Playtest Report - Level 9 Bone Oracle


Round 1: Cavalier and Oracle


Ok, had a playtest tonight with an NPC Neutral Bone Oracle as a bad guy.

Party :


  • Level 9 Half-Giant/Half Dragon Cleric (5)/Paladin (3) of Bahamut
  • Level 7 Half-Goblin/Half Dragon Ranger (7) (Cohort)
  • Level 9 Drow Ranger (5)/Sorcerer (3)/Arcane Archer (1)
  • Level 9 Drow Priest (9) of Wee Jas
  • Level 7 Catfolk Rogue (7) (NPC)

First set of Enemies :


  • CR 11 Stone Golem
  • CR 5 Caratyid Statue (x5)

The party had been searching for the daughter of a local catfolk noble who had gone solo into a cursed city in the swamps looking for ill-gotten gains. They find her, but she refuses to leave until she has sufficient loot to make her trip worth while. They saved her when they first found her, she was being attacked by a statue. She'd procured an amulet to keep her from being seen by undead, so she was actually doing ok until she got cornered by the statue (Caratyid Statue, bonus beastiary). Her rapier wasn't doing much, and she couldn't get a backstab (she was a stealth focused rogue, little bluff).

So they agreed to help her search the tower. It hadn't been touched in decades, and they found a few lesser magical items hidden around (boots of jumping, some scrolls, a couple of ioun stones). Finally, on the 5th level, they found the treasure room. Inside of a paired circle of protection from good circles (one in, one out) was an alter with a bunch of silver coins, items, and a big set of gold armor with Bahamut's symbol on it. Also scattered around the room were 5 more Caratyid Statues (CR 5 versions, upped from CR 3, like the one in the basement), and a Stone Golem (CR 11).

The only one who could approach the altar was the Priest of Wee Jas (everyone else was good aligned, he was lawful neutral). So he raced forward while everyone else held ready at the edge of the room. As soon as he got close to the altar, the statues and golem woke up and surrounded him. He went full defense at that point (30AC, down to 28 from flanked). The statues all were missing him, and the golem, miraculously, rolled really bad and missed him the first round with it's slam.

The paladin came in using a ring of blades spell and attacked the statue, unfortunately breaking his sword (didn't destroy it, but the statue's shatter did hp and gave it the broken condition). The ring of blades was doing some damage to all the statues. At that point, 3 statues attacked him, two and the golem kept after the priest.

The golem womped on the priest next round and nearly killed him in two hits. The priest used his ring of dark hidden (so he couldn't be seen by darkvision, the room was dark, everyone was using darkvision), then he climbed over the altar and started spamming channel negative energy. I read the power, it says damage living or heal undead, but I figured negative energy was still damaging energy, and the golems and statues don't have any energy immunities, so I ruled the negative energy could damage them too. The entire city was under the effect of an unhallow, so his channels were doing extra power anyway. His death domain ability (or was it repose) let him heal from damaging negative energy, so he included himself in it's attack. He excluded the paladin and other party members.

The rest of the party were shooting arrows, but they couldn't get past the paladin's ring of blades (he was blocking the entrance to the passageway). So the ranger/sorcerer was using searing rays (bloodline ability) to shoot past him at the statues.

The priest spamming channel negative crumbled the statues. So just the golem was left. That's when the oracle made his appearance. Continued in next post.


So, the level 9 Lizardfolk Bone Oracle had been working for a couple of weeks to build up his own private little army. He'd found a way into the tower from the top, a connecting bridge with another tower. He was in the room above the treasure hoard, he'd removed a 10x10 foot section of the roof and kept it covered with a silent image (which the PC's never interacted with, so couldn't disbelieve it).

His Army


  • CR 5 Advanced Bloody Minotaur Skeleton
  • CR 4 Advanced Bloody Blackscale Lizardfolk Skeleton (x2)
  • CR 2 Advanced Bloody Catfolk Skeleton (x3)
  • CR 2 Advanced Flaming Catfolk Skeleton
  • CR 2 Advanced Frosted Catfolk Skeleton (like flaming, but cold)
  • CR 2 Advanced Archer Skeleton (x2)
  • CR 2 Advanced Monitor Lizard Skeleton (x3)

Honestly, I had trouble outfitting his army, there just aren't a lot of powerful skeletons. The Minotaur and Blackscale Lizardfolk were the two most advanced. Having playtested the skeletons, I can say that Flaming (and frosted, which I treated like the flaming but with cold energy) were the two most effective. They did damage whether they hit or not. They were weak, but still did damage. The Blackscales were the next two most effective, they had reach weapons (so 15 foot reach). They would attack over the top of the other skeletons, and were immune to the paladin's ring of blades spell.

The problem was, for the Priest, was he was in the treasure room with all the skeletons dropping down from above, and didn't get a chance to cast hide from undead, he kept getting damaged by the fire skeleton and blowing his concentration check. He ended up dropping a couple of times, to be brought back by the paladin channeling positive energy.

The oracle basically stayed in the background with Armor of Bones and directed his little army of skeletons, order them around and popping off spells to cause damage as he could. He wasn't overly effective, and he could talk in Diabolic (tongues curse), but the skeletons are evil, so I figured they could understand him (nothing says what language skeletons speak, so I assume they understand any spoken order). He never got touched, and never had to risk his own hide. He was winning, even killed the priest (came down to a roll off between the priest and the minotaur, and the priest lost a reflex save and the minotaur killed him, had 1 hp left, minotaur did 16hps damage, priest had 12con). Paladin finally managed to get a scroll out and cast holy Storm (or something like that, it's a spell compendium spell, creates a storm that does 2d6 of damage to evil creatures in it in a 20foot radius). Unfortunately, the skeletons were all trapped in the treasure room (the corridor was too small for the large skeletons) and they held off the smaller ones until the storm killed them all (took two turns). The big skeletons dropped in 4 more turns, just as the storm ended.

The bone oracle just took off and came back later to pick up the loot they couldn't carry (about 20,000 silver coins).

So, a huge battle, biggest one since we started PF. Drained about 85% of their resources and one player died (he did sort of do it to himself by insisting on going out by himself so he got cut off from the rest of the party, and for not using his healing belt he had on, swift action to activate, that would have kept him alive). Still, not too bad an encounter. The bone oracle worked pretty good as a background manipulator of an undead army. But he would have been better off with fewer more powerful undead than the horde of weaker undead I gave him. Then again, I didn't want a TPK, and he had no idea he'd be going up against these guys, he'd been building up against the statues and golems, and wasn't ready to take them on yet. But, he had to go when he did, or else he'd lose the treasure.

The big thing was the lack of ability for the Bone Oracle to heal his minions, he couldn't channel negative energy, he couldn't cast much in the way of damaging spells (he shot his wad doing an attack on the priest that took out his highest spell slot for a lousy 19 damage). I'd say a good bad guy, but if I was playing him, I'd have been frustrated at the lack of attack ability I had. Granted this was an undead build, so I had lots of bone shields. I don't think I'd enjoy playing that though. Not sure how one of the other builds would be.

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