1st: Any command given to you functions as lesser geas. Add charm person or delusional pride to your list of spells.
5th: Penalty from lesser geas effect lessens to -1 penalty per time period, with a cap of -4. Add touch of mercy or oppressive boredom.
10th: Add dominate person or feeblemind.
15th: You become preternaturally aware when someone is about to use your curse against you, and you may take an immediate action. Add power word: stun or demand to your spell list.
This doesn't seem unbalanced to me, but I thought I would solicit feedback, regardless. Any suggestions?
What is the drawback?
Basically, any time someone issues a command to the character, the character is compelled to fulfill the command (or suffers the penalties outlined in lesser geas). I wrote that in as part of the "Level 1" text, but I can see where that might look like something else.
My question is: should I make the penalties harsher? The spells balance with other oracle curses, but I don't know if the penalties stack up to other oracle penalties.
15th level: Immediate action to what? And is this for an Ella Enchanted character? ;)
Yes, Puna'chong. It is. ;)
And the idea of the immediate action is to do something like "cover ears," "cover someone's mouth" and the like.
Ah, ok. I'd make that explicit. "...may use an immediate action to cover his/her ears..." so that people know what that intent is. Immediate actions are responses, so you have to list what the responses can be.
Does it seem balanced with other Oracle curses, though?
Ummmmm... The drawback isn't very big, kind of like Tongues. I say that mostly because it's a fluff drawback, not so much a hard mechanical one like Clouded Vision or Lame. The Oracle could very well just cast deafness on herself or put in ear buds and never be affected. Probably shouldn't give a choice of spells either, to line up with other curses. Getting some charm stuff isn't terrible, but they're fairly situational. Also, it can't be Lesser Geas/Quesr because that only works on creatures of HD 7 or less. Once the Oracle hits 7, the effect doesn't work.
I wondered if I should make it the full-strength geas, and just have it decrease in intensity as the Oracle levels up.
I'm also just having a hard time picking the spells that the Oracle should get in exchange. Basically, the theme of "curse" is kind of an ironic one: you exchange one form of sight for another, one form of movement for another, etc. In this case, it needs to be one form of control for another, but I'm just not sure how I would do that.
Hence, why I asked for suggestions. ;)
I'd go the charm/dominate route. It actually brings in an interesting element where its feasible to control the controller. Looks fun, if you go that route, but not busted or anything.
Ummmmm... The drawback isn't very big, kind of like Tongues.
As someone playing a "tongues-cursed" oracle in a campaign, I somewhat disagree. We just hit 5th level, and three of my four allies finally put a rank in Linguistics. Up until now, I haven't been able to discuss tactics with my party members during combat (the GM hasn't penalized me for the occasional flub). I also somewhat agree, because the "fix" is very simple if your party members are actually willing to put a single skill point in a "stupid" skill.
Ummmmm... The drawback isn't very big, kind of like Tongues.As someone playing a "tongues-cursed" oracle in a campaign, I somewhat disagree. We just hit 5th level, and three of my four allies finally put a rank in Linguistics. Up until now, I haven't been able to discuss tactics with my party members during combat (the GM hasn't penalized me for the occasional flub). I also somewhat agree, because the "fix" is very simple if your party members are actually willing to put a single skill point in a "stupid" skill.
True, yeah. Tongues is very dependent on how strict your DM is with combat and whether you can coordinate anything with teammates despite not sharing a language. I've found this is something DMs forget about a lot, though, unlike a blind oracle or one that has a movement speed penalty. But still, overall Tongues is a pretty minor curse as far as they go, because it doesn't actually hurt the oracle herself in combat (just her ability to coordinate), and has no negative effect on the game outside of combat.
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I think the oracle also HAS to listen, or it triggers as well. If they just cover their ears, they still know the words that are being said. It also should only work if the oracle is hearing the command in a language they understand. So if the character does not know what the enemy are saying, they won't trigger. So basically anything in common can ruin the oracles day, unless they pass a will save to ignore or resist the command given.
I think the oracle also HAS to listen, or it triggers as well. If they just cover their ears, they still know the words that are being said. It also should only work if the oracle is hearing the command in a language they understand. So if the character does not know what the enemy are saying, they won't trigger. So basically anything in common can ruin the oracles day, unless they pass a will save to ignore or resist the command given.
Agreed on both points. Since I'm running a homebrew solo game, I don't need to specify it, since I can just adjudicate on the fly, but that's how we've agreed to it.
Common is the bane of her existence.