I see it in the flickering of my monitor. I hear it in the cawing of the seagulls fighting over a bagel outside my window. I smell it in my coffee from down the street (not the coffee from up the street—the coffee from the other street, or the coffee from the corner; this is Seattle, after all). For the oracle, coming in Pathfinder Player Core 2, is Remastered.
Oracles are divine spellcasters who draw their power not from prayer or devotion to a deity, but from a firsthand connection to the great mysteries of the universe. This connection is a double-edged sword, though, as gazing too deeply into these mysteries results in terrible backlash in the form of a divine curse. While this unique relationship with the divine and its “power at a price” theme offer strong and appealing roleplaying hooks that are very Golarion (what is the role of an oracle in a world where prophecy is lost?), the original oracle was often thought of as intimidatingly complex or as a class that made the player jump through hoops to unlock its potential. The Remastered oracle has been changed in ways both large and small to reduce its complexity and pain points, while still allowing players who want to risk fate to draw upon their curse to gain power.
The big change: instead of an oracle’s curse giving them a large suite of abilities, some of which are buffs, some of which are debuffs, and some of which might go either way, the oracle’s curse now just strictly debuffs the player. We’ve done it—no, no, no, come back; I promise this made the class stronger!
Art by Christoph Peters.
Because the classic oracle’s curses boosted some stats while lowering others, it could be unclear whether being cursed was a benefit you were trying to get ASAP or a price you had to strategically work around. In the Remaster, they’re always a price, which lets us significantly dial up the power that you get for paying it and keeps the trade-off simple to understand: “Cheat the rules of creation for power, and you get cursed.” The new oracle’s cursebound trait appears not on their focus spells, but instead on specific feats and other actions that have a notable advantage over similarly leveled feats, like cheating the action economy, letting you automatically learn about your target without a skill check, or other similar benefits. Each mystery grants a cursebound ability at level 1 to let them draw on this power, like Foretell Harm.
Foretell Harm [free-action] — Feat 1
Cursebound, Divine, Oracle
Frequency Once per round
Requirements Your previous action was to Cast a non-cantrip Spell that dealt damage.Your magic echoes ominously as you glimpse injury in the target’s future. At the beginning of your target’s next turn, it takes damage equal to twice the triggering spell’s rank as a seemingly random and minor misfortune finds it. The damage and type of misfortune is of a type matching the spell; for instance, if you dealt fire damage, a flame might spontaneously ignite on them or they might burn a hand on their torch. The target is then temporarily immune to Foretell Harm for 24 hours.
However, whenever you use a cursebound ability, your cursebound condition increases in value. This is a unique condition that appears only in the oracle class. As your cursebound condition increases, the deleterious effects of your curse increase as well, like giving you a penalty to certain saving throws or a weakness to certain damage types. Like the classic oracle, the remastered oracle can tolerate higher and higher cursebound values as they increase in level, letting them use more cursebound abilities.
While most of these curse effects are relatively simple, we do know that a lot of oracle players enjoyed the more disruptive curse effects that could really throw variety into your battle. We’ve kept many of these as cursebound feats, like Meddling Futures (where sprits vie for control over your body) or Thousand Visions (where visions of the future grant you great perception within a short range, but overwhelm your senses beyond it), which are now selectable by any mystery. Now, oracle players who want to opt into this complexity can do so, and oracles who want more straightforward benefits can keep it simple.
Other Changes
We’ve also made several smaller changes throughout the oracle! In no particular order:
- We’ve made it easier to tailor your oracle's spell list to your mystery. Each mystery now grants three thematic spells to an oracle’s repertoire, and all oracles automatically gain a divine access class feature about halfway through their career that lets them expand this list further.
- We’ve doubled the number of available domains for oracles who want to harness domain magic. All mysteries now grant four related domains—now your battle oracle might gain the destruction domain, or your cosmos oracle the star domain!
- We’ve added dashes of ominous, portentous, delirious flavor throughout the class to really make you feel like you’re channeling otherworldly powers.
- With more streamlined mysteries and curses, we had room to add a greater number of unique oracle feats, a thing that was often cited as lacking in the classic oracle. Take a look at a unique feat for ancestors or battle oracles: The Dead Walk!
The Dead Walk [two-actions] — Feat 10
Cursebound, Divine, Oracle
Prerequisites ancestors or battle mysteryYou beseech warrior spirits to come forth and aid you. Two ghostly warriors manifest within a 30-foot emanation of you and each attempt a Strike against an adjacent enemy, using your spell attack modifier, and then disappear. The warriors’ Strikes each deal 4d6 spirit damage, and the warriors can flank with one another and with you and your allies. If you are cursebound 2 when you use The Dead Walk, you instead summon three warriors, and if you are cursebound 3, you instead summon four warriors. The warriors disappear at the start of your next turn.
We’re getting close to the release of Player Core 2, with ancestries, archetypes, and more, so be sure to subscribe to the Rulebook line, pre-order the book, or make a note to swing by our booth at Gen Con to check things out—and keep an eye on the future for the last of our Remaster class previews!
James Case (he/him)
Lead Developer, Rules and Lore
Player Core 2 Preview: The Oracle, Remastered
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
