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The thread title is pretty self-explanatory. I waited for years for summoner to come out and I was very sad to see that it was dropped when Paizo switched to the ORC license. I'd like to see an effort made to bring all previously released classes up to the Remastered standard.
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Yeah. I'd like to see that too with some reworking of mechanics.
Magus to align all the mechanics.
Psychic needs a rework and power up. It has a lot of good conceptual ideas that are mechanically bad making the class weak and not particularly fun in play. Damage is set too low and abilities are too all over the place in quality, usefulness, and damage. It needs a polish and shine up like the witch.
Summoner is overall good, but some of the eidolons need a Remaster polish.
Don't know much about the Thaumaturge. No one touches it. They don't understand how it works and it looks like too much work to make work well. I hear it does great things, but most martial players want a simple action play style. Move, hit enemy, please don't make me think too much about my abilities like some caster and the Thaumaturge seems to make my players that enjoy martials read too much.
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I wouldn't mind the magus getting a feat or upgrade class ability that eliminates AOOs for casting in melee. It really hurts the melee magus. Getting brutally smashed by a boss while using your main combat ability isn't so fun.
Maybe a level 11 upgrade with a flat check to avoid the AOO when casting then a 15 upgrade to DC 6 with a level 19 ability that eliminates them.
The current level 19 ability for the magus I found not so useful. My feeling is level 19 class abilities should tested for a high level of usefulness given how long it takes to get there. This double spell looks nice on paper, but it isn't the majority of the time. Stuff dies too fast and having an ability that let's you use a spell twice over a few rounds is so rarely useful. More useful would be straight up more spell slots usable as needed for a level 19 capstone. If they listed the level 19 magus ability as double your highest level class slots, that would feel more like a level 19 ability and be highly useful as needed.
The one real change I would wish for is for summoner dedication to get a buff (even if it's more feats) to make it hold up better as a combat summon. Other than that, I just want to see everything brought up to the current standard.
I think that everyone wants a full revised remastered version of these classes.
As well pointed by Firelion magus really needs that melee SpellStrike doesn't trigger AoO and not by feat but by chassis like the made with kineticists when removed the manipulate trait from impulses. IMO, we shouldn't have attack and manipulate traits in same actions, specially in melee ones.
Psychic, for me, honestly should get completely remade. I never accept the fact that a psychic class uses magic and call it as psychic power. IMO it should be like kineticist instead. Anyway, I don't expect so aggressive change, but the class requires some improvements. Currently, it's damage focused spellcasting class with only 2 spells per rank that works at rounds 2 and 3 and then becomes disabled. Once that take focus point earlier is no more a thing in currently focus points system and rage (that is the martial similar to unleash) no more have cooldowns, I think that the class requires some boost with an unleash with a large duration or without the stupefied penaly.
Summoner is a class that needs more clarifications than adjustments, I also would like to see its archetype improved with at last making eidolons doesn't being a weaker companion.
Thaumaturge is also a very well-made class. IMO it just needs to have some of its manipulate traits removed, specially from reactions.
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The one real change I would wish for is for summoner dedication to get a buff (even if it's more feats) to make it hold up better as a combat summon. Other than that, I just want to see everything brought up to the current standard.
I'd like to see a real Master Summoner option that was useful. A summon focus point that replaces the eidolon and scales slightly higher than usual summons. Something like the druid has for untamed form, but with summon monster spells.
I don't expect summon a barrage of creatures like PF1/3E, but it sure would be fun to have a useful summon spell against equal to +4 level bosses. The current summon spells are mostly useless against anything but mooks.
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The one real change I would wish for is for summoner dedication to get a buff (even if it's more feats) to make it hold up better as a combat summon. Other than that, I just want to see everything brought up to the current standard.I'd like to see a real Master Summoner option that was useful. A summon focus point that replaces the eidolon and scales slightly higher than usual summons. Something like the druid has for untamed form, but with summon monster spells.
I don't expect summon a barrage of creatures like PF1/3E, but it sure would be fun to have a useful summon spell against equal to +4 level bosses. The current summon spells are mostly useless against anything but mooks.
How would it be different from just using your Eidolon ?
How would it be different from just using your Eidolon ?The one real change I would wish for is for summoner dedication to get a buff (even if it's more feats) to make it hold up better as a combat summon. Other than that, I just want to see everything brought up to the current standard.I'd like to see a real Master Summoner option that was useful. A summon focus point that replaces the eidolon and scales slightly higher than usual summons. Something like the druid has for untamed form, but with summon monster spells.
I don't expect summon a barrage of creatures like PF1/3E, but it sure would be fun to have a useful summon spell against equal to +4 level bosses. The current summon spells are mostly useless against anything but mooks.
More variety to solve different situations. Using summons like the druid uses Untamed Form summoning different creatures rather than being locked in.
No act together. Less efficient and limited action economy for greater variation.
Shorter duration summons that last for a battle or two.
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Dark Archives might be able to get a G&G style remaster, I think that'd be a very tough job for Secrets of Magic. Way to much has changed in the remaster getting away from the OGL.I believe paizo did state that they had plans for Secrets of Magic and Dark Archive remasters. Similar to how Guns and Gears were remastered.
It's also notable that we've seen stuff taken from SoM and put into other remaster books. Elementalist showed up in Rage of Elements. Runelord in Rival Academies.
Hard to imagine they're planning to reprint the book normally after stripping away some of its features.
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Dark Archives might be able to get a G&G style remaster, I think that'd be a very tough job for Secrets of Magic. Way to much has changed in the remaster getting away from the OGL.I believe paizo did state that they had plans for Secrets of Magic and Dark Archive remasters. Similar to how Guns and Gears were remastered.
It's also notable that we've seen stuff taken from SoM and put into other remaster books. Elementalist showed up in Rage of Elements. Runelord in Rival Academies.
Hard to imagine they're planning to reprint the book normally after stripping away some of its features.
I could see Magus and Summoner reprinted in the book the Rune Smith and Necromancer are in, but I don't remember why I thought this originally
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The thaumaturge could be left as is and I certainly wouldn't have a problem. The class is in a perfect spot already and it doesn't need changes whatsoever. It would be really funy if, like the barbarian or rogue in the Player Core books, the thaumaturge ended up getting buffed without needing it.
Magus doesn't need anything big but rather some tweaks to make the feeling of the class a bit better. I would certainly love for each subclass to have bespoke reload actions for spellstrike kinda like gunslingers but I don't see that happening since the class is popular and Paizo doesn't like to modify popular classes that much.
Summoners only need to update some text to Remaster language and that's it. Probably some new feats too since I think the class is a little lacking on those.
I agree with Deriven that the psychic needs a glow up like the witch had. The concept of the class is fine but its execution is really bad. You are supposed to be the "cantrip caster" but your cantrips are marginally better than normal cantrips (with really few exceptions) and the class feat list is also really bad (though this arguably happens to most casters too). I also feel Unleash Psyche having a timer is really weird and I hope that was more like rage or other similar features.
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If the Summoner revision finally gets us the Synthesist Class Archetype, I'd be quite happy to see that.
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A Dark Archive remaster wouldn't surprise me. I have my doubts about SoM. My gut tells me that the Impossible book will fill that void, complete with remastered Magus and Summoner.
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For Thaumaturge i would like an option to remove manipulate from Exploit Vulnerability, and a way to actually use a passive implement with another.
Magus would need an option to avoid reactive strike as well.
Currently playing a Starlit Span, and while it is quite powerful, it is also not a very engaging build - most class features and class feats are useless as all power seems to be in the ranged spellstrike feature - and the rotation is really boring.
Without being able to spellstrike it is a really weak martial, giving more incentives to do other things then just spellstrike+recharge would be nice.
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Magus:
The fixes the class needs aren't really achievable in a remaster because it is too action constrained/really static game-play. However some ideas could be:
- Arcane Cascade should be made to be a free action like rage at start of combat or after casting the spell or otherwise improved as it is rarely ever worth the action tax.
- More incentives should be given on non spell strike turns to push people away from static gameplay loops. It could be as simple as using a similar feat design as the runesmith tracing trance (build it into arcane cascade that they can be quickened and get a free stride on turns they don't spell strike).
- Just give expansive spell strike as a class feature. Its not worth a feat.
- To incentivize diversity of builds, a focus spell that is similair in damage to a cleric's fire ray should be provided as a low level feat in the class. This is good enough to mitigate the need to MC into psychic for imaginary weapon (since damage adder is good enough) and hopefully push people to making more unique builds/archetype selections.
Summoner:
- A good faith attempt at a Synthesist feat chain or class archetype.
Psychic:
- The 2 rounds of unleash needs to be boosted to 4 rounds
- The stupefied condition post unleash is needlessly punitive and should be removed.
- This is 'the focus spell class'. It needs a second pool of focus points, just like the oracle, so it really can go without casting spells.
Thaumaturge:
- Just let 1H+ weapons work. Its so dumb because boomerangs exist (which are just better than comp shortbows).
- Remove the L1 ammunition feat tax
- The wand implement should interact with exploit weakness and/or implement empowerment to add damage.
- Modify the wording to allow more free exchange/swaping of passive implements.
- Add a class feat to exploit weakness as a reaction to improve action economy of the class to support using the intensify vulnerability at L9+/
- Remove a good...
After reading your post, I agree and think Paizo has a model to build a good psychic using the Oracle class as the model. The oracle has massive casting power due to having three resource pools to draw from. The psychic could use this type of build with an additional psychic pool that works like cursebound.
I also agree Arcane Cascade needs a rework. I have noticed running multiple magus that no one bothers with Arcane Cascade. My players tried it initially and quickly determined it was a wasted action for minimal benefit on a class that has such a rigid, but effective playstyle.
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I can agree with pretty much all of these, save the 1+ weapons thing on thaumaturge. I think having a martial repeating 1-hander would be a way better answer-though I have made multiple posts recently saying the repeating crossbows should all be martial, so perhaps I just have a bias.
WRT Magus's arcane cascade, occasionally I wonder if Kineticist's channel elements isn't the place to look to for ideas. Just ditch the stance rigamarole entirely, since it already requires casting a spell, and give some kind of very basic action ribbon (vanilla strike or stride?) for entering it. Could maybe mean having the design space to include "spending" your cascade on something to avoid it being a fire/forget outside of combat, though that would mean an additional on/off resource to track on top of spellstrike.
The only real other addition I can add overall is mainly just removing manipulate on thaum and magus for actions intended to be taken in melee. Being in melee and risking reactions from movement and other normal actions should be enough danger, and both already benefit massively from going the ranged weapon route due to each adding lots of bonus damage..
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Magus:
The fixes the class needs aren't really achievable in a remaster
This one surprises me a bit because of the classes in this thread it feels obviously the most complete and functional of the classes mentioned, excepting for the weird issue of some people banning old spell attacks. Thaum probably a close second.
In terms of like, major remaster changes... removing manipulate on Spellstrike would be nice... and it'd be cool if arcane cascade was stronger/felt better to use, but for the most part it's in a pretty good place.
tbh the thing I think needs the biggest rework out of the Magus is the ironically already remaster content Hybrid Study from Rival Academies (Resurgent Maelstrom), mostly because it's so wildly terrible.
Admittedly Thaum's issues are mostly individualistic (i.e. wand implement, passive implement swapping, mirror adept, a handful of odd hand economy interactions) rather than systemic.
Summoner mostly I'd like to see fixes too and some mild improvements to their weak points. Synthesist would be great but I have trouble picturing Paizo doing it well at this point. (my pet ask for the Summoner is martial accuracy on the summoner half to make some of the build paths more competitive, it feels almost like a mistake they don't since they already get that on their other half).
Psychic is the most problematic. Unleash fundamentally just does not work well and the remaster swallowed up their unique niche of regenerating more focus points at low levels. I like the ideas but the cantrips/focus options need to be better and Unleash either needs to be more functional or much higher impact. Not being able to alpha strike with it and having it fall off in longer combats (and incur a penalty on top of that) is just a lot of downsides for a modest damage boost on a caster already starting behind the curve.
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I think Psychic needs a really big rethink. "The cantrip class" and "the focus class" both had the rug pulled out from under them.
The remaster mostly widens the gap between cantrips and spells from proper slot, just look at the scaling. A real spell will heighten by 2d6 per rank, a cantrip by 1d4. That gap is just so big.
As for focus points, the remaster resolved a lot of doubt about how gaining focus points from multiple sources worked (it all just works now) and refocusing multiple points works fine now as well. So the psychic's focus gameplay lost some steam there. Arguably, remaster sorcerer feels a lot more like the focus master, because they have really good focus spells and recharge focus easily.
I feel like the Stupefied after unleashing probably could be toned down as well. Compared to a sorcerer you're really wondering why the psychic has to struggle so much.
There's also a lot of feats that cause bad emanations that also hurt your own party, but you don't really have the HP or AC to want to be surrounded by enemies.
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Magus: I don't know if they need to be completely unafraid of reactive strike, but they definitely need something. No other melee martial is this hampered by it. Reactions are particularly common on bosses, and you don't want boss fights to be your least favorite fights because you're not allowed to play your full class in them.
Also, arcane cascade needs something. I think it could be pretty easily done by just letting it activate as a free action (when you meet the conditions) instead of single normal action.
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Thaumaturge needs polishing on Implement's Empowerment. The way it's currently phrased just causes people to try to jump through hoops to make it work with things it doesn't work with. I get that it's a balancing number to offset that one of your hands is gonna be full of antique junk, so you're doing 1H weapon damage. But the rather obscure way it's phrased just pushes people to try to get around the restrictions using edge case, such as shields that also happen to be weapons so they match the requirement to be holding nothing that isn't an implement or 1H weapon.
Bows... well, if you got to apply IE on bows that'd be one of the biggest damage bonuses anyone can get on bows. But having to explain to people that 1H and 1+H are totally different things feels too rules lawyer-y.
I'd say the niche of being the best focus caster in the game is always going to be threatened so long as other classes can poach your focus spells through archetyping. Not only could the Psychic afford to lose their current restrictions to their Focus Point recharge (you could probably even give them 3 FP and a full refill on a single Refocus from level 1), the Psychic archetype should probably never give out amps, just the improved cantrips. This would incidentally also curtail the Magus's overuse of the Psychic dedication for maximum Starlit Span burst damage.
The Magus I think could use a few more pushes towards being able to use more than just attack spells in a game that's more or less deprecated spell attacks over time. Despite taking issue with the class's clunky action economy and wanting to see improvements to Arcane Cascade in particular, I'm not holding my breath for a large-scale rework that would solve all that, as I think the class is unlikely to lose their clunky turns without also losing their ability to output massive burst damage via Spellstrike.
The Summoner and Thaumaturge I think are both in much better spots, and I think could just use a bit more content and a few updates to their wording in some instances (such as Implement's Empowerment, as Ascalaphus mentions). Both could benefit from more subclasses, in my opinion, and I'd like to see several more eidolons and implements, including more than just one type of celestial eidolon.
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Aside from the reactive strike problem and making arcane cascade a free action to use (or letting you do something as you enter the stance, I think the two biggest things I'd change on Magus are
1) You can't spellstrike with focus spells. This removes the pressure to multiclass out for a spell attack focus spell, and directly ties into point 2,
2) Your initial Conflux spells are changed to be 2 actions and have significantly more power. This means you still have fun, high impact things to do on non spellstrike turns. Leave Force Fang as is to let people who want to spam Spellstrike (maybe give it a range and allow for sword beams) continue to do so, though. A movement tech conflux spell would also help.
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Ok maybe I'm a little biased because the Magus is my favorite class in 2E. I wouldn't mind at all if AC became a free action, but why do people insist you have to spellstrike every turn? Yes that's their main ability so you want to often there are other things to do. No class has the ability to trigger almost every weakness in the game especially with the changes to spellstrike. RS is real campaign and GM dependant, I've played a Magus in 4 different campaigns to various levels all at least level 10 and I've eaten exactly 2 RS and it happened in the same campaign. Not saying it can't or doesn't happen but it seems to talked about more than it happens
Because spellstrike is the main gimmick of the class and people that want to play a class usually want to use their gimmick. Its like saying why people want to exploit weakness with the thaumaturge or use act together with the summoner. Its the thing you want to do while playing that class.
It also doesn't help that for a class that has one of the most troublesome gimmicks in terms of action economy (2 actions + reload) it forces more action taxes (AC) to have access to your subclass. Plus, everything on the class exists to allow you to spellstrike as fast as possible, with pretty much no options outside of spellstriking.
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Not to bring back the full Magus discussion again, but as someone who would like less clunkiness on the Magus, my personal expectation isn't actually for the class to Spellstrike every turn, because I just don't think that is something that will happen consistently on a melee class with a two-action activity. Sometimes, your best-laid plans will go awry, and so you might need to spend actions standing back up, moving into position, or doing something else that's particularly urgent before thinking about Spellstriking, and at that point you'll likely have to wait another turn, which is fine. Less fine I think is when this gap is imposed via intentional clunkiness, only for more natural limitations to kick in on the turn where you're "expected" to Spellstrike and you find yourself not really doing the thing your class is entirely built around doing.
Starlit Span doesn't have this same issue, because ranged characters don't have as much incentive to move and aren't threatened as much, but that I think is a problem with ranged martials in general. If I had to hazard a suggestion, though, it would be for the subclass to respect range limitations on spells instead of bypassing them: a ranged class sniping from a large distance should probably not be dealing melee-level damage, not even from cantrips or spells, and the fact that they can also consistently Spellstrike every turn is a big reason why they grossly overperform on damage, and why they're so repetitive as well. If they were limited to ranged spells, they'd still have good options, but wouldn't be able to inflict gouging claw from 60 feet away before switching over to imaginary weapon.
I also think Squark suggests a really good alternative where we instead fully embrace the on-and-off-turns of the Magus, but then lean even more into that by making conflux spells take up most of your turn and do something much more impressive as a result. I'd personally quite like to see that as well, especially if it meant the Magus had more things to look forward to doing besides just Spellstriking.
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So about Arcane Cascade, my main gripe is that it's just yucky first turn experience. Combat starts, let's say you already have your weapon out. You move up to an enemy, spellstrike... and are out of actions to use arcane cascade.
I really like the idea of using arcane cascade to sticky a damage type that suits the current enemy to your weapon, based on spells you used. But you pretty much need to use attack spells to do that. And nearly all the spells with interesting damage types you can afford to prepare take two actions. So it's a really really rigid action economy. By making it a free action, this problem goes away. Compare to how barbarians can enter rage for free at the start of combat now.
I like Squark's idea of (1) not allowing focus spells on spellstrike, (2) beefing up the magus focus spells and really taking great care that they make a lot of sense to use on off-turns.
That would ensure every magus starts level 1 with at least one off-turn plan, but there should be more of them that you can choose from.
Take a feat like Magus' Analysis. You recall knowledge and IF you succeed you recharge spellstrike. If we take out that "if", it becomes a clean action compression. On turn two you recall knowledge and recharge spellstrike. Great for the magus that did prioritize Int.
Then, let's add a couple more different class feats that also do "X + recharge spellstrike". For example, Reload & Recharge, to lean into the desire for gun-magi (which has ghastly action economy).
Another one could be a two-action Recharge + Repair Shield (that deals with free hand issues). It's okay for recharge abilities to take two actions if they're pretty powerful; we want to make off-turns feel like you're getting real work done. But keep it at most two actions, so you can move or strike with the third.
I could see Magus and Summoner reprinted in the book the Rune Smith and Necromancer are in, but I don't remember why I thought this originallyDark Archives might be able to get a G&G style remaster, I think that'd be a very tough job for Secrets of Magic. Way to much has changed in the remaster getting away from the OGL.I believe paizo did state that they had plans for Secrets of Magic and Dark Archive remasters. Similar to how Guns and Gears were remastered.
It's also notable that we've seen stuff taken from SoM and put into other remaster books. Elementalist showed up in Rage of Elements. Runelord in Rival Academies.
Hard to imagine they're planning to reprint the book normally after stripping away some of its features.
It could make sense. It seems like the Impossible book is very magic related so if they wanted to add in a remastered Magus or summoner. The secrets of magic book is going to be a problem just due to how much stuff there got touched hard by the OGL nonsense.
The people cry out for a less janky Bell and less laughable Chalice.
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I actually would love if Paizo commited to develop the spellstrike-less combat side of the magus so people wouldn't speed their way to recharge spellstrike as fast as possible. Like arcane cascade becoming a free action with a "use spellstrike" trigger that gives a bonus to damage equal to double the spell's rank for 1 round or something like that and, if you didn't recharge spellstrike, by the end of the effect it recharges automatically would be nice I think.
The class would still have conflux spells and (I hope) more reload compression feats like Magus' Analysis if you want to spellstrike faster, but this new variant would allow those that want to play a bit slower to keep their damage relevant and not go from 100% to 25% between rounds.
The people cry out for a less janky Bell and less laughable Chalice.
Hey my skeleton pirate loved his chalice of grog. Reasonable amounts of healing without the bursting into holy flame problems haha. That and the visual of a skeleton drinking and stuff just spilling all over amused my table.
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Aside from the reactive strike problem and making arcane cascade a free action to use (or letting you do something as you enter the stance, I think the two biggest things I'd change on Magus are
1) You can't spellstrike with focus spells. This removes the pressure to multiclass out for a spell attack focus spell, and directly ties into point 2,
2) Your initial Conflux spells are changed to be 2 actions and have significantly more power. This means you still have fun, high impact things to do on non spellstrike turns. Leave Force Fang as is to let people who want to spam Spellstrike (maybe give it a range and allow for sword beams) continue to do so, though. A movement tech conflux spell would also help.
I think "no spellstriking with focus spells" would make magus build diversity worse, not better, since you'd still have psychic (already the most overdone archetype on magi) on the table, but without competition.
I think "no spellstriking with focus spells" would make magus build diversity worse, not better, since you'd still have psychic (already the most overdone archetype on magi) on the table, but without competition.Aside from the reactive strike problem and making arcane cascade a free action to use (or letting you do something as you enter the stance, I think the two biggest things I'd change on Magus are
1) You can't spellstrike with focus spells. This removes the pressure to multiclass out for a spell attack focus spell, and directly ties into point 2,
2) Your initial Conflux spells are changed to be 2 actions and have significantly more power. This means you still have fun, high impact things to do on non spellstrike turns. Leave Force Fang as is to let people who want to spam Spellstrike (maybe give it a range and allow for sword beams) continue to do so, though. A movement tech conflux spell would also help.
I don't see it. Most of the non-attack spells aren't terribly desirable as a Magus since your action economy is so tight. I guess it's a way to get an additional focus point, but there are a decent number of archetypes that give a focus point in the dedication by now.
Ok maybe I'm a little biased because the Magus is my favorite class in 2E. I wouldn't mind at all if AC became a free action, but why do people insist you have to spellstrike every turn? Yes that's their main ability so you want to often there are other things to do. No class has the ability to trigger almost every weakness in the game especially with the changes to spellstrike. RS is real campaign and GM dependant, I've played a Magus in 4 different campaigns to various levels all at least level 10 and I've eaten exactly 2 RS and it happened in the same campaign. Not saying it can't or doesn't happen but it seems to talked about more than it happens
Spellstrike is what separates you from every other melee. And the more you spellstrike, the more chance of getting spellstrike crit which feels great. Some of my players track their spellstrike crits to see how high they can get it.
I'm surprised you've only eaten 2 past level 10. I've seen RS wreck spellstrike melee magus against bosses unless someone else does something to eat the RS before the magus spellstrikes. You don't want Spellstrike disrupted.
Settling what items Eidolons can use would be a great start. Straightening out all the dragon Eidolons.
Changing the Eidolons monster abilities to be grouped like Monk and Ranger spells would be amazing, then they could just add new abilities by saying what tier a summoner can get them.
More Eidolon type specific feats would be great.
Changing blood frenzy to be more in line with remaster rage would be great.
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I don't see it. Most of the non-attack spells aren't terribly desirable as a Magus since your action economy is so tight. I guess it's a way to get an additional focus point, but there are a decent number of archetypes that give a focus point in the dedication by now.I think "no spellstriking with focus spells" would make magus build diversity worse, not better, since you'd still have psychic (already the most overdone archetype on magi) on the table, but without competition.Aside from the reactive strike problem and making arcane cascade a free action to use (or letting you do something as you enter the stance, I think the two biggest things I'd change on Magus are
1) You can't spellstrike with focus spells. This removes the pressure to multiclass out for a spell attack focus spell, and directly ties into point 2,
2) Your initial Conflux spells are changed to be 2 actions and have significantly more power. This means you still have fun, high impact things to do on non spellstrike turns. Leave Force Fang as is to let people who want to spam Spellstrike (maybe give it a range and allow for sword beams) continue to do so, though. A movement tech conflux spell would also help.
Non-attack spells? It's because the attack spells would still be there. Amped Cantrips (and non-amped psi cantrips for that matter) are not Focus Spells. And if Focus Spells weren't an option for spellstriking, then Psi Cantrip spellstriking would be even more appealing.
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Non-attack spells? It's because the attack spells would still be there. Amped Cantrips (and non-amped psi cantrips for that matter) are not Focus Spells. And if Focus Spells weren't an option for spellstriking, then Psi Cantrip spellstriking would be even more appealing.
Ah. You are making a distinction based on a technicality.
Squark, I, and probably a lot of other people looking at this idea are considering a Psychic's Amp modifications to a standard Cantrip and all of the unique Psi Cantrips to be equivalent to a focus spell and therefore still off-limits to Spellstrike under this idea.
The wording would need to be changed to close that loophole, though.
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While an amped imaginary weapon obviously makes for meaty Spellstriking, I'm struggling to think of an unamped cantrip that would rival, say, gouging claw. Imaginary weapon is probably the one that comes the closest, and persistent bleed damage I'd argue is more advantageous overall than the extra die size step. A Magus who couldn't Spellstrike with FP spells would probably still have reason to archetype into a Psychic, but more for stuff like the Infinite Eye's amped guidance than more damage, so unless there's something I'm missing, I'd say that the proposal by itself could introduce more diversity to the Magus's build choices overall.
... but also, and going back to the Psychic for a moment, I also think this shows that the Psychic isn't really "the cantrip class". They're perhaps angling for the best focus spell class, a niche undermined by their archetype giving out their amps, but their augmented cantrips by themselves are often not a huge power boost, especially as so many of them just have increased range as their base improvement. The Psychic IMO needs to use their Focus Points to truly shine, and while that in itself is fine, that also means that their amps probably shouldn't be made accessible to other classes, even if their augmented cantrips are okay to hand out. Ideally, if they're going to be the best users of Focus Points out there, they could probably stand to have a full set of them and even better Refocusing from the start.
Also also, on the subject of improving the writing of older mechanics, I do think that instead of amps, we should just have amp, an actual spellshape focus spell. Right now, amps are spell modifiers that require you to spend a Focus Point to improve a cantrip, but don't have that usage codified at all: you can't amp a cantrip and also use a spellshape on it (and I've seen this trip a lot of people up, including experienced players), but amping isn't itself a spellshape. Although amping is basically a pseudo-free action, it's not codified as any kind of action, which is why the Magus can maximize their burst damage with a Psychic archetype even though they can't normally apply spellshapes to their Spellstrike's spell. Making amps a singular spellshape focus spell that modifies different cantrips differently, and isn't accessible via archetyping, would close those loopholes and in my opinion introduce much more clarity. Even if we introduce a different amp focus spell for every cantrip, that would still make things clearer than they are now, and perhaps give more room for variance where certain amps may have greater action costs for stronger effects.
Non-attack spells? It's because the attack spells would still be there. Amped Cantrips (and non-amped psi cantrips for that matter) are not Focus Spells. And if Focus Spells weren't an option for spellstriking, then Psi Cantrip spellstriking would be even more appealing.I don't see it. Most of the non-attack spells aren't terribly desirable as a Magus since your action economy is so tight. I guess it's a way to get an additional focus point, but there are a decent number of archetypes that give a focus point in the dedication by now.I think "no spellstriking with focus spells" would make magus build diversity worse, not better, since you'd still have psychic (already the most overdone archetype on magi) on the table, but without competition.Aside from the reactive strike problem and making arcane cascade a free action to use (or letting you do something as you enter the stance, I think the two biggest things I'd change on Magus are
1) You can't spellstrike with focus spells. This removes the pressure to multiclass out for a spell attack focus spell, and directly ties into point 2,
2) Your initial Conflux spells are changed to be 2 actions and have significantly more power. This means you still have fun, high impact things to do on non spellstrike turns. Leave Force Fang as is to let people who want to spam Spellstrike (maybe give it a range and allow for sword beams) continue to do so, though. A movement tech conflux spell would also help.
The intent was not to leave a loophole for amped cantrips. As for basic psi cantrips, the cantrips available from the dedication would be nice to have, but they wouldn't feel build defining, especially if conflux spells were reworked to be 2 action spells you used on turns you didn't spellstrike, which was a key part of my idea.
I would have no focus spellstrikes, it makes the class so much more fun to play.
More non-spellstrike options are something the class needs regardless, and should get those without some weird string attached.
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I think Teridax has a good point on amping. If "Amp" was a free action spellshape, that would remove the need to say that you can't combine amps and spellshapes, since you can't do two spellshapes. And it would also prevent amping spellstrikes. So it prevents an out-of-class spell being better for the magus than an in-class one, by simplifying a rule.
That still leaves Fire Ray though, which is still a great spell for spellstriking. At some point I think the solution has to come from the in-class stuff being attractive enough that people's first thought shouldn't be to go shopping outside.
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This may not make everyone happy, but I think it might be worth considering what would happen if the suggestion of banning focus spells on the Magus were taken one step further, and Spellstriking were to only work with cantrips. Although archetyping into the Psychic every time for their amped imaginary weapon isn't good for the Magus's build diversity, it has the advantage of shifting the Magus's burst to a renewable resource within the day, putting less pressure on the class to burst with spell slots and instead letting them use their extremely limited slots for other kinds of spells. That in itself I think is more desirable than a state of affairs where the Magus doesn't necessarily need to burst with spell slots, but will still incentivize the player to put all their eggs in one basket and fill their four slots with attack spells.
And yes, that would be a nerf... which is great! It would add to the budget of good things that could be given back to the Magus in different ways, which could perhaps mean less clunkiness and fewer action taxes, but could also mean a better Arcane Cascade (because you're already not breaking the ceiling of acceptable damage in a single hit, at least not by quite as much), perhaps a Spellstrike that's even stronger and more versatile in other ways, more impactful conflux spells, and so on and so forth. Done right, it has the potential to be one of those win-win scenarios where the Magus gets much more diverse gameplay and feels better to play from moment to moment as well.
On the topic of simplifying things, I'm also starting to wonder if the Psychic really needs the base augmentations to their cantrips: for the most part, they're small fry changes like increased range or 1 Bulk added to what you can carry with telekinetic hand, which isn't super exciting, and the real improvement comes from the amps, which often turn the cantrip into a different spell entirely. Although the idea of amping your magic is good, I don't think the execution on the Psychic has necessarily panned out in the best way, and a simpler way to do their amps could be to just give them uber-powerful focus spells separate from their cantrips, without the base augmentations. Again, these shouldn't be accessible via archetyping, and what power is lost from those augmentations could be fed back into the class through, say, improvements to Unleash Psyche, or access to actual spellshapes that'd only work on cantrips and make them much more effective.
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Setting aside the psychic and their undue impact on the magus for the moment, just focusing on the magus.
I don't think I want to go so far as to say that magi should only use cantrips for spellstrike. It sure does feel good to occasionally throw a tantrum and just go for a true strike/disintegrate.
But painting cantrips a bit more as the happy path could be interesting. Spitballing some ideas:
- Make going into arcane cascade after a cantrip a free action.
- Increase the number of cantrip slots magi get a bit, so that you can access a lot of different damage types through arcane cascade + the right cantrip.
- A once per 10m ability to recover spellstrike for free if your spellstrike used a cantrip from a magus spell slot
And more indirectly, here's a feat idea:
Cascade Strike (2 actions)
Requirement: you are in arcane cascade
Make a Strike. For this attack, treat your weapon or unarmed strike as having the versatile trait with the damage type of your arcane cascade. Recharge your spellstrike.