So one of my PCs for Age of Worms is playing a favored soul and wants to take the Contemplative prestige class, which gives him bonus domains. I ruled that he would get access to the power and simply know the spells on his domain list; however, he could only cast a domain spell once a day. My question is, what if he takes a domain like Glory, the power of which is "turn undead with a +2 bonus on the turning check and +1d6 on the turning damage roll"? Does he get no benefit from the power, since favored souls can't turn undead? Does he gain the ability to turn undead? If so, is it as a cleric of his level, or should it be less (say, as a paladin)?
Any insights are welcome.
I'd go easy on him - Favoured Souls are woefully underpowered compared to a normal cleric. In fact no cleric like class can really compare to a true cleric. Healer probably comes closest.
Personally I house ruled that all divine casters that where similar to clerics got to choose two domains of their God just like a cleric simply to even them up a bit with normal clerics. Also I like the way the domains focus attention on the Gods themselves and differentiate them. Making all divine casters part of that is a good thing in my opinion.
Wow. I guess I'm in the minority here, but in my experience the favored soul is far from underpowered. Between having all saves as good, energy resistance, wings, weapon focus and spec, and being able to cast as more spells than a sorcerer and know many more as well it has presented power issues the other direction in my campaign at times.
In response to the question I would either say that the PC could turn as a cleric of a lower level (1st level being the one he took the PrC) or more likely just encourage him to take a different domain. With the Spell compendium there are so many to choose from that can be applied to different deities that it seems unlikely he couldn't find one to suit his needs.
Just my .02 as they say.
Wow. I guess I'm in the minority here, but in my experience the favored soul is far from underpowered. Between having all saves as good, energy resistance, wings, weapon focus and spec, and being able to cast as more spells than a sorcerer and know many more as well it has presented power issues the other direction in my campaign at times.
In response to the question I would either say that the PC could turn as a cleric of a lower level (1st level being the one he took the PrC) or more likely just encourage him to take a different domain. With the Spell compendium there are so many to choose from that can be applied to different deities that it seems unlikely he couldn't find one to suit his needs.
Just my .02 as they say.
Seems odd. Favoured Soul has the same hps and BAB as a cleric but worse armour. Weaponry can be bit better if the chosen God has a good weapon but generally its going to be pretty close to the same as the Cleric.
Favoured Soul has to pick which spells he knows like a Sorcerer. That's far more confining then the same trade off the sorcerer makes compared to a wizard. A Wizard has to actually go and get all the bazillions of spells he'll eventually have in his spell book and depending on the DM and the game that can be a lot of work and a huge investment of gold. For a Wizard its worth it but it does generally mean that the Wizard player has spent a big chunk of his share of the parties treasure haul on his spell book. Sorcerer spent all that money on something to up his Charisma so he can cast more spells or bought a ring of Wizardry. The Cleric on the other hand has every spell in the book as part of a class feature. That's a huge advantage over only being able to choose a handful. On top of this the Cleric gets turning (and the ability to pick up some amazing feats to expend turns on in case undead are in short supply - Divine Vigour being an excellent choice for a cleric) and the spells and powers of two domains. To top it all off the Cleric gets to emulate a big advantage of the Favoured Soul with Spontaneous Casting. Since the main job of the Cleric is to heal the rest of the party Spontaneous casting allows the cleric to never choose a heal spell and simply slot out another chosen spell that does not look like it will be needed today. Favoured Soul has no choice but to use up a lot of his known spell slots (and their rare and valuable) on healing spells.
Sure the saving throws are a big benefit and the energy resistance at 5th and 10th is not bad (after that I think the amount of damage being dealt makes it pretty irrelevant - if the Dragon is going to breath on you resist 10 is going to be a mere fraction of the damage and not worth talking about) - but the wings don't show up until 17th level. By that point if the Cleric wants to fly there won't be a problem pulling that off. I simply don't see how they compare. between the massive choice in which spells can be taken and the spontaneous casting I'd say the cleric was a better class even without any of the other advantages like turning and the domains. Giving out the domains simply evens things up a little. I still think that the cleric is the better class.