Let's say a player really likes the ideas behind the "Bad Touch" Cleric, but hates preparing spells.
Would a "Bad Touch" Oracle work, or are domains and channeling totally integral to the build and not replaceable with revelations?
If you had to try and build one with an Oracle base, what mystery/curse would you choose?
I'm thinking a Bones Oracle might be able to do it--it certainly seems that at mid-high level, they'd be fairly comparable. However, I'm hitting a snag at low levels. The Cleric has two domain powers to draw from to give them something to do early on when they're out of spells or don't want to use a slot on a particular turn. The Oracle, meanwhile, seems stuck with a crossbow until they can build up a few revelations.
Any ideas?
Eldritch Heritage (Aberrant) and Inflict spells?
Eldritch Heritage (Aberrant) and Inflict spells?
Yeah, I thought of that, but it's also a high level thing--I'm not really worried if a Bones Oracle can function well at level 9 (when the Aberrant heritage would grant reach), but rather for the first 3-4 levels or so. Going towards the Aberrant Heritage carries other problems, too, since it eats two feats to set up the reach feat at 9th, further reducing your early punch.
Eldritch Heritage (Arcane) to nab a familiar and have him deliver touch spells for you also works. Or Eldritch Heritage (Fey) on a Heavens Oracle for fun things like Laughing Touch and Color Spray.
Since you don't have access to cleric domain abilities, sorcerer abilities gained via Eldritch Heritage are a good source of touch debuffs.
Unfortunately, there aren't very many good Revelations with touch effects. Most of them are poorly scaling damage, or 1/day debuffs.
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The best I can think of is to pick up a wand of Inflict Light Wounds-- other divine casters nab Cure wands all the time, so why not an Inflict wand? Then you've got 50 extra touch spells to play with.
If you aren't taking any Eldritch feats, what kind of feats would you take? I haven't really seen any sample builds of "bad touch clerics" before.
Does it have to be negative energy?
A flame oracle can turn into a fire elemental for 1 hour per level. In that form his 'bad touch' sets people on fire.
You could be an ogre. They have reach.
It would be very difficult to make RAW. A bad touch is a de-buffer and the best debuffing abilities in my opinion are from the domains like madness and chaos.
If it is a house game, I can't see any negatives to swappring the prepared speel casting ability for spontanous casting. Just give te cleric the spell charts of the Oracle and call it a day.
The other options if you want to play RAW are 1)suggesting a witch. Its still a prepared list, but the list is much smaller and easier to use, and they have hexes.
the other option 2) is a hex magus. Its not as much as a pure debuffer as its more a dabbler in that field. But it has a bit more survivability than the witch when in close to the enemy.
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Let's say a player really likes the ideas behind the "Bad Touch" Cleric, but hates preparing spells.
The wand of Inflict Light Wounds suggestion is probably your best bet for low levels if the player's really stuck on going oracle.
Or you could just suggest doing it as a typical bad touch cleric, but with negative channeling. Then, they can trade in their prepared spells for spontaneous inflict spells, which means less managing of prepared spells.
Bad Touch Oracle.
Alignment: Neutral Creepy
It is for a house game--my game, actually--but I want to houserule as little as possible, so there's no perceived unfairness or favoritism from the rest of the group.
Let's expand the "doesn't like to prepare spells" and add that the player definitely wants to have the highest Charisma in the party and definitely wants to work with negative energy, because said player is paralyzed in fear at the thought of the responsibility that goes with being able to heal.
She was hoping to be a Bones Oracle and take Resist Life ASAP, so she could heal herself with negative energy, but not have any pressure from the party to heal anyone else. I'm trying to make this work, but it's been tricky, since the game is starting at 2nd level. She'll only have two revelations, max, and it looks like the first choices have to be Resist Life and Death's Touch.
Death's Touch bothers me, though, because while it's exactly what she needs early on as back up, it's practically useless later on and a wasted Revelation slot.
Oh, and a wand won't work--my games have no "mundane" magic items. There's no potions or wands or +1 swords. All magic items (and there are very few of them) have names and histories and are important to the overall lore of the world. The solution has to come from feats/class abilities/race abilities.
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Oh, and a wand won't work--my games have no "mundane" magic items. There's no potions or wands or +1 swords. All magic items (and there are very few of them) have names and histories and are important to the overall lore of the world. The solution has to come from feats/class abilities/race abilities.
As long as you account for the loss of those abilities with reduced CLs that's fine, but if not as PCs level things *will* be harder than they should be.
As for the Death's Touch, you could allow her to take it now and then retrain it when she gains a level at a later time.
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So every magic item in your campaign is an artifact? Could you "artifact-ize" a wand somehow?
For example, I had an idea for a magic item once. It was basically a shard of pure negative energy tied to a leather cord. You could wield it as though it were a whip (or a flail, hadn't decided) but instead of normal weapon damage it cast Inflict on the creature you hit it with. Sort of like a Battle Poi, but with negative energy instead of fire damage.
Could you write such an item into the lore of your world, then have the Oracle get his hands on it fairly early?
Otherwise, looks like you're stuck with the crossbow.
As long as you account for the loss of those abilities with reduced CLs that's fine, but if not as PCs level things *will* be harder than they should be.
I don't really use CR--I custom build all the npcs, plus my games are sandboxes, so the PCs really decide what challenges they face.
As for the Death's Touch, you could allow her to take it now and then retrain it when she gains a level at a later time.
Yeah, I might do that. I have nothing against it, and with my primary group that I've known for years, I'd do it in a flash (actually, I might just present the Charisma based spontaneous cleric with them), but this is a relatively new group and the first game I've run for them, so I don't want to change too much.
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A bad touch oracle is tough. I do think Bones is your best bet, but she could do what I did. Take the Black-blooded curse (technically an archetype). That gives negative energy affinity for free, but has other drawbacks (-4 to -5 to dex based skills). It also gives access to three good Revelations, including Darkvision.
In my case, I hardly ever bad touch someone else. Just myself. (Yeah, yeah). Death's a Touch is just never going to do enough damage to be really worth it. But 1D6+half level healing for yourself 6-7 times a day is pretty good at any level. In my case, he also carries a two-handed weapon, and that's where his damage comes from.
Black blooded also gives access to the black blood spray revelation, which is a touch attack triggered when someon hits you. It's similarly limited in damage d8+half level) and even more limited in uses. For creep factor, though, it's fantastic. I bleed on you and it sucks away your life.
For strictly bad touch, though, the number of attacks are going to be fairly limited. If you allow traits in your game, you may consider letting her take Two-World magic. It's a trait from the Sargava book that adds one 0-level spell from another classes list to your class list. Then she could pick up Touch of Fatigue and always have something to do. Spell Focus Necromancy should help the DC for that and for her inflict spells.
Where I see her having a problem in the game as described is when she goes unconscious. With negative energy affinity, stabilize will still work, but unless someone else has an inflict spell or Infernal Healing, they won't be able to get her conscious. My solution was to carry, and point out, a wand of inflict light wounds, but with no wands in your game, she could be out for days. Or at least until the next day, when a cleric might be able to memorize an inflict spell.
Dhampir as a race gives negative energy affinity so there is another by the book way to get it for free.
Hmm, I had missed the Curse of Black Blood because it was listed under the archetypes instead of the curses. Yes, that'll definitely do nicely.
Haunted really worked, though, with the story, so maybe she'll do a Dual-Cursed Oracle and get more revelations (I know it doesn't actually work together because Curse of Black Blood is technically an archetype that alters the curse, rather than a curse, but I don't think anyone will object to changing that).
Dhampyr won't work. I guess I should have been more forthcoming with the details of my game. It's not going to be set in Golarion, and there are setting reasons for the races that are available. The only playable races are: Dwarf, Elf, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Half-Dwarf (Mul), Human, Orc, Ifrit, Oread, Sylph, and Undine.
(Oh, and I custom built the Mul and remade the Orcs to make them more civilized and closer in power to the other races)
This is starting to turn out better and better--thanks for the input, everyone, keep it coming.
