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I have a character concept for PFS that I really like, a halfling oracle with the Bones mystery, I like a lot of the revelations, love the class skills it gives, wanted a charisma-based character, and just liked the idea of a halfling unleashing an undead horde on her foes.
There are three things I can't decide on: deity, faction, and curse
This halfling uses undead quite a bit, but views them with extraordinary contempt. They're tools, perversions of what is good in life. Inflicting undead status is a punishment to her enemies. She has a deep and abiding hatred of ancient empires that made use of halfling slaves. Undead that actively pursued to become such, like liches, vampires and the like in order to try and live forever are viewed as having tried to game the system, but in her mind have made themselves vulnerable in their short-sighted fear of their mortality.
She lost her mother at a young age as a slave in Osirian, and quite often got into books to learn about the long history of slaves in the empire. She's convinced that part of being free is getting to enjoy things in life, and so is a bit of a hedonist. For those who garner her respect, typically leaders who gained followers by merit rather than purchase, she tends to be quite submissive.
I'd definitely lean towards a Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil deity for this character, especially if they had portfolios surrounding exploiting the foolish (in her view, the undead).
For faction I'm torn between the Dark Archives or Liberty's Edge. The Dark Archives most closely matches what I'd view her alignment (Lawful Neutral). Liberty's Edge is in support of freeing slaves, however, and she'd support that.
I intend to invest in Use Magic Device so I can use several arcane spell wands and scrolls easily for extra buffing and offensive options against enemies, so Haunted is a no-go. I also want to exchange barbs and threats with enemies in combat, so I'd rather not take Tongues. I want a lot of revelations, so Dual-Cursed would be an archetype I'd want to go into, but that leaves me with a lot of possible combinations.
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She does not allow undead creation. Controlling undead is pushing it but is allowed in times of need though.Pharasma jumps at me somehow. :)
Exactly, so I think Pharasma is a hard no on that front. Looking Lawful Evil and Lawful Neutral deities, I think I might be barking up the wrong alignments to be looking at though.
Maybe Urgathoa?
She loves undead.
Oh, sorry! Didn't read everything, and it's too late for me to be here.
Did a bit more research, why don't you try Anubis, along with Dark Archives?
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Oracles do not require a deity to operate so you are not bound by that deity's ethos. You could quite easily be a Pharasman heretic believing you have the power to judge the unworthy and inflict undeath upon them to deny them the blessings of the afterlife.
I would strongly consider Spirit Guide instead of Dual Cursed. Yes you lose some revelations but honestly the bones ones are not that great.
Armour of bones is very thematic but mechanically terrible given you can just wear a breastplate which it doesnt catch up to until level 11.
Bleeding Wounds is just awful, it doesnt work on lots of common enemies like Undead, Constructs and Elementals and the damage it deals is utterly pathetic. By level 10 you are only adding Bleed 3.
Deaths Touch is one of the many many pointless touch attacks which PF hands out to classes with abandon. 1d6+1/2 levels for a medium BaB class that can just hit things with a big pointy object if they want to is a terrible deal.
Soul Siphon might be interesting if you could use it at will but you never get more than 4 uses of it ever and that is only at level 19.
Voice of the Grave is replaceable by simply taking Speak with Dead as a spell known.
Of the rest Near Death can be decent but is rather GM dependant, Raise the dead is decent in PFS as animated dead dont persist across sessions, Spirit Walk would be great as a scouting tool but having to wait until level 11 is a pain and you arent far off Ethereal Jaunt by then. Resist life is a bit pointless and may actively screw you over if you have a Cleric in the group.
Really of all of the Bones Oracle revelations the only really stand out good one is Undead Servitude. Others have a lot of flavour to them but are mechanically weak.
If you are committed to Dual Cursed, and it is a strong option, then Legalistic is the easiest non advancing Curse to work with. If you arent bothered about melee then I would look at Blackened as primary. It also adds some handy AoE for dealing with swarms.
I won't exactly have the carrying capacity to be in a breast-plate with only 10 strength and all the other supplies I'd want to have until I can get a mithral version, although with a high UMD modifier Iike I have planned, I can simply use a wand of mage armor for +4 fairly readily, and I intend to be carrying a heavy shield at all times. I suppose Blackened is a good curse as I'll be avoiding melee, and lets me target reflex saves as I focus my other spells known on Necromancy spells. For PFS, dual cursed only gets me one more revelation.
Also, with Pathfinder a cleric has to select whether they are healing or harming with their channel. Resist life would mean I wouldn't benefit from positive energy channeled to heal, but as long as it isn't channeled to harm, I'd be fine so long as I take care of my own healing.
Fumeiyoshi (spelling) is a decent choice for a deity.
Thank you, that looks to be just about perfect.
Fumeiyoshi, Dark Archive, Blackened Curse.