Homebrew Dragon Shaman

[eggynack]

A player in a game I'm in has expressed an interest in changing his class from the standard phb II dragon shaman to this (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dragon_Shaman_(3.5e_Class)) significantly more powerful homebrewed dragon shaman. I'm pretty convinced that the class is too powerful, or at least that there are going to be some rules issues, and I'd like the playground's judgement on it. The party ranges from levels 7-9 with the shaman being level 9, and the tier rankings are also on a wide range from a barbarian and a rogue to a druid and a wizard.

[Rickshaw]

I have a player playing a dragon shaman in a group of gunslinger, witch, and artificer, and she is already falling behind. after looking at this, it looks like a lot of things need work, but it IS a workable homebrew. I'm probably gonna show my player and ask if she wants to try this thing instead.

just looking it over, here's what I'm probably gonna change:
(1) keep the original damage progression on the breath weapon. this isnt a dragon fire adept homebrew.
(2) the knowledge rerolls need to have a per day use, just like every other reroll ability
(3) you might want to make the cantrips per day also, unless you are useing the pathfinder rules on cantrips
(4) soul ablaze is clearly 1/2 damage of breath weapon, so adjust to fit the original progression
(5)the curse should be 1/day if not 1/week.
(6)personally I'm going to get rid of the consume espers ability completely. doesnt fit the fluff of the class to me. also, not super usefull.
(7)frightful presence should be HD based, just like the original dragon ability
(8)the new breath weapon abilities at lvl 10 are cool, but might be overpowered. again, this isnt a dragonfire adept homebrew.

so yeah, thats all stuff that I see in the first ten levels. I'm probably gonna use this class though, since the original dragon shaman is like, tier 98 or something.

[eggynack]

The original shaman is pretty meh, hence the change. There's a lot of weird stuff in this class, like the super shapechange ability at 18th, and the inexplicably all good saves. He's already written up the sheet, so we're going to test it for at least one session. I'm hoping to push him towards something a bit less awkward with respect to the rules, but it's a tricky proposition at the moment.

[Dragodar]

I know this thread is from a long time ago, and I hope the moderators don't get pissed at me for this, but considering how DnD is a game that can last several years per campaign, i figured i would post this version (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=324417) of the Dragon Shaman which i homebrewed for 3.5.

You can take my word as a fellow GM, this isnt overpowered. Whereas the vanilla Dragon shaman was somewhere around a Tier 4 Class, my version is a Tier 2 at best, but closer to a Tier 3. The version on DnD-Wiki is like a Tier 0. Ridiculously powerful. When i first read it, i thought it had to be for a different system, but apparently it's actually 3.5.

My Dragon Shaman 2.0 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=324417) is a nice average. It isn't nearly as boring or weak as the vanilla dragon shaman, but it isn't even close to as overpowered as the version you posted. Try it out, or at least give it a look!

Good luck with my version, and have fun! :)

[Phelix-Mu]

I don't think there is a restriction on linking your own homebrew, so fear not the moderators. I don't even think normal necromancy applies if the OP of a homebrew thread is posting new materials or announcing a significant update of earlier posts. Might be time for me to reread that part of the posting rules.

Anyway, my tweaks to Dragon Shaman, maybe useful for scaling things back, if that proves necessary.

1.) Touch of Vitality hits at 3rd (or maybe even 2nd if you are trying to fill dead levels). Formula for total points per day is [(2 x HD) x (Con Mod + Cha Mod)]. Remove conditions hits at 6th (behind spellcasters, but early enough to prove useful, based on the modularity of the abilty). I also added some usefulness, I think, but hard to paraphrase concisely. Simple stuff like temp hp or things like that (maybe carrier effects like Imbued Healing).

2.) Bonus Law, Chaos, Good, Evil Devotion domain feats at regular intervals, based on the alignment of the dragon totem. I think it was once per 4 levels, starting at whatever level are dead; I was aiming toward Good/Evil at 1st, then Law/Chaos at 3rd...but it seems I never finished this little project). Add in the elemental domain feats if you like this theme, and maybe even a dedicated pool for activating them instead of repeat instances of the feat (to avoid Dark Chaos silliness).

3.) Chromatic dragons get the hexblade's hex ability (with the unoffiicial official improvements). Metallic dragons can select aura from the marshall's lists as well, and get Double Draconic Aura (Dragon Magic) as a bonus feat somewhere around 10th.

4.) Primal X series of spells from Dragon Magic, all Ex activated by 10 minutes of meditation once a day. Implement each spell in the series at the fairly dead odd levels, starting at 3rd or 5th, to taste.

I think that was it. The class still lacks much offensive oomph, but that was never really its thing. My aim was to increase Buff/Debuff usefulness alongside the existing battlefield control implemented by the breath weapon.

The only other thing worth considering is upping the breath weapon usefulness, maybe with bonus Metabreath feats. The area is good, the damage is terrible (but we get toward DFA territory if we buff it too much), the levels it hits at aren't great...maybe a small damage buff, like Xd6 + Cha Mod. Hmm.

Well, anyway, the main weakness of the class is a lack of focus in its abilities. I tried to fix that without rebuilding it from the bottom up.