Tell me about the shaman.

[Elric VIII]

This class looks rather interesting, but I did not find any readily available guides to it. At a cursory glance, its spell list looks a lot like a druid's and its abilities look sort of like 3.5's spirit shaman (which was basically a spontaneous druid). They doo look like they have lots of interesting abilities, but so does the monk, and we all know how good he is. The thing that stand out to me the most is the spirit magic class feature. It's like having a domain of spontaneous spells. This seems cool.

So, to those of you that have experience with the shaman, what can you tell me about them? What roles do they fill, how useful are their abilities? Are there any real gems on their spell list?

[Psyren]

Their list is like plain bread - it gets the job done, but it's pretty eh. There isn't much in the way of summoning or shapeshifting (though they do get Shapechange at the end.) It's mostly the druid list, with a few utility additions like Sleep, Dominate Person, Fly and the Planar Ally line to boost their buffing and debuffing capability. They prepare spells like Witches do (i.e. you need your familiar Spirit Animal or you're screwed), except the Spirit Animal has their entire list inside it instead of needing to eat scrolls like a Witch's familiar does. The Hexes will be your primary weapon though as they get few spells/day.

The Spirit and Wandering Spirit basically give you two "domains" of additional spells you can choose to cast spontaneously 1/day/spell level. The Spirit abilities are gained earlier but you are locked into that spirit throughout your career, while the Wandering Spirit can be changed each day but takes longer to get access to the higher abilities. (The "True" ability for your wandering spirit isn't available until the capstone, so you likely won't see it.)

As prepared casters with a 9th-level list I would peg them at T1. The list is functional and they are a good choice if there's only one caster in your party since they can bring offense and defense to the table, but the are no real standouts or "sexy" as far as I can see. Also, you'll want plenty of Wis because most of their offense has to get around saving throws, though the hexes can help there.

[avr]

Humans and half-humans get to steal some spells off the cleric list with their favored class bonus. This adds some variety.

Also if you have the Lore spirit there's a hex, arcane enlightenment, which lets you prepare a few wizard spells. The number of wiz spells you get is based off charisma and you need intelligence to cast them, though the saves are based off wisdom as usual for a shaman. Split casting stats are a pain.

Some spirits get much better hexes than others. Worse hexes seems to be somewhat correlated with better spirit spells. They are allowed to get one witch hex so slumber spam may occur.

BTW, while the familiar(-oid) doesn't need to eat scrolls it is 500 gp/level to replace; don't use it in combat!

[Dysart]

Shaman, welcome to the most versatile, interesting and brilliant 'healer' class in the abundance that is pathfinder.... Ok maybe that's just my opinion.

No other class (that I know of) can so readily (every day after a certain level) pick a new ability each day, pick a new set of spells each day and tailor their concept as heavily.
If you've played an Inquisitor or Hunter that gets Teamwork feats that they can swap in and out. Or maybe the Brawler who gets to swap their combat feats around. Well this is Paizo's Divine version.

Wandering Hex is brilliant, if you use it right. You basically get to pick a new ability from any of the available "spirits" once each day. Allowing you to tailor what you need based on what you expect to happen that day.

Wandering Spirit then cranks that up to 11 by allowing you to not only switch to a new set of "Spontaneous" spells but also allows you to pick up new abilities.


For instance, the one I'm currently building is going through the nature spirit with the idea of picking up the Life spirit as his Wandering (allowin level 2 spells to be spontaneously changed to Barkskin or Lesser Rejuvination).

Don't get me wrong, Shaman aren't the best at everything. But they're good at a lot of things to do with Buffing, Debuffing and Healing.

They're very much not Minionmancers OR Blasters... But if your party needs a healer, these can also get any one (appropriate level needed) of the best Witch hex they want.


As you can see, I'm a fan.

[NamelessNPC]

I think Wandering Spirit's power is hugely overrated. Yes, it's cool to change your domain every day, but most of the spells and aligned hexes seem very weak. That's why for my current campaign I made my shaman a Speaker for the Past. 5 revelations > an extra spirit, imo. And for the one aligned hex you just HAVE TO HAVE there's always Spirit Talker

[Mithril Leaf]

I think Wandering Spirit's power is hugely overrated. Yes, it's cool to change your domain every day, but most of the spells and aligned hexes seem very weak. That's why for my current campaign I made my shaman a Speaker for the Past. 5 revelations > an extra spirit, imo. And for the one aligned hex you just HAVE TO HAVE there's always Spirit Talker

That's not a bad idea, I find myself only interested in Wandering Spirit due to the Lore hex.

[NamelessNPC]

Yeah, in my opinion you have 1 good hex per spirit:

Battle has Battle Master, which is not great but is the equivalent to 2 1/2 feats
Bones has none
Flame has Flame Curse (although I don't really understand what "fire immunity applies as normal" means)
Heavens has Lure of the Heavens
Life has none
Lore has 2, Arcane Enlightment and Benefit of Wisdom
Mammoth has none
Nature has Friend to Animals
Stone has none
Waves has 2, Crashing Waves (although there are about 3 water spells that deal damage) and Fluid Magic
Wind has Air Barrier, which I realize is weak, but I'm a sucker for those kinds of things

[squiggit]

I think Wandering Spirit's power is hugely overrated. Yes, it's cool to change your domain every day, but most of the spells and aligned hexes seem very weak. That's why for my current campaign I made my shaman a Speaker for the Past. 5 revelations > an extra spirit, imo. And for the one aligned hex you just HAVE TO HAVE there's always Spirit Talker

Pretty sure the big thing about wandering spirit people like is Wandering hex > arcane enlightenment.

[Elric VIII]

Thanks for the insights. It's funny that Lore and Speaker for the Past were mentioned, since those were two things that immediately pinged on my radar. One thing I was thinking about was taking the Lore hex that grants you wizard spells and the eldritch heritage feat for the arcane bloodline to get some more wizard spells. Combining that with the ability to steal some cleric spells seems like a way to build a nice spell list.

Just one thing about the Speaker for the Past option is that it seems like you only get your chosen spirit's spells as part of spirit magic. Is there a way to expand this list through a feat maybe?

[NightbringerGGZ]

Yeah, in my opinion you have 1 good hex per spirit:

Battle has Battle Master, which is not great but is the equivalent to 2 1/2 feats
Bones has none
Flame has Flame Curse (although I don't really understand what "fire immunity applies as normal" means)
Heavens has Lure of the Heavens
Life has none
Lore has 2, Arcane Enlightment and Benefit of Wisdom
Mammoth has none
Nature has Friend to Animals
Stone has none
Waves has 2, Crashing Waves (although there are about 3 water spells that deal damage) and Fluid Magic
Wind has Air Barrier, which I realize is weak, but I'm a sucker for those kinds of things

For the Life Spirit I like that you get Enhanced Cures, Life Link and Channel Positive Energy (for your Spirit Ability). This gives you a bit of the Oradin package to work with, but in a single class. You can then pick up another Spirit after a few levels, letting you be a powerful healer while still being able to fill other roles for the party.

[grarrrg]

For the Life Spirit I like that you get Enhanced Cures, Life Link and Channel Positive Energy (for your Spirit Ability). This gives you a bit of the Oradin package to work with...

Reread Shaman Life Link, then go read Oracle Life Link.
Shaman Life Link is a worthless piece of garbage.

[Milo v3]

I don't know why, but I've always felt the shaman is just... meh. It doesn't seem to have anything that makes it special as a class. Not sure why I'd ever use one in a campaign when witches already exist.


No other class (that I know of) can so readily (every day after a certain level) pick a new ability each day, pick a new set of spells each day and tailor their concept as heavily.
If you've played an Inquisitor or Hunter that gets Teamwork feats that they can swap in and out. Or maybe the Brawler who gets to swap their combat feats around. Well this is Paizo's Divine version.

I suggest you look at the Medium for Occult Adventures, it changes its spells and abilities per day from a list of 52 different sets (though I think only 18 were in the playtest). It's basically a PF Binder.

[NightbringerGGZ]

Reread Shaman Life Link, then go read Oracle Life Link.
Shaman Life Link is a worthless piece of garbage.

Ah, I see. Not nearly as powerful then. Still somewhat useful in that it might stabilize allies who take that unlucky crit, or help out your Barbarian and Bloodrager allies but definitely not the mechanic I thought it was. Still, Enhanced Cures and Channeling aren't too shabby. Maybe this is more of a Wandering Spirit candidate?

It does illustrate the main problem with this class though, which is that the designers failed to make the Hexes/Spirits interesting. Too much was copied directly from the Oracle & Witch in the first version of the class and rather than provide anything new the revised version just copied and then weakened existing options from those classes.

What the Shaman desperately needs is another dozen Spirits to pick from and double the number of hexes for each Spirit.

[NamelessNPC]

Just one thing about the Speaker for the Past option is that it seems like you only get your chosen spirit's spells as part of spirit magic. Is there a way to expand this list through a feat maybe?

Not that I know of. But you get to add the Time and Ancestors spells to your list (if I remember correctly there are some nice things there such as contingency and time stop). Plus having UMD as a class skill. Plus the FCB if you are a human, half elf, half orc or aasimar. Plus arcane enlightenment. My point being that you practically make your own list.

[Elric VIII]

Not that I know of. But you get to add the Time and Ancestors spells to your list (if I remember correctly there are some nice things there such as contingency and time stop). Plus having UMD as a class skill. Plus the FCB if you are a human, half elf, half orc or aasimar. Plus arcane enlightenment. My point being that you practically make your own list.

Oh yeah, that's true, but I'm just wondering if there's a way for me to not be locked into one (-ish) spell in one slot of each level with that build.