Planar Shepherd Shamanzilla build

[winteranfang]

Hi, I graduated from university, and came to my homehown. Now I cannot play D&D because all my friends are in different city. So I decided to write a generic setting and its NPCs in my leissure times. Important one of them is a shaman named Araslan Atasagun.

This is my first thread and first character build in the internet. I wrote an article in another website but it is not a forum, so i cannot get any respones. I wonder if there are any mistakes on the build. I would be grateful if you could check my work.

I used other handbooks such as planar shepherd, ubercharger, shaman and much more handbooks. Thanks to the original writers.
I will simply copy and paste my build form the original website with some adjustments.

"This is an optimized build in which the character is actually a cleric, druid, monk, charging fighter and much more.

Shaman is a great class which has turn/rebuke undead, ability to get CHA to saves, animal companion, monk-like fighting abilities. It is a potent class for the planar shepherd PrC if taken correct feats and other prestige classes."

Here is the build:

Race: NG Human worshipping spirits of War, Spell and Nature.
Stats (I rolled): STR: 13 DEX: 12 CON: 17 INT: 13 WIS: 18 CHA: 16

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Level	Class	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Feats	Class Features
1st	Lion Totem Barbarian 1	+1	+2	+0	+0	Power Attack (human), Improved Sunder (1st)	Lion Totem ACF, Illiteracy, Rage 1/day
2nd	Shaman 1	+1	+2	+0	+2	Extend Spell (Planning domain), Improved Unarmed Strike (Shaman 1st)	Animal Companion
3rd	Shaman 2	+2	+2	+0	+3	Favored of The Companions (3rd), Persistent Spell (flaw)	Spirit Sight
4th	Shaman 3	+3	+3	+0	+3	Divine Metamagic (Persistent Spell) (flaw)	Turn Undead
5th	Shaman 4	+4	+3	+0	+4	Improved Grapple (Shaman 4th)
6th	Shaman 5	+4	+3	+0	+4	Spontaneous Summoner (6th)*, Great Fortitude (Belt of Endurance)	Spirit's Favor
7th	Fist of the Forest 1	+5	+5	+3	+4		AC Bonus, Feral trance 1/day, Fast movement, primal living
8th	Lion of Talisid 1	+5	+7	+3	+6		Animal Companion, Lion's Courage
9th	Lion of Talisid 2	+6/+1	+8	+3	+7	Greensinger Initiate (9th)*	Scent
10th	Lion of Talisid 3	+7/+2	+8	+4	+7		Wild shape (1/day)
11th	Planar Shepherd 1	+7/+2	+10	+4	+9		Animal Companion, Planar Attunement, Wild Shape (2/day)
12th	Planar Shepherd 2	+8/+3	+11	+4	+10	Natural Spell (12th)	Detect Manifest Zone, Wild Shape (3/day)
13th	Planar Shepherd 3	+9/+4	+11	+5	+10		Wild Shape (Magical Beast and Large)
14th	Planar Shepherd 4	+10/+5	+12	+5	+11		Plane Shift 1/day
15th	Planar Shepherd 5	+10/+5	+12	+5	+11	Leap Attack (15th)	Planar Bubble 1/day, Wild Shape (4/day)
16th	Planar Shepherd 6	+11/+6/+1	+13	+6	+12		Wild Shape (Tiny)
17th	Planar Shepherd 7	+12/+7/+2	+13	+6	+12		Intensify Manifest Zone
18th	Planar Shepherd 8	+13/+8/+3	+14	+6	+13	Combat Brute (18th)	Plane Shift 2/day
19th	Planar Shepherd 9	+13/+8/+3	+14	+7	+13		Wild Shape (Elemental or Outsider)
20th	Planar Shepherd 10	+14/+9/+4	+15	+7	+14		Planar Bubble 3/day, Planar Self

*Spontaneous Summoning and Greensinger Initiate feats are for the requirements of the Planar Shepherd.

Item List:

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Belt (or any available slot item) of Magnificence +6, Candle of Invocation, Ankh of Ascension, Bead of Karma, Orange Ioun Stone, Monk's Belt, Monk's Tattoo, Skin of Kaletor, Wild Shape Amulet, Robe of the Beast (This is the robe version of the item Armor of the Beast, as the character does not wear any armor), Ring of the Beast, Mantle of the Beast, Ring of Enduring Arcana..

Strategies:

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Choose Hero and Spell domain for shaman. In order to enter Lion of Talisid level, the character shall cast Substitute Domain spell to gain Knowledge domain. This provides character obtaining Knowledge (nature) and burning ranks on the skill. After taking one level of Lion of Talisid, you can have the original domain of yours, whether Hero or Spell domain.

There are important spells to persist, so ready your Nightsticks: Greater Visage of the Deity, Owl's Insight (to persist this, use Reach Spell Rod or something), Giant Size, Bite of the Werebear (I prefer the name Bite of the Werelion for role-playing, as the character is from lion tribe barbarians)

These spells have 1 Hour/level duration, so simply cast them on your character: Luminous Armor (cast afterward Lesser Restoration to erase ability damage), Greater Mighty Wallop (access this via Greater Anyspell or Miracle)

Primal X and Heart of X spells are good. Take them to increase your skills and speed.

Superior Resistance and Energy Immunity spells are always good.

Your effective wild shape level is 13 at the character level 20. Use wild shape amulet (+4 level), Skin of Kaletor (+4 level) and trappings of the beast (robe, ring and mantle) (+1 level) to increase it to a effective wild shape level of 22. Use Wilding Clasp for important items not getting melt in the wild shape. Then turn into a Solar Angel (This is what the Planar Shepherd is for). Now, you have great immunities and spell-like abilities such as Wish 1/day.

After wild shaping into the Solar Angel (see above), use your items to boost CL as much as possible (the base CL is 18 at 20 level). Then persist Owl's Insight that grants 1/2 your CL insight bonus to WIS. You must have at least 50 WIS score. This increases your will saves, AC, important skills such as spot, sense motive and listen. You get huge amounts of bonus spells. Increased CL and Ring of Enduring Arcana will also help you in terms of getting dispelled.

Persist Bite of the Werebear and Greater Visage of Deity to gain massive amount of STR, DEX, CON and Natural AC. Then finally persist Giant Size (the 8th level spell from the Hero domain). If you do not want to walk at Colossal size whole day, use Solar's Change Shape ability to suppress the Colossal size gain Medium/Small form of yours.

Your unarmed damage will be 2d6 with the Monk's belt and Monk's Tattoo (See the Shaman update for 3.5e in Dragon 318). Greater Mighty Wallop will get you 12d6 damage (next 5 size category) and this will stack your giant form (64d6 damage for each strike). In the giant and angelic form you get 85 STR, 31 DEX, 50 CON and 41 Natural AC with other stuff. Fist of the Forest get you CON to AC and +2 damage for unarmed strike. Enter rage and feral trance (both 1/day) to improve your stats even greater.

You can also be a charger using your Power Attack, Leap Attack and Combat Brute combining with pounce ability of the barbarian. Persist Divine Power (Cle 4) to close your poor base attack bonus gap.

Now you are Solar Wild Shaping DMM Charger One Punch Man Shamanzilla.

You are better than a Solar Angel: You have all (Ex), (Sp) and (Su) abilities of solar plus your handsomeness (Negotiate with your DM to get Solar's 20 level Cleric Casting).

You are better than the classic druid and planar shepherd: You have 18 animal companion level, 22 wild shape level and 20 shaman-casting level (Note that Spell Compendium says shaman can take cleric and druid spells and domains in this book). Choose your home plane as Ysgard or any good-themed plane (Negotiate with your DM, solar angel may not be suitable for Ysgard). If you can get Ysgard as your home plane, your planar bubble acts as true ressurrector. This is great for role-playing at epic levels. You are the ever-battling shaman and protector of all souls.

You are better than the charger: You can optimize your charging via items or your spells. You have full BAB (persisted divine power) and huge ability scores, AC (Massive Natural AC from the build, CON to AC, WIS to AC. If you also persist Sirine's Grace, you get CHA to AC).

You are far better than a monk: You have 4 (3 without divine power) + 1 (haste) = 5 attacks which deals 5x(64d6+50?) damage. You can combine this damage with charging options to make even better. Monk's Belt is an important magic item. It increases your shaman unarmed damage level, grants WIS to AC. You have high speed from your fist of the forest level and other primal X and Heart of X spell lines.

Anyways, you are shaman. You have 9th level cleric/druid spells, outsider wild shaping, strong animal companion, high AC, saves, ability scores, unarmed damage and much more.

Cons:

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This build uses things from Eberron and Forgotten Realms. DM may not allow taking those PrCs or feats from different settings.

Another problem is Nightstick. Persuade your DM for stacking effects of Nightsticks.

This build is based on Divine Metamagic. DM can be character's bane with antimagic or dispel spells.

Poor number of daily uses of Rage and Feral Trance (both 1/day).

Feat-starved build. You have less feats than Ubercharger. You lack Shock Trooper, for example. If you want, change Improved Sunder and Combat Brute with Improved Bull Rush and Shock Trooper. You cannot do Darkchaos shuffle as you are NG. Persisted Greater Consumptive Field cheese is also impossible for good characters. Bad.

Too many persisted spells. 3 + CHA + nightsticks + reliquary holy symbol probably will not be enough to persist them all. Most impontant ones to persist are Owl's Insight, Giant Size and Bite of the Werebear.

Is this build OK? For example, I am not sure a 20-level characer with wild shape items can take the shape of 22-HD Solar Angel. If there are any mistakes or you think this build is effective/ineffective, please share your thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

[eggynack]

You are better than the classic druid and planar shepherd: You have 18 animal companion level, 22 wild shape level and 20 shaman-casting level (Note that Spell Compendium says shaman can take cleric and druid spells and domains in this book).

This seems pretty clearly untrue on multiple levels. You seem better at punching, sure, but at the cost of a whole lot of casting capacity. You say you get 20th level shaman casting, but I don't see how, and that's certainly not available for most of your career due to dropped caster levels. Your contention that the spell compendium grants all the cleric and druid spells in its pages appears blatantly false. The book says you should not get all those spells, and the fact that anything you do get is DM permission based is a bit tricky in terms of optimization. Solar form is good, but you get it super late, at level 19, when it's mostly irrelevant.

If you did something super straightforward, like druid 5/planar shepherd 10/druid 5, you'd be more powerful in most ways that count, and across more levels at that. You'd have consistently better casting, better wild shape, a better animal companion, and earlier access to everything that planar shepherd offers. You get shapechange two levels before your posted build gets solar forms, siabrie summoning for impersonal access to shapechange four levels earlier, and outsider wild shape six levels earlier. Even if the casting progressions were identical, druids have a better list, and the progressions are decidedly not identical. The only thing shaman seems to bring to the table is turn undead, and there're other ways to get turn undead. Holt warden into contemplative into sacred exorcist is right there, and you're still ahead of your current build on planar shepherd.