Kurayami no naka no shi's page

I was building a fighter with the druid dedication. I was pretty confident it would work, then the automation on Foundry wasn't upgrading my proficiency for my battle form unarmed attacks. I looked into it and I guess since these unarmed attacks aren't explicitly in the brawling group, they don't qualify for the upgrade.

It looks like this is an issue others have ran into but I can't find any official clarification. Has this been errata'd or clarified yet or do we have to assume fighters can't advance all unarmed attacks early based on wording?

Apologies if this post is comes off as completely unfocused.

Some background: Teridax brought up an interesting topic in another thread that I was already had interest in but previously thought it was a bit specific or pointless to ever start a thread about. So I'm starting the thread since there is at least a 2nd person up for the discussion and I didn't want to derail the other thread further. Also, let’s keep any discussion about balance with purely base rules in mind – no variant rules like free archetype or dual classing involved.

To start with, to initiate a better conversation than what I would have with nothing more than an extravagant observation, here is what Teridax’s stated in the original thread:

I think the Thaumaturge is a good point of comparison, because the class is also all about emulating the niches of other classes, except I think the Thaumaturge does this successfully by a) getting close but not quite in crucial ways, b) having fixed implements, meaning they can't rebuild themselves from the ground up each day, and c) having something that is truly unique to themselves while paying an appropriate price for it (namely, Exploit Vulnerability and not having a physical key attribute). If we were to apply this model to the Animist (and still perhaps applied a few tactical nerfs), I think that would justify a framework where the Animist could choose between more but fixed apparitions (which could each let you emulate the better part of another class's niche), or fewer apparitions that you could swap out every day.

Now for my extravagant observation:

The animist and thaumaturge are the PF2 versions of the PF1 medium and occultist, respectively (just pretend the animist isn't also the new shaman). This is significant because not only did I find the occultist and the medium two sides of the same coin, I also find the animist and thaumaturge to also be two sides of the same coin for the same reasons....except they're both almost completely different from their PF1 counterparts.

The "coin" I'm referring to is versatility and the sides are "static versatility" and "dynmatic versatility". What I mean by this is both classes are pinnacles in versatility for their ability to cover many, if not all roles, but they approach this in different ways. The occultist and thaumaturge are capable of being built in a large variety of ways and could almost replicate nearly any other class to some extent. On the other hand, mediums and animists (DEFINITELY animists) are more lacking in build variety but get around this by being able to swap their role focus on a day-to-day (maybe even round-to-round) basis. The occultist and thaumaturge are static. The medium and animist are dynamic. Keep in mind that the reason prepared spellcasters were considered more powerful than spontaneous in PF1 was because they were able to swap around their spells each day for whatever was best suited for a situation. For this reason, all other things being equal, dynamism is better than staticity.

So does this mean the medium was seen as better than the occultist?

In PF1, the more access you had to spellcasting, the stronger you were, generally. The medium was originally mostly a martial with a bit of casting like the ranger or paladin with the option of stretching a bit deeper into spellcasting if they wanted. The occultist on the other hand had such a deep reserve of spells and spell-like abilities that it pushed them about as far toward casting as possible without it being a full caster. So, the medium might have had an edge with dynamism but the occultist blew past with raw power from their spellcasting. Funny thing is, now, the animist (the new medium) is a full spellcaster while the thaumaturge (the new occultist) is, by default, a martial class.

(Quick personal story related to topic: when recreating an occultist I made in PF1, I ended up most comfortable with turning that character into an animist. Meanwhile, when I tried to recreate the iconic medium, Erasmus, for PF2, I ended up happier with a thaumaturge with animist archetype build.)

Now to bring it altogether:

The medium, as a martial at its core, was never considered strong and actually pretty underwhelming compared to how it was advertised. This was more due to limitations of the system it existed in and the page space it required for its full potential - the playtest medium was 11 pages with 18 spirits, the final release was 8 pages with 6 spirits. Ultimately, it pretty much just barely surpassed full martials.

The occultist, as a gishy, 6th level caster was considered by many as perfectly balanced considering full casters dominated the system. However, a rare few players did think the occultist was, in fact, broken due to its ability to eventually cover every role well outside of going “god wizard mode” like full spellcasters could.

With PF2 having much better class balance, the thaumaturge, while popular (at least when it was new) has not been viewed as broken, as far as I am aware, by anyone. Beyond being a hard hitting martial, it can still cover a handful of the player's selection of roles well and can often come up with a solution to any problem given time with their scroll thaumaturgy but their form of spellcasting is lacking in quality and quantity compared to a full spellcaster. It's pretty much the PF1 occultist but trading in its static spellcasting power for spellcasting dynamism and a more martial leaning, similar to the medium, but inside a system where martials actually shine.

The animist, however, has been seen as overpowered by a fair number of people. It’s a fair assessment that I can understand but don’t exactly agree with, mostly because I trust the Pathfinder designers know what they are doing (I acknowledge, it the the appeal to authority fallacy). But it IS a full spellcaster with the chassis of a cleric or druid but with the ability to cover any role, ultimately a huge number or signature spontaneous spells picked from all traditions, strong feats and the ability to swap around all of this on a daily basis. It’s roughly the PF1 medium with the spellcasting of the PF1 occultist existing outside of a system with god wizards.

So with all that, what do you think? Do you believe the animist is balanced within the system it exists in? Or do you just think it’s interesting how these 4 classes relate to one another and how versatility relates to balance in PF2?

I'm not a huge magus fan but I decided to build one using the sorcerer archetype and dumped intelligence. Since the magus can just land any of their magus spell attacks with their weapon and scale any other non-spellstrike offensive spells with their sorcerer spells, this is a completely viable build right? Or am I missing something major for why a magus NEEDS to invest in intelligence?

I wrote this guide and would like to add this as a preface to my multiclassing section but I'd like to make sure I'm giving good advice and wanted to see if the other Pathfinder 2e forum regulars agreed or disagreed with this particular topic:

There’s been some talk recently that choosing a spellcasting archetype for a thaumaturge is a trap option.

The usual arguments are:

“You’re so strained with your action economy, you won’t be able to cast spells.”

“Your actions are always going to be ‘exploit vulnerability-stride-strike’. ”

“Even if you’re not going to be doing that exactly, there’s a bunch of other 3rd actions you’ll probably be taking like demoralize or trip or, later on, intensify vulnerability.”

“You should only be using spellcasting outside combat with your Scroll Esoterica!”

“Your offensive spellcasting isn’t going to be as good as a full spellcaster!”

I strongly disagree with all of these as valid reasons for the premise that a spellcasting archetype is bad for the thaumaturge. So, here are my reasons why those arguments are heavily flawed and why a spellcasting archetype is good choice for a thaumaturge:

1. It's Not an Issue for Other Martials The most glaring point: Look at other martial classes. You want to land sneak attack damage with your rogue? Guess what? You’ll probably need to move to line up a flank or even stride and then feint. You want to deal precision damage with your ranger? Better make sure you’ve designated that target as your prey. Need panache on your rapier wielding swashbuckler? That’s gonna cost you another action to set that up. Even a lot of the fighter’s neat attacks cost 2 actions. Magus is strained for actions considering spell strike is 2 actions and another action needs to be spent to recharge it and spellcasting is one of its core features! You know what’s common about all of those classes? Nobody says spellcasting archetypes are bad for those classes. It’s usually the opposite! Plenty of other martial classes have a strained action economy and no one is saying a spellcasting archetype for those is a trap option.

2. You're Built for Spellcasting You are a charisma based class that gets extra skill proficiency bumps in either arcana, nature, occultism or religion. The class is practically pushing you to archetype into sorcerer.

3. The Wand Implement The wand implement exists and fling magic costs 2 actions. Sure, it’s not great until you get it up to adept but saying you don’t have actions to cast spells is the same as saying the wand is a trap option because it costs 2 actions to use. The wand might not be the most popular implement but hardly anyone is calling it bad.

4. Spells are a Good Alternative Offense Speaking of the wand, you know one thing that the wand and a lot of offensive spells have in common? They target saves and therefore don’t suffer from MAP. If you’re already in your target’s face and make a strike, following up with a basic save spell is a great idea. Even better, sometimes striking is a bad idea. Sometimes you’re going to have an easier time landing a save targeting spell than hitting AC. As an 8 HP/level class, you’re often not safe to be in melee range all the time. And you are a recall knowledge master! Use that to learn an enemy’s lowest save and then target that save! Heck, AoE spells can collectively do more damage than 2 successful strikes and are arguably more reliable!

5. The Quickened Condition Since action economy is the central focus here, haste is a thing! Either from your own spellcasting or a party member’s, you are a prime target of the haste spell. Unless you are taking another archetype with multiple action attacks, which of course in this case you aren’t, the thaumaturge pretty much just has the basic strike and is behind on attack bonus. With MAP, you probably shouldn’t be striking more than once a turn anyway if you have the option of casting something like electric arc as well.

6. Stop Overusing Exploit Vulnerability For some reason people are making the case that you’ll be spending an action every turn for exploit vulnerability. WHY?! If your party is killing enemies so fast that you need to change your target every turn, you are wasting your time spending that action that way. Additionally, Sympathetic Vulnerabilities exists. That’s what it is for! I cannot think of more than 1 encounter off the top of my head where there were multiple enemies and there weren’t multiple copies of the same creature, usually teamed up with a leader. You should either be focusing down the leader or have Sympathetic Vulnerabilities so you can save your actions for other worthwhile things...like spellcasting.

7. Intensify Vulnerability is Useful...Sometimes Then there’s the additional excuse of intensify vulnerability. Sure, there are plenty of useful variations of this but they are limited to your exploit vulnerability target and are often situational. Only 2 of them seem worth spamming: the tome and weapon. Tome is just a better sure strike, I’ll grant you that. But the weapon gives you a +2 status bonus to attacks, limited to your target. You know what else gives you a +2 status bonus to attack AND saves AND skills? Heroism. Sure you need to be 16th level to get that +2 but even the +1 you’d have available to you at level 8 only requires a single casting that’s going to last you 10 minutes. Why bother spending an action every turn to give yourself +2 for a single attack against 1 target when you can spend 2 actions and be done with it for a more well-rounded bonus?

8. Most Spells are Reliable Regardless of Your Competency Worried you’re going to be -2 behind full spellcasters for most of your career? A big benefit of offensive spells is that they usually do SOMETHING even when the target successfully saves. Even then, buffs and utility spells exist.

9. Scroll Esoterica Isn't Always Enough Sure you might have a few free scrolls on hand but wouldn’t you rather have more options and uses granted by a spellcasting archetype instead of spending gold on scrolls for spells you expect to use regularly? If you really expect to only cast spells through scrolls outside of combat and have so much gold to buy all the scrolls, you may as well just use Trick Magic Item using all those extra magic tradition skill bumps you get. On top of that, you might NEED to use such a spell in combat. Now having a spell slot at the ready is more action efficient than having to pull out a scroll.

10. Your Party Will Appreciate it Having your own spells lightens the load on other spellcasters in the party and can fill gaps. Let the wizard cast fireball earlier instead of giving you or the fighter haste or heroism. Have a 2-action heal at the ready in case the cleric goes down.

I didn't want to necro an old thread but I did want to revisit the topic as I think some information had been missed. Here is the original thread.

The legacy version of Trick Magic Item states:

If you activate a magic item that requires a spell attack roll or spell DC and you don’t have the ability to cast spells of the relevant tradition, use your level as your proficiency bonus and the highest of your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma modifiers. If you’re a master in the appropriate skill for the item’s tradition, you instead use the trained proficiency bonus, and if you’re legendary, you instead use the expert proficiency bonus.

If you activate a magic item that requires a spell attack modifier or spell DC and you don’t have proficiency in the relevant statistic, use your level as your proficiency bonus and the highest of your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma modifiers. If you’re a master in the appropriate skill for the item’s tradition, you instead use the trained proficiency bonus; if you’re legendary, you instead use the expert proficiency bonus.

I think the big change is the difference between "tradition" and "statistic", though "statistic" is quite a vague term. What do y'all think? Do you think full spellcasters can now use their spellcasting DC and spell attack bonus on all spells generated from TMI or not?

So, I decided to fiddle around with making a vindicator ranger build, both a standard and free archetype variation. I started noticing that the 2 things the vindicator pushes for, recall knowledge and divine spellcasting, compete with each other, making the archetype almost fall apart if you don't choose one while ignoring the other. If I'm missing something, let me know but this is what I'm seeing so far:

The archetype starts us off with Vindicator's Mark and seems to also give us the option of picking up Domain Initiate at level 1. At the very least, Vindicator's Mark targets AC, so if you want to keep it functioning as you progress in levels, you will need to advance your spellcasting proficiency, likely with a wisdom based divine spellcasting dedication. This will require you to invest 3 of your 9 skill increases (typically) into religion. A good number of other vindicator feats are also focused on divine spellcasting in the form of more domain spells and Vindicator's Judgement.

The OTHER thing the archetype seems to focus on is recall knowledge against creatures. This is usually great as the Monster Hunter feats are already great on the ranger and these new feats make it better...except Monster Hunter doesn't really take off if you don't invest in nature, at least up to master. Your other option is to just invest lightly in arcana, occultism, nature and society but I really don't think we want to be spreading our starting trained skills so thin, plus it pushes us to need to invest into intelligence as well. So the better option is to just spend 2 more of our 9 skill increases being spent on nature (3 more if we want Legendary Monster Hunter).

So if we want to get the full offerings of the vindicator archetype and keep it relevant into late levels, it looks like we need to invest 6 skill increases into nature and religion leaving us 3 increases for probably 1, MAYBE 2 skills. Our other option is to split the archetype into 2 and choose a side.

So, am I missing something? Do we get automatic skill increases in religion or proficiency in divine spellcasting? Is there something somewhere that says the Monster Hunter feats become based on religion now? Or is this archetype really only effective if you either only focus on one half of its offerings or greatly limit your skill choices?

I started working on a guide for the animist a few months ago, starting with the playtest material and then adjusting with the final release (I got an early PDF with the subscription). I also had a bunch of free time last week. None of this is final and I don't expect every judgement to be on point. Feel free to read it over and let me know if you have an suggestions. As with my thaumaturge guide, I will site those whose advice I use. This will be a work in progress and I will update it regularly. Please don't comment saying it's too early for a guide. This is equally purposed as a review and to give exposure to people without access to the class and and start discussion about various aspects of the class

Here is the link.

Tumble through is an untrained action that states, "you Stride up to your Speed. During this movement, you can try to move through the space of one enemy. Attempt an Acrobatics check against the enemy's Reflex DC as soon as you try to enter its space. You can Tumble Through using Climb, Fly, Swim, or another action instead of Stride in the appropriate environment"

My question is, do you even need to ever stride when tumble through covers striding with no additional requirements? If you can just replace stride with tumble through, the liturgist animist is a lot stronger than it already reads once it hits level 9.

So from what I've seen, the new bestial mutagen gives increasing damage die and then a later feat adds the deadly trait to these attacks. However, the mutagen doesn't count as having striking runes from what I can tell so the deadly trait won't scale unless you're wearing handwraps with those runes. Is that correct?

I've had my copy of Howl of the Wild for a couple weeks now but I still want to express my appreciation for the Wild Mimic and Swarmkeeper archetypes, grafts, new Ranger feats and Devourer of Decay Witch Patron. There's like a ton of other stuff in this book I'd love to play and will never get the chance to but for a book that is only half player options and doesn't even bring a new class, this still feels equivalent to a full character option book to me. I have been cautiously hoping for an official Paizo book to let me recreate the PF1 Psychodermist and y'all delivered it to me in spades and got the Putrefactor Witch as a bonus plus a bunch of other fun surprises. Thank you, again, to the entire Paizo staff for another great product!

https://www.polygon.com/tabletop-games/23979417/paizo-howl-of-the-wild-prev iew-werewolf-swarmkeeper

Super excited about Wild Mimic archetype!

That was fast! Thanks for the update! Looking forward to October 2024!

I played a level 5 Orc channeler Animist with an occult Witch multiclass. Through the playtest I participated in 5 encounters, 1 of which was a complex trap.

I dabbled with 5 of the 6 currently available apparitions: Custodian, Imposter, Stalker, Steward and Witness.

Chassis-wise, I’m glad there’s finally a wisdom based class I want to play. Survivability feels mid-tier. I can survive a hit or 2 but can’t stay in the front lines for long unless I’m properly buffed. I think the class should end up with master in will saves and REFLEX saves and expert in fortitude. The class feels like more of a mobile class than a sturdy one. This also will more easily enable the freedom to invest in strength over dexterity. As far as skills go, unless the remaster lets religion cover things like spirits and ethereal creatures, I really think the Animist should start with training in occultism or get Additional Lore (Spirits or Ethereal) for free from the start. Everything else with their current skills feels appropriate. Weapon proficiencies also feel appropriate, no complaints there.
As far as the spellcasting goes, it feels properly limited despite seeming the opposite. However, I’m worried it might suffer from high complexity and might be inaccessible for some. I could easily play with it as is but I’d elect for a simpler implementation at the cost of 1 spell slot per spell rank.
For the 2 subclass options, channeler may be balanced inside the system but in comparison to the sage, it’s incredibly broken. The issue isn’t that the channeler can swap apparitions for a single action. The problem is, it can do that AND gets better save progression and still gets expert in armor proficiencies only slightly later than the sage. Sage gets a bunch of very situational abilities and the 2 things that could make it all worthwhile are either locked behind an 8th level feat or all the way out at 17th level. Strangely, the sage gets expert in armor proficiency incredibly early yet it never advances past that (hint, hint Paizo). Without heavily reworking how subclasses work, I’d start with the classes save and armor progression being baseline and then give a bonus increase in saves to the channeler and a bonus increase to armor to the sage at the 17th level mark. I think sage needs to get Soul Synchronization by default at 1st level. If not, it needs SOMETHING that feels significant and impactful in contrast to the channeler right from the beginning; Apparition’s Possession isn’t cutting it. Maybe even let them start with 2 primary apparitions per day but not able to swap out every 10 minutes. Ideally, I think they could add another subclass or 2 and differentiate all of them based on the following qualities: number of apparitions accessible, number of apparitions attuned to for the day, speed of primary apparition swapping, number of primary apparitions.

There are a few feats that stand out for good or bad. Sustaining Dance really is a huge boon in the strained action economy of this class, especially for the channeler which will be spending even more actions to swap apparitions and more likely to be sustaining multiple spells. It’s one of those must-haves to the point that it needs to either be built into the chassis, removed altogether or equally good feats need to be available alongside it. The wandering feat trait, I love. These are a huge part of what makes the Animist unique. Do not get rid of these, please. As stated before, Soul Synchronization needs to be built into the sage practice no later than level 9 but possibly right at level 1. Wind Seeker and Fly on Shadowed Wings kinda both do the same thing so 2 of them kinda feel like a waste of page space where another interesting feat could go. Apparition’s Quickening MIGHT be broken…but you’re giving up a lot everyday though to get extra uses of quickened spell so it might be balanced still. Cardinal Guardians doesn’t seem to have an effect that matches the name of the feat, but this is a minor nit-pick. I’m not sure Soul Cycle is worth an 18th level class feat slot but most of the stance feats are 16th level so….maybe? The more I think about it, the more I feel like this would be great if the 16th level wandering feats were at 14th level so by the time you could take this at 18th, you could possibly have 2 or 3 stances to swap between and at 20th, 3-4 stances.

Vessel Spells:
Garden of Healing – I think this is perfectly fine as is. Anyone who complains that it makes out-of-combat healing obsolete forgets that the medicine skill is available to everyone and isn’t difficult to make just as reliable and not everyone is going to want to play this class. Like, if your party needs a healer, are y’all really gonna tell someone they have to play an Animist? It’s gonna be a lot easier to get someone to volunteer to invest into medicine than force a class for a single focus spell. Used in combat, it feels pretty good but might need some tweaking to make it easier to use, maybe only healing allies or something.
Discomforting Whispers – This is great. In a single encounter, this changed about 4 critical hits from an enemy into 0. In fact, it was extremely noticeably impactful when said enemy turned out to not be dead when we downed them, I had dropped the spell assuming it was dead and it immediately came back up, and crit twice, downing 2 party members. This spell made a severe encounter feel like a moderate or even low difficulty encounter. This might be my favorite vessel spell currently.
Darkened Forest Form – It seems a lot of people see this as an alternate combat form but I enjoy the utility options. The temporary HP and AC seems like you might be slightly tougher, mainly cuz the AC is about the same and you’re getting a chunk of temp HP. Attack bonuses are about on par as well. Being able to swap forms on every sustain is really cool. The biggest problem I’m seeing with this spell is that you have to take a size increase as this scaled and you don’t get to opt out of that size increase if you want it to be used for combat, making this less and less appealing in a dungeon crawl with small rooms and narrow corridors.
Earth’s Bile – Being able to sustain up to 3 of these seems problematic, especially when you can hop around with sustaining dance. I think this should be limited to 1 active casting. If so, it might need bumped up to d6s. Still, it was very effective against multiple enemies from my experience, even with a single instance each turn.
River Carving Mountains – I never got to use this one but it’s...interesting.... but it seems highly situational. The lesser cover should probably apply to all attacks against you or else don’t bother at all with that part. If you drop the cover altogether, increase the speed bonus to 10 or 15 ft. Also, I think I’d maybe add that the distance you travel over when leaping or stepping from sustaining dance also become difficult terrain. I understand how it's supposed to be used but it seems clunky and difficult to implement effectively as is.
Embodiment of Battle – I really like this. It just works. If I could change one thing about it, I would make this immune from disruption from reactive strikes when sustaining and maybe cut reactive strike from it as well to balance it out. This is going to hurt when you need to sustain but remain in melee range and have your action wasted and your spell interrupted and you are now a lot more useless in the position you are in. Then again, if you're going up against something that has reactive strike, as a full caster, you probably need to know your place and back off against a full-on martial enemy.

Additional Thought:
There is not enough build diversity in this class. I feel like, generally, everyone will be playing the same Animist when it comes to the class portion. They might be a sage or channeler but I don’t think that is going to create enough differentiation between builds considering all apparitions are available at all times and never permanently locked behind a choice.

My GM is currently ruling that you cannot cast multiple copies of a sustained spell. I can understand where he's coming from but he believes it to at least be RAI if not RAW. I'm wondering if anybody might have a source to support the RAI ruling. This will have some impact on my review of the Animist playtest.

Currently (pre-remaster) occultism covets ethereal creatures and spirits. Religion does not. I believe that the Animist should either start trained in occultism or get Additional Lore for whatever category their apparitions fit (with possibly other fitting options).

I've noticed something when building my playtest Animist. It was too easy. As far as the class portion went, I felt like I didn't have to make a lot of choices in my build because my choices were going to be made during play, not during the character build process. This also isn't helped by the wandering trait feats but FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PAIZO DON'T MAKE THIS AN EXCUSE TO GET RID OF THOSE! I LOVE THEM!

Anyway.... I got to thinking about ways to fix this and my idea reminded me of how Kineticist gates worked in the playtest. They had 3 which let them focus on 1, 2 or all elements. I'm really not sure if my idea works anything close to the same but it might help others understand where I'm going with this so that's why I use the comparison.

First, let's assume we are going to end up with about double the number of apparitions we currently have, so 12.

So currently we have the channeler that can swap apparitions for a single action and the sage which can swap apparitions while refocusing. What if we also had an Animist practice that also only let you swap apparitions day-to-day.

Now, for the part that would enable a lot more build variety:

What if Animists did not immediately have access to every apparition but only a number of apparitions and as they progressed in levels, they gained access to more apparitions but if their practice gave them more flexibility in apparitions throughout the day, they had access to less apparitions overall. As far as attuned apparitions go, every Animist practice should probably be limited to close to about the same as the playtest has set up now, maybe with variations within practices as well.

For example:
Channeler would start with being able to access only 3 or 4, still being able to swap primaries out for an action but would cap at 6-8 accessible apparitions by late levels. Possibly always attuned to all of their available apparitions.

Sage would start with access to about 4 to 6 and end with access to 8 or 10 by the end and would still be able to swap primaries during refocusing. Might be able to attune to about 2/3s of their accessed apparitions on a day-to-day.

The third practice would start with access to 6 or 8 but eventually could access all 12 but is limited to only 1 primary per day. However, it might be limited to attuning to maybe only about 1/3 of their accessible apparitions per day.

I might be completely off base here but I just wanted to know if anyone also found build variety limited in the class and if so, if my idea sounds like a nice way around that.

The Animist has obvious similarities and inspiration from the PF1 Shaman. I was wondering if people think if the typical familiar feats should be added as feat options to the class or perhaps even tacked on to a future subclass alongside channeler and sage or if adding a familiar at all would make the class feel too much like a Witch.

I already thought the Witch dedication before the remaster was already pretty good on any intelligence based class since it allowed you to pick any spellcasting tradition and saved you a feat when investing in a familiar. Nothing major though.

With the remaster, it's now giving the following:

- Near equal scaling to prepared spellcasting of any tradition for any spellcasting class (assuming you keep investing in intelligence)

- From an educated guess based on the reveal of the double, double feat, cauldron gives you 1 temporary potion through most levels, will give 2 at 15 once you reach master, 3 at 19 with legendary and then if you do take double, double at 20, that turns into a total of 6 potions. I'm not sure if there will be a change in how the potions will scale compared to the current temporary potions feat, but this seems like a huge buff for the dedication in high levels.

- Ceremonial knife has a flat scaling, dependent purely on your character level. It lets you create a wand at a negligible price every day and in comparison to your Witch dedication spellcasting, effectively lets you cast an additional spell at the highest possible level twice per day. Again, this is another feat isn't even available on the Witch dedication until later, at level 12, but it's arguably worth taking before expert witch spellcasting.

There may be further amazing options for lower level feats that have not been completely revealed yet but what I've already seen has me very excited and I expect the dedication shouldn't overshadow the Witch as a base class, so that's even more good news. Great job, Paizo!

I'm wondering if something that could cut down on the complexity and power for Animist while keeping their flexibility is to cut their spell slots to 2 or 3 per spell level, give them flexible casting by default, and let them pick 1 divine spell per spell level for the day, while their apparition spells are also on their daily list of prepared spells. Thoughts?

I've already touched on it in a previous post but I wanted to highlight it as its own post. This is not a complaint about the thematics of using the divine spell list over primal as others have already posted. My current complaint about the divine spell list is it is lacking somewhat universal and classic spells such as True Strike and Haste, yet at the same time, some apparitions (specifically off the top of my head Witness of Ancient Battles) grant "bonus" spells that are already on the divine spell list.

1 of 2 things need to change. Either the divine spell list needs a good number of thematically neutral or relevant spells added, or apparition spell lists need another look over to ensure there is no overlap with the divine spell list.

I am getting the impression that you can start your wisdom at 14 (+2) and still make a perfectly functional and gish-y Animist. I am thinking I will build my first Animist this way. I figure, while the divine spell list does have its fair share of offensive spells, a lot of divine spells are support and healing, not to mention the utility spells available on the list as well. You can actually start out with a 14 (+2) in all your physical abilities a 14 (+2) in wisdom and still have a spare point to place wherever. You can then pump wisdom as you level along with everything else, keeping most everything balanced and relatively high, while still maxing your wisdom to 20 (+5). Considering your spellcasting progresses the same as all other full spellcasters and having a typically supportive spell list, I'd say being behind by +1 for the majority of your levels is a very good trade for also having a physically sturdy (and possibly charismatic and/or intelligent) character throughout their career.

I would like to suggest changing out the 1st level apparition spell given by the Witness of Ancient Battles from Runic Weapon (currently Magic Weapon) to True Strike (soon to be Sure Strike I believe). Unless the divine spell list is going to get it added by default, True Strike is currently not on the divine spell list but Magic Weapon is. I also think True Strike would be a much more worthwhile spell to gain when you could easily have a weapon already full up on runes.

I'm a Pathfinder player excited about Starfinder 2e being compatible with PF2 and I was wondering what the regular Starfinder players' takes are on what each of the core classes are all about and maybe what classic fantasy classes they might be analogous to.

I thought I had the answer for this but I can't find it.

Say you are playing a Ranger and multiclass into Fighter and take something like Dazing Blow. Dazing Blow references your class DC, not FIGHTER class DC. In these cases, are you supposed to be using your base martial class DC (Ranger class DC in this example)? If not, where in the rules does it state so?

Got a question about one of the adept benefits of regalia, particularly the following part:

"The circumstance bonus you gain to Deception, Diplomacy, and Intimidation increases to +2, as long as you have master proficiency in each skill."

I'm pretty sure RAW that means each of those skills need to be at master to get the +2 bonus in any capacity, but not sure if that's RAI. Seems very restricting to require that much skill investment to gain what is a somewhat core feature of the class. Wondering what others think. (?)

Update: Thought about it, and considering you get adept benefits at level 7, which is also the earliest you can start getting any skill to master, I'm strongly feeling like you just need a single one of those skills to be at master to get the +2 to that particular skill. Otherwise, by default, you're waiting until 13th level to get this particular benefit.

I received page 7 from this big puzzle. I've solved it already but I don't know how to utilize the spoiler function and I don't want to spoil it for anyone who is trying to solve all of them on their own. If someone can point out how to do the spoiler thing for me, I'll post everything else I have.

Ok, so, I was throwing some numbers on a spreadsheet and just trying to push as much damage off the top of my head for a Thaumaturge. I am not assuming this is the highest damage you can get with any character or anything. Again, this is just using stuff I knew of already and didn't have to research deep into and I got some pretty crazy results. Just wanted to make sure my math was right and to see if anyone knows of anything that could push it further. This is all theoretical and assumes a perfect setup for a critical hit.

These are the elected feats/abilities that contribute:
Ranger Dedication
Gravity Weapon
Magus Dedication
Spellstrike
Striker's Scroll
Tome Implement to Crit Fish

This is our gear and abilities contributing to damage:

Strength (Maxed at 22 using STR Apex Item) = 6 (flat damage)
1-Handed 1d6 Weapon w/ Major Striking Rune and Deadly d10 = 4d6 + 3d10 (avg. 30.5, max. 54
Esoteric Vulnerability (Lvl 20 Minimum) = 12 (flat damage)
Implement's Empowerment (per damage die) = 2 (flat damage)
Greater Weapon Specialization = 6 (flat damage)
Gravity Weapon (per damage die) = 2 (flat damage)
Lvl 10 Disintegrate Scroll = 20d10 (avg. 110, max. 200 - assuming failed save, thus critical failed save)

Alright, so the deadly d10 is what is going to make the math a bit tricky to formulate but here is what I have:

(2*(Weapon Damage[4d6] + Strength[6] + Implement's Empowerment[8] + Greater Weapon Specialization[6] + Gravity Weapon[8] + Disintegrate[20d10]))+ Esoteric Vulnerability[12] + Implement's Empowerment[6] + Deadly d10[3d10] + Gravity Weapon[6]

So, you might wonder why Implement's Empowerment and Gravity Weapon are calculated twice in the formula and in different locations. This is because they scale with weapon damage die, and since Deadly d10 is adding additional improved damage die AFTER doubling damage, these 2 need to be calculated again outside of the doubling.

Alright, so after all that, here is the plug-and-chug numbers for the average and max damage:

Average: (2*(14+6+8+6+8+110))+12+6+16.5+6 = 344.5 TOTAL
Max: (2*(24+6+8+6+8+200))+12+6+30+6 = 558 TOTAL

I wrote a guide for the Thaumaturge. Apologies for typos and minor misunderstandings of the rules. I'll try my best to keep it updated and correct any errors people find and add any suggestions I'm in favor of - I'm sure there will be plenty once more people get real play experience and after errata. I'll try my best to remember to give credit where it's due.

Also, I believe VampByDay is putting out a guide soon as well so keep your eyes out for theirs as well.

Here is the link.

Some will probably see this as a stretch but I really see the Thaumaturge as 2e's answer to the Hexblade and has other 5e Warlock similar features tacked on. Here are my points:

- D8 charisma based class
- Has a weird and off-beat way of going about using magic within its respective system while also being competent in medium armor and martial weapons
- Favors wisdom based saving throws
- More customizable than most – if not all – other classes making it capable of taking on just about any role in the party (PF2's entire feat system + Implements/Invocations)
- Primary mechanic is selecting an enemy to focus and put extra hurt on (Exploit Vulnerability/Hexblade’s Curse)
- Gets to pick from a list of special magic items that help define your character (Implements/Pact Boon)
- Has the option of using a spammable magic attack that can eventually become better than most cantrips (Wand Implement/Eldritch Blast)
- Prone to making pacts with outsiders to gain more power (Pactbinder/Warlock Subclasses – the Pactbinder feats were originally unique to the Thaumaturge in the playtest)
- Able to gain an above average familiar and learn rituals.
- Default spooky theme

The great thing about the Thaumaturge is you can easily take everything meaningful the 5e Hexblade ever had to offer and more all in one character and do it better, all at the cost of not being able to use charisma to hit (cuz that’s just flipping broken) and actual spells….and you can just get more than enough of those with scrolls.

You can take the following picks to recreate the Hexblade in its entirety and still have plenty of room for other choices left open for other things:
- Pactbinder Archetype (free archetype helps here) = Patron(s)
- Scroll Thaumaturgy + Scrolls = Pact Magic/Mystic Arcanum
- Weapon Implement w/ Shifting Rune + Call Implement = Pact of the Blade
- Thaumaturgic Ritualist + Cantrips from Any Source = Pact of the Tome + Book of Ancient Secrets
- Familiar Feats = Pact of the Chain
- Wand Implement or Any Attack Cantrip = Eldritch Blast
- Exploit Vulnerability = Hexblade's Curse
- Amulet Implement = Armor of Hexes

I'm surprised no one else has posted an AMA for the new book on this forum yet. I know there is one on Reddit and perhaps elsewhere but I decided to go ahead and start one up here.

NoNat1s and The Rules Lawyer have done videos on YouTube on the entirety of the Thaumaturge and Psychic, respectively, so I suggest going there for all of the information on those.

For everything else, I have the PDF. So, ask away.

Not really sure this would qualify as an errata but....

So, the Fighter Dedication pretty much just gives proficiency in all but advanced weapons. The Champion Dedication gives proficiency in all armor types and all the cause/anathema baggage that comes with being a Champion. Other than that, these dedications only give training in a single skill and the class DC.

My issue is. if I already have a class like the Ranger which automatically has proficiency in all but advanced weapons, taking the initial Fighter Dedication feels like a complete waste of a class feat. If I am a Fighter and take the Champion Dedication, again, I am getting nothing worth a class feat. (Just about nobody is going to be happy with trading a class feat for training in one skill).

Does anyone else find this to be a problem for which Paizo should compensate some classes for already having the appropriate proficiencies or is it something that's not worth the attention in future revisions? Are Fighter and Champion feats good enough to justify the dedication as is and it's not even a problem and I'm just dumb?

Edit: Ok, so Champion Dedication gives a whopping 2 trained skills!....Still, not worth the class feat IMO.

So the Uda Wendo Medium can pick any of the Druid domains to gain the first level power(s) of that domain. Does that include the familiar for the animal orders? There doesn't seem to be anything that says it isn't included but it feels awkward...like familiars aren't powers.

I was under the impression that Champions, Ki Monks and Rangers with warden spells could use scrolls, wands and staves as long as the item's spells were in the same tradition they were trained in to cast their focus spells. Then I found this:

If you get focus spells from a class or other source that doesn’t grant spellcasting ability (for example, if you’re a monk with the Ki Strike feat), the ability that gives you focus spells also provides your proficiency rank for spell attack rolls and spell DCs, as well as the magical tradition of your focus spells. You gain the ability to Cast a Spell and use any spellcasting actions necessary to cast your focus spells (see below). However, you don’t qualify for feats and other rules that require you to be a spellcaster."

Can anybody clarify if this means these classes can't use these spellcasting items without taking on an actual spellcasting multiclass or not?

It's too late for the survey but I figured I'd get in one last quick summary of my most recent experience with a level 3 Thaumaturge that was able to actually get in some serious combat. The fights were against lower level threats. The biggest fight was a party of 5 against a group of 6 foes at party level -3 plus a complex level 5 haunt that incapacitated one PC mid-fight.

Find Flaws/Esoteric Lore: I got some pretty high rolls with Find Flaws and managed a couple critical successes when used with Esoteric Lore. It feels like metagaming when I gain access to that much information on an enemy and yet it feels awesome and I am not complaining. It helped my party make the best of a bad situation instead of making a major threat trivial. I really love these together and I'm sure they'll taper off in later levels but that's fine.....cuz it'll just get even better with Know-It-All

Esoteric Antithesis/Implement's Empowerment: The damage from Esoteric Antithesis and Implement's Empowerment also feels strong but balanced. I am using spiked gauntlets so the damage is lower than what it could be but all the extra damage is enough to feel effective before I need to pull back due to the lower survivability of the class.

Wand Implement: The damage feels pretty good. It's reliable when not used against enemies with the right resistances. It'll be exciting to see what it feels like once it gets improved. It's also very nice to have another option to both target a different defense and also deal a different type of damage than what you might normally be stuck with for your usual martial.

Scroll Thaumaturgy: I will probably NEVER play a Thaumaturge without this feat. Being able to use any scroll my party comes upon has already proven extremely useful. I'm not proficient in divine spells and I don't plan to be but I've cast 2 or 3 such spells with this feat in only a couple sessions. It's amazing.

Dubious Knowledge: It came up once. The information I got was a bit of a "it's either this way or that way", so it feels nice when the party has a couple options to work with instead of guessing blindly on how to fight an enemy.

Anyone have any idea how long the Detect Alignment spell lasts? It just says it has a 30 ft emanation range, no duration listed and permanent sounds a smidge too long.

I'm not super familiar with all of these characters the Thaumaturge has been compared to but I would like to familiarize myself more with them for inspiration (when I have the time and my attention span allows :P ).

So, I'd like to see what all characters from movies, comic books, literature and other stuff that people think could be considered Thaumaturges. The class really does come off as pretty broad so I guess be reasonable about it (like, Constantine sounds reasonable but Superman would be a big NO).

I'll start off with the characters I've seen mentioned a lot and a couple I haven't seen come up yet:

John Constantine
Harry Dresden
Abraham Van Helsing
Hellboy
James Keziah Delaney (from Taboo)

How do people think Find Flaws works with Forensic Acumen? Is a body an object and not a creature or is it a viable creature to target with Find Flaws?

The survey is out now. I noticed there were a couple questions on what people thought about with adding spellcasting (full or bound and then focus spells) to the class. I'm curious what people think.

Even though I usually always play some form of caster, I "voted" to keep it as a full martial as is but to add focus spells as feats. At least I think that's what I chose. It was a hard choice. XD

I’ve played with the class twice but in both sessions, the character was more or less not truly engaged in combat in either. I don’t think I’m going to get any more play out of it before the survey so this will all probably come off as more of a class guide but it’s whatever….

Base Chassis:
Key ability was a shock to me as many others but I’ve warmed to it. If they open it up to another mental ability score or leave it as is, it will not affect my opinion of the class much at this point but my preference in key abilities is CHA=INT>WIS. Charisma and intelligence allow multiclassing into any spell casting tradition but wisdom is going to be limited to divine and primal.

It’s been touched on by just about everyone else already but, yeah, this class is SUPER MAD and does NOT seem to be very charismatic (nor do I think it really wants to be) even though it is a charisma based character. Again, I’m still fine with charisma as the key ability but as a martial class, things like attack bonuses, defenses, hit points and skills need to be compensated for in some way if this class is going to be based around one of the least combat relevant ability scores.

I’m still not keen on the idea of the Thaumaturge “convinicing” the universe to change reality, but it seems that nothing in the class explicitly states that is what’s happening. I am perfectly happy with the currently introductory page’s description of the class. It should be a bit vague so each person can decide the workings of how their Thaumatuge does their thing.

8 hit points are what I would expect for a martial that dabbles in low magic but the MADness of the class makes me think bumping it up to 10 hp would at least be worth considering.

Getting up to master in perception makes sense but starting out expert gives the impression that you’d end up legendary. Sort of awkward.

The saving throws makes sense. I personally like that fortitude gets a bump before reflex but by the end, your better of the 2 is up to your build since they balance out. I’m surprised they get legendary in will saves so early. No complaints but I wouldn’t be surprised if they delayed the final will advancement.

Staring skills are great. I like how they give you the 4 magic tradition skills to compensate for needing them but likely not having a great starting intelligence. I also really appreciate the additional bumps to your choice of those skills. I would like them to add at least one more bump for them at 5th level so you can naturally go expert > master > legendary. It will push it a teensy bit in the skill monkey direction but only in a very particular direction and with no bonus skill feats. Another alternative idea I’ve had is give the class extra limited skill increases like the Investigator but keep them to arcana, nature, occultism or religion.

Weapon, armor and class DC proficiencies and advancement are fine as is.

Ancestry, general and skill feats. Nothing out of the ordinary from what I see. Perfectly fine. Nothing more to ask. I wouldn’t mind a few bonus skill feats for the magical tradition skills but….I won’t be hurt if it doesn’t happen. It’d be a pleasant surprise that made sense though.

I am indifferent to Dubious Knowledge. It makes sense but I know some people hate the feat in general. I feel like they should give the choice between this or Trick Magic Item or even both. Hefty Hauler might also be a good idea for a free feat since you know…you’re constantly carrying around a bunch of stuff. There are probably a few other skill feats that might work just as well. Overall, I’m fine with it as is but wouldn’t be surprised or disappointed by a change.

Esoterica, Find Flaw and Esoteric Antithesis are abilities I was VERY pleasantly surprised to see. Recall knowledge and monster hunting are something I did NOT expect the new Occultist to focus around but they are something I love building around anyway so I was stoked it was something the class is heavily based on. To me they are basically the new Legacy Weapon and Philosopher’s Touch with a better version of recall knowledge tacked on. Adding Implement’s Empower onto this is just….WOW! I get the impression all of this extra damage is due to the fact that builds will likely have a fairly poor success rate with attacks for a martial class so there needs to be some compensation. But I love it.

Implements:

I think they are all good in their own way. I have a preference for some over others but objectively, they all look good. Overall, I think they continue with what made the PF1 Occultist so special; the Thaumaturge is a class that can be built for a variety of roles. One critique: overall, I think Intense Implement should be core to the class. I think Thaumaturge’s should naturally end with 1 paragon, 1 adept and 1 initiate. It just seems to fill out the theme of “3 is significant” more; like, a tier 1, a tier 2 and a tier 3, and not, 2 tier 1s and a tier 3. Feel’s awkward.

Amulet is a great choice for a tank or defensive support build. Ok, maybe it won’t make you a great tank but it will greatly help you as a stand-in for the role.

I am mostly happy with the Chalice. I think the adept ability should allow you to lower conditions by one level and then the paragon should allow you to drop them by 2. I’m not sure if that would be too strong though. I’m not much of a healer player so I can’t really say if this is too strong, too weak or just right. It might be just right……

Lantern….hmm….I’d say perfect as is. Not my preferred choice but always tempting, especially for particularly spooky campaigns. I took this on my character to help detect haunts as we were in a haunted building. It has been helpful when used alongside Haunt Cunning.

Wand is an implement I will likely always pick at some point if my character is leaning toward magic. I think it should be changed to not specifically be a wand. I think anything that could reasonably be considered a spell focus should work. Examples being staves, holy symbols and rods. I would like a few more options for damage types and adept level debuffs and some should probably target different saves. Other than that, I am happy with it. This implement plus the pact feats plus the class being a charisma-based magical martial reminds me a lot of the 5e Warlock which I think many will appreciate as well.

Weapon is an odd one for me. I would probably take it at some point but I’m not crazy about it. I’ve never been a huge fan of using attack of opportunity. Not that I think AoO is bad in any way. It was just never something I fawned over. That being said, this in its advanced stages plus Esoteric Reflexes plus all the bonus damage from Esoteric Antithesis and Implement’s Empowerment seems BRUTAL!

I think somewhere in this class, there should be the ability to easily swap out implements and their improvements, possibly at a faster rate than retraining would allow.

Thoughts and suggestions for future implements:
A debuffing implement (active) – By far my preferred option
A stealth/concealing implement (active, passive or reactive)
A pet/companion implement (passive)
A mobility implement (active or passive)

Thaumaturge Feats:

I’m going to go over the feats that follow a theme or path and then the feats that are kind of just a thing of their own.

Esoteric Lore and Know-It-All are great. I like them as they are. MAYBE add a feat similar to Master Monster Hunter/Bestiary Scholar. I’m thinking Esoteric Lore might actually be something worth putting in the core chassis as the class still needs skill support. Otherwise, keep as is.

I’m surprised the familiar feats go up to Incredible Familiar but no complaints here.

The scroll feats plus Miracle Wonder are great. I’d kind of like for them to add that the scrolls you create don’t necessarily need to come in the form of scrolls but it’s really whatever. It would maybe just help add to the immersion of the class. I would like some additional feats branching off of Scroll Thaumaturgy that give the Thaumaturge the ability to freely use any wands or staves without needing Trick Magic Item as well.

The combat related feats such as Esoteric Warden, Rule of Three and Implement’s Assault (among a few others I missed I’m sure) are all great. If the scroll feats are for the caster-y Thaumaturge builds that maxed their charisma, these are for the Thaumaturge that want to thrive in martial combat. I did notice there are A LOT of them. I’m wondering if some of them should be consolidated or if some major ones should be swapped out for core abilities, like Rule of Three swapped with Esoteric Antithesis. Maybe one or two could just be straight added to the chassis….

Talisman feats. I’m honestly not a fan of talismans as is. However, these do seem necessary for the class because they are super on theme but other than that I really have no opinion of them. I’m wondering if they should be tacked on with the Scroll Esoterica feats.

The Magic Circle feats definitely came over from the PF1 Occultist. I like them. They are magical traps and as you are pretty much a monster hunter by default, these feats are very cool and on theme. It would probably be a big stretch but I want to find a way to use these for a makeshift Planar Binding. It is already stated but I think it should maybe be reinforced or stated more toward the end of the feat description that the circles work in 1 direction, inward or outward.

The Pact feats are cool and I hope there are more of them. I do agree with others that they should probably be available for anybody. They already seem more fitting for Witches so….but yeah. They are neat and appropriately uncommon.

Handy Esoterica and Implausible Esoterica are kinda coming off as overkill after the scroll and talisman feats. I think they are great but…..maybe just leave them for the less magical Rogues and Investigators.

Shared Antithesis and other feats that share your abilities with the party are awesome for making you a martial marshal. I like that they can, for the most part, be taken fairly easily with little to no prerequisites.

The initial demesne feat feels bad. It’s like….”Whoopy….I have…a house (or shack really)…Guess I don’t have to pay the negligible cost of a room at an inn in this one particular location.” It needs the first feat changed to have the ability to access this lowly shack from any location and the improvement feat needs to add various features beyond what a basic camp would provide, like a full kitchen or maybe even an alchemist lab or a study for research. These are definitely the most unattractive feats of the class that need the most improvement or removal to make space for other feats.

Binding Oath is interesting. It’s likely nothing I will ever take that I can think of but it seems good but I think your oaths should be permanent and if you ever break an oath with someone or a group, you should take a permanent penalty on those checks with that person or group. It currently comes off as a little too easy to abuse for what the mechanics represent. It maybe should be the entry level mundane version of the uncommon pact feats.

Divine Disharmony is cool. It helps compensate for your likely below optimal attack bonus in a very thematically awesome way. It also works off your charisma and lets you choose between 2 skills which is nice. Its only fault is that Rule of Three will later overshadow it as it will become too expensive with the action economy to consider worthwhile.

Haunt Cunning might be little too situational but perfect for a haunted house type campaign. I used it and was able to locate a major complex haunt for the party before they would have stumbled upon it haphazardly. Sadly, my only meaningful experience with this playtest revolved around this feat. At least I found it useful.

Root to Life is OK. Anyone can administer first aid but this makes it easier. Meh…I dunno. Again, I’m not much of a healer player. It might be great.

Call Implement: For that one time when you lost a major core features. I think it should be a 1st level feat or given for free at first level. Then again….it could be handy with a thrown weapon implement or another creative use which might warrant its current status as a 2nd level feat.

One More Activation is cool. I think it should work on wands as well. I also think it needs to clarify if you can use this ability “once per day” or “once per day per item”.

Thaumaturgic Ritualist is also cool. Keep it. I still don’t like that this is yet another uncommon feat but it’s understandable.

I’m not sure if Turn Away Misfortune would be used often. I get the impression it is VERY situational. I’m not sure if it should merit a class feat but then again, how else are you going to obtain it (?) and something like this SHOULD be a thing. There doesn’t seem to be many misfortune effect sources currently but I can easily see that change with the release of this book. Maybe add a once per day re-roll or penalty negation.

Thaumaturge’s Investiture feels like it maybe could be part of the core but they do already get a lot so…..but yeah, it’s great.

Esoteric Reflexes seems great for the 2 reactive implements we already have. I’m happy with it.

Implement’s Flight. WHAT!? Yeah, this is REALLY good! Very late game but understandably so.

I feel like Sever Magic should be lower level. Not sure how much lower but 16 feels a bit late. Either way, it is good.

Trespass Teleportation is cool but seems pretty situational and possibly dangerous. Imagine you’re battling a demon on the material plane and it decides to teleport to the abyss and you follow it, not knowing where you are going and your party can’t follow. I think it should give you innate teleportation but limiting to distances up to your top speed and requiring an equal amount of actions. Basically, it should just allow you to circumnavigate physical barriers such as walls, cliffs and large gaps. Although that’s not much different than Implement’s Flight. It’s very cool but needs a rework I think to keep it from being too dangerous but also different from Implement’s Flight.

Lastly, I want to touch upon the consumable item feats again. They are plenty but also railroad-y. Again, I think the Scroll Esoterica and Talisman Esoterica feats should maybe be combined and start at level 4.

Summary:

Overall, conceptually and thematically I’m definitely in love with this class. Power-wise, I’m not so sure. I haven’t had the opportunity to get any truly meaningful play with it to judge. It definitely needs some additions and adjustments. It should not be confused for a class that wants to be everything at once. It is a class that should be good but not the best at a few roles you build it for and so far it seems to be making an honest attempt of it. Competent martial combatant? It’s there in some form. Helpful support class? Definitely has the makings for one. Capable caster? The ability to prepare any spell in the game within some limits and have decent DCs and attack bonuses for those spell is there. Want to have a ton of ways to interact with all the weirdness you will inevitably encounter in Golarion? That’s practically already the class’s specialty and is heavily supported though I think it needs more. Should the class be able to get all of these specialties at once? No way and I don’t think it’s close to possible as is but you can still get a nice balance between 2 or 3 of those roles. It just needs a bump in competence or action economy efficiency.

So, I have a prewritten write up for my overall impressions on the Thaumaturge. Unfortunately, despite having two sessions worth of playtest, my character was either fleeing or busy with a scenario specific activity during the two encounters they experienced. Therefore, my "playtest" experience is more of just a long analysis of every aspect of the class. Is it acceptable to post it in its own thread or add it to the playtest thread or save it all for the survey? It could generate a lot of conversation as a thread but it'd likely lack focus. At the very least it might help with ideas but again, it's LONG.

This is assuming the Thaumaturge can retrain implements as is. I think it'd be cool to have a natural ability or feat to enable retraining or swapping implements and their progression in a shorter time span. What does everyone else think?

Anybody think there should be a feat that lets the Thaumaturge cast spells from wands or staves? Possibly another feat path that branches off Scroll Thaumaturgy?

Just to make sure, One More Activation does NOT work with wands, correct?

I made a chart (similar to Nik Gervae's) here organizing the class feats for the Thaumaturge. Hopefully it will be some help with analyzing the playtest.

Does most everybody agree that the mechanical specialty of the Thaumaturge is its high modularity or is it something else? Just curious. Not trying to argue one way or the other but I'm just seeing the high modularity right now. And I don't see that as a problem either. Just want to make sure I'm looking at things at the right perspective to aid in character building.

Alright, this might come off as a crazy rant and ramble but bear with me. If you think it’s all a bunch of nonsense, just say, “Haha! You’re crazy” and move on. I give you permission.

So I’m someone who likes to get every bit of sleep they can during the mornings of their workweek but I woke up an hour early this morning with a truly “aha” moment. All of the pieces just sort of came into place out of nowhere. My conclusion is that the Thaumaturge WANTS to be a gish. Like a straight up spellcasting multiclass martial. It doesn’t NEED to be. It should function perfectly as a straight up martial. But I think the core features of the class heavily imply that the class was designed with spellcasting multiclass in mind. Here are my theories:

The class is a charisma based marital……WHY!? There is little to nothing in the class that is pushing this class to use charisma based skills. You then might say, “Well the big feature of this class needs charisma for Find Flaws. Duh.” But as so many people have pointed out, “Then why not just make intelligence or wisdom the key ability. They obviously make more sense for recall knowledge rolls.” So what else is charisma useful for? Spellcasting. Particularly spontaneous spellcasting. Why is that significant?

Next, the class starts trained in each skill that relates to a magic tradition. This would SEEM to imply, along with Find Flaws, that you want to gradually improve each of these and keep them relatively balanced. Perhaps. But I have another theory. This class IS a monster hunter (however, NOT a man hunter nor a machine hunter). It does want to be at least trained in these skills for Find Flaws and with charisma as its key ability, it needs help getting trained in them all without losing the ability to take other skills. But now I want to bring up Thaumaturgic Expertise and Mastery. These abilities come online at 9th and 17th level. Why is this significant? Well…maybe because they come soon after you are able to increase skills up to master and legendary. Why would that be significant? Well, what requires you to have master and legendary in those skills? SPELLCASTING MULTICLASS FEATS!

Now, to bring it all together. What spellcasting classes are charisma-based? Bard, Sorcerer, Oracle and Summoner. Notice anything about 2 of those 4? The Sorcerer and Summoner are “pick-a-tradition” spellcasters! This is why you get some free improvements on you choice of the spell tradition skills. The Thaumaturge is nudging you to pick up a spontaneous charisma-based spellcasting multiclass of tradition of your choosing and it wants you to specialize in foes related to that tradition. You have trained in the other traditions’ skills and you can pick up Esoteric Lore to cover your bases better on other monsters outside of your specialized skill but the Thaumaturge still wants to specialize. As an example, and I hardy have any competent knowledge on these characters but, didn’t John Constantine specialize in demons and undead and less (if at all) on things like dragons and fey? Didn’t Abraham Van Helsing specialize pretty much exclusively in undead? Didn’t Harry Dresden deal more with the arcane and fey over other magical beings? (This is the one I really have the least knowledge of so forgive me if I insulted the character. I know. I’m a bad nerd.)

Additionally, and this may be reaching even further but, the other 2 classes, the bard and oracle, are occult and divine spellcasters. My theory…..and it’s not set in stone obviously but….the Thaumaturge might be the new Occultist AND Inquisitor. Yes, you can choose either of those traditions with Sorcerer or Summoner but Bard and Oracle have their own flavor. The Bard IS the iconic occult class and the Oracle, while blessed (or cursed) with divine power is not necessarily beholden to a deity. Combine those with a martial class and I think you have the makings for the Occultist and Inquisitor. The Thaumaturge class feats definitely support more of the Occultist playstyle. The Inquisitor….not so much. I do believe the Inquisitor still has a good shot at becoming its own class but I think this will be a great surrogate class for now.

Lastly, I know you might be asking, “But the Witch was an intelligence ‘pick-a-tradition’ class. Why isn’t the Thaumaturge intelligence based?” I have two theories. The Occultist and Inquisitor (which I believe this class is supposed to cover both for now) were spontaneous spell casters. The other intelligence based spellcasters are arcane. Also, the Psychic is able to be intelligence- OR charisma-based. Paizo might have anticipated more excitement for the Thaumaturge versus the Psychic so they didn’t want the Thaumaturge wading into Psychic territory too much. With the pressure from the community, I do think the Thaumaturge might end up with the option of intelligence, if not also wisdom, as a key ability option, but it still needs to have a mental ability for its key ability.

I’ve spend nearly an hour writing up these half-awake ramblings. And I’m sure I have more crackpot theories about this but I will leave it here. I hope this was coherent. I hope it inspires builds. I hope it warms others past some initial difficulties I had with the class. I can safely say, I do really like the class. It does have some rough edges still, but so far, it's great. Thanks Paizo.

Title pretty much says it all. Thoughts?

One issue I have with this class, isn't so much a problem with the class but with other parts of the system and that is scrolls and talismans coming in a defined form. When I have a particular concept in mind for a character, I don't want to always have to have piles of rolls of thin parchment and random mismatched trinkets on my person. I would like to have the explicit permission and encouragement to customize the form these items come in while keeping every bit of their core mechanics. Otherwise, I just feel turned off by the large chunk of class feats relating to these items. Same goes for implements. I know it's minor but it would mean a lot to me. I'm hoping I'm not the only one who feels this way.