Best Domains and/or Devotion Feats for Sovereign Speaker?

[Tibbaerrohwen]

I'm currently working on a NG Lesser Cansin Cleric, with spontaneous domain casting. The basic build is Cleric/Ordained Champion/Sovereign Speaker. With Ordained Champion and Sovereign Speaker I'll have lots of extra domains. What are the best domains available to a Sovereign Speaker? Which domains should I take and which domains should I swap out for their devotion feat equivalent?

[Curmudgeon]

You realize that Spontaneous Domain Casting (Player's Handbook II, page 37) is limited to one of your Cleric domains, right? You don't get to spontaneously cast from other domains. You could add Spontaneous Domains feat (Complete Champion, page 62) for spontaneous casting from all your domains, but that's limited to 1 spell per domain slot.

[Snowbluff]

You realize that Spontaneous Domain Casting (Player's Handbook II, page 37) is limited to one of your Cleric domains, right? You don't get to spontaneously cast from other domains. You could add Spontaneous Domains feat (Complete Champion, page 62) for spontaneous casting from all your domains, but that's limited to 1 spell per domain slot.

Indeed. IIRC, you would need the Spontaneous Cleric variant from UA to make it work the way you want.

[Faily]

Remember that it's not "free for all" domains either.

"Bonus Domain: For every level you take in this class, you gain a bonus domain offered by one of the deities of the Sovereign Host. You cannot choose more than two domains offered by the same deity (for example, if you already have the Strength and War domains, you can't choose Good, since Dol Dorn offers all three). You also cannot choose an alignment domain if you own alignment does not match it."

So as NG, it's only Good of the alignment domains (most of them offer Law, but Dol Dorn gives Chaos. Good is offered by *many* of the Sovereign Host deities).

Arawai - Creation, Good, Life, Plant, Weather
Aureon - Force, Knowledge, Law, Magic, Mind, Oracle, Spell
Balinor - Air, Animal, Celerity, Earth, Retribution
Boldrei - Community, Family, Good, Law, Protection
Dol Arrah - Glory, Good, Law, Sun, War
Dol Dorn - Chaos, Competition, Good, Liberation, Strength, War
Kol Korran - Charm, Commerce, Pact, Trade, Travel, Wealth
Olladra - Feast, Good, Healing, Luck, Pride
Onatar - Artifice, Creation, Fire, Good, Metal, Warforged

[Rebel7284]

There are many ways to play a cleric, which path(s) will you be following?

- Healer (don't do this as a focus...)
- Support caster buffer/utility
- Melee fighter
- Undead menace
- Undead commander

Also, is Divine Metamagic on the table?

[Curmudgeon]

Are you going to be moving about on the battlefield, or standing back and casting spells? If you're going to be moving, swapping Travel for Travel Devotion would be a good choice. Are you going to be attacking? If so, changing to the Cloistered Cleric (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric) variant (for the skill points) and converting Mind domain to Knowledge Devotion feat would be good. (You need to keep Knowledge domain to have all Knowledges as class skills, to be able to invest in those skills to gain greater benefits from Knowledge Devotion.)

[nedz]

Indeed. IIRC, you would need the Spontaneous Cleric variant from UA to make it work the way you want.

Correct, and available here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm).

[Tibbaerrohwen]

You realize that Spontaneous Domain Casting (Player's Handbook II, page 37) is limited to one of your Cleric domains, right? You don't get to spontaneously cast from other domains. You could add Spontaneous Domains feat (Complete Champion, page 62) for spontaneous casting from all your domains, but that's limited to 1 spell per domain slot.

So it is...huh.


Indeed. IIRC, you would need the Spontaneous Cleric variant from UA to make it work the way you want.

I will need to look into it.


Remember that it's not "free for all" domains either.

"Bonus Domain: For every level you take in this class, you gain a bonus domain offered by one of the deities of the Sovereign Host. You cannot choose more than two domains offered by the same deity (for example, if you already have the Strength and War domains, you can't choose Good, since Dol Dorn offers all three). You also cannot choose an alignment domain if you own alignment does not match it."

So as NG, it's only Good of the alignment domains (most of them offer Law, but Dol Dorn gives Chaos. Good is offered by *many* of the Sovereign Host deities).

Arawai - Creation, Good, Life, Plant, Weather
Aureon - Force, Knowledge, Law, Magic, Mind, Oracle, Spell
Balinor - Air, Animal, Celerity, Earth, Retribution
Boldrei - Community, Family, Good, Law, Protection
Dol Arrah - Glory, Good, Law, Sun, War
Dol Dorn - Chaos, Competition, Good, Liberation, Strength, War
Kol Korran - Charm, Commerce, Pact, Trade, Travel, Wealth
Olladra - Feast, Good, Healing, Luck, Pride
Onatar - Artifice, Creation, Fire, Good, Metal, Warforged

So does this mean that if a domain is offered by any/all of the gods, but you've chosen one domain that one of them has you can't have the other either?

If so, all the more reason I need the help of the forum to chose the best ones.


There are many ways to play a cleric, which path(s) will you be following?

~snip~

Also, is Divine Metamagic on the table?

Divine Metamagic is on the table, but I'm not permitted too much cheese (maximum one nightstick, etcs); if I go overboard, those privileges are revoked.

I'm still not certain what role the character will play. I'm re working an old character for a new campaign and the party still hasn't been defined. I'll likely be utility + secondary melee, maybe also primary healer.


Are you going to be moving about on the battlefield, or standing back and casting spells? If you're going to be moving, swapping Travel for Travel Devotion would be a good choice. Are you going to be attacking? If so, changing to the Cloistered Cleric (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric) variant (for the skill points) and converting Mind domain to Knowledge Devotion feat would be good. (You need to keep Knowledge domain to have all Knowledges as class skills, to be able to invest in those skills to gain greater benefits from Knowledge Devotion.)

I've been avoiding Cloister Cleric because I think I'll need to have a melee presence and the loss of armor and HP could be dangerous there.

Is there a ruling on converting Mind to Knowledge Devotion? I thought you could only trade Knowledge for Knowledge Devotion.

[ZamielVanWeber]

In Complete Champion there is a table of domain equivalency that tells you how to treat what domains in order to convert them into devotion feats.

[torrasque666]

So does this mean that if a domain is offered by any/all of the gods, but you've chosen one domain that one of them has you can't have the other either?

If so, all the more reason I need the help of the forum to chose the best ones.

Most domains don't have a lot of overlap. There are 41 unique domains between the pantheon. Like literally, I just did a cross-reference, and the only domains that occur on more than one god are Good (6 gods), Law (3), Creation (2), and War (3).

So just avoid those four, actually three, and you should be fine. Of the ones that you'd have to worry about taking 2 domains from would be Onatar (Creation,Good,War), Dol Dorn (Good,War), Dol Arrah (Good,Law,War), Boldrei (Good,Law), and Arawai (Creation,Good)

[Tibbaerrohwen]

In Complete Champion there is a table of domain equivalency that tells you how to treat what domains in order to convert them into devotion feats.

I missed this. Thank you.


Most domains don't have a lot of overlap. There are 41 unique domains between the pantheon. Like literally, I just did a cross-reference, and the only domains that occur on more than one god are Good (6 gods), Law (3), Creation (2), and War (3).

So just avoid those four, actually three, and you should be fine. Of the ones that you'd have to worry about taking 2 domains from would be Onatar (Creation,Good,War), Dol Dorn (Good,War), Dol Arrah (Good,Law,War), Boldrei (Good,Law), and Arawai (Creation,Good)

Thank you for the cross-referencing. That's very helpful.

[ExLibrisMortis]

You might be able to take a domain, trade it for its devotion feat, and take the domain again, depending on how you interpret 'choose a domain' (e.g. "I'm not choosing a domain, I'm choosing a devotion feat!").

[Curmudgeon]

You might be able to take a domain, trade it for its devotion feat, and take the domain again, depending on how you interpret 'choose a domain' (e.g. "I'm not choosing a domain, I'm choosing a devotion feat!").
No, you're always choosing a domain. However, having previously had a domain has no impact on your current choice. If you have an option to pick a domain now, and you don't have it now, you're good.

[Ditto]

I made a Sovereign Speaker in a game using the Greyhawk pantheon (Kord, Boccob, Obad-Hai etc.) and they have a LOT more cross-referencing domains. It's actually tough to find combinations that don't trip over the two-per-god limit. The actual Eberron choices are much easier.

FWIW, between SS and basic Cleric I ended up choosing Air (-->Devotion for boost vs arrows), Weather (solid spells, traded away the lame power for Spontaneous Restoration), Knowledge (-->Devotion), Magic (nice to 'UMD' stuff), and Luck (re-roll, woo!). Using the spell from CC that lets you swap domains for a few days at a time, I had the option to drop Weather for Trickery, too.

Using Spontaneous Domains to leave the domain slots open (remember you get 2 3rd-level domain slots at the 3rd level of SS!), it's a lot of fun being a utility 'revolver mage'. Once you use your modular domain spell, it gets locked down for the day. So it's tough if I chose to use Confusion for 4th level, and found I really needed Dimension Door later that day.

The roleplay is a lot of fun, too. My cleric is always trying to tell people different fables I'm making up from the different gods. "Did I tell you about the time Kord went fishing in the rain? How about when Fharlanghn had to cross a river with his apprentice?"

[torrasque666]

I made a Sovereign Speaker in a game using the Greyhawk pantheon (Kord, Boccob, Obad-Hai etc.) and they have a LOT more cross-referencing domains. It's actually tough to find combinations that don't trip over the two-per-god limit. The actual Eberron choices are much easier.
To be fair, that wasn't exactly using it as intended. It was intended only for that specific pantheon (and in my opinion, should​ only be used there). I'm not surprised you ran into problems.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Arawai - Creation, Good, Life, Plant, Weather
Aureon - Force, Knowledge, Law, Magic, Mind, Oracle, Spell
Balinor - Air, Animal, Celerity, Earth, Retribution
Boldrei - Community, Family, Good, Law, Protection
Dol Arrah - Glory, Good, Law, Sun, War
Dol Dorn - Chaos, Competition, Good, Liberation, Strength, War
Kol Korran - Charm, Commerce, Pact, Trade, Travel, Wealth
Olladra - Feast, Good, Healing, Luck, Pride
Onatar - Artifice, Creation, Fire, Good, Metal, Warforged

I forgot to point out that if you use Curmudgeon's cleric domain list this list here is just the tip of the iceberg. They pick up quite a few more, including some fun ones.

[xyianth]

The last time I used Soveriegn Speaker, I only acquired 8 domains total. The order I used was: celerity, oracle, luck, commerce, travel, air, force, life. This was not all from sovereign speaker levels, but I believe it still followed the selection restriction anyway. I used it to expand the general utility casting of a divine crusader instead of as additional choices for a cleric, but it should work just as well for your purposes. The only big problem you have to solve is the limited number of domain slots you have. (divine crusader doesn't have that problem)

[Tibbaerrohwen]

No, you're always choosing a domain. However, having previously had a domain has no impact on your current choice. If you have an option to pick a domain now, and you don't have it now, you're good.

The last sentence there I don't understand. Are you saying that my choice of domains at 1st level of Cleric has no bearing on what domains I can choose as a Sovereign Speaker?


I made a Sovereign Speaker in a game using the Greyhawk pantheon (Kord, Boccob, Obad-Hai etc.) and they have a LOT more cross-referencing domains. It's actually tough to find combinations that don't trip over the two-per-god limit. The actual Eberron choices are much easier.

FWIW, between SS and basic Cleric I ended up choosing Air (-->Devotion for boost vs arrows), Weather (solid spells, traded away the lame power for Spontaneous Restoration), Knowledge (-->Devotion), Magic (nice to 'UMD' stuff), and Luck (re-roll, woo!). Using the spell from CC that lets you swap domains for a few days at a time, I had the option to drop Weather for Trickery, too.

Using Spontaneous Domains to leave the domain slots open (remember you get 2 3rd-level domain slots at the 3rd level of SS!), it's a lot of fun being a utility 'revolver mage'. Once you use your modular domain spell, it gets locked down for the day. So it's tough if I chose to use Confusion for 4th level, and found I really needed Dimension Door later that day.

The roleplay is a lot of fun, too. My cleric is always trying to tell people different fables I'm making up from the different gods. "Did I tell you about the time Kord went fishing in the rain? How about when Fharlanghn had to cross a river with his apprentice?"

I can see where it would be difficult to use it using the Greyhawk gods.

I'm planning on playing a straight spontaneous casting cleric. I was looking at spontaneous domains from UA but I think it gets overruled by PHBII's version, which is worse.

I like the idea of telling stories about all the gods like they were drinking buddies. That'd be fun to RP.


To be fair, that wasn't exactly using it as intended. It was intended only for that specific pantheon (and in my opinion, should​ only be used there). I'm not surprised you ran into problems.

I'm not so sure. I wouldn't mind playing one that focused on Greek gods or Norse gods (though I'd need Deities & Demigods for that, which I don't have). /the flavour of the class could be applied to any pantheon, really, which makes it more fun.

You are right, though, that playing it with other pantheons makes it much more difficult to wield; it was specifically made for the those gods so it might not work with others.

[ZamielVanWeber]

The last sentence there I don't understand. Are you saying that my choice of domains at 1st level of Cleric has no bearing on what domains I can choose as a Sovereign Speaker?
Here is an example: you take the Mind domain at Speaker 1 and trade it for Knowledge Devotion. You may take the Mind domain at Speaker 2 as well because you do not have the Mind Domain when you go to take it.

[Tibbaerrohwen]

Here is an example: you take the Mind domain at Speaker 1 and trade it for Knowledge Devotion. You may take the Mind domain at Speaker 2 as well because you do not have the Mind Domain when you go to take it.

Oh...Now that is cool. It allows me to take some of the devotion feats I wanted and still get the corresponding domains. Thanks for pointing that out.