My current party is finally running into the pain of the lack of true arcane or divine casting.
9th level party
Dragon Shaman (me)
Dervish
Paladin
Psion (kineticist/blaster)
We formerly had a Druid, but the player could no longer play, and our new player chose Paladin.
We're trying to fight on as best we can. I personally do not mind dying, and rerolling, but I won't intentionally throw a fight, nor do not want to see the party TPK.
One of the biggest issues is running into ability & level draining creatures, even when we had our Druid.
I am aware of the feat in Libris Mortis for spending turning to help with this, for the Paladin to be a solution.
The second issue is our DM does not substitute much of the loot in our modules to suit the party. Thus we have a lot of fairly worthless items, with no true arcane, divine or UMD specialist to make use. The Psion might as well be a VoW/VoP sandwich. The towns we have visited so far are not exactly rich either.
Ultimately I don't see us surviving too well, so I've been working on a backup.
I've been enamored with playing a Jungle Kobold Druid/Sorc/Arcane Hierophant, with a GOD spell list.
Yes I know wizards are strictly better, but there's a certian flavor & charm I see in the build.
This does primarily solve the arcane/divine problem, and provides a truckload of versatility, but...
In this build there are two large problems I still have, and would like to solve:
1. Lack of access to Restoration / ability & level drain recovery
As a dragonblood sorcerer, I can pick up UMD, and use restoration wands, but this is absymally expensive, and unreliable to replenish in our situation.
I've also been scouring Summon Monster threads for summons that might provide restoration, but I have found none, other than SNA-IX: Celestial Charger, which is far too late.
Renewal domain provides Greater Restoration, but is overall a dismal option using most domain access methods I've looked into.
Magic Items that provide protection are prohibitively expensive for quite a long time.
Runestaves seem limited to arcane spells.
2. Lack of an O-crap heal.
Clerics have a fantastic lifesaver spell, Close Wounds.
My Dragon Shaman can auto-stablize with Vigor Aura.
We've had some previous deaths and a lot of near-misses, but lived due to Vigor.
I've been looking for a Druid equivalent spell for such dire situations, without much luck.
Any spell suggestions, or even tricks available with sorcerer side as well?
All Books available, Dragon Mag is case-by-case accepted/denied.
Any help with solving these 2 problems would be fantastic