My friend is going to start DMing for a homebrew Celtic/Norse campaign where dragons don't really fit, but I've been dying to play a Dragon Shaman for a while. His solution is a Planar Shaman, with the draconic fluff is replaced with his homebrew planar fluff. Does this sound balanced?
Sorry the table is all wonky. It's organized Plane; alignment; Bonus Class Skills; Breath Type; Planar Adapatation.
Water; CN, N; Hide, Move Silent, Swim; Line of acid; water breathing.
Air; CG, NG; Bluff, Hide, Spellcraft; Line of electricity; featherfall
Earth; N, NG; Climb, Listen, Survival; Cone of sonic; endure elements
Fire; CE; Bluff, Jump, Tumble; Cone of fire; Spider Climb
Frost; LE; Climb, Concentration, Listen; Cone of Cold; Ice walker
Darkness; NE; Listen, Hide, Move Silent; Cone of Cold; Dark vision
Shadow; NE, CE, CN; Bluff, Hide, Move silently; Line of Cold; Treasure seeker
Dream; CG, CN; Bluff, Disguise, Gather Info; Cone of Sleep; Resist Illusion
Light; LG, NG; Concentration, Sense motion, Spot; Line of Fire; Detect Evil
Also, the 19th level power of Draconic Wings will be eliminated and replaced with something else. I propose a movement power based on the plane.
Water: Swim Speed
Air: Flight
Fire: Firewalking (teleport from fire source to fire source)
Earth: Earth Glide
Frost: Icewalk/Iceskate
Darkness: Darkwalker (teleport from darkness to darkness)
Shadow: Shadow Walk
Dream: Etherealness
Light: Teleport? Light Speed?
Or maybe just Plane Shift.
Another concern I have is how the dream stuff would work. What's an energy shield of Sleep going to do? Maybe replace it with Sonic (snoring)?
Maybe the Sleep "energy" shield can be non-lethal damage?
Spider climb doesn't really fit fire. Perhaps make it levitate? (Fire rising to the night...) Or perhaps low-light vision?
Air dudes should get gust of wind.
How are Shadow and Darkness different, anyway? I'd cut one
I always resist anything like "treasure seeker" as it brings out bad behavior in the player. Make it Detect Good, if you want shadow to be evil and different from darkness. Call it nightmare and you've got an opposition with dream, at least.
Swim speed is underpowered next to flight, teleport, and shadow walk. I'd certainly never regard it as a capstone ability. Try Drench or Vortex.
What's the difference between the frost capstone ability and the icewalk ability?
As we do take nonlethal damage when we fail to sleep for a long period of time, I could see that as a valid approach. Alternatively, you could have a cone of fatigue, which stacks. First, dose, you're fatigued, then a second hit is exhausted, a third one puts you to sleep (with no HD cap.)
Alignments: You need a NG and a LN primary alignment. You have two CGs and two NEs. I also don't understand why dreams are CG and Water, the source of life and basic to its continuation, is CN. Frankly, I'd consider making all of the elements N for their base alignment, having Dream CN, Light NG (as with Pelor), darkness NE and dump the duplication involved with Shadow. You don't need to copy the Dragon Shaman in this particular way.
Skills:
In many faiths, water indicates transition, transformation and flexibility. I'd change Hide and Move Silently to diplomacy, disguise and/or escape artist. I don't see a babbling brook as quiet or an ocean as hard to find. Plus, it's trespassing unnecessarily on shadow, fire, darkness.
For air, I recommend Balance as a skill, as it would indicate experience in high places and perhaps connote the aid of the element in preventing you from falling. Listen makes sense too, as air is the medium for the transmission of sound. Jump, similarly, is a precursor to the flight ability.
Earth: Survival and Climb make all the sense in the world. Listen makes less sense (the ground does transmit the tremors of sound, but not nearly as well as water or air.) Sub in Hide (an awareness of terrain) or Search (the ground offers you its secrets.)
Fire: Bluff connotes changeable fire nicely. Fires jump all the time. Tumble fits its qualities too. No changes recommended.
Frost: Has to have balance for walking on ice. Icy tundra and mountains give great views, so I'd put Spot here. Survival should be in there as well, simply because it's so difficult in frozen areas. Keep Climb.
Darkness: All of these fit.
Shadow: Cut this element. Even its breath weapon is derivative.
Dream: Dreams help you make sense of who you are, and thus make you more attuned to others as well. Sense motive goes here. Gather Info, in that you revisit your day and see it in a new light, makes sense too. I don't think Disguise makes much sense; I'd put in Intimidate to indicate your ability to draw on nightmares to cause fear.
Light: Sense motive and Spot are good. I don't see how light connotes an ability to concentrate... How about Search instead?
Now, what are the class skills that these guys have in common? Knowledge: Planes, Knowledge: Nature and some others... perhaps Handle Animal?
The planar set up is based on my friend's homebrew campaign. I honestly don't know much about it, except it's a flat world, and if you walk far enough, you can travel to other planes. I know he put a lot of time into the physics and cosmology of a flat world. It's also based on Norse and Celtic mythology, especially where it pertains to fey creatures. It could be Light and Dark are Seelie and Unseelie, Shadow is in between them or a transitive plane, as is Dream. Maybe. I don't really know. I'll talk to him about the planes and skills.