As my first team is wandering in Durlag tower at the moment, I decided to try and play the new shaman class.
I was lucky when I rolled my half-orc , she (Lady Pai) is rather amazing with 93 points in her stats: 19/18/16/10/14/16 - she is physically powerful at almost 7 feet in height and exotically lovely with green-gray skin and dark green hair and with green gray eyes that have that far away look as if she is seeing something else - and she is, because she sees spirits and ghosts everywhere - so don't mind her if she seems to be talking to herself sometimes.
As she departs Candlekeep for the first time and starts to adventure with her trusty friend and sister Imoen - we will see what is in store for them.
Finding Gorion's body, Pai attempted to speak with his spirit being a shaman, but sadly Pai was unable to call the necessary power to speak to her father. Determined to find out the reason behind this attack and why it was aimed at her she resolves herself to getting more knowledge and begins her journey with Imoen at her side.
In their first real adventure they encountered a mage who attacked us for no reason - although we defeated him with the help of the city guards we would find out that someone had put a bounty on her head. Who would do such a thing was unknown and why was her head worth so much was also a mystery - so many of them so far to unravel with no real answers in sight.
Meeting Jaheria and Khalid they joined up with us to help us solve these mysteries that kept on piling up and kept us up at night. Khalid seemed to be a nervous kind of fellow - was it me being a half-orc or was it because I towered over him or maybe he is just a nervous kind of guy. You could tell that it was Jaheria who carried the whip in their marriage - very forceful and determined with an iron will. And so we started our journey south at a rather leisurely fashion exploring the wilds and seeing what the world had to offer a group of newbie adventurers fresh out of Candlekeep.
Nothing really dangerous happened in the wilds but a few encounters with some glibbering, some xvarts, a few bandits, some gnolls and a few wolves. We saw a group of more organized bandits but we ran for it having neither the might or arcane power to overcome these highway robbers.
As we entered Beregost a small town but much larger than Candlekeep, we encountered a loud mouth lout that had a beef with adventurers lucky for us we were able to talk him out of his rant. Our next encounter, was with a mage who tried to use us to kill some gem couriers - lucky for us we were able to see through her plans and stop her although we did get a bit singed from her lightning. Probably the biggest thing about Beregost was the second assassin we encountered - a dwarf this time and he was a difficult fight - we all took some bruises and cuts. The bounty on my head seems to have gotten larger someone really doesn't like me - I am going to have to be more careful if the price keeps going up, Imoen might decide one day to turn me in for the bounty
I think the strangest thing we encountered here was a young woman who was in a desperate straight - it seems a group of Thay mages wanted to experiment on her - the world is just full of weirdo mages and their lackeys. Lucky for us with Neera along side of us - we were able to stop them - she sent the first mage away in spectacular fashion and then she really blew the second mage away, we almost had nothing to do but mop up the guards - there was nothing left of the second mage to be buried unlike the body guards he brought along - wow having someone that powerful might prove handy - lets see if she is willing to travel with us.
Neera - proved to be a bit anxious but overall quite optimistic and cheerful even if she was being hunted by Thay mages. We had her join us after a brief discussion - having a mage really would come in handy when dealing with foes in the wild and she was very powerful - which was nice. Her eyes seemed to glow slightly and she possessed a aura that radiated power and a bit of chaos - but all mages are a bit weird and powerful - I guess it comes with dealing with the weave. And so we started out again after a brief rest, refilling our supplies and a hardy meal to start on the road once again.
Until next time....
During this short run with the shaman - Lady Pai mostly used missile weapons (bows) to help out, her first level shaman spell was not the most useful thing since you could still not make your saves and be feared; having multiple healings and bless was okay - nothing amazing and nothing a dedicated cleric could not do at the same level almost. As for the summons - I tried to use them but they did not always come when called, you couldn't control them (a huge issue) and it took so long for them to arrive - unless the battle lasted a turn it was not the most practical thing to use in a pitched battle or encounter.
I think the most useful thing about the shaman dance was if you called it before you rested you had a few guards to watch over your sleep.
I am thinking it will take a while for the shaman to be a bit more useful as a class but then again having played a kensai it can't be any worse than the first few levels of a kensai - at least the shaman can heal and bless.
As I continue this journey with the shaman - if the first level spell was a friendly AoE spell it would have been better or provided complete protection against fear it would have been useful - having a +3 against enchantment and a few "+" against undead not the most useful spell in the world and really clerics and mages can provide better buffs and if you have a bard you can resist fear with their song.
And the dance, while interesting is almost useless since you can't move at all - if the dance had provided some kind of protection against monsters attacking her while she danced then it would prove useful - something like a fear or panic - all monster attacking the dancing shaman must make a save against panic or flee for 1 round/level of the shaman - save at -1/2 level of the shaman (having spirits and ghosts around will scare anyone); undead must save at -3 which gets worse as the shaman gets to higher levels add -2 at level 1 and additional -1/ 2 levels (higher level shamans will banish undead creatures of less than 2HD automatically - destroying them at level 7). That would make up for the lack of control of the spirits and still make the dance useful - while you can't control the spirits these spirits should attack all foes in sight range of the shaman or within lets say 15' radius of the shaman - making it useful to call them - and making the shaman dance less of a cute gimmick that after a few tries losses its usefulness.
If you really want summons - get a druid, or grab a wand of monster summoning for your mage - such cheaper and much more effective ways to get summons. Having summons that you have no control over is rather useless.
The shaman class also needs some good summons that can be controlled - if you changed her dancing to summons that could be limited each day - it would prove more useful; also some more useful spells - level 1 spell was a bit disappointing - very defensive - and you could only cast it one at a time - what the class needs is also an offensive spell that could prove useful - a spirit spear or something that could be used to attack - like a fear spell - who is not scared of spirits and ghosts if they are being summoned - we've all seen what happens when a poltergeist appears.
