Hi all,
Hoping to avail of your collective wisdom on possible feat choices for my recently-turned-9th-level Shaman.
He is a Shoanti (Human) Shaman with the Speaker for the Past archetype, and using the Battle Spirit. For combat, he primarily focuses on using long term buff spells like Barkskin, False Life and Defending Bone, and mixing it up in melee using a reach weapon. He otherwise uses his spells for status condition removal and utility.
Due to some friendly houserules, he gets Power Attack for free, and also has proficiency with a Bardiche.
Between his melee abilities, spells, hexes and revelations, he has lots of options, and is quite a flexible character overall. I'm having a blast playing him.
For context, his current feat, hex and revelation choices up to 8th level are as follows, as well as his likely choices at 10th and 11th:
1: Combat Reflexes (Feat); Extra Traits (Fate's Favored and Resilient)
2: Fortune (Hex)
3: Weapon Focus: Bardiche (Feat)
4: Chant (Hex); Temporal Celerity (Revelation)
5: Extra Hex: Witch Hex: Flight (Feat)
6: Time Flicker (Revelation)
7: Extra Revelation: Time Hop (Feat)
8: Battle Master (Hex); Weapon Specialization: Bardiche (Feat -- from Hex)
9: ???
10: Secret: Quicken Spell (Hex)
11: Divine Interference (Feat)
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In terms of options for the 9th level feat, I've been considering:
- Lunge (good for extra reach, though doesn't work for AOOs, and I tend to do well enough with Enlarge Person, and the now-available Righteous Might)
- Improved Initiative (good static bonus, combining well with Temporal Celerity to keep me high on the turn tracker, but kind of boring overall)
- Spirit Talker (seems fun and versatile, but the errata nerf hurts bad, and I'm not sure what he'd use it on most days given the 10 min "casting time" and hour-only duration)
- Summon Guardian Spirit (attuned to SNA IV where I don't have any key everyday spell options; would look at a Silvanshee Agathion for the 1x/day luck bonus to saves, minor healing and good scouting, and pick up Ill Omen and Call Lightning as SLAs for further utility)
I'm sort of leaning towards Summon Guardian Spirit for story/flavour reasons, though our group currently includes one character with both a cohort and familiar, and I'm hesitant to add more pieces to the board, though I suppose it is only once per day for a few minutes (I pride myself on my quick turns!).
I'd love to hear feedback from the boards, though, including thoughts on the proposed options, as well as any other options I might have missed.
Thanks in advance!
Hi Markov,
I've noticed you post about Shamans on the boards before and appreciate the feedback. Hasn't seemed like a lot of people are playing Shamans, especially melee ones. Bane has definitely been a game changer -- had a fun session shortly after getting it where my character mowed down a large number of enemies with it.
The Arcane Enlightenment move won't work for me, sadly, as the character's Intelligence score is too low (MADness is a challenge with a melee shaman I've found).
My human FCB choices have been:
- Divine Favour
- Grace
- Defending Bone
- Cleromancy
- Invisibility Purge
- Death Ward
EDIT: Stone Stability was the one ability that looked particularly good to me for Spirit Talker, though we're presently facing a lot of Giants, so I'm unsure if I can reliably pull off trips. Still a bit salty that Stone Stability doesn't give the effective BAB boost that the Mammoth spirit Overrun ability gets.
I've always wanted to try a Monk 1/ Speaker for the Past type Battle Shaman, using Spirit Shield with Monk AC and flurrying a Monk weapon with Heroism and Divine Favor. Hex Strike: Evil Eye once per round with a punch in between sword strikes - Evil Eye is guaranteed to work for one round no matter what, so you can use it to break enemy defenses for a full attack, or wreck their chance to hit you after a charge.
It would be difficult to work Hex Strike into a reach build though, except maybe with Lunge.
As far as Cleric spells go, Instrument of Agony and Aura of Doom are potentially awesome spells for a melee Shaman, but they involve saves; I don't know what your DC is like. Using Persistent Spell with them is very powerful and can make up for a lower natural DC, but you would probably want to have Magical Lineage or Wayang Spellhunter to do that. The spell Admonishing Ray benefits from Divine Favor, so it's a serious knockout ranged attack; Empowered at 11, it's what I like to call a Non-Lethal Death Ray (3x4d6 x1.5 +3x4 = ~75 nonlethal).
Thanks BadBird.
The Monk dip is an interesting idea. I can definitely see how it would work well with Spirit Shield. I guess you might need to run a standard Shaman until you got that Revelation, then take the Monk dip afterwards. Also delays getting Temporal Celerity, but that's not a major downside.
I could also see it potentially working with a reach build, picking up Combat Reflexes as the Monk bonus feat, and using the Tri Point Double Edged Sword (though I think there remains some question if flurry works with the latter, since it doesn't have the Monk weapon descriptor, even though it falls into the Monk fighter weapon group).
Like you say, Hex Strike won't play well with reach, though that could be bypassed via Ascetic Style, I think, to combine Hex Strike with the weapon. Pretty hefty feat investment, but potentially worth it.
All of this is not going to fit for this character, unfortunately, as the flavour isn't really right, and I haven't worked out the proper feat/ability spread. I've played the character from 1st level, so I sort of need to work with what I have.
Any thoughts on my feat choice at 9th?
Other than what you mentioned, the only thing that comes to mind is the metamagic stuff. I'd say take Additional Traits to get Magical Lineage with something, but I don't think you can take it again.
I guess as a 2-feat combo you could take Two-Weapon Fighting and Spear Dancing Style, but that's about all that comes to mind.
Just curious tried to make a shaman before but got frustrated too often... mainly the stats and such.. seems way to mad. Granted I was looking at battle and either lore or life. Just curious what you decided on with stats?
No, I get the spirit powers. I just lose the wandering spirit and wandering hex powers.
As noted, I can indeed cast Heroism. We have a bard who casts Good Hope a lot though, so I haven't been preparing it as much.
My starting stats were STR 17 / DEX 14 / CON 13 / INT 8 / WIS 14 / CHA 12. I boosted STR at 4th, then CON at 8th. We use Automatic Bonus Progreasion, so I've also got +2 bumps to STR and WIS. Leaves me focusing on buff and utility spells rather than anything with a DC.
I started with Toughness, but retrained after CON boosted to 14 for Extra Traits. One of those was Resilient for a +1 to Fortitude. The other was Fate Favored, which works well with the Lucky Horseshoe he has, granting a net +2 to all saves (sort of a pseudo-Sacred Tattoo!). My saves are pretty decent overall, I think.
I had both Phalanx Formation and Pushing Assault on my shortlist, funny enough. I decided against Pushing Assault because of the enemy size restriction and the fact we are now facing lots of Giants (in a certain popular AP).
As for Phalanx Formation, the soft cover from allies problem hasn't really cropped up much. I think that's partly because he has great mobility options via Flight hex and Time Hop, and rarely gets stuck behind his allies.
For the same reason, I sort of discounted getting Weapon Trick for polearms to grab Haft Bash. While it has some upside if an enemy gets within my reach and I can't 5ft step away (esp problematic if I get large sized), the issue is mostly mitigated via the use of Time Hop (or I just suck it up and punch them with a Cestus).
No, I get the spirit powers. I just lose the wandering spirit and wandering hexHow do ?
she does not gain a spirit familiar feature from any spirit she bonds with...
So how do you gain the. "Spirit form " (greater etc )...?
If you read over the Shaman class details, Spirit Animal and Spirit are separate class features. Spirit Ability, Greater Spirit Ability and True Spirit Ability are all extensions of "Spirit", not the familiar. FWIW, "Spirit Form" is not the name of a Shaman class feature.
Furthermore, If you look at the wording of Speaker for the Past it clearly contemplates that you still get a Spirit. Apart from the familiar, the only other features replaced are the wandering spirit and wandering hexes.
The downside to Shaman over Oracle is the lesser spell list and fewer number of spells, but I do think it's a pretty good build overall.
Combat competent (though not dominant), highly flexible, with lots of ability options at any given time, plus as a prepared caster he can pull out some utility options where needed, in addition to some buffs.
Unchained monk has better BAB. Also, your spellcasting won't really take a hit from one level, and you're doing the bare minimum for buffing anyways. This is one of few cases where you could pull off multi classing spellcasters.
Hex DC only suffers by 1/2 point, and in the case of Evil Eye a save doesn't actually block the effect. By higher levels, a character should have had ample opportunity to take the revelations or hexes or whatever that really matter. Ultimately, you're sacrificing a small amount of 'more class feature' for a whole new set of features that redefine the character's abilities.
Hex DC only suffers by 1/2 point, and in the case of Evil Eye a save doesn't actually block the effect. By higher levels, a character should have had ample opportunity to take the revelations or hexes or whatever that really matter. Ultimately, you're sacrificing a small amount of 'more class feature' for a whole new set of features that redefine the character's abilities.I agree it seem to balance out. Less spell , but stronger melee options.
Also open a decent style feat to use, pummeling for no DR , snake for deflection etc .I like flowing monk for a free aoo vs opponent's.
How. Can I get wisdom for to hit ? Guided is hard to get....
Also, queterstuff seem better than a temple sword. Especially if I get a enchanted one.
Two levels of Sensei gives WIS to hit with monk weapons. You lose flurry though.
I think the Monk dip can definitely work, but the build needs to plan around it from the start.
I like the idea of going 4 levels of Shaman to get the Spirit Armor revelation, then grabbing the level of Monk at 5th, and then going Shaman from there on out.
Biggest problem remains the MADness. Adding Monk means you'd probably want to lean on Wisdom more than in my character's build. Maybe sacrifice CON a bit, and use Toughness to shore up the HP, and count on the Monk dip to help with the Fortitude save?
How would you allocate stats, BadBird?
For a build like that I would probably go Dual Talent Human and accept that CHA features aren't going to be well fueled. Something like 16/18, 10, 14, 10, 14/16, 10, depending on the situation; one could even go 16/18, 10, 12, 10, 16/18, 8.
Hmm... I'd probably favour the first one and go 16 each in STR and WIS. I agree CHA probably isn't too important overall, but once you get Bane at Shaman 8, I think you'd regret having a negative modifier.
I'd still be sad to lose the Bonus Feat though, especially if the plan is to try to work the reach monk weapon into the mix. The low DEX also hurts that plan, of course. Probably not a good mix with your concept anyways, given the Tri Point Double Edged Sword doesn't have the Monk weapon quality, despite being in the Monk fighter weapon group.
It's a tough call with Bane and CHA; losing 2 STR for more Bane means that you're slightly worse off in combat while not using bane, as well as while using bane that you already would have had. You're only better off for those uses of bane that you wouldn't have had before.
Yeah, it's a pain to work-in reach-flurry. It's certainly possible to do a 'whirling spear' style thing, where you use unarmed flurry attacks while carrying a spear for standard/reach attacks; theme-wise, you say you're punching with the fists holding the spear haft in between stabbing with the blade. You get natural armor from Barkskin and don't need to buy armor or bracers, so affording and using an Amulet of Mighty Fists isn't that tough.
@bender: I think Half Orc works great if the plan isn't to go for the Monk dip or a reach weapon. Grab Sacred Tattoo and Fate's Favored, wield a falchion and go to work.
@BadBird: Yeah, maybe you're right. Focus on flurrying with unarmed, and just keep the longspear for AOOs or reach attacks if needed. I like that a lot, actually.
Good points, bender. I'll keep that idea in mind for a future character, for sure.