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I don't know exactly what I was expecting with this class, but I absolutely love it. The thematic nature of it was really nailed in the feats and features and just... I really love it. Very, very excited to play one.
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Mark, here is your gushing. I was gonna make a new thread, but GameDesignerDM has a lovely one for me to reply to.
I love this class. I love it so much. Growing up I read books primarily from the 80's and early 90's. As years moved on I picked Harry Dresden (A tad problematic in hind sight, but still a book love for me).
My point is, to me the hero using magic has never been about them casting spells. It is about the toys. It is about being knowledgeable enough to look at the situation and having the tool for the job. The hero has a magic sword. The detective has the gimmicky rings. A Chalice full of poison judges those that drink it.
Tabletop gaming rarely scratches this itch for me. But this. This is exactly what I want.
Adventuring through the wilds and a fey attacks! My trusty cold iron longsword was destroyed weeks ago, but fear not! I have a bag full of shavings. I rub them along my club and can get the job done!
I know more then I remember. My knowledge is finnicky, but I have the clue somewhere. Oh, a bandit lord, I don't know how to han... wait.... This region is known for it's high amount of cilantro allergies! I can work a weakness in.
I have my trusty magical item. My mother's pendant that I am convinced hold her love and protection. It's power and connection keeps my party safe.
I am not a wizard, I do not control the heavens, I lack the command of the elements. I am a man who studied, and I have enough force of will to BS my way through when my knowledge fails.
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Mark, here is your gushing. I was gonna make a new thread, but GameDesignerDM has a lovely one for me to reply to.
I love this class. I love it so much. Growing up I read books primarily from the 80's and early 90's. As years moved on I picked Harry Dresden (A tad problematic in hind sight, but still a book love for me).
My point is, to me the hero using magic has never been about them casting spells. It is about the toys. It is about being knowledgeable enough to look at the situation and having the tool for the job. The hero has a magic sword. The detective has the gimmicky rings. A Chalice full of poison judges those that drink it.
Tabletop gaming rarely scratches this itch for me. But this. This is exactly what I want.
Adventuring through the wilds and a fey attacks! My trusty cold iron longsword was destroyed weeks ago, but fear not! I have a bag full of shavings. I rub them along my club and can get the job done!
I know more then I remember. My knowledge is finnicky, but I have the clue somewhere. Oh, a bandit lord, I don't know how to han... wait.... This region is known for it's high amount of cilantro allergies! I can work a weakness in.
I have my trusty magical item. My mother's pendant that I am convinced hold her love and protection. It's power and connection keeps my party safe.
I am not a wizard, I do not control the heavens, I lack the command of the elements. I am a man who studied, and I have enough force of will to BS my way through when my knowledge fails.
Dresden, John Constantine, and more, a lot of urban fantasy and related "mysterious stuff and also magic" subgenres are all about items and superstitions (Dresden admittedly gets flashier and more high fantasy the further along it goes). So I'm glad it's resonating. I'm thinking you could play like a lower magic noir style urban fantasy feel game with like thaumaturge for your "magic person," investigator, etc.
Mark, I've also gotta jump in here to congratulate you and the team for this class. I'm only on my first detailed read-through and already have so many ideas for different characters. Looking forward to playtesting!
My main Thaumaturge is definitely going to be my Dhampir from 1E retooled into this. He's from Ustalav (obviously) and I always envisioned him as someone who started off hunting his vampiric kin, but dovetailed into hunting all sorts of evil and occult things and keeping their secrets to use against other monsters.
Very much a cross between Van Helsing, John Constantine, and Mages from Mage: The Awakening (come to think of it, the thaumaturge is basically a Mastigos what with a lot of their stuff being built around connections and such). Anyway, the class fulfills all of that to a T.
I loved the occultist in 1E, but the concept was always better as an Inquisitor (and I didn't much like the 3.x tradition of multiclassing), but the Thaumaturge is basically this character written out as a class.
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Chalice Implement -> Estus Flask
Praise the Sun!
If those would refill after 10 minutes, an average Dark Souls play through would take 500 hours (450 of those are spend standing in a dark corner with a shield raised).
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If those would refill after 10 minutes, an average Dark Souls play through would take 500 hours (450 or which are spend standing around in a dark corner with a shield raised).Chalice Implement -> Estus Flask
Praise the Sun!
I am now imagining this in my mind's eye. Yeah, that tracks.
I think this is the most I've ever liked a playtest class since PF2 launched. I'm sure the mechanics will have to be tweaked, but how the flavor and mechanics intersect might be the best we've seen in PF2. You knocked it out of the park on this one!
Also want to add to the excitement, on the first read through the class drips fun and flavor. I can SEE the characters it would support, and how they fit in the world and the stories I could tell.
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I love how most of their feats are there not just to provide mechanical elements to the class but to tell stories as well. I've just read pact of fey glamour and fell in love with the class.
Also, to explain the class concept to my friends I told them it is like an exorcist but that instead of specializing in ghost and evil spirits the thaumaturge BS their way through specialization against anything and I think it is a decent simple way to put it.
Counter intuitively I am getting...Dresden, John Constantine, and more, a lot of urban fantasy and related "mysterious stuff and also magic" subgenres are all about items and superstitions (Dresden admittedly gets flashier and more high fantasy the further along it goes). So I'm glad it's resonating. I'm thinking you could play like a lower magic noir style urban fantasy feel game with like thaumaturge for your "magic person," investigator, etc.Mark, here is your gushing. I was gonna make a new thread, but GameDesignerDM has a lovely one for me to reply to.
I love this class. I love it so much. Growing up I read books primarily from the 80's and early 90's. As years moved on I picked Harry Dresden (A tad problematic in hind sight, but still a book love for me).
My point is, to me the hero using magic has never been about them casting spells. It is about the toys. It is about being knowledgeable enough to look at the situation and having the tool for the job. The hero has a magic sword. The detective has the gimmicky rings. A Chalice full of poison judges those that drink it.
Tabletop gaming rarely scratches this itch for me. But this. This is exactly what I want.
Adventuring through the wilds and a fey attacks! My trusty cold iron longsword was destroyed weeks ago, but fear not! I have a bag full of shavings. I rub them along my club and can get the job done!
I know more then I remember. My knowledge is finnicky, but I have the clue somewhere. Oh, a bandit lord, I don't know how to han... wait.... This region is known for it's high amount of cilantro allergies! I can work a weakness in.
I have my trusty magical item. My mother's pendant that I am convinced hold her love and protection. It's power and connection keeps my party safe.
I am not a wizard, I do not control the heavens, I lack the command of the elements. I am a man who studied, and I have enough force of will to BS my way through when my knowledge fails.
It's definitely more early books. Later books is just straight out super high fantasy anyway. Even the early ones he was more directly a spellcaster but his best moves were often from implements.
I really love the class (notwithstanding it's having charisma as it's main stat where wisdom or intelligence would make more sense to me). I'd love to play one. It scratches a deep itch I have for magic that's less formulaic and more mysterious, harder to pin down to neat laws and equations. I'd seriously consider running a game where the spellcasting classes were banned, but the thaumaturge wasn't.
I also love the pact feats. I'd love to see them expanded to cover a greater range of outsiders and other creatures. I'd love to be able to make a pact with a hag or some proteans, and as a GM I think I'd have great fun running the player going on a quest to make this deal and the aftermath thereof. Influenced by Matt Colville, I really love the idea of PCs having their own goals and going put of their way to achieve them, as well as having character abilities that are defined by the stories you tell about them.
Also, multiclassing and dual classing with this class looks to be really fun. I'm thinking especially of witches and oracles here, but I can't think of a single class this wouldn't be awesome with (though a swashbuckler might take a bit of work).
Well done to the design team.
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I went from unsure to "minor adjustments only please" in 12 pages flat, this class is really fantastic, my only minor criticism on a first reading is maybe implementing feat support for them to scale ancestral magic and such-- a tiefling blooded thaumaturge or something being able to use their ancestral spells with class DC would be a flavor boon, and be good fodder for characters like Hellboy and others who aren't proper spellcasters but have magical powers in their bloodline.
I think Charisma is the right move, because I do think they should be really good at innate magic, and the inspirations *want* to be face characters, if anything I would rather adjust the flavor of their weakness creating ability so its not recall knowledge to fix the 'discrepancy' maybe refocus it on the idea of rules lawyering the universe utilizing magical contracts the universe accepts or rejects or something. But I need more time to decide if that feels necessary from a flavor standpoint.
I really love the class (notwithstanding it's having charisma as it's main stat where wisdom or intelligence would make more sense to me). I'd love to play one. It scratches a deep itch I have for magic that's less formulaic and more mysterious, harder to pin down to neat laws and equations. I'd seriously consider running a game where the spellcasting classes were banned, but the thaumaturge wasn't.
I think CHA and WIS would be the better options thematically in the way I personally picture the class.
A CHA Thaumaturge would be the one who talks. Through sheer force of will and conviction they can convince an object or a creature that they are about to face their antithesis.
A WIS Thaumaturge would be the one who listens instead, the one who collect not only objects but stories as well, who knows their array of trinkets better than they know themselves so they always have the right tool for the job.
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I know more then I remember. My knowledge is finnicky, but I have the clue somewhere. Oh, a bandit lord, I don't know how to han... wait.... This region is known for it's high amount of cilantro allergies! I can work a weakness in.
.............................................
I am not a wizard, I do not control the heavens, I lack the command of the elements. I am a man who studied, and I have enough force of will to BS my way through when my knowledge fails.
Note to Everyone Else: Despite the user names, we are not the same person.
Despite me thinking the class should use another key ability (and darnit, I already posted that opinion in another thread), this speaks to me so much about how I solve problems. I'm not much for persuasion but I am confident in my career specialization....or at least confident in my ability to find a work around if I don't know the proper method. It's still always hard for me translate innate ability and willpower into charisma but I think this is a good explanation for it.
There are clear Dresden inspirations though:
Familiar, Magic Circle, Fey Pact, the defensive amulet
No potions - but scrolls and talismans
Was never going to be solely based on him as he can do more magic that this class.
I do wonder how useful a familiar will be. Off hand the most useful familiar abilities are linked to magic (extra slots, regain a focus point, extra cantrip). What would a Thaumaturge use a familiar for?
Loving all of this! just a few mechanical tweaks but leave all the flavor and features as they are!
Also loving having my own summonable House of Mystery(Justice League Dark) as a capstone!
I'm creating a set of Thaumaturge triplets who rune a magic store, one specializing in Rituals, one in Talismans, and one in scrolls for players to meet!
I also love being able to play the guy with the magic bag of tricks. I can only think of the scene from The Princess Bride. Nonat should really enjoy the roleplaying nature of the feat rather then the mechanical cheese factor he seems troubled by.