I like the idea of the Oracle's Curse, and was wondering what people thought of creating a feat that lets you have an oracle's curse when you are not an oracle? I figure it would function as an oracle of half your character level. If you later take oracle levels, you MUST choose the same curse (and cannot take dual-cursed archetype, as you already have your curse chosen) and the other class levels stack with oracle levels for determining your curse (however, still halved for non-oracle levels)
I like the sound of it, just for a home game, but I'd treat it kind of like a story feat.
That's also assuming you don't have an actual oracle in your game... If there's an oracle, you'd kind of be ripping off his flavor.
Well, sort of but it's not much different than Eldritch Heritage ripping off sorcerer's flavor. Actually that might be another way to do it... make you take a feat chain as you level up to get the higher abilities. Then, could do it the same way as the sorcerer, if you later become an oracle you must take a DIFFERENT curse...
a single feat to grant the curse that scales at an oracle level equal to your character level -2. takeable at 3rd level, wouldn't be too bad. now we need, to think of an otherwise useless but arbitrary feat tax to attach to it and a charisma requirement of 13+
thing is, skill focus doesn't work because each mystery has 3 class skills, toughness doesn't suck anymore, how about Combat Expertise? it's not a direct damage boosting feat, and discourages the martial characters from taking a penalty free bite attack
i mean come on, combat expertise is the skill focus of combat feats
how many martial PCs honestly have Int 13+ AND Cha 13+?
This is kind of strange. You don't see any feats that offer other class features like A Thousand Faces or Uncanny Dodge, for example.
There's Evasion on a ring.
There's weapon/armor proficiencies that you can get as feats, but every class has that.
there is a feat to gain a sorcerer's bloodline
a feat to gain rogue talents or ninja tricks
a feat to gain rage powers
a feat to gain alchemist discoveries
a feat to gain magus arcana
a feat to gain a grit pool
a single feat to grant the curse that scales at an oracle level equal to your character level -2. takeable at 3rd level, wouldn't be too bad. now we need, to think of an otherwise useless but arbitrary feat tax to attach to it and a charisma requirement of 13+
thing is, skill focus doesn't work because each mystery has 3 class skills, toughness doesn't suck anymore, how about Combat Expertise? it's not a direct damage boosting feat, and discourages the martial characters from taking a penalty free bite attack
i mean come on, combat expertise is the skill focus of combat feats
how many martial PCs honestly have Int 13+ AND Cha 13+?
Except the skill focus requirement for Eldritch Heritage isn't useless and arbitrary for Eldritch Heritage... I mean, I guess that's a matter of opinion though, isn't it?
Honestly, with the inherent drawback in oracle curses, I don't honestly think crazy restrictive prerequisites like you suggest are necessary or even something that would do anything other than make a player decide the feat is completely not worth it anymore.
As for what was mentioned about Barbarians and Lame, that's true. Though, I'd see it as a case of common sense for the GM to say "Okay, RAW for this feat you could take lame and break the barbarian class, yes... but dude, keep the cheese on the pizza."
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a single feat to grant the curse that scales at an oracle level equal to your character level -2. takeable at 3rd level, wouldn't be too bad. now we need, to think of an otherwise useless but arbitrary feat tax to attach to it and a charisma requirement of 13+
thing is, skill focus doesn't work because each mystery has 3 class skills, toughness doesn't suck anymore, how about Combat Expertise? it's not a direct damage boosting feat, and discourages the martial characters from taking a penalty free bite attack
i mean come on, combat expertise is the skill focus of combat feats
how many martial PCs honestly have Int 13+ AND Cha 13+?
Except the skill focus requirement for Eldritch Heritage isn't useless and arbitrary for Eldritch Heritage... I mean, I guess that's a matter of opinion though, isn't it?
Honestly, with the inherent drawback in oracle curses, I don't honestly think crazy restrictive prerequisites like you suggest are necessary or even something that would do anything other than make a player decide the feat is completely not worth it anymore.
As for what was mentioned about Barbarians and Lame, that's true. Though, I'd see it as a case of common sense for the GM to say "Okay, RAW for this feat you could take lame and break the barbarian class, yes... but dude, keep the cheese on the pizza."
i was being a bit facetious. a bit of humour, the oracle curse restrictions are plenty to balance out a feat takeable at 1st level that gave you oracle curse progression at an effective oracle level equal to your character level
i have no problem with lame barbarians either. it cost them a feat, a speed bonus, and 5 levels to gain fatigue immunity, i have no problem with rage cycling, it has it's own downsides, like denying yourself the bonus HP from raging due to dismissing it between turns
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I like the idea.
I have several times had character concept where the oracle curse fit the concept...but the class didn't.
I think it would work with the oracle curse, because they are already mechanically "a whole unit"....granting both abilities and balancing drawbacks.
What I decided to end up doing is making it a story feat where the character is a witch who sold her soul to a contract devil (which at the time she was 15 and pretty much destined to be a barmaid or something and she was like no i am destined for more than that... she was too young and power hungry (even has that drawback) to really think about what selling her soul really meant) for her witch powers. But, she died as part of the campaign (long story short, all the characters died attempting the Test of the Starstone, but the Gods decided to grant them mythic power and task them to stop a coming apocalypse (which with prophecy being "broken" they actually only suspect...) but she sold her soul, she can't be resurrected without her contract holder's permission... so Asmodeus claimed her contract and basically told her, you work for me now. Agree to save the world, and you won't burn in Hell forever. If you don't agree, well your contract is due. But he also put a sort of clause in the new contract to try to exploit her lust for power. So she is Chaotic Good, yet she has the legalistic curse but only the drawbacks, none of the bonus. However, for each step toward Lawful Evil that she goes, she gets a level worth of the abilities. It's also kinda cool in this sense as it puts a bit of a dilemma on it... does she remain true to her beliefs despite basically being forced to worship Asmodeus by her own desire for power, or does she fall to the adage "Absolute power corrupts absolutely?"
However, as many have said, just a simple feat I think would work if I hadn't come up with the storyline aspect.