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One debate that is occurring across a few threads in this forum is should an Oracle's Curse be always on or tied to the uses of the Revelation spells?
I say put me down for the curse being always on. If it is tied to usage of Revelation spells it is too easy to opt out of a major part of the theme of the class. In PF1 curses were always on. They never increased or decreased in intensity.
I started thinking about why I liked my Oracle from 1st edition. I liked that I could create a healer that had more freedom in spell usage. Unlike a Cleric, I could cast whatever I wanted whenever I wanted assuming I had spell slots left. I was more limited than a Cleric yet I had more freedom. The curse was something that I used to help flesh out who my Oracle was. I went with the language curse because it was interesting to start speaking a language no one else in the party understood during combat.
In PF2 I still have the limited flexibility that I had in 1e. I'm good with that.
As it stands right now I can create a Life Oracle and take her to level 20 and never once get hit with a curse. At all. That doesn't seem right. Or thematically appropriate.
For the people that want curses tied to revelation spellcasting - why?
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Personally, I absolutely love tying the curse mechanic to the revelation spell. I think it makes the Oracle stand out as a fascinating and unique class, rather than just a cleric without a god who gets to spontaneously cast spells and have a high charisma.
It creates interesting moments in combat of having to chose a useful ability and suffer the consequences, or try to ride the situation out without it. It is a massive difference from PF1, so I get why some folks aren't excited by it, but I like enough to have adapted it as mechanic to give to characters other than oracles as a corruption mechanic and it is working brilliantly and tempting characters to utilize great power, but seeing the consequences for doing so immediately. They are freaked out, but unable to resist using their powers and it is a lot of fun.
I am very much impressed with how innovative and interesting the mechanic is.
Even if it is still dynamic and scaling from Revelation Spells, I'd prefer there to be some static part of it. I do agree I'd prefer it to be static entirely, or scale as you level but effectively still be static.
My Bones Oracle in 1e took Wasting because it was thematic to be rotting away, leaving the BONES, yess-yess. I also basically played them as a Skaven, as they were Ratfolk.
The other part of the curse I dislike is when you go too hard, you get knocked unconscious for 8 hours. That doesn't feel fair to the party having to carry that character around, or the player who now can't play at all during the rest of the session basically. Someone I was talking with suggested take away their spellcasting for the day. At first I thought that was too harsh, but at least you are awake and can still do other stuff!
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One debate that is occurring across a few threads in this forum is should an Oracle's Curse be always on or tied to the uses of the Revelation spells?
I say put me down for the curse being always on. If it is tied to usage of Revelation spells it is too easy to opt out of a major part of the theme of the class. In PF1 curses were always on. They never increased or decreased in intensity.
I started thinking about why I liked my Oracle from 1st edition. I liked that I could create a healer that had more freedom in spell usage. Unlike a Cleric, I could cast whatever I wanted whenever I wanted assuming I had spell slots left. I was more limited than a Cleric yet I had more freedom. The curse was something that I used to help flesh out who my Oracle was. I went with the language curse because it was interesting to start speaking a language no one else in the party understood during combat.
In PF2 I still have the limited flexibility that I had in 1e. I'm good with that.
As it stands right now I can create a Life Oracle and take her to level 20 and never once get hit with a curse. At all. That doesn't seem right. Or thematically appropriate.
For the people that want curses tied to revelation spellcasting - why?
I agree that the Minor Curse should be always on, and a hinderance but not deadly or too crippling. Then allow the Oracle to push it 1 or eventually 2 levels higher in order to cast Focus spells without spending a Focus point. But don't make the higher level curse effects require a major change in abilities. That is exactly what I did in my Oracle suggestion. I'd also be fine it you took a feat to raise your Focus point cap to 4 and eventually 5 and increase your curse effects all the time. This way you don't have to remember "This is my character stats at the start of every day, and this is my character's stats after casting a focus spell". That is just annoying and a pain to remember and keep track of.
i don't mind if they would get a lesser curse effect that is always on, but i like the levels (except life) of the mysteries where they're at.
I wrote it elsewhere but I think it got drowned out in a different discussion, what if it were applied similar to a rage?
You can initiate and voluntarily increase it, at increasing benefits to your spellcasting or spell effects while also increasing a particular penalty. I estimated on theory that you could never achieve higher than master in your spellcraft, but that with each increase in revelation/curse you could get up to a +3 or +4 to your modifier (with the heaviest curse), so that if you wanted to burn hot for an increased chance at crits, you could try it? Also while doing out of combat or normal casting without lighting yourself on fire. I dunno.
I think the current system is way too uninflected. You're just a divine caster with a weird focus pool, and that seems way less interesting than oracle deserves. Pretty sure there are a million things wrong with my concept, and it probably even has been brought up before, but I haven't seen it around.
Just feel like oracle needs a much more pronounced risk v reward aspect. Right now it's just so thin.
I have to agree that the Mystery/Burden System needs a revamp. Where it stands, there is no point for a Life Oracle to cast their Revelation spell until they have access to the Moderate Curse same with Battle. All you are doing is gimping yourself for very small gains which isn't worth the risk.
I personally feel like we need more Mysteries to accurately judge the system though. Having only these three doesn't do well for testing the system, they only test those versions of it. Who's to say the next mysteries they come out for us to play test aren't very well suited for the current system.
I know in my current playtesting, I haven't and will not be casting my revelation spell until Moderate Curse is unlocked. And that would go for any of the Mysteries. It's just something you can survive without. But once I get to Major Curse for my Battle Oracle, I'm just going to sit at the major effect of it.
The big problem with the current system is that you can go from level 1 to level 20 and not ever have to deal with the curse. the fact you could play the class for 1000 days and never once have to deal with the curse is fundamental design flaw.
I think we need to separate bad overall mechanic from bad specifics. Is the mechanic as a whole terrible or us it just life and battle?
I agree, it seems like a lot of the hate is directed at feeling like it is the focus power that is unexciting, not the mechanical interaction of the curse and the power. Personally, in regards to the life oracle, I think that the starting focus power is pretty powerful, but it is niche, and thus not really something that comes up often in every encounter. The domain powers you get CAN be much more every combat utilitarian, but I think a lot of the analysis isn't taking that into consideration.
A life oracle can be vastly more powerful than a cloistered cleric, because they can drop their focus power 2 or three times an encounter, all day (as opposed to 2 or 3 times in one encounter, and then just once per encounter for the rest of the day). That is a pretty big mechanical shift. That might not be immediately noticeable to theory crafters.
EDIT: it is not 2 or 3 times per encounter until level 11/17. I mis read the original ability, it is just 1 extra time a day at level 1-10. Maybe pushing that mechanic somehow could achieve better balance.
I don't think it's even life and battle, so much as them not having a great reason to cast their first focus spell (life, especially). I love the mechanic, personally, I'm just unlikely to bother with it until higher level as a Life oracle, unless someone fails a save against a really nasty affliction that I happen to be able to diagnose. The rest of the Revelation is, to me, pretty awesome.
even if you don't like the mystery you can pick up a first level domain spell you do plan to use(it's a normal oracle feat at like 1 or 2nd level).
edit: domain acumen 2nd level.
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The big problem with the current system is that you can go from level 1 to level 20 and not ever have to deal with the curse. the fact you could play the class for 1000 days and never once have to deal with the curse is fundamental design flaw.
Personally, I consider this a major boon over the P1E Oracle, but then, I think we already have everything good the P1E Oracle had (spontaneous spellcasting with the divine spell list) in the P2E Divine Sorcerer. The curse was only ever a burden to be mitigated ASAP (my preference was Legalistic), so I think it's a shame any design space is being committed to it here.
The big problem with the current system is that you can go from level 1 to level 20 and not ever have to deal with the curse. the fact you could play the class for 1000 days and never once have to deal with the curse is fundamental design flaw.Personally, I consider this a major boon over the P1E Oracle, but then, I think we already have everything good the P1E Oracle had (spontaneous spellcasting with the divine spell list) in the P2E Divine Sorcerer. The curse was only ever a burden to be mitigated ASAP (my preference was Legalistic), so I think it's a shame any design space is being committed to it here.
That is definitely a fair position to take. However it does seem odd given the lore and flavor text of the class, that one could achieve level 20 as a oracle and never experienced the curse. If that's the case, the class in my opinion should just be a subclass of the divine sorcerer, it doesn't need to be a separate class.
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That is definitely a fair position to take. However it does seem odd given the lore and flavor text of the class, that one could achieve level 20 as a oracle and never experienced the curse. If that's the case, the class in my opinion should just be a subclass of the divine sorcerer, it doesn't need to be a separate class.The big problem with the current system is that you can go from level 1 to level 20 and not ever have to deal with the curse. the fact you could play the class for 1000 days and never once have to deal with the curse is fundamental design flaw.Personally, I consider this a major boon over the P1E Oracle, but then, I think we already have everything good the P1E Oracle had (spontaneous spellcasting with the divine spell list) in the P2E Divine Sorcerer. The curse was only ever a burden to be mitigated ASAP (my preference was Legalistic), so I think it's a shame any design space is being committed to it here.
People keep saying this, but that would mean never using your Revelation spells. That's like saying you could play a barbarian to level 20 and never use Rage. It is technically accurate, but... So?
I can get behind having an always on portion of the curse for thematic reasons, but no one is going to play the class without experiencing the curse regularly.
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That is definitely a fair position to take. However it does seem odd given the lore and flavor text of the class, that one could achieve level 20 as a oracle and never experienced the curse. If that's the case, the class in my opinion should just be a subclass of the divine sorcerer, it doesn't need to be a separate class.The big problem with the current system is that you can go from level 1 to level 20 and not ever have to deal with the curse. the fact you could play the class for 1000 days and never once have to deal with the curse is fundamental design flaw.Personally, I consider this a major boon over the P1E Oracle, but then, I think we already have everything good the P1E Oracle had (spontaneous spellcasting with the divine spell list) in the P2E Divine Sorcerer. The curse was only ever a burden to be mitigated ASAP (my preference was Legalistic), so I think it's a shame any design space is being committed to it here.People keep saying this, but that would mean never using your Revelation spells. That's like saying you could play a barbarian to level 20 and never use Rage. It is technically accurate, but... So?
I can get behind having an always on portion of the curse for thematic reasons, but no one is going to play the class without experiencing the curse regularly.
it isn't. oracle revelation spells are ok, but the meat of the class are the spells, and secondly there is no reason why a barbarian wouldn't rage, there are great benefits for an oracle not to get the curse, esp when if you are a life oracle, taking healing hands gets you 50% of the moderate curse benefits without the rather nasty effects. honestly that's a no brainer to me.
After play testing the life oracle for nearly about 25 hours so far, I definitely would never use a revelation spell to advance the curse. I took healing hands, advanced and greater revelation and never looked back.
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So, ah, is the Curse fated to turn into the 'Love, Mummy' Curse from ATHF?
Because right now that's what it's kind of feeling like, based on reports?
That is definitely a fair position to take. However it does seem odd given the lore and flavor text of the class, that one could achieve level 20 as a oracle and never experienced the curse. If that's the case, the class in my opinion should just be a subclass of the divine sorcerer, it doesn't need to be a separate class.The big problem with the current system is that you can go from level 1 to level 20 and not ever have to deal with the curse. the fact you could play the class for 1000 days and never once have to deal with the curse is fundamental design flaw.Personally, I consider this a major boon over the P1E Oracle, but then, I think we already have everything good the P1E Oracle had (spontaneous spellcasting with the divine spell list) in the P2E Divine Sorcerer. The curse was only ever a burden to be mitigated ASAP (my preference was Legalistic), so I think it's a shame any design space is being committed to it here.People keep saying this, but that would mean never using your Revelation spells. That's like saying you could play a barbarian to level 20 and never use Rage. It is technically accurate, but... So?
I can get behind having an always on portion of the curse for thematic reasons, but no one is going to play the class without experiencing the curse regularly.
it isn't. oracle revelation spells are ok, but the meat of the class are the spells, and secondly there is no reason why a barbarian wouldn't rage, there are great benefits for an oracle not to get the curse, esp when if you are a life oracle, taking healing hands gets you 50% of the moderate curse benefits without the rather nasty effects. honestly that's a no brainer to me.
After play testing the life oracle for nearly about 25 hours so far, I definitely would never use a revelation spell to advance the curse. I took healing hands, advanced and greater revelation and never looked back.
the oracle class in general is set to let you get a bunch of focus spells (from revelation and domains) and the ability to cast a few per day for free. oracles are definitely set up to be a focus caster.
life mystery though i think is the most unfun to play of the curses, but i don't think this is a problem with curses themselves but just how annoying that curse can be.
Really I feel the big problems here is that Life and Flame just aren't offering enough bang for your buck. Look at Battle for a moment. Fast healing of half your level in battle is well worth the AC and Saving Throw penalty (especially in a system with jank 0 HP mechanics) and its major curse bumps up the fast healing to character level. Fast healing beyond 4 was hard to get for PCs and here we have Fast Healing gatdang 11.
THIS IS ON TOP OF +4 TO DAMAGE! This is worth the stupefied here!
So what do the other curses do? Well at moderate Flame blinds you beyond 30 feet and makes everything else hard to hit unless you use fire in exchange for what? Concealment. A cheap flat check that might not even help. Life is even worse. For shafting any other healer trying to fix you, you have a 33% shot per die of healing more than your previous maximum with heal spells. There's a decent chance at low levels that you get jack shit from this! These are not appropriate boons for the price you are paying, not even with the revelation spells put into consideration.
And that's just the moderate curses. Major? Hoo boy. Life is a bit on the debatable side as spell slots are pitiful here and free heals are free heals, but is it worth taking double the damage and potentially dropping to the floor on a character that can only get back to 1HP from other people? And this is on every 5th level + spell. If this is going to be I thing I think it needs to be allies only, regardless of feats.
Now Flame, dear gods what were they thinking? Take 2d6 damage each round or sacrifice an action. Extreme but this is major curse. The benefit? You get to do 2d6 fire damage to adjacent creatures, and they, not you, get a saving throw on the damage. Wheeeeeeee. Now if instead of doing damage to enemies you gained some kind of bonus to your next fire spell based on the damage you took, that would be pretty tasty. I'm not sure how you would do that though.
TL:DR Battle's curse is fine. The risk on Life and Flame are good but the rewards need improvements.
I first read the Curse description wrong, thinking the Minor Curse activated after casting ANY spell the first time a day. And only further curse stages were tied to revelation spells.
...maybe that would be a nearly always-on compromise. It fits thematically, Oracle uses given magic - gets cursed, that's why I didn't notice my error at first.
Really I feel the big problems here is that Life and Flame just aren't offering enough bang for your buck. Look at Battle for a moment. Fast healing of half your level in battle is well worth the AC and Saving Throw penalty (especially in a system with jank 0 HP mechanics) and its major curse bumps up the fast healing to character level. Fast healing beyond 4 was hard to get for PCs and here we have Fast Healing gatdang 11.
THIS IS ON TOP OF +4 TO DAMAGE! This is worth the stupefied here!
The math on Battle oracle isn't actually all there. The design is to make it more of a martial character, by it never quite gets anywhere near as good as an actual martial character, but quite a bit. +4 damage is nothing compared to the greater weapon specialization that most damage dealer get. And even if you multiclass into barbarian to get the bonus damage to add Rage on top of that it still pales in comparison. Not to mention they have a harder time hitting than a martial character.
Meanwhile Fire Oracles can pretty much burn the world down if they wanted to.
Your comment on the fast healing is note worthy though.
Designer
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The big problem with the current system is that you can go from level 1 to level 20 and not ever have to deal with the curse. the fact you could play the class for 1000 days and never once have to deal with the curse is fundamental design flaw.Personally, I consider this a major boon over the P1E Oracle, but then, I think we already have everything good the P1E Oracle had (spontaneous spellcasting with the divine spell list) in the P2E Divine Sorcerer. The curse was only ever a burden to be mitigated ASAP (my preference was Legalistic), so I think it's a shame any design space is being committed to it here.
Tectorman, I've been thinking about this since I read it yesterday, and I'd love to better understand where you're coming from. Are you saying you feel a divine bloodline sorcerer meets the function that a First Edition oracle had and therefore there's no need for a Second Edition oracle at all? Or do you think there's value in a Second Edition oracle, but that a curse function isn't the direction you'd take it? (Brief edit: both are totally valid positions - I just want to make sure I understand your perspective as well as I can.)
The math on Battle oracle isn't actually all there. The design is to make it more of a martial character, by it never quite gets anywhere near as good as an actual martial character, but quite a bit. +4 damage is nothing compared to the greater weapon specialization that most damage dealer get. And even if you multiclass into barbarian to get the bonus damage to add Rage on top of that it still pales in comparison. Not to mention they have a harder time hitting than a martial character.Really I feel the big problems here is that Life and Flame just aren't offering enough bang for your buck. Look at Battle for a moment. Fast healing of half your level in battle is well worth the AC and Saving Throw penalty (especially in a system with jank 0 HP mechanics) and its major curse bumps up the fast healing to character level. Fast healing beyond 4 was hard to get for PCs and here we have Fast Healing gatdang 11.
THIS IS ON TOP OF +4 TO DAMAGE! This is worth the stupefied here!
See here's the thing. I'm looking primarily at the fast healing, not the damage. To me the damage is the proverbial cherry. Sure it's nice to lick, but it's nothing compared to the ice cream of the fast healing. I'm also guessing that by the time you're using this option most of the time you're gonna be out of your better spell slots, there's a lot less in this system after all.
In other words this gives Battle Oracles a desperation move at high levels, and while it's not the pulpiest of desperation moves it's still better than Life or Flame would be without any spell slots. And that's assuming Paizo doesn't add any feats to make battle oracle better at smacking someone, which I doubt is the case.
Now if Oracle gets more spell slots this will become less worthy, but I'd still call it far from worthless. It's Fast Healing 11 for crying out loud and it goes up! You'd have to hurl all the debuffs at it to not make it worthwhile.
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I remember how some of my players disliked prepared spellcaster and would rather play spontaneous casters. They loved the PF1 Arcanist class, too. I don't have any of these players nearby to ask how they like the PF2 sorcerers, but I suspect that they would like the divine sorcerer bloodlines.
On the other hand, when my daughter played a battle oracle in Rise of the Runelords and I played a time oracle as the escorted NPC in Jade Regent, the mystery and curse were the best part. It allowed a lot of customization around the character's backstory and let us keep a strong theme on the oracle.
Oddly, both my daugher and I intensified the curse on our oracles.
Her oracle Anastasia had the haunted curse. She asked me if she could give the curse the extra restriction that it would deflect any projectile that she shot, so that she could not make ranged weapon attacks. Whenever she could, she described her spells as the haunts of her curse helping her rather than hindering her.
I gave my oracle Amaya the tongues curse to prevent her from being a battle leader in the party. She was a charismatic character destined to become an empress, but she was also an NPC so I did not want her to become the party leader. The regular tongues curse was too easily bypassed, so I strengthen her curse so that no-one could understand her. I said her words were not in a foreign language but they were time-scrambled due to her time mystery.
My Jade Regent campaign had two characters who were originally from Minkai and two more with Minkaian descent. The game had such a strong emphasis in Minkaian tradition that the players derailed the plot in Tides of Honor to embrace tradition even more than the module did. (see Amaya of Westcrown for spoilers). Amaya was descended from Lonjiku Kaijitsu, so she was of the Amatatsu royal line, but she had grown up in a Chelish orphanage and knew nothing of Minkai. The visions from her time mystery educated her in the customs of her future home, and her tales of those visions ("I know the floor plan of the fortress Seinaru Heikiko, including the secret tunnel. My ancestors established that fortress during a war with an ambitious barbarian chief in the Osogen Grasslands.") gave a little more color to Minkaian history.
Amaya's curse and mystery served me well as a GM.
The math on Battle oracle isn't actually all there. The design is to make it more of a martial character, by it never quite gets anywhere near as good as an actual martial character, but quite a bit. +4 damage is nothing compared to the greater weapon specialization that most damage dealer get. And even if you multiclass into barbarian to get the bonus damage to add Rage on top of that it still pales in comparison. Not to mention they have a harder time hitting than a martial character.Really I feel the big problems here is that Life and Flame just aren't offering enough bang for your buck. Look at Battle for a moment. Fast healing of half your level in battle is well worth the AC and Saving Throw penalty (especially in a system with jank 0 HP mechanics) and its major curse bumps up the fast healing to character level. Fast healing beyond 4 was hard to get for PCs and here we have Fast Healing gatdang 11.
THIS IS ON TOP OF +4 TO DAMAGE! This is worth the stupefied here!
See here's the thing. I'm looking primarily at the fast healing, not the damage. To me the damage is the proverbial cherry. Sure it's nice to lick, but it's nothing compared to the ice cream of the fast healing. I'm also guessing that by the time you're using this option most of the time you're gonna be out of your better spell slots, there's a lot less in this system after all.
In other words this gives Battle Oracles a desperation move at high levels, and while it's not the pulpiest of desperation moves it's still better than Life or Flame would be without any spell slots. And that's assuming Paizo doesn't add any feats to make battle oracle better at smacking someone, which I doubt is the case.
Now if Oracle gets more spell slots this will become less worthy, but I'd still call it far from worthless. It's Fast Healing 11 for crying out loud and it goes up! You'd have to hurl all the debuffs at it to not make it worthwhile.
Right, it's a full caster gish chassis so of course its base attack numbers are going to be behind full martial characters, it has a bunch of ways to make up for that. And the fast healing and heavy armor makes going into melee as a spellcaster not so scary. It's strong at casting a spell and doing a third action attack for full bonus.