D&D 5E Favored Soul: Overpowered?

[houser2112]

The most powerful Favoured Soul appears to be Life Domain. At level 18 he can spam 13 1st level cure wound spells (burning all his spell points in the process), and healing himself 6hps every time he casts cure light wounds at 1st level.

The Favored Soul only gets the spells from the domain chosen, not the other features.

 

[Celtavian]

Sure!

But please consider that other people use terms differently, and that intentionally misunderstanding somebody's argument just in order to make a terminology point is disruptive to fruitful discussion [emoji3]

There was no intentional misunderstanding. I consider using terminology improperly to be more disruptive to fruitful discussion. Overpowered generally means game breaking, not imbalanced against other options available to a particular class. If you want to discuss something, you should do so using terms the community understands. I rarely see someone use the term overpowered for imbalanced class options. I don't recall it occurring until this thread.

Stupid smiles at the end of posts are lame. They make you come off as smug and condescending.

I'll leave this discussion on that note considering I don't see the point of this discussion. The OP has not proven his argument. FS does not make me want to play a sorcerer save as perhaps an alternative option to a healer. Even then, it would be a weaker healer without the condition removing spells.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I've been playing a wild sorcerer for 7 levels.

The FS's features don't seem that appealing to me.

Extra spells are no big deal. Woop-i-dee-doo, I can suck at being a cleric. I also played a valor bard (a very similar character, role-wise) for a few levels. Also not finding the FS that attractive in comparison to that.

Anecdote ain't evidence, but at the very least, the FS isn't always clearly advantageous if you're a sorcerer or a buff gish.

 

[MoonSong]

I mass quoted because they are basically the same arguments.

The sorc. is, I agree, fairly weak. But the FS is just better than the other ones. By a fair bit. It's probably not overpowered compared to other classes, but it overshadows the other options too much. If this is an attempt to fix that, it should fix them all, not just add a better option.

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.

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?


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.

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.

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.

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.

There is just so much to say. I love the Favored Soul, it fixes the class for me. And I guess it kind of overshadows the other sorcerers, but it does it in a good way. The problem with the other origins is not that they are underpowered, just not very versatile and thematically are kind of icky -what do you prefer "I'm a walking timebomb" "I look like a monster" or "I'm a beautiful chosen of the gods"?-. I find it funny that when the PHB came out I said that the sorcerer was very weak, but was silenced by a majority who said "overpowered, powerful alpha damage!", and now people are admitting they weren't as desirable as they seemed.

Ok, with that out of the way, the subclass was genius, because it isn't a single subclass, it is six subclasses by the price of one. Even with life domain you have two options, go all buffs and utility for a classic Favored Soul -in which case the obvious comparison is the cleric and bard- or mix it up with more arcane spells for a Mystic Theurge, the other options create other flavors of sorcerer and allow for the one thing that sorcerer was best at -being a magical specialist-, yes you get more spell options at each level, but you can only cast so many spells at the same time, and in half the cases the extra spells are for out of combat utility, the classic example of giving up combat prowess for utility. And that is what it is, an utility subclass, the extra weapons armor and extra attack are so you have covered the basics of combat so you contribute and then you are free to go all utility. Or you can go gish. Anyway they said the phb is set in stone, and if they can't change the other two subclasses, should the class remain weak? players who found the other two subclasses perfectly fun will still find them fun, and players like me who hated them are now happy. I don't get what the fuss is about.

 

[TwoSix]

Stupid smiles at the end of posts are lame. They make you come off as smug and condescending.

No they don't.

 

[spinozajack]

The sorc. is, I agree, fairly weak. But the FS is just better than the other ones. By a fair bit. It's probably not overpowered compared to other classes, but it overshadows the other options too much. If this is an attempt to fix that, it should fix them all, not just add a better option.

I agree, but I'm doubtful they will do that, make adjustments to classes for balance reasons. They have tipped their hand here, any class or subclass balance issues will be "fixed" in the same way that they did it in 4e, by issuing ever better options to take until much of the PHB is outclassed (sic) by their Unearthed Arcana or adventure splatbook iterations.

They should publish their first errata already. I'm getting tired of this foot-dragging. Some of us play the game every week and we want a better game, not have to fix all these issues ourselves as houserules.

Favored Soul should have light armor, in my opinion. Giving them medium armor + shield is the same as giving them a level of fighter or cleric. AC is very potent. I would take Favored Soul over Dragon Sorcerer every time, if only because it would allow me to tank without having to MC fighter or cleric to gain Cure Wounds. I don't like power creep, I want weak options boosted in the PHB.

I also agree the spellless ranger is better than the battlemaster, if only because it allows you to multiclass to get both BM and champion in one character.

But there's still a good reason to MC fighter 2 to get Action Surge. Nova potential is huge in play. Being able to selectively splat the big bad on demand to deny it another turn is more powerful than a naive DPR analysis, in the hands of a tactical player. I would simply multiclass 2 levels of fighter after ranger 5. Then maybe grab another level for champion so you basically now have a BM + champion rolled into one.

These things need extensive playtesting. But first they need to publish errata for the books we already paid for.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I've been playing a wild sorcerer for 7 levels.

The FS's features don't seem that appealing to me.

Extra spells are no big deal. Woop-i-dee-doo, I can suck at being a cleric. I also played a valor bard (a very similar character, role-wise) for a few levels. Also not finding the FS that attractive in comparison to that.

Valor Bard would LOVE to get his healing spells for free like Favored Soul does, and to get Bless before tenth level.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Valor Bard would LOVE to get his healing spells for free like Favored Soul does, and to get Bless before tenth level.

And FS would love d8 hp's and to not have to give up healing to cast faerie fire.

There's trade-offs, but no clearly superior choice. Which is as it should be.

 

[Ashrym]

I don't agree that other sorcerer subclasses are weak. I can see reasons to play them and the class has a significant inherent strength in metamagic. I was surprised by the number of spells known because that's pretty potent, imo, with clerics and druids as a source of utility but I am finding the added versatility with fs sorcs isn't overwhelming. They still have significant limitations on selection and lack spellswapping support while playing catch up to other casters and missing good abilities possessed by the other subclasses.

The biggest draw I see is not being an accident waiting to happen like a wild mage or physically pigeon-holed like a draconic sorcerer. It's nice to have a sorcerer option that's relatively average in functionality and appearance more than there is any real definitive advantage.

My 2 cp

 

[gyor]

Really looking at the subclass Bard would have been a better fit, seriously Sorcerors get nothing that supports them being in melee or using weapon ranged attacks, they have no access to healing spells, so you have a divine class that can't heal anyone till level 18 and even then only yourself unless you choose life domain.

Simple weapons do next to nothing for the sorceror, they get no fighting style, sorcerors get no melee buffing spells (unless you choose War Domain), your armour interferes with your wings, and you can get armour with a feat, Dwarves, or multiclassing anyways, shield can interfere with your spellcasting.

You have wizard level low hps, no class fighting ability boosts.

The only thing that the Favoured Soul gets that is good is wings, which Draconics. Send your Favoured Soul to the frontlines if you wish death.

Draconic is straight up better then Favoured Soul. A Draconic Sorceror Dwarf can have access to better weapons then a Favoured Soul, Medium Armour like the Favoured Soul, Wings like a Favoured Soul.

I get why Favoured Soul was made for the Sorceror instead of the Bard, the Magical Origin feature fit the fluff, and they wanted to buff the Sorceror, but Mechanically Bard fits so much better. It has buff and Support Spells, Bard Songs can be religious in nature, you can borrow spells like smites and cleric spells, they have more innate support for melee fighting, better weapons, hps, buff spells, ect...

The Sorceror Favoured Soul feels more like an Invoker from 4e, I mean the Favoured Soul even uses Arcane Implements instead of holy symbols just like the invoker did! Both fit more in control and blasting then traditional Favoured Soul.

This is an more Charismatic Invoker with wings.