Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Rechan 09-30-07, 08:05 PM	Anyone created resources for D Shammie builds?
jradd777 09-30-07, 11:02 PM	Do you mean books other than PHB II? Because I haven't seen much but there's extra options in books like Dragon Magic and stuff like that.
zeratulcraft 09-30-07, 11:05 PM	Pretty sure they meant stuff like the Conjurer's Handbook and the like that float around Char Ops. And no, haven't seen any.
Rechan 09-30-07, 11:08 PM	I mean by way of threads that suggest optimal builds and such. Like the Warlock handbook and such.
Chibichibiko 10-01-07, 03:43 AM	I play one in an Eberron campaign I'm in now. Though I don't consider myself an authority, I can relate my opinion. Stats: Con is hot. I considered it my #1 stat, as it not only improves hit points, it boosts the saving throw of the breath weapon. Charisma is possibly #2, depending on how much healing you have floating around your party. Wisdom is pretty worthless, as is Int (your skills aren't incredible anyways, but 13 for some feats is occasionally good). Combat stats depend on how you build yourself for combat, naturally. Strongest races for DS: Human and Dwarf. These really don't need much commenting. Dwarves make great meat shields, and humans multiclass well. Classes: I strongly recommend a single level in multiclassing (non caster) to get something that will better fill your selected party role. I took a level in fighter, as our party had no tank and it offered me weapon and armor proficiencies as well as a bonus feat. I could have done without them, but the party was a bit strange and having the extra options of knowing every weapon made gear selection less chancy (no one in the group was proficient in marshal). If we had a meat shield and I hadn't picked a dwarf, I might have picked a level in bard or barbarian. Your feats: This is where the DS is tricky. You can't just say 'this is best,' because the DS is a team player. You are going to be trying to keep yourself in aura range of many of your party members, which means you're in harm's way much of the time. However, how you fill that harm's way depends on who you work with. Consider one of the regulars in your group your buddy, and augment them as best you can. Otherwise, if your group has a gaping hole, consider some feats that will help you assume that role. DS make fair tanks, mediocre splashers, decent, and fair crowd control if the right feats are selected. Some of my favorites are: Double Aura (Dragon Magic) Combat Reflexes+Robilar's Gambit (PHBII) (The above two choices are very good. 2x the auras = 2x the reason for keeping you around. Robilar's is a great way of protecting yourself from a full attack--by getting a full attack right back during their full attack, each attack at your full BAB, I think). Endurance+indomitable Soul+Steadfast Determination (PHBII) Clinging Breath (Draconomicon) Quicken Breath (Draconomicon) Recover Breath (Draconomicon) Heighten Breath (Draconomicon) As always, EWP: Weapon chain is a strong choice for any melee combatant. The reason there isn't a definitive listing for the DS's choices is mainly that the DS has little built-in direction. You have a cool breath weapon, and with Draconomicon feats you can use it in many different ways. But there's a good chance that you'll only use it once per combat, and the rest of the time you'll be doing something else. You need to specialize for what you're doing in between those breaths just as much as you specialize for the breaths. Consistant vs. Constant I typically play the breath as a one-trick pony, dumping HUGE penalties on it and quickening it such that It won't show up for another minute or so, but is very hard to save vs. and continues to damage over time. For instance, at 16th DS level, with a +10 Con modifier (dwarf, 20 base con, +6 amulet, 4 ups in con, clinging breath x2, quicken breath, heighten breath), I can toss out a DC 38 8d6 breath that will deal 4d6 damage the next round and 2d6 the round after-- as a free action. Doing this prevents the use of the breath weapon for an additional 1d4+16 rounds, but at that DC, I can count on it doing its damage (14d6 over 3 rounds). Not incredible, but it certainly boosts my combat effectiveness. If I'm less worried about the save DC, that trick would probably just be Clinging x1, quickened (1d4+5 rounds, 8d6+4d6 free action, DC=28). The other way to look at the breath weapon is as a major role in combat. For this, you'd want a metabreath feat or two, but heighten breath isn't for this style, nor is quicken. replace each with recover breath and you have, with the same character above, a (8d6+4d6+2d6 DC28) every 1d4 rounds. Somehow, I'm not sure this is really answering the question as asked, but what it really comes down to is this: Get Double aura if your DM will let you, it's phenomenal. Get a metabreath feat or two (again, if your DM will let you), but don't spend every feat on your breath weapon, as you'll have to do something between breaths and you don't want to just sit there picking your nose. On that note, breathing constantly has its drawbacks. First, You're not doing much more damage than if you had simply attacked (especially a full attack at later levels). The nice part of the DS is that you can pretty much count on your breath not hurting your allies (much) if you choose to have your elemental resistance aura up, so maneuvering is often more about how to maximize damage vs. opponents than how to avoid damaging friends. If you take a dragonblooded race (and your DM lets you), there are additional options in Races of the Dragon (entangling exaltation).
Rechan 10-01-07, 04:31 AM	Thank you, Chibichibiko! That's insightful. :) Do you have any opinions on PrCs? As it stands, my party is pretty Open right now. We have the Fighter and Blaster and Rogue taken care of, one slot Undecided (character died) and me. I'm thinking of either going secondary combatant. My breath weapon (I want to go with a cone) would necessitate me being in some form of combat, or at least closer to the fighter and rogue type, so if I focused on ranged attacks, I'd easily get someone with a melee weapon in my face. I'm definitely looking at Entangling Exhaltation. Race-wise, I'm leery. Anything with a Con adjustment does either: -2 to Cha or -2 to Str, either of which are fairly important in this case. I've looked at the Dragonblooded, but the thing of it is, with the DB, I either gain some Wings from them (which would increase the cost of armor, and I can only glide really), or a Breath Weapon which makes the DB a little more redundant (Unless I focus my feats on breath, and thus pulling off the 14d6 lasting blast you listed above twice in a combat). What's also bad is that the DB makes the extra feat for a human non-accessable. The real problem for me is the 28 pointbuy. So I can't really have an awesome Con, Cha, AND combat stat. To pull off the Combat Reflexes/etc, I'd need a decent dex. So I think I might be better off going with Str.
Garonak 10-01-07, 09:37 AM	The two dragon shamans I've been around was built like this: Wood Elf Dragonborn(Breath weapon version) Ranger 1/Dragon Shaman (Brass), mainly melee, but fair with a bow. The thing about breathweapon for Dragonborn is that you can choose the energy type, so that if a creature is immune to fire (Brass dragon) you can just blast it with cold or whatever. The other was a Neraph (Planar Handbook) Dragon Shaman/Fighter focusing on support. Reach weapon and animated shield (with shield feats) made this a pretty powerful second line fighter. The most important thing to consider when you put up you're char is what auras to choose. With Dragon Magic there comes several more auras to choose from (plus a feat that lets you have two auras up at the same time). The ones I have found useful is: Senses, Vigor, Energy Shield and Power. You should also consider the Draconic Invocation class variant from Dragon Magic. It let's you choose a Least Draconic Invocation (from the same book) that you can cast at will (standard action). PrC: Dragon Lord could be a nice one, continues your aura progress and gives you some nice bonuses with cohorts. If you go that way you should also consider Dragon Cohort feat which gives you a draconic cohort (the Neraph in my group chose a young Brass Dragon Dragonfire Adept). As for races: Shield Dwarf is nice, but with the cha penalty it can be a bit annoying. A Draconic Shield Dwarf is better, +2 str, +4 con, +'s on skills, ac and saves A Draconic Gold Dwarf is even better: +2 str, -2 dex, +4 con, +2 cha
Rechan 10-01-07, 10:51 AM	For races, I'm generally avoiding going for the munchkin route of "This subrace gives expert pluses, and let's go with Dragonborn for more!" I just feel like a creep doing that. :) If I go with the Shammy, I will definitely be going for second-tier fighter. I'll be focusing on either Damage Output or Defense auras first (Vigor is a must, given how our group operates), and the Touch of Vitality I need to not dismiss. Healing is important. I want to grab Entangling Exhalation, but I know that would eat one of my feats if I'm going to be fighting.
Chibichibiko 10-01-07, 01:30 PM	Since your party seems low on healing, I'd agree that gimping Cha is dangerous. Similarly, since your party has a fighter and rogue, you're pretty free to stat-up how you please. As to combat builds, you might just consider going the longspear route and being done with it. You'll likely have other combatants keeping foes busy enough that foes being 'in your face' isn't such a huge issue, especially with entangling exaltation (which does require a dragonblood subtype race, btw. There are additional dragonblooded races available in Dragon Magic. The major reason to take a Dragonblooded race really is entangling exaltation, though). PrC's are a bit of a wildcard. The dragon shaman really is a party-buff kind of class at heart, and every two levels elsewhere that you take, you lose breath damage. So if you consider a simple 2-4 level investment in a PRC, you're losing 1-2d6 breath damage, 30 ft. on your cone range, 1 point on your aura, and maybe a point of natural armor. This can be a fair trade, depending on what you're doing. If you take my recommendation to multiclass at least one level into another class to better fit your role, most of the non-caster Prc's become available. If you have access to just about anything, then just treat your dragon shaman class as the trick that revolves around the PrC, not the other way around. Generally, I find that the more you want to treat your breath weapon as a major facet of your arsenel, the less you want to multiclass.
Rechan 10-01-07, 01:41 PM	As to combat builds, you might just consider going the longspear route and being done with it. Yeah, I like the longspear. But I want to be able to do some decent damage. I want to murderize some people! There are additional dragonblooded races available in Dragon Magic. The major reason to take a Dragonblooded race really is entangling exaltation, though). I didn't see any RACES in Dragon Magic. I did see the Dragon Heritage feat. PrC's are a bit of a wildcard. The dragon shaman really is a party-buff kind of class at heart, and every two levels elsewhere that you take, you lose breath damage. So if you consider a simple 2-4 level investment in a PRC, you're losing 1-2d6 breath damage, 30 ft. on your cone range, 1 point on your aura, and maybe a point of natural armor. This can be a fair trade, depending on what you're doing.[/quote] Actually, I took a look at the Dragon Lord PrC. The nice thing about it is that at level 1, you get a +1 to your auras, and at level 2, you can buff everyone's attacks and ability checks. So at 5th level (when you get the +2 to your auras), your next level is Dragon Lord, you now have +3 to your Auras. Unless it doesn't stack like that. :)
Chibichibiko 10-01-07, 01:48 PM	Vigor's nice and all, but it's not enough, even with touch of vitality at high levels. Your group is definitely going to have to invest in some wands of cure light wounds if it wants to do many encounters per day, because your touch of vitality is going to end up used for more than just healing. From my general experience, Vigor isn't something that's kept up in combat so much as the minute or two after combat, while everyone's making sure all the parts are in the right place. If you're especially worried about auras during combat, just use this general rule of thumb: Vs. 1 or 2 monsters, use the power aura. Vs. more than that, use DR. As to your character, if you're going frontliner--not tank--and are really treating the DS as flavor, I'd take 4 classes of not DS. There's lots of ways to play it as a front-runner, and my advice is to just do something that's fun for you, it's a game, after all.
Chibichibiko 10-01-07, 02:01 PM	Yeah, I like the longspear. But I want to be able to do some decent damage. I want to murderize some people! It's not a bad weapon to murderize with. 1d8 damage is decent, x3 multiplier isn't bad either. It's got reach and you can set it for a charge if you can manipulate combat that way. And even if they're still coming at you after that readied attack, you still have your AoO for them moving through a threatened square. At high level, most of your damage comes from static multipliers, not from the weapon type. The extra 2 damage dealt from wielding a greataxe doesn't make up for the reach or ability to ready vs. charge. If you ever crit-power attack on that readied action, it's lights out. Generally, if you want something more, pick up a weapon chain. There's a reason it's in so many munchkin builds: it provides control. 2 damage lost vs. the greatsword and 1 crit range (2 at later levels) is easily made up by threatening adjascent and 10' squares, getting trip attacks, and just being wierd. This is also heavily dependent upon whether you think you can get magic weapon chains throughout your campaign. Also, races are on pages 5-10 of dragon magic.
Jopustopin 10-30-07, 05:02 PM	I have a friend who's going Dragon Shaman 10/Chameleon 10. He's only right now a level 5 Dragon shaman so I can't really tell you anything about how effective he is going to be, but it sounds like a lot of fun.
warforged51092 10-30-07, 05:38 PM	If you want to be a secondary combatant dragon shaman, i'd go for the Half-Giant. You get +2 con(nice), +2 str(nice for a combatant), and -2 dex(not to bad). You also can be counted as large size whenever it's an advantage (i.e. get to use large weapons w/out penalty :D , bonuses on bull rush, grapple, trip, etc.) Thats just my opinion.
Voran 10-31-07, 06:31 PM	It'd be nice if we could find some consolidated and 'balanced' alternate totem guides for DS's. We've got a few threads in this forum on it I think, but I don't think we've come to a consensus on some stuff yet, like "How OP is using a 'force' breath weapon if you're following a radiant dragon' or such. Aasimar make decent DS's and for the +1 LA things work out quite nicely.
Rechan 10-31-07, 08:39 PM	I tell you, it'd be nice if the DS was structured to be a Shaman of non-dragons. Make totems like Beholder or something. Basically 'Different kind of breath + different ability/immunity gained".
vorpo 11-01-07, 01:24 AM	I tell you, it'd be nice if the DS was structured to be a Shaman of non-dragons. Make totems like Beholder or something. Basically 'Different kind of breath + different ability/immunity gained". I thought somewhere in the book suggested that already....
Satyrus 11-01-07, 04:55 PM	I like playing as a dwarven dragon shaman and I find that the Dwarven Waraxe can be a nice damage dealer in combat with 1d10 damage and a x3 crit but you either have to take a feat since it's a martial weapon or wait to dip into fighter to get it. I also like giving my dwarf a pair of javelins for ranged weapons instead of a bow or something.:D