Is the Shaman a Playable Class?

[mmadsen]

I was pointing out that a spellcaster in such a campaign would not be a desirable PC choice, because what he or she could do would be done better by someone else.

Is that true though? The Shaman can walk on coals or through a blazing fire (Endure Elements), strike fear into the hearts of your enemies (Bane/Doom), speak to the spirit world and receive advice (Trance/Commune with Lesser Spirit), pacify the leopards guarding the imperial palace (Calm Animals), bless a weapon (Weapon Bless), and hide the party from pursuers (Obscuring Mist).

Given that there would be no other spellcasting classes to compete, it sounds like there's quite a bit even a low-level Shaman could do that no one could.

The main gist of what I'm saying is: if a class is so underpowered that it can't compete with the other classes, it won't be a popular choice with players, regardless of how well it captures the feel of legends or fairytales.

Is the existing Shaman then such a class?

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Derailment eminent. Stay on target...stay on target.

Has anyone played the shaman class in an OA campaign? Any comments from that perspective?

I will make an attempt to help answer the original question without getting into the low magic discussion.

Why I am not playing a Shaman myself, there is one in our current campaign. We are playing an OA/Rokugan with some Realms thrown in. Our Shaman has not complained publicly about his choice and seems to be having fun. What is his role then. He is our cleric equivalent (There are no clerics in Rokugan), without much direct combat (This last part may be more his playing style) His job is to provide healing and buffing, our other spellcaster who is the "howitzer" makes him invisible after the buffing, and then he runs around providing healing to those in need. His turning has been helpful on at least one occaision as well. Does this mean that the shaman can't be used more offenceivly without a spellcasting "howitzer" to back him up I do not know. Is the Shaman a bad class, I don't think so. Should it be played if you want to be the center of attention in combat, probably not.

As for needing a spellcasting power to deal with encounters it is up to the DM and his choices. Our current DM in the nature of his eastern campaign focuses less on monsters and more on leveled humans with only a few shadowlands creatures thrown in. This is in no way though a low magic campaign, with magic having played an important part of several encounters, both good and bad. We are mostly facing Sammuri, Shugenja, and Rogues at this point, and I have no complaints since this fits in well with his storyline.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Thankyou Ace!

I like the Shaman. I think that the class works well. I think that the class works better in a less *Howitzer Model* environment though!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[mmadsen]

If you take away the most effective spells for a spellcaster, and don't give them anything to compensate, in the eyes of a player, they will GET THE SHAFT.

Let's follow this through then. If we start with the Shaman but give it Wizard BAB, HD, Saves, and Skills, we've got something that fits the archetype we want, but it "gets the shaft". What could we add in place of the third-rate monk abilities and second-rate undead turning?

Even if the world itself is low-magic, so what the character can do is extra-special, if it's so much smoke and mirrors, it's not actually useful for plundering dragon hordes and dealing with demons and such.

How is Weapon Bless not useful for plundering dragon hoards and dealing with demons? Commune with Lesser Spirit for gathering intelligence? Enthrall for staring down a horde of orcs?

If the Shaman's spells are useless in a proposed "low magic" campaign, they must be useless in Oriental Adventures too (since they're not all spells like Dispell Magic and Remove Curse that require magic to operate against). Is that the case?

People will still take it, just because there will still be the appeal of being able to use magic (it's no small appeal, after all). But they'll have to be shepherded by the classes that are better at...well...nearly anything...than the wizard.

Isn't that currently the case?

Why would I bother taking a level of Wizard at all, even buffed up with some extra HP from Expert, if he won't be able to do anything without someone else helping him out? Why not spend those levels a bit more effectively on something...useful.

So teamwork is a big negative for you? One of the big plusses of a class system is that each character naturally fills a separate niche. The Fighter kills things, the Rogue picks locks and disarms traps, etc. I don't see what's wrong with a Wizard whose strength isn't killing things (directly) and picking locks, but who helps the party in other ways. Should the Fighter complain that he can't kill any monsters without a Rogue to pick locks and disarm traps for him? Is the Fighter useless?

This wizard you're describing seems like a walking, talking "eat me" sign to orcs.

Is there anything besides straight fighting ability that would change this? The current Shaman has Monk-like abilities. Would a Rogue's Sneak Attack work? Or a 0-level spell that Enthralled a single attacker? Ideas?

 

[kenjib]

Bardic lore might be a start. It really fits the archetype. It does, however, have the problem of being highly DM subjective.

 

[Geoff Watson]

Consider Merlin, Gandalf, and Prospero. These, to me, are the biggest facilitator archetypes. The warriors may stand in front, defeated enemies, but ultimately it is the wizard that guides and creates the entire journey. The wizard is the plot. He holds a special relationship to the author that the other characters don't have.

I haven't read about Prospero, but Merlin and Gandalf would be NPCs used by the DM to push the plot along, or as a deux-ex-machina to save the PCs when they're in over their heads.
They don't seem like PCs at all.

Geoff.

 

[kenjib]

I haven't read about Prospero, but Merlin and Gandalf would be NPCs used by the DM to push the plot along, or as a deux-ex-machina to save the PCs when they're in over their heads.
They don't seem like PCs at all.

Geoff.

The same critique would apply even more strongly to Prospero. He's almost the voice of Shakespeare himself in the play. The DM is not supposed to push the plot along in an ideal campaign, but this character can. He could even be somewhere between a player and a co-DM, possibly working with the DM in a special relationship. It's just a brainstorm kind of thought. It might not work but it could be cool.

There is a continuum of power along the range of player to DM, ranging from passive players, to active players, to leader type players, to alternating DM/players, to co-DMs, to passive DMs, to aggressive control DMs. Is there room for a special role like this between leader type players and co-DMs?

If you think about it, abilities like the knowledge skills, and especially bardic lore, already provide a mechanism for the DM to feed inside information to a given character.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Is the existing Shaman then such a class?

Yes. The type of spellcaster you seem to prefer, no.

 

[PenguinKing]

mmadsen, when you keep pointing to the OA Shaman as an example of "a viable wizard-type class with no flash-bang spells", you're consistently missing the fact that there are bigger differences between the core-rules Wizard and the OA Shaman than their spell lists. The Shaman actually has the capacity to get things accomplished in a non-magical fashion. The Wizard, to put it bluntly, doesn't. If you take the Wizard as the basis for your "spellcaster" class and give it the Shaman's spell list with no other modifications, you haven't created a balanced low-magic spellcaster - you've just created a high-magic spellcaster playing under low-magic rules, which can cripple the class, the setting, or most likely both at once.

- Sir Bob.

P.S. Nih!

 

[mmadsen]

Yes. The type of spellcaster you seem to prefer, no.

So, ColonelHardisson, you feel the Shaman class is an underpowered, unpopular class, and that it's not the type of spellcaster I seem to prefer?