I would rather see the "DM takeover" bar removed completely...if the players character moves into the "possessed" realm....let the PLAYER RP that...it is an RP game after all...
@chb--I think you missed a factor of 1/2. A 12th level medium with 14 starting Charisma would only have 8 spirits.Ah, yes, I did - for some reason I was doubling this.
I'm still not a fan of that, however.
8 spirits and 16 possible abilities is still quite a lot for lv12; at lv13 it jumps to 24 possible abilities.
This is also assuming you have only a 14 Cha, as well, meaning that you start with Cha 10 at lv1 before Racial bonuses, and increase Cha at lv4 and lv8.
Realistically, NO ONE is going to do that.
It's more likely that players will have a 14-20 Cha at lv1 (12-18 + 2 racial) and up to 16-22 at lv12.
That means that, in the real world, you're looking at (min-maxing, but still) up to 11 spirits at lv12 with 22 abilities, and 33 abilities at lv13.
To put this into perspective, the Barbarian has 6 Rage Powers, the Fighter has 13 Feats, and the Rogue has 4 Rogue Talents + 2 Advanced Talents.
Some serious trimming needs to happen.
Real.... world?
Sorry if this is clarified somewhere... But how do the spirits (in their various forms) interact with positive/negative energy and death effects?
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I don't really see any reason why a Medium would want more than 14 Charisma, honestly. Besides number of spirts you have, bonus spells and DCs, it seems almost completely unused, otherwise.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, imo, because it means you can spread your points around more evenly (or just focus another stat, entirely).
I will admit that it's awfully difficult for me to really understand everything about the class. It is SUPER dense and has a lot of moving parts.
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I agree it has a lot of moving parts, I don't think that's a bad thing I rather like complexity. I think what could go a long way to cleaning it up is better organizing the language on how multiple spirits interact, IE when you have 2 spirits how they function based on alignment, and cleaning up influence a bit. There are a TON of combinations which is amazing to me but I understand how it can be overwhelming at first blush.
I think the key things to remember is that even though there will be 54 spirits, you'll only know a fraction of that you might be able to get to half or more by blowing feats and having a high stat. The multiple spirit thing is complex, but after looking at it a bit things fall into place. The influence aspect increases the bookwork, but I think if you're playing this class you came into it expecting to have lots of notes. Notes on Spirits, notes on Influence kinda ties in with spirits, and notes on spells. This class has a lot of potential, I would hate to see it "simplified" and lose most of it's charm.
To be fair I play a lot of Video Games in addition to my massive tabletop library/interests and simplified has become a dirty term for me from my experience in MMOs where simplified means they're stripping your class/race of what makes it unique/neat/fun and making you "easier" at the expense of interesting.
Because
the medium does not have his own spell list, he can never
use his medium spells to craft spell trigger items, spell
completion items, potions, or oils, although he can use such
items depending on his current spirit.
Why? How does this work? Isn't this different than every other method of gaining access to a spell?
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I agree it has a lot of moving parts, I don't think that's a bad thing I rather like complexity.
I'd normally agree with you - I prefer a bit of complexity; it's the reason I was so disappointed with 5th Edition - WAY too simplified vs. Pathfinder.
This, tough, is a case of over-complexity.
You have, purportedly, 54 spirits in total. Every spirit has 4 abilities.
That's TWO-HUNDRED EIGHT different abilities to read through, to decide what you're going to take and how they'll mix and match. IN THE FIRST BOOK.
CLERICS don't have that much homework, even with all Domains and Subdomains present.
At lv12 you have Cha+6 spirits, with 2 abilities each, to choose from. That enough is pretty hefty, but add in their interactions, and you're slowing the game to a dead stop.
I'd understand, and totally support, a flat number of Spirits equal to your Cha modifier - at least then you only need to worry about picking out your spirits once (plus if you increase your modifier, but that's obvious) and don't have to use spreadsheets to keep track of all their interactions.
There's a reason things like this have never been done before, at least to this extent - the amount of time both in and out of game to prepare things on a DAILY basis is just so time consuming that, even if this proves to be the best class in the game that negates the use of all other classes ever, you'd do best to just avoid it like the plague.
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I want this class to be neat, I want it to be playable & have people play it, and I want to like this class, but right now, FATAL is looking less complex than this class.
Why? How does this work? Isn't this different than every other method of gaining access to a spell?
Because
the medium does not have his own spell list, he can never
use his medium spells to craft spell trigger items, spell
completion items, potions, or oils, although he can use such
items depending on his current spirit.
Yup. It's something new. Which is what we - and I - asked for.
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Believe me I hear your concern and definitely concede that it is super complex when you consider how many spirits a Medium may have connected. Keep in mind though that most players will find a spirit they like and bind it every day. Most likely you'll see players have 2-6 go to spirits that they use the most and then a slew of situational ones. Once you hit Dual Vessel you have a lot of versatility when you can actually trance to pull in the niche spirits for their juice when applicable.
I expect players to do a little prep work for their characters, remember every table is different, I tend to have little patience when it comes to my casters. If my players who are running casters can't answer questions in a timely fashion, IE what's my save dc or am I making a save etc, then I'll skip their turn as they stand there contemplating their immeasurable power.
At level 12 having, for argument sake (we'll say they have a 20 charisma) 5+6 spirits, so 11 spirits. Odds are they'll have those handful of Go To or Gotta Bind spirits that mesh with their character concept or even define their concept and then the Niche ones. I think in play it won't be as overly complex and game stopping as it looks on paper.
So, my head just exploded.
I was trying to figure out how the tertiary spirit would be affected if you used a trance to change out the secondary spirit for something with a different alignment/same ability, but then I realized your seance bonuses remain. So I had to go back and figure out what that meant. That's when I figured out you don't get the seance bonus but you do get the spirit powers.
So... would I be correct in thinking some spirit changes would result in gaining powers and others wouldn't? Maybe I'm just confused, but it seems like in some cases you would be leaving a seance bonus on the table, or taking on a spirit that gives you no powers (and still no seance bonus, because of the no-seance-bonus clause).
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I wasn't expecting to say this, but I actually would like to see all 54 spirits! *shakes fist at Mark* I'm theorycrafting a few mediums (might have my wife run me through some modules to test) and it is really hard to get any synergy between the spirits and a not-really-unusual build with this basic list.
I am becoming a little concerned, however, about channeling (seance/trance) limitations if the spirits that help a particular build don't happen to share an alignment... 'tis the great unknown, I suppose!
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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I agree it has a lot of moving parts, I don't think that's a bad thing I rather like complexity.I'd normally agree with you - I prefer a bit of complexity; it's the reason I was so disappointed with 5th Edition - WAY too simplified vs. Pathfinder.
This, tough, is a case of over-complexity.
You have, purportedly, 54 spirits in total. Every spirit has 4 abilities.
That's TWO-HUNDRED EIGHT different abilities to read through, to decide what you're going to take and how they'll mix and match. IN THE FIRST BOOK.
CLERICS don't have that much homework, even with all Domains and Subdomains present.
At lv12 you have Cha+6 spirits, with 2 abilities each, to choose from. That enough is pretty hefty, but add in their interactions, and you're slowing the game to a dead stop.
I'd understand, and totally support, a flat number of Spirits equal to your Cha modifier - at least then you only need to worry about picking out your spirits once (plus if you increase your modifier, but that's obvious) and don't have to use spreadsheets to keep track of all their interactions.
There's a reason things like this have never been done before, at least to this extent - the amount of time both in and out of game to prepare things on a DAILY basis is just so time consuming that, even if this proves to be the best class in the game that negates the use of all other classes ever, you'd do best to just avoid it like the plague.
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I want this class to be neat, I want it to be playable & have people play it, and I want to like this class, but right now, FATAL is looking less complex than this class.
I actually gave up on reading the spirits after the first three. If I was building a specific character, I might read them more, but they started getting repetitive, and there's only 18 in this book. I'm not entirely sure if it's just this particular class, or that it suffers from being the nth class with a huge list of abilities to read through just to see what the class does, and it's the one that broke the proverbial camel's back or something else. It also doesn't help that overall, the abilities granted seem fairly redundant with other stuff in the game, whether that's spells, shaman spirits, oracle mysteries, domains, bloodlines, etc. It might also have to do with that fact that the Harrow cards don't particularly resonate with me.
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If you have the Lg str spirit seanced, you can trance (or secondary, tertiary, etc) the lg spirits of other stats, as well as the ng and ln str spirit. That's it right? So 7 spirits for the corner alignments, 8 for ng, cn, ln, and ne, and 9 spirits for n.
People complaining about the class having too many options at high levels are prolly not taking this into account. Unless I'm misunderstanding something.
If this is how it works, it is gonna be pretty hard to know how the class works with only 1/3 of its abilities.
Mr. Mark Seifter,
Going off the core 20 gods, and maybe a few of the non core as you see fit, Which spirits match to which gods best if not perfectly?
I ask because I had the idea for a medium character who is basically a budding avatar of her gods. "My gods are always with" *Eyes start glowing*
First: this is definitely my favorite class of the playtest, even more than the Mesmerist (and I love illusions!).
Nevertheless, I agree that the class needs more oomph. In it's current state, it seems like the class tries to do too much without being awesome in anything, and not in the good way the Inquisitor does. I didn't have the chance to playtest it (and probably never will. I don't know anyone that plays in the area, and the closest place that does PFS regularly and not once every 1-2 months is in France :/ ), but I have a couple of ideas that may help the class:
-Most important thing: MOAR TRANCE! The spirits are the selling point of the class, and the influence system is what is supposed to be the limit to abusing the feature. A limit per day looks really unnecessary to me. Maybe you could make at at will, or give way more uses(CHA modifier+ 1/2 level?) and make Trance take less as you level?
-Upping the BAB and make it the melee guy of the playtest classes. As of now, you're kind of forced to take a strength spirit (or the Owl) to hit stuff reliably, and seeing that the class is really bad at casting, I don't see what else it can do.
-Or maybe giving it more spellcaster levels? That would be boring, though, and we don't want that ;)
A couple of crazy idea would be to make it so CHA spirits up your number of spells per day based on your spirit bonus, making caster Mediums viable-ish and capitalizing on the versatile nature of the class (You want to be a Melee medium? Pick a Strength spirit! Skill monkey? Pick Intelligence! A caster? Pick Charisma!).
Another idea is to give Medium access to all of the spells of his spirits, regardless if he has them equipped or not. You may only have 2 casts per day, but you'll surely find something that can help you. ;)
Thoughts?
PS: to those that want to reduce the number of spirits the Medium gets: you'll have to rip them out of my cold, dead hands. :P
It's surely the most complicated class in PF, ad requires more bookkeeping for your active spirits. But going trough all of the possible spirits and abilities is not different from the gajillion of spells and feats that are here already.
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I'm going to be the odd man out and say, I don't find the concept of 54 spirit choices the least imposing. It is certainly easier to keep track of than the hundreds of spells casters can choose from.
For those who do find the number imposing, the information will be distilled into a handful of optimization guides within a few weeks of the books launch.
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I would love to see all 54 spirits.
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You have, purportedly, 54 spirits in total. Every spirit has 4 abilities.
That's TWO-HUNDRED EIGHT different abilities to read through, to decide what you're going to take and how they'll mix and match. IN THE FIRST BOOK.
This. I feel like this class is going to be a logistical nightmare. I am the type of player who plays with a 12 page character sheet... (I get kind of OCD with my character sheets) What the heck am I going to do with a character with access to a large number of skills and abilities that rotate in and out on a daily basis? I really do like the idea, but I am intimidated... and therefore suffer -2 to most of my rolls.
Say I take the Rabbit, I get my spirit bonus to AC and Ref, I get the +2 to CMD against disarm and sunder, and Weapon Finesse. Now it says the spirit also counts as a Stregth spirit. Do I get that bonus to hit and damage as well ?
The answer is yes! The question was asked earlier and Mark confirmed that is the intent.
If a spirit "counts as" another ability score (like the Rabbit Prince's lesser power, or the Big Sky's intermediate power), does it grant that ability score's spirit bonus as well?Indeed, and in fact while it may also activate powers from your other spirits, that's the most reliable benefit from those abilities. +1 to hit, damage, AC, and Reflex saves per spirit bonus from just one spirit is nothing to sneeze at.
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54 spirits? Christ almighty I like complex rules and even I think that's way too much. Trying to read the medium class but it literally hurts my head trying to figure it out.
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This. I feel like this class is going to be a logistical nightmare. I am the type of player who plays with a 12 page character sheet... (I get kind of OCD with my character sheets) What the heck am I going to do with a character with access to a large number of skills and abilities that rotate in and out on a daily basis? I really do like the idea, but I am intimidated... and therefore suffer -2 to most of my rolls.You have, purportedly, 54 spirits in total. Every spirit has 4 abilities.
That's TWO-HUNDRED EIGHT different abilities to read through, to decide what you're going to take and how they'll mix and match. IN THE FIRST BOOK.
I really don't see it being any different or more complex than a wizard having to read through two dozen (or more) spells just to pick out the two he gets when he levels up.
I really don't see it being any different or more complex than a wizard having to read through two dozen (or more) spells just to pick out the two he gets when he levels up.This. I feel like this class is going to be a logistical nightmare. I am the type of player who plays with a 12 page character sheet... (I get kind of OCD with my character sheets) What the heck am I going to do with a character with access to a large number of skills and abilities that rotate in and out on a daily basis? I really do like the idea, but I am intimidated... and therefore suffer -2 to most of my rolls.You have, purportedly, 54 spirits in total. Every spirit has 4 abilities.
That's TWO-HUNDRED EIGHT different abilities to read through, to decide what you're going to take and how they'll mix and match. IN THE FIRST BOOK.
You cant really compare it to spells, though. Spells are generally having shorter descriptions with fairly simple text and rules. There are exceptions of course, but with these spirits, you are getting full on class features that will be interacting with each other. 54 in one book is a lot. And after reading the medium class, I still don't understand how it works.
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I really don't see it being any different or more complex than a wizard having to read through two dozen (or more) spells just to pick out the two he gets when he levels up.This. I feel like this class is going to be a logistical nightmare. I am the type of player who plays with a 12 page character sheet... (I get kind of OCD with my character sheets) What the heck am I going to do with a character with access to a large number of skills and abilities that rotate in and out on a daily basis? I really do like the idea, but I am intimidated... and therefore suffer -2 to most of my rolls.You have, purportedly, 54 spirits in total. Every spirit has 4 abilities.
That's TWO-HUNDRED EIGHT different abilities to read through, to decide what you're going to take and how they'll mix and match. IN THE FIRST BOOK.
A spell usually does its thing, then that is it. Every spirit can completely change a playstyle. And you can't just choose a spirit and use just it because if you do, you black out and do Sarenrae knows what! So you have to trade them out and let them cool down pretty regularly.
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He seems to be missing a feat. If you make it Spirit Specialization (Strength), that'll give another +1 to hit and damage. Compared to the Abyssal bloodrager (most comparable) in a bloodrage, I'm looking at comparable damage and accuracy even without going Huge (I believe down by 1 in accuracy and ahead in damage if they both use manufactured weapons and don't Power Attack, or equal accuracy and behind by 2 in damage if they both use manufactured weapons and do Power Attack), and the reach advantage and better damage than the bloodrager when Huge. Obviously a bigger edge over the non-raging bloodrager.I revamped Drek the Destroyer. Looking at the numbers, he's going to be dealing about half the damage of a 2-handed fighter or barbarian. I had originally set Drek up to use a two-handed weapon, but the average damage was even worse.
I could easily bring him up to be much closer to barbarian DPR; dip barbarian or blood rager. Sad that this is so frequently the solution to improving a classes melee ability.
Revised Drek.
Adding Spirit Specialization (Strength) brought his numbers up a bit.
Dropping Power Attack for Weapon Focus brought his numbers up even more.
He's still a bit behind where I was with my monk before the ACG, but not doing too bad. The limiting factor seems to be The Bear's inability to stack size increases from spells the spirit grants with his always on size increases.
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At work so I can't read earlier posts in this thread, but the medium occupied my mind for an hour already, so I come here.
The fact that the GM take the control seems, IMO, a great idea... But potentially it can be a real pain for some games.
If you have several session to play the same day, it means a player is just out of the game, and it can truly be a pain for GM's too.
I would propose alternatives (to keep it RAW and ease some GM's mind), like being afflicted by a major curse (for the day only ?), a spellblight, or other afflictions.
It let the player be in game, even if it sucks hard, and you don't bother GM's that don't want to lose time/play the character of someone else.
PS: I can't grasp how you can have an unlimited amount of influence, but in fact limited to 4. If there isn't any means to get more than 4 levels of influence, you should block it to 4 IMO. But I must say I hope some spells or items that could augment the influence of spirits, be it for bonus, or because it's a malediction.
Sidenote on auras: I wouldn't give the "aura" class feature, because I feel it is more about embodiments of a deity's dogma. I mean, even the bloody inquisitor doesn't have it (and I feel it's a real shame)!
At work so I can't read earlier posts in this thread, but the medium occupied my mind for an hour already, so I come here.
The fact that the GM take the control seems, IMO, a great idea... But potentially it can be a real pain for some games.
If you have several session to play the same day, it means a player is just out of the game, and it can truly be a pain for GM's too.
I would propose alternatives (to keep it RAW and ease some GM's mind), like being afflicted by a major curse (for the day only ?), a spellblight, or other afflictions.
I agree with this. A penalty that doesn't go away until you satisfy the spirits compulsion sounds better than loosing control of your character.
I agree with this. A penalty that doesn't go away until you satisfy the spirits compulsion sounds better than loosing control of your character.
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea, and think it's a normal penalty. Most of the time, the player is responsible for crossing the line.
But make it mandatory for some GM in some situation seems to be a little harsh for the GM.
Another question on the topic: Isn't there a risk some player might abuse of the medium's spirit before going to sleep, let their friend tie him up straight, then wait for the next day? Of course, he would have to keep the same spirit over and over, but if they love that spirit, it has minor impact.
Furthermore, you said it was Evil to let an evil spirit roam through the land b letting him take over your body... Is letting a good spirit doing the same Good ?
And if your friends tie up a good spirit that took control over you, is that evil too, or against good at least ?
Ok so I was working on making a short hand little quick sort of flowchart for myself for dual vessel and higher to give a feel for what choices you have. I hit a snag though.
Triune vessel says if the Tertiary spirit's ability score matches the Primary spirit's ability score you gain the Tertiary spirit's lesser spirit power. If the Tertiary spirit's ability score matches the Secondary spirit's ability score you pick one of the two (Secondary or Tertiary) to grant it's powers the other grants it's spirit bonus.
So if for example we have a LG Str spirit, a N Str spirit, and a CG Str spirit. All of them are Strength spirits. So our Primary gives it's bonus and it's powers. We then pick our Secondary spirit to give us it's powers leaving the Tertiary to give us it's spirit bonus. Problem is we already have it's spirit bonus. My assumption is they don't stack so you don't get the Strength spirit bonus twice.
If so why would you pick 3 Strength spirits with different alignments?
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I think when a class requires a flowchart to understand it, there may be an issue.
Never thought I'd say this, as I'm a fan of complex classes, but I think this class needs some simplification. Or at least, keep the complexity but streamline it more.
I would still like to know why there isn't any law or chaos spirits?
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I would still like to know why there isn't any law or chaos spirits?
There are going to be, but they only put some spirits as examples. There will be spirits for each ability score and alignment combination. ie 54 spirits.
^This
I may have missed this somewhere, but what happens if you can only house 1 spirit, but more than 1 spirit has three influence with you? Who gets to stay? Related, if you trance a spirit you're not currently housing and its influence goes to 3, does it leave you but automatically become your spirit the next day?
Okay, I may have come up with a simple-yet-elegant solution to the whole mess of having 54 Spirits
Step 1:
Spirits are Divided into Lesser, Intermediate, and Greater categories
Each Spirit represents 1 stat and is either Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, or Chaotic Neutral (to allow ease of use for either Good or Evil characters)
This divides the number of Spirits into 3 tiers of 18 spirits each.
Step 2:
Each Spirit provides ONE power, and is appropriately powerful for their tier.
Step 3:
At an appropriate level, you may Intermediate Channel, in which you Channel 1 Intermediate Spirit or 2 Lesser Spirits.
Later, you may Greater Channel, in which you Channel 1 Greater Spirit, 2 Intermediate Spirits, or 3 Lesser Spirits.
Finally, as a soft Class Cap, you gain Supreme Channel, in which you Channel 2 Greater Spirits, 3 Intermediate Spirits, or 4 Lesser Spirits.
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This would cut down significantly on the bookkeeping, still allow for plenty of versatility, and simplify the entire process down to a much-more-manageable action.
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Ok so I was working on making a short hand little quick sort of flowchart for myself for dual vessel and higher to give a feel for what choices you have. I hit a snag though.
Triune vessel says if the Tertiary spirit's ability score matches the Primary spirit's ability score you gain the Tertiary spirit's lesser spirit power. If the Tertiary spirit's ability score matches the Secondary spirit's ability score you pick one of the two (Secondary or Tertiary) to grant it's powers the other grants it's spirit bonus.
So if for example we have a LG Str spirit, a N Str spirit, and a CG Str spirit. All of them are Strength spirits. So our Primary gives it's bonus and it's powers. We then pick our Secondary spirit to give us it's powers leaving the Tertiary to give us it's spirit bonus. Problem is we already have it's spirit bonus. My assumption is they don't stack so you don't get the Strength spirit bonus twice.
If so why would you pick 3 Strength spirits with different alignments?
You do realize you actually mentioned the first part of Triune Vessel that explains what happens if your tertiary spirit matches your primary's ability score right? That would take precedence over the second part. You gain the spirit abilities for the second and third spirits.
I don't need the flowchart, but I've learned some of my players aren't quite so savvy when it comes to reading restrictions on abilities so I've taken it upon myself to ease them into things that are more complex than they're used to. And I was more making it to get a feel for what options are available, because it's one thing to read the text and then see only 18 spirits and another to have it spread out in front of you showing what is a legal choice and what isn't. The further you go down the tree the more options you get it's rather exciting!
I like the way you have to match stuff with the spirits so far that's been my only hiccup. I think the thing that adds complexity and makes it messy is the alternating on whether you get the Spirit Bonus or Spirit Abilities. I think if we clean that up that should really open up the class.
As I re read the Medium a question did occur to me. You lose 1 influence every day BEFORE you Seance. So if I had Influence 3 with a spirit from the previous day, it drops to 2 before I seance, I can freely replace it right? The 3 point "can't get rid of me" clause only seems to come into play if you try to Trance swap that spirit OR if you had 4 points, blacked out, and came to with 3 in time to seance. Thankfully Seance has the clause where it doesn't give more influence if you're at 2 or higher or it would become a self feeding cycle of blackout steve the possessed man.
You do realize you actually mentioned the first part of Triune Vessel that explains what happens if your tertiary spirit matches your primary's ability score right? That would take precedence over the second part. You gain the spirit abilities for the second and third spirits.Ok so I was working on making a short hand little quick sort of flowchart for myself for dual vessel and higher to give a feel for what choices you have. I hit a snag though.
Triune vessel says if the Tertiary spirit's ability score matches the Primary spirit's ability score you gain the Tertiary spirit's lesser spirit power. If the Tertiary spirit's ability score matches the Secondary spirit's ability score you pick one of the two (Secondary or Tertiary) to grant it's powers the other grants it's spirit bonus.
So if for example we have a LG Str spirit, a N Str spirit, and a CG Str spirit. All of them are Strength spirits. So our Primary gives it's bonus and it's powers. We then pick our Secondary spirit to give us it's powers leaving the Tertiary to give us it's spirit bonus. Problem is we already have it's spirit bonus. My assumption is they don't stack so you don't get the Strength spirit bonus twice.
If so why would you pick 3 Strength spirits with different alignments?
I would rule it that way, but I also like double checking things before I make that assumption when it comes to complex classes.
I like that there 54 spirits, the problem is making the class too complex with multiple spirits at a time. Also not a fan of the DM control factor as well.
I would like this class to ether have a fighter's HD/BA or 6 level casting.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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After thinking about it overnight, I realize that what would make this class a lot more workable to me would be not simply fewer spirits, but broader in scope spirits. Cut the 54 down to 10-14 or so much broader in scope. Honestly, I'd be fine with 6, one per ability score, and let the medium channel any of them as needed.
I'd also want a medium to channel the spirits of the dead, rather than pick some weird made up dancing skeleton from the harrow deck (note, I made that up, since I have no clue which harrow card represents this) that gave the speak with dead power. That's the quintessential medium ability, and I didn't see it in the class at all.
208 abilities? Pff. Has anyone counted how many freaking arcane spells exists on all pathfinder books?
But they don't all relate to basic class abilities. Furthermore, a wizard has you narrow that down with school specialization. A sorcerer only gets X spells in memory. A witch or magus or Alchemist or Bard doesn't have access to all those spells.
Also, you can pick a concept at the start and make everything relate to that. It's hard to see what the concept for a Medium is just yet. The flair gives you "he can do everything! A new party role every day!", which does not lend itself to a focused build or even a solid concept.
What was the pop culture inspiration for this character? What's our iconic Medium that we can point to as an example?
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208 abilities? Pff. Has anyone counted how many freaking arcane spells exists on all pathfinder books?But they don't all relate to basic class abilities. Furthermore, a wizard has you narrow that down with school specialization.
The same statement will apply to Mediums. Most characters will be built around using a handful of spirits, with the remaining choices only used for specific situations.
In much the same manner that a wizard may have dozens of spells in his spellbook, but tends to memorize the same spells on a daily basis.
A couple really critical points that people appear to be missing right now on the influence:
1. You literally CANNOT hit 4 influence before you can trance 2x/day, at which point you have a minimum of 2 spirits (assuming you built to actually have 12+ CHA so you could have a spirit at level 1).
2. Even once you get to trance 2x/day, it's REALLY HARD to get to 4 influence. You need to cap out trancing for 2 days straight on a single spirit that you're also seancing in. That's a lot of player choice. If there's a single travel day, you automatically get back to a maximum of 2 influence, likely less if the player is avoiding the loss of control.
3. It's only when you get to level 6 that you can get to 4 influence in a single day, but you have a minimum of 3 spirits by then, so you're likely switching quite a bit, particularly during travel.
re: options:
1. The first choice is the hardest. The second, third, etc. all will likely either match the exact alignment or the ability. This means that the second spirit will be a choice of 13 instead of 53 (5 other matching alignments, 8 other matching stats). The third is a choice of up to 24. Eventually, it grows back to the full pool once you can adequately chain through on Triune and Fourfold Vessel abilities. This, of course, assumes that you're building specifically to chain together for Dual/Triune/Fourfold Vessel, which is kind of the point.
2. Selections are fairly free-form, but they're also generally going to follow a reliable pattern. You're either going to focus on getting additional numeric bonuses or grabbing as many abilities as possible. That said, the following progression is totally legal for Fourfold Vessel:
NN/STR -> CE/STR -> CE/WIS -> LG/WIS
If that's a progression that makes you happy as a character, totally fine. Conflicted, but very much within the rules. We don't have the full alignment breakouts yet, but that's not really a problem.
3. The initial options are weird in that they present few actions for players, but the class REALLY picks up after you get Dual Vessel.
4. OMG EVERY SPIRIT IS A NEW RP OPPORTUNITY. Like, for real.
Also, I'd like to give a shoutout to the developers for actively punishing players for dumping CHA on this class by giving it no class features if you take less than 12 CHA at creation. That's friggin' awesome. No, I'm not being sarcastic.
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208 abilities? Pff. Has anyone counted how many freaking arcane spells exists on all pathfinder books?But they don't all relate to basic class abilities. Furthermore, a wizard has you narrow that down with school specialization.The same statement will apply to Mediums. Most characters will be built around using a handful of spirits, with the remaining choices only used for specific situations.
In much the same manner that a wizard may have dozens of spells in his spellbook, but tends to memorize the same spells on a daily basis.
One huge difference between spells and medium spirits (as opposed to shaman spirits, spirits of the deal, kami, undead, haunts - which begs the question, what exactly is a spirit in Pathfinder, it seems every book has a new version) is that spells are mostly applicable to multiple classes, which means the learning curve of getting to know them is far more useful to a player - understanding hold person helps you understand clerics, oracles, wizards, sorcerers, bards, etc.
In addition, spells are concrete in that they do one thing - and you can fairly easily assess if you want your character to be able to do to that thing and decide if you want to learn or prepare that spell. For mediums, you can have assess 54 different bundles of powers, and decide if you really want ability A, do you want to invest in abilities B, C, D, and E to get it. That's a far more complex decision.
Mr. Mark Seifter,
Going off the core 20 gods, and maybe a few of the non core as you see fit, Which spirits match to which gods best if not perfectly?
I ask because I had the idea for a medium character who is basically a budding avatar of her gods. "My gods are always with" *Eyes start glowing*
This idea is one I had too and one that I like a lot! I would say this—gods are pretty complex beings. My conception is you could worship Sarenrae, say, and take all the NG spirits as different aspects of Sarenrae. Sarenrae's Mercy, Sarenrae's Wrath, etc.
I think my reading comprehension has failed me again, but I have a question:
Say I'm a 13th level medium. I do my seance and choose the Bear (Str N) as my first spirit, the Beating (Str E) as my second and the Teamster (Con N) as my third.
I gain +4 attack and damage, +4 fortitude and +12 HP and (here's the actual question):
a)Paws, Massive, Enormous, Beater and Dogpile. Or
b)Enormous and Dogpile.
If b) can I choose an ealier power, i.e. take Enormous and Beater, or Dogpile and Paws?
Also: When doing a Shared Seance with my party do we get the seance bonus of all the three spirits or only of the primary?