Child Cursed Oracle


Advice and Rules Questions

Grand Lodge

So I'm playing a Child Cursed Life Oracle.

My question is at Level 15 the Child Curse can choose Holy Aura or Unholy Aura and add it to his spells Known.

However Holy Aura is a 8th Level spell and an oracle can not Cast that spell till Level 16, gaining 8th level spells.

Does the Curse make the Spell Holy Aura into a 7th level spell much like the Life Oracle mystery makes Mass heal a 8th level spell to a Life Oracle?

Or do you Gain the spell known and not be able to cast it?


My guess is you would gain the spell known, but not the ability to cast it. False Priest sorcerers gain a similarly useless spell known at levels 3 and 5.

Grand Lodge

The False Priest at least Clarifies that they are 2nd and 3rd level spell respectfully in it's description.

Other abilities also Specifically call out that if the caster can not cast it they are still added to the list till they can cast it...Like in the Dragon Disciple Class on spell's known.

But the Child Curse does not

The life Oracle with Mass Heal does not either.

This is why I am questioning it.


Holy Aura, Unholy Aura, and Mass Heal are already on the Oracle class spell list so their level is already established. Remove Disease and Aid are not normally on the Sorcerer spell list so the levels they are cast from need to be specified explicitly.

So yes, it's still an 8th level spell and you need to wait an extra level to use it.

Grand Lodge

Well actually Mass Heal is a 8th level spell for a Life Oracle much like Neutralize Poison is typically a 4th level spell but to a life oracle it is a 3rd Level spell. Looking over past threads on Mass Heal it would seem it has been flagged for FAQ but it states 'not an error'.

Here It can been seen.


bear in mind a few things:
- it's 3pp, so I don't know if tripod will see your question here.
- adding a spell to spells known is just that, it doesn't alter it's level or allow you to cast it.
- oracle curse abilities scale at 5 level increments by convention, so 15 is really the only appropriate time for this ability, even if in practice it does nothing until 16th level.

- and my completely unrelated gripe about the child curse: Why does it not use the same physical ability score mods as the young adventurers rules released a year earlier in Ultimate Campaign (+2 Dex, -2 Str, -2 Con).. ;-)


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Thank you for your feedback.

You gain the spell, but you can't cast it. I strove to avoid this situation as much as possible. However, faced with several alternatives I liked less (giving them a fiddly SLA, changing spell levels, etc.) I also don't like that it means the spell appears at the same time as the Mystery spell, but there are some constraints dealing with the base class.

I will call this out in future printings.

But now I am wondering if an oracle with this curse who does not have 8th level spells should be able to burn two 7th level slots to cast the spell. Thoughts?

Quote:


Why does it not use the same physical ability score mods as the young adventurers rules released a year earlier in Ultimate Campaign (+2 Dex, -2 Str, -2 Con)

Good question! The most straightforward answer is that I don't see that it's necessary, and the modifiers I came up with work better for my purposes.

Longer answer:
- using lots of modifiers is harder to balance
- the character is ageless anyway, so they never have to interact with the normal aging rules
- Ultimate Campaign is a good book, but I don't think about it a lot. Since I didn't run into an issue I felt like needed more research to solve, I never got around to looking at other resources. By contrast I almost always check back with UC and APG; I treat those as basically extensions of the core rulebook.
- The Child oracle may not have literally the abilities of a child. This is a supernatural curse, after all. A child oracle could actually be 40 years old, so a Wisdom penalty doesn't necessarily make sense.
- Child oracles might be toward the Young Adventurer end of the age range, so a steeper Strength penalty makes sense.
- Young adventures, as described in UC, are already precocious individuals. So they don't represent a true average for the age category anyway. Most actual 9 year olds probably have a Strength of 4 or less, whereas a young adventurer could have anywhere from a 6 to a 15.
- The modifiers actually refer to a different, less obvious place in the rules. A Child oracle basically has half of a size category of differences. They can still swim, climb etc.
- Which means they are still capable in melee combat. A child Battle oracle isn't the first thing I think of, but I wanted it to be a viable option.


I did specifically state that it should use the physical stats of the young adventurers, so the wisdom penalty would not be there. The added dex would likely be a boon to combat worthiness, and I think it would make more sense to have con increase as the curse progresses than str. The curse also doesn't state that they are ageless, so I would assume mental ability scores still adjust as the character ages.

Grand Lodge

RJGrady wrote:

Thank you for your feedback.

You gain the spell, but you can't cast it. I strove to avoid this situation as much as possible. However, faced with several alternatives I liked less (giving them a fiddly SLA, changing spell levels, etc.) I also don't like that it means the spell appears at the same time as the Mystery spell, but there are some constraints dealing with the base class.

I will call this out in future printings.

But now I am wondering if an oracle with this curse who does not have 8th level spells should be able to burn two 7th level slots to cast the spell. Thoughts?

First your welcome.

I'm still loving the Curse as is anyways. I'm playing a Shabti Spirit Guide Life Oracle who heavily worships and acts very much like Shelyn. Tries to make Friends with everyone/everything possible with her massive Diplomacy and Enchantment magics.

As for Spell choice, it would have been appropriate choosing a 6th level spell and allowing them to cast the bonus spell when they receive it. But I can wait an extra level for Holy Aura.

I personally do not think the Physical Penalties need to change. Even in a child's body if you live a hard enough life and have the extra years learning your body, gaining more years of practicing Balance, building strength and Endurance that does not normally come with real children who have only lived for a few years. Children tend to not push their limits or bodies but someone who has accepted they will not grow will push themselves to those limits in hopes to get stronger.

On a side note my DM is just playing the curse negatives and no advanced age mental stat boosts, to keep it fair to the other players and keeping power in check. RP reasoning to justify this choice: I said my Shabti had her memory wiped at time of Liberation choosing to forsake all past memories (some not their own) to become her own person with her own life experiences/memories. Thus taking away all those bonuses advanced aging would give.

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