Favored Souls are not "nerfed clerics"

[Katie Boundary]

I've sometimes heard Favored Souls described as "nerfed clerics" or "sh**ty clerics". After a detailed comparison of the two, I'm forced to conclude that this is an inaccurate description. It's more accurate to say that clerics are more dedicated, whereas favored souls are more flexible. Or, clerics emphasize performance whereas FS emphasize utility. Or, clerics are better at handling expected situations; FS are better at handling unexpected ones.

A detailed breakdown is as follows:


Both have a d8 for hit points
Both have starting skills of (2+ int modifier) x 4
Both gain (2 + int modifier) skill points per level
Both must have alignments within 1 step of their patron deity's

Clerics rely on wisdom for number of spell slots, maximum spell level, and the difficulty class of enemy saving throws
FS rely on charisma for number of spell slots and maximum spell level, but still use wisdom for enemy saving throws

Both have Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Heal, Knowledge: Arcana, Profession, and Spellcraft as class skills
Clerics have Knowledge: History, Knowledge: Religion, and Knowledge: the Planes
FS have Jump & Sense Motive

Both are proficient with simple weapons, light and medium armor, and any shields except tower shields
Clerics are proficient with heavy armor; FS are not

FS get deity's preferred weapon proficiency at level 1, focus at 3, and specialization at 12, regardless of domain
Clerics get deity's preferred weapon proficiency AND focus at level 1, but only if they choose war domain. They do not get free weapon specialization.

Clerics have Auras and Domains; FS do not
Clerics can turn/rebuke/command/destroy undead (uses charisma); FS cannot
Clerics can serve arbitrary domains without being attached to a specific deity; FS cannot

FS can serve race-specific deities without being members of that race; clerics cannot
FS can cast spells of an alignment opposed to their own and their deity's; clerics cannot.

FS have better Reflex saves
FS get energy resistances at levels 5, 10 and 15, and damage reduction at 20; clerics do not.
FS get WINGS MOTHERF***ER

From this, we can easily conclude:

- Clerics are the better dedicated magic-users, whereas favored souls are better at smashing face with their deity's favored weapon when nobody is in immediate need of healing.
- By using built-in resistances and damage-reduction instead of heavier armor, Favored Souls have a distinct advantage when jumping, climbing, swimming, or doing anything else where armor might weigh them down, even ignoring the fact that Jump is one of their class skills. Those whose deity's preferred weapon is a ranged one, and who therefore put a lot of points into dexterity, also benefit enormously from class-based defenses instead of heavy armor.
- Favored Souls are a perfect "Plan B" if the restrictions on clerics prevent you from creating exactly the kind of cleric that you want. As a Favored Soul, you can be an Aasimar who serves Corellon Larethian (the chaotic good Elf deity) and spends all day casting Curse Water, Magic Circle against Chaos, and other lawful and/or evil spells, and the RAW can't stop you. Good luck doing that as a cleric.
- Alternatively, due to their weapon affinities, FS can be thought of as a compromise between Clerics and Paladins, though obviously leaning more toward the former. Again, the Favored Soul's advantage is its flexibility: paladins must be lawful good, whereas FS don't give a crap. If you want to play something that's kind of like a paladin, but in a more chaotic and/or evil flavor, Favored Souls are worth looking at.

There are also some less obvious conclusion here:

- A common perception is that clerics only need wisdom, whereas FS require both wisdom and charisma. However, if a Favored Soul's advantages are properly leveraged, then most of their firepower will be coming from their weapon, rather than from offensive spellcasting, so they can, in fact, safely ignore wisdom. On the other hand, a cleric who neglects charisma will be sacrificing their ability to turn/rebuke undead, which is one of their big advantages over FS.
- The relative advantages and disadvantages of the two classes are extremely level-dependent. For example, a Favored Soul's advantages with weapons will become increasingly irrelevant at higher levels, but their defensive advantages are mostly nonexistent at lower ones.

I'd still give the advantage to clerics, but only by the narrowest of margins, and only because they already have a limited form of spontaneous spellcasting: they can turn any of their prepared spells into a cure or inflict spell of the same level. This rains on the FS spontaneous-casting parade. A Favored Soul's flexibility is also of little advantage to players whose alignment, race, play style, and patron deity all line up nicely (i.e., you were planning on playing an elf and being a defensive magic specialist anyway, so Corellan Larethian presents no problems for you); such players would be better off with auras, domains, and turning undead. It's definitely debatable and situational. Or in other words, clerics are better at what clerics can do, and favored souls are better at what clerics can't do.

[Nifft]

It's true that the average Favored Soul is better at weapon use than the average Cleric, while the average Cleric is better at spells.

However, it's not true that being better at weapon use is comparable to being better at spells.

Spells dominate 3.x -- being better at spells means being better at winning.

[Silva Stormrage]

Favored souls are worse at fighting with their diety's favored weapon because they don't have access to divine metamagic. Having persisted divine power active 24/7 makes the cleric almost certain superior. Favored Souls have... a couple of really bad feats?

Jumping/climbing and swimming are not relevant really past level ~6 where you should have some measure of flight. Plus resistances are not equal to armor for AC which is much more common attack than energy resistance.


Also the abilities of the favored soul past level ~5 aren't really compared to clerics non existent class features. They are compared to one of the many many really good cleric prc's that advance full casting and don't sacrifice anything for the cleric since they don't get class features.

And that even ignores the much better ACF support the cleric has in forms of things like Divine Magician, Cloistered Cleric, etc etc.


Favored souls can cast spells of any alignment though thats true. Though as a DM I would be somewhat confused if Pelor granted it's favored soul Animate Dead.

[heavyfuel]

While Favored Souls are by no means the trash people often refer to them as being, they just don't hold a candle to a Cleric.

The lack of Turn Undead to boost Divine Feats and other things, as well as the lack of Domain Powers, and Domain Spells really really hurt them. The fact that their save DCs are Wis based also means that they will hardly ever pick a SoL spell as one of their spells known, which - again - really nerfs their option.

It's still a Tier 2 class, but I'm afraid I don't agree with your assessment. Getting a slightly better reflex save and "MOTHER****ING WINGS" at level 17 just doesn't cut it. By then any character worth their salt will have some way to fly.

[jindra34]

Basic summary of clerics and favored souls
Favored Soul:Cleric::Sorcerer:Wizard

Simple basic (if slightly innaccurate) comparison. The class features don't add up to much difference, because lets be honest Turn/Rebuke Undead is rarely used for its expected purpose.

[Troacctid]

- Clerics are the better dedicated magic-users, whereas favored souls are better at smashing face with their deity's favored weapon when nobody is in immediate need of healing.
Clerics' domain access, turn undead, and faster spell progression make them easily superior for smashing face, and it's really not that close. Who is going to hit harder with a longsword: a Cleric 4/Ordained Champion 5 with Law Devotion, Holy Warrior, and spontaneous swift action divine power and spiritual weapon; or a Favored Soul 9 with a +2 bonus on damage?


- By using built-in resistances and damage-reduction instead of heavier armor, Favored Souls have a distinct advantage when jumping, climbing, swimming, or doing anything else where armor might weigh them down, even ignoring the fact that Jump is one of their class skills. Those whose deity's preferred weapon is a ranged one, and who therefore put a lot of points into dexterity, also benefit enormously from class-based defenses instead of heavy armor.
Clerics can use medium armor too. Jump is a garbage skill. And Favored Souls don't actually have damage reduction, let's be honest here.


- Favored Souls are a perfect "Plan B" if the restrictions on clerics prevent you from creating exactly the kind of cleric that you want. As a Favored Soul, you can be an Aasimar who serves Corellon Larethian (the chaotic good Elf deity) and spends all day casting Curse Water, Magic Circle against Chaos, and other lawful and/or evil spells, and the RAW can't stop you. Good luck doing that as a cleric.
Or the Cleric could just be True Neutral. (Curse water, really?)


- Alternatively, due to their weapon affinities, FS can be thought of as a compromise between Clerics and Paladins, though obviously leaning more toward the former. Again, the Favored Soul's advantage is its flexibility: paladins must be lawful good, whereas FS don't give a crap. If you want to play something that's kind of like a paladin, but in a more chaotic and/or evil flavor, Favored Souls are worth looking at.
Paladins are already a much worse version of Clerics. If you're taking the middle ground between a Cleric and a much worse version of a Cleric, that makes you a worse Cleric.


- A common perception is that clerics only need wisdom, whereas FS require both wisdom and charisma. However, if a Favored Soul's advantages are properly leveraged, then most of their firepower will be coming from their weapon, rather than from offensive spellcasting, so they can, in fact, safely ignore wisdom. On the other hand, a cleric who neglects charisma will be sacrificing their ability to turn/rebuke undead, which is one of their big advantages over FS.
And now you need Strength, which makes it even worse.

[Feantar]

A couple o' points:

Clerics don't need charisma, because if you're using Turn Undead on undead instead of on DMM Persist, you're not really using it to its maximum utility. Exception: You're a minionmancer.

I wouldn't call this flexibility. Favoured souls can be more varied, but a single favoured soul is much less flexible than a cleric who can just shift spell selections day to day. In that way clerics are much more flexible. If a favoured soul can't do a thing, they won't be able to until they gain a level, and maybe not even then.

Favoured Soul's loosened spell casting rules only work partially as you imply (or as I think you imply, forgive me if I misread). Yes you might be able to get, for example, animate dead as a good favoured soul but remember that you're a spontaneous caster; as such you need to use the spells you learn pretty frequently, otherwise you are kinda useless. So you need to frequently cast animate dead, which would push your alignment towards the evil scale and would not allow you to proceed. On the other hand, should you be evil, then yes, you could cast good spells. But it doesn't work both ways.

Finally, the wings at level 17, are a joke. They are the equivalent of saying "and at level 6, the favoured soul gains the ability to cast cure minor wounds once per day!". They do look cool though, I will give you that.

[Epic Legand]

This review is missing several key points. 1) Clerics are Wis based ( a key stat, boosting will saves, and many key skills) while FS need Both Wiz and Chr. If a cleric dumps chr, he still has turn undead, he can still get nightsticks or spend a feat to boost it. By level 20, the key stat should have +6 Item/+5 book/+5 from levels on an average number of 16 ( 32 ). The FS is required to support 2 stats, the cleric is not. 2) Faster spell progression, at odd levels, clerics gain new spells, and when they gain new spells, they get like 3 of them...That adds up to a lot of extra power. 3) Domains free feats and powers, plus extra spells. This is just straight up far better for the cleric, plus also a frequent requirement for many prestige classes, which AGAIN is just straight up more powerful. 4) Spell diversity, clerics can dump 90% of all spells known and rewrite them the next day, FS must stick to a short list, which only grows slowly, also, domains frequently allow access to non cleric spell lists, which the FS never gets.
Honestly, yes clerics and wizards are teir 1, while FS and sorcerers are teir 2....but the Sor is much closer to a wizard then a FS is to a cleric. The split casting stat alone screws you over. I say this as someone who hates the Vatican spell casting system.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I'll just add that being less powerful than one of the most powerful classes in the entire game is a good thing, at least from a design perspective.

[Silva Stormrage]

I'll just add that being less powerful than one of the most powerful classes in the entire game is a good thing, at least from a design perspective.

Ya thats a good point. Favored Souls are probably where Clerics SHOULD be in terms of power scale.

Clerics are absolutely insane when built right.

[Yogibear41]

If favored souls had turn undead they would probably be pretty close, maybe even better. Most of the amazing stuff people say about clerics is because they get turn undead/DMM: Persist.

But if you allow 3rd party, a favored soul with 3 levels of Metaphysical spell shaper can probably persist more spells than a DMM cleric can.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Aside from TU and its many uses, the other reasons a Cleric pulls ahead is because of prepared casting (with related massive spells known advantage), domain access, and of course getting higher level spells a level earlier.

[Fizban]

The Cleric's role is to have the laundry list of status removal, immunities, and utility spells that are required to overcome certain monsters as you go up in level. A Favored Soul is hard-pressed to learn all of these, and thus cannot seriously compete in this role, at least not if they want to do anything else. Under good non-status-quo DMing practices however, the Favored Soul's spell selection will be accounted for and the will have some breathing room to play around.

When noting Weapon Specialization one must also note Weapon Mastery. The extra +2/+2 thanks to PHB2 is what lets a Fighter just stop caring about the barbarian's vaunted rage at 8th level, and by getting spec for free, a Favored Soul can also take mastery the same level they get spec. Combined with all high saves and the ability to take all the same combat buffs a Cleric would rely on (a much shorter list than those for troubleshooting monsters), spontaneously refreshing as needed, at 12th+ level a Favored Soul is vastly superior to a combat cleric in raw numbers, unless one is counting Divine feats as always having enough uses.

[Troacctid]

The Cleric's role is to have the laundry list of status removal, immunities, and utility spells that are required to overcome certain monsters as you go up in level. A Favored Soul is hard-pressed to learn all of these, and thus cannot seriously compete in this role, at least not if they want to do anything else.
Actually, I disagree with this. Favored Souls have a surprisingly high number of spells known. I think the designers foresaw this exact problem and added more spells known to compensate. You can totally learn all the ones you need. Especially since you can skimp a lot by taking resurgence as a 1st level spell—that spell is crazy good.

[noce]

I'd like to add that many prestige classes require turn/rebuke, domain access, or ranks in knowledge religion or planes.

So you're not only losing turn undead and dmm, two domains, day to day versatility, and SADness, you're also limiting prc choices.

To the one that said that fvs + weapon spec + melee weapon mastery > cleric, LOL. A cleric with war domain and holy warrior does +2 damage by level 12 with the same feat tax, with -2 to attack bonus (and compares favourably before level 12). This is not accounting war domain spells, the other domain power and spells, turn undead feats (even something other than dmm), the broader choice of alternative class features (a clear example is spontaneous domain).

[Fizban]

Well yeah that's why they have more spells, but there's a *lot* of spells. Cutting corners with SpC for Resurgence and Panacea and skimping on cure spells can save you some, but otherwise:

1st: Remove Fear, Protection from Alignment, Endure Elements, Magic Weapon
2nd: Delay Poison, Lesser Restoration, Remove Paralysis, Resist Energy, Align Weapon
3rd: Remove Blindness, Remove Curse, Remove Disease, Protection from Energy, Magic Circle against Alignment, Water Breathing, maybe Greater Magic Weapon, possibly even Stone Shape for some situations.
4th: Death Ward, Restoration, Neutralize Poison, Freedom of Movement, Air Walk, Dimensional Anchor
5th: Break Enchantment, Raise Dead, True Seeing, Plane Shift
6th: Heal, Wind Walk, Word of Recall
7th: Greater Restoration, Resurrection
8th: pretty empty in core actually
9th: True Resurrection, Miracle

(Edit: while I left of Spell Resistance as a Blasphemy counter since it wasn't perfect, downthread it's pointed out that Greater Spell Immunity does go high enough to counter it, as well as what may be the intended reading of Silence. So even if Spell Immunity/Greater is overkill, Silence should probably be on the list.)

At high levels there's plenty of room, but so many things are 3rd level spells that you're screwed until 8th when you can pick up Panacea, for some of them (you're also delayed a level at all times regardless), and you only get three when you get a new tier. Sure not *every* one of these will necessarily be needed, but for a status quo DM or module, there are monsters that require certain effects which the Cleric can normally provide, while the Favored Soul cannot claim to actually have them all. Organically leveling the character also makes things worse, since the official rates of spell retraining are so low. With a less arbitrary DM, some gear optimization, and settling for close-enough/overkill on some things, you can get by, but good enough isn't really competing, it's just good enough.

Of course if good enough is good enough, then you can be good enough while also being better at Divine Power-ing than the Cleric, which is awesome.


(Ironically, a lot of the things people say are the arcanists job are actually guaranteed by the cleric, not the arcanist, with Air Walk, Wind Walk, and Word of Recall [or at least Plane Shift]- monsters that require a quick escape and plots that require fast travel are legitimate past certain levels, but not because of wizards, and Stone Shape does plenty in the safe rest/smashing through walls department)

[Troacctid]

Spells like remove fear and magic weapon that have to be cast in the moment can hardly be called an advantage for the prepared caster. It's not like you can watch your ally get hit by a fear effect, rest for the night, and then prepare remove fear to deal with it.

[Feantar]

I say this as someone who hates the Vatican spell casting system.

Linear heretic, Quadratic pope.

[Mordaedil]

Spells like remove fear and magic weapon that have to be cast in the moment can hardly be called an advantage for the prepared caster. It's not like you can watch your ally get hit by a fear effect, rest for the night, and then prepare remove fear to deal with it.
To be fair, it's a good use of a 1st level spell slot. Bless and divine favor are better choices, granted, but having one remove fear at mid-levels isn't going to ruin you.

[Eldariel]

Your logic is probably the very logic WotC were using while designing Monk, Favored Soul, Paladin, etc. all these all-star classes that pay ridiculous amounts of class power for base stats such as high saves, minor melee combat buffs or such. Unfortunately that's not exactly the game WotC ended up making; caster buffs overshadow said buffs and higher level spells are completely irreplaceable. Thus, yeah, you saw what WotC probably intended but that's just not the reality of 3.X.

[Mystral]

They're nerfed clerics, but it is a sorely needed nerf that propably doesn't go far enough.

[Gnaeus]

Spells like remove fear and magic weapon that have to be cast in the moment can hardly be called an advantage for the prepared caster. It's not like you can watch your ally get hit by a fear effect, rest for the night, and then prepare remove fear to deal with it.

Little of column A, little of column B. You may or may not have a good enough idea what you will be doing tomorrow to know whether prepping those spells will help. I agree that the forum perception that the T1 cleric always has the right spells prepped is way overblown. But knowing whether you are fighting a gang of bandits or an evil cult is sometimes possible and certainly changes which spells you would rather pack.

And of course, assuming a Wizard buddy or other crafter source, the cleric can always scribe a scroll of the spell he doesn’t typically memorize. The FS is less likely to have that option.

[Mystral]

8th: pretty empty in core actually

Greater Spell Immunity and Summon Monster 8 would be my picks.

Also, you don't need 3 revival spells.. you propably don't even need one, there's scrolls for that. If you buy the diamond, you might as well buy the scroll.

[liquidformat]

honestly I think if FS adjusted with its class features it would be more favorable, if DR started at lvl 5 with 5/- and ended at lvl 20 with 20/-, instead of giving us a slap in the face at level 20 with a worthless 10/material type; if it adjusted weapon specialization down to 6 and gave further iterations every 3 to 6 levels; if wings was given at 6-10 instead of level 17 when it was already able to fly for 10 levels but now you have wasted your small group of spell slots for around 10 levels; and finally it wasn't gimped by running magic off two different stats...

Then again it is already better than all mundane classes including ToB so there is that...

[Morty]

I kind of feel like pointing out that clerics or no clerics, Favored Soul is still a full-sized spellcaster and thus in no real danger of ever being weak or failing to contribute.

[Fizban]

Spells like remove fear and magic weapon that have to be cast in the moment can hardly be called an advantage for the prepared caster. It's not like you can watch your ally get hit by a fear effect, rest for the night, and then prepare remove fear to deal with it.
By my evaluation, running away if you don't have the right spells prepared is the intended tactic for many monsters. Luckily most fear effects induce that anyway, and the incorporeal foes that require magic weapon are usually powerless in sunlight and have a chance of being hit by Turn Undead, which the Cleric does have at all times. Remove Fear can also be used as a buff since it gives +4 on further saves so you might not fail in the first place (though with how many fear effects still leave you shaken, another cast might be worth it in combat anyway, which does give the FS a certain advantage unless/until a wand makes it a moot point for either).


Greater Spell Immunity and Summon Monster 8 would be my picks.

Also, you don't need 3 revival spells.. you probably don't even need one, there's scrolls for that. If you buy the diamond, you might as well buy the scroll.
Oh there's plenty more on the list of hard counters that make certain enemies fair (and mass versions printed later), I just stripped it down since I don't know any MM1 monsters that fully require Spell Immunity. Spell Resistance though, that's how you get a chance to resist Blasphemy.

You don't need all 3 revival spells, except you do want them as soon as they're available, changing spells is very limited, and while you might rather just wait for True Res that's 3 levels where you still lack the ability to revive incomplete bodies or even just from [death] effects (while foes have Destruction and Finger of Death). Technically access to the material component isn't even guaranteed, but spell hiring and a la cart magic items aren't absolutely guaranteed either, while you could find a gem in a treasure hoard (in fact, keeping the gem around rather than scribing a scroll is a good security measure).

[Nifft]

Spells like remove fear and magic weapon that have to be cast in the moment can hardly be called an advantage for the prepared caster. It's not like you can watch your ally get hit by a fear effect, rest for the night, and then prepare remove fear to deal with it.

Remove fear is a spell that I prep with the expectation that I'm going to convert it into a spontaneous cure light wounds at the end of the day. If it actually gets used in combat, that's an unexpected bonus. I only prepare it when I've got spare slots after covering the daily necessities.

The way a Cleric can dump mostly-situational spells into end-of-day healing is part of why I don't mind having such situational spells.

I think Druids don't have that luxury until SNA can give you a Unicorn -- after that point, a Druid can equally well dump unused situational spells into end-of-day healing.

-- -- --

As an aside, how does the Favored Soul compare to the Spontaneous Cleric variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm)?

I think the Spontaneous Cleric domains and turn undead attempts give it a clear advantage, but I haven't done much comparison on the spells known / spells per day. I think the 2 domain spells that the Spontaneous cleric gets at every odd level are straight-up better, but the Favored Soul does get a bunch of spells known, and domain spells are fixed (but often quite good).

[Goaty14]

FS get WINGS MOTHERF***ER

Somehow this is considered a valid argument when any other fullcaster that could already cast fly, could now legitimately persist fly without any shenanigans. Heck, IIRC, the wings don't even give you perfect maneuverability.

[Kelb_Panthera]

If you want spontaneous divine magic, consider DLCS's mystic. Basically it's a SAD version of a FS that gets one domain instead of the FS class features. It's a solid step-up from FS in my opinion.

[Troacctid]

As an aside, how does the Favored Soul compare to the Spontaneous Cleric variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm)?

I think the Spontaneous Cleric domains and turn undead attempts give it a clear advantage, but I haven't done much comparison on the spells known / spells per day. I think the 2 domain spells that the Spontaneous cleric gets at every odd level are straight-up better, but the Favored Soul does get a bunch of spells known, and domain spells are fixed (but often quite good).
It's actually kind of embarrassing how much better the Spontaneous Cleric is, IMO. It just interacts more favorably with...well, everything. Turn undead unlocks a bajillion things, domains are amazing, you have tons of ACFs to choose from, and your casting isn't pointlessly delayed.

That's not even touching on Sanctified spells, which any good-aligned Cleric can cast spontaneously.

[noce]

If you want spontaneous divine magic, consider DLCS's mystic. Basically it's a SAD version of a FS that gets one domain instead of the FS class features. It's a solid step-up from FS in my opinion.

I'd like to know the playground opinion about Mystic.
I see it as a mechanical update of the FvS, but I was wondering which one gets more PrC access: FvS cannot access PrCs that require either domains or turn undead, while the Mystic doesn't have a patron deity (and is forced to take Sun in order to get Turn Undead).

In general, I'd be much more interested in a Cleric vs FvS vs Mystic discussion, instead of a Cleric vs Fvs one.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Cleric >>> mystic > favoured soul.

Turning is a -big- resource. Its presence or absence really does mean just that much.

Mystic has the same skill list as cleric minus know (history) and one domain which gives it notably more variety in spell access than the FS.

The FS's joke class features don't begin to outweigh what it lacks in comparison to the other two and lacking know (religion) is just a slap in the face of an absurd magnitude. Being MAD is the cherry on top of this turd pie. Make no mistake, it's still a T2 class and has all the power that entails but compared to the other two... SMH. All it's really got going for it is that it draws from the second best spell list.

[Troacctid]

Mystics basically give up two spells known of each level to get a domain, so there is a substantial cost, and their casting is still delayed. And they only get turning by picking an otherwise crappy domain, and unlike spontaneous Clerics, they don't get Sanctified spells for free. I'd probably rather be a Favored Soul with one of the good ACFs (Favored of Bahamut or Deity's Favor) and have more known spells.

[Blue Jay]

Mystics basically give up two spells known of each level to get a domain, so there is a substantial cost, and their casting is still delayed. And they only get turning by picking an otherwise crappy domain, and unlike spontaneous Clerics, they don't get Sanctified spells for free. I'd probably rather be a Favored Soul with one of the good ACFs (Favored of Bahamut or Deity's Favor) and have more known spells.

Don't Mystic and Favored Soul have identical spell progressions?

Also, I disagree that spontaneous clerics can cast sanctified spells. The text says a cleric can cast them spontaneously in the same way that she would spontaneously cast a cure spell, which means she'd need to give up a prepared spell to do it.

[Troacctid]

Don't Mystic and Favored Soul have identical spell progressions?
Favored Souls have more spells known.


Also, I disagree that spontaneous clerics can cast sanctified spells. The text says a cleric can cast them spontaneously in the same way that she would spontaneously cast a cure spell, which means she'd need to give up a prepared spell to do it.
Spontaneous clerics still cast spells spontaneously. I mean, kinda the whole point, right? The variant pretty much makes it so you can't cast Cure spells any other way.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Mystics basically give up two spells known of each level to get a domain, so there is a substantial cost, and their casting is still delayed.

Still more than a sorcerer and it's enough. Without domain access you get cut off from a -lot- of good spells. The delayed progression is typical of all spontaneous casters so "meh." If you pick a good domain, you were likely going to select all or nearly all of those spells anyway so it's really only one spell known lost on any given level when compared to the FS, not two.


And they only get turning by picking an otherwise crappy domain, and unlike spontaneous Clerics, they don't get Sanctified spells for free.

The sun domain doesn't give the mystic turning. It allows a character that already has turning to pump one up once per day. You want turning, you gotta prestige into it. Sanctified spells are available to clerics either by preparation or by sacrificing equal level spells. The spontaneous cleric gets neither of these options.


I'd probably rather be a Favored Soul with one of the good ACFs (Favored of Bahamut or Deity's Favor) and have more known spells.

Meh. They're all pretty weaksauce. I'd rather the domain and minimized loss of PrC access.

[RoboEmperor]

FS can't be deityless right?

No, Favored Souls are "nerfed clerics". There's no way around it. Clerics do everything, I mean EVERYTHING, better than Favored Souls, in EVERY department. So being inferior in EVERY way makes it a nerfed version.

[Blue Jay]

Favored Souls have more spells known.

Oh, you're right: those are definitely "1+d" in the Mystic's table, not "2+d." My bad.


Spontaneous clerics still cast spells spontaneously. I mean, kinda the whole point, right? The variant pretty much makes it so you can't cast Cure spells any other way.

That has the feel of a willfully dishonest interpretation of the rules. The text says this:

"...[clerics] can spontaneously cast any sanctified spell, just as they can spontaneously cast cure wounds spells."

It seems pretty clear that they're referring to the ability of a standard cleric to spontaneously lose a prepared spell to cast cure wounds spells.

But, even if your reading correct, the sanctified spells wouldn't be for free, because spontaneous clerics don't get cure spells for free. So, at the very least, a sanctified spell would have to be chosen as a spell known.


The sun domain doesn't give the mystic turning.

It does, actually. There's a special clause in the Dragonlance Campaign Setting specifically for mystics with the Sun domain.

[Kelb_Panthera]

It does, actually. There's a special clause in the Dragonlance Campaign Setting specifically for mystics with the Sun domain.

So it does. My mistake. Better to get it by prestige though.

[Arbane]

If you want spontaneous divine magic, consider DLCS's mystic. Basically it's a SAD version of a FS that gets one domain instead of the FS class features. It's a solid step-up from FS in my opinion.

Or Pathfinder's Oracle.

[Troacctid]

That has the feel of a willfully dishonest interpretation of the rules. The text says this:

"...[clerics] can spontaneously cast any sanctified spell, just as they can spontaneously cast cure wounds spells."

It seems pretty clear that they're referring to the ability of a standard cleric to spontaneously lose a prepared spell to cast cure wounds spells.
I actually think it's more in line with the intent of the rules. "Ah, but you can't use the spontaneous casting ability, because you don't have prepared spells, you only have spell slots, which are technically not the same thing!" Yes, but the reason it says that is because you're a prepared caster. If you take a variant that changes that, of course you have to patch it a little to work. It's kind of like the argument that Divine Bards suffer arcane spell failure in armor even though they cast divine spells, because the variant says it otherwise casts spells just as a Bard does. Like, okay, yeah, but, like, really?


So it does. My mistake. Better to get it by prestige though.
It's easier to get a domain from prestiging than it is to get turning.

[Kelb_Panthera]

It's easier to get a domain from prestiging than it is to get turning.

In general, sure. In the specific case of a mystic getting full access to the domain, I rather doubt that.

[RoboEmperor]

It's easier to get a domain from prestiging than it is to get turning.

Contemplative only grants only ALIGNMENT domains, or domains in your deity's portfolio, so if you're deityless, you can only get ALIGNMENT domains.

So... getting awesome domains from prestiging is not as easy as you might think it is. Of course if your goal is like Oracle domain or one of them eberron pantheon domains then yeah it is.

[Pleh]

"...[clerics] can spontaneously cast any sanctified spell, just as they can spontaneously cast cure wounds spells."

It seems pretty clear that they're referring to the ability of a standard cleric to spontaneously lose a prepared spell to cast cure wounds spells.

But, even if your reading correct, the sanctified spells wouldn't be for free, because spontaneous clerics don't get cure spells for free. So, at the very least, a sanctified spell would have to be chosen as a spell known.

Clerics know their entire spell list.

If they can cast it, they know it (unless sanctified spells specifically say otherwise, I'm afb).

I agree with you, though. Spontaneous cure/inflict specifically sacrifices a spell slot that has been prepared (theoretically with a different spell). So if sanctified spells work by the same method, they expend a prepared slot as well.

But spell knowledge shouldn't be a factor. Clerics don't have a spells known table.

[LudicSavant]

I've sometimes heard Favored Souls described as "nerfed clerics" or "sh**ty clerics". After a detailed comparison of the two, I'm forced to conclude that this is an inaccurate description. It's more accurate to say that clerics are more dedicated, whereas favored souls are more flexible. Or, clerics emphasize performance whereas FS emphasize utility. Or, clerics are better at handling expected situations; FS are better at handling unexpected ones.

A detailed breakdown is as follows:


Both have a d8 for hit points
Both have starting skills of (2+ int modifier) x 4
Both gain (2 + int modifier) skill points per level
Both must have alignments within 1 step of their patron deity's

Clerics rely on wisdom for number of spell slots, maximum spell level, and the difficulty class of enemy saving throws
FS rely on charisma for number of spell slots and maximum spell level, but still use wisdom for enemy saving throws

Both have Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Heal, Knowledge: Arcana, Profession, and Spellcraft as class skills
Clerics have Knowledge: History, Knowledge: Religion, and Knowledge: the Planes
FS have Jump & Sense Motive

Both are proficient with simple weapons, light and medium armor, and any shields except tower shields
Clerics are proficient with heavy armor; FS are not

FS get deity's preferred weapon proficiency at level 1, focus at 3, and specialization at 12, regardless of domain
Clerics get deity's preferred weapon proficiency AND focus at level 1, but only if they choose war domain. They do not get free weapon specialization.

Clerics have Auras and Domains; FS do not
Clerics can turn/rebuke/command/destroy undead (uses charisma); FS cannot
Clerics can serve arbitrary domains without being attached to a specific deity; FS cannot

FS can serve race-specific deities without being members of that race; clerics cannot
FS can cast spells of an alignment opposed to their own and their deity's; clerics cannot.

FS have better Reflex saves
FS get energy resistances at levels 5, 10 and 15, and damage reduction at 20; clerics do not.
FS get WINGS MOTHERF***ER

From this, we can easily conclude:

- Clerics are the better dedicated magic-users, whereas favored souls are better at smashing face with their deity's favored weapon when nobody is in immediate need of healing.

You can't actually conclude that from the evidence you've presented, because you've actually left out the biggest factors that influence how good a Cleric or Favored Soul is at smashing face with weapons: Namely the use of melee-enhancing spells, domain features (and domain feats from CC like Knowledge Devotion), and alternate Turning uses. By contrast things like Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization are drops in the bucket.

You're not just ignoring variables here, you're ignoring the biggest ones.

[Kelb_Panthera]

So it does. My mistake. Better to get it by prestige though.

In light of this new information, I must revise my previous estimation.

Cleric>>mystic>>favoured soul.

The option to pick up turning at level one is -very- powerful, though not so good as to be a given, enough so that it opens the gap with favoured soul and closes the one with cleric when compared to my previous estimation by pretty substantial degrees.

[Crake]

By my evaluation, running away if you don't have the right spells prepared is the intended tactic for many monsters. Luckily most fear effects induce that anyway, and the incorporeal foes that require magic weapon are usually powerless in sunlight and have a chance of being hit by Turn Undead, which the Cleric does have at all times. Remove Fear can also be used as a buff since it gives +4 on further saves so you might not fail in the first place (though with how many fear effects still leave you shaken, another cast might be worth it in combat anyway, which does give the FS a certain advantage unless/until a wand makes it a moot point for either).


Oh there's plenty more on the list of hard counters that make certain enemies fair (and mass versions printed later), I just stripped it down since I don't know any MM1 monsters that fully require Spell Immunity. Spell Resistance though, that's how you get a chance to resist Blasphemy.

You don't need all 3 revival spells, except you do want them as soon as they're available, changing spells is very limited, and while you might rather just wait for True Res that's 3 levels where you still lack the ability to revive incomplete bodies or even just from [death] effects (while foes have Destruction and Finger of Death). Technically access to the material component isn't even guaranteed, but spell hiring and a la cart magic items aren't absolutely guaranteed either, while you could find a gem in a treasure hoard (in fact, keeping the gem around rather than scribing a scroll is a good security measure).

I believe there was a playtest writeup somewhere that involved the party of roughly 15th level fighting a balor, which has blasphemy at will at CL20. They used greater spell immunity to become immune to it's blasphemy, which would otherwise have been an instant party wipe with no save, since none of them were evil.

Hell, even if you were fighting the balor at level 20, it could summon a second balor, which could spam blasphemy and keep the entire party dazed permanently while the other balor tore you to shreds, so I'd say that you do fully require spell immunity to fight a balor.

[Fizban]

Huh, I hadn't checked Greater Spell Immunity in a while, thought it didn't go high enough for Blasphemy, hence I figured either Spell Resistance or scattering tactics.

Hearing that there was a playtest where they specifically used GSI as the counter does kinda make me laugh though. Makes me wonder where people heard all these- presumably ages ago on the wizard's boards before they clammed up on stuff. Standard party has cleric, cleric has GSI, blasphemy at-will makes for an EIHP (easy if handled properly) encounter, everything working as intended.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Hell, even if you were fighting the balor at level 20, it could summon a second balor, which could spam blasphemy and keep the entire party dazed permanently while the other balor tore you to shreds, so I'd say that you do fully require spell immunity to fight a balor.
Well, silence also negates blasphemy (except for the banishment part, which at least allows a save). It's hardly a trouble-free solution, since it'll hurt your own verbal components and possibly intra-party communication, but it's cheaper than four greater spell immunities.

[Fizban]

Also interesting. I always found it odd how few spells were actually negated by Silence, since Shout specifically calls it out but most don't. But if you read the "defense against. . . attacks" line as not just the fact that if you can't hear you can't be language'd at, but as specifically doing *something* to all sonic spells, the only obvious conclusion from the rest of Silence is negation. With that, the great an terrible Blasphemy is negated for multiple people by a single spell. Though you can of course cover casters without Silent Spell with GSI instead.

Incidentally, anyone else find it ridiculous that a spell which actively negates an energy descriptor is classified as an illusion?

[Cosi]

Contemplative only grants only ALIGNMENT domains, or domains in your deity's portfolio, so if you're deityless, you can only get ALIGNMENT domains.

You can still have a deity even if you aren't a Cleric. There's nothing stopping a Druid who happens to worship Kord from taking a level of Contemplative and getting the Strength or Luck domains.

[Pleh]

Incidentally, anyone else find it ridiculous that a spell which actively negates an energy descriptor is classified as an illusion?

Actually, I find it fascinating.

It suggests that Sound exists in two forms: one is physical and objective, the other is in the mind's interpretation of the sensation in their ear, which is subjective.

The idea being that an Illusory Silence doesn't negate the actual sound waves, but forces your brain to ignore them. Thus, a magical Blasphemy that attacks through verbal components is nullified by preventing the targets from hearing or understanding the words.

So, for me, fascinating.

[Buufreak]

Trolling post is trolling, guys. Brand new profile, single post, then ditched. They threw up a wall of text made to insight opinions and bailed.

I am enjoying the mystic discussion, though.

[Blue Jay]

Clerics know their entire spell list.

If they can cast it, they know it (unless sanctified spells specifically say otherwise, I'm afb).

We're talking about the spontaneous cleric (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm) variant from UA. They have to choose spells known like a sorcerer.

[Fizban]

Actually, I find it fascinating.

It suggests that Sound exists in two forms: one is physical and objective, the other is in the mind's interpretation of the sensation in their ear, which is subjective.

The idea being that an Illusory Silence doesn't negate the actual sound waves, but forces your brain to ignore them. Thus, a magical Blasphemy that attacks through verbal components is nullified by preventing the targets from hearing or understanding the words.

So, for me, fascinating.
Except the Blasphemy isn't hitting you because you hear it: nothing in the spell description requires it to be heard. The only reason it would be blocked by Silence is the [sonic] descriptor, which is the same descriptor as Shout or Cacophonic Burst, which have enough energy to shatter steel. Fluff-wise blocking Blasphemy with an illusion might make sense 'cause you hear no evil, but blocking a spell that can explode a door not so much.

I would expect it happened in stages: Silence was invented and deemed an illusion, then someone got fresh and said it should block "Shout" because sound. And at some point someone wrote the increased damage of Shout vs crystalline objects without realizing iron is crystalline, and people wrote a bunch of [sonic] attack spells that exist solely to abuse the sonic damage type.

Regarding Mystics or Spontaneous Clerics: Mystic is what you get when you make a "divine sorcerer," so it's as nerfed as the sorcerer, while Spontaneous Cleric is exactly what you'd expect of taking the prepared class with none of the penalties given to the sorcerer and waving a spontaneous flag over it.

[Nifft]

Incidentally, anyone else find it ridiculous that a spell which actively negates an energy descriptor is classified as an illusion?
Yes it's very weird that silence is an illusion, because how does it interact with true seeing?

Can I hear you because you see me?


Actually, I find it fascinating.

It suggests that Sound exists in two forms: one is physical and objective, the other is in the mind's interpretation of the sensation in their ear, which is subjective.

The idea being that an Illusory Silence doesn't negate the actual sound waves, but forces your brain to ignore them. Thus, a magical Blasphemy that attacks through verbal components is nullified by preventing the targets from hearing or understanding the words.
That can't be why [Sonic] effects in general get negated by silence. It's not the sound-waves hitting some eardrums when a Destrachan uses [Sonic] energy to shatter glass, and that effect is blocked by silence.

[RoboEmperor]

Except the Blasphemy isn't hitting you because you hear it: nothing in the spell description requires it to be heard. The only reason it would be blocked by Silence is the [sonic] descriptor, which is the same descriptor as Shout or Cacophonic Burst, which have enough energy to shatter steel. Fluff-wise blocking Blasphemy with an illusion might make sense 'cause you hear no evil, but blocking a spell that can explode a door not so much.

I would expect it happened in stages: Silence was invented and deemed an illusion, then someone got fresh and said it should block "Shout" because sound. And at some point someone wrote the increased damage of Shout vs crystalline objects without realizing iron is crystalline, and people wrote a bunch of [sonic] attack spells that exist solely to abuse the sonic damage type.

All sonic spells are blocked by silence. Doesn't matter if a sonic attack can shatter steel, it uses sound to accomplish this and silence destroys all sound, therefore no sonic, therefore no steel shattering.

You seem to be confusing Deafness with Silence. You are correct that a Deaf creature will still be affected by sonic attacks but not creatures in a zone of silence.

[Troacctid]

"A glamer spell changes a subject’s sensory qualities, making it look, feel, taste, smell, or sound like something else, or even seem to disappear."

Glamers have the power to manipulate sound, which is how Silence is able to counter effects that rely on sound.

[Blue Jay]

I actually think it's more in line with the intent of the rules. "Ah, but you can't use the spontaneous casting ability, because you don't have prepared spells, you only have spell slots, which are technically not the same thing!" Yes, but the reason it says that is because you're a prepared caster. If you take a variant that changes that, of course you have to patch it a little to work. It's kind of like the argument that Divine Bards suffer arcane spell failure in armor even though they cast divine spells, because the variant says it otherwise casts spells just as a Bard does. Like, okay, yeah, but, like, really?

I don't know how to proceed with this: we obviously disagree, and I don't think the evidence is definitive in either way. I still think a spontaneous cleric will have to give up access to sanctified spells, but I'm not married to that interpretation, and I'm sure plenty of DM's would rule it your way.

But, it just dawned on me that I pretty blatantly accused you of being dishonest, and I wanted to apologize for that. I didn't mean it that way, though looking back, I'm not sure how else I could have meant it. So, I'm sorry for saying it.

[Troacctid]

Apology accepted! And it's fine, like, I don't think your interpretation is "wrong" or anything, there's textual evidence to support it, I just don't think it lines up as well with the RAI.

Although frankly, if we're being real, the better solution in practice is probably to change spontaneous Sanctified spells to replace spontaneous curing anyway. There was no reason to give Clerics such a massive power boost in BoED without giving anything up.

[Anachronity]

I feel like Silence should be an evocation, like Darkness.
Or maybe an abjuration, since it stops the sound from getting in.

But yeah, illusion is pretty weird.




Or Pathfinder's Oracle.That's my go-to. Honestly I don't understand why so many people shun Pathfinder entirely just on the basis of its... admittedly bizarre design values for character options (see this feat (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/arcane-armor-training-combat/); why the swift action?). The actual core system rules changes are mostly solid improvements on 3.5, and nothing is stopping you from porting forward your favorite 3.5 class(es) and feats and whatnot.

[Nifft]

I feel like Silence should be an evocation, like Darkness.
Or maybe an abjuration, since it stops the sound from getting in.

But yeah, illusion is pretty weird. Silence was Alteration in 1e (=> Transmutation in 3.x terms).


That's my go-to. Honestly I don't understand why so many people shun Pathfinder entirely just on the basis of its... admittedly bizarre design values for character options (see this feat (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/arcane-armor-training-combat/); why the swift action?). The actual core system rules changes are mostly solid improvements on 3.5, and nothing is stopping you from porting forward your favorite 3.5 class(es) and feats and whatnot. Pathfinder is huge.

Within that hugeness, there are some gems. There's also a lot of crap.

I don't have endless time in my day, and sifting through some huge mass of rules for the gems means less time for important things, like helping people on the internet understand that they're wrong.

[Remuko]

Trolling post is trolling, guys. Brand new profile, single post, then ditched. They threw up a wall of text made to insight opinions and bailed.

I am enjoying the mystic discussion, though.

honestly was thinking the same thing

Edit: OP came back. I was wrong.

[Anachronity]

Silence was Alteration in 1e (=> Transmutation in 3.x terms).

Pathfinder is huge.

Within that hugeness, there are some gems. There's also a lot of crap.

I don't have endless time in my day, and sifting through some huge mass of rules for the gems means less time for important things, like helping people on the internet understand that they're wrong.I was referring to the base rules system; CMB and CMD and the condensed skill list and all that jazz. Just use those rules with ported 3.5 classes; it's very easy to port things over with even a little practice.

But yes, your complaint is the actual problem I have with no-homebrew Pathfinder. There are eight Suppress Regenerations (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/suppress-regeneration-combat-teamwork) for every one Brilliant Planner (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/brilliant-planner/).

[Kelb_Panthera]

Trolling post is trolling, guys. Brand new profile, single post, then ditched. They threw up a wall of text made to insight opinions and bailed.

I am enjoying the mystic discussion, though.


honestly was thinking the same thing

Somebody having little to say, especially in response to paragraph after paragraph of how they're wrong, isn't necessarily indicative of a troll. Just because things get heated doesn't make it a troll. If you look for ill intent, you'll find it, whether it's actually there or not.

[Yogibear41]

There was no reason to give Clerics such a massive power boost in BoED without giving anything up.

But they do have to give something up. They can't be Evil, or even worse still they can't be Lawful Evil :sabine:

[AvatarVecna]

Clerics are the better dedicated magic-users

This. This is why Favored Souls are called "nerfed clerics".

Here's the thing: if you play in a campaign where you basically never would have a reason to prepare different spells than your basic, everyday stuff (maybe the whole campaign is more of a detective-style game where divinations not relevant to combat are more important than usual, or if you're playing a political intrigue game where enchantments and illusions are king, or a war game where everything that's not combat related can suck it, the favored soul and the cleric will both be doing about the same - the cleric will have the ability to pull out niche spells that are tangentially related to the situation, but the favored soul will have spontaneous casting of the spells that will be showing up a lot throughout the campaign. But that's the thing: favored soul is good at filling any role. Cleric is good at filling every role. All of a cleric's class features, more or less, are just spellcasting, and tomorrow they can be a completely different spellcaster that's relevant to the situation. Let me put it this way:

A 1st lvl Favored Soul, when they wake up in the morning, is the same single character they were yesterday, and the same they'll be tomorrow, and the same as they'll be every day until they level up.

A 1st lvl Cleric, when they wake up in the morning, could arbitrarily decide that they want to pretend to be a spontaneous caster with a really ****ty spells known list, so for each of their spell levels, they'll choose one spell from the 3.5 player's handbook on the cleric list and prepare that in every slot they have at that level. Even at 1st lvl with only two spell levels to do this with, and even only pulling from the player's handbook, and even with this asinine restriction on what they're allowing themselves to prepare...they have 372 different characters they could be today. And they can be a different one tomorrow...and the next day...and the next day...and every "next day" for over a year.

And that's at level one, with super-arbitrary restrictions. If you did exactly the same thing at lvl 17 - still just PHB, still just one spell prepared for every slot of the same level - you'd be looking at just under 22 trillion possible characters, which is enough that if this cleric 17 started cycling through the options the day the IRL Earth formed, by the time you reached current day they would've barely gotten through 0.02% of all possible combinations.

[Katie Boundary]

For the record: The only relevant books that I have on this subject are the PHB and Complete Divine. I'm going strictly off of what those present. If there are 50 other books that offer crazy additional powers to Clerics but not to Favored Souls, then I don't think that the problem lies in the designs of the classes themselves. I also haven't seen a good explanation of exactly what the hell Divine Metamagic does. Its description in CD is not clear at all.


Trolling post is trolling, guys. Brand new profile, single post, then ditched.

You misspelled "Brand new profile, single post, then had some real-world BS to deal with, then came back and was shocked that there were 3 whole pages of responses to read"


They threw up a wall of text made to insight opinions

"Incite"


A 1st lvl Favored Soul, when they wake up in the morning, is the same single character they were yesterday, and the same they'll be tomorrow, and the same as they'll be every day until they level up.

A 1st lvl Cleric, when they wake up in the morning, could arbitrarily decide that they want to pretend to be a spontaneous caster with a really ****ty spells known list, so for each of their spell levels, they'll choose one spell from the 3.5 player's handbook on the cleric list and prepare that in every slot they have at that level. Even at 1st lvl with only two spell levels to do this with, and even only pulling from the player's handbook, and even with this asinine restriction on what they're allowing themselves to prepare...they have 372 different characters they could be today. And they can be a different one tomorrow...and the next day...and the next day...and every "next day" for over a year.

But each and every one of those would be inferior to whatever the FS was at that same level. The FS basically has two-step spell-selection where the cleric has single-step spell selection: A cleric does ALL of their decision-making at the beginning of each day, and is stuck with those decisions for the rest of the day, while the FS locks some of their decisions in when they level up so that they don't have to make the rest of their decisions until the sh!t hits the fan and they actually know what spells they need. Neither one is really better than the other.

[Jack_Simth]

I also haven't seen a good explanation of exactly what the hell Divine Metamagic does. Its description in CD is not clear at all.

You burn turn attempts to use a metamagic feat spontaneously at no slot adjustment (costs 1 turn attempt, +1 per spell level adjustment). So, for instance, a Cleric who likes the party might use Divine Metamagic (Persistent Spell) on Mass [Lesser] Vigor or Vigorous Circle to give everyone fast healing all day by burning 7 turning attempts (and investing about three feats, with some ways to mitigate those costs, too). Mass Lesser Vigor is a 3rd level spell, and so you can start doing this at 5th level with the right build (Planning and Undeath domains give you Extend Spell and Extra Turning, respectively, as bonus feats; you then spend your 1st level feat on Persistent Spell, and your 3rd level feat on Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell) and are good to go for Fast Healing 1 all day at 5th when you get your first 3rd level spell slots... a human, strongheart halfling, or anyone with UA flaws using the associated bonus feat for Divine Metamagic could be doing this at 1st level with spells like Bless).


But each and every one of those would be inferior to whatever the FS was at that same level. The FS basically has two-step spell-selection where the cleric has single-step spell selection: A cleric does ALL of their decision-making at the beginning of each day, and is stuck with those decisions for the rest of the day, while the FS locks some of their decisions in when they level up so that they don't have to make the rest of their decisions until the sh!t hits the fan and they actually know what spells they need. Neither one is really better than the other.
The prepared casting is better, but it also has a learning curve before it is, as you need to be better at gaging how much of what you're likely to go through. Being able to pick up the "day after" spells... the day after regardless of which one you need, is very useful - the Favored Soul has to pick it before hand, or it's the "level after" spell. Additionally... some spells look nice, but don't work well in practice. If a FS picks one of those unawares, the FS is stuck with it for a level. If a Cleric picks one, it can be traded out the next day. Likewise, if a Cleric is planning for a particular task, the Cleric can use Divinations (Commune, Augury, Divination, and so on) to ask the DM for an idea of what spells will be useful. This tactic doesn't help much for the Favored Soul, as the FS can't easily shuffle spells known.

Then there's the slightly faster access: There is no level at which the Favored Soul has access to higher level spells than does the Cleric, but the Cleric has access to higher level spells than the Favored Soul at 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th, 15th, and 17th - 8 of the 20 "expected" levels in the game... and a rather lot of games start above 1st and end before 17th, which means it's very often 50% of the levels where the Cleric is ahead.

Then there's spell slots... on most even levels, the favored soul really only has one or two more in the top three tiers of spells... but the split casting stat means the Cleric will usually have more bonus spell slots, which will often even it out (on a point buy, the Cleric can invest more into Wisdom; the FS has to split points between Wisdom and Charisma; additionally, level up boosts and wealth can be focused for the Cleric, but must be divided for the Favored Soul - so the Cleric will usually have a slightly higher effective casting stat than will the FS). (see spell access for odd levels).

Then there's scrolls. A Cleric can collaborate with a Wizard on making scrolls of the highly situational spells - that's of no benefit to a Favored Soul.

Then there's support in additional books. The FS got very little of it. The Cleric, lots. Why? Well, most of the writers for those additional books mostly only think about themselves and core. Needing to buy yet another book to make use of the one you just got might seem great for marketing, but it's not going to see much play, and will discourage players if you do it a lot. So the Core Classes get MUCH more support than the supplementary classes.

...

I could go on for quite some time. The Cleric is a stronger class than is the Favored Soul. However: That's not necessarily a bad thing! The Cleric is one of the strongest classes in the game (you'll probably become very familiar with "tiers" if you hang around here for long - the Cleric is T1, the Favored Soul is T2), and playing it to the hilt isn't suitable for many tables. Additionally, some of the Cleric's advantages are table-dependent: As a simple example, Divinations about the future don't help much with a DM that mostly wings it. But the Cleric is the higher-ceiling class (also lower floor class) by a noticeable margin.

[Katie Boundary]

The descriptions of those feats aren't written very well either :\ When a cleric takes DMM, can they choose ANY metamagic feat, or only one that they've already learned? If a player has Persistent Spell but not DMM, how do they use Persistent Spell? Can they just apply it to any spell at any time?

[Nifft]

The descriptions of those feats aren't written very well either :\ When a cleric takes DMM, can they choose ANY metamagic feat, or only one that they've already learned? If a player has Persistent Spell but not DMM, how do they use Persistent Spell? Can they just apply it to any spell at any time?

Per the errata, it's any that they already know. Per the book, it's unclear (thus the need for errata).

[Katie Boundary]

Being able to pick up the "day after" spells... the day after regardless of which one you need, is very useful - the Favored Soul has to pick it before hand, or it's the "level after" spell. Additionally... some spells look nice, but don't work well in practice. If a FS picks one of those unawares, the FS is stuck with it for a level. If a Cleric picks one, it can be traded out the next day. Likewise, if a Cleric is planning for a particular task, the Cleric can use Divinations (Commune, Augury, Divination, and so on) to ask the DM for an idea of what spells will be useful. This tactic doesn't help much for the Favored Soul, as the FS can't easily shuffle spells known.

Yes, if you focus entirely on the cleric's superior day-to-day flexibility and totally ignore the Favored Soul's greater flexibility within a single day, the Cleric does have the upper hand.


Then there's the slightly faster access: There is no level at which the Favored Soul has access to higher level spells than does the Cleric, but the Cleric has access to higher level spells than the Favored Soul at 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th, 15th, and 17th - 8 of the 20 "expected" levels in the game... and a rather lot of games start above 1st and end before 17th, which means it's very often 50% of the levels where the Cleric is ahead.

Again, if you focus on the cleric's better spell access and ignore the Favored Soul's ability to cast more spells per day, the Cleric does seem vastly superior.


Then there's scrolls. A Cleric can collaborate with a Wizard on making scrolls of the highly situational spells - that's of no benefit to a Favored Soul.

I didn't know that was a thing. Thanks for the heads-up.


Then there's support in additional books. The FS got very little of it. The Cleric, lots.

I already pointed this out.


Per the errata, it's any that they already know. Per the book, it's unclear (thus the need for errata).

Mmmkay, good to know... though that doesn't answer the other question.

[Ignimortis]

The descriptions of those feats aren't written very well either :\ When a cleric takes DMM, can they choose ANY metamagic feat, or only one that they've already learned? If a player has Persistent Spell but not DMM, how do they use Persistent Spell? Can they just apply it to any spell at any time?

Since they're prepared casters, I would assume that clerics would prepare spells with metamagic. Thus, if you ban DMM, they can still use those feats, it's just that divine casters don't have access to a slew of metamagic level reduction features, and thus are getting the bare minimum of use out of metamagic feats.

[Ignimortis]

Yes, if you focus entirely on the cleric's superior day-to-day flexibility and totally ignore the Favored Soul's greater flexibility within a single day, the Cleric does have the upper hand.

Again, if you focus on the cleric's better spell access and ignore the Favored Soul's ability to cast more spells per day, the Cleric does seem vastly superior.


Outside of lower levels up to 5, those things don't matter as much as they seem to. High-WIS clerics get enough spells per day at level 5 and above to be able to cast through the day.

[Katie Boundary]

Since they're prepared casters, I would assume that clerics would prepare spells with metamagic. Thus, if you ban DMM, they can still use those feats, it's just that divine casters don't have access to a slew of metamagic level reduction features, and thus are getting the bare minimum of use out of metamagic feats.

Okay so... How does Persistent Spell work? If a player has Persistent Spell but not DMM, how do they use Persistent Spell? Can they just apply it to any spell at any time?

[Nifft]

Okay so... How does Persistent Spell work? If a player has Persistent Spell but not DMM, how do they use Persistent Spell? Can they just apply it to any spell at any time?

Same as any other Metamagic Feat: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#metamagicFeats

Spontaneous casters can apply at any time (by spending a longer action and paying a higher slot).

Prepared casters can prepare ahead of time (also paying a higher slot).

[AvatarVecna]

But each and every one of those would be inferior to whatever the FS was at that same level. The FS basically has two-step spell-selection where the cleric has single-step spell selection: A cleric does ALL of their decision-making at the beginning of each day, and is stuck with those decisions for the rest of the day, while the FS locks some of their decisions in when they level up so that they don't have to make the rest of their decisions until the sh!t hits the fan and they actually know what spells they need. Neither one is really better than the other.

Neither one is better than the other right up until you find the campaign going in a different direction than you anticipated, at which point the favored soul ends up dependent on how fortunate their choices were when they leveled up. I mean, I guess if you've got a DM that coddles you and restricts the kind of adventures he throws at you, or you've somehow stumbled across a combination of spells known that let a Favored Soul be relevant to all possible adventures without losing any power, you don't have to deal with the versatility downgrade?

[TheTeaMustFlow]

But each and every one of those would be inferior to whatever the FS was at that same level.

Flatly untrue on countless grounds, the most obvious being that a) the Cleric gets new spell levels earlier than the Favoured Soul, and b) the Cleric has access to spells which the Favoured Soul does not, courtesy of Domain spells, Sanctified Spells, etc.

[AvatarVecna]

Also, while this hardly covers a ton of ground on this particular front, it's a definite improvement over the thing it replaces so it's worth mentioning: you can trade away the ability to spontaneously cast cure/inflict spells for the ability to spontaneously cast your domain spells (which is two spells at each spell level, or three if you're a cloistered cleric - and outside the lvl 1 spell, the Knowledge Domain is pretty sweet). Most healing is gonna flow from the end of a wand anyway.

[Katie Boundary]

Same as any other Metamagic Feat: {link}

Okay, thanks. I will read that as many times as it takes to understand it or until I have another question.


Neither one is better than the other right up until you find the campaign going in a different direction than you anticipated, at which point the cleric ends up dependent on how fortunate their choices were when they cast spells earlier in the day.

:smallbiggrin:


Flatly untrue on countless grounds, the most obvious being that a) the Cleric gets new spell levels earlier than the Favoured Soul, and b) the Cleric has access to spells which the Favoured Soul does not, courtesy of Domain spells, Sanctified Spells, etc.

Whoops, you're right.


Also, while this hardly covers a ton of ground on this particular front, it's a definite improvement over the thing it replaces so it's worth mentioning: you can trade away the ability to spontaneously cast cure/inflict spells for the ability to spontaneously cast your domain spells

Is this a feat? or what?

[AvatarVecna]

:smallbiggrin:

You forgot the part where the cleric can just come back and solve the problem in either 8 hours or 15 minutes depending on if they left slots available to prepare for unexpected stuff, whereas the favored soul has to come back next level-up should they find their current spells known useless. Neither of these re-preparing time frames is ideal in the middle of an adventure, but one is very decidedly worse.


Is this a feat? or what?

It's an ACF from PBH2 - I know, I know, such an obscure splatbook. So yeah, no doesn't cost any resources other than the thing I mentioned you replace with it.

[One Step Two]

Under the Cleric (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/cleric.htm) class, sub header: Spontaneous casting:

"A good cleric (or a neutral cleric of a good deity) can channel stored spell energy into healing spells that the cleric did not prepare ahead of time. The cleric can "lose" any prepared spell that is not a domain spell in order to cast any cure spell of the same spell level or lower (a cure spell is any spell with "cure" in its name).

An evil cleric (or a neutral cleric of an evil deity), can’t convert prepared spells to cure spells but can convert them to inflict spells (an inflict spell is one with "inflict" in its name).

A cleric who is neither good nor evil and whose deity is neither good nor evil can convert spells to either cure spells or inflict spells (player’s choice). Once the player makes this choice, it cannot be reversed. This choice also determines whether the cleric turns or commands undead."

You don't even need Domain spontaneity to convert spells on the fly, a cleric can cast 4-5 wierd and wonderful spells per spell level, and they'll always be able to deliver healing/damage in a pinch.

[Katie Boundary]

You forgot the part where the cleric can just come back and solve the problem in either 8 hours or 15 minutes

Or, you could solve it now. With a heavy repeating crossbow.


It's an ACF

??


splatbook

??


"A good cleric (or a neutral cleric of a good deity) can channel stored spell energy into healing spells that the cleric did not prepare ahead of time. The cleric can "lose" any prepared spell that is not a domain spell in order to cast any cure spell of the same spell level or lower (a cure spell is any spell with "cure" in its name).

An evil cleric (or a neutral cleric of an evil deity), can’t convert prepared spells to cure spells but can convert them to inflict spells (an inflict spell is one with "inflict" in its name).

A cleric who is neither good nor evil and whose deity is neither good nor evil can convert spells to either cure spells or inflict spells (player’s choice). Once the player makes this choice, it cannot be reversed. This choice also determines whether the cleric turns or commands undead."

That has nothing to do with any of the questions I've asked but thanks for trying.

[Goaty14]

Or, you could solve it now. With a heavy repeating crossbow.

"You appear at a large boulder blocking the cave entrance. You can't tell why, but you feel that immediately rolling it away might not be the best idea."

"I shoot it"

"What?"

"You heard me, I shoot the boulder."

"Uhh, give me a moment to review my notes... The bolt breaks against it, now what?"

"I shoot it again!"


??

Alternate Class Feature. Removes a class feature of a class and replaces it with something else


??

A non-core supplementary book, such as your copy of Complete Divine. Avatar Vecna was talking about the Player's Handbook II, if you didn't know the acronym.

[Kelb_Panthera]

For the record: The only relevant books that I have on this subject are the PHB and Complete Divine. I'm going strictly off of what those present. If there are 50 other books that offer crazy additional powers to Clerics but not to Favored Souls, then I don't think that the problem lies in the designs of the classes themselves. I also haven't seen a good explanation of exactly what the hell Divine Metamagic does. Its description in CD is not clear at all.


Even just in CD, you're ignoring the divine feats. Aside from divine metamagic there's also domain spontaneity as the real gems in that category.

DMM says you pick a metamagic you know. You can apply the benefit if that metamagic to -any- spell you cast at the time of casting by sacrificing a number of turn or rebuke undead uses equal to the spell level adjustment of that metamagic. For example, you could associate DMM with quicken spell and cast -any- spell you have prepared as a cleric as a swift action by spending 5 turn attempts. The go-to is persistent spell out of complete arcane so that you can pick a powerful buff like divine power and just have it on constantly. Since you don't have to be able to cast a spell of the adjusted level, you can apply the metamagic you've selected to your highest level spells and even cast spells that -would- be 10th level or higher if they were prepared with the metamagic ahead of time.

Domain spontaneity lets you sacrifice any prepared spell to cast one of your domain spells of the same level at the cost of one turn attempt. This was ultimately rendered obsolete by an alternate class feature in PHB2 that allows you to do the same thing without using turn attempts by giving up the ability to sacrifice spells for cure or inflict spells.

The fact that a cleric had both of these options while a favoured soul does not puts it at a decided advantage even with only the PHB and CD and that's without even looking at the other divine feats in the book.




But each and every one of those would be inferior to whatever the FS was at that same level. The FS basically has two-step spell-selection where the cleric has single-step spell selection: A cleric does ALL of their decision-making at the beginning of each day, and is stuck with those decisions for the rest of the day, while the FS locks some of their decisions in when they level up so that they don't have to make the rest of their decisions until the sh!t hits the fan and they actually know what spells they need. Neither one is really better than the other.

Two things make this decidedly wrong.

The first is that you can prepare a general loadout, same as the FS, and rarely find yourself without something appropriate. A focus on buffing your allies, for example, can make the actual circumstances largely irrelevant most of the time. Any situation that's not too pressing can be overcome the next day if there's a spell on the cleric list that's appropriate to it at all.

The second is the delayed progression of spontaneous casters. Starting at level 3, the favoured soul will spend half of the next 15 levels a full spell level behind the cleric on options that are even available to him from the cleric list itself.

If you then factor in the options available to the cleric through his domains that the FS is wholly barred from and the advantage of divine feats, there's really no denying that the cleric is at an advantage pretty much across the board without even considering prestige classes.

If you take the whole of the options available to both throughout the full 3.5 library, it's not even close.



You -have- correctly identified spontaneous casting's sole advantage though; it's a hell of a lot easier to play. Being able to select from the spells available to you on the fly makes it much more likely that you'll be able to grab the one you need at the end of a busy day or if you happen to need one more than once but that's just not enough on its own to overcome -all- of the advantages that a cleric has over a FS.

[AvatarVecna]

Or, you could solve it now. With a heavy repeating crossbow.

I like how you just assume that the problem your spells known couldn't solve was combat. Hey, could you post a spells known list that has utility to cover all potential roles while also buffing up your combat abilities enough for your stick-whack skills to be relevant? Spoiler alert: no, no you can't.


??

"ACF" stands for "alternate class feature". It's weird, the opening post gave me the impression this started out with you looking into everything the cleric and FS were capable of, but this isn't exactly an obscure ability.


??

"Splatbook" is a general way people refer to books that aren't core that add lots of mechanical material, though I will admit I've never learned why, it seems such a weird word to attach to that concept.

[Katie Boundary]

"You appear at a large boulder blocking the cave entrance. You can't tell why, but you feel that immediately rolling it away might not be the best idea."

"I shoot it"

"What?"

"You heard me, I shoot the boulder."

"Uhh, give me a moment to review my notes... The bolt breaks against it, now what?"

"I shoot it again!"

The story about the bowls was better... but there are people in my group who would react this way in either story. We have a lot of chaotic stupids in our group :smallbiggrin:

And yeah. We could come back tomorrow because our prepared caster burned her one copy of See Through Boulders earlier in the day, or our spontaneous caster could tell us what's up NOW because she can cast See Through Boulders as many times per day as she wants. And we might want that latter option because there's an army of over 9,000 angry kobolds behind us (one of the Chaotic Stupids took their candle) and this cave is the only place where we can hide.


Even just in CD, you're ignoring the divine feats. Aside from divine metamagic there's also domain spontaneity as the real gems in that category.

Nah, Domain Spontaneity sucks.


blah blah blah... The go-to is persistent spell out of complete arcane... blah blah blah... This was ultimately rendered obsolete by an alternate class feature in PHB2... blah blah blah... only the PHB and CD

You seem slightly confused. Complete Arcane is not Complete Divine and PHB2 is not PHB.

What kind of brokenness can a cleric accomplish without Complete Arcane or the PHB2?


Two things make this decidedly wrong.

The first is that you can prepare a general loadout, same as the FS, and rarely find yourself without something appropriate. A focus on buffing your allies, for example, can make the actual circumstances largely irrelevant most of the time. Any situation that's not too pressing can be overcome the next day if there's a spell on the cleric list that's appropriate to it at all.

We've been over this. Heavy repeating crossbow.


The second is the delayed progression of spontaneous casters. Starting at level 3, the favoured soul will spend half of the next 15 levels a full spell level behind the cleric on options that are even available to him from the cleric list itself.

We've been over this too. FS makes up for it by casting more spells per day (8 vs. 5 at level 1).

[AvatarVecna]

If I ignore how 3.5 is more than just two books I happen to personally own, and ignore the opinions of people who spend their lives thinking about and discussing this stuff, and ignore how a class that's easier to play isn't automatically better, and ignore how getting more of a bad thing than somebody else gets of a good thing doesn't make my bad thing good, and ignore how not all unexpected problems can be solved with violence, I don't have to consider the possibility that my gut reaction might be less grounded in facts than I think it is.

I can edit quotes to make somebody's argument seem weak too. Of course, I could've accomplished the same thing by just quoting verbatim. :smallamused:

[CasualViking]

"Splatbook" is a general way people refer to books that aren't core that add lots of mechanical material, though I will admit I've never learned why, it seems such a weird word to attach to that concept.

It comes from White Wolf. "Clanbook" this, "Traditionbook" that; The World of Darkness had several game lines, and for each game line, each character had 2 or 3 different factions or groupings or essences or what have you. The way books were rolled out was very formulaic. So, when you bought a new Tribe Book or Bloodline Book, you pretty much knew what kind of content and structure to expect. So it made sense to replace "Kith" or "Astrological Sign" with the common wildcard denominator, *. And * is sometimes called a "splat".

[ryu]

Also spontaneous is only easier to work with if you've an experienced player picking your spells known, explaining them, and giving examples of when they're most useful. Otherwise you run the risk of picking a bad spell which is exponentially higher as a newb. A cleric who does that can literally say: "Well that sucked. Doing something else tomorrow." This is why when teaching someone how to caster I recommend prepared casters. Much more forgiving of mistakes. Also not being behind a level makes it easier for mediocre play to still be much more effective.

[Troacctid]

We've been over this too. FS makes up for it by casting more spells per day (8 vs. 5 at level 1).
Assuming 18 Wisdom, a 3rd level Cleric has 7 spells per day, 3 of which are 2nd level. Favored Soul has 5, all of which are 1st level. At level 5, the Cleric has 12 and the Favored Soul has 10. Again, the Cleric's slots are also higher level. At level 7, the Cleric has 18 and the Favored Soul has 16. Cleric slots are still higher level.

This pattern continues, and it doesn't get any better for the Favored Soul. So, Favored Souls are definitely not advantaged in spells per day.

[Katie Boundary]

I can edit quotes to make somebody's argument seem weak too. Of course, I could've accomplished the same thing by just quoting verbatim. :smallamused:

No, you couldn't have, because I'm not ignoring anything; I'm the one pointing out what OTHER people are ignoring. In this case, you're ignoring that the original post was a comparison of the designs of the classes themselves (hence the title "Favored Souls are not 'nerfed clerics'"), not a comparison of how much extra crap each class got in the dozens of supplements that exist.

Let's use operating systems as an analogy. Linux versus Windows. If you only look at the operating systems themselves, Linux has superior stability, security, resource-management, and pretty much else; its only traditional disadvantage was user-friendliness, but in recent years, it's been rapidly improving on that front while Windows has been getting worse and worse since Vista. However, if you compare Linux and all the software that is available for Linux to Windows and all the software that is available for Windows, then Linux is pretty useless. Now go tell a bunch of computer nerds that Windows is the superior operating system just because Windows programs don't run on Linux (at least not without WINE), and see what kind of reaction you get.

The difference between these two situations is that I admitted, in my original post, that clerics were still better. We're only disagreeing about how much better and why.


It comes from White Wolf. "Clanbook" this, "Traditionbook" that; The World of Darkness had several game lines, and for each game line, each character had 2 or 3 different factions or groupings or essences or what have you. The way books were rolled out was very formulaic. So, when you bought a new Tribe Book or Bloodline Book, you pretty much knew what kind of content and structure to expect. So it made sense to replace "Kith" or "Astrological Sign" with the common wildcard denominator, *. And * is sometimes called a "splat".

Oh, fascinating.


Also spontaneous is only easier to work with if you've an experienced player picking your spells known, explaining them, and giving examples of when they're most useful. Otherwise you run the risk of picking a bad spell which is exponentially higher as a newb. A cleric who does that can literally say: "Well that sucked. Doing something else tomorrow." This is why when teaching someone how to caster I recommend prepared casters. Much more forgiving of mistakes. Also not being behind a level makes it easier for mediocre play to still be much more effective.

That's definitely a good argument for sorcs vs. wizards. It might be less applicable to clerics vs. Favored Souls, for the simple reason that clerics are intended to be main healers, whereas Favored Souls are backup healers, and a wasted spell slot isn't really a big deal for a backup healer... of course, it's even less of a big deal for a class that can convert useless prepared spells into spontaneous cure/inflict spells :)

[Troacctid]

That's definitely a good argument for sorcs vs. wizards. It might be less applicable to clerics vs. Favored Souls, for the simple reason that clerics are intended to be main healers, whereas Favored Souls are backup healers, and a wasted spell slot isn't really a big deal for a backup healer... of course, it's even less of a big deal for a class that can convert useless prepared spells into spontaneous cure/inflict spells :)
Clerics aren't really any more intended to be "main healers" than Favored Souls are.

[Katie Boundary]

Assuming 18 Wisdom, a 3rd level Cleric has 7 spells per day, 3 of which are 2nd level. Favored Soul has 5, all of which are 1st level.

Actually a 3rd-level FS casts 11 spells per day, 6 of which are level 0 and 5 of which are level 1, plus whatever they get from Charisma.

A 3rd-level cleric gets 9 spells per day (4 level 0, 3 level 1, 2 level 2), plus whatever they get from wisdom.


Clerics aren't really any more intended to be "main healers" than Favored Souls are.

PHB says clerics are primary healers, CD says FS are backup healers.

[ryu]

Wisdom is bigger than your charisma, because it's a single casting stat as opposed to a split stat. I don't see why this is a difficult concept.

Further the PHB was written by people who though the druid was a fighter with gimmicks. Their credibility with ideal roles is negative.

[eggynack]

No, you couldn't have, because I'm not ignoring anything; I'm the one pointing out what OTHER people are ignoring. In this case, you're ignoring that the original post was a comparison of the designs of the classes themselves (hence the title "Favored Souls are not 'nerfed clerics'"), not a comparison of how much extra crap each class got in the dozens of supplements that exist.
Clerics are heavily advantaged by extra source books, owing simply to the structure of the class. More books means more spells, and while every new spell added to a favored soul is an old spell they can likely never use again, clerics can make use of the wide array of great spell options on a day to day basis. They simply have more access to their list, which gets better the more list there is.

There are two ways to access the spell list. The first, the one you've been talking about, is day to day operations. In this arena, favored souls aren't quite as disadvantaged. After all, a situation specific combat list is only going to be so much better than a generic one. It will be better, mind you, especially because favored souls aren't particularly advantaged in terms of spells per day, but the differential won't be crazy. It must be noted, however, that spells that aren't particularly spammable will be worse in the hands of a favored soul. With an hours/level buff, it doesn't matter whether you cast it once or five times.

The other way to access the spell list is on a long term basis. These are the spells you prepare the day after adventures, or the day before, or when you're planning on adventures of a more social variety. These spells enable the cleric to turn time into power, and the favored soul is way worse at doing so. Just in core you have stuff like animate dead, desecrate (so that the cleric is still better at reanimation, even if the FS can cast the first spell), zone of truth, any number of status effect removing spells, a bunch of divinations, speak with dead, tongues, the planar ally line, plane shift, raise dead, wall of stone, control weather, and a bunch of others. Clerics are so much better at making use of these spells.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

We've been over this. Heavy repeating crossbow.

Disregarding the sheer inanity of this response on multiple other levels (ignoring the whole 'problems which can't be shot thing', somehow thinking heavy repeating crossbows are in any way a good choice, etc.)... what in the Nine Hells does this have to do with anything? The Favoured Soul is not any better with the weapon than the Cleric is. The only weapon-related benefit that they have that the Cleric does not is proficiency in their deity's favoured weapon, and you can count the number of deity's whose favoured weapon is a Heavy Repeating Crossbow on a Beholder's fingers. It's an utter non-sequitur (and thus fairly emblematic of your wider argument, in fairness).

[Ignimortis]

Actually a 3rd-level FS casts 11 spells per day, 6 of which are level 0 and 5 of which are level 1, plus whatever they get from Charisma.

A 3rd-level cleric gets 9 spells per day (4 level 0, 3 level 1, 2 level 2), plus whatever they get from wisdom.



PHB says clerics are primary healers, CD says FS are backup healers.

And people have been saying for years that though Clerics make good healers, actual in-combat healing rarely comes up as something to do with your spell-slots if you're playing your cards right. While I have seen in-combat healing come in useful at times, I'm pretty sure most clerics I've seen past 3rd level tended to use most of their spells on other things, usually buffs and out-of-combat problem-solving.

If your party has a dedicated beatstick or two, and I don't mean a sword-and-board fighter, but something like a Shock Trooper Warblade or a Beastmorph Vivisector Alchemist, the best solution for most divine casters is to slap something onto them (like Haste or Blessing of Fervor) so they can kill things with 100% efficiency, probably without taking enough damage to warrant healing them right now. And a CLW wand, or even a CMW wand is pretty cheap by most parties' standards at level 5 and above.

[AvatarVecna]

No, you couldn't have, because I'm not ignoring anything; I'm the one pointing out what OTHER people are ignoring. In this case, you're ignoring that the original post was a comparison of the designs of the classes themselves (hence the title "Favored Souls are not 'nerfed clerics'"), not a comparison of how much extra crap each class got in the dozens of supplements that exist.

You are very decidedly ignoring important resources just because you don't have them. If the viability of the cleric class was dependent on people utilizing some obscure book, you'd have a better argument, but Complete Arcane and PHB2 aren't obscure splats.

But let's say for the sake of argument that your particular DM is an ass who specifically only allows people to draw from PHB and the book tied to their role (so Complete Arcane is for wizards and sorcerers, Complete Divine is for clerics and Druids, etc). Sure, DMM Persist is now off the table, but DMM Quicken which lets you trade Turn Undead attempts for an advantage in the action economy at least seven levels earlier than a Favored Soul could, and with a much lower spell slot.




That's definitely a good argument for sorcs vs. wizards. It might be less applicable to clerics vs. Favored Souls, for the simple reason that clerics are intended to be main healers, whereas Favored Souls are backup healers, and a wasted spell slot isn't really a big deal for a backup healer... of course, it's even less of a big deal for a class that can convert useless prepared spells into spontaneous cure/inflict spells :)

Case in point: in-combat healing, particularly via slots, is pretty awful no matter who you are because the spells just don't heal enough. Clerics and Favored Souls are equally good healers because neither has a distinct advantage in using a Wand of CLW. But it's easier to just assume things.


Actually a 3rd-level FS casts 11 spells per day, 6 of which are level 0 and 5 of which are level 1, plus whatever they get from Charisma.

See, if you do this tiny thing called "reading between the lines" you'd realize they left 0th lvl spells out of their post not because it detracts from their argument, but because 0th lvl spells are more or less worthless garbage. Like, Pathfinder more or less copies a lot of stuff verbatim from 3.5, but one of the changes made was making 0th lvl spells at-will and even then a lot of them are pretty worthless. And that's ignoring that FS aren't going to be getting as many bonus spells from Cha as clerics will from Wis.

"But FS are gishes, so they don't need high Wis for good save DCs, so their Cha will be as good as a casting-focused clerics Wis."

No it won't, because gishes are gonna want at least slight bumps to Str/Dex/Con in some mix above what the pure-caster version of them would want, so the points you're "saving" by not needing a high Wis, you're spending on three other stats for combat boosts that spells could've done better.

"Okay, but casting-focused FS will match their Cha to cleric's Wis."

Nope, because now since they're not gishing it up, they're gonna need at least decent Wis to get their spell DCs to the point where they're not wasting slots trying to affect the enemy with SoSs/SoLs/SoDs.


PHB says clerics are primary healers, CD says FS are backup healers.

And yet the mechanics support neither of those statements. It's almost like the designers are stating what they aimed for, rather than the actual results, and claiming that designer intent trumps final product makes you look dumb. As the saying goes, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".

[Troacctid]

I think the two classes would honestly probably be on reasonably even footing if the Favored Soul's spellcasting tables were all just shifted up a row. As is, nothing you get out of Favored Soul is remotely worth being behind a level, let alone losing domains, losing turning, and nerfing your save DCs on top of it, while getting baaasically nothing in return.

[Katie Boundary]

Wisdom is bigger than your charisma, because it's a single casting stat as opposed to a split stat. I don't see why this is a difficult concept.

It's a difficult concept because it's false. A Favored Soul should dump their highest-rolled ability score into Charisma. If they are using point-buy, then they should dump 18 into charisma.


Clerics are heavily advantaged by extra source books

No one disagrees with that.


More books means more spells, and while every new spell added to a favored soul is an old spell they can likely never use again, clerics can make use of the wide array of great spell options on a day to day basis. They simply have more access to their list, which gets better the more list there is.

You say that as if there's a continuous supply of new 3.5e books being written but not a continuous supply of new Favored Souls being rolled. In reality, it's the opposite.


spells that aren't particularly spammable will be worse in the hands of a favored soul. With an hours/level buff, it doesn't matter whether you cast it once or five times.

This is a good point.


The other way to access the spell list is on a long term basis. These are the spells you prepare the day after adventures, or the day before, or when you're planning on adventures of a more social variety. These spells enable the cleric to turn time into power, and the favored soul is way worse at doing so.

Indeed. However, that has to be balanced against situations where the whole party dies because the healer only prepared 2 copies of Spell X and we ended up needing 3.


Disregarding the sheer inanity of this response on multiple other levels (ignoring the whole 'problems which can't be shot thing', somehow thinking heavy repeating crossbows are in any way a good choice, etc.)... what in the Nine Hells does this have to do with anything? The Favoured Soul is not any better with the weapon than the Cleric is. The only weapon-related benefit that they have that the Cleric does not is proficiency in their deity's favoured weapon, and you can count the number of deity's whose favoured weapon is a Heavy Repeating Crossbow on a Beholder's fingers. It's an utter non-sequitur (and thus fairly emblematic of your wider argument, in fairness).

Actually, the FS is better with the HRC because the FS wears lighter armor, which carries less of a penalty to dexterity, which is important when wielding ranged weapons. But substitute jumping, or the casting of a spell that is counter to your patron deity's alignment, or any of the Favored Soul's other advantages if it makes you feel better. The HRC was just a silly and arbitrary example.


And people have been saying for years that though Clerics make good healers, actual in-combat healing rarely comes up as something to do with your spell-slots if you're playing your cards right. While I have seen in-combat healing come in useful at times, I'm pretty sure most clerics I've seen past 3rd level tended to use most of their spells on other things, usually buffs and out-of-combat problem-solving.

If your party has a dedicated beatstick or two, and I don't mean a sword-and-board fighter, but something like a Shock Trooper Warblade or a Beastmorph Vivisector Alchemist, the best solution for most divine casters is to slap something onto them (like Haste or Blessing of Fervor) so they can kill things with 100% efficiency, probably without taking enough damage to warrant healing them right now. And a CLW wand, or even a CMW wand is pretty cheap by most parties' standards at level 5 and above.

The last time my cleric was involved in combat, she was able to fire off two spells before the entire party got mauled into unconsciousness by a pack of giant rats. I guess the lesson here is that a LOT depends on the party composition and your DM.


You are very decidedly ignoring important resources just because you don't have them.

No, I'm ignoring them because they're not relevant to the actual claim that I made in the thread title.


Case in point: in-combat healing, particularly via slots, is pretty awful no matter who you are because the spells just don't heal enough. Clerics and Favored Souls are equally good healers because neither has a distinct advantage in using a Wand of CLW.

That's a great point when someone in the party HAS such a wand.


See, if you do this tiny thing called "reading between the lines" you'd realize they left 0th lvl spells out of their post not because it detracts from their argument, but because 0th lvl spells are more or less worthless garbage.

That's less "reading between the lines" and more "making wild-ass assumptions".


And that's ignoring that FS aren't going to be getting as many bonus spells from Cha as clerics will from Wis.

When you cherry-pick the ability scores and class levels, sure, you can make that statement true by a margin of one spell.


"But FS are gishes"

whut?


No it won't, because gishes

???


at least slight bumps to Str/Dex/Con in some mix above what the pure-caster version of them would want, so the points you're "saving" by not needing a high Wis, you're spending on three other stats for combat boosts that spells could've done better.

Not necessarily. A FS with an affinity for ranged weapons won't need strength or con very much. One with an affinity for melee weapons won't need dexterity much.


"Okay, but casting-focused FS will match their Cha to cleric's Wis."

Nope, because now since they're not gishing it up, they're gonna need at least decent Wis to get their spell DCs to the point where they're not wasting slots trying to affect the enemy with SoSs/SoLs/SoDs.

SPEAK ENGLISH

[ryu]

Ah so your save DCs will suffer from the points you didn't put into wis. Congratulations. You've reached some measure of parity at total number of spells. Mine actually do things.

[Kelb_Panthera]

And yeah. We could come back tomorrow because our prepared caster burned her one copy of See Through Boulders earlier in the day, or our spontaneous caster could tell us what's up NOW because she can cast See Through Boulders as many times per day as she wants. And we might want that latter option because there's an army of over 9,000 angry kobolds behind us (one of the Chaotic Stupids took their candle) and this cave is the only place where we can hide.

The thing you're missing is that if the cleric doesn't have "see through boulder" prepared today, he can prepare it tomorrow. If the favoured soul doesn't know "see through boulder" he can't pick it up 'till next level. That's the difference people are trying to point out to you.

Also, "see through boulder" is remarkably specific. A cleric can afford to prepare it once on a day he knows he'll need it. You better hope a -lot- of boulder-blocked passages come up during this adventure if you picked it as a known sleep as a favoured soul.




Nah, Domain Spontaneity sucks.

Sorry, no.

A) It's a solid feat if you pick decent domains; say war and travel for example.

B) You can't argue that spells on the fly are good enough to warrant all the draw backs a FS has to face to have them and then also argue that it isn't worth a feat for a cleric to get a taste of the same.



You seem slightly confused. Complete Arcane is not Complete Divine and PHB2 is not PHB.

Obviously. That doesn't change the fact that what I said is true.


What kind of brokenness can a cleric accomplish without Complete Arcane or the PHB2?

DMM can key to quicken, maximize, or extend for very solid use. Sacred power is great if you want to do the healing thing. That's a couple quickies of the top of my head.





We've been over this. Heavy repeating crossbow.

That's fine up to about level 6 or so. Not great, but maybe just adequate. You've got heavy armour, get in there and get your hands dirty next to the fighter. Unless you meant the favoured soul should be plinking? Even he has average BAB and medium armour. Crossbows are for newb wizards and specialists.

That said, having a good spell handy is -immensely- better unless you've just finished a buff suit and a cleric just might have the niche spell needed while a FS almost certainly won't.




We've been over this too. FS makes up for it by casting more spells per day (8 vs. 5 at level 1).

Only if you count orisons and barely then, not that it matters after about 6 or so.


PHB says clerics are primary healers, CD says FS are backup healers.

The advice that the folks at WotC gave for how to play classes is pretty terrible. There are -much- better things to do with a cleric than a healing focus, even with the PHB alone, and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure anyway.

[Katie Boundary]

Ah so your save DCs will suffer from the points you didn't put into wis. Congratulations. You've reached some measure of parity at total number of spells. Mine actually do things.

There are several good arguments in favor of clerics. The idea of using a FS as an offensive spellcaster is not one of them.


The thing you're missing is that if the cleric doesn't have "see through boulder" prepared today, he can prepare it tomorrow.

Not if you're being chased by over 9,000 angry Kobolds who want their candle back.


Also, "see through boulder" is remarkably specific.

So was the situation with the boulder.


B) You can't argue that spells on the fly are good enough to warrant all the draw backs a FS has to face to have them and then also argue that it isn't worth a feat for a cleric to get a taste of the same.

That wasn't my argument. My argument was that clerics already HAVE a taste of the same, and the domain thing allowed them to trade that for a much worse taste of the same thing.


DMM can key to quicken, maximize, or extend for very solid use.

???



Unless you meant the favoured soul should be plinking?

I'm just saying it's an option.


buff suit

???


The advice that the folks at WotC gave for how to play classes is pretty terrible.

I'll take your word for it. They are, after all, the same knobheads who thought it was a good idea to print Tolarian Academy, Dream Halls, Mind over Matter, Stroke of Genius, Mox Diamond, Lotus Petal, Thran Dynamo, Mana Vault, Voltaic Key, and Time Spiral all within six expansion sets of each other.

[eggynack]

You say that as if there's a continuous supply of new 3.5e books being written but not a continuous supply of new Favored Souls being rolled. In reality, it's the opposite.
I mean, there's an insane ocean of books relative to the apparently two you were working with. Clerics are way better than favored souls in that ocean. They were already better in the two book puddle, but they're crazy in the ocean.




Indeed. However, that has to be balanced against situations where the whole party dies because the healer only prepared 2 copies of Spell X and we ended up needing 3.
Yeah, but, like, not that much. And the favored soul will frequently have situations where they have zero of spell Y, because they just don't have enough spells known. Also, spells can be pretty versatile. You don't tend to need exactly spell X. The favored soul advantage, such as it is, is pretty marginal. The favored soul advantage on a day to day basis is less than what the cleric gets on a day to day basis. Then the cleric also gets the long term stuff, and the favored soul has already used up all their juice failing to compete on the day to day basis. It's a worse class.

Edit:

So was the situation with the boulder.

Yeah, but a boulder based problem, while specific, is a realistic reflection of how issues can structure themselves. The boulder see-through spell isn't so realistic as a reflection of how spells are structured. You're more likely to have three separate spells that kinda solve the problem rather than one spell that's purpose built for the problem. And, to whatever extent you want your spells precisely purpose built for a problem, a favored soul is liable to never ever take any of those spells, because they need to spend their time on generic good stuff.

[ryu]

It's just another example of a thing a cleric can natively do that a favored soul simply cannot. Not to any degree of competency anyway. In fact, lets play a game. Name literally anything favored souls can do that a cleric cannot do equivalently or better. We've a lot of examples of the reverse. In order to demonstrate that favored souls aren't nerfed clerics you need to find an area wherein they aren't inferior. Ideally many to match all the reverse we've been pointing out.

Also various people upon seeing your listed specializations will then demonstrate a simple cleric method. Best phrased in terms of problems to be solved.

[Mordaedil]

"But FS are gishes"
whut?

No it won't, because gishes
???
Githzerai were in old editions of D&D known for being basically casters with swords and fairly proficient at it. The shorthand name for a Githzerai was "gish", leading to the nomiker adopting itself to anyone playing a fighter/mage, eventually anyone trying to apply sword and sorcerery into a single character and attempt to do both effectively. Clerics and favored souls are dubbed gishes as they are capable of casting spells (doesn't matter if they are arcane or divine) and using melee weapons without fear of being torn apart in melee.




Okay, but casting-focused FS will match their Cha to cleric's Wis."

Nope, because now since they're not gishing it up, they're gonna need at least decent Wis to get their spell DCs to the point where they're not wasting slots trying to affect the enemy with SoSs/SoLs/SoDs.
SPEAK ENGLISH
SoSs/SoLs/SoDs are acronyms for Save or X, where X can mean Suck/Lose/Die. SoS refers to spells that renders the target useless, either by making them incapable of fulfilling their role or heavily reduced in that capacity, such as slowing a monk, reducing the strength of a fighter or preventing the barbarian from charging. SoL refers to spells that doesn't outright kill the opponent, but effectively renders them unable to participate in combat anymore, usually referring to spells such as hold person, sleep and the like. SoD are spells where you have to pass a saving throw or just outright die, finger of death, circle of death, power word: kill etc. He means there is a problem with increasing the saving throw DC's for these types of spells because the FS increases his based on wisdom instead of charisma, which he needs to keep high to cast his best, highest level spells.




DMM can key to quicken, maximize, or extend for very solid use.
???

"Divine Metamagic can be used to spend turn undead uses to make good use of quicken spell, maximize spell and extend spell."




buff suit
???

He refers to spending several rounds casting all of the various stat increasing, defensive spells at your disposal before entering combat, a situation that very rarely happens in your favor.

[Pleh]

Let me start by saying that I'm glad you've found a niche and group that works well with your FS build.

Let me add that your niche is statistically very small by comparison with the combined group experience on forums like these.

MOST Favored Soul characters are nerfed versions of MOST Cleric characters, even if YOUR particular Favored Soul characters aren't nerfed versions of YOUR Cleric characters.

Most people don't limit their character builds to the base starting content when building their classes, which contributes to your scenario.

Now let's take on the Problem with your Boulder.

---

The point of the boulder scenario was to highlight the "Unanticipated Scenario." The problem with spontaneous casters (exactly by their design) is that you generally are best off choosing a spell set that statistically will be advantageous most frequently.

If Seeing Through Boulders actually IS a common event in the game, then you've undermined the original point, which was to select an Unanticipated Scenario. The moment it becomes common enough for it to be a good idea for a Spontaneous Caster to choose that spell, we've defeated the purpose of considering the Unanticipated Scenario... by Anticipating it.

For example, say we continue this hypothetical adventuring day and the Favored Soul uses several slots of Seeing Through Boulders to help the party navigate the tunnels safely. On their way, they come across yet another Unanticipated Scenario. What then?

A Spontaneous Caster truly CAN choose a spell like Sees Through Boulders, but that's one less spell they have available for FAR more common encounters, like combat (for which the ability to see through boulders tends to be far less frequently useful). "I'm sorry I didn't pick Mass Snake's Swiftness, guys. See Through Boulders just seemed right when I was picking spells at the last level up."

But you say the Cleric is just as stuck if they didn't prepare See Through Boulders. This isn't necessarily true. As was pointed out (and you never acknowledged), prepared casters can choose to leave Spell Slots open to fill them later as need be.

Sure, if the cleric prepared all their spells at the start of the day and didn't prepare See Through Boulders then, the party has to wait for tomorrow (which is STILL better than having to wait until next level, even with 9000 Kobolds chasing them). But the Favored Soul either DOES have the spell (which would practically be a waste of a spell known to choose something so specific and limited in scope) or they don't, whereas a Cleric might have realized that their DM likes to throw curveballs and decided to leave a few spell slots open so they could be more adaptable. So the party hunkers down to bottleneck the Kobolds (who can't all fit in the tunnels) while the Cleric takes some time to prepare See Through Boulder.

Meanwhile, the Favored Soul party either has been dragging a Favored Soul Who Sees Through Boulders with them through fights while getting mediocre support in return ("I swear I'll be helpful as soon as the DM throws a Boulder at us! Well, not literally THROWING it, because I can only see through it... but really!"), OR they've had a combat ready Favored Soul leading them through the adventure... who can't help them against the Boulder.

---

Ultimately, the Cleric's flexibility is superior because their selection of spells is wider. They have the same spells to choose from, but the Favored Soul kind of can't afford to pick any spells that aren't highly spammable and frequently effective for general purposes. The Cleric can afford to pick the highly specialized spells because they can switch back to the spammable and general purpose spells tomorrow.

And at YOUR table, the distinction hasn't been very visible because the DM has been playing into the Favored Soul's strengths, rather than testing its weaknesses.

The Cleric is stronger than the Favored Soul because a DM only has to throw a Favored Soul out of its intended element to confound the Favored Soul (which is so easy to do that it can be done completely by accident), while a Cleric is much more work to actually challenge, because at bare minimum, they can buy time to reallocate their spells. Even if the DM accidentally makes a Cleric's chosen spells totally useless, tomorrow they can adapt to the knowledge they gained and even leave some slots open to account for the unusual DM style.

And on top of that, the class features that Favored Souls gain in exchange for giving up the Cleric's flexibility just don't make up enough of the difference.

[Nifft]

prepared casters can choose to leave Spell Slots open to fill them later as need be. Wizards can certainly do that. There's a paragraph in the Arcane spell preparation section which which tells you how a Wizard can do it: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/arcaneSpells.htm

I don't see that section in the Divine magic text. Why do you think a Cleric can do this, too?

-- -- --

Anyway, even without mid-day prep for some few slots, the Cleric has a huge advantage which is Item Creation, specifically scrolls or wands. Collaborate with a Wizard or Artificer.

All those situational spells that you don't think you'll need, but you'll kick yourself if you do need it some day? Make a scroll.

Want to prep fun spells, but you need to heal the losers too? Make a wand (of lesser vigor in specific).


The fun thing about a prepared caster is that you can make items using one set of spells, and then not have those spells ready to cast the next day because you've replaced them.

Favored Soul can't do that. If your FS wants to make a wand of lesser vigor, she needs to spend a Known Spell slot to learn lesser vigor, and she can't trade it out when the wand is done.

[Random Sanity]

There are several good arguments in favor of clerics. The idea of using a FS as an offensive spellcaster is not one of them.




The whole reason people refer to high-level D&D as "rocket tag" is because offense (especially offensive spellcasting) trumps all else in this game. By a WIDE margin.

Most of the best combat spells in the game are offensive, save-or-else spells, be it "save or take a ton of damage" or "save or be taken out of the fight altogether". Either way, save DCs are a big deal, and a cleric's are going to be higher - period.

[Kelb_Panthera]

There are several good arguments in favor of clerics. The idea of using a FS as an offensive spellcaster is not one of them.

That the cleric is better as an offensive caster is a -big- argument in their favor. The faster you take down the enemy, the less damage you have to patch up after the fight.


Not if you're being chased by over 9,000 angry Kobolds who want their candle back.

In that case you don't have time to interact with the boulder at all. So it doesn't matter if either caster has prepared or knows "see through boulder" except that now the cleric wasted one spell slot for one day on it and the FS has to carry the wasted spell known until his next opportunity to trade it out in 1~4 levels. At the expense of being able to swap any other poor choices he's made for spells known that level.


So was the situation with the boulder.

Indeed it was, which is why it was good for illustrating the point that followed that sentence: the cleric can afford to pick really specific spells, the FS can't.


That wasn't my argument. My argument was that clerics already HAVE a taste of the same, and the domain thing allowed them to trade that for a much worse taste of the same thing.

Then you misunderstood what I was highlighting. I was pointing out the domain spontaneity divine feat in complete divine. Unlike the PHB2 alternate class feature, you give up nothing for the ability when you take the feat, you just need to spend turn attempts to use it.

That said, spontaneous cures and inflicts are very, very unimpressive.

The cures might come in handy in a pinch to save an ally in a really tough spot but if you're that worried about it you could just pick the healing domain as one of your domains when selecting the ACF version.

Being able to cast inflicts on the fly is virtually worthless. You'll accomplish far more damage with a mace and a buff spell or two. All it's got going for it is that it ignores damage reduction.


???

Quicken: cast a spell as a free action, limited to one quickened spell per round. Allows casting two spells in the same turn; one quickened, one normal. Effectively doubles your contribution to the fight on that turn.

Maximize: treat all dice the spell would roll as if they rolled their maximum value. Use should be obvious.

Extend: double the duration of the spell cast. Turns "maybe it makes it to the end of the fight" into "definitely lasts for the whole fight" or "lasts half the day" into "lasts all day" or cuts the number of times the spell must be repeated in half.



I'm just saying it's an option.

It's a weak option. An act of desperation for a cleric or favoured soul. You have the basis to be adequate in melee unless the dice gods screwed you or your DM is stingy on the point-buy.


???

Seriously?

Buff: a spell that boosts the target's capabilities, typically for combat purposes.

Suit: a collection of the same or very similar things.

[Jack_Simth]

Yes, if you focus entirely on the cleric's superior day-to-day flexibility and totally ignore the Favored Soul's greater flexibility within a single day, the Cleric does have the upper hand.
That is a learning curve and planning thing, it's not an inherent advantage of a spontaneous class. Which... I mentioned...

Again, if you focus on the cleric's better spell access and ignore the Favored Soul's ability to cast more spells per day, the Cleric does seem vastly superior.When you're looking at the top three levels of spells, the FS usually isn't going to have many more spells per day. One or two, tops... and .. I mentioned this... but in more detail, an example:

Picking an even level in the middle of the expected progression... let's go with 8th:
Favored Soul spells per day:
4th: 3 base
3rd: 4 base
2nd: 5 base

Cleric spells per day:
4th: 2 base +1 domain
3rd: 3 base +1 domain
2nd: 3 base +1 domain

The favored soul is exactly one 2nd level spell slot ahead. But wait! Bonus spells! When dropping ability points into stats, the Favored Soul has to pick between focusing on save DC (Wis) and focusing on spell slots (Cha). The Cleric doesn't (both are Wis). So on a point buy, a Cleric is liable to put an 18 in Wisdom, where the Favored Soul will often end up with a 16 wisdom and 16 charisma on the same point buy. Additionally, level-based boosts will often end up split for the favored soul - so the Cleric's base Wis will hit 20 at this point, while the FS is likely to be 17/17. So let's do that table again, this time including bonus spell slots:


Favored Soul spells per day:
4th: 3 base + 0 bonus = 3
3rd: 4 base + 1 bonus = 5
2nd: 5 base +1 bonus = 6

Cleric spells per day:
4th: 2 base +1 domain +1 bonus = 4
3rd: 3 base +1 domain +1 bonus = 5
2nd: 3 base +1 domain +1 bonus = 5

As you can see, the Favored Soul's 4th level spell slots are one lower than the Cleric's, the Favored Soul's 3rd level spell slots are equal to the Cleric's, and the Favored Soul's 2nd level spell slots are one higher than the Cleric's. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that 4th level spell slots are more useful than 2nd level spell slots, and call that a win for the Cleric.


I already pointed this out.You discounted it, calling it a problem with the extra books. The heavy-duty cheddar ones are, sure, but the cleric still has a lot more options in general just due to the nature of how supplemental books are usually written, which is a win for the Cleric even ignoring the more overpowered options.

And... I find it amusing that you complain that I skipped things you'd already pointed out, as you seem to do it more.

Don't get me wrong: It's not a bad thing that the favored soul is a weaker class than one of the most powerful classes in the game. But it is weaker - at least in the hands of an experienced player (although it's also got a lower power floor, which means in the hands of an inexperienced player, the Cleric is likely to seem weaker in a lot of cases).

[Pleh]

Wizards can certainly do that. There's a paragraph in the Arcane spell preparation section which which tells you how a Wizard can do it: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/arcaneSpells.htm

I don't see that section in the Divine magic text. Why do you think a Cleric can do this, too?

You seem to be right. I thought prepared casting between wizard, druid, and cleric was basically identical, but indeed there seems no such provision for clerics.

What strikes me as odd about it is this notion that your deity will literally only help you prepare spells at X time of day, no matter what. Kind of a silly notion.

But the rest of my point besides still stands.

[Gnaeus]

Should also mention that in the context of Core & CD, as it relates to both spells per day and the hypothetical in which the cleric has already cast see through boulder, in addition to the previously discussed advantage in making scrolls, there are also these things called pearls of power, which let you recover cast spells. They are comparatively cheap and virtually every optimized caster with any ability to buy gear uses them. They also make you a better team player because the fighter or monk can buy them to ensure that you always have the buff they want. Usable by cleric, not by favored soul.

The favored soul does get something similar in a later splat, for 50% more cost, but the way the cleric benefits from additional books in play has already been discussed and conceded.

[Cosi]

Clerics aren't really any more intended to be "main healers" than Favored Souls are.

It would be more accurate to say that Favored Souls aren't any less intended to be "main healers" than Clerics, and they are massively worse at it. The marginal cost to your combat effectiveness of doing downtime healing as a Cleric is close to zero. As a Favored Soul, it's a spell or more every level that you aren't going to use in most encounters. That's huge, and it's (a special case) of the reason Favored Souls are way worse than Clerics.


You say that as if there's a continuous supply of new 3.5e books being written but not a continuous supply of new Favored Souls being rolled. In reality, it's the opposite.

A particular Favored Soul is going to get a particular set of spells. The particular spells some other Favored Soul knows are utterly irrelevant to her power, just as the fact that as a Sorcerer or Beguiler she could have learned an entirely different set of spells is utterly irrelevant to her power. You have the abilities you have. How large the set of class abilities you don't have is not relevant to your character's power.


Not if you're being chased by over 9,000 angry Kobolds who want their candle back.

The ability to cast a spell ever at all is necessarily and strictly better than not being able to cast that spell ever at all. This is doubly true for spells like animate dead which you only ever need to cast a single digit number of times, and hence do not need access to the majority of the time.

[AvatarVecna]

SPEAK ENGLISH

Speak D&D.

Here's a tip for future arguments: if you wanna look like you could pass a Knowledge (The Hell You're Talking About), you might wanna buff up on the terminology so that when people bring out commonly-used shorthand, you don't look dumber when they have to explain basic crap to you.

And since it seems clear you're completely incapable of listening to reason, I'm just gonna end on this note:


The difference between these two situations is that I admitted, in my original post, that clerics were still better. We're only disagreeing about how much better and why.

See, here's the thing: nobody's arguing Favored Soul is bad. It's one of the strongest classes in the game. We're just working with the thread title, and the majority of where the opening post was leading: that Favored Soul isn't worse than cleric. Which it is, and you're admitting as much. You know what we call a class that everybody agrees is worse than another class that fills the same role but does it better in most ways and worse in basically no ways?

Nerfed. We call that worse class a nerfed version of the better class.

[Nifft]

You seem to be right. I thought prepared casting between wizard, druid, and cleric was basically identical, but indeed there seems no such provision for clerics.

What strikes me as odd about it is this notion that your deity will literally only help you prepare spells at X time of day, no matter what. Kind of a silly notion.

But the rest of my point besides still stands.

There is a sentence in the Divine section that allows you to not prepare all your spells, but nothing which says how that is in any way useful. Maybe it's supposed to mean you can keep your previously prepared spells? But that's kinda pointless, too.


Regarding the silly time of day issue: it works like that even for Clerics who don't have a god, so it's more a limitation of Clerical process than a divine mandate. Or maybe if it is a divine mandate, it's one that every force in the universe agrees upon, for some reason... even Ur-Priests, which is a rather strong indication that it's not because of the gods.

Heh, now I want to play an Ur-Priest who keeps trying to change the time-of-day because #!@$ ALL GODS AND THEIR #!@$ING RULES.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Actually, the FS is better with the HRC because the FS wears lighter armor, which carries less of a penalty to dexterity, which is important when wielding ranged weapons. But substitute jumping, or the casting of a spell that is counter to your patron deity's alignment, or any of the Favored Soul's other advantages if it makes you feel better. The HRC was just a silly and arbitrary example.

...Again, this is frankly ludicrous. Merely because a Cleric can wear heavy armour does not mean they are obligated to. Additionally, the Cleric is somewhat less MAD* and likely benefits from relevant Domain choices, such as War, Luck or Strength, as well as improving their capabilities with Divine feats.


But substitute jumping
Firstly, in a game where the ability to fly is commonplace, being somewhat better at jumping is an utterly irrelevant advantage. Furthermore, Favoured Souls are likely not better at jumping, simply because they're a 2 skill point class that is highly MAD and doesn't use intelligence for anything. Their skill points should be tied up in things that are actually useful, such as Concentration, Spellcraft and Diplomacy. And to add insult to injury, their skill list is actually significantly worse than the Clerics, giving up access to a bunch of useful Knowledge skills including, hilariously, Knowledge (Religion) - a particularly bitter loss given how common it is as a prerequisite.


or the casting of a spell that is counter to your patron deity's alignment
Firstly, Neutral clerics exist. Secondly, wanting to cast spells opposed to one's deity's alignment is extremely rare for fairly obvious reasons (Clerics or Favoured Souls of Pelor generally do not want to cast Animate Dead or Unholy Blight by definition). Spending one of your precious spells known on such a situational spell is a fantastically bad idea. Thirdly, Favoured Souls still have alignment restrictions, and casting aligned spells is still an action of that alignment, meaning if they make heavy use of this ability, their alignment will change and they will find themselves kicked out of the class in short order.


or any of the Favored Soul's other advantages if it makes you feel better.
All of which are utterly minuscule compared to the benefits of earlier spell access, turning/rebuking, and domains.



The HRC was just a silly and arbitrary example.
It was certainly silly and arbitrary, but it wasn't an example of anything in particular except your lack of understanding.

*On reflection, since you seem to have a very poor knowledge of terminology, I'll forestall your inevitable demand that I "SPEAK ENGLISH" and clarify: MAD stands for Multiple Attribute Dependency, meaning the Favoured Soul requires good scores in more attributes than the Cleric (needing reasonably high Wisdom or Charisma, even on a combat-focused build, whereas the Cleric can generally afford to let Cha languish at a 10 or so)

[noce]

I'd like to point out that, at higher levels, having more slots than the cleric is worthless, since you're not going to deplete them on a cleric, either.

A fight lasts less than 4 rounds. In a given day you can expect a couple encounters.
There's 8 rounds of combat casting, plus out of combat casting (buffing, utilities...).

Often, low level spells are used out of combat, in order to unleash high level ones in combat, so a typical cleric has plenty of spell slots.

[Deadline]

And yeah. We could come back tomorrow because our prepared caster burned her one copy of See Through Boulders earlier in the day, or our spontaneous caster could tell us what's up NOW because she can cast See Through Boulders as many times per day as she wants. And we might want that latter option because there's an army of over 9,000 angry kobolds behind us (one of the Chaotic Stupids took their candle) and this cave is the only place where we can hide.

I ... I have to ask what you consider to be a solid list of spells known at this point, because why in the heck would a spontaneous caster waste one of their precious few spells known on such a niche spell?

Also, yes, you can make anything look good if you contrive a situation where they shine. The point behind the pushback you are getting on your argument is that while you have to contrive very specific scenarios where the Favored Soul has an advantage over the Cleric, the Cleric shines in almost every situation.

Even without Persistent Spell shenanigans, the Cleric with just options in core (or just the Player's Handbook) is solidly better than the Favored Soul with access to all the various supplements in 3.5.

It's also worth noting that the Sorcerer is in the same boat when compared to the Wizard. Spontaneous casting from a severely limited list a few more times per day has proven to be less powerful than the authors thought it was.

It's honestly unfortunate, because I do enjoy the concept of the Favored Soul. It's still a very potent class though, and is wildly better than the tier 3 and below classes.

[ryu]

I wouldn't say favored soul and sorcerer are in the same boat. Sorcerers have comparable access to the spell list as wizards while being locked out of domains cuts a substantial portion of the soul's access to their equivalent. The sorceror also faces limited spells known making niche spells less desirable, but they aren't straight gated access.

Also a singular casting stat is a big deal. Sorcerers can pick offensive spells and have them do things without sacking slots.

This is before even getting into the fact that sorcerer is a core class that got actual support fixing like half the major complaints. No. Not the same boat at all.

[Cosi]

See, here's the thing: nobody's arguing Favored Soul is bad. It's one of the strongest classes in the game. We're just working with the thread title, and the majority of where the opening post was leading: that Favored Soul isn't worse than cleric. Which it is, and you're admitting as much. You know what we call a class that everybody agrees is worse than another class that fills the same role but does it better in most ways and worse in basically no ways?

Nerfed. We call that worse class a nerfed version of the better class.

It reminds me a little of lorddrakko. It's easy to go from "the power gap is fairly small" (true and unobjectionable) to "the power gap doesn't exist/goes the other way" (false).


I ... I have to ask what you consider to be a solid list of spells known at this point, because why in the heck would a spontaneous caster waste one of their precious few spells known on such a niche spell?

This is the real reason the Cleric is better than the Favored Soul. The Cleric list is full of obscure spells that are only ever useful because you only have to decide to use them a day in advance. No one is going to commit to knowing find the path or undeath to death a level in advance. But if you tell me that tomorrow I'm going to need to navigate a maze, or fight a bunch of low-HD undead I would totally prepare those spells.


I wouldn't say favored soul and sorcerer are in the same boat. Sorcerers have comparable access to the spell list as wizards while being locked out of domains cuts a substantial portion of the soul's access to their equivalent. The sorceror also faces limited spells known making niche spells less desirable, but they aren't straight gated access.

Also, a small number of Wizard spells is better than a small number of Cleric spells, because Wizard spells are individually better than Cleric spells. The spell list was built from the ground up with the expectation that some people would only get like four spells a level, so it is correspondingly better for doing that. There isn't really a 1st level Cleric spell that matches up to color spray or sleep.

[Troacctid]

This is the real reason the Cleric is better than the Favored Soul. The Cleric list is full of obscure spells that are only ever useful because you only have to decide to use them a day in advance. No one is going to commit to knowing find the path or undeath to death a level in advance. But if you tell me that tomorrow I'm going to need to navigate a maze, or fight a bunch of low-HD undead I would totally prepare those spells.
While I agree that this is an advantage, I think the bigger advantages are domain access and improved casting progression. Knowing more spells in exchange for having to prepare each slot individually in advance is a reasonable trade-off IMO. The other things are pure downside.

[Cosi]

While I agree that this is an advantage, I think the bigger advantages are domain access and improved casting progression. Knowing more spells in exchange for having to prepare each slot individually in advance is a reasonable trade-off IMO. The other things are pure downside.

Domain access is not all that great. It's a good feat plus some decent spells. If you take the Luck and Travel domains (reasonably good core domains), you're looking at spending one of your spell slots on either entropic shield or longstrider. That's ... not great. Sure, eventually you're looking at fly or miracle, but I think it's often a tossup whether or not your domain slots would better serve you as additional Cleric slots. Is getting a daily reroll and a few rounds of freedom of movement better than being able to pull out any arbitrary Cleric spell on a day's notice? I would say probably not.

But yes, the casting progression difference is more important.

[Dimers]

It reminds me a little of lorddrakko.

And Katie reminds me more than a little of Selene Sparks. Perhaps we have another 'repeat customer', here? Selene didn't stay in the Playground long, but it was recent enough and aggressive enough that people may remember.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

And Katie reminds me more than a little of Selene Sparks. Perhaps we have another 'repeat customer', here? Selene didn't stay in the Playground long, but it was recent enough and aggressive enough that people may remember.

I vaguely remember, but I seemed to recall Sparks showed much more familiarity/system mastery, so I think that rules that out.

[Dimers]

I'm not convinced the lack of awareness is true. I mean, trolls do all kinds of things -- faking ignorance could be a tactic to get people more riled.

I noted the difference too, but the writing style is awfully similar.

[eggynack]

This is silly on many different levels. This person you're talking about isn't even a banned user, and Lord Drako is ludicrously different. Also, the OP is blatantly not a troll, at least at this moment in time.

[Cosi]

I vaguely remember, but I seemed to recall Sparks showed much more familiarity/system mastery, so I think that rules that out.

Also, Selene was not trolling. She was just used to a forum with discourse norms that are laxer than the ones on this board. Which, really, is most other forums for better or for worse. If you paid attention to the details, she sounded like someone who spent a lot of time on The Gaming Den and didn't adjust well to the difference in moderation styles. There was another poster like that a couple of years ago, but I think they were different people (particularly because the first one didn't get banned).

[Dimers]

This is silly on many different levels. This person you're talking about isn't even a banned user, and Lord Drako is ludicrously different. Also, the OP is blatantly not a troll, at least at this moment in time.

I'd like to express again the amount of respect and appreciation I have for you, specifically due to your courteous and gentle engagement with all forum-goers. You really make this place better. No sarcasm -- you're a good egg, eggynack.

Anyway, I'm not so attached to my wacky notion that I'd defend it beyond reason. I see similarities but humans do tend to try to put everything into patterns.

[Katie Boundary]

Githzerai were in old editions of D&D known for being basically casters with swords and fairly proficient at it. The shorthand name for a Githzerai was "gish", leading to the nomiker adopting itself to anyone playing a fighter/mage, eventually anyone trying to apply sword and sorcerery into a single character and attempt to do both effectively. Clerics and favored souls are dubbed gishes as they are capable of casting spells (doesn't matter if they are arcane or divine) and using melee weapons without fear of being torn apart in melee.


SoSs/SoLs/SoDs are acronyms for Save or X, where X can mean Suck/Lose/Die. SoS refers to spells that renders the target useless, either by making them incapable of fulfilling their role or heavily reduced in that capacity, such as slowing a monk, reducing the strength of a fighter or preventing the barbarian from charging. SoL refers to spells that doesn't outright kill the opponent, but effectively renders them unable to participate in combat anymore, usually referring to spells such as hold person, sleep and the like. SoD are spells where you have to pass a saving throw or just outright die, finger of death, circle of death, power word: kill etc. He means there is a problem with increasing the saving throw DC's for these types of spells because the FS increases his based on wisdom instead of charisma, which he needs to keep high to cast his best, highest level spells.


"Divine Metamagic can be used to spend turn undead uses to make good use of quicken spell, maximize spell and extend spell."


He refers to spending several rounds casting all of the various stat increasing, defensive spells at your disposal before entering combat, a situation that very rarely happens in your favor.

Thank you


Let me start by saying that I'm glad you've found a niche and group that works well with your FS build.

I don't have an FS build. Right now I'm running around shooting things with my crossbow as a cleric because it's a low-level campaign where I don't have heavy armor anyway and Favored Souls don't have access to most of their goodies yet.


That the cleric is better as an offensive caster is a -big- argument in their favor....

Being able to cast inflicts on the fly is virtually worthless. You'll accomplish far more damage with a mace and a buff spell or two.

:confused:


When dropping ability points into stats, the Favored Soul has to pick between focusing on save DC (Wis) and focusing on spell slots (Cha).

No they don't. Wisdom can be safely ignored.


A particular Favored Soul is going to get a particular set of spells. The particular spells some other Favored Soul knows are utterly irrelevant to her power, just as the fact that as a Sorcerer or Beguiler she could have learned an entirely different set of spells is utterly irrelevant to her power. You have the abilities you have. How large the set of class abilities you don't have is not relevant to your character's power.

Oh, I see what you're saying. You're conflating day-to-day flexibility with power. I thought you were referring to the inability of Favored Souls to pick up spells from books that were published after said FS had hit level 20.


The ability to cast a spell ever at all is necessarily and strictly better than not being able to cast that spell ever at all.

The ability to cast a spell when you actually need it is necessarily and strictly better than the ability to cast a spell when you don't.


You know what we call a class that everybody agrees is worse than another class that fills the same role but does it better in most ways and worse in basically no ways?

Nerfed. We call that worse class a nerfed version of the better class.

Yes. But the FS isn't a "version" of the Cleric AT ALL. That was the entire point of the OP: the Cleric is a healing/buffing/defensive magic specialist, and the FS is much more of a generalist.


Favoured Souls are likely not better at jumping, simply because they're a 2 skill point class that is highly MAD and doesn't use intelligence for anything. Their skill points should be tied up in things that are actually useful, such as Concentration, Spellcraft and Diplomacy. And to add insult to injury, their skill list is actually significantly worse than the Clerics

You do realize you can jump without taking it as a skill, right?


Also, yes, you can make anything look good if you contrive a situation where they shine.

It was not I who contrived the boulder scenario.


I'm not convinced the lack of awareness is true. I mean, trolls do all kinds of things -- faking ignorance could be a tactic to get people more riled.

It could be, but my ignorance is pretty real :) For example, just this morning, I was combing through the Dragonborn section in Races of the Dragon and was like "what's this crap about multiclassing freely into paladin? How is that any different from having paladin as a favored class?" It turns out Paladins have a unique restriction on multiclassing into something else and then taking more levels in paladin, and I had somehow skipped that part of the PHB, and Dragonborn get to ignore that restriction. The thread is still up in the D&D 3.0/3.5/d20 group on Facebook if you'd like to check: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dndv35fans/permalink/1058090934346166/

[Dimers]

If that's the case, Katie, I'd like to recommend this fine resource: Common Acronyms, Abbreviations and Terms. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?18512-Common-Acronyms-Abbreviations-and-Terms) You may also get some mileage from other threads listed in the Notable Threads (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?124685-Notable-threads-(including-most-formerly-stickied-RPG-threads)) post.

Please don't post to any of them; they're all far beyond the expiration date.

[Katie Boundary]

If that's the case, Katie, I'd like to recommend this fine resource: Common Acronyms, Abbreviations and Terms. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?18512-Common-Acronyms-Abbreviations-and-Terms) You may also get some mileage from other threads listed in the Notable Threads (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?124685-Notable-threads-(including-most-formerly-stickied-RPG-threads)) post.

Please don't post to any of them; they're all far beyond the expiration date.

Cool, thanks

[Jack_Simth]

No they don't. Wisdom can be safely ignored.There's a lot of good save or X Cleric spells. Cause Fear, Command, Hide from Undead, Sanctuary, Enthrall, Silence... I suppose if you never plan to cast an offensive spell, sure. But... that's pretty seriously nerfing yourself. You're losing out on an absurd amount of offensive power.

[Kelb_Panthera]

:confused:





Not all offensive spells do HP damage but even the ones that are HP attacks do better than the inflict spells generally. Look at energy vortex or blade barrier. Then there's stuff that does real harm like energy drain and battlefield control effects like earthquake and obscuring mist.

You're not super familiar with the cleric spell list, are you?

[AvatarVecna]

Yes. But the FS isn't a "version" of the Cleric AT ALL. That was the entire point of the OP: the Cleric is a healing/buffing/defensive magic specialist, and the FS is much more of a generalist.

Goalposts with wheels are the best. I will admit, my first instinct on seeing how you're using specialist and generalist in this regard is to scoff, but a second thought makes me realize that they are, from a certain point of view, true. On the one hand, choosing spells known for a Favored Soul more or less requires that you choose spells that will be useful as often as possible so that your spells known aren't wasted (which is a good generalist definition), while a cleric can specialize in a particular role without being punished for it; on the other hand, when one mechanical option lets you choose 50 toys from the 2000-toy toybox to play with forever, and the other lets you choose 40 toys to play with each day, one of these looks like they'll get to play with all the toys (a good generalist definition) while the other is relatively niche (a good specialist definition).

However, regardless of whether they are generalists or specialists, they're still filling the same roles, in the same ways, and this is what makes people view Favored Soul as a "nerfed cleric"; the fact that their access to the metaphorical toybox works in different ways and thus requires different approaches to choosing your toys, doesn't change the fact that they're both using the exact same toybox. The fact that the paintjob on their respective versions of that same exact toybox are different (and yeah, the "class features" of these two classes amounts to little more than a paintjob, for the same reason that a car's paintjob wouldn't count much towards its deadweight) doesn't change the size of the box or its contents.

It's an unfortunate truth of the system that everything that isn't actual spellcasting (even things that alter/enhance spellcasting) all amounts to nothing more than so much window dressing, with extremely rare exceptions like properly optimized Wild Shape, or the key class features of the more infamous PrCs. If a beguiler's spells known was "every enchantment/illusion on the sor/wiz spell list", or a warmage's spells known was "every conjuration/evocation on the sor/wiz spell list", they'd just be considered nerfed wizards, same as the sorcerer. On the flip side, even if a druid gives up their animal companion and their wild shape, they still play quite different from a nature-focused cleric because the spell lists focus on different things...and Favored Soul's spell list just doesn't do that. Add in the fact that cleric is both core and legacy material, and nobody is ever going to see it as anything other than a kind of cleric - and, with how charop works out, a nerfed kind of cleric.

[Pleh]

I don't have an FS build. Right now I'm running around shooting things with my crossbow as a cleric because it's a low-level campaign where I don't have heavy armor anyway and Favored Souls don't have access to most of their goodies yet.

Ah. Low level indeed puts the thread into better context.

If you are plinking with your full caster, even at low level, you certainly aren't getting the optimum output for the class.

I think your initial evaluation (cleric is specialist, FS is generalist) is completely backwards. FS is a cleric dedicated to War Domain. Almost more like a Warmage than a Sorcerer, to relate it to Arcane. The Cleric can be set up the same way, but can also focus on more utility roles on the side.

For example, the FS's Energy Resistance. At level 5, they have 10 resistance of whatever type. Cleric can cast Resist Energy to get the same benefit as early as level 3 and the spell lasts 100 rounds per caster level. When the FS is FINALLY getting their all day, unchangeable type ER, the Cleric has been enjoying whatever type of ER they want for about 30 to 45 minutes at a time (more than enough for most applications).

In 5 more levels, FS is getting another 10 ER of a different type. By level 7, the Cleric's spell is giving 20 ER of whichever type and it lasts over an hour. Don't want to waste a spell slot for resist energy? Put it on a scroll.

The cleric solution is far more practically useful. By the time you get to level 10, your 10 ER in 2 types is nowhere near as useful as the Cleric's 20 ER in exactly the type you need. At 11th level, the spell gives 30 ER. Sure, FS can learn Resist Energy, but the whole point in the class feature is to not need to cast the spell.


No they don't. Wisdom can be safely ignored.

That depends. What spells do you want your Favored Soul to use? If you stick to buffing spells, then sure, save DC isn't important.


Oh, I see what you're saying. You're conflating day-to-day flexibility with power.

Day to day flexibility IS power, though you're right it's not the only power. It does happen to be the best power in D&D, as day to day versatility tends to be what separates the game changers from the meatshield beat sticks.


The ability to cast a spell when you actually need it is necessarily and strictly better than the ability to cast a spell when you don't.

True, but either class could just as easily happen to not have the right spell. Only the Cleric has the hope of doing anything about it in the near future.

[Goaty14]

It was not I who contrived the boulder scenario.

'Twas I, whom contrived thy boulder scenario. 'Twasn't I, whom declared that the "surprise, your limited spells known doesn't work here" scenario is actually a "lol no, my theoretical character just-so-happens to have the incredibly niche spell that solves this problem" scenario.

I'll go out on a limb and assume that it was perfectly reasonable for a FS to know "see through boulders" as a spell known. Next encounter, your party happens upon a gate into gnomish territory. The gnomes up top attempt to communicate with the party, but nobody speaks gnome! What are you going to do now, try and convince me that your favored soul just-so-happens to have selected Tongues (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/tongues.htm)s as a spell known?

[TheTeaMustFlow]

You do realize you can jump without taking it as a skill, right?


Oh, for the love of God... It's stuff like this that make people wonder whether you're a troll.

Yes, of course I bloody realise that. Do you realise how utterly irrelevant that statement is, in the context of Favoured Souls being better at it because they have the class skill? In all ways other than that, they jump just the same as a Cleric (or somewhat worse, in the case of Clerics with a relevant domain ability, such as Strength). Again, just because Clerics can wear heavy armour doesn't mean they have to. Plenty of Cleric builds go for lighter armour, or even no armour at all.

[MeeposFire]

Githzerai were in old editions of D&D known for being basically casters with swords and fairly proficient at it. The shorthand name for a Githzerai was "gish", leading to the nomiker adopting itself to anyone playing a fighter/mage, eventually anyone trying to apply sword and sorcerery into a single character and attempt to do both effectively. Clerics and favored souls are dubbed gishes as they are capable of casting spells (doesn't matter if they are arcane or divine) and using melee weapons without fear of being torn apart in melee.




There is a need for some historical correction here Gish were Githyanki not githzerai (they would probably be very upset to hear about the confusion lol considering how much they hate each other). Gish was not short hand for it either it was rather more like a title that a fighter/mage multiclass had in their culture. Githzerai on the other hand as I recall call their fighter/mages "zerths".

I cannot give an exact time where people started using the term to apply outside of its original context though I first started seeing it on 3e WotC boards but to be honest that does not mean that is where it first got popularized.

The funny thing is that cleric type magic would be anathema to actual githyanki gishes when they were first created for the game (which is one reason why I do not use the term in reference to paladins and clerics). Also I find it funny that if do apply gish to clerics that the cleric came first and has always been one that uses weapons, heavy armor, and spells so if we really think a cleric is a gish then shouldn't we call all warrior/casters clerics? Of course the answer is no though I would say that is due to how strong the view of what a cleric actually is.


Hmm maybe just to be different I should start calling all warrior/caster types "zerths" just to protest the evil of the githyanki.

[Mordaedil]

Thanks Meepos, I wasn't sure if I got it right, but figured I'd be corrected if I guessed wrong based on my memory. Always hard to keep straight who is what in that relationship of two races that were once the same and still have similar names.


There's a lot of good save or X Cleric spells. Cause Fear, Command, Hide from Undead, Sanctuary, Enthrall, Silence... I suppose if you never plan to cast an offensive spell, sure. But... that's pretty seriously nerfing yourself. You're losing out on an absurd amount of offensive power.

I dunno if I'd call them good, quite honestly. Even as a cleric, I always preferred to pick more definite benefits for my caster and the favored soul learns just enough spells per spell level to make good use of the cleric spell list, imo. Spells like silence is better if you don't cast it on a hostile target, but a friendly summon and task them with hassling the enemy casters. Imagine attaching silence to a fly and sending the fly off into a row of mages. Far better than casting silence on a mage, and no save required. Bless, divine favor, bull's strength, divine power, greater magic weapon are all spells I consider stronger alternatives to something like Hold Person.

[Nifft]

Always hard to keep straight who is what in that relationship of two races that were once the same and still have similar names. Psst! Wanna smoke some mnemonics?

Gith Yankees - have a pact with Tiamat (who lives in Hell) so they can ride red dragons, and their souls get eaten by their lich-queen when they're taller than a certain stick. Pacts with Hell and having a hard XP ceiling => they are damned. They are damned Yankees. They love to multi-class because it gives them an experience penalty, which means they get to live 20% longer. That's their Make-A-Gish foundation, because they've all got a terminal case of the lich.

Gith Zerai - live in monest-zerais because they're all Monks. Zerth starts with a Z, just like Zerai. They live in Limbo because Monks hate chaos, or something. Less to know, probably most of it starts with a Z.

[Mordaedil]

Welp, now I feel like they are a whole lot weirder.

[Random Sanity]

No they don't. Wisdom can be safely ignored.




Not if you want to make use of the best spells on your class list, you can't.

[Gnaeus]

Bless, divine favor, bull's strength, divine power, greater magic weapon are all spells I consider stronger alternatives to something like Hold Person.

That depends again on what stronger means. Hold person is definitely more specialized, being human only. But part of the joy of Clericing over Souling is holding anti human spells on human fighting days.

Divine power and GMW I agree. But you are comparing a 2nd level spell to 4ths. If levels are no object, plane shift is a better spell than either of those at one level higher, since it is a utility spell coupled with a save or lose.

As to bulls strength or bless, I would strongly disagree that, in fights against humanoids, they beat hold person. Figure a DC 15 save (wis 16 cleric with a second level spell.) At the time you get it (3rd), you are talking about around a 2/3 chance to take out a fighter type of as high as 8th level. Or a 50% chance to drop a 5th level wizard or Sorcerer. Compared with a +2 hit and damage.

[Jack_Simth]

I dunno if I'd call them good, quite honestly. Even as a cleric, I always preferred to pick more definite benefits for my caster and the favored soul learns just enough spells per spell level to make good use of the cleric spell list, imo. Spells like silence is better if you don't cast it on a hostile target, but a friendly summon and task them with hassling the enemy casters. Imagine attaching silence to a fly and sending the fly off into a row of mages. Far better than casting silence on a mage, and no save required. Bless, divine favor, bull's strength, divine power, greater magic weapon are all spells I consider stronger alternatives to something like Hold Person.The mage takes a move action to go 30 feet and get out of the range of Silence. Then casts Scorching Ray on the fly. You've spent a 1-round action plus a standard action to remove one move and one standard from one enemy. Or maybe they don't bother getting rid of the fly. They just move again after the fly approaches. By dropping anything with a save, you're getting rid of like a third of the cleric spells. That's a lot of potential power to just ignore.

Also, of course, at that 8th level example, the FS had just one extra slot compared to the Cleric... at 2nd level, when both were looking at 4th level spells.

[Katie Boundary]

Whoops, I made a mistake. I thought that heavy armor imposed a cap on one's dexterity bonus. It turns out that it actually only imposes a cap on the bonus that dexterity provides to your armor class, so a cleric in heavy armor with 18 dexterity can still get +4 when using ranged weapons.

That's kind of a big deal.


The gnomes up top attempt to communicate with the party, but nobody speaks gnome! What are you going to do now, try and convince me that your favored soul just-so-happens to have selected Tongues (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/tongues.htm)s as a spell known?

Are the gnomes within range of my heavy repeating crossbow?

EDIT: actually, "Comprehend languages" would probably be the fourth spell I'd take at level 1, with the first 3 being Cure Light Wounds, Shield of Faith, and Summon Monster

[Pleh]

Whoops, I made a mistake. I thought that heavy armor imposed a cap on one's dexterity bonus. It turns out that it actually only imposes a cap on the bonus that dexterity provides to your armor class, so a cleric in heavy armor with 18 dexterity can still get +4 when using ranged weapons.

That's kind of a big deal.



Are the gnomes within range of my heavy repeating crossbow?

Yes. All armor has a max dex rating, not just heavy armor. A bigger problem is reduced movement speed and Armor Check Penalty.

But clerics are wasting potential throwing 18 into Dex where it could have been in Wis.

Also, the heavy repeating crossbow isn't as awesome as you think. It's exotic, so you're spending a feat to get to use a weapon that deals 1d10 for 5 rounds (if you hit) then you have to spend a full round action to reload.

Low level cleric probably is better off investing in a morningstar and a light crossbow. You can still fire each round if you're staying out of enemy range.

The difference between 1d8 and 1d10 isn't probably worth a whole feat.

[AvatarVecna]

"Dangit, we're incapable of talking to them, what do we do?"
"I know, I'll use the universal language!"
*shoots them*
"Violence!"

tencharacters

[ryu]

Worse still even if you manage to kill them that doesn't open the door. No one friendly to operate the device and only an idiot, or a videogame designer would design a door to open when the guards are killed. It's a plan that literally cannot make things better even should it succeed.

[Troacctid]

Let's be fair. If you can't advance in an adventure unless someone in the party speaks Gnome, that's a poorly designed adventure.

[Pleh]

Let's be fair. If you can't advance in an adventure unless someone in the party speaks Gnome, that's a poorly designed adventure.

Fair game if you announce the game is T1, though. As stated, prepared casters can just come back later.

[noce]

EDIT: actually, "Comprehend languages" would probably be the fourth spell I'd take at level 1, with the first 3 being Cure Light Wounds, Shield of Faith, and Summon Monster

Oh, dear god.

Blade of blood, Conviction, Protection from Evil, Resurgence, Sign, Lesser shivering touch, Lesser vigor.

Any of these is better than Summon monster I and Comprehend Languages. Comprehend Languages is situational, and you can just buy a scroll.

You are willing to waste a spell known on Comprehend Languages as a Favored Soul, and you're still arguing it has any advantage over a cleric? I can't believe it.

[RoboEmperor]

Let's be fair. If you can't advance in an adventure unless someone in the party speaks Gnome, that's a poorly designed adventure.

Adventurers can always "Let's stop doing what we're doing and go kill Demogorgon!" and just go random murderhobo until they get planeshift at which point they just go all murderhobo in the abyss.

[Nifft]

Adventurers can always "Let's stop doing what we're doing and go kill Demogorgon!" and just go random murderhobo until they get planeshift at which point they just go all murderhobo in the abyss.

That sounds like MMO grinding, not like a tabletop game.

[RoboEmperor]

That sounds like MMO grinding, not like a tabletop game.

The difference between the two is on the DM.

A Great DM can create a series of adventures both leading to and in the abyss.

A poor DM will just throw monsters at you until you hit level 20.

But let's face it, if the DM blocks your progress because you lack a language...

[Troacctid]

Fair game if you announce the game is T1, though. As stated, prepared casters can just come back later.
I don't care what classes are in your party, if your adventure is bottlenecked on a language like that with no alternative solutions, it's poorly designed.


Oh, dear god.

Blade of blood, Conviction, Protection from Evil, Resurgence, Sign, Lesser shivering touch, Lesser vigor.

Any of these is better than Summon monster I and Comprehend Languages. Comprehend Languages is situational, and you can just buy a scroll.

You are willing to waste a spell known on Comprehend Languages as a Favored Soul, and you're still arguing it has any advantage over a cleric? I can't believe it.
I think Summon Monster I is pretty solid. I probably like Conjure Ice Beast a little better, but summons are usually pretty high utility.


Adventurers can always "Let's stop doing what we're doing and go kill Demogorgon!" and just go random murderhobo until they get planeshift at which point they just go all murderhobo in the abyss.
"Yeah, I spent two hours prepping this adventure, but if you guys just want to roll random combat encounters for less xp and treasure than you would have gotten from the actual story, that's cool. I'll go get my 4e books and we'll convert your characters." —The DM, probably

[noce]

I think Summon Monster I is pretty solid. I probably like Conjure Ice Beast a little better, but summons are usually pretty high utility.

Not at first level, when your summon lasts 1 round.
At level 3, sure, but I was answering about taking it at level 1, too soon if you ask me.

[Eldariel]

I don't care what classes are in your party, if your adventure is bottlenecked on a language like that with no alternative solutions, it's poorly designed.

TBH there's no reason the DM should have a solution ready, or indeed an adventure that requires any particular set of actions. The onus for solving problems should lie with the players, not the DM. If the DM plans encounters with simple neon signs pointing ti the possible tracks for how to solve them, that's pretty far from cooperative storytelling and more like DM storytelling with the players spectating.

And if the PC goes murderhobo, they're probably going to piss some really powerful party off or just get out of their depth in general and summarily die - encounters are not level appropriate if the PCs go looking for trouble (again, the onus of picking tasks they are capable of lies with the PCs). Murderhoboing is really not a very functional way of interacting with a settings potentially aside from weak, isolate ecologies like forsaken dungeons with little of interest in them.

[Cosi]

Lesser shivering touch

This is cargo cult thinking. shivering touch is good because it one-shots dragons, who are fairly difficult to kill otherwise. lesser shivering touch deals 1d6 DEX damage, which is not enough to one-shot anything in particular. So practically speaking, you're casting a spell to inflict a -1 or -2 penalty (on average, assuming you hit) to AC and a couple of other things for one target. That isn't good.


That sounds like MMO grinding, not like a tabletop game.

The players deciding to go off and do something else is the exact opposite of a MMO. The advantage tabletop games have is that you can dynamically decide to do things you think are interesting and are not stuck following the presented path.


I think Summon Monster I is pretty solid. I probably like Conjure Ice Beast a little better, but summons are usually pretty high utility.

Not low level summons. Summoning a Rat or Wolf is not very useful. summon monster IV is the cutoff for where you start getting a reasonable amount of utility.


"Yeah, I spent two hours prepping this adventure, but if you guys just want to roll random combat encounters for less xp and treasure than you would have gotten from the actual story, that's cool. I'll go get my 4e books and we'll convert your characters." —The DM, probably

If your players don't want to engage with the material you've presented, you've failed as a DM and your response should be to reconsider your adventure design, not lash out at them.

[JNAProductions]

Okay, Katie, I'd like to propose a challenge. In the spoilers below, I've outlined ten scenarios for you to make a Favored Soul to handle. DO NOT read the scenarios ahead of time. Your party will consist of a friendly Dragonfire Adept (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1628766), which is a class that basically breathes fire and other elements. This specific DFA is pretty capable at that, and also good at knowledge checks. The other party member will be a Barbarian (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1628768), who's there to hit stuff really hard with an axe.

If you have objections to these characters, let me know-I'll address that.

Anyway, below are the scenarios for your Favored Soul to handle. If anyone else wants to contribute a Favored Soul or a Cleric to try to complete the tasks, feel free to, but DO NOT read the tasks ahead of time.

DO NOT OPEN THE NEXT SPOILERS IF YOU WANT TO MAKE A CHARACTER FOR THEM! THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE UNEXPECTED!

If you default to spoilers open, please hit "Hide Spoilers" to close them all.






































































Note: Most encounters are straight from this (http://www.d20srd.org/d20/encounter/) calculator.

A fight with two greater air elementals (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/elemental.htm), in an open field with some boulders strewn about.

7 Ankhegs (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ankheg.htm), disturbed by the fight above, immediately surface after the fight with the elementals. Rest time is maybe one minute.

You arrive wherever you were going after the two fights, and find out that you're needed in a city some three weeks away by horseback in one weeks time, to help fend off an oncoming orc army. How do you get there in time?

You've arrived at the city, and now have to deal with 10 Gorgons (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/gorgon.htm) the orcs have tamed before they batter down the city walls and run rampant throughout the city.

After having fended off the orcs for a day, you need to find a way to force an army to retreat. You can kill their leaders (5 Ogre Mages (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ogreMage.htm), who spend most of their time in orcish form to avoid being targeted) or find some other way, but a head-on confrontation is almost guaranteed suicide, simply due to the sheer number of orcs.

The army is routed! The king has sent a message saying he wants to reward you. But, when you arrive back, you find out he's been infected with some horrible disease, and the country he's in is pretty poor and low-magic. He has no casters capable of curing it (It requires Remove Curse and Remove Disease, or similar effects) and not enough money to pay for someone else to cure it in time. You're his only hope, and he has but a week to live.

That's done, and now you travel again. Somehow, 5 T-Rexes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dinosaur.htm#tyrannosaurus) show up.

Later, at night when you're camping, 6 Shadows (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/shadow.htm)appear while you sleep and try to murder you all.

A while after that, you arrive at a cosmopolitan city, but find the guards who guard the gate don't speak your language. You really need to get into the city, but can't even try to convince them without speaking the right tongue. Can you sneak in, or learn their language, or do something to get in?

You find you need to go to another plane. You can either find a way to pay the simply outrageous fee the planar merchant in the city offers (10,000 GP!), go somewhere else where you can get it for only a slight mark up (600 GP) though the nearest place is some two weeks away by horseback, and you need to be on another plane within 3 days, or just cast your own spell to get there.

I'm actually very curious as to if someone can make a Cleric or Favored Soul that can handle all these without too much trouble, and without too much cheese.

[Nifft]

Okay, Katie, I'd like to propose a challenge. In the spoilers below, I've outlined ten scenarios for you to make a Favored Soul to handle. DO NOT read the scenarios ahead of time. Your party will consist of a friendly Dragonfire Adept (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1628766), which is a class that basically breathes fire and other elements. This specific DFA is pretty capable at that, and also good at knowledge checks. The other party member will be a Barbarian (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1628768), who's there to hit stuff really hard with an axe.

If you have objections to these characters, let me know-I'll address that.

Anyway, below are the scenarios for your Favored Soul to handle. If anyone else wants to contribute a Favored Soul or a Cleric to try to complete the tasks, feel free to, but DO NOT read the tasks ahead of time.

Looking at the character sheets, I assume the Favored Soul or Cleric should also be 11th level, with... uh... 32 point buy, I think?

Also, the Barbarian needs HP to be rolled.

I haven't looked at the scenarios yet.

[JNAProductions]

36 point buy, standard wealth by level, so 66,000 GP.

And average HP, maxed at level 1. I did indeed forget the barb there.

[AvatarVecna]

A quick glance over the sheets gives me the impression that combat, lore-whore, face, and blaster roles are dealt with, although there's an utter dearth of magic support...but fortunately, both of these classes excel at that. The lack of scouting/trapfinding is a bigger issue, though. Here are my very general thoughts so far:

Venerable Dragonwrought Kobold for the race. I want to pick up Disable Device, Hide, Listen, Move Silently Open Lock, Search, and Spot as class skills. Hrm...kobold domain...whispered secrets...Initiate of Astilabor...flexible mind...cheese it with Skill Knowledge? Eh. There's some legal mix, I'm sure of it. Maybe initiate feats don't require you to be a cleric of a the connected deity mechanically, but merely to fluff-worship them? Maybe you can take racial domains if you're part of that race without worshipping the racial deity? Hrm...

From there, go Cleric 10/Contemplative 1. Domains I'm interested in are Celerity, Knowledge, Kobold, Magic, Planning, Spell, and Time; let's say Kobold/Magic at lvl 1. UA's "Cloistered Cleric" to nab Knowledge regardless of deity (although that's the only one Vecna has I want besides Magic...really, Planning and Spell aren't Vecna domains? Ugh). Take PHB2's "Domain Spontaneity" - I wanted to use it with Spell domain for Anyspell/Greater Anyspell, but those spells don't play nice with spontaneous casting, so probably use this with Knowledge because spontaneous Divination can be nice at the end of the adventuring day for info-gathering. Take Dungeonscape's "Divine Restoration" (give up the domain power of Celerity, Spell, Time, or maybe Knowledge depending on which one you started with...let's say Knowledge for now). Let's say we pick up Spell from Contemplative.

Push Wis high, push Str/Cha low, and keep the other four even-ish (so probably 8/16/12/15/17/9 pre-race/age?). Get all those seven skills somehow. Max out the seven skills up there, as well as Diplomacy, Speak Language, and Sense Motive for some extra oomph in social encounters. Probably grab Dragon Wings at some point so you have Ex Flight.

At this point, you cast as Cleric 11, can spontaneous cast spells from the Knowledge domain, and can prepare from the Magic/Kobold/Spell domains in your domain slots (including the great flexibility of Anyspell/Greater Anyspell). You effectively have Trapfinding from the Kobold domain. Between cleric casting and Magic domain, you're effectively as good at UMD as a Rogue with full ranks (okay, sure, only access to two lists, but it's cleric and wizard lists, so that covers basically everything). Get items boosting Dex/Con/Wis to boost your AC/HP/Saves/ranged attack rolls/initiative/spells per day/spell save DCs. Get a ring of evasion, a save-boosting cloak, some nice light armor, and possibly a reflex-specific save-boosting item. You have full ranks in the skills directly relevant to scouting (with a fly speed and small size), trapfinding (with...trapfinding), a secondary focus in social interaction to back up the DFA, and an ability that lets them pretend to have UMD.

The full build is still in-progress, to be sure, but this is a super-roguey cleric. :smalltongue:

EDIT: I will say, the "it maybe works" parts that I'm having to research are mostly because I'm making a cleric for a party that has no divine caster, no arcane caster, and no scout/trapfinder, so I tried to be all three, and it's only maybe possible. If a rogue was added to this three-character party who could cover scouting/trapfinding, Be a kobold who worships Vecna, switch out Kobold domain for Celerity domain and take back the Knowledge domain ability (dropping Celerity's instead). Switch Int/Cha (so now I'm working with 7 maxed skills, which are Diplomacy/K Religion/Listen/Sense Motive/Spot, and then split the remaining points between the other five monster knowledge checks). Take Knowledge Devotion with one of your newly-opened feat slots and continue focusing on ranged attacks. You are now a dedicated face/backup lorewhore instead of the skill roles mentioned previously, and you even have a combat boost from lorewhoring. Of course, this is if a rogue gets added to the mix, which...I dunno if JNA will be up for that.

[Nifft]

Taran the Traveler
He walked out of the desert, through the badlands, and he's kept walking ever since. Except when he flies or teleports. Likes visiting new places. Themed towards [Fire] and survival because he's from the desert.

Cleric 11 - Fharlanghn, with domains Travel & Celerity

Base stats (36 point buy is quite forgiving, isn't it)
- Str 14
- Dex 14
- Con 14
- Int 10
- Wis 16
- Cha 14

Skills:
- Concentration: 14 ranks
- Spellcraft: 14 ranks
- Survival: 14 ranks

Feats:
L1: Travel Devotion
L1 (human bonus): Priest of the Waste
L3: Fiery Burst
L6: Domain Spontaneity (Travel)
L9: Domain Spontaneity (Celerity)


That set of feats gives a nice selection of spontaneous conversions:

Level 0: Cure Minor Wound, Create Water
Level 1: Cure Light Wounds, Expeditious Retreat*, Longstrider*, Cloak of Shade, Endure Elements
Level 2: Cure Moderate Wounds, Cat's Grace*, Locate Object*, Hydrate, Resist Energy
Level 3: Cure Serious Wounds, Blur*, Fly*, Create Food and Water, Protection from Dessication, Protection from Energy
Level 4: Cure Critical Wounds, Haste*, Dimension Door*
Level 5: Mass Cure Light Wounds, Tree Stride*, Teleport*
Level 6: Mass Cure Moderate Wounds, Wind Walk*, Find the Path*, Heroes Feast

The ones with * require expenditure of a prepared spell and one Turn Undead attempt, the rest just expend a prepared spell. The less-impressive spells are brown, what I consider the more-impressive spells are blue; but overall, the sheer breadth of spontaneous capability is pretty good. This is a Cleric who can provide the party with mobility, outdoors know-how, and (with an appropriate item) can even track -- which is thematic with Locate Object and Find the Path on the spontaneous conversion list.

Protection from Energy and Resist Energy are good buffs for specific types of encounters, but often you don't know you're in one of those encounters until you see the dragon. Having them as spontaneous options is good.

For gear, I think he wants one Nightstick (7k gp) to further fuel Travel Devotion and the two Domain Spontaneity feats. Light armor, so probably a chain shirt of some type (Celerity Domain gives +10 ft. movement if he's in Light armor) -- maybe Adamantine, since his Dex isn't stellar. For a weapon, the Shortspear is his deity's favored, so one of those (maybe the one that gives you Track from A&EG but I think it's too expensive).

Prepared spells? Right, he gets those too. Uh...

[Astralia123]

Well I can't catch up with your topics after 7 pages but...

FS is not "nerfed clerics", they are alternative clerics that do not have access to even half of the OP toys of a cleric.

Yes, FSs serve well as melee attackers and sometimes better than clerics in some builds. But it is a matter of convenience, not that FS is nearly as powerful as cleric class.


Why? It is because their lack of domains. You CAN "regain" turning ability from some PrCs, but not the 2 free domains which a cleric can trade for devotion feat for free.

It is the same reason why two-weapon fighting are weaker. You need at least 1-3 more feats to begin with, and even if you get the "entry fee" for free, you still are not as powerful.

And, two domains, not need to mention, values more than 2 feats. Even with that, lacking turning ability before you can select PrCs and weaker spellcasting ability probably more than outweigh the benefits being Charisma-primary.

[Astralia123]

Okay, Katie, I'd like to propose a challenge. In the spoilers below, I've outlined ten scenarios for you to make a Favored Soul to handle. DO NOT read the scenarios ahead of time. Your party will consist of a friendly Dragonfire Adept (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1628766), which is a class that basically breathes fire and other elements. This specific DFA is pretty capable at that, and also good at knowledge checks. The other party member will be a Barbarian (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1628768), who's there to hit stuff really hard with an axe.

If you have objections to these characters, let me know-I'll address that.

Anyway, below are the scenarios for your Favored Soul to handle. If anyone else wants to contribute a Favored Soul or a Cleric to try to complete the tasks, feel free to, but DO NOT read the tasks ahead of time.

DO NOT OPEN THE NEXT SPOILERS IF YOU WANT TO MAKE A CHARACTER FOR THEM! THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE UNEXPECTED!

If you default to spoilers open, please hit "Hide Spoilers" to close them all.






































































Note: Most encounters are straight from this (http://www.d20srd.org/d20/encounter/) calculator.

A fight with two greater air elementals (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/elemental.htm), in an open field with some boulders strewn about.

7 Ankhegs (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ankheg.htm), disturbed by the fight above, immediately surface after the fight with the elementals. Rest time is maybe one minute.

You arrive wherever you were going after the two fights, and find out that you're needed in a city some three weeks away by horseback in one weeks time, to help fend off an oncoming orc army. How do you get there in time?

You've arrived at the city, and now have to deal with 10 Gorgons (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/gorgon.htm) the orcs have tamed before they batter down the city walls and run rampant throughout the city.

After having fended off the orcs for a day, you need to find a way to force an army to retreat. You can kill their leaders (5 Ogre Mages (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ogreMage.htm), who spend most of their time in orcish form to avoid being targeted) or find some other way, but a head-on confrontation is almost guaranteed suicide, simply due to the sheer number of orcs.

The army is routed! The king has sent a message saying he wants to reward you. But, when you arrive back, you find out he's been infected with some horrible disease, and the country he's in is pretty poor and low-magic. He has no casters capable of curing it (It requires Remove Curse and Remove Disease, or similar effects) and not enough money to pay for someone else to cure it in time. You're his only hope, and he has but a week to live.

That's done, and now you travel again. Somehow, 5 T-Rexes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dinosaur.htm#tyrannosaurus) show up.

Later, at night when you're camping, 6 Shadows (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/shadow.htm)appear while you sleep and try to murder you all.

A while after that, you arrive at a cosmopolitan city, but find the guards who guard the gate don't speak your language. You really need to get into the city, but can't even try to convince them without speaking the right tongue. Can you sneak in, or learn their language, or do something to get in?

You find you need to go to another plane. You can either find a way to pay the simply outrageous fee the planar merchant in the city offers (10,000 GP!), go somewhere else where you can get it for only a slight mark up (600 GP) though the nearest place is some two weeks away by horseback, and you need to be on another plane within 3 days, or just cast your own spell to get there.

I'm actually very curious as to if someone can make a Cleric or Favored Soul that can handle all these without too much trouble, and without too much cheese.

There's my Exalted Poverty Cleric Monk back some years that can handle most these situations (except the T-Rexes I guess, without some more capable DPS allies, this character possibly have difficulty to take them all down. He is not THAT good at protecting allies from physical attacks, either).

Basically this character is a 15 level lawful good cleric/sacred fist with vow of poverty, can spontaneously cast all sanctified spells, and still have most normal cleric spells that are not of chaotic or evil alignment.

About half challenges above can be solved by single or multiple cleric spells, which is no difficult to him. Some other require solutions against some nasty monster traits, and those involving evil or undead foes are no problems. Only problem is that he might be some difficulty facing multiply neutral beast or the sorts, which I'm not sure if he memorizes suitable spells in most cases. (I don't have the original character sheet at hand, but I remember his unarmed attack damage was quite lame.)Well, maybe with some cheeses he can do the trick...like, starmantle on the barbarian?

[Nifft]

Taran the Traveler
He walked out of the desert, through the badlands, and he's kept walking ever since. Except when he flies or teleports. Likes visiting new places. Themed towards [Fire] and survival because he's from the desert.

Cleric 11 - Fharlanghn, with domains Travel & Celerity

Base stats (36 point buy is quite forgiving, isn't it)
- Str 14
- Dex 14
- Con 14
- Int 10
- Wis 16
- Cha 14

Skills:
- Concentration: 14 ranks
- Spellcraft: 14 ranks
- Survival: 14 ranks

Feats:
L1: Travel Devotion
L1 (human bonus): Priest of the Waste
L3: Fiery Burst
L6: Domain Spontaneity (Travel)
L9: Domain Spontaneity (Celerity)


That set of feats gives a nice selection of spontaneous conversions:

Level 0: Cure Minor Wound, Create Water
Level 1: Cure Light Wounds, Expeditious Retreat*, Longstrider*, Cloak of Shade, Endure Elements
Level 2: Cure Moderate Wounds, Cat's Grace*, Locate Object*, Hydrate, Resist Energy
Level 3: Cure Serious Wounds, Blur*, Fly*, Create Food and Water, Protection from Dessication, Protection from Energy
Level 4: Cure Critical Wounds, Haste*, Dimension Door*
Level 5: Mass Cure Light Wounds, Tree Stride*, Teleport*
Level 6: Mass Cure Moderate Wounds, Wind Walk*, Find the Path*, Heroes Feast

The ones with * require expenditure of a prepared spell and one Turn Undead attempt, the rest just expend a prepared spell. The less-impressive spells are brown, what I consider the more-impressive spells are blue; but overall, the sheer breadth of spontaneous capability is pretty good. This is a Cleric who can provide the party with mobility, outdoors know-how, and (with an appropriate item) can even track -- which is thematic with Locate Object and Find the Path on the spontaneous conversion list.

Protection from Energy and Resist Energy are good buffs for specific types of encounters, but often you don't know you're in one of those encounters until you see the dragon. Having them as spontaneous options is good.

For gear, I think he wants one Nightstick (7k gp) to further fuel Travel Devotion and the two Domain Spontaneity feats. Light armor, so probably a chain shirt of some type (Celerity Domain gives +10 ft. movement if he's in Light armor) -- maybe Adamantine, since his Dex isn't stellar. For a weapon, the Shortspear is his deity's favored, so one of those (maybe the one that gives you Track from A&EG but I think it's too expensive).

Prepared spells? Right, he gets those too. Uh...


Okay just read the challenge, and...


HA!

I love the Travel domain so I built around it, and it seems to have paid off handsomely. (Ruggedly handsomely, with 3 days of stubble and a lingering aroma of wood smoke.)

Some of those challenges can be solved by hit-and-run tactics, or by flight, or by teleportation... or by Wind Walk, come to think of it. Running away seems like a good answer to the random T-Rex encounter, too.

Now I wish I'd given a more complete build write-up, including gear. Obviously I can't add that stuff after reading the encounters.

[Svata]

Any of these is better than Summon monster I and Comprehend Languages.

Eh, SMI is pretty decent. Trap detectors are nice to have. And flanking buddies for the Melee guys (especially ones with SA) are always appreciated.

[Katie Boundary]

"Dangit, we're incapable of talking to them, what do we do?"
"I know, I'll use the universal language!"
*shoots them*
"Violence!"

Well, my last session ended with me taming a frog and then making it glow (aasimar powers yay) so our group could use it as a torch, even though we had plenty of actual torches. The rest of my party includes a tabaxi kleptomaniac, a guy who literally worships lint as a god, and a kid whose reaction to seeing eldrich abomination larvae was to eat 34 of them, whole, after which we had to induce vomiting, perform a purification ritual on the vomit, then burn down the vomit house just to be safe.

Trying to intimidate/threaten a bunch of gnomes into helping us would be one of the LEAST strange things our group has ever done.

Also, our DM is a saint for putting up with so much chaotic stupid in one group.


Worse still even if you manage to kill them that doesn't open the door. No one friendly to operate the device and only an idiot, or a videogame designer would design a door to open when the guards are killed. It's a plan that literally cannot make things better even should it succeed.

But it's funny :)


Summoning a Rat or Wolf is not very useful.

It is if you have an aasimar in the party who can make it glow like a torch :)

[Blu]

It is if you have an aasimar in the party who can make it glow like a torch :)

You know that the 1/day daylight only works on objects, right? Calling the daylight spell "like a torch" is really undermining the spell.
Unless you are using the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting Aasimars, wich are outdated. They were later changed from 1/day light to daylight spell, besides other stuff

[Mystral]

I feel like Silence should be an evocation, like Darkness.
Or maybe an abjuration, since it stops the sound from getting in.

But yeah, illusion is pretty weird.



That's my go-to. Honestly I don't understand why so many people shun Pathfinder entirely just on the basis of its... admittedly bizarre design values for character options (see this feat (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/arcane-armor-training-combat/); why the swift action?). The actual core system rules changes are mostly solid improvements on 3.5, and nothing is stopping you from porting forward your favorite 3.5 class(es) and feats and whatnot.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2lxf1?Reasons-behind-arcane-armor-trainingmastery

[noce]

Eh, SMI is pretty decent. Trap detectors are nice to have. And flanking buddies for the Melee guys (especially ones with SA) are always appreciated.

I added later that I consider it a poor 1st level choice just for the duration.
Given the fact that you learn another 1st level spell at 3rd and another one at 5th level, I'd delay SMI at least until level 3.

[Feantar]

Summoning a Rat or Wolf is not very useful. summon monster IV is the cutoff for where you start getting a reasonable amount of utility.

Well, it is essentially detect traps at level 1. Not that bad.

[Troacctid]

Okay, Katie, I'd like to propose a challenge. In the spoilers below, I've outlined ten scenarios for you to make a Favored Soul to handle. DO NOT read the scenarios ahead of time. Your party will consist of a friendly Dragonfire Adept (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1628766), which is a class that basically breathes fire and other elements. This specific DFA is pretty capable at that, and also good at knowledge checks. The other party member will be a Barbarian (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1628768), who's there to hit stuff really hard with an axe.

If you have objections to these characters, let me know-I'll address that.

Anyway, below are the scenarios for your Favored Soul to handle. If anyone else wants to contribute a Favored Soul or a Cleric to try to complete the tasks, feel free to, but DO NOT read the tasks ahead of time.

DO NOT OPEN THE NEXT SPOILERS IF YOU WANT TO MAKE A CHARACTER FOR THEM! THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE UNEXPECTED!

If you default to spoilers open, please hit "Hide Spoilers" to close them all.






































































Note: Most encounters are straight from this (http://www.d20srd.org/d20/encounter/) calculator.

A fight with two greater air elementals (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/elemental.htm), in an open field with some boulders strewn about.

7 Ankhegs (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ankheg.htm), disturbed by the fight above, immediately surface after the fight with the elementals. Rest time is maybe one minute.

You arrive wherever you were going after the two fights, and find out that you're needed in a city some three weeks away by horseback in one weeks time, to help fend off an oncoming orc army. How do you get there in time?

You've arrived at the city, and now have to deal with 10 Gorgons (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/gorgon.htm) the orcs have tamed before they batter down the city walls and run rampant throughout the city.

After having fended off the orcs for a day, you need to find a way to force an army to retreat. You can kill their leaders (5 Ogre Mages (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ogreMage.htm), who spend most of their time in orcish form to avoid being targeted) or find some other way, but a head-on confrontation is almost guaranteed suicide, simply due to the sheer number of orcs.

The army is routed! The king has sent a message saying he wants to reward you. But, when you arrive back, you find out he's been infected with some horrible disease, and the country he's in is pretty poor and low-magic. He has no casters capable of curing it (It requires Remove Curse and Remove Disease, or similar effects) and not enough money to pay for someone else to cure it in time. You're his only hope, and he has but a week to live.

That's done, and now you travel again. Somehow, 5 T-Rexes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dinosaur.htm#tyrannosaurus) show up.

Later, at night when you're camping, 6 Shadows (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/shadow.htm)appear while you sleep and try to murder you all.

A while after that, you arrive at a cosmopolitan city, but find the guards who guard the gate don't speak your language. You really need to get into the city, but can't even try to convince them without speaking the right tongue. Can you sneak in, or learn their language, or do something to get in?

You find you need to go to another plane. You can either find a way to pay the simply outrageous fee the planar merchant in the city offers (10,000 GP!), go somewhere else where you can get it for only a slight mark up (600 GP) though the nearest place is some two weeks away by horseback, and you need to be on another plane within 3 days, or just cast your own spell to get there.

I'm actually very curious as to if someone can make a Cleric or Favored Soul that can handle all these without too much trouble, and without too much cheese.

Okay, I made one. https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1629085

Let's see how it plays out.

1. Plenty of ways to solve this one. The most likely solution is Diplomacy. Air elementals are intelligent and don't have a particularly impressive damage output. It takes me three rounds to cast tongues and then take 10 on two Diplomacy checks to turn one of them Helpful (thanks to pre-cast divine insight giving a guaranteed check result of 50) and the other Friendly.

2. Crush this encounter without even trying because we can all fly and the ankhegs can't. DFA uses flyby to swoop down and breathe on them until they die while Barbarian and I stay out of reach. No need to expend any resources. Oh, and the friendly air elementals might even help us. I guess just to be safe I can drop a mass resist energy (acid) beforehand.

3. We hop inside my enveloping pit, fold it up, lantern archon picks it up, and greater teleports us to the destination. No resources expended.

4. Seems like a good time to use those amber amulets of vermin. While the gorgons are dealing with huge monstrous scorpions getting continually buffed by lantern archons with at-will aid, I can start tossing out some more summons with summon monster, keeping them busy while DFA uses area attacks to whittle them down. If anyone gets turned to stone, I packed resurgence to fix them. Barbarian can enjoy a scorpion mount, or fly above them and use a reach weapon (we have more than enough money to buy one). Again, they're pretty bad at dealing with flying people—all they have is their breath, and Barbarian and DFA only fail on a natural 1.

5. Sneak into the leaders' quarters, either by turning ethereal with my heartstone (can't fail the UMD check to emulate a race) or with the enveloping pit + lantern archon combo. Then take 10 on Diplomacy.

6. Bust out my minor schema of concurrent infusions to cast spell-storing item for remove disease. Alternatively, I could loan him my heartstone and use one of its charges.

7. Tyrannosaurs have no way of dealing with flying opponents. We fly away and laugh at them like we laughed at the ankhegs. DFA could literally solo this encounter if they won initiative.

8. The celestials can keep watch all night and warn us of the attack. My ring of the darkhidden should ensure that the shadows won't attack me before I can act. And shadows are intelligent, which means they're susceptible to social skills. I stay in the dark and focus on Diplomacy or Bluff checks while DFA fights them off with breath weapons, which can destroy the shadows in a single hit if the 50% roll works out. Barbarian can draw their attention (with 22 Strength, he's not likely to go down to ability damage) and fight as best he can with his magic greataxe, presumably killing in one shot if he hits. If they do go for me, I can force screen to make it very tough for them to hit me, and potentially start summoning mustevals with summon monster to pelt them with magic missiles if needed. This encounter could go poorly if we get unlucky, but I think we're favored overall. Big question is how many lantern archons have to die for us to win.

9. I don't even need to use my wand to cast tongues. I'll just let the celestials handle this one.

10. I'll make a Gather Information check (at +26 with divine insight) to learn who the VIPs are in the town and who the portal merchant would respect. Then I'll make a Forgery check (at +21 with divine insight) to forge a letter of credit or similar document from them. Then I'll use Diplomacy to improve his attitude and, once he's Helpful, Bluff our way past (at +48 with divine insight).

[MeimuHakurei]

I really like doing build challenges which is why I'll be contributing a cleric. For the spirit of the challenge, I'm not prestiging out and stick to pure cleric.

Here's my challenger (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1629400)

Now to look at the challenges:

I don't have a fly buff prepared, but the DFA should manage. Also, I can buff the barb who can strike back with readied actions. In any event, I can use Triadspell to help with some downdrafts potentially.
I should probably get out a persisted vigorous circle as the DFA helps clearing the group with their breath weapon. They only hit me on a 20 with their bite, so I'm not concerned about grapples.
Thank you, prepared casting! I can comfortably remove heal from my prepared spells and grab Wind Walk, allowing us to zip in 10 times faster than a horse. So, roughly 3 days of travel plus the night of rest.
I should prepare Break Enchantment to deal with petrification, but for the most part, our fort saves look really solid. Weathering this many breath weapons could be dangerous, so the attacks should be done in the middle of the pack so the gorgons will risk petrifying each other.
I'll grab True Seeing so I can use Clairvoyance to skim the camps to help my allies find the ogre magi. Pretty sure the Barb can off them quick.
Not sure how this is a problem for a Cleric.
I'll support my team with Heal spells as well as a copious amount of Shivering Touches. Vigorous Circle persisted and buffing myself with Freedom of Movement should help.
I can use my turning attempts to do something most TO clerics won't do - turning undead.
I get Tongues prepared. Not concerned of the Shadows coming back for vengeance should I have to waste another day preparing it.
Well, a tuning fork for that is only 200 gp...

[JNAProductions]

Troactid, how does the Barbarian fly? I don't see Fly on your list of spells, and the Barbarian has no innate access to flight.

And where are the Lantern Archons from? (I'm sure you have them, I just don't know what gives them.)

How do you find the leaders? They spend heir days disguised as Orcs, specifically so they can't be found easily.

Again, Barbarian cannot fly and you cannot grant them flight, to my knowledge. If I missed something obvious, please let me know.

I really want to know where you're getting all these celestials from.

Overall, you seem to rely a lot on diplomacy for this. While that might work by RAW, it'd probably be iffy at an actual table. Diplomacy is not a be-all end-all in real games.

Looks pretty good to me. I'm not a char-op magician, but seems pretty legit to me.

I do like your note on number 8. Made me chuckle.

Troactid, Imma assume that I just derped and missed some obvious stuff that lets you do all that, like flying and summoning celestials.

Overall, I'd have to say that your build seemed a lot higher on the cheese factor. Abusing diplomacy and minionmancy, a ton of wands, including some partially charged ones, by the look of it... Whereas Meimu's build is just kinda a basic, well-built Cleric.

I'd like to have pointed out how you were flying and summoning all the minions, but again, I'm sure that's legit, just something I missed.

[Troacctid]

Troactid, how does the Barbarian fly? I don't see Fly on your list of spells, and the Barbarian has no innate access to flight.

And where are the Lantern Archons from? (I'm sure you have them, I just don't know what gives them.)

How do you find the leaders? They spend heir days disguised as Orcs, specifically so they can't be found easily.

Again, Barbarian cannot fly and you cannot grant them flight, to my knowledge. If I missed something obvious, please let me know.

I really want to know where you're getting all these celestials from.

Overall, you seem to rely a lot on diplomacy for this. While that might work by RAW, it'd probably be iffy at an actual table. Diplomacy is not a be-all end-all in real games.
They're from items: Winged Mask and Scroll of Call Faithful Servants, respectively.

If I can't see through their magical disguise with my Church Inquisitor ability, I can cast Divination or Locate Creature via Spell-Storing Item via Concurrent Infusions, or disguise myself as an orc, bluff like I'm a soldier, and ask around.

Item selection is a big part of optimization! You can get a big boost to any build by leveraging WBL effectively.

[JNAProductions]

Okay, thanks, Tro.

[Goaty14]

Are the gnomes within range of my heavy repeating crossbow?

EDIT: actually, "Comprehend languages" would probably be the fourth spell I'd take at level 1, with the first 3 being Cure Light Wounds, Shield of Faith, and Summon Monster

1) Yes. As pointed by somebody else, killing the gnomes won't help you. I suppose one might attempt to break down an unmanned gate, but then I'd have to define further how many gnomes are at station, how many you can kill off, how liable they are to stop you, etc.

2) Still doesn't help you. You might be able to understand their incorrigible yelling at you, but you can't cast the spell onto them


Let's be fair. If you can't advance in an adventure unless someone in the party speaks Gnome, that's a poorly designed adventure.

I never said that the party *had* to convince the gnomes. Just that a party with a cleric could wait 24 hours while he prepares Tongues, while a party with a favored soul would have to cross their fingers in hope. The situation could ideally be solved by just ignoring the gnome territory and going around it, but solving the problem massively helps the party.

Eldariel pretty much summed up what I'd say about it not being bottlenecked better than I could.

[Sleven]

@the OP

I mean... past a certain level of optimization, sure, there's no discernible difference between a cleric and a favored soul (but that's the same for any class). Heck, there's even an optimization level where favored souls are superior to clerics. That being said, I don't think you or any table you're likely to play at will allow that level of optimization. Especially since most forum members I've come across at GitP would consider these optimization levels various degrees of TO. So for most intents and purposes, the favored soul is not just a nerfed cleric: it doesn't hold a candle to it.

Anyways, enjoy the disgusting feat taxes that come with being a spontaneous caster (I know I have as a sorcerer player over the years).


I'm actually very curious as to if someone can make a Cleric or Favored Soul that can handle all these without too much trouble, and without too much cheese.

Wish I saw the build challenge when this thread was more... relevent.


Okay, I made one. https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1629085

Btw, solid build. It's nice to see someone other than me use the Phrenic template on a spontaneous caster and buy a Heartstone with starting wealth. My only quibbles with it are:
1) you seem to be getting that Heartstone at a discount (remember that selling price is 1/2 full price)
2) a few of the spells known (e.g. you don't need all those flavors of Summon Monster)
3) the fact that you didn't buy off your LA (do-able well before level 11).
But there's far more I like about it than I don't... it's even low cheese (relative to what I'm used to) other than the partially charged wands.

The other builds seem far more... generic (and in some cases downright sub-optimal). But maybe there were some source restrictions I wasn't aware of?

[Troacctid]

Btw, solid build. It's nice to see someone other than me use the Phrenic template on a spontaneous caster and buy a Heartstone with starting wealth. My only quibbles with it are:
1) you seem to be getting that Heartstone at a discount (remember that selling price is 1/2 full price)
2) a few of the spells known (e.g. you don't need all those flavors of Summon Monster)
3) the fact that you didn't buy off your LA (do-able well before level 11).
But there's far more I like about it than I don't... it's even low cheese (relative to what I'm used to) other than the partially charged wands.
Thanks! I've been working on Warlock research, so I'm in a UMD headspace lately.

I actually meant to take dispel magic—I had the Inquisition domain for it and everything, I don't know why it got left out...brain fart, I guess.

LA buyoff is a variant rule that isn't a given. I don't think it's a good idea to assume it for an unknown table. It would be like submitting a build that uses recharge magic. I still like Phrenic, though. Why worry about low save DCs for your class spells when you can just take a template that grants you all the save-or-lose effects you need, with Charisma-based DCs, and gives you a hefty boost to your Charisma score to boot?

[Sloanzilla]

Aside from the earlier entry spells, domain powers, turn undead (and associated DMM cheese), the absolute biggest issue is the fact that a 3.5 cleric can literally pick from any divine spell that has ever been assigned to 3.5 on any given day.

For that reason alone, I'd even go so far to say as the gap between clerics and FS is much greater than the gap between wizards and sorcerers. Wizards at least have to find spells.

[Sleven]

the absolute biggest issue is the fact that a 3.5 cleric can literally pick from any divine spell that has ever been assigned to 3.5 on any given day.

Without shenanigans exponentially > archivists learning any arcane spell they want, how are you getting say... druid spells as a cleric?


Thanks! I've been working on Warlock research, so I'm in a UMD headspace lately.

Funny you should mention warlocks... this whole debate (and the subsequent challenge post) had me thinking of running a Templar 4(from Dark Sun)/Warlock 1/Eldritch Disciple 6 build through the challenges. Would probably be some flavor of glaive-lock.

For those who aren't familiar with the 2nd party class, Templars are fixed-list spontaneous divine casters with 2 domains (but they can only choose one domain spell of each level to add to their fixed list) and turn/rebuke undead (at level 4) that use Cha as their casting stat. They're quite interesting at mid levels, but their spell diversity quickly dries up at higher levels (not that this is something too hard to remedy with PrCs).


LA buyoff is a variant rule that isn't a given. I don't think it's a good idea to assume it for an unknown table. It would be like submitting a build that uses recharge magic. I still like Phrenic, though. Why worry about low save DCs for your class spells when you can just take a template that grants you all the save-or-lose effects you need, with Charisma-based DCs, and gives you a hefty boost to your Charisma score to boot?

Right you are. Like flaws, it's so common I often forget it's a variant rule.