I notice that several of the archetypes make mention of "channeling weaker spirits" to reduce the influence from spirit surge, but I don't see anything like that in the Medium's entry. Am I missing something, or is this a reference to something that may have changed (terminology or wording) in the final Medium entry?
Aside from that, I do enjoy the class. I appreciate that it was simplified from the playtest version in terms of channeling multiple spirits and all their myriad abilities (plus, I can't imagine how 54 spirits could have made it into the book without bumping everything else out). At the same time, I did enjoy the wider range of concepts that having more than 6 spirits provided. Hopefully we will still see (somehow) the Harrow deck spirits, fit into the newer streamlined channeling of the Medium.
Channeling a weaker spirit is the last three sentences in the Spirit ability. Essentially you can choose to give up one or more of your spirit abilities (most powerful first) to be able to use spirit surge two times more without incurring influence for each one you give up.
D'OH! I swear I looked over the entire entry several times, and couldn't find that. Thanks! :D
Well, now I've finally got myself a copy of OA, I can start trying to help out with a makeshift conversion from old 'Harrowed' Medium (Called HM from now on) so it's more like an archetype of the 'Mythic' Medium (MM).
This is going to be really rudimentary and vague because this is the first time I've done stuff like this, but I like HM enough that I'd like to do what I can to help out.
Feedback will be much appreciated
Knacks
Obviously HM didn't have these. But, in keeping with the flavour of it, these should probably be spirit based as well.
Rather than doing each spirit, I'll just do a makeshift patch that should work well enough, based on the spirit's various attributes:
Good: Stabilise
Good/Evil Neutral: Daze
Evil: Bleed
Law: Light
Law/Chaos Neutral: Dancing Lights
Chaos: Prestidigitation
Strength: Virtue
Dexterity: Open/Close
Constitution: Resistance
Intelligence: Read Magic, Detect Magic
Wisdom: Detect Psychic Significance
Charisma: Guidance
Obviously those aren't necessarily suitable for everything, but it's a good start. Notably you get more cantrips at low levels this way, but because of all the inherent overlap it doesn't end up being that bad.
Spirits
Three big changes here: Influence is now capped at 5, not 4, although 3 still does stuff; You only have one spirit; High influence inflicts mechanical penalties.
While the higher influence cap is great for HM, I feel like it's intentionally higher to offset the mechanical penalties, and because since you've only got one spirit Influence is potentially much worse.
To make it easier, for the sake of conversion, HM spirits work in the same way they did in the playtest. Multiple spirits also work in the same way.
Spirit Surge
This looks like an obvious conversion. Replace Spirit Surge with Trance and Many Faces.
Spirit Bonus
Mark did mention something about decreasing the spirit bonus since HM gets more spirits, but until we get something solid, there is no change to the spirit bonus.
Spirit Powers
MM gets spirit powers a bit earlier than HM, but that's probably to make up for not being able to trance to get them. As such, I think that HM gets spirit powers at the same time as it did in the playtest.
Shared Seance
I see no problems here. This doesn't need to change at all.
Taboo
And here we reach the first interesting one. Old HM didn't have anything like this, so I've got two thoughts about what to do with this.
1 - You voluntarily take a spirit's compulsion. In exchange, you gain an extra use of Trance. This extra use can only be used with the spirit you have the Taboo with, and it does not incur influence with the spirit. If you don't follow the compulsion, the penalties for breaking taboo apply.
2 - This ability is replaced with the various iterations of Many Faces, which does... sort of a similar thing? They come in at the levels they did in the play test.
Haunt Channeler
This is pretty clearly a version of Beseech, the unlocked HM ability (see my summary post on the last page). We've got a level for it now. Replace Haunt Channeler with Beseech Spirit.
Location Channel, Connection Channel
I personally don't feel like these fit with the Harrowed Medium so much. HM feels more Astral Plane-y or other strange beings, while MM gives the Speaking to the Dead vibe a lot more. Anyway, I'm in three minds about this:
1 - Remove the abilities. Beseech Spirit is more flavour appropriate, and that's already there.
2 - Remove the abilities. Instead, at level 7 and every 6 levels thereafter, increase your spirit bonus by 1 for the purposes of the Beseech Spirit ability. (This one seems dodgy, but less dodgy than my initial thought of doing it every 4 levels. Can't be stepping on too many other classes toes now, can we?)
3 - Remove the abilities. Instead, you can cast Harrowing as a spell-like ability once per day at 5th level and an additional time per day every two levels thereafter. At 12th level, the bonuses from this ability are multiplied by half your spirit bonus.
Propitiation
An ability that decreases influence? Awesome! And it comes in at level 9; the only boring Medium level. Only change here is that it needs to apply to only one spirit.
Ask the Spirits, Astral Journey
I feel like these fit pretty well with HM. But since now we've got the Greater Spirit Power coming in at level 13 to interfere with Ask the Spirits, and Many Faces as a swift action at 14th, these should probably be pushed along to 15th and 16th levels respectively. Gotta keep those levels interesting.
Trance of Three
This is basically Trance, and so has no place with the Harrowed Medium. Remove this ability. Works well since you get Astral Journey at 16th now.
Spacious Soul
Aw, I love this ability! Shame to lose it. But, sadly, I don't think it's quite so thematic. Out it goes, and in comes Astral Conduit at the same level.
Spirit Mastery
Well, this is an interesting one. It doesn't translate to HM well at all. Two ideas, but leaning heavily towards 1:
1 - Remove the ability. You get the Supreme Spirit Power at this level, and that's easily good enough to need nothing else at this level.
2 - Remove this ability. Instead, gain... an extra use of Propitiation? An enhanced Beseech spirit like for option 2 of the various channels?
Astral Beacon
This functions exactly like the HM ability of the same name.
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So, that's my horribly vague and probably horrendous first attempt at an archetype. Feedback is appreciated. I'm looking forward to seeing what the actual HM ends up looking like!
Occurs to me that it's more likely that the HM spirits will just be increased in power, in which case there's no need for any change. It's probably a lot easier to use an archetype/alternate class though.
Getting in the homebrew spirit now, here's a Harrowed Medium item I just thought up:
Hedgehog Cloak
Aura Faint Transmutation; CL 7th Slot Shoulders; Price Not a clue(~40,000gp?); Weight 1 lb.
Description This spiked blue cloak flutters in an unseen breeze. The wearer of the cloak gains a +10-foot. enhancement bonus to movement speed. Additionally, when you make an attack on the same round that you moved, for every 20 feet you moved before the attack, you gain a +1 enhancement bonus to hit and a +2 enhancement bonus to damage.
If the wearer is a Medium, this cloak counts as granting the Lesser and Intermediate Spirit Powers of The Cricket for the purposes of Trance, and increases the Spirit Bonus of The Cricket by 2.
These bonuses do not stack with the bonuses provided by The Cricket's Lesser and Intermediate Spirit Powers.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, Creator must be a 7th level Medium with The Cricket Spirit; Cost Half a clue(~20,000gp?)
I apologise for the sudden influx of homebrew in this thread.
Heh, ended up changing Marris' class to better fit into an online campaign I was running.
I am going to put some effort into running a Lost Medium for Strange Aeons this summer, I think it would be a great fit.
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Mark, is there any current plan for the harrowed medium book coming out at any time soon?
Also, still going with my playtest medium. We've hit level 11 now, and I'm using the Empty Throne as Tertiary spirit. Seems to be working okay; seance bonus varies between the Beating's and the Winged Serpent's, depending on party composition (we have a high character turnover rate), although the Desert got some use when a deadly disease came up. All up the extra flexibility from this spirit is quite handy.
Of course, one issue is the lack of spells given for the Empty Throne, so I've got my own (hopefully fairly close to the intended) list that I've replicated here:
1st - Sanctify Corpse, Discern next of kin
2nd - Share memory, Gentle Repose
3rd - Speak with Dead, Call Spirit
4th - Deathward, Spiritual Ally
I'm guessing that the at will spell-like in the lesser spirit power was going to be something like Grave Words, and was redacted because it hadn't come out yet.
Hope that helps anyone taking a look at using that spirit (although I acknowledge that those 3rd level spells aren't that great because of overlap with each other and the Great spirit power)
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Nice going Wolin! It's not a bad spell list, at least.
Okay, more playtest feedback. Yay for being late, but I guess it'll still come on board.
Level 12 after some tough decisions between Brass Dwarf, Lost and Hidden Truth, I eventually settled on Hidden Truth to get me an intelligence spirit.
My usual spirit lineup has been Unicorn, Twin, Empty Throne, in that order. I trance at the start of the day to let Twin take effect properly. Depending on what I'm anticipating, the tranced spirit tends to be either Desert or Hidden Truth.
Since trance is only a move action now and I have 5 per day, I've been using it a lot more recently. The Twin's becoming even more amazingly useful for the flexibility aspect (It's so good I almost wonder why you'd ever use something else). The various aspects of spirits are becoming particularly noticable now; trancing bear increased my hit and damage from +13 and 1d8+5 to +19 and 2d6+12. The Desert's bond of reliance is a real life saver when it's up, since it can be healing someone up to 25 HP per round. Winged Serpent's been useful a couple of times when we had a fight I was expecting one.
Increasingly, as I've looked ahead, it's felt like there's an almost exponential power curve. Level 13 is looking like it's going to be a horrific power level jump, what with both the incredible supreme spirit power access via trance and 4th level spells. Party's definitely going to enjoy that minute of limited wishes each day. It's going to be pretty awkward dealing with the endless compulsion that will result from that though.
As far as beseech spirit goes, that's been seeing a lot of use. Wisdom's blindsense is extremely useful, situationally. Constitution has, of course, been used most, because healing is always useful. The dexterity one I have used a whole once, but I haven't really needed to seriously run away yet, or had people to flank with (grumble regular party changes grumble). Strength I haven't used at all, since I think it's intended to be centred on myself. Since it's not shapable and doesn't do an especially large damage, all the times I've thought of using it, I haven't. The Intelligence bonus I've attempted to use a couple of times, but its short duration has foiled me.
On that note, I think I'd like to see the Strength beseech gain maybe a range to drop it from, increase the length of time it takes before the intelligence beseech wears off, and perhaps include an attack or something with the dexterity beseech. Strength and Dexterity are probably the ones that need alteration most though.
More playtest feedback (going here since I can't make a thread in the playtest bit). Hope this is still kind of relevant for a later date.
So, the campaign I've been using my medium hasn't been going on much, but it's gone through a few changes. One of which is Mythic. This has kind of been a blow to the Unicorn's Supreme Spirit Power I'd been looking forward to, since the sorcerer can now just pull out almost any spell at the drop of a hat. In keeping with the Charisma focus of my medium, she's gone for the Marshal, taking (for lack of basically any other options) Mythic Spirit Specialisation (charisma), which is just a makeshift mythic feat that increases the spirit bonus for charisma spirits by 1. Combined with the Spirit Bonded armour property from the Armour Master's Handbook, this is giving me a +7 spirit bonus for charisma spirits. It's feeling kind of ridiculous. Mythic Combat Reflexes + Bodyguard + Unicorn is also really pulling its weight.
We've had a verbal duel, which I found I was able to really shine at by using Twin to pretend to be Hidden Truth. The +7 bonus to all skills ends up being a stupid amount of edge, and that's not even including the extra edge I was getting from Empty Throne enhancing one of the seance boons.
We barely need to roll initiative anymore, since Empty Throne using Winged Serpent's seance boon is giving +9 initiative, and combined with mythic means very little is able to keep up with us. We've had a number of fights, notably with a 18th level wizard with us at level 14, where we won simply because he never even got a turn.
Very definitely enjoying my 4th level spells. Twin Form is a lifesaver, and Brilliant Inspiration has also worked really well. They're almost too good. I haven't wanted to push for making a wand of either of these, even though in principle I could. I might suggest changing these two at least, if only for that reason.
I picked up The Liar as by 14th level spirit. I hadn't thought about it when I picked it, but every time I use it the whole party falls in love with me. Thanks to that, I've also become very close with a minor goddess. They're planning a wedding for after the campaign. I really love it, and it's hilarious, but please, please fix it, at least so you can choose who becomes infatuated with you so your party doesn't fall head over heels for you.
With level 15 looming, I'm really feeling like it's not a very exciting level, much like 3 and 9. It's got an extra trance, most of which I don't use already in a day, and an extra attack, which I'm not using because I'm usually being a unicorn and helping our Archer (who has to come into melee, but it's completely worth it).
I haven't really used any of the supreme spirit powers beyond the Unicorn occasionally, but that's largely because of the spirits I usually use.
Hi, I'm really sorry if this is the wrong thread, but I couldn't find any discussion for the non-playtest-medium.
So here's my question:
How strict are medium locations? Because the way it looks to me, you would need to play in a city the whole time to have access to all of the spirits. Just think of Kingmaker: what if there is just no sacred grove, shrine or temple anywhere in reach for the day? And the base Medium is near unplayable in strange aeons (which is the "occult AP" after all).
Or is the medium meant to only have access to a few spirits at any given time?
And yes I know there's the relic channeler archetype, but it seems wrong to me that 70% of campaigns would need an archetype for the class to function.
If this is the wrong chat, please redirect me to the correct one :)