Favored Soul tactics

Playing a Favored Soul
A Favored Soul is not a Cleric. Despite sharing many abilities and spell list, they are different. Many people see Favored Souls as Clerics with extra spell points. They are wrong. Even if a Favored Soul can reach an effectiveness close to the one of a nannybot Radiant Servant Cleric at his peak, it's a waste to play a Favored Soul this way.

A Favored Soul is efficient in two of the three following roles:
 * Fighting;
 * Healing;
 * Offensive Spellcasting.

Two out of three, because trying to do everything put too much strain on resources and equipment. You can't have an excellent DPS and fighting gear, extra spellpoints and items to overcome enemy Spell Resistance and Feats and Enhancements to improve Healing prowess, all at the same time. A Favored Soul restricted to one single role will be worse than another specialist class in that role. It's really when mixing two than Favored Souls shine.

Fighting. Despite being a feat-consuming path, a Favored Soul can become a decent fighter of her own. Many divine spells increase the combat power of the caster like Divine Favor or Divine Power. True Seeing allows hits against blurred enemies, Spell Resistance, Stalwart Pact or Death Pact are excellent buffs for melee-type Favored Souls. A warrior Favored Soul usually favors Strength and Constitution, then Charisma. Wisdom may be downgraded to dump stat level if the character doesn't want to cast any offensive spell at all, but this is not a common choice. A melee-type Favored Soul shares many aspects of a Paladin, trading aura and resilience for a vastly superior spellcasting ability.

Healing. Since they have access to divine spells and have a good pool of spell points, Favored Souls are natural healers. Yet, they don't have any Prestige Enhancement - yet - as Clerics have for healing, and they don't benefit from the Improved Empower Healing line of Enhancements. They rely on Empower Spell instead, which works almost the same except for a couple key spells like Heal and Heal, Mass - and this is the reason why Favored Souls are slightly worse than Clerics when it comes to pure healing, despite their superior spell points pool. A Favored Soul can still opt for the Empower Healing Spell feat - just forfeiting any spell point reduction - and be nearly as good as a Healer; still, she will miss the spontaneous casting of Clerics and have fewer spell slots. For these reasons, Favored Souls are rarely built as pure healers. They can be quite good at healing (and are often expected to be by their teammates) but usually combine healing with another role.

Offensive Spellcasting. A great Wisdom score is required to increase the Difficulty Check of offensive spells and overcome enemy Spell Resistance. A decent Charisma is somehow required to increase the amount of Spell points available, but this is not as critical as Wisdom. Usually, Constitution is the third characteristics upped on such builds. A Favored Soul playing the role of an offensive spellcaster use the array of attack spells in the divine spell list; from Command to Implosion, and the ever-popular Blade Barrier, there is much choice and the Empower Spell line of Enhancements comes very handy. Of course, such a Favored Soul won't be as good as a Sorcerer regarding magical damage but the Favored Soul retains much of her healing abilities.

A Favored Soul will never reach the DPS of a Barbarian, the healing power of a Radiant Servant or the Elemental damage dealt by a Sorcerer. But it can be more versatile than either, combining magical attacks, healing power and the might of a weapon.

Sample combinations
The combination of two of the three roles above usually gives three different Favored Souls:

Fighter/Healer. A common choice, the Favored Soul takes the THF or TWF chain along with healing abilities. There is much stress on characteristics however (a TWF Favored Soul might be hard to achieve with a 28 points build) and while this approach really shines at lower level, the DPS of the Favored Soul slowly becomes sub-par with higher level content, unless you can find top gear. It's also difficult to maintain attacks and melee prowess while healing self and friends at the same time.

Healer/Offensive Spellcaster. This build is better for high level quests where mobs have so many hit points, and requires only three good characteristics (Wisdom, Charisma and Constitution). It's also easier to handle since the Favored Soul usually won't jump into melee and can keep an eye on the health bar of comrades. Empower Spell is a must-have feat for the build, the rest depends of how mobs are being addressed: either through pure damage (Blade Barrier) or Magical attacks (Slay Living). Since the Favored Soul will cast spells all the time, any item increasing the amout of Spell Points is sought after. Mental Toughness and Improved Mental Toughness feats may also help.

Fighter/Offensive Spellcaster. An uncommon but powerful build, the Favored Soul forego healing entirely (except perhaps for a token emergency spells). Using Command and Greater Command, Symbol of Fear, Destruction and heightened Sound Burst, the Favored Soul can become a decent crowd controller while inflicting good DPS. The only problem of this build is the expectations of the group - usually, people want healing from a character with Divine spells. You must warn them in advance of the way you play your Favored Soul to avoid any misunderstanding.