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"Freezing Spells (Su): Whenever a creature fails a saving throw and takes cold damage from one of your spells, it is slowed (as the slow spell) for 1 round. Spells that do not allow a save do not slow creatures. At 11th level, the duration increases to 1d4 rounds."
Does an Oracle of Waves get ANY spell that deals cold damage? Aside from Wall of Ice, of course, because that's very situational. Am I missing something or is this revelation useless?
With the Elemental Spell metamagic feat, you can turn any spell's damage into part cold damage. So it's not quite as useless as it looks, perhaps.
Hm, you're right. I overlooked that.
Still, seems like an oversight.
Hm, you're right. I overlooked that.
Still, seems like an oversight.
It may be the case that they intended to add more cold spells to the cleric/oracle spell list, but that they never got around to it. For instance, during the playtest with regards to the Lore oracle's "Spontaneous Symbology" revelation, Jason mentioned that they'd be adding more Symbol spells. In the end, it looks like they didn't get to it.
While there are ways to make this Revelation useful, I dont think it should require the use of a Feat or Trait inorder to actually get an effect out of it. Without taking the Feat or Trait what effect does the revelation have? That would be my issue.
Agreed. I love the idea of the revelation but mentioned this same challenge in the playtest. Don't worry - the APG will have some spells to go along with this was the response. I'm pretty happy with the APG overall, but they did forget about this one.
There is a trait that allows you to take 1 spell from a level lower than you can cast and sub it for something from the wiz/sorc spell list.
0-lvl spell, orb of frost, d3 damage, but for unlimited castings and a "slow" effect, for a trait this suddenly becomes pretty nifty.
Might one ask as to which trait this is? And where it has been printed?
Cheers!
There is a trait that allows you to take 1 spell from a level lower than you can cast and sub it for something from the wiz/sorc spell list.
0-lvl spell, orb of frost, d3 damage, but for unlimited castings and a "slow" effect, for a trait this suddenly becomes pretty nifty.
I don't even think it will work. The ability states "fails a save and takes damage". Ray of frost doesn't have a save to fail.
I think this is a case of "poor design at the time". For whatever reason there aren't a lot of cold spells yet. As time goes on they may print more and thus make the class ability significantly more useful without having to invest in feats to complement it.
It's an ability that could be good and probably will be good, but for now it is lackluster but not unuseable.
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But seeing that Oracles draw their spells largely from the Cleric's spell-list, it's highly unlikely that Wave Oracles will get more Cold-based spells. The play-test version at least gives Wave Oracles bonus Cold spells from Druid and Wizard spell-lists. The lack of Cold spells halves the usefulness of the Final Revelation as well, IMO.
Elemental Spell doesn't really solve the problem, since you not only need to spend a feat slot, you also have to use higher level spell slots to activate the Metamagic feat before you can get the benefit of Freezing Spell.
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This is one of the reasons that as much as I love the Oracle conceptually, I'm a little upset about their implementation. This isn't the only problem like this (at least Oracles of Fire got fixed with the addition of burning hands to their list). Note it also says spells, not superntural abilities, so even your freezing touch is exempt.
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Has anyone heard from the developers on this issue? It seems to be in need of a fix. I'd really like to play an Oracle of Waves, and would be more likely to get GM's approval for a fix of the revelation if there was something semi-official. :)
Failing that, has anyone houseruled a fix? What currently existing cold spells do you think would make sense for this? I could (and probably will) go through the CRB and APG page by page but figured someone else may either know off the top of their head, or has already done the research.
Also, someone mentioned a trait that allowed you to take a Sor/Wiz spell at a lower level, but I can't seem to find it. Magical Talent seems similar but it's only for a 0 level spell, only once per day, and Ray of Frost doesn't work because of the lack of a saving throw.
Thanks!
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OK, just looked through the spell database. Pickings are slim even with access to druid or sorcerer/wizard spells:
- Chill metal (only if you rule that object's saving throw counts)
- Cone of cold
- Freezing sphere
- Wall of ice (this is the only one on the Oracle spell list - bonus at 8th level - but it seems someone would have to try to disrupt the spell, fail, then hack through and take damage, a really weird combination)
Others that have the cold descriptor but do not allow a saving throw:
- Fire shield (the "chill shield" version)
- Ice storm
- Polar ray
- Ray of frost
- Sleet storm
Some have mentioned that future books may include cold spells on the cleric list - when's the next product likely to contain new cleric spells, anyone know?
My other thought is if your GM allows 3.5 material, you could use spells from Frostburn. This would allow you access to the following spells that would work:
Boreal wind (5th)
Frostbite (5th)
Frostburn (4th)
Frostburn, lesser (2nd)
Frostburn, mass (6th)
Ice rift (6th)
Winter's embrace (4th)
So FAQ went through..Staff response: No reply required.
Weird. The ability is oddly broken. It does seem as though it would be great to take a single level dip in oracle and then go with an elemental sorceror. But for a pure oracle, it seems fairly useless, as well as the final revelation. Sean mentioned in the APG playtest that this specific problem was being addressed and would be fixed in future releases...but 2 books hence and there is still no solution for these issues.
I happen to have a question about freezing spells, too.
If you change burning disarm to cold it normally would work wich freezing spells, I think, as it has a save and deals damage.
But if you cast it on something the target can not drop it gets no save. Does that mean, that freezing spells doesn't work is that second case?