Checking : Favored soul's spell DC is based off wis?

[frankthedm]

It seems pretty clear to me that in the case of favored souls, the idea was to create a character who's either good at offense, or good at defense, but not good at both. If you choose Cha as your higher stat, you get bonus spells, but your attack DCs are low, so you use your spells more for buffing and healing. If you choose Wis, your DCs are higher and you can nuke, but you get fewer spells per day.

Wow, that hits the nail on the head. That should have been in the class write up.

 

[Drowbane]

It seems pretty clear to me that in the case of favored souls, the idea was to create a character who's either good at offense, or good at defense, but not good at both. If you choose Cha as your higher stat, you get bonus spells, but your attack DCs are low, so you use your spells more for buffing and healing. If you choose Wis, your DCs are higher and you can nuke, but you get fewer spells per day.

For the most part, I see the favored soul, with his weapon focus and specialization, as an attempt to create a single-classed self-buffing warrior who can function as backup healer if need be.

Much like the Druid... just weaker.

 

[Seeten]

Much like the Druid... just weaker.

Much, much weaker.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Oh, I don't agree. I've seen characters use it to great effect on a continual basis over the course of multiple campaigns. It's highly valued around here.

I can find two problems with turn undead.

1) "Turn everything!" It's a powerful "save" or suffer effect. It does have Hit Die caps, though. At low levels, you can turn all the ghasts and watch your DM tear his or her hair out.

2) The Hit Die cap, which is the real problem. You can't turn anything higher than your "turn undead level" +4 Hit Dice. You can boost your turn undead level using items and stuff, but unless you've found some uncapped method of boosting your turn undead level, there will be things you literally have no hope of turning. (And if you do find some uncapped method, see point #1.)

IMO it should be based on "turn undead level" vs saving throws, not Hit Dice. My group uses 1d6 damage per turn undead level, save for half (DC 10 + 1/2 turn undead level + Cha modifier). This prevents "insta-wins" from rolling high, and it enables you to use your anti-undead ability against powerful undead. This method came in very handy when we took on a "boss" undead with very high saves, very high DR, and oh yeah a death gaze too. It also came in handy (from the DM's point of view) when he realized we could turn all the ghasts (or whatever they were) in an important encounter, leaving them to be picked off at our leisure or just run away (and therefore ruin the time-sensitive encounter).

The HD cap causes weird situations where you can't turn a Colossal zombie (CR 10 or 11) no matter what you roll but you can turn a lich (CR 13) about half the time... if you're a 13th-level cleric.

Much, much weaker.

That's most classes compared to the druid though

 

[Dr_Rictus]

But look at the poor favored soul: he's expected to fight, so he needs decent Str and Con.

He's expected to fight? By whom? Just looking at the class features I'd expect a favored soul to be not quite as bad a fighter as someone who didn't get a couple of modest bonus weapon feats, and with access to the cleric spell list that's one direction he could go if he chose his known spells that way. But that hardly puts him in the ranks of the obligatory meat shields.

This, like much of the "MAD" talk, strikes me as viewing every possible advantage as an obligation, and not actually speaking directly to the issue of whether the class is viable with typical ability scores.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Please. A class with built-in Weapon Focus / Specialization is certainly expected to fight.

Just like wizards are expected to either Metamagic or Item Create, given their bonus feats.

 

[ForceUser]

I can find two problems with turn undead.

Your argument was "useless." That's all I'm refuting. YMM (and apparently does) V.

 

[ForceUser]

Much like the Druid... just weaker.

Oh, FYI, IMC...

Say so long to wildshape, and hello to shapeshift. Thank you, dice gods, for the PHBII.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Nonetheless, it's very hard to balance a class using MAD.

Yes. MAD can be a huge penalty or a significant advantage depending on the generosity of your stat generation method. What is balanced in one campaign may be awful in another.

Even the anemic 3.0 Monk is very strong in a way a Fighter is not if you roll enough 18s. Personally I would be inclined to play neither a 3.5 Paladin nor a 3.5 Monk with less than 36 point buy.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

He's expected to fight? By whom? Just looking at the class features I'd expect a favored soul to be not quite as bad a fighter as someone who didn't get a couple of modest bonus weapon feats, and with access to the cleric spell list that's one direction he could go if he chose his known spells that way. But that hardly puts him in the ranks of the obligatory meat shields.

It looks to me like a class more designed to fight in melee than a Cleric or Druid.

FWIW, if it were up to me all spell DCs would be based off of Charisma.

Turn Undead is a lame ability in terms of its mechanics. It is a very fussy ability with weird mechanics, scales up strangely, and has oddball multiclassing issues.

Seems like something that really ought to be either a Feat chain, a Domain ability, or both. IMHO the designers giving it to all Clerics by default seems like almost an admission of its lameitude.