[3.5] Help with a Favored Soul pixie cohort

[spronghi]

Hi everybody,
this is my first post here, so please be nice :smallsmile:

My martial ranger (lvl 6) has a cohort (he took it with leadership feat), she is a pixie and she will be the buffer/healer of the team, I don't want to make her a melee fighter, because of her background she can't deal lethal damage to enemies. Because of her LA she will reach at maximum the level 16.

Her build will be as follow:

Human Favored Soul 4/Church Inquisitor 1/Exalted Arcanist 1/War Weaver 5/Spellguard of Silverymoon 4/Sacred Exorcist 1

1) Sanctum Spell, Magical Training, Precocious Apprentice (retrained to Combat Casting after 6th), Consecrate Spell
3) Purify Spell
6) Enlarge Spell
9) Extend Spell
12) Persistent Spell
15) Divine Metamagic (Persistent Spell)

I saw it in a post from Telonius, with title "Wizards Famous Builds" (I can't post link there cause I'm level 0), that's really a crazy build!

Here I ask your help, I am really in trouble with the spell list and skill set, so I ask you:

1) Which spells, in your opinions, are really good for a healer/buffer?
2) Which skills should I max?
3) Do you know really powerfull spell combos that I can use?
4) Can Favored Soul/Martial Ranger make strong combos together?

Thank you so much

[Bronk]

Hi! My advice is to make sure to run this build by the DM first, because it's one of those that, once you look at it, breaks down at almost every level. In this case, most of steps that require an 'arcane casting class' don't actually work... Plus those feats at the beginning don't work the way the build hopes unless you can get your DM to agree to it first.

If the DM allows all that (they may, as they allowed you to take a pixie cohort a level early), I'd double check that you're allowed to change the first level feat of the pixie, and that they have also taken two flaws for you to swap out. I'd also remember that they're not human, so they don't have the human bonus feat the build counts on.

Finally, I'd switch out Church Inquisitor for a level of regular cleric, and take the ACF that switches Turn Undead to Rebuke Dragons. Rebuke Dragons explicitly counts towards powering divine feats yet isn't Turn Undead, so you'll get a second TU pool when you later take Sacred Exorcist, and you'll want all the TU uses you can to power your buffing trick. You're already losing two spellcaster levels, so switching this one out too won't lose you any more spell levels than you already have...

I'm sorry I'm at work, so I've run out of time for your actual questions...

[spronghi]

Hi! My advice is to make sure to run this build by the DM first, because it's one of those that, once you look at it, breaks down at almost every level. In this case, most of steps that require an 'arcane casting class' don't actually work... Plus those feats at the beginning don't work the way the build hopes unless you can get your DM to agree to it first.

If the DM allows all that (they may, as they allowed you to take a pixie cohort a level early), I'd double check that you're allowed to change the first level feat of the pixie, and that they have also taken two flaws for you to swap out. I'd also remember that they're not human, so they don't have the human bonus feat the build counts on.

It's all DM approved


Finally, I'd switch out Church Inquisitor for a level of regular cleric, and take the ACF that switches Turn Undead to Rebuke Dragons. Rebuke Dragons explicitly counts towards powering divine feats yet isn't Turn Undead, so you'll get a second TU pool when you later take Sacred Exorcist, and you'll want all the TU uses you can to power your buffing trick. You're already losing two spellcaster levels, so switching this one out too won't lose you any more spell levels than you already have...

That's really nice, I will do that. Thank you :smallsmile:

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Your levels don't work. Exalted Arcanist requires Knowledge: Arcana 9 ranks, you need to be 6th level to have that many ranks and can only start taking it at your 7th character level. You've put it at the 6th character level, at which the max skill ranks prior to selecting what class is taken is only 8. PHB page 58-59 Level Advancement, the first step upon gaining a level is select your class, the sixth step is gaining skill points, so you can't start taking the prestige class at the same level as you would gain the required skill ranks to select it as the class you level into, because you don't have the prerequisites met at the time the class is selected.

What you've found is a theoretical optimization build, that could only work if the stars align and your DM is easily mislead into believing it works according to the rules, not something that anyone ever expected to see play.

RAW, Exalted Arcanist adds arcane spells known to your Magical Training/Precocious Apprentice spellcasting, it can't add those to your Favored Soul spells known because Favored Soul doesn't learn arcane spells. There's absolutely no rule anywhere that even implies that would be possible, the closest thing is specifically about adding domains and domain spells to non-Cleric classes and arcane spellcasting classes, but that rule only applies to domains, not any other source of additional spells known.

If you want your cohort to be able to cast all the spells, I recommend making him an Archivist (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20051007a&page=3) instead. That can legitimately learn any spell from the Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Adept (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/npcClasses/adept.htm), Divine Bard (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#bardVariantDivineBard) , or any domain spell lists, plus any divine spellcasting prestige classes that gets their own spell list and progression such as Disciple of Thrym or Slayer of Domiel. Dip one level of Cloistered Cleric (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric) for rebuke dragons and dip one level of Sacred Exorcist so you can use DMM: Persist. Archivist is worth taking for up to eleven levels if you can't find anything else, and be sure you advance your Archivist spellcasting with whatever other prestige classes you take. Good choices include Paragnostic Apostle 2, Divine Oracle 4, Ruathar, Seeker of the Misty Isle 1, Contemplative, and Hexer if you can meet the race requirement.

[Bronk]

It's all DM approved

Sounds like fun then!


That's really nice, I will do that. Thank you :smallsmile:

Glad to be of help! Speaking of which, although it looks like your pixie won't get up to 8th level spells, if you do have someone who can perform the Dark Chaos Shuffle (something it sounds like your DM might be okay with), that level of cleric can provide up to 7 extra feats (if you take the war and metal domains, for example) to trade away, on top of the two racial bonus feats the pixie already has.