Phantom of the OP-era:

A Guide to the Pathfinder Spiritualist

By CockroachTeaParty and Nova Wurmson

Source

Introduction

Of the six new classes introduced ccult Adventures, the Spiritualist might be the
in O
most complex. It is a buddy class, like the Summoner and the Hunter before it, and thus has
double the new rules to wrap your head around. The Spiritualist is a spooky psychic
spellcaster; your powers lean towards the necromantic, as your mind allows you to channel the
powers of life and death. In addition, the Spiritualist commands the services of a Phantom, a
departed soul that refuses to go to the afterlife for any number of reasons. Not actually undead,
the phantom is a strange ethereal outsider with many of the iconic powers and abilities of a
proper ghost.
 At first blush, the Spiritualist seems quite complex, with a steep learning curve. You
have to juggle psychic casting, understanding the various states your phantom can be in, and
keep track of lots of odd bonuses and modifiers as your ghost buddy enters and exits your
head. This guide will help you sift through your options, understand the weirdness of your
tethered phantom pal, and hopefully give you some character inspiration for this amazingly
flavorful and fun class. Soon youll be switching your phantom from ectoplasmic to incorporeal
manifestations like a pro, or sprouting slime tentacles and eviscerating your foes with a rusty
scythe (yes, thats a thing you can do).
Like many of the new Occult classes, the Spiritualist is surprisingly open-ended and filled
with possibility. Whether youre a grim avenger fighting alongside your phantom ally, a mystic
master of the realms beyond communing with departed souls, or a twisted necromancer
enslaving unwilling spectres, the Spiritualist will add spooky ambiance and unorthodox tactics to
any adventuring party. ~CTP

Novas Thoughts: Hey! As you might have noticed, this guide is a collaboration between two

incredibly attr optimizers. Optimization is heavily influenced by y our groups play style and
experiences, so the bonuses for you are that you get two perspectives, as well as a significantly
higher level of completeness and prooofreading, while each of us didnt have to try to write an
entire guide to the aforesaid highly complicated class by ourselves.

The flip side of the whole situation is that theres often not a right or wrong answer to each
optimization question - in times where one of us had a dissenting opinion or even just additional
musings and preferences, we often just included everything, calling it out in Novas Thoughts
and CTPs Thoughts sections. If you otherwise need to know what one of us specifically
thought about a subject (for properly labelling feedback, hate mail, etc.), assume that any
portion of the guide that is 65% or more snark by volume is most likely mine.

A Note on Color Rankings

Colors are pretty! To help quickly tell your brain what we think is good and bad,
we used the following color rating scheme:

Blue - Its the best. Around. Nothings gonna ever keep it down.
Green - Its good! Solid, a sound decision. Not as must-have as blue, but you
wont regret it.
Black - Average. Functional. The baseline by which everything else is judged.
Orange - Sub-par, situational, niche, or in need of clarification. There are often
better choices, but you could do worse.
Red - Bad! These options either actively work against you, or are borderline
useless. We strongly advise picking something else.
 Table of Contents / Links
Ability Scores & Races
Spiritualist Class Features
Spiritualist Feat Selection
Spiritualist Spell Selection
Phantoms
Archetypes
Multiclassing
Items, RP Ideas, and Homebrew

Ability Scores and Races

The spiritualist has a wide variety of builds available to it, but before you even get
thinking about those, you need to answer one simple question: Wisdom or Charisma? The base
spiritualist is Wisdom-based, but the Fractured Mind archetype swaps their casting modifier and
a few fluffy spell-like abilities - essentially putting you in a position where Wisdom or Charisma is
purely a personal decision and e very race that grants a bonus to Wisdom or Charisma is an
option for a spiritualist.

Wisdom
Applies to Will saves.
Applies to important skill checks like Perception and Sense Motive.
Required if you want to take the Fated archetype or any future archetype that clashes
with Fractured Mind.
Can leave Charisma as a dump stat; better for MAD (multi-attribute dependent) builds
and low point buy campaigns or poor rolls.

Charisma
Better for multiclassing or X to Y builds.
Applies to social skills like Diplomacy and Intimidate, as well as Use Magic Device; can
easily fill the role of party face.
Broader range of available races.
Fractured Mind spell-like abilities are often more useful than the base spiritualist ones.

The general ability breakdown is as follows:

STR: Certain melee builds will want STR as a primary score, typically wielding a
scythe or other two-handed weapon. Like a summoner, you can dump STR if
 you want to focus more on casting, staying out of the fray and letting your
phantom handle physical threats.
DEX: With only light armor proficiency, youll want a decent DEX to shore up
defenses. DEX-based melee or ranged builds will want DEX as a primary score.
CON: More useful for melee spiritualists, everyone wants at least a positive
CON score for survivability.
INT: There is very little INT synergy for spiritualists. Considering your phantom
can fill the gap a bit when it comes to skills, you can afford to dump INT if you
want. Easier on a human or other race that gets bonus skill points.
WIS: This is the standard spiritualists casting stat. Not only does it determine
the power of your psychic spells, but it also pumps up your Will save and
Perception checks. Fractured Minds (an archetype that swaps WIS for CHA
casting) can get by with an average or lower score here.
CHA: Intimidate can be a powerful tool for fear-stacking builds, but otherwise
most spiritualists dont have to worry about CHA too much; you could even dump
it if you wish. Fractured Minds have CHA-based casting instead of WIS, so it
gets swapped for priority.

Basic Build Goals

Support/Control Caster - You cant go wrong here. The spiritualist has a great
spell list and (eventually) a pretty robust set of defenses from their class features.
Your role isnt just a +numbers guy like the bard - you bring some of the absolute
best support spells from both the cleric and wizard spell list. Part of this role is
healing and condition removal, but remember that often a wand of cure light
wounds will take care of most of your partys needs.
Str-Based Melee - Your class doesnt really grant large bonuses to melee
combat, but your spells are excellent for a gish. Playing buddy-buddy with your
phantom can give you the ability to put out some significant damage. No bonus
combat feats makes this an especially attractive option - you only need Power
Attack to do melee effectively.
Dex-Based Melee - A dex based build usually suffers vs. a Str-based build until
high levels. Yes, the bonuses to initiative, Reflex saves, and AC are useful, but
the x1.5 Str to damage from a two-handed weapon and Power Attack usually win
out. Still, once youre high enough level to have Weapon Finesse, Piranha Strike,
and a Dex-to-damage ability, the playing field levels out a little.
Ranged - Range seems like a decent place for the spiritualist - just stand in the
back and let your phantom tank! Unfortunately, the phantom has a very short
 leash - really, just 50ft. unless you want to spend a full-round action
concentrating. That plus the need for four feats minimum (Point Blank Shot,
Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Deadly Aim) for a decent archer build with no bonus
feats from your class means itll be at least level 7 (5 for human) until youve got
your basic build. If you want to be a ranged, Wis-based caster with a pet, take
a look at the Hunter.
Debuffer - Your class features dont really seem to support it, but several
phantom emotional foci make for excellent debuffers. With your phantom
providing the first nudge in that direction, you can snowball a penalty to saves
into all the nasty debuffs your spell list holds.
Party Face - Fractured Minds (with their Cha focus) will especially want to
consider this. With 4+Int skills per level, and Bluff, Intimidate, and Sense Motive
as class skills, a spiritualist can serve as the partys go-to social interaction guy.
Notably absent is Diplomacy, but it can easily be nabbed with a trait. You get two
free Skill Focuses (Skill Foci?) while your phantom is chilling in your mind; a
Dedication phantom, for example, grants Skill Focus (Diplomacy) and Skill Focus
(Sense Motive).

Races

Core Rule Book

Dwarves - Dwarves make badass spiritualists - Wisdom bonus/Charisma penalty
(perfect for non-Fractured Minds), great defensive bonuses like Hardy, and weapon
proficiencies. Favored class bonus is meh (increased shield bonus from ectoplasmic
bonded manifestation).
Elf - The weapon proficiencies are nice, but there are s o many races that are good for
the spiritualist that its hard to get excited about the races that dont give a bonus to Wis
or Cha. Same favored class bonus as dwarf.
Gnomes - Solid caster-focused Fractured Mind spiritualist. Increased shield bonus from
spiritual interference.
Half-Elves - Flexible stat bonus, can swap Skill Focus for Martial or Exotic Weapon
Proficiency. Their favored class bonus is just a gimped version of the human one...but
because they have the human subtype, they can take it anyway.
Half-Orcs - Flexible stat bonus, comes with weapon proficiencies, orc ferocity (meaning
your phantom gets to stick around for an extra round when you get dropped below 0),
and the human favored class bonus (as half-elf).
Halflings - Solid caster-focused Fractured Mind spiritualist. Favored class bonus
increases the time your phantom can spend while incorporeal and out of line of
sight/effect, making it a slightly better scout.
Humans - Flexible stat bonus, the feat is a godsend for many builds on this feat-starved
class, and their favored class bonus is excellent. Youre adding +20 HP to your phantom
 over 20 levels, which is even better than taking Toughness on your phantom (which will
be +15 HP at 20 because itll only have a hit dice of 15).

Featured Races
Aasimar - Is there anything these guys cant do well? Bonus to Wis and Cha means it
doesnt matter whether you want to go base spiritualist or Fractured Mind.
Catfolk/Dhampir/Drow/Fetchling/Ifrit - They;re all +2 Dex/+2 Cha races, with penalties
to Wis/Con/Con/Wis/Wis, respectively. Catfolk get claws and kind-of pounce, dhampir
are healed by negative energy (and are generally a nice fluff fit), drow get some
mediocre weapon proficiencies (just go half-elf or even elf), fetchlings get some great
spell like abilities, and Ifrit dont really get anything.
Goblin - The super bonus to Dex is always nice, and Small size with an additional +4
bonus to Stealth means you can just hide while your phantom does the work.
Hobgoblin - Dex/Con. Nice physical stat boosts plus proficiency with a martial weapon
of choice.
Orcs - Penalty to all mental stats, but +4 to Str, weapon proficiency, and ferocity make
them still an option. They have a surprising number of racial feats, but you can access
those through half-orc as well.
Oread - Strength/Wis. Make sure to trade out earth affinity and magic stone.
Tengu - +2 dex/+2 wis, weapon proficiencies, and natural attacks. Very solid choice.
Tiefling - Assuming you can get variant heritages, you can get Dex/Wis, Con/Wis,
Str/Cha, Dex/Cha, Con/Cha, or Str/Wis - i.e. every variation of Str/Dex/Con matched up
with Wis/Cha, so there should always be a Tiefling for Every Build .
Undine - Dex/Wis. The base racial features are pretty meh, but you can pick up
moderately interesting abilities like limited fast healing, ooze breath, full
amphibious-ness, or, uh, the ability to summon a dolphin. No joke.
Not rated: Kobolds, Ratfolk, Sylph. These all lack serious reasons to take them as a
spiritualist.

Uncommon Races
Changelings - +2 Cha/+2 Wis, so your choice of normal or Fractured Mind. A Witchborn
changeling switches that to +2 Int/+2 Cha, which is great for a party face. Mist Child and
Hulking Changeling are interesting (but unfortunately, you cant have both).
Duergar (Paizo) - Theyre mostly the same as dwarves, but with some nifty immunities,
useful spell-like abilities, and no weapon proficiencies.
Gillmen - +Con/+Cha, but youve got some unfun mechanical and roleplay issues.
Grippli - +Dex/+Wis, Small size, climb speed, and some fun alternate abilities like
poison, Diplomacy/Intimidate boosts, and gliding.
Kitsune - Dex/Cha. Bonus to Enchantment spell DCs, which you have a couple of.
Merfolk - +2 to three different stats Dex/Con/Cha, +2 natural armor bonus, swim speed,
and a pretty terrible move speed. Strongtail is non-negotiable.
Nagaji - +Str/+Cha. +1 natural armor. Unremarkable, but serviceable.
 Samsaran - +Int/+Wis/-Con, but the big draw is being able to nab spells from other
psychic class lists. The psychic casters class lists are not nearly as cohesive and
defined as the arcane/divine dichotomy, meaning theres plenty of goodies to steal.
Occultist stands out for the Ectoplasmatist, granting s hocking grasp and touch of fatigue.
Mesmerist is interesting because it has a very distinctive illusion/echantment spell list
(much of which is normally not available to you), while psychic just has a very broad list
with potential game-breakers like p lanar ally. Really, anything you wouldnt have access
to (like enlarge person and mirror image) can be useful.
Strix - Flying! Woo. Penalty to Cha.
Suli - +Str/+Cha, nifty resistances, and elemental assault is fun.
Svirfneblin - Dex/Wis. +2 dodge bonus to AC, +2 racial bonus to all saves, Small size,
and some decent spell-like abilities. Similar boat to the gnome and halfling, but a bit
ahead of both. Be careful about the spell resistance, though.
Vanara - Dex/Wis. Climb speed or all Knowledge skills as class skills...but you already
get all Knowledge skills as class skills.
Vishkanya - Dex/Cha. Poison related abilities, including the Sleep Venom feat.
Not Rated: Wayangs.

Other Races
Gnoll - Str/Con, +2 to natural armor.
Lizardfolk - Str/Con, +2 to natural armor, swim speed, natural attacks. Strictly superior
to gnolls. If you want to play a gnoll, ask your GM if you can get a lizardfolks natural
attacks, at the very least.
Skinwalkers - +2 Wis, +2 to a physical stat of choice, but theyre tiefling-like in their
variants of natural attacks and stat modifiers. Wearboar (+2 Wis/+2Con while
shapechanged/-2 Cha) are particularly popular, having a choice of gore and hoof attacks
- both hard to come by - along with scent and a +10ft. bonus to their base move speed.
Triaxian - Con/Wis. Human-like bonus feat.
Shabti - Cha/Con. Immortal.
Lashunta (Female) - +2 Int/+2 Cha. Great stat spread for a party face.
Gathlain - Cha/Dex. Fly speed!

3rd Party Races

Dreamscarred Press
Dromites - Cha/Dex. Great small Fractured Minds, like gnomes and halflings.
Duergar - Wis/Con. Mostly the same as their Paizo counterparts, but with less
immunities.
Elan - +2 to a stat of choice. Some useful defensive features.
Half-Giant - Str/Wis. Almost definitely the best choice for a Str-based spiritualist if
allowed. Powerful Build is a brutally effective ability.
Maenad - +2 to a stat of choice, but not much else of use. Outburst is OK.
Noral - Wis/Con. Norals are decent but lack a major draw.
Ophiduan - Wis/Dex. The scaling bite attack takes them up a notch.
 Xeph - Cha/Dex. Speedy. They get half of the dwarves Hardy in Innate Resistance.
Not Rated: Blue, Forgeborn

Spiritualist Class Features

Chassis: BAB, d8 HD, good Will and Fortitude save, simple
weapons+kukris, saps, and scythes, light armor

Your chassis is close to a clerics, with crappier armor proficiency but slightly better (if
odd) weapon proficiencies. Racial weapon proficiencies are quite valuable for
combat-focused spiritualists; its not that kukris or scythes are bad weapons necessarily,
but youre a bit shoe-horned otherwise.

Skills: 4/level
The spiritualist's class skills are Bluff (Cha), Craft (Int), Fly (Dex), Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha),
Knowledge (all) (Int), Linguistics (Int), Profession (Wis), S ense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), and
Use Magic Device (Cha).
-Notably absent: Diplomacy.

Without an INT focus, spiritualists will find their skill ranks in somewhat short
supply, so pick a specialization. UMD is an amazing class skill to have, well worth it if
you have a decent CHA. Intimidate can be the cornerstone of your build, since your
spell list and phantom abilities have lots of fear-stacking synergy. If you have a good
CHA, you can function as a pretty solid party face, but youll want to pick up Diplomacy
through a trait if you can.

1 - 6 Psychic Spellcasting
If your phantom represents 50% of your strength, your spellcasting represents
the next 30-40%. Your spell list is surprisingly deep for a 1-6 caster, and psychic magic
has lots of nice perks (no verbal or somatic components, ever!). Your spell list contains
offensive and defensive buffs for yourself, your allies, and your phantom, as well as lots
of solid debuff and fear spells, most of them from the necromancy school. If the
Mesmerist is the occult version of 3.5s Beguiler, the Spiritualist is channeling the Dread
Necromancer in many ways.
Like all 1-6 casters, your main struggle will be rationing your modest daily
allotment of spells. As a psychic caster, youll need to defend against negative
emotions and fear that can disrupt your emotion components. Thankfully, with your
phantom riding around inside your head, youll be more resistant to these threats than
most other psychic casters.

For Those Unfamiliar with Psychic Spellcasting: Psychic spellcasting has no verbal
components - you dont need to say fancy words to cast, you can cast fine in an area of
silence, being deafened doesnt affect spellcasting, etc. - and no somatic components -
you dont have to wave your hands around, its not affected by arcane spell failure on
armor, you can cast while pinned, etc.

Instead, your spells can have thought and emotion components. If a spell has a thought
component, any concentration check has its DC increased by 10 unless you spend a
move action to negate this increase. If a spell has an emotion component, it cant be
cast while suffering from a negative [emotion] effect (such as fear). This is why its
important to have a way to remove and prevent emotion effects (such as Logical
Spell+remove fear) as a psychic caster.

Phantom
Like the summoners eidolon or the hunters animal companion, this is the reason
youre probably playing a spiritualist. You get your own personal ghost buddy! How
cool is that? The phantom is closer to an eidolon than an animal companion, but comes
with its own slew of strange and unique abilities. Your phantom can exist in multiple
states, whether it be ectoplasmic, incorporeal, or hiding inside your consciousness. It
can serve as a fighter, a bodyguard, a tank, or a mobile debuff with its own actions and
initiative.
Like all buddy classes, the phantom instantly makes the spiritualist more
complex than its compatriots. It pays to know what youre doing, since youll be taking
up twice as much time at the table when it comes to combat (and leveling up).
Thankfully, aside from picking feats, skills, and emotional focus, your phantoms
progression and mechanics will prove relatively straightforward. You wont have to
worry about juggling evolution points or picking new tricks for your Handle Animal skill.
Its worth noting that you dont have access to a Resilient Eidolon-style feat - once
youre down, your phantom is gone, barring some emotional focus-specific abilities (like
Zeals Steadfast Servant ability).
It should be repeatedly noted that your phantom cannot wear armor or wield
weapons, and any magic items you place on it fall off if you move it into your
consciousness. Like an eidolon, you share item slots with your phantom; for example, if
youre wearing a magic ring and your phantoms wearing another magic ring, neither of
you could benefit from a second ring. If you seek to equip your phantom with gear, its
going to require a bit more juggling as your buddy phases in and out of existence. Feel
free to deck your phantom out if its staying summoned all day, though.

Shared Consciousness
When your phantom isnt fully manifested (or out and about doing things), it
resides inside your head. While there, it provides a number of awesome passive buffs.
First, it provides temporary Skill Focus to two skills based off of its emotional focus.
More importantly, it provides a solid boost to saves against mind-affecting effects, which
are a threat to your psychic casting. Lastly, once per day if you fail a save against such
an effect, you can shunt it to your phantom instead of letting it affect you. Until this
mind-affecting condition is removed or expires, you cant benefit from the other bonuses
your phantom provides, so use this ability with caution.

Etheric Tether
Like eidolons, your phantom must remain within a certain distance of you or it is
banished back to the ethereal plane for 24 hours. Your tether is more restrictive than an
eidolons in many ways, since not only can it be broken by moving too far away from
your phantom, but it also can be severed if you lose line of effect for too long. This
restriction is here to prevent you from abusing your phantoms incorporeal nature; you
can still use your phantom for short-range scouting, but you cant use it to safely map an
entire dungeon.

Bonded Senses
For a limited number of rounds per day, you can perceive what your phantom
perceives. This is nice, but hardly necessary, since youre in constant telepathic contact
with your phantom regardless.

Bonded Manifestation
Starting at 3rd level, this ability lets your phantom partially manifest even when
its riding around in your head. This ability starts off kind of meh, but gets pretty cool at
level 8, and only continues to get more useful from there.
Post level 8, you can manifest ectoplasmic tendrils that replicate your phantoms
slam attack, usable as a swift action. This adds two additional attacks to your attack
routine, increasing your melee offense notably. Its best on a more combat-focused
phantom such as Anger, Hatred, or Zeal, though Anger takes the cake for its increased
die size. This is really the only damage-increasing class feature the Spiritualist gets
(aside from buff-spells).
 If you use an incorporeal bonded manifestation, you can attack incorporeal
creatures with impunity post level 8, and eventually it provides invisibility. At level 18,
you yourself can become incorporeal, which is quite the potent tool indeed.
You can only use bonded manifestation a limited number of rounds per day, but
youll always be able to use it more than Bonded Senses.

Spiritual Interference
While near your phantom, it provides some nice defensive bonuses after level 4.
This is more useful if youre fighting alongside your phantom, just be sure to remember
you have this ability!

Detect Undead
The first of several spell-like abilities the spiritualist picks up, this unlocks detect
undead at will. In a spooky, occult-y game, this can be a useful ability indeed,
especially if you lack a paladin or inquisitor in the party. Never hurts to just have this up
as an early warning system.

Phantom Recall
Unlike the hunter or summoner that get consolation prizes if their buddy dies, a
spiritualist is simply screwed. This ability is extremely useful for getting your phantom
out of a pickle for subsequent healing. Its often safer to just suck it back into your skull,
where very little can actually harm it. You get more uses of this ability as you continue
to gain levels, but you should nevertheless use it judiciously.

Calm Spirit
While thematically appropriate, your next SLA is even more niche than the first
one. Still, its there if you need to calm down some ghosts.

See Invisibility
See invisibility as a 1/day SLA at 9th level isnt earth-shattering, but its still pretty
handy. Oddly, it always has a 10 min. duration regardless of your level.

Fused Consciousness
After level 10, a spiritualists mind will be nigh-unassailable, because now you
gain the benefits of Shared Consciousness even when your phantom is fully
manifested. Your phantom will still need to be in your head if you want to use Bonded
Manifestation, but aside from discretion there is very little reason not to have your ghost
buddy out and about.
Greater Spiritual Interference
The defensive benefits increase for you, but more importantly your phantom can
now share them with your other allies. Again, remember you have this, as its easy to
forget.

Spiritual Bond
Youve always had the option of tanking your own hp to save your phantom, but
this late-level acquisition allows your phantom to return the favor. Should you risk death
through hp damage, your phantom can divert the damage and take it itself. Handy for
keeping you alive, which helps keep the phantom alive.

Call Spirit
Its a 1/day clue, plot-dump, or other source of handy information. Sure.

Dual Bond
If youre still making heavy use of Bonded Manifestation, rejoice, for your daily
usage has nearly doubled. Next level you can become incorporeal, so this is a choice
little late-game perk.

Empowered Consciousness
Your capstone is pretty tame. While your phantoms in your head, youre flat-out
immune to mind-affecting effects and possession, but youre already nearly immune
from Fused Consciousness regardless, even when your phantom is fully manifested.
Still, this is handy if youre going to the Aboleth/Succubus circus or whatever.

Spiritualist Feat Selection

Without a source of bonus feats, a spiritualist will find themselves quickly starved
for feats, particularly if youre trying to be good at a particular fighting style.
Two-weapon fighting or archery are particularly feat-thirsty, and even basic melee builds
like a STR-based two-handed Power Attack build might have to spend resources on
better weapon and armor proficiencies. Fitting in feats that improve your casting or
phantom are that much harder for such characters.
For more caster-leaning spiritualists, theres a bit more freedom of choice; you
can probably afford to take some of the more thematic or fluffy feats for the class.
 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 spiritualists that might find
themselves casting in close quarters.

Distant Delivery (OA): 30 ft. is a reasonable amount of space to work with, but a
bad-touch specialist might enjoy the extra 20 ft. this feat affords you. Youll want to
retrain it post level 12, since you wont be able to deliver touch spells at distances
greater than 50 ft.

Emotional Conduit (OA): This feat gives you a bonus spell known per spell level,
based off of your phantoms emotional focus. The value of this feat thus depends on
your phantom. Spells not normally on your class list are marked with an asterisk*.

Anger: burst of adrenaline, rage*, howling agony, telekinetic charge, vengeful

outrage*, transformation.
Despair: touch of gracelessness, death knell (evil!), ray of exhaustion, crushing
despair, suffocation, eyebite.
Fear: heightened awareness*, scare, fear (early access), feast on fear (early
access), nightmare, frightful aspect*
Hatred: murderous command*, disfiguring touch, bestow curse, debilitating
portent, foster hatred, phantasmal revenge*.
Jealousy: compel hostility*, life pact, ectoplasmic snare, entrap spirit, dominate
person, unwilling shield
Remorse: [error on SRD, missing a spell]
Zeal: delusional pride*, false life, heroism, freedom of movement, joyful rapture*,
greater heroism.

This feat is more attractive to caster-leaning spiritualists that arent burdened by combat
tree prereqs. Outside of pages of spell knowledge and similar items, this is one of the
few ways to get more spells known. Of the options here, Fear and Zeal have the best
bang for your buck.
Expanded Arcana (APG): There are a lot of great spells on the Spiritualist list.
This feat lets you grab more spells known, thus expanding your options. Its better to
select this at higher levels, since you can learn 1st and 2nd level spells for relatively
cheap via pages of spell knowledge / spell lattices.

Focused Phantom (OA): Unlike Combat Casting this feat applies to all
concentration checks, but it doesnt work if your phantom isnt by your side (or in your
head). Most attractive to a master of a Dedication phantom, you can safely skip this.

Phantom Fighter (OA): You can just have your phantom go incorporeal to fight
other incorporeal creatures, you dont need ghost touch. That just leaves you with a
more restrictive version of Ectoplasmic Spell, which you could just learn instead of this
feat.

Phantom Fortification (OA): If youre in a campaign featuring a lot of rogues or

something, this might have a use, but its pretty niche.

Shared Soul (OA): This is a higher level pick when death effects become more
common. More useful in an undead-heavy campaign.

Spell Focus/Greater: Most of your save-or-X spells are necromancy, making this
and its greater version solid choices for caster-leaning spiritualists. Also helps keep up
with 9th level casters save DCs.

Spell Penetration: This is a good choice for higher level games when SR becomes
more of a common occurrence. Metamagic is more difficult for you than a full caster, so
this feat and its improved version are likely a better choice than Piercing Spell.

Spell Perfection (APG): This is kind of like the capstone feat for most spellcasters,
and spiritualists are no exception. Metamagic reduction is brokenly good - you could
use it to forever-quicken a 3rd level or lower spell, or apply a metamagic feat to a 6th
level spell, for example. The bonus to Spell Focus is just icing on the cake.

Spirit Symbiosis (OO): This feat allows you to temporarily switch your phantoms
emotional focus by casting speak with dead. It opens up a great deal of versatility for
you; with some forewarning, you can tailor your emotional focus as long as theres a
corpse handy. Probably most useful to Fear phantoms, since lots of things are immune
to fear.

Spiritualists Call (OA): On the one hand, enhancement bonuses for your
phantoms ability scores can be troublesome to acquire, due to magic item slot
sharing/juggling complications. This feat provides a slew of bonuses, but it only lasts for
10 minutes after the 1 minute manifestation ritual. Situations where this will be useful
are going to be extremely specific and somewhat uncommon. Youll typically be better
served by using long-duration buffs and keeping your phantom around.

Steadfast Personality (ACG): For fractured minds, this feat helps alleviate
MADness by allowing you to ignore WIS entirely and still have a great Will save.

Toughness: For a melee spiritualist, this feat helps compensate for your d8 HD.

Vigilant Phantom (OA): This couples well with the Lookout teamwork feat, but is
otherwise a bit too specific in the bonus it provides; Skill Focus (Perception) is +3 to
Perception checks all the time, for example.

Combat Feats

Armor Proficiency (Medium +): For non-DEX builds, you may wish to consider
grabbing slightly better armor proficiency.

Bludgeoner (UC)/Enforcer (APG): The classic combo. Bludgeoner lets you deal
nonlethal damage with bludgeoning weapon with no penalty, Enforcer lets you make
free Intimidate checks when you deal nonlethal damage with a bludgeoning weapon.
Excellent for a demoralizing build.

Dazzling Display: With all of your fear-based abilities, a demoralizing build can be
quite effective, especially for a fractured mind with higher CHA.

Deadly Aim: An archer (read: an elf or half-elf) will want to pick this up eventually,
once the essentials are obtained.
Dimensional Agility/Assault/Dervish/Maneuvers/Savant - Dimension door is
on your spell list, so you qualify for these. A combat-focused spiritualist without many feats they
need to invest in can get a teleport+full attack Dervish.

Furious Focus (APG): This is a nice companion to Power Attack.

Improved Initiative: Is there a guide out there where this isnt blue? Always worth
picking up if you can.

Lunge: Another solid melee feat that affords you some extra casting security.

Piranha Strike (PC: SLC): Basically Power Attack for finessable light weapons. A
DEX-based build is a decent option for a melee spiritualist wielding kukris.

anyshot): These are the

Point-Blank Shot (Rapid Shot, Precise Shot, M
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):

Its a little tough to meet the prereqs, but these feats allow you to get DEX to damage.
Unfortunately, you cant do two-weapon fighting with these, or use a shield bigger than
a buckler.

Novas Thoughts: If your group allows 3rd party, theres always Deadly Agility from
Dreamscarred Press Path of War. If not, consider an agile weapon for Dex to damage.

Vital Strike/Improved/Greater/Devastating Strike (UC) - Vital Strike keeps

you on the move, and goes to good if you can crank your size category enough to
make it sting. Yes, full attacking will almost always be better, but it gives you an option
in case you cant. You cant get Great Vital Strike without multiclassing into full BAB
classes more than you probably should (as it will devastate your phantoms
progression). Devastating Strike is only really worth it if you already have Improved
and/or Greater.
Weapon Finesse: DEX-based melee is a decent option for the light-armor-
restricted spiritualist.

Weapon Focus: Its a prereq for Dazzling Display, and its not bad for your BAB
chassis.

Metamagic Feats
Youve got two things working against you when it comes to metamagic feats:
youre not a full caster, and thus have fewer spell slots to work with, and youre a
spontaneous caster on top of that, so using metamagic in combat is cumbersome.
Thus, youre best off relying on metamagic rods. That said, there are a few that are
worth consideration, particularly for caster-focused builds.

Extend Spell: Possibly the most popular metamagic feat, this is an old standby
thats 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 dont 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 somethings
going to get through. This is handy in rod form, but you wont regret simply knowing this
feat either.

Quicken Spell: The huge mark-up makes it unattractive for 6th level casters without
metamagic reduction. On the other hand, rods of it are incredibly good.

Persistent Spell (APG): Your spells force a second saving throwing. Its solid as a
feat, but its amazing as a metamagic rod or with metamagic reduction (like Spell
Perfection).

Selective Spell (APG): You have some good AoEs (i.e. black tentacles) that it can
be nice to be able to use without worrying about allies.
 Teamwork Feats
For spiritualists interested in fighting alongside their phantoms, there are a few
decent teamwork feats out there.

Lookout (APG): If your phantom has max ranks in Perception, this is a handy feat
for ghost and master. Ambushes suck, and this feat is extra insurance against getting
caught with your pants down.

Outflank (APG): This is one of the rare solid Teamwork feats, useful if you plan on
fighting alongside your phantom as a flank buddy.

Precise Strike (APG): Another damage boost for flank-buddy phantoms (and their
master), likely of most interest to Hatred phantoms.

Stick Together (PC: MTT): Straying too far away from your phantom can be an
instant dismissal. This teamwork feat gives a phantom and its master a bit more tactical
freedom and breathing room, but it must be used wisely.

Spiritualist Spell Selection

As a 1-6 caster, a spiritualists psychic spellcasting is a major factor of their
overall strength. Their spell list is surprisingly robust, and opens up a number of
different strategies and builds.
Spiritualists that plan on fighting alongside their phantoms will probably be best
served with buff spells, both for themselves and their ghost. A party cheerleader
spiritualist will benefit from many of the same choices.
If youre aiming for a more offensive caster build, there are lots of good options
for debuffing. Fear, curses, bad-touch spells; theres plenty of variety for causing your
foes grief. This couples well with debuffing phantoms such as Fear or Despair.
The spiritualist can fill in for a secondary healer, getting access to lots of useful
healing and status-removal spells. It couldnt help to have a few of these around just in
case - but even just having spells like cure light wounds on your spell list means you
can grab wands or scrolls.
For less scrupulous characters, a spiritualist can embrace the darker side of
necromancy to become a true minion-mancer. With their phantom in the vanguard, a
spiritualist can become a frightening master of undeath, supplementing their ghost
companion with skeletons, zombies, or worse.
 Most spiritualists will end up mixing and matching, which is well advised, and you
can round out your spells with some useful general utility spells. Your spells known are
a precious commodity, as are your daily spell slots. Thus, buff spells will often have
better adventuring endurance, which is why a melee build is quite attractive. However,
combod with a debuff phantom, an offensive caster spiritualist can compete with the
mesmerist when it comes to crippling your opponents wills.
Below I point out the more noteworthy spells on the spiritualist list; theres a lot I
didnt cover, mostly because theyre of niche or middling use, but you can certainly tailor
your spell selection to taste. ~CTP

0-Level Spells / Knacks (6 Known)

You dont have to sweat your selection of knacks too hard. Grab stabilize,
guidance, and detect magic, and the rest is basically gravy.

daze - Quickly grows obsolete, but its useful for caster-leaning spiritualists at low
levels. Youre trading your action for the enemys turn, and your phantom still
gets to act!
detect magic - Its detect magic. Going somewhere without this in your party is
like driving without your headlights.
detect psychic significance - Less useful than the above spell, but flavorful in an
occult campaign.
grave words - Pretty much useless, but flavorful and fun.
guidance - Always handy in and out of combat.
mage hand - Thematically appropriate for a psychic caster.
stabilize - Excellent insurance for your party.
telekinetic projectile - Its rendered obsolete by a light crossbow, but its useful if
you find yourself without a weapon, I suppose.

1st-Level Spells (6 Known)

There are some solid staple spells at this level for spiritualists of all stripes. Your
choices this level are similar to those of an oracle, with debuffs, defensive buffs, and
healing in the mix. Whether through a rod or the actual feat, youll want to grab remove
fear and Logical Spell as insurance against fear shutting down your psychic casting.
Nothing else is 100% mandatory this level, so pick according to the needs of your build.

burst of adrenaline - +4 to most physical ability or skill checks for a single round
has some potential, especially out of combat.
 cause fear - The first staple spell for a fear build, it will serve you well through
most of your early levels.
chill touch - The wording on Deliver Touch Spells for your phantom makes me
unsure how this spell would work exactly. You can normally deliver a number of
touches with the spell equal to your caster level, but Deliver Touch Spells seems
to imply that you only get one shot to land a touch before the spell is lost. If so,
this spell is meh. If your GM allows your phantom to deliver each touch every
round, this spell suddenly gives an incorporeal phantom a pretty useful offensive
tool.
cure light wounds - Best in wand form, or swapped out once you get the cash for
a wand, you wont regret simply knowing this spell at low levels. Your allies and
phantom will thank you.
doom - This is another good spell for fear builds. If you can land it, it has a better
duration for fear-stacking purposes than cause fear, but its all-or-nothing. It
ages better than cause fear in the long run.
inflict light wounds - While its an option for incorporeal phantoms to deliver in
combat, youll mainly want to consider this if you plan on making undead minions
to keep them patched up. By the time you can start raising the dead, you can
probably afford this in wand form.
mage armor - I recommend getting a wand of this. You wont be casting this on
yourself, but you should aim to always have it up for your phantom while fully
manifested.
obscuring mist - A useful panic button, or if you need to cause a distraction.
protection from chaos/evil/good/law - A nice array of defensive benefits in a
single package.
remove fear - Extremely useful for psychic casters. Bolsters your defenses
against a common way to shut down your emotion components, and can
suppress fear effects should they take hold.
sanctuary - Useful for healers and buffers, but doesnt have the best shelf life.
shield - A vital buff for phantoms on the frontlines. Remember that you dont
always benefit from casting it on yourself because of class features like
ectoplasmic bonded manifestation and spiritual interference.
summon monster I - Allows you to flood the battlefield with even more
distractions and trash, you can still probably skip it this level.
telempathic projection - This is a subtle and useful spell for social situations.
Even if youre not the party face, this spell can help make their job easier. You
dont get charm person, but this is pretty close.
touch of gracelessness - This is a great candidate for an incorporeal phantom to
deliver. Especially nasty on dragons or other low DEX creatures.
2nd Level Spells (6 Known)
This level is great for bad-touch spells. Incorporeal phantoms will suddenly have
all sorts of nasty surprises to deliver. Ghoul touch is perhaps the most outright deadly,
but there are lots of great options that dont allow saving throws. Minionmancy comes
online this level for enterprising necromancers, as does a few staple spells like
invisibility.

aid - If you dont already have a way to grant morale bonuses and temp HP, this
aint bad. See false life if youre only interested in the temp HP, and youre only
casting it on you and your phantom. This is one thats nice when you get it, but
doesnt scale as well.
lesser animate dead - Your first step into the world of minion-making. Youll want
to swap it out later, but you can start building your army of darkness at the same
time as an oracle.
death knell - If youre already going evil, you might as well take this nasty spell.
Keep a small bag of rodents / helpless prisoners around, and cast it before a buff
sequence to enjoy that nice boost to CL. You can deliver this spell through your
phantom; does the phantom get the benefits in that case? :\
disfiguring touch - This isnt too bad for a curse; pick the -2 to attacks and saves.
Will negates kind of sucks for a touch spell, though.
false life - Nice duration, great for you or your phantom.
ghoul touch - This spell is a killer if you can land it. Step 1: phantom delivers it.
Step 2: deliver the coup-de-grace with your scythe
inflict pain - Still has an effect on a successful save, which is nice. A decent
debuff.
instigate psychic duel - Your phantom can beat up your opponent in the real
world while you waste their time in the binary mindscape. Only worth using
against a lone opponent.
invisibility - One of the most requested superpowers ever, now in spell form!
Worth picking up in wand or scroll form if you cant afford the spell slot.
levitate - Handy for caster-leaning spiritualists that want to stay out of the fray;
just be careful you dont stretch your etheric tether.
mindshock - This is an interesting little damage buff for you or your phantom, but
the duration is pretty weak.
phantom steed - This can be hard to fit in your spells known, perhaps worthy of
swapping something else out for later. Its a great long-distance travelling spell.
psychic leech - Still has an effect on a successful save! This is really nasty
against barbarians.
 resist energy - Saves lives.
lesser restoration - Really handy to know, but also great in wand form.
scare - The next step up for fear builds, it sadly has a pretty short shelf life by the
time you gain access to it.
spectral hand - Use your phantom!
stricken heart - No save, this is a nice thing to deliver through your phantom.
Especially nasty on dragons, hydras, or other creatures with lots of attacks.
summon monster II - A bit better, but you can still probably skip this.
touch of idiocy - A nasty surprise for enemy casters.

3rd Level Spells (6 Known)

Haste and fly are must-haves this level, and theres lots of other great staples
such as dispel magic, slow, and heroism. This is also the point at which you can pick
up speak with dead, to unlock the power of the Spirit Symbiosis feat.

animate dead - This comes online at about the point arcane characters are
starting to get it, so youre not too late to the party. This is your workhorse
minion production spell. It opens up basically an entire playstyle for the
spiritualist, but probably only for evil parties (or at least morally ambiguous ones).
bestow curse - A solid debuff if you can land the save, this is another decent
option for touch spell delivery via your phantom.
blindness/deafness - This is late access, competing with ray of exhaustion at this
level.
clairaudience/clairvoyance - This has better range, but you can use your
phantom to do most of what this spell provides, coupled with Bonded Senses.
condensed ether - Basically the psychic version of solid fog, this is great
battlefield control. Warning: affects an incorporeal phantom.
cure serious wounds - By this level, healing has hit a serious rough patch as far
as combat options go. Youre too low level for heal, the healing from a cure spell
is far surpassed by enemies damage output, and a wand of cure light wounds is
trivial to purchase (at least gp-wise).
dispel magic - Someone in your party needs this. Period. Even if someone else
has it, you should get it, too - just in case they need it cast on them. Its not an
easy one to replace with a wand or scroll because caster level is so important.
displacement - Short duration, but a strong defensive buff for yourself or your
phantom.
ectoplasmic snare - Thematically appropriate, this spell does something on a
failed save, which is nice. Its similar to telekinesis, offering some single-target
control.
 ethereal fists - The effects of this spell are covered by incorporeal bonded
manifestation after level 8+, or by using your incorporeal phantom to deliver
touch spells.
fly - In a game as high-fantasy as Pathfinder, everyone in the party needs a way
to fly. Cast it on yourself, cast it on your phantom, cast it on the mundanes in the
party so they can actually contribute to combat. The only reason not to get this
(at least eventually) is if you already have another source of flight for you and
your phantom.
gaseous form - Psychic casters suffer no hassles from this spell, and it has a
solid duration mixed with some utility. A caster-leaning psychic can stay gaseous
in relative safety while their phantom fights, for instance.
haste - Few buff spells are as universally awesome as haste. Not just great for
you and your phantom, but your whole party will love you for popping this sucker
off.
heroism - An excellent long duration all-purpose buff.
invisibility purge - This is an underrated cleric spell. In the absence of glitterdust
this can be really clutch in certain situations.
Magic circle against chaos/evil/good/law - Much better duration, and you can
share the love with nearby allies.
greater magic fang - Amazing duration, this will help your phantoms slam attack
a great deal. Best for skirmishers and flank buddies that dont get opportunities
for full attacks as often.
phantom steed? - Theres a typo where this shows up twice. If you can get it as
a 2nd level spell, hooray early access! If not, this is a slightly more reasonable
level to get this.
ray of exhaustion - A solid single-target debuff.
remove blindness/deafness - Being blind is pretty awful, but deafness doesnt
really bother you too much (being a psychic spellcaster). Dispel magic will work
just fine on most things that cause blindness and deafness, and you can take it
this level.
remove curse - The things that can be removed by this spell are pretty awful, but
theyre also rare, and your spells known are limited. Relying on NPC spellcasting
will be the better choice most of the time.
remove disease - The above three spells, while useful, are difficult to fit in with
your limited spells known. Consider one if youre saddled with primary healing
duty, otherwise leave this to the full casters.
slow - One of the better offensive spells on your entire list. Not being able to full
attack (or move and attack) really hurts a lot of brutish monsters - who,
coincidentally, tend to have low Will saves.
 speak with dead - Thematically appropriate, and a useful information gathering
tool. If you take the Spirit Symbiosis feat, this spell allows you to change your
phantoms emotional focus temporarily, which opens up a variety of options for
you.
spirit-bound blade - While this is quite the spiritualist spell that ties in with your
class features and choices, its not particularly potent. Of the options available,
Zeals is perhaps the most useful, while Despairs is decent on a melee fear
stacking build. See the ectomasmatist archetype for a full breakdown.
summon monster III - Spamming small earth elementals can be surprisingly
effective, as is the crocodile. Summoning dretches unlocks a low-DC stinking
cloud.
vampiric touch - A decent bad-touch spell for some in-combat healing. I believe
the caster receives the temp. hp instead of the phantom should it deliver it...This
is a fun one for the ectoplasmatist archetype, as it grants the magus-esque
bonus attack.
wind wall - Great defense against archers or deadly fogs and gases.

4th Level Spells (6 Known)

Several of your nastier spells come online as you finally reach double digits.
Confusion, etheric shards, and possession are standouts on the offensive, while
dimension door, greater invisibility, and freedom of movement muscle their way onto the
defensive/utility stage.

aura of doom - Great duration, its excellent for fear stacking builds.
black tentacles - This is a great battlefield control spell, but youre late to the
party; the shelf life on this is getting pretty short.
confusion - This is a terrifying offensive spell that combos well with debuff
phantoms.
death ward - A solid defensive buff, invaluable in an undead-heavy campaign.
debilitating portent - Assuming this works for spiritualists as per RAI, this spell
actually will have a higher save DC than other 4th level spells when you first get
it. Its a fun little annoyance to throw on a singular target like a boss.
detect scrying - Fire and forget for the paranoid.
dimension door - Excellent utility and emergency escape button.
dimensional anchor - Teleportation is starting to become a real problem as you
get into the double digits.
ectoplasmic hand - Dont bother using this for touch spell delivery when your
phantom is right there. However, the other options this spell offers are
 basically telekinesis. Swap it out for something else if you take telekinesis when
you gain 5th level spells.
enervation - Couples well with a nice metamagic rod, otherwise its just so-so.
Certainly better than mindwipe.
etheric shards - Awesome battlefield control spell.
fear - A key spell for fear builds; otherwise go with confusion.
freedom of movement - A lifesaving defensive buff, more useful for you than your
phantom (you can always switch it to incorporeal if need be).
greater invisibility - An awesome spell, but youre a bit late to the party.
Invisibility is hardly foolproof at this point.
possession - This is a scary spell, especially if youve been focusing on
necromancy. You need a guard for your comatose body (your phantom?), but
you can get up to some craziness with this if you get creative.
restoration - A nice catch-all healing spell, but its got a price tag.
solid fog - You get condensed ether a spell level earlier, which is quite
comparable to this otherwise useful spell.
summon monster IV - Your summons are really starting to fall behind now.
thoughtsense - Stop peeps from sneakin up on ya!

5th Level Spells (5 Known)

Some powerful spells come online for you here, potentially game-changing ones
if your party hasnt yet gained access to things like teleport. Theres nothing that jumps
out to me as particularly necessary, but phantom limb can provide a cool offensive
boost to your phantom, as can undead anatomy II.

breath of life - Its hard to justify fitting in raise dead with your limited spells
known, but this spell might prove a bit more relevant if youre saddled with
healing duty. If you cant save your buds with this spell, youll have the time to
seek a proper res when youre no longer in danger (hopefully).
cloudkill - This spell is starting to show its age by the time you can pick it up, but
its still a nasty thing to drop on enemies tied up by condensed ether or etheric
shards.
dominate person - By the time this comes online for you, youll know whether
youre in a campaign where it will prove useful or not.
feeblemind - This is a brutal, brutal spell.
overland flight - All-day flight for you or your ectoplasmic ghost buddy.
plane shift - A combination utility, transportation, and bad-touch spell. If youre
plane hopping at these higher levels, its a handy panic button.
 phantom limb - This is an awesome spell for yourself, your phantom, or your
allies. It can provide a long-duration fly speed, two extra claw attacks for your
phantom pal, and a few other nifty options. This is a real gem from Occult
Origins.
prying eyes - While this has better range, duration, and little risk, your phantom
can do most of what this spell does.
raise dead - Having the ability to cast this is nice, but with your limited spells
known, and the fact that you hopefully wont need to cast it too often, it winds up
as something of a wasted choice. Breath of life is more reasonable.
scrying - Youre late to the party again, but you do get access to teleport this
level; you can commence your very own scry-and-die strikes if youd like.
shadow body - A spooky defensive buff for yourself, this is an upgrade from
gaseous form.
shadow evocation - Lots of variety here in a single spell. Youre not a blaster, but
you can fake it with this.
slay living - If youre tired of debuffing, you can try your hand at landing big
damage. Id swap this out for harm or disintegrate when 6th level spells come
online.
spell resistance - A solid defensive spell for yourself or your phantom. Its
another line of defense against dismissal, for example.
suffocation - Another decent save or die option.
summon monster V - The SLAs that come online here are worth consideration.
Spamming dispel magic from babaus is a cool trick.
telekinesis - The value in this spell is in its sheer utility - its a combat maneuver,
direct damage, and super-mage hand all in one. You dont even suffer the action
penalty for concentrating as much - you hold em down while your phantom
knocks em out.
teleport - In an optimized campaign, your party needs this. Theres simply no
excuse for walking from place to place when you could be there now (not to
mention the extreme combat maneuverability you can pull out of it).
undead anatomy II - You can get Pounce from this spell, either for yourself or
your phantom, among other benefits. Just gotta find an undead with pounce...
wall of ectoplasm - This is a more solid barrier than previous forms of battlefield
control, but etheric shards should probably cover most of your bases.
withdraw affliction - This combines multiple restorative spells into one package.
A lenient GM might allow you to deliver the resulting afflicition through your
phantom as a nasty surprise.
6th Level Spells (5 Known)
Youve reached the apex of your psychic power! While you wont be competing
with most 8th level spells, you have some solid choices here. Its hard to argue with
greater dispel magic and heal for all-around usefulness. Most play styles get at least
one fun capstone spell, such as banshee blast for fear builds or create undead for
necromancers.

banshee blast - This is fun for fear builds for the higher save DC alone, but youre
probably running into a lot more creatures immune to fear by this point.
create undead - This spell presents more hoops to jump through for industrious
necromancers out there, since you lack a clerics ability to command undead.
With the proper precautions, you can use these creatures as possession
puppets, or perhaps simply convince them to work for you with Diplomacy or
Intimidate, since youre probably a powerful evil character at this point.
disintegrate - Utility and nasty damage in a nice package.
greater dispel magic - This is just as good on you as a full caster, definitely in the
running for one of your most useful 6th level spells.
ectoplasmic eruption - If youre looking for damage, stick with shadow evocation
or etheric shards. You should also have enough ways to deal with incorporeal
creatures not to need this.
enemy hammer - This is a fun and annoying spell for your enemies, if not
particularly devastating.
getaway - You dont get contingency, but this is a nice insurance policy.
harm - This is a brutal spell for phantom touch delivery, and the ultimate in
healing any undead minions.
heal - An amazing healing spell, you should man up and learn this beauty; your
party will thank you.
greater heroism - An awesome buff that provides flat-out fear immunity.
greater object possession - Constructs get no save, or you can just pull a
gargantuan animated object out of the blue to cause some destruction.
greater possession - Less set-up and logistics than regular possession, but you
might find yourself in a pickle should your host die or the duration expire while
youre in enemy territory.
summon monster VI - Your final summoning spell provides some nice SLAs
through the lillend and succubus.
true seeing - The hard counter for some of the more common (and annoying)
defenses in the game. Its handy to know this one.
 undead anatomy III - This unlocks huge undead forms, or diminutive forms if you
just want to hang back and hide. Lots of options here if youre willing to scroll
through monster stat blocks.
unshakable zeal - Basically inferior to greater heroism.

Sample Spell Selection:

Below is a selection of spells for a 20th level Spiritualist, picking generally useful
spells, assuming the phantom is being buffed for general combat. This selection is for a
good or neutral party, and is thus avoiding evil necromancy spells.

1st:
remove fear, shield, mage armor, telempathic projection, touch of gracelessness,
obscuring mist

2nd:
resist energy, lesser restoration, false life, invisibility, ghoul touch, stricken heart

3rd:
haste, heroism, speak with dead, greater magic fang, displacement, slow

4th:
confusion, dimension door, etheric shards, possession, greater invisibility, freedom of
movement

5th:
phantom limb, breath of life, dominate person, overland flight, shadow body

6th:
disintegrate, greater dispel magic, getaway, heal, true seeing

Phantoms
A spiritualists phantom represents a significant portion of their strength.
Depending on the spiritualists build and the nature of the phantom, it can serve as a
flank-buddy, a tank, a damage-dealing brute, a scout, or a mobile force multiplier (as a
debuffer, buffer, or sometimes both). Like the summoners eidolon or the hunters
animal companion, the spiritualist is at their strongest when working with their phantom,
and is most vulnerable when their phantom has been banished back to the ethereal
plane.
Unlike the summoner and hunter, who have fallback options to rely on should
their companion creature be temporarily knocked out of the game, the spiritualist is
simply screwed out of roughly half their class features should misfortune befall their
phantom friend. However, unlike the summoner or hunter, the phantom has the
advantage of two safe states. The first is when the phantom is residing in the
consciousness of the spiritualist. When the phantom is in the spiritualists head, it
provides passive buffs and the opportunity to use bonded manifestation, but is
otherwise safe from harm (unless the spiritualist dies, but thats bad for everyone on the
team!). The second safe state is when the phantom is incorporeal. It takes some effort
to harm incorporeal creatures, so in situations where a spiritualist is concerned for the
safety of their phantom, they can have it go incorporeal as an extra form of security.
Phantoms have more in common with eidolons than they do with animal
companions; indeed, phantoms refuse to work with eidolons, so a multiclass
summoner/spiritualist cant have both of their buddies out at the same time. Like
eidolons, phantoms are outsiders (instead of undead), and have a nearly identical stat
progression in terms of BAB, HD, saves, and buffs to abilities and defenses. An eidolon
is much more customizable than a phantom (even unchained eidolons), having a
flexible system of points to tweak and alter the eidolon to suit its summoners needs.
The only difference between phantoms is their emotional focus and their feat and skill
selections. All phantoms have two slam attacks, and cant even use weapons or armor,
so theyre harder to kit out with magic gear. Also like eidolons, they do not heal
naturally, so youll need to use magic to cure what ails them, or else use the Heal skill
during downtime.
In the end, an eidolon or animal companion will wind up a better fighter than most
phantoms, although certain kinds of phantoms are no slouch in combat. Phantoms
have the advantage of their weird ectoplasmic/incorporeal nature, allowing them to
scout through solid objects and avoid dangers that a more physical being would have to
deal with. Depending on their emotional focus, they also get a slew of interesting
abilities, often in the form of offensive or defensive buffs for their master and allies, or
debuffs for their enemies.
When I use the word you, I am referring to the spiritualist master of the
phantom.
 Phantom Quick Links
Phantom Basics
Phantom Skills
Base Phantom Abilities
Emotional Foci
Phantom Feats

Phantom Basics
All phantoms start with the same basic stat block, which is pretty straightforward.
The phantoms emotional focus determines its good and weak saves, which Skill Focus
feats it has (and can provide for its master), and often comes with a bonus feat thrown
in.
In general, Fortitude and Will are the two preferred saving throws, as most of the
abilities that would kill the phantom outright, return it to its home plane, or disable it run
off of those. However, every phantom is going to get at least one of these, so it probably
wont be your deciding consideration.
Phantoms are usually the same size as their master or one size smaller,
although a small or smaller spiritualist can have a phantom one size bigger; basically, a
halfling or gnome could have a medium sized phantom.
Before we go any further, its worth discussing the four different states your
phantom can be in.

Banished: This is what happens should your phantom be reduced to negative CON
hp (slain), or if your etheric tether is broken (that is, if your phantom is beyond the range
limit or youve lost line of effect with it for too long). This is bad! When the summoners
eidolon is gone, they still can use their summon monster SLA, and the hunter receives a
boost to his summoning and an extra animal focus to apply to himself. As for the
spiritualist
Thus, you want to avoid having your phantom banished if at all possible. You can
sacrifice your own hp to prevent your phantom from being killed, and once you get the
Phantom Recall class feature you can suck your phantom back into the safety of your
own head as an immediate action. Youll also always want to be mindful of how distant
you are from your phantom, and you cant go too crazy with scouting through walls or
your etheric tether will break.

In Your Head: This is the default state for your phantom, and its not a bad one,
either! When your phantom is riding along in your consciousness, it has two things
going for it:
1. Safety: Very little can harm your phantom while its in your noggin.
2. Discretion: Walking around in a city with a spooky slime ghost could very well
get you arrested or worse. Sometimes its best to keep your phantom pal a
secret from prying eyes.

Importantly, your phantom isnt idle in this state. While chilling in your brain, it provides
passive buffs. You gain a pair of Skill Focus feats, a solid bonus on saves against
mind-affecting effects (especially useful when emotion effects can shut down your
psychic casting), and the ability to shunt a negative mental status to your phantom once
per day (you lose the other bonuses until the negative status is removed from your
phantom when this happens, so use caution). Thus, a spiritualist with a ghost in his
brain is a tough nut to crack mentally, providing a nice defense against threats to your
psychic magic.

Starting at 3rd level, your phantom can partially manifest while residing in your head,
providing either weird ectoplasmic goo powers or a modicum of incorporealitys
defensive and stealth benefits.

At 10th level, the phantom always provides its mental defenses to the spiritualist even
when fully manifested.

>> Below are the full manifestations. These require a 1 minute ritual in order to
summon your phantom, so its best done out of combat. Its easy to miss, but once
fully manifested, a phantom can be switched between ectoplasmic and incorporeal
as a full-round action. Its risky to do in the middle of a fight, but you dont have to
re-summon from scratch if you want to switch your phantoms abilities. <<
Ectoplasmic: Your phantom puts on some muscle, gaining a semblance of
physicality in the form of a spooky slime body. This is the default combat state for most
phantoms, as it allows them to damage creatures and directly interact with the material
plane. While your phantom enjoys DR while ectoplasmic, this is a more vulnerable
state than incorporeal, for your enemies can damage the phantom without jumping
through hoops. In general the phantoms AC will be lower in this state, because it
doesnt add its CHA mod as a deflection bonus.
Importantly, your phantom can still move through solid objects while ectoplasmic,
and it has a farther range on its etheric tether (100 ft. as opposed to 50 ft.). Its more
risky since it can be harmed more easily, but the ectoplasmic phantom can potentially
scout through solid objects farther than when incorporeal. You still need to be wary of
spending too many rounds without line of effect to yourself (the spiritualist), but this is
still a useful tool.
Note that at ranges farther than 50 ft., the spiritualist has to concentrate every
round to maintain the etheric tether. You dont want to do this during a fight, so be sure
to keep your phantom close at hand when danger is near.

Incorporeal: While incorporeal, your phantom cant go farther than 50 ft. away from
you, and it cant damage creatures on the material plane with its slam attack. In
general, your phantom wont be dealing much physical harm while incorporeal, but it will
also be much harder to harm by the same token. Your phantom isnt useless while
incorporeal; it can still Intimidate enemies, and most phantoms have an aura or other
ability from their emotional focus that still functions while incorporeal. This is often the
superior combat state for phantoms that arent built for damage dealing. If your
phantom can draw aggro, you can either force your enemies to waste attacks on your
incorporeal shade, or suffer penalties for not attacking them.
Your phantom has a higher AC when incorporeal: the natural armor bonus is
switched to a dodge bonus, and it also gains its CHA mod to AC as a deflection bonus.
An incorporeal phantom will have a scary touch AC. Smart enemies will probably try to
avoid attacking your incorporeal phantom, but if they do its going to be that much
harder to even land a hit.
Although the scouting range is shorter for an incorporeal phantom, it is inherently
more stealthy; no ectoplasmic residue, and the ability to move in perfect silence makes
for quite the sneaky scout. It cant be sensed by scent or most other super-senses, and
doesnt trigger weight-based traps. Eventually the incorporeal phantom gains a modest
fly speed, opening up its scouting ability into three dimensions. Fun fact: incorporeal
creatures cannot fall or take falling damage, so you might be able to rules-lawyer your
phantoms ability to cross gaps and gorges before it has an actual fly speed.
 Phantom Skills
Some of your phantoms skill points are automatically assigned: they have max
ranks in the two skills tied to their Skill Focus feats based on their emotional focus. The
rest of their skill points are free to assign where the spiritualist wishes, reflected by their
deceptively low number of skill points on their advancement chart compared to an
eidolon.
All phantoms share a number of class skills, plus one bonus proficiency of the
spiritualists choice. They gain automatic proficiency in their Skill Focus-linked skills as
well.

Bluff: Phantoms are disturbing enough in appearance that using Bluff in

traditional social situations is somewhat unlikely, unless theyre trying to
impersonate an actual type of undead. Bluff can be used in combat if your
phantom wants to get into feinting, although this is probably only of interest to
Hatred phantoms.
Craft: While a phantom could craft things during downtime or assist an
industrious master, your skill points are a bit too precious to use here.
Fly: An incorporeal flying creature is unlikely to be affected by the weather, and
is resistant enough to harm that you probably dont have to worry about putting
ranks here.
Intimidate: This is a vital skill for most phantoms, particularly if you plan on
having them incorporeal during a fight. This gives them something to do while
incorporeal, softening enemies up for your spells or the phantoms other powers.
Knowledge (planes): Phantoms are sadly dumb. It takes a lot of investment to
make them knowledgeable; youre better off leaving book-smarts to the living.
Perception: Its always useful to have an extra set of eyes/ears on the team.
Vital for scouting as well.
Sense Motive: Another largely social skill, phantoms are a liability in most social
situations. They can still use it while in your head, providing a double-layer to
your BS radar, so take advantage of that telepathic communication.
Stealth: A great skill for scouts. If you dont plan on using Intimidate much, this
is probably your next best pick.

With limited skill points to spare, its tough picking a good bonus class skill. Try to tailor
it to your emotional focus, especially if your focus frees up points youd be spending on
Perception, Stealth, or Intimidate. Diplomacy is potentially useful if you want to use the
Antagonize feat. Acrobatics could be helpful for a melee phantom that plans on being
ectoplasmic most of the time.

Base Phantom Abilities

Below I just want to point out some of the useful bits of information that apply to
all sorts of phantoms.

Link: A spiritualist is always in telepathic communication with their phantom. Even

when the phantoms in your head, it can use its mental skills and provide a second
opinion on events. Its also a great tool for scouting. Even though a phantom shares
magic item slots with you, this is unlikely to matter much, since your phantom cant bring
items with it when it goes into your head, and it has trouble using items while
incorporeal.

Share Spells: Like a summoners eidolon, a phantom can receive personal-range

spells from the spiritualist and be targeted by spells such as enlarge person regardless
of its actual creature type. This is most useful for phantoms you plan on using in battle;
spells such as shield can give your phantom a decisive defensive edge, for instance.

Deliver Touch Spells: Beginning at 3rd level, your phantom can deliver touch
spells while within 30 ft. of you (eventually 50 ft. at 12th level). It can do this even while
incorporeal, which is cool! Even if you dont plan on using bad-touch spells, this can still
be a useful way to deliver healing spells or touch-range buffs to your allies. This ability
can also be used to heal the phantom as an immediate action.

hantoms gain bonuses to their DEX and CHA

Ability Score Considerations: P
scores as you level up. Your phantom gains three ability score increases over the
course of its career, which you can place wherever you wish. I recommend putting a
point into CON to boost your phantoms hp, especially if you plan on fighting with it while
ectoplasmic. An INT boost can get you a bonus skill point per level. Finally, a single
point to CHA will bump up its modifier, useful for phantoms that favor incorporeality.
With three odd scores in their basic stat block, you can spread out your ability increases
between all three, or focus on one for a +2 bonus in the stat of choice. You can also
bump up one of the odd scores and increase an even score, such as DEX.
 Emotional Foci

Aside from feats and skill selection, the biggest choice when it comes to your
phantom is which emotional focus to use. The emotional focus you pick determines the
role your phantom will excel at in combat. Some, such as Anger, make your phantom
into more of a damage dealer, while others, like Fear or Despair, turn your phantom into
a mobile debuffing platform. Well do a full breakdown of the various emotional foci
below, but heres the TL;DR version:

Emotional Foci by Role

Damage - Anger and Hatred
Debuffing - Despair, Fear, Pride, and Remorse
Bodyguards - Dedication, Greed, Jealousy, Lust
Buffing - Dedication, Zeal

Which emotional focus is the best? Really, they all come down to personal preference -
except Remorse, which lags behind those in its role until high levels. As long as you
understand your phantoms abilities and optimize around them to use them effectively,
youll get good results out of all of them.

Pay particular attention to a phantoms good and bad saving throws. Its difficult to
acquire magic items for your phantom, so aside from spells their saving throws will
quickly start to trail behind the rest of the party. Their weak save in particular will often
be a massive liability for a phantom, particularly a poor Will save. While a phantom can
be retracted into the spiritualists mind to protect it should it become scared, confused,
or charmed, its likely going to be out of commission for the rest of the fight, and
perhaps even the adventuring day. Use caution around threats that target your
phantoms weak save!

Its worth noting that if you learn the spell speak with dead and pick up the Spirit
Symbiosis feat, you can use said spell to temporarily switch your phantoms emotional
focus to a new one of your choice. This is a cool ability that affords you some flexibility;
concerned about a nasty Will-save heavy encounter? Switch to a Dedication phantom
and armor your brain. Fighting stuff immune to fear? Switch your Fear phantom out for
something more generally useful, such as Zeal.

Occult Realms Update: Occult Realms introduced the Greed, Lust, and Pride
phantoms. Much like Remorse, most of them lag behind the utility of the core
phantoms, with the exception of Lust. Lust is very competitive with Jealousy for a
general tank phantom. Greed and Pride are certainly functional, but theyre not quite as
robust as some of their peers. Greed in particular lacks focus, reliant as it is on external
buff spells. This can of course produce a powerful fighting companion, but somewhat
fittingly, Greed will require a higher investment in personal magic power.

Novas Thoughts: A significant number of phantom abilities allow saving throws, but
the saving throw is based off your phantoms hit dice and Charisma. Your phantom
automatically gets a scaling bonus to Charisma, but the results can be lackluster. In
short, do not count on these abilities triggering frequently unless you invest resources
like a +6 Charisma item and Ability Focus. For example, the monster creation guidelines
recommend a level 20 creatures primary ability DC be about 27 - at level 20, itll be
about 22 - appropriate for a CR 14 creature. With Ability Focus and a +6 Charisma item,
itll hit 27. Whether or not its worth it depends on many factors, such as the frequency
with which the ability can be used and the action economy behind the ability. Also note
that debuffing phantoms like Despair will knock their foes saves down, providing an
effect DC increase not reflected in these numbers.

Heres a quick guide to these saving throws by spiritualist class level (assuming no
items, feats, or level-up stat boosts in Charisma):

Spiritualist Phantom Saving

Level Throw DC

1 11

2-4 13

5-6 14

7 15

8-9 16

10-11 17

12 18

13-14 19

15-16 20

17 21
 18-20 22

Anger
Role: Melee damage dealer, secondary tank.
Skills: Intimidate & Survival
- Even though an anger phantom is more likely to be smashing things in melee
rather than intimidating foes, a spiritualist can benefit from Skill Focus
(Intimidate) in a variety of situations, especially if they dont have their phantom
manifested but still want to get up to some fear-stacking. Survival is a bit of an
odd addition, and probably unlikely to be relevant. With Intimidate covered,
youre free to pick skills such as Perception or Stealth for your phantom.
Good Saves: Fort. & Will
- Solid strong saves for a front line fighting phantom.

Strength Focus: DEX and STR are basically swapped with an Anger phantom, and it
gains a scaling bonus to STR instead of DEX. An Anger phantom will thus have lower
defenses and stealth, but it saves you a feat on Weapon Finesse and does more
damage without jumping through hoops. If youre mostly going to be wearing your
phantom, this is a straight upgrade to your Ectoplasmic Bonded Manifestation swift
action attacks.

Powerful Strike: Free Power Attack, and an Anger phantoms slams count as one size
category larger. This is a great baseline ability for damage dealing. Stacks with
Improved Natural Attack, too.

Aura of Fury: This is a bit of a scorched earth aura, creating a double-edged sword
that benefits and penalizes enemies and allies indiscriminately. As an aura, its of
relatively limited use, perhaps most useful for a spiritualist that fights with their phantom
in order to bring down an enemy quickly before they can retaliate. Used selfishly, or by
the phantom alone, it equates to a simple +4 to attacks, which is pretty nice. The aura
takes a swift action to activate, and a free action to end, so the phantom can just have it
on during their turn to mitigate risk. Remember, it equates to a +4 swing in attack rolls
for you and your opponents, if they can benefit from it - youre playing with fire if you
leave it on all the time.

Ferocious Mein: A 1/day quickened enlarge person and rage for your phantom.
Useful if enemies get the drop on you and you dont have time to buff, it helps your
phantom do what its good at doing: smashing things. At 18th level it also gains frightful
presence, but this is unlikely to be useful, since its based off of the phantoms HD,
which will always trail behind its masters (at level 18, it can only affect creatures with 13
HD or less).

Furious Wail: The Anger phantoms capstone is a 1/day 9th level spell in the form of
wail of the banshee. While this is pretty metal, its problematic. The range on wail is
short, but has a 40 ft. radius spread and is non-discriminatory. Since youre probably
going to be within 50 ft. of your phantom, getting this ability off without catching yourself
or your allies in the radius is going to be dicey. Oddly, this ability is probably best used
as a panic button while your phantom is scouting alone, hopefully with a solid wall
between it and your living friends.

CTPs Thoughts: The Anger phantom is the main damage-dealer of all the phantoms,
making it closest to a regular eidolon or animal companion. Its job is to get into melee
and punch things, ideally after getting buffed up to the nines. Its enough of a threat that
enemies have to pay attention to it, which makes it a decent tank as well. The main
weakness of the Anger phantom is its lower defenses compared to other phantoms, and
the fact that its going to spend most of its time ectoplasmic. Youll have to devote
resources to protecting it, as well as patching it up after a scrap.
While you can build your spiritualist to fight alongside the Anger phantom, its
probably the best fighter for spiritualists that want to hang back and stay out of the fray.
A more melee-leaning spiritualist will certainly enjoy the ectoplasmic bonded
manifestation after 8th level, adding pummeling slime-fists to any attack routine. The
Anger phantom isnt subtle, but is pretty good at what its supposed to do. The eidolon
or animal companion have the advantage of using permanent magic items to pump up
their stats and options, so your angry ghost pal will be heavily reliant on buff spells to
help it overcome odd DR types, etc. Eidolons will usually have more attacks to throw
around, as will many animals, so the Anger phantom will never be quite the murder
machine as its living cousins.
From a flavor standpoint, I like the Anger phantom. Theres lots of reasons to be
pissed after you die, and the Anger phantom gets to take out its frustration on your
enemies. It probably wont be very pleasant to interact with, so youll definitely want to
hide it during social encounters.

Novas Thoughts: Anger is (unsurprisingly) sort of the barbarian of the phantoms: It

smashes things. If you want a phantom that smashes people, take it; if not, keep
moving. The closest thing to micromanagement youll need to do is reminding your GM
that yes, youre Power Attacking, and youre turning off Aura of Fury at the end of every
turn.
Dedication
Role: Bodyguard, defensive buffer.
Skills: Diplomacy & Sense Motive
- The Dedication phantom gives its master a boost in social situations. If you want
to attempt tanking with your phantom, you can make use of Diplomacy with the
Antagonize feat.
Good Saves: Ref. & Will
- Its a shame that the bodyguard archetype has a poor Fort. save.

Iron Will: Not only does the Dedication phantom get Iron Will as a bonus feat, but it
provides it to its master when its in their head as well! The master of a Dedication
phantom is nigh-impervious to mental harm when sharing consciousness with their
ghost pal.

Dutiful Strike: Whenever its master is attacked, a Dedication phantom retaliates with
extra fervor. This ability is more useful if the spiritualist is fighting alongside their
phantom, fighting shoulder to shoulder.

Defending Aura: Although the range is very short, this is a solid defensive buff. Again,
its of most use to a master fighting alongside their phantom.

Devoted Servant: Should you be caught with your pants down, a 12th level spiritualist
can instantly manifest their Dedication phantom. This is a nice clutch ability.

Steadfast Devotion: Immunity to mind-affecting effects and possession, as well as

banishment or dismissal. This is a solid defensive capstone for your ghosty-ghost.

CTPs Thoughts: The Dedication Phantom is best used as a melee buddy and mobile
defensive buff. Be sure to take advantage of Spiritual Interference! This phantom helps
shore up defenses, allowing its master to concentrate on offense. Youll need to as
well, since the Dedication phantoms main weakness is damage output.
This is a weaker choice for an offensive caster-leaning spiritualist. If youre
staying out of the fray, you wont get the full benefits of this phantoms abilities, although
it can still serve as a nice defensive bastion for your allies; its probably best to keep it
incorporeal in this case.
From a flavor perspective, the Dedication phantom has tons of built-in drama.
Whether its the spirit of a devoted parent, ancestor, or even a departed lover, the
Dedication phantom is perhaps the most benign of all the phantoms, and likely the least
freaky once you get used to its presence.
Bonus points if your phantom is Bill Cosby or Patrick Swayze.

Novas Thoughts: Never want to have to worry about losing your emotion-component
spells? Look no further. You get the standard +4 vs. mind-affecting abilities plus Iron
Will - at level 1, thats a +8 modifier before Wisdom modifier; a dwarf with a Wisdom of
18 would be rocking a +14 Will save against mind-affecting spells. Keep your noggin
locked up like Fort Knox. Its not bad against physical threats either.

Despair
Role: Debuffer
Skills: Intimidate & Stealth
- Perfect skill allocation for your phantom, freeing up your skill choices. The
spiritualist can certainly enjoy a boost to Intimidate, especially if youre going for
a debuffing build (which you should if youre picking this emotional focus).
Good Saves: Fort. & Will
- An ideal saving throw spread for weathering the worst effects in the game.

Power from Despair: A despair phantom receives an attack and damage boost
against any target suffering from a fear or sadness emotional effect. Remember that
you have this, especially if youre keeping your phantom ectoplasmic! At level 7+, this is
always on (except against opponents immune to fear effects) as Aura of Despair
triggers it.

Miserable Strike: Essentially a melee debuff when your phantom is in the thick of
fighting. Sadly, I dont believe it triggers Power from Despair, unless your GM rules that
it counts as a despair effect.

Aura of Despair: This is more like it! No save, just suck. Perfect for softening up
targets for your spells.

Despairing Shout: Crushing despair 3/day isnt too shabby, although the save DC isnt
likely to be too difficult. Still, its fun to spam while your phantoms incorporeal.

Inescapable Despair: By the time you get this, Miserable Strike isnt really much to
write home about.
CTPs Thoughts: Of the two primary debuffer phantoms (the other being Fear), the
Despair phantom is a bit more inherently user-friendly. The main draw is Aura of
Despair. Just let it hang out while incorporeal, spamming Intimidate and making
enemies around it suck. Its probably more attractive to caster-leaning spiritualists that
want help landing their save-or-X spells.
From a flavor perspective, the Despair phantom is likely to be one of the most
depressing, and possibly annoying. You could play it for laughs, a sort of Eeyore
ghost, or you could delve into gothic melodrama and wallow in overwhelming
bleakness.

Novas Thoughts: Dis pear...so delicious. Seriously, though, this is kind of the
debuffing equivalent of Anger. Do you want to drop your enemies saves? Take it. If not,
theres better choices.

Fear
Role: Debuffer
Skills: Intimidate & Stealth
- Perfect skill allocation for your phantom, freeing up your skill choices. The
spiritualist can certainly enjoy a boost to Intimidate, especially if youre going for
a debuffing build (which you should if youre picking this emotional focus).
Good Saves: Reflex & Will
- Not as good as Fort and Will, but not bad at all.

Stealthy - Its better than not getting a bonus feat, right?

Horrifying Strike: Creatures hit by the phantoms slam have to save or be shaken
(doesnt go beyond shaken). It forces the save with every attack, which is decent.

Increase Fear: Increase fear in a 20ft. radius as a swift action; allows a saving throw.
The good news is that your phantom probably doesnt have anything else to do with its
swift action and their saves are already going to have taken a hit from their previous
fear condition. The bad news is that if they make their original save, youll never get the
chance to escalate it.

Frightful Attack: Creatures hit by the phantoms slam have to save or be frightened.
Strictly an upgrade from Horrifying Strike+Increase Fear, as you can get everything
done in one saving throw. You can still choose for them to be shaken for some reason -
perhaps if you dont want them to run.
Shelter Allies: The spiritualist always gets fear immunity if the phantom isnt banished,
and all allies in the fear aura get immunity to fear.

Novas Thoughts: If you want to meddle in fear effects, you can do worse than a Fear
phantom. However, a melee build dedicated to something like Bludgeoner+Enforcer
with unchained skill unlocks will almost always do the job better. Its not bad certainly,
but if you just want to tank your opponents saves, go with Despair.

CTPs Thoughts: The Fear phantom is a more tactical debuffer choice than Despair,
requiring a bit more strategy for set-up. Fear is a good choice for a caster-leaning fear
build; your phantom softens targets up for any number of your fear spells. I believe
Despair is ultimately more useful for a larger variety of builds in the end.
If youre going for a fear-based caster build, be sure to pick up Emotional Focus.
Youll get early access to staple spells such as fear, as well as frightful aspect as a 6th
level spell, which is awesome for you or your phantom.
For flavor, the Fear phantom is (unsurprisingly) spooky. Its very close to your
standard ghost, all rattling chains and eerie wails. Its got a lot of hooks as a victim
when it was alive, inviting mystery or intrigue. It could also represent a person who let
fear control their lives, now tortured after death by their psychosis.

Greed (OR)
Role: Melee combatant (buff dependent)
Skills: Appraise & Sleight of Hand
- Barring trait selection, neither of these skills will be of particular worth to a
spiritualist or phantom.
Good Saves: Fortitude & Reflex
- No good Will save hurts the Greed phantom, but hopefully it will absorb enough
buffs to make up for it.

Eye of Avarice: Your phantom will know the price of things! The buff to ID-ing magic
items is nice.

Ruthless Combatant: Same base combat perk as the Zeal phantom; better than
nothing.

Assume Effect: This ability increases the efficiency of your spell slots, allowing you to
get double your money on buff spells a (very) limited number of times per day. Best
used on higher level spells.
Covetous Aura: Greed waits a long time for an aura, but it might be worth the wait. In
combat, this aura is of nebulous use. However, its real value is when your party is
casting a sequence of buffs. Even though its limited to 2nd level or lower spells, if you
time things correctly your phantom can receive an incredible variety of buffs at no cost
in resources. Work with your party; spells like barkskin, shield of faith, resist energy, or
heroism (from a bard or skald) can significantly boost your phantoms stats. The more
friendly casters are in your party, the more valuable this becomes.

Take It with You: The Greed capstone is pretty tame, if for no other reason than it
requires your phantom to die, which is something you want to avoid. However, should
the worst come to pass, the phantom can pass on a number of still-active buff spells to
its spiritualist master, which is nice. Considering they might very well be sharing the
same spells (with the same durations), this is of even more questionable use.

CTPs Thoughts: The Greed phantom is pretty sub-par compared to most other
phantoms; its completely reliant on external buffs to determine its combat effectiveness.
If youre starting play at high enough level for Covetous Aura, and your party contains
multiple casters, the Greed phantom is an interesting magnet for buffs. It extends the
efficiency of spell slots, but thats about it.
From a flavor perspective, a greedy soul likely has lots of selfish reasons to linger
on the material plane. It likely shares similar quirks with a Jealousy phantom, resenting
the livings ability

Hatred
Role: Melee damage dealer, limited buffs
Skills: Acrobatics & Perception
- Acrobatics is great for avoiding attacks of opportunity, and you can almost never
have enough Perception.
Good Saves: Fortitude & Reflex
- Not having a good Will save is something to be worried about. Banishment is bad
enough, but your phantom getting dominated and turned against you would be
even worse.

Weapon Finesse - This almost certainly would have been your first feat. Lets you move
on to something more interesting sooner.

Hated Target: Move action (or a swift action at level 7) to dedicate an opponent as a
target, granting a +2 bonus to attack rolls and + HD to damage (min 1.) - both
untyped. Applies a penalty when attacking other targets until level 7. The action cost
hurts when switching targets, but youll always be happy to have it.

Hateful Aura: Creatures within 10ft. that hurt the phantom or its spiritualist take
damage equal to the phantoms Charisma mod. Theres no limit to the amount of times
this can activate in a round, and it doesnt allow a saving throw. Nice against creatures
with a large number of attacks (i.e. Monks, natural attackers, archers), but its rarely
going to be the deciding factor in combat.

Sneak Attack: 3d6 sneak attack against your hated target (5d6 at level 18). Thats
nothing to sneeze at, especially when you can be a flanking buddy for your phantom. If
you VMC (variant multiclass) rogue, you could be sneak attack pals.

Shared Hatred: Allies get a +2 to attack and +4 to damage (untyped) against your
hated target, you can designate a hated target while incorporeal, and you can make
slam attacks against a hated target while incorporeal. Being able to fight unhindered
while incorporeal is huge - you take 50% damage from non-force effects, you ignore
natural armor, shields, and armor, ignore penalties for fighting in water, cant be tripped
or grappled, and get Charisma to AC as a deflection bonus, and Im leaving out some
things. Expect your GM to blink and sputter a few times and demand to see the book
the first time you try this out.

Novas Thoughts: It starts off decent, but it scales into a fairly monstrous assassin. Its
my pick for a damage-focused phantom.

CTPs Thoughts: The Hatred phantom is the thinking-mans combat choice. Weapon
Finesse as a bonus feat is a godsend, and it makes a great flank-buddy. My main
critique of the Hatred phantom is the long wait for sneak attack; it has trouble competing
against the Anger phantom until that point, as far as raw damage output is concerned.
Flavor-wise, the Hatred phantom is up there for one of the more spooky choices.
It could be relatively benign (the spirit of a goblin-hating dwarf, for instance), but leans
towards darker souls.

Jealousy
Role: Bodyguard
Skills: Appraise & Bluff
- Appraise is a bit abysmal for a skill to get a bonus to, unless youre frequently
sprinting through treasure rooms and only have a full round action to pick the
best swag.
Good Saves: Reflex & Will
- Not as good as Fort and Will, but not bad at all.

Deceitful - Your phantom can just chill in your mind. No reason to put fake moustaches
on it (though it could be amusing to put a sheet with two eyeholes over it and tell people
its a ghost costume).

Jealous Combatant: Creatures the phantom attacks take a -2 penalty if they dont
attack the phantom. Useful for its role.

Hateful Aura: Causes enemies within 20 ft. that dont attack the phantom or include it in
AoEs to be staggered until the end of their next turn on a failed save. That means if
someone tries to full attack the spiritualist and fails their save, their full attack is over for
their turn (and itll be tough to escape next turn). Theres no once per day per creature
limit or even a 1/round limit: Every time theyre in range and dont target the phantom,
they have to save vs. staggered. A level 20 full bab archer with haste and Rapid Shot
will have to make six saving throws to get their full attack off. Theres no offensive
spell limitation, so technically the enemy cleric who casts bless or cure light wounds
would be subject to it, though I would recommend players and GMs assume that its
meant to be there.

Retribution: Bonus damage against people that attack the spiritualist. Useful, but
doesnt blow the doors off.

Mine to Take: 1/day, the phantom can swap places with the spiritualist as an immediate
action to take a blow or nasty effect. Can be used while incorporeal, which is fancy. Just
be careful not to move yourself into a more dangerous position (i.e. if your phantom was
engaged with a more dangerous enemy on the other side of the battle).

Novas Thoughts: Its a very solid tank - crank the saving throw for Hateful Aura as
much as possible, and you can really screw with opponents that rely on full attacks.

CTPs Thoughts: I was somewhat surprised to discover the Jealousy phantom

functioning as a tank, but it makes sense in a way. Its actually pretty good at what it
does; Id be inclined to keep it incorporeal once Hateful Aura comes online. This is a
decent choice for a more caster-leaning spiritualist that wants to keep enemies off their
back.
 Theres a lot of fun flavor potential here. A Jealousy phantom will be inclined to
ham it up, seeking the spotlight and attention whenever possible. This might make it
something of a liability, but itll certainly be entertaining.

Lust (OR)
Role: Tank, Debuffer
Skills: Bluff & Diplomacy
- Diplomacy is vital for one of the Lust phantoms primary abilities. These skills are
excellent for a spiritualist aiming at Party Face, particularly on a fractured mind.
Good Saves: Fortitude & Will
- The perfect spread for a tank.

Constitution Focus: The Lust phantom will have more hp than any other phantom, but
pays for this with a much lower AC. Youll want your Lust phantom incorporeal most of
the time to compensate.

Alluring Presence: Right out of the gate, Lust gets a great tanking ability. Its only
once per round (taking an immediate action), but its a great way to redirect attacks at
the (ideally incorporeal) phantom. Pump up that Diplomacy modifier!

Mine Alone: Another awesome defensive perk, benefitting the spiritualist as well as the
phantom. The threat of charms and compulsions drops significantly.

Aura of Ecstasy: This aura is non-discriminatory and very short range, but its a nasty
penalty on a failed save. Theres no reason not to send your Lust phantom into the
enemys grill.

Sinful Command: The DC wont be great, but a 1/day 9th level spell in the form of
dominate monster is nothing to sneeze at.

CTPs Thoughts: Lust just might be a more pure tank than even Jealousy. Jealousy is
a more active participant in combat, while Lust simply hangs around and hogs attention.
Its an even more defensive choice than Jealousy, designed to soak damage. Keep it
incorporeal at all times; its not here to deliver damage. At higher levels it doubles as a
debuffer, becoming a true nuisance to your foes.
While a Lust phantom can be a disturbing and unusual departed soul, I think it
has even greater potential coupled with a fractured mind spiritualist. A manifestation of
the spiritualists darkest desires is really cool!
Pride (OR)
Role: Skirmisher, debuffer
Skills: Perception & Intimidate
- The perfect skill spread for a phantom. Intimidation is a valuable tool for a Pride
phantom.
Good Saves: Reflex & Will
- Not the ideal spread, but a good Will is vital, especially for Pride.

Resolve: Immunity to fear is nice, but this is extremely fragile. Dont count on this
ability at all.

Flagrant Disregard: A sort of power attack ability, boosting accuracy at the cost of
defense. Annoyingly, it requires a swift action to use.

Vainglorious Oration: Whats nice about this ability is that the enemy does not get a
save, making Pride a decent choice for a fear-stacking build post 7th level. The enemy
needs to remain close or else the debuff fades away, however.

Overwhelming Confidence: Doubling a morale bonus is great, but its tied to the
Resolve ability, and actually penalizes having a morale bonus should you lose Resolve
(read: fail nearly any roll). This discourages the casting of morale bonus spells, rather
than encourage it, in the end.

Illusion of Perfection: This is a pretty tame capstone, providing nothing but a damage
buff. Its okay if you like your phantom in the thick of things, but its hardly
earth-shattering. It also eats up swift actions, which is a bit frustrating.

CTPs Thoughts: The Pride phantom sure likes eating up swift actions. The best thing
going for it is Vainglorious Oration, which is a nice no-save debuff. Otherwise, its a bit
too reliant on the fragile Resolve ability. Its a functional general-purpose phantom, but
it lacks a certain amount of focus.
The Pride phantom is likely to be pretty annoying, but it also has lots of comedic
potential (built in mechanically, no less). The departed spirit of a famous hero or villain
could lead to lots of interesting flavor.

Remorse (OO)
Role: Debuffing
Skills: Perception & Sense Motive
 - While your phantom probably wont be using Sense Motive much (maybe if your
GM likes to feint people?), both skills are useful out of combat.
Good Saves: Fortitude & Will
- The ideal spread.

Antagonistic - Antagonize is a divisive feat whose power sways heavily depending on

how your GM enforces it. If youre going to use this phantom, be upfront with your GM
about it and dont use the feat outside of combat.

Long-Suffering Strike: The phantoms attacks force their target to make a save; failure
means attacks against that target get a +1 to attack and damage. Without the save, or if
it scaled in any way, this could be decent.

Aura of Regret: Enemies within 10ft. take a -2 penalty to skill checks, CMB, CMD, and
caster level checks. If youve got an ally with a CMB focus, this could come in handy a
little. Most of the time, its forgettable.

Keening: Terrible remorse once per day (but in a 30ft. cone instead of one creature);
the spell inflicts the staggered condition even on a successful save, so this is a decent
(if limited) AoE crowd control ability.

Utter Misery: Long-suffering strike gets upgraded into an all-day, every day, every
attack Stunning Fist. At max level with haste, thats 4 attempts on a full attack to stun a
target for a round. Very, very powerful.

Novas Thoughts: This one starts off pretty awful, but becomes amazing at 17th level. I
wouldnt suffer through 16 levels for it, but if youre starting at a very high level or can
retrain, Id give it a look.

CTPs Thoughts: Youre stuck with the Remorse phantom if you take the Fated Guide
archetype, so think it through. Compared to Fear or Despair, it lacks real teeth as a
debuffer.
It has compelling flavor potential, especially as a repentant evil soul, but its in the
running for crappiest phantom mechanically, level 17+ notwithstanding.

Zeal
Role: Buffing, secondary damage dealer
Skills: Acrobatics & Survival
 - Both of these have been covered, but Acrobatics is useful and Survival is
completely campaign dependant.
Good Saves: Fortitude & Reflex
- No good Will is a weak point, but Determination Aura and Zeals Resolve will
help.

Tracking - + HD to your phantoms Survival to follow tracks. One of the most

forgettable parts of being a Ranger, now on your phantom!

Ruthless Combatant: Improved Critical+. Not bad, but not reliable.

Determination Aura: Allies within 20ft. gain a +2 competence bonus to attack rolls and
saving throws. Doesnt stack with a bards inspire courage, but if your party didnt have
a competence bonus to attack rolls or saves anyway, this is very good.

Steadfast Servant: Your phantom stays when youre unconscious or asleep. Give it a
wand of cure light wounds or some ranks in Heal in case it needs to save your life. Even
better than the summoners Resilient Eidolon feat.

Zeals Resolve: Reroll 3 attack rolls/saving throws per day as a free action. You get to
pick whether to use this ability after youve already failed, which is an important
distinction.

Novas Thoughts: Its a very decent all-round phantom. It doesnt have the heights of
damage or defense that some of the other phantoms can reach, but it doesnt have too
many low points either.

CTPs Thoughts: The Zeal phantom is the only ghost Ive seen in play. Determination
Aura is awesome, and even the tracking ability has come in handy a few times. The
Zeal phantom is not a heavy damage dealer, though. It actually functions pretty well
incorporeal most of the time, just providing passive buffs and spamming Intimidate. I
agree with Nova that its a solid all-purpose phantom that will function well for most
parties. Its biggest weakness is the poor Will save; it has a tendency to get banished
back to the Spiritualists head whenever mind-affecting threats show up.
From a flavor standpoint, the Zeal phantom is likely the next most benign
phantom after Dedication. Of course, it could also just be obsessed, and wind up being
an asshole. Its got good unfinished business hooks for a wide variety of backstories.
 Phantom Feats
Aside from skills and emotional focus, feats are your primary way to customize
your ghost pal. Sadly, theres a number of feat taxes that most phantoms are going to
have to take, which makes the actual number of free feats even smaller than they
appear at first blush.
If youre interested in teamwork feats, see the Spiritualist Feats section.

Ability Focus (Bestiary): This feat is vital for certain types of phantoms with
special attacks or auras that have a saving throw DC. Despair, Fear, Jealousy, and
Remorse will benefit from this feat a great deal.

Bludgeoner (UC)/Enforcer (APG): The classic combo. Bludgeoner lets you deal
nonlethal damage with bludgeoning weapon with no penalty, Enforcer lets you make
free Intimidate checks when you deal nonlethal damage with a bludgeoning weapon.
Slams do bludgeoning damage, and theyre the only form of attack available to your
phantom.

Combat Reflexes/Bodyguard (APG)/In Harms Way (APG) - Combat

Reflexes is always a decent feat, but with your phantoms free Dexterity scaling, they
can pretty easily achieve a solid number of attacks of opportunity. Bodyguard provides a
use for those attacks of opportunity to defend the spiritualist or another high-priority
target. In Harms Way is so-so as-is, but it depends heavily on your GMs interpretation
of it: If your phantom just take the full damage without respect to its defenses, the feat
just OK. If the damage is resolved as if the attack originally targeted your phantom, then
its amazing, because your phantom can use it while incorporeal to redirect the attack
and halve the damage.

Dazzling Display: This is a great option for Intimidate-spamming phantoms,

especially if they spend most of their time incorporeal. Excellent for debuffers like Fear
or Despair.

Improved Trip/Grapple/Dirty Trick/Etc.: Unfortunately, your phantoms BAB is

always going to be too low to really take advantage of a dedicated CMB build. If youre
dead set on it, start with Dirty Fighting from the Dirty Tactics Toolbox to circumvent the
worst of the prerequisites.
Improved Unarmed Strike/Feral Combat Training (UC): A choice for high
level phantoms only - possibly retraining. Improved Unarmed Strike does absolutely
nothing for your phantom, and Feral Combat Training doesnt really, either. The benefit
is that you can use your slam attacks for unarmed strike feats like style feats.
The obvious choice would be Pummeling Style, but theres errata that says it
only works with unarmed strikes ever. If your GM will allow it, its pounce+.
The Cudgeler Style line from Melee Tactics Toolbox is pretty sweet. It requires
Bludgeoner, which could be a natural transition from Bludgeoner/Enforcer.
Dragon Style has a lot of goodies, but its tied to Strength, so its for Anger
phantoms only.
Vicious Stomp can be fun if youve got a party member wholl be knocking
people over frequently. More of a if youre already in the Feral Combat Training
line this deep, might as well pick it up.
Panther Style and Snake Style are interesting, but your phantom probably wont
have the Wisdom score/Sense Motive bonus to really take advantage of them.

Improved Initiative: In Pathfinder, going first often means winning - getting your
phantom where it needs to be, when it needs to be there is invaluable.

Improved Natural Attack (Bestiary): Most phantoms have trouble with damage
output; this feat helps them with this problem. This feat is probably the single biggest
damage boost a feat can provide as long as you have a way of increasing your
phantoms effective size, such as Angers Powerful Strike ability. Improved Natural
Attack is one of the very few ways to increase your phantoms slam damage if you plan
on using ectoplasmic bonded manifestation at level 8+ for the two swift action attacks
per turn. Heres how your phantoms natural attacks will stack up (numbers in
parentheses represent average damage):

Spiritualist Base Phantom Phantom Phantom Phantom

Class Level Phantom with with +1 with +1 with +2
Improved size size and size** and
Natural modifier Improved Improved
Attack NA NA

1-4 1d6 (3.5) - 1d8 (4.5) - -

5-8 1d8 (4.5) 2d6*(7) 2d6 (7) 3d6* (10.5) 4d6* (14)

9-12 1d10 (5.5) 2d8 (9) 2d8 (9) 3d8 (13.5) 4d8 (18)
 13-16 2d6 (7) 3d6 (10.5) 3d6 (10.5) 4d6 (14) 6d6 (21)

17-20 2d8 (9) 3d8 (13.5) 3d8 (13.5) 4d8 (18) 6d8 (27)
*Requires retraining to have Improved Natural Attack at level 5. The phantom qualifies
at spiritualist level 5, but doesnt get a feat until spiritualist level 6.
**Such as an Anger phantom with Ferocious Mein active.

Improved Spell Sharing (ACG): If your GM allows your phantom to count as a

companion creature for purposes of qualifying for this feat, its really really good,
especially for spiritualists that plan on fighting alongside their phantoms. It saves you
spell slots and potentially improves action economy as well.

Iron Will: If your phantom has a poor Will save, this is a wise pick, especially as you
approach the mid to upper levels. Banishment or dismissal are basically save-or-dies
for your phantom, and youll need every edge against them you can. Its even worth
considering on a strong Will save phantom if you can fit it in. Dedication gets it for free.

Lunge: Lunge is a nice feat on its own, but its really useful for phantoms by
extending the range of Spiritual Interference. If youre flanking with a Lunging phantom,
for instance, you can still benefit from the defensive bonuses of Spiritual Interference
even while 10 ft. away. Once Greater Spiritual Interference comes online, it helps
spread the love to your other allies in melee. Combos well with Combat Reflexes.

Piranha Strike (PC: SLC): The wording of this feat implies that it can be used with
natural weapons, which gives DEX-focused melee phantoms a much-needed boost to
damage. The alternative would be cranking your phantoms Strength enough to qualify
for Power Attack, but its much more efficient to go with Piranha Strike.

Signature Skill (PU): Allows your phantom to pick up an unchained skill unlock.
The obvious one is Intimidate for a fear-based build, but Stealth and Acrobatics also
stand out. Remember that youll never get the 20th skill point unlock for a phantom (as it
only has 15 HD).

Skill Focus: Skill Focus (Intimidate) is quite helpful for phantoms that plan on
spamming demoralize attempts. Skill Focus (Perception) is awesome on a Zeal or
Dedication phantom as it keeps guard, or just to prevent unpleasant surprises in
general.
Toughness: One of the main feat taxes for phantoms, especially if you plan on
fighting with them while ectoplasmic. Even with a d10 HD, phantoms are going to be
behind the rest of the party in terms of actual number of HD, and will need every boost
to their hp you can manage. If youre planning on mostly relying on an incorporeal or
mind-bound phantom, this isnt quite so vital.

Weapon Finesse: If you plan on having your phantom fight, youll pretty much have
to take this. Its one of the main feat taxes for phantoms, since they really only have
melee attacks and gain a scaling bonus to DEX. The only two phantoms that dont have
to worry about this feat are the Anger and Hatred phantoms; Anger uses STR as its
main attack stat, while Hatred gets Weapon Finesse for free.

Weapon Focus (slam): Pumping up your phantoms attacks is always useful, and
there are few ways to do this outside of buffs or magic item juggling. Importantly, this is
a prereq for Dazzling Display, which can be effective for phantoms with a solid
Intimidate modifier.

Archetypes
Ectoplasmatist
There are some archetypes that make you wonder how badly the designer must
have hated the original class that they decided to just discard the whole thing and make
their own.
Welcome to the Ectoplasmatist, the soulknife/magus/spiritualist guy.
The first thing we should note is that, oh yeah, you lose your phantom and
everything that goes with it, which is about 90% of your class features besides
spellcasting. This is obviously a huge raw power loss. The question is, can the features
the Ectoplasmatist provides make up for it? The answer is often no, without conscious
and heavy optimization.
If you want to deal respectable damage, youre pretty much locked into shocking
grasp+Magical Lineage+Intensify Spell and a level 0 touch-range spell. The only way
Ive found to do that is Samsaran, pulling shocking grasp and touch of fatigue from the
occultists spell list. Why? Youre a combat, focused medium BAB class with no damage
increases and no bonus feats. If you just want to play a Wisdom-based,
combat-focused, 2/3rds spellcaster without a pet, try Inquisitor or Warpriest for a class
with actual combat-enhancing features. The ectoplasmatist has to use his Spiritual
Combat to making up for losing just about everything else from his class.
 That being said, Spiritual Combats ability to full attack while casting a spell,
combined with the range increases of ectoplasmic lash mean that you can still put out a
moderate amount of damage while continuing to cast every turn. Theres no reason you
cant full attack and throw out a debuff, buff, or other support spell - its just that you
could be throwing out those support spells from a safer distance while your phantom
goes to town with its own set of actions if youre not that interested in melee.

Ectoplasmic Lash

You get a unique weapon with a scaling enhancement bonus and some special
abilities. You must be using it to get the full benefit of the archetypes abilities, so
the only time you might theoretically might not be using it is level 1 and perhaps when
you need a ranged weapon or need to pierce damage reducing. The bad news is that
youre stuck with it; the good news is that its pretty decent.

Heres a quick comparison of the enhancement bonus compared with the

Dreamscarred Press Soulknife, the maguss arcane pool, the warpriests favored
weapon, and the automatic bonus progression variant from Pathfinder Unchained:

Enhance- Ectoplasmatist DSP Magus Mindblade Warpriest Automatic

ment Bonus Level Soulknife Arcane Magus Favored Bonus
Level Pool Weapon Weapon Variant

Masterwork - 1 - - - -

+1 2 3 1 3 4 4

+2 6 6 5 6 8 9

+3 10 9 9 9 12 14

+4 14 12 13 12 16 15

+5 18 15 17 15 20 17

As you can see, ectoplasmic lash is fairly competitive, at least as far as

enhancement bonuses go. The mindblade magus stands out as a serious competitor,
as it also had 6th level casting.

Your weapon takes a full-round action to summon, but has no duration and
doesnt disappear after leaving your hand. Summon it at the beginning of the
campaign and sheathe it like any other weapon. Only re-summon when you need to
switch forms.

You can summon it in light form, one-handed form, or two-handed form. Light
form is for Dex builds, one-handed for Str. You cant use Spiritual Combat (i.e. your
primary class feature) while using your two-handed form, so its only useful to Str builds
at levels 1 and 2, and possibly if youre out of spells for the day; its nice having a proper
2d6 damage two-handed for levels 1 and 2.You wont be two-weapon fighting with light
form past level 2 (if at all) - Spiritual Combat requires 1 hand free.

Its worth noting that Slashing Grace wont give you Dex to attack with the
one-handed form, and Dervish Dance (a magus favorite) only works with scimitars - if
you want to use the one-handed form, Str is the only way to go.

The niftiest feature of the ectoplasmic lash is its scaling reach - +10ft. (!) at level
8. This means you can full attack a foe who cant reach you, and then they wont even
be able to 5ft. step to full attack you back next turn. It also means you can use Spiritual
Combat to full attack while casting a spell and not provoke attacks of opportunity with
your spells. This reach also stacks with everything, including size increases. It provokes
attacks of opportunity from levels 4-7, so avoid using it to attack creatures with a size
advantage over you or a reach weapon. You can also manipulate objects with them.
Neat?

Your various weapon forms count as your alignment at level 6, become ghost
touch weapons at level 8, and gain two bonuses as the spirit-bound blade spell at
levels 12 and 16.
Anger - Vicious. The bonus damage is usually worth the risk, but its not
everyones favorite.
Dedication - Returning. Yes, you can throw your lash. No, theres not much
reason to take this when there are so many better options.
Despair - Cruel. Beautiful. Stack it up with a shaken effect for a net -4 to saves
that you can take advantage of with a spell at the end of your full attack thanks to
Spiritual combat.
Fear - Menacing. Its basically Outflank against all foes you are adjacent to (not
just threatening). That extra accuracy boost is worth considering, though.
Hatred - Cunning. So many hoops to jump through for this to work - theres much
better options.
 Jealousy - Mimetic. An interesting and useful defensive buff - many creatures
that resist or are immune to a type of energy also like to dish that kind of damage
out.
Remorse - Heartseeker. Miss chance is highly annoying, and this lets you ignore
it for most enemies you fight.
Zeal - Keen. Unless youre going to get the effect elsewhere (i.e. the Improved
Critical feat), its a solid effect damage increase.

So when we total that up, thats a +5 weapon, ghost touch (+1), and two
spirit-bound blade bonuses (+1 each)=+8 weapon. A little disappointing until you
remember that you also gain +10ft. of reach while using them, and I would definitely
consider each +5ft. reach equal to or greater than a +1 special quality. Is it the absolute
most powerful weapon in the game? No, but it will take care of your weapon budget,
freeing that money up (often a quarter of your WBL or more) for things like
enhancement bonuses to your physical ability scores.

Spiritual Combat

This is almost word-for-word Spell Combat and Spellstrike class features of the
magus. The long and the short of is that you can full attack and cast a spell with a single
full-round action (not even using up your swift action), and when you cast a spell with
range touch, instead of getting a free touch attack, you get a free weapon attack to
channel the spell.

The way a magus uses this is to use shocking grasp with Magical Lineage and
Intensify Spell to make full attacks with a bonus attack that stacks with haste and deals
+1d6 electricity damage per magus level, maximum +10d6. The spiritualist doesnt have
shocking grasp on their list, unfortunately, and the only way Ive found so far to add it is
with the Samsaran race. Thankfully, the occultist has shocking grasp on their spell list,
and theyve got plenty of goodies on their spell list to choose from (enlarge person, lead
blades, planar binding, etc.). Make sure to take touch of fatigue so you have an all
day/every day way to trigger the bonus attack from Spiritual combat.

The spiritualist does have useful touch-range spells to choose from (harm,
anyone?), but you really want a solid first-level spell to carry you the whole game
without eating up your upper-level spells known. Remember: The spiritualist has an
amazing spell list; you want to be cramming your list known with goodies like haste, fly,
dispel magic, invisibility, dimension door, heal, and the like, not constantly needing to
trade up for a slightly better damage spell.
 As an aside, definitely look to take Spell Perfection for your primary attack spell.
Im a fan of Spell Perfection (shocking grasp+Quicken Spell) because it gives you a
bonus attack with the shocking grasp rider damage as a swift action - at level 20, with
haste, your attack routine becomes Full BAB/ Full BAB (haste)/ Full BAB) (shocking
grasp)/ Full BAB-5/ Full BAB-10/Full BAB (quickened shocking grasp). Even if just the
full BAB attacks hit, thats a minimum of (1d8+Str+5)x4+20d6 electricity damage.

Ectoplasmic Armor

At level 4/12, you gain a +4/+6 armor bonus to AC, and at level 12, this bonus
has the ghost touch property (meaning it applies against incorporeal creatures). Youre
proficient with light armor, so this will very rarely be relevant - if youre caught without
armor, if youre attacked by an incorporeal creature at level 12+, or if for some reason
you dont wear armor (such as a VMC monk - but youre almost never going to VMC
monk, because then you wouldnt be using your lash). Generally, just buying and
wearing armor is going to be superior to this.

Its worth noting that you dont get the shield bonus from Ectoplasmic Bonded
Manifestation that a normal spiritualist would be expecting, so shield bonuses (such as
from a shield spell) become something to seek out.

Novas Thoughts: This archetype has real potential, so its a shame that youre
restricted to one race to function optimally. If your GM is kind and allows you to get
shocking grasp and a level 0 touch spell (even arcane mark) from another source, this
archetype can actually mix with Fractured Mind - it doesnt use Wisdom except for
spellcasting and the drop-attack-roll-for-bonus-to-concentration effect you should never
be using anyway. If you just want to play a spontaneous psychic magus and arent
concerned about getting the spiritualists broad but support-focused spell list, check out
the mindblade magus, which also gets fun things like the ability to spell combat with its
two handed form, and the ability to summon specific weapons instead of generic
light/one-handed/two-handed weapons.

CTPs Thoughts: I dont think you need shocking grasp to make this archetype work.
Let the magus be the magus. I see this as more of a I like bad-touch spells a lot
archetype, cutting out the phantom as the middle man. Youve got at least one solid
touch attack spell per spell level. Touch of gracelessness is pretty brutal at level 1, and
remains nasty throughout your career. Pimp your save DCs for ghoul touch and you
wont need extra damage; you or your allies can just deliver coup-de-graces to your
paralyzed (and smelly) foes. While you wont be out-damaging the magus, youll be
laying on lots of nasty debuffs from the safety of whip-range, with better out of combat
utility on the side. The magus spell list doesnt contain a lot of the spiritualists
bad-touch spells, so it winds up a very different style of combat-magic blending. Again,
I am reminded of melee builds on a dread necromancer from 3.5; indeed, you could still
make undead minions to fill the gap left behind by the phantom if you are so inclined.

Fated Guide
Well, if you want to step into the vast, renowned fantasy world of [redacted], look
no further than the fated guide. Kidding of course, but the archetype grants the Deific
Obedience feat, which really does nothing for you unless your group has Inner Sea
Gods (as it references non-OGL material not available on the SRD or in Occult
Adventures). The fluff is cool - youre helping the phantom discover its life and find
peace.

You get disrupt undead and sanctify corpse as spells known - better than
nothing, I suppose. You are also locked into the Remorse phantom, which is much
worse than nothing, because Remorse is one of the least desirable phantoms until very
high levels. Your phantom gets Deific Obedience instead of Antagonize, which I mostly
call a net gain because of the rules issues with Antagonize.

You then drop either your ectoplasmic or incorporeal bonded manifestations to

gain a unique thanatopic bond. This mostly grants mediocre-to-bad abilities like
pseudo-Diehard at 8th, antilife shell at 13th, and a positive energy (damage only) touch
attack at 18th. For the original two bonded manifestations, ectoplasmic is consistently
good, and incorporeal grants lots of goodies later - its hard to imagine wanting to give
up either of them for thanatopic.

You lose seen invisibility and call spirit for a +4/+8 untyped bonus at levels 9/16
vs. banishment, dismissal, and similar effects, which is mostly a net gain (trading
situational active abilities for a situational, enormous passive bonus against something
very bad).

Novas Thoughts: Now heres the kicker: Remember the bit about thanatopic bond
mostly granting mediocre to bad abilities? Well, it lets you speak with dead, as the spell.
Its a major, major stretch of RAW, but if you could talk your GM into letting you use
Spirit Symbiosis in conjunction with this, you could switch out your phantoms emotional
focus on the fly, taking this archetype from having the most restricted phantom by
emotional focus to the most freely customizable phantom by emotional focus. I like the
idea and would probably allow it in a campaign (requiring the two full rounds to use it
and the normal minute to re-summon it to ectoplasmic form), but your groups
enforcement of RAW will vary. If you just want some religious fluff, onmyoji will generally
give you better bang for your buck.

~CTPs Thoughts: Having access to Inner Sea Gods, I can safely say that Deific Obedience is
largely pretty meh. There are a few decent ones, but they depend on the deity in question. If
youre evil, theyre mostly terrible, since they often require blood sacrifice or other outlandish
things. The good to neutral ones are easy enough to execute and usually grant some sort of
fiddly-to-decent passive bonus. Its time consuming regardless, though.

Fractured Mind
Though it has already been discussed under Races, its important to look at this
archetype in detail. First and foremost, it swaps out Wisdom for Charisma for your spellcasting,
inverting your stat choices and shaking up your build in many ways. When it comes down to it,
its mostly personal preference.

With that in mind, its important to look at the spell-like abilities that get swapped around;
all daily uses are assuming level 20. The saving throw DCs for these spell-like abilities are equal
to 10 + 1/2 the fractured mind's spiritualist class level + the fractured mind's Charisma modifier,
rather than being based on the spell's level.

Random spells of note:

Stricken Heart (Despair level 7, Remorse 9) - No save staggered, up to a minute in
duration on a critical hit. Great for use with deliver touch spells.
Divine Favor (Zeal level 9) - Take the Fates Favored trait.

Spell-Like Abilities by Emotional Focus

Class Base Class Anger Dedication Despair Fear
Level
5 detect undead enlarge person* command* bungle* (4/day) bane* (4/day)
(at will) (4/day) (4/day)
7 calm spirit rage* spiritual weapon stricken heart mad
(4/day) (4/day) (4/day) (4/day) hallucination*
(4/day)
9 see invisibility longstrider* bless* (3/day) doom (3/day) doom (3/day)
(1/day) (3/day)
16 call spirit shout* (2/day) death ward crushing phantasmal
 (1/day) (2/day) despair (2/day) killer (2/day)

(Continued)
Clas Base Class Hatred Jealousy Remorse Zeal
s
Leve
l
5 detect doom (4/day) sanctuary doom bless*
undead (4/day) (4/day) (4/day)
(at will)
7 calm spirit inflict resist inflict pain spiritual
(4/day) moderate energy (4/day) weapon
wounds (4/day) (4/day)
(4/day)
9 see bane* (3/day) entropic stricken divine
invisibility shield* heart favor*
(1/day) (3/day) (3/day) (3/day)
16 call spirit bestow spell mind fog* freedom of
(1/day) curse (2/day) immunity(2/ (2/day) movement
day) (2/day)
* Spells not on the Spiritualists class spell list; every emotional focus gets at least one.

CTPs Thoughts: Fractured Mind is a great archetype, not because it is better or

worse than the standard spiritualist, but because it opens the class up to a much wider
variety of races and character concepts. If you dont like the baggage of having a
mopey dead ghost-thing following you around, but like the idea of having some
messed-up part of your characters own mind manifesting as a freakish monster, this
archetype gives you the full green light to do so. Most phantoms are going to resemble
humanoids, but a fractured minds phantom could be anything you could imagine; while
mechanically the same, you could have some hideous nightmare beast, a demonic
mirror image of your character, etc.

Geist Channeler
Interesting fluff - basically, you channel things closer to a vestige (to those familiar with
Tome of Magic) instead of a ghost/petitioner thing. The crunch, howeverthis
archetype is a straight downgrade from the normal spiritualist. Its a shame.
Geistform Phantom - No ectoplasmic form, half the slam attacks, cant deal damage at
all to corporeal creatures until 5, and cant deal full damage to corporeal creatures until
level 10.

Emotionless - Technically, you have no emotional focus. Crunch-wise, its more like a
unique emotional focus, with Knowledge (arcana) and (religion) for the associated
skills, Reflex and Will for the good saves, and Iron Will as a bonus feat. Unfortunately,
it doesnt get Dedications you get Iron Will when its in your mind.

Unnerving Touch - This is exactly like Fears Horrifying Touch, but worse because you
dont get two attacks to trigger it twice. Ok, being able to use it as a touch attack is
situationally useful, and it lasts 1 more round. Weee.

Poltergeist's Knack - Telekinesis as a spell like ability, starting at 3 times per day.
Cant use the combat maneuver option, unfortunately.

Spectral Protection - Spend your action to prevent incorporeal creatures from

approaching you. Maybe if it was a passive aura, or could be activated with a swift/free
action it might be worth it.

Malevolent Possession - Your phantom can possess people. Itd be really useful if this
could have come online sometime before 17th level.

Spiritual Manifestation - Cant use the ectoplasmic bonded manifestation, either.

CTPs Thoughts: I like to think of this archetype as the 9th emotional focus. The other
emotional foci are either dark, violent, or passionate, so its nice to have a more neutral
or detached option.
Its basically a debuffer like Fear or Despair, but lacking real teeth. Unnerving
Touch is a functional set-up for a fear stacking build, but the lack of a more generally
useful combat aura prevents it from keeping pace. Ultimately, youre depriving yourself
of half of the phantoms features and abilities, and not really getting anything in return.

Haunted
This is an odd archetype. Instead of bonded manifestation, your phantom gains
the ability to drain its master of power, growing bigger and nastier in the process. While
the phantom is super-charged, the spiritualist is nauseated, which mega-sucks. This
archetype is primarily of interest to Anger phantoms, which are STR-based. Lets take a
look:

3rd level: +2 natural armor coupled with an immediate-action enlarge person. Its
important to note that this triggers on an immediate action from the phantom on the
spiritualists turn, and its a free action to dismiss on the phantoms turn. The phantom
could wait to activate this ability at the end of its masters turn, then dismiss it at the end
of its own turn to allow its master to act.
If you cycle rounds in this way, the spiritualist suffers few negative
consequences. However, this eats up your phantoms swift action every round (relevant
for an Anger phantom using Aura of Fury), and its more difficult to take advantage of
the enlarged phantoms improved reach for attacks of opportunity, etc.

8th level: For double the cost in spell slots, the phantom can cast any of its masters
spells as a swift action. It cant do this on the round it activates Usurp Manifestation,
since that takes an immediate action from the phantom, but it does take the sting off of
the hit to action economy you take from having a nauseated master. Again, this
prevents Aura of Fury cycling as well.

13th level: Basically heroism while usurp manifestation is active. Considering the
duration on heroism, this is only useful if youre caught with your pants down.

18th level: Extra DR and some decent SR while using usurp manifestation. Not bad.

CTPs Thoughts: Hmm If you werent planning on using bonded manifestation

(implying youre a caster-leaning spiritualist), and youre taking the Anger phantom as a
punch-smash-meatshield, this archetype gives you enlarge person for your phantom
with better action economy. Its simple enough to cycle Usurp Manifestation, but once
8th level and Aura of Fury come online, its starting to interfere with your phantoms swift
actions.
The main strength of the spiritualist, like any buddy class, is the action advantage
of controlling two characters and having them work together. Having the spiritualist so
heavily gimped during Usurp Manifestation robs you of this advantage, even with the
other bells and whistles attached. If your game is sticking to low levels, such as E6 or
something, this archetype is actually pretty decent. Post level 8, though, and youre
starting to shoot yourself in the foot.
For NPCs, this can make for a really memorable villain. The spiritualist could be
little more than a victim, bullied into serving the phantoms whims.
Onmyoji
In the end, this archetype is about giving up several useful abilities for some cleric
spells. Its a big investment, big reward kind of option - make sure that youre actually
getting cleric spells that are worth it out of the equation and that you couldnt get what
you want by being samsaran.

Divine Spellcasting - Sort of strange, but its moderately interesting. Verbal and
somatic components are more familiar, and arguably easier to work around than
emotion components.

Spiritual Resistance - Trade the frequently helpful shared/fused consciousness for a

more conditional bonus against fey, incorporeal undead, and outsiders. Outsiders do
make up a huge portion of mid to high level enemies, and fey tend to make up a decent
portion of low level enemies, but this is all campaign dependant. If youre only ever
fighting humanoids, this is abysmal. If youre plane hopping, ghost-busting, etc., this
could be semi-useful.

Divine Teachings - Youre losing the useful greater/spiritual interference, but youre
gaining 6 spells from the cleric list (one of the largest and possibly the second best list
after the wizard/sorcerer list). Only being able to cast them while your phantom is in
your consciousness is a little annoying, but you probably werent going to be casting
planar ally in combat anyway.

Shadow Caller (UI)

Like the Geist Channeler, this archetype is a sort of super emotional focus with some
other bells and whistles, focusing on stealth and shadow-spookiness over the more
traditional ghost abilities of the standard spiritualist. Shadow callers are at their best
when fighting opponents at a disadvantage in the dark; if youre going to be fighting
enemies with dark vision (especially devils), youll be shooting yourself in the foot here.

Shadowcaster: S ome bonus spells for your spell list, and a CL buff on shadow and
darkness spells. Its an upgrade to your casting.

Shade: Instead of a phantom, you have a shade. It functions in most ways as a

phantom, but inhabits your shadow instead of riding along inside your head. It has no
emotional focus, instead receiving auras and abilities through the archetype itself. With
good Ref. and Will saves and Lightning Reflexes as a bonus feat, it has a decent
defensive spread. Intimidate and Stealth as its bonus skills and Skill Focus is ideal for
stealthy scouting and fear stacking tactics.

Weakening Touch: The baseline ability for your shade, its okay. The STR debuff
works whether your shade is ectoplasmic or incorporeal, giving it something to do in
either form. No save to negate, but its a minor penalty overall.

Umbral Shroud: The shades aura ability provides concealment and improves stealth,
but the limitations from Shadow Bound means opportunities to use this will be scarce
until you get the upgrade at level 17.

Shadow Caster: The 1/day limitation kind of sucks, but theres a lot of versatility
wrapped up in these spells, and it improves with age. Its a nice ace in the hole.

Midnight Shroud: This late-game improvement to Umbral Shroud is excellent

insurance vs. forms of magic that might otherwise combat your various darkness
abilities. It finally allows your shade to manifest and move around with some regularity,
although youll still be more limited than a standard phantom.

Inhabit Shadow: Rather than improving your mental defenses, your shade enhances
stealth and provides (or improves) darkvision while inhabiting your shadow. Shadow
callers thus have less formidable mental defenses, but hopefully the stealth
improvements keep you out of trouble to compensate.

Shadow Bound: Heres where we enter Suck Town. The shade is even more
restricted by its tether than a standard phantom, to the point where manifestation is
almost unworkable. However, a shade can ignore any tethering limitations as long as it
and its master are in total darkness. This is naturally quite risky, and without phantom
recall theres not a lot you can do should an enemy pop off a light source at an
inopportune time.

Shadow Jump: You lose phantom recall, but you gain a shadow dancers teleport
ability while your shade inhabits your shadow. Its a nice ability to be sure, and
considering the limitations of Shadow Bound youll probably want your shade close at
hand regardless.

See in Darkness: You lose see invisibility and gain see in darkness a limited number
of rounds per day. Considering how often youll be popping off things like deeper
darkness, this is a handy ability to have.
Umbral Aura: Youve already given up the normal mental defenses of a phantom, so
losing fused consciousness is par for the course. This ability is a solid boost to your
defenses and stealth capabilities, however.

Living Darkness: Your immunity to mind-affecting effects only works while using
incorporeal bonded manifestation, but you also gain a nasty incorporeal touch attack.
This new capstone is something of a wash.

CTPs Thoughts: The main thing working against this archetype is the limitations
imposed by the Shadow Bound ability. Your abilities and usefulness are extremely
dependent on illumination levels, and while you can control those to a certain extent, its
never going to be total control. You face a sort of catch-22: if youre fighting enemies
without darkvision, youll be dealing with a lot more ambient light sources, and if youre
fighting enemies with darkvision, a lot of your defensive abilities are rendered moot.
Considering the risks to your shade when manifested, youll often be better
served keeping it in your shadow, relying on your own spellcasting and bonded
manifestation. Of course, your shade lacks a killer edge like the Anger or Hatred
phantoms, so its only going to be so useful in combat regardless.
Youll be amazingly stealthy, so use that to your best advantage. Youll be an
excellent scout and spy; pursue Intimidation to help soften targets for your spells. On
those occasions when things are nice and pitch-black, you can split off from your shade
and tag-team enemies as they helplessly fumble in the dark.
Ideally your allies will be able to operate in the dark; otherwise, think carefully
before allowing your friends to light torches. I like the flavor of this archetype a great
deal, but in the end its got less raw offensive and defensive power.

Zeitgeist Binder (UI)

Playing in an urban game, and want a spiritual tie to your city? The Zeitgeist
Binder might just be what youre looking for. It is very comparable in power to a regular
spiritualist (more specifically a fractured mind), but is somewhat dependant on
remaining within a single community.

Settlement Aspect: As well as an emotional focus, you pick an aspect of your chosen
community for your zeitgeist to embody. This determines your bonus SLAs like a
fractured mind, but you can only use them while in your chosen community. Below are
the various SLAs; ones not on the spiritualist spell list are marked with an asterisk*.
Corruption: conditional favor*, false belief*, charm person*, mass suggestion*
 Crime: crime of opportunity*, pilfering hand, demand offering*, crime wave*
Economy: crafters fortune*, masterwork transformation*, beguiling gift*, major
creation*
Law: detect chaos, arrow of law*, peacebond*, mark of justice*
Lore: object reading, hypercognition*, heightened awareness*, legend lore
Society: cultural adaptation*, rumormonger*, share language*, coordinated
effort*

Settlement Avatar: You lose the scouting utility of bonded senses and the defensive
benefits of fused consciousness, but you gain a free teamwork feat with your zeitgeist
and an interesting ability to observe anything related to your zeitgeists settlement
aspect within a certain distance. You can use this as a crime sense for instance, or
gain the ability to eavesdrop on any party with a Society zeitgeist. This is a relatively
open-ended ability, and rewards creativity. Think enough outside the box, and it
becomes a pretty useful spying tool.

CTPs Thoughts: This is a fun and flavorful archetype for an urban campaign,
certainly. A zeitgeist is probably a lot less scary than a phantom, but if it comes from a
particularly nasty city or neighborhood it could be just as disconcerting. Theres a lot of
RP potential here; work with your GM to really embody spirit of your chosen city.

Multiclassing
Your casting and main class features (read: your phantom) are very dependent
on your actual spiritualist levels, so multiclassing is generally discouraged (as is the
trend in Pathfinder). However, considering your capstone is pretty mild, and few games
ever even reach the upper teens, snagging a few levels in another class can sometimes
be worth consideration.
A level in a full BAB class will get you better weapon and armor proficiency;
remember, heavy armor does not interfere with psychic casting. A paladin dip is
potentially attractive for a fractured mind with their CHA bonus. If you took a level of
Cavalier with the Ghost Rider archetype, you could have a ghost horse!
Level 8 is a decent point to break away from Spiritualist, since thats the level
your phantoms aura and your ectoplasmic bonded manifestation come online. An
incorporeal phantom passively providing their aura can be helpful, especially auras that
dont allow saving throws such as Despair, Dedication, or Zeal.
One class you should never ever take is Summoner. It specifically states that
eidolons and phantoms do not get along, so youll never be able to have two buddies
out at a time. This would theoretically shut down a gestalt build as well, which is
unusual but worth mentioning.

Variant Multiclassing
Variant Multiclassing (or VMC) was introduced in Pathfinder Unchained. It
provides an alternate way to mix and match class features from various other classes
without actually multiclassing. Instead, you pay the cost of half (!) your feats.
For the feat-starved Spiritualist, this is not something to be taken lightly. Its
easier on more caster-leaning spiritualists that dont plan on pursuing an important
chain of combat feats.
The main draw of VMCs as opposed to regular multiclassing for the
spiritualist is that you maintain character level=class level for the purpose of your
spells and phantom. Being that your spells and phantom comprise about 90% of your
power, you really dont want to endanger their progression.
From a flavor perspective, VMC can be fun for any spiritualist, since the fluff of
the class is that you cant choose to be a spiritualist: its a phenomenon. A VMC
spiritualist could be any other sort of character that just happened to resonate properly
with a wayward phantom. Such a character could pursue their newfound powers with
curiosity, or perhaps hold a grudge toward their phantom and their own rotten luck.

Alchemist: Even with a modest INT, this provides a number of interesting tools.
Caster-leaning spiritualists get a nice offensive option with bombs, and melee
spiritualists will love mutagens.

Novas thoughts: I prefer barbarian for the melee spiritualist, because rage comes online faster
(by 10 levels!), gains customization through a rage power, and eventually advances to mighty
rage. Mutagen can be maintained throughout the day as long as you have downtime between
combats, though.

Barbarian: Great raw stats for a melee-focused spiritualist, but beware of the inability
to cast while raging. One rage power is pretty decent, but you can also funnel your
(admittedly very limited) feats into things like Extra Rage Power, Extra Rage, Raging
Blow and the ever-necessary Raging Vitality.

Bard: This is an interesting choice for a fractured mind that wants to be a party
cheerleader or party face. You can hang back and use bardic performance to boost
your allies and phantom in combat, and it will alleviate some of the squeeze on your
skills.
Cavalier: If youre interested in teamwork feats, the Tactician ability is a great way to
get more bang for your buck. The various order abilities and Challenge are nice perks
for combat spiritualists as well.

Cleric: Best on a fractured mind, certain domain powers can unlock fun tricks. Travel
and Luck have pretty solid boons, for instance. Perhaps more importantly, you get a
nice little reservoir of healing or anti-undead AoE damage. A good choice if youre
saddled with healing responsibilities.

Druid: Why not double-up on buddies? Become a one-character army and acquire
an animal companion. Youll want to pick up Handle Animal as a class skill through a
trait if you can. Limited wild shape is icing on the cake.

Magus: Magus is good with just about everyone, though slightly less so in the
spiritualists case with their lack of Int focus. The arcane pool brings flexibility and raw
power, and theres not really a build that wouldnt want at least one magus arcana. Its a
way to pick up spellstrike for non-Ectoplasmatist spiritualists, but remember that it only
works with spells on the magus list, like vampiric strike and chill touch.

Monk: If you want to try your hand at unarmed fighting for some reason, you might as
well go VMC monk. Youll need to rely on mage armor and other spells for defense,
since you cant wear armor. The biggest issue is that its a Catch-22: You need a bunch
of feats to take advantage of what VMC monk brings you (as most monk-themed feats
are stacked with prerequisites), but you have to give up half your feats to get VMC
monk. Clear with your GM whether you count as a monk for the purpose of feats - if you
do, it grants you much quicker access to vital feats like Pummeling Charge (monk level
8 vs. BAB +12) and much better interaction with feats like Stunning Fist (attempts per
day = monk level).

Oracle: Theres a bit more synergy here for fractured minds, although regular
spiritualists can find lots of goodies as well. You can pick up heavy armor proficiency,
healing, metamagic lots of options. The Haunted oracle curse is quite thematically
appropriate. Be very careful about the restricted revelations list and limited scaling,
though.

Rogue: Can couple well with the Hatred phantom, although becoming a sneak-attack
duo doesnt really come online until level 12 (the latter half of your career). Remember
before you try to dual wield that you wont have Weapon Finesse+Two Weapon Fighting
until level 5 without a human bonus feat.

Sorcerer: There are lots of goodies for fractured minds here. You can pick up a
familiar, gain various SLAs, or nab passive defenses. Not all bloodlines are dependent
on CHA, making this an option for regular spiritualists as well.

Wizard: Grabbing a familiar is nearly worth the price of admission alone (and note
that familiars are not on the list of creatures the phantom wont play nice with). Certain
school powers are also handy, such as divination (+ level to initiative!) or
transmutation.

Novas Thoughts: I wrote a whole guide on VMCs! As a general note, be extremely

careful about the level you take a VMC. Many of them are worthless until a certain point
or after a certain point. Ill let the guide explain more, but I highly recommend sticking
with pure spiritualist (or whatever you base class is) until the correct entry level and then
retraining.

Items

There is exactly one spiritualist-specific item in Occult Adventures: Spirit Revivification

Powder. For 800g a pop, when you summon your phantom, you heal it completely. The
problem is that a wand of cure light wounds is 750g - an average of 275 HP worth of
healing. A phantom with all level-up points in Con, a +6 item, Toughness, and the
human favored class bonus is going to have 207 HP. Paying more for less healing? Not
a good choice. Sure its 5 minutes to burn 50 charges, but in game terms, 1 minute and
5 minutes are basically identical. If for some reason you find a series of feats/items/etc.
that allows your phantom to exceed 275 HP, it might be worth it to keep one around. But
buy a wand of cure light wounds as well.

- While I wouldnt bother spending money on it, its a nice treat for a GM to leave a
spiritualist in a treasure pile. ~CTP

A Spiritualists equipment needs are relatively straightforward. Consider taking a peek

at my Psychic guides equipment section for some ideas, as well as my thoughts on
several items introduced in Occult Adventures.

Homebrew
If Paizo ever makes feats or magic items like this, consider taking them:

Boon Phantom - Boon Companion for phantoms. Would make multiclassing so much
more doable.

Extra Bonded Manifestation - You can use your bonded manifestation an additional
six rounds per day (as Extra Rage).

Implement-Bound Phantom - Your phantom develops a deep attachment to magic

items you provide it with; whenever it enters or leaves your consciousness, it does not
drop all magic items it wears or carries.

Morphic Phantom - Evolved Familiar for phantoms.

Resilient Phantom - Resilient Eidolon for phantoms.

Wandering Phantom - The maximum distance your phantom can be away from you
increases to Medium (100ft. +10ft. per class level, halved for incorporeal phantoms).

Warrior Phantom - Your phantom can wield weapons and wear magic armor. Perhaps
only if they have the ghost touch property?

Emotional Conduit - Greed, Lust, and Pride phantoms dont have a list of bonus spells
for this feat (as far as I know). Below is a proposed list:

Greed: 1stblood money, 2nddemand offering, 3rdlocate object, 4thenvious urge,

5thcovetous aura, 6thanalyze dweomer.

Lust: 1stunnatural lust, 2ndseducers eyes, 3rdlovers vengeance,

4thsadomasochism, 5thdominate person, 6thwaves of ecstasy.

Pride: 1stdelusional pride, 2ndeagles splendor, 3rdsmug narcissism, 4thmirror

transport, 5thseeming, 6thgreater heroism.

Additions to the spirit-bound blade spell: Below are three options for Greed,
Lust, and Pride phantoms in combination with this spell (Im not sure if they received
any in Occult Realms).

Greed: The weapon also gains the mighty cleaving special ability.
Lust: The weapon also gains the c ountering special ability.

Pride: The weapon also gains the c ourageous special ability.

Fractured Mind Spell-like Abilities:

As far as I know, the new emotional foci in Occult Realms dont have corresponding
SLAs for the Fractured Mind archetype. Below are some suggestions:

Greed: identify (5th), create treasure map (7th), floating disk (9th), shrink item (16th)

Lust: detect charm (5th), enthrall (7th). tap inner beauty (9th), charm monster (16th)

Pride: moment of greatness (5th), mirror image (7th), youthful appearance (9th), unbearable
brightness (16th)

Spiritualist Roleplaying Ideas

The spiritualist, perhaps more than the average class, gives you one giant
question to answer through your backstory: How did you and your phantom become
connected? What follows is a list of ideas to get your creative juices flowing:

1. Lovers - The phantom and spiritualist are or were in some way bound by
romantic relationships. (Suggested: Dedication, Jealousy, Lust)
a. In a relationship with each other - a love stronger than death.
b. Spiritualist is helping the phantom find a lost love.
c. Spiritualist reminds the phantom of their former lover.
d. Phantom is jealous and refuses to pass on and leave the spiritualist.
2. Teacher/Student - The phantom and spiritualist are linked by learning from one
another. (Suggested: Dedication, Despair, Fear, Remorse, Pride)
a. Phantom is a teacher who died before they were able to pass on their
knowledge.
b. Phantom is a student who refuses to let death stop them from achieving
their potential.
3. Family - The phantom and spiritualist are related. (Suggested: Dedication,
Despair, Jealousy, Remorse, Pride)
a. Siblings
b. Parent and child
 c. Grandparent/ancestor and descendent
4. Loyalty - The phantom and spiritualist are bound by an oath or obligation.
(Suggested: Dedication, Pride, Remorse, Zeal)
a. Phantom swore an oath of loyalty to the spiritualist or to their organization,
rank, etc.
b. Spiritualist failed in their mission to protect the phantom, but is still trying
to help them fulfill their mission.
5. Enmity - The phantom and spiritualist hate each other, but are bound together
by that hate. (Suggested: Anger, Fear, Hatred)
a. Phantom hates the spiritualist, and is waiting until they die to steal their
soul.
b. Spiritualist captures the soul of a hated enemy to torment them.
6. Vision - The phantom and spiritualist believe in the same goals and dreams.
(Suggested: Dedication, Zeal, Pride)
a. Phantom is a prophet, revolutionary, demagogue, etc. whose desire to
change the world has not ended. Spiritualist is their strongest believer.
b. Spiritualist has a deep desire to change the world around them, and the
phantom responds and resonates with that emotion.
7. Utility - The phantom and spiritualist are only connected for ones ends.
(Suggested: Greed, Hatred, Jealousy, Lust)
a. The spiritualist simply captured the first spirit that wandered into their trap.
b. The spiritualist and phantom signed a pact - the spiritualist gained their
psychic powers, and the phantom gained a way to contact and influence
the world of the living.