theasl
2017-05-02, 07:27 PM
Favored Soul, Oracle archetype (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-bnN5HKdw6G1L4SyM81eLcJE-0pioJBoL_4kmbj7v98/edit?usp=sharing).
Features unchanged:
Starting wealth; HD; ¾ BAB; Bad Reflex Save, Good Will Save
Skill Ranks
Spellcasting, Orisons
Armor Proficiency
Features altered:
Alignment (must be within 1 step of deity’s)
Good Fort Save (from bad progression)
Class Skills (added Appraise, Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (nobility), Linguistics to match cleric list)
Weapon Proficiency (added deity’s favored weapon)
Features added:
Aura
Domain (replaced Mystery and Revelations)
Energy Resistance (can replace Oracle’s Curse)
Damage Reduction (replaced Final Revelation)
Bonus Languages
Favored Soul (Oracle Archetype)
Some oracles have their powers granted by a single deity. Known as favored souls, they draw their power directly from their deity, focusing on a single aspect of the deity’s portfolio.
A favored soul must worship a single deity. Unlike oracles or clerics, she may not worship an ideal or a pantheon. Also, she may worship a dead god (e.g. Aroden), who no longer grants powers to clerics, without penalty; however, she may not worship false gods (e.g. Ramzir). A favored soul also does not lose her spells and powers even if she grossly violate her god’s code of conduct.
Alignment: A favored soul’s alignment must be within one step of her deity’s, along either the law/chaos axis or the good/evil axis.
Saves: Favored souls use the save progression of clerics instead of oracles.
Class Skills: The favored soul’s class skills are identical to the cleric’s: Appraise (Int), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (history) (Int), Knowledge (nobility) (Int), Knowledge (planes) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Linguistics (Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).
Weapon Proficiency: In addition to the oracle’s normal proficiencies, a favored soul is also proficient with her deity's favored weapon.
This alters the oracle’s weapon proficiency.
Aura (Ex): A favored soul of a chaotic, evil, good, or lawful deity has a particularly powerful aura corresponding to the deity’s alignment (see detect evil for details).
Domain: A favored soul chooses one domain (or subdomain) from among those belonging to her deity. A favored soul can select an alignment domain (Chaos, Evil, Good, or Law) only if her alignment matches that domain. Once made, this choice cannot be changed.
Each domain grants a number of domain powers, dependent upon the level of the favored soul, as well as a number of bonus spells. Unless otherwise noted, activating a domain power is a standard action. Additionally, any domain power that normally uses a calculation based on Wisdom is instead based on Charisma for a favored soul.
At 2nd level, and every two levels thereafter, a favored soul learns an additional spell derived from her domain (1st level domain spell at 2nd level, 2nd level domain spell at 4th level, etc.). These spells are in addition to the number of spells known. They cannot be exchanged for different spells at higher levels.
This ability replaces the oracle’s mystery and revelations.
Energy Resistance (Ex): At 5th level, a favored soul chooses an energy type (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic) and gains resistance 10 against that type. At 10th level and 15th level, the character gains resistance 10 against another energy type of her choosing.
This ability replaces the oracle’s curse. However, a favored soul may still choose a curse instead of gaining energy resistance.
Damage Reduction (Su): A 20th-level favored soul gains damage reduction. If the character is lawful-aligned, the damage reduction is 10/silver. If the character is chaotic-aligned, the damage reduction is 10/cold iron. A favored soul who is neither lawful nor chaotic may choose either type of damage reduction.
This ability replaces the oracle’s final revelation.
Bonus Languages: A favored soul’s bonus language options include Celestial, Abyssal, and Infernal (the languages of good, chaotic evil, and lawful evil outsiders, respectively). These choices are in addition to the bonus languages available to the character because of her race.
[Later additions in red]
This isn't just a wholesale conversion of the 3.5 Favored Soul (FS) to Pathfinder, which is all that I seemed to be able to find when I searched for one. It keeps some of the flavor of the oracle, being unwillingly granted power by a divine source, just from a single source instead of all "patron deities who support their ideals" (from what I've seen, the 3.5 flavor wasn't really decided on the unwilling part, nor on whether they can "fall"). It also contains features drawn from standard clerics, mainly domain but also other minor things (aura, bonus languages, which I'm pretty sure were also in the old FS), and saves as a compromise between FS's good saves and oracle's bad saves. Finally, it doesn't include all the features of the old FS - no wings, because they don't really make sense anyways, and no weapon focus/specialization to avoid pigeonholing weapon choice and/or deity choice for powergaming. It also reduces some of the FS's MAD, since oracle doesn't rely on WIS for casting, though some spells and 1st level domain powers still use it to some degree.
Some things I'm still undecided on:
I originally had the energy resistance replacing revelations (3rd level and every 4 after that, so all 5 energy types at lv 19), and left the oracle's curse untouched. The current version has the domain replacing both mystery and revelations (which is IMO a bit too much) and an optional curse, replaced by generic energy resistance if they don't want one. I'm still not sure which one I prefer.
Given the flavor I'm going for (unwilling divine vessel), I'm not sure about the alignment restriction. Maybe a 2-step restriction instead of 1-step, or just recommending instead of requiring?
Any comments, questions, concerns, horrific beat-downs, fanatical worship, etc.? Thanks in advance!
Features unchanged:
Starting wealth; HD; ¾ BAB; Bad Reflex Save, Good Will Save
Skill Ranks
Spellcasting, Orisons
Armor Proficiency
Features altered:
Alignment (must be within 1 step of deity’s)
Good Fort Save (from bad progression)
Class Skills (added Appraise, Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (nobility), Linguistics to match cleric list)
Weapon Proficiency (added deity’s favored weapon)
Features added:
Aura
Domain (replaced Mystery and Revelations)
Energy Resistance (can replace Oracle’s Curse)
Damage Reduction (replaced Final Revelation)
Bonus Languages
Favored Soul (Oracle Archetype)
Some oracles have their powers granted by a single deity. Known as favored souls, they draw their power directly from their deity, focusing on a single aspect of the deity’s portfolio.
A favored soul must worship a single deity. Unlike oracles or clerics, she may not worship an ideal or a pantheon. Also, she may worship a dead god (e.g. Aroden), who no longer grants powers to clerics, without penalty; however, she may not worship false gods (e.g. Ramzir). A favored soul also does not lose her spells and powers even if she grossly violate her god’s code of conduct.
Alignment: A favored soul’s alignment must be within one step of her deity’s, along either the law/chaos axis or the good/evil axis.
Saves: Favored souls use the save progression of clerics instead of oracles.
Class Skills: The favored soul’s class skills are identical to the cleric’s: Appraise (Int), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (history) (Int), Knowledge (nobility) (Int), Knowledge (planes) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Linguistics (Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).
Weapon Proficiency: In addition to the oracle’s normal proficiencies, a favored soul is also proficient with her deity's favored weapon.
This alters the oracle’s weapon proficiency.
Aura (Ex): A favored soul of a chaotic, evil, good, or lawful deity has a particularly powerful aura corresponding to the deity’s alignment (see detect evil for details).
Domain: A favored soul chooses one domain (or subdomain) from among those belonging to her deity. A favored soul can select an alignment domain (Chaos, Evil, Good, or Law) only if her alignment matches that domain. Once made, this choice cannot be changed.
Each domain grants a number of domain powers, dependent upon the level of the favored soul, as well as a number of bonus spells. Unless otherwise noted, activating a domain power is a standard action. Additionally, any domain power that normally uses a calculation based on Wisdom is instead based on Charisma for a favored soul.
At 2nd level, and every two levels thereafter, a favored soul learns an additional spell derived from her domain (1st level domain spell at 2nd level, 2nd level domain spell at 4th level, etc.). These spells are in addition to the number of spells known. They cannot be exchanged for different spells at higher levels.
This ability replaces the oracle’s mystery and revelations.
Energy Resistance (Ex): At 5th level, a favored soul chooses an energy type (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic) and gains resistance 10 against that type. At 10th level and 15th level, the character gains resistance 10 against another energy type of her choosing.
This ability replaces the oracle’s curse. However, a favored soul may still choose a curse instead of gaining energy resistance.
Damage Reduction (Su): A 20th-level favored soul gains damage reduction. If the character is lawful-aligned, the damage reduction is 10/silver. If the character is chaotic-aligned, the damage reduction is 10/cold iron. A favored soul who is neither lawful nor chaotic may choose either type of damage reduction.
This ability replaces the oracle’s final revelation.
Bonus Languages: A favored soul’s bonus language options include Celestial, Abyssal, and Infernal (the languages of good, chaotic evil, and lawful evil outsiders, respectively). These choices are in addition to the bonus languages available to the character because of her race.
[Later additions in red]
This isn't just a wholesale conversion of the 3.5 Favored Soul (FS) to Pathfinder, which is all that I seemed to be able to find when I searched for one. It keeps some of the flavor of the oracle, being unwillingly granted power by a divine source, just from a single source instead of all "patron deities who support their ideals" (from what I've seen, the 3.5 flavor wasn't really decided on the unwilling part, nor on whether they can "fall"). It also contains features drawn from standard clerics, mainly domain but also other minor things (aura, bonus languages, which I'm pretty sure were also in the old FS), and saves as a compromise between FS's good saves and oracle's bad saves. Finally, it doesn't include all the features of the old FS - no wings, because they don't really make sense anyways, and no weapon focus/specialization to avoid pigeonholing weapon choice and/or deity choice for powergaming. It also reduces some of the FS's MAD, since oracle doesn't rely on WIS for casting, though some spells and 1st level domain powers still use it to some degree.
Some things I'm still undecided on:
I originally had the energy resistance replacing revelations (3rd level and every 4 after that, so all 5 energy types at lv 19), and left the oracle's curse untouched. The current version has the domain replacing both mystery and revelations (which is IMO a bit too much) and an optional curse, replaced by generic energy resistance if they don't want one. I'm still not sure which one I prefer.
Given the flavor I'm going for (unwilling divine vessel), I'm not sure about the alignment restriction. Maybe a 2-step restriction instead of 1-step, or just recommending instead of requiring?
Any comments, questions, concerns, horrific beat-downs, fanatical worship, etc.? Thanks in advance!