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It's a type of sympathetic magic. This isn't brute forcing your way. It's a dance or a poem, or dialogue with the world. A chain is not an apt metaphor for healing an ally so of course it doenst work.
You need the basic knowledge but you also need to be able to perform, it, have faith in it. Simply knowing isn't enough.
It at its most basic form is, "the secret ingredient is love" now love isn't an actual ingredient but the time, the effort, the affection is presenting the food it is a type of magic that makes a homemade soup or meal taste different that's the ingredient. Yeah you know the recipe, but you needed that emotion behind it. The emotion is what made it special.
Since the class has a martial chassis, my problem is that I think the Thaumaturge class is hurting by not having the primary ability score be a choice of Strength or Dexterity like all the other martial class that do not have workarounds when it comes to attacking Armor Class.
This is a very good point that I didn't think of. The thaumaturge is first and foremost a martial class, so it will spend more of its time in combat making strikes. So their KAS should be DEX or STR or have a workaround like the Investigator using INT to hit.
And just like the Monk and the Ranger, you could tie all your magical abilities (which are less frequent) to a mental ability score.
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Tbh I would perfer to keep the KAS something mental and get more options to use that charisma score as alternatives to attacks( stuff like fling magic, or the counter act checks the class can do. Or other neat stuff)
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The game works fine with a 16 in your key stat to start. Having full martial proficiency and a lot of damage bonus should absolutely make up for that. I'm okay with this being a shred behind barbarians and rangers and rogues.
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It's a type of sympathetic magic. This isn't brute forcing your way. It's a dance or a poem, or dialog with the world. A chain is not an apt metaphor for healing an ally so of course it doenst work.
You need the bad eknowlesge but you also need to be able to perform, it, have diath in it. Simply knowing isn't enough.
It at its most basic form is, "the secret ingredient is love" now love isn't an actual ingredient but the time, the effort, the affection is presenting the food it is a type of magic that makes a homemade soup or meal taste different that's the ingredient. Yeah you know the recipe, but you needed that emotion behind it. The emotion is what made it special.
Now this is one of the arguments that makes me agree thematically with the Charisma instead of Wisdom/Intelligence as the casting stat.
Mechanically, I disagree completely, though. The class NEEDS to be STR or DEX or it needs to change how it applies Esoteric Antithesis ability to its targets by some other means than attacking AC.
I really don't like CHA as the key stat for the thaumaturge much at all... But I'll happily for for that in opposition to a complex system of choices or implement locks. Here's my thinking:
Most importantly, this class absolutely does not need to encompass every character or concept in its ballpark. It needs to be a singular and cohesive class core. It doesn't need to be the new rogue, especially since it's inherently any-and-all traditions.
Refining concepts but also importantly balancing abilities is very essential to me here. Not being able to hit with its key stat appears important to balancing, just as being able to succeed in knowledge recalls and having a strong class DC seem to be.
I dunno. I keep getting distracted by work so my thoughts are jumbled. One of the things I learned long ago about game design is that specificity is important for both balance and flavor. Paizo have shown a slight weakness in the past for making things wider than they need to be, at the cost of efficacy or evocative concepts. I just don't want that to happen to the thaumaturge just because lots of different ways to play could slip under that umbrella.
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Alchemic_Genius mentioned this in another thread, but they suggested the idea of your implement choice determining your KAS:
If they do make the thaumaturge flexible, I hope they don't do it this way and just make it an independent choice. Having attributes tied to other mechanical choices, imo, just exacerbates the problem of feeling like you're stuck juggling disparate flavor elements... sometimes even more than just having one static option the whole class is tuned around.
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If they do make the thaumaturge flexible, I hope they don't do it this way and just make it an independent choice. Having attributes tied to other mechanical choices, imo, just exacerbates the problem of feeling like you're stuck juggling disparate flavor elements... sometimes even more than just having one static option the whole class is tuned around.
Alchemic_Genius mentioned this in another thread, but they suggested the idea of your implement choice determining your KAS:
I really like how the psychic disconnects the conscious and subconscious mind from each other as far as player options. But I also don't want the Thaumaturge to have multiple attribute options. Maybe the lore and the mechanics of the class pull in a little bit more around charisma, but having multiple mental attributes that the class could focus on just makes it harder to build a martial character.
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For me, you can generally find a way to flavour any mental ability score to basically any style of casting. The friction comes in with what sort of characters lean themselves to different stats.
Charisma stats archetypically lean towards faces, nobles, performers, rogueish types, etc. Social character archetypes. But thaumaturges people point out as inspirations aren't those sorts of characters, so it feels disatifying making thaumaturges when I know my concept will often require a different mental stat to be also decent, to match the flavour of that concept.
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It's a type of sympathetic magic. This isn't brute forcing your way. It's a dance or a poem, or dialog with the world. A chain is not an apt metaphor for healing an ally so of course it doenst work.This explanation makes the class seem like it should be a bard subclass to me. This is exactly how I imagine bards cast spells. A bard should be able to do whatever this class is doing, and vice versa.
As of the Curator's essay in Secrets of Magic, its what Occult Magic is, Bards do it one way and whatever the Curator is (Thaumaturge?) does it another.
Overall, they need to double down on the Sympathetic Magic flavor, in my eyes. Even if it were otherwise identical, reframing find flaws / esoterica as establishing a Sympathetic Bond and making this "the sympathetic magic" class would help the flavor conflict people are having.
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when I look at DC's Constantine or even the 1e Occultist and Inquisitor (which this lightly mimics) I see a Wis user, not a Cha user.
The guy who conned the devil into curing his cancer, you don't see him as a charisma user? The guy who cowed a hundred demons ready to take on freaking Zatanna? I'll grant you the guy isn't didn't dump his other mental stats or anything, but I have a really hard buying he isn't charisma based.
when I look at DC's Constantine or even the 1e Occultist and Inquisitor (which this lightly mimics) I see a Wis user, not a Cha user.The guy who conned the devil into curing his cancer, you don't see him as a charisma user? The guy who cowed a hundred demons ready to take on freaking Zatanna? I'll grant you the guy isn't didn't dump his other mental stats or anything, but I have a really hard buying he isn't charisma based.
That's fair, it's been a while since I saw the TV show or read the comics. I just remember him being a bit more "thoughtful" with how he utilized his implements and sorta forgot the silliness you mentioned above.
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It's a type of sympathetic magic. This isn't brute forcing your way. It's a dance or a poem, or dialog with the world. A chain is not an apt metaphor for healing an ally so of course it doenst work.This explanation makes the class seem like it should be a bard subclass to me. This is exactly how I imagine bards cast spells. A bard should be able to do whatever this class is doing, and vice versa.As of the Curator's essay in Secrets of Magic, its what Occult Magic is, Bards do it one way and whatever the Curator is (Thaumaturge?) does it another.
Overall, they need to double down on the Sympathetic Magic flavor, in my eyes. Even if it were otherwise identical, reframing find flaws / esoterica as establishing a Sympathetic Bond and making this "the sympathetic magic" class would help the flavor conflict people are having.
This sorta reminds me of the Persona franchise, how belief in the thing makes the thing work, but both parties have to understand. The only reasons the guns work in Mementos is because both shooter and target believe the gun is real, thus it has recoil and the bullets penetrate. If the target does not believe, then it's just a toy and there's no harm to be feared, no bullets flying your way, no risk to self.
Also reminds me of the Heroes in Beast: The Primordial and how they can place "banes" on the titular Beasts, by way of just... thinking it works! But B:tP is a topic so full of skub I fear even mentioning it here, just thought it works similarly
It's a type of sympathetic magic. This isn't brute forcing your way. It's a dance or a poem, or dialog with the world. A chain is not an apt metaphor for healing an ally so of course it doenst work.This explanation makes the class seem like it should be a bard subclass to me. This is exactly how I imagine bards cast spells. A bard should be able to do whatever this class is doing, and vice versa.As of the Curator's essay in Secrets of Magic, its what Occult Magic is, Bards do it one way and whatever the Curator is (Thaumaturge?) does it another.
Overall, they need to double down on the Sympathetic Magic flavor, in my eyes. Even if it were otherwise identical, reframing find flaws / esoterica as establishing a Sympathetic Bond and making this "the sympathetic magic" class would help the flavor conflict people are having.
This sorta reminds me of the Persona franchise, how belief in the thing makes the thing work, but both parties have to understand. The only reasons the guns work in Mementos is because both shooter and target believe the gun is real, thus it has recoil and the bullets penetrate. If the target does not believe, then it's just a toy and there's no harm to be feared, no bullets flying your way, no risk to self.
Also reminds me of the Heroes in Beast: The Primordial and how they can place "banes" on the titular Beasts, by way of just... thinking it works! But B:tP is a topic so full of skub I fear even mentioning it here, just thought it works similarly
Man, a Persona reference and a COFD (or is that old WOD?) reference, way to go!
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True. If instead of Find Flaws it was something more along the lines of "Bind Energy" or something, where the thaumaturge creates a connection between something in their possession that's thematically ballparkish to the enemy, and uses it like a poppet or something to narratively weaken what they're looking at?
It mostly kills the flavor of the researching, learning trinket-master that's currently in the text, but it might be a smoother way to tie it all together.
Right now it feels like there are three ways to get this class narratively functioning:
1. Weaknesses are inherent (but not normally mechanically represented), and the thaumaturge studies and collects items to have a veritable trove of things they can utilize when they determine the weakness of the enemy in front of them.
2. Weaknesses are crafted by the thaumaturge's own power, utilizing an object in their position as a focus for generating the weakness.
3. Somewhere in the middle... monsters have inherent weaknesses, but the thaumaturge can manipulate, increase, or sometimes wholly create one. They utilize the inherent connection or metaphor of the trinket in hand to leverage these weaknesses.
I mean, option 3 probably has the most ways it can work, and is mostly where it's at now between how the class is written and how Mark has discussed how he would want it to work instead. But options 1 and 2 are much more internally consistent, especially when it comes to the value of recalling knowledge about the enemy.
I dunno. I think the downside of leaning into CHA as the main stat really minimizes the ideas that they're researching, planning, and preparing for any of this on purpose. Leaning into INT somewhat weakens the idea that this is esoteric or occult power they're messing with and instead is just seeing the natural flaws in anything. Leaning into WIS removes their agency at creating or manipulating things at all.
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True. If instead of Find Flaws it was something more along the lines of "Bind Energy" or something, where the thaumaturge creates a connection between something in their possession that's thematically ballparkish to the enemy, and uses it like a poppet or something to narratively weaken what they're looking at?
It mostly kills the flavor of the researching, learning trinket-master that's currently in the text, but it might be a smoother way to tie it all together.
Right now it feels like there are three ways to get this class narratively functioning:
1. Weaknesses are inherent (but not normally mechanically represented), and the thaumaturge studies and collects items to have a veritable trove of things they can utilize when they determine the weakness of the enemy in front of them.
2. Weaknesses are crafted by the thaumaturge's own power, utilizing an object in their position as a focus for generating the weakness.
3. Somewhere in the middle... monsters have inherent weaknesses, but the thaumaturge can manipulate, increase, or sometimes wholly create one. They utilize the inherent connection or metaphor of the trinket in hand to leverage these weaknesses.
I mean, option 3 probably has the most ways it can work, and is mostly where it's at now between how the class is written and how Mark has discussed how he would want it to work instead. But options 1 and 2 are much more internally consistent, especially when it comes to the value of recalling knowledge about the enemy.
I dunno. I think the downside of leaning into CHA as the main stat really minimizes the ideas that they're researching, planning, and preparing for any of this on purpose. Leaning into INT somewhat weakens the idea that this is esoteric or occult power they're messing with and instead is just seeing the natural flaws in anything. Leaning into WIS removes their agency at creating or manipulating things at all.
So I would go with option 1. I would also argue that removing their agency at creating or manipulating things would be a more interesting option. As I've argued for a while now, for me the key idea of the thaumaturge for me is that although they interact with the supernatural, they do not directly use magic. It is far more interesting to me to have a character who has to be resourceful, making use of limited resources, taking advantage of any weakness in their enemy. This would be a far more distinct flavour than another variant on 'I use my power to shape reality so that it does what I want'. If I wanted that I'd play a sorcerer with whichever archetypes made it fit the specifics.
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If Thaumaturge's are finding the connections, that's Int if via study/preparation or Wis if via intuition.
If they're making the connections, that does sound more like Cha (though a case could still be made for Wis/intuition), but then what's that have to do with Recall Knowledge?
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Separately, w/ Charisma being used for Recall Knowledge across so very many skills AND increases being necessary and hardwired into the class it seems like a replacement "Thaumaturgy" ability is needed, one that isn't about pure study (which seems more the Wizard's sphere) and is outright a mystical connection to the cosmos. Whether that's imposed (Cha) or intuited (Wis) would be a separate question, though I can say I don't see Wis as necessarily stepping on an Inquisitor's toes (especially if the latter is a wavecaster).
"Thaumaturgy" would also open up skill increases to other skills, several of which seem pretty relevant to the class yet will likely go neglected. It seems odd to highlight the Charismatic aspects of some (not all) of the media Thaumaturgists, but then the class leaving little room to actually take or increase the skills suggested. (Unless they're all MCD Rogues or Investigators, which legitimately they kind of are!)
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And yes, I'm pro-Wis with the class's MAD-ness, though also because of the current bookish or introvert nature of many media representations of the class (as currently described that is, not necessarily as Mark clarified and/or confounded.)
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Leaning into INT somewhat weakens the idea that this is esoteric or occult power they're messing with and instead is just seeing the natural flaws in anything. Leaning into WIS removes their agency at creating or manipulating things at all.
I don't see how either statement is true. Tying ability scores to the magic traditions is a trap for creativity. Leaving aside the fact that the Occultism skill and the Occult-casting Witch class rely on INT quite heavily or the idea that Wisdom somehow removes "agency at creating or manipulating things at all" (I would argue the opposite), you are talking about the ability for a class that dabbles in all four spellcasting traditions, not just Occult (I previously made the same mistake in another thread...), and uses all four of the associated spellcasting skills as outlined by their initial proficiencies, which use both INT and WIS.
In addition to the statements Mark Seifter has made about Charisma as the key ability score for the Thaumatuge, I think CHA is also a compromise between all the ability scores, since the class uses all the spellcasting knowledge skills.
Leaning into INT somewhat weakens the idea that this is esoteric or occult power they're messing with and instead is just seeing the natural flaws in anything. Leaning into WIS removes their agency at creating or manipulating things at all.I don't see how either statement is true. Tying ability scores to the magic traditions is a trap for creativity. Leaving aside the fact that the Occultism skill and the Occult-casting Witch class rely on INT quite heavily or the idea that Wisdom somehow removes "agency at creating or manipulating things at all" (I would argue the opposite), you are talking about the ability for a class that dabbles in all four spellcasting traditions, not just Occult (I previously made the same mistake in another thread...), and uses all four of the associated spellcasting skills as outlined by their initial proficiencies, which use both INT and WIS.
In addition to the statements Mark Seifter has made about Charisma as the key ability score for the Thaumatuge, I think CHA is also a compromise between all the ability scores, since the class uses all the spellcasting knowledge skills.
Others have explained what I'm trying to say much better than I did, haha.
As I said in another thread, I think the class confuses identifying patterns with creating new ones. That can have really big ramifications on the mechanics and overall feel of the class.
I can identify 3 possible and valid routes (there might be more) that would affect the amount of power budget dedicated to Recall Knowledge, creating weaknesses and the kind of skills you're going to see more often:
Charisma: Eschew the knowledge and preparation elements and focus more on improvisation and the force of personality. Personally, this is my least favorite, because I prefer to identify patterns instead of playing God as a martial person. Pushing your will upon the universe feels like something the Psychics usually do with their minds when manifesting thoughtforms, breaking time and space, and manipulating perceptions.
Intelligence: The exact opposite of Charisma. Knowledge and preparation instead of force of personality, hence all the focus on knowledge skills, monster lore, identifying weaknesses, etc.
Wisdom: A middle ground to justify knowledge with intuition and force of personality with connecting with the world (like a Druid).
I like the idea to allow the player choose because this allow create a diverse flavor of what kind of thaumaturge he/her will play. And we don't need to keep only in concept of damage weakness, I think that thaumaturge could exploit many status changes and control using it's trinkets nicely.
For mechanics I think that each key stat could be chosed by a different set of Flaws and Antithesis:
For INT based Thaumaturge the current set of Flaw and Antithesis would work fine. Search for opponent weakness or if don't have one create one using your trinkets fetch well in a INT based char.
For WIS based Thaumaturge detect and exploit a MENTAL set o Flaw and Antithesis allowing use of trinkets that exploits the enemy metal instabilities or even creating one in creatures that not like to have such things like constructs. Implying conditions like Confused, Frightened or even Slowed, Stunned or even Controlled maybe also add some mental weakness and cause some mental damage using his trinkets.
For CHA based Thaumaturge detect and exploit a EMOTIONAL set o Flaw and Antithesis in same way of wis, with some diferences of possible stats and weakness, and for foes thats are emotionless like constructs they may implant some uncontrolled emotion thought trinkets to apply the weakness.
In the end this also avoids the discussion about what stat the Thaumaturge has to use because we have a different stile for each different flavor concept.