Advice on Playing a Medium

[tmjr6]

Hello all,

I'll be playing my very first game of Pathfinder tomorrow where I'll be playing a Dark Elf Medium. The races are different than the ones from the core rulebook and we weren't allowed to drop any of our stats below 10 in the initial point buy, but any racial changes are fine. Long story short, no min/maxing which is fine since I honestly wouldn't know how to. I'm just looking for some general advice specifically with the Medium class and playing Pathfinder in general.

Thanks in advance!

[Castilonium]

The general strategy on most adventuring days is to channel the Champion spirit, build and fight like a typical martial (archery will be most effective), get Spirit Focus, and use Archmage and Heirophant during downtime for utility.

Here are a couple of guides people wrote: CTP's guide and Rayfa's guide.

[Psyren]

Medium, like its 3.5 counterparts Binder and Chameleon, is very much the "5th-man" party member. In other words, the best advice is to fill in for whatever your party needs more of (e.g. more melee, more range, more casting, more scouting etc) and build accordingly. If your party has all roles decently covered, your next step is to look at what makes the most sense to double up on - e.g. you might have one tank, but two tanks using Champion probably won't be a bad idea in case something happens to the first.

[tmjr6]

Update,

We had our first session, and I finally got to meet most of our party. There is one person I believe who hasn't joined yet but I don't know their class yet. This is the party, note all races are different than the core book due to the homebrewsetting.

-Me, a Dark Elf Medium
-An Orc Fighter
-A High Elf Ninja
-A Dwarf Wizard
-A Dwarf Alchemist
-A Half Orc Investigator

Right now our alchemist has been a reluctant healer, but I have been channeling the Heirophant to help cover some of the damage as well. I think we are a well rounded team, and I think I ended up choosing one of the better classes for this campaign.

[Psyren]

An Alchemist, a Ninja, a Wizard and an Investigator? Hmm.

I definitely agree that Hierophant seems to be the ideal spirit for that group, particularly if Infusions are your primary source of healing and status removal - they're difficult to use by characters that are already afflicted or dying. Is the Alchemist going for ranged bomb-chucker, or a Jekyll/Hyde melee setup? And what about the Investigator?

[tmjr6]

It's too early to tell, we have yet to get into a combat scenario yet. In this world the drow are more like the Gypsies, Humans are extinct, and the racist high elves rule the continent. So a lot of the first session was me hiding in plain sight. I think the alchemist is a bomber, no clue on the Investigator. All I know is he has a dog.

[Psyren]

Understood. General advice is best covered by the handbooks Castilonium linked. Specific advice is going to have to wait until you know more about the rest of your group. (That's not an admonishment of you asking for help - it's just the nature of how the Medium works as a "5th-man" PC.)