Alright, I’m unsure _where_ to realistically begin on this. But in the group I’m playing in, we’re playing through Iron Gods (have nearly tpked twice btw, both times to Kasatha skeletons, first one to the group of 7, and the 2nd to the juju zombie.)
One of my fellow players (there’s only 3 of us, and yes we are doing Iron Gods with a 3 man team) is currently playing a Half-orc Wind Shaman. We JUST levelled up to lv2 (we started in like October, but essentially took the month of Dec off). He has the lowest AC in the party. He at current has the lowest to-hit bonus out of the three of us. He also similarly has been in melee combat frequently. Often times being knocked out of combat first, thus eating into our very sparse funds to get him back on his feet. It’s not like the player is _intentionally_ playing badly, but he has had what I have deemed a ‘lesser Will Wheaton curse’ on him this campaign (it wasn’t this bad in prior games fyi). IE he cannot seem to roll higher than a 12 on the d20 to save his life. Every time he has hit, he has rolled below average dmg etc.
So, my question to you all is this: What can a low-level Shaman do better (lv5 and below) than a different full casting class? I’ve tried to find _any_ redeeming features for a low-level Shaman, and cannot seem to find any. Any insights as to make him more viable, or just if the Shaman feels lackluster as a class would be appreciated.
The biggest benefit a shaman has is that they are a divine prepared caster. That means they have access to their entire spell list. Wandering spirit gives them even more versatility because they can gain access to different spells every day by choosing a different wandering sprit. That can allow the shaman to completely change how his character operates from day to day. If he knows what he is facing he can be very effective by memorizing the right spells for the situation. Their spell list is pretty flexible and has a wide variety of different types of spells. Other prepared divine casters tend to have a more focused spell list and lack the ability to temporarily add spells to the list. The downside of a prepared caster is that if they choose the wrong spells to memorize, they can be nearly useless.
Hexes are big part of the class. They can give the character an attack that can be used over and over again as long as they are not used on the same creature twice in one day. The Slumber Hex can be incredibly powerful. Wandering Hex gives the shaman the ability to gain different hexes to fit their current needs. Wandering Spirit mean the shaman can in theory gain any hex they qualify for by choosing the right wandering spirit. The hex granted by Wandering Hex can be from either the shaman's regular spirit or his wandering sprit. This again gives the shaman the ability to reconfigure their abilities to fit the situation.
The shaman also gains abilities based on his spirit and wandering spirit. Being able to change their wandering spirit means they can gain access to different abilities to fit the situation.
So, basically what the thing the shamans does better than any other spell casting class is being able to alter their abilities. If you are going up against a bunch of ice-based creatures then take flame as your wandering sprit. If your party barely survived a fight and is in downtime while it heals you take life as your wandering sprit and enhanced cures as your wandering hex. If you are researching or crafting items during downtime lore allows you to take benefits of wisdom and use your WIS modifier for all INT based skill checks.
The thing is that all this takes a great deal of system mastery on the part of the player. You have to be familiar with all of your spells and other class abilities in order to make good decisions. A new player or one without good system mastery will often make poor choices. The other thing that can hamper a shaman is not knowing what you are dealing with. The slumber hex is powerful, but useless vs undead. If you are not expecting undead and have slumber as a wandering hex, you are at a big disadvantage.
Most of those abilities are not available at 1st level. You get your first hex at 2nd level, and wandering hex requires you to be 6th level.
Every 9th level caster has one really strong class feature, casting 9th level spells.
That aside all have some abilites to get over the lower levels.
The shamen has hexes beginning with level 2. Depending on what hex he took, it could be better (Healing, for extra healing) or worse (Vortex spell, stagger if you crit with a spell) for low levels if he hits bad.
Every 9th level caster that I have seen in lower levels depens to a degree on d20 rolls. Either for cantrips or for weapon attacks because his ressources got used up.
Sadly he doesnt have any DMG cantrips, like arcane 9th level caster.
So the only thing he can do is keep hitting with his crossbow/dagger and moving in a good position.
What could help are the total defense action (+4 AC) or fighting defensively (+2 AC and -4 to attack). If he doesnt hit either way, take the -4 to attack, move into a flanking position and give the fighter the +2 flanking bonus.
Or take the total defense and hope the enemies dont roll that well.
With a shild and a medium armor, he should have a decent AC and with total defense it should be hard to hit him.
10 + 6 (breatplate) +2 (shild) + 4 (total defense action) = 22 AC + Dex.
Should help him to stay alive until he gets more spells
Ju-Mo that is horrible advice and kind of insulting. Obviously, he is a 9th level caster but that does not mean anything. At 1st level most characters have few options. The shaman is at a disadvantage because at 1st level he has no other real class features besides spells and a frail familiar. Telling him to go hide in a corner is likely going to cause another near TPK. The OP already said they only have 3 players and did not mention what the other two are.
What he needs to do is to make sure he is memorizing appropriate spells. His Spirit Magic at this point only gives him Alter Winds which is pretty worthless for combat. So, what he needs to do is to carefully select his spells. The OP mentioned they were fighting skeletons. Shamans have Magic Stone on their spell list. Each casting of that will give him 3 stones that do 2d6+2 damage vs undead. He also has cure light wounds which when cast on undead do 1d8+1 damage. Entangle is also on the shaman spell list and could be used to pin down the skeletons and allow the party to pick them off with ranged weapons.
As far as offensive spells the shaman may not be an arcane caster but does have some offensive spells. Produce flame is a touch attack that does 1d6 +1 point per caster level (max of 5). Sleep is also on the shaman list. Sleep may not work on undead, but vs something else it is very good. It may only be effective at very low level, but that is what the party is at this point. When sleep is no longer effective burning hands becomes fairly decent for a while. Shamans can get the summon natures ally line of spells. Touch of blindness can blind a foe for one round and can be used for 1 round per level.
JamesWTGames wrote: Alright, I’m unsure _where_ to realistically begin on this. But in the group I’m playing in, we’re playing through Iron Gods (have nearly TPK'd twice ... okay, with 3 players you need powerful classes as the APs are designed for 4. So my advice is multiclass or rebuild now.
Shaman's okay. Wizard diviner or evoker is way better. If you're the only caster start wizard diviner now.
If you can rebuild, try my mage-killer build, or varisian priest 1 diviner wizard X build.
Another easy class is gunslinger pistolero.
To round that out get a Oracle 1 Paladin X.
A ranger with fvd enemy construct might be helpful.
If he has the lowest attack bonus but is attacking in melee anyway, you should really be trying to set up flanking for him. At level 3 he should be using his favored class bonus to add Divine Favor to his class list, but I'm guessing he didn't take Fate's Favored as a trait, unless you let him switch a trait or add a drawback (guessing he doesn't have a drawback), which you probably should if he is such an ineffectual combatant and you're only at level 2 so far. If possible he should also trade his racial orc ferocity for Sacred Tattoo when taking Fate's Favored. At level 3 he can also cast Barkskin to improve his AC.
Right now he can cast Bless to give the party a small bonus to attack. If his spell DCs are good he could also cast Sleep or Entangle where applicable.
If you just set up flanking and he casts Bless, you should both be attacking with a +3 attack bonus that you normally don't have. He can also gain a +2 attack bonus by charging, but this will lower his AC by 2.
As for his armor class, I wonder what armor he is using. I assume he has 12 or 14 dexterity, so he should really be using a chainmail armor which would give him 17 or 18 AC, and probably upgrade to a Heavy Armor Proficiency soon (you might as well let him exchange his level 1 feat to Heavy Armor Proficiency tbh) so he can have 20 AC (22+ with Barkskin). If he is using a light armor without a high dex score, it's only natural his AC will be bad, but he really doesn't need to do that. In fact, he probably needs heavy armor.
He could also just transition to a buckler and morningstar instead. If he holds the morningstar in the same arm that has the buckler (or light shield), he can cast without losing his AC bonus. Later on, that will do him more good once he starts casting Magic Vestment on his shield and armor, but right now he'd be trading a fair bit of damage for just 1 AC.
Hopefully that helps.
Mysterious Stranger wrote: Telling him to go hide in a corner is likely going to cause another near TPK. The OP already said they only have 3 players and did not mention what the other two are. I agree with this sentiment. But also let me alleviate the question as to what me and the other PC are playing. The other PC is playing an Android BB Magus who is managing to pull her weight relatively well.
I'm playing a Ratfolk Gun Chemist Alchemist who has essentially been the party MVP when not being accidentally sabotaged. IE one combat against oozes the Magus cast Color Spray which oozes are _immune_ to mind you, and I was the only person who failed the save thus was knocked out for the combat. Ironically, YES the ranged PC not only has the highest base AC in the party, but the highest potential AC (even at lv1 I can get up to 26 AC).
Mysterious Stranger wrote: What he needs to do is to make sure he is memorizing appropriate spells. The OP mentioned they were fighting skeletons. Shamans have Magic Stone on their spell list. Each casting of that will give him 3 stones that do 2d6+2 damage vs undead. Entangle is also on the shaman spell list and could be used to pin down the skeletons and allow the party to pick them off with ranged weapons. Both of these are actually really good suggestions. The rest I have omitted since he has kind of _only_ been prepping CLW due to how this AP has been so far. And he's never been given the chance to use it all things considered.
Mysterious Stranger wrote: As far as offensive spells the shaman may not be an arcane caster but does have some offensive spells. Sleep is also on the shaman list. Sleep may not work on undead, but vs something else it is very good. It may only be effective at very low level, but that is what the party is at this point. When sleep is no longer effective burning hands becomes fairly decent for a while. Shamans can get the summon natures ally line of spells. Touch of blindness can blind a foe for one round and can be used for 1 round per level.
Honestly these don't really help. This is mainly because this is Iron Gods. Over half of the encounters so far have been Constructs or Undead both of which are immune to Fort save spells. Iron Gods as a module is based around Numeria and the Technic League so there are LOADS of construct enemies within it.
Also I do get what you mean about versatility but for me it was more the following questions:
What can a Shaman do to stand out BEFORE wandering hex is available?
What can a Shaman do in that state of play that a different full caster at the same level cannot do as good if not better?
Primarily what can a Shaman do with his hexes that a Witch could not do in a similar fashion outside of like Heaven/Life/Lore Spirit at low levels?
To give one example Shamans do not get Mage Armor or Shield on their list. However a Witch gets both Mage Armor & CLW (only arcane full caster to get CLW btw). Likewise as-written a Shaman can only swipe 1 hex off the witch list that doesn't overlap. That and Witches get their hexes at odd levels and Shamans at even which is a little bit worse.
Part of the reason I want to keep this a low level discussion is that at 6th a Witch can take Spirit Talker which sure can only be used 1 hr/day but that's still quite synergistic already.
He shouldn't be prepping CLW at all. That's what wands are for. Your party should be pooling their wealth for that. And honestly, the Magus ought to be the one healing the party, by using a wand of Infernal Healing because that spell heals you 10 hp per casting and doesn't affect alignment.
The Shaman doesn't need Mage Armor. Strictly speaking his Wind spirit has a hex that works as a very superior substitute for Mage Armor (Air Barrier), but that's only useful if you are playing a character with a high dexterity score. Otherwise the Shaman should really be using actual armor and buffing it with Magic Vestment. If he is going into combat unarmored, that is horrible. Honestly, I'd say his Wind spirit just wasn't a good pick. Also, since you clearly have two vastly more capable martials, the Shaman should likely just retreat from combat later on, give up on anything resembling an attack roll, and just use tower shields and heavy armor without proficiency, penalties be damned, while doing support with spells and hexes. He should really just turn into the party's primary spellcaster later on, by using Wandering Spirit with Arcane Enlightenment to double as a wizard who can reselect his spells while also using his favored class bonus to obtain Cleric spells. The Shaman's main prize, really, is being basically a Cleric, Wizard, and Witch in a single class that gets shields and armor and also some good Druid spells (like Wall of Thorns).
At the early levels the Shaman is mostly reliant on his spells, spirit ability, and hexes. But a bad spirit selection has undermined his spirit magic, hex selection, and spirit ability, and I'm wondering if his wis score is below 18 because that would be a problem for his spellcasting alright.
Also, if you are fighting against undead he should probably be using Chill Touch.
Tom Sampson wrote: He shouldn't be prepping CLW at all. That's what wands are for. Your party should be pooling their wealth for that. And honestly, the Magus ought to be the one healing the party, by using a wand of Infernal Healing because that spell heals you 10 hp per casting and doesn't affect alignment. Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't Infernal Healing alignment restricted due to the [evil] descriptor? Or do wands disregard alignment requirements? Our Magus isn't evil aligned, I'm pretty sure she's either LG or NG.
That and our party until the last section of loot (after the first near tpk) haven't even had enough collateral to even pool for a wand of CLW. That and the Magus I've been letting take the party lead who has been super gung ho about clearing the dungeon of module 1 since one of the APs traits gives you 'local ties' which in her case Khonnir Baine (the NPC that went missing that's one of the focal plot points for module 1 of Iron Gods) is her adopted father. I am getting close to the point where I am wanting to start taking charge cause her single mindedness has had us take far too many risks at times whilst moving at a snails pace.
Tom Sampson wrote: The Shaman doesn't need Mage Armor. Strictly speaking his Wind spirit has a hex that works as a very superior substitute for Mage Armor (Air Barrier), but that's only useful if you are playing a character with a high dexterity score. Otherwise the Shaman should really be using actual armor and buffing it with Magic Vestment. Honestly, I'd say his Wind spirit just wasn't a good pick. Also, since you clearly have two vastly more capable martials, the Shaman should likely just retreat from combat later on, give up on anything resembling an attack roll, and just use tower shields and heavy armor without proficiency. The Shaman's main prize, really, is being basically a Cleric, Wizard, and Witch in a single class that gets shields and armor and also some good Druid spells (like Wall of Thorns). Oh boy where do I start on this section. The guy is so MAD that I'm unsure if he could even move in heavy armor. I'm pretty sure IF he even has a stat over 14 it most likely is his wisdom. He's said once or twice if he was unarmored he would be at like 11 or 12 AC, he's wearing I want to say Hide raising it to 15 or 16?
That and I'd hardly call myself a martial. I have a -1 to hit in melee but a +6 to hit for ranged (+8 with my mutagen active). I just have precise shot so no penalty for firing into melee; we're using EitR so Precise shot & Point-blank are swapped prerequisite wise. Bear in mind I only have a haramaki because of the light weight, no dex limit, and I dumped Strength (and Cha) as a primary stat. My Int and Dex are both 18, Con 14, then made Wis as high as I could make it with our given point buy.
Tom Sampson wrote: At the early levels the Shaman is mostly reliant on his spells, spirit ability, and hexes. But a bad spirit selection has undermined his spirit magic, hex selection, and spirit ability, and I'm wondering if his wis score is below 18 because that would be a problem for his spellcasting alright. Again don't think his Wis is an 18. We can't see each other's sheets in game btw. He's honestly wanting to take Air Barrier so he can unequip his armor and free up 25 lbs of encumbrance. Which honestly sounds like a completely pointless idea imho. Then again he has systematically forgotten to bring his spirit animal into the dungeon each time (probably because if it dies his PC is essentially unusable for the foreseeable future due to its cost if it dies). Pretty sure he chose a hawk as the spirit familiar btw.
Alignment restrictions only apply to Clerics and similar spellcasters with class features prohibiting them from casting spells from another alignment. Anyone else can cast spells of any alignment.
As for heavy armor, encumbrance penalties do not stack with armor penalties. You only apply the worse of the two. So if he is using full plate, then there is no difference between his armor's penalties and the heavy encumbrance penalty, which effectively raises his carrying capacity a lot, which is why he should just use full plate before long. Right now he can easily wear chainmail which also has worse penalties than the moderate encumbrance penalties, meaning there is no price to being moderately encumbered. He can also use a masterwork backpack to raise his carrying capacity as though his str were 1 higher. If he just reached level 2 I am afraid he really did take Air Barrier, which would be horrible.
Also, it appears your shaman has severely bungled his build. I guess he should avoid anything involving saving throw DCs and just buff the party with spells and disrupt enemies with anything that doesn't have a saving throw (Sleet Storm, Wall of Thorns, any wall spells he gets from spirits). I guess your Shaman should get in the habit of casting Summon Nature's Ally spells and using the Augment Summoning and Superior Summoning feats, as that would be a valuable contribution to the party's fighting potential that shouldn't be hampered by his build (but then he can't afford to spend a feat on Heavy Armor Proficiency, but if he gives up on making attack rolls he can just equip full plate and a tower shield without caring about the nonproficiency penalties). If he doesn't summon though he will need to be very good with spells and hexes to be a strong contributor to the party and it's going to be an uphill climb for him since he doesn't have the best spells for that out of the box (except Wall of Thorns, but that spell arrives late) and I suspect he's not going to be able to use Arcane Enlightenment all that well either. All in all, I would very much recommend a rebuild before this gets worse.
You, on the other hand, are playing a character that with a Fast Ordnance discovery turns into one of the most powerful gunslingers possible if you just use two-weapon fighting and Rapid Shot. And the Magus is a Magus. Even a well-built Shaman would need to put in proper effort and investment to avoid feeling useless next to classes like yours in damage dealing and his is clearly not up to the job, so if he is going to continue with this, he should really just transition to playing like a summoner (but that only starts to seriously pay off around level 7) and also cast buff spells and anything else that disrupts enemies without saving throw DCs.
I'm not going to quote your prior post this time Sampson, don't have the time for it. But I first off didn't know alignment restrictions only really applied to divine casters for the most part. I appreciate the knowledge.
I was more referring to the weight of heavy armor and whatever his current Strength is. For some reason I thought if your load weight was above a certain ratio that you straight up couldn't move. May be confusing that for one of the 20 other TTRPGs I've played.
And believe my I get he bungled the build. Then again there's very few topics about building a high tier shaman, and most of its archetypes don't give them good niches for what they are trading off. I'll try relaying this to him, see if he'll listen, but he may try to make good characters but once they are made he feels a bit set in his ways about how he envisions them. So here's hoping.
Also I more than get that, Fast Ordnance was already on my radar. However we are in Iron Gods, and remember unless I get something that gives my AO AOE that it only effects 1 target at a time. So I'm not looking at TWF, instead I'm looking at making a Heavy Weapon Harness and making a small X-laser hopefully by lv8-10 ish which the GM has already stated tech weapons CAN use my AO on firing. Which I have to double check but I think that means my AO would hit every enemy in the line of fire.
I think part of the problem is that at 1st level most characters do not have a lot of options. Low level is about the only time where martial classes have the advantage. At 1st level stats are actually more important than class. A 1st level elven wizard with an 18 STR will actually do better with a longsword than a fighter with a 13 STR, power attack and weapon focus longsword. The wizard will be +4 to hit and +6 to damage when using the longsword two handed. The fighter will be +2 to hit and +4 to damage. When they hit 4th level the wizard is +6 to hit +6 to damage vs the fighter at +4 to hit and +9 to damage. At 5th level the fighter should be at +6 to hit and +10 to damage. 6th level gives the fighter his second attack and is now +7/+2 to hit and +10 to damage.
I realize that an elf wizard is highly unlikely to have an 18 STR and that the fighter will have a much higher STR than 13. This means that the fighter actually has a big advantage at lower level. If the fighter has an 18 STR he has a +5 to hit and +9 to damage, and by 6th level will be +10/+5 doing +15 for damage. But at that point the wizard has 3rd level spells and can be casting 2 6d6 fire balls.
Wands are usually not available to starting characters. Before the party can even think of purchasing a wand of any sort, they need to survive enough encounters to be able to afford one. Even at 2nd level that is going to take 19% of the WBL of the entire party of 4. That is of course assuming one if available for purchase. I am not saying that should not be a priority, but assuming they have access to a wand at this point is a mistake. The low amount of starting gold also explains why the characters don’t have better armor. Now that they are second level this should alleviate some of these issues if they get a chance to equip.
Wind Spirit does is not really that good of a choice for spirit. It gives some electrical attacks, but most of the spells it grants are not that good in combat. A better choice would have been stone. The first two spells the spirt grants are Magic Stone and Stone Call, both of which will be useful in combat. Memorizing Cure Light Wounds is not necessarily a mistake when facing undead. But they should have been use offensively in the encounter and then any left over at the end of the day can be used to heal. But Magic Stone would be a better choice.
As to his stats he should be prioritizing WIS, DEX, CON, and CHA that order. His INT should probably be 10 his STR should be between 8 – 12, depending on the points buy. DEX is important for AC Reflex saves and initiative. As a full spell caster initiative is important.
Sounds like a rework might be in order, but staying a shaman should be fine.
I think you are trying some gentle persuasion but be ready for another TPK or three.
Pretty much all PCs are 'equally incompetent' at first and second level compared to what people experience at seventh level or so. Strategy and tactics can play a big part in survival and this seems to be an issue along with 3 out of 4 PCs.
Develop 3 attack plans (head on, formation, stealth) and a withdrawl plan (A, F, S, W). Then when someone hits 50% HPs have them say "half!" or 6 "one!"(for 1 hit left). That lets you know how things are going without metagaming(too much).
People should buy a war trained advanced horse mount for low level combats. The horse is 326gp with gear and has better HPs and ability scores than most 1-2 lvl PCs. 300gp is way less than a raise dead. Yes - it's outdoorsy and shamans are best outdoors. The mounts naturally avoid undead.
Examine the shaman like a fighter (ranged, thrown, reach, melee). If his dex is good consider weapon finesse or longbow proficiency. If his str is good then thrown/reach/2hnd weapons are good options along with weapon focus. For weapons Choose two among simple (good choices; heavy crossbow, morningstar, spear, longspear). Obsidian daggers, a cestus, two tonfas are options.
spells to choose:
0: det magic, danc lghts, stabilize, then maybe create water, mend, purify fd&drnk.
1: entangle, magic stone, bless, obsc mist, prot Evil, maybe hgtnd awareness.
Personally I think he should rebuild given the AP.
There are two problems that I see. The first and most significant is the party short a character, the second is that it looks like the shaman and possibly the other characters are not built well.
If they cannot find a 4th player the GM should make some compensation for that. If I was GM, my solution would be to start the party at 2nd level instead of 1st. Give them their full WBL for starting equipment. This will allow them to purchase a wand of cure light wounds for healing and afford better armor. Also increase the point buy to at least 25. This will allow the characters to have better DEX and CON without having to dump other stats. The extra HP and AC will go a long way to helping the party survive. Since the party is splitting the XP 3 ways instead of 4, they will end up higher level anyways. This just recognizes it early.
Rebuilding the shaman will also be useful. Considering how much undead is in the AP a life spirit would be much better. This will give the shaman channel energy which can be used to heal, or harm undead. Life Spirit has some very useful spell in an undead heavy campaign for its spirit magic. Restoration and Breath of Life will be extremely useful in this campaign, especially with the party being short a character. For his hex Misfortune seems to be the best choice. Since it does not appear to be a mind affecting effect it should work on undead and constructs. The hex Chant can be picked up later to extend the duration as a move action. With a 25 point buy the shaman should be able to afford a 10 STR, 14 DEX, 14 CON, 10 INT, 18 WIS (assuming a +2 racial bonus), and a 14 CHA. That will give him 3 channel energy per day and an AC of around 16-18.
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