Your in luck. Have you looked at 1st level feats for them? Hint, Esoteric Lore is what you're describing.
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Your right though they could do with it capping at master or legendary and being a class feature.
Sure, but with Lores like Bardic or Lormaster that cover everything, they do the exact same thing with proficiency. I don't see them changing things up now.
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A potential problem seems to be that you can’t boost the catch all lore with items other than the lantern
Which unless the GM always applies the “very easy” adjustment puts it well behind on scaling on multiple levels - unless I have missed something
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A potential problem seems to be that you can’t boost the catch all lore with items other than the lantern
Which unless the GM always applies the “very easy” adjustment puts it well behind on scaling on multiple levels - unless I have missed something
You haven't, and a GM shouldn't.
It's a poor mechanic that needs to be recalibrated since even with maximum investment it gives iffy results, including crit fails which waste your turn. This isn't a Chaos Mage or somebody using Wild Magic, it's the foundational damage bonus that a martial needs to compete with other martial classes. It's like having Barbarians roll to see if they can Rage. :-/ There needs to be more reliability, and it shouldn't require maximum investment for that either (unless trying to do something special).
A potential problem seems to be that you can’t boost the catch all lore with items other than the lantern
Which unless the GM always applies the “very easy” adjustment puts it well behind on scaling on multiple levels - unless I have missed something
You haven't, and a GM shouldn't.
It's a poor mechanic that needs to be recalibrated since even with maximum investment it gives iffy results, including crit fails which waste your turn. This isn't a Chaos Mage or somebody using Wild Magic, it's the foundational damage bonus that a martial needs to compete with other martial classes. It's like having Barbarians roll to see if they can Rage. :-/ There needs to be more reliability, and it shouldn't require maximum investment for that either (unless trying to do something special).
One-hundo, this is where I'm at. After looking at the playtest forums now for about a week and change it seems to me that one of the biggest pain points in the class is the dependency on Recall Knowledge and lack of other synergy with Cha. I'm thinking that even with a free Esoteric Lore that's only used to make the RK check for Find Flaws/Esoteric Antithesis you'd still have many of the same issues, just more free skill selection. You could make it a class proficiency check and it'd still be a bit of an awkward mechanic. It also doesn't seem like it gets quite enough on the side to justify having to "roll for Rage."
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A bit tangential, but when I fiddle with the class I keep coming back to this: Thaumaturge is an 8hp class with a mental KAS. It needs something more than what it has right now to justify the play space it's in. Compare it to Magus, an 8hp class with a physical KAS which gets spellcasting, a pretty robust combat loop, and pretty much the same proficiencies. The closer and more apt comparison would be Investigator, which doesn't get medium armor, but really can go all-in on Int for most of what it does, and gets some potent out of combat abilities. Int plays into how the class approaches every mode of the game. The Methodologies are fairly detailed, give a bonus skill trained, and a bonus feat, and often add a bit of depth to how that specific character interacts with the world.
Thaumaturge seems like it might want to fit in between the Investigator and Magus, but because it has Cha instead of Int it really can't afford all of the mandatory skill training, and it's encouraged to spread itself pretty thin.
Yes I have really become bothered by how little the class uses it’s key stat
Are there any others like this? The investigator in the playtest was really bad for this and this was fed back and changed . So hopefully the same applies here
I really want to playtest this but my current game is level 15 with free archetype so is likely to be of limited use unless I deliberately eschew free archetype just for a few test sessions. I’ll float it during the session later but first try won’t be until next week
Because as fun as trying out the pathfinder/scrollmaster combo might be or adding in champion feats to give heavy armour, resiliency and lay on hands to dramatically improve durability - I doubt that will be too useful…
It seems like at the very least the class should get something like Bestiary scholar or the master monster Hunter to allow them to roll one check (that isn’t a lore skill) for all recall knowledge
I wonder if they could get it earlier as well due to the nature of the class
Something that would be fun would be for said feat or (ideally) class ability giving a further unique benefit depending on which skill you pick. So almost another class customisation option on top of the implements (or am I being greedy)
So :
Monster Hunter (arcane)
Beat Hunter
Fiend Slayer etc
They don’t need names really. Perhaps something that lets you roll the one skill but gives a further bonus when that skill is actually applicable
Or despite having said all that it doesn’t even need to be a baked in bonus. Just a theme thing, or a unique skill feat or perhaps even specific class feats based on “specialisation”. Although I guess the theory is that the class isn’t supposed to specialise . Which if it is then it works for level 1 and 2 and then falls apart as soon as boosts come into play
Suffice to say relying on needing to boost 4 skills (and getting item boosts for them as well) for a key class feature that is probably going to fail against a unique enemy doesn’t seem workable at all. And that is not even considering how those 4 skills don’t cover all potential enemies. So you need to boost 6 or have large swaths of enemies not addressed