Shattered Kingdoms

But then what about shamans who aren't animal totemists at all? I've played a griffon shaman who'd never consider calling upon his lunch.

Priest induction works because there are well-defined core concepts in the help files. You can test a new character to see if he has a major conflict with these. With shamanism, there's so little to check that it's pointless.

Priest induction also benefits from the examiner having a decent alignment match with serious new entrants. But shamans can have any alignment, and there's no particular reason they should cooperate.

People with lackluster RP are going to have lackluster RP no matter what they play. They can learn, and I don't see why the shaman class is particularly bad to learn with.

The animal idea were examples of what could be available, not how it would have to be. It could have a much farther reaching variety.

Meh. I don't think shamans really need a set structure/symbols. Especially not symbols.

Although, there aren't a lot of shamans around. Maybe there's a good reason?

Extremely slow leveling has been my problem with my shaman, which probably puts off a lot of people.

I'm mostly looking to add RP value to the class to help perk it up a bit, thats mostly why I even thought to suggest something like this.

Shamans level quickly and when they get SH, they screem in levels.

On consideration, I think the shaman-symbol idea can work. They just have to be

* customizable, like symbol of an XXX, with the detailed description only describing the bone it's made of

* shaman-only, so they don't become club badges to be passed around

* powerless or minimal power, like +1 to whatever stat a spirit doll would give.

Just make a Priest and RP it has being a Shaman.

For you guys that rather make a smart [REDACTED] remark then actually leave a more productive comment, this thread isn't about giving them bonus stats, I could careless if the symbol they got even had a stat bonus at all, or building a structured faith, this thread is about enhancing the RP value of a class that no one seems to play for one reason or another. It is to help find more ways to draw players to it through rp rather then giving them more skills, that is all.

So if you are just going to leave stupid remarks like, roll a priest and rp it as a shaman, then please don't comment at all. If your remarks actually have something to do to help revive a dead class, then speak your piece.

I don't know why people don't play shamans so much, we can only speculate about that. From my perspective shamans are one of the most interesting classes to play (from an RP perspective) and one of the more powerful classes (from a PvP/PvE perspective).

There is a great number of playstyles, from tanks, support casters, voodoo cannons and that's not even counting the cabal combos. There is even a greater number of RP concepts, from the tribal shamans of the cold north, to the desert nomads of zhensh and the stories with spirits are endless, in fact the best character concepts I had were actually shaman concepts.

It's really a shame that very few people play this amazing class.

Shamans suck at leveling. It makes me cry.