Wand Implement

[Cyrad]

I've run into an issue with the wand implement, aside from it feeling a little underwhelming as it provides little more benefit than a cantrip.

It doesn't mesh with the rest of the class's class features at all.

1. Requiring two-actions is understandable, but it exacerbates the class's action economy issues. Much of your action economy is already spent on Find Flaws and Esoteric Antithesis. Your implement's main ability clutters your action economy even further.

2. It doesn't synergize very well with Find Flaws because you cannot change its energy type until later levels.

3. It doesn't synergize with any of your other class features because they all rely on Strikes. The playstyle of the character revolves around Strikes. Esoteric Antithesis only works with Strikes. Relying on a saving throw is helpful to avoid MAP, but the implement doesn't work well with fighting with both the weapon and wand due to the above action economy issues.

It would have been cool if the wand implement allowed you to wield a wand as a special weapon that you can Strike with. Maybe it could allow you to shoot bolts of energy based on the traits of the wand? Or maybe you could conjure an energy blade out of the wand and wield it like a lightsaber esoteric spirit blade? Having it be something you can Strike with would make it more interesting and allow it to work well with your other class features. As is, I'd rather spend an ancestry feat on a cantrip than use a wand implement.

[John R.]

Haven't done the math, so maybe it would be too strong, but it might be a good idea to let you apply Esoteric Antithesis weakness to the wand's damage. If they allowed that, it would be nice to have feats like Twin Weakness and Sympathetic Weakness to apply. Again, not sure if the math would make this too strong.

I think it's fine on action economy since you have to move a lot to get strikes in (unless you're using a reload 0 ranged weapon). Getting a success or higher on Find Flaws nets you that free Esoteric Antithesis action, leaving you two actions to still Fling Magic.

I think feats like Divine Disharmony and Rule of Three are supposed to make up for MAP. If they end up basing strikes on your KAS, these will probably be nerfed or done away with altogether. The wand gets around needing these already by already being based on the KAS.

It seems like you are wanting to spend a turn making a strike AND using Fling Magic. It sounds reasonable but it seems like more of an issue with the Thaumaturge making a strike and not with Fling Magic.

[beowulf99]

Wand works best as a cantrip for an "item wizard" Thaumaturge imo. Between the Scroll line of feats and Handy/Implausible esoterica giving you a decent number of scrolls or other consumables a day, the only thing that character is really missing is a way to have a "cantrip". The wand fills that niche pretty nicely.

It doesn't really play nice with Find Flaws and Antithesis, but a non-front line thaumaturge who focuses on their support abilities wouldn't be running forward to exploit those anyway.

[Lanathar]

beowulf99 wrote:

Wand works best as a cantrip for an "item wizard" Thaumaturge imo. Between the Scroll line of feats and Handy/Implausible esoterica giving you a decent number of scrolls or other consumables a day, the only thing that character is really missing is a way to have a "cantrip". The wand fills that niche pretty nicely.

It doesn't really play nice with Find Flaws and Antithesis, but a non-front line thaumaturge who focuses on their support abilities wouldn't be running forward to exploit those anyway.

How useful would such a build be do you think? I ask as it might fit the NPC I was planning on testing Thaumaturge with better than a melee one

[John R.]

John R. wrote:

I think feats like Divine Disharmony and Rule of Three are supposed to make up for MAP.

Edit: Meant to say MAD, not MAP.

[Zwordsman]

I've tried the wand specific one. It doesn't really hold up that well overall. Though i've only tried it at lower to mid low levels.

My original want out of thauama was to be Wand and Lantern user. It wasn't terrible, but it was awkward. Part of that was my fault of course-lantern wants you to be VERY close, while th wand encourages distance. It made me really wish your choice of Lantern changed the ability. (I would love a bullseye lamp to compo with the wand for instance)
Ultimately I was stuck in the wrong element for wand for those games. Not much resistence but none were weak. I did have great utility between the lamp, wand, scrolls, talisman, and i picked up snarecrafting. but in actual combat I basically was a level 1 flinging magic missle style cantrip.

Also just as a note. It is extremely passive feeling to me. as its DC based with little interaction on my part. I feel like the single target should be to hit and the area version a dc. To give both methods of play.

I previously suggested it should do some small dice amount that scales, but activates Find Flaws' 2+1/2 innately. The flavor is entirely about it being pure magic being flung at the enemy. So untyped small bit of magic (small scaling dice) that triggers the find flaws for the static makes it more appealing and actually fits in the class. (ot would not change elemetns to target a weakness, just deal untyped (aka unresisted) dice + 2+1/2)

Personally I found the debuffs to be a bit awkward, in general the fire felt the best because I could use it to trigger a persistent damage, then disregard the wand and lay into them with the weapon of choice. which worked out moderately okay w/ shurikens as the wand didn't trigger MAP. but this was a facet of the group i was with. They already had flatfooted often or that woudl've been more appealing like an alchemist's bottled lightning.

I think removing the elemental triggers completley but making it always get 2+1/2 class static damage and then just having a set of debuff options you can freely choose from makes it more useful.
If you can choose the debuff to suit the moment it becomes quite versatile. It can't match up to the damage of a weapon but the range, and versatility in how it works more than makes up for it.

I would love being a Wand-Lantern thama if the wand's damage method worked with the class itself.

[The Raven Black]

I feel the FF/EA is for melee combat. So Wand is the Thaumaturge's ranged attack. And it is designed the way it is for playtest purpose : stretch the class as far as possible in all directions and find out where it goes too far for the playtesters' taste.

[beowulf99]

Lanathar wrote:

beowulf99 wrote:

Wand works best as a cantrip for an "item wizard" Thaumaturge imo. Between the Scroll line of feats and Handy/Implausible esoterica giving you a decent number of scrolls or other consumables a day, the only thing that character is really missing is a way to have a "cantrip". The wand fills that niche pretty nicely.

It doesn't really play nice with Find Flaws and Antithesis, but a non-front line thaumaturge who focuses on their support abilities wouldn't be running forward to exploit those anyway.

How useful would such a build be do you think? I ask as it might fit the NPC I was planning on testing Thaumaturge with better than a melee one

Low levels, not all that much to be honest. You'd be a pretty bad skill monkey due to the small handful of free scrolls or talismans you have access to. That is until you get to 16, fairly late in the game. At that point with Implausible Esoterica, you can pull 5 scrolls/other consumables up to level 10 literally out of your hat per day, which is pretty decent. But it's fairly late.

Wand+Chalice could work in such a build, letting you throw out chip damage and a bit of healing/temp hp on demand.

Edit: One thing of note that I realized about the Thaumaturge in a playtest game last night: Most of it's damage is completely independent of feats. The first real combat feat is Rule of Three at 6th. Every Thaumaturge gets Implement Empowerment and Antithesis, so even a "support" build will be a reasonably heavy damage dealer.

I was deeply surprised by just how much damage a Thaum can put out to be honest. My current feeling on it is that it just gets too much bonus damage. At level 10 my buddies Thaum was reliably putting out 55-70 or so damage per turn against their antithesis target. Compare to my Staff Magus who dealt around 40 on a spellstrike turn, and it felt real strong.

[Squiggit]

It does let you build a hypothetical THM that doesn't need Dex or STr, which is a cool idea.

But it's a fairly weak ability in general right now. Until you start unlocking new abilities it's basically just a regular cantrip... and cantrips are designed to not be great on purpose because they're meant to be things you do when you can't do your main shtick.

For a Wand Thaumaturge, the Wand is part of your main shtick and it's competing directly against full blown martial attacks, so it really should be stronger overall.

[graystone]

Zwordsman wrote:

I've tried the wand specific one. It doesn't really hold up that well overall. Though i've only tried it at lower to mid low levels.

I tried Wand and picked up Lantern as I leveled: It didn't hold up so well at lower levels IMO. It wasn't any different than if I picked up an ancestry innate cantrip.

EDIT: I did a wand/repeating hand crossbow implement one that wasn't awful: I'd to the normal find flaw, Esoteric Antithesis, strike and the second round go to strike, wand.

Zwordsman wrote:

I would love being a Wand-Lantern thama if the wand's damage method worked with the class itself.

Me too.

Squiggit wrote:

It does let you build a hypothetical THM that doesn't need Dex or STr, which is a cool idea.

Yeah, I tried. It didn't word very well. The only bonus was that I didn't have to care about Find Flaws, Implement Empowerment and Antithesis and could pick my own skills and not worry about trying to juggle every Recall skill.

[The Raven Black]

Squiggit wrote:

It does let you build a hypothetical THM that doesn't need Dex or STr, which is a cool idea.

But it's a fairly weak ability in general right now. Until you start unlocking new abilities it's basically just a regular cantrip... and cantrips are designed to not be great on purpose because they're meant to be things you do when you can't do your main shtick.

For a Wand Thaumaturge, the Wand is part of your main shtick and it's competing directly against full blown martial attacks, so it really should be stronger overall.

This reminded me of a realization I came to about Implements : because of the way you increase your Implements, you have to choose your first Implement based on both what you need/want to do at 1st level AND on what its Paragon benefit is. Unless you use retraining, but I really feel Retraining should not be required to keep on enjoying a class as you rise in levels.

It feels like a forced choice.

[Zwordsman]

The Raven Black wrote:

This reminded me of a realization I came to about Implements : because of the way you increase your Implements, you have to choose your first Implement based on both what you need/want to do at 1st level AND on what its Paragon benefit is. Unless you use retraining, but I really feel Retraining should not be required to keep on enjoying a class as you rise in levels.

It feels like a forced choice.

How do you mean? It is very true only your first or your second implement can reach Paragon status. but you can do it with either the first or second implement. The boost up class abilities come at 7 and much higher. And it lets you do it to any implement you want.

Which in part is one reason my wand user started with lantern then picked up wand at 5. Since its only 2 levels to get debuff and range and cross elements. I used a hand xbow before (and then on occasion after).

So I only see you needing to choose what you want at level 1? but you can make level 1 or 5's implement be raised to max. or spread it around if one wanted.

edited in rules quote for the improvments:

Implement Adept 7th
You have gained a deeper connection to one of your
implements, unlocking its adept power. Choose one
of your implements and gain the adept benefit for
that implement; most thaumaturges choose their
first implement.

Implement Mastery 17th
You have gained even further mastery in one of your
implements, unlocking a great new power. Choose one
of your implements and gain the next benefit for that
implement, either the paragon benefit if you choose the
implement that already gained the adept benefit at 7th
level, or the adept benefit if you choose either of the
other implements. Most thaumaturges choose their first
implement, gaining its paragon benefit.

Isn't this what you were referring to? It allows any implement you have. so 2 at the first one, and 3 choices on the second one.
--------------

I do actually feel like I'd rather wish I had the option to either take another implement. or improve it at 5 and 7 etc.
If I'm being honest none of the paragons feel like they're too powerful to have at an earlierr level. More so as it gives up a great deal of versatility in exchange for it.

So it would be a pretty nice option. but maybe the final output will have adjusted effects on them.
I just don't really want to be an item juggler. I'd love to focus down on just one or two items.

[The Raven Black]

My bad. You are completely right. Thanks for the very complete correction :-)

[Puna'chong]

Think it's pretty weak. Range is fine, but two actions and poor scaling make it fairly lackluster compared to other playtest implements, beyond even just the lack of interaction with other features. It's pretty bland and feels uninspired.

I'd prefer if it had a variable action activity to be sort of a swiss army knife utility belt implement, rather than just a Wand of Blasting. At the very least it seems like a good opportunity to give the class some AoE firepower from the get-go. Still think focus points that are trapped inside implements would help crack open a lot of design space too.

[Lanathar]

Puna'chong wrote:

Think it's pretty weak. Range is fine, but two actions and poor scaling make it fairly lackluster compared to other playtest implements, beyond even just the lack of interaction with other features. It's pretty bland and feels uninspired.

I'd prefer if it had a variable action activity to be sort of a swiss army knife utility belt implement, rather than just a Wand of Blasting. At the very least it seems like a good opportunity to give the class some AoE firepower from the get-go. Still think focus points that are trapped inside implements would help crack open a lot of design space too.

Ooh you would like it to be a sonic screwdriver

To be fair using charisma to bang on about how much you know about your enemies and their weaknesses is very Doctor Who