favored soul, can we change this?

[SharkVersusKoda]

so ill soon be playing in a campaign as a human favored soul. this campaign is meant to rely heavily on role-play versus roll play so in a lot of situations it will be more about my choices through the character than combat so i had an idea.

~peasant farmer. his village gets attacked and he sort of blacks out picks up a scythe and finds himself extremely proficient with it and sudden unknown abilities(a.k.a dieties favored weapon, spells/detect evil are special abilities[also side not, its homebrewed dieties]) so the character then doesnt realize he is casting bull's strength, but hes stronger, etc.(also, part of the campaign necromancy is super evil/outlawed and it rots you away. and killing is illegal as in investigations would happen for murders but you have the right to defend yourselves if attacked on the road by bandits[still shouldnt kill said bandtis])

now, since there will also be ample combat in the game during travels and watnot, can we tweak the favored soul class a bit?

Some of my first thoughts were:

-Detect Evil, constant effect at level 1, through sight only not an "aura/sense" kind of thing, but with a twist. Not only could my character identify creatures of evil alignment but in a scenario such as ~poor family, father resorted to killing 1-2 times to have coin to feed family~ my character would be able to "see" the evil actions a non evil character has taken, and judge them on it (judge being, does this person die? or are their sins/evils justified).
-gaining the paladin style mount, at level 5 or 7ish.

had some more i cant think of right now, at work, but also looking for input.
as character progression goes for PrC'ing im thinking going for the Shining Blade of Heironous(sp?) as a roleplay/efficient combat build choice (hey look at my glowing holyfied scythe im going to destroy you with because my god given eyesight says you suck).

[Grommen]

We just converted a cleric of Helm from the Pathfinder Cleric to the 3.5 ish, favored soul. We kinda like it so far.

We just replaced the class fetchers of the Soul with the class fetchers of the PF cleric, and considered his domain spells to be additional spells known. Gave him a few more spells but they were healing and strength domains, so the net affect is not so bad. I like clerics casting in this fashion because I don't like the idea of them having to sit down and pray; and wile doing so pick out a list of spells for the day.

"O great lord, thow needith thy smite, thy bless, and perhaps a Flame Striketh at noon. Just cause!"

Just to nitpick and give you some other ideas.

I don't know how you feel but I would find it kinda odd if my character walked around the world carrying a big honken scythe. Though an understandable weapon of choice for a farmer, not the ideal weapon for a wandering man of faith. So you might consider a Sickle or believe it or not a Kama. They were commonly used as to cut rice stalks down in the orient. I'm sure they are still used today in parts of China, Korea, and Vietnam.
Still would look a bit odd hanging off someone's, but little bit better than the hole grim reaper thing.

I like your way of casting spells. They just sorta happen. I think I would adopt this for all the spells. They just blossom out when he is under stress. Keep a holy book with him and when he preaches he can cast as well.

Far as the detecting of evil. I'm not a fan of these detection spells. To me, if someone is evil you need to ferrit that out with some role playing. Not glance at him for a few moments and know in his deepest part of the soul that he is a rotten person. You might not in your campaign, but I've seen a lot of players then used this as their excuse to kill someone.

"Well he is evil, so he must be killed!"

But the person in question never committed a crime, let alone murdered someone. He is just self centered and rude. Perhaps being judge, jury, and executioner would work in some campaigns. From the little you described of yours though, it's not going to.

[Jude_H]

I'm having trouble thinking of a way to make the "Immediately Sense Any Wrongs a Person's Done" thing fun. It sounds like it could be a lot of work for the DM, and it seems like it would remove some of the ambiguity in your character's decisions, which is pretty detrimental to roleplay, IMO.

I'd allow the horse, but I'd probably extend its progression backward to level 1, because abilities that crop up mid-career are silly.

Just a warning: Shining Blade is notoriously poor in terms of flavor and fighting skills.

[SharkVersusKoda]

hmm, not familiar with PF at all so ill probably look into that. and scythe isnt actually straight chosen yet just an example im using, and also knowing my DM it wont just be "he...hes evil alignment im detecting!" it will be much much more roleplay oriented and like i said, killing is illegal for almost any reason so my character wont always be killing because they are evil, the detecting evil as in seeing evil crimes commited is more of a roleplay choice that can affect gameplay.

appreciate your feedback though and open to alot more =]

(also, hes not a healer FvS more of a buff FvS his spells come out when others are in trouble but because of the deity blessing him, no heals just buffs)

[SharkVersusKoda]

Shining Blade is notorious? never had much experience with it im afraid to say, or much divine play in my DnD career, usually stick to rogue/skill/swashbuckler types

[Curmudgeon]

Detect Evil is more trouble than it's worth. It'll trigger strongly with a Neutral Cleric of an Evil deity, and any undead, including Ghosts and Necropolitan characters of Good alignment. I think trying to add that is a bad idea for a Favored Soul. (If you want to play a Paladin, play a Paladin.)

As for the "don't kill" part, simply pick a deity with unarmed strike or whip as their favored weapon. Remember, the Favored Soul proficiency is of any type needed, including Exotic Weapon Proficiency for whip.

[SharkVersusKoda]

hmmm...im thinking i explained this wrong so let me try a little different approach.

chosing favored soul isnt just for it being a divine healer that gets a free proficiency or anything like that, its a roleplay kind of thing for the heavy RP setting of this campaign.*i.e. farmer whos village is attacked, diety(which are all homebrewed no standard DnD dieties) choses to bless him making him a favored soul. diety's favored weapon is coincidentally a farmers tool [i.e. scythe, sickle, etc.]. Farmer doesnt understand his powers, but indeed has them [such as not knowing hes casting bull's strength but knows a power is temporarily making him stronger] Through the campaign he understands more why diety chose him and about said diety* Now, its not detect evil in the standard "look at all that crazy evil ****!" [but, like i said in this setting necromancy is extremly evil and illegal so anything relating to necromancy would techinically trigger it] but more like "these people/this person has comitted evil crimes(wether or not i can know them may depend on a dc check? or more likely roleplaying with the character to figure out/understand their crimes). Basically im trying to find some more class options for a favored soul for both roleplay and combat efficieny that work together. And keep in mind the diety who has chosen to bless me is kind of like a diety that judges others on validity of where they go in the afterlife, so my character on the material plain would judge their sins/crimes to determine wether they live or die [and thats not EVERY person i come across, more like important plot npc's and such]


is that better? sorry for making this seem horrible confusing

[SharkVersusKoda]

also, Jude_H if youre still checking here (or anyone that knows) can you explain to me why shinning blade is a notorious prc choice?

[Jude_H]

also, Jude_H if youre still checking here (or anyone that knows) can you explain to me why shinning blade is a notorious prc choice?
Basically, levels in any class that can enter Shining Blade are better than levels in Shining Blade.

It gives up mounts, turning, domain abilities, and - most importantly - 5 levels of spellcasting in exchange for some lightning sword powers. But the lightning sword powers don't do much and need an action to activate. Combined, those generally make using the Shining Blade's class abilities a poor tactical choice, even for characters that have blown levels in the class.

Add to that the strict daily uses on class features* and the rules that let a caster just make a Shocking or Holy weapon, and the class just kind of falls apart.

edit:
*Not a huge deal because the abilities are weak, but if you're leveling in Shining Blade, you presumably want to use its class features more than 2-3 times a day.

[SharkVersusKoda]

ah! gotcha! didnt actually look that much into it, skimmed over the class pretty good but thats it, like i said not much experience playing divine characters. thanks for the info!