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Obligatory disclaimer: this is not a "Magus bad" thread. I don't consider the Magus to be at all a weak class, and in fact I think they're really strong in certain aspects and situations. Similarly, I don't find the Magus to be an unsatisfying class overall; I quite enjoy the class's flavor and several of their mechanics, even if I do think some aspects of their gameplay could be improved. It is this perceived opportunity for improvement that I'd like to try to express in feedback here, which may not reflect everyone else's opinion of the Magus but which is likely to overlap with some other criticisms made of the class in these discussion spaces, such as this popular meme that made the rounds on Reddit.
With that established, here's the gist: as a class that explicitly sets out to fill the spellblade niche so many players want out of a TTRPG character, the Magus I think satisfies a big part of this niche quite well, and the way Spellstrike works makes good use of both 2e's 3-action economy and multiple attack penalty mechanics to have the class combine spell and weapon attacks. However, as time went on, I think the class's limitations have also started to show, and the Magus I think has some of the most constrained turns and most restrictive build options out of any Pathfinder class, bar a few exceptions. I think the class could stand to have more flexibility with their turns, as well as the kinds of spells and weapons they want to use. For clarity and readability purposes, I'll split this post into sections, put my more detailed criticisms in spoilers, and add a TL;DR at the end of each.
TL;DR: The Magus is the closest this game gets to a class with a fixed action rotation, in a game that really isn't about having action rotations. Needing two actions to Spellstrike in melee range by itself is already a more limiting class feature than what most other martial classes get, and that would be fine if it weren't for the additional action taxes of Arcane Cascade and recharging, both of which crowd out more diverse options. The Magus could do without this rigidity, and could instead do with other means of varying their turns.
TL;DR: Whereas most other martial classes get to opt into better usage of certain weapons and armor through feats, the Magus has to lock themselves into one of a handful of subclasses, limiting their options. Arcane Cascade further limits these subclasses by locking the Magus out of their benefits until the stance is activated. In my opinion, the class would've been better-served with feats that gave them benefits when Spellstriking with certain weapons, and just generally more actions to vary their turns while benefiting from the use of certain weapons and armor.
TL;DR: In theory, the Magus could be a versatile hybrid class that supplements their potent burst damage with limited amounts of spell-based utility. In practice, the class is all too easily incentivized to just put all their eggs in one basket and commit purely to attack spells and burst damage, further contributing to the feeling of the Magus being a touch too narrow for their own good.
The big TL;DR to all this is that, in my opinion, the common player impression that the Magus is an overly busy, limited, and narrow class is not completely unjustified: the Magus is full of action taxes that constrain their turns and make them more repetitive, their combat style is defined by one of five subclasses rather than the much more freeform system of class feats other martial classes use for their own fighting techniques, and their features and attribute requirements all too easily incentivize overcommitting to attack spells for Spellstrike instead of a more varied assortment of utility. They certainly can deal an incredible amount of burst damage when critting with a slot or imaginary weapon Spellstrike, but when that's essentially all you're aiming towards as a class, they can all too often feel like a one-trick pony. Should the class ever get a remaster, I'd like to see them freed up in all those different ways, so that they'd feel able to build and play in a greater variety of ways.
How the class ought to change more specifically is something that probably warrant its own thread, and is not the main focus of this post. If I were to hazard a few suggestions, they'd probably be along the following broad lines:
TL;DR I'd like to free up the Magus's action economy and spell selection significantly by removing Arcane Cascade and changing how Spellstrike works a little, while letting them opt into different fighting styles through feats rather than subclasses, and instead using their subclasses to let them opt into different spellcasting traditions. I can't speak for everyone here, but I'd be prepared to sacrifice a bit of the upper bound of the burst damage a Magus can inflict to achieve this too.
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Magus action economy is the choice of the player. I think their action economy is fairly fluid with lots of quality options for modifying it. Their conflux spells recharging spellstrike make for a very fluid and effective play style.
You don't have to spellstrike every round. There is no need to modify the magus if they want to do other things. Just build to do those things and do them.
The only problems I've seen with the magus is the Reactive Strike activating from a melee spellstrike. This can be very painful and movement. If they had a conflux spell that allowed movement that wasn't hybrid specific, that would be nice.
Arcane Cascade could use some work. It's not enough bang for the buck and doesn't offer enough to build around. I tend to not even use it or think much about it when playing a magus, especially a Starlit Span magus where Arcane Cascade is a waste of an action.
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The only problems I've seen with the magus is the Reactive Strike activating from a melee spellstrike. This can be very painful and movement. If they had a conflux spell that allowed movement that wasn't hybrid specific, that would be nice.
So, the Magus's actions are fluid and you don't have to Spellstrike every round... but the class doesn't have enough actions to move and it hurts when you Spellstrike a monster that punishes you for casting spells in melee? Which is it, then? Why would you Spellstrike such a monster at all if you're claiming Spellstriking is not a huge requirement for the Magus, and why would you be struggling to move on a class that has such an allegedly freeform action economy?
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I think the action economy is what makes the Magus class work. You simply do not have enough actions in a turn to do everything you wish you could do, and positioning issues exacerbate this even further.
So playing a melee magus becomes an issue of triage and figuring out what you can put where in any given scenario in order to try to eventually get that perfect turn.
"Fixed action rotation" just isn't really going to happen unless you're Starlit Span or in a very static encounter (in which case it's not really a Magus thing).
In practice your turns are going to be much more varied than most other martials, who are going to get into position and strike things a bunch.
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I think the action economy is what makes the Magus class work. You simply do not have enough actions in a turn to do everything you wish you could do, and positioning issues exacerbate this even further.
So playing a melee magus becomes an issue of triage and figuring out what you can put where in any given scenario in order to try to eventually get that perfect turn.
"Fixed action rotation" just isn't really going to happen unless you're Starlit Span or in a very static encounter (in which case it's not really a Magus thing).
In practice your turns are going to be much more varied than most other martials, who are going to get into position and strike things a bunch.
This confuses me on both ends: on one end, I'm struggling to see what makes a Magus's turns so much more varied than other classes' when the near-totality of their class revolves either around Spellstriking, usually with the same spell, or just making regular Strikes on their off-turns. On the other end, if you're just moving into position and Striking a bunch as any other martial... where are your feats? Are you just not picking any feats? Because literally every martial class gets feat options from level 1 that let them do a bunch more things besides just move and Strike, and the feats that let you move and Strike tend to give you action compression so you can do more things instead.
To be clear, I'm not stating the Magus has a fixed action rotation, because on their off-turns they do get more freedom to do different things. However, it is a fact that the class has several different actions they're expected to use to turn on their class features on top of their baseline two-action activity, which in practice I think makes the class exceptionally rigid. Starlit Span takes this to an extreme degree where even you admit they have an actual action rotation, so I don't see why we'd pretend that the Magus doesn't have an overly busy action economy with lots of action taxes.
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I honestly think that "spellstriking every turn is very hard (if you're not starlit span)" is the best thing about the Magus design. Since sure, in a white room you might be in a fixed action rotation but because in actual gameplay you will need to do things that break you out of the rotation makes this a very fun class to play.
I honestly think that "spellstriking every turn is very hard (if you're not starlit span)" is the best thing about the Magus design. Since sure, in a white room you might be in a fixed action rotation but because in actual gameplay you will need to do things that break you out of the rotation makes this a very fun class to play.
Right, I think something's getting lost in translation here, because the OP makes this exact same point, rather than make the straw man assumed in the above comment:
Worth noting that even without these action taxes, the Magus would already have one of the most limited action economies of any melee class, because Spellstrike requires two actions to pull off. This isn't talked about all that often, but one of the reasons why martial classes get to feel so flexible in 2e is because most actions available to martial classes, i.e. Strikes, move actions, and skill actions, usually just take a single action each, so those classes get a lot of freedom in how they make use of their turn. Should a situation arise where a martial doesn't really want to Strike twice (and this comes up more often than is assumed in online discussions), they can still Strike once and use their two remaining actions for something else instead. The Magus doesn't have that kind of freedom with Spellstrike, which holds the bulk of their class's power. That much is fine, and it makes sense for a martial-caster hybrid to have the more rigid action economy of a caster (plus the additional restriction of being melee by default and needing to spend additional actions to move), but it's the addition of other action taxes that, in my opinion, pushes this class to a point where they feel a bit too limited.
With this being put forth as a suggestion:
I'd like to see Arcane Cascade stance removed, with instead a focus on implementing more actions that either build on Spellstrike or provide additional single actions to use for various situations, including more single-action Strikes with magical effects.
The point here isn't "Spellstriking every turn is hard and the Magus should Spellstrike every turn", because that's going to be literally impossible for a melee class that will want to spend more than one action on some turns moving and doing other things, the point here is "the Magus doesn't need the action taxes of Arcane Cascade and recharging their Spellstrike to have limits on their Spellstrike, because having to spend two actions on one thing is already limiting for a melee martial class". I too would very much like the Magus to have more turns where they're not Spellstriking, hence why I'd want single-action feats involving Strikes for the class (which wouldn't work well on the same turn as a Spellstrike), but I'd like those turns to be made up of a variety of interesting actions, rather than an express need to Interact to recharge (or a conflux spell, if you're not just spending your Focus Points on imaginary weapon). On the turns where the Magus does Spellstrike, I'd similarly like them to not also be pushed to spend an action activating a stance just so they can have a subclass, or just stand in place and recharge each time with Starlit Spam, the latter of which amply demonstrates how repetitive the class can be right now. Being pushed to do the same things every turn, or every other turn, makes the class more repetitive, not less, so they could do with a greater variety of worthwhile actions and fewer taxes.
I am pretty much in the same position as Deriven, that it have problems with reactive strikes and how Arcane Cascade works (could like be a free action if you use a non-cantrip spell per example), but outside of that the class works well and have a decent flow with the conflux spells.
The rest is the choice of the player, want to go into a spell attack focus spell for spellstrike instead of the action economy of conflux spells? Let them. Wants to use spell slots for spellstrike? Good as well, just like if if they want to use for buffs or one of the "martial spells" introduced on the same books as the class, like Blink Charge and Warding Agression.
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I honestly think that "spellstriking every turn is very hard (if you're not starlit span)" is the best thing about the Magus design. Since sure, in a white room you might be in a fixed action rotation but because in actual gameplay you will need to do things that break you out of the rotation makes this a very fun class to play.
Other perspective: That's why I play Starlit Span. When you go multiple rounds without being able to Spellstrike, Magus feels lousy. It's a relatively low end martial when it isn't Spellstriking and considering how all-in Spellstrike is, doing one, missing, and then having to go a couple rounds before you can do it again means that some combats you may not even get another chance and effectively get to feel like "and I was there too" while your party handles this.
Doing things that break you out of your rotation can be fun if those things aren't action taxes or feel ineffective. If they're that... they're called taxes for a reason.
I'm also not sure it was actually intended that Starlit Span be so much easier to play at full speed vs the other hybrid studies, but that's where it ended up.
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The weird thing about the reactive strike issue is that while reactive strikes are not very common (something like 15% of the bestiary can do them) it's weird to have a class that's vastly more effective against 85% of the bestiary than the other 15%.
Like it's a feelsbad thing if you end up being significantly less effective just because of who you're fighting, though I admit this phenomenon is worst when it's "Kineticists against will-o'-wisps."
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I'd like to see Arcane Cascade stance removed, with instead a focus on implementing more actions that either build on Spellstrike or provide additional single actions to use for various situations, including more single-action Strikes with magical effects.
I'm working on the assumption that any Magus updates will be in a ORC reprint of Secrets of Magic similar to what Guns & Gears is getting (rather than the full remaster treatment), so that means effectively the same page count and some limitations on what they can change. So I'm going to assume a wholesale rework is not in the cards. (Hell, considering how SoM hasn't gotten errata yet somehow and it took years for Arcane Cascade to work RAW, I'm not super confident Paizo will ever touch this book at all. It seems radioactive to them for some reason I can't fathom.)
That said, the easiest fix for Arcane Cascade is to make it a free action if it's not already up. It already has requirements for when you can use it, simply make that the trigger and you're done. This requires very little change to the action itself and no changes to the hybrid studies while fixing the action tax part of it making it so clunky to get running in the first place.
Adding to the Magus's action taxes is their Spellstrike recharge. The intent seems to be to discourage the class from just Spellstriking each turn by having off-turns in-between, but that I feel would have been better-served by making Spellstrikes more varied, instead of taxing the Magus's actions further. This restriction also completely breaks down with Starlit Span, whose ability to Spellstrike and recharge every turn earns it the moniker of Starlit Spam, along with a reputation for having infamously samey turns.
Starlit Span is the real elephant in the room here because it's the one that literally can Spellstrike every turn, and clearly being able to do that doesn't break the game. I'm not at all convinced things would go horribly wrong if the melee studies were less restricted on it.
Magus feels like a very gambley, all-or-nothing class with so much riding on one attack, and that's compounded when your next turn is likely to be comparatively poor because you can't reliably do it again. Burning a spell slot (of which you have very few), missing, and then effectively having a cooldown turn where you can't do your class signature ability feels clunky and not fun to me. You don't see a Fighter going "I missed with Power Attack and so I have to let my arms rest a turn before I try again", and you don't see a caster going "well I missed with my spell so I can't cast another spell next turn."
Even saying it out loud sounds absurd, yet that's pretty much how Magus works outside of the one study where it doesn't. Sometimes it doesn't, if the enemy doesn't move, is still up, and you have a focus point to use first (but several of the conflux spells are a bad idea to use before a spellstrike since they'll cause MAP).
I'd want to remove Spellstrike's recharge requirement and let it work with save spells by default, perhaps even to a better extent than with Expansive Spellstrike. In exchange, this may warrant limiting it to cantrips, at least without feats to enable this, which would give the class more room to prepare utility spells (this could even make positive use of the class's weaker spellcasting modifier and DC by making slot spells with no attack rolls or save DC the more attractive choice).
I'm with you on the recharge requirement. It's a real hassle that hinders the flow of the class a lot and doesn't really create the action diversity it seems to want to. It mostly just blocks you from doing the thing you're here to do, unless you're like me and went "well that's annoying so I'm going to use a bow and minimize the problem."
I'm not so convinced on save spells, because how would that work? Just having it auto-fail if you hit would be super powerful when you can pair True Strike up with it and have a martial's accuracy. Having them make the save normally if you hit is adding a point of failure that wouldn't exist otherwise and risks wasting a valuable spell resource. Having them make the save totally independently of the strike fixes that, but aside from action compression doesn't feel like these things are connected at all. Maybe that's fine, but I'm not so sure.
And just to echo what others said... Reactive Strike is a HUGE problem for this class, since there's often simply no way to avoid it. It's not like you can "not attack", and being forced to retreat to range as a melee magus and lob cantrips is not an enjoyable experience at all since effectively your class just got shut off. There's creatures in PF2 that hard counter some classes and this isn't quite the "oh this enemy is just immune to me entirely so I'm going to go play on my phone for this combat" situation, but it's pretty bad and it's a LOT more common than those hard counters.
The worst are the few creatures with multiple reactive strikes, as those are pretty much going to destroy a melee Magus. Spellstrike should not provoke.
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This confuses me on both ends: on one end, I'm struggling to see what makes a Magus's turns so much more varied than other classes' when the near-totality of their class revolves either around Spellstriking, usually with the same spell, or just making regular Strikes on their off-turns.
I mean even having 'off turns' is relatively unique here. I'm confused as to why you're confused, because you basically spell it out yourself. Sometimes you'll spellstrike. Sometimes you'll have an off turn making normal strikes or setting up. Sometime you'll cast a normal spell, because being able to drop chain lightning in a room full of fodder is great, sometimes you'll want to turn on arcane cascade and adjust the rest of your action economy around it.
On the other end, if you're just moving into position and Striking a bunch as any other martial... where are your feats? Are you just not picking any feats? Because literally every martial class gets feat options from level 1 that let them do a bunch more things besides just move and Strike, and the feats that let you move and Strike tend to give you action compression so you can do more things instead.
Your feats were probably spent to make you better at striking, or compress your action economy so you can strike more. There are a handful of exceptions, but that's what those are, exceptions. There's no sense pretending fighters or rangers or barbarians have these wildly varied and nuanced routines, because they don't.
Starlit Span takes this to an extreme degree where even you admit they have an actual action rotation, so I don't see why we'd pretend that the Magus doesn't have an overly busy action economy with lots of action taxes.
I didn't say the Magus wasn't busy. I said the business was what created the decision making process for the class. Starlit Span changes things by removing elements from consideration, making positioning much less important and therefore the gameplay more rote. If removing decision points makes the class more rote, doing the same for the melee magus is the opposite of making it less static and fixed.
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Starlit Span is the real elephant in the room here because it's the one that literally can Spellstrike every turn, and clearly being able to do that doesn't break the game.
I mean, it gets about as close as you can. Its output is pretty out of whack compared to typical ranged/melee balancing, especially when you put it up against other hybrid studies.
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As someone that have played multiple magi, one of them up to 20th level, I agree the worst thing about the magus is arcane cascade. Its an otherwise useless action which only purpose is to enable your other features that aren't spellstrike. 1 to 3 (or 3 to 7 if you´re laughing shadow) are pretty much worthless when you add multiple damage dXs to your damage. I also disagree with the notion some people have "its action economy is what makes the magus balanced". If you saw what high level martials like fighters and barbarians can do you would easily notice they pump much better damage than a magus does with spellstrike, though unlike spellstrike those martials can do their shtick every turn and don't need reloads.
The only thing I would change about the magus is turning AC into a passive feature that should encourage an spellstrike-less playstyle if people don't want the "spellstrike ASAP" that the magus has. Probably something like "If you don't have your spellstrike charged, you gain a +X bonus to damage" or something like that (I feel like a +2 to damage per weapon damage die would be golden for this). Likely still worse than a magus that purely spellstrikes, but the damage would be significant enough that you wouldn't feel as bad for ignoring spellstrike to deal feature-less martial damage. Each hybrid study would also encourage this spellstrike-less playstyle even more with their effects. An inexorable iron magus would choose to spellstrike or deal less damage but in favor of having temporary HP that recharges every round (optimally I would buff it to full level instead of 1/2 level), laughing shadow an even higher damage boost and some increase to movement speed, etc.
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I agree that Arcane Cascade should be a free action (although, perhaps as a trade off, you can only use it after Spellstriking rather than Casting a Spell or Spellstriking.
I also think that there should be alternatives to spending an action or casting a Conflux Spell to recharge Spellstrike (either making a Strike or some other action). Perhaps even something related to the Magus's Hybrid Study?
Then again, I only got interested in Magus recently, thanks to the new Unfurling Brocade study fulfilling a very specific anime-esque fantasy of mine.
I'm working on the assumption that any Magus updates will be in a ORC reprint of Secrets of Magic similar to what Guns & Gears is getting (rather than the full remaster treatment), so that means effectively the same page count and some limitations on what they can change. So I'm going to assume a wholesale rework is not in the cards. (Hell, considering how SoM hasn't gotten errata yet somehow and it took years for Arcane Cascade to work RAW, I'm not super confident Paizo will ever touch this book at all. It seems radioactive to them for some reason I can't fathom.)
Considering Secrets of Magic makes a couple mentions of Seven Schools (which are OGL), I'd say odds are more likely SoM is getting replaced, not reprinted.
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Y'all make magus sound like a kineticist that has to use an overflow action to feel like they're doing anything.
Maybe magus could use a lower tier spellstrike action that /doesn't/ need the recharge at all? Or maybe magus could use the ability to one action spellstrike with cantrips (but still need to recharge) in exchange for a higher-than-usual MAP afterwards, or something? That would free up an action for magus without significantly increasing their strike damage...
EDIT: ...though it would encourage magus to perhaps spellstrike and then cast a slotted spell to have a very bursty turn. This could be mitigated if you decreased save DCs in addition to increasing MAP... though that would start to feel like you were really railroading the player.
The more I think about it, though, the more I feel like there's a case for a weaker single-action spellstrike that lowers your damage for the rest of the turn.
The only problems I've seen with the magus is the Reactive Strike activating from a melee spellstrike. This can be very painful and movement. If they had a conflux spell that allowed movement that wasn't hybrid specific, that would be nice.So, the Magus's actions are fluid and you don't have to Spellstrike every round... but the class doesn't have enough actions to move and it hurts when you Spellstrike a monster that punishes you for casting spells in melee? Which is it, then? Why would you Spellstrike such a monster at all if you're claiming Spellstriking is not a huge requirement for the Magus, and why would you be struggling to move on a class that has such an allegedly freeform action economy?
What are you talking about?
The movement problem becomes less of an issue once you can haste easily. But an earlier spell could help them move like a magus Sudden Charge would be nice for the opening rounds.
Everyone knows about the melee spellstrike issues. Been that way a long time. It can hurt if the opponent has spellstrike, which they don't all have.
Spellstriking is the core feature of the magus, but you seem to want to do other things. You can build the magus to do those other things if you want to, but the magus was built to spellstrike.
I have no interest in supporting spellstrike doing other things like maneuvers or such. You want to do those, take the feats and do them without spellstrike.
Magus is a powerful class that doesn't have many problems.
That said, the easiest fix for Arcane Cascade is to make it a free action if it's not already up. It already has requirements for when you can use it, simply make that the trigger and you're done. This requires very little change to the action itself and no changes to the hybrid studies while fixing the action tax part of it making it so clunky to get running in the first place.
If we're talking quick, simple fixes, I'd definitely support this. In a pie-in-the-sky rework I'd rather remove it and change how the Magus's subclasses work, but simply making Arcane Cascade a free action would remove the need for the Magus, a melee class by default, to spend literally their entire turn just to turn on half their class features, and take out one of their key action taxes.
Magus feels like a very gambley, all-or-nothing class with so much riding on one attack, and that's compounded when your next turn is likely to be comparatively poor because you can't reliably do it again. Burning a spell slot (of which you have very few), missing, and then effectively having a cooldown turn where you can't do your class signature ability feels clunky and not fun to me.
I very much agree with this, the Magus is a very gamble-y class, and while that can be part of the fun, it's not so great when you have to jump through so many hoops to do that again and also have a limited resource on the line. It's one of the reasons why I feel spell slots and Spellstrike oughtn't mix by default, because the Magus has so few of them and should not feel like they have to rely on them to maximize their damage output.
I mean even having 'off turns' is relatively unique here. I'm confused as to why you're confused, because you basically spell it out yourself. Sometimes you'll spellstrike. Sometimes you'll have an off turn making normal strikes or setting up. Sometime you'll cast a normal spell, because being able to drop chain lightning in a room full of fodder is great, sometimes you'll want to turn on arcane cascade and adjust the rest of your action economy around it.
The confusion arises from the presumption that it's the Magus's action taxes that determine these off-turns, rather than the simple fact that a melee class does not always have the luxury of committing two actions to one thing. As noted in the OP, even without those action taxes, the Magus would still have turns where they wouldn't be Spellstriking, so those action taxes are not a necessary component to implementing those off-turns. As noted, the Magus's spellcasting modifier is generally not going to be good enough to cast offensive spells without Spellstrike, unless you want lots of successes and crit successes against your spell save DC, and Arcane Cascade isn't something you can just "turn on" when you feel like it, it's something that requires spending literally your entire turn Spellstriking in melee then entering the stance. The fact that this is necessary to enable many class features at all means the Magus can go for several entire turns without subclass features.
Your feats were probably spent to make you better at striking, or compress your action economy so you can strike more. There are a handful of exceptions, but that's what those are, exceptions. There's no sense pretending fighters or rangers or barbarians have these wildly varied and nuanced routines, because they don't.
You and I have a very different experience of those martial classes. For starters, action compressors already enable more varied actions, but I also don't see that many feats that just make you straight-up better at Striking. What I do see, however, is my whip Fighter with Snagging Strike, Sleek Reposition, Disorienting Opening, and Tactical Reflexes making themselves an absolute crowd control and interruption nightmare through clever positioning and a bevy of different actions that let me Strike and manipulate enemies at the same time. I don't have fixed action rotations, but I do have a lot of different options for getting my foes exactly where I want them.
I didn't say the Magus wasn't busy. I said the business was what created the decision making process for the class. Starlit Span changes things by removing elements from consideration, making positioning much less important and therefore the gameplay more rote. If removing decision points makes the class more rote, doing the same for the melee magus is the opposite of making it less static and fixed.
Recharging your Spellstrike is not a decision point, it's a thing you have to do to enable your main class feature. The reason Starlit Span is so repetitive isn't because it doesn't need to Arcane Cascade, it's because the subclass is ranged and thus doesn't have to spend actions repositioning like a melee Magus. A melee Magus, by contrast, will need to spend actions repositioning in such a way that they will have off-turns even without action taxes, so those simply add busywork rather than interesting decisions. Assuming otherwise requires a serious amount of white-rooming to ignore how combat in Pathfinder disrupts planning turns ahead and forces characters in melee to spend actions on things other than their big class features.
Maybe magus could use a lower tier spellstrike action that /doesn't/ need the recharge at all? Or maybe magus could use the ability to one action spellstrike with cantrips (but still need to recharge) in exchange for a higher-than-usual MAP afterwards, or something? That would free up an action for magus without significantly increasing their strike damage...
EDIT: ...though it would encourage magus to perhaps spellstrike and then cast a slotted spell to have a very bursty turn. This could be mitigated if you decreased save DCs in addition to increasing MAP... though that would start to feel like you were really railroading the player.
The more I think about it, though, the more I feel like there's a case for a weaker single-action spellstrike that lowers your damage for the rest of the turn.
I do think there's a case to be made for the basic two-action Spellstrike not needing a recharge when used on cantrips. I think the issue with spell slot Spellstrikes has more to do with the extremely limited nature of that resource, even if the power output can be very high, and there's probably room for some higher-level feature that lets you spend three actions to Spellstrike with a downranked slot spell (e.g. 2 ranks lower than your highest-rank slot spell), with the benefit being ideally that you wouldn't expend a spell slot and could do it again. The three-action cost being a lump sum rather than a staggered cost via recharge would make that kind of usage much more situational, and thus ideally help balance the potentially much higher output of those Spellstrikes without needing to dip into the class's extremely small daily resource.
What are you talking about?
The movement problem becomes less of an issue once you can haste easily. But an earlier spell could help them move like a magus Sudden Charge would be nice for the opening rounds.
Ah, so the Magus's action economy is "fairly fluid", but only if you're permanently quickened via haste. You know which class has a "fairly fluid" action economy with four actions per turn? Literally every class. That is the point of haste, and the Magus should not have to expend their extremely limited slots just to have a decent action economy.
Spellstriking is the core feature of the magus, but you seem to want to do other things. You can build the magus to do those other things if you want to, but the magus was built to spellstrike.
That doesn't sound particularly varied to me, and if you're hitting a wall by Spellstriking an enemy with Reactive Strike, that sounds to me like the Magus's power output is very much Spellstrike or bust. I don't think that's entirely the case in practice, given their conflux spells, but you're not exactly selling the class here.
I have no interest in supporting spellstrike doing other things like maneuvers or such. You want to do those, take the feats and do them without spellstrike.
I'm not sure how taking Strike + Maneuver feats works with Spellstrike, given that both usually have two-action costs (this is one of the reasons why the class doesn't do well with archetypes outside of Psychic), but my suggestions were also to have more single-action Strike effects so that you'd have more things to do on the turns where you can't commit two actions to a Spellstrike. This, in my opinion, would enable the more fluid action economy and varied options you're touting against all evidence.
Magus is a powerful class that doesn't have many problems.
"This class has no problems if you pretend they don't exist" isn't exactly a convincing argument when the picture you've just painted is of a haste-addicted one-trick pony that would sooner take a Reactive Strike to the face than do literally anything other than Spellstrike. This is, in fact, an even worse depiction of the Magus than mine.
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I've played a magus all the way to level 20 of Edgewatch and had a good time. I don't think the class is deeply broken.
I played a Starlit Span with Wizard and Monk dedications and would usually open with a ranged spellstrike, then Cascade and use Flurry in melee. Because as nice as ranged is, the advantage of controlling melee and protecting your back row teammates are also considerable. So I didn't do the extreme turret style Starlit that people often cite.
I don't think Secrets of Magic is getting reprinted, I think it's getting replaced. It could have gone either way, but they put SoM in the recent humble bundle, and usually Paizo only does that with books that are kinda "old" or being replaced with something new.
I think Teridax identifies a lot of points where the magus has friction, although I don't agree with the full extent of all of them. Deriven made good points that "you don't do the same thing every round" seems to be deliberate design intent for the magus. It's hinted at in the "Combining your abilities" sidebar that they didn't expect you to be able to Spellstrike every round.
That said, here are the problems as I see them:
Turns without Spellstrike look bad
You're not supposed to Spellstrike every round, but there's not really a sparkling vision of what you ought to be doing on other rounds. What is needed here I think is abilities that really clearly signal to the players that they're an alternative. Like maybe a two-action ability that does a Strike with a good rider effect (similar to fighter feats like Intimidating Strike and Slam Down) and recharges your Spellstrike.
Spellstrike is bad with Reactive Strike
I don't want to make the magus completely protected against Reactive Strike. There are specific game elements dedicated to negating enemies' reactions (like Laughing Fit). But I also don't want the magus to be totally hampered by them. A good compromise would be to write a melee cantrip without the Manipulate trait. Every cantrip has some kind of gimmick; lacking Manipulate would be this one's gimmick. And if you're confident the enemy doesn't have Reactive Strike, you can reach for a cantrip with a more damaging gimmick like Gouging Claw.
Arcane Cascade is awkward
I really like the idea of cascade giving you damage that can repeatedly trigger a weakness. But activating it is really hard to fit into an action economy, because at the time when you need to activate it, you're probably also spending an action to move into position or recall knowledge. And usually two actions to cast a spell or spellstrike. I think the needed change here is to change activating it to a free action triggered by casting a spell. Also, there could be a cool feat to make a strike where you change all of your weapon's damage to the type of your arcane cascade.
Over reliance on attack spells
The remaster removed some attack cantrips and replaces them with save cantrips, which was good for almost all other casters. I think at this point we should make Expansive Spellstrike a core class feature instead of requiring a feat.
Maybe also look at the save DC although that might be going from bad to too good. Swinging from "Int + poor spellcasting prof" to "Str + "martial weapon prof" + "runes" is a really big swing, often 3-6 DC difference. Maybe there's a middle ground possible somewhere?
Mixed messaging about spell slots
Many of the hybrid study feats require you to be casting a spell from a slot. But you only have five slots (before archetypes..). And there aren't many attack spells to use with slots, and non-attacks spells with Expanded Spellstrike have disappointing DCs.
Solutions could be to rely less on spell slots for ability design, or to make spell DCs better.
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Jank idea: Going into Arcane Cascade recharges your spellstrike.
I thought about that too, but it has some issues. Will this be the only way to recharge spellstrike? Because you can only go into Arcane Cascade when you have just cast a spell. If you just have to move and then Spellstrike, you wouldn't have actions left to cascade. And then next round you'd have a lot of trouble starting up spellstrike again.
But it's good to keep pushing at new options like this.
How about:
- Drop the requirement on Arcade Cascade that you just cast a spell. If you did it without casting a spell first, it does damage of the default type (currently Force; a remastered magus might get something else).
- Whenever you cast a damaging spell and Arcane Cascade is already active, you can switch its damage type to that matching a type done by the spell.
The timing restriction on when you can activate arcane cascade is just SO hard to squeeze in a turn, it's something that needs improving.
This change would still not be perfect, but it opens the way to a "start combat in your stance" feat like monks/fighters get.
Another approach might be to look at the barbarian: they get to start a rage for free on initiative now. Maybe the magus could start a cascade for free at the start of combat with maybe an energy flavor based on hybrid study?
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I definitely have said that the magus is certainly the MOST clunky class to play and I stand by it. It feels pretty restricted and clumsy in actual play compared to any other martial. I also think it was not the right move to give them spells up to level 9 and wave casting was a solution to the problem of spells heightening with slots and not gaining more damage dice with caster level like in 1e. I would prefer that the magus maybe have more restrictions on spells to give more power budget and then have something like divine font for spellstrike spells so that they can have slots for utility spells but limited to somewhere between 4th and 6th level.
I would also like to see arcane cascade either axed or not require a spell be cast first. Instead arcane cascade could apply force damage, and then while in arcane cascade if you cast a spell it'll change the damage type from force to the spell's damage dynamically
I also want spellcombat back as action compression. For two actions you get to cast a 2 action spell and make an attack. With this I want spellstrike to work with trips and shoves, not just strikes so that I can get more use out of my longhammer for instance. spellcombat could allow you to strike, grabble, trip, shove etc and cast a spell for two actions too, and allow you to pick the order. So maybe you can cast runic weapon and then strike for two actions
Changes like these would go a long way in making the class feel less clumsy, and immobile
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On the subject of Reactive Strike and Spellstrike, I feel the solution here isn’t to make Spellstrike not trigger reactions, so much as actually make those off-turns as decent as some people in this discussion are pretending they are. If the Magus had access to more strong single actions, including stronger conflux spells (which include Strikes but no manipulate trait), then the Magus would have better alternatives at their disposal when faced with that counter, and generally on occasions when Spellstriking is not the ideal play. This, rather than action taxes, could actually vary the Magus’s turns, and have the additional benefit of making it easier for the class to opt into actions from archetypes.
I feel not needing to recharge a spellstrike if you use cantrips would be a huge and unnecesary buff. With the class being as swingy as it is I feel spellstriking with leveled spells is kind of a trap option if I have to be honest. It also doesn't help that most of the better options to spellstrike are also cantrips (gouging claw, imaginary weapon). The best use for a magus' leveled spells are buffs and the ocassional utility spell, not more damage.
I don't think having to recharge your spellstrike is a problem, the problem is that the magus has to recharge spellstrike AND spend an action with arcane cascade if they want to have features. This is quite literally twice the amount of action taxes than most classes have.
I also feel arcane cascade being a stance was always a little weird. I mean, I get the reason why they made it a stance, but it always felt a little out of place for the magus of all classes to need to enter a stance. Its also probably the only stance in the game that works a little different from the rest, which to me kinda implies it likely was a last minute change and that it likely wasn't a stance in most of development. If AC has to stay it needs to have some kind of action compression since this is the direction Paizo is going for now it seems. AC recharging your spellstrike is the obvious one, though it would kinda clash with conflux spells, not to mention that you only enter AC once per combat. Probably have each subclass its own action that you can use when using AC?
Ah, so the Magus's action economy is "fairly fluid", but only if you're permanently quickened via haste. You know which class has a "fairly fluid" action economy with four actions per turn? Literally every class. That is the point of haste, and the Magus should not have to expend their extremely limited slots just to have a decent action economy.
While I see what you are saying here, and I do agree that the magus could use a couple tweaks, I don't really see the reliance on haste as a big deal, at least for me. Its actually part of the fun. The magus is supposed to be a split of martial and magic ability, and those halves are to compliment each other. Yeah the skeleton of the class is not well equipped to be a full martial, but its not supposed to. The entire theme of the class is about enhancing martial abilities with magic. Haste smooths out your action economy a great deal, invisibility can get you around reactive strike, there are spells that add damage to your weapon (call the lightning being a favorite of mine, your save is weak, but dealing damage and buffing yourself at once helps counteract having to take off time to buff), there are also movement spells like time jump.
I will say that taking a casting archetype does feel kind of essential, but I want to take those anyway so I do not really mind.
Also I may have said this long ago but I love your username, one of my all time favorite villains
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I feel not needing to recharge a spellstrike if you use cantrips would be a huge and unnecesary buff. With the class being as swingy as it is I feel spellstriking with leveled spells is kind of a trap option if I have to be honest. It also doesn't help that most of the better options to spellstrike are also cantrips (gouging claw, imaginary weapon). The best use for a magus' leveled spells are buffs and the ocassional utility spell, not more damage.
I'm not so sure about this:
If the better use for a Magus's slot spells is utility, then preventing the class from using their slots to Spellstrike would only further reinforce this by making utility comparatively more attractive than straight-up more damage.
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I was a huge proponent of the playtest magus and how spellstrike was broken up as an activity that allowed the spell to be discharged on the next strike, allowing you to use feats even from other classes with your spell strike. It was seamed too complex and many people disliked how it didn’t combine spell and strike into one roll, but getting to use saving throw spells with it, and bumping saves down one tier on a critical hit made for really interesting math and the ability to use a lot of different spells. It would be cool to see that come back as a class archetype eventually.
I was so bummed by the change upon release that I couldn’t bring myself to play a magus for a long time. Eventually though, I had a player break out a twisting tree magus in the commander playtest and the two worked together really well. Arcane cascade was amazing when enemies had weaknesses, especially with agile multiple attacks, sometimes outpacing spellstrike. The player really enjoyed having a lot of different tools available, but their enjoyment certainly benefited from the commander using a lot of pincer attack and getting free movement and off-guard enemies. The magus does much better with supportive allies than trying to do all the buffing and tactical stuff themselves. I don’t think arcane cascade needs to be a free action, but some very low damage one action spell attack roll cantrips that did different damage types would probably make a whole lot of caster players happy, including magi.
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The Starlit plan magus plays very smoothly.
The other magus could use some means to close to melee and then enter the normal attack routine of the magus. Once in melee range, the magus plays fairly smooth with recharge and conflux spells.
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It's possible if you limit spellstrikes to cantrips only that instead of allowing it every turn we could maybe compress it into one singular action but make it only recharge with focus spells.
The Starlit plan magus plays very smoothly.
The other magus could use some means to close to melee and then enter the normal attack routine of the magus. Once in melee range, the magus plays fairly smooth with recharge and conflux spells.
I straight up think Starlit Span is a design mistake and needs to either be axed or totally redesigned. It is designed in such a way to encourage static and repetitive play patterns, which is already an issue with the magus, but amplified with Starlit Span
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It's possible if you limit spellstrikes to cantrips only that instead of allowing it every turn we could maybe compress it into one singular action but make it only recharge with focus spells.
I straight up think Starlit Span is a design mistake and needs to either be axed or totally redesigned. It is designed in such a way to encourage static and repetitive play patterns, which is already an issue with the magus, but amplified with Starlit SpanThe Starlit plan magus plays very smoothly.
The other magus could use some means to close to melee and then enter the normal attack routine of the magus. Once in melee range, the magus plays fairly smooth with recharge and conflux spells.
The magus always had a repetitive play pattern. People playing the magus want to spellstrike and hit hard. They did this in PF1 and in now PF2.
I don't consider this a problem. I consider it a feature. Big crits was what the magus did in PF1 and that is what it does in PF2.
At best the magus needs some edges smoothed with Arcane Cascade, opening round movement for melee, and the reactive strike dangers. But even those are tolerable given what they do.
I've played three or four magus including one to 20 and a few to past level 10. I've seen the magus played to level 9 and level 16. Every player using a magus is happy with it and loves the huge crits. They live for them. They track the crits to see who gets the highest crit like some kind of record.
The magus does what the magus should do in PF. I'm fine if they do some quality of life changes like they did with the cleric and sorcerer, but spellstriking every round using a locked in playstyle I absolutely consider an attractive feature of the class.
This is yet another example to me of people wanting something that a class isn't meant to do due to their personal tastes because as far as the magus does, it is one of the classes that crossed from PF1 to PF2 maintaining it's place in what it does well.
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It's interesting how even those in the "don't change the Magus" camp seem to eventually admit that the class has a repetitive core gameplay loop, or would have one if they weren't forced to partake in lots of busywork. I'm personally of the opinion that a melee Magus whose Spellstrikes didn't need to recharge would still not suffer from Starlit Span's ultra-samey rotation problems, because melee characters will be spending or losing actions in various ways that ranged characters won't as often (e.g. moving, Standing when knocked prone, etc.), but even then I think this highlights all the more of a need to vary the Magus's turns further by giving them access to genuinely interesting options.
I really do think the ticket here is more single actions for a Magus to make on turns where Spellstriking is too costly, which conflux spells set a foundation for but which can be built upon further. In my opinion, the only way to fix Starlit Span is to impose a frequency requirement on ranged Spellstrikes so that they only work once every two rounds, even on a class where Spellstriking had no recharge, and that would all the more highlight the need for good actions for the Magus to use on those turns in-between. Having no recharge would also benefit Starlit Span by giving the Magus a third action to use on something other than recharging on the turns where they do Spellstrike, so all of this could lead to much more variety. As an added bonus, so long as these single actions don't have a manipulate component, they'd also give the Magus more options against monsters with Reactive Strike, so that they don't feel forced to do the one thing they're getting explicitly punished for.
While I see what you are saying here, and I do agree that the magus could use a couple tweaks, I don't really see the reliance on haste as a big deal, at least for me. Its actually part of the fun. The magus is supposed to be a split of martial and magic ability, and those halves are to compliment each other. Yeah the skeleton of the class is not well equipped to be a full martial, but its not supposed to. The entire theme of the class is about enhancing martial abilities with magic. Haste smooths out your action economy a great deal, invisibility can get you around reactive strike, there are spells that add damage to your weapon (call the lightning being a favorite of mine, your save is weak, but dealing damage and buffing yourself at once helps counteract having to take off time to buff), there are also movement spells like time jump.
I will say that taking a casting archetype does feel kind of essential, but I want to take those anyway so I do not really mind.
Also I may have said this long ago but I love your username, one of my all time favorite villains
Much appreciated, thank you! It always makes me very happy when someone recognizes my username; Bionicle was my childhood. :)
And I definitely agree that a class benefiting from buff spells isn't a bad thing in and of itself; my issue with the Magus specifically is that the class can often feel quite constrained without haste. Arcane Cascade for instance requires you to spend two actions Spellstriking, then your remaining action to enter the stance, so if your opponent even just Steps out of reach, you can't pull this off at all without a fourth action. This too would be okay if it weren't for the fact that without Arcane Cascade, you don't get most of the benefits of your subclass, so the alternative when not quickened and unable to pull off that three-action combo is to just play the bare-bones class chassis, which I think adds to the repetitiveness.
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It's interesting how even those in the "don't change the Magus" camp seem to eventually admit that the class has a repetitive core gameplay loop, or would have one if they weren't forced to partake in lots of busywork. I'm personally of the opinion that a melee Magus whose Spellstrikes didn't need to recharge would still not suffer from Starlit Span's ultra-samey rotation problems, because melee characters will be spending or losing actions in various ways that ranged characters won't as often (e.g. moving, Standing when knocked prone, etc.), but even then I think this highlights all the more of a need to vary the Magus's turns further by giving them access to genuinely interesting options.I really do think the ticket here is more single actions for a Magus to make on turns where Spellstriking is too costly, which conflux spells set a foundation for but which can be built upon further. In my opinion, the only way to fix Starlit Span is to impose a frequency requirement on ranged Spellstrikes so that they only work once every two rounds, even on a class where Spellstriking had no recharge, and that would all the more highlight the need for good actions for the Magus to use on those turns in-between. Having no recharge would also benefit Starlit Span by giving the Magus a third action to use on something other than recharging on the turns where they do Spellstrike, so all of this could lead to much more variety. As an added bonus, so long as these single actions don't have a manipulate component, they'd also give the Magus more options against monsters with Reactive Strike, so that they don't feel forced to do the one thing they're getting explicitly punished for.
It's interesting how even those in the "change the Magus camp" seem to eventually admit that Starlit Span doesn't actually have those problems, and thus want to actively create a problem for it so that their proposed changes are now necessary.
Like, the thing you seem to just be missing is that "samey rotation" is not a problem for people playing Starlit Span. It's a feature. The entire point of picking it is so you can Spellstrike the crap out of everything.
You're literally proposing artificially breaking that by adding a limitation so you can "fix" it by adding other things to do while your limitation is in effect. The easier solution is to accept that it's not actually broken in the first place and that maybe the playstyle it offers just isn't for you.
But don't turn this into another remaster Oracle by breaking the parts of the class that do work for people. Spellstrike is the central attraction here. Adding more limits around it is like looking at how people play Bards and deciding "using compositions is too repetitive, we're going to put a cooldown on those and then invent some new stuff to do when you can't do a composition."
And I definitely agree that a class benefiting from buff spells isn't a bad thing in and of itself; my issue with the Magus specifically is that the class can often feel quite constrained without haste. Arcane Cascade for instance requires you to spend two actions Spellstriking, then your remaining action to enter the stance, so if your opponent even just Steps out of reach, you can't pull this off at all without a fourth action.
Agreed. It's great that the class benefits from Haste, but it's not great that actually getting the core stuff of the class working requires such a long setup or Haste being up. If it feels like Haste is required for the class to work properly, something is wrong.
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It's interesting how even those in the "change the Magus camp" seem to eventually admit that Starlit Span doesn't actually have those problems, and thus want to actively create a problem for it so that their proposed changes are now necessary.
I have literally just explained how Starlit Span is extremely repetitive as a result of having no reason to do anything but Spellstrike + recharge. Pretending that I did not make this criticism is incredibly disingenuous, and claiming that I "eventually admitted that Starlit Span doesn't actually have those problems" is straight-up lying.
Like, the thing you seem to just be missing is that "samey rotation" is not a problem for people playing Starlit Span. It's a feature. The entire point of picking it is so you can Spellstrike the crap out of everything.
"I personally enjoy this thing, so everybody else's criticism is objectively invalid" is not exactly the best mentality to take into a feedback discussion. The entire point of Starlit Span is to be able to play a ranged Magus, not to spam Spellstrike; it is you and a tiny handful of others who co-opted this incidental aspect of the Magus that has been rightly criticized by many more, including those who have played the subclass, for encouraging no meaningful decision-making and being ultra-repetitive. That you would push back against criticism whose very existence you are simultaneously trying to deny highlights the defensiveness behind this stance.
You're literally proposing artificially breaking that by adding a limitation so you can "fix" it by adding other things to do while your limitation is in effect. The easier solution is to accept that it's not actually broken in the first place and that maybe the playstyle it offers just isn't for you.
"Let's just pretend this problem doesn't exist so I can keep enjoying my poorly-designed brain rot build" is perhaps the easier solution, but it is also the one that continues to get the Magus rightly called out for having a poorly-designed brain rot build, among many other problems. What I am proposing instead is to give the Magus in general many more interesting actions to perform, so that they're not literally doing the same thing every turn as Starlit Span. I'm sure the very thought of this deeply upsets you, but as it turns out some players like having compelling decisions to make in their tactical role-playing game, so this would be a benefit to them.
But don't turn this into another remaster Oracle by breaking the parts of the class that do work for people. Spellstrike is the central attraction here. Adding more limits around it is like looking at how people play Bards and deciding "using compositions is too repetitive, we're going to put a cooldown on those and then invent some new stuff to do when you can't do a composition."
I am proposing to remove several limits around Spellstrike by removing the recharge requirement and having it work much better with save spells by default. I get that you've chosen to make Starlit Spam your personal hill to die on here, but if we could perhaps not tunnel-vision so hard on that one poorly-designed subclass, we'd get to see that there are many more substantial benefits to be gained here, including to that playstyle where you'd get a broader range of spells to Spellstrike with and a third action to do different things on your Spellstrike turn.
I would also argue that it is a fairly desperate reach to try to make this out like an Oracle situation, which I know is a pain point for you as well: the problem with that rework is that the class, which was heavily defined by its mysteries and curse, got both sidelined in favor of more generic power. What I am criticizing here, by contrast, is that several aspects of the Magus make it more generic than it ought to be due to a more restricted range of spells to choose from, and that Starlit Span's poor implementation makes the subclass extremely samey. If making Starlit Span into an actually well-designed subclass would be equivalent to the remastered Oracle to you, that speaks more to your preferences than anything else.
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Like, the thing you seem to just be missing is that "samey rotation" is not a problem for people playing Starlit Span. It's a feature. The entire point of picking it is so you can Spellstrike the crap out of everything.
Starlit Span also does damage well above all other ranged martials when allowed to do it's full repetitive pattern. You can already do this kind of effect with Eldritch archer, effectively spellstriking every round, but at least get various other ways to magically use your bow that for some reason the magus lacks. Even still same-y turns, overt repetition, were things PF2 was aiming to move away from after 1e, with few exceptions. Those being the flurry ranger and the magus. Static fights should be left to the dust bin of history and the magus either fumbles in dynamic fights with a lot of movement and tactics, or stand still racking up damage numbers because the DM is being far too polite. The magus shows the problems of the 3 actions economy and utilizes none of its strengths
It's still going to be a 2-action strike that counts as 2 strikes for MAP. So your changes will let the Magus move or aid or do something like that with the third action, but so long as spellstrike has that nice burst damage, optimal combat tactics for the Magus are probably going to remain repetitive. Spellstrike, and... spellstrike, and...
So here's the thing: when you're playing a class that has to fight in melee, there are going to be turns where you'll need to Stride twice to get in range of a monster, or move out of a danger zone to a better position. This is why feats like Sudden Charge are good, because they let you do that and still Strike at least once. Sometimes, one of those actions will be to Stand after you've been knocked prone and perhaps Crawl to avoid a Reactive Strike, which is why Kip Up is so good, and sometimes, you'll be grabbed and will want to Escape before doing anything else, at which point your Spellstrike is going to be a lot less likely to land due to MAP. Many monsters will also be able to stun you, slow you, or otherwise bog you down will spells, in addition to having movement abilities that might force you to reposition mid-turn, and sometimes you will also have hazards and terrain features that make it more difficult to position yourself where you want. Having to spend one or even two actions a turn on something other than your class's core abilities comes with the territory of playing a melee class.
Thus, in practice, having to dedicate two whole actions to Spellstrike or not be able to Spellstrike at all is already in my opinion situational enough that a melee Magus is not going to be Spellstriking every turn, unless you're fighting a monster with no abilities or stats in a white room. Spellstrike being the thing you want to do when you get the opportunity is fine, because it's the Magus's key feature and also something you won't get to fire off every turn anyway, much like how melee Flurry Rangers won't be able to spend all of their actions Striking every turn. If you can set yourself up to Spellstrike more often, and if allies can help you with this, all the better, but as a baseline I don't think the Magus needs action taxes to be allowed to do this in melee.
Another thing to think about with your proposed changes: making it easier to use save spells may make the repetition problem worse, because that makes spellstrike even more inviting.
I think this argument is pretty nonsensical tbh. Spellstrike is already so inviting that players will often prepare nothing but attack cantrips and spells for this purpose, so it makes little difference if one of those spells makes a save instead. What you seem to have also missed is the bit in that same proposal to limit Spellstrike to cantrips as a baseline, which given the Magus's weaker spell modifier and DC would mean that preparing any kind of offensive spell in their spell slots would be much less attractive. If a Magus prepares more utility spells instead, they are less likely to be repetitive, and are likely to find themselves with a greater variety of use cases for their class abilities.
IMO Paizo giving the class a 2a big whammy is what drives the repetition. Changing the class to make the whammy easier to fire with a wider range of spells isn't going to make it's play less repetitive, it's going to make it more repetitive. Players looking for a more traditional dual-class "I want to regular strike and regular cast each round, and still have the ability to move or do a third action" experience should probably consider Summoner, since that's exactly the action compression that class gives.
I'd be pretty sad if the Magus's spells got completely decoupled from their Strikes, and I don't consider Spellstrike to be fundamentally broken like you appear to. Given how martial classes don't just Strike x2 like some players here pretend they do, I think it is safe to say that the mythical two-action block of guaranteed attacks to make every turn on a melee martial simply does not exist, at least not consistently enough to be an issue in practice. By that same token, and from my own experience, I don't think a melee Magus with no extra action taxes on their Spellstrike would suffer from the repetition you claim here, and even if they did, giving Spellstrike a frequency of once every two rounds, rather than a recharge requirement, would solve the issue conclusively.
The simplest solution of not changing of who likes it now and people that wants more variation on action, it's mostly more conflux spell options, the class already have a few, but more specially lower level options would do wonders. Strikes imbued with energy, sword beams, teleports and so on.
And I find funny people talking about using spellslots for spellstrike, I find way more effective to use in stuff like Walls spells per example, you get them at the same level as a spellcaster, and something like wall of water change the flow of the battle like crazy. And while I don't use it, I would not like that people that enjoy it to loss that option by default, the playtest of the class years ago did show that this is something that most players want.
Slam Down/Double Slice Fighter raises their hand. And Combat Grab and the other press feats too, to think about it. Having run for a Slam Down Fighter, the only time they don't Slam Down is if the enemy is already prone, or they're Whirlwind Striking instead.
Both of these I think confirm the above. You'll certainly want to use these feats when you can, but many instances will arise where you won't, so you'd just have to make do with a single Strike or Athletics check instead. Whirlwind Strike is the ultimate expression of this where the feat is only good if a) you can in fact just stay in place and spend three actions doing this one thing, b) there are enough enemies in place that doing this is better than just spending two actions making two separate Strikes, and c) Striking each enemy once is better than just focusing one of them. None of these are part of any fixed rotation, and the fact that you have multiple of these feats, plus press feats too on the Fighter, means you have plenty of options even on the turns where you get two actions to spare on making attacks.
And on that note, one thing that could help with the Magus's diversity, besides the above, would be more cantrips that apply some kind of crowd control or debuff. Most offensive cantrips just lay down some flavor of damage, and only very few do something beyond that, usually save cantrips. If there were more of these cantrips that did weaker damage but had some other form of utility instead, this would directly benefit the Magus by letting them vary their Spellstrikes more by default.
And I find funny people talking about using spellslots for spellstrike, I find way more effective to use in stuff like Walls spells per example, you get them at the same level as a spellcaster, and something like wall of water change the flow of the battle like crazy. And while I don't use it, I would not like that people that enjoy it to loss that option by default, the playtest of the class years ago did show that this is something that most players want.
I think there's probably room for this at a higher level in the place of studious spells: if, rather than have main spell slots that are often used just for offense and a handful of backup slots for utility, it were reversed and the Magus could use lower-rank slot spells for Spellstrike, it could open up more offense options in a way that would favor crowd control and debuff slot spells, and not just more raw damage. Similarly, if instead of double spellstrike at 19th level (one of the bits of the Magus that encourages preparing attack spells), you got a 10th-rank spell slot that could only be used to Spellstrike, that could give players into Spellstriking with slot spells the freedom to choose any offensive spell they'd want and make the most use of it, though only once per day.
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Provoking reactive strikes was really annoying on my Thaumaturge, nearly died twice because of it in Alkenstar, and that with a reach weapon.
Now starting as a Starlit Span Magus in Strength of Thousands, and i already feel the repetitive rotation creeping up. I'll diversify actions, but it is quite hard to justify doing anything but spellstrike+recharge.
It also seems that the whole power budget of the Starlit Span was spent on its first level, the class feats all look very underwhelming/situative.
Without provoking RS i would probably have chosen one of the more interesting other subclasses, but getting whacked for using your main feature without any option to avoid it just felt really bad.
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Like, the thing you seem to just be missing is that "samey rotation" is not a problem for people playing Starlit Span. It's a feature.
I also would want to know why people are so adamantly against the magus having a simple rotation of actions. The magus isn't a weak class but it also isn't overpowered either, and the whole point of the magus in PF1e was to spellstrike every turn. People that play a magus want to spellstrike, and it just so happens that starlit span is the one magus subclass that allows you to do it without having to micro-manage your actions as much. The only hybrid studies I haven't played yet are the two new ones from the Tian Xia book (which honestly don't seem to appealing to me) and starlit span which I really would want to try at some point because I want to see how a magus that doesn't need to move / enter AC performs since the action economy is one of the things I like the least about the class.
I also would want to know why people are so adamantly against the magus having a simple rotation of actions. The magus isn't a weak class but it also isn't overpowered either, and the whole point of the magus in PF1e was to spellstrike every turn.
PF2e isn't PF1e. PF1e is a game where it's perfectly normal to have a one-trick pony build that wins the game at character creation; PF2e is not. PF2e is a game that expressly aims for balanced, tactical combat, and Starlit Span flies in the face of this by virtue of being neither balanced nor tactical. Its damage output greatly exceeds that of any ranged martial build, and it is infamously the most samey and repetitive build in the game. If the class's overly busy action economy is truly what you like the least about the class, I would say that the solution to this ought to be to advocate for a class with a less artificially busy action economy, rather than sticking to a subclass that spends their every turn performing the same two activities in large part due to still being beholden to the class's action taxes.
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... and it hurts when you Spellstrike a monster that punishes you for casting spells in melee? Which is it, then? Why would you Spellstrike such a monster at all ...
Uh... maybe because I don't play in a vacuum and my team coordinates so that a tankier character pulls the reactive strikes before I spellstrike?
After catching up on the thread, here's my thoughts. I've only played alongside a Magus, not as one.
I think a lot of the Magus' intended massive damage spikes is causing a lot of perception issues around non-spellstrike actions. In order for such a class to be balanced, they really do need to be notably below the norm when not spellstriking. As in, yes, a Magus who needs to recharge is and should be below their fellow PCs.
If a Magus feels fine without spellstrike, that's a huge problem.
The ability to do a normal strike and a better than normal attack spell simultaneously for 2A is (nearly) absurd in the pf2 system. Think about how much chassis power spellcasters normally must sacrifice.
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The kind of change I would not support: anything that reduces the total action cost of spellstriking, stancing, etc.
The kind of change I might support: spending a cost to make spellstriking easier. Such as a class feat to enable one to add some move distance to spellstrike, gain magical reach on spellstrike, or a higher lvl feat to allow a Magus to split the 2A action into two 1A actions (with risk/penalty).
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I find it notable that some of this already exists, but is getting 0 mention. Lunging Spellstrike could do with a lower Lvl requirement or other buff, but Paizo are/were already cognizant of this issue. Being able to upgrade / tune one's spellstrike by adding things like reach/range, movement, etc, all do help address this pain point.
The catch seems to be that, psychologically speaking, I do not think there is much of any way to ever "fix" the (genuinely) felt pain point of a Magus having no spellstrike ready. This is a designed low power state, and that will always feel bad.
I do think mentions of the Oracle and its changes are super appropriate.
Any change to the actual action cost of spellstrike, including movement and recharge, would have to be balanced by a reduction within the power of spell-striking.
Magus is definitely one of those classes with a crazy potent chassis that was attempted to be kept in check with sub-par feats. This always kinda fails, as there's a number of genuinely good ones, and Archetyping is a thing.
So I will say that I unambiguously agree with this side of the Magus discussion; a whole lot of feats needs serious help/buffs. And yeah, on paper that should come with a core chassis nerf, I suspect that not doing so may be the chosen method to slightly buff Magus as a whole, especially via new feats (as opposed to editing existing ones).
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Overall, I do find it rather surprising how such a mechanically privileged class can still *feel* bad enough for there to be such loud calls for buffs. Magus is genuinely nuts, *especially* in 1-10 level play. It's got unprecedented burst damage, access to full spell lists, med armor, martial weapons, weapon expert @5... like, cmon guys.
Arcane Cascade needing 1A is there precisely so that it's not completely free. It's most smooth in conjunction with 1A spells, (and oh look at that, Conflux Spells, neat) while still being doable after a 2A spellstrike.
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Every angle I look at this class, the design is genuinely rock solid. They did a very good job of making the power of a full list, spellcasting martial, very doable while not being mindless and free.
The boosted martial prowess needing 1A to come online per fight is absolutely fine, and gives the player agency in their choice of priority. Spellstrike (action compression) starting charged is the perfect compliment in the other direction. The total in-built action compression being capped by focus points via conflux spells is, again, a very smart design choice. Even w/o conflux spells, being able to 1A recharge for net-0 action cost is still a genuinely good action spend due to the flexibility and compression. There's no need for an Eld Arch style 3A spellstrike because that's always something Magus can do.
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Overall, the Magus could benefit from a lot more conflux spell options, a few more hybrid studies, and some improved feats. There is a genuine lack of choice in those departments; if you don't vibe with the exact benefits of a hybrid study, I totally get the simmering grumbling that can result.
IMO the entire core routine of stancing and spellstriking is *very* good as is, and any real improvement to it would take Magus over the top. So much text being typed over a single 1A stance up per fight is honestly absurd, IMO.
The one outright buff I'd make is to give Magus an extra conflux spell at an early ish level. Honestly, probably a feature at L3 to pick a 2nd conflux spell (alongside more options than Force Fang). Being capped to 1FP & c.spell without feat spend is imo too restrictive. L5 is already way too loaded, and L7 is too late (and also loaded w/ Studious Spells).
... The other magus could use some means to close to melee and then enter the normal attack routine of the magus. Once in melee range, the magus plays fairly smooth with recharge and conflux spells.
Something like the Drifter's Into the Fray would be amazing.
You know trouble can lurk around every corner, and your hands never stray far from your holsters. You can Interact to draw a one-handed ranged weapon and can then Interact to draw a one-handed melee weapon. As your first action on your first turn, you can Stride as a free action toward an enemy you can perceive. If you can't perceive any enemies or can't end your movement closer to one, you can't use this Stride.
... Arcane Cascade for instance requires you to spend two actions Spellstriking, then your remaining action to enter the stance, so if your opponent even just Steps out of reach, you can't pull this off...
Arcane Cascade does not require Spellstrike.
Requirements You used your most recent action this turn to Cast a Spell OR make a Spellstrike...
An opening turn can easily be: Cast Shield, enter Arcane Cascade, and Stride; or Blink Charge and enter Arcane Cascade.
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... but getting whacked [with Reactive Strike] for using your main feature without any option to avoid it just felt really bad.
Unless you are playing in a vaccuum, there is, more often than not, an option to avoid it: Delay.
Simply Delay until a teammate has provoked, then step back into the rotation and Spellstrike.