Was thinking about this idea after my DM mentioned his group needed a skill monkey, and that the only other healer in the group was a psuedo healer (witch with a bent on summoning.) .... So I figured might as well look into a skill monkeyish type healer... came up with the idea of ninja oracle..
Several mysterious seem to gel well with the ninja, including Shadow, Lore, Reaper, and Intrigue.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
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My suggestion isn't one that blends ninja and oracle, as far as I know there isn't a prestige class that really does this.
My suggestion is to play an Inquisitor. You can make a stealthy character with lots of skills and utility magic, including healing (especially by using wands).
Depending on what you we're looking for from Ninja you could play a Sanctified Slayer Inquisitor, which is a Inquisitor archetype with slayer trappings, including sneak attack.
I personally consider it to be worse than a regular Inquisitor, as I think Sneak Attack is a trap, but ultimately the decision is up to you.
More multiclass than prestige, but Wave offers a revelation to see through mist, that, plus Obscuring Mist and Stealth ranks is a recipe for Sneak Attacks
This is a trap!
Can we please drive a stake in the heart of this whole concept?
Unless your party has a Flame Dancer Bard (or everyone has the goggles/masks to let the one Rogue do his dumb trick), spamming Obscuring Mist, opening an Eversmoking Bottle, and all that other BS is a complete detriment to the party.
I mean it works, but is being a jerk (potentially) to the rest of the party.
My thing is, as a Inquisitor with Judgement, Bane, Greater Bane, Divine Favor, Divine Power, and probably another host of things I'm forgetting, Inquisitor can get incredibly massive bonuses to attack and damage rolls. You can TWF as an Inquisitor and get most of your bonus attack and damage from class abilities and spells and out pace most other characters pretty well. As opposed to trying to make sneak attack happen all the time with some crazy builds that require 5 feats to make happen.
IMO if you goal is damage there are much easier and better ways of doing it than using sneak attack. Unless you just want the challenge.
what about prestige class that just combines divine spellcasting with requirments of a rogue? like how arcane trickers works. also im looking into the inquisitor and the investigator.
I don't think there is a prestige class that combines divine spell casting with rogue stuff, but I don't know all of the prestige classes. That was actually what I looked for originally rather than a specific ninja oracle combination.
I don't think there is a prestige class that combines divine spell casting with rogue stuff, but I don't know all of the prestige classes. That was actually what I looked for originally rather than a specific ninja oracle combination.
oh... Dang, well I've narrowed it down to Hexenhammer Inquisitor which sounds cool. The Investigator... and the Arcanist "White Mage" in which case I figured being a human with fast learner meant I'd have a good amount of skill points to work with anyway, and lastly the Shadow Mystery Oracle.
I don't think there is a prestige class that combines divine spell casting with rogue stuff, but I don't know all of the prestige classes. That was actually what I looked for originally rather than a specific ninja oracle combination.
There is nothing like that in Pathfinder, but I think either Complete Divine or Complete Champion for D&D 3.5 may have had something along those lines.
Technically, arcane trickster can advance a divine spellcasting class's spellcasting ability. The entry requirements make that prospect difficult, though. And you'd be losing advancement in oracle revelations.
I think you're out of luck on this one without homebrewing.
Tengus have their weird ki-using oracle archetype, if that's what you're after ? Not comparable, but heh.
Actually, what do you want from the ninja ?
If it's just the skill points, there are some fairly skill-monkeyish caster PrC, but not many ki or sneak attack based ones I can think of.
Most of the 6 lv casters/extracters could do what you seem to want at least a bit, Magus excluded.
If not, Arcane Trickster through an arcane caster with access to the Cure spells ?
If you're really attached to the Oracle bit, it's not really multiclass or PrC friendly. Losing both spells and Revelations hurts.
If you're looking at D&D 3.5 there's the black flame zealot and temple radier of olidammara. Both of these mix cleric with rogue, the 3.0 version of the raider was essentially a VMC cleric/rogue. Otherwise it really depends on what you mean by "rogue stuff".
An oracle with the seeker archetype gets trapfinding. If you mean sneak attack specifically, as blahpers pointed out arcane trickster is probably your best option for a prestige class that advances both sneak attack and spell casting. You could take the eldritch scoundrel archetype to qualify and then mix it with a divine spell casting class and accomplished sneak attacker to minimize wasted levels.
If you're deadset on oracle, probably your best option is to be a straight oracle (since it doesn't play nice with any prestige classes, unlike every other divine class), take the seeker archetype for trapfinding and deific obedience for sneak attack (you can get anywhere from +2d6 to +5d6 depending on which option you pick).
Some other options that mix "rogue abilities" with divine spell casting.
Divine casters with sneak attack:
Druid with nature's fang archetype
Inquisitor with Sanctified Slayer archetype
Warpriest with the cult leader or Mantis Zealot archetype
Cleric, Druid or Inquisitor with the Crocodile domain
Divine casters with trapsense and trapfinding:
Cleric, Druid or Inquistor with the Jungle Domain+[EWP whip or Hierloom Weapon(whip) Trait]+Consortium Agent PRC
Skill Focus[disable device] + Imp. Eldritch Heritage[Kobold] + [EWP whip or Hierloom Weapon(whip) Trait]+ Consortium Agent
Trapfinding Any Class:
Dark Delver PRC(1 level dip)
Trap Finder (Trait)
It's of course possible to combine things such that you end up with both trapfinding and sneak attack (some combinations work better then others)
when I was thinking about rogue stuff, i meant being able to use a lot of skills effectively.. the skill monkey. I figured Ninja and Oracle had the most synergy.
when I was thinking about rogue stuff, i meant being able to use a lot of skills effectively.. the skill monkey. I figured Ninja and Oracle had the most synergy.
Quite frankly, Ninja isn't really good at using "a lot of skills effectively", as they don't have much that improves skills, and thus don't really offer much beyond raw skill ranks. Real "skill monkey"* classes would be Bard and Investigator - bonus to skills, better class skills, and spells to further expand the repertoire.
*) Although I hate that term, as it implies skills are your character's main focus, something that's never a sensible thing to do.
But the real question is, why do you need those skills? Quite frankly, I challenge the GM's statement that "his group need[s] a skill monkey", unless he means "anything with more than five skill ranks per level", at which point you're good to go with the Cunning feat and the +1 skill rank FCB.
Oracle is a full caster, which means you can circumvent a lot of skill challenges with spells (and possibly revelations).
There aren't any prestiger classes that fully advance spellcasting that have more han 4 skill ranks/level. Gray Gardener and Sphere Singer grant 6 skills/level and only lose out on a single casting level (which means you need Prestigious Spellcaster once), plus one extra feat for either to fulfill the prereqs. Evangelist would be a possibility, with full class progression after the first level and 6 skills/level. You can't get the caster level back, though.
Classes that are good at skill have more than just the number of skill ranks per level. They usually have special abilities that either increases the bonuses to those skills or lets you do unusual things with them.
Like a Bard with Versatile Performance or an Inquisitor with Monster Lore or Stern Gaze.
Honestly, having max skill ranks per level is the "bare minimum" of using a skill IMO. Which is to say that in parties if you have less than max ranks for you level in a skill, and someone else has that skill, you've probably wasted your ranks in that skill. Chances are that you will always end up second fiddle. It wont always be the case, but on average it will.
You want to get something that adds to skills beyond raw number of skills per level.
If you want a skill monkey with casting and healing I honestly suggest you just play a bard. Heck, you don't even have to play a buffer bard. You can play one of the selfish archetypes that only buffs you. You still have all the skills, most of those archetypes I think keep versatile performance. You have casting, including cure light wounds.
Is the OP still looking for ideas? As if you want to dip a level of Dreamthief you will get your rogue class bonuses and skill ranks to a bunch of non-oracle skills, without the Sneak that Claxon doesn't like (plus a free feat depending on which focus you pick {as the "spirit" i.e. Dreamshard is *always* in your head}, bonuses to attack once a round, and your rogue level in "free" skill points to 2 skills depending on focus).
You could even stack that with Nameless Shadow archetype , to get a "mundane" secret identity and bonuses to attack in the first round... (although you would lose the trap stuff however; if you are still planning mostly Oracle, trample a bunch of summoned shadow creatures through areas that will set most traps off)
I have a possible (not completely optimised) NamelessShadow+Dreamthief1/Shadow Oracle(Lorekeeper)9/Evangelist{PrC} coming up next year sometime if I can get it right, if you don't mind losing Oracle capstone (which I'm not bothered about, but not 100% locked into this combo yet), Prestigious Spellcaster is retroactive so you should be able to get the spellcasting level back but not the last two revelations.
Now, if you want to buff your stealth/sneaky powers a different way than Not taking shadow oracle, there's Dip 1 Oracle level just to get a handy few 1st level divine spells, Lore Mystery and the CHA to Know skills which will mean you can spend some skill points elsewhere (and extra revelation or a ring to get the CHA AC bonus), then take Umbral Scion or Shadow Sorcerer for your shadow work, and even if you did take Evangelist PrC there's a way of boosting your Sorcerer Level to get the Capstone if you want...
or there's always taking Eldritch/Exotic Heritage route:
Skill Focus (Stealth), Eldritch(Shadow) Sorcerer Bloodline powers (Shadowstrike {a bit meh but handy when you run out of other attacks and can buff non-lethal}, then the Shadow Well)
or
Exotic Heritage (which counts as a lesser skill focus to get the Wildblooded Heritages) Eldritch Heritage(Umbral) for Cloak of Shadows, then Shadow Well...
The above Heritage route could go well with several archetypes mentioned in above posts... and also you can build a stealthy Evangelist (Cleric not PrC)?
If you are needing those skills to be a Face, then there are a lot of ways to Face a party than Charisma alone
If you are after Divine spells with face skill buffs, possibly a Dandy Ranger (takes the bard spell list and uses CHA, but doesn't say it changes to Arcane) or Filidh Bard (which changes spells to Divine) or somesuch...