KramlmarK's page

I hadn't even noticed that. Assumed you kept all the familiar abilities on top of the animal companion stuff, but gods that's ugly.

Exactly....

I don't want to have to rely on archetypes and PrC to actually make a shaman..... feel like a shaman.

I think that any haunt abilities kinda have to be archetype stuff from a game design standpoint. Haunts are an optional ruleset from the Gamemastery guide. If they were core or even APG I'd agree, but they're not, so archetype.

My list would look much different.

Dunno what you're looking for in hexes, then. They're not supposed to be as powerful as spells, they're class features. They're very good for that.

Oh really? Because everyone wants amazing hexes like swamp hag and child scent?

Amazing Hexes:

Great Hexes:
Cackle
Ill Omen
Prehensile Hair
Scar
Cook People
Witch's Charge

Solid/Utility Hexes:
Beast of Ill Omen (free action 1st level is still free action, and its always heightened)
Charm
Disguise
Flight
Fortune
Misfortune
Ward
Agony (admittedly superfluous with Ice Tomb)
Animal Skin
Retribution
Speak In Dreams
Weather Control

That's more than enough to fill the 9 non-major slots with something decent. Yes there are bad options, but this is Pathfinder. Bad options exist.

Stuff about how shaman should be a spont druid

Please no. We had this conversation on the last thread. It's a witch/oracle hybrid class with flavor that deals with spirits, not elements or plants or animals. Giving it an extremely limited selection of nature spells makes literally no sense for the class. I'm not opposed to filling that vacancy, but Shaman is not the place to do it.

-------------------------

Completely unrelated to avoid double posting, I'd like to reiterate that giving Bones shaman unholy weapons at 11th level severely punishes people who want to play good-aligned bones shamans (or even shamans who occasionally take bones as wandering), since it essentially says "you can't use weapons after 11th."

Craft Cheese wrote:

I'm sticking to my first suggestion: Get rid of the idea of "main" spirits, make all of them wandering. Let the Shaman pick new hexes each day, and gain more spirits at once as they level up. It'll be much easier to rebalance the spirits under these assumptions.

This is the class I want to play. Balance would need to be looked into, but with this mechanic the Shaman would still be less versatile than the Arcanist.

For the spell list, I suggest Witch as the base list and then add thematic spells from both the Cleric and Druid lists. This puts more Witch into the class, gives access to Witch-only spirit-themed spells, and still doesn't require a fully unique list.

Also love the all-wandering idea. Very evocative, and plays into my undying love of prepared everything.

I could see witch working out. I'm still more in favor of Cleric+ than Witch+, but either is better than Druid+. Both from a pure Shaman flavor standpoint and a "It's a friggin witch/oracle hybrid class, where do you get druid?" standpoint.

Could someone enlighten me as to what is meant by "CODEzilla" spells...

I'm totally lost on this part of the discussion :P

Cleric-or-Druid-zilla. Load yourself up with buffs/wildshape, and outperform the fighter at fighting. (Druid is a bit of a holdover from 3.5, when wildshape just set your stats. It's still do-able, but you at least have to invest in it these days).

QuidEst wrote:

Personally, I'm happy to not let the Shaman get Witch Oracles. Witches are the squishiest class in the entire game… handing off any of their really good hexes to a medium-armored d8 would feel unfair to them. =/

You might be able to count the number of really good hexes witches have on one hand.

To be fair, Slumber, Ill Omen/Cackle (they are one thing, I don't care if I have to buy them separately), and Ice Tomb are the best parts of playing witch. I wouldn't give those away. Decent-not-crazy stuff like Misfortune, though? I wouldn't mind it in Shaman, at least mechanically. They'd need decent flavor justification, though, but I don't see any reason why that'd be impossible (maybe on some ghost-themed spirit).

The way I see it, there are two problems right now:

1) Mechanically, the class is schizophrenic. It has 3/4 BAB, armor, and a battle spirit, so you're supposed to be decent martially, right? Some hexes/spirit abilities use charisma, so you're supposed to do that too, I assume. Spells use WIS, so obviously that as well, and there's a spirit that gives you INT bonuses and uses it for one of its hexes, so that too I guess? Oh, some of the hexes trigger when you cast certain kinds of spells, which may or may not actually be on your spell list in any usable number. There's a bunch of stuff that seems designed to get your familiar out of the Adamantine box and into the fight, including one which turns it into an animal companion, but there's also the "you turn into an an expert if it ever dies" clause. Then there's nature, which has a hex that adds spells to your list which were already there. The class feels like somebody took a bunch of druid, oracle and witch abilities (in that order) and threw them together without any concern as to whether or not it works as a cohesive unit. Granted, it's still powerful because it's a full caster, but it's also frustrating because a huge chunk of Shaman's abilities just don't do what they say on the box.

2) Flavorfully, druid list pigeonholes the class into a nature-priest. The bonus spells help, but aren't enough. I'm not sure why anyone thinks this is a good idea. Elementalist Shamans I can see as expectation from media like WoW and Diablo, but elemental spells are really more of a Wizard thing than Druid. (Yes, there are elemental druid spells, but there's no fireball, but they're far fewer and less iconic.) What druid does give you is a bunch of animal and plant-themed stuff, which is definitely appropriate for a Shaman with the nature spirit, but my Bones/Lore shaman is looking at them very funny. Even my Flame/Waves shaman would rather have Cleric + Evocation from Sor/Wiz list, and that was one of the flavors of shaman the change was supposed to help. Changing hats to a DM, my main interest in Shaman is as a Shinto-style priest dealing with Kami, and as things are I'm going to stat it up as a cleric. The feel just isn't right.

The first problem has a simple answer: Figure out what the Shaman is supposed to be doing mechanically, and make him do it. Don't just copy/paste text from other classes haphazardly. I honestly don't know why revelations were reskinned as hexes in the first place, but they're not working. Either scrap them entirely and write new material, or go through them one by one and axe the ones that don't fit the vision, whatever it ends up being. While you're at it, make sure the spirit abilities hit the right notes. Life Shamans' Greater ability being worse at healing than Battle's basic spirit ability needs to go.

The second problem is harder. Everybody seems to have their own idea of what a Shaman should be, and the limitation of "must use existing spell list" is not helping. Having spirit choice more directly effect available spells would be a big plus. That said, while, I'd like the Shaman to be broad enough to cover everybody's desires, if that's not in the cards it needs to double down on one theme. Better have a class that does something some people like than one which disappoints everyone.

Knifechief wrote:

Kalvit wrote:

However, we do have to address the issues that have been brought up. The familiar feels useless to Shaman players partly because there's reference to melee touch Hexes that the class just doesn't have. Up until the spell change, the toucher status of the familiar was only good for delivering buffs/heals at some distance. Not exactly a good thing, nor has the list improved the situation that much.

This is exacerbated by the fact that the familiar is as much a liability as it is an asset. The familiar not serving as a spellbook stand-in mitigates this somewhat, but using one's familiar to deliver touch hexes is still probably ill-advised, since it can very easily mean going the next day without spells. In my experience, the familiar usually ends up as something that's just sort of there. The abilities it contributes are essentially just not worth the risk that comes with using them. It's basically a non-feature.

Clearly, you have not seen Toucan familiars take out bosses in Rise of the Runelords by carrying a touch spell. I have seen that and other shenanigans involving said familiars being used to wreck encounters. Hand a hawk an alchemist's fire and watch things burn.

It's still too high-risk to be advisable for Shaman. Wiz and Arcane Sorc still get spells tomorrow if their fragile pet dies, Shaman doesn't.

So...other than re-fluffing of the familiar and switch to druid list (eww, btw), what's changed? I had hoped that, you know, revisions were coming. It still feels half-baked. Disappointing.

Do we know if any of the dev's are even reading this thread ?

I don't think I have seen any comments whatsoever from the powers that be....

From the podcast, it sounds like Shaman is last on the to do list. (Makes sense. Shaman started much closer to the mark than most of the others, so they're working on the others first.) They said there will be revisions before the next PDF, mostly focused around the spell list. They said none of the options (druid, witch, cleric) were spot-on, and that they were considering a unique spell list, but wanted to avoid it if at all possible.

Overall, I'm optimistic. They're saying the right things, they just haven't had a chance to do anything yet.

Knifechief wrote:

My objection isn't that the class will be broken, it's that there will be no mechanical reason to play a cleric instead of a Shaman after level four.

Spontaneously change to cure/inflict spells, more channel energy per day (if you choose that), way more domains to choose from so more domain spell choices, domains do different things from hexes, higher fort save, shield proficiency...that's about all I can think of.

Don't forget archetypes that give you actual class features. Cleric is, by default, a bit light on features. (It's still a full caster, so it's not weak, but it doesn't have many bells or whistles.) Archetypes have mostly changed this by letting you trade one of your domains or channel energy for a big bag of stuff. If shaman ends up looking feature-packed compared to default cleric, I'm not too perturbed. Nobody actually plays default cleric, they're evangelists or undead lords or forgemasters or whatever.

Have to say I'm massively surprised that people are happy with the shaman. It feels weak mechanically, bears little resemblance to witch or oracle and has a real disadvantage in a super-shiny familiar that screams "IM MAGIC KILL ME NOW"

It also has the biggest imbalance between options - seriously, Life gets channel and earth gets DR/5 Adamantine for the familiar.

The thing that upsets me most is that fluff-wise the shaman has *the* most potential to be a cool and (most importantly) unique new class.

Sigh ... I guess if the survey says...

I think the problems the Shaman has are not really going to show up on the survey. The core mechanics are fine, but it really needs a bit more polish across the board. Like the "Do you think the theme and mechanics of the CLASSNAME compliment each other?" question. This is my second-biggest issue with the class, but my honest answer is "about a 4." It's just slightly off, but that slightly off is really, really loud. My biggest issue with the class, the intra-class imbalance (and occasional just-not-working-ness), doesn't show up anywhere on the survey.

It really is close to where it need, but there's some roughness that really needs to be ironed out that the survey isn't catching. Especially in comparison to some of the other classes, I'm not surprised it turned out on top.

Quote:

The original version of the arcanist is seen as being more powerful than its parents, but I think the revision will normalize those numbers a bit

Frankly this seems like an odd claim. The class lost pretty much 1 spell per day at its lower levels and the largely pointless Blood Focus ability. In return it gets a wide array of excellent exploits which give it abilities no-one else gets (hello Immediate Action counterspell) along with a bunch of hopelessly weak blasts which no-one with any sense would ever choose. It's a pure power up for a class that really didn't need it.

I think you're pretty heavily underselling what losing a spell slot of your second highest level does, underselling the spell-level acquisition rate hit, and overselling the value of exploits. Right now, Arcanist has the fewest spells per day of any full caster, and gets new levels of spells at the same rate as a sorcerer. The new casting mechanic is exciting, and it might make up for the obvious loss in power vs Wizard, but gun to my head right now I'll vote against the Arcanist, at least from a power-level standpoint. (Side note -- love the flavor.)

Exploits are nice. Metamixing and Spell tinkering in particular look quite powerful I'm very excited to try them out, but they're comparable in power level to bloodline powers. I'd take Sylvan, Arcane, or Pit-Touched bloodlines over exploits in a heartbeat, and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

And (rant incoming) the immediate action counterspell thing needs a break. You're burning an equal-level slot (on a class that gets new spell levels late) and a point of your reservoir to have a 50/50 shot of countering an equivalent CL casting, as a class that has fewer spells/day than anyone else. Don't get me wrong, it's strong in the way that anything which improves action economy is, but it's mostly going to be countering low-level spells. The really scary stuff will be uncounterable because you don't have spells of that level yet, or not worth it to counter because you can't afford to spend your highest level slot for a coin flip. And that's not mentioning the "can't quicken a spell next turn" cost.

Next, we ask you two questions: one comparing the class in terms of power and balance to the other playtest classes, and another comparing it to all of the other classes in the game. The shaman and skald once again show that they need some work in this department, while the brawler, investigator, shaman, and slayer are all falling closer to the mark.

Emphasis mine. I'm assuming one of them is a typo, but honestly have no idea which one. Clarification?

In academia they call it an "abstract" ;)

I laughed. Then cried.

Most of these changes seem like very smart choices that balance fan concerns and paizo's vision. Although.... I think the warpriest's main issue is not optimization but theme. He could be the smoothest, most well balanced build in the book, but a player wanting to play a divine warrior already has the cleric, oracle, inquisitor and paladin: all better explained with a clearer niche and role. The warpriest needs a full conceptual enema. Other than that, awesome work!

Give Warpriest full BAB, 4/9 casting. Give it paladin/antipaladin spell list, throwing in law/chaos stuff as well. Make its casting stat wisdom instead of charisma, and a whole bunch of unique class features.

Suddenly it actually does what it says on the box, which is combine the cleric and the fighter. It also serves a unique niche -- people who want their "paladin"-type character to have deity-based alignment restrictions instead of Always Lawful Good.

did i miss the point where they switched the shaman to a druid list?

No, they said they were considering it and some people think that meant official change.

I'm curious why so many people think that we need a spontaneous Druid.

I'm not even disputing the need, really, I just don't see why so many people seem adamant about it.
There's no prepared Bard, but I don't see anyone in the Skald thread wanting him to be prepared.
There's no spontaneous Witch, there's no spontaneous Magus, there's no prepared Summoner, and so on and so forth.

While I can understand an individual wanting to play his Magus as if he were spontaneous, or wanting to play his Summoner as if he were prepared, I'm not sure just 'wanting it' is enough of a reason to think it's 'needed'.

+1 to this. It's not hard to house-rule a spontaneous casting variant of each class, and Shaman-as-spontaneous-druid puts Shaman in a really, really small place in terms of range of possible characters compared to what the flavor of the class allows.

Nothing stopping you from just taking heavy armor prof, but that'd put you a feat behind the warpriest.

It feels like we're just banging our heads against the wall on the Cleric-vs-Druid list discussion. I'm pulling my impression from a combination of study and pop culture like Shaman King and the ritualist class from Guild Wars. From the number of people asking for the druid list, I'm sure there are different sources others are drawing from. I don't know what the solution is -- there's clearly a pretty big gap in expectations here, and barring the 1/2 BAB both lists suggestion earlier, it really feels like the only option is a unique spell list, which has already been shot down.

See, problems like this are exactly why rules ought be written in the notation of first-order logic. Full expressiveness without ambiguity![/sarcasm]

It's a playtest document. There's gonna be some bugs. It's almost certainly not RAI. If your goal is pointing out a bug in RAW, there are better ways of doing it than trollish rhetorical questions.

...If there's no room for unique spell lists on the classes that really need it, then I doubt there's room for something that can so easily be done by fans.

So, I see calling lightning as interacting with nature spirits. I see something like Planar Ally, however, to have absolutely nothing to do with spirits, but rather to be interacting with a literal creature from another plane.

You can say that, but then there's no reason I can't say that Planar Ally is interacting with spirits of transportation. Maybe my dead Grampa who owned a ferry.

Literally any spell effect can be fluffed as "spirits did it", but some effects are more natural fits for a spirit-themed caster than others. Off the top of my head, I can think of Spiritual Ally, Spiritual Weapon, Helping hand, and Soulbind from the cleric list which are perfect fits. I can't think of any druid exclusives that feel the same.

Perhaps it's the hexes that are to "shoe horned" into elemental ideas ???

I know that when I read through the different spirits available...I didn't see a single one other than lore that I would consider taking.

I was waiting for Ancestors, outsider themed, and fey themed spirits :P

As an aside....if they ditched the familiar...which I hope they do....
What about adding the spirit familiar ability directly to the shaman ???

I'm in favor of keeping the cleric list (at least as a base, potentially augmented), so I dunno if I'm the best to argue the first bit. It does feel odd that they're hitting elements before ancestors.

To the aside, some of the familiar abilities are too powerful to put on a first-level character. Don't remember where it was, but somebody mentioned playtestiting a shaman with max constitution which took a goat familiar, and the stone spirit. It chomped its way through some first-level APs with DR 5/Adamantine. Put that on a player and the same thing will happen without need for the silliness of maxing CON on a caster.

Edit to above: Didn't see the inherent bonus. That is a problem. That said, I hold that without it it costs a lot of gold to keep up. Multi-stat headbands are expensive, and if you're sacrificing WIS for INT you've just paid for the stat in a different way.

nighttree wrote:

What is the Cleric spell list lacking...that you feel the Shaman spell list needs ???

Several lists were posted upthread. Protection from alignment, remove curse, augury, and hide from undead are popular ones to list first.

I think he was asking for a list of Druid spells that the shaman needs, not cleric spells. Don't remember any from up there.

The strongest argument I remember from upthread was that some of the elemental spirit hexes (I seem to remember Crashing Waves) required the ability to deal elemental damage to function, which the Cleric list doesn't really get. I'd say that's a problem with the spirit (it should either come packaged with everything it needs to work, or remove those hexes in place of something that works), but some people felt otherwise.

Boom, headshot.

I will admit the Concept is viable. But not with "Shaman" as the name.

Historically shamen wore whatever garments (Including armor) that their tribe wore.

The celtic druids (Which are really just the tribe's shamen) wore the same armor their bretheren wore in battle.

Which was either a leather version of Lorica Segmenta... which is actually where Lorica Segmenta came from. Seeing as the romans stole it from the celts and made it out of metal instead of cured hides.

Or they went into battle buck naked... like their clansmen.

I think shaman's HD and armor/profs are good. Its the spell list that needs work.

Though priest would be a good idea in the future.

I'd definitely be happy with a 3/4th armored shaman too (provided it's spells are right -- and the druid list on its own isn't the answer), but I disagree that Shaman needs to be armored. Shaman is a cross-cultural enough term* that it's got a lot of leeway in terms of how it plays, so long as spirits remain a core part of the class's features and spells. The class doesn't need to be the perfect historical shaman for Culture X, it needs to hit the right notes flavorfuly and work mechanically. I can imagine Shamans in armor, and I can imagine them without, so yay either way. I can't imagine Shamans with the druid spell list on its own, which at least as of the blog post seems to be where they're headed.

*I know there are upthread disagreements about this. I'm choosing to ignore them.

Wizard with another spell list and powerful class features. Witch does it quite well, and assuming they fix up shaman hexes I could see it working here.

Edit: Didn't see the last part. May have been edit-sniped, or may have just been stupid

Zark wrote:

mplindustries wrote:

Cheapy wrote:

Yes, it really comes down to whether you want a shaman that communes with spirits, like the one presented, or a shaman that's infused with nature.

What if you want both? I want both.

+1

Me too.
Both lists.
1/2 BAB
D6 HD
No armor or prevented from using anything light armor.
Finally we can get a Divine caster.

That...is actually kind of genius.

I'd play that. I'd play that a lot.

Also requires a pretty substantial INT to work well (16 by 11th level, 19 by 17th), and is the only hex that does that. Chances are you'll need at least a 14 unless you want to spend an inordinate amount of WBL on headbands, which means your sacrificing either 4th level bonuses that could be going into WIS, or between 1/3 and 1/5 of your points during character creation. Either way, chances are you're losing your otherwise perfectly reasonable melee capabilities.

There has to be a way to make it so you have to pick the same spells every time you take it as a wandering hex (except for changes as allowed when it's a regular hex), right? Editing can make that make sense.

I'm not getting a sent dot for the general feedback survey, though I'm pretty sure I sent it. Anyone else with that problem, or did I mess something up?

Jason Buhlmahn wrote:

Warpriest

Finally we get to the warpriest. We are looking at strengthening the role of this class by taking it a bit away from the cleric's position. While we want the class to be among the best at healing and casting spells on itself and we are investigating a mechanic to let it do just that (probably in place of channel energy). We are also looking into a new class feature that allows the warpriest to be an effective combatant with the favored weapon of its deity, regardless of what weapon is favored by their deity. Look for increased damage and additional effects depending on the type of weapon and its role in the game.

I'm very pleased by what I see here, particularly the redress of nonequivalent weapon statistics with regard to the favored weapon being a critical element to the class features. Having the class be the best at healing and casting spells on itself isn't a direction that I would have gone in, but it's not a bad direction to go.

I wonder if there's been any thought given to it being the primary class to look to when dealing with one specific category of foes (be it undead, evil outsiders, demons, devils, etc...), able to use an ability to keep them focused on the warpriest as their primary enemy. I feel that is an aspect of game play that has only very lightly been touched upon in Pathfinder.

Best wishes!

+1-ing this. As far as the self-healing goes, it pretty much needs to be swift action or Paladin will just be better with LoH. Maybe X/day swift action cast a spell with range of touch on self-only? That'd let you use a decent number of buffs, and most importantly the cure series.

To answer the original question, I've enjoyed having a dagger of Cure Serious Wounds on my person while playing Witch. Not because it was particularly powerful, but because it's satisfying to stab The Waste of Space when they need yet another lifesaving heal in between dealing two damage each round. Also fit my character as sadistic high-functioning sociopath.

As a bloodrager, I could see Bungle being quite interesting at low levels. Once you hit the 10 HD cap it's useless, but until then it's effectively a free action Will-or-Lose-your-next-turn against martials and concentrating casters. Once you get 2nd-level spells, upgrade to Oppressive Boredom for an actual Will-or-Lose-your-next-turn. Good 3rd levels are Unaldulterated Loathing, Vampiric Touch, Dispel Magic, or any of the targeted damage-dealing spells (if damage is your cup of tea, anyways).

Edit: Forgot for a moment that Bloodrager has magus spell list, not sor/wiz. Whoops.

Only, is not the cleric list more powerful and versatile than the druid's?

On the whole I'd say yes, but it's close enough to a wash that I wouldn't consider it a balancing factor. Druid gets some low-level gems that clerics don't (namely, Engtangle and Soften Earth and Stone), which can make playing 1-5 (the meh levels) as a dedicated caster a bit nicer. Even at higher levels, there's always something that druids get spell-wise which clerics would like. (Fwiw, given the non-spellcasting toys that druids get, I prefer them to clerics.)

Cheapy wrote:

Yea, I think this is a case of us wanting different things then...

It is a matter of do you want to focus on the nature or the spirit aspect.

I smell an opportunity for an Archtype that has the cleric spell list :)

Given that the druid list is nature priest while the cleric list is generic priest, I'd think the other way around would make more sense. In AD&D, Druid was a "subclass" (term used loosely) of cleric for the same reason.

Though I suppose it depends on if you view nature shamans as THE shaman, or just one type. My mind immediately jumps to Wu when I think of Shamans, and they definitely cast as clerics when ported to d20.

evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil.

...

f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5

Gorbacz wrote:

KramlmarK wrote:

Gorbacz wrote:

Thanks for making my point :)

Condescending much? That -5 to diplomacy isn't working too well for you, is it? If you can't understand the difference between "my games are hard, and you're going to need to play mechanically well to survive, which you're not doing" and "you're a terrible person stop playing the game, you filthy casual" then I really don't know what to say.

Playstyles. They differ. The important part is mutual respect, something you've demonstrated yourself as being bad at.

I'm not sure what are you after. PoK pretty much explained that he isn't of the "if you don't play my way, you're verboten from speaking in my presence" camp, which was my point.

Usually, when someone says "Thanks for proving my point," (at least around here) it's a sarcastic way of implying that the person they're talking to is an example of whatever flaw/failing the speaker originally described. Thus, KramlmarK thought you were saying that PoK is of the camp that you're now saying he clearly isn't part of. (That's how I originally took your comment, as well.)

Yup, that was the case. Apologies for the misunderstanding.

Thanks for making my point :)

Condescending much? That -5 to diplomacy isn't working too well for you, is it? If you can't understand the difference between "my games are hard, and you're going to need to play mechanically well to survive, which you're not doing" and "you're a terrible person stop playing the game, you filthy casual" then I really don't know what to say.

Playstyles. They differ. The important part is mutual respect, something you've demonstrated yourself as being bad at.

Is it official that this is changing to the druid list? We have a big PFS event this Friday with almost all low level games, and I want to make sure we're using the right thing for this class, since I have a feeling that a LOT of people are going to be playtesting.

Can we get an official word one way or the other? The blog post makes it sound like a definite, but without a word here I'm not sure what's official. We want to give you good playtest data! :)

Not until the first post of this thread gets updated, I'd think. They said they're investigating it, not that the change has been made. That language is the same that they used for Bloodrager's new spell list, which obviously hasn't happened yet.

Dunno if you had a location in mind for the encounter, but anywhere smoky or hazy (say, a burning building) could be interesting for a Shaman with the Flames spirit and Gaze of Flames hex. Have him summon monsters right in front of the paladin while staying safely hidden behind the cover of smoke.

...They didn't change the list, guys. They said they might. "We are investigating" is not the same as "we are definitely doing," nor is it "we did." Wait until official word before you start making your characters with the druid list (or don't, but recognize that you're not playtesting Shaman, but a currently homebrew variant thereof).

I've said this in the Shaman thread, but I dislike switching to Druid. To me, Shamans are about spirits not nature, and while nature spirits are common in fantasy, so are ancestor spirits who may have lived in a large city. I'd much rather see a way for nature-themed shamans to pull in a small number of druid spells than for the whole class to get pigeonholed into one version of a currently very evocative and versatile class.

Yea. There are a lot of druid spells that fit well.

There are also a lot of cleric spells that fit well.

Of the two, I think the cleric spells missed will be greater than the druid spells missed.

Can't agree more. Though I do think a hex similar to Arcane Enlightenment for druid spells could be cool. (Maybe under the Nature spirit?)

Stephen Bond stuff

I hesitate to post this, since I'm worried about the iconics discussion getting too far removed, but that's definitely a radical decomposition you're quoting. Nothing wrong with that, but it's also a not really agreed upon even within feminism, so I think it's an unreasonable standard to hold Random Game Company Named Paizo to. But, then again, I'm a filthy academic liberal, so I'm probably wrong. ;)

(Aside for those not familiar with feminist jargon: radical here refers to a specific branch of feminism with specific beliefs, not just some abstract extreme)

Anyways, back to the topic at hand: I'm not familiar with Paizo's specific publication cycle (and there are too many variables for me to guess at it), but it's entirely possible that they're still writing art descriptions, or at least that they're sent out descriptions but are still awaiting/going over sketches. The turnover between approved sketch and final art can be quite quick (I've heard as fast as a month), so it's possible-if-unlikely that suggestions here make it into the final book.

Edit to add:

That is not boobplate. Plate armor is designed to be worn long-term, and so therefore needs to be something you can wear all day without getting sore.

...sorry, but no. Male armor is not form-fitting; it's designed to redirect blows away from the vitals. Further, there's more than enough room for breasts underneath it, as it needs to be able to dent without wounding the wearer. The differences between male and female armor account for shoulder-to-hip ratio, but not breasts. Boob-plate (or whatever you want to call what Seelah is wearing) redirects blows TO the vitals. Not only that, but there's no historical evidence of it (see this portrait of Joan of Arc and this takedown of the concept)

Mergy: How so? Druid doesn't get Speak with Dead, Commune, Spiritual Weapon, or Spirit Ally, and doesn't gain anything spirit-themed that the Cleric/Oracle doesn't (to my knowledge, at least).

I can see the nature spells if you're going for a more primitive/tribal shaman, but one of the things I like about the class is that it can just as easily serve as a priest of early Christianity (link), or something equally not-the-noble-savage-stereotype. If you want to avoid metal and civilization, play a Shaman of Nature, imo.

Fun little build I made while experimenting with the Shaman:

Richard Serpenthelm
Male human shaman 2

Edit: This is a 20 PB, fwiw

Idea: What if, instead of entirely new spell lists, they had a (hopefully small) list of changes from the basic lists? Shamans already kind of have this with the Spirit Magic spells and Arcane Enlightenment hex. I haven't really looked over any of the other classes, but it seems like it wouldn't be too hard to just say "Bloodragers get X, Y, and Z as 3rd level spells" or something.