SPontaneous Divine Caster: Which do you Use?

[Greg K]

I use Green Ronin's Shaman.

 

[Feldrin]

I used it for my OA game as an "Animist" class (keeping the OA shaman as more of a psuedo-Buddhist "cleric"). I really like the way the class works in that the entire spell list stems from the spirits. However, it really puts a lot of work on the DM's shoulders.

The Green Ronin class is a bit less flexible, but it's less work. And yuo can add the domains from Mongoose's shamans to the green ronin shaman list. For my standard psuedo-western D&D game, I use the Green Ronin shaman instead.

Yes, Mongoose's shaman is very interesting but has the flaw that the DM will play with the shaman's player alone when he's talking with his spirits. I only DMed a few sessions with a shaman PC but it was a bit disturbing to me that I had to talk to the PC all the time with the others being unable to hear anything. And even a 2nd level shaman can easily have half a dozen spirits....

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

The basic characteristics, like saves, hit dice, and BAB are the same as a cleric. However, they lose turning and heavy armor. Spellcasting is spontaneous, using spells known and spells per day based on the sorcerer. The major difference, though, is that they add domain spells to their spells known (they get six domains total over the course of the class, which on first glance seems a little excessive).

I recently dug out my copy of #311 (for the Sorceror bloodline feats), and it caused me to look over the Evangelist class again. I'm really impressed with it, and I think it handles divine spellcasting better than the Cleric does. (Then again, I prefer the Sorceror to the Wizard.)

Between using the Evangelist and adding the bloodline feats to Sorcerors automatically, I think the D&D magic system can be made a lot more flavorful and interesting, without sacrificing the benefits of spell slots and levels. Keeping the Wizard (and possibly the Cleric) as separate classes helps reinforce the different flavor, though I'd be hard-pressed to identify the Cleric's role in a campaign featuring the Evangelist.

The main loss of the Evangelist over the Cleric is the spell variety-- while their extra domains give them more spells known than the Sorceror, they still lack the wide variety of spells of the Cleric or Druid. In my opinion, this is actually more suitable, because the Evangelist's spell selection can be used to reflect his religion as well as his choice of Domains. It also leads to a stronger trade-off between the Evangelist and Prestige Classes, as levels in a Prestige Class will grant Spells/Day and Spells Known, but fewer new domains.

With the turn/rebuke special abilities in the elemental and Plant domains, I'm considering adding turn/rebuke undead as a Domain ability to the Good and Evil domains, and possibly some ability to turn and rebuke outsiders based on alignment to all of the alignment domains. (Since they are easily the domains with the weakest domain abilities, and they have less-than-inspiring spell lists.) Regardless of the number of separate turn/rebuke abilities an Evangelist has due to domains, however, I would limit it to 3 + CHA mod per day, plus any bonuses due to the Extra Turning feat. Since Charisma is already more important than Wisdom to the Evangelist, I think it evens out nicely.

 

[Cam Banks]

I'm running a Dragonlance campaign, so the Dragonlance mystic is the standard choice. One of my players has taken a favored soul of Habbakuk, but the difference is that favored souls gain the power from the gods while the mystics gain their power from ambient divine energy ("the power of the heart").

The Evangelist is several orders of magnitude more powerful than either of these classes, and therefore wouldn't be a viable option for me.

Cheers,
Cam