My initial thought would be to completely bar the character from healing during combat; if there are enemies to harm, the Oracle is compelled to harm.
They would be able to do out of combat wand taps, of course. The problem with this is that your other players might end up hating the guy if one of those instances where in-combat healing is warranted pop up.
I second Arachnofiend
Agreed with the above. Cruel Oracles would have to look at their weakened allies and tell them to suck it up.
I think forcing him to specifically use Touch of Corruption is a bit unreasonable. Just make it be anything that contributes to him killing the enemy (self-buffing, using a weapon, etc).
I like this idea a lot. It's interesting. I do disagree on the 'no combat healing at all' bit though. In my opinion, it's a big detriment for a divine caster (the biggest healers in PF) to not be able to drop an emergency heal when needed. Of course, there's lots of ways around that, so maybe I'm just being hard headed.
I'd make combat healing harder for them and stay in theme, without completely eliminating the option. Instead of an Oracle that refuses to help an ally in combat out of a desire for cruelty, you could flavor it as an Oracle that is so obsessed with inflicting pain that they will ignore injured allies when they have a chance to harm an enemy instead. But they have enough restraint to heal or back down when necessary.
Here's something I couldn't help coming up with when I saw this:
Sadistic
You have an urge to inflict harm on those around you that is impossible to ignore.
Effect:
In combat, when adjacent to a non-ally character, you are compelled to inflict harm on them in some way. This may be by inflicting damage, inflicting ability drain or damage, poisoning them, inflicting a disease, casting a curse, or inflicting any other detrimental condition as long as it causes harm to the target. If you are adjacent to a helpless or unconscious enemy, you must use your next action to attempt to kill them with a coup-de-grace. You gain the touch of corruption ability, using your curse level as your antipaladin level.
At 5th level, you gain a cruelty, as the antipaladin ability.
At 10th level, you gain a second cruelty, and can exchange your first cruelty for a different one.
At 15th level, you gain a third cruelty, and may exchange one of your existing cruelties for a different one.
This way, they have to inflict pain when it's the immediate option, but when they back away from the fight, they can heal or support if needed. And a DM that wants to push the curse can have enemy constantly close in on them a lot to keep them attacking instead of healing so it's not too easy to work around.
I agree with your reasoning and I like the alterations. I may have gone overboard directly copying and reversing the mechanics of the Merciful Curse.
I had forgotten using a coup-de-grace is a full round action too.
Honestly, I think your evil version is far superior to the base, good version. The base version might as well not have any drawback to the Curse at all. It's like a "curse" specifically designed for a Life Oracle so he doesn't have any drawbacks.
I'm not sure you've fully grasped all the restrictions. If you are walking through a plague village, and someone asks you to help them, you might have to cast a spell or use a mercy. You could blow through your entire allotment of 3rd level spells in a matter of minutes.
If your party decides to beat a retreat from a rampaging demon, and a wounded, adjacent NPC asks you to help them, you will cure them instead of retreating.
Your fellow PCs can dictate that you will cure them instead of doing something else.
You cannot perform a coup de grace.
I like the idea of a Cruel curse, but I don't think you can just turn it upside down. Someone who attacks every chance they get is really more Brutal or Bloodthirsty than Cruel, while one who performs a coup de grace at every opportunity is Murderous. What you really want are some restrictions that make it hard to be kind, even if you want to.
For me, the key thing about curses that restrict your behavior, is that it sucks if they just make you do dumb things. Rather, they should make you do very specific, inconvenient things.
Maybe something like this.
Cruel
You must make your enemies suffer before you can let them die.
Effect
If you are adjacent to an enemy who is not helpless, bleeding, shaken, frightened, panicked, sickened, nauseated, blind, deafened, diseased, or poisoned, you cannot attack them (as defined by the spell sanctuary) except using a spell, attack, or ability that can inflict one of those conditions or afflictions, an inflict spell, or touch of corruption. Making a target helpless can mean inflicting any condition that causes them to become helpless, but not just hit point damage alone. If you have no such ability, you may act normally. Also, you cannot perform a coup de grace. You gain the ability touch of corruption, as the antipaladin ability, using your curse level as your antipaladin level.
At 5th level, you gain a cruelty, as the antipaladin ability.
At 10th level, you gain a second cruelty, and can exchange your first cruelty for a different one.
At 15th level, you gain a third cruelty, and can exchange one of your existing cruelties for a different one.
This is an interesting idea, but is has several issues issues.
If you burn through all of your uses of Touch of Corruption, you can still be forced to spend spells to use abilities that can inflict status effects or being force to use an inflict spell every round rather than being able to do anything else. You can't even use a basic weapon attacks unless they can inflict one of the listed effects somehow (though poisoned is pretty easy).
It also makes the oracle completely useless against certain types of enemies. For example, undead and constructs are outright immune to most (if not all) or those effects and inflict is going to do nothing to them since undead are healed by it (and Touch of Corruption) and constructs are immune to magic (though I think Touch of Corruption at least works on them, but I'm not sure). It would make the basic skeleton nearly impossible to attack and that's a bit much.
Revised. You are correct you cannot use a basic weapon attack in many circumstances, exactly as I intended. At the least, you may have to demoralize foes before attacking them. You may indeed be forced to burn through spell slots in order to take offensive actions.
The point about undead is valid, though, so let's allow cure spells, and broaden the class of creatures you can attack normally.
Cruel
You must make your enemies suffer before you can let them die.
Effect
If an enemy is not helpless, bleeding, shaken, frightened, panicked, sickened, nauseated, blind, deafened, diseased, or poisoned, you cannot attack them (as defined by the spell sanctuary) except using a spell, attack, or ability that can inflict one of those conditions or afflictions, a cure or inflict spell, or touch of corruption. Making a target helpless can mean inflicting any condition that causes them to become helpless, but not just hit point damage alone. If you face only opponents who are impervious to all these effects, you may act normally. Also, you cannot perform a coup de grace. You gain the ability touch of corruption, as the antipaladin ability, using your curse level as your antipaladin level.
At 5th level, you gain a cruelty, as the antipaladin ability.
At 10th level, you gain a second cruelty, and can exchange your first cruelty for a different one.
At 15th level, you gain a third cruelty, and can exchange one of your existing cruelties for a different one.
You are correct you cannot use a basic weapon attack in many circumstances, exactly as I intended. At the least, you may have to demoralize foes before attacking them. You may indeed be forced to burn through spell slots in order to take offensive actions.
I still disagree about being forced to inflict status effects before you can actually attack someone. I see what you want to do with the flavor, but being cruel and wanting to hurt people and then not being able to stab them makes no sense to me. It's like when a villain decides to poison a hero or leaves him to die or something instead of just killing him while he can. It's not cruel, it's stupid.
I see your argument above about how easy it is for a DM to make a Merciful Oracle do stupid things or burn spells very quickly, but I counter with the fact that it's the DM doing that. If the DM is that determined to force a party to waste resources or make bad decisions, he will make the party waste resources and make bad decisions. It's not the mechanical fault of the curse, but how the DM exploits it, which can be done with pretty much anything in PF for a tricky DM.
This curse also means that any damaging spell that isn't inflict can't be used, which I find weird. If I want to cast Flame Strike and watch someone burn to death, how is that not being cruel?
Oh, and you might want to check your wording now that you added cure spells, because RAW the way you have it, it says that you can cast a cure spell whenever you want if you're next to an enemy that doesn't have one of those conditions.
You are correct you cannot use a basic weapon attack in many circumstances, exactly as I intended. At the least, you may have to demoralize foes before attacking them. You may indeed be forced to burn through spell slots in order to take offensive actions.I still disagree about being forced to inflict status effects before you can actually attack someone. I see what you want to do with the flavor, but being cruel and wanting to hurt people and then not being able to stab them makes no sense to me. It's like when a villain decides to poison a hero or leaves him to die or something instead of just killing him while he can. It's not cruel, it's stupid.
Well, it is a curse. :)
The thing is, forcing an oracle to attack an enemy is boring and often insignificant. Forbidding it, however, is interesting.
I see your argument above about how easy it is for a DM to make a Merciful Oracle do stupid things or burn spells very quickly, but I counter with the fact that it's the DM doing that. If the DM is that determined to force a party to waste resources or make bad decisions, he will make the party waste resources and make bad decisions. It's not the mechanical fault of the curse, but how the DM exploits it, which can be done with pretty much anything in PF for a tricky DM.
If the GM doesn't do this occasionally, then the GM must have the Merciful curse. It is a mechanical effect of the curse, so if you have it, you need to make deliberate plans to avoid activating the penalties. The point of that curse, in fact, is that you give up some control of your character in some situations. If you don't like that, don't take this curse.
If you don't think those penalties are really penalties, but view the GM enforcing them as trickery, ESPECIALLY don't take this curse.
This curse also means that any damaging spell that isn't inflict can't be used, which I find weird. If I want to cast Flame Strike and watch someone burn to death, how is that not being cruel?
Flame Strike is an area spell and hence is not restricted.
Oh, and you might want to check your wording now that you added cure spells, because RAW the way you have it, it says that you can cast a cure spell whenever you want if you're next to an enemy that doesn't have one of those conditions.
It says you can attack the enemy with it. Casting it on your ally was never restricted. I'm not seeing a problem with the wording. Perhaps you can elaborate?
I should make it more explicit that if you are out of spells or abilities, you are also free to attack normally.
If the GM doesn't do this occasionally, then the GM must have the Merciful curse. It is a mechanical effect of the curse, so if you have it, you need to make deliberate plans to avoid activating the penalties. The point of that curse, in fact, is that you give up some control of your character in some situations. If you don't like that, don't take this curse.
If you don't think those penalties are really penalties, but view the GM enforcing them as trickery, ESPECIALLY don't take this curse.
I know that about the curse and I'm not trying to say that the player should be totally free of the effects of it. That defeats the point. I was trying to point out that your argument above was a very extreme situation that is outside the intended effects of the curse. A DM that puts players into a scenario where he knows their abilities are working against them and forces an oracle to burn every spell slot he has 3rd level and up or intentionally forces the oracle to stop fleeing from an enemy that he knows will kill him is abusing the mechanic and trying to ruin the oracle's ability to do things and stay alive. That's well beyond what the intentions of the curse and is a result of the DM working the system, not the intended mechanical penalties of the curse.
Flame Strike is an area spell and hence is not restricted.
That's me forgetting how Sanctuary works. Though there are damaging spells still affected by Sanctuary that would be prevented by this ability.
It says you can attack the enemy with it. Casting it on your ally was never restricted. I'm not seeing a problem with the wording. Perhaps you can elaborate?
This is also me making a mistake. I was still working under the idea that you must use your next action to inflict a condition or use an inflict spell or Touch of Corruption. In that case, being able to cast a cure spell as it's written implies that you can also use a cure spell on any enemy without penalty despite it making no sense.
Weirdly, coming to this realization makes me realize this version is way less restricted than I thought it was. I take back most of my previous commentary. This has the opposite problem RAW. As written, all it does is prevent you from inflicting direct damage by forcing you inflict a condition before attacking or use certain abilities to attack, but it doesn't actually force you to preform the harmful action. So if I decide I don't want to spend an action to harm a target, I can just turn around an leave with no penalty. With Merciful (and my version too) you must use your next action for the spell or ability that fulfills the requirements of your curse. There's no such restriction here, you're just prevented from using certain kinds of actions against the target until their afflicted with a status effect. That's barely restrictive at all.
This "Merciful" is so easy to completely bypass that it's ridiculous because it's virtually 100% RP based with no mechanical penalties whatsoever.
What exactly are you saying here? There is nothing in the curse that rewards or punishes you for roleplaying a certain way. It is written, like all the curses, to create specific limitations at specific times. It is entirely a mechanical penalty. You can be an Evil merciful oracle. Why that would be, I don't know, but it's definitely an option. As the restrictions are fairly narrow, the benefits are correspondingly light.
Merciful is written, as are all the curses, not to be a constant drag. On a fairly constant basis, it affects your choices and behaviors. Every so often, it hoses you in a memorable but usually recoverable way. That is my working understanding of what a curse should do.
Nicely done.
Touch of corruption actually won't inflict a status, until you get your first cruelty. Throwing in cure and inflict spells was intended to give more options. However, it works fine without them, it just means the oracle can resort to basic attacks sooner.
I'll note that your version doesn't require that the oracle resort to demoralize attempts.
I like this version. It's a nice balance and everything works out fairly well.
Because Intimidate doesn't have daily uses.