Cleric vs Favored Soul

[Cyrus_Deluc]

Would you trade the supplementary abilities that the Favored Soul gets for the turn undead and turn undead progression as a cleric?

Specifically, you would be giving up wings, energy resistance, and damage reduction.

Thanks in advance!

[Prophaniti]

Personally, I would. Turn undead is a great ability with great flavor to it. Nothing quite matches the image of the unimpressive-looking holy man causing horrific unholy creatures to flee or turn to dust merely by his faith.

Actually I never much cared for the Favored Soul. The idea seems good, but I found it had poor execution. I've never liked classes that go 'oh, and you get wings.' Just feels too contrived to me.

[Darkxarth]

It seems to me that Turn Undead is worth less than wings, energy resistance, and damage reduction. Maybe worth as much as wings and energy resistance, or wings and damage reduction.

Anyway, somewhere around here is a thread specifically designed for comparing and contrasting the equality of various class features.

[Cyrus_Deluc]

The first thing that pops into my mind is the fact that Favored soul doesn't get Wings and Damage Reduction until 18th and 20th level? (I'm guessing, I don't remember exactly) At that level is 10 DR and wings really that impressive? I'd figure you should have someone in your party who can cast fly by now, and the 10 dr shouldn't really be that impressive.

[Solo]

A cleric can just cast spells to get DR and energy resistance, you know.

[Collin152]

Yes. Without a second thought.
Honestly, Wings? We have magic!

[CASTLEMIKE]

Yes I would one reason is if you are playing a LG PC it opens up a few (3) level dips in PRC Paladin (If not LG maybe your DM will let you play a variant alignment PRC Paladin).

[Falrin]

Turn undead is a very situational ability.

*Encounter undead? Poof, and that's that. *

While wings, damage reduction (and stretching it) energy resitance have a lot more uses.


But then there is Wizards & Co. Who feel that the Cleric is getting ripped of in his healing-bot position and grant them the might of 'divine feats'. Trading turnings for DR? Healing? CHEAPER METAMAGIC? ...

[tyckspoon]

But then there is Wizards & Co. Who feel that the Cleric is getting ripped of in his healing-bot position and grant them the might of 'divine feats'. Trading turnings for DR? Healing? CHEAPER METAMAGIC? ...

Divine Metamagic was a bad idea. Almost all the other Divine feats I've seen are really pretty well balanced to provide a useful but not overpowering effect in return for your feat. The game would be a lot better off with more feats in the line of the Divine feats and fewer Dodges and Toughnesses.

[FinalJustice]

If you are thinking about houserule it, don't, really, don't, unless you really don't like zombies and undead and your divine player is no power gamer. Most of people would take it without even thinking. Cha is primary for Favored Souls, thus the turning would be REALLY effective. Plus, one could use divine feats, and the cheese would rock all over the place with DMM, Divine Shield and all that stuff.

[Rachel Lorelei]

Turning is more powerful than all of those combined IF the Favored Soul uses it right. He'll always be great at turning, up until the levels where turning itself starts being crappy (because undead have so many more HD than you do), but Turn Undead isn't actually for turning undead--it's for powering [Divine] feats, like Divine Spell Power, Divine Might, Divine Shield... Divine Metamagic...

[Curmudgeon]

I would make the trade because of one thing alone: Divine Metamagic. Turning undead is almost worthless as is, but being able to, say, power Maximize Spell another 3 times a day for "free" is a terrific boost.

Without Divine Metamagic, I like the fact that the Wings and Energy Resistance are Extraordinary instead of magical. It's no fun to plummet out of the sky when hit by an Antimagic Ray (which is a favorite tactic of one NPC in a campaign I'm running).

[Animefunkmaster]

First: Turn Undead is nearly worthless when you take a strict reading of the rules (destroying undead is not based on your effective turn level or turning check, but literal cleric level).

Second: Favored soul does not have comparable casting, as Clerics have domain (with glorious domain powers) and favored soul has to look at cha and wis.

Third: All the good abilities of a favored soul is later on (and anything beyond 5th-6th level I consider the "I could be taking a PrC right now" range of levels).

Fourth: Turn Undead is a prereq for many good divine PrCs.

Fifth: Turn Undead can power divine feats, which are awesome for the cost of almost nothing.

Outcome: Cleric is better because casting is better and turnundead is like a free gift that can be used to power other awesome abilities, and qualify for better PrCs.

[Scalenex]

Turning Undead and the miscellaneous powers are only a small part.

Favored Souls get better saves, clerics get to wear heavy armor.

There's the fluff difference.

But for power difference (which is what most threads on this forum discuss), it gets down the methods of casting.

FS have more spells and more flexibility, clerics have a wider range of spell selection. Similar to sorcerers and wizards. The fact that wizards get bonus feats and sorcerers get simple weapons (advantage wizard) isn't the main decider in which to play.

I'm just glad favored souls give DMs an excuse to put divine spell casters in humanoid groups. I never liked using adepts.

[JackMage666]

I personally favor Favored Souls... I like spontaneous casting as opposed to prepared.

I wish they had made it single ability dependent spellcasting, because it's not really fair they lose so much else.

But, I'm really glad they altered the Spells Known list from the sorcerer. It's considerably better in that effect, which is why I adopt their spells known table for the Sorcerer.

[The Professor]

I personally favor Favored Souls... I like spontaneous casting as opposed to prepared.

I wish they had made it single ability dependent spellcasting, because it's not really fair they lose so much else.

But, I'm really glad they altered the Spells Known list from the sorcerer. It's considerably better in that effect, which is why I adopt their spells known table for the Sorcerer.

Emphasis mine. I'd suggest house ruling that at their first level, the character in question picks wisdom or charisma as their primary casting stat. It's how our group did it, and it really helped them a lot.

In my opinion, Turning is just that good. From early to mid levels, Undead stand no chance against you, but even later, Divine Feats are just too awesome to never pick up. If you want your FS to feel special, give them their wings earlier, not that it'll help all that much, though.

[Renx]

In my opinion, Turning is just that good. From early to mid levels, Undead stand no chance against you, but even later, Divine Feats are just too awesome to never pick up.

Well... all you need is one mob with more HD than you have levels and presto, no turning. Say, a zombie (which always has double HD)

[Craig1f]

I refuse to use the Divine Metamagic Persist cheese. However, a good combo I've used with a cleric is:

Domain Spontaneity (Divine Feat)
Divine Spellpower
Divine Retrieve Spell
Eldritch Disciple class with a level of warlock
Extra Turning X2

This gave me 15 turn undeads.
-I could retrieve a spell I'd already cast during the day,
-boost my caster level by up to 4 levels (40% chance of boosting it 4 levels)
-spontaneously cast Travel Domain spells
-heal people with my eldritch glaive for 24d6
-put up a swift circle of protection
-give myself 20 temporary hit points each round as a swift action.
-Give myself DR 5/cold iron as a swift action.

I used turn undead like crazy.

[Starbuck_II]

First: Turn Undead is nearly worthless when you take a strict reading of the rules (destroying undead is not based on your effective turn level or turning check, but literal cleric level).

It is effective Cleric Level. That +2 turn level item: increases that effective turning level.

[Reel On, Love]

Emphasis mine. I'd suggest house ruling that at their first level, the character in question picks wisdom or charisma as their primary casting stat. It's how our group did it, and it really helped them a lot.

Don't do it. Favored Souls are already really strong--they're just weaker than the *cleric*, which is a notorious powerhouse. The casting MAD isn't so bad; it makes them choose between a buffing/healing role (including self-buffing and wading into melee) and an offensive spellcasting role (in addition to healing)--they can't raise STR/DEX/CON for melee if they're pumping WIS for spell DCs.


As a side note, Favored Souls jumping into Sacred Exorcist get Turn Undead.

[Phased Weasel]

Why is Divine Metamagic considered so overpowered? It looks like the newest version works thusly:

- You can only apply a metamagic feat you already know, and it is locked to only one metamagic feat when you take DMM.
- You must spend 1 turning attempt + 1 for every spell level the metamagic would have increased the spell. For example, 4 turn attempts for maximize and 5 turn attempts for Quicken.

The first condition drastically reduces the flexibility given by DMM, and the second basically says you can Maximize or Quicken only once per day, or twice if you have huge Cha or Extra Turning.

Posts on this forum make it sound like people are DMM-ing several times per day, and choosing the metamagic feat on the fly, and even neglecting to take a metamagic feat in the first place (which would prevent you from having access to DMM).

[kamikasei]

The first condition drastically reduces the flexibility given by DMM, and the second basically says you can Maximize or Quicken only once per day, or twice if you have huge Cha or Extra Turning.

Nightsticks from Libris Mortis are relatively inexpensive items that grant extra turning uses per day. They are what power the DMM-happy clerics on these boards.

[Telok]

Nightsticks from Libris Mortis are relatively inexpensive items that grant extra turning uses per day. They are what power the DMM-happy clerics on these boards.

And any good GM smacks that stick with something like "requires an attunement period of three days and you can only be attuned to one at a time" right off the bat. On the other hand DMM can redeem at least one of the least useful metamagic feats, Heighten Spell. But even that's bad if you go too far with it.

Personally I find the cleric's spellcasting slightly ahead of the favored soul's. Mostly due to the domains and getting that next spell level just a bit sooner. Personally I think that the FS should have a higher maximum number of spells per day for the lower level spells. If you count the domain spell then clerics eventually get the same base number of spells per day of most levels.

The favored soul's special abilities are just too little and too late, every time I want to play a FS I end up just fluffing a cleric.