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What are some good ones to choose for an oracle? Obviously your mystery will have a significant influence on what you choose, but what divine spells are good choices overall?
Obviously the Cure spells are good choices, especially if you're the only healer. I would think that buffs are repeatable so they can be spread over the whole party and the same for debuffs.
What are some good ones to choose for an oracle? Obviously your mystery will have a significant influence on what you choose, but what divine spells are good choices overall?
Obviously the Cure spells are good choices, especially if you're the only healer. I would think that buffs are repeatable so they can be spread over the whole party and the same for debuffs.
You get the cures automatically, no need to choose 'em. I like SoBS spells like Blindness, and buffs (because they are often symmetric to debuffs). Bless > Bane, because it always works, while Bane they can save against. Sound Burst is nice too, as is Protection from Evil to protect the weak-willed from being turned against you.
Automatically get the cure spells? I was under the impression that you only get the bonus spells automatically.
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Bestow Curse is amasing.
Automatically get the cure spells? I was under the impression that you only get the bonus spells automatically."In addition to the spells gained by oracles as they gain levels, each oracle also adds all of either the cure spells or the inflict spells to her list of spells known (cure spells include all spells with “cure” in the name, inflict spells include all spells with “inflict” in the name). These spells are added as soon as the oracle is capable of casting them. This choice is made when the oracle gains her first level and cannot be changed."
Ah, ok excuse me. That makes this a lot easier to do then.
@Caineach: Oh yeah, Bestow Curse is amazing, I really like being creative with it.
Alright, so buffs>debuffs (mostly), what other spells?
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+1 to sound burst. My 18 Cha Oracle uses it to great effect. Even if they are not stunned, all the baddies take 1d8 damage.
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Automatically get the cure spells? I was under the impression that you only get the bonus spells automatically."In addition to the spells gained by oracles as they gain levels, each oracle also adds all of either the cure spells or the inflict spells to her list of spells known (cure spells include all spells with “cure” in the name, inflict spells include all spells with “inflict” in the name). These spells are added as soon as the oracle is capable of casting them. This choice is made when the oracle gains her first level and cannot be changed."Ah, ok excuse me. That makes this a lot easier to do then.
@Caineach: Oh yeah, Bestow Curse is amazing, I really like being creative with it.
Alright, so buffs>debuffs (mostly), what other spells?
Especially if you can get a lesser reach rod.
How about an area spell that hurts your enemies without hurting and your allies?
Holy Smite is a divine casters fireball
@Rory: Wow, thanks! That is exactly what I'm looking for. Would you put Summon Monster spells on that list? Also I plan on making an Oracle of Bones with a high Charisma, so what would help with that besides debuffs?
Archon's Aura has also served as a wonderful debuff for the oracle in my game. -2 to hits, saves, and AC is pretty nasty as an aura.
I'm currently using a 5th Level Oracle and this was my thinking ...
Since you get the Cure spells automatically (or Inflict, but the Heal spells are far more useful), take the Scribe Scroll feat or the Brew Potion feat and create Cure scrolls/Cure potions in your down time during the game and save your spell slots (or at least most of your spell slots) for buffing/debuffing, control, and damage spells. I'd lean more towards scrolls, personally.
As for what spells to use, your mystery, and your curse, I guess it depends on the style of play you'd like to utilize and/or your background story. My character's background story called for the Waves mystery and Cloudy Vision curse.
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As Rory suggested, the important thing is to have at least one spell per level that you're interested in casting many times per day. In theory, that could be a Cure Wounds spell, but I find that gets a bit tired after a while. I'd suggest things like Command, Sound Burst, Summon Monster III+, Blindness, the alignment Smite spells, etc.
Sound Burst, Extended is a great 3rd level spell.
No, it's not. Why? Because it doesn't exist. Sound Burst has a duration of instantaneous and can't be extended ;)
As someone above hinted at, using metamagic feats can essentially expand your 'spells known' by making new versions of spells you already have.
I'm a big fan of Reach spell, especially for a spontaneous caster, due to its flexibility. For example, add a level to that bestow curse to do it at range...a worthy trade for someone who will generally have spell slots to burn. Low level cure spells will be able to be done at range too.
At higher levels quicken is a necessity, essentially giving you two spells a round. The low level buffs become much easier to get out when you can quicken them.
For spells I like versatile spells. Wall of Stone is great because theres so much you can do with it. Summons are very good because not only because are they versatile (get the type of creature most useful to your current situation) but also expand your action economy...now you and your summoned creature both have actions.
I'd generally look to have a nice collection of buffs and debuffs among the lower level spells, with a small number of 'attack' spells thrown in. But mostly I'd focus on protecting the party, removing negative status conditions from the party, imposing negative status conditions on the enemy, utility effects, and contributing to damage.
I think someone posted a pretty good oracle spell list in this forum a couple weeks ago, definitely worth checking out.
Humans obviously have the edge due to the substitute racial favored class bonus to get more spells known. Plus an extra feat.
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Spells I would pick first from each level:
1:
Protection from evil
2:
Shatter
3:
Summon Monster III (trade off for Dispel magic later)
4:
Air Walk
5:
Wall of Stone
6:
Heal
7:
Summon Monster VII
8:
Orb of the Void (UM)
9:
Miracle (to duplicate other spells)
Not even the 1 round duration effect?Sound Burst, Extended is a great 3rd level spell.No, it's not. Why? Because it doesn't exist. Sound Burst has a duration of instantaneous and can't be extended ;)
No, not even that. Extend spell says it can't be used on instanteneous spells and Sound Burst clearly lists "Duration: Instantenous".
Spells I would pick first from each level:
1:
Protection from evil
Absolutely! What would you recommend as second spell in 1st level?
I´m leaning towards divine favor.
Heightened Sanctuary + Spiritual Weapon = You can hit them but they need to save to hit you.
Spells I would pick first from each level:
1:
Protection from evilAbsolutely! What would you recommend as second spell in 1st level?
I´m leaning towards divine favor.
Why cant protection from whatever be consolidated in to one spell? like summon monsters, you could choose what alingment to protect against, same goes for magic circle against X
Spells I would pick first from each level:
1:
Protection from evilAbsolutely! What would you recommend as second spell in 1st level?
I´m leaning towards divine favor.
Either Command or Bless, the next one I would take at level 2.
Has nobody mentioned Hold Person? Cause, Hold Person.
You make a very persuasive argument!
Wow, thanks for the great advice everyone! Any other suggestions? What about stuff to avoid?
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Wow, thanks for the great advice everyone! Any other suggestions? What about stuff to avoid?
That list is too numerous to possibly fit in a post (and would take hours to compile)
Instead I'll just give a bit of more general advice:
1) Pick a good mystery:If you aren't set on a particular Mystery, I would highly recommend "Battle", and the first Revelation I would recommend is "War Sight".
War sight will give you a huge initiative advantage, and eventually give you actions in surprise rounds. Battle itself has a fairly decent list of spells, especially the lower level ones.
2) Avoid redundancy. When you are playing that has limited known spells, you aren't always best to pick up the spell everyone says is "best", instead look at the spells you already have, and pick a spell that does something different. For example, if your character has both Hold Monster and Hold Person, Dispel magic and Greater dispel magic, Blade Barrier and Wall of Stone, your spell list ends up full of redundancies, meaning you can do less things.
3) Favor spell versatility: Spells that do very specific things can be OK, but spells that you can use for all sorts of things are the spells you want on your list. Compare Blade Barrier and Wall of Stone for a moment. They both do similar things, but Wall of Stone is shapable, which also gives it the ability to perform more functions than the obvious "combat wall" one, making it the spell you should give preference too.
4) Favor spell LIST versatility: Make sure that your spell list contains spells that buff, control the battlefield, debuff, blast, perform utility function, etc. Spell lists that do lots of things will make you much more versatile as a character.
5) Avoid circumstantial spells: Your spell list isn't long, so you should avoid spells you aren't going to cast often. Remove curse is a very useful spell when you need it, but how often do you need it? You might only get a couple chances to cast it over the course of an entire campaign. The rest of the time it's just stealing the space of a spell you may be able to cast all the time.
6) Avoid spells that don't scale well: Cause Fear is a pretty useful spell at first level, but by level 6 it's really quite useless. You have some ability to switch lower level spells, but that ability is limited. If you pick a spell that isn't going to be useful at higher levels, you need to make a plan to switch it off. If you can't make that plan, you probably would be better served with a different spell.
I just started up a Halfling with the Mystery of Life. It's pretty fun that you get almost every healing spell from both the Core Rulebook and the Advanced Player's Guide as bonus spells between the two of them (the only spells I could find that I don't get for free are Raise Dead and Resurrection).
I took the Dual-Cursed Archetype and made my first Revelation Misfortune. Once per day, you can force any creature to reroll a d20 and take the new result. Even though it's called misfortune, I plan on using it on my allies to make them reroll a poor d20 result; and I can do it to each of them once per day! Nifty!
From there, I plan on taking Channel, Enhance Cures, and possibly Safe Healing. Still working out how many of my feats are going to be the Extra Revelation feat :).
Anyway, the point of the story is that Oracle is an awesomely fun and customizable class. Enjoy it!
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If your party likes to split up or if you're taking the clouded vision curse, Status is great spell. Otherwise, it all depends on what sort of oracle you're building.
As a battle oracle, my charisma wasn't awesome, and I never like to depend on having rounds to buff, so I planned the bulk of my spells around out of combat utility. Any spells I might need to hit the whole party with or are dependant on caster level were on my list, and I avoided anything with a DC.
As a flames oracle, maxxed charisma and DCs and grabbed a variety of offense control and party buffs, as I didn't even carry a weapon so never wanted to run out of combat effective spells. Being the face/entertainment out of combat was more than enough to feel useful there.
As a battle oracle, my charisma wasn't awesome, and I never like to depend on having rounds to buff, so I planned the bulk of my spells around out of combat utility. Any spells I might need to hit the whole party with or are dependant on caster level were on my list, and I avoided anything with a DC.
As a flames oracle, maxxed charisma and DCs and grabbed a variety of offense control and party buffs, as I didn't even carry a weapon so never wanted to run out of combat effective spells. Being the face/entertainment out of combat was more than enough to feel useful there.
This is excellent advice. It's important to consider your plan for combat, are you going to buff and fight, or are you going to cast? This is a question you need to answer before assigning ability scores.
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Another thing to keep in mind with the Oracle is that if you are starting one for Pathfinder Society, the Heavens mystery with the Awesome Display revelation is devastating due to the level 12 cap. That combination of circumstances makes Color Spray a save or die spell long after it would be retrained in a typical campaign.
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Another thing to keep in mind with the Oracle is that if you are starting one for Pathfinder Society, the Heavens mystery with the Awesome Display revelation is devastating due to the level 12 cap. That combination of circumstances makes Color Spray a save or die spell long after it would be retrained in a typical campaign.
how would one go about maximizing the DC for that color spray, gnome with 20 cha, spell focus and greater spell focus brings it up to 19, i guess at higher levels use of heighten spell can increase the DC as well(but you'd want to get Spontaneous Metafocus as well)
but are there any other ways i haven't mentioned here to get the DC higher?
If your party likes to split up or if you're taking the clouded vision curse, Status is great spell. Otherwise, it all depends on what sort of oracle you're building.
As a battle oracle, my charisma wasn't awesome, and I never like to depend on having rounds to buff, so I planned the bulk of my spells around out of combat utility. Any spells I might need to hit the whole party with or are dependant on caster level were on my list, and I avoided anything with a DC.
As a flames oracle, maxxed charisma and DCs and grabbed a variety of offense control and party buffs, as I didn't even carry a weapon so never wanted to run out of combat effective spells. Being the face/entertainment out of combat was more than enough to feel useful there.
My oracle of bones will be primarily a caster, so maxing Charisma will be a good idea. How much does this open up spells with saving throws? My plan is to be a debuffer and necro-summoner, using the Raise the Dead revelation and summon monster spells. I'll have a decent Strength score for touch spells and Death's Touch when they get close.
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If Cha is your highest stat and you primarily focus on boosting it (through ability points gained through levels and magic items) then your DCs will be high enough to make use of saving throw spells with good reliability. If you are focusing on a particular school of magic that has a lot of saving throw spells....such as necromancy...then feats or abilities that help boost that are decent choices too.
Some feats help with saving throws in addition to Spell Focus. Persistent spell metamagic feat makes people roll twice against a spell modified in that way; if its their bad save or your DCs are really high then it greatly reduces the chance of their making the save. Heighten spell can work wonders with a spontaneous caster, as you can tailor the DC of a spell to your need at that particular moment.
For a Cha based, caster Oracle I'd take feats like Imp Initiatve, Spell Penetration (possibly Grtr), Maybe Spell focus or Grtr if I'm very focused on a particular school, and as many metamagic feats as I can grab (Reach, Persistent, Quicken, Extend, for starters).
If Cha is your highest stat and you primarily focus on boosting it (through ability points gained through levels and magic items) then your DCs will be high enough to make use of saving throw spells with good reliability. If you are focusing on a particular school of magic that has a lot of saving throw spells....such as necromancy...then feats or abilities that help boost that are decent choices too.
Some feats help with saving throws in addition to Spell Focus. Persistent spell metamagic feat makes people roll twice against a spell modified in that way; if its their bad save or your DCs are really high then it greatly reduces the chance of their making the save. Heighten spell can work wonders with a spontaneous caster, as you can tailor the DC of a spell to your need at that particular moment.
For a Cha based, caster Oracle I'd take feats like Imp Initiatve, Spell Penetration (possibly Grtr), Maybe Spell focus or Grtr if I'm very focused on a particular school, and as many metamagic feats as I can grab (Reach, Persistent, Quicken, Extend, for starters).
Ok that makes sense, thanks. Definitely gonna grab some of the metamagic feats and Spell Focus: Necromancy.
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Ok that makes sense, thanks. Definitely gonna grab some of the metamagic feats and Spell Focus: Necromancy.
just be sure to get Spontaneous Metafocus from Ultimate Magic as spontaneous casters cast Metamagic spells as a full-round action or longer(unless you're using quicken)
Thanks to everyone who posted with advice! Any other ideas before my oracle becomes a reality tonight?
Ok that makes sense, thanks. Definitely gonna grab some of the metamagic feats and Spell Focus: Necromancy.just be sure to get Spontaneous Metafocus from Ultimate Magic as spontaneous casters cast Metamagic spells as a full-round action or longer(unless you're using quicken)
It is very important to remember that Spontaneous Metafocus only applies to ONE specific spell.. so unless you are very specialized on one individual spell it is not nearly as good as it sounds.
Just a quick note that sometimes gets overlooked with Reach Spell - Touch attack spells become Ranged Touch attack spells [requiring Dex - Point Blank Shot - Precise Shot] not "Close".
So, since I wasn't the one that necro'd this, I feel like I can ask this here instead of starting a new thread.
I'm having trouble picking low level spells for my Oracle of Life (for Rise of the Runelords, if that matters). I want to primarily cast (Support, Control, and Blasting--whatever works), but there do not seem to be low level spells that make this worth doing. Unlike Sorcerers which have lots of early choices worth casting a lot (Color Spray, Grease, maybe Sleep, etc.), the cleric list seems to push you to fight with weapons early on.
Once I hit level 6 or so, I have a solid plan for spell choice--it's just the first 5 levels I'm finding tricky. If it helps, I can use a favored class bonus to get more spells if necessary.
I kind of want Bless, for example, but it's a once per fight spell. Protection from Evil is awesome (before I get Magic Circle Against Evil), but it's not an in-combat spell. So, if I have those to start, I cast Bless in round one, and then...what do I do? There aren't even any good cantrips (though I could use Two-World Magic to get one if something like Acid Orb or something is worth taking).
Command seems tricky--it's language dependent, and I'm pretty sure Rise of the Runelords begins against Goblins. Do Goblins know Common?
Even second level spells are tough--Shield Other is awesome, but then what? Sound Burst is ok, I guess, but not as awesome as Glitterdust or Cacophanous Call (I just played a Bard).
Help me out here.
I start out with 2 first level spells (plus CLW). What two should I begin with?
I learn another at level 3.
What level 2 spell should I take at 4th (and should I use my favored class bonus to get another level 1 spell)?
At 5th, I get a new one of each level (and potentially another level 1)--what do I take there?
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I just started a battle (reach) Oracle, and I'm curious what people think about the "cure condition" spells: Things like Cure Disease, and Restoration
I expect that my character will do double time as the out of combat healer, and I figure these spells will help between combats, but there are so few choices you get. So is this a role I should avoid?
Also, this is my first Pathfinder Society character, so I don't even know if this even matters in Society games.
Here are a few suggestions for spells from CR:
On thing that gets overlooked is Magic Weapon (a L 1 spell). While DR x/magic is the easiest DR to penetrate at higher levels, lack of a magical weapon can be deadly in the beginning. You can always swap it out later for Endure Elements or something else.
I've always been fond of Shield of Faith. It starts off with a +2 deflection bonus to AC, and improves from there.
Do you foresee being the target of many ranged attacks? Entropic Shield is your friend (also against rays).
(If you were a Wave Oracle, I would suggest Obscuring Mist in combination with the Water Sight revelation. Put up a mist that only you can see through, then use your crossbow/whatever to pick off the enemy.)
Spiritual Weapon should be a decent L 2 spell. Also Lesser Restoration ... but I see that Life Oracles get that as their mystery spell.
Other good L 2 spells: Align Weapon, Augury, Hold Person, Remove Paralysis, and Resist Energy.
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mplindustries, get a weapon. As you said, the cleric spell list is designed to treat you as a weapon fighter for low levels. Cast a buff spell in the first round, then start swinging/shooting.
PSusac, those types of spells come up a lot in PFS, but not enough to let them dominate your limited spell list as an oracle. If you're going to take one such spell as known, make it Lesser Restoration, because ability damage comes up so often. But stuff like curing disease, blindness, and deafness come up infrequently enough that just walking around with a scroll or two of each should be plenty. Better yet, get the people you're casting them on to buy the scroll, so you don't have to spend all your cash on other people. They should be responsible for their own healing.
Edit: Ack! Double ninja'd!
mplindustries, get a weapon. As you said, the cleric spell list is designed to treat you as a weapon fighter for low levels. Cast a buff spell in the first round, then start swinging/shooting.
I will if I have to, but my goal is to take Dual Cursed and Blackened (I'm already Haunted for story reasons), so I'd love it if I could avoid using weapons.
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mplindustries, get a weapon. As you said, the cleric spell list is designed to treat you as a weapon fighter for low levels. Cast a buff spell in the first round, then start swinging/shooting.I will if I have to, but my goal is to take Dual Cursed and Blackened (I'm already Haunted for story reasons), so I'd love it if I could avoid using weapons.
Well, if you're looking for something non-weapon based to do in combat with a high charisma character like an oracle, there's always the route of maximizing your intimidate skill and going around demoralizing enemies. It's a nice little debuff that you can do all day long. Of course, this only works on enemies with an intelligence score (no mindless undead or oozes, for instance), but it's not language dependent and does work on animals.
Unfortunately, intimidate isn't a class skill for oracles, so you might want to grab a trait to try and get it as one. Can you think of a good story reason why your oracle may have been a bully growing up?