Something like a scaling Bespell Weapon?I actually want... something more than just Spellstrike as an attack option.
To be fair, this can be shored up with MCDs. Taking Fighter MCD as Laughing Shadow Magus can give you some pretty cool free-hand feats, like Snagging Strike, Dual-handed Assault, etc.
Of course, this locks you out of the obvious Psychic cheese, or the classic Wizard route, but it gives you more martial options instead of magical ones.
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I'm blown away by the assertion that int is the worse stat when it gives you more skill proficiencies, which is massive in my book given how useful skills are in this edition.
As it stands now, Intelligence for Magus is in the same boat as Wisdom is for Ranger and Monk. If you want it, it's there for you to make use of it. If you don't, you don't need to. That's not a bad place for intelligence to be in, in all honesty.
Also, perhaps this is just a weird take, but you seem oddly fixated with optimization, to the point it seems like it's directly impacting your ability to have fun with the Magus class. Buffing up your spell DC is a choice but you always have spells you can cast. They're called cantrips, and you have the ability to spellstrike with them just as you do with your normal spells. Keeping a saving throw cantrip for AOE's isn't a bad idea to cover your bases.
Hell, even as someone playing a Magus, 16 int and a fireball have done wonders when we had to deal with a long ranged group of enemies. Additionally, having a little bit for blazing dive when the enemy is far away is a good way to get into the action vs just "I shoot ray of frost and walk 25 ft up" for 3 turns if the enemy is far away enough.
Would it be neat to see a few new class features for magus? Sure, that's always fun. Is magus in this state where if you aren't picking Psychic Dedication and getting Imaginary weapon than you can't play the class? No it isn't.
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I'm more wondering how in the world arcane cascade would work without spellschools since you mentioned them! Not sure when or how we'll get the magus addressed for the remaster. I do kind of disagree about the int thing though, I'm pretty glad we don't need it. In fact I really just think we could and should get promoted to 10 hp
its simple , just tag them to damage type
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I mean, if I'm GMing and someone told me "hey, Arcane Cascade doesn't work" my response would be "sure it does" and I hope we could leave it at that. Please don't argue with me that your stuff doesn't work.
yep the way its supposed to work is obvious and have never in real life seen any dm or player have an issue with it.
its only an issue when someone wants to quibble on raw wording.| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
Trained skills lose value over time as the game assumes proficiency boosts in all skills ever acquired. This is why Intelligence is a bad stat.
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I'm blown away by the assertion that int is the worse stat when it gives you more skill proficiencies, which is massive in my book given how useful skills are in this edition.
As it stands now, Intelligence for Magus is in the same boat as Wisdom is for Ranger and Monk. If you want it, it's there for you to make use of it. If you don't, you don't need to. That's not a bad place for intelligence to be in, in all honesty.
Also, perhaps this is just a weird take, but you seem oddly fixated with optimization, to the point it seems like it's directly impacting your ability to have fun with the Magus class. Buffing up your spell DC is a choice but you always have spells you can cast. They're called cantrips, and you have the ability to spellstrike with them just as you do with your normal spells. Keeping a saving throw cantrip for AOE's isn't a bad idea to cover your bases.
Hell, even as someone playing a Magus, 16 int and a fireball have done wonders when we had to deal with a long ranged group of enemies. Additionally, having a little bit for blazing dive when the enemy is far away is a good way to get into the action vs just "I shoot ray of frost and walk 25 ft up" for 3 turns if the enemy is far away enough.
Would it be neat to see a few new class features for magus? Sure, that's always fun. Is magus in this state where if you aren't picking Psychic Dedication and getting Imaginary weapon than you can't play the class? No it isn't.
With the "change" to Recall Knowledge, INT has become a lot better, but it is still kinda "meh". You are not incorrect that this is partly due to my focus on a certain degree of optimization, but that is far from just a "me" problem. It's also that it just doesn't do much. Its only "innate" benefit is trained skills, which, as Darksol pointed out, gets less and less useful as the game goes on. After about level 9, it's mostly there so you can Aid effectively, solve challenges that aren't meant for your level and the occasional shot in the dark. Everything else - meaning RK, essentially - requires a lot of class resource investment and is often highly situational. To top it off, INT is the only stat you can build "wrong".
That is why I don't think your comparison to Wisdom holds much water. Even on Rangers and Monks, it is immensely useful. Initiative, Will saves and not being completely blind if you ever need to Seek are always vital. You can never go wrong with investing in Wisdom.
My issue with Magus spell DC and its general lack of usefulness has been discussed enough, I think. I've made a lot of bad experiences with it in the past and have seen plenty of times how rough real casters can have it when any kind of actually threatening enemy steps on the plan, so no thank you.
Edit: It' kinda funny. Here I am, talking down on INT and meanwhile the vast majority of my characters heavily invest in INT XD
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I wonder what the dev rationale is for INT to only provide new proficiencies and not skill increases. That would go a long way to make INT increases always feel like they have value.
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I wonder what the dev rationale is for INT to only provide new proficiencies and not skill increases. That would go a long way to make INT increases always feel like they have value.
I think boosts to Intelligence providing a bonus skill training rank (not limited to a Trained skill) would make boosting Intelligence more valuable in the long run. An additional Expert skill by 5th, Master skill by 10th, and Legendary skill by 15th/20th (plus another Trained/Expert skill if they take both) would give better parity for all Intelligence-based classes/characters.
To be clear, this would result in another Legendary skill plus an Expert skill (if they put the last increase in Intelligence as well).
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I wonder what the dev rationale is for INT to only provide new proficiencies and not skill increases. That would go a long way to make INT increases always feel like they have value.
Actually INT works in PF2 for skills exactly the way it did in PF1. Trained in PF2 is the exact equivalent of putting a skill rank each level in the skill in PF1.
Higher proficiencies are the equivalent of investing feats like Skill Focus. And high INT did not provide those in PF1 either IIRC.
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I was looking at Recall Knowledge. There's still some value there in Trained Skills, although it's not ideal. The roll needed to use RK on a common, at-level something remains pretty steady at between 10-12, starting around L9. The problem, of course, is that Common somethings get less common as you go up in level. And there is a caveat: This is for someone maxing out a RK attribute, such as a Wizard continually booting INT.
Still some value there I think. Especially if some of those Trained Skills are Lores, where the DC is supposed to be a bit lower.
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Trained skills lose value over time as the game assumes proficiency boosts in all skills ever acquired. This is why Intelligence is a bad stat.
This doesn't make sense to me at all. Having just trained in a skill is MORE valuable at higher levels then at a low levels!
At low levels (below 5), I can just hit about any DC for a skill on the die alone. Is it harder to succeed at the DC 15 Athletics check if I have to roll a 14+ instead of a 10+? Sure. But is it possible? 100%. By level 10, you might need a 25 to succeed. No amount of rolling is going to hit that number.
I would much rather be in the position of needing a 13+ on a roll than to be fishing for Nat-20s for every skill check.
Also, there are things you can only do when trained, like recall knowledge. You can roll 20s all night, but that's not going to let you know that what your fighting is a rock troll and not a standard one if you aren't trained in Society. That recall knowledge roll is going to be a lot more important at level 10+ than at level 3.
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Trained skills lose value over time as the game assumes proficiency boosts in all skills ever acquired. This is why Intelligence is a bad stat.This doesn't make sense to me at all. Having just trained in a skill is MORE valuable at higher levels then at a low levels!
At low levels (below 5), I can just hit about any DC for a skill on the die alone. Is it harder to succeed at the DC 15 Athletics check if I have to roll a 14+ instead of a 10+? Sure. But is it possible? 100%. By level 10, you might need a 25 to succeed. No amount of rolling is going to hit that number.
I would much rather be in the position of needing a 13+ on a roll than to be fishing for Nat-20s for every skill check.
Also, there are things you can only do when trained, like recall knowledge. You can roll 20s all night, but that's not going to let you know that what your fighting is a rock troll and not a standard one if you aren't trained in Society. That recall knowledge roll is going to be a lot more important at level 10+ than at level 3.
First, Recall Knowledge is untrained, so anyone can do it. Second, Recall Knowledge DCs scale with enemies as well as rarity, so simply being trained means using it against a higher level/rarer enemy means you will likely get false information. Third, any actions that require Training in a skill are usually skills you will be building towards anyway.
Lastly, Untrained Improvisation is a General feat that gives you pseudo-"training" in every skill ever conceived, which can include Lore skills. The fact that any Intelligence boost is mostly trumped by a singular General feat should show the poor balance indication well enough. (And before we state "but trained actions," the Human version of this feat covers that portion.)
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Trained skills lose value over time as the game assumes proficiency boosts in all skills ever acquired. This is why Intelligence is a bad stat.
Yes this is a fundamental problem in the game which needs to be handled by GMs being sensible about the DC for regular tasks.
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Actually INT works in PF2 for skills exactly the way it did in PF1. Trained in PF2 is the exact equivalent of putting a skill rank each level in the skill in PF1.
Not really. Putting ranks in a skill in PF1 gave you full value in that skill and access to every normal action that skill had. Simply being trained in a skill in PF2 doesn't do that. You'll fall behind on typical DCs and not have access to certain proficiency gated activities.
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Magus not having INT definitely fails the vibe check. When I think of a magus in the Pathfinder/D&D sense, I'm thinking of a warrior scholar, a sword in one hand and potentially a spellbook in the other. Mechanically, I'm sure there's different ways to either justify having INT be important/at least reasonably optional, but if the Magus class is not actually benefiting from having the highest or one of the highest +INT bonuses to the booksmart skills then it undermines the fantasy of the class. I'd be fine with maybe having different mental attributes for different spellcasting traditions in a rework, like a divine magus to have RAW way to capture that classic 1e divine nuker paladin archetype, but having *something* to make them feel more like they're a legitmate caster that just so happens to also see value in stabbing people and has blended the two practices together I think is important.
I mean, if I'm GMing and someone told me "hey, Arcane Cascade doesn't work" my response would be "sure it does" and I hope we could leave it at that. Please don't argue with me that your stuff doesn't work.
Even if your response was correct - which I really don't think it is, though I'm sure how you assume it works is perfectly fair and functional - not taking the time to explain to a player that is struggling to understand how something works is going to create problems, both in terms of play when they inevitably end up using their abilities incorrectly (if they didn't know after reading it and possibly looking online for an answer, how would they learn the correct interpretation if you were unwilling to share it?) and socially. Responding to genuine concerns, even those you might think are silly, is either going to clarify it for your player or make you aware of something, since just being the GM doesn't mean you know the rules perfectly either or aren't capable of learning something new.
Which makes Arcane Cascade's ambiguity annoying, because it certainly is frustrating for a GM that has assumed the rules function on a basic level to then need to make a call on the mechanical balance of a class with likely zero context. It would be nice if Paizo would pick one of the common interpretations and just said "until the Magus rework comes out, just go with this for now."
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Not really. Putting ranks in a skill in PF1 gave you full value in that skill and access to every normal action that skill had. Simply being trained in a skill in PF2 doesn't do that. You'll fall behind on typical DCs and not have access to certain proficiency gated activities.
Actually INT works in PF2 for skills exactly the way it did in PF1. Trained in PF2 is the exact equivalent of putting a skill rank each level in the skill in PF1.
Good point about the proficiency-gating (which I strongly dislike TBT, especially in PFS).
But Trained in PF2 gives you lvl+2 bonus on skill checks. Investing a skill rank every level in a skill in PF1 gave you lvl+3 bonus in Class skills and lvl bonus in non-Class skills. So additional Trained skills are actually better in PF2.
Not to mention there are less skills in PF2.
But the DCs (which were a mess in PF1 IMO) did not stay the same in PF2.
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Trained skills lose value over time as the game assumes proficiency boosts in all skills ever acquired. This is why Intelligence is a bad stat.Yes this is a fundamental problem in the game which needs to be handled by GMs being sensible about the DC for regular tasks.
Not gonna say the same hill 3 levels later is gonna have a higher climb DC, but expecting a Trained character to navigate through Mount Everest is a tall order at the level it's presented at.
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On one hand, it definitely makes sense from a thematic point of view for the magus to benefit in some way from Intelligence. On the other, the question that immediately raises is: what is that benefit meant to be? As pointed out by several people and the OP here, the magus doesn’t really want to buff their spell attacks or save DC under most circumstances, which cuts out the only unique benefit the stat gives to the class. Replacing spellcasting mod with an extra damage die is also a significant buff to the class’s early-level damage, and as also noted, most magi will already be committing attribute boosts towards Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom, leaving little room for an extra stat. It feels like the class’s thematic requirements clash with the game’s implementation of attributes and their benefits, and I’m not sure if there’s a clean fix for that.
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Not really. Putting ranks in a skill in PF1 gave you full value in that skill and access to every normal action that skill had. Simply being trained in a skill in PF2 doesn't do that. You'll fall behind on typical DCs and not have access to certain proficiency gated activities.
Actually INT works in PF2 for skills exactly the way it did in PF1. Trained in PF2 is the exact equivalent of putting a skill rank each level in the skill in PF1.Good point about the proficiency-gating (which I strongly dislike TBT, especially in PFS).
But Trained in PF2 gives you lvl+2 bonus on skill checks. Investing a skill rank every level in a skill in PF1 gave you lvl+3 bonus in Class skills and lvl bonus in non-Class skills. So additional Trained skills are actually better in PF2.
Not to mention there are less skills in PF2.
But the DCs (which were a mess in PF1 IMO) did not stay the same in PF2.
PF1 did not assume you would put every point into the same skill. PF2 assumes that not only will you do that, but that you will also get every boost to the skill that you can.
It goes back to the whole "assume that the players are min maxed" which plagues other aspects of the game.
PF2 Skills system is based on the experience of how players used the PF1 Skills.
They put a single point in some skills.
They increased a few that had fixed DCs and then stopped investing there once the DCs were met.
They maxed (and used Feats to go even further) the skills where you wanted to go as high as possible.
PF2 took these facts into account and cut the middle man of skill points to be allocated every level. That's it.
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Level 5 DC is 20, so if you have trained only in the skill and no ability bonus (+7), you have to roll a 13+ to succeed.
Level 10 DC is 27, so if you have trained only in the skill and no ability bonus (+12), you have to roll a 15+ to succeed.
Level 15 DC is 34, at a +17 you need a 17+ to succeed.
That does not mean you need to be legendary in that skill to RK. If you start with a 12 in the key stat, you can easily have 18 in it by level 15, meaning that 17 now drops to a 13, if you have a +1 item bonus in the skill by then (pennies for a level 15 PC) it is now down to a 12. that is without investing a single skill increase.
RK keys off of two stats, Wisdom for Religion or Nature, and Int for everything else. A Magus can easily hit 18 Int by level 15, maybe even level 10.
Just because RK isn't a auto success doesn't make it useless.
I finally hit level 9 with my magus. There are not a lot of great attack roll spells other that shocking grasp on the arcane list. I picked up Exploding Earth.
What are the other good attack roll spells in that level 1 to 5 range you can heighten? Horizon thunder Sphere, shocking grasp, and exploding earth.
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Hydrolic Push is great, starts off a bit weaker than Shocking Grasp but has a shove rider. After spell lvl 6 it out damages SG as wellI finally hit level 9 with my magus. There are not a lot of great attack roll spells other that shocking grasp on the arcane list. I picked up Exploding Earth.
What are the other good attack roll spells in that level 1 to 5 range you can heighten? Horizon thunder Sphere, shocking grasp, and exploding earth.
What I don't like about those spells is it only doubles the base damage on a critical hit.
So level 6 shocking grasp does 7d12 but can double on a crit hit to 14d12.
Whereas hydraulic push does:
Crit hit 16d6
Success 13d6
Unless I'm reading it wrong you have to follow the crit success and success reading of the spell and don't apply double damage unless it says to do so.
Hydrolic Push is great, starts off a bit weaker than Shocking Grasp but has a shove rider. After spell lvl 6 it out damages SG as wellI finally hit level 9 with my magus. There are not a lot of great attack roll spells other that shocking grasp on the arcane list. I picked up Exploding Earth.
What are the other good attack roll spells in that level 1 to 5 range you can heighten? Horizon thunder Sphere, shocking grasp, and exploding earth.
What I don't like about those spells is it only doubles the base damage on a critical hit.
So level 6 shocking grasp does 7d12 but can double on a crit hit to 14d12.
Whereas hydraulic push does:
Crit hit 16d6
Success 13d6Unless I'm reading it wrong you have to follow the crit success and success reading of the spell and don't apply double damage unless it says to do so.
Wow, I never even noticed that issue. I'm absolutely sure that that is an error and it is supposed to follow the regular "double on a crit" rule. The crit success entry is really just there to get the increases push range as well and presumably the wording wasn't updated later during development, as happened with quite a few things.
I wonder why basic (spell) attack rolls aren't a thing yet...
Hydrolic Push is great, starts off a bit weaker than Shocking Grasp but has a shove rider. After spell lvl 6 it out damages SG as wellI finally hit level 9 with my magus. There are not a lot of great attack roll spells other that shocking grasp on the arcane list. I picked up Exploding Earth.
What are the other good attack roll spells in that level 1 to 5 range you can heighten? Horizon thunder Sphere, shocking grasp, and exploding earth.
What I don't like about those spells is it only doubles the base damage on a critical hit.
So level 6 shocking grasp does 7d12 but can double on a crit hit to 14d12.
Whereas hydraulic push does:
Crit hit 16d6
Success 13d6Unless I'm reading it wrong you have to follow the crit success and success reading of the spell and don't apply double damage unless it says to do so.
Wow, I never even noticed that issue. I'm absolutely sure that that is an error and it is supposed to follow the regular "double on a crit" rule. The crit success entry is really just there to get the increases push range as well and presumably the wording wasn't updated later during development, as happened with quite a few things.
I wonder why basic (spell) attack rolls aren't a thing yet...
It's one of those things you assume everything should be doubled, but it isn't for some of these spells. It's a little odd and annoying.
Yeah. Be nice if they had a basic spell attack rule. It further makes spell attack roll spells unattractive when you have some designed to limit the upper damage lit even on a rare critical hit.
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Level 5 DC is 20, so if you have trained only in the skill and no ability bonus (+7), you have to roll a 13+ to succeed.
Level 10 DC is 27, so if you have trained only in the skill and no ability bonus (+12), you have to roll a 15+ to succeed.
Level 15 DC is 34, at a +17 you need a 17+ to succeed.
That does not mean you need to be legendary in that skill to RK. If you start with a 12 in the key stat, you can easily have 18 in it by level 15, meaning that 17 now drops to a 13, if you have a +1 item bonus in the skill by then (pennies for a level 15 PC) it is now down to a 12. that is without investing a single skill increase.
RK keys off of two stats, Wisdom for Religion or Nature, and Int for everything else. A Magus can easily hit 18 Int by level 15, maybe even level 10.
ct
Just because RK isn't a auto success doesn't make it useless.
What you aren't adding are those crit fails which DO kind of make it useless: at 5th, that's a wrong answer on a 1-2, a 10th it's a 1-4 and a 15 it's a 1-6. When you're as likely or MORE likely to get a wrong answer than a correct one, that, IMO, is pretty useless. While you CAN add to your stats offset failures, you also have to add in rarity which seems to skew towards unique in published adventures.
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What I don't like about those spells is it only doubles the base damage on a critical hit.
So level 6 shocking grasp does 7d12 but can double on a crit hit to 14d12.
Whereas hydraulic push does:
Crit hit 16d6
Success 13d6Unless I'm reading it wrong you have to follow the crit success and success reading of the spell and don't apply double damage unless it says to do so.
Good catch! This looks like a prime opportunity for clarification in the remaster: given how basic saves work, the player is likely expected to double damage on a crit, but listing the damage numbers explicitly is redundant when "double damage" is an explicitly defined game term used for exactly that kind of occasion. Right now, that part of the rules is at best unclear and disconnected from game terminology that it should normally plug into neatly, and at worst makes for weird spell damage progression where some spell crits aren't terribly rewarding past a certain rank.
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On the entirely different subject of skills: I feel skills in PF2e sit in this particular spot where every +1 does matter as normal, but it's also not necessary to match one's KAS to the skill to do well with it. Even with a +4/5 to an attribute mod compared to a +7, committing increases to a skill will ensure a fairly high success rate due to how proficiency ranks cause characters to progressively overtake scaling DCs. Obviously, that's less true with a +0 attribute mod, which means that an unintelligent magus who maxes out their Int RK skills is going to be significantly behind a character who does the same while also having a +4-7 to their Int mod. The magus would still be relatively competent at those skills, but not great, and that does mean more nasty crit fails among other things against high-level challenges.
To go on a slight tangent, attributes I think are one of those sacred cows that got carried over from 1e to 2e despite not necessarily contributing much of their own: because virtually every d20 roll in PF2e maps to an attack roll, a saving throw, or a skill check, virtually every d20 roll is covered by some kind of existing proficiency, making attributes redundant. When a character makes a skill check, the bulk of their modifier for the roll will come from their proficiency bonus, rather than their attribute mod, even if both are important. In the worst of cases, such as with the magus here, it creates situations where using attributes as a form of character expression runs against their use as a form of character optimization: because Dex, Con, and Wis map onto saving throws as well as other important stats like AC, HP, and Perception, most characters are better off becoming agile, hardy, and wise, with a choice to also become strong, intelligent, or charismatic. You could theoretically create a character who's strong, intelligent, and charismatic at the same time, but in practice it's generally suboptimal to dump one, let alone two of your defensive stats.
Because of this, I feel attributes have ended up hindering character expression in 2e, rather than enhancing it: it's not enough for a magus to commit skill increases to all of the big brain skills, they also need to commit attribute boosts to the big brain stat to truly shine at big brain things. Because the class is tied to too many attributes already, it's difficult to commit to the big brain stat, and so the end result is a class that by all rights should be generally quite intelligent (they're essentially a wizard who also learned to fight with weapons and armor), but isn't in practice. In a hypothetical edition that didn't have attributes, and instead had players just pick the skills they wanted to be good at (or better yet, let players just pick feats directly to let them do things well right out of the box), we wouldn't have this issue, and the end result would probably come closer to the designers' intent of making every choice viable. Until then, there's always going to be a problem of certain builds being made unviable due to certain optimization restrictions, even when they would otherwise make a lot of thematic sense.
I know this is well beyond regular errata updates, but here is a thing that I think needs a complete revision - magus feats. Some lower level hybrid study exclusive feats are pretty neat, but when I was building an Inexorable Iron or Starlit Span Magus for play until level 10, I came up completely empty. There wasn't a single feat I was excited about. And even with the other hybrid studies I had more "dead" levels than not.
And that is areal bummer given how exciting the class chassis itself is.
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I know this is well beyond regular errata updates, but here is a thing that I think needs a complete revision - magus feats. Some lower level hybrid study exclusive feats are pretty neat, but when I was building an Inexorable Iron or Starlit Span Magus for play until level 10, I came up completely empty. There wasn't a single feat I was excited about. And even with the other hybrid studies I had more "dead" levels than not.
And that is areal bummer given how exciting the class chassis itself is.
It's the game telling you to multiclass into wizard... ;)
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It's the game telling you to multiclass into wizard... ;)
Can't, unfortunately. Until level 4 at the very least the Psychic already has his hold on me :D
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You had me in the first half not gonna lie.But do remember you have stats for 4 stats. The key stat is set, that leaves 3. Wisdom is set (cause will saves and perception) that leaves 2. Con is set (cause fort and HP) that leaves 1. Most would place it on their AC (if not going heavy armor) or Cha because the charisma skills are that good.
There are always trade offs. My point is that with a little investment RK is not always useless. People are acting like if you aren't legendary in a RK skill with 18+ stat by level 1, you might as well give up and never roll. That isn't the case. Can you fail, yes! Just because you have to roll above a 5 to succeed doesn't make the action useless.
What you aren't adding are those crit fails which DO kind of make it useless: at 5th, that's a wrong answer on a 1-2, a 10th it's a 1-4 and a 15 it's a 1-6. When you're as likely or MORE likely to get a wrong answer than a correct one, that, IMO, is pretty useless. While you CAN add to your stats offset failures, you also have to add in rarity which seems to skew towards unique in published adventures.
Remember my numbers are for ZERO investment after level 1. Just a little extra investment and these numbers go up quickly.
Have you never been in a situation where you need to roll a 15 or better in a desperate attempt to win a fight? Yes, you crit fail on a 6 or worse, but Mr. Untrained is crit failing on a 19 and the nat 20 is only a failure because it bumps up one step.
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Remember my numbers are for ZERO investment after level 1. Just a little extra investment and these numbers go up quickly.
I recalled it quite well. It's why I said "What you aren't adding are those crit fails which DO kind of make it useless": it was a response to your specific example and numbers. Different examples and numbers might have caused me to have a different response or no response at all.
Have you never been in a situation where you need to roll a 15 or better in a desperate attempt to win a fight? Yes, you crit fail on a 6 or worse, but Mr. Untrained is crit failing on a 19 and the nat 20 is only a failure because it bumps up one step.
The thing is when you get to that level it's not worth the action cost IMO. Why waste an action to more likely than not get a wrong answer. It's only worth it if it's for free or part of your class mechanic. The failure mechanic is one of the issues I have with knowledge checks.
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The thing is when you get to that level it's not worth the action cost IMO. Why waste an action to more likely than not get a wrong answer. It's only worth it if it's for free or part of your class mechanic. The failure mechanic is one of the issues I have with knowledge checks.
It's not a waste if you need to know how to kill the thing before it viciously murders your whole party.
A question for the designers then: was it intentional that when casting hydraulic push a caster does double damage on a critical success only at first rank, the extra damage falling off each rank thereafter?
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It's not a waste if you need to know how to kill the thing before it viciously murders your whole party.The thing is when you get to that level it's not worth the action cost IMO. Why waste an action to more likely than not get a wrong answer. It's only worth it if it's for free or part of your class mechanic. The failure mechanic is one of the issues I have with knowledge checks.
Then leaving it to someone who is specialized is probably much better if the entity is that big of a threat, then attempting to do so, failing horribly, and making the matter worse by giving your party the wrong way to kill it.
Even on a standard failure, you have just wasted an action that could have been spent doing other, more valuable things.
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It's not a waste if you need to know how to kill the thing before it viciously murders your whole party.The thing is when you get to that level it's not worth the action cost IMO. Why waste an action to more likely than not get a wrong answer. It's only worth it if it's for free or part of your class mechanic. The failure mechanic is one of the issues I have with knowledge checks.
How is most likely telling your party you either don't know OR worse the WRONG way to kill it and wasting attacking it the wrong way the least bit helpful? And on top of not helping with info, you also used an action that instead might have helped the party... I can't see a scenario you could give where I'd change my mind on this: you'd be better Aiding someone that could actually make the roll if you insisted on using a roll/action for knowledge.
A question for the designers then: was it intentional that when casting hydraulic push a caster does double damage on a critical success only at first rank, the extra damage falling off each rank thereafter?
I'm expecting that it was supposed to work like Hydraulic Torrent that relies on the basic save effect do to the doubling of the critical damage. Hydraulic Push is a CRB spell, so everyone was inexperienced at catching errors like forgetting to add the increasing damage to the heightening effect for critical success.
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Hydraulic Push is a CRB spell, so everyone was inexperienced at catching errors like forgetting to add the increasing damage to the heightening effect for critical success.
It's possible, but it's also one of the only spells that uses that specific wording and people have been asking about this for years across multiple erratas.
Will be interesting to see what it looks like in the remaster.
A question for the designers then: was it intentional that when casting hydraulic push a caster does double damage on a critical success only at first rank, the extra damage falling off each rank thereafter?
I'd like to know this as well as it really hurts the value of the spell.
Seems like a strange decision to double the base damage, but leave the additional damage flat with such a minor rider being added on, especially for a single target spell.
Briny Bolt is the same way, but it has a better rider. So you can somewhat understand it, though I still think that should be double damage as well on a crit as rare as they are.
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You know what would be really cool? Allowing the baseline Spellstrike to work with harmful save spells. The Strike hitting would mean a failed save, with a crit meaning a crit fail. They would still only affect the target you hit. Expansive Spellstrike would be purely for AoE purposes.
This wasn't done originally, presumably because of the added complexity and the progression difference between targeting saves and AC. I think this decision is worth revisiting to give the Magus more variety. The added complexity is pretty minor and given the class' limited spell resources, the potential fallout is manageable.
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If the spell effect would be fail even on a critical hit I can see it tho
That would work. Or you could take out incapacitate spells out entirely, that'd be fine as well imo.
So as far as making INT useful what if Arcane Cascade added half or full INT mod at base and then +1 at Weapon Specialization and +2 at Greater?
Also what if the initial target of Expansive Spellstrike had one degree of success lower?
So as far as making INT useful what if Arcane Cascade added half or full INT mod at base and then +1 at Weapon Specialization and +2 at Greater?
If there is one thing the Magus has more than enough of it is damage, especially with the refocus changes. I would much prefer it if INT was channeled into something else.
Also what if the initial target of Expansive Spellstrike had one degree of success lower?
Not sure, honestly. If anything, that might actually be stronger than what I said. After all, if you actually build INT, the Magus' DC isn't that terrible.
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The more I think about how the magus could change, the thornier I feel the problem is:
It’s difficult to propose a change to any one of these things without inducing a domino effect everywhere else, which is why I’m all the more curious to see what the remaster will do with the class. I might want to post something in homebrew after a bit more thought, but some ideas off the top of my head:
PF2 Skills system is based on the experience of how players used the PF1 Skills.
They put a single point in some skills.
They increased a few that had fixed DCs and then stopped investing there once the DCs were met.
They maxed (and used Feats to go even further) the skills where you wanted to go as high as possible.PF2 took these facts into account and cut the middle man of skill points to be allocated every level. That's it.
A single character might put 1 point into a handful of useful skills, max a couple more, and invest into others to meet prestige class requirements. PF2 cuts out all of this player choice and tells you to max your skills and spend feats on them to do what a PF1 character could do be default.