Spirit Guide Oracle -- A Mini Analysis

[Hmm]

I find this archetype in equal parts confusing and inspiring. The Spirit Guide Archetype is an interesting addition that was included in the Advanced Class Guide. By trading out bonus skills (and you get a nice set in return) and paying a feat tax to get revelations on the third, seventh and fifteenth levels, you get access to a wandering spirit starting at third level.

The Wandering Spirit Oracle's chief benefit is flexibility. Your wandering spirit can change each day. There's a caveat that you can't take a wandering spirit counter to your alignment, god, or mystery, but there's no real guidance on how to determine it. I am going to assume that my life mystery oradin just cannot contact the bones spirit, but everything else looks open.

Downsides

The downside of the wandering spirit is that all the spirit abilities were written for the Shaman class. We've been given loose language to adjust it to fit Oracle, and sometimes the fit isn't right.

Spirit Guide Oracle wrote:

A spirit guide gains one hex of her choice from the list of hexes available from that spirit. She uses her oracle level as her shaman level and her Charisma score instead of Wisdom for the purpose of determining its effects.

This sounds great, but it's led to a whole bunch of confusion over whether Oracles can actually get the Arcane Enlightenment Hex from the Lore Spirit. I'm hoping yes, but since we don't have prepared spells, I am assuming for the moment that we cannot.

Another downside is that this archetype means more choices, and a lot of thinking ahead. This clearly isn't going to be a good archetype for either novices or the indecisive. If you go this route, you should have several action plans mapped out before you play so you don't slow down things for others. Then pick the spirit and hex that you think might be best according to the blurb of your scenario.

So, what goodies can we get?

1. At fourth level, we can clearly access the spells of our daily wandering spirit. Awesome. More spells known, and a chance to mine the spell lists of other Oracle mysteries. This may be worth the feat tax in itself.

2. Some drool-worthy hexes at level three from a variety of spirits. (You can only have one per day.)

• Cinder Dance from the Flames spirit. -- More movement. Yes!
  
• Heavens Leap from the Heavens spirit. A teleportation ability? Cool.
  
• A Wimpier version of Life Link, and another Channeling pool at level seven.
  
• Benefit of Wisdom from Lore. A chance to use Charisma rather than Int on all our intelligence based skills. I may finally have a decent spellcraft.
  
• Erosion Curse from the Nature spirit. A nice attack for those pesky season 6 constructs.
  
• Crystal Sight from Stone -- One of the best revelations from the Oracle Stone Mystery.
  
• Water Sight from Waves -- see through Obscuring mist.
  

There's a ton more that I like that I haven't listed, but these are the stand-outs for me right now. What are your favorites?

Hmm

[Sarrah]

Life Sight at Level 3 is better than the Level 11 Lifesense ability Oracles acquire.

I think Heavens is the most solid pick. Keep in mind that Guiding Star from the Heavens Mystery stacks with Guiding Star from the Spirit Guide prestige class (one gives cha to wisdom checks, the other gives wisdom to cha checks). *at night

[Hmm]

Yes, I liked a lot of what I saw in heavens. I think that may be my default wandering spirit pick (assuming that the powers that be nix arcane enlightenment. If they don't, then... Lore!)

Hmm