PDA

View Full Version : [3.5] Dragon Shaman just ignored or what?



Scorpions__
2010-06-21, 01:08 AM
Over all the forums it just seems to me that the Dragon Shaman is generally ignored. It never seems to be hated on or loved by anyone, the one handbook I found on it is really just a wall of text and it doesn't ever seem to have been put into any specific tier.

Where oh where has the Dragon Shaman gone?





DM[F]R

DragoonWraith
2010-06-21, 01:14 AM
I think the Dragon Shaman is generally considered "boring". It's pretty weak, but not hilariously so, and it doesn't have the Monk's fanatical following of people who refuse to accept reality.

Basically, the Dragon Shaman has a bunch of tricks that are pretty much "meh". The Fast Healing until 50% aura's pretty good. That's about it. You really don't need this thing very much. The Marshal's not that good either, but it's generally better than Dragon Shaman.

Private-Prinny
2010-06-21, 01:15 AM
Dragon Shaman falls somewhere between Tiers 3 and 4, IIRC. And besides, being ignored may be a good thing. You're not as broken as the Big 5, but not as weak as a Monk or Samurai. They fall right into that gray area, and with a couple of Metabreath feats and maybe Double Draconic Aura, they can pull their own weight in a party.

I think part of the reason they get ignored is because Dragonfire Adept takes the flavor and pulls it off more successfully.

PId6
2010-06-21, 01:25 AM
It's tier 4. I've played one, and it's not terrible, especially in early levels, but it's horrendously boring to play. You smack things, give off an aura, and occasionally use your breath weapon. The DFA is pretty much better in every way, and you can take the Draconic Aura feat from Dragon Magic to do most of the same things.

Thurbane
2010-06-21, 02:45 AM
The Dragon Shaman gets a little love in Dragon Magic. I played one from level 8 through 12 in EttRoG recently, and I really enjoyed it. It's basically a support class, do don't expect too much of the limelight. With some breath related feats, you can improve your damage output.

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-21, 02:47 AM
Basically, the Dragon Shaman has a bunch of tricks that are pretty much "meh". The Fast Healing until 50% aura's pretty good. That's about it. You really don't need this thing very much. The Marshal's not that good either, but it's generally better than Dragon Shaman.

You say this for the granted move action class feature?

Because it seems odd :smallconfused:.. DS has auras, breath weapon, healing, immunities..

Marshal has only auras (even if more.. but dragon shaman can use 2 auras at once with a feat) and the move action class feature.. nothing else IIRC..

Draz74
2010-06-21, 02:50 AM
Yeah, it's not a great frontline tank; it's not a great battlefield controller; it's not a great healer; and it's definitely not a skillmonkey/utility type. It pretty much fills only the "buff the party" role, and not as well as a Bard. It's not that it's terrible ... just that it's terribly mediocre all around.

Which is too bad, because it's flavorful and hints at being good at several tempting options (without achieving any of them). I would love for a buffed Dragon Shaman to be a true non-Vancian Cleric alternative, for example, in the party support/healer role.

I think the DS is probably a bit better than the Marshal. But they're both somewhere in the big muddle between Low Tier 4 and High Tier 5.

PId6
2010-06-21, 02:52 AM
Oh, Marshal's definitely worse, except as 1 level dips. Dragon Shaman gets some better auras overall and much better class features (than Grant Move Action). Marshal will be better at lower levels due to minor auras being stupidly uncapped, but Dragon Shaman's better overall.

Admiral Squish
2010-06-21, 02:56 AM
Admiral's Dragon Shaman Fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147604)[/shameless plug]

Escheton
2010-06-21, 05:27 AM
I kinda like dragon shaman/cruaders. As the big stupid fighter with perks that is.

Saph
2010-06-21, 05:53 AM
They're not bad. Especially at low levels, their auras are a handy force multiplier. And they're flexible - SilverClawShift's second campaign journal had a Dragon Shaman played from level 1 up to level 16 or so, and he definitely pulled his weight. The problem is that they're not really good at anything.

KillianHawkeye
2010-06-21, 06:05 AM
The problem is that they're not really good at anything.

That's it in a nutshell. It's not horrible, just not good either. They can be decent in a party that already has all the major roles covered.

On the plus side, they're really simple to play, and manage to be fairly fun IMO.

hamishspence
2010-06-21, 07:17 AM
They don't get mentioned much in splatbooks. Most of the new classes make an appearence in some splatbook or another.

Marshal, Ninja, Warmage, Knight, Spellthief, all get NPC characters in books. Even if only as minions, or "typical NPCs"- but I haven't seen that for the Dragon Shaman.

Warlocks and Duskblades appear in a lot of splatbooks.

nedz
2010-06-21, 08:49 AM
As has been said: they are a good support character. A useful cohort perhaps ?

They do get used in Gestalts where they are a reasonable choice for a passive class.

Person_Man
2010-06-21, 09:22 AM
Basic issues:

3/4 BAB, so no Power Attack combos.
No spells/psionics/etc.
Breath weapon is nice, but less effective then most spells/etc, and far weaker then the Dragonfire Adept.
Aura's scale poorly.
Abilities are "always on." Unless you're playing in the World's Largest Dungeon, from a metagame perspective, this is a bad thing. If your party is always 10% stronger because you're standing near them, your DM can just increase the difficulty of all his encounters by 10%.


It's an ok backup character in a non-optimized group. But nothing to write home about.

Optimystik
2010-06-21, 09:54 AM
Abilities are "always on." Unless you're playing in the World's Largest Dungeon, from a metagame perspective, this is a bad thing. If your party is always 10% stronger because you're standing near them, your DM can just increase the difficulty of all his encounters by 10%.



I consider this their biggest disadvantage, because it's so insidious; Many DMs may not even realize they're doing it.

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-21, 10:00 AM
I consider this their biggest disadvantage, because it's so insidious; Many DMs may not even realize they're doing it.

It's a fairly common issue, IMO. I recognize myself in this mistake for my early DM "career". :smallconfused: :smallyuk:

Person_Man
2010-06-21, 10:37 AM
I consider this their biggest disadvantage, because it's so insidious; Many DMs may not even realize they're doing it.

Pretty much. A Wizard can cast a single battlefield control or defensive buff spell and then stands in the background with his crossbow or whatnot, acting "useless" for easy and moderately hard combats while the "continuous" classes bare all the risk of death. And then when a real challenge comes up, the Wizard has a dozen different uber options to choose from to that he can use to save the day. So in effect, he's never really challenged unless his resources are severely diminished, and even then he can draw upon wands and magic items. But everyone at the table thinks about how he spends half of his actions doing 1d6 damage, and thus don't realize what's going on.

DMing around the problem isn't difficult. You just ask your players to be on roughly the same tier and/or help the newb players by giving them better treasure and/or create encounters with a wider variety of challenges. (For me, everyone is ideally playing a Tier 3ish class, and I've written all of the important encounters specifically to challenge them). But you have to be aware of the problem to fix it.