Retiering the Classes: Spirit Shaman, Spontaneous Druid, Urban Druid, and WS Ranger

[eggynack]

The thread we've all (meaning me) been waiting for. What happens when you take the awesome tier one druid, in all of its spellcasting and class feature based might, and take a pile of stuff away? What happens when you consider wild shape in isolation from spells, or spells absent wild shape (or the animal companion)? What if you gave them spontaneous casting and kept everything else the same? How about seemingly keeping the major things around, but changing them drastically enough that they lose a lot of what made them powerful? The druid, up high on the tier one mountain, cares little for the analysis of these features because the overall setup is so good, but these lesser classes allow for that sort of study, and thus grant us insight into how these abilities truly operate.

Spirit Shaman (CD, 14): This class loses everything except for the essential notion of prepared casting off of this huge list, and even that has been modified into this strange form which heavily limits the number of different spells of each spell level you can bring to bear on a daily basis. The spirit shaman has always been one of the great questions of tier system classic, because the definitions and constructs at work there strangely implied that the class is either tier one or tier three, with no in-between. It is one of my hopes for this retiering project that this issue will leave this thread a resolved one.

Spontaneous Druid (UA (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm)): Ditch the prepared nature of the casting and keep everything else the same, and you have the spontaneous druid. This one, in a sense, asks the reverse of the spirit shaman question, because where that class kept the prepared casting and lost everything else, this class loses the prepared casting and keeps everything else. How much can those class features compensate for the loss of versatility? That is the core question at hand here.

Urban Druid (DC, 57): The urban druid keeps everything, the prepared casting, the form changing, the companion, the spontaneous conversion, but it makes those things worse. A lot worse. The spell, form, and companion lists are all much shorter and weaker, and where you once converted to the highly potent and versatile SNA line, now you get repair spells. The comparisons to the druid are inevitable and obvious, but oddly enough, this class may get the least utility out of these four from those comparisons.

Wild Shape Ranger (UA (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#ranger)): While arguably, this class is less a play on the druid than a play on the ranger, I think this class gains much from the druid comparison. Wild shape, even in this weakened form with limited spell support, is your primary utility in this class. The feature is clearly not entirely in isolation, but it's still largely isolated, asking us to question what this form changing utility is truly worth at the end of the day.


What are the tiers?

The simple answer here is that tier one is the best, the home of things on the approximate problem solving scale of wizards, and tier six is the worst, land of commoners. And problem solving capacity is what's being measured here. Considering the massive range of challenges a character is liable to be presented with across the levels, how much and how often does that character's class contribute to the defeat of those challenges? This value should be considered as a rough averaging across all levels, the center of the level range somewhat more than really low and really high level characters, and across all optimization levels (considering DM restrictiveness as a plausible downward acting factor on how optimized a character is), prioritizing moderate optimization somewhat more than low or high.

A big issue with the original tier system is that, if anything, it was too specific, generating inflexible definitions for allowance into a tier which did not cover the broad spectrum of ways a class can operate. When an increase in versatility would seem to represent a decrease in tier, because tier two is supposed to be low versatility, it's obvious that we've become mired in something that'd be pointless to anyone trying to glean information from the tier system. Thus, I will be uncharacteristically word light here. The original tier system's tier descriptions (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293.0) are still good guidelines here, but they shouldn't be assumed to be the end all and be all for how classes get ranked.

Consistent throughout these tiers is the notion of problems and the solving thereof. For the purposes of this tier system, the problem space can be said to be inclusive of combat, social interaction, and exploration, with the heaviest emphasis placed on combat. A problem could theoretically fall outside of that space, but things inside that space are definitely problems. Another way to view the idea of problem solving is through the lens of the niche ranking system (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?314701-Person_Man-s-Niche-Ranking-System). A niche filled tends to imply the capacity to solve a type of problem, whether it's a status condition in the case of healing, or an enemy that just has too many hit points in the case of melee combat. It's not a perfect measure, both because some niches have a lot of overlap in the kinds of problems they can solve and because, again, the niches aren't necessarily all inclusive, but they can act as a good tool for class evaluation.

Tier one: Incredibly good at solving nearly all problems. This is the realm of clerics, druids, and wizards, classes that open up with strong combat spells backed up by utility, and then get massively stronger from there. If you're not keeping up with that core trio of tier one casters, then you probably don't belong here.

Tier two: We're just a step below tier one here, in the land of classes around the sorcerer level of power. Generally speaking, this means relaxing one of the two tier one assumptions, either getting us to very good at solving nearly all problems, or incredibly good at solving most problems. But, as will continue to be the case as these tiers go on, there aren't necessarily these two simple categories for this tier. You gotta lose something compared to the tier one casters, but what you lose doesn't have to be in some really specific proportions.

Tier three: Again, we gotta sacrifice something compared to tier two, here taking us to around the level of a swordsage. The usual outcome is that you are very good at solving a couple of problems and competent at solving a few more. Of course, there are other possibilities, for example that you might instead be competent at solving nearly all problems.

Tier four: Here we're in ranger/barbarian territory (though the ranger should be considered largely absent of ACF's and stuff to hit this tier, as will be talked about later). Starting from that standard tier three position, the usual sweet spots here are very good at solving a few problems, or alright at solving many problems.

Tier five: We're heading close to the dregs here. Tier five is the tier of monks, classes that are as bad as you can be without being an aristocrat or a commoner. Classes here are sometimes very good at solving nearly no problems, or alright at solving a few, or some other function thereof. It's weak, is the point.

Tier six: And here we have commoner tier. Or, the bottom is commoner. The top is approximately aristocrat. You don't necessarily have nothing in this tier, but you have close enough to it.


The Threads

Tier System Home Base (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?515845-Retiering-the-Classes-Home-Base&p=21722272#post21722272)


The Fixed List Casters: Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, and Warmage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?515849-Retiering-the-Classes-Beguiler-Dread-Necromancer-and-Warmage&p=21722395#post21722395)


The Obvious Tier One Classes: Archivist, Artificer, Cleric, Druid, Sha'ir, and Wizard (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?516137-Retiering-the-Classes-Archivist-Artificer-Cleric-Druid-Sha-ir-and-Wizard&p=21731809#post21731809)


The Mundane Beat Sticks (part one): Barbarian, Fighter, Samurai (CW), and Samurai (OA) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?516602-Retiering-the-Classes-Barbarian-Fighter-Samurai-(CW)-and-Samurai-(OA)&p=21747927#post21747927)


The Roguelikes: Ninja, Rogue, and Scout (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?517091-Retiering-the-Classes-Ninja-Rogue-and-Scout)


The Pseudo-Druids: Spirit Shaman, Spontaneous Druid, Urban Druid, and Wild Shape Ranger (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?517370-Retiering-the-Classes-Spirit-Shaman-Spontaneous-Druid-Urban-Druid-and-WS-Ranger&p=21774657#post21774657)


The Jacks of All Trades: Bard, Factotum, Jester, and Savant (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?517967-Retiering-the-Classes-Bard-Factotum-and-Jester&p=21794327#post21794327)


The Tome of Battlers: Crusader, Swordsage, and Warblade (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?518495-Retiering-the-Classes-Crusader-Swordsage-and-Warblade&p=21815193#post21815193)


The NPCs: Adept, Aristocrat, Commoner, Expert, Magewright, and Warrior (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?519155-Retiering-the-Classes-Adept-Aristocrat-Commoner-Expert-Magewright-and-Warrior&p=21838412)


The Vaguely Supernatural Melee Folk: Battle Dancer, Monk, Mountebank, and Soulknife (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?519701-Retiering-the-Classes-Battle-Dancer-Monk-Mountebank-and-Soulknife)


The Miscellaneous Full Casters: Death Master, Shaman, Shugenja, Sorcerer, and Wu Jen (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?520291-Retiering-the-Classes-Death-Master-Shugenja-Sorcerer-Wu-Jen&p=21878654#post21878654)


The Wacky Magicists: Binder, Dragonfire Adept, Shadowcaster, Truenamer, and Warlock (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?520903-Retiering-the-Classes-Binder-Dragonfire-Adept-Shadowcaster-Truenamer-Warlock&p=21898782#post21898782)


The Rankings
Spirit Shaman: Tier two

Spontaneous Druid: Tier one

Urban Druid: Tier two

Wild Shape Ranger: Tier three

And here's a link to the spreadsheet. (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Hj9_9PQg6tXACUWZY_Egm2R9Gtvg9nXRTPfGYnAfh9w/edit)

[Troacctid]

Spontaneous Druid > Urban Druid > Spirit Shaman > >>> Wild Shape Ranger.

Spontaneous Druid is better than every T2 class, so I believe you could very reasonably put it in T1 depending on where you draw the line. Put me down as 1.5 1 for it.

Urban Druid has a relatively crappy spell list and essentially loses spontaneous casting. But it still has some good spells at each level, and good skills, and animal companion and wild shape are still great. It is significantly worse than Spontaneous Druid, though. I would much rather have spontaneous casting off a powerful list than prepared casting off a weak list. I mean, sanctified spells help, I guess, but still. Urban Druid is enough of a downgrade for Tier 2 IMO. EDIT: I've changed my mind—putting it in T1 for the same reason as death master.

Spirit Shaman is on par with T2 classes. It gets the good spell progression, yes, but it has so few spells known—even fewer than a Sorcerer, if I'm remembering correctly? While it can change its loadout from day to day, in practice I don't think the class feels any more versatile than a Sorcerer or Favored Soul, aside from the faster progression. It's just better in downtime. Tier 2.

Wild Shape Ranger is overrated. I think it only makes T3 with form-adding shenanigans. Obviously it is an upgrade over the basic Ranger, and it scales better with optimization, but I think it will still be T4 most of the time. I'll say 3.75 as a compromise.

[remetagross]

Beware, for the Spontaneous Druid you wrote " this class loses the prepared casting and loses everything else." instead of " this class loses the prepared casting and retains everything else."

[eggynack]

Spirit Shaman: 2. The overall situation here means losing a whole hell of a lot of capability compared to a druid. You still have long-term power building tools, but that was never the core of the druid's power, really. A good example of this is flight. The druid list allows for some flight, but you're not getting anything close to the overland flight but better that was possible through wild shape. The same goes for other movement modes. The lack of buff targets through wild shape, the animal companion, and spontaneous summoning hurts some of your spells a lot, and enhance wild shape is a classic that's now obviously missing. Moreover, the spell retrieval system makes some spells a good deal worse by its very nature. For example a druid that recently gained access to third level spells can plausibly allocate some of those spells to long term buffs, like heart of water, because they still have space for active spells of that level, and situational spells, like wind wall, for both that reason and the fact that those spells can be spontaneously converted. A spirit shaman has only one third level spell retrieved until 8th, and only two until 11th. A druid essentially opens with two spells, and gets a third right after, plus the capacity to turn all those spells into dire wolves as needed. Huge difference.

And that's not even touching on more baseline and obvious things. These features, the animal companion, wild shape, and spontaneous conversion, are good, in and of themselves, not even considering how they augment casting. The overall impact is a really big downgrade to the druid, on multiple axes, enough to represent a tier reduction in my opinion. I think you're about as good as any tier two class, and worse than any tier one class.

Spontaneous Druid: 2. This one is kinda close. It could plausibly swing closer to one. But prepared casting has a lot of uses, especially when you can pull from the entire list. You definitely lose less utility here than a wizard compared to a sorcerer, because you have fewer off-time spells, but utility is absolutely being lost, and while you're likely better than a spirit shaman, you're still worse than just about any tier one. This might just be the line between the tiers. But I'll open with it here.

Urban Druid: 2. This list gets some real gems on it, but it's seriously limited, and the loss of a lot of the power in your other class features is huge. The urban druid is a big downgrade on the core druid, and a humongous downgrade on the non-core druid. We're doing a good amount worse than tier one classes here.

Wild Shape Ranger: 3. Without any optimization, this is at least tier four, maybe high four or low three. With optimization, so much opens up to you. Dragon wild shape is the clear amazing standout, exalted is great, and aberration is alright, but a lot worse than on a druid without some extra optimization of the ability (assume supernatural ability is way more of a thing here). Proportional might even open up as a meaningful option when you're necessarily limited to small and medium otherwise. I think that the average of these situations, the solidly powerful low end that opens up a bunch of interesting combat stuff along with powerful movement modes, and the very powerful high end with spontaneous earthquakes and such, gets this to tier three.

[Dondasch]

All right, Spirit Shaman time. Of the classes here, it's the only one I'm really familiar with, so I'll limit myself to it.

So, first thing to look at is the casting. You're casting off the Druid list, using a mix of prepared/spontaneous mechanics. You also have two casting stats: Cha for saves, Wis for everything else. Now, the Druid list is a pretty solid list with a lot of splatbook support, but you do lose one of the draws of Druid casting: the ability to trade spells for bears on a whim. You also have a paltry number of spells known/day, never going above 3/level. Another loss is the various wild shape/animal companion related spells, which are useless to you. That said, you're effectively a prepared caster using a list that's a blend of Cleric and Sor/Wiz-- you still have quite a few good options.
Next, class features. You lack wild shape and animal companion, two major components of Druid's power. In return, you gain a smattering of stuff related to spirits (incorporeal undead, elementals, fey, and some irrelevant things). Chastise Spirits is pretty good-- it's a blast that has respectable damage, uses, and save, as well as ignoring incorporeal miss chance. It's situational, but being able to nuke shadows and such from level 2 on is really handy. Blessing of the Spirits, and its upgrade, Warding of the Spirits are really good, giving you pretty much permanent immunity to mind control and summoned beatsticks. Spirit Form lets you go incorporeal for 1 minute, which is useful both for defensive purposes and mobility. Recall Spirit is a free Revivify 1/week, good for emergencies. The rest of it is either not that great or comes too late to really be useful.
Overall, while you do lose out on both the power and on-the-spot versatility of wild shape and spontaneous summoning (though you can spend a feat for that one), you still have most of the power of the Druid spell list, and some useful class features of your own. The losses are enough to knock the Spirit Shaman down, but it still has a great deal of power and versatility on its side.

Spirit Shaman: Tier 2

[StreamOfTheSky]

Spirit Shaman: High tier 2. I keep meaning to play one b/c it's one of the few classes i haven't, but its anemic spells "known" on a given day (caps at 3 for each spell level, I think) is just too off-putting. The fact that it's halfway between prepared and spontaneous alone puts it into high tier 2, but I'd play a Sorc over this class any day...

Urban Druid: I'm going to call this tier 2 as well. May be prepared casting, but...gosh darn it, the spell list does actually matter a lot, and this class's is so nerfed it doesn't feel right putting it with the other prepared casters.

Spontaneous Druid: Low tier 2. Besides their casting, which is off a worse list than Sorc/Wiz or Cleric, a druid's strengths are being a big stupid fighter, having a big stupid fighter as a friend, and summoning in big stupid fighters. In other words...all that really matters is the casting. You're now a Sorcerer with a worse spell list and not nearly as much splat love for expanding your spells known or getting broken spells unique to your class.

Wild Shape Ranger: Without multiclassing (what a silly constraint for a 3E non-caster (ok, barely a caster) to have), this is low tier 4, and I'm not sure if it's actually any better than vanilla ranger. You'll have some more scouting/utility, but medium animal forms will not be competitive with manufactured arms, especially w/o druid casting to buff those natural attacks. If this tier system exists in reality, the only "Wild Shape Rangers" that exist are level 5 or lower characters. Everyone else is a "Wild Shape Ranger / Master of Many Forms," and are solidly into tier 3 territory. They can take very strong combat forms and eventually gain a whole library of qualities and immunities. WS Ranger / MoMF is one of my personal all time favorite builds. Closest you can get to a pure shapechanging badass w/o any other baggage. (The less-known WS Monk / MoMF is almost as good)

[eggynack]

If we're talking a higher optimization environment here, then, as I noted, there are some really strong things you can do with wild shape that don't require a bunch of levels in a prestige class. Dragon wild shape likely the first among them. The size thing is obviously not an issue, and a lot of those dragons bring their own wacky utility to the table. Yes, the forms are super useful as a base for spell casting, but they have a bunch of intrinsic value. I think that any analysis of the wild shape ranger that could be using master of many forms would be using dragon wild shape first, and I think dragon ranger is definitely tier three.

Edit: I'm think that spontaneous druids do all that piles of fighters thing too. And, y'know, whatever other crazy stuff you want to do through wild shape, the companion, and SNA.

[Efrate]

Spirit Shaman: Tier 2. The druid list is really solid, and if you lose a lot of the buff specifics to animal companions and the like, its not as important, your core is still reasonable. You are not a level behind on casting like most spontaneous casters, this is good. You have average BaB, average HD, average skills from a decent if not spectacular list, good saves in the two most important saves. You don't get to dump everything but wisdom, and you are MAD. You need a bit of physical stats, at least Con, plus Wis and Cha. You have more spells per day casting, but less potential different spells known. The good news is, tomorrow you can have a whole new set of spells. The bad news is if you do not need a spell today, you cannot do anything with it. You lose your free BSF replacement, and your BSF upgrade with wildshape. You trade versatility in spells known for spell power in casts per day, something I am not a huge fan of, but you can get stuff to replace that. Free mind blank for you and your party if they stay close as of level 4/7 is amazing. Debuffing spirits is great, as is just having a nuke for enemies that can be hard to deal with. I think its better than beguiler since fewer things can just ignore most of your abilities, you lose in skills but gain in spells, and spells > skills. You have solutions for most problems with a bit of prep, and nothing just shuts you down short of AMF. Its no sorcerer, nor druid, but it does have a lot going for it.

Spontaneous Druid: Tier 2 I really do not like the class. But they get all the druid stuff, just casting a level behind as sorcerer with SNA on the correct spell levels right? I'd say low tier 2. Druid list is good but I think I might be hard pressed to find a limited amount of spells on it that I really liked. Druid list is the weakest list of the 3 core lists, but you still get animal companion, and wildshape. Its just if you take your normal buffs for those, you have no other spells, which severely limits you. You have a way to recover, and being a bear with a bear, or better yet being a bear riding a bigger bear, who then summons bears, is still pretty nice. As great as wild shape is, the spell list limit hurts you more than most other spontaneous casters. But enough bears I am pretty sure solves a lot of problems. I think this requires a LOT more planning, but I haven't played one.

Urban Druid: Tier 2: You got spells back compared to spontaneous? But you got a much worse wild shape, and bears solve a lot of problems that spiders don't. Being mindless is more of a liability for your summons...maybe? I dunno, gentlemen prefer bears. No SNA unless you prep it is kind of bad, but hey spider and bears might be the next superhero duo. The rest of your druid abilities are slightly worse or almost as useless, but the wild shape nerf hurts less than the spell list nerf I think. Animal growth doesn't effect vermin so that is an issue, but you still have all the spells so I think it comes in just ahead of spontaneous druid, for full list access. Still, bears > spiders.

Wild Shape Ranger: Tier 4 You lose most the great wildshape forms, you lose your no prereq combat style feats which introduces MAD, your do not have the buffs to make yourself into a true monster since your spell list works best with your combat styles, not with baby bear. Your forms seem more or less worse than just a few ranks into your perception based skills, because they lack a lot of the combat prowess or backup a druid has. And a wolf riding a wolf is much less cool than a bear riding a bear. Judging as Wild Shape Ranger 20 its not that good. You can scout a bit as a small something maybe, then be an even more ineffective combatant than your normal ranger buddy who at least has spell support for his combat styles (mostly archery). I think you can eke out enough to not slip into tier 5 with fighter, you still have spells, but I'd put you very low tier 4. I think the situations where you go for dragon wild shape and other goodies and gets you into t3 are significantly less than the situation where you are just a baby bear or a wolf and start sucking at most everything. The floor is in the sublevel of a basement somewhere, and thats a lot of cieling that needs to be made up to get to ground level.

Edit: HTML mixup

[StreamOfTheSky]

Dragon Wildshape isn't really that strong for when you get it (level 12), being capped at medium. Mostly useful for non-core dragons that get weird breath weapons that do something other than just damage, though core metallics have some options. Not sure what you mean by spellcasting, but I've never agreed w/ the notion that polymorphing into a creature gives you its spellcasting abilities, if that's what you mean. And medium dragons don't get much sorcerer progression anyway.

Now, Aberration Wild Shape, Frozen Wild Shape (ie, Cryohydra Wild Shape, though I guess you do need to unlock huge size forms), and Exalted Wild Shape (blink dog)...those are tasty and could be major for a WS Ranger w/o MoMF. What an odd game that bans MoMF but allows those feats, though.

[eggynack]

Dragon Wildshape isn't really that strong for when you get it (level 12), being capped at medium. Mostly useful for non-core dragons that get weird breath weapons that do something other than just damage, though core metallics have some options. Not sure what you mean by spellcasting, but I've never agreed w/ the notion that polymorphing into a creature gives you its spellcasting abilities, if that's what you mean. And medium dragons don't get much sorcerer progression anyway.
The level requirement is problematic. However, you can do a lot that isn't breath weapons. I have a whole list in my handbook. It's a set of creatures that offers everything from small earthquakes to freedom of movement to useful vision modes (including true seeing) to high quality stealth, and a pile of other things. What I meant by spells was that druids get a bunch of utility out of dragon forms by having spells natively and using them in these kinda defensively oriented forms. Rangers get more utility out of just getting these abilities, rather than by using these abilities to construct a mobile spell slinging platform. You definitely don't get spells from dragon wild shape.


Now, Aberration Wild Shape, Frozen Wild Shape (ie, Cryohydra Wild Shape, though I guess you do need to unlock huge size forms), and Exalted Wild Shape (blink dog)...those are tasty and could be major for a WS Ranger w/o MoMF.
Not precisely sure what you're doing with aberration wild shape. I've never really thought about what it does absent enhance wild shape and/or bigger forms. There could be something there though. Assume supernatural obviously changes this particular game. Frozen has the issue you've already cited. Not precisely sure what the efficient way around that is. Exalted is indeed great.

What an odd game that bans MoMF but allows those feats, though.
It's not about how allowed things are. Prestige class consideration in a base class tier system is always kinda wonky. At this point, we're presumably only investing half of these levels in ranger. To what extent is this truly a ranger? Or a wild shape ranger, I suppose. It's a tricky issue.

[StreamOfTheSky]

It's not about how allowed things are. Prestige class consideration in a base class tier system is always kinda wonky. At this point, we're presumably only investing half of these levels in ranger. To what extent is this truly a ranger? Or a wild shape ranger, I suppose. It's a tricky issue.

It's still basically an extension of the WS Ranger's main class feature. Literally everyone who goes into WS Ranger takes it unless they can't for some reason. It's folly to ask about how strong WS Ranger is while ignoring its existence. It's just so tied to the class, you can't just look at the base class in a vacuum. Scout without Swift Hunter (and thus at least a 1 level Ranger dip) is a similar case. It's a game-changer, and so critical as to be mandatory.
Another example might be specialist wizards and the master specialist PrC...if it's available there's no reason to not go into it. Though w/ wizards, there's so many broken PrC options they probably won't be a master specialist for many levels, either. :smallsmile:

[Troacctid]

I'm actually changing my vote on Spontaneous Druid to a 1. I think spontaneous casting is criminally underrated. In this case, you actually have a lot of effective spells known off a very powerful list, you don't have a gimped progression like T2 spontaneous casters typically do, you have savagely good class features, and overall you're actually pretty close to the full power of a normal Druid. Yes, obviously you're still worse, but there is a lot of room to be worse than the #1 most powerful class in the game while still being top-tier, and I don't think you're as worse as a lot of people assume.

[eggynack]

It's still basically an extension of the WS Ranger's main class feature. Literally everyone who goes into WS Ranger takes it unless they can't for some reason. It's folly to ask about how strong WS Ranger is while ignoring its existence. It's just so tied to the class, you can't just look at the base class in a vacuum. Scout without Swift Hunter (and thus at least a 1 level Ranger dip) is a similar case. It's a game-changer, and so critical as to be mandatory.
I don't disagree that it's probably incredibly common. Still, I think there's value in just looking at the class for what it is. Later, if we want, we can look at MoMF, in some kinda revision of the PrC system, especially cause this is one of those cases where the prestige class is the primary source of power. It'll get a two or three or whatever. For now, I think a class whose primary thing is just small and medium animals, with some weird modifications premised on not-PrC things, is worth looking at. Maybe it'll get a three, confirming what the original tier system said, or maybe it'll get a four, like it looks like it's angling for now, and render the notion of separate consideration for this ACF a bit pointless. Either way, I think we'll get some cool information.

[eggynack]

I'm actually changing my vote on Spontaneous Druid to a 1. I think spontaneous casting is criminally underrated. In this case, you actually have a lot of effective spells known off a very powerful list, you don't have a gimped progression like T2 spontaneous casters typically do, you have savagely good class features, and overall you're actually pretty close to the full power of a normal Druid. Yes, obviously you're still worse, but there is a lot of room to be worse than the #1 most powerful class in the game while still being top-tier, and I don't think you're as worse as a lot of people assume.
It's an interesting position, certainly. In core, I have the feeling that spontaneous druids are really really similar to normal druids. The core druid list has a number of spell levels where you just want to be laying down the same spell over and over again, fewer options with significant out of combat impact than the wizard or cleric (especially when you consider that something like control winds, which does have out-of-combat impact, is something the spontaneous druid would take anyway), and fewer long duration buffs that you'd want to trade out active spells for later, and which you're using once a day. The spells are there, certainly. Scrying, spellstaff, healing, stone shape/wall of stone, and a number of others, along with stuff like greater magic fang for that buff role. It's different, and the spontaneous druid strikes me as somewhat worse (especially because spontaneous conversion lets them have access to the repeated casting of something broadly efficient mechanic that tends to give spontaneity an advantage), but it's not that much worse.

The non-core situation is worse. Not crazy worse, maybe not worse enough to drop the class a tier, but possibly worse enough to do that. It's an environment with more of those out of combat effects, especially in the area of minionmancy, an environment where some spell levels (third especially) can become near entirely devoted to buff routines later on, a plan the spontaneous druid can't make use of nearly as well, and an environment where sanctified and corrupt spells are a thing, one more relevant to druids than to most prepared casters (why would the wizard or cleric care about animate with the spirit?). I might be applying too high a standard of optimization here, thinking of all these cool and sometimes obscure things a druid can do that a spontaneous druid cannot, failing to recognize that a spontaneous druid can still know enhance wild shape, blizzard, and fey ring, and kick a ton of ass in that level range among others. Even out of core, it strikes me as a list more amenable to spontaneous casting than the wizard/sorcerer list, especially when you consider all that the druid's class features bring to the table.

One makes sense, is what I'm generally getting at. I don't think I'm there yet though. The spontaneous druid and spirit shaman alike strike me as weirdly hanging out on the edge between one and two. I feel like I might swap to 1.5 at some point, but one is tricky when I don't think they win against tier one classes. Two is admittedly tricky as well. I don't know if the class loses to any tier two classes. I feel sometimes, especially now that we have two completely separate 4.5's, like we're going to weirdly wind up with like eleven tiers, six normal and five as the in-between spaces which demarcate where the line is between one tier and another. It's something like what I was getting at awhile back with the fighter, noting that classes which fall near the middle can represent the line. But we're at this strange space right now where the relevant classes might fall smack dab perfect on the relevant lines.

[Troacctid]

When you're that close to a core-only Druid in power level, you should be just a straight Tier 1, since the core-only Druid is easily Tier 1 even in a non-core game.

Spontaneous Cleric is the one that's more on the line IMO.

[Dondasch]

One makes sense, is what I'm generally getting at. I don't think I'm there yet though. The spontaneous druid and spirit shaman alike strike me as weirdly hanging out on the edge between one and two. I feel like I might swap to 1.5 at some point, but one is tricky when I don't think they win against tier one classes. Two is admittedly tricky as well. I don't know if the class loses to any tier two classes.

On spontaneous Druid:
Well, if a core-only spontaneous Druid is T1 (Incredibly good at solving nearly all problems), adding more material doesn't decrease their problem-solving ability. So if they're T1 in core, then they are T1 overall.
I think comparing these classes to Druid might actually be unfair to them. It's hard to look good when compared to all the things a Druid can do.

On the edge:
The main reason I think Spirit Shaman drops to tier 2 is that the Druid spell list requires more knowledge to use well. For the Cleric and Sor/Wiz lists, it's fairly easy to point out incredibly good spells, but the Druid list doesn't have many of those. Instead, it has a wide variety of solidly useful spells for a multitude of problems. Druids have SNA and wild shape to bail them out if they don't have that knowledge, but the Spirit Shaman is more dependent on optimization. And, since we're considering a range of optimizations, the lower end drags it down a bit.
That might also be why it was hard to tier under JaronK's system. People were looking for ways it could snap campaigns over its knee, instead of at its ability to have a solution for nearly anything a GM can throw at you.

[eggynack]

When you're that close to a core-only Druid in power level, you should be just a straight Tier 1, since the core-only Druid is easily Tier 1 even in a non-core game.
Might be the case. It's kinda like the death master argument that was happening/will happen, except here things seem generally superior in terms of baseline power and utility gained from book quantity expansion. Yeah, I think I'ma go with that, on the basis that the non-core spontaneous druid is quite possibly superior to the core normal druid.

Edit: This and the current wild shape ranger rating bring up an interesting problem, which is that the basis for moving ACFs out of the main class is that the ACF shifts the class' tier either up or down. In these cases, I added the classes with the expectation that the druid would go down a tier and the ranger would go up a tier. But, while it's nowhere near definite, it's very possible at this moment that the classes will remain in their base tiers. My thinking is that while this ostensibly goes against the thread procedure by keeping things out of a given class that should technically be considered within the context of the class, it's worthwhile to have this information as an object unto itself. It's useful to sometimes say, "This here doesn't change anything, in spite of the fact that you might have expected it to change something." Generally speaking, I tend to think power reducing ACFs shouldn't be considered within the class anyway, at least not with a bunch of focus, because ACFs are a higher op construct here and it'd be used in a lower op context, in a sense, so spontaneous druid wouldn't be a factor either way, but power increasing ones still likely should be. It's entirely possible, then, that the tiering here will be a four, which would mean it should be included in the ranger, which could in turn plausibly, though not likely (ACFs obviously aren't an assumed feature of base classes like they are of these separate variant classes), push the ranger to tier three. That would probably necessitate a note of some kind. It'd be weird.

It's a kinda interesting unstated premise we've been working off of, separately, that the wild shape ranger isn't using ACFs besides wild shape ranger. I think that makes sense, and I don't know that we should stop doing that, but it's a strange thing. We're also not talking about, for example, SotAO. Maybe some of this stuff should enter the conversation, besides the obvious wild shape optimization stuff.

[Troacctid]

I would probably compare the Spirit Shaman to a Favored Soul, actually. Sure, you can change your spell loadout each day, but how many different loadouts are you realistically going to have? Favored Soul has two or three times as many spells known of each level as the Spirit Shaman has spells retrieved, so you can just have your top 3 loadouts all at once, all the time, and you don't need to retrieve metamagic versions separately.

Spirit Shaman is still better overall IMO because it doesn't have the delayed progression (which is a big drawback). But I think it's the closest comparison.

[Zancloufer]

So looking at these there are all pretty close in power, though being fairly Different.

1) Urban Druid: This one is fun. First it is much like the druid. With a nerfed companion, neutered wild shape, MUCH worse spell list, Cha based casting, and lost their ability to turn any spell into "Summon Bear Hoard". Also they have much worse proficiency: Only light armour and isn't allowed to wear armour that GRANTS MORE THAN 4 AC?! Okay now we are getting silly. I haven't looked too much into them though so I would give them a tentative tier 2 on the grounds of being a bad druid is still a decent class.

2) Spontaneous Druid: They actually get delayed a spell level (like Sorcerers and their ilk) and most likely eat that meta-magic nerf. Not to mention their number of spells known is terrible, capping at 3 until they know spells a good 3-4 spell levels higher. Also unlike Sorceres and Favoured Souls they cannot cast more spells per day than a regular druid. I suppose if you don't mind being a spell level behind and only knowing 1-3 of the most current spells they are, okay. Tier 2 as their class features are solid and they still have access to full Druid list, if they choose right ones.

3) Spirit Shaman: If they knew one more spell per level and didn't get literally the worst meta-magic mechanics possible I would say a solid tier 1. Their abilities range from generally useful to niche but powerful. Combined with the ability to change their spells known everyday they are almost a prepared caster. Tier 2.

4) Wild Shape Ranger: Okay you loose three feats but gain access to wild shape and +10ft movement speed. No Tiny/Huge/Plant forms at the higher levels, but access to Wild Shape opens up many feat options. Also I feel like the bonus feats where almost trap options in that they pen your build in (still need multiple OTHER feats to make them work) and it's not like either option was super good. Tier 3 as I feel that Wild Shape is much superior to three per-dertermined feats that merely help ease the feat tax on sup-par combat styles.

[Gnaeus]

I would probably compare the Spirit Shaman to a Favored Soul, actually. Sure, you can change your spell loadout each day, but how many different loadouts are you realistically going to have? Favored Soul has two or three times as many spells known of each level as the Spirit Shaman has spells retrieved, so you can just have your top 3 loadouts all at once, all the time, and you don't need to retrieve metamagic versions separately.

Spirit Shaman is still better overall IMO because it doesn't have the delayed progression (which is a big drawback). But I think it's the closest comparison.

I compared my Spirit Shaman with Favored Soul all the time. The comparison invariably went "I wish I was playing a Favored Soul instead of Spirit Shaman"

[Beheld]

True story, reading this thread on mobile is hard, because for some reason the mobile site shows old avatars, and everyone in this thread has the same cloak and dagger guy as their avatar.

[eggynack]

I would probably compare the Spirit Shaman to a Favored Soul, actually. Sure, you can change your spell loadout each day, but how many different loadouts are you realistically going to have? Favored Soul has two or three times as many spells known of each level as the Spirit Shaman has spells retrieved, so you can just have your top 3 loadouts all at once, all the time, and you don't need to retrieve metamagic versions separately.

Spirit Shaman is still better overall IMO because it doesn't have the delayed progression (which is a big drawback). But I think it's the closest comparison.
That the spirit shaman has some access to that long term power gain stuff is pretty nice, even if druids aren't as good at it as other tier ones. Might have to go back and look at that favored soul list at some point. The comparison does seem like a rather fair one though.



1) Urban Druid: This one is fun. First it is much like the druid. With a nerfed companion, neutered wild shape, MUCH worse spell list, Cha based casting, and lost their ability to turn any spell into "Summon Bear Hoard". Also they have much worse proficiency: Only light armour and isn't allowed to wear armour that GRANTS MORE THAN 4 AC?! Okay now we are getting silly. I haven't looked too much into them though so I would give them a tentative tier 2 on the grounds of being a bad druid is still a decent class.
The class isn't great, but you get one or more spells at each level that are sufficiently top notch that I think the sorcerer comparison isn't a bad one. The comparison to core druid minus class features might not be too bad either, actually. First and second are maybe the worst, with charm person at first and rope trick and maybe suggestion at second, with knock as support. Not that far back from a core druid, honestly, cause second level core druid spells are kinda meh, and you still get a riding dog. Third gets glibness, shrink item, speak with dead, stinking cloud, and tongues, which is a really good setup. Dispel, FoM, minor creation, and some divinations show up at fourth. Fifth has control winds, major creation, transmute rock to mud/mud to rock, and wall of stone, with control winds still the big standout on either list.

Sixth level spells have anti-life shell, greater dispel, find the path, spellstaff, and maybe flesh to stone. Seventh is perhaps disintegrate, heal, and true seeing. Then eighth is perhaps the best point of comparison, with polymorph any object better than just about anything at that level on just about any list. And, finally, 9th has shapechange, so it's fine. Add on the fact that you can toss on sanctified and corrupt spells by leaving the book, and you have what seems to me a really good setup.

The obvious downside is twofold, coming from the general lack of splatbook support, and the lack of those great class features. But the list seems good. Definitely good enough for a non-tentative tier two, in my opinion.

[Gnaeus]

Spontaneous Druid T2. Near the top of T2. Its got a T3 class, a T5 class, and a T2 class added together. Nothing bad there.

Urban Druid T2. Clearly worse than Druid, but a prepared full list caster.

WS Ranger T3 bottom. Solid combatant. Should be useful most all the time once WS really comes on line. Only real drawback is low level play. Needs some feat picks to really be good, but worst case it's a solid chassis with some spellcasting and great utility.

Spirit Shaman T3. I cannot say how much I hated playing this class. Unless you know EXACTLY what you are going to be fighting, you don't have enough spells retrieved to make your spell preparation actually useful, because you almost need to prepare general purpose spells to avoid being useless. Their metamagic use makes this WORSE. Also, Druid has a T1 list, but pretending that SS can really use it is a LIE. Druid list is full of solid combat buffs, but the bite of the Weretiger that turns the wild shaped Druid into a monster turns the SS into a chump. It's got some great long term buffs that SS doesn't want to retrieve because that ties up it's only high level spell for the day. It's got some good buffs that work on animals, now useless. And some amazing tricks like enhance WS that do nothing for SS. And a bunch of situational spells against creature types that the SS can't use because again you are locking in all your top level spells to crush any plants you meet, or protect from undead, or whatever, but against anything else you're gimped. I'd put it below Warmage. Maybe below healer with exalted spells. I'd rather have either one of those in my group. It's way easier to give a Warmage a little out of combat utility than it is to make SS good at combat and anything else. Beguiler and Dread Necro? Totally different weight class. This thing isn't even at the top of T3.

[Troacctid]

Also they have much worse proficiency: Only light armour and isn't allowed to wear armour that GRANTS MORE THAN 4 AC?! Okay now we are getting silly.
Actually, fun fact, the armor restrictions were left out of the Urban Druid's class description. So while there is a penalty for wearing prohibited armor, there aren't actually any armors that are prohibited to the class. You're not proficient with most armor, but other than that, you can wear what you like.


2) Spontaneous Druid: They actually get delayed a spell level (like Sorcerers and their ilk)
No, they do not. You are mistaken.


I compared my Spirit Shaman with Favored Soul all the time. The comparison invariably went "I wish I was playing a Favored Soul instead of Spirit Shaman"
Touché.

[Zancloufer]

Actually, fun fact, the armor restrictions were left out of the Urban Druid's class description. So while there is a penalty for wearing prohibited armor, there aren't actually any armors that are prohibited to the class. You're not proficient with most armor, but other than that, you can wear what you like.


Well, except that whole "If you wear a prohibited armour you can't druid for 24 hours" thing.




No, they do not. You are mistaken.


They gain 0 level 2 spells known at level 3. They Gain 0 level 3 known spells at level 5 etc.

I do admit I forgot about the free SNA they gain, but that will pretty much be the only spells you know at first. It is more notable as a cleric where you get both your domain spells, which you have some control over CHOOSING. Still having your spell list flexibility neutered does hurt a lot, especially as a Druid can simply prepare a different spell know in each of their spell slots and still have more flexibility and comparable staying power to their spontaneous cousins.

[Troacctid]

Well, except that whole "If you wear a prohibited armour you can't druid for 24 hours" thing.
Yes, but since the class does not actually prohibit any types of armor, it doesn't matter.


They gain 0 level 2 spells known at level 3. They Gain 0 level 3 known spells at level 5 etc.
Nope, they get SNA at every level and they get their spell slots right on time.

[Zancloufer]

Yes, but since the class does not actually prohibit any types of armor, it doesn't matter.


Umm, well:


They find armor to be distasteful and rude, and although they are proficient with padded, leather, and studded leather armor, they prefer to wear armor only when adventuring. The DM may allow urban druids to wear other forms of light armor that provide less than a +4 armor bonus as well. Urban druids are proficient with bucklers but no other shields. An urban druid who wears prohibited armor or carries a prohibited shield is unable to cast urban druid spells or use any of her supernatural class abilities while doing so and for 24 hours hereafter.

I suppose it doesn't say that medium/heavy armour or armour that grants more than +4 armour bonus is prohibited. Technically. Although it did just list what they are proficient and are allowed to wear and then goes and says anything they are prohibited from wearing shuts the entire class down if they wear any of it.

It's like 200% super shifty RAW interpretation, like Swordsages getting x6 skill points at level 1 or Iron Heart Surging the Sun out of existence with a race that has light blindness/sensitivity.




Nope, they get SNA at every level and they get their spell slots right on time.

Errr;



I do admit I forgot about the free SNA they gain, but that will pretty much be the only spells you know at first.

[Dondasch]

And the debate begins.


Spirit Shaman T3. I cannot say how much I hated playing this class. Unless you know EXACTLY what you are going to be fighting, you don't have enough spells retrieved to make your spell preparation actually useful, because you almost need to prepare general purpose spells to avoid being useless.

I'd like to point out that if simply preparing general purpose spells is enough to prevent you from being useless (and it is), you are therefore useful, and exact knowledge is just making you more useful.


Their metamagic use makes this WORSE.

Spirit Shaman's metamagic is effectively the same as a standard prepared caster's, albeit translated into the spell retrieval system.


Also, Druid has a T1 list, but pretending that SS can really use it is a LIE. Druid list is full of solid combat buffs, but the bite of the Weretiger that turns the wild shaped Druid into a monster turns the SS into a chump. It's got some great long term buffs that SS doesn't want to retrieve because that ties up it's only high level spell for the day. It's got some good buffs that work on animals, now useless. And some amazing tricks like enhance WS that do nothing for SS. And a bunch of situational spells against creature types that the SS can't use because again you are locking in all your top level spells to crush any plants you meet, or protect from undead, or whatever, but against anything else you're gimped.

Since I don't want a half dozen quotes for this:
If this list is "full of solid combat buffs", then surely at least some of them are still relevant to the Spirit Shaman? I admit I usually don't enter melee as a caster, so my knowledge here is limited.
For the great long term buffs, just prepare the good ones from lower levels, or dedicate your highest level spell to getting a great buff on 2-4 characters. You have enough lower level slots to pick up the slack.
You do lose the animal companion/wild shape buffs, but I've always found that the real power of those spells was rooted in the class features, not the spells. It's not a downfall of Spirit Shaman's casting; it's a lack of certain (overpowered) class features.
Situational spells are situational, yes, but they also tend to be lower level than more general spells with equal effects, leaving your higher level slots free. I find that situational spells are poor choices in general; Druids can prepare them safely because for them, those spells are also bears. If, however, you really like those situational spells, take the Spontaneous Summoning feat from the same book as the Spirit Shaman to effectively get an extra spell retrieved of each level, allowing you to chuck bears at problems too.


I'd put it below Warmage. Maybe below healer with exalted spells. I'd rather have either one of those in my group. It's way easier to give a Warmage a little out of combat utility than it is to make SS good at combat and anything else. Beguiler and Dread Necro? Totally different weight class. This thing isn't even at the top of T3.

The Spirit Shaman is definitely better than the Warmage and Healer, barring high-powered options (mainly Rainbow Servant 10). It requires more thinking and spell knowledge, but it starts with access to a variety of spells for solving different problem.
As for Beguiler and Dread Necromancer, I'd argue that it's more a question of where the floor is. The Beguiler and Dread Necromancer have effectively had the big choices made for you already, so they're hard to screw up. The Spirit Shaman is dependent on the choices you make, so it's easier to have a sucky Spirit Shaman than a sucky Beguiler (but the same is true of Wizard and Beguiler). The Druid list also lacks the plot-derailing abilities that Beguiler and Dread Necromancer lists can give you, but this tier list is generally ignoring game-breaking abilities to the best of my knowledge, because, well, the game is broken once they start getting used. What matters is that the list has strong answers to a variety of situations, and the Spirit Shaman can pick and choose from all of them with a day to prepare.


One final thing to remember is that Spirit Shaman, not having the gimped spontaneous progression, has a legitimate advantage in spells/day. You get 2-3 casts of your highest level spell, 4-5 of the second highest, and 5-6 of everything else, ignoring bonus spells from a high Wisdom.

[eggynack]

And the debate begins.
Well, thank Pelor for that. Was getting worried this thread would never get off the ground, after expecting it would be pretty high activity due to how controversial the spirit shaman and kinda the wild shape ranger are, and that urban druid is a relative unknown. I thought the spontaneous druid one or two question could get interesting too. But then it largely failed to materialize. Real flaw to the child thread method is that it leaves the voting quantity down to the fickle whims of the community.

Anyways, on combat buffs, my feelings are, first, that they're kinda a lost cause, and, second, that it probably doesn't matter that much. Losing the bite spells kinda sucks, as does losing animal growth, but the druid list has a buncha spells on it. There's usually something really sweet at each level that the spirit shaman doesn't lose value on.

[Fizban]

Without reading the thread:

Spirit Shaman: Tier 2. Their spells retrieved are so limited that even sorcerer spells known start to look good, but still enough to have one trick. A variable specialist that is definitively weaker than Druid and Cleric with it's own unique backup abilities in place of the usual.

Spontaneous Druid: Tier 1. Yeah, I'm gonna do it. They keep all their animal companion, wild shape, and spontaneous summon nature's ally (as a known spell in the text rather than a separate feature), and those are the abilities that cement the druid as un-screw-upable. A poorly chosen spell list, like the rest of a poorly built character, is still mostly overwritten by wild shaping and summoning your way out of it until you can fix some spells. In practical use a spontaneous druid who majorly screws up is still far and above a wizard who majorly screws up, and not dying when you majorly screw up is the real game. When decently built, a spontaneous druid still gets all the specialties they can milk out of those three features on top of however many they can milk out of their spells known, which is enough to overshadow any tier 2 without significant investment/optimization. Normal druid for high tier 1, spontaneous druid for low tier 1.

Urban Druid: abstain. It looks like a lot of fiddly stuff I don't care to properly investigate when there are already more lightweight versions of urban/vermin X.

Wild Shape Ranger: Tier 3. Partial casting with supernatural ability support is obviously not low end and remains obviously not as strong at actual full spellcasting.

Edit: huh, apparently spont druid for tier 1 isn't all that controversial, but then it doesn't come with the implied "above t2 wizard" that comes from taking mine collectively. Also didn't mention the spirit shaman's garbage split ability casting, which definitely drags them down to low 2, but with a changeable top level spell I don't think quite down to 3.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I hope all these people calling spont. druid Tier 1 have no issues putting Sorcerer there, because Sorcerer is no-contest a much better class.

All the stuff besides the casting (companion, wild shape, etc..) are tier 3 at best. Druid's tier 1 for its casting, and nothing else. Everything else is frosting. Spont. Druid is a Sorcerer with a much worse spell list and much less splat love to expand/exploit said list.

[eggynack]

I hope all these people calling spont. druid Tier 1 have no issues putting Sorcerer there, because Sorcerer is no-contest a much better class.

All the stuff besides the casting (companion, wild shape, etc..) are tier 3 at best. Druid's tier 1 for its casting, and nothing else. Everything else is frosting. Spont. Druid is a Sorcerer with a much worse spell list and much less splat love to expand/exploit said list.
I think that these things are a lot more relevant to tiering than you given them credit for. Tossing them into this weird "Tier three" bin and disregarding it does them a disservice. Wild shape is more than some arbitrary tier three object. It's every movement mode there is, in high quality form, a big stat boost (either strength or dexterity, depending on need), a bunch of useful attack modes and other abilities if you use enhance, and an incredibly potent optimization path, as was noted when we were talking about the wild shape ranger. Usually, when you ask, "How does a druid do this thing?" the answer is clearly spells. The rest of the time though, which is a surprising amount of the time, the answer is wild shape. The animal companion, meanwhile, is what makes the druid and spontaneous druid alike at the top of the game in the early levels, before spells take over. Also, spontaneous druids keep up the spontaneous SNA thing in a sense, and that's a big edge, especially when they get that spell before the sorcerer gets anything of that level.

Take all these things together, and I think the spontaneous druid may well beat the sorcerer. Could be mistaken, and that doubt is why I stuck them in two initially, but there's a hell of a lot of power you're ignoring by saying the druid is just its casting. Yes, a druid would still be tier one without these class features, but the class features account for a lot of the druid's height in the tier. They're relevant even in the context of high tier analysis. I haven't even gone into all the things implied by the claim that wild shape offers crazy optimization material. There's a ton of it. The idea that stuff like an extra standard action every round, or invisibility plus immunity to magic, or always on true seeing, or a dimension door every round which allows for casting in the same round, can't boost a class' tier at this level, strikes me as ridiculous.

[Dondasch]

Also didn't mention the spirit shaman's garbage split ability casting, which definitely drags them down to low 2, but with a changeable top level spell I don't think quite down to 3.

Actually, I mentioned that:


You also have two casting stats: Cha for saves, Wis for everything else.

It's also not really that bad. The Spirit Shaman is best off standing back casting spells, so you don't need your other ability scores to be super high, even if you can't dump them like a Druid. And there are quite a few useful spells that don't rely on saves in the first place, like SNA, buffs, and utility spells.
Plus, you don't have as many items you need to buy as some other classes, so having to spend more on ability boosters isn't such a huge problem.

[Troacctid]

I hope all these people calling spont. druid Tier 1 have no issues putting Sorcerer there, because Sorcerer is no-contest a much better class.

All the stuff besides the casting (companion, wild shape, etc..) are tier 3 at best. Druid's tier 1 for its casting, and nothing else. Everything else is frosting. Spont. Druid is a Sorcerer with a much worse spell list and much less splat love to expand/exploit said list.
Strongly disagree. Spontaneous Druid is significantly stronger than Sorcerer. Better casting progression, better chassis, and broken-good class features. I don't even think it's a contest.

[Gnaeus]

I'd like to point out that if simply preparing general purpose spells is enough to prevent you from being useless (and it is), you are therefore useful, and exact knowledge is just making you more useful.
And the tier of a class that is just generally useful is..... Tier 3. The exact knowledge is remarkably rarely helpful to this class, even assuming you can get it, since druids are not the best T1 for divinations, and SS is way worse than druid, because if you prep divination spells, you open yourself up for being awful for a day.



Spirit Shaman's metamagic is effectively the same as a standard prepared caster's, albeit translated into the spell retrieval system.

But worse than the fixed list or limited list casters. The wizard doesn't mind preparing a single 4th level spell in a 6 slot with some metamagic. He doesn't have to tie up all his level 6 spells with 4th level metamagic.



Since I don't want a half dozen quotes for this:
If this list is "full of solid combat buffs", then surely at least some of them are still relevant to the Spirit Shaman? I admit I usually don't enter melee as a caster, so my knowledge here is limited.

Nope. Give a light armor simple weapon wis/cha focused class a big Str buff, and you are putting makeup on a pig.


For the great long term buffs, just prepare the good ones from lower levels, or dedicate your highest level spell to getting a great buff on 2-4 characters. You have enough lower level slots to pick up the slack.

The best ones are personal, and no you don't.


You do lose the animal companion/wild shape buffs, but I've always found that the real power of those spells was rooted in the class features, not the spells. It's not a downfall of Spirit Shaman's casting; it's a lack of certain (overpowered) class features.

Its a downfall of casting if half your spells don't work.


Situational spells are situational, yes, but they also tend to be lower level than more general spells with equal effects, leaving your higher level slots free. I find that situational spells are poor choices in general; Druids can prepare them safely because for them, those spells are also bears. If, however, you really like those situational spells, take the Spontaneous Summoning feat from the same book as the Spirit Shaman to effectively get an extra spell retrieved of each level, allowing you to chuck bears at problems too.

Situational spells are the entire reason why prepared casting is any good at all. Leave out situational spells (and bonus feats, accelerated casting, etc), and a sorcerer with 4 spells known beats a wizard with 10, because the wizard will pick the 4 most useful spells to prep every day. Situational spells are good, in certain situations. Wandering into the vampire crypt? The Druid 7 prepares Death Ward and a couple of other spells. The SS gets to pick whether he wants Death Ward for fighting the level draining vampire, or utility spells for fighting the other undead and monsters in the dungeon. So he takes a general utility spell instead, and his ability to pick spells is pointless.

Worse, druids get a LOT of situational spells. They don't have a lot of all purpose spells like polymorph. Thats OK for a druid, who can spontaneously convert spells, can pick multiple different encounter winners and convert the ones he doesn't need, and can fall back on eating faces. SS can't.

And many of the generalist spells on the druid list are one level behind where they pop up on sorcerer or cleric. Heal is always useful. No party member ever looks at you and says "why did you prep heal". If you don't know what you will fight, heal works. I completely support my favored soul prepping Heal as one of his 3 level 6 spells. I completely support my druid prepping it as 1 of his level 7 spells. When a SS preps it, hes a flat out inferior favored soul.


If, however, you really like those situational spells, take the Spontaneous Summoning feat from the same book as the Spirit Shaman to effectively get an extra spell retrieved of each level, allowing you to chuck bears at problems too.

The Spirit Shaman is definitely better than the Warmage and Healer, barring high-powered options (mainly Rainbow Servant 10).

Interesting argument. You know another feat in that book? Arcane Disciple. Like Spontaneous Summoning, it makes you more MAD. I could take a Warmage, give him Arcane Disciple (Summoning) and pick up all the versatility of being able to convert to a summons, but also the planar ally line and Gate. I could take it 3 times and get new awesome spells each time. But warmage is way less likely than SS to be completely shut out by an encounter to begin with.


The Spirit Shaman is definitely better than the Warmage and Healer, barring high-powered options (mainly Rainbow Servant 10). It requires more thinking and spell knowledge, but it starts with access to a variety of spells for solving different problem.

Access as in they are on his list. No access in that they are incredibly difficult to effectively use. At least when healer takes Heal or lesser restoration they aren't smacking themselves in the head.


As for Beguiler and Dread Necromancer, I'd argue that it's more a question of where the floor is. The Beguiler and Dread Necromancer have effectively had the big choices made for you already, so they're hard to screw up. The Spirit Shaman is dependent on the choices you make, so it's easier to have a sucky Spirit Shaman than a sucky Beguiler (but the same is true of Wizard and Beguiler). The Druid list also lacks the plot-derailing abilities that Beguiler and Dread Necromancer lists can give you, but this tier list is generally ignoring game-breaking abilities to the best of my knowledge, because, well, the game is broken once they start getting used. What matters is that the list has strong answers to a variety of situations, and the Spirit Shaman can pick and choose from all of them with a day to prepare.

Actually, pretty much the only place where I would give the SS an advantage is plot derailing and game breaking. Druid is clearly better at leveling cities and destroying armies with hurricanes than the fixed list casters. But the fixed list casters, before or after both classes expand option with CDiv feats, have more tools to use in every situation, the tools they have, spell for spell, are better, and the spirit shaman will wind up having almost an identical list every day, because they don't retrieve enough spells to really have room to shake them up. Beguiler and Dread Necro have a higher floor, yes, but also a much higher ceiling.

Want to test it? I'm perfectly happy to put either the Beguiler or DN list side by side with the SS list after I have stripped out all the spells they can't use or which completely suck for them. Whether you can't convert to summons or whether they can convert to domains is about equally awful for the SS.

[Duelpersonality]

Well, here goes...

Spirit Shaman: Tier 1. I know the spells known per day is a big hinderance, but they have a good list, the ability to adjust spells known, and features for directly dealing with opponents that have sometimes tricky defenses. Split casting stat is somewhat offset by having some uses for Cha, and not needing physical stats much in overall build.

Spontaneous Druid: Tier 1. It's still a druid.

WS Ranger: Tier 3. Even as a lesser version, I think wild shape works well with the ranger.

[Gnaeus]

Well, here goes...

Spirit Shaman: Tier 1. I know the spells known per day is a big hinderance, but they have a good list, the ability to adjust spells known, and features for directly dealing with opponents that have sometimes tricky defenses. Split casting stat is somewhat offset by having some uses for Cha, and not needing physical stats much in overall build.

Assumes that you will throw out most of the combat buff and touch range spells as viable alternatives. Which I agree you probably should, but doesn't leave a lot when you remove all the other stuff they can't use.

[eggynack]

Assumes that you will throw out most of the combat buff and touch range spells as viable alternatives. Which I agree you probably should, but doesn't leave a lot when you remove all the other stuff they can't use.
I really don't agree with this. Yes, the spirit shaman loses access to a ton of druid classics. That doesn't mean they don't have a ton left. Losing bite of the weretiger just means you have to start casting control winds, blizzard, call avalanche, and a bunch of other really great spells. Losing werebear just means you have to start tossing out spontaneous earthquakes, fey ring, mudslide, spellstaff (maybe not, cause it might fail to interact with the spirit shaman's casting mechanic), and again, a bunch of really great spells. Losing bite of the wereboar and enhance wild shape just means you need to start casting boreal wind, dispel magic, elemental guardian, eye of the hurricane, scrying, stone metamorphosis, and wall of salt, again among others. It's a really really big list. You can lose a ton of spells and still have enough for several complete lists on the spirit shaman's limited spells/day. That spell retrieval thing is an issue, and a big one. If they were retrieving a serious spell density, I might well be putting them in tier one right now (because it'd mean they basically do the spell part of a druid except better). This other thing, this idea that the druid with a lot of their spells invalidated by circumstance has any kind of problem finding good spells seems really far off of true.

[Dondasch]

And the tier of a class that is just generally useful is..... Tier 3. The exact knowledge is remarkably rarely helpful to this class, even assuming you can get it, since druids are not the best T1 for divinations, and SS is way worse than druid, because if you prep divination spells, you open yourself up for being awful for a day.

You don't really need knowledge that's too specific to start preparing great spells for a situation; I'll cover this more later with the vampire.


But worse than the fixed list or limited list casters. The wizard doesn't mind preparing a single 4th level spell in a 6 slot with some metamagic. He doesn't have to tie up all his level 6 spells with 4th level metamagic.

But we aren't talking about Wizards and their list, we're talking about Spirit Shamans and the Druid list. You don't have as many things you'd want to metamagic in the first place. Quicken is pretty much the only thing arguably worthwhile, and I find it rare that a Quickened 2nd level spell is significantly better than a normal 6th.


Nope. Give a light armor simple weapon wis/cha focused class a big Str buff, and you are putting makeup on a pig.

Eh, I'm certain there are still a few useful ones, but I don't have much to go off of here. Frankly though, in-combat self-buffing is bad unless the buff is absolutely incredible.


The best ones are personal, and no you don't.

Barkskin is a fairly good buff to AC, and Spider Climb is a win button against a fairly large range of encounters in addition to being a useful utility spell. Resist Energy is another useful one, if you expect to be dealing with a specific energy type. And those are just core 2nd level spells.
And if Spirit Shaman doesn't have enough low level spells, who does?


Its a downfall of casting if half your spells don't work.

The only reason the Spirit Shaman gets those spells at all is because they cast off the entire Druid list. They work exactly as intended: not at all for characters that lack the abilities they improve. It's like complaining that pure Druids can't benefit from Vine Strike.


Situational spells are the entire reason why prepared casting is any good at all. Leave out situational spells (and bonus feats, accelerated casting, etc), and a sorcerer with 4 spells known beats a wizard with 10, because the wizard will pick the 4 most useful spells to prep every day. Situational spells are good, in certain situations. Wandering into the vampire crypt? The Druid 7 prepares Death Ward and a couple of other spells. The SS gets to pick whether he wants Death Ward for fighting the level draining vampire, or utility spells for fighting the other undead and monsters in the dungeon. So he takes a general utility spell instead, and his ability to pick spells is pointless.

I think I've found why you think Spirit Shamans suck. You keep trying to solve everything with your top level spells.
So, let's look at this situation. We're going into a vampire's crypt, that is presumably crawling with undead, and we have enough forewarning to pick spells. As a 7th level Spirit Shaman (14 Cha and 16 Wis for argument), here's what I might do:
My class features give me a decent blast shadows and specters, so I'm always relevant against any of those we fight. Plus, I just got permanent Magic Circle, so the vampire's Dominate means almost nothing to my party, and I can potentially turn its minions against it.
For spells, I can grab Death Ward and protect half the party for the vampire fight. Or, if Web content is allowed, grab Bone Talisman as one of my 2 2nd level spells and get up to 7 turn attempts to help us breeze through the crypt. Kelpstrand (SpC) is another good pick for 2nd level, giving me up to two grapple attempts at +15 in one standard action (usable on different targets, or stackable on one, like the vampire). If we can get a map of the crypt and the vampire is near the top, the 3rd level Stone Shape can potentially let us open a hole an the roof and let the sun solve the problem. Even if we can't, I can make an airtight stone box around the vampire, letting us take care of any backup it has before we take it down (or just leave it trapped forever, if killing it isn't the objective).


Worse, druids get a LOT of situational spells. They don't have a lot of all purpose spells like polymorph. Thats OK for a druid, who can spontaneously convert spells, can pick multiple different encounter winners and convert the ones he doesn't need, and can fall back on eating faces. SS can't.

I'd hardly argue Polymorph as the basis for a all purpose spell, given that it's widely acknowledge to be really broken. You generally don't need a huge variety of encounter winners, and the Spirit Shaman is only a feat away from conversion (Druids are generally spending a feat on Natural Spell, so it's equal optimization in my book).


And many of the generalist spells on the druid list are one level behind where they pop up on sorcerer or cleric. Heal is always useful. No party member ever looks at you and says "why did you prep heal". If you don't know what you will fight, heal works. I completely support my favored soul prepping Heal as one of his 3 level 6 spells. I completely support my druid prepping it as 1 of his level 7 spells. When a SS preps it, hes a flat out inferior favored soul.

But those other classes don't get the unique Druid spells, or as early access to some things as the Druid list-- like Stone Shape.


Interesting argument. You know another feat in that book? Arcane Disciple. Like Spontaneous Summoning, it makes you more MAD. I could take a Warmage, give him Arcane Disciple (Summoning) and pick up all the versatility of being able to convert to a summons, but also the planar ally line and Gate. I could take it 3 times and get new awesome spells each time. But warmage is way less likely than SS to be completely shut out by an encounter to begin with.

First off, the Spirit Shaman already wants Wisdom, so Spontaneous Summoner doesn't make them any more MAD. Also, So what? They can each pick up summoning for a feat, but the Spirit Shaman list has more useful variety than the Warmage list, because it can do more things that aren't combat. Besides, Planar Ally is unreliable. It costs you gp and XP, and gives you whatever the DM feels like giving you. Gate is broken to begin with, so I don't see how it matters that much.


Access as in they are on his list. No access in that they are incredibly difficult to effectively use. At least when healer takes Heal or lesser restoration they aren't smacking themselves in the head.

Neither is a Spirit Shaman. Heal is a good spell, and you have enough good effects from lower levels to still do other things.


Actually, pretty much the only place where I would give the SS an advantage is plot derailing and game breaking. Druid is clearly better at leveling cities and destroying armies with hurricanes than the fixed list casters. But the fixed list casters, before or after both classes expand option with CDiv feats, have more tools to use in every situation, the tools they have, spell for spell, are better, and the spirit shaman will wind up having almost an identical list every day, because they don't retrieve enough spells to really have room to shake them up. Beguiler and Dread Necro have a higher floor, yes, but also a much higher ceiling.

Want to test it? I'm perfectly happy to put either the Beguiler or DN list side by side with the SS list after I have stripped out all the spells they can't use or which completely suck for them. Whether you can't convert to summons or whether they can convert to domains is about equally awful for the SS.

If you want, but I wasn't arguing about whether the Spirit Shaman was better or worse than either of those two classes. I was arguing that it has a lower floor, so unless you know what you are doing, it will likely be worse than them.

[GilesTheCleric]

Want to test it? I'm perfectly happy to put either the Beguiler or DN list side by side with the SS list after I have stripped out all the spells they can't use or which completely suck for them. Whether you can't convert to summons or whether they can convert to domains is about equally awful for the SS.

I'd like to see this. I think having example lists for comparison makes it easier to really focus on the whole of what we're talking about, rather than just one or two spells.

Now that I'm thinking about it, perhaps it's worthwhile to make both a "high op" list where you pick all the best spells, and a second "table op" list of things that are close to core and that sound good or that are just okay.

[Gnaeus]

I'd like to see this. I think having example lists for comparison makes it easier to really focus on the whole of what we're talking about, rather than just one or two spells.

Now that I'm thinking about it, perhaps it's worthwhile to make both a "high op" list where you pick all the best spells, and a second "table op" list of things that are close to core and that sound good or that are just okay.

Darn you Giles. OK. Processing.

[eggynack]

I'd like to see this. I think having example lists for comparison makes it easier to really focus on the whole of what we're talking about, rather than just one or two spells.

Now that I'm thinking about it, perhaps it's worthwhile to make both a "high op" list where you pick all the best spells, and a second "table op" list of things that are close to core and that sound good or that are just okay.
Any levels in particular? Rather not run the whole 1, 5, 10, 15, 20 gamut right now. Like, when does the spirit shaman suck most, is what I guess would be the important question here, such that the answer can maybe be, "They don't suck that much then," or, "Yeah, they do suck a lot then."

[Duelpersonality]

"imprssive list of alternative druid spells"

I think this is the primary benefit of the way SS was written as opposed to some of the other classes from the Completes. Not having a specific list, but just the druid spell list and all the support that entails.

[Gnaeus]

L1. This isn't awful bad for SS, for 2 reasons. They still have a wide spell selection advantage, and some actually good spells. By L7 or so, they might actually get to use some of the more situational of these. But remember, they start out being able to retrieve exactly 1 of these, which sucks a lot! Also, as will be a common theme, some of the best gems are hidden in unusual places, like cityscape.

And yes, I know spells like entangle are fantastic powerhouses for druid. Druid doesn't have to sweat about what he does when hes not in an overgrown area.

Druid spells that are completely useless to SS
Enrage Animal, Silver Claws, Vinestrike
Druid spells that are completely useless to a SS who doesn’t pick radically unoptimal build stats so as to be a crummy monk.
Beast Claws, Claws of the Bear, Foundation of Stone, Handfire, Rams Might, Shillelagh,
Druid Spells that are so situational that a SS is unlikely to take them at a level where they are competitive.
Animate Fire, Animate Water, Animate Wood, Aquatic Escape, Aura Against Flame, Beget Bogun, Beastland Ferocity, Beget Bogun, Branch to Branch, Breath of the Jungle, Buoyant Lifting, Calm Animals, Charm Animals, Climb Walls, Cloak of Shade, Cloudburst, Cold Fire, Cloudburst, Crunchy Snow, Deep Breath, Delay Disease, Detect Animals, Detect Snares, Ease of Breath, Endure Elements, Entangle, Extract Drug, Healthful Rest, Hide From animals, Horrible Taste, Ice Skate, Impede Suns Brilliance, Ivory Flesh, Kuo Toa Skin, Locate Touchstone, Locate Water, Omen of Peril, Pass Without Trace, Path of Frost, Power Sight, Quickswim, Raging Flame, Rapid Burrowing, Resist Planar Alignment, Remove Scent, Slow Burn, Snow Drift, Snowshoes, Snow Sight, Speak With Animals, Speed Swim, Surefooted Stride, Suspend Disease, Thunderhead, Travelers Mount, Waste Strider, Webfoot, Wings of the Sea, Wood Wose
Spells they might take: Aspect of the Wolf, Blockade, Camouflage, Climbing Tree, Crabwalk, CLW, Eyes of the Avoral, Faerie Fire, Goodberry, Hawkeye, Impeding Stones, Jump, Longstrider, Low Light Vision, Magic Stone, Obscuring Mist, Raptors Sight, Rot of Ages, Sandblast, Snakes Swiftness, Spider Hand, Spore Field, Summon X, Sunstroke, Lesser Vigor, Wall of Smoke, Winged Watcher, Winter Chill


Accuracy, Acid Orb, Lesser, Burning Hands, Chill Touch, Cold Orb, Lesser, Electric Orb, Lesser, Fire Orb, Lesser, Fist of Stone, Hail of Stone, Magic Missile, Orb of Acid, Lesser, Orb of Cold, Lesser, Orb of Electricity, Lesser, Orb of Fire, Lesser, Orb of Sound, Lesser, Shocking Grasp, Sonic Orb, Lesser, True Strike

By the time the SS has 3 spells known, warmage has added to that with eclectic learning. Probably persistent blade if you have a rogue, Tensers Disk if you don't. Granted, thats just a lot of ways to do damage. But you can at least reliably do damage. Also note that I think much better about warmages touch spells, like shocking grasp, than druid ones, like handfire, because hes not actually going to look at them unless he needs them. SS doesn't want to prepare handfire because he never wants to be in melee. Warmage doesn't want to be in melee either, but if he gets jumped, he can!

Undetectable Alignment, Mage Armor, Obscuring Mist, Comprehend Languages, Detect Secret Doors, Charm Person, Hypnotism, Rouse, Sleep, Whelm, Color Spray, Disguise Self, Silent Image, Expeditious Retreat

Whoo! Now we're talking! 2 solid will save or loses. A buff for your monk. A runaway spell similar to the good druid ones. A line of sight blocker similar to the good druid ones. A crummy blasting option. And a handful of divinations and utility spells. Also, again, expanded learning at the same level that the SS gets his 3rd spell. Power Word Pain?

Bane, Bestow Wound, Chill Touch, Detect Magic, Detect Undead, Doom, Hide from Undead, Inflict Light Wounds, Ray of Enfeeblement, Summon Undead I, Undetectable Alignment,

More love here. At the same level when SS can JUST summon a beatstick, DN can summon a beatstick, AOE debuff, ranged touch debuff, do a couple different touch attacks (or heal himself, most likely), and has a very strong situational spell in hide from undead. Expanded learning at 3. Kelgores Gravemist maybe?

More coming.

[eggynack]

I'm honestly not sure what exactly that list of first level spells that are plausibly not useful to a spirit shaman should mean to me. All that really matters is what is. Which here means the list of spells you'd be retrieving on most adventuring days, and then the list of spells that grow power between adventures, along with maybe a set of situational spells for when you have decent intel. The former isn't impacted all that much by which spells you're not doing too well with, as long as you still have a strong list. And I think the spirit shaman still has a strong list. The latter would definitely be impactful, but I think a lot of the power building spells kinda stick around.

Also, really really not sure why you have snowshoes on your unlikely picks list and longstrider on your reasonable picks list. Snowshoes is a strict upgrade to longstrider. Also also, kinda not sure why vinestrike is worth mention here. It's not like that was all that useful for the druids in the first place. Kinda weird that it's on the druid list at all, actually, though it makes thematic sense, and I guess certain bad builds can get you there. I guess you're just kinda going through all druid spells? Summon fey is worth note if we're going particularly obscure here. That spell is ridiculously broken.

[GilesTheCleric]

Darn you Giles. OK. Processing.
I aim to please ^^

Any levels in particular? Rather not run the whole 1, 5, 10, 15, 20 gamut right now. Like, when does the spirit shaman suck most, is what I guess would be the important question here, such that the answer can maybe be, "They don't suck that much then," or, "Yeah, they do suck a lot then."
I usually cut off my spell analysis at level 15. Anything SL 6 and above isn't worth considering, since it's all a broken mess and game balance is a farce.



Spells they might take: Aspect of the Wolf, Blockade, Camouflage, Climbing Tree, Crabwalk, CLW, Eyes of the Avoral, Faerie Fire, Goodberry, Hawkeye, Impeding Stones, Jump, Longstrider, Low Light Vision, Magic Stone, Obscuring Mist, Raptors Sight, Rot of Ages, Sandblast, Snakes Swiftness, Spider Hand, Spore Field, Summon X, Sunstroke, Lesser Vigor, Wall of Smoke, Winged Watcher, Winter Chill


So it looks like off the bat, the fixed list folks do okay, and of course Warmage is already doing their warmage thing. The SS list isn't all that bad. How many of those do they actually get to prepare daily, though? It looks like just 1 at level 1, and 2 at 2. I personally might go with Spider Hand, Wall of Smoke, or Obscuring Mist, since those are the most versatile.

Here's a wide list of table-op Favored Soul picks at level 1:blessed aim, conviction, detect fire, ebon eyes, faith healing, ice slick, protection from evil, ray of hope, resurgence, shield of faith, shivering touch, lesser, sign, spell flower, vigor, lesser
And the higher-op picks:Detect Fire, Drug Resistance, Ice Slick, Obscuring Mist, Heartache, Sign, Painless Death

[Gnaeus]

I'm honestly not sure what exactly that list of first level spells that are plausibly not useful to a spirit shaman should mean to me. All that really matters is what is. Which here means the list of spells you'd be retrieving on most adventuring days, and then the list of spells that grow power between adventures, along with maybe a set of situational spells for when you have decent intel. The former isn't impacted all that much by which spells you're not doing too well with, as long as you still have a strong list. And I think the spirit shaman still has a strong list. The latter would definitely be impactful, but I think a lot of the power building spells kinda stick around.

Also, really really not sure why you have snowshoes on your unlikely picks list and longstrider on your reasonable picks list. Snowshoes is a strict upgrade to longstrider. Also also, kinda not sure why vinestrike is worth mention here. It's not like that was all that useful for the druids in the first place. Kinda weird that it's on the druid list at all, actually, though it makes thematic sense, and I guess certain bad builds can get you there. I guess you're just kinda going through all druid spells? Summon fey is worth note if we're going particularly obscure here. That spell is ridiculously broken.

I'm going off my list of all Druid spells. And that's the best I could do in under 2 hours at work AFB. You totally got me on snowshoes. If you want to make an all Druid spell list, then break out all the situational spells, the melee buffs and bad touches, and the animal/WS spells to leave what a SS might actually take in your opinion, have at. You will do a better job than I. Druid is my favorite class, but I realize it's your thing.

If not, please refrain from nitpicking. At least until it's closer to done. I'm doing the best I can. It's a bunch of spells. I'd rather list entangle as a situational spell that's better for Druid than SS than have people pop up saying "you forgot entangle!"



So it looks like off the bat, the fixed list folks do okay, and of course Warmage is already doing their warmage thing. The SS list isn't all that bad. How many of those do they actually get to prepare daily, though? It looks like just 1 at level 1, and 2 at 2. I personally might go with Spider Hand, Wall of Smoke, or Obscuring Mist, since those are the most versatile.

Thanks for helping Giles. One at first level, up to 3 at levels 3-17. + SNA conversion, but I super don't think its fair to count that unless you are adding Arcane Disciple, which is same book, pretty clearly same op level, and just better, because it gives a lot more options and can be taken again for even more options.

[Gnaeus]

L2, still lots of spells, which is good. But a lot of them are bad, which is not. 4 different stat buffs, which I should probably have listed as situational. Some bad attack spells like flaming sphere. At 3, in a party, I'd be tempted to take Barkskin, which is a good generic spell and makes sure you arent useless, while also making sure you don't actually do anything super good either. When I get 3 spells? I'd probably take one of (kelp strand, salt ray, splinterbolt), barkskin, and some CC like fog cloud or obscuring snow (if we are assuming spont summon and arcane disciple) or Summon Monster 2 (if not)

Druid spells that are completely useless to SS
Align Fang, metal fang, natures favor, tigers tooth,
Druid spells that are completely useless to a SS who doesn’t pick radically unoptimal build stats so as to be a crummy monk.
Animalistic Power, Bite of the Wererat, Brambles, daggerspell stance, flame blade, healing sting, scimitar of sand, wracking touch
Druid Spells that are so situational that a SS is unlikely to take them at a level where they are competitive. Also the awesome long duration self buffs that you aren’t likely to fill one of your 3 max slots with.
Adrenaline Surge, Animal Messenger, Animal trance, augment truefriend, avoid planar effects, Balancing Lorecall, Beastmask, Binding Winds, Blackrot, Blaze of Light, Blood Frenzy, Blood Snow, Body Ward, Brumal Stiffening, Briar Web, chill metal, cloud wings, conjure ice object, countermoon, Delay Poison, detect aberration, divine presence, drifts of the shalm, earthbind, earthen grace, earthfast, easy trail, embrace the wild, Evergreen, filter, fins to feet, fire trap, flash freeze, freedom of breath, gaze screen, healing lorecall, heart of air, heat metal, hold animal, hydrate, invoke the cerulean sign, local tremor, locate node, mark of the outcast, might of the oak, mountain stance, one with the land, owls wisdom, peaceful serenity, persistence of the waves, pressure sphere, primal hunter, protection from dessication, razorscales, reduce animal, scent, share husk, snow walk, soften earth and stone, soul ward, speed of the wind, sweet water, swim, thaw, train animal, tree shape, warp wood, wings of air, woodland veil, wood shape, lesser restoration,
Spells they might take: Animal Spirit, Barkskin, Bears Endurance, Blinding Spittle, Body of the Sun, Bulls Strength, Burrow, Mass Camouflage, cats grace, circle of nausea, Creeping cold, Decomposition, dessicate, Estanna’s stew, flaming sphere, fog cloud, frost breath, frost weapon, green blockade, heartfire, interfaith blessing, kelpstrand, jaws of the moray, lava missile, linked perception, listening lorecall, master air, numbing sphere, obscuring snow, remedy moderate wounds, resist energy, remedy moderate wounds, saltray, smoke stairs, mass snakes swiftness, spectral stag, spider climb, splinterbolt, summon X, summon swarm, thin air, tojanida sight, trip vine, urchin’s spines?, winter’s embrace, zone of glacial cold.


Blades of Fire, Continual Flame, Fire Trap, Fireburst, Flaming Sphere, Ice Knife, Melf's Acid Arrow, Pyrotechnics, Scorching Ray, Shatter, Whirling Blade

Well, we both have fire trap and flaming sphere, but at least Warmage didn't spend a spell on them. Pyrotechnics approximates the SS crowd control options. Shatter and Continual Flame provide minimal utility, and Scorching Ray is a very solid scaling blasty spell for the level, especially with warmage class features.

Vertigo, Fog Cloud, Glitterdust, Detect Thoughts, See Invisibility, Daze Monster, Stay the Hand, Touch of Idiocy, Whelming Blast, Blinding Color Surge, Blur, Hypnotic Pattern, Invisibility, Minor Image, Mirror Image, Misdirection, Silence, Knock, Spider Climb


That to me is embarassing for the SS. Blur equals or exceeds barkskin as a buff. We're both using fog cloud. Mirror image is an amazing defense spell. Glitterdust is a non mind affecting will disabler that also crushes stealthers. Spider Climb, Invisibility, Knock, Silence, Minor Image, See Invis and Detect Thoughts are all awesome situational spells that Beguiler WILL have in that situation.

Blindness/Deafness, Command Undead, Darkness, Death Knell, False Life, Gentle Repose, Ghoul Touch, Inflict Moderate Wounds, Scare, Spectral Hand, Summon Swarm, Summon Undead II

Summon Beatstick, Darkness/summon swarm for crowd control, healing for the minions and maybe the necro, false life is another great defense buff, command undead likely vaults us into the minionmancy game, Fort and Will disablers.

[eggynack]

I'ma do up a quick 10th level thing. Not sure if this is perfect, but I'd like a starting point. I'll start with the basic daily spells retrieved at each level, and then talk some longer term utility and occasional utility stuff that strikes me as interesting.

5th: Control winds, or maybe blizzard or call avalanche. All three are good, as high impact combat spells that have some useful side utility, so I think picking any of them is more or less defensible. The first two are where I'd start, on the longer term utility front. You get to explode stuff. The longer term spells besides those are awaken, commune with nature, druid grove, panacea, and tree/swamp stride. These, as will continue to be true as I go down the list, are for between adventures, and they retain this role later. Cloak of the sea and death ward are reasonable if you have a really good idea what you're gonna be doing, and if that thing you're planning to do matches one of these spells.

4th: At 7th level, something like boreal wind or eye of the hurricane. I feel like a lot of that is getting covered by whichever natural disaster 5th you pick though. I kinda like SNA IV and dispel magic here. SNA IV can pull off the whole versatile combat creature+healing and magic circle deal, along with yellow musk creeper. Dispel is just a really good magic effect. If dispel is getting covered somewhere else though, which is very likely, I like maybe going back to boreal winds, or maybe eye instead if you went with call avalanche, and wall of salt is a good option for the slot too. I'm using a lot of list splitting here, which is a bit confusing, but my big goal here is to get a set of at least eight diverse and powerful combat castings a day, with some room on the side for utility cause these spells are versatile. There are a few arrangements that get you there

Anyway, longer term stuff. Animate with the spirit is out, because the loss of sanctified spells continues to be tragic. Still, you get elemental guardian, lay of the land, reincarnate, scrying, slipsand, and stone metamorphosis. Maybe feathers too, for long distance travel. And wall of salt is, as always, completely broken. Don't really expect us to include that, but it's an interesting note. Planar tolerance is one of the more situationally useful spells. This is also where I start liking the option of extending 24 hour spells the day before, probably with a rod (the spirit shaman has less ways to use cash than a druid does), so we might be tossing on primal senses and greater resistance if there's a day of preparation. Of note here is that friendly fire becomes a pretty interesting option at later levels, because you're not relying on these slots for one tier down combat utility, and giant vermin has that whole power growth potential thing going on that could still make these into combat slots in the late game.

3rd: I really want heart of water here. Such a good spell, I think I can justify it in spite of its lack of spammability. We could always go super deep here on the third level spell oriented defenses, pick up alter fortune too, but that seems fundamentally incorrect. You need something to do with those other four spells/day you have. I kinda like sleet storm on no information, stone shape on the stone possessing adventures, and plant growth on the... plant possessing adventures. If you want to go obscure here, wall of fungus seems like a good stand in for the fact that you're kinda wall limited at this point. Walls are a bit hard to prioritize at this level, and I don't think tossing wall of smoke in at first does the need anything close to justice.

For longer term utility, you get circle dance, forest eyes (as unlikely here as it was for the standard druid, but it's on the list in some form), forest voice, speak with plants, stone shape (that it's on both lists is a good sign for its inclusion), treasure scent, weather eye, and whispering sand. Some of these are quite dubious, but the good ones, circle dance, stone shape, and whispering sand, are very good. Other interesting spells are primal instinct, for the aforementioned extension value, and camel's tenacity. Longer term, you may well start tossing alter fortune onto the standard list. Maybe wind wall too. They're good at what they do.

2nd: This spell level is really weird. Part of me wants to just say, "Kelpstrand, blinding spittle, and mass snake's swiftness, and you're done." Not an awful plan. You get six reasonable quality combat spells in a variety of forms every day. The other part of me wants to skip all that crap about a practically optimized spell list, and just start comboing off. This is the level where you get the other half of obscuring snow+snowsight, any snow generation spell+blood snow, acorn of far travel+something that's good with acorn of far travel, aspect of the wolf+ghost companion, bone talisman+whatever thing you want to do with turn undead uses, whatever the hell you want to do with linked perception, rockburst+the moon, and, on a more practical scale, creeping cold+extension, among others.

Here's what I'm going with. Kelpstrand and blinding spittle are both great, and while you'd love to do that druid thing where you split the difference and prepare a couple of each, you can't. Pick one, that's the first spell retrieved. Obscuring snow+snowsight is borked, but it's a practical kinda borked, and it's going on the list alongside its counterpart when I get there, especially because it's one of the more daily use things. For the last spell, heart of air isn't as good as it is on a druid, but I feel like the secondary effect is coming cheap enough that the combo with water is worth it. Maybe this could be blood snow if you have blizzard already. It might also make sense to run master air here, as a crappy flight spell to make up for the loss of wild shape based flight. Worst case scenario, we could always just go two out of three on the kelpstrand, blinding spittle, mass snake's swiftness setup. It wasn't a bad setup, per se.

For longer term stuff, a lot of that stuff I listed above qualifies. Lesser restoration is nice as well. Acorn of far travel even has its default use for some lower key power building. Primal hunter does the 24 hour thing too. I feel like I have this mostly covered though. It's a weird spell level.

1st: Snowsight is accounted for already. Spider hand strikes me as more or less perfect. Third one, maybe winged watcher, if you didn't take master air, maybe impeding stones or entangle, if you want something combat oriented, summon fey, if you want to go full on broken and obscure with things, and instant of power, if you wanna be frivolous with your spells (and still obscure). I like having some kinda release valve at each level, something to spend spells on when the other retrieved spells are completely useless because you got your utility in the morning buff routine or whatever. I think we've gone through most of the first level utility with that huge list. Except for darsson's cooling breeze. As ridiculously obscure as it is obscure in terms of what utility it grants.

0th: Seriously? You don't even catch a break on spells retrieved in the orison slot? Geez. I was gonna do something creative here, but create water, cure minor wounds, and detect magic are classics for a reason, and I dunno that I want to screw with that. There's some cool stuff here though, if you don't feel the need to always retrieve those three spells. Dawn, fire eyes, footpad's grace, maybe a guidance here or there. I'd suspect you should stick with the basics though.

Anyway, I think that's a pretty good list. Not perfect, a bit thrown together or loose in places, but it feels like you get a solid mix of combat, defense, and utility on your adventuring days, and a reasonable well of power to draw on when you're not adventuring. Keep in mind that most other classes in tier two have stunted progression. Drop things by a level and the spirit shaman is still controlling the winds while everyone else is running 4th's. This all feels tier two to me. And next level you get earthquakes.

[remetagross]

Spirit Shamans don't get sanctified spells?

[eggynack]

Spirit Shamans don't get sanctified spells?
They're not prepared casters in the sense I believe is meant by BoED, so I'd think not. Surprisingly big loss. The loss of corrupt spells sucks too, but less so.

[remetagross]

Oh, ok. That sucks.
Well I'm currently playing a Druid in the middle of a fight in one campaign, I'm getting more insight on the class by the day. I'll post what I think, alongwith my Wild Shape Ranger vote, by the end of the week or something.

[DEMON]

Spont Druid T1
Spirit Shaman T1.5
WS Ranger T3
Urb Druid not sure, probably T1.5

[Gnaeus]

I'ma do up a quick 10th level thing. Not sure if this is perfect, but I'd like a starting point. I'll start with the basic daily spells retrieved at each level, and then talk some longer term utility and occasional utility stuff that strikes me as interesting.

5th: Control winds, or maybe blizzard or call avalanche. All three are good, as high impact combat spells that have some useful side utility, so I think picking any of them is more or less defensible. The first two are where I'd start, on the longer term utility front. You get to explode stuff. The longer term spells besides those are awaken, commune with nature, druid grove, panacea, and tree/swamp stride. These, as will continue to be true as I go down the list, are for between adventures, and they retain this role later. Cloak of the sea and death ward are reasonable if you have a really good idea what you're gonna be doing, and if that thing you're planning to do matches one of these spells.

4th: At 7th level, something like boreal wind or eye of the hurricane. I feel like a lot of that is getting covered by whichever natural disaster 5th you pick though. I kinda like SNA IV and dispel magic here. SNA IV can pull off the whole versatile combat creature+healing and magic circle deal, along with yellow musk creeper. Dispel is just a really good magic effect. If dispel is getting covered somewhere else though, which is very likely, I like maybe going back to boreal winds, or maybe eye instead if you went with call avalanche, and wall of salt is a good option for the slot too. I'm using a lot of list splitting here, which is a bit confusing, but my big goal here is to get a set of at least eight diverse and powerful combat castings a day, with some room on the side for utility cause these spells are versatile. There are a few arrangements that get you there

Anyway, longer term stuff. Animate with the spirit is out, because the loss of sanctified spells continues to be tragic. Still, you get elemental guardian, lay of the land, reincarnate, scrying, slipsand, and stone metamorphosis. Maybe feathers too, for long distance travel. And wall of salt is, as always, completely broken. Don't really expect us to include that, but it's an interesting note. Planar tolerance is one of the more situationally useful spells. This is also where I start liking the option of extending 24 hour spells the day before, probably with a rod (the spirit shaman has less ways to use cash than a druid does), so we might be tossing on primal senses and greater resistance if there's a day of preparation. Of note here is that friendly fire becomes a pretty interesting option at later levels, because you're not relying on these slots for one tier down combat utility, and giant vermin has that whole power growth potential thing going on that could still make these into combat slots in the late game.

3rd: I really want heart of water here. Such a good spell, I think I can justify it in spite of its lack of spammability. We could always go super deep here on the third level spell oriented defenses, pick up alter fortune too, but that seems fundamentally incorrect. You need something to do with those other four spells/day you have. I kinda like sleet storm on no information, stone shape on the stone possessing adventures, and plant growth on the... plant possessing adventures. If you want to go obscure here, wall of fungus seems like a good stand in for the fact that you're kinda wall limited at this point. Walls are a bit hard to prioritize at this level, and I don't think tossing wall of smoke in at first does the need anything close to justice.

For longer term utility, you get circle dance, forest eyes (as unlikely here as it was for the standard druid, but it's on the list in some form), forest voice, speak with plants, stone shape (that it's on both lists is a good sign for its inclusion), treasure scent, weather eye, and whispering sand. Some of these are quite dubious, but the good ones, circle dance, stone shape, and whispering sand, are very good. Other interesting spells are primal instinct, for the aforementioned extension value, and camel's tenacity. Longer term, you may well start tossing alter fortune onto the standard list. Maybe wind wall too. They're good at what they do.

2nd: This spell level is really weird. Part of me wants to just say, "Kelpstrand, blinding spittle, and mass snake's swiftness, and you're done." Not an awful plan. You get six reasonable quality combat spells in a variety of forms every day. The other part of me wants to skip all that crap about a practically optimized spell list, and just start comboing off. This is the level where you get the other half of obscuring snow+snowsight, any snow generation spell+blood snow, acorn of far travel+something that's good with acorn of far travel, aspect of the wolf+ghost companion, bone talisman+whatever thing you want to do with turn undead uses, whatever the hell you want to do with linked perception, rockburst+the moon, and, on a more practical scale, creeping cold+extension, among others.

Here's what I'm going with. Kelpstrand and blinding spittle are both great, and while you'd love to do that druid thing where you split the difference and prepare a couple of each, you can't. Pick one, that's the first spell retrieved. Obscuring snow+snowsight is borked, but it's a practical kinda borked, and it's going on the list alongside its counterpart when I get there, especially because it's one of the more daily use things. For the last spell, heart of air isn't as good as it is on a druid, but I feel like the secondary effect is coming cheap enough that the combo with water is worth it. Maybe this could be blood snow if you have blizzard already. It might also make sense to run master air here, as a crappy flight spell to make up for the loss of wild shape based flight. Worst case scenario, we could always just go two out of three on the kelpstrand, blinding spittle, mass snake's swiftness setup. It wasn't a bad setup, per se.

For longer term stuff, a lot of that stuff I listed above qualifies. Lesser restoration is nice as well. Acorn of far travel even has its default use for some lower key power building. Primal hunter does the 24 hour thing too. I feel like I have this mostly covered though. It's a weird spell level.

1st: Snowsight is accounted for already. Spider hand strikes me as more or less perfect. Third one, maybe winged watcher, if you didn't take master air, maybe impeding stones or entangle, if you want something combat oriented, summon fey, if you want to go full on broken and obscure with things, and instant of power, if you wanna be frivolous with your spells (and still obscure). I like having some kinda release valve at each level, something to spend spells on when the other retrieved spells are completely useless because you got your utility in the morning buff routine or whatever. I think we've gone through most of the first level utility with that huge list. Except for darsson's cooling breeze. As ridiculously obscure as it is obscure in terms of what utility it grants.

0th: Seriously? You don't even catch a break on spells retrieved in the orison slot? Geez. I was gonna do something creative here, but create water, cure minor wounds, and detect magic are classics for a reason, and I dunno that I want to screw with that. There's some cool stuff here though, if you don't feel the need to always retrieve those three spells. Dawn, fire eyes, footpad's grace, maybe a guidance here or there. I'd suspect you should stick with the basics though.

Anyway, I think that's a pretty good list. Not perfect, a bit thrown together or loose in places, but it feels like you get a solid mix of combat, defense, and utility on your adventuring days, and a reasonable well of power to draw on when you're not adventuring. Keep in mind that most other classes in tier two have stunted progression. Drop things by a level and the spirit shaman is still controlling the winds while everyone else is running 4th's. This all feels tier two to me. And next level you get earthquakes.

So a good, high op SS loadout looks like:
Control Winds or blizzard
SNA 4, Dispel Magic
Heart of Water, Sleet Storm
Kelpstrand, Mass Snakes Swiftness, Obscuring Snow
Snowsight, Spider Hand, Winged Watcher

If thats the best the druid master can come up with, color me seriously unimpressed.

You can convincingly blind things, in a wide area. But you can't do much with them when they are there. You have an anti grapple defense, but no other meaningful defenses. You can duplicate some spells with SNA 4, or beatstick with it poorly. No personal defenses against not grapple. I guess you could control winds to blast wind away from you if something gets close, but your party won't love you if your standard combat solution is scouring the entire battlefield with high speed wind, which will probably hit your party members (likely medium) more than most monsters (more likely to be big, with solid fort saves). That certainly doesn't look better than what a warmage or bard can do to me. I wouldn't call that CLOSE to what a Beguiler, DN, Sorcerer can do. I'll let giles look at favored soul, but I feel confident they can beat the pants off it. You aren't trying to argue that they are tier 4 are you?

[eggynack]

I think the other part of the analysis, the stuff that a spirit shaman can bring to bear in their off-time, is pretty relevant here. My basic goal was to lockdown the entire battlefield super efficiently, such that even low quality combat potential can finish off foes. Neither control winds nor blizzard simply blinds things. Might make sense to skip blizzard given the presence of the obscuring snow combo, which I wasn't sure I was gonna use when I started, go with one of the other two instead. Some optimization can get control winds to a pretty broken place. That's why it's there. You can control where the high speed winds be, too.

Edit: I mean, yeah, if you're going to discount all the value of the kinda prepared casting the spirit shaman has, then their limited "spells known" and worse than wizard list is going to represent a massive downside to the iconic tier two class. It's everywhere else that the advantage lies.

[Gnaeus]

I think the other part of the analysis, the stuff that a spirit shaman can bring to bear in their off-time, is pretty relevant here. My basic goal was to lockdown the entire battlefield super efficiently, such that even low quality combat potential can finish off foes. Neither control winds nor blizzard simply blinds things. Might make sense to skip blizzard given the presence of the obscuring snow combo, which I wasn't sure I as gonna use when I started, go with one of the other two instead. Some optimization can get control winds to a pretty broken place. That's why it's there. You can control where the high speed winds be, too.

Sort of you can. But you can't conveniently travel through it. You can't shoot through it. And you can't blast at all. And a warmage of the same level is packing AT LEAST Cloudkill, Evards Tentacles, Wall of fire, sleet storm, ice storm, gust of wind, stinking cloud, pyrotechnics. I'd say thats within spitting distance of your control list, with 0 optimization, before advanced learning, before list expansion, and he can actually blast things to death while they're trapped, which you can't.

And no, I give them very limited benefit from their "prepared casting". A wizard at this level could have an imp dropping communes to help him prepare. He can cast Scrying without living in fear that he will get in a fight on the day he prepares it. He can use clairvoyance or an invisible rat familiar to scout ahead, AND THEN prepare the exact spell he needs in an empty slot. He can memorize the encounter killing spell he wants, BUT ALSO have 3 other top level spells memorized in case the boss vampire he prepared for gives an evil villain laugh and runs away leaving his summoned demon minion to fight the party. Thats what prepared casters do and S Shamans can't do any of that.

[Soranar]

Spirit Shaman

-I would argue tier 2, has a favored soul feeling to it (due to the dual casting stat) despite a strong casting list. The class abilities are subpar but the druid spell list is just that strong.

Spontaneous Druid

-strickly worse than a normal druid but still powerful. No dual casting , keeps all the class features, I would maintain tier 1 in this case.

Urban Druid

-I literally wrote the handbook on the subject. The spell list is odd but fairly strong. It's more versatile than a sorcerer, has better class features, access to unique spells and a better chassis. I would still say tier 1. The armor hit doesn't really hurt (a wizard has none), the CHA casting + the skill list makes you a better party face than anyone. The animal companion is still quite powerful if you bother to optimize it and the urban wildshapes become ridiculously powerful with time : turning yourself into animated objects is also quite useful and versatile.

-book of exalted deeds' exalted spells really spruces it up though

-why tier 1 instead of tier 2? That's the tricky part, I think people underestimate the versatility of wildshaping. It's basically a polymorph spell that lasts hours, doesn't cost spellslots and you get it at level 5. Adding all the charm and dominate spells mean that you can do somethings a druid can't do, I think it earned its spot at tier 1. Again, I would compare this to a sorcerer though (high tier 2) for a fair comparison. A normal druid is strickly better than this in most cases.

Wild Shape Ranger

A solid tier 3. You have enough abilities to deal with any given situation. The legendary animals come on late but they give you high level wildshape forms if you don't have expanded wildshaping options through aberration wildshape or such. You have a use for a high WIS , great wisdom skills and no real need for physical stats, definitely a tier 3.

[eggynack]

Sort of you can. But you can't conveniently travel through it. You can't shoot through it. And you can't blast at all. And a warmage of the same level is packing AT LEAST Cloudkill, Evards Tentacles, Wall of fire, sleet storm, ice storm, gust of wind, stinking cloud, pyrotechnics. I'd say thats within spitting distance of your control list, with 0 optimization, before advanced learning, before list expansion, and he can actually blast things to death while they're trapped, which you can't.
I don't particularly think all that stuff is the equal of that list I constructed, control-wise. Tentacles and cloud are great, cloudkill and pyrotechnics are reasonable, and the rest, apart from sleet storm which is on both lists, is kinda meh. I don't think the whole list of BFC necessarily even equals control winds, sleet storm, always on obscuring snow, and maybe kelpstrand depending on where you count it. Keep in mind the ridiculous devastation that can be wrought if you get to tornado speed, which is quite possible at this level. And, from there, the warmage is basically just blasting. The spirit shaman is running defense, buffing, utility anti-magic, healing, face beating, scouting, and mobility, all on one list, in addition to the BFC. And, from there, the spirit shaman is also running a variety of long term power building spells, including some buffs that might be carrying over to the adventuring day. All in all? This comparison does not strike me as all that close.

Edit: Of course the spirit shaman can't build power in their off days as well as a wizard can. Wizards are nearly the best at that kinda thing. The spirit shaman just happens to be better at it than nearly all of the tier two and three classes we would be comparing it to here. If the spirit shaman could build power as well as wizards can, in addition to all of the spirit shaman's standard adventuring day stuff, I would very possibly be arguing tier one right now.

[Zancloufer]

One thing I really don't get about this is how almost everyone is giving the Spirit Shaman Tier 2 but the Spontaneous Druid Tier 1. As far as spells known go the Spontaneous Druid knows SNA in addition to the same number of spells that a Spirit Shaman does, but unlike the Spirit Shaman cannot change their spells known EVERY DAY and casts less spells. Yes the Druid doesn't suffer from duel casting stats and has slightly better class features, but it's not like most of the Spirit Shaman's abilities outside of spells are bad,

I mean if the Spontaneous Druid is a Tier 1, as it is a spontaneous druid, the Sorcerer should also be tier 1 (Wizard that trades spells known for spontaneous casting/spells per day), though I doubt people would argue that.

[eggynack]

One thing I really don't get about this is how almost everyone is giving the Spirit Shaman Tier 2 but the Spontaneous Druid Tier 1. As far as spells known go the Spontaneous Druid knows SNA in addition to the same number of spells that a Spirit Shaman does, but unlike the Spirit Shaman cannot change their spells known EVERY DAY and casts less spells. Yes the Druid doesn't suffer from duel casting stats and has slightly better class features, but it's not like most of the Spirit Shaman's abilities outside of spells are bad,

I mean if the Spontaneous Druid is a Tier 1, as it is a spontaneous druid, the Sorcerer should also be tier 1 (Wizard that trades spells known for spontaneous casting/spells per day), though I doubt people would argue that.
The class features are much much better than slightly better. Wild shape is really powerful at the baseline, and incredibly powerful when optimized. The animal companion also helps a ton in the early levels, allowing it to do the same, "Best class in the game early on," thing that the druid was doing. Meanwhile, on the casting mechanic axis, the spontaneous druid compares to each of these classes differently. Compared to the sorcerer, the fact that you're getting each level of spell a level earlier is a big deal. Enough to make the spontaneous druid, well, I wouldn't say advantaged in this area, but not nearly as disadvantaged as you may think. Compared to the spirit shaman, for each spell level, on a day to day level, the spontaneous druid starts out behind, because they have just SNA compared to SNA plus other options, gains a plausible advantage at the second level, running SNA plus something else while the spirit shaman is running something variable in that something else slot, and then they're heavily advantaged the level after that, with SNA plus two fixed spells known to the spirit shaman's one variable spell.

But really, it comes down to wild shape to a large extent, and the animal companion, to a lesser extent. They're huge abilities, and they turn what are arguably ties into what I think are significant spontaneous druid advantages. People tend to think that these class features aren't that critical to a druid's power, just because they're not necessary to the druid's tier. But they are critical, wild shape especially. It's a lot more power than you'd necessarily expect.

[Troacctid]

It's all about the class features. Wild shape and animal companion are two of the most powerful non-casting class abilities in the game. Spontaneous Druid gets them both, where Spirit Shaman gets basically nothing. Spontaneous Druid also has more spells and no split casting.

Take away the class features and sure, Spontaneous Druid is probably T2. That's where I'd put Spontaneous Cleric. But with wild shape and animal companion, you're easily better than any T2 class and it's not even close.

[GilesTheCleric]

I'ma do up a quick 10th level thing.
It seems to me like the SS has much better flight options, even sans WS, than does the FS. It also seems that you think in terms of combos (I'll admit, I do the same when thinking of Clerics) -- but is that the best approach for a generic daily SS spell list? I could see it as being so, but I went the other way with my FS list.

You also mention different levels, which is a great point. The SS's pseudo-fixed list means that it's very easy to change out your lower-level slots once you've leveled, in order to keep them performing at good efficiency. FS and all other spontaneous casters lack that. How powerful would you consider that? From the spells you've picked, I don't know if it actually does make much difference. A lot of the optimised spells we choose are thus, in part, because they scale well.


L2, still lots of spells, which is good. But a lot of them are bad, which is not.

I agree with your assessments through here.

So, here's some FS lists; I suppose since Eggy went from 1-5, I'll post the same.

Level 1
Cause Fear, Command, CLW, Divine Favor, Magic Weapon, Obscuring Mist, Protection from X, Sanctuary, Shield of Faith, SM X

These aren't the most powerful of spells, but they're all serviceable. Even Sanctuary can allow a player with low system mastery but high tactical skill (perhaps they used to play Warhammer or Dragon Age Origins (the only one worth playing)). Command isn't bad, either -- again, with a little tactical set-up, which should hopefully be obvious to anyone reading the spell, it's possible to subject your foes to one or more AoOs from the party fighter. This is roughly 1/3 of the whole PHB list, and imo are decent-sounding picks that even a new player would go for just after reading the short description (hence the inclusion of Sanctuary).

Level 2
Bear's, Bull's, Find Traps, Hold Person, Owl's, Shatter, Shield Other, Silence, Sound Burst, Spiritual Weapon, SM X

These are a bit trickier; a green player might not pick from just these spells, but the animal buffs should probably appeal and aren't all that bad. Even the weak blasting of Shatter or Sound Burst aren't all bad -- one has nice utility for blasting through walls or doors, and the other has some CC. As soon as a new player lands a stun and sees how great it is, they'll surely try to do their best with it. At these low (op) levels, even Spiritual Weapon can add an appreciable amount of damage.

Level 3
Animate Dead, Bestow Curse, Blindness, Dispel Magic, Magic Circle, Magic Vestment, Meld Into Stone, Prot from Energy, Stone Shape, SM X, Water Walk, Wind Wall

Basically the entire 3rd level list sans the curative spells are all good. Any FS worth their low-op salt will go for the flashier offensive spells, and should do very well with them. The utility spells are great, and even if they end up taking some restorative spells, they're still something that will come up (though they might soon wish they had invested in scrolls of Remove Blindness instead). The utility spells aren't incredibly obvious as being useful, but if a player were to take them, they'd soon see the great versatility afforded by having stone, that most generic of all dungeon materials, be at their beck and call.

Level 4
Air Walk, Death Ward, Dimensional Anchor, Discern Lies, Dismissal, Divination, DIVINE POWER, FoM, Giant Vermin, Imbue with Spell Ability, GMW, Lesser Planar Ally, Poison, Restoration, Sending, SM X

You could put this level's list on a dartboard, throw a round, and end up with a great list. 90% of this level you can't go wrong with. The other 10% looks boring and probably won't be picked anyway.

Level 5
Greater Command, Commune, Flame Strike, Plane Shift, Raise Dead, Righteous Might, Scrying, Slay Living, Spell Resistance, SM X, Symbol of X, True Seeing, Wall of Stone

Second verse, same as the first. This isn't quite the same 90% of goodness as level 4, but it's still incredibly high in quality. Even Flame Strike isn't that bad, since it bypasses resistance and deals an AoE.


Level 1
Drug Resistance (buffs)
Ice Slick (BFC)
Obscuring Mist (BFC)
Heartache (will SoL)
Sign (buff)
Painless Death (no save w/ diplomacy)
Detect Fire (divination)

Starting off, things are similar to the SS, but I believe the FS comes out ahead here, thanks to the power of Ice Slick and the incredible versatility of Drug Resistance. Detect Fire is basically True Seeing, Lesser. It's the best, it has the most Detection, everyone says so. Fantastic.

Level 2
Share Talents (skills)
Silence (BFC, no save)
Dark Way (BFC, movement)
Find Traps (skills)
Divine Insight (all the skills)
Protection from X (immunity)
Shatter (movement)
Summon Elysian Thrush (traps, scouting, healing)
Augury (divination)
Rigor Mortis (fort save)
Guidance of the Avatar (skills)

Once you hit level 3 as a Cleric-list caster, you're basically a Factotum+. Yes, it costs a lot in spell slots, but Ice Slick retains its potency plenty well for you to devote your 2nd level spells to utility. Between Rigor Mortis and Heartache from level 1, you can alternately SoL essentially any target. Summon Elysian Thrush is always a great pick, since it's SM X with a free Persist already attached. All the things your Rogue had to do before, your intelligent, tiny, healing, celestial bird can now do instead. Name it "Rouge" for its lovely red plumage.

Level 3
Animate Dead (minions)
Control Sand (BFC)
Dominate Vermin (minions)
Footsteps of the Divine (movement)
Laogzed's Breath (fort SoL)
Blade of Pain and Fear (will SoS)
Dispel Magic (debuff)
Venomfire (blasting)
Affliction (debuffing)
Chain of Eyes (divination)
Blindness (fort SoL)
Magic Circle Against X (immunity)
Shivering Touch (no save)
Meld Into Stone (movement)
Glyph of Warding (action economy)

Level 2 introduced flexibility: now, here comes the power. Tons of variety in options to shut down your foes, or else just leave them vulnerable for your fighter friend. Not to mention another great serving of versatility in things like Footsteps, Meld Into Stone, and Animate Dead.

Level 4
Divination (divination)
Boccob's Rolling Cloud (ref save, blasting)
Freedom of Movement (movement, immunity)
Wall of Sand (no save SoD, BFC)
Venom Bolt (fort SoL)
Mystic Aegis (immunity)
Giant Vermin (minions, better with GM permission for more options)
Consumptive Field (+CL)
Dweomer of Transference (immunity)
Air Walk (movement)
Stop Heart (fort SoD)
Wrack (fort SoL)

Divination. The game is up. From here on, no mundane and no non-divining caster can keep up. FoM seals the deal; the rest is just toying with the food.

Level 5
Call Zelekhut (debuffs, divination, anti-movement)
Plane Shift (movement)
Elemental Guardian (minions)
Incarnation of Set (polymoph)
Doomtide (will save, BFC)
Streamers ("no" button)
Bewildering Mischance (debuff)
Oath of Blood (minions)
Heartclutch (fort SoD)
Boreal Wind (BFC, blasting)
Wall of Ooze (fort SoD)
Door of Decay (movement)
Spell Haven (action economy)
Commune (divination)
Frostbite (no save)
True Seeing (divination)
Scrying (divination)
Investiture of the Orthon (anti-movement)

High level play demands high-level answers. True Seeing, in combination with Divination and FoM from before makes you nearly invincible, provided you don't get full of yourself. For the parties that can't stand to wait around while you strategise, there's plenty of blasty and SoL options available here, too.

[eggynack]

It seems to me like the SS has much better flight options, even sans WS, than does the FS. It also seems that you think in terms of combos (I'll admit, I do the same when thinking of Clerics) -- but is that the best approach for a generic daily SS spell list? I could see it as being so, but I went the other way with my FS list.
I didn't really focus on it that much. Only one I actually have on the list is obscuring snow+snowsight. I got pretty sucked into the well of how weirdly borked and combo-ish the second level druid list is. It's a strange spell level in a lot of ways. Tying into the thing below, I tended to focus on it more when it was lower level spells, cause relegating said spells to that task is relatively low cost, and also when the tricks are castable in non-adventuring contexts, cause using the spells that way is even lower cost. When you put the two together, you get something like linked perception trickery, which really doesn't draw away from your ability to have a control winds for when things go horribly awry.


You also mention different levels, which is a great point. The SS's pseudo-fixed list means that it's very easy to change out your lower-level slots once you've leveled, in order to keep them performing at good efficiency. FS and all other spontaneous casters lack that. How powerful would you consider that? From the spells you've picked, I don't know if it actually does make much difference. A lot of the optimised spells we choose are thus, in part, because they scale well.
Quite a few of my picks were determined by that factor. Looking at Gnaeus' condensed version of my list, the snow combo, spider hand, and winged watcher would be very unlikely to land on a generalized list at the levels where those are your highest level spells retrieved. Heart of water would be somewhat unlikely to show up, but I like the spell, so I could see relying on firsts and seconds for combat and using heart for defense. Actually, I really couldn't. You're wasting so many spells/day that way. My fourth level list was a bit dependent on this higher level assumption too, actually, even though I wouldn't expect them to be. One of those natural disaster spells fills the whole massive impact whatever role, kinda pushing out top notch 4th's like eye of the hurricane and boreal wind. I decided to orient 5th's towards the role of blunt hammer and 4th's towards precise instrument, where levels seven and eight would require the 4th's to act as blunt instrument due to the lack of that role otherwise.

So, I'd value it quite a bit, I think. Like, however much you'd value the fact that the spirit shaman can retrieve both entangle and impeding stones early, when that makes sense, and have neither spell on the higher level list, except across a number of different and sometimes higher level instances. Without spell swapping or whatever, the 10th level spontaneous druid has a pretty good chance of not having spider hand, for instance, I'd expect. They have a ton of firsts by that level, including one at seventh, actually, so I'm probably wrong there, but that's the general idea of it.

[GilesTheCleric]

So, I'd value it quite a bit, I think. Like, however much you'd value the fact that the spirit shaman can retrieve both entangle and impeding stones early, when that makes sense, and have neither spell on the higher level list, except across a number of different and sometimes higher level instances. Without spell swapping or whatever, the 10th level spontaneous druid has a pretty good chance of not having spider hand, for instance, I'd expect. They have a ton of firsts by that level, including one at seventh, actually, so I'm probably wrong there, but that's the general idea of it.

It certainly is a noteworthy positive point in the SS's favour. I'm almost convinced that it could be T1 off the back of that, even despite the low number of spells available. Your higher-op spell picks are all good. But does it really have enough solutions to hit T1? I don't know the Druid list as well as you do, but I think I'd be confident in saying that an SS that cast from the Cleric list would be "T1.5", possibly T1 depending on how much we're weighing higher-op. If it's core-only, I think that only helps the Clerical-SS's case, since the density of spell quality in core is higher than it is across the entirety of 3e.

The ability to leverage lower-level slots to compensate for the lower number of spells "known" does seem quite good. Do you think the Druid list has enough breadth of powerful solutions to make it to "1.5" or 1?

[eggynack]

I'm somewhat doubtful, just based on the casting mechanic rather than some higher level insight. A sorcerer is going to have better spells, if fixed ones, based on list alone, and a favored soul is going to have between two and three times as many "spells known" at various levels, meaning they can compensate for the fixed nature of those spells by way of volume. The spirit shaman can retrieve entangle and then later retrieve spider hand. The favored soul can just kinda pick entangle and spider hand, as it were. I feel like this mode of versatility serves more to make up for a deficit than to act as an advantage unto itself. It's a different path to having encounter destruction capability while preserving some defenses and utility, but the sorcerer is already doing that by having those versatile spells, and the favored soul is doing it by having a lot of them. As I noted, there's a lot of edge to be gained in non-combat situations, but little of it is actively crazy so much as really nice to have access to. Though I must say, next level's access to fey ring and earthquake is nice. As for core, the druid and cleric lists are pretty good in that environment, but I think the wizard list actually does best relative to its non-core self. A lot of core-ground is made up for by those sweet class features.

[Hurnn]

Spirit Shaman (CD, 14) T2

It has some cool and pretty useful class features, it's skills are decent as are its points per level for 9/9 caster. It combines the best of prepared and spontaneous casting in fact its spell mechanic is very 5th ed. Unfortunately To few spells known per day hurts a lot, and I cant figure out a reasonable way to increase it at least without PRCs. I think that is all that is really holding it back from T1.

Spontaneous Druid (UA): T1

The sorcerer version of a druid, but unlike a sorcerer it has actual class features that are indeed pretty strong.

Urban Druid (DC, 57): T2

Worse spell list that still isn't all that bad but obviously much smaller than a regular druid. It also had its other class features nerfed pretty hard. That said I think they could be crazy good in a strictly city based or intrigue based game.

Wild Shape Ranger (UA): T4

With out alternate form abilities, (aberrant, or dragon) it makes them marginally better at the things they were already decent at, scouting and combat. Also with the combat medium creatures will be pretty lackluster soon enough. the fast move is not bad though It does give native access to flight but I don't think that's is enough to move it up a tier. With the alternate forms dragon is probably the best bet. If they have gotten pounce somehow that is a load of potential attacks, they can potentially charge from really really far away, have a not fairly bad breath attack, and will add some sweet utility and immunities. Maybe, dragon wildshape bumps it a tier, but even then it's coming on line at 12th, and they have to invest in wisdom fairly heavily. So still T4 for most of the game.

Edit I forgot about exalted wildshape but even that is 8th level and is an exalted feat so it does limit you in some ways. Blink dog does seem pretty sweet though, and if you go with the celestial versions of animals I suppose you do get the smite for what ever that is worth.

[eggynack]

I'm inclined to think that a completely optimal wild shape ranger starting at an early level may be best off taking both exalted and dragon wild shape, because, to some extent, what else are you gonna do with those feats? There's combat stuff, of course, but spending a feat for three levels of coverage before getting dragons might well be worth it, especially given how useful blink dog is. Aberration is interesting too, cause you can toss it in at 6th, but I'm not yet convinced that it does much of anything here. I'm still kinda interested in proportional wild shape too. Sucks badly on druids cause you get large forms naturally by the time you'd plausibly want to take it, making incredibly unlikely huge forms the only useful strategy, but wild shape rangers lose less from LA and gain more from the feat cause they never get large at all. Also, this might be super obvious, but fleshrakers are totally medium sized and always awesome. Seems like the clear medium combat form.

[weckar]

The only one I truly care to weigh in on is the Spirit Shaman, as that's where I have my experience.

Personally, I think it deserves a low T1 spot for a quality that has thus far been overlooked. Yes, the "spells retrieved" per day are limited - but whatever retrieval slots have not been retrieved yet require no extra time over one that's re-used. Therefore, until all slots up to a certain level have been filled it is effectively spontaneous over the ENTIRE druid list, where the druid has to at least sort of anticipate the days needs.
Is this worth the extra druid goodies? Probably not. But every Tier has its range.

Over sorcerers, SS have an easier time using metamagic as it doesn't lengthen their casting times and a broader access to their spells.

In addition, its interactions with 'Spirits' gives it a unique and, unlike most places where this can be said, oftentimes useful role in a party. Being able to at will detect any astrally projected intruders, warding against fey, elementals & incorporeal undead at the same time, delegate the concentration on spells to their imaginary friend... They have a wide range of option most other classes do not have, most well beyond the dipping barrier or scaling well.

Finally, and this is for me the tipping point; the way the class works makes it inherently a team player, moreso than the druid. Not because they have to, but because they can. They raise others up instead of bringing them down. The fact that they can do this WHILE still being a full time basically-anything, makes them a proper - if low - T1 to me.

[eggynack]

Not entirely sure where leaving retrieval slots open is. Sounds interesting if it's accurate. Even less sure how the spirit shaman is all that much of a team player. Sure, they're probably more of a team player than the druid, cause the druid is one of the least team playerish classes in the game (in my opinion, anyways), but my feeling is that the druid list still isn't all that amenable to teamwork even without all the other druid things that obviate the need for it. Separately, I looked through the spirit shaman class features, and I'm starting to wonder if my spirit shaman list should've had some concentration check stuff on it. Guide magic is a pretty sweet ability. Might check my full druid list for options.

[weckar]

Not entirely sure where leaving retrieval slots open is.

...

Okay, wait, what? This is a poor day for my memory, it seems. Was there another class with a smimilar mechanic that worked like that? Some psionic class maybe?

Regardless, without the option to leave slots open and retrieve instantly (as I thought they could - I have a DM to apologize to), I want to change my vote to a T2. Would you prefer I edit my post?

[eggynack]

Would you prefer I edit my post?
Not especially. Change has already been logged. Actually forgot to put in the original vote after I wrote that response.

[Gnaeus]

I don't particularly think all that stuff is the equal of that list I constructed, control-wise. Tentacles and cloud are great, cloudkill and pyrotechnics are reasonable, and the rest, apart from sleet storm which is on both lists, is kinda meh. I don't think the whole list of BFC necessarily even equals control winds, sleet storm, always on obscuring snow, and maybe kelpstrand depending on where you count it. Keep in mind the ridiculous devastation that can be wrought if you get to tornado speed, which is quite possible at this level.

I think it is better. The archer can shoot the hell out of something trapped in tentacles. Control Winds is almost as debilitating to your muggles as the enemy. You want to use level enhancers to up your control winds? OK, I'd counter that by getting a necklace of adaptation and blindsight blindfold for my fighter, so he can run through my poison gas cloud and murder people.

Actually, you clearly rate control winds MUCH higher than I do. I think its a good spell. I think its a great spell for a druid. I think its a pathetic spell for a spirit shaman, because I don't think the answer to most fights is hurricane force wind. Its a spell I'd want once a day, not every fight.


And, from there, the warmage is basically just blasting. The spirit shaman is running defense, buffing, utility anti-magic, healing, face beating, scouting, and mobility, all on one list, in addition to the BFC. And, from there, the spirit shaman is also running a variety of long term power building spells, including some buffs that might be carrying over to the adventuring day. All in all? This comparison does not strike me as all that close..

Buffing? I see the snowsight spell your teammates need to break your own effect. I see Mass Snakes Swiftness, which is a buff I guess, although I would hope that your muggle 10s are running haste from somewhere. Warmage has mass fire shield. I'd say he has all the advantage there. Your healing and face beating all come from one under leveled summon. Your scouting comes from Spider Hand. That is, I admit, better than the warmage gets, but is a long way from being good, because I tend to arm up and alert my friends when a spider the size of a dog comes wandering into my room.


And, from there, the spirit shaman is also running a variety of long term power building spells, including some buffs that might be carrying over to the adventuring day. All in all? This comparison does not strike me as all that close.

Edit: Of course the spirit shaman can't build power in their off days as well as a wizard can. Wizards are nearly the best at that kinda thing. The spirit shaman just happens to be better at it than nearly all of the tier two and three classes we would be comparing it to here. If the spirit shaman could build power as well as wizards can, in addition to all of the spirit shaman's standard adventuring day stuff, I would very possibly be arguing tier one right now.

Really, once we take spontaneous summon and arcane disciple, they can't build power in their off days as well as a warmage can. Warmage can expand their spells known and spells available with a single feat, that they can take multiple times. My first reaction to Spontaneous Summoner was Summoning Domain, which gives the planar ally line, which isn't planar binding but is as good as the SS tricks. But more importantly, when he casts it the day before the adventure, he doesn't have to pee his pants hoping that the DM doesn't drop an encounter on them. SS power building tricks, unlike ANY prepared caster, require stripping yourself of your top spells and defenses.

And you need items or feats to do what you are talking about. You can certainly extend 24 hour buffs via feat or rod. But not only are you actually diminishing your abilities on the days when you cast those buffs, in a way that is dangerous for the SS who knows so few spells already, but you are also spending fixed resources that the warmage also gets. He can take the feat you spend on extend spell on Arcane Disciple: Travel. Or get a familiar that aside from other bonuses is a way better scout than your removed hand. He can spend the money you spend on the extend rod on an eternal wand and add first level arcane spell of choice. He has a greater added bonus to feats and spells than the SS does.

And better than the tier 2 classes? ??? ??? Dread Necro has Planar Binding. Animate Dead. Control Undead. Thats miles better. Beguiler has Dominate Person and suggestion, which is admittedly DM dependent. But also useful downtime abilities like Nondetection to keep enemies from power building on you. Sorcerer? Sorc could take (5) lesser planar binding (4) animate dead, polymorph (3) shrink item and others and be miles better at building power and at solving standard adventure problems. Unlike Control Winds, Polymorph is a key that does fit almost all doors.

[WhamBamSam]

I'm going to come down pretty strongly on the side of T3 for the Wild Shape Ranger. They compare pretty reasonably to Binders sans Zceryll in how they operate, even without form adding. Binders have a bit more weirdness available, but there are also glaring shortcomings, like exotic movement, that the Ranger has no problem with. Both can change up their schtick a little over the course of the day (Expel Vestige vs. Wild Shape uses/day).

We might also compare to the Barbarian. Fleshraker form alone should reach a similar enough T4 murder-capability that superior skills, casting, other Wild Shaping and so on should cover enough situations to scrape up another tier from there.

I'll cast a vote for Spontaneous Druid as T1 as well, while I'm here. I'm finding those arguments more persuasive.

[Lans]

I'm going to come down pretty strongly on the side of T3 for the Wild Shape Ranger. They compare pretty reasonably to Binders sans Zceryll in how they operate, even without form adding. Binders have a bit more weirdness available, but there are also glaring shortcomings, like exotic movement, that the Ranger has no problem with. Both can change up their schtick a little over the course of the day (Expel Vestige vs. Wild Shape uses/day).
.

Well some people think binders are tier 4 sans Zceryll


We might also compare to the Barbarian. Fleshraker form alone should reach a similar enough T4 murder-capability that superior skills, casting, other Wild Shaping and so on should cover enough situations to scrape up another tier from there.



I think running numbers is a good place to start. I found the fleshraker to be lower on damage than I expected

[eggynack]

I think it is better. The archer can shoot the hell out of something trapped in tentacles. Control Winds is almost as debilitating to your muggles as the enemy. You want to use level enhancers to up your control winds? OK, I'd counter that by getting a necklace of adaptation and blindsight blindfold for my fighter, so he can run through my poison gas cloud and murder people.

Actually, you clearly rate control winds MUCH higher than I do. I think its a good spell. I think its a great spell for a druid. I think its a pathetic spell for a spirit shaman, because I don't think the answer to most fights is hurricane force wind. Its a spell I'd want once a day, not every fight.

I think that possibly killing a whole battlefield with a huge tornado that impacts everyone but your party is a lot more impressive than a stinking cloud/cloudkill that a fighter can hit stuff in. Also, this is just the highest impact BFC spell. You have that at the top layer, doing a pile of stuff to the whole battlefield, and then you have smaller precision stuff lower down. It's not just that the spirit shaman has this one BFC that gives them an advantage. It's that they're hitting the battlefield on a pile of different scales, including this one way up here that the warmage can't reach.



Buffing? I see the snowsight spell your teammates need to break your own effect. I see Mass Snakes Swiftness, which is a buff I guess, although I would hope that your muggle 10s are running haste from somewhere. Warmage has mass fire shield. I'd say he has all the advantage there. Your healing and face beating all come from one under leveled summon. Your scouting comes from Spider Hand. That is, I admit, better than the warmage gets, but is a long way from being good, because I tend to arm up and alert my friends when a spider the size of a dog comes wandering into my room.

I think I value mass fireshield a lot less than you do. It's alright, but you're still just dealing damage here, except now it's out of a 5th level spell. Which, granted, that's how mass snake's swiftness operates, but it's much lower level and a more unique effect for the spirit shaman, and also augments already existing power structures, which is nice in an optimized party.


Really, once we take spontaneous summon and arcane disciple, they can't build power in their off days as well as a warmage can. Warmage can expand their spells known and spells available with a single feat, that they can take multiple times. My first reaction to Spontaneous Summoner was Summoning Domain, which gives the planar ally line, which isn't planar binding but is as good as the SS tricks. But more importantly, when he casts it the day before the adventure, he doesn't have to pee his pants hoping that the DM doesn't drop an encounter on them. SS power building tricks, unlike ANY prepared caster, require stripping yourself of your top spells and defenses.
We are absolutely not stripping the spirit shaman of top spells or defenses. Most of the 5th level off-combat options are in a really different sphere from those of the other levels. If you're using your 3rd and/or 4th level spells for utility, you can maintain 5th level spells as top level combat power. If you're using your 5th, then you can use 4th's for combat definitely, and then either 3rd's or both 1st's and 2nd's as backup, depending on need. You don't have to leave yourself defenseless to make use of these strategies.


And you need items or feats to do what you are talking about. You can certainly extend 24 hour buffs via feat or rod. But not only are you actually diminishing your abilities on the days when you cast those buffs, in a way that is dangerous for the SS who knows so few spells already, but you are also spending fixed resources that the warmage also gets. He can take the feat you spend on extend spell on Arcane Disciple: Travel. Or get a familiar that aside from other bonuses is a way better scout than your removed hand.
Most of my models leave a reasonable quantity of spells, particularly 5th level slots, for combat stuff. And I'm a bit doubtful we'd be doing this feat style. The rod is super cheap.


He can spend the money you spend on the extend rod on an eternal wand and add first level arcane spell of choice. He has a greater added bonus to feats and spells than the SS does.
This really doesn't strike me as more advantage from items than what the spirit shaman is getting from the rod. They're not just getting this off-day to on-day benefit. They also get utility from extending spells within the day in question. Extending a primal spell is like adding a 2nd/3rd level spell on the adventuring day in question, and then you get to double a third, like that fancy heart of water, on the day of.


And better than the tier 2 classes? ??? ??? Dread Necro has Planar Binding. Animate Dead. Control Undead.
Animate dead is solid, but I wouldn't necessarily put it over this pile of divinations, along with a variety of natural disaster spells (we're earthquaking next level), healing, lighter than earthquake terrain manipulation, long distance communication, and so on. Note that the majority of the stuff I talked about in my spirit shaman post comes into play at 7th level, a level before animate dead, and many levels before binding and control undead. Planar binding would be better if it were natively castable, but that's not impossible to work around. It's notable here, though, that fey ring is natively castable, and at the same level as standard binding. Not at the same quality as binding, but you can do some cool stuff with it, and then it suddenly is at around the same quality as binding once you hit level 15.


Thats miles better. Beguiler has Dominate Person and suggestion, which is admittedly DM dependent. But also useful downtime abilities like Nondetection to keep enemies from power building on you.
The dominate line is solid. I dunno that I'd put that alongside the various other effects on offer here above what I listed though.

Sorcerer? Sorc could take (5) lesser planar binding (4) animate dead, polymorph (3) shrink item and others and be miles better at building power and at solving standard adventure problems. Unlike Control Winds, Polymorph is a key that does fit almost all doors.
Building power, perhaps. Solving encounter problems, I'd disagree. Polymorph is great, but it doesn't do everything, and that's kinda established as your primary mode of combat given that you lack a more combat oriented 5th level spell. Yeah, breaking the game is an option with binding, but that's not all that impressive from a tiering perspective, especially because a spirit shaman can natively break the game quite well, if we're in that arena.

[Dondasch]

3rd​: If you want to go obscure here, wall of fungus seems like a good stand in for the fact that you're kinda wall limited at this point. Walls are a bit hard to prioritize at this level, and I don't think tossing wall of smoke in at first does the need anything close to justice.

Actually, Shining South provides Coral Growth, which is essentially Wall of Stone, just 3 spell levels early (for Druids). It's an excellent spell, and can be a form of power-building too (the duration is permanent instead of instantaneous though, which is sad).


1st: Third one, maybe winged watcher, if you didn't take master air, maybe impeding stones or entangle, if you want something combat oriented, summon fey, if you want to go full on broken and obscure with things, and instant of power, if you wanna be frivolous with your spells (and still obscure).


Google says Summon Fey is from Kingdoms of Kalamar material, and thus not 1st party (well, it's licensed, but that's fuzzy territory). And Kingdoms of Kalamar material should get a blanket ban in my opinion, because the balance in those books makes core 3.0 look good.

[eggynack]

Actually, Shining South provides Coral Growth, which is essentially Wall of Stone, just 3 spell levels early (for Druids). It's an excellent spell, and can be a form of power-building too (the duration is permanent instead of instantaneous though, which is sad).
It's an interesting tactic, presumably spreading coral from some fixed ocean-point until it's wherever you need a wall to be. You do need submerged coral though, which limits its utility in the more combat oriented context I was talking about.



Google says Summon Fey is from Kingdoms of Kalamar material, and thus not 1st party (well, it's licensed, but that's fuzzy territory). And Kingdoms of Kalamar material should get a blanket ban in my opinion, because the balance in those books makes core 3.0 look good.
It is fuzzy, but it's kinda first party. I consider it at or around the level of dragon magazine. Somewhere between first and second party, though I think KoK has a decent case for first. Either way, really high obscurity rating, but not an infinite one, y'know? I dunno that the balance of the source should be all that relevant. The spell already gets a high optimization position by dint of its, well power, as would any spell, really.

[Malroth]

Spirit Shaman Low tier 3
Take away all the animal buffs due to the lack of companion/wildshape and you've already lost 2/3 of the power from the druid list. He's essentially a weaker warmage with a few heals he can know and only avoids dropping to 4 by merit of his ability to function during downtime.

Spontaneous Druid low tier 1
You're a level behind but you can still make an army of buffed Tyrano's appear whenever you want while being a mouse under the floorboards

Urban Druid Low Tier 2
There's a few gems thrown in and he can still do a couple game crushing feats but He's no all around problem solver.

Wildshape Ranger Tier 4 to 1 depending on optimization.
Low end he's just a wolf or boar with no relavent spells. With Optimization He's an Illithid or Cryohydra with access to the Wizard spell list and that's before he goes into the obvious prestigue classes of Master of many forms or Warshaper or manages to cheese his way into Illithid Savant or Beholdermage.

[remetagross]

Spirit Shaman Low tier 3
Take away all the animal buffs due to the lack of companion/wildshape and you've already lost 2/3 of the power from the druid list. He's essentially a weaker warmage with a few heals he can know and only avoids dropping to 4 by merit of his ability to function during downtime.

Spontaneous Druid low tier 1
You're a level behind but you can still make an army of buffed Tyrano's appear whenever you want while being a mouse under the floorboards

Urban Druid Low Tier 2
There's a few gems thrown in and he can still do a couple game crushing feats but He's no all around problem solver.

Wildshape Ranger Tier 4 to 1 depending on optimization.
Low end he's just a wolf or boar with no relavent spells. With Optimization He's an Illithid or Cryohydra with access to the Wizard spell list and that's before he goes into the obvious prestigue classes of Master of many forms or Warshaper or manages to cheese his way into Illithid Savant or Beholdermage.

I wouldn't agree with that, you'd put the Wildshape Ranger in Tier 1? At the end of the day, a beatstick remains a beatstick. Moreover, a very small number of DMs will ever allow that cheese.

[Rhyltran]

I wouldn't agree with that, you'd put the Wildshape Ranger in Tier 1? At the end of the day, a beatstick remains a beatstick. Moreover, a very small number of DMs will ever allow that cheese.

I actually agree with him. Note his official stance seems to be Tier 4. Technically I'd argue with the right optimization and with some WBL Fu any class is Tier 1. Even monk can single handedly solo all the Elder Evils with the right cheese/optimization but that's not the point of the Tier discussion so no idea why he brought it up. Anyhow my vote is..

Spirit Shaman Tier 2

Urban Druid Tier 2

Spontaneous Druid Tier 1.

Wildshape Ranger T4

[eggynack]

Spirit Shaman Low tier 3
Take away all the animal buffs due to the lack of companion/wildshape and you've already lost 2/3 of the power from the druid list. He's essentially a weaker warmage with a few heals he can know and only avoids dropping to 4 by merit of his ability to function during downtime.
I think you're vastly underestimating how vast the druid list is here. Animal buffs are nice, but there's an absolute ton of other stuff there.


Wildshape Ranger Tier 4 to 1 depending on optimization.
Low end he's just a wolf or boar with no relavent spells. With Optimization He's an Illithid or Cryohydra with access to the Wizard spell list and that's before he goes into the obvious prestigue classes of Master of many forms or Warshaper or manages to cheese his way into Illithid Savant or Beholdermage.
Mystic/SotAO is a separate thing, first of all, assuming that's how you're getting access to wizard spells. Very likely to get tiered separately, though I'm still not sure how we're going to tier it. It's super weird. Prestige classes aren't really a thing we're talking about here, especially on the range of levels you'd expect to take MoMF, second. And, third, not really sure how you're getting cryohydra form in any efficient manner given the wild shape ranger's size limitation, or how you're getting all that much value from mind flayer form. That's all applied to the top end of your evaluation. On the lower end, you're definitely more than a wolf or boar. You have access to a wide variety of high quality movement modes, even if we're assuming pretty crappy form choice. Reasonably form choice heavily improves the combat forms, and offers higher order versions of those utility forms. At the middle area, meanwhile, you get a bunch of form adding feats, which expand you past wolf and boar without hitting wizard spells or cryohydra form.

Your range is too wide, in my opinion, is what I'm saying. Like, they could still be tier four, but they're doing better than you're saying they're doing in that environment. Also, really can't include ranges in the actual vote tally, if that matters to you. Especially not ones that big.

Edit: @Rhyltran: Am I to assume that post also includes a vote for the ranger at tier four, given the opening, or is it just the latter three ratings?

[Gnaeus]

I think that possibly killing a whole battlefield with a huge tornado that impacts everyone but your party is a lot more impressive than a stinking cloud/cloudkill that a fighter can hit stuff in. Also, this is just the highest impact BFC spell. You have that at the top layer, doing a pile of stuff to the whole battlefield, and then you have smaller precision stuff lower down. It's not just that the spirit shaman has this one BFC that gives them an advantage. It's that they're hitting the battlefield on a pile of different scales, including this one way up here that the warmage can't reach.

Killing a battlefield of low level mooks is an extremely situational niche. I've never actually had to do it in play. Tornado winds do 6d6 with a fort save. You are killing exactly 0 ecl relevant encounters with this spell.


I think I value mass fireshield a lot less than you do. It's alright, but you're still just dealing damage here, except now it's out of a 5th level spell. Which, granted, that's how mass snake's swiftness operates, but it's much lower level and a more unique effect for the spirit shaman, and also augments already existing power structures, which is nice in an optimized party.

Actually, its also providing mass cold and fire resistance as needed. I think Mass Snakes Swiftness is the one that is useless in an optimized party, since any optimized weapon user probably already has a source for haste, which doesn't stack, but halving fire or cold damage + adding a damage shield is useful for most everyone, even your wizard who won't likely get much use from his free staff attack.


Animate dead is solid, but I wouldn't necessarily put it over this pile of divinations, along with a variety of natural disaster spells (we're earthquaking next level), healing, lighter than earthquake terrain manipulation, long distance communication, and so on. Note that the majority of the stuff I talked about in my spirit shaman post comes into play at 7th level, a level before animate dead, and many levels before binding and control undead. Planar binding would be better if it were natively castable, but that's not impossible to work around. It's notable here, though, that fey ring is natively castable, and at the same level as standard binding. Not at the same quality as binding, but you can do some cool stuff with it, and then it suddenly is at around the same quality as binding once you hit level 15.

Command undead is available to DNs starting at level 2. Earthquake is not a useful spell in most situations. Its not a power building spell and rather less useful for an adventurer than fireball, which does more damage and is much less likely to bury your loot. SS could get earthquake as a 3rd level spell and still be worse than the warmage. Those are spells that might have a niche in old tiering as game breakers. You can certainly hurt a keep with earthquake. But for a typical adventuring party its a big pile of smelly poo with flies on it.


Building power, perhaps. Solving encounter problems, I'd disagree. Polymorph is great, but it doesn't do everything, and that's kinda established as your primary mode of combat given that you lack a more combat oriented 5th level spell. Yeah, breaking the game is an option with binding, but that's not all that impressive from a tiering perspective, especially because a spirit shaman can natively break the game quite well, if we're in that arena.

It doesn't do everything, but its better than all the 3-5 spells on your chosen list added together. Its a short range travel spell, a huge damage/control buff for your melee that doesn't try to obsolete them like a summon, a disguise, energy immunity via subtype, and a weak heal, all in one spell.

[eggynack]

Killing a battlefield of low level mooks is an extremely situational niche. I've never actually had to do it in play. Tornado winds do 6d6 with a fort save. You are killing exactly 0 ecl relevant encounters with this spell.

Why are they low level? It doesn't look like there's any size limit on this function of a tornado. And it's not just 6d6. It's 6d6 for 1d10 rounds during which the creature's movement and, indeed, their ability to engage you in combat at all, are very deeply curtailed. And it applies this effect in a massive area, such that it's pretty difficult to not get hit for multiple turns. So, less killing a battlefield of low level mooks, more either killing a battlefield of pretty solid enemies, or removing them from combat, and applying a solid defense against ranged attacks while that effect is consuming the battlefield. Seems very very non-situational to me. A tornado is a CR 10 encounter for a reason, and this one is quite likely a lot bigger and more targeted (as contradictory as those two things would seem to be on the surface).



Actually, its also providing mass cold and fire resistance as needed. I think Mass Snakes Swiftness is the one that is useless in an optimized party, since any optimized weapon user probably already has a source for haste, which doesn't stack, but halving fire or cold damage + adding a damage shield is useful for most everyone, even your wizard who won't likely get much use from his free staff attack.
I really don't see the issue with haste's possible presence here. I presented a bunch of alternatives for the spell, if it's being obviated in some manner. Cool thing about a spirit shaman is that you don't have to keep using the same spells when everyone starts getting haste. Can't necessarily predict what you're going to be doing or fighting on a given day, but you can absolutely know what spells best suit the party. The fire or cold resistance is nice, if a bit expensive spells/day-wise given that it's a 5th level spell that lasts rounds/level. I mean, yeah, the 5th level spell is going to do more to help the party than the arbitrary 2nd level spell I decided to use. It's not exactly surprising.


Command undead is available to DNs starting at level 2. Earthquake is not a useful spell in most situations. Its not a power building spell and rather less useful for an adventurer than fireball, which does more damage and is much less likely to bury your loot. SS could get earthquake as a 3rd level spell and still be worse than the warmage. Those are spells that might have a niche in old tiering as game breakers. You can certainly hurt a keep with earthquake. But for a typical adventuring party its a big pile of smelly poo with flies on it.

Its utility depends somewhat on where you cast it, but I'd take it over fireball any day. Less damage, sure, but also way more control over the battlefield. A number of the earthquake's modes fully immobilize enemies without a save for a solid span of time. I'm also not really sure why earthquaking an enemy's keep or dungeon or whatever wouldn't have utility.


It doesn't do everything, but its better than all the 3-5 spells on your chosen list added together. Its a short range travel spell, a huge damage/control buff for your melee that doesn't try to obsolete them like a summon, a disguise, energy immunity via subtype, and a weak heal, all in one spell.
It's a very versatile spell, but I don't think it does as well in combat scenarios as the spirit shaman's list, and in non-combat scenarios all that other stuff I was talking about becomes pretty relevant. Really thinking you're underrating what a lot of these spells bring to the table.

[Malroth]

Mystic ranger is a seperate thing but it is a compatable thing so the rule of averaging it among different builds still applies as does the abusing self casting polymorph outlier i'd actally say on average it rounds out to a low tier 2 mostly because the celing is high.

[eggynack]

Mystic ranger is a seperate thing but it is a compatable thing so the rule of averaging it among different builds still applies as does the abusing self casting polymorph outlier i'd actally say on average it rounds out to a low tier 2 mostly because the celing is high.
It would theoretically apply, but we're still operating on the principle that individual game objects that increase tier are considered separately, which would include mystic ranger. Especially true here, cause it would boost the tier of both the base ranger, and also likely the ranger with this tier boosting ACF. That doesn't always happen.

[Troacctid]

Is it really compatible? Doesn't it alter the feature that wild shape is supposed to replace?

[Rhyltran]

I think you're vastly underestimating how vast the druid list is here. Animal buffs are nice, but there's an absolute ton of other stuff there.


Mystic/SotAO is a separate thing, first of all, assuming that's how you're getting access to wizard spells. Very likely to get tiered separately, though I'm still not sure how we're going to tier it. It's super weird. Prestige classes aren't really a thing we're talking about here, especially on the range of levels you'd expect to take MoMF, second. And, third, not really sure how you're getting cryohydra form in any efficient manner given the wild shape ranger's size limitation, or how you're getting all that much value from mind flayer form. That's all applied to the top end of your evaluation. On the lower end, you're definitely more than a wolf or boar. You have access to a wide variety of high quality movement modes, even if we're assuming pretty crappy form choice. Reasonably form choice heavily improves the combat forms, and offers higher order versions of those utility forms. At the middle area, meanwhile, you get a bunch of form adding feats, which expand you past wolf and boar without hitting wizard spells or cryohydra form.

Your range is too wide, in my opinion, is what I'm saying. Like, they could still be tier four, but they're doing better than you're saying they're doing in that environment. Also, really can't include ranges in the actual vote tally, if that matters to you. Especially not ones that big.

Edit: @Rhyltran: Am I to assume that post also includes a vote for the ranger at tier four, given the opening, or is it just the latter three ratings?

Wildshape ranger T4 or low T3. Yeah, that's my vote. :P

[eggynack]

Is it really compatible? Doesn't it alter the feature that wild shape is supposed to replace?
Not sure. It does move the features, but they're still hanging out on the class, waiting to be traded away. Seems probably legal, if dubious.


Wildshape ranger T4 or low T3. Yeah, that's my vote. :P
Still weirdly ambiguous. There's not that much meaning to either three or four on a spreadsheet. Or to me, even if I were doing tabulation by hand. It's just one or the other, y'know? Or some decimal between the two, or apparently one or the other based on particular conditions. But as long as it's hanging out at this unidentified position that's maybe between three and four, or maybe just three or just four, it's close to impossible to accurately represent in vote form. Best I could do is guess, but I'd rather not take any kind of control of what peoples' votes actually are. Down that path lies a strange kind of vote tyranny, or something.

[Rhyltran]

Not sure. It does move the features, but they're still hanging out on the class, waiting to be traded away. Seems probably legal, if dubious.


Still weirdly ambiguous. There's not that much meaning to either three or four on a spreadsheet. Or to me, even if I were doing tabulation by hand. It's just one or the other, y'know? Or some decimal between the two, or apparently one or the other based on particular conditions. But as long as it's hanging out at this unidentified position that's maybe between three and four, or maybe just three or just four, it's close to impossible to accurately represent in vote form. Best I could do is guess, but I'd rather not take any kind of control of what peoples' votes actually are. Down that path lies a strange kind of vote tyranny, or something.

In that case I'd go with low tier 3. Wild Shape doesn't just offer combat advantages but versatility and I think it can push the wild shape ranger out of the Tier 4 list.

[eggynack]

Here's something I've been thinking about for awhile. Is the urban druid list equal to or better than the core druid list? I'ma start at the top, think about it for a bit. 9th's are equal. They're really similar to start with, but it doesn't matter cause shapechange is right there overwhelming everything. 8th's are a clear win for the urban druid. Polymorph any object is more powerful than anything on the core druid list up to that point. Apart from maybe siabrie calling, it is more powerful than what I think is anything on the entire druid list up to that point. 7th's look pretty equal. Not perfectly equal, but close enough to just call it that and move on. 6th's, maybe a bit druid advantaged, because SNA VI is a pretty good entry in the series. 5th's, you lose wall of thorns, but you get wall of stone a level early. I like that animate objects, fabricate, secret chest, major creation, and private sanctum, and the commune for susurrus trade seems even enough to me. I'm inclined to give this one to urban druid, though the fact that druid is getting tree stride and transport via plants as teleportation effects is an advantage.

4th's, druids get reincarnate, I guess. Also SNA IV, which is a good one. Urban druid gets dominate person, legend lore, secure shelter, locate creature, and minor creation. In addition to the teleportation thing from before, the bringing folks back from the dead thing, even imperfectly, is an advantage. Still, that's a lotta reasonable urban druid spells right there. 3rd's are interesting. Druids get plant growth, sleet storm, stone shape, and wind wall. Urban druids get charm monster, glibness, tiny hut, nondetection, shrink item, speak with dead, stinking cloud, and tongues. Seems pretty urban druid advantaged to me. Real all star cast for the urban druid at that level, even while the druid is doing really strong stuff. 2nd's are kinda bleh for both classes, in my opinion. I think it makes sense to give it to the urban druid though. They get some solid utility, including rope trick. 1st's, even with charm person, I think has to go to the druid, by dint of entangle. And 0th's are even enough to move past.

So, I might be missing something, but a rather cursory and loose analysis seems to find the urban druid the class with the superior list at a meaningful majority of spell levels. Of course, I've somewhat minimized the role of SNA here, both as a spell on the druid list and as a thing granting a lot of leeway, but the claim seems close to true. This doesn't make the urban druid the better class in this tiny environment, of course. The aforementioned spontaneous summoning, combined with wild shape and the animal companion, quite likely grants a druid advantage. Urban shape and urban companion just aren't on that same level most of the time (with the notable exception of the first three levels). And, moreover, any non-core analysis would push that higher than expected position way down. But it's a damn good list, and that counts for a lot in tier analysis.

I don't have an easy conclusion on this one. This stuff might push the class to tier one, or a disadvantage to a tier one class in even the urban druid's best environment might be too big an issue. I'm not sure yet. It's worth discussing, at least.

[Dondasch]

It's an interesting tactic, presumably spreading coral from some fixed ocean-point until it's wherever you need a wall to be. You do need submerged coral though, which limits its utility in the more combat oriented context I was talking about.

Hmm, I had always thought of that as flavor text related to the material component. There's no "Target: living, submerged coral" entry, after all.
I suppose if you want to be cheesy, you've got coral in your spell component pouch, so grab and drop a piece as free actions, then grab another piece to use as a material component.



It is fuzzy, but it's kinda first party. I consider it at or around the level of dragon magazine. Somewhere between first and second party, though I think KoK has a decent case for first. Either way, really high obscurity rating, but not an infinite one, y'know? I dunno that the balance of the source should be all that relevant. The spell already gets a high optimization position by dint of its, well power, as would any spell, really.

My point is more that it's very unlikely to be allowed (due to both obscurity and general brokenness), so it's really not too relevant when it comes to tiering. If you can get it, it's great, but overall game balance has changed in terrible ways.
I mean, there's Irresistible Spell for changing save-or-die to just-die, and that's just one feat.

[lord_khaine]

I would place spontaneous Druid in T2 for the same reason the sorcerer has traditionally been placed there.
Lack of the insane flexibility that regular T1 classes have.

[Lans]

I would place spontaneous Druid in T2 for the same reason the sorcerer has traditionally been placed there.
Lack of the insane flexibility that regular T1 classes have.

They have more spells known, and 2 very good abilities. The summon natures ally list basically gives them a dozen or so spells to their list for free, no choice required

[eggynack]

Hmm, I had always thought of that as flavor text related to the material component. There's no "Target: living, submerged coral" entry, after all.
I suppose if you want to be cheesy, you've got coral in your spell component pouch, so grab and drop a piece as free actions, then grab another piece to use as a material component.
I think the material component and the base coral are unrelated. The spell says it's manipulating some existing coral that's living and submerged. There's no guarantee this spontaneous coral is living and perhaps even less that it's submerged. How would coral in a material component pouch even have those qualities? I think the text is pretty explicit about the need for that really specific kind of coral, target line or not. It doesn't look at all like flavor text to me, given that the spell immediately jumps from that line to one beginning with "since" rather than starting up a whole new spell description that's more detailed.




My point is more that it's very unlikely to be allowed (due to both obscurity and general brokenness), so it's really not too relevant when it comes to tiering. If you can get it, it's great, but overall game balance has changed in terrible ways.
I mean, there's Irresistible Spell for changing save-or-die to just-die, and that's just one feat.
Perhaps. My preferred use for the source, in an optimization discussion context, is "countering" dragon magazine use. They don't seem that far off of each other on the obscurity spectrum, at least.

[eggynack]

Thread seems to be slowing down a lot, so I posted the ratings, meaning I'll be opening the new thread tomorrow. The results are matching pretty big majorities, though I wasn't necessarily expecting the spontaneous druid for tier one thing. The result on spirit shaman was really interesting. Mostly tier two, which matches my long held opinion on the class' tiering, but it was also a bit matched up to the old 1/2/3 rating, cause it had two ones and two threes, along with a 1.5. Turns out that position wasn't just an artifact of the original tier system's definitions. Even in a less definition oriented system, there's still cause to claim one or three, purely on the merits of the class.

Anyway, usual things apply. If I don't have you down, or have you listed wrong, you can always mention that, and I'll swap it. Or you can change your vote, or introduce a whole new vote, or keep talking about random druid tiering stuff. The next thread is very likely to be jacks of all trades, with bard, jester, and factotum. That should be a fun one, I think. Factotums are consistently controversial, and jesters have some interesting discussion associated. Bard I think will be pretty open and shut, but I've been wrong before. After that, I'm thinking we finally do ToB classes. They feel really fundamental to some questions of how we should look at tiers three and four. Might even wind up running that instead, but I'm kinda in a bardic mood, y'know?

[Zaq]

This one's a hard round, eggy. I haven't read most of the responses yet, so hopefully I don't sound too redundant.

Spirit Shaman: I may be in the minority here (again, I haven't read the responses yet), but I feel like the Spirit Shaman is T1, at least in the late game. We may hem and haw about the Druid list being less useful than the Cleric or Wizard lists, but honestly, it's still a damn powerful list, and the SS has fantastic access to it. By mid levels or high levels, there are extremely few problems that the SS can't handle with a day's notice, which is kind of a hallmark of T1. They may have to get a little bit more creative than a Wizard would, but they can still handle most of the problems they encounter. (And by the time we get to mid levels or high levels, they can also establish a core set of retrieved spells for general-purpose use, so it's not like they're ONLY useful with a day's notice.)

Sure, the Druid is stronger overall (single-stat versus dual-stat casting, Wild Shape, the Animal Companion, etc.), but low T1 is still T1.

The wrinkle basically comes at low levels. At the very earliest parts of the game, the SS struggles. They can barely retrieve enough spells to cover their core functions, and unlike the Druid, they don't have a free pet to fall back on. They don't have the flexibility to take situation-specific spells without rather noticeable opportunity costs. Party support means a lot at this point, though party support is supposed to have a minimal effect on class tier. But I will freely admit that a level 3 SS (picking the level semi-randomly) really doesn't feel T1, even if a level 15 SS is pretty much unmistakeably there.

That said, even low-level Druid spells have a lot of oomph when used correctly (come on, Entangle is right there, and it's about as encounter-wrecking as you get for a level 1 spell, possibly tied with Sleep when Sleep is actually effective), so it's not like a low-level SS has no power. They just don't have a ton of flexibility, which can make them feel a bit claustrophobic, so to speak.

Even so, I think the long game is what really matters here, and the SS gets enough magic and enough flexibility to pretty decisively fit in T1 for me when looked at over the length of the game.

Spontaneous Druid: This is rather edge-case-tastic. The traditional line between T1 and T2 is "can you drastically adjust what magical abilities you have every day to solve new problems?" (By getting into T2 at all, you're assumed to have strong magical abilities in the first place, of course.) See Wizard vs. Sorcerer and Cleric vs. Favored Soul. Spontaneous Druids, by definition, cannot do that. They have spontaneous access to a great list, so they easily clear the T2 bar, surprising no one. The question then becomes whether the crazy wild card that is Wild Shape offers enough problem-solving flexibility to counter the fact that you can't prepare niche spells or downtime spells.

I've never seen a Spontaneous Druid in play, so that's a bit of a barrier. Wild Shape is very responsive to optimization (there's a lot of avenues that can be used to boost it, and it gets better the more you know about the game), so I'm honestly leaning towards T1 because of the combination of T2 casting + the extra wild card boost. I don't think I'd get up in arms over it if folks wanted to call it T2, but I do think that an argument can be made for Wild Shape providing enough flexibility to augment their spellcasting and nudge them over the bar. I'll say T1.

Urban Druid: This class is a mess. I think it's most easily grouped with the Wu Jen and the Shugenja (in other words, with 9th level casters who have lists that are noticeably more restrictive than the Big Three but who don't have Beguiler-style "you spontaneously cast from your whole list" casting). (As a side note, are they the only base class with fully prepared and yet fully CHA-based spells?) The spell list is pretty awful, honestly, and the fact that no books natively expand it just makes things worse. Basically every single change from the core Druid is made against the Urban Druid's favor. I think that a hardcore optimizer could make a surprisingly effective character using the UD as a base (if through nothing else but list expansion to then get a weird CHA-based prepared caster with an unusual list), but I think that would be in spite of the UD, not because of it.

So where does that leave us? I don't see them being in T2. They don't have the raw power of the Sorcerer or the Psion for most levels. They do get a few nice spells on their list (if for no other reason than that their high-end list contains gamebreakers like Shapechange, PAO, Control Weather, and the like), but I feel like the bulk of the game has them choosing from a thoroughly unimpressive list. That said, they will still have SOMETHING to cast, and even if Urban Shape is strictly worse than Wild Shape in nearly every way, a creative player can still get a moderate amount of utility out of it, so we don't want to just chuck them in with the Fighter and the Samurai. The question is basically between T3 and T4, and I think I'm going to vote for them being at the very bottom of T3. They do get enough magic that we can't just ignore that (even if their magic has a lot of limitations), and despite the obvious point of comparison being the actual Druid, having Urban Shape and Urban Companion still compares favorably to, say, the Paladin or the non-WS Ranger. They're a fairly boring T3 that I would basically never be interested in playing, but I would allow them to sneak into T3.

WS Ranger: Another tricky case. They're bloody overpowered in E6 (especially if you allow Mystic Ranger), but E6 is technically a set of houserules, so that's minimally relevant at best. WS Ranger has a lot more utility than vanilla Ranger, but I don't think that just taking the WS variant and not applying any other op-fu to the character will result in something that's on par with a Bard or a Swordsage, at least not over the course of a 20 level game. It's fairly easy to run out of Small and Medium animals, so unless you do something to expand your WS ability, the Ranger's WS doesn't really scale on its own after the early mid-level range. The WS Ranger has a decent stat chassis (good skills, good BAB, two good saves, acceptable HD), but it doesn't have too many other meaningful class features outside of WS, so if WS isn't optimized to keep scaling somehow, there's a fairly narrow range in which your WS is strong enough to be your primary contribution. (WS comes online at level 5, after all, and you'll probably run out of new Medium things to turn into by about 8 or 9? I'm just guessing, so I'm sure eggy could correct me if necessary.) A useful trick that doesn't fundamentally scale is not to be ignored entirely, but neither is it to be praised for the entire game.

Ranger spells are decent, but the less Ranger-like you are when casting them, the better, so I'm not sure how to grade them when looking at an actual (non-Mystic) Ranger for the whole game. Fast Movement is decent, but it won't shift the tier. Other Ranger class features (Favored Enemy, nerfed Animal Companion, etc.) are kind of blah overall. WS Ranger is basically useful as a jumping-off point into something unusual, but it's not that useful if you're taking 15 or 18 or 20 levels in it, you know?

That said, if we allow the fairly basic optimization of taking feats (Exalted WS, Aberration WS, Frozen WS) to expand WS forms, then things change a little bit. If we look at PrCs, that changes even more, but I think we're trying to ignore PrCs for tiering discussions. The WS Ranger is still less good at using the WS feats than the Druid is (no 12-headed cryohydra?), but they do still benefit, and it's not exactly super crazy levels of optimization to say "hmm, I have WS, so I should take a feat to be better at WS."

Overall, my gut is saying that they fit nicely into T4. They have a few tricks, and they can contribute reasonably well to exploration and to non-combat situations, but they always feel fairly constrained or fairly generic in combat, and they definitely have a sell-by date past which they've kind of scaled out of relevance. They still respond well to optimization, and they do have some flexibility that rewards player creativity, but they're rarely uniquely well-suited to solve problems in way that no one else can. That seems like a solid T4. High T4, even, but T4.

[eggynack]

and the SS has fantastic access to it.
This is really my biggest issue with sticking them in tier one. The spirit shaman doesn't really have fantastic access to the druid list. On a long term or maybe heavily planned basis? Sure, maybe. But on a daily basis, your top spell level will always have just one spell retrieved (except for firsts), and continue to do so even while you're getting a new top spell level. The quantity of spells retrieved is so restrictive in general. The 10th level spirit shaman, which I was poking at earlier, gets eleven spells retrieved total. It's a very limiting thing. And the druid list can build power over time through a number of methods, which is a big benefit to preparation, but while it's a list competent at doing that, I wouldn't necessarily call it a list great at doing that. Reasonable access, sure, but it seems distant from fantastic to me. I'm not sure it outright beats either the higher power/versatility spells known of a sorcerer, or the wider array of spells known of a favored soul. I don't agree with Gnaeus that those classes have casting that outright beats the spirit shaman either, but rather think they're more or less equal.


Urban Druid:... The spell list is pretty awful, honestly, and the fact that no books natively expand it just makes things worse.
I think you're underrating the list by quite a lot. A lot of spell levels feature you quite plausibly doing better than a core druid. Just look at third level spells, where you get glibness, shrink item, speak with dead, stinking cloud, and tongues, along with a reasonable selection of other spells. Or 5th's, where you trade wall of thorns for early wall of stone, and keep a hold on control winds, alongside, again, a big pile of solid to good spells. I think the comparison between the urban druid list and the core druid list aren't as close as you think, and my analysis in this post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21788758&postcount=90) found said comparison quite plausibly urban druid favorable. Not the whole class, certainly, but the lists, at least, and that's a really important factor.

[remetagross]

WS Ranger:It's fairly easy to run out of Small and Medium animals.

Actually, Eggynack, does Wild Shape allows one to take the shape of a Legendary Animal? Because if it does, the Wild Shape Ranger just got access to the Legendary Eagle, Legendary Ape, and the Legendary Wolf, peaking respectively at 12, 13 and 14 HDs, and of size Small, Medium and Medium respectively. And those animals are very powerful forms with ability scores totally out of the chart for their size:

-Dex 30 (so +10 to Initiative) and fly speed (average) 100ft for the eagle, +4 NA (for a total of +14 with the Dex), claw/claw/bite attack routine dealing the damage of a Medium-sized creature.
-Str 30 for the ape, claw/claw/bite routine with the damage of a Large creature, Rend, +6 NA, a climb speed.
-Str 25 and Dex 27 for the wolf, +5 NA, bite of a Large creature and Trip.

They provide the WS Ranger with powerful forms, that can only be accessed at higher levels.

[eggynack]

Actually, Eggynack, does Wild Shape allows one to take the shape of a Legendary Animal?
Don't see why not.

[Troacctid]

I think you're underrating the list by quite a lot. A lot of spell levels feature you quite plausibly doing better than a core druid. Just look at third level spells, where you get glibness, shrink item, speak with dead, stinking cloud, and tongues, along with a reasonable selection of other spells. Or 5th's, where you trade wall of thorns for early wall of stone, and keep a hold on control winds, alongside, again, a big pile of solid to good spells. I think the comparison between the urban druid list and the core druid list aren't as close as you think, and my analysis in this post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21788758&postcount=90) found said comparison quite plausibly urban druid favorable. Not the whole class, certainly, but the lists, at least, and that's a really important factor.
The thing about that is that every spell on the Druid list effectively has the extra text "Choose one—get this spell's normal effect; or Summon Nature's Ally." Urban Druid doesn't have that.

But you make a good point. I'll change my vote on Urban Druid to 1.5 (which is the same place I'm putting the Death Master).

[eggynack]

The thing about that is that every spell on the Druid list effectively has the extra text "Choose one—get this spell's normal effect; or Summon Nature's Ally." Urban Druid doesn't have that.
Sure, absolutely true, and I may have downplayed that element when I analyzed the list. Still, weirdly sweet list in a lot of places. Anything below two seems off on the basis of that list, and I've been considering going the route you did, upgrading to either 1.5 or one.

[remetagross]

Ok, so I'm a bit late here, but that's the benefit of having a perpetually open voting thread. I'll give my thoughts about the Wild Shape Ranger, since I didn't play enough with my Druid character to see more than one fight.

Wild Shape Ranger: I'll go with Tier 3. I've been playing one for five months now. My character has been struggling to keep up with an Artificer that plays the class to the ceiling of its power, which evidently bars me from envisioning Tier 1 or 2 for the class (not that I was planning to go for that in the first place though). However, it has been performing well enough throughout the campaign.
This is a social-heavy urban campaign, and since I'm playing an Urban Ranger, having almost all social skills as class skills, plus Urban Tracking, and the 6 skill points per level, have definitely made my character relevant. True enough, I'm playing a variant Ranger, but that is because this is a variant environment campaign. For having played an ordinary Ranger in a more wilderness-oriented campaign, I felt consistently relevant there as well, due to my having the best detection skills of the party. What I am saying here is that even without the Wild Shape variant, Rangers are focused skillmonkeys, and for that alone they will be useful at least once or twice per gaming session.
But the Wild Shape variant enhanced that social skillmonkeying part. Being able to change into a big crow or other innocuous urban bird (a different one each time) has given a real edge to my character's tracking abilities, as well as to its stealth abilities.
There is also the mobility aspect of Wild Shape. In a city, where the environment is more cluttered than in the open, being able to fly over the streets or crawl through windows and chimneys has proven very useful. In an illegal gambling den about to be stormed by the militia, I had the opportunity to instantly change to a snake and climb my way to freedom through the chimney. When being sniped by a rooftop ennemy, I could either retaliate with arrows, or change into a vulture to get to him (at level 5, when even temporary magical flight is a significant gp expense). The previous, ordinary Ranger was a seven-feet-tall, 250lb Half-Orc, and I missed that added mobility more than once.
And, finally, there is the added combat ability. Here, I have to admit that I didn't get to try it much, since I've had so few fights in my campaign so far. I still long for the moment when I have the opportunity to change into a Fleshraker (and given that I've attributed most of my point-buy ability scores to Int and Cha for social skillmonkeying, that will account for a significant improvement of my combat potential. Once again, my former Ranger wished he was that SAD). But, given that many posters above have stressed out that enhanced combat ability is one of the main selling point of the Wild Shape Ranger, I feel confident in assessing that as true for the purpose of my vote.
At the end of the day, I have firsthandedly observed that the Wild Shape variant has enhanced the abilities of my character in one broad area: scouting, which encompasses both in and out of combat mobility, as well as stealth and tracking abilities. I trust others that say it will also enhance my character in the combat area. Given that my Ranger is naturally potent in the social interaction area (as this is the area that matters most for my campaign), that would theoretically indicate that the Wild Shape Ranger can contribute at least moderately in a very wide array of situations. That would indicate that the Wild Shape Ranger is Tier 3.
In addition to these theoretical considerations, since day 1 in my campaign, I have been shadowed by the Artificer, and yet I have found something useful to do with my Ranger at every moment. And I have been feeling a significant utility difference when comparing to my former, ordinary Ranger. That practical consideration also leads me to Tier 3.

Now, this is a highly social campaign, and it has all happened at party level 5 from the beginning to the end, so that is maybe not very representative of the average game the tier system is considering. That's the grain of salt to take my opinion with.

[eggynack]

Now, this is a highly social campaign, and it has all happened at party level 5 from the beginning to the end, so that is maybe not very representative of the average game the tier system is considering.
It's an interesting question, where the wild shape ranger is at its best, level-wise, because there are two fundamentally opposed modes of analysis. In a lower optimization game, lower levels seem indisputably superior. You don't really advance your wild shape like a druid does, and that's your main ability, so a wild shape ranger at five is a lot like a wild shape ranger at ten or fifteen. Sure, a couple of legendary animals open up, but that only increases your scale of impact instead of giving you drastically different capabilities. In a higher optimization game, higher levels arguably overtake the lower ones. Ninth level gets you exalted wild shape, with all the crazy dimension door shenanigans that implies, and twelfth gets you a ton of dragon stuff. Druid gets different utility out of the abilities of these forms, but the forms themselves are more or less the same. Medium dragons frequently have high HD and power that scales with age category, so there's a progression past twelve as well.

Point being, your situation may be a low estimate of a high op game and a high estimate of a low op game. Might even out to making it the right number, but it's a mode of analysis with a lot of potential variance.

[Schattenbach]

Voting seems more or less done ... but well. Spirit Shaman low T1, Spontaneous Druid low T1, Urban Druid low T2, Wildshape Ranger low T3.

[eggynack]

Voting seems more or less done ... but well. Spirit Shaman low T1, Spontaneous Druid low T1, Urban Druid low T2, Wildshape Ranger low T3.
Might be worth putting in some justification for these, and also for the less justification having votes in the other threads.

[remetagross]

I am changing my vote for the Wild Shape Ranger from 3 to 3.5.

[MHCD]

I started this re-tiering series late, but I'm getting into it, so I'll catch up if I can (now posting opposed to just lurking).


Spirit Shaman: I like the druid's spell list, but I also see some truth in the thought that due to way the tiers work, this one might be between T1 and T3. Full casting from that list still completely prevents a drop into 3 for me, so I'll vote T2.

Spontaneous Druid: With some of the most powerful non-spell class features in the game to "fall back on", I'm sure one can easily build a T1 druid even with the spontaneous spellcasting variant, but the floor certainly drops on this one. I can't totally say T1, so T1.5

Urban Druid: This is another weird one that makes some part of me think about that 1->3 jump. You miss out on the raw power of your tools and the versatility of your belt/box, but not so much that the major features are totally or effectively absent. I don't think it can stand next to a regular druid, but it certainly doesn't belong next to a WS ranger. It seems to fit well next to a dread necromancer, so T2 for me.

Wildshape Ranger: Eh... this one is certainly a step up from a regular ranger, at least in potential. Comparing it to a bard, factotum, warblade, swordsage, rogue, and barbarian helps. The greater the feat investment in expanding WS, the more difinitively I think one can say it belongs higher (and also the more useful WS is, the more feat/skill/spell/ability score resources can be spent elsewhere), and you still have a great chassis combined with natural skillful abilities and a touch of spellcasting. I vote T3.

[Lans]

I wanted to go over what the spontaneous druid get's known for 'free' I didn't count spells that I felt had too low DCs

At level 7 druids get 1 CLW, Detect Evil, 2 CMW, 3 magic circle vs evil, neutralize poison

9 1st charm person(DC 15), enlarge, reduce person speak with animals 3rd Create Food and Water Water Breathing, 5th Plane Shift

11 0 Dancing Lights 1 Entangle detect chaos, detect good, detect law, 2 Detect Thoughts, Shatter, Soften Earth and Stone stone shape 4 Charm Monster(really low DC so maybe not) Dispel Magic 5 transmute rock to mud, mud to rock spike stones 6 Move Earth, Permanent Image, Stone Tell 8 Earth Quake,

13 1 Create wine,3 displacement 5 major creation 7 wind walk,

15 Fireball, Wall of Fire low DCs

17 Bless, Obscuring Mist Shield of Faith, 2 Animal Messanger Lesser restoration, shield other,
3 Prayer, Protection from Energy, Remove CurseIrresistible Dance

[eggynack]

Irresistible Dance
This should be moved to level 17. The other pixie levels don't grant it. Weirdly, both the summoner's desk reference and the old druid handbook get this one wrong, but in completely different ways.


major creation
Should maybe be dropped. The casting time is ten minutes, which probably doesn't fit into the rounds/level duration of SNA. Like, it could maybe be done, but that's a lot of extending.

[Gemini476]

This should be moved to level 17. The other pixie levels don't grant it. Weirdly, both the summoner's desk reference and the old druid handbook get this one wrong, but in completely different ways.

Should maybe be dropped. The casting time is ten minutes, which probably doesn't fit into the rounds/level duration of SNA. Like, it could maybe be done, but that's a lot of extending.

Ashbound doubles the duration, Extend presumably makes it triple with 3E's weird multiplication rules - so up to six minutes at CL20, only reaching ten minutes at CL34.
Moonspeaker 3 gives you a free stackable Extend (and is based in Eberron, to boot, so Ashbound fits somewhat), making it eight minutes at CL20 and ten at CL25. Thaumaturgist 3 also gives the same ability (but requires Lesser Planar Ally), so ten minutes at CL20.
Cleric 1 with the Summoning domain can give +2CL, and there's the usual suspects as well that can help you push the level down a bit further. You're probably not getting it at level 13, but what do I know. +7CL is probably doable. (You're probably still limited to level 15, though, 'cause of Extend costing an extra level.)

It can be done, but it's a lot of multiclassing and prestige classes and thus probably isn't terribly relevant for this tier list.

[eggynack]

It can be done, but it's a lot of multiclassing and prestige classes and thus probably isn't terribly relevant for this tier list.
Yeah, I checked my handbook after I posted that, and I apparently included an allusion to that capability. Not sure that the multiplication thing applies to extending spells in the same way, though it might. Anyway, yeah, that's about my conclusion. A lot of the stuff you'd use to get there is pretty good, CL boosters and summoning extenders, but if you don't just have all this stuff near incidentally, picking up major creation is not usually worth putting in the remaining effort. Major creation certainly isn't just a spell you pick up at that level, and, without optimization that is either outside the scope of this thread's analysis or close enough to it, it may well not be a spell you pick up at all.

[MHCD]

Ashbound doubles the duration, Extend presumably makes it triple with 3E's weird multiplication rules - so up to six minutes at CL20, only reaching ten minutes at CL34.
Moonspeaker 3 gives you a free stackable Extend (and is based in Eberron, to boot, so Ashbound fits somewhat), making it eight minutes at CL20 and ten at CL25. Thaumaturgist 3 also gives the same ability (but requires Lesser Planar Ally), so ten minutes at CL20.

As time is a real-world value, I think you would use regular multiplaction here, doubling the duration each time in a much more favorable way. Not a game-changer, but it helps.

[Gemini476]

As time is a real-world value, I think you would use regular multiplaction here, doubling the duration each time in a much more favorable way. Not a game-changer, but it helps.

Then you end up with CL*16 rounds, so ten minutes (100 rounds) at CL7 and 32 minutes at CL20. Even without Extend you're running into ten minutes at CL13 (right on time, in other words) and sixteen minutes at level 20.

That is, in fact, a lot of bears.
Alright, so. To be a Moonspeaker, you need to be a Shifter, be able to cast second-level divine spells, have Knowledge(religion) 4, and Knowledge(Nature) 11. Shifter Druid 8/Moonspeaker 3 works, I guess.

Thaumaturgist needs Spell Focus(Conjuration) and the ability to cast Lesser Planar Ally. That's a bit trickier, to say the least, but once we get over that hurdle we're in good shape.

Lesser Planar Ally is in the Summoner domain (+2 CL to summoning spells is a nice bonus), so you can grab that through Contemplative 1. Except you need 13 ranks in K(religion), so you'll need to snag that as a class skill somehow - at worst you can piggy-back off of Moonspeaker and put those 4+Int skill points to use. You need nine skill points over those three levels, which should be easy enough.

So, tentative build: Shifter Druid 8/Moonspeaker 3/Contemplative 1/Thaumaturgist 3. ECL15.

I'm not entirely sure that this actually works, though, because the Thaumaturgist and Moonspeaker class features have the same name. Maybe you're down one multiplier, which can hurt a bit, but hey at least that's three-four levels you don't need to grab?

I'm not entirely convinced that spell duration is a "real world value", though? Especially when, as in this case, it's measured in rounds. I could see an argument if it was in minutes or hours or days, but "1 round/level (D)"?