Is there a Mute Oracle's Curse?

[Berselius]

Is there a Mute Oracle's Curse in either official or 3rd party Pathfinder material?

[Kalindlara]

...sort of.

Jade Regent:

Book 1 has a harpy oracle with a "Mute" curse. It's balanced around what she loses, though, which is much more than what a normal PC loses.

I'd recommend looking into 3pp material - I don't know enough about that. D20pfsrd generally hosts both first-party and third-party material, so you might check there... just look out for the Jade Regent one. ^_^

[Berselius]

So I looked around the forums and found this entry by Ezzran:

Oracle Curse: Mute
The Oracle’s Curse renders her unable to speak. The Oracle casts all spells as if they have been modified with the Silent Spell feat, without changing their casting time or spell level.

5th level: The Oracle can communicate telepathically with anyone she is currently touching. This communication is language-dependent. She can use this ability to cast any language-dependent spell, but she must succeed on a Touch Attack against the target. She can only communicate this way with one person at a time.

10th level: The Oracle can, as a full round action, form a telepathic bond with one willing person. She can communicate with this person telepathically, at will, as if she was touching them. She can change the target of her bond once per day.

15th level: The Oracle can always understand and be understood when using her telepathic communications, as if under the effect of a Tongues spell. In addition, she can communicate telepathically with more than one person at a time, but she must be saying the same thing to all of them.

Dual-Cursed Oracles cannot take both this curse and the Tongues curse.

Does this look like it would past muster with a DM that rarely uses 3rd Party Pathfinder rules? Can anyone let me know if this seems broken or not? Thanks in advance.

[blahpers]

In one relevant thread, JJ mentioned that they probably wouldn't release a mute curse because having a mute PC makes the character boring and/or forgotten because they were excluded from roleplaying . . . which is patently silly. Nothing prevents a mute character from roleplaying. Besides, they already released a deaf curse, and depending on the timing of the curse a deaf oracle is likely to be either mute (same "problem"), comical ("GOOD DAY, KIND SIR! I'M LOOKING FOR THE PIXIE'S KITTEN; WOULD YOU MIND POINTING IN THE GENERAL DIRECTION?"), or painful-to-borderline-offensive (unless your table can handle a Helen Keller impression that lasts the entire campaign).

I played an oracle who was both deaf and mute for a while, and neither condition provided any barrier to roleplaying.

[Pax Miles]

Berselius wrote:

Is there a Mute Oracle's Curse in either official or 3rd party Pathfinder material?

Being mute isn't really a crippling condition in pathfinder, especially for an oracle. It inconviences your allies more than yourself, to be unable to speak in pathfinder.

That said, there is an oracle curse that makes speach hard, if you are looking for impairment of your ability to speak. The Wolfscarred Face curse, from Blood of Angels, grants a 20% chance to fail verbal spells.

The Tongues (Advanced Player's Guide) and Lyncanthropy (Horror Realms) curses both make speech to allies difficult, though they don't impair verbal spells.

[Berselius]

If I used the Mute Oracle Curse from Jade Regent do you think it would affect my NPC's Challenge Rating in any way?

[Pax Miles]

Berselius wrote:

If I used the Mute Oracle Curse from Jade Regent do you think it would affect my NPC's Challenge Rating in any way?

Are you the player or the GM?

As the GM, usually things like class choices don't affect the CR, but you might adjust if a particular combination is employed that strongly unbalances an encounter.

I would also stay away from dual cursed oracles as a GM for my NPCs. Not really fair to balance an NPC with multiple afflictions that will only exist for one encounter. No rule against, just seems like bad form to me. Especially unbalanced if you use Oracle's Burden during the encounter.

[Moonclanger]

Pax Miles wrote:

Berselius wrote:

Is there a Mute Oracle's Curse in either official or 3rd party Pathfinder material?

Being mute isn't really a crippling condition in pathfinder, especially for an oracle. It inconviences your allies more than yourself, to be unable to speak in pathfinder.

I agree, and I think that's why there isn't a Mute curse. It's so common in fantasy literature that its omission can't be an oversight.

I suggest taking the Deaf curse and playing the character as a deaf mute. Perhaps as a dual-cursed oracle with Deaf as the primary curse and "Mute" as the secondary. That way you get no benefit for being mute beyond the extra revelations.

[Pax Miles]

Moonclanger wrote:

Pax Miles wrote:

Berselius wrote:

Is there a Mute Oracle's Curse in either official or 3rd party Pathfinder material?

Being mute isn't really a crippling condition in pathfinder, especially for an oracle. It inconviences your allies more than yourself, to be unable to speak in pathfinder.

I agree, and I think that's why there isn't a Mute curse. It's so common in fantasy literature that its omission can't be an oversight.

I suggest taking the Deaf curse and playing the character as a deaf mute. Perhaps as a dual-cursed oracle with Deaf as the primary curse and "Mute" as the secondary. That way you get no benefit for being mute beyond the extra revelations.

I've heard that if a 3rd party product produces rules for something, Paizo can't include it in Pathfinder without permission. It's possible that the ommission is related copyright, rather than an ingame reason.

PFS now has rules where characters can be just naturally Deaf/Mute/Blind. There's no benefit beyond the condition, just hinderance, but it's a player creation option.

Personally, I really like the Oracle Curses, both the benefits and the curses. I want a feat option where any character can take an oracle curse (or allowed Oracle Curses to resolve based on Character level, rather than class level).

[Moonclanger]

Pax Miles wrote:

Moonclanger wrote:

Pax Miles wrote:

Berselius wrote:

Is there a Mute Oracle's Curse in either official or 3rd party Pathfinder material?

Being mute isn't really a crippling condition in pathfinder, especially for an oracle. It inconviences your allies more than yourself, to be unable to speak in pathfinder.

I agree, and I think that's why there isn't a Mute curse. It's so common in fantasy literature that its omission can't be an oversight.

I've heard that if a 3rd party product produces rules for something, Paizo can't include it in Pathfinder without permission. It's possible that the ommission is related copyright, rather than an ingame reason.

Personally, I really like the Oracle Curses, both the benefits and the curses. I want a feat option where any character can take an oracle curse (or allowed Oracle Curses to resolve based on Character level, rather than class level).

3pp rules may prevent Paizo from introducing a mute curse now, but to me the omission was glaringly obvious as soon as I read the APG when it was hot off the press, at which point no 3pp Oracle rules would have existed. I've always assumed Paizo went with deaf because it's similar to mute but more debilitating.

I agree that an Oracle curse feat would be a great inclusion in the game.

[Ultrace]

Berselius wrote:

So I looked around the forums and found this entry by Ezzran:

Oracle Curse: Mute
The Oracle’s Curse renders her unable to speak. The Oracle casts all spells as if they have been modified with the Silent Spell feat, without changing their casting time or spell level.

...

I wouldn't accept this myself. While it's not outright broken, it's definitely more beneficial than many other Oracle curses. As others have said, not being able to speak to your fellow party members is a minor inconvenience. Being able to cast all your spells without using verbal components? While silenced, or underwater or whatever? The initial benefit you gain at level 1 outweighs the disadvantage right there, and then you get telepathy, which, for the creature being communicated with, is in some ways a superior form of communication to speech. Imagine the stealth and deception possibilities. Lean on your fellow party member's shoulder and have a whole undetectable conversation right in front of someone. Once they get the telepathic bond (which has no range limit listed!) they don't even have to touch or be in the same city to pull it off.

The only way I think I could let this go is if the player was not actually allowed to talk to their fellow players at the table. They're going to cast heal? Hope you've got a signal arranged with the table for that. Need someone to peel the BBEG off you? Signal. No metagaming communication to your fellow players via discussion with the GM, either.

[Diego Rossi]

Ultrace wrote:

The only way I think I could let this go is if the player was not actually allowed to talk to their fellow players at the table. They're going to cast heal? Hope you've got a signal arranged with the table for that. Need someone to peel the BBEG off you? Signal. No metagaming communication to your fellow players via discussion with the GM, either.

Exactly that. The mute and deaf curses have practically no drawback if you don't play them to the hilt, but if you play them correctly, they are a great annoyance for the whole table.