Can’t mitigate Oracle curse examples

[graystone]

SuperBidi wrote:

Djinn71 wrote:

So what are your thoughts on wearing Armour to increase your AC being considered mitigation of the Battle Oracle's curse?

We definitely have to trace a line in the sand.

Obviously, you can't force a Battle Oracle to be naked. But I would definitely forbid a Battle Oracle to benefit from a status bonus to AC.

What about a Lore curse and the -4 to initiative [no type]? Again, your way leads to having a straight d20 with the -4 no possibility of any positive modifier [like level, stat bonus, ect]... Where is the line in the sand there? IMO, my line in the sand is quite a bit apart from yours.

[yarrchives]

Djinn71 wrote:

That's why there is a discussion here, because there is no clear cut answer. I don't think anyone here is really looking for loopholes (I know I'm not), we're looking for the fairest way of applying this rule.

I agree. Trying to avoid loopholes is exactly the purpose of my initial questions. It's been an interesting read but the conclusion I eventually got is that there's really no clear cut answer. So I just decided to bring up any weird cases to my GM.

I did play a Battle Oracle and I discussed with my GM possible things we might have missed due to our ignorance about this rule. We did end up touching upon similar points discussed here.

The AC penalty vs Armor argument was present. He also brought up that the curse's benefits are just as 'unmitigatable' as the penalties. This means that my Oracle's damage roll bonus and fast healing were just as hard to bypass as the AC penalty. This made us really think about the consequences of leniency on what counts towards 'mitigating' an effect. If we hypothetically allowed Armor count as mitigation towards my AC penalty, we'd have to count anything that reduces my overall weapon/unarmed damage rolls. That would include immunity/resistance and any damage reduction/penalty that my Oracle's attacks would ignore, which is too good to be true (just as the AC scenario would be too terrible to be true).

We even experimented with the idea of fast healing technically being mitigated by any damage that you take at the start of your turn (when fast healing triggers) and even any persistent damage but it was just too much at that point. The important lesson we learned is that we really needed to rein in what counts as 'mitigate' for the sake of both the positive and negative effects of the curse since the possible loopholes can go both ways.

[Guntermench]

I feel like 'mitigate' is referring to stuff like using Assurance to prevent having the penalty apply. Using Armor and spells should be fine as long as you still apply the penalty.