Advice on a Dragon Shaman (PHB II) character...

[The Cardinal]

What's the best race to pick for a player who rolled the following starting abilities

9,11,16,16,16,15

and wants to play a Dragon Shaman (PHB II) - to be build at level 5 (=10,000 XPs)?


Races may come from

WotC:
core books
"Complete"
MMII
Fiend Folio
BoED
BoVD
Dragonomicon
Libris Mortis
Lords of Madness

FFG:
Mythic Races
Dragonstar (any of the books)
Dawnforge

Judges Guild:
Wilderlands of High Fantasy (Box Set, Player's Guide, CSIO, Caverns of Thracia)


P.S.: Would you recommend the Dragonkin template (ECL+1) from the Dragonomicon for this character?

 

[Andor]

Nice stats.

I think you mean the 'draconic' template, Dragonkin are a 7 HD race with a +2 LA.

It depends on what kind of character he wants to build. The Dragon Shaman is a middling combatant, with an aura and a breath weapon, and at level 6, some healing. So you could reasonably try to build him as either a melee or a ranged combatant.

If you wanted to go melee I'd say Human or Dwarf, maybe with the draconic template if you think it's worth the level hit. A 20 con and 18 str for a Draconic Dwarf would make him pretty fearsome.

Alternately if you want to use ranged combat Elf is atractive because the racial proficiencies save you a feat on learning to use the longbow, and also give you the longsword as a nice melee weapon. Although, given that you'd want to stay close to the front line to lend your auras to the fighter I might just go with thrown weapons. Also if you're using the Draconomicon you should have access to the metabreath feats, which have con as a prerequisite, so the elven con hit would hurt even more than normal. Perhaps halfling? A nimble little midget running around the battle throwning javalins and spitting fire could be kinda cool.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Bah, it's a dragon shaman! Make him a kobold with the draconic template! (Which you might be able to bargain down to LA 0, given how weak the baseline kobold is.)

 

[I'm A Banana]

I wouldn't bother with the Draconic template, or any race with an LA, but that may reflect my personal biases. You may want to look into the Dragonkith PrC from the Draconomicon as a good way to boost your attack bonus, armor, damage, and energy resistance. It is a nice little melee-class add-on and functions pretty well with the Dragon Shaman. Also available are things like Dragon Cohorts, which are always fun.