Symbiat
Symbiats are a class for Spheres of Power. Fluffwise, they're people who've had aberrations stuffed into their heads in a horribly painful process, making them a sort of half-Illithid with more psionics and less tentacle. Mechanically, they're Spheres' answer to the Psychic Warrior and its derivatives, with some Monk and Rogue thrown in. Their class abilities give them a bit of defensive ability and a lot of team-buffing powers, like marking targets and general boosts to attack, damage and AC. They're also a Mid-Caster, they get Mind and Telekinesis spheres for free, and they've got a medium BAB progression, making them a decent Gish when they're not managing aura effects.
Symbiats are probably around Tier 2. It's hard to truly screw up your build when playing one, because even if you do silly things with your Sphere talents, the class abilities give you a sweet buffing toolkit that every team is going to want.
The archetypes available to a Symbiat only serve to either give further opportunities or offer alternative tricks to work with.
- Battlemind hooks into Spheres of Might, replacing all the most egregious psychic mumbo-jumbo with a focus on the Leadership sphere, particularly the Cohort package for a hired lackey. That said, that lackey and other allies will all get benefits from the various buffs. Even better, this still lets you still pick up casting spheres if you really need them.
- There's also the Champion Symbiat if you wanted something more simplistic (it only gives Martial talents, with an option to replace other class abilities for better talent progression) but more capable of mixing into other archetypes.
- Chronomancer replaces the psychic focus instead with a combo of the Time and Warp spheres, mainly by replacing their buffs with a new list of time and teleportation-focused buffs.
- Synapse is if you just wanted the teleport parts but also wanted to keep the telepathy.
- Egregore goes all-in on the Mind sphere, tossing aside the telekinetic powers. Instead, they gain the ability to reach into the minds of injured enemies so they can more easily perform their mindfuckery.
- Hekatonkhires focuses more on the Telekinesis sphere, particularly the Mind Limb feat that lets them essentially create a second pair of psychic arms to do the fighting alongside their ordinary ones - An excellent combo with the Champion Symbiat above.
- Telekinetic Warrior is a more dumbed-down focus on the Telekinesis sphere, but its lack of replaced features makes it more usable with other archetypes.
| The Third Party Classes of Pathfinder | |
|---|---|
| Psionics: | Psion - Psychic Warrior - Soulknife - Wilder Aegis - Cryptic - Dread - Marksman - Tactician - Vitalist |
| Path of War: | Stalker - Warder - Warlord - Harbinger - Mystic - Zealot |
| Akashic Mysteries: | Daevic - Eclipse - Guru - Nexus - Radiant - Rajah - Stormbound - Vizier - Zodiac |
| Spheres of Power: | Armorist - Elementalist - Eliciter - Fey Adept - Hedgewitch - Incanter Mageknight - Shifter - Soul Weaver - Symbiat - Thaumaturge - Wraith |
| Spheres of Might: | Armiger - Blacksmith - Commander - Conscript Savant - Scholar - Sentinel - Striker - Technician |
| Spheres of Guile: | Agent - Courser - Envoy - Mastermind - Professional |
| Champions of the Spheres: | Prodigy - Sage - Troubadour - Dragoon - Mountebank - Necros - Reaper Warden - Crimson Dancer |
| Pact Magic: | Pactmaker (formerly known as Medium) |