| Castilliano |
Dabbling yes, you can invest across the spectrum to achieve wondrous breadth. Whether that creates a well-made PC is doubtful. Ex. Dabbling in being a front-line tank will get you killed. Dabbling in in-combat healing might get your ally killed if they were relying on something more substantial. The list goes on.
So yeah, by dabbling you can stand out for falling down on the job.
Heck, one of the few ways to unintentionally make a bad PC in PF2 is to think one can master abilities outside one's class's range, often to the detriment of their core strengths. Ex. Gish's before Summoner & Magus. Not that you're trying for an all-around master here, but if not a master, if just a dabbler, you're likely third best at everything (if that).
But like you asserted, this game allows for a lot of versatility, yet it also recognizes the power of versatility & utility, so while one can be well-rounded, it's expensive, risky, & perhaps irresponsible to attempt spherical.
Best shot might be Rogue, of course, as those skills are like having a second class and it only needs a few class feats to excel in combat. Trick Magic Item + Medicine can broaden one's scope quickly. And likely go (Half-)Elf so you can swap out abilities daily, perhaps pick up a Cantrip.
| gesalt |
To an extent?
Your basic thaumaturge has 3(base)+2(tome)+1(esoteric lore) legendary skills, the champion archetype package for plate, lay on hands combat healing and champion reaction for party defense, two sources of reaction attack with weapon implement and plenty of room for a casting archetype for 8th level spells with enough cha to make debuffs actually have a chance of enemies only succeeding instead of critically succeeding.
Rogue's not too different, but has better perception, accuracy 50% of the time and higher overall offensive combat potential if you invest the feats at the cost of getting hosed by precision immunity and non-plate AC.
Raze Le'Roof
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I enjoy PF2e more because it doesn't really allow for the jack-of-all-trades (aka "I'm the one at the table that thinks I'm the Main Character in the Single Player RPG") builds that are 90% as good at everything as every other specialist combined. Dabblers get outshined by Specialists most of the time, and a Dilettante in everything will almost always be outshined.
A couple of niches that I think did fall through the cracks are AC (lots of fairly easy ways to dump your Dexterity and get Heavy Armor proficiency) and Focus Spells (lots of fairly easy ways to cherry-pick the strongest Focus Spells and cast them as well as the primary class does).
| BretI |
If you really mean Jack-of-all-Trades then Ancient Elf allows you to pick one skill you are good at each day. An Ancient Elf Thaumateurge probably would have the most broad ability to pick their skills for a day. You would want Tome to be one of your implements.
A rogue with high Int that carefully picks their feats can pretty easily have all the skills trained. You would want to pick some ancestry feats that give you trained in a skill.
If instead you want someone who can use as many of the magic traditions as possible, the best way I can think of off the top of my head would be half-elf that takes two dedications via Multi-talented. That would potentially allow you access to three of the four spell lists.
Human could also do this, but not quite as well.
| Claxon |
You can't really make a character who is decently good at everything, and that is intentional.
What you can make is a human character with Clever Improviser, which gives you Untrained Improvisation which at level 7 will let you use your level as your proficiency value, and lets you perform activities that will normally require you to be trained. Later incredibly improvisation will let you get a +4 bonus to those checks. So now you can be passable at all skills. You're not going to compete with someone who actually invested in the skill, but you could handle below level checks on your own and maybe get a lucky roll now and again to help otherwise and it's a relatively low cost to do so.
Afterwards, decide if you'd rather be good martial or spell casting pursuits, choose your main class to support that and choose a dedication for level 2 of the opposite kind.
Personally I find martial into caster dedication feels a lot better than a caster trying to pickup a martial dedication. The caster chassis simply will never let you be even "good-enough" in combat in my opinion.
To me, this kind of character is about as versatile as you can get but you're still not going to compete with anyone who's focused on any particular aspect except whatever class you selected supports.
| Temperans |
Actually, this is super easy barely an inconvenience.
Just play a Human Fighter with Bard archetype to grab Esotheric Polymath, and at least 2 spell casting feats. That leaves you with 9 feats. Grab the Ultimate Flexibility so you can get 10 potential class feats, 3 of which can be changed with 1 hour training.
* P.S. Yeah, also grab Clever Improviser.
* P.S.S. If you grab Multitalented you now have 11 potentual class feats.
| Ravingdork |
How about a human magus or summoner with the Clever Improviser line of feats?
Magi are already notable gishes, and a summoner can be the caster to their eidolon's martial.
Throw in some diverse spellcasting from Dedications, items, etc. and we'll have covered a fair bit of ground I think.
John R.
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Bare bones, I'd do Thaumaturge with amulet and tome as first implements with a prepared spellcasting dedication (primal or arcane are probably best for versatility) and scroll thaumaturgy to cover any spells your dedication doesn't have.
With all that you are very capable in martial combat, you have a good defensive support reaction, you can be great in any skill and you have plenty of spellcasting options. This still leaves plenty of space to fill out a specialization if you choose or diversify into more niche areas.
| Unicore |
Martials with a caster dedication can also cast from scrolls, staves and wands, so while they may not be solving big problems in challenging encounters with spells, they can pretty much cover the utility of a spell caster in most situations with relative ease. It can get costly, and a GM might want to talk to a player that is really going all in on consumables about the extent to which they are balancing buying the one use items with the expected equipment of the game if there is a risk of hurt feelings when the JOAT character is starting to fall behind on their essential +1s, But even with how well PF2 balanced spells to not replace skills, skill monkeys and martials can poach a lot of the good lower level stuff with relative ease.
The trick about spell casting into martial is that if you are full spell casting class, you need to be casting spell slot spells in every encounter and often 2 or 3 per encounter. Striking is usually more of a 3rd action than a 1st, and even then, if you are doing it in melee, you need to be using spells to cover your defenses because proficiencies alone cannot do it.
| Castilliano |
While most of these suggestions are good, solid advice, I also think they're kinda expected w/ an experienced player. Several classes can run fine off their chassis w/ a few feats for their routine and the rest toward Archetypes for diversity and utility. And Ancestry & skill feats amplify that. Which is to say I think "standing out" as a JoaT might be unrealistic because as said in the OP PF2's "...a game where everyone has versatility in spades...".
So I think the "best" way to diversify is to find the niches that get overlooked or which needs a backup/secondary helper. That will vary by party, campaign, and/or PFS region, and might simply consist of Aiding a spectrum of primary PCs.
"Oh, you can help us with this too?? That's awesome."
This brings to mind "One for All" and the various Aid enhancing Ancestry feats, though Prescient Planner & Untrained Improvisation would help too.
With a source of free consumables & an Elf's ability swapping, and that's a lot of tuned utility most PCs won't have. Plus prepared caster, leaving the martial stuff to the side, and you could be special every day you have foreknowledge.