I promised myself to take a break on Oracles. With Dark Archive's arrival, I knew the Time mystery was going to make that promise tough to keep. Thankfully, the Psychic has surprisingly tickled my soul enough as an effective distraction. But still, it can't hurt to obsess about it a little on the sidelines.
Here are my first impressions:
1) It's the first mystery with a mystery benefit that has an effect (the AC bonus) that directly scales with your curse level. Interesting design space that opens up for future mysteries. I like it.
2) The speed boost looks like a lot of fun. It leads to another distinct Oracle playstyle, which to be fair is true for most mysteries, but I'm glad to see it as the norm even for the new one.
3) Fate and time domains make for a very narrow Divine Access list, but it seems to get you the bare necessities. It would be criminal if it didn't have access to at least Haste and Slow.
4) Focus spells seem decent overall. All eyes on Time Skip I'm sure.
5) What a major curse! Slowed 1 is rough. One of the most debilitating curses for sure. Although what I find most egregious is the bonus to initiative rolls as a slap to the face. Like, thanks for nothing?
6) It feels like the placement of the speed bonus and initiative bonus should've been flipped so both can actually function practically.
I know how crazy perceptions change on the mysteries going from no experience to actually playing it. I had to learn this several times. But I know it'll be a while until I get to play a Time Oracle so talking about it is the best I got.
For anyone who gets to play one, feel free to tell me how much I'm missing out. No rush. The book just came out, but come back anytime!
Might be salvageable with an AC mount. As long as you can get some movement along with two actions to cast a spell you aren't in too bad shape. It'll also make you concealed when your mount moves.
I promised myself to take a break on Oracles. With Dark Archive's arrival, I knew the Time mystery was going to make that promise tough to keep. Thankfully, the Psychic has surprisingly tickled my soul enough as an effective distraction. But still, it can't hurt to obsess about it a little on the sidelines.
Here are my first impressions:
** spoiler omitted **
I know how crazy perceptions change on the mysteries going from no experience to actually playing it. I had to learn this several times. But I know it'll be a while until I get to play a Time Oracle so talking about it is the best I got.
For anyone who gets to play one, feel free to tell me how much I'm missing out. No rush. The book just came out, but come back anytime!
I actually like it. The disadvatage is real but just enfeebled initially so you can work around that. I think I'll be taking a few potions of quickness to negate the slowed effect of the major curse.
The benefits are real but not major. The first two focus spells are one action and regularly useful.
Defintely playable. Often the time themed characters are broken because they are far too strong, or too nerfed. This seems great.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think the playability of the Time Oracle comes down to "what your table thinks 'You can’t mitigate, reduce, or remove the effects of your oracular curse' means."
But this is basically the same question about "what about resistance to the same thing that my curse gives me weakness to, I'm still taking more damage than I would without the curse" that tables will disagree about.
Agreed. If you are tough on the mitigation, then the major curse is very harsh. But you can still avoid going to major.
The focus spells are great, love every single one of them from effects to amount of actions that they take.
I hate lvl 3 haste because of how inefficient it is action economy wise, but time skip is perfect, 1 round duration but you pretty much break even right away and already in the character lvl 7 (one level after you pick the focus spell) it already goes positive as it targets 2 people.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I really like the idea of the time oracle, but I'm not a fan of the asynergy of movement buffs + a major curse that makes it so you can't move and cast a normal spell in the same round.
I wish it leaned more into weird time shenanigans like with the moderate curse than simply moving faster and being harder to hit while moving.
The initial focus spell being both single target and nothing on a successful save is something I'm not a huge fan of either.
The concealment and reaction AC is something, at least, but everything else is just nothing. Truly carried by having some REAL good focus spells.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think the playability of the Time Oracle comes down to "what your table thinks 'You can’t mitigate, reduce, or remove the effects of your oracular curse' means."
But this is basically the same question about "what about resistance to the same thing that my curse gives me weakness to, I'm still taking more damage than I would without the curse" that tables will disagree about.
This is still why I wished the word 'mitigate' wasn't used in that description. It's too broad a term compared to reduce and remove that it's almost always the cited word whenever I've witnessed people argue about it, including myself.
My favorite example that still comes up is armor being argued as mitigating the Battle Oracle's curse. It technically does, but it's too terrible for any group to actually follow through.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It feels to me like the intended method for playing a time oracle who is under their major curse is to run around with Haste cast on you or guzzle potions of quickness, since the moderate cure specifically serves to make that strategy less optimal.
My personal reading is that "being hasted while under your major curse is fine, you have three actions but one of them is the special action from haste that can only be used to stride or strike."
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, I don't really get the initiative boost; what oracle is gonna be not refocusing between fights
It feels to me like the intended method for playing a time oracle who is under their major curse is to run around with Haste cast on you or guzzle potions of quickness, since the moderate cure specifically serves to make that strategy less optimal.
My personal reading is that "being hasted while under your major curse is fine, you have three actions but one of them is the special action from haste that can only be used to stride or strike."
You can have that bonus Hasted action be the one you lose to Slowed.
That is if one can be Hasted as that does "mitigate" the Curse, though I'd adjudicate that the Oracle remains Slowed 1 even when Hasted so it's okay. The curse remains at full strength, doing its thing, as the Oracle still loses one action from what they'd have otherwise; as long as nothing removes the Slowed condition (like if the Hasted/Slowed battle were more like in 3.X/PF1).The Time Oracle's definitely in an interesting niche. I think since the player has a lot of control over when to succumb it's a fine Curse which balances with its Focus Spells which themselves give the party a net increase in actions and/or strong debuff.
Not sure a full caster can or should make much use of the curse's benefits, at least not enough to build around, but they're pretty strong when needed.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
You can normally be both Hasted and Slowed. I think that's the exact situation that describes the Time Oracle under both haste and its major curse. You're still at one fewer action than you would have if the curse was not active, so I wouldn't view the curse as "mitigated", "reduced", or "removed".
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
You can normally be both Hasted and Slowed. I think that's the exact situation that describes the Time Oracle under both haste and its major curse. You're still at one fewer action than you would have if the curse was not active, so I wouldn't view the curse as "mitigated", "reduced", or "removed".
Interestingly, there are actually two other words used to describe what you can't do with your curse. "Negate" is similarly found under Oracular Curse where true strike vs concealed is given as an example. "Ignore" is used twice under the Flames mystery's Curse of Engulfing Flames as reminders.
Groups I'm in, where we've previously battled over this very thing, have formed a habit of simply putting less emphasis on "mitigate" and heavier emphasis on the other words in tandem. It's worked very well; less endless arguing, more happy players. There's just something about that word "mitigate" that gets everybody in a nitpicking frenzy compared to the others.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm so glad I don't play in groups where they subject the rules to such torturous logic that they would interpret castIng haste on yourself would be taken as sidestepping your curse.
Mitigating it would be like like trying to use blessed one and greater mercy to counteract it, not drinking a potion of quickness
Tbh, it's stuff like this that makes me wish oracle's anti mitigation rules were nixxed completely (or just leave in an easy to adjudictate "conditions from the oracles curse cannot be removed, counteracted, or suppressed), in favor of text like flame curse where it's explicit that you cannot ignore the concealment.
This probably the curse where they easily went way too overboard with the penalties and didn't give nowhere near enough benefits to compensate.
Slowed 1? That's huge on a spellcaster.
This Revelation is the only one I would consider a hard pass and that's not even a difficult consideration.
This has been filled in my "missed opportunity" category of class features. I would even accept the heavy penalties if the benefits were crazier.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
It definitely feels like the revelation spells are supposed to make up for the curse, rather than the curse itself having pros and cons.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It definitely feels like the revelation spells are supposed to make up for the curse, rather than the curse itself having pros and cons.
That's the vibe I'm getting. The amount of extra actions you create with Time Skip by the time you have you have access to major curse against the one you lose seems like a pretty good deal. It's a short term deal as slowed catches up to you, but it fits the theme of the moderate curse's duration halving effect. As a time oracle, you really want everything to go as quickly as possible, especially the encounters.
I think what irks me the most now is the wasted initiative bonus on the major curse. There's no playing around it and playing into it just leads to a bad time. Imagine purposely going into battle slowed 1 on just to get a +4 initiative bonus...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What if the initiative bonus received the following addendum: "Starting with your next turn, your place in the initiative order is adjusted as if the status bonus had been active when you rolled initiative."? It's very thematic for the Time Oracle to be able to jump up in the initiative order mid-combat, and even with that I still don't think it's a particularly powerful adjustment.
This probably the curse where they easily went way too overboard with the penalties and didn't give nowhere near enough benefits to compensate.
Slowed 1? That's huge on a spellcaster.
This Revelation is the only one I would consider a hard pass and that's not even a difficult consideration.
This has been filled in my "missed opportunity" category of class features. I would even accept the heavy penalties if the benefits were crazier.
I would allow haste to offset slow, for me I view the can't mitigation effect as being you can't get rid of it. The slow is always there. I think its TBTBT to not allow reasonable offsetting of curse conditions, you just cant actually get rid of it. Given you strongly you feel about slow I think you'd feel the same way. Personally I feel that way about the initiative penalty for Lore Oracles and that is a minor curse.
In this case slow is only at the major curse state. Which you can't even get to till level 11. It doesn't even apply for half the game. It is also always your choice to go to that state. You still can use one revelation spell per encounter anyway. So only do it if you think the trade off is worth it. I think it is a good idea for an Oracle to have a non revelation focus spell to avoid some of their curse issues. Its just that the revelation spells are so good.
The interface is swallowing some of my apostrophes, sorry. I have not quite worked out all its rules
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hadn't looked too closely at time skip. Wow. It could be worth it to go into your major curse once you can haste your whole party for another round. Your party magus will love you.
Make your Flurry Ranger Blender Buddy a mobile Flurry Ranger Blender Buddy.
In Pathfinder 1st Edition the oracle is my favorite class for plot-support NPCs. The mystery gives them a specialty for their role in the story, so I can lower their level. The curse adds more flavor and further limits their role. The accidental nature of becoming an oracle means that I don't have to work their class into their backstory; instead, it is, "And then I gained oracle powers by mischance."
My favorite PF1 oracle NPC was Amaya of Westcrown. She is an alternate heir for an adventure path that escorts a lost heir halfway across the world. At 3rd level she multiclassed from fighter to time oracle with the tongues curse, after encountering a major artifact associated with her ancestors. Out of game, I multiclassed her because the player who played the party cleric left to hang out with his newborn son, so Amaya became the new healer. I had considered the Ancestor mystery, but it had too much emphasis on combat. Gamemastering a full-level escorted NPC is a balancing act where the failed extremes are a dead-weight MacGuffin versus an obnoxiously effective GMPC. The party needed to respect and protect future Empress Amaya, so she needed to be effective support rather than effective combat or ineffective aristocracy. The Time mystery fit that better. She could run around the battlefield to heal via Time Flicker and Time Hop, she could see invisible oni monsters via Time Sight,, she had high initiative via Temporal Celerity, and I could have her recite plot-relevant information by misusing Knowledge of the Ages.
I altered Amaya's Tongues curse:
I had given Amaya the Tongues curse to give more responsibility to the players during combat. Furthermore, I did not want the easy bypass of everyone learning Amaya's exotic language, so I ruled that her Tongues curse was different: she still spoke whatever language she wanted, but her words were jumbled because her flow through time became irregular when she was too nervous. By casting a Comprehend Language spell on herself, she could understand everyone else's speech, but her words and gestures were meaningless to others. Her Time Flicker revelation was a visual effect of this disconnection from time.
And I am amused by the similar irregular timeflow on the PF2 Time mystery:
While initially unmoored by moments, the countless march of milliseconds builds up to drift you further and further out of sync with your natural timeline, often in contradictory directions. You might view this as a blessing, perhaps as a sign you're somehow beyond mortality or you can't be contained within reality's limitations, or you might view it as a cruel curse that causes your own life to slip by adrift even as you gain power over time.
In Pathfinder 2nd Edition, oracle is no longer my favorite class for plot-support NPCs. I have been using summoner more, because eidolon's are colorful and can be just as accidental as mysteries. A granted cantrip, three revelation spells, and some useful aspects of an active curse are as much specialization on an oracle as in PF1, and I can no longer mix and match mysteries and curses for maximum flavor.
Yet, I have a PF2 NPC for whom time oracle would be a good fit.
In Assault on Longshadow, the 3rd module of my PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion campaign, I used the map of Longshadow on page 64 in the article on Longshadow. That maps measured 1410 feet by 1870 feet on the scale I used in Roll20, And enemy Brigadier General Kosseruk attacked three different walls of Longshadow, splitting the party for the defense. On that scale, the players could not afford the time to run across the city to communicate with each other, so I invented a messenger NPC named Amelia who did that for them--one advantage of roleplaying in a city is that NPCs are plentiful. Amelia moved around Speed 150 feet, six times human normal, with the players and I ignoring the impossibility for our convenience.
The PCs are now beginning the 5th module, Prisioners of the Blight, and I have a few items to deliver to them from Longshadow. I think that Amelia will run the 70 miles to deliver them. She will need high speed, but not impossible speed. And because the players might try to recruit her for their own errands, I should create stats for her. Time oracle seems workable. She can claim that somehow all the running she did during the assault on Longshadow unlocked the time mystery for her.
I wonder what level Amelia should be? She was definitely low level (4th or lower) during Assault on Longshadow but would have earned massive xp during the battle (the 10th-level PCs got 1000 xp each).
As for the PF2 time mystery itself, I like that it emphasizes speed and mobility, because Amya of Westcrown used her PF1 time mystery mostly for mobility and Amelia's talent is speed. Alas, the granted cantrip Time Sense feels out of theme, since it gives a precise sense of time and a precisely timed action to a character described as out of sync with time. And its practical effect is a self-only Guidance cantrip, while Guidance is already on the oracle's divine spell list. The Manifold Lives revelation spell has a nice description, "You cast a creature's mind back through time," that fits how Amaya used Knowledge of the Ages. But the spell does not live up to its description, because it merely deals mental damage and stupefies. If I rewrite those two spells, then I could recreate Amaya as a PF2 time oracle.
Hadn't looked too closely at time skip. Wow. It could be worth it to go into your major curse once you can haste your whole party for another round. Your party magus will love you.
Ideally, the second casting that puts you into major curse should be used when you think a burst of extra actions could help accelerate the party toward ending the encounter in a round or two. That way, you shouldn't even be slowed for majority of the encounter. Additionally, the first casting should've given the party an early advantage.
@Mathmuse
I can't opine too much on PF1 oracles being a 5e baby. Have you explored the Time Mage archetype for more options for Amelia? I personally haven't looked at it at all. I do recommend 4th level for her just so you have Divine Access as an extra customization option. All of this assuming you do go with the time mystery, of course.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
@mathmuse:
I think my favorite Oracle NPC was Cassandalee.
Ancestor Oracle that lived all her past android lives? So flavorful!
@Mathmuse
I can't opine too much on PF1 oracles being a 5e baby. Have you explored the Time Mage archetype for more options for Amelia? I personally haven't looked at it at all. I do recommend 4th level for her just so you have Divine Access as an extra customization option. All of this assuming you do go with the time mystery, of course.
Time Mage Dedication is feat 6, so it would not be available to a 4th-level character. On the other hand, I have decided to make Amelia an 8th-level character. She will have to have travel through territory that the party adventured in in the 1st module, Trail of the Hunted, and that territory was dangerous until 4th level. A single 8th-level character is theoretically as powerful as a 4th-level party of four. And I calculated how much experience she would have gained if she were a player character in Assault on Longshadow and it would be enough to get her to a little short of 8th level. A few other dangerous errands later would bring her to 8th level.
As for the Time Mage archetype itself, Amelia's theme will be speed and the Time Mage's theme is the manipulation of time with no benefit to speed.
I could ignore classes and build Amelia via the Gamemastery Guide's creature building rules. But as a GM, I like to learn about the classes by building NPCs via PC rules occasionally.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
@mathmuse:
I think my favorite Oracle NPC was Cassandalee.
Ancestor Oracle that lived all her past android lives? So flavorful!
I ran the Iron Gods adventure path and got to play Casandalee as an artificial intelligence in a portable hand-held unit. She was a ancestor oracle with the shattered mind curse only in her previous life as a living android, centuries before she met the party.
Furthermore, I had fun with her past lives, too. I invented a dozen of her lives before her life as Casandalee III as an ancestor oracle. Before that incarnation, she was Bonnie Ann, a waves oracle with haunted curse, who had washed up on the shore of Jalmeray, escaped slavery, lived as a pirate, and retired to Arkenstar. The incarnation before that was as a druid Ulriche. She had awoken in the forests of Andoran, gained a wolf animal companion, and been adopted by the gnome druids of the Verduran Forest in neighboring Taldor. She died of old age on a voyage in the Inner Sea and was buried at sea, explaining how she ended up in Jalmeray. The incarnation before that was as Skyblue Yurivan, adopted by the Yurivan family who had been friends of her previous incarnation Teal. Skyblue had died in the forests of Andoran as a young revolutionary fighting for Andoran independence. And so on.
And Casandalee IV has shown up in my Ironfang Invasion campaign. She did not become a god as the official Golarion canon states. Instead, the Casandalee artificial intelligence chose to be reborn as an android duplicating her original design, using the facilities in the crashed spaceship Divinity. This new version isn't an oracle though. She became a cleric of no particular god, tapping the divine power of the Godmind, but for self-referential fun I built her as a cleric of Casandalee. And she stopped by in Longshadow: How can I remove slavery from Ironfang Invasion? comment #3. Not only has she met the party, but one of the gifts that Amelia will deliver to the party is from her.
I like cameo appearances by characters from previous campaigns.
Very nice, might steal some of that, my players are about to begin choking tower in my 2e conversion.
I built my 8th-level time oracle with focus on exploiting her high land speed.
Amelia Rivercast
8th level Time Oracle
NG, Medium, Human, Humanoid
Perception +13(expert); low-light vision
Languages Common, Dwarven, Halfling, Sylvan
Skills Acrobatics +14, Athletics +10, Diplomacy +14, Medicine(expert) +13, Occultism +13, Religion +11, Sailing Lore +13, Society +13, Stealth(master) +18, Survival +11
Str +0, Dex +4, Con +1, Int +3, Wis +1, Cha +4
Items +1 leather armor, +1 striking flaming crossbow (40 bolts), 2 daggers, healer's tools, rations, rope, bedroll, soap
Feats to Remember Bon Mot, Catfall, Combat Climber, Cooperative Nature, Fake Out, Feather Step, Running Reload, Swift Sneak
AC 26; Fort +11, Ref +14, Will +15(resolve)
HP 80
Speed 45 feet (30 feet + 15-foot status bonus)
Melee dagger +14 (agile, finesse, thrown 10 ft., versatile S), Damage 1d4 piercing
Ranged +1 striking flaming crossbow +15 (range increment 120 feet, running reload 1), Damage 2d8 piercing plus 1d6 fire
Divine Spontaneous Spells DC 26, attack +16
4th (3/day) Air Walk, Freedom of Movement, Sanguine Mist(Signature)
3rd (3/day) Heroism, Searing Light(Signature), Show The Way
2nd (3/day) Comprehend Language(Signature), Darkvision, Inner Radiance Torrent
1st (3/day) Alarm (19 min casting, silver bell focus), Bless, Heal(Signature)
Cantrips (4th) Daze, Haunting Hymn, Light, Message, Shield, Time Sense
Revelation Spells DC 26; 3 Focus Points; 4th
delay consequence, temporal distortion, time skip
Mystery Benefit Time passes more swiftly for you than it does for those around you, enabling you to cover more distance in what others perceive as the same amount of time. You gain a +15-foot status bonus. Your disjointed movement makes it harder for creatures to hit you as you move. You gain a +1 status bonus to AC against attacks made against you from reactions or free actions while you're moving.
Minor Curse As you draw upon your mystery, time's passage becomes more disjointed, aging, regressing, or warping you out of sync. You become enfeebled 1. In addition, you take a –2 penalty to saving throws against effects that would make you fatigued or slowed.
Moderate Curse Time distorts further, increasing your muscular atrophy, age regression, or warping while making effects pass you by at an increased rate. The value of your enfeebled condition increases to 2 and the penalty from your minor curse increases to –3. Your status bonus to AC against attacks made against you from reactions or free actions while you're moving increases to +2. In addition, spells affecting you last less time; their duration is reduced by half, to a minimum of 1 round. This doesn't reduce the spell's duration for other targets affected by the same spell. Finally, all non-permanent conditions affecting you that have a duration measured in rounds, minutes, or hours have their duration reduced by half, to a minimum of 1 round. Any afflictions (such as poisons, diseases, and curses) affecting you have their maximum duration, onset time, and time for each stage reduced by half. Spells, conditions, and afflictions that last “until your next daily preparations” last for 12 hours or until your next daily preparations, whichever comes first. This doesn't change the duration you're temporarily immune, the rate at which you can use abilities that have a frequency, or any other features based on the passage of time.
No major curse yet, overwhelmed instead.
Build Details
Human Heritage: Versatile Heritage for Fleet
Ancestry feat 1: Cooperative Nature
Ancestry feat 5: Gloomseer
Background: Deckhand for Acrobatics, Sailing Lore, Cat Fall
Class feat 2: Gunslinger Dedication (Way of the Sniper) trained in Stealth
Class feat 4: (Gunslinger) Basic Shooting for Fake Out
Class feat 6: Advanced Revelation (Time Skip)
Class feat 8: (Gunslinger) Advanced Shooting for Running Reload
General feat 3: Feather Step
General feat 7: Canny Acumen(Perception)
Skill feat 2: Battle Medicine
Skill feat 4: Combat Climber
Skill feat 6: Bon Mot
Skill feat 8: Swift Sneak
The curse-based weaknesses of a time oracle are the enfeebled condition and the potential slowed condition. Amelia might never reach 11th level to achieve a major curse and its slowed condition, but I built around it anyway. Spellcasters who regularly sustain spells suffer from having only two other actions available while sustaining.
To mitigate the effect of enfeebled, Amelia's attacks should not be based on Strength. That emphasizes spell damage and renged weapons. I gave her the two divine damage cantrips, Daze and Haunting Hymn, and the slotted blaster spells Inner Radiance Torrebnt and Searing Light. Her third damage spell, Sanquine Mist, can also provide concealment.
Alas, an oracle's best trained ranged weapon is the crossbow. Reload 1 and slowed won't mix. I considered an Archer archetype for training in longbow, but decided to stick with the crossbow and add Running Reload for convenient reloading. Striding to reload fits Amelia's fast Stride theme.
To obtain Running Reload, Amelia needed the Gunslinger, Ranger, Alkenstar Agent, Archer, Drow Shootist, or Game Hunter archetype. Alkenstar Agent requires already being trained in firearms, Archer would tempt her with a longbow, Drow Shootist is limited to hand crossbow, and both Ranger and Game Hunter give the action-consuming Hunt Prey ability. She went with Gunslinger archetype. This also fit the setting, because three gunsmiths had just moved to her hometown.
The Advanced Shooter archetype feat to gain Running Reload requires both Gunslinger Dedication and Basic Shooter, a feat tax. This tax meant I had to skip Bespell Weapon oracle feat. and makes Amelia's build below average. An elf time oracle trained in a longbow through Elven Weapon Familiarity would have been easier.
I tried Crossbow Crack Shot as the Basic Shooter feat, but playtesting showed it was awkward with Running Reload. I switched to Fake Out as a possible compliment to her Cooperative Nature.
I followed some advice from blammit's Divine Gift: A Guide to the PF2e Oracle, which has been updated to include the time mystery.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Amelia Rivercast is the eldest daughter of a fisherman in Longshadow. Lacking the strength to handle the nets, she instead ran errands on the docks. Her speed, matching that of elves, led dockworkers to sent her running all over the city.
After the elite Chernasardo Rangers (i.e., the player characters) persuaded the mayor of Longshadow of the approaching invasion by the Ironfang Legion, Amelia joined the Civilian Response Corps that they established. The corps trained her with a crossbow and a healer's kit, but still she mostly ran errands.
During the assault on Longshadow itself, she ran messages between the defenders on the city walls, including the Chernasardo Rangers. She ran faster than she every had, she ran so fast that she broke time. After the victory celebration, she noticed that she retained faster speed, developed new skills rapidly, and could cast Light and Heal and other minor spells. She consulted Longshadow clerics for insight, who lectured her on religion as they tried to identify her new gift from the divine. She had become an oracle of time. She joined the Longshadow militia as a support spellcaster, since she did not feel like working out of a temple.
When three ysoki musketeers, Crackerjack, Ironsmith, and Rocket, arrived from Numeria to start a gunsmithing industry in iron-smelting Longshadow, she became their liaison with the Longshadow militia. They taught her how to use her crossbow more effectively and promised to save her a firearm when the weaponshop became productive. Meanwhile, she found new spells to cast. The android Casandalee, visiting from Numeria, trusted her with a dimensional key for the elite Chernasardo Rangers, teasing that Amelia might learn Plane Shift herself before their return.
Finally, local Chernasardo liaison Cirieo Thessadon had an errand for her. From a dream message from the elite Chernasardo Rangers, he learned that they desperately needed a way to remove curses before they visited the Blighted region in the Fangwood. He had found a Wand of Remove Curse, but needed someone to travel 70 miles through the fringes of the dangerous Fangwood to deliver the wand. Amelia was willing to make the run.
Okay, let's see how Amelia functions in action. She traveled through the Fangwood to meet up with the party, a two-day journey because speed 45 feets means 36 miles per day. I set up a Moderate-threat encounter for a single 8th-level character on the evening of the first day: three Twigjacks, creature 3, planning to ambush travelers from the underbrush along the path.
Amelia had cast Show the Path before her journey, but that spell does not anticipate ambushes set up after the spellcasting. She is using Avoid Notice exploration at full speed, due to her Swift Sneak, so had a chance to slip past the encounter, but let me claim that she rolled low in Stealth, so the twigjacks spotted her.
The first twigjack, Nettle, spotted Amelia 25 feet away. Nettle Strode out of the underbrush and made two claw Strikes at +11 and +7 versus Amelia's AC 26. That is a 30% and a 10% chance of hitting. Nettle rolled 13 and 9, so missed both Strikes.
The other two twigjacks, Rose and Thistle, used their Bramble Jump ability to get in position in case Amelia ran.
Of course, Amelia ran. But she held a loaded crossbow in her hands, so she shot Nettle first. She rolled 16, and 16+15 = 31 was a critical hit against Nettle's AC 19. The bolt dealt 18 piercing damage, the flaming trait dealt 6 fire damage, and the twigjack's weakness to fire added 5 more damage. Nettle was down to 21 hit points, less than half his maximum. Then Amelia Strode twice for 90 feet further down the path, reloading on the move with her Running Reload.
Nettle chased her with two Strides, so he was 40 feet behind her. He Struck with his splinter ranged attack, at a -2 range penalty, but rolled a lucky natural 20. His critical hit dealt 15 piercing damage. Rose and Thistle had positioned themselves assuming that Amerial would travel 75 feet, so they were 15 feet behind her. Each made a splinter atack, rolling 10+11 and 4+11 for two misses, and then each took Splinter Sprays. Amelia rolled 14+14 and 9+14 on the two DC 20 basic Reflex saves, so took half of 12 and 14 piercing damage. She was down to 52 hit points.
Amelia Strode in an arc to line herself up with the line through Rose and Nettle. Thistle as not in the same line. She cast Inner Radiance Torrent, Rose rolled 3+9 and Nettle rolled 10+9 on their DC 26 basic Fortitude saves, so Rose took 20 force damage and became blinded for a minute and Nettle took 10 force damage. She was also now 20 feet from Rose and 60 feet from Nettle.
Nettle moved toward Amelia but also into the underbrush for concealment. He Struck with ranged splinter twice, missing both times. Rose Struck with ranged splinter, too, missed because her blindness hide Amelia from her (DC 11 flat check). Already concealed in underbrush, she successfully Hid and Sneaked to an adjacent spot with a Stealth check of 17+11 = 28. Thistle Strode to Amelia and made two claw Strikes. 6+11 and 9+7 both missed.
Amelia shot Thistle, natural 20 for 16 piercing damage and 9 fire damage (plus 5 for weakness). She Sneaked away twice--Thistle had her in plain sight but Rose lost track of her position--for a full 90 feet, reloading as she did so. Nettle used Bramble Jump to get 60 feet closer, but Thistle Strode 75 feet. This turned into a chase, with Amelia moving 135 feet a round, Nettle and Thistle falling behind at 75 feet a round, and Rose staying behind. Amelia gave up some distance advantage for a two-action 2nd-level Heal to restore 21 hp, up to 73 hp out of 80 max hp.
Amelia wins a long chase, because she has a better ranged attack. Her damage feels weak, yet her defenses are good enough that she has time to take down level-appropriate opponents slowly. Her revelation spells are support and debuff, not particularly useful on Amelia alone against three minor opponents, so they were not worth triggering her curse during this encounter. For a full evaluation of Amelia Rivercast as a support caster, I would need another scenario where she teamed up with 8th-level partners against a 10th-level monster.
I spotted a rules ambiguity about the Time Mystery's Moderate Curse. How does "Finally, all non-permanent conditions affecting you that have a duration measured in rounds, minutes, or hours have their duration reduced by half, to a minimum of 1 round," affect a duration of hours when the oracle Refocuses for 10 minutes to reduce the curse down to Minor?
For example, Amelia's Darkvision spell lasts 1 hour, but the Moderate Curse reduces its duration to half an hour. What if she cast Darkvision to travel at night, five minutes later progressed her curse to Moderate at the beginning of a one-minute encounter, and then spent 10 minutes after the encounter Refocusing to calm her curse to Minor? Would the Darkvision's duration remain reduced to half an hour or would it revert to a full hour?
Unless I hear otherwise, I am going to treat the reduced duration as like difficult terrain. Under the Moderate Curse, each minute of an effect consumes two minutes of duration. Thus, in the Amelia example, she would consume 5 minutes of Darkvision duration before the encounter, 2 minutes of Darkvision duration during the 1-minute encounter, 20 minutes of Darkvision duration during the 10-minute Refocus, and have 33 minutes of Darkvision duration left.