Favored Soul

[Xcalber]

I'm making a character for a new campaign and I decided to play a Favored Soul. I would like to be a melee fighter, and I was just wondering the best possible build I could use. I'm allowed to use any loophole, so long as it conforms to the rules of the game. Also I'm allowed to use anything from 3.0, 3.5, or d20. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

[Curmudgeon]

A very big part of a Favored Soul's abilities comes from their deity's favored weapon, because the FS gets as class abilities a bunch of weapon-specific feats. It's good to know, for instance, that Kossuth (in Forgotten Realms) and Zoser have spiked chain as their favored weapon. That gives a Favored Soul worshiping one of them the following feats:

Exotic Weapon Proficiency (spiked chain) (level 1)
Weapon Focus (spiked chain) (level 3)
Weapon Specialization (spiked chain) (level 12)
If you're going for a spiked chain, then it's helpful to look at what Steadfast Boots (Magic Item Compendium, pages 138-139) can do for you while you wield one.

It's also good to know that Knowstones (from Dragon # 333, page 93) work for divine spontaneous spellcasters as well as arcane; they're not just for Sorcerers. The FS can learn extra spells as long as they can afford the (spell level)2 x 1,000 gp price.

What else? Well, since your daily spell allotment is dictated by Charisma, and spell DCs are a function of Wisdom, you've got two spellcasting stats. It's good to know that an Aasimar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/planetouched.htm#aasimar) gets a racial bonus to both of these, and a Lesser Aasimar (see Player's Guide to Faerûn on page 191) is a Humanoid with no LA.

Favored Souls aren't proficient with heavy armor the way regular Clerics are. The Cloistered Cleric "fix" I came up with works for Favored Souls, too.

1) Start with the right clothing.

Scholar’s Outfit

Perfect for a scholar, this outfit includes a robe, a belt, a cap, soft shoes, and possibly a cloak.
2) Next, enhance the robe with an armor bonus (up to +8), as per Magic Item Compendium page 234. This works exactly the same as Bracers of Armor; the "Adding/Improving Common Item Effects" table allows armor bonuses in both Arms (bracers) and Body (robe) slots.

3) Next, you can add an armor enhancement bonus on top of the armor bonus with Magic Vestment:

You imbue a suit of armor or a shield with an enhancement bonus of +1 per four caster levels (maximum +5 at 20th level).

An outfit of regular clothing counts as armor that grants no AC bonus for the purpose of this spell.
4) Finally, realize that your armor boost (up to +13) isn't from actual armor at all, and thus you can still wear a Monk's Belt to get (1 + WIS bonus) more AC!

[HunterOfJello]

I suggest begging your DM to let your Favored Soul only have to use 1 ability score to use for spellcasting. If he rejects it, then grab that one feat from the Dragonlance books that lets you use only 1 stat for spellcasting instead of 2.


It may also be worth checking out the Spontaneous Divine Caster variant in Unearthed Arcana. You may like the idea of playing a Spontaneous Cleric better than playing a Favored Soul.

I think the main differences are that the class feature are obviously different, the cleric only uses 1 stat to cast spells, and the spells known and spells per day are slightly different.

[Morbis Meh]

Not to mention you can become a beast melee frontliner cleric using divine metamagic:persist... but that dead horse has been beaten non stop on this board... a for me I played a favored soul of Crom (made up of course) and I made a charger build while wielding a greatsword. I also asked my DM to change some of the class abilities eg: energy resistance and weapon specialization, and the substitute class abilities were 1 a day use of some warblade manuevers: Lightning Recovery, Ironheart Surge etc etc.

[Inferno]

Another option is an AeshKrau Illumian for Strength to bonus spells, it lets you dump Cha which is nice for a brawler caster.