Not long ago I suggested, for the second time in as many years, that shaman's be tweaked to more closely represent the faith for which they serve as zealot. My idea entailed customizing each shaman to match the god/dess he or she followed. That idea was shot down because of the relatively high turnover rate of immortals. So, here is my solution to that problem (mentioned in reply to that previous thread). Customizing tattooed shaman using skills/sups related to the spheres of their deity and non-tattooed shaman using the sphere they follow.

A skill/supp would be coded for each sphere. Maybe more than one would be coded, but for the purposes of this post and in the interest of ease we'll say only one will be coded. Shaman who are tattoed will get all of the skill/sups related to those spheres their deity oversees.

The idea here is to make shaman more unique and the skills are meant to be more utilitarian than anything, though some of them venture outside those boundaries. Some of the skills/sups mentioned above may have little to do with the god who oversees that sphere (Creation = create food/spring when create food/spring has little to do with Khasotholas' brand of creation) and in those instances a new skill/sup may have to be thought up that more closely matches the religion.

Skill/sup ideas:

Earth - Stoneskin

Air - Fly or windwalk like skill that only works where the wind is readily accessible (ie not indoors)

Fire - Resist heat

Water - Water Breathing

Spirit - A morale boost skill or a version of gravesight that can only locate ghosts

Para-Elements - Small chance to pit/etch opponent's gear.

Storms - Call lightning

Seasons - Change weather or protection heat/cold

Death - Makes one aggro to those who are writhing or worse. It'd be like orc berserk only instead of leaping at elves you'd leap at the nearly dead.

Fertility - small regen enhancement

Magic - save v. spell from gear doubled

Reason - Enhanced skill/sup improvement

Truth - resistance to mental

Vivimancy - ability to mend wounds at the cure light level on others

Revelation - enhanced identify a la contact other planes

Music - Discerning ear, harder to land all bard songs on

Healing - Enhances healing powers to "heal" level.

Protection - Allows protection sup to be useful against same aligned

Creation - create food/spring

Mercy - Makes your corpse immune to "get all corpse" for short duration

Strength - giant strength and the ability to wield two-handed weapons in one hand.

Poetry - note to all capabilities

Deception - Sup with small chance of a life's tomb-like affect

Necromancy - resist negative or one of the more utilitarian necro spells (invis to undead, perhaps)

Concealment - ability to conceal armor a la that scarab power

Courage - Enhanced fighting capabilities when ungrouped

Victory - +15% hp every time a PC opponent dies in your presence

Destruction - Morale boost and short duration +10 dam boost every time an opponent dies in your presence.

Rage - doubles frenzy strength

Combat - diminishes pitfalls of fighting against a weapon you don't know

Order - protection against those of a chaotic ethos

Peace - Enhanced "calm" that stops combat and places others in seated position

Chaos - mini-disperse capabilities

War - Much improved fighting capabilities in own or enemy territory (might be cabal-related or race related...ie fire giant shaman whips ass while fighting storm giants on Kiadana)

Balance - immunity pos/neg

Fate - +luck...blanking on ability for this

Honor - mini forceduel. Moves you and 1 opponent to elsewhere in the same area

Dedication - blanking on ability here

Wisdom - Raises wis to level at which you'd get an additional prac per level

Knowledge - enhances int to level at which you'd be learned with fewer pracs

Purity - ability to "cleanse" self

Greed - Allows you to temporarily carry more than you otherwise could when somebody dies in your presence (enhanced corpse looting)

Justice - Retributive strike following death (like orb of Darsylon)

Judgement - protection against death traps, you'd get a warning if you were about to enter one

Love - blanking

Vanity - blanking

Beauty - sets charisma to max possible (23?)

Passion - vastly improved combat capabilities when morale is high

Anger - periodic "free" dispel goods/evils

Covetousness - given steal skill with 10% max cap, peek at 25% max cap

Envy - given steal skill with 25% max cap, peek at 10% max cap

Gluttony - Increases amount needed for "full" feeling and give 1% hp "heal" with every food item eaten.

Lust - blanking

Pride - Enhanced "outfit" so that when defeated and left naked one need not walk around in the buff

Sloth - doubled regen while sleeping

Honesty - blanking

Time - ability to use slow/haste scrolls/wands/staves at half effectiveness

In fact, I came up with something extremely similar for healers about two years ago. There's many reasons not to do it. And I'd do it for healers before shamans, because quite frankly, shamans are pretty great as is. Yes, they could use a few tweaks to tie to their faiths more, you're right. It's something I'll think about, for all empowered classes. It is, however, a massive amount of work, and I'm not sure it's worth the ultimate reward.