The Shaman Is it real?

[Delanas]

Hello, i was looking up different types of shamans in 3.5 and found this -

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Shaman_(3.5e_Class)#The_Shaman

Now I was thinking about playing a spirit shaman, but after finding this class I would prefer to play this. What i'd like to know is what book is this in and if its not in a book its a homebrew class? does it seem ok as a homebrew class?

[Varil]

That class is homebrew, but there is a "Shaman" class in Oriental Adventures. I think they get an unarmed progression even, at least with the errata.

[Morph Bark]

That class is Homebrew, as is anything on that site not marked with SRD in the URL. Most of it is bad Homebrew though.

The animal spirit guide is twice as powerful as it should be at level 1. The spirit guide companion advances so quickly that it is prettymuch just as strong as a druid's animal companion. The Constitution requirement for spellcasting can be nasty with low point buy, but otherwise will be a non-issue, especially at higher levels. They can probably easily wear full plate without much penalty, especially if their animal spirit guide offsets the penalty for the skill they're most likely to use. Learning new spells will be problematic in-game most of the time though.

The Shaman from Oriental Adventures gets Improved Unarmed Strike, and Animal Companion, Turn Undead and spellcasting that is a bit of a mix between Cleric and Druid.

[eggs]

Looking at the link, I really like that class, but it looks like its spell-learning mechanism could be really obnoxious to time-dependent campaigns (to fill all 60 inches with the spells known of an 18th level Bard, a Shaman with 14 base Con will need to spend 215 days of in-game time), and its staff mechanism looks like it would be fun-killing in long-running campaigns (with 84ish spell levels known ever, every Shaman is going to have to suffer an opportunity cost of high-level spells known on every low-level selection; this cost isn't overly limiting on its own, but situations where taking an immediate benefit forgoes a later, better, reward are major buzzkills).

I'd love to give the class a shot, but not without tweaking the spell-learning mechanism to be more campaign-friendly and modifying the staff mechanic to avoid the build-for-now/build-for-later dichotomy (even if the modification is more restrictive in an objective numeric sense).

Nova-narcolepsy style play with the free metamagic might also be a problem, but with the severe limits on the number of metamagic levels/day and the cap at 6th level spells, I wouldn't be particularly worried.

EDIT:
Also, with that spell progression, Greater Dispel should probably be level 5, but that's nitpicky.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Friends don't let friends do dandwiki.

The d20srd.org website has all the legitimate online material you need, other than a few articles on the WotC website itself.

[Jergmo]

There are plenty of shaman classes. Apart from the one listed above, there's also Dragon Shaman (PHBII) and Spirit Shaman (Complete Divine).

[Ravens_cry]

Like even the better Dandi Wiki stuff, while it has some interesting ideas, it suffers from the author throwing it all into one class.
Except metamagic reduction, that is almost always cheese to me, especially if you can get spells below zero adjusted cost.

[Flickerdart]

Friends don't let friends do dandwiki.

The d20srd.org website has all the legitimate online material you need, other than a few articles on the WotC website itself.
If by a few you mean tons (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1109.0).

[eggs]

Bashing on dandiwiki is silly. Plenty of crummy homebrew goes up on these boards without turning into something worth using (I'm still trying to dig up some things like a Psion/Warblade PrC that I posted under some name back when ToB was new, shiny and unsupported, only to watch fall, uncommented, into the archival depths). Judge the content, not the specific site where somebody tacked it up.

In this case, the content is basically a Druid with Bard casting advancement (give or take a few nerfs, boosts and spell swaps). The class itself is pretty interesting - especially the free metamagic ability. I'm still trying to see how it might be gamebreakingly abused with the Shaman's spell list, but I'm really drawing a blank (unless we drag Dragonlance's Irresistible Spell in, but that feat is just ridiculous).

The things I'm seeing that might warrant discussion regarding fixes:
-Spell learning time; If this were shortened to 1 spell level learned/hour, or a number of spell levels equal to the Shaman's class level learned/day, it wouldn't obstruct the narrative as much as the Shaman disappearing into a sweat lodge for the better part of a year during the campaign.
-Spells learned now costing spells learned later. The easy way would be allowing a Shaman to use more than one staff for spells known (this could also open the door for nice treasure for the party, crafty exposition by the DM, or provide a means for a Shaman to recover from a broken or stolen staff).
-Frontloaded totem skill bonuses. These are in line with the Incarnate or Totemist, and can't be moved altered. I doubt they'd break anything, but ascetically, they are a huge front-loaded boost, which might rub someone wrong. The easy solution would be forgoing half of the bonus until Shaman 6 (for Boar, that could mean giving Diehard at level 1 and either Endurance at level 6, or dropping the Death-threshold to -20).
-Free metamagic levels per day. The spell list doesn't have a whole lot that would make the big obvious feats powerful, like Persist or Twin. Quicken is obviously useful, but that basically makes this <2/3 of a Normal Rod of Quicken at level 20 (less than, because it still requires the feat), which isn't something I'm worried about. I'd probably use it for Rapid and Sculpt; neither of which is gamebreaking. Earth Spell might be a problem, so it could need a Heighten ban.
-The Incorporeal Animal companion is strange and somewhat poorly constructed with the AC mechanics. I almost want to just make it an at-will permanent but dismissible ability, let the animal keep its crummy Charisma without modification and turn the creature's Natural Armor into a deflection bonus. As it is, it's clumsy and it makes the AC progression chart confusing.
-The Con limits on spells are fluffy, but they just sound annoying to implement if anyone ever played a low Con Shaman for some reason.

But otherwise, I'm seeing a high-Tier 3 Druid with tinges of necromancy - an interesting concept with an overall decent implementation. I'd allow one in my games.

[Myth]

If you're going to use the Book of Bad Homebrew and you are willing to play a class without a familiar (which is a huge sacrifice in power), you might as well take Lightning Warrior else you gimp your party too much.