Why are Favoured Souls so Popular?

[Felon]

But he did do "the reverse". He even listed on you missed.

Note the edit timestamp. At any rate, it all boils down to assigning an arbitrary "pro" or "con" value to this versus that. The favored soul gives up a lot, but gains a lot too.

I despise the Vancian "learn/pray" mechanic of core d20. I'd much rather have a small set of decent spells that I can use a lot instead of trying to decide what may or may not be useful that day. I can't fathom someone asking his friends to wait around for half an hour (or whatever) while he memorized a spell that he would use once and then have to wait the rest of the day to do it again.

Well, regardless of the mechanic, a spellcaster has to ask his friends to wait while he prepares for an hour. That aspect of the vancian system is hard to avoid.

For many, preparing spells is a tactical challenge in its own right--not unlike preparing a deck for a CCG. Personally, I build some lists of prepared spells for particular scenarios: in-town list, overland travel list, dungeon battle list, etc.

 

[Stalker0]

Favored Souls are popular? Does anyone have any facts to back this up, because I've never heard that until now. To me they are weak clerics. Yes they can spontaneous heal a lot, if you blow one of your valuable spell slots. But how about lesser restoration, cure blind/deafness, restoration? Favored souls have the advantage in spells used every day. But one of the powers of a cleric is they have a lot fo spells that are great once in a while, but since they can change their list everyday those are just fine.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

And if you want to simplify the game, which apparently WotC tried to do with 3E and undoubtedly will try to do further with 4E, then getting rid of spell preparation goes a long way towards achieving that end (especially for high level casters).

 

[Nifft]

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?

A mild problem that Clerics get them at all.

A major problem if a Cleric-type could cast one of them "all day long" (instead of 1/day). Particularly with the mobility spells.

-- N

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

If they could draw spells from a deity's domains, I'd be all over the favored soul. Otherwise it just seems boring.

I've houseruled this in, along with undead turning and pure Cha-based casting. Of course, I think favored souls are overpowered to begin with, so I houseruled out all their special abilities and good reflex save so favored souls are now exactly to the cleric as the sorcerer is to the wizard.

 

[SteveC]

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.

I'm with ForceUser here. I think that the cleric is too powerful of a class, but also that this was a deliberate design decision made to make people want to actually play them. If you play a cleric as a healer/party buffer your character is just fine. As soon as you decide to make yourself a self-buffing combat character you end up being too good at things, especially once you throw in divine feats and divine metamagic.

The favored soul is a good compromise for people who don't want to do that. You can make a good buffing/fighting character, and not be either over complicated or over powered.

I played/GMed a campaign that used just the core rules and the player of the cleric started to comment that it was pretty difficult to play the character effectively at higher levels because he had so many options. On the other hand, we also had a ranger/favored soul archer who was devistatingly effective because he had a niche and was able to do his job within it very well. It didn't hurt that he decided to take Freedom of Movement when we were playing through the Tomb of Abysthor, which is absolutely crawling with enemy clerics. I think that one spell, and his ability to cast it so many times, saved the party from TPK half a dozen times. The hold persons were flying...

--Steve

 

[Rashak Mani]

Threads like this are why I love EN World... I quickly skimmed the Favored Soul and never looked back... it seems quite boring as is... yet this thread does show it has potential. It certainly is a easy to take along healer NPC for DMs.

What spells are a must have with the Favored Soul ?

I guess Lesser Restoration and Restoration are must haves... nice to recover from an unexpected Undead attack.

 

[Cam Banks]

It's interesting to compare the Favoured Soul to the Mystic from DL. The Mystic doesn't have the bonus features of the FS, but does have domains.

I prefer the Favoured Soul. IMO, the way the Mystic deals with domains actually *restricts* the character more than it empowers it.

Making the mystic a better class choice is one thing we've been working on trying to accomplish for a while. Among the various options include removing the longer duration of metamagic on a mystic's spontaneous casting time, adding another domain later (although we have PrCs for that), and giving them more skill points and/or different class skills. Because the mystic is essentially a divine energy channeler, with the divine energy being the ambient magic of the living world channeled through the mystic's beliefs rather than the blessing of the gods, some customization would allow "mystic druids" and "mystic warriors" etc also.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Mercule]

Not being able to wear heavy armour is not a problem at mid to high levels when Mithral armour becomes available.

Dunno whether this qualifies as house rule or variant core interpretation, but I always figured that mithril full plate (as an example) still required Armor Prof (Heavy) to wear w/o penalty, but all the movement, feat req, class req (ranger twf), etc. penalties were as though it was medium.

 

[Mercule]

The wings are a deal-breaker for me. When I first saw it, I kinda liked it until I saw the wings. Whoever came up with that idea just isn't trying for the same genre I am. Haven't bothered trying to adapt it because I've assumed that it would be unbalanced w/o the wings and I'd be just as well off to create my own class.

It might work, though, to pluck the wings and give it domain spells.