The general description of the Curses says they cannot be avoided or mitigated in any way, but what does that mean?
Mitigate and Avoid are not defined terms in this game.
For example the Bones Curse say specifically that any immunity or resistances are suppressed, but the Flames Curse doesn't mention immunity or resistances at all.
If I'm on fire, taking two points of damage a round,and I have fire resistance, do I still take damage ?
Resistance doesn't put out the fire, but it does "mitigate" the effects.
What if I'm under the effect of a Numbing or Soothing Tonic?
Is fast healing mitigation?
What about regular healing?
Are temporary hit points mitigating?
The Flame Curse is to be on fire, not to take damage.
Even unavoidable damage is the intended effect does the prohibition on mitigation prevent healing or temporary hit points?
If so,are you then never allowed to heal?
Heck,refocusing "mitigates" the curse, and we are certainly allowed to do that.
As written, I think resistances, healing, and temporary boosts to accuracy, hit points etc, all are allowed to work, unless they are specifically excluded in a given Curses description.
Nothing that changes or removes a Status should be allowed.
You must remain on fire, Clumsy, or Enfeebled, but you can boost the affected checks and/or attributes, heal damage, and even resist damage, unless your curse specifies otherwise.
This reading increases the imbalance between the different the Curses, but they were pretty terribly out of balance already.
Flames comes out looking good since fire resistance is not disallowed, but Cosmos was already in the lead with a Curse that is barely and inconvenience.
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"Cannot be avoided or mitigated" means that fire damage caused to a flames oracle as the direct result of their curse cannot be mitigated through fire resistance or immunity.
Resistance/immunity works fine for mitigating any other fire damage they may take, but the persistent fire damage from their curse bypasses it.
Same concept with anything else. If your curse imposes a condition, effects that mitigate that condition in other circumstances won't help.
Does the Flames Curse specify that"fire damage caused to a flames oracle as the direct result of their curse cannot be mitigated through fire resistance or immunity."?
Bones specifies that resistance and/or immunity are bypassed, I think the Sky(name?) Curse does as well, but I dont think Flame says the same thing.
Even so, I think that it is a reasonable conclusion.
Moving on,what about healing and temporary hit points?
A low level Numbing Tonic would effectivly neutralize the damage from two levels of the flame curse.
That seems like a flavorful, but also powerful outcome.
Not balanced, but better than allowing any shmoe with Eat Fire to dodge the damage.
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Does the Flames Curse specify that"fire damage caused to a flames oracle as the direct result of their curse cannot be mitigated through fire resistance or immunity."?
Bones specifies that resistance and/or immunity are bypassed, I think the Sky(name?) Curse does as well, but I dont think Flame says the same thing.
Even so, I think that it is a reasonable conclusion.Moving on,what about healing and temporary hit points?
A low level Numbing Tonic would effectivly neutralize the damage from two levels of the flame curse.
That seems like a flavorful, but also powerful outcome.
Not balanced, but better than allowing any shmoe with Eat Fire to dodge the damage.
In the case of the numbing tonic, you are still taking that fire damage. So while functionally, yes, you could argue it's "mitigated", the effect is still going through.
The same would not be true if say a curse gave you sickened 2, and you dropped it to sickened 1 via some spell or what have you. That would be "mitigated" as you have prevented some part of the curse.
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My understanding is that the thing the curse says happens, happens no matter what. If you're clumsy from your curse and someone uses an effect that would normally remove or reduce that condition, that effect doesn't work. If you take damage that you're normally immune or resistant to, you still take that damage in full. If an effect normally lets you counteract a curse or suppress a curse's effects, it won't work on your oracular curse. You can still give yourself temporary Hit Points that will continue to act as a buffer against the curse's damage, because that's not a matter of interacting directly with the curse, but you can't stop your curse from doing its thing in any capacity.
Yeah, healing and gaining temp HP are all 100% valid responses to the flames oracle's curse of "being on fire".
It feels like resistance is the odd case here, since the intent of the "can't avoid or mitigate" rule is to make sure your curse always applies when it is applicable. Like the life oracle gets weakness to void, so if you get hit by an Astradaemon's Essence Drain ability you would increase it by the weakness amount; but if you also had resistance to divine or unholy you could apply those resistances, because you're still taking more damage than you would if you weren't cursed. But it seems trivial to reduce the damage you'd get from being on fire to zero with innate resistance (like "be a charhide goblin"), which is probably against the intent of the curse mechanic.
If they had made the Flame Curse a Weakness to a damage that could be avoided,like the did for two of the other curses,they would have certainly also mentioned that any Immunity or Resistance to that damage did not apply.
Instead they made it an active effect and left off that language.
Intentional?
I find it impossible to know their intent, since they often make choices that are contrary to the wisdom of the crowd, common sense or whatever and rarely explain intent.
Goblin remains a good choice for this subclass, due to Burn It!.
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You're think about it too hard.
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I don't think it's invalid to question the wording and want more clarity; Paizo is normally very good at making their rules clear-cut, and even going out of their way to specify certain interactions even when they're covered by other rules already. Even if we can piece together what the developers intend by "can't be avoided or mitigated in any way", it wouldn't hurt to add a bit more specificity when helpful.
Given how the Oracle's curses can't be cured, reduced, suppressed, or mitigated, I would say that having resistance apply against Flames' fire damage would go against the intent and fall under trying to mitigate the effect. The alternative is that you could build your character to resist fire damage (say, by picking the Ifrit vesatile heritage), and all of a sudden you'd effectively just become immune to the curse, which I'd say defeats its purpose.
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You're think about it too hard.
I always think about things too hard.
It is not something I can selectively switch on or off just because it is convenient. Especially when the sames rules do complex things elsewhere.The question is fair.
I do believe though that on grounds of reasonableness you always have to take this fire damage for the fire curse.
I shouldn't have to ask myself if something is reasonable the rules should be clear and complete.
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I think errata to add the line "fire resistance or immunity cannot reduce this persistent damage" from the flames curse would be reasonable, but it's probably not intended that the Flames Oracle isn't someone who can benefit from fire resistance at all, since their 10th level cursebound feat involves taking a bunch of it. Since other mysteries get call out that the suppress your resistance generally, which was previously ambiguous in the legacy oracle.
Like when the APG came out there were arguments in the rules forum about whether like a tempest oracle with the stormtossed heritage would "avoid or mitigate the curse" or if it didn't because said character still takes more damage from electric when their curse is active than they would if it's not. Now that much is clear at least.
An important thing to remember is that it's not "you're always taking 1-4 points of fire damage/round as a flames oracle" it's that this is the cost of using your cursebound abilities, which effectively serve as a separate focus pool. We know your basic cursebound ability is foretell harm, which you'd only want to use after a high rank damaging spell, and you might not want to use it at all when you'd only be doing 2 extra damage to someone who got hit with your breathe fire. Being more or less conservative on using your cursebound abilities depending on your mystery seems reasonable.
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This also triggers memories of people arguing that a Battle Oracle's -2 AC penalty couldn't be mitigated by their armor's item bonus or their Dexterity attribute bonus, so they just had to run around with an 8+level AC.
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I'll run it using the plain meaning of those words as they apply to the curses. Damage resistance won't protect from the curse or any other mitigation or reduction effects. The curse works on you bypassing all means to resist or mitigate it. That's the intent as it always has been. No way to cheese your way into avoiding the curse while gaining only the benefits.
I don't think it's invalid to question the wording and want more clarity; Paizo is normally very good at making their rules clear-cut, and even going out of their way to specify certain interactions even when they're covered by other rules already. Even if we can piece together what the developers intend by "can't be avoided or mitigated in any way", it wouldn't hurt to add a bit more specificity when helpful.
Given how the Oracle's curses can't be cured, reduced, suppressed, or mitigated, I would say that having resistance apply against Flames' fire damage would go against the intent and fall under trying to mitigate the effect. The alternative is that you could build your character to resist fire damage (say, by picking the Ifrit vesatile heritage), and all of a sudden you'd effectively just become immune to the curse, which I'd say defeats its purpose.
Im dont agree that they go out of their way to make their rules clear cut,but yes,for any real tabletop this is an easy question to adjuducate using the too good to be true metric.
Redirecting a little, the class is what it is, so what can we make with it?
Lets start with Goblin ancestry for Burn It.
What heritage would we want?
Rousing Splash is available for temporary hit points, what else can we use?
I've seen the level 10 cursebound feat, so I would recommend charhide. It won't protect you from your curse but it will protect you from the rain of fire.
Plus enough other things do fire damage that it's a good resistance to have even though it doesn't protect you from the times you set yourself on fire.
If I'm on fire, taking two points of damage a round,and I have fire resistance, do I still take damage ?
Resistance doesn't put out the fire, but it does "mitigate" the effects.
What if I'm under the effect of a Numbing or Soothing Tonic?
Is fast healing mitigation?
What about regular healing?
Are temporary hit points mitigating?
Oh, my questions exactly. And yes, if we allow resistance, the curse becomes trivially avoided, which was not probably intended. This people here wrote about.
What the people didn't wrote about is what happens when we make this damage unavoidable.
It's 100-400 damage per 10 minutes. Even 100 is very much relevant even at 20th level. Not to speak of 300-400. What this means that if fire oracle uses their curse fully at high levels, they must after each such use spend 40(!!!) minutes refocusing. Every time. I don't know of a way to reduce this time. Does anyone with the book know of it?
And it seems fire is the only oracle which must do this. Others can be under cursebound 4 indefinitely (apart from only Lore I guess, as people write it makes them to totally shut down and unable to cast spells).
Why do you burn your credibility like this? Mitigate your curse by adopting silence or conducting research.
There is the standard (but slightly late) full refocus feat, and the curse is suspended while you’re in the process of refocusing.
I've seen the level 10 cursebound feat, so I would recommend charhide. It won't protect you from your curse but it will protect you from the rain of fire.
I recommend finding a way to get dominated. Using your actions against your party isn’t much worse than trying to help with the pitiful rain of fire damage. At least it will be more fun and suspenseful that way.
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There is the standard (but slightly late) full refocus feat, and the curse is suspended while you’re in the process of refocusing.
Note that it's "when you start refocusing" that you stop being on fire, so if your GM is being deliberately antagonistic by starting the next combat exactly 59 rounds after the last one so as to bait people into resting but not letting them actually refocus, you're still okay. You'll just start on fire as soon as the next combat starts.
PF2 largely assumes that you're going to spend the time to heal up and regain resources between combats, so the oracle is fine here since the alternative is "the next combat starts immediately after the last one."
Of course the Flames Oracle probably should be patched for the case where the party is on a ticking clock and they're rushing from room to room so you're not burning the whole time, but I figure a GM can do that. I have no intention of tracking players being on fire during exploration mode.
Good news about the Flame Curse is it also stops while you are unconscious...
I think if you refocus 4 times,max, and you will have ended it.
There is a Cursebound feat that lets you get a high level spell slot.
It sounds like one of the better reasons to set oneself on fire,but I dont know all the details.
It seems to me that Cosmos has a better starting feat and Curse.
I know they can add the water walking(meh) and flying(wee!) feats, but what else is available to them?
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Does the Remastered Flames Oracle curse not have the option to suppress the flame damage with an action with the concentrate trait?
You can suppress your aura until the start of your next turn by spending a single action, which has the concentrate trait, to diminish the flames, causing neither you nor anyone in the aura to take damage. While Refocusing to reduce your curse, you are continually diminishing the flames, so you don't lose HP.
It may not be strict RAW, but if I was the GM I would allow a Flames oracle at curse level where they are taking damage to do some other exploration activity like Treat Wounds while also diminishing their flames - just like they can while doing Refocus. Maybe not indefinitely, but at least for a couple of 10 minute emergency tasks patching people up after a fight or getting to a safe location to reduce curse level.
Does the Remastered Flames Oracle curse not have the option to suppress the flame damage with an action with the concentrate trait?
No. Just by starting to refocus after combat.
Your options in combat are (1) don't cast cursebounds (your old focus spells are all there and don't invoke the curse anymore) unless you can stand the heat, and/or (2) have enough healing resources.
The free flames cursebound is pretty bad except as a mid to late game finisher against someone weak to the damage type you're using. The 10th level feat is easily the worst of the curse locked options. Just pick up Debilitating Dichotomy for your cursebound option against fire immune stuff and call it a day.
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No. Just by starting to refocus after combat.Does the Remastered Flames Oracle curse not have the option to suppress the flame damage with an action with the concentrate trait?
Interesting.
That does seem to me to be a noticeable problem. Requiring the Oracle to spend some number of 10 minutes reducing their curse level immediately after a battle, without any time or recourse to do anything else, or else continue taking repeated damage every 6 seconds... does feel very limiting. I would certainly be unhappy playing that character if the game was actually run that way.
They should really just changed the language so the curse only applies while you're actively in an encounter with a significant foe.
It could still be worded to have that effect without actually using the words 'encounter' if it is really necessary. Putting back in the note that you can remove the damage caused by the curse during exploration activities would be fine.
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They should really just changed the language so the curse only applies while you're actively in an encounter with a significant foe.Throughout PF 2E, there's been an almost herculean effort to avoid using the term "encounter" or have "encounter powers" a la D&D 4e, likely due to developer concern that this would go down as artificial (like 4e encounter powers ultimately did). Hence the Refocus mechanic rather than making some spells explicitly encounter-limited and the Medicine method of healing (rather than 4e-style healing surges).
They're moving away from that with some of the barbarian stuff (rage explicitly lasts "until the end of the encounter" now) which I approve of. But yeah curse is still janky, to avoid the "when the encounter ends" phrasing.
I understand the concern, but it's kind of silly. There's already precedent; stances can only be used in encounter mode and drop when you leave encounter mode, and have been like that for as long as I remember.
Frankly, the forced 10+ minute downtime between encounters is more immersion-breaking to me than just accepting per-encounter powers. Even if per-encounter effects are more metafictional and gamey, they're actually way less disruptive to the narrative than the shoehorned 10/20/30/60 minute healing and refocusing period between every fight. You can try to design around it, but you end up a bit off the rails and you have to seriously lower the encounter difficulties compared to a "vanilla" PF2E experience.
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The 10 minutes after a fight has pretty much always been there. The old red box d&d assumed that a fight always lasted a whole "turn" (10 minutes), because it included catching your breath, ensuring that the enemies were really down, checking their possessions, doing a basic search of the dungeon room, and other stuff like that.
Now, of course there are situations where that doesn't make sense - if you have to run away, for example, or if you are in some kind of gauntlet where more enemies are coming or you have to press on quickly. That's part of the game, but you are still measuring time in rounds in that case, and damage shouldn't accrue up to unmanageable levels.
Frankly, the forced 10+ minute downtime between encounters is more immersion-breaking to me than just accepting per-encounter powers. Even if per-encounter effects are more metafictional and gamey, they're actually way less disruptive to the narrative than the shoehorned 10/20/30/60 minute healing and refocusing period between every fight. You can try to design around it, but you end up a bit off the rails and you have to seriously lower the encounter difficulties compared to a "vanilla" PF2E experience.
It depends.
If you are considering the encounter as a cinematic event where the players will be always running without rest after every battle they have. Yes stop to 10 minutes to get breath may be disruptive. Including giving no time to rest is an option that GMs have (and need to take care to not TPK) to point pressure in some part of the story.
But if you are considering the things a bit more realistic/verisimil is as well pointed by Megistone's post just above "because it included catching your breath, ensuring that the enemies were really down, checking their possessions, doing a basic search of the dungeon room, and other stuff like that" and in PF2e includes refocus, get some reagents from the area and/or soothe your cursebound.
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The 10 minutes after a fight has pretty much always been there. The old red box d&d assumed that a fight always lasted a whole "turn" (10 minutes), because it included catching your breath, ensuring that the enemies were really down, checking their possessions, doing a basic search of the dungeon room, and other stuff like that.
Now, of course there are situations where that doesn't make sense - if you have to run away, for example, or if you are in some kind of gauntlet where more enemies are coming or you have to press on quickly. That's part of the game, but you are still measuring time in rounds in that case, and damage shouldn't accrue up to unmanageable levels.
Yep. The 10 minutes is an arbitrary time chosen to simulate mild recovery. It's more a tool for the DM to allow a short recovery time or continue the encounter. Just like the arbitrary nation of a turn where everything occurs within a 6 second period.
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This is something of an aside to the topic of the thread but it does touch on something that really fails to retain any semblance of immersion or, for lack of a better term, protection of the 4th wall. My greatest disconnect with the seeming system assumptions that every combat is going to be followed by at least ten minutes of downtime is that in most any situation except wilderness exploration encounters it makes no sense whatsoever as locations, where encounters take place, are usually buildings or building-like where the only thing separating most encounters are doors or in some circumstances hallways with doors attached to them... combat is LOUD and the idea the creatures in the next room over (usually less than 50-100 feet away) are going to just be sitting around with earplugs in staring blankly at a wall (or alternatively stubbornly insistent that their job is to stay in and watch over their room and their room alone despite imminent and obvious dangers to their own life and career) until a combatant opens the door to their own room.
The only way it makes any sense at all is if the assumption ALSO has another unstated rule of thumb that parties will/should always retreat either entirely outside of the building/dungeon or otherwise find a place to secretly hole up until they've all taken their breather, bandaged, and meditated. Even ONE combat within such a complex that is noticed (which would almost certainly happen unless the combat is done entirely with the aim of stealth and silence in mind) should set off an entire building/dungeon to the presence of a mortal threat and invasion which would result in reinforcements to rush the party ASAP and to harden/reinforce defenses further into the area where the most important things/npcs would be holed up.
Ten minutes is a LONG time to just abjectly ignore the sounds of your peers/family/coworkers being brutally slaughtered and then it going more or less silent (or worse quiet followed by the sound of strangers having idle banter and making jibes over the corpses of your allies) just one room over. I can't really fathom anything other than a tactical retreat after a swift looting making any amount of sense, these complexes would absolutely have constant movement of opponents between rooms to take care of duties, deliver messages, take care of bodily needs, actively patrol, or even simply wander around a bit bored with the aim of socializing with one another.
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I favor a middle view. My experiences in and around combat on deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan are that there's a certain amount of denial the first time you hear someone shooting at you even if you're sort of expecting it. "Is that really what I heard? Am I really the ones they're doing this to?" (Surprise round!)
It's even more true if it's happening to someone else nearby. Am I the most responsible for this and able to help? If I rush over to help am I going to get ambushed or expose myself to unnecessary threat? Am I abandoning a more important task, or leaving something open to a secondary attack? What if it's a feint intended to make me go there? Is someone else closer (and on duty as the Quick Response Force) who is better able to handle this?
Sitting and doing nothing forever doesn't make sense, but everyone in a dungeon rushing the first sound of combat doesn't, either. It's not in line with the psychology of even trained people, and it's not in line with what a functioning organization would even want. (And not all dungeons are creatures part of a unified functioning and mutually supporting organization.)
One healing spell from Oracle is enough to patch up more than a minute of damage. Yeah, Flames Oracle might have to go a fight or two without refocusing, but so long as they're back-to-back fights, that's fine and not a big issue for them. Even if they get interrupted, that's fine; the act of trying to refocus pauses the damage clock until it's interrupted.
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I will again emphasize that the cursebound effects are in general not very good, especially on the Flames oracle, and there's now 4 slots (probably) and no curse effects on your focus spells, so you've got plenty of ammunition without needing to dig into these subpar options and taking the damage unless it's optimal for you to do so.
I like it.
Or rather I would like it if the sacrifice was properly rewarded.
Extra damage isnt work the burning.
A free high level spell slot would be.
The 6th level feat, gifted power, does this,but only for some spells.
If you do find a spell on that list that you would like to cast over and over, being enfeebled is still better than being on fire.