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Like all classes and subclasses, Lore Oracle isn't for everyone. If you are not happy with the implications, playing a different character may be your best option.
One of the biggest benefits is having an in-game hook for the GM to be able to give the other players a ton of the lore of the campaign that would otherwise be really hard to justify handing out. Brain Drain for example. For the player and the party, the benefit is the damage that it deals - it is unlikely that the recall knowledge check is going to succeed in the sense that the player is given actionable information that will influence their combat tactics for the better. For the GM, the benefit is that with the recall knowledge action, they can choose to let the check 'succeed' and give out a bunch of seemingly useless trivia about the enemy that was targeted.
Even the mild permanent effects (the stage below Minor Curse) can be used by the GM to hand out campaign lore.
As for the various abilities called out:
Moderate Curse: It's free. No it might not give you useful information every round. But it probably will at least once every battle. Especially with...
Access Lore: Yes, having this last for an entire 10 minute activity would be of great benefit. Perhaps too much though. I can't imagine that the game devs didn't think of this. I instead assume that they thought of this and rejected it for being too good. So instead what it is best used for is to get the specific lore DC reduction to recall knowledge that will make your recall knowledge actions a lot more reliable.
Major Curse: This level is supposed to be rather debilitating but also have some benefits. Also remember that the curses are balanced as a whole, not each stage individually. Lore's Major curse is pretty harsh - mostly from a teamwork point of view. You aren't able to shout out the answers that you are getting from your recall knowledge checks any more. I think this stage is a bit harsh because the Minor Curse stage is a bit mild.
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Like all classes and subclasses, Lore Oracle isn't for everyone.
It has hideous disadvatages for very minor benefits. On reflection it would have to be the worst subclass in the game. If you like it, good luck!
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Like all classes and subclasses, Lore Oracle isn't for everyone.It has hideous disadvatages for very minor benefits. On reflection it would have to be the worst subclass in the game. If you like it, good luck!
I think you're forgetting that Battledancer Swash exists. Their main class feature has something like a 15% - 20% chance to actually work against an even-level opponent before debuffs that have to be applied by other PCs. The main schtick just functionally doesn't work in combat at all, the rider effect applies Fascinated which is a condition that is instantly dispelled the moment another action is taken that is even remotely hostile (such as someone moving toward them with a weapon drawn), requires a Crit Success to apply said condition and ALSO has the incapacitation trait, all for a piddly amount of damage and you spending two or your three Actions in a round.
The Oracle at least has a fair and full Spellcaster chassis to back it up versus the Swash whose whole thing relies on their middling martial chassis that forces a MAD attribute dist into Dex and Cha while forcing you into Melee with an extremely average AC cap and the inability to really get a decent Con score to ensure you don't fall over while doing everything possible to attract as much attention to your non-tank build as possible.
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Like all classes and subclasses, Lore Oracle isn't for everyone.It has hideous disadvatages for very minor benefits. On reflection it would have to be the worst subclass in the game. If you like it, good luck!
Are you only looking at the Curse?
Lore Mystery also gives an extra spell in Repertoire and an extra Lore skill. An extra lore skill trained may be trivial, but an extra Repertoire spell slot seems to be a pretty big benefit.
Only the Major Curse level is actually debilitating. -4 initiative is pretty trivial, and flat-footed isn't too bad for a spellcaster that generally wants to stay away from melee range anyway. And since several of the cursebound focus spells are better used out of combat, it doesn't seem too bad overall.
It is definitely different than Battle Oracle or Flames Oracle that want to get to Major Curse, but different doesn't mean bad.
but different doesn't mean bad.
Different doesn't mean bad, but bad means bad. No matter how many platitudes get offered up to smooth it over.
someone who prefers to play martials or a Divine Sorcerer instead?
I don't know why you keep misrepresenting people like this. The OP clearly wants to play a Lore oracle. They're just held back by its clunky, underdeveloped features.
Trying to handwave that all away as a matter of taste as if to suggest the OP is lying about wanting to play the character is both silly and deeply disrespectful toward them.
The best thing about it is that there are a lot of knowledge domain deities which means you have some decent divine access options, but I'm not sure that's nearly enough to save it from every other feature being somewhere between mediocre and terrible.
The curse is especially bad because it's not just poor mechanically but it's a thematic mess that has none of the give and take other oracle curses do (the major curse has some out of combat potential for being able to pick up languages and then refocus it away, but it comes online very late for what it does).
Like all classes and subclasses, Lore Oracle isn't for everyone.It has hideous disadvatages for very minor benefits. On reflection it would have to be the worst subclass in the game. If you like it, good luck!I think you're forgetting that Battledancer Swash exists. Their main class feature has something like a 15% - 20% chance to actually work against an even-level opponent before debuffs that have to be applied by other PCs. The main schtick just functionally doesn't work in combat at all, the rider effect applies Fascinated which is a condition that is instantly dispelled the moment another action is taken that is even remotely hostile (such as someone moving toward them with a weapon drawn), requires a Crit Success to apply said condition and ALSO has the incapacitation trait, all for a piddly amount of damage and you spending two or your three Actions in a round.
The Oracle at least has a fair and full Spellcaster chassis to back it up versus the Swash whose whole thing relies on their middling martial chassis that forces a MAD attribute dist into Dex and Cha while forcing you into Melee with an extremely average AC cap and the inability to really get a decent Con score to ensure you don't fall over while doing everything possible to attract as much attention to your non-tank build as possible.
The advantage of the Battledancer over other styles is much more consistent panache generation; Perform doesn't have the frequency or positioning restrictions of the other styles and will saves are typically lower than reflex and fortitude. The only style that's better for succeeding on the panache check is Wit with One For All, which gobbles up your reaction. Leading Dance is quite nice to have as well.
While the fascinate condition is weak compared to others, you're seriously overselling how weak it is. It doesn't break unless the action performed "harms or damages" the creature in question, a GM that says it breaks on movement is just wrong. If you want to fascinate people in combat then obviously you'd have Focused Fascination to do it on a Success. And again, you don't actually need to fascinate anyone to get your panache, Battledancers can even get their panache against mindless creatures who'd be immune to the effect.
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someone who prefers to play martials or a Divine Sorcerer instead?I don't know why you keep misrepresenting people like this.
You are being vague.
I replied to Gortle who was saying that Lore Oracle is a worse subclass of a base class than any other class's subclasses. So comparing Familiar Thesis Wizard to other Wizard options is still a better case than Lore Oracle compared to other Oracle options.
I disagreed - Lore Oracle isn't really a bad subclass of Oracle. It is different than some of the other subclass options in that it wants to stay in the lower curse stages rather than try to peg it to Major Curse as early in a battle as possible.
And you simply made a vague statement that bad is bad.
I asked for more clarification on what you are meaning by your statement. I'm not sure why you are bringing up the OP at all in response to that.
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And do you have something in particular that you are going to point to and say is bad? Or is this just random mutterings from someone who prefers to play martials or a Divine Sorcerer instead?It focuses on an system that varies a lot between tables, recall knowledge.
That is definitely true. If playing with a GM that really doesn't want to give out background lore and enemy information, Lore Oracle would be a bad fit for the campaign.
It isn't the only class that suffers from this type of campaign->character mismatch though.
And of course then there is me - I picked a background that gives Dubious Knowledge so that things like Brain Drain and Scholarly Recollection would be that much more amusing. But that isn't necessarily a normal thing to do. Certainly not for optimizers and powergamers.
It's also more vulnerable to ranged attacks, which frequently struggle to get flat-footed while you just hand it to them.
That is also true, but it seems like a fairly normal level of downside compared to other Oracle Curses. It doesn't really put Lore Oracle up to the 'worst subclass ever' level.
Its moderate curse also has the issue of you can just get knowledge domain which means your shouldn't struggle at all to get recall knowledge successes on enemies.
I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make with this one though. Moderate Curse gives you Recall Knowledge as a free action - but using an Assurance level of ability. I actually think it pairs better with Access Lore to make that more reliable to succeed since the Lore skill that you choose in the moment still qualifies to use your Assurance-like free Recall Knowledge action with, but now with a reduced DC because of the specific lore benefit.
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While the fascinate condition is weak compared to others, you're seriously overselling how weak it is. It doesn't break unless the action performed "harms...
Show me any example of any combat where more than 2 individual Characters go in order without being outwardly hostile toward the other side. The moment one of your allies takes a turn, even if they aren't directly targeting that specific creature and are instead targeting one of their allies the incredibly weak penalties to Perception and Skill checks evaporate. I bet if you tallied one hundred combats there would be less than the number of digits on one hand where there is an occurrence of this type of thing happening while the initiative rolls around to the Swash again.
That subclass is irredeemably awful to the point where it actually discourages you and your allies from attacking the target of your attack and on top of that the entire reason you'd try to fascinate is so that you can ATTACK that creature and dispel and negate the entire point of your Skill Check no matter if you succeed or fail, it's unplayably bad. Attempting your performance to generate Panace so that you can consume that P to undo the Skill check you just made for a less than 50% chance to hit is TERRIBLE.
While the fascinate condition is weak compared to others, you're seriously overselling how weak it is. It doesn't break unless the action performed "harms...Show me any example of any combat where more than 2 individual Characters go in order without being outwardly hostile toward the other side. The moment one of your allies takes a turn, even if they aren't directly targeting that specific creature and are instead targeting one of their allies the incredibly weak penalties to Perception and Skill checks evaporate. I bet if you tallied one hundred combats there would be less than the number of digits on one hand where there is an occurrence of this type of thing happening while the initiative rolls around to the Swash again.
That subclass is irredeemably awful to the point where it actually discourages you and your allies from attacking the target of your attack and on top of that the entire reason you'd try to fascinate is so that you can ATTACK that creature and dispel and negate the entire point of your Skill Check no matter if you succeed or fail, it's unplayably bad. Attempting your performance to generate Panace so that you can consume that P to undo the Skill check you just made for a less than 50% chance to hit is TERRIBLE.
While I agree Battledancer is pretty bad, I think you're missing the 'benefit' of the subclass a little.
Don't think about the benefit of the skill check (in fact, it's best to think of your perform check as doing nothing at all) but rather that you have the easiest and most restriction free way to generate panache.
Gymnasts have to increment MAP to generate panache, Braggarts only get one chance per enemy to generate panache (and after that still need to land a finisher to do it, which can leave them stuck if they miss), Wit swashbucklers need to share a language with the enemy. Even fencers can't do their thing against mindless enemies.
Battledancer makes a skill check and if it beats the will DC of any enemy, you get panache.
That's still really bad, because the benefits are not worth the cause and high points of failure, but it's a little bit more useful than you're suggesting, imo. The worst things about the Battledancer are the same reasons the Swashbuckler is a failed class in general.
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Yeah, Battledancer is still bad, but only because Swashbuckler in totality is bad. I think the actual worst style is Fencer, since Perception DC tends to be higher than the other saves and sources of flat-footed are in surplus for a naturally fast class with access to Tumble Behind.
Lore Mystery also gives an extra spell in Repertoire and an extra Lore skill. An extra lore skill trained may be trivial, but an extra Repertoire spell slot seems to be a pretty big benefit.
You only get extra spells known not extra spell slots. Oracle has ways of getting as many spells as they want via Divine Access which they can take multiple times. So I don't think it is a major benefit
Only the Major Curse level is actually debilitating. -4 initiative is pretty trivial, and flat-footed isn't too bad for a spellcaster that generally wants to stay away from melee
It is the minor curse that I hate -4 to initiative probably means that you lose initiative maybe 25% of the time. It is basically the same as giving up an action at the start of the fight. You are pretty much stuck with this all day for every combat past the first one.
Monsters have a lot of ranged attacks. I'd be surprised if your front line can protect you reliably. Maybe in a tight dungeon crawl only.But the worst thing is Lore is their best feature and you don't need it. You are far better off with Visions of Weakness if lore is important.
I just don't see the value in the subclass. To me the strength of the oracle is in their focus spells and I'd never want to use them. End result is I think the Lore Oracle is terrible. I think it is worse than the base class.
Obviously the Oracle will have to be revisited with the changes to focus spells.
Yeah, Battledancer is still bad, but only because Swashbuckler in totality is bad. I think the actual worst style is Fencer, since Perception DC tends to be higher than the other saves and sources of flat-footed are in surplus for a naturally fast class with access to Tumble Behind.
You can do stuff as a Battle Dancer with Leading Dance. I can imagine plenty of uses for it. Rolling against will or reflex for Tumble Through gives them enough panache options. Then there is the Gladiator archetype. You can roll performance for initiative and performance to demoralise. Plus you can easily get permanent circumstance bonuses to perform, even when you don't have panache. So what that Fascination is useless. That was never factoring into my calculation.
A Fencer with Goading Feint is a solid defender. I quite like them. They work as well as any of the Swashbucklers do.
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You can do stuff as a Battle Dancer with Leading Dance.
I can do stuff as a Fencer with Leading Dance too. Battledancer is not a prerequisite for the feat.
Having a useful effect on the panache gaining skill check is what makes having to roll twice for a good combat routine palatable. Battledancer doesn't get that. Fencer only barely gets that since the benefit is very temporary and only applies to the Swashbuckler.