Heyo, first post and it's a curious doozy. Part of a small westmarch of PF2e enjoyers that have stuck together for many years now, and our hitting our 2nd year of playing pathfinder, and one of our members whose notorious for doing wacky/broken one tracked combat god characters (In dnd 5e he solo'd an ancient dragon as a nightmare vengeance paladin war wizard combo), has discovered some shenanigans of how Battle Oracles Curse removes your ability to be immune to spells (Any immunity or resistance you have to spells is suppressed. This applies only to spells, not other magical abilities), and is planning to use it as the archetype for a War Priest Cleric Doctrine to get sure strikes with every turn.
Gotta ask, since to me I can't imagine a curses cursebound section is supposed to be used for empowering a character, do folks think that is the intended use, or something waiting to be broken when given to give access to? Is this RAW and RAI, or is it in the category of the rules of PF2e where 'If something sounds to good to be true, it isn't'?
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I don’t know the intent, but it is straightforwardly RAW that it disables all spell immunities. If it was only for immunity removal that hurt the player (which would be weird to define since this is situational) it would say that. But that’s not how it’s written.
Too good to be true doesn’t come into play as AFAIK there are no immunities to be removed that are too powerful for one fairly middle of the road caster subclass to ignore. Sure strike spam on a caster base class gish isn’t going to break anything.
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I don’t know the intent, but it is straightforwardly RAW that it disables all spell immunities. If it was only for immunity removal that hurt the player (which would be weird to define since this is situational) it would say that. But that’s not how it’s written.
Too good to be true doesn’t come into play as AFAIK there are no immunities to be removed that are too powerful for one fairly middle of the road caster subclass to ignore. Sure strike spam on a caster base class gish isn’t going to break anything.
I do not think Paizo specifically introduced the immunity in Sure Strike, and PFS added it to True Strike, just to have people jump through some obscure hoops to get the spell back to its old version.
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Note though that PCs created under TGTBT RAW tend to quickly be retired with much anger from the player once the RAW is errataed. I have seen this often in PFS when PF1 was the system.
As a GM I would make sure they understand that an errata will surely happen and they agree to rebuild their PC peacefully when the time comes.
Appreciate feedback and responses so far. As far as the player in question, they are one of the chillest folks in this known universe and one of my best friends (even if we can't always agree on things). If an errata comes out I'm certain they'd honor it and be chill. May end up getting the character retired by them, but however things happen, they'll go at it with grace.
As far as the concept of 'no immunities to be removed that are too powerful for one fairly middle of the road caster subclass to ignore', I'm now gonna have to be curious what other beneficial spell immunities vanish that a religion caster could get silly with.
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As far as the concept of 'no immunities to be removed that are too powerful for one fairly middle of the road caster subclass to ignore', I'm now gonna have to be curious what other beneficial spell immunities vanish that a religion caster could get silly with.
Beneficial Divine spells that make the target immune are as follows.
Cantrips :
Guidance
Rousing Splash
Wash your luck
Rank 2 :
Lucky Number
Rank 8 :
Moment of Renewal
Rank 10 Fated Confrontation is a bit different in that you cannot target yourself but opens great possibilities if your ally becomes non-immune.
Definitely TGTBT, especially with Moment of Renewal.
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Well, to be fair, for Moment of Renewal it's just the oracle that becomes immune so it's a R8 slot and 2 actions to get con mod x lvl hp's and lose some conditions just for yourself if you cast it a second time.
Meh, heals less than Heal and clearing/lowering conditions would be very situational in encounter mode, and outside encounter mode you will have better ways of dealing with these. Definitely not TGTBT in my opinion.
Nothing currently would really be TGTBT if you allow this, but yeah, that would mean the battle curse comes with a little bonus advantage unlike all the others which does feel unintended.
On the other hand it actually makes Battle feel more like the old Oracle curses and I wouldn't mind the other Curses also having perks like this. It feels in theme for a battle oracle and it's a fun, cool perk, but nothing more, so I'd allow it.
Like Exemplar's Ikons, the problem is that anyone can grab this through archetype and enjoy the unintended benefits.
Definitely RAW and not TGTBT: after all, that's how Sure Strike worked for years and Pf2e didn't fall apart. Also, how often have you seen Battle Oracles in actual play? It's mainly a psychological thing.
Absolutely not, burn it with fire.
It's definitely not RAI and I wouldn't call it RAW: obvious mistakes aren't 'R' in RAW. If there was damage multiplied by 10 or 100 somewhere it wouldn't be RAW even if it was written so. This mistake is more subtle, but it doesn't change much.
No?
That... is the whole point of distinguishing RAW from RAI. Sometimes, we should elect to overrule the RAW.A dev mistake is still RAW, and we need to be able to acknowledge and accommodate that.
Yes, it is RAW, 100%. But, that doesn't mean it's RAI, and people can argue the RAW should not be played.
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Definitely RAW and not TGTBT: after all, that's how Sure Strike worked for years and Pf2e didn't fall apart. Also, how often have you seen Battle Oracles in actual play? It's mainly a psychological thing.
Then why did the immunity appeared in the Remaster ?
And again, the problem is not the class but the archetype.
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Wait, what ... ?
No.
This feels like cherry-picking and deliberately misunderstanding the rule text.
The full text:
Spells have an easier time wounding you. You gain weakness 2 to any damage dealt by a spell. Any immunity or resistance you have to spells is suppressed.
That is talking about damage immunity and resistance. It isn't talking about 'temporary immunity' to the spell's effect - aka cooldown or lockout.
Yes, there is a name collision here with the game term 'immunity'. It isn't the only one. It isn't even the worst one. And it is pretty easy to figure out from context what the game rule means by 'immunity' in this case.
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Wait, what ... ?
No.
This feels like cherry-picking and deliberately misunderstanding the rule text.
The full text:
Spells have an easier time wounding you. You gain weakness 2 to any damage dealt by a spell. Any immunity or resistance you have to spells is suppressed.That is talking about damage immunity and resistance. It isn't talking about 'temporary immunity' to the spell's effect - aka cooldown or lockout.
Yes, there is a name collision here with the game term 'immunity'. It isn't the only one. It isn't even the worst one. And it is pretty easy to figure out from context what the game rule means by 'immunity' in this case.
RAW does not limit the immunity to damage sadly.
And AFAICT you are the only poster I have read till now who has this understanding.
Which indeed would make awesome sense.
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Then why did the immunity appeared in the Remaster ?
My money's on devs not liking how the magus got mileage out of multiple true strikes per fight if they ever spent a round not spellstriking. Same reason IW and psychic dedication got hit.
Wait, what ... ?
No.
This feels like cherry-picking and deliberately misunderstanding the rule text.
The full text:
Spells have an easier time wounding you. You gain weakness 2 to any damage dealt by a spell. Any immunity or resistance you have to spells is suppressed.That is talking about damage immunity and resistance. It isn't talking about 'temporary immunity' to the spell's effect - aka cooldown or lockout.
Yes, there is a name collision here with the game term 'immunity'. It isn't the only one. It isn't even the worst one. And it is pretty easy to figure out from context what the game rule means by 'immunity' in this case.
You know, I hadn't actually considered that the first line here was meant as the defining feature to Cursebound 1, having it only referring to suppressing a characters immunities or resistances when it comes to damage from spells. Thank you so much for bringing that up, especially since I forgot to include it in the original post.
And AFAICT you are the only poster I have read till now who has this understanding.
Yeah, that happens. A lot. Comes with the territory of having a brain that works differently than normal.
The other two name collisions that I can think of off hand are 'Action', 'Action', 'Action', and 'Action'; and 'versatile vial' and 'versatile vial'.
Action: The unit of action economy that you get three of at the start of your turn.
Action: The unit of action economy cost that abilities consume when used.
Action: A specific ability that costs one Action.
Action: Something that you can do on your turn, which includes but is not limited to Actions, Reactions, and Activities.
Versatile Vial: The reagent resource that Alchemists get a certain quantity of, that remain potent until the next daily preparations, and are recharged automatically during exploration mode.
Versatile Vial: The intermediate item created by the Quick Vial option of Quick Alchemy, that only remains potent until the end of the current turn, and can only be used as a bomb or to create items from a limited specific list determined by your Research Field.
That is talking about damage immunity and resistance. It isn't talking about 'temporary immunity' to the spell's effect - aka cooldown or lockout.
Here's what the rules say on immunity, listing all immunity subtypes (I added the [numbers] for ease of reference):
[1]: When you have immunity to a specific type of damage, you ignore all damage of that type.[2]: If you have immunity to a specific condition or type of effect, you can't be affected by that condition or any effect of that type. […]
[3]: If you have immunity to effects with a certain trait (such as death effects, poison, or disease), you are unaffected by effects with that trait.
[4]: Immunity to critical hits: […]
[5]: Immunity to Nonlethal: […]
[6]: Temporary Immunity: Some effects grant you immunity to the same effect for a set amount of time. If an effect grants you temporary immunity, repeated applications of that effect don't affect you for as long as the temporary immunity lasts. Unless the effect says it applies only to a certain creature's ability, it doesn't matter who created the effect. For example, the blindness spell says, “The target is temporarily immune to blindness for 1 minute.” If anyone casts blindness on that creature again before 1 minute passes, the spell has no effect.
These are all the subtypes of Immunity that the rules recognize. There is only one subtype that references damage, #1.
Now, let's examine your statement:
That is talking about damage immunity and resistance.
Are you seriously trying to convince the readers that "spell" is a damage type? Is this serious, a joke, or gaslighting? =/
It isn't talking about 'temporary immunity' to the spell's effect - aka cooldown or lockout.
Yeah… sure… it's definitely not #6, despite the rules giving a spell (Blindness) and the immunity to that spell as a direct example for this type of immunity.
Blindness immunity, the example from the rules, reads: "The target then becomes temporarily immune for 1 minute."
Sure Strike immunity reads: "You are then temporarily immune to sure strike for 10 minutes."
Again: "spell" is not a damage type. If someone talks about immunity to spells, they can not, in good faith, refer only to spell damage. Finoan is folding two distinct sentences into one. However, a single word could have simply been added if that were the actual intention: "Any immunity or resistance you have to spell damage is suppressed."
This is a textbook example of the psychological thing I was referring to earlier, when the human brain starts jumping through all those hoops to find a way to make reality conform to their preconceived thought, instead of adjusting thought to reality:
"Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought." (wishful thinking)
I suggest reading the rules like a computer – as code for you to run the game with – not as a window into the psyche of the authors. References to immunity are resolved here by figuring out which type of immunity fits any given immunity from among the 6 listed immunity subtypes (damage type, condition, trait, …) at any given point in time.
Immunity to spells generally refers to #2 (type of effect), but would also occasionally include #6 (temporary immunity), as it does here. I make no claims regarding the intentions, only regarding the actual rules.
I do make claims about the intentions. That is what that first line of the cursebound 1 description is for. That is why the game developers have politely requested that we not consider that statement of intent as 'fluff'.
Yes, I can see the point about the various types of immunity such as immunity to a trait.
I still maintain that 'temporary immunity' is a separate game term with a different meaning and usage.
The cursebound 1 ability is intended to cause the Oracle to take extra damage from spells. To do that, the ability also has to strip the Oracle of any damage resistance or immunity that they might have.
It is not huge mental gymnastics to conclude that this does not mean that it also bypasses the cooldown 'temporary immunity' that some spells have to prevent them from being spammed and overused.
IMO the mental gymnastics involved would be needed to conclude that the Remastered Battle Oracle Curse allows spamming beneficial spells on the character despite the cooldown, despite the stated goal of the Remastered Oracle that the Curse only has drawbacks and no benefits.
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It is not huge mental gymnastics to conclude that this does not mean that it also bypasses the cooldown 'temporary immunity' that some spells have to prevent them from being spammed and overused.
The issue is that there are harmful spells, like blindness, that also have temporary immunity built in, so it's not such an open and shut case as you make it out to be. I can 100% see it being intended for the curse to bypass the temporary immunity of such spells. The issue becomes that they use the same mechanic to prevent useful spell spam as they do harmful spell spam.
They need more than what they've printed if they want to make it clear what's meant to be bypassed, as trying to link it to 'damage' doesn't cut it as there are harmful damage spells that can have temporarily immune [say Touch of Death, Siphon Life, Fatal Aria, Buzzing Bites, Power Word Kill, ect]. It needs to say 'Any immunity or resistance you have to [harmful] spells is suppressed' for it to work the way you think it does.
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So we have two potential rulings on this. One prevents Touch of Death from being spammed on the Oracle. The other allows Sure Strike to be spammed on the Oracle.
One of those options is a lot more broken than the other.
If the RAW is ambiguous and broken, and we have to pick one of the options, I'm still going with the option that the immunity is only to the spell damage (or resistance to spell damage). Having the enemies not be able to reapply Blindness seems like a lot more manageable of a problem to be left with.
I'm just wondering what people think spell resistance is. As far as I know, that is something that went away with PF1.
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If the RAW is ambiguous and broken, and we have to pick one of the options, I'm still going with the option that the immunity is only to the spell damage (or resistance to spell damage).
You're equating unintended with broken. It may very well be unintended but I haven't really seen anything broken or even it be ambiguous. I think you can play "Any immunity or resistance you have to spells is suppressed" as/is and nothing would go off the rails. If there is something that's actually broken, I'd like to see someone post it.
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This feels like cherry-picking and deliberately misunderstanding the rule text.
The full text:
Spells have an easier time wounding you. You gain weakness 2 to any damage dealt by a spell. Any immunity or resistance you have to spells is suppressed.That is talking about damage immunity and resistance. It isn't talking about 'temporary immunity' to the spell's effect - aka cooldown or lockout.
Yes, there is a name collision here with the game term 'immunity'. It isn't the only one. It isn't even the worst one. And it is pretty easy to figure out from context what the game rule means by 'immunity' in this case.
RAW does not limit the immunity to damage sadly.
And AFAICT you are the only poster I have read till now who has this understanding.
Which indeed would make awesome sense.Well, this thing appears here for the third time by my count and when it appeared the first time, '"Spells have an easier time wounding you" is also RAW' is almost the first thing I wrote. That poster though cited the whole text almost immediately. And I guess by now I don't care about subtleties anymore.
That is talking about damage immunity and resistance.Are you seriously trying to convince the readers that "spell" is a damage type? Is this serious, a joke, or gaslighting? =/Just don't be daft, stop it. "Damage from spells" is absolutely correct existing category in the game.
Also, he is completely right.
I suggest reading the rules like a computer – as code for you to run the game withAnd this is what we must never do. The worst possible advice anyone can give. This is NOT the game for automaton interpreters and rules layers, it's for living thinking people.
But not every people think alike.
A clarification is thus required.
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If the RAW is ambiguous and broken, and we have to pick one of the options, I'm still going with the option that the immunity is only to the spell damage (or resistance to spell damage).You're equating unintended with broken. It may very well be unintended but I haven't really seen anything broken or even it be ambiguous. I think you can play "Any immunity or resistance you have to spells is suppressed" as/is and nothing would go off the rails. If there is something that's actually broken, I'd like to see someone post it.
Then why did Paizo specifically added the immunity ?
Why fix something if it was not broken to begin with ?
Spamming Sure Strike on a Magus, Fighter or Gunslinger build seems pretty strong and those are just the cases that spring to my mind.
Come to think of it, spamming it on a Fortissimo Warrior muse Bard feels pretty excellent too.
My Starlit Span Magus would love to be able to put Sure Strike in all their slots again, plus a few scrolls. But indeed Too Good To Be True.
TBH having to take oracle dedication is a fair price for being able to do that. Magus is extremely archetype hungry and adding oracle requires serious cuts.
Like Exemplar's Ikons, the problem is that anyone can grab this through archetype and enjoy the unintended benefits.Well, to be fair, for Moment of Renewal it's just the oracle that becomes immune so it's a R8 slot and 2 actions to get con mod x lvl hp's and lose some conditions just for yourself if you cast it a second time.
Meh, heals less than Heal and clearing/lowering conditions would be very situational in encounter mode, and outside encounter mode you will have better ways of dealing with these. Definitely not TGTBT in my opinion.
Nothing currently would really be TGTBT if you allow this, but yeah, that would mean the battle curse comes with a little bonus advantage unlike all the others which does feel unintended.
On the other hand it actually makes Battle feel more like the old Oracle curses and I wouldn't mind the other Curses also having perks like this. It feels in theme for a battle oracle and it's a fun, cool perk, but nothing more, so I'd allow it.
The benefit of *checks notes* the pre-nerf version of true strike almost nobody had a problem with to begin with? And a few much more niche benefits? For an entire archetype? That really doesn’t seem that big a deal. Especially when you’re also putting yourself at risk of getting slapped with hostile spells bypassing immunity.
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Then why did Paizo specifically added the immunity ?
Why fix something if it was not broken to begin with ?
They often 'fix' things I wouldn't call broken, are overly conservative and have a tendency to overcorrect IMO.
Spamming Sure Strike on a Magus, Fighter or Gunslinger build seems pretty strong and those are just the cases that spring to my mind.
Are these classes that tend to have the actions and resources to do it? Non-ranged magus have issues spellstriking as much as they want to do to action constraints, so burning through Studious Spells and then drawing scrolls for extra actions? doesn't seem overpowered. Fighters and gunslingers have less slots to use and often have both hands occupied so more actions to use a scroll, so how much spam is there? And don't forget they have to spend feats in the archetype dedication [needing a +2 cha that none of those classes need] and more for more slots. This seems much to do about nothing.
Come to think of it, spamming it on a Fortissimo Warrior muse Bard feels pretty excellent too.
Not sure what Fortissimo or Warrior muse particularly gains from the spam: at low levels when courageous anthem is still useful, you don't have a meaningful number of slot/scrolls to spam enough to change anything and once you can, a +1 status bonus is pretty much useless.
Me, I like the idea that the intent is indeed immunity to spell damage only, just badly worded.
I'd disagree. I think it's intended to work on harmful spells. Seems off brand that they keep immunities to spells as long as it doesn't deal damage. I'd agree the removal of immunity for beneficial spells is likely not intended.
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The oracle remaster divided the benefits and drawbacks of cursebound abilities: Using the ability gives you benefits, your cursebound value gets up which gives you drawbacks.
I think the intention is pretty clear, you do not get an advantage by being cursebound.
If you feel battle oracle is too weak (which it is), you can homebrew any number of things, and of course you can allow sure strike not to have a cooldown for battle oracles - you don't have to find a loophole based on the limitations of natural speech for that.
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The oracle remaster divided the benefits and drawbacks of cursebound abilities: Using the ability gives you benefits, your cursebound value gets up which gives you drawbacks.
I think the intention is pretty clear, you do not get an advantage by being cursebound.
If you're in a dark room and your Flame Oracle's cursed "flames shed light like a torch", are you able to see, or would that be an illegal advantage from being cursebound?
If you're dominated by an enemy and forced to spill your party's secrets, but your Lore Oracle's curse is at stage 4, are you still unable to speak, or would that be an illegal advantage from being cursebound?
If you're paralyzed in a dangerous position and an ally tries to reposition you out of the way, but succeeds only due to your Cosmos Oracle's cursebound value, are you moved, or would that be an illegal advantage from being cursebound?
As these examples show, you can always find a case where your curse actually has advantages, and ruling otherwise would be absolutely silly. So I don't think your argument makes much sense.
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The oracle remaster divided the benefits and drawbacks of cursebound abilities: Using the ability gives you benefits, your cursebound value gets up which gives you drawbacks.
I think the intention is pretty clear, you do not get an advantage by being cursebound.If you're in a dark room and your Flame Oracle's cursed "flames shed light like a torch", are you able to see, or would that be an illegal advantage from being cursebound?
If you're dominated by an enemy and forced to spill your party's secrets, but your Lore Oracle's curse is at stage 4, are you still unable to speak, or would that be an illegal advantage from being cursebound?
If you're paralyzed in a dangerous position and an ally tries to reposition you out of the way, but succeeds only due to your Cosmos Oracle's cursebound value, are you moved, or would that be an illegal advantage from being cursebound?
As these examples show, you can always find a case where your curse actually has advantages, and ruling otherwise would be absolutely silly. So I don't think your argument makes much sense.
Not to mention that the class itself violates the premise on a regular basis with abilities scaling by Cursebound including Oracular Warning, The Dead Walk, and Conduit of Void and Vitality. Hell, Water Walker & Lighter than Air require Cursebound 1 to work at all (and scale up at higher Cursebound).
"Cursebound is strictly bad" was the stated premise of the remaster's design, but one of the flaws of the remaster is that it doesn't follow through consistently on its own premise.
I get the reasoning being stated here and I definitely agree that "being Cursebound lets me spam spells I'd normally not be able to spam" doesn't fit the stated design goal... it's just that a bunch of the class itself also doesn't fit that design goal, which undermines the argument.
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If you feel battle oracle is too weak (which it is), you can homebrew any number of things, and of course you can allow sure strike not to have a cooldown for battle oracles - you don't have to find a loophole based on the limitations of natural speech for that.
Ah yes the loophole of the feature directly saying immunity doesn’t apply to spells that would affect you, straightforwardly printed right in the text. That loophole.
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If you feel battle oracle is too weak (which it is), you can homebrew any number of things, and of course you can allow sure strike not to have a cooldown for battle oracles - you don't have to find a loophole based on the limitations of natural speech for that.Ah yes the loophole of the feature directly saying immunity doesn’t apply to spells that would affect you, straightforwardly printed right in the text. That loophole.
You know, natural language is so limited, it couldn't say 'immunity to [harmful] spells' or 'immunity to [damaging] spells' but had to only state "immunity to spells" that allows loopholes... :P
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The oracle remaster divided the benefits and drawbacks of cursebound abilities: Using the ability gives you benefits, your cursebound value gets up which gives you drawbacks.
I think the intention is pretty clear, you do not get an advantage by being cursebound.If you're in a dark room and your Flame Oracle's cursed "flames shed light like a torch", are you able to see, or would that be an illegal advantage from being cursebound?
If you're dominated by an enemy and forced to spill your party's secrets, but your Lore Oracle's curse is at stage 4, are you still unable to speak, or would that be an illegal advantage from being cursebound?
If you're paralyzed in a dangerous position and an ally tries to reposition you out of the way, but succeeds only due to your Cosmos Oracle's cursebound value, are you moved, or would that be an illegal advantage from being cursebound?
As these examples show, you can always find a case where your curse actually has advantages, and ruling otherwise would be absolutely silly. So I don't think your argument makes much sense.
Not comparable to the Battle Oracle though as the latter's valuable trick is easily grabbed through archetype and can be built around for max gaming of the "curse".
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Not comparable to the Battle Oracle though as the latter's valuable trick is easily grabbed through archetype and can be built around for max gaming of the "curse".
I mean... my Cosmos Oracle in Spore War was recently Cursebound 4. The only negative effect this had was that I couldn't use more Cursebound abilities. Am I "gaming the curse" by having a character on which Enfeebled is utterly irrelevant so the curse does nothing?
Oracle Archetype is really good for a lot of classes and picking a curse that doesn't hinder you much is pretty much part of the package with how the class works.
Battle happens to be one worth picking in some cases, but its not like there is no downside to it. Going to Cursebound 2 is a pretty legit curse, and cutting yourself off from that in order to avoid it limits how much you can use some pretty good abilities. I don't really view this as any worse than every character that doesn't care about STR just taking Cosmos and effectively not having a Curse at all (except for the upsides like feat scaling).
Remaster Oracle has absolutely messed up subclass balance. It's among the worst in the game, easily. Given that, players are doing entirely predictable things by picking the good ones for their build.
I wouldn't lose any sleep if they errata'd this Battle case, but it very clearly works RAW, we can't glean intent since the class breaks its own stated design goal multiple times already, and we certainly can't fault players for picking a good class option.
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Not comparable to the Battle Oracle though as the latter's valuable trick is easily grabbed through archetype and can be built around for max gaming of the "curse".I mean... my Cosmos Oracle in Spore War was recently Cursebound 4. The only negative effect this had was that I couldn't use more Cursebound abilities. Am I "gaming the curse" by having a character on which Enfeebled is utterly irrelevant so the curse does nothing?
Oracle Archetype is really good for a lot of classes and picking a curse that doesn't hinder you much is pretty much part of the package with how the class works.
Battle happens to be one worth picking in some cases, but its not like there is no downside to it. Going to Cursebound 2 is a pretty legit curse, and cutting yourself off from that in order to avoid it limits how much you can use some pretty good abilities. I don't really view this as any worse than every character that doesn't care about STR just taking Cosmos and effectively not having a Curse at all (except for the upsides like feat scaling).
Remaster Oracle has absolutely messed up subclass balance. It's among the worst in the game, easily. Given that, players are doing entirely predictable things by picking the good ones for their build.
I wouldn't lose any sleep if they errata'd this Battle case, but it very clearly works RAW, we can't glean intent since the class breaks its own stated design goal multiple times already, and we certainly can't fault players for picking a good class option.
Cosmos is still not comparable as you do not get any benefit from being Cursebound so there is no game/gain from it.
BTW even if the PC does not care about Enfeebled (check your Speed and Encumbrance though), they still get the penalty vs Forced movement.
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Cosmos is still not comparable as you do not get any benefit from being Cursebound so there is no game/gain from it.
Except for all the things I already enumerated that gain benefits from being Cursebound. Including Oracular Warning, which Cosmos gets automatically at level 1. Giving the whole party a +4 bonus to Initiative that stacks with Scout is pretty sweet when people are rocking high level abilities and we need the Thaumaturge to tell the Alchemist what of their many elements triggers weakness.
BTW even if the PC does not care about Enfeebled (check your Speed and Encumbrance though), they still get the penalty vs Forced movement.
Enfeebled does not impact Speed or Encumbrance at all. You don't roll for either of those things nor do they have a DC.
For that matter it doesn't impact the most common forced movement either, as things that do that tend to go against Fortitude DC which isn't impacted by Enfeebled either.
Literally the only thing this impacts is Athletics checks, and being a Gnome with -1 STR at level 19 I'm not succeeding on those anyway so I just avoid rolling them whenever possible (which at this level is generally pretty doable). I cannot overstate how little impact this curse actually has. And it's not like "caster that dumps STR" is some edge case build.
Battle Cursebound 1 isn't super bad, but it is doing something negative, and Battle Cursebound 2 is significant. Let's not pretend it's actually meaningless as a curse when there's an actually meaningless curse sitting right there that all the unarmored casters can archetype into and have it do nothing.
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Cosmos is still not comparable as you do not get any benefit from being Cursebound so there is no game/gain from it.Except for all the things I already enumerated that gain benefits from being Cursebound. Including Oracular Warning, which Cosmos gets automatically at level 1. Giving the whole party a +4 bonus to Initiative that stacks with Scout is pretty sweet when people are rocking high level abilities and we need the Thaumaturge to tell the Alchemist what of their many elements triggers weakness.
BTW even if the PC does not care about Enfeebled (check your Speed and Encumbrance though), they still get the penalty vs Forced movement.Enfeebled does not impact Speed or Encumbrance at all. You don't roll for either of those things nor do they have a DC.
For that matter it doesn't impact the most common forced movement either, as things that do that tend to go against Fortitude DC which isn't impacted by Enfeebled either.
Literally the only thing this impacts is Athletics checks, and being a Gnome with -1 STR at level 19 I'm not succeeding on those anyway so I just avoid rolling them whenever possible (which at this level is generally pretty doable). I cannot overstate how little impact this curse actually has. And it's not like "caster that dumps STR" is some edge case build.
You are right about Enfeebled, my bad.
But the penalty against Forced Movement comes in addition : "When you have the cursebound condition, you are enfeebled with a value equal to your cursebound value, and you take a status penalty to saves and DCs against all forms of forced movement equal to your cursebound value."
This applies to forced movement done against the Oracle.
It is not only that it gets harder for a Cosmos Oracle to Shove people because of Enfeebled.
It also gets harder for them to resist being Shoved, or any other thing that would forcibly move the Oracle.
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Battle Cursebound 1 isn't super bad, but it is doing something negative, and Battle Cursebound 2 is significant. Let's not pretend it's actually meaningless as a curse when there's an actually meaningless curse sitting right there that all the unarmored casters can archetype into and have it do nothing.
Going Cursebound 2 is completely a choice. You can actually stay at Cursebound 1 all day long as long as you do not Refocus.