Cleric or Oracle.

[Arcasus]

I'm making an npc for my groups next encounter.With that being said, they tend to lean more towards neutral evil. Anyways I'm wanting to make an aasimar cleric or oracle. I'm new to pathfinder and just want some advice on what to do. My party consist of a half-orc Barbarian ,half-elf Sorcerer,half-elf ranger,and an elf rogue.I have made a cleric already with the help of a guide I found on the message boards.It was modeled after the battle cleric archetype from what the guide says a battle cleric should be. Now,Oracle is where i'm a little lost. Basically I want the fight to be hard (I know it will break out into a fight just bc they like to fight). As of now my cleric that I made is lvl 6, with the party being lvl 4.
So my questions are
1. Will a basic battle cleric be enough challenge for the party, or would another type of cleric be more useful. I will also add that both the cleric and the party were made with 15 point buys.
2. Or should I scrap my cleric idea and just go with the Oracle.

I will add that I know the people reading can't see the party character builds since I don't have them in front of me to post. If you guys need any more information just ask and I will see if I can't help.Builds are welcomed.

[Banalitybob]

If you want a really (really really) tough fight, make a level 7 Dual Cursed Oracle of Stone with the Blackened and Wrecker curses (level Blackened) and give him Misfortune, Crystal Sight, Earth Glide, and Shard Explosion. Use the Aasimar favored class ability to add +1/2 your level to Shard Explosion.

Then you can go underground and just snipe the party. Hit the fighter with Oracle's Burden so you give him a -6 on meelee attacks (-4 from Blackened and -2 from his weapon now being broken from Wrecker), hit the casters with Shard Explosion and wield a reach weapon from underground and since Shard Explosion makes the area difficult terrain, they can't move to cast spells without AoOs. Misfortune negates all their good rolls (and makes any summons you pump out hit more often), and then you have some blasty spells from Blackened along with whatever other spells you want to give him.

[Arcasus]

Banalitybob wrote:

If you want a really (really really) tough fight, make a level 7 Dual Cursed Oracle of Stone with the Blackened and Wrecker curses (level Blackened) and give him Misfortune, Crystal Sight, Earth Glide, and Shard Explosion. Use the Aasimar favored class ability to add +1/2 your level to Shard Explosion.

Then you can go underground and just snipe the party. Hit the fighter with Oracle's Burden so you give him a -6 on meelee attacks (-4 from Blackened and -2 from his weapon now being broken from Wrecker), hit the casters with Shard Explosion and wield a reach weapon from underground and since Shard Explosion makes the area difficult terrain, they can't move to cast spells without AoOs. Misfortune negates all their good rolls (and makes any summons you pump out hit more often), and then you have some blasty spells from Blackened along with whatever other spells you want to give him.

I'm not going to lie that's a lot to take in at once....... I will start looking up the build right now. It will be some time before I'm able to make the npc,but as soon as I do I will post what I have and maybe it will be correct! Thanks for the advice.

[Banalitybob]

No problem. I want to play that character really bad, but I'm in a long term game and then I'm next on my group's DM roster after that so I can't and I want to inflict it on someone. Another thing you can do to further tweak the build is give the Aasimar the Immortal Spark alternate racial ability so that they can be middle aged and cast the free Lesser Age Resistance so you basically give him a free +1 to all mental stats. Making him Agathion Blooded gives him a +2 Con and Cha to further min max.

Good feats are Spell Focus (Conjuration) and Augment Summoning, Spell Focus (Necromancy) to buff Oracle's Burden's saves, and Extra Revelations are never amiss.

[blackbloodtroll]

Oracle.

Spontaneous Casters are easier to learn than prepared casters.

Also, the Aasimar favored class bonuses are good for the Oracle.

[Arcasus]

Shard Explosion is pretty nasty with the favored class feature. After looking over Agathion Blooded that's the one that looks appealing to me,as well as abusing the extra summon for added support. This class looks really good as a pc just not as a boss.A lot of times I see boss npc's that are made well, but only for a certain encounter. This class actually looks like it could adventure. I'm already on my way to making an epic encounter for my party and thanks to your help it will be even better.

[Banalitybob]

Yeah, it's definitely also a PC waiting to happen. The tweaks I would make if it was a PC are give the favored class ability to Crystal Sight and go Skill Focus (some Knowledge), Eldrich Heritage (Arcane) to get a familiar, and probably Improved Familiar so I could have a little critter to use my wands so that the Breaker curse doesn't really screw me over.

[Bigdaddyjug]

Heavens Oracle with the Awesome Display and Moonlight Bridge revelations could also be a tough fight.

[Banalitybob]

Aasimar Nature Oracle with the favored class bonus into Bonded Mount, Scion of Humanity, Huntmaster, a bunch of summons and mounted combat, ride by attack, spirited charge, and a lance on an open field can really put a crimp in a lot of parties too.

[Dark servitude]

Id make a cleric with the assimar. But that's just me. Its up to you. Would you wanna make a heal bot, buff/rebuff, battle/touch cleric. Or just a channel cleric. But mostly depends on the party. Since they are evil...might be hard to find a good cleric that'll do it. But in all honesty, that just depends if the cleric worships a good god, but not all the good gods care for some unless named in the faiths books.

But a oracle wouldn't be bad ether. But it would mostly depend on the orcales spells known over the prepared spells and if you think channeling would matter for heals or damage.

[Arcasus]

The Aasimar Nature Oracle is a really nice idea as well. I could see her being a protector of a certain forest or something. The area I've set up for the current encounter is going to be in a small room. I might have to use the Nature Oracle idea at a later time if they keep pursing personal interests or hate Oracles by the end of the campaign.

[blackbloodtroll]

Arcasus wrote:

The Aasimar Nature Oracle is a really nice idea as well. I could see her being a protector of a certain forest or something. The area I've set up for the current encounter is going to be in a small room. I might have to use the Nature Oracle idea at a later time if they keep pursing personal interests or hate Oracles by the end of the campaign.

An Aasimar Nature Oracle named John Smith?

[Arcasus]

We played this past Saturday and the fight went better than what I expected it to go. Oracles burden really hurt the main melee fighter.Shard explosion and Earth Glide really did the trick with the ranged party members. I was able to summon monsters to attack the caster while shard explosion made it hard for him to escape. No one died but 3 out of the 4 party members did fall below 0 hit points during the fight. Overall they really enjoyed the fight, even though it was harder than what they expected.