The Shaman’s Handbook is the first in Green Ronin Publishing’s Master Class line of d20 supplementary products meant for use with
Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition. This 80 page soft-cover presents a complete, new basic character class—the shaman—along with all of the necessary rules needed to use it, as well as a few prestige classes that are commonly associated with the shaman and a primer on the shamanistic paradigm. At all times, the book focuses upon playability and ease of use for player and Game Master alike.
The book’s introduction spells out what the shaman archetype is, and why it’s appropriate as a character class: it’s all about being the wise man who knows the ways of the Spirit World, makes nice (or throws down) with the spirits and employs the powers of the Spirit World to do his own thing. Below the introduction the author spells out what the book is about and how to use it through the summarizing of the book’s contents, chapter by chapter, with some recommendations for first-time users.
After that, the book gets straight to the point. The shaman character class as described here is a divine spell-caster with the power to rebuke and command spirits. The shaman receives domains based upon his totems, but he receives only the bonus spells and not the granted powers. Otherwise, the shaman’s spell-casting is that of a divine sorcerer; the shaman has a limited number of known spells, but he can choose what to cast when he casts. (Yes, this means that if a shaman spontaneously casts a spell modified by one or more metamagic feats, then the spell takes a full-round action to cast it.) The shaman has: the saves of a sorcerer, the hit die of a druid or cleric, is automatically illiterate like a barbarian (and may buy that off just the same way), the skill points of a bard and a skill list focused upon those skills based upon the mental stats. He’s proficient in all simple weapons, light and medium armor; he prefers non-metal gear. At 1st level, again at 5th and every five class levels thereafter the shaman much observe a taboo at all times or (like a druid) lose all powers for 24 hours. He may take a spirit familiar at 4th level, which works much like any other. The shaman (again, like a bard) may never be lawful, or he becomes an ex-shaman and loses all powers.
Sounds neat, yes? I see this as a viable substitute for both the cleric and druid classes, as well as a practical adjunct to both of them. The multi-classing options are obvious, and they are addressed in the first chapter. The only one of note is that clerics can’t become shaman (or vice versa) without become ex-clerics/ex-shaman; the cleric represents a way of religion that is anathema to the shamanistic paradigm by default. (Of course, paladins and monks are also poor multi-classing choices due to alignment restrictions.) The GM may employ Rule Zero to get around this if he likes, but I don’t mind things as presented.
After presenting the shaman class, the first chapter goes on to describe a few prestige classes associated with the shaman class. These are: the dreamer, ghost guide, healer, skin-changer, spirit hunter and spirit master. The thing that I liked about these classes is that they aren’t built solely for use by a shaman character. Shaman characters can make decent (or better) use of all of them, but some are clearly bad choices and others are good ones.
Shaman characters should avoid the dreamer and spirit hunter prestige classes. Why? Neither class includes caster progression. The dreamer has a specialized spell list with a separate progression, so it’s good for characters who weren’t spell-casters before. (Such as rogues or rangers who become assassins.) The spirit hunter is a combatant specialized in throwing down with spirits, so it’s best used by classes such as rangers or paladins who seek to specialize in dealing with such creatures. (A good example of such a class is the hunter of the dead prestige class from Wizards’ Defenders of the Faith.) These are good for characters that cast spells as a sideline or none at all, but very bad for those who are primarily spell-casters; this includes any character who wants to be solely or primarily a shaman.
This means that the other prestige classes are far more attractive options, because all of them possess full caster progression. The ghost guide is a five-level class, which makes it a good choice for a shaman character who doesn’t want to diverge from developing his core competencies for long, but it’s far better for a cleric of the appropriate god. (For the Greyhawk crowd, this is a perfect prestige class for Wee Jas clerics who aren’t evil; for the Scarred Lands crowd this would be worth incorporating into Hollowfaust’s society.) It’s mostly about conducting spiritual combat against the undead, corporeal or not, but its best powers are against the incorporeal.
The healer is another class that’s a good choice for shaman seeking to specialize in their healing aspects, but again it’s a better choice for a cleric or druid; it’s not that the shaman gets screwed, but rather the synergy between the cleric/druid classes and the healer prestige class is superior. (This is especially so if the herbalism rules from Wizards’ Masters of the Wild is employed.) The skin-changer is what the shifter (again, from Masters of the Wild) should’ve been: a prestige class that focused upon development of the wild shape ability, but not at the expense of improving one’s power as a spell-caster. (Why? Because it’s a rare player-character that doesn’t need to use either druidic wild shape or a spell to qualify for either prestige class.) Here the shaman is just as valid a choice as the druid, cleric, ranger, etc. and you can emulate Beorn (from The Hobbit) and those decent from him with this class. I like this one best.
Finally there is the spirit master, and I see a class that—like the skin-changer—is useable by all spell-casters equally, favoring none. The abilities are all about the calling, binding and controlling of spirits and the undead. If this doesn’t call forth (pun intended) visions of magic circles and tense confrontations with powerful otherworldly beings, then naught shall do so. This isn’t the class for those seeking Final Fantasy style summoning; this is for those seeking to be that spell-caster who’s big on magic circles and calling up major demons or elementals. It’s a sweet class, much like the loremaster in my opinion, in that it nicely allows the character to focus upon one facet of the spell-caster archetype without crippling his development as a spell-caster. (That makes the class undesirable because it makes such characters unviable at high levels.)
The first chapter also provides just enough information about real shamanic practices to whet the appetite to learn more elsewhere, as well as inspire the reader as to how to play his shaman character. I stress that this is strictly thumbnail information; if you want more than that, hit a library. It covers the use of shaman characters in Freeport, and it covers the inclusion of shaman in a campaign; GMs will appreciate this brief, direct and useful information.
In the second chapter the reader sees new rules and adaptations of existing rules meant to cover the shaman and the shamanic paradigm. This is very brief—four pages—so it isn’t hard to digest and assimilate. There are three new skills: Dreaming (Wis/Trained Only), a lucid dreaming skill; Spirit Empathy (Cha/Trained Only/Shaman Only), a spirit version of Diplomacy; Trance (Wis/Trained Only), which allows a character to focus one’s mind and control the body’s automatic functions (including the ability to feign death). These skills, if used, should added as class skills to some of the other classes—Trance ought to on the monk skill list, for example—and not kept to shaman characters. A new category of Knowledge (Spirit World) is here as a synonym for Knowledge (The Planes); Perform gets a new use of synergy for shaman characters.
The new feats here are nothing unusual. Some of them are new item creation feats that go well with the shamanic paradigm, such as Craft Charm or Craft Fetish, and a few are just good general feats—Animal Friend or Battle Cry—but most of them are meant for use with shaman characters or spell-casters in general. There is a note about shaman characters that choose the Leadership feat, in that some of those NPCs attracted may be spirits instead of mortal creatures. While there isn’t a lot to write home about—many of the feats derived from Extra Turning appear here in forms appropriate for use by shaman characters, for example—neither is there anything that appears to be problematic. As no news is good news, all I can say here is that these feats are appropriately balanced.
The third chapter has the shaman spell list, description of new spells and new magical items are all here. The spell list has a mixture of cleric and druid spells, with a few sorcerer/wizard spells for flavor, which focuses upon utilitarian magic and interaction with spirits. (You won’t be blasting things with fireballs as a shaman.) There are a few direct damage spells, and they are decent ones; spirit dart and spirit spear work much like magic missile (but targets of the former pair may make a Will save for half damage). The confront (x) spirit spells are great ways to get the shamanic paradigm across, as it puts the shaman into combat with a spirit creature representing the force that the shaman wants to destroy; it can be a disease, a spell or a curse. The journey of (x) spells are also good spells for the same reason.
The new magic items are fetishes (either scroll equivalents or wand equivalents depending upon the shaman’s skill), charms (potion equivalents) and tattoos (take up magic item slots as they function as item equivalents). Tattoos are neat in that, like real ones, they may be either temporary or permanent; a shaman wishing for either version must have the Enchant Tattoo feat and either Brew Potion (temporary) or the correct Craft Item feat (permanent). They also make wands, staves and rods so the book also includes sample items appropriate to these (and other) item creation feats. Many of the sample items (again) are appropriate to the paradigm represented by the shaman. Again, I see nothing wrong and a lot that’s good here; nicely done.
The fourth chapter is another brief one that describes the common elements of shamanic cosmology, and how to make use of it in a campaign. Throughout the chapter are notes on how the shamanic cosmology interacts with the Great Wheel cosmology presented in Wizards’ Manual of the Planes. (Although the specific terms used in the Wizards’ book are not used here, it shouldn’t be hard to figure out how those specific terms apply.) The emphasis on brief, practical descriptions is a good decision; anything that adds value to a gamer’s experience is a very good thing, and it should be encouraged.
The fifth and final chapter relates to the fourth because it deals with spirits. It introduces the spirit template, the exalted beast template and the beast lord template. It also goes on to describe which creatures from the Monster Manual count as spirits, and thus become subject to a shaman’s powers over spirits. Sample template creatures, and a few wholly new monsters, also appear here: spirit ogre mage, disease spirit, fetch, possessing fiend, exalted wolf, Sneer (Lord of Rats) and Meerahr (Lady of Cats). This is the capstone of the book, and what makes it very worthwhile for GMs to pick up a copy; new monsters and templates are always a good thing, and these have value far beyond their connection to shaman characters. There’s nothing wonky about these things, aside from my noting that the beast lord template could do with some elements from Wizards’ Deities & Demigods. (I’m aware that this can’t be done legally until D&DG enters the SRD, but it could be house-ruled in the meantime.)
Finally, the appendices at the end have all of the necessary class tables as well as a master copy of a shaman-specific page for use with Green Ronin’s d20 Character Folio product.
If you’re looking for a one-stop addition that covers the shaman archetype, this is exactly what you’re looking for. Like a well-designed spell or feat, The Shaman’s Handbook has good reasons to get it (as described immediately above) and not to do so (if you don’t, feel free to skip this book). I don’t regret the purchase, and I doubt that anyone else who gets this book will regret it either. I look forward to the future books in the series.
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