This creates a situation where, for traditional spellcasters, the fewer attack spells the designers add is better, while magus go in the opposite direction, where the fewer saving spells is better.
Therefore, the idea of giving some benefit to the magus to use saving spells in SpellStrike, ideally occurring in parallel with standard spellcasters receiving some item bonus for attack spells, wouldn't solve the problem, but it would make it less bad, or at least more similar to the kineticist when using attack spells derived from items like scrolls, wands, and staves having a superior bonus due to the Attenuator. At the same time, this will reduce the situation of dispute between classes where one prefers one type of defense while the other prefers another, and therefore they end up competing for space so that new spells ideal for each can be cast.
This is the crux of my issue with the Magus as they currently exist: right now, they desperately want more of a kind of spell everyone else hates. I genuinely believe you could turn every current attack spell in the game into save spells, and it would only benefit casters, yet this would deprive the Magus of what few spells that synergize with their defining ability. This is why I believe that given appropriate tradeoffs and adjustments to outlier spells, a Magus that could make use of any spell with a roll, not just attack spells, would be in a much more secure position. They don't strictly need that change, but it could certainly make them less dependent on a dying breed of spell.
The other issue I take in this context is that despite being the poster child for gish classes in Pathfinder, the Magus is actually pretty terrible at casting spells: the only spells they make great use of is attack spells, which they basically use like Strikes, and their spell DC is generally terrible, which makes them poor users of save spells. This limits them to only a subset of the spells available to them, to the extent that you have people...
I do consider Summoner a martial as well. I'll admit my definitions are limited: master or above strikes being a martial and legendary casting being a caster. I think of of magus and summoner as being martials with some casting without needing a caster multi class archetype. Animist getting to be both (by way of sustaining a focus stance that switches it to martial proficiencies) is a design line that I didn't enjoy being crossed.
I didn't respond to that because frankly your scenario is so vague that I can't evaluate it. It's so vague I'm not even sure if you're trying to make a point about lowering AC or lowering a save. But really, we can stop here. I'm not interested in 'I can come up with a specific unique scenario where you're point doesn't hold' trades. It's just rock scissors paper logic.
Hold up: you're the one trying to assert that the Magus greatly increases their ability to land a crit (your words and emphasis, not mine) compared to a caster using a save spell. It is you who are touting this incredibly vague yet hyperbolic claim that being able to use Spellstrike better on save spells greatly increases the odds of landing a crit failure effect... and the only thing you have is that applying the same kind of circumstance penalty as off-guard requires a feat? If this is your trump card, that doesn't sound to me like a winning argument, as an easier means of applying a -2 isn't what I'd qualify as a "great increase". If you want to elaborate and be less vague, then please, by all means do. As it stands, this is coming across as an attempt to pre-emptively declare victory through some fairly desperate point-scoring.
Because to me 'broken' in this case is not a binary state, it's a matter of degree. A powerful effect like slow and crit slow can be fine when it's difficult to pull off but broken if it's too easy. So making success and crit effects quantitatively easier can, for me, lead to brokenness.
Speaking of vagueness, your personal definition looks almost custom-made to evade critical evaluation. If brokenness is a spectrum, what is your threshold of acceptability, and why? If all your arguing just comes down to personal opinion, with no tangible justification or metric to substantiate what is and isn't broken to you, then you have no business asserting your opinion over that of others, particularly when I have expressly laid out what I consider broken about certain spells.
Therefore, the idea of giving some benefit to the magus to use saving spells in SpellStrike, ideally occurring in parallel with standard spellcasters receiving some item bonus for attack spells, wouldn't solve the problem, but it would make it less bad, or at least more similar to the kineticist when using attack spells derived from items like scrolls, wands, and staves having a superior bonus due to the Attenuator. At the same time, this will reduce the situation of dispute between classes where one prefers one type of defense while the other prefers another, and therefore they end up competing for space so that new spells ideal for each can be cast.
Well, they made several cantrips save spells when they worked perfectly fine as attack spells, due to the remaster.
They then add save spells to compensate, but forgot to factor how attack spells discharge on a successful hit, while save spells can still be resisted, even on a critical hit.
Now what?
Yeah, you have Slow and now Paralyze, but at Rank 3, you also have Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Levitate, Vampiric Feast, Haste and any heightened Rank 1 or 2 spell you may want. No Magus is going to pack all Slow spells, come on now...
Save spells feel like poison effects when it comes to saves, but I'm pretty sure that poison-based abilities eventually make those harder to resist.
Trust me when I say there are many tables that would definitely end up with a Magus that prepares mostly debuffs every day if Paizo implemented guaranteed failures or critical failures on saves for Spellstrike hits or critical hits.
I agree with this, though in and of itself I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. A Magus that could make use of a wider variety of spells and act as a strong debuffer, rather than mostly just a damage-dealer, is a Magus that could feel less like a one-trick pony. Assuming spells that genuinely can take any monster out of a fight on a particularly bad degree of success, like slow, are amended to no longer do that, I think being able to produce that kind of crowd control would compare favorably to damage, even if something tells me many players would still like to deal a lot of that in one go. I don't think this is something the current Magus needs when they can also freely cast spells, double- or triple-dip on weaknesses with Arcane Cascade, and ignore most of their own constraints with Starlit Span, but assuming they were balanced around this benefit, I do think it could work, and be healthy.
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If imaginary weapon was so strong it needed multiple nerfs to prevent the magus from using it, I don't know what Paizo would do to a slow magus build.
This is why I think if they ever were to buff save spells for the magus, I doubt it is going to be something like allowing them to use any save spells for spellstrike. The nerf to resentment witch also shows Paizo doesn't want classes messing with conditions.
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What's funny is that magus doesn't really have a problem with their spell DC even now. Compared to a full caster the gap looks like this:
01-04: -1 (+3 vs +4 int)
05-06: -0 (int evens out)
07-08: -2 (proficiency)
09: -0 (catch up in proficiency)
10-14: -1 (int)
15-16: -2 (casters gain prof, magus +5 int)
17-18: -1 (recover proficiency, lose apex)
19: -3 (legendary)
20: -4 (int)
Until the very end when it goes bad, your DC is fine for throwing AoEs at groups of mooks or getting the success effect on a useful debuff. Even having three levels where they're equal to full casters feels like an insult to full casters.
Anecdotally, I absolutely have done this. Chain lightning, AoE slow and confusion, shadow siphon counteracts, etc, etc. It works just fine.
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What's funny is that magus doesn't really have a problem with their spell DC even now. Compared to a full caster the gap looks like this:
01-04: -1 (+3 vs +4 int)
05-06: -0 (int evens out)
07-08: -2 (proficiency)
09: -0 (catch up in proficiency)
10-14: -1 (int)
15-16: -2 (casters gain prof, magus +5 int)
17-18: -1 (recover proficiency, lose apex)
19: -3 (legendary)
20: -4 (int)
While this is certainly what a Magus could hypothetically get if they max their Intelligence at every turn, the Magus is a class that will, in all but two cases, depend on four attributes before even factoring Int. Getting that +3 in Int would mean sacrificing the defenses of a 8 HP/level class that, under all but one set of circumstances, has to get into melee range to do their thing. Although Magus players will sacrifice some of those stats for the +2 needed to dip into a multiclass archetype, leaving the gap at -2 to begin with, I've rarely seen players aim for a +5 to Int unless they were a Starlit Span.
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While this is certainly what a Magus could hypothetically get if they max their Intelligence at every possible turn, the Magus is a class that will, in all but two cases, depend on four attributes before even factoring Int. Getting that +3 in Int would mean sacrificing the defenses of a 8 HP/level class that, under all but one set of circumstances, has to get into melee range to do their thing. Although Magus players will sacrifice some of those stats for the +2 needed to dip into a multiclass archetype, leaving the gap at -2 to begin with, I've rarely seen players aim for a +5 to Int unless they were a Starlit Span.What's funny is that magus doesn't really have a problem with their spell DC even now. Compared to a full caster the gap looks like this:
01-04: -1 (+3 vs +4 int)
05-06: -0 (int evens out)
07-08: -2 (proficiency)
09: -0 (catch up in proficiency)
10-14: -1 (int)
15-16: -2 (casters gain prof, magus +5 int)
17-18: -1 (recover proficiency, lose apex)
19: -3 (legendary)
20: -4 (int)
I can confirm that in my personal experience, only Starlit Span magi went for Int +3 and kept it up. Most left it at +2 to access Psychic Dedication and never touched it again.
In fact during my admittedly short sting running/playing PF2e, I've seen more magi go for +0 Int than +3.
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The thing is that much like how a +1 can feel huge so does a -1 but in the opposite direction, so when talking about the magus that its likely not going to start with an Intelligence modifier higher than +2 in most scenarios, it leads to most players feeling bad when using their spells.
The only real exception are classes like thaumaturge that can't start with a +4 in Strength or Dexterity but that have a ton of features that compensate that loss of accuracy with either damage and utility (in the case of the thaumaturge its both actually). This is also why the inventor is commonly criticized, since that lack of accuracy isn't translated into a buff somewhere else. The magus isn't encouraged to use spells outside of spellstrike, so people feel bad using them.
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The thing is that much like how a +1 can feel huge so does a -1 but in the opposite direction, so when talking about the magus that its likely not going to start with an Intelligence modifier higher than +2 in most scenarios, it leads to most players feeling bad when using their spells.
My Magus is my main. He opens every combat with a spell, just not an spell attack or save spell: Greater invis rank 4, Enlarge, blink charge, sure strike, etc. I feel great using my spells. Spell striking invisibly with off guard while the mobs can barely target me and the Barb is bonked wobbly makes me deeply appreciate on level spell casting.
Sure, my Magus is less effective a blaster than a wizard, psyche or sorc but his DPS comes from cantrip spellstrikes and the spells are for utility and buffs. Yes, theory crafting is all about the maximum on paper DPS but for a class that get 1 big hit every round or two at the table, getting to your target, upping your defenses, and maximizing your chance to hit/crit is a much better use of your spells.
Wearing plate mail doesn't quite compensate for not raising dex but its pretty close. So, Str, Con, Wis, Int. Quite achievable
I agree. Previously, I'd have argued that this is difficult for a Magus to obtain when they're prioritizing a Psychic MC archetype for imaginary weapon, but now that the amp is unusable on Spellstrike, the best combo is likely a Champion MC archetype for the heavy armor proficiency, access to fire ray at 4th level, and reaction at 6th level. That does, however, require boosting Charisma and not Intelligence, so it is even less likely that Maguses going for that archetype will be good at their own save spells.
Circling back to the very original topic of discussion on this thread, I think the ability to boost Int without sacrificing their key stats is one of many reasons why Starlit Span sits head and shoulders above other hybrid studies in effectiveness: not only does the subclass get to easily Spellstrike on most turns when others can only usually Spellstrike every other turn, not only does the subclass not need to worry about activating Arcane Cascade to access their own features, the hybrid study depends on Dex and not really Strength for its ranged attacks, so it's extremely easy for Starlit Span Maguses to boost Dex, Con, Int, and Wis without any real issues or major tradeoffs. Meanwhile, even a Laughing Shadow Magus has an incentive to boost Strength to avoid excessively weak baseline Strikes. I wouldn't say that this makes Starlit Span great at save spells compared to a Summoner, much less a full caster, but they do get to use spells like chain lightning competently at certain levels all the same.
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Wearing plate mail doesn't quite compensate for not raising dex but its pretty close. So, Str, Con, Wis, Int. Quite achievableI agree. Previously, I'd have argued that this is difficult for a Magus to obtain when they're prioritizing a Psychic MC archetype
My magus just burned a general feat. As you say, the Cha is too rich a cost for Champion.
My magus just burned a general feat. As you say, the Cha is too rich a cost for Champion.Wearing plate mail doesn't quite compensate for not raising dex but its pretty close. So, Str, Con, Wis, Int. Quite achievableI agree. Previously, I'd have argued that this is difficult for a Magus to obtain when they're prioritizing a Psychic MC archetype
Armor proficiency don’t scale to master. Fine if you won’t get there anyways though.
While this is certainly what a Magus could hypothetically get if they max their Intelligence at every turn, the Magus is a class that will, in all but two cases, depend on four attributes before even factoring Int. Getting that +3 in Int would mean sacrificing the defenses of a 8 HP/level class that, under all but one set of circumstances, has to get into melee range to do their thing. Although Magus players will sacrifice some of those stats for the +2 needed to dip into a multiclass archetype, leaving the gap at -2 to begin with, I've rarely seen players aim for a +5 to Int unless they were a Starlit Span.
Yeah, it was always risky to try on a melee magus, but that's what making meaningful build decisions is all about. They at least could go cha for psychic and later champion dedication. I imagine most melee magi will go straight cha now for champion archetype for their fire ray access and reaction.
Still doable on starlit span though. Halfling gets you all the stats you need to start with +4 dex, +3 int and +2 wis for smooth level progression. Can even use the helpful halfling feats to boost archetype fake outs to +4.
Yeah, you have Slow and now Paralyze, but at Rank 3, you also have Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Levitate, Vampiric Feast, Haste and any heightened Rank 1 or 2 spell you may want. No Magus is going to pack all Slow spells, come on now...Trust me when I say there are many tables that would definitely end up with a Magus that prepares mostly debuffs every day if Paizo implemented guaranteed failures or critical failures on saves for Spellstrike hits or critical hits.
After all, no amount of damage can compare with removing a target's ability to act completely, unless that damage kills the target outright. And when you need single-target damage, Spellstriking with focus spells and cantrips does just fine.
Then have a feat that allows save cantrips to be harder to resist.
As a reminder, Acid Splash, Chill Touch and Ray of Frost became save spells, when they were attack spells. Yes, you can still use those legacy spells, but still...
Yeah, it was always risky to try on a melee magus, but that's what making meaningful build decisions is all about.
I don't really think it is; depending on more than four attributes just to do the thing your class encourages you to do is very much the exception and not the rule. More frequently, classes have the means to only depend on three attributes, as with heavy armor martials, Dex martials, or Wis-based casters, or are dependent on exactly four attributes, like Int or Charisma casters. Thus, characters generally can expect to make meaningful build decisions without sacrificing their core statistics in Pathfinder. When a character depends on more than that, they're generally considered MAD, because they end up relying on more attributes than they can boost simultaneously.
I'll also point out that this isn't a risk-versus-reward thing either, because by your own admission, Starlit Span can build Int much more easily: if the strongest and safest of hybrid studies can also make this "meaningful build decision" without sacrificing their defenses or attacks, then going for less risk gives you more rewards. I don't think that's how it's supposed to work.
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My magus just burned a general feat. As you say, the Cha is too rich a cost for Champion.Wearing plate mail doesn't quite compensate for not raising dex but its pretty close. So, Str, Con, Wis, Int. Quite achievableI agree. Previously, I'd have argued that this is difficult for a Magus to obtain when they're prioritizing a Psychic MC archetype
It's pretty doable since it means you don't need any DEX, and if you're not worried about spell DC you don't need INT. You wanted STR/CON/WIS anyway, though you'll probably wind up with a lower WIS at low level in order to start with the needed CHA. That's 4 abilities and you can boost all of them as you level.
That archetype gives you a lot of stuff that is really helpful on both offense and defense and CHA covers some of the game's best skills. This is a very worthwhile investment.
The thing is that much like how a +1 can feel huge so does a -1 but in the opposite direction, so when talking about the magus that its likely not going to start with an Intelligence modifier higher than +2 in most scenarios, it leads to most players feeling bad when using their spells.
My Magus is my main. He opens every combat with a spell, just not an spell attack or save spell: Greater invis rank 4, Enlarge, blink charge, sure strike, etc. I feel great using my spells. Spell striking invisibly with off guard while the mobs can barely target me and the Barb is bonked wobbly makes me deeply appreciate on level spell casting.
Sure, my Magus is less effective a blaster than a wizard, psyche or sorc but his DPS comes from cantrip spellstrikes and the spells are for utility and buffs. Yes, theory crafting is all about the maximum on paper DPS but for a class that get 1 big hit every round or two at the table, getting to your target, upping your defenses, and maximizing your chance to hit/crit is a much better use of your spells.
I meant it feels bad to use damage spells as a magus. Of course a magus likely wants to self buff with their spell slots.
I’d say that it feels bad to use spell slots to spell strike when the damage from a focus spell was the same or better at all ranks.
I’d say that it feels bad to use spell slots to spell strike when the damage from a focus spell was the same or better at all ranks.
Spell slot damage is a bit higher if you’re using the highest damage spellstrike spells, and at least starting at level 9 they have good riders.
What remastered spell slot spell are we talking about for magus spell striking?
Horizon Thunder Sphere I guess is pretty good for damage after the early levels, it start outpacing cantrips nicely capping out at basically double their damage. I think it's pretty much the norm of most attack spells ?
Personnaly I use Sticky Fire (persistent fire with enfeebled as rider) and Threefold Limb (pick damage type and rider effect between reduced speed, reposition or dazzled) at character level 5 so far.
What remastered spell slot spell are we talking about for magus spell striking?
None remastered, but if you’re at a table that doesn’t let magus use pre-remaster attack spells, you should consider no longer being at that table.
Armor proficiency don’t scale to master. Fine if you won’t get there anyways though.
By the time you get to level 17 you can easily have a +3 dex even if you started with a 0. At level 15 you retrain heavy armor to Canny Acumen Dex.
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Armor proficiency don’t scale to master. Fine if you won’t get there anyways though.By the time you get to level 17 you can easily have a +3 dex even if you started with a 0. At level 15 you retrain heavy armor to Canny Acumen Dex.
But then you’re losing the extra AC from heavy armor.
(The actual answer is to take champion dedication for fire ray and kill two birds with one stone)
(Won't be the perfect answer after focus spellstrike get nixed in the next book)
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(Won't be the perfect answer after focus spellstrike get nixed in the next book)
Fingers crossed
Given they weren't afraid to address psychic dedication as a whole, I wouldn't be surprised if they did it there.
Especially to address the issues the class has that are mentionned in this thread as a trade-off.
If they kill focus spell spellstrikes and don’t seriously buff magus on the level on an entire spellstrike font or higher, the class is pretty much dead. Probably worse than inventor which is already in a terrible state.
Would that mean that Magus was dead on release tho ? The focus spell abuse is something that really caught on with the remaster changes to refocus.
But yes I do think a Striking Spell font-like ressource would be welcome. But this has been discussed at length on magus specific threads.
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Would that mean that Magus was dead on release tho ? The focus spell abuse is something that really caught on with the remaster changes to refocus.
People were taking Fire Ray on Magus pretty early on. This was in no way a remaster only thing.
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Would that mean that Magus was dead on release tho ? The focus spell abuse is something that really caught on with the remaster changes to refocus.People were taking Fire Ray on Magus pretty early on. This was in no way a remaster only thing.
but you were only using it once an encounter most of the day before the remaster, so it was significantly more limited.
Exactly. Before remaster the refocus rules made picking up a focus spell to spellstrike with a strong option that came at a pretty huge cost for over half of your character's career.
As a reminder you could only Refocus 1 point if you had spent one since the last time you refocused.
So if you used a focus spellstrike, you had to choose between lowering your max focus pool for the day if you needed to cast another focus spell, or find something else to do.
That's what kept it in check.
With the remaster, it has basically no cost to spam and that's why it has become an issue.
Plus the magus doesn't need it to function: case in point all the magus characters i've played.
Exactly. Before remaster the refocus rules made picking up a focus spell to spellstrike with a strong option that came at a pretty huge cost for over half of your character's career.
As a reminder you could only Refocus 1 point if you had spent one since the last time you refocused.
So if you used a focus spellstrike, you had to choose between lowering your max focus pool for the day if you needed to cast another focus spell, or find something else to do.
That's what kept it in check.
With the remaster, it has basically no cost to spam and that's why it has become an issue.Plus the magus doesn't need it to function: case in point all the magus characters i've played.
You just needed things like Energized Font and Familiar Focus if you wanted to use multiple focus spells in a combat and recharge to a pool of 3. They also got Conflux Focus and Conflux Wellspring at 12 and 18 to regain more than 1 per refocus. So you had to jump through hoops with more investment, but you could do it.
To be fair, the reason why the focus point recharge rule was a thing in the Remaster was because a ton of people was already playing as if that was how focus points recharged in the first place, so in most cases there isn't a difference here.
Regardless of how people homebrewed it, the previous rules did keep it in check.
Regardless of how people homebrewed it, the previous rules did keep it in check.
I found it was more overlooked or forgotten vs homebrewed. I know quite a few people that were surprised when people brought up it was a new thing.
but you were only using it once an encounter most of the day before the remaster, so it was significantly more limited.Would that mean that Magus was dead on release tho ? The focus spell abuse is something that really caught on with the remaster changes to refocus.People were taking Fire Ray on Magus pretty early on. This was in no way a remaster only thing.
1/encounter was pretty important after you’d expended your spell slots, and 1/encounter can be twice an encounter for 4 encounters, or 3 times an encounter for 2 encounters.
If you had 4 encounters in a day, you’d be doubling your spellstrikes! That’s a pretty big deal.
More actually because you can get more focus points.
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If they kill focus spell spellstrikes and don’t seriously buff magus on the level on an entire spellstrike font or higher, the class is pretty much dead. Probably worse than inventor which is already in a terrible state.
I think you're exaggerating a lot.
I've played two maguses. Neither used a psychic dedication nor a focus spell. Both did quite well with cantrips, utility spells and the occassional blasty spell to take down the hordes of mooks.
Oh, and neither were Starlit Span either (While it is clearly quite powerful I just hate the playstyle of "Pew Pew" almost EVERY round).
While certainly not overpowered they were definitely at least on par with a ranger or swashbuckler and more powerful than an Inventor (a very low bar, I admit).
If they kill focus spell spellstrikes and don’t seriously buff magus on the level on an entire spellstrike font or higher, the class is pretty much dead. Probably worse than inventor which is already in a terrible state.I think you're exaggerating a lot.
I've played two maguses. Neither used a psychic dedication nor a focus spell. Both did quite well with cantrips, utility spells and the occassional blasty spell to take down the hordes of mooks.
Oh, and neither were Starlit Span either (While it is clearly quite powerful I just hate the playstyle of "Pew Pew" almost EVERY round).
While certainly not overpowered they were definitely at least on par with a ranger or swashbuckler and more powerful than an Inventor (a very low bar, I admit).
Were they on par with an average ranger and swashbuckler or with well built ones? There are directions you can take swash or ranger that make them pretty damn great, that’s much less true of magus without a way to patch it’s lack of staying power. Honestly I don’t think even pre-IW nerf magus was really that good compared to a great ranger build, just much easier to make.
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Were they on par with an average ranger and swashbuckler or with well built ones?
On par with what you'd probably consider average builds. I get the impression that you play in higher optimization level games than I do.
The one was PFS where decent out of combat ability and good flexibility are key. The other was good enough to go through all of The Ruby Phoenix Tournament while contributing what seemed to me to be at least his fair share.
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I was pretty neutral on the remaster change to allow all classes to refocus all their focus points when the remaster first came out, but I have soured on it as the remastering process has run its course. Focus spells used to be a pretty heavy investment for most classes not built to use them a lot. Now it is just this optimizing resource you are either exploiting, or you are wasting a major power source. It has really killed the psychic for me. It has also flattened the magus and the summoner for me, and hybrid casting as a mechanic generally. 3 focus spells really is all the spell casting most casters need to do in 3-4 round encounters. They are not as good as spell slots generally, but for general combat they can be about as good as casting top rank -1 sells for lower levels and top rank -2 at mid levels, and top rank -3 at the highest levels.