Leasing Your Body for Fun and Profit: CockroachTeaParty’s Guide to the Pathfinder Medium
Introduction
Introduced in Occult Adventures, the new Medium base class is one of the most open-ended and versatile classes in the game so far. It defies many traditions and assumptions of base classes, capable of swapping out its class features on a daily basis. It is reminiscent of Tome of Magic’s Binder class, or the Chameleon PRC from Races of Destiny: an attempt at the ultimate jack-of-all-trades.
The medium invites the spirits of legendary heroes and villains into their body, allowing them influence over their behavior in exchange for psychic power. In addition, they can commune with haunts and the spirits of the departed, channeling them through their body to communicate with the living. Few other characters are capable of changing their powers and abilities from day to day as radically as the medium.
Because of their versatility, they are difficult to nail down with the ‘tier system’ commonly used with 3.5/Pathfinder character optimisation. While they can dip down as low as Tier 5 or so, and come surprisingly close to Tier 1 or 2 by the very end of their career, overall I believe they average out to be Tier 3: able to solidly contribute to a variety of problems and challenges without world-shattering power.
Color Rating Key
Blue: Excellent. A great choice. Much better than nearly any other option.
Green: Good. A solid choice. Perhaps not the best, but these will serve admirably.
Black: Average. Functional. A good baseline measurement.
Orange: Sub-par or situational. Not actively harmful, but too narrow or niche.
Red: Poor. A bad choice. Broken, or else actively works against you.
Quick Links
Medium Roles
The medium was designed with versatility in mind. The medium is like six mini-classes rolled into one. This puts the medium in an odd position. Ideally, a medium is the fifth member of a party that already has all the important traditional roles covered. That way, depending on the foreseeable needs of the day’s upcoming adventure, a medium can channel a spirit to lend support in an area that needs extra help, such as frontline melee, ranged DPS, additional healing, etc. In a party without one of these roles covered, a medium can fill in, switching out spirits during downtime or a non-traditional encounter, such as a social or stealth segment.
Most mediums will probably wind up with a ‘favorite’ spirit, the default that enhances what they plan on doing the most. A warrior will probably use the Champion spirit most days, while a caster-focused medium might favor the Archmage or Hierophant.
As you gain levels, you can invest feats and equipment towards a specialization, or try to stay general and flexible. Specialization is usually to your advantage in Pathfinder; you rely on your allies to make up for gaps or weaknesses in your area of expertise. A medium can temporarily fill such a gap with relative ease, but if you stay too general you’ll lack the killer edge.
It would seem the best strategy is to have a general build or role in mind. Play a melee character, an archer, or a skill-monkey, etc., but if you have enough forewarning and it seems like you might be better off with a different slew of class features, spells, or defenses, the medium gives you the power to adapt. Your greataxe wielding brute can transform into a charming socialite, or produce a remove disease when such a spell might be unavailable. If your party cleric dies, a medium can fill in until you get him raised; the medium might even do the raising himself.
A more focused character will often do the job better than a medium, but the medium can always keep pace. Indeed, at the end of their career, once supreme spirit powers become available, mediums can even briefly eclipse other 1-6 casters, producing 9th level spell effects and other wonders.
Below I break down various roles and the relevant spirits needed to perform the roles well. By design, however, the Medium can do whatever you want passably at the very least.
Combat: When it comes to fighting, 85% of the time you’ll be relying on the Champion spirit. Whether it’s ranged combat, STR or DEX-based melee… whatever flavor of fighting you prefer, the Champion will help you be a solid warrior.
Let’s take a look at some numbers really quick. Here’s the full attack routine of a level 6 fighter, with Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization in their favored weapon, before STR or DEX is taken into consideration:
Let’s compare to a medium using the Champion spirit, with Weapon Focus and Spirit Focus.
That’s not just comparable; that’s actually better than the Fighter. The Fighter will have 4 more bonus feats to work with, better armor and shield proficiencies natively, and more hp. Due to the oddness of the medium’s temporary weapon proficiencies, they would probably be using a simple weapon with Weapon Focus. Without the feat, they’re still using a martial or exotic weapon; the Fighter pulls ahead on the attack roll, but the Medium still out-damages him.
Just for fun, let’s compare again at level 20. The Medium has selected Greater Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization as temporary feats with his Legendary Champion supreme spirit power. Both characters are also using Power Attack/Deadly Aim/ etc.
Level 20 Fighter
Level 20 Medium
Interesting. So yeah. The Champion spirit makes you good at fighting. You’ll trail behind a full BAB class in terms of hp, and they’ll have various other advantages over you, but then they can’t provide spellcasting on an off day, can they?
Spellcasting: This is a very open-ended role. If you take the Archmage or Hierophant spirit, the medium turns into a 1-6 caster. For most of your career as a medium, you’ll function as a very bare-bones 1-6 caster. Bards have bardic music, the magus has spell combat, etc. etc. Mediums will have… more spell slots, and two spell levels higher than their normal maximum. Also, proper 1-6 casters will have way more spells known, especially 5th-6th level spells. The medium knows a modest selection of 1-4 level spells, and gains 1-2 bonus spells known per spell level when channeling a caster spirit. These limitations are mostly a concern during an adventure. You’ll have limited options indeed. However, during downtime, the medium knows infinitely more spells known. They get to pick new bonus spells known every time they channel a caster spirit, so a medium can afford to pick up obscure or niche spells that a spontaneous caster wouldn’t touch with a 10 ft. pole.
On the offensive, a medium’s spellcasting is handy if you know you’ll be up against an enemy type vulnerable to certain types of spells. Going up against trolls? Pick up scorching ray from the Archmage. Fighting undead? The Hierophant gives you positive energy channeling on top of cure spells. You can tailor your spells defensively by the same logic.
Unscrupulous mediums can pick up animate dead to keep around undead servitors; they’ll continue to obey even after your seance ends. You’re never more than 24 hours away from specific restorative spells such as remove blindness/deafness or remove disease. You have access to lovely divinations from both the sorcerer/wizard and cleric/oracle list. The medium gives you an incredibly wide scope of magic, you just gain access to it in a very narrow capacity in 1 day increments.
Unlike combat, where the Champion allows you to keep pace with warrior-classes, full casters and 1-6 casters will pretty much always out-cast the medium. However, once you reach 17th level and beyond, a medium gains access to 9th level spells a limited number of times per day, a feat beyond most 1-6 casters entirely.
Party Face: With a CHA casting stat, access to all important social skills, and the Trickster or Marshal spirits, a Medium can serve as a formidable socialite and party face. You’ll be just as charming to the living as you are with the spirits of the departed...
Party Support: You can attempt to behave more like a bard, relying on the Marshal spirit to give your allies bonuses in combat. Unfortunately, the Marshal relies heavily on the Spirit Surge ability, and thus courts the dreaded influence mechanic. This role is inherently more risky for you, and much more limited in resource expenditure.
Ability Score Considerations
For a class as open-ended and surprisingly complex as the Medium, they have relatively simple ability score priorities.
Medium Class Features
Chassis: ¾ BAB, d8 HD, good Will save, simple weapons, light & medium armor
The medium’s baseline chassis is a bit deceptive. On the surface it looks pretty unimpressive, essentially an oracle without shield proficiency, but the various spirits alter your attacks, saves, weapon and armor proficiencies, and more. Without channeling a spirit, a medium is a rather unimpressive specimen.
Skills: 4/level
Mediums gain access to a modest number of skill points per level. Again, on the surface this is a bit deceptive, as the Trickster spirit can suddenly transform you into quite the skill monkey.
Mediums enamored of the Trickster spirit will find investing points in non-class skills beneficial, as said spirit can grant you temporary class skills (and bonuses to all skills on top of that).
1 - 4 Psychic Spellcasting
Mediums have the same spell progression as Bloodragers (with the addition of 0-level spells), making them the only 1-4 casting class published so far without full BAB and d10 HD. The Archmage or Hierophant spirit bump up your daily spell slots to that of a mesmerist/bard, turning you into a 1-6 casting class with flexible (yet limited) extra spells known.
Depending on your preferred area of focus, your native spellcasting is either a pleasant footnote or one of your primary strengths.
Spirits
This is the reason you became a Medium. Based loosely on the six mythic archetypes, the spirits transform your lackluster baseline abilities into a more specialized and competent character. Without spirits, you are little better than a gimped oracle.
As you gain experience, your spirits grant you access to more abilities and powers. It’s worth noting that sometimes a given spirit’s latest ability might not be that great. In these situations, it can sometimes be worth it to channel a weaker spirit; you sacrifice one or more of your higher level spirit abilities in exchange for more free uses of your spirit surge. I’ll point out likely candidates below.
The spirits are a bit of a mixed blessing. The power they provide is great, but it comes at a price. First, a medium is oddly ‘tethered’ to physical locations. Travel to unknown places can be risky for a medium, as they may not be able to find a suitable location to channel the spirit they desire. Most of the spirits’ favored locations are based within civilization, making a long trek through the wilderness or a dungeon delve risky. It would be a cruel GM indeed to deny you access to your primary class feature because you spent the night in the woods, but you must be aware of possible inconveniences. The Paizo FAQ suggests that a medium should be able to channel the spirit they desire if they can justify things appropriately; just be aware that the GM has the final say.
Secondly, as you utilize certain powers and class features, a spirit gains influence over you. At 3 points of influence, you suffer multiple penalties (while enjoying a boost to Will saves against possession and mind-affecting effects), and at 5 points of influence you become an NPC under the GM’s control until the spirit leaves (24 hours after the initial seance). While the consequences of this are pretty up in the air, depending on the GM and spirit in question, losing control of your character is always a bad thing. NEVER let this happen. Consider 4 points of influence as your ‘cap.’
Ultimately, the influence system means some of your more powerful abilities are limited in usage. Spirits that grant powers without the risk of increasing influence are very useful, while others, like the Marshal, can accumulate influence insidiously quickly. Like the kineticist’s relationship with burn, you will come to hate influence with a passion. I get the feeling there may have been some design disconnect or miscommunication when it came to the influence system; there’s lots of stuff out there concerning Spirit Surge, or treating influence as a sort of currency, but there is very little out there to help you manage it. As of Occult Adventures, there are no feats or other options to help you manage influence, and the medium archetypes only compound the disadvantages of the system. (Perhaps Occult Origins will offer some relief.)
I will break down the six spirits below in their own section.
Spirit Bonus
This is a nice little scaling bonus that applies to various rolls and stats as you level, depending on the spirit in question. REMEMBER YOU HAVE THIS! It’s part of what makes you a competent warrior or skill monkey, and can shore up your weak saves.
Spirit Surge
This is an interesting ‘retry’ ability, tied to rolls influenced by your spirit bonus. Depending on the spirit, this varies in usefulness to great (an attack roll with the Champion, or any skill check with the Trickster), to very niche (concentration or Int-based checks for the Archmage). You get to add the bonus die after seeing the result of your initial roll, so you can play the odds and calculate whether it’s really worth attempting. You don’t want to use this ability willy-nilly, since you accumulate influence for doing so.
There are various ways to mollify the spirits and receive ‘free’ uses of this ability. The value of this depends on the spirit in question, your taboo, and whether it’s worth it to channel a weaker spirit.
Shared Seance
Your seance boon is a minor bonus relevant to the spirit in question. Starting at 2nd level, you can invite your allies to participate in your seance to share this boon. The value of this varies depending on your party composition, but there’s little reason for any of your allies not to join you in your spooky daily ritual. Like a bard, be sure to remind your allies of your little bonuses, as they can be easy to forget.
Taboo
Spirit surge can be really handy. If you are desirous of using it more often, you can obey a taboo, based off of a small list provided by each spirit. These restrict your behavior in some way, in exchange for two free uses of spirit surge; remember, you can only pick one, so you can’t squeeze more uses of spirit surge out of it.
Breaking your taboo comes with nasty penalties, potentially even barring access to a spirit for a whole week, so you want to be careful here. Some taboos are little more than an inconvenience, while others can put you or your party in jeopardy. In extreme situations, you’re usually better off breaking your taboo and tanking the penalties, rather than giving away a vital secret or engaging a red dragon in single combat. Use your best judgement here.
Haunt Channeler
Haunts are ‘ghost traps.’ The frequency with which they show up depends on your campaign, so you may never get to use this ability (while you could swap it out for an archetype, most of the medium archetypes are crap). Even in a game with haunts, this is probably a somewhat rare occurrence.
This can be a flavorful way to learn more about haunts; many APs and modules feature cool flavor and history behind haunts, so you can learn more plot points here. Absorbing a haunt entirely into your body is risky, but it makes for an interesting strategy: your friends tie you up and throw you into every room of the haunted house, letting you suck up the haunts and waiting for you to regain your sanity.
Location Channel
Sort of like a bonus spell known, this power allows your allies to ask questions of the deceased. Nice and flavorful and spooky, this could be a nice tool for gathering clues.
Connection Channel
An improvement on Location Channel. Convenience!
Propitiation
It’s a painful wait, but finally at 9th level you can lower your influence score by 1, once per day. It’s basically a free use of a more powerful spirit ability or spirit surge, but you need to do this out of combat, since it takes 10 minutes.
Ask the Spirits
A risk-free, at-will contact other plane, this is pretty handy for information gathering during downtime.
Astral Journey
I’ve never understood the purpose of lesser astral projection, but from level 14 onward a medium can just do this… whenever.
Trance of Three
While this ability represents a marked increase in your versatility and flexibility, this ability is expensive in terms of influence, so you can’t rely on it too frequently. It’s limited to intermediate spirit powers, so the Champion, Hierophant, or Trickster are probably your best bet; a bonus attack, emergency healing, or sneak attack can be handy things to produce at an opportune moment.
Spacious Soul
The weird class abilities continue to accrue as you reach the end of your career. This ability cuts off access to spirits, so it’s probably only worth it in the direst of emergencies. Sadly, allied casters are better candidates than others, since they can still use their spells from inside your body. Hope you never have to use this; regardless, you’ll probably only use it once a campaign or so if you get this far.
Spirit Mastery
Basically two free uses of spirit surge a day, by this level channeling weaker spirits is ill-advised (unless you enjoy the Marshal), since supreme spirit abilities are extremely useful. Pretty tame for your penultimate ability…
Astral Beacon
Oh man! Your capstone is huge. Your flexibility increases insanely. Regardless of your primary spirit, you now have miracle once per day, a pocket 9th level spell, 1/day ignore a single attack or spell entirely, can add 1d6 to any spirit surge-qualified roll for free… the list goes on. It’s best to pick abilities that don’t accrue influence, but this is a free action for you, so go nuts. You’ve waited a long time for this, so enjoy.
The Spirits
Below I rate the spirits. My ratings are based off comparing each spirit to each other, how ‘user-friendly’ they are, how much they accumulate influence, and how well they do what they’re supposed to do on the tin.
In the end, though, a medium is encouraged to pick the right spirit for the job. It’s wise to ‘build around’ a favorite spirit, using it as your go-to for adventuring, but versatility is one of the medium’s greatest strengths.
Archmage
Easily one of the most powerful mythic archetypes, the archmage medium spirit is a very specialized one that doesn’t play well with combat-focused builds. With a harsh influence penalty and influence-increasing intermediate and greater powers, this is a spirit to build around if you want to use it on adventures; otherwise, you might be better served relying on it for utility during downtime.
Archmage spirits are likely to be curmudgeonly, absent-minded, or insatiably curious. Some of them likely manifest from the foulest of villains, so losing control to an archmage can be potentially disastrous.
Spirit Bonus: While the bonus to concentration checks is nice, the bonus to INT-based rolls and skills is of modest utility. Spirit surge is unlikely to be in high demand.
Seance Boon: This minor boost to spell damage is nice to share with other casters in your party, but you’re not built to be a blaster yourself.
Favored Locations: You’re going to have trouble tapping into the Archmage in tiny villages, backwaters, and the wilderness. This is a civilization-bound spirit to be sure. That said, ‘magical locations’ might afford you opportunities to ally with this spirit in strange and unexpected places.
Influence Penalty: During downtime or a more social situation, these penalties aren’t too bad. A combat-focused medium will want to avoid them like the plague during an adventure.
Taboos: Of the options available, choose the one that demands you never pass up the opportunity to learn something new. It’s pretty open-ended and doesn’t have much in the way of constraints. Of course, if you don’t see yourself using spirit surge very much you probably don’t have to worry about it.
Spirit Powers:
Thoughts: The archmage is a crotchety, attention-seeking spirit. Although you probably won’t care too much about spirit surge, the intermediate and greater powers will quickly pile on that annoying influence. This is the spirit of choice if you want to focus on offensive or utility spellcasting, but for 90% of your career most other 1-6 casters will be better at it than you. If you want to try offensive magic, remember to avoid spells that require attack rolls to lessen the burden of your influence penalty.
My biggest problem with the archmage is that your spirit bonus is almost wasted: INT-checks aren’t your forte, and while the concentration bonus is nice, you get no other offensive or defensive benefits.
Where this spirit really shines is during downtime. If you’ve got days, weeks, or months free, you can become a handy source of spells, cherry picking from a large and impressive list as the need arises.
Champion
This is your primary combat spirit. If you are desirous of getting up in your enemies’ business, or even being a stellar archer, this spirit will grant you the tools you need to succeed.
Champion spirits are brave, even brash, and potentially bloodthirsty. The echoes of great heroes can be found here, as well as savage bullies and brutes. Losing control to a champion spirit is a terrible gamble, and is almost certain to generate violence.
Spirit Bonus: Attack rolls, non-spell damage rolls, and Fort. saves! By the time Sudden Strike comes online, you’ll start to resemble a proper full BAB class. Attack rolls and Fort. saves are excellent candidates for your spirit surge.
Seance Boon: +2 damage doesn’t seem like a lot, but shared between yourself and other weapon-users, that’s going to add up over the course of a day.
Favored Locations: Most communities will have a practice yard at the very least. The ‘places of violence’ location is of potential interest, as the site of any major battle you participated in might resonate as such a location. If your GM is lenient with this interpretation, you’ll nearly always have easy access to this spirit.
Influence Penalty: At low levels this isn’t too big a deal, since all it does is cut you off from your knacks. During most of the middle of your career, you’ll need to use caution, as it can cut you off from your highest level spells, and it reduces the effectiveness of the spells you still can cast in terms of duration and potency. While not especially crippling, particularly if you aren’t focusing on your spellcasting in general, it’s something you need to be aware of.
Taboos: Of the options here, picking a single weapon you must use is probably the least painful. You’ll be kicking yourself if you face a challenge requiring another weapon though (ranged combat when you’ve picked a melee weapon, say, or running into foes with an odd DR type). The taboo where you must accept combat challenges isn’t too terrible… until the your enemies (or the GM) begin to pick up on it, and then you get screwed every time someone calls you out. Spirit surge is useful for the champion, so consider your taboos carefully.
Spirit Powers:
Thoughts: There’s a lot to like about the champion spirit. Aside from spirit surge, there are no influence risks, and all of its abilities are useful for its intended role: offensive combat. The big weakness of the champion is the possible hit to your spellcasting; if you’ve got friends that dish out the buffs, you won’t have to worry too much about the influence penalty.
Guardian
The Guardian archetype is one of the least effective mythic options, since ultimately the best defense is a good offense in Pathfinder. The Guardian spirit brings a similar mentality to the medium, with similar end results.
If for some reason you need to turtle up, this spirit will certainly boost your defenses. It is utterly lacking in offensive tools, so you’ll have to rely on your base abilities for attacks and damage, or else the buffs of your friends.
Guardian spirits are likely to be conservative and cautious, even stubborn. Of all the spirits to lose control to, the guardian might be the least risky, as few villains are willing to put their lives before others.
Spirit Bonus: Give this some time to rank up a bit, and you’ll effectively have all good saves like a (chained) monk, with a scary AC to boot. Spirit surge will only apply to non-Will saves, so influence buildup will depend on the situation.
Seance Boon: There’s no reason not to participate in a guardian seance, since everyone can benefit from a bump to CMD. It’s the sort of minor bonus you really need to remember you have, though.
Favored Locations: Guardian spirits are very bound to civilization; you’ll need communities big enough to warrant some defenses. However, if you find yourself in a dungeon that used to be a fortress or castle, you might be able to commune with latent guardian spirits while adventuring.
Influence Penalty: If you’re sharing your soul with a guardian, chances are you’re in the thick of melee. The last thing you want is a nasty penalty to damage, and the restrictions on your attacks and spellcasting are unpleasant as well. Avoid this at all costs!
Taboos: Of the options here, pick the ‘protect others from danger’ one. It just means you’ll wind up taking more prisoners, which is manageable. You’ll be taking hits, so the peak physical condition one is counter productive; you might be able to manage the vow of silence, especially if you’ve got telepathy going, but it can be hard to avoid negative statuses that force you to break the taboo anyway.
Spirit Powers:
Thoughts: The question you always have to ask yourself while considering the Guardian is: why not the Champion? You can turtle up with your simple weapons, take feats towards an area control / lockdown build, and focus on tanking, but a Champion-focused medium can still do this, and likely do it better. The best thing here is the spirit bonus…
You’ll ultimately wind up protecting your friends better by going with the Champion and killing things. Sadly, the Guardian is probably the least powerful of the spirits; you can’t really change the combat meta of the game.
Hierophant
The second of the ‘casting spirits,’ the hierophant expands your spellcasting into the world of the divine. Like the mythic archetype, there is a heavy focus on healing, which turns the medium into a useful secondary healer.
Hierophant spirits are as diverse in disposition as the gods and forces they serve. From pacifist priests to stern and distant druids to the nihilistic adepts of dark gods, losing control to a hierophant is as dangerous as the power of zealotry itself.
Spirit Bonus: Aside from Perception and Sense Motive checks, you’ll only find yourself using spirit surge on Will saves. Considering you’ll have a MEGA WILL SAVE while bound to this spirit, influence creep is likely to be quite manageable.
Seance Boon: The only people that will benefit from this seance are yourself and any other healers in the group. It’s nice, just remember you have it!
Favored Locations: Even the smallest community likely has a shrine, and you often find sites dedicated to the divine in the strangest of places. A lenient GM might allow you to contact a druidic Hierophant when you’re out in nature, even if it’s not necessarily a ‘sacred grove.’ Lastly, a small portable shrine is pretty feasible to keep around, making this one of the easier spirits to contact overall.
Influence Penalty: The social risks are likely manageable, but the restriction to non-lethal damage only can potentially be bad news, especially if you’re fighting lots of undead or constructs. If you’re planning on fighting, manage your influence with care.
Taboos: None of these taboos are especially difficult. The paladin code is probably the easiest, considering the number of adventuring paladins out there that get by day to day. Avoid the truth-telling one if you’re in for some intrigue or espionage.
Spirit Powers:
Thoughts: For those interested in pursuing a more caster-focused medium, the Hierophant spirit will likely prove much more user-friendly than the Archmage. You can still enjoy your armor, get some nice healing abilities on the side, and will generally be quite helpful to your allies. Cycling through the cleric spell list every day provides some excellent downtime utility as well, as you can request the more niche healing spells as the need arises, or request divinations or other utility spells. An industrious medium could even become a part-time necromancer this way. The cleric list has lots of great buffs, so you can still mix it up in combat if you so desire. The Champion does this better ‘out of the box,’ but using the Hierophant spirit doesn’t mean you have to take a back seat when a fight breaks out.
Marshal
The Marshal mythic archetype represents a great leader, capable of inspiring their allies to great feats of bravery. The Marshal spirit does this to a degree, but relies heavily on spirit surge to do so. No other spirit will accumulate influence as quickly as the Marshal.
Once you hit your influence cap, the Marshal becomes very close to dead weight. You’ll still dazzle with your CHA skills, and perhaps retain the ability to spam a 1-round party buff, but the Marshal definitely has the lowest ‘adventuring endurance’ of any spirit.
Marshal spirits are likely to be driven, emotional, and active. At best, they can be sensitive, gregarious, and inspiring. At worst, they can be tyrannical, egotistical, or just plain insufferable. Losing control to a Marshal is an invitation to great heroics or terrible villainy, and is all but assured to be foolhardy, or at the very least annoying.
Spirit Bonus: You already have a good CHA score; binding the Marshal will make you a social beast. Importantly, you also apply your spirit bonus to all spirit surge dice, and the Marshal can apply spirit surge to all sorts of rolls.
Seance Boon: The Marshal has hands-down the best seance boon, in that you get to pick one from any other spirit. From level 2 onwards, everybody in your party will want to get in on your daily seance. Mix and match for maximum effectiveness!
Favored Locations: Another spirit bound to civilization, you’ll probably need to be in a decent-sized community to have a guaranteed shot at the Marshal. Otherwise, you might need to carry around a sign that dubs any of your campsites the ‘official war room’ for your party.
Influence Penalty: Mercifully, the Marshal has perhaps the least-painful influence penalty of all the spirits. You’ll take a hit to Perception and Sense Motive, but as long as everyone calls you ‘Captain’ you’ll be fine. This is good news, because no other spirit is as dependant on spirit surge as the Marshal, so you’ll be accumulating influence guaranteed.
Taboos: As long as you’re not trying to lay low, pick the third option. If you don’t have any summoners, necromancers, or other disposable-minion types in your party, the ‘no man left behind’ taboo isn’t too bad either. You’ll definitely want to take a taboo, since you’ll need every last use of spirit surge you can.
Spirit Powers:
Thoughts: Almost everything the Marshal does is dependent on spirit surge, and thus, accumulates influence. Even at level 19, assuming you channel a weaker spirit three times and take a taboo, you’ll have 18 uses of spirit surge a day. That’s a pretty decent pool, and allows you to add 1d8+5 (1d10+6 at level 20; not counting feats) to any d20 roll, but that’s it. Every other spirit’s spirit bonus is ‘on’ all day, with other benefits besides. You become a small bonus factory, but you’re cutting yourself off from your higher level abilities. Perhaps most frustratingly of all, you can only ever have one surge per round, on yourself or your allies.
Slightly more reasonably, you can keep Inspiring Call and utilize your swift action to provide a bard-like bonus to your team, using spirit surge when needed on clutch rolls. This doesn’t become really feasible until 11th level, though. If you keep your supreme power, you’ll only have 8 official surges a day, relying on your +1d6 for everything else. Remember: this is level 17 we’re talking about. 9th level spells are being cast in anger. I would avoid the Marshal at the early to mid levels, only considering it if your party has all the important roles covered and you want to just grease the gears in the background.
Trickster
The Trickster mythic archetype is one of the most malleable, full of surprises, and this holds true for the Trickster spirit. While it starts off relatively modestly, the Trickster becomes a very versatile spirit in and out of combat as you accumulate more power. It’s one of the best spirits for intrigue-laden or social encounters; any scenario where skill will win the day, a trickster is extremely useful.
Trickster spirits are cunning, cautious, and confident. Many legendary tricksters were criminals, so it’s unlikely you’ll be sharing your soul with a noble being. Losing control to a Trickster risks you running afoul of the law, or even falling under the influence of a murderer or worse.
Spirit Bonus: You get your bonus to all DEX checks (including initiative!), Ref. saves, and all skill checks. You’ll make a bard green with envy.
Seance Boon: Basically a free floating skill trait, everyone in your party can likely benefit from what amounts to roughly half a feat. It encourages everyone in your party to invest a skill point or two in a non-class skill.
Favored Locations: Tricksters might be the easiest spirits to get ahold of. Every town has an alley, and likely a tavern as well. Most dungeons could count as a maze, and many are laden with traps. The world is full of shadows, and within them likely lurks a spirit willing to work with you.
Influence Penalty: You’ll want to avoid this if you can; paranoia doesn’t help anybody. A medium works best as a team player, so manage your influence with care.
Taboos: All of the trickster taboos are pretty harsh. Of the three, telling nothing but lies is probably the easiest to work with, but potentially disruptive in a social scenario.
Spirit Powers:
Thoughts: The Trickster starts off slow, but will always be useful throughout your entire career. By level 17 it becomes insanely good, but I give it the black rating overall as a good baseline comparison for what benefits a spirit should be bringing to the table.
The Trickster is a great trump card for unusual situations, as long as you’ve got time for a new seance. Whenever an obscure skill is called for, you can produce results, and still pull your weight in a fight. At level 20, you can grab any skill at +29 before ability mods are taken into consideration.
Racial Selection
The medium’s dependence on CHA is relatively mild, especially if you’re not planning on taking advantage of spellcasting. Combat-focused mediums will want to prioritize their physical ability scores. In general, avoid races with a CHA penalty, and you should be fine. There are a LOT of races out there with a CHA bonus, so just pick one that also has a bonus in a physical score you want and you’ll be golden.
Dwarf: Normally a strong defensive choice, the dwarven racial ability score spread is not very medium-friendly. Their racial favored class bonus is too narrow to warrant; you’re better off taking bonus hp. A dwarf medium will make a tough combat-focused medium, but is at a disadvantage for anything more magic-focused.
Elf: Elven weapon proficiencies make selecting non-Champion spirits a bit more combat-ready out of the box. Elven mediums are best off as archers to negate the disadvantage of their CON penalty, but most of their other racial features are of middling importance for most mediums. Avoid the racial favored class bonus; occult skill unlocks are fun and flavorful, but not worth investing resources into.
Gnome: Gnomes make fine caster-leaning mediums, with the defensive benefits of a CON bonus and being small-sized. By the same token, their size limits their effectiveness at combat slightly. Their racial favored class bonus is a bit too niche to warrant.
Half-elf: Much like humans, half-elves are perfectly flexible and make fine mediums. No disadvantages to speak of, although their racial favored class bonus is the same as the elf’s, and thus pretty pointless. If you plan on being more caster-focused, half-elves can pick up the amazing paragon surge spell, further enhancing your chameleonic adaptability.
Halfling: Finally, a core race that actually jumps out as a really solid choice. Despite the hit to weapon damage for being small, halflings have the perfect spread for an archer or finesse-melee medium build. Even better, their racial favored class bonus actually provides a mechanically significant benefit. Seance boons are mostly pretty mild, but the damage bonus from the Champion spirit adds up; you’ll make up for your smaller weapon damage dice in three levels, and consistently out-damage a fighter of equal level later in your career.
Half-orc: Similar to half-elves, but with a racial favored class bonus worth a damn. It’s wasted on any archetype that eliminates taboos, but a half-orc will see more mileage out of the Marshal spirit than other races (aside from humans). It’s a mild advantage to be sure, but there aren’t any other ways to squeeze more use out of taboos.
Humans: For a class as versatile as the medium, it should come as no surprise that humans are a strong choice. Customizable in the extreme, humans are slightly more effective than half-orcs in the long run, with the same racial favored class bonus and the advantage of a bonus feat and skill points.
Archetypes
Occult Adventures includes five archetypes for the medium. The big problem with nearly all of them is that they penalize or further limit your interaction with the influence system, which is already extremely restrictive. In general, a medium archetype is going to wind up with fewer uses of spirit surge or other abilities that increase influence, which alters the value of the spirits they channel accordingly.
Kami Medium
Rather than inviting strange spirits into their soul, kami mediums channel the benign nature spirits known as kami. This is closer to a druid-medium with some Japanese mythological flavor.
Kami Channeler: You lose access to the Archmage spirit entirely, which is a big blow to your versatility. The Champion also becomes extremely difficult to contact, as you must rely on the arrival of stormy weather.
Natural Taboo: You’re basically restricted on equipment like a druid, but you get two free uses of spirit surge regardless of spirit every day. Druids make it work, and so can you.
Ofuda: On the plus side, your spells can no longer be dispelled. The downside, even though a hostile target can’t see their own ofuda, their allies can, and can remove your magic sticker with a standard action. I’d say your casting becomes slightly less reliable overall.
Shikigami: You lose some of your more flavorful class abilities in exchange for what will eventually be an improved familiar. Since your familiar is useful all the time, rather than a limited number of times per day or in rare situations, I’d call this an upgrade.
Ask the Kami: Commune with nature probably won’t provide quite the same level of specific useful information that contact other plane can, but overall I’d call this a wash.
Ward: Merging with a ward is probably about as useful as lesser astral projection, so another wash.
Thoughts: Losing the Archmage is losing ⅙ of your overall versatility and power, and you get basically nothing in exchange. The ofuda change to your spellcasting might end up more of a liability than a benefit, especially if your enemies catch on. If you like the flavor, it’s still functional, but it’s objectively weaker than a regular medium.
Reanimated Medium
This is one of the more unusual archetypes out there, period. Rather than channeling spirits, the reanimated medium is channeling their own spirit, which animates their dead(?) body, making it alive again, somehow. You can only take this archetype after level 1 if you’ve died, and there is a vague implication that any character could return to life after dying by taking a level in reanimated medium. It’s weird. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Channel Self: Instead of accruing influence, you begin with 3 influence and lose it as you use abilities ‘powered’ by influence. All of the influence transactions are reversed. So just after your seance, you are under the influence penalty of your spirit, but it goes away after one use of spirit surge of what-have-you. Rather than losing control of yourself at 5 influence, you fall into a coma at 0 influence. What happens after 24 hours, then? Do you fall into a coma and die? Do you have to perform a seance at hour 23 of your own possession without fail every day, or else you die?
It says you have a maximum capacity of 6 influence, but as far as I can tell, you can only hit a maximum of 4 influence after level 9, once you gain the propitiation ability.
What this ultimately means, by the RAI as best I can tell, is that you can only use influence-related abilities two times a day (three times a day after level 9). While you’ll probably be walking around without an influence penalty more often than not, you wind up with one less use of ‘influence’ than a regular medium, with no way to gain more, since you can’t channel a weaker spirit or take a taboo.
Ease Passage: While Haunt Channeler might be only sporadically useful, this ability is only useful if you die (again).
Lingering Spirit: Another form of death insurance, but you don’t really lose anything worthwhile in exchange.
Spirit Warding: You lose a few more of your more flavorful or niche abilities for some nice resistances, and eventually immunities.
Living Legend: You lose the awesomeness that is Astral Beacon in exchange for a stinking pile of maggot-ridden garbage.
Thoughts: For 95% percent of your career, a reanimated medium will basically function as a slightly-gimped regular medium, if the RAI functions as I think they’re supposed to. You might as well multiclass, though, since your capstone becomes a joke.
I would only suggest this archetype for the flavor, or if your character dies and there are no other options to bring them back, but that’s pretty much GM fiat at that point.
Relic Channeler
Rather than worry about having access to spirits when their favored locations are unavailable, a relic channeler carries their connection to the spirits with them. This comes at the price of versatility; once a choice is made, it is ‘locked’ for that spirit. This is mollified somewhat by the Powerful Bond ability, giving you one more bonus spell known / class skill / exotic weapon proficiency, etc., but you will no longer be the virtuoso of versatility that is the vanilla medium. You can’t channel a weaker spirit, and your taboo choice is locked as well, so you’ll generally have less uses of spirit surge, which is mostly a blow to the Marshal spirit. Lastly, should you lose your relics, you’re screwed until you can perform a long and expensive ceremony.
You get the occultist’s Object Reading ability, which is nice, and some of your other SLA’s are swapped out for other stuff, but that’s mostly the thick and thin of it,
Thoughts: The relic channeler is less flexible, and over long periods of downtime is almost certainly less powerful than a normal medium. However, as long as you make solid decisions, you’ll wind up nearly as effective for the vast majority of your career. This archetype has the advantage of always having access to the spirit you want, and you won’t be overwhelmed with choices whenever you perform a seance.
Overall, I would argue that the medium’s flexibility is the main strength of the class. This archetype neuters that strength; use it at your own risk. I would only advise it if your GM is a real stickler when it comes to favored locations for spirits, which seems to be against the RAI according to recent FAQ’s.
Spirit Dancer
Is the medium not complicated enough for you? Do you enjoy doing lots of math on the fly? Do you want preposterous versatility in exchange for yet another resource to manage? Look no farther than the Spirit Dancer.
Spirit Dance: Rather than pick one spirit for the day, the spirit dancer contacts all six spirits, and makes all of his daily choices in advance. Then, he can access a spirit through a ‘spirit dance,’ which is sort of like a rage mechanic. You have a limited number of rounds per day to use your spirit abilities, and are effectively sickened for 1 minute afterwards. This gives you the advantage of tailoring which spirit to use per encounter, but you run the risk of running out of rounds of spirit dance and being left with nothing but your baseline abilities. Your daily spirit dance rounds are increased by your CHA, so it’s even more important for a spirit dancer than a regular medium.
You can’t channel weaker spirits or accept taboos, so influence-dependent abilities are on an extremely short clock, since influence accumulates for all of your spirits. You can gain a point of influence to regain 4 rounds of spirit dance, so you’ll be even more reluctant to use spirit surge than a regular medium.
Spirit Aura: Your allies only benefit from seance boons during your spirit dance, and only if they’re within 30 ft. This is mostly a downgrade, but it’s the price you pay for versatility.
Spirit Troika: It’s a long wait, but at level 15 things start to get truly interesting. If you burn triple your spirit dance rounds, you can double up on spirits simultaneously, a power the regular medium can never experience. Suddenly, the Champion and the Guardian can combine, giving you a huge temporary boost to offense and defense, for example. This is a very open-ended and potent ability indeed.
Attacca: Few games will ever reach 18th level, but this is preposterous for a spirit dancer. It effectively allows you to ‘rage cycle,’ letting you pick which spirit(s) you want on a round-by-round basis, with no penalty in between dances. Hope you like copious amounts of fiddly math!
Dance of Infinite Forms: Your capstone is basically Astral Beacon, giving you full access to your 1/day supreme spirit powers (you can only use one when you first gain access to them). Better yet, you get a discount on Spirit Troika. If you want to hemorrhage spirit dance rounds, you can channel all six spirits at once, although this is pretty wasteful.
Thoughts: Spirit Dancer is almost an entirely different class. The regular medium is stronger for any situation where you have the advantage of time; longer, more ponderous skill checks, social situations, stealth, espionage, etc. The spirit dancer is stronger on a tactical level, encounter by encounter, but only really pulls ahead in the later levels when Spirit Troika comes online.
In practice, I only see a spirit dancer switching between Champion and Hierophant; everything else messes with weapon and armor proficiencies a bit too much for ease of use. The Marshal is too costly in terms of influence to warrant using, especially if you’re concerned about spirit dance round consumption, and the Trickster typically needs time to scout, sneak, or use skills.
It makes for an interesting thought experiment, but it seems the regular medium is ultimately stronger. A spirit dancer is also much more likely to bog down the game as their spirit bonus and various other abilities keep changing around.
The only area I’m still unsure about is the Archmage and Hierophant giving temporary access to more spell slots. Do they share a single 1-6 caster progression pool, or do they have two separate ones? Does casting your native medium spells count against the Archmage and Hierophant? Ask your GM today!
Storyteller
A fusion of bard and medium, the storyteller is… an option you can take, certainly.
Diminished Spirits: So no taboos, no ability to channel weaker spirits, and you start with 2 points of influence rather than 1. You have essentially 2 uses of spirit surge or other influence-increasing abilities per day (you lose propitiation). That’s harsh. You also lose seance boons...
Knowledge of Tales: You lose your spirit bonus. It’s replaced with an ability that’s worse than bardic knowledge…
Versatile Surge: With no spirit bonus, your spirit surge can be used on any ability check, skill check, or saving throw (twice per day).
Storyteller’s Performance: So instead of a spirit bonus, you get bardic music (not the full suite, mind you, but the most commonly used ones like inspire courage). This is a fine ability, but it replaces most of your other main class features.
This is why you lost spirit bonus… You get a less powerful bonus to share with your pals (but no seance boons!), but it’s limited rounds per day.
Learn the Story: You swap out Connection Channel for some legend lore style abilities. You also lose Spirit Mastery. They really don’t want a Storyteller to use spirit surge…
Living Story: So instead of the amazingness of Astral Beacon, you get a 9th level spell with your bardic performance (microcosm in this case).
Thoughts: Perhaps I’m judging this archetype too harshly; you’re a much more team-support sort of character. But it seems the value of bardic performance is being overblown quite a bit. The main issue I have with this archetype is the extreme limitation on spirit surge and anything having to do with influence. A party-support character might be inclined to pick the Marshal spirit, but with only 2 uses of spirit surge before losing control, it’s a waste of a spirit.
You can certainly function, probably by picking the Hierophant spirit and just sticking to the back in a support role, but this is a much more limited archetype. I might suggest just having storyteller’s performance replace spirit bonus/seance boons and allow the storyteller to keep propitiation, spirit mastery, taboos, etc. as a more reasonable houserule.
Feat Selection
Your spirits pull most of the weight when it comes to being good at any given task. You can focus on generally useful feats and rely on your spirits and spells for offensive and defensive options, or you can use your feats to improve your capabilities in a specific role, complementing your spirit of choice. You don’t have a source of bonus feats, so you won’t be able to mix and match too much, especially if you pick a feat-intensive strategy such as archery or two-weapon fighting.
General Feats
Additional Traits (APG): Some traits are really amazing. Handy for expanding your class skills, shoring up saves, or boosting initiative as well.
Combat Casting: This is of most value to melee mediums that might find themselves casting in close quarters.
Expanded Arcana (APG): This feat is valuable for expanding your list of medium spells known, particularly for mediums that won’t be focusing on the Archmage or Hierophant. Considering you can ‘learn’ new spells every day, this is less valuable to mediums than it is to other spontaneous casters.
Iron Will: Even though Will is your strong save, and you’ll have lots of spells and class features to improve it even further, nothing messes with your casting ability like a failed Will save. Every little bit helps. You’ll be happy to have the improved version when you need it as well; consider taking it in a very caster-heavy or occult-y game.
Legendary Influence (UI): Six feats for the price of one? This is the sort of versatility a medium dreams about! But… read this more carefully.
First, it limits the feats you can pick; item creation feats are banned. Too bad, too, as this would be automatically blue in that case, allowing you to pick item creation feats for your caster spirits when you’re doing downtime.
Secondly, any feats you pick can’t be used as prereqs for your actual feats. I thought it would be cool for a champion-main to pick Weapon Focus for a martial or exotic weapon, thus opening up some feat trees, but nope! Not allowed. (Okay, a 17th level champion can use it as a prereq for his supreme spirit ability, but come on)
Third, and worst of all, you have to tank a point of influence to use these feats in the first place. Your cap thus drops from 4 to 3, ruinous for a marshal-main and extremely irritating for everyone else. If you don’t want to pay the influence cost, you’re sitting on a wasted feat slot.
It has been pointed out that nothing’s stopping you from simply picking Spirit Focus for each legend. This is cheesy. It’s also just about the only thing holding it back from a red rating. Make informed feat selections. Don’t gimp yourself for the illusion of versatility.
Improved Legendary Influence (UI): If you want to benefit from taking this, you start the day with 2 influence. That means using a single influence-mechanic ability earns you an automatic influence penalty, which is crippling for certain builds. This isn’t worth it.
Mage’s Tattoo (ISWG): This is an easy +1 to CL if you’re already taking Spell Focus.
Racial Heritage (APG): This is a human-only racial feat, which you can pick up to take the halfling favored class bonus.
Spell Focus, Greater Spell Focus: I would only advise these feats for caster-focused occultists; as a 1-6 caster, your saving throw DCs will begin to trail behind full casters, so these help close the gap.
Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration: Metamagic such as Piercing Spell is difficult for mediums to pull off, even with casting spirits. These feats are a simpler solution, and a wise investment if you enjoy blasting or you’re playing in a caster or outsider-heavy game.
Spirit Focus (OA): Mediums only get ONE feat out of Occult Adventures, which is somewhat baffling. Perhaps Occult Origins will give them more love (like a feat that lessens the horrors of influence? Please?), but for now, you have Spirit Focus. Thankfully, it’s really good! Pick your favorite spirit, and enjoy a +1 to your spirit bonus with that spirit. This is better than Weapon Focus for the Champion, since it also applies to Fort. saves. It’s a +1 on all skill checks, initiative, and Ref. saves for the Trickster. You get a lot of mileage out of this feat, although it’s probably least useful for the Archmage and Hierophant.
Steadfast Personality (ACG): With your CHA focus, this feat helps alleviate MADness by allowing you to ignore WIS entirely and still have a great Will save.
Toughness: For a melee medium, this is basically essential; you’ll need the extra hp to keep up with your full BAB compatriots. Archer or caster mediums can benefit from this feat as well, but it’s not as high a priority.
Undead Master: If you’re interested in necromancy, this feat allows you to animate bigger / more things at once. It won’t allow you to control any more than you normally can, but it’s helpful if you find yourself with a particularly large and impressive corpse.
Combat Feats
Armor Proficiency (Heavy): Once you can afford heavy armor, this is worth consideration for a melee occultist. The Guardian spirit provides you this for free, but it’s pretty much inferior to the Champion.
Critical Focus: The critical feats are a late-career consideration, best if you’re using a weapon with a generous crit range. Of the critical feats this unlocks for you, Staggering Critical is probably your best bet.
Improved Critical: This saves you a bit of money on a keen weapon.
Dazzling Display: With a CHA focus and Intimidation as a class skill, a combat-Intimidation build can be quite effective for a medium.
Deadly Aim: An archer will want to pick this up eventually, once the essentials are obtained.
Furious Focus (APG): This is a nice companion to Power Attack.
Improved Initiative: Is there a guide out there where this isn’t blue? Always worth picking up if you can.
Lunge: Another solid melee feat that affords you some extra casting security.
Martial Weapon Proficiency: The weapon proficiencies provided by the Champion spirit are temporary, so you can’t qualify for feats such as Weapon Focus with non-simple weapons without picking up an actual permanent proficiency. Racial weapon proficiencies are thus beneficial to a medium.
Piranha Strike (PC: SLC): Basically Power Attack for finessable light weapons, useful on a Two-Weapon Fighting build.
Point-Blank Shot (Rapid Shot, Precise Shot, Manyshot): These are the foundational feats for an archer build, and there are many more solid archery-related feats beyond these.
Power Attack: The king of melee feats is a solid addition to any STR-based build.
Slashing Grace / Fencing Grace / Dervish Dance (ACG / ACO / ISWG): It’s a little tough to meet the prereqs, but these feats allow you to get DEX to damage. Unfortunately, you can’t do two-weapon fighting with these, or use a shield bigger than a buckler.
Two-Weapon Fighting: Your access to the later feats in this chain will be slower than a full BAB class, but the Champion’s spirit bonus and seance boon applies to damage on every attack, so this is a decent strategy for a DEX melee build. The Trickster theoretically benefits from these as well, providing more opportunities for sneak attack, but the Champion will out-fight the Trickster in pretty much all situations.
Weapon Finesse: This is a good backup feat for an archer if you can fit it in, and mandatory if you’re going for a DEX-based melee build.
Weapon Focus: It’s a prereq for several decent feats, but you’ll be stuck with simple weapons unless you can pick up a real proficiency somehow, due to the Champion’s temporary martial weapon proficiency.
Item Creation Feats
Due to the Archmage and Hierophant’s ability to provide you with new bonus spells known every day, the medium has a unique advantage during downtime when it comes to item creation. For slower-paced campaigns, these feats will save you money and expand your options, both for yourself and your allies.
Brew Potion: Though pricier than scrolls, potions have the advantage of not requiring UMD to use, from yourself or your allies. A better choice for more industrious mediums that don’t plan on focusing on casting during actual adventures.
Craft Wand: Cheaper than staves, and more economical in the long run than scrolls, wands are also easy to UMD. They’ll help add adventuring endurance to caster-focused mediums, and provide excellent out-of combat healing and other benefits.
Craft Wondrous Item: The largest category of magic items, you can probably meet most of the prerequisites on whatever you want, keeping the crafting DC’s low. You’ll need to invest more in Spellcraft than other mediums, however.
Scribe Scroll: Reasonably cheap, and available right out of the gate, an industrious medium can create an impressive and diverse collection of scrolls given time. If you have a wizard, magus, or alchemist in the party, you can flesh out their spellbook every day of downtime. Scrolls are harder to UMD than wands, but a medium can rock a pretty decent UMD modifier when not channeling a caster spirit.
Metamagic Feats
You’ve got two things working against you when it comes to metamagic feats: you’re not a full caster, and thus have fewer spell slots to work with, and you’re a spontaneous caster on top of that, so using metamagic in combat is cumbersome. Thus, you’re best off relying on metamagic rods. That said, there are a few that are worth consideration, but only if you think you’re going to favor the Archmage or Hierophant.
Extend Spell: Possibly the most popular metamagic feat, this is an old standby that’s great for buffing before a dungeon delve. A lesser rod of this is nice and cheap, so you can probably skip it.
Intuitive Spell (OA): You can negate the downside of thought components with a move action; using this feat will take a full round action. Grab a rod if you can spare some extra cash, otherwise don’t worry about it.
Logical Spell (OA): The big weakness of psychic magic is emotion components. There are ways to defend against negative emotion effects, but inevitably something’s going to get through. This is handy in rod form, but you won’t regret simply knowing this feat either.
Trait Selection
If your game features the optional trait rules (and most seem to these days), you basically have two options: pick something flavorful or appropriate for your backstory, or min-max them like the conniving Munchkin you are. We’ll be looking at ‘optimal’ traits, many of which are basically half-feats. There are so many of these damn things, from so many different sources, that I’m basically going to throw up my hands and say ‘look them up on the SRD.’
Reactionary: This applies to any similar initiative-boosting trait. Going first is very important, so any trait that boosts this for you is gold.
Magical Lineage: One of the only examples of metamagic reducers in Pathfinder, a wisely-picked spell coupled with this feat is potent indeed.
Disillusioned (QaC): +2 to saves against any effect that could shut you off from emotion component spells is certainly handy.
Focused Mind: Most folks might not have the room to fit in a feat like Combat Casting. Traits like this are a nice compromise.
Fate’s Favored: Awesome for half-orcs with the sacred tattoo racial trait, this is a handy trait for anybody really. Pick up a four leaf clover or a luckstone!
Spell Selection
Regardless of the spirits you channel, a medium eventually learns a modest number of psychic spells, up to 4th level. Like the Bloodrager, you have a full caster level, and you gain access to 0-level spells from the get-go.
Your spell selection is important for all kinds of medium builds. Channeling a caster spirit like the Archmage or Hierophant gives you more spell slots to work with, and while they give you some bonus spells known your base medium spells serve as the backbone of your casting capabilities.
Your saving throw DCs will always trail behind proper casters, so it’s wise to select buffs or spells that don’t allow a saving throw. There are some pretty solid spells on your list, so don’t neglect to invest in CHA for more bonus spells as you gain levels. Below I list the most generally useful spells, but you can usually afford to devote one or two spells known to more flavorful or niche spells if you wish.
Lastly, there is some overlap now and then between the Medium spell list and the cleric/oracle and sorcerer/wizard spell list. If an overlapping spell is somewhat niche or unlikely to be used in combat or on an adventure, don’t learn it. You can temporarily learn the spell through the Archmage or Hierophant spirits (for example, the Planar Ally / Planar Binding line). Save your Medium spells known for spells you’ll want regular access to, regardless of which spirit you channel.
0-Level Spells / Knacks (6 known):
For your first three levels, knacks are your only source of magic outside of spirits. They’re handy little things to thave, but you can pick whatever you want and still be perfectly serviceable.
1st Level Spells (6 known):
Ill omen is one of your best offensive options at this level. There are some solid defensive buffs, and great options for melee characters (yourself or your allies). You can probably afford to fit in one or two of the quirkier occult spells that strike your fancy, such as mindlink or calm spirit; consult with other occult allies to fill in any gaps.
2nd Level Spells (6 known):
With haste, heroism, mirror image, and invisibility, there are some real heavy-hitters this level for mediums of all stripes. With your limited spell slots per day, long duration spells like heroism and false life will get better mileage.
3rd Level Spells (Known: 6)
There are fewer must-have spells this level than last, so you can branch out a bit here. Possession opens up a world of spooky possibilities if you can keep your save DC reasonable.
4th Level Spells (Known: 5)
Your final level of native spells has some real gems. Tailor your selection based on what your allies are routinely providing; you might be better served picking the more obscure occult spells if nobody else can bring them to the table, such as telepathy or dream scan.
A Note on the Archmage and Hierophant:
Much like a wizard, a medium channeling these spirits benefits from being informed, or at least making educated guesses, about the challenges he expects to face during the day ahead. You’ll be gaining access to at least one (eventually two) spell levels higher than what you can natively cast, as well as more slots to cast all of your spells.
The cleric/oracle list has excellent combat buffs, such as divine favor, prayer, bless, and others. It also has the earliest access to minion-producing necromancy spells such as animate dead, and the ever-vital desecrate.
The sorcerer/wizard list provides you with an incredibly diverse range of spells. Due to the nature of the Archmage, it’s safest to avoid spells requiring attack rolls on the offensive. It’s hard to predict what utility spells you might need if you’re going adventuring with the Archmage, but it’s wise to spread out your selection; have a spell that targets each saving throw, a defensive buff, and a good general utility spell (such as invisibility or fly) as a standard loadout.
Equipment Considerations
Mundane Gear:
Breastplate, Full Plate, Mithral Chain Shirt: Archers want to grab the chain shirt to take advantage of their high DEX scores. Everybody else wants the heaviest armor they can reasonably wear. Mithral medium armor is a fine late-game choice if you don’t feel like blowing a feat on heavy armor proficiency. If you favor the Archmage, you might just want to avoid armor entirely and grab a wand of mage armor.
Composite Longbow: Your best ranged weapon choice.
Greatsword: Hard to beat for a good two-handed weapon. Really, you can mix it up with whatever melee weapon floats your fancy.
Backup weapons: It doesn’t hurt to have weapons of a different damage type than your main weapon, as well as a light weapon for grapples or if you get swallowed whole.
Katana, urumi, falcata: If you want to take advantage of the free exotic weapon proficiency from the Champion, some of the better options are actually one-handed weapons.
Meteor hammer, dwarven longhammer, fauchard: The better exotic two-handed weapons are basically top-tier martial two-handers with reach.
Mithral or darkwood heavy shield: With no armor check penalty, you can wield these shields regardless of proficiency. Another fine alternative to taking heavy armor proficiency, especially if you want to rock a falcata or urumi.
Occult Reference Material (OA): If you’ve got the time, this is a modest investment for a nice bonus on topics that might be common in an occult campaign.
Prismatic Crystal (OA): These are nifty little trinkets; you might as well enjoy the benefits of being psychic!
Talking Board (OA): This cheap item gives you all sorts of useful goodies in a spooky occult game, especially if there’s more than one occult character in the party.
Magic Items
Headband of Alluring Charisma: More important for caster-leaning mediums, all mediums will want one of these eventually, if for no other reason than pumping up bonus spells.
Belt of Giant’s Strength / Incredible Dexterity / Mighty Constitution: Your belt slot is also spoken for if you’re going to be doing any sort of fighting.
Hat of Disguise: These things are just the best. In an intrigue heavy or social game you can get up to all kinds of mischief.
Handy Haversack: Useful for lugging your stuff around, especially if you dumped STR.
Runestones of Power (ACG): These are basically pearls of power for spontaneous casters. Considering your low native spell level cap and limited spell slots, you’ll get more mileage out of a few of these than 1-6 or full casters.
Ring of Psychic Mastery (OA): With the above in mind, it’s actually cheaper to own runestones of power, levels 1 - 4, than it is to buy this ring, which does what those four runestones would do while eating up a ring slot. IT’S A TRAP!
Metamagic Rods: You want these! Ideally several different kinds. Some are very reasonably priced, such as the lesser rod of extend. Others are outrageously expensive, but still incredibly useful and powerful. If you plan on only using your native casting, you’ll be fine with lesser rods, while caster-focused mediums might want to grab the regular rods later in their career.
Pages of Spell Knowledge (UE) / Spell Lattices (ACG): These items effectively allow you to purchase more spells known. The 1st level ones are a steal, but I wouldn’t advise getting anything more than 2nd level ones.
Wands: 1st level wands are the best deal. Wishlist: endure elements, remove fear, air bubble.
Staves: Staves are expensive, but they’re a nice tool to stretch out your adventuring endurance in higher level play.
Potions: Potions are handy, especially if you’re under a fear or negative emotion effect. Potions of remove fear should always be on hand, as well as healing potions.
Dreamcatcher (OA): In an occult game featuring lots of dream-wackiness, this is a pretty cheap item that gives you a nice defensive edge during sleepytime.
False Coin (OA): Nice and cheap, but surprisingly handy in an intrigue-laden game.
Four-Leaf Clover (OA): Much cheaper than a luckstone, these are handy little trinkets useful for any character. Even better if you’ve got the Fate’s Favored trait.
Lucky Horseshoe (OA): Much like the four-leaf clover, this is like a discount luckstone. It’s nice that it’s ‘always on,’ but you can probably get by with a four-leaf clover until later in your career.
Talismans (OA): You don’t have a whole lot of high-priority things for your neck slot, so the various talismans are pretty nifty to have around. Obviously the greater ones are better in the long run, but the lesser ones are handy in a pinch. Danger sense, freedom, good fortune, and life’s breath are the real stand-outs.
Final Note
If you’re interested in the occult skill unlocks, the oddness of psychic magic, or how to be good at psychic duels, please check out my guide on the Psychic, here.
Remember that any bonus spells you learn from the Archmage or Hierophant spirits are treated as arcane or divine spells, respectively. This means that a negative status that would shut down most psychic casters completely only partially affects a medium channeling one of said spirits.
