Dragon Shaman: does anyone have any in-game experience playing one?

[Nifft]

Thanks for the fluff replacement ideas everyone. The breath weapon will be turned IMC into a spell-like ability.

Just make sure you don't accidentally make the class even weaker by changing the mechanic. (Su) abilities like breath weapons don't provoke AoOs; (Sp)ell-like abilities do provoke.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Klaus]

What I don't get is the fluff. I've never really gotten the dragon PC fluff for the other classes either. With clerics, the goal is to get closer to your god by remaking the world in his or her image. With druids and rangers, it's getting closer to nature. Bards and barbarians, it's all about the good times. Paladins fight the good fight without question or pause. Rogues are about treasure or parent issues, at least in the campaigns I've played in. You get the idea.

But with dragon shamans.... I don't get it. The book fluff is TERRIBLE, saying that dragon shamans are all about acquiring power for no real reason other than the fact that they identify with big lizards who like to sit on gold. That makes them good NPC fodder, I suppose, but it's a trifle generic. Can you help?

When you play the dragon shaman, are you trying to become a dragon? Are you trying to get closer to a dragon that you worship, as a PC? Are you trying to make the world a more dragon-friendly place? Why become a dragon shaman in the first place? What's your hook?

Why do dragon shamans identify with big lizards?

And I've tried keeping the mechanic while changing the fluff to something like a spirit shaman, but every time I do, the breath weapon gets in the way by making it about dragons rather than spirits or the fey. (The white wolf suggestion above works for arctic campaigns, though. That was a good one!)

White Dragon -> Winter Wolf
Red Dragon -> Hell Hound
Blue Dragon -> Behir
Black Dragon -> ?
Green Dragon -> ?

 

[Nifft]

As to alternate flavor, there are plenty of things that throw around energy damage. Winter Wolves would be great totem replacements for White Dragons, Behirs or Storm Giants for Blue dragons, Lammasu for the Gold Dragon, and some kind of spider-thing for the Copper -- or maybe something that spits acid, the Digester? The Delver?

Okay, let's finish these. Requirement is same habitat, NOT opposite alignment, same energy type, some association with special abilities.

White -> Winter Wolf

Red -> Chimera, Salamander, Efreet

Green -> Bombardier Beetle

Blue -> Behir, Grell

Black -> Black Pudding!


Cheers, -- N

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

It was Vigor. Fast healing every round, as a constant aura left "on" for hours at a time until 1/2 hit points are reached, is kinda powerful.

Energy Shield too seems kinda overwhelming, where the opponent takes 2 points of damage (in the case of my player, with a copper dragon, acidic damage) for each successful (natural or non-reach melee) attack "against you or your ally". After a few rounds of good hits, my NPCs were starting to get kinda roughed up, especially when they're low-HD critters.

Really? I must have been doing something wrong then. The Vigor aura is healing 1 point for every +1 bonus to the Draconic Aura. At third level that means...1 hit point per round healed back. Draconic Aura only improves every 5 levels. Either our DM had some fantastic luck rolling damage, or was cheating like mad, or you had some really rotten luck if you found it to be that powerful. Sure, it'll stablize anyone that's dropped into negatives, and once combat is over it means the party is back up to half health in a short period of time, but during combat? It always played out as "handy", rather than "awesome".

Energy shield... I liked it. "Spite" damage. Thing is, if that aura is up and running, it means the Toghness (Damage Resistance), Power (bonus melee damage), Resistance (Energy DR for whatever type of energy the DS is based on) or the Swiftness (bonus to speed) auras aren't being run. Only way to be able to project 2 auras (that I know of) is Double Draconic Aura, which is a Draconic feat. Which means you need to qualify for dragon feats somehow, in addition to being level 12. I'm not sure if the "dragonblood" subtype is good enough or not.

That Energy Shield was a great help when the DM tossed us up against some really high AC critters that we had no way of being able to hit otherwise. In a lot of cases, it's utility is fairly limited. Where it starts coming into it's own is against lower HD stuff, and crowds.

Like Patrick O'Duffy said, it's a simple class that lets the player feel effective. 2 of the people in the group were a lot more into the rules than I ever was, and one of 'em went for being a Dwarven Artificer, and the other was a... Warlock? Something like that. The DS let me feel like my character actually still mattered in combat, as well as being useful outside of combat. And I didn't have to waste a lot of time trying to game the system.

But yeah, if the player (for whatever reason) wasn't playing with the restrictions that the auras have (only 1 at a time, healing only after half the hit points are gone, and not able to go over half), then I can see how it might be a problem.

Although in that case, it just strikes me as the equivalent of having an infinite stream of Cure Light Wounds potions, which (while somewhat bothersome) still shouldn't be too hard to overcome.

If the class is pulled away from its Dragon links, then it's nerfing some of its potential, unless additional feats are offered up. The Double Draconic Aura feat wouldn't really apply, and depending on how the breath weapon was set up, the Metabreath feats might not apply either. Those points might be a bonus or negative depending on your perspective.

 

[Andor]

I've never played a straight DS, but I have played a Knight 1/DS X character named Devon the Bronze Knight. He's great. The Armour and weapon profs from the knight class help imensely and he takes the party role of AC monkey fighting with imporved shield bash and agile shield fighter. His idea of 'subtle' useually works out something like.

Rogue: I'm going to try to sneak around and get behind them.
Devon: Cool. I'll distract them for you.
Rogue: What? Er...
Devon: YOU MISERABLE BASTARDS! STAND UP AND BE CUT DOWN FOR I AM DEVON THE BRONZE KNIGHT!
NPCs: What the hell?
Rogue: Well, they're distracted I guess...

 

[Wraith Form]

Like Patrick O'Duffy said, it's a simple class that lets the player feel effective. 2 of the people in the group were a lot more into the rules than I ever was, and one of 'em went for being a Dwarven Artificer, and the other was a... Warlock? Something like that. The DS let me feel like my character actually still mattered in combat, as well as being useful outside of combat. And I didn't have to waste a lot of time trying to game the system.

I won't--and can't--argue that point. My player felt pretty cool.

I'm just grumpy because my beloved GMNPCs got whupped.




(kidding of course)

 

[Darklone]

Just make sure you don't accidentally make the class even weaker by changing the mechanic. (Su) abilities like breath weapons don't provoke AoOs; (Sp)ell-like abilities do provoke.

Cheers, -- N

I know, it's done intentionally... and he's getting fluffy&crunchy benefits for it.

 

[Nifft]

I know, it's done intentionally... and he's getting fluffy&crunchy benefits for it.

Okay.

Be aware that this reduces the value of Cone effects early on (before they get a longer cone), but does less against line effects, since those have double the range. Consider just using Line effects for balance.

Cheers, -- N