Essentia Shaman (Druid/Wizard)

Some extreme druidic orders focus their practice and understanding of the natural world toward the base foundation elements, and through this focus learn to unleash the raw primal force and fury of these elements to greater potential than their druid peers. (Original Concept by Iorthol)

Primary Class: Druid.

Secondary Class: Wizard.

Alignment: Any neutral.

Hit Dice: d8.

Bonus Skills and Ranks: The essentia shaman may select three wizard skills to add to his class skills in addition to the normal druid class skills. The essentia shaman gains a number of ranks at each level equal to 4 + Int modifier.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: The essentia shaman is proficient with the following weapons: club, dagger, dart, quarterstaff, scimitar, scythe, sickle, shortspear, sling, and spear. She is also proficient with all natural attacks (claw, bite, and so forth) of any form they assume with wild shape (see below). An essentia shaman is proficient with light and medium armor but is prohibited from wearing metal armor; thus, she may wear only padded, leather, or hide armor. An essentia shaman may also wear wooden armor that has been altered by the ironwood spell so that it functions as though it were steel. See the ironwood spell description. An esssentia shaman is proficient with shields (except tower shields) but must use only wooden ones.

Diminished Spellcasting: The essentia shaman casts divine spells drawn from the druid spell list, and gains one fewer spell of each spell level per day. When Table: Essentia Shaman indicates that the essentia shaman gets 0 spells per day of a given spell level, she gains only the bonus spells she would be entitled to based on her Wisdom score for that spell level. She otherwise learns, prepares, and casts spells as a druid of equal level.

Bonus Languages: This is exactly like the druid’s ability of the same name, except that she gains Aquan, Auran, Ignan, and Terran as bonus languages instead of Sylvan.

Elemental Bond: This is exactly like the druid’s nature bond, except that an essentia shaman must choose to bond with nature and may only select the Air, Earth, Fire, or Water domain. This ability otherwise functions as and replaces nature bond.

Elemental School: At 1st level, an essentia shaman gains the wizard’s arcane school ability but must choose one of the following elemental schools: Air, Earth, Fire, or Water. An essentia shaman can choose any element she desires, but may not choose an element opposed to the one chosen for her elemental bond. Any bonus spells granted by the elemental school are prepared as divine spells, even if they do not normally appear on the druid spell list. The essentia shaman gains the bonus spells from her elemental school as normal, but gains her school powers as follows. At 2nd level, she gains her first listed school power, and each subsequent power at 5th and 10th level. For the purpose of level dependent effects of these school powers, the essentia shaman uses her Wisdom score instead of her Intelligence score, and treats her effective wizard level as her essentia shaman level. This ability replaces spells lost due to diminished spellcasting.

Elemental Empathy (Ex): This ability is exactly like the druid’s wild empathy ability, except that the essentia shaman can only affects outsiders of the Elemental subtype. An essentia shaman can use this ability to influence an elemental with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2 at no penalty, but takes a –4 penalty on the check if she is trying to influence an elemental with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher.

Planar Sense (Ex): This is exactly like the druid’s nature sense ability, except that an essentia shaman gains a +2 bonus on Knowledge (planes) instead of Knowledge (nature).

Environmental Stride (Ex): Starting at 3rd level, an essentia shaman may move through any environmental hazard that hampers movement at her normal speed without taking damage or suffering any other impairment, as determined by her elemental domain. This ability replaces woodland stride.

Air: The essentia shaman is considered to be 1 size larger for the purposes of wind effects, and ignores the first 20 feet of falling damage.

Earth: The essentia shaman travels through earthy and stony debris that counts as rough terrain without penalty, and ignores damage from effects such as Stone Spikes.

Fire: Traveling through non-magical fires that do no more than 1d6 damage. This damage is only ignored as long as the essentia shaman starts and ends her movement outside of the fire. She may also travel through lava in this way, with the same limitation of starting and stopping outside of the lava, but only while walking. Full submersion in lava still does normal lava damage.

Water: The essentia shaman ignores rough terrain effects presented by shallow water, and her movement is not affected while standing and moving on icy surfaces.

Trackless Step (Ex): This is exactly like the druid ability of the same name, except that it also applies to same Elemental Planes as her elemental domain and elemental school.

Resist Elemental’s Lure (Sp): This is exactly like the druid’s resist nature’s lure ability, except that the essentia shaman gains a +4 bonus on saving throws against the spell-like and supernatural abilities of elementals. This bonus also applies to spells and effects of her elemental school energy type, such as acid arrow, aqueous orb, burning hands, and chill touch.

Elemental Resilience (Su): At 5th level, whenever an essentia shaman succeeds on a saving throw against a spell or special ability that attack that deals energy damage of her elemental domain’s type, she can choose to absorb the energy instead as an immediate action. This allows the essentia shaman to heal a number of hit points equal to half the damage that is dealt. An essentia shaman can't heal more than her maximum hit points. An essentia shaman can use this ability a number of times per day equal to her Wisdom modifier. This ability replaces wild shape 1/day and venom immunity.

Elemental Shape (Su): This is exactly like the druid’s wild shape ability, except that at 6th level, an essentia shaman can use this ability once per day and an additional time per day every two levels thereafter, up to a maximum of eight times per day at 20th level. An essentia shaman can only use the elemental aspects of wild shape as described in the ability description. This elemental form must be of the same type as her elemental domain.

Wild Element (Su): Once per day, whenever an essentia shaman of 9th level or higher uses elemental shape, she can add the Intensified Spell metamagic feat to one prepared spell from either her elemental domain or elemental school as a free action without the normal spell level increase. At 12th she adds Empower Spell to the list of metamagic feats she can use. At 15th level, she adds Maximized Spell to the list of metamgic feats she can use. At 18th level, she adds Quicken Spell to the list of metamagic feats she can use. An essentia shaman can only add one of these metamagic feats to a spell at one time. This ability can only be used once per elemental shape. An essentia shaman can use this ability twice per day at 13th level, and three times per day at 17th level. This ability replaces a thousand faces and wild shape at will.

Table: Essentia Shaman