Hi all,
I recently picked up Pathfinder for the first time, and am making making a level 1 divine spellcaster. Reading the Order of the Stick kind of made me want to try out the game again. I was sort of inspired by the awesome antics of Malack and Red Cloak. Red Cloak's combination of summons, blasting, and overall utility in particular was appealing, more so than the more sword and board style of Durkon.
The other thing that went into my class selection was a neat origin story: I wanted a cleric that didn't actually like the god he worshipped, but needed the power from. Then I thought I could take it a step further by non-evil character the chosen champion of an evil diety. The Dark God would allow my character autonomy for now, so my cleric would try and use his dark powers for good, but in the back of his mind the cleric is aware he will one day be an instrument of Armageddon.
It seemed fun, but I wasn't sure if the rules would allow for a good character to channel the dark gods that way. I then discovered the Oracle class, which does not require actual worship of the god(s) in question, and seemed to fit my characters back story better. Great! I should be set now. I will use an Oracle who blasts people with lasers and summons beasties to the front lines for him.
I quickly realized that the mechanics of the game were not necessarily on my side here. First off, blasting seems to be a worse strategy in general from what I gather, despite seeming incredibly fun. Secondly, it seems that wizards are just overall better at spellcasting than Clerics, and better still at blasting. Third, it seems Oracles are further underpowered as compared to Clerics, due mostly to knowing less spells.
I am also not super familiar with how many spells you tend to need for a day, or per encounter, or what have you. And Clerics have less spell slots than Oracles. But at low levels, Clerics seem to functionally have more spells to sling-- between the domain standard action, and channeling negative energy, a level 1 cleric can have 8+ extra blasts over a Cleric depending on ability modifiers. Considering I was not looking to build a melee character, being able to stay at range and blast guys for longer is really appealing.
So you see, I have some pretty big conflicts between playing what seems to be "effective," the role-playing I would like to do, and the manner of combat I was hoping to have. I know a lot of this comes down to a values question on my part, but its haaaaaaard. It seems like I could make a Flame Mystery Oracle and get a pretty OK blaster eventually. I could do a Fire Domain Theologian Cleric and he would get a bunch of extra "bullets" to use. Or I could say screw it and just build a wizard. I am not super crazy about just buffing and then wading into melee for my first character.
What would you all advise for me?