My Thoughts and Suggestions (Striking Spell and Several Feats)

[PathfinderAlexander]

Narrative Implementation
Before I proceed the definition of narrative implementation will be demonstrated by exploring the spell ‘Disintegrate’. When casting Disintegrate you make a Spell Attack Roll and the target makes a Fortitude Saving Throw, the Spell Attack Roll determines whether Disintegrate hits the target and the Fortitude Saving Throw determines how much damage is applied to the target. The Spell Attack Roll and Fortitude Saving Throw come together (among other things) to form the mechanics of Disintegrate. To understand the narrative implementation, consider the following scene:

A green ray shoots from the Magus’ finger, the air ignites around it and the smell of ash is thrown forth as it soars towards its target. Energy surges from the target’s chest as the ray collides, it crackles like a roaring flame as it engulfs the target but soon sputters disappointingly as it dissipates harmlessly.

The scene fits with the mechanics outlined earlier. The Spell Attack Roll determined that the Magus’ Disintegrate hit and the Saving Throw determined that the target received no damage, however, the Saving Throw has influenced the scene beyond determining that the target received no damage. Disintegrate’s Saving Throw is a Fortitude Saving Throw and so the scene describes the target resisting an attack that has hit them as Fortitude Saving Throws describe how well you can ‘reduce the effects of abilities and afflictions that can debilitate the body’. If Disintegrate used a Reflex Saving Throw the scene would be different as Reflex Saving Throws describe ‘how well you can respond quickly to a situation and how gracefully you can avoid effects that have been thrown at you’. These descriptions of the Savings Throws are their narrative implementations, even if game masters chose not to describe scenes a games’ narrative implementation will shape player perceptions.

Often mechanics and narrative implementations are highly intertwined as mechanics are the tools used to traverse the narrative of games. If the mechanics and the narrative implementation of games contradict it can be jarring for players. For example, substitute a Reflex Saving Throw for Disintegrate’s Fortitude Saving Throw and reimagine the scene presented earlier, as Reflex Saving Throws represent how ‘gracefully you can avoid effects that have been thrown at you’ you have likely imagined the target avoiding Disintegrate’s ray or you have become frustrated as a Reflex Saving Throw following Disintegrate’s Spell Attack Roll suggest a target can be hit by Disintegrate’s ray while simultaneously avoiding it. That contradiction is an example of mechanics and narrative implementation working against one another.

Striking Spell:

[free-action]
Traits CONCENTRATE, MAGUS, METAMAGIC
Frequency once per round
You drastically alter a spell to combine it with a martial attack. If the next action you use is to Cast a Spell that can target one creature or object, instead of casting it as normal, you place its magic into one melee weapon you’re wielding or into your body to use with an unarmed attack.

If you hit with a melee Strike using the receptacle for the spell, the spell is discharged, affecting only the target you hit. The spell still requires its normal spell attack roll or saving throw, but you don’t increase your multiple attack penalty until after attempting both the discharging Strike and the spell attack roll. If your discharging Strike was a critical success, the degree of success is one better than you rolled for a spell attack roll or one worse than the target rolls for a saving throw.

If you don’t expend the stored spell with a Strike before the end of your next turn, it is lost and dissipates harmlessly. The same thing happens if you take the Striking Spell action again or if the weapon is used for a non-melee Strike (such as a thrown weapon Strike). A spell stored with Striking Spell can’t be discharged by anyone but the caster.

When reading Striking Spell my initial understanding of the narrative is as follows, the Magus casts their spell into a weapon and upon the weapon contacting an enemy the spell is discharged. The Spell Attack Roll contradicts this narrative as it implies the spell is not transferred to the enemy upon a successful strike but must be aimed or timed, if the Magus had to time the discharge of their spell or released the discharge as a projectile the spell wouldn’t require a successful strike to occur. This isn’t to say the Magus having to time their Striking Spell’s discharge or the Magus discharging spells as projectile couldn’t occur, in fact I have seen solid alternatives proposed that would match that narrative, but I do believe such an implementation makes storing the spell in a weapon rather redundant. If timing or aiming is intended I believe Striking Spell should be re-flavoured as the Magus using Strikes to open opportunities to use their spells, this would serve as a successor to Spell Combat.

Feats
The feats of the Magus ooze with flavour and I am impressed by the narrative they portray; Raise a Tomb, Spirit Sheath and the Entire Spell Parry tree are personal favourites of mine. However, I feel some of the feats need a little tuning (Raise a Tomb) so they can be used more readily.

Resource Preservation
Currently the Magus has a low number of Spell Slots and a variety of ways to mitigate it; Striker’s Scroll, Capture Spell, Second Chance and Double Spellstrike. However, the ways to mitigate the low number of slots are either inconsistent or require such a high level which make them irrelevant for most of a player’s experience.

Having a low number of slots effects players in two ways, it encourages players to save their slots for high value moments and it makes succeeding or failing with those slots more impactful. In my games this led to my players preserving their slots for higher level enemies which is unfortunate as the Magus’ Striking Spell works best against lower level enemies.

Action Economy
Currently the Magus has a lot of setup; Focus Spells are used to setup the Magus and Striking Spell is a core ability that takes several actions to resolve (sometimes two turns worth). This is not a problem when taken alone as plenty of activities take many actions, requiring many actions only becomes a problem if the number of actions invested is not reflected in the outcome. Right now, it feels as though Striking Spell and the Magus’ setup do not reflect their investment. If outstanding issues are resolved I think the Magus’ action economy would be fine.

My Suggestions

STRIKING SPELL:

[free-action]
Traits CONCENTRATE, MAGUS, METAMAGIC, FORTUNE
Frequency once per round
You drastically alter a Spell to combine it with a martial attack. If the next action you use is to Cast a Spell that targets a creature or object, instead of casting it as normal, you place its magic into one melee weapon you are wielding or into your body to use with an unarmed attack.

If you hit with a melee Strike using the receptacle for the spell, the spell is discharged, affecting only the target you hit. If the spell required a Spell Attack Roll, resolve the effects of the spell with the same degree of success as your strike. If the spell required a Saving Throw, the target takes a –1 Circumstance penalty to its saving throw if the strike was a success and a -2 Circumstance penalty if it was a critical success. You do not increase your Multiple Attack Penalty until both the spell and strike are resolved.

If you do not expend the stored spell with a strike before the end of your next turn, it is lost and dissipates harmlessly. The same thing happens if you take the Striking Spell action again or if the weapon is used for a non-melee Strike (such as a thrown weapon Strike). A spell stored with Striking Spell cannot be discharged by anyone but the caster.

This version of Striking Spell is flavoured around the Magus storing a spell within their weapon and that spell being immediately transferred into the Magus’ target upon a successful hit. As a result, Spells with a Spell Attack Roll resolve said roll with the result of their Strike and targets take a Circumstance penalty to any Saving throws. Since this version of Striking Spell modifies rolls it requires the Fortune trait.

The remaining suggestions are feats directly related to Striking Spell so you'll be able to utilise several variants if you are a fan of this.

Somatic Spellstrike:

Traits MAGUS
You have learned to substitute striking for the somantic components of spells altered by Striking Spells. When casting a spell altered by Striking Spell you do not have to provide Somatic components.

This feat is a simple one that removes the Somatic Component from Striking Spell. I've included this because its nice to think the shifting of the Magus' weapon could count as the somantic component of the spell.

Sustained Spellstrike:

Traits MAGUS
You have learned to extent the duration you can store Striking Spells for. You can Sustain a Spell to extend the time a striking spell is stored for, treat the stored spell as though it has a duration of "sustained up to 1 minute" when determining if you become fatigued from sustaining the spell.

This feat is intended to be one way a Magus can mitigate the low number of spell slots. While the Magus may miss their strikes they can extend the time their spell is stored for and keep charging at their target. You could break this feat into several, the first feat extending the stored spell for an additional turn and the subsequent feats extending that sustained duration up until a minute. If the feats break even with taking a dedications spellcasting feats the end result should be balanced.

Repeated Spellstrike:

Prerequisites Sustained Spellstrike
Traits MAGUS
When you Sustain a Spell altered by Striking Spell you can choose to spend an additional action, treat the sustained spell as though it had been cast again for Magus abilities such as Sustaining Steel or Portal Slide.

This feat is meant to accompany Sustained Spellstrike, by spending an additional feat the Magus can gain the benefit of using Striking Spell. I am uncertain if this would be balanced and I suspect it would not, however, it was too interesting to avoid mention.

Extracted Spellstrike:

[one-action]
Traits MAGUS
Requirements You have a spell stored in your weapon or body from Striking Spell.
You extract the spell altered by Striking Spell from its receptacle so you can discharge at will. Make a strike, the extracted spell is discharged even if the Strike misses. If the spell required a Spell Attack, you make the Spell Attack Roll with +1 Circumstance bonus on a Success, a +2 Circumstance bonus on a Critical Success and a -2 Circumstance penalty on a Critical Failure. If the spell required a Saving Throw, the target makes their Saving Throw as normal taking -1 Circumstance penalty to their save if your strike was a Success, a -2 Circumstance penalty to their save if your strike was a Critical Success and a +2 Circumstance bonus to their save if your strike was a Critical Failure.

This pulls upon the alternatives I mentioned earlier and provides the Magus with a variant of Striking Spell. This version of Striking Spell would be ideal if your INT is higher and you want to be sure the spell attack goes off this turn, perhaps you have a target than needs to be hit this turn?

Ranged Spellstrike:

[one-action]
Traits MAGUS
Requirements You have a spell stored in your weapon or body from Striking Spell.
By imitating a strike with your weapon you release the spell altered by Striking Spell. Target one creature within the spells range and resolve the spell as thought it had just been cast.

This is yet another variant of Striking Spell and allows an emergency ranged attack. This certainly isn't efficient in regards to action economy but it would allow the Magus a way to deal with a distant enemy if they've already committed their spell to a Striking Spell.

Timed Spellstrike:

[one-action]
Traits MAGUS
Requirements You have a spell stored in your weapon or body from Striking Spell.
Make a melee Strike using the receptacle for the spell, if the Strike hits you may choose to discharge the spell. If the spell required a Spell Attack, you make the Spell Attack Roll with +1 Circumstance bonus on a Success and a +2 Circumstance bonus on a Critical Success. If the spell required a Saving Throw, the target makes their Saving Throw as normal taking -1 Circumstance penalty to their save if your strike was a Success and a -2 Circumstance penalty to their save if your strike was a Critical Success. When discharging a Striking Spell in this manor you can ignore the Fortune trait.

This is a variant of Striking Spell that incorporates the idea of the Magus timing the release of their spell. This variant has been tailored to allowing a critical fishing style.

Magus Dedication
In order to insure the Fighter isn't a better Magus than the Magus, when granted through a dedication Striking Spell should expire at the end of the turn it is cast and it shouldn't be extendable through feats such as Sustained Spellstrike. This would be similar to the Investigator's Devise a Stratagem which imposes restrictions upon those who take it as a dedication.

I hope this feedback is helpful and would love feedback on my feedback.