Discuss all things Shaman
deltago
Member Posts: 7,811
I am liking this new class.
I fiddled with it a bit in both BG and BG2 and I think it has a lot of tools to compliment a party without relying on non melee stats (Int, wis, Chr)
I fiddled with it a bit in both BG and BG2 and I think it has a lot of tools to compliment a party without relying on non melee stats (Int, wis, Chr)
- Detect Illusion allows your party thief to ignore this skill.
- You no longer have to memorize spells like slow poison and cures for those just incase moments
- Meta gaming allows you to have your spirits already summoned for meat shields during tough battles
- Weapon choices are much better than druids. (Axes!)
- Not needing a high spell casting stat (int/wis) makes them less squishy. Half-orcs in particular.
- Their class specific spells are a nice touch (besides the freezing AoE one I haven't explored them fully)
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Comments
Do Shamans gain bonus spells with high Wis like Druids and Clerics? Or is it a set progression like Sorcerers?
Although, I do not agree about their alignment restriction and description. At all.
Afaik no shaman kit, class, or prestige class in AD&D/D&D/Pathfinder ever was barred from choosing lawful or chaotic alignments. That's because shamans do not follow the druidic commandments of preventing the natural balance. Nor are they even part of some secret order, brotherhood, grove or whatnot. The only morale rules a shaman is bond to are the traditions of their tribe.
And needless to say, every tribe has different sets of traditions and their own world views. Think of animism, elementalism, spiritualism, ancestor worship, or the samsara for instance. All of which were included in D&D at one point or another. That's lots of vastly different playstyle possibilities for one class.
So, yeah, I'd much rather loved to see beamdog differentiating shamans from druids in that aspect. Instead of simply reutilizing the same motive (that of balance). We can modificate the class on our end, true. But different fluff and crunch would still be more welcome.
@Pteran No, shamans do not gain bonus spells from higher Wisdom. A shaman with 12 WIS would be just as good as a shaman with 18 WIS. Can't say I'm a fan of that, personally.
However, adding other bonuses related to wisdom (such as chance of summoning a higher creature) would have been welcome
Not being restricted by the druids' bizarre weapon/armour selection is also neat. The available proficiencies seem very appropriate.
It's one more option when it comes to making characters. More options is always good.
Lack of a prime stat bugs me a bit. I'd prefer shamans requiring a wisdom of say 12. Maybe charisma, alternatively. And naturally they should have some benefit from it. It doesn't keep me up at night though.
The fact that the class is open to half-orcs/elves is nice. Less options is bad and we have enough human-only classes.
Infinite summons? Woo! The particular mechanic seems a bit underwhelming with the character just standing there, but it does the job. I saw a suggestion about having the character at least use a spellcasting animation, though without the fx, on loop while "dancing" and I hope something like that gets implemented.
And while I haven't seen that many of them, I love that there's class spesific spells. The icey fog thing is pretty sweet.
It just very much feels like they bring nothing to the table that other classes can't bring also, while retaining things like dualing flexibility.
Speaking strictly as a powergamer here, of course.
- Other stats (besides usual max STR, max DEX, non-warriors' CON) do not matter for the class efficiency, it's fine to dump them.
- Detect Illusions is very handy.
- As mentioned above, good weapon choice. Axes, spears, shortbows, oh my.
- Medium THAC0 progression. (on par with clerics and druids, up to 6 THAC0 at 4.5kk xp)
- At 89k xp you have 6/6/4 casts per day for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd levels respectively. You can choose from spellbook of 5/3/2 (and a few "preadded" ones). Later your spellbook will be 5/5/5/5/5/5/5, and you can actually reach it because you are benevolently rescued from the perils of multiclassing.
- Because two first spell levels are usually not very useful, you'll have a lot of healing. And a lot of goodberries, if you have an AI script to manage them automatically
- Diversity! Forgot to memorize that Cure Disease? Doesn't matter, you haven't to!
- 1st-level "preadded" Shaman spell (Spell Ward) might be useful, kind of 2/5.
- Writhing Fog (2nd level), AoE 1d3 cold damage per round + 20% Slow with save vs. Death is 2/5, useful at the beginning levels.
- Spiritial Clarity (3rd level) is actually good, it removes fear/charm/confusion/feeblemind from a single target. 3/5 or maybe 4 for low levels, it can save your party from death and save you from exploiting metagame knowledge.
- Spirit Fire (level 4) is somewhat useful, maybe 2/5 too. It is AoE 1d4 magic damage per level of the caster (up to 10d4). And there is debuff, 33% of inflicting Doom on enemies. Alas, save vs Spell halves the damage and negates Doom. Useful at low levels, no so much later. But double damage for spirit-like creatures, so it's still good.
- Recall Spirit (level 5). Analogue of Raise Dead. Not very useful, to die is not stylish.
- Spiritual Lock (level 6). Kind of Feeblemind against single target, huge time (1 turn + 1round/level), save vs. spell w. -2 penalty. May be useful, but level 6, there are things like Harm and Heal, 2/5 maybe
- Ether Gate, 7th level. Analogue to Maze, 5 rounds, no save. Good, though touch range.
- ... Summons. Just do nothing, stay there and produce more spiritual meat to overwhelm the enemy. Ve-ery lazy playstyle. Haven't tried it at higher levels though.
- HLAs seem to be good. Some of cleric HLAs plus a few unique (and interesting) ones.
I've been messing around with Shaman on no reload runs. Here's a few things I've noticed:
-I ended up casting Writhing Fog a lot more then I thought I would through BG1. Since it doesn't hurt the caster, I saw many a Benny Hill reenactments with an entire town of Xvarts.
-Not being able to get 5th level spells in BG1 hurts...a lot.
-Detect Illusions is awesome.
-Shaman Dance is not. Its too slow acting to be of any use in a pinch, it effectively takes one of your spell casters out of the battle, you can't control anything, summons are mostly worthless, and it lends itself to meta play.
-If you are going the half-orc STR19 route, just use throwing daggers instead of throwing axes. I don't understand why everyone is so excited about axes...
-Shaman uses the same exact spell table as sorcerer with the 8th and 9th level spells lopped off. This is probably my biggest grip with the class. It leads to a weird situation where shaman gains almost nothing past level 18, and by max level, Druid and Cleric have more HLAs than Shaman and about 50% more spells per day. Would be fine if Shaman could multi-class, but they can't.
BG1: Most classes are better than shaman, but it doesn't lag far enough behind to not be fun.
SoD: Don't know...haven't bought it yet.
SoA: Shaman, over the course of a few levels, becomes very powerful. You have enough spells and casts per day to take advantage of spontaneous casting. Its fun and rewarding.
ToB: Your character ceases all meaningful progression and you stop caring at all about leveling up.
If Druids are your thing, Totemic Druid is still by far the best choice. Avenger a close second.
Shaman's don't even come close - they're more about flavor. I may play one for that reason. But let's not delude ourselves into thinking they're anything special cause they aren't.
The summons don't seem strong enough to warrant this trade-off. I tried to use them in the first fight in Saradush and they (and my Shaman trial character) were annihilated by the basic guards next to Melissan.
Hopefully in time I'll get more used to how to actually make them work.
So I just sat around till I got like 95 and then it didn't matter much at that point.
And that is the thing, I personally wasn't looking for something more powerful, I was looking for something different that has its own playstyle. The shaman delivers on this.
Now if we can only dual class it into a bard so I can dance and sing my way to the Throne of Bhaal.
I'm bored of mages, and don't like basic fighting classes, so Shaman seems like my next no-reload challenge.
How does a Shaman's level 6 and 7 spells compare to a Druid's with Wisdom buffs (3 from tomes, etc.)? Do they get a similar number of castings?