My feedback : Make it all simpler !

[MRick]

I've read the new playtest, and I'm quite disappointed.

I haven't been able to read a single class to the end, I've stalled before the end for each of the 6 new classes.

I have the feeling that my game is becoming more and more bloated, and I'm unhappy with that.

I cannot give feedback about how they play because I've been unable to create a single character using the playtest. I really tried to but I felt overwelmed by the number of things to take care of before making my choices.

That was about 3 days ago.

I steped back and didn't open again the playtest until today. Today I decided to give it another try. But still I found those new classes to complicated. I really love the description of the classes.

I read this :
Mediums channel spirits into themselves, using their
own bodies as vessels for astral entities. Whether the
spirits represent the souls of the departed, mental
archetypes, or disembodied outsiders, the medium
balances his need for the spirits’ power with the danger
of allowing such beings inf luence over his mind.
And I say "Yes, that's cool, I want to create a medium character !"

I read, role, alignement, hit die, starting wealth, class skills, weapons & armors, everything id OK, until :
CLASS FEATURES.

Damn, that's way too long and complicated !!! And still I have only 18 spirits instead of 54 (I know these are the 54 cards of my harrowing deck - cool idea by the way).

So I step back again and think : Is that me getting too old ?
I open my CRB and compare :

Barbarian : 3 pages
Bard : 4 pages
Cleric : 10 pages
Druid : 7 pages
Fighter : 1 page
Monk : 4 pages
Paladin : 4 pages
Ranger : 3 pages
Rogue : 3 pages
Sorcerer : 7 pages
Wizard : 6 pages

Kineticist : 13 pages
Medium : 11 pages
Mesmerist : 6 pages
Occultist : 12 pages
Psychic : 6 pages
Spiritualist : 9 pages

In the CRB, all classes have a beautiful picture that takes up some space but still, most classes are shorter than Occult Adventures playtest.

So it's not only me getting older !

Well, it looks that for me, a class description shouldn't exceed 4 pages before I get bored.

I know that some classes in the CRB exceed this limit, but :
- I already knew these classes from D&D 3.5, so I guess it's easier to understand.
- A cleric only chooses 2 domains, a sorcerer has only one bloodline, a wizard can only choose 1 specialisation school.

I'm not sure because I haven't been able to keep my concentration to read everything on the medium, but it seems to me that a medium can take absolutly any spirit in the book over his career. 18 spirit to choose from every day is quite too much. And tomorrow 54 spirits to choose from ??? Woaw.

I said that de spirits matching the Harrow deck is a good idea, but every spirit is too complicated by it's own.
I think each spirit should only give 1 bonus, 1 boon, or 1 spell, and it's description shouldn't be more than 5 or 6 lines.

Also, a character should be restricted to only some spirits, using for example the cleric's 1 step alignement rule.

So I have only one feedback fo this playtest : Make it simpler.

I want to add a quote for a conclusion :

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900 - 1944)

[Thormind]

I totally agree with you. Some complexity can be fun but to much of it will slow the game down and remove a part of the roleplay experience.

[Heladriell]

In defense of the kineticist, the number of pages is the result of wild talents, that fill a niche similar to spells. If you count the caster's pages as the sum of their class features and spells it will be a higher number in the core book.

[Game Master]

As long as it's not as complicated as Sacred Geometry, it's fine.

[Thormind]

Heladriell wrote:

In defense of the kineticist, the number of pages is the result of wild talents, that fill a niche similar to spells. If you count the caster's pages as the sum of their class features and spells it will be a higher number in the core book.

Thats part of the problem. If the book was meant as a stand alone product/game it would be perfect. But we already have a lot of stuff to consider and understand when playing the game. So far most classes that were added were using a list existing spells. Adding a list of new "spells" with a gazillion ways to modify them is too much.

Each classe of the book brings completly different and complex new mechanics. For GMs this means a lot of stuff to learn and be comfortable with when playing. If the game is continually interrupted because we have to go look in the book how something works, it looses momentum.

My suggestion would be to bring a new set of rules for let say "kinetic" or "occult" powers and build all classes around variations from these rules.

Another thing that bugs me is the total lack of melee classes. Melee characters tends to be less complex to build and understand. Adding 1 or 2 might help to alleviate the problem. Maybe a character with a one handed weapon that use "the force" to create shields/armor, to do combat maneuvers, to levitate, etc...?

[kaineblade83]

@MRick; I totally agree. I keep WANTING to get into this and WANTING to enjoy myself but this test is so very bloated. And I know, part of it is showing us a new system but... It's not actually a new system, in a lot of ways. There's not a huge write-up for Divine magic and how it's different from Arcane magic; though that is a gripe of mine for another time.

Heladriell is also right, however, the Kineticist basically has its 'spells but not spells' list included with the class so that takes up a lot more space. However, I can't see that getting trimmed down unless they make a separate section of the book for the talents. It could be in the spells section, as with Warlocks of 3.5 who had their eldritch oddities listed prior to spells in the magic section of most splat books.

[Orthos]

The complexity... or more accurately, the girth of options... is part of the fun for me =/ I think these classes would lose a lot of what makes them interesting if you trimmed them down. Especially the Medium (I cannot WAIT to see the other spirits) and Kinetecist (more powers please!).

[havoc xiii]

So...the kineticist is to long so move some o its pages to a different part of the book? That down't actually change anything...

Also if you ask me new classes need more information...they've got multiple books before them that don't support any of their stuff, so you've got to make up for that some what I feel.

[Heladriell]

Orthos wrote:

The complexity... or more accurately, the girth of options... is part of the fun for me =/ I think these classes would lose a lot of what makes them interesting if you trimmed them down. Especially the Medium (I cannot WAIT to see the other spirits) and Kinetecist (more powers please!).

I couldn't agree more. The options provided are a good part of the fun for me.

[BlackOuroboros]

I flat out disagree, it's the complexity that keeps me interested in Pathfinder. If I wanted simple, easy to digest, and sterile than I would just play 5E D&D and be done with it.

[Craig Bonham 141]

I'm with the folks that like lots of options and complexity.

[Canzy77]

We ran a scenario with one of each new class in the party and it took forever

[Sammy T]

Why would you use the CRB as a basis of comparison?

As the system grows, it will springboard off the "basic" mechanics. It would be fairer to use the recent ACG for a comparison rather than the CRB.

[ChrisLKimball]

I have to agreed with the thread starter, I have had a hard time understanding or even reading some of the classes without becoming bored, I love the flavor, but there is a deep over abundance of new ideas and rules that crowd these classes.

[Cyrad]

Complexity =/= Depth

My problem is that when I finally dig through the bloat and complexity, I'm honestly not seeing much depth to the classes. The spiritualist is just a summoner with a ghost. While a cool concept, it doesn't need any of the horrific bloat and complexity the summoner's eidolon has. The mesmer doesn't really have much to it. The medium is cool, but the wandering and combination spirit mechanics just overcomplicate what should be a fairly elegant class: you channel a spirit and get buffs. In addition, the kineticist seems fun enough, but it has so many different types of talents that even after reading the class three times, I'm still not entirely sure how it all works.

In other words, the complexity of these classes don't necessarily give them depth. that's my concern.

[Orthos]

Personally I don't have a major issue with that. A class is mostly, to me, a chassis to build what you want mechanically out of the character; everything else is flavor, and can be re-spiced to taste. Just look at the thread on Medium character ideas for a great list of examples. Or look in the Medium thread itself, where Mark suggested a handful of different ways the Harrow-based spirits could be flavored to resemble Fey Eldest, a pantheon of saints, servitors of a specific deity, and so on and so forth.

I really almost never use the basic fluff for a class anymore, I just piece together the skeleton of "This is what I want my character to be able to accomplish" then add the window dressing of how it works and why it's done in RP.

In that, at least I think the Medium and Kinetecist succeed, and am eagerly looking forward to the expanded toolchest the full versions will hopefully come with. The others haven't grabbed my attention as much, so I haven't quite gotten around to getting ideas about what I can cobble together with them.

[Thormind]

havoc xiii wrote:

So...the kineticist is to long so move some o its pages to a different part of the book? That down't actually change anything...

Also if you ask me new classes need more information...they've got multiple books before them that don't support any of their stuff, so you've got to make up for that some what I feel.

It's not just the Kineticist. If it was just one class it would not be that much of a problem. They are all like that. I normally enjoy reading about new classes and trying new builds. But like the OP said there is so much complexity that it becomes boring.

The ACG was perfectly balanced in that regard. Some classes were complex but others were more simple and faster to understand.

The average table normally has players with different intellectual capacities. In order for a game to be playable and enjoyable there need to be a balance in how complex it is going to be for everyone at the table

[chbgraphicarts]

Cyrad wrote:

Complexity =/= Depth

My problem is that when I finally dig through the bloat and complexity, I'm honestly not seeing much depth to the classes. The spiritualist is just a summoner with a ghost. While a cool concept, it doesn't need any of the horrific bloat and complexity the summoner's eidolon has. The mesmer doesn't really have much to it. The medium is cool, but the wandering and combination spirit mechanics just overcomplicate what should be a fairly elegant class: you channel a spirit and get buffs. In addition, the kineticist seems fun enough, but it has so many different types of talents that even after reading the class three times, I'm still not entirely sure how it all works.

In other words, the complexity of these classes don't necessarily give them depth. that's my concern.

I've actually been wondering why the Spiritualist and Medium are two different classes.

They basically do the same things - bond with spirits - just one does it with multiple on a rotating cast list, and the other is a palette-swap of the Summoner.

Kineticist is complex, but I'm not terribly upset with THAT class - that may more be formatting than anything.

The MEDIUM... the Medium is a class that has a gigantic listing (11 pages, with only 1/3 of the spirits available!!!) that does next to nothing until you hit lv8+. And then after that, the rules for junctioning 2 or more spirits... "ambitious" is a term some would use, "grounds for being committed" is closer to what I would say.

I don't dislike the idea of a Class that goes "I've got an App for that!" sucking in one of several Spirits they have, and then going at the job, but THIS... this is probably the most unnecessarily complex class I've ever seen, and if it sees print with even a FRACTION of this complexity, even I'll be wondering what Paizo's thinking anymore.

The Summoner... I mean, I'd kinda be okay with the Summoner getting a Divine counterpart, but I kinda feel like the Hunter already is that, and we don't need an out-and-out palette swap.

I hope the Spiritualist gets a re-write from the ground up so that it's not so glaringly a copy-paste job of the Summoner.

In GENERAL, I kinda want them to just throw out the "Psychic" magic - most of these classes work better as either Arcane or Divine classes, both mechanically and thematically.

Psychic may be the sole exception. I'd be okay if the Psychic got the same treatment as the Alchemist - they use not-spells, called, let's say "Manifestations" and they have certain rules. They "cast" spells with their mind, similar to how the Alchemist has to down an Elixir to "cast" the spell.

That'd be more flavorful than "HEY, LOOK! WE HAVE A NEW TYPE OF MAGIC... BECAUSE!"

WOTC pulled this type of jank - I don't wanna see Paizo doing the same thing.

If a new subsystem of spellcasting HAS to be introduced, it'd better well have a significantly noticeable mechanical difference (again, look at "Elixirs") - "emotion" doesn't cut it.

[Cyrad]

Orthos wrote:

Personally I don't have a major issue with that. A class is mostly, to me, a chassis to build what you want mechanically out of the character; everything else is flavor, and can be re-spiced to taste. Just look at the thread on Medium character ideas for a great list of examples. Or look in the Medium thread itself, where Mark suggested a handful of different ways the Harrow-based spirits could be flavored to resemble Fey Eldest, a pantheon of saints, servitors of a specific deity, and so on and so forth.

I really almost never use the basic fluff for a class anymore, I just piece together the skeleton of "This is what I want my character to be able to accomplish" then add the window dressing of how it works and why it's done in RP.

In that, at least I think the Medium and Kinetecist succeed, and am eagerly looking forward to the expanded toolchest the full versions will hopefully come with. The others haven't grabbed my attention as much, so I haven't quite gotten around to getting ideas about what I can cobble together with them.

I agree that Medium and Kineticist are my favorite of the classes. They're strong enough to stand on their own, but broad enough for many different character concept. They have mechanics not seen elsewhere. But they have a lot of unnecessary bloat, complication, and fiddly bits that make the class harder to use without really adding anything to it. For example, I think the complicated spirit combination limitation rules should be cut. I don't think they add anything to the class, and create a lot of meta-concepts that just make the class more confusing. Besides, wouldn't it be fun to have a character with two opposing spirits influencing her? Like a little devil and a little angel on her shoulder?

[joeyfixit]

I have to disagree. The volume of material gives a lot of options. Kineticist pages basically amount to spells known for a Sorcerer, except there's much less to choose from and a much narrower range of how to shape your build. They're actually much lighter than, say, a fighter, if you factor in all the combat feats you should be perusing when you're building one.

Psychic class is extremely light, moreso than wizards or sorcerers. Their spell list is everything, which is why I think (as written), they ought to have a full wizard/witch progression.

Medium is the exception, except that you're probably only keeping track of three or four different for the first few levels. On the other hand, the amount of spirits to choose from (especially at first) will make your head explode if you can't handle option overload.

So... don't play that class?

My most paperwork-heavy class so far has been Alchemist, and that includes a shapeshifting, summon-happy Druid with an AC. The amount of flux that a fifth-level bomb chucker with a familiar undergoes to practically all of his stats on a constant basis will probably outweigh the stuff you have to keep track of with a Medium; time will tell.

[Thormind]

joeyfixit wrote:

My most paperwork-heavy class so far has been Alchemist, and that includes a shapeshifting, summon-happy Druid with an AC. The amount of flux that a fifth-level bomb chucker with a familiar undergoes to practically all of his stats on a constant basis will probably outweigh the stuff you have to keep track of with a Medium; time will tell.

But the alchemist has a regular spell list with some new mechanics. And the other classes from the same book were more simple.

This is the first version of the classes and most of them can be reworked to achieve the same goal without all the unecessary complexity. At the moment the whole book feels like it is not written by the same staff that did the rest of the PRD. It's like the work of less experienced writers...

Kinetics: We already have so many blast spell available. Why not use a list of the blasts already available and add the mechanics to modify them.

Medium: It's a good concept when you think about it. But a solution needs to be found to streamline all this a little. It's already long with 18 spirits but with 54, seriously?

Mesmerist: This should be the standard model for the other classes. Regular spells list with added unique and interesting tricks. Would not mind having one of them at my table at all.

Occultist: It's a good idea, a class that works around magical items. It has a regular spell list with added tricks. A lot of tricks need to be reworked so we can read and understand them faster. Here the problem is really the amount of text for each ability.

Psychic: Problem with this class is not complexity. Outside of the name it just doesnt feel like something new. I think if there was one class to be redesigned as melee it could be this one. Make it like a jedi...

Spiritualist: Not sure about this class. It feels a lot like a summoner but the description is somehow painful to read. Again here some work needs to be done to streamline everything.

[Triphoppenskip]

I too got the feeling there was a lot going on for each class but since it was for the playtest I was kinda thinking that they may be throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks. I'm going to wait and reserve my full judgement on the new classes when the final results come out.

[Seranov]

chbgraphicarts wrote:

The MEDIUM... the Medium is a class that has a gigantic listing (11 pages, with only 1/3 of the spirits available!!!) that does next to nothing until you hit lv8+. And then after that, the rules for junctioning 2 or more spirits... "ambitious" is a term some would use, "grounds for being committed" is closer to what I would say.

I don't dislike the idea of a Class that goes "I've got an App for that!" sucking in one of several Spirits they have, and then going at the job, but THIS... this is probably the most unnecessarily complex class I've ever seen, and if it sees print with even a FRACTION of this complexity, even I'll be wondering what Paizo's thinking anymore.

I disagree vehemently with this. Mark's already said he's got some plans for making it more effective in the early levels, and that was really my only concern about the class. Letting you completely tailor what your character is good at by picking among the huge amount of available spirits is going to lead to a class that, while complex, will be very interesting.

Honestly, I don't think there is any problem with this book being an option for more advanced players who have the system mastery and experience to put the myriad options to good use. And it's not like there won't be optimization guides that make the OA classes accessible to people who aren't good at that stuff, anyway.

[TOZ]

Canzy77 wrote:

We ran a scenario with one of each new class in the party and it took forever

Why is that, do you think?

Did the players not know how their characters worked?

Did the GM need the rules explained every time something new came up?

Did the players get to take a bunch of actions out of turn due to the class abilities, or did the class abilities take a long time to resolve on their turns?

Did you spend more time roleplaying than using your characters abilities?

These questions and their answers lead to useful play test data.

Complaints without information do not.

[Artemis Moonstar]

So what I'm seeing is a lot of impatience, and lack of attention span.

(old man voice) Damn you TV! Whatever happened to pushing a hoop down a dirt road with a stick! (/old man voice)

And publishing Occult Adventures is not going to ruin your game. Just don't use the material. Rule 0 and all that jazz.

Edit: Oh, and add me into the pile of folks that enjoy a breadth of options. I'm so damn bored of the basic "Wizard-Fighter-Cleric-Thief" party make up that I literally fall asleep at those tables. Honestly, I can barely play any class in the CRB anymore without getting horrifically bored... But then, after 20 years of gaming, I'm not surprised I'm bored with the basics.

[CEBrown]

Wow - the complexity is part of what appeals to me. This is treading very different ground from traditional FRPGs yet staying in the same general ballpark at the same time. That is going to be a bit of a mess at times.

Now there may very well be an overload thing going on here (heck, I haven not been able to read and understand more than one class a day), and some of the language seems a bit convoluted at times (plus my lack of experience with the actual rules - having briefly skimmed the second playtest document for the initial core book, realized it was up to version four by the time I'd finished reading version 2 - and two OTHER games I was also interested in at the time were at roughly the same point of the playtest cycle - led to me pretty much abandoning the system ... until this release).

[Canzy77]

TOZ wrote:

Canzy77 wrote:

We ran a scenario with one of each new class in the party and it took forever

Why is that, do you think?

Did the players not know how their characters worked?

Did the GM need the rules explained every time something new came up?

Did the players get to take a bunch of actions out of turn due to the class abilities, or did the class abilities take a long time to resolve on their turns?

Did you spend more time roleplaying than using your characters abilities?

These questions and their answers lead to useful play test data.

Complaints without information do not.

Basically all of the players knew the classes they were playing fairly well, and the gm had a pretty good grasp on them as well. However, we felt as though there were so many gaps that it felt more like rule diving in Shadowrun ( see book x then y then z to get an answer). We pretty much ran a half skill game half dungeon crawl. Most of the lag came up in the crawl and pets ( mainly the Phantom, is it essentially an eidolon or not).

Post game discussion ( and I do not count this as taking forever) but we just spitballed with level two stats. I decided to take the Spiritualist down a melee path I.e weapon focus scythe and the teamwork flanking feet on both the character and phantom. After everyone was done re-tooling the gm bumped up the boss stats to match (slightly higher ac and hp). Conclusion to this test, as much as these new classes appear to be caster heavy, the boss went down much faster with the melee caster hybrids that everyone re-tooled. On the downside other than basic feats, no one really knew what they could add.

Hope that is a bit better of a response

[kestral287]

How is the Psychic complex? It's a Sorcerer with a different spell list. In fact, it's noticeably easier to set up at first level than a Sorcerer. Four Disciplines (bloodlines) to pick from instead of a couple dozen, after all. At third level it gets mildly more complex when you get a resource pool... that you'll be doing only one thing with until level 7, so still not exactly complex.

The same for the Mesmerist; it's not really all that complicated. There was a comment that the ACG was good because you had long classes and short classes intermingled... is that not exactly what we have here?

[TriOmegaZero]

Canzy77 wrote:

Hope that is a bit better of a response

It was very helpful. Thanks for taking the time to write it.

[kaineblade83]

I feel like I should clarify my point of agreement for the side of 'it needs to be simpler' earlier; there's too much going on in this playtest, to me. That is, for me, I think things are too busy and unfocused.

I love options, I love complexity, and I love depth. I'm fine with continuing to get more classes and archetypes because it means more options for people to fully flesh out characters and ideas they may not have been able to accomplish before. And I love the idea of psychic magic and all that can be done with it, it just doesn't quite feel different yet from the other types of magic we have available. I'm sure that will change, and that's not really an issue of simplifying the magic system (if anything it's TOO simple right now, as everything is mind-affecting and in some respect debuffing).

But... complexity does not automatically mean the item in question has depth. Throwing options that mean little/do little for the sake of having options, for example, does not make something deep or interesting, it makes it clunky and unwieldy. Kineticist has a lot of options and that's fine, it needs options because it's a multi-elemental blaster that can cover a lot of ground. A spellcaster that's not a spellcaster, essentially, and thus it is a deep class with options. The formatting was more my complaint with that.

Psychic, Medium, Spiritualist, and to a far lesser extent, Occultist, all feel clunky and a touch unwieldy to me, but for different reasons. Psychic I don't think has -enough- option in their disciplines right now, as none of the ones presented are options I find enjoyable (and yes that is a personal gripe). Medium and Spiritualist have been explained better by others, so I won't go into it, suffice to say it feels like there's too much going on with them without the depth I'd like to see.

Mesmer is amazing in my opinion, and captures a lot of that 'Beguiler' feel I missed from old 3.5, but more smoke and mirrors; it's deep, it's not overly complex, and it has options. The same with Kineticist, imho.

[Realmwalker]

Canzy77 wrote:

We ran a scenario with one of each new class in the party and it took forever

This happens when playing a new class, when you get used to the new rules and options it becomes easier to play. I had no problem's with my Kineticist other than a lack of utility abilities and not enough skills. I'd like to see more Wild Talents as well.

[MMCJawa]

I think the OP's remark is a bit valid for the Medium, and I think some of the rules language could be a bit cleaned up for the occultist. Otherwise I don't find the other classes to be that complex, and the Kineticist and Psychic were pretty easy to understand.

I mean the point of this book is to cover new territory. That is kind of the opposite of the ACG. So it doesn't surprise me if these classes in playtest format need a bit longer to fully grock. Presumably, if we get future psychic classes they will be a bit easier to understand.

[chbgraphicarts]

Let's keep this in mind here:

Complexity is fine. Not every class needs to be, nor should be, as simple as the Fighter.

We're talking about OVER Complexity.

Let's take a second to examine the ACG vs. the Occult Adventures list:

Arcanist: 7 pages.
Bloodrager: 8 pages (includes 7 pages of 12 Bloodline entries)
Brawler: 3 Pages
Hunter: 4 Pages
Investigator: 5 Pages
Shaman: 14 Pages (includes 10 pages of Spirits, and 1 page for Spirit Animal)
Skald: 4 Pages
Slayer: 3 Pages
Swashbuckler: 4 Pages
Warpriest 9 Pages (includes 6 pages of 33 Blessings)

And, just for the fun of it, let's compare the Core Rulebooks entries:

Barbarian: 3 pages
Bard: 4 pages
Cleric: 10 pages
Druid: 7 pages
Fighter: 1 Page
Monk: 4 pages
Paladin: 4 pages
Ranger: 3 pages
Rogue: 4 pages
Sorcerer: 7 pages
Wizard: 9 pages

Now compare:

Kineticist: 13 pages, though 9 pages are of Wild Talents. These are almost identical to Spells in their entries, however, and would probably do well to be listed in the Spell section, cutting the Class entry down to 4 pages.

Mesmerist: 5 pages

Occultist: 11 pages

Psychic: 6 pages

Spiritualist: 8 pages

They are, indeed, bigger than the average 3-4 pages, but nothing too gamebreaking.

And now, for the elephant in the room:

Medium: 11 Pages, 8 pages of which are Spirits in the playtest; when the full list of spirits comes out, that will be 24 pages of Spirits, so the whole class will be 27-28 pages long.

Oh, I should also probably mention that all the entries from the ACG and CRB include 1/4- to 1/2-page images eating up more space.

---

The description of EVERY spell printed in the ACG was only 28 pages long.

So the entry for the Medium will be as long as the descriptive listing of spells in the ACG, and the entries for Spirits will be just 4 pages shy.

Now, this MIGHT be excusable if, like Domains and Shaman Spirits, you only took 1 or 2 choices. Heck, it'd even be excusable if the Medium could have access to Spirits based on their Charisma modifier, period, which realistically won't typically go over 22-24.

However, the Medium is FORCED to take at LEAST 10 throughout their career from lv1 to 20, and can easily end up with 15 or more.

They also mix and match 3 or more from lv13 onward, with a fairly convoluted manner of how they all junction together.

---

Just for another bit of comparison, the ENTIRE TOMB OF HORRORS MODULE IS LITERALLY SMALLER THAN THAT(14 PAGES!!!)

---

Now, I'd like to clarify something here - I AM one of those "advanced" players. I've been playing various versions of D&D and other RPGs therein for well over a decade. I'm a GM for my playgroup. I like options.

And I STILL hate the megalith that is the Medium.

I hate it because, while its basic premise seems quite interesting, its execution is sophomoric at best; its level of over-complexity and desire to be a "swiss army class" - to have any and all answers to any situation ever and NOT be a lv9 caster with unlimited Magic Items - coupled with the fact that it is glaringly underpowered before mid-levels, looks less like a Paizo - or even WOTC - class, and more like some misguided attempt at originality you'd find on the forums of Giant in the Playground.

I hate it because its gargantuan entry of 54 complex Spirits based on the Harrow deck is a giant and vain attempt at being "clever," rather than focusing on the options being intuitive and easily-functional.

I hate it because its Influence system not only FORCES the players to turn into a spiritual merry-go-round in order to avoid reaching 4 Influence, it also puts a burden on both the Player AND The GM for the player who DOES. While some people might think it "fun" to lose complete control of their character and hand it over to the DM, the majority of players won't or don't, and DMs generally don't want even MORE work - babysitting a player that now HAS to be an active NPC doing something - than they already have on their play (that being, running the session and actual NPCs).

I hate it because there are obvious and better forms of "payment" for the use of Spirits than Influence.

I hate it because Influence causes more Bookkeeping than Ebeneezer Scrooge on a holiday.

I hate it because it can accomplish, as a class, exactly what it wants to - be a Sonic Screwdriver class - in a much-more streamlined and elegant manner, that makes it a more robust class from the ground up, and takes away NOTHING, and, in fact, only ADDS versatility and ease of play, as a whole, to the class.

[chbgraphicarts]

I should also point out that, while I adhere strictly to the mantra of "you don't have to buy/play it," my annoyance comes not from the fact that I, myself, don't want to play it (I don't, but that's coincidental); it's from the fact that, because of its sheer size and complexity, many players won't want to approach it, "advanced" or not.

It's from the fact that, if it remains even close to its current state through publication, I will more-than-likely have to ban it from my games simply because the amount of time it will take for a player to work out what their character does, how much Influence each Spirit has, etc. etc.

It's from that fact that, if I ban it, it will very likely be that class alone, out of all the classes that exist; that I will need to justify WHY I needed to ban it; that it will be the first class that I have specifically banned, and it's not because it's overpowered, but just far too much of a time-consuming mess.

I disallow only Mythic Adventures, as a whole, because Mythic Paths don't work well with the games I typically run, although I do use Mythic Ranks to enhance Monsters. But the fact that it's a blanket "no player options" has been fine with my group.

I can only reserve so much distaste for the current incarnation of the class, because, as I've said in other threads, this game is released for free, and being vehemently butthurt over a free thing is just stupid.

If the class remains as-is through to publication, I'll just remain quietly annoyed and proceed to deal with it as it needs to be (which probably will be as I've described above).

But, I'd rather make my distaste known NOW, as obviously as I can, before it's finalized, in the hopes that it might cause some manner of change to make the class more elegant and user-friendly for everyone (especially if it helps cut down on the number of people shouting "bloat!" and complaining later).

[Gorbacz]

How's that all different from having to learn most of a spell list in order to play a full caster efficiently?

[chbgraphicarts]

Spells typically have effects that are self-contained and don't need massive cross-referencing or a spreadsheet to determine how they interact.

Spells typically have relatively simple effects, and only 1 effect.

Spells don't typically have multiple, varied effects as you level.

Spells are not the entire focus of most classes, even full-casters.

Spells don't all-but REQUIRE you to rotate them out - even prepared casters have their favorite "go-to" spells that they can/do use everyday.

Spells, if overused, don't cause your character to become an NPC

---

Spirits have very complex effects, and multiples of them - each has 4 leveling effects which are generally RADICALLY different than one another, 1 Compulsion, and a list of spells that they grant.

The Medium has NOTHING without Spirits. A Summoner can still spam Summon Monster spells. A Sorcerer has their Bloodlines. A Cleric's has Domains which grant effects and have Channeling. A Druid has Wild Shape, healing, and an Animal Companion. An Inquisitor has Judgments and other out-of-combat effects. An Alchemist has Bombs, Poison Use, and Discoveries. An Investigator has Studied Strike. The Hunter has an Animal Companion and according effects with it. The Bloodrager has its Bloodrage and Bloodline Abilities. The Warpriest has its Sacred Weapon, Sacred Armor, and as many Feats as a Fighter. The Bard has Bardic Performance and other group-hug effects. The Ranger has its Combat Styles and an Animal Companion. The Witch has Hexes. The Oracle has Curse and Mystery powers. The Shaman has Hexes and 1 Spirit to grant special abilities. The Paladin has their Mount or Favored Weapon, Lay on Hands, Channel, and Auras.

Even the Magus gets some Bonus Feats, albeit that the Magus is the most spell-centric class yet devised.

And besides ALL of this, because of the way that Influence functions, you have to constantly trade out Spirits, switching them in and out like a 1920s telephone operator, meaning that you CAN'T really have those 1 or 2 "go-to" spirits without handing your Character over to the DM every few in-game days.

[Reeven]

The Binder from 3.5 and its translation to PF, the Occultist from Radiance House, also offer a large selection of spirits to bind. The Binder is remembered as a great class and a very effective swiss army knife.

Why is the Medium offering 54 Spirits a problem compared to the selection of a Binder's Vestiges?

[Milo v3]

How is any of the new systems big compared to a wizard? Wizards have tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of spells they could potentially have, any of these classes is a tiny drop of water compared to the ocean of content wizards pick through.

To make a proper comparison you would have to ignore the spirit and wild talent pages, otherwise you would have to count each page that has a spell for wizard.

[chbgraphicarts]

It's not the 54 Spirits... well, it partially is. There were 32 Vestiges originally (same number as Domains), vs. 54 for the Medium; 28 pages for the Medium,

It's also the fact that the Binder had better saves (2 strong, instead of just 1).

Pact Augemntation did the "you get a buff" effect for you, so that Vestiges were just ability-granters, not stat-granters.

Binding was also simpler. True, the ritual of Summoning and Binding were pretty in-depth, but they were written out to explain what happens if you attempt to Bind in Combat, and the entire process (if I remember correctly) take 5 minutes per Vestige.

You had lv1-lv8 Vestiges, and anyone could summon and bind them: Paladin/Binder wants to summon Acererak? NO PROBLEM! Better just make sure you suppress his Influence or else you might have to switch to Antipaladin for the things he'll want you to do.

And when I say "Binding was Simpler" I also mean that Multi-Binding was simpler.

"You want to bind Acererak and Aym? Great! Here ya go - have at it, you wacky, wacky thing you! And you're either going to have to act according to the Influences of one or the other or both if you don't Suppress each one's Influence!"

See how easy that is? You bind 4 Vestiges, you get all their abilities together. No "you get this, from the primary, this from the secondary, this from the tertiary"; you just get ABC and XYZ. If you fail, you just get the Influences of those 4 for 24 hours.

You also have to make checks against their Influence, but there wasn't any "Influence Build Up" or nonsense like that. You summon Orthos and want to Bind him? Cool! Make your check to see if you do so correctly. You didn't!? Oh, well, here's what you have to do for the day, but at least you can keep playing your character!

That's the other thing: Vestiges never lost you control of your character. You always had your sheet in front of you; you were just compelled to do things that your alignment might not usually permit, or were compelled to complete tasks in a manner no really worse than a Quest or Geas effect.

[Orthos]

*poof* ... dangit I knew this would happen one day when I picked this name.

[Seranov]

I'm really just not sold that it's so difficult. You make a list of the combos you have (once you've picked your first few spirits, this is a VERY short list compared to the 54 options you'll start with) and then you just keep a cheat sheet. My Medium has 5 spirits at level 6, and really only the intention to use two of them at any given time (Beating + Bear to fight stuff) and will Trance into the others for their bonuses.

Additionally, you NEVER have to lose control so long as you don't try to push yourself beyond your normal limits. You can always Trance some of your other spirits if you want a boost without going over 3 influence in your main spirits. I also doubt many DMs are actually going to take control of the character, instead of just telling you to 'wander in a circle' or 'eat all of your trail rations' or 'headbutt a wall' or 'hide behind the sorcerer' or whatever the compulsion would have you do!

[chbgraphicarts]

What I proposed, in the main Medium thread, was:

d8 HD, 3/4 BAB, 4+Int Skills, 6/9 casting, Spells Known equal to a Bard.

You have access to a number of Spirits equal to your Cha Modifier. Those Spirits have to be within 1 step of your Alignment.

You can Trance for a number of Rounds per day equal to 2+Cha, and 2 more rounds for each level beyond First; they don't have to be consecutive.

When you Trance, it's a Move Action to initiate, and a Free Action to keep active.

When you enter a Trance, you choose a Spirit to equip, and you gain its abilities. You also gain a Spiritual Bonus to its governing stat. The abilities and Bonus go from Lesser & +2 at lv1, to Minor & +4 at lv7, Major & +6 at lv13, and Supreme & +8 at lv20.

At the end of the Trance, you must perform the Spirit's Compulsion for a number of rounds equal to 2x the number of Rounds you were in the Trance, and take penalties due to distraction until you do so.

On top of these, you gain either Control or Turn Undead as a Bonus Feat depending on your alignment, and may activate it a number of times per day equal to 1/2 their Level (minimum 1)

You also gain an "Undead Empathy" ability, which is identical to the Ranger's Wild Empathy but for Undead creatures (with the -4 applying to intelligent Undead the same way it's applied to Magical Beasts with Wild Empathy).

Finally, there'd also be a Feat, "Dual Vessel," which would let you equip 2 Spirits at the same time; the trade-off would probably be that you must perform the Influences for 4x the number of Rounds for each channeled Spirit, or that you take a penalty to saves or something.

---

There, see? Simpler design, retains most of the Spirits' content, and the class is more versatile since it has spells to back itself up.

It also leaves more design space to further flesh out the class into something other than "I am my options", much like how the other spellcasting classes have been handled.

---

Heck, you could even do away with the "you only know X number of Spirits" and replace it with an escalating ability that lets you summon some spirits a day (10+Cha at lv20 is still way too many; sticking closer to the Binder, 3 at lv1, +1 at lv5 and every 5th level thereafter would still give you plenty of options, while being simpler).

[Seranov]

Simpler, yes. At the cost of being super restricted in what you can do with it.

I definitely believe Medium should have strong Fort and Will saves, and 6th level spellcasting, but I absolutely disagree with the concept that you should never be able to get new Spirits or that you can't meaningfully combine them. THAT is where all the interesting mechanics of the class lie.

[chbgraphicarts]

Then it should just be that you get the effects of spirits equally, drop the Influence Amount, drop the Spells Granted (meaning the class has its own Spells Known list), and probably drop the Alignments.

Again, look at the Binder Class and see how it handled things: each Vestige just flat-out gave you "such and such" abilities, and the higher the Level of the Vestige, the stronger and more abilities it gave; it didn't bother with spellcasting, so no granted spell (though I'm in favor of the Medium having spells); you didn't track Influence, you just made a check when you tried to Bind it; Binding multiple Vestiges gave you ALL of their abilities combined, without having to do any gymnastics; you got buffed purely on the number of Vestiges you have, and you choose which buffs you get, regardless of the Vestiges you choose.

Oh, and let's not forget the fact that there was no "Trance" nonsense - you just got the abilities of the Vestige for 24 hours straight if you made a successful Bind.

Along with there being physically lesser Vestiges initially, how they interacted with the class was simpler, more straightforward, and actually required less active bookkeeping.

The problem the Medium has is that it tries to do too much at the same time, and falls flat at doing anything. For a class that is supposed to "fill whatever roll the party needs" it.

Complexity doesn't automatically mean something's "good" and simplicity doesn't automatically mean something's "bad" - it's about finding the happy medium between where something has plenty of options, but is easy to use without having to constantly have your nose to the paper making notes.

[Dolarre]

chbgraphicarts wrote:

What I proposed, in the main Medium thread, was:

---

There, see? Simpler design, retains most of the Spirits' content, and the class is more versatile since it has spells to back itself up.

It also leaves more design space to further flesh out the class into something other than "I am my options", much like how the other spellcasting classes have been handled.

---

Heck, you could even do away with the "you only know X number of...

With all do respect - please no.

I don't want to be a medium only a few rounds each day. I want to have spirits granting powers and whispering in my ears all the time.

I don't want the constant table arguments that 30+ paladin codes of honor will start when I'm mechanically forced to temporarily role-play influence after every encounter.

I don't want to be tied to only spirits close to my alignment. I want to play with fire and be torn spiritually in two when ridden by LG and CE in turn.

I don't want to be yet another spell caster with a few cool abilities. Please, don't we have enough of these already - 4 in this playtest alone. Don't make it 6/9 caster please! 4 levels of casting is just the right amount of spice, and I love how the spells known are tied to the spirits.

Complicated? I don't just not mind . . . I LOVE it! This was a class designed for my resource-managing obsessed, ADHD, borderline OCD, oh so easily bored heart. I think I see a class with enough internal consistency to feel like the same character for 20 levels (something I never get with a traditional spell caster), but enough internal variety to keep me mechanically interested for the entire time.

There are problems, but don't gut the heart of the mechanics. The class seems perfectly conceived to me. If it is too complicated for some, let them skip it. They have 30+ other choices that appeal to them.

Let me have just this one!

[Orthos]

I'm with Joey. I love the Medium mostly as is - it's a bit rough around the edges, sure, but that's what playtesting is for. I don't want it changed, and I definitely do not want the suggested changes.

The one thing I do agree with is to take a note from the Binder and scrap the "Primary/Secondary/Tertiary" thing and just plain say "you bond with this Spirit, this is what you get, no ifs ands or buts". And I slightly agree that the Influence thing as-is is clunky and troublesome, and agree - again - that handling it like the Binder with purely roleplay-effecting personality or behavior tweaks would be a more efficient method of handling it.

But everything else... no, thank you.

[Morgen]

I'd also like to vote against the simpler = better camp, especially when it comes to crazy things like new psionic stuff.

I can read the rulebook and make sense out of things just fine. I like math, I enjoy the process of figuring out things.

[kestral287]

I can see the complaints about the Medium, the closer I look at it. And I think there are efficient ways to simplify it without destroying the flavor.

But as-is the Medium might be the least new-player-friendly class out there, and if I wasn't using spreadsheets already I would certainly start for when I made a Medium. That just looks painful otherwise.

[Xararion]

I'm with Dolarre and Orthos on this, instead of making Medium just another 6/9 caster and have it invariably compared to bard with overly focused set of abilities (I mean, undead empathy isn't really going to be multipurpose thing.) I highly advocate taking page from the binders book.

I'm with the simplification process when it comes to contracting multiple spirits, just have them give their stuff to you without the complicated system of slots they currently have. But I do agree with CHB on the influence thing, cut that thing out, having to lose control of your character sucks for player and is work for DM, and thus has no positive side. So as a whole, I guess I stand in the middle ground.