| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think Sayre said 'real world traditions' but I don't recall the word Animism being used, and def not exclusively, if we're thinking of their post in 'what classes would you like to see'
My personal input for a Shaman/Medium is to have a trance mechanic, with lots of different trances you can pick up that offer their own small suite of spells not necessarily constrained to a single spell list, but that the Shaman can't do without being in that trance (which you have to collect via class feats, and would maybe have a class feature or two giving you a free one of your choice).
Then you can flavor each Trance to cover a slew of different thematic-- have some be animist spirits, ancestor spirits, more traditional gods, ghosts and phantoms, vestiges, angels, demons, aberrations, whatever. The limiting factor would be having to select spells in this package format with your character building resources, and the action cost (focus cost?) of switching between Trances. It would use Wisdom as its key stat, providing a unique answer to the Sorcerer and Witch, and would intentionally let you access a variety of flavors-- tropes about occult mediums, historical miko, animists, western-syncretized african diaspora traditions of religion and magic, manifestations of the collective unconscious, whatever.
The idea of entering a trance and being able to invoke 'something' with it actually transcends individual cultures, and makes a good mechanic for touching on a lot of ideas in one chassis, which I think is really desirable for a class, without reducing their differences-- since their differences are still encapsulated by what they invoke with the trances themselves. I think that's a big part of why this idea has captured my imagination so much.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Off the top of my head, I sort of picture like... a wave caster that can invoke a spirit to gain extra benefits. Instead of pick a list, I can see them gaining partial access to lists based on their benefits. Like, to draw comparisons to the PF1 Medium... you might be an Occult wave caster, but by invoking the Hierophant spirit, you can gain additional spell slots that you can use to cast Divine spells. Or instead you invoke the Champion spirit and you remain a very limited caster, but gain martial mechanics for the duration of the spirit's invocation.
The original medium was an Occult Charisma caster and I sort of see that making sense, dealing with and convincing spirits to work with you.
On the other hand, I really like the idea of potentially using this mechanical framework for a Divine caster too. As said above, there isn't a lot of mechanicall support for animistic belief systems in PF2... and some sort of Divine caster that can invoke different spirits to gain unique benefits touches upon that framework (it would also work well for someone taking a pantheistic approach to Golarion's existing deities, which is another thing PF2 doesn't support super well). I genuinely think something like that could be a lot of fun.
If you leave the framework a little vague you can cover a lot of new thematic space with a class like this. Basically, everything The-Magic-Sword said sounds amazing.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've said it elsewhere, but I can see a convergence between Shaman and Medium. More flexible theming is what I would want. Animism and/or Spiritualism.I believe Michael Sayre has said he wants to see the Shaman heavily reworked to be more reflective of real-world animist beliefs, which might drag it further from the Medium’s role.
I mean one of my day 1 wants that I still haven't really gotten a sniff of in official material is support for real world religious beliefs like animism, ancestor worship, a cycle of reincarnation, etc. which are also modeled on Golarion with things like Rivethun and Sangpotshi and various belief systems without big proper noun names found from the Steaming Sea to southern Garund to have options that parallel those of deific classes like Cleric and Champion.
Like I've been asking for this since the playtest.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What the issue with "fluff"? It is the squishy part that makes a teddy bear huggable.
Sure, lore is superficial, but only on the sense that any group can play in or tailor any setting without necessarily breaking the game.
| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
What the issue with "fluff"? It is the squishy part that makes a teddy bear huggable.
Sure, lore is superficial, but only on the sense that any group can play in or tailor any setting without necessarily breaking the game.
The issue with "fluff" is that the people who make the game have said they don't like it and have asked us to stop. We don't really need to debate it. Just nod your head and find a different word. There aren't really stakes here outside of "do a solid for some cool humans".
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
What the issue with "fluff"? It is the squishy part that makes a teddy bear huggable.
Sure, lore is superficial, but only on the sense that any group can play in or tailor any setting without necessarily breaking the game.
It's not how people are using it. It's not even any connotations that it may have elsewhere (I've not personally ever seen it having negative connotations in this context). It's that it makes the creative director personally twitch (metaphorical twitching, anyway), because of details of the etymology... which, honestly, I can respect. It's easy enough to use words like "lore" instead, and not cause the creative director to twitch. He, and Paizo in general, have certainly earned that level of respect. It's a personal politeness thing.
Also...
No need to be rude or humble, you can be nice and listen to what James has to say about that term and its use.
Thanks for the link. Putting it in context helped for me.
|
No need to be rude or humble, you can be nice and listen to what James has to say about that term and its use.Not trying to be rude or humble, but I can't find any negative context to the word fluff in RPG terms using google, every use I've found follows the definition on Role-playing_game_terms. "Fluff: The setting and ambiance of a game, as distinct from the rules/mechanics, particularly in reference to written descriptive material" as well as arguments over fluff vs Lore.
Thanks for putting that in context, as the only people who would get that context have read the new preorder listings comments in the last 10 days. I also agree that lore isn't inconsequential.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Personally, I prefer the term 'flavor' anyway, since 'crunch' sounds like a food term that's discussing texture-- so it makes sense to talk about other elements of it in terms of food as well. E.g. we're discussing the dishes texture (mechanics), we're discussing its flavor (lore and place in the game world.)
It also makes a lot of sense given the amount of 're-flavoring' going on and the prevalence of that term, a fantasy chip might have the same crunch, but be sour cream and onion shadow instead of jalapeno fey. As far as I know 'reflavoring' is a lot more prolific in the community than 'refluffing' anyway.
Does flavor work for everyone?
Whats everyone else's 'black licorice' bit of lore?
This should probably be as far as it goes not to derail the thread, but, Nocticula reads as black licorice to me.
Mmm.... I love jalapeño fae, but I think my fae-loving friend would have to object. She's more of a sugar-blasted cocoa fae type. Whats everyone else's 'black licorice' bit of lore? Okay no wait, this isn't really the thread for that but the point stands, flavour is an excellent word if you were already going for that 'fl-' phoneme.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I’d also balk at lore being ‘inconsequential,’ given that it’s the entire reason I’m here on these forums; mechanics don’t get me all that excited.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I mean, mechanics are meaningless without thematics, but thematics mean less without mechanics to back them up. These are not two things that should be viewed as separate, but two things that should work in concert to reinforce each other.
The whole idea that these things are separate or separable goes against the idea that we're attempting to construct a shared fantasy world that makes sense to everybody in a given game.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hence flavor and texture being essential qualities of pretty much every dish to at least some degree.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
All these Halfling/Gnome/Goblin Mediums in here with a Background in Criminal activities...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What I want is the Harrow-based medium. But if wishes were fishes...
I think the "Pick a Thing" during daily preparation feats that find in long lived ancestry feats could be a good starting point.
Ancestral Longevity, but make it increase in Proficiency as the Medium increases in level.
Maybe a feature that lets you retrain your Ancestry feat(s) 1 (2, 3 as you level up) at a time during daily preparation. Add some location flavor to the spirit and you can qualify for ethnicity prerequisites by being in a place where that ethnicity is common, but only let it last 24 hours so you have to be in that region to keep that access.
Depending on what weapon proficiency the medium would start with, grant it a feat or feature to acquire proficiency in a specific martial weapon during daily preparation, and let that proficiency advance as the Medium levels.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
At higher levels being able to project one of their spirits into someone else and control them.
I kind of strongly prefer that a medium's spirits only go where they are welcomed, and where the medium can prepare conditions to be attractive to them. A spirit riding a medium might misbehave, but only in ways that are predictable from the nature of the spirit in question.
That seems the most respectful way considering how the medium is thematically close to some real world people's beliefs.
|
|
Personally, I prefer the term 'flavor' anyway, since 'crunch' sounds like a food term that's discussing texture-- so it makes sense to talk about other elements of it in terms of food as well. E.g. we're discussing the dishes texture (mechanics), we're discussing its flavor (lore and place in the game world.)
It also makes a lot of sense given the amount of 're-flavoring' going on and the prevalence of that term, a fantasy chip might have the same crunch, but be sour cream and onion shadow instead of jalapeno fey. As far as I know 'reflavoring' is a lot more prolific in the community than 'refluffing' anyway.
Does flavor work for everyone?
I do like the idea using of flavor, but I see flavor as a little different. Lore is the ingredients and the stories on how and where the ingredients came from, crunch is the kitchen with the tools to make some thing out of the lore ingredients, the flavor is the mix of the 2 and each cook has their own flavor.
love the idea of jalapeno fey how about jalapeno Leshy as well.
Back on topic, I'd love to see a Harrow-based medium with lots of different flavors, I love using a deck of cards to spice up a campaign with some random events. The whole 9 card layout with the symbols on the cards having significance depending on how they land in the layout is brilliant its easy to adapt that to lots of other things.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I wonder if the spicy leshy heritage will have mild, medium, and hot options. that way you could make a leshy Medium that's Medium hot.
The spicy hot leshy Medium warns you "the next room you enter will be too spicy for you." Could mean don't eat the food in that room, or might be warning you of the ancient ghost pepper dragon is sleeping in the room.
A Botanical Bestiary sounds awesome.
At higher levels being able to project one of their spirits into someone else and control them.I kind of strongly prefer that a medium's spirits only go where they are welcomed, and where the medium can prepare conditions to be attractive to them. A spirit riding a medium might misbehave, but only in ways that are predictable from the nature of the spirit in question.
That seems the most respectful way considering how the medium is thematically close to some real world people's beliefs.
Most of those real world beliefs involve stories of individuals sending spirits to go posess and attack others as part of their lore, in addition to helpful mediums that fight back and heal people by soothing or banishing discontented spirits. Cutting that out seems less respectful if anything.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Most of those real world beliefs involve stories of individuals sending spirits to go posess and attack others as part of their lore, in addition to helpful mediums that fight back and heal people by soothing or banishing discontented spirits. Cutting that out seems less respectful if anything.At higher levels being able to project one of their spirits into someone else and control them.I kind of strongly prefer that a medium's spirits only go where they are welcomed, and where the medium can prepare conditions to be attractive to them. A spirit riding a medium might misbehave, but only in ways that are predictable from the nature of the spirit in question.
That seems the most respectful way considering how the medium is thematically close to some real world people's beliefs.
Sending spirits to hurt others indeed has strong roots in RL beliefs. But doing this is not the province of mediums IIRC.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
That sure is a lot of cultures you'd be combining and generalizing to make that statement.
Edit: To add to what I mean, and because I had to do some quick research before I run off to work in a little bit, I know that Haitian Vodou has those who 'work with both hands' and can use the kind of power we're discussing as the purview of this class (e.g. the invocation of spirits) to harm others and deems the morality of it contextual. If someone targeted you with spirits in this way, you would employ the practice of another medium who specializes in protection. I would expect to be able to tell stories of dueling Mediums inflicting and countering one another's spirits. Obviously Vodou has been much maligned, but we don't want to misrepresent it by eliding offensive use of spirits entirely-- especially in the context of Pathfinder where most magic can be (and is) used offensively in the first place, so it would be entirely square with the ethics of adventuring.
This just being a single example. You'd be better off representing the distinctions with alignment and cultural taboos on 'evil' mediums than just erasing them, e.g. organizations and traditions, and ethical codes that say 'we don't do this here.'
Incidentally this is also why I want to see it intermingled with a 'Shaman' because the two are *frequently* intermingled conceptually in real world cultures, and cover a wider range of practices, and therefore a fuller class. Many cultures don't draw a distinction between the concept of a shaman and the concept of a medium, Miko in Japan for instance.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Incidentally this is also why I want to see it intermingled with a 'Shaman' because the two are *frequently* intermingled conceptually in real world cultures, and cover a wider range of practices, and therefore a fuller class. Many cultures don't draw a distinction between the concept of a shaman and the concept of a medium, Miko in Japan for instance.
At least in this regard, that's because the Miko are primarily dealing with Yokai, who (while divine in origin) behave very similar to Celtic Fae, what with being tricksters and maligning crops until you make them smile, or being easy to humor and blessing your business because your bread tastes extra good today. So seeing that concept in one big ball of class features makes sense: Dood/Gal who soothes the annoyed local non-people to stop them harassing the are-people. Fae, yokai, spirits of the dead, mushi, anima, spirits of nature, extraplanar annoyances... The more I ramble the more I like this idea! Wisdom based magical cleanup crew who specializes in dealing with Haunts and not-humanoids.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The ability to freely switch from spirit to spirit. In 1e you were pretty stuck as one spirit
Huh. There's a thought. Instead of having a situation where you need to pick your spirit at the beginning of the day, or one where you only have one spirit, what about if you could hot-swap them... possibly as a singe action? The idea would be to make them different enough that changing spirits in combat to adjust to evolving situations would actually be tactically useful. That way, you're not stuck always going with a boring default, because switching to the special case spirit that's applicable right now is always an option.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Being able to change on the fly could be really cool.. and similar to the spirit dancer archetype from 1e.
I'm not sure what the best balance point for timing would be though. The easier it is to change the less raw power you should cram into each individual spirit (i.e. the 1e Medium could only change once a day but each spirit was supposed to emulate an entirely different class.. though arguably only the Champion really lived up to that).
PF2 is a little anti-jack of all trades, so I feel like a design where you have to commit a little harder would make more sense and that if you could change spirits on the fly they'd probably end up being balanced just as status bonuses.