Yeesh...need help optimizing a Warforged Favored Soul

[JohnnyArkham]

Subject says it all.
Eberron campaign. Player wants a Warforged Favored Soul (the wings oughta be interesting lol)
He'd like to have received his 'blessing' from an unknown divine source during the closing days of the Last War.
He is utterly uncertain as to the source of his power, but serves in a combat medic capacity with his current group, while remaining attentive and open (and searching!) to various religions all in hopes of determining the identity of his divine benefactor.

Fascinating, but hardly an optimium race/class combo.

Can someone assist me with the numbers while keeping the flavor?

Thanks so much!

Johnny

[Chronicled]

Very cool idea!

What books are available, and have his stats been determined?

I'd go for making him a tank of sorts; with all those resistances and immunities from his race and class (not to mention those he can grab from spells), he could end up extremely hard to put down. Pumping Con and Cha seems the way to go; you can dump Wis if you only take buffs, utility, and no-save spells.

Adamantine (or at least Mithril) body should be his first feat. The Touch of Healing reserve feat from Complete Champion isn't a terrible grab. If you're dumping Wis, Force of Personality to boost the Will save isn't bad either. More once I have more info.

[JohnnyArkham]

Very cool idea!

What books are available, and have his stats been determined?
More once I have more info.

Pretty much anything WotC is AOK and his stats are a 32 point buy. Keep it coming amigo!

[Chronicled]

Oh, what level are you starting at? Also, are you using flaws?

You mentioned the player wants a "combat medic." Would he like the focus to be on healing, buffing or combat (or something else, or a little of each)? And since the wings come quite late for a Favored Soul, I'm guessing he wants no multiclassing or PrCs? Or are you open to minor class alterations, as DM?

[JohnnyArkham]

Level 5
Flaws are fine
Focus; well rounded would be my guess, but I think he's open to ideas.
Multiclassing/PrCs...not sure. I doubt we'd want to mess with more than one additional class. They're fairly new to some of the 3rd edition concepts.
Class Alterations, certainly. I'm very flexible.

Thanks for all your help!

[Ned the undead]

Subject says it all.
Eberron campaign. Player wants a Warforged Favored Soul (the wings oughta be interesting lol)

Not wings, Jetpack.

[Jack_Simth]

You've got a -2 to both Wisdom and Charisma ... and a Favored Soul has both Wisdom and Charisma tied to their casting stat. That'll hurt in the spell slinging department - which means avoid spells with saves, instead focus in on buffs, healing, and battlefield control.

[Collin152]

Not wings, Jetpack.

Ah, I was thinking helicopter rotors that look like wings.
Instead of flapping, they spin.

[Behold_the_Void]

You've got a -2 to both Wisdom and Charisma ... and a Favored Soul has both Wisdom and Charisma tied to their casting stat. That'll hurt in the spell slinging department - which means avoid spells with saves, instead focus in on buffs, healing, and battlefield control.

I thought Warforged just have -2 to Wisdom, which is perfectly workable if you focus on spells that aren't save-based.

[Jack_Simth]

I thought Warforged just have -2 to Wisdom, which is perfectly workable if you focus on spells that aren't save-based.

Granted, I'm looking at the 2004 printing, but page 23 of the Eberron Campaign Setting says +2 Con, -2 Wis, -2 Cha when I look.

[Chronicled]

One thing of note is that Favored Souls can have any weapon as their diety's favored if one isn't specified already, even exotic ones. That could lead to some fun (or powergamey) ideas.

Kizara had some ideas for redoing the Favored Soul in another thread (which is now dead).

If you want to take favored soul over cleric and not feel like a complete idiot (cause you should), I suggest using my revision:

Favored Soul

-Gain Deity’s Weapon Focus at 1st-level and Deity’s Weapon Specialization at 6th-level (instead of as listed)
-Lose Reflex good saves.
-Gain Wings at 11th-level instead of 17th.
-Lose Elemental Resistances.
-Gain DR 5 at level 10, DR 10 at level 15, and DR 15 at level 20. DR is to Good or Evil.
-Gain the appropriate cure or inflict spell (depending on alignment) each level for free as a Spell Known, including mass versions.
-Gain Heavy Armor Proficiency.
-Gain Turn or Rebuke Undead at level 1.
-At level 6 gain the Luck Domain’s granted power (but not its spells).
-Casting is based off of Charisma in all respects. Restriction of spell level on spell swapping is removed.
-Lose Jump and gain Knowledge (religion), and Knowledge (the planes) as class skills.
-Gain Smite (opposite alignment) at 1/day at 5th-level, 2/day at 10th-level, 3/day at 15th-level and 4/day at 20th-level.

The ones I agree with most are that the wings should come earlier (waiting until 17 for wings is a long time), the damage reduction should be more gradual (as with the wings), turn undead (too many divine feats and PrCs are reliant on having this), and cure spells should be learned free (why they didn't do this, I don't know). Anyways...

If it was me, I'd buy ability scores as either 13/10/16/10/8/17 or 14/12/16/10/8/16; resulting in 13/10/18/10/6/15 or 14/12/18/10/6/14 after racial modifiers.

Feats would be:
Adamantine Body (ECS, gain enchantable armored body and DR) [HD 1]
Force of Personality (CAd, use Cha instead of Wis to Will save) [Flaw]
Power Attack, Goad, or Jaws of Death[HD 3]

Depending on whether Turn Undead was available, at later levels I'd grab Touch of Healing (CC), Shocking Fist, Divine Might (CW), Divine Shield (CW), and Divine Fortune (PH2). Metamagic feats nabbed would depend on what your player likes to use for spells.

Here's a list of some of the better Cleric/Favored Soul spells. Here's a better list, focused on the Favored Soul: Optimal Favored Soul Spells

Also, this thread had a fun idea: MechaGodzilla Favored Soul!

[JohnnyArkham]

I really appreciate the help. Biggest stumbling block he's having now is that the personality he had in mind was...essentially...NO personality. Low Charisma.
Which, of course, does NOT make for much of a Favored Soul.
Hm.

As a related aside, has anyone done any work with the Spontaneous Divine Caster variant?

That seems like it might be another way to create the ups and downs of the Favored Soul (he likes the spontaneity, coupled with the limited spell list) w/out the full class.

Thoughts?

[Meat Shield]

Two thoughts

1) The wings sould be metallic, like the X-Men's Archangel
Pic:

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2) Lack of personality? How so? Are you saying like a robot, completely without doing anything with out being told? That would be low Cha. But if he is just extremely reserved, that is not necessarily a low Cha. Low Cha means he has no force of will, no leadership, no drive, no sense of self. You can be all that and be reticent as well.

[Xyk]

When I saw this I thought "Deus ex Machina" immediately. This is a machine from the gods. I am afraid this post is not helpful though, sorry. This is just an amazing idea for an NPC that I may add to my current campaign.

[Chronicled]

I really appreciate the help. Biggest stumbling block he's having now is that the personality he had in mind was...essentially...NO personality. Low Charisma.
Which, of course, does NOT make for much of a Favored Soul.
Hm.

Or any class; I made the mistake of making an emotionless Warforged, and it bored me to death.

As for the wings: there is an item in Races of Eberron that gives Warforged wings. It has a picture!

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So there's WotC's take on the matter.

[hamishspence]

its an artifact. Not so easy to get.

[kamikasei]

As for the wings: there is an item in Races of Eberron that gives Warforged wings. It has a picture!

For a Favored Soul I'd go with wings made of semi-solid light, like an Eva.

When I saw this I thought "Deus ex Machina" immediately. This is a machine from the gods. I am afraid this post is not helpful though, sorry. This is just an amazing idea for an NPC that I may add to my current campaign.

Heh, Machina ex Deus then? Or some other mangled grammar?

[Person_Man]

The keys to being a Favored Soul:

Dump Wis
Cha = 10 + highest level spell you can cast
Never take a spell with a Save DC.
Look for feats and PrC that expand your spell list.
Buff, Summon, Tank, Heal, repeat.

If homebrew is on the table, I'd like to suggest my Domain Favored Soul:

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Favored Soul

d8 hit points
all strong Saves
all armor and shields except tower shields
all simple weapons
3/4 BAB
4 skill points base
Skill List: Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Heal, Intimidate, Knowledge (history, religion), Profession, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, Use Magic Device.

Class Abilities:

Spellcasting: Charisma based spellcasting, using the Sorcerer's spells per day progression. Your spell list is drawn entirely from your domain lists, plus any additional spells that you might pick up from feats, PrC, etc. Unlike most other casters, you do not have any 0th level spells.

Revelation: At first level you are granted any two domains from your god's list of domains, including the granted powers. At 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th levels, you gain 1 additional domain, expanding your spell list and gaining another power. This additional domain must also be from your god's list of domains. If your god does not have 7 domains, pick a related domain that follows your god's general ethos, subject to the approval of your DM.

If a domain's spell list overlaps with the spell list of another domain that you are currently granted, you gain +2 Caster Level when you cast that spell. For example, if you had the Strength and War domains, you would gain +2 Caster Level when you cast Magic Vestment, though you would have one fewer spell known to draw upon. If a spell appears on more then two domain spell lists, the benefits to your Caster Level stack (though obviously your spells known for that level would be severely limited).

If a domain's granted power requires the Turn or Rebuke Undead ability and you do not currently have the ability to do so (for example, the Sun Domain), you are granted the Turn Undead ability as your domain power instead of the standard domain power.

If a domain's granted power gives you access to a Skill which is already on your Skill List at the time you gain the domain, you gain Skill Focus for that Skill as a bonus feat.

Shield of Faith: At 1st level you gain Energy Resistance against all types of energy equal to your current Favored Soul level. Energy Resistance from multiple sources never stack.

Power of Faith: At 5th level you gain the use of one Faith Point per day. At 10th, 15th, and 20th levels, you gain one additional Faith Point (to a maximum of 4 Faith Points at 20th level). Once you use a Faith Point, it is expended until you rest for 8 hours and restore your spells per day.

Faith Points can be used in four ways:

First, you can use a Faith Point to gain one additional use of any domain power you currently possess. For example, a Favored Soul with the Death Domain could use a Faith Point to make an additional death touch attack.

Second, you may use a Faith Point as an Immediate Action to reroll any Saving Throw after your DM has announced the result of the Save. For example, after rolling your Saving Throw for a Fireball and being informed by your DM that your result failed, you may use a Faith Point to re-roll that Save.

Third, you may use a Faith Point as an Immediate Action to fully negate the effects of any Save that you have just passed. For example, after rolling a Save for a Fireball your DM informs you that you pass the Saving Throw and take half damage, you may you may use a Faith Point to completely negate the effect of the Fireball.

Finally, you may use a Faith Point as an Immediate Action to negate a critical hit which you have just taken. You still take normal damage from the attack, as if it were not a Critical Hit.

Ascension: At 20th level you gain wings with a Fly speed equal to your base land movement and your type changes to Outsider (native), except you can still be resurrected. You also gain DR 10/the alignment opposite your deity's. For example, if you worship a CG god, then you have DR 10/lawful or evil. If your deity is true neutral, then you gain DR 10/silver.


Discussion of the class:

The pros and cons are pretty straitforward.

You have the Skills to be a party face, plus UMD to help you with spells if your domain spell lists sucks. If you take the right domains, you could potentially fill other Skill Monkey rolls as well, and you could do so quite effectively.

You have a boatload of spells per day, so you should be able to cast in every combat. But because of the slower Sorcerer progression and such a limited list, you really can't match up to a normal Wizard or Cleric build in terms of raw power.

MAD isn't an issue - you could have all 12-14 stats and still be a respectable meatshield and caster (just pick domains with buff spells instead of spells that require a Saving Throw), without having any class abilities nerfed. Getting 19 Cha by level 18 so that you can cast your 9th level spells is easy, though obviously higher Cha would be better.

The Power of Faith gives you a heroic "chosen by the gods" feel - negating a PC's worst nightmares in combat (being killed by a single spell or crit because of one die roll), but because its an Immediate Action it can't be used more then once per round, and it has a very limited number of times per day that it can be used.

You have flexibility of options within the class, flexibility of build (look at the list of domains on Crystalkeep, there's a lot of them), enough power to hold your own against anyone, but very limited ability to create gamebreaking combo's or CoDzilla nightmares.

You gain additional spells and Energy Resistance every level, so there's no dead level problems. You also have a reason to go all 20 levels as a Favored Soul. But if you want to go into other classes (as a Cleric to gain more domains, as a Paladin to gain uber Saves, as a PrC to gain special abilities) you can do so without rendering your Favored Soul abilities useless.

I played this class without taking any domain or spell adding feats, and without any multi-classing or PrC. It was balanced, useful, and very fun to roleplay. It's a shame they didn't keep Domains or something like it in 4E.

[JohnnyArkham]

Pretty nice. I like the Domain aspect a LOT.
Couple small critiques;
He wouldn't gain new spells every level. He'd gain all the first level spells at first level. All the 2nd level spells at 3rd level. All the 3rd level spells at 5th level, and so on. Unless I missed something.
Also, still not sure Wings should wait until 20th level...but I'd be hard pressed to come up with something else that fits the class progression.

[Person_Man]

Pretty nice. I like the Domain aspect a LOT.
Couple small critiques;
He wouldn't gain new spells every level. He'd gain all the first level spells at first level. All the 2nd level spells at 3rd level. All the 3rd level spells at 5th level, and so on. Unless I missed something.
Also, still not sure Wings should wait until 20th level...but I'd be hard pressed to come up with something else that fits the class progression.

Actually, I worked on the math of spells quite a lot for this homebrew class.

As I already wrote, the number of spells he can cast per day are the same as the Sorcerer. And his spells known are based entirely off of his domains. He starts with 2 domains, and every 4th level he gains one more.

Here's a chart:

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So at levels 1-3, his spells known is among the poorest in the game for a full caster. This is balanced by his respectable armor/hit points, 3 Good Saves, his various modest powers, and UMD (The class really needs this Skill. He doesn't get access to all Cleric spells, just those on his domain lists. So he can't use most Cleric Scrolls/Wands without UMD, and even then he needs to roll well until he gets to higher levels).

From levels 4-11, his spells known tends to be on par with (or a bit behind) other full casters. He knows a few more higher level spells then your standard spontaneous caster. But his spell choice is still very much constrained by his domains - he can't cherry pick - he has a hard time min/maxing. All he can do is pick a deity that represents his general philosophy and play style. His powers continue to grow and are quite useful, but there's really nothing game breaking that you couldn't get from some combination of feats and/or PrC.

From levels 12-19, his spells known is superior to other full casters. But again, not being able to cherry pick them hugely limits your ability to min/max. And his powers (domain, Energy Resistance 12-19, Evasion/Mettle/etc 2-3 times per day) are generally far less useful compared to what any decent PrC might give you. Just take a look at the Incantatrix, Hellfire Warlock, Radiant Servant of Pelor, Beguiler, etc. UMD is also much less of a factor, since ANY class can take ranks in it cross-class and get decent use out of it by now. Finally, keep in mind that if you PrC out of the class, you stop gaining Domains (though you might be able to swing one more specific domains from certain PrC), thus your spells known stops increasing, even if your spells per day do.

Your level 20 capstone is the ability to know 7 spells of every level, wings, Outsider Type, and ok DR. You kick ass, as every 20th level character should. By now you have enough varied spells on your domain lists that you can do many different things - though by definition it all fits within the thematic framework of your deities ethos. And in many cases, you will still be much weaker then other 20th level full casters, because you still can't cherry pick Polymorph or Celerity and every other broken spell.

I'd be on board with the Favored Soul getting wings earlier then 20th level. All day flight really isn't that big of a deal by then, its just a nice extra. But I really wanted 20th level to be your ascension into your full angelic (or demonic) avatar state. And nothing says "messenger of a god" quite like wings. I'm even tempted to give him a continuous aura or halo of Light or Darkness - but I couldn't think of a corollary for Neutral gods.

Obviously though, its all homebrew. So whatever works for your group is what's best. Feel free to take the idea and change it however you like.

[Chronicled]

The keys to being a Favored Soul:

Dump Wis
Cha = 10 + highest level spell you can cast
Never take a spell with a Save DC.
Look for feats and PrC that expand your spell list.
Buff, Summon, Tank, Heal, repeat.

If homebrew is on the table, I'd like to suggest my Domain Favored Soul:

Spoiler

Show

Favored Soul

d8 hit points
all strong Saves
all armor and shields except tower shields
all simple weapons
3/4 BAB
4 skill points base
Skill List: Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Heal, Intimidate, Knowledge (history, religion), Profession, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, Use Magic Device.

Class Abilities:

Spellcasting: Charisma based spellcasting, using the Sorcerer's spells per day progression. Your spell list is drawn entirely from your domain lists, plus any additional spells that you might pick up from feats, PrC, etc. Unlike most other casters, you do not have any 0th level spells.

Revelation: At first level you are granted any two domains from your god's list of domains, including the granted powers. At 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th levels, you gain 1 additional domain, expanding your spell list and gaining another power. This additional domain must also be from your god's list of domains. If your god does not have 7 domains, pick a related domain that follows your god's general ethos, subject to the approval of your DM.

If a domain's spell list overlaps with the spell list of another domain that you are currently granted, you gain +2 Caster Level when you cast that spell. For example, if you had the Strength and War domains, you would gain +2 Caster Level when you cast Magic Vestment, though you would have one fewer spell known to draw upon. If a spell appears on more then two domain spell lists, the benefits to your Caster Level stack (though obviously your spells known for that level would be severely limited).

If a domain's granted power requires the Turn or Rebuke Undead ability and you do not currently have the ability to do so (for example, the Sun Domain), you are granted the Turn Undead ability as your domain power instead of the standard domain power.

If a domain's granted power gives you access to a Skill which is already on your Skill List at the time you gain the domain, you gain Skill Focus for that Skill as a bonus feat.

Shield of Faith: At 1st level you gain Energy Resistance against all types of energy equal to your current Favored Soul level. Energy Resistance from multiple sources never stack.

Power of Faith: At 5th level you gain the use of one Faith Point per day. At 10th, 15th, and 20th levels, you gain one additional Faith Point (to a maximum of 4 Faith Points at 20th level). Once you use a Faith Point, it is expended until you rest for 8 hours and restore your spells per day.

Faith Points can be used in four ways:

First, you can use a Faith Point to gain one additional use of any domain power you currently possess. For example, a Favored Soul with the Death Domain could use a Faith Point to make an additional death touch attack.

Second, you may use a Faith Point as an Immediate Action to reroll any Saving Throw after your DM has announced the result of the Save. For example, after rolling your Saving Throw for a Fireball and being informed by your DM that your result failed, you may use a Faith Point to re-roll that Save.

Third, you may use a Faith Point as an Immediate Action to fully negate the effects of any Save that you have just passed. For example, after rolling a Save for a Fireball your DM informs you that you pass the Saving Throw and take half damage, you may you may use a Faith Point to completely negate the effect of the Fireball.

Finally, you may use a Faith Point as an Immediate Action to negate a critical hit which you have just taken. You still take normal damage from the attack, as if it were not a Critical Hit.

Ascension: At 20th level you gain wings with a Fly speed equal to your base land movement and your type changes to Outsider (native), except you can still be resurrected. You also gain DR 10/the alignment opposite your deity's. For example, if you worship a CG god, then you have DR 10/lawful or evil. If your deity is true neutral, then you gain DR 10/silver.


Discussion of the class:

The pros and cons are pretty straitforward.

You have the Skills to be a party face, plus UMD to help you with spells if your domain spell lists sucks. If you take the right domains, you could potentially fill other Skill Monkey rolls as well, and you could do so quite effectively.

You have a boatload of spells per day, so you should be able to cast in every combat. But because of the slower Sorcerer progression and such a limited list, you really can't match up to a normal Wizard or Cleric build in terms of raw power.

MAD isn't an issue - you could have all 12-14 stats and still be a respectable meatshield and caster (just pick domains with buff spells instead of spells that require a Saving Throw), without having any class abilities nerfed. Getting 19 Cha by level 18 so that you can cast your 9th level spells is easy, though obviously higher Cha would be better.

The Power of Faith gives you a heroic "chosen by the gods" feel - negating a PC's worst nightmares in combat (being killed by a single spell or crit because of one die roll), but because its an Immediate Action it can't be used more then once per round, and it has a very limited number of times per day that it can be used.

You have flexibility of options within the class, flexibility of build (look at the list of domains on Crystalkeep, there's a lot of them), enough power to hold your own against anyone, but very limited ability to create gamebreaking combo's or CoDzilla nightmares.

You gain additional spells and Energy Resistance every level, so there's no dead level problems. You also have a reason to go all 20 levels as a Favored Soul. But if you want to go into other classes (as a Cleric to gain more domains, as a Paladin to gain uber Saves, as a PrC to gain special abilities) you can do so without rendering your Favored Soul abilities useless.

I played this class without taking any domain or spell adding feats, and without any multi-classing or PrC. It was balanced, useful, and very fun to roleplay. It's a shame they didn't keep Domains or something like it in 4E.

Pretty awesome setup here. Do you do a lot of homebrewing?

[Nerd-o-rama]

Optimizing a Warforged Favored Soul:

1) Play a Cleric instead
2) Play anything else besides a Warforged instead.

Okay, I know these aren't options, but I just wanted to make it clear that nothing in this class/race combo can be "optimal", so we'll just do the best we can with the conditions.

First and foremost, you can dump Wisdom as long as you're not trying to use offensive save-based spells like Doom or Flame Strike. Charisma, however, is absolutely necessary, so if the player wants to be a Favored Soul, he needs to modify his roleplay to fit (you can have a high charisma and still be quiet and stoic. You've just got a lot of "inner strength".) Stick to buffs, healing, and maybe some attack-roll based spells if they look good. This also helps make up for the limited Spells Known.

There's a couple of Alternate Class Features you could have the player look at. In Dragon Magic and Fiendish Codex II (I think), there are ACFs that basically trade your mostly-useless Weapon Focus/Specialization for natural weapons (two claws or a bite). Combined with a Warforged Slam, these can actually give you a fairly impressive natural attack routine at low levels. Great for a "combat medic", and the flavor works well for a PLOT TWIST! down the line when the Warforged figures out just where, exactly, he's gotten these strange powers.

[Person_Man]

Pretty awesome setup here. Do you do a lot of homebrewing?

Previously, no.

Then my primary D&D decided that 3.5 was too confusing, and codex creep ruined any semblance of game balance, and anyone's ability to fully grok the rules.

We sorta looked forward to 4E, hoping that it would be something in the ballpark of Star Wars Saga Edition + Tome of Battle, and that there would be a 3.5 -> 4E conversion guide so that we could all transfer our favorite PCs over. Unfortunately, 4E is nothing like 3.5. We were totally on board with every class having per day, per encounter, and at will powers. But the powers and gameplay experience are completely different from 3.5. The vast majority of them are "X[W] damage plus a minor status effect." And inexplicably, they didn't bother to attach any real fluff to the powers, something they had done a fantastic job of doing with spells and ToB maneuvers.

Some people like this. Some don't. But there's really no comparing the two editions. They are totally different games. And my group - which liked 3.5 but wanted it "fixed" feels screwed by Hasbro.

So now we're going to play some combination of Pathfinder + heavy home brewing. And I've been doing a lot of potential work on the often overlooked classes of 3.5 - Favored Soul, Healer, Scout, Ninja, Dragon Shaman, etc.

[Chronicled]

Previously, no.

Then my primary D&D decided that 3.5 was too confusing, and codex creep ruined any semblance of game balance, and anyone's ability to fully grok the rules.

We sorta looked forward to 4E, hoping that it would be something in the ballpark of Star Wars Saga Edition + Tome of Battle, and that there would be a 3.5 -> 4E conversion guide so that we could all transfer our favorite PCs over. Unfortunately, 4E is nothing like 3.5. We were totally on board with every class having per day, per encounter, and at will powers. But the powers and gameplay experience are completely different from 3.5. The vast majority of them are "X[W] damage plus a minor status effect." And inexplicably, they didn't bother to attach any real fluff to the powers, something they had done a fantastic job of doing with spells and ToB maneuvers.

Some people like this. Some don't. But there's really no comparing the two editions. They are totally different games. And my group - which liked 3.5 but wanted it "fixed" feels screwed by Hasbro.

So now we're going to play some combination of Pathfinder + heavy home brewing. And I've been doing a lot of potential work on the often overlooked classes of 3.5 - Favored Soul, Healer, Scout, Ninja, Dragon Shaman, etc.

Sounds a lot like the boat I'm in. I'd be especially interested in seeing what else you come up with.

For a Favored Soul I'd go with wings made of semi-solid light, like an Eva.

I think I like this better than any of the other ideas mentioned so far.

[Grey Watcher]

I really appreciate the help. Biggest stumbling block he's having now is that the personality he had in mind was...essentially...NO personality. Low Charisma.
Which, of course, does NOT make for much of a Favored Soul.
Hm.

Well, just because he's reserved doesn't mean he has low Charisma. That's the beauty of the poorly defined fluff surrounding Charisma. You can make it mean whatever you want it to mean. Maybe he's quiet and content to let others take the lead, and his forceful personality only asserts itself when he's interested (healing the wounded or investigating religions). Perhaps he's even unaware of his own persuasive talents? Maybe this untapped talent is why this Mystery God granted him his powers in the first place. So his high Charisma is as much a surprise to him as anyone.

As for dumping Wis in favor of Cha, you could actually justify that RP-wise. When this Warforged received his powers, he had a vision, but lacked the Wisdom to actually understand it. Maybe he's asked sages what it might mean, but he keeps getting unsatisfactory and contradictory interpretations, so he's just as confused as before.

EDIT: Does this setup (not knowing the identity of the benefactor) remind anyone else of Great Expectations?

[JohnnyArkham]

Regarding the Domain Favored Soul, I'm still coming up with a few questions.

Assuming that, at 5th level, the character has yet to gain 3rd level spells (as the class uses the Sorcerer spells/day progression), and has a total of 3 domains to choose from;
that would mean that he knows a total of 3 first level spells and 3 Second level spells, correct?
Which means that the standard Favored Soul now knows 2 more First level spells than our variant.
Is this correct?
Granted, our Domain variant has 3 Domain Powers/abilities at his disposal...

But I wanted to make sure I have that correct before I move forward.

[Xyk]

Heh, Machina ex Deus then? Or some other mangled grammar?

I'll pronounce my latin however I want to! I took latin 1!

[Glawackus]

Not wings, Jetpack.

See, I was thinking Iron Man-style hands-and-feet flight control.

Or the wing artifact from Races of Eberron.

[Roderick_BR]

Warforged with wings:

Spoiler

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Yeah, investing in buffs and healing would be better, then focusing everything else into combat.
Maybe investing in things to increase his resistance, so he can, when needed, run into combat, grab allies, and move back.
How about allowing him to use night sticks to quicken his buffs? He could use them as some sort of "special fuel" to enhance the speed at which he casts his spells. That would be sorta like the paladin's battle blessing (sp?) feat. Just make an agreemend to not let him use it to persist You could take away the weapon focus/specialization feats and give him turn undead so he can use these.

And I think that a warforged that suddenly finds out he got a divine spark inside himself, and is good at protecting others would be a great roleplaying hook, where he starts to learn more about himself and develop a full blown personality.

[Person_Man]

Regarding the Domain Favored Soul, I'm still coming up with a few questions.

Assuming that, at 5th level, the character has yet to gain 3rd level spells (as the class uses the Sorcerer spells/day progression), and has a total of 3 domains to choose from;
that would mean that he knows a total of 3 first level spells and 3 Second level spells, correct?
Which means that the standard Favored Soul now knows 2 more First level spells than our variant.
Is this correct?
Granted, our Domain variant has 3 Domain Powers/abilities at his disposal...

But I wanted to make sure I have that correct before I move forward.

Correct.

A 5th level Favored Soul knows:

• 6 - 0th level spells
• 5 - 1st level spells
• 3 - 2nd level spells
• Deity's Weapon Focus
• Energy Resistance 10 (any 1 type)

A 5th level Person Man's Domain Favored Soul knows:

• 3 - 1st level spells
• 3 - 2nd level spells
• 3 domain powers
• 1 Faith Point (extra domain use, Save Re-roll, or Evasion/Mettle)
• Energy Resistance 5 (ALL)
• 2 more Skill Points per level
• Use Magic Device on its Skill List

In this scenario, the standard Favored Soul has the advantage of 0th level spells, it knows 2 more 1st level spells, it gets Weapon Focus for free, and it can cherry pick whatever spells it wants (which is really the biggest advantage of the Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, Druid, Favored Soul - compared to the Domain Favored Soul, Beguiler, Warmage, etc)

The Domain Favored Soul has the advantage of 3 domain powers, 1 Faith Point, more versatile (though lower) Energy Resistance, a few more Skill points, UMD, and no MAD.

In many ways, the Domain Favored Soul is what I wanted the 4E Paladin to be like - a divine tank with interesting and useful (but not overpowering) spells. But alas, that was not to be.