Mark...very cool, like the Cyclone. Couple really dumb questions though.
With Supreme Cyclone Attack...I assume you can roll Acrobatics to cancel the Attacks of Opportunity, and the attacks on everyone you threaten is the Whirlwind attack, so one attack roll against everyone you threaten through the movement?
Correct on Acrobatics being allowed. However, on the rest:
Benefit: When you use the full-attack action, you can give up your regular attacks and instead make one melee attack at your highest base attack bonus against each opponent within reach. You must make a separate attack roll against each opponent.
Ooop hey Mark may we know The Cyclone's compulsion?
Oh...my bad. Thanks for pointing that out. Didn't catch that last sentence I guess.
Ooop hey Mark may we know The Cyclone's compulsion?
The lack of pretty pretty prettified compulsions are one of the things that separate these rough spirits from the ones in the document (another is that some that aren't included are waiting for spells from the final book to be some of their granted spells). However, basically the compulsion is something like "Destructive: You destroy for destruction's sake and feel a rush when watching something beautiful disappear forever into a ruined shamble."
The class says it can be whoever you want it to be. So don't wait! Channel these Eldest today! (some of them not today because the right spirit isn't in the playtest doc)Green Mother—Liar
Imbrex—Peacock (or for one that's in the playtest doc, maybe the Twin, if you don't want Shyka)
Lantern King—Demon's Lantern
Magdh—Hidden Truth (or Inquisitor later
Ng—The Wanderer
Ragadahn—The Cyclone
Shyka—The Twin (I know Imbrex is actually a twin, but the powers seem too perfect for Shyka)
LOVE this idea...but a quick question in this regard....how do you reconcile differences in the alignment of a spirit when pairing it with such beings ?
For example matching the Liar spirit to Green mother's not a conflict, but Magdh is hardly "good" in alignment....
EDIT: and is it just me, or is the Wanderer and Peacock both absent from the play-test ?
Mark, how are the spirits affected by Positive/Negative energy? Are they considered undead?
Sorry if it's been clarified somewhere.
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The class says it can be whoever you want it to be. So don't wait! Channel these Eldest today! (some of them not today because the right spirit isn't in the playtest doc)Green Mother—Liar
Imbrex—Peacock (or for one that's in the playtest doc, maybe the Twin, if you don't want Shyka)
Lantern King—Demon's Lantern
Magdh—Hidden Truth (or Inquisitor later
Ng—The Wanderer
Ragadahn—The Cyclone
Shyka—The Twin (I know Imbrex is actually a twin, but the powers seem too perfect for Shyka)LOVE this idea...but a quick question in this regard....how do you reconcile differences in the alignment of a spirit when pairing it with such beings ?
For example matching the Liar spirit to Green mother's not a conflict, but Magdh is hardly "good" in alignment....
The Inquisitor is best for her, when that comes. For now with Hidden Truth, you can focus on the good aspects of Magdh (she is "The Three", so maybe one of her three aspects is more benevolent sometimes, or if it isn't PFS, you can ask your GM to do things with Law, Neutral, and Chaos instead, and then just count Hidden Truth as a Lawful (in reality, it's a Lawful Good, so it's only one alignment step from Magdh--I tried to keep my choices one alignment step away from the Eldest at most).
Mark, how are the spirits affected by Positive/Negative energy? Are they considered undead?
Sorry if it's been clarified somewhere.
The medium spirits aren't physically present. They aren't affected by anything during a fight. Unless you mean spritualist phantoms? Those are outsiders.
The medium spirits aren't physically present. They aren't affected by anything during a fight. Unless you mean spritualist phantoms? Those are outsiders.Mark, how are the spirits affected by Positive/Negative energy? Are they considered undead?
Sorry if it's been clarified somewhere.
Ah, I see. Thanks. I wasn't sure if there was any change in how the Medium interacts with positive/negative energy when he's channeling a spirit.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I played a 1st-level medium in a PFS game ("The Merchant's Wake") this weekend.
This was a party of 4 brand new, 0 XP characters. Another player had built an elemental-blooded sorcerer, and we had Kyra and Seelah.
The Harrow theme directed me towards the cultural Varisians, and I've been wanting to play a Varisian Tengu for a while. Besides, I thought it was important for the character to have a good weapon, and the Tengu's proficiency with the Elven Curveblade would be useful.
STR 14
DEX 14 +2 racial
CON 14 - 2 racial
INT 10
WIS 10 + 2 racial
CHA 14
So, I had access to two spirits. I chose the Teamster (otherwise, I'd have 9 hit points, which didn't seem like a good idea) and The Big Sky (The Bear was the Neutral Strength totem, but claws seemed useless for the Tengu.)
For the Teamster's Spirit Bonus to be effective, I needed to bond with it for the day. Since the Big Sky didn't have either the same attribute nor alignment, I couldn't call it in a trance. But, if I'd decided to start the day with it, instead, I could have done so.
If I understood the class correctly, I had access to the Teamster's Spirit Bonus, Compulsion (role-playing only) and "To the Death" lesser power. If I'd want to, I could take a full round to enter a trance and get "Second Wind," which would give me 1 temporary hit point per round, which doesn't stack with itself. (I guess that means that the temporary hit point refreshes each round. Which, I guess means that it goes away first if I take damage, unlike, say, a Barbarian's temporary hit points.) I never had the luxury of an entire round before combat to enter a trance. I'm guessing that seances are better for choosing non-combat spirits.)
I felt pretty useless the entire adventure, like a rogue who didn't have sneak attack. 1st-level Kyra had spells, orisons, channelling energy. The sorcerer had plenty of spells to throw. I never hit in combat, and had nothing else to do. I used my favored class bonus on skills, so I had five skills with ranks. That didn't seem adequate. And Stealth is not a class skill, which I found surprising.
Two questions:
1) Does a circle of protection from evil affect evil-aligned spirits possessing the medium. (The obvious answer is yes. At the very least, the spell effect should prevent a level-four possession. It should probably quench the effects of the spirit entirely.) That's a simple way to shut down a medium.
2) Does eagle's splendor allow a medium to suddenly access two new spirits? Can those be different spirits each time the spell goes into effect? If so, I'm carrying a dozen potions of eagle's splendor.
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OK. Coming up with a number N seemed less exciting than randomly rolling each time I saw a playtest. After rolling for each playtest, Hangman Henry's playtest wound up unlocking a new medium spirit!
First, some points to note:
1) Obviously this isn't legal in PFS
2) This is in a rough format, so it's missing sections of flavor and the wording is very preliminary. Virtually no one has read this except me (and now you guys). It also might not look anything like the final spirit for that reason.
3) In the final version of the book, as mentioned in the sidebar "Alignments in the Playtest", you will be looking for exact alignment matches. That means that if you add any of these new unlocked spirits, you may want to consider removing another spirit from your playtest as well (in this case, the Beating).Since the playtest that revealed the new spirit focused on Demon's Lantern, which is CE, and the majority of playtests so far were of Str and Dex spirits (including the Rabbit Prince who can hybrid between the two), I decided to reveal the CE Str spirit, which can count as Dex sometimes. So behold, in its unformatted glory!
** spoiler omitted **...
i won!
about to post a second playtest soon, lets see how i do.
as for cyclone:
whirlwind says it is treated as a dex spirit but doesn't give a duration. i would assume this is for the round?
this is the first spirit that has its full alignment spoiled. is there any way we could find out the alignments for the current ones, so we can know if they are going to still be compatible when they are fully released? (i assume they are all on the neutral axis, and should keep their compatibility but i just wanna know.)
Yeah, it should be until the beginning of your next turn.
They are not all neutral on the L/C axis--for their alignments, check a list of Harrow. It seems that d20pfsrd has the Harrow Deck of Many Things on it with alignments, at the least.
How useful would the cyclone be. While thematically pretty neat, and probably fun to fluff the destructive swings of your weapon, causing such minor chip damage isn't really all that helpful. This is especially true as due to being 3/4 BaB class, the medium won't be getting as many hits in as a +1 BaB class would, especially on the later levels when the class lags behind on attack numbers, and the amount of chip damage inflicted will just not add up to meaningful numbers. The spirit's selection of spells is also somewhat weak considering the levels you get them at, but I guess strength spirits aren't used for that anyway.
I can see it being useful if you went and accepted the feat tax for dual wielding for more attacks so you could cause more chip damage and make it add up a bit, but that is a tall order of feats for a class without full BaB. I'm sure there are other ways to make the spirit useful though, I'd just need to find them.
Mark....would you consider the Inquisitor, Wanderer, and Peacock spirits for spoiling ?
Mark....would you consider the Inquisitor, Wanderer, and Peacock spirits for spoiling ?
I'm considering the Wanderer. Of those three, it's in the best state for a reveal. It's still missing some spells from the final book, however, or I would have put it in the playtest instead of Hidden Truth.
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So, when the book comes out, each spirit is going to have two alignments, right?
The Cricket will be Neutral and Good? The Beating will be Neutral and Evil?
Or are you going to stick with one alignment per spirit? Because the first option leads to a lot more versatility and options, but the second is significantly less complex.
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Ooh! The Cyclone looks like he'll fit in to the medium I was building! Totally going to try to clear it's use with the DM so I can try it out.
Also, I would also like an answer on the whole Law/Chaos axis as well. Will we be able to match across either axis, or will both alignments be required to match in order to channel the spirit?
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Yes, as per the sidebar, the final spirits will all have two alignments. However, the spirits released aren't all necessarily Neutral on the Law-Chaos axis, as far as I'm aware. A few posts up he said he would have released the Wanderer instead of the Hidden Truth if it was more complete, which would seem to imply he did not select these 18 because they were the 18 neutral Law-Chaos-wise.So, when the book comes out, each spirit is going to have two alignments, right?
The Cricket will be Neutral and Good? The Beating will be Neutral and Evil?
Or are you going to stick with one alignment per spirit? Because the first option leads to a lot more versatility and options, but the second is significantly less complex.
I just picked two random ones from the top of the list of the Harrow Deck, and they both turned out to have neutral as one of their alignments (co-inky-dink!) but yeah, I gotcha.
On the downside, though, it looks like pairing the Beating and the Bear with Feral Combat training won't work as well as I thought, because they share an alignment... unless sharing a stat overwrites sharing an alignment. :3
Mr. Mark Seifter,
I don't suppose you could put the spirits you post post on OP for ease of use for the thread goers?
I played a 1st-level medium in a PFS game ("The Merchant's Wake") this weekend.
** spoiler omitted **...Two questions:
1) Does a circle of protection from evil affect evil-aligned spirits possessing the medium. (The obvious answer is yes. At the very least, the spell effect should prevent a level-four possession. It should probably quench the effects of the spirit entirely.) That's a simple way to shut down a medium.2) Does eagle's splendor allow a medium to suddenly access two new spirits? Can those be different spirits each time the spell goes into effect? If so, I'm carrying a dozen potions of eagle's splendor.
1. Hadn't thought of that. Will probably need clarifying language.
2. My reading of the Spirit class feature is that your CHA mod only matters at level 1. If that's not the case, I would assume that you'd treat it like the Barbarian's rage rounds: only permanent bonuses, like a Headband worn for 24+ hours, would count.
Guys, don't worry about alignment in the final yet. Beating and Bear will still be able to share powers (as will all Strength spirits with each other).
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On a sadder note, earlier today I've had a death in the family. I'll be on a transcontinental flight early tomorrow. You may not see much, or any, of me for a few days. Someone in this thread who reads this please let the kineticist thread know; I don't have time to read the 40+ posts that are new since last time I read it, and if I click into that thread to post, it won't keep my place. I read 100% of the posts you guys make, and I want to make sure I don't miss even one of them, so I'm counting on you medium testers.
Please throw a few dice for me and keep being awesome. Talk to you all later in the week.
~Mark
Sad to hear that, Mark. We'll hold down the fort for you.
Edit: Looks like Mark's update has been crossposted.
Guys, don't worry about alignment in the final yet. Beating and Bear will still be able to share powers (as will all Strength spirits with each other).
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On a sadder note, earlier today I've had a death in the family. I'll be on a transcontinental flight early tomorrow. You may not see much, or any, of me for a few days. Someone in this thread who reads this please let the kineticist thread know; I don't have time to read the 40+ posts that are new since last time I read it, and if I click into that thread to post, it won't keep my place. I read 100% of the posts you guys make, and I want to make sure I don't miss even one of them, so I'm counting on you medium testers.
Please throw a few dice for me and keep being awesome. Talk to you all later in the week.
~Mark
My condolences to you and yours Mr. Mark Seifter.
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Guys, don't worry about alignment in the final yet. Beating and Bear will still be able to share powers (as will all Strength spirits with each other).
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On a sadder note, earlier today I've had a death in the family. I'll be on a transcontinental flight early tomorrow. You may not see much, or any, of me for a few days. Someone in this thread who reads this please let the kineticist thread know; I don't have time to read the 40+ posts that are new since last time I read it, and if I click into that thread to post, it won't keep my place. I read 100% of the posts you guys make, and I want to make sure I don't miss even one of them, so I'm counting on you medium testers.
Please throw a few dice for me and keep being awesome. Talk to you all later in the week.
~Mark
Condolences sir.
Guys, don't worry about alignment in the final yet. Beating and Bear will still be able to share powers (as will all Strength spirits with each other).
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On a sadder note, earlier today I've had a death in the family. I'll be on a transcontinental flight early tomorrow. You may not see much, or any, of me for a few days. Someone in this thread who reads this please let the kineticist thread know; I don't have time to read the 40+ posts that are new since last time I read it, and if I click into that thread to post, it won't keep my place. I read 100% of the posts you guys make, and I want to make sure I don't miss even one of them, so I'm counting on you medium testers.
Please throw a few dice for me and keep being awesome. Talk to you all later in the week.
~Mark
Sad to hear that, You and your yours have my condolences.
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Guys, don't worry about alignment in the final yet. Beating and Bear will still be able to share powers (as will all Strength spirits with each other).
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On a sadder note, earlier today I've had a death in the family. I'll be on a transcontinental flight early tomorrow. You may not see much, or any, of me for a few days. Someone in this thread who reads this please let the kineticist thread know; I don't have time to read the 40+ posts that are new since last time I read it, and if I click into that thread to post, it won't keep my place. I read 100% of the posts you guys make, and I want to make sure I don't miss even one of them, so I'm counting on you medium testers.
Please throw a few dice for me and keep being awesome. Talk to you all later in the week.
~Mark
Sorry to hear that--hope everyone is holding up as well as possible given the circumstances. You have my condolences as well.
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Day 1: Rachel starts with 0 influence from the rakshasa. In her seance, she calls the rakshasa and is now at 1. Then she trances the rakshasa because she wants to move the fighter up to an enemy with Puppetmaster so the fighter can take a full attack on the first round after she moves the fighter. She is now at 2 influence.
Day 2: Just before her seance, she goes down to 1 influence. Then she goes back up to 2 when she calls the rakshasa again. She trances the rakshasa for Puppetmaster again and goes up to 3.
Day 3: The Rakshasa sticks with Rachel, seeding her dreams with subtle suggestions of dominance, power, and dominion over others. She cannot get rid of the spirit the next day. However, the influence drops to 2, and it does not increase during the seance (can't go above 2). She then trances to Puppetmaster again and has 3 again.
Day 4+: These are exactly the same as Day 3. She never goes to 4...unless she uses All Are Slaves or trances a second time!
Hi, sorry if this has been answered already but there are already 8 pages of responses and I can't scrub through all to see if this has been answered.
If Rachel needs to trance to utilize Puppetmaster, how can she also move the fighter to full attack on the first round? Wouldn't earliest she can use Puppetmaster be the second round...unless you are assuming she trances right before battle (since trance lasts 1 min).
Just want to make sure I understand the mechanics clearly.
EDIT: My condolences Mark. Have a safe trip.
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Condolences Mark. :(
On a more cheerful note your open minded approach on this thread is much appreciated. :)
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Condolences Mark.
Some questions for you to look at when you are more up to it:
The Beating: The beating stats that all allies in melee are considered flanking with its intermediate ability, for the purposes of teamwork feats do they all count as flanking with you as I have a heavy teamwork Medium build in mind.
Similarly with the supreme ability do you count as flanking with yourself?
Does dissolution require you to deal damage to apply this effect, as I read it I only need to hit?
The Liar: What is the duration of infatuation? Does it end if I swap spirits or do I have a bunch of people stalking me forever waiting for sempai to notice them?
The Bear: Not sure with the way it is reading but once you get the third tier ability are you adding two size categories on top of the intermediate ability? That would make a medium Medium from a large Medium to a gargantuan Medium which would pose a lot of issues adventuring or moving around town. Maybe an ability to turn the size on and off with a action.
Spellcasting: Since you have access to the spells from first level that means that your caster level is equal to your level or level - 3 when you start getting spell casting ability?
Some more opinions
The Twins: It feels thematic but the first ability requires you to use a very limited resource just to have it do anything and the second has no effect until you are up to triune spirit. I think it needs a nice secondary effect to make up for the fact that this is not worth taking until later
Desert: Shouldn't the deserts end effect be until the end of that characters next turn? If someone removes a status effect from me that has almost certainly used their standard action for the turn meaning this effect only would help on attack of opportunities.
Hmmm... I wonder... What if there was a way for the medium to make a pact with the spirit? Like "I'll give you control for 1 day, but you have to do this for me". That could very fun. The only problem is that the spirits would probably need a Diplomacy/Bluff/Sense Motive bonuses(to make it simple, I'd make it equal to the Medium's level +5)
By the way, what is the in-game justification for the 54 (!) spirits being shared by every medium ever?
The spirits aren't a "one true and only representation" kind of thing. It's a spirit that fits a certain pattern. My The Beating is not your The Beating.
re: pacts, that essentially exists insofar as spirits are able to make tempting offers through RP to get the Medium to trance up to 4 influence.
I don't believe the 54 spirits are meant to represent individual spirits, but archetypes of spirits. That's why their description gives few varieties of types of spirits they might be. Like bear could be an actual animal spirit, or a barbarian king of old, and beating could be a fallen hero or a slaver.
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folks who are remaining, i fail to see how simply upping HD/BAB is going to preserve the niche the medium is trying to fill.
i could definitely see an increase in Fortitude. Possibly an upgrade to Adept spells (yes! 5-level spells):
Medium (as Adept)
CL: 0th/1st/2nd/3rd/4th/5th spells per day
01: 3/1
02: 3/1
03: 3/2
04: 3/2/0
05: 3/2/1
06: 3/2/1
07: 3/3/2
08: 3/3/2/0
09: 3/3/2/1
10: 3/3/2/1
11: 3/3/3/2
12: 3/3/3/2/0
13: 3/3/3/2/1
14: 3/3/3/2/1
15: 3/3/3/3/2
16: 3/3/3/3/2/0
17: 3/3/3/3/2/1
18: 3/3/3/3/2/1
19: 3/3/3/3/3/2
20: 3/3/3/3/3/2
bold = dead
Maybe even a boost to spirit bonus, either +1 at 1/3/7/11/15/19 (conservative) or +1 at 1/3/6/9/12/15/18 (liberal).
but yeah, only if needed, and certainly not HD/BAB increase. how uncreative is that?
The spirits aren't a "one true and only representation" kind of thing. It's a spirit that fits a certain pattern. My The Beating is not your The Beating.
Ah, that makes sense.
re: pacts, that essentially exists insofar as spirits are able to make tempting offers through RP to get the Medium to trance up to 4 influence.
Well, yeah, but I waned them to have a Bluff and Sense Motive score so that they can lie to the Medium (or vice-versa).
Yeah, that's currently left to GM arbitration. Generally speaking, however, assume that the Evils will lie, some of the Neutrals will lie, and the Goods generally won't unless they've got a good reason. Nearly all of them will do so by omission.
On the plus side, The Beating can just be intimidated by other players to fall in line.
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From my larger review at http://www.5mwd.com/archives/2204
The medium needs a lot of work. A LOT of work. It’s a serious mess.
Like the kineticist, the medium lacks built-in utility. The medium can ostensibly talk to spirits, except when it comes to any other spirits in the game, such as the dead, the undead, or haunts. They can really only talk to class feature spirits, and then only to get powers. You’d think a class called the medium would get some ability to cast speak with dead (or a variant that doesn’t require a body). The class is really a medium in name only.
The class has no dedicated role. In theory this is useful for a class, allowing a player to play the class they want, while still filling a gap in the party or adapting to the needs of the adventure. But you cannot easily use the same spirit again and again (not without risking losing control of your character) making it tricky to stick with a single role needed at the table. If the party needs a healer they always need a healer, not a healer every other day. And while the class can pick different roles, the player will still need to build their character around a specific role or two, picking feats and ability scores that complement that role. Which makes the daily flexibility irrelevant as options will either complement the planned role or not. At best, each day the medium can either choose to play to their strengths or downplay their weaknesses (and it is almost always better to do the former).
The medium doesn’t really seem to fill roles particularly well. For example, not having the skill selection to really be an out of combat utility class. Gaining a +1 to all skills every four levels doesn’t compare with actually having training in a skill. And in combat I’m not sure what they expect the medium to do from round to round. It doesn’t have a lot of built-in options for actions during combat. They have 3/4 BAB, d8 hit dice, and limited weapons so they’re really not meant to be regular front line combatants. But they also don’t have any spells until higher levels. Many of their abilities seem to imply this class is expected to be a Dex or Str primary class smacking people around, but there’s just something odd about a class evoking John Edward running around in chainmail cracking people over the head with a mace.
There are also a crap ton of spirits: one for each combination of alignment and ability score. That’s too damn many. Even if each were dirt simple it would be too many options to remember, and many spirits have complicated powers. I wonder if they couldn’t have had ability score and alignment powers, and then let the player mix+match. Seems like that would save a good dozen pages.
The medium’s flexibility with spirits seems interesting on paper, but in practice players will likely settle on two or three favourite spirits and alternate between them. I’ve seen that a lot with wizards, who often just find a default array of spells and only swap out when necessary. So in practice the choices might as well not exist or the player will take ages picking their spirits each day. I can already imagine banning a couple players at my homegame from playing a medium because they will grind play to a halt each morning as they weigh the pros and cons and fifity-freakin’-four different spirits.
The medium also holds a daily seance to channel a spirit. This takes an hour, like memorizing spells. Except at 2nd level the medium can invoice the rest of the party, meaning wizard-types need to spend an hour preparing their own spells then another hour while the medium communes with the departed.
I can see the medium being very useful in Pathfinder Society play, where you don’t know the table composition and can pick a spirit that works with the group you have at that moment. And where the penalty of picking the same spirit again and again doesn’t come into play as each adventure takes place over a single day with no direct continuity between adventures. But I can also see the time factor coming into play as the medium tries to figure out the best spirit to compliment three to five unfamiliar players while guessing at the nature of the module.
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The medium needs a lot of work. A LOT of work. It’s a serious mess.
Like the kineticist, the medium lacks built-in utility. The medium can ostensibly talk to spirits, except when it comes to any other spirits in the game, such as the dead, the undead, or haunts. They can really only talk to class feature spirits, and then only to get powers. You’d think a class called the medium would get some ability to cast speak with dead (or a variant that doesn’t require a body). The class is really a medium in name only.
That's a fair complaint. Particularly before 7th level, there are a lot of things to be desired from the Medium as currently presented on the utility front.
The class has no dedicated role. In theory this is useful for a class, allowing a player to play the class they want, while still filling a gap in the party or adapting to the needs of the adventure. But you cannot easily use the same spirit again and again (not without risking losing control of your character) making it tricky to stick with a single role needed at the table. If the party needs a healer they always need a healer, not a healer every other day. And while the class can pick different roles, the player will still need to build their character around a specific role or two, picking feats and ability scores that complement that role. Which makes the daily flexibility irrelevant as options will either complement the planned role or not. At best, each day the medium can either choose to play to their strengths or downplay their weaknesses (and it is almost always better to do the former).
I'm not quite sure you had a thorough read of the influence mechanic, as there is a hard cap of 2 for seancing the spirit in. As we've discussed ad nauseum in this thread already, getting to 4 influence is harder than you think and impossible prior to level 3. Have a day or two of downtime? Suddenly all that influence is gone.
The medium doesn’t really seem to fill roles particularly well. For example, not having the skill selection to really be an out of combat utility class. Gaining a +1 to all skills every four levels doesn’t compare with actually having training in a skill. And in combat I’m not sure what they expect the medium to do from round to round. It doesn’t have a lot of built-in options for actions during combat. They have 3/4 BAB, d8 hit dice, and limited weapons so they’re really not meant to be regular front line combatants. But they also don’t have any spells until higher levels. Many of their abilities seem to imply this class is expected to be a Dex or Str primary class smacking people around, but there’s just something odd about a class evoking John Edward running around in chainmail cracking people over the head with a mace.
We've seen teases of a few spirits that alleviate many of these problems.
There are also a crap ton of spirits: one for each combination of alignment and ability score. That’s too damn many. Even if each were dirt simple it would be too many options to remember, and many spirits have complicated powers. I wonder if they couldn’t have had ability score and alignment powers, and then let the player mix+match. Seems like that would save a good dozen pages.
The medium’s flexibility with spirits seems interesting on paper, but in practice players will likely settle on two or three favourite spirits and alternate between them. I’ve seen that a lot with wizards, who often just find a default array of spells and only swap out when necessary. So in practice the choices might as well not exist or the player will take ages picking their spirits each day. I can already imagine banning a couple players at my homegame from playing a medium because they will grind play to a halt each morning as they weigh the pros and cons and fifity-freakin’-four different spirits.
As has been explained upthread, the number of spirits is surprisingly not as bad as you'd initially think. The hard choices come during level ups and character gen. During actual play, you will more likely see players choosing between 2-3 spirits that they know. I'm not sure you noticed that there is a limit of spirits known.
The class has no dedicated role. In theory this is useful for a class, allowing a player to play the class they want, while still filling a gap in the party or adapting to the needs of the adventure. But you cannot easily use the same spirit again and again (not without risking losing control of your character) making it tricky to stick with a single role needed at the table. If the party needs a healer they always need a healer, not a healer every other day. And while the class can pick different roles, the player will still need to build their character around a specific role or two, picking feats and ability scores that complement that role. Which makes the daily flexibility irrelevant as options will either complement the planned role or not. At best, each day the medium can either choose to play to their strengths or downplay their weaknesses (and it is almost always better to do the former).
The medium also holds a daily seance to channel a spirit. This takes an hour, like memorizing spells. Except at 2nd level the medium can invoice the rest of the party, meaning wizard-types need to spend an hour preparing their own spells then another hour while the medium communes with the departed.You didn't read this ability fully. It's specifically written to allow the seance boon to be given out without interfering with the Wizard/Cleric/whathaveyou's spell prep, assuming said spellcasters don't have some character issue being touched or being near others while preparing spells.
I can see the medium being very useful in Pathfinder Society play, where you don’t know the table composition and can pick a spirit that works with the group you have at that moment. And where the penalty of picking the same spirit again and again doesn’t come into play as each adventure takes place over a single day with no direct continuity between adventures. But I can also see the time factor coming into play as the medium tries to figure out the best spirit to compliment three to five unfamiliar players while guessing at the nature of the module.Again, I think you missed some of the nuance of the influence mechanic and the fact that there's a limit of spirits known. As a result, I'm not confident that your review reflects the class as written because of the abilities that are misrepresented.
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I feel that having spirits that count as a different attribute is a needless complication. Now I'm getting hands on with the class (played on Sunday playtest information will be put up soon) it is a bit fiddly putting together the spirits and having some spirits have that extra complexity is annoying rather than interesting.
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We've seen teases of a few spirits that alleviate many of these problems.
As has been explained upthread, the number of spirits is surprisingly not as bad as you'd initially think. The hard choices come during level ups and character gen. During actual play, you will more likely see players choosing between 2-3 spirits that they know. I'm not sure you noticed that there is a limit of spirits known.
Early on, as you point out, you get a very limited number of spirits known and even fewer (one from level 1-4) that you can use consistently.
Adding more spirits to the list may not necessarily help unless they fix most or all of the limitations faced by a low-level medium, because you're not going to get another one unless you trance it at low level. Sure you could replace The Bear or Big Sky, but then you're missing out on the benefits of those spirits.
Again, I think you missed some of the nuance of the influence mechanic and the fact that there's a limit of spirits known. As a result, I'm not confident that your review reflects the class as written because of the abilities that are misrepresented.
No need to be that harsh, Serisan. Let's encourage feedback, not discourage it.
We've seen teases of a few spirits that alleviate many of these problems.As has been explained upthread, the number of spirits is surprisingly not as bad as you'd initially think. The hard choices come during level ups and character gen. During actual play, you will more likely see players choosing between 2-3 spirits that they know. I'm not sure you noticed that there is a limit of spirits known.Early on, as you point out, you get a very limited number of spirits known and even fewer (one from level 1-4) that you can use consistently.
Adding more spirits to the list may not necessarily help unless they fix most or all of the limitations faced by a low-level medium, because you're not going to get another one unless you trance it at low level. Sure you could replace The Bear or Big Sky, but then you're missing out on the benefits of those spirits.
Again, I think you missed some of the nuance of the influence mechanic and the fact that there's a limit of spirits known. As a result, I'm not confident that your review reflects the class as written because of the abilities that are misrepresented.No need to be that harsh, Serisan. Let's encourage feedback, not discourage it.
I certainly agree that the class is quite backloaded, which I think is a general consensus. That certainly causes a drag in low level play.
Re: harshness, I didn't mean for that to be a harsh statement. I simply felt that there was a gap between the rules in the playtest doc and what the reviewer presented, which ends up being pretty close to burning a straw man. There were certainly valid points brought up, but talking about table bans for the class because of a misrepresented class feature is pretty serious stuff.
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'm not quite sure you had a thorough read of the influence mechanic, as there is a hard cap of 2 for seancing the spirit in. As we've discussed ad nauseum in this thread already, getting to 4 influence is harder than you think and impossible prior to level 3. Have a day or two of downtime? Suddenly all that influence is gone.
Downtime is something that cannot be assumed. It's painful enough when the wizard wants a day of downtime to craft something that will make all the party better, let alone just so a character can keep using its main class feature.
I just finished an AP (Rise of the Runelords) and there was several times downtime just didn't seem to be an option.However, if the feature is so easily avoided that it's not a penalty… why does it exist? If it's never going to come up, why have the added complexity?
It's an odd design as it's such a heavy penalty (the spirit takes over and makes you do… things) for what amounts to roleplaying reasons. And it's such a vague penalty. Can the spirit join you in an adventure? Does it just become the medium with a different personality? What if the party is deep in an extradimensional dungeon and the spirit cannot go off and do its own thing?
You didn't read this ability fully. It's specifically written to allow the seance boon to be given out without interfering with the Wizard/Cleric/whathaveyou's spell prep, assuming said spellcasters don't have some character issue being touched or being near others while preparing spells.
The wizard needs a quiet area and cannot memorize spells if distracted. Having a séance going around you is something I would consider distracting.
But I also have difficulty reading while the TV is on. As can be demonstrated by:As has been explained upthread, the number of spirits is surprisingly not as bad as you'd initially think. The hard choices come during level ups and character gen. During actual play, you will more likely see players choosing between 2-3 spirits that they know. I'm not sure you noticed that there is a limit of spirits known.
I did indeed miss there was a cap on spirits. I will have to edit my blog review…
It certainly makes the class both easier and harder to play. It moves the loooong choice from every day to every week, while also making the choice much more important (and thus worthy of even more thought). But, as you say, I don't see affecting much play as people will just pick 2-3 spirits and never look beyond. It's almost forcing them to consider other spirits…
Oddly, it can make the character more awkward to play. The class doesn't use Charisma for a lot: it doesn't need more than a 14 at level 13. So long as you don't dump stat Char you can play the medium, so it's very possible to start with a single spirit.
I suppose you could argue it solves my "role" problem for the medium. They need to have a high Cha which makes them the Face. But that just means all the other non-Cha spirits become inoptimal.
However, the limit does make the class even *less* like the source material. It's now pretty much a medium in name only.
"Please, I need to speak to the spirit of my mother."
"Sorry, I only know two spirits, and neither is you mom.
(I suppose that's what's happens when you have one group of people coming up with the story and concept for a class and another group charged with designing the class itself. The design team really seems to have gone off in one direction, swept away with mechanics they like, and so the class doesn't really resemble what it's supposed to be any more. Like a game design version of Telephone.)
The necessity for 54 spirits just feels unnecessary. The hook of each spirit representing an alignment and an ability score is okay but leads to a forced symmetry. There's not 54 good ideas for spirits, not 54 concepts that are just crying out for a spirit. And there's certainly not 216 unique mechanical powers crying out to be added to the game. A lot of the spirits are just going to be plain bad. There are deadlines to meet and a LOT of the spirits are going to end up being "good enough".
I'd much rather see six really good spirits all medium can choose from, and have those six modified by alignment (or 9 spirits modified by ability score). The list of 54 could remain as names/concepts of the spirits along with their compulsions.