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A player in one of my groups is considering playing a dual-cursed oracle of time in our next campaign. Now we are wondering about the misfortune revelation:
Misfortune (Ex): At 1st level, as an immediate action, you can force a creature within 30 feet to reroll any one d20 roll that it has just made before the results of the roll are revealed. The creature must take the result of the reroll, even if it’s worse than the original roll. Once a creature has suffered from your misfortune, it cannot be the target of this revelation again for 1 day.
Shouldn't this read "The creature must roll twice and take the worse result" like in the witch's misfortune hex? As written this ability can provide rerolls for failed attempts by allies (and the oracle himself), basically preempting the 5th level fortune revelation. That can't be right?
It's not about a nerf bat, it's abut the ability making sense. It is obviously designed to be detrimental to opponents by wishing misfortune upon them. Wishing misfortune on your friends (or yourself) to help them is nonsensical. Especially when exactly that is available as another ability, and at a later level only, because it is deemed more powerful.
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It's not about a nerf bat, it's abut the ability making sense. It is obviously designed to be detrimental to opponents by wishing misfortune upon them. Wishing misfortune on your friends (or yourself) to help them is nonsensical. Especially when exactly that is available as another ability, and at a later level only, because it is deemed more powerful.
Having your fighter friend reroll the 1 he just rolled on his attack is pretty unfortunate for the enemy...
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I have a gnome (switch out everything)dual cursed oracle in CC, he is huanted and deaf and dark tapestry and is great to play*
this misfortune ability is really powerful
i use it to help allies to re-roll
it also means if the GM uses a GM screen, you need to sort out a way to see just about every d20 roll the GM makes
it is by no means a 'game friendly' ability
I think it needs a re-write
*ok, he sux against the undead!!
I to have a gnome dual cursed oracle (also sucks against the undead).
The roll twice and take the lower is a separate spell (Ill Omen) and, as was mentioned a witch hex).
I think the take the second result instead of roll twice and take the lower is intentional and is used after the roll; as opposed to the roll twice, which is primed beforehand. This makes it a good ability.
Giving yourself and allies a re-roll is what makes it a great ability.
I will acknowledge that there is an impact to game-play.
The rest of the players and DM say to me: "I just rolled a 2" or "BBEG rolled (on the die) critical threat" or "BBEG rolled an 18 on his save". I have a spot on my character sheet when I track who has gotten a re-roll that day (tracking is a must).
Also, I am the party cleric (as in clerical duties), so I record initiative. At the beginning of my initiative each round I record a "/" next to my character, and if I use a re-roll I turn the "/" into an "X". That way I don't give more than 1 re-roll a round. I also make notes about which bad-guys I have forced to re-roll (on their initiative line).
So the book-keeping is surprisingly extensive.
I don't think the ability is broken. It's range is pretty short at 30'. You can only do it once a round. Each person only affected once a day. Save the fighter by re-rolling a critical threat...means no re-roll for the wizards Save-or-Suck.
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Getting a reroll for an ally is obviously not the intention of a lower level revelation like misfortune, when there's a higher level revelation like fortune that does EXACTLY that.
Besides, I most certainly don't want to announce each and every roll I make just because a player might want to make me reroll it.
That makes misfortune even better than fortune, at least until 11th level. That certainly can't be right.
In your base post asks why it isn't "roll twice and take the lowest" and "That can't be right". It is specifically called out as an immediate action. So I think the developers intended it to be a re-roll.
Since the power also states that the re-roll must be declared before the results are known you will have to announce significant rolls (critical threat, spell saves, etc.), if a player has the power.
Even if you remove the ability to re-roll to help their allies, you are still left with hindering the bad guys; which requires they know the dice rolls before the result is announced.
Subjective note:
Isn't as powerful as the Slumber Hex. We have a Witch in the party. So I have seen both in action. But I guess that gets into a whole other thread.
IMO, Misfortune is the "benefit" for the giant pile of suck that Dual Cursed Oracle is. Especially at early levels, you basically give up a ton of stuff / gain a lot more penalties for...wait for it...the option of taking Misfortune.
That's literally all you have to show for all the penalties off the bat. So I like that it can be used on allies beneficially as well as on enemies. It's poorly named. Oh well, lots of abilities are poorly named.
Making enemies reroll apparently isn't that powerful, because the same book that introduced dual cursed oracle also added the Divine Interference feat, which any ~level 11 (it's a CL-based requirement, so with orange iuon stone you could get it by 9th level, iirc) Cleric or Druid could grab. Lets you sacrifice a 1st level or higher spell to make an enemy reroll w/ penalty equal to the spell level sacked. So...you buy a crapton of 1st level perals of power...
It's actually better than Misfortune, since it explcitly says you use it AFTER the enemy's attack is resolved. And cleric and druid are already stronger than oracle, and dual cursed oracle, other than RAW Misfortune, is massively weaker than regular Oracle...
Making the GM announce each and every roll totally demystifies any unknown enemy power since after a few rolls the players will easily be able calculate their opponents bonuses and draw all kinds of conclusions about them. Not a good idea at all in my book.
To be honest, for my taste, this is by far too much bookkeeping and metagaming, and I'd rather simply disallow the dual-cursed option for these reasons. And of course if demystifies the opposition when they know what I roll and can calculate their attack bonuses from the differences between their ACs, for example and my rolls.
But, that wasn't really what my original question was about.
To answer your question, then . . .
"Shouldn't this read "The creature must roll twice and take the worse result" like in the witch's misfortune hex?"
No, it shouldn't. They wrote it as they intended to, and there hasn't been any errata on it. If you want, flag your origin post for FAQ (I did, if that helps), and if enough people do, perhaps the devs will clarify it for you.
As was mentioned, this ability functions almost exactly like the Fatespinner ability. The name of the ability is a misnomer, yes, but there's no reason to think that the ability wasn't written properly. If you look at the name of the ability critically, there are all kinds of ways that you can justify "misfortune" being for the opponents rather than the group, or what have you, but that's not really the point. The names of abilities are fluff. The Lunge feat doesn't make sense with a dagger if you're only thinking of the name of the ability. "Master Craftsman" doesn't actually make you a better craftsman, just a more versatile one. "Point Blank Shot" doesn't only work at a literally "point blank" range. Sadly, “Jump Five Feet Towards Your Opponent,” “Muggler Magic Item Crafter,” and “Relatively Close-Ranged Shot” just don’t scan well, aesthetically speaking, heh.
Et cetera, et cetera.
So there's the answer to your question: No. The ability is written in line with similar abilities.
To expound, while it is a powerful ability, it has plenty of drawbacks. Taking a second oracle curse with no benefit is painful, depending on what you take. Keep in mind you do lose the opportunity to take a different revelation than this. So what you really need to measure is not the power of this ability, but the relative power of this ability compared to the power of the ability you'd otherwise be taking, as compared to what you're losing to get it, which, in this case, is an additional oracle curse which can be quite painful.
If, after that, you still feel this ability is too powerful, either remove it from your game or nerf it. From what I can see of your posts, your issue is less with the ability's power and more with its scope. You dislike that it can be used defensively to aid allies, which is fair. You could, if you wanted, modify it to say that the creature takes whichever roll is lower, but be warned that that's extremely powerful offensively. Dual Curse allows these abilities in addition to the oracle's prime focus, so this could virtually guarantee one successful spell each round against a new target.
Compared to similar abilities, such a powerful benefit usually requires an action (this one is immediate). I posit that changing it in the way that you suggest would likely make it more powerful. Probably the simplest thing you could do to make the ability better mesh with your view of it would be to change the wording to the following:
Misfortune (Ex): At 1st level, as an immediate action, you can force an enemy within 30 feet to reroll any one d20 roll that it has just made before the results of the roll are revealed. The creature must take the result of the reroll, even if it’s worse than the original roll. Once a creature has suffered from your misfortune, it cannot be the target of this revelation again for 1 day.
That would probably be best to making it what you want it to be. It's simple, easy, it rebalances the ability's power without making it worthless or too powerful, and it better meshes with what you consider to be the power's purpose.
*shrug*
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Making the GM announce each and every roll totally demystifies any unknown enemy power since after a few rolls the players will easily be able calculate their opponents bonuses and draw all kinds of conclusions about them. Not a good idea at all in my book.
I roll in front of everyone almost all the time, I don't think it demystifies anything. I can see how this power would bother behind the screen GMs though.
Not sure what the solution is to this, the way it's written it's assumed that there is a certain amount of knowledge on the player's part and it's much better to be able to fire off the power *knowing* the GM got a good roll than firing it off normally. The way I see it you are going to have to house rule it to suit your play style.
A DC oracle loses out on:
-Anywhere between 4-10 class skills (Dependent on Mystery)
-Replaces her 2nd, 4th, 6th bonus spells for usually inferior bonus spells.
-Picks up a 2nd debilitating curse that doesn't progress or offer obvious benefits.
In exchange she gets:
-2 Extra revelations over 13 levels.
-Access to the rather decent misfortune revelation.
Keep in mind at higher levels misfortune burns up your swift actions which can usually be used for better things. Further, the extra abundance of revelations is usually not too hot since at later levels you don't have many to pick from that are still top notch or you can live without anyways.
A decent house rule for DMs that prefer to keep things behind the screen is just have the player tell the DM to notify when anything has rolled above a certain mark, say a 15 and adjudicate the reroll as necessary.
I agree that the ability is not overpowered as written, and should be left alone. It only affects one character per turn, after which it cannot affect that character again for 24 hrs. The obvious tradeoff being helping the critical threat confirmation you know your ally just rolled (a pretty big misfortune for the enemy being struck) or the same character save against a spell (also bad news for the enemy).
This can also be used for mitigating an enemy's attack or save the same way (both the kind of misfortune you were likely thinking of when you read the ability). Any way you use it, it inconveniences your enemies and is, therefore, a misfortune.
Fortune, on the other hand, only affects yourself, and therefore warrants more uses per day, especially if it is going to be a higher lvl ability. And it is important to note that if you have both you essentially get to stack them on yourself, too.
The drawbacks for this ability are that it only affects yourself (which is a paltry proportion of the total rolls from which you can choose), and most oracles will not even have occasion to use it too often as they are less likely to be making normal attacks, relying more on touch attacks and spells (which are governed by the target's save).
Ultimately, however, I think that Fortune is more underpowered given it's lvl requirement than Misfortune is overpowered even without a lvl requirement.
Of course, that's me. If you still think it is overpowered, just change the wording such that it more closely reflects the witch's hex or the spell Ill Omen.
I agree that the ability is not overpowered as written, and should be left alone. It only affects one character per turn, after which it cannot affect that character again for 24 hrs. The obvious tradeoff being helping the critical threat confirmation you know your ally just rolled (a pretty big misfortune for the enemy being struck) or the same character save against a spell (also bad news for the enemy).
This can also be used for mitigating an enemy's attack or save the same way (both the kind of misfortune you were likely thinking of when you read the ability). Any way you use it, it inconveniences your enemies and is, therefore, a misfortune.
Fortune, on the other hand, only affects yourself, and therefore warrants more uses per day, especially if it is going to be a higher lvl ability. And it is important to note that if you have both you essentially get to stack them on yourself, too.
The drawbacks for this ability are that it only affects yourself (which is a paltry proportion of the total rolls from which you can choose), and most oracles will not even have occasion to use it too often as they are less likely to be making normal attacks, relying more on touch attacks (which should be easy to make) and spells (which are governed by the target's save).
Ultimately, however, I think that Fortune is more underpowered given it's lvl requirement than Misfortune is overpowered even without a lvl requirement.
Of course, that's me. If you still think it is overpowered, just change the wording such that it more closely reflects the witch's hex or the spell Ill Omen.
In our games, the Misfortune ability would work just fine. This ability would be used between the time that the DM says that a certain enemy rolled X to hit (or, on occation, that he whiffed or threatened a critical) and when the player replies with "He hit me" or "He missed me". Hopefully, the player of the oracle has his fellow players trained to frown and hesitate a bit when the DM announces a roll that would hit them. It is the player's confirmation of a hit or a miss that is when "the results of the roll are revealed", not the DM's announcement of the numeric number rolled.
A Monk get Perfect Strike at 11th level, once per round and lvl/4 times per day. Or lvl+(lvl/4) times per day if he is a zen archer.
No... A Weapon Adept or Zen Archer Monk gets it at first level. Any other Monk can get it at level 11+ as you said. But ANY monk gets it once/day/monk level. It doesn't matter if it was your archetype's "stunning fist replacement" or not. The only requirement for more uses per day is monk levels, not a specific kind of monk levels. The same is true for all of those feats, which is why IMO a high level monk should be loading up on them.
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I really do not think that the "that it has just made before the results of the roll are revealed" part entitles the player to see the result of a d20 roll. If so it would make 'Unluck' extremely conterproductive for demetrial purposes and thus the misnomer of the Century.
The power is very clearly based on the assumption that the player has some knowledge of what the die roll is otherwise there is absolutely no point in the ability. I don't think it's intended to force the GM to reveal rolls so much as it assumes they already do.
Waltz suggestion above of having the player give a cutoff for rerolls is a reasonable compromise which allows the ability to retain usefulness while keeping the GM's rolls private.
I really do not think that the "that it has just made before the results of the roll are revealed" part entitles the player to see the result of a d20 roll. If so it would make 'Unluck' extremely conterproductive for demetrial purposes and thus the misnomer of the Century.The power is very clearly based on the assumption that the player has some knowledge of what the die roll is otherwise there is absolutely no point in the ability. I don't think it's intended to force the GM to reveal rolls so much as it assumes they already do.
Waltz suggestion above of having the player give a cutoff for rerolls is a reasonable compromise which allows the ability to retain usefulness while keeping the GM's rolls private.
RAW doesn't require the DM to let you see the roll, it is RAI though. If my DM wanted to jump through hoops to shoot down a class archetype I'd prefer he just ban it.
If he didn't and it was allowed to be played, but with a very selectively belligerent adherence to RAW I'd only be comfortable if the digitizes of the realm had no idea what the Sun & Moon where as because of distance mods RAW nobody can see the sun or moon. If I personally rolled up the character and wasn't informed of his opinion on the matter before hand and expected me to simply take the ridiculous nerf and like it then I'd leave the game as it's a waste of my time.
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as written, the ability doesn't work well against enemies like the witch's misfortune hex.
a. you have to use the ability before the result of the roll is revealed. so unless the GM is rolling in front of you, you may not know when you wan to use it ( to negate a critical or something ).
b. there's no save.
as written it, and the fortune revelation at 5th level's only advantage is that its an additional use only for yourself, and another addtional use at 11th level, 17th level. while you can continue to misfortune allies/enemies once per day only , ever.
Was there anything definitive on this to clarify it ?
It's not about a nerf bat, it's abut the ability making sense. It is obviously designed to be detrimental to opponents by wishing misfortune upon them.
It sure looks like a nerf bat your taking about.
Who cares if it works on allies, its still once per person per day. Its not the witch's hex so it doesn't have to be like it. If you have absolutely have to have it bring misfortune, you'd also have to make them take the lower result(which it doesn't...) Also, remember that you can bring misfortune on someone even by making someone else do better.
Just to clarify, I believe "before the results of the roll are revealed" means before you know the outcome of the action. Not before you see the dice roll.
Though, that is not what it says literally, it's the one interpretation that makes sense.