One of my players is considering rebuilding his Cleric as an Oracle with the release of the Advanced Player's Guide. He would likely take the "Lame" curse, which reduced speed by 10 feet, in fitting with his character's back story.
But, before the issue comes up, I would like a second opinion on the interaction between the Oracle's Curse penalty, and other effects, especially a Cleric's Domain (Travel) which increases base movement by 10. As well as items like Boots of Striding and Springing with similar abilities.
Rules as Written would suggest that if the player splashed a level of Cleric or acquired a pair of boots, then he would negate the effect of the Curse. But thematically, it strikes me that it would be more appropriate to rule that such abilities would not benefit the Oracle, and in addition, the Oracle's Curse notes that the associated penalties can only be cured by divine intervention.
Help is appreciated!
The Oracle is still 10' slower than a character without that particular curse, and the lameness isn't cured. Let him have it. Splashing Cleric seriously wrecks his spellcasting capabilities (leaving him a full spell level behind a straight-class Cleric) and the boots take up his feet slot and aren't all that cheap for lower level characters.
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By RAW it works and I've seen far worse transgressions in powergaming, but it still leaves an aftertaste. At first thought, if I allowed the combination, the gods are not to be trifled with after all, I'd allow magic items to function as they normally would, but the travel domain would only give a bonus of 5'.
Also if he dips a level of cleric he is hurting his spellcasting - despite both being divine casters, Cleric and Oracle have separate spell lists and separate caster levels. So if he is an Oracle 7/Cleric 1, he can cast Oracle spells up to 3rd level at CL7, and Cleric 1st level spells at CL1. He can't cast spells he knows from being a cleric spontaneously. He has a lot of 1st level spells, but is now a full spell level behind Clerics on the class that matters, and took a -1 to his caster level.
So yeah, I'd let him have his paltry 10 feet of move. :p