Deaf curse and Oracles

[concerro]

Being deaf says you suffer a 20% spell failure chance, but you get the silent metamagic feat. If you don't have to speak then there should be no 20% spell failure chance which is harsh to deal with for 20 levels.

Opinions?

[meowstef]

deafness gives you a 20% spell fail when you cast a spell with verbal components
all your spells are cast without verbal components

ie no failure

[Lazaro]

Also deafness comes with other penalties. Like not being able to hear that assassin sneaking up on you

PRD wrote:

Deafened: A deafened character cannot hear. He takes a –4

penalty on initiative checks, automatically fails Perception
checks based on sound, takes a –4 penalty on opposed
Perception checks...

Plus for a character thinking about being a dual caster the 20% chance spell failure is still a problem. Unless they want to up the spell slot by one .

[meowstef]

prd wrote:

You cast all of your spells as if they were modified by the Silent Spell feat

so any other spell casting class will still be good

myself I think deafness is one of the worse curses as your pretty much cut out from most role play

[Lazaro]

My opinion is that the silent spell only modifies (no using up a higher spell slot) the oracles spells not the spells of other classes she may take.

Deafness shouldn't hamper roleplaying. A character could pick up on reading lips. Perhaps when in an meeting with a noble comes up one person in the party can sign what is going on, and the PC can retact to that as normal.

[wraithstrike]

RAW it says all of your spells so it should not matter. I guess we can hit the FAQ button for that also.

[meowstef]

don't think there is any need for that wraithstrike they already have it answered in the faq

General rule: If a class ability modifies your spellcasting, it applies to your spells from all classes, not just spells from the class that grants the ability.
(The exception is if the class ability specifically says it only applies to spells from that class.)

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/v5748btpy88yj/faq#v5748eaic9ne8

[wraithstrike]

meowstef wrote:

don't think there is any need for that wraithstrike they already have it answered in the faq

General rule: If a class ability modifies your spellcasting, it applies to your spells from all classes, not just spells from the class that grants the ability.
(The exception is if the class ability specifically says it only applies to spells from that class.)

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/v5748btpy88yj/faq#v5748eaic9ne8

I knew I had seen it somewhere. thanks.

[Maddigan]

concerro wrote:

Being deaf says you suffer a 20% spell failure chance, but you get the silent metamagic feat. If you don't have to speak then there should be no 20% spell failure chance which is harsh to deal with for 20 levels.

Opinions?

Deaf is awesome. One of the only casters that can cast silence and truly take advantage of it while healing the frontline melees.

[InVinoVeritas]

Yes, Deaf has significant drawbacks, but Deaf + Silence = Win. You can engage the other party's spellcaster, and you can still cast spells and they can't. Or call for help. Or alert the guard.

Deaf is definitely a hard-mode curse, but you can become a sneaky assassin god with it.

[james maissen]

InVinoVeritas wrote:

Deaf is definitely a hard-mode curse, but you can become a sneaky assassin god with it.

Deaf's automatic silent spells (without increased casting time) is very strong for a support class if it can achieve some method of successful hiding.

Step one: take a trait to make stealth a class skill (and perhaps even a +1 trait bonus to it).

Step two: be a halfling (they rock) with the option not to penalize stealth for full movement.

Step three: max stealth ranks

Step four: feats- skill focus stealth & eldritch heritage (shadow) twice.

At 11th level you're looking at a +40 or so stealth check (+30 in bright light if you also have hellcat stealth) that can hide in plain sight. As casting non-attack spells won't cause you to lose stealth (and if you do attack you just move to hide again).

-James

[InVinoVeritas]

I really have to revisit my mist assassin (Deaf Waves Oracle / Acrobat Rogue) in the wake of UM/UC.

Water Sight + Obscuring Mist, Deaf + Silence, Fluid Nature, Watery Form... you get an assassin you can't see, can't cast spells at, can't target, who still sneak attacks you.

[InVinoVeritas]

Here's the Mist Assassin build idea right now. I haven't actually tried it out, but it seems like it would be an interesting NPC.

Assuming 20 point buy...

Str 12
Dex 18
Con 12
Int 8
Wis 8
Cha 16

Race: Half-Elf. Choose Ancestral Arms (Chakram) and Multitalented: Oracle, Rogue.

Level 1: Waves Oracle. Choose the Deaf Curse. Traits: Magical Knack (Oracle), Elven Reflexes. Feat: Improved Initiative. Skills: Acrobatics, Escape Artist, Stealth. Choose Inflict spells. Revelation: Water Sight. Spells: Create Water, Detect Magic, Detect Poison, Light, Inflict Light, Obscuring Mist, Shield of Faith.

L2: Oracle. Spells: Touch of the Sea, Mending.

L3: Rogue(Acrobat). Skills: 2 ranks each in Climb and Swim, in addition to Acrobatics, Escape Artist, and Stealth. Feat: Point Blank Shot.

L4: Oracle. Revelation: Fluid Nature. Spell: Divine Favor. +1 DEX.

L5: Oracle. Spells: Slipstream, Guidance, Inflict Moderate, Silence. Feat: Quick Draw.

L6: Rogue. Skills as before, Combat Trick: Two-Weapon Fighting. Deaf Curse improves.

L7: Oracle. Spells: Purify Food & Drink, Divine Favor, Grace. Feat: Deadly Aim. Receive Dodge for free (Fluid Nature).

L8: Oracle. Spells: Water Breathing, Prayer, Inflict Serious. +1 DEX.

L9: Rogue. Sneak Attack +2d6. Feat: Rapid Shot.

L10: Oracle. Revelation: Water Form. Spells: Hide from Undead, Daylight, Spiritual Weapon.

L11: Oracle. Spells: Divine Power, Wall of Ice, Inflict Critical. Feat: Improved Two-Weapon Fighting.

L12: Rogue. Talent: Fast Getaway. Uncanny Dodge. +1 DEX. No more initiative penalties, and Scent.

[ohako]

I had an idea for a deaf oracle as a dreamspeaker elf.

If she really really needed to say something, she could. In dreams.

Then I had a bunch of kooky ideas involving Perform (dreamcrafting), or some kind of bard archetype that could give morale bonuses a la the geisha by building interesting dreams, etc.

Maybe I should write up a weird prestige class that could take advantage of the dream spell.

[Maddigan]

Deafness becomse mostly non-factor at higher level as well. Sure, you can't communicate with speech. But with scent and tremorsense, little can sneak up on you. If you're a Life Oracle with the Lifesight revelation, almost nothing can sneak up on you. But you usually have to status your party since they can't cry out for help.

[ATyger]

I read over the oracle's Deaf curse and though it says your deaf it doesn't say your mute. You are giving the Silent Spell feat to take out the 20% spell failure chance on spells with verbal components.

I would take a guess that this curse would be treated as if you were profoundly deaf in the real world, and I would like to point out that most deaf people can speak. The speech of a deaf person has different ranges, some being very difficult to understand and others being almost better then some hearing people. So for the purpose of role playing you still have the ability to be verbal. However most deaf people don't like speaking because they don't know how they sound.

Though this isn't helpful in combat, it can help roleplay.

I would say for anyone trying to understand what a deaf person is saying it would be a linguistic skill check on the part of the deaf person about how well they can speak. DC depends on language for example common language and their native racial language could be DC 5 and many other racial languages like Elven or Dwarven if not native could be DC 10 things like Celestial or Abyssal could be DC 15 and anything like undercommon or languages that are mixes as DC 20. Base all DC's on the relevance of the language to the character. Same with speech reading.

However...
Requirements:
They must know the language spoken to speech read or speak it.
+2 ranks in Linguistics
Must be face to face no more than 5 feet apart for speech reading
Concealment of any kind negates ability to speech read but not speak
If 20+ feet away DC's are higher (deaf don't know volume of voice) for speaking

If all else fail BUY CHALK AND A CHALK BOARD!!!!!! They are cheap I think 1 copper per chalk piece and 1 gold for the board. In real life you can use a small dry erase board or just talk it out as if you were writing it.

Drawing can be fun for role play especially if you can't draw in real life very well.