Why are Favoured Souls so Popular?

[Nifft]

But what is "many", like three arcane crossover spells that any favored soul might ever pick from? And are any of those crossover spells ones which make a sorcerer great?

Shapechange, Disintegrate, Mind Blank, Prismatic Sphere, Stoneskin, Wail of the Banshee, Incendiary Cloud, Spell Turning, Disjunction, Bigby's top 3 Hand spells, Fly, Dimension Door, Teleport, Invisibility, Poly Any Object, Time Stop, top 3 Power Words, Acid Fog, Horrid Wilting.

Those are (IMHO) the problem spells.

-- N

 

[Particle_Man]

I haven't seen any yet. But I appreciate the "they are simpler" argument.

I am waiting for the divine healer version of the Warlock. Dragon Shaman comes close.

 

[Jdvn1]

Pah. Any Favored Soul worth their salt would have high Charisma, if only for the turning bonus... oh, wait... Ah well, all my characters usually have high Cha anyway.

A Favored Soul should have a high Charisma, to be able to cast her spells, but would usually sacrifice Wis (or, at least, not as high), and suffer poor spell DCs.

3e Psions worked on a similar mechanic, and no one liked it, and MAD got a bad rep.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

A Favored Soul should have a high Charisma, to be able to cast her spells, but would usually sacrifice Wis (or, at least, not as high), and suffer poor spell DCs.

This is often true, especially for PB made characters. You simply don't have enough to go around and you can't dump your STR because being a FS means that you do melee (or ranged, I suppose) pretty well. As a case in point, the character Charis in my Story Hour Bitterness Overcome currently is a:

[Sblock=Spoiler in case people read the Story Hour and don't want to know]Favored Soul 2 with the following ability scores:

STR: 14
DEX: 12
CON: 14
INT: 12
WIS: 10
CHA: 18

As you can see, her WIS is actually the lowest stat on the list.

Additionally, she is going to be a healer build and already has the Augment Healing feat from Complete Divine, I think. Spell DCs are of little concern for her. She's primarily developing into a healer first, self-buffer second.[/Sblock]

 

[Jdvn1]

This is often true, especially for PB made characters.

My two current PB FSs have Wis as their lowest stat (or tied for lowest). One is a ranged character (Ehlonna's favored weapon is the longbow, and the character's Dex is 1 point higher than her Cha, actually), and the other is a melee character.

I have yet to see a good Favored Soul caster build. I imagine it could be done somehow.

 

[Thanee]

Sorcerers are great?

Absolutely!

Bye
Thanee

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Shapechange, Disintegrate, Mind Blank, Prismatic Sphere, Stoneskin, Wail of the Banshee, Incendiary Cloud, Spell Turning, Disjunction, Bigby's top 3 Hand spells, Fly, Dimension Door, Teleport, Invisibility, Poly Any Object, Time Stop, top 3 Power Words, Acid Fog, Horrid Wilting.

Those are (IMHO) the problem spells.

But which problem? A problem whenever they are used by anyone, a problem if clerics also cast them, a problem if a favored soul could pick them, a problem if a favored soul did pick them? I don't think any FS could get all of those spells in the list above, but what possible arrangement of domains could allow a FS to get the most of those spells listed?

However, I was wondering about which spells make a sorcerer great (not are a problem necessarily), and then which of those spells would potentially be available to a favored soul were FSs able to choose spells from their deity's domains? Just by intuition, don't think there are that many such spells.

 

[kanithardm]

I've yet to see a single favored soul, ever. The players don't even consider them. I've never DM'ed one. I can't recall seeing one in any Dungeon magazine adventure, nor in WotC modules like Red Hand of Doom. I can't recall any major NPC from any campaign setting who is a favored soul, although admittedly I'm not an Eberron expert.

Actually Red Hand of Doom does have a favoured soul, hravek kharn, the second-in-command hes lvl 6??? favoured soul lvl 2 talon of tiamat

 

[Nonlethal Force]

I have yet to see a good Favored Soul caster build. I imagine it could be done somehow.

By "caster" I assume you mean a FS who relies on offensive spell usage?

I have a couple of ideas. I do 32 PB regularily so that'll be my base. Also, using a race with no ability adjustments just to make things nice.

1) STR: 8 DEX: 12 CON: 14 INT: 10 WIS: 16 CHA: 16

Favored of Mougol (Complete Divine) - chosen because the favored weapon is the light crossbow making this FS a ranged attack character in both spell and weapon. Plus, this way the STR of an 8 won't hurt nearly as much!

As far as spell selection goes, having a WIS modifier at +3 means that the spell DCs should be pretty good. If desired, the FS could easily choose one (or even two) healing spells per level so as to still be a decent healer. That leaves as many as 4 spells per level to be used for attack spells, buff spell, or divination-type spells.

Essentially, this build turns the FS into a lesser sorcerer who has the ability to heal.


Another way to go would be to use the same stats listed above and focus on healing/summoning spells in addition to the offensive stuff. The summoning spells would negate the inability to attack very well.

Just a couple of thoughts.

 

[ForceUser]

Speaking as a person who finds the cleric too powerful, I think the favored soul makes a better-balanced alternate. You better believe that in my next magic-based campaign that a favored soul variant with turn undead will replace the cleric.

More and more as I play 3E, I find that I dislike Vancian spell-prep magic. I am finding that both as a DM and a player, I much prefer favored souls, sorcerers and warlocks over wizards, druids and clerics.