Magus is Awesome - Please Make Spellstrike Not Trigget Attacks of Opportunity

[Angel Hunter D]

Malk_Content wrote:

Or maybe they keep designing features in the hopes that people won't keep trying to turn them into always use core loops so people explore other actions. But folks just keep on looking for their rotations.

That...makes no sense. Spellstrike+recharge is 3 actions. You know what class gets to explore other actions? Monks, Champions, Rangers. Ya know, classes where their special action s are 1 action or a reaction. You don't have enough actions to "explore" when the thing you chose the class for takes your whole turn.

And unlike sudden charge, Spellstrike is a class ability not a Feat. It's more comparable to Rage, Flurry, or Hunt Target.

[CaffeinatedNinja]

HumbleGamer wrote:

Lanathar wrote:

Why do these threads always devolve into going on and on about the Fighter?

Nobody really knows.

If we are lucky enough, Paizo is going to address this issue with the next errata.

Hah, I love it.

In a serious answer to your question, fighter is a good baseline since it can use any weapon style, and it is basically just a flexible beatstick. It also makes for easy math since hunt prey isn't in there. I mean you could use barbarian too, their damage is essentially the same.

So then the question becomes, with a martial, what ELSE do they get that makes up for whatever they lose in comparison to a fighter.

[gesalt]

Ravingdork wrote:

If you could use your main ability every time you can, why would you ever use anything else?

Vote "NO!" to Spellstrike overpowerment!

Not sure if sarcasm but I'm pretty sure every CRB martial uses their main ability all time. Fighter and Rogue's are passive. Barbarian rage is one and done. Ranger uses it when they set targets. Monk compresses 2 actions into 1. The disconnect is that CRB "main abilities" aren't obtrusive to gameplay and keep the action economy open for maneuvers, special attacks, etc while post-CRB martials' (minus the summoner) lock them into rotations to keep up on basic damage and don't particularly do anything special or impressive when they deviate.

The magus tries to escape this with arcane spellcasting but they can't even make effective use of most of its spells due to low int and low proficiency. Trying to spike with damage doesn't provide significant returns either so you're left with buffs and no-save spells. So you're stuck trying to make 6 spells, mostly buffs and illusions until maze at 15, last over a whole day or investing in items to bolster your lower level slots while other martials buy items that make them better martials instead of just trying to close the gap.

[Temperans]

Lanathar wrote:

Why do these threads always devolve into going on and on about the Fighter? I guess it is “white room” math based arguments that drive this

Two comments on the fighter :

1. They are supposed to be the best at damage. The suggestion that others classes need to keep up seems flawed to me

2. They are the least interesting. I saw something higher up (haven’t read the whole thread) where someone argues that a fighter with magus dedication is a better magus than a magus. This is wrong. Because they are NOT a magus. They only have a spattering of the abilities. They might be better at damage than the magus (which might well be what the argument stated more clearly but I read it days ago).

But I find most people still look for theme and flavour when picking classes rather than pure mechanical effectiveness.

In the above scenario most people would likely just pick magus. Many will choose monk over fighter/monk or fighter/martial artist.

From the albeit relatively small (and of course anecdotal) sample size of characters I have GM’d or played in a group with (which total about 20) no one picked a fighter. Statistically that should be improbable. Even the game where we are basically crunching our way through Agents of Edgewatch with a virtual group from all over the world and massively scaled back role play. Even there we have no fighter

(Incidentally no bards either but a couple of multiclass ones)

This might just be my experience though. But the “but the Fighter…” seems a very internet hypothesis type discussion point rather than a gaming table one. Now perhaps when someone from one of my group finally brings a fighter to the table the dam will be breached and they will blow through everything and no one will ever look back

But it hasn’t happened yet.

The Fighter is used as the benchmark for what the most damage you could do is. The Monk/Champions are used as the benchmark for what the least damage you could do as a martial.

PF2 Magus was sold on the ability to use spells to nova with spellstrike. But damage calculations show that even when you do use your top level spells it hardly amounts to much. When you don't use those spells its straight up just bad. This means that on your best turn your are worse than a Fighter, while on your average turn you are worse than the other martials. So yeah people will bring in the Fighter, "oh this class is all about big hits" looks at numbers "oh wait the numbers are not really that big".

Similarly the reason why Schrodinger's Magus is denied so fervently is because people who say "oh the magus could have spells to deal with all these real issues". But then they are the ones to also say, "oh you need to use the highest level spell for damage". Either the Magus has defensive spells, which last for single combat, or they have offensive spells that aren't that much better than any of the other casters. Trying to do both just fails as you don't have the spell slots for it.

Another reason why Fighter MC caster is a better Magus, is that the #1 way people say to fix magus is to get a caster archetype. But the Fighter just has the better stats and action economy for supporting that. If Magus had a better action economy than you could say, "Oh Magus is good because of their great action economy". Which is the entire reason why that class was Popular in PF1 in the first place. But no, they have literally one of the worst action economy of PF2. Only maybe Alchemist.

[Temperans]

Regarding the whole "rotation of abilities". This is literally what Paizo tell players to do with Magus:

Combining your Abilities wrote:

It's often worth it to cast your conflux spells and make a Strike either on a turn where you can't make a Spellstrike, or as the last action on your turn after a Spellstrike. Sometimes, it might be worth it to cast a conflux spell even if you think you'll miss, because it can still recharge your Spellstrike for your next turn. Since a lot can ride on your Spellstrike, which uses your multiple attack penalty, it's much better if used as the first attack of the turn!

Players are quite literally told on their very first explanatory paragraph, "Hey you have to use spellstrike as often as possible. Build your actions around when you can use spellstrike."

The very first "Roleplaying the Magus" segment says,

Quote:

You channel spells through your weapon or body to hit enemies with a powerful attack and spell combination. Because your spells per day are limited, you often rely on trusty, carefully chosen cantrips and focus spells. When necessary, you know how to win a fight without magic.

Aka, "You deal lots of damage with your spells slots, but those are few so you rely on cantrips. You can even attack without using magic." But given how people say "oh use these very specific spells" and "oh don't just use cantrips they are not the main thing they do". NO, Paizo specifically says "Hey spellstrikes with cantrips is your main thing, the Higher level slots are just for nova purposes."

At least the got the "others probably..." partly right. Given our debate right now is very much "how the heck is this class supposed to function properly with how bad things are written" vs "oh this class is versatile so its fine". Sadly, as seen in this thread, they hardly have the skills to take care of themselves. With all the suggestions of "just have someone else provoke for your or cast defensive spells on you".

[Malk_Content]

I think we have different readings of the weight of words like "often" and "might be worth."

[Lanathar]

gesalt wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

If you could use your main ability every time you can, why would you ever use anything else?

Vote "NO!" to Spellstrike overpowerment!

Not sure if sarcasm but I'm pretty sure every CRB martial uses their main ability all time. Fighter and Rogue's are passive. Barbarian rage is one and done. Ranger uses it when they set targets. Monk compresses 2 actions into 1. The disconnect is that CRB "main abilities" aren't obtrusive to gameplay and keep the action economy open for maneuvers, special attacks, etc while post-CRB martials' (minus the summoner) lock them into rotations to keep up on basic damage and don't particularly do anything special or impressive when they deviate.

The magus tries to escape this with arcane spellcasting but they can't even make effective use of most of its spells due to low int and low proficiency. Trying to spike with damage doesn't provide significant returns either so you're left with buffs and no-save spells. So you're stuck trying to make 6 spells, mostly buffs and illusions until maze at 15, last over a whole day or investing in items to bolster your lower level slots while other martials buy items that make them better martials instead of just trying to close the gap.

Rogue sneak attack isn’t always available. Sure there are loads of ways to activate it but not always a guarantee. And then there is precision immunity

I noticed “CRB” martial. I assume this is deliberate as there was definitely someone earlier in this thread trying to make this argument for ALL martials but clearly realised that this is just not true - especially with swashbucklers. But also investigators

But why are these being discounted from the comparison?

Also champions have been missed because they don’t all have a damage boost. But those that do don’t have it “always on” either. Even their defensive power (the reaction) isn’t always available every turn for a wide variety of reasons

[CaffeinatedNinja]

[QUOTE="Lanathar"I noticed “CRB” martial. I assume this is deliberate as there was definitely someone earlier in this thread trying to make this argument for ALL martials but clearly realised that this is just not true - especially with swashbucklers. But also investigators

But why are these being discounted from the comparison?

Also champions have been missed because they don’t all have a damage boost. But those that do don’t have it “always on” either. Even their defensive power (the reaction) isn’t always available every turn for a wide variety of reasons

Math is easier on CRB martials, so they make a good baseline. Melee investigator is not a good example to bring up, since people have been complaining that melee investigators are basically awful since they were released.

(Can confirm that from play experience)

Champions don't really get included in damage math because they are primarily defensive. Their reaction is insanely powerful.

[gesalt]

Lanathar wrote:

Rogue sneak attack isn’t always available. Sure there are loads of ways to activate it but not always a guarantee. And then there is precision immunity.

I noticed “CRB” martial. I assume this is deliberate as there was definitely someone earlier in this thread trying to make this argument for ALL martials but clearly realised that this is just not true - especially with swashbucklers. But also investigators

But why are these being discounted from the comparison?

Also champions have been missed because they don’t all have a damage boost. But those that do don’t have it “always on” either. Even their defensive power (the reaction) isn’t always available every turn for a wide variety of reasons

I try to be deliberate and consistent in pointing out CRB martials vs post-CRB martials.

I discount them from comparison because they are near-universally worse than CRB martials. Investigator and swashbuckler are lesser rogues. Swashbuckler and Inventor rely on a d20 to activate their abilities. Inventor has a passive -1 levels 1-4 and 10-20. Gunslinger might be on par with CRB martials, but I don't trust fatal crits enough to feel like any build other than dual-wielding reaches that so I'll wait for more data on that. Summoner is the only one that reaches CRB level without any caveats.

(Good) Champion's "main thing" is to discourage attacking anyone but them. This is the rare case where their whole package comes together really nicely to accomplish this. Every other martial class has some form of damage booster be it +2, rage, etc, but champion lacks any such feature unless they build into it with archetyping in exchange for a damage penalty (one way or another) on enemies through their reaction and mitigation abilities. However, that same lack of damage is the reason why you see fighter/champion considered to be champion+ since you can steal the champion's abilities with archetyping.

And sure, sneak attack isn't always up or runs into immunity, but it also doesn't require much setup (trip and flank are common tactics for example). Although if I'm remembering my dpr data correctly, rogue going hard with sneak attacks could beat barbarian (at the cost of natural durability. I'd need to double check that though. You can run into the issue of needing to spend an action every turn to activate it which cuts into their damage but fortunately we just got a finesse elf reach spear which, combined with their double reaction and gang up, should cement rogue (thief especially) as an effective combatant.

Also, keep in mind that precision immunity has already been pointed out as being much rarer than something like AoO and that something else being bad or poor design is not an excuse for other instances of something being bad or being poorly designed. I understand wanting to introduce "tactical" decision making when something like it comes up, but the end result is that you stop pulling your weight when it comes up more than anything.