D&D 5E Favored Soul Sorcerer: Best Domains, Feats and suggestions

[Carlos Barreto]

Greetings,

I'm trying to create a gish Favored Soul Sorcerer with two-handed weapons (THW) and heavy armor. I love the idea of being capable of smite enemies in close combat while blasting hordes of enemies at once, all that in shining armor. Also, I think that the lack of War Caster feat makes easier to use THW than Sword & Shield for the purpose of casting spells with somatic components. Finally, throwing Javelins for ranged combat seems easier to do while you're holding your THW in your left hand instead of having a Sword & Shield occupying both hands.

So here comes some ideas...

RACE: Variant Human. Heavy Armor Master feat grants +1 Str and the 3 points of damage reduction is just a life saver at the first levels and I think it still remain usefull even at higher levels (because even at higher levels you will still fight mooks or other monsters with no magical attacks).

CLASS: Starting as Paladin for heavy armor proficiency. Extra HP (4) never hurts. Later levels includes Paladin 2 (for Fighting Style: Great Weapon Fighting and Smite!). I'm still unsure if the optimized build should be Paladin 2/Sorcerer FS 18 or Paladin 3/Sorcerer FS 17. What seems better? Power of The Chosen (Sorcerer 18) or a Paladin Oath (Paladin 3)?

FEATS: Besides Heavy Armor Master, I like the Great Weapon Master. I just think you're doing it wrong if you choose the Great Weapon Fighting Style and you don't have this feat because it pushes the THW DPR even further. The Power Attack+Cleave abilities (plus an extra attack if you make a critical hit) is so awesome that I prefer this feat rather than maximize Charisma, as crazy as it may sound.

About the domain, I'm stuck among War and Life domains, which seems to be the domains with the best spells. Concentration spells are written in red.


WAR DOMAIN SPELLS
Cleric level/Spells
1st
divine favor (1st): [B.A./Conc. 1 min] - Weapon attacks deals extra 1d4 radiant damage
shield of faith (1st): [B.A./Conc. 10 min] - +2 to AC
3rd
magic weapon (2th): [B.A./Conc. 1h] - Weapon becomes magical. +1/+2 (4th)/+3 (6th) to attack and damage.
spiritual weapon (2th): [B.A./1 min] - Spectral weapon. 1d8+Char Force damage
5th
crusader's mantle (3rd): [A./Conc. 1 min] - 30-foot aura. Friends/you deals extra 1d4 damage to weapon attacks.
spirit guardians (3rd): [A./Conc. 1 min] - 15-foot area. 3d8 radiant damage. Wisdom save halves.
7th
freedom of movement (4th): [A./1h] - Ignore terrain difficulty. Can't be paralised. Can escape grapple and restrain.
stoneskin (4th): [A./Conc. 1h] - Non-magical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage halved
9th
flame strike (5th): [A./Inst.] - 10-foot radius and hight. 4d6 fire + 4d6 radiant damage. Dexterity save halves.
hold monster (5th): [A./Conc. 1 min] - Paralyze target. Wisdom save.
CONCLUSION: 7 out of 10 (70%) of spells requires concentration.

LIFE DOMAIN SPELLS
Cleric Level Spells
1st
bless (1st): [A./Conc. 1 min] - 3 creatures gains +1d4 for attack and save roll.
cure wounds (1st): [A./Inst.] - Heals 1d8+Char
3rd
lesser restoration (2nd): [A./Inst.] - Cure disease or condition.
spiritual weapon (2th): [B.A./1 min] - Spectral weapon. 1d8+Char Force damage
5th
beacon of hope (3rd): [A./Conc. 1 min] - Wisdom and Death save w/ advantage. Maximized healing
revivify (3rd): [A./Inst.] - Ressurrect the dead within the last minute.
7th
death ward (4th): [A./8 hours.] - When dropped to 0 HP, you stay at 1 HP.
guardian of faith (4th): [A./8 hours.] - 20 radiant damage. Dexterity save halves. 3 uses.
9th
mass cure wounds (5th): [A./Instant] - 30-foot radius. Heals 3d8+Char.
raise dead (5th): [1h./Instant] - Ressurect the dead within 10 days.
CONCLUSION: 2 out of 10 (20%) of spells requires concentration.

Thematically, I really like the War domain. The main problem is that Haste is a essential spell to a gish character. The War domain has 7 out of 10 spells that requires concentration, while the Life domains has only 2. Also, both domains shares the Spiritual Weapon spell, which is an amazing non-concentration spell that helps to increase DPR. So I believe that the Life domain is the best because it's more compatible with Haste.

Any thoughs or opinions?

EDIT: Slash & Blast fighting style. Based purely from theorycraft, this is my spell list idea (Italic red spells means spell swap):

Cantrips: Firebolt; Thunderclap; ???; ???
1 - Shield; Sleep
2 - Magic Missile
3 - Shatter
4 - Scorching Ray
5 - Haste; Sleep➞ Fireball
6 - Counterspell; Shatter ➞ Fly
7 - Blight
8 - Lightning Bolt
9 - Hold Monster
10 - Cone of Cold
11 - ??? ; Magic Missile ➞ Disintegrate
13 - Chain Lightning
14 - Fly[1] ➞ Misty Step
15 - ???
17 - Wish; Scorching Ray ➞ Meteor Swarm

[1] - At level 14, Favored Soul gain wings.

There are two gaps; one at level 11 and the other at level 15. Also, there are two gaps among cantrips.

Final list of spells (13 out of 15): Shield (1st), Misty Step (2nd), Haste (3rd), Fireball (3rd), Counterspell (3rd), Lightning Bolt (3rd), Blight (4th), Hold Monster (5th), Cone of Cold (5th), Disintegrate (6th), Chain Lightning (6th), Wish (9th), Wish (9th).

Suggestions are welcome.

 

[famousringo]

It's worth considering starting fighter instead of paladin. 3 levels of Eldritch Knight gets you a self heal and action surge every short rest, you can summon your sword, you can grab some utility cantrips, and you get access to some handy wizard spells that the sorcerer can't get, like Find Familiar and Absorb Elements. You don't even need a good int score. And if you're going to be a melee caster, you're probably going to want to get con save proficiency from somewhere, whether from fighter, sorcerer, or resilient feat.

Forget the level 18 sorcerer ability. Even if you play that high, how long will you be able to enjoy it? The real question is always do you want the goodies that come from another level of your side class, or do you want the next tier of spells?

I'm not sure if I'd get too excited by the cleave ability from GWM. You only get one bonus action, and I'm assuming you'll be spending it to Quicken spells as well use Spiritual Weapon and perhaps war domain buffs. But if you want to land those power attacks, you probably want life domain for the Bless. Magic Weapon helps too, but much later and Bless is simply a better buff, especially if you don't pick up a Con proficiency somewhere.

 

[Carlos Barreto]

Fighter will always be reference in terms of gish dip.
The Paladin choice, however, relies in a single word: Smite.

That said, the choosing between Fighter X Paladin dipping is a matter of choosing between Action Surge x Smite. Sure, Action Surge is awesome, specially because it allows to cast two spells in a single turn. But it looks like Smite gives a more solid melee burst damage than Action Surge. And since Sorcerer is a full caster class with more spell slots and the amazing Flexible Casting feature (allowing you to Smite even more), it means their Smite will deal more damage earlier than full Paladins. And since Smite is doubled if you make a critical hit, it can cause up to 10d8 (12d8 if the target is undead/demon) extra damage, which sounds pretty good at close combat.

For the hordes, Sorcerer spells will do the job.

So that's the idea: To be good against single stronger enemies and lots of weaker enemies.

Sure, the lack of Constitution proficiency is a huge flaw in this build. I would like to start as a Socerer to gain the proficiency, but then I'd not have the Paladin's Heavy Armor proficiency (the Paladin's extra 4 HP is also a nice plus), which is unacceptable to a Strength-based build. With just 4 ASISs/Feat choice, things are very difficult.

Yet, starting as a Varian Human gives a free Feat. I choose Heavy Armor Master because it increases the primary stat (Strength) and reduces the non-magical damage by 3, improving survivability in the first levels while still being useful later. So I guess we have a lot of room to debate what would be better: Heavy Armor Master or Resilient (Constitution); since both gives +1 to an attribute (which can be tweaked in order to obtain the desired values), the issue is around the damage reduction by 3 versus Constitution proficiency.

About the GWM, even if the character is using Spiritual Weapon, 2d6+Str (a primary stat for a gish) is better than 1d8+Char. So I'd use Spiritual Weapon and if I land a critical hit, I'd just make an extra melee attack. That is, if I don't cast a spell with Quicken Spell.

Also, the Power Attack effect is worthy in my opinion. There're several ways to gain advantage to attack rolls and magical weapons also should be considered in some future. +10 to damage is really sweet.

 

[famousringo]

Yeah, I know everybody wants paladin for the phat smite crits. It just always bugs me to see a slot go to 5d8 bonus damage on a single target when it could have done something truly powerful, like animating a small army of minions or splitting the enemy force in half. I guess it's just a difference of mindset. Burning a ton of sorcery points for a few more d8s similarly seems like a waste when you could be twinning Haste on your buddy or ramming polymorph down BBEG's throat. But I also get that paladin and favoured soul are more thematically compatible than EK.

Heavy Armor Master will help you maintain concentration by dropping the DC on non-magic attacks, but not below 10, and it's the big magic attacks that are hardest to maintain concentration through. A better concentration strategy against fireballs and dragonbreath than any feat is Absorb Elements, but maybe you'll just have to accept that you can't maintain Haste against a dragon.

So, about those cleaves. I don't know what your stats look like, but I assume your Str and your Cha are on par. You're basically trading a reliable +1 to hit and damage every round for Spiritual Weapon from +2 CHA for an unreliable +4 damage (8.6 is the average outcome of 2d6 with great weapon style) IF you get a crit/kill AND there's still a target nearby. Doesn't seem like a good trade to me.

But maybe you don't actually need good CHA. Sounds like you'll be spending all your slots on buffs and smites, anyway. There are quite a few spells that don't involve saving throws at all. Just don't count on being effective at range.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

For me the favored soul isn't only a sorcerer with spontaneous divine magic and wearing armour, I imagine them like "(variant) sorcerers" with armour, divine origin, a love-hate relation with clerics and paladins, and class features about monster traits (winges, natural weapons or amour...).

Kratos, from videogames "God of War" could be a D&D favored soul, son of a deity but hate the pantheon. Hercules (my favorite version is the one played by Kevin Sorbo) would be a monk-favored soul. Melissandre, from "Game of Thrones" could be a source of inspiration to create evil favored souls.

Other option is to replace divine spells with "maneuvers", special attacks in the middle between at-will and once-encounter from "Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords", or to create some mechanic about spending points of mutantion (d20 Future) or points of dammation (demonbinder prestige class from 3.5 "Drows of the Undedark") to buy "monster traits"

Why not to create enemies with any levels of favored sould to test?

 

[gyor]

An alternative could be a dual weilding bard/college of blades 3/favoured soul 17, dex based build.

 

[Carlos Barreto]

I don't see much gain from bard, specially dual wielding.

About Smite, I think Smite is a really awesome source of melee damage in 5e.
Ok, let's see: It's 5d8 for a 4th level spell doesn't sounds good enough, right?

Well, that's extra damage. Assuming the giving example of a two-handed weapon, it's 2d6+5d8+(3-15) damage (with maxed Strength and Great Weapon Master +10). If the target is a demon or undead, there's an extra 1d8, for a total of 6d8. And if you hit a critical, that damage goes 10d8 (or 12d8, if enemy is a demon/undead). After all, you use Smite after you see the attack roll. So 4d6+10d8+bônus is not that bad. It's full damage with no save to halve. And the extra damage does radiant damage, which is not resisted very often.

So the idea to burn spell slots and sorcery points is a last resort against really strong bosses.

About Charisma, no, this character is not meant to just buff and Smite. Those are great tools in the arsenal, but blasting power is also required to fulfill the ideas previously mentioned ("...blasting hordes of enemies at once"). So yes, there'll be spells like Burning Hands, Scorching Ray, Fireball, Lightning Bolt and even Meteor Swarm, among others. I wish I could have Charisma 20, but due to the fact that this character will have only 4 ASIs/Feat left and I would like to grab Great Weapon Master feat later, I guess the Charisma would end at 18 instead of 20 using the standard point buy system (15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8). The three 15s would become three 16s thanks to Variant Human and Heavy Armor Master feat.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

For the OP, this looks like it could be a lot of fun to play. I'm inclined to go paladin/favored soul as it feels more thematically appropriate. Would love to hear what you decide and how it plays at the table.

 

[Carlos Barreto]

I posted a list of spells for this Slash & Blast warrior.

Quicken spell Fireball + Two (or three with Haste) sword slashes sounds really cool.