So a review of the class after 40 minutes of playing around with it and looking at it so to speak. This class is notorious in 3rd edition circles, though maybe 2 decades has dulled the senses for how bad this class was when it came out originally. Only the Wu Jen class from Oriental adventures saw any real respect from the wider community, Shaman was a bad class in a bad book for goodness sakes, so the class needs tons of help just to be viable- even in regular tabletop, working as intended, it is one of the worst 9th level casters. Oriental Adventures is Complete Warrior quality when it comes to class quality- which is to say terrible.
Problem 1: Feat Tax/No Cats- The Shaman has amazing feats, I tinkered until 11, every level except 8 had a feat, great stuff. The problem is that in order for the class to be viable defeinsivly and fight like an off-fighter like most divine casters should- the class needs either cats grace or heavy armor proficient. This is not a soft requirement, this is just to make a character who is able and viable to not get rolled over as a divine caster. If the character was meant to be more of a divine caster, then there is a class called uh... not artificer.. Erudite? its like wizard but for divine casters that would be appropriate. This is NOT what the shaman is. It needs one of these 2 things. Pick your poision. If you want this class to be viable, you have to pick one to give to the class.
Problem 2: The best spell of the class is def the spirit summoning ability, this spell was basically a swiss army knife in the Table top, but had a lot of pray your DM isn't horrible problems. This basically made it into a slightly better summon. The problem is that the duration is crap, the thing about the original spell is the spirit was permanent until it finished it's task- within reason. So the fact the spell lasts at most like 3 minutes is just not accurate to the spell duration at all. It should be lasting for at least 10 rounds + 1 turn per spell level for example. If you want this class to exist as the summoning class, this duration issue needs to get resolved, hard. CLEARLY this summon is a major component of the class, it occupies spell slot levels where there isn't a lot of competition for good spells, (except stoneskin mind.. but domains), and has unique AI/spell casting features. So the fact that the class can't take full advantage of fthis feature it looks like a lot of effort went into.. leaves a lot to be desired.
Problem 3: A lot of the unique spells just have too short duration. Clarify/Clairowhatever, make you basically immune to a number of mind effecting spells, a +4 will save is not immunity, people still gotta roll, so why not make it 1 hour + turn per level? It isn't THAT Good of a spell, especially considering the class doesn't have that much else going for it.
Problem 4. Skills- This is actually kind of a suprise, see, the server basically requires expertise. Now I know people will go, no it doesn't.. To which I respond, if your a divine caster that might get in melee, you need expertise. Its a requirement, we all know this. So that means you need 13 int, which most people will raise to 14. The class skin list is litertally so barren that with 14 int, you can take every single skill on the list. The class needs more class skills. You might be able to make up for some of the class deficencies if you were to include tumble and animal empathy, which would make this class have some real strengths over the other divine casters. Imagine playing a sithican elf that starts with 16 int like I did, that means I have 1 more skill point per level than I can actually spend on class skills, thats bananas to me.
Problem 5: The summon spirit spells need to make it more clear what feats actually work with them, in the spell description, up front. (We need to come back to this btw), the spirits are undead, but by this point, you the player, have have received at least 6 feats, it is VERY likely the player would of taken some of the feats needed to use the spirit.
Bug 1: NONE of the summon feats work with spirits. None of them. Period. At all. I took both cold damage feats, my undead does not do cold damage. I took both increase str feats, nothing. This is clearly not working as intended.
Bug2. I somehow got dwarf racial qualities on my character, I have no idea how this happened? It might be a shaman thing... I am playing a Silvanesti Elf on the test server, so that was weird to see.
Bug 3. You can take turn undead feats before you actually get the turn undead class feature.
IN short- Recommendations:
1. Medium armor proficency & shield, get rid of unarmed feat to compensate- OR- cats grace as a 3rd(!) level spell. NO mass cats. Or make a similar spell to rams might for the shaman, but for dex instead. If you don't do this, this becomes the literal definition of MAD, it has 0 unimportant stats, every stat needs to be above 10 to get full benefit from the class, and most need to be 14 or higher (dex, int, wis, and maybe con)
2.The Classes main best aspect- this cool summon isn't getting its time to shine, its.. okay.. the AC is.. okay.. The health is decent, it can fight well enough. The class would really benefit from spells like Iron bones being given to the class to help make the summon a little more durable. The damage of the summon itself is.. adequate, but only because it loves power attacking everything. When it isn't power attacking the damage/bab leaves a lot to be desired, and so it is heavily reliant on using its supernatural attacks. Which you can't count on it doing at the right time, so again, the spirit doesn't need to hit like a truck, it just needs to SURVIVE, so perhaps it would be best to embrace making the spirit be tankier, more defensive, and give the class spells to assist in that. Basically- The summon needs to clean house, or needs to have a super long duration, it isn't good enough or long lasting enough to justify either situation atm. I think having the spirit have crazy endurance/duration would be the adjustments to the spirit that are needed.
3. A lot of the buffs need their durations increased. +4 to will saves is good, but not game breaking. Especially with spells like mindblank out there basically making this spell irrelevant at higher levels.
4. More class skills. Hide, Move Silently, Animal Empathy, Tumble would all be appropriate skills to give the class.
If ALL of these were done to the class, it would absoltuely be a viable class, and one I would actually think could go far. It wouldn't be AS strong as a Favored Soul, or as versatile and great at buffing as Voodan, but what it could be is a defensive/tanking powerhouse with some unique things the class can bring to the table.
There have been some suggestions to give the class weapon specs for unarmed. I mean yah, that also works, and i wouldn't mind that, but let me point out the class was considered bad, working as it was written in the books. +6 to damage on a class that requires STR, Dex, Wis, Some Con, Some Cha, and 14 int.. I mean come on.
OH and if there is any difference in how the spirits work? Let the shaman pick which one they want on the situation. Don't pigeon hole all shamans into being forced to take specific spirits. If the spirit stuff is all cosmetic, then great, ignore this, but it if isn't, let the players pick..
