Minor phrasing question: For the seance boon for The Beating ("+2 on damage rolls against foes you have damaged."), does that mean everyone in the seance gets +2 against foes they have already damaged themselves, or against foes the medium has already damaged? And is there a time limit at all?
They gain the boon, so each person needs to damage the enemy to get the +2. Seance boons last for 24 hours, so once you lose the boon, you'd need to hit them again.
Oh man, Fiend + Bear is very definitely going to be the route I choose when this class goes live. Don't need to bother with Feral Combat Training (because it'd only affect either the claws or bite, anyway) and is really cool.
Go for it now! If you're in PFS and you can't, just grab a bite from tiefling or one of the two half-orc abilities. Then pretend that you hunger for the flesh of innocents! :)
MEDVIDI NOT GIVE UP INTIMIDATING FOR BITE OF ORC.
You don't lose Intimidating. You lose Orc Ferocity. It's better than the trait if you're doing Bear as a primary because the trait from Orcs of Golarion is an unofficial secondary natural weapon. It doesn't use the term, still gets full strength bonus to damage, but it always has a -5 on a full attack, no matter what your other weapons are.
This is the route that I took, at least. Level 2 and grabbing The Beating in the newer version.
I prefer Sacred Tattoo to the bite, honestly. And since Medvidi here is already playtesting Medium in a PbP, I'm not going to bother trying to change until after the fact. :)
Oh, absolutely. Watching the Pugwampis cry is always a nice perk to the tattoo, as well.
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As a note—wording will be clarified to indicate that Rabbit Prince applies before the first attack roll is made, but if you accept the power, you are committed to using Dex to hit and Str to damage on all your attacks. Great work nailing out the reasons why we need that clarification guys!
Also, yes, this may cause you to become Large or Huge during your full attack and then shrink back to normal every turn. In my opinion, that is both an awesome visual and potentially extremely useful in allowing you to fit through corridors while still hulking out.
Welcome back! The Fiend sounds awesome. I'm really excited to see how this class ends up.
Sorry for breaking things, but maybe it's better to get it out now than in an errata a year from now? :) It's silly, but I do like the idea of very temporarily hulking out. I'm glad it will survive in some form.
Breaking things is what playtests are all about! That's what we're not getting paid for, my friend. :-D
Mark, I'm looking to make an archer out of one of the playtest classes for PFS. Do you plan on introducing any spirits that will boost ranged attacking rather than just melee?
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I'm not Mark and Big Sky isn't an archery spirit, but its lesser spirit power is somewhat redundant with Clustered Shot, so that's kinda sorta like a bonus feat. All strength spirit bonuses are also applicable to all attacks of course.
Proficiency-wise, though, you do need to take a dip in a class with a more martial bent, or play an Elf, to get a decent bow proficiency.
Thought of the morning: based on the information we have so far for the Medium and extrapolating out for the remaining spirits, it would be pretty reasonable to create an entire game system where the Medium is the only player class.
I'm not talking about the same sort of thing here that you see with CoDZilla or high level wizards. I mean hypothetically balanced play with interesting mechanics and multiple viable paths. Work to be done, of course, but that's pretty cool.
I'm not Mark and Big Sky isn't an archery spirit, but its lesser spirit power is somewhat redundant with Clustered Shot, so that's kinda sorta like a bonus feat. All strength spirit bonuses are also applicable to all attacks of course.
Proficiency-wise, though, you do need to take a dip in a class with a more martial bent, or play an Elf, to get a decent bow proficiency.
Well, I already promised my wife that our next characters would be a pair of Kitsune archers. But I do have a boon that will let me get an elf's weapon familiarity.
I could have sworn that the Big Sky's ability only worked with melee, but maybe I'm wrong. Other than that, there aren't any spirit powers that help, so I'm just rocking that spirit bonus (and seance boon for The Beating), and ignoring everything else.
To be fair, The Beating's seance boon is amazing for archers and you'll be able to share it at level 2.
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I'm not Mark and Big Sky isn't an archery spirit, but its lesser spirit power is somewhat redundant with Clustered Shot, so that's kinda sorta like a bonus feat. All strength spirit bonuses are also applicable to all attacks of course.
Proficiency-wise, though, you do need to take a dip in a class with a more martial bent, or play an Elf, to get a decent bow proficiency.
Well, I already promised my wife that our next characters would be a pair of Kitsune archers. But I do have a boon that will let me get an elf's weapon familiarity.
I could have sworn that the Big Sky's ability only worked with melee, but maybe I'm wrong. Other than that, there aren't any spirit powers that help, so I'm just rocking that spirit bonus (and seance boon for The Beating), and ignoring everything else.
You're correct, the Broken Shackles lesser spirit power only works on Melee attacks.
A bit of a side note--I just realized that if you dump the existing seance bonuses, replace them with the lesser spirit powers, and shift the existing spirit powers "down" one notch, this class becomes absolutely fascinating.
And a little creepy, in some cases.
I would say frighteningly imbalanced to some degree. A level 1 character being able to go Huge for a minute as a full-round action and being full-time large? Scary.
That said, it would certainly fix the "I have no idea what to do other than make standard attack actions for 6 levels" problem that a lot of people have commented on.
Thought of the morning: based on the information we have so far for the Medium and extrapolating out for the remaining spirits, it would be pretty reasonable to create an entire game system where the Medium is the only player class.
I'm not talking about the same sort of thing here that you see with CoDZilla or high level wizards. I mean hypothetically balanced play with interesting mechanics and multiple viable paths. Work to be done, of course, but that's pretty cool.
That is an interesting idea, and when you see my addition for
the "I have no idea what to do other than make standard attack actions for 6 levels" problem that a lot of people have commented on.
that would increase your ability to make an all-medium party by far. I thank you guys a lot for articulating the problem in that way. While I'll admit I haven't been a fan of every proposed solution for that problem, you guys did a great job finding it, and I am aiming towards an elegant and--most-importantly for an already-complex class--simple solution that still adds the potential for a fairly-high use standard action that is useful for non-Strength spirit mediums at lower levels (playtests have shown that Strength spirit mediums survive and thrive at levels 1-6, as do high-Strength mediums with other spirits that help them fight, but the others have struggled to have something good to do...for now!)
Thought of the morning: based on the information we have so far for the Medium and extrapolating out for the remaining spirits, it would be pretty reasonable to create an entire game system where the Medium is the only player class.
I'm not talking about the same sort of thing here that you see with CoDZilla or high level wizards. I mean hypothetically balanced play with interesting mechanics and multiple viable paths. Work to be done, of course, but that's pretty cool.
That is an interesting idea, and when you see my addition for
the "I have no idea what to do other than make standard attack actions for 6 levels" problem that a lot of people have commented on.that would increase your ability to make an all-medium party by far. I thank you guys a lot for articulating the problem in that way. While I'll admit I haven't been a fan of every proposed solution for that problem, you guys did a great job finding it, and I am aiming towards an elegant and--most-importantly for an already-complex class--simple solution that still adds the potential for a fairly-high use standard action that is useful for non-Strength spirit mediums at lower levels (playtests have shown that Strength spirit mediums survive and thrive at levels 1-6, as do high-Strength mediums with other spirits that help them fight, but the others have struggled to have something good to do...for now!)
Can haz spoilerz?
Can haz spoilerz?Thought of the morning: based on the information we have so far for the Medium and extrapolating out for the remaining spirits, it would be pretty reasonable to create an entire game system where the Medium is the only player class.
I'm not talking about the same sort of thing here that you see with CoDZilla or high level wizards. I mean hypothetically balanced play with interesting mechanics and multiple viable paths. Work to be done, of course, but that's pretty cool.
That is an interesting idea, and when you see my addition for
the "I have no idea what to do other than make standard attack actions for 6 levels" problem that a lot of people have commented on.that would increase your ability to make an all-medium party by far. I thank you guys a lot for articulating the problem in that way. While I'll admit I haven't been a fan of every proposed solution for that problem, you guys did a great job finding it, and I am aiming towards an elegant and--most-importantly for an already-complex class--simple solution that still adds the potential for a fairly-high use standard action that is useful for non-Strength spirit mediums at lower levels (playtests have shown that Strength spirit mediums survive and thrive at levels 1-6, as do high-Strength mediums with other spirits that help them fight, but the others have struggled to have something good to do...for now!)
I am likely to post significant spoilers on Wednesday, since Tuesday is the two-week mark, but I have off that day. I am going to try to playtest these changes on my day off before revealing more.
Just thought of something: I don't know if it was foresight or luck, but however decided to always capitalize the creature categories as Small, Medium, and Large really made this class name feasible.
Now when I write that I'm playing a Small medium character or a Medium medium character, it's clear. On the other hand, saying it aloud will still draw confused looks.
I am likely to post significant spoilers on Wednesday, since Tuesday is the two-week mark, but I have off that day. I am going to try to playtest these changes on my day off before revealing more.
Can haz spoilerz?
Will this be PFS legal stuff, like a phase 2 PT? I've got a level 3 session the following weekend. :-)
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Just thought of something: I don't know if it was foresight or luck, but however decided to always capitalize the creature categories as Small, Medium, and Large really made this class name feasible.
Now when I write that I'm playing a Small medium character or a Medium medium character, it's clear. On the other hand, saying it aloud will still draw confused looks.
What about a Huge medium ogre (channeling the bear)? :D
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A bit of a side note--I just realized that if you dump the existing seance bonuses, replace them with the lesser spirit powers, and shift the existing spirit powers "down" one notch, this class becomes absolutely fascinating.
And a little creepy, in some cases.
I would say frighteningly imbalanced to some degree. A level 1 character being able to go Huge for a minute as a full-round action and being full-time large? Scary.
That said, it would certainly fix the "I have no idea what to do other than make standard attack actions for 6 levels" problem that a lot of people have commented on.
It would certainly require some rebalancing for some spirits, especially for abilities that are already provided at about the right time, like the Huge ability for the Bear spirit. There are a few things that simply don't work (like Twin, and probably The Vision and The Lost), a few things that work with minor adjustments (The Desert and The Teamster both work great with minor adjustments; The Winged Serpent may be a little too powerful in this model) and a some things that just start working (like, say, The Hidden Truth).
Looking at it in this way, even assuming that it is not the final answer for making the class work, does highlight some issues if we assume that every spirit should be able to be used as a primary spirit, which may not be the case; Big Sky for example does not provide much utility as a primary spirit in this model and the Charisma spirits still seem much less powerful than other builds. Bear and Beating may want to provide spirit bonus -1 enhancement bonus to the modes of attack they provide. The Vision's Arcane Knowledge intermediate ability may want to let you know a number of spells equal to your spirit bonus, instead of simply 1; the fourth level spellcasting plus chance of arcane spell failure are already very strong limits on this power.
Anyway, while it may or may not be the "real" solution (I am assuming not), it really made me look at the class in a different way.
Will this be PFS legal stuff, like a phase 2 PT? I've got a level 3 session the following weekend. :-)I am likely to post significant spoilers on Wednesday, since Tuesday is the two-week mark, but I have off that day. I am going to try to playtest these changes on my day off before revealing more.
Can haz spoilerz?
It's not going to be a phase 2 at that point, but right now we have unlocked two spirits. I'll tell you guys what. If we unlock a total of 7 spirits due to medium playtests reported (at our current rate of playtests, that will be unlikely but possible), I will ask the PFS organizers nicely if he will considering allowing the new thing and/or Spirit Specialization for the mediums who have the 1st playtest boon and thus get to keep playing with that character until the book comes out. Considering that some people went to great trouble putting a lot of GM credits into a non-combat medium just to get me a playtest at level 4-5 (where they helped emphasize the need for a new ability to spend your actions, as their characters are generally currently lacking in options), asking is the least I can do. There are a lot of strong solid reasons why they might say no to this request, and if they do, I will respect their decision, so it's not a guarantee.
that would increase your ability to make an all-medium party by far. I thank you guys a lot for articulating the problem in that way. While I'll admit I haven't been a fan of every proposed solution for that problem, you guys did a great job finding it, and I am aiming towards an elegant and--most-importantly for an already-complex class--simple solution that still adds the potential for a fairly-high use standard action that is useful for non-Strength spirit mediums at lower levels (playtests have shown that Strength spirit mediums survive and thrive at levels 1-6, as do high-Strength mediums with other spirits that help them fight, but the others have struggled to have something good to do...for now!)
Well that doesn't bode well for our playtest tomorrow...I'm doing a non-strength based Medium :(
Mark...I assume you mean a melee focused Medium when you say "strength based" ???
Also, we will be testing all six classes, @ 1st level (Carrion Crown)...anything in specific it would be useful for me to try or watch for with the Medium ???
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that would increase your ability to make an all-medium party by far. I thank you guys a lot for articulating the problem in that way. While I'll admit I haven't been a fan of every proposed solution for that problem, you guys did a great job finding it, and I am aiming towards an elegant and--most-importantly for an already-complex class--simple solution that still adds the potential for a fairly-high use standard action that is useful for non-Strength spirit mediums at lower levels (playtests have shown that Strength spirit mediums survive and thrive at levels 1-6, as do high-Strength mediums with other spirits that help them fight, but the others have struggled to have something good to do...for now!)
Well that doesn't bode well for our playtest tomorrow...I'm doing a non-strength based Medium :(
Mark...I assume you mean a melee focused Medium when you say "strength based" ???
Also, we will be testing all six classes, @ 1st level (Carrion Crown)...anything in specific it would be useful for me to try or watch for with the Medium ???
Sorry, I generally meant a medium who was built to be able to contribute when making attacks with weapons (ranged or melee, but especially melee) was doing well. That is general a medium with a Strength spirit (or a spirit than can count as Strength), but medium with high in some kind of accuracy stat have been doing fine in general. The ones that haven't been doing well in a fight were, for instance, a medium with Str and Dex 12 to have lots of Int, and a medium with Str 7 and Dex 12ish with maxed out Cha.
With medium, since you're doing an AP with a longer scope, I'd like you to watch for places where your versatility helps and calling non-standard spirits gives you something cool. In a PFS game I recently saw, the party had 3 days to explore a place, and the medium had the party use the second day for several passes with the Hidden Truth after beating all the enemies on day 1. That's something cool to look for that many other playtests didn't have a chance to highlight!
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Of the non-strength, non-melee builds I've tried, a high-dex archer medium did okay at level 2--it was more of a "bard with bow" situation than ranger or warrior equiv due to being feat starved, but he was serviceable. The high-intelligence medium was a passable skill monkey (note: elf with breadth of experience, so your mileage may vary) but was not terribly useful in combat. Had something like a +2 to hit with her shortbow.
I've got a level 10 playtest scheduled for tonight so hopefully I'll have some more data then. I've got an idea to help the int-based medium in combat situations, but it looks like you may need to be >= level 9 for this particular build to pull it off.
Sorry, I generally meant a medium who was built to be able to contribute when making attacks with weapons (ranged or melee, but especially melee) was doing well. That is general a medium with a Strength spirit (or a spirit than can count as Strength), but medium with high in some kind of accuracy stat have been doing fine in general. The ones that haven't been doing well in a fight were, for instance, a medium with Str and Dex 12 to have lots of Int, and a medium with Str 7 and Dex 12ish with maxed out Cha.
With medium, since you're doing an AP with a longer scope, I'd like you to watch for places where your versatility helps and calling non-standard spirits gives you something cool. In a PFS game I recently saw, the party had 3 days to explore a place, and the medium had the party use the second day for several passes with the Hidden Truth after beating all the enemies on day 1. That's...
Conceptually I wasn't so much going for a melee character (not my shtick really)...doing more of a Harrower that's being slowly possessed by the spirits in her inherited deck.
I'm REALLY hoping the Medium doesn't get pigeon-holed as a melee class...
Pulling a melee trick out of your sleeve when needed is great...but the class should be capable of so much more....IMO ;)
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Sorry, I generally meant a medium who was built to be able to contribute when making attacks with weapons (ranged or melee, but especially melee) was doing well. That is general a medium with a Strength spirit (or a spirit than can count as Strength), but medium with high in some kind of accuracy stat have been doing fine in general. The ones that haven't been doing well in a fight were, for instance, a medium with Str and Dex 12 to have lots of Int, and a medium with Str 7 and Dex 12ish with maxed out Cha.
With medium, since you're doing an AP with a longer scope, I'd like you to watch for places where your versatility helps and calling non-standard spirits gives you something cool. In a PFS game I recently saw, the party had 3 days to explore a place, and the medium had the party use the second day for several passes with the Hidden Truth after beating all the enemies on day 1. That's...
Conceptually I wasn't so much going for a melee character (not my shtick really)...doing more of a Harrower that's being slowly possessed by the spirits in her inherited deck.
I'm REALLY hoping the Medium doesn't get pigeon-holed as a melee class...
Pulling a melee trick out of your sleeve when needed is great...but the class should be capable of so much more....IMO ;)
At higher levels, it looks like it works just fine as-is (I seriously think that a level 8+ Unicorn medium with spirit specialization Charisma is fantastic at team buffs, for instance). But the new ability will let you also make a powerful non-fighty type at lower levels too!
At higher levels, it looks like it works just fine as-is (I seriously think that a level 8+ Unicorn medium with spirit specialization Charisma is fantastic at team buffs, for instance). But the new ability will let you also make a powerful non-fighty type at lower levels too!Sorry, I generally meant a medium who was built to be able to contribute when making attacks with weapons (ranged or melee, but especially melee) was doing well. That is general a medium with a Strength spirit (or a spirit than can count as Strength), but medium with high in some kind of accuracy stat have been doing fine in general. The ones that haven't been doing well in a fight were, for instance, a medium with Str and Dex 12 to have lots of Int, and a medium with Str 7 and Dex 12ish with maxed out Cha.
With medium, since you're doing an AP with a longer scope, I'd like you to watch for places where your versatility helps and calling non-standard spirits gives you something cool. In a PFS game I recently saw, the party had 3 days to explore a place, and the medium had the party use the second day for several passes with the Hidden Truth after beating all the enemies on day 1. That's...
Conceptually I wasn't so much going for a melee character (not my shtick really)...doing more of a Harrower that's being slowly possessed by the spirits in her inherited deck.
I'm REALLY hoping the Medium doesn't get pigeon-holed as a melee class...
Pulling a melee trick out of your sleeve when needed is great...but the class should be capable of so much more....IMO ;)
Thanks for the spoiler! Currently, Spirit Specialization (Charisma) does nothing in the playtest doc because Charisma spirits have no spirit bonus. :-D
Thanks for the spoiler! Currently, Spirit Specialization (Charisma) does nothing in the playtest doc because Charisma spirits have no spirit bonus. :-DAt higher levels, it looks like it works just fine as-is (I seriously think that a level 8+ Unicorn medium with spirit specialization Charisma is fantastic at team buffs, for instance). But the new ability will let you also make a powerful non-fighty type at lower levels too!Sorry, I generally meant a medium who was built to be able to contribute when making attacks with weapons (ranged or melee, but especially melee) was doing well. That is general a medium with a Strength spirit (or a spirit than can count as Strength), but medium with high in some kind of accuracy stat have been doing fine in general. The ones that haven't been doing well in a fight were, for instance, a medium with Str and Dex 12 to have lots of Int, and a medium with Str 7 and Dex 12ish with maxed out Cha.
With medium, since you're doing an AP with a longer scope, I'd like you to watch for places where your versatility helps and calling non-standard spirits gives you something cool. In a PFS game I recently saw, the party had 3 days to explore a place, and the medium had the party use the second day for several passes with the Hidden Truth after beating all the enemies on day 1. That's...
Conceptually I wasn't so much going for a melee character (not my shtick really)...doing more of a Harrower that's being slowly possessed by the spirits in her inherited deck.
I'm REALLY hoping the Medium doesn't get pigeon-holed as a melee class...
Pulling a melee trick out of your sleeve when needed is great...but the class should be capable of so much more....IMO ;)
They do, they just don't add it to anything without their powers.
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'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.
Yup, give it a try! I think that as it stands, you can go fifth-man pretty easily and you can go martial if you build for it and be a solid stand-in (math shows that you're riding at around the same point as an abyssal bloodrager with the Bear, frex). The new addition will, as an interesting effect, also make mediums with a few of the other types of spirits pretty solid at doing some of the things you need from divine casters too (in fact, honestly Unicorn/Desert/Twin with the new ability is a solid contender at doing both fifth-man stuff and divine-y stuff). And some of the missing spirits will let you be the skillsy guy for sure. So of the "Main 4", only arcane spellcaster is not really covered, though there are a few spirits that can do some of the arcane guy's tricks.
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 agree about Beating and Cyclone combo working as you say. It is also, as you surmise, quite effective. As for influence-jiggering, if you're cool sitting at 2 and having one trance available without going to 4, you'll never need to take a day off. A day off is only necessary to prepare yourself for a day when you want to be at 1 (and thus able to trance it twice).
Just to touch in, I'm running a game currently (we're taking a break for dinner) where I said players can try out the new Psychic classes if they'd like.
Most of the group decided to just stick with their characters, but one - a very experienced player who's directly caused errata in SpyCraft - said he'd like to try it out.
Thinking that, if anyone would be a good litmus test for the class it'd be him, I gave him the print-out of the Medium.
After looking visibly shaken by the sheer size of the entry and being informed that only 1/3 of the total options were available, he proceeded to roll up his stats, look through it and try and make a character.
30 minutes later, after a plethora of expletives, he flung the print-out over his shoulder, saying:
"I hate this. I hate this and I hate you. We're supposed to be playing Pathfinder, NOT [expletive deleted] BESM!!!"
The rest of his swear-ridden rant can be summed up as:
1) Far too physically weak for a class that seemingly is supposed to be a physical class, or at least far too underpowered and lacking in actual practicality & versatility for a "caster" class
2) The number of spirits, even at 18, is bad enough (he can't imagine what it's going to be like when there're 54) at first-through-third level. Once you start getting into triple and quadruple channeling... well, to quote him, "[...] I spend my day coding programs, and this - this NIGHTMARE of quadratic equations needed to figure out what the [expletive deleted] 3 or more spirits do when you shove them into you together is just OFFENSIVE!"... the rest of that rant proceeded with many a vulgarity, but the main points were that it's cluttered, unintuitive, overreaching, and just plain sloppy.
3) To top it all off, he couldn't figure out what, exactly, the Medium was supposed to do. Again, quoting him "There's one thing to be said for modularity and adaptability, but this is just a random pile of the odd-man abilities with no general focus, rhyme, or reason - THIS IS SCHIZOPHRENIC-ADHD: THE CLASS!!!"
4) Returning to the first issue, he pointed out the serious lack of spellcasting, combined with the fact that you could need access to the spells of one spirit, but the abilities of another, and there's no way to do that before lv4, and thereafter you're going to incurring major Influence likely lose control of your character, was "irredeemably annoying".
5) His words were even less kind for the entire "the DM takes your character" thing of Influence was even less kind than my own. His EXACT response was something akin to Kyle yelling at the Visitors from the pilot episode of South Park (the Anal Probe one), and too vile for sharing here.
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To add to this, when I addressed his first major grievance - the lack of physical power or saves - and informed him that, supposedly, the spirits can make it just as proficient as a typical Martial, he returned with, "THAT IS [expletive deleted]! IF I NEED TO EQUIP A SPIRIT JUST TO BE AS ACCURATE AS A FIGHTER, WHY THE [expletive deleted] WOULDN'T I JUST PLAY A FIGHTER IN THE FIRST PLACE!? OR A BARBARIAN, AND ACTUALLY HIT BETTER!? OR A BLOODRAGER AND HIT JUST AS WELL AS THE BARBARIAN AND HAVE BLOODLINE ABILITIES!!!???"
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So, hot-blooded rage aside, he DID like the general idea of the class, but felt that the execution was, "[..] just a sloppy, underpowered, overcomplicated mess"
Needless to say, he decided to stick with the Arcanist character that he'd been playing for the last few weeks.
Given, this guy is prone to very... PASSIONATE expressions of displeasure.
However, as someone who has played since the early days of 2nd Edition, using a very wide variety of systems (BESM, BESM d20, Spy/FantasyCraft, 2nd Ed, 3.0/3.5, GURPS, White Wolf, Palladium, Warhammer RPG, Shadowrun... and a few more I can't remember), he did end up being a good test subject - if someone who's been playing RPGs for most of his life is done with a class due to non-focus and overcomplexity before he's even finished creating the character, that's a good sign that less-experienced players won't even touch it.
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.
IMHO the Medium and the Mesmerist need the most work, but are also potentially both very interesting.
Out of curiosity, why did you have him try the Medium rather than one of the other classes?
3 major reasons.
First, It's the class that I've looked at the most, personally, and with some people saying "this level of complexity's great!" while others, including myself, saying that the level of complexity was too much, I wanted someone else to take a stab at it and seeing if I was just biased.
Second, given his resume, this was effectively like having The Stig test out your car for performance and handling: he's played games that make Pathfinder look like tic-tac-toe, and yet he just didn't want to bother with the Medium because it was so Brobdingnagian that it gave him Vietnam-esque Flashbacks to things like Palladium and GURPS, with their hours-long character creation and need for cross-referencing within a single book - keeping in mind, this is a guy who likes creating very complex Wizards, Clerics, Hexblades, and other characters that have options upon options available to them.
Third, the Kineticist and Medium are the two most unique classes in this book. Which I like - they actually look and feel completely different than other, already-existing classes.
The Occultist has some potential, but right now just feels like a "generic half-caster" with a schtick of using Focuses - kinda like a Hunter with Bonded Items instead of Animal Companions. If they do something a little more interesting with the Focus Items, I'd gladly say this is a cool, unique class, too.
The Mesmerist is, in many ways, a Bard-Wizard Hybrid class: it's a Bard that focuses on the Enchantment school, or more specifically the Controller or Manipulater Subschools.
The Spiritualist is just an unabashed Divine palette-swap of the Summoner (without being Divine, either)
The Psychic is another "Dru-iz-orce-ric" class - more specifically very much a Wizard-Cleric Hybrid, but with spontaneous casting. Go figure.
If the Mesmerist, Spiritualist, and Psychic end up being Alt Classes for existing classes (Bard, Summoner, and Sorcerer respectively), then that's kinda okay; they'd be better off as Archetypes, more likely, but that's for another discussion.
Just, generally, the Kineticist, Medium, and Occultist strike me as the classes with the most unique themes. The other three are just copycats of existing classes, and that's something I REALLY don't want to see (since, thus-far, no two classes, even the Hybrid classes don't really out-and-out copy the roles, uses, and mechanics of any other class, but "opposite" then - i.e. there is no "arcane ranger").
The Kineticist is almost a copy of the 3.5 Warlock
Oh, I'm aware. But this is similar to the Warpriest being a thematic update of the Favored Soul, the Magus being the Beguiler, and the Hexcrafter Magus being a Hexblade.
I'm fine with the Kineticist being a Pathinder-ish Warlock and the Medium the PF Binder. I just don't want to see Base Classes that are 90% identical-yet-opposite versions of other PF Base Classes.
The closest we've gotten so far is the Shaman being an obvious Anti-Witch or White Witch, but even in that there are some major differences, especially in the way their Hexes and magic operates.
Eeh, kinda but not completely.
The Oracle IS a 9-level spontaneous caster, but that's kinda where the similarity ends.
On the other hand, the Warpriest focuses a lot on its Deity's weapon, which was the non-casting half of the Favored Soul.
They couldn't rightly put BOTH into a single class without effectively recreating the Beguiler as a Divine caster.
They do, they just don't add it to anything without their powers.Thanks for the spoiler! Currently, Spirit Specialization (Charisma) does nothing in the playtest doc because Charisma spirits have no spirit bonus. :-DAt higher levels, it looks like it works just fine as-is (I seriously think that a level 8+ Unicorn medium with spirit specialization Charisma is fantastic at team buffs, for instance). But the new ability will let you also make a powerful non-fighty type at lower levels too!Sorry, I generally meant a medium who was built to be able to contribute when making attacks with weapons (ranged or melee, but especially melee) was doing well. That is general a medium with a Strength spirit (or a spirit than can count as Strength), but medium with high in some kind of accuracy stat have been doing fine in general. The ones that haven't been doing well in a fight were, for instance, a medium with Str and Dex 12 to have lots of Int, and a medium with Str 7 and Dex 12ish with maxed out Cha.
With medium, since you're doing an AP with a longer scope, I'd like you to watch for places where your versatility helps and calling non-standard spirits gives you something cool. In a PFS game I recently saw, the party had 3 days to explore a place, and the medium had the party use the second day for several passes with the Hidden Truth after beating all the enemies on day 1. That's...
Conceptually I wasn't so much going for a melee character (not my shtick really)...doing more of a Harrower that's being slowly possessed by the spirits in her inherited deck.
I'm REALLY hoping the Medium doesn't get pigeon-holed as a melee class...
Pulling a melee trick out of your sleeve when needed is great...but the class should be capable of so much more....IMO ;)
This is what I get for not reading those charisma spirits closely :-p
At higher levels, it looks like it works just fine as-is (I seriously think that a level 8+ Unicorn medium with spirit specialization Charisma is fantastic at team buffs, for instance). But the new ability will let you also make a powerful non-fighty type at lower levels too!Sorry, I generally meant a medium who was built to be able to contribute when making attacks with weapons (ranged or melee, but especially melee) was doing well. That is general a medium with a Strength spirit (or a spirit than can count as Strength), but medium with high in some kind of accuracy stat have been doing fine in general. The ones that haven't been doing well in a fight were, for instance, a medium with Str and Dex 12 to have lots of Int, and a medium with Str 7 and Dex 12ish with maxed out Cha.
With medium, since you're doing an AP with a longer scope, I'd like you to watch for places where your versatility helps and calling non-standard spirits gives you something cool. In a PFS game I recently saw, the party had 3 days to explore a place, and the medium had the party use the second day for several passes with the Hidden Truth after beating all the enemies on day 1. That's...
Conceptually I wasn't so much going for a melee character (not my shtick really)...doing more of a Harrower that's being slowly possessed by the spirits in her inherited deck.
I'm REALLY hoping the Medium doesn't get pigeon-holed as a melee class...
Pulling a melee trick out of your sleeve when needed is great...but the class should be capable of so much more....IMO ;)
My biggest current concern is that you will have to pick a limited number of spirits in order to create a useful/survivable character....this class should be about flexibility and adaptability... not I have to take "X" spirit in order to be useful.
My biggest current concern is that you will have to pick a limited number of spirits in order to create a useful/survivable character....this class should be about flexibility and adaptability... not I have to take "X" spirit in order to be useful.
This is one reason why I like the idea of having a number of Spirits based on your Cha, and that's it.
It doesn't SEEM like that'd help, but then it takes the pressure off of having to go Voltron with the spirits, and equipping multiple at a time.
If you parse it down to, realistically, someone having typically between 2 and 6 spirits throughout their whole career, and needing a Feat to equip 2 at a time (and not making it more than that), then each spirit becomes more relevant, and the base design of the class can be flushed out to a more "general purpose" chassis that the spirits then enhance.
One of the major problems I've noticed is that the class is sorta TOO reliant on the Spirits - it has no room left for the class to be anything but a body with Options.
This class should be the Mega-Man of Pathfinder Classes - your basic form is badass enough to get by itself, but you also have a few go-to options that you can equip to change how you work or enhance.
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.