[PRC] Thaumaturge

[Therlynn]

I'm planning on making my character one but I had a couple of questions.

- Do the planar cohorts scale with level or do you just get a low level one that you can use for
RP purpose
Which is fun on it's own but aside for that, not useful for anything else.

- I've a hard time finding some lore about them, but aside from them making a pact is there more to it?
Some sites state it's more of a natural gift that they can do it .
If any one has some good lore links could you please post them here,.

-Do all abilities apply to epic gate?

[Considerate_]

Hello there! I've poked Rasael about some of the same questions, so here's the answers he gave me:

Subject: Regarding the Thaumaturge class

The in-game descriptions still needs some updating:

-Contingent Summoning uses the Summoning and Planar Ally / Binding Spells
-It only requires knowing a summoning spell, not memorizing it.
-Extended Summoning affects all summoning spells, including all Gates.
-You can still use metamagic to extend a spell extended via Extended Summoning, so long as you have spell slots for this. Not level 9 or epic spells for this reason.

The BGTSCC wiki's description for this class is up to date to my knowledge

Planar Cohorts do not scale with level, but when you get the appropriate spell level it will pick the highest available planar ally you can summon, up to but not including the 9th level Gate spell. This is, unfortunately, not going to be a permanent summon.

Here's some links for you, with additional/existing lore on them:
http://bgtscc.wikia.com/wiki/Thaumaturge
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Thaumaturge (this website seems to be offline right now, but I recall it had some info on it too)
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClass ... urgist.htm

[Therlynn]

Yeah I got that information, just assumed there was more about the lore.
Thanks for the response though, I really didn't expected it not to scale.
That kind of kills the whole idea of having a pact and a companion travelling with you if it remains low level.


The first four levels are perfectly fine, the PRC is very weak but well it's about RP not power builds.
It's a PRC that is more for wizards in general.


The fifth level is where the trouble starts.


- You can't pick your planar pact, which means you will be stuck with the basic ones.
Say I want to RP a pact with a mephit I need to avoid picking up the other spells.
If you are a cleric or druid you don't get to pick period.
It doesn't help that you're alignment bound as well in this case.

- The don't scale, take lesser planar binding the mephit is level 4 when you get them.
No matter how you RP the pact and how much it travels with you.
Your creature will get 1 shot every where you go and you can't drag your planar near guards or campfires RP wise either.

- The first two planar summons are 100% useless out side of RP for Neutral/Evil characters.
The last one is useless for evil and decent for Neutral/Good.
How ever at the same level or 1 later it is an obsolete spell.



Suggestions to make the PRC better/more fun.


- Let all summons scale.
It should not be overpowered if you got a level 20 imp with you instead of four.
You made a pact and it travels with you, shouldn't it get stronger?
the best is you can drag it with you and it won't get 1 shot so you get to RP it.

- Let you pick the planar spell you want to use regardless of what is in your book ,or better give a couple of options to pick from outside of the standard planar binding.
Just so it adds more flavour.

-Consider applying planar cohort to epic gate, how ever change the creatures you spawn and strength.
This would just mean less work to rework all other planar spells.

The concept if this PCR seems fun but it doesn't seem to add anything.
A permanent summon is nice, but when it's low level and bound to what spells you got it will limit your RP and it's usefulness.

Once the PCR is available to most monsters you summons will last long enough.
Thus you are looking at a very small gain for a PCR that does require some feats/skill points.


Since if nothing will be changed you might as well just ignore this PRC and RP a pact , it pretty much has the same effect.

[Simian]

You can have the cohort in addition to your other summon. And like with all summons, buff them up.
Greater Magic Weapon; +5
Greater Heroism; +4
Bull's Strength; +2
Haste; +1
= +12 Attack Bonus

[Rasael]

You can still trigger the planar ally by just casting the affected spells manually. You do not need to trigger them via Contingent Summoning.

Its primary benefit is that the planar cohort does not count as a summon. So you can have another summon active at the same time. In the future we might look at transplanting a system from the Gondsman and its customization options. But we still need to finish that class before considering that.

[Therlynn]

You can still trigger the planar ally by just casting the affected spells manually. You do not need to trigger them via Contingent Summoning.

Its primary benefit is that the planar cohort does not count as a summon. So you can have another summon active at the same time. In the future we might look at transplanting a system from the Gondsman and its customization options. But we still need to finish that class before considering that.

Haha yeah I know it's a new class and I'm happy to hear it is not considered done, it looks like it can be very fun with a few tweaks here and there.


Though one question how much work is it to just have all planar summons scale with your level?
Like every 5 or 10 levels?


As for the planar cohort I just don't see the benefit in some cases, take this example.

Evil alignment gets with greater planar binding a Erinyes and she is level 9.
She can cast doom and charm once a day and pretty much has 14/9AB.

Neutral gets an elemental with 18AB and being level 16.

Good gets a bear level 12 and 22ab and 31 strength.


Simply put it's useless for evil, decent for neutral and actually pretty good for the good alignment.
I think an alignment shouldn't make such a huge difference with a class like this.

[Slunko]

To be honest, I have an evil thaumaturge, and that greter planar binding, when buffed up, (and I mean REALLY buffed; everything you can possibly throw on her) IS quite good. It's not vampire warrior good, but it's close enough to it. And if you are fighting a boss that might actually manage to hit her, she can be ordered to stay at range and use her bow with flaming arrows for some extra dps. I'm not saying it's worldchanging OP strong, but it sure is worth summoning and buffing up.

On request, I'll stick on the image of her stats as well.