Sha'ir vs Wizard vs Sorcerer

[Ramza00]

Whats your opinion of the Sha'ir an arcane base class from Dragon Compedium/Dragon 315. It is an elemental/genie theme arcane caster with a unique way of casting spells.

They have a gen familiar, to cast a spell they have to send out the familiar to retrieve the spell knowledge from the plains. The familiar then makes a diplomacy check against dc 20 (though each Sha'ir level gives you a bonus of +1, each level of spell gives you a -2 to the check, plus other modifiers)

If it is a "spells known" (better phrased as spells easily retrievable), it takes only a few rounds to retrieve the spell
If it is a "spell unknown" it takes a few minutes to retrieve the spell
If it is a domain spell from a special list of domains it takes a few hours to retrieve the spell.

The spell remains in their knowledge after retrieval for a number of hours equal to the Sha'ir class level.

Their spells per day is a mix between the wizard and the sorcerer. They can cast spells per day at the same pace of a wizard, they gain spells known at the speed of a sorcerer gets (though 1 less of the higher level spells at lvl 4, 6, 8, etc), spells per day max out at 5 per level plus bonus spells, and their spells known max out at 9 per level (though you get your 9th 1st lvl spell known at lvl 13 thus lots of lower level spells).

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It seems to combine the combination of versatility of a wizard and a sorcerer, after lvl 6+ (when the spells prepared last in your mind for a several hours)

Whats your opinion of it?

[Mr. Friendly]

I haven't really had a chance to look over the 3e+ Sha'ir but I absolutely loved the class in 2e. It was one of the most interesting spellcasters to date. It sounds like they pretty well retained the abilities of it.

To be fair though you should have included the Warlock/Dragonfire Adept since they represent the other spectrum of casting: Extremely limited, but whenever you want, so I guess they are just an extreme extension of the Sorcerer.

[Ramza00]

To be fair though you should have included the Warlock/Dragonfire Adept since they represent the other spectrum of casting: Extremely limited, but whenever you want, so I guess they are just an extreme extension of the Sorcerer.
I was comparing the class mechanic wise and mechanic wie it has nothing in common with the warlock/dragonfire adept. It seems a mix of the wizard, sorcerer, and spirit shaman mechanically (and what spells you replicate).

[WhyBother]

I've never taken a look at the 3rd edition Sha'ir (in fact, now that I know it exists I'm going to have to look it up), but I was always of two minds about the Al-Qadim Sha'ir. On the one hand the flavor of the class was interesting, but on the other hand, it made it difficult to behave in the manner I typically think of a caster behaving. (It's been a while, so take what follows with a grain of salt.)

For example, to get common spells (as the class referred to well-known wizard spells), you still had to wait something like 1d6+1 rounds, and then you only had 3 rounds to cast a spell brought back to you. That meant battlefield control was largely out, blasting was sometimes possible, and the Sha'ir's best uses were for getting around annoying, non-combat obstacles. He could serve in lieu of a priest (because he could retrieve priest spells) between combats, but there was always that chance you would irritate a deity whom your familiar had stolen the spell from, and have to fight another monster w/o XP gains. Since you have access to pretty much every spell in the game at some level, the drawbacks are necessary to balance it out, but they still always seemed like they were holding you back.

I'm glad they updated it to 3rd. I was skimming over an Al-Qadim book the other night, and was even considering cobbling together a homebrew Sha'ir based on some combo of warlock/binder/wizard abilities. A real update should be a lot easier to work with.

[Kurald Galain]

I think there are too many caster base classes.

Seriously, after incarnum, and tome of magic, and PHB2, and whatever gets thrown into the dragon, there must be over a dozen arcane caster classes, not counting gishes. WOTC should pick two or three methods and stick with them.

[Tengu]

I personally don't see what's bad in this diversity. It makes sense that different cultures have different ways of casting spells.

[Ramza00]

well "spells known" now makes the wait 1d4+Spell Level, and the spell lasts for Class Level Hours, so it doesn't seem to have the problem you listed for the 2.x version.

Also no irritating diety problems, just a simple diplomacy check, which for a cha based caster shouldn't be much of a problem (since you can take 10) and your familar shares your ranks in diplomacy.

Also your familar is an outsider, which opens some Alter Self/Polymorph Cheese.

[Kurald Galain]

I personally don't see what's bad in this diversity. It makes sense that different cultures have different ways of casting spells.

Beacuse it is a highly impractical approach to create a new system for each different culture in the world.

[Ramza00]

Beacuse it is a highly impractical approach to create a new system for each different culture in the world.

then don't have it in your campaign

just see this class as a "variant" from UA, just like spell points or recharge magic. Some people like options, and unlike other base classes it didn't really require more work on the designer part, it is the same spell list, but just done differently as the wizard/sorc.

[Kurald Galain]

then don't have it in your campaign

Well, obviously, I don't. But since you started this thread asking for people's opinion, I wonder why you are now responding condescendingly to people whose opinion doesn't coincide with your own?

[Ramza00]

Well, obviously, I don't. But since you started this thread asking for people's opinion, I wonder why you are now responding condescendingly to people whose opinion doesn't coincide with your own?

no silly, I asked your opinion on this specific base class, you change the subject (and are now hijacking this thread) about how we don't need another base class and we have too many caster classes already, you then started talking about MoI and ToB.

[CASTLEMIKE]

I'd like the Dragon Shair class if it used the Shaman class spellcasting mechanic.