When I tried to revamp a retired character of mine to Pathfinder (just for fun) I noticed Oracle would be a good class for him. However, none of the curses available fit the theme. So I invented my own.
He was worshiping a homebrew goddess that represented all 4 extreme alignments and much of the theme of the character was the difficulty of trying to fulfill every aspect. Thus the idea for the following curse.
Since Oracles do not worship a specific deity, sometimes they face the predicament of having to follow contradictory paths. Oracles with ideals that are especially diverse sometimes end up being all and none at the same time.
Whenever an Oracle with the Divided Divinity curse is subject to a negative effect produced by a spell or ability that targets alignment, she counts as the worst possible alignment in any given situation. For example she counts as non-evil when hit by a Blasphemy spell, as evil when attacked with Smite Evil and as Lawful when attacked with Shard of Chaos regardless of her actual alignment.
Also due to this shifting nature any effect that detects or analyzes her alignment has a 25% chance to simply fail and a 25% chance to result in the wrong alignment.
At 5th level the Oracle has learned to slightly influence her alignment. This means whenever she is subject to a positive effect based on alignment she counts as the best possible alignment for the effect. In addition she can cast spells with any alignment descriptor regardless of her own alignment.
At 10th level the Oracle becomes immune to any effects that detect or analyze alignment. Also she suffers no negative effects from items that apply penalties to creatures of the wrong alignment.
At 15th level the Oracle has mastered her shifting nature. As a standard action she can emulate any alignment of her choice for a number of minutes equal to her Oracle level. This duration does not need to be consecutive, but it must be spent in 1-minute increments. If she emulates her true alignment the effect lasts for 10 minutes instead of 1 minute.
She can also use this ability as an immediate action (for example as reaction to someone casting Holy Word) but in this case it only lasts for 1 round, which counts as 1 minute of usage. As long as she emulates an alignment this way, the other positive and negative effects of her curse are not active.
I didn't cite any examples of positive effects based on alignment cause I couldn't find them. I do recall some abilities, but I am not sure if those were from 3.5 (For example automatically maximized healing for yourself and people of your alignment).
A little addition to the 5th level ability.
While you can cast spells that do not match your alignment, you are still responsible what you do with it. However the act of casting in itself does not influence your alignment.
So if you are a good Oracle and you cast an evil spell to do good (fighting bad guys) then you are fine.
The potential for this to work depends entirely on how the GM handles alignment, which is by no means set in stone by the book. My personal view, it always depends as much on the ends as the means: killing someone is an evil act, but killing a chaotic evil cultist, while it doesn't suddenly make the action good (they could just destroy their weapons and tie them up) it makes it forgivable with regards to their alignment. Using animate dead is morally wrong, but using it to resurrect humanely-slaughtered cattle to defend a small village? That's not going to hurt your alignment.
The discussion what counts as evil act has been done a lot of times before. I don't think we need to do that here. I just added that line to make it clear that simply casting the spell has no influence on you.
I was more hoping to get feedback on the mechanical part of the curse. Is it on par with the others? Too strong, too weak, etc...
It might be too strong, I'm not sure. I have little experience with these alignment specific spells. Would it be too limited if the Oracle chose Law/Chaos or Good/Evil and the effect was limited to that pair?
Dotting.
I'm concerned that it doesn't come up all that often - how frequently would this make a difference? Most oracle curses come up quite a bit, so something this occasional seems a bit off.
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I'm concerned that it doesn't come up all that often - how frequently would this make a difference? Most oracle curses come up quite a bit, so something this occasional seems a bit off.
The curses are meant to have wildly varying power level. The only restriction is that the benefits are supposed to match the magnitude of the drawbacks. Actually, the benefits are supposed to (in the long run) exceed the drawbacks rather handily, but the overall magnitude should still be proportional.
For example, it's really really easy to mitigate the Lame curse's only drawback (for example, be a Flames oracle and take Cinder Dance). Likewise it is very easy to mitigate the drawback from Tongues (everyone spend 1 skill point on Linguistics to learn the language).
Personally, I like the idea and the implementation seems solid enough.
@Karuth: I suggest changing the curse up a bit.
All alignments wish to claim you as their own, resulting in no one alignment holding a solid claim. Though you still possess an alignment, reality itself seems to have a hard time deciding which one you belong to.
Drawback: Cannot cast spells with an alignment descriptor.
Benefit: Alignment cannot be determined (treat as Undetectable Alignment). +4 bonus on saves versus spells that have at least one alignment they do not affect.
5th level: You are immune to alignment changing effects.
10th level: You are treated as the best possible alignment for the purposes of spells based on alignment. (Good when hit by Holy Word, Evil when hit by Blasphemy and so on).
15th level: You are treated as the best possible alignment for the purposes of any and all effects based on alignment.
The drawback is based on the idea that if you have to adhere to all alignments, then you can't use any spell that would be in opposition to any of those alignments.
Stabbitty Doom: Your version is very interesting too. And it would come up more often. Thanks for that :)
I'm concerned that it doesn't come up all that often - how frequently would this make a difference? Most oracle curses come up quite a bit, so something this occasional seems a bit off.For example, it's really really easy to mitigate the Lame curse's only drawback (for example, be a Flames oracle and take Cinder Dance). Likewise it is very easy to mitigate the drawback from Tongues (everyone spend 1 skill point on Linguistics to learn the language).
The same Cinder Dance that specifically says it cannot be taken by oracles with the Lame curse?
It's not easy to mitigate that curse. Barbarian level? Monk levels? Boots of Springing and Striding? Not one would raise a Lame oracle's speed. The curse info says clearly that nothing short of direct action of a deity can fix an oracle's curse.
As to Tongues, sure your party can understand you, but that guy you really want to use a language dependant spell on? Doubtful.
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Even if you assume that an Oracle with the Lame curse can never increase their speed through any means (which I think is wrong since the penalty still applies even if you're adding +10 or +30 on top of that) they can always get a mount and not worry about their move speed. The Nature mystery even allows a nice tough animal companion.
And if you don't use language dependent spells, that part of the Tongues curse is essentially meaningless.
The same Cinder Dance that specifically says it cannot be taken by oracles with the Lame curse?
It's not easy to mitigate that curse. Barbarian level? Monk levels? Boots of Springing and Striding? Not one would raise a Lame oracle's speed. The curse info says clearly that nothing short of direct action of a deity can fix an oracle's curse.
As to Tongues, sure your party can understand you, but that guy you really want to use a language dependant spell on? Doubtful.
Dance of the Blades from the Metal Mystery, which also adds a movement speed buff, can be taken by a Lame cursed oracle.
In addition, while it does indeed say that an oracle’s curse cannot be removed or dispelled without the aid of a deity, levels in Barbarian or Monk, or a Boots of Striding and Springing or any other manner of movement speed booster don't remove the curse. The curse is still there, the penalty of it is just being countered by an equal or greater buff. There's no rule anywhere that says a Lame oracle NEVER gets to benefit from any effect that boosts movement speed.
Although I do agree with you on the Tongues part. Language dependency can get tossed out the window if you're locked into a language that not very many people speak.
The same Cinder Dance that specifically says it cannot be taken by oracles with the Lame curse?
It's not easy to mitigate that curse. Barbarian level? Monk levels? Boots of Springing and Striding? Not one would raise a Lame oracle's speed. The curse info says clearly that nothing short of direct action of a deity can fix an oracle's curse.
As to Tongues, sure your party can understand you, but that guy you really want to use a language dependant spell on? Doubtful.
Dance of the Blades from the Metal Mystery, which also adds a movement speed buff, can be taken by a Lame cursed oracle.
In addition, while it does indeed say that an oracle’s curse cannot be removed or dispelled without the aid of a deity, levels in Barbarian or Monk, or a Boots of Striding and Springing or any other manner of movement speed booster don't remove the curse. The curse is still there, the penalty of it is just being countered by an equal or greater buff. There's no rule anywhere that says a Lame oracle NEVER gets to benefit from any effect that boosts movement speed.
Although I do agree with you on the Tongues part. Language dependency can get tossed out the window if you're locked into a language that not very many people speak.
I don't really think that class levels or low tier magic items are equal buffs to divine intervention, but that's just my opinion.
If curses can be overcome so easily, would Eyes of the Eagle, or some other + perception item, allow a Clouded Vision oracle to make checks to see past 30'? Would a, perception skill bonus from another class allow it? I'm inclined to think they put that bit about not being able to overcome it without divine intervention in for a reason. If you pick lame, you walk slowly. If you have clouded vision, you don't see well. Likewise all the curses, and no quick trick should overcome that. A Handy Haversack wouldn't help a Haunted oracle retrieve gear faster. Sure some are more problematic than others, but it's your choice.
Of course you can elevate these things to the level of divine intervention in your games, but why even have a curse then?
I think it is too powerful. The reason is that by the time you run into the alignment focused spells (Holy Word, Chaos Hammer, Blasphemy, etc) that are your weakness, you will be past well fifth level and the weakness is gone.
Well there are the spells like shard of chaos that are level 2 (making them available at level 3), still the main problem are the high level spells and by then you have a counter measure.
I will see if I can make my original idea a bit better.
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Your constant shifting nature allows you to experience how it must be for outsiders dominated by an alignment. As such it is easier for you to communicate with them.
Drawback: As before.
Bonus from the start: You get a +2 bonus to all Charisma related skill checks with outsiders that are tied to alignment planes. This bonus increases by 2 every 5 levels.
Level 5: An Outsider native to an alignment plane has a starting attitude of 1 better than normal. You can cast any spell with an alignment descriptor regardless of your own alignment.
Level 10: You automatically adjust to an alignment plane and suffer no drawbacks regardless of your actual alignment. You become immune to divination effects that detect alignments.
Level 15: You cast spells with alignment descriptor at +1 caster level and you get a +2 bonus on caster level checks to overcome the spell resistance of alignment outsiders.
You automatically sense when a divination effect is used to determine your alignment and you can choose as what alignment you register for that effect.
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Since the bonuses now mainly focus on working with Outsiders your drawback will come into play more often. And if you don't meet Outsiders your drawback won't come much into play, but your bonuses won't either.
This also fits the character very well since after retiring, he became a diplomat between the planes of sort. When angels and devils had to have a discussion about something, he was called to keep everyone in check.
I can never make you people happy can I? :P