Thaumaturge Questions [Breached Defenses & Sympathetic Vulnerabilities]

[xkouseiya]

Hi all!

So Breached Defenses gives a Thaumaturge an extra add on for Exploit Vulnerability that lets them basically bypass resistances which can be very game changing for fights in the right circumstances! But I'm not sure how it reacts (if it even does) with Sympathetic Vulnerabilities. RAW doesn't mention breached defenses in the feat, but is this because there's the option to not take it or is it because it only extends to weaknesses?

Our GM hasn't given us his ruling yet and I'm personally fine with either answer but I just really want some clarification. Especially since Breached Defenses doesn't seem to lead to any other feats?

My initial line of thought was as follows: since the flavor text for Breached Defenses says "You can find the one weak point in a creature's scales, wards, or armor to get past its resistances."

I could see that working with Sympathetic Vulnerability in which the Personal Antithesis says: "While you have personal antithesis applied to a non-humanoid creature, you can apply your custom weakness to all creatures of the exact same kind. For example, if you used personal antithesis against an imp, the custom weakness would apply to other imps but not to other non-imp devils." Especially since Personal Antitheses can get very silly with how personal the weakness is, and it kinda makes sense to have the weak point be the same for all non-humanoid creatures of the same type as an example. This is obviously not RAW, but I don't know if it was even considered for the feat and that's why I want the clarification. How have y'all ruled this in the past or seen this ruled?

[Baarogue]

The usual options for Exploit Vulnerability are Mortal Weakness or Personal Antithesis

Mortal Weakness wrote:

After identifying a creature's weakness, you use a thematically resonant bit of esoterica to attune your attacks to your discovery. Your unarmed and weapon Strikes activate the highest weakness you discovered with Exploit Vulnerability, even though the damage type your weapon deals doesn't change. This damage affects the target of your Exploit Vulnerability, as well as any other creatures of the exact same type, but not other creatures with the same weakness. For example, when fighting a pack of werewolves you might use silver shavings or crushed moonstone to deal damage that applies their weakness to silver to your attacks against any of the werewolves, but you wouldn't apply this damage to any other monsters with a weakness to silver.

Personal Antithesis wrote:

You improvise a custom weakness on a creature by forcefully presenting and empowering a piece of esoterica that repels it on an individual level; for instance, against a tyrant, you might procure a broken chain that once held a captive. This causes the target creature, and only the target creature, to gain a weakness against your unarmed and weapon Strikes equal to 2 + half your level.

Breached Defenses gives you a third option aside from Mortal Weakness and Personal Antithesis when you succeed at Exploit Vulnerability

Breached Defenses wrote:

You can choose this benefit only if you succeeded at Exploit Vulnerability and learned the creature has at least one resistance that can be bypassed. Choose one such resistance. Your unarmed and weapon Strikes bypass the chosen resistance.

As you say, by RAW, it is not mentioned in Sympathetic Vulnerabilities so does not function with SV

How your GM rules on it is their prerogative of course. I don't think it would be unreasonable to allow it to work like the Personal Antithesis option of Sympathetic Vulnerabilities, since it would make sense that bypassing the example creature's resistance to physical damage except silver would work against other creatures "of the exact same kind." I would not give you any miscellaneous enhancements that might exist for Personal Antithesis in such a ruling though

[Tridus]

Agreed that RAW they don't work together.

Also agreed that as a GM I'd house rule it so that they do. Treat it similar to Mortal Weakness: anything with the same resistance you are breaching is impacted.

Unless you're in an Incorporeal heavy campaign or something very specific, Breach Defenses just doesn't come up a ton. I don't see any harm in letting it play nice with another feat.

[xkouseiya]

Tridus wrote:

Agreed that RAW they don't work together.

Also agreed that as a GM I'd house rule it so that they do. Treat it similar to Mortal Weakness: anything with the same resistance you are breaching is impacted.

Unless you're in an Incorporeal heavy campaign or something very specific, Breach Defenses just doesn't come up a ton. I don't see any harm in letting it play nice with another feat.

Baarogue wrote:

As you say, by RAW, it is not mentioned in Sympathetic Vulnerabilities so does not function with SV

How your GM rules on it is their prerogative of course. I don't think it would be unreasonable to allow it to work like the Personal Antithesis option of Sympathetic Vulnerabilities, since it would make sense that bypassing the example creature's resistance to physical damage except silver would work against other creatures "of the exact same kind." I would not give you any miscellaneous enhancements that might exist for Personal Antithesis in such a ruling though

Thanks to both of you! I should note that the character this is on is in the Kingmaker AP (she's level 9 with a Sorcerer and Harrower free archetypes) so my DM will know what will come up better than I will, and hopefully we can make a plan accordingly! I have no issues using RAW, but yeah its interesting that it wasn't accounted for (likely on purpose, lol).