So as to not clutter up other threads, I'd like to move discussions about Oracles in PF2 over here.
So, just like it says on the title. As one of the most popular classes from PF1, we're certainly going to have oracles in PF2 at some point. What do you all think they'll look like (mechanically, flavorully, etc.) Will they be a full class all by themselves, with all the subclasses and multiclass archetype support that implies? Or might they become a subclass to another class themselves, a sidecar attachment to either the cleric or sorcerer?
My own preference would be for them to become a full class. That's the only way I can see the page count and feats needed to get the mix and match of curse and mysteries onto paper, but I'll admit I'm at a bit of a loss on how that might look. Perhaps they'll combine some aspects of a a barbarian instinct for the curse, and champion's cause feats for the mystery?
I'd also be delighted if their version of the spellstrike feat bestowed all the drawbacks of your curse but none of the benefits onto an enemy.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think that Oracle will be a full class but they will be basically Divine Bards, same amount of spell slots, Mysteries will work like Muses, revelations will be class feats, curses could give class exclusive cantrips.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm certain that Oracles will be a full class. I would expect them to be structured more or less like Sorcerers. Even down to variable spell lists. I mean, if you've got a Nature mystery and an Occult mystery, it'd be weird if they didn't get the Primal and Occult spell lists, respectively.
The differences from Sorcerer will come from all the other class features.
They might look a lot like the sorcerer with diferent spell list depending on the patron
There's no decent way to make them an archetype, they have to be a class.
A cha based spontaneous divine caster with a choice of mystery and curse. A really don't like curses so I hope there's not too much to them automatically, just feats if you want them more emphasized. Mysteries should include bonus spells, and some mysteries could have feats that grant more. But I hope their power comes mostly from things other than spells and have 3 spells per level like a bard/cleric instead of 4 like a wizard/sorcerer. I would like if mysteries had interesting cantrips, focus powers, or other activities to work with weapons or spells. I think the mysteries should determine some of the proficiency gains on level up like the doctrines of the cleric, some mysteries were more spell casting focused and some were more weapon focused, but that could also be done with extra proficiencies granted by mysteries or class feats.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As a unique class, are they even going to exist. A a spontaneous divine caster, doesn't that role already get filled by divine sorcerers?
Having the occult sorcerer be a spontaneous occult caster didn't get in the Bard's way any.
|
Yeah, I'm positive that, given its popularity and the open niche for a spontaneous Divine caster (rather than the Sorcerer's niche as a modular caster), it will happen.
As to what it will look like? No clue. I suspect it will wind up with more spells than Bard or Cleric, but even that is only a suspicion, and if they do it right it'll vary a lot by Mystery.
As a unique class, are they even going to exist. A a spontaneous divine caster, doesn't that role already get filled by divine sorcerers?
I could see them as a set of archetypes, which would define your mystery and associated curse, and then adding revelations and curse step-ups with feats...
Yeah, they’ll probably exist. They were one of the most popular classes in PF1 by Paizo’s data . Occult has both Bard and Sorcerer, so I wouldn’t dismiss Sorc as covering all spontaneous casters for the rest of the game.
I personally want a dedicated spontaneous caster for each of Divine, Primal, and Arcane. Having the sorcerer for "I have special magic from my blood" concepts is enough thematic space.
It's not like you can't differentiate these classes right out of the gate- one reason the oracle should be different from the divine sorcerer is "d8 hit die and better armor proficiencies."
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Does that also suggest we should get a prepared occult caster?I personally want a dedicated spontaneous caster for each of Divine, Primal, and Arcane. Having the sorcerer for "I have special magic from my blood" concepts is enough thematic space.
It's not like you can't differentiate these classes right out of the gate- one reason the oracle should be different from the divine sorcerer is "d8 hit die and better armor proficiencies."
Yeah, and dollars to doughnuts that'll be the Witch.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Does that also suggest we should get a prepared occult caster?I personally want a dedicated spontaneous caster for each of Divine, Primal, and Arcane. Having the sorcerer for "I have special magic from my blood" concepts is enough thematic space.
It's not like you can't differentiate these classes right out of the gate- one reason the oracle should be different from the divine sorcerer is "d8 hit die and better armor proficiencies."
For symmetry I think there should be plans for 10 caster classes, a dedicated prepared and dedicated spontaneous caster for each of the 4 lists, a spontaneous caster who can pick a list (i.e. the sorcerer) and a prepared caster who can pick a list.
If they do decide to do the two missing lists implied by opposed essences (mental/material and spiritual/vital) then we can get 4 new classes.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Oracle switching spell lists based on their mystery doesn't make as much thematic sense as the Sorcerer; the Oracle's powers explicitly come from unasked for divine intervention. Nature magic that comes from Gozreh breaking your legs is still going to be divine.
|
|
Oracle switching spell lists based on their mystery doesn't make as much thematic sense as the Sorcerer; the Oracle's powers explicitly come from unasked for divine intervention. Nature magic that comes from Gozreh breaking your legs is still going to be divine.
Yeah, I can sorta see the argument for a Witch to be a modular caster (though I still think they fit better as Occult), but Oracle? That just kinda falls apart thematically real quick.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I don't especially see why it would look very different than PF1. Mysteries are basically just bloodlines or instincts, and revelations are just class feats. Seems pretty straightforward to me.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I figure the Oracle would be like the Wizard- you pick two different things. IIRC, a wizard chooses both a thesis and an arcane school, so an oracle would choose both a mystery (the main "class path") and a curse.
Although, oracle mysteries included like a dozen different revelations in PF1, so I'm not sure if gating so many feats behind a level 1 choice is necessary. I wonder if this couldn't work like druid orders, where choosing class feats that line up with your class path has extra effects. So all oracles could get "Gaze of Flames", for example, but it would have a stronger effect for Flame mystery Oracles.
I don't realy see much problem with Mystery Revelations being "gated behind a level 1 choice",
and I would say the same applies to Curse, with actual Feats determining how it's benefits scale up,
which of course yields more unique combos of builds etc rather than Curse just being one single choice.
(that also allows for people who just want to keep relatively penalizing Curse, and not alter it's effects, instead focusing elsewhere)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Well, the problem is just in gating a dozen or more things behind a single choice. Bloodlines have like three powers so we can print a bunch of those but "each mystery needs 10 feats, which can only be taken by people with that mystery" is a lot of page space which is only relevant to a small number of characters.
Personally, I'm not going to bet on Bloodlines forever having only 3 BL-specific Feats. ;-)
Anyhow, while I don't have any problem with alot of stuff being "gated behind Mysteries" per se, I'd agree with broader point that class has alot of room for stuff that ISN'T related to that. Generic "Spontaneous Casting of X type" is definitely not basis of class given the new Sorceror, and Mysteries as unique Focus Powers aren't so different from Bloodlines, so we must look elsewhere.
Obviously Curse is a major element to look at, that has potential to go well beyond what 1E did. I already suggested Curse effect scaling may depend on optional Feats, independent of Mystery (but also potentially specific to them). Spending Focus on Curse ability could be crux of cycle dynamic, esp for those buying into it (Feats). I could see Grit-like mechanic, trigger actions to regen Focus/ reduce Power cost, or alter Curse effect. This could be valid path to focus on possibly without even taking any Mystery specific Feats.
I also see room to explore the nature of their divine provenance...
Exploring affinities/hostilities/vulnerabilities based on shared Domains (tied to Mystery), i.e. when fighting Clerics or minions or other monsters related to Deities implicated in their Mystery, there is pros/cons they encounter. This could include Feat options to focus on embracing/rejecting certain subsets of this, e.g. becoming enemy of X Deity/Clerics, or becoming heraldric ally of X Deity/Clerics, which might involve creative take on Divine Anathema, miming them or mocking them. Some of this could be exclusive to each Mystery, and some could cross Mysteries, given that Deities of course have multiple Domains their divine power is entwined with.
re: Concern of narrow game relevance, these seem "harvestable" by broad array of characters including Clerics/Champions, who could Feat into this mechanic without fully Multiclassing into Oracle... To specialize in opposing enemies of their Diety, or so exemplifying their Deity they suffer Curse penalties if not maximally fulfilling it's Anathema?
So that is like 3 distinct mode of Feat specialization, all of those base mechanics could be relevant to every Oracle, but a given Oracle could be able to spend Feats only in one area, and the impact of each area would vary depending on how a given Oracle focuses on each area.
Well, the problem is just in gating a dozen or more things behind a single choice. Bloodlines have like three powers so we can print a bunch of those but "each mystery needs 10 feats, which can only be taken by people with that mystery" is a lot of page space which is only relevant to a small number of characters.
It is a valid concern, but there were also a lot of revelations that were basically shared between mysteries. So there is some room to work with there. Also, wasn't this basically true in PF1? Bloodlines seem like they'd take up significantly less page space there, too.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
i feel two spontaneous casters that can choose their spell list are inevitably going to step on each others toes in some very odd ways at some point down the road. Also they would undoubtedly be pitted against one another in constant comparisons for ‘which is better at what?’ If they get to choose their spell list then they are better as an Archetype. Mysteries would work like Bloodlines and Curses could work like Powers/Focus-Spells.
The temptation and justification for ‘pick your spell list’ is certainly there, and i see where people are coming from, but i feel it would be a bad choice down the road; if not immediately.
An idea to try might be to let Mysteries ‘cheat’ the spell list system similar to Domains and have Curses be Focus-Spell based with either restrictions or a drawback of some kind.
Curses will admittedly be a difficult one to figure out in general. In PF1e they were pretty serious drawbacks that gave you powerful features in return at higher level. Should they be something you can buy into as a ‘high risk high reward?’ Or as a class feature similar to the Champions’ Code?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Oracles should be divine spontaneous casters, one of the important roles that oracles fill in the diagesis is "represent a divine spellcasting tradition for cultures whose religious tradition does not involve gods and godesses". However, mysteries should give you select spells from other lists, which you would not normally have access to (like how deities and bloodlines do this).
Like a flames oracle should be a spontaneous divine caster who can cast fireball. If you wanted to also be able to cast lightning bolt and cone of cold you should be a sorcerer, wizard, or druid but you can have produce flame, continual flame, flaming sphere, wall of fire, etc.
I'm curious now if Oracles will have mystery-related anathema. I don't think they should; their curse should more than cover this conceptual space, but a post in the "New classes" thread made me start to wonder.
Does that also suggest we should get a prepared occult caster?I personally want a dedicated spontaneous caster for each of Divine, Primal, and Arcane. Having the sorcerer for "I have special magic from my blood" concepts is enough thematic space.
It's not like you can't differentiate these classes right out of the gate- one reason the oracle should be different from the divine sorcerer is "d8 hit die and better armor proficiencies."
For symmetry I think there should be plans for 10 caster classes, a dedicated prepared and dedicated spontaneous caster for each of the 4 lists, a spontaneous caster who can pick a list (i.e. the sorcerer) and a prepared caster who can pick a list.
If they do decide to do the two missing lists implied by opposed essences (mental/material and spiritual/vital) then we can get 4 new classes.
This is a cool idea and makes some degree of sense. I wonder what 10 could shake down into though?
Arcane: Wizard, (?)
Occult: Witch, Bard
Divine: Cleric, Oracle
Primal: Druid, Shaman (?)
Multi: (?), Sorcerer
So is it your suggestion that there is a new , arcane only, spontaneous caster ? I am not sure that will happen.
If we assume it is then the spaces seem to be :
- Spontaneous Arcane (assuming not sorcerer so warlock perhaps)
- Spontaneous Primal (my guess was shaman)
- Prepared Multiple list - no idea here
I guess another option could be some kind of occultist as the Occult prepared caster and witch picking of different lists depending on the patron?
Does that also suggest we should get a prepared occult caster?I personally want a dedicated spontaneous caster for each of Divine, Primal, and Arcane. Having the sorcerer for "I have special magic from my blood" concepts is enough thematic space.
It's not like you can't differentiate these classes right out of the gate- one reason the oracle should be different from the divine sorcerer is "d8 hit die and better armor proficiencies."
For symmetry I think there should be plans for 10 caster classes, a dedicated prepared and dedicated spontaneous caster for each of the 4 lists, a spontaneous caster who can pick a list (i.e. the sorcerer) and a prepared caster who can pick a list.
If they do decide to do the two missing lists implied by opposed essences (mental/material and spiritual/vital) then we can get 4 new classes.
This is a cool idea and makes some degree of sense. I wonder what 10 could shake down into though?
Arcane: Wizard, (?)
Occult: Witch, Bard
Divine: Cleric, Oracle
Primal: Druid, Shaman (?)
Multi: (?), SorcererSo is it your suggestion that there is a new , arcane only, spontaneous caster ? I am not sure that will happen.
If we assume it is then the spaces seem to be :
- Spontaneous Arcane (assuming not sorcerer so warlock perhaps)
- Spontaneous Primal (my guess was shaman)
- Prepared Multiple list - no idea hereI guess another option could be some kind of occultist as the Occult prepared caster and witch picking of different lists depending on the patron?
Not that I agree with it but I could see something like
Arcane: wizard, summonerOccult: Psychic, Bard
Divine: Cleric, oracle
primal: Druid, shaman
multi: witch, sorcerer
then again i like the concept in theory I would prefer if the designers didn't hamstring themselves with the restriction as it might find certain classes be cut to fit a mold, as opposed to come up the mechanics from the fantasy of the class, or limits potential other options.
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think symmetry is the last thing the devs should be thinking about. Sure, ideally we don't want too many or too few classes using a given tradition, but what's most important is that the choices make sense, are flavorful and all-around cool. If they start going "Oh we need to have another primal class for symmetry" the results will inevitably be s+&&ty.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
We have enough classes from PF1 which slot into all but a few of the 10 spots though, so there's no reason not to start down that path.
We have the Oracle for the spont divine, the Shaman can easily be the spont primal ("asking the spirits for help" is IMO inherently spontaneous magic), and the Witch is either the prepared occult caster or the prepared "pick-a-list" caster.
So we've got only 2 holes to fill then.
I do really want the Shaman back for the thematics of it since like "animism, or ancestor worship" does not slot neatly into the cleric or druid and these are religious traditions we already have on Golarion. I think the Occultist actually makes some sense as the prepared Occult caster- sure they were spontaneous in PF1 but "I have to choose which implements I want to invest how much mental focus into" is not wholly different from "preparing spells" and you could give them a "shift focus" mechanic like that one Wizard thesis which lets them change what they have prepared.
Yeah, but the case of Magus could easily fit into two places; Arcane or Multi. Magus could technically have a spont variant as well, but that’s farther down the speculation rabbit hole. So symmetry should be considered but not held to.
I could see Arcanist being the spontaneous...er, Arcanist. It'd be a weird version of spontaneous, but it might fit the paradigm of Arcane.
I just don't see anything about 'divine sorcerer' that necessitates it being a separate class.
"Divine Sorcerer" doesn't deserve to be a class, no. But "accessed the fundamental truths of reality that mortals were not meant to know, which messes you up" and "cursed by the gods with powers you didn't ask for, which come at a price" are worthier of being a class than the sorcerer itself is.
Of all the PF1 classes, the Oracle had far and away the most evocative thematics, so it deserves to be a class for that alone, no matter how it works.
I really can't get behind Shaman being Spontaneous Primal at all. It's 1E manifestation is nothing like that. It's a more flexible approach than Cleric Domains in 1E, and maybe you could stretch that to say it's half-way to Arcanist. I'd even accept it working 80% like Arcanist, but they are not 1-trick show horses, they dig deep to grab what's needed for the day, in fact EVEN MORE SO than a Cleric.
And it's not like there is even "Spontaneous Primal" hole to fill. Primal Sorcerors already do that.
But more fundamentally, I don't see Shamans as Primal casters. Yeah, sure encroaching on it some. But if they are really spread across Primal, Occult, and Divine, I would say Occult works better as a base to expand from (re: off-list spells, abilities), as well as closely matching their Witch Hex roots. They really are way better at dealing with eldritch planar horrors and psychic corruptions, in a way that is way more Witch or Cleric than Druid.
And I really like Shaman if you couldn't tell ;-)
About Arcanist that AnimatedPaper mentioned... I think that they could just be a wizard school/thesis or an archetype that gives spontaneous casters more signature spells.
I don't think Oracles really need to be a class.
I mean, PF1 Oracles are basically sorcerers with mysteries being refluffed and tweaked bloodlines, so why not just go all the way with that?
I just don't see anything about 'divine sorcerer' that necessitates it being a separate class.
I feel the same, but I think that they will be a class just for popularity sake or lore.
I just hope that they don't make Divine Sorcerers an worse divine spontaneous caster when compared with each other because Oracles had better armor and hp dice, so I expect that Oracles have the same amount of spell slots than an bard.
If we were to make the oracle a sorcerer archetype we would have to trade away "Bloodline" which would render every single sorcerer feat and feature which references bloodline inaccessible and you would be down your level 2 feat, so you're inherently less customizable.
At this point, why not make a class. I strongly disagree that classes are packages of mechanics, nothing less. A class is a package of mechanics that are intended to represent a range of thematic niches. Like the reason the PF1 core monk was a bad class was not "you can't build a good one"- it's just that the good one has to be an archer, a wrestler, wears armor and rides a horse, a drunk, or some specific magical thing. Core monk fails as a class because the mechanics fail to represent the fantasy of "wandering martial artist" in a broad fashion. If we gave PF1 fighters 9th level spells, we would make them better, but they wouldn't be better fighters- they would be less-fightery fighters.
Class mechanics should follow theme, not the other way around.
I'm not actually that concerned over Divine Sorceror / Oracle overlap, although I get why it might immediately appear to be a concern. People fixate on [Magic Type] [Casting Type], but IMHO spell slots are less important part of things over all anyways. Curse has plenty of scope for huge impact (more than 1E) which I expect to include totally different dynamic re: Focus (Burn might be analog for escalating Curse, mixed with compulsory Anathema). IMHO, the Bloodlines and Mysteries really don't overlap much, Undead/Bones is the difference between BEING Undead and being a Necromancer. Celestial/Life is the difference between Angels and a Positive Elemental, I would expect Celestial abilities to really gravitate more towards Champion in some ways than Life Oracle.
I feel like "make X a kind of sorcerer" is inherently a non-starter because the sine qua non of the sorcerer is "you have special blood." We don't need bards to be sorcerers, since bards need not have special blood, so I don't know why we would ask oracles and hypothetical spontaneous and primal casters to have special blood.
Sorcerers get to choose their spell lists because "your blood can be special in different ways, and it makes more sense that angel blood gives you divine spells, etc. than for everything to give you arcane spells" not to elbow out potential later classes.
Oracles make more sense as an archetype of the Cleric than they do an archetype of the Sorcerer.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Divine Sorcerer" doesn't deserve to be a class, no. But "accessed the fundamental truths of reality that mortals were not meant to know, which messes you up" and "cursed by the gods with powers you didn't ask for, which come at a price" are worthier of being a class than the sorcerer itself is.They're the same thing, though. Even your flowery description of their identity sounds an awful lot like a sorcerer if you take away the part about gods.
That you don't like sorcerers doesn't really change the realities of what the Oracle is.
Of all the PF1 classes, the Oracle had far and away the most evocative thematics, so it deserves to be a class for that alone, no matter how it works.Classes are packages of mechanics. If the mechanics doesn't need a new chassis to pull it off, it seems wasteful to spend time engineering one.
A sorcerer archetype that appropriately renames its abilities and options gives you everything you want with less unnecessary overhead.
They are not, actually. Flavor wise, there's a world of difference between getting your magic from your grandma being an angel vs being chosen by a god for mysterious purposes.
For crunch, there's room to have a spontaneous occult caster besides the sorcerer and have it feel distinct. No reason the Oracle can't exist as a class that gets 8 hit points per class level and 3 slots per spell level, plus weapons and armor proficiency and some unique features. You could make their revelations like 5e warlock invocations that a small number of spells as at will abilities.
If anything, I'd say it's real competition is the cleric, who shares the same chassis and gets the incredibly powerful channel energy.
They are not, actually. Flavor wise, there's a world of difference between getting your magic from your grandma being an angel vs being chosen by a god for mysterious purposes.
For crunch, there's room to have a spontaneous occult caster besides the sorcerer and have it feel distinct. No reason the Oracle can't exist as a class that gets 8 hit points per class level and 3 slots per spell level, plus weapons and armor proficiency and some unique features. You could make their revelations like 5e warlock invocations that a small number of spells as at will abilities.
If anything, I'd say it's real competition is the cleric, who shares the same chassis and gets the incredibly powerful channel energy.
I literally have nothing against the class, I just wish that it's mechanically different, the Aberrant Sorcerer and Bard are both Occult casters, but they felt totally different, with Sorcerer having better Focus spells and spellcasting while Bard have better skills, support and cantrips.
Having it working the way that you put, 3 slots per spell level, better armor and Revelations with something similar to 5e Warlock Invocations would be different enough for me per example. Maybe even having some more powerful Revelations that when used activates the curse.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think that [Arcanists] could just be a wizard school/thesis or an archetype that gives spontaneous casters more signature spells.
I do agree, and even think an Archetype could be written 'from 2 directions' to be applicable to both Wizard AND Arcane Sorceror, with one simply having prepared bias and the other spontaneous bias. But regardless of Arcanist being Archetype like that or it's own class (I prefer archetype at this point because nobody seems to actually believe Arcanist has unique flavor justification, it's just alternate casting ruleset), I acknowledge Arcanist casting as useful reference point given other classes could use it or similar mechanic.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
With this being a new edition, Oracle's can be made even more distinct from the Cleric and Sorcerer. That is what happened with the Sorcerer, certainly. For me, I see a class as something that provides a wide base of abilities and I think the Oracle still qualifies for that. Between the curse, mystery, and combat abilities in a PF1 Oracle, it had certainly secured its place.
Being a better warrior (BAB/Armor proficiences/HP or the PF2 equivalents) already throws it into a different style, then you add in the Curses and Mysteries, which have a larger effect then sorcerer blood lines do, they're very different classes.
Despite both being spontaneous divine casters. Much like the bard is a different spontaneous occult caster than the sorcerer. You could go reductionist and just make 2 caster classes: spontaneous and prepared, each with options to pick a spell list, but the game chassis encourages breaking things out into multiple classes.
I don't necessarily expect much "2E equivalent to BAB" between Sorceror and Oracle, everybody gets +Level and I don't see major proficiency boosts being necessarily hard-wired into Oracle, aside from specific Mysteries. I don't really expect Mysteries to have more effect than Bloodlines, with evevrbody using Class Feats for that now. I would agree Curse has more potential for differentiating them, but not so much because of it's 1E heritage... I actually expect Curse to be MORE developed in 2E than 1E (possibly to different degrees, depending on each Oracle's Feat choices), which I alluded to by tying Curse to Focus and Burn.
My previous post went into how the Mystery and Bloodline themes aren't really very close to each other at all. Although there might be Bloodlines not yet existent/revealed which might threaten overlap more, that would just call for stricter ensurance of distinction. How Elemental Bloodlines, including Positive/Negative Elemental, work might be most challenging case. Although even then, the Oracle would be Divine while Sorceror would be either Arcane or Primal(?) so I'm not too worried about differentiation.
I definitely agree with your broader point that reducing things to crude elements e.g. Spontaneous and Divine misses way to much to actually be of relevance.
If you disagree about the absurd degree of thematic and mechanical overlap here, how would you differentiate Oracles from Divine Sorcerers and Clerics? What would you do to make it obvious that they're completely distinct classes that don't step on each others toes in any meaningful way?
I agree that, in Pathfinder 1, Oracles aren't much more than Sorcerers with the divine spell list and slightly different mechanics (Mysteries being essentially Bloodlines, Revelations being slightly more customizable Bloodline Powers, Curses being much like Bloodline Arcana, etc.). The flavor is much different, but the mechanics match up fairly closely.
However, I think both mechanically and thematically that the most interesting aspect of the Oracle is the interplay between Curses and Revelations. There is so much room to work with with them to make Oracles feel incredibly different than both Clerics and Sorcerers.
I'm not actually that concerned over Divine Sorceror / Oracle overlap, although I get why it might immediately appear to be a concern. People fixate on [Magic Type] [Casting Type], but IMHO spell slots are less important part of things over all anyways. Curse has plenty of scope for huge impact (more than 1E) which I expect to include totally different dynamic re: Focus (Burn might be analog for escalating Curse, mixed with compulsory Anathema).
I think this points out the crux of it. There's much that can be done mechanically with Curses alone to allow for a great deal of flexibility, while still enabling character concepts that would be much harder to achieve via a divine Sorcerer.
I think it would be interesting to do away with Mysteries entirely and channeling all of the Oracle's features through their curse. Whether through expanding via focus spells, or allowing players to select stronger spells from different spell lists as their curse grows more debilitating, or something similar to the Kineticist's Burn.
I think Oracles being a subset of Sorcerer would be as needlessly limiting as Bards being a subset of Sorcerer.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The niche you're asking to be enabled already exists, but instead of just wanting that to be expanded you want Paizo to make an entirely new class that fundamentally encapsulates extremely similar concepts and pretty much identical mechanics.
Okay, but you have to be the one to tell Bard that he’s gonna get wrapped up into a Sorc Archetype for being too similar. I just don’t have the heart to do it myself.
On a more serious note; similarity does not equal mimicry. Being able to jury-rig a concept from a base class isn’t a critique against the class concept itself; it’s actually just being lazy. You do bring up a good example with Magus and Swashbuckler. A Swashbuckler right now would be indistinguishable from a one-handed weapon fighter; maybe they can add more to this or maybe they can’t. Magus on the other hand was most likely designed because of a void in PF1e like you mentioned, but the problem is in PF1e it gained a specific and unique identity that can’t be copied into 2e like Swashbuckler currently; so Magus could actually be justified as a full class.
On to Oracle. A Sorc can not mimic an Oracle. Plain and simple. Neither can a Cleric, Bard or Druid. This means the space is available for the Class to be fleshed out.