The Medium class, introduced in the Occult Adventures book, has a pretty wide selection of skills and abilities, but hasn't been well supported since release. Only 4 feats interacting with the class at all - Legendary Influence (& it's improved version), Spirit Focus, and Channel Spirit. I certainly like it, but there are a few aspects of it that are pretty much universally disregarded as unusably bad, that probably could've used some buffs and extra features to support it.
Like the Guardian spirit.
The guardian spirit is two of twelve spirits a medium can potentially channel on a given day (One base Guardian, and one Legendary Guardian, of which 3 have been published... none of which are particularly noteworthy). These spirits focus your Spirit Bonus into your AC, Con checks, your Fort & Reflex saves, and thaaaaat's it. Nothing active, only passive defenses. The Seance boon bosts your CMD... Which again, not something that helps you interact with the world. Your lesser spirit power grants Armor and Shield proficiency. Who has enough money to buy a second fully enchanted suit of armor they don't wear most of the time? And you don't need shield proficiency if you find a shield with no ACP.
To summarize, it's not a great foundation. Barely better than not channeling a spirit at all.
So what if you're hanging out in a castle and it's your only option for the day? Just give up and go to sleep? No, that's silly. You've got a world to save or something similar, so let's make the most of this spirit with as little investment as possible, because I *KNOW* you'd much rather put the rest of your build towards support the other spirits.
To start, I would ask that you dedicated precisely ONE feat exclusively to the guardian spirit. This is a tough ask, but I think it's worth it. That feat is Nature Soul. That's right, the +2 Survival and Knowledge (Nature) feat solves the Guardian's issues and it is now a completely viable spirit! Thanks for coming to my post.
I kid, it's just a pre-requisite for your Legendary Influence feats. When you hit Lv 4, you qualify for Animal Ally, so retrain your Legendary Influence to Legendary Influence, replacing whatever you picked initially for an Animal Companion that only exists when you're Guardian'd up.
Since you don't have the feat and don't gain it until you Seance up, you can "prepare" a new companion as if you were gaining the feat for the first time every time you channel. Horses, Birds, and Wolves are my main 3 recommendations. Horse with the Bodyguard archetype is a good "Default" pick, but on days you know you'll be delving indoors, prepare a Wolf. On days you know you'll need an aerial scout, prepare a bird. Easy!
At lv 9, you gain access to Improved Legendary Influence. Prepare "Blades Above & Below" as your Guardian feat, acquire a Horsemaster's Saddle, a pair of Training Spiked Gauntlets attuned to Outflank & Paired Opportunists. You might not have a spirit bonus to anything worthwhile, but now when you ride your temporary ally, you have an always-on +5 to hit medium or large enemies, and whenever you crit, you provoke an attack for yourself and gain a +4 bonus to that swing!
Your ally can come with the feat "Intercept Blow," letting it sponge 50% of incoming damage as an AoO-equivalent. It's unclear if you can proc Paired Opportunists off of this, but what you can do for sure is make much greater use of that DR and ER that comes from Guardian's Intermediate Power.
If an enemy wises up to your companions tricks and targets them, great! That's actually ideal. You have effectively "pulled aggro" off your team an onto what amounts to a summon. Remember that you do not have Animal Ally on days you don't prepare the guardian, so it doesn't matter as much to you as it would a ranger or druid if your buddy makes it the whole day or dies. You gain a new companion every time, as if you were gaining the feature for the first time. You can use Paladin's Sacrifice to protect them if you want to preserve them for another encounter, too.
You don't end up ever really needing to spirit surge on a Guardian, so you can Propitiate from Influence 3 to 2 at the start of the day and just never touch the Influence Penalty, enjoying the benefits of having this bonus buddy instead.
This is a lot of words to say "Get yourself a guardian for your Guardian". I hope this might be helpful to anyone who just doesn't know what to do with their weakest spirit.
A druid may begin play with any of the animals listed in Animal Choices....
...If a druid releases her companion from service, she may gain a new one by performing a ceremony requiring 24 uninterrupted hours of prayer in the environment where the new companion typically lives.
Hope you have large swaths of 24 hour breaks to summon those new animal companions. Because while it might seem like you are simply swapping feats immediately on a mechanical level, in the actual world, you won't be starting play with that companion each time you 'retrain' that feat.
...it might seem like you are simply swapping feats immediately on a mechanical level, in the actual world, you won't be starting play with that companion each time you 'retrain' that feat.
Were it a persistent feature that was active throughout the medium's career, I'd be inclined to agree. But as the medium doesn't actually have the Animal Ally feat, they gain the following benefit at the end of the seance as if they had just gained the feat:
Benefit: You gain an animal companion as if you were a druid of your character level –3 from the following list: badger, bird, camel, cat (small), dire rat, dog, horse, pony, snake (viper), or wolf.
They don't start play with the animal of course. Play presumably started before the session you decided to channel a spirit. But they do *gain* the animal, then and there, which is the same benefit of doing the 24 hour ritual.
In fiction? I like to think of it as similar to the Call Animal spell, or maybe a sort of funky psychic manifestation - like an imaginary friend shaped from a channeled spirits's memories of their own animal companion.
Maybe swerving a bit off topic, but have you ever run a ranger who gained the Hunter's Bond feature at lv 4 and needed to spend 24 hours to gain your first companion? IIRC, they can choose from a list when they get the feature, but never explicitly gain the creature as part of the process. I've pretty much always run it that they also gain the companion as soon as they gain the feature, but do other tables run that differently?
I ran it the same as you Gol, once they're 4th level, their companion joins them in their adventures, no need for a ritual. I try to make it story based at least a little though.
Maybe swerving a bit off topic, but have you ever run a ranger who gained the Hunter's Bond feature at lv 4 and needed to spend 24 hours to gain your first companion? IIRC, they can choose from a list when they get the feature, but never explicitly gain the creature as part of the process. I've pretty much always run it that they also gain the companion as soon as they gain the feature, but do other tables run that differently?
Yes, I do run it as requiring the ritual unless they've already taken the time to tame or raise a companion creature for the purpose of being their animal companion. I waive any costs involved with it (if any, such as with a familiar or the like) the first time around. I may make some exceptions depending on the specific campaign (for plot/story reasons), but not for something like this, which is essentially retraining for mechanical benefit.