So tell me what are your thoughts on the different implements for Thaumaturge? Which ones do you consider the best and which ones do you consider the boring lackluster bottom of the barrel, so to speak?
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Tome and Regalia are probably the strongest since they're relatively passive. Mirror has a lot of potential, but would require party support and multiclassing to reach it's full potential. These are the three I would strongly recommend as your starting implement.
The weapon is a strong second implement, especially for thaumaturges with ranged weapons or reach. I really discourage people from picking it first, though, unless you know caster type enemies will be common.
Amulet is another decent support option. I would not be surprised if it was a lot of people's 3rd implement of choice, or their 2nd choice if they want to swap weapons (Thaumaturge is a decent choice for a Thrower's Bandolier build even if you're not throwing weapons).
The rest feel kind of lackluster, personally.
I personally play a Tome/weapon Thaumaturge as my primary PFS character.
I'm playing a Tome/Amulet currently.
Tome is a bit tricky to get much benefit from. You get skill proficiency, but no skill feats. And you need to know what skills are needed for the day at the start of the day. The bonus to recall knowledge is useful, but not terribly unique - there are other ways of being good at recall knowledge.
Amulet is quite useful. A bit more action intensive than Champion reaction, but on-par with the power level. I haven't had any problems using it pretty much every round. Whoever I pick as target is going to attack someone. I just need to make sure that it is someone within 15 feet of me.
Theorycrafting on the rest.
Bell looks like a reasonable debuff effect. I haven't been tempted to try it out though.
Chalice is an interesting healing option. Probably not better than any other focus point style healing option, and likely worse than several of them. I think Lay on Hands is better for healing. And I'm pretty sure that the new Faith's Flamekeeper Witch Patron familiar ability does at least the same temp hp buffer each round but costs less actions. Some of the later upgrades might change the balance of the comparisons, but they are also a bit more fiddly to use.
Lantern looks really campaign dependent. In a campaign where there are a lot of invisible enemies and hidden doors it could be very powerful. In campaigns where those things are not common, there are better light sources to let the party see while underground.
Mirror feels like a gimmick rather than something actually useful. It does create a short range teleport effect similar to Magus Dimensional Assault but with fewer restrictions. Could be good in difficult terrain. I'm still trying to find a reason to consider being in two places on the map to actually be a benefit overall. Flanking with yourself is cute, but...? Also, no it doesn't let you fly or stand in the air. Falling is forced movement and would apply to the image in the air - which breaks the effect.
Regalia. I have heard good things about it. People compare it to Inspire Courage a bit - I am guessing the level 7 upgrade. Which to me looks more like an AoE Stoke the Heart instead, but that is just quibbling. The Initiate benefit looks pretty weak.
Wand looks like it would turn the Thaumaturge into a switch hitter melee/range damage dealer. The wand action cost and damage is about on par with that of a cantrip - and it isn't increased by Implement's Empowerment or Exploit Vulnerability (which are both for unarmed and weapon strikes only). So it may be better to just get an innate cantrip...
Weapon is probably fairly useful. Similar to Amulet vs Champion the comparison would be Weapon vs Fighter or any other character with Reactive Strike. Weapon implement is a bit more action intensive to set up, but equivalent in power.
Tome & Regalia are the best.
Weapon is uninteresting imo but effective (AoOs with thrown weapons!)
Mirror's alright but having to spend an action every turn is pretty rough, it also randomly gets worse with it's first upgrade.
Reactive and active implements can freely swap out as needed, but passive implements require an action to draw them
Active definitely can. Reactive is questionable.
The action to swap implements is a free action, but it does not have a trigger. You can only use a free action with a trigger when it is not your turn. If it doesn't have a trigger it is used just like your regular actions but without costing you one of your three actions for the turn.
I'm not sure how many GMs will enforce that though. I don't.
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Reactive and active implements can freely swap out as needed, but passive implements require an action to draw themActive definitely can. Reactive is questionable.
The action to swap implements is a free action, but it does not have a trigger. You can only use a free action with a trigger when it is not your turn. If it doesn't have a trigger it is used just like your regular actions but without costing you one of your three actions for the turn.
I'm not sure how many GMs will enforce that though. I don't.
As the example cites a reaction i am pretty sure it is intended that you can use it for reactions:
"For example, if you had your lantern implement in one hand, a weapon in the other, and a chalice implement you were wearing, you could swap your lantern for your chalice to use its reaction."(second implement)
Well, that wouldn't be the first time that the example doesn't match the actual rules.
Also, that example is rather borked in general. What reaction does Chalice Implement give?
Regardless of all of that, I do agree that it is RAI that it should work. It would just be nice if the free action to swap implements actually had a trigger. Maybe even one that allows swapping to an implement to use a standard action that would benefit from the passive benefit Implements. Such as swapping to use Recall Knowledge with Tome Implement.
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Regarding the tome implement, i find it quite annoying that the "free" recall knowledge check results in the DC going up following the "Additional Knowledge" rules.
And if a "very hard" check is failed you cannot use it anymore, which means the "+1 to attack" of the adept benefit seems to be actually quite limited.
Wand and Lantern I think are the ones that struggle the most. Wand's damage and action economy are tragically bad. It makes for a decent backup option, but given that implements are a core class feature, investing that heavily in something that you would prefer to never actually use is a pretty bad deal. It's genuinely kind of terrible.
Lantern similarly suffers from being a bit awkwardly niche. It has the potential to be very good in a campaign that heavily relies on invisibility and stealth for enemies, but against enemies that don't a lot of your benefits simply go away. Passive implements in general suffer from not benefiting from free implement swapping, which imo hurts the lantern doubly because it's best used in response to something.
The others are more of a mixed bag, and I think arguments can be made for all of them (though fwiw I've never seen someone use the Bell).
I like Tome in part because it does something even if you never find time to pull it out, which helps mitigate the biggest downside of passive implements.
Weapon is cool on paper, but having your AoO only work on one target makes it a lot more limited than it looks, and the intensify bonus being a status bonus means a lot of typical party setups undercut it.
Chalice is surprisingly decent survivability, but it kind of has poor scaling and the later benefits can feel a bit awkward. That said, it's been one that I've seen perform better in play than it looks.
Regalia I really like in general, though it has a bit of a slower ramp up, which might make me less interested in using it in slower or low level only campaigns... plus it's a passive implement so that's an innate downside.