Mine was the first to die in our current campaign (RotRL) and while I now have his successor with the group and all that- it took me out of the game nearly half a session to make him and we only get to meet once a month or so..
So, foreseeing the possibility that I could die again I've decided to roll up a 3rd character.
The first was a skill monkey rogue. Somewhat effective in combat, he mostly stealthed around looking for traps and locked doors. (not that he -ever- found either one..)
The second and current is an Bard (arcane duelist) half-orc with a glaring weakness of an extremely low AC but can hit fairly decently- both strong and often.
With two melee on the line my 3rd is looking to be a full caster. An oracle. I've the thought in mind to make him either a human (extra spells known, free feat, and skill point) or a gnome (for extra flavor, even slower "lame" curse, and 2:1 linquistics languages). Regardless of the race he'll be a high- knowledge, many-language speaking person who avoids melee like the plague and prefers to stand in the far back and cast spells either to buff his allies or debuff/injure the enemies.
So, on to the advice.
To make him fairly anti-thetical to his predecessors I've given serious though to dumping strength (via ant haul to still carry some gear) and dexterity (to accentuate the Lame curse). The Str will have the spell to make up carrying capacity though he won't be able to hit the broad side of a barn or dent it even if he hit it. Dexterity would be made up by the Lore Revelation to use charisma for both AC and Dex saves- leaving him terrible at a crossbow or ranged touch attack.
The result would be a fairly high mental stat character with relatively low physical stats. Is it too much? Assuming I keep Con somewhere in the running- for fort saves and HP- is ditching str and dex going to hurt me somewhere that I'm not seeing?
Secondly:
I'm also interested in how you all would consider Rping someone who is extremely charismatic, moderately "healthy", wise and intelligent, while less dextrous than 12 year old and with the strength to match. ;p
Thirdly:
Obviously spells like Searing Light are out since he wouldn't be able to hit. What spells would you look for in this kind of Oracle? Hold Person and possibly Command and such look like no-brainers. (cure spells are free with Oracles already). What would you consider must-haves?
I have a rough approximation of the build already done, I'll post it after some reviews. I'm terrible with spell selection though ;p
-S
I think you would be fun with Str and Dex as low stats. As you said, sidestep secret will keep your AC in good shape.
I had an Oracle of Lore but we only played that campaign a few times, and its kind of on hiatus now. He was human and lame with sidestep secret. We levelled up to 3 the last time we played, and I gave him Focused Trance as his new mystery, but I haven't used it yet. It looks very useful though. I think its more of an out-of-combat ability than in combat. And a +20 bonus to intelligence skill checks several times a day is really big! (This can apply to appraise, craft, knowledge, linguistics, and spellcraft.)
We considered sidestep secret to apply to CMD as well, using Cha instead of Dex for that, since any bonus or penalty to AC (barring certain exceptions) would apply to CMD as well.
I'd try to have some semblence of strength though, just so your CMD isn't too terribly bad.
I think human would definitely be the way to go. Extra feat is always nice. The extra spells known is huge! And the extra skill point will help a lot, as you will find that even with the base 4 from the oracle, the oracle of lore wants to put a lot of skill points into a lot of knowledge skills.
For feats I'd go with Combat Casting obviously. I took Cosmopolitan as well, since that let me add Linguistics and Use Magic Device as class skills as well as giving two additional languages. Linguistics was the only Int based skill the Oracle of Lore didn't have, and UMD is always useful, especially for a high Cha character. I also have a campaign trait that gave him Perception and Sense Motive as class skills. So I am trying to keep Diplomacy, Perception, Sense Motive, Spellcraft, and UMD as high as possible. The rest are going into Linguistics and Knowledges (with a few points into Appraise and Profession (Scribe)). I'd suggest using the bonus skill point for favored class for the first few levels, and then once you get second levels spells and can get extra first level spells known choosing the spell option.
I also took Toughness at 1st level, since I didn't have the APG at the time and wanted to make sure he survived. In hindsight I might not have done that.
For feats I'd look mostly to metamagic and possibly item crafting if that is important to your game. Extend spell and Quicken spell at later levels would be must haves. Heighten could be good too depending on what spells you have. Spell Focus in Enchantment and/or Necromancy could be good too depending on spell selection. You could also be a good summoner and look to take Augment Summoning.
For spells I'd use the lower levels for buffs and healing/remove spells (remove fear, lesser restoration, stuff like that). I've had a lot of luck with Cause Fear thus far, but I will eventually switch it out due to the HD limit. For mid levels I'd look to utility and buff spells, and start picking up some damage spells if possible (flame strike, blade barrier). I'd definitely get the Dispel Magic spells too. And I think the Hold and Command spells will be very useful as well. Your spell selection will be limited though, as there is only so much to choose from on the cleric/oracle spell list. For that reason I'd also say if you get high enough level to take the revelation that lets you cast arcane spells out of spellbooks. That can really open up some possibilities; just be sure and hold on to any spellbooks you can find!
Thanks for the input.
my "current" version of him has a 12 str, 7 dex, 14 con and int with 12 wis and 19 CHA with no stat boosters at level 6. He's human with Extra Revelation taken once along with toughness, craft wonderous and.. shield focus.
I know shield focus seems peculiar but that it gives him (with gear) a 23 AC as a full caster. I'm also not terribly fond of metamagic feats, but if I replace it it'd probably be with spell focus (enchantment) for Hold Person fun, and others like it.
I hadn't thought about Cosmopolitan though. I'm in the process of making a gnome oracle pretty much the same build except for exchanging out oneof the racial traits for the one that gives you 2 languages per point of Linguistics.
The overall point of the character being a fairly archtypical "bookworm" character who can speak tons of languages and has very high knowledge skills, at the expense of any non-magical ability to do damage. He has a mace at the moment mainly just because he probably would have one- not due to any great skill.. (though 12 str is better than dumping it, and i haven't written up a build that dumps strength yet).
I don't currently have him with UMD- primarily because both of my prior two characters have it. We also already have a cleric and wizard/ranger in the group as well as a paladin.. and that pretty much covers every single wand we could possibly find.
-S
Agreed about the mysteries. The one sounds interesting sounding like you can delve into the other persons' mind.. until it just lets you make a knowledge check with their skill. And as a Lore oracle- who are you going to find with higher knowledge skills than yourself?
Sidestep is a must, as is the one that lets you redo a failed one with a +10, and the one that lets you take 20.. Not sure what others I'll wind up with.
At the moment he's sporting a +1 studded leather mainly because of the Dex bonus. Ditching Dex and putting that into cha gives a +4 that will jump to +5 at 8th. That with a shield and ring gives him a pretty decent AC for his level especially for a non-melee build.
-S