Divine Power Excerpts: Favored Soul
I first saw the Favored Soul in Complete Divine from 3.x, where it was a base class that was more like a sorcerer-version of the cleric. So I was a little surprised to see that the Favored Soul is not only not a new build but also a paragon path for the avenger.
Although some of the flavor from the previous Favored Soul is maintained but they have placed more emphasis on the transformation aspects of the concept that results from the shard of divine spark within them. In 4E, the Favored Soul is now destined to become an angel-like servant of their god instead of being merely powered by a divine spark.
Favored Souls perform Favored Action (11th level path feature) which allows them or an ally adjacent to them to spend a healing surge when the Favored Soul spends an action point to take an extra action.
The divine spark within them also protects a Favored Soul with Heaven's Shield (11th level path feature) which gives you a +1 bonus to all defenses while you have maximum hitpoints.
The Favored Soul finally ascends to his true form when he is gifted with Heaven's Boon (16th level path feature) where he grows a pair of feathery wings from their back and gains a fly speed of 6. However, the Favored Soul can only use these wings when unarmored or wearing light armor.
When a Favored Soul charges an enemy under his Oath of Enmity, he can replace his basic melee attack with a Radiant Rush (Level 11, Encounter). If the target is hit, they take 2[W]+Wis mod damage and are pushed 2 squares. The target is also dazed and the Favored Soul gains concealment until the end of the Favored Soul's next turn.
Before the Favored Soul grow their own wings, they may summon a temporary Wings of Angels (Level 16, Daily). While in this stance, the Favored Soul increases his fly speed by 4 and can hover. If the Favored Soul is not bloodied, he also has regeneration equal to his Wis mod.
In a Celestial Skirmish (Level 20, Daily), the Favored Soul dives down on their enemies and attacks them with blinding radiance. When making this attack, the Favored Soul moves his fly speed+2 and gains +6 bonus against opportunity attacks. While moving, the Favored Soul can attack 3 targets and deal them 2[W]+Wis mod. If the Favored Soul manages to hit only 2 targets, the second one is dazed (save ends). If the Favored Soul hits all 3 targets, the third one is stunned (save ends).
Overall, I like this paragon path which looks mobile and pretty powerful although I would have preferred the flavor of the Favored Soul to be something more for the Invoker than Avenger. Maybe it's because I saw the Favored Soul more as a spellcaster than a martial one which this paragon path feels more like the latter.
However, I'm a little concerned that we are starting to see more and more paragon paths that are giving flight abilities to players. This path gives flight at the earliest level I've seen among the other paragon paths so far and I'm a little concern that we'll be seeing the problems that was suffered in 3.x when which IIRC designers sought to fix in 4E about flight.
What are your thoughts on the Favored Soul?
1 comment:
I really don't like giving flight so easily after it was kept back for so long. If you gave flight early and incorporated it more as an aspect of the game, or made it a racial ability for a select few creatures (and balance that race around its flight) it would be okay. But suddenly this makes some Paragon Paths seem to have worth disproportionate to others.
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