Spirit Shaman/Wilder help

[Overlord Rion]

Right, to the point

I'm trying to make a Goliath Spirit Shaman/Wilder, coming in at level 8. Anybody got any ideas?

[silverwolfer]

why do you want to merge the two

[Psyren]

Are you gestalting them, or multiclassing?

If the latter, do you know about the Psychic Theurge (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040925b) PrC?

[Overlord Rion]

I want to combine the two because...well, I want to. I'm just looking for something interesting.

And I'm multiclassing them, so I did know about the Psychic Theurge, but I'm also looking for general advice on feats and such. Unfortunately, BG seems to be having some sort of issue so I can't look up a lot of info there.

[Psyren]

Okay. My standard psitheurgic advice:

1) Pick a side to focus on. You're either a Spirit Shaman with some psionic talent, or a Wilder that dabbles in spiritcalling. I recommend the former - magic is not only overall more powerful than psionics, psionics is better in a support role than magic would be. So when Psychic Theurge is done, switch back to being a Shaman, or better yet go into a Divine PrC like Contemplative.

2) Another reason to focus on SS is that PT has no class features, so you'll lose a lot of Wilder's good features anyway (primarily, wild surge.)

3) Focus your psionic side on buffs - especially action-economy related powers like Hustle, Schism, Synchronicity, and Temporal Acceleration if you can swing it. Use Hidden Talent and Expanded Knowledge to get the ones the Wilder doesn't have native access to. This is slightly harder than it is with a regular psion since Wilders don't have access to discipline lists, so you may only be able to get a couple of these. You can also lean a bit more towards direct damage or debuffing on the psionic side (at least initially)

4) You're likely to have a strong Cha focus with this theurge, so powers (and spells) with saves won't be as detrimental. Don't neglect Wis either so you can access your higher-level SS spells, and get a decent number of bonus slots.

5) The basic psion/wilder list has some helpful powers that aren't too manifester-level dependent. Entangling Ectoplasm is a great one to start with, and you can back it up with summons from your SS side. Vigor is also useful no matter what your final ML ends up being.