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Blueskier wrote:

Hey, I need some advice. I'm currently playing a lvl 2 human speaker for the past and I have no idea what to do with my feats. I've already grabbed spell focus and greater spell focus conj, but I have no idea what to do from lvl 3 onwards, other than divine interference at 11 and spirit talker at 7. I don't want to fight melee or ranged, and I don't have the CHA for divine protection. So, what would you recommend?

Agreed. I'd love to see way more discussion on feats, especially feats for a 1st level Shaman.

Shamans are definitely gimped when compared to other divine casters at 1st level (Cleric, Druid, etc.). The problem is we don't start getting any of our juicy stuff (that is, the Hexes) until 2nd, so the Extra Hex feat is off the table at 1st. Choosing feats for a 1st level Shaman is tough. You're basically looking at:

a) Basic buff feats (i.e. Toughness, Dodge, Improved Initiative, etc.)
b) Spell Focus or Scribe Scroll

Toughness isn't a bad idea, especially if you're going to be using your FCB to poach spells off the cleric spell list.

Spell Focus doesn't hurt either, especially Spell Focus: Enchantment if you're going to be spamming Sleep and Daze spells at low levels.

The best thing I've come up with is retraining. If your GM allows it, retraining is fairly cheap at low levels. At 3rd level, for example, it only costs 150gp and 5 days downtime to retrain a feat (increased to 10 days if no trainer is available). That's not hard to do. I decided to go with Spell Focus: Enchantment at 1st level, to be retrained into an Extra Hex or Spiritual Guardian (really cool feat/ability and unique to the Shaman) down the road.

P.S. I'll add: Speaker for the Past Shamans will get more use out of Spiritual Guardian, as unlike the other Shamans, they actually have Spiritual Ally on their spell list.

For a healer shaman with the life spirit, there's always selective channeling, for in-combat channeling, available at 1st level... some of the metamagic feats make for a decent pick too(extend spell anyone?), but mainly because you want to use your 3rd lvl feat for something else.

Oh and any human/half-elf/half-orc shaman can grab spiritual ally from the cleric list with favored class bonus, albeit a spell level later(1 spell level below the highest you can cast restriction).

Oh and sidenote: heavy armor proficiency isn't a horrible 1st level pick, especially for a dwarf shaman.

Not sure if trolling.

Well, you can basically have a 3/4 bab, d8 hp, full caster progression witchclericwizard, so I do see the point.

The closest you can get to being as versatile otherwise, while keeping full caster progression requires being Samsaran.

IMO possibly one of the worst designed classes in a long time... ridiculously OP. The class has very few if any drawbacks.

It's seriously a contender for strongest class in the game. Still not as broken as outright broken as a synthesist summoner though.

JBurz wrote:

Ellioti wrote:

JBurz wrote:

To-do list:

Waves/Wind Spirits

Spells

Spirit Animal suggestions

Feats

Magic Items / Equipment

Sample Builds

Add "Why Play A Shaman" section

Archetypes

I like the Speaker for the Past archetype especially

Agreed - there are some great options among the initial batch of archetypes!

Ok. No. Just no. Default Shaman is best Shaman. The other archetypes trade off way to much for way to little. Possessed Shaman is the only archetype I'd give a "maybe" and even then I'd only recommend it if you don't have a skill monkey. Especially the incredibly awful Unsworn Shaman. Losing Hex is the most tragic thing that can happen to the Shaman.

Remember, the greatest strength of the Shaman is it's incredibly flexible Wandering Spirit and Wandering Hex. Particularly it's ability to hijack the entire Sorcerer/Wizard list with Wandering Hex + Arcane Enlightenment.

I'll also back Heaven being blue, a lot of the other spirit abilities of the others spirits are pretty useless. Turning into an elemental... yawn.

Definitely agreed about wandering hex, I'll however give Witch Doctor the nod for never having to worry about preparing cure spells, it does lose several hex slots, but at least it keeps the lvl 2, meaning it still allows extra hex feat, from early on.

You can have a "God wizard" shaman with an absurd amount of non-spellslot healing(especially with Life spirit), and just fill up with control/buff/debuff spells(including poaching what you want each day from wizard/sorceror list with wandering hex or spirit talker, as well as poaching a few key cleric spells with favored class bonus). A fair trade I think.

It does however get very MAD, so depends what kind of point buy you've got to work with.

The guide could use a spell poaching section, pointing out especially good cleric and wizard/sorceror spells to grab with favored class bonus and Arcane Enlightenment. You know, things like Haste, Blessing of Fervor, Black Tentacles, Planeshift, Righteous Might and Magic Jar.

Mainly because it's quite time consuming digging through several spell lists for the creme de la creme, and double-checking so you don't already have them on your list.

Seven levels of fighter (foe hammer) with the feat break guard lets you disarm, attack, bull rush, then trip as a standard action.

That's pretty cool, but there's a few more feats needed for that. (two weapon fighting, improved shield bash, shield slam), and also it's done at a lower CMB than what I'm getting. And of course each step in the chain requires that all previous steps hits.

Current build draft lets him (on full round attack) trip, opportunity attack, attack, attack, animal companion opportunity attack x2(different sources).

He also has the option of switching a second attack into a trip if the first fails.

With a +2 attribute item and a +1 weapon, his CMB for the trip will be 28. (7 bab, +3(4) str, +3 dex from fury's fall, +2 improved trip, +2 greater trip, +4 lore warden, +4 outflank, +1 focus, +1 enhancement).

The other big alternative is charging from catback(tiger companion), 30 CMB trip on the charge, companion gets 1 bite, 2 claws, 2 rake, and if the trip succeeds: two opportunity attacks(greater trip, vicious stomp).

What is the purpose of the hunter levels?

I think you misunderstand. With gestalt rules you get full progression in two classes every level. He's full lore warden, and full hunter.

He's replacing a bard/investigator as the party skill monkey, and off-healer.

I'm using lore warden for the maneuver bonus and extra feats. I did end up making my question moot by going with trip instead though. As it looks now, with him jumping in at lvl 7, he'll have a trip CMB of 24(22 by himself, -2 for dual weild, and +4 for outflank).

It's a gestalt campaign, and the other side of his character so to speak, is hunter, which disallows ranger(we've houseruled that you can't pick a full class with a partial of the same class, so ranger/hunter is out).

Yes, he gets silly. But he's going to be a temporary member of the party.

*You could have weapon focus and use different weapons, and there are other situations too but generally people try to use the same weapon in both hands when TWF to maximize the effect of feats.

Well I'm making a slightly silly but flavorful character as an NPC(two player group, rotating cast of NPCs to pick up the slack). It's a thunder and fang dwarf, I'm trying to not upstage the players, while being no slouch, and I figure a build that grants opportunity attacks would be a good way to go about it, good in his own right, and helps them shine.

If it didn't work I could just make it a trip build.

If I'm using two weapon fighting(with the feat, assuming light off-hand weapon) I have two attacks at my highest attack bonus, one with each weapon. Quick maneuver feats(such as quick reposition) say I can replace an attack with the maneuver, but it has to be my attack with the highest attack bonus. Can I choose which of the two attacks to replace, or does it have to be the main hand attack?

Ghost anyone?
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/ghost

I stated the reaper page. Link.

Awesome. :)

And I don't think my last post hammered it enough, slings were *slow* compared to a longbow. It took time to spin up and release a sling shot compared to the Mongolian psychopath shooting 60 arrows from his 40-pound draw bow in two or three minutes.

Mongolian psychopath's bow would have a tremendous draw strength. Like 200+ pounds. They were known to hit targets at over 500 meters. (There's several historical accounts of this).

They had composite bows that far outranged longbows, until the invention of the compound bow, they had the most powerful bows in history(and even with compound bows, few could match them because of the draw strength).

Thank you for the answer.

The race isn't quite what I was hoping for*, but does seem very well balanced, and still thematically interesting.

*I'm disappointed in the lack of alternate attribute blocks.

I might look into it later. Our group is very paizo-purist though, so getting 3rd party stuff through requires convincing the GM.

First of all, why isn't this race up on d20pfsrd? Not OGL?

Second off, how well balanced and how versatile is this race? I was looking for a neutral aligned Aasimar/Tiefling alternative, preferably something as versatile as the Aasimar(alternate attribute boosts and race features).

And of course, is the fluff any good?

Asking because I cannot find any information about this at all online, though I admit I haven't looked for a torrent of the pdf.