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First of all, love the flavor and idea of the thamaturge. Great flavor, and I have always loved those ‘occult-adjacent’ characters. I could easily see making this as the basis for anything from a VanHelsing character to a holy warrior. Also note that I have not played this class, this is merely from looking through it and generating one character so. . . Initial thoughts.
My first is the Find Flaws/Esoteric Antithisis class features. To make use of that feat you need to have six skills (The four you initially get and society for humanoids, and crafting for non-magical constructs), and there is no way you can get them all to a decent level for high level play to identify stuff. Especially if you are going up against a unique foe like one specific demon or something. There is the esoteric Lore feat but that only goes up to expert.
What I would do is make esoteric lore a class feature and rename it as ‘weakness lore’ (Or something.). Have it work only to recall knowledges of any CREATURE (not anything, just creatures) and have it automatically level up to expert at 7 and master at 14. That way your class feature is still going to work strong but it isn’t garuntee to go off every time. This has the added benefit of letting players actually choose which class skills to rank up instead of HAVING to choose X or Y just to make their class work.
Second issue is like several others have said, this doesn’t seem like a charisma class. You aren’t forcing your will on others, you are studying them. Make it int-based. That way you don’t have to put in that bit about how they can use charisma for their Find Flaws. I can see an argument for wisdom (being more intuition based) but I really think Int is the way to go. After all, VanHelsinf wasn’t particularly gregarious or good at lying, but he KNEW everything there was to know about vampires.
Lastly, I’d like for there to be an option for a Thamaturge to use 2 handed weapons. The whole clutching your focus while you strike with a 1-handed item is theamatic, and I love the extra damage, but it feels like it locks every Thamaturge into one-handed weapons. Great if that’s what you wanna go with, but let’s see some other options.
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Not convinced it needs a stat change personally.
Do agree that you're really spread thin on knowledge skills, though being able to silo them all into your main stat is a nice boon, it ends up being worth a couple proficiency tiers in and of itself over the course of a campaign.
Definitely agree on the weapons. Right now the class feels a little too fixated on the one-handed weapon fighting style. All your implements need a free hand to work, Empowerment needs a free hand to work... Weapon implement doesn't even work with Unarmed so that's kind of out too.
It just feels way too narrow.
Not convinced it needs a stat change personally.
Do agree that you're really spread thin on knowledge skills, though being able to silo them all into your main stat is a nice boon, it ends up being worth a couple proficiency tiers in and of itself over the course of a campaign.
Definitely agree on the weapons. Right now the class feels a little too fixated on the one-handed weapon fighting style. All your implements need a free hand to work, Empowerment needs a free hand to work... Weapon implement doesn't even work with Unarmed so that's kind of out too.
It just feels way too narrow.
Actually, since your main damage feature is antithesis, you can just dual wield as normal (say DWW archetype) or use a two hander, you just won't get the two damage from empowerment, which doesn't matter since you're getting more damage from elsewhere. To my understanding, empowerment is a patch on one hander damage, meanwhile your implement could be something you aren't trying to use as much in combat, I think that say, successful Antithesis into Double Slice would be perfectly good in the current game.
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I mean, at level 1 Antithesis and Empowerment are basically the same. At level 20 it's 12 vs 8.
The damage is very close either way, so calling one ignorable and the other your main mechanic seems incorrect.
Right now going from a longsword to a greatsword nets you 0 extra damage and just prevents you from using any implement in combat, along with all the typical downsides of using a two-handed weapon (which is why they do more damage naturally to begin with). That's not just a trivial patch to ignore.
And to me, at least, it just doesn't seem necessary to the class' theme to hedge them in on weapons so narrowly.
I mean, at level 1 Antithesis and Empowerment are basically the same. At level 20 it's 12 vs 8.
The damage is very close either way, so calling one ignorable and the other your main mechanic seems incorrect.
Right now going from a longsword to a greatsword nets you 0 extra damage and just prevents you from using any implement in combat, along with all the typical downsides of using a two-handed weapon (which is why they do more damage naturally to begin with). That's not just a trivial patch to ignore.
And to me, at least, it just doesn't seem necessary to the class' theme to hedge them in on weapons so narrowly.
I missed the line that scales it, I thought it was only 2 damage, my bad.
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Also, it is reliable extra damage, whereas you have a chance (depending. . . A very good chance) of not making that roll to identify a monster. A unique monster that is 3 levels higher than the party? Yeah, pretty sure you aren’t making that roll.
But back to find flaw, l just think it needs a rework. Needing to have six skills at high levels just to make your core base mechanic work seems. . . I don’t like it. And you can’t do it with how few skill increases you get.
I’m not a fan of forcing a class to progress one skill. Maguses and wizards need to do it for scribe their spellbooks, bards need to do it for lingering performance and counter performance. If a core concept of your character requires you to be good with a skill, then just make it part of the base package and let us put skill ups in underwater basket weaving or whatever. That’s my design philosophy anyway.
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Thing is, for Find Flaws > Esoteric Antithesis, you don't actually have to "make" the roll. You just have to not Crit Fail it. Success or Crit Success just mean you can do it in 1 action rather than 2.
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I made a Thamaturge last night and gave it to a friend while I GMed (I tried to make it as close to the iconic as I could given the artwork and the limited backstory.) One thing I noticed was that the Thamaturge is extremely MAD (Multi-ability-score depenedent) Clearly they are meant to be in combat hitting people what with their two class abilities to increase their damage, so they need either Strength or dex, plus a decent CON to survive, INT and Wisdom to make use of their skills, and charisma as their base class ability. That's just . . . well it's just all over the place. (I realize that they they can use their charisma for creature Identification, but not for anything else. So if you want to decipher some ancient writing? Figure out what religion would be appropriate to a problem? Know what plant to use to treat poison? All of those are NOT something they can use their charisma for and yet all are things that SHOULD be in the Thamaturge's wheelhouse. Not to mention Esoteric Lore requires INT for any non-creature Identification.)
Changing their primary ability score to Int or Wis would solve some of that (and make more sense IMHO). Getting rid of charisma just makes one less ability score they have to rely on and it lets them have a decent chance to make non creature-identification rolls.
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Changing their primary ability score to Int or Wis would solve some of that (and make more sense IMHO). Getting rid of charisma just makes one less ability score they have to rely on and it lets them have a decent chance to make non creature-identification rolls.
I'll agree that Charisma seems... odd for this one. The Thaumaturge's whole schtick is that they identify weird weaknesses in their foes and know a lot of stuff and are constantly crazy-prepared. That seems pretty heavily Int-based to me. I can see Wis for spotting the vulnerabilities. Cha? Just doesn't really seem to fit, especially since I can readily imagine an uncharismatic thaumaturge. Trying to imagine one that's dumb as a stone, though, is more of a stretch.
I agree on the Find Flaws/Esoteric Antithesis class feature interaction with the skills and how it makes the class too MAD. I think it should be a Wisdom primary ability class focused on perceiving the signs pointing to the existence of things that go bump in the night that others don't see, for their force of will in resisting monstrous powers, and most of all for finding the loopholes and cheats in the mystical universe when it comes to finding weaknesses and applying common sense when fighting the monsters they find (Cut through the mumbo-jumbo and find the common thread that anchors and links all the concepts together). We already have some INT-based martial classes in the Investigator and the Inventor, anyway, and not enough WIS-based class, at all (only two and both are full casters); lots of CHA classes, though (Swashbuckler, Rogue, Summoner, Oracle, Sorcerer, Bard, and even Champion a little bit).
I also think that a core class feature like this would probably be better served with a single mechanic to find these weaknesses than multiple skills, which you must choose between to level up. Tweaking Esoteric Lore to take over this does seem like the best route to take with what we have already in the class; I haven't thought too much on it yet to come up with a better method, though.
I agree on the weapons thing, too. It does limit fighting styles for this class, a front-line warrior against darkness.
I would like to add that I REALLY like the idea of still being able to do some small damage on a miss when attacking a successfully identified weakness with the trigger for that weakness; very nice without becoming overpowered and it gives the Thaumaturge its own little niche in the classes with how it is set apart while still doing some comparable damage.
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Imo, I'd rather keep cha, but sprinkle in more of the limited skill increases. Cha makes sense, in a mystical sense, it's well established as the "bend the cosmos to your will" stat, and while knowledge ia part of the class, the really big part is bending reality to your will in subtle ways, or, barring an actual match, convincing reality that you do
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I like the charisma stat but think to justify it the Thaumaturge should pull away from making proper Recall Knowledge checks. Frankly I'd go full Pageant of the Peacock and make it so you Bluff for the roll, that feels far more on flavor and removes the problem of the Thaumaturge being taxed on five different skills just to get their main class feature running. Bluff being used to make up a weakness so believable it even tricks the essential fabric of the universe checks out to me.
Deception is an option. Making the class explicitly more Occult-sided and using Occultism with Charisma for the check with any kind of creature is an option. There are a considerable amount of options, honestly. But yeah, I agree the current version relies on too many skills at once, and skills that you'll barely be able to use well for other purposes (cause you'll probably have low Int). I'd even go as far as saying relying on the baseline Recall Knowledge rules is a mistake, considering how clunky they are with repeated attempts, enemy rarity and other factors.
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Actually, the more I think on it, the more I think this class should have STR or DEX as its primary ability score. I mean, why do that to the Magus and not this class when the Magus actually casts spells and the Thaumaturge does not (to be clear, I'm being somewhat facetious here)? Well, I do understand why they did that to the Magus, but shouldn't the same logic apply to the Thaumaturge? Even a melee class like the Swashbuckler, as dependent as it was on skill checks for (mostly) CHA skills, had DEX as its primary ability.
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I don't mind a mental primary stat, but the MAD is definitely an issue.
I feel like most characters will be starting with an 18/16/12/12/10/10 stat line with maybe the occasional 16 cha for a 14 or third 12.
And that seems kind of really limiting from a character build standpoint. The Thaumaturge is not going to be a class that can splash some secondary attribute for fun, because they just don't have points to spend.
I would really dislike it if this class was Wis primary so pass on that.
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It doesn't though, yes it doesn't get the option to get to 18 like some classes. But between the Thaumaturge and the Inventor I think it's pretty clear that Paizo views the baseline for offensive powers to be a 16 in that stat. Getting an 18 in a single stat is the "specialized build" that suffers elsewhere. A well rounded build, that lets you either have two primary stats at 16/16 or several stats at 14 makes for a more well rounded and versatile character.
It doesn't though, yes it doesn't get the option to get to 18 like some classes. But between the Thaumaturge and the Inventor I think it's pretty clear that Paizo views the baseline for offensive powers to be a 16 in that stat. Getting an 18 in a single stat is the "specialized build" that suffers elsewhere. A well rounded build, that lets you either have two primary stats at 16/16 or several stats at 14 makes for a more well rounded and versatile character.
Not really? This isn't Pathfinder 1, where you can drop from an 18 to a 16 and gain 7 extra points to spread among all your other stats. Ditching an 18 just gives you a 12 somewhere else instead of a 10 or a 14 instead of a 12. +1 to one thing in exchange for -1 to your main thing. Hardly a hyperspecialized build that sucks at everything else.
It's pretty low impact and, imo, one of the unfortunate flaws with PF2's stat generation.
Imo, I'd rather keep cha, but sprinkle in more of the limited skill increases. Cha makes sense, in a mystical sense, it's well established as the "bend the cosmos to your will" stat, and while knowledge ia part of the class, the really big part is bending reality to your will in subtle ways, or, barring an actual match, convincing reality that you do
I'm not sure I can agree. I'd say that the knowledge is absolutely the main part, and if the main part was 'bending reality to your will' the class would be a true spellcaster (whether with full or magus style progression). Instead the class has no real spellcasting. They don't need to bend reality to their will, they've got items to do that for them.
Consider the Find Flaws feature, and the adjacent mechanics (especially esoterica). There is a reason it is framed with a recall knowledge check. You are looking at the creature, remembering it's weakness, and using one of your many accumulated trinkets to exploit it (though in some cases that may be a very specific weakness that only applies to your attacks). You aren't just creating a weakness, except in mechanical terms, you are exploiting one.You have the tools of you're esoterica because reality won't just do what you want if you ask nicely enough. You need the tools to do it for you.
I'm not sure I can agree. I'd say that the knowledge is absolutely the main part, and if the main part was 'bending reality to your will' the class would be a true spellcaster (whether with full or magus style progression). Instead the class has no real spellcasting. They don't need to bend reality to their will, they've got items to do that for them.
Consider the Find Flaws feature, and the adjacent mechanics (especially esoterica). There is a reason it is framed with a recall knowledge check. You are looking at the creature, remembering it's weakness, and using one of your many accumulated trinkets to exploit it (though in some cases that may be a very specific weakness that only applies to your attacks). You aren't just creating a weakness, except in mechanical terms, you are exploiting one.
You have the tools of you're esoterica because reality won't just do what you want if you ask nicely enough. You need the tools to do it for you.
While it's true that, ideally, you are using the right esoterica, it's absolutely incorrect that you aren't creating weaknesses. The flavor of the class, as stated in the thread that Mark Seifter made himself, that, in the end, you are convincing the universe the esoterica you're using has some quality that exploits a fundamental flaw in your foe, and that you're convincing the universe that the esoterica you attach to your equipment gives the whole weapon and your body the same anathemic qualities as the esoterica. Hell, the thread is called "I am the universe, convince me".
This is also partly reflected in the mechanics; if you pass, you know the werewolf is weak to silver, and you clip a silver piece onto your sword and you're good to go; if you fail, you spend an extra turn kinda fudging a good enough connection to qualify
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The Mios I built (level 1) was:
Str: 16, Dex: 12, Con: 12, Int: 10, Wis: 10, Chr:18, and while they were +7 to find weakness, almost every other application of their skills was +3. Identifying that unholy symbol? +3. Knowing about that ritual? +3. Deciphering that riddle? +3.
So yeah, I think Int should be their primary stat as they aren’t ‘forcing their will on the universe’ as much as ‘using ever loophole they have ever resarched to try and come out with a better outcome.’ That would also give them decent lore skills and makes more sense for someone who has been through tome after tome and made all these disparate connections to try and cheat the universe into doing something it normally doesn’t do.
It doesn't though, yes it doesn't get the option to get to 18 like some classes. But between the Thaumaturge and the Inventor I think it's pretty clear that Paizo views the baseline for offensive powers to be a 16 in that stat. Getting an 18 in a single stat is the "specialized build" that suffers elsewhere. A well rounded build, that lets you either have two primary stats at 16/16 or several stats at 14 makes for a more well rounded and versatile character.Not really? This isn't Pathfinder 1, where you can drop from an 18 to a 16 and gain 7 extra points to spread among all your other stats. Ditching an 18 just gives you a 12 somewhere else instead of a 10 or a 14 instead of a 12. +1 to one thing in exchange for -1 to your main thing. Hardly a hyperspecialized build that sucks at everything else.
It's pretty low impact and, imo, one of the unfortunate flaws with PF2's stat generation.
At the very least when building my character I've had to ask myself several times, do I want that +1 to hit, or do I want better AC. Do I want that +1 to hit or do I want that extra skill, because my ancestry doesn't have a lore skill or doesn't have the skills I am interested in. Or a language that I would want for my character. Do I want the +1 or do I want to be slightly better at intimidation checks to support my allies. It certainly is there, and I would argue releasing at releasing potentially two classes that can't get to 18 at character creation is intentional, if the developers assumed players had to have an 18 they wouldn't make classes that couldn't get there. 18 is the specialized class, where you have to choose to get there and yes suffer in other places(Perhaps for some those are minor issues but for some that makes all the difference to who that character is) And like ultimately the devs aren't stupid and wouldn't make a class that can't reach the standard goal. Especially not twice.
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Making intelligence the main stat is probably an easier solution than fixing charisma; as was stated earlier, most thaumaturge concepts I can think of are scholars of some kind. Probably reinterpret the class design as basically being an in-universe Rules Lawyer trying to get extreme advantages out of technicalities and odd interpretations.
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While it's true that, ideally, you are using the right esoterica, it's absolutely incorrect that you aren't creating weaknesses. The flavor of the class, as stated in the thread that Mark Seifter made himself, that, in the end, you are convincing the universe the esoterica you're using has some quality that exploits a fundamental flaw in your foe, and that you're convincing the universe that the esoterica you attach to your equipment gives the whole weapon and your body the same anathemic qualities as the esoterica. Hell, the thread is called "I am the universe, convince me".This is also partly reflected in the mechanics; if you pass, you know the werewolf is weak to silver, and you clip a silver piece onto your sword and you're good to go; if you fail, you spend an extra turn kinda fudging a good enough connection to qualify
In this case, why do you need your esoterica in the first place. Yes it may speed things up, but why can't you persuade the universe that any which thing could trigger a weakness. Also, couldn't this be equally well explained by your use of the dubious knowledge feat: you get the information, you just have to spend extra time trying to work out which bit of it is true and which isn't.
It also comes down to a matter of personal preference. As I have said before, if your main thing was getting the universe to bend to your will, rather than relying on external objects to do it for you, then you may as well be a true magic user. I would feel disappointed if this class was essentially a magic user but with a different magic system, where it tries to define itself as a class that does not use magic directly. I would also be less interested in it conceptually. Where before we had characters who studied their foe to exploit their weaknesses, prepared for their fights, gathered esoteric tools to help them, we would have a character who is essentially bluffing and coercing their way to power. It seems far too much brute force and far too little sublty. While there may be room for such a character, this is not that class, nor is this that book. It's called an archive because it is a repository of knowledge. Why would your charisma powered class need to do research if they can just pretend they did it?
Edit: punctuation
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this is not that class
I mean... yeah it is?
You want it to be something else, which I get, but it also is what it is right now.
So one small issue I am seeing is that the class is maybe trying to be too many things, or at least people are seeing too many things in it, and then falling a bit short on various elements.
When I think of the class I mainly see John Constantine, a character who I see having high charisma and hight int perhaps in equal amounts. He is rude and people hate him but also people love to hate him. He is a charmer, a liar, and while he has the intelligence to back it up he often is making mistakes that get himself or merely likely the ones he cares about in trouble.(low but not terrible wisdom) he however doesn't have a lot of martial prowress or at least I don't see that being a part of his kit. So everything else. The esoteric, the implements, rituals and parts it all fits. But then you have this martial proficiency and you are like huh...okay. I guess I can see Jim throwing a punch or using a mystical sword or getting lucky with a dagger but that's not his m.o.
Then you have Dresden who I' dont know much about...he seems maybe more on the int/wis side but I'm uncertain.
Then you have Van Helsing who people swear Is int based, and tbh I don't know much about his original interpretations, my biggest memory of him is the cheesy action movie and kind of just general knowledge of him being an adversary of Dracula.
Then you have your Belmonts, your Supernatural brothers, etc who are certainly way more martial inclined but always have the knowledge and the charm in spades and both have these in spades or at least supposed to in theory.
And last but not least the final character I think of is Uncle, from Jackie Chan adventures. Who I would see as wisdom/int focused. I think had some martial arts training but mainly left that to the youngsters.
The question is can the Thaumaturge do it all, should it try and do it all, and what should it focus it on if it can't. And I guess how should it go about doing it all( changing it to bluff would upset those who want it to be about knowledge. Connecting their knowledge to charisma seems to cause narrative issues for some people. And moving away from charisma seems to cause people who believe charisma is needed to feel like the class loses some of its flavor.)
Part of the problem with it using charisma is that the actual text of the playtest does not support it much at all. It's all about research and preparedness and spotting weaknesses. People who read Mark's thoughts on it prior to release tend to have a very different understanding of why it keys off CHA instead of either of the others.
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Well, you've also got Hellboy et al., who I think also canonically fall into this archetype. The BPRD spends a lot of time researching (literally in the name), and in the comics you've got characters kitting themselves out with toenails of saints, or loading a bullet with bone dust or whatever. The edge is superior knowledge and leveraging knowledge of weaknesses that the creatures themselves may not even know they have.
To me that's Intelligence. I understand the flavor from SoM and the write-up Mark did, but I think Charisma is a bit at odds with mechanics. It seems like when I really get down to it the (for lack of a better term) verisimilitude exists where the character says "Luckily I have this chopstick touched by the lips of a loving mother!" rather than "This chopstick will be anathema to this monster!"
I'm still sort of open either way, but I am concerned at how MAD the class seems to be, and how many different directions it wants to pull. Consolidating isn't just a strength in P2e; it's sort of a necessity when you have classes like Investigator that can reasonably rely on their primary stat to perform what's expected of them in every facet of the game.
I knew I was forgetting somebody. The question I have for hellboy is, and I forget if this is the case or not. Does he actually do the research, or is it more of a Bond and the guy at the labs set up. Where yeah Hellboy has the items and might know the basic principle but is that because someone else preped him before hand, or is he coming up with these things on the spot. You don't need high int if someone else is preping it for you. (Once again it's been a while since I've read or watched hellboy so I'm uncertain)
I knew I was forgetting somebody. The question I have for hellboy is, and I forget if this is the case or not. Does he actually do the research, or is it more of a Bond and the guy at the labs set up. Where yeah Hellboy has the items and might know the basic principle but is that because someone else preped him before hand, or is he coming up with these things on the spot. You don't need high int if someone else is preping it for you. (Once again it's been a while since I've read or watched hellboy so I'm uncertain)
Hellboy's got plenty of knowledge, yeah. It's more workmanlike than Abe Sapien or Broom, and he's not so much into the theory, but he's got a solid encyclopedic knowledge of various occult goings-ons. Picked it up on the job, which I think also applies to Investigator to some degree. To me that's just a character that picked a Str KAS rather than Int, or could be flavored that way.
Also just the associated skills for Int vs Cha seem to gel much more with Thaumaturge, not to mention using any excess skill points for a variety of Lores (i.e. Van Helsing picking Vampire Lore) seems really beneficial.