Domain Favored Soul

[Person_Man]

This is a revision to the Favored Soul that MrNexx and I came up with a while back. I played it in a game this weekend and had a great time.

The concept is pretty simple. We wanted a domain-centric class that's fun to play and balanced in power. It also has a ton of flexibility, both in terms of what you can build it to do well, and what it can do when you're actually playing.

Favored Soul

d8 hit points
All armor and shields except tower shields
All simple weapons
4 Skill Points base
Skill List: Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Heal, Intimidate, Knowledge (history, religion), Profession, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, Use Magic Device.

{table=head]Level|

BAB

|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Abilities
1st|

+0

|

+2

|

+2

|

+2

| Spellcasting, Revelation (2 Domains)
2nd|

+1

|

+3

|

+3

|

+3

| Shield of Faith
3rd|

+2

|

+3

|

+3

|

+3

|
4th|

+3

|

+4

|

+4

|

+4

| Revelation (3 Domains)
5th|

+3

|

+4

|

+4

|

+4

| Power of Faith (1 Faith Point)
6th|

+4

|

+5

|

+5

|

+5

|
7th|

+5

|

+5

|

+5

|

+5

|
8th|

+6/+1

|

+6

|

+6

|

+6

| Revelation (4 Domains)
9th|

+6/+1

|

+6

|

+6

|

+6

|
10th|

+7/+2

|

+7

|

+7

|

+7

| Power of Faith (2 Faith Points)
11th|

+8/+3

|

+7

|

+7

|

+7

|
12th|

+9/+4

|

+8

|

+8

|

+8

| Revelation (5 Domains)
13th|

+9/+4

|

+8

|

+8

|

+8

|
14th|

+10/+5

|

+9

|

+9

|

+9

|
15th|

+11/+6/+1

|

+9

|

+9

|

+9

| Power of Faith (3 Faith Points)
16th|

+12/+7/+2

|

+10

|

+10

|

+10

| Revelation (6 Domains)
17th|

+12/+7/+2

|

+10

|

+10

|

+10

|
18th|

+13/+8/+3

|

+11

|

+11

|

+11

|
19th|

+14/+9/+4

|

+11

|

+11

|

+11

|
20th|

+15/+10/+5

|

+12

|

+12

|

+12

| Revelation (7 Domains), Power of Faith (4 Faith Points), Ascension
[/table]

Class Abilities:

Spoiler

Show

Spellcasting: Charisma based spontaneous spellcasting, using the Sorcerer's spells per day progression. Your spell list is drawn entirely from your domain lists, plus any additional spells that you might pick up from feats, PrC, etc. Unlike most other casters, you do not have any 0th level spells.

Revelation: At first level you are granted any two domains from your god's list of domains, including the granted powers. At 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th levels, you gain 1 additional domain, expanding your spell list and gaining another power. This additional domain must also be from your god's list of domains. If your god does not have 7 domains, pick a related domain that follows your god's general ethos, subject to the approval of your DM.

If a domain's spell list overlaps with the spell list of another domain that you are currently granted, you gain +2 Caster Level when you cast that spell. For example, if you had the Strength and War domains, you would gain +2 Caster Level when you cast Magic Vestment, though you would have one fewer spell known to draw upon. If a spell appears on more then two domain spell lists, the benefits to your Caster Level stack (though obviously your spells known for that level would be severely limited).

If a domain's granted power requires the Turn or Rebuke Undead ability and you do not currently have the ability to do so (for example, the Sun Domain), you are granted the Turn Undead ability as your domain power instead of the standard domain power.

If a domain's granted power gives you access to a Skill which is already on your Skill List at the time you gain the domain, you gain Skill Focus for that Skill as a bonus feat.

Shield of Faith: At 2nd level you gain Energy Resistance against all types of energy equal to your current Favored Soul level. This Energy Resistance improves when you gain additional Favored Soul levels. Energy Resistance from multiple sources never stack.

Power of Faith: At 5th level you gain the use of one Faith Point per day. At 10th, 15th, and 20th levels, you gain one additional Faith Point (to a maximum of 4 Faith Points at 20th level). Once you use a Faith Point, it is expended until you rest for 8 hours and restore your spells per day.

Faith Points can be used in four ways:

First, you can use a Faith Point to gain one additional use of any domain power you currently possess. For example, a Favored Soul with the Death Domain could use a Faith Point to make an additional death touch attack.

Second, you may use a Faith Point as an Immediate Action to reroll any Saving Throw after your DM has announced the result of the Save. For example, after rolling your Saving Throw for a Fireball and being informed by your DM that your result failed, you may use a Faith Point to re-roll that Save.

Third, you may use a Faith Point as an Immediate Action to fully negate the effects of any Save that you have just passed. For example, after rolling a Save for a Fireball your DM informs you that you pass the Saving Throw and take half damage, you may you may use a Faith Point to completely negate the effect of the Fireball.

Finally, you may use a Faith Point as an Immediate Action to negate a critical hit which you have just taken. You still take normal damage from the attack, as if it were not a critical hit.

Ascension: At 20th level you gain wings with a Fly speed equal to your base land movement. Your type changes to Outsider (native), except you can still be resurrected. You also gain DR 10/the alignment opposite your deity's. For example, if you worship a CG god, then you have DR 10/lawful or evil. If your deity is true neutral, then you gain DR 10/silver.

Discussion of the class:

Spoiler

Show

The pros and cons are pretty straitforward.

You have the Skills to be a party face, plus UMD to help you with spells if your domain spell lists sucks. If you take the right domains, you could potentially fill other Skill Monkey rolls as well, and you could do so quite effectively.

You have a boatload of spells per day, so you should be able to cast in every combat. But because of the slower Sorcerer progression and such a limited list, you really can't match up to a normal Wizard or Cleric build in terms of raw power.

MAD isn't an issue - you could have all 12-14 ability scores and still be a respectable meatshield and caster (just pick domains with buff spells instead of spells that require a Saving Throw), without having any class abilities nerfed. All you really need is 19 Cha by level 18 so that you can cast 9th level spells.

The Power of Faith gives you a heroic "chosen by the gods" feel - negating a PC's worst nightmares in combat (being killed by a single spell or crit because of one die roll), but because its an Immediate Action it can't be used more then once per round, and it has a limited number of times per day that it can be used.

You have flexibility of options within the class, flexibility of build (look at the list of domains on Crystalkeep, there's a lot of them), enough power to hold your own against anyone, but very limited ability to create gamebreaking combo's or CoDzilla nightmares.

You gain additional spells and Energy Resistance every level, so there's no dead level problems. You also have a reason to go all 20 levels as a Favored Soul. But if you want to go into other classes (as a Cleric to gain more domains, as a Paladin to gain uber Saves, as a PrC to gain special abilities) you can do so without rendering your Favored Soul abilities useless.

PEACH. Thanks in advance for any constructive input.

[The Neoclassic]

Very nifty. I am honestly not familiar with the Favored Soul class, but your version looks quite balanced. The slow gain of domains is quite different than how any base class's spellcasting works, but I like it.

[Person_Man]

Very nifty. I am honestly not familiar with the Favored Soul class, but your version looks quite balanced. The slow gain of domains is quite different than how any base class's spellcasting works, but I like it.

The Favored Soul is found in Complete Divine. It's essentially a nerfed Cleric. It has Sorcerer spell progression and spells known. It uses Cha to determine spell level and bonus spells, but the spell DC is based on Wisdom, giving the class serious MAD. It doesn't gain domains or Turn Undead. However it does eventually gain Weapon Focus, minor Energy Resistance, and Wings. People rarely play it, and if they do play it, the most common house rule is to make the spellcasting.

Several people I know have used it in a game and told me that they really liked the class. However, I've gotten some feedback that it was a bit too weak (can't compare with CoDzilla) or too strong (its a nightmare against arcane casters if you still have Power of Faith points to use).

So I thought it was a good idea to post it again, see if anyone had something new to add.

[GimliFett]

I like it and have previously considered similar setups with Domains as Spell Lists. So you dropped the weapon focus aspect and just gave access to all weapons and armor?

Something to possibly add to the Faith Points would be to create effects based on the domains. For example, with the Luck domain you might be able to spend a Faith point to allow an ally to reroll a save.

Clarification of UMD: The only spells they would not have to use UMD would be those within their chosen domains?

[Person_Man]

Clarification of UMD: The only spells they would not have to use UMD would be those within their chosen domains?

Correct. You can only automatically activate wands/etc if the spell is on your spell list. The Domain Favored Soul only has its domain spells on its spell list. Thus its use of magic items normally used by Clerics would be severly limited. Thus UMD is a great Skill to round out this class, just like the Warlock, Dragonfire Adept, or Factotum (other classes with limited caster-ish abilities).

[Yakk]

Wisdom based DCs -- MAD is good, not bad.

What about another blessing ability?
A number of times per day equal to your Wisdom bonus (but no more times than your favoured soul class level), you can perform a Blessing of Favour as an immediate action.

This blessing grants to all of your allies you choose within (10' * cha bonus):
Temporary HP equal to your class level.
and lasts one round per point of charisma bonus.

It is a kind of area effect lay-on-hands, and generates yet another non-spellcasting benefit for gaining levels in favored soul.

[Maho-Tsukai]

While this may be necroing, I have to know if you in fact gain new domains as well as spells-per day when taking a spellcasting advancing PrC? I ask because you do not clarify this and while spellcasting PrCs do advance "Spells known" I am not sure if domains would count for this. If it dose not gain new domains from PrCs which grant caster progression then there is SERIOUSLY no reason to ever PrC into a CL advancing PrC with this class, which in some people's eyes may be a good thing but it seems more like a major negative to me....but that's just my view on it and I understand you want to make people like taking more FS levels.