Vampire Spirit Shaman

[Cornuto]

Question because curious and amused: If reduced to low HP, would his contingent Heal blow him up?

Favored of the SpiritsEdit
At lvl 19 you gain a contingency effect that activates a Heal if your hit-points or ability score drop to 0. The effect can only be activated once per day. This ability works against instant death spells which inflict damage, such as Weird, Vampiric Feast, etc.

http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Spirit_Sh...of_the_Spirits

[Talleyman99]

This is something we vampires have talked about. The world may never know.

[sonuvalich]

Having a vampire spirit shaman just sounds...wrong. I would think if it were allowed, the contingency heal would instead be a contingency harm to stay in line with the spirit (ahhhhhh) of the feature.

However, given that spirit shaman tend to be discussed as being in touch with the natural world, and undead are very unnatural, I would think the spirits would cut you off for being an undead.

Also, you could argue that undead, having no con score, could have a con of 0 (they don't have the -5 hps/-5 to fort save so this is not strictly true) and so every day the first thing that would happen is the ability would trigger.

[kuscotopia]

There is precedent for natural world / undeath duality, for example Druid vs. Blighter.

Certainly the epic level spells available to a high level spirit shaman are in line with a vampire's way of thinking. Consuming life force to gain strength or utterly destroying souls.

Who knows, maybe the spirit buddy for a vampire spirit shaman is their former soul. Or perhaps, some spirit from the Unseelie Court interested in combining undeath with the power of the fey.

[Afkueen]

maybe the spirit buddy for a vampire spirit shaman is their former soul

This sounds like potentially amazing roleplay opportunity. Or terrible, depending on how it was played out.

[Valhalla]

Vampires are, according to the wiki, not 'soulless', but rather a soul imprisoned or something. I suppose that still works.

In any case if a lot of people seem to think Spirit Shamans = Spontaneous Druids without the restrictions, which isn't really what the class description says. In the class's lore it explicitly states that "spirits" includes things like incorporeal undead.

[thaelis]

In the class's lore it explicitly states that "spirits" includes things like incorporeal undead.

Which leads me to wonder, why are all undead (or 99% anyway) evil in alignment? If they still have their souls then all undead must have been evil in life too? Why do no undead ever overcome their undead nature and act in a good manner as they did in life, or destroy themselves?

For these reasons, I like to assume they are actually soulless, or do not possess the same soul as they did in life...maybe the caster "buys" a new soul from the Abyss in order to power their creation. And, seeing as most souls which go to the Abyss are evil, the resultant undead would then be evil

Of course, vamps, liches etc would be an exception to this, being free-willed undead and a great many of them being of Good alignments (e.g. Elven Baelnorns) I'd argue that they possess their original souls.

[Doubtful]

Maybe their spirit companion is the buddy who died after the vampire attacked them as they were walking across the moors, maybe he's all decayed and has a suicide fixation.

Ahem.

See, I'm torn. On the one hand I can see a spirit shaman totally working as a Vampire, either in a dead serious way (I'm thinking Talona, Malar and a handful of other dieties here as patrons) or in a tongue in cheek / Buffyverse way.

On the other, the idea of a vampire Spirit Shaman who's loosing just having enough time to scream "You'll never take me alive!" before exploding under self healing amuses me greatly.

I just can't decide which I find more appealing.

[sonuvalich]

"By bargaining with these spirits, the spirit shaman gains power over the natural world and mighty divine magic with which to aid her comrades or smite her enemies."

That is a direct quote from Complete Divine (3.5) and was why I mentioned that spirit shaman are tied to natural order. They can negotiate with incorporeal undead (shadows, ghost, etc.), and their abilities that affect spirits also affect those particular undead, but the nature spirits that seem to be tied strongly to the class would be repulsed by the shaman him/herself being undead.

I'm not saying it can't be done, just that it kinda seems contrary to the intent of the class. Many of the descriptions of the class and its features hint at being mired in nature and life, though not the same way a druid might be. If a vampire spirit shaman dealt only with undead spirits and maybe some evil fey or elementals that didn't care, it would work. If I were DMing a PnP campaign, I would consider allowing it, and tweak some of the features (prot from evil becomes prot from good, heal becomes harm, etc.) but he would lose his ability to work with nature spirits and good aligned spirits, wild empathy, and probably a number of spells from the list (sunburst, heal, etc.) to counter some of the cheese.

[Lugwy]

I'm now perversely interested in finding out.

[Lotus]

If they still have their souls then all undead must have been evil in life too?

Most undead don't have souls. Vampires, liches, and baelnorn retain them, and that's about it. Vampires are consciously parasitic: evil. Liches corrupt a lively shell with undead magics so they can live forever to suit their own ends: evil. Baelnorn undergo lichdom to serve as purveyors of wisdom and to stand guard over things that ought not be disturbed: not evil.