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But it smooths them out in a way that makes everything worse.
Like, I agree that basic spellcasting is strictly worse, as you lose a slot for no benefit (which is why I suspect an error), but your change would repeat this error throughout the entire progression. Bounded would never get a benefit over regular spellcasting progression, and they'd still lose the majority of their bottom slots.
Well, okay, not never. At 14th, they'd gain additional, restricted slot to their 3rd highest level in exchange for the loss of all levels below that. But as you seem to be assuming breadth on the spellcaster benefits when you're comparing the two, you'd get no benefit at all for the loss of 2 slots per level below that 3rd highest level.
But it smooths them out in a way that makes everything worse.
Like, I agree that basic spellcasting is strictly worse, as you lose a slot for no benefit (which is why I suspect an error), but your change would repeat this error throughout the entire progression. Bounded would never get a benefit over regular spellcasting progression, and they'd still lose the majority of their bottom slots.
Well, okay, not never. At 14th, they'd gain additional, restricted slot to their 3rd highest level in exchange for the loss of all levels below that. But as you seem to be assuming breadth on the spellcaster benefits when you're comparing the two, you'd get no benefit at all for the loss of 2 slots per level below that 3rd highest level.
/shrug. It was just something I typed up quickly.
Not counting the studious spell slots, at lvl 14/15 they gain 2 3rds in exhange for a 4th (I would take that trade)
At lvl 16/17 two 4ths for a 5th.
So the 3rd level of spells on the chart aren't the studious spells? Meaning they'd now get 3 levels of spells instead of the normal 2 non-mc bounded casters get, and studious spells on top?
The studious spells are marked. Remember, spreading their spells over more than 2 levels is a negative, not a positive. You can still cast a lvl 3 spell with a lvl 4 slot. Under this off the cuff idea a MC caster would never get more than 4 spells, just like a magus, just spread out a bit more.
The studious spells are a class feature magus also gets (so magus really gets 6 spells total not 4) but these are less and/or lower level than magus gets.
So your proposal would be to split the Basic/Expert/Master bound spell casting benefits out from the studious spells, but have the feat grant both, correct?
On its own, your BEM bound casting seems across the board worse. Not just from what is currently offered (as I disagree with your trade-offs being worth it), but also worse when compared with BEM spellcasting benefits for full caster classes. You'd lose everything below your 3rd tier of spells for an additional 3rd tier spell, and even that only kicks in at 14th. Adding studious back in sort of assuages this (still trade offs, but I think you'd probably wind up ahead of caster MCs, certainly in the expert level ranges), but you'd now need something equivalent to that for all bound caster MCs, because the benefits themselves would no longer carry their own.
It might have been cool if bounded spellcasting slots for archetypes were in some way tied into/with gaining their class feats. Making them worse if you want dedicated archetype spellcasting (because you can't have as much as unbounded spellcaster archetypes, even with investment), but more versatile, and so a decent value for your feat slots compared to other archetypes which largely focus on martial stuff or spellcasting stuff exclusively.
Like, you could give a Lv 1 class feat at Lv 8 after you take basic bounded casting, a Lv 2 class feat when you take expert bounded casting, and a Lv 4 class feat when you take master bounded casting. And it would be some extra stuff. But I think with how much is lost from archetype bounded, adding in the feats would only help them catch up to the power level of usual archetype spellcasting, to the point that it might be better to have those class feats be Lv 2, 4 and 6 instead.
Or, say, having the spell progression be
★Lv 2 Dedication: Spellcasting and 2 cantrips
★Lv 4 Basic: 1st Lv slot, extra 2nd Lv slot at Lv 6, and the 1st Lv slot upgrading to 3rd at Lv 8.
★Lv 12 Expert: 3rd Lv slot + the 2nd Lv slot upgrades to 4th Lv for a total of 3/3/4, becoming 4/4/5 at Lv 14 and 5/5/6 at Lv 16.
★Lv 18 Master: Lv 4 class feat + extra slot + upgrades for a total of 6/6/6/7, becoming 7/7/7/8 at Lv 20. (In both cases, partially out of respect for full bounded casters never getting a 10th Lv spell and thus having their progression stop at Lv 17, 8/8/9/9.)
*Lv 10/16 Breadth: Possible inclusion to avoid theoretically overshadowing breadthless normal archetypes. 1 extra slot which is 1 level lower than the archetype's max, + a class feat and/or a cantrip or two, while either Lv 12 Expert or Lv 18 Master (depending on when the theoretical problem starts) doesn't give its extra slot.
So, usual archetype spellcasting is this
And without breadth it's instead this
While bounded archetype spellcasting would go like this
Compared to vanilla archetype bounded which is like this
The two approaches could be combined. If the breadth "tax" was included with bounded archetype casting, that might leave a bit of power room to add low-level class feats in the basic, expert and/or master feats, or perhaps I'm misjudging the power of having one or two more highish Lv spell slots at the expense of all lower utility slots. And having more cantrips alongside the one or two extra highish slots would also make for a decent niche to give archetype bounded casters, perhaps more expected than low-level class feats despite my appreciation of those for the variety and slight "martial" flavor.
There are options, in any case. It remains frustrating to me that multiclass archetypes aren't tested or asked about in playtests, since a good number of the multiclass archetypes have turned out pretty underwhelming when it comes to their more unique traits (while a few turn out to retain a lot of power and become weirdly "meta" picks).
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I definitely don't want a build taking Magus archetype and Spellstriker who would then get the same spellcasting abilities as they would if taking Wizard archetype feats.
When people take a bounded casting archetype, it is because they find good value in the other specialties of the archetype : Spellstriker for the Magus MC, the eidolon for the Summoner MC. No need to add to those the very casting feats that give value to the normal casting archetypes.
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No need to add to those the very casting feats that give value to the normal casting archetypes.
Or if you are, just give the exact same benefits instead of making new ones. After the last couple days discussion, I prefer the benefits as they are (with the suspected error to basic fixed), but I’d rather get the exact same spellcasting benefits as full classes rather than a more complicated route to get to more or less the same spot (sorry CN; I genuinely want to like your proposal, but I think you should just houserule in normal spellcasting benefits rather than your other fixes).
★Lv 4 Basic: 1st Lv slot, extra 2nd Lv slot at Lv 6, and the 1st Lv slot upgrading to 3rd at Lv 8.
★Lv 12 Expert: 3rd Lv slot + the 2nd Lv slot upgrades to 4th Lv for a total of 3/3/4, becoming 4/4/5 at Lv 14 and 5/5/6 at Lv 16.*Lv 10/16 Breadth: Possible inclusion to avoid theoretically overshadowing breadthless normal archetypes. 1 extra slot which is 1 level lower than the archetype's max, + a class feat and/or a cantrip or two, while either Lv 12 Expert or Lv 18 Master (depending on when the theoretical problem starts) doesn't give its extra slot.
Only change I would suggest to this is what I mentioned already, upgrading the 2nd level slot to 4th at level 10 as part of the basic feat, That would tie neatly into your breadth suggestion, as when you’d lose that 2nd level slot, you’d gain it back as a breadth slot.
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This thread is pretty much turning into a homebrew thread right? Like, if you are unsatisfied with the MC archetypes for Magus and Summoner, you are probably homebrewing a solution for your table and not honestly expecting the developers to go back in and significantly changing them in an errata?
I get having general discussion threads for people trying to understand why choices were made, but it seems like people have either decided that they disagree with the choices that were made, or think that they are fine, and thus folks unsatisfied with the existing feats are probably going to be much happier creating some kind of balanced alternative with other people that want to see those changes, so that they can be implemented at your own table.
As far as "But I want to use these homebrewed feats in PFS" it is way to easy to get exactly full caster MC casting in addition to the feats that you want from a magus MC to expect any kind of significant change to happen now.
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How do people take into account the fact that the Eldritch Archer's Eldritch shot takes 3 actions, whereas Spellstrike takes only 2 ?
That has a big value.
IMO the bounded casting feats are right where they should be and there is no need for a power-up.
Of course, people can homebrew this as they wish.
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How do people take into account the fact that the Eldritch Archer's Eldritch shot takes 3 actions, whereas Spellstrike takes only 2 ?
That has a big value.
With recharge, they are both 3 actions so it's a sidegrade if talking about the class or if you're talking about the multiclass spellstrike, you can do multiple Eldritch shots a combat vs 1/min with spellstrike so... where was the big value again? It'd only ever be a "big value" if you only ever want to use them once per combat.
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How do people take into account the fact that the Eldritch Archer's Eldritch shot takes 3 actions, whereas Spellstrike takes only 2 ?
That has a big value.
IMO the bounded casting feats are right where they should be and there is no need for a power-up.
Of course, people can homebrew this as they wish.
Damage-wise, Eldritch Shot is useless as it reduces your damage output unless you use a Hero Point if you fail. Using one of your spell slots increase your damage negligeably compared to a cantrip.
So, roughly, you can ignore Eldritch Shot.
Spellstrike with a melee weapon and True Strike deals tremendous damage (especially against bosses). At least 50% more than a Fighter making 3 attacks.
Spellstrike is really strong, hence all the limitations on it.
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With recharge, they are both 3 actions so it's a sidegrade if talking about the class or if you're talking about the multiclass spellstrike, you can do multiple Eldritch shots a combat vs 1/min with spellstrike so... where was the big value again? It'd only ever be a "big value" if you only ever want to use them once per combat.How do people take into account the fact that the Eldritch Archer's Eldritch shot takes 3 actions, whereas Spellstrike takes only 2 ?
That has a big value.
As Superbidi mentioned, True Strike (or Devise a Stratagem) can be used with Spellstrike. Not with Eldritch shot.
And yes, Nova Strike, even only once in combat, is the best use of Spellstrike IMO.
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I think the issue that some people are having here is just that bounded casting, by itself, for the classes that get it, is much worse than full casting. Casting is not the reason to MC into either Magus or Summoner.
Lots of archetypes offer casting that is essentially a feat for just one or two spells total. At least the basic casting feat for these MC archetypes give you access to all the scrolls, wands and staves that you could reasonably want to use.
Paizo spending any more time "improving" the spell casting feats of these 2 MC archetypes does absolutely nothing to make new character concepts playable. It would only serve to push these archetypes into the realm of much, much, much better MC archetypes to take than any full caster archetype for a martial character. Especially the Magus archetype. Getting access to the spell strike feat, and basically equal power to the spell casting progression of a full caster archetype makes full caster archetypes a complete joke.
All fighters would go Magus if they were going to be interested in casting spells. That is a bad direction for the game to go.
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I don't think that's what people here are saying. It doesn't need a lot to be better. Just a small bit is needed to justify the feats a little to make it a side grade rather than just worse. Less slots makes sense. The feat cost could be changed or add something to them like giving nerfed hybrid study benefits or scaling combat proficiency for your eidolon. Those would serve to benefit specific concepts.I think the issue that some people are having here is just that bounded casting, by itself, for the classes that get it, is much worse than full casting. Casting is not the reason to MC into either Magus or Summoner.
Lots of archetypes offer casting that is essentially a feat for just one or two spells total. At least the basic casting feat for these MC archetypes give you access to all the scrolls, wands and staves that you could reasonably want to use.Paizo spending any more time "improving" the spell casting feats of these 2 MC archetypes does absolutely nothing to make new character concepts playable. It would only serve to push these archetypes into the realm of much, much, much better MC archetypes to take than any full caster archetype for a martial character. Especially the Magus archetype. Getting access to the spell strike feat, and basically equal power to the spell casting progression of a full caster archetype makes full caster archetypes a complete joke.
All fighters would go Magus if they were going to be interested in casting spells. That is a bad direction for the game to go.
Being a "side grade" of what full casters get for their spell casting progression is making those archetypes meaningless. Good spell casting is why people archetype into those classes.
Things other than spell casting are tied to other feats, which are already worth taking from the MC. If the MC gives those other things that are better than what full casters get, and gives casting options that are equal in power to what full casters get, then you have an obviously better archetype.
Look beyond MC archetypes and you will see that access to casting spells is often given at worse than what the bound caster MC classes give. These comparisons are only looking at the MC option that is supposed to give the best casting abilities, while ignoring that there are lots of archetype feats that don't live up to that level.
I think the issue that some people are having here is just that bounded casting, by itself, for the classes that get it, is much worse than full casting. Casting is not the reason to MC into either Magus or Summoner.
Lots of archetypes offer casting that is essentially a feat for just one or two spells total. At least the basic casting feat for these MC archetypes give you access to all the scrolls, wands and staves that you could reasonably want to use.Paizo spending any more time "improving" the spell casting feats of these 2 MC archetypes does absolutely nothing to make new character concepts playable. It would only serve to push these archetypes into the realm of much, much, much better MC archetypes to take than any full caster archetype for a martial character. Especially the Magus archetype. Getting access to the spell strike feat, and basically equal power to the spell casting progression of a full caster archetype makes full caster archetypes a complete joke.
All fighters would go Magus if they were going to be interested in casting spells. That is a bad direction for the game to go.
I do think the developers may revisit and errata these, as I think the basic bounded spellcasting benefit has a mistake. They may not; it’s a bad feat but not the end of the world, as the next feat “fixes” it.
As to the rest of what CN has been talking about, no I don’t think those changes will be made. That’s (IMO) properly the realm of homebrew, where what I’m talking about looks like a genuine power unbalance for that specific feat only.
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You know, ancestors oracle with summoner archetype would be interesting. Your eidolon could act and ignore your curse.
That's the whole point of the Summoner archetype and why so many players completely disregard it: It's useful for characters with glaring weaknesses, allowing them to always contribute during combat.
Ancestor Oracle, Cleric of neutral deities, I've once played with a Starknife Swashbuckler of Desna who was unable to affect a swarm. All these characters are happy to use the Eidolon when the situation is not at their advantage.It also opens up all the niche builds, if you want to play a character that is super thematic to the campaign or very strong outside combat but who's weak during combat. Like if you want to play the embodiment of the noble/king for Kingmaker and go for a Scoundrel Rogue with maxed Charisma, Intelligence and Wisdom, but no Dexterity or Strength. You just grab the Summoner Archetype and your Eidolon will play for you. Even if it's not very strong, it sets the bar of minimum efficiency.
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For a level 20 fighter with a great sword (d12) against an armor class of 45 we get:
97,9 average damage for true strike + spellstrike+d6 cantrip
77,6 average damage for true strike + power attack
78 average damage for power attack + second attack with Furious Focus and Brutal Finish (your 'standard turn')
(=> +26% damage for one turn each combat as long as you have true strike spells; take note that for one handed weapons the percentile increase is a bit higher due to the over all lesser damage)
And if you increase the level of the enemy to 22 and you get 35% increase in damage. Spellstrike is very strong against bosses.
That's why I find Spellstrike to be extremely interesting on martials. It costs just 2 feats to get it and the power gain is crazy.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Not that this invalidates Spell strike in any way, since its one less action(which enables you to use true strike) and most importantly not restricted to bows.
And if we are still talking about Magus Archetype, it is specifically restricted to not-bows. There is no way to get the benefits of Starlit Span through the archetype. Melee Spellstrike only.
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Not that this invalidates Spell strike in any way, since its one less action(which enables you to use true strike) and most importantly not restricted to bows.And if we are still talking about Magus Archetype, it is specifically restricted to not-bows. There is no way to get the benefits of Starlit Span through the archetype. Melee Spellstrike only.
I wonder how many people would take Eldritch Archer if Magus MC gave Spellstrike with bows.
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I wonder how many people would take Eldritch Archer if Magus MC gave Spellstrike with bows.Not that this invalidates Spell strike in any way, since its one less action(which enables you to use true strike) and most importantly not restricted to bows.And if we are still talking about Magus Archetype, it is specifically restricted to not-bows. There is no way to get the benefits of Starlit Span through the archetype. Melee Spellstrike only.
I think it would still compare reasonably well.
Eldritch Shot can only be done as a 3-action and must be a ranged attack with a bow, but can be used multiple times in a single combat. The spellcasting progression has more spells overall, but most of them are lower level. The bug still exists that you don't have to boost your spellcasting skill in order to get the higher level spell slots. It is questionable whether you can use scrolls to power Eldritch Shot. There are a couple of other interesting bow trick feats, but not much else.
Magus archetype (with the addition of a ranged spellstrike option) would have the choice of either melee or ranged spellstrike, but only once per combat. It is not fully clear if you can power spellstrike with scrolls without the Striker's Scroll feat, but with that feat it is certainly clear that you can. The spellcasting progression gives more higher level slots at the cost of all of the lower level slots. And you do have to increase your Arcana skill in order to get the higher slots. And you do have access to all of the 1st - 10th level Magus feats.
Certainly a tradeoff, but not one that is completely lopsided.
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I wonder how many people would take Eldritch Archer if Magus MC gave Spellstrike with bows.Not that this invalidates Spell strike in any way, since its one less action(which enables you to use true strike) and most importantly not restricted to bows.And if we are still talking about Magus Archetype, it is specifically restricted to not-bows. There is no way to get the benefits of Starlit Span through the archetype. Melee Spellstrike only.I think it would still compare reasonably well.
Eldritch Shot can only be done as a 3-action and must be a ranged attack with a bow, but can be used multiple times in a single combat. The spellcasting progression has more spells overall, but most of them are lower level. The bug still exists that you don't have to boost your spellcasting skill in order to get the higher level spell slots. It is questionable whether you can use scrolls to power Eldritch Shot. There are a couple of other interesting bow trick feats, but not much else.
Magus archetype (with the addition of a ranged spellstrike option) would have the choice of either melee or ranged spellstrike, but only once per combat. It is not fully clear if you can power spellstrike with scrolls without the Striker's Scroll feat, but with that feat it is certainly clear that you can. The spellcasting progression gives more higher level slots at the cost of all of the lower level slots. And you do have to increase your Arcana skill in order to get the higher slots. And you do have access to all of the 1st - 10th level Magus feats.
Certainly a tradeoff, but not one that is completely lopsided.
Most of the Magus feats specially before level 10 have weird requirements, you can get a better version from items or a class feat from your own class.
The only good feats you can get with the archetype are: Striker's Scroll because it fixes the spell slot issue; Fused Staff, because Paizo...
I’m there are several good recall knowledge feats for Magus that are good for a number of martial classes outside of fighters. Spell Parry can be a pretty great feat as well. Force fang does not require an extra spell strike and can be even better for low accuracy martials than for fighters, especially ones like barbarians who might otherwise have no focus spell or good actions to take vs incorporeal creatures.
Do you think the Magus base class is bereft of class feats for magi or a vastly underpowered class?
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They would be the ones that have no better feat to take. Or who don't care because the rest of their kit is more than good enough.
Ex: The fighter that can make any archetype work. Relying on True Strike isn't really that different than what Casters have to do to just keep up. Martials having to do it to make Spellstrike worth it is a literal continuation of that.
You still only have 1 use per combat at best, needing to use true strike makes it worse as you are now spending money on both a staff and a weapon. Not to mention armor and all the other items. Meaning you cannot use it early game well, and late game its more bother than it's worth due to AoO which you still provoke.
This is not even counting that Bounded Spellcasting archetype is not a Magus/Summoner thing. But for every single class that uses bounded magic. Meaning that every single of those classes now needs to have some super ability to even justify the archetype existing. Thus Paizo has written themselves into a literal corner.
By definition, a wave caster will bring something strong to the table beyond spellcasting. So, I am not worried about future bounded archetypes.
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I’m there are several good recall knowledge feats for Magus that are good for a number of martial classes outside of fighters.There are not. Magus Analysis only works if you have a spellstrike to charge which MC Magus can’t do. The lvl 6 one only gives benefits on a crit success, which is basically on a 20 for a martial.
Spell Parry can be a pretty great feat as well. Force fang does not require an extra spell strike and can be even better for low accuracy martials than for fighters, especially ones like barbarians who might otherwise have no focus spell or good actions to take vs incorporeal creatures.Spell parry is extremely situational, 95% of the time regular dueling parry is better.
Force fang, without the spellstrike recharge which MC magus doesn’t get, is just force bolt with no range. You can grab force bolt from the wizard MC easily. It also triggers AoO I should add.
There are a lot of rogues, rangers and investigators who would disagree about recalling knowledge requiring a 20.
The spell casting progression of bounded classes is deliberately inflated too high for proficiencies generally, because of the extremely limited pool of spells they have to cast. Limiting the archetype to expert is far more limiting of what kinds of characters can be built with the archetypes than limiting spell slots because it makes the cantrips useless, other than once per encounter for the Magus.
Dueling parry is only available to fighters and swashbucklers. I get that you are assuming that a +2 AC is going to be better 95% of the time than a +1 AND a +1 to saving throws vs spells, but that is campaign dependent at best and a circumstance bonus to saving throws is pretty awesome to be able to give to yourself when you are up against someone whom makes you use it. For classes that don't have access to dueling parry, like a rogue or an investigator, it is another example of a useful feat that casting archetypes are not going to give you anything similar to.
You only need 1 feat out of all of these to complete your Magus archetype and move on to a full casting archetype for higher levels. You don't need to like 5 or 6 magus feats, you only need to like 1 or 2.