Thaumaturge With Summoner Archetype Advice / help

[Rashagar]

Hi all,

Some caveats:
- This would be my first PF2 character (I know, I don't exactly pick easy classes to get interested in)
- I don't actually have a game for them to join yet, so it's just thought experiments/character creation in a vacuum

So, I've been looking through character classes for PF2 a lot lately, and one character concept that really jumped out at me when I read the class descriptions as sounding fun to play was a Thaumaturge with a Summoner (free?) Archetype, the idea being that I'd take a phantom eidolon and the phantom would be thematically tied to the implement I'd choose (eg. the skull of an ancestor, or an heirloom weapon, or a possessed trinket, or, I don't know, a wand crafted from a femur bone). I just love the idea of going full into the occult side of (what seems to be) the Thaumaturge flavour.

But, because it's my first character, and there's still a lot I really don't understand about the action economy of the game, I have no idea if this character would be… in any way good at anything haha! Or what they'd be good at, I suppose. It's not that I would need to be 100% optimised, but some combinations will obviously be more synergistic than others, and I don't know if this is completely anti-synergistic or not.

So I've a few questions, and I was hoping for some help/advice.

1.
How does the summoner multiclass archetype… work?
I see it says you don't get Act Together. Does this mean that either the character or the eidolon could take actions in combat, but not both? And is that also true for reactions if so?

2.
Is there anything in particular that you can see this character being good at? Any niche that they'd be more suited to than others? The Thaumaturge as a whole seems like it can fill almost any role, but I don't know if the action economy situation would realistically lock this particular class combo out of some, or make it lean more towards others.

3.
Is there anything you can think of that I should be aware of and wary of if I was to play this character in a game? I'm still trying to wrap my head around both of these classes (I tried a PF1 Summoner once in a one-shot, but I imagine the 2e version is quite different, and I've never played a Thaumaturge before but I'm just loving the flavour of it).

4.
Ancestry? Stats to prioritise? Particular skill feats? I don't know. I know they're both charisma classes but I don't know if/how charisma affects an eidolon, and I've read in places that physical stats can be more important for thaumaturges than charisma, depending on build, etc.

I suppose I just don't want to take this character concept to a table and be disappointed, so having some realistic expectations and understanding of mechanics would be a big help.

Thanks in advance!

[breithauptclan]

Regarding point 1.

What the lack of Act Together or any other Tandem actions means is that you and the Eidolon have to divide up your three actions and reaction for each round without any action boosting abilities.

So your Thaumaturge could take two actions and the Eidolon could take one. Or the Thaumaturge could take all three actions leaving the Eidolon with none. Or split it up however else you want.

Same with your reaction. If you want your Thaumaturge to use a reaction, that means that the Eidolon doesn't have a reaction action available until you regain actions again. Similarly if the Eidolon has a reaction that you use, then you won't have a reaction action available to the Thaumaturge.

But you won't be able to do any of the shared actions like these.

Generally Summoner archetype is considered rather weak and a bit frustrating to play as a result. It sounds cool, but you generally don't have enough actions to really do what you want if what you want is for you and your Eidolon to be fighting together in combat.

If instead you are primarily wanting the Eidolon for cool flavor and out of combat role-play and maybe some utility through Evolution feats - and get a bit of spellcasting on top of that - then Summoner Archetype can be quite nice.

If you are wanting a combat buddy, an Animal Companion (or other similar companion type) would be a better choice. Beastmaster Archetype is a popular choice.

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I generally like Thaumaturge. It is a rather fun class to play. It can be built in a lot of different directions. It has full basic martial proficiencies. And its damage boosting mechanics are rather interesting.

[Wheldrake]

Breit is spot on, but many would say that he is too kind, and that the Summoner archetype is hot trash.

Whatever you do, your base class Thaumaturge is very good. But it's also fairly action intensive, IMHO. You could bolt on almost any spellcasting archetype for some extra magic, but you can already use scrolls of any tradition, so you get less mileage out of that than other martials.

I'd seriously consider Acrobat (for autoscaling Acrobatics) and/or MC rogue archetype for more skills.

Or just take MC Summoner archetype for the roleplay potential, and spend most of your time on Thaumaturge-specific stuff.

[aobst128]

1. It follows all the rules in the summoner class except for those outlined in the dedication. Act together is a specific action that core summoners get that effectively allows them to have 4 actions per turn by combining certain actions that both the summoner and eidolon take simultaneously. You wouldn't get that but it functions normally otherwise. You can mix and match your actions through both yourself and your eidolon.

2. You can diversify your stats a bit more. Say you build a dex thaumaturge and pick a strength eidolon or vice versa. Since your eidolons strikes only cap at expert proficiency, I'd recommend going with a skill focus with athletics as your way of utilizing your eidolon in combat. Out of combat utility is nice since you can have more variety of skills with the right multiclass feats as well as the differences in your stats.

3. Thaumaturge is a striker first and foremost, you will nearly always be better at attacking than your eidolon thanks to your sizable bonuses to damage and the disparity in proficiency. Keep that in mind and be conservative with how you use your eidolon in combat. Skills are likely its strong suit.

4. Thanks to the recent errata on ancestry stats, any ancestry can work nicely for thaumaturge. Basically, I'd recommend a 16 in strength or dex and at least a 16 in charisma. No particular skill feats I could recommend without more details about the build but note that skills are shared between you and your eidolon so if you want it to be good at athletics, you'd need to boost that yourself.

Overall, it's a workable idea and very flavorful. You are doing the thaumaturge well with this approach.

[Rashagar]

Thanks everyone!

The mechanics explanations have been a big help. And I appreciate the warnings of the summoner archetype not being good. I'd still probably pick it to play this concept, but I think it's really valuable to have set expectations going into it, so thanks!

Looking into the idea of making skills it's strong suit, I saw (if I'm reading it right) that there's a summoner feat that'd give the eidolon 3 skill feats which I could take at level 8, which seems like (maybe combined with the Dual Studies feat at level 4) it'd be a fun option to help differentiate/specialise the 2 characters.

So that'd just leave the question of what skills and skill feats to take, but to be honest I'll probably need to play a few sessions to have a sense of what skills and skill feats even feel like, plus it seems like the kind of thing that you can't really plan until you're part of a set party, to prevent overlap (though that might be more due to my own dislike of stepping on other people's toes).

That leaves me with (at least) 3 character tropes to explore then:

1. A Dresden-style arcane adviser. (Psychopomp eidolon potentially, for the intelligence? I imagine it's hard to fit much intelligence into a Thaumaturge normally, despite the arcana etc. skills they get.)

2. A spectral brute-type. (Haunted by this thing that stalks his waking nightmares, it sounds like a fun trope to play. Probably a strength/Athletics based combat spirit, if that'd work.)

3. Ancestral guardian. (Role-wise, possibly provides out-of-combat utility like scouting, Dex stuff or Survival or something).

If anyone has skill feat suggestions for any of the above, it'd be nice, but I think for now I'm satisfied that this would be a character worth getting out for any campaign I happen to get to join. Now I just need to find a campaign to join for it haha!

[The Ronyon]

Maybe consider the Undead Master?

https://2e.aonprd.com/Archetypes.aspx?ID=176

It can grant a variety of possible minions.
The best of them are able to make your targets flat footed, the ghost is able to induce fear.

https://2e.aonprd.com/AnimalCompanions.aspx?Undead=true

Most of the Undead Companions are Mindless and none of them are smart but there are many undead familiars among the specific familiers:

https://2e.aonprd.com/Familiars.aspx?Specific=true

The Talking Head seems very adpt.

Familiers can have/grant all kinds of abilities.
A witches familiar fits with the concept of getting knowledge/power from outside of one's self.
The familiar granted by Baba Yaga is an object, which could be a skull.
Since it has no innate abilities, you are free to assign them.
It could be a demoralizing buddy or a knowledge check friend.

It might double as an implement.
Bell and Lantern both seem appropriate.