Note : I am under a pretty bad flu, so my report is not fluid reading IMO. And not being a native speaker does not help. Hope it is still understandable / useable.
After much perusing of the playtest threads that lamented the pigeonholing of the Thaumaturge as damage dealer, I decided to go the whole way Martial that hurts opponents, hence Weapon Implement.
NB : My first concept was Lantern Implement because it oozed with flavor, but I was worried that I would actually lose firepower while not gaining much for it : the build felt stretched and the abilities did not really bring immediate benefit to the party the way chopping opponents’ HPs does.
For the other Implements, Amulet felt too restricted by the Esoteric Antithesis-only restriction, Chalice is interesting but you're not making use of your true strength (damaging the opponent), Wand seems haphazard maybe, like it does not really fit and is not really supported.
And really the Implement Interruption looks so very cool for hurting enemies. I love my Paladin's Retribution Strike, so anything that gives me a MAP-free attack I welcome with open arms.
Having decided to go Oomph, my biggest concern was to protect my own low HPs. The answer was Shield cantrip (for the block ability) as well as Reach weapon for both protection and getting max use of the Implement Interruption feature.
1H weapon with STR build means Gnome Flickmace, which combined well with the Wellspring Gnome Heritage to get Shield.
Sidenote : I considered going Fey-Touched Gnome to take the almighty Electric Arc with the ability to change it to something more appropriate given enough advance warning. But it really did not fit the combat role I was going for : in the thick of melee.
Whip would have opened more Ancestries, but that required going DEX rather than STR for not much of an advantage (better REF saves) while losing significant damage.
Going all out STR Thaumaturge ended up with the following :
STR 16
DEX 12 (for max AC with my Medium Armor)
CON 14
INT 8
WIS 8
CHA 18
Having low WIS did not hurt that much my stats thanks to the class starting with Expert Perception and Expert Will.
In addition to the 4 magical skills, I put my lone Trained skill in Society to round up the RK skills. And I chose my background to get both boost in CHA and Trained in Diplomacy (with the Bargain Hunter feat for both Earn Income and better starting wealth). I might have gone Intimidate otherwise. I do not care much for Deception though. Alternately, a background with boost in STR and Trained in Athletism might have been interesting too.
Note : putting one of your few Trained skill in Society just so you can have all the RK skills is definitely a skill tax. It makes no sense, when you see how Find Flaws works, not to take it. In fact, it makes no sense not to have it given alongside the other RK skills.
My last choice, and where I most hesitated, was with the Class feats.
Basically, the 1st level ones feel either useless or very specific and do not add much to the build.
It is the very first time in my years building PF2 characters of any Class that I did not even consider trying to get an additional lvl1 Class feat through Human !!!
Playing PFS, so with no way to know what other builds there would be, I went for the Scroll Thaumaturgy feat, which added a welcome DIY casty feeling with a big potential IMO for later versatility through access to all spells.
Other lvl1 feats :
Binding Oath = NO : nice flavor, bad benefit as it is not even useable in combat uses and is rather limited in scope too.
Divine Disharmony = ALMOST : could be nice, but needs to put the lone Trained Skill to Intimidate, which is less good than Diplomacy for non-combat encounters. Also costs an action for even more combat bonuses. There comes a time when you have to stop preparing for the fight and just fight.
Esoteric Lore = NO : based on INT is a flaw here. It does not help in combat and you already adress a lot of RK needs through Trained in the 4 magical skills + Society.
Familiar = NO : I do not cast spells, not even Focus ones. And I am not even crafting. Flavor-only is a hard pass here. Maybe there are free hands shenanigans here I am not familiar with.
Haunt Cunning = TORN : I love the flavor and the concept, but Haunts are not that common, except when they are almost everywhere. Too situational, even though I would have taken it for my Tangent Green Lantern-inspired Lantern Thaumaturge because it fits the theme so well.
Root to life = ALMOST : great flavor (again) and can be pretty damn useful in the right circumstances, but the 2 actions use is too niche and not worth losing the actions. With a better action economy (like Doctor's Visitation or as a reaction), I would have considered it strongly because of my PC's otherwise total lack of healing abilities.
In the end, my main problem with the chosen build was that my PC indeed had zero healing ability, which can be a problem in PFS. It can be remedied at 2nd level with an appropriate Dedication though (Blessed One seems best). Or maybe stack on Heal scrolls.
For gear, I went Breastplate, Gnome Flickmace, Sling for distance (works with Implement's Empowerment and has good range), Buckler in case I blocked with my Shield cantrip and a scroll of Magic Weapon.
Note : I hesitated a little with a scroll of Heal, but Magic Weapon makes a huge difference at low levels and having AoO only makes it even better. I start with scroll in hand to cast it as soon as a fight begins.
Now, let's see what this gave in play.
We played 2 bounties, PFS-style. I put their name in spoiler to protect those who want to stay blissfully ignorant ;-)
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Other party members (all lvl1) : 1 Kobold Paladin of Abadar, 1 Human (Aasimar) Paladin of Ragathiel , 1 Dhampir Undead Sorcerer (Sekhmet). This party has some healing and is extremely melee-heavy. Subtlety will not be a keyword here.
Skill challenges / opportunities :
Diplomacy is always nice, but my build has an enormous lack of skills. Most skill uses I did were based on pure stats (CHA skills and STR skills), except for the RK-skills which were not that useful overall, especially given those did not use CHA except for Find Flaws, but my low, low WIS and INT.
At 1st level, my PC could still manage, but at later levels, getting Untrained Improvisation is a MUST.
At one moment, we were aware of a monster under the water, but we could not really see it, hence no possibility to Find Flaw. Find Flaw requiring visual contact is a heavy limitation. What do you do vs Invisible foes, or when in Greater Darkness ?
Note : unless you Investigated your opponent first (and see below for this situation), you cannot Find Flaws and use Esoteric Antithesis before you get to act. Which means that you will not get to react before that moment, as opposed to Attack of opportunity and other such actions that do not explicitly require an action on your part before being available. So, Implement's Interruption is inferior to Attack of Opportunity in such a case.
Fight against 2 opponents (both without Reach). Starts at short distance but in the water below our pier.
1st opponent Strides and attacks us, wounds one of the Paladins. The GM considers that the other Paladin could not react.
I am adjacent to the 1st opponent.
My turn : Magic weapon from the scroll, success at Find Flaws = free Esoteric Antithesis. I completely forget (and the GM does not realize) that I have zero action left, so I strike and do an impressive amount of damage, mainly thanks to Magic Weapon. The Paladins strike and kill the 1st opponent.
2nd opponent stride and strikes twice at the sorcerer, wounding him a bit, but this time the Paladins can react and reduce the damage.
I Stride, Strike (without Find Flaws) and cast Shield ; The 2nd opponent dies under the attacks of the Paladins and the Harm of the Sorcerer.
Note : I chose not to Find Flaws then because I was afraid I would not have an action left to strike if I failed at my Find Flaws.
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Other party members (all lvl1) : 1 Kobold Paladin of Abadar, 1 Human Barbarian
Bought a new scroll of Magic Weapon with the 4gp from the previous bounty. Note : scrolls are really good to get that feeling of mystical dabbler but, damn, are they expensive at 1st level.
Skill challenges / opportunities : same as before.
Thanks to tracks, I could use Find Flaws as an Exploration activity. I rolled and Crit failed. Boohoo, Flat-footed for the rest of my 6-seconds turn has no impact. I did not try a reroll with my Hero Point, betting on doing Find Flaws again once I had the opponent in my sights.
We start the fight long distance, facing a main opponent (without reach) and his poisonous Small companion (also no Reach).
I act first, I cast Magic weapon and uses Find Flaws (success) => Esoteric Antithesis on the companion. My fellow party members get closer to the action (Barbarian) and fail at a ranged attack before getting ready to melee (Paladin).
The Companion delays while the main opponent engages the Barbarian.
2nd turn : I take 3 Strides and stop within my reach of the Companion.
The Companion closes on me, triggering Implement Interruption, which is enough to kill it.
My friends trade blows with the main opponent but to no great damage on either side, thanks to the Paladin's reaction lessening the opponent's blows on the Barbarian.
3rd turn : I Find Flaws on the main opponent and fail. Thanks to Dubious Knowledge, I "know" it has AoOs. I use an action for Esoteric Antithesis and Stride near the Paladin with the main opponent within my reach.
The enemy steps towards me and strikes. First time I am hit in the two encounters. Thankfully, the Paladin negates some damage.
The Barbarian sets up a flanking position with the Paladin but misses on his attacks.
I Step behind the Paladin, and strike twice, dealing some damage to the enemy.
The Paladin strikes and kills him.
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Post-game thoughts
1) Benefiting from the Esoteric Antithesis bonus for as long as you do not Find Flaws again is good.
2) Being able to use Find Flaws while Investigating can end up great but you are not always able to do so. I now think I should have rerolled my crit failure above. Because it makes a real difference with using Find Flaws at the beginning of the encounter : you do not have to spend actions AND your abilities that depend on having Esoteric Antithesis engaged are readily available when the encounter begins. And you do not depend on seeing your target !!!
For flavor, I feel this would make great sense for a tracking Ranger. For a mystical Thaumaturge, not so much.
I really feel that the difference between being able to Investigate and Find Flaws before the encounter vs when the encounter begins is too great (see my musings about the variability of Find Flaws/Esoteric Antithesis action economy below)
3) The action economy is hard.
3-a) Being able to self-buff through the Magic weapon scroll is great, but it is far more efficient to have a caster do it.
And if you choose a more reactive scroll (say Heal), you get bad action economy because of the free hand requirement of Implement's Empowerment.
3-b) Buff through Find Flaws is really random. Either you gain precious information and a bonus to damage for one action, or you get wrong info thanks to Dubious Knowledge and have to spend another action to get your bonus, or you get nothing but flat-footed and cannot retry again on that creature (because of the No new RK after a failure rule).
This means you have to put your Find Flaws RK to max : Invest in all RK skills, max CHA, invest in all RK skills items.
And even then, things can go south real quick. This ability is really hard to rely on and plan with, as you just do not know in what state you will be after you try it.
4) Skills are a real problem. You are starved on non-RK skills AND you are not really good at RK skills, except for the very specific (and random as seen above) Find Flaws ability.
5) You are fragile. Your saves are not great, your HPs are low and you have no healing ability unless you use the Chalice, in which case, your ability to damage your foe suffers IMO. And if you go Weapon Implement, having a Reach weapon is almost required.
All of this makes the Thaumaturge pretty one-dimensional IMO, as others as stated in other threads.
Which is sad, considering it is really flavorful and fun on the concept (especially imagining the connections that justify the custome weakness you create).
I will think on how I could progress this PC beyond 1st level and share it with you later.
