How can you be dead? You are wearing the Immortality Talisman!

Uncle – Jackie Chan Adventures

Introduction

Talismans are consumable items that can be attached to weapons and armor to provide situational bonuses. The Talisman Dabbler Archetype both learns how to craft common talismans from the Core Rulebook as well as gets some free talismans at the beginning of each day. While the individual effects are small and temporary, think of these as supportive magic that activates as a free action when the condition is met, and do not forget that the Talisman Dabbler can affix these free talismans to allies’ equipment as well.

At only four feats, the Talisman Dabbler is not a large detour from your class feats, especially for all of the benefits packed into the Dedication feat. Anyone looking to add some strategic support features to their build should have a look at this Archetype.

Table of Contents

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks.

  • Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
  • Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
  • Green: Good options. Useful often.
  • Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

Talisman Dabbler Feats

  • Talisman Dabbler Dedication 2: This feat does quite a lot for a Dedication feat. Taking this feat grants you knowledge of all common Talisman formulas from the Core Rulebook, allowing you to craft all of them using the standard crafting rules. It also allows you to create two temporary Talismans every morning for free, so long as these are no stronger than half your level. And finally, it improves the Affix a Talisman activity such that you can do four Talismans with the same 10 minute activity instead of spending 10 minutes per Talisman.

    This is a very nice Dedication feat, but I am rating it green in the sense that it’s not the most powerful option, but instead a very versatile one. It might benefit the party to have a Talisman Dabbler, and it might be fun to expand into a support role regardless of class, but it’s not going to be something that breaks your team to not have.

  • Quick Fix 4: This feat grants the Rapid Affixture feat, which is a level 7 skill feat. That feat speeds up the time to affix Talismans from 10 minutes to 1 minute, and Quick Fix further improves that by maintaining the 4 Talismans instead of just 1 feature from the Talisman Dabbler Dedication. This feat becomes very useful if you’re going in hard on crafting actual Talismans and not just getting the free ones from the archetype feats. However, spending 10 or more minutes post-combat to re-equip, Refocus, heal, etc. is a fundamental expectation of the game, and reducing the time to affix talismans won’t remove your party’s need to Refocus, etc.
  • Deeper Dabbler 8 (and 14): This one is very simple. Get two more free Talismans every morning. It even has a special property allowing you to take it a second time, but only at level 14 or higher. If you’re already going to be a Talisman Dabbler, this feat expands your daily resources.
  • Talismanic Sage 14: While this feat does allow you to break the rules and affix two Talismans to the same item, I only recommend this feat if you’re making the use of Talismans a major part of your party’s strategy. Remember that this feat must compete with level 14 class feats. That said, Affixing a pair of Viper’s Fang Talismans to a Fighter’s weapon can do some serious damage by granting two extra free action attacks of opportunity. Note that Viper’s Fang is level 14, so it can’t be a daily free talisman, but you can craft or buy anything up to your level.

Who Should Use This?

Color ranking the classes does not really make sense for the Talisman Dabbler. This Archetype is good for rewarding preparation with a versatile suite of options, both in the form of the free daily Talismans and those crafted in downtime thanks to the granted knowledge of all common Talismans. For example, if you were going spelunking, preparing some Savior Spike and Jade Cat Talismans for your party to mitigate hazards like falls and balancing on narrow ledges could go a long way. In other words, you must do research.

The one big issue I have with this archetype is that the feats are so spread out that it locks you out of picking up another archetype for a bit longer than others.

The Thaumaturge notably has some feats that overlap here, including feats which offer free Talismans each day. If you want to lean hard into using talismans, you could add Talisman Dabbler to a Thaumaturge for a big pile of free talismans.