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You can find several guides for both classes here.
As for opinions... I don't like the medium. You can't build for specific spirits because you never know which ones will be available day to day.
The spiritualist is just mediocre. It might as well be the weakest Summoner archetype, though it does have the occasional nifty thing.
Medium can be fun if you spec fully for Champion, but as Dragonborn put it, unless your GM has all of them available all the time, it is pretty lackluster. The mechanics are interesting, but be prepared to change a large amount of numbers whenever you switch what spirit you usually use.
I love the spiritualist - it has a lot of cool flavor to it, and the Phantoms have interesting abilities that you can build around rather cleverly. It also contains some cool archetypes: the Shadow Caller, which focuses on darkness, the Necrologist, which replaces your phantom with an undead, and the Phantom Blade, which really just changes the entire class into a Black Blade Magus using Psychic spells rather than arcane.
Spiritualist isn't mechanically very powerful, but it has an interesting focus on debuff abilities that other classes don't have. Some of the mechanics require a little more reading into (as the psychic classes do), but overall they work decently well together.
If you like the abilities of the Phantoms but don't like the spiritualist class, there is also the Id Rager, who uses them when he rages. If you do use this, note most of the phantoms only get all their abilities if they have a slam attack, so Id Ragers either need to acquire one or choose an emotion that doesn't have an ability that pertains to slams.
I don't like the standard Medium either -- but there are archetypes that take care of the location problem in various ways. I would consider playing one of those archetypes.
I see a fair number of spiritualists at my tables- we've banned both versions of the summoner, and even if we hadn't the spiritualist has much cooler flavor. I really need to learn to build one one of these days.
I find that the medium who is intending to be the Champion 100% of the time can be a competitive frontliner, but the novelty of that wears off. It's genuinely difficult to build one that is equally at home with every spirit, and still pull your weight in a party.
Most Mediums do well to focus on the Champion legend while adventuring or on the Archmage or Hierophant legend for item creation during down time. Other legends could be used if you have plenty of front liners but are short on some other critical role.
The Spirit Dancer gives you access to several ways to mix abilities from different legends if you select Archmage or Hierophant spells with durations measured in hours per level.
Spiritualist is pretty much a meme at the table i play, i love pet classes, so i keep making them just like the other 2, lets just say the poor class falls behind and is carried by the party every single time a fight starts.
In case you dont play with high optimizers, then i guess it could perform +- fine. If you do, get ready to fall behind.
In my games, Spiritualist hasn’t been a huge force in combat (solid due to unkillable body plus action economy), but outside it? Turns out “walk through walls/doors” is an amazing at-will utility ability at low levels.
I like the Part where "Protection from Alignment" wards against the Phantom in it's entirety as it's a summoned creature and lacks the ignores Protection from Evil clause of the Eidolon.
I like the Part where "Protection from Alignment" wards against the Phantom in it's entirety as it's a summoned creature and lacks the ignores Protection from Evil clause of the Eidolon.
Huh, missed that. Neutral phantoms get a nice perk there, then.
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The Fiend Keeper Medium is pretty damn cool as far as Mediums go. Great flavour, good power, tempting contracts and the ability to have any aspect available for channeling.
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As for opinions... I don't like the medium. You can't build for specific spirits because you never know which ones will be available day to day.
This isn't really how the spirit availability is meant to be interpretted and they released an FAQ just to show it.
You can very easily carry some items on you to ensure that you'll be able to create locations/situations relevant to each spirit.
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I think the Medium suffers from its design. There was a gross oversimplification that happened from playtest to release. I understand why it happened (Mark, you can consider this my quarterly poke about the Harrowed Medium player companion), but it was sort of an injustice to the class that the release version was not part of the public playtest. If the Harrowed Medium (the name they gave to the playtest version once the release version came out) ever comes out in a published book, it's probably the only class I'll ever play going forward.
Re: Spiritualist, I've seen a couple of the base class played, but the only archetyped one I've seen is my own Ectoplasmatist. Generally, people say that the spell list is on the weak side. I've felt pretty decent with my build, but I can see how it would not work so well with a caster focus + pet. Being able to full attack + cast buffs or damage boosts to the attack is pretty cool.
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As for opinions... I don't like the medium. You can't build for specific spirits because you never know which ones will be available day to day.This isn't really how the spirit availability is meant to be interpretted and they released an FAQ just to show it.
You can very easily carry some items on you to ensure that you'll be able to create locations/situations relevant to each spirit.
Well that is incredibly cheesy. What's the point of calling it "favored locations" if you can pull out a wand and channel the archmage, a holy symbol for hierophant, etc? All the FAW does is remove something.
Still, credit where it is due, Paizo made something playable. A rare FAQ/Errata indeed. XD
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In a home game a medium with crafting feats can be an incredible boon to the party in downtime.
In PFS I have enjoyed the fact that my medium is a pretty effective filler for party roles that might not be covered by the rest of the table. He isn't as good as a specialist in that role, but he does pretty okay. Medium, if you will.
Spiritualist I enjoy a lot more than summoner, if for no other reason that thematically they are more concise. I also like their spell list, there are a few early access gems hidden in there. Same is true for the medium actually.
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I've been looking at Medium and it feels a bit lacking in some places. Champion is just fine for a fightman style of play, but Archmage and Heirophant suffer from being 6th level casters without a backbone mechanic (like Spellstrike or Eidolons or Bardic Performance) to back it up. Guardian suffers from the problem of being a low damage 'tank' that won't make the enemies want to attack it, and Trickster feels like a discount Rogue.
Giving it a deeper look, Marshal feels like it has a lot of potential, but you have to dedicate yourself 100% to supporting the party and not getting much spotlight time yourself.
Spiritualists are a bit of a puzzle for me. Combat phantoms appear to lag behind animal companions and phantoms, at least with napkin math. Debuff phantoms seem nice but dedicating a signature class feature to free Dazzling Displays might get old, and even then your 6th level casting list might still fall behind. Bodyguard phantoms seem neat but I feel like a melee Spiritualist doesn't have quite enough brute force to make it work.
Then again, my next upcoming character is a buffer/support Spiritualist with a combat Anger phantom so I'll see how that turns out.
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As for opinions... I don't like the medium. You can't build for specific spirits because you never know which ones will be available day to day.This isn't really how the spirit availability is meant to be interpretted and they released an FAQ just to show it.
You can very easily carry some items on you to ensure that you'll be able to create locations/situations relevant to each spirit.
I'd disagree with the word "ensure." The FAQ states...
"a medium, either PC or NPC, should generally be able to access a legend if they can come up with a good conceptual tie between the legend and a location he can find or even set up himself."
"Should generally" is not the same as "always." To my mind, unless a clear and obvious favored location is available, the medium is likely, but not guaranteed, to channel the desired spirit.
I'd also note that the Fiend Keeper archetype lacks the Relic Channeler's language about not being dependent on location, so I would also argue that Fiend Keeper's don't always have guaranteed access to all their spirits.
I love them both!
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Medium is pretty good with Marshal and Champion, especially if you take a dip into Swashbuckler. You can support the party or become the main tank if needed depending on the party make-up. Heirophant and Archmage can be used to gain access to spells to solve problems outside of combat with feats, such as healing, debuff removal and travel.
Trickster is discount rogue, you'll almost never use it. Some of the Archetypes are pretty nice and thematic as well.
Spiritualist is pretty much nerfed summoner with different flavor, if for some reason your group, GM, or self couldn't mentally handle the class. Or forgot Druids and Hunters exist and did the same thing (People complain about specifically)long ago with Dinosaurs or Big Cats. It has a few nice tricks but I havent had the urge to play one that badly.
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As for opinions... I don't like the medium. You can't build for specific spirits because you never know which ones will be available day to day.This isn't really how the spirit availability is meant to be interpretted and they released an FAQ just to show it.
You can very easily carry some items on you to ensure that you'll be able to create locations/situations relevant to each spirit.
I'd disagree with the word "ensure." The FAQ states...
"a medium, either PC or NPC, should generally be able to access a legend if they can come up with a good conceptual tie between the legend and a location he can find or even set up himself."
"Should generally" is not the same as "always." To my mind, unless a clear and obvious favored location is available, the medium is likely, but not guaranteed, to channel the desired spirit.
I'd also note that the Fiend Keeper archetype lacks the Relic Channeler's language about not being dependent on location, so I would also argue that Fiend Keeper's don't always have guaranteed access to all their spirits.
Considering you can make your own connections, if you talk with your GM you can easily bring items that will allow you to create a location/situation that will allow access to whichever spirit you need.
Read a spellbook and surround yourself with scrolls for the mage, soar with the party martial while trading form advice for martial or champion, spend time meditating while reciting/reading holy texts for hierophant.
It's very easy to make a connection to any of the spirits in a flavorful way so that you should be able to access them any time.
you should be able to access them any time.
Hopefully not being too pedantic, but the FAQ says you can "generally" access them, not access them "any time." I think there is a difference between these two statements. Personally when I'm GMing, I give mediums a 5-in-6 chance of accessing a spirit if they're not in a clear and obvious favored location and thus having to do some degree of improvisation.
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That's not what the FAQ says though. Giving them a random chance is a houserule. The FAQ says you can make your own thematic locations/situations.
should generally be able to access a legend if they can come up with a good conceptual tie between the legend and a location he can find or even set up himself. For instance, a medium could go hunt a deer and then use that location to channel a champion spirit of a legendary hunter.
So yeah, If I don't have a good tie to the place I might not be able to channel the spirit. But I can easily bring things with me that will allow me create a thematic location anytime with a little creativity.
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Generally have access to spirits is similar to how wizards should generally have access to their spellbook and how clerics generally have access to their God.
Things that CAN be TEMPORARILY removed by a certain plot thing. Like being bound in jail with no gear, but that on a normal basis are available.
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The Spiritualist is like a Hunter with a necromantic reflavor and a pet that's less beatstick and more utilitarian. Pretty cool, reasonably effective in most situations. Solid middle of the road class.
The Medium can be neat, but struggles a bit in its design. The class is versatile, but can only leverage that versatility on a day to day basis, which can often just make it feel sorta weak instead.
In theory you can change every day to meet the needs of the adventure, but in practice between unpredictability and the rest of your party's roles you're often just gonna spend most of your time as a magical fighter and the other spirits are relegated to gimmicks and downtime.
Luckily, Champion Medium is actually pretty fun and reasonably strong. So it's not the end of the world, just often not exactly what was advertised.
Generally have access to spirits is similar to how wizards should generally have access to their spellbook and how clerics generally have access to their God.
Things that CAN be TEMPORARILY removed by a certain plot thing. Like being bound in jail with no gear, but that on a normal basis are available.
A good example of this is 7-12 A Twisted Circle.
Generally have access to spirits is similar to how wizards should generally have access to their spellbook and how clerics generally have access to their God.
Things that CAN be TEMPORARILY removed by a certain plot thing. Like being bound in jail with no gear, but that on a normal basis are available.
My last comment will be a rhetorical question - if mediums can access any of their spirits at any time in any place, then what is the point of the Relic Channeler archetype?
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My last comment will be a rhetorical question - if mediums can access any of their spirits at any time in any place, then what is the point of the Relic Channeler archetype?Generally have access to spirits is similar to how wizards should generally have access to their spellbook and how clerics generally have access to their God.
Things that CAN be TEMPORARILY removed by a certain plot thing. Like being bound in jail with no gear, but that on a normal basis are available.
I’ll answer anyway. It’s for people who would like to trade flexibility for larger benefits. By cementing various selections, you get twice as many. Also, “if the class doesn’t have this flaw, then this archetype would be flawed” isn’t a very strong argument. Bad or niche archetypes aren’t rare.
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Because it gets abilities that play around it being bonded to specific objects such as the Occultist's object reading, is flavored to be channeling the same spirits each time that are specifically tied to those objects, and gains special abilities because of their ties to those specific spirits/objects.
My last comment will be a rhetorical question - if mediums can access any of their spirits at any time in any place, then what is the point of the Relic Channeler archetype?Generally have access to spirits is similar to how wizards should generally have access to their spellbook and how clerics generally have access to their God.
Things that CAN be TEMPORARILY removed by a certain plot thing. Like being bound in jail with no gear, but that on a normal basis are available.
The same reason there's an archetype for wizards to use a familiar instead of a spellbook. Or for clerics to not need a god for their powers. Or a shaman that doesn't need a familiar but uses their ancestors.
A little fluff change for the most part with some minor mechanical effects.Like the relic channeler could get a champion in that super peaceful village mentioned before.
But like 90+% of the time there's no difference between the choices.
And as pointed out, they get more benefits and other trades like they can't channel a weaker spirit while normal can.
Spiritualists can make amazing scouts in dungeons, their phantom can take on incorporeal form and pass through most doors / walls, assuming they are not super thick.
A Spiritualist with a Lust Phantom can make effective Tanks with their Alluring Presence ability, forcing attacks and harmful spells to target the phantom with an easy to make Diplomacy check.
Medium... is a good full BAB character, basically. Fits in with paladins and rangers.
It isn't exactly one, but the bonuses are enough so it can compete after you consider the difference in ticks for power attack. The extra attack and the pseudo pounce are enough to make up for the slight lack in that area.
Yes- you usually focus on champion spirits. It is hard to have both effective melee stats and also have a high enough casting stat to justify going pure caster some days (as seen with archmage)- the fact that arch mage actively clashes with your other equipment makes it hard to use on a regular basis.
Usually, a medium just settles into using either the champion or the heirophant most days (heirophant is important since a lot of great cleric spells are 'occasionally' things, such as raise dead; also, they are good enough at buffing to still use your melee build).
Champion is also the easiest spirit to actually use- the FAQ explicitly gives an example for summoning champion spirits that makes it possible to use them pretty much anywhere- you can summon the spirit over the last place you had an encounter yesterday, or you can just use a basic survival check to get food to hunt an animal to make your own 'scene of violence'.
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You know, this is just like, my opinion, man. But as a GM I'd use that FAQ and a reason to GUARANTEE that my Medium players have access to a couple of Spirits each day. Minimum one. I would feel like a "no fun allowed" kind of guy for going out of my way to deny functionality to a class that already has a bit of a bad reputation for bwing subect to GM fiat.
Fun Facts: Nonlethal damage is only a -4 to hit and everyone should definitely have consider having Cure Light Wounds wands by second level. It is very easy to turn any place into a "place of violence" between willing player characters.
Just remember, the safe word is "Peppers."
A good example of this is 7-12 A Twisted Circle.
** spoiler omitted **
I've had a ton of fun with Medium (and actually favoured Marshal, not the usual Champion spirit that everyone seems to always mention.
Had a good time, did lots of support stuff, party found me useful.
Biggest trick to playing a Medium isn't about what you build, though: Just embrace the class! Don't be a whiney crybaby when your spirit of choice isn't available. Don't drop the whole class just because some things might not be perfectly available to you at all times. Play the class. Finding the right spirit for the job is part of that, and adapting when you are, say, wandering through the desert and have to scrounge whatever spirit you can find? That's another part of it. If you can roleplay, you can handle it.
(If your GM's an actual outright jerk restricting you just to restrict you, and not for any story/challenge/fun reasons, okay, maybe try a different class and come back to Medium with a GM you trust.)
Spiritualist, I haven't actually tried yet. Am building one for an upcoming campaign. A cheerful Kuthite with her more orthodox uncle for a fear phantom, always trying to push her to be a more traditional worshipper of their god.
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I’m a huge fan of the medium. Part of that, though, is that i’m a rather large opponent of the (often seen) school of thought that one has to optimize in pathfinder.
You don’t need an 18 (or 20!) str at 1st to be a melee. You don’t need 18 in ANY stat, for any class, to be Completely Viable in pathfinder.
All to often, people make comments about how combats shouldn’t last more than 4 rounds, tops. Sure, if all you are wanting to do is play rocket tag. If that is the style of play you want, that is fine. But it is NOT the ‘correct’ style of play. It is ‘A’ style of play. No one should ever be pressured into adopting that style, yet time and time again that is what suggestions and complaints come down to, on these boards.
Is the medium an optimal character class? Probably not. Can it be a fun, perfectly viable, and useful character? Absolutely.
From what I understand, the Medium as it is today isn't what it was originally conceptualized as. Apparently, it was closer to the Spirit Dancer, in that you would have been able to toggle spirits throughout the day, making for a more multi-tool-style class.
As it is, though, I like the Medium. I played one in a Kingmaker campaign and had a lot of fun. Others are correct in that the Champion is pretty much the only Spirit you can optimize around, but if optimization isn't your table's thing, then it's fun as heck!
I also played a Spiritualist and had almost as much fun. The Phantom is definitely a bit underwhelming as a companion, especially when compared to the Summoner. The big seller for me, though, is the spell selection - if your group doesn't have anyone willing to play a Cleric, the Spiritualist will more than fill the gap with its ability to remove statuses, ability damage, etc. They're not quite as efficient at healing, but they have that too. They're definitely the "Clerics" of the Psychic casters.
Would a Spiritualist taking a Kindness Phantom who invests in "additional traits" for Helpful and some other Aid Another trait (Kin Guardian maybe?) and then invests feats in Combat Reflexes and Bodyguard be fairly viable? I imagine the Phantom would stay incorporeal pretty much constantly, but the viability of this is going to depend a lot on the rest of the party.
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From what I understand, the Medium as it is today isn't what it was originally conceptualized as. Apparently, it was closer to the Spirit Dancer, in that you would have been able to toggle spirits throughout the day, making for a more multi-tool-style class.
...sorta. That was one ability, but it still started with daily "attunement" to a number of spirits based on the Harrow Deck. You could Trance a few times per day to increase the powers of an existing attunement or get the lesser power of any other spirit known. At higher levels, you would be channeling up to 4 spirits all day with varying power levels impacting you dependent on the priority order and almost all of your class features were dependent on the spirits chosen and the priority order, with the ability to elevate one or add a 5th.
It was a marvelously complicated class and I want the complete version badly.
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From what I understand, the Medium as it is today isn't what it was originally conceptualized as. Apparently, it was closer to the Spirit Dancer, in that you would have been able to toggle spirits throughout the day, making for a more multi-tool-style class.
...sorta. That was one ability, but it still started with daily "attunement" to a number of spirits based on the Harrow Deck. You could Trance a few times per day to increase the powers of an existing attunement or get the lesser power of any other spirit known. At higher levels, you would be channeling up to 4 spirits all day with varying power levels impacting you dependent on the priority order and almost all of your class features were dependent on the spirits chosen and the priority order, with the ability to elevate one or add a 5th.
It was a marvelously complicated class and I want the complete version badly.
Actually, Cuup is correct from an even deeper dive into the class's history. The alpha medium, which never saw the light of day, had a stable of prepared spirits with one active (two at later levels) and many faces to switch between them on the fly whenever you wanted during the day, eventually as a swift action (same as the beta's trance action progression) based on whatever you were doing that round. I wanted it to be a jack-of-all-trades that switches spirits to handle various situations. When Jason requested the spirits be locked in on a daily basis, I upped the number of active spirits to go from 1 to 4 and adjusted a bit to handle. Many of the newer beta spirits wouldn't even work back with the alpha version at this point.
The spirit dancer brings back some of that flexibility, but it needed to have the rounds per day limitation to make up for the fact that each individual spirit legend in the modern medium is balanced as a singleton that doesn't swap.
From what I understand, the Medium as it is today isn't what it was originally conceptualized as. Apparently, it was closer to the Spirit Dancer, in that you would have been able to toggle spirits throughout the day, making for a more multi-tool-style class.
...sorta. That was one ability, but it still started with daily "attunement" to a number of spirits based on the Harrow Deck. You could Trance a few times per day to increase the powers of an existing attunement or get the lesser power of any other spirit known. At higher levels, you would be channeling up to 4 spirits all day with varying power levels impacting you dependent on the priority order and almost all of your class features were dependent on the spirits chosen and the priority order, with the ability to elevate one or add a 5th.
It was a marvelously complicated class and I want the complete version badly.
Actually, Cuup is correct from an even deeper dive into the class's history. The alpha medium, which never saw the light of day, had a stable of prepared spirits with one active (two at later levels) and many faces to switch between them on the fly whenever you wanted during the day, eventually as a swift action (same as the beta's trance action progression) based on whatever you were doing that round. I wanted it to be a jack-of-all-trades that switches spirits to handle various situations. When Jason requested the spirits be locked in on a daily basis, I upped the number of active spirits to go from 1 to 4 and adjusted a bit to handle. Many of the newer beta spirits wouldn't even work back with the alpha version at this point.
The spirit dancer brings back some of that flexibility, but it needed to have the rounds per day limitation to make up for the fact that each individual spirit legend in the modern medium is balanced as a singleton that doesn't swap.
Oh snap, I got Seifter'd™.
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Hooray I was correct by accident!
Both are mechanically uninteresting.
The Medium gives you the option of picking what poor mans version of an existing class you want to play each day but there you will still need to specialize so will almost always stick with one.
The Spirtualist could have been a very interesting Unchained/Vanilla Summoner archetype, making a class out of it was stretching things. Given the existence of the 3.5 Binder, if they had just mimicked that, with each spirit offering unique abilities, it could have been very popular.
the fact that each individual spirit legend in the modern medium is balanced as a singleton that doesn't swap.
That's the theory.
In practice a number of the Medium's options (especially the castery spirits) feel sort of nerfed for the fact that you can be something else tomorrow in a way that other day to day options aren't.
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Actually, Cuup is correct from an even deeper dive into the class's history. The alpha medium, which never saw the light of day, had a stable of prepared spirits with one active (two at later levels) and many faces to switch between them on the fly whenever you wanted during the day, eventually as a swift action (same as the beta's trance action progression) based on whatever you were doing that round. I wanted it to be a jack-of-all-trades that switches spirits to handle various situations. When Jason requested the spirits be locked in on a daily basis, I upped the number of active spirits to go from 1 to 4 and adjusted a bit to handle. Many of the newer beta spirits wouldn't even work back with the alpha version at this point.
The spirit dancer brings back some of that flexibility, but it needed to have the rounds per day limitation to make up for the fact that each individual spirit legend in the modern medium is balanced as a singleton that doesn't swap.
Now.. we just need a magic item (or possibly feat) to get extra dance rounds... It is far to few as it stands.
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Indeed, the real issue I have with the spirit dancer is that it's kinda unsuitable for channeling any spirit in case you're doing something that isn't naturally measured in rounds. Like if you're going to a fancy party, it'd be natural to channel the trickster so you can be up to snuff on dancing and etiquette, but if someone poisons the punch you might want to switch to the Hierophant, and to prevent a panic the the leadership acumen of the Marshall would be helpful.
I really wish we had a spirit swapping medium whose duration for spirits was measured in hours, rather than rounds.