I've googled this and I've seen no real breakdown that isn't mostly just going by feeling.
I was looking to a minotaur with a reach weapon. It SOUNDS fun to line up... Lines and cones at the end of a stick as a large creature.
But you have few slots, so it starts becoming a question if what you can really do.
Your large and melee, meaning you may melt vs reactive strikes and your just a big target. Defensive spells might be smarter.
Scrolls cost gold.
Your DC will be less. While it's only substantially at the last two levels, it's not bad before then.
I don't think it's worth it because I feel the whole point of the Magus is to use one's martial prowess to deliver Spell Attack spells instead of directly via Int. Once the targets gets a save, then you need to invest in enough Int to make offensive casting worthwhile, yet that's a short road w/ so few spells/day and at-level scrolls being expensive & awkward (especially since you probably want a 2HW on your Minotaur). That's a lot of investment that would be better spent on a full caster w/ max casting stat & proficiency if one wishes that playstyle. Not that there aren't instances where it might be useful, but I'd rather invest in more reliable paths.
And as you've noted, defensive spells are worthwhile. I'd add spells w/o saves, and other ones that don't rely on counteracting or failed saves like walls. You get about one spell slot per combat, so I'm not big on Int for a Magus (at least not a Str Magus, maybe w/ a bow...maybe.)
Technically, focusing on Expansive Spellstrike would make a more MAD build that's somewhat worse. I think the intent of expansive spellstrike is to let you choose to either smooth out spellstrike somewhat by giving you two chances to "hit" instead of one, or to get attack riders you can't normally get. Both those are cool! The issues are just that 1) keeping up your INT to have workable spell DCs means sacrificing important stats to function as a melee magus, and 2) "normal Spellstrike go brr" is easier to get strong pieces for than "expansive spellstrike go brr."
A big part of (2) is that you don't really want to spellstrike with slotted spells, so you'd ideally find a decent AoE focus spell to poach. But off the top, most good AoE focus spells don't come online as fast as good single-target focus spells... which is a problem. I'm having a hard time thinking of rank 1 focus spells that're AoE at all, really.
-Oracle Spray of Stars? That's mostly to inflict dazzled and only does 1d4 per rank.
-Sorc Faerie Dust is cute, I guess? The effect won't proc a ton, but getting it as a rider on an attack is neat. Is a bit weird the size will actually outscale your ability to stay outside the AoE, though.
-I suppose Telekinetic Rend from Psychic dedication /would/ be ideal for damage, but I have no idea if its targeting can even work with expansive spellstrike, and I can't find anyone asking.
(I might have missed a really good focus spell for this, though. I'm not infallible.)
On top of all that, taking expansive spellstrike early means delaying archetyping (and thus getting your focus spell to spellstrike with anyways). It's an unfortunate anti-synergy with how magi have come to be built.
To be clear, I think Expansive Spellstrike is viable. You can have a lot fun with it, and it does let you do some fairly unique things. It just suffers the "I blend niches that are supposed to be separate" penalties in a way normal magus doesn't, and that inherently makes it worse than normal magus. Magus has a mitigating mechanic for its worse spell attacks when it uses a normal spellstrike—but it gets no mitigating mechanic for its worse saves with expansive spellstrike. At bottom, that's what truly holds expansive spellstrike back, I think.
I mean, it let's you spell strike force barrage so up to an additional 10d4+10 on a successful spell strike (two action force barrage at 9th rank).
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I pick it up on every magus. I think is great. Love to blast off AoEs with strikes or have a slow spell strike.
On my second Starlit Span magus, I've been using with AoE cantrips as they added more AOE cantrips that are useful.
While I have not played a Magus, I did have one in one of my games, and I would echo Deriven. The Magus loved Expansive Spellstrike and got good use out of it.
I don't know if I would take it if I ever played a Magus, but I think it's a solid feat that gives the Magus more options.
At the worse case, Expansive is still action compression to both Strike and Cast in the same 2A. And because its use-case includes AoE spells, that's already the situation in which the lag in your spell DC can be compensated by having 2+ foes rolling. Whenever you've just got 1 target, you already have that situation accounted for with Gouging Claw / etc.
Even as an Archetype caster, my PCs will occasionally cast a save spell despite the DC not comparing to a full spellcaster. Common options include Grease, Dizzying Colors, or cantrips. And that's w/o the compression of spellstrike.
Ultimately, it's all about what else you could get instead of Expansive. My recommendation is to first pretend you're not going to take Expansive, and select another option. Once you have the alternative, you can weigh the options against one another. IMO, Expansive being a L2 is very good. It's early enough to not have a ton of competition, though Force Fang is also there.
I don't think it's worth it because I feel the whole point of the Magus is to use one's martial prowess to deliver Spell Attack spells instead of directly via Int. Once the targets gets a save, then you need to invest in enough Int to make offensive casting worthwhile, yet that's a short road w/ so few spells/day and at-level scrolls being expensive & awkward (especially since you probably want a 2HW on your Minotaur). That's a lot of investment that would be better spent on a full caster w/ max casting stat & proficiency if one wishes that playstyle. Not that there aren't instances where it might be useful, but I'd rather invest in more reliable paths.
And as you've noted, defensive spells are worthwhile. I'd add spells w/o saves, and other ones that don't rely on counteracting or failed saves like walls. You get about one spell slot per combat, so I'm not big on Int for a Magus (at least not a Str Magus, maybe w/ a bow...maybe.)
My magus does maximize intellect on the basis that if I can't get to someone I'd rather poke from 120ft with Ray of Frost vs do nothing.
Plus I am going investigator dedication (fa) after seeing some other talking points on it from other areas. Sounds much more fun than yet another taking psychic dedication
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Everyone has their own opinions on this, but mine is that expansive spell strike was a terrible way to pretend to offer the variability of the playtest magus.
The only thing it does is compress a strike action into casting a spell normally. Compressing attack actions into other actions is generally considered a powerful ability, but this one comes with some caveats that are not worth it (IMO).
Without this feat, a magus can attack and cast a spell in the same turn already. Having one more action is only really useful for the magus for movement, recalling knowledge or starting arcane cascade. Magus really struggle to have the CHA for any debuffing actions that dont have the attack trait.
Maybe this is a matter of interpretation, but I don't think you cant use expansive spell strike with spells like fear or slow that debuff but don't cause damage because the feat specifies the spell must cause harm.
There is no benefit to the spell for critical success on the strike. having the spell go off on a miss is just something you dont have to worry about at all just casting your spell regularly, so all you are gaining is the opportunity to not have the spell go off at all if you critically miss.
I know some people like laying down AoE templates in places other casters can't. That is about the extent of what expansive spell strike offers.
Without this feat, a magus can attack and cast a spell in the same turn already. Having one more action is only really useful for the magus for movement, recalling knowledge or starting arcane cascade. Magus really struggle to have the CHA for any debuffing actions that dont have the attack trait.
It is absolutely wild to me that someone would consider a significant investment into CHA on a magus for the sake of Demoralize. It's not just the stat, but a full commitment of skill training, item bonus, and even skill feat(s). That's just not in my reality as a reasonable trade, especially on a hybrid that wants INT and will have a spell list.
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And no, if the restriction on Expansive meant that the spell had to deal damage to qualify, then it would say so.
R3 Scrolls are 30gp, and that's the rank at which you get spells like Stinking Cloud, a 20ft burst that sickens on save and slows on fail. No damage, but that makes it evergreen for debuffing.
A very great spell for Star Spans, though others might want to stick with carrying spare scrolls of Goblin Pox (or Slow) if they want a good debuff s-strike on tap. Sickened is just so much better than frightened it's not even funny.
Even s-striking with Grease is a good option as soon as the context allows you to force 2 or more saves.
Under strict RAW, I'm not sure Grease qualifies for expansive spellstrike. It is not a cone, burst, or line, and it doesn't target a creature.
Stinking cloud is awful unless you're Starlit Span, as you note. No way to avoid putting yourself in it. I can understand doing slow or other debuffs, but only if you don't have another full caster capable of doing so. A lot of the value of said debuffs is in their reliability, and a melee magus is less reliable here. Don't forget that in addition to the lower DC from lower INT, you lose your spell entirely on crit misses (so the spell only even works 95% of the time baseline as opposed to 100%, and this gets worse the harder the enemies are to hit). This isn't terribly unreasonable for the action compression it gives, but it's a significant downside when you could just be trying to hammer the enemy with a normal spellstrike instead.
Also worth noting that any debuff that needs a sustain (so roaring applause, most notably) is too taxing on Magus action economy to be a consistently useful option.
Using scrolls is pretty taxing on your action economy (and hand economy, very possibly) unless you've paid for the setup in advance with retrieval prisms/belt or you took striker's scroll. Striker's Scroll isn't an awful later pickup, though, and scrolls mostly become good at higher levels anyways.
WRT the spell having to harm: I personally just take this to mean the spell has to have some negative effect or other, not that it must do damage. My guess is this limitation exists because 1) because spellSTRIKING allies with buffs is really unintuitive anyways and 2) being able to get better-than-spellshape range extensions on buff spells with starlit span could be abusable.
It's an ok choice but not a great one. The Magus feats are rather poor so I can understand this selection but it certainly isn't game changing. I prefer to take a dedication which opens up more choices like spells, traditions, focus points, familiars, feat, etc.
Expansive will not get you extra spell slots to use in your spell strikes and, at best, your DC's will be lower than a full caster. You already have good uses for those slots without expansive spell strike.
2 Lightning bolt spellstrikes are tempting at level 5 but, if you are built for it, so are Normal Fireball, haste, heightened fear and so on.
Just my 2 cents
Everyone has their own opinions on this, but mine is that expansive spell strike was a terrible way to pretend to offer the variability of the playtest magus.
The only thing it does is compress a strike action into casting a spell normally. Compressing attack actions into other actions is generally considered a powerful ability, but this one comes with some caveats that are not worth it (IMO).
Without this feat, a magus can attack and cast a spell in the same turn already. Having one more action is only really useful for the magus for movement, recalling knowledge or starting arcane cascade. Magus really struggle to have the CHA for any debuffing actions that dont have the attack trait.
Maybe this is a matter of interpretation, but I don't think you cant use expansive spell strike with spells like fear or slow that debuff but don't cause damage because the feat specifies the spell must cause harm.
There is no benefit to the spell for critical success on the strike. having the spell go off on a miss is just something you dont have to worry about at all just casting your spell regularly, so all you are gaining is the opportunity to not have the spell go off at all if you critically miss.
I know some people like laying down AoE templates in places other casters can't. That is about the extent of what expansive spell strike offers.
I don't interpret harm as damage only. That's a strange interpretation to me. Negative conditions are also harm.
What spells do I use with Expansive Spellstrike?
1. Vampiric Exsanguination with melee. Cones and lines tend to work well in melee.
2. Fireballs, Arrow Salvo, Eclipse Burst with Starlit Span. Burst AoEs are more usable with Starlit Span, though Starlit Span is better with everything.
I like to make scrolls for different lower level spells like slow and use Scroll Striker with Expansive Spellstrike. We do consider harm inflicting a negative condition.
You can also use things like Vision of Death or other save spells with a strike and with scroll striker combined increase your usable options.
It matters what you want to do with Spellstrike.