Oracle
In the ancient world, oracles were temples where people would go to get their fortune told (yes, the word referred to the building the fortune-teller worked at, not the fortune-teller herself). Unlike modern fortune-telling, everyone involved took that shit seriously, and people would pay large sums of money to listen to a woman, probably high on various poisonous fumes, ramble cryptically at them.
Pathfinder[edit | edit source]
Paizo's attempt to port over, buff up, and grimdark over the Favored Soul, in a nutshell. Like most full spontaneous casters, they are Tier 2, capable of breaking the game with the right (or wrong) spells, but can't trivialize everything thanks to their low number of spells known.
Sometimes, in Golarion, a god will attempt to divinely inspire a prophet to go forth and do their will among the people. This divine power gives them many powerful abilities, but the message is usually a little garbled, and every oracle is a little off in the head. It also warps them a little: some go lame, others go blind, a few go mad, and all sorts of other side effects. It's a bit of a mixed bag for the god in question. An Oracle doesn't have to worship the deity that empowered them. Indeed, the iconic (example character) Oracle is an atheist kicked out of atheist land for her powers.
The sorcerer to the cleric's wizard, oracles are divine spellcasters that cast from a pool of select spells spontaneously, rather than preparing them in advance. Like sorcerers, they lose out to their spell-preparing counterparts on pure versatility, since they can't channel energy and have access to fewer spells, but, also like sorcerers, they get more spells and access to a mystery, which is like a cleric's choice of god but much more badass. It's their equivalent to the sorcerer's bloodline powers, and gives them a ton of new class abilities known as Revelations: the mystery of metal, for instance, grants the ability to wear heavy armor and wield martial weapons on top of metal-related spells while Heavens boosts Color/Prismatic Spray. An Oracle gets 6 revelations over 19 levels, plus another for every feat spent on Extra Revelation, out of the 10 that can be picked for each mystery. Very few mysteries actually have six good, let alone great, revelations however, and it's often viable to select archetypes that trade away mysteries, so long as a proper revelation is gained early enough to gain more via feat.
They also suffer from an oracle's curse, like going blind or having lots of grumpy ghosts constantly knocking shit out of your hands. While it usually comes with significant mechanical drawbacks (even something like Tongues, which restricts the languages you can speak in combat, cuts off [language-dependent] spells and restricts what summons you can control), the curse also unlocks new spells and powers for the oracle in question (though some of the less painful ones also don't get much in return), and as they rise in level and learn to live with it it becomes less and less of a liability.
One little utilized difference from Cleric is that, unlike Clerics, Oracles aren't prohibited from casting spells opposite of their deity's alignment. Most of these spells are useless if you aren't the matching alignment, as they only work against opposite alignment or do strictly evil things like dooming a soul to Hell regardless of alignment. This means the primary use for this is playing good aligned Oracles cursed by evil deities without losing access to [Good] spells. There are a few gems you can pick up though like Infernal Healing, Screaming Flames, Hellfire Ray (if you take merciful spell), Death Clutch and undead creation stuff for good Oracles or Angelic Aspect and Burst of Radiance for evil Oracles.
Two recurring revelations that show up in multiple revelations are of note for character op. One is one that summons weightless armor. While this armor is behind the curve when compared to magic armor, it's free and the part all the AC is armor bonus, so its eligible for Magic Vestment to add enhancement bonus and make it better than normal armor. Another, less common, recurring one is making your armor class depend on charisma instead of dexterity. Normally this isn't too exceptional, you need dexterity for initiative, but this can be changed with the Noble Scion (War) feat, which changes even that to also be based on charisma, letting you dump dexterity.
Pathfinder made the spontaneous casters viable choices, and oracles are powerful and a lot of fun to play, especially because you get to roleplay what essentially amounts to a crazy homeless person with magical powers, and maybe a heart of gold if you like. They're also less awful for dual-classing with the Sorcerer if you want to go for a Mystic Theurge, because then you can just max the fuck out of your Charisma score instead of juggling two abilities.
Spheres of Power[edit | edit source]
Besides the usual Vancian to Spheres conversions, the Oracle maintains a status as a High Caster, and obtains access to one magic talent every level. Additionally, much like the Sorcerer, they lose spells from their Mystery in favor for spell points (every 2 levels = 1 spell point) while their curse also gives spell points when you would get spells.
Funnily enough, the Oracle curses are also a core part of the Spheres ruleset, as a drawback option for Casting Traditions.
Pathfinder 2nd[edit | edit source]
Still a divine Sorcerer-like class but also with a good deal less cheesing available. The fluff remains largely the same, being someone gifted with a burden by some higher powers.
The chief rewrite for this class comes with your Mystery, which not only provides some associated domains (and one focus spell), but also serves as the basis of your curse. See, unlike 1E's custom-choice curses where you could totally cheese out those curses to the point where they don't really amount to shit, the curses here are innately tied to your Mystery. Your curse will only act up whenever you use certain spells (usually those tied to your mystery, one domain spell, and others you pick up via feats), which are unique from the normal focus spells. Unlike focus points, you pay for these spells by aggravating your curse by increasing levels of severity, and even out of battle you can only quell it to its least harmful aspect short of turning it off by refocusing. As you level up, you can increase how many times you can cast these mystery spells (and thus gain extra levels of severity on your curse) before you reach your limit. If you cast any mystery spells while your curse is at your worst, the patron deity who gave you these powers will get pissy and steal your spells until you sleep it off.
The current mysteries available are as follows:
- Ancestors: Whether haunted by your grandparents or by the spirits of the restless dead, you've gained some extra ancestry feats as a result of your ties to the past. Your curse gives you a random set of actions that switches with each turn, but any actions outside that chosen set of actions requires a flat check or else see the action wasted. As a bit of an incentive to keep with the switch-hitter motif, higher levels of the curse provide you bonuses to the selected set of actions.
- Battle: You are gripped by the forces of conflict, be it either a war god or some viking warrior seeking Valhalla. As such, you gain training in a weapon group and in medium and heavy armor, though you remain no ideal warrior. Your curse will force you into battle, as it deals penalties to your AC (and incapable of focus at a high enough level) but you can offset these penalties by attacking. Higher levels of the curse give you better deals, like damage boosts and fast healing in combat.
- Bones: You are somehow tied to the realm of the dead, and as such you have the ability to choose whether you are healed by positive or negative energy each day. Your curse siphons away at your vitality and healing, with the only perk being the ability to resist poison, death, and eventually falling to death itself.
- Cosmos: Your powers are drawn by beyond the sky, be it the stars or the void between them. Because of this, you're gifted with a resistance to any sort of physical damage. Your curse weakens gravity's pull upon you, weakening you and making you more prone to getting shoved around but makes jumping much easier.
- Flames: Your soul is bound to fire, be it through a deity or a link to the elemental plane of fire. This grants you an improved proficiency in Reflex saves, which helps with all the breath weapons thrown around and such. Your curse makes flames run rampant around you, blinding your sight with smoke that eventually can even benefit others and your worst has you literally burn those nearby you. Playing with this mystery will require you to be away from folks.
- Life: Your being overflows with positive energy, be it from the plane of positive energy or some healing god, and this gives you extra HP each level. Your curse makes this positive energy flow outwards without end, limiting any healing you get but improving your healing abilities when dealing with others. The worst part of this curse even lets you sacrifice your own health to restore HP to others.
- Lore: You find yourself able to absorb knowledge faster, whether because of a god's blessing, some sort of telepathy or a link to the Akashic Archives. This expanded knowledge also provides an extra spell slot for your highest casting level. Your curse overloads your head with data, nerfing your initiative with increasing levels making you less able to act though you can recall knowledge more easily and comprehend languages.
- Tempest: You are born of the storms, whether by divine blessing or some sort of link to the elemental planes of water and air, allowing you to see through stormy weather and dealing a token amount of electrical damage to your spells. Your curse turns you into a living lightning rod, with higher levels hindering your ability to shoot and hindering the effects of fire on you. The worst level of this curse makes you supercharged to the point that you can shock people that touch you while the winds around you knock things airborne.
- Ash: Rather than the raging fires, your body is more attuned to the remains of such power and view the fire that caused it to be a transition rather than an end. This ash makes you a bit more resistant to damage, but your curse leaves you a coughing mess, crippling your movement and covering nearby creatures with ash, eventually leading to extreme vulnerability to fire at the worst level of curse.
| The Classes of Pathfinder 1st Edition | |
|---|---|
| Core Classes: | Barbarian - Bard - Cleric - Druid - Fighter - Monk Paladin - Ranger - Rogue - Sorcerer - Wizard |
| Advanced Player's Guide: |
Alchemist - Antipaladin - Cavalier Inquisitor - Oracle - Summoner - Witch |
| Advanced Class Guide: |
Arcanist - Bloodrager - Brawler - Hunter - Investigator Shaman - Skald - Slayer - Swashbuckler - Warpriest |
| Occult Adventures: |
Kineticist - Medium - Mesmerist Occultist - Psychic - Spiritualist |
| Ultimate X: | Gunslinger - Magus - Ninja - Samurai - Shifter - Vigilante |
| The Classes of Pathfinder 2nd Edition | |
|---|---|
| Core Classes: | Alchemist - Barbarian - Bard - Champion - Cleric - Druid Fighter - Monk - Ranger - Rogue - Sorcerer - Wizard |
| Advanced Player's Guide: | Investigator - Oracle - Swashbuckler - Witch |
| Secrets of Magic: | Magus - Summoner |
| Guns and Gears: | Gunslinger - Inventor |
| Dark Archive: | Psychic - Thaumaturge |
| Other: | Archetypes |