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I dunno. Admittedly, haven't seen a magus in play but having to flex your round-to-round gameplay to the tune of about 1/3 enemies doesn't seem too burdensome. Immunity to Bleed, Fear, and Precision damage has been a real pain for my swashbuckler in Extinction Curse, but not overly so.
AoA also has a bit of a rep for being weirdly tuned in places. It might be worth checking with some of the newer APs to see how those numbers hold up.
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I dunno. Admittedly, haven't seen a magus in play but having to flex your round-to-round gameplay to the tune of about 1/3 enemies doesn't seem too burdensome. Immunity to Bleed, Fear, and Precision damage has been a real pain for my swashbuckler in Extinction Curse, but not overly so.
AoA also has a bit of a rep for being weirdly tuned in places. It might be worth checking with some of the newer APs to see how those numbers hold up.
Adding to the above, with fair frequency, the first time you become aware that AOO is a thing for a given target is when you take one in the face. That's not so much fun either. Immunity to fear/bleed/precision might be obnoxious to the players that depend on those effects, but it's more clearly predictable.
Even beyond htat, though, from a thematics perspective, the iconic image of the magus doesn't involve getting a sword to the face every time you take a swing at a defender. That's for those squishy mages who desperately want to escape but can't get away. The Magus is supposed to be up close to the enemy and stabbing them (with lightning).
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Actually, and I haven't delved into the ''jurisprudence'' if you will, but the spellstrike action does not have the manipulate trait.
It does specify you cast a spell but otherwise does not refer to needing hands to cast somatic spells or needing somatic or even concentrate tags.
This is further reinforced by the fact that 2 handed and sword and shield styles of hybrid study exist, and these two styles would be simply impossible to spellstrike with if you required the standard components of the cast a spell action.
Granted they are far more limited because of that, since they HAVE to spellstrike in order to deliver spells, not having a free hand. Or pick verbal only spells.
So IMHO, spellstrike does not in fact trigger AoO
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I would not raise a complaint if spellstriking didn't provoke attacks of opportunity. So far, our Magus is level 2 and it hasn't been a problem yet, but I'm keeping an eye out as we go.
My gut tells me that keeping AoOs against spellstrikes is more headache than it's worth. Sure, you can be tactical about it and shield first, or work with a champion, or things like that but it feels unduly cumbersome. Even fixes like feats that remove the problem would feel required in an already feat starved class.
In other words: it might be technically okay as-is, but removing the problem should give magus players a justifiable amount of fun for whatever balance concerns it raises.
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Actually, and I haven't delved into the ''jurisprudence'' if you will, but the spellstrike action does not have the manipulate trait.
It does specify you cast a spell but otherwise does not refer to needing hands to cast somatic spells or needing somatic or even concentrate tags.
This is further reinforced by the fact that 2 handed and sword and shield styles of hybrid study exist, and these two styles would be simply impossible to spellstrike with if you required the standard components of the cast a spell action.
Granted they are far more limited because of that, since they HAVE to spellstrike in order to deliver spells, not having a free hand. Or pick verbal only spells.
So IMHO, spellstrike does not in fact trigger AoO
Sorry, but that's just not correct.
Somatic components aren't blocked by having weapons in your hands, haven't been since the CRB gave us war priests and champions with swords and shields.
And activities with sub-actions don't erase the traits of those actions, in the same way that for example Sudden Charge still triggers AoOs for the move actions and MAP for the Strike.
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Actually, and I haven't delved into the ''jurisprudence'' if you will, but the spellstrike action does not have the manipulate trait.
It does specify you cast a spell but otherwise does not refer to needing hands to cast somatic spells or needing somatic or even concentrate tags.
This is further reinforced by the fact that 2 handed and sword and shield styles of hybrid study exist, and these two styles would be simply impossible to spellstrike with if you required the standard components of the cast a spell action.
Granted they are far more limited because of that, since they HAVE to spellstrike in order to deliver spells, not having a free hand. Or pick verbal only spells.
So IMHO, spellstrike does not in fact trigger AoO
Sorry, but that's just not correct.
Somatic components aren't blocked by having weapons in your hands, haven't been since the CRB gave us war priests and champions with swords and shields.
And activities with sub-actions don't erase the traits of those actions, in the same way that for example Sudden Charge still triggers AoOs for the move actions and MAP for the Strike.
You are correct, I don't know why but I thought having a free hand was still a thing.
Just checked the somatic rules and you can do it while holding shyte.
Then guess you better pick those cantrips that are verbal only!
EDIT: This little development makes me think that reach weapons with maguses (magi?) are going to become very golden.
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EDIT: This little development makes me think that reach weapons with maguses (magi?) are going to become very golden.
Strictly speaking, for melee, there's 0 reason to use anything else in 2e. The spacing game is too important.
That aside, this has been a known issue for awhile. Talk to your gm about it if they realize it and absolutely don't tell them otherwise. Or use a bow and do the braindead spellstrike, recharge, repeat and leave melee to somebody else.
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The frustrating thing about AoOs is that it's a little difficult to identify at a glance. So often times you'll only know there's an AoO because you get hit in the face and maybe even go down depending on when it happens. Which is kind of a bummer.
At least with precision immunity it tends to be based on certain anatomical traits you can often see at a glance (though fwiw, I think Paizo bringing back precision immunity was a big mistake too).
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If you suspect a possible AoO, try RK. Or try to trigger it and see what happens. And then you adjust your tactics accordingly.
That just comes down to RKing anything vaguely humanoid and hoping that's the 1 piece of information you get, which doesn't seem reliable. AoO is just kind of hard to peg down because why there's a general theme to monsters with them, lots of examples within those themes don't.
Adjusting your tactics sounds good on paper, but like... in practice what that amounts to is just not using your core class feature or grabbing a halberd/flickmace/whatever. It's not as dynamic as it sounds.
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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.
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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.
I'm going to say based on the initial post, even if what you consider "heavy" rates of AoO having enemies I think books 4 and 5 are fine. It's only book 6 where it reaches 38% where I think it's too much. I think 25-30% is okay. If you're a magus and you encounter those enemies, let your party know that you not well matched against such enemies, and ask them to focus on that enemy while you do something else.
And as mentioned, reach weapons can really help you out (assuming they don't have equal reach to you).
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Not that I disagree with AoO being very rough for Magus, but shouldn't golems be in their forte? Cantrips do amazing damage vs golems if you can get the correct one.
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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.
The rarity and predictability are both significant here. If the enemy is green and leafy, or they're fully translucent and without internal organs, then your rogue can pretty much guess that they're immune to precision, and switch to plan B. It probably won't happen all that often. For the magus with AOO, the monsters who have it are both reasonably frequent and significantly less predictable.
Also... it feels bad, and violates the fiction. Like, precision damage and slimes makes sense. If the whole reason you're doing extra damage is that you know exactly where to put that dirk and have the skills to make it happen, and you're fighting a slime that simply has no distinguishable organs, that makes sense. You may not like it, but it fits the fiction. The fiction of the magus, on the other hand, does not include having his target get a free swing at him every time he goes for his class-defining feature. It also doesn't involve making either reach weapons or ranged weapons mandatory. The classic magus weapon is the stabby-sword.
Speaking as someone who has no intention whatsoever of ever playing a magus. It just seems a bit unfair to them, especially in terms of imagery.
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And, like, you roll up on your target and attack with your class defining ability. The enemy gets an unexpected AoO and crits, thereby disrupting 1 out of 4 big spells you have for the day.
That just seems like a lot of negative fun wrapped up in a dense pill.
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Maybe we should turn this from a weakness to a feature. For example a feat something like this:
Baiting Strike 1 action, manipulate
Make a melee Strike. If an enemy responds to this with a reaction with the attack trait, that reaction contributes to their MAP on their next turn and they do not regain that reaction at the start of their turn.
(Language to be polished, obviously)
If you're a pessimist and you're expecting them to attack you next turn anyway, may as well take your medicine now, and hike their MAP so overall you'll get about-ish the same amount of attacks.
Might actually work better against hydra style monsters that use a flurry of attacks against all nearby PCs at the same MAP, which you just made worse.
Of course the main goal is to deny them a reaction next round. And the design of the magus class does seem to be about these multi-turn routines.
Not sure if it should be a class feat or maybe a Deception skill feat?
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I'm going to say based on the initial post, even if what you consider "heavy" rates of AoO having enemies I think books 4 and 5 are fine. It's only book 6 where it reaches 38% where I think it's too much. I think 25-30% is okay. If you're a magus and you encounter those enemies, let your party know that you not well matched against such enemies, and ask them to focus on that enemy while you do something else.
And as mentioned, reach weapons can really help you out (assuming they don't have equal reach to you).
I mean, I don't really see that logic? A lot of time those enemies are half the enemies, or all the enemies in a fight. And the bigger question is WHY does this vulnerability exist? Magus is hardly an overpowered class powerwise, why does it need to exist?
Might as well make fighters trigger AoO in melee combat too then.
I believe it exists because it exists for all casters. If they get rid of it for Magus, you can basically cast up to lvl 9 spells with no risk of disruption. All casters would want that including the summoner. That isn't how Paizo wants spells to be.
There is already far fewer AoOs in the game and the risk of disruption is extremely low occurring on a critical hit.
That is why I think they left it in. You get to alphastrike using a single attack roll for an attack and a spell for 2 actions. The risk is you get AoOed casting spells through your weapon. Seems balanced.
I believe it exists because it exists for all casters. If they get rid of it for Magus, you can basically cast up to lvl 9 spells with no risk of disruption. All casters would want that including the summoner. That isn't how Paizo wants spells to be.There is already far fewer AoOs in the game and the risk of disruption is extremely low occurring on a critical hit.
That is why I think they left it in. You get to alphastrike using a single attack roll for an attack and a spell for 2 actions. The risk is you get AoOed casting spells through your weapon. Seems balanced.
Regular cast a spell should still trigger it. But spellstrike is part of your melee rotation with cantrips for basic damage. It isn't some huge risk with big payoff. The freaking fighter is doing more damage anyways, and never has to worry about it.
I think people think spellstrikes on average are a lot more damage than they actually are. And the big risk isn't losing the spell (although that is very frustrating) it is dying. You are a d8 MAD class in close combat. Eating AoO's will put you on the floor.
Maybe if they put a feat in to remove it for Cantrips, that would be fairly balanced. Though even cantrips can hit like a truck if you're striking at full attack using true strike. I haven't seen a Magus in play yet, but I'm about to. So I'll get some experience seeing how they work in PF2.
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Another issue I don’t see mentioned as much as taking damage from AoOs is getting disrupted by AoOs. AC descales as you go up in levels. The average level 20 monster hits you 80% of the time whereas at level 1 it was closer to 60%.
You’re significantly more likely to get your whole spellstrike disrupted by something with AoO at 11+. Which is about 20% of monsters from 11-15 and 30% from 16-20.
And that’s specifically AoO, not anything else that can screw up your action econ as a magus. A tripped magus is a sad magus.
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Let me see. Average martial AC at 20 is proficiency +26, +3 item bonus, +5 base armor or dex for an average base AC of 44.
Ancient Umbral dragon +38 to hit.
Balor: +40 to hit.
These are only CR 20 creatures.
Yeah. That AoO disrupt could be a real problem at higher level. The casting with no AoO while spellstriking may have to be worked in as a class feature at higher level. That is super lame to have your main spell attacks disrupted because you entered melee. Seems a Magus would learn how to mitigate that or they would die a lot as they progressed in level.
Here, I even figured out where to put it without eating page space hah. I made it in the magus class features, so MC magus doesn't get it (Fighter Magus MC is good enough already...)
Original!
You study spells so you can combine them with your
attacks or solve problems that strength of arms alone
can’t handle. You can cast arcane spells using the
Cast a Spell activity, and you can supply material,
somatic, and verbal components when casting spells.
Because you’re a magus, you can draw replacement
sigils with the tip of your weapon or your free hand
for spells requiring material components, replacing
them with somatic components instead of needing a
material component pouch.Tweaked (Same Space Taken)
You study spells so you can combine them with your
attacks. You can cast arcane spells using the Cast
a Spell activity, and you can supply material,
somatic, and verbal components when casting spells.
Because you’re a magus, you can draw replacement
sigils with your weapon or free hand for spells
requiring material components, replacing them with
somatic components. When casting a spell as part of
a spellstrike, you may replace any somatic components
with verbal components.
Even with this tweak there's some classes and creatures that also do AoO against concentration actions too.
I'm not necessarily convinced this is as big if an issue as it's being made out to be especially since Steady Casting, Reach Weapons, and Ranged Weapons are baked into the class. Further, they can take advantage of defensive spells more easily than a Fighter could.
That said, there's probably room for something like a defensive casting feat that works similarly to how Mobility works for rogues. You could even restrict it to working with Spellstrikes with cantrips or by adding an action cost.
I agree here. But if they was't put in SoM I believe that Paizo don't want a defensive casting ability.
Let's remember that 1e Magus (and any other spellcaster even from 3.5) can cast at melee using Concentration as Defensive Casting. I remember that how concentration progress the caster becomes progressively unable to fail in their casts once the skill progression is way greater than spells DC.
When Paizo made the 2e it chooses to remove AoO from all to put only in some specific monsters and classes. But it also remove all defensive casting too. Making the idea that you can cast in melee but you risk to receive a AoO if you don't know your opponent.
For magus specifically as many already said thay can have reach and range alternative if want to "completely" avoid AoO (but still can receive ranged AoO depending of the monster like Lesser Death, but it's quite rare, in fact this monster is rare :P) so being honest at last we have efficient alternatives to solve the question just using ranged/reach weapons this is something that don't happen to classes that depend from precision damage for example that can't have any option to circumvent precision imune creatures.
So being honest the Magus with AoO risk it's fine IMO.
Here, I even figured out where to put it without eating page space hah. I made it in the magus class features, so MC magus doesn't get it (Fighter Magus MC is good enough already...)
Original!
You study spells so you can combine them with your
attacks or solve problems that strength of arms alone
can’t handle. You can cast arcane spells using the
Cast a Spell activity, and you can supply material,
somatic, and verbal components when casting spells.
Because you’re a magus, you can draw replacement
sigils with the tip of your weapon or your free hand
for spells requiring material components, replacing
them with somatic components instead of needing a
material component pouch.Tweaked (Same Space Taken)
You study spells so you can combine them with your
attacks. You can cast arcane spells using the Cast
a Spell activity, and you can supply material,
somatic, and verbal components when casting spells.
Because you’re a magus, you can draw replacement
sigils with your weapon or free hand for spells
requiring material components, replacing them with
somatic components. When casting a spell as part of
a spellstrike, you may replace any somatic components
with verbal components.Even with this tweak there's some classes and creatures that also do AoO against concentration actions too.
I'm not necessarily convinced this is as big if an issue as it's being made out to be especially since Steady Casting, Reach Weapons, and Ranged Weapons are baked into the class. Further, they can take advantage of defensive spells more easily than a Fighter could.
That said, there's probably room for something like a defensive casting feat that works similarly to how Mobility works for rogues. You could even restrict it to working with Spellstrikes with cantrips or by adding an action cost.
I agree here. But if they was't put in SoM I believe that Paizo don't want a defensive casting ability.
Let's remember that 1e Magus...
A lot of big, powerful creatures have reach at high level along with AoO.
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So IMHO, spellstrike does not in fact trigger AoO
This was my reaction. "Spellstrike triggers attacks of opportunity?"
However I am 99% sure the intent of the class was not to create someone who eats dirt against anything with an AOO, so I'll look forward to any errata on the subject.
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Maybe if they put a feat in to remove it for Cantrips, that would be fairly balanced. Though even cantrips can hit like a truck if you're striking at full attack using true strike. I haven't seen a Magus in play yet, but I'm about to. So I'll get some experience seeing how they work in PF2.
I believe it exists because it exists for all casters. If they get rid of it for Magus, you can basically cast up to lvl 9 spells with no risk of disruption. All casters would want that including the summoner. That isn't how Paizo wants spells to be.There is already far fewer AoOs in the game and the risk of disruption is extremely low occurring on a critical hit.
That is why I think they left it in. You get to alphastrike using a single attack roll for an attack and a spell for 2 actions. The risk is you get AoOed casting spells through your weapon. Seems balanced.
Regular cast a spell should still trigger it. But spellstrike is part of your melee rotation with cantrips for basic damage. It isn't some huge risk with big payoff. The freaking fighter is doing more damage anyways, and never has to worry about it.
I think people think spellstrikes on average are a lot more damage than they actually are. And the big risk isn't losing the spell (although that is very frustrating) it is dying. You are a d8 MAD class in close combat. Eating AoO's will put you on the floor.
One easy way to 'fix' it mixing with true strike is to make the ability to avoid AoO a fortune effect.
Tweaked (Same Space Taken)
You study spells so you can combine them with your
attacks. You can cast arcane spells using the Cast
a Spell activity, and you can supply material,
somatic, and verbal components when casting spells.
Because you’re a magus, you can draw replacement
sigils with your weapon or free hand for spells
requiring material components, replacing them with
somatic components. When casting a spell as part of
a spellstrike, you may replace any somatic components
with verbal components.
Clarifying: Replace the Material components with Somatic components. Then replace the Somatic components with Verbal components.
Including the originally Material components? Or do those stay being Somatic?
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Another issue I don’t see mentioned as much as taking damage from AoOs is getting disrupted by AoOs. AC descales as you go up in levels. The average level 20 monster hits you 80% of the time whereas at level 1 it was closer to 60%.
You're numbers aren't wrong, but I've found that, in practice, this just isn't true.
By the time you're high level you have numerous options for avoiding and/or mitigating damage that the math--though terrible looking on paper--actually ends up in your favor.
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Another issue I don’t see mentioned as much as taking damage from AoOs is getting disrupted by AoOs. AC descales as you go up in levels. The average level 20 monster hits you 80% of the time whereas at level 1 it was closer to 60%.You're numbers aren't wrong, but I've found that, in practice, this just isn't true.
By the time you're high level you have numerous options for avoiding and/or mitigating damage that the math--though terrible looking on paper--actually ends up in your favor.
Sure, there are options to be avoiding damage like Disappearance (which is a pretty broken spell) or invis 4. You can scrollify either of these by then for a pretty low cost.
Heck you could even shut down AoOs for an entire encounter by having a friendly caster throw out a roaring applause (6), which is also a trivial price to pay at that level.
Should the magus be balanced around the assumption that they spend a bunch of gold on defensive consumables, spend their small number of slots solely on defensive spells or have a friendly caster giving them defense? Magus isn’t notably better than other classes (in fact I’d say it’s notably worse than most other martials). It’s not buying more power in return for their main feature triggering AoO (if it were, that would also be an issue), so I don’t really see a reason it should be triggering AoO.
AoO is many times more common than precision immunity at higher levels, and as other posters have pointed out much harder to predict. Precision immunity also doesn’t take away your entire strike damage, only the finisher/sneak attack/strategic. Which, yes, sucks and shouldn’t be a thing, but an AoO is potentially taking away 2 of your actions with no effect and dealing significant damage to you… and 4/5 subclasses will find it extremely hard to play around.
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Well, should I play a Magus:
If I have the opportunity,I will try some RK to know if the opponent has AoO.
If I can't, I will try to provoke an AoO, or ask a fellow PC to do so as soon as possible, so as to avoid spellstriking blind and risk losing one of my big assets.
If it seems like the best tactical choice given the circumstances, I will risk spellstriking blindly.
A related example. As a 3rd-level Bard, I decided to cast Calm Emotions on the group of our undead foes before they could scatter. I did not have time to RK first, so I went in blind, using one of my big slots without knowing if they could even be affected. And they were immune, so I wasted it.
Too bad, but it was my decision to try nevertheless.
AoO is many times more common than precision immunity at higher levels, and as other posters have pointed out much harder to predict. Precision immunity also doesn’t take away your entire strike damage, only the finisher/sneak attack/strategic. Which, yes, sucks and shouldn’t be a thing, but an AoO is potentially taking away 2 of your actions with no effect and dealing significant damage to you… and 4/5 subclasses will find it extremely hard to play around.
A Magus don't lose it's 2-actions when hit by AoO. It only loose it spell's part. It lost only it's spell damage/effect not affecting the normal hit damage. Also usually this only happens once in the round if AoO is triggered by other creature you usually can spellstrike without afraid.
And repeating what I said. There's also others ways to avoid AoO. A Magus could do a reach or range attack to avoid being inside the opponent reach area also if you use some tricks like level 4 invisibility, Mislead and Disappearance spells to avoid trigger the effect.
About the risk to face a precision immunity creature over a AoO creature it's may vary depending from AP but all sort of incorporeal, swarm, ooze and some aberrations are imune to precision damage, also protean creatures have precision resistance. This number is close to number of creatures who have AoO.
I don't think that designer made magus without notice that can trigger AoO in spellstrikes, this was openly discussed so if this still here is probably because the design wants.
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Honestly, I really hope Paizo stops thinking making core melee features trigger reactions is okay. Between Spellstrike and other stuff like Inventor having an AoO that triggers AoO (lmao). If you're in a game where AoO is rare, then it's not that huge of a deal, yes. Well, I play in highly militaristic games where more than half of enemies are humanoid warriors with AoO, and I'm sure I'm not the only one in similar conditions. In such a game, playing a Magus means you either have most of your combat contribution nullified by being damaged back whenever you damage people, have to avoid using your core class feature entirely, or have to spend a bunch of resources just to even out the playing field with... any other class that isn't punished by the game for doing their core rotation.
And I ask here: this makes the class extremely volatile in an unfun way, and in return for what? Magus would hardly be overpowered if Spellstrike didn't trigger. In fact, it wouldn't touch their power ceiling at all, it would only help them a lot in their worst case scenarios. In the end, I think this is probably yet another case of Paizo putting the fear of making something even slightly powerful over quality of life.