Spirit Medium?

[SangoProduction]

So, I wanted to make a character that basically had this story:

After an unfortunate incident that resulted in his lover's untimely death, he performed a ritual to bind her soul to his, even at the cost of shortening his own life. (as the TL;DR version)

I could always go with a Dvati and have it so she was effectively resurrected by this. It was my first thought. But what if she wasn't? What if she was just a bound spirit? How could I implement that in to the character? That's what I need help with (could be PF or 3.5, this is just a thought experiment).



I thought about "channeling magic through her," or "she's the real caster." But that didn't really feel like it added anything to the character (if anything, it detracts from it, as "the character" is sitting around twiddling his thumbs while the spirit is casting). Also, the fluff would kinda contradict the crunch, as you'd still need to have the character be impeded by armor, make concentration checks while threatened, and so on.

Being a necromancer or Oracle doesn't really interact with the idea.

I did think about "partial possession" where the spirit empowers the character, a "rage" effect, which actually seemed kinda cool. Could even justify that blind berserker class that has x4 to power attack, using it. I'm not sure I want a berserker character, but that does seem like a cool idea. I could even use the alternative rage effects, like the whirling dance or whatever (the +dex, +attacks one), to just fit it in to a build as a side thing.

Pathfinder does have a couple possession-based feats, which are kinda cool, and fit that concept. (This also lead to me finding the Demonic Possession feat chain which is rather cool. I've got to make a build for it later.) And apparently, there's only the Possessed Hand feat and Possessed trait. meh.
I also just found the Medium and Shaman classes for Pathfinder. Shaman is cool. I can dig it, with a bit of refluffing. The Medium doesn't quite gel with my concept.

Any other suggestions?

[Nifft]

Maybe the wife could be a bound spirit like a Familiar or other pet?

[SangoProduction]

Maybe the wife could be a bound spirit like a Familiar or other pet?

Yeah. That could probably work. One likely would want to use the more intelligent of the pets for this purpose.

[Nifft]

Yeah. That could probably work. One likely would want to use the more intelligent of the pets for this purpose.

Even a basic animal Familiar can eventually become smarter than her Sorcerer.

Maybe that's the wife's soul slowly returning to full cognizance.

By level 20, she's got 15 Int, and he's still a Sorcerer.

[TotallyNotEvil]

Spirit Shaman from Complete Divine sounds like it'd do the trick.

Or Summoner from PF, have her as your Eidolon.

[SangoProduction]

Even a basic animal Familiar can eventually become smarter than her Sorcerer.

Maybe that's the wife's soul slowly returning to full cognizance.

By level 20, she's got 15 Int, and he's still a Sorcerer.

I was referring to the "pets" part of your comment, which, presumably, included things like Animal Companions.


Spirit Shaman from Complete Divine sounds like it'd do the trick.

Or Summoner from PF, have her as your Eidolon.

Oh. Yeah. Summoner is a thing. Those are quite universally usable for any sort of duo.

[Deadline]

Spirit Shaman from Complete Divine sounds like it'd do the trick.

The Spirit Guide feature for the Spirit Shaman sounds solid. Alternatively, the Ranger ACF, Spiritual Guide, from Complete Champion could also work.

[Goaty14]

...Binder anybody?
Refluffing channeling from BoED could also work, it's not like his wife has superior stats or anything.

[Bohandas]

The [Host] feats from Complete Psionic

[SangoProduction]

The [Host] feats from Complete Psionic

Ooo That's interesting.

Well. They are at least flavorful.

[Pyromancer999]

This sounds perfect for the Pathfinder Spiritualist class. They bind a spirit to themselves and gain power from it. Pretty much an Occult-themed Summoner(with some differences), and a better fit for the character described.

[Thurbane]

Reminds me a little of Impresario from the Awesomes (very underrated show):

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZWRlMWM0M2EtMzU3ZC00MGVjLThkNDMtNTExZDA4MDE4ZT kzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjg2MTMyNTM@._V1_SX681_CR0,0,681 ,383_AL_.jpg

[Zaq]

I played a character once who was a Spirit Shaman whose spirit guide was the spirit of his dead husband (who had Chrysanthemum Vow'd himself to keep a promised meeting with this character). My twist was that the character in question had no idea that this elephant spirit that kept showing up every morning was his dead spouse. And since the character hailed from Boatmurdered (yes, THAT Boatmurdered—combining a weirdass Dwarf Fortress LP with an Edo-period ghost story is totally a normal way to craft a backstory, right?), he didn't have a good opinion of elephants—the spouse in question had died while off serving in the Elephant Wars. So my Spirit Shaman's method of prepping spells was just to drink until he couldn't see the elephant anymore. I called it "communing with the spirits."

Anyway, Spirit Shaman totally works. Maybe take the Spirit Sense feat from HoH, which has likely been mentioned already.

[khadgar567]

wnt much easier solution with out jumping hoops check spirutualist from pathfinder there are third party products giving every phantom you imagine

[Psyren]

+1 Spiritualist or Summoner. You could even make any other pet class work, like a druid or witch, but it may depend on how... er... intimate you may want to get with your late wife.

[Ellrin]

So, I wanted to make a character that basically had this story:

After an unfortunate incident that resulted in his lover's untimely death, he performed a ritual to bind her soul to his, even at the cost of shortening his own life. (as the TL;DR version)

I could always go with a Dvati and have it so she was effectively resurrected by this. It was my first thought. But what if she wasn't? What if she was just a bound spirit? How could I implement that in to the character? That's what I need help with (could be PF or 3.5, this is just a thought experiment).



I thought about "channeling magic through her," or "she's the real caster." But that didn't really feel like it added anything to the character (if anything, it detracts from it, as "the character" is sitting around twiddling his thumbs while the spirit is casting). Also, the fluff would kinda contradict the crunch, as you'd still need to have the character be impeded by armor, make concentration checks while threatened, and so on.

Being a necromancer or Oracle doesn't really interact with the idea.

I did think about "partial possession" where the spirit empowers the character, a "rage" effect, which actually seemed kinda cool. Could even justify that blind berserker class that has x4 to power attack, using it. I'm not sure I want a berserker character, but that does seem like a cool idea. I could even use the alternative rage effects, like the whirling dance or whatever (the +dex, +attacks one), to just fit it in to a build as a side thing.

Pathfinder does have a couple possession-based feats, which are kinda cool, and fit that concept. (This also lead to me finding the Demonic Possession feat chain which is rather cool. I've got to make a build for it later.) And apparently, there's only the Possessed Hand feat and Possessed trait. meh.
I also just found the Medium and Shaman classes for Pathfinder. Shaman is cool. I can dig it, with a bit of refluffing. The Medium doesn't quite gel with my concept.

Any other suggestions?

This doesn't give you any mechanical effect relating to your backstory idea, but if you wanted to, you could fluff the Possessed Hand feat tree for this with minimal effort.

It'd even make intimacy slightly less awkward than most of the other options.

Very slightly.

[SangoProduction]

This doesn't give you any mechanical effect relating to your backstory idea, but if you wanted to, you could fluff the Possessed Hand feat tree for this with minimal effort.

It'd even make intimacy slightly less awkward than most of the other options.

Very slightly.

AH! I knew there was a feat tree for possessed hand! Man. I really wished that the site would put on the page feats that require the current feat.

*Reads it over* wow. 3 feats for half a familiar that leaves you disarmed....or rather...underhanded....when its prerequisite feats focus on two weapon fighting! But hey. Sleight of Hand as a familiar bonus of +3. Hahaha. Funny. /em takes Skill Focus instead...for 1 feat.

Wow. I hate that I read that. lol. I really do. But yeah. Possessed Hand on its own is probably not a bad investment.

[Ellrin]

The Possessed Hand feats are pretty decent individually, but they have absolutely awful synergy with each other, it's true. I don't know who was in charge of QCing that book, but he really dropped the ball letting that feat tree go through as printed.

[Calimehter]

I'm AFB but there was something in Unearthed Arcana about Companion Spirits. They give assorted bonuses or powers, and become stronger as you get higher level and invest more XP (i.e. life force) into them. Seems quite thematic if I'm remembering them correctly.

Downside would be the need to refluff or rework some of it to work for a solo character, since they were designed to be a team benefit thing. Or you could possibly switch over the concept to where the deceased spouse is looking over the OPs companions as well.

Edit:

DMG II, not UA. I had also forgotten just how dependent the bonuses were on the number of team members. Would require some hefty reworking (or application to a larger group than just the spouse per my earlier suggestion). Oh well, it might still work as a framework for a homebrew solution. :)

[Thurbane]

I'm AFB but there was something in Unearthed Arcana about Companion Spirits. They give assorted bonuses or powers, and become stronger as you get higher level and invest more XP (i.e. life force) into them. Seems quite thematic if I'm remembering them correctly.

Downside would be the need to refluff or rework some of it to work for a solo character, since they were designed to be a team benefit thing. Or you could possibly switch over the concept to where the deceased spouse is looking over the OPs companions as well.

That reminds me: there's also the Divine Companion ACF for Sorcerers (CC p.51), that replaces your familiar with a "spirit creature", which stores and redirects arcane energy. It's not sentient, however.

[SangoProduction]

That reminds me: there's also the Divine Companion ACF for Sorcerers (CC p.51), that replaces your familiar with a "spirit creature", which stores and redirects arcane energy. It's not sentient, however.

Actually works for the first interpretation of being a vessel to channel energy.

Which reminds me. Isn't there a prestige class that lets your shadow cast for you?

[Calthropstu]

Would a gnomish medium who broke the law be a small medium at large?

[bahamut920]

If you want his wife's spirit to be an actual, physical creature with a presence on the battlefield, summoner or spiritualist is probably the best option, with the various "pet-based" classes being secondary.

If you're looking for more of a "voice-in-the-head" kind of thing, you could go with the medium (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/occult-adventures/occult-classes/medium) class. It works kind of like binder, but it gets a small selection of psychic spells (paladin progression) and the spirits you bind are explicitly the spirits of the dead. Just figure out what "class" your character's wife was, and then bind only that kind of spirit unless you are forced to do otherwise. There's also the possessed bloodline (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/sorcerer/bloodlines/bloodlines-from-paizo/possessed-sorcerer-bloodline/) for sorcerers, which means that the sorcerer's power is at least partially due to a possessing spirit. Binder would also work; just make a 1st-level vestige (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060324a) representing the character's wife (or refluff an existing 1st-level vestige).

If you don't want to have the character's mechanical abilities defined by that backstory distinction, Possessed Hand is an option, as is simply refluffing another feat. Take Skill Focus and describe it as him communing with her spirit. Take Iron Will and explain it as the dual nature of the two souls making either one harder to command. See if your DM would allow you to get mage hand at will for the cost of a feat and describe it as her spirit moving things for him.

[SangoProduction]

I could do Spheres of Power, with the Magic Signs tradition (her appearing behind him, whenever casting). Even disregarding the Soul Weaver class (which could be slightly refluffed to be power of a single soul rather than various ones), the spheres have quite a few options that would seem appropriate, from Telekinesis to Enhancement and Summoning.

[TotallyNotEvil]

I've homebrewed a Spirit Shaman with Eidolon progression and a single Spirit (from spiritualist). Not too hard.

[Calimehter]

Another random thought: Go with something like a MM II Glimmerskin. The ritual the OPs character invokes would involve trading off the typical glimmer skin for something more spouse-specific in place of the usual glimmerskin personality.

[Ellrin]

Would a gnomish medium who broke the law be a small medium at large?

Underrated post.

[Cruiser1]

Would a gnomish medium who broke the law be a small medium at large?
It may be a gargantuan waste of time for me to offer this diminutive addition to the above humor, however:

If the gnome's name was Tiny, and he was overweight but still handsome, then he would be:

Tiny, the fine, huge small medium at large. :smallwink:

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Funnily enough, Pathfinder's Spiritualist Iconic is an elderly spirit medium whose Phantom is her dead husband.

[Nifft]

Underrated post.

https://www.amazon.com/Small-Medium-Large-Joanne-Levy/dp/1599908360

It's just standard young adult fiction.

How is it underrated?

[ShurikVch]

It's may be kinda late to answer this thread, but I just noticed the PrC in Dragon #323: Spirit Speaker

http://molivero.com/dndtools/USRD/srd/resource/images/classes/prestigeDramagSpiritSpeaker.JPG

[Calthropstu]

It may be a gargantuan waste of time for me to offer this diminutive addition to the above humor, however:

If the gnome's name was Tiny, and he was overweight but still handsome, then he would be:

Tiny, the fine, huge small medium at large. :smallwink:

You missed diminutive and colossal, but well done.
To answer op's title question, I prefer my spirits from the 9th layer of hell... so well done for me please.

[Nifft]

You missed diminutive and colossal, but well done.

Name him "Pete", which is of course a diminutive of Peter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diminutives_by_language).

Also perhaps he's a colossal bastard.