Favored Soul of Hoar: Weapon of Choice

[MrSmith]

I RCR'd a 24th level FvS of Arvoreen into a 16th level FvS of Hoar. I selected Hoar because his weapon of choice on the Wiki was a Short Spear (I own a Blood Spear). Now that I have made the character, his actual weapon of choice is Spear.

What are my character-building options at this point? Thank you!

Cheers!

[Rhifox]

Wiki is supposed to be right here, so this is a bug. I'll look into what I did wrong. If I can get it fixed you may need to ask a DM to help adjust your sheet.

How does Favored Soul weapon of choice work? Do you get given a special feat or something?

[Most Horrible]

Favored Soul just gives +1 AB and +2 Damage with spears, and thus you can just make use of your short spear and likely notice no difference in the over all game play. But as for build advice:

Just make sure you got those Extend and Quicken Spell Metamagic feats, if you plan to be a melee Gish, because having both allows you a far greater degree of freedom when it comes down to getting most out of your spontaneous spell casting, and spell book. Divine Power ran out? You could just recast it as quickened. And so on.

As for something else, well, it really depends on your character's alignment, race, and the feats you have taken thus far. For example, even though Favored Soul lacks some of the more potent Necromancy summoning spells, you got that spontaneous spell casting that allows you to just summon undead and buff them up. There is some poetic justice in making a murderer fight against the corpses of those he had once slain. You could even grab the three Spell Focus feats on Necromancy, go for high Wisdom build, make use of Zen Archery, while the dead tank for you.

Now, Favored Soul doesn't get Hierophant, but Warpriest, and especially Dragonslayer are some pretty good PRCs to consider in order to get BAB of 25 while maintaining that caster level of 30 by taking the practiced spell caster feat. (If your Favored Soul cannot get that usual 4 level dip into either Blackguard or Paladin for Turn Undead, and hence Epic Divine Might.)

And if you RCR... well, your new character should have enough experience to reach level 13.

But that said, high strength Favored Soul is about as good if not better than a high strength Cleric. It depends on the chosen cleric domains, because some domains are clearly better than others for a high strength melee character.

You can twist a Favored Soul into almost anything... But it is hard to say anything concrete without first knowing more about that character of yours.

[Most Horrible]

How does Favored Soul weapon of choice work? Do you get given a special feat or something?

Yeah, at level one you get Deity's Weapon Proficiency, it doesn't show up on character sheet, but you do get the proficiency feat required to wield your deity's weapon. At level three, you get the Weapon Focus feat for your deity's weapon, and at level 12 you get the Weapon Specialization feat for it as well. You do not select these feats, they are automatically listed on the level up screen and cannot be deselected.

[renshouj]

And if you RCR... well, your new character should have enough experience to reach level 13.

Can't speak with certainty, but since this isnt just a build mistake and an actual mechanical fail, you can prob get 100% RCR or a DM to give you the feat, idk which one would be easier or if just fixing whatever is wrong would work. Again, cant say for sure, but it wouldnt hurt to ask

[Most Horrible]

Can't speak with certainty, but since this isnt just a build mistake and an actual mechanical fail, you can prob get 100% RCR or a DM to give you the feat, idk which one would be easier or if just fixing whatever is wrong would work.

The mention about RCR was simply a mention of character building options, in case our Mr Smith wants to adjust his build further. It is not such a terrible loss of levels to go down from level 16 to level 13, hence why I mentioned it.

But yes, I suppose one could ask a DM to remove following feats: Weapon Focus (Spear), Weapon Specialization (Spear)
And then add these feats: Weapon Focus (Short Spear), Weapon Specialization (Short Spear)

And since the Favored Soul is already at level 16, these deity's weapon feats have been gained a long time ago, and thus changing them now should not affect the build in any way.

[Rhifox]

Just checked it. Yes, this was my bad, I forgot to change out the favored weapon columns for Hoar in nwn2_deities.2da. That'll be fixed for next patch. Once the patch hits (I don't know when that will be), you can get a full RCR from DMs or they can swap out the feats, whatever is needed, since this was a dev mistake. If they want to swap out the feats, tell them to ask me and I can get them the feat ids.

[MrSmith]

Just checked it. Yes, this was my bad, I forgot to change out the favored weapon columns for Hoar in nwn2_deities.2da. That'll be fixed for next patch. Once the patch hits (I don't know when that will be), you can get a full RCR from DMs or they can swap out the feats, whatever is needed, since this was a dev mistake. If they want to swap out the feats, tell them to ask me and I can get them the feat ids.

You all are awesome! Thank you so much for all of the hard work you and the Dev-team for the server!

I will wait for the next update and if the fix doesn't take effect, I will ask a DM for their support.

Cheers!

[MrSmith]

Favored Soul just gives +1 AB and +2 Damage with spears, and thus you can just make use of your short spear and likely notice no difference in the over all game play. But as for build advice:

Just make sure you got those Extend and Quicken Spell Metamagic feats, if you plan to be a melee Gish, because having both allows you a far greater degree of freedom when it comes down to getting most out of your spontaneous spell casting, and spell book. Divine Power ran out? You could just recast it as quickened. And so on.

As for something else, well, it really depends on your character's alignment, race, and the feats you have taken thus far. For example, even though Favored Soul lacks some of the more potent Necromancy summoning spells, you got that spontaneous spell casting that allows you to just summon undead and buff them up. There is some poetic justice in making a murderer fight against the corpses of those he had once slain. You could even grab the three Spell Focus feats on Necromancy, go for high Wisdom build, make use of Zen Archery, while the dead tank for you.

Now, Favored Soul doesn't get Hierophant, but Warpriest, and especially Dragonslayer are some pretty good PRCs to consider in order to get BAB of 25 while maintaining that caster level of 30 by taking the practiced spell caster feat. (If your Favored Soul cannot get that usual 4 level dip into either Blackguard or Paladin for Turn Undead, and hence Epic Divine Might.)

And if you RCR... well, your new character should have enough experience to reach level 13.

But that said, high strength Favored Soul is about as good if not better than a high strength Cleric. It depends on the chosen cleric domains, because some domains are clearly better than others for a high strength melee character.

You can twist a Favored Soul into almost anything... But it is hard to say anything concrete without first knowing more about that character of yours.

Very helpful insights, Thank you. I like the idea of a four-level dip into Blackguard/Paladin. Cheers!

[Most Horrible]

Very helpful insights, Thank you. I like the idea of a four-level dip into Blackguard/Paladin. Cheers!

Just remember that Blackguard gets Turn Undead at level 3, and Paladin gets it at level 4, and feats such as Divine Power and Divine Shield can only be taken on a class level that provides Turn Undead progression.

Cleric is another option to consider, but it might give your character that multiclassing experience penalty far more easily, and it doesn't have the added bonus of adding Charisma modifier to the saves. (Most EDM builds are Aasimar, which have Paladin as their favored class, and thus negate the multiclassing experience penalty.)

[MrSmith]

Very helpful insights, Thank you. I like the idea of a four-level dip into Blackguard/Paladin. Cheers!

Just remember that Blackguard gets Turn Undead at level 3, and Paladin gets it at level 4, and feats such as Divine Power and Divine Shield can only be taken on a class level that provides Turn Undead progression.

Cleric is another option to consider, but it might give your character that multiclassing experience penalty far more easily, and it doesn't have the added bonus of adding Charisma modifier to the saves. (Most EDM builds are Aasimar, which have Paladin as their favored class, and thus negate the multiclassing experience penalty.)

But since blackguard is a prestige class it has no multiclass penalty either, allowing you to go 26/4 instead of 25/5 for a 30 CL +1 Extra Epic Feat over 29 CL and no extra feat..

30 CL +1 Epic Feat... Kinda of big deal. Thank you!

[Most Horrible]

And Favored Soul/Cleric 4 works too, and depending on deity you could get bunch of feats you would not otherwise get.

For example, Hoar has following domains: Destruction, Fate, Law, Luck, Retribution, Travel, War

For example, the Fate domain grants Uncanny Dodge, which means that your Divine Shield Dodge AC does not get negated by the game engine presuming that you are out of combat. Law domain grants Iron Will, which opens up bunch of PRCs, and I guess it is more of a perk for an actual cleric though. The Luck domain grants that free Luck of Heroes feat for +1 AC and saves. The Retribution domain gives you an ability that hurts back enemies for 1d4 piercing damage if they land their hits. The Travel domain gives you Woodland Stride which is 10% movement speed increase in natural exterior maps and the Extra Skills Lore: Geography, and Survival. While the War domains gives you weapon focus in the deity's favored weapon, which you already got from Favored Soul.

Thus, what can I say, Favored Soul 26/Cleric 4 with the Fate and Luck domains is nothing to shrug at, not to mention that since the cleric provides Turn Undead progression at level one... You could quite literally grab Divine Shield at level 3, by taking your first level of Cleric then, and then Divine Might by taking the second level of Cleric at level 6, 9, 12, 15, or 18. Third Cleric level could be taken at level 20, and the fourth at level 30. This has the added perk of not delaying your spell casting progression nearly as much as the Blackguard or Paladin levels would, thus leveling up in general will slightly easier, and you could push the Practiced Spellcaster feat to be taken later on the build. Oh, and the reason why I would recommend taking Divine Shield before Divine Might is as follows: Divine Shield grants extra AC against all enemy attacks, while Divine Might only deals damage if you land your hits. Thus early Divine Shield in my experience is just more bang for the buck. Not that it is a concern for RCR-ed Favored soul, but just food for thought.

[Most Horrible]

But as a Favored Soul, you kind of get those extra saves from buffing up, in addition to having Spellcraft as a class skill, thus your saves are still going to be high enough to break 30~ with ease, and even without the +8 to saves that a Paladin/Blackgaurd build would get.

As for playing an aasimar Favored Soul, the +2 charisma really helps you to get that EDM much sooner than any race without that racial ability score modifier. Nevertheless, at level 30, you are not going to be that much better than a human with more or less the exact same build: the +2 EDM damage and +1 Divine Shield AC might not even be truly noticeable in general character performance. Thus human with those extra skill points, and extra feat at level one, might actually get something that the aasimar build just cannot. For example, Extra Skill: Tumble, UMD, or something else, or perhaps an additional Extra Turning feat, Northlander Hewing for the fun of it since the small spears will not get that additional Power Attack damage, and so on.

But then again, most people do not usually start a character at level 30, so earlier EDM just makes reaching that level 30 easier, and thus most tend to roll an aasimar.