D&D 5E Favored Soul: Overpowered?

[Delandel]

FS is not overpowered at all. The wider spell selection, when limited to only those spells listed as bonus spells for a domain, are not a major addition. They're limited to theme and tend to be redundant. The melee bent on the class with the extra attack allows them to be productive after they use up their spells, but they should have a lot of spells and should not be running out of them very often once they reach level 6..

As someone who has been playing a Sorcerer for 7 levels, yes, it's definitely a major addition. You have double the spells known at 1, 3, 5, 7, 9. 4 instead of 2 at 1st, then 8 instead of 4 at 3rd, etc. I'm not seeing the redundancy. Look at Life Domain. Bless? Not redundant -- sorcerer can't do anything like this. Cure wounds? Again, nope. Lesser Restoration? Still no redundancy. Spiritual Weapon? Big damage as a bonus action, no Concentration, nope, nothing that regular sorcerer can do, not redundant. Beacon of Hope? Revivify? Raise Dead? Shall I go on?

From the first Unearthed Arcana article:

"You can think of the material presented in this series as similar to the first wave of the fifth edition playtest. These game mechanics are in draft form, usable in your campaign but not fully tempered by playtests and design iterations. They are highly volatile and might be unstable; if you use them, be ready to rule on any issues that come up. They’re written in pencil, not ink."

So, yeah, there may well be balance issues here. That said, nothing screams BROKEN at me. Yes, the favored soul gets a lot more versatility than, say, a dragon sorcerer. On the other hand, the dragon sorcerer has superior damage output. For a full caster, Extra Attack is not as good as adding your Cha bonus to elemental spell damage. I could imagine playing either one*.

[SIZE=-2]*Of course, there is still the issue that fire is ridiculously better than any other element for the dragon sorc. But that's a separate concern.[/SIZE]

It's double the spells known from 1-9 and drops down to "only" +66% at level 20. Not just dragon sorcerer, also wild sorcerer, aka any other origin.

I agree, I'd prefer +CHA to fire damage too, since it's stronger when you do AOE attacks that hit multiple enemies. Extra Attack isn't too bad though, it's basically an 1d6+stat (shortbow for example) and combines well with things like divine favor, quickened hold person, haste, etc.

When someone makes a claim of overpowered, I want to see why. I'm not seeing it. Imbalanced compared to the other weak options available to sorcerer and ranger? Maybe. Overpowered? Not at all. Sorcerer and ranger were the two weakest classes in the game. I hope these options make someone want to try either. They fall way behind most other classes unless you're a sorlock.

I'm clearly saying that it's overpowered compared to the other two origins. I brought up the other origins, and nowhere did I bring up other classes. If you want to complain about sorcerers being weaker than other classes then this isn't the thread for it.

 

[gyor]

I will say the Favoured Soul should trade the sorceror spell list for the clerics, its weird that Favoured Souls are horrorible healers, only Life Domain gets any healing spells.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Favoured Soul is also has the price of a greater MAD then other sorcerors, other sorcerors can afford to focus more on Charisma and Feats, while Favour Souls will want to invest more in physical ability scores as well.

Why? If anything, the Dragon Sorcerer is more MAD, since he has to rely on Dex instead of Medium Armor + Shield.

Favoured Sorlock can just pump CHA and blast away with Agonizing Eldritch Blast and he's good. He doesn't even strictly need to pump Con to match the Dragon Sorc because he has healing spells.

I do agree that Favored Soul would have made a good baseline for Sorcerer though. If Dragon Sorc and Wild Sorc were already as good as Favored Soul I would have no issue with the class--but having an newly-introduced class be clearly better than both the PHB options is the very essence of power creep.

 

[famousringo]

Why do you say "one point in AC"? From where I'm standing it looks more like four points. Dragon Sorcerer = AC 13 + Dex. Favored Soul = AC 15 (armor) + 2 (Shield) + Dex (up to 2). To reduce the differential to one point of AC, you'd need to pump Dex to 20, which you wouldn't.

I think Favored Soul is OP in the sense that it obsoletes the Dragon Sorc. Sorlocks are already one of the most attractive types of sorcerers. Now compare Warlock 2 / Favored Soul X to Warlock 2 / Dragon Sorc X, and what does the dragon sorc have going for it? Worse AC, marginally better HP, same cantrip, far tighter spell selection, no access to Bless/Lesser Restoration/Revivify/Death Ward/Raise Dead. With a dragon sorc you still need a cleric in the group, but with a Favored Soul you can be the DPR king and the healer. I would actually be tempted to play a Favored Soul over a wizard, which is good, but I would never again be tempted to play any other kind of sorcerer, which is bad.

Why wouldn't you want to pump DEX? You need to pump either DEX or STR if you want to make any use of that extra attack, and DEX comes with better skills and the better save. My sorcerer already has a 20 DEX. It's nice for flexibility's sake that a Favoured Soul can spend those stat points elsewhere and still enjoy a good AC, but the point is that what the subclass can achieve isn't much beyond the reach of other sorcerers. Even the shield bonus is going to be difficult to actually utilize before the Soul pays a Warcaster feat tax.

I'm not sure how compelling the sorlock argument is, given that it's already considered a pretty cheesy combination. If sorlock needs to be fixed, it has to be done on the warlock side, Favoured Soul doesn't really change anything. If you really want to be the DPR king, you still need to be a dragon sorcerer so you can add CHA to your Fireballs and Scorching Rays.

 

[Dausuul]

I'm clearly saying that it's overpowered compared to the other two origins. I brought up the other origins, and nowhere did I bring up other classes. If you want to complain about sorcerers being weaker than other classes then this isn't the thread for it.

On the contrary, it's highly relevant. If in fact there is an imbalance between the favored soul and the PHB sorcerers (and I agree with Celtavian that you need actual examples to show imbalance), then there is a problem, but we don't yet know where the problem lies. Is it with the favored soul? Or is it with the PHB sorcerers? The answer can only be found by looking at the other classes. If the FS is balanced with other classes, then it's the PHB sorcerer that needs to be raised up, not the FS that needs to be knocked down.

Favoured Sorlock can just pump CHA and blast away with Agonizing Eldritch Blast and he's good. He doesn't even strictly need to pump Con to match the Dragon Sorc because he has healing spells.

Cheesy broken multiclass build gets more cheesy broken, whatever. I thought we were discussing sorcerers. Everyone agrees the sorlock is OP.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Why wouldn't you want to pump DEX? You need to pump either DEX or STR if you want to make any use of that extra attack, and DEX comes with better skills and the better save. My sorcerer already has a 20 DEX. It's nice for flexibility's sake that a Favoured Soul can spend those stat points elsewhere and still enjoy a good AC, but the point is that what the subclass can achieve isn't much beyond the reach of other sorcerers. Even the shield bonus is going to be difficult to actually utilize before the Soul pays a Warcaster feat tax.

Huh, that's interesting. Okay, so clearly there are sorcerers out there who pump Dex to 20. I don't understand why, but clearly they exist, so I stand corrected in my confident mis-prediction that no one would do that.

I vehemently disagree about shields not being useful without a feat tax. Extra Attack can be safely ignored, it's worse than just spamming Eldritch Blast, so you have a hand that can hold a shield and a hand that you can cast with, ergo no need for Warcaster. (Even if you were using a weapon you could just sheathe it to cast spells.)

I'm not sure how compelling the sorlock argument is, given that it's already considered a pretty cheesy combination. If sorlock needs to be fixed, it has to be done on the warlock side, Favoured Soul doesn't really change anything. If you really want to be the DPR king, you still need to be a dragon sorcerer so you can add CHA to your Fireballs and Scorching Rays.

Different strokes for different folks, apparently. I find Dragon Sorc Scorching Ray-spam very underwhelming.

 

[Delandel]

If in fact there is an imbalance between the favored soul and the PHB sorcerers (and I agree with Celtavian that you need actual examples to show imbalance), then there is a problem, but we don't yet know where the problem lies.

Er.. seriously? I mean, if you read my OP and the followup post, I made it very clear why I think it's overpowered compared to the other two origins.

1) True, it's a fixed and limited grouping, but the spell lists are incredibly powerful and gives you access to spells that sorcerers don't usually get. For example, Light domain gets Bless and Cure Wounds at 1st level, then Less Restoration and Spiritual Weapon at 3rd. These spells are better at what they do than any Sorcerer equivalent. Even if you pick Light Domain, which has a decent amount of overlap with sorcerer spells (burning hands, scorching ray), you're still picking up things like Faerie Fire, Flaming Sphere, again better than any Sorc equivalent. And also if you wanted spells like Burning Hands or Scorching Ray anyway, it frees up a choice for you from the Sorc list to take something else.

2) The FS's abilities definitely match up to the raw potency of the other Origins and just as "narrow." Half Plate + Shield is 17 AC -- you have higher AC than a Dragon Sorcerer's even if both had max DEX (FS 19, Dragon 18). Wings vs. Wings. Extra Attack (essentially double damage for your melee) vs. +CHA on specific blasting spells (varaible % increase, very good though) vs. the underwhelming "Bend Luck."

3) He doesn't realize that +66% spells known increase is severely downplaying it (that's at max level). At levels 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, it's a +100% increase in spells known. That's insane.

We'll see if he responds or not.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?445796-Favored-Soul-Overpowered#ixzz3Ye2b3hzU

 

[famousringo]

Huh, that's interesting. Okay, so clearly there are sorcerers out there who pump Dex to 20. I don't understand why, but clearly they exist, so I stand corrected in my confident mis-prediction that no one would do that.

Lucky rolling and a halfling. Other than CHA, DEX and CON are the particularly useful stats for sorcerer, so I decided to start with 20 DEX and 18 CHA rather than 19 in each. I don't see what's so hard to understand.

I vehemently disagree about shields not being useful without a feat tax. Extra Attack can be safely ignored, it's worse than just spamming Eldritch Blast, so you have a hand that can hold a shield and a hand that you can cast with, ergo no need for Warcaster. (Even if you were using a weapon you could just sheathe it to cast spells.)

Ah, you're still working the sorlock angle here. Not sure why the armour bothers you at all then, since it's an easy thing for any arcane caster to cheese with a single level of cleric. Let's stick with just single class sorcerers for now.

It's not that the shield isn't useful, but it does cost you. The best damage for a Favoured Soul for the first 10 levels would be a quickened spell and a martial attack. I don't think many DMs would let you attack with a weapon, sheath it, then cast a quickened spell all while holding a shield. Even if your DM would, you either have a weapon out ready for an opportunity attack, or a hand free to cast a spell (like Shield) as a reaction, or you take Subtle spell and burn a sorcery point. There are tradeoffs to make.

Different strokes for different folks, apparently. I find Dragon Sorc Scorching Ray-spam very underwhelming.

I thought the whole point of sorlock was to quicken Scorching Ray with an Eldritch Blast and add your CHA damage to a bajillion blasts every round. Are you telling me there's an even better way to cheese it?

 

[Psikerlord#]

If you don't allow MCing, and I don't, FS is OP: an arcane full caster, with access to all the best blasty spells - plus curing spells - one feat away from plate + shield. I guess compared to bard perhaps it isn't OP... I dunno, it's certainly a lot better than the original bard subclasses.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Lucky rolling and a halfling. Other than CHA, DEX and CON are the particularly useful stats for sorcerer, so I decided to start with 20 DEX and 18 CHA rather than 19 in each. I don't see what's so hard to understand.

What was hard to understand was why you would pump DEX over CHA. As you've now explained, there was no opportunity cost because you rolled two 18s. That explains it and I am no longer confused.

Ah, you're still working the sorlock angle here. Not sure why the armour bothers you at all then, since it's an easy thing for any arcane caster to cheese with a single level of cleric. Let's stick with just single class sorcerers for now.

I don't have much to say about the single-class case. Favored Soul would still be more attractive to me than dragon sorc in a campaign where no multi-classing was allowed, but it wouldn't be quite so obviously better.

It's not that the shield isn't useful, but it does cost you. The best damage for a Favoured Soul for the first 10 levels would be a quickened spell and a martial attack. I don't think many DMs would let you attack with a weapon, sheath it, then cast a quickened spell all while holding a shield. Even if your DM would, you either have a weapon out ready for an opportunity attack, or a hand free to cast a spell (like Shield) as a reaction, or you take Subtle spell and burn a sorcery point. There are tradeoffs to make.

Generally you should know in advance whether you're more interested in making an opportunity attack or casting a Shield. Trying to have a weapon out and a hand free is unnecessary overkill. As far as sheathing a weapon after attacking with it, sure, I'd allow that. That's part of what your free object interaction is for, AFAICT.

I thought the whole point of sorlock was to quicken Scorching Ray with an Eldritch Blast and add your CHA damage to a bajillion blasts every round. Are you telling me there's an even better way to cheese it?

Depends on what you mean by "better". Five minute adventuring days bore me, so a dragon sorc who spends 2 sorcery points and a 5th level spell slot in order to throw six 15.5-HP rays and three 14-HP Eldritch Blasts is not spectacularly more impressive than one who just chucks six 14-HP Eldritch Blasts for 2 sorcery points (especially considering that the Scorching Ray only has 120' range). 60 HP against a chain worm on the second round of combat vs. 37 HP on the second round of combat is, well, it's nice, but is that extra 23 HP really worth a 5th level spell slot? Not my style.