Dungeons & Delvers: Shaman Alpha

Just uploaded a kind of alpha PDF for the Dungeons & Delvers shaman class (barebones, no art yet). If you've gotten the PDFs already, it's in the same folder.

Kind of a tricky class to design. We wanted to keep it as distinct from the cleric and druid as possible, beyond simply using Charisma for it's "spellcasting stat". While some talents are similar, recycled, or even reskins (where it makes sense), there's a lot that's different.

Instead of Domains or Circles, you've got Spirits. Each Spirit gives you an ability, and is required for some talents (ie, you need Fire Spirit for Exhalation of Ashes). At any given time, you can only have one Spirit "active", meaning that any other Spirits are dormant, and you don't have access to its talent, or any that require it.

You can swap these out on a round-by-round basis, and at higher levels can have more than one active at a time (every 5 levels lets you have another active simultaneously).

The other limitation is that some talents require you to "Release" the Spirit so it can do something. During this time you also lose access to the Spirit and related talents, though can opt to call upon another during this time. The other downside is that the spirit can be attacked, but any damage it takes goes to you.

So, there's more juggling going on, here, but there are also a bunch of talents that don't require a Spirit at all (like Astral Projection and Spirit Walk). So, if you want to keep things simple, you can mitigate or even avoid it entirely. It's also very easy to bind your Spirits to totems and let other people use them. Like making limited use, temporary magic items.

Oh, while the default concept is a healer, you can choose a few talents to become a very capable warrior.

There's a lot there in the 15 pages. Not everything (we have a Lightning Spirit tree, and ideas for masterwork totems/masks), but we want to give people a chance to look at it, offer any feedback or ideas before going too far. Specifically anything that might be "broken", unclear, or missing from the core concept. Also any spirits you think we should include.