Alas, poor Sphere Magus

[A.J.Gibson]

The sphere magus is the sphere archetype I see mentioned on the most. It has it's fans - people who wanted a gish for literally decades and finally got one - and because of that, people want to play it. But it's a terribly designed class, which spheres makes even worse (from a design perspective). On top of that, it's hard to support.

The magus is basically a one-handed weapon user whose main thing is to use a spell as their off-hand weapon. In addition, they can use a weapon to deliver spells, allowing them to make an off-hand weapon attack with the weapon in their main hand. Which is weird. Beyond that, all their class features are 'not a wizard' features. Wizards can't wear armor, but the magus can. You need to make concentration checks to cast defensively, but get a bonus. You spell list sucks, but you can take spells from someone else's list. All their class features are 'this no longer screws you over anymore'.

Enter spheres. The sphere magus now removes the limitations which the magus used to get class features to ignore (don't take somatic casting, and wear heavy armor from level 1!). In addition, spheres makes it easier to multi-class as a caster, so you're no longer stuck with the magus' shocking grasp + other stuff list. Add it up, and it means there is no longer a reason to stay in the class after level 2, unless you want arcana for some reason (a lot of which are terrible).

In addition, spheres hasn't done a great job of supporting the magus. It's hard writing something for the magus and justifying it as magus only. I wrote several magus abilities (and a full archetype) for War, and it all got cut down to feats, simply because there was no reason for it to be magus only (hello, Reflexive Magic!). Eventually, I gave up trying to fix it and wrote Mystic Assault.

So how do we go about fixing this? I know several people have written new sphere magus archetypes (including me), and I suspect SoM will do something with the magus at some point as well. But how do we make a sphere magus that is worth playing?

[digiman619]

Until SoM and its Gish archetypes show up, I almost feel that it should become a Hedgewitch archetype that gives magus arcana rather tan tradition secrets.

[Drifter S.]

Skipping over the issue of Magus's base class design, and the moving van full of problems it has, I have to ask a question that I saw posed to me a couple times. "What is the Magus supposed to do that's unique to it?", and when it comes to spheres, the answer appears to be... Well, basically nothing. Everything else seems to do its job better in some way, making exclusive anything hard to justify, and more than a level or two for Spell Combat/Strike a hard sell. Especially with the existence of Mystic Assault as a feat chain and the Combat Hedgewitch Tradition.

Which leaves me to wonder, if the Magus has the issue of pretty much not having anything unique to it in Spheres... An easy solution might just be to embrace that if you're tired of ignoring the class. The Personal Protection Arcana is something I'm glad was at least a glimmer in your eyes, even if it might not make it to the final product. The Arcane Pool Enhancement feature seems like it's begging for something that ties it to the enhancement sphere, if only for a duration buff to compensate for being relatively expensive.

The Mageknight, Magus's brighter and better younger brother. could probably share a few toys, some of which (Martial Magic to give an example, even if totems are a bit fiddly) could definitely work out as Arcana with a tweak here and there. If you wanted to be an absolute madman, then an Arcana to let Spell Combat and Mystic Assault stack together could even be a thing with a decently high level requirement (9-12?). That's probably a bad idea though, so as much fun as it'd be, probably shouldn't open that can of worms.

It's not massive incentive to stick with Magus, but more things that make sticking with it attractive would be a solid step forward. None of it solves the issue of the way the Sphere Magus archetype is set up, granted, but baby steps. Something to get the ol' noggin' joggin'. If I had experience with SoM, I'd chime in there, but I never payed the playtest much mind sadly.

[khadgar567]

here is magus's whole problem it freakin sasuke uchiha the class so just give it sharingan and its powers and you are done.


Lets look the what magus's onisan the good old red mage from final fantasy as target and build sphere version to emulate onisan rather then its Otōto sasuke uchiha. So first thing first magus needs to cast more then chidori in every caster level( needs much greater spell list that don't focus on shocking grasp. I will give it prodigy's attack and cast spell ability. then they must need native access to might talents so they dont spam chidori every freaking turn to deal damage. whit these magus can at least work as intended role as melee mage. after then we can if we want give ribbon like perform this action to get back spend spell abilities

[meemaas]

An idea could be to give it, starting at fourth level, a +1 enhancement bonus plus one per four levels to one sphere (possibly an extra one every time it scales up) while using Spellstrike or Spell Combat. Follow that up with Magus Arcana to increase the DC of any ability cast through Spellstrike or Spell Combat by the enhancement bonus of the weapon wielded. These would let the Magus emulate a full caster while doing their schtick specifically.

More options to increase the value would probably include Magus Arcana that add new options to using specific spheres with Spellstrike and Spell Combat. For example.

Magus Arcana: Prerequisite: level 9, Sphere Magus
When using Spell Combat and Spellstrike to deliver a Destruction Sphere ability, you may instead charge your entire Full Attack with the Destructive Blast. Every attack you land deals 1/2 your destructive blast damage to the target.

Numbers are subject to balance*

I think these changes might be enough to make the Magus attractive beyond a dip.

[TheIronGolem]

What about a Mageknight archetype that does for the Magus what Warrior of Holy Light and Utterdark Champion do for the Paladin/Antipaladin? Then you can take the Magus' primary schtick (magic as an offhand weapon, in this case) and put it into a class that's designed to work with spherecasting from the ground up. That gives you a Magus in spirit, and in my opinion that's what counts.

[Snowbluff]

Sphere archetypes are generally amazingly awful. Worse still, is trying to use Destruction on anything less than a full caster, as your damage dice are based on CL. :L

In general I dislike the archetypes, but some, like the Paladin one, are plain insulting.

[khadgar567]

Sphere archetypes are generally amazingly awful. Worse still, is trying to use Destruction on anything less than a full caster, as your damage dice are based on CL. :L

In general I dislike the archetypes, but some, like the Paladin one, are plain insulting.
then improve it mate or brew your own paladin using spheres system i have a class build but needs finishing touches and polishing. if creators or any one wants i share it.

[A.J.Gibson]

Skipping over the issue of Magus's base class design, and the moving van full of problems it has, I have to ask a question that I saw posed to me a couple times. "What is the Magus supposed to do that's unique to it?", and when it comes to spheres, the answer appears to be... Well, basically nothing. Everything else seems to do its job better in some way, making exclusive anything hard to justify, and more than a level or two for Spell Combat/Strike a hard sell. Especially with the existence of Mystic Assault as a feat chain and the Combat Hedgewitch Tradition.

Which leaves me to wonder, if the Magus has the issue of pretty much not having anything unique to it in Spheres... An easy solution might just be to embrace that if you're tired of ignoring the class. The Personal Protection Arcana is something I'm glad was at least a glimmer in your eyes, even if it might not make it to the final product. The Arcane Pool Enhancement feature seems like it's begging for something that ties it to the enhancement sphere, if only for a duration buff to compensate for being relatively expensive.

The Mageknight, Magus's brighter and better younger brother. could probably share a few toys, some of which (Martial Magic to give an example, even if totems are a bit fiddly) could definitely work out as Arcana with a tweak here and there. If you wanted to be an absolute madman, then an Arcana to let Spell Combat and Mystic Assault stack together could even be a thing with a decently high level requirement (9-12?). That's probably a bad idea though, so as much fun as it'd be, probably shouldn't open that can of worms.

You're right about the magus not having a niche. That part of the reason why I think good solution might be for one of the handbooks to come up with a good magus archetype idea that gives a niche while updating it.

I hope Personal Protection arcana is fixable. The issue is that any arcana that doesn't directly reference spellstrike or spell combat is fodder for becoming a general feat or talent. I've tried tying arcane pool to Enhancement, but Enhancement has very little in the way of weapon boosting that makes it worth while. There is a magus/warriest feat in gear that lets them steal from the armorist, though.

Giving the magus access to mystic combats is something I tried in War, but it got shot down for some reason.

[A.J.Gibson]

An idea could be to give it, starting at fourth level, a +1 enhancement bonus plus one per four levels to one sphere (possibly an extra one every time it scales up) while using Spellstrike or Spell Combat. Follow that up with Magus Arcana to increase the DC of any ability cast through Spellstrike or Spell Combat by the enhancement bonus of the weapon wielded. These would let the Magus emulate a full caster while doing their schtick specifically.

More options to increase the value would probably include Magus Arcana that add new options to using specific spheres with Spellstrike and Spell Combat. For example.

Magus Arcana: Prerequisite: level 9, Sphere Magus
When using Spell Combat and Spellstrike to deliver a Destruction Sphere ability, you may instead charge your entire Full Attack with the Destructive Blast. Every attack you land deals 1/2 your destructive blast damage to the target.

Numbers are subject to balance*

I think these changes might be enough to make the Magus attractive beyond a dip.

The problem with this is that everyone will just take Destruction. The real appeal of the magus is the ability to do a lot of damage, coupled with critical hit shenanigans. Giving them some way to boost sphere DC is just simply required, and your progression sounds about right - at least with a lower Destruction CL, they can make up for the damage loss by attacking, but firing off a bunch of debuffs with low DC's every round is a waste of time.

Another way to convince people to stay with the magus is to put a cap on spell combat: they can not exceed their level in BAB or CL. This would allow a small amount of dipping, but not taking 2 levels and nothing else. The final option, which I kinda like, is giving the sphere magus Thaumaturge progression: full CL with a talent every other level.

[A.J.Gibson]

What about a Mageknight archetype that does for the Magus what Warrior of Holy Light and Utterdark Champion do for the Paladin/Antipaladin? Then you can take the Magus' primary schtick (magic as an offhand weapon, in this case) and put it into a class that's designed to work with spherecasting from the ground up. That gives you a Magus in spirit, and in my opinion that's what counts.

This is how mystic assault came about. The problem is that spell combat is worth a lot more than one feat. The regular magus has the cost of spell combat spread out across multiple levels, as it only works with their spells, but the sphere magus removes this limitation, effectively moving the entire ability to level 1. The result is that dipping magus will always be better than taking any well-designed class. Mystic assault is basically a meta-magic feat - it's basically quicken, limited to some abilities, that turns your ability into an attack action instead of a swift action and costs less spell points. Combine it with improved mystic assault and some sort of haste, and you have something close to the magus. Full spell combat is probably worth 4 or 5 feats. Spellstrike can be duplicated using the various melee sphere feats, like Energy Blade and Cryptic Assault.

Hopefully the Dread Crusader in the Death book can fill this niche.

[A.J.Gibson]

Sphere archetypes are generally amazingly awful. Worse still, is trying to use Destruction on anything less than a full caster, as your damage dice are based on CL. :L

In general I dislike the archetypes, but some, like the Paladin one, are plain insulting.

Pretty much. I've been putting conversions for older classes in my books to try and mitigate this a bit.

Destruction isn't a problem for the sphere magus, however, because of the Focused Blast Type Group feat. Just pick melee (or whatever it is for going through your spellstrike) and you're at full-CL.

[meemaas]

My suggestion on the caster level boost was sorta to replace sphere staves, since by RAW, a magus can't use one while using spell combat unless it's his weapon. Adding a new one every few levels would allow them to utilize more spheres more effectively, especially if tied to the sphere specific arcana I mentioned.

[A.J.Gibson]

My suggestion on the caster level boost was sorta to replace sphere staves, since by RAW, a magus can't use one while using spell combat unless it's his weapon. Adding a new one every few levels would allow them to utilize more spheres more effectively, especially if tied to the sphere specific arcana I mentioned.

I hadn't noticed it was an enhancement bonus - I kinda like that, actually. Staffs push people to specialize, and if you force a magus to specialize, it will be Destruction every time. My comments otherwise stand.

And destructive flurry looks good.

So what would people think if spell combat cost a spell point at low level, and that cost got removed higher up? Just so you're not getting all of spell combat at first level. I want to avoid the 'you can spell combat with only one sphere at first level' approach because you are, again, pushing people into Destruction.

Also, what would people think of removing the critical hit-affecting the spell clause? This pushes builds towards a single build (Destructive crit-fisher), which is a flaw with the design in my view.

Finally, what do people think should replace Knowledge Pool/Improved Knowledge Pool and Spell Access/Greater Spell Access?

[Drifter S.]

Tying Pool Enhancement to the Enhancement sphere was partially just an excuse to fish for some way to extend the duration. Checking out the feat in Gear of Power, I kind of wonder why it doesn't present the option to add some of the base armorist weapon qualities (merciful, corrossive+burst, mighty cleaving to name a few) to the list, since I'm pretty sure a bunch are missing from all those enhancement lists. There's also how it seems like it would make a lot of sense for it to at least be something that can be taken in place of an arcana as a special clause, given how it explicitly interacts with the Pool Enhancements.

On the Destructive Flurry that meemaas suggested, the scaling hopefully takes into account how pretty much any magus intending to stick with it will pick up Focused Blast Type Group. With that in mind, the DC of a blast's debuff would probably be the same as using it normally, but it'd be a good idea to only let it proc any debuffs once per turn, with maybe a boost on the DC for hitting a single target multiple times. I assume it's intended to still give the "bonus attack" when used, and if you fail a concentration check to cast you lose the bonus attack and the bonus damage on the rest of your attacks?

Just to touch on the Spell Combat dilemma, the common thing in the homebrewed "fixes" was the capping of BAB and CL tied to magus level, which felt like a less frustrating, if limiting direction to take. Making it cost a spell point (as Mystic Assault) would sort of depend on what level you take the cost off. Spellstrike's crit mechanic seems like it's frustrating to design around, but almost feels too iconic to take away.

[khadgar567]

So we still try to make better sasuke uchiha instead of creating unchained magus and make ing it batter

[A.J.Gibson]

Tying Pool Enhancement to the Enhancement sphere was partially just an excuse to fish for some way to extend the duration. Checking out the feat in Gear of Power, I kind of wonder why it doesn't present the option to add some of the base armorist weapon qualities (merciful, corrossive+burst, mighty cleaving to name a few) to the list, since I'm pretty sure a bunch are missing from all those enhancement lists. There's also how it seems like it would make a lot of sense for it to at least be something that can be taken in place of an arcana as a special clause, given how it explicitly interacts with the Pool Enhancements.

On the Destructive Flurry that meemaas suggested, the scaling hopefully takes into account how pretty much any magus intending to stick with it will pick up Focused Blast Type Group. With that in mind, the DC of a blast's debuff would probably be the same as using it normally, but it'd be a good idea to only let it proc any debuffs once per turn, with maybe a boost on the DC for hitting a single target multiple times. I assume it's intended to still give the "bonus attack" when used, and if you fail a concentration check to cast you lose the bonus attack and the bonus damage on the rest of your attacks?

Just to touch on the Spell Combat dilemma, the common thing in the homebrewed "fixes" was the capping of BAB and CL tied to magus level, which felt like a less frustrating, if limiting direction to take. Making it cost a spell point (as Mystic Assault) would sort of depend on what level you take the cost off. Spellstrike's crit mechanic seems like it's frustrating to design around, but almost feels too iconic to take away.

I'll have a look at Gear when I get the chance. The BAB and CL capping was something I did with my homebrew. Pathfinder Savant's unchained sphere magus went with a different approach: only granting iteratives you gained through magus. I haven't seen any other homebrew sphere magi. I figured a spell point cost could be added to 8th level, and then removed then. I honestly would get rid of the magus concentration check bonus power (it's kinda useless) and that would be a good replacement. Spellstrike's crit forces everyone down the same Destruction path (am I the only one with a problem with this?), and also forces players into crit-fishers (though the one-handed weapon limitation does that as well). If the magus gets something on a crit, it should apply to all spheres, not just damaging ones.

[A.J.Gibson]

So we still try to make better sasuke uchiha instead of creating unchained magus and make ing it batter

I don't get the sasuke uchiha reference.

[QuadraticGish]

Sphere archetypes are generally amazingly awful. Worse still, is trying to use Destruction on anything less than a full caster, as your damage dice are based on CL. :L

One thing I've taken to doing for the Sphere archetypes that aren't full casters is this: Upon entry a sphere is chosen. When casting the selected sphere, the player may treat the levels from this class as if it was a full caster. Considering how most of these classes functioned with vancian casting, this seemed like a common sense thing to me.


In general I dislike the archetypes, but some, like the Paladin one, are plain insulting.

What, it can't be that bad Never mind. I probably forgot about it since in the campaign I'm going to be running Paladins are different.

Anyway, for the topic at hand, I'm stumped on how to fix it. One silly thing I would like to point out though is that by RAW, if you double up on somantic casting, you get a Magus that casts perfectly fine in medium and heavy armor but down the line but has issues doing so in light armor. Unless I missed something anyway. Another thing to point out is that the sphere archetypes prevent a lot of the cool magus archetypes from being taken, like Bladebound or Staff Magus.

[khadgar567]

https://pre00.deviantart.net/a434/th/pre/f/2016/294/2/e/mangekyou_sharingan_uchiha_sasuke_no_chidori_by_hy b1rd_1982-dalprb6.png
I don't get the sasuke uchiha reference.
him using shocking grasp( chidori) on off hand aka him as magus class

[A.J.Gibson]

So I think there are two options for the magus:

Option 1: The magus is a high caster that uses the thaumaturge progression (talents only at even levels). People will naturally want to stay in the class since it gives them a good BAB and full casting.

Option 2: The magus is a mid-caster, and spell combat is limited so that BAB and CL can't exceed the magus class level (so you can dip a bit, but not much).

Most magus players seem to want full-CL in at least one sphere, usually Destruction (though Focused Blast Group feat makes that possible), but I like giving them full-CL with a few spheres, so they aren't just spamming the same searing blast over and over again.

Also, is there value in having arcane pool stay separate from spell points?

[A.J.Gibson]

One thing I've taken to doing for the Sphere archetypes that aren't full casters is this: Upon entry a sphere is chosen. When casting the selected sphere, the player may treat the levels from this class as if it was a full caster. Considering how most of these classes functioned with vancian casting, this seemed like a common sense thing to me.


For mid-casters I definitely agree: full CL in at least one sphere, possibly two, but three is too much (looking at you triple goddess hedgewitch).

[stack]

AJ - board rules discourage double posting. Edits are preferred.

As for the actual topic, in my view the greatest flaw of the sphere magus is that it loses its arcane pool. The arcana progression and weapon enchanting abilities are solid features that suffer by being forced to draw from your casting pool. This makes two levels of magus followed by a hedgewitch with the combat tradition a better magus than straight magus, which is far from ideal.

With those class features functioning normally plus the additional spell points from arcane potency, I think the archetype would be perfectly serviceable. Still highly dippable, but you would have legitimate reasons to stay.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

What? The Magus is fine. Getting Medium and Heavy Armor means you can take extra drawbacks for more spell points and then "buy them off" for free. This combined with Arcane Potency means they're likely to have tons of spell points, allowing them to spam metamagic on any touch-delivered spell like crazy.

[ATHATH]

What if you turned the Magus into a hybrid Spheres of Power/Spheres of Might class?

[A.J.Gibson]

What? The Magus is fine. Getting Medium and Heavy Armor means you can take extra drawbacks for more spell points and then "buy them off" for free. This combined with Arcane Potency means they're likely to have tons of spell points, allowing them to spam metamagic on any touch-delivered spell like crazy.

This brings up something I've been wondering: can I use spell combat with sphere abilities that required more than a standard action (like a metamagic'd ability)?


What if you turned the Magus into a hybrid Spheres of Power/Spheres of Might class?

I'm assuming there will be one in the gish book?

[ATHATH]

I'm assuming there will be one in the gish book?
Yeah, but maybe you could put an Unchained Magus or something in it. Like, maybe something that can use a Spheres of Power ability and a Spheres of Might ability simultaneously/with the same action, but at the cost of doing so with a reduced (halved?) CL or something.

[Quarian Rex]

I figured a spell point cost could be added to 8th level, and then removed then.

For the love of the babby jebus do not do this thing. The idea that you can make a sub-optimal option better by making its one redeeming feature worse is the most backwards approach that I can think of. I understand the impulse, a quick fix that forces someone to commit to the class to get what they want, but making the player hemorrhage SP for the first 7 levels on a class feature that used to be free is just kicking a puppy.

Think of the Wizard. In 3.5 the goal was to prestige out of the class ASAP, taking anything more than the first level was considered a great burden. Did Pathfinder require Wizards to spend double spell slots till 8th level to force players to stick with the class? Nope. They buffed the class till it was worth taking. That seems to have had the desired effect.

Now let's apply this to the Magus. To start off, I second the Thaumaturge caster progression. Narrowed focus but heightened potency is key I think. Next, restore the Arcane pool. There is a reason that the base Magus wasn't powering Arcane Pool effects with spell slots. Then expand on Spell Combat, the defining feature of the Magus. Say that at 4th level spells cast in Spell Combat no longer provoke AoO. With a little commitment to the class one can now actually cast spells in combat (this is a gish, why isn't this already here?). Then at 8th level, while maintaining concentration on an effect with Spell Combat (as per the existing SoP Shphere Magus archetype) he can cast another sphere ability with a cast time of a standard action. Now he can maintain a buff or de-buff while still applying attack pressure. Then, say at 12th level, sphere abilities that have a cast time of a full round action can now be used with Spell Combat. This opens new avenues for metamagic use in combat.

Thoughts?

[A.J.Gibson]

For the love of the babby jebus do not do this thing. The idea that you can make a sub-optimal option better by making its one redeeming feature worse is the most backwards approach that I can think of. I understand the impulse, a quick fix that forces someone to commit to the class to get what they want, but making the player hemorrhage SP for the first 7 levels on a class feature that used to be free is just kicking a puppy.

Think of the Wizard. In 3.5 the goal was to prestige out of the class ASAP, taking anything more than the first level was considered a great burden. Did Pathfinder require Wizards to spend double spell slots till 8th level to force players to stick with the class? Nope. They buffed the class till it was worth taking. That seems to have had the desired effect.


You raise a good point. My issue is that spell combat is really very good - compare it to quicken, which is a feat and costs 4 spell points to use. Quicken costs 4 spell points and makes sphere casting a swift action, while spell combat makes it a free action, but only during a full-round attack. Granted, you can't get up to the same sort of shenanigans you can with quicken (like move action casting), and Quicken is overpriced for a lot of things, but spell combat is free. Let me ask you this: what if there was a meta-magic feat that let you cast any spell as a move action with no additional spell point cost, with the caveat that you have to use your standard action to attack. Because that's pretty much what spell combat does at first level.

I'm actually moving away from the spell point cost idea anyways, but you see my point.


Now let's apply this to the Magus. To start off, I second the Thaumaturge caster progression. Narrowed focus but heightened potency is key I think. Next, restore the Arcane pool. There is a reason that the base Magus wasn't powering Arcane Pool effects with spell slots. Then expand on Spell Combat, the defining feature of the Magus. Say that at 4th level spells cast in Spell Combat no longer provoke AoO. With a little commitment to the class one can now actually cast spells in combat (this is a gish, why isn't this already here?). Then at 8th level, while maintaining concentration on an effect with Spell Combat (as per the existing SoP Shphere Magus archetype) he can cast another sphere ability with a cast time of a standard action. Now he can maintain a buff or de-buff while still applying attack pressure. Then, say at 12th level, sphere abilities that have a cast time of a full round action can now be used with Spell Combat. This opens new avenues for metamagic use in combat.

I've been thinking about the Thaumaturge vs midcasting progression myself. The things is, full-CL isn't that great for the magus. With Focused Blast Shape effectively giving them full-CL with destruction for the cost of one feat (and destruction is pretty much what most magi want full-CL with), there isn't that much value there. What else do they want full-CL with? Maybe Death so they can be a good debuffer...

Restoring the Arcane pool is an option. Regular sphere magus removed it, but gave the sphere magus extra spell points, and with spell recall gone, they probably need less spell points per day.

For improved spell combat (8th level) and greater spell combat (14th level) I was thinking something like you were suggesting. Level 8 can be 'no defensive casting required' since they are guaranteed to pass by then anyways (hello, gloves of elvenkind) and having to make defensive casting checks every round just slows the game down. Level 14 can be 'use metamagic during spell combat without increasing casting time'.

I've also been wondering I spell combat should be limited to one handed melee weapons. I know it's there partially to balance the value of spell combat, but the whole 'your spell is an offhand weapon' is really weird.

[Drifter S.]

Worth remembering that Spell Combat always imposes that -2 on all attack rolls compared to using a Quicken, or even to the two-feat chain's dropping of your first attack. It's not wholly a big deal, as classes that dip (and a Sphere Magus) have way more ways to increase his attack rolls (hello, Divination Smite), but it's still something to remember when it's on a class whose main attack boost (pool enhancement) comes from something anyone would be buying anyway. Not sure how good of an idea choosing to reduce that penalty over the levels would be compared to making spells no longer require concentration checks. The latter might be something an Arcana could achieve via ignoring Combat Casting prerequisites for feats like Melee Blaster, but graduating to maintaining concentration while simultaneously starting a new effect does sound pretty nice.

As cool as Thaumaturge casting would be, it would probably be kind of redundant (the Destruction sphere point). An alternative that comes to mind thanks to the Protection Handbook's comments was to have Arcana that give conditional "full effective CL" for particular spheres, with maybe an extra effect to make a particular limitation attractive. An example offhand would be, say, only getting full CL on War totems when using Totemic Presence, but you can concentrate on a Totemic Presence as a move/swift action?

Arcane Pool I'm all for giving back given the lackluster effects of pool abilities vs sphere effects. Though, perhaps my stance on that (and everything else actually) is getting heavily warped from playing a Bladebound/Kensai that's houseruled on top of Sphere Magus.

[A.J.Gibson]

Worth remembering that Spell Combat always imposes that -2 on all attack rolls compared to using a Quicken, or even to the two-feat chain's dropping of your first attack. It's not wholly a big deal, as classes that dip (and a Sphere Magus) have way more ways to increase his attack rolls (hello, Divination Smite), but it's still something to remember when it's on a class whose main attack boost (pool enhancement) comes from something anyone would be buying anyway. Not sure how good of an idea choosing to reduce that penalty over the levels would be compared to making spells no longer require concentration checks. The latter might be something an Arcana could achieve via ignoring Combat Casting prerequisites for feats like Melee Blaster, but graduating to maintaining concentration while simultaneously starting a new effect does sound pretty nice.

As cool as Thaumaturge casting would be, it would probably be kind of redundant (the Destruction sphere point). An alternative that comes to mind thanks to the Protection Handbook's comments was to have Arcana that give conditional "full effective CL" for particular spheres, with maybe an extra effect to make a particular limitation attractive. An example offhand would be, say, only getting full CL on War totems when using Totemic Presence, but you can concentrate on a Totemic Presence as a move/swift action?

Arcane Pool I'm all for giving back given the lackluster effects of pool abilities vs sphere effects. Though, perhaps my stance on that (and everything else actually) is getting heavily warped from playing a Bladebound/Kensai that's houseruled on top of Sphere Magus.

The -2 thing is a good point, but I feel Spell Combat is still very good, and it creates the same issue the Incanter has: too much value up front.

How does your sphere magus play? What spheres did you go for?

[meemaas]

I fully support giving back the Arcane Pool. Maybe add a clause that lets them turn their weapon into a Sphere staff with it. Maybe as a Magus Arcana, to keep it from being dippable.

I also suggest changing Knowledge Pool to allow them to spend Arcane Pool points to gain extra talents, probably with a scaling cost to lower the risk of abuse. Maybe even roll Spell Recall and Improved and make the effect scale.

I'm still in favor of my Weapon Enhancement bonus to DC suggestion. This would benefit debuff sphere abilities more than Destruction damage and also push the use of the debuffing in Destruction over Searing Blast (God do I hate that talent). Maybe on top of that an Arcana that allows you to penalize a save against your talent the more you hit them before using your Sphere ability. I'll do a mock write up of such a talent tomorrow probably.

A final suggestion is to make this stack with some of the better magus archetypes. They offer the most flexibility in customizing your Magus and offhand a large number of them are just incompatible.

[Drifter S.]

The -2 thing is a good point, but I feel Spell Combat is still very good, and it creates the same issue the Incanter has: too much value up front.

How does your sphere magus play? What spheres did you go for?

Aside from some kind of early nerf that scales well with level (as was discussed prior) or moving it to be something you get later, I don't think you can get around that.

As far as the magus I'm personally playing, the group is covered in a lot of houserules (up to and including PoW and gestalt), so even though I've been trying to lean hard on Magus for it, my personal experience is heavily outside "normal play".

All the freedom influenced some choices and has led to me not really building or playing "properly", like how I've been not spending many spell points beyond daily personal buffs. Main reason I picked and stuck with Magus over any other class is mostly just I really liked Bladebound's fluff, but I probably would be getting way more mileage out of Elementalist, or even some form of Symbiat or Hedgewitch if I wasn't so dedicated to having an intelligent sword plothook to bait myself with. Bladebound and Kensai both were houseruled to slap on general drawbacks (Focus Casting for one, and 2x Somatic for the other, with 2/3 not giving back SP), and Kensai pretty much means all I'm getting from sphere magus is spherecasting and... Not having an Arcane Pool.

Took Alteration so I could snap up Shifting Disguise for fluff purposes, as well as Personal Warp so I could keep a few choice things tucked safely away). Took Illusion for setting up to sneak around, as well as the eventual "spend 2 spellpoints for minute/CL greater invis". Divination with drawbacks for a couple Senses (Blindfolded Oracle is silly good) to power Divination Smite. There's the ever present Destruction, with a monofocus in a stagger-causing electric blast because I am a sucker who still wanted to stick to electricity for style points. I've been eyeing War and Protection so I can pop stuff to help allies, and am going to have to wait a little while before I can actually take the feats to get my Destruction CL up to par to make full CL blasts really worth it.

[Kitsuneymg]

Some observations so far.


Going for thaumaturge casting really only means that magus2/elementalist+ builds have higher CL, as it gives even less reason to take magus 3.
Spell Combat is a wholly different beast from Spell Strike. SC is far, far, better than the mystic assault line. MA can only be used with attack/life spells. SC can be used with anything. More on this later.
With no arcane pool to grow, no need for concentration check bonuses (melee blaster), no limiting of what you can cast, and most arcana not being very good, you have no reason to ever take magus 3.


I'm playing a very non-traditional magus, but have a traditional one in one of my games. I'll tackle the second one first.

The player wants to be the guy who stabs people with fire. Sphere magus offers unique opportunities that magus doesn't. Namely, a scaling fire spell. However, due to elementalists's bonus damage, better saves, and feats, she's going flame warrior 1/magus 2/flame warrior++. She will be using fire exclusively and relying on Penetrating Blast and elemental flux maneuvers (with martial training feat line) to make fire do damage. She will be using (improved) energy leap + SC to get into position and full attack (with a penalty,) and empower (plus community minded so it sticks around) to actually *hit*. Casting Empower first, then spell combatting the leap onto a full attack. Once in combat, melee blaster will let her attack and do extra damage without fear. Empower never provokes because swift action spells don't provoke. The rest of her talents are going to support burning in various ways. Imbue with nature will be her mechanism to defeat SR. Not optimal, but certainly competent.

Nothing that magus 3+ gives her is of any real use. While extra sp, empower, maximize, and quicken for free 1/day are cool, they are not cool enough to overcome the bonus damage from flame warrior, the extra combat feats, the full CL in destruction, the side of nature full cl, and the monk saves.

For my build, I built a buffer. I will mention now we use a house rule: SoP replaces vancian casting, so the "archetypes" are the base class and their replacement abilities are just how the class works. Each replacement ability maintains it's original name and can be replaced by archetypes. It's a fancy way of saying I'm a sphere eldritch archer magus. Well, at level 1.

I have *no* destruction, but will eventually pick it up, I suspect. Instead, I use lingering resentment, war totems, spell combat, and my bow. Typically, I cycle buffs with lingering type durations. Allowing me to have 3 buffs active for no SP cost at all times. I can still attack. Right now, I'm very limited in what I can do. I will be taking martial training to get access to tempest gale stances, then tempest gale style, to allow me options other than damage with my bow. In my case, I only need magus 1. I am uninterested in anything that doesn't advanced bab and cl. So I'm going armorist for the rest. I plan to use Martial Magic around 5/10 level to fix my war caster level, and everything else can burn.

Even more than the blaster, I don't care about arcanas. Nothing the magus class offers beyond spell combat is worthwhile to me. I doubt if even a "fixed" one would be different: I'm not here for DPS strike magus, I' here for insane utility with full attack magus.

I'm going to try to think of ways to entice people into taking magus 3+, but I wanted to share the two sphere magus builds and what they are getting from their non-magus classes.

FWIW, getting a separate arcane pool is a good idea. It give something that scales with magus level. I like adding in staff enhancements to the pool. That might make me want to go magus 5+ on its own. But combat hedgewitch is always lurking too.

[A.J.Gibson]

I fully support giving back the Arcane Pool. Maybe add a clause that lets them turn their weapon into a Sphere staff with it. Maybe as a Magus Arcana, to keep it from being dippable.

I also suggest changing Knowledge Pool to allow them to spend Arcane Pool points to gain extra talents, probably with a scaling cost to lower the risk of abuse. Maybe even roll Spell Recall and Improved and make the effect scale.

I'm still in favor of my Weapon Enhancement bonus to DC suggestion. This would benefit debuff sphere abilities more than Destruction damage and also push the use of the debuffing in Destruction over Searing Blast (God do I hate that talent). Maybe on top of that an Arcana that allows you to penalize a save against your talent the more you hit them before using your Sphere ability. I'll do a mock write up of such a talent tomorrow probably.

A final suggestion is to make this stack with some of the better magus archetypes. They offer the most flexibility in customizing your Magus and offhand a large number of them are just incompatible.

An arcana for giving sphere staff a bonus might be doable, but it sounds really strong.

The concur on knowledge pool. It originally served the purpose of expanding the versatility of the magus, so some sort of limited improvisation (which the sphere magus gets now) is good.

A bonus to DC sounds good. I was thinking of changing spellstrike so that if you get a crit you have the option of double your dice or a bonus to DC.

I've been thinking about stacking. The major issue is that a lot of the archetypes have diminished spellcasting. In addition, most of them do the same thing: let you use spell combat or spellstrike with a different weapon. If spellstrike and spell combat worked with other weapons, a lot of archetypes wouldn't be necessary.


Aside from some kind of early nerf that scales well with level (as was discussed prior) or moving it to be something you get later, I don't think you can get around that.

I'm thinking of going with 'you can't use spell combat with a caster level or BAB higher than your class level'.

[Quarian Rex]

You raise a good point. My issue is that spell combat is really very good - compare it to quicken, which is a feat and costs 4 spell points to use. Quicken costs 4 spell points and makes sphere casting a swift action, while spell combat makes it a free action, but only during a full-round attack. Granted, you can't get up to the same sort of shenanigans you can with quicken (like move action casting), and Quicken is overpriced for a lot of things, but spell combat is free. Let me ask you this: what if there was a meta-magic feat that let you cast any spell as a move action with no additional spell point cost, with the caveat that you have to use your standard action to attack. Because that's pretty much what spell combat does at first level.

I'm actually moving away from the spell point cost idea anyways, but you see my point.

See, comparing Spell Combat to Quicken metamagic is a bit of a false equivalency, methinks. While they both appear to do the same thing (allow someone to cast a spell in addition to something else) the devil is in the details. Quicken allows a spellcaster to double their greatest strength, spellcasting. This is done at great convenience and no penalty (doesn't even provoke an AoO and can be used with spells that have up to full round casting time), so it has a cost. Is +4 spell levels/spell points too high a cost? I might agree that it is, but cost there is.

Spell Combat is probably best thought of as limited melee options added to spellcasting (rather than the other way around). This ability lets you attack in addition to casting a spell, but it has to be in melee (where spellcasters generally don't want to be), using a single light or one handed melee weapon (so no damage boosts from two handed weapons), with nothing in your off hand (lowered damage potential from the lack of two-weapon fighting, and increased vulnerability due to not using a shield), and with a -2 penalty to attack on a medium BAB chassis (resulting in a lower attack bonus than a wizard till 8th level, then equal to a wizard till 11th level), all against normal AC (not being granted the standard caster loophole of touch attacks to compensate for crap attack bonuses). That is actually quite a stack of balances brought against the utility of casting a spell during melee combat.

Quickened magnifies a casters' greatest strength, providing power at a cost. Spell Combat allows a caster to function as a caster in the situation most dangerous to a caster, providing high risk and (somewhat) high reward. These are two very different things.




I've been thinking about the Thaumaturge vs midcasting progression myself. The things is, full-CL isn't that great for the magus. With Focused Blast Shape effectively giving them full-CL with destruction for the cost of one feat (and destruction is pretty much what most magi want full-CL with), there isn't that much value there. What else do they want full-CL with? Maybe Death so they can be a good debuffer...

If part of your fix for a problem requires the player to purchase a feat to fix the problem... I don't think you've fixed the problem. This would also just force the Magus into repetitive Destruction spam, not because he actually wants to but because there wouldn't be anything else that he would be competent with. That is just extremely limiting.

What else would you want full CL with? Everything good sir. Unlike the Duskblade, the Magus is capable of using his signature gish ability with anything he can cast. The Magus is also uniquely capable of adapting on the fly with any of his sphere abilities while staying in the fight. Let them do so. This requires a full CL so that DC's (of Death effects, Illusions, offensive Enhancements and Alterations, and everything else) won't be shrugged off, so buffs give an extra edge (actually quite necessary due to mid-BAB and hit penalties), so that summoned reinforcements aren't useless, etc. The combat casting versatility would have to be paid for with a narrowed breadth of sphere knowledge. This would seem to fit the Thaumaturge progression prefectly. Any other suggestions I've heard (here or elsewhere), things like providing full CL with select spheres or raising the DC of abilities used on Spell Combat and such, seem like clumsy (and limiting) bandaids to make the Magus do what the Thaumaturge progression already covers.

Also, this would go a long way to further differentiate this new Sphere Magus from the Combat Hedgewitch.



Restoring the Arcane pool is an option. Regular sphere magus removed it, but gave the sphere magus extra spell points, and with spell recall gone, they probably need less spell points per day.

Spell points are a far more valuable resource than the Arcane Pool. Any option with an Arcane Pool cost would generally be ignored in favor of sphere options. Also, a lowered SP pool means that Spell Combat has greater utility for being able to maintain concentration of a sphere effect without the SP cost to extend the duration.



For improved spell combat (8th level) and greater spell combat (14th level) I was thinking something like you were suggesting. Level 8 can be 'no defensive casting required' since they are guaranteed to pass by then anyways (hello, gloves of elvenkind) and having to make defensive casting checks every round just slows the game down. Level 14 can be 'use metamagic during spell combat without increasing casting time'.

I would actually suggest scrapping the idea of specific 1 for 1 replacement levels. Drop Spell Recall, Knowledge Pool, Improved Spell Combat, Improved Spell Recall, Greater Spell Combat, and Greater Spell Access then build up from there. This gives you the room to space things out appropriately. For instance, I really think that waiting till 8th to ignore defensive casting is way too long. As I mentioned above, Spell Combat has enough inherent downsides that by 4th level (or even with a 4 level dip) someone trying to gish should be able to gish reliably. At 8th level let the Magus cast a sphere effect while maintaining concentration on another during Spell Combat. This would further reinforce the Magus as being the gishy-est of gishs, seeming to weave multiple spells in the very midst of combat, when in fact it is just a mechanic to compensate for relatively low SP (being able to maintain sphere effects in combat without spending the extra SP). At 12th say that Spell Combat can now be used during a charge as well as during a full attack. This will help greatly with mobility issues while still letting a gish be a gish. Then at 14th let metamagics be used with Spell combat. Increasing the options and all that. And really, the 8th and 12th level abilities can be swapped depending on whether you consider SP economy or combat mobility to be a more pressing issue.

Each option is desirable and worthy of sticking in the class for, but nothing is actually resulting in a big power spike. Just expanding the base concept of throwing mojo while in combat.



I've also been wondering I spell combat should be limited to one handed melee weapons. I know it's there partially to balance the value of spell combat, but the whole 'your spell is an offhand weapon' is really weird.
That's really been the heart of the concept, all the way back to bladedancing way back in 2nd Ed. That, and anyone who has played Skyrim probably feels a soothing familiarity. From a crunch perspective I think that you should probably leave it as Light or One-Handed. As I mentioned above that seems to be one of the balances to casting and attacking at the same time.



...classes that dip (and a Sphere Magus) have way more ways to increase his attack rolls (hello, Divination Smite)...

Where might this Divination Smite that you speak of be good sir?




I'm thinking of going with 'you can't use spell combat with a caster level or BAB higher than your class level'.
I urge you to make the class worth taking, not worthless if you take anything but. Spell Combat is a usefull abilty, character defining even, but one that comes with hefty risks as well. I don't think that the ability to dip for it is the problem. The problem was that Magus had virtually nothing of value past that. If you're inclined to agree with what I've written above then that problem may no longer be.

Thoughts?

[Drifter S.]

It's worth noting that, unless I'm gravely mistaken and reprints/errata aren't as hard to implement for 3pp devs as I assume, dipping for Spell Combat/Spellstrike is here to stay since Sphere Magus is already out there. Thaumaturge casting is a cool idea, and I am 100% in favor of giving the Arcane Pool back, but I have to take into account what already exists when thinking about this. The Arcana suggestion is made under these assumptions, using features the existing archetype retains (Arcana) to make it more tempting to stick with Sphere Magus, while keeping the possibility of other archetypes open that would also be able to utilize them. It's far from a perfect, but the thread is for bouncing ideas around to see what sticks so I already know I could just be full of it.

Arcana are a class feature that has been woefully underutilized (even in 1pp, where "choices" are more "what order do I want the half dozen good options?") in how it could let players decide the class's direction, and even let them skip aggravating prerequisites (Combat Casting to take Melee Blaster, when I'm likely to already succeed without either? Bah!) while keeping those various boons from bleeding out and ending up in the hands of classes that already overshadow it. Unless I've missed a change, a Combat Tradition Hedgewitch is also restricted to a whitelist, meaning making more Arcana (like in the Protection Handbook) will not accidentally result in a big buff to Hedgewitch. I could cobble together a few to show what I'm going for, though I'm not too sold on my own ability to think of good, balanced suggestions for a bunch of the spheres.

On the topic of making other, nonsphere archetypes compatible, that pretty much requires you to go down the list and see what archetypes are even worth making compatible, and what alterations would have to be made for them to work in spheres. Something like Bladebound just needs the Arcane Pool back, but a lot of archetypes would need more tweaking to make work, while providing very little benefit.


If part of your fix for a problem requires the player to purchase a feat to fix the problem... I don't think you've fixed the problem. This would also just force the Magus into repetitive Destruction spam, not because he actually wants to but because there wouldn't be anything else that he would be competent with. That is just extremely limiting.

To address this, since the Arcana suggestion runs into this problem face-first, means having to point out that this is a constant issue with Pathfinder as a whole that's almost unavoidable. There's always feats/features made solely to mitigate a forced drawback of some sort, ranging from minor annoyances to "this ability/feat is effectively unusable otherwise". Not that I'm defending it, because it's extraordinarily lame and makes a lot of things aggravatingly expensive and overcomplicated, but in some cases it's easier to just roll with it and try to see how you can minimize the frustration of a particular thing.


Where might this Divination Smite that you speak of be good sir?

A quick check and I find I actually meant Precognicient Smite, and merely remembered the name wrong. The feat gave a +1 Insight Bonus on attack and damage rolls per sense ability you had active on yourself, with a 1 + 1/5 HD cap. Despite possibly being expensive to keep up, it'll still probably last through the majority of daily fights, unless you're having constant battles off and on throughout the day at low levels.

[Quarian Rex]

It's worth noting that, unless I'm gravely mistaken and reprints/errata aren't as hard to implement for 3pp devs as I assume, dipping for Spell Combat/Spellstrike is here to stay since Sphere Magus is already out there.

Which is why I don't think that the base ability should be changed, just made more useful with further progression.




*Some thoughts on expanding Arcana*

While I'm all for expanding Arcana (yup, it is critically underused) if you add anything balanced around established material then you have added some nice, relatively low powered options, that still leave little reason to stay in the class. If you break the mold and add Arcana that are more class defining then, unless you artificially level lock them (usually a poor choice), you have turned the class into a 3 level dip instead of a 1 or 2 level dip.




On the topic of making other, nonsphere archetypes compatible, that pretty much requires you to go down the list and see what archetypes are even worth making compatible, and what alterations would have to be made for them to work in spheres. Something like Bladebound just needs the Arcane Pool back, but a lot of archetypes would need more tweaking to make work, while providing very little benefit.

Stacking other archetypes with a SoP conversion archetype will always be a problem and probably should not be a main concern when trying to fix the base class.




To address this, since the Arcana suggestion runs into this problem face-first, means having to point out that this is a constant issue with Pathfinder as a whole that's almost unavoidable. There's always feats/features made solely to mitigate a forced drawback of some sort, ranging from minor annoyances to "this ability/feat is effectively unusable otherwise". Not that I'm defending it, because it's extraordinarily lame and makes a lot of things aggravatingly expensive and over-complicated, but in some cases it's easier to just roll with it and try to see how you can minimize the frustration of a particular thing.

Can you think of some specific examples? I mean, not like pointing out feat per-requisites or saying that a Sorcerer benefits from taking Expanded Arcana. Which Pathfinder classes do you see as requiring a specific feat or such to actually function in its assigned role? I generally see most Pathfinder classes as being pretty well designed (though not all appeal to my playstyle and there is the occasional dumpster fire like the Kineticist) so I am genuinely interested in how you are seeing this.




A quick check and I find I actually meant Precognicient Smite, and merely remembered the name wrong. The feat gave a +1 Insight Bonus on attack and damage rolls per sense ability you had active on yourself, with a 1 + 1/5 HD cap. Despite possibly being expensive to keep up, it'll still probably last through the majority of daily fights, unless you're having constant battles off and on throughout the day at low levels.

Thanks, that was driving me nuts.

[Drifter S.]

While I'm all for expanding Arcana (yup, it is critically underused) if you add anything balanced around established material then you have added some nice, relatively low powered options, that still leave little reason to stay in the class. If you break the mold and add Arcana that are more class defining then, unless you artificially level lock them (usually a poor choice), you have turned the class into a 3 level dip instead of a 1 or 2 level dip.

If I assume that an arcana should be relatively similar to a feat in worth, maybe slightly more, then it's not particularly difficult to figure out how some things should work. Sphere feats and effects tend to be much better than that, and even mageknight Mystic Combats wind up putting them to shame. In fact, even Focused Blast type Group or "bonus sphere talent" is arguably a better deal than most Arcana. When you say "artificially level lock", does that include having things that scale specifically scale off magus level like the Personal Protection (or, for now, Personal Magic) Arcana? What of just having actually worthwhile arcana (in the context of spheres) that require a particular level of Magus to take so the class can't just be dipped for 3 levels?


Stacking other archetypes with a SoP conversion archetype will always be a problem and probably should not be a main concern when trying to fix the base class.

It is not a main concern, but it's something people will care about, so it's worth at least keeping a tab on what people think in addition to the bigger problems.


Can you think of some specific examples? I mean, not like pointing out feat per-requisites or saying that a Sorcerer benefits from taking Expanded Arcana. Which Pathfinder classes do you see as requiring a specific feat or such to actually function in its assigned role? I generally see most Pathfinder classes as being pretty well designed (though not all appeal to my playstyle and there is the occasional dumpster fire like the Kineticist) so I am genuinely interested in how you are seeing this.

There's a lot of ways I could interpret "requiring a specific feat or such to actually function", as people have a lot of different ideas about what makes a "functional character". At the most absolute basic level, a generic fighter/barbarian just needs Power Attack, and an archer needs Precise Shot to mitigate the penalty said Fighter/Barbarian will impose when he runs into melee. An Alchemist needs Precise Shot too, but also Precise bombs to avoid blowing up his allies, and Infusion so he can actually use his extracts on his allies. If I ever want to use a whip I have to have both an exotic proficiency and whip mastery, otherwise the thing is just a really fancy bit of rope.

[A.J.Gibson]

Going for thaumaturge casting really only means that magus2/elementalist+ builds have higher CL, as it gives even less reason to take magus 3.


The thaumaturge progression is pretty competitive with elementalist; all it would take is an arcana to make up the difference on focused element and I think they'd be in the same ball park, but he magus would be more flexible with full CL in everything else. Really, if you want to play a destruction focused character, playing an elementalist might be appropriate.



Spell Combat is a wholly different beast from Spell Strike. SC is far, far, better than the mystic assault line. MA can only be used with attack/life spells. SC can be used with anything. More on this later.


Mystic Assault is inferior to spell combat in the same way a cheap car is not as good as an expensive car. Spell combat is a full class feature, MA is a pair of feats. But if you can find some way to haste yourself, I think MA can be good. In retrospect, I should have incldued a third feat to give you an extra attack, but at the time I figured that the Time book should cover that. If nothing else, you can use it with any weapon, and it works with supernatural abilities as well. It's a different animal.



FWIW, getting a separate arcane pool is a good idea. It give something that scales with magus level. I like adding in staff enhancements to the pool. That might make me want to go magus 5+ on its own. But combat hedgewitch is always lurking too.


I think we're all onboard with separate arcane pool. Staff enhancements isn't a bad idea, but it is extremely strong. The armorist originally could do that and it got nerfed.


See, comparing Spell Combat to Quicken metamagic is a bit of a false equivalency, methinks. While they both appear to do the same thing (allow someone to cast a spell in addition to something else) the devil is in the details. Quicken allows a spellcaster to double their greatest strength, spellcasting. This is done at great convenience and no penalty (doesn't even provoke an AoO and can be used with spells that have up to full round casting time), so it has a cost. Is +4 spell levels/spell points too high a cost? I might agree that it is, but cost there is.

Spell Combat is probably best thought of as limited melee options added to spellcasting (rather than the other way around). This ability lets you attack in addition to casting a spell, but it has to be in melee (where spellcasters generally don't want to be), using a single light or one handed melee weapon (so no damage boosts from two handed weapons), with nothing in your off hand (lowered damage potential from the lack of two-weapon fighting, and increased vulnerability due to not using a shield), and with a -2 penalty to attack on a medium BAB chassis (resulting in a lower attack bonus than a wizard till 8th level, then equal to a wizard till 11th level), all against normal AC (not being granted the standard caster loophole of touch attacks to compensate for crap attack bonuses). That is actually quite a stack of balances brought against the utility of casting a spell during melee combat.

Quickened magnifies a casters' greatest strength, providing power at a cost. Spell Combat allows a caster to function as a caster in the situation most dangerous to a caster, providing high risk and (somewhat) high reward. These are two very different things.



You make a good point about the one-handed weapon fighting style being a huge limitation on the spell combat ability. Let me ask you: do you think it would be possible to open up the magus to more combat styles than just one-handed/empty hand, or would that empower the magus too much?



If part of your fix for a problem requires the player to purchase a feat to fix the problem... I don't think you've fixed the problem. This would also just force the Magus into repetitive Destruction spam, not because he actually wants to but because there wouldn't be anything else that he would be competent with. That is just extremely limiting.


I should point out that the entire magus class is basically a bunch of ways to get out of the limitations of arcane casting (you have a limited spell list but can steal from wizards, you can't wear armor until you can, you have to make concentration checks but have a bonus to do so...) But I see your point: new abilities are better design.



I would actually suggest scrapping the idea of specific 1 for 1 replacement levels. Drop Spell Recall, Knowledge Pool, Improved Spell Combat, Improved Spell Recall, Greater Spell Combat, and Greater Spell Access then build up from there. This gives you the room to space things out appropriately. For instance, I really think that waiting till 8th to ignore defensive casting is way too long. As I mentioned above, Spell Combat has enough inherent downsides that by 4th level (or even with a 4 level dip) someone trying to gish should be able to gish reliably. At 8th level let the Magus cast a sphere effect while maintaining concentration on another during Spell Combat. This would further reinforce the Magus as being the gishy-est of gishs, seeming to weave multiple spells in the very midst of combat, when in fact it is just a mechanic to compensate for relatively low SP (being able to maintain sphere effects in combat without spending the extra SP). At 12th say that Spell Combat can now be used during a charge as well as during a full attack. This will help greatly with mobility issues while still letting a gish be a gish. Then at 14th let metamagics be used with Spell combat. Increasing the options and all that. And really, the 8th and 12th level abilities can be swapped depending on whether you consider SP economy or combat mobility to be a more pressing issue.


I'm not certain the 'concentrate as part of spell combat' is really that useful (you're a front liner, you're going to get hit) or necessary (no more spell recall means less arcane points needed). And with so many good drawbacks around (I wrote Galvanized Casting for the magus), I think they'll be okay. Could be a good arcana, though.
For concentration, I was thinking that I could give a flat bonus as part of spell combat (to replace the attack bonus for concentration trade off) at 1st level, and then +4 or auto success for defencive casting at 8th.
Spell combat + move sounds good, but it can already be done using Warp sphere.



That's really been the heart of the concept, all the way back to bladedancing way back in 2nd Ed. That, and anyone who has played Skyrim probably feels a soothing familiarity. From a crunch perspective I think that you should probably leave it as Light or One-Handed. As I mentioned above that seems to be one of the balances to casting and attacking at the same time.


Given the large number of archetypes that seem to change what the magus can fight with, I don't see the harm in openning things up a bit. That's the spheres philosophy!



It's worth noting that, unless I'm gravely mistaken and reprints/errata aren't as hard to implement for 3pp devs as I assume, dipping for Spell Combat/Spellstrike is here to stay since Sphere Magus is already out there. Thaumaturge casting is a cool idea, and I am 100% in favor of giving the Arcane Pool back, but I have to take into account what already exists when thinking about this. The Arcana suggestion is made under these assumptions, using features the existing archetype retains (Arcana) to make it more tempting to stick with Sphere Magus, while keeping the possibility of other archetypes open that would also be able to utilize them. It's far from a perfect, but the thread is for bouncing ideas around to see what sticks so I already know I could just be full of it.


You make a good point about dipping the sphere magus; I’ll stop worrying about the magus being dippable.



Arcana are a class feature that has been woefully underutilized (even in 1pp, where "choices" are more "what order do I want the half dozen good options?") in how it could let players decide the class's direction, and even let them skip aggravating prerequisites (Combat Casting to take Melee Blaster, when I'm likely to already succeed without either? Bah!) while keeping those various boons from bleeding out and ending up in the hands of classes that already overshadow it. Unless I've missed a change, a Combat Tradition Hedgewitch is also restricted to a whitelist, meaning making more Arcana (like in the Protection Handbook) will not accidentally result in a big buff to Hedgewitch. I could cobble together a few to show what I'm going for, though I'm not too sold on my own ability to think of good, balanced suggestions for a bunch of the spheres.


I think pretty much everyone agrees that existing arcana suck. Some of them are mindnumbingly bad.



On the topic of making other, nonsphere archetypes compatible, that pretty much requires you to go down the list and see what archetypes are even worth making compatible, and what alterations would have to be made for them to work in spheres. Something like Bladebound just needs the Arcane Pool back, but a lot of archetypes would need more tweaking to make work, while providing very little benefit.


It’d be nice to make existing archetypes useable, but most of the popular ones screw with either spell combat, spell strike, or have diminished spell casting. Bladebound works, though.

Since most of the archetypes are about changing the way spell combat works, it seems to me a lot of them can be turned into arcana, perhaps.



Which is why I don't think that the base ability should be changed, just made more useful with further progression.


I think cleaning up the base abilities a bit might be a good idea.



Stacking other archetypes with a SoP conversion archetype will always be a problem and probably should not be a main concern when trying to fix the base class.


I'm afraid I have to agree.



If I assume that an arcana should be relatively similar to a feat in worth, maybe slightly more, then it's not particularly difficult to figure out how some things should work. Sphere feats and effects tend to be much better than that, and even mageknight Mystic Combats wind up putting them to shame. In fact, even Focused Blast type Group or "bonus sphere talent" is arguably a better deal than most Arcana. When you say "artificially level lock", does that include having things that scale specifically scale off magus level like the Personal Protection (or, for now, Personal Magic) Arcana? What of just having actually worthwhile arcana (in the context of spheres) that require a particular level of Magus to take so the class can't just be dipped for 3 levels?


The spheres philosophy is to avoid unnecessary prerequisites...but scaling off level is perfectly acceptable.



It is not a main concern, but it's something people will care about, so it's worth at least keeping a tab on what people think in addition to the bigger problems.


I suspect a lot of features form archetypes can be changed into arcana, but any sphere magus is going to modify spell combat and spellstrike, making a huge chunk of the archetypes unusable.

So let me summarize my current thinking:

Spell Combat
It might be good if this could be expanded a bit beyond one-handed weapon use, and also a concentration bonus to replace the attack for concentrate trade ability might also be good. The two could be combined: use a one-handed weapon, get a concentration bonues, use a two-handed weapon, get a penalty to your attack roll instead. If nothing else, I don't think allowing double weapons would be unbalancing.

Spellstrike
I still don't like the way spellstrike handles criticals; it rewards weapons with large critical ranges (but not multipliers) while simultaneously making destruction the best sphere. I really want to change this.

Magus Arcana
We need some new ones that don't suck.

Spell Recall/Improved Spell Recall
Pathfinder Savant (don't know what he's called on this board, maybe he's one of you?) wrote an interesting sphere magus archetype that gives the magus paths they can pursue that basically dupliaate archetypes. I'm thinking maybe doing something like that on a smaller scale here might be appropriate.
My thought is to introduce some new spell combat and spellstrike features in the form of a style that can taken. For example, you can take the 'shield' style, and at 4th level you get shield proficiency and the ability to use a shield with spell combat, and at 11th level you get that thing the skirnir does.

Medium Armor/Heavy Armor
Not everyone wants to wear heavy armor, and those who do don't want to wait until 13th level for it. I'm thinking maybe some bone combat feats would be good here, boring as it might be.

Knowledge Pool/Greater Spell Access
I was thinking something like: "Once per day as a swift action, the magus may gain a magical talent they qualify for which is not a basic talent. They retain this talent for a number of rounds equal to their class level. At 19th level, they may use this ability 3 times per day."

Improved Spell Combat
Still liking auto-pass concentration checks here. Honestly, it shouldn't come any earlier than this.

Greater Spell Combat
"When you use a sphere ability with spell combat, you may apply metamagic feats to it without increasing casting time."

Counterstrike
Meh.

True Magus
"When you use spell combat, you may give up your iterative attacks in order to use a second sphere ability." This might be too strong, but it's all I have right now.

[Quarian Rex]

even Focused Blast type Group or "bonus sphere talent" is arguably a better deal than most Arcana.

Yup, Arcana seem to crest up to feat level utility at the max, usually hovering just below feat worth and/or hyper specialized.



When you say "artificially level lock", does that include having things that scale specifically scale off magus level like the Personal Protection (or, for now, Personal Magic) Arcana? What of just having actually worthwhile arcana (in the context of spheres) that require a particular level of Magus to take so the class can't just be dipped for 3 levels?

Things like the proposed Personal Magic are more of the bandaid. Trying to shore up the gaping holes in the Sphere Magus is not something that I would qualify as an Arcana, that is a stealth edit of the archetype that is charging a feature tax. That is not necessarily a criticism, but a desperate attempt to fix something that is so obviously broken is not a good template when trying to fix things from the ground up.

As for 'artificially level locked' you got it the second time. If you have a nice ability that is balanced at level 1 and you put a level 12 requirement on it for no other reason than wanting the player to choke down 12 levels of a class that has virtually no other redeeming features then that would be an artificial level lock. I consider that to be generally poor game design.



It is not a main concern, but it's something people will care about, so it's worth at least keeping a tab on what people think in addition to the bigger problems.

Indeed, I just think that to make the Magus work in SoP requires substantial shuffling and to get that shuffling right and keep it compatible with all of the archetypes might be an exercise in futility. That said, I did take a quick skim through some of the more interesting archetypes and there honestly weren't that many conflicts. Anything that plays with armor or Arcane Pool is good to go. If we can figure out a good analog for diminished spellcasting (perhaps losing the casting attribute bonus to SP, maybe half that?) I think that would cover most of the bases. The only two that I noticed (aka. cared about) were really incompatible were Kensai and Soul Forger. Those, like a lot of these edge cases would have to haggled with the DM.



There's a lot of ways I could interpret "requiring a specific feat or such to actually function", as people have a lot of different ideas about what makes a "functional character". At the most absolute basic level, a generic fighter/barbarian just needs Power Attack, and an archer needs Precise Shot to mitigate the penalty said Fighter/Barbarian will impose when he runs into melee. An Alchemist needs Precise Shot too, but also Precise bombs to avoid blowing up his allies, and Infusion so he can actually use his extracts on his allies. If I ever want to use a whip I have to have both an exotic proficiency and whip mastery, otherwise the thing is just a really fancy bit of rope.

Well, Power Attack is nice but I've never considered it to be essential (possibly because most of the DMs I've played with are the types that make you want to "work for it", so giving up precious attack bonus is usually pure folly). Alchemist Bombs are touch attacks and so usually have no need of Precise Shot whatsoever. Precise Bombs and Infusion are discoveries, plentiful options, inherent to the class, that allow the character to grow into a myriad of useful roles depending on how the player wants to go, whose presence or lack are pretty much equally valid (Bombs do minimum damage to targets in the splash radius, being more forgiving of friendly fire, and not taking Infusions is fine for a self-buffer Mr. Hyde/Hulk type character), and are generally what I would consider to be examples of better game design. As for the whips... if you want an exotic weapon, go ahead, your class isn't based around it. If you were playing the 'Whipmaster' class and you had to purchase the proficiency then that would apply.

Of the examples that you provided I think that Precise Shot on an archer might come closest. That might be one of the reasons that I have usually dismissed archer builds as being kinda crap (that is mainly a personal bias, I know). But this isn't really a sign of poor class design, more a sign that 3.P doesn't favor ranged combat.




I think we're all onboard with separate arcane pool. Staff enhancements isn't a bad idea, but it is extremely strong. The armorist originally could do that and it got nerfed.

I might throw a vote against the Staff enhancement idea. With a full CL there isn't much need for it and the extra CL is a big enough boost that I think it would step on the toes of the Thaumaturge and is best left as an item option.



You make a good point about the one-handed weapon fighting style being a huge limitation on the spell combat ability. Let me ask you: do you think it would be possible to open up the magus to more combat styles than just one-handed/empty hand, or would that empower the magus too much?

I don't necessarily think that it is too much, I just think that it can't be the default, should be limited and have a penalty that can be overcome. There is a reason that the base Bladedancer thing is so iconic, other options are hard. If you're going to do this make it an Arcana (maybe calling it Spell Kata?), one where you get to pick one of Two-Handed weapons, Two-Weapon Fighting, Shield use, or Ranged weapon use. This can be selected multiple times, each time selecting a different option. Two-Handed Ranged weapons require selecting both the Two-Handed and Ranged options. This allows you to used the selected weapon types with Spell Combat and Spellstrike, though the awkwardness of doing so imposes a -1 to hit and AC. Then add another Arcana (Greater Spell Kata?) that removed the penalty from any selections of Spell Kata.

I think that it needs a bit of a penalty/cost to make up for the increased power/utility (especially the ranged option, hence requiring Spell Kata twice for the useful ranged weapons) and be inclusive (if my off-hand can help with a greatsword, then it should be able to help with a shield).




I'm not certain the 'concentrate as part of spell combat' is really that useful (you're a front liner, you're going to get hit) or necessary (no more spell recall means less arcane points needed). And with so many good drawbacks around (I wrote Galvanized Casting for the magus), I think they'll be okay. Could be a good arcana, though.

I have to strongly disagree here. There is very little in SoP that has an innate duration other than concentration. With a lower number of Talents and SP the ability to maintain concentration through Spell Combat will be critical. Raw damage will not be the solution to every situation. The magus may need to target a Fort save to Alter an enemy into a less harmful form, or target their Will save to blind them with an offensive Enhancement, etc., and the price of having such versatility will most likely be being unable to afford the multi-target talents for each of these options. Having to serially debuff high value targets while under threat is a very likely possibility and the Magus will not be able to afford to blow off a SP on each one. Maintaining concentration during combat will have a much larger role than I think you are giving it credit, just due to the nature of the SoP system.

That, and it feels just a little bit cheaty. The breakdown of its actual consequence (saving a SP on duration abilities during combat) are not but it feels like it is. Mere mortal mages can't do anything when they concentrate, yet the UberMagus™ can concentrate on keeping you in the form of a panda while still smiting you with lightning and stabbing you with pointy metal! The mechanics of what is going on is well balanced but it still feels like you're getting away with something. I find that the best classes work like this. That's why I'm pushing for this to be included in the augmented Spell Combat, I actually think that it pushes Spell Combat just far enough over the top (without really unbalancing things) to justify staying with Magus.



For concentration, I was thinking that I could give a flat bonus as part of spell combat (to replace the attack bonus for concentration trade off) at 1st level, and then +4 or auto success for defencive casting at 8th.

As far a concentrating when hit, you're right. That can be rough. Considering the DC is based on damage done I might suggest that the Magus automatically passes concentration checks when within melee range of an opponent. Say that it is a low-level battle trance that is learned as part of Spell Combat (and mastered at 4th level). This would also act as a balance for ranged Spell Combat, since they would be vulnerable to their concentration being broken in exchange for their relative safety. Though providing a scaling +1 on concentration checks per Magus level is a great way to solidify the Magus as being the master of casting in the worst of situations.



Spell combat + move sounds good, but it can already be done using Warp sphere.

Indeed it can, but then you're 'wasting' a spell on movement. Once the Magus can charge in Spell Combat he can get to his next oponent and still give him a face full of spells and steel. The later seems like a much better option.




So let me summarize my current thinking:

Spell Combat
It might be good if this could be expanded a bit beyond one-handed weapon use, and also a concentration bonus to replace the attack for concentrate trade ability might also be good. The two could be combined: use a one-handed weapon, get a concentration bonues, use a two-handed weapon, get a penalty to your attack roll instead. If nothing else, I don't think allowing double weapons would be unbalancing.

See my previous yammerings and Arcana recommendations above.



Spellstrike
I still don't like the way spellstrike handles criticals; it rewards weapons with large critical ranges (but not multipliers) while simultaneously making destruction the best sphere. I really want to change this.

I don't know about this. I tend to think that this is a pretty even risk/reward tradeoff. You give up the certainty of a touch attack for the chance of missing on a normal attack and the possibility of a crit. As far as the weapon disparity goes, sometimes you need the right tool for the job. Are you lowering your attack chance by 1 in 20? No? Then why would you take such a penalty to hit for such a small chance to crit? Ignoring crit multipliers? That is just sane. Spells are meant to hold their own. Offering a chance to double their power in exchange for an increased chance to whiff evens out in the end. Having the warscythe do 4x damage on your Kamehameha is the kind of stuff that makes DMs get vengeful.



Magus Arcana
We need some new ones that don't suck.

Yeah, not going to disagree.



Spell Recall/Improved Spell Recall
Pathfinder Savant (don't know what he's called on this board, maybe he's one of you?) wrote an interesting sphere magus archetype that gives the magus paths they can pursue that basically dupliaate archetypes. I'm thinking maybe doing something like that on a smaller scale here might be appropriate.
My thought is to introduce some new spell combat and spellstrike features in the form of a style that can taken. For example, you can take the 'shield' style, and at 4th level you get shield proficiency and the ability to use a shield with spell combat, and at 11th level you get that thing the skirnir does.

See the Arcana that I proposed above. I would lean more that way since it provides more options. If you need to adapt your martial tactics you can always select another Arcana. If your options are chosen when you start you are denied the chance to adapt. For me, the option with the least choice is the lesser option.

Also, might you have a link?



Medium Armor/Heavy Armor
Not everyone wants to wear heavy armor, and those who do don't want to wait until 13th level for it. I'm thinking maybe some bone combat feats would be good here, boring as it might be.

I don't know, this is an ionic part of the class and does provide benefits to those who suffered this long with double somatic casting. I might suggest that you add a note at 7th level that a Magus of 7th level or higher who gets Medium or Heavy armor proficiency is no longer subject to ASF.



Knowledge Pool/Greater Spell Access
I was thinking something like: "Once per day as a swift action, the magus may gain a magical talent they qualify for which is not a basic talent. They retain this talent for a number of rounds equal to their class level. At 19th level, they may use this ability 3 times per day."

This is of such minor benefit that it isn't really useful even as an analog for archetype swapping. These have no real equivalent in SoP and, considering their original hefty value, really should just be rolled into augmenting Spell Combat.



Improved Spell Combat
Still liking auto-pass concentration checks here. Honestly, it shouldn't come any earlier than this.

I couldn't disagree with you more. Having to wait half way through his adventuring career before a class based upon casting spells in melee combat can do so without sabotaging himself is criminal. I really think 4th is the sweet spot here. High enough so that it is not an easy dip, low enough to be relevant for most of your adventuring career.



Greater Spell Combat
"When you use a sphere ability with spell combat, you may apply metamagic feats to it without increasing casting time."

Agreed.



Counterstrike
Meh.

Also agreed.



True Magus
"When you use spell combat, you may give up your iterative attacks in order to use a second sphere ability." This might be too strong, but it's all I have right now.

Truth be told, the original capstone is fine, just remove the bit about casting defensively. Seriously, capstones really don't matter, they might as well be fluff.

[khadgar567]

one more vote for new arcanas but spell kata idea smell like make 3rd level dips more prominent then switch to different class.

[Quarian Rex]

one more vote for new arcanas but spell kata idea smell like make 3rd level dips more prominent then switch to different class.

But that would be a dip that results in -3 to hit and -1 AC with the chosen alternate weapon during Spell Combat. Do you actually see that as a problem?

[khadgar567]

But that would be a dip that results in -3 to hit and -1 AC with the chosen alternate weapon during Spell Combat. Do you actually see that as a problem?
our objective is make sphere magus use able as full class and spell kata dont help it in long run we just modify spell strike enough to use is it with our favorite weapon then what of to other classes or prcs to get back that hit chance and ac then nothing changed we kinda need options to give magus more chance to get in combat with things other then grabing highest crit weapon and using destruction blast. that why i call magus sasuke uchiha becouse they do same thing over and over instead trying to learn more usefull tricks

[Quarian Rex]

our objective is make sphere magus use able as full class and spell kata dont help it in long run we just modify spell strike enough to use is it with our favorite weapon then what of to other classes or prcs to get back that hit chance and ac then nothing changed we kinda need options to give magus more chance to get in combat with things other then grabing highest crit weapon and using destruction blast. that why i call magus sasuke uchiha becouse they do same thing over and over instead trying to learn more usefull tricks

Have you looked at the rest of my suggestions? Please do so, and consider them as a whole. While Destruction will always be a great tool in the Magus' kit, I think that my suggestions actually open up far more than that.

[Drifter S.]

Things like the proposed Personal Magic are more of the bandaid. Trying to shore up the gaping holes in the Sphere Magus is not something that I would qualify as an Arcana, that is a stealth edit of the archetype that is charging a feature tax. That is not necessarily a criticism, but a desperate attempt to fix something that is so obviously broken is not a good template when trying to fix things from the ground up.

As for 'artificially level locked' you got it the second time. If you have a nice ability that is balanced at level 1 and you put a level 12 requirement on it for no other reason than wanting the player to choke down 12 levels of a class that has virtually no other redeeming features then that would be an artificial level lock. I consider that to be generally poor game design.

The thing that makes me look to Arcana has to do with how they're basically a non-factor when Spheres is in play, and I don't know if I care that I sound like a broken record pointing it out again. A "bandaid for low/midcasters" is already something of a trend in spheres (Conjuration has a talent for midcasters, Destruction's feat, Martial Magic and likely Martial Aegis) that present choices for how to specialize when playing something other than a fullcaster. That's sort of the key here. The class itself has (or at least hopefully will have, by the end of this thread) the framework for the way the class wants to use its magic, while the Arcana could be what lets you decide what you're going to be specialized in casting with that framework. Destruction is already the big ticket, and no other options at all make it the only ticket to pick from.

An offhand example to where I'm going, rather than just copypasting Martial Magic, is having it be restricted to totems made with Totemic Presence. Fiddle with the action needed to concentrate so you can double up during spell combat, and then have it let you form and maintain a totem as a swift when you have Improved Spell Combat. It'd need tweaks, especially given how dubious trying to maintain concentration is when you're at risk of getting bapped and dropping it, but the general idea is it to make the magus better at what his class is supposed to do: be in the middle of a fight, using spells.


If we can figure out a good analog for diminished spellcasting (perhaps losing the casting attribute bonus to SP, maybe half that?) I think that would cover most of the bases. The only two that I noticed (aka. cared about) were really incompatible were Kensai and Soul Forger. Those, like a lot of these edge cases would have to haggled with the DM.

Forced General Drawbacks with no return could be an option, but that makes multiclassing in (or out) of the class sort of difficult.


(*snipped for space*)
Of the examples that you provided I think that Precise Shot on an archer might come closest. That might be one of the reasons that I have usually dismissed archer builds as being kinda crap (that is mainly a personal bias, I know). But this isn't really a sign of poor class design, more a sign that 3.P doesn't favor ranged combat.

See, the funny thing is that a Longbow Archer is probably the strongest option for a martial character in base pathfinder once you get past the initial hurdle of Precise Shot. The only things stopping you from attacking are line-of-sight and getting completely shut down by status effects. A crossbow would be the "bad" version, since it needs 1-2 feats just to be able to full attack and scales way worse. Power Attack meanwhile isn't really something you use 24/7, but no other feat really has as much of an impact on a martial's "most bang for your buck" combat style as PA does. The point on the whip, meanwhile, isn't so much a class issue as a "I just spent anywhere from 3 to 5 feats to still be overall worse than the guy who spent nothing, and only only barely as good as the guy who spent half to a third as much".

Better class examples would be Investigator, a class I am commonly told "does not exist until 5th level" due to taxes (Fencing Grace chain, Infusion/Mutagen, Quick Study), and the "traditional" Magus, which I shouldn't have to really explain. For more straight feat examples, the Archon Style chain comes to mind, as does the majority of things related to using shields or two weapons.

[A.J.Gibson]

Indeed, I just think that to make the Magus work in SoP requires substantial shuffling and to get that shuffling right and keep it compatible with all of the archetypes might be an exercise in futility. That said, I did take a quick skim through some of the more interesting archetypes and there honestly weren't that many conflicts. Anything that plays with armor or Arcane Pool is good to go. If we can figure out a good analog for diminished spellcasting (perhaps losing the casting attribute bonus to SP, maybe half that?) I think that would cover most of the bases. The only two that I noticed (aka. cared about) were really incompatible were Kensai and Soul Forger. Those, like a lot of these edge cases would have to haggled with the DM.


If I shuffle things too much, it eventually stops being an archetype. I actually wouldn't mind that: brewing a new spheres class like the magus and then creating a few archetypes for it.

Also, the Soul Forger? Really, it's abilities should be a boon, not tied to a class.



I don't necessarily think that it is too much, I just think that it can't be the default, should be limited and have a penalty that can be overcome. There is a reason that the base Bladedancer thing is so iconic, other options are hard. If you're going to do this make it an Arcana (maybe calling it Spell Kata?), one where you get to pick one of Two-Handed weapons, Two-Weapon Fighting, Shield use, or Ranged weapon use. This can be selected multiple times, each time selecting a different option. Two-Handed Ranged weapons require selecting both the Two-Handed and Ranged options. This allows you to used the selected weapon types with Spell Combat and Spellstrike, though the awkwardness of doing so imposes a -1 to hit and AC. Then add another Arcana (Greater Spell Kata?) that removed the penalty from any selections of Spell Kata.

I think that it needs a bit of a penalty/cost to make up for the increased power/utility (especially the ranged option, hence requiring Spell Kata twice for the useful ranged weapons) and be inclusive (if my off-hand can help with a greatsword, then it should be able to help with a shield).


My current thinking is this:

Spell Combat
The magus is skilled in combining casting and fighting. Whenever he makes a full-round attack, he may use a sphere ability with a casting time of a standard action or less as a free action any time during the attack, or he may maintain concentration on a sphere effect he created. This draw attacks of opportunity normally. Spell combat must be declared at the beginning of the attack, and imposes a -4 penalty on all attack rolls during the attack. If the magus is not using their offhand to attack or hold a shield, they may use it to decrease this penalty to -2. The magus also receives a +2 bonus to concentration checks to cast defensively during spell combat.



With a lower number of Talents and SP...


Why do you think the magus will be short of SP?



I don't know about this. I tend to think that this is a pretty even risk/reward tradeoff. You give up the certainty of a touch attack for the chance of missing on a normal attack and the possibility of a crit. As far as the weapon disparity goes, sometimes you need the right tool for the job. Are you lowering your attack chance by 1 in 20? No? Then why would you take such a penalty to hit for such a small chance to crit? Ignoring crit multipliers? That is just sane. Spells are meant to hold their own. Offering a chance to double their power in exchange for an increased chance to whiff evens out in the end. Having the warscythe do 4x damage on your Kamehameha is the kind of stuff that makes DMs get vengeful.


My issue is that it's great for Destruction sphere, and does nothing for anything else. I'm thinking about changing the crit effect to something more generic that can be a benefit to a number of spheres.

My version:

Spellstrike
At 2nd level, whenever a magus uses a sphere ability with a touch range, he can deliver the spell through a natural, melee, or thrown weapon he is wielding as part of an attack. Instead of the free melee touch attack normally allowed to deliver the spell, a magus can make one free melee attack with his weapon (at his highest base attack bonus) as part of casting this spell. You can also use a ranged weapon to deliver a ranged sphere ability. If successful, this melee attack deals its normal damage as well as the effects of the spell. If the magus makes this attack in concert with spell combat, this melee attack takes all the penalties accrued by spell combat melee attacks. This attack uses the weapon’s critical range, but the sphere effect uses it's own critical hit range to determine effect. Then the attack confirms a critical hit, the magus may add one of three possible effects to the sphere ability: he may add additional damage equal to hit magus level, increase the saving throw DC by +2, or reduce the spell point cost by 1 sp.



Also, might you have a link?


Here it is, it's pretty good:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UnkUhGN9gdYglWb1mIgHns4CtIIRjGE-PdvC4Ljh8J4/edit



I don't know, this is an ionic part of the class and does provide benefits to those who suffered this long with double somatic casting. I might suggest that you add a note at 7th level that a Magus of 7th level or higher who gets Medium or Heavy armor proficiency is no longer subject to ASF.


If it's iconic, you shouldn't have to wait until 13th level to get it.



This is of such minor benefit that it isn't really useful even as an analog for archetype swapping. These have no real equivalent in SoP and, considering their original hefty value, really should just be rolled into augmenting Spell Combat.


Hold on, are you saying knowledge pool is weak or that my suggestion to replace it is weak?



I couldn't disagree with you more. Having to wait half way through his adventuring career before a class based upon casting spells in melee combat can do so without sabotaging himself is criminal. I really think 4th is the sweet spot here. High enough so that it is not an easy dip, low enough to be relevant for most of your adventuring career.


I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree. Concentration is part of PF, and giving a class outright immunity is not going to go down well with people, especially at 4th level.



Forced General Drawbacks with no return could be an option, but that makes multiclassing in (or out) of the class sort of difficult.


It's huge no-no for spheres - the guy writing enhancement tried to do this and it got slapped down.

[Drifter S.]

I'm digging some of the proposals, and Pathfinder Savant's 'brew was the one I mentioned really liking earlier, so I'm feeling good about where this is going. Don't know if it's worth suggesting having a document in the OP of what you're gunning for, archetype and arcana-wise, just to keep things somewhere tidy.


My issue is that it's great for Destruction sphere, and does nothing for anything else. I'm thinking about changing the crit effect to something more generic that can be a benefit to a number of spheres.

I'd just like to point out that, unless spheres actually changed it, this should not actually be the case. Any touch attack sphere effect with a numerical effect (aside from perhaps duration and DC) that would get doubled by rolling and confirming a 20 would also benefit. Destruction gets the most bang due to being both obvious and easy to fix the CL problem for. Many Ghost Strikes (hello, negative levels) from the Death Sphere should be able to work, a few life sphere abilities have effects that would be doubled, and you might even be able to make an argument for the combination of Warp's Unwilling Teleport+Splinter working with it too.


It's huge no-no for spheres - the guy writing enhancement tried to do this and it got slapped down.

Fair enough. Personally, diminished casting on a lot of magus archetypes should not be and could be ignored with pretty much no issue, but perhaps I'm just eternally salty.

[A.J.Gibson]

I'm digging some of the proposals, and Pathfinder Savant's 'brew was the one I mentioned really liking earlier, so I'm feeling good about where this is going. Don't know if it's worth suggesting having a document in the OP of what you're gunning for, archetype and arcana-wise, just to keep things somewhere tidy.

I'd just like to point out that, unless spheres actually changed it, this should not actually be the case. Any touch attack sphere effect with a numerical effect (aside from perhaps duration and DC) that would get doubled by rolling and confirming a 20 would also benefit. Destruction gets the most bang due to being both obvious and easy to fix the CL problem for. Many Ghost Strikes (hello, negative levels) from the Death Sphere should be able to work, a few life sphere abilities have effects that would be doubled, and you might even be able to make an argument for the combination of Warp's Unwilling Teleport+Splinter working with it too.

Fair enough. Personally, diminished casting on a lot of magus archetypes should not be and could be ignored with pretty much no issue, but perhaps I'm just eternally salty.

I like the brew, but I feel it's bit too much of a rewrite. One thing I want to keep is the basic structure of the magus, so that people can figure out how to apply archetypes to it.

Yes, Death does get some benefit from the crits, but over-all, destruction is far and away the biggest benefactor, and I really don't like how it turns every magus into a crit-fisher.

For diminishing casting: I personally feel a spell slot is about equal to a spell point (casters tend to get a few more spell slots than spell points, but a lot of those extra slots are low level and never get used anyways). So taking away a spell point whenever the original class would have gained a new spell level feels right. For the magus, this is 6 points, which is worth 3 feats, and feels about the right value for what they tend to get in return for the loss (except for bladed scarf dancer, which should just have diminished spell casting removed).

For the spell combat styles I mentioned, I was thinking they would replace Spell Recall and Improved Spell Recall, and look something like this:

Shield Style
At 4th level, the magus gain shield proficiency and only receives a -2 penalty to spell combat while wearing a shield. At 11th level, they may charge their shield with a spell and make a spellstrike with it, or use an immediate action to cast the spell against an enemy that has just missed them with a melee attack.

Heavy Style
At 4th level, the magus can use a two-handed weapon with spell combat and only receive a -2. At 11th level, whenever the magus strikes with spellstrike using a two-handed weapon, they receive a +4 bonus to any spell penetratin roll required.

Fencing Style
At 4th level, the magus may add their dexterity to the damage done by any finesse weapon they use. At 11th level, they may add their casting ability modifier to their crit confirmation rolls.

Two-Weapon Style
At 4th level, the magus gain two-weapon combat, and can use a weapon in their off hand with spell combat and only receive a -2. At 11th level, whenever they hit with a spellstrike they may make an additional attack with an offhand weapon, and they receive improved two-weapon fighting for free.

There will also be a ranged style, and maybe a pole arm or unarmed style.

Edit: I had another thought. Would it be useful for there to be a version of spell combat which allows the magus to use a sphere ability and make an attack as a standard action? Would this make a good 8th level ability?

[Quarian Rex]

The thing that makes me look to Arcana has to do with how they're basically a non-factor when Spheres is in play, and I don't know if I care that I sound like a broken record pointing it out again. A "bandaid for low/midcasters" is already something of a trend in spheres (Conjuration has a talent for midcasters, Destruction's feat, Martial Magic and likely Martial Aegis) that present choices for how to specialize when playing something other than a fullcaster. That's sort of the key here. The class itself has (or at least hopefully will have, by the end of this thread) the framework for the way the class wants to use its magic, while the Arcana could be what lets you decide what you're going to be specialized in casting with that framework. Destruction is already the big ticket, and no other options at all make it the only ticket to pick from.

See. I think we're actually making arguments for the same thing, you just seem to be approaching it from the path of least resistance, whereas I'm looking to fix the problems from the ground up. Let me explain the issues I see and the reasons why I think certain approaches would be better.

The first issue would be just the key differences between the SoP and vancian spell systems. SoP has three forms of caster, the low-caster (generally martials enhanced by power, like the Armorist and Mageknight), high-casters (those whose entire shtick is casting spells), and mid-casters (who are almost always specialists who have full casting in their area of focus). The problem here is that while the Magus is a form of specialist, he specializes in casting spells in combat. Not just a particular type of spells, but all spells. Not just as buffs, or as back-ups, but to keep casting all throughout combat. Trying to keep him as a mid-caster and expanding its competence through Arcana just results in combat necromancers, or combat shapeshifters, etc. None of those are a combat mage. They are slivers of one.

Why do I think mid-casting is a bad fit? Because while the vancian Magus did not have access to 9th level spells he did have full caster level, so every spell he cast could be cast well. And the very nature of vancian spells works to the Magus' advantage. Each spell is a seperate entity unto itself, free to tweak the rules to achieve what it wants. While SoP offers much freedom from the vancian system it also has to make things more generic in many ways, meaning there is very little room for loopholes, even necessary ones. Virtually every sphere ability cast on an enemy requires a save and for a save to have a chance you need a high-caster.

Besides, the combat mid-caster is already covered by the Hedgewitch (with a hefty side of extra specialties to round out the character however you want). This provides a unique opportunity to present a high-caster whose only unique specialty is casting spells in combat.



Veering into offtopic rambling

I get ya, but a lot of that is a separate argument about whether a given feat chain is worth it. As for the investigator, I've never paid it much attention (rogues don't really hold me and a rogue with extracts doesn't change that much) but it looks like a skill-monkey with some tricks and a sneak attack that is harder to spam but easier to trigger. Adding Dex to damage doesn't seem to be a gamechanger and the other were just a matter of what order you want specific class features in.

What I was getting at was that saying that a Magus can be fixed by taking Focused Blast Type Group and Melee Blaster is like making a fighter with no weapon proficiencies and saying he can fix it by buying them with feats (but he can't use his fighter bonus feats for the first 4 levels). If you have to expend resources (especially outside of the class) so the class can actually do what it is supposed to do (not just do it better) then that is poor game design.



If I shuffle things too much, it eventually stops being an archetype.

Archetypes have been gutting their classes since the dawn od Pathfinder. So long as the chassis is still there all is fine.





My current thinking is this:

Spell Combat
The magus is skilled in combining casting and fighting. Whenever he makes a full-round attack, he may use a sphere ability with a casting time of a standard action or less as a free action any time during the attack, or he may maintain concentration on a sphere effect he created. This draw attacks of opportunity normally. Spell combat must be declared at the beginning of the attack, and imposes a -4 penalty on all attack rolls during the attack. If the magus is not using their offhand to attack or hold a shield, they may use it to decrease this penalty to -2. The magus also receives a +2 bonus to concentration checks to cast defensively during spell combat.

See, I find this both too easy and too harsh. As I've said before, I think that the light/one-handed melee weapon requirement of Spell Combat is one of it's balancing factors. I don't like the idea of trivializing that. I'm actually more of a fan of leaving that as an absolute requirement of Spell Combat, but I also realize that I might be in the minority on that. Having the option as an Arcana at least requires some commitment to developing the ways of the Magus before they start breaking it's rules and provides them with a way to mitigate the penalties once they do. Putting it in the base ability also breaks it wide open to dip abuse while simultaneously making it useless for the Magus itself (a -4 to hit at first level means that the only thing he'll be able to hit is a naked toddler with polio).



Why do you think the magus will be short of SP?

Because I'm working under the assumption that Arcane Potency will be rolled into Spell Combat, because a lot of the tradition drawbacks are unsuitable to someone who will be spending time in the thick of it, and because there is a tendency to throw an SP tax on talents willy-nilly so they can be depleted with disturbing speed.




My issue is that it's great for Destruction sphere, and does nothing for anything else. I'm thinking about changing the crit effect to something more generic that can be a benefit to a number of spheres.

My version:

Spellstrike
At 2nd level, whenever a magus uses a sphere ability with a touch range, he can deliver the spell through a natural, melee, or thrown weapon he is wielding as part of an attack. Instead of the free melee touch attack normally allowed to deliver the spell, a magus can make one free melee attack with his weapon (at his highest base attack bonus) as part of casting this spell. You can also use a ranged weapon to deliver a ranged sphere ability. If successful, this melee attack deals its normal damage as well as the effects of the spell. If the magus makes this attack in concert with spell combat, this melee attack takes all the penalties accrued by spell combat melee attacks. This attack uses the weapon’s critical range, but the sphere effect uses it's own critical hit range to determine effect. Then the attack confirms a critical hit, the magus may add one of three possible effects to the sphere ability: he may add additional damage equal to hit magus level, increase the saving throw DC by +2, or reduce the spell point cost by 1 sp.

Hmm... I'm not sure about this one. I see what you're going for but I think you're missing the mark. I really don't think that using ranged weapons should be a part of the base ability (or at all really, I think that it severely breaks the balance of the core abilities, providing all of the benefit but removing all of the threat). If you want to do it this way you need to open it up to all sphere abilities that have a single target, not just touch attacks. Touch only really covers Alteration, Death, Destruction, Life, and Time. That is a lot missing if you are looking to be inclusive. You also need to specify what happens when you miss. I'd suggest that you allow them to hold the charge (so long as they don't cast any other sphere effects) and attempt on further rounds with Spellstrike. Some of these effects could have hefty SP costs and some protection is needed to make sure the user doesn't hemorrhage SP due to lack of touch attack. Lastly, the damage component of your crit option needs to be changed back. If you crit with a spell you double the damage, that is just how it is. You can't have a class ability based on critting with a spell and then have it be worse than not using the ability. Ya just can't, it's too cruel.



Here it is, it's pretty good:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UnkUhGN9gdYglWb1mIgHns4CtIIRjGE-PdvC4Ljh8J4/edit

Thanks, I'll have a look.



If it's iconic, you shouldn't have to wait until 13th level to get it.

That's a fair point. The key here is that if you're going to take these away then you need to incorporate their utility back into the base class. Having a front line fighter (make no mistake, that is exactly what the Magus is) whose class only provides light armor proficiency is a travesty.



Hold on, are you saying knowledge pool is weak or that my suggestion to replace it is weak?

I'm saying that Knowledge Pool is so strong for a prepared caster that your replacement is pitifully weak by comparison. Even if you just put it there for ease of archetypes that would break thing since the archetype would be balanced around replacing an incredibly potent ability.



I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree. Concentration is part of PF, and giving a class outright immunity is not going to go down well with people, especially at 4th level.

Please tell that to Melee Blaster. My suggestion is already in play, it is just limited to Destruction and has no flaws. I am suggesting that we add a similar effect to a specific class whose core concept is the continual casting of spells while in combat and only during the use of one specific class ability. Please note that this is not blanket immunity. It only applies during Spell Combat. Need to cast a spell and then move away (or any other move action really)? Good luck with that. Just got staggered and need to cast a spell? Good luck with that.

The cat is already out of the bag. I just want the only class specifically designed to continually cast spells while in melee combat to get the same benefit without paying a feat tax (because, ya know, this is what the class is based on) and without being locked into Destruction (we're trying to get away from this).

I realize that there is some initial resistance to this idea (especially it coming online at 4th level) but this is a holy cow that needs to be slain. This reminds me of when the Warlock came out and people lost their minds when they saw at-will spellcasting but failed to look at the context. The result was the Warlock being stillborn and needing bandaids like Hellfire Warlock and Eldritch Glaive to breathe some life back into it. Remind you of the Magus much?




For diminishing casting: I personally feel a spell slot is about equal to a spell point (casters tend to get a few more spell slots than spell points, but a lot of those extra slots are low level and never get used anyways). So taking away a spell point whenever the original class would have gained a new spell level feels right. For the magus, this is 6 points, which is worth 3 feats, and feels about the right value for what they tend to get in return for the loss (except for bladed scarf dancer, which should just have diminished spell casting removed).

I really think that you're undervaluing SP here. Overall spell slots tend to be @twice as plentiful as SP. Mid-caster vs Bard = 15 SP vs 30 spell slots at 20th before casting stat modifiers, high-caster vs Wizard = 20 SP vs 36 spell slots. And that's before noting that no matter how powerful the effect a spell only ever costs a single slot while powerful Sphere effects can easily cost 3-5 SP a crack. Not only do SP have a much smaller pool they are bled out many times faster. Keep this sort of thing in mind when you start drawing parallels like that. This is also one of the reasons that I worry about the Magus being short on SP.

[khadgar567]

you know quarian rex there is a class does what you asked called prodigy in champions of spheres and thats why i suggest magus to get it.

plus i agree with you on lack of resource in spheres

[The Vagabond]

A proposed quick fix in 3 parts:

1. Instead of expending Spell Points when you would expend an Arcane Point, you instead invest a spell point into an Arcana or other Magus ability, gaining the ability to use that ability once per 2d6rounds, including the Enhance ability of the base Arcane Pool. They invest their Spell Points at the beginning of the day.
1.b Replace Arcane Potency with Magus Potency: You may invest Spell Points into this ability to gain temporary sphere-specific spell points, usable once per 2d6 rounds while using your Spell Combat ability against a hostile opponent, at a 2 to 1 basis. You may invest 2 spell points for 1 temporary spell point at level 4, 5 for 2 at level 10, and 9 for 3 at level 16.
2. Arcane Pool can be used to enhance any item in your possession as a Staff, granting an enhancement bonus on caster level.
3. Sphere Training: A magus may select any single sphere. They gain a bonus talent (Or the base sphere) of that sphere, and treats her class level as her caster level with these spheres. This stacks normally with caster levels gained from other sources. You may select this Arcana multiple times.

An overly-simple solution, but it makes the Arcana worth more than a Sphere Talent in general. In addition, it makes the Magus Mechanically interesting, being a cooldown-based class instead of a resource-based class.

[EldritchWeaver]

A proposed quick fix in 3 parts:

1. Instead of expending Spell Points when you would expend an Arcane Point, you instead invest a spell point into an Arcana or other Magus ability, gaining the ability to use that ability once per 2d6rounds, including the Enhance ability of the base Arcane Pool. They invest their Spell Points at the beginning of the day.
...

In addition, it makes the Magus Mechanically interesting, being a cooldown-based class instead of a resource-based class.

Variable cooldowns just slow down game play. Especially 2d6 might result in a 12, which means the battle is over before you get to use it again. Even a 1d4 is going to be a problem, if you have 5 arcanas and you need to to know which arcanas are still in cooldown and when they'll be back online. The prodigy charge mechanic is a better design, but not sure if that breaks the feel of the magus.

[Quarian Rex]

you know quarian rex there is a class does what you asked called prodigy in champions of spheres and thats why i suggest magus to get it.

plus i agree with you on lack of resource in spheres

Where might be this book be good sir? Doesn't seem to exist (in any variation) on DriveThruRPG and Google seems to have failed me.

[EldritchWeaver]

Where might be this book be good sir? Doesn't seem to exist (in any variation) on DriveThruRPG and Google seems to have failed me.

At this point the book hasn't been published yet. But the prodigy can be found there (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H87eHhordfN3JlG5EpHVw2OH_P-_i3OW_qvK2Amymuk/edit).

[Segev]

This is weird. It's the first time I've seen "Magus is useless" as a thesis, and yet I see it presented here as well-established fact rather than as some bold new thesis.

I also have to disagree with it; when I've seen it played - and I tend to play in games with people who aren't shy about playing optimally - it's stood up well next to clerics and wizards. Admittedly, I have also noticed that in real play even the most optimizing players I know have trouble being as Omni-prepared and as well-equipped as the boards suggest they should trivially be, but I think that a function of setting and in-game access issues.

[Quarian Rex]

This is weird. It's the first time I've seen "Magus is useless" as a thesis, and yet I see it presented here as well-established fact rather than as some bold new thesis.

I also have to disagree with it; when I've seen it played - and I tend to play in games with people who aren't shy about playing optimally - it's stood up well next to clerics and wizards. Admittedly, I have also noticed that in real play even the most optimizing players I know have trouble being as Omni-prepared and as well-equipped as the boards suggest they should trivially be, but I think that a function of setting and in-game access issues.

I would in no way say useless... just currently incapable of meeting it's class role, especially in the context of SoP. It is the only class that I am aware of that is specifically designed to cast spells in combat (other classes are capable of doing this as an emergency, and the rules reflect that, but this pony has one trick and it is pretty bad at it). Its inability to do that consistently is something that I find irksome, especially when there are methods to achieve that but they have to be purchased separately from the class.

When hearing the proposal to revise the archetype the gears start turning and the results you see spewed upon the previous pages.

Also, what do you remember of how the Magus was actually used in play? What level ranges were you? Did the Magus just buff up and run in or was he continually using Spell Combat? I am curious about your experiences.

Any thoughts on the previous proposals btw?

[Kaouse]

I really like the idea of giving the Sphere Magus a Thaumaturge-like casting progression. As for the idea of the class being worthless beyond level 2, I think the counter to that is to give the Magus a bunch of Arcana that are really, really good. If nothing else, better class features later on is a good reason to take more levels in the class.

I'd suggest getting rid of Armor Casting, since it's not something required in Spheres of Power, and 99 times out of 10, whenever I take the Somatic Casting Drawback I'll just grab the Protection Sphere, the Protected Soul Drawback, and Armored Magic Aegis for all the armor/shield/deflect bonuses I could want at the cost of a single feat/talent.

Since Spell Recall and Improved Spell Recall are also kinda useless for a spontaneous spellcasting system like Spheres of Power, those should also be removed.

With that, perhaps you could take a page out of the Worldsoul Incarnate Barbarian Archetype recently released, and just give the Magus a series of "Action Points" that they could use each round to boost either their magical or martial skills. I'd be fine with replacing Arcane Pool for this, if there was a reasonably versatile combat-oriented substitute. Otherwise, if you replace arcane pool, you could probably also get rid of Magus Arcana entirely, giving you more room to give the Magus powerful Action Point abilities.

But then, you don't have much to trade when the Spheres of Might Magus comes around, and that should totally work natively with Spheres of Power, IMHO. Though, aside from turning the full attack in Spell Combat to an attack action and removing the weapon restriction, there's not really much the Spheres of Might Magus has to really add after combat training. Getting rid of Magus Arcana there might not be so bad in such a world.

[Drifter S.]

See. I think we're actually making arguments for the same thing, you just seem to be approaching it from the path of least resistance, whereas I'm looking to fix the problems from the ground up. Let me explain the issues I see and the reasons why I think certain approaches would be better.

A point on trying to find the path of least resistance is coming at it from the angle of trying to pitch it to the higher ups and get approved. Both the Arcana and Thaumaturge route have merit and appeal to me in some fashion, it's just a matter of ironing out the details of both and seeing which one can get approved. I view the Arcana as being much easier to justify. Though, there's also other reasons, like it being more likely to work with an eventual Spheres of Might archetype. I can't imagine they'll let it get away with both Thaumaturge casting and having anything significant out of might.

I also wonder if there's confusion about making a concentration check to initially cast a spell defensively, and making a concentration check to maintain concentration when struck. Making the Magus not have to ever make ANY concentration checks would be kind of ridiculous, but defensively casting a spell (like the kind of thing covered by Melee Blaster) shouldn't be too big of an issue.


This is weird. It's the first time I've seen "Magus is useless" as a thesis, and yet I see it presented here as well-established fact rather than as some bold new thesis.

I also have to disagree with it; when I've seen it played - and I tend to play in games with people who aren't shy about playing optimally - it's stood up well next to clerics and wizards. Admittedly, I have also noticed that in real play even the most optimizing players I know have trouble being as Omni-prepared and as well-equipped as the boards suggest they should trivially be, but I think that a function of setting and in-game access issues.

I don't think anyone in the thread has made the claim that "magus is useless", but there's been lots of discussion about the many design flaws (medium/heavy armor progression is too slow, poor spell list diversity, majority of arcana are awful, scimitar is the only option for an entire build path) it has in the context of how those flaws are made worse by trying to turn the class into a Spherecaster. Something which results in the class only being worth taking for 1-2 levels in order to snag the action economy altering feature(s), and then book it for the nearest "real class" that actually does what you want.

As for the "regular magus"? It has its one schtick, I kinda like that schtick, and it does it alright. It could just stand an overhaul (and for some of the feats it uses to also get touched) so that there's more potential for variety. I'm still baffled that Produce Flame isn't on its spell list, actually.

[A.J.Gibson]

SoP has three forms of caster, the low-caster (generally martials enhanced by power, like the Armorist and Mageknight), high-casters (those whose entire shtick is casting spells), and mid-casters (who are almost always specialists who have full casting in their area of focus). The problem here is that while the Magus is a form of specialist, he specializes in casting spells in combat. Not just a particular type of spells, but all spells. Not just as buffs, or as back-ups, but to keep casting all throughout combat. Trying to keep him as a mid-caster and expanding its competence through Arcana just results in combat necromancers, or combat shapeshifters, etc. None of those are a combat mage. They are slivers of one.

Why do I think mid-casting is a bad fit? Because while the vancian Magus did not have access to 9th level spells he did have full caster level, so every spell he cast could be cast well. And the very nature of vancian spells works to the Magus' advantage. Each spell is a seperate entity unto itself, free to tweak the rules to achieve what it wants. While SoP offers much freedom from the vancian system it also has to make things more generic in many ways, meaning there is very little room for loopholes, even necessary ones. Virtually every sphere ability cast on an enemy requires a save and for a save to have a chance you need a high-caster.

Besides, the combat mid-caster is already covered by the Hedgewitch (with a hefty side of extra specialties to round out the character however you want). This provides a unique opportunity to present a high-caster whose only unique specialty is casting spells in combat.


I can not agree enough. This is what made me think of using thaumaturge progression in the first place: they're specialized, but not in a sphere, but a way of casting.



See, I find this both too easy and too harsh. As I've said before, I think that the light/one-handed melee weapon requirement of Spell Combat is one of it's balancing factors. I don't like the idea of trivializing that. I'm actually more of a fan of leaving that as an absolute requirement of Spell Combat, but I also realize that I might be in the minority on that. Having the option as an Arcana at least requires some commitment to developing the ways of the Magus before they start breaking it's rules and provides them with a way to mitigate the penalties once they do. Putting it in the base ability also breaks it wide open to dip abuse while simultaneously making it useless for the Magus itself (a -4 to hit at first level means that the only thing he'll be able to hit is a naked toddler with polio).


The line about losing abilities was referring to abilities being lost because of failed concentration checks, not because of missed attacks. And I think you're probably right abotu incorporating ranged right into the base class.



Because I'm working under the assumption that Arcane Potency will be rolled into Spell Combat, because a lot of the tradition drawbacks are unsuitable to someone who will be spending time in the thick of it, and because there is a tendency to throw an SP tax on talents willy-nilly so they can be depleted with disturbing speed.


My intention is to keep arcane pool separate and unmodified. Arcane potency is basically 'you get spell points equal to your arcane points, minus your attribute modifier' so yes.

There are some good drawbacks for magi, however. Verbal casting, arcane bond/galvanized casting, magical signs are all decent, and 3 is the typical number taken. Skilled casting can also be decent.



Hmm... I'm not sure about this one. I see what you're going for but I think you're missing the mark. I really don't think that using ranged weapons should be a part of the base ability (or at all really, I think that it severely breaks the balance of the core abilities, providing all of the benefit but removing all of the threat). If you want to do it this way you need to open it up to all sphere abilities that have a single target, not just touch attacks. Touch only really covers Alteration, Death, Destruction, Life, and Time. That is a lot missing if you are looking to be inclusive. You also need to specify what happens when you miss. I'd suggest that you allow them to hold the charge (so long as they don't cast any other sphere effects) and attempt on further rounds with Spellstrike. Some of these effects could have hefty SP costs and some protection is needed to make sure the user doesn't hemorrhage SP due to lack of touch attack. Lastly, the damage component of your crit option needs to be changed back. If you crit with a spell you double the damage, that is just how it is. You can't have a class ability based on critting with a spell and then have it be worse than not using the ability. Ya just can't, it's too cruel.


I'll take ranged weapons out. For critical hits, I'm simply not willing to let character's use their weapon range in place of the sphere ability range. It's what makes scimitar/destruction magus so prevalent. I did have another thought: what if, when you crit with spellstrike, the sphere ability isn't expended? You get a free second use out of it.



That's a fair point. The key here is that if you're going to take these away then you need to incorporate their utility back into the base class. Having a front line fighter (make no mistake, that is exactly what the Magus is) whose class only provides light armor proficiency is a travesty.


Medium armor does make sense for the magus, but archetype rules say if you get something you gotta give soemthing up. Any suggestions?

The other thing is, when you have full CL in protection, granting the armored magic aegis might be better.



I'm saying that Knowledge Pool is so strong for a prepared caster that your replacement is pitifully weak by comparison. Even if you just put it there for ease of archetypes that would break thing since the archetype would be balanced around replacing an incredibly potent ability.


Having seeing a similar ability on the prodigy playtest, I have to agree. Maybe a number of uses per day equal to Int mod? And then swift action at 19th?



I realize that there is some initial resistance to this idea (especially it coming online at 4th level) but this is a holy cow that needs to be slain. This reminds me of when the Warlock came out and people lost their minds when they saw at-will spellcasting but failed to look at the context. The result was the Warlock being stillborn and needing bandaids like Hellfire Warlock and Eldritch Glaive to breathe some life back into it. Remind you of the Magus much?


How about this: instead of a concentration bonus, how about they don't lose the spell if they get disrupted? Like counterstrike in reverse. It would be more interesting than a concentration bonus.



I really think that you're undervaluing SP here. Overall spell slots tend to be @twice as plentiful as SP. Mid-caster vs Bard = 15 SP vs 30 spell slots at 20th before casting stat modifiers, high-caster vs Wizard = 20 SP vs 36 spell slots. And that's before noting that no matter how powerful the effect a spell only ever costs a single slot while powerful Sphere effects can easily cost 3-5 SP a crack. Not only do SP have a much smaller pool they are bled out many times faster. Keep this sort of thing in mind when you start drawing parallels like that. This is also one of the reasons that I worry about the Magus being short on SP.


Casters receive SP equal to their CLASS level, not caster level. In addition, the equivalent of arcane casting is casting with 3 drawbacks (verbal and somatic * 2). A level 20 spherecaster with 3 drawbacks will have 30 SP + Casting Mod, while a Vancian will have...well, it's about 50% more.

But that's not the point. If you look at magus archetypes, diminished spellcasting usually buys the magus something worth about 3 feats, which is 6 spell points. That's where I get that from. Not really that important.


A proposed quick fix in 3 parts:
Arcane Pool can be used to enhance any item in your possession as a Staff, granting an enhancement bonus on caster level.


This is an extremely powerful ability. Armorists have something like it as their core ability, but have to wait until level 10 to bind staffs, and have a limited number.


This is weird. It's the first time I've seen "Magus is useless" as a thesis, and yet I see it presented here as well-established fact rather than as some bold new thesis.
I also have to disagree with it; when I've seen it played - and I tend to play in games with people who aren't shy about playing optimally - it's stood up well next to clerics and wizards. Admittedly, I have also noticed that in real play even the most optimizing players I know have trouble being as Omni-prepared and as well-equipped as the boards suggest they should trivially be, but I think that a function of setting and in-game access issues.


As others have pointed out, the main issues are that the magus tends towards one build, and there is very little reason to take it past level 3, because its so front loaded. Kidna like the incanter, but worse.



I really like the idea of giving the Sphere Magus a Thaumaturge-like casting progression. As for the idea of the class being worthless beyond level 2, I think the counter to that is to give the Magus a bunch of Arcana that are really, really good. If nothing else, better class features later on is a good reason to take more levels in the class.

I'd suggest getting rid of Armor Casting, since it's not something required in Spheres of Power, and 99 times out of 10, whenever I take the Somatic Casting Drawback I'll just grab the Protection Sphere, the Protected Soul Drawback, and Armored Magic Aegis for all the armor/shield/deflect bonuses I could want at the cost of a single feat/talent.

Since Spell Recall and Improved Spell Recall are also kinda useless for a spontaneous spellcasting system like Spheres of Power, those should also be removed.

With that, perhaps you could take a page out of the Worldsoul Incarnate Barbarian Archetype recently released, and just give the Magus a series of "Action Points" that they could use each round to boost either their magical or martial skills. I'd be fine with replacing Arcane Pool for this, if there was a reasonably versatile combat-oriented substitute. Otherwise, if you replace arcane pool, you could probably also get rid of Magus Arcana entirely, giving you more room to give the Magus powerful Action Point abilities.

But then, you don't have much to trade when the Spheres of Might Magus comes around, and that should totally work natively with Spheres of Power, IMHO. Though, aside from turning the full attack in Spell Combat to an attack action and removing the weapon restriction, there's not really much the Spheres of Might Magus has to really add after combat training. Getting rid of Magus Arcana there might not be so bad in such a world.


Pretty much this. Spell combat and spellstrike have to be updated to work with spheres. Spell Recall, Improved spell Recall, Knowledge Pool, and Greater Spell Access make no sense in spheres, and the Armor proficiencies are just weird.

I don't want to do the Worldsoul thing because...well, I hate repeating myself, mostly. But also, arcane pool is already a resource, and spell points are a resource, let's not bury people in numbers.

[Quarian Rex]

I also wonder if there's confusion about making a concentration check to initially cast a spell defensively, and making a concentration check to maintain concentration when struck. Making the Magus not have to ever make ANY concentration checks would be kind of ridiculous, but defensively casting a spell (like the kind of thing covered by Melee Blaster) shouldn't be too big of an issue.

See, this is one of the main differences between Vancian and SoP magic. Concentration was a rarity in Vancian, but is the absolute default in SoP and so I think that it needs to be taken into account. How about if while using Spell Combat the Magus automatically passes all concentration checks to maintain concentration due to damage if it is provoked by someone that they threaten? That's a bit of a long-winded way to put it but I hope you see where I'm going. The key here is not necessarily being immune to concentration checks but for the Magus to function at his peak within his realm of mastery.

Having to roll the bones to keep your concentration when an arrow feathers you from out of the blue, or a dragon reaches out 20ft to maul you is perfectly fine. The Magus is not in control of those situations. But when he steps up to an opponent and starts slinging spells and steel, the very basis of his entire existence, incompetence is not an option. To me, this would be like requiring a Fighter to make a Dex check every time he is hit or drop his sword.




I'll take ranged weapons out. For critical hits, I'm simply not willing to let character's use their weapon range in place of the sphere ability range. It's what makes scimitar/destruction magus so prevalent. I did have another thought: what if, when you crit with spellstrike, the sphere ability isn't expended? You get a free second use out of it.

See, the scimitar/Destruction Magus is so prevalent because that is about the only thing that the current Magus archetype is good at. That is what we're trying to fix. Making debuffs viable and allowing buffs to be maintained without being an exercise in futility will go a long way to sorting that out.

Realize too that if you have an ability that is based on crits then the high crit-range weapons will be the go-to choices. Trying to make the crit so disappointing that you no longer care (might as well use a club, does it matter?) would be a poor choice. You also seem to be over-valuing the spell-crit as well. It is a flashy option, both attractive and oh so shiny, but it is generally a disadvantage. At best you are getting a 6-in-20 chance to crit (using a Keen scimitar or similar) in exchange for a worse than 6-in-20 additional chance to miss (armor/shield/natural armor usually adds up to far more than this). That added miss chance even digs into the crit chance due to the need for confirmation.

I'm not going to run all the math but you've got to recognize that in most situations average damage will go down with Spellstrike. That is not necessarily a bad thing. A player needs to know when to use an ability to his advantage and when it does go off it brings the joy. It's interesting and it does what the player expects it to do. The last part is more important than you think. If an ability implies a crit and is replaced with a pale imitation then the players heart is filled with the hate. And some of these guys know the voodoo. Do not risk it.

As to your hatred of the scimitar, what about an Arcana that does something like Critical Genius (https://docs.google.com/document/d/18GNWQDmpjanVcU70kgclv1YIwTRdSf4l8RnocE38EHQ/edit#heading=h.4napiwpom8qy) from Spheres of Might? Have the expanded threat range unlock at Magus 10 instead of +10 BAB and I think it might achieve what you're looking for without having to gut Spellstrike. To be clear, I quite like having alternate options for the crit, I just think castrating the damage option is a mistake.



Medium armor does make sense for the magus, but archetype rules say if you get something you gotta give soemthing up. Any suggestions?

Remove the armor options at 7th and 13th, add medium armor at 1st and say that a Magus does not suffer ASF in armor they are proficient with when using spheres and talents selected as part of the Magus class and the Extra Magical Talent feat and then call it even? Middling armor is available early (with the option to upgrade at the players choice) at the cost of feat loss later, locking the ASF negation to the class. How does that sound?



The other thing is, when you have full CL in protection, granting the armored magic aegis might be better.

That is definitely an option but I don't think that it is one that should be forced on the player. Talents will be tight(-ish) and I don't think that there should be absolutely required spheres. That, and I don't think that Armored Magic is a good replacement for armor on a frontline combatant. It starts off less effective that a chain shirt and doesn't scale well. It is a great option for the rearguard spherecaster with talents to burn but I'm not a fan in this case.



Having seeing a similar ability on the prodigy playtest, I have to agree. Maybe a number of uses per day equal to Int mod? And then swift action at 19th?

I'm not a fan of this kind of limited use ability. It's either never available when you need it or you forget about it while saving it for the 'perfect moment'. What about just giving a taste of the Arcanist here? Give a floating talent point that can be swapped out daily. Bump it up to 2 at 13th (to replace the missing heavy armor) and then 3 at 19th. This doesn't really compare with the utility of the original but at least it's in the ballpark.



How about this: instead of a concentration bonus, how about they don't lose the spell if they get disrupted? Like counterstrike in reverse. It would be more interesting than a concentration bonus.

That really is a booby prize. Vancians can already hold the charge on a touch attack, trying to pass that off as a special feature of the combat caster comes off as a little insulting. This is especially true with SoP, a system based off of at-will abilities. Not losing something that you have infinite uses of is pretty useless. Remember, the resource war we are fighting is in the action economy. Whether the Magus is successful in the round should be determined by the enemy failing his save, or the Magus hitting his target, there should not be a question of whether the Magus even gets a chance to try.



Casters receive SP equal to their CLASS level, not caster level. In addition, the equivalent of arcane casting is casting with 3 drawbacks (verbal and somatic * 2). A level 20 spherecaster with 3 drawbacks will have 30 SP + Casting Mod, while a Vancian will have...well, it's about 50% more.

But that's not the point. If you look at magus archetypes, diminished spellcasting usually buys the magus something worth about 3 feats, which is 6 spell points. That's where I get that from. Not really that important.

Yup, class, not caster level. That is completely my bad. Comes with the shuffling of the rulesets. As for the SP, a lot of Drawbacks get eaten up by Boons as well, again leaving less than you might think. Also, as casters gain in level the power efficiency (?) of Vancian spells goes up geometrically (increased damage, duration, scope, scale, etc.) while Spheres are very linear but with multipliers that can lead to results that are comparable to spells yet every increase has to be paid for separately. Lower pool + higher cost = you need to value them more highly.

[Segev]

Also, what do you remember of how the Magus was actually used in play? What level ranges were you? Did the Magus just buff up and run in or was he continually using Spell Combat? I am curious about your experiences. Mostly, I recall them using spell-combat and the pool of arcane points to do self-buffing while being the quintessential magic knight. Everything the Eldrich Knight of 3.5 advertised itself to be (despite the latter playing more as weak wizard who can also swing a sword). Essentially, gish-in-one-class.

One player in particular really likes the black sword archetype of the class, now that I think of it. Maybe that's better at its role or something? (I have read its mechanics, but never played it myself, so I am speaking from second-hand observation.


Any thoughts on the previous proposals btw?Sorry, not at this time, because I am not immersed enough in the class mechanics to be comfortable discussing fixes to it.

[A.J.Gibson]

See, the scimitar/Destruction Magus is so prevalent because that is about the only thing that the current Magus archetype is good at. That is what we're trying to fix. Making debuffs viable and allowing buffs to be maintained without being an exercise in futility will go a long way to sorting that out.

Realize too that if you have an ability that is based on crits then the high crit-range weapons will be the go-to choices. Trying to make the crit so disappointing that you no longer care (might as well use a club, does it matter?) would be a poor choice. You also seem to be over-valuing the spell-crit as well. It is a flashy option, both attractive and oh so shiny, but it is generally a disadvantage. At best you are getting a 6-in-20 chance to crit (using a Keen scimitar or similar) in exchange for a worse than 6-in-20 additional chance to miss (armor/shield/natural armor usually adds up to far more than this). That added miss chance even digs into the crit chance due to the need for confirmation.

I'm not going to run all the math but you've got to recognize that in most situations average damage will go down with Spellstrike. That is not necessarily a bad thing. A player needs to know when to use an ability to his advantage and when it does go off it brings the joy. It's interesting and it does what the player expects it to do. The last part is more important than you think. If an ability implies a crit and is replaced with a pale imitation then the players heart is filled with the hate. And some of these guys know the voodoo. Do not risk it.


If spell crits aren't better, then why is the scimitar/destruction magus so prevalent?

I think what we need is a replacement for spell crits. Something the magus can have that doesn't rely on them using a weapon with a large crit range. My reuse-the-spell suggestion moves us away from destruction, but not away from crits. Maybe we should just drop the -2 penalty to attacking in spell combat?



Remove the armor options at 7th and 13th, add medium armor at 1st and say that a Magus does not suffer ASF in armor they are proficient with when using spheres and talents selected as part of the Magus class and the Extra Magical Talent feat and then call it even? Middling armor is available early (with the option to upgrade at the players choice) at the cost of feat loss later, locking the ASF negation to the class. How does that sound?


Unfortunately you can't remove a class feature and then give class a replacement feature at an earlier level.



That really is a booby prize. Vancians can already hold the charge on a touch attack, trying to pass that off as a special feature of the combat caster comes off as a little insulting. This is especially true with SoP, a system based off of at-will abilities. Not losing something that you have infinite uses of is pretty useless. Remember, the resource war we are fighting is in the action economy. Whether the Magus is successful in the round should be determined by the enemy failing his save, or the Magus hitting his target, there should not be a question of whether the Magus even gets a chance to try.


Let me rephrase: what if, instead of being better at casting defensively, they were better at not losing spells when hit? They still provoke when they fail their defensive casting roll, they just are less likely to lose their spell because of it.

[Quarian Rex]

If spell crits aren't better, then why is the scimitar/destruction magus so prevalent?

Re-read my previous posts. TL;DR - it seems like a great option and it's currently the only game in town.



I think what we need is a replacement for spell crits. Something the magus can have that doesn't rely on them using a weapon with a large crit range. My reuse-the-spell suggestion moves us away from destruction, but not away from crits. Maybe we should just drop the -2 penalty to attacking in spell combat?

I really don't understand your apparent biases here. Trying to rework a crit based ability so that high threat weapons offer no advantage is an exercise in futility. Attempting to shoehorn in artificial limitations to remove the benefit of increased threat range, in a crit based ability, will leave it as an incomprehensible mess. If you're really just trying to open up weapon options then look at my previous suggestion...


... what about an Arcana that does something like Critical Genius (https://docs.google.com/document/d/18GNWQDmpjanVcU70kgclv1YIwTRdSf4l8RnocE38EHQ/edit#heading=h.4napiwpom8qy) from Spheres of Might? Have the expanded threat range unlock at Magus 10 instead of +10 BAB and I think it might achieve what you're looking for without having to gut Spellstrike.

Take that Arcana and you can see warhammers, picks, flails, axes, or whatever else getting used. As for the prevalence/utility of Destruction... damage is a key component of combat, accept it. Even an alternately focused Magus will still dip Destruction because eventually things still gotta die. Seriously, reread my previous post, I really went over this. Current Spellstrike is an attractive defining feature of the class but mechanically it's probably lowering your actual damage. Remember, the goal here is to buff up this class to make it worth taking, not to remove one of the few interesting (if not as useful as it might appear) features it has.



Unfortunately you can't remove a class feature and then give class a replacement feature at an earlier level.

Yes, you really, really can. Archetypes remove features and slot in varying numbers of replacements at different levels. So long as the result is balanced then all is well. In this case we are removing two feats and adding one that provides the bare minimum protection for a frontline combatant. Can you think of a single frontliner that doesn't have at least medium armor (or it's equivalent)? Even the vancian Magus gets access to the Shield spell at first level giving an additional +4 to AC. The Sphere equivalent only gives +1. That's a big difference, especially in the early levels and this sort of discrepancy needs to be taken into account.



Let me rephrase: what if, instead of being better at casting defensively, they were better at not losing spells when hit? They still provoke when they fail their defensive casting roll, they just are less likely to lose their spell because of it.

I really went over this in the last post, I really did...


Vancians can already hold the charge on a touch attack, trying to pass that off as a special feature of the combat caster comes off as a little insulting. This is especially true with SoP, a system based off of at-will abilities. Not losing something that you have infinite uses of is pretty useless. Remember, the resource war we are fighting is in the action economy. Whether the Magus is successful in the round should be determined by the enemy failing his save, or the Magus hitting his target, there should not be a question of whether the Magus even gets a chance to try.

Also...


Concentration was a rarity in Vancian, but is the absolute default in SoP and so I think that it needs to be taken into account. How about if while using Spell Combat the Magus automatically passes all concentration checks to maintain concentration due to damage if it is provoked by someone that they threaten? That's a bit of a long-winded way to put it but I hope you see where I'm going. The key here is not necessarily being immune to concentration checks but for the Magus to function at his peak within his realm of mastery.

Having to roll the bones to keep your concentration when an arrow feathers you from out of the blue, or a dragon reaches out 20ft to maul you is perfectly fine. The Magus is not in control of those situations. But when he steps up to an opponent and starts slinging spells and steel, the very basis of his entire existence, incompetence is not an option. To me, this would be like requiring a Fighter to make a Dex check every time he is hit or drop his sword.

I think I got that across pretty clearly. Giving casters a chance to blow their spells when in melee combat is a rules choice that prompts emergent gameplay. Casters stay out of combat because they can be made useless in that environment. If you design a caster whose one defining characteristic is to cast spells in combat they cannot be allowed to render themselves useless in their designed role. That has to be addressed. I think the above does so.

As for Spellstrike allowing you to 'keep your spell' when you're using at-will spell like abilities, I want you to think about that for a min and then tell me how it's supposed to make sense. Even with non-damage crit options available they still only occur on a crit and have a much higher chance of failure. Anything that has a non-trivial SP investment will not be left to the uncertainty of a normal to hit roll. Debuffs or damage, Spellstrike is for spam. Alterations have to be made with this in mind.

[EldritchWeaver]

As for Spellstrike allowing you to 'keep your spell' when you're using at-will spell like abilities, I want you to think about that for a min and then tell me how it's supposed to make sense. Even with non-damage crit options available they still only occur on a crit and have a much higher chance of failure. Anything that has a non-trivial SP investment will not be left to the uncertainty of a normal to hit roll. Debuffs or damage, Spellstrike is for spam. Alterations have to be made with this in mind.

Just want to mention that there are ways to burn SPs, so not losing SPs makes somewhat sense. Still it is reliant on critting, which means that it is quite a gamble, if you spend the SPs you'll likely lose.

[dude123nice]

If spell crits aren't better, then why is the scimitar/destruction magus so prevalent?


Part of that is the fact that the magus has GREAT synergy with the Dervish Dance feat. And an even greater part is the fact that a lot of people like simple but effective tactics and a lot of DMs are not catering to munchkins and so their encounters tend to be pretty straightforward. There is also the fact that at mid to high levels buffs can last for whole hours, the fact that, often, parties have a full caster, a bard or another such class that is already dedicated to buffing everyone, and that taking an enemy out in the first or second round of combat is always a good tactic.

[A.J.Gibson]

As for Spellstrike allowing you to 'keep your spell' when you're using at-will spell like abilities, I want you to think about that for a min and then tell me how it's supposed to make sense.


The basic idea is that if you hit with a crit spellstrike, the spell affects the target, but instead of double effect, you keep the charge. Then, the next time you hit (which may be immediately if this is the beginning of spell combat), you get the effect again. So you get a boost in action economy, and you don't have spend the spell points twice either.

I missed the post earlier where you suggested you can't lose spells by taking damage. That's a good idea. Still undecided about spellstrike. I might just say 'on a crit, your spell does double damage and the save DC goes up by +4'. And I think slashing grace would make a good arcana.

[Quarian Rex]

The basic idea is that if you hit with a crit spellstrike, the spell affects the target, but instead of double effect, you keep the charge. Then, the next time you hit (which may be immediately if this is the beginning of spell combat), you get the effect again. So you get a boost in action economy, and you don't have spend the spell points twice either.

I missed the post earlier where you suggested you can't lose spells by taking damage. That's a good idea. Still undecided about spellstrike. I might just say 'on a crit, your spell does double damage and the save DC goes up by +4'. And I think slashing grace would make a good arcana.

Hmm, that is interesting. I see what you mean now (and I'm not opposed) but I have to ask how that is actually an different from the spell crit? Is there a key mechanical difference that I'm not seeing? Critting to do double damage vs. critting to apply damage on a second attack in the round. It looks like you're just adding a third hit roll to get the same damage. This would also imply that serial crits could result in spell damage applying to every attack.

I'm not against that. You would actually reduce the average damage spikes but have the potential (if not the probability) for a round of glory. That is an interesting trade off. Functionally similar but different in execution. As for the DC increase, I think that +4 is a good amount (risk vs reward and all that) but I definitely think that it should be either/or. Though the spell echo idea (which is growing on me) would negate the need for such.

[Drifter S.]

The basic idea is that if you hit with a crit spellstrike, the spell affects the target, but instead of double effect, you keep the charge. Then, the next time you hit (which may be immediately if this is the beginning of spell combat), you get the effect again. So you get a boost in action economy, and you don't have spend the spell points twice either.

I missed the post earlier where you suggested you can't lose spells by taking damage. That's a good idea. Still undecided about spellstrike. I might just say 'on a crit, your spell does double damage and the save DC goes up by +4'. And I think slashing grace would make a good arcana.

Personally I find the critical threat range and damage interaction Spellstrike has to be fine as-is and think the "recycle a charge" thing seems a little convoluted, but a way to interact with spell DCs instead of doubling damage sounds great. Perhaps make it so when you gain Spellstrike, you can pick either damage or a spell DC boost, with both as arcana so you have the choice to get both later? A lot of the thread has been all about making more things worth doing, rather than lowering down what's already decent down.

Slashing/Fencing Grace as an Arcana (or an option in general) is a good idea, but it would have to be reworded to let you actually use it with Spell Combat, since you can't use it normally. It's why Dervish Dance is basically the only thing Magi take, Scimitars are the only weapon to get dex-to-damage with Spell Combat without dips in URogue or 3rd party feats. Between that, and some of the options a friend showed me from SoM's equipment sphere, you should be able to blow the doors wide open for weapon variety. SoM in general seems like it might be able to help magus out a lot, though I'm not holding my breath until things settle down, errors get fixed, and the gish playtest officially goes up.

[A.J.Gibson]

Hmm, that is interesting. I see what you mean now (and I'm not opposed) but I have to ask how that is actually an different from the spell crit? Is there a key mechanical difference that I'm not seeing? Critting to do double damage vs. critting to apply damage on a second attack in the round. It looks like you're just adding a third hit roll to get the same damage. This would also imply that serial crits could result in spell damage applying to every attack.

I'm not against that. You would actually reduce the average damage spikes but have the potential (if not the probability) for a round of glory. That is an interesting trade off. Functionally similar but different in execution. As for the DC increase, I think that +4 is a good amount (risk vs reward and all that) but I definitely think that it should be either/or. Though the spell echo idea (which is growing on me) would negate the need for such.

You pretty much have it. For a damaging spell, the extra damage you would have done can be done on a follow up strike, but for a debuffing effect, it gets you two cracks at hurting the target, or hurting two targets.

There is another variant on this. When you crit with a spellstrike, you may use a sphere ability you can spellstrike with as a free action to recharge your weapon. This would give you the chance to change what you are using, though it doesn't save you spell points.


Personally I find the critical threat range and damage interaction Spellstrike has to be fine as-is and think the "recycle a charge" thing seems a little convoluted, but a way to interact with spell DCs instead of doubling damage sounds great. Perhaps make it so when you gain Spellstrike, you can pick either damage or a spell DC boost, with both as arcana so you have the choice to get both later? A lot of the thread has been all about making more things worth doing, rather than lowering down what's already decent down.

Slashing/Fencing Grace as an Arcana (or an option in general) is a good idea, but it would have to be reworded to let you actually use it with Spell Combat, since you can't use it normally. It's why Dervish Dance is basically the only thing Magi take, Scimitars are the only weapon to get dex-to-damage with Spell Combat without dips in URogue or 3rd party feats. Between that, and some of the options a friend showed me from SoM's equipment sphere, you should be able to blow the doors wide open for weapon variety. SoM in general seems like it might be able to help magus out a lot, though I'm not holding my breath until things settle down, errors get fixed, and the gish playtest officially goes up.

The recharge effect is a little complicated, I'll grant you. But then, this is magus :)

For slashing grace, I was thinking it might be one of the magus styles. Currently I have:

Spell Combat Style (Ex)
At 4th level, the magus chooses a combat style that enhances his ability to use spell combat and spell strike. This gives him a new ability, and second ability at 11th level.

Agile Style
At 4th level, while wearing light or no armor and not using a shield, the magus adds half her casting ability modifier (rounded down) as a dodge bonus to her AC while wielding a melee weapon. If a duelist is caught flat-footed or otherwise denied her Dexterity bonus, she also loses this bonus.
At 11th level, she may add all of her casting ability modifier as a dodge bonus to her AC.

Beast Style
At 4th level, when you use spell combat, you may make an additional attack at your full attack bonus with a natural weapon or unarmed attack.
At 11th level, you may make two attacks this way with different natural weapons.

Heavy Weapon Style
At 4th level, the magus can use spell combat while wielding a two-handed weapon. Doing so is difficult, and when the magus does so, he suffers a -2 penalty to his AC until the beginning of his next turn.
At 11th level, the magus no longer suffer an AC penalty for using spell combat with a two-handed weapon.

Marauding Style
At 4th level, your spellstrike ability works with thrown weapons. You may deliver any sphere ability that requires a touch attack with a thrown weapon. You may also use your spell combat ability with thrown weapons. Whenever you hit an enemy during spell combat, any ranged attacks you make with thrown weapons during that spell combat do not provoke attacks of opportunity from that enemy. Add distant and returning to the properties you can bestow with your arcane pool.
At 11th level, whenever you use spell combat, you gain an additional attack at your highest base attack bonus. This attack must be made with a thrown weapon.

Precision Style
At 4th level, when wielding a weapon with the finesse property, you can add your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier to that weapon’s damage. The weapon must be one appropriate for your size.
At 11th level, you automatically confirm all crits with finesse weapons.

Ranged Style
At 4th level, you can use spellstrike to with sphere abilities that require a ranged touch attack. You can can also use spell combat with ranged weapons.
At 11th level, ?

Shielded Style
At 4th level, you gain the ability to use spell combat while wearing a shield, though you lose your shield bonus if it is a buckler shield. You also gain proficiency with buckler shields if you do not have it already.
At 11th level, you gain the ability to use your spellstrike with your shield. Whenever an enemy make a melee attack and misses you, if you are currently holding a charge, you may use a shield bash against them as an immediate action to deliver the spell.

This replaces spell recall and improved spell recall. Some of them are pretty out of wack powerwise, I know.

[Drifter S.]

The recharge effect is a little complicated, I'll grant you. But then, this is magus :)

For slashing grace, I was thinking it might be one of the magus styles. Currently I have:

(snipped for space)

This replaces spell recall and improved spell recall. Some of them are pretty out of wack powerwise, I know.

The recharge effect also seems like it's an unnecessary change to a big, defining feature is part of the problem I'm having with it. Again, I never saw crits with destruction as being an issue, the lack of support for anything else bothered me more.

As for Styles, while I like the concept of having them, the ones you've presented are just... Really dull and underwhelming. Especially when compared to Pathfinder Savant's version of the same idea. You already said they might be whack, so it's probably not worth ripping into them when they're a first draft, but finesse especially feels like it's gobbling up space for more interesting things. Maybe the same could be said about making it an Arcana, though. I also sort of feel like Paizo is way too paranoid about dex-to-damage and makes it jump through way too many hoops, the limitations on the Grace feats alone are asinine.

While I know the playtest may be a ways off, it might be good to keep a personal homebrew archetype that utilize Spheres of Might so you can refine ideas for later. Drop the laughable Medium/Armor features (and possibly fighter training, since it's clumsily implemente) in order to present additional options. let someone use equipment sphere to pick what armor (if any at all) they want from the get-go, or forgoe armor entirely to get a Canny Dodge/Prescient Dodger effect

[A.J.Gibson]

The recharge effect also seems like it's an unnecessary change to a big, defining feature is part of the problem I'm having with it. Again, I never saw crits with destruction as being an issue, the lack of support for anything else bothered me more.

As for Styles, while I like the concept of having them, the ones you've presented are just... Really dull and underwhelming. Especially when compared to Pathfinder Savant's version of the same idea. You already said they might be whack, so it's probably not worth ripping into them when they're a first draft, but finesse especially feels like it's gobbling up space for more interesting things. Maybe the same could be said about making it an Arcana, though. I also sort of feel like Paizo is way too paranoid about dex-to-damage and makes it jump through way too many hoops, the limitations on the Grace feats alone are asinine.

While I know the playtest may be a ways off, it might be good to keep a personal homebrew archetype that utilize Spheres of Might so you can refine ideas for later. Drop the laughable Medium/Armor features (and possibly fighter training, since it's clumsily implemented) in order to present additional options. let someone use equipment sphere to pick what armor (if any at all) they want from the get-go, or forgoe armor entirely to get a Canny Dodge/Prescient Dodger effect

The problem I have with crit/destruction is that it's the only really viable build. I want to find a way to boost other builds to keep up, other than 'you can crit with everything'. It could be something as simple as 'when you spellstrike, you do extra damage' rather than getting a damage boost when you crit.

As for the styles: the styles only replace spell recall and improved spell recall, so they are fairly limited. I'll probably include a way for them to interact with Fighter Training (so you can train in the weapons you actually use). I have to keep the styles short. The book I'm writing is supposed to be 5 archetypes at 5k total; Savant's book is 3k (I think). I can only cram so much into one archetype. I think I'll drop the agile style and just give the magus access to rogue talents, and then they can take prescient dodger. I put slashing grace into it's own style, so two-weapon fighters couldn't get it. Not certain that was the right was to do it.

[Drifter S.]

The problem I have with crit/destruction is that it's the only really viable build. I want to find a way to boost other builds to keep up, other than 'you can crit with everything'. It could be something as simple as 'when you spellstrike, you do extra damage' rather than getting a damage boost when you crit.

That's sort of the reason for the thread though, asking how to make more things viable as a pure magus? Crit-fishing with destruction being the only viable build is in large part because it's both the only thing with the most (and arguably only) support behind it, and it is the easiest and flashiest thing you can do. Like, offhand the only thing with similar support now is Life, but only with ranks in Heal and when curing yourself/an adjacent target?


As for the styles: the styles only replace spell recall and improved spell recall, so they are fairly limited. I'll probably include a way for them to interact with Fighter Training (so you can train in the weapons you actually use). I have to keep the styles short. The book I'm writing is supposed to be 5 archetypes at 5k total; Savant's book is 3k (I think). I can only cram so much into one archetype. I think I'll drop the agile style and just give the magus access to rogue talents, and then they can take prescient dodger. I put slashing grace into it's own style, so two-weapon fighters couldn't get it. Not certain that was the right was to do it.

Savant also had a lot of text that could be either condensed or dropped entirely to save immensely on word count, but that's sort of beside the point you're trying to make. Precision Style being locked from TWF seems sort of silly when the whole class kind of forces you towards einhanding (barring significant investment), but the wording of the ability probably needs clarifications and such anyway.

To go down styles real quick, though most suffer from the 11th feature just not feeling worth only coming on at 11, which you can't really avoid without altering more features. I would also say it almost feels like you should be able to pick two of them somehow? If some get redistributed to Arcana then you can likely ignore that.


Agile Style isn't necessarily bad since it stacks on Light Armor, it's just really barebones and lacks much impact. Giving the option to take Prescient Dodger by giving rogue talents or access via Arcana probably works better, especially if the option to completely drop armor proficiency will be a thing in SoM.
Beast Style seems like it's torn between "basically UMonk Flurry except locked to Unarmed" and wanting to open Natural Attacks up. If it actually can be the former then, well, that's really cool, especially if you allow the option to take Prescient Dodger.
Heavy Weapon Style trades one annoyance (Str losing its primary benefit) of Spell Combat for making another weakness (keeping AC up as a Str Magus) worse. It's not actually that bad with SoM and buffs in mind, it just comes off as dull.
Marauding Style seems solid actually, but it does kind of look like it's... Missing something to make it really come together. I would tack on Sharding for a pool ability as well, but that's just me.
Precision Style I already noted as probably being better placed as a feat/arcana, but it also as-written lets you pick up an Estoc or something to two-hand it and get 1.5x damage, so long as you don't use Spell Combat. Auto-confirming crits at 11 is also just stupid good, though maybe I'd be wrong in saying nothing else has this at this level. Something like Kensai probably has a high enough confirm bonus that they might as well have autoconfirms, but still.
Ranged Style is incomplete, but if someone wanted to use a ranged weapon with Spell Combat that might be something they would want to be capable of doing from the get-go, rather than waiting 4 levels.
Shielding Style kinda ends up in the same boat as Agile, with the added confusion of the buckler thing. First ability granting proficiency and letting you both cast and use spell combat without losing it seems like a bare minimum. The Shield Bash and immediate action thing I'm having a hard time commenting on.

[A.J.Gibson]

Savant also had a lot of text that could be either condensed or dropped entirely to save immensely on word count, but that's sort of beside the point you're trying to make. Precision Style being locked from TWF seems sort of silly when the whole class kind of forces you towards einhanding (barring significant investment), but the wording of the ability probably needs clarifications and such anyway.

To go down styles real quick, though most suffer from the 11th feature just not feeling worth only coming on at 11, which you can't really avoid without altering more features. I would also say it almost feels like you should be able to pick two of them somehow? If some get redistributed to Arcana then you can likely ignore that.


Agile Style isn't necessarily bad since it stacks on Light Armor, it's just really barebones and lacks much impact. Giving the option to take Prescient Dodger by giving rogue talents or access via Arcana probably works better, especially if the option to completely drop armor proficiency will be a thing in SoM.
Beast Style seems like it's torn between "basically UMonk Flurry except locked to Unarmed" and wanting to open Natural Attacks up. If it actually can be the former then, well, that's really cool, especially if you allow the option to take Prescient Dodger.
Heavy Weapon Style trades one annoyance (Str losing its primary benefit) of Spell Combat for making another weakness (keeping AC up as a Str Magus) worse. It's not actually that bad with SoM and buffs in mind, it just comes off as dull.
Marauding Style seems solid actually, but it does kind of look like it's... Missing something to make it really come together. I would tack on Sharding for a pool ability as well, but that's just me.
Precision Style I already noted as probably being better placed as a feat/arcana, but it also as-written lets you pick up an Estoc or something to two-hand it and get 1.5x damage, so long as you don't use Spell Combat. Auto-confirming crits at 11 is also just stupid good, though maybe I'd be wrong in saying nothing else has this at this level. Something like Kensai probably has a high enough confirm bonus that they might as well have autoconfirms, but still.
Ranged Style is incomplete, but if someone wanted to use a ranged weapon with Spell Combat that might be something they would want to be capable of doing from the get-go, rather than waiting 4 levels.
Shielding Style kinda ends up in the same boat as Agile, with the added confusion of the buckler thing. First ability granting proficiency and letting you both cast and use spell combat without losing it seems like a bare minimum. The Shield Bash and immediate action thing I'm having a hard time commenting on.



I might move slashing grace into a separate magus arcana so anyone can poach it.
With prescient dodger, agile style can be cut.
Beast style is supposed to go with an alteration themed magus. You grow claws and then go to town.
For heavy weapon style, going from one handed to two handed for the magus is such a huge thing, I didn't thinking it was a good idea to hand it all to them up front.
For marauder, I intend to add in weapon properties, I just haven't gotten around to it.
I thought kensai did get auto-confirm, which I why have it here. I'll change it to CAM to confirmation rolls instead, and maybe steal something else for the level 4.
I think ranged style needs to go. As you said, people will want to play ranged from level 1, and trying to encompass everything into one archetype is too much.
Shielding style grants buckler incase the magus doesn't have shield proficiency. It's based on the skirnir ability.

I forgot to include two-weapon style:

Twin Weapon Style
At 4th level, the magus can use spell combat while attacking with a light weapon in each hand or with a double weapon. The -2 penalty for using spell combat does not stack with the penalties for fighting with two weapons. The magus may enhance two weapons (or two ends of a double weapon) at the same time for 1 arcane point using his arcane pool. Both weapons must receive the same enhancement.
At 11th level, whenever the magus uses spell strike, he may attack with two light weapons, or both ends of a double weapon. If either attack hits, the sphere ability affects the target.

[Kurald Galain]

See, the scimitar/Destruction Magus is so prevalent because that is about the only thing that the current Magus archetype is good at.

Well, I'm not sure about the sphere Magus, but the standard Magus is highly effective as a battlefield controller, or as a debuffer, or as a combat maneuver specialist; and is one of the most mobile melee combatants. This is mainly due to its highly versatile spell list, which is effectively the second-best spell list in the game (after the wizard's, of course; and discounting the top-level spells which don't apply to most campaigns anyway). The critfisher Magus is common because it (1) is easy to play and (2) has one of the highest spike damage in the game, but it's hardly the only game in town.

A common response at this point is "but the wizard does it better!" Note on the one hand that the wizard is arguably the strongest class in the game, so "weaker than the wizard" is not an insult; on the other hand the Magus does have better AC / hit points / saving throws than the wizard.

Recommend reading material (www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?423754-Myrrh-Frankincense-and-Steel-Kurald-Galain-s-Guide-to-the-Magus) for anyone contemplating Magus changes.

[Drifter S.]

Well, I'm not sure about the sphere Magus, but the standard Magus is highly effective as a battlefield controller, or as a debuffer, or as a combat maneuver specialist; and is one of the most mobile melee combatants. This is mainly due to its highly versatile spell list, which is effectively the second-best spell list in the game (after the wizard's, of course; and discounting the top-level spells which don't apply to most campaigns anyway). The critfisher Magus is common because it (1) is easy to play and (2) has one of the highest spike damage in the game, but it's hardly the only game in town.

A common response at this point is "but the wizard does it better!" Note on the one hand that the wizard is arguably the strongest class in the game, so "weaker than the wizard" is not an insult; on the other hand the Magus does have better AC / hit points / saving throws than the wizard.

Recommend reading material (www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?423754-Myrrh-Frankincense-and-Steel-Kurald-Galain-s-Guide-to-the-Magus) for anyone contemplating Magus changes.

The thing I've found about Magus, from personal tinkering and asking around, is that its many relatively minor design flaws and interactions that add up to be frustrating, though that could be said of the system as a whole. Between variety getting taken away from it (rip Grace feats and Arcane Deed, hopefully Dervish Dance never joins you in the trash), stuff that's always been trash (most arcana and archetypes), or just inferior enough to make it not worth it (all of Shocking Grasp's competition) your choices are narrow. Then there's rather minor gripes, like the Gnome FCB not being an arcana for everyone (a "pick 3" would be nice), and armor being both delayed and mandatory causing headaches for Dex and Str alike.

As far as spell versatility goes, Vancian Magus's Spell Combat only works with Magus spells so he has to stick to it, and he has the benefit of being a prepared arcane caster with numerous ways to poach off of other lists. It has to fight with its main damage source being drawn out of the same spot as its utility/buffs, but you will have tons of tricks to whip out while still swinging away. Sphere magus solves the problem of Shocking Grasp being unchallenged by letting you pick from a wider variety of fully functional touch blasts right off the bat, but then presents the problem that your overall versatility has been shot in both knees and the blasts are weakened unless you focus on one group, all thanks to how Sphere Caster Levels work. There's also the whole "Arcane Pool being folded into spell pool" thing too, but just separating them out again is an agreed upon solution.

Thus, the point of this thread in particular has been trying to come up with ways to make either magus options or a standalone archetype that uses Spheres of Power and gives the player a good reason to stick with it.

[Kurald Galain]

stuff that's always been trash (most arcana and archetypes), or just inferior enough to make it not worth it (all of Shocking Grasp's competition)
It's complete and utter nonsense that most of the Magus's arcana and archetypes, or most of his spells other than shocking grasp, are trash. Shock Magus isn't even the best build (one-trick ponies seldom are); it's merely the most played one. You can easily play an effective and damaging Magus without that one particular spell (as evidenced by the many people who do).

[Drifter S.]

It's complete and utter nonsense that most of the Magus's arcana and archetypes, or most of his spells other than shocking grasp, are trash. Shock Magus isn't even the best build (one-trick ponies seldom are); it's merely the most played one. You can easily play an effective and damaging Magus without that one particular spell (as evidenced by the many people who do).

Archetypes I can give you since my group(s) tends to be much harsher on whether things are decent or not, such as considering Eldritch Scion a hard downgrade. I was intending the point on shocking grasp to be a comment on direct competition between options attempting to do the same sort of thing (single target lethal spike damage 1st level spells, minimal investment for maximum potential) and not a criticism of the entirety of the magus list, but evidently I dropped the ball hard in conveying that. Arcana not being majority bad I will not believe as even though the perception of a disparity between "worth it" and not probably hinges on an individual's opinion, your own guide's arcana section pretty cleanly lays out how you find only around 19 of the 60+ arcana worth rating green or above.

Again though, this particular thread is less about the Vancian Casting Magus as it is about the Magus in regards to Spheres of Power. Wherein the exaggerated "one trick" becomes dangerously close to being less of an exaggeration by nature of how spheres scale, how talents work, and Magus's Spell Combat no longer requiring him to stick around.