Looking ahead on the Shaman

[chitzk0i]

Whoa, wait. All my allies can gain 3d6+con?! I thought only one ally can gain d6's from healing spirit and spirit boon.

That's the point of Spirit Tempest. All allies in or adjacent to one of your zones or conjurations regain hit points "as if they were adjacent to your spirit companion".

Also I had a question about restful healing I'd as my DM another time, but since i'm here. It'd be okay to use spirit healing during a short or extended rest after an encounter I take it? What are the restrictions though? Also what's a good AC I should aim for by around 4-6?

If you've got a power available, you can use it out of combat. I personally dislike the restful healing feat, since it maximizes healing in the second short rest. As for AC, get yourself chain armor or hide armor with hide armor expertise and you'll be fine.

 

[DracoSuave]

Correct...which also requires a 13 Str. WotC could not have made Hide Armor Expertise a worse feat for Shamans if they tried. I'm not a fan.

Why not? What -else- are you putting your points into? The usual place to put extra points in, Con, is already where you're putting points.

You can do a 16/14/14/13/10/8 spread for Shamans just fine. Go Dwarf, of course, and you'll have 18 Wis, 16 Con, 14 Dex, 13 Str, and you're well covered.

Level 1, you go Armor Proficiency Chain. You need the same prereqs for Chain as for Hide anyways, so go with what's best for now.

Then once you hit level 8, Retrain into Hide, and take Hide Armor Expertise if you're finding +3 armors. If not, stick with Chain until paragon, but be ready to switch over at level 10 or so.

I know this doesn't occur to a lot of people, but take what's best at your level, and retrain into what's better later on.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Correct...which also requires a 13 Str. WotC could not have made Hide Armor Expertise a worse feat for Shamans if they tried. I'm not a fan.

Are you serious?

For a minor 13 in str, and a pair of feats (Hide prof which gives you +1 AC from the armor) and then the Expertise that makes it unnecessary to spend a single ability point in dex or intelligence, and gives you a wonderful con synergy, it is a terrible feat?

Hide Expertise is a very very powerful feat. Probably a broken feat overall. I am not a fan of the feat at all, but it is excellent for druids and Shamans, and probably even Barbarians.

 

[DracoSuave]

Are you serious?

For a minor 13 in str, and a pair of feats (Hide prof which gives you +1 AC from the armor) and then the Expertise that makes it unnecessary to spend a single ability point in dex or intelligence, and gives you a wonderful con synergy, it is a terrible feat?

Hide Expertise is a very very powerful feat. Probably a broken feat overall. I am not a fan of the feat at all, but it is excellent for druids and Shamans, and probably even Barbarians.

Indeed.

Now, granted, low level, take chain to save yourself feat room, but once your Con is up there... then retrain that feat.

 

[Akarashi]

Hmm, the feats themselves I don't think are bad, I'll have to find room though. I suppose by lv 6 hopefully won't be too late. I do thank everyone for the input.

 

[yesnomu]

I'm not necessarily begrudging the Str tax (although it's freaking annoying to have to take a feat for decent AC), it's that HAE takes an additional feat over Chain for little to no benefit. If you're not a Dwarf, it's likely HAE won't help at all, and even if you are, you're not likely to get much better AC than Chain until Epic, since heavy armors scale on their own.

The bit that tweaks me off is how incredibly not better HAE is for a Shaman than Chain, (same stat tax, +1 feat tax), considering chain is fairly unthematic.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I'm not necessarily begrudging the Str tax (although it's freaking annoying to have to take a feat for decent AC), it's that HAE takes an additional feat over Chain for little to no benefit. If you're not a Dwarf, it's likely HAE won't help at all, and even if you are, you're not likely to get much better AC than Chain until Epic, since heavy armors scale on their own.

The bit that tweaks me off is how incredibly not better HAE is for a Shaman than Chain, (same stat tax, +1 feat tax), considering chain is fairly unthematic.

Do you define "decent AC" as "Equal to or better than the defender"?

If so, Leaders generally should not be that high.

 

[Destil]

Are you serious?

For a minor 13 in str, and a pair of feats (Hide prof which gives you +1 AC from the armor) and then the Expertise that makes it unnecessary to spend a single ability point in dex or intelligence, and gives you a wonderful con synergy, it is a terrible feat?

Hide Expertise is a very very powerful feat. Probably a broken feat overall. I am not a fan of the feat at all, but it is excellent for druids and Shamans, and probably even Barbarians.

Spending 2 feats and putting a 13 into a stat that does nothing else for you (maybe a 12 if you can wait for paragon) since it's on the same defense as your secondary just so your AC scales properly with level? It's terrible feat design (and a general design bug for about a dozen builds who need something similar to get reasonable AC). It's either broken or worthless/way more expensive that it should be for most, the only build I think it actually works for is the swarm druid....

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Actually for the shaman HAE sounds reasonable and thematic if you think you get into the thick of battle.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I don't see any good reason for the horrible AC design on the Shaman. It's just painful.