Xararion's page

I'm not really sure what to make of this class anymore. Beseech is nice addition sure, but I didn't feel that it was that remarkable that it would save the class from it's inherent flaws. I'm in similar lines as nighttree in part, I don't really know what the class is supposed to do, since from my limited testing (managed to test it a bit but not enough for it count as serious testing so I won't be posting the notes on that.) and reading up on what other people say, it still doesn't do anything well. You can gear it up to be a melee fighter, but only adequate, and on assumption you really focused your stats on str and the like.

Maybe I lost some luster on the class after reading up on binder and the 3rd party Occultist. I thought the medium was going for similar thing, but the medium spirits feel underwhelming compared to the vestigest/occultist spirits and the mechanic of influence and type matching feels somewhat bothersome compared to the influence/multi spirit of the other camp.

I'll still keep an eye on the class and maybe run another test or two if I can manage time from finishing up on work because I think the theme of having spirits bound to you is really good and I'd love to see it work so that GMs might allow it (3.5/3rd party is pretty much no go).

I still really hope the spirits would be made more potent and more centrepiece, giving more interesting and useful powers, even if it is at cost of spellcasting. It could be great to have Medium become the martial of occult, but I'd be fine with Medium just becoming well, something that has a role.

I'm with Dolarre and Orthos on this, instead of making Medium just another 6/9 caster and have it invariably compared to bard with overly focused set of abilities (I mean, undead empathy isn't really going to be multipurpose thing.) I highly advocate taking page from the binders book.

I'm with the simplification process when it comes to contracting multiple spirits, just have them give their stuff to you without the complicated system of slots they currently have. But I do agree with CHB on the influence thing, cut that thing out, having to lose control of your character sucks for player and is work for DM, and thus has no positive side. So as a whole, I guess I stand in the middle ground.

Also fair enough on that, you could do that after your first trance to activate copycat.

Obviously I couldn't take into account spirits that aren't out yet, but that's entirely fair point anyway. Having to keep three spirits specifically up for that is not ideal as it is little on the side of the "maybe little too complex" in the threefold spirit interaction rules, but I guess it is possible then. Thank you for enlightening me on the possibility though.

Oh you're right, I apologise, I've continually read the thing wrong on that regard, the only thing charisma influences in that ability is the round based duration. So yeah, my bad there, the ability is good if situational and could be used by semi-combat capable mediums.

Not combat focused mediums though, since there is no point in having unicorn be not your primary spirit, since at least that way you get full powers from it, in addition to the spirit bonus from strength, but you do forfeit the combat powers from the strength spirits, so you are still at best decent.

Ah, didn't notice the roll limit before, my bad entirely there. Still, you're dealing with fullround action done under specific circumstances (melee adjacent to an ally next to a specific enemy), unless you can use your fortuitous aid with different method compared to normal combat aid another. And if you maxed your charisma to pull the +7 off, you probably don't have stats that really encourage you to be anywhere near an enemy worth that high a buff, but that might just be my assumption there.

The document says that the bonus persists for charisma modifier amount of rounds, not rolls, but with how you speak of the ability it seems it's meant to be rolls. Would this be safe assumption?

I don't feel that maxing out charisma is quite worth it for the single target bonuses that unicorn can grant though. Even accounting in the 3 stat increases you get by 13, you'd have to have 17 in charisma, 15 before racial modifier. This would leave your ability to contribute in combat to fairly limited degree, and you'd just be spending all your rounds hoping you happen to be next to an ally so you can refresh their aid another bonus or change it to still living target. By comparison at lvl 13 bard can give +3 competence bonus, and only requires a single action for it, and while unicorn can theoretically do it for all day without problems, bard grants the bonus to entire party to all targets. Bard in this case is more action efficient since they don't rely on just spending their actions in activating their buff, though it is smaller.

+7 to five attacks to hit and damage is still good don't get me wrong, but not sure worth maxing charisma.

I'm bit hazy on how the unicorns fortuitous aid works. Aid another gives your aid target bonus against a single target for single roll, and unicorn makes the bonus last for rounds equal to charisma modifier. Is this roll still limited to being what you actually aided at, for example to attack against that particular enemy target.

Similarly, can Unicorns aid another be used to boost AC of an ally, and if it can, how would the duration/targeting work for that instance, because +7 AC is nothing to sneeze at, but +7 AC against one target who is likely dead in 1-2 rounds is less worthy of a fullround action.

Just as a comment to the idea that Medium would have been better if you'd have spells from the get go. Do you feel that the ability to cast unerring weapon or entropic shield would have given you more meaningful actions to use against the swarms, undead and other creatures that your party faced, since those two are the spells that rabbit prince gives at first level.

Let's put it this way - rather than a single class where I'm required to switch Spirits in and out and mix & match like a lunatic EVERY DAY, I'd prefer a fairly stable base class who doesn't get many spirits, and thus have a "sneaky option" a "fighting option" etc.

That even makes the possibility of having a whole party of Mediums more viable:

4 3/4-BAB Half-Casters with decent abilities, a good set of skills, and each has (probably) 3-4 Spirits and no 2 identical between them, so that each fills certain rolls and they're all useful.

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Right now, it'd be... well, a lot more complicated, with 4 characters who just do everything ever, all at the same time.

I respectfully disagree with you for the most part on this. I agree that the spirits switching can get complicated with the way the interactions between multiple spirits are done.

However reducing the importance of spirits and making it half-caster and taking away bunch of spirits, limiting spirits to two and starting to fill the rest with class abilities just makes the class be more similar between each other. Party of four mediums would all have the same powers, with only difference being the one, two with a feat, spirits they have equipped, and if spirits are so few, you'd have to make a stable spell list, which would mean the four mediums draw from the same, probably small, pool of standard magic that every other class already draws from. Unless the spirits would be much more robust than they currently are you'd end up with fairly nondescript class, with minor flair from it's spirit that is adequate fifth man at best and not much more, you wouldn't make four characters with mostly same abilities, even if one got few points more to hit and other got trapfinding and a dice or two of sneak attack.

I guess that's fair enough, strength spirits so far haven't had any influence pushing spirits as far as I can tell. It does limit the usefulness of trance for such builds considerably however, as you basically never get more uses of your main boost power no matter how you level, assuming you don't have off days. And yes, the trances can be used to get lesser powers from other spirits, but it's lesser benefit compared to having rounds of rage or daily smites. When you get more spirits it becomes again little less of an issue since you can trance your secondary if it has same attribute as base and thus gain possibly nice things from there.

It seems that for most of it's career medium deals with just the lesser powers. I'm accounting the fact that most campaigns don't reach capstone into this. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but for the most part it seems that in most campaigns you'll at most get to supreme on one spirit and that's during a trance, and only few levels before most AP's at least cut off, and your secondary gets up to greater in trance state, never to supreme and tertiary only gets up to intermediate.

Mind this isn't bad, there are some great powers up there that would probably be hard to balance if you got them earlier or got more of them (3+ limited wishes per day is nothing to sneeze at for maybe most notable example). I'll wait for that new thing you mentioned before saying whether the medium should maybe advance in spirits bit faster, they are after all the main draw of the class by far, or not.

I'm not entirely confident I'd let medium substitute for a "main 4" member, even as martial, but that's less about it not performing adequately since I'll trust your word on it. The main reason I wouldn't sub a main role with medium is the nature of influence. A main role medium would need to have fairly stable set of spirits they wouldn't be able to deviate from, which would leave them open for possession as soon as they got second trance a day, though since it's been made clear there is no point ever trancing if you'd be possessed, it would mostly leave the trance for occasional lesser power or spirit bonus from one of the non-core spirits.

For example let's assume you build for martial. You always need to have a strength spirit or one with reliable sub for strength bonus active. Since the spirits give vastly different bonuses, your build probably doesn't support them all that much if you have "substitute strength spirits" for example. Say you make a weapon focused strength build, you'd probably want the forge active as much as possible, but some days you might have to sub for big sky or the bear to lower the influence, but you'd very possibly lose your weapon proficiency, and have to deal with non-enchanted claws or simple weapon. For bear, it could be an idea to sub one of the spells for magic fang or improved magic fang to get around that a bit.

On a different note, a question. Say you have dual spirit, and you seanced pummeling and cyclone. Cyclones chip cleave would activate the extra damage from pummeling for future attacks on enemies, though not the cyclone itself as it's not a roll. Is this correct.

I'm just bit worried that the class might end up really badly in the territory of "jack of all trades, master of none". It's meant to be jack of all trades, but having focused ranged build count as "bard with a bow" doesn't exactly instill confidence that the class can service any particular role above minimum expectancy. Especially when you consider that bard with a bow, probably actually serves that role better, and has more class abilities to go along with it.

I'm waiting to see how the new addition will help the class. At the moment I'm worried, I want it to be great, but I don't know if it'll be an option that one would consider taking over say, the bard. I'm not sure if medium can fill any of the four primary roles in a party, they might be able to sub in for the "expert" role, but they might be better off as fifth or sixth party member as it stands, where nobody is really relying on them to perform any of the main jobs.

Sorry if this comes as overly negative. I want this class to succeed, it has best flavour of the occult classes.

I'm yet to manage to go through a playtest, so anything I say is mostly based on theorycrafting and reading what other people say here.

I think Soma would be a D10 +1 BaB, and without normal spellcasting, since all his powers are either from magic items, or usually souls that he has equipped, with mana just fueling the active souls. I do like the comparison though, hadn't even thought of that.

I think it would be more interesting way to go about things to make the spirits more varied and potent, and cutting the casting levels completely from this class, as opposed to giving it medium casting levels. Okay this might be more book keepy option of the two.

Mostly since spirits are much more flavourful and unique than few spells. Sure you could have spells like speak with the dead and the like, but for one, these spells don't actually add combat options to early levels (the ones where it would need them), and while they would make it less medium like in the traditional sense of the world that's pretty much all they'd do. Maybe the class would be better off having been named Channeller.

Besides, isn't 3 half casters in one book plenty of those.

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.

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.

8. A minkai born traveler whose parent's sought help from the forest of spirit when he was young, and now he perceives spirits of weaker Kami and Oni, who he can channel for help.

Got to thinking, and will keep away from the possession issue now, people much more clear and fluent than me have made good arguments against the losing control issue.

I'd prefer if the class didn't turn into a 6 level caster class for several reasons. For one, it doesn't really add to the class flavour, your spirits would turn more into domains that are taken for spells considering your spell list is entirely dependent on them. Secondly, still for flavour, the spells are still the same spells used by every other class, so it doesn't really add anything really different to the table, and would just be contesting bard in the role of jack of all trades, but with more eclectic selection of spells, with less stable theme.

But I'd advice against 6 level casting also for the reason of variety. Currently the psychic book has half of it's classes already be six level casters, with one without casting and one with full casting. I think we have plenty on that front already in terms of psychic casters.

I'd almost go as far as to suggest the opposite direction to upping the spellcasting, namely cutting it out entirely. The theme of medium is spirits, channeling spirits and getting power from them. So perhaps expanding on the spirits, making them little more robust and able to give more options. Dropping the spell list from them could also allow for maybe one or even two more interesting options to be added in their place, like the X uses a day abilities or just additional power. Whether cutting casting down should come with D10 HD and +1 BaB, I don't know, I'd personally see it interesting to have spirit channeling combat class, but it's not necessity.

As it stands, by the time you get them, there are some spells that are really underwhelming on the 4 level casting, and 6 level would just make medium more akin to it's brethren in the book.

Figured I might as well suggest this, since the mediums older brother, the binder, was without casting levels of any sort. I have no idea how well this is going to be received, but brought it up anyway.

While it is true that it's pretty much impossible in the current build to become possessed prior to getting twice a day trance, remaining on the brink is exceedingly easy, though that is mostly just fun rp opportunities.

The problem with losing control of your character is that it's not "a little while" as Mark put it. If you are forced by circumstances to do a trance to get access to ability in say, a dungeon, or in PFS session, you are pretty much good to just leave the session, you won't be contributing to the affairs for rest of the day, and in case of more combat heavy dungeons, possibly more than that, and you might have done it just to survive an encounter. Until next rest can be very short time, but it can also be very long while topping at few sessions. IF GM allows you to play the spirit possessed medium, then nice, you get to ham up as a spirit that you probably had some design as to what or who the spirit is, if not, well, then it sucks. And how do you even function in terms of game mechanics when it's not you driving.

I'd advocate for some solution that is still flavourful, but wouldn't be quite as punishing. chbgraphicarts gave one good example of an idea for that.

I don't believe adding more trance opportunities would necessarily fix the issue of things to do. While it would add more potential to use powers other than the sometimes very lackluster lesser powers, being able to trance more would also mean you'd get influence quicker. Sure you could always trance another spirit, instead of boosting the one that is acting as your primary, but then you just have two lesser powers and really, not that much more punch than you had previously compared to boosting your primary. Even with having 2/day trance at the start would mean that it's entirely possible that you become NPC for a day very quickly. Again, you could use other spirits in trance, but in many occasions you probably will not.

In addition, while you can be somewhat successful in martial combat with STR spirit, this means that you will be locked into using only one spirit type until you get dual spirit, if you want to be reasonably good in combat. Or use one of the ones that count as STR spirit in addition to it's own type. Full BaB would help in giving more open options to not just favour STR type, and give psychic types a frontliner option.

Perhaps one way to deal with the danger of influence would be to give some sort of ability that would "vent" influence, in exchange for some sort of shorter term negative, that doesn't involve character getting removed from players hands for extended period.

Having read through the class but without yet having had the chance to playtest in modules, I'm slightly concerned about how the class would end up functioning.

As others have raised up, the class doesn't have many options in low level play by default, with only one spirit, one lesser ability, and one trance option. In addition to this, without using a strength spirit, or spirit that functions as a strength spirit, the class doesn't function as a martial combatant, and with the low amount of magical tricks at their disposal, it is almost certain that the class will be used as martial, hence forcing the usage of strength spirit.

This leads to a secondary effect of either having to have two strength spirits in your known spirits (which is either 2/3 or 1/2 your known spirits at low level realistically, at least.) that somehow both complement your playstyle and concept (unlikely). If you don't, you will very quickly climb into the 3 influence rank, and be stuck with your spirit, and if you get option to trance again, poof, 24 hours of NPCdom for you.

While realistically it is rather hard or impossible to climb into 4 influence on lower levels, you are effectively forced to accept climb into 3, since you will trance, because otherwise you have very little options, and if you don't get travel days, you will be at 3 and stuck there.

In addition while the spirit bonus is good at balancing the odds between this class and others, I think it still probably lags behind actual dedicated martials, as spirit bonus only brings it around up to par with them, before they use any of their actual powers, while you are already using your bonus. When the martials use their powers, well then you are again behind the curve.

I compared the class to martials most since it has the same casting levels as them, and gains bonuses from class abilities. However, the Medium has worse saves, worse BaB and worse proficiency list. These are somewhat made up by the spirits, but not entirely, and having things like weapon proficiencies tied to spirits, merely means you can't change out of the spirit once you get your magic weapon, assuming it is a martial or exotic weapon and you didn't stick to simple (which you probably won't if you play as a martial style).

I apologise for the long wall of text there, but this is the class along with Kinetist I'm most exited about, so I wanted to bring up the issues that so far came to mind, and give some reasoning to them.