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It is rare to medium well.
honestly i've seen too many medium puns for the class not be worth it even with how much it sucks.
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Unfortunately, I can't help with the original question... I've read the Medium a couple of times and couldn't wrap my head around it.
However..
The Medium is actually not that bad.
It's a little lackluster at being any one role, sure, but that's what you get when you're playing a Magical Substitute Teacher Class.
That being said, the Champion is really the one saving grace for the class while the other 5 Spirits are generally situationally-useful at best.
The Champion is actually quite strong, especially for a 3/4 BAB class, and looks like it'll be the default mode for most people.
I'd like to think the lukewarm reception of the Medium will serve as a cautionary tale to the Devs, however, and they'll rethink the direction they were taking with the Vigilante, considering that people are already saying the Vigilante and Medium are both trying to be too much at the same time, and the Vigilante is far WORSE than the Medium at that, since you're permanently stuck in just one mode with the Vigilante.
Like any class, the point of playing a medium is to choose a specialty, not generalize. Bards choose melee or ranged to be their primary mode of combat, and choose how intensely they focus on spellcasting and skills. Mediums are little different. A medium is obliged to choose at character creation whether he will focus primarily on melee combat or ranged, and on spellcasting or no. It's implausible to expect the class to be able to generalize as broadly as it is capable: you would not expect a bard to be a primary caster AND a tank AND a ranged threat (although it is possible to build it as such), you build it to be a melee team buffer or a ranged enchanter or whatever.
If you mean to be a melee combatant, prioritize Strength and Dexterity and focus on the physical legends. Pick feats for combat. If you intend to cover spellcasting holes, stack your Charisma, choose Archmage and Heirophant legends, and stay away from melee. Choose two legends to use most of the time, count on the static bonuses they grant rather than spirit surging your way through every encounter (taboos only take effect if you want them to, and you only start incurring influence penalties at 3 influence or more) and otherwise "play by the rules."
*shrugs* Some of the legends are pretty weak, I'll grant, and you'll never have the potency of a full caster, but the trade is fair to my eye. Even if you focus on melee, with primarily combat feats, you can then switch to the heirophant legend whenever your group's got downtime and in need of a healer or trickster when they need a skillmonkey for a day. Even if you focus on casting, with feats and ability investment toward that end, you can pull a quick switch to champion to become a capable melee combatant for a day (armed with a reach weapon, ideally), or pick marshal to make the primary combatants better at their job.
Medium's greatest strength is the raw flexibility of their legends. Their spirit bonuses are broadly focused, and if they're careful they'll never trigger their influence penalty. That alone is an unexpectedly strong ability. And the seance boon they grant their comrades should not be underestimated- a medium in the same party as another caster can make a healer's job far easier or make a blaster caster more potent just by convincing them to talk to the spirits with them.
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In Society play or with a very small party, I think you pick Charisma and one physical stat, probably dex, and play the "let's fill in the holes" game. Go ranged or maybe two-weapon fighting with the Champion spirit as your default, but you can go Trickster early on if the party is missing certain skills. After a few levels, I think the spellcasting becomes viable as well, particularly when you can gain influence to cast any spell on the list.
I don't think the medium specializes well, but Champion seems to be the way to go if you have a stable party and really want to be good at one particular thing only.
I see where you're coming from, but if the most reasonable way to play a medium is to pick a spirit and focus on it then wouldn't it have made more sense for the Medium to pick a single base spirit to specialize in and then gain additional spirits as they level (not unlike the Shaman)?
You'd have to ask the developers what their intent was. As-is, all I can offer is advice.
Don't get me wrong, I definitely see the strength in the static bonuses, especially if your party participates in the seance. The issue I have is that with the exception of the Champion and Marshall, I can't really see the bonus affecting more than one person on a given day and when it does it means you're hitting a redundancy. To use your example, if I've got a healer running around, turning myself into a healer and giving that other healer a boost now means we have two full healers. If the party needed a healer, then my boost isn't helping anyone but me most of the time.
So leave the healing to the healer, choose heirophant anyway, and pick utility or cleric blasting spells for divine surge. I see your point (and indeed, two blaster casters in a party would be quite redundant) but the ability to choose new spells for Archmage Arcana and Divine Surge every day cannot be underestimated, so the flexibility might be worth it even if it means only one person in the group is benefiting from the seance boon. If anything, the underwhelming one is Guardian. +1 CMD isn't exactly the stuff of legend, although the other abilities are a little better.
The only other way I could see any of this making sense (short of specializing in a single spirit and devoting all your feats to making it strong -- like being a channel focused hierophant healer) was if you could swap in other spirits temporarily during the adventure day in a reasonable amount of time.
Perhaps that's a nice idea for an archetype? Not sure what they'd sacrifice though. I like the medium as-is; makes it a challenge to play it well.
I'm currently playing a Half-Orc Reanimated Medium/Bloodrager, obviously focusing on the champion build and I really like it. I'm confused by one thing however, the influence penalty to caster level, does that effect all spellcasting classes or just his caster level as a medium?
I think that if you want to play a casting-focused Medium, then Heighten Spell is going to be a pretty important feat for you to get.
Yebng: Proooooobably all caster levels. Given that the benefits are so all-encompassing, it makes logical sense for the penalties to be as well.
Can you offset the penalty to CL by taking Magical Knack?
EDIT: Just saw that you cant benefit from caster level increase.
All in all, I really wish they'd playtested this, it doesn't quite hold together. I also really wish there was more feat support. One feat doesn't cut it. Something like Spirit Talker where you can switch your spirit for an hour would be awesome.
It at least holds together better than the original Medium. The planned 52-54 Spirits was... gargantuan, to say the least, and created a gigantic class that turned people off by its shear size.
It may have been more useful and wide-reaching for effects if the Spirits were pared down to 15 Spirits covering 2 Stats each, rather than just 1. Those options, though, may come later - Horror Adventures, with its emphasis on things like the Undead, may be the place where we get a whole new set of Spirits that make the Medium a powerhouse of usefulness.
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But, you're right - it isn't as nice and cohesive a Class as most.
The Medium, as-is, has a bit of the "all abilities aiming everywhere, mostly at fluff" dilemma that the Monk knows all too well. And as a whole, that leaves the Medium with not many perennially-useful bits, even WITH Spirits active.
The Unchained Rogue has abilities going all over, as well, but they're at least generally useful - trap detection & removal; protection against flat-footed & sneak attack effects; extra bonuses against Surprise attacks and vs Traps; Dex to attack and damage; unique tricks with skills.
Unfortunately, most of the Medium's abilities are far-more situational: detection & removal of Haunts is just-as or more pick-and-choose applicable in a campaign than the Rogue's Trapfinding; Location Channel is kinda like Speak with Dead, but again is sorta up to DM discretion and situational even then.
Contact Other Plane and Astral Projection are REALLY nice abilities, but unfortunately may come on-line far too late.
If a Medium kept the Haunt-based effect, expanded to 15 Spirits, had Lesser Astral Projection for minutes/level earlier (at like lv5), and had a Channel-like ability to combat Undead other than his Spirits, then I think it would have proven a significantly-more-useful class.
Maybe there'll be a big Archetype in Horror Adventures that does exactly that, and it'll be the Invulnerable Rager for the Medium, but we'll have to wait and see.
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I can imagine the 50+ spirit version being even more troubled, yeah. Too bad they didn't figure that out before sending it for playtest.
I'm okay with the hodgepodge of other class abilities like Channel Haunt, but the core abilities (Spirit abilities, boons, bonus, surge, and seance) should make sense and make for an interesting, balance build that bring something to the table.
I can't imagine anyone ever even made a level 10 Archmage or Heirophant focused Medium and said "I do X better than <similar class>" or "I bring this cool thing to the table." I feel like one session of playing a level 10 Medium (or getting some playtest feedback) would have helped a lot here. At least a Medium other than Champion. I don't think an archetype can fix this without whole hog re-writes of some of the spirits. Maybe if they're very focused and stack with each other to basically re-write the class?
There can be additional spirits written for the class as pseudo-archetype options that you can mix and match as long as they don't both replace the same spirit. For example, one that gives you some Kineticist abilities or Magus abilities (like Spell Combat and/or Spellstrike) that replaces the Archmage spirit (either one could be the go-to choice for the combat-focused Medium when he wants magic or wants to take advantage of an elemental vulnerability common to the area). You could have your different spirits be able to draw on what you specialize in in different ways (for example, the aforementioned martial-focused Medium could replace the Hierophant with a spirit more Paladin- or Inquisitor-inspired than Cleric-inspired). They could even write different spirits themed off of different monsters (an Aboleth spirit focusing on mind-affecting effects and especially charming/domination, a Cyclops spirit focusing on divination effects possibly akin to the Sensate Fighter, etc.) or different energy types or elements (Fire, Cold, Electricity, Acid, Sonic, Force, Positive, and Negative?).
I think that if you want to play a casting-focused Medium, then Heighten Spell is going to be a pretty important feat for you to get.
Why is that?
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I have to say I didn't think much of the class til I built a natural weapon medium using the champion legend that has 5 primary natural attacks, possibly 2 secondary natural attacks if you plan it right, the ability to cast (haste as a second level spell) in full plate, and can forgo an attack to move and full attack. At level 11 DPR of 92.9 vs CR appropriate AC, plus everyone who participates in the morning seance gets a +2 to damage rolls.
That's not too bad, plus you still get some pretty awesome spells like the previously mentioned 2nd level Haste. I don't think I'd build around adventuring with any other spirit, and the favored locations really needs to be fixed, or elaborated on for things like PFS, but it doesn't look like a bad class to me anymore. It just doesn't seem to live up to the promise of being able to take on many roles and be good at them all though.
I think that if you want to play a casting-focused Medium, then Heighten Spell is going to be a pretty important feat for you to get.Why is that?
Two reasons:
1.) It allows you to use your save-or-suck spells with higher DCs.
2.) You normally would only have 1 spell you could cast with your 5th and 6th level slots.
I suppose grabbing some other kinds of metamagic would also work, but Heighten just stood out to me because of reason 1, mainly.
You can always just cast your lower-level spells from the higher spell slots. You lose a point or two of DC, but you retain your move action and you haven't set a feat on fire. Actual useful metamagic feats are a better investment.
You can always just cast your lower-level spells from the higher spell slots. You lose a point or two of DC, but you retain your move action and you haven't set a feat on fire. Actual useful metamagic feats are a better investment.
Can you do that? I thought that you could only cast spells with slots the same level as the spell you are casting.
I have to say I didn't think much of the class til I built a natural weapon medium using the champion legend that has 5 primary natural attacks, possibly 2 secondary natural attacks if you plan it right, the ability to cast (haste as a second level spell) in full plate, and can forgo an attack to move and full attack. At level 11 DPR of 92.9 vs CR appropriate AC, plus everyone who participates in the morning seance gets a +2 to damage rolls.
Where are you getting 5 natural attacks from? 3 from racial (Tengu?) and two from others?
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The Medium seems to be unplayable except in certain campaign situations due to the location clause. I "get" the flavor behind it, but I think its an unnecessarily harsh restriction on the class's abilities. I feel that the mechanism would have been more interesting if it functioned more like the 3.5 Binder, where only certain powerful but niche spirits needed a very specific location to bind them in.
And even then you could still use a feat to bypass said location clause.
Instead, if the Medium could, say, gain an errata granting the explicit ability to spend an hour to create a makeshift shrine for the Hierophant or construct a training dummy for a Champion spirit, etc etc, that would address the issue for me. Less extreme than having to find a library or a battleground.
It seems that if I wanted to play it in PFS or a non-suitable campaign setting, I'd have to take Relic Channeler every time to ensure access to my spirits.
Alternatively I would say at least the Champion can be bound in "places of violence", so at least after the first day of adventuring you're guaranteed to be able to bind a spirit!
Mark I believe commented that those locations are just options and that all spirits can be found all over, or something like that.
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I have to say I didn't think much of the class til I built a natural weapon medium using the champion legend that has 5 primary natural attacks, possibly 2 secondary natural attacks if you plan it right, the ability to cast (haste as a second level spell) in full plate, and can forgo an attack to move and full attack. At level 11 DPR of 92.9 vs CR appropriate AC, plus everyone who participates in the morning seance gets a +2 to damage rolls.Where are you getting 5 natural attacks from? 3 from racial (Tengu?) and two from others?
I went tiefling for a strength build with claws, though it wouldn't be hard to make a dex based medium with tengus, catfolk or ratfolk, or strength or dex for changelings, or any character willing to take 2 levels of ranger.
So a tiefling with the claws alternate racial ability channeling the Champion spirit. The level 11 build has 2 claws (racial), 1 claw (Sudden Attack), Bite (Ring of Rat Fangs), Gore (Helm of the Mammoth Lords), 2 hooves (monstrous extremities). Getting the hooves usually requires that you channel the archmage the day before adventuring, but if you can do so, cast the spell twice before you go to sleep with a lesser rod of extend, then after waking up and performing your seance, you still have ~7 hours of secondary natural attacks.
It's an item heavy build, but all of them are affordable at mid level. Also it doesn't do great against DR, but there's plenty of room to budget for special material weapons to 2 hand when need arises.
I've been playing a medium for awhile now (she's currently 14th level) and I've been enjoying the class quite a bit. It's got some really interesting flavor and some neat tricks to it. I haven't focused on any one spirit; I've been using most of them relatively equally (although the guardian hasn't seen TOO much use as of yet).
The medium seems to me to be a sort of jack-of-all trades class. You're not going to be a better blaster than the wizard, but the perk is in the versatility. Know that your party is going to be fighting undead one day? Channel the hierophant. If you're trying to sneak in somewhere? Trickster. And especially at higher levels, some of the spirit bonuses you can are pretty nice. The Legendary Influence and Spirit Focus feats are good additions as well. It's not the MOST powerful class, but it's certainly not a bad one.
I agree that the location requirements could be onerous if your GM isn't willing to be flexible on it. (I went with relic channeler so that's not an issue for me.) The other thing I wish is that they gave you more influence points to work with. At early levels, you can really only spend one point before you start taking penalities, before things like propitiation come into play. Though the taboos do help.
Another way that you can escape the favored location requirements is by going with the Spirit Dancer archetype. You are more flexible than a standard or Relic Channeler Medium but you have less stamina (as your ability to use any spirit related powers requires you to use up rounds of "Spirit Dance") and have to be more careful about incurring influence (as each point of influence is worth four rounds of "Spirit Dance").
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I have found the spirit dancer to be very flexible, and with spirit focus and the new spirit bonus improving medium armour from armour master handbook, you can get the spirit bonuses very high up there.
I have a halfling medium, weapon finesse and the champion spirit give me plenty to attack and damage, and the halfling fcb increases damage as well.
With the spirit dancer, ic an prebuff at the start of the day with some long duration buffs, extended through rod of lesser extend, then armor up and roll out with the champion for substantial accuracy, damage and fort save improvements. the class has a good will save base, which is great, and the dex based build makes up for the reflex save.
Then in skills, i can pop a round as the archmage or thief for knowledge (i flavor it as "asking the spirits"). Oh, and if i want to play more support, using the level 2 haste with the archmage from level 7 is great.
Overall, i think the spirit dancer is the strongest style of medium, but it can be heinously complex to run, as you have to make all decisions for all 6 spirits at the start of the day. Great fun and great flavor, one of my favorite 3/4 BAB combat builds.