Surviving as a Shaman

[Felon]

I've been building a 13th-level stalker-spirit shaman that I'd like to play, but it seems like the squishiest thing I've ever seen. Lacking the requirements for either armor or shield proficiency, it seems like the class is firmly stuck in the rear and scrambling for whatever cover it can find if there's any artillery (and even in doing so still being one of the easier targets).

So, what I'm looking for are build-oriented suggestion (as opposed to class-nonspecific tactical suggestions like "yadda yadda defenders-do-their-job yadda yadda"). Currently, I'm using a human, since they seem one of the better fits for a stalker shaman, and the adroit explorer PP seems as good as any of the PP's, plus it lets me use some cool minis I've not used before, but I'm flexible and may switch if something more compelling comes along. I've already taken Toughness and Durable. And, uh, that's really all I got so far. Can't seem to find many attacks or utilities that protect the shaman as well as allies.

Oh, and Dragon Mag content is likely to be prohibited.

 

[Akarashi]

Shaman's are fairly squishy, I currently play a lv 2 shaman and I shift away every chance I get. Anyway, I take it you're just building a lv 13 shaman and play it from there?
Anyway, to boost some AC maybe take the Chain or Hide armor proficiency feat. Chain gives you more AC but Hide armor expertise allows you to add on your Con Mod to your AC as well. Since I play a protector Shaman, this works out perfectly.

I'd suggest bumping you str to 13 by having your startingability scores 13,10,10,15,17,8. And I, personally would choose a race that boosts int and wis just to maximize you character, that's just me though. Perhaps a Deva?

Just some ideas, I'm fairly New to D&D so maybe a more experienced Shaman can carry it on from here.

 

[Felon]

Shaman's are fairly squishy, I currently play a lv 2 shaman and I shift away every chance I get. Anyway, I take it you're just building a lv 13 shaman and play it from there?
Anyway, to boost some AC maybe take the Chain or Hide armor proficiency feat. Chain gives you more AC but Hide armor expertise allows you to add on your Con Mod to your AC as well. Since I play a protector Shaman, this works out perfectly.

I'd suggest bumping you str to 13 by having your startingability scores 13,10,10,15,17,8. And I, personally would choose a race that boosts int and wis just to maximize you character, that's just me though. Perhaps a Deva?

Just some ideas, I'm fairly New to D&D so maybe a more experienced Shaman can carry it on from here.

Yes, I'm thinking about swapping my 13th level bard for a shaman. I guess I will throw some feats into upgrading armor, since I really don't see a bevy of great feat options for the shaman. I was thinking about a light shield as well, but doesn't the totem itself take a hand slot? Come to think of it, I'm not sure what a totem actually is in game terms (a big chicken foot or a horse thigh bone with fetishes dangling from it?).

The stalker shaman needs Int, so I wind getting to that with hide. But at 13th level, chain is effectively 3 higher than hide, so its kind of a wash.

 

[Akarashi]

Yeah, unfortunately i'm not too familiar with the game at such a high level, Would you consider different builds of the Shaman though? I don't know your play style or what your bard was like, so it's just a suggestion. Since the stalker shaman requires Int, there's a lot of ability score stretching.. Oh, and I've found many great feats for the shaman, they're mostly from Primal Power though. If you don't have access to that content, then I'd agree you're choices are fairly limited.

The totem just require a hand slot, but a shield can still go in the off-hand I believe. And I believe a totem from a more practical stand point can be almost any weapon in the game, my shaman has a totem dagger, so whether it be dagger carved from horse bone with fetishes dangling can be up to your imagination. From the flavour point i'd say it's just an object that strengthens a shaman's connection to the spirits and the world?

 

[chitzk0i]

To start with, your AC and reflex should be decent because you ought to have a rather high intelligence. Your defenses won't be phenomenal, but you shouldn't be auto-hit. This ought to be ok, because you should only be taking hits for a limited time. If you help out your striker(s) with claws of the eagle (you have that one, right?), you should be able to DPS down anything the defender is too busy to pick up.

The other reason you should be ok is that you can attack from 20 squares away. In my experience, most monsters will attack the first thing they come to and most defenders have harsh enough OAs that most things will hesitate to disengage. Taken together, this means that a 5-10 square distance from the defender affords a significant amount of safety.

Your only real option for improvement here is to make sure you have strength 13 for light shield proficiency or strength 13 and con 13 for hide/chain (with 16 int, you'd have the same AC either way).

 

[Mengu]

It's all right to be a squishy leader. That's why you have the rest of the team. Your job is to help them fight better. Keep them mobile, keep them buffed, keep them standing, and they'll keep you safe. In my game, the panther shaman usually looks for a safe spot and just fights from there. The spirit is the one in the thick of things anyway. He's gotten in some tight spots and went down a few times, but the defenders in that case are leaping over each other to try and save the leader. I haven't really seen the Shaman's squishiness as a significant enough problem.

 

[Felon]

It's all right to be a squishy leader. That's why you have the rest of the team. Your job is to help them fight better. Keep them mobile, keep them buffed, keep them standing, and they'll keep you safe. In my game, the panther shaman usually looks for a safe spot and just fights from there. The spirit is the one in the thick of things anyway. He's gotten in some tight spots and went down a few times, but the defenders in that case are leaping over each other to try and save the leader. I haven't really seen the Shaman's squishiness as a significant enough problem.

So, this is basically the yadda yadda defenders-do-their-job tactical advice that I mentioned in the OP?

Ah well, I knew it would happen anyway.

The other reason you should be ok is that you can attack from 20 squares away. In my experience, most monsters will attack the first thing they come to and most defenders have harsh enough OAs that most things will hesitate to disengage. Taken together, this means that a 5-10 square distance from the defender affords a significant amount of safety.

This is a good example of why purely tactical advice is a crapshoot, because it's so heavily governed by personal experiences that other people can't make bank on. Your perception that monsters usually only attack the nearest target is based on observing the tactics of the DM's you've played with. The DM I'll be playing with believes (as I do) that a ranged attacker should consider all targets within its range to be fair game.

 

[Iron Sky]

The nice thing about Shaman is if you pick mostly melee spirit powers, you can be spend most of the fight 10+ squares away from the front lines, giving your Spirit orders. They are squishy if they get in close though; ours is usually either nearly full health or on the ground dying, rarely anywhere in between.

Our shaman is only really in danger in 3 situations (in order of how often they seem to occur):

1) A lurker shows up and attacks from the rear. Since we only have 3-4 people in our group, there isn't always someone who can go tackle it until we can kill something in the front line, leaving him alone with it for a round or two at times.

2) He goes first in the initiative order and walks in ahead of my paladin (the group's tank). If another melee character goes before the monsters, he's usually ok, but the times the monsters go next, my Pally gets to use Lay-on-Hands in round 1.

3) The front line goes down. It's only happened once (when we ended up fighting two encounters at once), but fortunately he was 10 squares behind the fight and managed to outrun the monsters while the rest of the group bled out (except my Pally who got a natural 20 on his death save and snuck out while the monsters were all off chasing the Shaman).

So, yeah, pretty frail.

 

[Felon]

Yeah, unfortunately i'm not too familiar with the game at such a high level, Would you consider different builds of the Shaman though? I don't know your play style or what your bard was like, so it's just a suggestion. Since the stalker shaman requires Int, there's a lot of ability score stretching.. Oh, and I've found many great feats for the shaman, they're mostly from Primal Power though. If you don't have access to that content, then I'd agree you're choices are fairly limited.

I'm going to stalker as I much prefer an aggressive, offense-boosting approach to leadership.

I have access to Primal Power, and some of the feats are nice, but I didn't see a lot that's going to make me give up on mainstays like Distant Advantage or Implement Expertise or Action Surge. I picked up Resilient Spirit and Retributive Spirit.

The totem just require a hand slot, but a shield can still go in the off-hand I believe. And I believe a totem from a more practical stand point can be almost any weapon in the game, my shaman has a totem dagger, so whether it be dagger carved from horse bone with fetishes dangling can be up to your imagination. From the flavour point i'd say it's just an object that strengthens a shaman's connection to the spirits and the world?

I thought the darn things could go on the lapel, but it seems that only divine characters get that perk for their power-source implement. That reminds me, I gotta look and see if there's a weapon property lets you use the weapon a shaman implement. Unless somebody would be kind of to tell me...?

 

[Angellis_ater]

Three magic weapons to use: Totemic Warclub, Totemic Spear and Alfsair Spear all can be used as both weapon and implement.

General advice: Boost your Int, preferably every time you get a chance. I would recommend a starting spread of 12, 12, 8, 16, 16, 10. This gives you a starting AC of 15 and you can pick up Hide at Paragon if you want to. If you take Human, you start with Wis 18 and if you boost both Int and Wis every time you get a chance at 13th level you should be at AC: 22 + whatever magical items you have been given/taken. I'd guess you'd end up around 25. Not awesome, but absolutely not bad either. Most Defenders would probably end up around 28 at that level, most of that coming from a heavy shield. You can invest in a light shield for +1 to AC/Reflex if you are feeling squishy, but I'd say that you've already got a pretty fair AC/Reflex for your role, position and class.