Save our Oracles – A request to grandfather the legacy oracle mysteries in PFS

[rokeca]

Overall I’m liking remaster. My biggest objection is with Oracle mysteries. Some remastered mysteries seem to have turned out of OK. But there are also some of us with existing Oracles who feel the remastered mysteries take away what was unique about the class: the roleplaying flavor, and what made the class both fun and challenging to play.

An example is my Ancestors Oracle. It’s been a blast to design a character around the challenge of finding something beneficial to do each round regardless of what I roll from my curse. Plus developing the backstory for the 12 different ancestor spirits that influence my actions (depending on severity of curse). However, most of what made me love playing my oracle is gone with remaster. The Ancestors mystery is now largely unplayable if you lean into the curse. And while I only have 3 levels with this PC, all 3 levels are via slow progression because I’ve enjoyed spending time with this character so much.

Oracle seems to be unique in that it’s the only class whose core (the mysteries) has been replaced/treated as errata with remaster to this extent. While Legacy wizards can retain their prior schools, oracles don’t have that option. “Because they share the same name, all Oracle mysteries are automatically updated to use the new Cursebound condition.”

I don’t know if there are enough of us out there, but I’m hoping that PFS will reconsider its approach to Oracle and make an exception, grandfathering the original mysteries despite them sharing the same name as remastered content. The case can be made that the changes to Oracle mysteries have fundamentally altered the essence of the class and how it plays. I would gladly give up the extra spell slot in return for all the wonderful flavor Legacy Oracle captured.

[glass]

While I am not personally affected by this, I stand i support of those who are!

[rainzax]

I support Paizo's decision to not grandfather in characters that new players are absolutely gated out from.

I had an Ancestors Oracle whose curse I 'leaned into' as well, progressing to 7th level. I used my free rebuild to adjust her mechanics to be inline with the new Oracle. Yes, some mechanics changed, but nothing that absolutely removes her ability to tell narratively similar stories!

Anything that anyone else has should be attainable by all players eventually.

My 2cps.

=)

[Tess of Tosof]

I am in such a quandary over my Ancestor Oracle, Tess. She was a finesse build, making use of her elven weapons, and she is simply wrecked by the clumsy curse of the remastered oracle. I must admit, I am still chewing over what to do with her, and she was my second favorite PFS character.

And yes, I know that I am running out of time to use my remaster rebuild, but Tess was someone whose flavor and mechanics were in perfect alignment.

[glass]

rainzax wrote:

I support Paizo's decision to not grandfather in characters that new players are absolutely gated out from.

That excuse would hold more water if every other class in the game (apart from a subset of clerics), which is equally unavailable to new players, was not being grandfathered in. And honestly, if new players having all the options of older players was the real concern, they should leave the old options available for everyone. I understand why they do not want to do that, but pulling the rug from under existing players is not the way to fix it.

And pulling said rug from under a small (but not that small) subset of existing players is IMNSHO worse than pulling it from everyone.

And I say all that as (effectively) a new player myself. Although I played a lot of PFS1 back in the day, I have played two whole sessions of PFS2, both with pregens, and have no instantiated PFS2 characters to lose.

And I am a little sad that I did not get an old-school* wizard played before the cutoff, but I didn't and that's on me. Other people losing out do not make me feel better about that, they make me feel worse! Both because I have basic empathy, and because if I do get back into PFS** it could affect me next time!

_
* Pun very much intended. Always intend you puns!
** Which I have been wanting to do lately, although stuff like this is giving me pause.

[Tridus]

Paizo's stance on this has been pretty clearly "rebuild into a new character if you don't like it". So I don't expect much. But I agree: changes that break existing character concepts as badly as the new Oracle does to premaster Oracle characters shouldn't be forced on people the way it was.

It was a mistake then and it's a mistake now, but it's one we're probably stuck with because they seem absolutely convinced that it's actually fine.