We did our first playtest of the oracle and cavalier last night and it was an elven battle oracle and an elven cavalier riding on a roc(the cavalier's mount) both level 8
battle oracle was using magic vestment on buckler and chain shirt, 16 dex, +1 seeking bow, rapid shot, point blank shot, toughness, mounted combat, and mounted archery. had weapon focus and improved crit longbow as well as ironskin(never got used) as revelations. 70ish HP with toughness, 12 con, and favored class going to HP
cavalier order of the sword focused on archery and some mounted combat.
Level 8 oracle with a mighty bow divine power and rapid shot was doing 1d8+5 (19-20x3) at I believe +11/+11/+11/+6 with a +1 bow and lesser bracers of archery
First combat we fought a drider and 3 pugwampi's in a cave, cavalier went first and took out 2 pugwampi's, oracle had divine favor up the first round from a ready'd action and took out out the last pugwampi and cut the drider in half. The Roc took hover and caused a cloud of dust to effectively blind the drider. The drider couldn't see it's targets so cast mage armor
The second round, the cavalier moved in and the drider became visible again, and he whiffed. Oracle dispelled mage armor. Drider whiffed
Third round the cavalier finished it off.
Second battle was vs. a youngish black dragon, I believe CR 7-9 range
Cavalier got initiative and challenged/charged it for 52 damage, dragon ran over 100 ft away, oracle didn't have time to put on divine power before battle so just rapid shotted and dropped it hiting with 2 out of 3 arrows.
We didn't have time to test the cavalier out when challenging and lots of enemies to flank it, but the classes appeared to play quite well. I built the oracle and it had moderate states around the board, focusing on self-buffing and long term buffs, lower CHA didn't hurt so much (16 at level 8). AC was 22 unbuffed with 16 dex and mithril shirt, 28-29 buffed.
We decided order of the sword may be too powerful. It's hard to tell with just 2 battles, but in a small campaign it should have some difficult with many opponents getting flanking bonuses if challenge is always used.
[Interesting I was planning on testing out the same oracle build. I noticed you opted for a higher dex and concentrated on buffs. Similar to the half orc buffer I created. My oracle made a great tank in the party being able to hold out against quite a few threats. I was a little hesitant in creating the same elf oracle because of his frailness lack of hp. So what other chars does the party comprise of. And How well does he work with the?
That was the party. 2 level 8 characters killed a black dragon in one round. We did a playtest because 2 of our AP players couldn't make it.
The elf had 70 HPs at level 8 with toughness and favored class going to HP so frailness wasn't an issue. The more HP than the cavalier or the Roc.starts were unmodified 14 STR, 16 DEX, 12 CON, 16 Int, 10 WIS, 16 CHA
I considered a falchion wielding half-orc battle oracle as well. It would be less feat intensive and be able to be double-threat, but didn't have time to test both. Spring attack with blinding critical and a falchion could be nice for an oracle since it's never going to do as much damage as the fighter. He would be the rogue's best friend. If you go this route I suggest not taking the lame curse :)