Paizo has released a new playtest for two upcoming Pathfinder 2E classes. Yesterday, Paizo officially revealed the Dark Archives playtest for Pathfinder 2E, which gives players an early look at the Thaumaturge and Psychic classes. Both classes will be formally added to Pathfinder 2E in next year’s Dark Archive expansion, but the playtest will allow players to get an early look at the classes and provide feedback about potential balancing issues. The playtest will remain open through October 29th and can be viewed here.
The thaumaturge is a reimagined version of the Occultist from Pathfinder 1E. Instead of being a caster with a specialized understanding the occult, the thaumaturge is now a martial class that focuses on using its extensive knowledge of monsters and magic to exploit weaknesses. At Level 1, the Thaumaturge has the ability to discover a foe’s weakness and then automatically target that weakness using its Esoteric Antithesis ability. If a foe doesn’t have an innate weakness, the Esoteric Antithesis ability creates a custom weakness instead. The Thaumaturge also gains special implements that grants them additional abilities and can also create and use various magical talismans. As it’s designed now, the Thaumaturge is designed to pack a major punch against foes, although it may take several actions to properly get his abilities going.
The psychic is a new kind of spellcaster that focuses on psionic powers instead of a full range of spellcasting. The psychic has less spells than other spellcasters, but they have the unique ability to amplify their cantrips in combat for additional effects. Players spend focus points in order to use amps and the effects seem to replace how psi points worked in past versions of D&D and Pathfinder. There’s a lot of potential customization for psychics, which should make playing them very exciting.
The thaumaturge and psychic are just some of the many classes either recently introduced or coming to Pathfinder 2E in the coming months. Paizo recently released Secrets of Magic, which added the Magus and Summoner classes, and is due to release Guns & Gears later this year, which will add the Gunslinger and Inventor.
