I've chosen the favored soul, feat help???

[sheymyster]

Ok, so I made a thread a bit back about a dread necromancer I was making and after toiling away with my DM I finally picked up on the hint that he dislikes large mob control (i.e. lord of the undead) and that for me, it would be better If I just picked something else to make us both happy because tbh I couldn't make the necro amazingly powerful without making it a huge horde controller. I had a PC that I played awhile back in a low lvl campaign, like 5 or 6 that didn't go far but it was a favored soul named kylar based on the night angel trilogy books if you have read them.

Pretty much I want to expand on this character and make it level 21 for our upcoming epic campaign. I have already chosen ability scores with wisdom being the highest for spell DC's, charisma next for spells/day and finally strength as I am a disciple of Kord and get to use a greatsword. The others are too low to mention but w/e, cant have it all I guess, at least my INT is high enough to be able to use a spoon correctly most of the time. I have already chosen spells as well, I can list them if need be but for now I will leave them off unless requested if it would help, but I am lost in feats.

Should I choose metamagic and other caster boosting feats and increase my casting abilities more? or should I focus my feats to strengthen my character melee-like because tbh we don't have a tank, were practically all casters (well one paladin) but its me (don't know what Im leaning towards yet, my PrC and feats will decide if Im a squishy caster or a tank), and then a wizzrawrd, a fairy (homebrewwed, pretty much a tiny caster), and a rogue.

So what I'm asking is, what feats should I take if I want to be caster but also tankish melee if need be (favored souls have amazing saves as well so i dont mind being the brute of battle to protect my squishy friends), also what PrC should I take, I was thinking master alchemist so I could turn my leftover spells into potions for the group at the end of every day when Im near materials, but I noticed the hit die for that PrC is only d4's which would make me more squishy, and also the saves arent as great, so another PrC would be great but it needs to be FULL CASTING. I would rather take FS all the way to 21 with no PrC instead of taking a hit to my already chosen spells, ect......

Thanks guys, your the best and I know you will think of something, thanks in advance for the help, I love this community!!!!

[Maho-Tsukai]

Too bad your not evil. Evil favored souls can totally eliminate MAD by taking up the class from which I draw my name. One of the most fun characters I had was a Maho/Favored Soul who eliminated his MAD by setting his casting to taint....He was a pretty nasty character when all said and done and while his spell DCs suffered pre-Maho post-Maho he swapped all the meh no-save spells he had for Maho offensive spells, and I was using the D20 Rokugan maho, too, which meant that I could chose my spells from both the cleric AND Maho list when leveling up as appose to just the Maho list..

But since your good, well....um...yeah..No Maho shenanigans for the goody goody types. However, if your starting at level 1 and are allowed 3rd party content I'd definitely invest in Lost Traditions from Bastards and Bloodlines by Green Ronin. That feat completely eliminates the favored soul's greatest weakness...MAD.

[sheymyster]

hmmm, thanks the for the input man, I might be able to swing an evil characterish PrC if I talk to my DM. I mean he was going to let me be a dread necromancer so its not a saint-filled campaign, i just cant be chaotic (kill children for fun) evil, I have to be "chaotic neutral" and secretly be leaning towards evil, LOL.

As for this class, Im going to look more into it, going to class now but what book is this class Maho from so I can look at the text later tonight? I know my DM is strongly against homebrew stuff so I'm not sure If he would go for 3rd party stuff either, He kind of likes to stick to wizards of the coast material I'm pretty sure, but anything is possible with food bribes to the DM I assume, haha.

Also, what do you mean by taking a hit to DC's? And how many levels is the Maho PrC? because were starting at level 21, its an epic campaign were playing over the summer, so if there are things that will pay off at higher levels but will make me suffer going through lower levels, then by all means lemme know because since we are starting at epic lvl 21 already, I would want the best choices for the most effectivness at level 21.

Thanks again for the post man, I will try to find that class and If I cant I will look for your post, just tell me the book and I can find it, I practically have them all by now im sure, haha.

[Curmudgeon]

You also want to be tankish, right? That means you're going to get bonus feats for your deity's favored weapon. So, pick a useful deity. There's Kossuth from Forgotten Realms with either Neutral or Lawful Neutral alignment, and Zoser, a non-setting-specific wastes deity (Sandstorm, page 45) with Chaotic Neutral alignment. What these two gods share is their favored weapon: the spiked chain. So with either choice you'll get these "free" feats:

Exotic Weapon Proficiency (spiked chain)
Weapon Focus (spiked chain)
Weapon Specialization (spiked chain)
If your DEX is higher than STR, add Weapon Finesse. Then Improved Trip and get yourself some Steadfast Boots (Magic Item Compendium); you'll be glad you did.

[Cog]

If you're going with Forgotten Realms material, there's another benefit; two regional feats (in Unapproachable East and Shining South) give you a bonus on trip checks and qualify you for Improved Trip without requiring Combat Expertise, letting you spare your Int in ability distribution.

[sheymyster]

hmmm, is tripping the enemy up that useful? I know awhile back I had a fighter-esk character that had cleave and greater cleave, but it was also my first PC so now that I have more experience I'm not sure if that's just a waste of two feats. I know I'm prolly taking the metamagic feat that turns touch spells into rays, just because being able to heal from a distance among other things is very valuable, especially If im going to want to spend more time hacking at the enemy and less of it being a portable med-kit.

Are there any PrC's that have full casting and decent HD? I was going to do the master alchemist but didnt realize that potions take xp to make, thats no fun and it was only a 4HD class anyways so thats a bit low if Im going to be taking hits. tbh I guess full 21 levels of favored soul isnt terrible, but I've never not taken a PrC with a character, or at least planned to at a higher level so it feels akward to be a straight class 21 levels into epic level, but is that sometimes the best way to go?

[erikun]

If you are level 21, then melee probably isn't the highest priority for you anymore. Sure, you could certainly make use of it, but at that level you can simply Gate in an Efreet who can use their three wishes to summon a dozen more Efreet, or something silly like that.

The Maho-Tsukai, from what I understand, uses taint (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/taint.htm) to power your spells. That is, focus on Charisma and dump Wisdom, giving you extra spells but anything that allows a saving throw sucks. With the Maho-Tsukai, you replace Wisdom with your taint score to determine the save DCs, thus making Wisdom unnecessary.

As for the Master Alchemist PrC, brewing potions takes one day per potion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#brewPotion) so it is not something you can do at the end of the day with your extra spell slots. I do like the idea of a Cleric/Master Alchemist for making potions of Resurrection and such, but it doesn't seem to be what you have in mind.

[Cog]

Any enemy that you can Great Cleave is almost always an enemy not worth spending your feat slots on.

I like Knight of the Raven for Favored Souls, but it does lose a single caster level at first.

Tripping is good. When you succeed, you get your attack back; it debuffs your enemy, and there are very few creatures immune to tripping; it has a lot of feat support in splats, making it even stronger.

[The Cat Goddess]

There's a 5 level PrC in Complete Champion whose name escapes me at the moment... but it's pretty sweet and has a Kord-specific path (as well as ones for Wee-Jas & for other non-LG deities).

See about the qualifications for that.

Edit: Is Kord Lawful? I don't recall... but if he is, then Law Devotion is a very good idea.

[sheymyster]

@Cog---I see what you mean, it's similar to the "instant death" spells in my mind. The enemies you would want it to work on are almost certain to make the save, and the ones that it does work on they are most likely weak enough so that any of your spell choices would have dispatched them equally as fast.

@The Cat Goddess---Thanks for the suggestion! I checked it out and its good but since it isn't full casting (It's only half cast) I don't think i will be taking it.

I might take a second look at tripping, but I have alot of spare time tonight and I've found a comprehensive list of all full caster PrC's, I think I might browse through it and see if I can find something I can work with, any more suggestions would still be much appreciated as even reading through them all won't help me if theres a good trick or feat combo that makes one stand out, but thanks for everyone's help!!!

[Maho-Tsukai]

The Maho-Tsukai is a 20 level class, but when you are finally able to enter it you can exchange base class levels for levels in Maho. So say at 7th level you take your first level of Maho. At that time you can exchange all your favored soul levels for Maho levels so you'd be considered a level 7 Maho. The plus side of this is that while you trade your FS levels for Maho levels, you don't lose your favored soul spells and in addition you gain Maho spells, and while the Maho list created by wizards is quite small D20 Rokugan expands the list quite nicely and even adds a good number of exclusive spells that make Maho worthwhile. The best part is that as you level up you can chose your spells known from either the Maho list or your base class list(In your case the cleric list).

The only downside to the Maho is it turns you from divine to arcane, meaning you lose your ability to cast in armor. However, there is a generic version of the Maho known as the tainted sorcerer which is literally the Maho-Tsukai class stripped of it's Oriental flavor and spell list and stripped down to a 10 level PrC. It dose roughly the same job as the Maho and allows you to stay divine(so you can still cast in armor) but the downside is that there is no spell swapping/additional spells known so your going to be stuck with no-save spells at your lower levels and your going to know less spells. However since your starting at level 21 and thus you don't have to survive the lower levels Tainted sorcerer would be good here too as you don't switch to arcane from it and do not have to worry about being stuck with meh spells at lower levels since you'll never have to suffer through them.

So, if you plan on taking either of those two classes the choice comes down to what you value more: More spells known and access to unique spells no other characters can easily obtain or the ability to cast in armor/being a divine caster. If you value the spells, take Maho. If you want to keep your divine caster status/don't want to become arcane, take Tainted Sorcerer. It's as simple as that.