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The Medium's claim to fame is in his versatility. He's pretty solid as a frontline fighter, a damage-dealing or debuffing arcane caster, a healer, or a buffer, he's just not all of those at once. The Medium really comes into his own when the party knows about a problem ahead of time, or if they found a problem and have time (a day or more) to solve it. It's pretty convenient having someone in you party that can go, "Man it would be nice if we had X class here", and then become that class the next day.
I'm only passingly familiar with the Medium, I've never seen one played. However, from what I've read they function as a versatile "Jack Of All Trades", much like the Bard and yet very different.
Their profile is fairly lackluster by default, however depending upon which spirit is influencing them at any given time, their profile can drastically change. Like the Bard, they shine when the situation calls for a role someone else in the party can't fill, or when the person who normally fills that role is incapacitated.
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Champion Spirit makes for a competent combatant- pseudo-full BAB, d8, bonus damage, and 4/9 casting plus cantrips. Compare to Ranger or Bloodrager. You don't get bonus feats or an animal companion, though, so what's the point? Well, you get flexibility. Any day you want, you can turn into a 6/9 caster using either the Wizard or Cleric list. That's important for those days where you need to clear up some diseases, clear out some swarms, or other similar tasks. If some skills are needed instead, you can be an expert tomorrow.
Additionally, you grant bonuses to your allies.
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I like the look of the class. I can work around the influence penalties:
Take the trait Mock Gladiator for hierophant
Choose touch attack spells and buffs from archmage
Champion fits great in any range or melee build
Improved initiative is nice for all builds but helps with trickster's sneak attacks.
The guardian needs to find a way to reduce the defensive fighting penalty, use a madu, crane style...perhaps see what psychic anthologies has for it.
the Marshal looks like it will fit in any build.
and remember you can be them all with the spirit dancer archetype.
I thought it was pretty garbage, so last year I reworked it into something else. Generally it can make an ok melee combatant, but the idea that MEediums are jacks of all trades or regularly changing their focus in the day is a joke.
The entire class is comically conservative in its design, just like most of what Paizo has put out in the last few years.
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Improved initiative is nice for all builds but helps with trickster's sneak attacks.
What does Improved Initiative do for a Trickster?
Your target counts as flat-footed against the first attack you make against that target in a day, regardless of abilities like uncanny dodge.
Your opponents are always considered flat-footed against the first attack you make.
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Improved initiative is nice for all builds but helps with trickster's sneak attacks.What does Improved Initiative do for a Trickster?
Your target counts as flat-footed against the first attack you make against that target in a day, regardless of abilities like uncanny dodge.Your opponents are always considered flat-footed against the first attack you make.
what if you make two attacks? Longbows are good.
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So, the claim to fame is that it's a jack-of-all-trades. The reality is that most players are going to take it for Champion, probably with Relic Channeler, and never use another spirit. A fairly significant number of those will be doing the 1 level dip for bonus damage on another class.
Every few months, I bother Mark Seifter again to see if/when we'll get the Harrowed Medium back, which got page count slaughtered after the playtest. I hold out hope that it will eventually be released because, from a numbers perspective, the Medium doesn't hold up well compared to other classes. You really have to invest yourself into the specific flavor of the Medium. By comparison, the Harrowed Medium, while very complex, did interesting things that couldn't be duplicated elsewhere.
This is not to say, though, that the Medium lacks viability. It simply lacks much reason to select it over other classes for whatever purpose you're looking to build into.
champion is a very damaging spirit. With it's extra full bab attack and all the damage boosters it gets it hits hard. Plus it gets heroism! A little on the fragile side. Also makes for a good dip. 1 level gets you no accuracy loss and +3 damage.
guardian is your best at not dying. You're getting scaling AC in class, great DR, and the ability to add your surge to your AC. Plus spirit bonus on both of your poor saves makes all your saves pretty good. Problem now is doing damage.
the caster spirits are okay coupled with the bard archetype.
The original playtest medium I've heard was a lot more fluid in it's spirits. Unfortunately what we got is pretty locked in and bland.
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Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
O wait that is war sorry my fault!
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So what does the medium excel at? When will a party say "Wow, we are so thankful to have a medium in the group?" Is he a solid 2nd-tier combatant, a jack-of-all-trades like the bard, what? Does the medium's iconic spirit ability make him especially versatile or powerful?
1: Mediums have access to the Medium, Cleric, and Wizard spell lists... and correspondingly Psychic, Divine, and Arcane casting.
2: Effectively proficient with ALL weapons (not at the same time)
3: Use a swift action to grant an ally a single attack or a standard action to grant an ally any standard action during your turn
4: Effectively ALL skills as class skills with max ranks (not at the same time)
There aren't many classes which can do ANY of the things listed above. No other class can do all of them. Many of the Medium's other abilities may be more common (e.g. several ways to get move + full attack), but again there is no other class which comes close to having all of these abilities.
Want a fun way to use the Medium's abilities? Make a spy character. He needs to join a ship's crew to observe their movements? Ok... he's an expert sailor. Has to infiltrate a magic academy? Ok... he's a functioning Wizard. Has to get close to a mercenary company leader? Ok... he's a competent Fighter. Et cetera. Every craft. Every profession. Most character classes. The Medium can convincingly pose as a ridiculous number of roles.
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I just did a similar thread here last week, asking about viable adventuring builds for a medium.
A strength based champion is an effective front liner. You can also probably get away with doing a dex based finesse fighter with the champion's bonus damage. I'd say that the bonus damage on every hit should make them great for two weapon fighting, though you won't have enough feats to be great at it. Archery also requires more feats than the medium gets, but it's a strong enough combat style that a medium can be effective even without all of them.
And from that thread, I got some good recommendations for how to be useful with archetypes. But the other spirits, without any archetypes, are just severely underpowered.
As others have mentioned above, the medium also makes a nice single level dip for any martial PC, always channeling the champion spirit. If your party has lots of other weapon users, you may even consider a second level of it, to share the seance boon and take a taboo for more spirit surges.
And that's about it.
Moreso than any other class, I feel, the Medium is made terrible or amazing by the structure of the campaign. The more days built into the entire campaign where the party has some task to accomplish that will not involve fighting, the stronger the class is. The basic gimmick of the Medium is that on any given day it can be the best at any given skill, or can cast any level appropriate to its level. The problem is that those spirits aren't really that handy in combat, and as a 3/4 BAB class you're going to need to fight when there is one.
So if on Day 1 you need a ballroom dancing instructor, Day 2 you need someone to cast "locate object" and "stage fright", Day 3 you need someone to fight, and Day 4 you need a chef who is also a standup comedian, the Medium is the best class period.
In a traditional campaign where most days are fighting or don't have anything in particular to accomplish, it's mostly "be the Champion all the time."
I feel if you could have 2 spirits at a time at a reasonable low level aka somewhere in 5-7. Then it'd be super cool.
Like, lv1 pick a spirit that is your spirit, then at say lv6 you get your "wandering spirit" that you find a place to channel him in for the day. Drop it's bonuses a level. Basically similar to the wandering spirit of shaman.
Then you'd have your mystic theurge class, a good divine warrior, defensive armored caster, skill guy that supports, etc.
Or, have them have a spirit dancer early day seance. But then spend 5 minutes to finish the deal with the spirit and gain an influence to have for the next hour or 10min per level or something. Have a taboo substitute to give them 3 uses no penalty, and then 2 more uses with the struggle for control as you do so. Trade spirit surge for something that can let you surge another spirit for a few minutes.
because by needing a full day of a spirit you really don't have the flexibility this class advertises to have. And the spirit dancer archetypes don't work so well at this because you'll often want to have a certain spirit for hours at a time. Like how good is the dancer at a dinner party? I'm drab and lifeless UP UNTIL the 6-12 seconds that I make the check in. Be horrible at chess, UP UNTIL the 6 seconds that the check to decide winner is done to be awesome, then finish fatigued? Want to use cure wands to heal up? Better not need it since you don't have the rounds to heal up with.
The other issue is that because of basically needing a primary spirit that you use 99% of the time it is kinda useless to focus on anything but champion. Guardian has AMAZING defenses, but as a 3/4 bab 4th level caster with no accuracy or damage boosters from class, you're an expert NPC class for fighting. Maybe getting slightly better because you provide your own buffs, but with self casting heroism you're still no better then an NPC expert with heroism.
The arcane and divine spirits are vastly overshadowed by their 9th level friends and even their 6th level buddies, because they have no supplementary class features for their casting. The only upside is the divine can be a CHA based negative energy channeler. These do okay when coupled with storyteller because it's actual wizard spells with bardsong and full CHA based cleric.
Marshal has a nice support mechanic and can pull +2 damage from class, but it's still falling behind other player classes at combat.
Sneak spirit is the only one I could see seriously as a focus besides champion, yeah your no where near as good at combat, but you're at least getting a combat aid at lv6. Yes it's still a low tier combatant, but at least now it has something over the expert.
But overall, it's that you really need to pick one spirit and focus on it to make it compare with other PC classes, thus the 20% of power budget spent on getting a new spirit tomorrow is really just giving you a deficiency to overcome with your primary spirit.
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I'd say in that case use spirit dancer. It's closer to my original alpha vision of the medium that never reached the playtest (which had spirits known and fewer spirits contacted for the day and then you could switch between the contacted spirits in combat as a full-round action at first and then more and more easily, kind of like a Persona main character) but it turned out to be a high drain on cognitive resources to rejigger your character that much in the midst of combat, so it was changed to daily in the beta (but you could have more active at once). Since I had to rewrite the archetypes for the final medium anyway since the freelancer only had the beta Harrowed medium to work with, the spirit dancer was a little bit of a callback for me to the alpha (not all the way, but some of it) that was allowed due to being an archetype and not the default class.
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I'd say in that case use spirit dancer. It's closer to my original alpha vision of the medium that never reached the playtest (which had spirits known and fewer spirits contacted for the day and then you could switch between the contacted spirits in combat as a full-round action at first and then more and more easily, kind of like a Persona main character) but it turned out to be a high drain on cognitive resources to rejigger your character that much in the midst of combat, so it was changed to daily in the beta (but you could have more active at once). Since I had to rewrite the archetypes for the final medium anyway since the freelancer only had the beta Harrowed medium to work with, the spirit dancer was a little bit of a callback for me to the alpha (not all the way, but some of it) that was allowed due to being an archetype and not the default class.
Can we count this as my quarterly "Hey, any news about the Harrowed Medium?" check-in? :-)
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I keep hoping for a slightly better Spirit Dancer... or options to improve the archetype. If you could somehow swap out choices as situations came up, rather than having to make all the decisions for each spirit's configuration at the start of the day, it would allow you to react to and deal with all kinds of situations.
Instead, it currently has the same limitation as the regular Medium... you need to guess what you are going to be dealing with at the start of the day. This is similar to prepared casting... but they have wands, scrolls, potions, options to swap out spells, leaving slots unprepared, et cetera to give them some flexibility. That's what the Spirit Dancer, and really Mediums in general, could most use.
My issue with spirit dancer is noted above and copied below.
And the spirit dancer archetypes don't work so well at this because you'll often want to have a certain spirit for hours at a time. Like how good is the dancer at a dinner party? I'm drab and lifeless UP UNTIL the 6-12 seconds that I make the check in. Be horrible at chess, UP UNTIL the 6 seconds that the check to decide winner is done to be awesome, then finish fatigued? Want to use cure wands to heal up? Better not need it since you don't have the rounds to heal up with.
if you had 1 minute per contact and roughly equal uses of the ability it'd probably be more worthwhile, then if you need to heal your party you actually have time to and not be worthless for the rest of the day. Rounds limit worth great for good combat boosters, rage, bane and bardsong. But once you factor in OOC uses to the same pool of combat uses, you don't have enough. If barbs had to rage the entire time it took to heal them with wands they'd never have enough rounds of rage to fight with.
My issue with spirit dancer is noted above and copied below.
And the spirit dancer archetypes don't work so well at this because you'll often want to have a certain spirit for hours at a time. Like how good is the dancer at a dinner party? I'm drab and lifeless UP UNTIL the 6-12 seconds that I make the check in. Be horrible at chess, UP UNTIL the 6 seconds that the check to decide winner is done to be awesome, then finish fatigued? Want to use cure wands to heal up? Better not need it since you don't have the rounds to heal up with.if you had 1 minute per contact and roughly equal uses of the ability it'd probably be more worthwhile, then if you need to heal your party you actually have time to and not be worthless for the rest of the day. Rounds limit worth great for good combat boosters, rage, bane and bardsong. But once you factor in OOC uses to the same pool of combat uses, you don't have enough. If barbs had to rage the entire time it took to heal them with wands they'd never have enough rounds of rage to fight with.
Yep, it's not able to reach a 100% capture of the timing of the alpha version (which had one power active all the time and took actions to switch) because the new six spirits are each individually much more powerful than a single Harrowed medium spirit and you always have all of them "prepared," removing one major and one minor factor that the alpha had that allowed for that scheme to work. In practice the spirit dancer works fairly well in many cases, but for those "one long task" uses, I ran into the same situation with the Masquerade Reveler I wrote for Rite, where it was rounds per day but had out of combat uses that take longer than rounds, so I would recommend a home GM allowing a modified version of the feat I made to address it:
When you set your mind on a particular task, your masquerade carries you through.
Prerequisites: Masquerade class feature
Benefit: While in a masquerade, if you begin a skill check, Wild Empathy check, Vermin Empathy check, or any other single check that requires more than a single round to complete, you may choose to spend two rounds of masquerade as a swift action. If you do so, so long as you consecutively work on that single check without interruption, the remaining rounds of masquerade you spend do not count against your daily limit.
I'd say in that case use spirit dancer. It's closer to my original alpha vision of the medium that never reached the playtest (which had spirits known and fewer spirits contacted for the day and then you could switch between the contacted spirits in combat as a full-round action at first and then more and more easily, kind of like a Persona main character) but it turned out to be a high drain on cognitive resources to rejigger your character that much in the midst of combat, so it was changed to daily in the beta (but you could have more active at once). Since I had to rewrite the archetypes for the final medium anyway since the freelancer only had the beta Harrowed medium to work with, the spirit dancer was a little bit of a callback for me to the alpha (not all the way, but some of it) that was allowed due to being an archetype and not the default class.Can we count this as my quarterly "Hey, any news about the Harrowed Medium?" check-in? :-)
Sounds like a plan. Of course, I'll tell you guys if it comes to be, so it's always going to be an answer of "No, and it's out of my hands" for all the check-ins.
Sounds like a plan. Of course, I'll tell you guys if it comes to be, so it's always going to be an answer of "No, and it's out of my hands" for all the check-ins.I'd say in that case use spirit dancer. It's closer to my original alpha vision of the medium that never reached the playtest (which had spirits known and fewer spirits contacted for the day and then you could switch between the contacted spirits in combat as a full-round action at first and then more and more easily, kind of like a Persona main character) but it turned out to be a high drain on cognitive resources to rejigger your character that much in the midst of combat, so it was changed to daily in the beta (but you could have more active at once). Since I had to rewrite the archetypes for the final medium anyway since the freelancer only had the beta Harrowed medium to work with, the spirit dancer was a little bit of a callback for me to the alpha (not all the way, but some of it) that was allowed due to being an archetype and not the default class.Can we count this as my quarterly "Hey, any news about the Harrowed Medium?" check-in? :-)
I get that, but noise = pressure and I want that friggin' class. :-)
TAKE MY MONEY, PAIZO!
I never saw the Harrowed stuff from the playtest, but I'd love to see Paizo publish something that makes the medium class both versatile and useful, instead of just being the champion spirit delivery system that it is now.
It was complex and interesting. 54 spirits planned (attribute + alignment), 18 at playtest. Some of the melee options were amazing, including the option of being huge sized all day when you wanted at a certain point. Your available spells changed every time you changed your spirits for the day - you knew what you channeled for the day, with strength spirits having fewer spells and int spirits having more. You'd have a chain of spirits and that impacted available powers.
Super interesting, but easily a table stopper if players weren't prepared and it certainly took a LOT of pages to explain everything.
My issue with spirit dancer is noted above and copied below.
And the spirit dancer archetypes don't work so well at this because you'll often want to have a certain spirit for hours at a time. Like how good is the dancer at a dinner party? I'm drab and lifeless UP UNTIL the 6-12 seconds that I make the check in. Be horrible at chess, UP UNTIL the 6 seconds that the check to decide winner is done to be awesome, then finish fatigued? Want to use cure wands to heal up? Better not need it since you don't have the rounds to heal up with.if you had 1 minute per contact and roughly equal uses of the ability it'd probably be more worthwhile, then if you need to heal your party you actually have time to and not be worthless for the rest of the day. Rounds limit worth great for good combat boosters, rage, bane and bardsong. But once you factor in OOC uses to the same pool of combat uses, you don't have enough. If barbs had to rage the entire time it took to heal them with wands they'd never have enough rounds of rage to fight with.
Channel Spirit feat really improves Medium's life, even for Spirit Dancer. Seriously that feat is incredible, up to the point that any Medium won't use his normal seance anymore. Spirit dancer will love using the feat to channel Archmage and hierophant spirits in downtime.
While we are at it, there are some questions pending for that feat
From my game experience, the Medium class without the aforementioned feat (taken at least twice) or an archetype (specially the Spirit Dancer) is not fun as fun, but still playable and enjoyable if focusing in one spirit type only and channeling that everyday. Guardian and Marshal are the two spirit thpes that won't make the medium a subrogate of other classes (like the champion spirit with the fighter class), so opening for many interesting concepts that are not doable/replaceable by other characters.
So what does the medium excel at?
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
So what does the medium excel at?ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
No that is what is war good for?
No that is what is war good for?So what does the medium excel at?ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
IT AIN'T NOTHING BUT A HEARTBREAKER
MEDIUMFRIEND ONLY TO THE ROLEPLAYER
This class is a lot like the Thaumaturge from the Thunderscape campaign setting. Thaumaturge is a wee bit higher on the power scale, but more flexible in a lot of ways. One thing it adds are powers that auto-activate whenever a spirit is channeled, that scale as you level.
It's pretty amazing, tbh.
Medium is pretty fantastic. It's a strange class for people that just need something different or even something different every campaign day.
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I'm having a blast with my Elven Medium from Galt that tries to channel The Brightness but only gets dead people.
He's got a high charisma so I channel Marshal as much as the Champion.
but it's not a full-bab class
but it's not a full-bab class
The spirit bonus of the champion gives you fake full-BAB.
Attack progression when channeling the champion, by level.
1st: +1
2nd: +2
3rd: +3
4th: +5
5th: +5
6th: +6/+6
7th: +7/+7
8th: +9/+9/+4
etc.
doesn't let you qualify for feats and stuff. Yeah, it makes up the accuracy loss like every other 3/4 bab class. but it's not full-bab.
True, but the medium is already a pretty feat-starved class and as accuracy fixers for 3/4 BAB classes go, an always on INT(1+Level/4) to attack, damage, fort saves, and strength (skill) checks is a pretty good one.
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True, but the medium is already a pretty feat-starved class and as accuracy fixers for 3/4 BAB classes go, an always on INT(1+Level/4) to attack, damage, fort saves, and strength (skill) checks is a pretty good one.
Plus spirit surges on failed attack rolls and fort saves.
So it's got full BAB attack rolls, a damage bonus on every weapon attack, as long as you stick to the champion spirit.
And that's about it. No bonus feats, smites, favored enemies, rage, or any of the other stuff that makes full BAB classes better than 3/4 BAB in combat. I think the damage bonus, spirit surges, and incredibly weak spellcasting is supposed to make up for that. It probably comes close, and makes for a playable martial PC, but definitely a little weak compared to almost any other martial class.
And that's the best spirit for an adventurer. The trickster might come close to a playable rogue substitute starting at level 6, and I could see maybe using the marshall as a weak bard substitute at level 11+, but that's it.
I keep wanting to like this class, but it just disappoints.
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I'm playing a Medium right now in Kingmaker. We're level 13 and just finished book 4 (I think? That's the one with Fort Drelev, right?). You know how the Wizard is considered the best class? You know how one of the biggest reasons for that is their ability to prepare their spells based on the needs of the day? Imagine if when the Wizard was doing his morning prep, he could instead switch his spell list to a Cleric's, or gain all the weapon proficiencies after bumping his Str and BAB, or gain Sneak Attack and double his skill ranks, and so on...
Obviously, the Medium isn't quite as good as the Wizard, so this comparison is a bit exaggerated, but I think it's still a good one. While the spells/day and known are still pretty low when channeling an arcane or divine spirit, I've alleviated that by taking the Scribe Scroll feat and scribing the f#@k out of my spells during downtime. I have a bit over 60 scrolls right now, just waiting for their intended obstacle to come up.
Pathfinder favors specialization, so this class may not taste so great going down for some, but as long as you slightly favor one of the spirits, you'll be there. I favor the Champion Spirit, and I took the Spirit Focus feat for the Champion (+1 boost to hit, dmg, Str checks, and Fort saves), Power Attack, Toughness, Furious Focus, and Lunge, and I'm just about on par with your standard Fighter (my other feats went into Skill Focus (UMD), and Scribe Scroll). I'm not going to be as good as your standard Rogue, Wizard, Cleric, or Bard when I channel those spirits, but if I had tweaked my feats to fit those niches, I'd be basically where I am in one of those rolls. So I'm basically a standard Fighter on adventuring days with a smattering of utility spells, and also a sub-par everything-else on other days. And it's always fun to channel those other spirits, because it's like playing a completely different character for a day.
Others before me seem to have covered other stuff like Spirit Surge (I'm a Half-orc for all the Spirit Surges!), Seance Boons, At-Will Contact Other Plane, and other features, so I won't go into why they're awesome. Basically, the Medium is a really fun and unique class, and now that I've finally played one for myself, anytime I'm making a character in the future, I'm going to stop and ask myself "why not Medium, instead?"
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That's a good point, Cuup. In a campaign with lots of down time to scribe scrolls, this class probably works better than what I was thinking. But if you're just focused on the typical adventuring day, such as for PFS, then that's not relevant.
But again, you chose champion is your primary spirit to focus on, just like everybody else. There's really no other option. For a class that's supposed to be flexible, that's just kinda sad.
The saddest part is that there's another class from Occult Adventures that really is a flexible class that can fill any role, the way the medium pretends to be: the occultist.
The occultist has better weapon, armor proficiencies, and buffs than a medium, making it a better martial class. They've got 6 level spellcasting and more magical class abilities to imitate a full caster in almost any casting role (buffer, debuffer, control, healing, even some blasting or summoning). They've got 4 + int skill ranks per level on an int based caster, to be a great skill monkey.
After spending some time looking over a few of them, including spending way too much time trying to make the medium work as advertised, occultist is my favorite occult class by a long shot.
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A well-done medium is rare.
... had to say it.
The Medium is best at making us long for Paizo to release The Harrow Medium.
Please, Paizo. Please just let me give you this money that I have. Just release it as a .pdf if you don't want to print it, I don't care.
In the meantime, a little re-jiggering of the beta version is okay, but deeply unsatisfying without the full version.
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I just wish that the spirit dancer archetype synergised better with the Marshall spirit. I wanted to play a party buffer that allows bonusses on failed rolls (!), but the limit the archetype places on spirit surge uses due to a cap on the amount of influence you can take prevents me from choosing the archetype.
It's got a lot going for it however due to its ability to cast long term buffs and then switching to a different spirit during combat.
I like the medium. they're the one class that can completely and effectively deal with haunts.
Also, they get haste as a 2nd level spell.
Finally, you can play a character who's on the run from other members of your party but still interact with the party pretty effectively =)
haste as lv2 spell doesn't do anything for them though since they don't access it till lv7. so they get it the same time a bard does and level(s) behind full casters.