Demon Shaman Discussion

[Xuldarinar]

Recently I had an idea and so naturally I started looking around. I had hoped to find a way to flavor the shaman hybrid class towards one tied to the abyss, but what I ran into was a class that grabbed my curiosity; The Demon Shaman. Given it is found in a product of its own name, I'm not incredibly surprised I never heard of it before.

Is anyone familiar with the class, or at least also has access to it? Is it one that you would ever recommend or at least think worth its price tag?

[Malistrae]

I do not have access to it, but the blurb is quite intriguing:

"Enter the demon shaman, a blasphemous class so dedicated to the ideals of the wicked outsiders that he slowly morphs into one over time. With his equally sadistic babau cohort, the demon shaman is a dark force to be reckoned with.

Inside:

The Demon Shaman!
Sixteen demonic morphs!
Favored class options!
Nine feats specifically for the new class!
A gorgeous painting of a demon shaman and his babau buddy!
Ten demon shaman archetypes! [Babau Master, Doomed Shaman, Plague Shaman, Servant of the Rakshasa Lord, Shaman of the Apocalypse, Shaman of Baphomet, Shaman of the Nine-Tailed Fox, Shaman of Orcus, Shaman of the Ravager, and Shaman of Vampiric Blood]
Two demon shaman NPCs with statblocks, ready to run villains or interesting allies!"

Analysing this seems to suggest that the Demon Shaman is not necessarily tied to the Abyss, but rather has a range of evil outsiders/undead to work with. I am especially interested in the Servant of the Rakshasa Lord, since they are my favorite monsters (alongside mindflayers) in all of D&D.
However, it seems quite cheap (3$ is nothing even in my country), so I would suggest purchasing it if you like the concept. In fact, I am currently ruminating about buying it myself (purely because of the Rakshasa archetype).

[Xuldarinar]

I do not have access to it, but the blurb is quite intriguing:

"Enter the demon shaman, a blasphemous class so dedicated to the ideals of the wicked outsiders that he slowly morphs into one over time. With his equally sadistic babau cohort, the demon shaman is a dark force to be reckoned with.

Inside:

The Demon Shaman!
Sixteen demonic morphs!
Favored class options!
Nine feats specifically for the new class!
A gorgeous painting of a demon shaman and his babau buddy!
Ten demon shaman archetypes! [Babau Master, Doomed Shaman, Plague Shaman, Servant of the Rakshasa Lord, Shaman of the Apocalypse, Shaman of Baphomet, Shaman of the Nine-Tailed Fox, Shaman of Orcus, Shaman of the Ravager, and Shaman of Vampiric Blood]
Two demon shaman NPCs with statblocks, ready to run villains or interesting allies!"

Analysing this seems to suggest that the Demon Shaman is not necessarily tied to the Abyss, but rather has a range of evil outsiders/undead to work with. I am especially interested in the Servant of the Rakshasa Lord, since they are my favorite monsters (alongside mindflayers) in all of D&D.
However, it seems quite cheap (3$ is nothing even in my country), so I would suggest purchasing it if you like the concept. In fact, I am currently ruminating about buying it myself (purely because of the Rakshasa archetype).

Having obtained it, it certainly is worth the price. More however, I am not certain. Given time, and discussion, we'll see.

The basics; The demon shaman is a spontaneous arcane spellcasting class (knowing all of its small list) that can cast up to 6th level spells, with a medium BaB, two good saves, and an assortment of flavorful abilities. They get abilities to make them more akin to demons (some chosen, some not), the ability to summon the lowest of demons, a babau cohort, and more.


Babau Master: They focus more on the Babau cohort.

Doomed Shaman: They drop alignment restrictions and use their abilities to combat demons, gaining abilities consistent with this, including a unique spell list.

Plague Shaman: They get some disease centric abilities.

Servant of the Rakshasa Lord: True to their name, they are tweaked to be more suited to rakshasa. Still get access to some of the demon stuff however, including the Babau cohort.

Shaman of the Apocalypse: Explicitly Cthulhu worshippers, though more simply tied to the Dark Tapestry and Qlippoth.

Shaman of Baphomet: Not much different here, but it is specifically tied to Baphomet and properly reflects this.

Shaman of the Nine-Tailed Fox: A racial archetype that gets far more flame than anything else. Mechanically sound, but the flavor I find particularly jarring.

Shaman of Orcus: Simular to the Shaman of Bapomet, they are tweaked to be specifically associated Orcus.

Shaman of the Ravager: See above, but a bit more profound and tied to the Ravager A Shaman of Yhidothrus in essence.

Shaman of Vampiric Blood: A racial archetype that throws at them vampiric abilities and flavor towards reverence to a vampire that became a demon. I'd say this archetype could be called the Shaman of Zura.



All in all, the flavor is pretty good. Some of the archetypes are hit, others to me miss. Formatting could of been better, and some minor things could of been fixed with proof reading, but no errors I could find leave the intent of things to be a mystery. If you can look past some of the minor.. painful bits of flavor, the rest is actually quite nice from what I can tell.