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Hey All,
Having examined the Druid Animal Shaman from the APG, I found that the description was a little clunk and awkward to impliment. I decided to chat to one of my players about this build (as he was considering playing one), and we came up with the following adjustment. I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts. I'm sure it can be ported across to the other Animal types too:
This is a total rewording, and requires the removal of Wild Shape at 4th level.
Totem Transformation (Su): At 2nd level, and then every 2 levels thereafter, a lion shaman may adopt an aspect of the lion. This works as Wild Shape but only applies to the totem form which means that if she takes on the form of a feline, she instead uses her druid level + 2.
What this is doing is fixing the clunkiness I found with the APG version.
Wild Shape (Su): At 6th level, a lion shaman’s wild shape ability (as per a standard Druid) functions at her druid level – 2.
Again, a total rewrite, but this makes far more sense and makes it a lot less complicated. Its also a lot clearer because the way its written in the APG indicates that you start with Wild Shape at 4th level, then go to fifth, and then hang on, we're going backwards by going back to 4th again.
As an added bonus it also keeps the flavour of the variant intact.
All the other abilitites remain the same.
Thoughts?
Isn't the point of totem transformation to give you bonuses without making you shift into an animal form ?
Sounds like your trying to make the Druid varient from the PHB II which can shift into preadtor form only at 1st level.
if thats your thing just use the PHB II Druid varient its no more powerful than anything Paizo has presented and you can fluff the description of the later forms to suit "lion".
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The issue raised itself because as written, it doesn't make a lot of sense. But after asking for clarification I was told that it should read that Wild Shape doesn't start for the Animal Shaman until 6th level (so no Wild Shape at 4th at all).
What this then means is that at 2nd you get a hybrid, for 4 levels, then at 6th level you can suddenly turn into a HUGE Cat as you then have Wild Shape at the equivalent of an 8th level druid.
That seems to go from one extreme to the next.
The reason for our suggestion is that the Druid is limited to that shape, can't cast spells, doesn't get a lot of abilitites (thanks to the Beast Shape I limitations), has limited abilitites in being anything other than the chosen Animal Totem and means its a gradual progression to the exhanced 6th level Wild Shape.
Plus, the Animal Shaman is a great concept and is really quite flavoursome.
I could of course be totally wrong of course.
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I haven't seen one in play yet, but the Shaman as is makes sense to me.
The hybrid or "aspect" Shaman can choose what bonuses he/she wants for any given situation without making a full transformation, and at 5th level they can cast a buffed version of SNA as a standard action when they choose their totem animal.
If this doesn't seem like enough of a trade to put off Wildshape for two levels, then I think that player should just take a different kind of Druid that gets Wildshape at 4th. I think moving a limited version of Wildshape to 2nd actually takes away a lot of the flavor of the Shaman.