| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Magus is the only true hybrid martial caster in the system. If you don't want to both Strike and cast some spells, then Magus should not even be in the discussion.
The "power" of Magus is as much in its chassis as it is in Spellstrike. Part of the balancing behind Strike-buffing spells is that the caster can't make good use of them, but Magus can. Any of those levels that a caster would get an effective extra Striking rune via spell, that's the kind of situation where a Magus' power doesn't often get accounted for (again, Magus has top R slots while archetype casters don't).
.
Each hyrbid study (Str Span excluded) is built around action compression to enable easier recharging right from level 1.
Options like a 1A half-Stride + Strike (with no flourish) are things other classes wish they could do, and that's before remembering that conflux *also* recharges S-Strike. That's 3:1 action compression FFS.
Every contrary opinion I'm hearing compares a freely archetyped Magus versus a min-maxed cannon Magus, and is not considering how good the base Magus already is versus the other classes.
I suppose it needs to be said, but guys, a hybrid is **not supposed** to top the DPS charts. Hybrids, generalists, and "jacks of all trades" are supposed to be "masters of none."
It's a good thing that Magus can hyper-focus on building the biggest cannon in the system, but that does not mean that it's sub-par if it does something else. IMO, your "par" is being wildly skewed upward.
.
Needing to reload the Spellstrike is a good thing, because it further synergizes with options that typically struggle in systems with every-turn rotations.
If you follow the general plan of Turn A S-Strike, Turn B conflux recharge: this means that turn B has one Strike accounted for via conflux and will be at MAP for the other 2A.
This is great news.
It means that you will make great use of a whole lot of archetypes that offer non-attack, long cooldown abilities that typically struggle to get used in the action-hungry economy full of damage-damage-damage.
Even common staples like Medic can get examined in this new context to increase their desirability. Moving out of melee to heal an ally via Dr.'s Visitation isn't a problem when you've got Dimensional Assault to get back to a foe of your choice as soon as you're done.
Though of course, min maxers may find those turn Bs a good time to plant a Timber Sentinel. Most martials, and most casters, would really struggle to have any off-turns to commit 2A to an archetype action like that, or at least not without giving up the ability to Strike that same turn.
Hell, Magus even makes for a fine Loremaster thanks to Magus' Analysis. Which can be further combined with a 2:1 flourish Flurry-style Strike, a la Spirit Warrior to improve the Analysis bonus chance. Because there are some synergies offered in Magus' feats, and that one can outright supplant normal conflux usage/dependency.
.
A 2A --> 1A rotation between turns is not "action economy issues." C'mon guys. All spellcasters want a 2A chunk every single round, and many martials do as well due to p-attack options. Magus is in the middle, worse than the 1A Flurry users, better than anyone with a sticky 2A commitment.
.
Again, the starting line / question only begins for Magus when you want a PC that will both Strike and full Cast a Spell. If you want a Striker specialist, or a magical savant, stop talking about Magus.
When thinking in that hybrid frame of reference, yeah "embarrassment of riches" is pretty close to the current Magus. The only snag with archetyping is the possibility of stance redundancy.
IMO, the general perception of Magus as the chart topping DPS is a hella problematic lens / standard to judge the class by. The idea that "overkill damage" is an actual talking point is just wild.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
There are other ways of hybridizing martials and casters in this game. A fighter with psychic dedication and then Magus dedication can certainly do a magus cosplay once a combat, and someone with channel smite can cosplay magus in their own way. Many martials have fairly strong focus spells that emulate a degree of casting.
What magus has unique to it is, very specifically, the ability to spellstrike multiple times a combat with a martial proficiency progression. There are plenty of other ways to both strike and cast spells.
===
We have been talking about both magus with an archetype and magus without it. Nobody has discussed magus with archetypes other than psychic/cleric/champion/some way to get reactive strike, afaik. (EDIT: We have mentioned investigator, actually.) I don't know if anyone's discussed magus with FA; it certainly benefits from getting free access to psychic and then free access to an archetype with a good reaction, but I don't actually know if it gains as much as a lot of other classes after that because (again) it just wants to spellstrike and recharge spellstrike over and over and over again.
===
Overkill damage is a talking point for any burst-heavy class, particularly one whose burst requires two actions. Overkill damage is meaningless damage and should be evaluated as such when talking about the relative power of choices.
===
At the end of the day, Magus is a martial. It -can- cast, but its save DCs are really poor unless you dump other stats that are more useful (unless you're starlit span lol). Without an archetype, from the calculations I've seen and remember, it effectively spends three actions to be competitive in resourceless/per-encounter-resources-only damage with a Fighter spending two. That is not a good look. We have compared Magus to other classes; that is the comparison. It does less damage than other classes when you aren't using slotted spells or focus spells similar to them in impact. This is the price magi pay for having exceptional burst damage. You see gunslinger paying a similar price, but in a more extreme manner, because they're ranged and they don't need to spend a resource to hit their ceiling. Gunslingers plink or explode you; magi are below par for martial damage or they explode you.
I understand you are saying Magus -can- be played in a way that focuses more on utility, and I personally think Magus's utility can be valuable in specific cases (e.g., on-level fly or ferrous form, as mentioned earlier). But an unarchetyped magus sacrifices an undesirably large amount of damage whenever it does this. They sacrifice their main way of remaining damage-competitive with other melee! The utility is primarily good when it is worth the damage you'd be missing, such as when using Fly to hit enemies you can't hit at all otherwise. It is the archetyped magus that is allowed to be a jack of all trades utility-spell-haver, because they're no longer reliant on slotted spellstrike for damage and can prepare whatever utility they want without consequence.
The contribution of an unarchetyped magus that relegates their slots to utility and only does cantrip spellstrikes just... is not actually very good. Their save DCs are substantially worse than an actual caster and they don't have enough top-level slots—and those are prepared slots, I might add, making them substantially harder to use—to get through an entire encounter day as a caster. This is not the role your first or second melee is designed to play. This is the role something more like a warpriest or bard wants and is designed to play. A full martial progression melee is ultimately supposed to smack people, and all the design nudges point to "hey you should spellstrike with these slots and use them to explode things."
In comparison, an archetyped magus basically has those slots as bonus freebies to do whatever with.
===
This goes way back to the discussions we had where I believe you overvalue simply being able to do things someone else can't, regardless of how good of an idea it actually is to do it. If you can do something, but it is almost always worse to make that choice, I don't weight that very highly when evaluating class power. Yeah, It's amazing to pop ferrous form on-level in a dungeon where it mitigates the danger of a ton of encounters. That's probably worth more than a slotted spellstrike. But that isn't a common scenario. There is value here, and I've admitted as much, but I don't believe it's anywhere near as substantial as you're implying for an unarchetyped magus.
FWIW, when archetyping into psychic/cleric/champion, I do think the utility of your slotted casting is a much more substantial consideration. All four of your slots are free to use for utility, and you also have the option of using some for slotted spellstrike and reserving focus points for conflux recharge when it would be more convenient instead. That is a more significant power boost.
===
EDIT: I think I should add an addendum, since this post is somewhat in tension with things I said earlier.
The main thing is that I was primarily comparing martials with caster archetypes to a magus there, and I was mostly comparing unarchetyped magus to archetyped magus here. Still, I feel like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth a bit on cantrip spellstrike damage by emphasizing a few high points of spellstrike+force fang there and emphasizing the more normal case here. Overall, I think cantrip spellstrike damage is serviceable, but not good, and is mostly a price you pay for your burst.
I also was talking more from a "pf2e design principles" pov in that post and a "this is how the game has actually shaken out, regardless of design principles intent" pov in this post. That skews my evaluations. PF2E design tends to place an unduly high premium on versatility (see: wizard) and magus has part of that versatility and would correspondingly pay part of that premium if the game were being consistent. Pragmatically, I think the game charges you way too much for said versatility and I find it overvalued.
No worries, I think our disagreement mostly stems from different perceptions of utility power / value.
To me, Magus getting top R slots is a big hecking deal, and any time you get a new per-combat buff like Runic Weapon or Haste, that really changes things. And having that built into the class while being a martial is outright exclusive to Magus.
IMO, attempts at getting spellcasting when a martial are crazy expensive on the class feats for ugh rewards, while a Magus has a much easier time getting martial powers via archetypes. The key is that because you can't get proficiency/accuracy progression from archetypes, basically all casters/non-martials are unable to benefit from these in the same way.
Most desired martial niches are available in things like Bastion, Mauler, etc. By the time a martial got competent spellcasting, that 4 ish feat spend means that the Magus could be starting their 2nd archetype to poach whatever else they may want (or could spend more feats on Magus options like Standby Spell).
Due to how common it is, it's also important to consider meta-things like prebuffing.
A Magus that uses a top slot to give their weapon +1 damage die over their martial peers before the battle even starts is a rather common scenario, and that concept more or less shreds any attempts at white room comparisons.
As someone milking value out of Witch/Wiz dedication casting, I also don't really consider the 4 daily slots to be a big issue, due to all the indirect and non-feat means of getting slots or pseudo-slots.
The main problem with those extra castings is that they will not be top R spells, which is a problem only Magus can answer (while still being a martial)
And, of course, there's team utility, which is an entire can of opinions all its own.
.
Heck, even the problem of having "dead actions" in turns is something that I've seen a lot of PCs struggle with. It's an inevitable thing in combat, and if a Magus player thinks before confluxing, they'll have the option to stance or raw recharge.
No need to invest all those skills and stats into Intimidation for a 1A filler. Oof, that still seems like such a bad cost-return to me, and I've seen it at the table.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
We have been talking about both magus with an archetype and magus without it. Nobody has discussed magus with archetypes other than psychic/cleric/champion/some way to get reactive strike, afaik. (EDIT: We have mentioned investigator, actually.) I don't know if anyone's discussed magus with FA; it certainly benefits from getting free access to psychic and then free access to an archetype with a good reaction, but I don't actually know if it gains as much as a lot of other classes after that because (again) it just wants to spellstrike and recharge spellstrike over and over and over again.
I think Sniping Duo could work really well on a Starlight Span Magus -- but I'm always looking at the strange archetypes.
No you're right, strange archetypes like that are fun for that reason.
Overkill damage is a talking point for any burst-heavy class, particularly one whose burst requires two actions. Overkill damage is meaningless damage and should be evaluated as such when talking about the relative power of choices.
I think this is a key part of the conversation. In practical terms, the Magus doesn't require spell slots to deal the damage they need to deal -- in fact, in many cases that damage is excessive, and so the expenditure is wasteful. Despite this, however, players still want to Spellstrike for the highest damage numbers possible, because Spellstrike taps into our monkey brains as lots of dice go brr. So long as players are allowed to do this, let alone incentivized to do so, there will always be this narrow focus on more damage, even when rationally speaking a player would have better returns from some types of utility. This is also why bringing up utility and telling players to change their mentality around how to build the Magus I think is doomed to fail, because so long as the Magus can overcommit to Spellstriking, many players will (in fact, I think most players will and do).
I think it's also for this reason that there's actually a lot of spare power budget to work with: even if the Magus were to deal less Spellstrike damage, they would still feel like they were dealing massive damage, because Spellstrike combines two damage rolls into one. D&D 5e has a similar example with the Rogue and their version of Sneak Attack, where the combined damage roll appears so powerful that it's a common mistake for newer DMs to houserule nerfs to the class, even though their damage output is inferior to that of others. Although there would doubtless be pushback, and has been on this thread, a Magus that as a baseline could only Spellstrike with cantrips, but didn't need to recharge, would already get to start shifting their power away from the more excessive heights of their burst damage, and more towards using that spare single action for more things, like skill checks. This, in turn, I think would also start letting the Magus opt more easily into archetypes, as they'd have more room for other actions besides Spellstriking and the various other action taxes around Spellstrike.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Alright, figured it's time to fully write down my thing.
So to start with a little preface:
All numbers given here are wet-finger estimates and placeholder.
Additionally, not all of those ideas HAVE to be considered together, maybe some would work well by themselves but together would be overkill.
My suggestions and analysis rely on a common sentiment I saw and share to an extent that Magus is lacking in some aspect, that some of its design is inconsistent within the class features and the "optimal" options are found outside of the class and its intended design.
I will try to address those as they come in more detail, from my understanding of them.
I do not think nor argue that the class is broken or underpowered, what I address are changes on the level of changing how a cleric's font spells slots are counted between legacy and remaster. Tweaks for a better flow of the class.
Please note I am in no way pretending to be an authority on ttrpg class designs, to be the magus messiah or that I'm in any way smarter than anyone else.
Now, let's us begin.
The strategic value of the Magus wave caster slots have been discussed at length.
My takeaway is that, while a very flexible tool due to the Arcane List, the limit on spell numbers and them being only your top levels spells does make a LOT of choices compete for those. Including utility or buffs, some of which wouldn't heighten smoothly but retain value nonetheless.
This issue is likely why the class receives additional lower rank slots in the form of Studious Spells. Slots reserved for a selection of utility and Flavor spells.
The encouragement to use the top slots for offensive spells is further reinforced by several class features and feats that explicitely do work solely when triggered by the use of a spell slot.
Other feats allow more versatility to them, namely Expansive Spellstrike that allows the use of the action compression/delaying of Spellstrike with AoE spells, and Standby Spell that let's you use some/all of your slots for situational/utility spells while still retaining the ability to use those slots for one offensive spell of your choice.
In a vaccuum, this works fine enough and Standby Spell is even a very valuable feat to get more flexibility in your spell preparation (some might argue it would be best as a class feature).
However when taking archetypes into account we turn to an issue: offensive focus spells sidestep this matter entirely.
Focus spells like Imaginary Weapon, Winter Bolt, Fire Ray, Stone Lance, Sun Blade and so on are all on par if not better than some ranked spells for the purpose of spellstrike, and are a renewable ressource.
Their one downside is that you cannot recharge spellstrike from using them.
I have been leaning more and more into removing focus spell compatibility with Spellstrike and will go in detail about it later.
But assuming this issue is gone, or just that we deal with a pure magus with no archetype: is there things to change.
Maybe, here are some options:
- Standby Spell is a level 7 class feature
- This frees up the selection but honestly seems a bit simplistic to me. It'd have to be replaced as a feat, though level 8 is already pretty frontloaded with 5 others feat that are pretty good.
- Striking Spell Slots
- Similarly to a Wizard's school slots or a cleric's font spell slots, the class could have an opposite to the studious spells in the form of 2 spellslots locked to spells elibible to spellstrike. Either 1 of each of the two top ranks, or 2 of the highest. This gives the liberty to grab powerful and useful buffs that won't be listed in Studious Spells as they become available and compensate the loss of power from potentially removing focus spell synergy. This also garantee that the captstone class feature will be useful no matter what.
- No Change
- Leaving things as they are, this does make Stanby Spell extremely desirable however but maybe it isn't an issue.
Spellstrike, as others have said, is more of an action deferment than compression. Unless the encounter ends before you recharge it, it'll cost you 3 actions in full.
However, this flexibility in WHEN to pay that 3rd action is one of its big strengths, especially when you can sneak it in with another one or two actions into a single one with conflux spells.
It does lead to a form of clunky routine though, since it's a 2 action activity that counts double for MAP, and it is potentially so strong when using more than a cantrip with it, everything leads to you trying to spam it, or use it as much as possible.
Which in itself isn't that much of an issue.
Its power is normally kept in check by your limited spell slots, and doubles at very high level when you get the option to recast the same spell in your next spellstrike. Making a single slot being used twice in a fight potentially.
The class features and numerous feats (16 out of 45 feats) rely on either being upgrades to Spellstrike, or triggering from its use.
Several of them requiring the use of a spellslot to trigger.
But not all of them.
Some work with cantrips, innate spells, focus spells, scrolls, staves, and slots.
Some with anything that isn't a cantrip.
Some with only slots.
It is inconsistent but still clear that by design the slots are what's meant to be used for the big strikes.
Expansive Spellstrike allows more variety in the spell choice, but those only benefit from the action deference and to an extent a range or angle manipulation.
As I said before, Expansive Spellstrike feels more like Spell Combat than spellstrike: Striking with one hand and flicking the spell from the other.
And so this is exactly what i'd like to propose, to reintroduce Spell Combat as revamped Expansive Spellstrike AND a slight rewrite to Spellstrike.
Spellstrike
You channel a spell into a punch or sword thrust to deliver a combined attack. You Cast a Spell that takes 1 or 2 actions to cast, has a harmful effect and targets at least one creature other than self. The effects of the spell don't occur immediately but are imbued into your attack instead. Make a melee Strike with a weapon or unarmed attack. Your spell is coupled with your attack, using your attack roll result to determine the effects of both the Strike and the spell's attack if it had one. One a successful hit, the targets suffers a -2 status penalty to their saving throw against the spell, -3 on a critical hit. This counts as two attacks for your multiple attack penalty, but you don't apply the penalty until after you've completed the Spellstrike. The infusion of spell energy grants your Strike the arcane trait, making it magical.
After you use Spellstrike, you can't do so again until you recharge your Spellstrike as a single action, which has the concentrate trait. You also recharge your Spellstrike when you cast a conflux spell that takes at least 1 action to cast; casting a focus spell of another type doesn't recharge your Spellstrike.
By allowing spells targetting a creature rather than solely attack rolls this expands the spell selection without having to wait for more spells with the attack trait to be added. Allowing things like Electric Arc, Frostbite, Thunderstrike etc. The penalty on a hit helps the Magus' catch up somewhat to full casters when using their core feature and mixing their martial and magical skills to be as good as a pure caster, when dealing with a single target.
This also allows to select Spell Swipe with more than 2 spells eligibles for it.
This also allows the use of control spells like Slow etc right away, which was an advantage of Expansive Spellstrike, but this'll be addressed next.
Note that in this version the spell is still lost on a missed strike !
Spell Combat (former Expansive Spellstrike)
You have adapted the core functionning of Spellstrike to weave the magic before making contact to quickly fling spells in between your attacks.
When using Spellstrike, you can use any spell that takes 1 or 2 actions to cast and Cast it at any valid target. If you choose to do so, choose wether the Spell or Strike happens first. If the Spell goes first, or targets a different creature than your Strike, the target will not suffer penalties to their save from Spellstrike.
If you decide to Strike first and the Spell has an area of effect, the target must be included in it. A burst is centered on a corner of the target's square, or the square corner closest to the center of the target, if the target is Large or larger; you choose the corner if more than one is eligible. A cone or line emits from you and must include the target; if you're not adjacent to the target (using a reach weapon or starlit span, for example), choose any square adjacent to the target as the source. The spell affects all creatures in the area as normal, but the Strike still targets only one creature.
If your critically miss your Strike before Casting such spells, the spell is lost.
The wording would need some work, but essentially: this allows to use those utility spells in combat in a way unique to a Magus.
You could cast Mirror Image and Strike after Striding to the target, and recharge on the next turn for example.
If you somehow have other spells, you could Cast Soothe on an ally as you're striking an adjacent ennemy and raising your shield.
Some potential issues: some spells like Warding Aggression require a weapon attack roll as part of their casting, I am unsure how to resolve this. Would making two strikes at the same MAP be too good, or would MAP apply normaly to them ? I am leaning to the latter option.
It could be possible to limit Magus Archetype to spellstriking with attack spells only.
Now the other aspect of Spellstrike that might need tweaks:
Recharging Spellstrike
As of now there is 3 ways to recharge Spellstrike:
-Spend an action.
-Use a Conflux Spell (their utility varies from study to study and depending on feats but there is always at least 1 good option to choose from)
-Successfully recall knowledge on a foe with the feat Magus Analysis (works once per target, as the target is then immune for a day)
I think the last option is under explored: Skill Actions recharging Spellstrike.
Similarly to Gunslinger having their own special recharge action per subclass, or Swashbuckler having the bravado trait on certain actions depending on their style, each Hybrid Study could have one or two skill actions that could recharge spellstrike on a success, once per target.
For example:
Inexorable Iron: Shove and Trip
Laughing Shadow: Feint and Tumble Throught
Sparkling Targe: Shove and Reposition
Twisting Tree: Trip and Disarm
Could be more than just those actions, maybe with some feats allowing things like medicine or something else. All with that "target is then immune for X hours or minutes" afterward.
There is another option I'll explore in the next part:
A tad dramatic, I know.
Arcane Cascade is the mechanic of Magus that is the most under utilized.
Its benefit per subclass have varying utility and it's not always easy to enter it because of the action cost (that also require casting a spell in the same round so really it can sometime feel like it costs 2 actions just to enter it with Shield)
I believe this stance would stand to gain some value, mainly in two ways:
The first, relating to the previous chapter is this action:
Cascade Recycling
Condition: you are in the Arcane Cascade stance
As a free action, you cycle the cascading magic of your previous spells to realign your magic and recharge your ability to Spellstrike.
You end your Arcane Cascade and Recharge your Spellstrike.
This is another side to the Action Deferring of Spellstrike.
Rather than pay the 3rd action on a later round, you can treat Arcane Cascade as paying it in advance.
Of course this means losing all the benefits from the stance: no more bonus damage or hybrid study benefits (temp HP from Inexorable Iron, free grip swap or deadly trait for twisting tree etc) and also unability to use actions requiring to be in the cascade until you enter it again.
This makes this option an "emergency" recharge for spellstrike when you need it but don't have the other ressources for it.
Maybe limit it to once per minute if it would prove too good.
For it to be an actual opportunity cost however, there need to be uses for Arcane Cascade. This is were more actions are needed, mainly in feat selections.
First of, it could be made that the skill actions that recharge Spellstrike only do so while in Arcane Cascade.
Second, during "off turns" those new attacks and abilities can give something to do to the class that either emulate or put its own spin on pure martials' abilities (again mixing martial and magic to do something specialists can or even cannot)
Some ideas:
Cascading Splash: 1 action flourish
Make a Strike, on any result other than a critical failure this strike deals splash damage equal to your arcane cascade bonus plus your number of weapon damage dice. You are unnaffected by this splash damage.
Riving Strike: 2 actions
Make a Strike, on a success you create a crack for magic to pierce through. On a success the target suffers a -1 status penalty to saves against spells until the end of your next turn. -2 on a critical hit.
Arcane Slamdown: 2 actions
Make a Strike and attempt a Trip action (if you are wielding a 2 handed weapon you can ignore needing a free hand to trip), both count to your MAP but it doesn't increase until after both actions are complete.
If the target is successfully rendered prone, it suffers additional damage equal to your Arcane Cascade damage, on a critical success the damage from the fall can be of the same type of your Arcane Cascade
Rend Defenses: 2 actions
Make a strike, on a success you cut down the energies protecting the target. The target reduces its resistances to energies by half of your level, or your level on a critical hit. (Maybe it can be full level regardless, or only be the energy of your arcane cascade)
This gives you some idea.
Finally, the issue of focus spells aka "Why do Magi often devellop psychic powers".
Cleric, Oracle, Champion and any class offering Attack Focus Spells is very appealing to Magus because those are compatible with Spellstrike and are a renewable ressource.
Psychic even more than those since it shares its Spellcasting attribute with Magus, making it less MAD and still giving the option to use save spells with its Magus slots.
This is a very powerful synergy.
It completely circumvent the need to save your spell slots to do burst damage and opens them up for buffs and utility.
It eliminates the need to conserve your power spikes because those are a renewable ressource.
It is easy enough to use one, then a conflux spell to recharge more easily and then still have a focus point to spare for another one (especially with psychic which maxes out your focus pool by level 6)
It also addresses the lack of spell choices for spellstrike.
Which is why some Hybrid Studies feats, as recently as Tian Xia character guide and the new post-remaster Aloof Firmament subclass explicitaly calls off cantrips AND FOCUS SPELLS from its level 10 feat "Unsheathe the Swordlight".
It would be better if this was uniform accross the board.
Either all or none of the feature should be compatible with X types of spells.
I think that for balance it might be better to remove the compatibility of Focus Spell from Spellstrike, especially with the QoL changes I suggested that make it easier tor recharge, potentially offer more slots and a wider compatibility of spells.
However: more attack spells are badly needed, a lot of those focus spells would be incredible as ranked spells. Even if just a new coat of paint:
Winter Bolt -> Obsidian Spear: damage changed to piercing and slashing on the burst (maybe with some persistant bleed)
Stone Lance -> Conjure Javelin (metal trait instead of Earth, maybe higher ranks make it be of special metals like cold iron or silver)
Fire Ray -> Acid Hose : Change damage to acid, leave an acid puddle on the ground instead of fire
You get the idea.
Now, i've been typing this for over 2 hours and I'm starting to lose track, I dunno if I covered everything I wanted but I'll leave it here for now.
Edit: 3 and half hours actually, damn.
Again: all numbers are estimate/placeholders, not all of those ideas have to be implemented together etc etc.
Stay civil, this is a place to discuss and elevate ideas.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, the reason I mentioned overkill damage was mostly because of that being a "culture shock" compared to discussions among/about other classes.
I've certainly never heard the term used once among Alchemists, lol.
Overall, I do agree with Teridax that there is some seriously powerful number-brain psychology going on that affects Magus worse than other classes.
And I'm not exempt, I've said things at tables like "Hey, is that your new personal best damage hit?"
Kinda sad that royal-we are so overly-fixated on big damage numbers.
(This is also why I think the notion of changing the existing Magus' core is such a non-starter, gooooood luck at spinning that to not upset people. IMO, you've gotta always present any such talk in the form of add-on or opt in. Class archetype, extra feats, etc.)
Well sometimes you have to not be afraid of upsetting the "masses" !
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Alright, figured it's time to fully write down my thing.
So to start with a little preface...
Funny I had been wondering if maybe the Magus could be redesigned with a small number of spell slots dedicated to spellstrike compatible only spells. A neat idea but I'm too squeamish about homebrew to try testing it myself. I also don't know if that would be the correct response to the optimization community's, understandable if a tad unfortunate IMO, tendency to ignore attack spell slots in favor of attack cantrips and focus cantrips.
On the subject of focus spells and spellstrike, I am firmly of the opinion that the choice to conserve focus spells for action-efficient conflux spells or use them for powerful attack focus spells is a valid choice with costs and benefits for either decision; making tactical choices on the best use of your resources, be it actions or spells, is what makes PF2E so engaging. Of course Imaginary Weapon is powerful without having any focus point cost so it kind of side-steps the need to make a choice there.
Side note, conceptually Unsheathing the Sword-Light sounds cool as hell, but I find it so impractical. Other Hybrid Studies already had serviceable feats that cost spell slots.
I aggree that the choice to use focus spells for spellstrike or for recharges is nice, but as it is it's just so much better to use focus spells than slotted spells and I don't really see a way to address it. Either leave as is or remove it, but incenticizing other spell slots and all would be good.
Though the issue is you can't really introduce any other way to recharge spellstrike (like the skill action idea) because then the tradeoff to spellstrike Imaginary Weapon becomes even less impactful since you have other options.
But if you choose not to go that route, you kind of shoot yourself in the foot and those new options might bring some dynamism to the class that'd be welcome.
Kind of a "head I win, tails you lose" situation lol.
If I had to make the decision, outside of flat out doing a survey with the community, I might choose to just...leave it ? Everyone is already doing it anyway, might as well give reasons to try other stuff and if people wanna keep on using focus spells anyway well, they will and those who don't wanna use archetypes (or just other ones) will have more options at their disposal.
Also I'd really, really appreciate it if some people could just try some of my suggestions with their groups, or suggest it around for like 1 or 2 sessions if they have a magus in their group, or just for 1 to 2 fights oneshots, just to see how it feels.
Yeah but then it's not really Magus anymore if they don't use actual spells.
Some special attacks like that are welcome (just like how Eldritch Archer has special shots, including one dealing mental damage that can stun on a crit) so some stuff like that would definitely be welcomed
Well that's why I suggested a reimplentation of Spell Combat within the 2e format for example.
Given the relative lack of spells suitable for spell striking, it might be more interesting to allow a Magus to use spell slots to enhance their strikes in more bespoke ways...
In fairness, other classes that have dedicated slots, such as cleric's divine font, are also drawing from a very restricted list.
That said having more bespoke ways to customize strikes could make for interesting feat options.
It does. I posted a few but there could be a lot.
Edit: Also, been thinking of posting my writeup as its own topic, as to not have it lost in conversation. Think it's a good idea people ?
Edit: Also, been thinking of posting my writeup as its own topic, as to not have it lost in conversation. Think it's a good idea people ?
Yes, I think this is a good idea, and would allow your work to receive more visibility. At the same time, your idea is also topical to the discussion at hand, so even if you do make a separate thread, I think it is worth continuing to discuss what you've suggested here.
On the subject of spell variety, I can't remember who said it, but someone else on a different thread floated the idea of getting rid of spell attacks entirely and making them a DC, which I've found increasingly attractive. For the Magus, it would also force their Spellstrike to adapt to the fuller range of harmful arcane spells, rather than this dwindling amount it's constrained to right now as a baseline. I think this might also be able to better justify using one roll for the attack and an opponent's save in the case of basic saves (and specifically basic saves; anything else would require more precautions or a different model entirely).
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I can't say I'm a fan of getting rid of spell attacks entirely, if anything spell attacks could use more love from Paizo's design team. Though the idea of a Magus not strictly needing attack spells to perform a spellstrike sounds interesting. I say interesting without necessarily endorsing or condemning the idea though. A lot would be adjusted about the class if that were to become the new norm for the Magus.
Making all spells be DCs might cause a few issues:
First of gameplay wise this means magus needs a high int to keep a good enough DC since targets will have to roll that.
Unless spellstrike makes it apply its strike result on the save but then we need a way to determine which spells work like that and which are rolled. (Only dex saves ? only armor save (if AC is then treated as a save))
This also means way less teamwork possibilities between martials and casters using tho. Since there is several ways to give bonuses to attack and lowering AC (a martial grappling the target for example) but very few to increase your spell DC or lower saves outside of demoralize and enfeebled/drained/stupify that are much harder to come by.
Secondly, it might just feel bad. There is something fun about rolling the attack yourself rather than the target rolling a save after you declare an attack.
It's a pure gamefeel thing, mathematically it doesn't change anything, but when you roll YOUR attack, you feel like you have agency. That you are the one attacking and succeeding or failing.
From the looks of it, Paizo seem to be moving somewhat away from spell attacks, and have turned many attack spells into save spells in the remaster. To be honest, I don't blame them either: there have been other threads written about this (and the discussion has gone on for literal years), but Paizo have painted themselves into a corner with spell attacks, because they chose to make spell attack proficiency scale at the slower rate of spell DC proficiency and not rely on item bonuses, but also implemented sure strike in a way that benefits spell attacks even more than regular Strikes, and also added Shadow Signet to the game. Already now, it's possible for a spellcaster to give themselves a ridiculously large modifier to their spell attack (it can go up to something like a +16 if you use sure strike and go from extreme AC to a terrible save), which can have them wreak havoc with spells like disintegrate, but unless a spellcaster is actively trying to make use of those attack boosters, their accuracy's a bit meh.
I also think that it would probably better for the Magus's long-term health if they were to move away from being "the spell attack class", because that quite severely restricts the range of spells that work with its defining feature when there's no particular reason why they can't be allowed to work at least with basic saves, which achieve the same basic function of damage. That restriction I think also makes the class fairly volatile, since as both the remaster and the Psychic dedication show that gaining or losing one single spell can have a large impact. If they could bring that accuracy compression to at least slightly more spells, without branching out necessarily into crowd control or utility, they'd likely be in a stabler spot, and it may even be easier at that stage to let them opt into more versatility if the player wanted.
First of gameplay wise this means magus needs a high int to keep a good enough DC since targets will have to roll that.
I think this highlights the problem with Expansive Spellstrike more than anything, in that it shows the Magus is generally too MAD on most of their subclasses to be reasonably expected to have solid Int for spell saves. I would prefer to tackle that problem directly and make the Magus good at compressing accuracy on spells, even if it's just for basic saves (and again, basic saves are not much different to Strikes given how they output pure damage).
This also means way less teamwork possibilities between martials and casters using tho. Since there is several ways to give bonuses to attack and lowering AC (a martial grappling the target for example) but very few to increase your spell DC or lower saves outside of demoralize and enfeebled/drained/stupify that are much harder to come by.
All the more reason to keep using the attack roll on Spellstrike, methinks, so even if you were to target a save DC, you'd still have plenty of ways of improving your result.
Secondly, it might just feel bad. There is something fun about rolling the attack yourself rather than the target rolling a save after you declare an attack.
I agree for the Magus, which is why I'd still want the class to roll an attack for their Spellstrike. As for other casters, though, there are so few attack spells out there, most of which are cantrips, that I genuinely don't believe it would make much of a difference past a certain point.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So the magus is screwed until Paizo remaster it, that's what you guys are saying...
It feels like everything we suggest and talk about would not fix the problem at all.
At this point, might as well rework Spellstrike so the Magus simply convert any elemental spell into extra damage that deals 1d6 points of damage/2 levels, with slotted spell adding a bonus or penalty based on theirs ranks (cantrips adding/substracting 0) and adding status effects based on a spell's traits.
P1E's Occultist and Arcanist had based elemental attacks than the Magus could ever afford.
So the magus is screwed until Paizo remaster it, that's what you guys are saying...
It feels like everything we suggest and talk about would not fix the problem at all.
Lol no. The Magus even now is a powerful and enjoyable class, and you can have a perfectly good time with one (in fact, you can have a fantastic time with one). They have their flaws, like many other classes in Pathfinder, but they're definitely not "screwed".
Nobody says the class is screwed or non-functional or underpowered or anything.
Like all that's advocated for is tweaking it and polishing some clunky edges and inconsistencies.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Lol no. The Magus even now is a powerful and enjoyable class, and you can have a perfectly good time with one (in fact, you can have a fantastic time with one). They have their flaws, like many other classes in Pathfinder, but they're definitely not "screwed".So the magus is screwed until Paizo remaster it, that's what you guys are saying...
It feels like everything we suggest and talk about would not fix the problem at all.
Really?
- They keep losing eligible spells for a regular Spellstrike.- They cannot bypass saves, be for the regular or the Expansive Spellstrike.
- They must spend ONE action to recharge Spellstrike, instead of, y'know, recharging by itself.
- They must spend ANOTHER action to activate Arcane Cascade.
Fix those issues and the Magus would climb from "below-average" to "decent".
Maybe you should read my suggestions then JiCi.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Really?
...
Have you considered these counterpoints?
- They keep losing eligible spells for a regular Spellstrike.
Strictly speaking they haven't lost any spells. Paizo's stance is that you may still use pre-remaster spells that aren't flagrantly replaced by another remaster spell. While it does seem a number of attack spells have been replaced in spirit, the fact that some replacements lack the attack trait means that the old attack spells still fulfill a function for the magus.
Could they rework the magus to work without attack spells? Probably, and it's something they should definitely consider if they really do want to abandon attack spells.
- They cannot bypass saves, be for the regular or the Expansive Spellstrike.
Taking this statement completely literally this is untrue as it is still possible. Of course I dare presume to understand the spirit of this statement and indeed the magus is so unlikely to overcome the saves of stronger enemies that it's not worth spending actions to try.
The option still exists for groups of weaker enemies if you lack a better blaster in the party. Though in truth I don't believe you should go into the class with the expectation that your spell DCs are your main asset. You have full martial weapon proficiency with the ability to hit powerful spikes in your weapon damage. Each class is designed to fulfill different roles and niches, and spell DCs are the domain of full spell-casters, not martials or hybrid classes like the Magus.
- They must spend ONE action to recharge Spellstrike, instead of, y'know, recharging by itself.
Is the alternative better? If a magus could spellstrike all combat every turn without cost it would far out-damage any other martial in the game. Sure a magus with haste and one who gets the 20th-level feat to recharge it as a free action have this privilege but the former costs spell slots and actions to cast, while the other requires maximum level where one is expected to achieve great power, so still a cost.
A large part of PF2E's appeal is that one must make tactical choices in the game round-to-round about the best use of your actions. Truly the Magus is only unique in that they have a few different decisions to make compared to other classes.
- They must spend ANOTHER action to activate Arcane Cascade.
A magus doesn't strictly have to since many of their features work without it. In fact I've seen some debate that it might not be worth using at all. I disagree with that stance in truth but I'm getting off track. By and large I'd be repeating my point of having to make tactical choices in PF2E, however in truth I do have some issues with arcane cascade currently as well.
It's not that it costs one action, it costs as minimum TWO actions. You have to cast a spell to even enter Arcane Cascade which effectively makes it the most costly stance to enter in the game. Sure you usually only have to enter stance once-per-combat but every other stance is the same way and only costs one action. If Paizo deems that everything else about the magus works perfectly I would hope this is the one thing they decide needs addressing.
and the Magus would climb from "below-average" to "decent".
Taken from experience, if you get fixated on its weakpoints it's easy to overlook that the myriad parts of the class come together to make it something more than just the sum of its parts. In my experience I'd put it well above "decent" to "a blast to play." Is this class for everyone? No and it doesn't have to be, that's the beauty of a game with multiple options to choose from.
Really?
- They keep losing eligible spells for a regular Spellstrike.
I feel you on this one, it's not great that the Magus's baseline selection of spells to Spellstrike with is so tiny and volatile. I definitely want to expand their range of baseline options, especially given how large the arcane list is. At the same time, I don't think this is a dealbreaker either: the Magus does have a few choices now, and already tends to favor certain choices too for better or worse, so even if more options would be better, in my opinion at least I don't think it makes the class dysfunctional.
- They cannot bypass saves, be for the regular or the Expansive Spellstrike.
- They must spend ONE action to recharge Spellstrike, instead of, y'know, recharging by itself.
I don't think bypassing saves is necessarily something to aim for. Perhaps this could be fine for basic saves, which are all about dealing damage, but the big thing to watch out for is a Magus having a very high chance of making a boss slowed 2 just because they managed to bypass the Fort save on slow in some form and massively boosted their odds of applying a very powerful debuff. There are of course lots of other potent save spells that could cause similar issues, including paralyze at the same level (it might in fact be even more severe), but slow I think is the most obvious example.
As much as I support more action compression on Spellstrike with cantrips, and do agree that having to recharge Spellstrike makes the melee Magus a bit clunky and Starlit Span extremely repetitive, I also do think there are caveats to this as well. Action and accuracy compression on slot spells I suspect would likely be too big a benefit, so while I agree this is a problem, I don't consider it a dealbreaker either, nor do I think there's an easy solution.
- They must spend ANOTHER action to activate Arcane Cascade.
Fix those issues and the Magus would climb from "below-average" to "decent".
I do agree having to spend at least two actions in total to bring Arcane Cascade online is tedious and prevents some subclasses from working well at all. This is probably the closest problem I'd say gets to a dealbreaker, given how you can end up with no real subclass if you don't have Arcane Cascade up.
I will say, and I guess this probably comes down to just differences in perspective, but while I do agree with you that problems exist with the Magus (I don't think that's in question), I do still think the Magus overall manages to play well and feel strong. I definitely would like to see improvements made to the Magus (that's why I created this thread in the first place), but I also genuinely believe it's about making a good class provide more enjoyment in a manner that remains balanced, rather than bringing a bad class up to par.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
@Nintendogeek01
Explain to me why...
- Ray of Frost became a target spell with a save.
- Acid Splash became an emanation.
- Shocking Grasp became a target spell with a save.
all of these... instead of being simply renamed.
Is the alternative better? If a magus could spellstrike all combat every turn without cost it would far out-damage any other martial in the game.
NEWSFLASH: That's the point!
The Magus is supposed to be a "melee spellcaster", blending the damage output of a Fighter with the arsenal of the Wizard, without the crit-fishing of the former and the squishiness of the latter.
I should be able to spellstrike every turn with a different spell to always keep the opponents guessing, just like the fighter can critically strike for 3 times in a row.
No, that's not the point. The point is what Paizo has given us - the Magus has their own niche, and it is not meant to be Spellstriking every turn without cost.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The Magus is supposed to be a "melee spellcaster", blending the damage output of a Fighter with the arsenal of the Wizard, without the crit-fishing of the former and the squishiness of the latter.
I should be able to spellstrike every turn with a different spell to always keep the opponents guessing, just like the fighter can critically strike for 3 times in a row.
Uhh...
This just sounds like the player infinite demand for more power caricature, but done completely unironically.
Again, dude.
Hybrids are never supposed to be better than the specialists they borrow from. It sounds like you are just asking for the best of both, and weaknesses of neither.
.
The specific design of Magus needing to recharge spellstrike was done so that they didn't have to make a weird ruleset to half-nerf the spells behind the strike.
Making that instead require specific recharging allows Magus to use the spell slot to identical effect of a full caster.
It's actually a very good solution.
As soon as the concept changes to allow S-Strike every turn, you'd have to nerf the outcome of S-Strike somehow.
.
IMO, people should be asking for some reverse-shadow-signet piece of equipment that outlines a quick rule for how to convert save spells into attack spells.
.
Aside from that, I'd like to remind people that the game encourages a fair amount of homebrewing. If you want to, ask your GM if you can make reflavored copies of existing spells, just with the damage type swapped to your PC's preferred theme, or other similar brews to fill out your spell list.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
No, that's not the point. The point is what Paizo has given us - the Magus has their own niche, and it is not meant to be Spellstriking every turn without cost.
The costs are as follow:
- limited spell choices- the opponent can still save against a spell that I went through to strike with
- spending an action to recharge Spellstrike
- being in melee
That should be enough to dissuade any Magus from charging head first.
As soon as the concept changes to allow S-Strike every turn, you'd have to nerf the outcome of S-Strike somehow.
Like I said, the Arcane Spell List is nerfing itself by removing spells with attack rolls.
The ideal scenario should have been that 15 or 20 cantrips would be eligible for a regular Spellstrike. Sure, you can use ranked spells, but they cost a slot, and if you miss, they're expended. This should have led to the Magus packing utility ranked spells while preparing several cantrips for Spellstrike.
Explain to me why...
- Ray of Frost became a target spell with a save.
- Acid Splash became an emanation.
- Shocking Grasp became a target spell with a save.all of these... instead of being simply renamed.
As I'm not part of the Paizo design team I can only guess that they decided to de-emphasize spells with the attack trait. But again, strictly speaking the pre-remaster spells still exist and can be used at your table. Is there a specific reason you can't use the pre-remaster versions?
Is the alternative better? If a magus could spellstrike all combat every turn without cost it would far out-damage any other martial in the game.NEWSFLASH: That's the point!
The Magus is supposed to be a "melee spellcaster", blending the damage output of a Fighter with the arsenal of the Wizard, without the crit-fishing of the former and the squishiness of the latter.
I should be able to spellstrike every turn with a different spell to always keep the opponents guessing, just like the fighter can critically strike for 3 times in a row.
The point, as I see it, is to have a hybrid spellcaster/martial be balanced in the same space that specialist martials and specialist spellcasters exist in. In game design it is important to balance the player-facing options as much as you can in order to avoid flagrantly overpowering options so that you broaden your appeal to an audience interested in a variety of options and keep the existing audience engaged in coming back to try new things. Gamers tend to gravitate towards optimum options but that's not good for the health of the game in the long-run, as the same obviously better solutions will get repetitive quickly and hurt long-term engagement with the game.
So if the magus could spellstrike every turn, why would gamers interested in optimization ever touch a barbarian or a ranger? Now is the balance perfect? No. Is it currently competitive, if you want to use that term? I say yes but I don't speak for everyone.
Is making the magus better at engaging in melee better than any other class the solution?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I mean Ray of Frost, Acid Splash and Shocking Grasp litteraly still exist as their own spells. They haven't been replaced and are still useable, paizo just used the room to print more spells 'cause those didn't need any change, and that gave other options for save spells at low level.
As I'm not part of the Paizo design team I can only guess that they decided to de-emphasize spells with the attack trait. But again, strictly speaking the pre-remaster spells still exist and can be used at your table. Is there a specific reason you can't use the pre-remaster versions?
Legacy spells can be treated as "3rd-party material" now, thus being unavailable.
Is making the magus better at engaging in melee better than any other class the solution?
99% of spells has the Manipulate trait, which puts you at risk of any reaction that can be triggered by it, making spellcasting in melee very risky.
When a Magus uses Spellstrike, they don't trigger the Fighter's Reactive Strike, because it doesn't have the Manipulate trait, despite imbuing a spell.
Again, since most Arcane spells have saves, the Magus cannot use them without Expansive Spellstrike, and the result is literally the same as Casting a Spell, but now you have to roll a Strike on top.
Make it 1/day, a Focus point cost, once per cantrip per encounter per session, cantrip only, I do not care...
Just make Spellstrike the equivalent of "discharging a spell up close if you are at the receiving end of my weapon, no save allowed".
You want to resist a Spellstrike? Beef up your AC, not your saves.
Legacy spells can be treated as "3rd-party material" now, thus being unavailable.
Maybe in PFS, but no one in any home game gets to decide that but the GM. They certainly are not 'unavailable' in my games - and I don't think most people's default assumption when talking here is that everyone is playing PFS, or even considering it in conversation.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Not even in PFS, they are explicitaly allowed. JiCi is saying nonsense here.
Like, reactive strikes are rare, and only become an issue at higher levels.
|
In game design it is important to balance the player-facing options as much as you can in order to avoid flagrantly overpowering options so that you broaden your appeal to an audience interested in a variety of options and keep the existing audience engaged in coming back to try new things. Gamers tend to gravitate towards optimum options but that's not good for the health of the game in the long-run, as the same obviously better solutions will get repetitive quickly and hurt long-term engagement with the game.If this idea was actually true then 5e wouldn't be the default TTRPG because everybody would have optimized the fun out of it and moved on years ago. Instead it's 90% of the market and second place is only even known by the hardcore TTRPG fan. This desire for strict balance with no need for GM intervention is a bias among PF2 fans because it's what differentiates your favorite system from what everybody else plays.
There's a reason that just about every game currently being published has a majority of its userbase be ex-players of 5e - the lack of balance absolutely is the cause of a large proportion of people stopping engaging with 5e. In the case of 5e, it is big enough and has enough of a hook into pop culture and streaming that the amount of new players coming in clearly outnumber the amount of older players dropping out, but that doesn't mean shoddy game design decisions aren't causing people to stop playing the game.
|
|
There's a reason that just about every game currently being published has a majority of its userbase be ex-players of 5e - the lack of balance absolutely is the cause of a large proportion of people stopping engaging with 5e. In the case of 5e, it is big enough and has enough of a hook into pop culture and streaming that the amount of new players coming in clearly outnumber the amount of older players dropping out, but that doesn't mean shoddy game design decisions aren't causing people to stop playing the game.That would be true of anything that is a massive market leader. It's like saying the majority of Bing users have previously used Google. It has no bearing on the quality of Google as service and in no way suggests that Bing is a better search engine or that Google is an inferior one.
No-one has the numbers to prove any of this right now (likely not even WotC), so it's all just our opinion. That being said, I do think it's clear that 5e has a retention problem with gamers - there are definitely some people who have been using it for a decade now, but much of the online discussion from those who have extended experience with the game are criticisms of the balance and the gameplay issue resulting from it, and many people who play other games have left 5e because of these sorts of issues. At the very least I think I can say with about 100% certainty that appealing to players frustrated with the consequences of 5e's terrible balancing is an effective route to gain new players as an RPG in the current market, and PF2 has done so well.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Good balance will get you views from... players interested in balance. Anecdotally, a handful of people in my gaming group who played DnD 4e and not 5e or PF1E were attracted to PF2E for this exact reason. But the crucial thing is that those aren't new players to the hobby. People entirely new to the hobby will probably go to DnD first just because it's the name they know.
At the end of the day, PF2E just has less brand recognition than DnD, and its flavor exists in the shadow of the market leader as well—it isn't even the go-to game for a niche that DnD doesn't cover, like something like Call of Cthulhu. I think a new TTRPG player is unlikely to try PF2E before DnD unless they have a fairly boardgame-y or wargame-y background to begin with, and/or are around people (including LGS owners and GMs—don't underestimate the power of playing at your LGS for shilling a game!) who recommend it.
I also think attrition from 5e's balance is, anecdotally, more prevalent on GM side of the game. It's the GMs that I see much more frequently complain about the difficulty of balancing encounters, or the difficulty of keeping PCs in line with each other, or simply the difficulty of divining large swaths of 5e RAW. Players just interface with less of what's broken about 5e.
Good balance will get you views from... players interested in balance. Anecdotally, a handful of people in my gaming group who played DnD 4e and not 5e or PF1E were attracted to PF2E for this exact reason. But the crucial thing is that those aren't new players to the hobby. People entirely new to the hobby will probably go to DnD first just because it's the name they know.
At the end of the day, PF2E just has less brand recognition than DnD, and its flavor exists in the shadow of the market leader as well—it isn't even the go-to game for a niche that DnD doesn't cover, like something like Call of Cthulhu. I think a new TTRPG player is unlikely to try PF2E before DnD unless they have a fairly boardgame-y or wargame-y background to begin with, and/or are around people (including LGS owners and GMs—don't underestimate the power of playing at your LGS for shilling a game!) who recommend it.
I also think attrition from 5e's balance is, anecdotally, more prevalent on GM side of the game. It's the GMs that I see much more frequently complain about the difficulty of balancing encounters, or the difficulty of keeping PCs in line with each other, or simply the difficulty of divining large swaths of 5e RAW. Players just interface with less of what's broken about 5e.
GM mattered in my case.
We are playing P2E because its the system I am running as GM.|
|
That being said, I do think it's clear that 5e has a retention problem with gamers - there are definitely some people who have been using it for a decade now, but much of the online discussion from those who have extended experience with the game are criticisms of the balance and the gameplay issue resulting from it, and many people who play other games have left 5e because of these sorts of issues.That's a massive statement to make without proof. It would be like saying League of Legends has a retention problem because a vocal minority quit - or claim to quit - loudly in response to any changes they don't like. The proof can only come once player numbers start to decline and for both games that hasn't happened yet.
I see no reason why you would need to wait until player numbers start to decline to say that the balance issues contribute to issues around player retention - a problem with retaining a population of players doesn't mean that the system is in decline, or that it has to be loosing player count. It's plainly true that a significant amount of the popularity of RPGs that aren't 5e is that they can address problems some players find with 5e, and I'm saying that the balance (and associated strains on the GM) is one of the most commonly-cited causes of people leaving 5e for other games. This can all be true while the game continues to become more popular, because 5e has always been about getting more people into the hobby.
At the very least I think I can say with about 100% certainty that appealing to players frustrated with the consequences of 5e's terrible balancing is an effective route to gain new players as an RPG in the current market, and PF2 has done so well.It's an effective way to carve out a niche, but as a long-term strategy to gain a larger percentage of the total market, I doubt it's a winning one. Paizo has higher sales now than they did when they were the market leader, but they've clearly ceded overall market share with PF2 and there's no indication that it's been regaining that share even with WotC's PR struggles.
I don't know why people keep trying to push this narrative that PF1 was once the most popular game on the market. We have zero proof that Paizo was ever meaningfully the market leader; for one, no-one has the data to back that up, and people instead rely on the very shaky foundations of ICv2 - a survey of some hobby stores, not even a comprehensive accounting of all of them, ignoring online sales, sales from larger places where only d&d is sold, and a myriad of other sources. Even then, ICv2 only puts Pathfinder in front for a short period of time starting at the end of 2011, when 4e had almost entirely stopped releasing major products - there were no new Core Rules books by that point, and there was only one release left in the character options, optional rules, settings, and spell books lines (at least according to wikipedia, I'm not double checking that even more). Outselling 4e in a limited sampling of some hobby stores, while excluding major areas that 4e is sold and PF isn't, after 4e has already just about finished, and continuing that for another quarter in which 5e was announced is really not a very convincing argument for "Paizo was the market leader". Pathfinder never outsold D&D, and is very unlikely to do so in the future. Paizo has never been the market leader; Wotc isn't even really competing with Paizo, because they've been so dominant for so long that their growth is fundamentally about attracting new players to the hobby, not taking players from other systems. Paizo isn't going to take the market leader position without a catastrophic collapse of WOTC, and that's not an issue - Paizo is clearly making much more money now than they ever have before (as seen by hiring practices and has been publicly stated by many members of staff), and are more successful now than they were in the PF1 era by every meaningful metric. They may or may not have ceded market share - it's literally impossible to know. I see no reason to think that Paizo's primary goal is to attempt to gain a larger market share instead of the obvious goal of being a more profitable and successful company, in which the current strategy of "making a well-balanced game that stands on its own, and that will be attractive to players frustrated with the flaws of the market leader" seems to be excelling.
We are getting kind of off topic here.
I don't think this line of argumentation is terribly solid or relevant. We don't know if D&D 5e's playerbase is shrinking, stagnating, or growing, nor do we know if the game's balance is a major reason why people leave. All of that is conjecture. What we do know, however, is that PF2e is a game that values balance as one of its most important design principles, and that is enough to advocate for balance in 2e. Even in a world where D&D did not exist, it would still be worth tempering our requests for improvements to a Pathfinder class with the awareness not to make that class or some of its options so good that they warp gameplay around themselves, and reduce the number of equally valid choices in the game.
On the subject of D&D, though, I do think that most of PF2e's structural flaws come from that franchise's legacy, and this can be seen with the Magus and ability scores (or attributes, as they're called now): in a world without attributes, most things would stay largely the same due to proficiency factoring into any check with an attribute, but skill and archetype customization would be even more freeform, and there would be no such thing as a MAD class. Because the game inherited its attributes from D&D, however, and applies them in similar ways (i.e. you generally use a mental attribute to cast spells), this has led to the Magus not being inherently ideal at fulfilling their hybrid fantasy: with a melee subclass, they'll generally want to build Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom, and already that covers their four attribute boosts. To cast spells better, however, you need Int, and at that point boosting that too starts to eat into the attributes that make you better as a martial (or just better in general). So long as the game holds to its current system of attributes, a melee Magus will always be a bit MAD, even if they ignore spellcasting completely and rely on Spellstrike for spell attacks exclusively.
This is also, by the way, one of several reasons why Starlit Span is a stronger subclass than the rest. Not only do you get to comfortably recharge Spellstrike on the same turn that you use it (and thus have less need for conflux spells), you can easily drop Strength from the list of attributes to boost and go for Int instead. This makes the subclass more versatile overall, obviously, but makes it especially easy for it to opt into a Psychic archetype and access imaginary weapon (which, due to your reduced need for conflux spells, you'd be able to pair with your Spellstrike much more readily).