Strength Favored Soul or Pure Caster?

Discussions related to character builds and mechanics may occur here.

Moderators: Forum Moderators, Active DMs

Post Reply
User avatar
snobby-princess
Posts: 43
Joined: Sat Oct 18, 2014 7:23 pm

Strength Favored Soul or Pure Caster?

Post by snobby-princess » Sat Sep 11, 2021 1:06 am

Was playing with idea for Favored Soul, but never having played the class was curious if it is best suited as STR build to fight with Summons or a CHA heavy pure caster. Any good build ideas?

Thanks!
------------------------
Current Character(s): Rivva Glanbryn, Darya Glidemoon
Previous Characters: Yurna Glanbryn

User avatar
Drowble Oh Seven
Posts: 427
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:36 pm

Re: Strength Favored Soul or Pure Caster?

Post by Drowble Oh Seven » Sat Sep 11, 2021 3:21 am

My personal preference is to go the battlecleric-style melee route with favoured soul. You get more casts/day of the melee-buff stuff than an equivalent cleric would, which is a nice bit of quality of life.

Playing a caster favoured soul always just left me feeling like I could be playing a healer cleric and just be a better support caster with access to more varied buffs and overhealing.

Still. Neither's terrible and it really depends on which you think you'll enjoy more.

User avatar
Skibbles
Arelith Platinum Supporter
Arelith Platinum Supporter
Posts: 1285
Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2015 6:25 am

Re: Strength Favored Soul or Pure Caster?

Post by Skibbles » Sat Sep 11, 2021 4:04 am

I'm not going to have the most meta-optimal opinion but cleric spells leave a lot to be desired as pure casters in my opinion.

Storm of Vengeance and Implosion are super sweet but... That's really about it. Storm of Vengeance seems to be crazy effective even without any investment in being a caster, and many of the other very good spells are either buffs, mid-tier DC like Blade Barrier, or no-saves like Harm and Word of Faith.

Personally I'd go melee to capitalize on all the divine favors/power/battletide you'll be able to spam, as well as all the free resist energy feats and class unique universal save scaling.

The Cleric domain rework also seems to overshadow favored soul in all departments. Having no access to cool domain stuff, already great saves, lack of divine might/shield, makes charisma almost completely superflous to have so high unless you're going for a bluff meta or something (edit - maybe elder dream UMD or something? I dunno).

The total lack of any builds on the wiki for this class is also a bit of a bad sign.

TL;DR - STR melee probably best option. Caster cleric is snooze.
Irongron wrote: [...] the super-secret Arelith development roadmap is a post apocalyptic wasteland populated with competing tribes of hand-bombard wielding techno-giants, and strewn with the bones of long dead elves.

So we're very much on track.

AstralUniverse
Posts: 2723
Joined: Sun Dec 15, 2019 2:54 pm

Re: Strength Favored Soul or Pure Caster?

Post by AstralUniverse » Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:06 pm

Regardless if you play melee or caster, you should dip 3 lvls in class with Discipline. Both melee and caster are great but I second Drowble in that caster FS might leave you wondering why you arent playing a healer cleric to occupy similar role niche in a party but do so much more (intentionally leaving aside the fact cleric RP is very different).
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


User avatar
Inordinate
Arelith Silver Supporter
Arelith Silver Supporter
Posts: 193
Joined: Fri Dec 30, 2016 5:15 am

Re: Strength Favored Soul or Pure Caster?

Post by Inordinate » Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:26 pm

Go strength, invest in imp expertise and weapon feats.

signed a mostly caster FS who regrets not going all in.
If need there comes to shelter my ship on the flood;
The wind I calm upon the waves, and the sea I put to sleep

Eyeliner
Posts: 479
Joined: Wed May 12, 2021 12:27 am

Re: Strength Favored Soul or Pure Caster?

Post by Eyeliner » Sat Sep 18, 2021 10:39 pm

Best thing caster FS have going for them is lots and lots of harms, word of faith spells etc to improvise with in unexpected PVP. That's still the case but the new domain spells make caster cleric a hundred times more desirable to me.

Melee FS is fine but... I don't know, it's still mostly about the ability to improvise and how much that's worth to you which usually also means how much you expect to get ambushed by PVP. I'd much rather play a battle cleric most of the time myself, even more so with domain changes, but if you're on a high CHA race or plan to make a lot of angry enemies it might be right for you.

User avatar
Ork
Arelith Gold Supporter
Arelith Gold Supporter
Posts: 2488
Joined: Sun Nov 02, 2014 8:30 pm

Re: Strength Favored Soul or Pure Caster?

Post by Ork » Tue Sep 21, 2021 4:28 am

I got you, fam. CJ special.

Code: Select all

human, favoured soul (27) bard (3)
STR 16/18, 22
DEX 8
CON 14
INT 14
WIS 8
CHA 15/17, 20
1fs1- expertise, improved expertise
2fs2
3fs3- weapon focus polearm
4fs4 19 str
5fs5
6fs6- 
7fs7
8fs8 20 str
9fs9- blindfight
10fs10
11fs11
12fs12- improved crit 18 cha
13fs13
14fs14
15fs15- sf abj
16fs16 19 cha
17fs17
18fs18- gsf abj
19fs19
20fs20  21 str
21fs21- epic weapon focus
22fs22
23fs23- armour skin
24fs24- weapon focus 22 str
25fs25
26fs26- esf abj
27fs3- arcane defence abjuration
28bard1 20 cha
29bard2
30bard3- your choice of kd, craft wand, esf disc, or toughness

ab
15base 5epic 12str 3focus 3weapon 5favour 5power 1aid 2battletide = 51
ac
10base 6tumble 2skin 8plate 5enhance 5shieldoffaith 3tower 5enhance 1boot 4haste 4bark 1mage = 54
hp
486

skills
32 disc, 30 tumble, 33 conc, 33 spellcraft, 33 leadership, 33 craft mastery, 4 lore; 33 points to spare
Melee all the way.

AstralUniverse
Posts: 2723
Joined: Sun Dec 15, 2019 2:54 pm

Re: Strength Favored Soul or Pure Caster?

Post by AstralUniverse » Wed Sep 22, 2021 1:42 pm

Ork wrote:
Tue Sep 21, 2021 4:28 am
I got you, fam. CJ special.

Code: Select all

human, favoured soul (27) bard (3)
STR 16/18, 22
DEX 8
CON 14
INT 14
WIS 8
CHA 15/17, 20
1fs1- expertise, improved expertise
2fs2
3fs3- weapon focus polearm
4fs4 19 str
5fs5
6fs6- 
7fs7
8fs8 20 str
9fs9- blindfight
10fs10
11fs11
12fs12- improved crit 18 cha
13fs13
14fs14
15fs15- sf abj
16fs16 19 cha
17fs17
18fs18- gsf abj
19fs19
20fs20  21 str
21fs21- epic weapon focus
22fs22
23fs23- armour skin
24fs24- weapon focus 22 str
25fs25
26fs26- esf abj
27fs3- arcane defence abjuration
28bard1 20 cha
29bard2
30bard3- your choice of kd, craft wand, esf disc, or toughness

ab
15base 5epic 12str 3focus 3weapon 5favour 5power 1aid 2battletide = 51
ac
10base 6tumble 2skin 8plate 5enhance 5shieldoffaith 3tower 5enhance 1boot 4haste 4bark 1mage = 54
hp
486

skills
32 disc, 30 tumble, 33 conc, 33 spellcraft, 33 leadership, 33 craft mastery, 4 lore; 33 points to spare
Melee all the way.
And it's ESF discipline at lvl 30. It definitely out-weights other options.
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


Post Reply