dragon shaman warforged

[LairdMaon]

Wielding armbow and battlefist.

Pays tribute to a copper dragon.

Uses vigor aura to help pay for health lost due to extensive armbow use.

While it may be Good, it isn't necessarily nice.

How feasible does this sound? Ideas for optimization? Advise for not boring the build? Reason thoughts on this build?

[Doctor Awkward]

Wielding armbow and battlefist.

Pays tribute to a copper dragon.

Uses vigor aura to help pay for health lost due to extensive armbow use.

While it may be Good, it isn't necessarily nice.

How feasible does this sound? Ideas for optimization? Advise for not boring the build? Reason thoughts on this build?

Warforged can make decent front line dragon shamans. I want to think I read somewhere that Vigor only heals you for half the amount it normally would, but I can't recall.

One suggestion I can make is to look at the Shamanic Invocation alternate class feature in Dragon Magic, that lets you trade out an aura for a Least Dragonfire Adept Invocation. A lot of your auras suck anyway, and if you are planning on focusing on your breath weapon, the Endure Exposure invocation is pretty handy. You also qualify for metabreath feats from the Draconomicon. So... there's that too.

Really, it mostly depends on what role you want to fill in the party.

[Vizzerdrix]

Warforged can get a feat that lets them add electric damage to their slams for some HP. It may be useful if you're already gonna have vigor up.

[LairdMaon]

I guess I'm thinking that vigor allows for hp sacrifice to a degree. Hp for electric damage sounds like great fun. And a shock to the unsuspecting recipient of the attack (pun intended).

As for party role, going for a mix of support through auras, ranged damage and secondary or tertiary melee damage. Adamantine Body could be helpful as well.

[The Viscount]

Shocking Fist is the name of the feat, to me it seems more valuable than the armbow, I don't quite understand the advantage of the armbow.

Vigor should have full effect since it's technically not an effect that grants healing.

[LairdMaon]

Armbow + spider climb (copper dragon, dragon shaman) = fun with sniping, unlimited ammo

[Doctor Awkward]

Shocking Fist is the name of the feat, to me it seems more valuable than the armbow, I don't quite understand the advantage of the armbow.

Vigor should have full effect since it's technically not an effect that grants healing.

I remembered where I saw it. It was from the 3.5 CustServ FAQ (http://archive.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/faq).


Does a warforged benefit from the vigor spells in Spell
Compendium?
Yes, but the warforged would get only half the normal
value of fast healing, rounded down. Thus, the lesser vigor
spell would be useless to a warforged (fast healing 1 halved,
rounded down, is fast healing 0). Vigor or vigorous circle
would provide a warforged with fast healing 1, while greater
vigor would grant fast healing 2 to the warforged.

Dunno if I agree with that though. I could see plenty of sensible arguments against it.

[LairdMaon]

Even should the vigor aura be less potent in healing it, the character can still kick back and relax on the ceiling, biding his time.

Begin the combat in melee, shocking fist strikes to piss off the bad guys and cause some damage. Retreat up walls and onto ceiling to harass from a distance.

Edit: Oh, and Adamantine Body to help ensure the it is the only one affecting it's HP.


Edit, mk2: Ah heck, let's add dragonborn, with dragon breath. More HP!

[Troacctid]

Dragon Shaman is a severely underpowered class due to its chronic lack of...doing things. The problem is, it only has, like, three or four class features, and all of them quickly become obsolete as you level up. Then you don't get anything new until...well, you don't get anything new, period, really. It's just a poorly designed class. You'll be okay in the early levels and drop off like an anvil once you hit mid levels.

The best solution is to multiclass the hell out of there and go into either an initiator class, like Crusader, or a standalone sort of prestige class, like Chameleon or Necrocarnate.

[LairdMaon]

You make some good points.

5 levels of dragon shaman followed by warblade sound more reasonable?

[nedz]

Less is More

[LairdMaon]

Okay, here's the updated concept.

Tender

Dragon shaman 5/warblade 15
Dragonborn Warforged
Carries a scythe and a spiked chain.
Adamantine Body

Spent centuries working directly for a dragon as his, well, tender. Heh. During it's residency there it devoted itself as a dragonborn. When the dragon sent it off to explore the world it gifted it an old manuscript of warblade combat and reinforces it's body with adamantine.

[Troacctid]

The main things you're getting from Dragon Shaman are a breath weapon, a least draconic invocation, a draconic aura, and spider climb. You can actually get all of those things pretty easily in 2 levels instead of 5: Warlock 1/Dragonfire Adept 1, with the Draconic Aura feat. The aura even scales with your level, because you're dragonblooded.

[LairdMaon]

Oh really? I'll have to look into that more!

[nedz]

Why not
Warforged Dragonfire Adept 20, with the Draconic Aura feats for the healing stuff ?

Less melee, more breath weapon, and a few invocations

[Grod_The_Giant]

Why not
Warforged Dragonfire Adept 20, with the Draconic Aura feats for the healing stuff ?

Less melee, more breath weapon, and a few invocations
Get a hold of an Aptitude weapon and you're about equal to a Dragon Shaman, though. I recommend adding Knowledge Devotion and Draconic Knowledge if you intend to go that route.

Also, a key feat for the DFA is Power Surge. It's from Dragon 313, gives a few minor boosts to your breath weapon, but most importantly it gives it a recharge time-- meaning you can apply metabreath feats. Entangling Exhalation is also good, good enough that it's one of the main things the class has going for it.

[LairdMaon]

I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar with dragonfire adept... How would that affect the party support/back up tank goal?

[Troacctid]

The Dragonfire Adept class can be found in Dragon Magic. It's essentially a draconic version of the Warlock, with an at-will moddable breath weapon replacing the eldritch blast. It's one of the better support classes in the game, with a good selection of at-will utility powers and lots of ways to debuff enemies in a wide AoE with no save. For example, you can make your breath weapon apply a slow effect to anyone in its area, or have it automatically entangle anyone it damages--both with no save allowed.

Interestingly, although they're not proficient with armor or shields, they can actually wear them just fine, because the main drawback of wearing armor you're not proficient with is taking the armor check penalty to all your attack rolls--but DFAs do all their attacking with their breath weapon, which offers a Reflex save but doesn't require an attack roll. So you can suit up in full plate with a tower shield and just be like, whatever. Of course, if you're a Warforged, you're automatically proficient with your adamantine plating, so that's not super relevant in this case, but hey, the more you know.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The Dragonfire Adept class can be found in Dragon Magic. It's essentially a draconic version of the Warlock, with an at-will moddable breath weapon replacing the eldritch blast. It's one of the better support classes in the game, with a good selection of at-will utility powers and lots of ways to debuff enemies in a wide AoE with no save. For example, you can make your breath weapon apply a slow effect to anyone in its area, or have it automatically entangle anyone it damages--both with no save allowed.
Even better, they have an invocation that lets them grant allies immunity to their breath weapon, so they don't have to worry about positioning very much. You can get auras back through the Draconic Aura (though unfortunately not Vigor, I don't think). I don't know about one of the best support classes, but they're a certainly a serviceable debuffer. (Not an exciting one, as you only get a few options, but they're good options)

They're pretty good sturdy, too, thanks to Con being the main score they care about.

[LairdMaon]

I'm liking DFA pretty well at this point.

I'll have to look into this when I get home tonight. In the meantime I'll be playing with other builds, heh.

Meds were improperly changed, I'm back to obsessing.

[nedz]

There's a DFA Handbook here (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1101061), which might help.

[atemu1234]

How many levels of shaman are required to get the good bits of it, so you can go bard/crusader the rest of the way?