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Alright, this might come off as a crazy rant and ramble but bear with me. If you think it’s all a bunch of nonsense, just say, “Haha! You’re crazy” and move on. I give you permission.
So I’m someone who likes to get every bit of sleep they can during the mornings of their workweek but I woke up an hour early this morning with a truly “aha” moment. All of the pieces just sort of came into place out of nowhere. My conclusion is that the Thaumaturge WANTS to be a gish. Like a straight up spellcasting multiclass martial. It doesn’t NEED to be. It should function perfectly as a straight up martial. But I think the core features of the class heavily imply that the class was designed with spellcasting multiclass in mind. Here are my theories:
The class is a charisma based marital……WHY!? There is little to nothing in the class that is pushing this class to use charisma based skills. You then might say, “Well the big feature of this class needs charisma for Find Flaws. Duh.” But as so many people have pointed out, “Then why not just make intelligence or wisdom the key ability. They obviously make more sense for recall knowledge rolls.” So what else is charisma useful for? Spellcasting. Particularly spontaneous spellcasting. Why is that significant?
Next, the class starts trained in each skill that relates to a magic tradition. This would SEEM to imply, along with Find Flaws, that you want to gradually improve each of these and keep them relatively balanced. Perhaps. But I have another theory. This class IS a monster hunter (however, NOT a man hunter nor a machine hunter). It does want to be at least trained in these skills for Find Flaws and with charisma as its key ability, it needs help getting trained in them all without losing the ability to take other skills. But now I want to bring up Thaumaturgic Expertise and Mastery. These abilities come online at 9th and 17th level. Why is this significant? Well…maybe because they come soon after you are able to increase skills up to master and legendary. Why would that be significant? Well, what requires you to have master and legendary in those skills? SPELLCASTING MULTICLASS FEATS!
Now, to bring it all together. What spellcasting classes are charisma-based? Bard, Sorcerer, Oracle and Summoner. Notice anything about 2 of those 4? The Sorcerer and Summoner are “pick-a-tradition” spellcasters! This is why you get some free improvements on you choice of the spell tradition skills. The Thaumaturge is nudging you to pick up a spontaneous charisma-based spellcasting multiclass of tradition of your choosing and it wants you to specialize in foes related to that tradition. You have trained in the other traditions’ skills and you can pick up Esoteric Lore to cover your bases better on other monsters outside of your specialized skill but the Thaumaturge still wants to specialize. As an example, and I hardy have any competent knowledge on these characters but, didn’t John Constantine specialize in demons and undead and less (if at all) on things like dragons and fey? Didn’t Abraham Van Helsing specialize pretty much exclusively in undead? Didn’t Harry Dresden deal more with the arcane and fey over other magical beings? (This is the one I really have the least knowledge of so forgive me if I insulted the character. I know. I’m a bad nerd.)
Additionally, and this may be reaching even further but, the other 2 classes, the bard and oracle, are occult and divine spellcasters. My theory…..and it’s not set in stone obviously but….the Thaumaturge might be the new Occultist AND Inquisitor. Yes, you can choose either of those traditions with Sorcerer or Summoner but Bard and Oracle have their own flavor. The Bard IS the iconic occult class and the Oracle, while blessed (or cursed) with divine power is not necessarily beholden to a deity. Combine those with a martial class and I think you have the makings for the Occultist and Inquisitor. The Thaumaturge class feats definitely support more of the Occultist playstyle. The Inquisitor….not so much. I do believe the Inquisitor still has a good shot at becoming its own class but I think this will be a great surrogate class for now.
Lastly, I know you might be asking, “But the Witch was an intelligence ‘pick-a-tradition’ class. Why isn’t the Thaumaturge intelligence based?” I have two theories. The Occultist and Inquisitor (which I believe this class is supposed to cover both for now) were spontaneous spell casters. The other intelligence based spellcasters are arcane. Also, the Psychic is able to be intelligence- OR charisma-based. Paizo might have anticipated more excitement for the Thaumaturge versus the Psychic so they didn’t want the Thaumaturge wading into Psychic territory too much. With the pressure from the community, I do think the Thaumaturge might end up with the option of intelligence, if not also wisdom, as a key ability option, but it still needs to have a mental ability for its key ability.
I’ve spend nearly an hour writing up these half-awake ramblings. And I’m sure I have more crackpot theories about this but I will leave it here. I hope this was coherent. I hope it inspires builds. I hope it warms others past some initial difficulties I had with the class. I can safely say, I do really like the class. It does have some rough edges still, but so far, it's great. Thanks Paizo.
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The issue is action economy from being a spellcaster
My current rogue with sorcerer dedication struggles to find the two actions for buffs like haste or stoneskin due to needing to move and often use “preparation”
Thaumaturge seems to have even more pressure on actions
@John R. Interesting take. I was just thinking this afternoon that given the propensity in PF2 of “dedication +” builds there seems to be a lack of discrete discussion of each new playtest class AS a multiclass option. Glad you lost some sleep so we could share your ramblings!
This highlights a potential flaw in the playtest - I am not sure how many people outside of PFS play without free archetype
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So I kind of don't agree with you. I mean, while having a spellcasting dedication is always a nice bonus, I don't think that the thaumaturge theme fits a true spellcaster, I mean, you are a character that isn't bound to any tradition, that uses every little shenanigan that you can to make something work, not a being with god(or other being)-given power that simply does magic
I think the theme totally fits with a myriad of spellcaster concepts; and there are plenty of folks for whom “theme” is a far distant country they arrive at once they have left “build” and are about to “start the game”.
I like the thought and it sounds alright to me, except why would they leave out what completes the class, if it was intended to have multiclass, why wouldn't they build it in the chassis, like Eldritch Trickster? Leave it open so you can have fighter or wizard or sorcerer, whatever works best for your character so you're not locked into any particular style.
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I'm not sure if I'm being misunderstood or I'm misunderstanding, but this was all just an observation about how the Thaumaturge seems to be designed to encourage a charisma-based spellcasting multiclass. Not that it is necessary for the class to function properly or that free archetypes are needed for it to function either. Just a "oh how cool!" observation. I'm also not suggesting the Thaumaturge should itself be a spellcasting multiclass. That seems to be the impression some seem to be getting as well.... Maybe I misspoke somewhere since I wasnt completely mentally present for the OP.
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Moreover, while I agree that almost everyone uses free archetypes,...
When was that survey done?
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And John Constantine is a caster, a very powerful one at that.
He's mastered black magic so he avoids using it, also because casting errors have killed his family, his girlfriend's father (a powerful, noble magician himself), and innocents. He's like a Wild Mage except tied to Evil instead of Chaos.
So yeah, he uses his deep knowledge to wield objects of power instead, of which he's accumulated many (and lost many too, yet he still functioned without them).
His martial skills are described as "basic", he resorts to cunning before magical firepower, and I don't think he's the one imbuing power into the objects so much as he can trigger them. That's a hard fit into PF2 so yeah, I can understand the Thaumaturge having those items tied to the class rather than the PCs' wealth. But I'd say that even stripped down to his essential features he's a con artist steeped in dark knowledge who uses items to cast spells that target actual weaknesses. Hardly seems a martial exploiting faux weaknesses. Not that there isn't room for such in PF2, it's just the example Constantine could not be built w/ the Thaumaturge class.
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As for the OP, if I had to invest into Charisma for a martial class, I'd likely pick up some innate spells along the way and maybe a spellcasting MCD. It'd be low hanging fruit once you've invested in the stat.
And I think that would help the Thaumaturge's image as a dabbler (as well as broaden one's utility).
@John R.: - I’m totally with everything you said. I’m happy to entertain other peeps feelings about free archetypes and being part of a spellcaster multiclass/dedication.
@Foak - For me I can see the spellcasting being an “against-type” concept, or even a naive caster trope. I can totally see a non-spell using thaumaturge (obviously) but the spellcasting thaumaturge opens up limitless narrative character themes and options.
I would most likely go Scroll Trickster Archetype and combine it with the Thaumaturge's own scroll feats if I wanted to add magic to the class. Much more fitting and flexible than getting a single tradition spellcasting archetype. Getting Trick Magic Item from the Dedicatio doesn't hurt either. You don't need it for the scrolls, but wands and other magic items exist.
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I would most likely go Scroll Trickster Archetype and combine it with the Thaumaturge's own scroll feats if I wanted to add magic to the class. Much more fitting and flexible than getting a single tradition spellcasting archetype. Getting Trick Magic Item from the Dedicatio doesn't hurt either. You don't need it for the scrolls, but wands and other magic items exist.
That's a good point. I personally like Bard plus the Scroll feats since it easily replicates the original Occultist with the spontaneous psychic casting plus various pseudo-prepared focus powers.
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I like the thought and it sounds alright to me, except why would they leave out what completes the class, if it was intended to have multiclass, why wouldn't they build it in the chassis, like Eldritch Trickster? Leave it open so you can have fighter or wizard or sorcerer, whatever works best for your character so you're not locked into any particular style.
My thought is the Eldritch Trickster is a subclass for the Rogue but the "subclasses" for the Thaumaturge are their implements. Also, I'm not saying the class is incomplete without a spellcasting multiclass. I'm just saying there is innate support in the core of the class for a spellcasting dedication because I believe the Thaumaturge is supposed to be very open ended. It is heavily based on the PF1 Occultist which, depending on the build could be a class with A LOT of spellcasting (including focus powers) or it could be very martial. As is, the Thaumaturge on its own is balanced between the various roles it can take on. You might need to take on an archetype to be particularly focused on a role and for a spellcasting dedication, you need to have up to legendary in a skill to fill it out. I believe they added that bonus skill progression in the Thaumaturge to support those prerequisites as well as their Find Flaws abilities so you're not forced into giving up other skills. It might just be a coincidence after all but it's a very nice coincidence.