#occult class

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So, I’ve done a good chunk of these entries on the medium class, but I’ve managed to dance around the most significant aspect of the class: the spirits themselves!

Like I said in part 2, the spirits available to the medium come in 6 categories, one for each of the 6 ability scores, with archmage and hierophant being based primarily on spellcasting, champion and guardian being based on combat, and marshal and trickster on support and sneakiness.

Sounds simple, right? But what if I told you that there was an additional layer of flexibility to the spirits?

Enter legendary spirits! Initially introduced in Horror Adventures, I believe. These represent spirits of very specific people with specific stories and abilities reflecting those stories. The first batch were less specific, being representative of certain horror figures and fictional archetypes that would provide different, often alarming abilities.

Later on, however, these legendary spirits drew upon characters from the history of the Lost Omens setting. Some are mighty rulers, others are merely heroic or villainous characters from as recent events as being in actual Adventure Paths in the setting.

Essentially, these spirits are like archetypes for the normal spirits available to mediums, replacing one or two powers that the spirit normally gets. One might be a champion that magically enhances a selection of weapons that they have on their person, while another might be able to create their own personal demiplane while bound to the medium.

So with that out there, how does one acquire one of these legendary spirits? And that’s a fair question, because it isn’t as simple as just deciding you want one at first level like most archetypes. Instead, if a medium wants to take on a legendary spirit, they basically have to impress them, usually emulating acts that the spirit in question was famous or infamous for, then performing a ritual in which the medium swears an oath, basically taking on a permanent taboo that persists even when that spirit is not summoned. If they succeed the required spell check, the legendary spirit effectively replaces the normal spirit of that type, always coming to their call when channeling that type of spirit. However, if they ever break the oath, the spirit leaves them forever, reverting them to the normal spirit of that type. As such, taking on such a spirit is not a decision done lightly, for one must ask themselves if they can handle the restrictions it places on them.

If they can, however, such a spirit can prove quite a useful and powerful part of their arsenal.

As a small aside, it’s also worth noting that the spirits channeled by the outer channeler archetype completely replace the spirits with new ones with their own build expectations, but since they are limited to that specific archetype, I don’t feel the need to go into super detail on those here, though I do wish they had given us options for every major outsider type, or at least the ones that would agree to such a bond and the medium would want anywhere near their soul.

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Conclusions

And so it’s time to wrap up the medium. With the possible exception of the psychic, the medium has the oldest pedigree of the occult classes thanks to being an homage to the binder of yesteryear.

However, I’d say that the class has put in serious effort to forge it’s own identity, playing with the spirits of the dead with seances and gaining appropriate powers from pacts with them, sometimes even specific powers if it’s a legendary spirit.

On that note, I’m both sad and relieved that the playtest dropped the original idea of a Harrow deck-based system. I mean, I get it. Making that many spirits would have made one class entirely too wordy, both in terms of overwhelming the players, and in terms of limited book space.

I am, however, curious about what that would have looked like. Perhaps one day I’ll homebrew the harrow deck as a series of legendary spirts?

In any case, the story of a medium can vary as much as the class itself. Some born with the gift may struggle with the demands of recurring or an ever-changing roster of spirits (played for comedy or drama), while others may see themselves as agents of the grave aiding the dead in finding their rest, or at least some solace. I suppose the unifying factor is the struggle of being one of the very few that serve as a bridge for beings whose voices normally go unheard. It’s a big responsibility, after all. One that they may embrace or struggle with.

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And we’re back with another class review, focusing on the second occult class from the Occult Adventures book, the Medium!

Mediums actually have something of a pedigree in tabletop roleplaying, as the concept of what they are actually goes back to late 3.5 with the Tome of Magic book.

Tome of Magic was a book that introduced three alternate systems for magical characters to shake things up from both the Vancian magic that ruled most of the system and the psychic stuff or even the Incarnum system that most people never even bothered to learn about. There was truenamers (an early attempt at a words of power sort of system that turned spellcasting into a skill check as the characters struggled to pronounce the verbs and nouns of the true language to affect reality, but could at high levels do things like erase beings entirely from existence) and shadowcasting (spellcasting but spoooooky).

And both of those had their problems. Truenaming relied on dice rolls to actually make things happen, making it extremely painful in low level play, and shadowcasting… well, it just didn’t actually have enough interesting going on with it to hold anyone’s interest.

But then we had binders. Binders were a whole new system where the character could draw symbols and call up “vestiges”, entities that were neither demon or angel that were stuck outside the normal cosmos due to accidents of fate, all with their own elaborate lore. Everything from references to the Ars Goetia and Lesser Key of Solomon to references to previous D&D lore retcons! (Remember when Orcus, the demon lord of undeath, briefly became Tenebrous, the undead true god of undeath, but then they re-established the status quo by having him give up his godhood because he hated being undead more than being an even more powerful patron of undeath? Well now that shed godhood is a vestige you can summon!)

Once the binder summoned the vestige, they could make a pact with it, gaining a suite of powers based on the vestige and their own level, forgo some of those powers if they’d rather have a resource of extra dice rolls, and as they leveled up learn more vestige seals, bind with multiple vestiges at once, and so on….

BUT WATCH OUT! If you piss off the vestige your bound to too much, they might leave or even take over your body to serve their own interests.

And so we have this fresh new class that can customize their ability suite each day to fill all sorts of roles, but with the restraint of having to keep their spiritual passengers happy. It’s a really great class… albeit one with problems. The power sets granted by each vestige were sometimes all over the place in terms of theming and usefulness, some vestiges purely exist as low-level stuff only to get replaced later, and so on.

…And I’ve gone to the trouble of telling you all of this because today’s subject, the medium class… is basically Pathfinder’s take on the concept, albeit more balanced, simplified in places, and instead of going the Demonology route, they instead went for the Victorian “fortune teller huckster pretends to perform seances and invite the spirits of the dead into themselves to speak to the living, but actually real” angle. And this is where the decision to drop the crystals and meditation aesthetics of the Advanced Psionics Handbook in favor of a more historical take on psychic phenomena really shines.

Not to say that the medium didn’t have it’s share of complications of course. Back during the playtest period, the original plan for the medium was to have a grand total of fifty-four different spirit options, one for every card in a standard Harrow Deck. It’s pretty easy to see why they dropped that in favor of six spirits with some occasional alterations.

The end result was an attempt at a versatile class that borrowed heavily from the internal gears and mechanics that formed the framework of the old binder without all the extra stuff bogging it down, but still with some powerful options and the limiting mechanic of accepting limitations to keep that power and keep control.

So yes, the medium! A class that has the potential to have answers to any problem the party might have, but might also be at the mercy of which power sets they have available each day.

They might have trained to be able to do so, or they might simply have developed a knack for it when their only companions, or even the only way out of a bad situation, was the spirits of the dead.

These spirits need not be undead or even a soul. They might just be psychic echoes left behind in places of extreme emotion. In other cases, they might be indeed souls, but the sort that follow their medium around, with the locations they channel them in simply causing the spirits to resonate enough to form the bond. Like a lot of esoteric fluff the specifics are left fairly vague, to the benefit of the class and the players.

As we’ll see throughout the week, this class has the potential to add a flavorful and interesting take on how characters deal with a lot of familiar trappings of fantasy adventuring, such as unquiet spirits, the undead, and the like.

You may note that this class has a heavy thematic similarity to the shaman class, in that they both call upon otherworldly spirits to share their body and get some cool magical powers out of the exchange, which is why the two classes were thematically combined into the animist in second edition (though honestly I find the animist leans a bit more into the nature spirit stuff than the ghosts, but it’s still present).

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Utility and Builds

Now that we know what the basic concept of a kineticist is, let’s explore how they work.

Kineticists start out with moderate base attack progression and 4+int skill ranks… but not that many skills to spend them on (Don’t worry, their element choices give them an extra later). What is really interesting, however, is that pretty much all of their abilities use Constitution as the base stat, since the elemental power they channel has to pass through their bodies, and being healthy and hearty are required to handle that sort of power.

When they start out, these channelers choose their first element, choosing one of the basic blasts available from it, as well as gaining the basic kinesis talent for that element. Such basic kinesis abilities are essentially multipurpose cantrips, and can range from telekinetically lifting objects to sensing and bringing up items hidden in loose soil or foliage, or igniting flammable objects.

As they grow in power, kineticists gain various wild talents, which are drawn from both the list of their element as well as universal choices. Each one has an effective spell level equivalent as well as a burn cost, and each one is either an infusion or a utility power, which we’ll go over each momentarily.

First, let’s talk about burn though. Certain wild talents and other abilities of the kineticist have a burn cost. Essentially, by using their power too quickly, they tire themselves out as their bodies get overwhelmed from within, partially transmuting their flesh into the element in question, causing them to appear supercharged with that element, and so on. For each point of burn accrued, the kineticist takes nonlethal damage equal to their level, which cannot be resisted or healed until the start of the next day. This makes them easier to down as the day progresses, making them more vulnerable. However, there is a limiter on how much burn they can accept at one time, as well as how much they can have total each day.

While kineticists can wield weapons normally, their primary attack is their kinetic blast, which is a ranged projectile of elemental energy or matter they launch at foes. Most elements have at least two types of blasts, with you choosing one when you choose the element, and while energy blasts target touch AC, they deal less damage. Additionally, all blasts ignore the reduction or negation of damage from swarms, and can even be readied to counterspell spells of the same elemental descriptor, so that’s fun.

The burn cost of various abilities and talents can be difficult to work with. Thankfully, however, there is a way to negate the burn cost of their stronger blasts. By spending actions to gather power, kineticists can pull elemental energy out at a more gradual rate and thereby reduce the burn cost of the next blast they launch. However, being disrupted risks them taking burn.

Speaking of blasts, the first type of wild talent that kineticists learn is infusions, which modify the blast in some way. A blast can have two infusions applied to it, one substance, and one form infusion. The former alters the properties of the blast directly to cause different effects when they connect with foes. For example, some blasts can be made incredibly bright, blinding foes. Meanwhile, form infusions change how they target foes, turning them into melee attacks, area attacks, walls, cones, lines, that sort of thing. However, many blasts modified to deal damage over time or over a wide area deal less damage.

Kineticists also learn a defensive talent for their element, which can vary from reducing damage to preventing getting hit in the first place depending on the element, but all are useful for keeping the kineticist alive.

While burn does weaken the kineticist, they do get something in return, their bodies becoming more and more supercharged, bolstering their attributes and improving the power of their blasts as the energies overtake them more and more.

As they grow in mastery, their bodies grow more adapted to using infusions, reducing the base cost of an infused blast and letting them use bigger effects with less burn and less time spent gathering power.

Mimicking various metamagical modifications, kineticists can spend burn to boost the damage of their blasts or even repeatedly blast in a single turn, or at least blast quickly to leave actions open for other activities.

In order to bolster the number of times they can invoke powerful effects, kineticists learn to create an internal buffer. Essentially, whether it be during downtime or at the end of a low-combat day, these kineticists can expend burn to create a reserve of energy within themselves, giving them a buffer that gets expended first instead of their burn in the future.

Eventually, these elementalists expand the source of elemental power within themselves, doing so up to two times for a total of three choices. They might expand into another element, gaining access to a new blast and composite blasts combining their two elements, or they might choose to focus on one of their previously-chosen-blasts, accessing the second blast type of their element if it has one as well as any composite blasts based on choosing the element twice (like blue flame for fire or metal for earth, since this was before metal was it’s own element). Additionally, while diversifying into multiple elements lets them pick a wider variety of talents and infusions, sticking with one grants additional talent choices, and doing so all three times causes them to gain a bonus on their attack, damage, and DCs of their talents and blasts.

As they grow in mastery, they can gather even more power, covering much greater burn costs not just with blasts, but with utility talents as well.

Over time, their mastery of combining elements into composite blasts improves, reducing that base cost as well.

Their mastery also allows them to perform one type of metakinesis without costing anything as well.

Finally, true masters are able to manipulate all elements beyond their base choses to a certain extent, but it costs burn to use elements beyond their own or change existing talents.

But maybe that doesn’t appeal to you as a capstone? Thanks to Chronicle of Legends, there are alternative options. The one specifically for kineticists gives them Unbridled power, improving the damage of one specific blast they know and allowing them to overcome a certain amount of DR or resistance to it.

From the more generic capstone options, we can see kineticists whose endurance and ability to accept burn is unsurpassed with Perfect Body, Flawless Mind, those that found organizations, perhaps schools of elementalism as The Boss, improving one signature item they own into an artifact-level focus for their power with With This Sword, or becoming so one with their element that they simply Won’t Stay Dead.

The kineticist is all about careful management of burn and action economy. Do you go in guns blazing, accumulating burn to steamroll into a vulnerable and deadly glass cannon, or do you sacrifice actions to gather power to conserve that energy for when you need it?

As for what kind of builds you can do, there’s a lot of potential here. One kineticist might be back-line firepower blasting foes from afar and creating elemental allies to occupy the enemy. Another might be a tanky wall that focuses on kinetic blade blasts in melee and refuses to budge an inch, using blasts to hold off and bring down foes. Another might tap into kinetic healing and be a support and healer character that can still kick some ass as well. All are good and valid.

Ironically, the fact that burn deals semi-permanent nonlethal damage to you means that despite constitution being their most important stat, they can be somewhat easy to take down with a well-placed hit, so even tanky builds need to understand when to engage and when to hang back. In this way, the kineticist class definitely forces you to think more strategically than your average combat class.

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Overview

And so, comes the beginning of the end. The final category of classes in Pathfinder 1st Edition.

Introduced in the aptly-named Occult Adventures book, this set of classes represents Paizo’s take on something that existed in D&D 3.5, and was hinted at in Pathfinder lore, but had not been touched on before then.

Now, back in the days of 3.5, psychic stuff was treated as a completely separate system. Psionic classes had powerful abilities, but they were specifically not magic for what amounted to aesthetic reasons, had a different resource for manifesting their not-magic, and were heavily inspired by the relatively new wave of interest in psychic phenomena as new age medicine and spirituality. You know, with crystals and stuff.

Needless to say, Pathfinder rightfully decided to scrap a lot of that. Particularly since a lot of that stuff was pretty racist, tapping into “Orientals are magic” pretty heavily, as well as a lot of… Well, I know that “cultural appropriation” has been misattributed to the point of basically having no meaning for a lot of people anymore, but good lord were they ever taking cultural touchstones of other cultures and pretending it was their idea.

Instead, Pathfinder decided to lean more into Victorian-era mysticism and the psychic craze of that era instead, albeit trying to celebrate cultures rather than steal from them. Alongside the traditional psychic, this gave us two classes that can communicate with the dead, a powerful hypnotist, and today’s subject, one that draws on the idea of using psychic powers to control one’s environment (with a heaping helping of inspiration from a show I think a lot of you are familiar with).

Also they rightfully just said that psychic or “occult” magic is just another type of magic. No weird point system, no obnoxiously frustrating lack of interaction with the existing magic system, none of that bull.

In any case, I present to you the kineticist, the one class in this set that is not a traditional spellcaster!

Whether it is by heritage or by some fluke, those with the potential to become kineticists are born with a small gate to another plane inside their bodies, allowing them to draw on matter and energy of that plane for offensive, defensive, and utility purposes. Typically these are elemental planes, but there are a few exceptions, at least in First Edition.

That’s right, today’s subject is basically a bender from Avatar: The Last Airbender, but with a side scooping of more psychic phenomena and the historical studies into various “kinesis” abilities. Luckily for the kineticist class though, they don’t have to actually have the right element present to manipulate it, (though as an aside, the innovations in ATLA bending to get around that limitation for earth and water benders in the show are equal parts fascinating and horrifying, depending on the technique).

Generally, as masters of one or more elements and the combination thereof, kineticists have a limited bag of tricks they can draw on, but they can do so limitlessly if they have time to focus, with a unique mechanic limiting them when they do not have the luxury of time.

This theoretically infinite use of a limited pool of basic abilities and a few abilities that can be done rarely actually makes the kineticist somewhat similar to how the warlock class as it was when it was introduced in 3.5, albeit more refined in a lot of key ways.

Kineticists in First Edition can choose from aether (telekinesis), air, earth, fire, void, water, and wood as elements, gaining powers based on those. This list definitely leans more into the psychic vibes the class was trying to retain, though I understand why the Second Edition version of the class trimmed out aether and void to make the class more specifically about elementalism (Not to say that they might not return some day though, you never know).

The focus on elements in the class does mean that very few kineticists will play the same. A geokineticist might play more defensively, shaping the battlefield to control it, while a pyrokineticist might be all blasting all day. This means that while an individual character might be somewhat limited in what they can do, the class itself is very flexible, ranging from blasters to tanks to healers and so on. They all excel at doing reliable strong damage on targets though.

But having kinetic powers is not just having a superpower, it’s also about focus and control, and about learning to understand oneself and one’s limits, and how to push them.

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Archetypes

So let’s talk about archetypes for a bit! The Kineticist got it’s fair share, though some of them definitely suffer from the fact it was a new class with new expectations. I wouldn’t say any are counterintuitive or useless though.

While the default kineticist channels the elements through their bodies, some do so by other methods, putting the psychic vibes front and center of the class. Psychokineticists use their wisdom, but risk their minds becoming strained and vulnerable even as their mental powers improve. Meanwhile, overwhelming souls use their force of personality and charisma, able to unleash powerful blasts at the cost of having to gather power to pull off anything especially powerful.

Others use different traits, but in a sinister way. Blighted Defilers use their strength to literally pull life energy from the land itself to help fuel their power, while dark elementalists use their keen intelligence, but use the souls of the recently slain to offload some of their burn, damaging them in the process.

Some refine their control over their element to achieve specific manifestations of power. For example, Psammokineticists master the art of manipulating sand and ki, while leshykineticists demonstrate a mastery over the wood element that non-leshies cannot begin to fathom. Aquakineticists and blood kineticists master water to master the oceans and their foes respectively. Blightburners master radioactive isotopes in the earth, cinderland adepts fight with flame and blade equally, arakineticist and elysiokineticists add unearthly power to their element, and ioun kineticists fling their pet ioun stones and bring out their maximum potential. Meanwhile, elemental purists master one element so thoroughly they can shape it in ways that many would consider impossible, and terrakineticists instead tap into every element, shifting their elemental focus whenever they venture into new terrain.

Others express their elemental power in different forms. Elemental annihilators focus on smaller blasts they can chain together and use with many different combat techniques, while elemental ascetics focus instead on martial arts and enhancing them with elemental power. Kinetic Knights master turning their elemental power into melee weapons, but kinetic chirugeons instead focus on using their element to heal.

There’s a decent selection here with some variety. That being said, a lot of these archetypes, especially the ones that alter the core stat of the class, are considered underpowered to downright unplayable depending on who you ask, and even the better archetypes have their share of detractors. Making them work will require careful consideration and maybe a little homebrewing modification with the help of your GM.

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Utility and Builds

So we have the medium as a class, let’s see what it actually offers!

The base medium is a ¾ progression attacker (akin to the magus and other mid casters, with only good will saves, and 4 skill points per level with a decent selection of skills.

The magus also has access to minor psychic spellcasting, capping out at 4th level spells. Their spell list focuses heavily on divination and necromancy, particularly in terms of predicting the future, revealing the past, and dealing with undead, haunts, and spirits. The rest of their list also has practical abjurations and transmutations and illusions, definitely leaning them towards battlefield support and control. The fact they cast psychically means they don’t have to worry about being bound or gagged, but disrupting their concentration or hitting them hostile emotion spells becomes a problem.

However, unlike every minor caster in the game, mediums actually have access to 0-level spells, which are called knacks for psychic spellcasters. This means that a medium can be casting minor spells at first level unlike a paladin, ranger, or the like.

The core component of this class, however, is the spirit. Each day, the medium can hold a séance to invite a spirit that is either bound to or attracted to their current location into themselves. These spirits come in one of 6 broad types (not including modifications from archetypes or legendary spirits. These include archmage and hierophant, which provide additional arcane and divine spellcasting and themed abilities, champion and guardian, providing offensive or defensive combat options, and marshal and trickster for party support and devious trickery. You may note that each of these spirit types coincides with the 6 mythic paths, and consequently the 6 ability scores.

Each spirit grants a selection of abilities depending on the medium’s level, though the medium can forgo the higher ones to get more spirit surges and accept taboos to get more of the same. (more on that later).

The medium also gains a passive bonus for the séance itself, which can be shared with allies that participate in the séance with the medium.

However, inviting the spirit in also grants it influence over the medium. At about half influence, the spirit’s influence begins to interfere with and distract the medium, and at maximum, the spirit takes over, essentially coming under GM control for the rest of the day, doing as the spirit wills, which can be interesting or dangerous, depending on the nature of the spirit. The only exception to this is if the spirit gained influence due to a broken taboo, in which case the spirit just leaves, depriving the medium of their power.

Just having the spirt grants a passive buff based on the nature of the spirit. Champions buff attacks and damage, archmages buff concentration, and the like.

Whenever they try an activity and seem about to fail, sometimes their possessing spirit compels their body to a burst of activity, a spirit surge if you will, to possibly turn that incoming failure into a success. Normally, doing this causes the spirit to gain more influence over the medium, but as mentioned before, there are ways to gain free spirit surges each day, including choosing not to gain certain powers, or by accepting a taboo.

These taboos vary based on the spirit they are channeling, but usually involve either not doing something that runs counter to the spirit, or doing something when presented the opportunity to do so. For example, a spirit of an archmage may insist you use a magical solution to a problem whenever possible even if the mundane option would be easier or less resource-intensive, while a trickster might insist that you only tell lies that day. In return you get two extra spirit surges, but the cost of breaking them, even by accident, is distraction as the spirit complains and an increase in influence, albeit at the risk of the spirit leaving rather than taking over.

One of their more impressive abilities is dealing with haunts without channeling positive energy or prayer. Indeed, mediums are always able to sense haunts before they manifest, and can act, either absorbing some of the spiritual energy of the haunt into themselves to weaken it, or put themselves at risk by absorbing the whole haunt into themselves. Doing so guarantees that they suffer the full effects of the haunt, but nobody else does. Meanwhile, the haunt takes over in the same way as a max-influence spirit. This can be either a bad or good thing, as especially monstrous haunts might attack the party or try to achieve a monstrous goal. Haunts that simply want their torment to end, however, might actually work with the party to achieve that, albeit under GM direction.

They can also call up the spirits of the dead at their final resting place, inviting them into their body to speak through them so that they and their companions can learn from the dead. Of course, this does carry risk of malevolent spirits creeping in instead.

Later on, they can perform such seances anywhere as long as they have something of the deceased, and if they have someone more familiar with the spirit than themselves, they can use that connection to better secure an audience with the correct spirit.

Just as spirits can be angered or overtaxed, they can be soothed as well, and with a ritual that varies by individual spirit, the medium can reduce the influence of the spirit once a day.

Reaching across planar boundaries with their mind, mediums can ask questions of otherworldly beings on occasion.

Taking this further, they can even use a minor form of astral projection, though they can only wander the astral and cannot use their magical items.

Sometimes one spirit is not enough, and by ceding a bit of influence, the mystic can briefly call a second spirit into themselves to grant one of their powers, Though powers with limited uses do not get refreshed if they call the same type of spirit again later that day.

Mediums have a lot of metaphysical room inside themselves, and powerful individuals can take advantage of that space in the event that an ally dies, inviting them into their body. This temporarily suppresses any other spirit within, but it does give the two of them joint control of the body, and access to any metaphysical abilities the deceased had at the time of death, such a ki or spells, as well as their skill, (but not physicality obviously) in combat. They can maintain this state of affairs indefinitely, or end it by pushing the spirit out to continue it’s journey or by having them resurrected.

Near the zenith of their power, these mediums become minor celebrities in the spirit world, able to encourage a few extra spirit surges out of their spirit, and even more so if they forgo powers, as the medium is seen as a friend to the spirit world (or perhaps a scourge not to be crossed) worthy of such beneficent boons.

The absolute zenith of mediums are living conduits to the astral plane, and at any moment can temporarily gain most of the benefits of any spirit category by temporarily channeling those spirits alongside their primary. Additionally, each spirit type accrues their own influence throughout the day rather than just contributing to the influence of the primary spirit.

Of course, like all classes, the medium got some alternate capstones with Chronicle of Legends. The one meant specifically for mediums is Hardened Soul, which increases the degree of influence that a spirit has to achieve to actually take over significantly, and improves the benefits of spirit surge even more than what 20th level normally does.

The more generic options, include Deep Magics, for mediums with an even greater understanding of magic; Perfect Body, Flawless Mind for those who have become the pinnacle of physical or mental aspects as a result of their bond with such spirits; The Boss to represent mediums whose influence extends into the real world instead of just the spirit world, perhaps forming schools of the occult; With This Sword, for those that have created an artifact tied to their channeling arts, and Won’t Stay Dead for mediums that persist just as much as the spirits they call.

This class has a lot of options for versatility and for dealing with certain spiritual matters, but that versatility is on a day to day basis even more so than the shaman class. As such, with 6 different possible power suites, it can be difficult but not impossible to build with all 6 spirits in mind. (See the Legendary Influence and Improved Legendary Influence feats for that). More realistically, you’ll probably build for two or three spirits, four tops. For example, one medium might prefer melee combat, so prefer to channel the champion or guardian spirits, with maybe a minor in the trickster, while a more spellcasting-focused might prefer the archmage or hierophant, with maybe the marshal as a backup due to it’s support abilities.

This of course leads to the issue that even with the GM deciding certain locations might suffice to channel a spirit that are not on the official list… eventually you’ll find yourself in a situation where none of your preferred spirits are available and you are forced to pick a spirit that your character is not built for. This is actually what forgoing the higher level abilities for spirit surges is for, giving you something that you are guaranteed to benefit from on those off days rather than leaving you stuck with abilities you’re not going to use.

Beyond that, this class is all about managing the spirit and it’s demands to make the best of the situation. When do you accrue influence? What taboos do you pick for the spirit to minimize the risk of breaking them that day? What kind of situations to you consider spending that last point of influence on and being stuck at the mercy of whatever spirit you channeled for the rest of the day?

With their spell list being the way it is, this class is geared to a lot of utility, support, and control, with additional roles based on whatever spirit they can work with that day, be it front line, added spellcasting, and the like. As such, the medium can be a great class to play in parties that have all their bases otherwise covered. Additionally, it gives us an option for dealing with haunts when nobody is playing a cleric or paladin, so that’s nice. Ad hocing rules for using knowledge religion rolls, holy water, or burning cure spells to defeat haunts can only get you so far.