I'm sure Mr Firelion is more than well aware of the distinction, but should anybody get the wrong impression, the moderate curse only reduces your vision beyond 30 to an imprecise sense, so you can still see creatures (and plausibly the general outline of terrain features) in the distance, you just can't make them out well enough to strike with accuracy. You might have to pretend you don't know what exactly a monster is unless the blur you're looking at used to be an elf a minute ago, or if there's one large blur and a bunch of medium ones and you can hear a horse whinnying.
I'm sure Mr Firelion is more than well aware of the distinction, but should anybody get the wrong impression, the moderate curse only reduces your vision beyond 30 to an imprecise sense, so you can still see creatures (and plausibly the general outline of terrain features) in the distance, you just can't make them out well enough to strike with accuracy. You might have to pretend you don't know what exactly a monster is unless the blur you're looking at used to be an elf a minute ago, or if there's one large blur and a bunch of medium ones and you can hear a horse whinnying.
It very clearly states anything beyond 30 feet is hidden from you. Hidden is a clearly defined condition. Which means you need a DC 11 or better to target them with other than area spells including allies beyond 30 feet. It also means you are offguard to targets beyond 30 feet. They can freely use stealth against you to become undetected.
It's a bad condition to give everyone beyond 30 feet unless you play in a game with a very kind DM.
To get this condition, you need only cast 2 focus spells during the first fight of the day. Then one 1 focus spell every other fight for the rest of the day.
I'm not sure how your DM plays hidden, but you can't tell who people are when they are hidden because you can't see them. Concealed is making out terrain or people from afar, hidden is pretty much I can't see them and I'm not sure who they are or what something hidden is. I can sort of sense that it is there, but not enough to be distinct. Which would require some other means of identification from targets so you know you aren't blasting your allies like them shouting out to you or doing something to let you know it is them.
You likely to pick up that human ancestry feat that lowers the DC for targeting an ally. Sense Allies it is called. Helpful feat for a Flame Oracle if you have an ally who is beyond 30 feet.
It's a bad condition to give everyone beyond 30 feet unless you play in a game with a very kind DM.
To get this condition, you need only cast 2 focus spells during the first fight of the day. Then one 1 focus spell every other fight for the rest of the day.
Yes its under your control. It also isn't at the start of an encounter so they don't start hidden. You choose to activate it. So if you want to buff an ally first turn you can with zero failure chance.
Also it is spells with the cursebound trait not all focus spells. Any focus ability you get from a non oracle feat is likely to be OK.I'm not sure how your DM plays hidden, but you can't tell who people are when they are hidden because you can't see them. Concealed is making out terrain or people from afar, hidden is pretty much I can't see them and I'm not sure who they are or what something hidden is. I can sort of sense that it is there, but not enough to be distinct. Which would require some other means of identification from targets so you know you aren't blasting your allies like them shouting out to you or doing something to let you know it is them.
Your enemies aren't all automatically aware of your vulnerability. A GM doing that for every encounter is playing the game wrong. PCs have to make a Recall Knowledge check to use that sort of information.
There are spells like Divine Wrath that are ally friendly.
You don't loose track of your allies and they can free action speak to you if you do.
You likely to pick up that human ancestry feat that lowers the DC for targeting an ally. Sense Allies it is called. Helpful feat for a Flame Oracle if you have an ally who is beyond 30 feet.
Useful but I just don't see the need. A Flames Oracle has a different spell load out and is largely more offensive. I think this feat would just fail as it directly mitigates part of an oracular curse.
You can put a good Flames Oracle together. Don't forget that you can take Divine Access - Sarenrae for Burning Hands, Fireball, Wall of Fire.
It very clearly states anything beyond 30 feet is hidden from you. Hidden is a clearly defined condition. Which means you need a DC 11 or better to target them with other than area spells including allies beyond 30 feet. It also means you are offguard to targets beyond 30 feet. They can freely use stealth against you to become undetected.
It's a bad condition to give everyone beyond 30 feet unless you play in a game with a very kind DM.
Oh, undeniably. I cannot and don't mean to dispute that having Hidden enemies is detrimental to our poor Oracle' survival. It's not the mechanical penalties so much that I speak to. Rather, you had described these sight limitations as "cannot see" and "blindness" beyond 30', which is functionally true for the level of your argument, but not strictly accurate, and might confuse somebody who wasn't aware the distinction (which, again, I'm sure you were).
For those who may have been confused by the levels of detection, I merely wish to clarify that the curse does not actually render you literally blinded. What specifically it does is render your vision an imprecise sense beyond 30'.
Because vision is normally precise, it is most often true that a creature which is Hidden to you is one you cannot see (but could hear, perhaps). However, imprecise vision is still vision, meaning that you can indeed see creatures at least well enough to pinpoint their location, which is why I refer to them as blurs. You cannot see them well for sure, but same as you could recognise your friend's voice using your other imprecise sense, or the sound of paw pads on stone compared to booted feet, it would be fair to suggest you may be able glean enough context clues to have a reasonable guess what a blob is in some circumstances... just as it's fair to say you sometimes won't know for sure.
Or at least, when I pass my cat in the pitch dark of the hallway in the middle of the night, I don't mistake her for my brother. In the right circumstances, I certainly may, but if I can at least sometimes identify creatures by sound alone, I think it's fair the same happen for other imprecise senses.
As for terrain features... it's true, imprecise senses do not automatically allow you to detect walls with the same level of mechanical specificity as creatures, but given how one can sometimes glean a sense of their surroundings by changes in the way sounds reflected off them, I shouldn't think imprecise sight would be much worse at determining vague generalities.
TL;DR - Your impaired vision does leave you virtually blinded to threats outside of 30', such as being unable to detect when they are about to attack, but I wanted to be clear for the sake of posterity that imprecise sight is not the same thing as no sight, and you do in fact still see beyond that range, however poorly. This is not a statement about the mechanical validity of the curse, but rather a point of clarity about levels of detection for those who missed the distinction.
It's a bad condition to give everyone beyond 30 feet unless you play in a game with a very kind DM.
To get this condition, you need only cast 2 focus spells during the first fight of the day. Then one 1 focus spell every other fight for the rest of the day.
Yes its under your control. It also isn't at the start of an encounter so they don't start hidden. You choose to activate it. So if you want to buff an ally first turn you can with zero failure chance.
Also it is spells with the cursebound trait not all focus spells. Any focus ability you get from a non oracle feat is likely to be OK.I'm not sure how your DM plays hidden, but you can't tell who people are when they are hidden because you can't see them. Concealed is making out terrain or people from afar, hidden is pretty much I can't see them and I'm not sure who they are or what something hidden is. I can sort of sense that it is there, but not enough to be distinct. Which would require some other means of identification from targets so you know you aren't blasting your allies like them shouting out to you or doing something to let you know it is them.Your enemies aren't all automatically aware of your vulnerability. A GM doing that for every encounter is playing the game wrong. PCs have to make a Recall Knowledge check to use that sort of information.
There are spells like Divine Wrath that are ally friendly.
You don't loose track of your allies and they can free action speak to you if you do.
You likely to pick up that human ancestry feat that lowers the DC for targeting an ally. Sense Allies it is called. Helpful feat for a Flame Oracle if you have an ally who is beyond 30 feet.Useful but I just don't see the need. A Flames Oracle has a different spell load out and is largely more offensive. I think this feat would just fail as it directly mitigates part of an oracular curse.
You can put a good Flames Oracle together. Don't...
Why is this worth it? Master Reflexes and some good focus spells?
I did not find it worth it. Two focus points to ramp up to everything hidden beyond 30 feet got progressively worse as creatures grew more mobile and with stronger attacks. On top of being within 30 feet to effectively use my focus options.
The flame oracle abilities do not outweigh the curse. I don't know why you discount precision damage at range. It really sucks. There are a lot of creatures getting precision damage to offguard targets as you level up who can do it at range whether monsters in the bestiary or module specific monsters. Lots of flyers move around and smash at range.
I did not find it worth the trade off or enjoyable to offguard myself as often as it did past 30 feet, then try to RP hidden targets past 30 feet. It wasn't worth the focus points for an 8 hit point caster with caster defenses and the flame curse providing nearly nothing as a bonus.
I guess if you want to consider that fine, then have at it. It's an easy option for me to avoid as I don't consider it fine. It's a "not worth it for the benefits" mystery to me.
It very clearly states anything beyond 30 feet is hidden from you. Hidden is a clearly defined condition. Which means you need a DC 11 or better to target them with other than area spells including allies beyond 30 feet. It also means you are offguard to targets beyond 30 feet. They can freely use stealth against you to become undetected.
It's a bad condition to give everyone beyond 30 feet unless you play in a game with a very kind DM.
Oh, undeniably. I cannot and don't mean to dispute that having Hidden enemies is detrimental to our poor Oracle' survival. It's not the mechanical penalties so much that I speak to. Rather, you had described these sight limitations as "cannot see" and "blindness" beyond 30', which is functionally true for the level of your argument, but not strictly accurate, and might confuse somebody who wasn't aware the distinction (which, again, I'm sure you were).
For those who may have been confused by the levels of detection, I merely wish to clarify that the curse does not actually render you literally blinded. What specifically it does is render your vision an imprecise sense beyond 30'.
Because vision is normally precise, it is most often true that a creature which is Hidden to you is one you cannot see (but could hear, perhaps). However, imprecise vision is still vision, meaning that you can indeed see creatures at least well enough to pinpoint their location, which is why I refer to them as blurs. You cannot see them well for sure, but same as you could recognise your friend's voice using your other imprecise sense, or the sound of paw pads on stone compared to booted feet, it would be fair to suggest you may be able glean enough context clues to have a reasonable guess what a blob is in some circumstances... just as it's fair to say you sometimes won't know for sure.
Or at least, when I pass my cat in the pitch dark of the hallway in the middle of the night, I don't mistake her for my brother. In the right...
Probably good to know as different DMs run things their own way. I know in the games I played in, casters don't like being within 30 feet of monsters. Being hamstrung past 30 feet is not great either. It gave me a real tight area to work in and I don't like that with casters. The focus points did not make up for the tight area.
I don't see the point of playing an oracle that can't use its focus points effectively and even more effectively as they level. Flame oracle is a blaster and should not be forced in a 30 foot range to be maximally effective in my opinion.
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Fire Oracles can go astray taking the fire domain instead of the sun domain in my opinion. You are a close up combat support and damage caster who can help a party build to be an undead wrecking machine. The Goblin Fire Oracle and Goblin Bomber Alchemist with a cleric of Sarenrae and rogue destroyed Abomination vaults. If the cleric or the rogue had been a flame Kineticist it would have been even more deadly. I think a fire Oracle would do very well in 7 dooms or wardens of wildwood too (although a lot of folks are going to hate you in the verdant forest).
As for your defenses, the reflex save boost is bigger than just the numbers, it is evasion too , and having 2 boosted saves like that for a caster is a big deal. Also remember that your curse gives you concealment from all enemies at moderate, so it is a defensive ability for you even at close range, and smoke sight is a pretty rare ability for enemies to have. I recommend having a high dex and carrying a shield. At high levels will and reflex are strong defenses for you and your AC should be good. The focus spells you want to be using sustain, so 2 for a whole combat is fine. You will be using 1 action produce flames as your weapon so you can keep the other hand free, and AoE fire spells + i1 action produce flame is great damage. You maybe even move on from setting out your incendiary aura eventually if persistent damage isn’t useful, but it is great against bosses and when paired with fire splash damage. You are also going to have picked up fireball from divine access and it is going in a signature slot, so at great range you don’t have any focus spells you need to be casting and you can just throw fire balls almost all day. It is just not as bad as you are thinking it is
Re vision being an imprecise sense past a certain distance... statistically, if you don't yourself wear glasses, then you prolly know someone who relies on them.
Mystery benefit gives a damage bonus to air and water spellsIt's a "good" feat but one that's unfortunately a tax for flames and storm oracles.Flames Oracle, I understand the claim of feat tax - Flames characters are likely to want more fire trait spells than the Divine list gives.
Why does Tempest Oracle need off-tradition spells any more than any other Oracle Mystery?
And to get the few of those that exist (Hydraulic push, hydraulic torrent) you need divine access, so yeah, feels like a feat tax. Plus the domains feel kinda random. Start of with electric arc, shocks with the major curse but no lightning domain or electricity spells added.
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Having thematic curses for each mystery is IMO much more flavor than what oracles had in PF1e, though that kinda forced Paizo to come up with cursed that had to make sense with each mystery (or not? being effectively blind as a flame oracle still doesn't make sense to me). I feel SuperBidi's solution is really nice to solve oracles in the short term, but I honestly would want for the whole cursebound system to be tweaked, probably by having scaling bonuses and penalties when your curse increases.
The point of the flame oracle curse is to drive you towards a blasting focus; you want to use spells that target areas instead of characters so you don't have to roll miss chance.