Me too I fought only affects the casting part. But the cavernshark show that cancels everything.
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Anyway, Spellstrike Triggering AoO, touch spells which shouldn't trigger aoe, defining mechanics as Bad or even unbalanced... I think that, once again, it's the old 1e approach who doesn't allow to accept a new system.
I played 1e once in my whole life and really didn't like it. I still want touch spells and especially Magus Spellstrike to not provoke AoO. Wanting Paizo to put quality of life and playability over an uptight sense of balance that's seemingly so feeble that the stroke of a breeze would break it, at least for once, is not "the old 1e approach".
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I play an Animal Barbarian and I know very well ranged combat is a big weakness of that Totem. Still, it is what I chose for my PC.And we are trying to find ways within the RAW to help the Magus player find solutions.I think the issue is that the only RAW "solution" is to ONLY ever take Starlit Span [or Inexorable Iron with a reach weapon] Hybrid Studies... So it's not a very satisfying answer for those that want to play other Hybrid Studies [or non-reach weapon types]. It's kind of like is barbarians rage only worked with Greatswords or the Giant Instinct. Sure the RAW solution to the problem would be to only ever play with a Greatswords or the Giant Instinct but that makes every other option pretty sucky and people wouldn't be too happy about it either.And that is a significantly more organic weakness that the class gets ways to avoid. It's not being punished for using it's main mechanic, it's just not as good when it's positioned poorly.
The same applies to ranged combatants getting put in melee. You're punished for putting yourself in a bad position, not for doing the main, unique ability of the class against a rather large portion of creatures.
If I use my Class' main mechanic (Rage) and my opponent flies away or otherwise stays at range, I cannot strike them at all, lest I break my anathema and lose my main weapon. TBH it feels worse than what the Magus is facing.
This is not a good analogy. I mean, if a melee magus's foe flies away or stays at range they can't spellstrike it either.
If I use my Class' main mechanic (Rage) and my opponent flies away or otherwise stays at range, I cannot strike them at all, lest I break my anathema and lose my main weapon. TBH it feels worse than what the Magus is facing.
Yep, but it also get free attacks from foes in melee too!!! :P
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This is not a good analogy. I mean, if a melee magus's foe flies away or stays at range they can't spellstrike it either.
If I use my Class' main mechanic (Rage) and my opponent flies away or otherwise stays at range, I cannot strike them at all, lest I break my anathema and lose my main weapon. TBH it feels worse than what the Magus is facing.
But they could have spells or another backup that the Barbarian does not have access to. Because Animal Barbarians cant use weapons.
This is not a good analogy. I mean, if a melee magus's foe flies away or stays at range they can't spellstrike it either.
If I use my Class' main mechanic (Rage) and my opponent flies away or otherwise stays at range, I cannot strike them at all, lest I break my anathema and lose my main weapon. TBH it feels worse than what the Magus is facing.
Although I agree that the analogy isn't good. I still thing that animal barbarian is even worse situation. The magus in the end still can do normal strikes or spells while the animal barbarian is completely forbidden by it's anathema to use weapon.
Even with magus solution noting is the best they still can do something.
But they could have spells or another backup that the Barbarian does not have access to. Because Animal Barbarians cant use weapons.This is not a good analogy. I mean, if a melee magus's foe flies away or stays at range they can't spellstrike it either.
If I use my Class' main mechanic (Rage) and my opponent flies away or otherwise stays at range, I cannot strike them at all, lest I break my anathema and lose my main weapon. TBH it feels worse than what the Magus is facing.
Well, the barbarian could have a ranged natural attack so it could attack at range and rage at the same time.
the animal barbarian is completely forbidden by it's anathema to use weapon.
That isn't true: they can use weapons just fine, just not when they rage. This isn't a huge penalty as Rage doesn't add to ranged damage for barbarians without the Raging Thrower feat.
That isn't true: they can use weapons just fine, just not when they rage. This isn't a huge penalty as Rage doesn't add to ranged damage for barbarians without the Raging Thrower feat.
In practice usually don't work like this. As you cannot cancel a rage and almost all barbarians start rage since the beginning. So if an opponent fly or take distance in a way you cannot reach your barbarian can only corse them!
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Extending Rune or Flying are good ways to counter foes in the air for an Animal Barbarian.
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You compared the fact that a occult spellcaster in a campaign with a lot resistant/imunity oppoents can do other things can still do other things like heal/buff and others control spell but once again are ignoring/underrating the fact the magus could do reach and ranged attacks to prevent AoO too.
No one is ignoring that, but "every magus should have a flickmace or halberd" is kind of a lame direction for Paizo to push the class.
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So if I catch a one action spell with my spell strike then it wouldn’t provoke AoO. If I cast a two action spell it will? If I cast spell strike at reach it probably won’t unless my opponent has reach.
More food for thought.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/p7ni2f/spellstrike_and_aoos/ ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
It would be nice if the devs comment on this in a timely fashion, so we don’t have to debate it for months.
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The number of actions does not matter. The list of components does.
And there isn't any real debate about whether the spell DOES still have its components, only people arguing about whether it SHOULD. So there isn't any need for a developer comment. If there was an errata that actually changed the activity, that would change things. Someone popping in to say "yes, the rules that aren't unclear at all do apply" wouldn't change anything.
If you cast a spell with a somatic component it will gain the manipulate action, which triggers AoO. I am unaware of any spellstrike spell without somatic.
Elemental Wrath gives a cantrip with only "only verbal components" that uses a spell attack. If you take Expansive Spellstrike, you can find some verbal only spells.
Spellcasters already have tools to deny enemy reactions. I know my magus carried a couple scrolls of hideous laughter just in case.
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But that only works with acid splash if an elf. That one is low damage and splash will hit you in melee if you aren't 10 feet out hah. Very low damage too, might be better off just swinging twice, it is less than half the damage of other cantrips.
Well it only works if you're elf or elf adjacent [elf, 1/2 elf, adopted], you can pick acid, cold, electricity, or fire and it's not hard to get a resistance 1/2 level to one of those damages: the damage isn't the greatest but vs a -5 for MAP weapon attack, I think it will do ok. If nothing else, it FEELS more like a magus.
I don't know of any other spells that aren't somatic that fit the requirements for spellstrike, even with expansive, although there might be a couple?
Power Word spells come to mind.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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@Benchak if Magus had more spell slots I would agree. But they only have 4. So those 4 spells better be worth the effort otherwise there is no point in bothering.
6, which is why I pointed out Studious Spells has options.
Also, several of those spells are just good buff options, which can kick off your arcane cascade, so it’s not like you’re wasting slots.
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The number of actions does not matter. The list of components does.
And there isn't any real debate about whether the spell DOES still have its components, only people arguing about whether it SHOULD. So there isn't any need for a developer comment. If there was an errata that actually changed the activity, that would change things. Someone popping in to say "yes, the rules that aren't unclear at all do apply" wouldn't change anything.
No a RAI ruling would be much appreciated.
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My thoughts on this are thus:
-AoO's are uncommon to rare in 2nd ed. This means that 15-25% of your opponents will actually have the ability to make an opportunity attack.
Percentage of distribution isn’t as relevant as scenario design, I could be assault a castle and 100% of my fighter opponents could have AoO.
The AoO rules seem like they where designed to discourage in melee casting and point blank archers. Since the magus is mostly a melee class it seems like their core function is being punished.
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-When an opponent does have an AoO, they will get only a single reaction.
Not always.
-Even if you do provoke the AoO while spellstriking, your action would only be disrupted on a critical hit. In most cases, against most opponents, you would succeed in your spellstrike. The chances of any given enemy disrupting your spellstrike are far less than missing your attack altogether.
I don't agree: Most times you're using a slot for your spellstrike, it's going to be on a boss type that's more likely to crit you making it more likely to lose the spell. They also don't have the HD or armor to suck up AoO like a fighter, champion or barbarian [instead of armor has temp hp] so even if it's not disrupted, it's not good to get free damage.
-The Eldritch trickster Rogue, Warpriest, and other gish-types don't seem to worry about AoO's, even though they are casting spells while adjacent to enemies. These spellcasters also have d8 for class HP. Nobody is talking about rewriting those classes.
Are they? I can't say it's my experience that any of those are hugging enemies while casting spells. I see Eldritch trickster Rogues cast cantrips from range, Warpriest buffing before getting in melee range and others mainly casting before or after melee, not during. This of course id different if for some reason the party found out that the foe 100% doesn't have an AoO.
I think people just want to have their cake and eat it too.
The issue is they are the ONLY class that is FORCED to cast in melee range for most of the subclasses. Every other character class does not have to and only does so if the character wishes to while the magus' main feature doesn't give them that option. That's why you'll see some people that don't see it as equivalent. A Eldritch trickster Rogue, Warpriest, and other gish-types have the option to cast out of melee while a spellstriking magus [outside the ranged option] doesn't.
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This complaint is no different than a Rogue fighting Plants/Oozes or Spellcasters fighting Golems all the time. These classes are meant to be disadvantaged against those types of enemies. This is no different.Plants/Oozes being immune to precision damage is also a bad mechanic! So, yes. The complaint is no different. Both are bad design choices.
Not really, because it is relatively obvious to determine that feature. You can look at an enemy and determine the likelihood of AoO based on their combat prowess. Big bad warrior type will probably have it, whereas a spellcaster probably doesn't. Even so, playing safe and using tactics that trigger without wasting other actions is a perfectly viable tactic.
By that same vein, golems being immune to magic is a bad mechanic, too, but you don't see people clamoring to get that nixed as well.
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This complaint is no different than a Rogue fighting Plants/Oozes or Spellcasters fighting Golems all the time. These classes are meant to be disadvantaged against those types of enemies. This is no different.Plants/Oozes being immune to precision damage is also a bad mechanic! So, yes. The complaint is no different. Both are bad design choices.Not really, because it is relatively obvious to determine that feature. You can look at an enemy and determine the likelihood of AoO based on their combat prowess. Big bad warrior type will probably have it, whereas a spellcaster probably doesn't. Even so, playing safe and using tactics that trigger without wasting other actions is a perfectly viable tactic.
By that same vein, golems being immune to magic is a bad mechanic, too, but you don't see people clamoring to get that nixed as well.
Those are also significantly more rare and aren't blanket "not allowed to do your thing", but have specific weaknesses that they reward people for exploiting. That stone golem? Actively hurt by Stone to Flesh.
You cannot compare the amount of monsters with AoO or the amount of monsters with precision immunity in the game to the amount of golems.
You're assuming a spellcaster will always have access to the one damage type that a given golem is affected by. Sorry, I didn't realize we were talking about Schrodinger's Wizard. While we're on the subject, Schrodinger's Magus wouldn't have a problem with AoOs either, funny how that works.
Having played a spellcaster and have come across this same exact situation multiple times now, I've found other ways besides my main schtick to effectively contribute to said combats. Putting a Magus in a similar situation isn't the end of the world for the class if the player can figure out other ways they can contribute to the party. Warpriests, Rogues, and other similar classes aren't dead because golems and precision immunity exists, the Magus is just fine.
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By that same vein, golems being immune to magic is a bad mechanic, too, but you don't see people clamoring to get that nixed as well.
Golems can be frustrating, but I'd argue they exist in a slightly different design space, because while their magic resistance is annoying, they're generally a pai in the ass for anyone to deal with and they're specifically built in such a way that spellcasters can actually excel against them with the right tools.
There's no such option for the rogue fighting plants or the magus getting clobbered by AoOs because they didn't realize the correct way to play their class.
Golems are also frankly a much narrower class of enemy.
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By that same vein, golems being immune to magic is a bad mechanic, too, but you don't see people clamoring to get that nixed as well.Well, a few things here. First, saying something else is a bad mechanic doesn't support keeping another one.
Second, LOTS of people were complaining about golems when the game came out. Golem hate was, and is, intense.
Third, golems are FAR rarer. For example, in the last 3 books of ExC and Last 3 Books of AoA, the average number of enemies per book (average of a percentage per book) with AoO is 24%. Basically 1 in 4. The average number of golems? Under 3%. About one in 35 enemies.
There have been questions about golems in the past, but nothing of hatred or frustration. They're a creature you can only brute-force destroy, you are particularly unlikely to utilize magic or other means to disable them. Doesn't make them totally unfair and shouldn't use them on parties because they have mechanics that practically completely invalidate certain party members, is precisely the point I was making.
"I can't use my main schtick 100% of the time" is a poor outlook of a game and is bad game design for a system that set itself out to create encounters that don't promote doing the same activities in repeated succession and expecting the same outcomes. The Magus not being able to Spellstrike every round is not the end of the class, just like the Rogue not being able to Sneak Attack or a Barbarian not being able to Rage or a Wizard not being able to cast a spell doesn't end their class.
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The magus is also a spellcaster who can struggle against golems.
Also, we've already established that flat-out precision immunity in creature types *is* poor design given how many classes rely on precision damage.
And again, there's no reason for anyone to take a comparison between the golems and creatures with AoOs when the quantity of the two are magnitudes apart.
If Golems made up 17% of total creatures, 30% of creatures leveled 16-20, and more than 50% of creatures level 21+, people would absolutely be complaining a whole lot more, because that's poor design.
In addition, full casters aren't only going to have offensive spells, and golems only care about spells that affect them directly. Your Wizard can still cast Haste, your Bard can still Inspire Courage, your Cleric can still heal, etc.
It's not anywhere near comparable to nearly 1/5 (and 1/3 at higher levels) of creatures having a mechanic that directly and immutably punishes the primary mechanic of a class.
There are 13 golems
Less than 1% of creatures in the game.
So Rogue, Investigator, and Swashbuckler. 3 out of, what 16 classes? That's a worse ratio than all of the spellcasting classes against Golems.
So they buff for a couple rounds and then they twiddle their thumbs or rummage through their bags for a consumable that is useful only for this niche? Not very engaging for the player.
This complaint is no different than a Rogue fighting Plants/Oozes or Spellcasters fighting Golems all the time. These classes are meant to be disadvantaged against those types of enemies. This is no different.Plants/Oozes being immune to precision damage is also a bad mechanic! So, yes. The complaint is no different. Both are bad design choices.Not really, because it is relatively obvious to determine that feature. You can look at an enemy and determine the likelihood of AoO based on their combat prowess. Big bad warrior type will probably have it, whereas a spellcaster probably doesn't. Even so, playing safe and using tactics that trigger without wasting other actions is a perfectly viable tactic.
By that same vein, golems being immune to magic is a bad mechanic, too, but you don't see people clamoring to get that nixed as well.
There is only 13 golems so it's a matter of numbers. There are close to 200 that that attacks of opportunity and some aren't those beefy fighter types like Wraith [undead], Umbral Dragon [dragon], Clockwork Soldier [construct], Flytrap Leshy [plant], Grindylow [aberration AND gets 2 reactions], Mummy Pharaoh [undead], Barghest [fiend], Fuming Sludge [ooze], Baomal [aberration], Hydra [beast], Lusca [abberation and 2 extra reactions!], Chimera [beast], Millindemalion [fey], Vrock [demon], Bunyip [animal], Giant Viper [animal], Krooth [animal], Tarrasque [beast], Spiny Eurypterid [animal], Giant Whiptail Centipede [animal], Giant Scorpion [animal]... Ect. This is just from skimming the entries with AoO and picking ones that looked different. I think about the only major type without AoO is swarm.
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"I can't use my main schtick 100% of the time" is a poor outlook of a game and is bad game design for a system that set itself out to create encounters that don't promote doing the same activities in repeated succession and expecting the same outcomes.
This whole thing is based upon the supposition that changing your tactics in this case creates some new, interesting gameplay opportunities... but in these examples they really don't.
The rogue who can't sneak attack because Paizo designed a bad monster isn't doing anything new or exciting. They're the same character just arbitrarily worse. Same thing with the Magus who can't spellstrike.
You're not pulling out your super-unique and innovative anti-plant/anti-aoo toolkit. You're doing the same thing you always do but now you're bad at it and probably hoping your GM didn't put too many fights like this in the game because there's really no redeeming quality here.
Next will you tell me how fun Wizards and Sorcerers are in dead magic zones too?
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Those opponents are exceedingly rare.
Moot as I was noting your statement was incorrect: "exceedingly rare" is more than never and that was my point.
That is why you have teammates to take the AoO. If the Boss is that tough, you need to act like a team. Have the fighter or Champion take a stride or interact action, instead of the 3rd MAP at -10 to take the AoO.
Or, here is a crazy idea, why should you have to jump through all those hoop to just use your main ability when both the fighter or Champion work fine without such hoops.
As someone who plays and eldritch trickster, I can say that 70% of the time, I am hugging the enemy to get the flank. If I know it has an AoO, I will either take the risk of that hit being a crit, delay until a martial character can trigger the reaction, or try to make them flatfooted some other way. If not, I will do a normal strike (A Magus can attack like everyone else too). Even though I was not able get off my most damaging spell attack, I am still providing a flank for my teammate. Again. You have to play as a team.
Maybe you're playing it wrong as that is not my experience. The ones I play with get flat-footed from something other than flank. It's much better, if you're playing as a team, to trip a foe so it's flat-footed to everyone: you know, like those helpful people that also take those AoO for you. Or a spellcaster casts Shockwave. Or Impending Doom [even a success makes them flat-footed]. Heck, even a Command.
A Magus can most definitely cast out of melee.
Ok, lets move those goalposts back to where they started: we're talking about spellstrike. The fact that they can ignore their main ability is besides the point.
It is only their spellstrike that has to be done in melee.
*slow claps* Yes, we ARE talking about how spellstrike provokes AoO after all.
I have played in many games where due to the nature of the opponent, that my character has been relegated to that of support or aiding. What makes the magus any different than any other character who finds themselves out of their comfort zone?
Sure sometimes that happens: the issue here is how often it can happen. It's not that anyone is special but that someone has a bigger burden than others do without a corresponding benefit. That and the magus really doesn't know he has to take a support role until he gets smacked upside his head because he dared to use his main feature.
Is the magus to be the only character who gets to act without consequence or thought?
No, as I showed it is difficult to tell who does or doesn't have an AoO without metagaming: that ooze might have it or that animal, or dragon, or demon or undead, or... And with NO real guidelines for Recall Knowledge, there is no guarantee that rolling it will let you know it has an AoO so it leads you to times when there is NO real chance for planning: you have a hard time avoiding an AoO you don't know about. Well, unless you never enter melee and use your main feature. :P
If you build a 'one trick' min-max magus, who is built to spellstrike at the expense of everything else, you are a detriment to your party if you find yourself unable to spellstrike.
If you think the magus is a one trick pony, it's PF2 that made it that way. It'd be one thing if things with an AoO had a that fact written on a board around their neck so you could plan for it instead of only finding out afterwards.
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Remember when it required an Interact action, and thus provoked AoO, to switch your grip for +1 AC from a weapon with the Parry trait?
Yeah. That made no sense either so they errata'd it...