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We are getting ready to start a new home campaign and I am choosing to play a gnome Oracle of the heaven's. We will be playing Kingmaker and the expected lvl we will obtain is 16.
I have tried crunching numbers together for both paths but my head is starting to hurt on all the figuring. Straight oracle gives my higher lvl spells but going rage prophet gives me some better DC. My problem is choosing which is the strongest way to go assuming lvl 16. Here are my starting stats after racial modifiers:
str: 10
int: 11
wis: 10
con: 17
dex: 14
chr: 18
I plan on taking these feats in this order: spell focus: illusion, greater spell focus: illusion, extra revelation: coat of many stars, heighten spell, spell penetration, greater spell penetration, and still looking at the other 2. I know I should take selective spell in there somewhere also so I don't color spray the party.
My revelations in order for the ones I really want are: Awesome display, moonlight bridge, lure of heavens
Curse if I go rage prophet will be lame, otherwise deaf.
My planned path if I do go rage prophet will be:
4 lvls oracle
2 lvls barbarian
10 lvls rage prophet
So the million dollar question is, which way would be best to go, rage prophet or straight oracle. I would like to be very useful as a combat controller but my concerns are losing a few spell lvls vs having a higher DC.
Also, I've NEVER played a divine caster before so I have no idea how useful divine spells are.
Thanks.
Pure oracle. Not even a question with those stats as a gnome. Your melee damage would be trivial at best.
Oracles benefit much more from going singleclass than a cleric. Rage prophet is IMO one of the worst prestige classes out there.
Pure oracle. Not even a question with those stats as a gnome. Your melee damage would be trivial at best.
Oracles benefit much more from going singleclass than a cleric. Rage prophet is IMO one of the worst prestige classes out there.
It would be good PRC if Savage Seer added to your rounds of Rage per day and it was D10/Full BAB.
As it is you lose too much compared to what you gain. The oracle is already a 3/4 BAB D8 class so actually lose a BAB taking this PRC and you lose 3 spell levels on top of what you lose for taking Barbarian levels. Then you can't take any more mysteries and need to use feats to get them.
What do you get in exchange? A couple cantrips usable 1/day, some mystery spells known, a few situation bonus against fey, rage healing, and the ability to burn spell for rage round (not good thing in my books) and greater rage. Adding con to casting checks isn't bad and two good save is nice.
i can see how the rage prophet build would work if you jumped directly in at high level (stacking CON/CHA for saves), but it just doesn`t make sense if you`re playing a normal game from lower levels, especially for such an obvious non-combatant as you have there.
rage prophet CAN work fine for more melee oriented characters, which is why it pretty much directly says that battle mystery is the standard mystery for rage prophets. for them, 2 levels of barb isn`t really a diversion (if they were already using their spells to self-buff for melee and minor utility, rather than full on full caster-ing). it`s for these characters that the CON+CHA stacking is made, because they`re ALSO investing in a good STR / non crappy DEX, so doubling up on Saves really just brings them on-par with Full Caster DC`s (ignoring full oracle`s higher spell levels). rage prophets also need to choose ONE of oracle or barbarian that they will invest more levels in, because they will really want to have 8th level pre-req class abilities IMHO.
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I can see those points, and really the only thing I was looking at was adding the extra con to my DC and wasn't sure if the trade off was good enough. My mind said no, but I'm not an expert at optimizing in anything 3.X.
The hardest part for being a pure oracle was choosing which curse to use. I'm not a fan of any of them, but the deaf one seems to offer the best rewards for the disability. Clouded vision makes you to melee oriented imo, Haunted gives our DM way to much potential for pain, lame would be fine if my base move was 30, wasting would be good if I was doing bones for a RP line, which leaves tongues which might be ok also.
I like the silent spells that deaf offers and the potential it has. Tongues is nice because you can get all langs but you can take the alternate gnome trait that lets you pick a lang with each lingustic point and get +1 to bluff and diplomacy at the trade off of defensive training and hatred which I feel won't be to useful in our campaign.
I can see those points, and really the only thing I was looking at was adding the extra con to my DC and wasn't sure if the trade off was good enough. My mind said no, but I'm not an expert at optimizing in anything 3.X.
Definitely not worth it.
The hardest part for being a pure oracle was choosing which curse to use. I'm not a fan of any of them, but the deaf one seems to offer the best rewards for the disability. Clouded vision makes you to melee oriented imo, Haunted gives our DM way to much potential for pain, lame would be fine if my base move was 30, wasting would be good if I was doing bones for a RP line, which leaves tongues which might be ok also.
I like the silent spells that deaf offers and the potential it has. Tongues is nice because you can get all langs but you can take the alternate gnome trait that lets you pick a lang with each lingustic point and get +1 to bluff and diplomacy at the trade off of defensive training and hatred which I feel won't be to useful in our campaign.
I'd never choose deafness. Bonuses are nice, but it really kicks you in the butt, and abilities gained won't always compensate for that. Having a simple conversation with someone becomes a really big obstacle, as you'll need either telepathy or some form of sign language. The former requires an investment, while the latter will mostly be limited to your team, as use of such a language is not likely to be widespread in your usual fantasy world.
Tongues is probably the least problematic one out there.
From a fluff perspective Haunted works great if you also take the Spirit Totem rage powers. You're character is haunted by chaotic spirits who are constantly messing with you, trying to force you into rage because they feed off of blood and death.
However, I suspect such a character wouldn't work well mechanically.
Tongues is probably the easiest to work with, especially if you pick a language all the other PC's know.
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I play a clouded vision oracle in PFS, and its not that debilitating. Only rarely do the encounters happen more than 30 feet away, and in another level I can see out to 60 feet. Usually in dungeon crawls and the like, thats plenty of seeing. If you are in the wilderness or the plains or something, or fighting flying bad guys...thats when clouded vision kind of sucks.