Quick question.
Until 2 days ago, i was playing a lvl 6 barbarian (3.5 edition). He is now, unfortunately, worm food.
As a result, i am now looking to generate a new character, and was considering a dragon shaman (amongst others). Has anyone played one of these and are they any good? I know a lot of this will be down to personal preference, but i am relatively new to D&D and wanted to see if anyone had any ideas or views on it.
Our group currently consists of a druid, a rouge, and a cleric. All good aligned, apart from the rogue who is slowly shifting evil.
Any thoughts?
The others i had been considering were samurai or knight.
I'm still undecided.
Hmm, weak in what sense?
The others i had been considering were samurai or knight.
I'm still undecided.
Don't play a samurai. If you like the idea just play a fighter with an orioental feel. As for the night, well its okay, but the crusador is better.
Both variations of the samurai are belive to be umongst the worse of the 3.0/3.5 classes.
the knight is alother class that is thought as underpowered but i think it would have alot of synergy with your group.
also, while samurai doesn't get much love, it's for a reason.
Failing that, I'd suggest Fighter as a good class. It gives you a lot of bonus feats, which can be pretty good, porviding you make wise choices.
I'm not sure where one person got 'lower than ranger health' from. Dragon shamans use a d10, and a ranger uses a d8. In addition, your breath weapon DC is based on your con, so it should be one of your higher stats. My dragon shaman actually had con as her highest stat, and ended up being the 'meat shield' of the group (low armor, high hp). Since you have both a druid and a cleric, this is an option for you.
As for a lower BAB, this is a valid concern. You'll need a high strength as well, and to be perfectly honest, you are not intended to be the foremost fighter in the group. You'd make an EXCELLENT off-fighter. In fact, the dragon shaman is best used as the group's 'fifth member', offering additional melee support, versatile buffs, healing and a lot of nifty tricks for use in sticky situations. My dragon shaman actually managed to save two party members with a jump check, a natural 20, and her innate shaman spider climb ability.
One other thing about the dragon shaman: it multiclasses with the barbarian class REALLY well. Because they both rely on high con, even one level of barbarian and the 'extra rage' feat is enough to make you a melee powerhouse. In fact, rage is usually enough to make up for your low BAB.
Overall, I found the dragon shaman class to be extremely versatile, and a valuable addition to my group, at least. It might not work as well for you since you'd be filling the 'front line fighter' spot, but if you want to try out something unique, I say give it a shot. It's a lot more interesting than your standard fighter, in my opinion.
Dragon Shamans can be ok, but -as others have said- it depends upon what the rest of your group expects of you as far as combat power. They have some pretty good buff features, and the concept of the class is pretty cool, but I often thought (when I played one) that it didn't quite seem fully put together as presented in the book. I'm not saying it is a bad class, but if you're asking on the boards about whether or not you want to be one based on power then maybe something else would suit you better.
The Knight is by far one of the most under-rated classes of 3E. The knight really can totally rock as a melee tank. It's a different playstyle than many other melee classes though. A lot of how useful it will be can depend upon the style of the campaign; their mounted combat abilities aren't very useful if you never have an opportunity to be mounted during combat. It's a pretty good class to start in and then branch off into something else if you don't think that you'll be doing a lot of mounted combat. I suppose you could try convincing the druid to wildshape into something you could ride. All things considered, I think that the Knight was somewhat of a prototype for how the 4E fighter's 'stickiness' works. The biggest downside to playing a Knight is that you have to follow the Knight's code, but it's not nearly as restrictive as the paladin's code.
Do you have any background story ideas for your character concept?
What sort of game does your DM run?
What's going on in the campaign?
A little more information might make it easier to give suggestions.
That said, thanks very much to everyone who has made a comment on the subject, It's much appericated.
FYI, i ended up going with the dragon shaman role and so far, I haven't died :P (2 weeks now :D)
I am finding it quite good as it has relatively good base attack and good buffs which affect the whole group.
The only thing annoying me at the moment is that, as a newbie to D&D, i am rapidly finding out fighting fey creatures without a cold iron weapon sucks ass.
(we are doing the "savage tide" campaign, stuck on a boat or on a ****** little island with little hope of buying a cold iron weapon. Bollocks. >.<)