You're saying that the class having action economy issues in its design is not a problem because you can archetype out of those problems.
It's a big issue since this means, by your logic, that magus is only good with specific build choices.
I'm just going to ignore you now. You really don't bring any interresting points to this discussion.
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Energy mutagen is a free action with the spider collar. If you're in melee, you own one. Just like how eventually you should own a potion patch. Fortunately, energy mutagens are dime a dozen.
The collar holds one mutagen. Energy mutagen picks damage type on creation. I wish you luck on getting that to line up and not waste more actions than one.
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I think there's a kernel of truth to both opposing sides of the current discussion: yes, being an inherent spellcaster and being able to trigger certain weaknesses more easily through Arcane Cascade are non-negligible benefits. I also agree that the Magus could do with more things to do besides Spellstrike, and it'd be a good idea for them to have more feats that let them do interesting martial things with a magic bent too. However, even if the Magus had those improved feats, I still think they'd need something a little more. Their spellcasting takes up a big part of their power budget, but is really limited in a number of ways, and Arcane Cascade, while useful, is often far more difficult to activate than is worth it.
Independently of a full overhaul to the Magus, which I think could deliver a really fun gish class but is probably not Paizo themselves ought to implement in 2e, I do think there's room for a few quick wins, in addition to what Kalaam has suggested about compressing Spellstrike recharges into skill actions and additional feats:
Incidentally, a lot of this would also help equalize some of the Magus's subclasses: making Arcane Cascade easier to turn on would make most melee hybrid studies' benefits easier to activate, and improved use of save spells both in and out of Spellstrike would help better use quite a few study-specific studious spells, surprisingly many of which rely on a saving throw. The class would still be fairly action-intensive, but ever slightly less so in melee, and their melee subclasses would be better able to use the tools at their disposal as well.
A lot of those changes would make sense, imo.
Not sure about removing double spellstrike for legendary proficiency though. It would feel weird to have two proficiency bumps 2 levels appart from each other.
Plus I like the concept of Double Spellstrike, it just needs more fuel to shine. Extra slots or such. Or maybe have it be Second Chance Spellstrike from the playtest, where if you miss, you can attempt the spellstrike again to not waste the ressource. Maybe not expending the charge and giving you until the end of your next turn.
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A lot of those changes would make sense, imo.
Not sure about removing double spellstrike for legendary proficiency though. It would feel weird to have two proficiency bumps 2 levels appart from each other.
Plus I like the concept of Double Spellstrike, it just needs more fuel to shine. Extra slots or such. Or maybe have it be Second Chance Spellstrike from the playtest, where if you miss, you can attempt the spellstrike again to not waste the ressource. Maybe not expending the charge and giving you until the end of your next turn.
If Double Spellstrike were to be replaced with an up-to-legendary proficiency track, I think that would justify moving the other bumps to the standard levels 7 and 15. I also personally hate Double Spellstrike as a feature; I really don't think the Magus should be pushed to spend their precious few spell slots on more damaging Spellstrikes by default, and would rather give them what they need to be versatile as a baseline and let them spec into slot Spellstrikes through feats if they want.
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I think Double Spellstrike would work better if there was font-like slot that guaranteed something like 2 slots for spellstrike per day. And then it makes any other slot you choose to use double its value.
Virtually up to 8 spellstrikes, 2 per minute for 1 slot, of your two highest ranks would be decent I believe. Without accounting for any slots you gained from items or multiclass (especially if save spells become better, you would benefit from using lower level slots for it as well! debuffs and other "evergreen" combat control spells that don't need heightening)
It does come in too late to be useful for most of the class' career though.
As for better proficiency I actually prefer it to be achieved, mathematically, through other means. Like a save penalty on spellstrikes and all. It fits more the fantasy and identity of "when using only magic or weapons it's not as good as a full martial or caster, but when merging both it reaches its full potential"
If you applied your Arcane Cascade bonus as a save penalty on all spellstrikes, successes or crits (without extra damage from situational effects like flanking or leaping from LS and AF) it'd achieve the same effect as a proficiency bump. If you maxx out your int, you'd even be slightly above a full caster at certain levels, but with the caveats of the extra action cost, single target and being in melee (given arcane cascade doesn't apply to ranged attack, neither should that debuff, to keep Starlit in check)
A Spellstrike font could certainly help, though I think the complicating factor there is that the class already gains extra spells via studious spell slots. If we're giving the class more top-end spell slots and more lower-rank spell slots, then that's when they start getting closer to a full caster in terms of spell output, even if some of those spells would be cast through Spellstrike.
I guess so, but they'd still have a total of 8 slots a day at maximum. The same as a multiclassed martial with a caster archetype (without the feat for extra ones)
I think it'd be good enough, it still follows the wave casting stipulation and all, just makes it maybe more flexible than it is currently, which has been a pain point for a loooot of people.
I remember a lot of people suggesting wave casting to leave 1 slot for the former levels each time, or to abandon it and just have magus and summoner have 2 slots per rank but no rank 10
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I think there's a kernel of truth to both opposing sides of the current discussion: yes, being an inherent spellcaster and being able to trigger certain weaknesses more easily through Arcane Cascade are non-negligible benefits. I also agree that the Magus could do with more things to do besides Spellstrike, and it'd be a good idea for them to have more feats that let them do interesting martial things with a magic bent too. However, even if the Magus had those improved feats, I still think they'd need something a little more. Their spellcasting takes up a big part of their power budget, but is really limited in a number of ways, and Arcane Cascade, while useful, is often far more difficult to activate than is worth it.
Independently of a full overhaul to the Magus, which I think could deliver a really fun gish class but is probably not Paizo themselves ought to implement in 2e, I do think there's room for a few quick wins, in addition to what Kalaam has suggested about compressing Spellstrike recharges into skill actions and additional feats:
* Making Arcane Cascade either a reaction or a free action while keeping its trigger would make it significantly easier to turn on, and thereby enable the Magus's subclasses.
* Removing Double Spellstrike and instead giving the Magus an up-to-legendary spell proficiency track would give them more spellcasting flexibility, including when using save spells as part of Spellstrike.
* Giving the Magus heavy armor proficiency by default would save them a dip into Champion/Guardian/Sentinel to make their Strength builds less MAD. Letting Laughing Shadow Maguses apply their Dex instead of Strength to damage rolls, perhaps as part of their Arcane Cascade bonuses, would help them out with this too.
* Perhaps less of a necessity, but if Spellstrike imposed a penalty to the target's save, whether it's a -1/-2 based on a hit/crit or a just full degree of success bump down on a crit, then save spells could become more attractive Spellstrike choices. This could...
I dont think a magus should have the ability to cast a spell at legendary proficiency at endgame then strike with master proficiency in the same turn...magus can get up to rank 9 spells. Classes picking a martial or caster lane is one of the pillars for balance and niche protection in the game; animist cheats this but even that cheese can't be both on the same turn
Similarly, heavy armor is another niche that's protected unless you invest.
I think the issue is more the action economy headaches they have than damage. Spellstrike's damage is fantastic, after all.
Spellstrike deals a lot of burst damage for sure, but that burst is deceptive, as it is effectively two attacks' worth of damage concentrated in one. As gesalt points out above, Spellstriking with a cantrip deals about as much damage as a feat-less Fighter Striking twice, so while slot spells can do more, this by itself isn't all that fantastic for something most Magus subclasses can only do once every other turn. A common mistake I've seen in D&D 5e is that newer DMs often nerf the Rogue's sneak attack damage, because it leads to really big numbers on their attacks. Trouble is, it's the only attack they can make on their turn, and it's pretty much the only thing the Rogue does, so despite all appearances the class tends to be less effective than other martials. The same applies to the Magus, who makes one attack on their Spellstrike turn that deals either big damage or nothing at all.
I guess so, but they'd still have a total of 8 slots a day at maximum. The same as a multiclassed martial with a caster archetype (without the feat for extra ones)
I think it'd be good enough, it still follows the wave casting stipulation and all, just makes it maybe more flexible than it is currently, which has been a pain point for a loooot of people.
I remember a lot of people suggesting wave casting to leave 1 slot for the former levels each time, or to abandon it and just have magus and summoner have 2 slots per rank but no rank 10
If we're going to be boosting the Magus's spell output just so that they can Spellstrike with better spells more often, then I seen no reason not to just give the class baked-in focus attack spells. They don't need to be d8s of damage either; if they can sit comfortably between cantrips and slot spells in power, that ought to be enough to give the Magus an evergreen source of better Spellstrike output, and discourage them from going for archetypes without disabling focus Spellstrikes.
If we're going to be boosting the Magus's spell output just so that they can Spellstrike with better spells more often, then I seen no reason not to just give the class baked-in focus attack spells. They don't need to be d8s of damage either; if they can sit comfortably between cantrips and slot spells in power, that ought to be enough to give the Magus an evergreen source of better Spellstrike output,...
Because you can then have much more variety in the spell selection, where a focus spell would always be the same and require more investment to get other ones.
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Because you can then have much more variety in the spell selection, where a focus spell would always be the same and require more investment to get other ones.
"Much more variety" is under two dozen attack spells across the entire arcane list, at all ranks, and this is including premaster and uncommon options. The variety is simply not there, and I do not consider a Magus limiting themselves to attack slot spells more varied than a Magus who used those spell slots to instead cast a far greater range of utility spells. I also think there are plenty of ways of making attack spells more varied in how they can be used, especially if they're tailor-made to the Magus.
Magus is already a strong class. Near-top dpr combined with spell utility.
Given how many times it has been shown that the Magus's DPR is nowhere near the top, I'm not sure this statement can be made out of honest ignorance by someone following this conversation. If you have findings to support this claim, I'd be interested in seeing them.
I dont think a magus should have the ability to cast a spell at legendary proficiency at endgame then strike with master proficiency in the same turn...magus can get up to rank 9 spells. Classes picking a martial or caster lane is one of the pillars for balance and niche protection in the game; animist cheats this but even that cheese can't be both on the same turn
Then by this reasoning, we should bump down the Summoner's spellcasting proficiency to expert, because with master proficiency and a Charisma key attribute they reach the same spell attack modifier and spell DC as would a Magus would with legendary spellcasting proficiency and Intelligence, a non-key attribute. Even with legendary spell proficiency, a Magus would be at a -2 relative to full casters, same as a Summoner, and all this talk of niche protection makes very little sense when discussing a class that is expressly made to be both a martial and spellcaster class.
Similarly, heavy armor is another niche that's protected unless you invest.
Invest... by which you mean pick a 2nd-level dedication feat? Because that really is all it takes to get scaling heavy armor proficiency on the Magus. As much as I agree that this game enforces niche protection, the cases you cite are demonstrably false.
A dozen of spells is still ten times more than one focus spell. Plus potential additions from impossible magic, but the lack of attack spells is an issue we agree on.
Plus this varies as you level up and get access to more, not always for raw damage but also rider effects. Especially if the remaster males save spells more useable.
It allows more character expression where a singular focus spell would make all magi more samey.
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A dozen of spells is still ten times more than one focus spell. Plus potential additions from impossible magic, but the lack of attack spells is an issue we agree on.
Plus this varies as you level up and get access to more, not always for raw damage but also rider effects. Especially if the remaster males save spells more useable.
Given how people have suggested adding more attack spells to the arcane list as a remedy to this exact problem, I see no reason to not just cut to the chase and implement multiple focus attack spells for the Magus instead. As has also been pointed out, attack slot spells are generally terrible, so even out of the ones that exist, only few are likely to see much use, which is why blazing bolt gets mentioned as a Spellstriking spell and... well, that's it really, besides maybe the premaster polar ray spell at much higher level.
It allows more character expression where a singular focus spell would make all magi more samey.
In my experience, the opposite has been true. Maguses who didn't opt into a focus attack spell via archetype ended up Spellstriking with pretty much the same slot spell when they used it, and thus contributing much less utility to the party. By contrast, Maguses who did opt into a focus attack spell did certainly prefer Spellstriking with that focus spell, but ended up contributing far more diverse utility with their spell slots, and thus feeling much more like an actual hybrid class rather than a martial with extra steps. In neither case was their Spellstriking all that diverse, but in the latter case the Magus's ability to use an evergreen spell offered them much more variety in how to use their spell slots.
I guess my experience is one of a kind then. I think that looking at spellstrike and attack spells purely as damage is a mistake, their rider effects, especially those that can have stronger ones on crits, will tend to be more impactful and fun.
I guess my experience is one of a kind then. I think that looking at spellstrike and attack spells purely as damage is a mistake, their rider effects, especially those that can have stronger ones on crits, will tend to be more impactful and fun.
As much as I would like the Magus to Spellstrike for utility and not just damage, that is not how I have ever seen it turn out in practice. Not only are utility riders on attack spells few and far between, they're generally not very good either. In an ideal world I'd like the Magus to be able to also output utility through Spellstrikes, which is why I'm advocating for them to make better use of save spells, but I also don't think they should need to dip into spell slots for damage. If focus attack spells have weak or no utility, then that would still leave the door open for the Magus to prepare utility-focused save spells for Spellstriking at least.
At this point it's just a disagreement on game design tbh.
I mean sure, we're clearly operating from different perspectives, and that's fine. Personally, I'm inclined to take the path that is the least disruptive to existing builds: giving out things for free that current character took feats for is fine, but invalidating existing character build choices in part or in full I think is something that ought to be avoided if at all possible. This is why the brew I linked isn't a Magus rework, but a separate class, and I think the Oracle's remaster showed how even well-intentioned changes can easily end up angering people who find themselves no longer able to play their characters like they used to.
I also do think there is a degree of wishful thinking going on: yes, in theory the Magus has hundreds of spells to prepare and could blend utility from hundreds of different spells into their Spellstrikes, but in practice they often only prepare the one or two attack spells that don't suck, with players going out of their way to not have to prepare attack spells at all. Were the Magus implemented differently in a manner that reduced the attrition constraints on their prepared spells, they could probably achieve that fantasy of blending any offensive spell with their Strikes much better, but I don't think that fantasy can be realistically achieved in full on the current class without either overtuning them or having to take away a lot of their power elsewhere. Short of homebrew that does make those tradeoffs, I'd rather give players what they want and remove as many barriers to enjoyment on the current Magus as balance allows, rather than take away one of the ways players get to soften one of the class's many limitations.
I think that giving up on offering more options because some/a perceived majority/optimal players will always pick the same 3 spells is doing a disservice to the design.
Sure, if they do, they will. Nothing will stop them.
But it's their way of playing their character, who cares ? Those who want to do something else (say want to have a water/ice centric magus) will be able to pick the spells that fit it the most for that.
Whereas if you only got a focus spell meant for spellstrike, and little support to not use it and do something else, it restrain the player options. Not relying on it will actively gimp your character even more.
You can leave the focus spellstrike thing in, and remaster the class as if nobody used that cheese/tech/build option. That way everyone's happy.
And if it does end up becoming an issue, it's one errata away from being nerfed anyway. But that's also why I'd love to see the value of focus spells changed for magus, making any focus spell a conflux spell. So even existing builds wouldn't end up with useless spells from their build choices (wether or not the focus spellstrike ability is removed, in either cases the focus spells would keep their value as recharge tools)
I think that giving up on offering more options because some/a perceived majority/optimal players will always pick the same 3 spells is doing a disservice to the design.
Sure, if they do, they will. Nothing will stop them.
But it's their way of playing their character, who cares ? Those who want to do something else (say want to have a water/ice centric magus) will be able to pick the spells that fit it the most for that.
I think this is one of those cases where the writing's on the wall. It's not just that attack spells are notoriously unpopular, Paizo themselves have barely released any new attack spells since the remaster. Releasing spells to a general list that only one class will use does not strike me as terribly efficient.
But on that note, though, I definitely agree we shouldn't be taking away options just to please a subset of players, which is why I think focus Spellstriking is likely to garner far more backlash than support, as it has done already on these forums. As it stands, I'm proposing to give the Magus more options here, not take them away.
Whereas if you only got a focus spell meant for spellstrike, and little support to not use it and do something else, it restrain the player options. Not relying on it will actively gimp your character even more.
... which is already the case now. Kicking the crutches the class is currently relying on out from underneath them does not strike me as the best way to help.
But also, you'll notice that I am suggesting to give the Magus focus attack spells in addition to improvements to their spellcasting proficiency, and particularly their save spell accuracy when Spellstriking. Applying these improvements in combination could very well lead to a state of affairs where the Magus always has an evergreen source of good Spellstrike damage, but can also benefit from preparing save spells with powerful utility attached just to Spellstrike with. Even in the case where Magus players only use those focus spells and prepare non-Spellstrike spells into their slots, that too is better in my opinion than making the Magus use their four spell slots to prepare what essentially just boils down to more Strike damage.
You can leave the focus spellstrike thing in, and remaster the class as if nobody used that cheese/tech/build option. That way everyone's happy.
And if it does end up becoming an issue, it's one errata away from being nerfed anyway. But that's also why I'd love to see the value of focus spells changed for magus, making any focus spell a conflux spell. So even existing builds wouldn't end up with useless spells from their build choices (wether or not the focus spellstrike ability is removed, in either cases the focus spells would keep their value as recharge tools)
The problem with leaving focus Spellstriking in but not giving the Magus any innate support for it is that this will continue to incentivize the Magus to seek out focus attack spells via archetyping, because that is clearly a very desirable thing for the class to have. This is presumably why you proposed to disable that interaction in the first place.
It would encourage it but it wouldn't be that needed if the class is designed to be powerful without it, I think.
But yeah, wait and see. I hope some of the ideas we both shared over the last year and a half made it into the remaster :p
It would encourage it but it wouldn't be that needed if the class is designed to be powerful without it, I think.
This is exactly my intent. I'd have to find the exact quote, but IIRC there was a developer comment stating that the Magus wasn't intended to need to Spellstrike with spell slots either, even if they likely meant it in the sense that they believed cantrip Spellstriking was sufficient. If the Magus's four spell slots sit in a spot where they can be comfortably used for utility, with or without Spellstrike, that I think would be a good place for the class to be.
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It's weird then that so many of their feats only worked when using spell slots for spellstrike, feels a bit at odds with the design.
The collar holds one mutagen. Energy mutagen picks damage type on creation. I wish you luck on getting that to line up and not waste more actions than one.
That's right. And in any environment where you can expect to fight the same or similar enemies you swap for the rest of the day. Ditto having any advance knowledge. Mutagens are cheap enough that you can carry multiples of every type without issue, though more realistically you'll be carrying mostly cold and fire since elec and acid weaknesses are extremely rare. A quick Nethys search says there are 11 with acid weakness, 48 with electric, 94 cold and 214 fire. You can see why there might not be much of an issue hitting elemental weaknesses with just a flaming weapon and a cold or electric mutagen.
Given how many times it has been shown that the Magus's DPR is nowhere near the top, I'm not sure this statement can be made out of honest ignorance by someone following this conversation. If you have findings to support this claim, I'd be interested in seeing them.
Oh, it's feasable enough for magus to hit top DPR. They scale so well with math de/buffs after all. A magus firing off focus spellstrikes with all the math behind them is a menace that has the highest average damage output in the game the last I did the math. That's the caveat though, you need to have a party that's capable of providing those math adjustments. Inspire/bless, dirge/fear, off guard and aid. To make the magus shine you need to be able to apply these readily and often. On its own and without party support, it's still good, but nowhere what it can look like with so much of a math swing to setup crits. Fortunately, it's easy to get low resource or resourceless math adjustments and then pay in more for synesthesia, heroism, true strike/target, etc, etc to get very high crit rates. This is regardless of enemy level or even extreme vs high AC.
Damage is a solved issue for the magus. The only thing they need to work on is action economy and there are several solutions you can build or buy into for that if it isn't being solved by an ally.
I wonder how much of an improvement it would be if you gave Magus a variant of Certain Strike? It would allow them to do some damage with a followup strike after the Spellstrike, but have problems with crit failed attacks because of MAP. Maybe make it so it depends on Arcane Cascade and the bonus damage is from something that Arcane Cascade gives?
Weakness triggering is a valid Magus build concept, but the Thaumaturge sort of took over that space. Runic Impression can help with the triggering of weaknesses.
On my melee magus I do find the provoking of Reactive Strike to be a significant danger. A magus does really poorly against a creature with Reactive Strike.
That's kind of what Force Fang does. Guaranteed damage at the cost of a focus point, and also recharge spellstrike.
Alternatively there is Cascading Ray, a ranged spell attack at the same MAP as your spellstrike, but only against a different target. Some variants of that would be nice honestly.
Also yeah, when unable to spellstrike the class really loses a lot of its toolkit.
Force Fang being a conflux spell is severely limited in how often it can be used. A feat with the press trait could be used after any spellstrike.
I'm going to propose Arcane Cascade increasing cantrip damage again, since that would give spellstriking with cantrips past the first round a big boost - if we increase it to be on-par with Fire Ray that makes the intended spellstrike gameplan of 'slotted spell - cantrip - cantrip if battle lasts that long' more attractive than triple focus spells
The end result of this is archetyping for a free action focus spell to enable immediate arcane cascade and begin spellstriking. Witch's cackle is the best one to access assuming you'll be allowed to cast it for no effect. Otherwise, you'll archetype cleric for oathkeeper's insignia off the duty domain.
Ends up as a straight buff as you get both focus spell damage and still get to recharge twice with force fang.
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I dont think a magus should have the ability to cast a spell at legendary proficiency at endgame then strike with master proficiency in the same turn...magus can get up to rank 9 spells. Classes picking a martial or caster lane is one of the pillars for balance and niche protection in the game; animist cheats this but even that cheese can't be both on the same turn
Similarly, heavy armor is another niche that's protected unless you invest.
Is it really that big of a deal with their limited spellslots and their lower casting stat?
This would likely come around at level 19, so it's only for the last two levels of the game, it only works for like 4 spellslots, and your casting stat is gonna be either +5 or +6, so you're either gonna be 2 behind casters, or 1 behind casters and 1 behind martials.
Not sure what this "is a niche that's protected" thing means exactly. It's not like heavy armour is that protected of a niche.
Heavy armor isn't, legendary heavy armor is.
A legendary DC magus would only need scrolls, wands or archetypes to use a DC that's often equal too or lower by 1 to a full caster, which being a more power direct damage dealer and having good martial abilities.
It'd kind of have the best of both worlds with the only drawback being a lack of spellslots. Most of the benefits of being a full caster would be cheapened by that.
That the magus' DC is improved somewhat when they do "their" thing is a good idea to expand the amount of spells they can use with spellstrike for example, but for all their spells to have a legendary DC at the rate of a wizard feels cheap to me.
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Legendary heavy armor on the Magus is, to my understanding, being suggested by literally no one on this thread. What is being pointed out, however, is the Magus right now can get master proficiency in heavy armor by picking a Champion, Guardian, or Sentinel archetype, so giving them this proficiency by default does not break niche protection.
The claim that the Magus has more power as a direct damage dealer is also questionable, as casters using top-rank slots can blast better than any martial class can Strike and are far less restricted than the Magus when doing so. Yes, the Magus has good martial abilities, which they pay for with extremely limited spell output and a heavy dependence on physical attributes. "All their spells" is six spells, as opposed to the Wizard's minimum of eleven spells at 7th level alone. Being able to occasionally match spellcasters in spell accuracy is, in my opinion, much the same as spellcasters matching, in one case even exceeding the AC of martial classes at certain levels: this is a thing that happens in a game where different classes get proficiency bumps at different levels, and I don't think this prevents those classes from having noticeable differences in core statistics at most levels.
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Heavy armor isn't, legendary heavy armor is.
A legendary DC magus would only need scrolls, wands or archetypes to use a DC that's often equal too or lower by 1 to a full caster, which being a more power direct damage dealer and having good martial abilities.
It'd kind of have the best of both worlds with the only drawback being a lack of spellslots. Most of the benefits of being a full caster would be cheapened by that.That the magus' DC is improved somewhat when they do "their" thing is a good idea to expand the amount of spells they can use with spellstrike for example, but for all their spells to have a legendary DC at the rate of a wizard feels cheap to me.
Legendary DC only comes up at level 19, where the Magus would be guaranteed to be behind casters. -1 at 19, then -2 at 20 unless they sacrifice their attacking stat.
It's not the best of both worlds when they get like 4 spellslots to take advantage of it. Scrolls and wands are not a replacement for actual spellslots, more so when you're a magus with already cooked action economy and might just have full hands.
Archetypes cost class feats, so they aren't exactly free.
Scrolls and wands are not a replacement for actual spellslots, more so when you're a magus with already cooked action economy and might just have full hands.Heavy armor isn't, legendary heavy armor is.
A legendary DC magus would only need scrolls, wands or archetypes to use a DC that's often equal too or lower by 1 to a full caster, which being a more power direct damage dealer and having good martial abilities.
It'd kind of have the best of both worlds with the only drawback being a lack of spellslots. Most of the benefits of being a full caster would be cheapened by that.That the magus' DC is improved somewhat when they do "their" thing is a good idea to expand the amount of spells they can use with spellstrike for example, but for all their spells to have a legendary DC at the rate of a wizard feels cheap to me.
Hard agree. On level scrolls/wands cost way too much to almost ever be worth it, and while spamming command or slow isn’t terrible, and is fairly cheap, by the time those get affordable you have better uses for your hands and actions than drawing scrolls unless you’re literally out of slots.
Scrolls and wands are best for out of combat use and the occasional situational spell, like having earthbind scrolls. They are not a viable part of your main action loops for longer than a couple encounters, as after doing so you will be lacking the funds to continue.
On the contrary, if there were more spells like polar ray spread out amongst the ranks (so like more briny bolt spells with a fair bit of damage and a decent effect) than top rank -1 or 2 scrolls are very reasonable, can easily be integrated with striker’s scroll, and would add a lot of endurance to the class. The problem is there are just not enough different spells to make this more than just a one trick pony where you use basically the same spell for 10+ levels at a time.
Unless the intent is to reinvent the design philosophy behind attack spells, any class heavily reliant on those is doomed to be a one-trick pony. Attack spells inherently focus on dealing damage, and were one such spell were to instead focus on crowd control or utility, that would synergize with attack roll modifiers in ways detailed already in this conversation at length. This is one of the reasons why giving the Magus focus attack spells would, in my opinion, not take away much from what little attack spells currently offer. If this frees up the Magus’s spell slots for utility or save spells, that I think would be a net benefit to their diversity of play.
I think it requires care to add the right mix of additional spell attack roll spells, but it is definitely possible.
Tangle vine is a really fun cantrip to play around with on the Magus. I remember when we were fighting dinosaurs, I used it a fair bit and we were pretty easily able to kite them in several encounters. Polar Ray's drained on a success is a good condition. Briny Bolt has been brought up a bunch in this thread. Personally, I think it is a bad spell to put in a spell slot but a fantastic spell for a striker's scroll. Acid arrow turned into sticky fire is a good condition granting spell attack roll spell.
The issue with so few of them is that there is not enough of the decision making that other casters get to make about damage types and rider effects to make striker's scroll a consistently good feat unless you really commit to it.
This was kind of always a problem with the magus and how the playtest one could use any spell and the published one could only use spell attack roll spells, but the remaster focus on saving throws definitely exacerbated the issue for how they seem to want the magus to play, and likely pushed the focus spell thing to the extreme, both for having the most and best spell attack roll spells and for making the recovery of focus points not something that took 3 or 4 class feats to make work.
I kinda think it would be cool if you could only recharge your spell strike, after you had cast anything other than a cantrip with it, with a conflux spell, and then it probably would be fine to allow spell striking with saving throw spells to just use one roll, allow magi to still use other classes' focus spells, and probably allow for a little more damage to be added to cantrip spell striking, since you would rarely be doing more than one big nova spell strike in an encounter.
It is the fact that focus spell spell striking essentially became "do this your first 3 rounds of the encounter," or in essence, an at-will ability through the most important rounds of combat, that the DPR of the Magus became the kind of problem where it was a massive outlier for optimizers and a bit disappointing for many players who only really ever used it with cantrips.