I know it's extra work, but I really feel that Shaman needs its own spell list. The class has its own feel, and I think deserves the extra effort. the Druid, Witch, and Cleric spell lists all miss the mark, even if it's by just a little.
Nah, allow spirits to add spells known like the witch (or allow spont casting of them) instead of the cleric +1 spell slot for spirit/domain that we have now. Then bring anything you need from other lists in through spirits/wandering spirits.
I really liked the concept of this, and I hope it works out when I get to play it, but the hexes just don't feel hex-y to me. Maybe it's just the name that's throwing me off (though names are important), but these feel more like spirit boons or cantrips than hexes. Nature and Lore feel right, Bones and Life are close. This could be personal preference.
Unrelated, the layout is hard to navigate. Don't really have any suggestions, but each spirit's box was a little too big to easily parse when deciding which I wanted to pick.
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Am I the only one who wants to see a bit more diversity in the hexes and lower level abilities granted by the spirits? As it stands I feel like every option I've read so far gives me,
1.) a 1d6 touch attack that does one of the base energy damages 3+Cha times per day
2.) a debuff that throws a status condition on a target
3.) a ward that grants some sort of defense buff.
Now don't get me wrong having those can be nice but when I sit down to read it and try to get inspired to build a character it makes all those options blur together and feel samey. I would love to see some more different options outside of the above 3 if for nothing else then to help make each spirit option more distinct from its contemporaries.
Yesterday I wrote and then deleted a pedantic aside about terminology. I'll be brief. In fact, the term Shaman comes from a specific culture, but is used in anthropology as a general term for someone who uses a trance to communicate with spirits. It is used by some North and South American people who practice traditional spirit meditations as the English translation of whatever their Spanish or Native American cultural term would be. I think it's an appropriate term for a class that draws its power from spirits, even if it's a magician in a high fantasy game rather than a real world practitioner. Revelations and spirit gifts, or even dream gifts, are appropriate terms.
"Hex" specifically is a Germanic word for witches and witchery. It is an appropriate term for a witch, sorcerer, or hoodoo, but not a culturally sanctioned spirit guide like a shaman, medicine man, or vodoun.
In fact, the term Shaman comes from a specific culture, but is used in anthropology as a general term for someone who uses a trance to communicate with spirits. It is used by some North and South American people who practice traditional spirit meditations as the English translation of whatever their Spanish or Native American cultural term would be. I think it's an appropriate term for a class that draws its power from spirits, even if it's a magician in a high fantasy game rather than a real world practitioner. Revelations and spirit gifts, or even dream gifts, are appropriate terms.
"Hex" specifically is a Germanic word for witches and witchery. It is an appropriate term for a witch, sorcerer, or hoodoo, but not a culturally sanctioned spirit guide like a shaman, medicine man, or vodoun.
Would you prefer bad medicine instead of hex?
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It does come with an awesome soundtrack.
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Since the familiar is the spirit guide, perhaps the familiar should gain more abilities while the shaman remains primarily only a spellcaster? What if these 'hexes' (or whatever they will be called) gave the familiar abilities instead?
That would be nice, would give the familiar more of a role.
Unless I am reading it wrong I can get Channel Smite and then Guided Hand on a shaman who picked Life Spirit. Seems kind of silly if your Wandering Spirit is Nature. Where having Guided Hand on a shaman makes it so if your high WIS, you will hit more frequently and with Nature Spirit making it so you use WIS instead of DEX to determine your AC score. If there was a way to replace CON with WIS for hit points I think this class would be more Warpriest
than the Warpriest.
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Uh just making sure on this because I thought it was kinda awesome.
Spirit Magic is way cooler than domain slots.
You get a spontaneous slot that you can use to cast either of your Spirit bonus spells. That is mad cool being able to decide on the fly that you need a Daylight spell right now for Heavens or a Neutralize Poison from Life.
BTW typo on the Life Shaman. Naturalize Poison isn't a spell, I assume its supposed to be Neutralize Poison.
As it is, I think Shamans are alot more versatile in their special abilities than Clerics are.
Watched someone play a shaman at a table at UCon this past weekend. From watching it play, at low level the class is somewhat odd, but that could be the newness of the whole class idea. The guy playing him was using him more as a spirit-based cleric than a shaman, his "spirits" were more like the idea of <i>kami</i> from Japan, but he was still a worshiper of a god (In this case, Pharasma.) He didn't get to do much casting other than healing (Low-level table, so healing was paramount) so I didn't see more than that.
Overall, I didn't get to see many people playing the new classes, I mostly played high-level mods. I would like to have seen more, but I heard someone was playing a blood rager, and a couple of friends and I were discussing the silly things you could do, including a blood rager/monk for massive speed.
You get a spontaneous slot that you can use to cast either of your Spirit bonus spells. That is mad cool being able to decide on the fly that you need a Daylight spell right now for Heavens or a Neutralize Poison from Life.As I read it, you need to leave one of your slots open and you can use that as the spontaneous slot, but this post makes me think it's like a Cleric in that you get an additional slot that's for spirit spells only. Which is it?
I like the concept either way, I just want to be sure I'm reading it right.
I think I'm right as it says this.
A shaman can spontaneously cast
a limited number of spells per day beyond those she
prepared ahead of time. She has one spell slot per day
of each shaman spell level she can cast, not including
orisons. She can choose these spells from the list of spells
granted by her spirits (see the spirit class ability and
the wandering spirit class ability) at the time she casts
them.
Emphasis mine.
I don't think it means to keep one of your slots open for spontaneous use. I think it implies that you get an extra slot because otherwise why include the bolded section?
In fact, the term Shaman comes from a specific culture, but is used in anthropology as a general term for someone who uses a trance to communicate with spirits.In addition to Priests and Shamans, there are are other specialists: Healers, Herbalists, Diviners and Prophets
I really have to stop getting sucked into this, but I think your class might not have had the best scholarship behind it.
A Shaman is a very specific term that was incorrectly and insultingly applied to many other cultures and belief systems for the sake of ease by anthropologists/sociologists/folklorists/etc.
As I said above, it's roughly akin to calling Biologists and Physicists "Chemists" because you understood Chemists first and all three deal with science.
Meanwhile, "priest" is also a fairly specific term (though it is not specific to a culture): it refers to one who offers sacrifice. This is why Catholics have priests, while Protestants do not. The major divide between them is the belief in transubstantiation. Catholic priests sacrifice Jesus every time they say Mass. Protestant pastors/vicars/ministers/etc. officiate over a communal meal.
The terminology means something, but it's not about being full time, or formalized or whatever else.
But the end result is that this is a game, and not a classroom. In a scholarly setting, I would consider referring to Navajo Hand Trembler as a Shaman to be lazy and imprecise.
In an rpg setting, I have no problem with calling just about anything with some cursory "primitive, spirit flavor" a Shaman (just as I have no problem with Warpriests not offering any sacrifice and Druids being outdoorsy shapeshifter/survivalist/pet owners rather than scholarly).
Does the Shaman currently feel "spirity" enough? I have to admit, I really don't think so--the cleric list feels too "structured religion" to me. It's just got too many clean lines and delineations with its focus on the alignment axes and all. For it to really feel "Shamany" to me, it needs to be "muddier." I think it should be closer to the Druid list, but as others have said, it does need Protection from Evil. So, I don't know.
Maybe I'm not the best person to give feedback on this since I was so unbelievably disappointed by the fact that they were a prepared caster. I was really hoping for something much closer to the 3.5 Spirit Shaman (i.e. either a Spontaneous Druid or at least the Arcanist casting style like the Spirit Shaman had).
Playing around with builds, I tried to put together a NG Shaman of Pharasma (taking bones as my spirit and just not using the undead stuff). Realized that after 11th level, I'd have to stop using weapons entirely, as Touch of the Grave would bestow a permanent negative level on me if I ever held a now-unholy weapon. Ick.
I'm not sure if more-or-less forcing Bones shamans to be nongood is intentional or not, but it doesn't come through in the other abilities and the description if it is. If it's not, definitely swap that out, or at lest make it something you can turn off.
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Ok, feedback and suggestions:
As-is, the Wandering Spirit/Hex feels like the primary feature of this class. It is so versatile that it allows the Shaman to be very powerful if they commune with the right spirit through luck or knowing what they would encounter. I like this, it stands out nicely.
However, I think this suffers from the "D&D druid" problem of each new release adding power to the class. In old druids, it was wild shape adding any number of new abilities, solved in Pathfinder with the specified list of what can be gained. In Shamans, it's that their strength is versatility, which scales perfectly with every new spirit in further publications.
Suggestion: When a shaman is created, it selects a significant amount of spirits (say, 8?) that it can use for its Wandering features. This is a solution for a long-term problem and will have little impact on the initial version.
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A Shaman is a very specific term that was incorrectly and insultingly applied to many other cultures and belief systems for the sake of ease by anthropologists/sociologists/folklorists/etc.
That's a little like arguing that a Spanish caballero should feel insulted because you called him a "knight," since knight has its linguistic origins in a different culture with different practices with regard to mounted combat among the aristocracy. In fact, "shaman" even in its original and most narrow since was not culture-specific, but common to numerous Asian peoples, each of whom had their own practices. It is not more specific than "priest" or "knight." It was a term for a type of person even before anthropologists got their hands on it, not the name from a specific religion. I've been trying to avoid a tangent on this topic, but since we are talking about the suitability of "hex," I guess it's worthwhile to at least establish that shaman is being used correctly. It is. The only thing inaccurate about "shaman" in a Pathfinder context is the same thing with regard to cleric or cavalier or rogue or paladin: it's describing a high fantasy character, not a historical person.
Wikipedia notes that the term may have come in the first place from Sanskrit "shramana," meaning wandering monk. If so, it doesn't even make sense to argue it's an appropriated term in the first place. But even if not, the term was used in common by numerous Himalayan peoples, just as priest is a term common various cultures that interacted with the Romanized Jews (it means "elder" or religious minister; the term for a person who performs sacrifices is sacerdos, as in sacerdotal).
Hi,
I really like the concept of the wandering spirit and I do not have an issue with calling the shaman abilities hexes, I assume this was done to allow future crossover combinations with the witch hexes(e.g. archetypes).
What disappoints me from a role playing and game mechanic aspect is the familiar. Keep it for the players who like it but I really would love a shaman who is bonded to an object or fetish with certain powers (bone dices, feathers, wooden sticks, a mask, a mummified hand, etc.). It would be great to have this roleplaying aspect game relevant as well.
I would also appreciate if the shaman would have an own spell list and maybe some new spells with a "spirit" subject.
Healing spirit(su) with the battle spirit seems to be a bit strange for me when there is a Life/Healing spirit, although I really like the ability.
I appreciate heavens, life and lore spirits. I would not take water or wind as a primary spirit as they seem to be a bit underpowered/situational.
All in all: wandering spirit is a great concept!
Capstone should be to turn into Mum-rah, the Everliving, if you're consorting with evil spirits.
So, this thread has been criminally quiet compared to some others, but it's my favourite of the new classes conceptually and second favourite mechanically, so I want to stir up some discussion and try to get this class as good as it can be.
First: There's no "evil" spirit. The closest thing we have is Bones, whose morality changes wildly depending on the spiritual implications (both actual and believed) of a given setting. I think an evil spirit could be a great addition. Assuming a good-aligned character, as most PCs are: As a primary spirit, it could represent some curse or innate ability that they wish to suppress and control, and the Wandering Spirit ability seen as searching for other spirits to gain power from and avoiding relying on the 'evil inside' kinda thing. As a Wandering Spirit, it could represent a choice for characters who want to avoid wandering to it, "because it's evil", but feel they can accomplish good (aka, more chance to succeed), by doing so. It'd provide good roleplaying opportunities, I believe. Of course, it has its uses for the villains in a game, too. Would be my first choice for an extra spirit.
Second: The spirits feel wildly imbalanced with each other. Especially with some being 'good for wandering' and others being 'good as primary', and that doubles up heavily at certain levels. At level 4-5, there is minimal reason to ever pick Flame/Wind/Stone/Bones as a wandering spirit, as they give you a melee touch attack which is very weak at that level. They're basically just competing for your spell slots. I think the first-level ability for every spirit needs to stand out more, and perhaps encourage them to be more situational, since the point of Wandering Spirit is to situationally pick things. The Life Spirit is a good example: From level 4 I can Wander to the Life Spirit if I expect to fight undead, great, an option!
Because whenever a Shaman changes spirit, the Shaman also selects from the entire Cleric spell list, situational spells given by a spirit the Shaman knows they will need aren't very useful if they can be prepared anyway. I think the spirit first-level abilities really need to avoid conflicting with spells of 1st/2nd level, including inflict light/moderate wounds.
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Well, I guess it's a good thing that the primary concern right now is what to call the damn thing.
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.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, Contributor
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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 know they are trying to avoid unique spell lists, but could shaman use the druid list, but add one pre-set, thematically appropriate cleric spell per level?
I prefer the druid list, but I do think that the spells you mentioned are important too.
From the Paizo Blog:
Overall, we are pretty happy with the direction the shaman is taking, but there are some adjustments we are investigating. The first of which is changing the class to work off the druid spell list, as this fits the theme better than the witch or cleric list. In addition, we are looking into adding a bit more the hexes for each spirit and possibly adjusting how those hexes are used.
So, the big change here is the spell list.
Can we please keep access to (L/G) Planar Binding (and the appropriate Circle spells) and possibly Commune/Divination ? Those feel very fitting and I'd be sad to lose them. They aren't usually spells you need in the heat of the moment, so I'd be fine with a Spirit having them (Ancestor spirit?) that we can 'Wander' to.
From the Paizo Blog:
Overall, we are pretty happy with the direction the shaman is taking, but there are some adjustments we are investigating. The first of which is changing the class to work off the druid spell list, as this fits the theme better than the witch or cleric list. In addition, we are looking into adding a bit more the hexes for each spirit and possibly adjusting how those hexes are used.
So, the big change here is the spell list.
Can we please keep access to (L/G) Planar Binding (and the appropriate Circle spells) and possibly Commune/Divination ? Those feel very fitting and I'd be sad to lose them. They aren't usually spells you need in the heat of the moment, so I'd be fine with a Spirit having them (Ancestor spirit?) that we can 'Wander' to.
Ahh, that makes me a little sad to be honest. I could see a lot of reasons to play this over a cleric, but not many to play it over a druid, and its definitely drifted away from its place as an oracle/witch.
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I like swapping in Longstrider and replacing summon monster with summon animal, but overall, I think the spell list switch is a mistake. Particularly missed are spiritual weapon, align weapon, magic circle against X, remove curse, and augury. Plus, I think it falls into a stereotype of shamans being hunter-gatherer types, when usually, they would be part of an advanced culture. This seems almost like moving in the direction of a druid archetype rather than a witch-oracle hybrid.
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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.
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Rules Question - Heavens Spirit:
Guiding Star (Su): Whenever the shaman can see the open sky at night, she can determine her precise location. When the night sky is visible to the shaman, she may also add her Wisdom modifier to her Charisma modifier on all Charisma-based checks. In addition, once per night while outdoors, she can cast one spell as if it were modified by the Empower Spell, Extend Spell, Silent Spell, or Still Spell feat without increasing the spell’s casting time or level. The shaman doesn’t need the feat to use this effect.
The flesh of the shaman’s familiar accurately reflects the stars that would be visible in the night sky, no matter where the familiar is or the time of day. Due to this, it can be used as a star map. In addition, it gains a fly speed of 5 feet; if the familiar already has a fly speed, it instead increases its fly speed by 10 feet. When it uses this ability to fly, a small nimbus of light surrounds it.
Does this mean that as long as the familiar is in reasonable visual range, like next to the shaman, he gets the WIS mod on CHA-based skill checks?
Lack of Synergy - Waves Spirit Hexes:
(deleted -- missed blog post regarding Shaman switching to Druid spell list)
The Shaman now uses the druid list, according to the blog post.
And when writing the Spirit Familiar ability, I did not intend for it to work like that with Guiding Star. Paizo has the final say, but that's not the intent. I would say it doesn't even work, because even if it's like the night sky, it isn't the night sky. It's a hedgehog that twinkles.
Can't comment on Crashing Waves, since that changed, but it would still get +1 to CL, which is useful.
Beckoning Chill was meant to be more of a teamwork ability, where you set someone up, and they hit the foe with a frost weapon.
The druid spell list should make it much easier to use now though. Especially Crashing Waves.
Which once combined with snowball, will be OP.
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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?)
I'd like to see it be a spontaneous caster if they're going to move it in the druid direction.
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The Shaman now uses the druid list, according to the blog post.
And when writing the Spirit Familiar ability, I did not intend for it to work like that with Guiding Star. Paizo has the final say, but that's not the intent. I would say it doesn't even work, because even if it's like the night sky, it isn't the night sky. It's a hedgehog that twinkles.
Can't comment on Crashing Waves, since that changed, but it would still get +1 to CL, which is useful.
Beckoning Chill was meant to be more of a teamwork ability, where you set someone up, and they hit the foe with a frost weapon.
The druid spell list should make it much easier to use now though. Especially Crashing Waves.
Which once combined with snowball, will be OP.
haha, that's what happens when you work on a post piecemeal and then don't see the blog gets posted. duh.
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The Shaman now uses the druid list, according to the blog post.
And when writing the Spirit Familiar ability, I did not intend for it to work like that with Guiding Star. Paizo has the final say, but that's not the intent. I would say it doesn't even work, because even if it's like the night sky, it isn't the night sky. It's a hedgehog that twinkles.
Can't comment on Crashing Waves, since that changed, but it would still get +1 to CL, which is useful.
Beckoning Chill was meant to be more of a teamwork ability, where you set someone up, and they hit the foe with a frost weapon.
The druid spell list should make it much easier to use now though. Especially Crashing Waves.
Which once combined with snowball, will be OP.
I wouldn't think we'd actually switch over to another spell list until the first post here is updated.
I liked it using the Cleric list but the druid list will do I suppose.
Over all I love the class other than it being extreamly MAD. It is already a melee caster type to begin with. Having all three mental stats be important is a bit much. I would have all hexs, DCs, and spells work off one mental stat (Cha or Int imo). Wis has nothing to do with either parent class so I dont see the draw.
The spirit bargain thing makes me think Charisma.
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I see a lot of people complaining about spell lists and what fits and what doesn't and i think i have a nice solution that could solve it.
Categorize all spirits into "light spirits" and "dark spirits" (or whatever you want to call them)
Spiritual Knowledge: at the second level, and every even level thereafter a shaman adds a single spell of any level they can cast to their spell list, shamans of a light spirit must choose from the cleric list, and a shaman of a dark spirit must choose from the witch list
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Working on the assumption the Shaman wouldn't get a customized spell list, I would be absolutely fine if it eventually ended up as:
A) Your choice of initial spirit determines your spell list i.e. selecting the Life spirits as your base spirit means you cast from the Cleric spell list while selecting the Waves spirit means you would pull from the Druid spell list. This allows PDT to determine which spell list fits better for a particular spirit and customize the spontaneous spirit spell list to complement the available spells.
or
B) You choose as a level one Shaman which spell list you pull from, allowing you to flavor the type of Shaman you are i.e. you decide your specific spirit of life draws its power from the forest and you choose the Druid list while I decide that my particular spirit of life (for whatever RP reason) would draw from the Cleric spell list. This allows more player customization of their character without drastically breaking game. A little more work for the PDT to customize the spontaneous spirit list, but gives much more player agency in the creation process.
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Well, the Shaman's spell list would be...quite a bit larger, y'know? And they were considering just saying "Bloodragers get all evocation, abjuration, and transmutation spells". I made that list of schools up, but you get the idea.
I'd propose explicit inclusion of some spells. I get the desire for not having their own spell list, but ...there are a lot of cleric spells that aren't druids, and really, really fit the Shaman class.
The Shaman now uses the druid list, according to the blog post.
YEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D
Wonderful new.
This is bl**dy Awesome!