Shaman Class (creating for a campaign)

[Godric]

So I'm creating a shaman class and I have the spell progression more or less worked out, and it's thus:

The Paladin: Spells per Day
Level    1st    2nd    3rd    4th
1st       -      -      -      -
2nd       -      -      -      -
3rd       -      -      -      -
4th       0      -      -      -
5th       1      -      -      -
6th       2      -      -      -
7th       2      0      -      -
8th       3      1      -      -
9th       3      2      -      -
10th      3      2      0      -
11th      4      3      1      -
12th      4      3      2      -
13th      4      3      2      0
14th      4      4      3      1
15th      5      4      3      2
16th      5      4      3      2
17th      5      4      4      3
18th      5      5      4      3
19th      5      5      4      3
20th      6      5      4      4

And what I would also like is a bunch of class abilities. I want the character based around buffing other party members/general support, light offensive casting and melee combat. Essentially much like the WoW shaman minus totem buffing. The buffing/light healing/light offensive casting is covered in the spellcasting ability, and so I am wondering:

What other class abilities should I give this shaman?

[UserClone]

1. This belongs in Homebrew.
2. WotC has this covered (though it's 3E, not 3.5). It's called "Shaman," unsurprisingly and can be found in Oriental Adventures.

[Reijura]

Sounds like the dragon shaman also from Players handbook 2.

Could use that as a basis and rework the fluff/dragon class abilities to something more suiting.

It has auras. i.e totems, which offer bonuses/healing which is very suiting.

could substitute the dragon class abilities for spells and your good to go.

[Voyager_I]

A. This is probably better suited to the homebrew forum.

B. You can't really ask people to help you critique a class when all you have is partial spell progression. Come up with your ideas, try to put them in a game framework, and you'll be helped into tweaking/balancing them.

[Phased Weasel]

Oriental Adventures has an excellent shaman class, depending on the flavor you want.

[Godric]

Two things:

1) I do not OWN said books, nor does anyone I know.
2) I did not ask for a critique, I asked for suggestions of possible class abilities.

Hopefully a mod will move this to the correct forum, sorry about that : /

[Wordmiser]

1) I do not OWN said books, nor does anyone I know.

The Dragon Shaman's on Crystal Keep. I think it does almost exactly what you want (but it has no spells).

[VanBuren]

Neverwinter Nights 2 had a Spirit Shaman that you could possibly adapt. The main thing though, is that it was essentially like A Favored Soul to a Cleric or a Sorcerer to a Wizard in regards to the Druid. That is, less spells but no preparation.

http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Spirit_shaman

Granted, I'm sure it was in 3.5 PnP somewhere too. I just have little experience outside of the NWN games.

[Greenfaun]

The shaman-y classes that I know of (and the books they come in) are:

1. Shaman, Oriental Adventures
2. Spirit Shaman (updated to 3.5, fewer non-spellcasting class abilities), Complete Divine
3. Totemist, Magic of Incarnum (this one's probably my favorite, but you might not want to deal with the new rule system of Incarnum)
4. The shaman in the World Of Warcraft RPG. If what you want is a WoW-style shaman rewritten for D20 rules, it's out there. I haven't played this, though, and I don't know about balance compared to standard D&D.

The dragon shaman isn't really in line with traditional concepts of a shaman, but it is kinda cool, so you can check it out if you want to.

You could go to your friendly local gaming store, read all of them, and buy the book that has the one you like best.

Or not, if you want to make it yourself you certainly can. I would personally recommend using the spell progression (and spell list, even) of the Adept NPC class instead of the Paladin. It's still weaker than a full caster, but they get spells at level 1 and a nature-y sort of theme.

As for other class abilities, there are certainly lots of possibilities. Some obvious things might be see invisible at will, and "turning" spirits like a shaman turns undead. At higher levels things like having any weapon you wield have the "ghost touch" property and being able to go ethereal or plane shift a certain number of times per day.

If you're brave you can make your own mechanic for buffing and fighting with spirit magic. Perhaps you can summon and bind a certain number of spirits per day, and each bound spirit gives a single kind of bonus to the person they're bound to? E. g. a war-spirit gives bonuses to attack, a fire-spirit adds 1d6 fire damage to their weapon, a nature-spirit gives them the scent ability, that sort of thing. Balancing this could be an issue, though.

Whatever you decide to do, have fun!

[Xuincherguixe]

Green Ronin has "The Shaman's Handbook". It's a similar class to the Spirit Shaman, but MUCH more flavor.

I don't know much about Oriental Adventures Shaman, but I don't think it's going to be what you want.

Druids in my mind need hardly any adaptation to become a Shaman. Even the Animal Shapeshifting fits. I'd adjust alignment restrictions though, since Chaotic make more sense than Neutral for Shamans.


I like Shamans :P

I like the concept of World of Warcraft's Shamans, but they're a bit different than I typically envision them. Though, Shadowrun has coloured my experiences. (Elemental Totems? Za? Mages use Elementals! Shamans Summon Nature Spirits! My world is coming crashing apart!)

[Voyager_I]

I think you're going to have a hard time making this into something besides "It's like the Cleric, except worse". That spell progression is pretty ineffectual for a primary buffer, and if you're trying to make a Divine Gish, you've already got Clerics, Druids, Paladins (kinda), and a host of other classes outside core. Heck, they can't even give a 2nd level buff to the whole party until 10th level, after which they're basically reduced to a handful of Cure Light Wounds! Besides, there's no reason to expect they'll use their spells how you want them to.

Instead of giving them crappy spell progression and access to the same spells as everyone else, why not try giving them a series of Spell-Like Abilities to emulate the effects you want? Instead of giving them 2nd Level Spells and hoping they cast "Bull's Strength", why not jut give them an X Per Day/Encounter/Whatever ability that does something similar (but not identical, because that would be lame)? The ability to summon totems that buff allies might actually be a good way to do that, if your party wouldn't object to that