Hi folks! I've been playing a Lion Shaman in PFS. This was my first character and I just wanted to play something different. I read Treantmonk's druid guide and wanted to give the melee-focused, shape shifting druid a shot. Since there was a a good amount of praise lavished on big cats, I thought I would be doing myself a favor by taking the Lion-Shaman archetype. Now I feel like it's going to run out of steam a little too early and I'm coming to you folks for some advice.
I was thinking of multiclassing into barbarian so as to take advantage of Rage and rage powers but it feels a little ... underwhelming, especially since I won't be able to take advantage of iterative attacks, with my focus being on natural attacks.
What do you think?
I think we need more info.
What's your stats?
Gear?
Feats?
Preferred method of combat?
I don't want to give advice until I know a bit more about your playstyle.
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all druids run out of steam from a mechanics POV at about 10. nothing you can do to stop that.
but if you were willing to multi class, barbarian isnt the worst choice. you gain a boost to saves, HP, and access to great rage powers like witch hunter, and superstitious.
but a different rout you can tred, is by taking aasimar as your base race, making you cha a 15, and going into daragon disciple + orc/abyssal eldritch heritage. a massive boost to strength would allow your pouncing strong jaw, big cat build, to stay relevant up to 20.
your will get out DPr by a barbarian, fighter, and even a monk (potentially), but you will have access to 8th level spells. this is much better over all rout to go.
it would be druid 16/ DD4
you can get a 50 -ish strength by level 20 while i cat form, and still be able to go into dragon form in the late game.
Right, here's the meat of it:
Level 4 Human Lion Shaman
STR 20
DEX 14
CON 14
INT 8
WIS 13
CHA 7
Gear:
Scimitar
Hide Armor
Cloak of Resistance +1
Wand of ClW
Feats: Improved Initiative
Toughness
Power Attack
Traits: Resilient
Suspicious
As I mentioned this is for Pathfinder Society, which caps at level 12. The character has a few levels on him, so starting from scratch, while possible isn't what I had in mind. I want to make this character work.
The idea was to either shift to great cat form or use Totem transformation to melee things to death. I was debating using a weapon by getting a level in either fighter or barbarian (or an archetype thereof) but that would only work while using totem transformation and would reduce all my remaining attack to secondary attacks. I'm at a loss as to what to do honestly.
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I played a Lion Shaman re-skinned as a Tiger Shaman in Serpent's Skull, and it was a blast. Re-skinned, the only real change was that the GM allowed me to take a Tiger as my animal companion rather than a lion, but as they're both big cats, it doesn't really change anything.
I played the character as a Wildshape Melee type. I actually spent nearly 24 hours a day in Tiger-form.
1. Remember, you can wildshape into FELINES, not Lions, so you can wildshape into a Tiger or Dire Tiger. Gives you a bit more oomph at higher levels.
2. Likewise, your summoning is FELINE again, not Lion, so you can go Tiger and Dire Tiger.
3. Take Natural Spell at Level 7 (or see below), so you can cast while wildshaped.
4. Do what you can to get Armor with the Wild enchantment. It's expensive, so you might as well work towards it now. A magic weapon isn't too important as you probably plan to fight wildshaped, so the armor is more important.
5. Consider a 1 level dip into Ranger at 9th level (or see below), and take Shapeshifting Hunter. This gives you full Favored Enemy. I think many PFS enemies are human, so you could take Favored Enemy Human +4 and another Favored Enemy at +2 at level 9, than up it again at level 10.
6. You really need to find a WIS boosting item. You'll max out on spell levels at Druid 5. Unless you get your Wisdom up, you won't be able to cast 4th level spells when you hit Druid 7.
RETRAINING - As PFS ends at level 12 and you don't get Wildshape until level 6, you're going to have a hard time with feats. You could consider re-training Toughness and Improved Initiatve to Natural Spell and Planar Wildshape at level 6, then take your 1 level dip in Ranger at level 7 and take Shapeshifting Hunter at Level 7. Remember, to get Planar Wildshape you need 5 ranks in K/Planes. For convenience, you could get Wild Speech at level 9. Consider taking Combat Casting at level 5 as you may very well be casting spells in melee. Divine Interference is good at level 11.
No, I don't want to be a summoning druid in this instance; as I indicated, I want this to be a /melee/ druid. And as such I don't see much future taking any levels of druid beyond level 6. A couple levels of Shapeshifter Ranger do seem to go a long way, thanks for that and the idea of planar wild shape.
I'm thinking perhaps Druid (Lion Shaman) 6/Ranger (Shapeshifter) 2/Barbarian (Brutal Pugalist)4.
Thoughts?
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How about Druid (Lion Shaman) 6/Rogue 3/Horizon Walker 3? You'll pick up Evasion and the ability to use Favored Terrain as Favored enemy bonuses in terrain dominance, and can really crank up the favored terrain bonus thanks to extra rogue talents. The 2d6 Sneak attack on every attack in a pounce is gravy.
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Lion Shaman are one of my favorite Shaman types and next to Saurian probably one of the best options. At this level you have Transformation for 4 min/day. Getting 3 attacks at +8 for 1d4 + 5 damage is pretty nice. If you need to go lots of damage, cast produce flame or frostbite before a fight starts then first round activate bite/claws and move up, then start delivering a full attack doing normal damage above + 1d6+4 for each attack.
I know you mentioned you didn't want to be a summoner but there is nothing more fun then sending your pet plus summon in round 1 and folloiwng them in either as a cat or transformed the following round. You would be surprised how effective it is to drop 1d3 young augmented leopards each 10' away from a caster and charging in at 5th lvl, followed by a pouncing lion and following it up by your own melee.
Once you hit 6th consider retraining a feat to natural spell and running around as dire tiger all the time. Get some barding for your large tiger form and pop barkskin and other buffs on yourself. Also at 5th lvl+ you can get Greater Magic Fang buff on yourself consistently and put your neck slot into something interesting like a swarmbane clasp.
If you want to Multiclass I consider barbarian and fighter to be great choices, weapon fighter with claws can make your claws and rake deal some extra damage plus bonus feats to stack on. Don't forget Shaping focus so that your druid level for wildshape is equal to your HD up to druid lvl + 4.