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Making one of these as usual for my thoughts and build stuff.
Initial impression: Oooh, shiny!
More specifically…
- A more magical martial is nifty.
- I love the theming, drawing on bits and scraps of magic, as well as creating connections.
- Woof. The sheer amount of skills you need to keep up to date feels oppressive. "For example, against a tyrant, you might attach a chain broken to free a captive." - good luck on that, I hope you had Society up to date in addition to the four magic skills. Pretty much the only thing charisma has going for it is social skills, and I can't afford them.
- Implements, absolutely love them. And we're getting more? Fantastic. I'm a little sad that getting a secondary past initiate without compromising your primary costs an 18th level feat, but the initial benefits for these are quite good.
- Amulet- yes. Yessity-yes-yes-yes. Reaction damage reduction, no longer just on Champion. Gonna be taking this one a lot, because I love broad-spectrum resistances.
- Chalice- cool. Not my thing, but all right. It makes sense that the temp HP is lower than the resistance from amulet, but the action cost for something that just lasts a round does seem a bit steep.
- Lantern- stylish. The knowledge bonus means this is doing something for you in combat, which is nice. I would take this for flavor reasons, and it does nice enough stuff that I wouldn't feel about what I was getting. Mechanically exciting for me? Nah, but that's fine.
- Wand- good. Can't comment on how strong it is, and I'm not gonna take it, but I'm glad it exists.
- Weapon- intriguing. I don't have anything that fits the concept, but I like the mechanics on this enough that I'm interested in making something based on this.
All in all, stylish as heck! It is going to hurt going from a loremaster alchemical science investigator to this, though.
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So, the undead mastadon in the room to me is recall knowledge tying into being a real martial for the fight.
If I fail the recall knowledge, I waste an extra action. Not great, but if I'm fighting multiple things per combat, that's going to be an issue.
If I crit-fail a recall knowledge, I'm screwed. I'm going to spend one round with all my features off. Amulet does nothing, weapon does nothing, I'm missing my damage riders, and I need to spend one or two actions next round.
Recall knowledge DCs are going to be more varied across GMs, especially when it comes to Esoteric Lore. It's also very frustrating that one of the few ways to get an item bonus to lore skills is by chugging a mutagen that tanks your combat abilities.
The other thing is the number of skills. Mentioned that above, so I won't go into it again.
And finally, occultism is pretty bad for identifying creatures, despite being the most thematic skill.
Plus sides:
- Additional Lore / advance starting lore to expert / background with Dubious Knowledge + Unmistakable Lore + Esoteric Lore prevents crit failures on all Find Flaws attemps, at the cost of delaying a free-item build.
- Archetypes can solve these problems, and have fun interactions.
- Class gets combat perks for investing in knowledge.
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All right, let's go do a build! Woooo!
First up: Yelis. Typically in PF1, he's been built as a cowardly kitsune sylvan sorcerer, occasionally going with an oracle build. Key elements: humanoid shapeshifting, fear of the fey, worships about five different deities, charisma-based trickster, cowardly options, wolf animal companion Waya. (My friend wishes to make clear that Waya is his babysitter.)
LEVEL 1:
Ancestry: Kitsune (Dex, Cha)
Background: Charlatan (Dex, Cha)
Class: Thaumaturge, obviously (Cha)
Boosts: Cha, Dex, Int, Con
10, 16, 12, 12, 10, 18
Skills: Deception, Arcana, Nature, Occultism, Religion, + 3 free pick: Diplomacy, Thievery, Society
Note: At this point, I'm feeling the lack of free choices a little bit. Yelis would generally also be good at stealth, survival, and maybe acrobatics. I can pick up one of those at 5th and 10th; this is good enough for now. Arcana isn't a particularly fitting skill for him, but Religion, Occultism, and especially Nature fit him well.
Weapon: Shortsword. It's agile, and with his extra bonuses on damage, we'll want to hit more often, rather than worrying about that deadly d8 on rapier.
Armor: Well, we're below the +4 combined Dex/Str mod, so we're gonna eat a -1 to stealth with a chain shirt. We can swap to leather when we hit 5th.
Ancestry:
Heritage- It would be hilarious to take Dark Fields Kitsune with the intention of using it as a reaction to Yelis himself becoming frightened. However, I'm not pursuing Intimidate (too few skills) and it doesn't come with a human form. Celestial Envoy it is, with the reaction representing grabbing a handful of holy symbols.
Feat- Oh hey, Kitsune Lore is perfect for our low-level skill issues! But I also want Ghost Sound. I can easily solve that by going with Empty Sky Kitsune, or just picking up Kitsune Lore with my first general feat. We'll go with the latter option for now.
Skill feats:
Charming Liar- Thematic! Yelis is fond of amateur vigilante matchmaking, although that's a little harder with PF2's reluctance to let kitsune turn into anybody they've ever met at level 1.
Dubious Knowledge- Yeah, Yelis is very much somebody who remembers all sorts of warnings and tips and tricks for dealing with monsters, keeping them all around just in case.
Class feat: It's either Esoteric Lore, or Scroll Thaumaturgy. The main benefit of Esoteric Lore is centering the build around never needing to advance my knowledge skills, so I can actually focus on social skills. The main benefit to Scroll Thaumaturgy is as a prerequisite for scroll trickery down the line. Let's go with a compromise: we'll only advance Nature and Religion, as the topics Yelis actually knows about (Nature because he's afraid of the fey, and Religion because he calls on so many gods). That leaves us with two other skills we can advance- Deception and Diplomacy. So, we'll go with Scroll Thaumaturgy.
Implement: Easy, easy choice. Being able to get an amulet that actually protects him? Right up Yelis' dark alley alone after midnight. And sure, it can protect other people too. That mostly means Waya. Holy symbol of Shelyn, because he's just too pretty to die.
LEVEL 2:
Skill feat: Group Impression. Yelis is adept at making a good impression all around.
Class feat: Beastmaster dedication to get Waya, the wolf animal companion.
LEVEL 3:
Skill increase: Nature. Yelis's social skills are important, but so is his paranoia about the fey.
General feat: Ancestral Paragon for Kitsune Lore, picking up training in Stealth and Survival. (On further consideration, I'd probably make this the first-level choice, and pick up Ghost Sound now.)
LEVEL 4:
Skill feat: Lie to Me. Takes one to know one!
Class feat: Mature Beastmaster Companion
LEVEL 5:
Skill increase: Diplomacy. It's the social skills' turn.
Ancestry feat: Shifting Faces. Time for that amateur vigilante matchmaking!
Stats: +Cha, +Dex, +Int, +Con; bump the acrobatics skill to trained.
Second implement: Lantern. Yelis is scared of the dark. Yelis is scared of things in the dark. Yelis is scared of a lot of things. This at least helps reveal them and show what they are. While Amulet is his first, Lantern is the one that he'll be advancing.
Note: Crud! I just remembered that I need to advance Society too in order to apply our features against the bulk of enemies. Fortunately, it fits Yelis all right. Okay, dropping Religion from advancement, moving Society to primary advancement (boosted to Expert at level 3), and putting Nature on secondary advancement.
LEVEL 6:
Skill feat: Glad-Hand. Yelis is great at making good fist impressions.
Class feat: No need to boost Waya at this level, so let's go ahead and grab Scroll Esoterica.
LEVEL 7:
Heeey, we can swap our Talisman and Lantern freely now! It was a bit rough before this, because Lantern was needed out of combat, but Amulet was the choice for in-combat.
Skill increase: Uhhhh… Society is just worth a lot more than Nature. We'll go with that. This is really starting to feel like the PF1 Ranger problem all over again. We'll get Nature up to Expert in two levels.
General feat: Eh, not too concerned about this.
Implement Adept: Yelis is paranoid, so Lantern is getting the boost here- this one is circumstantial, but dang is it brutal when you can passively shut down invisibility.
Note: Just a suggestion, but because of how feast-or-famine Lantern's improvement is, might I suggest increasing the range of the light to 30ft. at this level?
LEVEL 8:
Skill feat: Biographical Eye. Yay, cold reading! Useful for when you're imitating somebody. (My poor languishing Deception…)
Class feat: Incredible Beastmaster's Companion. Probably Nimble, just because "not dying" is more important than Waya being a properly massive wolf.
LEVEL 9:
Skill increase: Diplomacy to master. Starting to consider swapping Diplomacy out for Deception as the primary social skill for advancement. It's four levels between social skill increases, which is a bit rough. Also, as a bonus, Nature to expert.
Ancestry feat: Kitsune Spell Mysteries, focusing on Illusory Object.
LEVEL 10:
Skill feat: Gonna stop listing these, because I'm not entirely sure on the skills being advanced.
Class feat: Share Antithesis, probably. It's a way to give Waya some serious extra damage. Plus, wolf decked out in esoterica. Optimal use? No. Adorable? Yes.
LEVEL 11:
Skill increase: Nature or secondary social skill. At this point, it depends on how the game is going.
General feat: Incredible Investiture, maybe?
LEVEL 12:
Class feat: Elaborate Scroll Esoterica. I love how well these line up with the gaps in Beastmaster! Pact of the Final Breath certainly fits the character, buuut I can see Yelis having difficulty not looting bodies.
LEVEL 13:
Skill increase: Nature or secondary social skill, whichever wasn't picked before.
Ancestry feat: Kitsune Spell Expertise, focusing on Illusory Scene.
LEVEL 14:
Class feat: Specialized Beastmaster Companion for Ambusher. Waya is sneaky, and hard to hit!
LEVEL 15:
Skill increase: Society.
Third implement: Yelis fears death, so maybe Chalice. He also has ties to The Rabbit Prince, though- my friend even drew an amazing Harrow card of him as The Rabbit Prince- so Weapon for shortsword would be pretty fitting.
General feat:
LEVEL 16:
Class feat: Sever Magic. Maaaybe flight, but it really sucks that Waya would be left behind, and I don't think that he'd do that.
Whoops, missed that Esoteric Reflexes was available last time around, so definitely grabbing that. Getting two deflections off per round is great.
LEVEL 17:
Skill increase: Nature (as a bonus) and his primary social skill.
Implement Mastery: Lantern goes to paragon. Strong request- could it please have some means of excluding the bearer, or only showing allies? Yelis spends pretty much all of his time in a magical disguise.
Ancestry feat: Ask the GM for a custom level 17 feat to improve the magical disguise? Tiefling gets a better version at 13, so I might ask for that.
LEVEL 18:
Class feat: Grand Scroll Esoterica. Here we are, the final feat in the chain!
LEVEL 19:
General feat: ?
Skill increase: Secondary social skill.
Heeeey, free action for Find Flaws! That's a nice bonus.
LEVEL 20:
Class feat: Wonder Worker or Ubiquitous Antithesis, I suppose? It'd be restricted to Primal list only for Wonder Worker, and my Find Flaws is getting really unlikely for anything outside of Nature and Society.
Overall thoughts!
- Nicely thematic, but unless the class really eases up on the knowledge checks or gets more skill increases, I'm going to have to consider other things for the character.
- The scroll line fits comfortably in with an animal companion, and even has a few leftover options at high level to round out the character.
- Love the implements!
NOTE: Free archetype solves all the issues here. It leaves enough class feats free to pick up a delayed Esoteric Lore, which resolves the issues well enough after throwing a couple skill feats at the problem. Additional Lore (Fey) and Unmistakable Lore get him to a workable point.
Class feat: It's either Esoteric Lore, or Scroll Thaumaturgy. The main benefit of Esoteric Lore is centering the build around never needing to advance my knowledge skills, so I can actually focus on social skills.
I'm not sure I follow this assessment of Esoteric Lore. It will substitute for Society when identifying humanoids, but until level 15 it doesn't do anything at all for things covered by Aracana, Nature, Occultism, or Religion because you're already trained in them. Only at 15 when you push one to legendary does Esoteric Lore give you anything helpful for monster identification that you didn't already have.
And alas, until Esoteric Lore goes to expert at level 15 you can't take Unmistakeable Lore skill feat to eliminate crit failures.
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And alas, until Esoteric Lore goes to expert at level 15 you can't take Unmistakeable Lore skill feat to eliminate crit failures.
That's what Additional Lore is for. It gives you expert in some random lore at 3... despite requiring expert, Unmistakable works on anything you're Trained in.
woah.gif
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That's what Additional Lore is for. It gives you expert in some random lore at 3... despite requiring expert, Unmistakable works on anything you're Trained in.
And alas, until Esoteric Lore goes to expert at level 15 you can't take Unmistakeable Lore skill feat to eliminate crit failures.
Exactly that. And Esoteric Lore is "supposed" to give you a -2 decrease to DC, so effectively expert. It saves a lot of improvements.
Build two!
Saint of Rats. This is not a character who is going to work as a Thaumaturge. But, he's also not a character who is going to work, period. He was built using a pretty busted third-party class in PF1. So a lot more "nice-to-have" features that I'm not expecting. Why am I even building him as this class? Well, he had a quasi-mystical lantern and offering bowl, as well as a familiar. Behold, a class with all three!
Saint of Rats was an ordinary man dealing who worked as the owner of a very small vessel on an archipelago, transporting food and goods between islands. While idly muttering about what he'd give for a way to deal with rats, he was overheard by one of the fey who wondered what would he give for that. After some bargaining, he traded his boat (not wanting to risk anything too abstract like a memory). In exchange, he received the ability to speak with rats- literally dealing with them. Things were more complicated than that. Any boat he bought or became captain of would be "his boat", and therefore owed to the fey- rough on an archipelago. On the other side, it wasn't just living rats he could deal with. Over time, he began to pick up more and more rat-like abilities, swimming and climbing and the like.
Basics: Human, able to talk with rats, has a ghostly rat familiar Leniham, has a lantern with a ghostly blue flame, has a bowl he uses to burn grain for the spirits of rats, plays the hurdy-gurdy on the notion that fey tend to appreciate/spare musicians and he's involved with them now one way or another, can swim really well (in the original, even breathe underwater), can climb really well, aesthetically wears leather armor so he can swim in it- that might just be a level 5 thing once stat boosts come along.
Definitely impossible: fights by directing swarms of ghostly rats. This was seriously busted; they couldn't be hit.
LEVEL 1:
Ancestry: Human (Cha, Dex or Str)
Background: Hmm. I'd thought there was one that allowed speaking with animals, but it seems like that was PF1. Fortunately, Feybound works great thematically, and he goes by "Saint of Rats" specifically to conceal his name. (Cha, [s]Dex or Str)[/s]
Class: Thaumaturge (Cha)
Free boosts: Well, we want full accuracy. Looking at PF2, I'm not likely to get a swim or climb speed early, so let's go Str to boost Athletics. We'll update those uncertain ones to Str, and go Str/Dex/Cha/Con- could easily swap Con for Wis conceptually, but it sounds like the class needs its health.
Talking to rats: Here's the tough bit that we need to address before anything else. Familiar with Kinspeech doesn't come online until 6th, reflavoring of Adopted with special permission for uncommon ancestry for ratspeech from ratfolk is pretty intensive or delayed- so we're probably looking at two feats into Witch to pick up Familiar's Language. While we're there, we can grab some spells for climb and swim speeds. (Seriously, Feet to Fins is it?)
Ancestry:
Heritage- Skilled (Athletics)
Feat- Natural Ambition
Skills:
Crud, here's where we hit the issue with Feybound. Let's scrap that and go with Merchant. Diplomacy, Athletics, Nature/Arcana/Occultism/Religion, Society, Perform. Thanks to human and the background swap, we've got all our important skills. (Society is genuinely being taken for knowing the basics of high society, since he's trying to learn that.)
Armor: Breastplate for now; will get hide armor at fifth to accurately reflect his style.
Weapon: Shortsword, hatchet, sword cane, light hammer, or sap for common agile d6. Looking at those, nothing much stands out as a great fit- shortsword is best in underwater. Let's check "uncommon". Boarding Axe has climbing, and would be reasonable for him to get a hold of. We'll ask the GM for that, and go with shortsword otherwise.
Skill feats:
Bargain Hunter- he worked with merchants, so he's used to that.
Dubious Knowledge- Saint of Rats wasn't really trained; he was just thrust into all this and is mostly relying on folklore.
Class feats:
Esoteric Lore- sweet, sweet release from the demands of skill advancement, sorta.
Familiar- Leniham! Rat familiar. What abilities? We'll go with Climb and Swim. He's mostly there for flavor.
Implement:
Tough call. Both his lantern and offering bowl start out mundane. The lantern just has a blue Perpetual Flame cast on it, and the offering bowl is just that. His lantern is the more iconic of the two, and has the less dramatic/noticeable power, so we'll go with that. It's also the one that needs to advance, because showing all the ghostly rats following him on the ethereal plane is nice.
LEVEL 2:
Skill feat: Additional Lore (Fey). Not only is it necessary to make Esoteric Lore reliable eventually, but it's also what
Class feat: Wait, crud. Witch Dedication has Int stat requirements. Dang. I just want to talk to rats. Fine, we're not gonna mess around with this, Leniham will serve as a translator at level 6. I would like to put in a request: fey pact for speaking with animals or a kind of animal, or the familiar's speech feat (probably not, that's too much of Witch's exclusive trick), or something like that. It's the sort of cool magical trick that would be nice to have always on.
Okay. I knew this was going to be a tricky build. We'll grab Talisman Esoterica, and get two Potency Crystals per day.
LEVEL 3:
Skill increase: Diplomacy
General feat: Possibly Adopted(Ratfolk) with GM permission, or reshuffling some stuff to that effect to get rat speech at first level. Otherwise, Breath Control.
LEVEL 4:
Skill feat: Unmistakable Lore. We spend at most two actions per enemy in set-up.
Class feat: Sadly, we don't have any need of changing our appearance, or a fey pact feat would be perfect. Instead, we'll go with Draw Warding Circle. It's a cool tool that other classes don't get.
Talisman update: Monkey Rat Pin gets us a bit of climbing. We'll grab one of those, maybe.
LEVEL 5:
Skill increase: Athletics automatically, Nature.
Ancestry feat: Possibly Ratspeech if we're going that route, otherwise ask for access to Wavetouched Paragon, otherwise Clever Improviser.
Implement: Chalice. A shallow offering bowl used to burn grain offerings for rat spirits. The offerings now burn with water instead of fire, providing healing water throughout the day.
Dex, Str, Cha, and Wis increase. Armor is now hide.
LEVEL 6:
Skill feat: Underwater Marauder. I'd like him to be pretty effective when he fights underwater.
Class feat: Rule of Three. I never end up using the Prescient Planner stuff.
Talisman update: Matchmaker Fulu is a very nice bonus, and might be worth picking up. It'd be nice for some characters to be able to get fulus without having to spend extra- even if Saint isn't somebody with a strong connection there, other characters will be a better fit.
Update: Leniham now has speech and can talk to rats. This removes his climbing and swimming.
NOTE: Reaching the end, I realize I should drop Rule of Three, and pick up Talisman Dabbler here. It's a better benefit than the 8th level feat I take next.
LEVEL 7:
Skill increase: Nature (free) and Athletics.
General feat: Skill feat: Influence Nature.
Implement: Upgrading Lantern. Now, the dozens or hundreds of rat spirits that Saint has been making regular offerings to are visible clustered around the otherworldly light of the lantern while he holds it. Consider acquiring Intimidation.
LEVEL 8:
Skill feat: One of the climbing or swimming ones.
Class feat: Elaborate Talisman Esoterica. Whew, having only two was getting a bit constricting.
LEVEL 9:
Skill increase: Diplomacy
Ancestry feat: Incredible Improviser, or the prereq if we didn't already get it.
LEVEL 10:
Skill feat: The other climbing/swimming feat.
Class feat: Possibly a late Sympathetic Weakness, just to save a ton of actions when fighting one thing repeatedly. If we've got a ton of trinket items, sure, Thaumaturge's Investiture. Not a whole lot exciting here, though.
Increase stats.
LEVEL 11:
Skill increase: Perform
General feat: Pick up a skill feat, probably.
LEVEL 12:
Skill feat: Start picking up some of that diplomacy stuff.
Class feat: Quick Circle. Getting Haste for a free stride to get into position with this is nice.
LEVEL 13:
Skill increase: Perform
Ancestry feat: Incredible Improviser if we don't have it, something else otherwise.
LEVEL 14:
Skill feat: More diplomacy stuff.
Class feat: Grand Talisman Esoterica is very disappointing here. It's just… two more. After the first four, two more isn't very meaningful. Four more, I'd take that. Two more and it increases the level you can make, I'd take that. But a 14th level feat with no more benefit than a 2nd level feat? That's fine for an archetype, but not a class. If I thought this was worth a 14th level feat, I'd have taken Talisman Dabbler ages ago. I don't have Esoteric Warden or a reaction-based talisman, so we're updating level 10 feat to Talisman Dabbler and grabbing Talismanic Sage at this level.
LEVEL 15:
Skill increase: Athletics. Swim and climb speed acquired at last.
General feat.
Increase stats.
Implement: Amulet, probably, although weapon is tempting.
LEVEL 16:
Skill feat:
Class feat: Implement's Flight, I suppose. No good fits.
LEVEL 17:
Bump lantern to max, Nature improves as a freebie, Diplomacy improves, Esoteric Lore is expert now.
Ancestry Feat: Heroic Presence.
LEVEL 18:
Class feat: Implement's Assault. Yay, AoE strike!
Skill feat: Legendary Negotiation.
LEVEL 19:
Yay, free action studying!
Skill increase: Performance
LEVEL 20:
Class feat: One of these capstones has an uncommon prereq. Could we try to fit in a fourth option that doesn't require getting GM permission eight levels ago? In fact, it's possible to hit level 20 and not qualify for any capstones. Anyway, Saint only qualifies for one thing: casting one 8th level Primal spell per day.
Overall Impression:
You can probably tell that this kind of stopped working/catching my interest after a certain point. Level 7-8 was the sweet spot. There was a way to talk with rats, visible ghost rats with a bit of GM permission, a cool offering bowl, and possibly a swim speed with a bit more GM permission. But, that all makes sense. Implements were the main connection, and there's a massive gap between 7 and 15 where nothing changes for that feature, so the character stagnates. The other things the character wants aren't good fits for the class- climb and swim speeds aren't relevant, and even if we got them on an implement, the low-level ones are already spoken for.
Within the window from 4th through about… 10 or 12, the build seems like a plenty of fun. And that's entirely reasonable- it's a fundamentally low-level concept, with a core mechanic (combat ghost rats) that isn't balanced or related to the class premise.
The two biggest things the class could do to support the character better are: provide some sort of animal speech option (not terribly unreasonable but probably a space issue), and provide the ability to summon ghostly swarms (definitely unreasonable). An instrument implement would be the ideal third implement for him thematically, although it'd be hard to play a hurdy-gurdy one-handed in a fight.
Anyway, those are just my two closest fits for existing characters. All of my Occultist characters were very heavily tied to specific powers and the focus on objects, so they don't translate well to the class. I'll be trying a build or two where I'm coming up with something from scratch to fit the class, and seeing what it inspires.
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Exactly that. And Esoteric Lore is "supposed" to give you a -2 decrease to DC, so effectively expert. It saves a lot of improvements.That's what Additional Lore is for. It gives you expert in some random lore at 3... despite requiring expert, Unmistakable works on anything you're Trained in.
And alas, until Esoteric Lore goes to expert at level 15 you can't take Unmistakeable Lore skill feat to eliminate crit failures.
Quick note on this : expect HUGE table variance. I play with 2 PFS GMs. One considers you get the -2 because it is a Lore. The other considers it is not a precise Lore and thus you do not get the -2.
Among many good things, the Pathfinder Agent dedication can get you Expert in PFS Lore if you have the Pathfinder Hopeful background.
But really, I despise the Esoteric Lore + Unmistakable Lore exploit because it is almost required due to the incredibly harsh punishment of FF critical failure. Unless you go Cognitive Mutagen of course.
So jumping through hoops so that you're sure you will not risk being harshly punished every time you use your required ability.
It feels very bad. Even worse than the whole Magus and AoOs thing.
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The main benefit to Scroll Thaumaturgy is as a prerequisite for scroll trickery down the line.
Actually, the main benefit IMO is straight up scroll use, picking from any Tradition. The rest of the feat line gives you scrolls that you could buy with your Thaumaturge's spare change.
Greatest spell : Pocket Library for a nice status bonus to RK and the almighty no crit failure on FF.
Exactly that. And Esoteric Lore is "supposed" to give you a -2 decrease to DC, so effectively expert. It saves a lot of improvements.That's what Additional Lore is for. It gives you expert in some random lore at 3... despite requiring expert, Unmistakable works on anything you're Trained in.
And alas, until Esoteric Lore goes to expert at level 15 you can't take Unmistakeable Lore skill feat to eliminate crit failures.Quick note on this : expect HUGE table variance. I play with 2 PFS GMs. One considers you get the -2 because it is a Lore. The other considers it is not a precise Lore and thus you do not get the -2.
Among many good things, the Pathfinder Agent dedication can get you Expert in PFS Lore if you have the Pathfinder Hopeful background.
But really, I despise the Esoteric Lore + Unmistakable Lore exploit because it is almost required due to the incredibly harsh punishment of FF critical failure. Unless you go Cognitive Mutagen of course.
So jumping through hoops so that you're sure you will not risk being harshly punished every time you use your required ability.
It feels very bad. Even worse than the whole Magus and AoOs thing.
Foundry VTT seems to put in DCs that suggest non specific lore is -2 and specific is -5. These might be the converted ROTR monsters I added and not what it does for default monsters. I will check later
In my mind the table variation would be between -2 and -5 and not -2 and 0. Hopefully this gets fixed somehow for the final class