Oracle Suggestions


Round 1: Cavalier and Oracle

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Have done a little playtesting with the class and am more than pleased in terms of flavor, (which isn't a question here) My problem lies with their ability to do anything at low lv's as has been stated throughout thread.
The oracle does end up wasting it's spell slots to fill the heal@#$&* role, leaving it with it's revelations as it's only actual ability. My first ability chosen is Heat Wave (Flame Focus) in order to make me not utterly useless and bored my DM and I came up with the feat Extra revelation, similar to extra ki/rage/channel

1. Extra Revelation (revelation name) Increase the number of times per day you can use selected revelation by your charisma score. This Feat may be selected multiple times, each time applied to a new revelation. (the vervion we decided on)

2. Extra Revelation (Focus Name) You may use revelations from your chosen focus 1 additional time per day.

Think this feat either way gives a little bit more to do then wait till someone calls for healing, without causing the oracle to be to powerful. Not against the idea of additional spells know though, no more than 2.


After noodling around with and running a couple test scenarios with a Bone focus Oracle, I'm going to echo the 'great fluff, subpar crunch' sentiment. More spells known, and healing or inflict (or both, even) as freebies regardless of focus choice, seems to be the best answer, and focuses could be ramped up a bit as well, particularly # of uses.

Being the necromancy fan I am, most of my attention has been directed at the Bone Focus, and I have the following more specific thoughts & observations:

1) Raise Dead

I thought we learned not to have open ended 'summon anything of X hit dice' powers back in 3.5. Remember Summon Undead? Remember how it didn't work after the 3.5 conversion, when 'summon the specific monster named Medium Skeleton' became 'summon any medium sized monster with the skeleton template applied'? Those spells didn't go back to being usable until Heroes of Horror reprinted them with specific lists of summonable monsters. I admit I don't have the pathfinder bestiary yet, but unless Skeletons and Zombies went from being templates back into being specific monsters after the preview, this ability shouldn't exist as printed.

As it is, it's a liscense for the player to take out all the DMs Monster books and troll through them looking for the most powerful combinations of X monster with Y skeleton template. Worse, there's nothing in the ability to say it can't be a fiendish, celestial, half demon, half dragon, half angel, skeletal version of X monster.

Summoning spells and powers need to draw from specific lists of acceptable monsters. If the player wants to summon something else, they can work that out in house rules with the DM, who can look at the existing list for an idea of what monsters are appropriate. A specific creature list would also open up other iconic undead creatures beyond just skeletons and zombies. At higher levels shadows, wraiths, wights, and the like would all be cool and flavorful.

Other then that, the ability is rather more restricted then it needs to be. Once the open ended monster manual access is fixed, it suddenly becomes excessively limited. More uses per day, or a longer duration per use, seem like the best call. Maybe change the duration to one minute per oracle level per day, usable in chunks of at least a minute?

side note: some people seem to want this to be an animate ability, rather then a summoning ability. I like it fine as summoning, although as mentioned it needs a specific creature list. If you wanted to change it to an animation power, I'd recommend something like Animate Dead 1/day as a spell-like without material cost, but only able to animate a single skeleton or zombie at a time, with HD no greater then Oracle level. Using this ability to animate a new skeleton or zombie destroys any previous undead created by the ability. An undead creature created with this ability does not count against the normal HD control pool of the spell animate dead.

2) Spirit Walk

In its current wording spirit walk is usable at will, any number of times per day, with a duration limit of one round per oracle level per use. That isn't what was intended, right? The ability seems to need a limited number of uses, or a cap on the total number of rounds the Oracle can spend in Spirit Walk per day.

3) Bone Armor

The bonus seems a little weak, considering that the Oracle already wears light armor, and has good reason to burn a feat on medium armor, and bone armor doesn't stack with them. A first level oracle with studded leather armor gets absolutely nothing out of this ability. I recommend having Bone Armor provide a natural armor bonus, so that it can stack with the armor the Oracle is already going to be wearing. Otherwise, this is a non-ability.

4) ... 4:00am?! shoot, I need to get to bed.

Short summary:

Oracle is flavorful but underpowered, and an oracle in a party without another divine caster is going to have to choose between having the cool flavor they want and performing the combat role expected of them (adding a healing Focus instead of just giving all oracles healing spells would only make this problem worse).

Bone Focus itself is cool and fluffy, and actually makes the Oracle better at using undead (which some other necromancy options, particularly the Undead bloodline sorcerer, notably don't). Command undead on a cha-based caster is aces (even if I also feel Wis would have made more sense as a casting stat). Some of the abilities are kind of borked, though, and the extremely, painfully limited number of spells known on an oracle would make me think twice about taking a focus that has several downtime spells on it. The answer there isn't removing the undead creation spells from the Bone Focus list but rather, again, giving the Oracle more spells known and healing or inflicting as bonus spells known regardless of focus.

I'll post specific comments on the rest of the bone revelations and some in play observations tomorrow.


Instead of more spells known or a different spell list, what I would love to see is a more advanced Domain for the Oracle. This would really set them apart from the Cleric. Make their Domain do more things than the Cleric ones do, with special powers and abilities at more levels...kind of like the Sorcerer bloodlines do.

Just my thoughts. :)


Put up a play test summary for a Lv1 Bone Oracle in another thread. Pretty much expected results: oracle played as a weaker cleric, although command undead on a cha-based class proved very effective in a dungeon with a heavy undead presence - it's basically an area effect save-or-die ++ for undead with HD equal to or less then the party level, and on Necromancers and Negative Energy Clerics its only kept in check by having a save DC tied to what is otherwise generally a dump stat. Well, that and the fact that if you aren't fighting undead, or if the undead you're fighting have more HD then your level, it does nothing at all.

Anyway, I'm trying to put together a higher level play test (something in the 5 to 7 range)that puts a Bone Oracle in a group with a Necromancy Specialist Wizard and Negative Energy Cleric (along with ye olde rogue and fighter), to see whether they compliment each other or step on each others' toes, and test whether the oracle is indeed overshadowed by a Cleric who shares the same thematic leanings.

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