Is this balanced or too powerful? Dragonfire Shaman

[Bahamut7]

I was looking to play a Dragonfire Adept and was considering adding some auras from the Dragon Shaman to help with party support and came across this: https://sites.google.com/site/bardaw...gonfire-shaman

The summary is that it nearly Gestalts the two classes. My conclusion after looking all three is:

• Stronger BAB progression (Shaman)
• Natural Armor +5 (Adept) instead of +3 (Shaman)
• Breath weapon 9d6 (Adept) instead of 10d6 (Shaman) and is a standard action (Adept), Follows the Adept's progression.
• D10 (Shaman) instead of D8 (Adept) hit die
• Aura +5 (Shaman)
• Invocations (Adept) and Auras (Shaman) known are the same
• No Skill focus (Shaman)
• and everything else is a combination of both classes at each level.
• The class also retains the Shaman’s weapon and armor proficiencies: Simple Weapons, Light and Medium armor, with shields.
• It also gives you the Shaman’s Totem Breath Weapon as an optional choice.

The party consists of a Cleric of Moradin, Warblade, Druid, and maybe a Paladin joining us.

Thoughts?

[The Viscount]

Depends on your definition of "too powerful." I'd put this at tier 3-4. This class has aspects of both, but they don't necessarily complement each other. Dragonfire shaman has a lower hit die because it's a back line ranged combatant/caster and not a front line fighter. It has a poor base attack, but almost none of its invocations roll attack, and its main form of offense is a breath weapon which doesn't use attack rolls. Dragon shaman has better BA, armor, and HD because its breath weapon recharges and the designers wanted them to be able to fight in between. Dragon shaman gets wings at 19; dragonfire adept can fly with an invocation at 6. Dragon shaman becomes immune to one energy form at 9; dragonfire adept can become immune to any of the 4 basic plus sonic from 16 on. The resistance aura is worse than the energy resistance invocation until level 10, and it still lacks the breadth of coverage. The toughness aura is only good for your allies since you already get DR/magic.

I'd fix the skill points, since classes don't get odd numbers of points in D&D. I'd be fine with keeping dragonfire adept's 4.
The skills as presented need an overhaul. This uses a homebrew system that condenses groups of skills into smaller ones like pathfinder, but they didn't apply it to the class writeup. The base class mentions things like "persuasion" and "deception" but then you get bonuses to diplomacy and bluff from the totem dragon. Changing the totem dragon ability is quite strange. Because they sort of followed the precedent, these are skills that are mostly on the list (although maybe some of them are, unclear based on their wording) so the +3 is not meaningful, compared to dragon shaman which added those class skills to your list. This dragonfire shaman does not have UMD. That seems to be an effect of the homebrew skill system. I think you would be OK putting it back. It certainly hurts without it.

The homebrew Buryese dragon lacks a draconic adapation, either add one or strike it from the list.

From a conceptual standpoint, dragonfire adept is about using the power of various different dragons (as evidenced by the various breath effects) and dragon shaman is all about devotion to a single dragon. These two don't go together. Furthermore, totem dragon is reduced in prominence because its biggest effect (dictating what type of breath weapon you have) is supplanted by the existence of breath effects. I'd be tempted to just axe the totem dragon feature entirely, then just let you choose one from the list for adaptation benefits (and you can't change it later) and one energy immunity of your choice from fire, electric, acid, or cold (and you can't change it later). It does mess with the auras though, and that's harder to fix. If you did this your breath weapon would be like normal dragonfire adept, and you can remove the fire breath effect.

I'd think about downgrading you to light or no armor. I know it's slow and not much, but they gave dragonfire adept scales partially because they don't have any armor. Of course it's not a front line fighter so its AC shouldn't matter much, but a natural armor bonus on top of medium armor might attract some angry looks.

If you do this, check out some of the draconic auras in Dragon Magic page 86. Energy in particular is very nice.

In brief it's not too powerful, but if you want to use this class I think it can use some tightening up.

[Bahamut7]

Thank you for the response, I didn't notice some of those skill list issues and most certainly overlooked the lack of UMD. I also felt the totem feature was off with the normal breath weapon of the adept. I will definitely adjust some of the stuff as my DM said I could use it if it was balanced enough. He trusts me as I also DM, but 3.5 is still unknown waters for me, so I figured to come on here and check just in case.

[Psyren]

Dragon Shaman auras are roughly worth a feat apiece (Draconic Aura, DrM 16). YOu can use that to evaluate their relative power.

[daremetoidareyo]

viscount nailed it.

The medium armor seems out of place, the skills should be the higher between the two, and umd should be in there.

The fluff about committing to a single dragon is mutable, and it could just be a predilection for one dragon type. So i wouldn't worry about that aspect much, unless you really wanted to muck around with the inspiration of the class, which would invariably make you desire to change even more stuff.

[Bahamut7]

So far I am just sticking with the Dragonfire Adept skill list for simplicity sake. I also dropped the Totem feature as I agree it was not fitting. Did give me a problem with the immunity at level 9 so I just made it fire damage as that is the base breath weapon. I am going to fluff that his scales change color to reflect which dragon's breath he will use depending on breath effects, invocations, and/or feats. As for the armor, complete agreement as well and dropped that as well.

And after a day of pondering all this and looking at the other classes with Auras, this combination class should be just fine with some of these tweaks.

[The Viscount]

If you're removing totem, make sure to also get energy immunity, the resistance aura, and the energy shield aura.