I really like the idea of the Medium occult class and I want it to work so badly, but its just bad. What are some of the changes people have made to it that work well?
Some ideas that I think would go well, in no particular order:
1. Change the Influence "cap" to 3+Charisma modifier. Let's say you're level 1 and have a 16 Charisma. With your +3 Cha modifier, your new Influence cap is 6, not 5. Makes Charisma matter more to the class. Spirit Surge is one of your main class features, I find it ridiculous that you can only use it 4 times a day at most before you lose control of your character. Imagine if Wizards could only cast 4 spells a day before losing control of their character!
2. Get bonus spells based on which Spirit you're channeling. Maybe you have to gain a point of Influence when you use them or something? This would give you some spells for levels 1-3 and would probably bump you up to the bard/mesmerist/inquisitor tier. Maybe there are a pool of Spirit Spells for each level, like the Champion gives you Enlarge Person, True Strike, Jump, or Gravity Bow for levels 1-4, then Bull Strength, Force Sword, Stone Throwing, or Tremor Blast for levels 5-9. The playtest Medium had something like this, if I recall.
3. Steal some of the Occult oracle mystery's revelations, like Automatic Writing, Project Psyche, Shroud of Retribution, and Spirit Walk.
4. Around level 10 and 15, let the Medium switch the spirit they're channeling and shorten the seance time to 30 min. and then 10 min. Being stuck with the Archmage all day when you really need the Marshall feels unnecessarily debilitating.
5. Favored locations are not required, but they do bump up the Influence cap by 1.
First off, explain what makes it "bad." There's no point in making an argument to fix something when you haven't established why it needs fixed in the first place.
The medium is a class that essentially lets you change your character's class and role each day. That's pretty darn powerful and it oozes with flavor, even if you're not as strong as the spirit's class (it shouldn't be).
I'm highly critical of game mechanics. Aside from some quibbles about influence, the design of the medium seems pretty clean to me.