If you've read my tarot card thread, you'll know that I assigned a tarot card to each class, and the Oracle was assigned to the Empress card.
If you've read the thread about Clerics being overshadowed by Oracles, you'll know that I don't care much for the Oracle class.
I was going to start a thread about Oracles vs Diviners, but a little bit of thought indicated that Diviners would be better for a fortune telling character than Oracles would be.
Which leaves me the question of how Oracles would fit in my 17th Century campaign. There certainly would be an "oracle" occupation, but that role would seem to be better filled by Diviners. My campaign is confusing enough, and confusion between Oracles and Diviners makes it even worse.
So I was thinking, what about replacing the Oracle class with an Amazon class. Since I'm committed to offering exactly 20 classes, it's either the Oracle or the Amazon.
The Amazon thing can't be being a female fighter, because females can be Fighters, or Paladins, or Rangers, and males can be Amazons. But I think there is precedent for the latter, as I remember from my college Literature course that some of the best Irish heroes were trained by amazons.
I think what might make the Amazon different from the other Fighter classes might include the following:
* They fight like women. They rely more on Dexterity than Strength, and more on dodging blows than wearing heavy armor or just being tough.
* They have some shaman powers. Spellcasting progression is like the Paladin and Ranger. Their magic tends to have an elemental aspect, and they get some divine class abilities. I am thinking chthonic associations would be apropos for this class.
* They are an ancient order. "Modern" Amazons have learned to use swords and bows and axes, but they are not proficient in every martial weapon. They do learn to use simple weapons to great effect, however, so a spear-wielding Amazon could compete well with a sword-wielding Fighter.
I'll have to get a chance to lay out 20 levels of fun. I'm interested in any ideas people might have.
What you describe reminds me of some homebrew content I read for giving Barbarians a frenzy instead of a rage. They gained a Dex bonus and the ability to treat weapons as smaller size categories for purposes of weapon finesse. That sort of ability might be one of the only good ways to keep them viable as melee characters if you intend them to be Dex-oriented.
Quite frankly, I don't see how Amazons would fit into a 17th century campaign. Classical Greece, yes... Rennaissance, no.
But the 17th Century followed classical Greece. Granted, it's about 2,000 years in the future, but classical Greece is still in the past.
My plan is that the classes are tied in metaphysically with the world as a set of archetypes. So the Amazons never really disappeared. They just went out of sight.
Amazons may still exist in the Amazon Jungle, or in Africa, or beyond the frontiers of Russia. But in general, I am casting them as an extinct order, although the techniques may still be practiced by members of both sex.
As an etic note, since I'm using a non-spellcasting ranger, the Amazons would be like the original spellcasting Ranger.