Jim Groves wrote:
pippo pappi wrote:
its possible have more shaman archetype info? :)
The Animist is genuinely weird and unlike anything else. I'm surprised he hasn't gotten noticed.
Animism is this belief that everything has a spirit which can be interacted with. Like diseases, houses, the terrain, constructs, your car. Herbie the Love Bug (1968) was an early cultural example of animism, and so is Christine by Stephen King. In Poltergeist 2, you see a native american shaman appeal to the spirit of Craig T. Nelson's car to start.
The animist gets an interesting mix of spells, like most of the speak with... series, including the druidic and clerical ones. Wizard spells that affect constructs, dream, skinsend, and spells that apply to the soul, even if their from the clerical and wizard lists.
The can communicate with bad conditions directly. I mean, they can actually talk to the shaken condition and argue with it. Tell it leave. It can ask the blind condition to cut you a break on the shaman's behalf. There is a small risk the bad condition might try to jump into the shaman, or just get stubborn.. though at higher levels the animist just points to the door and says "scram!" That doesn't make them a true healer, but its a neat quasi-healing function.
The animist is a skilled exorcist.
Later, the animist can possess other creatures... and objects. Unlike normal magic jar they go into their familiar (when not in other creatures) instead of some magic gem. They can then piggyback on the familiar's senses and coordinate with the familiar telepathically. When they grab other bodies, those go into the familiar (but at no risk to it). Object possession is as per possess object.
At high levels they can interact with incorporeal creatures, and even go ethereal.
They forfeit a fair number of hexes, but they still have a wander spirit and wandering spirit hexes, so you can round them out a little.
Its a weird, neat archetype and I'm kinda proud of it. Hope...
interesting I hope in a funny class :)