The oracle is an instant classic, uniting fun play with a strong thematic hook in the form of a divine curse. Explore new options for the oracle's curse like foretold, ravenous, or waking dreams. For the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.
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This little pdf on oracle curses clocks in at 10 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 6 pages of content, so let's take a look!
A total of 22 Oracle Curses can be found within the pages of this small pdf, so what can they do?
Well, first of all, there would be "curses" that make you venerable or a child and then proceed to mitigate some of the penalties incurred by the respective age categories - especially interesting would be the Omen (evil)/Messiah (good)-like capstone of the child or the immunity to death from old age for venerable oracles - especially the latter makes adventuring for power-gain a race against the clock. Branded oracles are fire-themed and may touch foes to brand them, while chilled oracles receive a cold-themed suite of abilities, which thankfully is NOT an inverse copy of the branded curse - kudos for going the extra mile there, especially since the spell-duplicating touch actually receives a nice modification at higher level to set it apart!
For more...let's say, unpleasant fellow, the choleric and feral curses - though the former lacks a detriment - flying into rage as per the spell is a flat-out bonus that has no drawback attached apart from role-playing since control is maintained. EDIT: Yes, I am aware of the inability to cast; Still - too good. Not sold there. The animal-focused feral curse does a better job there. Being a focus of a prophecy and hence, exceedingly easy to scry upon makes for an uncommon detriment. The Ravenous curse has a weird EDIT: The following is no glitch: "You cannot eat for more than one ten minutes at a time." - it is just a hyper-specific penalty that only kicks in in certain spells and situations. A tad bit too specific for my tastes, but oh well.
Being phlegmatic, which hobbles your initiative, or frenetic, which translates to not being able to take 10s or 20s both are interesting, as would be what I'd call "icky curses" - odious curses you with stench, which is quite a powerful ability, yes, but also not nice for your allies, while infested nets you disgusting parasites - I somehow had a Dark Souls flash-back there for a second...
Waking Dreamers have a hard time focusing on what's around them in favor of esoteric spell-like abilities, while the more worldly sanguine curse does something similar, but instead grants you an aura of courage and helps at higher levels to avoid being staggered or falling prey to compulsions. There also is an array of curses that nets you a negative condition permanently - being wan allows you to pepper foes with negative energy/exhaustion effects, while being melancholic delivers the shaken condition, but helps against its worth brethren and against emotion effects at higher levels. The most powerful of these examples would be the catatonic curse, which smacks you with being staggered - and yes, this changes the playing experience drastically.
Some people are shunned and ostracized and whether you opt for the friendless or its bigger, more nasty brethren, the forsaken curse, both deliver impediments - from charisma not being applied to diplomacy (interesting!) to the inability to benefit from aid another, both make for compelling similar, yet very distinct cases.
I've kept my 3 favorite curses for last, though: Sedentary hobbles your movement down to 5 ft and neuters your effective str and dex-score down to curse level (which is oracle level +1/2 level in other classes), but also provides significant, flavorful benefits to offset this massive penalty. The Unchained curse is narrative gold and makes you a blank slate for alignment purposes, allowing you to do things no other class might dare. Finally, the merciful curse forces you to be a goody two shoes, yes, but it also nets you lay on hands and even mercies - and makes for a glorious curse for truly good characters to have.
The pdf also provides a bonus creature, the Rot Grub Swarm, which clocks in at CR 7 and is rather nasty.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good - turns out what I considered a glitch was actually the intent of the pdf; I did not expect such a specific penalty. Mea culpa. Layout adheres to an easy to read, printer-friendly 2-column b/w-standard and the pdf has no art, but needs none at this length. While bookmarks are not compulsory at this length, having some would have been nice.
RJ Grady's Oracle Curses have a hard standing with me - I've read many curses and they are one of the trickier things to design. The level of hampering they have on the player character needs to be balanced on an individual level within the curse, while also maintaining a general sense of balance. That, and I've read *A LOT* of Oracle Curses. That being said, while I noticed some thematic overlap with other pdfs I've read, the mechanics per se actually try to be different, be unique, be compelling. The Oracle Curses herein did not bore me - more often than not, the curses do something mechanically unique or daring and thus truly enrich one's game. The pdf is not always perfect and awesome, but due to the very fair price point and its gems, well worth a final verdict of 4 stars.
The Oracles Curse is the latest offering from RJ Grady and Tripod Machine and at 10 pages including the cover it includes 22 new curses for the oracle class to take.
These curses each impose some very interesting conditions for the oracle from being infested with parasites to flying into a rage for 1d4+1 rounds whenever you take damage to being constantly hungry (this curse will give your players nightmares if used by a villain) each of these curses is unique and bursting with flavor.
There were no typos that I noticed and the formatting and layout are all great.
At the price of $1.99 you are getting quite a lot of bang for your buck.
Given the quality of the product I give the Oracle's Curse a 5 out of 5
I hope that this is the first in a line of new supplements from Tripod Machine.
I wanted to address two of the things that puzzled you. As for choleric, the rage spell imposes two notable disadvantages, namely, -2 AC, and the inability to cast spells. Thus, a choleric oracle could find themselves resorting to melee when they would rather be casting. With the ravenous curse, "You cannot eat for more than one ten minutes at a time," means exactly what it says. You can't benefit from hero's feast, because that requires you to eat for an hour. If you are invited to a banquet with the prime minister, you can eat for ten minutes and then have to stop for an hour. If you are starving, and you get to food, you can only eat ten minutes' worth before you have to wait an hour. If you find magic mushrooms, you can only eat them for ten minutes. After that, you just can't eat. Maybe you vomit, maybe your esophagus spasms, maybe the food just crumbles in your hands.
Ah, thank you very much for the clarification! I did not take a hyper-specific penalty for ravenous into account - my associations for the word were more in line with "gobble huge quantities of food down/being driven half mad by starvation." Apologies for that one, will edit it asap. As for rage, I'm aware of the "inability to initiate actions that require concentration"-caveat.
This still means that, depending on rules interpretation, the curse can be fooled by any multiclass with moment of clarity, though - since oracle/barb already is a pretty good/popular combination, that would mean a pretty easy curse with an infinite rage-source. This is a fringe-case, though - even if we ignore it, this curse would make for a (too) good dip for any multiclass.
Cheers and all the best, Sorceror's bloodlines will follow soon!
I guess if you allow rage powers to work during the rage spell, a 2nd level barbarian could get one freebie round each time, but of course at the cost of slower oracle progression. And, since the rage lasts 1d4+1 rounds and moment of clarity can only be used once each rage, you are still guaranteed one round of full-on rage. There are probably some aspects of infinite rage that bear looking at, but I don't see anything right away that looks broken. Thanks for the insight.
question: does the merciful curse's advancement of gaining mercy's limited to each "level" of mercies, like can the 5th level curse advancement allow you to take only the fatigued,shaken or sickened mercies and the 10th level advancement limited to only dazed,diseased,staggered mercies
or is it at each curse advancement of the merciful curse you can take any "tier" of mercy
