[Feedback]Lore Oracle

[MrJohnson]

Hello,

I've been playing a Dual Cursed (Child/Haunted) Aasimar Lore Oracle for a while now, and I thought it would be nice to give a little bit of feedback on the few issues I have seen playing my build. The character just hit level 10, so please bear in mind that I didn't get to see the high-level revelations yet.

Let's start with the positive:
1) Playing a character that looks like a child is fun (reminder: Child curse is third-party).
2) The first Dual Cursed feels quite strong while not game-breaking.
3) The extra spell lists are nice.
4) The Sidestep Secret revelation is a strong defensive feature.
5) It's nice to be the know-all character.
6) Mental Acuity is a weirdly well-balanced revelation.

Now for the issues I have seen:
1) The damage to undead and evil creatures upon bleeding that was tacked on to the Aasimar feat Angelic Blood feels too weak. 1 damage point on a very situational power is hardly ever going to make any difference in battle, even in a campaign entirely focused around blood-sucking undead/evil creatures. The feat does contain other more decent bonuses, and is a required feat for those that, like me, want to take wings later on. So I'm not sure if this bonus should be purely improved, simply removed, or upgraded as a possible alternative to the other bonuses the blood may give.

2) Focused trance is way too powerful. I took this one rather early, and the group quickly saw the issue with it: it makes you the only character susceptible to make any intelligence-based skill checks, even if others have attempted to specialize in a specific skill. I don't think that the issue comes with how high the bonus is, but rather from the fact that it gives very high bonuses regardless of how much you've invested in the skill. I asked my DM the authorization to nerf the power so that it would apply to only a subset of the skills, but I feel that the best way to make this skill a not overpowered one would be to make it double all bonuses to the throw rather than give a flat +20.

3) There doesn't seem to really be the need to have both Think on it and Focused Trance in the same Mystery. Sure, many players will take both as a matter of principle, but then they'll be removing any remaining chance of any other character ever being useful when it comes to intelligence-based skills. On its own, however, it seems good, but not overwhelmingly so.

4) Whirlwind lesson looks like a power meant to either be really bad or be abused, whether it is through retraining, Crafting Tomes at quarter their cost for two characters at once, or abusing foreknowledge of a campaign's rewards, or multiple of those at the same time.

5) Finally, Brain Drain is one of those weird skills that does a lot of things so bad that it doesn't seem like a good a idea to take it. The ability is likely to kill the person you are trying to get info from. You can't use it stealthily. Your own Knowledge bonuses are already so high using someone else's is worthless. And it deals low damage, with lots of creatures immune to it. Light improvements in a few areas would do a lot to make it playable.

Sorry for the text-wall.
Have a nice day, and great adventures!

[Taja the Barbarian]

Quite literally, 'Lore' is your 'thing'. You are supposed to be really good at it as a member of a class that gets neither a lot of skill points nor an Intelligence focus, so they 'cheat' a bit.

Also, note that you only get about half of the Revelations in a typical mystery (for Lore, you have 10 choices for your 6 revelation slots)

• Brain Drain is a direct damage attack dressed up in a 'Lore' theme. Direct damage spell options are a little light for Oracles (unless you are fighting outsiders or undead).
• Focused Trance is powerful but basically can't be used in combat to identify opponents (do we need silver or cold iron to kill this creature that just appeared before us? Give me 1d6 rounds and I'll tell you...). Also, you could run out of uses if your adventure contains too many knowledge checks.
• Think on it seems fine by itself, and combining it with Focused Trance is little more than extra insurance against one bad roll each day.
• Whirlwind Lessons seems pretty much useless: Retraining time would easily exceed your time savings, and cost of a tome makes sharing with allies for a temporary buff rather uneconomical (seriously, tomes should never be crafted due to their high material component cost).

[MrJohnson]

We agree that Lore is meant to be the focus of this kind of Oracle, but in the case of Focused Trance, it completely overpowers the whole team for the Intelligence-based skills with very little investment, until high levels (at level 9, with +6 intel, 2 feats, class skill and maxed mastery, you are still only at +23, while the oracle is at +24 with a single skill point and no intel bonus, which means he still has most skill points available for other skills).
The issue here isn't so much that the character is very strong in his skill-set, it is that he completely monopolizes a whole set of skills while still being able to heavily invest in other sets of skills.

PS: please note that a non-specialized level 20 character only has +23 in a skill before applying the relevant stat, while a level 1 lore oracle has +24 if that skill is int-based (still before applying the stat).
I did experience the issue of other players feeling barred from int-based skills (hence why I asked my DM to allow for a nerf to that power).
The few situations where that skill can't be used don't counterbalance it well enough.