3.5 Favored Soul Help

[prophetic_joe]

Ok so I have a DM that is creating a campaign and has stated that we can't use any classes from PHB. So I chose favored soul. Now I am not completely stuck on it but I did come up with a good background, putting a lot of work into that.

Gist is that the character's village and all the people in it destroyed when he was young. The Goddess of Vengeance and Retribution came to him afterwards and chose him to be her instrument of vengeance on earth.

I need to be able to build an awesome bringer of retribution. Going Boondock Saints/Punisher kinda character here. I have played three campaigns in my life of 3.5 and they all ended 3rd level. This one is starting 3rd level.

Stats: 16,16,14,13,11,10

Help me build!

[Urpriest]

There's a 3.5 subforum. This should go there.

That said, first question: do you want to focus on melee, or spellcasting? With your description either sounds plausible.

[prophetic_joe]

Drat sorry guys. Can I get a mod to move it please?

As far as character goes we have a favored soul and warmage right now in campaign. I am not huge on roll's and optimization and have always focused on story mostly. I just want to create a kind of spirit of vengeance type character that punishes the evil. Character is LN. I want a guy that baddies are scared of so Healer maybe not so much.

[Wyntonian]

I am not huge on roll's and optimization and have always focused on story mostly.

Y'know, we have a word for that around here. The Stormwind Fallacy states that "optimization" and roleplaying are mutually exclusive, or at least that one is not conducive to the other. Remember how I called it a fallacy? There's a reason for that.

With that in mind, what would you like help with? Choosing "I AM THE HARBINGER OF YOUR DOOM" spells, Feats to help whack things, what?

[prophetic_joe]

Everything! lol. Like I said fairly new to 3.5 and never played a caster before. I just want to build the coolest "Harbinger of Doom" character I can. I am all for optimizing I just have never done it. I mean what would be best for a character like I described do you think? Go FS melee focused? Or spell focused?

[prophetic_joe]

Alright thanks for the move.

[Gavinfoxx]

I like the Mystic from Dragonlance as a "Like Favored Soul, but better" option. It's pretty much strictly better than (edit) Favored Soul.

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=427641

I made a dinosaur themed Mystic once, it was awesome...The idea is a melee focused primary tank.

[Hiro Protagonest]

It's pretty much strictly better than Mystic...

You mean Favored Soul.

[GenghisDon]

Y'know, we have a word for that around here. The Stormwind Fallacy states that "optimization" and roleplaying are mutually exclusive, or at least that one is not conducive to the other. Remember how I called it a fallacy? There's a reason for that.

With that in mind, what would you like help with? Choosing "I AM THE HARBINGER OF YOUR DOOM" spells, Feats to help whack things, what?

ah, but the stormwind fallacy theory is in fact, a fallacy all of it's own.

To the OP. Take some attack & buff spells as you level/each level. Pick some combat feats (magic, melee or missle, as you prefer).

Go wreak holy vengeance!

Do you have the spell compendium? What books are you using?

PH spells that will be useful include divine favour, command, pro vs chaos or evil, & shield of faith . cure light wounds if lesser vigour is unavailable. Even spirits of vengeance need to recharge between fights. conviction & a few other spell compendium spells might suit you as well.

You only get 4 spells (6 ever) for L1 though, so try to pick ones that have some staying power (they get better with levels). You can switch out a spell occassionaly, however, so don't worry TOO much about it.

[Gavinfoxx]

People seem to be making lots of typos in this thread...

[Curmudgeon]

The Favored Soul class is pretty much your standard spontaneous divine spellcaster except for their non-spellcasting class features. So to make an effective FS you'll need to pick good spells, and leverage the class features to advantage.

The class offers "free" weapon feats:

Martial Weapon Proficiency/Exotic Weapon Proficiency with the deity's favored weapon (at level 1)
Weapon Focus with the deity's favored weapon (at level 3)
Weapon Specialization with the deity's favored weapon (at level 12)
With a better weapon you'll be more effective in combat. A deity like Kossuth (Forgotten Realms; Neutral/Lawful Neutral) or Zoser (no setting; Chaotic Neutral) will help here, because both of them favor the spiked chain.

[eggs]

The Favored Soul also gets some at least fairly interesting ACFs - the most notable being Dragon Magic's (trades Weapon Focus/Spec out for a couple Sorcerer spells known, claws, bite and an improved capstone) and the PHB2's (trades WF/Spec out for temporary HP rider-effects on spells).

In this case, the Dragon Magic ACF sounds like a good fit.

One somewhat unique trick with Favored Souls is grabbing a domain (generally by dipping out of the class for your PrC of choice), picking the substitute domain spell, and shifting domains around to learn new spells from a new domain each level. This allows a FS to grab the Inquisition domain from church inquisitor, sub it out for Trickery, learn Invisibility as a level 2 spell, sub the domain out for Time, learn haste as a level 3 spell, etc.

Anyway, I tend to focus on tactically melee-oriented Favored Souls, on account of the split casting stat, slow spontaneous-caster progression and somewhat prohibitive spell list (the basic Cleric list isn't bad at all, but it takes some digging to use well offensively). So I'm going to treat this as a melee build with Cleric spells, instead of a character with Cleric spells milking those spells for all that they're worth.

The first thing a melee build usually has to do is get its numbers up for things like damage, saves, etc. Defensively, the Favored Soul has a lot to pull from: Greater/Superior Resistance, [Mass] Conviction, Magic Circle Against Evil, Stalwart Pact, Magic Vestment, Energy Resistance, etc. Offensively, it's a bit shakier: Blade of Blood (especially with PHB2 ACF), Greater Magic Weapon, Weapon of Impact and Girallon's Arms are all that come to mind -- It will probably be worthwhile to invest in a circlet of rapid casting or Rod of Metamagic (Quicken) to get buffs like Divine Favor and Righteous Might onto your character without losing a combat round to do so.

The second thing is finding a way of doing nasty things to targets which don't stand around letting you full attack. The FS gets a few tricks for this: Knight's Move is a swift-cast teleport, Updraft is 5ft horizontal movement for a swift action (kind of crappy, but the vert distance can be useful), the Shape Soulmeld: Sphinx Gloves feat + Open Least Chakra spell is pounce with natural weapons only, Blood Wind is a ranged attack with natural weapons only (Remember that Dragon Magic ACF?). This is also where you might want to splash out for some offensive spells or battlefield control.

The third thing is dealing with non-numeric challenges: overcoming other creatures' resistances and immunities, or avoiding their attacks. This is where the Favored Soul really shines. It has a ton of versatility effects like Air Walk, Blindsight, Freedom of Movement, Spell Resistance, various fear-immunity spells, True Seeing, Death Ward, Veil of Undeath and so on.

And then there are the really powerful things a spellcaster can do. Even if not casting as a primary combat method, it doesn't hurt to have a few spells that can entirely change the game. The biggest things tend to be minion-related: the Planar Ally line, Animate Dead, Gate. But a Revivify, Plane Shift or Word of recall never hurt either. These don't tend to be spells you cast multiple times per day, so you might want to be sparing with them in spell selection, but these are where the Favored Soul's real gamecrushing potential comes from.

Hope some of that helps :smallsmile:

[Medic!]

Two words for you my friend:

Crusader! (The exclamation point is it's own word)

I'm like the world's #1 cheerleader for Crusaders. Wade into the front lines, make kobolds behave, and tear anything that snarls apart piece-meal as you alternate between delivering punishing strikes and punishing strikes that heal yourself and your friends!

EDIT: And dont' forget the ever popular "Hit me, so I can smash your dome!"

EDIT EDIT: Especially if I'm reading this right and you already have a Favored Soul and a Warmage in the party. Crusaders make allies really shine in melee and serve as very fun to play front-liners.

[prophetic_joe]

Yes we have a favored soul and warmage. I am the favored soul lol.

[Psyren]

My favorite route for Favored Souls is to make them into a "Super Paladin."

FS 7/Dragonslayer 1/Sacred Exorcist 1/PrC Paladin 2/Fist of Raziel 9

Gets:

- 18th level Favored Soul spellcasting (9th-level cleric spells)
- Can learn both Paladin and Cleric spells
- Turn Undead 3+Cha times/day (can power Divine feats)
- Cha to all saves (as Paladin)
- Fear immunity (as Paladin)
- Lay on Hands (as Paladin, 5*Cha HP/day)
- Smite Evil 6/day (auto-confirm crits, holy bolts chain to 5 evil targets within 30 feet, reflex DC 15+Cha)
- Proficient with all Martial Weapons, Heavy Armor and Tower Shields
- Permanent Magic Circle vs. Evil
- Double damage to evil constructs/objects


You don't get the mount, though of course you have 9th-level spells so you can Planar Ally whatever you want to ride.

Dragonslayer is optional - you could take an 8th FS there instead - but DS gets you martial proficiencies 2 levels earlier, tower shield proficiency, and fear immunity. The entry feats aren't great, however.

Finally - since you are a gish, you don't have to worry about attack magic. Use your spells to buff and heal instead. This means you can dump Wis entirely, especially with fear immunity, strong will saves from FS and Divine Grace.

[Alabenson]

If you're thinking of Favored Soul, I'd start by seeing if your DM will allow you to condense your spellcasting to a single stat from the dual-stat casting they have in the book (from what I've seen this is a fairly common house-rule).

Next, look for a LG or LN deity with a useful favored weapon, ideally something two-handed.

The reason you want an LG or LN deity is that you need to be LG for this next part; there are two PRCs from CD that you should grab (the first one isn't madatory, but it greatly helps getting the second); Church Inquisitor (pg 26) and Sacred Exorcist (pg 57). Church Inquisitor is fairly easy to enter, gives you full spellcasting, moderately useful class features and most importantly Knowledge (religion) as a class skill, which is a requirement for Sacred Exorcist. The reason you want Sacred Exorcist is because the first level of that gives you Turn Undead. Combine that with DMM (Persist), and you are now able to smash face like the fighter only wishes he could.

[Gavinfoxx]

@OP: What did you think of the build I posted?

[prophetic_joe]

Gavin do you have info on the book that those classes are from? Not really familiar with Dragonlance but I do have some book access.

[Gavinfoxx]

Mystic: Dragonlance Campaign Setting
Sovereign Speaker: Faiths of Eberron
Sacred Exorcist: Complete Divine
Shifter: Races of Eberron
Saurian Shifter: Dragon Magazine #328
The various Devotions: Complete Champion
Transformation Domain: Races of Eberron

[prophetic_joe]

Ok good news DM agreed to consolidate Favored soul casting to be just Cha. SO I can use Wis as a dump attribute.

So I am looking like this I think
Str.16
Dex.13
Con.14
Int.11
Wis.10
Cha.16

What do we think guys? Bad part is Diety's weapon is longsword but I think with your help I can work with that.

Gavin I like the build you point out. I question my skills to play it well though being as new as I am.

[prophetic_joe]

So any thoughts on feats to take for 1st 3 levels?

I am looking at maybe improved inish/Power att (Though with longsword as weapon not sure)/ and then I am kinda like well damn....