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Inspired largely by this other thread, the Magus tends to opt for the Psychic archetype and imaginary weapon in large part because having a powerful, resourceless attack spell is very desirable to the class, yet such a spell doesn't really exist in the Magus's own kit. Additionally, the class is known for its rigid action economy, especially when it comes to activating Arcane Cascade. The following proposes two different conflux spells to help with this:
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Traits: uncommon, focus, magus
Drawing on your study of material essence, you generate energy that you immediately cycle into your stance. You enter Arcane Cascade stance if you weren't already in the stance. Choose acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic when you use cascading energy; you can change Arcane Cascade's damage to the chosen damage type.
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Traits: attack, concentrate, focus, force, magus
Range 30 feet; Targets 1 creature; Defense AC
You release a bolt of force that can resonate with your weapon. Make a spell attack against the target's AC, dealing 1d6 force damage on a hit. If you use resonant bolt as part of a melee Spellstrike, increase the spell's damage dice to d12s; if you're also in Arcane Cascade stance, you can change resonant bolt's damage to the same type as Arcane Cascade's.
Critical Success The target takes double damage.
Success The target takes full damage.
Failure The target takes half damage.
Heightened (+1) Increase the damage by 1d6.
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The basic idea with these two is to provide a degree of convenience for the Magus: cascading energy would let you recharge your Spellstrike and enter Arcane Cascade in one action, while also letting you control the stance's bonus damage if you want to trigger a specific weakness or avoid a resistance or immunity. Meanwhile, resonant bolt would act as reliable damage option that would pair well with Spellstrike, and also let you apply various damage types based on Arcane Cascade. You wouldn't necessarily be reaching the same peaks of damage as with imaginary weapon, but you'd still deal damage on a miss, making for an especially reliable damage option on a class that can end up doing nothing with one bad roll.
Beyond this, I still have a few unknowns that I'm keen to hear more people's thoughts on: should these conflux spells be 1st- or 2nd-level Magus feats, or would resonant bolt be okay as a baseline option on the core class, even with it raising their focus pool to 2 Focus Points? Does resonant bolt's limitation to melee Spellstrike synergy make sense given the dominance of Starlit Span, or should it just work with all Spellstrikes?
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I know the idea is to avoid the ubiquity of taking psychic (or cleric/champion if you're feeling fancy) for infinite high damage spellstrikes, but it feels like it's just moving the problem elswhere without really fixing it. Instead of psychic being the must have level 2 feat on magus (and then level 6) it's one specific magus feat that is just way too good not to be taken.
Using it also makes a bunch of other feats and features irrelevant (all the feats requiring to use a spell slot on spellstrike, the Double Spellstrike class feature...) and this feels like putting two designs at odds of each other.
Is the Magus:
1) A fighter using spellstrike with cantrips and their biggest burst being a renewable focus spell. Their limited slots being meant for support and utility, and occasionally being spellstriked with to manipulate their range or fit into a turn ?
2) A combattant using its focus spells to enhance its action economy and fighting prowess with situational buffs (outside of Force Fang ALL the conflux spells from feats are buffs), spellstriking with cantrips and deriving additional value out of spending spell slots on spellstrikes through its feats. (most feats needing to spend a spell slot are about squeezing more value out of them. See Sustaining Steel etc)
It can't really be both. 'cause in the 2nd case (which, as written, is the intended design) you end up entirely ignoring its limitations and several mechanics the moment you mainly rely on focus spells for spellstrikes. It WORKS of course, and it's powerful. But it makes a lot of its feats even less valuable because they don't work with the two main ways you'll spellstrike (cantrip and focus spells)
Turning it into 1) would require reworking the whole class around that premise, which kind of feels like Spellstrike is just a focus spell in itself rather than a technique of merging martial weaponry and magic spells.
I believe it'd be designing the class into a pigeonhole, and might be the reason the class never got an Attack focus spell so far. I think it *could* get one, serving as a filler ranged attack when you need one, but not one as good as spending a spell slot. Probably would be easier to implement without the risk of the trappings of spellstriking every focus spell.
Though one of the big reasons why focus spells are so attractive for that is simply the lack of Attack spells, which you underlined very clearly. Though we got a few back in Battlecry! quite a few are still in the focus spell category and it'd be a huge benefit to have more of them as proper spells. But since attack spells are unattractive to most caster players (despite them being actually good when you know how to use them) it might feel like designing them for Magus only. maybe if there was something added for normal casters to more easily make use of Attack spells it'd feel less like an issue to add more of them. (Potency runes on staves applying to attack spells, or other unique magic items that give you an item bonus to spell attack in certain circumstances...or just people remembering Shadow Signet exists)
I do quite like the "enter cascade for a focus point that also recharge spellstrike" idea. Could be a base focus spell that all Magi start with even with 2 focus points honestly wouldn't be too bad.
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I know the idea is to avoid the ubiquity of taking psychic (or cleric/champion if you're feeling fancy) for infinite high damage spellstrikes, but it feels like it's just moving the problem elswhere without really fixing it.
You're right, this would not fix the Magus's deeper problems. If this were a feat, it would also be a must-pick, which is why I'd be inclined to just give it to the class for free. With that said, the objective here isn't to fix the Magus down to the deepest, most fundamental level, so much as just address a more superficial problem that is nonetheless extremely impactful: for sure, the Magus has feats meant to synergize with spell slot Spellstrikes, and the above attack focus spell would devalue those, but that's already happening in a game where the Magus can and frequently does opt into a multiclass archetype just to pick an attack focus spell. Although this wouldn't solve all of the Magus's deep, dark issues, it would at least change the class from one that routinely puts three feats into the Psychic multiclass archetype, to one that could choose three of their feats much more freely.
To be honest, I don't think there really is a solution to all of the Magus's issues that wouldn't result in an upheaval to the class's core mechanics: at the center of the Magus's gameplay is their ability to combine spell and weapon attacks with Spellstrike, and that in my opinion is not a sustainable mechanic when Paizo has largely abandoned attack spells. The fact that the accuracy compression on Spellstrike is both what forces the Magus to have its infamous action economy issues, yet also what leads to the amazing and unique high moments with the class when they crit, complicates the matter even further. As you know, the class is also horrendously MAD across most of its subclasses, seriously repetitive and overpowered when played as a Starlit Span, and saddled with a lot of feats that push them to use their limited spell slots for Spellstriking. All of this in my opinion makes for a class that could in theory shine through a mix of both Strike damage and arcane utility, yet all too often gets reduced to just smashing enemies for massive overkill damage. When I tried my hand at developing a class that captured some of the Magus's flavor while sanitizing its gameplay, I ended up with an entirely different beast altogether, so while there are likely other and better ways to go about it, I can't say for sure what a fully healthy Magus would look like in PF2e. If nothing else, though, giving them that attack focus spell by default would make it much easier to prepare utility spells into spell slots.
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Yes it's not an easy fix by any stretch of the imagination. Through our talks on those forums and in the community i've built up my own idea of what a rework would be, without compromising the core identity I think.
But it DOES rely on Paizo printing more spell attack spells. Or having a DM who accept homebrew ones that are balanced (like turning certain focus spells into ranked ones).
But it all hinges on cutting that synergy that is so good that it starves the class. Giving it it's own focus spell for spellstriking alleviates it a bit until a deeper fix though, that much is very fair.
I really should put together that document shouldn't I
I really should put together that document shouldn't I
Yes, you should! I'm very keen to see what you have in mind, especially as I think you're just about the best person to ask about the Magus. The more perspectives people share, the richer we all become, and homebrew is one of several ways for players to communicate game design perspectives to one another. I personally find that putting any ideas to paper, or the digital equivalent, is really helpful for fleshing them out and refining them into a proof of concept, so I definitely recommend it.
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The hardest part really is formatting everything on scribepf2 ahah. But I want to do it soon. Once it's done I'll post it here as well.
But that'll include nixing the focus spell spellstrike, sadly. But I've got compensations in mind for that
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I’m fine with nixing focus spells on spellstrikes as long as magus gets some sort of bank of spellstrike spells, like cleric gets heals. Pair that with some way to effectively use saving throw spells with spellstrike (i.e. malus to save if you hit them) and that’s both fair compensation for the lost power (to keep magus on equal ground with other martial classes) and a much more interesting to build and play magus that doesn’t have to poach focus spells off dedications.
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I would compare the Cascading Energy to Monk’s Inner upheaval to assess if its giving enough in terms of power for a level 1 focus spell
In that respect maybe Cascading Energy has more room in its power budget.
Not too much room but some.
They both interact with a class feature.
The monk ability only affects the next action or activity.
The magus ability has more element options to choose from.
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I’m fine with nixing focus spells on spellstrikes as long as magus gets some sort of bank of spellstrike spells, like cleric gets heals. Pair that with some way to effectively use saving throw spells with spellstrike (i.e. malus to save if you hit them) and that’s both fair compensation for the lost power (to keep magus on equal ground with other martial classes) and a much more interesting to build and play magus that doesn’t have to poach focus spells off dedications.
That's actually my plan. So far i'm thinking of 2 slots of your highest rank
In that respect maybe Cascading Energy has more room in its power budget.
Not too much room but some.
Maybe it could add xd4 of damage for the round it's cast on ? Like 1 extra dice per point of damage arcane cascade normaly grant. That'd be +1d4 from level 1 to 7. 2d4 from 7 to 13 and then 3d4 from 13 to 20.
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A suggestion for a boost to Cascading Energy.
If you currently have a MAP penalty, you can make a simple melee strike as a subordinate action if you choose to after you enter your Arcane Cascade (so bonus damage from cascade will apply).
This encourages this to be used towards the end of the round, giving it a free strike, but only when you have a penalty, when people are probably hesitant to make a spellstrike.
As to feedback on the Resonant Bolt, I like the general idea but worry that d12 might be too big a push. (at higher levels unless mistaken it will handily outperform IW) I note the normal spell is only one action, and with a spellstrike you have to spend two actions (could be up to a two action spell) so I'm imagining that is part of why you doubled the die size, but it still feels too big.
What if you make spellstrikes boost the damage to d10 for melee spellstrikes, or d8 for a ranged spellstrike.
I think that would make it competitive at higher levels with the non-amped Imaginary Weapon, but likely much easier to get. It acknowledges and rewards the Magus using melee for the extra danger they put themselves in, but also gives a Starlit Span a bit of reason to potentially choose to get the spell for spellstrikes.
I do like the idea of potentially allowing an extra Strike at a MAP for cascading energy. I think the conflux spell might be okay for the things it does, i.e. recharging your Spellstrike, entering Arcane Cascade, and letting you choose the exact energy damage type you want to deal in one action, but if it feels weak I’d be happy to compress something more in.
As for resonant bolt, 1d12 per rank by itself is less than the 2d8 per rank on imaginary weapon, a difference of 6.5 average damage versus 9. There is the significant benefit of still dealing damage on a failure, so perhaps 1d10 may be more reasonable, but I do think in either case the Magus would be getting lower numbers overall on their Spellstrikes.
I wasn’t just comparing the spells at rank 1 but also comparing their heightened damage.
As you had it in spell strikes yours was surpassing Imaginary Weapon damage by rank 3 with 19.5 average damage, vs Imaginary weapons 18 damage. By 5 or higher I imagine it is much better than IW. That isn’t even counting the benefit of damage on a failure. I remember reading it, but it didn’t register when I read it the first time.
One other errata on it. Technically crit fails use the failure effect unless they have a different effect called out so you would near a crit failure effect of no damage. I think devs really highly value damage on miss, so that really makes it seem too powerful for the spell to scale to more damage than IW quickly, as well as doing half damage on miss. I suggest you consider reducing the die, and you might consider instead of half damage have it do 1hp per die (effectively minimum damage) on regular misses, and none on crit miss.
It would still be a very powerful spell and good at potentially triggering weakness effectively.
Amped IW deals 27 average damage on a hit at rank 3. Remember that using it with a Focus Point adds 2d8 damage for each rank, rather than just at rank 1.
So, running the math at certain breakpoints:
At level 1, a typical at-level enemy's high AC of 16 against your Strike modifier of +7 means you have a 5% of a crit failure, a 30% chance of a regular failure, a 50% success chance, and a 10% crit success chance. IW deals 0.7 x 2 x 4.5 = 6.3 average damage. RB meanwhile deals 0.95 x 6.5 = 6.175 average damage.
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At level 20, a typical at-level enemy's high AC of 45 against your Strike modifier of +36 leads to the exact same result chances. Thus, IW deals 0.7 x 20 x 4.5 = 63 average damage, and RB deals 0.95 x 10 x 6.5 = 61.75 average damage.
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Against a PL+3 enemy, that enemy will typically have at most a +4 to AC compared to an at-level enemy with AC in a similar band, giving a 15% chance of crit failure, a 50% chance of a regular failure, a 35% success chance, and a 5% success chance. In that situation, IW deals 0.45 x 2 x 4.5 = 4.05 average damage, whereas RB deals 0.7 x 6.5 = 4.55 average damage.
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All of which is to say: against at-level or below enemies, or higher-level enemies against whom you're leveraging bonuses to your Strike modifier and penalties to their AC, IW will on average deal more damage. RB is marginally stronger against higher-level enemies and situations where your Strike mod is lowered or the enemy's AC is increased. Therefore, the statement that RB leads to lower overall damage in exchange for better reliability stands. This would in my opinion be likely to feel quite good on a Magus, as rolling d12s should feel satisfying, and still dealing some measure of damage on a miss should soften the downside of whiffing the one attack you'll be making on your turn.
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My first impressions are:
* Cascading Energy is a useful spell that if I had it, I'd use it. But I don't know if it's quite so useful that I'd spend a feat on it. I do think it outperforms most of the focus spells you get from hybrid studies.
* Resonant Bolt on the other hand looks to me like a a spell I would ALWAYS use. Spellstrike, for a lot of damage, and because you used a conflux spell, also immediately recover your spellstrike. The damage is about as good as most spells-from-slots and much better than cantrips. But it's the action economy advantage that's decisive. This allows you to move+spellstrike, and be able to move+spellstrike again on the next turn, and on the third turn (because you'd have at least 2 focus). Being able to spellstrike every turn for high damage is why we say the starlit span is out of control, but this spell spreads that around to the other hybrid studies too.
None of the current hybrid study spells can be used directly in a spellstrike, which prevents that action economy short-circuit. Neither can Force Fang because it has neither a save nor an attack roll. Even so, and even though the damage isn't high, Force Fang is worth a feat because it does recharge your spellstrike without interacting with MAP. So you can spellstrike + force fang, or you can start next turn with a force fang and then a spellstrike. You could do that with the hybrid study spells, but they do cause/suffer from MAP, so it feels like either you're doing a hail mary strike post-spellstrike, or you're spiking your next spellstrike with MAP, not good. Meanwhile out of class focus spells don't efficiently recharge spellstrike so you're still in trouble if you have to move + recover spellstrike + actually spellstrike (except for starlit span, who doesn't have to move).
So where does that leave us? I think unless the damage is pretty low, you shouldn't make a conflux spell that's meant to be used during a spellstrike. But you could make focus spells that don't interact with MAP, that are easier to combine with a spellstrike before or after it.
So that's why I think the Cascading Energy spell is basically sound (maybe needs a little more juice somehow) while Resonant Bolt would be too dominant.
Okay, I should also try to contribute something that I'd be willing to spend a class feat on:
It doesn't have Manipulate so you can use it to get into or out of situations where reactive strike is at play. And it gives some action economy in a way that mostly favors the non-starlit studies, but doesn't completely steal the lunch of laughing shadow.
This is your pocket knife if you have to fight a boss with reactive strike. Stealing a reaction isn't unheard of (compare the Success saving throw effect of Laughing Fit and Roaring Applause). It's not something you'll want to do every fight, but it'll save your bacon in some of them (and helps other party members as well).
because you used a conflux spell, also immediately recover your spellstrike.
Using a conflux spell with a Spellstrike wouldn't actually recharge it:
After you use Spellstrike, you can’t do so again until you recharge your Spellstrike as a single action, which has the concentrate trait. You also recharge your Spellstrike when you cast a conflux spell that takes at least 1 action to cast; casting a focus spell of another type doesn’t recharge your Spellstrike.
Spellstrike only begins needing to be recharged after it is used, and so it would only be by using a conflux spell after using Spellstrike that the action would be recharged. Casting a conflux spell during Spellstrike would happen before the action can be recharged, and so it wouldn't recharge it.
@Teridax
I think I understand now, but I had been operating on the basis this was an alternative way of making IW no longer a must have, along with the clamoring that IW amp'd was simply too powerful to allow. You made this a focus spells so were trying to make it equivalent to the IW which cost a focus point. You have a point that with it costing a focus point it could do more than your average cantrips. I still feel it is awfully strong. (and since it is targeting a level that others are asking for the thing you are using as the benchmark should be removed or nerf'd it seems like it would get lots of similar attention) I certainly like the flavor as something for the Magus though.
@Ascalaphus
At least at first glance I like the general idea of your spells, but note they don't seem to have any heightened ranks. Maybe what they do, its utility continues to increase in its value naturally without needing it to be able to do more at higher ranks.
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because you used a conflux spell, also immediately recover your spellstrike.Using a conflux spell with a Spellstrike wouldn't actually recharge it:
After you use Spellstrike, you can’t do so again until you recharge your Spellstrike as a single action, which has the concentrate trait. You also recharge your Spellstrike when you cast a conflux spell that takes at least 1 action to cast; casting a focus spell of another type doesn’t recharge your Spellstrike.Spellstrike only begins needing to be recharged after it is used, and so it would only be by using a conflux spell after using Spellstrike that the action would be recharged. Casting a conflux spell during Spellstrike would happen before the action can be recharged, and so it wouldn't recharge it.
Well, there aren't any official conflux spells you could actually use as part of a spellstrike so it's a bit up in the air how precisely it would work. But I understand now that that's the interpretation you were working with. I think it would need to be much more explicit that using a conflux spell during a spellstrike doesn't recharge it, because that's the sort of thing wishful-thinking players will immediately assume :)
I'm not really a fan of that, seems to me that the base class design was that you use conflux spells to recharge spellstrike while doing something more exciting than just paying an action tax. Making in-class focus spells that do their best damage when used during a spellstrike goes against that.
One of the issues with the magus is that there are hints in the class design that they didn't want you to spellstrike every turn. But they don't have really attention-grabbing abilities for "off" turns, not that seem like they'd be relevant in every combat.
Maybe there's an interesting design space for TWO-action focus spells that you clearly won't use on the same turn as a spellstrike, but that are pretty solid in their own right. For example:
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@Ascalaphus
At least at first glance I like the general idea of your spells, but note they don't seem to have any heightened ranks. Maybe what they do, its utility continues to increase in its value naturally without needing it to be able to do more at higher ranks.
I suppose Spatial Flux could gradually increase range and maybe add a "don't fall immediately" clause at some point, but I don't think it needs might heightening. Heightening is mainly needed for damage-dealing spells because they need to scale along with enemy HP, and for protective spells that need to scale along with enemy damage output.
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I think I understand now, but I had been operating on the basis this was an alternative way of making IW no longer a must have, along with the clamoring that IW amp'd was simply too powerful to allow. You made this a focus spells so were trying to make it equivalent to the IW which cost a focus point. You have a point that with it costing a focus point it could do more than your average cantrips. I still feel it is awfully strong. (and since it is targeting a level that others are asking for the thing you are using as the benchmark should be removed or nerf'd it seems like it would get lots of similar attention) I certainly like the flavor as something for the Magus though.
You are correct that there is a significant premium in being able to access this particular focus spell immediately, and I'm thinking this could even just be given to the Magus for free at level 1. Normally, in a perfectly balanced scenario, I too would want to advocate for a tradeoff, and perhaps toning down the damage die might still be a good idea, but I genuinely don't think the Magus is so strong that they need to pay a large cost for being able to Spellstrike for good damage on a regular basis. A Magus with this focus spell is not going to beat an IW Magus, and would feel better mainly by virtue of accessing that focus spell sooner and with less hassle, which to me would be an improvement over the current situation.
I'm not really a fan of that, seems to me that the base class design was that you use conflux spells to recharge spellstrike while doing something more exciting than just paying an action tax. Making in-class focus spells that do their best damage when used during a spellstrike goes against that.
Right, but that's something that already happens. Already, players are making the decision that using an amped imaginary weapon with their Spellstrike is well worth forgoing the opportunity to recharge Spellstrike with a Focus Point. Conflux spells are already not all that popular because the ability to recharge Spellstrike is factored so heavily into their power budget that they just don't feel that amazing to use by themselves, so I think that design is worth challenging. I also do think we're tunnel-visioning on one aspect of the spell I posted here, since it also works as a single-action conflux spell that can therefore recharge your Spellstrike when used outside of it.
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Right, but that's something that already happens. Already, players are making the decision that using an amped imaginary weapon with their Spellstrike is well worth forgoing the opportunity to recharge Spellstrike with a Focus Point. Conflux spells are already not all that popular because the ability to recharge Spellstrike is factored so heavily into their power budget that they just don't feel that amazing to use by themselves, so I think that design is worth challenging.
Yeah, I think any proposal should be compared against:
* If Imaginary Weapon is still on the table, would you consider picking (the new thing) instead?* Suppose IW gets remastered to something else, Fire Ray is probably the next option. Would the new thing compare favorably with Fire Ray?
I like comparing to Fire Ray more because I'm secretly hoping IW gets thoroughly reimagined while Paizo draws some conclusions about what psychics should be doing at melee range anyway.
Compared to Fire Ray, an in-class alternative might be less hassle with paying archetype feat taxes and have good built-in interactions with spellstrike recharge. So I think there's a damage "price point" at which it makes sense. Since these focus spells aren't going to go away, I guess the magus class has to have something in-class that's good enough that you don't feel like shopping outside the class is a massive power increase.
I also do think we're tunnel-visioning on one aspect of the spell I posted here, since it also works as a single-action conflux spell that can therefore recharge your Spellstrike when used outside of it.
We are, but for a good reason. As soon as you start putting things in a spell that says "if you do this during spellstrike, it's twice as effective", people start driving into that tunnel at high speed. Using Resonant Bolt for one action at half the damage would feel bad to me. The way you wrote it sounds to me like "you can do it outside spellstrike if you're DESPERATE but the happy path is to use it for spellstrike".
Also, because it still interacts with MAP, I wouldn't want to use it before a spellstrike, or after a spellstrike. I'd feel I'm sabotaging my spellstrike, or that after the spellstrike I shouldn't burn that focus point because I'd get higher damage AND a better chance to land it if I postone to next turn.
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That said, I've come round to the idea that the class should either ban spellstriking with out of class spells (firmly lowering the power ceiling to your wave slots + cantrips) or have some in-class choices that do comparable damage to the out of class options (making the higher ceiling official).
You should not feel like you must shop outside the class if you don't want to weaken yourself. But doing a burst of high damage early in the combat, every combat (because focus > slots) is just much better than trying to grind things out with low-investment cantrips over many rounds.
Then the challenge switches to: what kind of in-class focus spells are we gonna offer so that not everyone is doing exactly the same optimal thing? There need to be multiple options that from a Pareto optimization standpoint don't strictly dominate each other.
So maybe there's options that do more damage, options that inflict interesting conditions, options that are less fragile to enemies with reactive strike, etc.
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We are, but for a good reason. As soon as you start putting things in a spell that says "if you do this during spellstrike, it's twice as effective", people start driving into that tunnel at high speed. Using Resonant Bolt for one action at half the damage would feel bad to me. The way you wrote it sounds to me like "you can do it outside spellstrike if you're DESPERATE but the happy path is to use it for spellstrike".
Also, because it still interacts with MAP, I wouldn't want to use it before a spellstrike, or after a spellstrike.
It wouldn't be twice as effective, though, because getting that action economy is the apple to the Spellstrike version's orange. I can think of a great deal many situations where one is more valuable than the other, and where using that conflux spell to damage someone at range and recharge Spellstrike at the same time would constitute a valid use of a Focus Point. The fact that the ability does something on a miss does mean that it can slot into a turn where you've used Spellstrike just fine when you need that extra bit of damage, even if force fang would undoubtedly be better and the single-action conflux spell would likely be more effective on an off-turn.
Then the challenge switches to: what kind of in-class focus spells are we gonna offer so that not everyone is doing exactly the same optimal thing? There need to be multiple options that from a Pareto optimization standpoint don't strictly dominate each other.
The question I'd immediately ask at that point is: if we're really aiming for perfection, would a Magus that limits themselves to Spellstriking with focus spells really be perfect? Because I don't think Spellstriking with the same focus spell or small subset each time is perfect, and something tells me that even if you develop a hundred focus spells for the occasion, the typical Magus player will only pick two of those at most to fill out their focus pool. This, I suspect, is why Kalaam wants to ban focus spells from Spellstrike.
It is also ultimately why I brought up how we shouldn't make the perfect the enemy of the good: if I wanted to go for a pie-in-the-sky rework, I'd probably consider ditching Spellstrike's accuracy compression on attack spells, because attack spells are a dying breed and it's not very good for the Magus to be so excessively reliant on such a tiny subset of spells. I don't know how such a class could thread the needle of having maximally healthy gameplay while still feeling like the Magus we know and love, which is why I settled for a much smaller-scope bit of homebrew here in the form of two focus spells that, in my opinion, could bring significant improvements at minimal detriment to the class's existing state.
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I'm really struggling to figure out what would be the happiest outcome. As I posted in the other thread, I think it's become clear that "the people want to spellstrike with focus spells". It's on the table and why wouldn't you? By level 6, the difference between Fire Ray and Ignition is 3d6. The difference between Gouging Claw and Imaginary Weapon is 4d6 vs 8d8.
You could do that kind of damage with your "wave" spells. Your top rank spell slots should be competitive with focus spells. But you only have five per day, and your adventuring day might be longer than 2-3 encounters. Or you might want to cast a utility or buff spell sometimes.
The focus spells exist, we know they're there, it doesn't make sense to pretend they're not available. Either they need to really not be available, or we need to take them into account in design.
If we want to hold on to the "conflux recharge spellstrike" paradigm, then whatever those conflux spells do needs to be impressive enough that it measures up to the difference between a cantrip and an external focus spell. And right now they really don't.
So the question is: do we drop the requirement that conflux spells are your thing that you do when you're NOT spellstriking?
I guess maybe we should. To win people back over from multiclassing, the in-class offerings should offer at least a couple of spellstrike-compatible focus spells with competitive damage.
You typically spend feats to get focus spells so any given character probably will only have one go-to focus blast, and keep pressing that button every round if they can swing the action economy. But it's possible to write a couple variants that do different things that are about equally good. Maybe one does a d12 while the other does a d10 but can also knock enemies prone on a failed save. I mean, people use other weapons than just the d12 weapons too because those other weapons do something useful. And that way, not every magus is going to be built identically.
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Aside from that: yeah, I agree attack spells are not a great paradigm. Right now I feel the extra complexity the game has to have them isn't giving really great return on investment. If they didn't exist at all, would we miss them? Maybe a bit, because they cause some interaction between casters and martials around flanking, courageous anthem and such. But most non-magus casters don't really flourish with melee spell attacks so flanking is pretty niche. It could be different if you could get item bonuses to spell attacks (not necessarily DCs, just spell attacks), but that only exists for kineticist.
For me, the ideal Spellstrike is one that would work well with the full breadth of offensive spells in the game: it's not just that the action should pair well with attack spells, nor even just with damage spells; if the action also worked well with spells that applied crowd control or debuffs, that in my opinion would make Spellstrike, and by extension the Magus, a far more interesting and varied class. Of course, that's not really feasible right now, not just because of Spellstrike's over-synergy with attack spells or the Magus's weak spell DC, but because Spellstriking for massive burst damage is such an overwhelming strength by itself that making the Magus equally amazing at crowd control could very well bring them from decent to overtuned.
Although I don't necessarily endorse just cutting focus spells out of Spellstrike on the current Magus, I do empathize with Kalaam's point of view and feel focus spells shouldn't need to be a big part of a class that already has extremely reliable baseline actions in the form of their Strikes and Spellstriking with cantrips. Focus spells are currently essential to the Magus because they're better than using daily spell slots for comparable damage, but if the class's spell slots were flipped and their main spell slots weren't usable with Spellstriking, whereas their bonus spell slots were the only non-cantrip spells that could be used with the action, then perhaps the class could have that offensive spell synergy while also being able to prepare a much greater variety of spells into their main slots.
This, in turn, raises the question: if Spellstrike by default only worked with cantrips, would it still need to be recharged? If it still compressed accuracy on attack spells, then likely so, but if the action didn't do that, then it could shine on action compression instead, which would also allow many more spells to be mixed and matched. This I think is a particularly risky thing to change, because making one attack roll per turn for potentially massive damage is exactly what generates the class's current slot machine feel that players love and hate so much. Hitting the jackpot and one-shotting a boss with a high-rolling Spellstrike crit I think is one of the highest moments one can feel in Pathfinder, yet whiffing a Spellstrike with a spell slot and spending a whole turn doing essentially nothing feels absolutely terrible.
All of which is to say: I've tried my hand at a comprehensive Magus rework already following the above reasoning, and ended up creating a totally different class. From my playtesting experience with it, it flowed nicely and had some really fun gameplay, but it was also pretty much nothing like the Magus, so in that respect, it failed as a class rework. This is a big reason why I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel again, and instead tried to work with the situation we have right now.
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Hmm, so you're speculating a magus that would work something like:
* You can spellstrike with cantrips
* You can't spellstrike with focus/slotted spells
* Spellstrike doesn't need recharge
And, as currently:
* If your spell uses a spell attack, use your strike result to determine the spell attack result as well
* If you spellstrike with a saving throw spell, the target rolls the save normally unless you critically missed the attack roll
That's definitely a bigger shake-up but it could have some interesting implications;
- it would incentivize much more than now, to use your slots for buffing, not necessarily always spellstriking
- if you needed to do at least SOME damage, you could use a saving throw cantrip; but if you're in a good situation (flank, attack bonus from somewhere) you'd have a higher expected value from using an attack spell. So the optimal move would vary more from situation to situation instead of having one best trick you always pull.
- the upper end of damage goes down a bit because you're always only using cantrips, perhaps opening up budget to boost arcane cascade numbers instead
- not needing to recharge spellstrike frees up action economy a bit, also helping to find action budget to activate arcane cascade
However, I do foresee hurt feelings that you can't use spellstrike to deliver e.g. disintegrate.
I think it's been proposed before that when using spellstrike with cantrips, you wouldn't have to recharge. That might be an interesting trade-off: if you use higher damage focus/slot spells you pay action economy costs.
Or you could perhaps flip it around; you start combat with spellstrike un-charged, and it needs to be charged to use it with a slot/focus spell. But you can use it un-charged with a cantrip. This would create a new dynamic where you'd actually want to open up combat with a conflux spell instead of the conflux spells being awkward "don't want to use it before the first spellstrike because then you're not getting any recharge".
You could go even further and merge the charging mechanic with arcane cascade:
- you start combat without arcane cascade active
- you can activate arcane cascade for free after you cast any spell (notably, including after a spellstrike or conflux spell)
- until you've activated arcane cascade, you can't spellstrike with slot/focus spells
- once activated, arcane cascade keeps running just like any stance
- you no longer need to recharge spellstrike because you stay in the stance
It would move the "big hit" moment to round 2. Conflux spells compete with cantrips for your round 1 action. Conflux spells also fit well with an opening of "recall knowledge, move, conflux-based strike".
What you describe is how I implemented that Scion class for the most part, with a few different details: I decoupled the Strike's accuracy from the spell's, so you'd have to make a separate spell attack roll, and I flipped the class's slots relative to the Magus, so instead of studious slots you get these special spell slots in which you can only prepare spells for your Strike and spell combo, which doesn't need to be recharged. The end result is largely how you described it as well: the class has much more utility and a lot less damage than the Magus, so you don't get those same high moments but get much better action economy and versatility overall. A fun class for sure, but not at all a Magus in practice.
I like the idea of shifting the Magus's recharge around and having Arcane Cascade gate the use of bigger spells, though I can anticipate the pushback this'd generate due to the amount of setup involved. Being able to enter Arcane Cascade as a free action rather than a single action would be a massive improvement, though, and would make it far easier to enter the stance compared to now, so that could be a major benefit to several hybrid studies. Taking the recharge out of Spellstriking with cantrips could also add more nuance to the Magus's action economy, as players could then have a choice between lower and quicker damage, or higher and costlier burst.
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Okay, that'll teach me to just assume I know what's on the far end of a link, I thought you were pointing to your shifter class :P I'll have to go and check our your scion writeup too then.
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I kinda liked the premaster magus coupling of Strike and spell attack because it also made the class good at working with innate cantrips and spells from multiclassing, such as adding Divine Lance so you could get your arcane cascade set to Holy. But the remaster put some sand in those gears because there's fewer attack spells, you need to get sanctified, and damage types and damage traits are more of a separate concept now, which is something arcane cascade wasn't really written to handle.
But the magus being the "jock" caster that can be accurate without a high casting stat is something I'd like to keep around, it allows some unusual builds that other casters couldn't really pull off. I wish there was an elegant way to actually make save spells borrow some of the accuracy of your strikes
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What I like about my ideas for refurbishing arcane cascade in that proposal is that it fits well with remaster ideas about set-up activities. Barbarians are now encouraged to stick to medium armor and enter rage during initiative rolls. Swashbucklers have decent ways to start the combat with panache and regain it efficiently with tumbling even on a failed roll.
Paizo loves the idea of set-up powers (see also, unleash psyche, as well as feats like Dazing Blow that are really hard to execute in a single round. Or poisons and persistent damage, or spells like Impending Doom. But what they struggle with is making the set-up short enough to fit the typical combat duration.
With my proposal, you'd pretty much always get arcane cascade set up on round 1. Depending on whether you need to move up to enemies, it might be after a spellstrike, but it could also be with the conflux spells. It fixes a feels-bad of conflux spells that their low action cost makes them good for round-1 but then you wouldn't get the nice side effects. But if you had a combat round where you need to draw a weapon, move to an opponent, then using a conflux spell to still get a strike in and set up arcane cascade would feel like a pretty clean correct opening play. And if enemies had already come to you, you can open with a cantrip-spellstrike instead and get your cascade going that way, too. So you're not locked into the opening move being exactly the same every time.
Automatically recharging spellstrike also opens up a couple of other playbooks, such as reload weapons and shields.
And by making it so you generally can't get in a focus-spell based spellstrike in until turn 2, that balances out that power pretty well.
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But the magus being the "jock" caster that can be accurate without a high casting stat is something I'd like to keep around, it allows some unusual builds that other casters couldn't really pull off. I wish there was an elegant way to actually make save spells borrow some of the accuracy of your strikes
This is something I both fully agree with and have been struggling to think of how to implement: I think you're right, it's a unique and defining bit of design for the Magus to be able to bypass spell accuracy entirely for their spell attacks, and that's what has allowed the class to be so effective with Spellstrike. I'd like that to work with at least some saves, but I also think that's a very thorny design problem because saves carry other effects like crowd control, including very powerful crowd control: you wouldn't want a crit on a Spellstrike to make an opponent auto-crit fail on slow, for instance, so I don't think you could tie degrees of success for most save spells to Spellstrike's attack roll.
Even basic saves aren't safe from this, since those often have condition riders on certain degrees of success: daze, for instance, is a weak cantrip that uses a basic Will save, yet it also stuns an enemy on a crit fail. If its degrees of success were mapped to Spellstrike's attack roll, even a cantrip as weak as that could make the Magus output a fairly disruptive amount of crowd control, especially if the rest of the team boosts their accuracy. Thus, while the "magic jock" aspect works for pure damage, I don't know if it could really be made to work with crowd control and other save effects in the same way.
What I like about my ideas for refurbishing arcane cascade in that proposal is that it fits well with remaster ideas about set-up activities. Barbarians are now encouraged to stick to medium armor and enter rage during initiative rolls. Swashbucklers have decent ways to start the combat with panache and regain it efficiently with tumbling even on a failed roll.
Paizo loves the idea of set-up powers (see also, unleash psyche, as well as feats like Dazing Blow that are really hard to execute in a single round. Or poisons and persistent damage, or spells like Impending Doom. But what they struggle with is making the set-up short enough to fit the typical combat duration.
I agree with this, though I'd point out that the setup you're proposing is closer to the Swashbuckler than the Barbarian in terms of time and actions taken: the Barbarian's single-action self-buff is something that's meant to be activated as soon as possible and that got compressed into rolling initiative in the remaster, whereas the Swashbuckler still has that model of working up to a payoff, same as here with the proposal of the Magus first needing to Spellstrike with a cantrip or use another spell to then enter Arcane Cascade and really start cooking. From what I've seen in discussion about classes ramping up in power, I do think there would be some pushback on this from some players, though at the same time I personally think a free-action Arcane Cascade triggered on casting a spell would be such an improvement that it would more than make up for it in my opinion.
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I disliked the idea of not being able to use focus spells on spellstrikes, but I think it being tied behind having Arcane Cascade doesn't feel bad to me, especially if it gets easier to get it started.
I'm not certain going as far as never needing to recharge your spellstrike after having started Arcane Cascade, but what if while in arcane cascade, your spellstrike would refresh if you cast a spell using a slot, or a focus point. (i.e. cantrip spells would not auto-refresh spellstrike)
An issue with the concept is it makes the Conflux spells losing a fundamental part of their purpose. If not doing anything with them, it makes the existing focus spells for the Magus even worse, which would even further erode staying in class to get your focus options.
What if entering Arcane Cascade wasn't always free. Make it free if you spellstrike with any arcane spell, or cast an arcane spell powered by a spell slot. Otherwise, expand conflux spells to offer free recharge of spellstrike or free entering of Arcane Cascade.
Limit ability to spellstrike with non-arcane spells as well as focus spells to when they are already in Arcane Cascade?
This encourages people to consider that Spellstrike isn't the only Magus feature, and helps to get them to consider getting into Arcane Cascade.
This means you can cast a slotted arcane spell, or spellstrike with an arcane spell. You have to use a resource to get it. (either a slotted spell, or using your spellstrike)
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Limit ability to spellstrike with non-arcane spells as well as focus spells to when they are already in Arcane Cascade?
This encourages people to consider that Spellstrike isn't the only Magus feature, and helps to get them to consider getting into Arcane Cascade.
Eh, I dunno. Why is arcane so special? If I get an extra arcane spell from an ancestry feat, why is it better than a primal one?
I considered it to be an asset that the magus was actually surprisingly accurate with "borrowed" spells from ancestries and archetypes. It enabled weird builds that other classes wouldn't even consider.
And really, aside from spellstrike and arcane cascade, magi don't have that many class features?
I really wish they did actually. I like the theory of you alternating between spellstrike and other things. But then the class really needs full-fledged other things to do. But it doesn't have them. Being a wave-caster, it almost deliberately had them removed.
Suppose the magus had:
* The current so-so ability/proficiency progression, so aside from spellstrike, your offensive spells aren't so hot.
* Full spell slots.
* Can only use spellstrike every other turn, not two turns in a row.
Then that would really encourage using all those lower rank slots for battlefield shaping and buffing on "off" turns.
(Just another random idea. Although it's kinda intriguing that on half the turns the magus is more "accurate" than a wizard and the other half less accurate. There might really be something there for a design for some class.)
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What if casting any two or three action spell let you either enter Arcane Cascade or recharge your Spellstrike for free(your choice). The one action Cornflux spells also provide that free choice, even as only a single action spell. This would naturally keep people from constantly spellstriking each round in a row, although not completely eliminate it. It would encourage more use of Arcane Cascade... which if we buffed (I like it doing damage to people who react-strike the magus, or who crit fail on a melee attack against the magus)
You mentioned having an ability other than Arcane Cascade or Spellstrike. What else would a Magus have?
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Many people didn’t love it, but the playtest magus version of spell strike could work with saving throw spells exceptionally well and let you use your spell strike with any attack, so magi MC into martial classes could be really cool to get different kind of attacks.
Casting the spell gave you the charge that you could use before the end of the next round.
People really balked at having 2 rolls to land the spell, but with so few spell attack rolls outside of cantrips, I wonder if attack roll spells could keep the 1 rolls and just work with cantrips while the playtest version could work with any focus spell or spell slot (making attack roll focus spells less powerful and addressing that problem) while giving the magus back a reason to boost INT and a unique niche with powerful debuffs where citing on the weapon attack reduces saving throw results one tier.
Then the need for magus class spell attack roll conflux spells goes away on its own?
That's a fair point, and I will say that one of my pet peeves with the Magus is the clash between the class's theme as a studious, intelligent spellcaster and the impracticality of boosting Int alongside Strength, Dex, Con, and Wis. In an ideal world, I'd like the Magus to always be able to comfortably boost Int, and that would definitely improve their spellcasting overall.
What if casting any two or three action spell let you either enter Arcane Cascade or recharge your Spellstrike for free(your choice).
I personally quite like this idea, it could help the Magus flow a lot better and encourage them to cast spells for things other than Spellstriking on their off-turns. Although I'm not Ascalaphus and can't answer for them regarding other things a Magus could do, I quite like the suggestion Kalaam's made on a few occasions where the Magus could recharge Arcane Cascade more often with certain skill checks.
Honestly if spellstrikes with Basic Saves spells just worked the way of Channel Smite that could ease a lot of the pain. Wouldn't work with Slow, Enfeeble, Paralyze etc. But it would with Lightning Bolt, Breathe Fire, Chain Lighnting, Fireball, etc.
Honestly if spellstrikes with Basic Saves spells just worked the way of Channel Smite that could ease a lot of the pain. Wouldn't work with Slow, Enfeeble, Paralyze etc. But it would with Lightning Bolt, Breathe Fire, Chain Lighnting, Fireball, etc.
And also daze, flourishing flora, arrow salvo, rainbow fumarole, and other spells with a crowd control or debuff rider tacked onto their basic save. As much as I'd like Spellstrike's attack roll to key onto basic save results, the problem in my opinion is that basic saves don't always just tie into damage as the mechanic would suggest, and the Magus could end up applying some pretty nasty bits of crowd control more reliably than they should.
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But the magus being the "jock" caster that can be accurate without a high casting stat is something I'd like to keep around, it allows some unusual builds that other casters couldn't really pull off. I wish there was an elegant way to actually make save spells borrow some of the accuracy of your strikes
Give magus legendary class DC, spellstrike uses class DC, and you get a bonus or malus to DC depending on result of strike. Tune it so you have 5-10% better odds of getting a failed save than a full caster, your niche is accuracy with the fewer spells and less flexibility action setup you get.
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Give magus legendary class DC, spellstrike uses class DC, and you get a bonus or malus to DC depending on result of strike. Tune it so you have 5-10% better odds of getting a failed save than a full caster, your niche is accuracy with the fewer spells and less flexibility action setup you get.
I like this idea a lot, and I certainly would prefer a legendary DC to the Magus's current 19th-level feature. As with the above, I wouldn't be entirely comfortable with a Magus that could apply serious amounts of crowd control on top of their damage and everything else, but I'd personally be ready to sacrifice quite a few other benefits on the class for this.
In fact, your proposal gives me an idea, which I'll likely carry over to another thread. I'll want to workshop it a little more, but I'd be curious to see what a Magus would look like if their only way of casting spells, by default, were via Spellstrike.
Honestly if spellstrikes with Basic Saves spells just worked the way of Channel Smite that could ease a lot of the pain. Wouldn't work with Slow, Enfeeble, Paralyze etc. But it would with Lightning Bolt, Breathe Fire, Chain Lighnting, Fireball, etc.And also daze, flourishing flora, arrow salvo, rainbow fumarole, and other spells with a crowd control or debuff rider tacked onto their basic save. As much as I'd like Spellstrike's attack roll to key onto basic save results, the problem in my opinion is that basic saves don't always just tie into damage as the mechanic would suggest, and the Magus could end up applying some pretty nasty bits of crowd control more reliably than they should.
True, through it'd be locked to single target. It's hard to find a clear answer. Maybe as an additional note like for Ancillary Effects etc ?
It'd require some playtesting to know how much of an issue that'd be.
True, through it'd be locked to single target. It's hard to find a clear answer. Maybe as an additional note like for Ancillary Effects etc ?
It'd require some playtesting to know how much of an issue that'd be.
I agree that playtesting will be the determiner here. Personally, I feel this could actually be fine if messing up single target any which way were the Magus's entire thing: as it stands, though, and despite the class often feeling like a one-trick pony, I think part of the problem is that they're actually diluted in quite a few ways. They get to Spellstrike for huge amounts of single-target burst, but can also just cast spells normally and get a ton of utility out of that, even with a terrible DC, and just being a spellcaster like that comes with a lot of inherent power and versatility. They get Arcane Cascade for extra on-hit damage, and I feel that has almost nothing to do with their core loop of Spellstriking, even if it's necessary for several of their subclasses to function. Their subclasses themselves provide focus spells and riders to Arcane Cascade, but I question how necessary those are too when Spellstrike is already an endlessly reusable action, and the Magus would arguably be more flexible if they could just choose the weapons they wanted freely, selecting starting feats as needed like a Fighter or Monk. In a strange way, concentrating the class even more around Spellstrike would likely allow them to feel much more flexible if that let them get more out of a greater range of spells, and could potentially even do away with the need to give them an attack focus spell too.
What if Spellstrike was a focus spell instead of an activity?
So basically having spellstrike be limited to 3 times per encounter tops ?
So basically having spellstrike be limited to 3 times per encounter tops ?
It was just a thought and I threw it out there.
Not a well thought out one lol.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So basically having spellstrike be limited to 3 times per encounter tops ?It was just a thought and I threw it out there.
Not a well thought out one lol.
Maybe but that's a legitimate idea. It'd require rethinking conflux spells though but I'm sure it must have been considered at some point.
I mean in the playtest it was a metamagic/spellshape.
So basically having spellstrike be limited to 3 times per encounter tops ?It was just a thought and I threw it out there.
Not a well thought out one lol.Maybe but that's a legitimate idea. It'd require rethinking conflux spells though but I'm sure it must have been considered at some point.
I mean in the playtest it was a metamagic/spellshape.
I guess i was just thinking if spellstrike was a focus spell it would make it very unlikely it got used with focus spells. You could but then you have less spellstrikes too that fight.
But what i like the most about the magus is the hybrid studies and the unique focus spells they give and moving spellstrike to be one would undermine that part of the magus.
Yeah, I think Magus' focus spells are better used as their complimentary spells they can rely on during every fight.