D&D 5E The Spirit Bard, Shepherd Druid, and a full on Shaman class.

[Haldrik]

With regard to "cavalier".

I mainly know the reallife word as having an ironic meaning:

to have so much respect and confidence in something, that one interacts irreverently and playfully with regard to it.

 

[Haldrik]

Heh, part of being "respectful" toward a culture, includes making sure the design doesnt suck mechanically. Seriously.

 

[Krachek]

Maybe an UA on « how to fluff a class »

 

[Marandahir]

I would be very much in favour of a shaman base class. I created a shaman-like character using a celestial warlock chassis, but I felt if fell short of my character concept in a couple of key areas.

* I conceived my character as wise, rather than charismatic;

* Too much emphasis on Eldritch Blast, too little support for my totem animal (Bear).


In addition, if the latest contributions are anything to go by WotC are running out of sensible things to do with subclasses, adding more base classes would be a better way to continue to add new player options.

Sounds like what you need is for the game to do away with mandatory ability scores attached to classes.

What if there was a Primal Spirit Warlock patron, and you could swap all Warlock instances of Cha for Wis?

I'd wager a guess that most detractors of the Psionic Soul Sorcerer would be satisfied if the same was done for Sorcerers, but swapping for Int.

Alternatively, what's stopping your Warlock from making Wis their second highest stat after Charisma, and investing in some Wisdom-based feats/features like Magic Initiate (Druid)?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Alternatively, what's stopping your Warlock from making Wis their second highest stat after Charisma, and investing in some Wisdom-based feats/features like Magic Initiate (Druid)?

That's what I did, but it didn't really give me the character I wanted - you can't play a grumpy curmudgeon with a Charisma of 16, and you can't get away from zapping energy beams from your fingertips without gimping yourself.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Xanathar's has a sidebar on this topic about "samurai" and "cavaliers". Short version: it should strive to be respectful, which isn't necessarily the same thing as accurate.

It's a strawman argument anyway - shamanism is one of the most widespread belief systems on the planet, no single culture or ethnicity can lay claim to it.

 

[Minigiant]

It's a strawman argument anyway - shamanism is one of the most widespread belief systems on the planet, no single culture or ethnicity can lay claim to it.

It's more that English painted the word shaman on every spiritual priest around the world not from a large organized religion.

In English you are more or less a cleric or a shaman. The Druid of d&d was lucky to escape and that is probably only due to Eurocentrism.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

The word Shaman was originally derived from a Siberian word, and there's some argument that word might be derived from a Sanskrit word. But overall it's being used to described just about any Animist or "Folk" practices.

Ideally Shaman should be the main class, and Druids should be a subclass. With an ability such as "Invoke Spirits" that does something based on subclass such as Wildshape or summons a spirit. But given D&D's legacy it would probably be the Druid that's the main class.