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The power of the Oracle has left you disconnected from your fellows, and no longer experience the highs and lows of emotion. You take a -4 penalty to all Charisma checks except Use Magic Device. You gain a +2 competence bonus to Will saves. At 5th level, you are immune to the Shaken and Frightened conditions (but not Panicked). At 10th level, you are immune to charm and compulsion effects. At 15th level, you are immune to the Panicked and Cowering conditions.
So, thoughts?
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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The power of the Oracle has left you disconnected from your fellows, and no longer experience the highs and lows of emotion. You take a -4 penalty to all Charisma checks except Use Magic Device. You gain a +2 competence bonus to Will saves. At 5th level, you are immune to the Shaken and Frightened conditions (but not Panicked). At 10th level, you are immune to charm and compulsion effects. At 15th level, you are immune to the Panicked and Cowering conditions.
So, thoughts?
What Oracle wouldn't take this option? It's hardly a drawback at all, especially since CHA is the most popular dump stat.
I like the idea, but it needs tweaking.
Edit: I misread and removed my comment about umd
So, thoughts? What Oracle wouldn't take this option? It's hardly a drawback at all, especially since CHA is the most popular dump stat.
Oracles use cha for casting.
Edit: fixed quote error
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How is being disconnected from other people relevant to objects manipulated using UMD?
I like the idea, but it needs tweaking.
I'm thinking that UMD is the only thing that isn't effected.
So you're bad at bluffing, intimidating, and diplomacy, but it doesn't affect your ability to coerce magic items into doing their thing.
Perhaps Sense Motive should be thrown in, as well?
I'm using the Wasting curse as my basis.
How is being disconnected from other people relevant to objects manipulated using UMD?
I like the idea, but it needs tweaking.
I'm thinking that UMD is the only thing that isn't effected.
So you're bad at bluffing, intimidating, and diplomacy, but it doesn't affect your ability to coerce magic items into doing their thing.
Perhaps Sense Motive should be thrown in, as well?
I'm using the Wasting curse as my basis.
I misread that the first time. I thought it was only UMD. My bad..
Perhaps just say that cha is treated as lower for purposes of interacting with other beings. Perhaps the cha penalty gets worse as the benefits get better?
Cha treated as two points lower until fifth, than four lower until tenth, etc.
I don't have a good suggestion otherwise to fix the mechanical issue, but I do like the concept. Perhaps "stone heart" is less of a metaphor than an actual stone heart. That would be an interesting take.
Compared to the curses in the APG, this is stupidly powerful. The curse is that you can't be the party's Face. Well...ok. With that kind of "curse", any benefits you get will be far too good.
Your logic for why UMD isn't affected is consistent and makes sense.
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Compared to the curses in the APG, this is stupidly powerful. The curse is that you can't be the party's Face. Well...ok. With that kind of "curse", any benefits you get will be far too good.
Your logic for why UMD isn't affected is consistent and makes sense.
How does it compare to Wasting? Immunity to Sickened, Nauseated, and disease, for -4 to Charisma skill checks except Intimidate?
I figure "Eventually immune to fear effects" is thematic. So would immunity/protection to Charm. Where's the imbalance?
(I'm just playing Devil's Advocate here to make sure we can really flesh out the pros and cons.)
Oh, Wasting. I forgot about that one. Probably on purpose.
Nevermind my post, there's already a precedent set.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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Oh, Wasting. I forgot about that one. Probably on purpose.
Nevermind my post, there's already a precedent set.
Ditto. I forgot about that one as well.
I'd be curious to see a report of PFS Oracles and what percentage of them chose 'wasting.' My guess would be "most of them." :D
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Actually, Wasting is the one I don't hear anyone taking...
I've played three oracles, one with Haunted, one with Tongues, one with Deaf. I hear of Clouded Vision being popular among melee-types, and Lame is the Rage Prophet's curse of choice (Rage + fatigue immunity = win!). Wasting seems to have fallen off everyone's radar...
Ok, I've since gotten sleep and it occurred to me that Wasting and this are not all that similar. Mechanically, they are. But with Wasting, you have to deal with the RP aspect that your body is literally falling about. That merchant might not talk to you because you look like a zombie! This could present a huge obstacle if your GM wants to play this angle up a lot (and why shouldn't he? it's a Curse!). It's for that reason that when I thought about making an oracle, I ruled this curse out.
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Good point, but talking to someone who has no emotion whatsoever can also be unsettling--hence the face-penalties.
But what if, in addition to Bluff, Intimidate, Diplomacy, and Perform, I also threw in Sense Motive? You just can't understand why anyone would respond with a hidden agenda. That would make the curse feel bad, and not just in an "Oh well, guess I'm not the face" way.
Perhaps the bonuses work out well, too, then. Would fear immunity be superior to sickened/nauseated/disease immunity? What's your opinion?
I'm thinking of gathering a number of new Oracle's Curses together. Stoneheart is one, but I'm also working on Hyperactive, Simple Minded, Frail, and Out of Time. I'll post these later, when I'm ready.
There's a 3rd party PDF with some Curses in it.
Here it is. Dark Mistress gave a review of it, that lists all of the curses, without the details. Perhaps you could make use of the PDF?
The power of the Oracle has left you disconnected from your fellows, and no longer experience the highs and lows of emotion. You take a -4 penalty to all Charisma checks except Use Magic Device. You gain a +2 competence bonus to Will saves. At 5th level, you are immune to the Shaken and Frightened conditions (but not Panicked). At 10th level, you are immune to charm and compulsion effects. At 15th level, you are immune to the Panicked and Cowering conditions.
So, thoughts?
As it stands, it looks a bit overpowered to me. I'd be inclined to remove the immunity to charms and compulsions, and spread the immunities to Shaken, Frightened, and Panicked between L 5, 10, and 15. Maybe keep the immunity to Cowering at L 15.
Did you get any further with your Oracle curses project?
I used the Search function to look for threads on new Oracle curses in the Homebrew section of the forums. To my surprise, I got only two real hits.
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Haven't done anything yet. I was also looking over the Stigmata curse thread, wondering what to do there (as it stands, my version is definitely overpowered).
But here's a new version of Stoneheart, based off a Paladin's auras:
Stoneheart: You do not experience the highs and lows of emotion, and you find connections with your fellows hard to come by and hard to understand. You take a -4 penalty to all Charisma checks except Use Magic Device, and a -4 penalty to Sense Motive checks. You gain a +2 competence bonus to Will saves. At 5th level, you are immune to fear effects (magical or otherwise). At 10th level, you are immune to charm spells and spell-like abilities. At 15th level, you are immune to compulsion spells and spell-like abilities.
How does this sound?
I still think that - at the very least - the compulsion immunity should go. "Highs and lows" could indeed be interpreted as friendship (charm effects) and terror (fear effects). However, compulsion effects are outright mind-control, something which doesn't have anything to do with emotions (as far as I know).
If you do keep the benefits against both fear and charm effects, then I might suggest a gradual increase spread across L 5, 10, and 15. Maybe this:
L 5: +2 on saves vs. charm effects (cumulative with L 1's +2 to Will saves), immunity to shaken condition
L 10: +4 on saves vs. charm effects (cumulative with L 1's +2 to Will saves), immunity to frightened condition
L 15: immunity to charm effects and fear effects (including panicked and cowering)
It still feels pretty powerful, but not as much as a blanket immunity to an entire category of conditions at L 5.
Bah. Have you looked at Paladins lately? They get blanket immunities all the time.
Perhaps as an additional drawback at the outset, the oracle could be unaffected by morale bonuses? That affect a good number of the clerical buff spells as well as bardic abilities and fits the theme of being "immune to highs and lows of emotion".
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Perhaps as an additional drawback at the outset, the oracle could be unaffected by morale bonuses? That affect a good number of the clerical buff spells as well as bardic abilities and fits the theme of being "immune to highs and lows of emotion".
I like that, that would be very thematic and a real drawback. I'm already imagining that the -4 Sense Motive makes the feinting rouges salivate, too.