Hi, everyone!
For our new campaign, our DM wants to simplify things and will allow only material from Core and APG, no exceptions allowed.
With this in mind, I was thinking about building a Reach Oracle with the Battle Mystery. I am familiar with the Reach Cleric Guide, but since only Core and APG are allowed, I think an Orcale doesn't lose much and gains many interesting things from the Battle Mystery (like Enlarge Person, Maneuver Mastery and Skill at Arms).
The idea for my character is to use his standard actions to cast spells (mostly buffs and some control tricks) and take advantage of a huge threatened area to make AoO outside of his turn. This would be accomplished with reach weapon (bardiche) + enlarge person + feat/mystery support. The build I'm currently working on is the following:
Human Oracle (Haunted Curse, Battle Mystery).
STR 17 (15+2 racial bonus), DEX 14, CON 14, INT 10, WIS 8, CHA 14 (20 point buy).
FEATS: 1 Toughness, 1 Combat Reflexes (extra human feat), 3 Power Attack, 5 Pushing Assault, 7 Furious Focus, 9 Extra Revelation-Warsight, 11 Extra Revelation-Battlefield Clarity, 13 Extra Revelation-Combat Healer, 15 Quicken Spell.
REVELATIONS: 1 Skill at Arms, 3 Weapon Mastery (Bardiche), 7 Maneuver Mastery, 11 Ironskin, 15 Surprising Charge
I want to use enlarge person + bardiche to threaten a big enough area. With Pushing Assault (and some tactic 5-foot steps) I can keep opponents where I want them (outside their melee range and inside my threatened area), and with Trip Maneuver Mastery I can control that zone even better. High DEX + Combat Reflexes are there for providing more AoO. I'm planning on WIS 8 INT 10 because I'd rather play absent-minded, irresponsible characters than stupid ones (plus skills!).
I have never played an oracle nor a reach melee character in Pathfinder before, so maybe someone with more experience can point out some traps I might be falling in or some possibilities I might have missed. I know Core + APG only reduces options a lot, but I still think this build might be both effective and fun!
Any comments? Thanks a lot in advance for taking the time to read this!
Build looks fine to me. Some thoughts...
General battle oracle advice: Do something about your saving throws. They will be quite low for someone standing near the front. That's the main reason why I personally prefer a cleric for frontline divine casters. But since you're set on oracle already...
Maybe even get Great Fortitude or Iron Will at level 1 instead of Toughness. Being a Half-Elf with the dual-minded trait would also give you +2 to will saves (with an additional +2 againts all enchantment effects) on top of other nice racial abilites.
Do keep in mind that enlarge person takes one full round to cast. That's one round without the ability to take AoOs unless you pre-buff (or use quicken later). The spell also lowers your AC and number of AoOs by one.
Get some easily accessible secondary weapon without reach like a spiked gauntlet or something. You WILL run into situation when a 5-ft-step won't get the enemy away from you.
Make sure the rest of your party understands that you work primarily from AoOs. If the other melee guys engange the foes too agressively, there might not be enough enemy movement for you to actually get any AoOs.
The fact that enlarge person takes one round is not optimal, I know. I'll try to prebuff, and at level 10 I'll be able to use righteous might, which is even better and uses a standard action. And spiked gauntlet will be worn as a backup plan, for sure.
I'm not completely commited to oracle, but do you think cleric would work better? I would lose some useful spells and revelations that synergize well with the concept. What could I get in return besides a good Fort save?
Thanks for the suggestions! Oh, and I know multiclassing is usually a bad idea for an oracle, but just in case I should clarify that it will also be forbidden for this campaign.
Cleric doesn't only improve your Fort save. Your Will save will be quite a bit better, too, since you actually use Wisdom instead of dumping it. Playing Cleric would also open up the possibility of playing a dwarf for Hardy (and Steel Soul) which is another great way to improve your saves.
To be honest, if you go for trip, battle oracle will work WAY better than cleric. I just find combat maneuvers too ineffective at higher levels. Large and huge monsters with high strength have ridiculous CMD. You can't even attempt a trip on anything larger (but those often out-reach you anyway). Flying monsters and anything without legs are outright immune. I will say that I've never actually seen such a build in action so it might work better than I imagine.
Still, effects like the automatic push on hit with pushing assault seem way better and more reliable. Tough as for pushing assault itself, I'm not sure how it will help your build. Even if you hit and push an enemy that's moving through your threatened area, chances are he will just use the rest of his movement to approach you (or his target) anyway by using the rest of his movement (if he has any left). Pushing assault doesn't interrupt the movement like Stand Still and the movement of an enemy can't provoke an AoOs of you more than once per round. There will be situations when a foe will just barely have enough movement to reach you and pushing assault will keep him at bay, of course. I just don't know how often things like that will actually happen.
As for a cleric, how good the class works with a reach build comes down to domain choices, mostly. Growth will give you enlarge as swift action, if only for one round. Heroism gives you the spell of the same name, which is a very good buff with good duration (and improves your saves further), and you can share the effect with your party as swift action. Tactics will allow you or an ally to reroll initiative which can be a great boon and you get a combat feat on demand. Many situational feats like quick draw or blindfight are great when you need them but not taken very often because they are so situaltional.
A conductive weapon would also open up all kinds of bad touch domains. Touch of Chaos or Vision of Madness will seriously cripple anyone who moves through your threatened area.
Bottom line: I don't think any of the two is much better, they are just different. The cleric will have significantly better saves, the oracle is better with combar maneuvers. Both have class abilities (revelations and domains) that work pretty well with a reach build, though it might be hard to find a cleric-diety that has exactly the domain combination our looking for.
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Do keep in mind that enlarge person takes one full round to cast. That's one round without the ability to take AoOs unless you pre-buff (or use quicken later). The spell also lowers your AC and number of AoOs by one.
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Last time I checked, the fact that you had to spend a full round to cast a spell doesn't keep you from making Attacks of Opportunity, if something is already available to use them on or if you can manage to 5-foot step to get into position to make things available to use them on (you can still 5-foot step after casting a full round spell, as long as you don't have anything preventing you from 5-foot stepping, like difficult terrain or something forcing you to have already used your 5-foot step before casting).
It's not a full-round action. It's one full round. You start the cast on your turn, spend the whole round doing nothing else and you keep casting until the beginning of your next turn and only then the spell will be finished.
That means you are concentrating a whole round until it's your turn again. Makes the spell very easy to interrupt and prevents any other action. Even if you rule that AoOs are possible while concentrating on a spell, he still needs one hand for casting so he can't use his two-handed weapon while doing so.
I thought pushing assault could be interesting to use when I decide to attack in my turn. With normal size, 5-feet step plus pushing assault can put adjacent enemies in a spot where they have to provoke AoO if they want to engage again. Same tactic can be applied when enlarged against big enemies with reach.
I'll admit a cleric of Iomedae with heroism & tactics seems a pretty good combination for the concept. I would lose enlarge person (again, the intention is to use it as a prebuff) and other revelations, but what heroism and tactics give me is very interesting as well. No tripping, but that's not a huge problem. And I can always use righteous might as an improved enlarge person from level 9. I would need STR, WIS, CON, DEX and also some CHA, so it might be even more MAD... And no heavy armor.
Mmh. I'm not sure what would work better.
Stats are easy enough - if you can live without skill points.
Str 15(+2 racial) Dex 14 Con 14 Int 8 Wis 14 Cha 10
You planned with 3 Extra Revelations on your oracle which you won't need on a cleric. Shouldn't be too hard to get heavy armor proficiency.
Try to get your hands on a +1 grayflame weapon. When you activate it with positive energy as a swift action, it will pierce all common DRs (magic, silver, cold iron and good) except adamantit. Extra channel might be a good idea so you can use it more often.
Use Greater Magic Weapon at level 8+ to improve your attack and damage.
I'd probably go with extra channel at level one instead of toughness. The two extra revelation feats could be turned into Heavy Armor Proficiency and something else (Weapon Focus?). For the Pushing Assault tactics, Lunge is probably pretty good as well, allowing you to push the enemy twice once you get multiple attacks per rond.
As for enlarge, a few potions for hard encounters should work. Using the spell as potion also gets rid of the high casting time. For pre-buffing, get a wand and hand it to someone who can use it.
It's not a full-round action. It's one full round. You start the cast on your turn, spend the whole round doing nothing else and you keep casting until the beginning of your next turn and only then the spell will be finished.
That means you are concentrating a whole round until it's your turn again. Makes the spell very easy to interrupt and prevents any other action. Even if you rule that AoOs are possible while concentrating on a spell, he still needs one hand for casting so he can't use his two-handed weapon while doing so.
That sounds sensible . . . but I tried to find a rules on this, and the rules don't seem to say anything about it. Point me to one if you can find it -- this would nerf Reach builds a bit (only a bit, because most spells are Standard Action and not Full Round casting time).
a spontaneous caster like a sorcerer takes a full round action to cast their spells.
But 1 round cast spells like summon monster or sleep trigger right before your next turn and you're casting the entire time.
"the interrupting event strikes during spellcasting if it comes between the time you started and the time you complete a spell (for a spell with a casting time of 1 full round or more)"
"A spell that takes 1 round to cast is a full-round action. It comes into effect just before the beginning of your turn in the round after you began casting the spell. You then act normally after the spell is completed."
"When you begin a spell that takes 1 round or longer to cast, you must continue the concentration from the current round to just before your turn in the next round (at least). If you lose concentration before the casting is complete, you lose the spell."
^Okay, I guess that will do the job.
Link on www.d20pfsrd.com
Paizo PRD page that has this (search for Casting Time, about half way down)
Strangely, can't seem to find this on Archives of Nethys.