Magus Changelog by

# Magus Changelog

##### A Half-Caster Class by Dragonshard

</div>

##### Class Document: 
##### [https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-Mn8BjTSlxfdpLgH2khC](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-Mn8BjTSlxfdpLgH2khC)

</div>

\pagebreakNum

## Changelog
Notes about how things have changed historically for the class.

### Initial Concept
Brainstormed and gathered many ideas that fit the magus thematically.

Major sources included the Pathfinder magus class, D&D 5e fighter and wizard classes, and other homebrews of the class.

The main goal of the class is to balance around the spellstrike ability found in the Pathfinder magus class and make it work as a core class feature in 5e.

### Main Class
Extensive analytical balancing was performed on the class. Effective champion fighter, evocation wizard, and mercy monk builds were analyzed in single target and multi target situations. The warmage magus class was then analyzed similarly and modified to bring its offensive and defensive effectiveness approximately halfway between that of the wizard and fighter. It's capabilities were then also compared to the monk as an example of another "striker" class. The magus and monk were very similar with some deviation in tier 3 where the magus is somewhat stronger offensively (the monk's offense plateaus in that tier) but somewhat weaker defensively.
<div style='margin-top:0px'></div>

#### Nerfs:
1. The fighting style feature was removed. This helped bring the magus' offensive capability down to an appropriate level in tiers 1-2. It also helped reduce the complexity of early levels due to too many features.
2. The arcane recovery feature was removed. This helped balance offense for tiers 1-2. It also helped reduce the complication of early levels due to too many features.
3. Cantrips were nerfed to only deal their base damage when used via spellstrike until level 11 at which point they add their second damage die. This helped balance offense for tiers 2 and 3. 
4. Spellstrike uses were limited to just once per round. This helped balance offense in all tiers of gameplay.
5. Counterstrike's ability to disrupt spellcasting was removed to prevent permanent disabling of enemy spellcasters. The entire ability was later replaced by the spell absorb feature.
6. Shield proficiency was removed and the magus' shield feature (replacing the combat focus feature) was added to compensate. The purpose of this ability is to provide one-handed weapon magi the +2 AC that shields originally provided. This helped keep one-handed weapon magi viable compared to the higher-damage two-handed weapon magi. After the change, builds remained nearly the same (slight nerf in tier 1) as they were when they had shield proficiency, but with better flavor.
7. Arcane accuracy limited to only work for one round. Cost was reduced from 2 AP to 1 AP, reflecting the shorter duration. 
8. Magi can now only use one on-hit feature for each successful hit against a creature. This was the original intention of the class but wording was added to the magus arcana section to make it rules as written.
9. Gaining spells was overhauled. Magi no longer have to prepare spells, but they now only gain one spell per level instead of two. This solved two problems: 1. Magi had access to far more low-level spells than fullcasters making them have greater flexibility/utility than they should compared to wizards/sorcerers/etc. 2. Magi had too many resources to keep track of, including AP, Spellslots, and Prepared Spells; this made the class very complicated to play. Without prepared spells, magi are now approximately as complex as sorcerers (SP and Spell slots).
10. Slightly slowed cantrip learning. Instead of gaining a new cantrip at levels 2 and 3, magi now get them at levels 3 and 5 to match the cantrip progression of artificers (the only official half-caster class that has cantrips).
11. Critical arcana was changed from allowing an additional spellcast to giving an enemy the stunned condition (no save) until the end of your next turn. The issue was that whenever a magus crits, the damage is already very high thanks to the weapon and spell damage being doubled; magi didn't need another way to further increase their damage when they crit.
12. Stealth was removed from the class skills list. This brought the list down to 6 which is what most official classes get (those that aren't skill monkeys like rogues).
13. Cantrips cast with extra attack are limited to deal only their base damage (like spellstrike). Originally, balancing was performed assuming extra attack was only used for another weapon attack, but cantrips deal far more damage than weapons in tiers 3-4.
14. Spellstrike has another stipulation that the spell cannot already require a weapon attack to cast. How spellstrike was written, performing a spell like booming blade or green-flame blade would deal weapon damage twice. These spells can still be performed by magi, but there's no point to performing these spells as a spellstrike when they are already cast with a weapon (more appropriate now to cast them as a normal cantrip as part of extra attack).
15. The arcane vigor arcana was changed to grant temporary health equal to double your int modifier (originally magus level + int) which made the arcana more appropriately powerful, especially at later levels.

#### Buffs:
1. The spell absorption feature was added to replace counterstrike. After nerfs 1-4, magus offense and defense needed to be increased strongly in tier 3-4. This ability helped increase defense in tier 3 and slightly increase offense. 
2. The true magus feature was changed to allow spellstriking twice per round (replacing a +2 bonus to hit and DC for spellstrikes). This made the feature significantly more powerful, and more appropriately effective for a capstone.
3. A magus can now spellstrike bonus action spells, because there's no reason not to.
4. Arcane dodge was previously reduced to only a half int mod bonus, but this was reversed upon further analysis that every other option was more effective/AP spent.

\pagebreak

5. The magus spell list was overhauled. Major things to note: 1. Almost every spell comes from the wizard spell list to maintain the flavor of magi magical ability being similar to wizards (the only exception is elemental weapon which was too appropriate for magi to leave out). 2. The types of spells that were left out were those that are very situational (these spells are fine for wizards that learn more spells but not for magi), summon spells as magi tend to focus on their own combat prowess and not bringing in others to fight for them, and spells that require the magi's action on subsequent turns which would be counterproductive for the class. 3. Priority was given to spells that functioned with spellstrike. 4. Ensured a mix of combat and utility spells. 5. Overall, magi have a wider selection of spells to choose from.
6. Spell identification was added as a mostly flavorful feature (like paladin's divine health and the ranger's primeval awareness). This is because other half casters get a ribbon ability at level 3 and so should magi.
7. Removed the need for a spellbook. Didn't make much sense to have spellbooks as magi don't prepare spells anymore.
8. Hastened arcana's cost was changed to a constant 3 AP. It didn't make sense for the cost to scale with spell level since the benefit (being able to additionally perform a normal attack/spellstrike) isn't affected by the spell level.

### Warmage Subclass
The warmage subclass is the more close-combat-oriented, tanky magus. The main idea behind the subclass is to empower the character's physical strikes and allow for full-strength (no dex) builds if desired.

#### Nerfs: 
1. The warmage's strike (from the warmage subclass) feature was nerfed from 1d8+1d8 dmg/AP spent to just 1d6 dmg/AP spent. This helped balance offense for tiers 1-2. 
2. Mind and Body was limited to a number of uses per long rest equal to one's intelligence modifier.
3. Arcane Sunder now costs 2 AP to perform (originally it was free). This prevents the subclass from providing near-permanent disadvantage to enemies' magical saves. Now the steep cost requires the ability to be used more tactically.
4. Improved critical was replaced with fighting style. This is because magi crits tend to be very powerful when they occur with spellstrikes which can seem unbalanced, especially if they occur too frequently. Fighting style is numerically about as strong as improved critical but doesn't exacerbate the magi crit problem.

#### Buffs: 
1. Heavy armor proficiency was added to the warmage subclass. This allowed for full strength-based builds to maintain a similar AC as dexterity-based magi. This fits the subclass's intended flavor as a master of weapons and armor. 
2. Armor bond was added in place of weapon bond. This is only kind of a buff since both were only flavorful features (though since putting on armor takes longer than grabbing a weapon so it technically is a buff). This was done because weapon bond is already a feature of eldritch knights.

### Magister Subclass
The magister subclass doesn't add many capabilities to the magus but instead simply increases the number of spell slots available. They gain the ability to convert AP to spell slots and gain more spell slots as they level than other magi. This makes them more effective against groups of enemies as they can peform AOE spells more frequently.
<div style='margin-top:0px'></div>

#### Nerfs:
1. N/A. The subclass was surprisingly well-balanced compared to the warmage and monk from the start. Magisters get more spells, but lack the powerful close-combat features warmages get, and the resulting DPR is very similar.
2. Nevermind, the empowered cantrips feature turned out to be stronger than I initially realized. Because magi can choose to cast a cantrip as their extra attack, magisters (lvl 11+) benefit from doing so more than the other subclasses. So, the damage was reduced from full int mod to half int mod to balance tier 3+.
 
<div style='margin-top:0px'></div>

#### Buffs:
1. Added the ability to convert spell slots into AP. Based on analysis, this ability is unlikely to be frequently used (at least during 6-8 encounter days), but adds some flexibility to the subclass that was needed. The subclass is honestly somewhat dull due to the passive features, so adding more options is beneficial.
2. The additional second level spell slot was moved up to level 7 and the third level slot to level 11. This was done so that the additional spell slots are gained at the levels where magi get new subclass features. I could foresee the feature being easily forgotten (when it was still at levels 8 and 12) since people won't be checking the subclass at levels they don't get a subclass feature.
3. Arcane restoration was changed to work regardless of the amount of AP the magi currently has. Previously the ability required the magi to have 0 AP, which weirdly incentivized the magi to expend as much AP as possible, regardless of the situation.

### Hexcrafter Subclass
The hexcrafter gains the ability to curse enemies without expending spellslots. This makes them powerful single-target magi when they can focus on one enemy multiple rounds, but somewhat lacking against groups of weaker targets, compared to the warmage or magister.

#### Nerfs:
1. Improved arcane pool was removed. There was nothing wrong with the feature, it was just replaced by the Hexcrafter's Curse ability which is more flavorful.
2. Hexstrike was removed. Hexstrike provided too much damage without any resource cost. Instead of adding a cost, the feature was replaced by Hexcrafter's Curse.

\pagebreak

3. The costs to use Hexcrafter's Curse to apply hex, blindness/deafness, and bestow curse were increased to 2, 3, and 5 AP each (originally 1, 2, and 3 AP). This better suited the effectiveness of each spell. For example, hex had the potential to cause far more damage than is reasonable for only 1 AP, especially after gaining second attack.
4. The Master of Hexes feature no longer gives advantage to the magus when attacking a hexed target. This made hex far too powerful for its 2 AP cost (the alternative was to increase the cost to apply hex, but this made the hexcrafter's curse feature unusable at low levels).
5. Ritual casting was removed. This is a minor nerf, but a necessary one so that wizards remain the masters of arcane spells. With ritual casting, a magi has similar utility as a wizard when it comes to low level exploration/knowledge type spells, which shouldn't be the case.

#### Buffs:
1. Crown of of madness was added to the expanded spell list, to replace blindness/deafness. This is becauses blindness/deafness was already on the magi spell list. 
2. The Cursed Blade feature was added allowing hexcrafter's to curse their blades and cause madness on others who attempt to wield them. This is primarily for flavor, since an enemy using your weapon is unlikely to come up frequently.
3. Spells cast via Hexcrafter's Curse now do not require concentration. This makes the curses more consistently effective. Previously, hexcrafter's could frequently lose concentration since they are in close-combat, often rendering their cursing ability useless. To compensate, the increased AP cost, described above, was implemented.
4. Master of Hexes previously allowed the three signature spells to be always prepared but magi were changed to no longer prepare spells. The ability was changed to increase the extra damage done to hexed creatures.

### Eldritch Archer
The eldritch archer gains the ability to perform spellstrikes at range. This allows them to be farther from the fight and subsequently they have less defensive capability and their features focus on offense. The weakness of the eldritch archer is, of course, close range where they lose the ability to use many of their features.

#### Nerfs:
1. Arcane projectiles are now gained at level 7 (instead of level 3). This was done so that an AP-using feature was gained at level 3 so characters had additional options for their AP. Arcane projectiles also added too much damage for first tier play without requiring resource expenditure.
2. Focused barrage gained a 1 AP cost. The ability to automatically have advantage on one attack per turn was too powerful without a cost.
3. Stunning shot's cost was increased from 1 AP to 3 AP to better suit the effectiveness of the ability. Compared to the monk's very similar stunning strike ability, stunning shot can be performed at range (out of danger) and needed a higher cost to compensate.

#### Buffs:
1. Focused barrage is gained earlier at level 3 to provide the subclass another use for AP during first tier play. 
2. Focused barrage can now be used with a magus' first attack. However, the requirement that only one enemy is targeted during the magus' turn is still in effect (in other words, the magus has to direct all attacks at one enemy throughout their turn to use focused barrage). This change was made so that the feature could be used before extra attack is obtained.
3. Arcane projectiles can now be enchanted with acid or poison (in addition to the original types). This is a very minor buff that just gives a little more variety to the subclass in case people want to focus on a different damage type.

### Vanquisher Subclass
The vanquisher gains more healing-based features and access to paladin spells. This makes them partially a frontline support/tank relative to other magi subclasses. Some of the vanquisher's features are situational making them strong against certain enemy types and a slightly on the weaker side when not facing those foes.

#### Nerfs:
1. Thwart the unholy now incapacitates the affected creature (can't perform actions or reactions) instead of paralyzing them. This fits the intended role of the vanquisher as a more defensive-oriented magus. Additionally, paralysis made the magus do way too much DPR in tier 2. Paralysis was not changed for stunned because I didn't want "thwart" to be objectively worse than "stunning shot" from the eldritch archer subclass.
2. Restorative strike originally allowed you to target allies within 10ft with healing. This was problematic because you could keep up approximately the same DPR, but also constantly keep any nearby allies alive as long as you had at least 1 AP. It was too powerful, so the ability was changed to just do self-healing. Healing a nearby ally now appropriately takes an action or bonus action and a spellslot.
3. Spiritual devotion was changed to subtract 1d6 from incoming attack rolls by using your reaction. Originally, it was a flat damage reduction equal to double int mod; the change makes the ability weaker (especially in tiers 1+2 where vanquishers were very strong defensively) and scale appropriately with level.
4. Thwart the Unholy was removed and replaced with Student of the Heavens, which gives advantage on intelligence checks to know about certain enemy types. Previously, vanquishers had more abilities to use AP on than other subclasses (and the abilities were stronger than magus arcana choices making the vanquisher a little strong).
5. Restorative strikes was changed to cost 2 AP (it was too strong for only 1 AP) and the healing was increased slightly (from 1d10 + int to 2d6 + int) to compensate.

\pagebreak

#### Buffs:
1. Thwart the Unholy (original name of Student of the Heavens) was expanded to affect a wider range of creature types. Previously it was far more limited and felt unsatisfying because of how infrequently it could be used. Especially since in early game, creature types like celestials and fiends are often less common.

### Stygian Subclass
The stygian gets magical stealth based abilities making their playstyle similar to a rogue. They are better at stealth than the other magi subclasses and use that to frequently gain advantage on their attacks. This makes their damage output more consistent, though they lack any abilities to otherwise increase their damage/defense until very high levels.

#### Nerfs:
1. Evasion was replaced by Lingering Shadow. Evasion was way too strong and made the stygian more defensively capable than any other magi subclass by far. Lingering Shadow had better flavor and was significantly weaker which brought the stygian's defensive capabilities down to an appropriate level.
2. Lingering shadow AC gain was reduced from a flat 2 AC to half the magi's intelligence modifier (rounded down). This means that the AC gain maxes out at 2 when the magi is at 18+ intelligence. This effectively reduced the defensive capability of the stygian to a more appropriate level for tiers 2-3. It also added more dependence on intelligence which is good since magi are meant to be MAD.
3. Lingering shadow no longer provides the AC gain if the magus becomes invisible again. This avoids an issue where the magus can have the AC gain and force enemies to attack with disadvantage by using arcane cloak twice in a round (this change is no longer applicable to the feature and has been removed, see point 4).
4. Arcane cloak can only be used once a round now instead of whenever the magus moves. This helps avoid weird uses of arcane cloak multiple times in a turn that bogged down gameplay and that felt too strong for a single round.
5. A stipulation was added to arcane cloak allowing enemies to make a perception check against the magi's spell save dc to spot them. This prevented a weird use of arcane cloak to be permanently untargetable as long as the magi had AP (the magi would attack an enemy and then turn invisible and move away, the enemy could choose to attack someone else or hold their attack for the magi to reappear, the magi would then choose to not enter that enemy's swing range on their next turn thus wasting the enemy's attack if they had held their action). Now this does not happen; enemies who want to hit the magi can see if they spot them and if they don't, they do something else, instead of being forced to hold their action if they want any chance to attack the magi.

#### Buffs:
1. Shadow Weaver was expanded to also give the stygian the ability to silently cast spells using 1 AP. This was primarily to add more flavor to the subclass to make it feel like a stealthy magus, since situations to use this ability are infrequent.
2. Arcane cloak was buffed to last until the beginning of the magi's next turn instead of the end of the current turn. Before the buff, arcane cloak could only be used offensively to gain advantage on a single attack roll or, rarely, to escape an enemy without taking the disengage action. That defensive application was very situational (there are few situations where it makes sense for a melee combatant to pull away from any enemy) but after the buff, the magi can choose to forgo advantage on an attack to possibly avoid focus from enemies for the round.
3. Shadow Weaver now grants proficiency in stealth. This is effectively giving the stygian one extra skill proficiency. This is appropriate because the stygian basically requires stealth to be on par with the other subclasses whereas the others don't have a similar skill dependency.

### Primagus Subclass
The primagus gets two features that buff their allies. This makes them more support-oriented than other magi. They also have some flexibility with their strengths due to their bestial skill and wild arcana features allowing them to fill whatever role is most needed in the party. However, they are less directly effective than other magi due to their support-based features.

#### Nerfs:
1. Removed ritual casting from the class's level 3 features. It was decided that magi should not get ritual casting to avoid encroaching on wizard spell utility.
2. Ferocity of the Wolf was worded to specifically double only weapon damage die. This avoids an issue where a magus casts their highest level spell for a spellstrike and then chooses to double all damage (weapon and spell). This was obviously far too powerful.
3. Ferocity of the Wolf was reduced back to only applying to one attack after temporarily being allowed to apply to all attacks for one round. When it was applied to all attacks in one round, it was far too strong in tiers 2 and 3, but appropriately strong in late tier 3 and tier 4. After the change, it's strength is appropriate through tiers 2 and early tier 3, but weak in the late game (the cost of the wolf technique was later reduced to compensate).
4. The owl technique no longer grants advantage on the reroll. Shrewdness of the Owl becomes more powerful as the magi levels due to higher level spell slots being available for spellstrike. At late tier 3 and into tier 4, the technique was more powerful than the other options, so it needed this nerf to compensate.
5. The temporary hp given by the empowering ritual technique was changed to 3 * int mod (originally magus level + int mod). This added some more dependence on intelligence which the subclass lacked, and reduced the defensive effectiveness of the subclass to a more appropriate level for tiers 3+.
6. Boon of the hunt now only works on one ally per use. The feature was simply too strong for parties with a lot of melee characters. The ability is still strong and able to be used frequently making it one of the more effective options when it comes to AP-spending abilities.
 
\pagebreak

#### Buffs:
1. Ferocity of the Wolf was appropriately strong in tiers 2 and early tier 3, but became very weak later in tier 3 and into tier 4 compared to the other techniques. This is because ferocity of the wolf doesn't scale like the other techniques. To fix this issue, the cost for using ferocity of the wolf as part of the wild arcana feature was reduced to 1 AP (compared to 2 AP for the other techniques).
2. Boon of the Hunt now gives allies advantage on attacks against any enemy (previously only applied to the enemy you hit). The issue with this is that allies within 10 ft who are attacking the same enemy as the magus could easily flank the enemy to grant advantage to everyone involved without boon of the hunt. Now, boon of the hunt is actually useful in situations where allies may be attacking other enemies (as well as situations where flanking is difficult).

### Overall Improvements/Successes
1. The class's offensive and defensive capabilities now sit squarely between the evocation wizard and champion fighter as intended. Additionally, the magus has very similar capabilities as the monk (another striker class). In tier 3, when the magus is somewhat offensively stronger than the monk, it is also similarly weaker defensively. In short, the class is now balanced in terms of combat offense and defense. 
2. Strength-based builds and dexterity based builds are now similarly effective for the warmage subclass. This was one of the original goals for the subclass as D&D 5e often strongly favores dexterity over strength. This also helped the subclass align more closely with the intended flavor of the warmage as a master of weapons and armor since all weapons and armor types are now viable for the subclass.
3. Single target spells have historically been undervalued due to AOE spells being generally more effective. The magus fits a unique niche as a frequent user of single-target spells due to the spellstrike feature.
4. Intelligence-based classes are underrepresented in D&D. In officially published content, only the wizard and artificer use intelligence as a main ability score. This again demonstrates the unique niche that the magus fills as a close-combat class that relies on intelligence.

### Current Goals
1. Ensure that the less quantitative magus features and abilities have no strange/unintended interactions with other classes/abilities/enemies. This will take time and playtesting.
2. Determine if the class features and flavor are consistent and satisfying. In other words, the class should feel like a spell-slinging, close-combat warrior when actually played. 
3. Determine how the class FEELS in terms of strength. While the class has been analytically shown to be appropriately strong in all tiers of gameplay, it is also important that the class is not perceived as too strong or too weak. Either issue has different challenges involved; for example, the class may be unsatisfying if certain abilities don't feel very useful despite being technically balanced. On the other hand, if the class seems overpowered, it may be subject to house rule nerfs that make the class functionally weaker than it should.

### Issues to Think About
1. The Eldritch Archer subclass suddenly switches to ranged fighting at level 3. Maybe there should be some way to use spellstrike at range at levels 1-2, so people who want to play EA don't have to be melee fighters at levels 1 and 2.
2. Magi, when they crit, often deal enormous amounts of damage if they were performing a damaging spell with spellstrike. Mathematically, this has been taken into account to balance the class, but it still makes the class seem way too strong when a spellstrike crit occurs. Critical arcana was changed to partially fix the issue; additionally, warmages no longer get improved critical (replaced with fighting style) so that crits are not too frequent for that subclass.
3. Spells that already use a weapon to perform a melee weapon attack (green-flame blade and booming blade) have an odd relationship with magi. These spells seem like they should be good for magi to choose but they cannot be used with spellstrike (weird interaction otherwise). Since both spells are cantrips (which can be effectively used with extra attack), the issue is a relatively minor one, but it would be better if they were strong options for tier 1 (before extra attack) as well.
4. Perfected spellstrike is super complicated. Could be replaced with something more elegant. Not too worried about this since the class is mainly just for my group, but keep in mind the ability far more complicated than a feature should be and is not easily understood in writing.