Quote Originally Posted by arguskos View Post
Was there a reason you chose to remove pretty much all the damaging spells from the poor guy's spell list? I mean, no Magic Missile even?

I'm guessing it's to prevent obscene batman-esque pwnage, which is a good thing, but I'm still curious as to why you removed all ability for them to hurt the other guy. It does come to mind though that they have the ability to make insanely hard checks to cast stuff from the Bard/Sor/Wiz/Clr/Drd lists though. Was that the balancing factor to having absolutely no damage potential?
It's actually not a balancing factor, but a flavor decision. The thing is that damage isn't really that good, so chucking out damage spells doesn't hurt him much (and eventually, he can cast them, with just a slight penalty). The thing was, the flavor behind this class was that, while wizards are the intelligent casters and sorcerers are the charismatic ones, Thaumaturges are the clever casters. Hence, their spell list focuses around summoning, illusions, divinations, and a little enchantment and abjuration: all very powerful effects, all more tactical and "clever" than just direct damage.

This seems fairly tough, just to cast something you didn't have prepared that day. Maybe, DC 20+level? Or is that too low?
The DC's are kinda meant to be a balancing factor to the ability to cast just about any spell. As long as you max out Spellcraft, keep a respectible Intelligence score, maybe use some items or feats for a bonus, it shouldn't be hard to make them.