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Both of these playtest classes seem to be in a pretty good shape, certainly much better than the previous 8 playtest classes. The Thaumaturge looks almost release-worthy as is, just missing a few things.
But there's still some rough edges to the class that should probably be ironed out.
- 1) Recall knowledge DCs vs rarer creatures - this should be a something the Thaumaturge is good at, but in fact they're at their worst against rarer creatures. With the DC adjustments and recall knowledge's already not impressive success rate given it requires so many different skills, this can prove troublesome. For instance, if you were to play Fall of Plaguestone, the first boss has a recall DC of 28 (Level 3 unique). Your modifier is +7, so you need a 12 to not crit fail and get your bonus. Perhaps Thaumaturge should ignore DC adjustment for rarity.
- 2) Esoteric Lore (and related "all lore") skills - more a clarification wanted than anything. Do they get a DC adjustment for specificity? If so, how much? Also, they don't get an item bonus until 17th at which point they suddenly get +3 from diadem of intellect - perhaps a general +x to recall knowledge item is wanted. Maybe Thaumaturge can just get +1 item to RK per implement they have.
- 3) Weaknesses - Thaumaturge does nothing if you're already triggering the weaknesses, which seems a little bit backwards. In fact, one level's difference can mean as much as 11 or 12 damage per attack if you already had the relevant weakness being procc'd, as you could be moving to a custom weakness which would always add the full damage. Perhaps this should increase the weakness, or Esoteric Antithesis should just do 1 damage that is a separate damage instance (so it triggers the weakness again) and the value should be reduced to 1 + half level (so its the same damage bonus). Also it is unclear if you choose what weakness to use in the case that multiple apply - for instance if you have a frost weapon against a creature with weakness 10 to silver and weakness 10 to cold, can I choose which one to treat my weapon damage as? If not, what determines what damage type my weapon does (as it can mean a significant damage difference).
- 4) No key str/dex - Just feels a little bit janky as a balancing factor, if it is intended to be a balancing factor, why is it only relevant for half the levels? And if it isn't, why is there no ability to key str or dex? Same issue as the inventor in this case.
- 5) Implement Balance - Initial impressions is that Amulet and Weapon are by and large the best. Chalice is reasonable but it's essentially a weaker Lay On Hands - the THP is quite small even if you can constantly refresh it. Wand and Lantern seem extremely weak by comparison. Wand does very little damage for 2 actions, I guess it's supposed to be comparable to a cantrip but its a cantrip on a martial class. Lantern just has too few combat benefits for a combat feature.
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I don't think 4 is a huge issue from my experience so far, but 3 bugs me a lot thematically.
1 is also a huge problem, but I think that mostly comes down to RK and rarity being kind of broken in general.
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I'd add skills to that list.
Yes, you get 4 trained automatically, which is great and unique. But then you get only two more for a total of 6.
Now, 6 skills is fine (other classes get less) BUT you most likely want to be trained in Society as well so you can actually use your class features against all kinds of enemies. And humanoids tend to be not exactly rare in a lot of campaigns.
So that basically leaves you with a single "free" skill choice.
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I'd add skills to that list.
Yes, you get 4 trained automatically, which is great and unique. But then you get only two more for a total of 6.
Now, 6 skills is fine (other classes get less) BUT you most likely want to be trained in Society as well so you can actually use your class features against all kinds of enemies. And humanoids tend to be not exactly rare in a lot of campaigns.
So that basically leaves you with a single "free" skill choice.
Skills is probably a separate issue - Paizo doesn't like handing out free skill increases (I guess it encroaches too much on rogue/invest) even when a class needs it to make their main feature work (swash, inventor, thaumaturge).
IMO thaumaturge should get free scaling in one of society/arcana/nature/religion/occultism/crafting, or esoteric lore should just be part of the base features with some clarifications on how its supposed to function wrt specificity (that way you have the option to invest heavily in an RK skill if you want to be better against those opponents).
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This is the best "wrap up" post of the issues mentioned elsewhere I've seen.
I think 4 is fine as long as it's accounted for (i.e. Rule of 3 and extra damage).
I also think 5 could be fine. Keep in mind you get 3 implements, and some may be more suited for support. Lantern is a decent 2nd or 3rd choice, and Wand is basically a free cantrip w/ upgrades for a marital. Both could be buffed a bit but they aren't terrible.
I agree, but if Rule of Three is necessary for it to be "accounted for", I think it should be baked into a class feature. Cuz it seems like a "must-take" feat tax right now.
I'd add skills to that list.
Yes, you get 4 trained automatically, which is great and unique. But then you get only two more for a total of 6.
Now, 6 skills is fine (other classes get less) BUT you most likely want to be trained in Society as well so you can actually use your class features against all kinds of enemies. And humanoids tend to be not exactly rare in a lot of campaigns.
So that basically leaves you with a single "free" skill choice.
Skills is probably a separate issue - Paizo doesn't like handing out free skill increases (I guess it encroaches too much on rogue/invest) even when a class needs it to make their main feature work (swash, inventor, thaumaturge).
IMO thaumaturge should get free scaling in one of society/arcana/nature/religion/occultism/crafting, or esoteric lore should just be part of the base features with some clarifications on how its supposed to function wrt specificity (that way you have the option to invest heavily in an RK skill if you want to be better against those opponents).
Ummm.. they do get free increases.
Edit: Thaumaturgic Expertise and Thaumaturgic Mastery
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I agree, but if Rule of Three is necessary for it to be "accounted for", I think it should be baked into a class feature. Cuz it seems like a "must-take" feat tax right now.
I'm not really sure it's a must-take, tbh. The bonuses are strong when it gets rolling, but on the other hand
It's really slow and doesn't stack with the most common kinds of party buffs. Like if you have a bard or cleric or someone with the marshall archetype etc. you've pretty much got that already covered.
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I'd add skills to that list.
Yes, you get 4 trained automatically, which is great and unique. But then you get only two more for a total of 6.
Now, 6 skills is fine (other classes get less) BUT you most likely want to be trained in Society as well so you can actually use your class features against all kinds of enemies. And humanoids tend to be not exactly rare in a lot of campaigns.
So that basically leaves you with a single "free" skill choice.
Skills is probably a separate issue - Paizo doesn't like handing out free skill increases (I guess it encroaches too much on rogue/invest) even when a class needs it to make their main feature work (swash, inventor, thaumaturge).
IMO thaumaturge should get free scaling in one of society/arcana/nature/religion/occultism/crafting, or esoteric lore should just be part of the base features with some clarifications on how its supposed to function wrt specificity (that way you have the option to invest heavily in an RK skill if you want to be better against those opponents).
Ummm.. they do get free increases.
Edit: Thaumaturgic Expertise and Thaumaturgic Mastery
The free increases they get don't take them to legendary and are extremely late (6 and 8 levels late respectively)
I understand that skill don't need as much scaling as everything else (from level 1 to 20, DCs increase by 25 while level bonus alone is 19 - only need 6, of which cha increases cover 2) but still that means you're ultimately behind in at least 1 of the 5 skills from where you started. (Unless you spend all your skill increases getting all 5 skills to master I guess?)
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I think the redeeming factor when it comes to skills is that you can stil get your damage bonus even if you fail your Recall Knowledge Check. Takes another action (which sucks) but it's something.
I'd add skills to that list.
Yes, you get 4 trained automatically, which is great and unique. But then you get only two more for a total of 6.
Now, 6 skills is fine (other classes get less) BUT you most likely want to be trained in Society as well so you can actually use your class features against all kinds of enemies. And humanoids tend to be not exactly rare in a lot of campaigns.
So that basically leaves you with a single "free" skill choice.
Don't forget crafting for golems.
I'd add skills to that list.
Yes, you get 4 trained automatically, which is great and unique. But then you get only two more for a total of 6.
Now, 6 skills is fine (other classes get less) BUT you most likely want to be trained in Society as well so you can actually use your class features against all kinds of enemies. And humanoids tend to be not exactly rare in a lot of campaigns.
So that basically leaves you with a single "free" skill choice.
Skills is probably a separate issue - Paizo doesn't like handing out free skill increases (I guess it encroaches too much on rogue/invest) even when a class needs it to make their main feature work (swash, inventor, thaumaturge).
IMO thaumaturge should get free scaling in one of society/arcana/nature/religion/occultism/crafting, or esoteric lore should just be part of the base features with some clarifications on how its supposed to function wrt specificity (that way you have the option to invest heavily in an RK skill if you want to be better against those opponents).
Ummm.. they do get free increases.
Edit: Thaumaturgic Expertise and Thaumaturgic Mastery
The free increases they get don't take them to legendary and are extremely late (6 and 8 levels late respectively)
I understand that skill don't need as much scaling as everything else (from level 1 to 20, DCs increase by 25 while level bonus alone is 19 - only need 6, of which cha increases cover 2) but still that means you're ultimately behind in at least 1 of the 5 skills from where you started.
I'm not following. The "additional skill increases" from the effect work like any other skill increases, so after level 7 (Thaumaturgic Expertise is 9th) you can go to master and after level 15 (Thaumaturgic Mastery is 17th) you can go to legendary.
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I'd add skills to that list.
Yes, you get 4 trained automatically, which is great and unique. But then you get only two more for a total of 6.
Now, 6 skills is fine (other classes get less) BUT you most likely want to be trained in Society as well so you can actually use your class features against all kinds of enemies. And humanoids tend to be not exactly rare in a lot of campaigns.
So that basically leaves you with a single "free" skill choice.
Skills is probably a separate issue - Paizo doesn't like handing out free skill increases (I guess it encroaches too much on rogue/invest) even when a class needs it to make their main feature work (swash, inventor, thaumaturge).
IMO thaumaturge should get free scaling in one of society/arcana/nature/religion/occultism/crafting, or esoteric lore should just be part of the base features with some clarifications on how its supposed to function wrt specificity (that way you have the option to invest heavily in an RK skill if you want to be better against those opponents).
Ummm.. they do get free increases.
Edit: Thaumaturgic Expertise and Thaumaturgic Mastery
The free increases they get don't take them to legendary and are extremely late (6 and 8 levels late respectively)
I understand that skill don't need as much scaling as everything else (from level 1 to 20, DCs increase by 25 while level bonus alone is 19 - only need 6, of which cha increases cover 2) but still that means you're ultimately behind in at least 1 of the 5 skills from where you started.
I'm not following. The "additional skill increases" from the effect work like any other skill increases, so after level 7 (Thaumaturgic Expertise is 9th) you can go to master and after level 15 (Thaumaturgic Mastery is 17th) you can go to legendary.
You're still left one skill increase short (in total) to get one of your skills to legendary this way. You have a total of 11 skill increases and need 12 to get 4 legendary skills, and recall knowledge is across 5 skills anyway so one of your skills will be left behind relative to where you started.
Unless, of course, you spread out those 11 skill increases such that you get all 5 skills to master (with 1 free) but at that point you've spent nearly all of your class' skill increases just to make your main feature work as well as it did at level 1.
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Don't forget crafting for golems.I'd add skills to that list.
Yes, you get 4 trained automatically, which is great and unique. But then you get only two more for a total of 6.
Now, 6 skills is fine (other classes get less) BUT you most likely want to be trained in Society as well so you can actually use your class features against all kinds of enemies. And humanoids tend to be not exactly rare in a lot of campaigns.
So that basically leaves you with a single "free" skill choice.
Golems are Arcana/Crafting so you can get by with just Arcana, Nature, Occultism, Religion & Society.
You're still left one skill increase short (in total) to get one of your skills to legendary this way. You have a total of 11 skill increases and need 12 to get 4 legendary skills, and recall knowledge is across 5 skills anyway so one of your skills will be left behind relative to where you started.
Unless, of course, you spread out those 11 skill increases such that you get all 5 skills to master (with 1 free) but at that point you've spent nearly all of your class' skill increases just to make your main feature work as well as it did at level 1.
Ah, that makes more sense.
In that case I'll just recommend this. Unified Theory.
Is it a perfect fix? Absolutely not. Having to rely on a legendary skill feat that comes too late is really rough. But it is a fix we have right now.
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Unified Theory only works on things that depend on your magical tradition, which is pretty narrow.
TBH I'm kind of surprised the Thaumaturge doesn't have some equivalent of the Ranger's Master Monster Hunter... though I guess maybe that's what their Cha substitution is supposed to be equivalent to (and master monster hunter is weird because it comes online so late).
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Golems are Arcana/Crafting so you can get by with just Arcana, Nature, Occultism, Religion & Society.Don't forget crafting for golems.I'd add skills to that list.
Yes, you get 4 trained automatically, which is great and unique. But then you get only two more for a total of 6.
Now, 6 skills is fine (other classes get less) BUT you most likely want to be trained in Society as well so you can actually use your class features against all kinds of enemies. And humanoids tend to be not exactly rare in a lot of campaigns.
So that basically leaves you with a single "free" skill choice.
Hmmm... You are right. I thought there where some constructs that required it but I just looked and didn't see any. Cool, that saves me a skill.
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You're still left one skill increase short (in total) to get one of your skills to legendary this way. You have a total of 11 skill increases and need 12 to get 4 legendary skills, and recall knowledge is across 5 skills anyway so one of your skills will be left behind relative to where you started.
Unless, of course, you spread out those 11 skill increases such that you get all 5 skills to master (with 1 free) but at that point you've spent nearly all of your class' skill increases just to make your main feature work as well as it did at level 1.
Ah, that makes more sense.
In that case I'll just recommend this. Unified Theory.
Is it a perfect fix? Absolutely not. Having to rely on a legendary skill feat that comes too late is really rough. But it is a fix we have right now.
Unified theory is unfortunately not an “everything keys to Arcana” feat. It’s only for things that depend on magical tradition, such as trick magic item and identify magic (i.e. things that say “arcana for arcane, nature for primal, occultism for occult and religion for divine” or some variation thereof). It’s actually quite narrow in application (though the actual intent behind it could stand to be clarified some).
Recall knowledge isn’t usually something that depends on magical tradition, more the type of thing you’re trying to recall about.
Great write up. 1 and 3 are the big ones
I am playing edgewatch and basically we are always coming up against “gnomes wearing an x suit”. Even when we have a investigator it happened a lot due to the absurd DCs
But it definitely is sort of a swashbuckler issue of booting up your key ability
And the weakness thing absolutely has to do something against things with existing weaknesses. Either increase it which is easiest but perhaps doesn’t make sense or always create a “new” weakness - capped at the max of what you can already do. Functionally they same effect of course. So that way if you know you are fighting werewolves you can pre prepare silver to benefit from that AND do extra damage from something esoteric that only you know
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- 3) Weaknesses - Thaumaturge does nothing if you're already triggering the weaknesses, which seems a little bit backwards. In fact, one level's difference can mean as much as 11 or 12 damage per attack if you already had the relevant weakness being procc'd, as you could be moving to a custom weakness which would always add the full damage. Perhaps this should increase the weakness, or Esoteric Antithesis should just do 1 damage that is a separate damage instance (so it triggers the weakness again) and the value should be reduced to 1 + half level (so its the same damage bonus). Also it is unclear if you choose what weakness to use in the case that multiple apply - for instance if you have a frost weapon against a creature with weakness 10 to silver and weakness 10 to cold, can I choose which one to treat my weapon damage as? If not, what determines what damage type my weapon does (as it can mean a significant damage difference).Adding to this concern, there are two odd side-effects of Thaumaturge's key damage boost being through weaknesses. One is that weakness damage doesn't multiply on a critical hit, so it's one of relatively few class features that raises damage but doesn't interact with critical hits. Not necessarily a huge deal since Thaumaturge gets a nice sizable flat damage buff from Implement's Empowerment to keep their crits satisfying, but a bit odd. The other is that creatures with weaknesses are supposed to have more HP than creatures without HP.
Giving your creature a weakness adds flavor to it and greatly rewards effective player tactics once your players identify the weakness. The weakness should apply to one damage type or phenomenon and use the high end of the scale. Creatures typically have at most one weakness. If a creature has a weakness, especially to something common, give it additional HP. The amount of additional HP might depend on how tough the creature should feel if the PCs don’t exploit its weakness; a tough creature might have additional HP equal to quadruple the weakness value. A creature with a hard-to-exploit weakness might have additional HP equal to the weakness value or less.
So not only does your main class feature not help you much against creatures with weaknesses, the creatures with weaknesses have extra HP to defend against your special feature. I'm not sure if actual bestiary creatures line up with this assumption (nor do I know how I'd analyze that, since the specific HP number is influenced by many things and is kinda hazy anyways), but at least against custom monsters (something I use extensively as a GM) thaumaturge has a weird meta disadvantage compared to a different prepared martial.
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- 3) Weaknesses - Thaumaturge does nothing if you're already triggering the weaknesses, which seems a little bit backwards. In fact, one level's difference can mean as much as 11 or 12 damage per attack if you already had the relevant weakness being procc'd, as you could be moving to a custom weakness which would always add the full damage. Perhaps this should increase the weakness, or Esoteric Antithesis should just do 1 damage that is a separate damage instance (so it triggers the weakness again) and the value should be reduced to 1 + half level (so its the same damage bonus). Also it is unclear if you choose what weakness to use in the case that multiple apply - for instance if you have a frost weapon against a creature with weakness 10 to silver and weakness 10 to cold, can I choose which one to treat my weapon damage as? If not, what determines what damage type my weapon does (as it can mean a significant damage difference).Adding to this concern, there are two odd side-effects of Thaumaturge's key damage boost being through weaknesses. One is that weakness damage doesn't multiply on a critical hit, so it's one of relatively few class features that raises damage but doesn't interact with critical hits. Not necessarily a huge deal since Thaumaturge gets a nice sizable flat damage buff from Implement's Empowerment to keep their crits satisfying, but a bit odd. The other is that creatures with weaknesses are supposed to have more HP than creatures without HP.Giving your creature a weakness adds flavor to it and greatly rewards effective player tactics once your players identify the weakness. The weakness should apply to one damage type or phenomenon and use the high end of the scale. Creatures typically have at most one weakness. If a creature has a weakness, especially to something common, give it additional HP. The amount of additional HP might depend on how tough the creature should feel if the PCs don’t exploit its weakness; a tough creature...
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Thematically, I think the Thaumaturge is encouraged to specialize in one or two kinds of knowledge and the others are fine staying at expert. Get a little closer to demon hunter or beast slayer than everything killer.
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Sympathetic weakness definitely feels tax-y but I haven't been super impressed with Rule of Three. It doesn't do anything until Round 2 and even then it's just comparable to bless/inspire courage/inspiring aura. Round 3 it gets better but that's a long time for a single mob.
I think I'd characterize it more as a neat feat if you don't have any party buffers but otherwise jut okay.
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- 3) Weaknesses - Thaumaturge does nothing if you're already triggering the weaknesses, which seems a little bit backwards. In fact, one level's difference can mean as much as 11 or 12 damage per attack if you already had the relevant weakness being procc'd, as you could be moving to a custom weakness which would always add the full damage. Perhaps this should increase the weakness, or Esoteric Antithesis should just do 1 damage that is a separate damage instance (so it triggers the weakness again) and the value should be reduced to 1 + half level (so its the same damage bonus). Also it is unclear if you choose what weakness to use in the case that multiple apply - for instance if you have a frost weapon against a creature with weakness 10 to silver and weakness 10 to cold, can I choose which one to treat my weapon damage as? If not, what determines what damage type my weapon does (as it can mean a significant damage difference).
With the caveat that I may well be misreading, I don't think EA works quite like this.
For my interpretation, EA gives you a blanket ability to trigger a creature's weakness. If the creature has a weakness that is 2+half your level or higher, then you trigger that weakness (and I would say just pick one if multiple qualify). The actual damage type you deal is unchanged, you are merely able to trigger the weakness regardless of what damage you do. And yes, even if it makes no sense like weakness to salt water or area damage, you're still able to trigger it.
If the creature lacks a weakness, or if their highest weakness is less than 2+half your level, you trigger a custom weakness that only works for your strikes. So for your level 12 example, you find a weakness of at least 8 even if you have to make it yourself. If they have Fire weakness 10, you trigger that. If they have fire weakness 5, you trigger Antithesis 8 (but only for your weapon and unarmed strikes).
Sympathetic Weakness adds a layer of wonkiness to things. In the above example, if the creature had fire weakness 10, your strikes would trigger any creature's fire weakness if they had one as long as you are running EA on the creature with Fire Weakness 10. If you switched to something with Fire Weakness 5, you would then trigger Antithesis Weakness 8, and could no longer use Sympathetic Weakness.
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- 3) Weaknesses - Thaumaturge does nothing if you're already triggering the weaknesses, which seems a little bit backwards. In fact, one level's difference can mean as much as 11 or 12 damage per attack if you already had the relevant weakness being procc'd, as you could be moving to a custom weakness which would always add the full damage. Perhaps this should increase the weakness, or Esoteric Antithesis should just do 1 damage that is a separate damage instance (so it triggers the weakness again) and the value should be reduced to 1 + half level (so its the same damage bonus). Also it is unclear if you choose what weakness to use in the case that multiple apply - for instance if you have a frost weapon against a creature with weakness 10 to silver and weakness 10 to cold, can I choose which one to treat my weapon damage as? If not, what determines what damage type my weapon does (as it can mean a significant damage difference).With the caveat that I may well be misreading, I don't think EA works quite like this.
For my interpretation, EA gives you the ability to trigger a creature's weakness. If the creature has a weakness that is 2+half your level or higher, then you trigger that weakness (and I would say just pick one if multiple qualify). The actual damage type you deal is unchanged, you are merely able to trigger the weakness regardless of what damage you do. And yes, even if it makes no sense like weakness to salt water or area damage, you're still able to trigger it.
If the creature lacks a weakness, or if their highest weakness is less than 2+half your level, you trigger a custom weakness that only works for your strikes. So for your level 12 example, you find a weakness of at least 8 even if you have to make it yourself. If they have Fire weakness 10, you trigger that. If they have fire weakness 5, you trigger Antithesis 8 (but only for your weapon and unarmed strikes).
Sympathetic Weakness adds a layer of wonkiness to things. In the above example, if the...
Lets suppose I have a flaming weapon and am level 17 against a creature with fire weakness 10. EA does not add anything because the antithesis value is not greater than their weakness, and I’m already triggering the weakness with the flaming rune
I level up once, now my antithesis value is 11 and I create an 11 custom weakness. 1 level was worth 11 damage per attack.
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I see what you mean now. In that case, correct, which is why best practice might be to prefer runes like keen or speed, or even impactful and fearsome, instead of flaming or frost.
What I was reacting to when I said "I don't think EA works quite like this" was your question about what damage type to treat your weapon. And the answer is your damage is unchanged, you merely trigger a weakness. If I was your DM in the frost weapon example, I would say you are trigger the one you aren't already triggering.