SangoProduction
2020-12-28, 11:38 PM
Thaumaturge: When you take the 3e Wilder, and try to make it work with Spheres of Power. An interesting idea... up until you realize that, unlike self-contained psychic spells, almost all sphere talents are meant to interconnect on some level. And that even the Wilder has more spells than you have talents.
I've played precisely one session with the class in a real game. For a good reason. Oh lord is it limited. And unlike other low casters, its entire shtick is to cast. I was almost dying of boredom by the end of the last session.
But, I think with a bit more analysis, I can turn this sad, dilapidated class into something presentable. And maybe get to respec, or dump the character.
Post review analysis: Yeah. My initial impressions were not at all wrong. It's a gimmick of a class that's pretty one-dimensional without a bunch of room for customization, while presenting potential balancing issues.
I do really appreciate how some of the archetypes change things up, and how the feats essentially flip the class on its head, from a selfish b*stard, addicted to caster level, to...well, you can see.
But that really is the best I can say about it.
Ranking system:
(S) Superb: You always want this. It's awesome.
(G) Good: You would certainly not complain about having this, especially in the right builds / situations.
(B) Bad: While perhaps better than nothing, you are giving up something for it, so probably shouldn't without a good reason.
(N) No.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
- Special Ratings:
(C) Cheese: A talent so broken that it will be instantly banned if you use it as you could.
(I) Impossible: Can't be rated because it is just not defined enough to give a meaningful rating - it depends too much on DM ruling, or personal use. I'll just place it where I guess the average result would put it.
(F) Flavor: This indicates that the main draw to the talent is going to be its inherent fluff or flavor, rather than raw power or utility.
Caster Level (S): Full caster levels. Awesome.
Casting (B): Low caster talents. At least it's not no-caster. You still get the bonus +2 talents just for having Casting. Dip out into Incanter. At least for 1 level. You literally can double your talents that way.
Forbidden Lore (G-S): This is literally the one gimmick of the class, so if you weren't wanting this, then this isn't the class for you. Granted, there are better archetypes. The CL progression is really slow, but is frontloaded. Probably makes this a better dip than anything else. But we won't be considering that for this review. It does have a slight problem where you can start off with upwards of 5x the CL of other casters in the party. Which is perhaps slightly unbalancing. (Granted, this does account for just 200% of the 500%, the rest of which is available to everyone else, but still. If you weren't taking advantage of the bonus caster levels available, then did you really care about this class? Kind of broken by design.)
Invocations - A daily pool of minor special abilities that can be used either as a free action (even outside of turn), or as part of casting a spell. See next section for details.
Occult Knowledge (B): An incredibly piddly bonus to some checks. Relatively useful checks, but this is just to fill in the dead levels.
Bonus Feats (G): Can't complain about bonus feats. Can complain about them being so rare.
Master Invoker (<S>): Depending on your chosen Invocations, if you ever manage to get to this level, you can get some nice value. I'd probably recommend Channel Punishment at minimum. Possibly Soulfire as well, if your DM
Lingering Blessing (N-B): Meh. 1 temp hp / class level is literally never incredibly useful, even if they lasted for a decent duration.
Lingering Pain (G): Sickened's a great rider effect. Even with 1 round duration. Not like you've got something better to use invocations on.
Meditation (G): Rerolling knowledge checks is generally not possible, so yay. But you've got no innate synergies with knowledge. No, Occult Knowledge doesn't count.
After Level 3:
Empowered Attack (G): Gives you a slightly higher effective BAB than a martial type. As a caster who's probably using touch attacks (if any), that's...probably unnecessary. But it lasts for most of a combat and doesn't take an action. So why not.
Empowered Defense (G): Grants a small bit of AC for a typical combat encounter. Anywhere from 10 to 30% of a d20's faces go from hitting to missing. Assuming you're not already on the extreme ends of the d20. It's not nothing, and doesn't take an action.
After Level 7:
Channel Punishment (S+): If you would suffer backlash, instead have a chance to make someone else suffer backlash. Woo. That's like a buff and debuff all in one.
Defensive Invocation (S): Making a save or die? Well, here, take a small bonus to it, whenever you need.
After level 11:
Item Lore (I): I'm not one to use many wands or what not. But being able to take a minimum CL wand and use it as your current CL seems like a nice trick to have. It does come online only at level 11, so unless you're starting there, it's going to take a while to make any wand-focused build work...indeed there's no synergy at all.
Soulfire (<S>): If you suffer backlash, gain a bonus to all saves, attacks, and AC. It's one damned good consolation prize. But it is unreliable, and does require accepting your backlash, rather than trying to pass it off, as you can't do two invokes for one "event." Jumps to S if your DM rules you can do this even after Channel Punishment.
Level 15:
Empowered Resistance (G): Save (partial)s go to save (negate). Pretty good. Especially if you face sphere casters, who have a lot of save (partial) effects.
Flexible Caster (G): This almost feels like a slap in the face with how many talents you've given up by this point. But hey, it's there.
Level 19:
Rebuke Death (G): Can prevent death by hit point damage. At level 19. Not the most incredibly likely way to die at this point. But it is an on-demand layer of defense.
Yeah. That's it for the basic class. Sure, the Invocations are neat, but hardly build defining, with very generic bonuses...except for Item lore, which is just so absolutely out there and random, and comes online way to late to make a build around.
So, basically: Do you want bonus caster level? And how much are you willing to give up for it? Probably a single level. But again, not considering the dip.
Totem Of The Darkest Aberration (<S>): So, for you, this sucks. Absolutely. But for your allies? Well, you turned them all into thaumaturge without needing thaumaturge levels, nor risking their own backlash. At worst they lose an effect. So...yeah. Ultimate AFK support character. Makes a decent NPC.
Forbidden Totem (G-S): Man, Even for level 1, this is a +2 to attack for basically your entire team. Or +2 to all saves. Or +2 to stealth...less useful, but can be used that way. And it's untyped. It just requires investment in War sphere, which isn't optimal on its own. Maybe this makes the investment worth it.
Totem of Deepest Curse (<G-S>): This is easily a N- rating, most of the time. It's stupid expensive, and reliant on you currently having backlash, which is a horrible idea to intentionally stack. And you probably won't have enough in a typical adventuring day for this to be at all worth its cost.
-However. If taken with Totem of Darkest Aberration, with a good team of casters who can effectively use that totem, you're going to be building up backlash very quickly. And you don't even care about your Caster Level. Now you just need to face mages. (Note: Archetypes have interesting drawbacks that are much more universal.)
Master Of Cosmos / Death / Faerie (G): Grants bonuses to your summons, which Forbidden Lore normally doesn't.
Master Artisan (<G>): If you have good knowledge of the available magic items, and can make good use of the early crafting, then this is good. If not, then...well, obviously it's not.
Extra Invocations (B-G): Meh. You probably have plenty already. Maybe pick it up if you're in a combat-heavy campaign, and find yourself running out of steam.
So, the feats are basically all about making everyone except yourself really cool and awesome. Probably to a degree that's a bit much even for me. But it's really cool how just a couple feats can entirely recontextulize a class. And will be very necessary to consider when ranking the Archetypes.
Burning Lore (<C>): On the face of it, this is pretty neat. Very risky. But neat. Then you remember that Totem of Deepest Curse is an option, and then you wonder how long you can last with 1 con, and a totem that inflicts 19 con burn (with no save) on enemies around you.
Soulfire Talent (G): Neat. Saves an average of 0.5 Con Burn on your Soul Fire, up until level 7 when you can just get a free spell point, CL increase, and deal 2 con burn on an enemy.
Forbidden Alchemy (S): Reduces the backlash chance by 5%. Makes no mention of losing the empowered spell. But next turn you are nauseated and for 1d6 rounds, you are also sickened. It does, unfortunately, take a standard action to initiate the ability to have the bonus, but you also get to freely add an alteration trait that can persist through shapeshift.
So yeah. You could be tempted to say you trade away the long term drawback of reduced caster level, for a short term disable. But you'd be wrong, as you don't lose the spell. You lose next round's standard action. Guess what you would have lost with standard Forbidden Lore? This round's standard action...and resources. Save for the activation action, and the sickened, this is a strict win for you in every sense. Granted, sickened means more for you, an alteration caster, than most other casters, due to the attack penalty, but it's really rather minor.
Consumption (S+): Flex up to 3 alteration talents, so long as you can justify it with trophies from your enemies. Granted, it does require preparation, and the talents aren't freely available, but you are talent starved. And it replaces occult knowledge. That's almost a good thing. Saves you book keeping time when leveling up trivial bonuses.
Morphic Adept (G): Bonus talent, but with a drawback, netting 0, but get immediate access to alteration sphere without needing to first invest a talent. Granted you probably would, regardless, because that's kinda the theme of the archetype, but it's still good.
Discoveries (G): Replaces invocations with your choice of alchemist discoveries, or Alchemy sphere talents. Poisons from Alchemy sphere match up with Alteration sphere really well. Though you don't get many talents. Still, it's better than invocations, if you pick good talents.
Flexible Research (G): Adds your choice of +1d6 sneak attack, an alchemist discovery, or an alchemy sphere talent to your list of "feats" you can take. Who doesn't love more options?
Adds bonuses to invocations, in exchange for occult knowledge. Although it seemed in desperate need of an editor. Every option you could go for is just fine for that trade. Except the Celestial Pact. You're a sucker if you go for that.
Celestial Pact (n-) -
Lingering Guidance (B): +1 to basically all die rolls....for 1 round. Eh. Not really worth the invoke.
Celestial Blessing (N--?): This probably meant "lasts for an additional 1d4+1 rounds." not for your horrible, teeny, tiny temp hp invoke to last a mere 2-5 rounds when by the time you qualify for this, it would last 6 rounds. Even if you correct this, it still literally doesn't matter because 1 temp hp / class level doesn't matter.
Empowered Recovery (N-B): So, apparently you are supposed to be a heal-tank with this? Starting at level 14? With a d8 hit die? No synergy with literally anything else in the kit, unless you're life sphere-ing yourself. Which is probably already capping you off from any reasonable amount of hp, especially when you empower it.
Infernal Pact (G-S)-
Lingering Wrath (G): I presume it means "for your next round." Would be pretty hard to take advantage of it if it lasted for strictly the round you empowered your spell (which probably took a standard action). But if it does mean what I assume it means, it's a decent little boost if you are a melee thaumaturge. Maybe an Experimentalist.
Infernal Pain (G-S): Turns a neat rider effect into a rather good rider effect for no additional cost.
Dark Lore (G-S): An immediate +4 to CL, but at the cost of guaranteed backlash. That's really neat. And it comes online late enough that it's not totally unbalancing. You could alpha strike for most of a combat and still net positive with default Forbidden Lore. With other backlashes, this is just free CL. But it's pretty hard to abuse due to it being at level 14.
Unspeakable Pact (S) -
Curse of Entropy (S): Holy cow. You know Eliciter's boost to Mind save DC? Well, this is a boost to literally any save DC (with 1/5 rather than 1/6 scaling) … a limited number of times per day. But point remains. Really nice.
Gift of Knowledge (S+): Well. OK then. You fail a knowledge check? Here! Take 3 more freaking rolls! OK then. Can I just say this probably meant "you roll one additional time"? Just based on the lack of editing quality so far. But taken as written...
So what's the average result from 4d20, drop 3? 50% of results are at least 18, compared to 50% of results on 1d20 being at least 10. And 50% of 2d20d1 being at least 13. [I think. I'm not good at statistical modeling.] So yeah. You give up a +1 to knowledge checks to gain an average of +8 to rerolled knowledge checks. Worth.
Lingering Madness (N-B): Eh. Wisdom Damage. Very few things care at all, even if you were going for stat-killing. Doesn't even guarantee a -1 to will saves, unlike Curse of Entropy.
Upgrades BAB to full, and reworks the class to work with martial talents. Probably not compatible with Martial Thaumaturge, due to changing the Weapon Proficiencies. But they are named something different. So, who knows. It's kinda cheesy if your DM allows compatibility.
Weapon and Armor Training (G-S): A martial tradition is pretty awesome. A bunch of bonus talents for a talentless class.
Flexible Combat Training (S+): Every day, you can flex your talents from this class. Less awesome than flexing magic talents, due to martial talents relying a lot more on feats, while magic talents are contained within the talents, for thee most part. But still really cool for a talent-starved class. I am probably over-rating it a fair bit, for precisely that reason, and am just assuming there are a bunch of situational, largely self-contained martial talents out there, somewhere.
Strain (S): At minimum, +2 to BAB (not just attack), which scales most spheres. Fatigue causes -1 to attack (and AC). So there's literally no offensive downside, except if you fail your fort save after failing to hit.
Kinesthetic Intuition (N): Somehow, this was even less interesting and less useful than Occult Knowledge. I'm impressed.
Insights (G): There are some interesting things here. Even gains Rebuke Death 4 levels early.
Occulted Visions (G): Take a quite hindering oracle curse (though at least gains the benefits). Instead of normal drawback, has a chance of reducing sight radius by 5 ft. Not the most devastating thing in the world. On average, you'd need to empower 40 non-dark spells to go totally blind at level 1. Or 120 Dark spells.
So yeah. Really not all that horrible. Of course, it's much, much, much better for support casters, or casters who have such massive areas of effect that sight doesn't matter. But still. It works all the same.
The unfortunate part is that Totem of Deepest Curse doesn't do anything until you are blind. So, you can do it, though you'd have to intentionally burn your sight every day, in a long, extended ritual of excessive casting. And afterwards, you can't use it any more. But no-save AoE blinds are nice, and generally effective regardless of target.
Eldritch - Can inflict intentional backlash to gain additional invokes, though they have fewer base invocations. Also gains an out of date bonus talent at level 3.
Glimpse of Beyond (S): Confusion for 1 round as an AoE rider effect for dark spells. Nice. Did I mention this is for level 1, in additional to the others?
Slip Between Worlds (I): Stygian Immersion hasn't been ported to USOP. For good reason. Having an area that can only be accessed by people with the talent active on them is a little silly. Kinda like Earth Glide+. But you can port it forward, and just promises not to abuse it too hard. Just use it for having Land Shadow Sharks.
Shared Vision (G): Pretty decent. Free action blind is pretty good.
Fall into the Void (I): Creating a demiplane of shadow on demand is pretty cool.
Descent into Madness (G): Everyone in your swimming pool of darkness suffers Confusion. AoE Confusion is pretty cool.
Proficiencies (G): Now proficient in bucklers (like that means anything), but also gets a martial tradition.
Martial Traditions are like 4-5 talents, I believe. So...pretty good.
Combat Training (G?): Replaces bonus feats to gain 1 combat talent per odd level.
That's more than you could get with the amount of given up feats. But...you're giving up the bonus 1 magic talent every 4 levels...for a class that's starved for magic talents already. And you're adding combat talents to a 3/4 BAB class with no other synergies. I don't really know what to think of it. Which is kinda cool, but probably stems from me not reviewing the martial spheres more than being a truly remarkable choice.
If your DM deems this compatible with Experimentalist, there is great potential synergy there. Although maybe on the alchemy poison side of things. Most SoM talents don't care how many natural attacks you have. By design, yes. But still.
Lancer sphere could be a funny sphere to combine with Vermin Transformation.
Tap Chaos (I): I can't give a proper rating...because there's more than 100 possible effects per sphere. But even if I did have the time, effort and knowledge to go through all that... you can just get this as a boon instead. Most DMs won't allow you to take the wild magic boon and Tap Chaos at the same time. So if you want wild magic, just take the boon, and then take a good archetype.
With that said, there are plenty of ways to mitigate the the risks of Wild Magic, including an invocation, and Wild Magic Feat, and the Fortunate trait, which can help you dramatically reduce the chance of low rolls on the wild magic. So when it happens, it's not nearly as likely to be particularly detrimental.
Invocations (G): All about controlling the wild magic. Which is good, as there are some pretty bad ones. But you shouldn't be taking this archetype. Just embrace the chaos.
Devour Foe: After critting, or reducing a living creature to 0 or fewer hp, the Devourer's Forbidden Lore is risk-free (next round only). Trade off: +5% increased chance of backlash.
Will you be hp-killing creatures more often than every 20 times you cast? Almost certainly (if you're an offensive caster). But it does pigeon hole you into hp-killing like Destructive Blast. And you're already pigeon holed well enough without that incentive, with the absolute dearth of talents.
(Note: Explicitly compatible with Experimentalist. And it actually makes a lot of sense, when combined with it. Thematically and mechanically.)
Forbidden LoreInstead of risking losing your hard-earned caster level with cumulative bad rolls (and arguably the spell), you risk 1d6 rounds of confusion on a single bad roll. (Granted, the most you use it, the higher the chance. But the chance resets after you get confused.)
That's a pretty big penalty. But as said, it wears off. There are no long-term consequences. It's a well-made trade off. One that leans in the default Forbidden Lore's side, unless you're casting with Forbidden Lore consistently enough through the day to accrue those penalties. (Or you have Channel Punishment.)
Too bad Forbidden Alchemy is just this but better...in basically every way. (A reduced chance to sit out 1 round, or a ramping chance of possibly sitting out an entire fight.)
Eldritch Knowledge Reduce invocation level by 2, but gain Divination sphere as a bonus sphere.
Is Divination sphere super great for Thaumaturges? I have no clue. Haven't had a good look at Divination yet. But you push off your good invocations to such an unobtainable level.
Mind Over Matter (N): Doubles the risk, doubles the penalty, which means you've quadrupled the average cost. For an additional +1 caster level until you're level 9.
That's bad. Like really bad. Especially as a percentage of your actual caster level. If it was either double the risk or double the penalty, rather than both, then it could be a neat, high risk, minor bonus deal.
Strength of Will (invocation) (G): Replaces a minor invocation with a chance to reroll failed will saves. Awesome. Those can be devastating.
Power of Fear (invocation) (B-G): Empowers a light glow or creation object to shaken. Replaces Lingering Pain. Six one, half dozen the other.
Unbreakable Will (G): Cool. Causes fear-immune creatures to not be fear immune. And grants penalties to saves vs fear. Small aura, but still. Not positive what fluff they intended for this, but sure.
Bonus Feats (N-): Restricts your bonus feat selection even further. Still have Extra Magic Talent...although it MUST be for Creation, Light, or Telekinesis (ew).
I...I just can't be bothered. It looks like it's trying to do something fancy like the Wujen of 3rd edition. It's probably doing something fancy.
Not saying it's bad. I just can't be bothered.
Even if these weren't abilities that scale at a pace that snails would scoff at, it still isn't good. At least it's a theme with a dream of being a meme.
I've played precisely one session with the class in a real game. For a good reason. Oh lord is it limited. And unlike other low casters, its entire shtick is to cast. I was almost dying of boredom by the end of the last session.
But, I think with a bit more analysis, I can turn this sad, dilapidated class into something presentable. And maybe get to respec, or dump the character.
Post review analysis: Yeah. My initial impressions were not at all wrong. It's a gimmick of a class that's pretty one-dimensional without a bunch of room for customization, while presenting potential balancing issues.
I do really appreciate how some of the archetypes change things up, and how the feats essentially flip the class on its head, from a selfish b*stard, addicted to caster level, to...well, you can see.
But that really is the best I can say about it.
Ranking system:
(S) Superb: You always want this. It's awesome.
(G) Good: You would certainly not complain about having this, especially in the right builds / situations.
(B) Bad: While perhaps better than nothing, you are giving up something for it, so probably shouldn't without a good reason.
(N) No.
<Angle brackets> around a rating indicates situational usefulness, and how good it is in that favorable situation.
- Special Ratings:
(C) Cheese: A talent so broken that it will be instantly banned if you use it as you could.
(I) Impossible: Can't be rated because it is just not defined enough to give a meaningful rating - it depends too much on DM ruling, or personal use. I'll just place it where I guess the average result would put it.
(F) Flavor: This indicates that the main draw to the talent is going to be its inherent fluff or flavor, rather than raw power or utility.
Caster Level (S): Full caster levels. Awesome.
Casting (B): Low caster talents. At least it's not no-caster. You still get the bonus +2 talents just for having Casting. Dip out into Incanter. At least for 1 level. You literally can double your talents that way.
Forbidden Lore (G-S): This is literally the one gimmick of the class, so if you weren't wanting this, then this isn't the class for you. Granted, there are better archetypes. The CL progression is really slow, but is frontloaded. Probably makes this a better dip than anything else. But we won't be considering that for this review. It does have a slight problem where you can start off with upwards of 5x the CL of other casters in the party. Which is perhaps slightly unbalancing. (Granted, this does account for just 200% of the 500%, the rest of which is available to everyone else, but still. If you weren't taking advantage of the bonus caster levels available, then did you really care about this class? Kind of broken by design.)
Invocations - A daily pool of minor special abilities that can be used either as a free action (even outside of turn), or as part of casting a spell. See next section for details.
Occult Knowledge (B): An incredibly piddly bonus to some checks. Relatively useful checks, but this is just to fill in the dead levels.
Bonus Feats (G): Can't complain about bonus feats. Can complain about them being so rare.
Master Invoker (<S>): Depending on your chosen Invocations, if you ever manage to get to this level, you can get some nice value. I'd probably recommend Channel Punishment at minimum. Possibly Soulfire as well, if your DM
Lingering Blessing (N-B): Meh. 1 temp hp / class level is literally never incredibly useful, even if they lasted for a decent duration.
Lingering Pain (G): Sickened's a great rider effect. Even with 1 round duration. Not like you've got something better to use invocations on.
Meditation (G): Rerolling knowledge checks is generally not possible, so yay. But you've got no innate synergies with knowledge. No, Occult Knowledge doesn't count.
After Level 3:
Empowered Attack (G): Gives you a slightly higher effective BAB than a martial type. As a caster who's probably using touch attacks (if any), that's...probably unnecessary. But it lasts for most of a combat and doesn't take an action. So why not.
Empowered Defense (G): Grants a small bit of AC for a typical combat encounter. Anywhere from 10 to 30% of a d20's faces go from hitting to missing. Assuming you're not already on the extreme ends of the d20. It's not nothing, and doesn't take an action.
After Level 7:
Channel Punishment (S+): If you would suffer backlash, instead have a chance to make someone else suffer backlash. Woo. That's like a buff and debuff all in one.
Defensive Invocation (S): Making a save or die? Well, here, take a small bonus to it, whenever you need.
After level 11:
Item Lore (I): I'm not one to use many wands or what not. But being able to take a minimum CL wand and use it as your current CL seems like a nice trick to have. It does come online only at level 11, so unless you're starting there, it's going to take a while to make any wand-focused build work...indeed there's no synergy at all.
Soulfire (<S>): If you suffer backlash, gain a bonus to all saves, attacks, and AC. It's one damned good consolation prize. But it is unreliable, and does require accepting your backlash, rather than trying to pass it off, as you can't do two invokes for one "event." Jumps to S if your DM rules you can do this even after Channel Punishment.
Level 15:
Empowered Resistance (G): Save (partial)s go to save (negate). Pretty good. Especially if you face sphere casters, who have a lot of save (partial) effects.
Flexible Caster (G): This almost feels like a slap in the face with how many talents you've given up by this point. But hey, it's there.
Level 19:
Rebuke Death (G): Can prevent death by hit point damage. At level 19. Not the most incredibly likely way to die at this point. But it is an on-demand layer of defense.
Yeah. That's it for the basic class. Sure, the Invocations are neat, but hardly build defining, with very generic bonuses...except for Item lore, which is just so absolutely out there and random, and comes online way to late to make a build around.
So, basically: Do you want bonus caster level? And how much are you willing to give up for it? Probably a single level. But again, not considering the dip.
Totem Of The Darkest Aberration (<S>): So, for you, this sucks. Absolutely. But for your allies? Well, you turned them all into thaumaturge without needing thaumaturge levels, nor risking their own backlash. At worst they lose an effect. So...yeah. Ultimate AFK support character. Makes a decent NPC.
Forbidden Totem (G-S): Man, Even for level 1, this is a +2 to attack for basically your entire team. Or +2 to all saves. Or +2 to stealth...less useful, but can be used that way. And it's untyped. It just requires investment in War sphere, which isn't optimal on its own. Maybe this makes the investment worth it.
Totem of Deepest Curse (<G-S>): This is easily a N- rating, most of the time. It's stupid expensive, and reliant on you currently having backlash, which is a horrible idea to intentionally stack. And you probably won't have enough in a typical adventuring day for this to be at all worth its cost.
-However. If taken with Totem of Darkest Aberration, with a good team of casters who can effectively use that totem, you're going to be building up backlash very quickly. And you don't even care about your Caster Level. Now you just need to face mages. (Note: Archetypes have interesting drawbacks that are much more universal.)
Master Of Cosmos / Death / Faerie (G): Grants bonuses to your summons, which Forbidden Lore normally doesn't.
Master Artisan (<G>): If you have good knowledge of the available magic items, and can make good use of the early crafting, then this is good. If not, then...well, obviously it's not.
Extra Invocations (B-G): Meh. You probably have plenty already. Maybe pick it up if you're in a combat-heavy campaign, and find yourself running out of steam.
So, the feats are basically all about making everyone except yourself really cool and awesome. Probably to a degree that's a bit much even for me. But it's really cool how just a couple feats can entirely recontextulize a class. And will be very necessary to consider when ranking the Archetypes.
Burning Lore (<C>): On the face of it, this is pretty neat. Very risky. But neat. Then you remember that Totem of Deepest Curse is an option, and then you wonder how long you can last with 1 con, and a totem that inflicts 19 con burn (with no save) on enemies around you.
Soulfire Talent (G): Neat. Saves an average of 0.5 Con Burn on your Soul Fire, up until level 7 when you can just get a free spell point, CL increase, and deal 2 con burn on an enemy.
Forbidden Alchemy (S): Reduces the backlash chance by 5%. Makes no mention of losing the empowered spell. But next turn you are nauseated and for 1d6 rounds, you are also sickened. It does, unfortunately, take a standard action to initiate the ability to have the bonus, but you also get to freely add an alteration trait that can persist through shapeshift.
So yeah. You could be tempted to say you trade away the long term drawback of reduced caster level, for a short term disable. But you'd be wrong, as you don't lose the spell. You lose next round's standard action. Guess what you would have lost with standard Forbidden Lore? This round's standard action...and resources. Save for the activation action, and the sickened, this is a strict win for you in every sense. Granted, sickened means more for you, an alteration caster, than most other casters, due to the attack penalty, but it's really rather minor.
Consumption (S+): Flex up to 3 alteration talents, so long as you can justify it with trophies from your enemies. Granted, it does require preparation, and the talents aren't freely available, but you are talent starved. And it replaces occult knowledge. That's almost a good thing. Saves you book keeping time when leveling up trivial bonuses.
Morphic Adept (G): Bonus talent, but with a drawback, netting 0, but get immediate access to alteration sphere without needing to first invest a talent. Granted you probably would, regardless, because that's kinda the theme of the archetype, but it's still good.
Discoveries (G): Replaces invocations with your choice of alchemist discoveries, or Alchemy sphere talents. Poisons from Alchemy sphere match up with Alteration sphere really well. Though you don't get many talents. Still, it's better than invocations, if you pick good talents.
Flexible Research (G): Adds your choice of +1d6 sneak attack, an alchemist discovery, or an alchemy sphere talent to your list of "feats" you can take. Who doesn't love more options?
Adds bonuses to invocations, in exchange for occult knowledge. Although it seemed in desperate need of an editor. Every option you could go for is just fine for that trade. Except the Celestial Pact. You're a sucker if you go for that.
Celestial Pact (n-) -
Lingering Guidance (B): +1 to basically all die rolls....for 1 round. Eh. Not really worth the invoke.
Celestial Blessing (N--?): This probably meant "lasts for an additional 1d4+1 rounds." not for your horrible, teeny, tiny temp hp invoke to last a mere 2-5 rounds when by the time you qualify for this, it would last 6 rounds. Even if you correct this, it still literally doesn't matter because 1 temp hp / class level doesn't matter.
Empowered Recovery (N-B): So, apparently you are supposed to be a heal-tank with this? Starting at level 14? With a d8 hit die? No synergy with literally anything else in the kit, unless you're life sphere-ing yourself. Which is probably already capping you off from any reasonable amount of hp, especially when you empower it.
Infernal Pact (G-S)-
Lingering Wrath (G): I presume it means "for your next round." Would be pretty hard to take advantage of it if it lasted for strictly the round you empowered your spell (which probably took a standard action). But if it does mean what I assume it means, it's a decent little boost if you are a melee thaumaturge. Maybe an Experimentalist.
Infernal Pain (G-S): Turns a neat rider effect into a rather good rider effect for no additional cost.
Dark Lore (G-S): An immediate +4 to CL, but at the cost of guaranteed backlash. That's really neat. And it comes online late enough that it's not totally unbalancing. You could alpha strike for most of a combat and still net positive with default Forbidden Lore. With other backlashes, this is just free CL. But it's pretty hard to abuse due to it being at level 14.
Unspeakable Pact (S) -
Curse of Entropy (S): Holy cow. You know Eliciter's boost to Mind save DC? Well, this is a boost to literally any save DC (with 1/5 rather than 1/6 scaling) … a limited number of times per day. But point remains. Really nice.
Gift of Knowledge (S+): Well. OK then. You fail a knowledge check? Here! Take 3 more freaking rolls! OK then. Can I just say this probably meant "you roll one additional time"? Just based on the lack of editing quality so far. But taken as written...
So what's the average result from 4d20, drop 3? 50% of results are at least 18, compared to 50% of results on 1d20 being at least 10. And 50% of 2d20d1 being at least 13. [I think. I'm not good at statistical modeling.] So yeah. You give up a +1 to knowledge checks to gain an average of +8 to rerolled knowledge checks. Worth.
Lingering Madness (N-B): Eh. Wisdom Damage. Very few things care at all, even if you were going for stat-killing. Doesn't even guarantee a -1 to will saves, unlike Curse of Entropy.
Upgrades BAB to full, and reworks the class to work with martial talents. Probably not compatible with Martial Thaumaturge, due to changing the Weapon Proficiencies. But they are named something different. So, who knows. It's kinda cheesy if your DM allows compatibility.
Weapon and Armor Training (G-S): A martial tradition is pretty awesome. A bunch of bonus talents for a talentless class.
Flexible Combat Training (S+): Every day, you can flex your talents from this class. Less awesome than flexing magic talents, due to martial talents relying a lot more on feats, while magic talents are contained within the talents, for thee most part. But still really cool for a talent-starved class. I am probably over-rating it a fair bit, for precisely that reason, and am just assuming there are a bunch of situational, largely self-contained martial talents out there, somewhere.
Strain (S): At minimum, +2 to BAB (not just attack), which scales most spheres. Fatigue causes -1 to attack (and AC). So there's literally no offensive downside, except if you fail your fort save after failing to hit.
Kinesthetic Intuition (N): Somehow, this was even less interesting and less useful than Occult Knowledge. I'm impressed.
Insights (G): There are some interesting things here. Even gains Rebuke Death 4 levels early.
Occulted Visions (G): Take a quite hindering oracle curse (though at least gains the benefits). Instead of normal drawback, has a chance of reducing sight radius by 5 ft. Not the most devastating thing in the world. On average, you'd need to empower 40 non-dark spells to go totally blind at level 1. Or 120 Dark spells.
So yeah. Really not all that horrible. Of course, it's much, much, much better for support casters, or casters who have such massive areas of effect that sight doesn't matter. But still. It works all the same.
The unfortunate part is that Totem of Deepest Curse doesn't do anything until you are blind. So, you can do it, though you'd have to intentionally burn your sight every day, in a long, extended ritual of excessive casting. And afterwards, you can't use it any more. But no-save AoE blinds are nice, and generally effective regardless of target.
Eldritch - Can inflict intentional backlash to gain additional invokes, though they have fewer base invocations. Also gains an out of date bonus talent at level 3.
Glimpse of Beyond (S): Confusion for 1 round as an AoE rider effect for dark spells. Nice. Did I mention this is for level 1, in additional to the others?
Slip Between Worlds (I): Stygian Immersion hasn't been ported to USOP. For good reason. Having an area that can only be accessed by people with the talent active on them is a little silly. Kinda like Earth Glide+. But you can port it forward, and just promises not to abuse it too hard. Just use it for having Land Shadow Sharks.
Shared Vision (G): Pretty decent. Free action blind is pretty good.
Fall into the Void (I): Creating a demiplane of shadow on demand is pretty cool.
Descent into Madness (G): Everyone in your swimming pool of darkness suffers Confusion. AoE Confusion is pretty cool.
Proficiencies (G): Now proficient in bucklers (like that means anything), but also gets a martial tradition.
Martial Traditions are like 4-5 talents, I believe. So...pretty good.
Combat Training (G?): Replaces bonus feats to gain 1 combat talent per odd level.
That's more than you could get with the amount of given up feats. But...you're giving up the bonus 1 magic talent every 4 levels...for a class that's starved for magic talents already. And you're adding combat talents to a 3/4 BAB class with no other synergies. I don't really know what to think of it. Which is kinda cool, but probably stems from me not reviewing the martial spheres more than being a truly remarkable choice.
If your DM deems this compatible with Experimentalist, there is great potential synergy there. Although maybe on the alchemy poison side of things. Most SoM talents don't care how many natural attacks you have. By design, yes. But still.
Lancer sphere could be a funny sphere to combine with Vermin Transformation.
Tap Chaos (I): I can't give a proper rating...because there's more than 100 possible effects per sphere. But even if I did have the time, effort and knowledge to go through all that... you can just get this as a boon instead. Most DMs won't allow you to take the wild magic boon and Tap Chaos at the same time. So if you want wild magic, just take the boon, and then take a good archetype.
With that said, there are plenty of ways to mitigate the the risks of Wild Magic, including an invocation, and Wild Magic Feat, and the Fortunate trait, which can help you dramatically reduce the chance of low rolls on the wild magic. So when it happens, it's not nearly as likely to be particularly detrimental.
Invocations (G): All about controlling the wild magic. Which is good, as there are some pretty bad ones. But you shouldn't be taking this archetype. Just embrace the chaos.
Devour Foe: After critting, or reducing a living creature to 0 or fewer hp, the Devourer's Forbidden Lore is risk-free (next round only). Trade off: +5% increased chance of backlash.
Will you be hp-killing creatures more often than every 20 times you cast? Almost certainly (if you're an offensive caster). But it does pigeon hole you into hp-killing like Destructive Blast. And you're already pigeon holed well enough without that incentive, with the absolute dearth of talents.
(Note: Explicitly compatible with Experimentalist. And it actually makes a lot of sense, when combined with it. Thematically and mechanically.)
Forbidden LoreInstead of risking losing your hard-earned caster level with cumulative bad rolls (and arguably the spell), you risk 1d6 rounds of confusion on a single bad roll. (Granted, the most you use it, the higher the chance. But the chance resets after you get confused.)
That's a pretty big penalty. But as said, it wears off. There are no long-term consequences. It's a well-made trade off. One that leans in the default Forbidden Lore's side, unless you're casting with Forbidden Lore consistently enough through the day to accrue those penalties. (Or you have Channel Punishment.)
Too bad Forbidden Alchemy is just this but better...in basically every way. (A reduced chance to sit out 1 round, or a ramping chance of possibly sitting out an entire fight.)
Eldritch Knowledge Reduce invocation level by 2, but gain Divination sphere as a bonus sphere.
Is Divination sphere super great for Thaumaturges? I have no clue. Haven't had a good look at Divination yet. But you push off your good invocations to such an unobtainable level.
Mind Over Matter (N): Doubles the risk, doubles the penalty, which means you've quadrupled the average cost. For an additional +1 caster level until you're level 9.
That's bad. Like really bad. Especially as a percentage of your actual caster level. If it was either double the risk or double the penalty, rather than both, then it could be a neat, high risk, minor bonus deal.
Strength of Will (invocation) (G): Replaces a minor invocation with a chance to reroll failed will saves. Awesome. Those can be devastating.
Power of Fear (invocation) (B-G): Empowers a light glow or creation object to shaken. Replaces Lingering Pain. Six one, half dozen the other.
Unbreakable Will (G): Cool. Causes fear-immune creatures to not be fear immune. And grants penalties to saves vs fear. Small aura, but still. Not positive what fluff they intended for this, but sure.
Bonus Feats (N-): Restricts your bonus feat selection even further. Still have Extra Magic Talent...although it MUST be for Creation, Light, or Telekinesis (ew).
I...I just can't be bothered. It looks like it's trying to do something fancy like the Wujen of 3rd edition. It's probably doing something fancy.
Not saying it's bad. I just can't be bothered.
Even if these weren't abilities that scale at a pace that snails would scoff at, it still isn't good. At least it's a theme with a dream of being a meme.