Trippy Stone Oracle Build for PFS -- Am I missing anything?

[Hmm]

I thought it would be really fun to combine the Stone Stability Revelation (which gives a lot of tripping feats at higher levels) with the Tanglevine power from the Verdant bloodline. What do you think?

Oracle (Stone Mystery -- Dual Cursed) -- Specialty: "Trip Planner"
Caster Oracle focusing on battlefield control, buffs & tripping

20 point buy: Str 14, Dex 10, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 19
Half Elf

Notes: Haunted Curse is not a good option for this build -- it depends deeply on UMD, Wands and a Handy Haversack for combat versatility.

1st Level
Curses: Deaf and Tongues (Tongues does not improve -- Terran as Bonus Language)
Stone Stability Revelation (+4 CMD against trip attack and bull rush)
Apply Elvish FCB to this revelation from 1st level through 7th level.
Add one 1/2 level to a single revelation each time you take this bonus.

Feat: Toughness
Bonus Feat from Half-Elf: Skill Focus (Knowledge Nature)
Spells added:
0-Level: Guidance, Detect Magic, Read Magic, Stabilize
1-Level: Bless, Obscuring Mist
Skills Selected: Linguistics(!), Knowledge Religion, Diplomacy, Use Magic Device

1 pt of Linguistics required to read lips and communicate.

A wand of grease would be nice -- requires UMD or cooperative arcane caster in party.

2nd Level
Spells added:
0-Level: Create Water
1-Level: Ill Omen (Mystery)
Skills Selected: Knowledge Planes, Sense Motive, Heal, Use Magic Device

3rd Level
Crystal Sight Revelation
Feat: Eldritch Heritage (Verdant Bloodline) Tanglevine Power
(15 ft range to trip or disarm, CMD +5 = sorcerer level + cha modifier -- 7 times a day)
Spells added:
1-Level: Sanctuary or Protection from Alignment or Summon Monster
Skills Selected: Diplomacy, Use Magic Device, Spell Craft, Sense Motive

If I have the cash: Silence as Wand -- Stop other Spellcasters at no inconvenience to me!

4th Level
Bonus to Attribute: Charisma -- My Mod is now +5
Bonus Feat from Stone Stability Revelation -- Improved Trip
(an additional +2 to CMD trip attacks, no attacks of opportunity)
The Tanglevine Trip now has a CMD +9 -- 8 times a day
Regular CMD to Trip is BAB (+3) + STR mod (+2) + Improved Trip (+2) = +7 (infinite, short-range)
Spells added:
0-Level: Resistance or Light
1-Level: None
2-Level: Oracle's Burden (Mystery), (?)
Skills Selected: Use Magic Device, Diplomacy, Knowledge Religion, Knowledge Planes

5th Level
Bonus Revelation: (?) Rock-Throwing or Misfortune -- I can't decide!
Feat: (?) Combat Casting?
Tanglevine Trip is now CMD +10
+3 competence bonus on Perception checks that do not rely upon hearing, and the initiative penalty for being deaf is reduced to –2.
Spells:
Skills:

6th Level
Tanglevine Trip is now CMD +11
Regular CMD to Trip is +8
Spells:
3-level: Bestow Curse (Mystery)

7th Level
Revelation: Earth Glide -- yes!
Bonus Feat from Stone Stability Revelation -- Greater Trip
Tanglevine Trip is now CMD +14 and provokes attacks of opportunity to the victims
Regular CMD to Trip is +11, and provokes aoo to victims
Feat:
Spells:

8th Level
At this point, switch to Oracle FCB for humans and half-elves: bonus divine spell to pick up more spells known.

Possible traits:

Dangerously Curious (Magic) -- +1 to UMD, and UMD becomes a class skill.
(Useful, because Petra will want access to some arcane spells in wands for things like grease and colorspray.)
Source: Ultimate Campaign

True Believer (Regional, Kwanlai) -- Benefit: You gain a +2 trait bonus on concentration checks made while casting divine spells.
Source: Pathfinder Player Companion, Dragon Empires Primer

[Zathyr]

Hmm, you could swap Str and Dex and take Fury's Fall? (Pathfinder Player Companion: Cheliax, Empire of Devils) It'd hurt your normal trip attempts early on but you're not getting improved trip until 4th anyway. Less melee damage with the lower strength. Eh, I guess it depends on how focused you want to be and what you're planning on doing in those first few levels.

It's still not a bad feat for a tripper even if you just buff up your dex when you want the extra bonus.

[Hmm]

An interesting idea, but I think I'd lose out on that trade. Strength will be useful to hit things and do damage at the low levels when I run out of spells. It'll also be useful for all the armor I'll have to wear as an oracle. I get the improved trip and greater trip for free with the revelation. That feat would have to come out of the regular feats I get as a character.

It takes a lot of feats to be a decent archer. It's a little easier to just bash things in melee as a backup hammer when I'm not casting spells.

Hmm

[Cao Phen]

Rock Throwing, through super awesome, has its limitations of range and dependancy on Strength. If you are going for sheer range, a +1 Adaptive Longview would suffice. Though if you really want to make a Rock Throwing character, I had posted up a thread on how to make one.

Misfortune is an all around good support ability, both for saving your allies or hampering an enemy's offence. Since you are going face to face via melee and tripping, you can help cover your melee compatriots if they get hit by a critical attack or fail a saving throw.

[Hmm]

Cao Phen wrote:

Rock Throwing, through super awesome, has its limitations of range and dependancy on Strength. If you are going for sheer range, a +1 Adaptive Longview would suffice. Though if you really want to make a Rock Throwing character, I had posted up a thread on how to make one.

Misfortune is an all around good support ability, both for saving your allies or hampering an enemy's offence. Since you are going face to face via melee and tripping, you can help cover your melee compatriots if they get hit by a critical attack or fail a saving throw.

Um, what is a +1 adaptive longview?

I saw your delightful "I throw a rock at it!" thread, and I agree that I am not pegging strrength nearly enough to get full value out of rock throwing. It also doesn't quite fit with how I see my character -- she seems more tactical than that.

I see her as part battle field control, part buffs with ocasional back up fighting as an extra hammer when needed. If I went higher strength, I could do the rock throwing and melee more, but I would lose both the quantity and quality of the tanglevine trips.

So if I look at misfortune ironically, it actually becomes a better buff than the bringing an official Pathfinder T-Shirt to the table because it is one free reroll for EVERY member of the party. Okay, maybe Misfortune is worth it afterall.

Thanks for helping me look at this in a different way. I think that those trips could have awesome potential. I wonder what else I could do with the tanglevine? They're coming out of my hands... Could they deliver touch spells?

Hmm

[Cao Phen]

My mistake.

It supposed to be a +1 Adaptive Composite Longview. =)

[Zathyr]

Long ... bow?

Hmm wrote:

An interesting idea, but I think I'd lose out on that trade. Strength will be useful to hit things and do damage at the low levels when I run out of spells. It'll also be useful for all the armor I'll have to wear as an oracle. I get the improved trip and greater trip for free with the revelation. That feat would have to come out of the regular feats I get as a character.

All true. I was suggesting it as a normal feat because it's an extra bonus on trip attacks that can scale up with equipment. Even at the 10 dex, with a wand of Cat's Grace it can get you an extra +2. Not amazing, but not terrible. Swapping str and dex is more iffy, yeah. And dropping charisma probably loses you more than you'd gain.

Just tossing around ideas.

If you're planning a dual-cursed melee type with Deaf as your main curse, have you considered the wolfscarred face curse for the other? Since you cast silently, it's basically a bite attack at the cost of looking kind of freaky. *shrug*

[Hmm]

I looked at Wolfscarred. Nope. I like looking cute and doing great on diplomacy. And I only bite people I like. :)

Deaf was the curse that I wanted -- free silent spell, immune to sonic, the ability to mess with other casters by creating silence zones... I actually only picked dual-cursed when I saw the spells and skills that came with the first levels of stone mystery and decided that I wouldn't be missing out on much.

But thanks for tossing out all the ideas. I actually think that tongues is not that bad a combo with deaf, either. My party is not going to be able to discuss things with me in combat either way.

Now that I realize that misfortune can be a free once an adventure save for every member of the party, I may move that revelation up to third level and save crystal sight for fifth.

Hmm

[Hmm]

I recently just read A Guide for Trip Builds in Pathfinder, and I'm now wondering if my Trip build will be any good at all.

A Guide for Trip Builds wrote:

To be effective by 8th level, your build is going to need a minimum in the vicinity of CMB trip 20+. At 12th level you will need a minimum of 25+. To see why, look at these sample CMD scores of random monsters I selected out of the Bestiary from CR8 through to CR12:

CR8
Dire Tiger 35; Efreeti 31; Gorgon 26; Intellect Devourer 26; Mohrg 30; Stone Giant 30; Treant 29
CR9
Mastadon 34; Bone Devil 31; Dire Crocodile 40; Dragon Turtle 36; Frost Giant 29; Night Hag 27

CR10
Bebilith 46; Clay Golem 30; Fire Giant 31; Rakshasa 29
CR11
Barbed Devil 34; Cauchemar 40; Devourer 33; Retriever 40; Stone Golem 33
CR12
Lich 25; Adult Copper Dragon 38; Adult Green Dragon 39

At level 8, Petra the Stone Oracle's trip with her tanglevines is +15. At level 12, it would be +20. Granted, this is without adding any magic items, but even adding a +4 circlet of charisma, I'm adding only +2 to the CMB. The regular CMB is pretty low too. Have I invested a lot of feats and FCB levels for a tripping ability that will be irrelevant at 8th level?

Hmm

[sunbeam]

If you are a half elf, can't you take advantage of the elven oracle archetype (think there is some way to do it with a feat), and get true strike on your spell list.

Now this is kind of cumbersome, because you can't use it the same round you cast it, unless you invest additional feats into using that one spell (the usual trait/feat cheese) so you can quicken it.

But it is a pretty good payoff because you can add +20 to any combat maneuver, including trip.

You could also just have a rod of quicken 1-3 level spells. I guess there are a lot of other more powerful things you could do, but true strike is really good for some things. Literally you can grapple a mammoth or bull rush a giant (flavor it as a "chest bump") just like those barbarians can with strength surge.

Eh, just reread that elven archetype. I think you could only get True Strike as a 2nd level spell. I personally might still go that route, since with a metamagic rod you have a really good chance of pulling off spectacular maneuvers. And the rule of cool is enough for me to try it, even if some other combo would be much better (like anything with dazing spell).

Plus I can't tell you the name of the feat that would let a half elf take this, I'm pretty sure I have seen it, and seen it used in builds a few times.

[Imbicatus]

A bigger problem than the huge CMB is flight. As you get higher level, more things get flight. And if it's flying, it can't be tripped.

Trip is a good low level control, but it becomes irrelevant at higher levels, and I wouldn't heavily invest in the maneuver outside of some very specific circumstances where I would have true strike and or reroll abilities for the attack roll.

[Hmm]

True strike is a first level spell, and easily available in a wand form for 2PP. My character will have a very high UMD. So this idea is not completely out....

I'll put it in my list of options for her. Another option is to dump the dual-cursed (though I've kind of grown attached to it) and go with Spirit Guide Instead. This would provide access at level 3 to 4-5 1st level arcane spells via the lore spirit. I'm not sure that I could pull this build off going Spirit Guide, though, since other revelations would have to come off feats.

I may have to do a second deaf oracle build with Spirit Guide and compare the two.

Hmm

[El_Jefe]

Hmm wrote:

I'll put it in my list of options for her. Another option is to dump the dual-cursed (though I've kind of grown attached to it) and go with Spirit Guide Instead.

Why do you need to dump dual cursed for spirit guide?

Spirit Guide Changes Class skills:

Quote:

Class Skills: A spirit guide gains all Knowledge skills as class skills. This replaces the bonus class skills gained from the oracle's mystery.

Quote:

A dual-cursed oracle gains no additional class skills from her mystery.

and Bonded Spirit:

Quote:

This ability replaces the revelations gained at 3rd, 7th, and 15th levels.

Quote:

A dual-cursed oracle gains a new revelation at 5th level and 13th level. These are in addition to the normal revelations she receives at 3rd level, 7th level, and so on.

They don't modify the same class features, so they should be compatible. Spirit Guide is one of the best archetypes ever printed. I don't think I'll ever make an Oracle without it. Dual Cursed is just gravy.

I'm not a tripping expert, so I really can't comment much on the rest of your build. I'd probably just get a wolf with combat reflexes through Lunar Oracle to do it for me at low levels. I hate Deaf curse though... -4 initiative is painful. I would only consider it in conjunction with Wolfscarred face, but even then I'm not a fan.