Made a new level 3 Oracle last night for a friend's campaign that will be starting next saturday. It is a large group of regular players (we've been role-playing together for the past four years and been doing pathfinder since Beta). The GM decided to fold the last city campaign and move on to a Starjammer campaign.
Group is to consist of the following;
2 Meat shield style fighters
1 Bow using fighter
1 Priest (Drow from Bestiary) with positive channeling
1 Ranger (Drow) with double scimitars (Drizzt fan)
1 GM special (don't know much details on this)
1 Human Tranmuster Wizard < Ship's Engineer - Weapons Officer >
1 Rogue (Tengu from Bestiary) < Ship's Captain >
My Oracle (Half-Elf) with Curse of Deaf and Focus of Wind serving as the Helms Officer (Pilot).
The DM had advised that choices of skills Fly, Prof Siege Engineer, and Sailor would be useful choices (Spelljammer theme).
My concept for the Oracle was to be a support character given that the group had at least four fighters (3 fighters plus ranger). We also have a priest to provide area channel healing.
I decided to focus on skills like Fly and recon role with Stealth (skills coming from the Wind Focus which is why I chose this focus).
The 4d6 rolls (group has a standard variation that they like which is a reroll of 1s on the first roll) resulted in 12, 13, 13, 13, 13, 14. Nothing really stellar but nothing bad either. I choose Half-Elf because I liked the +2 perception and the extra skill focus while not sacrificing any speed. I put the 14 in Charisma and gave it the +2 racial.
Curse choice was tricky. I discarded;
Clouded Vision - wanted to get usage of Wind Sight for later recon and ability to Clairvoyance targets (spyglass).
Haunted - extra spells would be great but the DM would have been well within their rights to mess up stealth and invisibility with convient glass breaking or things being knocked over.
Lame - wanted to keep my mobility
Wasting - didn't want to be diseased (hygiene choice)
This left me to choose from Deaf and Tongues.
Tongues would have been fine as we had a Tengu that speaks plenty of languages and I could choose to summon monsters that spoke a language that I knew in battle.
I chose Deaf because of the Silent spell benefit. I'm going to explain it as I hear the sound of the wind rushing past/through my ears all the time. I'll see how this turns out in game.
Spells Known
Level 0 - Mending (minor ship repairs), Create Water, Stabilize (always good when not the main healer and don't have positive channel ~ learned this on my last negative channel priest), Detect Magic, Detect Poison
Level 1 - Shield (Wind 3rd), Cure Light Wounds (Secondary Healer for group), Sanctuary (either to protect a character to give them time to heal or allow one of the striker style Ranger or Rogue to slip through to the backfield to get a target), Command (while deaf that doesn't mean dumb ~ I also think that I can point and use some simple finger/hand gestures for the commands approach and flee which are the two big ones).
Things noted that suprised my fellow Rogue Tengu was that I had access to 5 level 0 Orisons (with eventual access to 9). I pointed out this was the same as a sorcerer. He was suprised as a Cleric has flexibility but they only have 4 choices each day.
I didn't feel too cramped on my spell list at this point. I have 4 first level spells to choose from with the ability to cast 5 plus 1 (for Charisma Bonus) for a total of 6 spells a day. Without another priest in the party then I would be reaching for a wand of cure light wounds likely as a supplement.
Feats chosen are;
Skill Focus with Fly, Perception, and Stealth. (Half-Elf, 1st, and 3rd)
I also have the Silent Spell on all spells cast.
Wind Focus Revelations
Invisibility - combined with the silent spell will allow me to move around in combat casting spells as long as they are not attacks. I should be able to be a good buffer and healer in this role.
Wind Sight - Initially giving 100' of clear sight with the increase at level 7 to clairvoyance will allow me to do a good job of recon and peering around corners or other spots
My plan is to pick up Wings of Air at level 7 which along with the Levitate spell from Wind Focus will give me a pretty good mobility to add to the team. At this point I might start doing some flanking and Aiding along with the spell casting.
Skills Chosen (chose favoured class for skill point bonus)
Fly (for piloting the ship ~ GM ruling on the skill needed), Stealth and Perception (for recon role and assist of Rogue and Ranger on adventures off the ship), Knowledge: Geography (where we are going), Sense Motive (to allow reading lips and gestures), and Profession: Pilot (my job on the Spelljammer).
I am choosing to make this a non-combatant character for the most part. I have given the character Masterwork Chainshirt (-1 Armour check penalty to stealth which is pretty good). I have chosen as the main weapon to be a Blowgun (never had a character with one before and I want to remind myself that standing next monsters is not my role in the group).
Magic Item - Starting with a Type I Bag of Holding.
Okay, first game is scheduled for next Saturday and I will try to keep you posted on how things work out.
Blind people can easily tell if it's day or night. They get tired at night. Never seen the sky, and somehow...they still figure it out as being...up. They can bewilderingly tell that the sun is out because they feel the warmth on thier skin. And do you ant me to fill you in on how they tell if it's raining?
Seriously, unsighted people get on fine every day, using the compensation of other senses to make up for the lack of one. They tend to smell odors better, can tell north because of the direction of the sun's warmth on their face (rise in the east, sets in the west; align that with right and left respectively, then north is in front of you).
It's true. Look it up. :-)
But they can't see the splendorous colors of a sunrise... *tear*
Seriously though, my point was that it was very hard to not accidentally give the player information they shouldn't have, and the player accidentally acting on meta-knowledge.
Also, since we are talking about a spellcaster, there are game mechanics issues at stake here, not just the "getting by" parts.
Lastly, I'm pretty sure the blind or deaf will tell you having a limp (curse: Lame) or being ugly/smelly (curse: Wasting) is "not exactly equivocal". And that was my main point... that these curses are a little imbalanced when it comes to dealing with them on the roleplaying side.
I know this basically over and done with and there is very little chance of an art work change. Still....
The Cavalier Iconic should be a Gnome riding a Giant Gecko! It's to colorful not to be done! And it would be good to have support for the Gaint Gecko as a Cavalier mount in the ruled at some point.
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I know this basically over and done with and there is very little chance of an art work change. Still....
The Cavalier Iconic should be a Gnome riding a Giant Gecko! It's to colorful not to be done! And it would be good to have support for the Gaint Gecko as a Cavalier mount in the ruled at some point.
Really? Are you for real? Is this really happening?
Playtest - Oracle 3rd level (Spelljammer campaign)
I previously detailed the character with the exception that I chose on game night to drop the Bag of Holding for four wands. Wand of Cure Light Wounds with 50 charges, Wand of Shield Other with 5 charges, Wand of Lesser Restoration 5 charges, Wand of Hold Person 10 charges.
The new campaign began with the group being chased by a horde of lizardpeople on a tropical island. The group was chased into a swamp area with Tiki statues marking a warded area.
I used Detect Magic to locate the warding and used a bit of gesturing to alert the others in the party. Our 'Captain' chose to lead us past the warding rather than stay and face the horde of Lizardpeople.
Within the warded area, I spotted a cave and used my Wind Sight ability to check out the entrance of the cave. Not seeing any problems, are group went into the cave. The cave had a large door hooked to a mechanism for closing it. There was some discussion on whether to close the door or not; so, I chose to just act and close the door on the angry horde of Lizardpeople.
The group then broke up and started to explore the cave which was made of ironwood. I chose to stick close to the Barbarian of the group which I had cast Shield Other upon. Eventually, the barbarian and me ended up on the main deck (though we didn't know it at the time). I chose to sit in the big ivory chair that was on the deck and was connected to the ship's avatar intelligence.
What followed was a role-playing session of running the helm of the spelljammer for the first time of the ship. We blind jumped and ended up in space near two other ships that were locked in some sort of grapple. We also managed to wake up the ship's avatar (special character playing the role of ship and an intelligence android like on Andromeda).
The ship intelligence decided to take us closer to the two ships that were grappled in combat. I chose to go help are group's wizard/engineer start to work at fixing some of the deterioration that had occured to our ship. The rest of the group spread out to do various things. Our Tengu Captain and platemail armed fighter chose to try a boarding action on the first ship that we pulled up against. A mistake by our ship's avatar failed to align the gravity fields of the two ships properly which resulted in some problems as they swung across to find they were then 'falling' in a different direction.
Soon, opponents on that ship appeared with crossbows and started to repell boarders. Missiles started to be exchanged between the ships with our Bow Fighter starting to pick off the opponents. Our Barbarian spent several rounds pulling on a line to rescue the Captain and platemail fighter from floating off into the void.
Being a deaf oracle, I heard none of this. Eventually, I did see the form of the Captain and fighter pass by one of the port holes. I alerted the party wizard of the combat going on outside. Again, I had used Wind Sight to get a better view of what was going on.
I went up to the weapons deck to join the combat but I was without my 1st level spells since they had been drained by the ships helm chair. The cleric of the group had suffered a similar problem; so, we were roughly equal. I had my wands and he had his channel healings.
I used the Wand of Cure Light Wounds to heal one player that had taken a pretty vicious crossbow bolt. I used the Wand of Hold Other twice to stop opponent sailors which were then cut down by the other players (I protested the lack of taking prisoners).
The Oracle held up and contributed well with the group. The only real difference in the playtest was when the group got hit by and area of effect attack. The Cleric was able to use a channel and give healing back to most of the party. I would have had to do it one person at a time and used up most of my spells doing it or relied on the wand of cure light wounds. I did enjoy having the powers of Invisibility and Wind Sight and look forward to getting further use of them in the campaign.
Playtest - Oracle 3rd Level (Spelljammer Campaign)
We continued the adventures of our crew.
There was only one small additional combat/trap this week (a wounded crew person on 0 hp fired his crossbow before going to -1 ). This was a continuation of the 'gameday' from last week. Due to the effects of the Helm, the Cleric and myself (Oracle) were still both drained of our 1st and higher spells.
The session was mostly spent exploring the two spelljammer ships that we had discovered, freeing prisoners, and rescuing members of a resistance.
This was a day of talking to people and learning the nature of our new surroundings.
My Oracle being deaf and having not chosen any of the big 5 talking skills (pregame player discussion where a couple chose the 'face' role positions like our Tengu Rogue Captain). I talk a bit but keep my speaking to simple phrases (I'm deaf not dumb). Our group has yet to have a 'universal' language that everyone speaks and understands which makes it interesting when orders are given out or things are being heard/said.
I did get to use Wind Sight again which was useful.
I did realize that it is really short in duration. 1 round per level is 6 seconds of observation time per player level. It really is hard to observe much of a target in 6 seconds. I would figure it would be even worse to hear almost anything of a conversation.
I would suggest the duration on this power being changed to minutes per level.
Other than the Wind Sight, I made use of the Orisons to do some Detect Poison and Detect Magic. I also used Stabilize to help the person that shot the crossbow at another player. I am a good character and I try to save everyone.
At the end of the session, we were given enough experience to take us to level 4 ( We started the campaign and 3.75 and are using the fast advancement choice).
The next play session won't be for two weeks due to scheduling troubles.
Some notes on the Oracle that are pretty important in my eyes. Sorry if this is a repeat, but I do not have the time or patience at the moment to read thru all the pages of this thread.
Oracle of Stone
1. The usefulness of Steelbreaker skin as weapons progress. A simple +1 modifier pretty much negates this ability. Yes, for the first four levels it is pretty brutal, but after that, it really becomes a useless piece. Maybe have it 'count as' more magical for purposes of sundering items at later levels? It is Once a day, activated and done. Not having the ability to turn it off. Give it a duration like Earth Glide, so it can be used multiple times a day, just in increments of one minute.
2. Mighty Pebble/Rock Throwing - Do these damages stack together? When you throw a Mighty Pebble, does it also get the damage from Rock throwing? How about the 11th level bonus from Touch of Acid? What kind of damage is the Mighty Pebble - having it listed as 'elemental' threw us for a loop, because of earth and clay golems.
3. Touch of Acid - reading this ability over again, I see one problem - this would bestow it on ranged ammunition, but would this work paired with Steelbreaker Skin?
Oracle of Battle
1. Skill at Arms - This is pretty unbalanced. 3 feats for one Revelation? I think if you stagger when you gain these abilities, similiar to how the other Foci gain more power in a Revelation at certain levels, it will make it a bit more balanced.
2. Wall of Fire in their added spells? I keep wondering why - I can see battlefield application, but that is more the Oracle of Flames, is it not? Maybe Lesser Globe of Invulnerability, or Hallucinatory Terrain.
3.Maneuver Mastery - can this revelation be taken multiple times, each time focusing on another(different) maneuver?
Oracle of Flame
1. Do Burning Magic and any of the other Supernatural revelations stack?
I can see combinations like Burning Magic and Heat Aura, Fire Breath or Firestorm?
Those are my pieces. Honestly, the Oracle class itself is pretty solid. Divine spontaneous casting is pretty epic. The higher the level, the more powerful that ability becomes. Many people have pushed for a customized spell list - I think the spells as they are work very well together. A great many Oracles should not have a bunch of varying spells. Maybe a bit more focus to Divination, but not all Oracles are the type to sit in a tent with smoky rooms and weird sayings.
Now, a word on the Curses. Deafness destroys a good part of a character - this curse is pretty rough already, but as the group I play with has found, unless you have some method of understanding people,
why is the character in a party? We use Sense Motive for understanding body language, reading lips etc., and it seems to work fine. A deaf individual in reality uses other senses to make up for the lack of hearing. And sight is a major sensory input, after all.