Help building a Spiritualist/Medium

[Squash63]

Hello all,

I’m working on a character for my next campaign and I really like the idea of an early 1900s Spiritualist/Meduim type. I’ve been looking at Spirit Bard or Stars Druid, but I want to hear what others think.

This campaign is going to be very RP focused, so combat isn’t a focus, just flavor and story.

I want any ideas you have. Any particular background? Skills? Spells, races, classes, feats? Bring it on.

[Mastikator]

Druid will give you access to the augury spell, as does cleric and wizard. However speak with dead is a cleric/bard/wizard spell. Those two are very medium-y spells. I'd actually grab wizard, diviner specifically. You can roleplay that portent are omens you receive from the spirit world/dead.
Identify is also a pretty medium-y spell, you can roleplay that the spirits tell you stuff about an item.

[Dualight]

Lore bard might also work, due to the early Additional Magical Secrets, so you can nab a lot of spells that get you the information you seek.

What level will you start at and how high will you go? Ifr 9th level rolls by early enough, Warlock for infinite speak with dead through the Whispers of the Grave Invocation.

[Squash63]

Lore bard might also work, due to the early Additional Magical Secrets, so you can nab a lot of spells that get you the information you seek.

What level will you start at and how high will you go? Ifr 9th level rolls by early enough, Warlock for infinite speak with dead through the Whispers of the Grave Invocation.

It will be a highly homebrewed Wild Beyond the Witchlight, starting at level 2. I assume level 9 will be towards the end.

[KorvinStarmast]

It will be a highly homebrewed Wild Beyond the Witchlight, starting at level 2. I assume level 9 will be towards the end. My Warlock took that invocation at level 9; it has turned out to be quite useful, but one does get no few "cryptic answers" from the DM. :smallcool:

[Floorlock]

I was just popping in here to see if the spirits bard was mentioned, and it's already in the OP.

It's the one that, I believe, was clearly designed for this exact archetype in many ways.

However, I will also say that it is unfortunately a bit too random for my tastes...and I would say one of the bards I'm often less likely to play because of it.

I ran into this situation multiple times, myself. I'm most often a DM, but, my wife and I also play alongside each other at times. Every once in a while, we take it upon ourselves to play a tiefling couple duo heavily inspired by the vistani...with her playing a fortune teller/ medium and myself playing a swords bard / acrobat.

In helping her build her character, we eventually came across the spirits bard released in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. (A bard that, I believe, was essentially created for anyone who wanted to play a Vistani type of character specifically.)

It works...it really does. But, sometimes I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't be just as easy for her to play a Lore Bard, use magical secrets to get a couple of other good spells she needs...and mainly focus on divination types of abilities. I personally am a much bigger fan of consistency, though...so maybe that's just me. The spirit bard random story schtick doesn't necessarily do it for me in some ways.

A lot of it also just depends on the type of character you want to play. My wife, for example, wanted to lean into the charismatic angle of it all. She also was going for a charlatan vibe until she ACTUALLY found out how to speak with the dead...so she needed some level of potential obfuscation of the truth.

In her case, though, she also started with a couple levels of Divination Wizard to grab the omens...along with picking up wisdom saving throws and a bunch of nice first level spells so that she could free up her Bard picks. She realized, however, how much 2 levels were putting her behind in some ways...and the character didn't feel particularly in her element until a bit later because of it.

So, I mean. It's kinda hard to say. If you wanted to keep it straight-forward and simple, I guess Spirit Bard is there for you.

Going Divination Wizard will never hurt either though...in either power or theme...especially if you'd like a more studious character than a charismatic one.

[Kane0]

Spirit Bard, Knowledge Cleric, Diviner Wizard, most varieties of Warlock, take your pick!

[Clause]

The barbarian spirit guardian, can be a nice choose. You need only make a good characterization. The charlatan background is perfect to this

[Devils_Advocate]

How honest do you wanna be?

I infer that actually talking to spirits is supposed to be part of what this character does. So let's assume that much. Given this, do you just honestly report everything the spirits tell you without editorializing? Or are your legitimate capabilities mostly useful because they let you establish some credentials? For many purposes, convincing people that you did something is as useful as actually doing it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granny_Weatherwax#Headology), if not more so because you have more control over the details. If you just mix what you want them to believe with what they want to believe, a lot of folks will swallow claims that don't really even stand up to scrutiny. Because, well, what scrutiny?

Charlatan Bard seems most obvious to me for working these performance and manipulation angles.

[Sigreid]

I think the Phantom rogue is meant in many ways to be literally this.

[RogueJK]

Druid will give you access to the augury spell, as does cleric and wizard. However speak with dead is a cleric/bard/wizard spell. Those two are very medium-y spells. I'd actually grab wizard, diviner specifically.

With the addition of spells like Augury, Divination, and Speak With Dead to the Wizard spell list in TCoE, that's how I'd do it nowadays as well.

Plus, if you're going to be casting a bunch of Divination spells with slots instead of as rituals, you can get a lot of mileage from Expert Divination's trickle-down spell slot recharge.

[ThaddeusJenkins]

I have no practical advice for you, but I do suggest you play as a Halfling with the Criminal background.

That way you'll be a small medium at large :biggrin:

[Bobthewizard]

I think the spell you want here is detect thoughts, so any bard, sorcerer, or wizard. You can read the marks' thoughts and if you go astray you can redirect. Then you want proficiency/expertise in as many of insight, deception and performance as you can, so probably bard, but I also like aberrant mind sorcerer.

[Sigreid]

I think the spell you want here is detect thoughts, so any bard, sorcerer, or wizard. You can read the marks' thoughts and if you go astray you can redirect. Then you want proficiency/expertise in as many of insight, deception and performance as you can, so probably bard, but I also like aberrant mind sorcerer.
Then sorcerer would be best so you can cast it without detectable casting a spell. Though I suppose a good enough performance could build the casting into the act.

[RogueJK]

Then sorcerer would be best so you can cast it without detectable casting a spell.

True, but anyone with the Telepathic feat can cast Detect Thoughts without components, once per day.

Otherwise, a Level 6+ Aberrant Mind Sorcerer would be a good choice, with the option to be able to cast a Subtle Detect Thoughts for 2 sorcery points and no spell slot.

[ciopo]

I would suggest getting Valda spire of secret, iirc the investigator has the correct vibe for that, what with it's "occult" style spellcasting.

Valda spire of secret is a published third party,a big chunk of it's content are some new classes and a bunch of new subclasses, most of them are conversion of 3.5/pathfinder classes/prestige classes