I'm basically finished with the skald and am moving on to the next sibling. This one is the Oread Shaman. I don't think I'm going to try anything out of the norm for this character like I did with my witch. Just going to have him hang back and toss some hexes and spells around.
I'm liking the look of the Grasping Vine archetype, just because it seems cool. And it doesn't seem to change all that much of the base class.
I kinda want to do the Nature Spirit, even if I don't use the archetype. It's thematic and the entangled hex looks handy for battlefield control. While the Life Spirit looks great for healing. Would probably be a good choice for the wandering spirit.
If I'm understanding the class features right, I chose one spirit that gives a permanent ability, spells, and hexes. Then at level 4, I can choose a second spirit and gain its ability and spells, but I can change out this spirit every day if I want. And will get the hexes at level 6. Can I have the abilities of both spirits active at the same time?
I don't know if your GM would allow taking the witch's hex twice, but if so and you're laying back there is a combo I used with witch's hexes:
'Protective Luck' hex combined with the 'Soothsayer' which let you set it up ahead of time (and cackle\chant later on) the protective luck isn't limited to once per 24 hours so the next time the target gets attacked it triggers(for one whole round so any other attacks on hi in that round are also effected.) you can just renew it in your turn if only one party member gets attacked each round and is not you. once you get the chant hex you can keep the whole party effected (again except you which this doesn't effect) with the hex for the whole combat as long as they are within chant range.
took those two at level 1 with extra hex. and the party was more then happy to be my meat shield.
I doubt it since it doesn't say that it can be taken a second time. It's too bad since that it a good combo.
If you play an Unsworn Shaman you can get multiple witch hexes. You might want to use an Extra Hex feat to take any useful hexes you'll want permanently (like Chant and Misfortune). The Unsworn Shaman is also good for taking advantage of the Arcane Enlightenment Hex, but with a charisma penalty you'll only get 1 Wizard spell per day that way (but that is still very nice to have). Aasimar is probably the way to go if you want to take advantage of Arcane Enlightenment, especially if you play a middle aged (+1 to all mental scores, -1 to all physical scores) character with the Lesser Age Resistance SLA (from Immortal Spark). With Scion of Humanity you'd also qualify for the human favored class bonus, giving you a lot of cleric spells. Oreads can get Oread Gem Magic though, which is really nice once you can cast Elemental Body spells.
I'd rather keep it Oread since the Aasimar sibling is already fully built as a witch.
So if I'm understanding the archetype right I don't get a spirit, just a hex with the minor spirits. And I can only use spirit magic with the wandering spirit. But I don't get the hex from the wandering spirit AND the minor spirit at the same time, correct?
Correct. Each Minor Spirit gives you a hex of your choosing for 1 day, which you select each day from either your Shaman hexes, Witch hexes, or Wandering Spirit hexes. The Unsworn Shaman does not gain Wandering Hex, as its Wandering Spirit feature replaces Wandering Hex. Your minor spirits are basically a superior version of wandering hex, at the cost of having fewer hexes total, but notice that you get two wandering spirits as an Unsworn Shaman (your first at level 2 and your second at level 6, so you still get 2 spirits, but now you can switch both of them each day), giving you much greater flexibility. Being able to select multiple Witch hexes is another perk, and it lets you do stuff like take the Cauldron hex whenever you want to brew some potions.
The Unsworn Shaman still has a hex class feature though because its Minor Spirit just alters the hex class feature (see here), so you can take the Extra Hex feat, in which case you can select between Shaman and Witch hexes with the Extra Hex feat, as that is the list of permanent options your Minor Spirit allows.
Ok. So Unsworn Shaman is definitely a pretty good choice since you can swap out pretty much everything to get what you need. So I just need to pick out feats.
Extra Hex is a good one to get permeant hexes. Accursed Hex helps with getting those debuffs up if the target makes its save. Amplified Hex looks handy as well.
I kinda want to give him Inscribe Magical Tattoo just for the fun of it. I can just imagine this guy using Spell Tattoo to cover his barbarian brother with Magic Fang and Bull's Strength tattoos. (The lack of skill points for the barbarian to put into UMD doesn't matter as I wouldn't be playing these guys in the same game anyway. It's just fun to picture.)
I could also throw in some summoning feats if there's room. I don't think I want any metamagic feats for this as most of them don't seem helpful for a buffer. Other than Quicken Spell, of course, but that's better to get as a rod so you aren't casting a level one spell as a level 5 spell.
I just looked at the actual text of Extra Hex. I don't think I can use it with an Unsworn Shaman. It says this:
If you are a shaman, it must be a hex granted by your spirit rather than one from a wandering spirit.
I don't have a permanent spirit so I'm not sure I can get a hex from this feat.
So that makes the feats so far as Accursed Hex, Amplified Hex, and Inscribe Magical Tattoo. So I think I'll have room to either summon things or buff my familiar.
I've not seen a GM claim that the Extra Hex feat cannot be used by Shamans to obtain regular Shaman class hexes that aren't from either their main spirit or their wandering spirit, so I don't see why you would suddenly rule differently for an Unsworn Shaman. As for the language of the Extra Hex feat, Unsworn Shamans have a valid hex class feature and hexes from your Unsworn Shaman's Minor Spirit feature that are not from a wandering spirit should be valid for the Extra Hex feat so I'm really not sure where this purported limitation is coming from. Picking hexes from your Minor Spirit that are not from a Wandering Spirit seems cleanly in keeping with the Extra Hex feat's language as far as I can tell.
Just ask your GM to be safe, I suppose. You can also use the Spirit Talker and Ritual Hex feats to effectively obtain two extra hexes with even greater flexibility. Honestly, you might want to do that anyway, although the Ritual Hex feat will probably have to wait for later, since you cannot take 10 on Occult Ritual checks so having to make 4 DC 20 Knowledge checks will be awkward even if you happen to have the hex from the Lore Spirit that makes them wisdom-based skill checks.
As for what feats to pick, etc., I can't really give you a lot of advice because I'm not really clear on what kind of party you have or what kind of role you are hoping to fulfill or what you want to do with the Shaman. The Shaman can cast all kinds of spells quite easily, especially with Arcane Enlightenment (and I would recommend maintaining a positive intelligence modifier even if your charisma is negative since you can still cast 1 Wizard spell per day that way).
I mean, Extra Hex explicitly says the shaman can’t pick a Hex from his wandering spirit?
I would recommend discussing how Extra Hex interacts with Unsworn with your GM; it looks like it should work, but it’s very unclear how.
You're not picking from either wandering spirit's list of hexes here. You're picking from the Minor Spirit's options that come from the Shaman class list or the Witch class list.
I'll ask the gm what they think whenever I get around to putting him into a game. As of right now, I'm planning my shaman out as a part of a group of my own characters that are all siblings.
The group as a whole has two arcane full casters, two divine full casters, two 6th level divine casters, and one 6th level arcane caster. Then two that are pure martials. So far their builds are split into 3 ranged attackers, 3 melee attackers, and a blaster. Then there's this shaman and a sorcerer that hasn't been built yet.
It seems you already have virtually every role covered. The only thing that may be missing would be trapfinding, it seems, but that should probably be someone else's job.
Since you have a 9 person party, I would recommend that you don't play a summoner or combat will take forever and if you end up overshadowing martials with your summons, that won't be fun for them. I think you should play a more supporting role in combat and use battlefield control (ie. difficult terrain, walls, etc.) and debuffs to hamper enemies along with hexes to debilitate enemies or assist allies. In particular, you should try to cripple big threats and support allies in a vulnerable position. Since you have a strength bonus, you may want to get a decent strength score and use a reach weapon (such as a longspear, which is a simple weapon), perhaps with the Combat Reflexes feat if you have a dex of 14. You can just hold the spear in one hand to cast spells, use hexes, etc on your turn and switch back to wielding the longspear in two hands afterwards, so this is a handy trick. If you take the Heavy Armor Proficiency feat, you can also equip full plate and similar later on, giving you decent AC. You may also want Improved Initiative as a feat.
As for your familiar, you can give your familiar the Valet archetype so you can double your crafting progress each day, since you're going to have Inscribe Magical Tattoo and can obtain Brew Potion (Cauldron witch hex) and Craft Wondrous Item (Fetish shaman hex) any day you feel like crafting through your Minor Spirit feature. You will probably want to try to improve your Spellcraft skill bonus, on that note.
One of the melee attackers is a Rogue. He'll have trapfinding covered. He hasn't been built yet, but that's just because I can't decide if I should use an archetype on him or not.
Anyway. You're suggesting a reach build? Simple, but effective. If I want to make the most of it, I'll probably want Improved Trip, which requires Combat Expertise. Shaman stands behind Barbarian and knocks the opponent over. Opponent gets up, both Shaman and Barbarian smack him around.
I don't recommend going all-in on your strength score (14+2=16 is enough), since you shouldn't really spend your turns attacking enemies (you have spells, hexes, spirit abilities, magical tattoos, items, and who knows what else for that) so your wisdom will still be your most important ability score (for your spells and hexes, so at least 16+2=18 wis), but I do recommend a basic reach build, yes. The Battle spirit in particular will give you Enlarge Person and the Battle Master hex for an extra attack of opportunity at level 2.
It's also possible to take Dirty Fighting instead of Combat Expertise for Improved Trip. You can also just take the combat exemplar trait, in which case you will only provoke AoOs against enemies that have Improved Trip. Bear in mind that if you trip enemies with a reach weapon and provoke an attack of opportunity, they cannot use that AoO unless they themselves also have enough reach to attack you (and of course, they also need to overcome your AC to land that hit). So you don't really need Improved Trip at all, especially if you just use the exemplar trait. Other additions you can make to your reach weapon later include the Spell Storing property (it does great stuff) and after that the Dueling (PFSG) (only get this at level 12 or higher, when you have money to burn and Greater Magic Weapon and Rags to Riches from an ally will add up to give your weapon a +3+1=+4 bonus and your trip maneuver will need that +8 luck bonus).
This is not a martial build, really. Your party has enough of those that there are better uses for your Shaman than to be a weaker version of a martial character. It's just using a reach weapon to be extra useful on the battlefield without affecting what you're doing on your turns while you take advantage of the Shaman's strengths with spells and hexes and whatnot to make your party even more effective.
If you take the exemplar trait and decide to use Additional Traits to get 2 combat traits (I recommend Accelerated Drinker - remember you can brew potions - and Reactionary) with the Exemplar trait, I recommend picking Disarm as the second maneuver to no longer provoke attacks of opportunity, since you can also disarm with attacks of opportunity.
That reminds me, if you give your familiar Poisoner's Gloves (it's only 2.5k gp if you make it yourself), you can use it to slap you with two potions or oils at the start of combat. On that note, if you make them as oils, you can just have your familiar spend move actions drawing oils and standard actions applying them to you.
Also remember that you can brew potions (as well as make spell tattoos) with full caster level. They're just more expensive that way so the norm is to brew them with minimum caster level but sometimes the caster level is worth it. If you really want to go crazy with potions though I recommend picking up the Cauldron hex permanently (with Extra Hex - or, failing that, you can just take the Brew Potion feat directly) and taking the Brewkeeper prestige class (using Prestigious Spellcaster to remedy the missing level of spellcasting progression). At that point you might even want to use an injection spear and fill it with 5 identical draughts (which, functioning as potions or oils, can get full caster level but not full spell DC, along with perhaps free metamagic from your class, but you don't get reach with the injection spear, so there is that), and you will definitely want to have an int score so you can use Arcane Enlightenment to make draughts of 1 Wizard spell (which you can prepare as many times as you want) per day. I don't recommend taking prestige classes until after level 8 (which is when you get 3 minor spirits and a number of hexes become stronger), but after that it's an option if you want. Another prestige class you could take would be the Veiled Illusionist, giving you access to Shadow Conjuration, Shadow Evocation, Shadow Enchantment, and Psychic Asylum among the more usual illusion spells.
For permanent hexes to take with the Extra Hex feat (assuming GM allows), I recommend Chant/Cackle and Misfortune.
Hope that helps.
Someone suggested Improved Familiar and take the Caligraphy Wyrm. It's very thematic and I was thinking I could flavor it as him using the pen form of the familiar to make the tattoos.
The Calligraphy Wyrm (Someone made a typo on the official spelling) is thematic, but the main value of a Calligraphy Wyrm usually lies in using it as a scout and take advantage of its blindsight and the Shaman does not have the best spells to support that, plus it's a lot scarier to lose your familiar as a Shaman. Still, you can choose it (and you can always just avail yourself of its blindsight while it joins the party). The second issue is that Improved Familiars do not gain the ability to speak with creatures of their kind and therefore do not qualify for many familiar archetypes (including the Valet archetype).
zza ni wrote: I don't know if your GM would allow taking the witch's hex twice, but if so and you're laying back there is a combo I used with witch's hexes:
'Protective Luck' hex combined with the 'Soothsayer' which let you set it up ahead of time (and cackle\chant later on)
This combination isn't just good it is totally broken. I am currently playing a witch and have cackle and intend to take protective luck, but no Soothsayer.
I don't want to either spoil the campaign or drive my GM mad. And I am a witch so can take it by the RAW...
Heather 540 wrote: Anyway. You're suggesting a reach build? Simple, but effective. If I want to make the most of it, I'll probably want Improved Trip, which requires Combat Expertise. Shaman stands behind Barbarian and knocks the opponent over. Opponent gets up, both Shaman and Barbarian smack him around. I would suggest dropping this idea totally. Todd Sampson suggested not investing too heavily in it.
The reason is, as Todd says, you have plenty of other things you can do as a Shaman, and all of them are more effective than you acting as a second rate fighter. Making a Shaman who is good at being a Shaman is the way to make them effective.
PF1 Class Guides at ZG
Shaman is a good class but like most casters trying to be more martial generally hurts casting more than it's worth. IF you have to dip add Magical Knack trait and choose one from; flowing monk 2, diviner wizard 1, fighter 1, gunslinger 2(LoL).
Unfortunately metamagics in magic consumables and such really hit the pocketbook. IMO more NPC stuff where the GM doesn't have to manage WBL too much....
Samsaran 20pt buy & race [10,13,10,12,18,12] w mythic past lives(Wis) on Cleric List {5 spls} (buff/debuff) Shaman (Heavens, Tribe, or Wood). Alternate races are aasimar or human(skills & HPs). You could go thematic with a halforc, elf, dwarf, vine leshy([ooc]what do you mean your spirit animal is called "Audrey too")...
Spl Fcs(C) feat, Augment Summoning feat and access to Sum Mon & Sum Natr Ally is an quick way to be like a conjurer.
Weapons: cestus, hvy crossbow, spear, morningstar, longspear, dagger.
I don't plan on changing the race. He's a part of my group of sibling characters and all of them are the planar-touched races. (And the Aasimar's already built.)
Heather 540 wrote: I don't plan on changing the race. He's a part of my group of sibling characters and all of them are the planar-touched races. (And the Aasimar's already built.) it's general good advice and I choose a favorable race with a good option to yield ability scores. Clearly if you choose oread you can recalculate the scores and options. These threads have many readers.
Ok. So right now the plan seems to be Accursed Hex at one, Amplified Hex at 3, Inscribe Magical Tattoo at 5, and Improved Familiar at 7. I'd like to build it a little further and still need to pick traits.
Tom Sampson already suggested some traits above.
Oreads have a few interesting race traits: Swift action tremorsense, +1 trait bonus for you on saving throws against mind-affecting, and +1 morale bonus for allies within 10 ft , or pretend to be a statue, in your case, probably a heavily graffitied one.
There a regional one that lets you look through stone walls.
Generally, are there any other skills you want to make class skills? There is probably a trait for that.
I think I'm going to ditch Inscribe Magical Tattoo and Improved Familiar. Someone in one of my groups on Discord was talking about the Tattooed Sorcerer and I looked it up since one of the siblings is a sorcerer. I liked it and want to use it for that sibling. But the group doesn't need 2 characters with the same creation feat. So I'm dropping it from the shaman.
So that leaves just the first 2 feats.
Ok, so the blood hexes are extremely situational to the point of basically being useless. And several other hex feats require being a changeling, being a witch, or having a patron. So it looks like I'm left with Amplified Hex, Accursed Hex, Spirit Talker, and Ritual Hex. And Extra Hex if allowed.
Can I take Spirit Guardian as an Unsworn?
I would consider Additional Traits and Combat Reflexes, honestly, if you intend to do that reach build anyway. As for blood hexes, the only blood hex feat I can see as being viable is the Abeyance hex. What do you mean by Spirit Guardian, by the way?
Typo. I meant Spiritual Guardian. It's a feat. I probably can't take it since the archetype trades away spirit magic.
The Unsworn Shaman archetype only delays spirit magic to level 2. You still have spirit magic. So you could take the Spiritual Guardian feat. I wouldn't really bother to use that feat, as the benefits don't seem worth it, but you are capable of taking it.
Split hex is so good that I’d plan to retrain another feat to it at 10th level rather than waiting for 11th. That and accursed hex are the top tier of hex feats.
Can't use Split Hex. It requires witch levels.
Heather 540 wrote: Can't use Split Hex. It requires witch levels. Of course.
I think I'm going to grab a couple of metamagic feats. Extend is pretty good for a buffer, doubling the duration for only one level increase. Quicken might be better as a rod though, as that 4 level increase is harsh.
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