Now the Crunch:
To my Knowledge our Groups will consist of:Human Bard (utility fighter, caster)
Human Summoner (Arcane Caster) his Eidolon (Tank)
Half Orc Inquisitor (Striker)
My Human Oracle of Battle (probably main Healer)We use 20 Point Buy and only Pathfinder Rules are allowed. (Core Rules, APG and all additional Sourcebooks from Paizo) In Addition we can choose three Traits. One campaign Trait and two standard Traits.
For the first few Levels my Favorit Class Bonus will be the extra Hit Point. After Level 4 I will take the Human Alternate Ability (APG) to choose an extra Spell known.
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LN Oracle of Battle 1 (Tongues Curse)Str: 18 (+2 Human)
Dex: 12
Con: 14
Wis: 8
Int: 10
Cha: 14
... A Few Questions:
Is it possible to use the Revelation "Surprising Charge" with a Mount?
Should I focus on Mounted combat without the ability to gain a proper/durable Mount?
Are the Feats choosen optimized?
Would you choose other Spells as first Level Oracle Spells? (Divine Favor and Shield of Faith)
1. As written, "Once per day, you can move up to your speed as an immediate action..." (emphasis mine). As a strict reading, probably not. I'd check with your GM and ask about expanding it.
2. Up to you. There is a third-party feat that allows one to take animal companion only in the form of a rideable animal in the book Adventuring Classes: A Fistful of Denarii. A more Pathfinder-core option would be a single level dip into druid or cavalier(for the animal companion as your horse; druid would give extra low-level heals, cavalier gets your mount combat-trained free), and then later take the Boon Companion feat from Seekers of Secrets, which lets you stack up to four other character levels with whatever class granted an animal companion/familiar, (up to the limit of your total HD). While it'd still be fragile at endgame, a 5th-level (effective) druid's horse would be more sturdy than the standard.3. I'll leave this up to those more obsessed about numbers than I (it's an open-ended problem), but in general:
-Ask yourself what's most important to you/your party? Spell progression and healing? The mounted combat advantage? Taking levels in Fighter or cavalier are definitely things to think about, and would fit your archetype. If you want to stick more of a caster, then the mounted combat angle may be more of a "fit it in when you can" thing.
-Check the Kingmaker Player's Guide. If your GM doesn't allow it, convince him otherwise, as it's by Paizo for players starting a Kingmaker game. In general, Kingmaker starts off as a wilderness game, and long dungeon crawls are less common than in more traditional adventure path, so keep that in mind.
4. If you're feeling generous, bless would up buff up your party, and as an alternate utility spell ant haul (from the APG), lets you or something else greatly improve their carrying capacity; good for hauling a wounded/dead comrade, extra loot, and it can even be cast on one of the party's mounts.
That said, cheers and enjoy the AP! It's a hoot. :3
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Rich Parents : I have this traite in my curent game. It is not worth it. You only get the benifit from this at 1st level. After that it dose nothing for you. I wold have picked somthing else looking back.
Maneuver Mastery: Trip You have to have a weapon with the trip property. If you don't you can not make a trip attack.
Suprising Charge : It only affects you not any mount your on.
Mounted Combat : You might see a bit of thes in this AP. Over all its a wast of feets. It's flavor if you want to keap it thats fine but you won't use it as much as other feets. This dose not mean you can't fight from horse back it's just not as easy to do. I don't feal it's worth using a feet to do.
Sorry just a few points now on to suggestions.
20 Point buy Human
Str 16+2Human=18 (+1 at levels 4,8,16,20)
Dex 15 (+1 Level 12)
Con 14
Int 8
Wis 8
Cha 12
I like this lay out better for a battle orical.
Feet: Improved Shield Bash (Human) Two Weapon Figthing
Revelatoin: War Sight
Traits : Reactionary (+2 Trate bouns to Initive)
Natural Bourn Leader (+1 Will saves to avoide mind-affectiong effects. +1 Leadership)
Noble Born:Orlovsky (+1CMD +1 Acrobatics)
Skills: Diplomacy,Ride,Perception,Intimadate,and Heal
Feets and Revelations
3: Feet: Exotic Weapon: Khopesh
Revelation: Weapon Master: Khopesh
5: Feet: Shield Slam
7: Feet: Leadership (Cohort/Squire)( Fighter or Oracle of Battle)
I wold go Oracle of Battle. I realy like making the GM's job hard.
Revelation: Maneuver Mastery:Trip
9: Feet: Exta Revelation: Maneuver Mastery: Bull Rush
11: Feet: Bull Rush Strike
Revelation: Maneuver Mastery: Over Run
13: Feet: Charge Throw
15: Feet: Sheild Master
Revelation: Maneuver Mastery: Dirty Trick
Combat tatics: when you can't stand(Trip). Can't stop you form moveing(Over Run, and Bull Rush). Can't See, or Hear (Dirty Trick). It's hard to fight some one like that. ( Dirty Trick can be used for more then that buy you get the idea.)
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The part you missed is you wanted Optimized. You have a back ground story you wanted to stick to. That is not good for optimization.
As clarified by James Jacobs at the bottom of page seven. Now keap reading.
My take:
When you want to trip a foe, you don't normally use a weapon. Similarly, you don't normally use a weapon to bull rush, grapple, or overrun a foe. You just lash out with a leg sweep or whatever and try to trip the foe. Doing so is an attack, but that doesn't mean you need a weapon to make the attempt.
Now... SOME weapons (not all) allow you to use the weapon to trip a foe, thus giving you a slight advantage since if you mess up the trip attempt, you can just drop the weapon to "counter" the trip that comes back at you.
In order to trip with reach, you either need to have reach on your own as a virtue of your race, or you need to be wielding a reach weapon with the trip ability.
Being able to trip with any long-hafted weapon like a spear or pole arm is a neat idea, but that's better handled as a specific feat rather than allowing any long-hafted weapon to gain the trip ability.
But basically... when you trip a foe you don't use a weapon. If you want to use a weapon, you have to use one that lists "trip" under its Special category.
End James
That was all in the thread you pointed out. So you proved that I was wrong you don't need a trip weapon. Thow you have proved that with out using a trip weapon. You don't get the enchantment bouns of a weapon to the trip attack.
If you need to fill the role of primary healer, I would drop War Sight, bump your 3rd and 7th level revelations to 1st and 3rd, and then take Combat Healer at 7th. Once a day you can pump 2 CCW in one round into your fighter, or 1 CCW, while still full attacking your target.
If you need to fill the role of primary healer, I would drop War Sight, bump your 3rd and 7th level revelations to 1st and 3rd, and then take Combat Healer at 7th. Once a day you can pump 2 CCW in one round into your fighter, or 1 CCW, while still full attacking your target.
This is a roll that more or less doesn't exist in 3.5, to be honest.
If you need to fill the role of primary healer, I would drop War Sight, bump your 3rd and 7th level revelations to 1st and 3rd, and then take Combat Healer at 7th. Once a day you can pump 2 CCW in one round into your fighter, or 1 CCW, while still full attacking your target.This is a roll that more or less doesn't exist in 3.5, to be honest.
This is a thread about optimizing an Oracle (Battle), not a debate on whether healing as a combat role exists in the game. Personally, I think a free quickened cure spell once per day is more valuable than an alternate version of Improved Initiative.
I've played a few melée oriented clerics in my day and I've rarely found a bad init score to be what holds them back. Healing sometimes feels like a wasted action, but Having seen the recent changes to a paladins self healing, it seems very effective when used as a swift action.
If we were talking about an optimized healer, we wouldn't be talking about a battle oracle anyways.
You started with "If you need to fill the role of a primary healer."
I was merely commenting that such a role is unneeded :U
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This is a thread about optimizing an Oracle (Battle), not a debate on whether healing as a combat role exists in the game. Personally, I think a free quickened cure spell once per day is more valuable than an alternate version of Improved Initiative.I've played a few melée oriented clerics in my day and I've rarely found a bad init score to be what holds them back. Healing sometimes feels like a wasted action, but Having seen the recent changes to a paladins self healing, it seems very effective when used as a swift action.
If we were talking about an optimized healer, we wouldn't be talking about a battle oracle anyways.
A 19th level battle oracle is able to use this power 4 times per day.
A 19th level paladin would be able to use lay on hand at least 12 times per day.Also, the paladin gets this ability for free.
Combat healer seems way to limited, removing either the double spell slot or the per day limitation should be fine.
You started with "If you need to fill the role of a primary healer."
I was merely commenting that such a role is unneeded :U
So you think improved initiative is better than a quickened heal?
A 19th level battle oracle is able to use this power 4 times per day.
A 19th level paladin would be able to use lay on hand at least 12 times per day.
Also, the paladin gets this ability for free.Combat healer seems way to limited, removing either the double spell slot or the per day limitation should be fine.
I don't know if it really needs to be changed. That would be another discussion I think. I was merely using the paladin example to illustrate how an extra free heal is useful.
I also like the quickened heal better because you get to decide when it is helpful. War Sight is useful against ambushes and the occasional combat where order matters and you happen to roll well.
If a group wanted to make either alteration you suggested, I don't think you'd notice a huge shift in power so I think it would be okay.
Okay, what you started with is actually good.
I would just make few tweaks here and there on your choices and explain why.
20 Point Buy:
Human Battle Oracle
Str(+2 racial): 17 (7)
Dex 12 (2)
Con 14 (5)
Int 10 (0)
Wis 11 (1)
Cha 14 (5)
Simply you have to give up too much for starting Str of 18, my advice is to wait till 4th level and bump str - that nets you never having to worry about Wis again. Its up to you in the end.
Feats and revelations:
Good start, but skip whole mounted combat, difficult terrain, obstacles, smart enemies, all of this i think will end up with you not using mount in combat for all that much, but talk with your GM and see if its viable as an option.
Equipment: Nice overall, but don't enhance the shield, throw it away at one point and get ring of force shield. This will allow you to dismiss and call upon shield as a free action, making it easier to choose between fighting with longsword in two hands or one handed.
This is a thread about optimizing an Oracle (Battle), not a debate on whether healing as a combat role exists in the game. Personally, I think a free quickened cure spell once per day is more valuable than an alternate version of Improved Initiative.I've played a few melée oriented clerics in my day and I've rarely found a bad init score to be what holds them back. Healing sometimes feels like a wasted action, but Having seen the recent changes to a paladins self healing, it seems very effective when used as a swift action.
If we were talking about an optimized healer, we wouldn't be talking about a battle oracle anyways.
A 19th level battle oracle is able to use this power 4 times per day.
A 19th level paladin would be able to use lay on hand at least 12 times per day.
Also, the paladin gets this ability for free.Combat healer seems way to limited, removing either the double spell slot or the per day limitation should be fine.
Considering that the Battle Oracle spends most of his time uh-- doing battle with a melee weapon-- he has a lot of spell slots to spare.
I played a battle oracle to level 13, and after level 4 I never ran out of spells again. Since I spent a lot of time with a guisarme tripping, I didn't blow a spell every round of every fight-- more like 2 or 3 out of my massive arsenal before continuing. I always got low, but I never ran out, and this is in an adventure where we'd do entire dungeons without resting (CoT).
The 19th level paladin can channel 6 or so times for 9d6 as a standard action. Or heal himself for 9d6 as a swift action, and full attack. (31 avg)
The battle oracle can quicken cure critical wounds, mass, healing everyone and then full attacking. (4d8+19) (55 avg.)
Also, nothing beats using Combat Healer as an anti-undead AoE.
I'm going to be starting a similar 1st-level battle oracle for Carrion Crown (no spoilers please) and I'm worried there will be long periods (several levels) where there will be no spells that are good for me.
Really good buffs are limited and far between. The entire party is divine, so healing would be redundant.
What are good spells for a battle oracle?
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For a battle oracle (or combat cleric), the spells I'd personally recommend for each level are:
1st: Divine Favor, Bless, Shield of Faith
2nd: Spiritual Weapon, Aid, Grace
3rd: Magic Vestment, Prayer, Wind Wall
4th: Divine Power, Blessing of Fervor, Spiritual Ally
5th: Righteous Might, True Seeing, Disrupting Weapon
6th: Hero's Feast, Blade Barrier, Greater Dispel Magic
7th: Bestow Grace of the Champion, Holy Word, Ethereal Jaunt
8th: Divine Vessel (oracle only), Holy Aura, Greater Spell Immunity
9th: Winds of Vengeance, Overwhelming Presence, Miracle
After 5th level spells, it gets harder to find ones that specifically buff you in melee combat, though some of the lower level spells do scale to a decent degree.
For a battle oracle (or combat cleric), the spells I'd personally recommend for each level are:
1st: Divine Favor, Bless, Shield of Faith
2nd: Spiritual Weapon, Aid, Grace
3rd: Magic Vestment, Prayer, Wind Wall
4th: Divine Power, Blessing of Fervor, Spiritual Ally
5th: Righteous Might, True Seeing, Disrupting Weapon
6th: Hero's Feast, Blade Barrier, Greater Dispel Magic
7th: Bestow Grace of the Champion, Holy Word, Ethereal Jaunt
8th: Divine Vessel (oracle only), Holy Aura, Greater Spell Immunity
9th: Winds of Vengeance, Overwhelming Presence, MiracleAfter 5th level spells, it gets harder to find ones that specifically buff you in melee combat, though some of the lower level spells do scale to a decent degree.
Thanks! That was exactly what I was looking for!
This may be obvious, but no one else has pointed it out...
When allocating your points, keep in mind that Oracles need a minimum Charisma of 10+spell level to cast spells. If you go with calagnar's build, you'd only be able to cast 2nd level spells, unless you get a Headband of Alluring Charisma.
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Yes and level 3 spells you dont gain till level 6. When a Headband is not hard to come buy.
Now it's part of the problem with weapon and shield in PF. Is needing two weapon fighting and the 15 Dex. That is one of the main reason I have moved to favoring two handed weapons with reach for oracle of battle. It lets you drop down your Dex to keap your Cha higher.
Oracle of Battle
Main Weapon: (Exotic) Fauchard 1d10 18-20/x2 reach, trip
Martial: Guisarme 2d4 ×3 reach, trip or Bardiche 1d10 19–20/X2 brace, reach,
Human 15 Point.
Str 17
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 7
Cha 14
Human 20 Point.
Str 17
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 7
Cha 16
I have 25 pts.
I am seriously considering: Str 18 (+2 human), Dex 10, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 16.
How do people find thess ancient threads? I mean, it's not like they show up on the forum homepage