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Well, I went looking back at the text for Spellstrike, and...
"The effects of the spell don’t occur immediately but are imbued into your attack instead. Make a melee Strike with a weapon or unarmed attack. Your spell is coupled with your attack, using your attack roll result to determine the effects of both the Strike and the spell."
So, it's not entirely clear, but by my read, the "are imbued into your attack instead" means something. The conditional +1 to hit is one of the effects of the spell, after all.
I'd lean towards having the +1 to hit apply to spellstrike where appropriate
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I don't see it specifying an attack roll type. So the best RAW that I can read into it is that it would work with the attack roll made with Spellstrike.
What that means for balance is a different question entirely. A +1 bonus is fairly significant. And it feels, to me at least, that the attack roll bonus and the persistent damage are incentives to actually use the spell even though it is a touch range spell that a Wizard couldn't cast without being in melee range and provoking AO (or using a familiar to deliver). A Starlit Span Magus using it doesn't have those drawbacks.
That said, I would probably allow the bonus to the Magus attack roll. Because I don't hate my players.
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I would be fine with it. I agree with Sanityfaerie, that the language of Spellstrike seems to imply that the +1 should apply.
Also, I am ok giving a Magus a +1 to hit with one of their 4 spells for the day. Shocking Grasp at level 4 does 4d12, or an average of 24 damage. Acid Arrow averages 29.5 assuming only one round of persistent damage. Chromatic ray does an average of 36. Telekinetic projectile does 18.
At on a level 6 slot, SG does an average of 36. Disintegrate averages 33 on a successful save, or 66 on a fail. AA averages 42. TP averages 25.
Shocking Grasp isn't so great that a +1 is going to make it overpowered when you are using a spellslot while leaving plenty of damage on the table if you used a better spell.
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I disagree with sanityfaerie, the ability gives you a strike and then you cast a spell and since you never actually make the spell attack with shocking grasp so the +1 never applies.
But it's a cool feature of the spell so I let it work in my home games.
Also, I am ok giving a Magus a +1 to hit with one of their 4 spells for the day. Shocking Grasp at level 4 does 4d12, or an average of 24 damage. Acid Arrow averages 29.5 assuming only one round of persistent damage. Chromatic ray does an average of 36. Telekinetic projectile does 18.
At on a level 6 slot, SG does an average of 36. Disintegrate averages 33 on a successful save, or 66 on a fail. AA averages 42. TP averages 25.
Shocking Grasp isn't so great that a +1 is going to make it overpowered when you are using a spellslot while leaving plenty of damage on the table if you used a better spell.
Shocking grasp does 5d12 (33) and an extra 1d4+3 persistent vs metal at 4 and 7d12 (46) and +1d4+6 persistent vs metal at 6. It starts at 2d12 not 1d12.
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I disagree with sanityfaerie, the ability gives you a strike and then you cast a spell
That's not the order though: it's cast a spell then Strike. "You Cast a Spell that takes 1 or 2 actions to cast and requires a spell attack roll. The effects of the spell don't occur immediately but are imbued into your attack instead. Make a melee Strike with a weapon or unarmed attack. Your spell is coupled with your attack, using your attack roll result to determine the effects of both the Strike and the spell."
I can see "imbued into your attack instead" including the +1 circumstance bonus as the Strike roll is the roll for your spell too. There is also the fact that it is a "bonus to your attack roll" and not on your Spell attack roll, which is more inclusive. IMO, I'd say it's a grey area, as you could make a RAW argument either way and I don't see a 'too good to be true' argument holding water. If I ran it, I'd have no issue allowing it even if it was a RAW only game.
On a 6th level slot, Shocking Grasp deals 5d12 upfront and 1d4+5 as persistent, while Acid Arrow deals 7d8 upfront and 3d6 as persistent. If we only consider the persistent damage hitting for one round, SG deals 40 average and AA deals 42 average. The way I look at it, that +1 makes it much more worth to use than just 2 increase in average damage because it contributes to higher crit chance. (assuming used with True Strike it is a quite high chance to crit)The way I look at it, Shocking Grasp has the highest possible maximum damage, and unless you want something dead really fast, it is not worth to use a spell slot for it since even the cantrips provide a really good amount of damage. But if I was going to use one of my spell slots for increased burst damage, or two slots to add in True Strike for extra accuracy, I would probably prefer Shokcing Grasp.
Yeah, I dropped a d12 there, but I think the point still stands. It's only as good or worse than other spell options at the same level, it is only 1 of your 4 spells per day, and that +1 isn't going to hit against most enemies. At level 11+ you are fighting a lot more demons and dragons and a lot less guys in full plate. So you are risking losing 7.5 average damage in exchange for a +1 to hit against some enemies.