hong said:
mmadsen has also said that the shaman is not what he's looking for, either (at least not without wholesale changes to the basic D&D rules). But then I really don't know what it is he wants. Maybe he should play Pendragon or GURPS; it would be a heck of a lot less work.
What wholesale changes to the basic D&D rules? This is gross hyperbole to say the least. Most of the ideas in this thread, like Kamakaze Midget's nice list of ideas, are just along the lines of creating a new player character class. You've done this yourself by creating a knight class to replace paladins in your campaign. Mmadsen so far has suggested a few ways to build such a class completely within the D&D guidelines and has gotten a few responses in kind.
No, I tell a lie. It seems abundantly clear that what you and he _really_ want is not so much a viable, independent spellcasting class that would be fun to play, but just a henchman to buff up the party fighters, and/or a DM oracle to hand out plot tidbits.
mmadsen did not suggest that. I did, and I subsequently dropped it because it was not what he wanted. Furthermore, your statements are intentional gross over-simplifications and misrepresentations. Stating that I or he desires to create a class that is not fun to play is quite obviously such.
Do not mistake my posts for his and do not lump him in to a criticism levelled at me. He does not share my viewpoint.
hong said:
Hence, I have to ask, why bother tweaking the classes? Just dump all PC spellcasters entirely. If magic is entirely controlled by the DM, all your problems disappear. You can make it as "magical" or "mysterious" as you want, and you don't have to worry about bigheaded wizards stealing the show with their boom spells.
...and you find that to be a good solution to the problem of creating a good low magic *player character class* using the shaman spell list that is fun to play in what way? It seems to me like the worst conceivable solution and directly opposite to the stated goals of this thread.
I won't degrade this thread any further by posting to it. I've tried to post some useful and constructive suggestions. My apologies to mmadsen and I've no hard feelings toward you Hong. It's just a game and different people have different opinions regarding what is fun. There is no purpose to dictating to other people what they will or will not find to be fun.
Perhaps we can agree to disagree on this issue and let it rest. That is my intent. It's quite obvious that we are not having a productive dialog. Just don't lump in mmadsen into arguments that are really about something I said. I'm the "facilitator" person, not him.
Good luck in sorting out something workable mmadsen. I'm sure you'll come up with a very nice class. A fun to play class is definitely possible with this framework. It's all in the details. Perhaps interjecting something new will add some excitement and playability to the class - something along the lines of new powers involving ancestors/animal spirit/invoking natural disaster idea etc. but of course more in line with your vision of how the class should feel.
