Would a Shaman with the ability to cast Cleric spells be cheesy/broken?

RelSundan

It kinda just flew into me right now, the thought being inspired by the Cleric/Ranger's ability to cast both druid and cleric spells (Until it was patched, it can still be done through some editing). If there was a way to allow the Shaman to get access to both druid spells and cleric spells, would the character be broken, cheesy or would it be a fair advantage taking into account how some of the Shamans utilities is kind of useless. (Shaman dancing, not useless but it is kind of underpowered imo)

Tresset

More broken than a sorcerer? I highly doubt it...

JuliusBorisov

I think arcane magic is stronger overall in his game than divine magic, so casting all divine spells in the same way mage spells can be casted wouldn't be hugely unbalancing.

The fact the Shaman has to choose only selected spells for all his spell levels counteracts the sum of druid and cleric spells.

If compared to a Cleric/Ranger (previous version), such a Shaman won't be broken, as the Shaman is not a warrior, she can't boast THAC0 and APR available to a Cleric/Ranger.

Grond0

The shaman gets some additional spells anyway and the spells they have are very powerful. I don't think therefore they need clerical spells from the point of view of power gaming. However, given there are some pretty useless druid spells (and there are far fewer of those than arcane to start with) there is not a lot of real choice in choosing 5 spells for a shaman. Allowing them to pick clerical spells as well would offer the sort of variety in character builds available to the sorcerer.

JumboWheat01

A Shaman casting Cleric spells just comes off as wrong to me.

Now re-jiggering it, calling it a Favoured Soul, and giving THAT the ability to cast Cleric spells like a Shaman does Druid or a Sorcerer does Arcane, that's perfectly cool with me.

Abi_Dalzim

The big advantage divine spells have over arcane IMO is the bonus spells a cleric gets for wisdom. Without that advantage, this Favored Soul-esque retread would still be a lot weaker than a sorcerer. Moreover, the cleric really kind of needs to have their full class list, since unlike wizards and especially sorcerers, their strength comes from the ability to drop down situational protections based on what suits the enemy they're currently fighting. Five spells per level is too many for druid spells, but not nearly enough for a cleric.

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Tresset

JumboWheat01 said:

A Shaman casting Cleric spells just comes off as wrong to me.

Now re-jiggering it, calling it a Favoured Soul, and giving THAT the ability to cast Cleric spells like a Shaman does Druid or a Sorcerer does Arcane, that's perfectly cool with me.

This. While I don't think it would be imbalanced (compared to other classes) for a shaman to also have cleric spells, I also voted with the thought that a new class would be a better option.

Aasim

You should all try Spell Revisions. It makes Shaman into what it should be in the first place, and there will be no more useless spells.

GenderNihilismGirdle

subtledoctor said:

This poll needs a 4th option.

Giving a shaman access to ANY divine spells - cleric and druid spells - would indeed be broken. And kind of stupid, gorman RP standpoint. But, as long as only a subset of spells is available, it might be fine.

Frankly what would make the most sense would be different themed shaman kits, each getting access to a different subset of spells. Coincidentally, this is exactly what our 'Faiths & Powers' mod is planning to do. Hopefully it will be available by the end of the year.

As for sorcerers, the same is true there. And that's what @Aquadrizzt's 'Tome & Blood' mod does, it makes various themed sorcerer kits, each of which has access to a particular subset of arcane spells.

Yeah, this'd be my vote if the poll had this option tbqh

semiticgoddess

The critical detail here is that even if the Shaman can learn cleric spells, it can still only learn a few spells of each level, since it learns spells like a sorcerer. Learning cleric spells would mean it can't learn as many druid spells.

The Shaman is currently not strong enough for this buff to make it unbalanced.

RelSundan

Sorry, some of you smartheads thought of things I didn't think about. Give me a proper 4th option so I can add it.

Archaos

Abi_Dalzim said:

Moreover, the cleric really kind of needs to have their full class list, since unlike wizards and especially sorcerers, their strength comes from the ability to drop down situational protections based on what suits the enemy they're currently fighting.

Not exactly, the same could be said for the Sorcerer. Many situational Mage spells can't all fit into the Sorcerer's limited list.
This is why it's a good idea to have a Mage as well (dual/multi/whatever) to cover what the Sorcerer doesn't.

That way the Sorcerer focuses on the blasting/spamming spells and the Mage focuses on more situational spells.

Same thing with a spontaneous Cleric/Favored Soul.
The main way Favored Souls are used in NwN2 are as buff-and-melee and/or spamming healing spells and buffs on the party, as well as Raise Dead/Resurrections.

While Favored Souls can't do everything, they are still pretty convenient to have as they can recast dispelled buffs on the spot as well as keep the party alive by spamming Heals/Restorations/Resurrections.

Since neither BG nor NwN2 are PnP, you generally take a few must-have spells from a limited list and they're usually more or less good to go, without much trouble.
They also get one more spell known, compared to Sorcerers (4 instead of 3 spells known, for example).

Tresset

RelSundan said:

Sorry, some of you smartheads thought of things I didn't think about. Give me a proper 4th option so I can add it.

Impossible; even moderators can't change options on an existing poll...

Flashburn

Druids just need a bigger spell list since Shamans draw from it. In NWN2 their repertoire is fairly strong, even more so with the PrC pack installed.