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snip
Magus has several things standing in the way of it using its slots in the same way a full caster would.
-Its limited slot count significantly amplifies the issues prepared casters have. You have fewer chances to prepare an appropriate spell for the adventuring day, and are more incentivized to take always-useful spells.
-It has different gp budgeting requirements than a caster, and it is harder to take advantage of a wide spellbook with a low slot count anyways—especially with no low level slots, since low level spells are the cheapest to learn. There is little value in learning spells you don't have the slots to prepare.
-Arcana isn't a particularly desirable skill to increase on magus, so learning higher level spells is slightly more expensive.
-Without amped imaginary weapon in the mix, magus slots have a fairly heavy opportunity cost; preparing something that you can't spellstrike with is bad compared to preparing something you can spellstrike with.
-With amped imaginary weapon in the mix, casting 2A or 3A spells in combat has a fairly heavy opportunity cost compared to spellstriking or setting up to spellstrike. Even if you were to prepare non-spellstrike spells (which is a reasonable choice with amped imaginary on tap), you'd probably rather prepare third actions like Time Jump (which is genuinely great for an action-constrained magus), reactions like Wooden Double, or prebuffs (though heroism unfortunately isn't on the arcane list, something like greater invis makes for a great defensive prebuff)—the sorts of things that support your spellstrike gameplan.
The problem will always remain that any action you perform in combat has to be compared to spellstriking or setting up spellstrike, and it's pretty much always going to be better for someone else with more spellslots and better save DCs to cast the big 2A spells while you work towards spellstriking. There will be exceptions, particularly in parties where the magus is the literal only option for casting such spells. But the return on a spell cast at -4 DC compared to a full advancement caster is deceptively low.
Look at it this way: if it wouldn't be good or worthwhile for a full caster with the same DCs as a magus to cast a given spell, it's even less worthwhile for a magus to do so, since it has good martial options to fall back on. Even if it would be worthwhile for a full caster with the same DCs to cast the spell, you then have to further ask if it's better than spellstriking or setting up spellstrike.
Again, I do think Magus's slots have value even if not used to spellstrike (especially if used for spellstrike enablers like Time Jump). But I don't think that value is realized well by being a knockoff wizard.
To speak to our disagreement more directly: I feel like, generally, you place a higher value on bare access to things than I do. I typically only tend to value access once it starts being a good option for the player a larger amount of the time. There is some value in mere access to options, don't get me wrong. But I think that, at bottom, our disagreement is fundamentally about how much access to *any* casting is worth and the opportunity cost of taking advantage of that casting.
I don't think "this class can occasionally vastly out perform the damage expectations of any other character" is seen as a bad thing by that many players. People like big moments and rolling dice.
To be clear, I personally don't think it's a bad thing—and it's something kind of rare in PF2E overall, and it's a valid playstyle, so I don't mind the niche staying filled. Magus is a slot machine, and slot machines are addictively fun. (For reference, I don't have a problem with encounters occasionally being trivialized. Slumber Witch in 1E doesn't bother me, for example. So it's worth keeping that in mind when evaluating my personal opinion.)
I more mean to say that being a slot machine (complete with the big jackpot) has a balance cost. If magus were going to become more consistent, the highs would need to be toned down.
I do think Starlit Span's ranged damage is clearly out of line compared to other ranged options, though.
On the subject of slot machines and overkill, I think it's worth mentioning that these are intrinsic qualities of Spellstrike, not necessarily spell slots: Spellstrike, by nature, is a slot machine ability, because the majority of your turn and pretty much all of the attacks you'll be making on that turn will hinge on this one roll. Whether you're Spellstriking with a slot spell or a cantrip, every time you use it is a pull of the lever. This is a good thing, by the way, and it's fun to have that gambling to some extent. Because your spell and Strike's damage rolls get combined, even a cantrip will leave you with some bonkers damage roll that will make the other players' jaws drop. Because you're pushed to do both the spell and Strike in one go, not just one or the other independently on the same turn, you're bound to have situations where you will deal significant overkill damage, and that's part and parcel of the Magus's balancing. Overkill is a fun drawback to have, so that too I think is worth keeping.
Just because this slot machine exists and can overkill, however, does not mean its highs and lows need to be so extreme in my opinion: if Spellstrike were a pure coinflip each time that either outright one-shot the target regardless of HP or killed the Magus, that would probably feel exhilarating, but it would also be far too extreme to implement in a game like Pathfinder. I would argue that expending one, even two out of the class's six spell slots, to potentially one-shot a boss-type enemy on a crit or waste both spell slots is also excessive. Even though a lot of instances of these supermassive damage rolls will occur when the enemy was already wounded and needed less damage to die, the real risk here comes from the "just enough" range of damage a single lucky Spellstrike crit can deal to single-handedly defeat what is otherwise meant to be a tough enemy. Even powerful spells don't outright one-shot a boss by themselves, even if they can significantly hamper them; effects that do single-handedly end a fight are kept under by control by incapacitation just so that these instances don't happen with challenging encounters. I don't think the Magus needs to be exempted from this balancing philosophy, and would still be able to do everything they currently do and feel just as good even with a Spellstrike that were less extreme on either end of the scale.
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It kind of feels like in order to "buff" magus you'd have to nerf spellstrike by making it incompatible with focus spells, as the simplest way or removing this design issue. But then how to make spell slots worthwhile for spellstrike instead of more versatile spells like the ones mentionned above ?
Or should power come from other places in the chassis like arcane cascade or new martial leaning actions (special strikes etc)
It kind of feels like in order to "buff" magus you'd have to nerf spellstrike by making it incompatible with focus spells, as the simplest way or removing this design issue. But then how to make spell slots worthwhile for spellstrike instead of more versatile spells like the ones mentionned above ?
Or should power come from other places in the chassis like arcane cascade or new martial leaning actions (special strikes etc)
How about this:
So your basic spell slots could be used for anything, as they wouldn't feed into Spellstrike, and imaginary weapon wouldn't be quite as hyper-synergistic, though it'd still be valuable just for its d8 damage dice. You'd still get to Spellstrike with slot spells, but it wouldn't eat into your four main spell slots.
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I'm uncertain about the feature of Spellstrike itself changing as you level up.
The idea of reversing the take on Studious Spell is interresting though. Essentially taking a page out of warpriest and healing/harming font in a way. It might work but have them 2 rank lowers might not make them that much better than cantrips or focus spells.
I did think of something like that before, where Magus has more slots (essentially 1 per rank and 2 of their highest or something) but can only spellstrike with additional slots gotten from a feature like "Striking Spells" which gives you X slots of your highest/2 highest ranks to load eligible spells in that can only be used for spellstrike.
It feels a bit too convoluted though.
And I don't think getting more spells is that much of an issue anyway.
Between Rings of Wizardry, staves, wands and scrolls a Magus can get all the utility spells they need fairly easily. A lot of buffs could even be made into relatively cheap scrolls past a certain level, or a custom staff (Call it the "Battlemage staff" in which there is only buff spells like Haste, Resist Energy, Draw the Lightning, Blazing Armory etc)
If we removed the ability to spellstrike focus spells, then immediately slotted spells will feel way more desirable for it. Then it's a matter of sanding down the edges of features that require those specifically (personnaly I'm in favor of removing that restriction or giving a weaker effect when used with cantrips)
Maybe opening Spellstrike to direct damage spells that require a target (including save spells like Thunderstrike, Impaling Spike etc for example) to have more options baked in and have a successful hit inflict a penalty on the save against that spell (either as base or as an effect of Expansive Spellstrike, which would still open up Area of Effect spells like Breathe Fire, Arctic Rift, Fireball... and status spells like Slow, Sleep, etc)
Or divert some power from Spellstrike into other features unique to Magus, namely Arcane Cascade. Either, like I suggested prior, by giving it another utility in the form of a Free Action to end it and recharge Spellstrike (that way you can play with the action econmy rather than wrestling with it) and adding more attacks requiring to be in that stance so it can be a potential tradeoff.
Like strikes that reduce resistances by your level or half your level, or a strike that inflicts a status penalty to saves against spells for a round so you can either set up your own save spells or that of allied spellcasters.
The idea of reversing the take on Studious Spell is interresting though. Essentially taking a page out of warpriest and healing/harming font in a way. It might work but have them 2 rank lowers might not make them that much better than cantrips or focus spells.
Damage spells certainly wouldn't be as attractive, and that's intentional. The attraction here would come from everything else, i.e. the many debuff and crowd control spells you'd access. At 9th level, for instance, you'd get to use these to Spellstrike with slow, and at at 13th level with synesthesia. Just at 7th level, telekinetic maneuver would let you blend a Strike and a variety of maneuvers with the same MAP. Because these spells would be of a lower rank than your main slots, you could even make them reusable in the day, so the Magus gets more toys to play with.
And I don't think getting more spells is that much of an issue anyway.
Between Rings of Wizardry, staves, wands and scrolls a Magus can get all the utility spells they need fairly easily. A lot of buffs could even be made into relatively cheap scrolls past a certain level, or a custom staff (Call it the "Battlemage staff" in which there is only buff spells like Haste, Resist Energy, Draw the Lightning, Blazing Armory etc)If we removed the ability to spellstrike focus spells, then immediately slotted spells will feel way more desirable for it. Then it's a matter of sanding down the edges of features that require those specifically (personnaly I'm in favor of removing that restriction or giving a weaker effect when used with cantrips)
Maybe opening Spellstrike to direct damage spells that require a target (including save spells like Thunderstrike, Impaling Spike etc for example) to have more options baked in and have a successful hit inflict a penalty on the save against that spell (either as base or as an effect of Expansive Spellstrike, which would still open up Area of Effect spells like Breathe Fire, Arctic Rift, Fireball... and status spells like Slow, Sleep, etc)
I do agree that the Magus can get more spells to play with if they want, I think it's more about getting them to use their slots for something other than Spellstriking if possible, so that they're less one-note and don't break the upper bounds of damage. I'm definitely in favor of changing the feats and features that specifically require you to Spellstrike with a slot spell, and would support having those effects still work to a lesser extent with cantrips at the very least. I also very much agree with opening up Spellstrike to save spells by default; even without the rest that would open up so many more valid options for the Magus without requiring a feat tax.
Or divert some power from Spellstrike into other features unique to Magus, namely Arcane Cascade. Either, like I suggested prior, by giving it another utility in the form of a Free Action to end it and recharge Spellstrike (that way you can play with the action econmy rather than wrestling with it) and adding more attacks requiring to be in that stance so it can be a potential tradeoff.
Like strikes that reduce resistances by your level or half your level, or a strike that inflicts a status penalty to saves against spells for a round so you can either set up your own save spells or that of allied spellcasters.
I definitely agree there's plenty more room for the Magus to have more things to do with their regular Strikes and other aspects of their kit. I don't think Arcane Cascade needs to specifically be a core class feature, but a stance that let you change your weapon specialization's damage type to the one dealt by a spell you just cast, potentially even triggered as a reaction rather than as a single action, would make for a valid feat option. I don't think the base Spellstrike necessarily would need to recharge when used with a cantrip (Channel Smite certainly doesn't), but more varied ways to compress the recharge when used with other spells could be a good way of diversifying the Magus's turns.
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Having more skill related Recharges like Magus Analysis would be great.
Random ideas:
Cascading Knockdown: Make an athletic check to trip an ennemy. On a success they suffer your Arcane Cascade damage on top of a successful trip, and you recharge your spellstrike. On a critical, you can change the normal damage of it to the same type of damage of your arcane cascade on top of its bonus damage (so a crit trip deals 1D6+1 Force damage for example). The target is then immune to Cascading Knockdown for 1 minute.
If you are wielding a weapon with two hands, you can ignore the free hand requirement to trip.
Cascading Display: Attempt a to Demoralize a target, adding flair from your arcane cascade to magically appear more threatening and recharge in peace. On a success, you also Recharge your Spellstrike. The target is then immune to Cascading Display for 10 minutes.
You know, some stuff like that to allow you to do more things.
I also understand your idea above, but it might lock Magus too hard into having to keep a high Int, which might be restrictive to make them this MAD.
Having more skill related Recharges like Magus Analysis would be great.
Random ideas:
Cascading Knockdown: Make an athletic check to trip an ennemy. On a success they suffer your Arcane Cascade damage on top of a successful trip, and you recharge your spellstrike. On a critical, you can change the normal damage of it to the same type of damage of your arcane cascade on top of its bonus damage (so a crit trip deals 1D6+1 Force damage for example). The target is then immune to Cascading Knockdown for 1 minute.
If you are wielding a weapon with two hands, you can ignore the free hand requirement to trip.Cascading Display: Attempt a to Demoralize a target, adding flair from your arcane cascade to magically appear more threatening and recharge in peace. On a success, you also Recharge your Spellstrike. The target is then immune to Cascading Display for 10 minutes.
You know, some stuff like that to allow you to do more things.
I quite like the idea behind this. The Magus is definitely the perfect design space to inject magic into Strikes, skill actions, and other normally physical things characters do. Rewarding the Magus for opting into certain skills with a little bit of action compression could definitely help achieve this.
I also understand your idea above, but it might lock Magus too hard into having to keep a high Int, which might be restrictive to make them this MAD.
The intent is very much to just tie the spell's result to the weapon attack roll in all cases, so you wouldn't have to care about Int at all.
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Oh I didn't catch that it'd work like that. This would indeed be very powerful especially against solo bosses.
I can get behind that. Very potent but locked to a single target.
And yeah I think Magus needs more ways of blending magic to enhance "martial" actions. Other than just spells that anyone has access to.
Kind of like how Monk can enhance their martial abilities with Qi stuff, or special manoeuvers.
Same with Barbarian, being in Rage increases their abilities in more ways than just a big flat damage bonus (faster move speed, lower athletic DC, better grappling...) as some examples.
In a way that's the thing a bit missing on how Magus benefits from archetypes.
Magic ones work well because it has the tools to blend Magic into its Martial side.
But there is little to no ways of blending your Martial abilities into your magical ones if that makes sense. The only one is Spellstrike.
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Focus spells and slotted spells do about the same damage, but the former you can use every encounter, the latter not so much. Opportunity cost for focus spells is not using conflux spells, but you can choose in the moment if that cost is worth paying. Opportunity cost for using spellslots is not being to use them for other purposes and is paid during your daily preparations.
Investment required for 'focus spellstriking' is a dedication feat and a feat for the focus spell (if you want to upgrade amped ignition's D12 to IW's 2d8).
I do think you are dead-on with this.
The balance of s-striking w/ focus spells is that you sacrifice your recharge action compression. Especially w/ Force Fang sitting there, s-striking w/ out-of-class focus spells really is not as good as it may seem after a first pass.
And people are glossing over the opportunity cost of taking Psychic as an Archetype.
It really sucks that Magus is in this position, but I want to say directly that Magus cannot really be "blamed" for Psychic being such a meta pick due to an over-powered cantrip (and focus point overload).
The entire point of system-wide balance consistency is to avoid issues like this, and to *some* extent it's not a real "problem" in the normal sense.
Spending 2(3) class feats should be genuinely rewarding, but the nature of Magus desiring such a super specific thing, attack cantrips (& FP), and Psychic providing a direct upgrade is kinda s~~+ luck. While a "no-brainer" that'll help basically all Magi, I do think people are overselling/tunnel visioned into Psychic being the ~"best pick" in a way that does not really match with the math of what's actually awarded.
As a brief aside, I need to ask how many tables allow an Amped Img Wpn spellstrike to hit 2 targets? Because that's *very* much against the rules, and a Magus being able to do that would certainly contribute to their damage output going over the top. No idea how much that "houserule" could be involved in the perception. (Kinda similar to how Alchemist talks need to run down the houserules like if familiars feed potions, etc, before talks can happen)
Honestly, even though Imaginary Weapon is out of line for a cantrip, it really is just one damage step up (though spells do roll more dice than strikes).
But, it lacks the bleed of Gouging Claw. Which... would mean the two are even in damage after 1 bleed, and GC pulls ahead after 2. That leaves Img Wpn with the push on crit effect (and B type dmg).
I think so long as tables are not allowing the Amp to overrule Spellstrike's "One Target" rule, it kinda is a balanced reward:investment?
So long as the spellstrike is being limited to 1 target, I kinda struggle to see how Psychic became such an "automatic pick" for Magus to the rather overwhelming degree that is portrayed in these forums. Considering GC, the "damage difference" even after 3 presumed s-strikes in a combat is... (# of bleeds * spell R) * 3. In bleed-immune fights, that'll be (Lvl * 1.5), 3 hits where you're adding R damage due to the one larger step. That's... a *much* smaller gap than I would expect based on the talk online.
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If you need a 3A, L8 Spell Swipe to even have the option to benefit from Amp Img Wpn, that seems quite fine, and kinda just points back to Psychic's balance issue is mostly that it's too generous with granted focus points.
Maybe this is a case where there's time lag where people's older PCs having not "caught up" with Gouging Claw being buffed back in PC1. Even then, the gap between a d6 & d8 cantrip seems... a bit over-focused on.
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Imaginary Weapon aside,
While Magus does have a chassis stance, it does not have chassis flourish action, which by itself is a significant opportunity to fill via Archetype. And flourish is something that Psychic lacks.
And some Magi (especially Star Span) might want to replace Arc Casc as a stance with another option from an Archetype.
This is aside from all the options that have appeal to Magus as a Strike-user. Even mundane options like Skirmish Strike, Sudden Charge, etc, are quite good for a Magus in a way that a Kin or SMN would need to pass on. Rogue, Monk, etc, are all options that honestly seem very competitive w/ Psychic, if not "better".
Other considerations in the comparison aside;
if you are able to land one extra Strike per fight because some feature like Skirmish Strike saved you a Step/Stride, that is "more damage" than what's gained by upgrading your cantrip damage by 1 step.
Magus being a full list, but small daily spell limit hybrid is important, or downright essential.
The co-scaling martial and spellcasting proficiency is not something that other classes can do. It is this chassis power that has to be compensated for in their kit. This takes the form of a very low spell per day limit, and the intentional "anti-synergy" of Magus features like Arc Casc being a stance, and Spellstrike always being 2A.
The important thing is that while this low spell count creates common player responses/behaviors (spellstriking w/ cantrips and focus spells), the Magus does not mandates this, and that flexibility to differ from a player norm is genuine.
Due to how full list casters can add additional spellcasts that are mechanically identical to spells cast from slots via wands, rings, grimoires etc, this leaves the Magus with a rather unbound amount of (generally lagging) pseudo-slots to cast from.
This is the sort of paradigm that other similar classes like Kin and Summ dodged in their design. Neither can Strike like a martial, which is why it feels like the spellcasting side of Magus is so restricted. Because it is.
That unique compatibility with a Fighter, Mauler, Magic Warrior, etc, Archetypes is not something that should be ignored.
IMO, because the Magus *can* scrape around the system for more pseudo-slots via gp, while existing in a system where the reverse is not really possible, it means that the Magus is rather uniquely positioned to make full use of pf2's design.
While many players may be satisfied with only one or two small gp boosts to their slots, this is exactly my point. Because they have the chassis prof w/ spells, every Magus player can "feel the need" to have more slots, while having the ability to spend effort & gp to help that pain point.
Same goes for the action "clunk" / restrictions around spellstrike. Intentionally hard to work with, but despite common responses (Star Span, Haste), the system leaves the conundrum an open question. It leaves...
love this post!
Yeah, imaginary weapon isn't popular because it somehow bypasses the rules for multi-targeting spells on Spellstrike, it's popular because Spellstriking with its amped version lets you deal 2d8 damage per spell rank. Only polar ray from before the remaster and disintegrate can rival this as attack spells. This is arguably one of the most basic aspects to optimizing a Magus at the moment, and is the key reason why the Psychic dedication is so popular on them.
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The last time I played a magus was in a 1-20 Free Archetype conversion of the Hell's Rebels 1e AP. Herod was an Aiuvarin sparkling targe magus, but that was not 100% the core of his identity. I leaned heavily on the Champion Archetype with the Paladin (at that time, Justice today) cause, follower of Ragathiel. That gave me heavy armor, an awesome spammable focus spell (deity's domain, fire), spot healing (lay on hands), and a great reaction by level 8, after sacrificing a few class feats to get extra champion abilities. At 8, I picked up the Psychic Archetype and took the message cantrip. I also specced into the Investigator archetype (via Multitalented at 9), and picked up devise a stratagem as a bootleg true strike before making those big hits. (Free Action DaS for the win!)
Later on I wound up spending most of his class feats boosting spellcasting through psychic, and the Champion line to pick up handy things to go with his reactions. He was all about big fiery hits and wound up playing more like a champion than a magus, with the ability for a really big smite. Herod was a lot of fun to play and really struck fear into the hearts of Thrune loyalists, but he really didn't play like a typical magus in a lot of ways. I always spent a round or two at the beginning of combat getting ready before making my first spell strike, and may only make one or two per combat.
I would agree that there are some limitations on the current magus, but where I felt it the most was arcane cascade. I had left Intelligence at 10 and focused on Charisma instead, but that meant I really didn't cast any spells directly at enemies anymore, and buff spells for arcane are few and far between. I wound up using either an amped message cantrip (allowing one of my allies to move or attack) or lay on hands as a way to leave an action for myself to activate it. I would prefer to see the wording required for activation to be either 'You are in combat' or 'You have cast a spell or used spell strike this combat'.
Another issue, as you can see from the number of archetypes I had, was there were a lot of levels where I just didn't feel there were any feats good enough to justify their use. Swapping out class feats for more archetype feats should feel like a big decision, but the magus made it easy a lot of the time, and not just for flavor reasons.
I'm not a designer, but if I were changing things I'd look at doubling the arcane cascade damage bonus, to +2, +4, and +6 damage respectively, without majorly impacting the power of the class, but making it more worth it to spend a turn triggering the cascade instead of doing something else useful. I would also be tempted to improve the class feats a bit, to make them more of a must-take. Some action compression with feats, blending skills with spell strike recharge like Magus' Analysis or adding riders based on the Hybrid Study would help. For example, a nice feat that I often wished existed was something to raise a shield and recharge a spell strike or enter arcane cascade at the same time.
All in all, I would say that the class is a great chassis to work with. High level spells give you a lot of versatility and spell strikes can be BIG damage boosts, especially if you know you're going to roll a Nat 20 on the boss. Hopefully the pain points can be smoothed over in another pass.
My opinion, reduced to a quippy one-liner: I don't want Magus to be a subclass of Psychic.
Essentially, yeah.
Even if using a focus point for damage over recharging I feel like over a full day of adventuring this'll often be more worthwhile to be able to have a renewable nuke.
The investment is honestly pretty light because magus doesn't have much competing against it. And it feels a bit off that something so perfectly fitting is outside of the class itself. It's a bit weird that "all magi are also psychic" so to speak.
As said, it is neither classe's fault, it's just bound to happen sometime.
But I do think some of the magus' chassis (or rather some of the piece that go on it) might need tweaking so it's not such a nobrainer.
The skill actionrecharcges I suggested wouldn't be balanced if you can still spellstrike focus spells for example, because then you have even less reasons to use your Conflux Spells for action compression.
Nobody takes IW to hit 2 targets which the rules indeed clearly do not allow, or just because it is a D8 cantrip instead of a D6.
Could it be you missed the real reason people value IW so much?
-> Amp Heightened (+1) The damage increases by 2d8 instead of 1d8.
Ah, yeah I absolutely overlooked that detail.
That darn Img Wpn's d8 means that it once again scales at one dmg step higher than normal, though I guess I didn't think that part of the Amp seemed super noteworthy as a focus spell because I've seen Fire Ray in game.
Most of my attention on IW was on it as a cantrip because that's the unique/exclusive part.
Heightened (+1) The ray's initial damage increases by 2d6, and the fire damage dealt by the burning space increases by 1d6.
While the standard dmg H usually caps at +2d6, there are focus spells that have other effects that may have more appeal than IW. In the case of Fire Ray, it's "move or take (no save) half-again damage."
Which means you can either give the foe the choice of waste an action VS taking dmg, or you can combo with grabbed/restrained to "encourage" (possibly failed) escape checks.
But yeah, overall, s-Striking w/ focus spells does not appear super appealing to an outsider when Force Fang (and Hasted Assault!) is there if you don't like your conflux spell.
Force Fang as a 1A (guaranteed!) blast that also recharges spellstrike (+1 action) is just too good, even if it's not breaking single hit dmg records like juicing a spellstrike would. Force Bolt is considered a good Wizard focus spell, and it's basically a 30ft version that doesn't have the action compression that makes Force Fang outright net-0A if you later spellstrike.
And to be clear, all the conflux "make a Strike, also do this other thing, *and* recharge spellstrike hit or miss" spells are absolutely amazing. Force Fang is there because it's non-MAP that combos well just after a spellstrike, while the base options are best used the next turn after.
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To cut that tangent off there;
the Psychic feat acting as a typical focus spell feat while *also* granting a great cantrip is absolutely a significant factor in this discussion that should be plainly stated.
Though it is super jank that a Magus / Psychic will waste FP if they go for a single other focus spell feat (like Force Fang), which I suppose is a deferred penalty issue, which can really complicate discussions/comparisons quickly, especially when many, but not all, campaigns will end at L10/11.
I'm seeing stuff being discussed about examplar dedication and I'm like "damn and here we are worrying about making magus too good" lol
Tbh I really like the visual, mechanical concept of Winter Bolt. It sounds so cool. Too bad you have to be religious to get it lol
Though I guess if you really wanna invest to get those two focus spells you could like... dip into storm oracle and then into champion of a fire deity ?
Plus storm oracle gets Charged Javelin, can be neat.
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I think in general there's a lot of untapped potential for the Magus to fulfil more aspects of the spellblade fantasy: to me at least, a spellblade combines spell and blade (obviously), but those spells include powerful curses as well as infusions of flame, ice, and other damaging effects. Alongside those combinations, I also see them making physical attacks and casting spells independently as the need arises too. The Magus I think is very good at the bit where you combine damage on damage, perhaps even too good, but I don't think is quite there when it comes to the rest: there's plenty of room for the Magus to combine Strikes with crowd control of debuffs, along with options to accommodate this (telekinetic maneuver is an attack spell, too), but this is typically eschewed in favor of just straight-up more damage, and accessing a greater variety of debuffs like slow requires a feat and boosting an additional attribute just to operate at a significant numerical disadvantage compared to just spamming imaginary weapon Spellstrikes. Lessening or removing those barriers to more versatile Spellstrikes, while also removing the bits to the Magus that don't do anything unless you dedicate spell slots and magic items to Spellstriking (or at least having them accommodate Spellstriking with cantrips), I think would work wonders for the class's freedom of options.
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I aggree. In 1e this was mostly covered by spell combat, allowing you to mix doing your full attacks AND casting any spell in one turn. In 2e it's something everyone can do baseline.
Expansive Spellstrike is essentially it (which is why I often call it Spell Combat lol) you can cast other types of spells while making a strike. But since you still end up at -10 MAP so you can't do something like Spellstrike (aka SpellCombat) Breathe Fire and do a second strike at -5/-4. Which would be something pretty unique to Magus.
That's honestly a bit why I'd like to nerf spellstrike a bit to developp the fantasy on other aspects by reallocating some of the "power budget".
This could be by removing the ability to spellstrike focus spells (though I have to say, after discovering Winter Bolt, the visual of it really sticks in my head. That's why I wish we had more attack spells like that as ranked spells dammit!)
This already should give some wiggle room to adjust other things, might remove the increased MAP of Spellstrike when using save spells, or have a level 8 or so feat (Focused Spellstrike: When doing a spellstrike, it only counts as 1 attack for your MAP) like for Vicious Swing.
Could adjust the recharge mechanic, maybe giving an action based on your subclass that can allow to recharge while under arcane cascade, similarly to swashbuckler and panache (Successful Feint or Diversion for Laughing Shadow, Successful Shove/Intimidation for Inexorable Iron, Trip/Recall knowledge for Twisting tree, Grapple/Trip for Unfurling Brocade, Hide/Diversion for Starlit Span, Tumble Through/Long Jump for the wuxia jumpy one I forget the name of)
Or have feats for that like I suggested earlier, in the vein of Magus Analysis.
Could have more things to do with Arcane Cascade, working from stuff like Cascading Ray which I REALLY like, essentially a 2nd attack against another target at range at a -4 penalty after a spellstrike with decent damage scaling.
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I think in general there's a lot of untapped potential for the Magus to fulfil more aspects of the spellblade fantasy: to me at least, a spellblade combines spell and blade (obviously), but those spells include powerful curses as well as infusions of flame, ice, and other damaging effects.
Me personally, my idea of the Spellblade is the Mystic Knight/Spell Fencer from Final Fantasy and it's Sword Magic.
Actually, a neat ability to give Magus (probably as a Class Archetype) would be the power infuse their strikes with various types of damages or status effects. Call it something like 'Infused Strike'?
Another neat idea could be something similar to Dual techs from Chrono Trigger, where a friendly caster can 'lend' their spell to a Magus's Spellstrike. Although this one might be rather niche.
I think in general there's a lot of untapped potential for the Magus to fulfil more aspects of the spellblade fantasy: to me at least, a spellblade combines spell and blade (obviously), but those spells include powerful curses as well as infusions of flame, ice, and other damaging effects.Me personally, my idea of the Spellblade is the Mystic Knight/Spell Fencer from Final Fantasy and it's Sword Magic.
Actually, a neat ability to give Magus (probably as a Class Archetype) would be the power infuse their strikes with various types of damages or status effects. Call it something like 'Infused Strike'?
Another neat idea could be something similar to Dual techs from Chrono Trigger, where a friendly caster can 'lend' their spell to a Magus's Spellstrike. Although this one might be rather niche.
Technically you can do it with Expansive Spellstrike, just that it's on a singular strike.
Having Capture Magic letting you capture some of the effect of an allied spellcaster would be dope tho, technically you can if you succeed a save within the AoE of an ally. But something like a reaction to make a strike on an ennemy within your reach when they are targetted by an ally's spell, with additional damage equal to the spell's rank, would be very, very, very cool.
Tbh I really like the visual, mechanical concept of Winter Bolt. It sounds so cool. Too bad you have to be religious to get it lol
Though I guess if you really wanna invest to get those two focus spells you could like... dip into storm oracle and then into champion of a fire deity ?
Plus storm oracle gets Charged Javelin, can be neat.
I want to use that spell too, but the gods its attached to are hard to find a good reason to follow.
I want to use that spell too, but the gods its attached to are hard to find a good reason to follow.Tbh I really like the visual, mechanical concept of Winter Bolt. It sounds so cool. Too bad you have to be religious to get it lol
Though I guess if you really wanna invest to get those two focus spells you could like... dip into storm oracle and then into champion of a fire deity ?
Plus storm oracle gets Charged Javelin, can be neat.
Really? Gozreh and Pulura seem like easy prompts to me. You can make the same basic concept work for both ("I used to be a sailor") even!
Really? Gozreh and Pulura seem like easy prompts to me. You can make the same basic concept work for both ("I used to be a sailor") even!I want to use that spell too, but the gods its attached to are hard to find a good reason to follow.Tbh I really like the visual, mechanical concept of Winter Bolt. It sounds so cool. Too bad you have to be religious to get it lol
Though I guess if you really wanna invest to get those two focus spells you could like... dip into storm oracle and then into champion of a fire deity ?
Plus storm oracle gets Charged Javelin, can be neat.
As a magus? It doesn't feel very magus appropriate to archetype into a cleric of those two.
I was hoping for a more viking type of deity or something warlike or pure magic.
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It's a little off topic, but after reading through this thread and the one about expansive spellstrike I decided to update my list of
• Spells for Eldritch Shot and Spellstrike
It's all of the spells with the attack trait that can be cast in 1 or 2 actions.
Just thought I'd share it. It's a Google doc.
Really? Gozreh and Pulura seem like easy prompts to me. You can make the same basic concept work for both ("I used to be a sailor") even!As a magus? It doesn't feel very magus appropriate to archetype into a cleric of those two.
I was hoping for a more viking type of deity or something warlike or pure magic.
I think Pulura is especially noteworthy as fitting a magus quite well. You even find the tome of intelligence at Pulura Falls in the WotR video game. Chaotic Good goddess of The Stars. Maybe it's just me, but I always associated arcane magic with the stars, the moon and space generally
I think Pulura is especially noteworthy as fitting a magus quite well. You even find the tome of intelligence at Pulura Falls in the WotR video game. Chaotic Good goddess of The Stars. Maybe it's just me, but I always associated arcane magic with the stars, the moon and space generally
Really? Gozreh and Pulura seem like easy prompts to me. You can make the same basic concept work for both ("I used to be a sailor") even!As a magus? It doesn't feel very magus appropriate to archetype into a cleric of those two.
I was hoping for a more viking type of deity or something warlike or pure magic.
But this is the ice domain. None of the gods felt right to me. I especially did not greatly care for their edicts and anathema.
Be nice to be able to access domains without needing a deity.
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I want to use that spell too, but the gods its attached to are hard to find a good reason to follow.Tbh I really like the visual, mechanical concept of Winter Bolt. It sounds so cool. Too bad you have to be religious to get it lol
Though I guess if you really wanna invest to get those two focus spells you could like... dip into storm oracle and then into champion of a fire deity ?
Plus storm oracle gets Charged Javelin, can be neat.
Could always get Tempest Oracle dedication and get the Domain Acumen feat !
But this is the ice domain. None of the gods felt right to me. I especially did not greatly care for their edicts and anathema.Be nice to be able to access domains without needing a deity.
I'd actually expand this to:
Be nice to be able to access good focus spells to spellstrike with within the magus class.
Why must you go to psychic, cleric or oracle to get such a direct upgrade to something that is core to your class?
In a way the reason, I think, is twofold:
1: Magus Focus spells all are supposed to recharge your spellstrike, having a spellstrike with highest rank slot damage that also recharge spellstrike would be too good.2: I think it's because the class is conceived around your nuke coming from your slotted spells and not focus spells. Magus hasn't received any update to its central feat tree since release (just two subclasses, which are nice but all of their stuff is exclusive to themselves) so hard to say if the designers have changed their stance on it.
But given that "Unsheathe the Sword-Light" specifically calls out not working with cantrips OR focus spells (though scrolls, wands, and staves, innate spells are okay) it seems to me that they confirm that the design is for Magus to focus on using spell slots for their big spellstrikes and not focus spells.
Which kind of goes back to the discussion of inconsistency in rulings within the class with some abilities working with any spells, some only with non-cantrips, some with spell slots ONLY, some with everything except cantrip and focus spells. It should get cleared up overall.
If we straight up lose spellstriking focus spells to get more fun feats and stuff to compensate i'd be fine with it (though yeah the image of winter bolt spellstrike being lost would be sad, please paizo create variant of all the cool attack focus spells into actual spells thank you)
Funny thing is, if that happens you could still use the cantrip version of Imaginary Weapon lol, which wouldn't be as contentious since there is other cantrips with similar damage. (but doing Carian Sword Sorcery is epic so I won't complain)
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Which kind of goes back to the discussion of inconsistency in rulings within the class with some abilities working with any spells, some only with non-cantrips, some with spell slots ONLY, some with everything except cantrip and focus spells. It should get cleared up overall.
Is that really an inconsistency or just different options working differently?
Spell slots are your most limited commodity, so it seems reasonable some feats might be tailored specifically toward using them, and if your build isn't leaning on spell slots for striking then that feat might not be great for you, but that's completely normal and okay too.
It's true that Imaginary Weapon also is one of the earlier most consistent spells for Spell Swipe lol.
It's just funny how absolutely perfect of a fit for magus this spell is.
If it wasn't a focus spell and was just like, a 1st rank attack spell, it'd be a no brainer like Shocking Grasp in 1e.
Ok, I breezed though the topic...
What you guys are saying is that... you wished the Magus could cast "multiple spells per round" or something, or is it that Arcane Cascade should activate as a free action?
Not necesseraly, those are two ideas that have been proposed and even the "multiple spells per round" hasn't be considered seriously even lol
I'd say mainly we wish for Arcane Cascade to be more flexible or impactful.
And for the spellblade fantasy and mixing of sword and sorcery to be mechanically more than spellstrike.
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I see.
Casting multiple spells per round would be broken AF. It just felt like this is what you guys want.
IMO, I take more "Spellstrike eligible cantrips", because I currently need Expansive Spellstrike to use Electric Arc... and the Strike's target can STILL negate the damage, despite the spell discharging right when I hit them with my weapon.
I keep asking for a feat that treats whatever success or failure from your Attack Roll as the target's save. Back to Electric Arc, if I hit use, they take full damage, and if I get a critical sucess they then take double damage, no save allowed.
Yeah don't worry nobody is like "magus should be able to cast two 2actions spells a round".
Expansive Spellstrike should be seen as Spell Combat: you strike with one hand and cast the spell with the other but the spell doesn't really come off your weapon, that's why on a miss the target can still get affected by the spell.
Treating the hit result as the save would be cool but likely WAY too strong on some spells. Like if you hit a strike with slow, that's slowed 1 for 1 minute. That's extremely powerful.
Clerics can afford to have this functionality in Channel Smite because it is locked to two spells and the only thing it does is simple damage.
Something that might be more balanced would be that on a hit, the main target gets a penalty on their save (like -1, -2 on a crit) to kind of get closer to the saves of a full caster.
One thing you might have misunderstood as "casting more spells" is just the idea of more efficiently mixing spells and attacks.
Spellstrike allows this, but since it counts as 2 attacks you can't really do another strike afterward, the only ability that allows you to do this is Cascading Ray, which uses the same MAP as the Spellstrike but as a spell attack roll will usually be at -3 to -5 because your spell attack mod is lower. Effectively being a ranged agile attack.
Casting a /greater variety/ of spells with spellstrike would also be desirable. Amped Imaginary Weapon go brrrrr is an annoyingly dominant choice. You have other options where you can trade some raw damage for utility, like Fire Ray, yeah. But there's so few downsides to just slapping IW on every single magus you will ever build and spellstriking with it almost every time you spellstrike that it feels pretty bad for the class. (There are *some* downsides—primarily, not getting to use Force Fang to recharge spellstrike—but yeah.)
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I just want to check something with all the people talking about Imaginary Weapon and how great it would be to Spellstrike with it:
You guys do know you need to reach 6th level to get it at the earliest, right?
Because the Psychic Dedication only lets you pick a Standard Psi Cantrip.
You want access to the Surface Cantrip, you need to take ''Psi Development'' at 6th level.
Actually, can you even use an Amped Cantrip for a Spellstrike? Because the rules only mention the spell taking 1-2 Actions to cast. There's no mention about Focus points...
I might go ask the Rules subforum about that...
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Yes, you get it at sixth level at the earliest; yes, you can spellstrike with focus spells. Archetyping for a high damage focus spell is by far the best way to increase your damage over the adventuring day, so doing so is worth it every time. It frees up your class slots so you can use them for enabling utility, and means you aren't stuck with cantrips after only four slotted spellstrikes in a day.
At 2nd level you can still get a pretty good focus spells for utility from psychic dedication so it's not like it's wasted either. Amped Shield is pretty good in a pinch for example, and amped figment can provide flanking for a sustain action.
Focus spells on spellstrike are sadly a bit too good.
Focus spells on spellstrike are sadly a bit too good.
I would think it was just the one. I wouldn't be surprised if it got nerfed eventually.
Focus spells on spellstrike are sadly a bit too good.I would think it was just the one. I wouldn't be surprised if it got nerfed eventually.
Yeah, it feels really unintentional—one of those cases where the system devs just didn't balance against choices available via archetyping. It /mostly/ works out fine on melee magus, since their action economy is constrained enough to keep it in check and they were already being penalized for their burst damage in their class design. Starlit Span is and has been a known issue, though.
I don't think it's just the one focus spell, either. Realistically, things like Fire Ray and Winter Bolt are likely also above the magus's intended power budget. As a corollary to class features not being balanced with archetyping taken into account, I think that most focus spells were balanced internally to their source class... and weren't designed to be slapped onto a class that could be more accurate with them without using sure strike, let alone a class that could then become frighteningly accurate with sure strike applied. It's genuinely a bit of a mess.
I don't think it's just the one focus spell, either. Realistically, things like Fire Ray and Winter Bolt are likely also above the magus's intended power budget.
There are a lot of those that sit on or about the 2d6 per spell level. So I don't find it credible that the designers missed those. Whereas amped Imaginary Weapon is a maybe.
I don't think it's just the one focus spell, either. Realistically, things like Fire Ray and Winter Bolt are likely also above the magus's intended power budget.There are a lot of those that sit on or about the 2d6 per spell level. So I don't find it credible that the designers missed those. Whereas amped Imaginary Weapon is a maybe.
To my eyes, the winter bolt crit effect (1d8 per level up front, then 2 actions to remove the bolt or 2d12 per rank to the creature and all adjacent creatures) doesn't look tuned for a class with martial to-hit and access to sure strike. It's a subjective assessment, sure, but that looks out of line for magus's spellstrike crit rate.
You should see the chaos that happens when one member of the party starts using winter bolt.