Thursday, May 28, 2015

oracle critique



Some thoughts and suggestions in no particular order:

Consider the Dual Cursed archetype for Oracle. It would give you a few extra revelations to pick from as well as extra revelations known: the Misfortune revelation is literally one of the most powerful abilities in the game and is incredibly versatile as it can be used on both enemies and allies.

Going this route also helps with your spells as the archetype replaces your bonus 1st, 2nd, and 3rd spells and two of those you wanted anyway (Bestow Curse and Oracle’s Burden). Ill Omen, the 1st level, is also stupid good. Also that means you have more open spell slots for other things you may want.

A second curse would also increase the effectiveness of the Oracle’s Burden spell as you now have more negatives to give. If you want to optimize the meanness of that spell go with Blackened. With Wrecker that would give the enemy a grand total of -6 to hit with manufactured weapons and those weapons would only crit on 20 for x2. For some low impact curses that won’t really inhibit you at all due to them not growing, look at Lame or Legalistic.

Revelations: Spray of Shooting Stars is pretty bad as the damage is so bleh and the effect so limited in uses. Interstellar Void is a bit bleh too, but the level 15 upgrade on it is cool. Look at Star Chart; you know that spell that let us ask gods yes or no questions that we used to binary search the location of a lost relic? That spell is Commune and costs 1,000 gold to cast and Star Chart gives it to you once a day for free. It’s pretty sweet.

Race: Get the Scion of Humanity alternate racial. You lose practically nothing, but can now count as human and can use their racial options. Look at the special favored class option humans have for Oracle:

“Add one spell known from the oracle spell list. This spell must be at least one level below the highest spell level the oracle can cast.”
You want it. It lets you turn those 15 extra skill or hit points into more spells known.

Feats: The necro feat really doesn’t have much synergy with your build; it is something that only really shines if you have a lot of other things supporting it, but you don’t. Instead consider:

1. Divine Intervention (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/divine-interference) = burn low level spells slots you don’t care about to force the enemy to reroll attacks vs us

2. Battle Cry (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/battle-cry-combat) = swift action, we all get a minor buff but more importantly we can end that buff to reroll a saving throw. That is incredibly powerful and you would be able to do this Charisma mod times per day.

3. Quicken Spell = you never know when you need to the extra action economy. If you go Dual Cursed you will get the 1st level spell Ill Omen which would help your save or die/suck spells stick a lot better, especially if combined with the Misfortune revelation.

Gear: Otherworldly Kimono should be considered. For 67k you are looking at +4 versus SR, +4 saves (does not stack with the cloak, so you could ditch the cloak to help with the cost and having one less on your saves won’t hurt with how high they are), and 1/day Maze. It is probably the best in slot body item for a caster.

Spells: If you go with the Scion of Humanity racial you will have many more to pick from, so just going to mention a few I always consider.

2nd: Silence = the target only gets a save vs the spell if you cast it on them, so cast it on me or Jessiah and we can close on them and they won’t be able to cast.

3rd: Dispel Magic = always useful

4th: Dismissal = you had this but it is an iffy spell in my opinion. All outsiders have a good will save so they are likely to make it and those that aren’t likely to make it are probably easy to kill anyway so why bother using it on them?

6th: Anti-life shell = stops living things from getting within 10 feet of you. Super useful; it’s what I used when I ran the evil mirror party against you guys to keep my evil Jessiah alive and being an asshole for so long.

Word of Recall = great for quick escapes or for making suicidal charges into tactical charges instead.

Greater Dispel = again, always useful

7th: Greater Restoration = permanent negative levels are a bitch and this gets rid of them quickly though expensively. We may never use need it, but you never know. We could probably just get NPCs to fix us in our down time though but still worth considering.

Waves of Ecstasy = lots of things are unaffected by mind affecting, but it is a super powerful debuff that does something even on a successful save and targets multiple enemies. It’s solid all around.

Destruction = Not really a bad spell against a caster, but most non-humanoid enemies we will fight at this level will have a good fort save and thus likely to make the save. 10d6 is a nice consolation prize, but it’s a single target 7th level spell. If you go Dual Cursed and get Misfortune you could it more likely to stick.