An idea on an updated and slightly improved (read: Not more powerful) Favored Soul.

[ngilop]

Heya guys,

I have been trying to put a charisma based spontaneous divine caster in my campaign world for a bit. I have tried a few incarnations and they just didn't seem to work (outside of my Healer re-tool (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?272245-Healer-Re-tooled-please-critique))

I look at the base of the favored soul and think, thats something that I cna build off of" then dismiss it time and time again.
I wanted something more caster focused and less kinda paladin-ish fight focused.

Then I remember just now, that pathfinder has the warpriest, which as you know, has blessings.

I got to thinking.. what If i took away that crazy weapon and other combat related things and added in blessings?


I am not sure if that is decent or not so I come to all here.

What i would like are some minor and medium abilities that increase the versatility of a Favored Soul. If giving them blessings would bump their power too much but not really increase their versatility then that is a bad idea from me.

[Calthropstu]

Heya guys,

I have been trying to put a charisma based spontaneous divine caster in my campaign world for a bit. I have tried a few incarnations and they just didn't seem to work (outside of my Healer re-tool (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?272245-Healer-Re-tooled-please-critique))

I look at the base of the favored soul and think, thats something that I cna build off of" then dismiss it time and time again.
I wanted something more caster focused and less kinda paladin-ish fight focused.

Then I remember just now, that pathfinder has the warpriest, which as you know, has blessings.

I got to thinking.. what If i took away that crazy weapon and other combat related things and added in blessings?


I am not sure if that is decent or not so I come to all here.

What i would like are some minor and medium abilities that increase the versatility of a Favored Soul. If giving them blessings would bump their power too much but not really increase their versatility then that is a bad idea from me.

Pathfinder also has the oracle. Just saying...

[One Step Two]

I'd like to pop in with three quality of life changes for the Favored Soul that I added in my games.

1: Part of a larger skill revision in my house rules is they have 4+Int skills per level. They have Knowledge (Religion) instead of arcana, the player can choose an additional skill based on their deity and portfolios, and get a +1 per 4 levels bonus on All skill checks related to their deity and it's worshipers.

2: Access to their Deities Domains at 1st, 9th and 18th level, gaining the powers of those domains, and spells added to their spells known pool. If you feel that might be unbalanced, you can limit the access to domain spells they can cast based on their Wisdom score, needing a 19 to cast upto 9th level spells.

3: There are a number of Divine spells in the Spell Compendium and Complete Champion (and divine?) that have a greater effect if cast onto worshipers of the same faith, I've allowed players to include those as automatic spells known for Favored Souls, just to emphasize the whole "Favored" aspect of the class.

[Psyren]

I agree that Oracle is superior in just about every way but if your goal is to truly keep the FS at a lower power level...

An easy option might be to just give them a domain, and the spells from that domain as free spells known, in exchange for all those bad features. That'll be a power increase but still considerably behind clerics (and oracles for that matter.) In addition, having one domain will qualify them for various resources and rules elements that depend on having one.

[Starbuck_II]

I'd like to pop in with three quality of life changes for the Favored Soul that I added in my games.

1: Part of a larger skill revision in my house rules is they have 4+Int skills per level. They have Knowledge (Religion) instead of arcana, the player can choose an additional skill based on their deity and portfolios, and get a +1 per 4 levels bonus on All skill checks related to their deity and it's worshipers.

2: Access to their Deities Domains at 1st, 9th and 18th level, gaining the powers of those domains, and spells added to their spells known pool. If you feel that might be unbalanced, you can limit the access to domain spells they can cast based on their Wisdom score, needing a 19 to cast upto 9th level spells.

3: There are a number of Divine spells in the Spell Compendium and Complete Champion (and divine?) that have a greater effect if cast onto worshipers of the same faith, I've allowed players to include those as automatic spells known for Favored Souls, just to emphasize the whole "Favored" aspect of the class.

I think gaining slowly all of deities domains is fantastic in and of itself. And why does everyone replace arcane with religion, why not both?

[One Step Two]

I think gaining slowly all of deities domains is fantastic in and of itself. And why does everyone replace arcane with religion, why not both?

Well, it would be 3 domains total, I wasn't super clear sorry. I'd allow all domains, but some gods have way more than others. And not to toot my own horn too much, my fix allows both (kind of), but given a Favored Soul is flavored as divinely inspired, it makes more sense that they have a capacity to speak on religious affairs, over arcane ones.

Edit: Also, without it, they can't technically cast Epic spells, from memory

[Maat Mons]

Have you considered just making Clerics into Charisma-based casters, as a house rule?

I've been toying with the idea of making all the holy (or unholy) casters Cha-based, all the nature casters Wis-based, and all the arcane casters Int-based. It makes a lot of sense to me. Casters empowered by deities should be good at making converts. Casters in tune with nature should be wise and thoughtful. And casters who traffic in strange and unnatural magics should be clever.



For improving Favored Soul, domains aren't a bad idea, but many of them contain spells of questionable usefulness, and the whole "one spell per spell level" idea is, I feel, an unnecessary constraint that hinders the potential. Also, some of those granted powers are uninteresting and underwhelming. "+1 caster level with [whatever descriptor] spells," I'm looking at you!

Maybe just make your own not-domains and let the Favored Soul pick one of those. Give them the spells you think they should have, at the levels they should have them.

[One Step Two]

Have you considered just making Clerics into Charisma-based casters, as a house rule?

I've been toying with the idea of making all the holy (or unholy) casters Cha-based, all the nature casters Wis-based, and all the arcane casters Int-based. It makes a lot of sense to me. Casters empowered by deities should be good at making converts. Casters in tune with nature should be wise and thoughtful. And casters who traffic in strange and unnatural magics should be clever.

There's a really neat feat from the Dragonlance 3rd Party Sourcebook Legends of the Twins called Dynamic priest, lets you key your cleric casting and bonus spells off of Charisma instead of, but the DC's off of wisdom like a Favored soul, letting you get some of that vibe, the the other factor is down to their skills.


For improving Favored Soul, domains aren't a bad idea, but many of them contain spells of questionable usefulness, and the whole "one spell per spell level" idea is, I feel, an unnecessary constraint that hinders the potential. Also, some of those granted powers are uninteresting and underwhelming. "+1 caster level with [whatever descriptor] spells," I'm looking at you!

Maybe just make your own not-domains and let the Favored Soul pick one of those. Give them the spells you think they should have, at the levels they should have them.

No doubt there's a real subpar set of Domain granted powers, but for my fix, you just straight up add the domain spells to their spells known, so while you get a grab-bag of some so-so spells, they're added to your limited spells known list for free, to take advantage of the larger Spells per day pool.

With that said can anyone tell me, other than Healer, are there any other fixed list Divine Spellcasters out there?

[Maat Mons]

Healer isn't a fixed-list caster.