Sovereign Speaker 101: Domains, Benefits, Requirements, and Review

[Endarire]

Intro
Requirements
Sovereign Speaker (Faiths of Eberron 32) is a 9 level prestige class intended for Clerics of the Sovereign Host.  It requires...

-You worship the Sovereign Host as a pantheon, cast divine spells, and have access to at least 1 clerical domain.  (Eberron adepts qualify so far.)

-You need 8 ranks of Knowledge (religion).

-The feat Worldly Focus (Faiths of Eberron 148).  This feat allows you to cast divine spells without a divine focus which is almost always a trivial benefit.  (Ask your DM if you can pick a more useful feat, like Skill Focus: Knowledge (religion). or Skill Focus: Spellcraft.)

Benefits
-You gain proficiency in all favored weapons of the Host:  Battleaxe, halberd, heavy mace, longsword, morningstar, quarterstaff, sickle, spear, and warhammer.

-You progress divine casting at each level except 1 and 6.  (There are only 9 levels to this PrC.)

-At level 3, you get an extra level 3 domain slot.  At L6, you get a L5 slot.  At L9, you get a L7 slot.

-You get 2 + INT modifier skill points per level and the standard Cleric skill list.  Also like a Cleric, you get a D8 HD and 3/4 BAB.

-You get a strong Will save (as Wizard) and a weak Fortitude save (as Wizard).

-At each level, you get an extra domain.  See the domain section below for notes, however.

Domains List
At each Sovereign Speaker level, you get one additional domain offered by the Sovereign Host.

Faiths of Eberron 33
You cannot choose more than two domains offered by the same deity.  For example, if you have the Strength and War domains, you can't can't choose Good since Dol Dorn offers all three.

ALL DOMAINS OFFERED BY ANY DEITY
Air, Animal, Artifice, Celerity (Spell Compendium 271), Chaos, Charm, Commerce (Eberron Campaign Setting 105), Community, Competition (Spell Compendium 272), Creation, Earth, Family (Spell Compendium 274), Feast (Eberron Campaign Setting 106), Fire, Force (Spell Compendium 274),, Glory, Healing, Knowledge, Law, Liberation, Life (Eberron Campaign Setting 106), Luck, Magic, Metal (Spell Compendium 276), Mind, Oracle (Spell Compendium 277), Pact (Spell Compendium 278), Plant, Pride (Spell Compendium 278), Protection, Retribution (Spell Compendium 279), Spell (Spell Compendium 280), Strength, Sun, Trade (Spell Compendium 281), Travel, War, Warforged (Faiths of Eberron 150), Wealth (Spell Compendium 281), Weather

ARAWL'S DOMAINS
Creation, Good, Life (Eberron Campaign Setting 106), Plant, Weather

AUREON'S DOMAINS
Force (Spell Compendium 274), Knowledge, Law, Magic, Mind, Oracle (Spell Compendium 277), Spell (Spell Compendium 280)

BALINOR'S DOMAINS
Air, Animal, Celerity (Spell Compendium 271), Earth, Retribution (Spell Compendium 279)

BALDOREI'S DOMAINS
Community, Family (Spell Compendium 274), Good, Law, Protection

DOL ARRAH'S DOMAINS
Glory, Good, Law, Sun, War

DOL DORN'S DOMAINS
Chaos, Competition (Spell Compendium 272), Good, Liberation, Strength, War

KOL KORRAH'S DOMAINS
Charm, Commerce (Eberron Campaign Setting 105), Pact (Spell Compendium 278), Trade (Spell Compendium 281), Travel, Wealth (Spell Compendium 281)

OLLADRAH'S DOMAINS
Feast (Eberron Campaign Setting 106), Good, Healing, Luck, Pride (Spell Compendium 278)

ONATAR'S DOMAINS
Artifice, Creation, Fire, Good, Metal (Spell Compendium 276), Warforged (Faiths of Eberron 150)

Is Sovereign Speaker worthwhile?
Not for the typical Cleric.  You lose a caster level- two if you stay 'til the end- and I feel the domain selection is too restrictive to be worth the trade.  Contemplative (Complete Divine 31) grants full spellcasting progression and 2 bonus domains over its first 6 levels, though it requires 13 ranks in Knowledge (religion).  If I could pick any domains like a Cleric of an ethos without regard for which god had what, I'd seriously consider Sovereign Speaker.  The class also feels a level too short and requires a feat that's almost never useful.  Complete Champion 128 has the summon holy symbol orison.  A frickin' level 0 spell ain't worth a feat, even if the effect is continuous!  If you need a holy symbol so much, carve one into your flesh!

My favorite domains of the Host are Animal for shapechange; Luck for the domain power and spell turning; Magic for spell turning and its domain power; Knowledge for its domain power and the Knowledge Devotion (Complete Champion 60); Spell for anyspell; and Travel for its spells, domain power, and Travel Devotion (Complete Champion 62)..

[woodenbandman]

Depending on the domains you chose, you may make up the difference in the lousy feat lost entering the class, even over the first 2 levels. Travel Domain (and subsequent travel devotion) already makes up for the loss of the entry feat, and you just need one more domain to pick up a tidy profit. If you lose a caster level, you can get 5 domains.

[Nanshork]

Also, the Spontaneous Domains feat from Complete Champion is nice for Sovereign Speakers.

[juton]

With the Spontaneous Cleric variant from UA or the SRD you can get a Spontaneous Caster with over a hundred spells known. Seems pretty neat to me.

[Agita]

With the Spontaneous Cleric variant from UA or the SRD you can get a Spontaneous Caster with over a hundred spells known. Seems pretty neat to me.

It's over ONE HUNDRED!

Meh. It's just not the same.

[awaken DM golem]

" ... Eberron Adept ... "

EA 10 / SS 9 would lose 2 caster levels, but gains that extra level 7 slot ... that it needs HELP to get to.
Just needs one class level to power Turn Undead, to power Heighten spell stuff, to get to it.

(why did I bring this up? ; idk! )

[gorfnad]

Divine Crusader (CD) can make an amuzing Sovereign Speaker

[CantripN]

A Favored Soul using some method for gaining a Domain is very good with this, since he can learn spells from those domain and use them as regular spells. As does a Spirit Shaman or a Druid, and better in some ways.

Favored Soul 5 / Divine Oracle 1 / Sovereign Speaker 9.

OR

Spirit Shaman 5 / Divine Oracle 1 / Sovereign Speaker 9.

OR

Druid 5 / Divine Oracle 1 / Sovereign Speaker 9.

OR EVEN

Shugenja 5 / Divine Oracle 1 / Sovereign Speaker 9.

[deuxhero]

Going with the common healer fix of making them cast like Warmage/Beliguer/Dread Necro (all spells known, spontaneous casting) based on charisma and using another prc to get a domain, how good is the class for them?

[CantripN]

I'd go with OMFG Amazing, as they really need the spells known, and this is an excellent source for that. I had a player in my campaign do that with a similar Favored Soul house-rule, and it proved very good.

[Hitoshura]

I didn't get it, how could a favored soul get extra spells without having to select them manually each level? House Rules?

[CantripN]

Correct. I house-ruled it to get 1 Domain & spell levels like a Cleric (almost like +1 Spellcasting, but not quite). Didn't break anything, just made it competitive with a Cleric (at least a Non-DMM one).

Oh, and I made it so that when Spontaneous Casters gain access to Domains, they get the spells added to Spells Known for free.

[Bloody Initiate]

There's a pretty good handbook for this class.

[Bloody Initiate]

With the Spontaneous Cleric variant from UA or the SRD you can get a Spontaneous Caster with over a hundred spells known. Seems pretty neat to me.

Also fun for taking the Healing Domain, which normally wouldn't be worth it, but since you're giving up the ability to spontaneously cast cures in order to spontaneously cast domain spells, just take the domain with all the cure spells...

[Viletta Vadim]

One of the other problems with Sovereign Speaker is the existence of the Substitute Domains spell.  Put that on a schema and pair it with Spontaneous Domains (or a fixed-list casting class) and you've got all forty domains on speed dial without losing any caster levels or even bothering with the class at all.