Thaumaturge First Impressions

[Ravingdork]

So I finally got to play a thaumaturge in PFS after hearing for a while now about how wildly OP their damage dealing capabilities were.

I gotta' say, I'm less than impressed so far. Fighters and rogues seem to far outshine them in almost every way.

I started with a weapon implement thinking that killing things faster might help myself and others more easily survive to higher levels. "I could just play it like a fighter" in the meantime I thought.

In our first encounter, we got rushed by five giant rats. I cast magic weapon on my longsword implement via Scroll Thaumaturgy. I then used Exploit Vulnerability and Diverse Lore on the lead rat. (As a human, I get lots of feats.) The GM tells me "it's just a rat; no immunities, resistances, vulnerabilities, or special abilities--not even disease." Then the party fighter moved up and killed said rat. Great. So much for my Exploit Vulnerability damage bonuses. Oh well, at least I still have my +1 striking longsword. In round two I scored a critical hit on a different rat, killing it. I didn't get a third round, as that was the last rat. The hard-hitting greatsword fighter, sneak-attacking rogue, electric arcing wizard, and others, had already made short work of the rest.

In the next confrontation against several skeleton guards and a zombie, I again won initiative. Not wanting to make the same mistake as last time, I instead opted for a different mistake. I used Exploit Vulnerability and Diverse Lore on the farthest skeleton in the back of the room, learning that it had slashing resistance. Wanting to get to use my abilities before it got killed, I then Strode into the room and attacked it, opting to do piercing damage with my longsword in order to avoid its slashing resistance. I missed.

Then the other skeletons and zombie ganged up on me and beat me to within 3 hit points of my life. The other party members, seeing me getting trashed, largely opted for ranged attacks from the entrance, quickly learning that the skeletons also had piercing resistance. Nevertheless, they managed to make short work of the remaining skeletons and zombie while I wasted yet more actions drawing out my club--and quickly realized that I no longer qualified for Implement's Empowerment. I wasted an action to gain 2 damage, only to lose 2 damage for not having a single one-handed weapon in either hand (as I now had two weapons). Yet another wash.

Sadly, this particular party lacked much healing, and I was given a minor healing potion, raising my meager 3 hit points to 7 for the rest of the game.

Later encounters involved several mobs of spear-wielding kobolds. In one encounter I charged into a corner, hoping to avoid getting surrounded and mobbed again. I used Exploit Vulnerability and Diverse Lore on an adjacent kobold to learn absolutely nothing. I rolled a natural 1, making me flat-footed for the round. In very Han Solo'esque fashion, I spent my last action withdrawing back to my starting position at the entrance of the room and letting the party mop them up.

The other encounters largely worked out similarly. I would waste too many actions setting up my core abilities only to have the party kill the target of my Exploit Vulnerability before I could do much to it. Or I would be forced to target someone they weren't targeting, which usually put me in an untenable position at worst, or spread out our damage rather than focus firing at the very least. In over five encounters, I never once even got to use my Implement's Interruption reaction.

In short, the thaumaturge suffers from too much complexity and many of the same action economy issues that are so frequently laid at the ranger's feet, while other classes like the fighter and rogue "just work" by doing little more than simply moving into position and striking.

The GM ultimately took such pity on me that he ruled that wielding two weapons did not cause me to lose my Implement's Empowerment bonus, provided one of them was also an implement. That's not how myself and several others interpret the rule; but I'll take what I can get. I still wonder about scrolls causing me to lose my bonus though.

I'm sure the Thaumaturge has plenty of potential, but I've yet to see it. Nevertheless, I remain excited to see how it will play out at later levels as enemies get tougher and last longer.

[gesalt]

One issue I'm noticing here is that you're using recall knowledge. Classic blunder. Diverse Lore can recall anything on any topic which makes it great for non-combat use coupled with the usual skill boosters (one for all ally, cognitive mutagen, Sleepwalker archetype).

You also need to play it like a ranger where you hunt (exploit), kill, switch. Your opening turn should be a pretty easy to execute exploit, stride, strike.

You're also using a longsword instead of a reach weapon. Hard to use AoO with a 5ft reach.

The other issue is that you're comparing it to fighter and rogue, the two best martial classes in the system. Frankly, the longer I play, the less I see any reason to play a martial class that isn't either of these two or a bow magus.

What the thaumaturge does wind up doing is managing to kinda sorta replace either fighter or rogue if nobody feels like playing one. Tome gets you the skill breadth of a rogue but without the legendary perception and weapon implement's built in AoO at level 1 and the extra reaction you get at higher levels is a decent imitation of a fighter. And you get both in the same package, obviously.

[Deriven Firelion]

Fighter is definitely the OP class of PF2 that overshadows everyone else. Not like a PF1 wizard, but in a PF2 equivalent way. They are noticeably better at doing what a martial does.

Every time someone plays a fighter in the group, they pretty much overshadow every other martial except a starlit span magus.

Rogue does a lot of damage and is a master of skills that no one else can much touch, but you can play a fighter rogue archetype and do more damage than the rogue while picking up the extra skills with feats starting at 8th level.

Fighter is king martial by a wide margin in PF2.

[Ravingdork]

I can't wait until I'm level 6 and can pick up Sympathetic Vulnerabilities, which I'm starting to see more and more as a feat tax that comes way too late.

gesalt wrote:

One issue I'm noticing here is that you're using recall knowledge. Classic blunder.

I'm not spending additional actions on Recall Knowledge if that's what you mean. I get that for free when using Diverse Lore with my Exploit Vulnerability action (at least on a success).

gesalt wrote:

You're also using a longsword instead of a reach weapon. Hard to use AoO with a 5ft reach.

I wanted the additional damage. Being short on funds after my armor and magic weapon scroll I could only afford the whip. Everything else is either too costly, non-proficient, or two-handed.

However, up until the GM's generous houserule, wielding the whip alongside my longsword implement meant that I would lose Implement's Empowerment. Making the whip the implement would allow for me to use my reaction at reach, but would have meant that I'd be swing d4 nonlethal rather than d8s. Even when swinging my longsword on my turn, the loss of Implement's Empowerment would mean lower damage across the board.

Now that the GM has ruled in my favor though, I am considering changing it up prior to having things locked in at 2nd-level.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Fighter is king martial by a wide margin in PF2.

While true enough, I'm not certain that thaumaturge--when built as a martial--even stacks up against other martials all that well. Take the Barbarian class, for example. Barbarians also need to waste an action on their core ability, rage, in order to maximize their damage output. However, they do not require a check with a penalty for failure, are not limited to lower damage one-handed weapons, do not need to repeat the action for every target, and do not lose all of their bonuses when someone kills their target.

Thaumaturge suffers from the same overcomplexity that all non-Core classes seem to. The Core classes were made so well, that the developers have to bend over backwards to make newer classes stand out in a mechanically interesting way.sadly this usually results in a big drain on efficiency.

[Squiggit]

Ravingdork wrote:

are not limited to lower damage one-handed weapons

Neither is the thaumaturge. You functionally bump every weapon you wield up by two die sizes. 3-10 on an empowered longsword has the same average damage as a greatsword. 3-8 on a shortsword is essentially a d10 agile finesse weapon, something that doesn't exist anywhere else.

[Ravingdork]

Squiggit wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

are not limited to lower damage one-handed weapons

Neither is the thaumaturge. You functionally bump every weapon you wield up by two die sizes. 3-10 on an empowered longsword has the same average damage as a greatsword. 3-8 on a shortsword is essentially a d10 agile finesse weapon, something that doesn't exist anywhere else.

Agile is nice, but since I'm running a Strength build, Finesse doesn't do anything for me.

I'm aware that I could switch to a two-handed weapon and only really lose the 2 damage from Implement's Empowerment, but lacking a free hand can limit my options, especially once I get my second implement. Also, they might ultimately deal similar damage, but one-handed weapons with Implement's Empowerment tend to have higher minimum damage as well, which I think causes them to edge out the two-handed weapons' damage output ever so slightly.

[egindar]

I think Squiggit's point was that one-handed weapons aren't really "lower-damage" for the thaumaturge. A barbarian wielding a d12 weapon is doing the same damage (before Rage) that a thaumaturge is doing with a d8 weapon (before Exploit Vulnerability). For thaumaturge, the difference between a whip and a longsword isn't the difference between a d4 weapon and a d8 weapon so much as a d8 weapon and a d12 weapon. Add to that that Exploit Vulnerability is a damage buff and your base weapon die matters even less, compared to the likes of a fighter or flurry ranger.

[Deriven Firelion]

Is the Thaumaturge better than the Swashbuckler? They roll to make their main damage ability work as well.

[HumbleGamer]

Thaumaturge is IMO one of the most interesting dedications paizo made.

As for the class itself, we are going to try it next week so I'll let you know!

Seems action starving, and I don't really appreciate that kind of gameplay, but it's just an assumption ( I don't really care about damage, but I understand that it may be a real concern).

[Karmagator]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Is the Thaumaturge better than the Swashbuckler? They roll to make their main damage ability work as well.

I'd say, arguably yes, but not by too much. Swashbucklers are a bit more tanky, mobile and have greater variance in the skill department (without the tome implement factored in). Thaumaturges should deal more damage and definitely have easier access to getting their damage bonus - which is the biggest deal here. They also have much more build variety, but that isn't really a question of power.

If the swashbuckler's access to panache was less erratic, they would be roughly equal.

[Ascalaphus]

For swashbucklers I think the Opportune Riposte is much more important than other parts of the class. Monsters often don't have good third-action options so they make -10 MAP attacks, and that triggers OR a lot.

I've recently turned a L6 GM baby into a thaumaturge and I'm pretty impressed. I used it as a way to make a "champion of Arazni". Arazni's favored weapon is a rapier which is not an obvious weapon choice for a full plate happy class. So instead I went strength based thaumaturge with a multiclass into champion and went with rapier for theme. But the damage bonus from implement's empowerment makes that work quite well.

At level 6 you're looking at:

2d6 damage dice (striking rune)
+4 strength
+4 implement's empowerment
5+ weakness from personal antithesis

Hitting for 2d6+13 really is pretty solid. Sometimes it's more if you get lucky with a weakness. If you run into an enemy with irritating defenses then breached defenses can help you out.

---

I do agree that Sympathetic Vulnerabilities feels like a necessity. I didn't take it since I wanted to pick up a champion reaction, but I'm considering retraining or taking it at level 8.

Sympathetic Vulnerabilities I think is extra good in PFS because PFS often scales up encounters for 5-6 players by adding more of the same monster.

[QuidEst]

My impression after playing a few Thaumaturges is that you should never start with a weapon implement. It feels weird to say, because Fighter's whole thing is getting basically that five levels before anyone else can. But Thaumaturge gets it as a single-target reaction, which means it only shines against: somebody you won't basically one-shot who doesn't want to stand next to you, or uses a gimmick with concentrate. Punishing approach with reach works a lot better when it doesn't need an action to set up. If you pick up weapon implement at fifth level, then you get critical specialization bundled in, and you're actually fighting casters, alchemists, etc. sometimes.

It's also really helpful to keep in mind that the list of things that provoke your reaction is much longer than Fighter's. Demoralize provokes. Maintaining a spell provokes. Casting Shield provokes, along with any other combat spell that normally doesn't. Lie provokes. Entering rage provokes. Seek provokes (which is a hilarious combo with heightened Invisibility, or in conjunction with an illusionist). Command an Animal provokes. Perform provokes. And, while I don't think I have seen a GM roll it in combat, Recall Knowledge provokes. The only thing on Fighter's reaction list that you're missing is ranged attacks, and if the enemy doesn't know that, it's just as good.

Mirror is a nice implement to start with, because it has low-level teleport tricks it can do outside combat. Tome is a little lackluster at first, but nice by third, although following on weapon at fifth works fine. Regalia is notable because it lets you give Follow the Expert bonuses before it's even possible normally, and it pretty much has to be paired with Weapon or Tome implement.

Thaumaturge is also more relaxed to play in campaigns with lots of undead and/or outsiders, creatures that almost guarantee innate weaknesses.

[gesalt]

I'm pretty sure swashbuckler is the single worst class in the game (edit: aside from the alchemist). They have the most unreliable offense in the system by a wide margin, a reaction you can't reliably trigger, a very strict rotation, an average chassis, bad class feats and no real niche aside from rerolling trips as a gymnast with derring do at 10+. My advice is not to play one under any circumstances.

The difference is that Thaumaturges only need a failure to activate their ability while swashbucklers need a success. Since succeeding with anything is questionable, particularly against higher level creatures, being allowed to fail is a great boost in reliability.

Quote:

I wanted the additional damage. Being short on funds after my armor and magic weapon scroll I could only afford the whip. Everything else is either too costly, non-proficient, or two-handed.

Didn't want to join the flickmace gang eh?

Quote:

I can't wait until I'm level 6 and can pick up Sympathetic Vulnerabilities, which I'm starting to see more and more as a feat tax that comes way too late.

It's super helpful, but not entirely necessary. It competes favorably with champion reaction (my recommended feat path) but since pfs bans sleepwalker, you can pretty easily grab sentinel at 2 to fix your MADness and grab it at 6.

[Ravingdork]

I was planning on Weapon > Regalia (primary) > Tome, with Sentinel Dedication and Plate at 2nd-level. Sort of a support martial. Grant everyone attack and skill bonuses while decreasing status effects on the party. Figured it ought to work well enough in PFS.

I've got two more games to experiment with before I need to make up my mind on the build.

gesalt wrote:

Didn't want to join the flickmace gang eh?

Nope. Steering clear of advanced weapons in general. The investment is seldom worth the reward.

[breithauptclan]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Is the Thaumaturge better than the Swashbuckler? They roll to make their main damage ability work as well.

IMO damage-optimized Thaumaturge is the opposite side of the coin from Swashbuckler.

Swashbuckler is the best mook blaster since Fireball. High damage, but only gets reliable with enemies of lower level. But they have no tools to use against enemies with resistances or to trigger weaknesses. So Swashbuckler wants to go up against a group of lower level enemies with few special features.

Thaumaturge instead wants one enemy that has strange and obscure weaknesses to target. They don't do much extra damage against vanilla enemies - considering their weapon options, it is rarely higher than what any other martials could be producing and is almost certainly outdone by Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger and maybe Rogue. Thaumaturge only shines when they are up against a bizarre and esoteric creature that is powerful enough to last a couple of rounds and has a weakness 10 that they can exploit.

Fortunately, damage-optimized is only one option for Thaumaturge...

[pixierose]

Funnyily enough, i never have a strong desire to take sympathethic vulnerabilities. Since a lot of the abilities I like to use from Thaumaturge require you to use them on your exploit vulnerability target.

Ive played two thaumaturges at this point, one started at high level and 1 I started from level 2.

Low levels can feel a bit rough, especially compared to the non set up classes.

Imo Thaumaturges excel in big boss fights or when monsters have unique or difficult weaknesses to take advanatge of. At least when you talk about pure damage. That being said it bring so much utility as well. These are all things that increase over time.

[gesalt]

Ravingdork wrote:

gesalt wrote:

Didn't want to join the flickmace gang eh?

Nope. Steering clear of advanced weapons in general. The investment is seldom worth the reward.

Well, how much did you get out of your first level ancestry feat in that session compared to what you would have gotten out of bludgeoning damage and reach with unconventional weaponry?

[Ravingdork]

gesalt wrote:

Well, how much did you get out of your first level ancestry feat in that session compared to what you would have gotten out of bludgeoning damage and reach with unconventional weaponry?

Versatile Heritage (Fleet) and Natural Ambition (Diverse Lore)? Quite a lot actually.

Diverse Lore was used so often that the GM started giving me "let the others try some rolls" type of looks. Fleet allowed me to get to a surprising number of areas I wouldn't have been able to otherwise.

Bludgeoning would have been nice in 1 of the 5 or so encounters I faced. The reach, on the other hand, likely would not have come up all too often since the enemies were rarely the target of my reaction or wouldn't take triggering actions. I recall there not being much movement what with us all going to them and cutting them down like chaffs of wheat. Those that got a turn usually made a lot of strikes, with the occasional Step.

(I recognize that this is anecdotal, and might well be very different next time.)

[QuidEst]

Keep in mind that Thaumaturge's unarmed strike hits as effectively an agile 1d8, so bludgeoning is generally pretty accessible.

[Captain Morgan]

I'm not aware if anyone presenting the Thaumaturge as an OP damage dealing machine on par with the fighter. It's main damage claim to fame is some of the highest minimum damage in the game, with exceedingly large flat damage modifiers.

It is the reliable damage + utility which makes the class. RD, you yourself noticed how useful Diverse Lore is. Although it sounds like you've had stingy knowledge GMs, which makes any knowledge build suffer.

[HeHateMe]

For my part, I find Thaumaturge too complex and fiddly, like most of the non-core classes. I feel like Paizo went too far nerfing anything non-core to avoid a certain crowd screaming about power creep. The result is that players need a great deal of system mastery to make non-core classes anywhere near competitive with core. Thaumaturge, Inventor, Swashbuckler, they just seem meh to me. I'm hoping they avoid continuing this trend with the release of Kineticist. I hope Kineticist can actually be competitive with the core classes.

Just my own perspective.

[Ravingdork]

QuidEst wrote:

Keep in mind that Thaumaturge's unarmed strike hits as effectively an agile 1d8, so bludgeoning is generally pretty accessible.

I...had not thought of that.

Wish it had occurred to me whilst fighting those skeletons. Wil definitely remember it for next time.

The -2 to hit to deal lethal damage to an undead could be an issue though.

Captain Morgan wrote:

I'm not aware if anyone presenting the Thaumaturge as an OP damage dealing machine on par with the fighter. It's main damage claim to fame is some of the highest minimum damage in the game, with exceedingly large flat damage modifiers.

I've not heard anyone comparing it to fighter either, at least not seriously; just talking about it's great damage in general.

Captain Morgan wrote:

It is the reliable damage + utility which makes the class. RD, you yourself noticed how useful Diverse Lore is. Although it sounds like you've had stingy knowledge GMs, which makes any knowledge build suffer.

I was well aware of the utility and versatility of the class. That's part of why I wanted to try it out; to see how many tricks I could do, how many roles I could fill.

What makes you think I've had stingy knowledge GMs? If a monster has no abilities and is basically just a bag of git points with teeth, then there isn't much to share.

[Squiggit]

HeHateMe wrote:

I'm hoping they avoid continuing this trend with the release of Kineticist.

Sort of disagree, if any class should have lots of moving parts, it's the kineticist. A kineticist that's not fiddly is probably a class that fails to live up to its potential.

gesalt wrote:

I'm pretty sure swashbuckler is the single worst class in the game (edit: aside from the alchemist).

Investigator has them both beat, and tbh I think swashbuckler vs alchemist is pretty debatable unless no one else in the party wants to play a martial.

[Ravingdork]

As an aside, can one use Dubious Knowledge with Exploit Vulnerability?

That is, if the check does not exceed the Recall Knowledge DC, is Dubious Knowledge triggered? Or is it ignored entirely since I have not taken the Recall Knowledge action?

[gesalt]

Squiggit wrote:

gesalt wrote:

I'm pretty sure swashbuckler is the single worst class in the game (edit: aside from the alchemist).

Investigator has them both beat, and tbh I think swashbuckler vs alchemist is pretty debatable unless no one else in the party wants to play a martial.

I'll be honest, I forgot investigators existed. You're absolutely right that they're worse than swashbucklers.

[Captain Morgan]

Ravingdork wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

Keep in mind that Thaumaturge's unarmed strike hits as effectively an agile 1d8, so bludgeoning is generally pretty accessible.

I...had not thought of that.

Wish it had occurred to me whilst fighting those skeletons. Wil definitely remember it for next time.

The -2 to hit to deal lethal damage to an undead could be an issue though.

Captain Morgan wrote:

I'm not aware if anyone presenting the Thaumaturge as an OP damage dealing machine on par with the fighter. It's main damage claim to fame is some of the highest minimum damage in the game, with exceedingly large flat damage modifiers.

I've not heard anyone comparing it to fighter either, at least not seriously; just talking about it's great damage in general.

Captain Morgan wrote:

It is the reliable damage + utility which makes the class. RD, you yourself noticed how useful Diverse Lore is. Although it sounds like you've had stingy knowledge GMs, which makes any knowledge build suffer.

I was well aware of the utility and versatility of the class. That's part of why I wanted to try it out; to see how many tricks I could do, how many roles I could fill.

What makes you think I've had stingy knowledge GMs? If a monster has no abilities and is basically just a bag of git points with teeth, then there isn't much to share.

Oddly enough, skeletons aren't immune to non-lethal damage like constructs are. No need to take a penalty for fists.

As for stingy knowledge...

1. I think there's usually something you can share, even if it is a lowest save or how threatening a particular monster is to you. (It sounds like you burned your scroll before the Diverse Knowledge roll, but had you done so in the other order the GM could have told you these things should be easy pickings for even novice adventurers.

2. You were told skeletons have a slashing resistance but not a piercing resistance. I take major issue with that approach, especially because narratively those are essentially the same resistance.

[QuidEst]

Undead don't have immunity to nonlethal anymore; that's just constructs. Punching a bunch of skeletons works as well now as it ought to.

[Ravingdork]

Captain Morgan wrote:

You were told skeletons have a slashing resistance but not a piercing resistance. I take major issue with that approach, especially because narratively those are...

I can't be too sure of the GM's inclinations, but I do distinctly recall him telling me that I only learned one weakness with a success via Exploit Vulnerability.

Exploit Vulnerability Success You recall an important fact about the creature, learning its highest weakness (or one of its highest weaknesses, if it has multiple with the same value) but not its other weaknesses, resistances, or immunities.

Skeletons don't have any Weaknesses. He probably gave me slashing resistance because my Esoteric Lore result was just enough to beat the Recall Knowledge DC for skeleton guards. A 14 result I believe. (If I recall correctly, the specifics were "They're Skeleton Guards; they have slashing resistance and the undead trait."

EDIT: Either I'm misremembering what I rolled, or we flubbed. A 14 would not have been enough to beat the DC of Exploit Vulnerability at level 1, and thus trigger Diverse Lore in the first place.

QuidEst wrote:

Undead don't have immunity to nonlethal anymore; that's just constructs. Punching a bunch of skeletons works as well now as it ought to.

A most welcome and pleasant surprise. I'm curious though: why should it "ought to"?

[Pirate Rob]

I love the Thaumaturge.

The ranger is a much better class to compare them to instead of the fighter.

They get 2 handed damage with 1 handed weapons.

They get to recall knowledge with charisma using an auto scaling skill.

Diverse Lore gives them a free recall knowledge when they use exploit vulnerability.

Fitting in the action to recall knowledge in combat is tough, but I love when it comes free attached to another action.

They get unique and varied abilities based on their implements.
They can easily cover support magic with feat options.

Thaumaturges get a strong chassis.

Weapon Expert at 5 and Master at 13
Armor Expert at 13 and Master at 19
Above average Fortitude Save progression
Average Reflex Save progression
Best Will save progression (Tied with Oracle and 1/3 of Monks)
Above average Perception (Unique progression below most perceptive martials and above Bard/Swashbuckler)

---

They do suffer a bit in efficiency against multiple lower level foes with action economy problems in the same way a ranger does, but they excel against the hardest opponents which tend to be single higher level enemies who's massive HP pools are somewhat "balanced" by a weakness. Of course when you're lower level accessing that weakness can be hard but Thaumaturges just dial it up.

---

You also get to emulate the class of your choosing (eventually multiple)

Amulet: Get champion AC and beyond the curve saves while reducing damage to nearby allies.

Bell: Stupefy opponents as a reaction, really strong when it lasts a few rounds. (Lets say you're against a powerful spell caster and you need a 15+ to save against their spell. Normally you're CS 5%, S: 25%, F: 45%, CF 25% If they are stupefied 1 (Flat 6 to cast and DCs reduced by 1, and assuming CS is no effect) you're now: CS 28.75%, S: 22.25%, F: 33.75%, CF 15%

Enfeebled is also really good against melee opponents, reducing both damage and to-hit, although not quite as good as for spells which it effectively gives a 25% miss chance and reduces to hit.

Chalice gives you ongoing healing out of combat without using up time, it works on undead and gets better when your party is taking damage.

Lantern gives a free exploration activity, and a bonus to perception and recall knowledge, it also helps against invisible foes.

Mirror gives you the ability to be in 2 spaces at once and then later lets you choose which one is the real you. Super cool and unique

Regalia gives you above curve benefits to social skills and helps your allies out as well, in addition to further fear and other emotion benefits. You're already a charisma class to benefits to social skills is pretty awesome.

Tome lets you solve skill problems. Going into the wilderness and nobody knows survival? You've got it! Want an overly specific lore for what you're about to go investigate? Pick it up for the day.

Wand gives you a unique non attack roll attack. 2 actions is a little rough and I think this is one of the weaker choices but is still a unique elemental attack.

Weapon gives you limited AoOs, and miss damage (which triggers weakness). That second bit makes you even more dangerous against those single higher level foes.

Of course you don't do as much damage as the fighter does. That's their sthick. They are really good at fighting.

What you do is martial damage and have a host of unique and powerful abilities to customize how you contribute to the party.

[QuidEst]

Oh, just mean that punching or kicking bones seems like the kind of thing that you should do when fighting a skeleton, rather than using a sword.

[Ascalaphus]

Skeleton guards are level -1, so knowledge DC 13. A 14 on EV is enough for a success and enough for a Diverse Lore check on them too, since the -2 doesn't apply on EV checks.

Arguably, they're so intensely common the RK DC could be even lower than that.

Since the skeletal resistances are a pretty coherent package, yeah, splitting out slashing and piercing resistance separately is being stingy as GM.

[Ravingdork]

Ascalaphus wrote:

Skeleton guards are level -1, so knowledge DC 13. A 14 on EV is enough for a success and enough for a Diverse Lore check on them too, since the -2 doesn't apply on EV checks.

The Recall Knowledge DC doesn't matter if you fail against the Exploit Vulnerability DC.

Diverse Lore ...Additionally, when you succeed at your check to Exploit a Vulnerability, compare the result of your Esoteric Lore check to the DC to Recall Knowledge for that creature...

You only benefit if you Succeed at Exploit Vulnerability.

[breithauptclan]

Ravingdork wrote:

As an aside, can one use Dubious Knowledge with Exploit Vulnerability?

That is, if the check does not exceed the Recall Knowledge DC, is Dubious Knowledge triggered? Or is it ignored entirely since I have not taken the Recall Knowledge action?

For Exploit Vulnerability itself - no. What would Dubious Knowledge do?

If you are asking about the free Recall Knowledge that comes with Diverse Lore - also no by strict RAW. You already noticed that you only get the recall knowledge effect if you succeed at the Exploit Vulnerability check. You may be able to convince a GM to let a failure on Exploit Vulnerability to give you the effect of a failed recall knowledge check including dubious knowledge. That doesn't seem to be an out-of-bounds ask.

[Hilary Moon Murphy]

I think that if you are looking at thaumaturges, it helps not to think of them as a worse Fighter or Barbarian. They're always going to get outshone damage-dealing in combat. What you should think of them as is a diverse chassis that you can use to make all sorts of oddball character concepts shine.

I love thaumaturges because they are the melee-bard I've always wanted. I get charisma, great skills, a few fun implement tricks and I get to be reasonably useful in combat. My damage is steady, and if I'm fighting a weird creature with an obscure weakness, I'm the one bringing the targeted damage that gets through the defenses.

PFS tends to throw a lot of creatures with high defenses but an odd weakness at parties. So, I'm okay at clearing mooks. But bring me a swarm and suddenly I am triggering the splash damage that we need to kill it fast.

I know others who have used their thaumaturges to make a lackluster attack like Sprite's Spark suddenly do enough damage to be useful. One player I know used his thaumaturge to be the skilled 'Champion' that he always wanted to play. They're also great chassis for a number of archetypes.

I have two thaumaturges in PFS, a finesse build and a strength build, and they play completely differently. In fact, I've been considering making a third thaumaturge just to try out different implements and enhance a certain ancestry's natural attacks.

They're not a fighter, but they hold their own with skills, social encounters and in melee. They're just a well-balanced and fun class that can participate in every aspect of a roleplaying game. What's not to love?

Hmm

[pauljathome]

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

They're not a fighter, but they hold their own with skills, social encounters and in melee. They're just a well-balanced and fun class that can participate in every aspect of a roleplaying game. What's not to love?

Hmm

While I absolutely love the Thaumaturge it has to be admitted that they do have a few consistent issues

1) Action economy. Their schtick takes up quite a few actions in a normal combat.
2) They are significantly more effective against creatures with some material weakness than they are against ones without, ESPECIALLY when that weakness is unknown in advance. Which means that depending on GM, campaign etc they can vary signficantly in power.
3) They're a bit fiddly in play as you have to keep track of which creatures you've used your esoteric knowledge on.

That said, I agree that they absolutely rock. And trying to measure them just in derms of how much damage they deal in general is doing them a huge disservice. They REALLY fill the warrior bard mode for me too.

[Squiggit]

pauljathome wrote:

ESPECIALLY when that weakness is unknown in advance.

This is probably my least favorite thing about the Thaumaturge. Foreknowledge and research are actively wastes of time for a Thaumaturge, they can even feel contextually detrimental to the character.

If you know you're going to fight a werewolf and you get some silversheens, the thaumaturge simply stops having a damage mechanic of its own anymore.

It creates these weird scenarios where if everyone gets ready for a fight, you can kind of end up feeling more like a rogue fighting an ooze than someone fighting with a special bonus from your preparation.

It ends up feeling very paradoxical that a class that bills itself as a hunter of the esoteric and has an RK feature front and center actually ends up being relatively stronger if it's not researching things and fighting generic humanoids with no special weaknesses.

[Captain Morgan]

Squiggit wrote:

pauljathome wrote:

ESPECIALLY when that weakness is unknown in advance.

This is probably my least favorite thing about the Thaumaturge. Foreknowledge and research are actively wastes of time for a Thaumaturge, they can even feel contextually detrimental to the character.

If you know you're going to fight a werewolf and you get some silversheens, the thaumaturge simply stops having a damage mechanic of its own anymore.

It creates these weird scenarios where if everyone gets ready for a fight, you can kind of end up feeling more like a rogue fighting an ooze than someone fighting with a special bonus from your preparation.

It ends up feeling very paradoxical that a class that bills itself as a hunter of the esoteric and has an RK feature front and center actually ends up being relatively stronger if it's not researching things and fighting generic humanoids with no special weaknesses.

Setting aside that the "weakness can only trigger once from a single damage instance" is RAW but not what was intended for the class, I'll point out that you're last sentence is only half true. The Thaumaturge does relatively better if they haven't research and prepared enemy weaknesses ahead of time, but at that point they do significantly better fighting creatures with weaknesses than humanoids. Mortal Weakness is almost always both higher damage than Peroneal Antithesis and better action economy. The Thaumaturge still does better against werewolves.

[breithauptclan]

I would instead go with the logic that relatively stronger is not the same as actually stronger.

Sure, if the party spends some time before the battle researching and preparing for a fight against some werewolves, then the Thaumaturge won't be as much of the rock star of the fight. The rest of the party will also feel effective and the battle will go quite smoothly.

But that doesn't mean that the Thaumaturge is actually doing worse. The Thaumaturge is doing at least as well as they would have done without the preparations.

[Squiggit]

Captain Morgan wrote:

Setting aside that the "weakness can only trigger once from a single damage instance" is RAW but not what was intended for the class.

Do you have a source for this? Letting a thaumaturge use personal antithesis alongside traditional weaknesses would go a long way to making them more functional in these sorts of encounters.

breithauptclan wrote:

But that doesn't mean that the Thaumaturge is actually doing worse. The Thaumaturge is doing at least as well as they would have done without the preparations.

But it does mean that, essentially, the Thaumaturge loses out on a benefit other martials could gain access to because their damage mechanic runs in the same channel.

It means that in campaigns where there's ready access to knowledge and opportunities to learn about monsters and exploit their weaknesses, the thaumaturge becomes a worse choice of character to play than other martials, which feels incredibly contradictory to the thematic underpinings of the class.

[arcady]

Ravingdork wrote:

In our first encounter, we got rushed by five giant rats. I cast magic weapon on my longsword implement via Scroll Thaumaturgy. I then used Exploit Vulnerability and Diverse Lore on the lead rat. (As a human, I get lots of feats.) The GM tells me "it's just a rat; no immunities, resistances, vulnerabilities, or special abilities--not even disease."

******************

Your GM botched that.

Doesn't matter if it's just a rat, you still get the +2 Personal Antithesis on it if you do a successful Exploit Vulnerability.

That may not matter much against easy targets like rats, but that +2 matters more when you're against things that can't be one-shot by the witch's familiar's sneezes...

[Ascalaphus]

Ravingdork wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

Skeleton guards are level -1, so knowledge DC 13. A 14 on EV is enough for a success and enough for a Diverse Lore check on them too, since the -2 doesn't apply on EV checks.

The Recall Knowledge DC doesn't matter if you fail against the Exploit Vulnerability DC.

Diverse Lore ...Additionally, when you succeed at your check to Exploit a Vulnerability, compare the result of your Esoteric Lore check to the DC to Recall Knowledge for that creature...

You only benefit if you Succeed at Exploit Vulnerability.

Yeah but a 14 would have been enough for that, since skeleton guards are level -1 so DC 13.

You wrote:

Quote:

EDIT: Either I'm misremembering what I rolled, or we flubbed. A 14 would not have been enough to beat the DC of Exploit Vulnerability at level 1, and thus trigger Diverse Lore in the first place.

But the DC isn't based on your level (1) but on that of the target (-1). A 14 is enough for that.

[AceofMoxen]

Karmagator wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Is the Thaumaturge better than the Swashbuckler? They roll to make their main damage ability work as well.

I'd say, arguably yes, but not by too much. Swashbucklers are a bit more tanky, mobile and have greater variance in the skill department (without the tome implement factored in). Thaumaturges should deal more damage and definitely have easier access to getting their damage bonus - which is the biggest deal here. They also have much more build variety, but that isn't really a question of power.

If the swashbuckler's access to panache was less erratic, they would be roughly equal.

the big difference is the thaumaturge gets a significant boost on a fail, but not a crit fail, while the swashbuckler usually gets nothing on a fail.

RD, if you took scroll thaumaturgy for pfs, you want to be in the spells school. You could have gotten a magic weapon scroll for free. One of your problems here is that you used a big consumable in a small fight, which could happen to anyone. My magus has spent a high-level spell strike on weak or low health enemies before.

I've been really happy with my pfs human thaumaturge with the weapon implement. I just hit level 4, and he's already one of my favorite characters of all time. I use a light hammer. 1d6+2 bludgeoning, agile, thrown 20ft. Throwing weapons (and a returning rune) really smooth my action economy.

[Ravingdork]

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

I think that if you are looking at thaumaturges, it helps not to think of them as a worse Fighter or Barbarian. They're always going to get outshone damage-dealing in combat. What you should think of them as is a diverse chassis that you can use to make all sorts of oddball character concepts shine.

I never held any illusions that the class would be on par with a fighter, or necessarily even a barbarian. I was expecting it to be a decent martial with some skills and other tricks. Less beat stick, and a little more well rounded, as it were.

arcady wrote:

Your GM botched that.

Doesn't matter if it's just a rat, you still get the +2 Personal Antithesis on it if you do a successful Exploit Vulnerability.

That may not matter much against easy targets like rats, but that +2 matters more when you're against things that can't be one-shot by the witch's familiar's sneezes...

Oh I got my bonus damage against the rat. I just probably would have done more if I went straight to the hacking.

I don't usually wait until my GM tells me I get the damage (they never do). I add that in myself and give them the total result. In this case, I just need them to tell me whether my esoteric lore check was a Critical Success, Success, Failure, or Critical Failure.

Ascalaphus wrote:

But the DC isn't based on your level (1) but on that of the target (-1). A 14 is enough for that.

Ah I see. I probably did get the Personal DC and the enemy DC mixed up, though I couldn't tell you now where or when I got switched up. Thanks for clearing that up.

Interesting how some classes use the former and some use the latter.

AceofMoxen wrote:

RD, if you took scroll thaumaturgy for pfs, you want to be in the spells school. You could have gotten a magic weapon scroll for free. One of your problems here is that you used a big consumable in a small fight, which could happen to anyone. My magus has spent a high-level spell strike on weak or low health enemies before.

I did exactly that, and at 1st-level was running around with two scrolls of magic weapon, one free and one purchased. I used the free one in the rat fight and still have the other on hand for future encounters.

AceofMoxen wrote:

I've been really happy with my pfs human thaumaturge with the weapon implement. I just hit level 4, and he's already one of my favorite characters of all time. I use a light hammer. 1d6+2 bludgeoning, agile, thrown 20ft. Throwing weapons (and a returning rune) really smooth my action economy.

I may try a switch hitter weapon in the future, especially once I can get a returning rune or something similar. Even with the lower damage, the ability to use reactions from 10 feet and the smoothed action economy does sound extremely appealing.

[Unicore]

I find very low level PFS to be a difficult place to get a good read on a class. Encounters tend to go very very fast and if the table has5 or 6 PCs, there will be so much damage dealing so quickly that any actions not spent doing damage in round 1 really set you back. In my experience, everyone rushes the enemy and if a fight goes 4 rounds, the party is in a whole lot of trouble.

This is very different from the 4 PC APs I’ve played in or ran, where PFS tactics are often TPK tactics. I have a champion with a wizard dedication in PFS and have found magic missile to do more damage as a scroll option than magic weapon because fights go so fast.

[Red Griffyn]

Thaumaturges have the following weaknesses in play:

(1) Heavy action economy taxes
(2) Fiddly "in hand" requirements
(3) Key Ability Score (KAS) starts at a 16.
(4) Slow Reflex Save
(5) D8 HP Chassis

What I find helps alleviate those sticking points are:

(1) Use of ranged weapons. In particular thrown weapons can net you back 1 action per turn that might have been spent moving around in melee. There are 1D8 or 1D6 thrown weapons of all weapon damage types (now with the boomerang out to 60 ft). The Thrower's Bandolier can give you 20 weapons which is more than enough for 1 to 2 throws over a 5 or 6 round combat. You can start with shurikens until you get quick draw from dipping into rogue at which point you can be throwing 1d8->1D12 weapons.

(2) Use of unarmed strikes or selection of 1 or more passive implements. Kashrishi with their 1D8 finesse horn or other 1D6 unarmed strikes coming from jaws, tails, etc (just not hands) are great pressure reliefs for a melee thaumaturge. That lets you have your two implements out doing stuff, but still be able to attack at full scaling power. The alternative, I think, is to have an implement that you don't really need for combat. Like the tome implement is great and its benefits are 90% passive until you get the ability to pseudo truestrike with it (you may not even want to do that due to action economy). Essentially you have a combat implement like regalia and a passive or out of combat implement like tome a without losing too much in combat power.

(3) This is the other half of what implement's empowerment and exploit vulnerability is trying to resolve. That -1 or -3 to hit Vs. a fighter will be felt (average of ~15% damage decrease for a -1). This is where boosts to your accuracy via weapon traits like agile become a lot better because you can boost effectively be swinging a 1D10 agile weapon or 1D12 agile monk stance (e.g., stumbling stance), which isn't possible for anyone else. At ranged this could be the knife, throwning knife, starknife, filtch's fork, Tamchal Chakram (which given its flavour text, a lenient GM might let unconventional weaponry apply to), etc. Those also all double as melee weapon options for switch hitting. But since the class has a larger than normal static damage, just hitting (vs. critting) is really all you need to remain relevant in combat. Thats where getting flatfooted, demoralizing, etc. really boost your ability to apply damage. My recommendation is for things like the L1 Divine Disharmony Feat (flatfooted at range via a CHA skill) or building up synergies for these auxiliary actions (e.g., demoralize is good, combine it with the rogues dread striker at L8 via MC, and maybe the hobgoblins agonizing rebuke for mental damage) to swap that move for melee strike to a -1 AC/Flatfooted for You/1-3d4 damage action. Alternatively, regalia + Inspiring Stance from Marshal can be really great in non-bard parties for bringing you back to parity on your accuracy.

(4) Use a finesse or ranged attack so DEX is your best stat. Since you succeed on a failure for exploit vulnerabilities, it isn't actually hyper critical to have it start at an 18 and get a bump every level (unless your implement has a DC). Also MCs into classes like rogue or monk have the L12 feat to boost a save, where you can pick reflex and get it to master for a M/M/L save progression.

(5) Toughness Feat, Mountain Stoutness from Dwarf, Golem Grafter (likely don't have feats for that) all give +1 hp/level. Alternatively, going ranged relieves some pressure.

So for PFS2e what the build could look like is:

Half Elf Thaumaturge thrower Build (Back up switch hitting)

Implements (Regalia + Tome, Regalia bumps first)

Ancestry Feats:
(1) Elf Atavism (for dark vision)
(3) Via Ancestral Paragon (Natural Ambition -> Divine Disharmony)
(5) Ageless Patience (+2 circumstance to almost all skills out of combat not covered by regalia or tome and can include your exploit vulnerabilities on a boss for 2 actions vs. 1).
(9) Multi-talented (spell casting class)
(13) ?
(17) ?

Class Feats:
(1) Diverse Lore
(2) Rogue - Dedication
(4) Rogue - Quick Draw
(6) Rogue - Sneak Attacker or Thaumaturge - Sympathetic Vulnerabilities
(8) Rogue - Dread Striker
(9) Via Multi-talented (Spell Casting Class - Dedication)
(10) L9 Caster - Basic Spell Casting
(12) Rogue - Evasiveness (Master in Reflex)
(14) L9 Caster - Expert Spell Casting
(16) Implement's Flight
(18) L9 Caster - Master Spell Casting or Implement's Assault
(20) L9 Caster - Master Spell Casting or Implement's Assault

In Combat:
So for the above you will throw weapons (likely boomerang is your main) using quickdraw to save a move action and attempt to land either divine disharmony or demoralize to get flatfooted at range first. So a typical turn would be:
- Exploit Vulnerabilities, Divine Disharmony or Demoralize, Quickdraw Strike with thrown weapon.
- Divine Disharmony or Demoralize, Quickdraw Strikex2 with thrown weapon

You want to bump Stealth for Initiative (since surprise attack from the rogue dedication will mitigate an action round 1 to get a flatfooted enemy.

If you have to move you drop a strike or the DD/Demoralize action. You also have regalia L7 status bonus damage which is nice. Intimidation and the frightened status are also one of the most commonly invested '3rd action' actions, so its highly likely that you won't even need to do anything from L8+ to get flatfooted against something and can attack twice instead.

You need to use the thrower's bandolier and stock it with all 3 damage types. Typically Chakrams and Tridents are best for one off attacks in close range, boomerangs for long range, a few agile weapons for turns you get a second strike, and of course 1-2 melee thrown finesse weapons that you can use for switch hitting.

Out of combat:
- 2xE at L5 then 2xM skills from Tome at L11, +X bonuses to recall rolls
- Ageless Patience for +2 circumstance bonus on non-time sensitive skill checks
- +X Circumstance bonus on Diplomacy/Deception/Intimidation from regalia
- Diverse Lore
- 2+ Trained Skills from Rogue Dedication
- 1-2+ Trained Skills from L9 MC Dedication
- Eventually basic spell casting to allow you to activate staves/wands/scrolls.

Caster Archetype:
- You want to pick a class that will open up a spell list with low level buff, support, or healing options so you can keep performance decoupled from your casting stat. For me that is Divine/Occult since they have heroism, which can patch your 16 starting DEX. Divine is better IMO because every other slot can just be heal for some extra options if needed.
- Prepared casters can juice the system with grimoires for more slots. Endless grimoires in particular can give you another spell slot (e.g., L10 version gives a L3 slot which is perfect for a heroism). Same thing for rings of wizardry, familiars, etc.
- There are two new codas (i.e., Bard staffs) that have L3 heroism on them, but a common staff of healing on a divine list caster has all those removals/heal and is probably better if you aren't just self-buffing heroism as many times as possible.
- Holy Prayer Beads, which could be an implement (say regalia of a holy kingdom), can also provide a free heal, bless, or the L11 version gives you L4 versions.

So a divine witch, with the spell battery familiar trait, greater endless grimoire, greater holy beads, and scaling healer's staff, eventually gets maximal divine spells split between heals and L3 heroism.

Of course Psychic can net you amped guidance/message, bard can get you those two instruments for L3 heroism on your staff and with investment the dirge of doom, etc. and backfill off levels with increased soothes as needed. There are other buff/support spells like false life or the Share Lore/Comprehend Language/Tongues/Pocket Library, etc. that can be fun for out of combat utility if you don't want to be greedy with heroism.

NOTE: If you don't want to do this whole caster thing, sympathetic vulnerabilities, share weakness, and thaumaturge's investiture are all great in class feats IMO.

[YuriP]

Red Griffyn wrote:

(1) Use of ranged weapons. In particular thrown weapons can net you back 1 action per turn that might have been spent moving around in melee. There are 1D8 or 1D6 thrown weapons of all weapon damage types (now with the boomerang out to 60 ft). The Thrower's Bandolier can give you 20 weapons which is more than enough for 1 to 2 throws over a 5 or 6 round combat. You can start with shurikens until you get quick draw from dipping into rogue at which point you can be throwing 1d8->1D12 weapons.

You put a good point here. Classes with high action taxes can benefit well from ranged weapons in many situations once you need to move less economizing some precious actions. It's in a similar situation to Investigators and Magus where is usually better and safest to play ranged.

[pauljathome]

I think that the bottom line is that the Thaumaturge is a decent combatant in terms of dealing out damage but that really is NOT the reason to play one.

You're playing a Thaumaturge because you love knowing stuff, the interaction skills, the other cool things he can do while STILL playing a character who is a decent combatant in terms of dealing out damage.

It is also a VERY flexible class and different builds will play out quite differently.

[Super Zero]

Ravingdork wrote:

While true enough, I'm not certain that thaumaturge--when built as a martial--even stacks up against other martials all that well. Take the Barbarian class, for example. Barbarians also need to waste an action on their core ability, rage, in order to maximize their damage output. However, they do not require a check with a penalty for failure, are not limited to lower damage one-handed weapons, do not need to repeat the action for every target, and do not lose all of their bonuses when someone kills their target.

There's only a penalty on a critical failure. It doesn't even fail on a failure, although depending on the enemy there might be reduced effect.

You still get Personal Antithesis on a failure, which is all you get against enemies that don't have weaknesses anyway.
Although it sounds like you weren't using Personal Antithesis at all.

And Thaumaturges get two-handed weapon damage with Implement's Empowerment. A lower die, but +2 per die, is just the higher die with better consistency at the cost of lower spikes.

[Easl]

Ravingdork wrote:

I then used Exploit Vulnerability and Diverse Lore on the lead rat. (As a human, I get lots of feats.) The GM tells me "it's just a rat; no immunities, resistances, vulnerabilities, or special abilities--not even disease."

If they have no weaknesses, you jury rig a "personal antithesis" of value 2+half level. So unless you crit fail, Exploit Vulnerability always gives you at least +2 damage.

So with a longsword in one hand and implement in another, a 1st level Thaumaturge should be doing d8+2(empowerment)+2(exploit weakness)+3(strength, probably). = d8+7 at +6. Which is middle of the pack martial. You're hitting harder than many, but 1 point behind on attacks. You will probably not produce as much DPR as an offensively built Magus, Giant Barbarian, Fighter, or against-flat-footed rogue. But you should do okay.

IMO the Thaumaturge's strengths lies in its flexibility. On top of that middle-of-the-pack martial, you have CHA primary which makes you a good face. And you have a single lore skill, linked to CHA, which can literally substitute for ANY other lore in the game for a -2 penalty. On top of which, your feats let you use any scroll, produce temorary scrolls, and produce talismans. The CHA primary also means that any background or archetype that gives you spells lets you cast them pretty well.

So the thaumaturge is one of those 'second best at lots of things' sort of character. It's a martial AND a face AND a researcher AND a consumable-producer, almost all at 1st level (the consumables come later)! It just doesn't do any of them quite as good as a dedicated-to-one-of-them PC.

Lastly, I agree with some of the other posters that Weapon implement may not have been the best way to go. It may be good against single big enemies (assuming they try to move). Otherwise, personally I like Mirror for it's defensiveness and general coolness. Amulet is also a pretty good starter, maybe.

[Easl]

Easl wrote:

So with a longsword in one hand and implement in another, a 1st level Thaumaturge should be doing d8+2(empowerment)+2(exploit weakness)+3(strength, probably). = d8+7 at +6. Which is middle of the pack martial.

Ah I forgot to add, IIRC Implement's empowerment adds +2 per damage die, not a flat +2. So when you cast magic weapon on it like you say you did, your 1st level Thaumaturge will be doing 2d8+9 (+4+2+3) damage per strike. Which is really quite good at 1st level. Now granted, you've paid for that by basically not attacking for a round to set it up. But once it's set up, it doesn't require any further shenaningans in later rounds to keep that benefit going, like say an Investigator or Rogue or Magus sometimes requires.