OK - on first pass through the oracle abilities this one was my favorite. What a cool concept for a water/ice focused character - to have his icy spells slow opponents who take full cold damage! That's awesome!
Only, wait a sec, I don't get any spells that meet the prerequisites. Huh? I have one spell for which this can possible work over my entire career and that's freezing sphere! Chill metal? Nope. Wall of ice? Nope. Neither of those require opponents to make saving throws.
If you can find other spells to which this might apply, let me know, because I'm not seeing it.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Actually, chill metal does allow a save if cast on an attended object (such as armor being worn). Freezing sphere also indicates it has a reflex save for half damage.
In addition, we don't know if new cold spells on the cleric list will be in the APG, but yeah, in the core book, the pickings are pretty slim.
Actually, chill metal does allow a save if cast on an attended object (such as armor being worn). Freezing sphere also indicates it has a reflex save for half damage.
I agree on freezing sphere, but chill metal allows only the object a saving throw. The freezing spells description highlights specifically that the creature has to save. Even though an attended item may use its owner's save, it isn't the owner making the save.
Tell me I'm wrong here, because I would like this one.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Actually, chill metal does allow a save if cast on an attended object (such as armor being worn). Freezing sphere also indicates it has a reflex save for half damage.I agree on freezing sphere, but chill metal allows only the object a saving throw. The freezing spells description highlights specifically that the creature has to save. Even though an attended item may use its owner's save, it isn't the owner making the save.
Tell me I'm wrong here, because I would like this one.
It's an issue of semantics. If the object gets the owner's save, then the owner either makes or fails the save against the spell, and I would say that this would qualify for use of the freezing spell revelation.
It's an issue of semantics. If the object gets the owner's save, then the owner either makes or fails the save against the spell, and I would say that this would qualify for use of the freezing spell revelation.
No, the rules specifically say that it's the object making the saving throw. It's just that attended objects can use their attending character's saving throw bonuses instead of their own.
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I am currently playtesting an Oracle of the Waves, and this is my complaint with it, that the cleric spell list has little to no spells that do cold damage.
Only thing that so far seems to work with this is multiclassing into Sorcerer with the water elemental bloodline.
Elemental bloodline if no one knows changes all energy based spells to match the element you chose, cold for water elemetnal.
However this can lead to alot of power gaming which I am necessarily not a big fan of. Reason being is the wording of the Freezing Spells Revelation does not specify Oracle Spells, but all spells.
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Same thing goes with a number of the elemental foci. How many fire or wind spells do you get in your career? A first level Oracle of Fire can't cast any fire spells. This seems rather silly to me.
I think I remember someone else suggesting that certain foci choose from the druid spell list instead of the cleric spell list, and I think I agree with that.
Remember that the APG is also going to have new spells for each class, specifically to address issues like this.
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Remember that the APG is also going to have new spells for each class, specifically to address issues like this.
Lol. It might be easier to accurately play test the new classes if we had access to those then :) At the moment we have to give feedback based on what we have, not what we might have in the future :)
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Remember that the APG is also going to have new spells for each class, specifically to address issues like this.
Sean, will it have new feats, too? How about feats that expand on the PF RPG "core" feats (new/advanced benefits or more feats to the feat chains, in the same vein to 'Bounding Assault' et al. in 3E PHB II)?
Lol. It might be easier to accurately play test the new classes if we had access to those then :) At the moment we have to give feedback based on what we have, not what we might have in the future :)
Part of the playtest process involves feedback like "we don't have enough spells for Waves oracles to use this ability on!" Fortunately we are aware of this and will make sure the oracle will have enough spells of this type to make the ability worthwhile.
Sean, will it have new feats, too? How about feats that expand on the PF RPG "core" feats (new/advanced benefits or more feats to the feat chains, in the same vein to 'Bounding Assault' et al. in 3E PHB II)?
I'm not sure how much info we're planning on revealing at this time, but it's pretty safe to say that it'll have new feats to augment and expand class abilities.
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Well, pretty much all of the energy type Oracles don't have enough spells of said type to be able to really play a flavorful Oracle of that type. Flame Oracles that can't burn things, Wind Oracles that can't shock things, Earth Oracles that can't liquify things, etc... There just aren't enough elemental type spells in the cleric list.
I can't see you adding enough energy spells to the cleric list to make an elemental Oracle concept work. It would change the balance of the cleric and sorcerer/wizard spell lists to much. One of the balances between the classes now is their spell lists. If you start giving the cleric list a bunch of direct damage spells, it changes that balance.
I have a couple ideas to fix this without changing the spell list balance, they probably have ramifications I haven't thought of yet.
1. Allow them to pick spells from the druid spell list with an energy type specific to their foci. This helps some of them, but not all
2. Same as number one, but let them pick any energy spell, but that spell is always considered to be substituted to the appropriate energy type.
3. Same as above, but don't limit it to the druid spell list( This is probably way to powerful )
The above 3 give a bigger bonus to elemental foci without a corresponding benefit to the non-elemental foci.
4. You could allow them to grab spells known from the appropriate domain list. This would require a restructuring of the current spells gained from the foci as there is some overlap. It would also give all Oracles a benefit, though it wouldn't help the Wave oracle with offensive cold/water spells.
Some of the above seem balanced against the other classes and more likely to allow you to play the concept, i.e. an oracle of fire that burns things from 1st level on up( or an oracle of waves that freezes things ). The major problem being that it unbalances them vs the other Oracle foci. Obviously creating entirely new spells lists isn't viable.
You might also be able to give them a Revelation that allows them to pick 1 known spell per spell level from any spell list. This spell must be an energy spell and is treated as dealing energy damage of the type corresponding to the Oracles foci whenever the Oracle casts it.
I'm just brainstorming. Obviously anything you guys came up with to try to allow people to make their concept feel more concrete would have to be more thought out and balanced.
Part of the playtest process involves feedback like "we don't have enough spells for Waves oracles to use this ability on!" Fortunately we are aware of this and will make sure the oracle will have enough spells of this type to make the ability worthwhile.
Nice - That would be fantastic because I really like the flavor of the ability. I look forward to trying this out with some of the APG spells!