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Critique welcome!
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Jerk (Homebrew): You are a jerk. You may not compliment anyone other than yourself (backhanded compliments are exempt) without becoming shaken for three rounds for every person you complimented. Your penchant for rarely listening long enough to learn from anyone else means that all Knowledge or Lore checks have a permanent -2 penalty. In addition, any summoning spell or effect cast by you lasts three rounds shorter than normal since very few things like you and want to stay around you for very long. At 5th level, your persistent belief that that everyone else is in the wrong grants you a +4 bonus to Sense Motive checks. At 15th level, you are fed up with anyone who thinks they know better than you. You gain immunity to any spell with the charm or compulsion subschools.
That is relatively no downside for a rather impressive benefit.
Shaken isn't horribly impeding, and the character could easily get around it by just never talking to anyone. Comparatively blind, is always blind. Tongues cuts off communication even if the player wants it. Jerk is just "meh, I'm antisocial" and no downside.
-2 to knowledge? With so few skill points and relatively low Int, most Oracles really don't care. So yeah, no real drawback.
How many summoning spells are actually on the Oracle spell list? Either way one subschool of magic, no matter how good, isn't much of a downside on a limited spell list with limited spells known.
+4 untyped to Sense Motive is big, but fine I suppose. General Sense Motive as compared to like, +4 for discerning lies But things like detecting Enchantment don't make a lot of sense (to me anyway).
Immunity to charm and compulsion, so basically most enchantment spells, might be a bit much considering the lack of significant drawbacks.
Overall opinion: needs work. Jerk doesn't really even sound on the same level as some of the other curses, it just sounds like a personality type. Something that would be a background trait.
Fair points. It was more to amuse myself, but I at least want it to be balanced. It is absolutely a personality type, along the lines of the Covetous and Reclusive curses.
The penalties at the beginning can all be avoided, true. But I like the idea of the character having a bunch of annoying, obnoxious ticks rather than one overwhelming quality, but I didn't want it to get too wordy. Maybe if I added Spellcraft to the Knowledge skill penalties? Craft and Profession skills?
All of the Summon Monster levels are on the oracle spell list, and a fair number of others besides. I recognize that you can just not use any of those spells, though.
I could see dialing the 5th level bonus to Sense Motive back.
As for the big power, I figure at level 15, the majority of oracles won't ever get this benefit, and I don't believe it blocks all mind-affecting spells. I'm open to ideas of how to scale it back, though.
Thanks for the feedback!
Hmm...
Maybe invert things?
Hear me out on the change of ideas. Jerk base downside, a -3 to all Charisma based skills (as a Cha based caster these are things many Oracles dip into). This takes the form of the obvious ones like Diplomacy because they're unlikeable, and the like Intimidate because they aggravate people too much to scare them, and Use Magic Device even the powers that be in magic dislike them. -3 because it's on par with Skill Focus, but -2 could also be perfectly acceptable. Then this also extends to their magic, so their charm and compulsion spells have their DCs decreased by the same 2 (a really big hit).
Level 5, they are so used to people's dislike that they become better at reading others. A +4 to Sense Motive on opposing Charisma based checks, and a +2 to saves vs charm and compulsion effects.
Level 15, their bull headed nature lets them more easily coerce summoned creatures. All summon spells are cast with +2 CL for the purpose of determining the duration of the summon, including summon spells cast from wands or other sources with a fixed CL.
Still suffers from the "just avoid those spells" issue, but it plays more into the mundane penalty which, while still avoidable by being antisocial, is more likely to come up and be a penalty for the character.
LOL, I applaud your luck in tablemates if you feel you have to give incentives to get them to act like jerks.
Seriously, I have to agree with Isaac's points about avoidability of the drawback, perhaps also ad penalties to bluff, because no one wants to admit a jerk is ever right, as the forums clearly illustrate. Also dump sense motive, jerks by definition lack sensitivity. Perhaps add a dodge bonus or even a reflex bonus since they may not be attuned to others emotions, they are more used to being attacked. Instead of summoned creatures sticking around longer perhaps some form of a taunt might be more thematic.
-3 on all divinational spells because all the powers that be are trying even harder to mislead them.
I'll have to check my book, but I think Oracles should have access to all divinational spells, normally. If a jerk botches contact other plane, will anybody be able to tell?
I checked, and for some strange reason, Oracles don't have access to any sorc./wis. divinational spells.
Further notes, the lore mystery gives them some access.