Oracle and Life revelations.

[DarkDisciple]

So lets say I chose to take all the cure spells (as opposed to inflict) as an Oracle, and then I take the path of Life. At lvl 17, I get mass cure critical from the mystery, but I already got it for free at lvl 16 being that it is a cure spell.

It seems very unlikely that someone who chose the inflict route of free spells, would then chose the life mystery. So why does life give a cure spell as one of its freebies?

[Carbon D. Metric]

DarkDisciple wrote:

So lets say I chose to take all the cure spells (as opposed to inflict) as an Oracle, and then I take the path of Life. At lvl 17, I get mass cure critical from the mystery, but I already got it for free at lvl 16 being that it is a cure spell.

It seems very unlikely that someone who chose the inflict route of free spells, would then chose the life mystery. So why does life give a cure spell as one of its freebies?

For the same reason that the Trickery Patron for the Witch gives Phantasmal killer when it is already on the spell list.

It simply gives you the option to choose one thing and gain benefit from another. I don't see why not choose inflict spells and choose the Life Mystery, from a gamist perspective doing so would actually give you a LOT of versatility.

[FallingIcicle]

DarkDisciple wrote:

It seems very unlikely that someone who chose the inflict route of free spells, would then chose the life mystery. So why does life give a cure spell as one of its freebies?

I was wondering this myself.

[MaxAstro]

Carbon D. Metric wrote:

For the same reason that the Trickery Patron for the Witch gives Phantasmal killer when it is already on the spell list.

It simply gives you the option to choose one thing and gain benefit from another. I don't see why not choose inflict spells and choose the Life Mystery, from a gamist perspective doing so would actually give you a LOT of versatility.

Yes, but getting a free spell when you have already gotten the same spell for free doesn't really do anything...

Personally I will be switching that spell out for a different one if I ever have a Life Oracle that high level.

[shinitra]

MaxAstro wrote:

Yes, but getting a free spell when you have already gotten the same spell for free doesn't really do anything...

Personally I will be switching that spell out for a different one if I ever have a Life Oracle that high level.

It could also be that there's not really an obvious 8th level spell to give as a bonus spell for the Life Mystery. I haven't hit that level yet, but was planning ahead and discovered this tonight. But in looking for replacement spells to suggest to my GM, I'm not finding one that leaps out.

There's a couple of 7th level spells that could be good for the bonus list, but I'm not a fan of the idea of that. There is a (sort of) precedent with the occasional Domain spell being granted at a different level than you'd normally get the spell, but that's different enough that I don't think it should apply here.

Looks like us Life Oracles are stuck with only one bonus 8th level spell. (We also only use the Core Rulebook and the APG, so if there's spells in other books, I just don't know about them, and don't have access to them.)