Just out of curiosity, how would you compare the power level of the Oracle's curse ability vs. the Arcane bond ability? I.e. If I wanted a sorcerer with a curse instead of a bonded item or familiar, would it be a fair trade-off? (This might need to go under the houserules forum, I wasn't really sure.)
Also, is there some standardized (or at least popular) way to see how balanced specific class features are against one another? I can usually tell what would be broken--like if a player wanted his druid to trade Resist Nature's Lure for the ability to rage like a barbarian of his level, I would smack him upside his crazy noggin--but I'm not so sure what fair trade-offs are. Would Resist Nature's Lure be worth a single favored terrain? Extra orisons? The ability to use his animal companion as a familiar, if multi-classed? Etc and so on.
Thanks!