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I'm curious as to what everyone thinks of the Oracle's Deaf Curse. While I could always take the haunted curse (a total cop out compared to deaf or blindness), I really want to take the deaf one.
I want people's opinions. If you are maybe waiting for Ultimate Magic to do anything with the Oracle because you think their curses should be less physical & more spiritual/metaphysical/paranormal/mental/social, etc.
Or better yet if anyone has played an oracle with the Deaf curse! I googled it & no one has really played one. In playtest reviews it seemed people chose Haunted or Tongues, which are much different than the others I think.
I am looking at the Heavens Mystery, but also considering Flame/Life/Nature if one of the other players doesn't show up. Obviously in most of the Mystery there is mention of an ability being usable "when you can see ____". Such as "When you can see the stars at night.." (the blind curse prevents the oracle from accessing this, essentially)
I am still sort of considering the Clouded Vision Curse, but give me your thoughts on the Deaf one please. Let's talk these two curses!
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just because you are deaf doesn't mean you are mute, that is 2 seperate issues altogether.
here are my methods of circumventing oracle curses.
a Deaf oracle can still speak, they just can't hear on the same level as your average human. there are some sounds that even the deaf can hear. and special sounds you have to be 'deaf' to hear. your spells are silent for no cost, a better boon than most casters. many people tend to bundle deaf and mute as one package. i noticed no mention of mute. your penalties can be mitigated by sign language, playing charades or writing on a 'chalkboard.'
a clouded vision oracle has just that, clouded vision, i can say, being almost legally blind in real life, that you don't see darkness everywhere, it's just really, really blurry. you can easily circumvent the drawbacks of this curse with a melee oriented human oracle of battle.
a lame oracle is slower than normal, but it actually has definable mechanical penalties. unlike the former 2. this is probably the worst curse you can ever take on a mechanical level.
a haunted oracle has a pretty hindering penalty, more time to pull out equipment. less time to smack someone. oracle of life w/ the eschew materials and improved unarmed strike feats circumvents most of this, as you need no divine focus, most cheap components can be ignored and you don't need a weapon.
tongues is probably the easiest curse to circumvent. have everyone in your party take a rank in linguistics. problem solved.
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Thank you very much!
I am not necessarily looking for the easiest curse.
Mainly I am deciding which would be less of a hassle on the Storyteller (though we're all friends, but if it would encumber anything it could annoy him haha)
Deaf VS Clouded Vision are my two options at this point & you did give me a lot of insight into those. Thanks!!
I also thought, as another way to "circumvent" (it is high fantasy after all) the deaf curse, in higher levels, telepathy jewelry or even just the bond with the mount.
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Im currently playing a Life Oracle with the Lame curse.
I find the restrictive movement not too much of a problem in tight quarters but if we are in open areas - whoo it can take me a while to get where needed.
Now the following isn't directed at the OP, but an observation and a bit of a rant that I think is appropriate given the topic.
One thing that I have seen time and time again regarding the Oracle curses is that people keep on trying to negate them.
This I think is a major flaw in peoples RP thinking - and if the GM allows it is certainly theirs!
The Curse is equally part of the Oracle's power. It is the 'Cosmic' balance the gods have placed on the oracle to remind them of the price that they pay for their abilities.
Personally if I came up with an idea to remove my lameness in the game (Say by some kind of empowered boots of striding or something) I would be expecting 100% to lose all my oracle abilities as well.
The Curses are just that - CURSES - which are meant to restrict the oracle, not just inconvenience them slightly. As they are they are too light in my opinion. The Oracles Tongue ability should be unable to be understood even with linguistics after all why should other people be able to circumnavigate YOUR disability - the blindness not allowed to work with the battle aspect etc.
GMs should be delighting in anyone taking haunted making the oracles life a misery with things constantly going missing, at the bottom of the pack, stranger's things appearing in their possession, expensive items shattering near the player etc etc
Remember the curse is a divine artifact of the powers that exist in the game world, they should not be easily brushed aside.
My characters Lameness manifests as all the various Holy and Unholy symbols of all the gods carved deep into my leg, damaging the muscle and tendons, always weeping blood always needing me to use the Healing skill at least once a day to bandage and keep the wounds clean. Ive even incorporated this as part of the process that enables me to recover spells daily. This means if I am in some location where I do not have access to clean cloth, poultices and healing herbs I will not be able to recover my spells.
For a Deaf character using hand signals is fine as is writing on a chalk board but you should be experiencing fairly common circumstances where you run out of chalk, or it is raining or visibility is very poor and the like.
Once again they are divine curses not inconveniences.
there is actually no mechanical reason that prevents an oracle from circumventing thier curse.
chalk is only a copper piece per stick, charades is essentially canting. and reading lips only requires a sense motive check. and deaf doesn't always mean mute. they are 2 seperate issues, but they frequently either get mixed up or lumped together. deaf is considered a hassle because it requires a seperate description, just like clouded vision
tongues is actually some language of some sort, other people taking a rank in linguistics to understand your tongues is perfectly fine, they burnt a skill point, which are a limited resource, and even more so than gold. it may be a hassle to convince your players to burn that skill point.
speed reduction can be circumvented by a single level of barbarian. a whole class level, this drastically delays your already slowed progression. but either way, halflings and gnomes should not take lame.
clouded vision means you can't see past a certain range, it makes sense that they would develop decent melee combat ability. you don't need good eyesight to hit someone that is right next to you. and it's hard to call these guys blind at the later levels when they learn to feel vibrations with thier feet. i beleive tremorsense automatically trumps stealth. i feel sorry for the poor little rogue who doesn't realize he/she cannot sneak attack 'Toph.'
haunted, most DMs i know have ignored the possibility of ending up with another's possessions inside your pack. usually because most players will complain when thier most important piece of gear is in the oracle's possession. and i have known players who complain about losing even a single copper piece. this curse is also the least hassle on the DM, because it has the most things he/she can ignore.
i wonder why an oracle never takes more than one curse. i don't see a rule that bars them from doing so.
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One thing that I have seen time and time again regarding the Oracle curses is that people keep on trying to negate them.
This I think is a major flaw in peoples RP thinking - and if the GM allows it is certainly theirs!
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The Curse is equally part of the Oracle's power. It is the 'Cosmic' balance the gods have placed on the oracle to remind them of the price that they pay for their abilities.
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Remember the curse is a divine artifact of the powers that exist in the game world, they should not be easily brushed aside.
I completely agree. Thank you for putting this into words so well too. The reason I am asking this question is because I want to know if playing a deaf oracle is as difficult on the Storyteller as I would imagine it is. I am going with Clouded Vision/Nature. One day I will play my dream oracle of Deaf/Heavens, but at the moment I can see it creating stress. Because when we play, we DO roleplay haha. & I would do it justice. But as it's a new campaign, it would be difficult I think going in for the party. I do love your combination by the way. & how you explain your character.
there is actually no mechanical reason that prevents an oracle from circumventing thier curse.
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i wonder why an oracle never takes more than one curse. i don't see a rule that bars them from doing so.
Your last point really makes it interesting. Maybe someone out there is doing just that. Perhaps the gods/spirits/universe/etc are reallly testing them.
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I'm running a Life Oracle with the Wasting Curse - he has high charisma and max ranks in Diplomacy.
However, due to his curse he's wrapped up like a mummy and wears an iron mask - not the best setup for talking to folk.
As such, he plays the part of the wandering leper.
Still, he plays an active role in the campaign and makes good use of his Diplomacy skills - instead of talking to folk 'face to face' he has resorted to writing letters to powerful/prominent figures in the land.
He's lobbied for the release of prisoners (ok, so he utterly failed and they were all hanged!), fought for more holidays for the local peasants and played his part in getting more members of the Watch on the streets.
So, instead of trying to directly circumvent his curse he's had to learn to live with it and adjust.
Now, at the end of every adventure, during our group's down time, he hires a room in a tavern and writes his 'Jerk Letters'!
''Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to complain about...... ''
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Obviously in most of the Mystery there is mention of an ability being usable "when you can see ____". Such as "When you can see the stars at night.." (the blind curse prevents the oracle from accessing this, essentially)
There's a thread lurking in the archives somewhere about this - but basically your 'clouded vision' curse doesn't have to be anything like a medical condition. Your Oracle of the Heavens (for example) may well just see nothing but the night sky beyond 30ft - same effect, just a more thematic explaination, and it doesn't artificially limited your revelation choices.
... but either way, halflings and gnomes should not take lame.
Since small sized characters can ride medium-sized mounts they can fit into most adventure locations with ease, so halfling and gnome Oracles are, in may ways, the best choices for the lame curse. They also suffer less of a movement reduction, because they start with less than 30ft movement.
As for the deaf curse, first thing to do would be to check if your DM is okay with you dropping a rank into Linguistics to pick up 'lip reading' as a language choice - it doesn't negate the curse, but it does stop the frustration of the other PCs having to stop to write stuff down for you every time they just want to have a conversation. Some DMs may prefer you to make Sense Motive rolls for a similar effect, but the straight 'lip reading as a language' choice is easier all round.
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I have played a Clouded Vision Oracle of Bones in PFS, and enjoyed it for the most part. I have had very few problems with the clouded vision, other than not being able to use ranged attacks and often having to wait for my party to move so I "knew" where to go.
Bones Oracles have a lot of melee touch attacks, and this went hand in hand with Clouded Vision, I felt.
Someone here made a suggestion in a different thread about how the blindness out after 30' could be handled, in essence being a wall of the oracles focus...ie: a flame oracle sees a wall of flame, and people and buildings and things emerging from the wall to come into focus, a heavens oracle seeing the stars and the constellations (thus circumnavigating the "when you see the stars" problem altogether).
We used this concept to make the beings my Oracle interacted with see people starting off 30' looking like skeletons, then flesh slowly growing onto them as they got within viewing range, thus becoming who they really are, made for some very fun and interesting RP opportunities.
I have not met any deaf oracles. I have met 2 lame ones, 2 tongues guys, and my clouded vision.
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Thank you very much for the feedback & sharing your stories/characters/ideas on Oracle Curses in general.
BenignFacist, I love your character haha. Jerk Letters!
ProfPotts & Bomanz, that is genius! (regarding how the 30 feet mark, and later the 60 feet mark, is viewed. "Nothing but the night sky". Awesome!)
Perhaps I will be trying the deaf curse after all. Your lip reading as a language idea could work. (This whole time I was thinking about it as a skill but this would really take away any annoyance of having to repeat/slow things down for the Deaf curse).
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Perhaps I will be trying the deaf curse after all. Your lip reading as a language idea could work. (This whole time I was thinking about it as a skill but this would really take away any annoyance of having to repeat/slow things down for the Deaf curse).
Won't work in the middle of combat, though.
The biggest mechanical flaw of a Deaf Oracle is the -4 Initiative Penalty, so be prepred to either take Improved Initiative or go dead last. Now, that's not the end of the world, but it's worth noting. The -4 penalty to opposed Perception checks is barely even notable if you get Perception as a class skill (since the class skill bonus counters it almost completely), which you seem to be headed for with the Heavens Mystery.
Thematically, I love the idea of a deaf Oracle, and have every intention of playing one some time. Probably of Battles. It helps that he can't hear his enemies screams or pleas for mercy. :)
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Won't work in the middle of combat, though.
The biggest mechanical flaw of a Deaf Oracle is the -4 Initiative Penalty, so be prepred to either take Improved Initiative or go dead last. Now, that's not the end of the world, but it's worth noting. The -4 penalty to opposed Perception checks is barely even notable if you get Perception as a class skill (since the class skill bonus counters it almost completely), which you seem to be headed for with the Heavens Mystery.
Thematically, I love the idea of a deaf Oracle, and have every intention of playing one some time. Probably of Battles. It helps that he can't hear his enemies screams or pleas for mercy. :)
haha That is a nice quirk. Deaf/Battles would be interesting. I love that they threw scent in there. I love the idea too! It seems its the least played of all. Of course, as stated before, I don't want to completely circumvent the curse. It just requires a completely new way of doing things (& in a world where there ARE "bracelets of telepathy" or "armbands of displaying your words in ghost letters before my eyes so I can read what is said", this is not necessarily cheating or copping out. It kind of makes me excited haha)
I do have to look up the Deaf condition before I make that version of the character. I've already made the Clouded Vision/Nature version, but this is so difficult haha. The first game of this campaign is tomorrow too! & I still have to make some pumpkin curry
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Don't forget, as the character is deaf, they are immune to a large number of language dependent spells and sound related effects.
Hmm..
However, this'd also mean that if the character wishes to gain the benefits of any bardic performance, then the performance better be sight based!
Still, pros and cons! Command spell? HA!
..and the character can work comfortably in the noisiest of taverns!
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Oh lord, Clouded Vision sucks if you ever want to any kind of damage with a weapon. Since you can only see so far, it's hard to base up with any kind of enemy because you can't see. Ranged weaponry is out of the question.
I've played every Curse as an oracle and actually really enjoyed Tongues. I was a life-acle and kept speaking in Auran. We ended up meeting a Harpy that spoke it and the insulting back and forth was awesome.
Signing takes a lot longer time than speaking and since battle turns are only five seconds, it's rough to try and tell the oracle don't go near that hissing noise because it's a hot air jetstream that will melt her face off. Also, you can't sign with only one hand, so anyone with a weapon out? No signing. Unless you drip ANOTHER linguistics language into one-handed "modified" signing. (I'm taking an ASL class, and it's as different as French and Canadian French. Meaning it's very hard to understand when you only know one or the other)
We came up with RP rules that we had to pretend to sign if we were signing while talking. It came in handy in ambush situations for the rogue since we didn't have to speak, though.
The easiest is Haunted, in which you get a wrist sheathe on each arm for your wands. No needing to fumble in your bag, problem solved. But yeah, it did feel like a cop-out.
Blind was... interesting. It sucked so hard at lower levels, but I took a few points in Ride and rode the barbarian into battle until I could get Tremorsense. (I was a gnome)
Lame wasn't bad because I went Rage-acle and just used the Athletics skill to bunny-hop long-jump where I needed to go.
I think trying to bypass the curse is fine as long as it is " handicapped person trying to overcome adversity " if it's just meta gaming the system it should fail.
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That's true Benign. & We never run with a bard as no one ever plays one. & rp wise, that escape from tavern noise is awesome haha
Ohako that's a great idea, actually. I didn't think of that. While it's giving up Elven Magic, it is a total injection of RP flavor. Mute should be a curse, I think.
...Blind was... interesting. It sucked so hard at lower levels, but I took a few points in Ride and rode the barbarian into battle until I could get Tremorsense... (I was a gnome)
Did you mean Deaf? Or did you mean when you got blindsight at level 15 as a Clouded Vision cursed Oracle? All the things you had to say are really helpful. That's the first time I've heard from someone who has played every curse. Did you have a favorite combination of curse/mystery that you enjoyed?
I made a Deaf/Nature oracle too, as my third take on it. I've been told when we head to the mountains & surrounding plains soon, there will be giant owls & bison, etc... At third level I may just have a giant owl bonded companion. The empathic bond can alert me at least to how the companion feels about something I may not be able to hear (plus their intelligence!). We'd be looking out for each other haha. Gaining scent at 10th level is a nice fit too (This won't be E6, & it is high fantasy, though some spells - time stop for one - are banned)
I'll decide when I get there haha. All this input & discussion is great. The oracle has so much variety from the get go, not that the others don't, but it is easier to be complex & it seems more difficult to make a simple "munchkin" type character.
Well said mojorat. "Sucks to your metagaming!". It's nice that I'm not playing with the munchkin-y boardgame-esque group tonight haha.
I think trying to bypass the curse is fine as long as it is " handicapped person trying to overcome adversity " if it's just meta gaming the system it should fail.
Indeed.
I have to say, I'm playing an Oracle of Life with the Lame curse, in a Kingmaker game. If jumping on a horse to go explore a hex counted as "circumventing my curse", then it'd take a week or more to explore a single area.
Pure idiocy.
The thing is, even if you use something that increases your speed, you are always 10ft slower than you could have been. Haste spell, boots of striding, expeditious retreat wand and UMD. All these "add" to your movement: your 20ft movement.
Considering the benefits of the lame curse (a few load/armor restrictions are ignored), it's not a big deal. In the beginning levels, being confined to a horse or moving 15ft (wearing medium armor) is decently tough.
Later having to spend cash on an item most healers wouldn't (boots of striding), offsets the minor bonuses fine.
I mainly took it because I liked the 'House' feel of a healer with a limp. I even have an heirloom sword cane.. passed down through my family, a line of lame oracles of life.
I play a clouded vision oracle of battle in the pathfinder society. It is a fun challenge. Probably the hardest part of this curse is simply the out of character need to ignore absolutely everything described or on the map that I can't see.
My brother ran a Blind Oracle a year ago. As a DM, I found it extremely frustrating (and so did he), so we kind of fudged the rules around a little, basically making it so it was "extremely blurred and washed out" at the distance.
This way he could see the sky, or see a building across the street (a big blob of dark colour), or see that a room had a wall at the other end and didn't just open into space, but couldn't see anything remotely detailed, even movement of potential creatures, etc.
It was otherwise just painful to describe and try not to metagame. It got annoying to describe things coming out of a colourless fog at his "clipping plane" (for those that remember old FPS games).
Also, in the very first encounter, he got hit with a thunderstone, so his character was basically blind and deaf. Not exactly a fun experience, but he gave it a good chance, playing up to 6th or 7th level before he decided it was time to retire him into an NPC and start up something else.
Sarta's experiences in combat are matching with what we experienced as well. Having other players call out to you to get help was another major feature (and that got annoying as well).
We had a player run a deaf oracle for a while in my game. It was a disaster.
Even with several PCs that spoke sign language, and with the oracle able to read lips in several languages, the player still felt enormously limited in what kind of interaction he could manage. Communication with the party was a chore, because it required some PCs translate back and forth for others, and communication with many NPCs was even worse.
It ended up as an enormously frustrating curse for both the party, the player, and the GM, because it required a great deal of hand holding for the oracle.
Just my experience. I'd take any other curse before that one.
I am looking to play an oracle of bones with the haunted curse. I was looking at the spell for giving other people your curse.
I'm not sure In practical terms for combat what giving the curses actually does. thematically and rpwise it's pretty awesome. most people suddenly say speaking tongues and spewing goblygook would likely complexly freak.
but I'n terms of hitting the enemies with it I'n combat other than having their leader suddenly unable to give orders I'm not clear what it does. the exception to this is deaf curse since that's a clearly defined condition. but clouded vision? does the enemy spell caster hit with haunting suddenly need to spend a full round getting spell components?
Clouded vision is actually pretty good to inflict on others. Casters losing line of sight for anything greater than 30 ft is actually quite devastating.
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Thank you again. We talked about the deaf oracle, & you are right. It would create so much work & "hand holding". That may work for some groups, I cannot be the person that plays the character slowing the game down by 50% (not that everything needs to be fast! But I think you get my drift)
"Disaster" is a good way to describe it.
I ended up playing the Clouded Vision cursed Oracle of Nature with Lightkeeper racial variant from APG (playing it as a "sun's light" Naturistic type cosmetic ability). I'll be honest, first level was annoying with the school & spells combination, but the character was still fun to play until we 'levelled', when *all* aspects became fun & exciting. (While Heavens would be so much fun, I also love Nature & Druids, etc, & want to give this a try first. We will be encountering giant owls soon & at third level - which we just hit - I will be taking Bonded Mount with one of these. Yay!)
Anyway, Blind was not difficult. Several instance of In Character "What do you see?" or "Tell me when they're coming", but I could tell right away it was nothing compared to how frustrating the constant "repeat everything that was just said for the deaf character" situations (namely, all) would be.
You mentioned a clouded vision oracle that was hit with a thunderstone, so blinded & deafened. While that chance is there, & I fear it haha, I suppose that is a weakness I will persevere through. We all have the times we're tested.
Thanks again sooo much.
No problem!
Yeah, I'd suspect that the curses would go down the list in "annoying level" like this:
Deaf
Clouded Vision
Haunted
Lame
Wasting
Tongues
My brother's clouded vision was probably more annoying for us since we were playing a game where the majority of the time we spent outside, and having to deal with people fairly distanced as a default.
He was also more of an attacker than a healer (inflict instead of cure), so not having line of sight was a lot more hindering: allies come to you for healing, enemies stay away. Hard to get that Hold Person or Command spell (and later any ranged area effect spell) when you are limited to attacking within 60'.