Merging the 3.5 Favored Soul and Oracle

[theasl]

Favored Soul, Oracle archetype (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-bnN5HKdw6G1L4SyM81eLcJE-0pioJBoL_4kmbj7v98/edit?usp=sharing).

Features unchanged:

Starting wealth; HD; ¾ BAB; Bad Reflex Save, Good Will Save
Skill Ranks
Spellcasting, Orisons
Armor Proficiency
Features altered:

Alignment (must be within 1 step of deity’s)
Good Fort Save (from bad progression)
Class Skills (added Appraise, Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (nobility), Linguistics to match cleric list)
Weapon Proficiency (added deity’s favored weapon)
Features added:

Aura
Domain (replaced Mystery and Revelations)
Energy Resistance (can replace Oracle’s Curse)
Damage Reduction (replaced Final Revelation)
Bonus Languages


Favored Soul (Oracle Archetype)

Some oracles have their powers granted by a single deity. Known as favored souls, they draw their power directly from their deity, focusing on a single aspect of the deity’s portfolio.

A favored soul must worship a single deity. Unlike oracles or clerics, she may not worship an ideal or a pantheon. Also, she may worship a dead god (e.g. Aroden), who no longer grants powers to clerics, without penalty; however, she may not worship false gods (e.g. Ramzir). A favored soul also does not lose her spells and powers even if she grossly violate her god’s code of conduct.

Alignment: A favored soul’s alignment must be within one step of her deity’s, along either the law/chaos axis or the good/evil axis.

Saves: Favored souls use the save progression of clerics instead of oracles.

Class Skills: The favored soul’s class skills are identical to the cleric’s: Appraise (Int), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (history) (Int), Knowledge (nobility) (Int), Knowledge (planes) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Linguistics (Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).

Weapon Proficiency: In addition to the oracle’s normal proficiencies, a favored soul is also proficient with her deity's favored weapon.

This alters the oracle’s weapon proficiency.

Aura (Ex): A favored soul of a chaotic, evil, good, or lawful deity has a particularly powerful aura corresponding to the deity’s alignment (see detect evil for details).

Domain: A favored soul chooses one domain (or subdomain) from among those belonging to her deity. A favored soul can select an alignment domain (Chaos, Evil, Good, or Law) only if her alignment matches that domain. Once made, this choice cannot be changed.

Each domain grants a number of domain powers, dependent upon the level of the favored soul, as well as a number of bonus spells. Unless otherwise noted, activating a domain power is a standard action. Additionally, any domain power that normally uses a calculation based on Wisdom is instead based on Charisma for a favored soul.

At 2nd level, and every two levels thereafter, a favored soul learns an additional spell derived from her domain (1st level domain spell at 2nd level, 2nd level domain spell at 4th level, etc.). These spells are in addition to the number of spells known. They cannot be exchanged for different spells at higher levels.

This ability replaces the oracle’s mystery and revelations.

Energy Resistance (Ex): At 5th level, a favored soul chooses an energy type (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic) and gains resistance 10 against that type. At 10th level and 15th level, the character gains resistance 10 against another energy type of her choosing.

This ability replaces the oracle’s curse. However, a favored soul may still choose a curse instead of gaining energy resistance.

Damage Reduction (Su): A 20th-level favored soul gains damage reduction. If the character is lawful-aligned, the damage reduction is 10/silver. If the character is chaotic-aligned, the damage reduction is 10/cold iron. A favored soul who is neither lawful nor chaotic may choose either type of damage reduction.

This ability replaces the oracle’s final revelation.

Bonus Languages: A favored soul’s bonus language options include Celestial, Abyssal, and Infernal (the languages of good, chaotic evil, and lawful evil outsiders, respectively). These choices are in addition to the bonus languages available to the character because of her race.

[Later additions in red]

This isn't just a wholesale conversion of the 3.5 Favored Soul (FS) to Pathfinder, which is all that I seemed to be able to find when I searched for one. It keeps some of the flavor of the oracle, being unwillingly granted power by a divine source, just from a single source instead of all "patron deities who support their ideals" (from what I've seen, the 3.5 flavor wasn't really decided on the unwilling part, nor on whether they can "fall"). It also contains features drawn from standard clerics, mainly domain but also other minor things (aura, bonus languages, which I'm pretty sure were also in the old FS), and saves as a compromise between FS's good saves and oracle's bad saves. Finally, it doesn't include all the features of the old FS - no wings, because they don't really make sense anyways, and no weapon focus/specialization to avoid pigeonholing weapon choice and/or deity choice for powergaming. It also reduces some of the FS's MAD, since oracle doesn't rely on WIS for casting, though some spells and 1st level domain powers still use it to some degree.

Some things I'm still undecided on:
I originally had the energy resistance replacing revelations (3rd level and every 4 after that, so all 5 energy types at lv 19), and left the oracle's curse untouched. The current version has the domain replacing both mystery and revelations (which is IMO a bit too much) and an optional curse, replaced by generic energy resistance if they don't want one. I'm still not sure which one I prefer.
Given the flavor I'm going for (unwilling divine vessel), I'm not sure about the alignment restriction. Maybe a 2-step restriction instead of 1-step, or just recommending instead of requiring?

Any comments, questions, concerns, horrific beat-downs, fanatical worship, etc.? Thanks in advance!

[Weatherwax]

The point of the wings was that, much like the energy resistance, you transition into being more like a good outsider over time.

Honestly, I'm not sure I'm a fan. But, as far as being balanced with the standard Oracle goes, I think this might be about on par. The biggest thing it has going for it is the increased Fortitude save, which may or may not be worth the revelations, depending.

I guess if someone wants a way to do a charisma-based divine caster, and don't feel like dealing with the oracle's curse, this is pretty good.

One thing I think you should really do is get rid of the MAD, and have domains functiion off of charisma instead of wisdom.

[OttoVonBigby]

What's funny is I went in almost the exact opposite direction for my Favored Soul/Oracle hybrid, and in playtesting it has shown itself to be not at all too powerful--arguably still weak compared to a cleric. Inarguably more playable than the 3.5 favored soul, though. In my ~3.6 system, the favored soul:
- gets a god-specific mystery (which I call "epiphany") and revelations (which I call "blessings"); these are basically identical to the Pathfinder versions
- gets the same spellcasting as in Complete Divine
- gets an expanded version of the divine weapon thing from Complete Divine--specifically, gains Weapon Focus at 1st level, Weapon Specialization at 5th level, Greater Weapon Focus at 9th level, Greater Weapon Specialization at 13th level, and Weapon Supremacy at 17th level.
- gets no domains but may choose to take favored-soul-only feats that sort of function like weirder, god-specific, and somewhat watered-down domains, in exchange for binding their lives and souls more closely to the god that favored them
- gets a class feature that allows a *choice* of getting wings or not-- along with a bunch of possible other stuff like immunity to taint (at 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th lvls)
- has all good saves
- has no curse
- is SAD (Cha).

For fluff reasons, I wanted the class to get a lot of stuff; I wanted it to feel more special than cleric. The main drawback of mine seems to be that it remains tricky to get turning. I see this as more of a feature than a bug, but then, I'm the DM :smallbiggrin:

[theasl]

The point of the wings was that, much like the energy resistance, you transition into being more like a good outsider over time.

But not all good (or evil, lawful, chaotic, or neutral) outsiders have wings...:smallconfused:


One thing I think you should really do is get rid of the MAD, and have domains functiion off of charisma instead of wisdom.

That would probably be a good idea. Taking the wording from the Eldritch Scion magus: "Additionally, any domain power that normally uses a calculation based on Wisdom is instead based on Charisma for a favored soul."

[Morphic tide]

But not all good (or evil, lawful, chaotic, or neutral) outsiders have wings...:smallconfused:

The archetypical ones usually have such features. Angels and Balors both have wings, and are fairly archetypical. And a common sign of divinity is angelic wings, with bat-like wings being often seen as demonic.

Personally, I'd have arranged it as having the archetype be a set of four or eight Mysteries or Curses, with the archetype proper being a prerequisite for them and have a bunch of the Favored Soul related stuff be Revelations needing the associated Mystery. More specifically, I'd have it be arranged as Revelations being tied to Domains and various Outsiders.

Remember, this is being made as an Oracle archetype. Focus on using the Oracle mechanics as they currently exist to make a Favored Soul counterpart, using Pathfinder's non-archetype options to let people pick out the Favored Soul mechanics they want that you find odd. Like the wings. You could also use it to let people choose to have a build that makes them into a wannabe-Succubus or Solar or Balor, by picking the Revalations granting the abilities of those Outsiders.

[theasl]

Remember, this is being made as an Oracle archetype. Focus on using the Oracle mechanics as they currently exist to make a Favored Soul counterpart, using Pathfinder's non-archetype options to let people pick out the Favored Soul mechanics they want that you find odd. Like the wings. You could also use it to let people choose to have a build that makes them into a wannabe-Succubus or Solar or Balor, by picking the Revalations granting the abilities of those Outsiders.

Okay, so here's the thing about that. I didn't pick oracle because I liked their mechanics and/or thought they would fit best. If I'd put more weight on that consideration, I probably would have chosen either cleric or sorcerer as the base. I chose oracle because its flavor fit what I was going for the closest. Do you think that, given that, it would be better to switch out the base class?

[Morphic tide]

Okay, so here's the thing about that. I didn't pick oracle because I liked their mechanics and/or thought they would fit best. If I'd put more weight on that consideration, I probably would have chosen either cleric or sorcerer as the base. I chose oracle because its flavor fit what I was going for the closest. Do you think that, given that, it would be better to switch out the base class?

Yes. Unless you can find good mechanical reasons to use Oracle, go for a Sorcerer archetype that makes it use the Cleric spell list and makes it a Divine caster and roll in the Favored Soul things as a Bloodline. And include the Wings, if only to fill the slot.

[theasl]

Yes. Unless you can find good mechanical reasons to use Oracle, go for a Sorcerer archetype that makes it use the Cleric spell list and makes it a Divine caster and roll in the Favored Soul things as a Bloodline. And include the Wings, if only to fill the slot.

But as I said, I didn't set out to create a perfect copy of the FS...

[Morphic tide]

But as I said, I didn't set out to create a perfect copy of the FS...

Well, one of the four class features is getting wings at level 17. The other three are Energy Resistance, DR 10/Alignment and Weapon Focus/Specialization in your Deity's favored weapon. You'd be cutting out one of the rather few class features the class has because 'you don't like it.' If you don't like it, give a choice between the wings and something else. The wings are a major part of the class's identity, so you should keep the option of them.

[theasl]

Well, one of the four class features is getting wings at level 17. The other three are Energy Resistance, DR 10/Alignment and Weapon Focus/Specialization in your Deity's favored weapon. You'd be cutting out one of the rather few class features the class has because 'you don't like it.' If you don't like it, give a choice between the wings and something else. The wings are a major part of the class's identity, so you should keep the option of them.

Actually cutting out two - including the weapon feats; and adding a massive one in a domain. You say "The wings are a major part of the class's identity" but you get them at lv 17 and PF only goes up to 20. It may have been in 3.5 epic (I never played that before), but PF rarely even gets to lv 17...

Would it help the cognitive dissonance here if I changed the name, then? I was of course inspired by the Favored Soul, but it's more intended to fill the "domain-based spontaneous divine full caster" role, of which there are exactly 0 of in PF.