U56 Preview 2

[Kasinata]

I see a lot of people complaining about the favored soul being nerfed to much

I think some rebalancing is needed but,
Somehow I think few understand what has happened with it over the years

So let's clear up a few things

The idea likely came from a 3.5 book which badly spliced together the cleric and sorcerer to make a 'sorcerous-cleric' in which the actual result was a cleric with no domains, who couldn't channel divinity, didn't know what they're casting stat was, which off set this with a jump/fly ability and a favored weapon bonus. The original publication required divine lore to cast spells but gave only arcane on leveling, and required the player to buy the divine lore as a non-class skill
This was obviously wrong and wotc published a correction to this last point.

To stress, compared to the books which inspired this, the favored soul's effective spell list is significantly shorter than the cleric's and lacks higher level spells as the cleric would have used domains to fill this out, and lack the turn undead ability and it's derivatives.

The attempts to fix this started by letting them choose a stat (no other caster does this) and adding to their hp and caster levels until they appeared to keep pace with other characters, using only their very limited core to do so.
This undoubtedly made a good base upon which to mount epic destinies and universal enhancement trees.

Then the spell damages were changed, for arcane then divine spells resulting in a double fix making some of their damage too high on those spells creating the op situation today. This is exasperated by the greater development of epic destinies and universal enhancement trees.

None of these 'fixes' address the fundamental wrongness. Nor ever have. It made a twice broken character broken once in concept and again in its 'fix'

I agree with 5e
Favored souls should have their own separate spell list from cleric's adding in the higher level spells they lack, and adding the sorcerous arcane edge like 5e does.
In ddo this should mean they get reduced cool downs and faster cast times like a sorcerer gets

Perhaps warrior type ones should look at the avenger in 4e or simply be dropped and added in elsewhere in the game


And lastly is to remember the cleric is not and never was just a 'divine-wizard'. They're a lot more than that. They were in the original in-between with a lot more happening than just preparing spells with their wisdom, wearing a robe and standing at the back, is why they have a warrior aspect, wear armour as well and a system for deciding which to specialise in. Trying to make a divine sorcerer by copying the sorcerer-wizard relationship was never going to work.

The only way the favored soul will become what people want if it is freed from this bond and allowed to separate it's spell list from the cleric and significantly increase it.