PDA

View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Shaman (Class)



DonQuixote
2015-06-11, 11:34 PM
Click me. (https://www.dropbox.com/s/zyct0ynjih39n5/Shaman.pdf?dl=0)

This class came together as the culmination of a lot of things. On the one hand, I've been doing some heavy worldbuilding for a setting in which shamanism plays a pretty heavy role. On the other, I've been playing in a two-player campaign consisting of myself (Way of the Four Elements monk) and my closest non-wife friend (Circle of the Land druid).

As I had previously learned through one insanely extensive homebrew project, I can't leave well enough alone. I tried to write a new version of Way of the Four Elements, which ended up going in a direction that I didn't quite like...but brought me to thinking about point-based casting that recovered on a short rest. Meanwhile, the themes and interactions in our campaign, combined with the worldbuilding that I was doing, pushed me to start writing something a bit different in scope and tone.

While D&D tends to have a bit of a fetish (heh) for making anything even slightly nature-relevant based on Wisdom, shamans are generally based less on hierarchical wisdom than they are on diplomacy. That's what they are--intermediaries to the spirit world. They make and uphold deals with spirits and call upon them directly. It's a much, much closer relationship than that between a cleric and a god. It was at this point that I brought warlock into the mix of influences. But the deals wouldn't necessarily be with a specific spirit--one might deal with dozens, hundreds of spirits, especially if one is an adventurer. That ended up pushing me towards paladin oaths, at which point I decided it was time to turn on the blender.

In revising the initial draft, one thing that I worried about was granularity. While the number of spells a shaman can cast of her highest spell level is generally equal to or less than the number of spell slots that a warlock has, she can cast more lower-level spells, giving her a bit of a versatility edge. I eventually addressed this by giving her more restricted spell access--ten of her spells are decided by her calling, and she only gets to prepare a relatively small number of spells from a fairly limited class spell list. More than any other caster class, the spells that a shaman has access to are determined by her character path. This ended up interacting with the obeisances--I wanted to make sure that the spells that she couldn't change had at least some variety, as well as ensuring that the various philosophical points in the obeisances were reflected. I don't know that I'm done tweaking on that front--I'm fully capable of continuing to tweak and revise a single list for months on end.

In writing the invocations, I tried to make sure that, by devoting enough of that resource, you could turn Gift of Savagery into a viable gish build. Pact of the Blade was somewhat disappointing to me in that it didn't really hexblade as much as it should have. By adding spirit point costs to some of the abilities, I figured I was draining away some of the casting in favor of martial prowess.

In general, I'm pretty happy with how this came together. The one class feature that I'm looking at replacing is the Speaker of Winds' "Stormwalker" ability. It's not that it's necessarily a problem--I'm just not happy with it for some arbitrary reason. I might write a larger fluff block about spirits and how they interact with the world and jam it in at the end of the document, but I figured that it wasn't necessary for the 1.0 version.

(Artwork is by Peter Mohrbacher, Zoltan Boros, Tyler Jacobson, Vance Kovacs, and Clint Cearley.)

Hipster Dixit
2015-06-12, 06:32 AM
Wow, this is a really beautifully done nature-themed rewrite of the warlock. Well done, man. Don't like the capstone though, not really flashy... and it is something that it could be given at a much lower level in my opinion. Bonus points for the awesome MtG art.

Maybe it's a bit off topic but I am really interested in how you made such a marvelous layout... which software did you use?

DonQuixote
2015-06-12, 07:25 AM
Hm, that's a fair criticism. I had thought of the capstone as bridging one of the main weaknesses I had built into the casting--less control over what spells you have prepared--but I'll admit that it isn't that flashy. I thought it stood up well to things like getting back spell slots in a minute once per long rest, but I can definitely reevaluate that.

The PDF was built entirely in Microsoft Word, then compressed using a PDF compression website to make it a reasonable file size.

PotatoGolem
2015-06-13, 05:56 PM
First off, I love this. I think it's generally well-designed, and the formatting and look are perfect. I'm a little worried that it's not strong enough, though. A lot of the Warlock's power comes from EB, which makes up for being a sub-par caster. This class doesn't really have an EB equivalent, and that weakens it a lot in comparison. Also, a ton of its abilities are ribbons or near-ribbons (listed below as an easy list- basically all 1st level path abilities and most 14th level). The 18th level class ability is a complete ribbon, which, combined with the lackluster capstone, means that you'll want to MC rather than finish as a shaman (probably with a warlock MC, ironically, since they have decent synergy). The class could use a bit of a boost.

Ribbons:
Base class 18
Dream 1
Flame 1
Sea 1
Stone 1
Stone 14
Wind 1

Super situational almost-ribbons:
Ancestor 14
Flame 14
Sea 14

DonQuixote
2015-06-14, 01:50 AM
It's true, a Gift of Sight shaman isn't going to match a warlock for damage without an answer to eldritch blast. That's intentional for a few reasons, including the more versatile casting mechanic--you can get off more spells than a warlock if you're using your lower-level spells.

Gift of Savagery, however, is where you get your damage kicks in. I've run the numbers, and Gift of Savagery with the relevant invocations consistently out-damages a warlock with Agonizing Blast, hex, and 20 Charisma. So, you can be ranged support or melee damage.

As far as ribbons go, I'll point out that warlock doesn't even have an equivalent 18th level class feature, so nyeh. Childish sticking-out-of-tongue aside, said choice between offense and support meant that there was push in competing directions. Did something want to give you offensive capabilities? Defensive capabilities? Abilities relevant to other party members? Going flavor over raw power seemed like the best way to avoid punishing either option.

I'm also unconvinced that the 1st level abilities are as ribbon-y as you say--if you're clever about it, the various ____speaker abilities can be used to gain a lot of information. Was there a torch or candle in the contessa's room when she was meeting with the duke? Do you want to know what's behind the pivoted stone wall without walking into a trap? And so on. (Interestingly, you put Dream's 1st level ability down as a ribbon and suggested warlock as a multiclass--when one of the warlock patrons gives the same ability without the dream reading aspect.)

The "super situational almost-ribbons" were also somewhat intentional, and I'd argue that stone still falls in there because of the ridiculous things that you can do with it if you try. Want to make absolutely sure a door stays locked? Turn it to stone--the moving parts will fuse together. Need to keep someone from trying to escape on the way back to a city? Turn them to stone. Need to spy on someone? Have one of your party members pose dramatically and turn them into stone, then place them as a statue somewhere.

These are all definitely out-of-combat abilities, but I do think that that is an important area to cover, especially since you only get to pick up to five of your prepared spells.

Now, you might be right about the higher-level abilities being too ribbon-y, but I haven't gotten a chance to playtest at those levels, so I can't be sure. Most of our games don't actually go past level 10, so I get much shakier beyond...around level 12. I do like the fact that they have a lot of flavorful abilities with a wide range of uses, and definitely prefer that over number games.

If push comes to shove and the class really does need a buff, I would more likely write six eldritch blast variants and just hand them out, then change Force of Will to work more like Agonizing Blast. That would mess with the current structure of the Gift of Savagery build, though, so I'd need to fix that as well.

All that said, I have a bad habit of being addicted to revising my materials, so I'll definitely mull over your thoughts over the next few weeks.

Amnoriath
2015-06-14, 09:12 AM
You have a great format and there are a variety to make this distinct from the Warlock however there are a few issues that make this class a bit unfair.
1. The Spirit Point system is in every way better than the Pact Magic system because you get the same amount of effective levels but you can choose to split them up how you want.
2. The Earth 10th level ability is way too much. In order to give a point of reference in the standard player material the only subclass that gave something close was at 17th level in which was non-magical and didn't have that other part. In the DMG they gave that at 15th but either way you shouldn't giving something like that at that level and much less a caster. Honestly a Savage Earth shaman is arguably far hardier than a Barbarian which is a huge infringement.
3. You don't see anything remotely close to the power of Force of Will especially at that level. This can add 25 damage and since this applies to any cantrip it is for the most part better than Agonizing Blast. Cantrips on average are designed to lag behind on average in comparison to Attack actions from Extra Attacks this though puts it ahead(except the Fighter). I would instead suggest a reroll for the spirit point instead and for it to be at a later level.

DonQuixote
2015-06-15, 01:44 AM
1. That's why you have less control over the spells that you have available to you, and why you don't get to deal as much damage as a warlock.

2. I had actually intended to have the "from nonmagical weapons" qualifier, but I had somehow left it out. That said, the ability really ought to be replaced anyway. Thanks for this one!

3. Force of Will isn't quite as powerful as you're making it out to be. It consistently deals less damage than a warlock with Agonizing Blast and hex--and at the cost of more of your casting resource. The "at that level" consideration really falls apart here, since a 3rd level warlock uses one of his spell slots to deal more damage than the shaman with every blast over the course of an hour, but the shaman has to use a spirit point each time, which means she can only do almost as much damage a mere three times.

Edit: A new version is up, adjusting Roots of the Mountain. You now simply gain resistance to bludgeoning damage, not piercing or slashing.

Amnoriath
2015-06-15, 10:44 PM
1. That's why you have less control over the spells that you have available to you, and why you don't get to deal as much damage as a warlock.

3. Force of Will isn't quite as powerful as you're making it out to be. It consistently deals less damage than a warlock with Agonizing Blast and hex--and at the cost of more of your casting resource. The "at that level" consideration really falls apart here, since a 3rd level warlock uses one of his spell slots to deal more damage than the shaman with every blast over the course of an hour, but the shaman has to use a spirit point each time, which means she can only do almost as much damage a mere three times.

Edit: A new version is up, adjusting Roots of the Mountain. You now simply gain resistance to bludgeoning damage, not piercing or slashing.
1. You have a prepared caster though. Yes it is a small choice but they still can choose a few each day while the Warlock is stuck with their spells known. If anything that is more control even if the Warlock may have more(never really saw anything official on how bonus spells were applied).
2. But hex has concentration on it which means you are still open to another buff. Though as you pointed out the Warlock could have already used their spell slot. Additionally a Warlock with Agonizing blast is equivalent to a Fighter with a non-magical heavy crossbow without any feats or styles to modify it. This comes to 4 attacks dealing an optimal average of 11 damage each. Other martials can still deal about as much or even more damage with feats or other features. Yours though comes up to 49 with firebolt with vulnerability it comes to 74 and it can do so 20 times per short rest. Yes, this consumes your spells but it is still very reliable and because it applies to any cantrip you can find the possible vulnerability or avoid resistance. The point is a martial can't just bring those kind of damage on a reliable basis like that not to mention the combos as well as resource managment in which you can have with the Gift of Savagery line. The truth is your Shaman is far more capable of getting more damage than the Warlock.

ImSAMazing
2015-06-16, 04:35 AM
Click me. (https://www.dropbox.com/s/zyct0ynjihy39n5/Shaman.pdf?dl=0)

This class came together as the culmination of a lot of things. On the one hand, I've been doing some heavy worldbuilding for a setting in which shamanism plays a pretty heavy role. On the other, I've been playing in a two-player campaign consisting of myself (Way of the Four Elements monk) and my closest non-wife friend (Circle of the Land druid).

As I had previously learned through one insanely extensive homebrew project, I can't leave well enough alone. I tried to write a new version of Way of the Four Elements, which ended up going in a direction that I didn't quite like...but brought me to thinking about point-based casting that recovered on a short rest. Meanwhile, the themes and interactions in our campaign, combined with the worldbuilding that I was doing, pushed me to start writing something a bit different in scope and tone.

While D&D tends to have a bit of a fetish (heh) for making anything even slightly nature-relevant based on Wisdom, shamans are generally based less on hierarchical wisdom than they are on diplomacy. That's what they are--intermediaries to the spirit world. They make and uphold deals with spirits and call upon them directly. It's a much, much closer relationship than that between a cleric and a god. It was at this point that I brought warlock into the mix of influences. But the deals wouldn't necessarily be with a specific spirit--one might deal with dozens, hundreds of spirits, especially if one is an adventurer. That ended up pushing me towards paladin oaths, at which point I decided it was time to turn on the blender.

In revising the initial draft, one thing that I worried about was granularity. While the number of spells a shaman can cast of her highest spell level is generally equal to or less than the number of spell slots that a warlock has, she can cast more lower-level spells, giving her a bit of a versatility edge. I eventually addressed this by giving her more restricted spell access--ten of her spells are decided by her calling, and she only gets to prepare a relatively small number of spells from a fairly limited class spell list. More than any other caster class, the spells that a shaman has access to are determined by her character path. This ended up interacting with the obeisances--I wanted to make sure that the spells that she couldn't change had at least some variety, as well as ensuring that the various philosophical points in the obeisances were reflected. I don't know that I'm done tweaking on that front--I'm fully capable of continuing to tweak and revise a single list for months on end.

In writing the invocations, I tried to make sure that, by devoting enough of that resource, you could turn Gift of Savagery into a viable gish build. Pact of the Blade was somewhat disappointing to me in that it didn't really hexblade as much as it should have. By adding spirit point costs to some of the abilities, I figured I was draining away some of the casting in favor of martial prowess.

In general, I'm pretty happy with how this came together. The one class feature that I'm looking at replacing is the Speaker of Winds' "Stormwalker" ability. It's not that it's necessarily a problem--I'm just not happy with it for some arbitrary reason. I might write a larger fluff block about spirits and how they interact with the world and jam it in at the end of the document, but I figured that it wasn't necessary for the 1.0 version.

(Artwork is by Peter Mohrbacher, Zoltan Boros, Tyler Jacobson, Vance Kovacs, and Clint Cearley.)

Im surprised by the power and coolness of this class. It's so epic! Im sure going to playtest this!

DonQuixote
2015-06-16, 10:51 PM
1. You have a prepared caster though. Yes it is a small choice but they still can choose a few each day while the Warlock is stuck with their spells known. If anything that is more control even if the Warlock may have more(never really saw anything official on how bonus spells were applied).

You're ignoring the contents of the spell list, which is always a dangerous thing to do. Any warlock can grab fly, and will probably do so. Only Speakers of Winds have access to fly. Yes, Spirit Magic has some advantages over Pact Magic. It works differently.



2. But hex has concentration on it which means you are still open to another buff. Though as you pointed out the Warlock could have already used their spell slot. Additionally a Warlock with Agonizing blast is equivalent to a Fighter with a non-magical heavy crossbow without any feats or styles to modify it. This comes to 4 attacks dealing an optimal average of 11 damage each. Other martials can still deal about as much or even more damage with feats or other features. Yours though comes up to 49 with firebolt with vulnerability it comes to 74 and it can do so 20 times per short rest. Yes, this consumes your spells but it is still very reliable and because it applies to any cantrip you can find the possible vulnerability or avoid resistance. The point is a martial can't just bring those kind of damage on a reliable basis like that not to mention the combos as well as resource managment in which you can have with the Gift of Savagery line. The truth is your Shaman is far more capable of getting more damage than the Warlock.

First off, let's not even pretend vulnerability is relevant here--certainly not fire vulnerability. In the Monster Manual, there are a total of seven creatures with vulnerability to fire, thirty-four with resistance to fire, and thirty with immunity to fire. Vulnerability is generally not statistically relevant, especially given the existence of creatures with resistance and immunity. And, no, you can't just pick and choose your damage type to always take advantage of vulnerability--your damaging cantrips are set in stone, determined by your calling.

Now, the warlock using hex and Agonizing Blast gets a damage boost greater than that of a shaman using Force of Will. In addition, it's less costly in terms of the casting resource. The breakdown favors the warlock, because he only needs to use one spell slot. At 20th level--which I would argue, incidentally, isn't a good balance point for several reasons--that means that, as soon as the warlock makes six eldritch blast attacks, he's more cost-effective than the shaman, who has now used over a quarter of her spirit points on cantrips. And, yes, the shaman can do this twenty times per short rest...but so can the warlock, and the warlock will have another three spell slots available after twenty eldritch blasts.

I have, in fact, run the numbers of these two against each other. Put them on a spreadsheet and everything. Warlock is not at a disadvantage here. A Gift of Savagery Shaman can keep up, but will burn herself out almost immediately--after she spends a good chunk of her spirit points on elemental weapon, she'll only get in a few high-damage swings before dropping below warlock again. And, again, that will run her out of pretty much everything that she can do, while the warlock will still have all his unused spell slots.

Amnoriath
2015-06-17, 12:32 AM
You're ignoring the contents of the spell list, which is always a dangerous thing to do. Any warlock can grab fly, and will probably do so. Only Speakers of Winds have access to fly. Yes, Spirit Magic has some advantages over Pact Magic. It works differently.




First off, let's not even pretend vulnerability is relevant here--certainly not fire vulnerability. In the Monster Manual, there are a total of seven creatures with vulnerability to fire, thirty-four with resistance to fire, and thirty with immunity to fire. Vulnerability is generally not statistically relevant, especially given the existence of creatures with resistance and immunity. And, no, you can't just pick and choose your damage type to always take advantage of vulnerability--your damaging cantrips are set in stone, determined by your calling.

Now, the warlock using hex and Agonizing Blast gets a damage boost greater than that of a shaman using Force of Will. In addition, it's less costly in terms of the casting resource. The breakdown favors the warlock, because he only needs to use one spell slot. At 20th level--which I would argue, incidentally, isn't a good balance point for several reasons--that means that, as soon as the warlock makes six eldritch blast attacks, he's more cost-effective than the shaman, who has now used over a quarter of her spirit points on cantrips. And, yes, the shaman can do this twenty times per short rest...but so can the warlock, and the warlock will have another three spell slots available after twenty eldritch blasts.

I have, in fact, run the numbers of these two against each other. Put them on a spreadsheet and everything. Warlock is not at a disadvantage here. A Gift of Savagery Shaman can keep up, but will burn herself out almost immediately--after she spends a good chunk of her spirit points on elemental weapon, she'll only get in a few high-damage swings before dropping below warlock again. And, again, that will run her out of pretty much everything that she can do, while the warlock will still have all his unused spell slots.
1. That is cherry picking. Your list still has many solutions it can solve in which you can plan both in what you want and how much you want at a time.
2. But a couple of different callings have different types of damage.
3. You must remember concentration. Warlocks are not proficient in Constitution saves so an okay hit will make them lose it. Yours though has an invocation that avoids that issue.
4. How is that possible when she has an invocation that makes such a spell last for 24 hours and is immune to loss of concentration by damage? After a short rest she is replenished and can use another invocation to cast spells through its natural attacks.

DonQuixote
2015-06-17, 10:11 PM
...you're looking at an older version, aren't you? There's only one invocation that affects a concentration spell, and it just allows you to maintain concentration until your next rest. Nothing about 24 hours. Hasn't been for a while now. That's also one specific spell, and a costly one at that. Constitution is also the obvious secondary stat for warlocks, so the lack of proficiency isn't as damning as you make it out to be.

Regardless, at this point it's clear that you want to dislike the class, and that no amount of actually discussion will change that. I've run the damage numbers multiple times, and this vast gulf that you're accusing me of creating simply isn't there.

Amnoriath
2015-06-17, 10:46 PM
...you're looking at an older version, aren't you? There's only one invocation that affects a concentration spell, and it just allows you to maintain concentration until your next rest. Nothing about 24 hours. Hasn't been for a while now. That's also one specific spell, and a costly one at that. Constitution is also the obvious secondary stat for warlocks, so the lack of proficiency isn't as damning as you make it out to be.

Regardless, at this point it's clear that you want to dislike the class, and that no amount of actually discussion will change that. I've run the damage numbers multiple times, and this vast gulf that you're accusing me of creating simply isn't there.

1. Yes it is because of the restriction of light armor or the mage armor invocation Dexterity is a high priority with all of its caveats. You also must remember Bladelocks as such failure is very likely to occur even if the damage is small and the odds may be slightly in your favor. You may have run numbers but you haven't taken into account of raw battle scenarios as such the Shaman is more reliable in that invocation can't be taken away and therefore the numbers infringe upon weapon users
2. Okay look don't accuse me of wanting to hate the class when you don't post all your fixes. You have good flavor and nice mechanical as well growth caveats that keeps thing more distinct than even the original Warlock did the problem is you have taken too much liberty in giving the Shaman various advantages in comparison to a Warlock's Eldritch Blast when in truth it is about the same if not a little less than a weapon user that has a couple good feat choices in terms of damage. You have also favored the Gift of Savagery over the Gift of Sight in that the former has all these buffs and battle options while the latter has a couple of rituals and one real good capstone

DonQuixote
2015-06-18, 05:03 PM
Except that, in pretty much every case, the warlock is still out-damaging the shaman. There are a few cases where the shaman can do burst damage that is 5 points higher than the warlock's damage, but that's a very specific build that requires having two ability scores at 20. The warlock, meanwhile, just needs to take one invocation and max out one ability score...and still outdamages the shaman in most cases.

The shaman does not provide more consistent or dependable damage. In a perfect world, yes, but warlocks generally do more damage without burning through their resources in the same way. The classes are different--this isn't a warlock subclass, it's an entirely different class. Which has, incidentally, been compared to other classes--at most levels, a mindless monk flurry outdamages the average shaman build. In fact, at high levels, warlock outperforms the monk by a significantly greater margin than shaman does.

And, yes, Gift of Savagery has more straightforwardly useful invocations dedicated to it--that's intentional because those invocations are more or less necessary for it to function. This isn't a case of "this path gets more toys," it's a case of "you have to give up these toy slots in order to play this path effectively."

How have I not posted any of the fixes? They PDF has been being consistently updated, often multiple times a day.

Amnoriath
2015-06-21, 09:01 AM
Except that, in pretty much every case, the warlock is still out-damaging the shaman. There are a few cases where the shaman can do burst damage that is 5 points higher than the warlock's damage, but that's a very specific build that requires having two ability scores at 20. The warlock, meanwhile, just needs to take one invocation and max out one ability score...and still outdamages the shaman in most cases.

The shaman does not provide more consistent or dependable damage. In a perfect world, yes, but warlocks generally do more damage without burning through their resources in the same way. The classes are different--this isn't a warlock subclass, it's an entirely different class. Which has, incidentally, been compared to other classes--at most levels, a mindless monk flurry outdamages the average shaman build. In fact, at high levels, warlock outperforms the monk by a significantly greater margin than shaman does.

And, yes, Gift of Savagery has more straightforwardly useful invocations dedicated to it--that's intentional because those invocations are more or less necessary for it to function. This isn't a case of "this path gets more toys," it's a case of "you have to give up these toy slots in order to play this path effectively."

How have I not posted any of the fixes? They PDF has been being consistently updated, often multiple times a day.

1. Having 2 ability scores at 20 is not very specific or even that hard as we are talking about spell casting which don't quite benefit as much from having feats in terms of battle. You also just waved away the concentration issue like it was nothing. Though as I said before you have taken too much liberty when looking at the Warlock's passive damage. Allow to me go at this from another angle, the Warlock ultimately can get 4 castings per short rest and an effective free short rest for its casting per day. Full casters though get a base of 22 castings per day, some can get 32. This means the warlock needs to have 3 short rests just to be close in how many castings they get per day. This is balanced with some at will castings and other buffs or rituals they have. Your Shaman though can have 20 castings per short rest. While they are 1st level spells it only takes 1 short rest to cast more per day than a full caster while having similar and sometimes better benefits in invocations. As such you have far more liberty to cast how and what you want than any other full caster. An 18th level Wizard is stuck with 2 for the day and is considered controversial. In order to give more perspective the spell point variant give full casters 66 spell points but in vancian there is 89 total spell levels So, a strict 1:1 conversion is not only superior it isn't balanced with other casting.
2. It is established the Warlock has less casting and that since it isn't a perfect world they can lose concentration(even if they didn't that is a key slot of casting limitations). The mindless Monk pays 1 ki point for an extra attack on the bonus action but your class can hold elemental weapon which racks up more damage and is far more economic lasting until you take a break.
3. While I get the cost and is well established in being a gish the other subclass has a rather small niche in utility until its final invocation in which is still fairly specific. I am not saying its bad but savagery covers almost every base statistic in battle and can increase them significantly. As such niche utility is going to lose against broad battle stats with a little upfront cost most of the time.
4. You posted one on this forum in which I pointed out before but you haven't done so with others.

TheMightyPotato
2016-07-26, 08:12 AM
I would really like too check your shaman class out but the link broke for me is there another way of finding it?

zeek0
2016-07-27, 02:06 AM
I would really like too check your shaman class out but the link broke for me is there another way of finding it?

I have the same problem. I'll be on the look out for when it comes back up.

ravencroft0
2016-07-27, 02:13 AM
I would really like too check your shaman class out but the link broke for me is there another way of finding it?

Same here. Dropbox is being unkind.