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I don’t think Phrasma’s grip on the after life is as strong as her clerics would have the folks of Golarion to believe. There are numerous old ones, deities and powerful beings that redirect souls entirely on their own. I wonder if Phrasma worshipers will get along well with Shamans? I think they are probably more likely to be vague about shamans’ power source than overly specific
Old Sarkoris had a local sect that hybridized Pharasma's worship with the Green Faith, so presumably there's room for her to be view non-antagonistically by Shamans. If the gods are seen as being exceptionally powerful spirits, then Pharasma is the greatest of psychopomps and should treated as such.
I swear James Jacobs answered a question how he figured ancestor worship works regarding the cycle of souls but I can't for the life of me find the post now, if indeed I wasn't in a sleep-deprived hallucination. Mind you, it might have been an outdated post from years ago, but I'd still like to remember what it was he said at the time...
Conceptually I don't think there too much space for a shaman class in PF2 once that druid and witch classes usually fills the concept. The only niche I think it can take is as "spiritual" (in primal sense) leader of a community (as shamans usually are in indigenous tribes around the world). This differ from druids that usually more wilding and primal witches that are more isolated.
That said I don't think that this is enough to fill a entire new class maybe an archetype and also I don't think that be an spontaneous caster fill this niche too. The main idea of an shaman is a character that uses strange techniques and spells that was passed through generations. Not something innate from born or supernaturally transferred.
IMO the class that could be spontaneous caster in practice was the druids but due the D&D heritage they are prepared spellcasters instead. Maybe in next pathfinder edition this could change.
IMO there's other more interesting classed concepts that can be release instead a shaman class.
You could base the Shaman around trances where they beseech the spirits for aid when they refocus or take a long rest. The long rest version would grant a long-term buff that lasts all day while the short rests grant different focus spells. This could make the Shaman a very flexible primal caster.
If you granted them a lot of access to divination spells from all traditions they also take on a very advisory role.
Their secondary feature could be built around mage hand and unseen servant-type effects. Not a fully functional familiar as such, but a fickle helper that can be cajoled into performing tasks.
A primal counterpart to the bard that supports the party by being exceptionally flexible with their frequent selection of focus spells with a large once-per-day buff that rewards scouting and divination to ensure it gives the correct bonus for the situation ahead.
wouldn't most soul reincarnate and ancestor magic run on the memory left behind be a more elegant lore about soul
My personal preference would still be that ancestor worship involve the actual souls, rather than just the Akashic copy/Astral memory of a soul. Worshipping (and more importantly getting power from) a memory just doesn’t seem as satisfying to me. Preferences vary of course though, so I am curious to see how they handle it.
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The ancestors needn't be trapped in the material--that would only lead them to undeath--but there may be a collective hanging around in the Boneyard. Souls don't usually get judged until they're ready to go, so far as I know (whether 'ready' is a choice thing or an objective point of closure).
Amusingly the problem isn't really in the reincarnation, it's the post-judgement afterlife.
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They're explicitly never going to canonize "what exactly makes a soul hang around in the boneyard versus being reincarnated versus moving on" since that's the sort of thing that needs to work however a given story needs it to work, and it's also not the sort of thing you ever want to see players trying to game.
if ancestor magic require soul of actual ancient to be trapped in material world
That’s not what I’m suggesting. My proposition was that the souls get judged as normal, but their judgement involves them going to some communal area (a “room” in the Spire, a demiplane in the Astral/Ethereal, a shared dreamscape in the Dimension of Dreams, or something along those lines) where they do not become outsiders or petitioners, but rather keep their original soul and memories, with the restriction that they aren’t able to act outside of that area unless called upon by a shaman.
Are you responding to me or something else? I’m not sure how anything you said has anything to do with what I’m saying. Sorry if I’m not communicating clearly.
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this is a bit of a joke answer. But clearly the spirits hang out in Sarusan until they are needed.
In reality I think spirits what they are and how they exist within the cosmology should be left vague. I think they should be real but maybe not all the answers are known and that's okay. Faith, fantasy/magic, and supernatural concepts while all different things I feel tend to benefit from not always being defined or having an answer or explanation for everything. It also means each persons Golarion can be different and explain it all in different ways.
That being said, Shamans having access to a power doesn't necessarily prevent characters with similar themes from having access to that same technique.
The original seed of this was taken from the 2e Oracle’s writeup, I believe, so I don’t really understand worrying about Shaman exclusivity. Such a thing presumably cares more about culture than Class anyway.
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I swear James Jacobs answered a question how he figured ancestor worship works regarding the cycle of souls but I can't for the life of me find the post now, if indeed I wasn't in a sleep-deprived hallucination. Mind you, it might have been an outdated post from years ago, but I'd still like to remember what it was he said at the time...
You're not crazy.
James Jacobs Creative Director
May 16, 2022, 09:29 pm
"One thing you could do, for example, would be that as long as an ancestor is honored and worshiped, they remain unjudged and exist as a soul with memories, anchored to the living realm by the prayers and support of their descendants and basking in that warm glow and feeling welcomed and loved for as long as it lasts (or in the case of a hated/reviled ancestor, tormented and all that in a grueling afterlife). In this way, a culture's faith in their ancestors is also what provides the soul of the departed a "heaven" or "hell" and once they stop worshiping, or once no living ancestors remain, those souls move on to whatever comes next."
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I swear James Jacobs answered a question how he figured ancestor worship works regarding the cycle of souls but I can't for the life of me find the post now, if indeed I wasn't in a sleep-deprived hallucination. Mind you, it might have been an outdated post from years ago, but I'd still like to remember what it was he said at the time...You're not crazy.
James Jacobs Creative Director
May 16, 2022, 09:29 pm"One thing you could do, for example, would be that as long as an ancestor is honored and worshiped, they remain unjudged and exist as a soul with memories, anchored to the living realm by the prayers and support of their descendants and basking in that warm glow and feeling welcomed and loved for as long as it lasts (or in the case of a hated/reviled ancestor, tormented and all that in a grueling afterlife). In this way, a culture's faith in their ancestors is also what provides the soul of the departed a "heaven" or "hell" and once they stop worshiping, or once no living ancestors remain, those souls move on to whatever comes next."
Thank you! That's much more recent than I expected. I saw it the first time because I'd been trawling the Ask JJ thread with keywords about the afterlife.
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This thread has talked about inspirations, thematics, and cosmology, but has been a little light on mechanical imaginings, so I want to gently resurrect the discussion: what does an ideal combat turn look like for a Shaman, in your mind? It's easy to imagine the non-combat scenarios, but the round-to-round action is still a little ephemeral.
So... we've heard "full caster, but can cash in spell slots" and that seems like a pretty solid place to start. I'd say... charisma-based spontaneous caster, but really lean into the charisma side of things. Like, one of the things you're cashing in those spell slots for is interesting new ways to use intimidate, bluff, and diplomacy in battle as you frighten/fool/cajole the local spirits. You could even have "which of these three do you specialize in" be the core of your class paths, if you wanted. Then, having spent slots to unlock them, you could spend additional slots to juice them up further
So I'd see the standard combat round (for at least on viable build) be a cantrip followed by a spiritually empowered skill effect, and save the relatively small number of remaining spell slots for desperate and/or unexpected situations.
On the flip side, it seems like they're not really full casters unless you can run one as a playable character without cashing in any spell slots at all. For that... I feel like the Shaman winds up being a bit like the investigator. A lot of how effective an investigator is depends on how generous their GM is in giving them opportunities to pursue leads. I feel like Shamans should be all about the idea of calling up local spirits (who would have all sorts of different attitudes) and convincing them of things (possibly using spell slots as bribes) - effectively using social skills to pass non-social challenges. It might be a bit of a trick to make that fun for the rest of the party, though, and to avoid the "My shaman is a one-trick pony, whose trick works on everything" issue. Also the "You just convinced a door-spirit to unlock itself by bribing it with a spell slot? Isn't hat just Knock with extra steps?" issue. So there are some practical issues to work around, but I feel like the idea itself is cool enough that it would be worth fitting in if we can.
A few recent threads have chattered about this class, and I figure it's worth resurrecting this one as a potential outlet for the topic :>
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With a revised Witch on the way, I'm wondering if the Shaman should have an even larger focus on familiars than the Witch, while the Witch balances itself out with buffed hexes and whatever new mechanics their patron will provide. I'm just not sure how much more you could push a familiar with what the Witch already has access to without it becoming broken....
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Given developer comments in the past, I don't expect the 2e Shaman to be a "pet class" at all.
Wisdom caster
And also, for it not to be restrictive like Druids and clerics
Druids and clerics have anathema and all that. I think that works for for those two classes, though I think a wisdom class that doesn’t have that would be nice
And also be loose in flavor. Don’t make it “Druid but divine caster”. Have shaman be something a person in a city can be or someone in the wilds. Plus this would make shaman an archetype that could potentially fit any cleric of any god if it’s flavor is loose and not centered around the wilderness like Druid is or other things
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It might be fun to have more customizability for the shaman's edicts and anathemas based on the various spirits they draw power from. I don't think it would make sense to avoid having those in the class entirely from a thematic standpoint, but giving them some more flexibility would help in differentiating them from the other wisdom casters.
It might be fun to have more customizability for the shaman's edicts and anathemas based on the various spirits they draw power from. I don't think it would make sense to avoid having those in the class entirely from a thematic standpoint, but giving them some more flexibility would help in differentiating them from the other wisdom casters.
There might be some room for taking on temporary Edicts and Anathema? I keep coming back to that 3.5 Binder-style design for a PF2 Shaman.
It might be fun to have more customizability for the shaman's edicts and anathemas based on the various spirits they draw power from. I don't think it would make sense to avoid having those in the class entirely from a thematic standpoint, but giving them some more flexibility would help in differentiating them from the other wisdom casters.
If we could have redeemer edicts and anathema but with shaman, they might be cool
Honestly I’d be down for shaman having edicts and anathema if it gets treated as a non religious version of champion oaths
It might be fun to have more customizability for the shaman's edicts and anathemas based on the various spirits they draw power from. I don't think it would make sense to avoid having those in the class entirely from a thematic standpoint, but giving them some more flexibility would help in differentiating them from the other wisdom casters.There might be some room for taking on temporary Edicts and Anathema? I keep coming back to that 3.5 Binder-style design for a PF2 Shaman.
I love Binders, at least as presented, since the timer ran out on 3.5 before I had the chance to play one (being GM hindered that too). That style might resemble the Medium and I thought Paizo wasn't returning there? Dunno, but I didn't like its flavor as much, nor messiness.
Also for others, Paizo has pointed out they feel no compulsion to fill in the blanks re: casters and each magic tradition getting a prepared and spontaneous option. They want greater inspiration and uniqueness than that.
So many directions to go with Shaman, and so many conflicting real world traditions to draw from. I do not envy trying to appease the audience.
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Whatever they go with, I'm eager to play one - I do think they've finally surpassed my beloved Inquisitor in terms of 2e classes I want, if only because of how many concepts they open up. Between all the Golarion cultures with shamanic traditions and the setting increasingly playing with non-European inspirations, it really could have a rockstar moment.
I love that in Arcadia, the party's Fighter is probably a Gunslinger, and the party Cleric is probably a Shaman. That sort of regionalism lights my brain on fire!
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It doesn't need to have the shaman name if something else is more appropriate, but I'd be interested in something that interacts with spirits (now that phantoms don't belong to a dedicated class). Pathfinder has soul-based spirits tied to occultism, and nature-based spirits tied to the nature skill. It'd be cool to have a class that interacts with both despite the two types of magic being opposites.
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I like this. But then Shadowrun spoiled me on shamans even before Werewolf added to it.Shadowrun and Werewolf are two franchises pretty infamous for going hog-wild on Native American appropriation and weird racist nonsense. I'd prefer if neither were anywhere near a 2e Shaman's designer's thoughts.
Not to say there aren't parts of both I like, but... they're about as far from Paizo's representation-forward mindset as tabletop games can get.
Bit off topic and this is old post, but White Wolf's shenanigans go pretty crazy. It feels kinda like rpg setting written by punks or goths without any kind of filter on going too far or too silly. Which ends up in "I can't tell if this is writer's fetish, they tried to be edgy or both" category lot of time, especially in Werewolf.
Shadowrun has probably improved over time in that regard, but it also has really inconsistent quality.
I think it would be awesome if the Shaman class had no innate tradition and used a skill like diplomacy to cast spells from multiple traditions.
But I also think that would be hard to do in PF2 and the issue with primal shamans is that the primal list is so tied to the elemental planes in PF2 as opposed to just the material plane that giving too much access to the primal list really doesn't make much sense. I think the Occult list + a lot of animal and plant spells from the primal list makes a lot of sense, but PF2 feels like it is trying to to do such a specific thing with the elemental planes that tying that also into what the shaman will do feels off to me.
Like elementals feel like something outside of the spirits in Golarion Lore, and like would get messy to bring into the Shaman too close. I mean, I totally want to be able to ask rivers to let me pass, and the wind to carry messages to far off places, but I want it too feel like a connection to spirits within the Material plane and not to elementals.
A thought just occurred to me, how about a skill monkey caster?
As keepers of their community's culture, that seems to fit a Shaman.
Why do all the skill monkeys have to be martials?
Maybe because casters have so much innate versatility, yet Paizo could balance for that. The basic premise would be integrating skills (and maybe skill feats) into the Shaman's chassis.
How?
-The "Diplomacy to cast" suggestion above would be one option, though as a Charisma skill it kinda overlaps with Bard (which does have a skill vibe on the side, and actually could be built quite Shaman-like. Hmm.).
-Swapping out skills during prep time would be cool, drawing on those of their ancestors.
-Maybe a starting Focus Spell to acquire (activating a new daily swap for limited window) or improve one's skill ranks (capped by level), or maybe to use one's casting stat, like Diplomacy backed by Wisdom (which it probably should be in many contexts).
Anyway, just an idea to brainstorm.
Cheers
A lot of people really hate the idea of adding rolls to basic functionality of a class. I think I find it a more interesting design space than many folks here, at least through what I have seen in the various play tests. Even as I really like the idea, I do think there would be a lot of push back based on the floor of failing vs the ceiling of success. What I would love to see would be failure, or even critical failure results that did AoE damage around the Shaman to everyone or maybe the spell would effect everyone (in the case of heal or slow), so at least it wouldn’t be a “you completely wasted your turn” situation, but again, I am not sure a lot of folks would like that.
Oh, or something like the Factotum (if that's what it was called...) where you dabble across the board, maybe even having multiple traditions, yet all w/ limited casting. Or a wave-caster w/ two traditions, each separate so you're top-loaded. Hmm.
ETA: That's just brainstorming, not advocating. :-)
I think it would be awesome if the Shaman class had no innate tradition and used a skill like diplomacy to cast spells from multiple traditions.
But I also think that would be hard to do in PF2 and the issue with primal shamans is that the primal list is so tied to the elemental planes in PF2 as opposed to just the material plane that giving too much access to the primal list really doesn't make much sense. I think the Occult list + a lot of animal and plant spells from the primal list makes a lot of sense, but PF2 feels like it is trying to to do such a specific thing with the elemental planes that tying that also into what the shaman will do feels off to me.
Like elementals feel like something outside of the spirits in Golarion Lore, and like would get messy to bring into the Shaman too close. I mean, I totally want to be able to ask rivers to let me pass, and the wind to carry messages to far off places, but I want it too feel like a connection to spirits within the Material plane and not to elementals.
Using diplomacy to cast spells? What? How does that make sense
You talk to magic and convince it to do stuff for you, even though it isn’t sentient?
I skimmed some, so I don't know if this was mentioned already, but would a Haitian/Louisiana Hoodoo practitioner also be something that could be within the scope of a Shaman? It seems like a neat, often unexplored well set of beliefs and practices that seems in line with the design fantasy of what's been talked about thus far.
I really just want to make a Miko, Hoodoo practitioner, and/or Navajo 'singer' that feel distinct and separate from a Cleric or Witch. I feel like with all the herbal remedies often associated with this stuff, Primal magic and the Nature skill seem right at home, maybe even bake in and expand upon the Herbal Medicine skill feat and stuff like that; chat up the spirit of the apple tree to make particularly tasty apples, snark at the weeds to make them leave the garden alone, that sorta thing.
As far as mechanics, spont-Wis seems the combo I've seen the most by a wide margin, and I'm all for it as well, since Primal is missing a dedicated spont caster and it can totally use one (Occult not getting a prep caster is slowly growing on my after the little article in SoM about what casting Occult magic feels like, same with Arcane lacking a spont).
Having a pet sounds neat but not integral, so I can see it having an optional familiar/AC feat tree; I can see it having a Colony Stand type eidolon-esc thingy like Harvest or Bad Company from DiU that it can call up and shoot stuff by proxy in place of traditional blasting with spells.
I'd honestly like them to be a focus spell centric caster to reflect their more "from the land/people" style of magic where they're more 'short rest' based than 'long rest' based, but I'm also not SUPER tied to that idea, just thought I'd throw it out.
Good will save, cloth/maybe light armor, simple weapons, probs fort > ref for "okay" and "bad" saves.
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Everyone talking about drawing real-life inspiration from shamanic cultures and mythology and people who follow/believe in them needs to understand that the ONLY way Paizo could even justify doing this given the stated intent and direction they're taking with regard to writing "inspired" fiction for their setting would be by hiring extremely well-vetted people or those who have direct experience + years of research on the subject distinct to each flavor of shamanism that they're trying to portray. They'd feel they have to do this at LEAST for the purpose of them being sensitivity writers and ... that is almost certainly not something they can realistically do or afford.
Also, bear in mind that many of the shamanism tropes that actually have traction in pop culture are just reskinned and twisted misunderstandings of folk medicine and local superstitions specific to regional locations and those traditions are themselves often about as valid and truly and deeply believed in as Ms. Cleos psychic hotline stuff that exists/existed in order to part fools of their money in exchange for making them feel validated or support a regional identity and boost tourism.
If "Shaman" is going to be made at all it would almost certainly just have to be 100% fictionalized and even then, it would have to be put over the barrel and under a microscope to be sure it doesn't even have a passing resemblance to anything that does or has existed in Earth history.