Lollerabe wrote: You came from 5e right ?
So to put it into perspective:
When people are saying a melee Magus sucks compared to a starlit span Magus it's akin to a zealot barb that went str with their ASI and a zealot barb that went GWM with their ASI.
Neither of them suck at all, but the latter will pull ahead.
It is not in the realm of GWM zealot Vs Berserker that went savage attacker.
Pf2e has tighter math, but optimizing and min/maxing is still a thing. So a 10% damage difference is alot from that perspective.
But from a player's perspective I doubt most would notice that difference.
However action Econ issues are way more noticeable than slightly below average damage, and for some that can lead to a frustrating experience.
I think you'll have fun with a melee Magus. I also think you might end up in the camp of "damn I wish Magus had more action compressor feats" (with alot of us)
Haha, love the 5e comparisons, thanks Lollerabe!
Yes, I think you're right, I think I will very likely end up in that camp too!
roquepo wrote: That said, I would mind the in-class comparisons. Starlit is way, way better than its melee counterparts, so you end up having something that fills almost the exact same niche as your melee magus but better. There are ways to alleviate the difference, but it will always be there and it does not feel particularly good. That seems a pretty severe design fail if true. For one subclass at best adjacent to the core class concept to be just flat out so much stronger than the other 4 that hit the core concept...
And couple that with a supposed melee combatant that has numerous things built in that seem to make it unsuited to melee, like low defences, not enough actions to do their core class feature and move around in melee, and overly punished by AoO's.
All this put together seems.... Embarrassingly bad class design?
I think ultimately my dilemma seems to boil down to I'm having a hard time understanding / believing that this really is the way it is, and I keep thinking that I must've just missed something and don't understand / have enough system mastery yet.
But I think the answer to my dilemma seems to be emerging that no, I haven't misunderstood, it actually is that way, and, at the end of the day, it doesn't completely invalidate the class or make it non-viable, because the gap between the really good and not so good is much narrower in this edition so the class can still be fun to play if that melee gish is what you're after (it is), and you can live with the low defences and the action economy frustrations and still contribute to the party ok (especially if the rest of the party are willing to help you out) and you still bring distinct differences to other martials in your access to spells.
Does that sound about right?
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I mean, the answer is just that Starlit Span is a little bit overpowered because of the way the Magus' core mechanics work. The massive bonus damage from spells bypasses one of the biggest weaknesses of ranged combat and the range bypasses one of the biggest weaknesses of the Magus.
You don't have to worry about movement, Cascade doesn't even do anything without feats, and you can generally focus on Spellstrike a lot more. That sounds like a good thing (and from a pure optimization standpoint it works well).
But Starlit Span is incredibly boring. You will do the same basic routine every round of every combat for the entire campaign, because nothing else is worth using, your base damage isn't competitive on its own, and all your hybrid study does allow your playstyle to function.
The action economy being the way it is isn't really a bug, having to juggle actions and try to optimize your combat routine dynamically is a design goal for PF2. If there's any failure there, it's Starlit bypassing the system and having such paper thin core mechanics.
It's genuinely kinda terrible to play, even if it's a little bit broken too.
TheOneGargoyle wrote: But I think the answer to my dilemma seems to be emerging that no, I haven't misunderstood, it actually is that way, and, at the end of the day, it doesn't completely invalidate the class or make it non-viable, because the gap between the really good and not so good is much narrower in this edition so the class can still be fun to play if that melee gish is what you're after (it is), and you can live with the low defences and the action economy frustrations and still contribute to the party ok (especially if the rest of the party are willing to help you out) and you still bring distinct differences to other martials in your access to spells.
Does that sound about right?
More or less. Melee Magus is still playable and effective. Most of them are really fun to play. It has some issues with action economy here and there, but it is workable. Something being "much better" in pf2 terms is different from saying the same thing about 2 5e options, as Lollerabe put it perfectly early on. Squiggit wrote: But Starlit Span is incredibly boring. You will do the same basic routine every round of every combat for the entire campaign, because nothing else is worth using, your base damage isn't competitive on its own, and all your hybrid study does allow your playstyle to function.
Like, honestly, if there's any bad class design here it's Starlit Span having basically no functionality to it, overpowered math, and no ability to engage with the system's core mechanics.
It's genuinely terrible to play.
100% agree. While I think all the other magus should be a bit better (free action cascade, some Gunslinger-like SS recharges outside of focus spells...), all Starlit has going for it optimization-wise, looses it in gameplay satisfaction. It enables some cool builds, though.
Dunno, I think it could have been more fun if it was designed as a mainly melee magus with the option of doing ranged attacks under some circumstances (Similar to Twisting Tree). Something like starting with 2 conflux spells, one for strike + recharge + something else and another to allow your next spellstrike to hit at x range, have the benefits of their current conflux spell and immediately recharge after the spellstrike is resolved. You could even flavor it as temporarily transforming their weapon into a ranged weapon or something.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Magus has all the hallmarks of being rushed. Please bear in mind I am not knocking the designer, designing a class is a ton of work, and Logan did a great job. But Magus was almost totally redesigned from playtest, and this is around the same time the union came out with demands for more time to playtest properly.
It needed another pass or two to smooth out the rough edges, but time wasn't there I suspect.
Main thing I think melee needs (other than free action cascade) is either more HP, or really some action compression. Magus is fragile in melee range and does not have the actions to take proper defensive action. A single use action compression focus spell just doesn't cut it.
Give melee magus the ability to stride and spellstrike for 2 actions or SOMETHING.
Squiggit wrote: I think digging into PF1 vs PF2 and class design theory is kind of off-topic and unnecessarily discouraging when trying to help a new player build a character.
Starlit magus is awesome and solves the class' movement problems but if you'd rather be a melee character it's fine.
Thanks Squiggit.
Honestly if I wanted to just play the best (ie most powerful) subclass I'd just go Starlit Span. It's clearly way ahead.
But I really want to play melee, so I'll go one of the others (probably either Shadow or Iron at this point) even though it's sub optimal, and just work out how to play it the best I can to get the most out of it that I possibly can.
That's where this thread has been so helpful, I've learnt so much already and I really appreciate how generous everyone has been with their input.
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In 10 levels of Extinction Curse as a LS magus I have only taken one AoO the whole campaign. And as cheesy as it sounds it is possible for any melee to bypass the AoO. It's going to cost a feat or two but elemental wrath allows you to spellstrike without getting smacked for it and can give you another damage type for Cascade.
I'm sorry for derailing your thread for a spell. But this is some advice I would give most people who are new to a system:
Try to play whatever concept you want and do your best to make it work. The forums are great and it's always cool to get some advice.
BUT peeping behind the mechanics curtain tends to give one tunnel vision. Once you know something is deemed below average or unoptimized, it's very hard to not see it in that light.
Take the infamous flickmace in pf2e. Is it better than any other 1hand weapon in the game if you aren't going for finesse ? Yes. Is it just a better Warhammer ? Yes.
Does that make your dwarven fighter with a Warhammer bad or even remotely below par? No, not at all.
I realize I'm just saying ignorance is bliss in a roundabout fashion. But it can truly become a detriment to one's enjoyment of the game to over optimize based on others (ours) opinion. Mind you, I totally agree with Ninja, Squiq and humble but still - keep that in mind.
Fun anecdotal "evidence":
I work with autistic youngsters. One of the kids at the home where I work LOVES music. All kinds. However whenever he asks me to suggest him a song or album, he'll go to rateyourmusic and look at its user score, prior to listening to it himself. And funnily enough his opinion always matches the rating to a T.
So I made a deal with him - everything I suggest he has to listen to without going to the site first. Turns out he likes ALOT of 4/10 rated things. It surprised and annoyed him, but hey, now he can form an actual opinion himself.
Edit: my current backup chars are a melee inventor and a drifter gunslinger with a high str because Warhammer + big gun = bad'ass.
I know they aren't optimized at all, I even know how to make them way better but I have very specific concept in mind. So I'll bite the bullet and see how it goes.
I largely agree with you Lollerabe, but talking about the magus, it also involve several mechanics which would impact your character gameplay more than choosing between a flickmace and warhammer.
We can start talking about arcane cascade.
It costs one action, and it may be hard to find room for it, either one the first round and the following ones. Starlit span is excellent because its cascade does nothing.
Then it's the movement.
You can't move, recharge and spellstrike.
Here starlit span shines again, not having to move, but also laughing shadow can be pretty nice until you can get the quickened condition on demand.
Other studies will, eventually, have it harder.
Finally, it's the true strike turn.
Knowing you'd expend a spell slot ( or a focus spell), you'll probably consider rolling twice in order to land your bomb.
This can be avoided by expending a hero point, if the character has one, but it is important to get that the difference between spelstriking with or without a second roll is huge.
And that's it.
I also encourage theonegargoyle playing the character they have in mind, but it's worth keeping into account how this 3 action system works as well as how to make an efficient action routine.
My first character was a sword and board champion with intimidate and athletics.
I ended up not having enough actions to make a proper use of neither demoralize nor athletics maneuvers, ending up to 2 standard routines:
- raise shield, stride, strike
Or
- raise shield, strike, strike
Eventually, a lay on hand instead of a strike.
Magus has just it even harder, reason why I think it is good to consider alternatives in terms of routines and ways to get more actions.
Ps: if your DM is ok with you also retraining stats during downtime, you can experimenting every thing you want.
TheOneGargoyle wrote: The staff rules say "Attacking with a Staff Staves are also staff weapons (page 280), included in their Price. They can be etched with runes as normal for a staff. This doesn’t alter any of their spellcasting abilities." It's been errata'd to specify that you can add FUNDAMENTAL runes but not property runes.
So unless you're a Tree Magus with their lvl4 feat, a Magic staff is pretty useless in a fight.
Another reason to ask is to see if there are any stealth errata you may have missed or if there is some rules hiccup that is not evident when just reading the rules.
Ex: Familiars and recall knowledge
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I disagree with accusations of the Magus seeming underbaked.
In my opinion it's the best designed class in PF2. It's got an interesting action economy that interacts in cool ways with the 3 action system.
It doesn't have a set "you do these 3 actions every round to maximize your DPS", instead it's an interesting puzzle that wants to take more actions than you have every round.
It gives you melee and ranged options. You can choose to maximize your spike damage by taking spells like shocking grasp. You can take expanded spellstrike to apply debuffs instead or you can use your spells for mobility and buffs, or even just memorize fireball and blow things up. 4/5 Hybrid studies all do interesting things and play differently and make different choices.
That's good design, not underbaked. You shouldn't be able to get everything you want, and having to pick and choose makes for varied and interesting play.
If you want to see underbaked look at the Oracle. They have the fewest class feats of any class, their focus/curse management doesn't work right at low levels. The Battle Oracle in particular has serious chassis problems.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Pirate Rob wrote: I disagree with accusations of the Magus seeming underbaked.
In my opinion it's the best designed class in PF2. It's got an interesting action economy that interacts in cool ways with the 3 action system.
It doesn't have a set "you do these 3 actions every round to maximize your DPS", instead it's an interesting puzzle that wants to take more actions than you have every round.
It gives you melee and ranged options. You can choose to maximize your spike damage by taking spells like shocking grasp. You can take expanded spellstrike to apply debuffs instead or you can use your spells for mobility and buffs, or even just memorize fireball and blow things up. 4/5 Hybrid studies all do interesting things and play differently and make different choices.
That's good design, not underbaked. You shouldn't be able to get everything you want, and having to pick and choose makes for varied and interesting play.
If you want to see underbaked look at the Oracle. They have the fewest class feats of any class, their focus/curse management doesn't work right at low levels. The Battle Oracle in particular has serious chassis problems.
I agree with very much of this analysis, and think the class is a lot of fun to play.
But expanded spellstrike is very much not for casting debuff spells. It does nothing the help your spell land successfully, AND it adds a attack roll that you can critically fail and lose the spell. The only people I have even heard of using Expanded Spell strike in play are shooting star magi using line and cone spells that trigger where the attack target is. And even for these purposes, it is more for the cool factor than for getting much more powerful use out of these spells than a full caster is going to get.
It is an over blown concern of detractors of the class, but there are level gaps that really hurt your spell casting as a magus when you are trying to target saves. From level 1 through 4 you are probably at least 1 point behind. From levels 7 through 8, you are probably 2 points behind. Level 9 you might be even. Level 10 to 14 you are back to at least a point behind again. Level 15 and 16 you are back to 2 points behind, 17 and 18 you might be even again, and then 19 you go back 2 to 3 points behind with apex items in the picture (because magi are probably focused on a different attribute), and level 20 you might be a full 4 points behind.
A lot of people just look at that level 1 and level 20 split and say the class is always so far behind that it is never worth casting save spells, but there are times in your carreer that is not so true. but it is true that you get so few spells and you are often so much less effective than a full caster casting debuff spells, that spending feats and trying to think of debuffing as one of your potential roles is going to lead to you feeling frustrated with your character's ability to act as a debuffer in the kinds of situations where debuffing really comes in big, which is against higher level solo targets. Especially when you realize how much better you are than a full caster at landing big, impressive damage numbers with spell attack roll spell strikes.
If they release more spells like Ray of enfeeblement, that have powerful effects even on a success and which get shifted by a critical success with the spell attack roll, then spell strike debuffing could start to get interesting again, but there are too few spells like this, too spread out in level to really make it something worth putting in the magus' wheelhouse.
The fact Magus is the least underbaked post core classes does not mean its not underbaked. Specially when considering how wide the original Magus ability space was.
It interacts with the 3 action economy? Not really given how its main thing is spending 2-3 actions doing what should had just been a 2 action thing.
Yeah hybrid studies can do some cool stuff. But they have very little actual support from the class (Paizo really needs to print more support for all sub-classes).
You get way too few spells for buffs and spending those few spells on AoE or Debuff is questionable at best considering DC.
******************
* P.S. No one that I know of is asking for it to do everything.
Not a big fan of expanded spellstrike, and even if I decided to take it, I wouldn't use it with debuff spells ( as unicore properly explained).
Pirate Rob wrote: I disagree with accusations of the Magus seeming underbaked.
In my opinion it's the best designed class in PF2. It's got an interesting action economy that interacts in cool ways with the 3 action system.
It doesn't have a set "you do these 3 actions every round to maximize your DPS", instead it's an interesting puzzle that wants to take more actions than you have every round.
It gives you melee and ranged options. You can choose to maximize your spike damage by taking spells like shocking grasp. You can take expanded spellstrike to apply debuffs instead or you can use your spells for mobility and buffs, or even just memorize fireball and blow things up. 4/5 Hybrid studies all do interesting things and play differently and make different choices.
That's good design, not underbaked. You shouldn't be able to get everything you want, and having to pick and choose makes for varied and interesting play.
Thanks Pirate Rob, great to hear a differing opinion!
I 100% agree that "interesting" choices (ie meaningful & impactful ones where there are always more good choices than you can take and so you can't get everything you want) are the core of good design / differentiation and also of a fun game.
So, having ranged & melee build options are a good example of that to me. Also, being able to focus a build for different roles, eg damage output / striker vs defender/ tank vs control / debuffing is another.
Another aspect of good class design in my opinion is a variety of skill floors and ceilings. Some classes that are more straightforward and accessible for beginners or for those who just prefer that playstyle vs some that really need in depth knowledge & skill to get the best out of them.
I don't have an issue with any of these things in general, nor in the case of the magus specifically. In fact, I would agree with you about all of the above.
My concern, and where I'd love to hear more about your point of view on this is, are they able to be built & played to perform the role well that they spec for?
Let me have a go at distilling down everything I've learnt in this thread and hopefully this will articulate more specifically what I'd love you to give your thoughts.
Summary :
Magi fill the gish playstyle (or a ranged version thereof) and can be enjoyable to play in that role, especially with a combination of considerable system mastery and support/teamwork from other party members. They face 3 main challenges to get a good result:
1) fragile in melee,
2) constrained action economy &
3) overly punished by AoO's
The 4 melee subclasses each goes some way towards addressing one of those challenges. Iron & Targe assist with 1), Shadow is particularly helpful with 2), Tree & Iron help with 3). But none of them addresses all 3.
And Starlit largely solves all 3.
Net result: ranged magus can do its role well but melee is going to have one or more of those 3 that are problematic.
How'd I do?
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I use expanded spell strike on my starlit span Magus (I have several Magi) to apply touch range debuffs at range like touch of idiocy which is brutal against somebody who wants to cast spells, but isn't quite worth it as a touch spell that uses your whole turn, but looks a lot better as a rider on a bow shot from across the map as well as the occasional cone or other AoE.
Currently playing an inexorable iron magus and a fighter in 2 different aps. Both are around the same level (11 and 12). Both use great picks as weapons.
I think the fighter does more damage, but the magus is so much more durable. In the làst magus encounter the magus started combat with stoneskin and then entering arcane cascade. The 10 Dr and 6 temporary hp per turn had the magus end the combat over 50% hp, despite being hit 6 times.
I think the magus is very satisfying to play. I used shadow siphon to reduce damage on a prismatic spray, stoneskin to tank, chain lightning to blast and heightened invisibility.
nicholas storm wrote: Currently playing an inexorable iron magus and a fighter in 2 different aps. Both are around the same level (11 and 12). Both use great picks as weapons.
I think the fighter does more damage, but the magus is so much more durable. In the làst magus encounter the magus started combat with stoneskin and then entering arcane cascade. The 10 Dr and 6 temporary hp per turn had the magus end the combat over 50% hp, despite being hit 6 times.
I think the magus is very satisfying to play. I used shadow siphon to reduce damage on a prismatic spray, stoneskin to tank, chain lightning to blast and heightened invisibility.
Wow, amazing to hear Nicholas Storm!
May I ask can your Magus do this sort of thing often enough compared to how many encounters per day you have in that game? Or do you find they can only do it occasionally and you end up with many encounters where you're out of juice?
Also, how do you find the action economy on the Iron magus? Have you found it a problem or have you found ways to work around it?
Thanks so much in advance!
Number of encounters per day varies. I use a psychic amp cantrip for spell strikes, so offense is not really impacted that much by more encounters. So far after 2 encounters,
M0 Detect Magic, Light, Electric Arc, Ray of Frost, Produce Flame
M1 True Strike
M3 Haste, Warding Aggression
M5 Cone of Cold, Shadow Siphon
M6 Chain Lightning , Stoneskin
W0 Shield
W1 True Strike
W2 Longstrider (H+1)
W3 Time Jump
W4 Invisibility (H+2)
P0 Telekinetic Projectile[6d6+4/11d6+4]
I have used stoneskin, chain lightning, shadow siphon, and 2 true strikes after the 2 encounters
I don't think action economy is that much of an issue; I just don't spell strike every round and usually save amped spellstrike with truestrike.
Next rest, I might swap out chain lightning for another stoneskin.
nicholas storm wrote: Number of encounters per day varies. I use a psychic amp cantrip for spell strikes, so offense is not really impacted that much by more encounters. So far after 2 encounters,
M0 Detect Magic, Light, Electric Arc, Ray of Frost, Produce Flame
M1 True Strike
M3 Haste, Warding Aggression
M5 Cone of Cold, Shadow Siphon
M6 Chain Lightning , Stoneskin
W0 Shield
W1 True Strike
W2 Longstrider (H+1)
W3 Time Jump
W4 Invisibility (H+2)
P0 Telekinetic Projectile[6d6+4/11d6+4]
Mind to explain what either M0-6, W0-4 and P0 mean?
nicholas storm wrote:
I have used stoneskin, chain lightning, shadow siphon, and 2 true strikes after the 2 encounters
I don't think action economy is that much of an issue; I just don't spell strike every round and usually save amped spellstrike with truestrike.
Next rest, I might swap out chain lightning for another stoneskin.
That's the normal routine for a magus.
1) Knowing you have a limited amount of "big spells" per day, you will use them only when you are able to reroll ( either true strike or hero point, depends the situation ).
2) Knowing that there will be more than 2 fights per day, as well as the fact you'll be likely to deliver 2 big bombs per fight, you'll try getting around the limits of the bounded spellcasting, which are the 4 spells per day. So you'll try to get a damaging focus spell.
3) Among the damaging focus spells, unfortunately, there's only one winner, which is the psychic dedication with imaginary weapon:
Quote: - It takes int ( cleric dedication requires wis ), which a magus has.
- Force damage ( fire ray, for example, is fire damage, which is worse ) on either focus spell ( amped ) and cantrip ( better than any other cantrip, unless there's a weakness to trigger ).
- 2d8 damage ( fire ray is 2d6 )
- The dedication gives an extra focus point
- You are not tied to edicts/anathema/alignment to get access to a specific domain spell.
So it's quite the standard magus approach ( way more effective than any other ).
ps: a laughing shadow can benefit from scrolls/staves ( cast and drop the staff before spellstriking ) to get extra true strikes, as well as gloves of storage.
M0-6 Magus spell level
W0-4 Witch spell level
P0 Psychic spell level
M1 are from ring of wizardry, M3 from studious spells and familiear
W1-4 are from witch basic and expert spell casting
P0 are from psychic dedication. I didn't want to spend another feat on psychic cantrip, so I use amped telekinetic projectile.
nicholas storm wrote: M0-6 Magus spell level
W0-4 Witch spell level
P0 Psychic spell level
M1 are from ring of wizardry, M3 from studious spells and familiear
W1-4 are from witch basic and expert spell casting
P0 are from psychic dedication. I didn't want to spend another feat on psychic cantrip, so I use amped telekinetic projectile.
Got it!
nicholas storm wrote: I didn't want to spend another feat on psychic cantrip, so I use amped telekinetic projectile. Yeah, it's an excellent compromise if you don't want to expend another feat!
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Incidentally, Starlit Span tends to give up damage for ease of use-- it loses both strength modifier damage (partially correvted by propulsive, but then you still need dex and strength for less benefit) and multiple points of average damage off its weapon dice being so much stronger, multiplied by level of striking. You can still leverage that action econ to do nice things with it, but imo, securing kills through those extra points of damage is def competitive.
I also see it as positive in terms of the 3-action econ, because it actually uses it to sell the fantasy of the magus as setting up these massive spellstrikes as a fighting style, you're not just a magicky fighter who plays like a fighter but magic. You're making a tradeoff to use this sick technique that heavily restricts your fighting style, but when it pays off the enemy gets hit much, much harder.
Thats a form of interaction to ne, because the alternative is for every class to use their 3 actions the same ways, the modularity could actually make it homgenous. So a blend of classes that have super freefrom action econ and classes who don't, or have to get it back in other ways is nice.
I feel this way both about Maguses and Reload.
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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
The-Magic-Sword wrote: Incidentally, Starlit Span tends to give up damage for ease of use-- it loses both strength modifier damage (partially correvted by propulsive, but then you still need dex and strength for less benefit) and multiple points of average damage off its weapon dice being so much stronger, multiplied by level of striking. You can still leverage that action econ to do nice things with it, but imo, securing kills through those extra points of damage is def competitive.
I also see it as positive in terms of the 3-action econ, because it actually uses it to sell the fantasy of the magus as setting up these massive spellstrikes as a fighting style, you're not just a magicky fighter who plays like a fighter but magic. You're making a tradeoff to use this sick technique that heavily restricts your fighting style, but when it pays off the enemy gets hit much, much harder.
Thats a form of interaction to ne, because the alternative is for every class to use their 3 actions the same ways, the modularity could actually make it homgenous. So a blend of classes that have super freefrom action econ and classes who don't, or have to get it back in other ways is nice.
I feel this way both about Maguses and Reload.
As to the damage, Magus suffers the damage drop far less than most. Losing str to hit and a smaller damage die don't matter much when you can spellstrike for a bunch of bonus damage and spellstrike more easily/often than melee counterparts.
And unless you are using a slotted spell, spellstrike doesn't come out much ahead of a fighter just swinging a sword twice. A lot of people think magus is a high damage melee class because of the occasional big crit, but over the course of a fight.. not really.
That is kind of the complaint about the action econ. You NEED all three actions to do your thing, while other classes really only need 1-2, leaving one free for stride, defensive action, etc. When your "thing" isn't really any better than one of those classes just attacking, it makes it a bit frustrating.
CaffeinatedNinja wrote:
And unless you are using a slotted spell, spellstrike doesn't come out much ahead of a fighter just swinging a sword twice. A lot of people think magus is a high damage melee class because of the occasional big crit, but over the course of a fight.. not really.
That is kind of the complaint about the action econ. You NEED all three actions to do your thing, while other classes really only need 1-2, leaving one free for stride, defensive action, etc. When your "thing" isn't really any better than one of those classes just attacking, it makes it a bit frustrating.
This summarizes what I've learnt so far from this thread, thanks Ninja !
And what I've learnt so far that can be done about that:
* Laughing Shadow for movement conflux spells
* Reach weapons might sometimes negate the need to move
* L1 - L3 : not as big an issue since Magic Weapon and just striking > Spellstrike
* L4+: Mounts (if that fits your concept, can cause issues in tight spaces)
* L5+: Haste for the extra stride/strike action
* L8+: Potions & Boots of Quickness (as Haste but 1 action instead of 2)
Did I miss any of the main ones ?
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
With a cantrip you're a little under a fighter's average for the turn, with a spell slot you're about 30% above it IIRC. So you basically average out over the course of however many rounds. That does mean Magus is straight up a little stronger in the hands of an aggressive player in a 1 or 2 fight adventuring day.
Under less ideal circumstances you feature spikes of burst damage, with a good chance to absolutely rend individual targets you're most likely to use your slot on, while keeping up pretty well the rest of the time. I dont want to give up the damage from strength and weapon dice because you can get some potentially encounter ending crits and they might make the difference.
I do tend to use a Naginata for the deadly dice and full strength though. I tend to reserve my focus points for Force Fang. So I use cantrips in normal encounters and slots for bosses, while applying pressure on my recharge action with FF the whole time.
Incidentally from an optimization perspective rather a baseline expectation perspective, consider a Cavalier Magus for impressive mount's free move, its a hell of a lubricant.
Well let's hope the vault have some impressive melee weapons. 'Cause that d10 propulsive hobgoblin bow they teased would make non starlit hard to justify at that point.
I guess Magus is in a better place than other post CRB classes tho. Both new weapons and spells can go a long way to address some of their issues.
A 1ap damage cantrip that has a movement rider would be godsend.
Lollerabe wrote: A 1ap damage cantrip that has a movement rider would be godsend. As a thought experiment, if you could create one single new cantrip that would solve as much as possible, what would it do ? And just how much would that solve ?
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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Am I missing something about the starlit magus and not being able to bypass the volley trait? Either you have to Archetype into fighter or archer to get point blank shot, taking up at least 3 feats in your build, and requiring an action at the start of combat, or you are probably using a D6 shortbow. D6 is a pretty hefty drop from a d10 or D12 weapon, especially when factored together with strength bonuses to damage, and the loss of the ability to add arcane cascade variable damage to your attacks without having to use those damage type spells with your spell strike every round. Adding cover into the mix probably pretty close to 40 or 50% of the time and you are likely to experience a lot of rounds where you bow is essentially adding a couple points of damage to what any full caster can just do regularly with spells.
I get that this is really all about being able to cast touch range spells at a range of 60ft and I can see good fun in that. However calling it optimal and better striker damage than a 2 handed iron magus deserves to be questioned. Good team work and positioning can very, very often bring enemies to you, and fear of AoOs shouldn’t run people off from melee magi. By my count, we are looking at a drop of 5 or more damage per weapon die.
Sometimes optimizing discussions seem to lead into an echo chamber of people repeating ideas without testing them in play for themselves, and taking as fact suspect suppositions.
I am not saying starlit magus is a bad magus. It sounds consistent and and like it addresses many players concern with the class, but I don’t think that makes it the best single target striker in the game. With its limited spell slots, it often just looks like a trick shot blaster caster.
Wouldn't archer/fighter just be 2 feats for PBS?
And that's if you really need to circumvent volley. That's a bit harder to discuss. YMMV but I don't consider it that crippling.
And factoring in cascade as a damage + for the melee Magus might be wrong in the first place.
The round where the inox Magus is using cascade is most likely a round where he isn't spellstriking.
I assume you want cascade up asap (if at all) so maybe cantrip + cascade or 1ap cantrip + cascade + stride.
Meanwhile the starlit is already spellstriking.
At lvl 5 cascade is still +1 damg pr hit (on a class that makes few but hard hits. Aka not a great synergy). Meanwhile a gouging claw at lvl 5 is what ? 3d6 + 3 (16 int assumed) damg
So 3d6+3 = 13.5 AVG damg. So 13.5 strikes for cascade to even out.
Point being if a starlit gets of just 1 or 2 more spellstrikes than its melee counterpart, then it's gonna be very hard for said counterpart to catch up.
And yes if we are comparing a d12 18str Magus to a d6 14str propulsive Magus, the former will deal alot more damg at early levels. But as cantrips scales this becomes less and less impactful.
Even more so because the Magus is the alpha strike class. Striking runes and a high str mod rewards multiple attacks.
It's the same reason a 5e paladin should never use a 2h weapon in a featless game.
The more +damg you throw on a single attack the less important the base weapon die becomes. Unless said +damg scales of the die.
And a d12 melee Magus is a non reach d8 medium armor class that suffers (way more than most classes) from AoO.
The starlit Magus can ignore most of those issues entirely.
And as a last comment: sure forums can become whiteroom but stuff like cascade is pretty easy to look at in a whiteroom. It's a flat damage increase. A bad one. On the martial class least prone to making more than 1 attack. And it scales poorly as well.
TheOneGargoyle wrote: Lollerabe wrote: A 1ap damage cantrip that has a movement rider would be godsend. As a thought experiment, if you could create one single new cantrip that would solve as much as possible, what would it do ? And just how much would that solve ? Eh, spell design isn't my strong suit, but if it had to be balanced ? Something like:
Sudden jolt. Cantrip 1ap, range: touch -
You charge yourself with a sudden jolt of electricity. Make a melee spell attack against a target within range. On a succes the target takes 1d4 + your spellcasting modifier electricity damage. Prior to making the attack roll or immediately after you may move half your speed in any direction as the electric currents moves you violently.
The wording is messed up but you get the gist.
Maybe the caster should take damg equal to their mod, as they are basically frying themselves. I donnu, but something like that.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
It seemed like the starlit span magus that everyone is raving about has the psychic archetype though? Getting that and point blank shot is 5 feats, one way or another.
I do get that the idea behind the starlit span magus is “always be spellstriking,” but with the frequency with which enemies at range get cover or concealment, it seems to me like you either need to spend some rounds moving as a Star magi, or you are taking 3 action activities with potential accuracy penalties fairly regularly, so you probably want to be saving even big focus spell spell strikes for when your target doesn’t have cover from you. I guess, hopefully, that can be the first round, so you just get it out of the way? There will be times that works out well for you, but there will be times it doesn’t. Do you take the big focus spell shot even with cover penalties? Planning on using your hero point if you miss?
These questions feel relevant because striking twice with a big 2 handed weapon is a perfectly fine, high damage round for a melee magus that can pretty easily be used to set up that same big focus (or spell slot spell) spell strike, probably with flanking for a +2 accuracy bonus. An iron magus is getting temp HP every round so using one action to eat an attack of opportunity before spell striking, when the enemy has it can be a pretty decent choice, especially if you have an ally that wants to punish enemies for attacking their friends (like a champion). Again, this is all checks and balances, not questions of ultimate superiority.
It is just that being a turret is making some concessionary choices that can reduce burst damage, because damage and accuracy are so tightly linked. I agree, and think it is a truism of PF2 that the short bow generally was designed to be the most straightforward, easiest weapon to use if your goal is to be able to make as many attacks as possible with you turns. I just don’t think prioritizing that over tactically working with your allies is usually a great team damage choice unless the whole party goes all in on making sure you can do so as accurately as possible.
From what I've seen in my games, every magus has its niche - although Laughing shadow feels pretty underpowered.
Starlit span is great in a vacuum but when you take into account opponents who actually rush you, they're not that good. Other archers have tools to reposition and can strike anyway - starlit span is really hamstringed at close quarters. Same goes with cover. Meanwhile, a lot of fights are in clumped quarters and having a reach weapon often lets you pick another target without moving.
Imho, targe and Laughing shadow are weaker - but not unplayable - and the others are about as powerful.
How was the laughing shadow built ? I have a sneaking suspicion that you saw a weak character, not a weak subclass.
I'll gladly be proven wrong
Have to say that a laughing shadow, if played as intended, may end up being pretty underwhelming
Quote: While in Arcane Cascade stance, you gain a +5-foot status bonus to your Speeds, or a +10-foot bonus if you're unarmored. So, for example, getting 18 STR would leave room for a a 2x 14, 1x 12 and 2x 10 ( or 1x 16, 2x 12 and 2x 10 ).
Being unarmored to properly use the arcane cascade, as intended, would be sucidal ( but even being unarmored with 18 dex would be underwhelming compared to a magus wearing a medium or heavy armor ).
Plus there's longstrider which lasts 8 hours and it's active before any combat. I don't know, it seems they didn't doublechecked this part at all.
The damage is higher than a sparkling targe ( and probably twisting tree ) but lower than an inexorable iron magus, and it requires the magus to have the other hand completely empty, while hitting a flatfooted target.
The cascade damage is good at early levels, but the more the game proceeds, the more the gap between a laughing shadow and an inexorable iron.
ps: I had the terrible idea to make one dex based with 10 str, in order to give them higher int and charisma, ending up being too weak. Now I am did a little retrain to get the psychic dedication, and it's already way better. but can't way to swap to starlit span...
It's not that they're bad, it's more that their bonuses seem lackluster on comparaison to the other magus.
Their damage bonus barely helps bridge thé gap of bigger dice and then only when flatfooted.
Their spells are nothing to write home about.
Their focus spell is ok once you ger thé level 10 feat I guess but apart from a very short teleport, you should have a better use for your focus points.
The inventive to go dex makes them more MAD.
So they get a bit more movement speed - and that's about it.
Compare that to Inflexible Iron steady HP stream and free enlarge, to Twisted Tree Infinite true strike at reach or to Starlit Span range.
That's my point. If you build your laughing shadow as a quasi dex char with a 1h and a free hand, it's gonna suck. I tried it and it's just not good.
If you go for a 2h and heavy armor, you are a Magus with the best conflux spell there is imo.
But as I mentioned a few pages back, it feels super unintuitive to ignore everything about the subclass' cascade features. That doesn't mean it isn't good tho, just not how you would imagine it to be good. And most certainly not how it was intended to be played either
@Blue_Frog: The fun part is that because of longstrider they don't get even a tiny bit of extra movement speed at all...
It would have been cool some sort of extra movement speed like the monk, swashbuckler or armor innovation inventor ( maybe not that strong, but even being able to get a +20 feet status movement speed would have been interesting for an unarmored build ).
HumbleGamer explains it pretty well.
LS Cascade has scaling issues, the damage scales badly and the status bonus gets easier to replace the higher your level (the damage scales badly on arcane cascade in general, but damage isn't the main draw of cascade for everyone else).
But it also has low level issues, insofar as that Finesse builds have damage problems at low levels and you'll have AC issues if you want the full speed bonus before level 10.
Distracting Spellstrike using a Charisma skill also makes it a bit hard to leverage with how MAD Magi are. The fact that it explicitly cannot benefit from anything that improves or modifies feint also seems a little unnecessarily cruel too.
Dimensional Assault is pretty good (although imo slightly overrated). Mirror Image and Dimension Door are pretty nice studious options.
... Shift Blame is kind of bad. PFS gives Lauging Shadow Time Jump instead which imo is a lot more interesting.
... You can overcome a lot of these problems by adjusting your build. If you're strength based, grab a two-handed weapon, and wear medium armor and just skip distracting spellstrike you don't have to worry about skill problems, your damage (especially at low levels) goes up and your AC is much more manageable.
The problem there is just that it means the best way to play Laughing Shadow is to ignore as much of the subclass as possible, which kinda sucks. You're basically only there for mirror image and dimensional assault at that point.
Yup. Exactly. That was the point I made a few pages ago. And that's what alot of this thread has been about right? That alot of the hybrid studies aren't really that interesting or just not that great.
Laughing shadow is solid if you ignore almost all of your subclass and go for a 2hander. The conflux spell is sweet and the lvl 10 support feat is pretty good as well.
Iron on the other hand have a horrible conflux spell and the cascade feature is pretty underwhelming. Half your lvl as thp, while in cascade is just kinna eh. If it was fast healing then maybe we would have something.
It feels like people go:
'oh big 2hander as a Gish, that's my jam! Inexorable it is then' without checking out what the actual subclass offers. At least that's how I reacted when I got SoM. Then I read the spells and feats, and realized I thought they were all super meh.
Using a 2hander doesn't mean inexorable is the only option.
And laughing shadow very much caters to a 1h dex type char, but that's very underwhelming overall and a Magus doesn't really utilize a free hand that much.
Targe actually delivers pretty well on its concept. It's main issue is primarily 'why the hell would you make a tank Magus anyway?'.
But if that's your jam, then the hybrid study supports that pretty well imo.
Edit:
Making cascade a free action/reaction or have the bonus damg be pr weapon die would help alot I think.
There's alot of the subclass' identity that's tied into cascade, and cascade is just so.. eh.
I would love to play my ant gnoll laughing shadow Magus as a whip wielding + free hand char. But I have to jump through so many hoops to get such a mediocre bonus. If cascade was free and the movespeed bonus untyped, that would be something.
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Lollerabe wrote:
Iron on the other hand have a horrible conflux spell and the cascade feature is pretty underwhelming. Half your lvl as thp, while in cascade is just kinna eh. If it was fast healing then maybe we would have something.
Cannot disagree more with this. A constant stream of THP is absolutely amazing for improving your survivability. It's genuinely been an awesome feature in practice.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Squiggit wrote: Lollerabe wrote:
Iron on the other hand have a horrible conflux spell and the cascade feature is pretty underwhelming. Half your lvl as thp, while in cascade is just kinna eh. If it was fast healing then maybe we would have something.
Cannot disagree more with this. A constant stream of THP is absolutely amazing for improving your survivability. It's genuinely been an awesome feature in practice. In practice it becomes the same thing as fast healing if you are getting hit often, which as a high damage dealer you probably will be.
Lollerabe wrote: That's my point. If you build your laughing shadow as a quasi dex char with a 1h and a free hand, it's gonna suck. I tried it and it's just not good.
If you go for a 2h and heavy armor, you are a Magus with the best conflux spell there is imo.
But as I mentioned a few pages back, it feels super unintuitive to ignore everything about the subclass' cascade features. That doesn't mean it isn't good tho, just not how you would imagine it to be good. And most certainly not how it was intended to be played either
Like others said, if you build it with 2h and heavy Armor, you just have a bad focus spell and 5 feet movement to show for it.
Unicore wrote: Squiggit wrote: Lollerabe wrote:
Iron on the other hand have a horrible conflux spell and the cascade feature is pretty underwhelming. Half your lvl as thp, while in cascade is just kinna eh. If it was fast healing then maybe we would have something.
Cannot disagree more with this. A constant stream of THP is absolutely amazing for improving your survivability. It's genuinely been an awesome feature in practice. In practice it becomes the same thing as fast healing if you are getting hit often, which as a high damage dealer you probably will be. it's even better because it stacks with fast healing, and it's passive.
For example, a swashbuckler would require 3 actions to use vivacious bravado, while a barbarian would require to be raging ( less AC ) and expending 1 action.
They both get more temp hp, but having them for free every round is wonderful.
Witch Life boost to complete it.
Hmmm ... I'm very keenly interested in this conversation.
Squiggit & HumbleGamer, you both sound as if you are speaking from actual play experience with Iron Magus which is bang on what I was hoping for from this thread.
Would you be so kind as to go into a little more detail as to the experiences you're describing ? Any info you can give would be very much appreciated.
Esp to questions like:
How often were you finding the temp hps really seemed to make a difference ? How often were you entering cascade ? Did you find cascade difficult to find the action for to activate ? Did you do it early and often or only when it seemed necessary or you had actions to spare ? Where there any build options that made it more effective ? Does the Witch Life boost really make much of a difference (isn't it only 8hp of healing?) ? Does it rely on being paired with a spell slot for Stoneskin ? Did it work well at low levels or only high ?
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
TheOneGargoyle wrote: Hmmm ... I'm very keenly interested in this conversation.
Squiggit & HumbleGamer, you both sound as if you are speaking from actual play experience with Iron Magus which is bang on what I was hoping for from this thread.
Would you be so kind as to go into a little more detail as to the experiences you're describing ? Any info you can give would be very much appreciated.
Esp to questions like:
How often were you finding the temp hps really seemed to make a difference ? How often were you entering cascade ? Did you find cascade difficult to find the action for to activate ? Did you do it early and often or only when it seemed necessary or you had actions to spare ? Where there any build options that made it more effective ? Does the Witch Life boost really make much of a difference (isn't it only 8hp of healing?) ? Does it rely on being paired with a spell slot for Stoneskin ? Did it work well at low levels or only high ?
I played an Inexorable Iron Magus for awhile. The temp hp had a couple issues. First was the miserable action economy getting into it, a spell and an action is your whole round, I fairly rarely found that to be optimal to use.
The second is the nature of temp hp. You need to be hit every round to get value out of it. I found all too often when I did use it I would take a crit one round, and nothing the next round, etc, so it made very little difference. If the temp hp could stack with itself so you could build up a buffer it would be a lot better.
Temporary Hit points is good for persistent damage. Last combat I had 2d6 bleed and temporary hit points really helped
I see laughing shadow as the better melee option since it has the best conflux spell. You don't even need to use a one handed weapon with it. Start with a 2 handed bastard sword and drop a hand if you decide to activate cascade.
That it stacks with fast healing is nice, I'll give you that.
My issue with small amounts of thp is the same as Ninja disscribed. There's a risk that it doesn't change anything, quite often.
I have a similar beef with small amounts of aoe/splash (like the inexorable conflux spell). If the splash damg doesn't kill a mook, nor changes the threshold needed to kill it - by reducing the amount of hits needed from X to X-1, then it didn't actually do anything.
Either way, I'm not offering anything new to this thread anymore. Thanks for a lively debate people and best of luck to you gargoyle.
If your last ttrpg was 5e I'm sure you'll enjoy the Magus. It's a Gish that actually plays like one at it's baseline. And it's just imo one of the cooler classes there is.
Oh and just to dispell any overall concern:
The Magus is still considered one of the stronger post CRB martials. So you will definitely pull your weight and pack a punch.
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