| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
In my Jade Regent campaign, I used the optional NPC Amaya (Warning: Brinewall Legacy spoilers). In my rewritten story, she acquires oracle powers in the middle of third level. I swapped out her third-level class to achieve this.
Alas, beginning the oracle class on top of two non-oracle levels left her well behind the PCs in magic and overall effectiveness. She was meant to be an equal. Thus, I need to swap out another of her early levels for oracle, too. This is getting silly.
What I really needed was a class that pretends to be an NPC class but always has the potential to instantly convert to Oracle. Both Expert and Aristocrat have the same d8 hit die, 3/4 BAB progression, and good Will save as Oracle, so those two are the obvious NPC classes to serve as the humble origin.
Here is my attempt at this oracle archetype for NPCs.
Ascending Oracle (Archetype)
Many oracles led normal lives long before they were unexpectedly touched by a mysterious power. These people acquired ordinary skills that they took with them into their new destiny.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: The ascending oracle is proficient with all simple weapons and with light armor, but not with any type of shield. Some oracle revelations grant additional proficiencies. This replaces the oracle's weapon and armor proficiency.
Origin: An ascending oracle must take one of the following revelations at first level.
Aristocrat (Ex): The ascending oracle adds as class skills five skills of your choice from Appraise (Int), Bluff (Cha), Disguise (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), any individual Knowledge skill, all Knowledge skills (this counts as two choices), Linguistics (Int), Perception (Wis), Perform (Cha), Ride (Dex), Swim (Str), and Survival (Wis). The ascending oracle also gains proficiency with all martial weapons, medium armor, and shields (except tower shields).
Expert (Ex): The ascending oracle adds six skills of your choice as class skills. The ascending oracle also gains an additional 2 skill points at each level.
This replaces the ascending oracles' class skills from from their oracle mystery.
Touched by Power: The ascending oracle may begin in a state called "unpowered." While unpowered, the ascending oracle ignores her curse, cannot cast oracle spells, and ignores all abilities granted by her mystery and revelations except for the first-level revelation granted from her Origin. The unpowered ascending oracle still progresses in these inactive abilities as usual.
The GM may declare during the game that the ascending oracle has progressed from unpowered to powered. After that event, the ascending oracle never counts as unpowered again. The curse, mystery, revelations, and spells become active.