’t think they are unique enough to be subclasses.
Instead I thought that, since they define fighting styles, they could be Stances spread across the 1st and 2nd level feat spaces. My reasoning behind this is that Magi are proficient in martial weapons, so they could theoretically be able to shift styles. Replacing Syntheses, we could have more meaningful mechanics that altered how the classed viewed magic and might. Maybe a focus spell one, a castery one and a martial one, haven’t thought much on that end. Perhaps a few fan favorite 1e archetypes as subclasses?
The pros would be that we’d adress
- the lack of low level feats
- the need for slide casting to be accessible to all Magi
- the need for a tactical approach on the Magus
- the shooting star/ Eldritch Archer redundancy
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I dig it. You could remove the the synthesis and give them a free feat, and make the synthesis all level 1 stances, but also have the opportunity for things like starting off with a familiar if you want that hexcrafter feel or whatevs. Also, a slide and shooting star using thrown weapon magus sounds fun as hell, even if not optimal
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I dig it. You could remove the the synthesis and give them a free feat, and make the synthesis all level 1 stances, but also have the opportunity for things like starting off with a familiar if you want that hexcrafter feel or whatevs. Also, a slide and shooting star using thrown weapon magus sounds fun as hell, even if not optimal
I agree that Stances seemed like a relevant implementation for the Synthesis. There is that part of me who feels like the Magus who likes to wield two handed weapons, but gets disarmed or having to switch one-handed to wield their bastard sword (lets say to raise a tome) shouldn't feel like they've gimpped themselves severely.
I assume they didn't do stances, so they could have teh magus jump immediately into combat. (especially since spell-casting, which would generally be the next step frequently costs more than one action, combined then with needing another action for the strike, you're significantly delayed)
I like the idea of Magus getting a 1st level feat. I like the idea of a magus being able to have more than one fighting style. I"m not certain how to balance all that and make the action economy somewhat unique, but not either horribly bad, or broken good?
Could Synthesis be a stance that gets started by a SpellStrike metamagic action and selecting the Stance among available options you meet the current prerequisites. Allow a magus to pick up multiple. Potentially allow a preferred stance, which might grant the magus an on top of the normal bonus, when in that stance. Multi-class magus would get access to the spellstrike and stances, but probably not the preferred bonus.
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The issue at first would be that it'd be yet ANOTHER action to take on first round along with Magus Potency, Hasted Assault, Runic Impression... (assuming no changes)
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Yeah, there’s that problem haha
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If Potency and Runic get fused together it would be possible to use all of them in one turn tho!
I mean, yeah you do not have to take all of those abilities but between that and the ammount of actions it takes to spellstrike (for now) a "slide magus", on turn one would:
1: Activate Slide Stance
2: Cast a spell, use the free Strike to get in range.
End. On subsequent turns there would be a benefit of course x)
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If Potency and Runic get fused together it would be possible to use all of them in one turn tho!
I mean, yeah you do not have to take all of those abilities but between that and the ammount of actions it takes to spellstrike (for now) a "slide magus", on turn one would:
1: Activate Slide Stance
2: Cast a spell, use the free Strike to get in range.
End. On subsequent turns there would be a benefit of course x)
Potency and Runic need to be merged. Potency is a poor focus spell. It only provides a benefit at odd points in your leveling career, which makes the spell really clunky and unintuitive.
I do like the idea of synthesis as stances, but I'm also worried about adding to the list of actions a Magus needs to do. Maybe the synthesis can be a free action stance that triggers off of Striking Spell or casting a spell. Then give it the open trait, so you have to activate it on the first round. That way on turn 1, a Magus player can striking spell plus activate their synthesis stance, or cast a buff spell (haste, mirror image, etc) and activate their synthesis stance.
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I like the idea of it being either a free action or a reaction to enter the stance with Striking Spell - the interaction with Spirit Sheath was very cool and fun, so let's build on it.
What about if the weapon requirement makes it a reaction to enter when you use Striking Spell, but it's 1 action otherwise?
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I am against it only because it takes an action to enter a Stance and Magus is already struggling with it's action economy.
I am ok, personally, for synthesis to be a defining trait of your specialization as opposed to another feat sink.
In actual play I don't see sustaining steel as weaker than slide casting and indeed the are times when it's more powerful as well. It's just not exciting.
Shooting star definitely needs adjustment though imo.
And I'd like a unarmed synthesis.
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In 1E (I know, this is 2E, the character should be thought of in 2E standards, I'm getting to it geez calm down strawman!) the magus was basically always ahead in term of weapon potency (the pluses) thanks to his arcane pool. He was at LEAST up to date thanks to it (so even if he never bought a magic weapon he'd have one with bonuses appropriate for his level) and several level ahead if he had an up to date weapon. I mean at level 9 you can have a +5 weapon with an elemental property.
Now in 2E, the Magus (as of now) needs to boost his accuracy since, by design, he wants to crit as often as possible. Potency help with that at certain levels. However I think it'd be simpler to keep track of by making it a flat +1 to hit (maybe +2 at heightened 8, 10 or something)cumulative with potency runes. No striking rune effect, just potency. Runic Impression could be a feat upgrade to it that allows to add/swap a property rune on top of it. This both helps the Magus get an accuracy boost relevant at all levels, and alleviate action economy if you take runic impression.
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That idea is nice, Kalaam! And it opens up space for those Magi that eventually want to have magic weapons . Still I’d rather get rid of the second roll to not to have to focus on crit fishing in the first place.
But you’re on point. Current Magus needs to crit as often as possible and, if Paizo decides not to remove the two rolls, more accuracy will likely be needed
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You're right, which is why I feel that the idea has no merit if the action taxes remain as they are.
Would be nice if the Syntheses felt more thematic or if we could have a feat or a way to gain access to the other Syntheses if that's the case, though.
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Its only an action starved problem if the stances cost an action. Like I said earlier, you could make them free actions that trigger when you cast a spell or use Striking Spell. Give them the open trait so they are limited to the first round for activation. That solves the action economy problem.
I would rather have a stance later on for the parry feat or raise tome. Let the Synthesis be the different subclasses. Works for the other classes, no need to reinvent the wheel on this one I feel.
Fair point on its own. Though when I went to build an unarmed Magus I realized every combat would be yet another action cost sink for a Stance and after fiddling with it, gave up.
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Something else to consider, and I'm not positive how I feel about it. If magus uses a stance to get its magical integration feel... such as spell/strike/synthesis. That means that if you multi-class into Magus, and have a class like monk that uses stances, you may be stuck needing to choose between being a monk or a magus for the duration of your combat (or at least your stance). Making it hard to mix the classes flavor together.
Again, I liked the idea at first, as long as it didn't make their action cost even higher. But the thought of not being able to use another classes stances to get a mix of flavor became a little bit of a concern, when I thought about it.
Point is right now you could get a stance from mc dedication and it can pair with magus. Add opposed to the suggested change.
Well, I suppose that no stance would be mandatory ( they "enhance" the gameplay ).
Also, wouldn't that be the same with any other class/dedication with at least one stance?
- Fighter
- Marshall
- Swashbuckler
- Staff Acrobat
- Monk
- Rogue
- Champion
My issue with potential collision would be that a big part of a Magus is to mix a spell, with a strike. (at least for me, Striking Spell should be a big part) So you cast a spell and you then strike to complete it. If part of striking the way a class strikes, would be using its 'stance', and functionality that was important to striking spell (synthesis, etc.) was tied to a stance, it would mean that you potentially wouldn't be able to complete your spell strikes with your other classes characteristic strikes.
Maybe for balance reasons in some cases that might be ok. But it seems to me like there should be room for a Magus<->monk multi-class, and if a big part of the Synthesis was stance that might really hurt the monk choices.
I greatly disapprove this idea.
Making them all stances renders them incompatible with other stance feats. My brawler magus would be punished for dipping into Martial Artist for Dragon Stance. No tossing spell cards with Fane's Fourberie.
I would support making magus potency into a feat in exchange for getting a 1st level feat.
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Yeah. Didn't consider it through these aspects.
What I was aiming at was more versatility and the fact that the Syntheses provide interesting mechanics but, I don't know, I'm just not sold on Magi being defined by what weapon they fight with.
On the versatility side, maybe shifting Syntheses can also be achieved via a feat that works similarly to the one that lets the champion choose a second divine ally or something like that.
I'm with you on the Potency idea, especially because it opens up the possibility for Magi to invest in Runes/Magic Weapons without missing out on one of their core features.
But wouldn't it perhaps be bettwerfor the whole Arcane Fists mechanic to be a Synthesis that you could have from the get go? It feels, I don't know, as defining as a bow is to Shooting Star Magi.
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I greatly disapprove this idea.
Making them all stances renders them incompatible with other stance feats. My brawler magus would be punished for dipping into Martial Artist for Dragon Stance. No tossing spell cards with Fane's Fourberie.
I would support making magus potency into a feat in exchange for getting a 1st level feat.
Kinda sorta off topic but not really. How did you build your unarmed magus? Every time I tried making one I saw how it was basically an action behind without a working synthesis to boot. Though I suppose you can semi cheese it with wielding a useless stick and kicking everything.
Perhaps in lieu of stances, you gain syntheses over time. Either an Expanded Synthesis feat that allows you to obtain additional synthesis to choose from, or perhaps as additional options given out e.g. 7th and 14th level (picking levels at random there, but you get the idea).
So you choose one at 1st, and then at later levels you can choose additional, which you could then use normally.