Hello,
I'm still building a controlling oracle for an upcoming campaign and now contemplating the heavens mystery.
Awesome display combined with color spray is known to be very powerful, but I'm concerned it might be too powerful in comparison to my other options on a round basis.
With a maxed-out charisme and metamagic galore (persistent or heighten come to mind), I'm afraid the best use of my round, every round, would be "I move to find the best spot for my 15-wide cone then cast color spray". I mean, what can possibily beat stunned for 3d4+1 round ?
I know there are limits, like mind-affecting and such, but still, if I can get at least one enemy (let alone a boss), that beats even blessing of fervor.
So I guess I'm concerned about casting the same thing over and over like a warlock of old. I'm also concerned about stealing the thunder from other players, especially if I start optimizing through going gnome and dual-cursed.
Is it a legitimate concern ? What are your experiences with this revelation ?
Thanks a lot for your insight !
A valid concern if your GM uses a lot of indoors or otherwise short range encounters. Still, you don't actually have to use your most powerful option each round, especially if you optimise a bit for something else. Oracles can do melee fairly well even if they're not one of the more fighting-oriented mysteries (note divine fighting technique: Desna's shooting star), they can buff (other players may have a different opinion of the value of blessing of fervor) or debuff.
The spirit guide archetype is excellent for flexibility and you probably don't want a lot of the heavens revelations, so you can sacrifice 3 of those without feeling too much pain.
Dual-cursed isn't a good idea anyway BTW. It replaces the first 3 mystery spells - including color spray!
You don't have to focus completely on Color Spray; you could create a build that was a combination of Color Spray mastery and melee ability. CHA against HD isn't going to win-out forever, but the more powerful the enemy, the more useful 1 round of stun is anyways (especially if you're closing for a full attack along with your allies).
If you wanted to really push the melee/caster angle, you could do something like:
Sword of the Ancient Heavens
Warsighted Ancient Lorekeeper Heavens Oracle
Kindred-Raised Half Elf: 15/17STR+, 12DEX, 14CON, 10INT, 7WIS, 16/18CHA+
Traits: Fate's Favored, Magical Lineage: Color Spray, Irrepressible; Drawback: Sentimental
Feats: Noble Scion (of War), Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Falcata, Persistent Spell, Power Attack, Heighten Spell. Warsighted combat feats on the same round you cast Divine Favor.
Ancient Lorekeeper Spells: Color Spray, Mirror Image, Heroism, Dimension Door, Overland Flight, etc.
This way you've got your devastating Color Spray focus, but you're also capable of being deadly in combat (including a lethal weapon that's great for coup-de-grace). If your CHA isn't as maxed-out as it could be, well, so be it; Persistent Color Spray (level 2) as a level 3 spell is your heavenly secret weapon that's great even if you 'only' gimp a big bad foe for one round (as you approach and get ready to jam on them with a full attack), and Divine Favor + Heroism + Mirror Image makes for an awesome heavenly warrior.
That's a great concept, however I really like the full caster angle, especially considering all the nifty spells an oracle can throw per day.
But I agree with both of you, I can actually use buffing spells alongside colorspray and go with the flow.
It's just that for instance calm emotions has long been a favorite of mine to take a few opponents out of the fight while we focus on those who saved. Now ? Color spray trumps that tenfold. How about hold person ? Oh, wait, color spray can target more people, other than humanoids, and doesn't give a save per round. Command, greater command ? P-uh -lease. Holy smite ? Bah.
The only limit to color spray is the short range and the targetting, but a smart player should almost always be able to get one or two opponents in the blast. Also, selective wands are dirt cheap.
@BadBird:
Do keep in mind that Ancient Lorekeeper bumps all the Sorcerer/Wizard spells up 1 level, making Color Spray 2nd level for you, which means you don't get it until 4th level. Also, Kindred-Raised gets rid of Adaptability (which you probably would have wanted to trade out for Ancestral Arms(*) or Weapon Familiarity if you are going to use an exotic weapon, otherwise for Dual-Minded since you're dumping Wisdom(**)); Elven Immunities (which really hurts to give up); Keen Senses (which really hurts to give up, especially with dumped Wisdom(**)); and Multitalented (which you probably would have wanted to trade out Fey Thoughts, or for Blended View if you can make your character background fit).
(*)Elven Branched Spear is both mechanically good, including giving you Reach(**) and likely to be a good character background fit.
(**)Alternatively, get slightly higher Dexterity and Combat Reflexes and a Reach weapon instead of a Falcata, and trade both Adaptability and Keen Senses for Eye for Opportunity, and go for a Reach build. However, if you are going to use a Reach weapon, you might want to go with Elven Branched Spear and keep Keen Senses while trading Adaptability for Ancestral Arms, so that you don't need to spend a feat on Exotic Weapon Proficiency -- Elven Branched Spear gives you +2 on Attacks of Opportunity, which is twice as good as Eye for Opportunity, although they do stack. If you want both, you will probably need a 2 level dip in Lore Warden Fighter to get the feats you need (Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Elven Branched Spear), Combat Reflexes, and free Combat Expertise, and use your 1st level character feat to get Noble Scion(War)) -- in that case, ditch Magical Lineage and the Sentimental Drawback, and ditch the Ancient Lorekeeper archetype, but then at 3rd level take Additional Traits(Magical Lineage (Color Spray), Magical Knack (Oracle)), and start adding the rest of the Reach build feats at 7th level, interleaved with metamagic feats. Although the Reach build feats will be coming online late, you will get Color Spray online at the same time as a single-class Ancient Lorekeeper Oracle (admittedly with Save DC 1 lower), and have a better Fortitude Save and slightly better hit points and BAB, with the same caster level and delayed spellcasting progression of spells other than Color Spray. Either way, as a 3/4 BAB character without good access to Blade Tutor's Spirit (it would be a 3rd level spell for you if you got it with Ancient Lorekeeper, which is not good), I'd also skip Power Attack, although admittedly it has some attractiveness when using a two-handed weapon with high Strength (but for a Reach build, hitting and controlling is more important than doing damage).
@BadBird:
Do keep in mind that Ancient Lorekeeper bumps all the Sorcerer/Wizard spells up 1 level, making Color Spray 2nd level for you, which means you don't get it until 4th level. Also, Kindred-Raised gets rid of Adaptability (which you probably would have wanted to trade out for Ancestral Arms(*) or Weapon Familiarity if you are going to use an exotic weapon, otherwise for Dual-Minded since you're dumping Wisdom(**)); Elven Immunities (which really hurts to give up); Keen Senses (which really hurts to give up, especially with dumped Wisdom(**)); and Multitalented (which you probably would have wanted to trade out Fey Thoughts, or for Blended View if you can make your character background fit).
Well, Color Spray as a level 2 goes from "unavailable for the first three levels" to being essentially "free Heighten" to being irrelevant due to Heighten. For a build totally focusing on it I wouldn't delay it, but in this case the point was to diversify; and grabbing Heroism and Mirror Image, among other things, is just all kinds of awesome.
As far as Kindred goes, that bump to casting stat and Awesome Display is a huge, huge boon for a build trying to split casting and melee stats. All the peripheral bonuses are great, but two +2s on a MAD build...
Heroism by 7 does also grant a +2 to all skills and saves which covers a lot of what's lost with Kindred, and Irrepressible means that stacked CHA is a huge boon to saves vs. Charm/Compulsion, which takes much of the pressure off of low WIS.
Falcata is totally unnecessary, of course; spear/longspear would work fine. But wielding the meanest crit weapon in the game is pretty fun.
Yes, it annoyed the hack out of my last DM. I even nerfed my oracle by going for the Blind curse. Gnome.
However, he was completely new to pathfinder. And I never used it more than once a encounter.
However, many things are immune.