I am toying with the idea of running an oracle. I want the clouded vision curse and plan on using the Waves mystery. Going to use samsaran with the mystic past life trait to grab some cold spells from the druid list.
My question is whether I should choose Extra Revelation at first level to grab Wintry Touch (using 1st level revelation to grab water sight, trust me, it makes sense) or whether I should grab Combat Casting instead.
If I grab Combat Casting, I still have a chance to lose spells, but not as high as I would without it. With Wintry Touch, I don't need combat casting as the ability is Supernatural.
Help?
Wintry Touch is horrible, so Combat Casting. And you're actually wrong, with Wintery Touch, you need Combat Casting more than if you're not using it, as you're getting into melee range. You will need it in any case, may as well pick it.
And when I say that Wintery Touch is horrible, I really mean it. It takes a standard action to do 1d6+(level/2) cold damage when you can be doing so much better things, like casting spells.
I get Wintry Touch is suboptimal. It really is more for flavor than anything else. In the campaign we are playing in, there are different factions cooperating for a common goal. One faction is Winter of the Fae Courts. So, I am wanting to represent winter as it currently has no one on the team who is representing Winter.
I am going with melee touch because anything beyond 30 ft I can't see. Plan on using obscuring fog (hence the water sight) to give me a bit of an advantage.
Again, not optimizing...just sounds fun.
It's too bad really that some options that are cool just aren't as good and usefull still eat up as much as some really solid options.
The question is if you'll even use Wintery Touch, though. The other players may not like it as you won't really pull your weight in combat with it.
Wintery touch (and the other oracle touch attack variations) are great for when you're out of spells. So their utility will depend on the encounter rate and how often you are running out. Their only real advantage is against highly armored opponents, because you're only going against touch AC - but at lower levels, most enemies are more dex based than armor based.
Later on, when the frost weapon ability activates, it's utility goes up considerably, especially when used with a ranged weapon to keep you back and safer. Combined with obscuring mist or other fog producing spells, and the water sight revelation, you can pick off baddies excellently, and get the extra cold damage on every attack, not just one standard action per round.
Now, all that said, I have played a melee focused oracle before, and while fun, it was FAR from optimal. Lava Gnome Flame Oracle with a great sword. Though through the first 3 levels, I only used the Touch of Flame ability maybe three or four times.
My concern with range is, as I am taking the clouded vision curse, anything beyond 30 ft I can't see anyway. So I have to be within 30 feet to attack.
My current "default" attack plan....
Cast obscuring mist
Get close enough to use frostbite (nonlethal damage but gives the fatigued condition, no save) and then go from there.
The only other offensive spell I'll know is inflict light wounds. So I could spam that or take wintry touch, which seems to me, optimal or not, to fit the character concept better. Add to this mix that I intend on using the variant multiclassing from PF Unchained to get the Elemental bloodline, which at 7th level gives me, essentially, a ranged version of wintry touch.
That is kind of where I am going. My group isn't optimizers so it doesn't seem to be that big of a deal.
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