Editing Spirit Shaman (section)

==Playing a Spirit Shaman==
Is the class worth it? It depends, while it does have more spells per day the class actually casts spontaneously like a [[Sorcerer]] does and in fact only knows a tiny amount of spells from the Druid list ''(only 3 per spell level in fact)''. Though the Shaman is allowed to change the selection each day by communing with their Spirit Guide, which in theory gives them day to day versatility like a prepared caster. 

Ultimately, the class’s tier depends largely on how strong you view the Druid’s spelllist as being. Druid has always been considered the weakest of the core full casters in terms of raw casting since most of its unique spells only work against a certain creature type (animal) that’s rare at higher levels, depend on certain parts of terrain (natural plants tend to be quite rare deep in a dungeon), or buff the animal companion a Spirit Shaman doesn’t have. While Druid has some standouts and things that are otherwise split between the Wizard and Cleric, they tend to come at a higher level than either and get their Tier 1 stats from the class features they have combined with their casting than just the casting on its own. On the plus side, Druids are core full casters and get new spells in almost every 3E book while the Spirit Shaman knows all of them. This means opinions tend to skew based on how much splat is dug through for shiny Druid spells or ways to expand the class list. Since the [[Tier System|tier system]] was designed to base a class primarily on core and the book it came in instead of whatever the munchkin dragged in (with the occasional second placement if a single thing greatly impacts the class’s performance), this means the Spirit Shaman tends to get placed down in Tier 2 or even Tier 3 (but mostly 2).

As for a dip level for those that just want some minor spellcasting powers without interrupting their primary class progression much, a single level or two of Spirit Shaman does not you any amount of low level freedom that a different class could not already give you either. It really depends upon your attitude to the Spirit world in your campaign then. But if you're in it for the class features, then you're better served remaining in this class to it's completion, since the class features are it's strong suit.


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