A few things that have always troubled me is that good shamans have the ability to plague, something that when i envision as being something reserved for those who participate in dark rituals etc. Its also always bothered me to see a evil healer when you look at the typical idea of being one as evil, there is this idea that evils more act for their own self rather then for others, and the idea of it being a more, strongest survive mentality that makes it odd to think that there would one be devoted to the caring of others. I think it is perfectly accepteable that there is some form of healing capabilities but not to that of the current healing. When i envision a healer it is a self-sacrificing, selfless saint really.

There has also been alot of complaints towards their current format and effectiveness, here i would like to mention i myself have not played one, but have fought many.

However, i thought that my idea may serve to promote personalization of characters based on what they want, from being the most defensive to very offensive and all the mediums inbetween.

So my proposition is to scrap the current shaman class/Healer class as we know it and create a more organized clerical class that embodies more organization, credibility and foundation to existing religions.

The original clerical set will be common between all alignments, and based on who you follow or devote yourself to, you well get a unique set that is bound to each of the gods.

For this to work you would need to create a devote command because the empowerment is now at level 20, it would give them the unique sets (this could also tie into sphere choosing for them) and then they would need to achieve their empowerment as well. The devotion to learn their skills though should be able to be done easily,
they do already have to get empowerment, i think it would be wrong to make them have to find the immortal before they get their skill set as well.


Alright, so my proposed common skillset would look like this.



Skills:
Flail, Whip, Mace, Staff, Recall,Hand to Hand
Fast Healing, Kick, Meditation
second attack, parry, shield block
Swing ( A mace oriented strike, A single strike similiar to Kick in lagging time, possibilities of stunning them briefly if hit in the head etc)

Supplications would be similiar, detections of good/evil, the curing of ailments word of recall etc, the basic supplications. The primary thing to note is none would have beyond HEAL until they chose their devotion.

Now as an example of what it could be formed into.

Followers of Rahiyn, maybe even Corrlaan to a degree.
Would not gain enhanced damage. Would learn gates blade barrier gains sanctuary, Rejuvenation.
This would be the healing cleric that didnt have offensive, but would gain all the aegis etc that made them defensivable, healing support class.

Where as now Baerinika follower would get this.
Summon, enhanced damage, sanctuary Vengeance (Similiar to wrath, less in power), Perhaps even a follower similiar to call angel, but less in strength, doesnt heal the cleric etc.

Iunna Followers:
Gain gate, some aegis, Blaze (equivlent of Vengeance, but fire based, can strike once or perhaps even twice) Flame Aura, same as sanctuary, blinding light (their version of blind)

Added note, being that of fire, possibilities to make them be able to form into something like a fire elemental/fire demon.

Outlander Immortals could be similiar to a druid in the sense they could gain those being more nature oriented.

I would Enlilth or Daevryn at the fore for having the Witherfist, rot, black aura etc.


The benefit of this is also you could further customize it by certain followers losing their shield/mace type attack to further promote an axe type attack, or even further staff type.


Its alot of coding and work i know, but it may be something to consider. It could even drastically reduce the amount of creativity by having each immortal consider their own personal abilities they would want to have their followers have. properly balanced of course.

I think it would be awesome to have this unique individuality rather then the generic class they are now.

I can think of a viable RP angle for an evil healer. the "doctor" with a god-complex. Who gets off on having the power of whether people live or die at his whim.

There's the guy who's just a natural combat medic.

There's the healer who has a hero-complex and is a glory hound who is not a healer for selfless reasons but because he likes the attention.

I could keep going, it's silly to try and cram any one class into a box of "if you play this you must act this way". I think the closest you can come to that is paladin's with the code and that is a fundamental part of what a paladin is. So even though it is somewhat of an exception, it still isn't, because there are so many different flavors of paladin.

As to plague, it isn't evil. That's like saying "Swords are evil, their only purpose is to shed blood". It's a tool, and if it comes from a goodie-shaman it is coming from the righteous wrath of a goodie imm channeled through their priest.

I don't really know what the answer is for revamping shamans (god knows they need it), but I don't think this is it. I applaud your effort and the fact that you are at least putting out an idea, even if I don't think it would work well.

Imms change fairly requently. Some will leave, others new ones will show up. That adds up to a lot of upkeep, when you realize that Imms have to put so much effort into keeping things balanced.

Also, what about the Shamans and and Healers who don't follow a specific religion. A Sphere Honor Shaman, for example, is perfectly valid. Will we create a specific skill set for that individual character, or will we create one for his specific sphere? If we're doing that, won't we have to create a skill set for EVERY sphere, just in case?

That adds up to a LOT of work, as there's something like 60 spheres. It also adds up to a lot of powergaming, as people would choose a sphere who's skills they like, over a sphere which matches that characters personality.

I could see having a specific skillset for each broad category (in "HELP PANTHEON"). So we'd have one for THE SHADOW, one for THE LIGHT, one for THE FORCES, THE HEAVENS, and THE WORLD.

It still has the problem of people picking spheres to get a specific set of skills, but in this case it probably wouldn't be as much of an issue.
And since new sphere are rarely if ever added, once the initial programming/testing/balancing was done, it wouldn't require any more upkeep, as various Imms continue to rise and fall.

That keeps things in the hands of the empowering imm, so they can tailor what a follower gets to the religion, and the individual character, without anyone having to write up and balance spells for every single new religion. It seems like it's the kind of system that can be added to a little at a time as well, whenever someone gets interested.

Just a pool of communes and skills that imms can reward shamans with above and beyond the basic shaman kit. Some of these might even replace current communes - improving them in some vital respect.

In this way, we can also push shamans into the faux-druid area. I've always wanted a real cave priest. Or sea priest. Druids are pretty much 'above ground, open air, only' with no real indoor or underwater communes. If druids were so well identified as a seperate type of priest, I'd suggest just mashing the two together. As it stands some overlap really isn't a shame if it means we get some interesting types of shaman out of it.

Druids will still be king of charmies though Shamans are very much the solo type.

>Imms change fairly requently. Some will leave, others new
>ones will show up. That adds up to a lot of upkeep, when you
>realize that Imms have to put so much effort into keeping
>things balanced.

Yup. Because of this, religion-specific priests are not something I can ever see being a good idea.

For the reasons you mention, I don't love based-on-sphere either.

Sorry about the bad formatting, the first time i wrote it all out here and i ended up losing it all, so i put it all in notepad first.