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The Wandering Hex shaman ability allows a character to temporarily gain a hex from the list of a spirit other than the one that the shaman selected at 1st level. Because this is only a temporary hex, it means that it can be switched every day to a different hex (or more often, with the Flexible Hex feat).

The Spirit Talker feat allows a character to temporarily gain a hex from the list of one of the shaman spirits every day. Because this is only a temporary hex, it means that it can be switched every day to a different hex.

The Minor Spirit archetype ability from Unsworn Shaman allows a character to choose which hexes are available to her on a day to day basis.

The thing in question is whether or not these temporary hexes can be used to pick up different variants of the same hex or whether the choices are locked in once it is selected for the first time.

Could a character that takes the Spirit Talker feat to gain a hex with variable effects that must be chosen when the feat is taken change these choices every time the feat is selected (meaning, every day when spending 10 minutes to activate the Spirit Talker feat)?

For example, a shaman with 14 charisma takes the Spirit Talker feat and uses it to temporarily gain the Lore spirit hex Arcane Enlightenment. This allows the shaman to select 2 spells from the sorcerer/wizard list and add it to their list of shaman spells. The next day they opt to temporarily gain this same hex, but they want to choose a different 2 spells than the ones that they had chosen the day before.

Is this legit?

Or does this fall under the umbrella of this rule in that if you temporarily gain an ability with a limited number of uses per day you are still bound to that limit regardless of how many times you can temporarily gain that ability; thereby meaning that once you've selected this variant of the hex you are bound by it eternally?

Although that interpretation doesn't mesh well with the Brawler's Martial Flexibility class feature, which would let you choose Weapon Focus (Longsword) with one use and Weapon Focus (Kukri) with another.

As much as I love the idea and theme of this class and archetype, the Unsworn Shaman archetype is definitely an example of one of the worst proofread archetypes that was released in the ACG. It has a number of inconsistencies and oversights that need to be addressed, and as such I need to ask the following questions:

1. Minor Spirit : This ability replaces the abilities Spirit and Hex. Because the Unsworn Shaman no longer has the Hex class ability they no longer qualify for feats, prestige classes, etc that require the Hex class ability. Such feats include Extra Hex (which this archetype badly needs due to only naturally receiving 6 hexes at max level rather than 10 from base shaman) and Spirit Talker.

I can't even come up with a convincing argument for it one way or another. On one hand, it's understandable that this archetype gains less overall hexes than the base class because flexibility = power; however not being able to take Extra Hex as a tradeoff means that Unsworn Shaman only ever will have 6 hexes, while other Shaman archetypes could have up to 19. Conversely, the theme of the archetype is to have no permanently chosen hexes and being able to swap them out every day - and because Minor Spirit functions differently than Hex and the feat Extra Hex gives another permanently chosen hex, it wouldn't make much a lot of sense for this thematically to give a permanently chosen hex rather than another daily application of Minor Spirit.

The Spirit Talker feat, which allows a character to choose a shaman spirit and gain a hex from it, also has the Hex class feature as a prerequisite. This means that a Shaman could have hexes from up to 3 different spirits at the same time, but the Unsworn Shaman could not if they do not count as having the Hex feature. The defining aspect of the archetype, flexibility, now falls behind that of the base class.

Now, the FAQ already covers archetypes that replace class abilities with similar abilities of a different name here, but it's up for debate as to whether this ability would count or not because of how differently it is applied. Let's boil this question down into one sentence:

Does the Minor Spirit class ability count as the Hex class ability for the purpose of taking Feats, Prestige Classes, etc. that have Hex as a prerequisite?

2. Extra Hex (feat): Specifically, the way that this feat functions is to give the user one extra hex off of their list of hexes that they would normally choose from. The Minor Spirit ability allows an Unsworn Shaman to choose a witch hex (but not major or grand hex) or choose off of the list of hexes granted by their wandering spirits. Because the Unsworn Shaman ability that works like Hex does not work exactly the same way as Hex, it begs this question:

If an Unsworn Shaman is allowed to take the Extra Hex feat (not by gaining the Hex feature from another class) does the Unsworn Shaman gain an extra use of their Minor Spirit ability that allows them to choose an additional temporary hex per day, or does the Unsworn Shaman gain a permanent hex of their choice from the hexes available to choose from?

Note: Because the hexes granted by wandering spirits may change on a day-to-day basis, a permanent hex granted in this way would become inactive if the wandering spirit was ever exchanged for another spirit because the Unsworn Shaman would no longer meet the prerequisites of having that ability.

3. Minor Spirit (again) : The hexes that an Unsworn Shaman are allowed to choose from under the Minor Spirit ability consist of witch hexes (but not major or grand hexes), or a hex available through a wandering spirit. This strikes me as an oversight or a typo due to the fact that with the way this ability is worded there is no way for an Unsworn Shaman to be able to choose a hex off of the list of shaman hexes (which includes the hex named "witch hex" that lets a shaman choose a hex from the list of witch hexes).

I understand that the list of witch hexes is larger and therefore offers a more robust number of choices, and that because the hex "witch hex" doesn't say that it can be chosen twice (nor does any hex, as far as I can tell) you can only take it once so that technically Unsworn Shaman could choose more abilities from the witch list than a normal shaman... however, this still seems like a mis-labeling to me.

Should the text in the Minor Spirit ability that reads "granting her access to a witch hex of her choosing" be corrected to read "granting her access to a shaman hex of her choosing"?

4. Wandering Spirit : The modified version of the Wandering Spirit ability that is gained by the Unsworn Shaman replaces both the Wandering Spirit ability and the Wandering Hex ability. This is understandable, because the Wandering Hex aspect of the ability is rolled into the effects of Minor Spirit (though this also contributes to the loss of overall hexes gained compared to a normal Shaman). This creates a problem though, because the Unsworn Shaman no longer has access to the Wandering Hex ability.

The Flexible Hex feat which is generally pretty awesome allows a character to change their wandering hexes once per day. Because the Unsworn Shaman does not have the wandering hex class ability they do not meet the prerequisites for this feat... even though the feat meshes perfectly with the intended theme of the Unsworn Shaman.

Does the Minor Spirit archetype ability count for the Wandering Hex prerequisite of the Flexible Hex feat?

5. Manifestation : The level 20 ability of Shaman grants them a tremendously potent ability based upon the Spirit that they chose at level 1. The Unsworn Shaman archetype does not gain the Spirit ability, however... yet they do not have anything that replaces Manifestation. Therefore, RAW the Unsworn Shaman still gains the Manifestation ability at level 20 but because they do not gain the Spirit ability it doesn't do anything.

How does the level 20 Shaman ability Manifestation interact with the Unsworn Shaman archetype?

I believe that is everything that I have to ask specifically about the Unsworn Shaman archetype. I'll make other postings for questions about general Shaman abilities.