Is Thaumaturge a martial class?


Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion

Horizon Hunters

It's important to ask this this first, as I may have gotten the wrong impression about the class.

I hadn't the opportunity to play as a Thaumaturge yet, but making some characters with the Dwarf, Elf, and Human ancestry I usually end up with very low physical stats. Choosing a character's Background for the attribute it provides rather Than prioritizing my character's origin usually improves a bit by doing, for example, strength 14 becomes strength 16.

Making these Level 1 characters left me with this weird feeling. And now I'm here asking you What is the role of this class and where does it fit?

Should I trust that Max Charisma is the way to go?


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Romão98 wrote:

It's important to ask this this first, as I may have gotten the wrong impression about the class.

I hadn't the opportunity to play as a Thaumaturge yet, but making some characters with the Dwarf, Elf, and Human ancestry I usually end up with very low physical stats. Choosing a character's Background for the attribute it provides rather Than prioritizing my character's origin usually improves a bit by doing, for example, strength 14 becomes strength 16.

Making these Level 1 characters left me with this weird feeling. And now I'm here asking you What is the role of this class and where does it fit?

Should I trust that Max Charisma is the way to go?

It is a martial class and max charisma is still probably the way to go. You're starting stat array should have 16 in either strength or dex and at least 12 in the other. From there I'd max charisma but you could also focus on con or Wis.

You have a ton of damage boosters to make up for only have 16 in your stat to hit, but you still need to hit for them to matter.

Intelligence is probably your dump stat. If you want to know things you should grab a Tome and take Diverse Lore.


Thaumaturge is in the roughly the same boat that inventor is in. It's definitely a martial in that you need to boost your attacking stat every time. If you want to, you can start with 14/16 charisma and still function ok. Depends on your implement and feat choice however. For instance, a wand thaumaturge will want to max out charisma along with a scroll caster. Melee focused builds won't need as much.


It is a martial class. But it's in similar vein to the inventor, or certain subclasses of rogue or maybe swashbuckler, investigator.

They have medium armor proficiency. So they don't need high Dex unless you want to be ranged.

They get damage riders to make up for not having Dex/str as key modifiers of their class

They seem quite competent


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Yeah, it is a martial, but not just a martial. There's lots of things you can do other martials can't. But you have martial weapon proficiency and martial progression and your major class features enhance your damage with weapons.

Truth be told I'm a little unsure how this was even a question.

Horizon Hunters

Captain Morgan wrote:
Truth be told I'm a little unsure how this was even a question.

Idk It was a weird feeling for me to start with strength 14 and/or HP 15/16 that made me doubt if it was even a martial class haha. It gave me the Warpriest vibe lol. But these are just my first impressions doing level 1 characters.

I'll wait for an opportunity to actually play it.


I wish they'd just let us have the option to choose a physical stat for classes like these. It's obviously balanced because for 10 levels you have equal stats to normal martials like Rogue and Barbarian. From levels 5-9, 15-19 you can have an identical Strength bonus if you want.

Also opens build variety, I know some builds would still max Cha for social skills and Esoteric Lore, and I'd be fine if Cha was still tied to the class DC. I just hate these pointless gaps for half the levels.


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Romão98 wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
Truth be told I'm a little unsure how this was even a question.

Idk It was a weird feeling for me to start with strength 14 and/or HP 15/16 that made me doubt if it was even a martial class haha. It gave me the Warpriest vibe lol. But these are just my first impressions doing level 1 characters.

I'll wait for an opportunity to actually play it.

It is by FAR better than warpriest.

Issue with warpriest is proficiency scaling. Not your starting strength score.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Romão98 wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
Truth be told I'm a little unsure how this was even a question.

Idk It was a weird feeling for me to start with strength 14 and/or HP 15/16 that made me doubt if it was even a martial class haha. It gave me the Warpriest vibe lol. But these are just my first impressions doing level 1 characters.

I'll wait for an opportunity to actually play it.

Starting with 14 strength is a choice you made, though, not an inherent feature of the class. If the class doesn't have spell casting (or arguably alchemy) then it is a martial.


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Definitely a martial.

The flat boost to damage, like the inventor, makes up for not being able to start with 18 str/dex.

Obviously, it's on the long road ( so, given xxxx rolls, the average damage would be Y).

If your perception is that you feel uncomfortable with missing attacks, I rather suggest you to pick a standard martial class ( any class which starts with 18 str/dex) or even a fighter/gunslinger.

But if you were to choose the thaumaturge, I would never renounce to 16 str. I'd eventually consider lowering int/cha.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

14 Str feels dangerously low to me.

If you're hurting for stats (and given its priorities the thaumaturge kinda is), 16/16 feels pretty comfortable.

Sovereign Court

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Romão98 wrote:

It's important to ask this this first, as I may have gotten the wrong impression about the class.

I hadn't the opportunity to play as a Thaumaturge yet, but making some characters with the Dwarf, Elf, and Human ancestry I usually end up with very low physical stats. Choosing a character's Background for the attribute it provides rather Than prioritizing my character's origin usually improves a bit by doing, for example, strength 14 becomes strength 16.

Making these Level 1 characters left me with this weird feeling. And now I'm here asking you What is the role of this class and where does it fit?

Should I trust that Max Charisma is the way to go?

I wonder if you might be missing a bonus somewhere, and that's how you end up low?

Ancestry: you'll want to get a +2 dex or str from this, a +2 cha, and as a third it'd be nice to get con. So for human, let's just take Str and Cha. For dwarf, we'll take Str, Cha, Con, Wis, and a penalty to Cha. For elf we'll take Dex, Cha, Int, and a penalty to Con (our elf will use finesse weapons).

Then for background we'll take a background where the fixed choice is Cha or Dex/Str as fits our ancestry. There should be a hundred or so backgrounds that fit this requirement, so pick one that fits your character concept. We get the other needed stat from the free choice.

Then for key stat we get Cha.

Then for our four boosts we take Cha, Dex (always, we need to end with at least 12 for medium armor), Str (if we're a Str ancestry), and then we have 1-2 free picks left which we might spend on Wis or Con most likely.

So you'd end up with these statlines:

Human: 16/12/12/10/10/18
Elf: 10/16/10/12/12/18 (could switch 2 from wis to str)
Dwarf: 16/12/14/10/12/16 (could switch 2 from con to wis)

(Obviously, other people will do it differently from me. But I think these are reasonable statlines that balance offense and defense.)


Personally I am going with Dex 10 and heavy armour as soon as possible on my Thaumaturge. Str 18, Cha 18, Int 10 and 12 Con and Wis.


andreww wrote:
Personally I am going with Dex 10 and heavy armour as soon as possible on my Thaumaturge. Str 18, Cha 18, Int 10 and 12 Con and Wis.

How are you getting both Str and Cha to 18 at chargen?

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Sanityfaerie wrote:
andreww wrote:
Personally I am going with Dex 10 and heavy armour as soon as possible on my Thaumaturge. Str 18, Cha 18, Int 10 and 12 Con and Wis.
How are you getting both Str and Cha to 18 at chargen?

I'm assuming they mean at lvl 5 after ability boost considering they said "as soon as possible" but can't say for sure obviously

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