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Okay. So I started another thread here that kinda ballooned out of control and basically devolved into a back-and-forth about if Thamaturges should be Int-based or not. And while that was going on I was doing some thinking and I kinda finally came to the conclusion of what Bothered me about the Thamaturge, and what I would do to fix it.
In my opinion, any class base chassis should be able to do its base thing without being ‘forced’ to take certain feats/skills. Fighters are good at fighting no matter if you have lore-warfare or lore-underwater basket weaving. A cleric has a plethora of heal/harm spells no matter what spells they choose to memorize, The rogue can sneak attack even if they don’t increase stealth by flanking or other means. Bottom line, as long as your stat allocation is reasonable, you should be able to do your ‘base thing’ even without skills and feats. Or, to put it another way, if you need to take certain skill/feats to make your class work, what is the point in having any choice at level up? Why not just play a JRPG where all your level-ups are automatic?
The bard does this because a lot of their class features are based on the perform skill so you have to keep it leveled, the magus and wizard do this for arcana to copy spells into their spellbook, but Thamaturge takes this to a whole different level in that they need to level 5 different skills (technically six, with crafting) to make their base class work. Not only does that not leave room for anything else, they just can’t keep it appropriately leveled anyway. And that leaves no room for Thamaturges to have any fun with boosting any other skills.
What I would do is make esoteric lore a class feature, but change it so it can only recall knowledge of creatures- call it ‘monster lore’ or something. Then have it auto level to expert at 7 and master at 14ish. That way you can use your base class abilities but there is still a chance you might fail against higher level/unique monsters.
Second, I know that the original idea behind the occultist was ‘asking the universe to let your made-up-BS work.’ And charisma is the stat for that. But somewhere between original concept to page, the Thamaturge has mutated into ‘figuring out loopholes in how the universe works through research, and exploiting the crap out of them.’ That is much more Int based. And let’s face it, if the occultist is supposed to be learned and well-read in all these obscure rituals, then they need to have a chance to use them outside of monster identification. A Thamaturge trained in occultism should have a pretty good idea on how to disrupt an occult ritual, but between needing points in strength or dex to actually hit monsters and charisma to make use of their class features. . . They just don’t have it. The lvl 1 playtest occultist I built ended up with 10 int and wis just because they ran out of points. So our supposed Van-Hellsing master of the occult had an Occultism skill of +3 when he wasn’t identifying monsters. It just doesn’t jive with the rest of the class. And it wouldn’t be bad for, say one skill, but FOUR(Crafting/Arcane/Society/Occultism?). That is why I make the case for making the Thamaturge Int-based. And look, if you are dead set on keeping a Thamaturge as a charisma class, then they need to be able to apply charisma to arcane/nature/religion/Occultism for more than just monster weaknesses.
I like the idea of a class based around monster identification and esoteric knowledge, like a magic version of an investigator, but it’s not quite there yet. It just doesn’t work.
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My biggest problem with letting the Thaumaturge be INT based, is that if they are actually finding these secret little loop-holes, wouldn't other people be able to exploit them as well once they were learned?
I think the thing that the lore of the class really has to explain more clearly is that this character is a charlatan who's lies become real, if even only for a moment, rather than a character that is actually exposing cracks and weaknesses in the innate workings of the universe.
I think the magic focused version of the investigator should actually be an investigator, and perhaps a wisdom-based religion or nature recall knowledge based character might still be best served by being its own later class.
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My biggest problem with letting the Thaumaturge be INT based, is that if they are actually finding these secret little loop-holes, wouldn't other people be able to exploit them as well once they were learned?
I think the thing that the lore of the class really has to explain more clearly is that this character is a charlatan who's lies become real, if even only for a moment, rather than a character that is actually exposing cracks and weaknesses in the innate workings of the universe.
I think the magic focused version of the investigator should actually be an investigator, and perhaps a wisdom-based religion or nature recall knowledge based character might still be best served by being its own later class.
I view it as learning/doing calculus. I could tell you the answer to A problem, but that is not going to help much in the long run. If I know how to do this then this then this then this to exploit a weakness because of conditions a, b, c, and d, then it works. If you tell that to a friend in the moment, they won’t have the nessissary gear on them (remember, part of the class feature is your giant pile of esoteric crap). If, next time, they bring the nessissary gear, oh no, the conditions have changed and so you need this and that and the other thing now. And if you spend the time to teach your friend all the tricks, then hey, they just took Thamaturge dedication!
Yeah, but if your calculus tells you where the correct place is to hammer in a nail, then anyone hammering in that nail should be putting that nail in the right place. The Thaumaturge is not doing that though. Sometimes they might be right enough for someone else to use the same kind of attack and affect the weakness the same way, but oftentimes they won't be, and it still doesn't matter.
Esoteric Antithesis is very much a charisma ability and not any other mental attribute ability.
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I think the class confuses identifying patterns with creating new ones. That can have really big ramifications on the mechanics and overall feel of the class, like some that you have mentioned.
I can identify 3 possible and valid routes that would affect the amount of power budget dedicated to Recall Knowledge, creating weaknesses and the kind of skills you're going to see more often:
Charisma: Eschew the knowledge and preparation elements and focus more on improvisation and the force of personality.
Intelligence: The exact opposite of Charisma.
Wisdom: A middle ground to justify knowledge with intuition and force of personality with connecting with the world (like a Druid).
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I posted a rather different approach in the very poorly named Inquisitor subtypes thread. (I'm really sorry. I got the two twisted in my head, and once I'd posted I wasn't able to fix it).
Basically, I think the thaumaturge as descriped is pretty cool. I think they need a little something more to leverage their charisma in a way that's... charismatic? Like, give them the feats that let you really twist the wording and cheat and get away with it on pacts/contracts. Let them be the ones that are good at tempting pixies with pizza. Stuff like that. Basically, let Constantine be Constantine... but don't make everyone else also have to be Constantine.
Give us an int-based version that's better at prep and worse at being ambushed, and you have your Van Helsing and your Geralt. Give them some sort of feat set that lets them do much of their investigation beforehand if they know what's coming. This one pairs really well with Investigator - either as a fellow party member or as an archetype... which, honestly, is as it should be. The bit where an investigator digs up evidence about the enemy to come, and the Thaumaturgist manages to cook up something special to use against them is the kind of synergy I want to see. Have them walk in next to an alchemist to really work that advance prep mojo.
Give us a wisdom-based version that invokes relics and obscure bits of sacred apocrypha, and very specific prayers to very specific beings for very specific blessings, and maybe a celestial pact/contract. The stuff that people like about Inquisitor is basically fully covered, but without any of the built-in unfortunate implications. How is this not a win?
All three of these fit pretty iconic images, and all of them work really well with the underlying base mechanics of the Thaumaturge. a bit of extra space to split out the int vs cha vs wis, and maybe a few subtype-specific feats for each, and you're covering a notably broader range of character concepts, with minimal additional game-balance complexity. Is this not a good thing?
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Yeah, but if your calculus tells you where the correct place is to hammer in a nail, then anyone hammering in that nail should be putting that nail in the right place. The Thaumaturge is not doing that though. Sometimes they might be right enough for someone else to use the same kind of attack and affect the weakness the same way, but oftentimes they won't be, and it still doesn't matter.
Esoteric Antithesis is very much a charisma ability and not any other mental attribute ability.
Maybe calculus wasn’t the best metaphor, but I think my point is still salient. Let’s say on day 1 you fight Steve McLichypants (a Litch). You do your recall knowledge to figure out he has a weakness to positive energy. You and the fighter don’t have positive energy on you, but through your pile of junk, the feng shui of the room, the position of the stars, the time of the month and year, you are able to exploit a cosmic loophole that lets you attach a clipping of a holy scroll of Saranrae to your weapon, and through all these amplifications and sympathetic Magics, let’s your weapon trigger the positivity weakness.
You fail to destroy the phalactory, Lich comes back the next month and you fight him again, this time the fighter has brought a piece of the same scroll but OH NO! It’s daytime instead of night, you are fighting in a different room, the time of year is all wrong for Saranrae, to do ther thing! there aren’t enough boosters in play for that scroll to work. Now because of the way this is set up the best thing to do is issue the exact right prayer to Pharasma while holding the nucklebone of a defeated Urgathoan priest! Surely you would have known that if you had done the reading like I had Mr. Fighter.
You fail to destroy the phalactory, Lich comes back the next month and you fight him again, this time the fighter has brought a piece of the same scroll but OH NO! It’s daytime instead of night, you are fighting in a different room, the time of year is all wrong for Saranrae, to do ther thing! there aren’t enough boosters in play for that scroll to work. Now because of the way this is set up the best thing to do is issue the exact right prayer to Pharasma while holding the nucklebone of a defeated Urgathoan priest! Surely you would have known that if you had done the reading like I had Mr. Fighter.
Even then there's the question of "Well, why didn't you hook him up with a knucklebone and a quick session to teach him that prayer, then, since you clearly knew that stuff?"
Admittedly, that's an interesting set of potential feats all its own, but there needs to be some sort of explanation why it works for you and not for other people.
Thus why I like the runes-and-invocations idea... because it's the sort of thing that makes sense as something that a specialist could pull off (just like wielding your implements in general) but not so much for the guy standing next to the specialist who's being given a quick briefing.
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I posted a rather different approach in the very poorly named Inquisitor subtypes thread. (I'm really sorry. I got the two twisted in my head, and once I'd posted I wasn't able to fix it).
Basically, I think the thaumaturge as descriped is pretty cool. I think they need a little something more to leverage their charisma in a way that's... charismatic? Like, give them the feats that let you really twist the wording and cheat and get away with it on pacts/contracts. Let them be the ones that are good at tempting pixies with pizza. Stuff like that. Basically, let Constantine be Constantine... but don't make everyone else also have to be Constantine.
Give us an int-based version that's better at prep and worse at being ambushed, and you have your Van Helsing and your Geralt. Give them some sort of feat set that lets them do much of their investigation beforehand if they know what's coming. This one pairs really well with Investigator - either as a fellow party member or as an archetype... which, honestly, is as it should be. The bit where an investigator digs up evidence about the enemy to come, and the Thaumaturgist manages to cook up something special to use against them is the kind of synergy I want to see. Have them walk in next to an alchemist to really work that advance prep mojo.
Give us a wisdom-based version that invokes relics and obscure bits of sacred apocrypha, and very specific prayers to very specific beings for very specific blessings, and maybe a celestial pact/contract. The stuff that people like about Inquisitor is basically fully covered, but without any of the built-in unfortunate implications. How is this not a win?
All three of these fit pretty iconic images, and all of them work really well with the underlying base mechanics of the Thaumaturge. a bit of extra space to split out the int vs cha vs wis, and maybe a few subtype-specific feats for each, and you're covering a...
I wouldn’t mind that. Like rogue rackets/investigator methodologies, have different builds that you choose to focus on. But find weakness still need to be fixed.
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Yeah, but if your calculus tells you where the correct place is to hammer in a nail, then anyone hammering in that nail should be putting that nail in the right place. The Thaumaturge is not doing that though. Sometimes they might be right enough for someone else to use the same kind of attack and affect the weakness the same way, but oftentimes they won't be, and it still doesn't matter.
Esoteric Antithesis is very much a charisma ability and not any other mental attribute ability.
Maybe calculus wasn’t the best metaphor, but I think my point is still salient. Let’s say on day 1 you fight Steve McLichypants (a Litch). You do your recall knowledge to figure out he has a weakness to positive energy. You and the fighter don’t have positive energy on you, but through your pile of junk, the feng shui of the room, the position of the stars, the time of the month and year, you are able to exploit a cosmic loophole that lets you attach a clipping of a holy scroll of Saranrae to your weapon, and through all these amplifications and sympathetic Magics, let’s your weapon trigger the positivity weakness.
You fail to destroy the phalactory, Lich comes back the next month and you fight him again, this time the fighter has brought a piece of the same scroll but OH NO! It’s daytime instead of night, you are fighting in a different room, the time of year is all wrong for Saranrae, to do ther thing! there aren’t enough boosters in play for that scroll to work. Now because of the way this is set up the best thing to do is issue the exact right prayer to Pharasma while holding the nucklebone of a defeated Urgathoan priest! Surely you would have known that if you had done the reading like I had Mr. Fighter.
Even then there's the question of "Well, why didn't you hook him up with a knucklebone and a quick session to teach him that prayer, then, since you clearly knew that stuff?"
Admittedly, that's an interesting set of potential feats all its...
Because if you don’t fight him until this night or fight him while he’s repentant or fight him in a different room it would be something different.
The point is, the way I see it, there are too many variables for you to plan for ahead of time. And if you teach someone to plan for each variable, that’s taking the dedication feat.
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My biggest problem with letting the Thaumaturge be INT based, is that if they are actually finding these secret little loop-holes, wouldn't other people be able to exploit them as well once they were learned?
I think the thing that the lore of the class really has to explain more clearly is that this character is a charlatan who's lies become real, if even only for a moment, rather than a character that is actually exposing cracks and weaknesses in the innate workings of the universe.
I'd be cool with this, but that argument just further pulls the Thaumaturge away from it making sense for them to use Recall Knowledge to find real weaknesses. Maybe they should all by esoteric nonsense that only works for the Thaumaturge.
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My biggest problem with letting the Thaumaturge be INT based, is that if they are actually finding these secret little loop-holes, wouldn't other people be able to exploit them as well once they were learned?
That is exactly what happens when you identify a weakness with Recall Knowledge, which is something this version of the Thaumaturge will do a lot.
Because if you don’t fight him until this night or fight him while he’s repentant or fight him in a different room it would be something different.
The point is, the way I see it, there are too many variables for you to plan for ahead of time. And if you teach someone to plan for each variable, that’s taking the dedication feat.
You're standing outside his door. You know he's in there. You know what time it is, you know what room it is. You have your bag of All The Things... and you can't just turn to your buddy, shortly before you bust down the door, slap something on his sword and teach him a quick prayer? It doesn't need to be very far ahead of time, after all.
Now, I think the "buff your buddy" option here is a potentially interesting place to go for feats. We see similar things out of the ranger, for example. I just think we need some reason why you can't jsut do it from the start, and "it's too complicated to plan ahead" doesn't really make a lot of sense there. The charisma version is basically running off of highly bastardized occult spellcasting. No reason why the others can't do the same.
I actually rather like the image of the wisdom-based version, in their downtime, performing the occasional very obscure worship ritual dedicated to very obscure divine spirits or whatever.
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Because if you don’t fight him until this night or fight him while he’s repentant or fight him in a different room it would be something different.
The point is, the way I see it, there are too many variables for you to plan for ahead of time. And if you teach someone to plan for each variable, that’s taking the dedication feat.
You're standing outside his door. You know he's in there. You know what time it is, you know what room it is. You have your bag of All The Things... and you can't just turn to your buddy, shortly before you bust down the door, slap something on his sword and teach him a quick prayer? It doesn't need to be very far ahead of time, after all.
Now, I think the "buff your buddy" option here is a potentially interesting place to go for feats. We see similar things out of the ranger, for example. I just think we need some reason why you can't jsut do it from the start, and "it's too complicated to plan ahead" doesn't really make a lot of sense there. The charisma version is basically running off of highly bastardized occult spellcasting. No reason why the others can't do the same.
I actually rather like the image of the wisdom-based version, in their downtime, performing the occasional very obscure worship ritual dedicated to very obscure divine spirits or whatever.
First of all, we are getting in the weeds here. I said that I was okay with a charisma primary stat so long as they let charisma apply to more than just monster identification.
But to answer your question: you don’t have enough nucklebones/scrollshards/epsom salts/underwater-weaved baskets to go around. Or the hand gesture is too complex to memorize in five seconds. Or the good old fashioned not knowing enough. Do you have any idea how often people in my life have have mucked up expressly written step-by-step instructions because they didn’t understand the underlying theory? I once told a coworker to order four medium pizzas or a pizza party because they were BOGO,, one pepperoni, one ham, one cheese, one green pepper. He came back with three pizzas the wrong size, one was half sausage half green peppers, one pepperoni, one ham. Do you expect your 8 Int barbarian to memorize complex theological prayers while holding something in his left hand and also going into a rage?
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Man I love this class a lot and I really hope feedback like this doesn't ruin it in the final version.
Man I love this class a lot and I really hope feedback like this doesn't ruin it in the final version.
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Man I love this class a lot and I really hope feedback like this doesn't ruin it in the final version.
If there's any indication from past playtests, Paizo usually turns to us to find out what the problems are but don't usually listen to us for the solutions (which is smart imo).
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Man I love this class a lot and I really hope feedback like this doesn't ruin it in the final version.If there's any indication from past playtests, Paizo usually turns to us to find out what the problems are but don't usually listen to us for the solutions (which is smart imo).
Just in general across fields, this is true. It's better to come to our own solutions (which may match the solutions someone here suggests, even if we reach them on our own and it doesn't mean we aren't "listening"), but only you can find the issues. The analogy to another field, say, medicine, is maybe you are someone who is pretty knowledgeable and looked things up on WebMD and a few other websites, and so you go to the doctor and say "I looked my problems up on WebMD, I've figured out what I think is causing my problems and I'm pretty sure I need <treatment X>" and the doctor might be like "OK, though I'd like to hear the symptoms first." It might be a match in the end to what the doctor prescribes, but the most useful thing to the doctor to decide what to do is the symptoms.