Looking for feedback on a homebrew for an Oracle of Life in our WoR campaign. Any feedback is appreciated:
Golden-Blooded: your blood is inflused with positive energy, making it glow dimly with a unnatural light.
You are vulnerable to negative energy damage and any bleed damage; additionally, you have the 'Delicious' condition (–2 penalty on Escape Artist and combat maneuver checks made to escape a grapple against any creature that has a bite attack with the grab ability).
However, any cure spells or channels originating from you heal an additional +1d4 points of damage
At 5th level, the bonus to healing magic increases to +1d6
[still trying to figure out how to progress at 10th and 15th - just boost the healing bonus?]
Thanks for the help, everyone!
It looks incredibly cheesy to me and a complete attempt to min-max, but that's just me. I tend to be more conservative.
Do not like, would not use.
The benefit so far outweighs the potential downside I would not even begin to consider it a "curse". It is more of a boon.
While the name "delicious" amuses me to no end, it's far too limited. A penalty to one skill, and only when something is using a specific attack on you, and only if that specific attack has a specific ability attached to it.
At the very least it should, if you really want to stick with the "delicious" thing, apply more generally. Perhaps a penalty to AC as a whole against all bite attacks, rather than a minor skill penalty.
Also constantly glowing should really penalize stealth and possibly prevent anyone within X feet of you from using Darkvision. You're basically a walking beacon and in dark spaces people will notice you easily.
Adding a flat bonus to cure spells seems a bit... bland.
I'd be more interested in this if it lost the vulnerability to bleed damage and Delicious (which always felt like a joke to me), and instead it allowed you to use your blood as a healing agent.
If you bleed yourself (or are already suffering from a bleed effect), you receive a +X on Heal checks if you utilize your blood, and a +Y to caster level on any cure spells you cast.
I like that. As a start at least.
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Positive energy blood? My first thought was that it should heal creatures attacking you with natural attacks.
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Positive energy blood? My first thought was that it should heal creatures attacking you with natural attacks.
like that maybe his unarmed strike deal positive energy damage and only positive energy damage.
The other thing I would look at is taking that vulnerability and making it so you take +50% damage from bleed and negative energy attacks (min 1) and build from there.
The entire theme doesn't really fit the bill of an oracle "curse." Like, for example:
"Oh no, I am horrendously ugly and my body is wasting!"
"Oh no, I am permanently lame in one leg!"
"Oh no, I have a wolf snout for a face!"
"Oh no, my arms are permanently scarred and burnt and I can't hold things without intense pain!"
"Oh no ... my blood ... sparkles."
Yup. Not an oracle curse.
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The entire theme doesn't really fit the bill of an oracle "curse." Like, for example:
"Oh no, I am horrendously ugly and my body is wasting!"
"Oh no, I am permanently lame in one leg!"
"Oh no, I have a wolf snout for a face!"
"Oh no, my arms are permanently scarred and burnt and I can't hold things without intense pain!"
"Oh no ... my blood ... sparkles."
Yup. Not an oracle curse.
I don't know I think pretty or not very ugly curses can be just as nasty. I had an oracle curse once that had the oracle be so beautiful that they could make people more amicable to their needs but could also drive them to lusting obsession. I could see this working out like that. Maybe his blood works like a cure potion but he has to well harvest it to make it function. Maybe people start to get wise to this and he has to deal with people literally confronting him and begging him for his blood to treat their ills and what not. Could you imagine having to run from a horde of commoners desperate to get some of his life saving blood. That could be interesting.
This probably goes without saying, but if you want your healing abilities to be enhanced, why don't you just play a Cleric with the Healing domain? At 8th level, Cure spells are automatically empowered.
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This probably goes without saying, but if you want your healing abilities to be enhanced, why don't you just play a Cleric with the Healing domain? At 8th level, Cure spells are automatically empowered.
Actually a life oracle is really good at healing, possibly better then a cleric if done right. The best thing to do is grab up channel and life link as your first 2 revelations and make sure you have a wand.
Thanks for all the input, folks!
quick explanation - I'm the GM for this game; I'm working with one of the players to put mechanics behind their concept.
The concept: the PC is a Life Oracle with a hidden (to themself) connection to Sarenrae focused on healing and redemption - they believe that anyone can be saved, and they're the one capable of saving everyone. The character is an Aasimar that appears otherwise human (took Scion of Humanity and Corruption Resistance variants); as a result, we're trying to minimize the obvious visual indicators of a supernatural curse - the PC's built on 'fitting in.'
The player was having difficulty choosing a curse. They considered the mechanics of Legalistic, but the fluff didn't match up. While Blackened might have fit conceptually, it had two big drawbacks - the player is concerned about the 'uselessness' of fire spells against demons, and our previous Reign of Winter game had another PC with a Flame Oracle who really played up the crispy arms angle.
After getting feedback, here's the potential version 2.0:
Golden-Blooded: positive energy runs through your veins. While this makes your healing abilities more potent, it attracts many who would exploit your gift. Any adjacent enemy who damages you with a slashing or piercing weapon or natural attack heals 1d4 points of damage (this is multiplied appropriately on a critical hit). When you are suffering from the Bleed condition, your cure spells and channels heal an additional 1d4 points of damage.
At 5th level, both the amount you heal enemies and the additional healing when bleeding increases to 2d4. You also gain a +2 bonus on saves vs. negative energy.
[still figuring out long-term progression; also thinking about allowing the Oracle to take a later Mystery that replicates the Stigmata ability from Holy Vindicator so the Oracle can intentionally bleed]
Thoughts?
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This probably goes without saying, but if you want your healing abilities to be enhanced, why don't you just play a Cleric with the Healing domain? At 8th level, Cure spells are automatically empowered.
I was actually thinking more that it's so good, all of my Clerics, (even the Negative Energy ones) would probably dip into this. For Positive Energy Channeling, all Feats and options combined just don't compare.
:)