So Distant Realms give us the Quintessentialist spiritualist, who summons an exemplar rather than a phantom. it is an upgrade and faster to summon but the spiritualist is crippled and takes 1d6 damage per round while using it.
Can anyone think of a way to make it a viable character? I love the convept but every way I look at it I can't find a way to make it playable (it really only seems usable for an NPC who is only expected a short shelf-life).
With fast healing you can last a bit longer - infernal healing, troll styptic, whatever. Still only rounds but more of them.
If you can spend the exemplar's hit points freely then effects that use those (the bloodbath spell?) might be unusually useful. Also tactics which would otherwise be suicidal. Maybe the reverse feint feat.
The exemplar can have a lot of skill points if the spritualist has a decent Int, and they're not required to be in the same skills as the spiritualist.
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This archetype is actually insane. Having the phantom use your base ability scores makes it far more powerful. The examplar still advances its ability scores as a phantom, so you can get very high ability scores very fast. On top of the the examplar still gets its emotional focus (with many of the DCs dependant on ability scores), and can steal your feats and equipment. And it has scaling DR! Pick up phantom ally at level 1, and then spend your next 4 levels in fighter to pick up all the feats you could want, and suddenly your phantom is basically more powerful than a vanilla fighter, and can respawn after death.
The only downside is that the powerhouse that is your exemplar is dependant on some poor bastard wiggiling a want of CLW to stay alive.
Edit: spelling
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I'm always happy when someone remembers that Phantom Ally exists. And this looks like an awesome use for it. ^_^
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If you want to be even harder on the poor bastard wiggling his wand of CLW, you could also pick up the Haunted archetype as well. The spiritualist can become nauseated to give the phantom the effects of enlarge person, and a bonus to its AC. Stack that with the anger emotional focus and your phantom is dealing damage two size categories up from normal. Just use it whenever you think your spiritualist can survive a few rounds without its wand and there aren’t many things that can stand in your way.
This seems to me like a pretty good NPC class but I've got a hard time picturing a PC using this class.
Its a shame because its SO DAMN COOL.
In regards to this build, my suggestion is to spend some feats on Iron Will, Familiar Bond, Improved Familiar, and Improved Familiar Bond [optional] (alternatively, spell focus knowledge, Eldritch Heritage: Arcane (Familiar), Boon Companion [optional], and Improved Familiar). In order to be a dependant indendant character, as you can rely on your Haunted Exemplar for combat and your Improved Familiar to hit you on the head with a Wand every few rounds.
Additionally, if you decide to get a fullly function familiar then you can also hand off those 4 feats to your Exemplar which will let your Exemplar toss it spells using deliver touch spells and share spells.
Hm, now this is a challenge.
Take three feats: Perfect Style, Endurance and Deny Death. You can now heal for 1d6 when successfully stabilizing. With a few traits and racial abilities (Near-Death Experience, Hard to Kill, Heart of the Wilderness, etc.) to give bonuses to those checks you should be able to just lie there dying for quite a long time.
Alternatively, 7 levels of Drunken Master will let you drink yourself in a stupor while your "better half" takes care of business. It's a big investment in levels, but thematically quite nice.
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Okay, I’ve come up with a bit of a sample build.
Human for the extra feat
Quintessentialist as our only archetype.
At first level pump your strength and con, bringing strength up to 20. Take spiritualists call as a feat to give your phantom +2 to strength whenever it’s summoned for 10 minutes (which will be the most of the time with this archetype). Take the Anger emotional focus and your phantom gets a +2 to strength again, and your slams deal damage up one size category.
Well done, Your phantom now has the strength score of a raging barbarian, and because you can feed your phantom your hit points when it’s near death, you have more hit points too.
Now let’s talk defence. Your phantom can steal your feats and armor, so armor proficiency feats will be very helpful in building up your defence (which will stack with your phantoms scaling natural armour bonus). What I would do here is take phantom ally and do some multiclassing to pick up the extra proficiency for free, but for anyone not wanting to stay pure spiritualist, sinking your second feat into medium armour proficiency is worthwhile. Buy yourself some chain mail and your phantoms AC is 18+dex bonus at level 1, and 20+dex bonus at level 2.
If you choose the multiclassing route, take a level in fighter and get yourself some full plate, and maybe even a tower shield if you really want to be defensive. A single level in that will nab you a bonus feat to make up for the feat you lost taking phantom ally, and your phantoms AC at level 2 is now at lest 23 if your dex is 10 (10+9+4+dex).
The final issue is the actual spiritualists survival.
CLW is on your spell list, so assuming the dice don’t hate you, you should never actually go down if you spend each turn wiggling your wand. When you can afford it pick up boots of the earth for fast healing 1, and try stay out of the way. In later levels you will have enough hp to actually contribute and do things other than suck on a wand, for for early game, just try look non threatening while your phantom handles it.
Just to put this all in one place,
Your phantom at level two will have 24 strength, 23 AC, two characters worth of HP, and two natural attacks with +7 to hit and 1d8+7 damage before power attacking.