Dragon Shamon

[Grayson01]

Okay I have looked at a lot of thred on here about best and wore class and I never hear anyone mention my second all time favoprite base class. The Dragon Shamon, I was wondering if my love of teh class is purley solo or if others have made great Dragon Shamons and enjoy the class. If you have made a DS let me know what kinda build it was and whatteh chartacter theam was. My first one was a Dragon who usled to loved the taste of Dwarves and pissed off Bahomit so her truned him into A dwarf as punishment.

[Glimbur]

The problem with the Dragon Shaman is he doesn't get a lot of abilities that are useful in combat.

Auras are passive. Kind of nice, but what do you do on your turn?

Breath weapon is pretty anemic.

And... that's it. Longspear? UMD? Whatever you do doesn't feel very dragon-y.

Look at the Dragonfire Adept in Dragon Magic. It's a better example of a character with dragon powers.

That's my opinion, anyway.

[Fyermind]

Dragon shamans make pretty decent one man parties. They can do everything but sneak. The problem is they do none of it well. The balancing factor between a dragon shaman and a dragonfire adept is basically the dragon shamans qualify for metabreath feats. Since there are so many ways for DFAs to qualify, and their breath weapons are more versatile and powerful, they get more love.

Nothing a dragon shaman gets makes me think "WOW I'm glad I picked this class. I got X before I could have in Y class that grants it."

[Chronos]

And if you really wanted to, your Dragonfire Adept could just take a feat to get one (or more) of the Dragon Shaman's auras. It'd even scale with level, because DFAs are all dragonblooded. In fact, it'll actually scale better than the DS's aura, since it'll continue to scale if you multiclass.

[Kane0]

Why yes, I do like me some Dragon Shaman (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15159964). Especially the auras, for me it makes the class a great alternative to a bard when it comes to party composition.

[Urpriest]

Without homebrew, Dragon Shamans don't get...much of anything, so I don't see their appeal.

With homebrew, they still don't have a meaningful thematic niche or a reason to be a class, so I still don't see their appeal.

[Grayson01]

The Dragon Shamon gets tons. I will say that the Auras are passive but extreamly helpful in and out of battle. Many a time the Energy Aura has dealt the majority of damage in battle or turned the tide for my parties. And the Vigor hey battles over evey body heals to half hit max hit points save the cleric from casting to many of his cute spells, plus they get lay on hands. And in battle what to do on your turn, well go right you hav high con and a D10. I agree the weapon selection is subpar however a long spear or a morning star is decent weapon choice and it's the same selection as most clerics. Worse comes to worse you can burn a feat on Great Spear. The there are only two really good adaptations I agree those are lacking but having spider climb for free always is an awesome class feature exspc at level 3. Oh and as for them doing everything but sneaking if your a Green, Black, or a White dragon Shamon you get hide and move silently as class skills and you get skill focuse in both so they can sneak too. So I do appreciate you opinions and respect them all. I would like to know more about the class you told me about and what book it is in. And I recommend trying out a DS one day in one of your games or as a Boss for a game you DM to give them a try.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The Dragonfire Adept is in Dragon Magic.

[Fouredged Sword]

Thinking about the class it would be cool to do a incarnum rebuild with a splash of arcane casting.

Lets say
- Access to Binds per the totemist class, including the totem bind
- Can shape/bind 1 soul meld at 1st level, and one extra every 5th level (5,10,15,20)
- Access to all the draconic soul melds.

Then give bard spell progression from the sorcerer spell list.

Keep the auras (iconic to the class), the breath weapon, the totem dragon stuff.

Basically you are a dragon in combat. You use your breath weapon and then tear up things in melee with natural weapons, and you have some arcane casting on the side.

Then give the character a draconic form that they can start to take at 5th level, for Con+level rounds per day. It turns them into an actual dragon (starting as large, going to huge at 15th level) with bonuses to strength, con, nat AC, flight, natural weapons (acts like all draconic soul melds bound to totem all at once), and the frightful aura.

It would be a cool base class with LOTS of draconic feel

[Chronos]

So you're saying that all that's needed to make it worthwhile is to keep everything it already has, and add the full class features of another class, plus the major class feature of yet another?

[WhatBigTeeth]

Shaman. Two a's.

The class is cute, but it sucks pretty hard. On the blasting and SLA front, it's like a Warlock or DFA, but worse (fewer SLAs, less frequent blasting, fewer ways to augment the blasts to be useful); in melee, it makes the Samurai look like a power player (full BA, weapon proficiencies and a couple useful abilities like Improved Initiative versus 3/4 and a complete lack of melee abilities); in healing, nobody cares, because wands of lesser vigor are dirt cheap.

[Fouredged Sword]

Yes, add class features! The above class would be tier 3, maybe pushing 2 with op. The dragon shaman needs some lovin to make it in the cruel, cruel world of 3.5.

[Phelix-Mu]

Yes, add class features! The above class would be tier 3, maybe pushing 2 with op. The dragon shaman needs some lovin to make it in the cruel, cruel world of 3.5.

I'm thinkin' I want me a bumper sticker of this. "The cruel, cruel world of 3.5." Or maybe a t-shirt.:smallwink:

[Callin]

So is this the class Michael Jackson plays??

I agree with the suggestions so far.

[Zombulian]

So is this the class Michael Jackson plays??

I agree with the suggestions so far.

I assume so. Or just some Great Wyrm who dubbed himself King of Pop.

[Urpriest]

The Dragon Shamon gets tons. I will say that the Auras are passive but extreamly helpful in and out of battle. Many a time the Energy Aura has dealt the majority of damage in battle or turned the tide for my parties. And the Vigor hey battles over evey body heals to half hit max hit points save the cleric from casting to many of his cute spells, plus they get lay on hands. And in battle what to do on your turn, well go right you hav high con and a D10. I agree the weapon selection is subpar however a long spear or a morning star is decent weapon choice and it's the same selection as most clerics. Worse comes to worse you can burn a feat on Great Spear. The there are only two really good adaptations I agree those are lacking but having spider climb for free always is an awesome class feature exspc at level 3. Oh and as for them doing everything but sneaking if your a Green, Black, or a White dragon Shamon you get hide and move silently as class skills and you get skill focuse in both so they can sneak too. So I do appreciate you opinions and respect them all. I would like to know more about the class you told me about and what book it is in. And I recommend trying out a DS one day in one of your games or as a Boss for a game you DM to give them a try.

The auras may not all be accessible via feats, but they're definitely only about a feat worth of benefit. "Everyone heals up to half between combats", for example, is a Reserve feat. Energy shield at least is cute, but it scales pretty slowly, and since you've only got one at a time there are combats where literally all you do most rounds is deal 6 energy damage per enemy attack, when said attacks are almost certainly doing more.

Hit dice and Con aren't justification to go into melee, they just allow you to survive doing so when you've run out of other things to do. You don't have class features to make you deal more damage or to do anything when you hit opponents in melee, so there is no reason for you to engage in melee except lack of ability to do anything else.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Yes, add class features! The above class would be tier 3, maybe pushing 2 with op. The dragon shaman needs some lovin to make it in the cruel, cruel world of 3.5.

I completely agree (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=282016).