I am currently playing through Rise of the Runelords with a Shaman with the Speaker for the Past archetype, and using the Battle spirit. He is the group's secondary front-line combatant using a reach weapon, and his spells are primarily focvused on self-buffs, utility and condition removal. He is currently 10th level, swiftly approaching 11th.
My specific question relates to the Spirit Talker feat, which I keep considering as another way of broadening the scope of what the character can do. The feat allows as follows:
"Once per day, you can spend 10 minutes communing with a shaman spirit of your choice. When you do, you gain the temporary use of one hex from its list of hexes. This hex is added to your list of available hexes for the next hour, after which you immediately lose all benefits of that hex."
I particularly like the idea of grabbing the Stone Stability hex from the Stone spirit, but worry it might be of limited utility against the increasingly large enemies we are fighting.
So I'm coming to the forums to see what people think of the feat post-nerf (it used to last 24 hours), and what other hexes people like to use it for.
(Please note my character has only INT 8, so Arcane Enlightenment is not an option even if the rules allowed it to work with Spirit Talker... which I find doubtful anyways given the language about losing the benefits after an hour.)
No thoughts from the many excellent advisors on the forums?
Looking for thoughts on whether it is a worthwhile feat for a melee-focused Shaman, and if so, what hexes are worth grabbing from the various spirits.
Look and see if there's a Hex that would be helpful to have for an hour if you spent 10 minutes to get it. This is definitely a pre-fight thing or OOC thing. The issue is, how often do you know when fights are soon and which hex do you feel gives you a nice buff if you could have any hex?
Also consider the Ritual Hex feat? The duration is much longer.
Thanks Markov. Your Shaman-related advice is always much appreciated. That trick with Arcane Enlightenment is especially crafty, even if it doesn't work for my current character.
I definitely like the looks of Stone Stability apart from a general worry that tripping is going to become less and less effective at higher levels for a 3/4 BAB character. Thunder Foot addresses the BAB issue though, so perhaps it could be a fun choice (though I've got to read up on the manuever, and how it works/doesn't work with a reach weapon build).
A few of the others probably aren't a great fit for other reasons (I'm often flying supernaturally so no major need for Cinder Dance, and Heaven's Leap is sort of redundant because I have the Time Hop revelation via my archetype), but I like the utility value of stuff like Crystal Sight and Ghost Blade.
I suspect you're right about the feat as a whole -- it gives even further flexibility, but may not be all that useful every day. Still wish they hadn't nerfed it quite so hard though.
@ Chess Pnw: Thanks -- I know how the feat works in terms of prep time and duration, and am mostly looking for advice or recommendations on good Hex choices, either for combat purposes or non-combat purposes.
@ Pounce: Just had a look at Ritual Hex. Could definitely be nice for the right character, especially a Shaman who is already leveraging INT for Arcane Enlightenment. Unfortunately, my character only has INT 8 and would have a hard time consistently making the Knowledge checks (though he has a reasonably good History check for background/story reasons).
For Shamans, would you agree that Ritual Hex only allows access to (a) the usual 'generic' Shaman hexes; (b the ones from the character's chosen spirit; and (c) anything he or she happens to qualify for via wandering hex at the time the ritual is performed (assuming wsndering hex hasn't been traded away via an archetype, as I have done)?