So I've finally had a chance to sit down and take a look at the Medium class and while the class is interesting in concept, I'm not sure how someone would go about playing one.
From what I can tell, the class isn't very powerful nor would I expect it to be given it's intended versatility. What concerns me is whether or not it can fulfill those roles. It's possible that I'm being incredibly shortsighted but for some reason, the benefits of each spirit just doesn't seem like enough to fulfill a selected role.
How do you guys go about playing a medium? Any answers or suggestions would be helpful specifically:
What tactics are useful when playing a medium?
Are there any good feats that Mediums can make use of?
What archetypes, if any, do you guys prefer?
The simple answer is, you don't. Or at least hope your DM is very liberal in allowing you to find the required spirits you need.
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Use the Champion spirit for your everyday needs, and get Spirit Focus ASAP. You will be about as good as a fighter (pre Weapon Master's Guide, at least) at damage per round. None of the other spirits are really suited for everyday adventuring. Use Archmage and Heirophant during downtime for utility.
The archetypes have severe flaws that make them impractical. Kami Medium would be phenomenal if not for the fact that you need to be standing in a STORM each day to channel the Champion spirit. Relic Channeler would be nice if not for the fact that you give up all of your flexibility.
TLDR: You contribute to combat as well as a fighter, and are a flexible 6th level caster during downtime.
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Honestly, I haven't gotten a handle on how to play a Medium either. My biggest concern would be being able to find the requisite locations to summon the various spirit legends. With an overly restrictive GM, that could really bog down your character. Expect a huge amount of table variation w/ that one.
Two best ways around that (that I can think of):
a) Play an archetype like the Relic Channeler who brings their spirit legend foci w/ them. Or...
b) Choose one legend as your default and drag around your spirit legend location w/ you. For example, you can call forth the Hierophant spirit legend at any altar. Bring a small altar with you in your backpack that you can set up wherever you camp. That way, you'll always have access to at least one of them...
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I've asked a similar question before, and I think the recommended approach is to pick one or two spirits to focus on. The champion, for instance, makes a pretty decent melee medium, especially with the Spirit Focus feat, which increases your spirit bonus with one specific spirit. Between champion and the higher level trickster abilities, I think a weapon finesse medium could do pretty well.
For the caster side, I think hierophant is better for day to day adventuring, but the archmage has better utility, especially during downtime. The defender type one (I don't remember exactly what it's called) seems like the weakest, since Pathfinder generally favors offensive combat to defensive. Plus, granting heavy armor proficiency is kind of weak if you have to carry a set of super heavy armor everywhere and not always be proficient with it! Shield proficiency might be better to focus on with this one.
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You are probably going to have one spirit that is your primary role. For instance, I am focusing on the champion spirit. It gets some solid bonuses to damage and eventually an extra attack.
The trickster gives you full ranks in two skills of your choice, makes another skill a class skill (for you and allies) and applies it's bonus to all skill checks it makes.
Those are probably the most solid roles and can complement each other depending on your daily needs.
You are better off having a wizard and a cleric than trying to fill those roles, but you can support them and make a reasonable backup if you build that way.
I think the medium is a fine class but works differently than you'd expect. Instead of be able to do anything you really pick one of the spirits to be your main spirit that you use for main adventuring and maybe you can use the others in your downtime or if specifically needed. But the flexibility to do that is nice.
the "wizard" and "cleric" options are pretty rough to specialize in. If you're the caster then granting allies a +2 to damage spells or healing isn't useful since you're the one doing that role. Also the options of spells you know in a day are quite limited, but can change daily. The plus is when you do gain access to your personal spells you can cast them more often.
The Guardian I feel is lackluster but you do get DR like an invulnerable barbarian and you'll have pretty great AC and saves. You really do make a great tank. allied bonus isn't that great.
Trickster makes you really good at skills. And it's guaranteed flat-footed attack for your first attack against someone is pretty nice. allied bonus is pretty good cause you let them get a class skill for a day with a bonus to it.
The Marshal is a good supporting class. You're able to let your allies choose the boon they want each day. And you can add bonus to FAILED attack rolls, saving throws, ability checks, concentration checks, and skill checks. Notice the word FAILED, you never use this ability if it's not needed, and then you can decide if you think it'll make the difference or not. It's Inspiring Call isn't super useful when you get it and could be traded for extra spirit surges, but it does get better as you level.
The Champion is a great fighting class. With it's spirit bonus you're right up with any Martial class for your bonuses, and then you get the free extra full-bab attack at 6 so you're keeping up with itteratives of full-bab classes, then you still get yours at lv8. Plus you get a pounce like effect. And the allied boon is great, +2 damage is often useful for a fair amount of people.
The feat you need is Spirit Focus.
For archetypes the spirit dance is interesting because you can access all your spirits in a day, making you able to switch about if you need something.
Use the Champion spirit for your everyday needs, and get Spirit Focus ASAP. You will be about as good as a fighter (pre Weapon Master's Guide, at least) at damage per round. None of the other spirits are really suited for everyday adventuring. Use Archmage and Heirophant during downtime for utility.
Thanks for the link, it was helpful for getting a little more insight on the class.
From what I gather from everyone's responses, the medium is functional if a little incomplete. The class doesn't seem to have many unique options which I think a unique class like this needs. The class is of course relatively new, so I do have some hope that it will get some attention in the future but only time will tell if that actually happens.
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It has some neat alternate spirits in some or one of the Player Companion books that tie you to one particular legendary figure from Golarion's lore. I haven't actually seen them myself, but certainly it opens up some nice thematic options, as well as some ideas for customizing spirits for home games if you do a little homebrew.
Dot
By the way, I am not clear on something. Do the Hierophant and Archmage give you the casting progression of the classes they mention (with spells up to 6th level) or just the spell slot number for the levels you already have? I think the text indicates the latter, which strikes me as fairly weak.
You get the spell slot progression of a mesmerist of your level. The main benefit to those spirits is that you get to choose which spells you gain of each spell level every time you channel those types of spirits. Naturally this makes these spirits great to use for scroll crafting/other spells needed to complete tasks during downtime. They don't have a huge amount of use while adventuring unless you've a good idea about what to expect.
So... basically level 6 spells, right? Sorry if I am a bit dense about it.
Yes but only when you get to a high enough level. You get to pick a level 6 spell from the sorcerer/wizard list for Archmage or Cleric/Oracle for hierophant at level 16 since that's when a Mesmerist normally gets level 6 spells.
My usual build theory for the "jack of all trades" classes (bards/inquisitors primarily) is to pick 2 or 2.5 areas to be good at and letting the rest drop. Heavy-melee/face skills, archery/knowledges, skirmish-melee/outdoorsy skills, archery/support, whatever combination you like best, but some kind of combat is usually good to have in there.
I think this build theory would work well for the Medium, but I'd like to hear what you folks think. For the medium, this would also involve picking ~2 spirits to focus your build on, like Champion/Marshall, Archmage/Guardian, or Trickster/Hierophant. What do you think?
My usual build theory for the "jack of all trades" classes (bards/inquisitors primarily) is to pick 2 or 2.5 areas to be good at and letting the rest drop. Heavy-melee/face skills, archery/knowledges, skirmish-melee/outdoorsy skills, archery/support, whatever combination you like best, but some kind of combat is usually good to have in there.
I think this build theory would work well for the Medium, but I'd like to hear what you folks think. For the medium, this would also involve picking ~2 spirits to focus your build on, like Champion/Marshall, Archmage/Guardian, or Trickster/Hierophant. What do you think?
The issue with this is you can't do both in one day. So unlike the bard or inquisitor the medium only focuses on one thing if you focus on two different spirits since only one can be up.
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I think I would definitely prefer it if you didn't have to specialize in one or two spirits. The thing is, the concept of this classes function goes completely goes against the norm with this game system; Pathfinder rewards specialization. What I would like to see are feats that give you different bonuses depending on the spirit you choose on a given day. This would allow you to avoid specializing, hopefully without being overpowered since you would only get the benefit of one of the bonuses at a time.
@Chess Pwn:
Of course, but because you'll have ~3 party members helping you out in the average game, you won't have to worry about covering ALL the bases yourself. You'll probably only need to cover 1-2 areas, which will lead you to usually channeling the spirit appropriate for that area.
Example: your party consists of a melee-fighter, wizard, and melee cleric. As a medium, you can build to focus on support and archery (selecting appropriate feats, assigning your ability scores appropriately, getting the right gear, etc.). At the start of the average day, you won't know exactly what's the best spirit to channel, but channeling towards the strengths you already have (supporting your friends and archery) is going to be a safe bet. So you'll end up channeling the
Marshal and Champion the most.
But wait! The party has to infiltrate an evil cult to learn their secrets! Everyone else dumped Charisma, so its up to you to be the party face. Even though you may not have worked on your social skills, you can channel the Trickster that day to gain the additional skill ranks you need to increase your Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Disguise, and Bluff for the day.
Does that make sense? I'm not sure I explained this terribly well.
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I feel like the Medium is designed as the perfect PFS party member; whatever blatant hole that you'll inevitably experience with your constantly changing team is a gap the Medium can fill. The class's niche isn't as important (not important at all, even) in more conventional styles of play which makes it a little puzzling to put together.
What you say makes sense, but if you're going to focus on the Marshal AND the Champion you can only pick one per day, so for each day half of your focus is wasted. That's the problem with it compared to the other do it all classes. The other ones could focus on support and archery and do it both at the same time. The medium is either good at combat or good at supporting but not both for each day. How would you decide each normal day which spirit to channel?
What you say makes sense, but if you're going to focus on the Marshal AND the Champion you can only pick one per day, so for each day half of your focus is wasted. That's the problem with it compared to the other do it all classes. The other ones could focus on support and archery and do it both at the same time. The medium is either good at combat or good at supporting but not both for each day. How would you decide each normal day which spirit to channel?
I don't know, couldn't you be a good archer while channeling the Marshal? And vice-versa for the main two areas you focus on?
Choosing which spirit to use that day would either be a coin flip, use what the party's plan that day as guide (raiding a crypt? Channel the Hierophant), or take some simple divination (Augury would do the trick). Not idea, of course, but I don't think its too bad.
You can try archery, but you'd miss out a lot of effectiveness if you go marshal. It's missing out on scaling accuracy and damage and the extra attack at 6. So if the party was used to your damage going to martial will be harder. Also you're not proficient with a bow unless you're the champion. So you'd either have to have been an elf or half-elf for proficiency or burn a normal feat that only works when you want to be more supporty.
So you either go with a simple weapon instead of martial to be flexible or you focus on just champion and pick up a martial weapon plan.
As a rule, you don't. Medium is a incredibly mediocre as anything but a straight up fighter, though they can perform 'ok' in that role. It makes for a terrible generalist, despite the really cool underlying conception. I ended up doing a full rebuild of it here for my own purposes, though I cut a lot of the occult specific stuff because the book as a whole was just a bit too much for me in terms of bloat (less the fault of content, more the fault of timing late in the design cycle).
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I feel the marshal can be a great support character. throwing around extra bonuses to fail things to make the succeed. And I bet you could make an interesting build with the trickster because of it's lv6 ability.
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Combat Reflexes and a reach weapon may not be a bad way to go. Races with racial proficiencies like Elf, Half Orc and Tengu could be pretty good too when you're not channeling a Champion spirit.
...Also you're not proficient with a bow unless you're the champion. So you'd either have to have been an elf or half-elf for proficiency or burn a normal feat that only works when you want to be more supporty.
So you either go with a simple weapon instead of martial to be flexible or you focus on just champion and pick up a martial weapon plan.
Crap, forgot about the simple weapon proficiency. Well maybe not archer then, unless you're an elf, half elf, or willing to feat.
Combat Reflexes and a reach weapon may not be a bad way to go. Races with racial proficiencies like Elf, Half Orc and Tengu could be pretty good too when you're not channeling a Champion spirit.
Yeah, that'd probably be the build I'd go for.
I remember in the playtest that the different spirits granted bonus spells. I think including those would be a good way to the class. Thoughts?
Bonus spells aren't something I'm interested in mostly because extra casting for every spirit just doesn't feel right for me. While I'm sure you could give each spirit some thematic spells, I would personally prefer ways to fulfill each role without necessarily relying on spellcasting. I think bonus spells worked better for spirits associated with the Harrow in the playtest rather than the spirits we have now which are associated with the Mythic Paths. The Mythic Paths are also loosely associated with the 6 attributes (strength, dexterity, charisma, etc) which may be part of the reason I would personally prefer to avoid bonus spells.
I would be interested in hearing where the people who designed this class are planning on taking it in regards to releasing new material although I understand if they want to remain tightlipped about it. So far we've seen Golarion-specific Legendary Spirits for the medium but not much else apart from that.
The Medium is the only Paizo class that I struggle to work with. It feels clunky in that I have to reimagine the character once/day. That involves a lot of bookkeeping. To follow from what Jack of Dust said, I see lots of potential for archetypes to focus the Medium a little more, and I hope we see the class come into its own through those Archetypes.
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I have been steadfastly working on a Spirit Dancer Medium since the Occult Adventure's release. (Not to hijack the thread topic, but does anyone have any idea if the new legendary spirits work with this archetype? Haven't gotten my hands on the book yet.)
I think the Spirit Dancer works a little better than the stock Medium in terms of capturing the feel of the 3.5 Binder's ability to creatively combine their spirits' powers. It's unfortunate that your powers become tied to a rage-esque ability that you can run out of, and that you need to wait a minute to switch spirits, but the ability to abruptly gain arcane or divine magic, extra attacks and weapon proficiencies, or huge skill or AC boosts "on the fly" seems strong.
You do get a very limited number of arcane/divine spells "known", and they do share slots, but it's still a huge boost to be able to cast Mage Armor at the beginning of the adventure and Lesser Restoration when it ends.
If a given combat doesn't seem to need magic at all, a Spirit Dancer could just snag an extra attack, near-full BAB hits, Weapon Specialization+, and proficiency with a strong polearm.
I have been steadfastly working on a Spirit Dancer Medium since the Occult Adventure's release. (Not to hijack the thread topic, but does anyone have any idea if the new legendary spirits work with this archetype? Haven't gotten my hands on the book yet.)
I think the Spirit Dancer works a little better than the stock Medium in terms of capturing the feel of the 3.5 Binder's ability to creatively combine their spirits' powers. It's unfortunate that your powers become tied to a rage-esque ability that you can run out of, and that you need to wait a minute to switch spirits, but the ability to abruptly gain arcane or divine magic, extra attacks and weapon proficiencies, or huge skill or AC boosts "on the fly" seems strong.
You do get a very limited number of arcane/divine spells "known", and they do share slots, but it's still a huge boost to be able to cast Mage Armor at the beginning of the adventure and Lesser Restoration when it ends.
If a given combat doesn't seem to need magic at all, a Spirit Dancer could just snag an extra attack, near-full BAB hits, Weapon Specialization+, and proficiency with a strong polearm.
I like spirit dancer because it comes closer to my original vision of the medium, before even the playtest version, which involved having a set of those 54 spirits "ready" and swapping between them as a full-round action (which improved to better actions over levels). That one was determined to be way too complex in the way it comboed with itself and recalculated abilities, but it was very shiny. When I wrote spirit dancer, I figured I could get much of that back without too much protest since it was an optional archetype, rather than the base class, and it still isn't quite as frenetic as the original could be.
What do you guys think of additional options for Taboos out of curiosity? One thing I just noticed for the Trickster is that they can choose a Taboo so that they can never tell the truth. The shenanigans that could cause in your average uninformed party could be hilarious!
Actually the Medium as it is now (as opposed to the playtest) is much more similar to the old Chameleon PrC from 3.5 than it is to the Binder.
False, the chameleon was actually good at a variety of things, and passible at others. It could change focus several times a day. It could hold multiple focuses. It could boost a given ability score in keeping with a focus. Solid class. The medium is a gimp by comparison. I did draw heavily on the chameleon in my rework though, because it was the closest to a good generalist as 3.X ever produced.
I like spirit dancer because it comes closer to my original vision of the medium, before even the playtest version, which involved having a set of those 54 spirits "ready" and swapping between them as a full-round action (which improved to better actions over levels). That one was determined to be way too complex in the way it comboed with itself and recalculated abilities, but it was very shiny. When I wrote spirit dancer, I figured I could get much of that back without too much protest since it was an optional archetype, rather than the base class, and it still isn't quite as frenetic as the original could be.
Maybe make switching spirit take an hour or 10 minutes or something? That way you could change throughout the day, but not easily during combat.
I'd love an option to change spirits in a day but not during combat.
yeah I think it works.