Lol that's funny, cars aren't meant to burn nitrous but they can. Is it the car manufacturer fault if you do. Same thing. You absolutely can use slots, but if that was meant to be the baseline you would have gotten more than 4. I seriously doubt that you were meant to go Nova every round. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.I'm detecting a shifting of the goalposts here. Your point thus far was that the designers didn't want the Magus to Spellstrike with spell slots, which was proven false quite comprehensively. Now, your new point is that the Magus isn't meant to "go nova every round" with spell slots, which is obvious given their limited spell slots, but presumes that quantity of spell slots is relevant here when it isn't really in practice. Just because the Magus has limited spell slots does not mean players won't try to use those spell slots to go nova, and it certainly doesn't mean the developers didn't enable this with a bunch of mechanics that specifically require you to Spellstrike with a spell slot (including one that doubles the number of times you can go nova). You are correct, just because you can doesn't mean you should, but because you can, people will, and it's disproportionately effective at low levels.
Thats not what they said means Teridax.
It means a player is responsible for their choices that the game design allows.If you want to blow all your spell slots on spellstrikes you can, its also true you dont have to.
The design allows for either to be chosen.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thats not what they said means Teridax.
It means a player is responsible for their choices that the game design allows.
If you want to blow all your spell slots on spellstrikes you can, its also true you dont have to.
Not only is that what they have said, the other part of their post you are bringing up has already been addressed. As has already been said in response, the fact that this can be done at all is still the designer's responsibility, and in this particular case it is explicitly their intention. Notice that it is nobody else here but you and Riddlyn at the moment who are insisting upon making this a blame game, and trying to pin the blame on anyone but the designers responsible for enabling the Magus to Spellstrike with spell slots, and incentivizing players to do so. By contrast, the current discussion so far has otherwise not focused on the developers or "responsibility" at all, so much as discussing Spellstriking with powerful spells on their own merits.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
From what I remember of the way the math for the class works from when people calced it out back in the day, by itself cantrip spellstriking puts you under the fighter baseline, while spell slot spellstriking puts you over it by about 30%, obviously implying that one of the supported play loops was to nova with Spellstrike as a sometimes food so that it equals out in the wash, Sure Strike from the Studious Spells still helps with that, and you still have your hero points too.
I don't recall if that factored in the expected value of a conflux or not, but the IW shouldn't be too much higher since it produces action drag to account for in the math (I like to use Force Fang as the baseline for this in calculations as what you're giving up to use imaginary weapon.)
Right now people have been eyeballing save spellstrike to be on par before debuffs to enemy AC/saves have been factored in, but obviously AC is easier to debuff, while I think NADs are likelier to be lower from the get especially if we find the right spells to target diff saves. Thunderstrike and Sudden Bolt can target Reflex, Befuddle isn't damage but it's super strong and can target Will, among some other candidates for that.
If you do a spell slot spellstrike once per encounter, and you have 4 spell slots, you can do this for 4 encounters which is (apparently, based off polls over on the subreddit) the most number of encounters most of the playerbase will do with the next highest demographic doing fewer-- without touching your studious spells, staff, scrolls, wands or whatever which probably line up for utility in this instance.
There's other builds as well, like self-buff + cantrip spellstrike so you have some other options for spell slots, to be viable in terms of playstyle-- Blazing Armory and Runic Weapon at relevant levels for instance, with Blazing Armory notably getting your whole party Flaming (a level 8 rune) at level 7 if they want it.
Of course that's damage, another way to use the slots would be to bait out Reactive Strike with cantrip spellstrikes and use Wooden Double to eat the nasty MAPless reaction hits for the party or just in general when attacked to tank for bosses, I kinda dig that for the IW build honestly, leaving out of combat casting to a staff and so forth.
From there you get into more esoteric builds.
Indeed it's been discussed at length.
Design wise, Magus is supposed to nova with spell slots, this is why so many feats grant additional bonuses when casting spells from slots:
You have so few of them, so making each do as many things as possible that'll support your playstyle is important (tacking a line aoe to your ranged single target nova, giving your nova insane reach, your slots providing a small amount of heal to stay in the fight, benefiting from a one round version of a powerful buff spells while casting another one etc)
Some of those feats are weaker than others, or not very practical and might need rework.
But that's the design intent. And it's not a bad one, I think, just needs to be pushed harder by making it more appealing.
Because the issue, to my pov, is the community shift to completely ignore the intended design and just use focus spells from cleric or psychic to nova as much as they can, disreguarding the utility of conflux spells 'cause why bother navigating the action economy if you can nova the encounter every time with your infinite renewable 2d8 per level (on two targets if you have spellswipe) focus spell ?
I mean it doesnt make it everyones conclusion just because you say it over and over again. And really how much of this thread is Kalaam and Teridax at this point? Its mainly the two of you discussing and agreeing and then assuming what you agreed on is consensus.
Magus can set up a variety of different ways according to the options it has on the arcane spell list adn the stats the pc has and be effective. Dont care how many times you say otherwise it still can do exactly that.
What can I say, i'm passionate lol.
And my b Riddlyn.
But even if the thread is a lot of me posting, how is that bad ? I try to bring it options and arguments for everything i bring up instead of just saying yes or no or "this bad" or "nah its all fine no need to change" like some people did before
What can I say, i'm passionate lol.
And my b Riddlyn.But even if the thread is a lot of me posting, how is that bad ? I try to bring it options and arguments for everything i bring up instead of just saying yes or no or "this bad" or "nah its all fine no need to change" like some people did before
Its not bad.
What i mean is that the two of you agreeing doesnt prove anothers take wrong.You have given a good reasons to want to have some spellstrike compatible spells slotted in, but its not the same as showing proof the class can only do that or has to slot any.
And when anyone has said there is enough flexibility the response is often but they have to use those slots for spellstrike. They dont. They can, they have some feats they can get that get more out of doing it, but again they dont have to and they get whatever else they slotted in exchange for slotting that other spell instead.
Another point is on routines.
If a character is set up for a narrow routine and expect it to carry them through any fight it just wont, if it did this wouldnt be a dynamic tactical game.
What can I say, i'm passionate lol.
And my b Riddlyn.But even if the thread is a lot of me posting, how is that bad ? I try to bring it options and arguments for everything i bring up instead of just saying yes or no or "this bad" or "nah its all fine no need to change" like some people did before
I want to also say I don't think your ideas are bad.
IMO they do too much for an already powerful class.I think the class' power is actually in the ability to set up for different situations and always have good reliable damage even when using cantrips on spellstrike.
Overfocusing on spellstrike with most or all slots means they do more damage but damage is something any martial can do. Magus can do damage and anything else they can slot in their spell slots from the arcane list.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I aggree that only doing spellstrike isn't the way to go (that's why i proposed spell combat 2.0, and more special strikes outside of spellstrike)
And magus is seemingly balanced for dealing less damage than other martials when spellstriking cantrips, but more when using a slot and it's fine.
It might be able to prepare spells for multiple situations, but given their limited amount it's hard to make full usage of the arcane list (sure scrolls, wands, staves can be useful, but a LOT of the subclasses can hardly make use of it because they need both hands, or keep one hand free. )
I think those changes are necessary, or at least welcomed, to the class. Not to make it stronger but just more flexible and less pigeon holed, and more dynamic to play.
And again if raw power is the issue i'm not against some nerfs somewhere (aka losing focus spellstrike)
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Indeed it's been discussed at length.
Design wise, Magus is supposed to nova with spell slots, this is why so many feats grant additional bonuses when casting spells from slots:
You have so few of them, so making each do as many things as possible that'll support your playstyle is important (tacking a line aoe to your ranged single target nova, giving your nova insane reach, your slots providing a small amount of heal to stay in the fight, benefiting from a one round version of a powerful buff spells while casting another one etc)Some of those feats are weaker than others, or not very practical and might need rework.
But that's the design intent. And it's not a bad one, I think, just needs to be pushed harder by making it more appealing.Because the issue, to my pov, is the community shift to completely ignore the intended design and just use focus spells from cleric or psychic to nova as much as they can, disreguarding the utility of conflux spells 'cause why bother navigating the action economy if you can nova the encounter every time with your infinite renewable 2d8 per level (on two targets if you have spellswipe) focus spell ?
This thread is pretty interesting and relevant.
The chart actually gives us a comparison between the Gouging Claw Spellstrike + Force Fang (Red), and the assorted Psychic Dedication use cases (brown and pink and purple), against a level +2. The Psychic use cases (brown and pink, specifically) are better, but by a relatively small amount of damage (note the scaling of the Y axis) and brown requires two focus points in one round, presumably falling back down on round two. That's a lot of feats for fairly small practical increase on renewable resource spellstriking.
Notably, the chart does not compare to a spell slot expenditure, since OP wasn't interested in that, but Spell Slot + Force Fang should be noticeably higher than the Red line since real spells are stronger than cantrips, if you have normal encounters (4 or less) per day, and keep your focus points for Force Fang, that's probably the optimal way to play the Magus.
So I think that Paizo probably isn't worried about multi-class Magus, because it's benefits are almost only perception-- the mouse still gets a little more of the cheese from doing it, so to speak, so it's not a trap per se, and Psychic/Cleric can still give you the spellcaster benefit feats so it's not entirely one note, but the cheese arguably isn't worth it (I'd personally prefer to take Beastmaster to solve my action economy issues, and sometimes tack on a little more damage, for instance, or build in some other kind of utility via the likes of Loremaster or Archaelogist or something if I'm taking Int anyway) in a big picture sense.
Yeah i've been tempted by beastmaster or cavalier as well lol. Free move every round would be kind of insane.
And those are great analysis, thanks. Force Fang is definitely overlooked.
It kind of overlook that aspect that the spell slots are incenticized for use on big nova and are a limiting factor (since 4 a day and all, which aligns with expected amount of moderate encounters worth 1 each) but the cheese of IW does give you a renewable ressource (even more with remaster letting you refocus several times) and gives the sacrosanct flexibility of arcane tradition to your slots if you so desire. You can have all the buffs you'd like here (Draw the Lightning, Runic weapon for relevant levels, or other utility).
But damage isn't really my main area of concern in my suggestions, i'm more concerned about flow and variety of options built in.
Because part of me is also *tired* of hearing "take psychic" "every magus is a psychic" whenever people try to discuss the class' balance or something, it ALWAYS gets shoved in your face.
Edit: Also here is some charts I did during playtest at the time : comparing flurry range and barbarian to essentially what current magus is
and one I made recently with the proposition of having arcane cascade apply as penalty to the save on successful hits on spellstrikes compared to a pure caster (and as a magus maxing out intelligence).
Would be curious to have your opinion, i'm going to test it myself next time I get to play. Figured if too strong a simpler -1 on hit -3 on crit would be better
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah i've been tempted by beastmaster or cavalier as well lol. Free move every round would be kind of insane.
And those are great analysis, thanks. Force Fang is definitely overlooked.
It kind of overlook that aspect that the spell slots are incenticized for use on big nova and are a limiting factor (since 4 a day and all, which aligns with expected amount of moderate encounters worth 1 each) but the cheese of IW does give you a renewable ressource (even more with remaster letting you refocus several times) and gives the sacrosanct flexibility of arcane tradition to your slots if you so desire. You can have all the buffs you'd like here (Draw the Lightning, Runic weapon for relevant levels, or other utility).
But damage isn't really my main area of concern in my suggestions, i'm more concerned about flow and variety of options built in.
Because part of me is also *tired* of hearing "take psychic" "every magus is a psychic" whenever people try to discuss the class' balance or something, it ALWAYS gets shoved in your face.
Edit: Also here is some charts I did during playtest at the time : comparing flurry range and barbarian to essentially what current magus is
and one I made recently with the proposition of having arcane cascade apply as penalty to the save on successful hits on spellstrikes compared to a pure caster (and as a magus maxing out intelligence).
Would be curious to have your opinion, i'm going to test it myself next time I get to play. Figured if too strong a simpler -1 on hit -3 on crit would be better
My primary thought is that we need to see the damage numbers rather than just the relative accuracy-- the action compression on Spellstrike has the possibility to be great with saves, but a big part of the benefit for saves is the success effects, and the fact that Save Spellstrike is two rolls rather than one-- so you get what are effectively a bunch more degrees of success by multipling the compatible states.
A. Strike Success, Save Fail
B. Crit Success, Crit Fail
C. Strike Crit, Save Fail
D. Strike Crit, Save Success....
There's quite a few, and we have to express the whole setup mathematically without the Strike Crit Fails but Spell does something outcomes, calc them with the reduced odds of Magus prof relative to a normal caster (presuming secondary stat int?) against moderate and low saves, on different relative creature levels, then make sure to add the damage of Force Fang (as the control group conflux spell for recharge purposes) and compare it to a similar spell attack 3 action routine, and ideally another class's 3 action routine.
Nevermind using something like Befuddle in place of a damage spellstrike, which seems like it would be good but very weird feeling (too bad the save can't go first, maybe very flavorful for a certain kind of magical anime swordsman.
The calcs seem painful to do.
This thread is pretty interesting and relevant.
Particularly this chart here.
The chart actually gives us a comparison between the Gouging Claw Spellstrike + Force Fang (Red), and the assorted Psychic Dedication use cases (brown and pink and purple), against a level +2. The Psychic use cases (brown and pink, specifically) are better, but by a relatively small amount of damage (note the scaling of the Y axis) and brown requires two focus points in one round, presumably falling back down on round two. That's a lot of feats for fairly small practical increase on renewable resource spellstriking.
Notably, the chart does not compare to a spell slot expenditure, since OP wasn't interested in that, but Spell Slot + Force Fang should be noticeably higher than the Red line since real spells are stronger than cantrips, if you have normal encounters (4 or less) per day, and keep your focus points for Force Fang, that's probably the optimal way to play the Magus.
It doesn't need to compare to spell slot expenditure since amped IW is (iirc) equal to or better than expending a spellslot in terms of raw damage. The main usecase for slotted spellstrike with amped IW available is for inflicting statuses (briny bolt for blinded) or taking advantage of the class feats that require it.
I would be wary of two things about this chart:
1) It compares a 3A set on magus to a 2A set on fighter, and so underrepresents the damage of a more optimized 3A routine. This could be just Strike>exacting strike>certain strike, or maybe it could be something like a 2A routine with glimpse weakness from psychic archetype as your third action; I'm not as familar with fighter optimization details as I'd like to be.
2) Higher ACs are more favorable to force fang, since it automatically hits, and this is against level+2 and the chart states AC is high. The lower the enemy AC, the more amped IW spellstrike will pull ahead as your critrate increases.
This thread is pretty interesting and relevant.
Particularly this chart here.
The chart actually gives us a comparison between the Gouging Claw Spellstrike + Force Fang (Red), and the assorted Psychic Dedication use cases (brown and pink and purple), against a level +2. The Psychic use cases (brown and pink, specifically) are better, but by a relatively small amount of damage (note the scaling of the Y axis) and brown requires two focus points in one round, presumably falling back down on round two. That's a lot of feats for fairly small practical increase on renewable resource spellstriking.
Notably, the chart does not compare to a spell slot expenditure, since OP wasn't interested in that, but Spell Slot + Force Fang should be noticeably higher than the Red line since real spells are stronger than cantrips, if you have normal encounters (4 or less) per day, and keep your focus points for Force Fang, that's probably the optimal way to play the Magus.
It doesn't need to compare to spell slot expenditure since amped IW is (iirc) equal to or better than expending a spellslot in terms of raw damage. The main usecase for slotted spellstrike with amped IW available is for inflicting statuses (briny bolt for blinded) or taking advantage of the class feats that require it.
I would be wary of two things about this chart:
1) It compares a 3A set on magus to a 2A set on fighter, and so underrepresents the damage of a more optimized 3A routine. This could be just Strike>exacting strike>certain strike, or maybe it could be something like a 2A routine with glimpse weakness from psychic archetype as your third action; I'm not as familar with fighter optimization details as I'd like to be.
2) Higher ACs are more favorable to force fang, since it automatically hits, and this is against level+2 and the chart states AC is high. The lower the enemy AC, the more amped IW spellstrike will pull ahead as your critrate increases.
I was mostly using it for the internal Magus comparison here, but I figured the fighter would be a bit better than it seemed.
While I don't disagree that Force Fang is more useful against bosses, I see that as a feature not a bug-- and +2 is already a compromise on the AC, my parties see +3 and +4 creatures often enough to be more interested in the cases where Force Fang likely pulls further ahead.
As for IW, 2d8 is a pretty tough scaling to beat so I see why you're saying it's as good/better as a slotted spell (and at most levels it is, I want to see how the saves actually compare now though), but the action drag is nasty, and in it's best use case, targets that aren't higher level, I'm even more incentivized to use a save spell, possibly an expansive spellstrike so something like lightning bolt lances through more than one guy, since there's exp left in the encounter budget.
In other words if an encounter is few monster but high budget I'm leaning towards force fang for the insurance to help pop the boss, if an encounter is many monster low budget we'll clean it up without stressing it, if an encounter is many monsters and high budget, I probably want to AOE... possibly even if I'm not spellstriking in the first place, though spellstrike is still ideal.
My primary thought is that we need to see the damage numbers rather than just the relative accuracy-- the action compression on Spellstrike has the possibility to be great with saves, but a big part of the benefit for...
I Tried... to make one. (Check the 2nd page to get the graph in full) It's kinda hard to read tbh but here's what I see:
If your crit hit and the target crit fails you'll do a lot but...not as much as critting with an attack slot like Shocking Grasp (though in my example I used pretty baseline damaging spells: shocking grasp and breathe fire/fireball (same damage scaling on those two).
Given that even with maxxed out int (which again not all magus can afford easily) you'll be behind full casters on your saves outside of level 5 to 7 and I think another 2 levels in the higher bracket, more often than not you'll get a hit and a successful save for partial damage. Or a miss and partial damage (which imo would be more valuable when spellstriking cantrips since you don't lose a ressource there)
I'll let you draw conclusions as you're likely better than me about it, but looks like spellstriking saves for status for a round will likely be better.
I haven't added in Force Fang since well, if it's on all of those it wouldn't change any difference.
I also have NO IDEA how to implement accuracy into an average damage calc so I just made one line/colum for each possible outcome's average damage.
Coming back to it a bit later.
I roughly color coded the lines:
Red are the results on a strike hit.
Green are on a strike crit
Yellow on a strike miss
Circles for successful saves
Losanges for failed
Triangles for Crit Failed
Square for crit success
Blue are with a shocking grasp and Purple with a cantrip (telekynetic projectile)
Overall save spells will deal more damage than a hit Shocking Grasp when the target fails after you land a crit, or crit fails their save (even if the strike missed) past level 7. But will almost always be way lower than a critical attack spell. Only catching up and exceeding by a few points at level 18+ when doing a crit strike AND crit fail save (though in the graph the formula doesn't stop at 9th spell rank so it should actually remain at 18th level damage for both, so equal, unless we use focus spells that require saves).
Compared to a cantrip, if you hit and they succeed on the save you would have done more damage with a cantrip, but ofc it's an all or nothing vs a "at least you'll do some damage". Any time the save is a success it'll do less damage than a cantrip would have, unless the strike itself was a miss essentially.
Though in that example I've used a 2d6/rank save spell, maybe some other like Thunderstrike would actually scale better ? But I think 1d12+1d4/rank averages out barely above 2d6/rank.
Actually, just tested it. It does do quite a lot more, overtaking a crit shocking grasp (if you crit the strike and they crit fail their save) at level 6. It does go pretty high but the likelyhood is very very small.
Outside of it a critical strike with an attack spell will always deal way more damage.
With a save success on a hit it'll slightly outdamage a cantrip, but not by much. But it'll always be "better".
On a failed saved and a successful strike it'll outdamage shocking grasp.
But a critical on a save success will barely be above a hit shocking grasp for example.
In a way it's also quite swingy.
On a hit at worst you'll do a normal hit of damage and will have wasted ressources despite landing the hit. Otherwise you'll do barely better than a cantrip, or more damage than a hit with an attack spell.
On a crit though, it's the same since the result of your hit is kind of disconnected from the result of the save (which is what might feel the weirdest) you could just do a normal critical strike's hit etc. But unless the target crit fails their save, you won't outdamage it.
However on a normal hit, if the target crit fails you will do more than a critical shocking grasp at the very high levels, or not far below.
So it can be a second chance at massive damage but betting on a crit fail on a save isn't really reliable even for pure casters.
So my takeaway so far is: maybe it's better for debuffs and status, or to try to squeeze some damage on high AC ennemies but then i'd recommend using a cantrip for that if you're expecting them to succeed on their saves, and keep a slot available for an opportunity to inflict a penalty or an all or nothing spellstrike. You don't have the ressources to do chip damage with spell slots and staves charges will usually do less damage than a cantrip unless you spend them all on the highest rank of the staff.
The Magus is hands down the best class for attacking almost every weakness in the game...I feel like Thaumaturge would disagree.
Thaumaturge is maybe the worst class to attack weaknesses. Its extra damage being of the "weakness type", it doesn't stack with actual enemy weaknesses. So it nearly never targets a weakness even when it has the appropriate damage type.
Thaumaturge is maybe the worst class to attack weaknesses. Its extra damage being of the "weakness type", it doesn't stack with actual enemy weaknesses. So it nearly never targets a weakness even when it has the appropriate damage type.The Magus is hands down the best class for attacking almost every weakness in the game...I feel like Thaumaturge would disagree.
Except you are triggering the weakness if its higher than the weakness you impose? There's literally no difference between anyone triggering a fire weakness using fire damage and a thaumaturgte triggering a fire weakness using whatever.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Except you are triggering the weakness if its higher than the weakness you impose? There's literally no difference between anyone triggering a fire weakness using fire damage and a thaumaturgte triggering a fire weakness using whatever.The difference is that the thaumaturge triggering the weakness is already part of the power budget of the class, whereas for other classes it is added on top of their full budget (rage/sneak damage, +2 to hit, etc).
Fair, but the thaunmaturge doesn't have to bother with preparing before hand just in case they face an enemy they could exploit a weakness, while a magus would have to prepare multiple spells and cantrips to do so and, since a thaumaturge makes more attacks on average than a magus, they are going to benefit from that extra damage much more. Not to mention that the two most common spells that most magi gravitate towards are imaginary weapon and gouging claw, neither of which trigger particularly common weaknesses.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Coming back to it a bit later.
I roughly color coded the lines:
Red are the results on a strike hit.
Green are on a strike crit
Yellow on a strike missCircles for successful saves
Losanges for failed
Triangles for Crit Failed
Square for crit successBlue are with a shocking grasp and Purple with a cantrip (telekynetic projectile)
Overall save spells will deal more damage than a hit Shocking Grasp when the target fails after you land a crit, or crit fails their save (even if the strike missed) past level 7. But will almost always be way lower than a critical attack spell. Only catching up and exceeding by a few points at level 18+ when doing a crit strike AND crit fail save (though in the graph the formula doesn't stop at 9th spell rank so it should actually remain at 18th level damage for both, so equal, unless we use focus spells that require saves).
Compared to a cantrip, if you hit and they succeed on the save you would have done more damage with a cantrip, but ofc it's an all or nothing vs a "at least you'll do some damage". Any time the save is a success it'll do less damage than a cantrip would have, unless the strike itself was a miss essentially.
Though in that example I've used a 2d6/rank save spell, maybe some other like Thunderstrike would actually scale better ? But I think 1d12+1d4/rank averages out barely above 2d6/rank.
Actually, just tested it. It does do quite a lot more, overtaking a crit shocking grasp (if you crit the strike and they crit fail their save) at level 6. It does go pretty high but the likelyhood is very very small.
Outside of it a critical strike with an attack spell will always deal way more damage.
With a save success on a hit it'll slightly outdamage a cantrip, but not by much. But it'll always be "better".
On a failed saved and a successful strike it'll outdamage shocking grasp.
But a critical on a save success will barely be above a hit shocking grasp for example.In a way it's also quite swingy.
On a hit at worst you'll do a normal...
This is some very useful information, well done, I'll report back if I figure a good way to calculate likelhood and weight the damage based on it.
I usually eyeball the impact of likelihood ("you have a 35% chsnce of doing A and a 40% chance of doing B and only a 20% chance of C!") Against an example target number from the GM Core table of the correct level and a conservatively high difficulty (e g. A moderate save rather a low one.)
You would normally do it by figuring out what percent-of-d20-faces the result occurs on (I make little tables and count the 5% increments), then you multiply the average damage of that outcome by that percent expressed as a decimal. Then you just get the average of the weighted outcome totals to get the average of the spel, unless I've horribly missed something.
The pain in the butt (to me) is that there's two d20s involved which means counting and likelihood is extra pain and there's more total outcomes and the crit fail strike exemption means ots asymmetrical.
As for your conclusions-- yeah, I think you're right in the sense of how the damage works out, I suspect the saves are good in practice based off what you said, specifically by virtue of a low number of total rolls normally performed by a Magus-- more rolling is insurance that you'll trend towards the average, which is nice against bosses.
I'd be tempted to take an intelligence apex on the basis that strikes are easy to buff, and use save spellstrikes in a party that has flanking and a reliable procedure for inflicting frightened for maximum effect, pumping both numbers and treating it as a steadier way to kill a boss.
Fair, but the thaunmaturge doesn't have to bother with preparing before hand just in case they face an enemy they could exploit a weakness
Obviously, as the Thaumaturge hardly exploit weaknesses. It can't exploit low weaknesses and even against high ones the bonus is super low. The Thaumaturge is one of the worst martials to exploit weaknesses.
...
Yeah calculating averages with two rolls will be annoying because well... you have a lot of different configurations.
Against High AC and Weakest save, Medium medium, low AC high save etc etcPlus the accuracy isn't the same on both strike and save since strike gets a higher modifier, faster progression and +3 in runes at max. Plus the circumstances modifiers.
An apex into int could certainly be an option, if you complement le missing strength / dex bonus with buffs.
That'd put a full int magus at...even with a wizard at the time they get the apex items I think ? At least for 1 or 2 levels until wizard gets legendary, then the final level 20 boost.
It does contribute to making the magus quite mad, those damages are best case scenario essentially, on a magus who kept their casting stat high.
That's kind of why I suggested the penalty on save as a bonus to spellstrike, though the exact value would have yet to be determined.
I like the idea of using Arcane Cascade as a value that goes up as you progress but might be too good to apply on every strike, on crit only -1 feels a bit weak for the first 7 levels.
So when I read these I feel like Magus is boiled down to, why spell-slot when focus spells nuke as hard as spell-slots and are easier to acquire more focus points during the day? Why burn one of your 4 slots when you can burn 1 focus point on AMP'd IW or a Cleric Domain spell? 3 Focus Points is the same as 75% of your resources and the moment you use at least 2 focus points and have used a 20 minute refocused action you recovered and have 4 points, making you on par with your spell slots, if you used all 3 focus points you now have 50% more spell casting then your slots, making Magus from what I am reading hands down the strongest focus point caster in the game and perhaps not fully intended but hard to change.
If you remove focus spells from Spellstrike Magus becomes weak, keep it and they probably won't use a single spell slot until high level on Spell-Strike.
If you remove focus spells from Spellstrike Magus becomes weak, keep it and they probably won't use a single spell slot until high level on Spell-Strike.
I think this is quite an important point with regards to disabling focus spells on the Magus as currently written. Although the Psychic multiclass combo is so powerful as to be game-warpingly dominant on the Magus, the ability to use focus spells for nova damage affords a bit more flexibility with spell slots, even if they're often still used for combat spells like momentary recovery, rather than utility. My fear is that disabling that combo, while good in and of itself, might reduce that overall flexibility and push players to keep preparing Spellstrike spells into their spell slots even past 6th level, so some other things might need to change at the same time to encourage more diversity.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The focus spell abuse was kept in check pre-remaster by the old refocusing rules, where you would only recover a single point between uses, so if you did the IW+Force fang combo during a fight, you'd then be stuck at 1 focus point, or 2 if you had three total. And the next time you try it, your maximum would become 1.
It was a huge limiting factor on the abuse of it, at least until level 12.
But now because it just takes more time to recharge, it can be abused a lot more from level 6 or even level 2 (if you pick the amped ignition instead)
My fear is that disabling that combo, while good in and of itself, might reduce that overall flexibility and push players to keep preparing Spellstrike spells into their spell slots even past 6th level, so some other things might need to change at the same time to encourage more diversity.
I aggree that it might cause an issue, that's why I suggested a counterbalance to studious spells in the form of Striking Spells.
2 spell slots (either one of each of the max ranks, or two of the highest) that can exclusively prepare spells eligible for spellstrike, and can ONLY be used for spellstrike.That way magus has:
2 dedicated utility slots (studios spells) of lower levels
4 flexible slots of the two highest ranks
2 striking slots to have guaranteed ranked spellstrikes.
For a total of 8 slots. Dunno at which rank the striking slots would get unlocked, maybe at the same time as studious. Or at level 1 you get 1, and when you get studious spells you get a 2nd one ?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Focusing back on the magus issues, it's true that the designers seemed to build it with cantrips in mind, and actual spell slots as nova. Like someone (sorry, forgot who) said, 4 slots a day means you can use one slot per fight during 4 encounters for that big KABOOM, and use cantrips the rest of the time.
That's the theory anyway. But the problem is, the theory is NO FUN.
When you spellstrike, it's supposed to be a high risk, high reward attack - but the sheer randomness of it makes it an unfun experience for players, especially now that Sure strike has been nerfed to the ground.
Say the fighter or barbarian misses his swing - no big deal, he still has two actions left to try again or do whatever he wants. Some even have action compression in it (ranger, monk...). And even if the melee character is using a 2-action strike like Vicious Strike and misses, he didn't lose any resources apart from those two actions.
When a regular caster uses a top slot, he not only uses two actions (most of the time) but also sacrifices some of his daily potential - so it has to matter. There's a reason why spell attack rolls are widely viewed as a trap option by all casters: they don't do anything on a miss.
But the magus is way worse. If he wants to do a spellstrike by the book, he has to:
1) Sacrifice 25% of his daily resource (even more qualitatively for a top slot since he only has two of them)
2) Use 3 whole actions (2 to strike, 1 to recharge) to hit.
If the strike hits, that's great. The fight will be pretty balanced since the magus dealt a big blow and then can fall back on cantrips, secure in the knowledge that he earned his pay.
But what if it doesn't - which happens more often than not against higher level opponents, even with teamwork, even when flanking ? Now the magus has lost a whole turn and a huge chunk of his daily resources... doing nothing.
Apart from the maths involved, there's a huge feeling of annoyance when you have to throw everything you have in one dice roll, and miss. It's nowhere near what a fighter or even another caster can experiment.
So the focus point solution didn't come up to cheat the game and powergame it to hell and back - because even with Imaginary Weapon, the Magus can barely hold his own - but make it so a miss is more palatable.
If in the future spellstrike is banned from using focus spells, that's fine for me - but you simply cannot let the magus sit at 4 spells a day without any compensation.
One simple fix would be this:
If the spellstrike misses, your spellstrike is still charged and you keep your spell slot.
So you still lose 2 actions trying to do your big thing, but at least you can try again.