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My apologies, I'm simply getting worked up over the fact that the Magus's main gimmick isn't as powerful as I expected, given the risks you must take to use it and the payoffs you receive.
If it helps, Spellstrike in PF2 is comfortably the largest damage spike in the game that has a chance of being consistently pulled off, and directly leads to Magus being considered one of the most damaging classes in the game - especially so if you lean into something like Imaginary Weapon, but honestly it's still scary as hell without it; a hero point is all that's really needed to throw off the game maths pretty substantially here.
With the mechanics as they are now, spell attack rolls are what you use when you want to deal massive single-target damage, and Expansive Spellstrike allows you to also pull out a wide variety of other spells for action economy if the situation demands it (but it is more situational).
Spellstrike is extremely powerful and the synergy with renewable nova spells like Imaginary Weapon/Winter Bolt/Fire Ray are good, and its one of the issues being debated at length in this discussion too.
Because some of those spells are so good to spellstrike with, is magus kept clunky/lacking options elswhere because of it ?
Are some stuff not put in because "with Magus it'd be way too strong".
So base spellstrike would be:
Attack Spells or spells requiring a Reflex save (inflicting a -2 penalty on a hit and still going off on a miss but not crit miss?) including AoE spells.
Expanded Spellstrike is the same as now, allowing any harmful spell.
plus the penalty, with Expanded Spellstrike.
Any kind of Spellstrike should bestow a penalty on reflex to the primary target.
THAT would make it more appealing and rewarding.
My apologies, I'm simply getting worked up over the fact that the Magus's main gimmick isn't as powerful as I expected, given the risks you must take to use it and the payoffs you receive.If it helps, Spellstrike in PF2 is comfortably the largest damage spike in the game that has a chance of being consistently pulled off, and directly leads to Magus being considered one of the most damaging classes in the game - especially so if you lean into something like Imaginary Weapon, but honestly it's still scary as hell without it; a hero point is all that's really needed to throw off the game maths pretty substantially here.
With the mechanics as they are now, spell attack rolls are what you use when you want to deal massive single-target damage, and Expansive Spellstrike allows you to also pull out a wide variety of other spells for action economy if the situation demands it (but it is more situational).
See? That's my problem: you essentially have to rely on archetypes to make the Magus more appealing, because it fails at this on its own.
Yes, you can get Psychic Dedication for Imaginary Weapon or even Cleric Dedication to get Fire Ray... but at this point, why not simply give those spells, or similar, to the Magus? Elemental Toss is also a good spell for Spellstrike, but you need Sorcerer Dedication.
The remaster even screwed up the Magus. For instance, Ray of Frost became Frostbite... and it went from a spell attack roll or a targeted spell with a save. Yes, you can still use those legacy spells, but still...
In an ideal world, here's how the Magus should work:
- I Strike with my melee weapon.
- The spell is discharged.
- The target gets NO regular defense against the spell, and must rely on defenses related to Strikes.
- I can either recharge Spellstrike or Activate Arcane Cascade as a reaction.
- I can then use my remaining action to recharge Spellstrike, Activate Arcane Cascade or other actions, such as moving away or reloading a crossbow.
The Magus's main gimmick is high risk/high reward as follow.
- I take a high risk by putting myself in melee.
- I get to blow up one target with a powerful spell as a high reward, and the target has no basic way to avoid it.
To be clear: Ray of Frost and Polar Ray are still available. As long as the name isn't the same it's just an addition, not a replacement. They are even legal in PFS without any loop or restriction.
And yes Magus' feats are mostly underwhelming and don't do much. A lot add effects to spellstrike but... it's hard to justify a lot of them. Like doing 5 Splash damage on a spellstrike isn't really interresting as a feat.
I'm all for adding options to Magus, more interresting action compression options, other offensive options outside of spellstrike for those who want to lean on that aspect etc.
I don't want a built in focus spell meant to be used with spellstrike though. The class isn't designed for that, and it makes your spellslots and all features relying on you using those to spellstrike irrelevant.
What I'd like is to have more interresting and varied attack spells to choose from and, yes, also maybe make spellstriking with save spells more interresting. If only with single target save spells as a baseline (instantly you get stuff like Draw the Lightning, Thunderstrike etc that become even more appealing).
Again: expand on arcane cascade, give it more tools outside of just the passive benefits of your subclass (which vary a lot in value) and some universal options like Cascading Ray.
Like, I dunno: Cascading Slice: for 1 action after a successful spellstrike you can make a melee spell attack roll at the same MAP against any target within your reach, shaping a weapon of magical force dealing damage of the same type as your cascade, dealing 1d6 damage per spell rank if you used a cantrip, 1d10 if it was a spell slot. Just a melee variant of Cascading Ray that can give a bit of "dual wielding" vibe for those who want it.
It's just a random idea out of the blue, there is a lot that could be done !
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So base spellstrike would be:
Attack Spells or spells requiring a Reflex save (inflicting a -2 penalty on a hit and still going off on a miss but not crit miss?) including AoE spells.
Expanded Spellstrike is the same as now, allowing any harmful spell.
plus the penalty, with Expanded Spellstrike.
Any kind of Spellstrike should bestow a penalty on reflex to the primary target.
THAT would make it more appealing and rewarding.
My apologies, I'm simply getting worked up over the fact that the Magus's main gimmick isn't as powerful as I expected, given the risks you must take to use it and the payoffs you receive.If it helps, Spellstrike in PF2 is comfortably the largest damage spike in the game that has a chance of being consistently pulled off, and directly leads to Magus being considered one of the most damaging classes in the game - especially so if you lean into something like Imaginary Weapon, but honestly it's still scary as hell without it; a hero point is all that's really needed to throw off the game maths pretty substantially here.
With the mechanics as they are now, spell attack rolls are what you use when you want to deal massive single-target damage, and Expansive Spellstrike allows you to also pull out a wide variety of other spells for action economy if the situation demands it (but it is more situational).
See? That's my problem: you essentially have to rely on archetypes to make the Magus more appealing, because it fails at this on its own.
Yes, you can get Psychic Dedication for Imaginary Weapon or even Cleric Dedication to get Fire Ray... but at this point, why not simply give those spells, or similar, to the Magus? Elemental Toss is also a good spell for Spellstrike, but you need Sorcerer Dedication.
The remaster even screwed up the Magus. For instance, Ray of Frost became Frostbite... and it went from a spell attack roll or a targeted spell with a save. Yes, you can still use those legacy...
What does fail on its own even mean? It's one of the most effective, tightly designed classes in the game that does what it does well.
What exactly do you want from it? More damage than being one of the highest damage dealers in the game? More versatility than a hybrid caster who has Master weapons skill, can use attack cantrips better than anyone else in the game, and has efficient, effective feats?
What are you talking about? What are you doing wrong to have this much of a problem with the magus?
I guess the issue some have is that the Magus identity is a bit too restricted to spellstrike as raw damage instead of also being a magic warrior, since you have few slots, and your action economy is very restricted/don't have much interresting features to use from feats outside of...just spellstrike.
Like if you compare it to Eldritch Archer, it does get a bunch of other abilities through feats that suit a "magical archer". Special shots and stuff.
Magus is restrictive compared to PF1E, sure, but I don't think it's all that restrictive when compared to other PF2E martials. At the end of the day, you still have innate access to the arcane list and the ability to learn any arcane spell you want, without the downsides of having INT as your KAS. Your save DCs are lower than a caster, but there are a ton of useful spells that don't care about your DCs—and if you /really/ want, you can build with a higher INT.
At bottom, though, magus is a martial, and I can see how that can rub people the wrong way. PF2E really doesn't have that 6th-level casting feel anywhere in the system—I think because it'd violate PF2E's principled niche protection. You can get some wavecasting (summoner, magus) or some cool focus spells (champion, monk), or maybe some proprietary equivalents (like thaum's... a lot of stuff) depending on your class choice. But you'll never quite get that partial caster feel.
What does fail on its own even mean? It's one of the most effective, tightly designed classes in the game that does what it does well.
If you need an archetype to make it decent, then the class cannot work if those are ruled out.
I should be able to play a Magus without resorting to archetypes first and foremost.
What exactly do you want from it? More damage than being one of the highest damage dealers in the game? More versatility than a hybrid caster who has Master weapons skill, can use attack cantrips better than anyone else in the game, and has efficient, effective feats?
I want the Magus to be the "Ultimate Warrior-Mage", a.k.a. the ONLY spellcasting class that rivals any martial class in terms on tools and damage versatility.
Spellcasting in combat is downright a chore, because you cannot manually direct most spells without friendly fire and/or putting yourself at risk. Spellstrike should negate those problems, except that it costs so many actions and resources that there's no gratifying moment.
Any regular spellcaster, when casting a spell with a save, can simply point and the spell goes off; there's critical failure with Fireball which the spell simply fizzles out. The Magus needs to ROLL a Strike in order to discharge the spell... and it can still NOT go off. Please note that there's no feat that allows a Magus to keep a spell if they miss.
Since Spellstrike requires an additional die roll to something that doesn't usually have one, you'd expect the result to be bigger, given all the troubles you go through to make it work.
Please also note that in P2E, non-cantrip spells DON'T scale with your levels anymore, so you need to prepare higher spell slots, which can be wasted if your Spellstrike doesn't work, versus a cantrip, which is unlimited.
What are you talking about? What are you doing wrong to have this much of a problem with the magus?
1) If you go with the Remaster before using legacy spells, a LOT of spells cannot be used with a regular Spellstrike, because they don't require an attack roll. Spells like Caustic Blast (Acid Splash), Frostbite (Ray of Frost) and Thunderstrike (Shocking Grasp) are now targeted spells. Rage of the Elements didn't fix that problem, when they could have taken every single elemental trait (Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Cold, etc) and add at least ONE spell with either a melee or a ranged spell attack roll.
Seriously, we now have Briny Bolt and Hydraulic Push... as eligible 1st Rank water spells, while Spout, a cantrip, requires a save.
2) Expanded Spellstrike doesn't make anything harder to resit, as I keep saying, because right now, you should save your spell slots for utility spells and other spells that don't require heightening.
3) I need to recharge Spellstrike... something that just escaped me... as an action. Arcane Cascade requires an activation as well.
I keep seeing several memes about how a Magus barely gets two successful spellstrikes per encounter, because they rely too much on Sure Strike and static targets...
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See? That's my problem: you essentially have to rely on archetypes to make the Magus more appealing, because it fails at this on its own.
Good lord the exaggeration here - you absolutely can spend your focus points on more efficient recharging of your spellstrikes on off-turns and then spellstrike with cantrips and the occasional slotted spell to get a fully effective martial with interesting and unique gameplay. Yes, magus is one of the few classes for PF2 where you can somewhat significantly raise the power level of your base class abilities through archetypes, but implying that the magus fails to be appealing on its own says more about ones need to be maximizing white-room DPR than anything about the magus itself, I think.
@JiCi:
Again, spellstrike is action deferment, not action compression in full. You can simply cast a save spell and then strike later if you're afraid of losing the spell.
Attaching an attack spell to spellstrike is objectively better than casting it separately; you have better odds of hitting with the spell than anyone else in the game.
Attaching an AoE via expansive spellstrike is not objectively better for damage on the spell itself, but it does give you new and interesting targeting options (particularly as starlit span magus, though it's also interesting if you have a reach weapon on a melee magus). It also gives you a kind of action compression unavailable to other characters if you recharge with a conflux spell or something like magus's analysis, and it can increase your overall damage by increasing your action efficiency and letting you do AoE damage with your strikes.
While I can empathize with some of the criticism, I do agree that there's a degree of hyperbole going on: the Magus's synergy with the Psychic archetype and imaginary weapon is certainly very strong, and that's a problem, but the class isn't weak without it either. I would also say that the problem comes from the Psychic multiclass archetype being overly strong and offering too much of the Psychic's strengths via amps, rather than the Magus, and so the problem ought to be corrected at the level of the Psychic.
In general, I think the same can be said for a lot of the criticisms being made here: it's not that the Magus is weak or unfun, because the Magus does feel strong and can provide some of the biggest dopamine hits in the game when you hit the jackpot on your Spellstrike roll, at least in my opinion. The fact that the Magus is solid and fun to play does not lie in contradiction with the fact that the Magus also has a few issues to their design that hampers them from being even more fun -- for instance, the fact that several of their feats and class features push them to commit limited resources towards Spellstriking with slot spells, and fewer mechanics expressly incentivize them to make better use of the immense of breadth of spells in the arcane list. It's not that the Magus falls on its face and becomes a crap class if I don't make use of double spellstrike at 19th level, for instance, it's just that the feature could offer a different benefit that better accommodates builds that don't dedicate their spell slots for Spellstriking.
As for Spellstriking with save spells more effectively, one helpful addition could be to give Expansive Spellstrike the Channel Smite treatment, but only for basic saves (which, once again, would not work with disintegrate due to the intermediary spell attack): what makes the Channel Smite mechanic problematic on save spells I think is the crowd control that often gets attached to saves, which aren't generally meant to have their accuracy boosted by too much (so no sure strike to near-guarantee a failed save against your paralyze, for instance). Basic saves, however, are pure damage much like Strikes, so forcing a crit fail on your Magus who's juiced on Heroism, flanking a clumsy enemy, and getting their sure strike-enhanced attack roll Aided by the Gunslinger is just going to deal more damage, rather than inflict some horrendous condition that may very well spell the death of your boss enemy (though that meaty burst of crit damage would still bring them a lot closer to death, in classic Magus fashion).
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What does fail on its own even mean? It's one of the most effective, tightly designed classes in the game that does what it does well.If you need an archetype to make it decent, then the class cannot work if those are ruled out.
I should be able to play a Magus without resorting to archetypes first and foremost.
What exactly do you want from it? More damage than being one of the highest damage dealers in the game? More versatility than a hybrid caster who has Master weapons skill, can use attack cantrips better than anyone else in the game, and has efficient, effective feats?I want the Magus to be the "Ultimate Warrior-Mage", a.k.a. the ONLY spellcasting class that rivals any martial class in terms on tools and damage versatility.
Spellcasting in combat is downright a chore, because you cannot manually direct most spells without friendly fire and/or putting yourself at risk. Spellstrike should negate those problems, except that it costs so many actions and resources that there's no gratifying moment.
Any regular spellcaster, when casting a spell with a save, can simply point and the spell goes off; there's critical failure with Fireball which the spell simply fizzles out. The Magus needs to ROLL a Strike in order to discharge the spell... and it can still NOT go off. Please note that there's no feat that allows a Magus to keep a spell if they miss.
Since Spellstrike requires an additional die roll to something that doesn't usually have one, you'd expect the result to be bigger, given all the troubles you go through to make it work.
Please also note that in P2E, non-cantrip spells DON'T scale with your levels anymore, so you need to prepare higher spell slots, which can be wasted if your Spellstrike doesn't work, versus a cantrip, which is unlimited.
What are you talking about? What are you doing wrong to have this much of a problem with the magus?1) If you go with the Remaster before using legacy spells, a LOT of spells...
You don't need an archetype to make it work. People take an archetype to min-max the class. It works fine with no archtype.
Magus is one of the best built classes in the game that does exactly what it is supposed to do.
It has a unique niche in being the best at using attack cantrips and spellls.
It combines martial and magic damage into a potent combination. It has focus spells that synergize well with its main schtick.
The magus is about as far from needing anything else to make it work as a class can get. It's one of the best classes in the game with a simple, efficient design that is highly effective and fulfills the class fantasy.
If you're looking for PF1 magus power, it is not ever going to happen. The PF2 magus is built very well and at best could use some polish, but so does nearly every class. Magus is a top tier class that players are happy to play with some of the biggest critical hit numbers in the game and one of the classes that can wreck an encounter with just damage.
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@Teridax
I'll gladly take a reworked Spellstrike that behaves like Channel Smite, and make it only work with cantrips to keep it balanced. Ranked spells dela more damage, with secondary effects and such, but cantrips are pretty basic.
A first issue I have with the Magus is how gutted the "spell list" for Spellstrike since the Remaster and how they didn't address it. You'd think that 90% of damage-dealing cantrips would require attack rolls and leave save spells for ranked ones, or even better have ONE cantrip that you can change the damage type, and trait, from fire, cold, acid, electricity, void, poison and whatnot. Think Elemental Toss, but as a cantrip with 10 times more versatility.
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@Deriven Firelion
When people are strongly suggesting archetypes so the Magus can access other other spells that isn't in the arcane list, there's a problem.
When you cannot make a Starlit Span Magus with a crossbow or a firearm due to the excessive reload time, there's a problem.
When most of the cantrips aren't available for Spellstrike without Expanded Spellstrike, there's a problem.
When there's STILL a chance for the spell to NOT work as intended with Expanded Strikestrike, depsite the highest critical sucess you can achieve with your Strike, there's a problem.
Magus itself isn't remastered, so its comparative incompatibility with remastered material is moot. The standard rule (and I don't know anyone who runs otherwise) is the PFS one: only spells with the same name are totally replaced, and old versions are available for use.
Magus itself isn't remastered, so its comparative incompatibility with remastered material is moot. The standard rule (and I don't know anyone who runs otherwise) is the PFS one: only spells with the same name are totally replaced, and old versions are available for use.
You're correct.
I can still use Ray of Frost without having someone knock at my door to arrest/berate me for copyright infringement.
It still SUCKS that for a class that relies a LOT of spell attack rolls, there's barely any spell to use from the get-go.
For the record...
WITH the Remaster:
7 cantrips / 48 are eligible
- Gouging Claw
- Ignition
- Live Wire
- Needle Darts
- Slashing Gust
- Tangle Vine
- Telekinetic Projectile
WITH the Legacy
+2 cantrips / 48 are eligible
- Acid Splash
- Ray of Frost
Chill Touch was never available... somehow... despite having a range of "touch"...
According to the Archives, here are all damage-dealing cantrips, but with a save:
- Anicent Dust
- Caustic Blast
- Daze
- Electric Arc
- Frostbite
- Gale Blast
- Phase Bolt
- Puff of Poison
- Scatter Scree
- Spout
- Timber
- Torturous Trauma
- Void Warp
These are 13 cantrips UNusable with the regular Spellstrike, out of 20.
Magus itself isn't remastered, so its comparative incompatibility with remastered material is moot. The standard rule (and I don't know anyone who runs otherwise) is the PFS one: only spells with the same name are totally replaced, and old versions are available for use.You're correct.
I can still use Ray of Frost without having someone knock at my door to arrest/berate me for copyright infringement.
It still SUCKS that for a class that relies a LOT of spell attack rolls, there's barely any spell to use from the get-go.
For the record...
WITH the Remaster:
7 cantrips / 48 are eligible
- Gouging Claw
- Ignition
- Live Wire
- Needle Darts
- Slashing Gust
- Tangle Vine
- Telekinetic ProjectileWITH the Legacy
+2 cantrips / 48 are eligible
- Acid Splash
- Ray of FrostChill Touch was never available... somehow... despite having a range of "touch"...
According to the Archives, here are all damage-dealing cantrips, but with a save:
- Anicent Dust
- Caustic Blast
- Daze
- Electric Arc
- Frostbite
- Gale Blast
- Phase Bolt
- Puff of Poison
- Scatter Scree
- Spout
- Timber
- Torturous Trauma
- Void WarpThese are 13 cantrips UNusable with the regular Spellstrike, out of 20.
Expansive Spellstrike opens up all those cantrips and a lot of spells for a low feat cost. And the damage cantrips you posted are the best damage cantrips available for single target.
I'll gladly take a reworked Spellstrike that behaves like Channel Smite, and make it only work with cantrips to keep it balanced. Ranked spells dela more damage, with secondary effects and such, but cantrips are pretty basic.
Why Magus has always been able to burn a spell slot into spell strike. It seems fine to me whenever we have played it.
A first issue I have with the Magus is how gutted the "spell list" for Spellstrike since the Remaster and how they didn't address it.
Agreed they have made too many cantrips to be saving throws. Seems to be deliberate and yes the reduction in options is annoying for a Magus. Though my experience is that most Magus only use a couple of options anyway.
When people are strongly suggesting archetypes so the Magus can access other other spells that isn't in the arcane list, there's a problem.
Hard no from my point of view. People have done that from day one with the Magus. Blocking the normal expansiveness in the system is just going annoy people who want the reverse.
When you cannot make a Starlit Span Magus with a crossbow or a firearm due to the excessive reload time, there's a problem.
Not every combination works. That is OK. It is not a major problem. But is would be nice to add in reload options. Then again Beast Gunner does it already.
Not really
When most of the cantrips aren't available for Spellstrike without Expanded Spellstrike, there's a problem.
When there's STILL a chance for the spell to NOT work as intended with Expanded Strikestrike, depsite the highest critical sucess you can achieve with your Strike, there's a problem.
If you guarantee the result that would effectively expand Sure Strike to allow it to work with saving throw spells. Paizo choose not to do that and I can see why.
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I aggree that Magus has an issue of lacking flexibility that other martials have IN SPITE of having access to the arcane spell list. For a few reasons:
1: Bounded caster means very few spells. (yes you can have more with a ring of wizardry, a staff fused in your weapon (only for spellstrikes tho) or wands and scrolls (but that'll cost you a LOT of actions, that you are already starved for, even more if you don't have a free hand).
2: The inconsistent restrictions on its features. Some abilities only work when you spellstrike with a slotted spell, some only when it's not a cantrip or focus spell (so innate, scrolls, staves are fine), some on everything. Some on anything that isn't a cantrip. It feels VERY arbitrary and inconsistent. If it was just "those do not work with cantrips" fine enough. Or better: have them have a weaker version of the effect when used with a cantrip (like Sustaining Steel, for example. Instead of double spell rank, have it be heal you by the cantrip's spell rank)
3: Everything revolves around spellstrike. 8 or 9 feats are specifically spellstrike upgrades/variants (counting the ones that also are exclusive to your subclass). Even the one feat that expand on the utility of Arcane Cascade is a Spellstrike follow-up.
So the design wants you to spellstrike often, but managing the action economy is hard. That's fair, it's part of the appeal and puzzle of playing a Magus: making the most of your 3 actions to place your bets etc.
But it also kind of make it hard to do anything else, you don't have any other special thing that makes you feel like a martial/caster hybrid. YES you do have spell progression and weapon progression. But outside of spellstrike, and a few feats like capture magic and some utility focus spells (more of those please btw) you are not that different from another martial who has a wizard dedication. You get higher spells faster sure, but they have access to the same ones eventually and even more slots than you.
Which, again, leads me to the crux of the issue to me:
Magus needs some cleanup: Get consistent on features that don't work with cantrip/focus spell whatever. Maybe ban focus spells altogether if there is a concern about balance with them, but do give other option for flexibility on how to mix sword and magic elsewhere in the class.
Maybe remove some of the spellstrike upgrades and either fold some together or turn them into their own special attacks that don't require a spellstrike, build something from Arcane Cascade so even without spellstrikes a Magus can feel like its own thing (for example in some cases when facing bosses with attacks of opportunity at higher levels, having other options while waiting for the opportunity to take the risk of a spellstrike would be nice)
Maybe allow Spellstrike with targetted save spells from the getgo, with a save penalty on a hit or something so you don't need Expansive to make use of Spell Swipe and have Expansive Spellstrike open the door to AoE and maybe even utility, control and buff spells (rename it Spell Combat if need be, but having the possibility of Striking, casting a Wall or Darkness, or Haste, or Mirror Image while also moving in a single round would be great)
Rebalance some of the hybrid studies, that'd be nice. Give more value to Arcane Cascade (some strike options while under its effects as mentionned above would already do some of it) regardless of subclass.
(again I propose: Recycling Cascade Free Action: End your Cascade to Recharge your Spellstrike. That's it, not even make enterring cascade a free action or anything, just make it an action deferring tool like Spellstrike but in reverse: where spellstrike delays the 3rd action of strike+cast, Cascade CAN be used to "pre" recharge spellstrike later in the fight if you really need it and have no other options)
Again, Magus is a good class. It's VERY strong (potentially too strong in some situations, especially with the very good synergy with focus spells) and its base chassis is solid.
But it has a lot of minor annoyances and conflicting signals in it (main class features wants you to use your slots for spellstrike, but also this means you don't have a lot of versatility in how you act so better use the slots for that, but then some features are unusable with just cantrips and focus spells, so maybe you should get a fighting style archetype or a caster archetype etc etc)
Also: more attack spells to use with slots, especially if Focus Spell synergy is nixed, that'd be great. Like for real all the interresting Attack spells are focus spells what's with that?
I dont think magus getting spell ranks on level is something to downplay.
Spellcasting just from an archtype doesnt compare because those spells come later and require feat investment to get.
If you make the feat investment the same as that other class archtyping into spell casting by playing a magus with say a wizard archtype then you have the wave casting and you get the back up lower rank spell slots for all the utility you want.
I think that is the tradeoff for a wavecaster. If you want to lean more into spellcasting you can invest in a spellcasting archtype and do it, or you can lean into spellstrike with all the feat support the class offers.
If i had to guess a remastered version of magus might actually lose the damage from weapon specialization.
Getting higher spells early is nice, yeah, but martials with caster dedication also have like all their other fighting options from their class available. A fighter has double slice, knockdown, intimidating strike, sudden charge, sudden leap, exacting strike, vicious swing etc etc etc to play with as situation demands.
Magus doesn't have much of that amount of choice. You CAN use a spell slot to spellstrike Telekinetic Manoeuver, sure, but you can do that a very limited amount of times a day. You are very restricted with how to use your spell slots is the issue, and it's FAIR ! If they are meant to be for your big novas, yeah that's totally normal that they are so limited in number.
But if so, then you also don't have a lot of things to do other than that is what I'm saying. There is a fine line to walk and it's kind of frustrating because then focus spells for spellstrike just...flat out solve that issue. Renewable nova, leaving your high level slots to use great buffs and utility spells as they become available. But then several class features might not work.
And it's true that it feels a bit wrong to multiclass to make your core loop work "better". (quote on quote 'cause ofc you lose on opportunities to recharge with a conflux spell, but it also gives you more points and with the refocus changes it's not really an issue to use 1 nova focus spell, then a Conflux to recharge in every combat then spent 20 minutes refocusing)
Also removing damage from weapon specialization isn't a good idea, it just deincentizes doing anything other than spellstrike even more. Especially for dex magi.
Getting higher spells early is nice, yeah, but martials with caster dedication also have like all their other fighting options from their class available. A fighter has double slice, knockdown, intimidating strike, sudden charge, sudden leap, exacting strike, vicious swing etc etc etc to play with as situation demands.
Magus doesn't have much of that amount of choice. You CAN use a spell slot to spellstrike Telekinetic Manoeuver, sure, but you can do that a very limited amount of times a day. You are very restricted with how to use your spell slots is the issue, and it's FAIR ! If they are meant to be for your big novas, yeah that's totally normal that they are so limited in number.
But if so, then you also don't have a lot of things to do other than that is what I'm saying. There is a fine line to walk and it's kind of frustrating because then focus spells for spellstrike just...flat out solve that issue. Renewable nova, leaving your high level slots to use great buffs and utility spells as they become available. But then several class features might not work.
And it's true that it feels a bit wrong to multiclass to make your core loop work "better". (quote on quote 'cause ofc you lose on opportunities to recharge with a conflux spell, but it also gives you more points and with the refocus changes it's not really an issue to use 1 nova focus spell, then a Conflux to recharge in every combat then spent 20 minutes refocusing)
I think i would compare in chassis to in chassis benefits.
Especially if a fighter is archtyping at 2nd and basic spellcasting at 4th. Expanding breadth at 8th. And also later getting expert and master casting for that archtype.And actually compare the magus also archtyping to really see apples to apples in terms of feat investment.
I think i would compare in chassis to in chassis benefits.
It sounds like you're trying to make the Magus more like the Battle Harbinger, which IMO is absolutely the last thing that ever needs to happen for the class. Let's not make every other bounded caster as awful as that archetype please.
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I aggree that Magus has an issue of lacking flexibility that other martials have IN SPITE of having access to the arcane spell list. For a few reasons:
1: Bounded caster means very few spells. (yes you can have more with a ring of wizardry, a staff fused in your weapon (only for spellstrikes tho) or wands and scrolls (but that'll cost you a LOT of actions, that you are already starved for, even more if you don't have a free hand).
2: The inconsistent restrictions on its features. Some abilities only work when you spellstrike with a slotted spell, some only when it's not a cantrip or focus spell (so innate, scrolls, staves are fine), some on everything. Some on anything that isn't a cantrip. It feels VERY arbitrary and inconsistent. If it was just "those do not work with cantrips" fine enough. Or better: have them have a weaker version of the effect when used with a cantrip (like Sustaining Steel, for example. Instead of double spell rank, have it be heal you by the cantrip's spell rank)
3: Everything revolves around spellstrike. 8 or 9 feats are specifically spellstrike upgrades/variants (counting the ones that also are exclusive to your subclass). Even the one feat that expand on the utility of Arcane Cascade is a Spellstrike follow-up.
So the design wants you to spellstrike often, but managing the action economy is hard. That's fair, it's part of the appeal and puzzle of playing a Magus: making the most of your 3 actions to place your bets etc.
But it also kind of make it hard to do anything else, you don't have any other special thing that makes you feel like a martial/caster hybrid. YES you do have spell progression and weapon progression. But outside of spellstrike, and a few feats like capture magic and some utility focus spells (more of those please btw) you are not that different from another martial who has a wizard dedication. You get higher spells faster sure, but they have access to the same ones eventually and even more slots than you.Which, again, leads me to the crux of the...
What exactly are martials doing that are more versatile than a magus?
I'd love to hear.
From what I've seen, maybe you could say a rogue is doing some versatile stuff, but most martials do very simple, limited things.
Whereas the magus is flying, casting spells, using magic items the other martials can't use, mixing their spells up to activate weaknesses, and have zero problems taking a maneuver if they want to.
Problem is spellstrike is so good, why do other things? Nothing other martials do is better than spellstrike.
It feels like you're asking for your cake and to eat it too. I want to be a versatile martial and do this incredible spellstrike thing as well that does more damage than most martials do.
Where is your proof? You're completely relying on this idea that we all just know these problems with the magus. As someone that has played multiple magus, I don't experience your problems.
Magus is one of the most hammer classes in the game. Only way they get any more ability is if some of you feel like getting spellstrike nerfed because as it is right now spellstrike is too strong.
I think i would compare in chassis to in chassis benefits.It sounds like you're trying to make the Magus more like the Battle Harbinger, which IMO is absolutely the last thing that ever needs to happen for the class. Let's not make every other bounded caster as awful as that archetype please.
Im not convinced losing 2-4 damage is actually bad enough to make a wavecaster disastrous.
Especially not magus with spellstrike.
Expansive Spellstrike opens up all those cantrips and a lot of spells for a low feat cost. And the damage cantrips you posted are the best damage cantrips available for single target.
But it goes back to my problem that Expansive Spellstrike still allow a save on those, even on a critical success.
Hard no from my point of view. People have done that from day one with the Magus. Blocking the normal expansiveness in the system is just going annoy people who want the reverse.
I swear that "archetyping the Magus" has been a recurring joke.
I'm not saying that it's wrong, but when it becomes almost mandatory, then it's wrong.
Not every combination works. That is OK. It is not a major problem. But is would be nice to add in reload options. Then again Beast Gunner does it already.
The reload isn't the problem, it's how the Magus cannot either recharge Spellstrike OR activate Arcane Cascade, both as a reaction.
There are too many mandatory features that require a separate action.
If you guarantee the result that would effectively expand Sure Strike to allow it to work with saving throw spells. Paizo choose not to do that and I can see why.
Then why use a ranked spell with a save for Spellstrike? You'd probably be better off a higher-ranked spell with an attack roll.
In short, you're adding an attack roll to Spellstrike... without getting any real benefit from it, compared to simply casting the spell normally.
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What exactly are martials doing that are more versatile than a magus?
Feat-based Strikes, and synergy with Strike-boosting feats. Most martials have a fantastic ecosystem of feats that let them get more out of their Strikes, and because of this, it's very easy for these classes to archetype into one another and combine certain feats for even better synergy. Additionally, because these martial classes tend to have a really smooth action economy, they can afford to pick feats from other classes and insert them into their turns more often. Having a Strength or Dex key attribute is also a subtle advantage in versatility, because it makes it much easier to booth a fourth score for archetyping purposes.
With the Magus, by contrast, the core of their Striking and spellcasting revolves around Spellstriking. Because Spellstrike is its own thing, you can't really use feat-based Strikes as part of a Spellstrike, and because Spellstrike costs a lot of actions, it's difficult to slot in additional actions from other multiclass archetypes that will blend in smoothly (not impossible, but still difficult). As mentioned already, Spellstrike also works with only a narrow range of spells, and the Magus's feats and features push them even further into committing their spell slots towards attack spells, despite the existence of more synergistic combos that don't use spell slots (such as the overly strong Psychic archetype synergy). This is why the Magus, despite their access to arcane spells, is generally considered more of a burst damage-focused striker martial than a true hybrid, including by defenders of the class on this thread, and not a tremendously versatile class by default.
Im not convinced losing 2-4 damage is actually bad enough to make a wavecaster disastrous.
Especially not magus with spellstrike.
And this is why IMO it's a good thing you're not in a position of power to change any of this, because losing that amount of damage every Strike would be awful for a martial class, including one with access to Spellstrike. 4 damage is equivalent to taking away one of your weapon damage dice, and is valuable enough for martial classes to still want to build Strength when they can. This would be a significant and unnecessary nerf, and as Kalaam mentions this would only further pigeonhole the Magus into Spellstriking when they will want to make regular Strikes too.
What exactly are martials doing that are more versatile than a magus?Feat-based Strikes, and synergy with Strike-boosting feats. Most martials have a fantastic ecosystem of feats that let them get more out of their Strikes, and because of this, it's very easy for these classes to archetype into one another and combine certain feats for even better synergy. Additionally, because these martial classes tend to have a really smooth action economy, they can afford to pick feats from other classes and insert them into their turns more often. Having a Strength or Dex key attribute is also a subtle advantage in versatility, because it makes it much easier to booth a fourth score for archetyping purposes.
With the Magus, by contrast, the core of their Striking and spellcasting revolves around Spellstriking. Because Spellstrike is its own thing, you can't really use feat-based Strikes as part of a Spellstrike, and because Spellstrike costs a lot of actions, it's difficult to slot in additional actions from other multiclass archetypes that will blend in smoothly (not impossible, but still difficult). As mentioned already, Spellstrike also works with only a narrow range of spells, and the Magus's feats and features push them even further into committing their spell slots towards attack spells, despite the existence of more synergistic combos that don't use spell slots (such as the overly strong Psychic archetype synergy). This is why the Magus, despite their access to arcane spells, is generally considered more of a burst damage-focused striker martial than a true hybrid, including by defenders of the class on this thread, and not a tremendously versatile class by default.
And this is why IMO it's a good thing you're not in a position of power to change any of this, because losing that amount of damage every...Im not convinced losing 2-4 damage is actually bad enough to make a wavecaster disastrous.
Especially not magus with spellstrike.
Its a small amount of damage and was never worth the overblown reaction it got for BH.
Magus moreso than BH wont even realize its gone.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As Teridax said, Magus has no other offensive option than spellstrike with their martial side.
They can strike, spellstrike and use their subclass Conflux Spell to do a strike with bonus effects. That's it.
YES, you do have access to spells like Blazing Dive, Warding Aggression etc that make use of striking with your weapon and have other effects and those are GREAT. I am not disputing that.
But those are limited ressources competing with, you guessed it: Spellstrike.
I'm not saying magus should have as many action economy feats as fighter.
But it could have its own unique magic strikes/manoeuvers etc abilities that show a blend of magic and martial abilities, probably restricted to being in Arcane Cascade. Instead of everything being tied to spellstrike.
For example: Devastating Spellstrike is terrible. 5 splash damage on spellstrike is bad to be honest.
If it was its own ability, just a 1 or 2 action flourish strike that dealt something like: number of weapon dice+arcane cascade in splash damage that'd be a decent option that has both its uses and feel thematically appropriate.
Or another idea: Riving Strike: 1 Action Flourish. On a hit the target gets a -1 status penalty to saves against spells until the end of your next turn, -2 on a crit. (Or whatever numbers for balance, could be -2 and -3)
Rend Defenses: 2 actions flourish. On a hit, reduces the targets energy resistances (or just the one of your cascade) by half your level, or your level. Until the end of your next turn.
See, just some options that you can play around with, support yourself and your team, setting up future turns etc.
As an aside, here's an example of something I find a bit of a shame not to see more of.
Dispelling Spellstrike: As part of a spellstrike you attempt to dispel one magical effect on the target, same usual rules, using your intelligence etc.
Rogue's Dispelling Slice: Make a strike against an off-guard creature, on top of sneak attack damage you attempt to dispel an effect.
That works, it's fine and useful to all and (thankfully) it isn't restricted to slotted spells only. There is more example of abilities martials have that a magus could replicate. It's kind of its thing: replicate specialists stuff by mixing "average" martial and magical abilities.
In the playtest version, Magus could benefit way more from learning martial strikes from archetypes because of how Striking Spell worked, it triggered on the next attack that hit something with the weapon and persisted for a round. So you could Sudden Charge is on the next turn, Skirmish Strike, etc etc.
Now, it's a good thing that it changed to what we have now because the playtest version had a bunch of problems. However this kind of interraction was nice and it would have been good to have some of that in some form. Gave more potential customization. Spellstriking a save spell on an Intimidating Strike you got a fighter archetype for example is pretty cool.
Also regarding the weapon spec damage: yes they would. Any magus not spellstriking as their sole mean of attack would notice it.
Especially if they don't have strength, it'll be a huge hit in their damage.
Its a small amount of damage and was never worth the overblown reaction it got for BH.
Magus moreso than BH wont even realize its gone.
It's not a small amount of damage, is the point. Weapon specialization isn't this fun little feature martial classes get just because, it is a mathematical necessity to ensure their damage does not fall off as they level up, and guarantee the bare minimum needed to deal competent Strike damage. The unique class features martials get aren't a substitute for this, they sit on top of this baseline chassis to allow them to truly contribute in a way that is unique to their class. To deal about a damage die less than other martial classes with every hit is to suffer a significant reduction in damage, one that not even Spellstrike justifies, and to believe that this represents only "a small amount of damage" that wouldn't have much of an impact if removed is to demonstrate gross ignorance of the math behind Pathfinder's Strikes.
Equally important to the discussion is: why would you even want to do this in the first place? You've spent several posts arguing that hamstringing the Magus in this way wouldn't be so bad, but absolutely no part of your suggestion or your defense of it explains why you would even want to implement this change to begin with, much less what the benefits would be. If this damage is truly as insignificant as you claim it to be, why even bother trying to remove it?
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Then why use a ranked spell with a save for Spellstrike? You'd probably be better off a higher-ranked spell with an attack roll.
In short, you're adding an attack roll to Spellstrike... without getting any real benefit from it, compared to simply casting the spell normally.
You're doing it because it's normally impossible to Stride up to an enemy, Strike them, and then Cast a two-action Spell, but you can Stride up to them and Spellstrike with a two-action spell using Expansive Spellstrike. That's a very nice action economy booster - it's only a 2nd level feat, after all.
Also archetyping Magus isn't mandatory, and spellstriking every turn isn't mandatory. Magus is a perfectly effective class with getting a spellstrike every second turn, and relying exclusively on Magus class feats. Those are needed to get the very highest possible efficiency Magus has available, but that standard simply isn't required for magus to be effective.
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What would be nice is for magus to have other impactful (not necesseraly powerful damage) options for off turns essentially.
The advantage of exploiting weaknesses is that once in cascade all of your strikes (including spellstrike with gouging claw) will procc that weakness.
That's one aspect where a magus that focuses on doing 2 strikes or more a turn without focus on spellstrike could be expanded upon. Though archetypes like dual weapon warrior do fit in for that (though not exactly since weaknesses are only applied once there with dual slice)
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What I'd like, personally, is for the Magus's off-turns to happen more organically. As written, the Magus is effectively forced to have an off-turn, because trying to recharge on the same turn as your Spellstrike is usually far too costly and risky, often straight-up impossible, for any Magus that isn't Starlit Span. Because a lot of this conversation happens on paper, the assumption is then that the Magus gets this perfect sequence of on-turns and off-turns, where they always get the opportunity to Spellstrike when it's active, and get to do exactly what they need to on their off-turn.
In practice, though, I've found this to be far from the truth. Because the Magus is Spellstriking enemies that are designed to disrupt people's best-laid plans, rather than some inactive target dummy, turns frequently arise where the Magus can't always Spellstrike when they want to, even when their Spellstrike is recharged, and on some turns the Magus can't even really afford to recharge their Spellstrike because something else came up, like a condition that robbed them of their actions or an ally getting downed. Even with perfect planning and tactics, you will not get that perfect 50/50 of on-turns and off-turns as a melee Magus. This is more rigid than for martials of course, because most martials get to make single-action Strikes and Strike feats with no trouble, but also more rigid than for casters, who usually operate from range and therefore have fewer considerations than a melee class, much like a Starlit Span Magus.
This is why despite my agreement that the Magus needs off-turns, which are a big part of the class's tactical appeal, I don't think those turns ought to be prescribed internally, so much as a naturally emergent property of being a melee class centered around a two-action activity. Even if you stripped away the recharge requirement and the action cost on Arcane Cascade, the Magus would still be a class with a busier action economy than most martials, and who wouldn't be able to Spellstrike every turn (in melee, at least). I do think the Magus ought to have a few more options available on their off-turns as well, and would personally gladly trade off some power elsewhere in order to achieve this, even if I can't speak for everyone else. I do think that with a less busy action economy and more room for different actions on off-turns, the Magus would feel a little less rigid at times, and would also have more room to accommodate a greater variety of archetypes and new actions.
Instead of a magus/psychic there will always be a magus/investigator . At least he plays more strategically. Then there would be to define all the appropriate exceptions: spells with more than one parameter: AC and Saves like Disintegrate, spells that require more than one save like the old Phantasmal Killer . And again the magus/investigator thanks to devise stratagem would actually have a luck effect on his spells. By the way usually he would have to aim at the highest opponent's saving throw, if he makes a decent roll that is however a miss, he decides to use a spell that tags another saving throw , otherwise if the roll to hit is low , simply cast a spell or cantrip without any strike. It already works this way, but in a much less impactful way, to the point that the magus/psychic is considered the most efficient build, with your changes the magus/investigator would be broken. To be considered as well that it would open up an interesting palystyle, normally you would never use slow on an enemy with high fortitude with this magus, but if you get a natural 20 on devise to stratagem, immediately choose the spell with the best debuff available and maybe win the 'encounter on the spot. Even in terms of damage, fixing spells like disintegrate, you're left with options like execute, which are not meant to work on this base, and would do really high damage.
While I do think my suggestion has problems, specifically with sure strike, I don't think the problem comes from Devise a Strategem, because the benefit it would offer then is the same benefit it offers now. At the end of the day, the Magus is a class with a lot riding on just one roll, so DaS has the benefit of letting you avoid wasting your entire turn if you fail, especially if you get to use it as a free action. In my opinion, the only reason the combo isn't better-known is because it is eclipsed by the Psychic multiclass archetype and imaginary weapon, which would remain a problem if left unchanged even with my proposal (that, and DaS is pretty hard to use on a Magus when you're not using it as a free action).
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I aggree. I'd be down to tone down some of the power (like removing focus spell compatibility) of spellstrike to redistribute it elswhere for off turns. Have something to do and all that feels still impactful and like you're playing that class fantasy instead of just moving and doing a single strike while waiting to have time to recharge your main gimmick.
(And again still more attack spell options in the arcane list would be good, and being consistent on abilities working or not from cantrips etc...)
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Indeed. It's for this reason that I'm personally a fan of pushing the Magus to use their spell slots and other limited resources for spells that aren't for Spellstriking, as that would let them adapt to a greater range of situations, as well as give them more "Strike or skill action, but magical" feats, which as single actions would explore the Magus's theme of a magical martial hybrid a bit better and let them do more on their off-turns. Some of this is technically possible now, but goes against the grain instead of following it, and which direction that grain goes I think is important here.
With focus spells and slot spells, I'd personally be happy to not have them work with Spellstrikes by default, but whether or not one agrees with that, I do believe they ought to be treated consistently together, so no excluding focus spells when slot spells work on Spellstrike or vice versa. The problem with focus spells on the Magus I think specifically comes from the Psychic's amps, and I think that could be easily solved by changing amps into a free-action spellshape focus spell that amps your psi cantrip: it wouldn't change the Psychic, who has no other spellshapes save for a 20th-level feat that lets them cast low-rank slot spells for free, and in fact it wouldn't change the archetype very much (though I don't think it should provide amps to begin with), but it would prevent the Magus from amping imaginary weapon and dealing monstrous damage with no daily restrictions in a manner that heavily favors Starlit Span even more.
On the flipside, I also think that whether or not one excludes focus and slot spells from Spellstrikes, I feel one benefit to be implemented could be to remove the recharge requirement when Spellstriking with a cantrip: damage cantrips are, for all intents and purposes, a means for casters to deal the damage of a single Strike with two actions. In the case of the best attack cantrip for the Magus, gouging claw, the 7 average damage + 2 persistent bleed damage you deal on a hit in my opinion is about equivalent to a full Strength martial hitting with a d12 weapon and their +4 Strength mod (IMO persistent damage is worth double the amount of instant damage, and the balancing of the Exemplar's weapon ikon immanence seems to suggest this too, e.g. Gleaming Blade versus Mortal Harvest). In order for a damage cantrip to be worth using on a martial class, you need action compression anyway so that you don't end up spending three actions making the equivalent of two Strikes. The damage benefit the Magus gets from Spellstrike would thus be the MAP compression from the activity, on top of a necessary amount of action compression that needn't be offset by another action to recharge in the case of a cantrip.
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Maybe removing the recharge from cantrips can work, but then if spell slots aren't incenticized to be used for spellstrike then the whole recharge mechanic is kind of moot unless you also use focus spells (of which several that are very good aren't just psychic. Sorcerer and divine focus spells are also very strong (dragon claw, glutton jaw, winter bolt, fire ray etc).
Having more action compression/side effect magical martial actions would be great honestly. I've given some examples but even something as simple as a Strike+shove or strike+trip that inflicts chip damage equal to Arcane Cascade (or cascade+int or whatever) would be nice.
Or even actions that can recharge spellstrike on successful skill actions. Either as feats, or part of your study (the same way swashbuckler can get panache with specific actions tied to their style).
Have successful feints or sneak action recharge it for laughing shadow, shoves or intimidation or whatever fits for inexorable iron, etc etc etc. Can put a "target is then immune for 1 minute" clause on it to limit it too.
I'm very much a fan of the idea of having certain skill actions recharge your Spellstrike on a success, or even just a crit success. If we're removing recharges from Spellstrikes, which I wouldn't be against in an environment where your Spellstrike either didn't include non-cantrip spells or didn't compress their actions (and three-action Spellstrikes could be a way to avoid sure strike abuse if there's still accuracy compression involved), then other forms of action compression or extra effects that would add a touch of magic to those actions I think would also work well.
For starters, there's definitely room for many more conflux spells, including single actions that'd let you Strike and perform a maneuver or some other skill action with action compression. Feats that'd turn you momentarily invisible as you Hide, telekinetically pull a target to Reposition them closer to you from a distance, or let you magically see invisible creatures when you Seek would all fit the framework of a magical martial class and give the Magus a greater breadth of things to do, rather than more of the same kind of power.
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I remember a homebrew I posted a few years ago (maybe for the compendium, don't remember) about a hybrid study that gained the ability to perceive invisible creatures through the astral plane within 10 feet of them, and the ability to seek that way or something. Was fun.
But yeah maybe I should compile all of my ideas and drop it here for reference sake.
I think ranked spell should still be part of spellstrike (and we NEED more spells for that paizo, please. I'll take just converting some focus spells into slotted ones easily.)
But either Magus gets more feats to have other utility options...or it gets more spell slots for utility in combat. Essentially more studious spells.
Or reverse the logic on it and have reserved slot that can only have spells eligible for spellstrike, and the others are more flexible and can have utility/compression spells like blazing dive and all that good arcane flexibility.
Heck maybe some feats to more easily use spells from staves wands and scrolls.
So far we have fused staff and striker's scroll, and while nice they have an issue: it's for spellstrike only. For scrolls it's not much of an issue, having a scroll close to your highest spell rank isn't too hard, that's fair.
But for fused staff, of which spell ranks don't grow up as smoothly, there can be times where the spells you can strike with won't be much better than using a cantrip. And you need to use an action to morph the weapon into the staff to use any control/utility spell (unless expansive spellstrike but some spells would not be elligible).
So either an feat chain for either letting you more easily use the spells or separate feat for them.
1e had the Weaponwand spell, a feat like that could also be nice, maybe as an evolution of Striker's Scroll OR Fuse Staff. Fuse a wand into your weapon, maybe not even restrict it to spellstrike. Even if so, it'd be hilarious to have a magus break open their greatsword like a shotgun to pop off the discharged wand and load in a new one lol
Edit: Also yes having spellstrike behave like channel smite would be too strong. Unless there is a clean way to restrict that effect to avoid some spells. Maybe limiting it to crits against a reflex DC, or bump down the success by one so the target still can roll their save. Like -2 to the save on a hit, bump down on a crit ? Still extremely strong especially with devise a stratagem, but spellstrike will always be crazy strong with devise a stratagem (and good luck, i very often had an invetsigator spend a whole fight devising below 15 during a boss so you know, it's still a 5% chance. Just that you know in advance wether to spend a ressource or not before committing)
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Your magus is obviously stronger.
Note how your overwrought comparison completely fails to highlight how DaS would synergize better with this updated version of the Magus, and merely serves to highlight your existing biases through hyperbole and purely qualitative analysis rather than any sort of quantitative comparison as its framing would suggest. You could, for instance, have highlighted how the higher crit chance from an attack would have made my Magus more likely to apply the severe crit fail effect from slow, just as you should have highlighted how you'd have more of a chance of doing nothing with that spell than if you'd just Cast the Spell by itself, but did not even bother. Your comparison effectively repeats the one I've already made, yet somehow manages to be even less informative.
Then, there is still an issue with spells such as “Execute” that are not balanced for this type of use:
A hit is 70 damage, a critical 140 (more than the average 25 d10).
A few things:
So no, this would not represent a vertical increase in potential damage output.
Also about devise to stratagem, there is person of interest and like the magus/psychic, you can get at lv 6, and exactly like the psychic/magus, the one who benefits most is the Starlit.
This was never in question. My point was that even if you do archetype into Investigator and get a free-action DaS, the benefit it provides you of anticipating how successful your roll will be is the same. You are not magically making your Spellstrike spells more likely to hit with this, you are simply gaining the benefit of advance information, which is valuable in its own right but not causing the Magus to break the game, nor even prioritize an Investigator multiclass over a Psychic.
Also there is nothing that prohibits a magus/psychic + investigator.
Sure, just the fact that you'd only start seeing the full benefits of both at 10th level at bare minimum. That is usually when most adventures end, which is why you don't hear many people talking about the wondrous Magus-Psychic-Investigator multiclass all that often. If you play at a higher level then sure, that combo becomes much more relevant, but again, that is something you can already achieve now to full effect, whether or not you apply the suggestion (which I once again don't recommend, but not for the reasons you cited). You are correct that my Magus is stronger, but only insofar as it adds a degree of extra functionality that the current Magus does not possess, and would interact too well with sure strike. Its interaction with DaS and basic saves are not the issue here.
Or reverse the logic on it and have reserved slot that can only have spells eligible for spellstrike, and the others are more flexible and can have utility/compression spells like blazing dive and all that good arcane flexibility.
This is exactly what I'd want too. I think that instead of a Spellstrike that works with everything and studious spells for non-Spellstrike utility (which can still be subsumed into Spellstrikes anyway), reversing that structure and instead having slots specifically for Spellstriking, with a Spellstrike that worked exclusively with cantrips, would allow the Magus to be a lot more versatile overall while still interacting with potentially hundreds of different spells. You could even replace double spellstrike with a feature that'd give you a 10th-rank spell slot that you could only use as part of a Spellstrike, so you'd still get to make at least one massive gamble a day. With this, I'd like to expand Spellstrike to work better with save spells too, so that you'd have a major incentive to prepare utility spells in addition to your bread-and-butter damage cantrips.
It could be interresting to have spellstrike slots. In that case could spellstrike works ONLY from those slots or would any slot work, just that those are the minimum amount always available kind of like divine fonts being guaranteed heal/harm charges ?
A 10th rank spell could be fun, though the power increase would be pretty minimal with most attack spells, 2 additional damage dices or so. I don't see any 10th rank spell that'd be of much use for spellstrike honestly but I can easily be missing it.
In that situation, i'd like to implement Spell Combat back (as an addon/replacement for Expansive Spellstrike, as THE action compression/deference tool for the use of any spell outside of spellstrike itself.
Essentially does the same thing, Strike/cast a spell in any order for 2 action and recharge later. Shares that charge with spellstrike.
That way you can use your other spells with the fluidity that is caracteritic of the Magus from all the way back in 1e, to an extent (but as an optional feat). So moving, warding strike, and another strike. Or Flowing Strike+Strike, Raise a shield could be options.
In which case, I assume your suggestion would still have 4 slots+ 2 Striker slots then ? and no lower rank studious spells anymore tho, this could be a bit awkward to suddenly remove this feature from the studies, it added some neat flavor.
It could be interresting to have spellstrike slots. In that case could spellstrike works ONLY from those slots or would any slot work, just that those are the minimum amount always available kind of like divine fonts being guaranteed heal/harm charges ?
My personal preference would be specific slots, and I'd lean towards something like studious slots, except the slots would always scale up to be 2 ranks lower than your main Magus spell slots. That way, you'd be encouraged to prepare utility spells, including fun stuff like telekinetic maneuver, and not just damage spells.
A 10th rank spell could be fun, though the power increase would be pretty minimal with most attack spells, 2 additional damage dices or so. I don't see any 10th rank spell that'd be of much use for spellstrike honestly but I can easily be missing it.
Assuming Spellstrike would be able to work fine with save spells, and especially basic saves, cataclysm could be pretty juicy. 18d10 damage would beat a 10th-rank imaginary weapon and has the benefit of partially bypassing resistance, so you could reach an even higher burst damage ceiling once per day.
In that situation, i'd like to implement Spell Combat back (as an addon/replacement for Expansive Spellstrike, as THE action compression/deference tool for the use of any spell outside of spellstrike itself.
Essentially does the same thing, Strike/cast a spell in any order for 2 action and recharge later. Shares that charge with spellstrike.
That way you can use your other spells with the fluidity that is caracteritic of the Magus from all the way back in 1e, to an extent (but as an optional feat). So moving, warding strike, and another strike. Or Flowing Strike+Strike, Raise a shield could be options.
This sounds like an excellent opportunity for a focus spell. Being able to either shave an action off of your Spellstrike or combine a Strike/Spellstrike with something else as part of the same action would definitely allow the Magus to feel much more fluid in more limited amounts. IMO, I think there's a prime opportunity for "strikeshape" feats that specifically modify your Spellstrike much like a spellshape modifies spells, and Spell Combat could be one of those options.
and no lower rank studious spells anymore tho, this could be a bit awkward to suddenly remove this feature from the studies, it added some neat flavor.
This is true, but I think it's still a sacrifice worth making. I also personally take issue with hybrid studies in general, in that I find they're overly prescriptive compared to most martial subclasses. Whereas most martials get to naturally choose which weapons to equip and then flesh that out through freeform feat choice, Magus subclasses are very much "the sword-and-board subclass", "the weapon-and-free-hand subclass", "the two-hander subclass", and so on. It's great to have your choice of weapons supported by your class, but I feel that could've been done in a way that would've allowed for more flexibility.
In the example above, I pointed out in a way that all in all I think is clear, how in practice devise to stratagem with your magus is clearly stronger.
You don''t cast slow hoping your opponent will make 4 or less on the die roll instead of hitting sure or crit sure with touching grasp.
But if you already know that you will hit or crit with slow, then yes you cast it.
I don't know whether or not you are doing this on purpose, but you are literally just repeating what I've already said:
My point was that even if you do archetype into Investigator and get a free-action DaS, the benefit it provides you of anticipating how successful your roll will be is the same. You are not magically making your Spellstrike spells more likely to hit with this, you are simply gaining the benefit of advance information, which is valuable in its own right but not causing the Magus to break the game, nor even prioritize an Investigator multiclass over a Psychic.
Please, please do a bit more reading on this, nothing you are saying here is new.
it's incredible how you can ignore the practical uses of your magus and then imply that it's not that significant what happens to high level, most people play at low levels anyway.
I have acknowledged, repeatedly and at length, that my suggestion is fatally flawed, and gone to great pains to explain where the flaw comes from, which does not include what you've listed. I am not ignoring anything, I am simply trying to have an intelligent conversation that does not hinge on factual errors and misrepresentation.
If you want to play being right at all costs I understand that, it's fun, but please don't treat me like a moron.
You would benefit greatly from taking your own advice here. Once again, I am not trying to defend my suggestion, because I am aware of its problems and have been acknowledging them openly. I have no reason to contradict your statements just for the sake of defending my suggestion, because there is nothing to really defend here. There is no argument to win on my side, even if you clearly have decided that this conversation will determine the value of your own character, something I've not even implied. I am taking the time and effort to point out to you that your claims are not being substantiated by your arguments, that your methodology is incorrect, and that you have not done the bare minimum of research needed to have a proper discussion on the subject in the first place. You are definitely not a moron, but you can certainly do better.
So for example, in your proposition, a level 10 magus would have:
2 rank 5 slots
2 rank 4 slots.
2 rank 3 Spellstrike slot ? Wouldn't that be a bit low for damage spells ? Unless its spells where damage is secondary and the important bit is the other effects (telek manoeuver, or (let's dream) a spell version of Winter Bolt) wouldn't cantrips do as much/more damage ? Like between a 5th rank Ignition and a 3th rank Horizon Thunder sphere: Ignition does 6d6 and HTS does 7d6. Or am i misunderstanding you ?
Just want to chime in here a bit, specifically on the prospect of letting the Magus' attack roll affect SStriked save spells.
That is an incredibly potent buff that I do not think is in the realm of possibility.
Player-made attack rolls are compatible with all sorts of fortune effects. When it's a free action, DaS is incredibly good for this role that a Magus would want. But nitpicking DaS is not the point. The base concept is that there are all sorts of fortune effects for player-made rolls, while foe-side saves are almost impossible to regularly tamper with via misfortune effects.
This is why Shadow Signet works the way it does. When even simple metamagics like Reach Spell take an action, the notion that SSignet is 0A with no cooldown or anything shows that Paizo considers converting your attack roll into a foe-side save is an outright nerf. To them, if you want to give up AC stuff like off-guard and all the possible fortune shenanigans, then Paizo is happy to let the PCs do that endlessly at 0 cost.
They even let you choose right as you cast the spell, and to pick between 2 saves. The SSignet could not be more "powerful" at that specific conversion, which shows just how much Paizo thought the concept was a balance-safe to option to give to the players. It's not even a class feat, FFS.
The reverse, turning a save spell into a player-dictated attack roll, is something that I can't recall ever seeing, and for good reason.
That concept is not in the same realm of power, and is not something that could/should be considered for a class feat.
The best thing I can point to for comparison is what Paizo intended to be a new signature perk of playing Wiz post remaster, Knowledge is Power.
It's a L 8 feat, and only if you crit an RK check, do you get to impose a -1 penalty to a foe save, for the single next spell. (it is mirrored as a defensive effect as well)
So when thinking about if the Magus could/should be able to improve their save spell via strikes, try to use that feat as a baseline.
Something that has a high demand/difficulty to trigger, assists 1 roll, and provides a tiny effect to said roll.
All forms of just using the SStrike attack roll are already out as clown-world levels of overpowered. -1s to foe save are the best as you should expect for anything that would be triggerable more than once per fight. A -2 for a foe save would be something very hard to get to trigger more than once per fight.
And if you can dilute the power of the effect, like how Knl is Pwr also provides some defense, that can help as well.
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WRT magus chassis comparisons to other martials:
This is dangerous, because a lot of magus's power budget is left implied via items and spells others cannot get access to except via archetyping. You get access to casting items without any feat or skill investment of any kind. There's a huge blank check in magus's power budget. (The availability of other strong, nonmagical consumables keeps it from being overwhelming—but it's still quite notable, particularly wrt cheap and powerful wands.) Magus does not have to make any build investment to access that kind of utility, in contrast, and still gets to drop slot machine dopamine damage.
That's true but it is quite difficult to use them with its class features effectively.
Some subclasses straight up can't use some (Inexorable Iron/Starlit span can't use a wand for example) and the additional actions required can be pretty prohibitive.
Don't get me wrong: yes magus' ease of access to arcane stuff is very good, but it's not that useful to make use of in my experience. At best you get some extra utility slot (rings of wizardry) with no cost in actions etc. Otherwise it can take you a full round to cast a spell from a staff, wand or scroll (unless you have a feat investment in either to prepare them for a spellstrike specifically).
Use a scroll: need a free hand. To draw the scroll and then cast (3 actions, 4 to get your weapon back in hand if you use a 2 handed one or a shield and weapon to pick up either)
Magus' advantage: There is a feat to take 10 minutes to attach a scroll to your weapon like a talisman to use on a spellstrike. So 10 minutes to "get" an extra spellstrike slot essentialy, at the cost of gold investment. That's fair but still limited to spellstrike spells only.
Use a wand: same thing, but with no ways around it. It'll even take one more action to put away the wand if you don't want to drop it for some reason.
Use a staff: Need it in hand so if not already, at least 3 actions etc etc.
Bonus: a feat investment to fuse it with your weapon so you can freely use its charges but ONLY on spellstrike viable spells. Given staves would be often lagging in spell rank, it's best use for spellstrike stuff that have utility other than damage, or save spells (which require a SECOND feat investment in Expansive Spellstrike)
Bonus 2: There is a subclass dedicated to using a staff as your main weapon, it doesn't have any of those drawbacks. But it restricts your weapon choices.
So yeah magus can use all of those, at no investment.
But for those items to work within its kit and features it requires at least 1 or 2 feats, 3 if you want to use all of those if you have both hands taken already. So not that different from a fighter taking Wizard dedication just to be able to use scrolls for utility. And then maybe Basic, Expert spellcasting and then a 4th feat to get Master.
Edit: Also not sure what WRT stands for, sorry.