Spirit Shaman casting: how strong?

[Renchard]

Theoretical question: If you took sorcerer, and made a variant that had spirit shaman style casting, would you rate that variant class as more or less powerful than a sorcerer? How about a wizard?

[Kantolin]

Spirit shamans seem to get the best from both worlds.

They're 'prepared' casters in that in the morning they pick which spells they'd like today, and then they're 'spontaneous' casters in that they can cast the spells they've prepared in any quantity while they have spells of that slot remaining.

Thus I'd put their casting style as superior to a sorceror or wizard's, but not as good as a warmage's (Who's almost certainly superior to both).

This is entirely 'casting style wise', mind you. :P

Edit: Ah, I just realized that I didn't answer your question specifically.

Summarily, a sorceror who casts like a spirit shaman with the sorceror spell list would almost certainly be superior to a wizard.

[Amphetryon]

The ability to swap out spells known every day would fundamentally remove the only thing keeping Sorcerers from Tier 1 power: lack of flexibility.

It would be a legitimate boost in power.

[imperialspectre]

It would be a tremendous boost in power. Wizards would still be better because of their Int-based casting (a big deal, since Charisma is a useless stat unless you have class features based off of it), superior skill list, and faster spell level acquisition.

[Gametime]

Thus I'd put their casting style as superior to a sorceror or wizard's, but not as good as a warmage's (Who's almost certainly superior to both).



I'm going to assume you mean because the warmage automatically learns all the spells on his list as soon as he becomes able to cast them, and can cast any of them spontaneously.

Yeah, Spirit Shamans do get a pretty nifty spellcasting method. I don't think they're as good as druids, clerics, or wizards, though - all of them can choose from (basically) the entire spell list when preparing spells for the day. Spirit Shamans don't get to select enough spells for the day to have the same level of versatility; they have better on-the-fly responses, but a prepared caster with good insight (or Divination) can usually prepare a suitable list anyway.

[Optimystik]

I like the Erudite's version of spontaneous vs. prepared. You can learn unlimited powers, have your whole list available at all times, but as you use them they get locked in and you end up with less versatility as the adventuring day progresses. So you're still "preparing" spells, you just have the flexibility of doing so on the fly.

I think 11 UPD at level 20 is too few though (to use the saner reading) - I would let them have up to 21, from the Ardent's PK table.