What happened:
We spent a marathon session of Halloween psychic playtesting, with a water kineticist, a mesmer, medium, and an oracle of life for a heal-bot. We used Emerald Spire with a bit of the RP/fluff bits cut out to give us a nice dungeon crawl to test with, and to start at level one and build into each class feature to at least have a bit of time at most levels.
The other testers immediately knew what to do with their class, their role was pretty clear, and the style of their respective classes gave them some strong character ideas as well. Meanwhile, I was suggested to play the Medium because a) I love the harrow and b) I have a thing for interacting with spirits. This should have been right up my alley! However, even after reading through each spirit, I was still at a loss for what this class should even DO. At level one, you HAVE to horse a Str or Dex spirit, simply because it's the only way you can possibly contribute at all. You don't have any spell casting yet, and with the class skills Medium is given, you're not really a skill monkey either. That leaves combat as your only way to contribute.
I went with the Rabbit Prince, since I happened to roll a pretty high Dex, as well as a decent Str, so the free Weapon Finesse as well as double spirit bonus just made sense. I was a vishkanya, so I had access to a higher crit weapon than usual in the kukri, and was fairly confident this would let me contribute about as much as a rogue.
I wound up with absolutely 0 reason to trance what so ever. I could see that the 50% hit chance would be a huge improvement if I ever got to a situation where I couldn't really hit something with a very high AC, but that only came up once in the 2 levels I survived. (That's 2 character levels by the way, not 2 levels of the Spire). And in that one time it did come up, there was NO way I was going to leave myself vulnerable for a full round to trance.
Hitting level 2 felt like an annoyance more than a reward. I had to adjust my character sheet but not gain anything but what the existence of level does for a character, the class effectively gave me nothing, since we were still in day 1. Even if we'd been able to seance, my party didn't care enough about any of the bonuses a seance can grant to bother sitting with me for an hour.
I don't think my death was necessarily the class's fault inherently, after all, I ate a crit from a longbow at less than full health on a low level character. That said, for the first time since playing an actively suicidal character, I was excited to die and roll in a new class.
Feedback:
I have to absolutely agree with all those saying this class needs EITHER 1BAB/d10 OR 6th level spell casting. I understand you were trying something new by not marrying the spellcasting progression and the BAB progression, but there's a reason they're tied. Instead of the versatility of "can do anything the party needs" you were going for, right now, it feels a lot like "pick anything because you'll be mediocre at best at whatever".
While spellcasting is usually the way people lean for the kind of versatility you're aiming for (since spells are inherently versatile with their many options for utility and combat), I'd actually sort of prefer going 1BAB/d10, to go for a new thing. I think the spirit options could let this be a combat-ready class that CAN bring some unusual utility to the table.
As far as trancing goes, I know a lot of people have been advocating for more per day very quickly. I know that personally wouldn't have helped my character in the slightest, and would wind up building influence to the dangerous "lose control" threshold MUCH faster. Also, the builds most people have been focusing on are Str spirit based, pushing the idea that the class just needs to go ahead and be more combat friendly in the first place.
I saw someone earlier say that "when the word tertiary comes up in a class description, it's a red flag." While it's just a flag of caution, in my opinion, it doesn't inherently mean it's too complicated. However, when there are people LEARNING the word "quaternary" from your class description, I'd definitely think it's time to take a step back and ask if that complexity is really WORTH it. (I mean, yeah, it's obvious what it means, but I shouldn't be encountering that word for the first time in a class mechanic)
My suggestion for a solution is a bit different, however. I think we should keep the choice complexity (if only for the Harrow flavor, even if it's a bit setting specific), but loose the mechanic complexity. Let me seance in ONE spirit. That's it. Instead of a complicated string of legalities and swapping out, replace trance with the ability to temporarily "Evoke" spirits other than the one you're currently horsing.
This would open up more versatility in that I can horse the Bear, but still ask the Hidden Truth for some guidance out of combat. Or, if I need a little more mobility this fight, evoke the Cricket for some maneuverability. It would also let you spread the influence a little wider and shallower and encourage versatility instead of specialization, making the threat of character loss even more avoidable.
The seance bonuses definitely need some work, in my opinion. Even more so if you make any changes that would only grant one. Personally, I didn't even bother remembering it existed, and I'd rather see it done away with in favor of only getting the spirit bonus for what you've seanced (My party would be after that boon for sure!) though that would mean one would have to be added for Cha spirits.
On the note of spirit bonuses, since they are always the same based on suit, that should be pulled away from the walls of text each spirit gets and explained elsewhere, probably in the general spirit bonus explanation. I also think it would help in parsing the various spirits' information if it were formatted a little more like a spell or magic item stat block than a domain. The role of a spirit is something like a combination of a domain, a rogue talent, and a spell. It's a bit weird to choose which to know, and the data isn't presented in a very friendly format. Removing seance boons, moving spirit bonus descriptions, and giving it a more table-like format could go a long way to making it FEEL less overwhelming to process spirits.
Sorry this was kind of massive, but I had a lot to say, and I'm just going to end here with my agreement that this needs Arcanist levels of overhaul, though I'm in love with the concept of what this class represents.
