shamanistic shenanigans

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hollyfant
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shamanistic shenanigans

Post by hollyfant »

Currently, the Spirit Shaman class is limited in choice of patron god to deities who have a compatible alignment, and are marked as "nature" gods.
I'd like to see this changed, and these two limitations stricken.
  • There is no base in PnP for these limitations, in vanilla 3.5 nor in the Forgotten Realms lore.
  • They make no sense. Spirit Shamans are all about spirits and as such the only option for players to play a "healer"-type without having to worry about gods.
  • They block off perfectly valid characters, especially combinations of Spirit Shaman and Paladin or Monk.
  • There's no actual ALFA rule for this that I am aware of or that I can find.
  • I want to play a Selûnite Sun Soul Spirit Shaman. <-real reason for all this
So how should I go about getting the current system changed?
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Re: shamanistic shenanigans

Post by Galadorn »

Ask the HDM!

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Arianna
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Re: shamanistic shenanigans

Post by Arianna »

hollyfant wrote:Currently, the Spirit Shaman class is limited in choice of patron god to deities who have a compatible alignment, and are marked as "nature" gods.
I'd like to see this changed, and these two limitations stricken.
  • There is no base in PnP for these limitations, in vanilla 3.5 nor in the Forgotten Realms lore.
  • They make no sense. Spirit Shamans are all about spirits and as such the only option for players to play a "healer"-type without having to worry about gods.
  • They block off perfectly valid characters, especially combinations of Spirit Shaman and Paladin or Monk.
  • There's no actual ALFA rule for this that I am aware of or that I can find.
  • I want to play a Selûnite Sun Soul Spirit Shaman. <-real reason for all this
So how should I go about getting the current system changed?
Spirit Shamans are basically a subclass of druids hence the nature catagories ....
Such would not be followers of Selune or become monks as the two classes are mutually exclusive I would think . .


The Spirit Shaman is the team player of the natural world. They work with spirits great and small, the incorporeal spark of life within all things. From pacts and oaths, the shaman gains the camaraderie and power of these beings, allowing them to etch their will within the worlds of the living and the dead. As such, they are divine casters of a different bent than clerics and druids. While the cleric's powers come through faith and the druid's comes through communion, the shaman is more pragmatic, gaining their powers from whatever is nearby.

By bargaining with living spirits, the spirit shaman gains power over the natural world and mighty divine magic
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Re: shamanistic shenanigans

Post by Zelknolf »

We've had Selûnite druids. I don't recall having the source given to me (as far as I know, Selûne hasn't blessed druids by the sourcebooks since she was still Lucha, Chauntea was still Jannath, Lathander was still Amaunator, and Tyr was still on Earth feeding his right hand to a world-eating wolf), though it seems odd to firmly establish druids of the faith in ALFA but firmly disallow Spirit Shaman of the faith in ALFA.

I'm fine supporting whatever rules we have, but I'd prefer we be consistent, and either say the Selûnite druids are wrong or the Selûnite shaman are OK.
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Re: shamanistic shenanigans

Post by hollyfant »

Arianna wrote:Spirit Shamans are basically a subclass of druids hence the nature catagories ....
Such would not be followers of Selune or become monks as the two classes are mutually exclusive I would think . .
I wholly agree with the latter, but can't see the reasoning behind calling Spirit Shamans pseudo-Druids. Sure, they share their spell list, but that seems to me a meta-consideration to keep the game manageable. And thus SSes get stuck with spells that boost Animal Companions - which they don't have. Or lose out on Charisma boosts, which would have improved their spellcasting as well as their interaction with spirits.
Spirit Shamans are not Druids. They're nothing like Druids. They don't have the oath of Druids, the animal buddy of Druids or the Druid circles. I mean... Shamans deal with the undead, how much more undruidish can you get?

The Spirit Shaman is the team player of the natural world. They work with spirits great and small, the incorporeal spark of life within all things. From pacts and oaths, the shaman gains the camaraderie and power of these beings, allowing them to etch their will within the worlds of the living and the dead. As such, they are divine casters of a different bent than clerics and druids. While the cleric's powers come through faith and the druid's comes through communion, the shaman is more pragmatic, gaining their powers from whatever is nearby.

By bargaining with living spirits, the spirit shaman gains power over the natural world and mighty divine magic

This quote seems to agree with my position. Spirit Shamans are "natural" due to their primitive origins. They do not get their spells from Gods. Not directly and not through Nature.

Of course, in the forgotten Realms all Divine magic must come from the Gods. But for Rangers we dropped any godly prerequisites - spellcasting Rangers of Bane or Gond are allowed (and canonically kosher). If we feel the need to limit the Spirit Shaman gods, for whatever reason, shouldn't they be limited then to spirit deities, rather than nature ones?
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Re: shamanistic shenanigans

Post by Heero »

They use the same flag for allowed dieties as Druid in the 2da. Changing it will also change allowed dieties when creating a Druid. I guess manual changes could be made to character or bic?
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Re: shamanistic shenanigans

Post by Veilan »

I say we simply burn hollyfant as a witch.

Seriously though, his position makes a lot of sense, and seems thematically more appropriate for our setting than pretending spirit shamans are druids. Their fluff does not seem to support that assumption.
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Re: shamanistic shenanigans

Post by Zelknolf »

It was ALFA-specific fluff we acquired in the BeforeTimes (~2008ish)-- the conversation seems to have since been pruned. The rationale, as I recall, was that the fluff describes Animism, being a very "naturey" kind of religion to have, presumably such that the time-honored tradition of gods responding to prayers made to their domain (or to gods they've devoured), instead of to them directly, would only involve the nature deities.

// edit -- still, we should be consistent about what we call "Nature" deities. I'd point to my previous post and say that I'm pretty sure our existing in-game canon says that Hollyfant's specific request is already OK by all presented rationales.
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Re: shamanistic shenanigans

Post by HEEGZ »

Fine with me. If you are going to have a regular dm you might run your concept by them
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