Just realized something. An oracle with Deafness would make a very powerful sorcerer. One level dip at 1st level to get deafness, then go sorcerer the rest of the levels. This would give you silent spell on all your sorcerer spells too (the curse doesn't specify only Oracle spells, it says all spells).
Hmmm, it makes sense logically, but it seems rather a cheesy dip IMHO. Perhaps something needs to be done about that?
Divining (not necessarily Divination with a capital D) needs to somehow be a core part of the class, even if you're just giving everyone a signature divination. Bone oracles need to cast the bones as a basic thing.
I couldn't agree more. This would be a great idea. Some divination for the class
Just realized something. An oracle with Deafness would make a very powerful sorcerer. One level dip at 1st level to get deafness, then go sorcerer the rest of the levels. This would give you silent spell on all your sorcerer spells too (the curse doesn't specify only Oracle spells, it says all spells).
Hmmm, it makes sense logically, but it seems rather a cheesy dip IMHO. Perhaps something needs to be done about that?
I'm not sure how free Silent spell is really that cheesy for a sorcerer, especially when you factor in the penalties of being deaf. It's really not just a nothing penalty, if you're playing it right. And you've delayed your spell progression an extra level to boot. Now, go Sorcerer/Rogue/Arcane Trickster with it, and I could maybe see the benefits, but you've still got that extra level impeding you and hurting your communication abilities.
Just realized something. An oracle with Deafness would make a very powerful sorcerer. One level dip at 1st level to get deafness, then go sorcerer the rest of the levels. This would give you silent spell on all your sorcerer spells too (the curse doesn't specify only Oracle spells, it says all spells).
Hmmm, it makes sense logically, but it seems rather a cheesy dip IMHO. Perhaps something needs to be done about that?
Well, Silent Spell is one of the metamagic feats that's nice to have but probably not useful enough to spend a feat on, you know? Getting it for free on everything shouldn't be too unbalancing.
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Hey all, thanks for addressing my concerns about the Oracle without bashing them. I feel a little better about the flavor now. Going back to the root meaning of oracle, this class can be viewed as a speaker FOR something, an advocate. That makes more sense to me.
I still hope to see a more explicitly divination focused, er, focus.
Hey all, thanks for addressing my concerns about the Oracle without bashing them. I feel a little better about the flavor now. Going back to the root meaning of oracle, this class can be viewed as a speaker FOR something, an advocate. That makes more sense to me.
I still hope to see a more explicitly divination focused, er, focus.
Well, they already said they haven't given us all the foci yet, so the divination-based focus should be around soon enough.
I'm not sure how free Silent spell is really that cheesy for a sorcerer, especially when you factor in the penalties of being deaf. It's really not just a nothing penalty, if you're playing it right. And you've delayed your spell progression an extra level to boot. Now, go Sorcerer/Rogue/Arcane Trickster with it, and I could maybe see the benefits, but you've still got that extra level impeding you and hurting your communication abilities.
Not saying it's overpowering, I just always find one-level dips into another class for one ability to be a bit cheesy is all.
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To chime in with practically everybody else, Mystery (instead of Foci) sounds perfect!
I think the flavor text should be clarified (further) that their powers are not FROM any of the Gods, they simply "share an interest", so to speak, with Dieties of like Domains. Each Foci listing multiple Dieties should be seen as "Dieties with the same hobby as you" and not anything like a Cleric:Diety relationship.
I think I disagree, it is the gods who have chosen the character in this case not the character who has chosen the god. Clerics are rewarded for their piety with power, oracles have their powers thrust upon them by the gods whether they like it or not. They may be driven to serve the deity by powerful visions or compulsions but they may not ever give worship in the conventional fashion, heck they may even be heretics by the conventional measure even if they are chosen.
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Has anyone else noticed that a Lame Oracle with the Flame Focus and the Cinder Dance Revelation basically has no hindrance at all?
Lame (as a Curse) lowers your base speed by 10ft. (or 5ft. if small), and Cinder dance restores it. Even more so, a Small Oracle with them ends up with an extra 5ft. movement.
Anyone else see meta-gaming issues between curses and Foci?
Yes, there is some blatant clashing between curses and foci (not enough time to dig-up examples now...). I wish they would take a new look at this whole thing...there has to be a smoother mechanic for curses.
We have been talking about just dropping the curse mechanic, and using the class without the curse....or leaving it as an optinal rule for those who want to use it for RP reasons.
re: the Class Name "Oracle":
I think it's fine enough for the Class Name itself, but adding a bit to the Class' fluff along the lines of "Not all Oracles are called by the name "Oracle". Given Oracles' supernatural focus on one aspect of being, and their tendency to operate on their own and not in an organization like Clerics, Oracles tend to be seen more as unique phenomenon, rather than a coherent group as a whole. In some cultures they are more often referred to as Exemplars, Channels, The Chosen, Fate Cursed, or other terms appropriate to the role they discover for themselves, often in conjunction with their specific Foci/Mystery, i.e. "Blood Cursed" , or Flame Chosen. "
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Has anyone else noticed that a Lame Oracle with the Flame Focus and the Cinder Dance Revelation basically has no hindrance at all?
Lame (as a Curse) lowers your base speed by 10ft. (or 5ft. if small), and Cinder dance restores it. Even more so, a Small Oracle with them ends up with an extra 5ft. movement.
Anyone else see meta-gaming issues between curses and Foci?
That's interesting, but not sure if it's a problem. A flame oracle that isn't lame still moves faster 40 for medium instead of 30, or 30 for small instead of 25.
There's lots of ways to turn your curse into a bit of an advantage, such as clouded vision and a darkness spell, deaf and a silence spell, etc.
Or, you could make the curse mechanic less powerful all around, less penalty and less bonus, but still keep the role-play aspect intact. It's a really cool idea, but maybe it doesn't need to be so pronounced...
That's interesting, but not sure if it's a problem. A flame oracle that isn't lame still moves faster 40 for medium instead of 30, or 30 for small instead of 25.Has anyone else noticed that a Lame Oracle with the Flame Focus and the Cinder Dance Revelation basically has no hindrance at all?
Lame (as a Curse) lowers your base speed by 10ft. (or 5ft. if small), and Cinder dance restores it. Even more so, a Small Oracle with them ends up with an extra 5ft. movement.
I don't see a problem. You can play WITH the class, getting great advantages for the cost of a penalty/Curse, or you can "be sneaky/metagaming" have them cancel each other out... leaving you not quite as special.
Just stop talking about the oracle's name. It's been argued to death. The name is fine and it's not changing. Change the name to whatever you want in your games, but please, please, please, please, PLEASE stop talking about it. You're beating a dead horse when he's down.
Case in point. I don't want the oracle curses to be "The GM randomly dicks with you based on a theme."
Oh gods man, why not? Where's your sense of humor? The possibilities for humor, as long as it's not lethal, are tremendous :D
Hmm... only half kidding here. The haunted curse is custom made for role playing. Might not be as funny with others, depending on your players sense of humor of course. Still, I can see an Orcale getting hit in the head with a small object everytime he makes a play for the cute girl, his mug moving everytime someone tries to pour him an alcoholic beverage, etc. Nothing crippling there. Just minor role playing opportunities. The key would be to keep it light and only occasionally pull it in crisis situations. And it could come in handy. Some Succubi charms him and before they can "clinch" the deal he gets hit in the head. Saving throw time. Somebody spikes the beer and he never gets to drink any. You never know. One man's curse...
I think I disagree, it is the gods who have chosen the character in this case not the character who has chosen the god. Clerics are rewarded for their piety with power, oracles have their powers thrust upon them by the gods whether they like it or not. They may be driven to serve the deity by powerful visions or compulsions but they may not ever give worship in the conventional fashion, heck they may even be heretics by the conventional measure even if they are chosen.
This makes sense to me. The player might not even know which deity has chosen him. That could be interesting. Alternately, the deity might just want an agent outside of the heirarchy of clerics. Odd jobs for odd people. Another possibility, an order of Friars, wondering priests who carry out the deities will in areas where the traditional heirarchy would not be apprpriate. Like Friar Tuck ministering to Robin's men. I can see a lot of possibilities for the Oracle.
Just stop talking about the oracle's name. It's been argued to death. The name is fine and it's not changing. Change the name to whatever you want in your games, but please, please, please, please, PLEASE stop talking about it. You're beating a dead horse when he's down.It's worth talking about as a potential for inspiration. I'm not suggesting renaming the oracle, but instead offering ideas to make oracle more oracular without fiddling with rules too much.
It's my understanding that the oracle isn't supposed to be all that much "oracular" in the way that you interpret it.
Okay, so after GMing one session with a gnome Flame Focus Oracle, who happened to be played highly CN, by a player who has recently been very much indeed into the part of the Sarenrae-faith involving be purged/redeemed by fire!!! Oracles seem scary. Very scary.
They seem to have excellent abilities as so, the curses are more flavour than disadvantages (well, most of them can even turn into an advantage with a minor sting) which I don't really mind, negative class abilities was never my thing. They have the flavour and exotic strangeness I hoped for, however. (but a gnome throwing fire and babbling wildly of in Ignan is just FLAMING scary)
More Foci (or whatever name-change they get) will of course be welcome. By now the Earth=Acid, Air=Electricity and so on, is by far almost over debated. Sadl, I believe they would have to change things already in the Core book to adjust this association. And honestly it doesn't bother me that much. Just a short word on it though. A player of mine mentioned that some "Earth-based" abilities giving bouldering damage could be quite awesome, seeing as it fits the idea of getting vast stones piles on dirth over/on you. Enoogh of that. I look forward to a Life/Healing "Focus".
Again on the subject of Foci, I might find a few additional options for each an attraction. While I have not yet playtested at above 7th level, there seems to be a slight lack of choices if there are to be true variation in what you can get out of one Focus. Yet, well, this is still subject to testing for me, just an initial impression.
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Deaf: You can't communicate with anyone who doesn't know some sort of nonverbal language, you can't identify anything anyone says in combat (which includes a hefty penalty to Spellcraft checks to identify spells as they're being cast). This is a huge penalty to battlefiend communication and group tactics.
Wow, way to show you know absolutely nothing about hearing impairments. I'll give you the combat issue, but the can't communicate with anyone who doesn't know a non-verbal language, you might want to learn a bit about hearing impairments before you make statements like that.
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Case in point. I don't want the oracle curses to be "The GM randomly dicks with you based on a theme."
Oh gods man, why not? Where's your sense of humor? The possibilities for humor, as long as it's not lethal, are tremendous :D
Hmm... only half kidding here. The haunted curse is custom made for role playing. Might not be as funny with others, depending on your players sense of humor of course. Still, I can see an Orcale getting hit in the head with a small object everytime he makes a play for the cute girl, his mug moving everytime someone tries to pour him an alcoholic beverage, etc. Nothing crippling there. Just minor role playing opportunities. The key would be to keep it light and only occasionally pull it in crisis situations. And it could come in handy. Some Succubi charms him and before they can "clinch" the deal he gets hit in the head. Saving throw time. Somebody spikes the beer and he never gets to drink any. You never know. One man's curse...
On the other hand you won't be seeing any multiclassed oracle/archer builds with the haunted curse. arrows are stored items so are bolts, heck since it takes a move action to reload a crossbow and a move action just to get the bolt crossbows are slowed even more.
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Having given it some more thought I'm a little less dissapointed with curses, considering the # of people saying the penalties are too harsh, I can live with the fact that I actually expected them to be harsher. Now my only complaint is that there aren't enough, much like the foci. So really it's just a matter of patience rather than anu significant problems with the class.
Wow, way to show you know absolutely nothing about hearing impairments. I'll give you the combat issue, but the can't communicate with anyone who doesn't know a non-verbal language, you might want to learn a bit about hearing impairments before you make statements like that.
Wow, way to show you can't make an argument with anything but insults. You might want to learn a bit about debating before you make statements like that.
Wow, way to show you know absolutely nothing about hearing impairments. I'll give you the combat issue, but the can't communicate with anyone who doesn't know a non-verbal language, you might want to learn a bit about hearing impairments before you make statements like that.
Dude, chill out. His post was perfectly reasonable, and you didn't need to get snide. Not all deaf people read lips, or are even taught in a medieval culture.
By now the Earth=Acid, Air=Electricity and so on, is by far almost over debated. Sadl, I believe they would have to change things already in the Core book to adjust this association.
I don't see it requiring any change to Core. There isn't anything requiring that Foci replicate EVERY aspect of each Domain. Acid abilities COULD well fit in another domain besides Earth, and for that matter, if Wind=Air, then both it and a Weather Domain analog will both have lightning abilities - Why not have each 'specialize' more instead of multiple Foci with Acid, Electricity, Cold Damage abilities?
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Lame Dwarven Oracles are the suck. Not only do they have their speed reduced to 10ft (they aren't small, so they don't get the reduced speed reduction), but they don't gain any further benefit from the ability to not reduce their speed further from heavy loads (as they already have that as a dwarf).
1) Change the wording of the speed so that it isn't size dependent, and is strictly a function of the creatures base speed.
2) Maybe throw lame dwarven oracles a bone in exchange for the heavy load ability. Maybe let them offset the speed penalty when they are moving across stone (not earthen) surfaces.
Lame Dwarven Oracles are the suck. Not only do they have their speed reduced to 10ft (they aren't small, so they don't get the reduced speed reduction), but they don't gain any further benefit from the ability to not reduce their speed further from heavy loads (as they already have that as a dwarf).
1) Change the wording of the speed so that it isn't size dependent, and is strictly a function of the creatures base speed.
2) Maybe throw lame dwarven oracles a bone in exchange for the heavy load ability. Maybe let them offset the speed penalty when they are moving across stone (not earthen) surfaces.
Hmmm...
1) Lame - Reduce the oracle's base movement by 1/3, rounded to the nearest 5 foot increment. See the table below for examples :
Base...New
10ft...5ft
15ft...10ft
20ft...15ft
30ft...20ft
40ft...25ft
50ft...35ft
60ft...40ft
etc.
20*2/3 = 13.3 = 15 rounded
30*2/3 = 20
40*2/3 = 26.6 = 25 rounded
etc...
By now the Earth=Acid, Air=Electricity and so on, is by far almost over debated. Sadl, I believe they would have to change things already in the Core book to adjust this association.I don't see it requiring any change to Core. There isn't anything requiring that Foci replicate EVERY aspect of each Domain. Acid abilities COULD well fit in another domain besides Earth, and for that matter, if Wind=Air, then both it and a Weather Domain analog will both have lightning abilities - Why not have each 'specialize' more instead of multiple Foci with Acid, Electricity, Cold Damage abilities?
Quite true, although it would to some extend contradict itself to have the "Air Domain" running mainly with electricity for damage and the "Air Focus" running mainly with x type of damage, x not really known.
And while it would certainly be great, would potential new energy types not mess up the general way things works (Monster resistances and immunities, existing spells...)
I think the point of how it's done at the moment is to keep things working in the logical in comparison to what already exists.
I'm not proposing any new Energy Types: that WOULD be detrimental to the game.
I'm saying it's possible to get AWAY from Elemental Damage Type fixation, not just tweak it :-)
Not every Foci need have damage abilities in the first place, and Melee Damage Types (Bludgeon, Pierce, Slashing) are just as capable of being effected by Su/SLA's. Buffeting Gusts & Whirlwinds, Tsunami Waves and Drowning Air-Breathers seems equally, or MORE effective than "Energy Damage" and judging from the broad response to Stone's "Rock Explosion" and "Mighty Pebble", would be welcomed as MORE evocative/flavorful/thematic.
Anyhow, I think this subject is now out in the open for Jason to consider, so I'll give it a rest :-)
Not every Foci need have damage abilities in the first place, and Melee Damage Types (Bludgeon, Pierce, Slashing) are just as capable of being effected by Su/SLA's. Buffeting Gusts & Whirlwinds, Tsunami Waves and Drowning Air-Breathers seems equally, or MORE effective than "Energy Damage" and judging from the broad response to Stone's "Rock Explosion" and "Mighty Pebble", would be welcomed as MORE evocative/flavorful/thematic.
I do agree with this. I'd really like to see the Oracle move away from the tightly linked element/energy types and more into thematically linked revelations. It makes more sense for an Oracle of the Waves to use water than cold, to me. The element-energy links are fine, I'm not campaigning against them, but I think the Oracles offer a nice opportunity to do something different with them.
I am going to be moving some of these away from their elemental damage ties a bit, but it will not be going entirely.
Great to hear.
I don't think having the OPTION for Cold powers in a Wave Oracle (or Acid in a Stone Oracel) is necessarily bad,but there should be enough alternative options so you aren't FORCED to make a Wave Oracle w/ Ice/Cold powers.
A "hybrid" Water/Ice Wave Oracle, a 90-100% "Ice" Wave Oracle, or a 100% "Water" Wave Oracle, could all be supported.
Ideally, the Bonus Spell list should be 'neutral' w/r to these tenuously-linked para-Elemental Damage, and more universally applicable to the Foci theme (i.e. Glitterdust instead of Acid Arrow would be better for Stone, IMHO)
Haunted - If I'm reading it right, Quick draw won't help and neither would the trait- Accelerated Drinker?
It would also prevent readying an item as part of a move action (if you have a +1 or better BAB). No drawing a scroll of breath of life as you race to a downed ally.
Drawing ammo is now a move action as well (it is normally a free action).
Clouded Vision: You can never see further than 60 feet away from you. Ever. That means you basically cannot target anything further than 60 feet away from you. That means your spells have an effective cap of 60 foot range (less than Medium range).
I noticed this immediately. In a dungeon, this is not a big hinderance, but in fight on open terrain or against an airborn combatant with a ranged attack form (dragon or airborn spellcaster), being limited to 60 feet of sight can but a spellcaster on the sidelines.
For the love of all that is Good and Holy!
Oracle does not = Diviner!!!!
Look up oracle on Dictionary.com and see all the many meanings above prophet, fortune teller, etc.
The Oracle class is perfectly named, well done.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Just stop talking about the oracle's name. It's been argued to death. The name is fine and it's not changing. Change the name to whatever you want in your games, but PLEASE stop talking about it. You're beating a dead horse when he's down.
Hi, Tom.
When people were complaining about the name Oracle last month, the word from Paizo was something like, "Look, you're reacting based on a single blog entry. We, who've seen the rough draft of the class, like the name a lot. Once you see the full write-up, we bet you'll like it, too. Right now, though, just throw some trust our way."
So, now that we've seen the rough draft of the class, it's exactly the right time to talk about the name of the class.
(And, of course anybody can change the names of anything in his or her home campaign. If that were a good argument against commentary, we might as well shut down the whole playtest thing.)