D&D 5E Favored Soul: Overpowered?

[Delandel]

So, having created some Favored Souls, trying out different combinations...

... I changed my mind.

Yes, getting access to Cleric domains is strong. Life Domain is my favorite so far. Bless, Spiritual Weapon, plus utility is great. Having all those extra spells, especially strong ones outside of the sorcerer's known list, is really good. Medium armor + shield is very good, better than the Dragon's defensive boost in my opinion. Extra Attack is.. alright, I guess, but I couldn't figure out how to "break" it. Elf with a longbow maybe? Casting Haste? Nor could I find any domain spell truly broken by Twinning, though there's some cool combinations. I dunno. Nothing to worry about.

Anyway, it's a strong class definitely, but Dragon is the better blaster in terms of raw damage. Spiritual Weapon is tremendous for upping your damage, but at the end of the day adding your CHA to a fat Fireball is going to win out. And Wild is just bad so I'll leave that one out.

So I don't think Favored Soul is overpowered anymore. I think it's really good, and I prefer it over Dragon and Wild, but it's not overpowered.

I do agree that it would be nice if Dragon and Wild also got some bonus spells. Seriously, learning one spell per level is really low. It's a good design philosophy to know less spells than other casters but cast those spells better (metamagic), but the number they arrived at was too low.

I doubt they'll touch the Dragon and Wild though. Or the Elemental Monk. Which is a shame, because they're clearly improving as they gain more experience with their own system.

 

[famousringo]

It would sit pretty well. Just give then some lame ability comparable to the dragon sorc's social advantage with dragons, but with gods from their pantheon, and you're good.

The main balance concern with Favored Soul is intra-class, not inter-class. At least, it is for me. I don't want it to be a dominant option relative to PHB options.

I don't agree that's balanced, actually. I think Dragon Ancestor is what the devs call a "ribbon" ability, and Draconic Resilience is meant to carry the weight of two class power features. I think FS's armor proficiency balances that ability nicely, buuuuuut...

I consider FS's second attack at 6 to be little better than a ribbon ability. Compared against just the damage boost from elemental affinity, it lets FS's martial attacks keep pace with dragon from level 6-10 in sustained DPR while the soul falls behind in full spell damage, and from level 11 onward, also sustained DPR.

This doesn't bother me if the Soul is collecting bonus domain spells known for the first 9 levels, but if Dragon gets its own domain and FS gets fluff, the Soul becomes the chump class. The versatility gain becomes minimal and isn't worth the power tradeoff of losing Elemental Affinity.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I don't agree that's balanced, actually. I think Dragon Ancestor is what the devs call a "ribbon" ability, and Draconic Resilience is meant to carry the weight of two class power features. I think FS's armor proficiency balances that ability nicely, buuuuuut...

I consider FS's second attack at 6 to be little better than a ribbon ability. Compared against just the damage boost from elemental affinity, it lets FS's martial attacks keep pace with dragon from level 6-10 in sustained DPR while the soul falls behind in full spell damage, and from level 11 onward, also sustained DPR.

This doesn't bother me if the Soul is collecting bonus domain spells known for the first 9 levels, but if Dragon gets its own domain and FS gets fluff, the Soul becomes the chump class. The versatility gain becomes minimal and isn't worth the power tradeoff of losing Elemental Affinity.

I don't mind non-PHB sources being slightly "chump" compared to PHB classes (it mitigates power creep), but it doesn't look like a chump class to me anyway. To some degree it depends on how good the domain spells are for dragon sorc, but as far as I'm concerned Favored Soul(esp. w/ warlock) would still be more attractive. Medium Armor Proficiency is really good: AC 17 is far better than AC 13. The +1 HP/level for dragon sorcerers is nice but it's not important, if you know what I mean. You can get just as much from the Inspirational Leader feat, or twice as much from Toughness, so it's basically half of a feat. Finally, getting access to Bless/Cure Wounds/Revivify/Death Ward means you're getting all the best parts of the Cleric class--in other words, you're getting all the spells my Lore Bard is tempted to steal--and you still have the sorcerer's ability to Twin Polymorph everyone into giant apes/other shenanigans. Being able to Fire Bolt for 2d10+5, or Fireball for 33 points of damage instead of 28, doesn't really compare.

And the fact that we disagree on this is actually a plus, because it means that neither archtype dominates the other.

I'm not quite ready to give dragons sorcs in my campaign domain spells, because I'd rather play the PHB the way it's written first--but if I were going to allow Favored Souls as written, I would definitely give domain spells to dragon sorcs and wild mages as well. I really like the idea of rolling wild mages' domain spells randomly, BTW.

 

[famousringo]

I don't mind non-PHB sources being slightly "chump" compared to PHB classes (it mitigates power creep), but it doesn't look like a chump class to me anyway. To some degree it depends on how good the domain spells are for dragon sorc, but as far as I'm concerned Favored Soul(esp. w/ warlock) would still be more attractive. Medium Armor Proficiency is really good: AC 17 is far better than AC 13. The +1 HP/level for dragon sorcerers is nice but it's not important, if you know what I mean. You can get just as much from the Inspirational Leader feat, or twice as much from Toughness, so it's basically half of a feat. Finally, getting access to Bless/Cure Wounds/Revivify/Death Ward means you're getting all the best parts of the Cleric class--in other words, you're getting all the spells my Lore Bard is tempted to steal--and you still have the sorcerer's ability to Twin Polymorph everyone into giant apes/other shenanigans. Being able to Fire Bolt for 2d10+5, or Fireball for 33 points of damage instead of 28, doesn't really compare.

And the fact that we disagree on this is actually a plus, because it means that neither archtype dominates the other.

I'm not quite ready to give dragons sorcs in my campaign domain spells, because I'd rather play the PHB the way it's written first--but if I were going to allow Favored Souls as written, I would definitely give domain spells to dragon sorcs and wild mages as well. I really like the idea of rolling wild mages' domain spells randomly, BTW.

I'll never understand how some folks can be so dismissive of hit points. Even with max CON, +1 HP/level is a straight up 10% boost to your survivability, growing to almost 30% at 10 CON, and it applies to a lot of things that armor will do nothing to protect you from. Armor might help you stretch your healing resources, but hit points are the ultimate survival stat.

As for elemental affinity, it's the equivalent of adding a full character tier to your Fire Bolts. For Fireballs and most other spells, it's better than adding a spell level to them. So basically, it adds five caster levels to any applicable cantrip, and two caster levels to any applicable spell. That's formidable. For certain spells, like Burning Ray, it's an insane 70% damage boost that scales with the spell slot.

I agree that there's a lot more to the game than burning things, and between the two, I'd take ten bonus spells known over elemental affinity, but it is truly a big deal, and not one I'd forsake lightly. Especially not when things like legendary resistance are telling me that, really, I ought to be burning things.

Perhaps the compromise would be to give Dragon and Wild sorcerer's a smaller number of bonus spells. And yeah, it would be pretty fun to be a wild sorcerer who ends up with Searing Smite, Aid, and Hunger of Hadar as bonus spells, or some such wackiness.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I'll never understand how some folks can be so dismissive of hit points. Even with max CON, +1 HP/level is a straight up 10% boost to your survivability, growing to almost 30% at 10 CON, and it applies to a lot of things that armor will do nothing to protect you from. Armor might help you stretch your healing resources, but hit points are the ultimate survival stat.

Don't get me wrong, I love pumping Con, and I realize that in 5E, more effects than ever interact with HP. (E.g. Disintegrate spell is now HP damage.) But it really isn't a 10% boost in survivability because a lot of the things that will kill you bypass HP. Intellect Devouring, Medusa petrification, pushing the wrong button in the mad scientist's lair... even the things that kill you via HP loss tend not to be sensitive to small gradations in HP. Getting jumped by hobgoblins when you're wandering ahead of the party is less sensitive to whether you have 44 vs 50 HP than to whether you have Shield memorized. (It also illustrates perfectly a case where Medium Armor is a lifesaver... dragon scales not so much, unless you pumped Dex instead of Con.) In addition, HP is easier to pump than AC is. Look at it this way: you're giving up AC 17+ in order to get what is essentially 1/3 of an Aid spell (extra 5 HP). Unless you habitually cast Aid at max level every day already, you're implicitly acknowledging that the marginal value of 5 HP is low.

In short, HP is great, but opportunity costs are real, and giving up +4 AC in exchange for half of the Toughness feat isn't something I personally view as a good trade. But this probably has a lot to do with playstyle. For various reasons including BA and old AD&D tropes, I expect to fight a metric ton of low-level foes with +4 to +6 attack bonuses, which means that +4 to AC is cutting my damage taken roughly in half against those foes, so call it a 25% increase in survivability overall if half of my foes are in that range. If I were expecting to fight exclusively ancient red dragons and beholders every day, both of which basically ignore your AC, HP won't help much (10% vs dragons, 5%? vs beholders) but AC will help even less (3%?) so I might as well take the HP, right? But I still wouldn't be excited about it because it's not a qualitative improvement, only quantitative. YMMV.

As for elemental affinity, it's the equivalent of adding a full character tier to your Fire Bolts. For Fireballs and most other spells, it's better than adding a spell level to them. So basically, it adds five caster levels to any applicable cantrip, and two caster levels to any applicable spell. That's formidable. For certain spells, like Burning Ray, it's an insane 70% damage boost that scales with the spell slot.

But adding a spell level to Fireball is terrible. Most of the things you're really interested in fireballing die to 28 just as easily as 33 points of damage, or they don't die at all to either and you're better off Twinning Polymorph on your allies into a couple of rock-chucking giant apes with hundreds of free HP. Scorching Ray is mediocre without +CHA; with +CHA it's good, but 1.) only red dragon sorcs get that boost; 2.) you're still spending a 2nd level spell slot to do maybe 20 points of damage. Don't I have something better to do with my spell slots and action economy, like Web/Polymorph/Animate Objects?

I agree that there's a lot more to the game than burning things, and between the two, I'd take ten bonus spells known over elemental affinity, but it is truly a big deal, and not one I'd forsake lightly. Especially not when things like legendary resistance are telling me that, really, I ought to be burning things.

Legendary resistance tells me that I ought to be Sharpshooting things from a distance, or Eldritch Blasting things. Burning things with fire is pretty weak in comparison, even with a dragon sorc, unless you do things like burn 7th level spell slots on Scorching Ray. If you want DPR, be a Sharpshooter fighter instead and let the Favored Soul cast Bless on you.

 

[Corey Miller]

I think Favored Soul is fine until you start abusing multiclass options.

Throw in 2 levels of paladin for divine smites and you have a melee MACHINE. Cast a quickened 3rd level hold person, then move in for two autocrits with +5D8 divine damage. Use sorcery points to quicken spells before melee or to create more slots for more smites.

You can heal better than a cleric with Twinned Spell, you can nuke, and you can deal insane melee damage. Take Shield Mastery for utility and defense and Warcaster to punish anyone trying to get by you or away from you and you have a nigh unstoppable tank/nuker/healer.

I love it, and I'm going to continue to allow it, but it's certainly not fully balanced. That extra attack is all the game needed to bust the Sorc/Pally combo.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Anyway, it's a strong class definitely, but Dragon is the better blaster in terms of raw damage. Spiritual Weapon is tremendous for upping your damage, but at the end of the day adding your CHA to a fat Fireball is going to win out. And Wild is just bad so I'll leave that one out.

Wild is pretty strong. Do not underestimate advantage on, effectively, every single non-cantrip spell attack made, and often cantrips. They simply do not miss. The wild sorcerer in my party has missed once with non-cantrips over 8 sessions so far. That's with twinning generously. Also, she has almost killed the party with surges twice, but has absolutely destroyed enemies with wild surges as well.

I can see how people may not like the flavor or the randomness, but they are powerhouses.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Wild is pretty strong. Do not underestimate advantage on, effectively, every single non-cantrip spell attack made, and often cantrips. They simply do not miss. The wild sorcerer in my party has missed once with non-cantrips over 8 sessions so far. That's with twinning generously. Also, she has almost killed the party with surges twice, but has absolutely destroyed enemies with wild surges as well.

I can see how people may not like the flavor or the randomness, but they are powerhouses.

I'm sympathetic to concerns that wild might be underpowered (I'm not convinced it's equal to the dragon myself), but my gnome is actually in a game right beside a dragon sorcerer, so I think we are getting a good sense of the differences.

One thing I wouldn't appreciate with a straight reading of the class is that a wild mage is actually really party friendly - Bend Luck has saved more than one party member from being on the receiving end of something nasty more than once.

I am not the damage powerhouse in my party, but I am pretty dang good at action denial - heighten spell + hypnotic pattern or polymorph + maybe some Bend Luck on top of it = nice. And for a squishy gnome, Tides of Chaos has given me some remarkable survivability. Interestingly, I suppose you could use it on initiative rolls, so there's that.

I guess it'd be nice to be able to use tides or bend luck retroactively - after the result is already declared (my DM and I seem to have settled on "I ask him if a d4 could make a difference, and he lets me know" as a way to handle the rolls), but I don't know that it's THAT big of a deal - I've been using a mental heuristic of "if the roll is 11-15, and it's important that someone hits/misses/whatever, I'll spend it," and that hasn't gone too wrong.

It's worth noting that Tides would probably help me more if the DM let me surge after every use and I had more attack-roll-based spells (chromatic orb is my bro), but it's a nice feature for me anyway. The DM does a kind of old-school "roll to see if you surge" mechanic, which I can appreciate. And my surges have been largely meaningless for the party - I think once I imposed disadvantage on our party fighter, but when he rolled it, he either missed with his first attack anyway, or missed with both, so it didn't wind up actually even skewing a single die roll.

I don't know that wild is a power house, but as someone playing it, I don't feel especially weak, and I think the beholder I polymorphed into a little bumblebee monday (thanks, heighten spell + bend luck!) as a level 7 character would be inclined to agree.

 

[ThirdWizard]

It's worth noting that Tides would probably help me more if the DM let me surge after every use and I had more attack-roll-based spells (chromatic orb is my bro), but it's a nice feature for me anyway. The DM does a kind of old-school "roll to see if you surge" mechanic, which I can appreciate. And my surges have been largely meaningless for the party - I think once I imposed disadvantage on our party fighter, but when he rolled it, he either missed with his first attack anyway, or missed with both, so it didn't wind up actually even skewing a single die roll.

I DM the game, and if Tides of Chaos is used, its implied that I call for a wild surge to refresh it immediately, in that same spell casting. That means that casting Chromatic Orb with Tides = wild surge and Tides is back for the next spell. That does mean 1-3 wild surges per combat, but I love it and the sorceress loves it. The party has been caught by a fireball twice, the first time at 3rd level, and survived by the skin of their teeth both times. On the flip side just last session, the sorceress downed a very powerful opponent quickly through an Empowered Chromatic orb (with Tides of course) raised up to level 2 + a lucky 09 on the table for a 5th level magic missile.

 

[Bacon Bits]

After thinking about it a lot, I've decided that Sorcerer is just the wrong base class to use for Favored Soul. I'd rather have seen it be a Warlock subclass, in spite of the fact that the Warlock retains so much of the "non-good" flavor from 3.x. Warlock paths already do basically exactly the same thing as the Favored Soul subclass by adding a selection of spells.

Beyond flavor reasons, however, I see no reason that a Warlock's patron can't be a good deity or other powerful good immortal. You can re-brand spells like hex/necrotic to divine censure/radiant and invocations like devil's sight to angel's sight. Why couldn't a Warlock be bound to an Archon of Justice as a patron? Or some other nearly-divine saint? Hey, maybe Warlock is a good way to allow characters to be bound to ideals instead of deities. An explicitly non-clerical approach with very different casting as a result.

However, if I had to use Sorcerer, I'd swap the Sorcerer's spell list with the Cleric's if the character were a Favored Soul. Ain't no way you're getting lightning bolt, ice storm, stinking cloud, cloudkill, and fear from being the chosen one of a good deity of healing.