I have no skills to call my own (Generalist vs Specialist)

[Rysky]

So the immediately noticeable thing about Thaumaturge is that they're Trained in Arcana, Nature, Occult, and Religion (plus two more Skills plus whatever their Intelligence modifier is).

This looks really cool on paper, until you realize that since you use Recall Knowledge for your Core Mechanic you won't have any room Skill-wise to boost other skills other than your Recall Knowledge, especially when you add in wanting to grab Society as well.

So while there's a pretty big constraint another issue arises when looking at it's abilities, should the Thaumaturge be the generalist/master of none type (Archivist)? Or should they double down on dealing with monsters/hazard (Inquisitor)?

I personally lean towards the latter since we already have the generalist with Bards but then also the Int based classes such as Investigator and Wizard, etc.

So a way to solve that and free up some space is give the Class a built in Unique Monster/Hazard/Opposition Lore* that Find Flaws works off of and advances with them rather than eating up all your Skill stuff.

*Esoterica Lore doesn't cut it since it's only Trained and then you only get Expert when you get one of your other Class Skills to Legendary. It just doesn't keep up.

[Exocist]

Esoteric Lore does keep up, but barely

Even without considering the DC adjustment for generalist lores (which is a headache in of itself - do they count for -2? 0?), level-based DCs increase by 25, level accounts for 19 of that.

Increasing cha from 18 to 22 is +2, diadem of intellect is +3, and the expert boost is +2, meaning you are 1 ahead from where you started.

Now the problem is that Diadem is a big +3 at 17, the expert bonus is at 15, and the cha bonuses are 10 and 20, so for most of the game you are behind until you are suddenly vaunted back to being equal.

Unless you play ABP and can skill potency your esoteric lore...

[Rysky]

Not really, since those bonuses apply to your your other RK Skills.

And as you point out you're behind for most of the Campaign. That's not fun.

Expert is +4, Legendary is +8, it's a noticeable difference.

[Exocist]

Rysky wrote:

Not really, since those bonuses apply to your your other RK Skills.

And as you point out you're behind for most of the Campaign. That's not fun.

Expert is +4, Legendary is +8, it's a noticeable difference.

Keeps up compared to the DCs of your level (so your success rate is roughly equivalent across all levels), increasing to legendary is a success bonus.

Though there's also the other issue of rarer monsters being more common at higher levels which skews your DCs above the table...

[OCEANSHIELDWOLPF 2.0]

I like the idea Rysky, as it definitely frees up those skills. And your Unique Thaumaturgy skill could be supported by skill feats (can’t believe I’m saying that) AND have non-combat interactions and applications beyond Find Flaw/EA still undreamt of. (Well, definitely dreamt, but not posted here….)

[cheezeofjustice]

I think some feat (or just giving it to the base ability) that makes you totally ignore rarity to RK would fix it as Lore skills has lower DCs they scaled better than first glance would make you think.

Maybe something that lets you research targets (which you could even use Gather Information for research) and then later it upgrades to not need prior research. That way if you are tracking something you can take a little downtime, remove the rarity penalty and go after it. Very flavorful. But if you are jumped by something it's tricky, but with lot's of hunting experience you can deduce things, removing the penalty with experience in place of the research.

Thinking on it, some feat or ability to retrain Additional Lore faster would be flavorful but maybe too strong.

[Dubious Scholar]

Maybe give a class feature that allows you to use Occultism to Recall Knowledge for Find Flaws regardless of the creature type, but if used this way it can only give the results of Find Flaws (e.g. what to hit it with) and not other things like special attacks to watch out for, etc.

[Zwordsman]

I would still be a fan of wraping esoteric lore into the class itself. Then allowing it to scale in class. Similar to how most c lass DCs scale. That way it is not tied specifically to things. Allowing you to actually make one with different skills or a focused skillset. So you could actually have the skillsets of characters like Geralt or Darksouls. With basic trained in various knowledges. but have your scaling effect for your Find Flaw/antithesis.

I wouldn't want it to focus down on any specific knowledge like occultist. As that would lock out other flavor or backgrounds. I could see it allowing you to "chose one from the list" and tie it to that. That would allow you to at least choose the flavor of it. Occultist, religion crafting etc.

Im still a fan of tying it all into esoteric lore, limiting that lore to recall knowledge vs creatures and such. (currently you can use it on aANY recall knowledge rolls.. which is great but also a lot if we're tying it into the class). Then havea feat that might allow it to work on more topics.