Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Going over the feedback for Find Flaws and Esoteric Antithesis, it seems like the community agrees on a few core issues:
1. Recall Knowledge difficulty from rarity (and general integration, given the Additional Knowledge rule).
2. Action tax (generally one action and a roll for every new creature, occasionally two actions or more).
3. Having to re-roll Recall Knowledge against multiple identical creatures.
4. No effective upside against creatures that already have a weakness you can exploit.
5. Very little usage of Charisma, Thaumaturge's key ability score.
With that in mind, here's how I would change the Find Flaws and Esoteric Antithesis if a player of mine wanted to use the class in a serious, long-term campaign:
Find Flaws
[Thaumaturge]
One Action
Frequency Once per Round
Choose a creature you can see or are specifically researching in advance during exploration. Roll an Esoteric Check with a bonus of your Class DC-10 against the standard DC of the creature’s level.
Critical Success You learn all of the creature’s resistances, weaknesses, and immunities. You may apply Esoteric Antithesis to any creature of that kind you encounter until the next time you use Find Flaws.
Success You learn the creature’s highest weakness. You may apply Esoteric Antithesis to any creature of that kind you encounter until the next time you use Find Flaws.
Failure You may apply Esoteric Antithesis to any creature of that kind you encounter until the next time you use Find Flaws.
Critical Failure You become flat-footed until the next round.
Note: “All creatures of that kind” refers to all creatures that use the same statistics, such as all Goblin Warriors (but not Goblin Pyros, even if they are in the same family of monsters).
Feats and effects that refer to Find Flaws’ Recall Knowledge check should be altered to refer to its Esoteric check, and the Lantern Initiate Benefit should be altered so that it adds its status bonus to Find Flaws' Esoteric Check in addition to the current effects.
Esoteric Antithesis
[Thaumaturge] [Esoterica] [Magical]
Free Action
Frequency once per round
Requirement There is a creature that is currently affected by your find flaws in vision that is not currently affected by Esoteric Antithesis, and you have not made any attacks this round.
You Interact to apply specific esoterica to yourself and your weapons; you can perform this Interact action with the hand holding your implement. Your unarmed and weapon Strikes against the creature become magical if they weren’t already, and you cause them to apply one of the target creature’s weaknesses even if they don’t deal the correct type of damage. If the creature has a weakness with a value of 2 + half your level or higher that you know of, set the type of weakness to the creature’s highest weakness and you gain a status bonus to damage equal to the number of damage dice against that creature. Otherwise, you create a custom weakness with a value equal to 2 + half your level; this weakness applies only to your Strikes. In addition, you can use your charisma bonus on attack rolls instead of strength or dexterity against creatures affected by esoteric antithesis. This effect lasts until you use Find Flaws or Esoteric Antithesis again.
End Effect:
1. Recall Knolwedge is entirely separate from Find Flaws. This permits Find Flaws to avoid the rarity penalties, but also means it can't benefit from other bonuses to Recall Knowledge (such as the Scholarly Journal).
2. Action economy is much more forgiving. You can only have Esoteric Antithesis on one target at a time, but all targets that are identical instances of the same creature take no actions to swap between. Find Flaws is only ever one action, spent when you need to change between different kinds of creatures. However, you can't change Esoteric Antithesis between creatures mid-turn: once you make an attack, your current Esoteric Antithesis is locked in.
3. Basic increased damage against creatures you can already exploit the weakness of. It's not a lot, but it makes planning ahead with the proper preparations baseline fulfilling.
4. Charisma can now be used on attack rolls against your current Esoteric Antithesis target.
Possible Issues:
1. The bonus to the Esoteric roll is basically a hypothetical spell attack bonus, but the formula might be confusing at a glance.
2. Given that Thaumaturge's damage is pretty good when it works properly, removing the need to spend an action to change targets is possibly too strong. On the other hand, given Thaumaturge's general lackluster health and saves, it also might just be class balance.
3. Do elite/weak variants of creatures count as the same creature for Find Flaws? GM ruling, I guess.
This obviously doesn't fix all the issues, but I think it's closer to what was intended for Find Flaws and Esoteric Antithesis. It gives a reason for the two of them to be different actions, clarifies the use of using Find Flaws during exploration, and permits Thaumaturge to have good and reliable damage output to go along with its lacking durability.
You could also add something to the effect of using Charisma to hit instead of STR/DEX when it comes to Esoteric Antithesis. Would reduce some of the MAD issues of the class.
This also seems like it'd helpfully combine with Implement Empowerment as well, which already exists as a strange hangers-on which shifts the class's internal balance more towards "hit things" than "dude with a bunch of weird junk they carry around".
Additionally, you could still use some sort of skill or something for Find Flaws, such as a Thaumaturgy Lore.
EDIT: Already see you did the first one. Couldn't find it at first since Charisma wasn't capitalized.
I like this implementation, though I do think the Find Flaws check could be cleaned up a bit more.
@LostDeep: I like this variant. One other advantage that you didn't list:
It works well on multiple encounters. If you run into zombies in room 1 you Find Flaws and go to town. If you run into more zombies in room 4 the DC didn't go up like it would with Recall Knowledge.
New encounter new check also works nicely with multiple adventures that might use the same statblocks or not, but are some time apart. So you don't have to ask "are these the same type of zombies as last week in the other dungeon with the other BBEG?"
I liked the @LostDeep variant too but I still think that both FF and EA could be merged. Also I don't like that EA only works for the thauma only. Is more fun and flavorful if the thauma could benefit the entire party debuffing (weaking) his opponent instead of just buffing his own attacks to do more damage.
Unless I'm missing something, it loos like in this case the skill check will scale with your class DC, which scales a bit slower than a skill would. Otherwise, I do think this fix is definitely in the right direction!
Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
BendKing wrote:
Unless I'm missing something, it loos like in this case the skill check will scale with your class DC, which scales a bit slower than a skill would. Otherwise, I do think this fix is definitely in the right direction!
I did some fast math, and the difference between Thaumaturge's class DC and baseline skill DC for level floats between 0 and 2 with the bias toward class DC, so you'll never roll above a ten and fail as long as you keep Charisma maxed. At the same time, this means that the only way to improve your esoteric roll is by taking the Lantern. It's not the most satisfying fix, but without a solid skill check to attach it to that scales like a normal skill (so, not Esoteric Lore) there isn't a good way to get that. In my opinion it's better than having to maintain about 6 different skills, but it still could use improvement.
Overall I like much in this, especially the action/target economy and the way you add damage even if there is an existing weakness.
I would rather avoid CHA to attack though, as this feels too much like an Investigator copycat and really no Thaumaturge-like character hits better thanks to high CHA the way Sherlock Holmes hits better thanks to high INT.
I think that, when using EA, the Thaumaturge should be able to lower saves or AC or the target's attacks (or damage) in addition to gaining the extra damage.
This could be done by inflicting conditions, as others have stated on the boards. I think also that there could be synergy with the combat abilities of CHA-skills. Maybe the target for FF should be Will DC rather than RK DC.
I think it would tie nicely with FF being based on CHA as you impose your conviction about the weakness on your opponent (rather than on the universe).
I might give a new opponent of the same kind (as defined by the OP) a Will save to try and break the chain, thereby requiring a new FF check to be affected.
I have my own issues with Antithesis, but I'll reiterate a few points on why I think these aren't quite that:
LostDeep wrote:
1. Recall Knowledge difficulty from rarity (and general integration, given the Additional Knowledge rule).
2. Action tax (generally one action and a roll for every new creature, occasionally two actions or more).
3. Having to re-roll Recall Knowledge against multiple identical creatures.
4. No effective upside against creatures that already have a weakness you can exploit.
5. Very little usage of Charisma, Thaumaturge's key ability score.
1. set the DC on the task not the encounter. RK's DC is based on the rarity of the information, as per CRB. "red dragons breathe fire" is not a DC 50, even if you're facing an ancient wyrm.
2. No counter-argument here.
3. Absolutely agree.
4. Creatures' weaknesses are normally much higher than custom weaknesses and thaum feats do not work on custom weaknesses. This is unlikely to be taken seriously.
5. Agree in passing, similar to Inventor, but not as dramatic.
I've been typing up a long and detailed feedback thread on my laptop, and then left it next to a window. In Australia. I hope it recovers. For now, I'm gonna go with the thought that the idea of Find Flaw and Esoteric Antithesis as a dual action is probably unnecessary, and propose the following:
Esoteric Knowledge (lv1)
[thaumaturge]
You know weird stuff and the like. When using any skill to Recall Knowledge about a creature you can perceive (either by sight or other senses), you can use your Charisma modifier instead of the usual ability modifier for the skill you're using.
Esoteric Antithesis (lv1) (1-action)
[esoterica] [ magical] [thaumaturge]
You search through your esoterica to find the right trinket that will apply a weakness to your attacks against a creature. You must have some sort of knowledge of that creature to do this, for example due to a successful Recall Knowledge or previous research.
[insert rest of text here]
This removes a lot of the jankiness, rewards previous preparation, and allows to "switch targets" without having to roll again, but still keeps the action requirement and the charisma substitution. Note that if you have no knowledge of the target, this is a nerf, which is why this is a segment of what I'm going to write down and not the whole thing (yes it's intended), but I have a laptop to fix before I can get to all that.
In the full feedback, I'm hoping for a reduction of reliance on Antithesis and possibly the emergence of multiple versions of it... but we'll see.
On more reflection, I honestly don't think FF/EA needs to be a damage boost at all. "Hit hard" is hardly a niche, and it could do more interesting things such as apply various conditions on your opponent instead, with different items producing different effects. This also contrasts well with the more recent classes which don't really do anything with conditions and allows there to finally be reliable sources of some of the rarer conditions (such as Sickened) to exist.
This gives it a mechanical identity as a "creator of weaknesses" not by creating literal damage weaknesses, but by weakening foes with conditions, supporting your allies as well.
On more reflection, I honestly don't think FF/EA needs to be a damage boost at all. "Hit hard" is hardly a niche, and it could do more interesting things such as apply various conditions on your opponent instead, with different items producing different effects. This also contrasts well with the more recent classes which don't really do anything with conditions and allows there to finally be reliable sources of some of the rarer conditions (such as Sickened) to exist.
This gives it a mechanical identity as a "creator of weaknesses" not by creating literal damage weaknesses, but by weakening foes with conditions, supporting your allies as well.
I like this because when it comes to thaumaturge-esque characters working in teams, they don't seem like the big hitters, they are applying fear or making the enemies freeze up or feel sickened or trapped, while their teammates are the powerhouses. Or in the really rare situation they may banish or exorcise the monster. (which could actually potentially be a high level feat for a thaumaturge)
Agreed. More variety in what the Thaumaturge can do and the ability to share the love with other party members from low level. A bit like a Martial Bard, you know.
I don't even think [the mechanic now known as Find Flaws/Esoteric Antithesis] needs to necessarily only apply to creatures. This is a class that's convincing the universe, right? The universe isn't just critters. Once you remove a huge, raw damage boost I think it can really start to open up the themes of the class to the mechanics players need to actually contribute to an adventure.
Maybe it could also be the Thaumaturge identifying weak points in the fabric of the universe, or areas where they can exploit some pseudonatural power, or reconciling the fear of being lost in the desert with the hardiness of desert life. The ability can give various, or broad, bonuses to the Thaumaturge to help them navigate all aspects of the adventure.
The Investigator already has something that wants a lot of GM fiat (for better or worse), so perhaps by targeting a "situation" or an obstacle the Thaumaturge can convince the universe (GM) that they need... a +1 to Survival to get out of the haunted forest, or maybe the chasm is actually a few inches narrower for a +1 to jump across. Maybe a feat or ability (as mentioned by Ediwir in his playtest post) to convince the universe that this finger of a master thief is just the thing to unlock this door or deactivate this trap.
The examples are definitely rough and ready above, but I think limiting the mechanic to creatures and especially limiting it to a somewhat warping damage bonus really hampers the play space that the class description is trying to evoke. The Thaumaturge may be a person with a bunch of kooky artifacts and half the time seem to be making s%!$ up, but when it comes down to it their bag of tricks seems... to work...
Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Honestly, what I want from the Thaumaturge is a martial utility/support character. I really like the Root to Life feat and want to see more like it, and to be honest I wouldn't be surprised if find flaws and Esoteric Antithesis are entirely gone or in-name-only in the full release.
The reason I wrote this up is that even if you suppose that FF/EA should be the core of the class (as seems to be the intent for now)... it wasn't very good. I tried to read the intent of the class features and implement what the intent seemed to be, but realistically speaking I'm not sold on the intent.
As others have noted, FF and EA makes the Thaumaturge a damage output class first, when we already have those. We have Ranger for a mark mechanic, various versions of alchemist and some investigators for equipment usage, fighter for all-around straight-up combat, Swashbuckler for mobility, rogue for exploiting a relatively common condition, what mechanical archetype could FF and EA give that isn't already in the system? A mark system, but slightly stronger, with slightly more overhead, and less reliable?
My thoughts with this was just... making the current iteration of the Thaumaturge baseline function. It has issues, at minimum, with how it is presented to players and GMs and I wouldn't be surprised if at some point a Paizo employee admits that the general way that the public reads Find Flaws is not what was intended. The wording is strange, and some details are strange.
What I WANT for Thaumaturge is to have more focus on the implements, so that your role in the party is based on what implement you choose with martial damage as a reliable secondary option (or a very strong focus with the Weapon Implement). If the option was to strip back Esoteric Antithesis (and/or make it a feat) and buff the implements, make them more impactful, I would go for it.
Weaponizing your luck to get a circumstance bonus thanks to having the appropriate trinket does sound like CHA after all.
Yeah, I think targeted/weaponized luck is kind of a cool area to explore.
Because they don't fit into a defined tradition of magic and most of their power comes from these seemingly random bits and bobs, someone else might see the Thaumaturge's various bonuses as luck, when in reality the Thaumaturge (and we) know that they're actually making changes to the world around them purely by focusing their will through these objects.
It's kind of a cool way to pin down part of the class theme too: Others think you're just lucky and odd, even though you prattle on about these weird (and sometimes... gross...) objects. You know that finding just the place for these lost and forgotten puzzle pieces can bring along great, albeit temporary, power.
Tangent:
I've been enamored with the idea of "resonance." The Thaumaturge carries around "lost objects," stuff that doesn't fit anywhere, but which they carry around because these things represent something writ large. When they come across a problem they can identify something that resonates with the creature, the situation, or the obstacle. Then they can convince the universe that this item that doesn't quite have its "place" actually fits into the Astral-Plane-Universal-Memory right here, doing this thing, and this is the missing jigsaw piece.
Nevermind that the mug handle of a Caydenite priest's favorite tankard has nothing to do with balancing on a tightrope suspended over a pool of lava. The Thaumaturge has convinced the universe that it can absorb the wavers in the Thaumaturge's balance, resonating with the fuzzy feeling and stumbling that the Caydenite enjoyed so much through this tankard handle.
