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View Full Version : [3.5] What's wrong with the Favoured Soul?



Myou
2009-09-09, 09:42 AM
I rarely hear about this class, and if I recall correctly, it's Tier 2, yet it gets more spells than the sorcerer and equal spell slots, all good saves, 3/4 BAB and a few other nice class features.

Is divine casting just that much weaker that will all that it's still not great?
Or is it because it has a limit on spells known to begin with?

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-09-09, 09:48 AM
Decent class. No turn undead or Domains, though, even though it would not be unbalancing to have them.

Poor skills too. K. Arcana, but no K. Religion.

The limit on spells known is irritating, but what more do you need than Divine Power and more Divine Power? (and Rightous Might, and Greater Consumptive Field, but you get my point.)

I reccomend that Favored Soul players dip into pretige classes for Turn Undead and Domains.

I like Favored Soul 6/Ruather3/Sacred Exorcist2/Contemplative1/Full caster advancement 8

woodenbandman
2009-09-09, 09:51 AM
Nothing at all. There's just no reason to play it over a cleric. You can even become a spontaneous caster cleric if you want via Unearthed Arcana.

I played a Favored Soul once and it was... well, it was very short term. But I can tell you that a 1-20 favored soul won't be wanting for power in nearly any game. Unless that game includes two or more of the tier 1 classes played out the butt optimized, favored soul will be fine.

The main problem is that it punishes you for bad choices because you can't immediately unlearn a spell you learned. Other than that it's totally a good class.

BooNL
2009-09-09, 09:51 AM
I love the class and usually play it over cleric given the chance.

The reason why it's less powerful - and consequently less popular - is because it doesn't get Turn Undead. The class ability used to fuel some of the most powerful abillities at a cleric's disposal.

Also, they are fairly MAD. So you either focus as a decent caster, with high WIS and CHA or a decent fighter, with high STR, CON and CHA.

Person_Man
2009-09-09, 09:53 AM
It's just a MAD, weaker version of the Cleric. It's still stronger then other non-casters, but weaker then most other casters. Here's my homebrew fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57097), for what it's worth. Most DMs just remove the Wis dependence and call it a day.

Myou
2009-09-09, 09:56 AM
Hmmm, makes sense. I didn't think of Turning, I really should have.

Seems like it's actually a better balanced cleric in a way. If it got turning and spontanious healing it could even replace it.

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-09-09, 09:57 AM
Dynamic Priest [General] (Dragonlance)

Your self-confidence and force of personality are the foundations of your faith.

Benefit: For purposes of determining bonus divine spells per day and maximum divine spell level, your primary spellcasting ability is Charisma. If you have more than one divine spellcasting class, the bonus applies to only one of those classes. Your spell save DC's are not affected by this change.

Special: You may only take this feat as a first level character. If you take this feat more than once it applies to a different divine spellcasting class each time. You may take this feat even if you have no divine spellcasting classes yet.

Eloel
2009-09-09, 10:10 AM
Favored Soul is what you use for divine spells when Tier1 are banned. It's around the same power with Beguiler/Dread Necromancer, so we could call it the 'balanced' version of cleric.

Cyrion
2009-09-09, 10:18 AM
Because they don't get turn undead or Knowledge (Religion) they are hard to PrC into the optimizers' favorite full progression classes, so they take a lot of flak for that. A lot of people also argue that the class skills they get aren't really a worthwhile trade for domain powers.

Me, I'm not a big fan of the wings. I don't know why, but they just bug me.

Doc Roc
2009-09-09, 11:04 AM
Actually, thanks to a small web expansion, they get either Know(arc) or Know(rel) depending on player preference.

Starbuck_II
2009-09-09, 11:05 AM
Actually, thanks to a small web expansion, they get either Know(arc) or Know(rel) depending on player preference.

Do you have that link?

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-09-09, 11:20 AM
Me, I'm not a big fan of the wings. I don't know why, but they just bug me.

Conversely, my players love the wings, but their opinions all basically boil down to "If this class lets you end up looking like your stereotypical angel/devil, why can't we get the damn wings when they actually matter?" So what I usually do is give the wings at 1st level but have them follow the raptoran progression (glide -> limited flight -> flight), flavoring the limited uses as having the favored soul generate wings of light or shadow for a short time, and it seems to work out well.

AllisterH
2009-09-09, 11:28 AM
It's like asking "what's wrong with the sorceror?".

Absolutely nothing other than the wizard (cleric in the FS' case) is just plain better.

FMArthur
2009-09-09, 11:39 AM
It needs abilities that differentiate it from the Cleric, but doesn't get any, so it's just Lesser Cleric. It's worse than the difference between Wizard and Sorceror because the Cleric has more things to lose (and did lose them) by going Favored Soul.

xPANCAKEx
2009-09-09, 12:07 PM
Do you have that link?

ask and ye shall recieve

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20070227x

Thrawn183
2009-09-09, 12:24 PM
Yeah, I don't think many people have any actual complaints with the class. It's one of those, "Yeah, it's weaker than a cleric, but as far as practical optimization goes, it's fine."