Spontaneous casting base classes in Complete Divine and balance with sorcerer

[Plane Sailing]

Really, at the point where we get into rattling off individual spells, I don't think you really can expect divine casting to win.

Well, you did specifically say "I don't worry that a cleric's going to cast a single spell that makes an encounter entirely one-sided." I merely mentioned the first three that came to mind which only a cleric can cast which make an encounter entirely one-sided. Holy Word and its relatives are another excellent example.

Cleric spells are often painted as weak but they have options for taking out single targets than wizards don't have (and which wizards cannot effectively protect themselves against either, come to that!)

Cheers

 

[Doug McCrae]

I suspect clerics only go crazy at high levels. I'm playing a wizard in a game that's currently 8th level and I'm the one casting all the big kill spells - fireball, empowered scorching ray (makes searing light look like a pile of dog mess), empowered ray of enfeeblement, etc. I'm also vastly more mobile with dimension door and spider climb. The party cleric basically does what you said Felon - buffs, heals (and also casts spiritual weapon). And even then no single buff spell is as good as haste.

OTOH with divine power the cleric may just have got to the stage where he outshines the fighter. That said our fights tend to be decided very quick. Four rounds is the longest so far. So that extra round doing nothing kind of sucks.

I can see how at the levels beyond the cleric may get good at killing - flame strike and slay living at 9th level, harm at 11th. But you have to get up close for harm to work and that's when you really wish you had a movement rate higher than 20 feet.

 

[Nightfall]

For me it's less about "Gee the spirit shaman and favored soul kick more butt" than it is "Do I REALLY need these guys?" Using 3.5 version of SOME OA classes, decent. (3.5 samurai is just...ridiculous!). Hexblades, Warlocks are good. But honestly if I want a shamanistic type base class, I go with GR Shaman, hands down. Favored Soul makes little sense to me IF you have a world where gods already grant spells OR you can use Mystic from DL in place of it.

In any event, if you want a powerful Sorcerer, Bloodline of Power, Blessed of Mesos will make you believe in the power of sorcery yet again. But that's just me.

 

[Felon]

Favored Soul makes little sense to me IF you have a world where gods already grant spells OR you can use Mystic from DL in place of it.

The DL mystic is probably what could be considered a "reasonable" spontaneous divine caster. But it doesn't have any capabilities that a cleric doesn't besides spontaneous casting, and it loses domain and undead turning abilities. Kinda sucks when you get right down to it.

I don't like the favored soul much because it seems to fit only a very narrow concept of what such a being would be. I can't see one of Vecna's favored soul's getting all obsessed about focusing and specializing in daggers. And wings at 17th level is just silly.

The spontaneous casting version of the cleric from UA is the real winner IMO.

 

[Trickstergod]

Favored Soul makes little sense to me IF you have a world where gods already grant spells OR you can use Mystic from DL in place of it.

In any event, if you want a powerful Sorcerer, Bloodline of Power, Blessed of Mesos will make you believe in the power of sorcery yet again. But that's just me.

Favored Souls make perfect sense in a world where gods grant spells; one of the classes features surrounds a deitys favored weapon. Unlike clerics, though, favored souls are touched by a god essentially since birth or so, with a natural attunement to their faith and deity.

Also, any class can have a broken prestige class brought up to make it seem spiffier; that doesn't do anything for the base class, though, particularly if a character concept doesn't fit the prestige one.

Anyway, in regards to the general topic at hand...

When comparing the favored soul to the cleric, I'm actually inclined to say it's not too much better than the cleric. While turn undead in and of itself isn't a major thing, in light of the various divine feats that work off of it, the cleric always seemed the more attractive class to me. At least when coupled with the dual ability score necessity.

In comparing it to the sorcerer, though...then the favored soul starts to shine more. However, as others have said, I think the problem is more with the sorcerer.

A good example of this, in my opinion, is the battle sorcerer from Unearthed Arcana. I compare the normal sorcerer to that and see the d8 hitpoints, the martial weapon proficiency, the increased base attack bonus and the light armored spellcasting and think that it more then makes up for the diminished spellcasting ability. Perhaps this is for lack of seeing the battle sorcerer in play, but, still. In comparison to the battle sorcerer, the normal sorcerer seems lacking.

And even if the arcane spellcaster is an eggshell with a hammer, perhaps it's a sign that the hammer should be toned down a bit and the shell made a little more resilient.

 

[Trickstergod]

And agreed on the favored soul focus; the wings and the weapon specializing seem, if anything, to be more character optimized based then concept based. A few different options would be more fitting, I think, to allow for other concepts.