What are some fun bonuses you can get from divine obedience?

[Zautos']

What are some fun bonuses you can get from divine obedience and similar feats?

[Isabelle Lee]

Are we just talking about the base benefits, or does that include the boons as well? Because I have some personal favorites from my work on the demon lords...

[Zautos']

boons as well

[David knott 242]

Irori's boon is pretty good -- +4 sacred bonus to all Knowledge skills. Outside of PFS, it is beaten only by the Fey Obedience benefit for Magdh -- +4 sacred bonus to all Intelligence based skills.

If you are a knife fighter, Pharasma's +2 sacred bonus to attack rolls with daggers is nifty.

The 2nd boon for Shei gives some nice mental ability score bumps at 16th level.

[Potato disciple]

Erastil's third evangelist boon is almost good enough to build around. Wisdom do damage is something zen archers will literally assasinate for.

[Kalindlara]

Potato disciple wrote:

Erastil's third evangelist boon is almost good enough to build around. Wisdom do damage is something zen archers will literally assasinate for.

I'm thinking about playing a divine paragon cleric of Erastil (choosing the evangelist boons) with the Animal domain as her devoted domain. That should really be something. ^_^

[Mystic_Snowfang]

I'm having fun with building up a character with the obedience to Besmara. The 3rd one is tons of fun, I'm going with Exalted for this. And Rally Crew is amazing.

As for my fave set of boons, has to be to Arshea, it's easy to complete (though might annoy traveling companions after a while) and adding charisma to armor class is great for a Dexadin.

[pauljathome]

Shelyn, of course. +4 to all perform and craft checks is just silly good for a bard. Or any kind of crafter.

The third boons are often crazy good but, really, nobody gets to that level so who cares ? :-)

[Taja the Barbarian]

Played most of semi-mythic 'Wrath of the Righteous' campaign with a Desna-worshipping Oracle: Deific Obedience + Diverse Obedience + Starlit Caster (Evangelist Tier 2) with a 40+ Charisma basically allowed me to ignore SR at level 14.
Not certain how the concentration check bonus is supposed to work for an Oracle (technically, it doesn't work at all since you can't apply the same stat twice as an untyped bonus: We house-ruled it as a Sacred Bonus instead of untyped).

[Zautos']

Isabelle Lee wrote:

Are we just talking about the base benefits, or does that include the boons as well? Because I have some personal favorites from my work on the demon lords...

What are your favorites

[Wolventad]

I quite like The Lantern King's 2nd and 3rd obediences for Fey Obedience: 1/day Polymorph Any Object and 1/day Shapechange are pretty nice for just telling a lantern about the practical jokes you've pulled on people.

[Douglas Muir 406]

I reviewed all the diabolical boons from Book of the damned a couple of months ago -- click through for a detailed breakdown. A few high points: Lorthact has a similar boon to Irori and Maghd, to wit, +4 on all Knowledges and also Spellcraft. Baalzebul's Evangelist Path gives you a +20 untyped bonus to Intimidate checks at 13th level, which opens up some interesting builds.

Belial, at 13th level, lets you change yourself into any sort of outsider. You then gain that outsider's immunities, resistances, and Fly speed. This is just excellent, and kind of abusable in a good way. There are outsiders that are immune to pretty much everything. Like, have you looked at the Inevitable subtype? Those guys are "immune to death effects, disease, mind-affecting effects, necromancy effects, paralysis, poison, sleep, stun, and any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects, or is harmless)." The kami subtype is almost as bad: "bleed, mind-affecting effects, petrification, and polymorph effects" plus Resist acid 10, electricity 10, fire 10. And you can switch your chosen outsider three times per day. If you have one standard action of warning, you can make yourself immune to everything from critical hits to energy drain. This is a fine all-round defensive ability, and that's before we consider the fun RP aspects of pretending to be an angel or whatever. Getting a Fly speed on top is just gravy.

Mahathallah's benefit (which you get as soon as you take the Obedience feat, as early as 3rd level) gives you +2 on the DC of all your illusion spells and a +2 bonus on saves against mind-affecting effects. That's 2.5 feats for the price of one! If you're playing an illusion caster, and you don't mind being LE, go worship Mahathallah and take this feat right now. Mahathallah's Boons are nothing special -- the Sentinel path in particular is amazingly bad -- but you could do something with the Evangelist and Exalted if you want to build a character around illusions and drugs. Honestly, though, she's the go-to deity for characters who don't much care about the boons: to wit, illusion specialists who just want that sweet, sweet free feat and a half early on.

The Archduke Malthus' benefit is "a +4 profane bonus on Reflex saving throws to avoid physical dangers." Pretty much all Reflex saves are to avoid physical dangers. So, this is basically +4 on Reflex saves, or the equivalent of two feats.

Mammon's Sentinel path gives you the power at 13th level to shut down Smites and other good-based damage. This is situational but very thematic, and you could definitely build a fun NPC with it. "Sir Bluto Saunce Pite has killed a dozen paladins. We're not sure how, but..."

[High Level Only]

Ardad Lili's Evangelist Path gives you Soul Bind as an SLA, meaning no material component cost. Savings: potentially huge! The Archduke Deumas also gives you this, although with a nastier Obedience.

Doloras' third Sentinel Boon gives you a burst attack with a 30' radius, centered anywhere within 100'... and creatures in that radius are seized by hellish chains and immobilized for rounds/level, and can't fly or teleport way. If a target makes a Reflex save, it is STILL immobilized for half the duration. And if it fails, it takes "2d6 points of piercing damage and 4d6 points of fire damage per round as blazing, hellish needles stab into the exposed portions of their bodies". No damage cap. So, if a creature doesn't have fire immunity or resistance, it will take 6d6 of damage times your level, which at 16th level is 336 points of damage. That's on top of all the damage you can pour into it while it's immobilized. Hell, even if it makes its save, "immobilized for 8 rounds" probably means it's dead anyway. This is a very powerful tactical suck-or-suck. If you throw it at your PCs, try to give them some advance warning first...

Geryon's final Exalted boon lets you completely shut down enemy faith-based casters, simply cancelling the ability of clerics and oracles to cast spells. It's Cha-based, so -- given that it allows a Will save, and clerics tend to have great Will saves -- you really need to be a Cha-based caster to pull it off. But you could make some cool NPCs with it! I'm imagining a devil-themed sorceror who calls himself "the Faithbreaker"...

And finally, the Archduke Lorcan has a yucky Obedience and a mediocre benefit, but is the only Diabolical Patron who gives you access to True Resurrection. As a SLA. Which means no material component cost. That means a massive 25,000 gp savings every time you cast this spell. You can cast True Resurrection for free every darn day. Even at levels 16+, this is so good as to verge on unbalanced. Why Hell allowed a relatively lowly Archduke to have near absolute power over life and death is unclear, but there it is.

Doug M.

[Reduxist]

And if you go by Geryon’s Deific Obedience from Scourge of the Godclaw, you can go sentinel and become a crit fisher with a heavy flail.

[Zautos']

Are there any new fun or powerful ones put there?

[doc roc]

Zautos' wrote:

Are there any new fun or powerful ones put there?

How about you have a look yourself.... its not that hard.

If you start a thread like this then at least contribute something, otherwise it comes across as lazy.

[MerlinCross]

I mean there's fun, and then there's "Not being used for half your campaign career".

I like the idea of them but having to be level 12, 16, and then 20 for the boons to kick in is a pretty steep investment. I suppose you can take Deific Obedience at 11 or 13 to get the first boon fast or pick up a really effective Obedience bonus.

Okay yeah it kinda functions as 1 feat for 4 at the end of the day but having to wait till 12 for the rest of it to start being used.

Related question about the feat though; at level 12 you get a couple spells per day. What's the DC/Modifier on those?

Anyway lemme throw something fun into the ring;

Abadar's level 20 Exalted Boon looks actually pretty fun/funny. Scales of Balance lets you retotal your party's HP once per day. Basically you get to add up everyone's HP and divide them up as you deem fit. Could be a clutch save by taking half a mage's HP and giving them to the Front line. Or even two mages if they'er safe enough. You just can't drop someone to 0 HP or put them over their max.

You could probably just hit someone with the Heal spell and do better but I'm sure there's a story about using this ability somewhere.