It is good to remember that the actual benefit Flames Oracle had was better Reflex saves, the ability to target concealed foes within 30ft with only fire spells, and a 4d6 ring of fire that hurt everyone in a 10ft radius. And that last one only came online after Level 11 when you can actually GET to your Major Curses. Your actual good flavor wasn't that helpful and that was some of the BETTER improvements you got as a dedicated Oracle. The actual benefits people would play around were the Focus Spells, the Domain Spells, and granted spells (from Divine Access), which is everything you get in the Remaster and more. I can agree that the subclasses definitely feel more generic and the loss of specific playstyles can turn away those that got really into the min-maxing of the original take, but it is just important to remember how little the people could actually use all your "flavor". I do think they could have kept the Mystery Benefits, though. Most aren't really that major and would take the sting out of Battle being bad and Lore still being useless.
Agreed. When building my oracle, I felt like most mysteries could not fit the playstyle I had in mind, unlike other classes. As a result, instead of building flavour and playstyle on top of each other, I felt like I needed to have all the class side of my character ready before even thinking about who they were, because choosing character options based on flavour had a chance to result in a character I didn't care for playing because the curse was too disruptive and changed the playstyle too much. Honestly, I'd even say they looked like 5e subclasses, where the subclass is all the customisation you get, so they have to be extremely defined in their playstyle. We have feats here, so I'm fine having curse customisation in there
I get you and I have to agree about being shoe-horned into playing the class the way the curse dictates. I guess I don't see why we had to lose some good things along with the restrictions being removed. (Like the mystery "buffs")
Flavor is free. I’m very happy with these changes. Nothing stops a DM or player from adding the flavor of the old curses to these new ones, but the mechanics were changed to make the class easier to play.
@@CooperativeWaffles That depends. I flavor all my characters very differently from each other. One thing I’d do from time to time is depending on the curse, I might choose to not suppress it for rp elements.
lol I accept that I'm in the minority on the Oracle issue; I tend to flavor things my own way as well... but while I've been given new more interesting feats with this remaster, the core class has less interest for me because it has lost some of the pieces that made it weird and special. In essence, they took away some of my toys and gave me other toys to build things out of and I'm disappointed that they took my toys. Couldn't they have JUST given me new toys?
Yeah... yeah. I just built a Witch with Oracle Archetype and I like everything about it... except the Mysteries. WHICH IS THE SUBCLASS OF THE ORACLE. Jeez....
I think pushing old curse flavor and mechanics into feats is a great idea! Now you can tailor characters more closely to your own idea of them. Like imagine picking waterwalk as the flame oracle and it works due to the Leidenfrost effect. I think that's really fun!
@@92ospe11 I agree that that is really fun. And you should totally do it. The flame Oracle still lost their original ability of having expert in reflex saves and gaining concealment with fire, and they have to pay a fee in order to get their Flame aura back. I like that you can mix and match, yes. But I don't like that the Oracle who originally had the power has to pay for it now and the curses are only negative because of this. That's why I think that the archetype of the Oracle is better than the class of the oracle. Because you are no longer losing out on a benefit by taking Oracle as an archetype because Oracle doesn't get that benefit at all anyway. In fact, making a fire Sorcerer And then choosing Flames Oracle Archetype is way more badass now then choosing a flames oracle.
@@WisdomCheck They definitely went for a sort of build-a-bear approach to the class rather than the full package it was before. My group haven't properly tried the remake so I can't really say anything about how it performs. We did struggle with the old version though as we felt it had a lot of drawbacks with nothing to show for it.
@@troyyrob Bad luck gamer has "a source". That doesn't mean he got his information directly from Paizo. I'm waiting to hear it from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
@@troyyrob and even if so that increases the power level overall but that doesn't mean that they are more interesting than the previous oracle. Spells can only add so much and it's in the hands of the player to choose the most useful spells. For example: the combat Oracle - they took away armor and weapon proficiencies and gave an extra spell slot. That doesn't replace what was taken.
@@WisdomCheck Oh for sure. I don't think it makes them more interesting. I was just trying to provide that clarity from what I had heard. On a side note, I personally really kind of liked the craziness of the Meddling Futures in Ancestors and I am excited that it is open to all Mysteries. I am debating about making a Bones or Lore Oracle now that is all about "gambling" and using Meddling Futures and the Level 10 Dice rolling feat. Add in Wellspring Mage archetype and let the fun begin!
Hahahah ok that makes sense. Chaos is fucking fun. I guess I tend to shy away from randomness in my builds because I like designing around a theme and randomness can sidetrack a theme. But if the theme IS RANDOMNESS it's totally perfect. ;)
One thought I had was I believe I remember nonat had a sponsor for his Oracle video that made their own third-party supplement for the Oracle when originally came out perhaps they might be able to be a font of ideas more suited 2 ur play style. I’m enjoyN every podcast of yours. I hope this wrks out 4U!
I really did like playing the Legacy Ancestor Oracle. The flavor was really strong of my character having a relationship with these ancestors and having aspects of those characters personalities influencing how I roleplayed as well. My character was in a slightly homebrew setting that used the Drow Pantheon and my "ancestors" were actually anti-Llothic gods from the Dark Seldarine Eilistraee (strikes) Vhaeraun (skills) and Kiaransalee (spells). I had her take Elven Weapon Proficiency and a Rogue Archetype to get some benefit to using the strikes and skills. It incentivized me not to use up all my spell slots so early.
Jesus. Now THAT'S how to apply flavor to your build! Ok... I totally see why this Oracle Mystery worked well for you. That is a very clever way to use the tools you're given to build what you imagine.
Oracle used to be my favorite class. I loved the punishing curses. While I felt the benefits were in many places underwhelming for the costs (cleric focus spells are on the lower end of the focus spell strength spectrum) I still liked balancing my downside with the flavor of the class. My Ancestors oracle (yes, I purposely chose to play one because of the bad rep) was often nerfed by a bad ancestor taking over - but it was fun! I will still try a Remastered Oracle but I'm nervous. The original oracle feats are not great (except the ones that gave focus spells) so there may not be too much of a loss to use class feats to take Cursebound actions. But with the current number of feats available then I'm pretty sure most Remastered Oracles are going to look a lot like EVERY OTHER remastered Oracle. Arrrgh. (Thank you for the video and causing anxiety in anticipation of getting my PC2 subscription). And Meddling Futures is unusuable - actually worse than the previous Ancestors Curse. If you could do this at the end of one turn (so you can plan the next - like old Ancestors) or at least at the beginning of the turn do something 'this turn' then it would be okay with some benefit for the cost (the curse advancing). The 'next action' clause makes it so incredibly bad. Example - I have to Strike - but I'm not next to anyone. Or I set up to Strike and now I have to Cast - I have a spell but I have just taken the Reactive Strike to the face. I have already decided to home brew this at my table to be - THIS TURN, not NEXT ACTION. Will play RAW to know for sure. Anyway - will still explore a real character at the table.
I feel a great swell of sympathy for anyone trying to play an Oracle in this system with that feat. My heart goes out to you sir. That is a wise choice you made in house ruling it though.
I too was upset about removal of flavour from Oracle but after some consideration it might be for the better even if it hurts now. Oracle mysteries were quite frontloaded in terms of how they described your curse and flavour and I think it was long term detrimental to character building. With more conservative descriptions it leaves more to you how you will imagine Oracle. I was always treating PF2 Oracles somewhat as Warlock in DnD (Witch in PF2 and probably a well done summoner). There are a lot of places for mystery and your relation with divine powers and curse and it gives a lot of potential plot to work with to GM. I absolutely loved discovering secrets behind my character power together with my Team and GM as part of our journey. I didn't even need any special spotlight as you basically need some breadcrumbs and little cooperation with the GM where you want it to go to stay invested in this character. While it's true that I picked Oracle for flavour in its description 14 levels in, I'm nowhere near the original description of my character due to constant evolution. I would say that now depending on the rest of the Oracle description and handling guide in PC2 and how players are prepared by Paizo to play Oracle less might prove to be more in the long run but now with better tools to play the game. For me it was hopeful thought and I now I just wish new gameplay will get to the level of my Oracle story and flavour.
I like your way of thinking about this. Like with all the characters I build, concept flavor matters much more than inborn flavor of the class. I'm playing an NPC cursed gunslinger in the Livestream who summons demons to do his bidding by playing poker with them (psychically) and uses their essence for his spells. He has a constantly-drunk squirrel spirit guide that he won in a poker game and has been blessed by a Sanddevil with the form of a Fennec Fox to help him survive in the desert when he's guiding a trade caravan for money. His Ancestry and class? Kitsune Witch (Divine). I guess it seems unfair the way they've required a higher feat cost for the Oracle to get the flavor that they previously had, though I do understand that they can choose just about any flavor in the end. I will try to make a couple of Oracles and see if I can get excited about the opportunity to apply any flavor.
@@WisdomCheck I have trouble even figuring out how you build this character to have all elements in place :D I love the concept! For me my GM did quite some heavy lifting with free archetypes. I was planning something rather basic. It just happened that I was taking lore for everything chaotic and potentially eldritch starting from maelstrom. My character faced a bit of a premature demise (lvl 3) when we were learning the system so I had a chance to resurrect it. I was informed that now my free archetype is a cursed maelstrom that shines in cerulean light. It was easy to figure out that it has something to do with Proteans so I was digging into what happened during that resurrection. Later one there were random voices, a strange appetite for sources of magic and golden feathers. I was sure my character was altered, possessed, otherwise influenced by his mystery or combination of all until it turned out he was a Protean that magicly lobotomised himself and loaded onto freshly deceased to roleplay mortal. This was an explanation for lore oracle mysterious knowledge and powers I absolutely did not expect and it was just brilliant (quite intense GM intervention into character so I guess not for everyone but for me it was 11/10 moment) Also I love Proteans. They are probably my favourite PF2 outsider so extra points for that. It's true however that there was a lot of guidance in basic Oracle mystery and spell description that now seems to not be there. I need to get my hands on the book when possible and see how the rest of the Oracle chapter is written. Oracle do not have decades of character concepts to work with as DnD warlock and related specs so more guidance was super useful when I was getting into PF2e.
Wow that was a shocking reveal from your DM. Quite a clever and fun angle for your character. That must have been a lot of fun to roleplay. And yeah Proteans are just damned weird. I love that Paizo isn't afraid to delve deeply into weird crap and give us some really fun and unexpected things.
Ancestors was actually fun. You had 50% chance of doing whatever you want to do and still could gamble trying to go against your ancestor anyway, all that while gaining some bonuses to it
I vibe with Meddling Futures. My brain can be very good at things, but rarely for the thing that I need to do at the moment. Since it doesn't grant an action, it is mostly useless, but 1 out of the 3 spirits could help you open a door...
thank you for this, looking forward to hearing your thoughts. (Also my party did not get to the boss room, so I have plenty of time to evaluate and make the boss if what I had in mind still fits the oracle)
@@EngineeringDruid AWESOME! I was worried that because this was delayed a full day it wouldn't be useful for you. I'm glad to hear that it could be. If the boss is a full Oracle you might just go with the old Mysteries because they're more dramatic and use the new Feats because they're pretty powerful. Then you can have a flying boss who has a whirling wind storm around them that does fire damage and makes people deafened.
I am so happy with the current Oracle changes. Giving actual power to one of the worst classes in the game is amazing to me. Now you get to actually use your revelation spells, your domain spells, and you have a great stacking cost/benefit option to actually use your curse.
I agree that they really needed a boost. I'm glad they did something about it too. It's also good that they made the curses tie in to feats so you could choose your effects.
Im right there with you. I took down my times oracle medic since they changed oracle so much id have to wait for the changes vis errata for ash and time mystery and the life mystery just hurst sincd you no longer get the bonus health, still have life link, and now the penalty is you level x the cursebound lvl which is a huge amount and whats the benefit? I wont lie i do like some of the feats and i do like the extended domains related but thats it. They gutted the flavor and the feeling of cost/benefit you would get previously. What is the point... i could just play a cleric. They should have just made the benefits attached to the cursebound feat. That way one can still choose between doubling down on their curse to gain the benefit or not. At the moment its too late in level.
I think this is what a lot of people are missing we have a dedicated caster for divine who is supposed to be the straightforward one and easy to run that's cleric. The mysteries are worse than their deity in terms of benefit. That's just sad. Them getting more spell slots doesn't stop them from feeling like all the flavor that they brought to a character is completely gone. Battle oracle is now arguably one of the better casters which is just plain stupid to consider. It's free focus spell is downright a waste of text.
YES! YES I agree. I'm very sad for your Oracles and I think we should just ignore the changes to the base Mysteries that removed flavor and function. It was very sad to me.
Most of it is from that feat, yes. But you still don't gain the general benefit from the Mystery and you have to spend 2 feats to get most of the curse benefit back.
The start of your video reminds me of the move from AD&D to AD&D 2nd Edition. Less crunchy and fits to video game mechanics better. Sadly this is a normal thing for TTRPGs to survive.
Yes it is. BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE. Making a more generic more boring less intricate game to attract a wider base of audience DOESN'T mean that you have a good game. It means that you make more money. I'm nervous of Paizo becoming like WOTC.
WC take here chief, if you want to take down how they changed the Oracle you'll want to contend with why they changed the design, and the difficulty of the original mixed buff/nerf design space
I respectfully disagree about your opinion on the flavor. From what it sounds like they did instead of having a fully made Sunday ready to go you have to build it yourself. Since the feats have cursebound now it is those feats you choose that give you the flavor and the good stuff that you want while the curse is just the bad stuff. Also having more spell slots is awesome to. Thanks for the awesome video. Love watching them.
I appreciate you showing a difference of opinion. :D I agree they made a "build your own Oracle" and nerfed the curses. But now you have to spend a Class Feat JUST to get away MOST of what they took by changing the benefits of the Mystery. It seems like a needless sink. I'm glad you're here and that you're someone willing to have a mature argument. :)
There is general provision against mitigation, but what does that mean? The Bones curse say specifically that any immunity or resistances are supressed, but the Flames Curse doesnt mention resistances at all. If Im on fire, taking two points of damage a round,and I have fire resistance, do I still take damage ? What if Im under the effect of a Numbing or Soothing Tonic?
Yes. But to clarify: you'd only take the damage CAUSED by the curse. Like with Bones Mystery you would take ONLY the weakness amount of damage if you take damage from void or vitality if you are otherwise immune to that type of damage.
@@Mazryik 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 temporay hit points? If so are you then never allowed to heal? Its not clearly spelled out. Mitigate isnt a defined term in this game.
Huh. Ok you're right. It's not a game term. Fast healing would happen after the damage though, so it isn't "mitigating" anything. I think that you could use temp hp to absorb the damage. It seems as though it may be aa way around the intention, but it seems like it works fine by RAW.
Hey thanks for this video. As someone who was also really disappointed in the remaster Oracle, I’d be interested in hearing in depth how you would handle it going forward. Would you keep the cursebound trait on the feats and remove it from the spells while keeping the old mystery? Would you keep it as a four slot caster (which BadLuckGamer’s sources say it is now meant to be)?
BLG's sources haven't been made public and I don't trust that which I do not know the source for certain... just on general principle. So I don't believe that until it is more clearly stated by Paizo. That being said, I don't think the Oracle's uniqueness and fun has much to do with how many spell slots they have, so I'm fine reverting to the original pre-remaster number of slots, removing cursebound from their revelation spells, keeping the old mysteries (with the new remaster domain additions) and using the new feats. More options = more fun. :)
I like the pick your poison nature of these feats, but I feel this new Oracle would be better as an Archtype. The Curses are very imbalanced-being weak against forced movement is barely an inconvenience compared to being Clumsy!
God poor Battle Oracle... Look what they've done to you old friend... I wonder if Oracle is just, if you'll forgive the wordplay, 'cursed' from the outset? The way 2e is designed, it feels like it's just impossible to balance a class that has a drawback built right into its class. Every +1 and -1 matters much more in 2e than it did in 1e, in 1e there was just so much nonsense that even the worst curses like deafened or reclusive could be overcome without much trouble. But with just how tight the math is in a system like 2e, I'm starting to think it's just functionally impossible to make Oracle decent, the core design philosophy of the system feels inherently hostile to the very nature of the class. Mutagenist Alchemist had similar criticisms, having to eat a debuff to get a buff ultimately failed to grab people as a mechanic because you have to jump through hoops to get to the same level as everyone else. The archetype tho is unimaginably powerful, some of the feats are beyond insane, this for me has easily beaten out Psychic as the best 'generically good for pretty much anyone with a passable charisma score' archetype.
Yeah I think you're right... Oracle doesn't belong in a system that's so tightly balanced. The joy and strangeness of it in PF1 was how extreme they were in one way or another. I miss my PF1 Oracles.... The Archetype for Oracle is quite good now, I agree. It brings to the surface how imbalanced some of the Archetypes are with each other. And I get you about it replacing the Psychic in that way. I'm almost there myself except that if you can only spend one feat on it, Psychic is still just more dramatic in it's effect on your build.
@@WisdomCheck A little update on the Oracle archetype... Now that PC 2 has been here for a bit 2 of my fellow players in a game I'm in both went into the new oracle archetype, one a Monk and the other a Cleric and well... They've started performing to an insane degree. The Monk grabbed whispers of weakness so now for one action he just knows whether tripping, grappling or intimidate is best on the enemy, what elemental stance to use, and he gets a +2 status bonus to hit. What's essentially happened is that due to a combo of making enemies off-guard in the most efficient way and the +2 status bonus to hit he gets to completely cancel out his MAP, basically getting a trip/grab+ an attack at no penalty. The Cleric grabbed Nudge the Scales which gives him a 1 action ranged heal which has saved our lives countless times, either by nova healing someone to full with a 2-action heal+scales, or by being able to efficiently spread out healing between two people at range, and he's getting the feat that lets him grab more domain spells from the nice big list of domains they all have for even more goodies. Whilst this is completely anecdotal, I think that this archetype is performing to such a high degree it's insane... I've already heard quite a bit around the community that "literally anyone other than an Oracle now makes a better Oracle than the Oracle" and I can fully see why. I think I can safely say this has been a colossal design failure on Paizo's part and it makes me wonder how they're gonna address this in the future, because the divine classes seem to be having a big push/role in the upcoming war of the immortals stuff.
Yeah it is a BIG problem. I changed a character to give up an Archetype to take Oracle and then I realized that he'd overshadow others in the group just because he'd be SUCH a powerful Oracle... as a Witch. It's kind of sad.
One thought I had was I believe I remember nonat had a sponsor for his Oracle video that made their own third-party supplement for the Oracle when originally came out perhaps they might be able to be a font of ideas more suited 2 ur play style. I’m enjoyN every podcast of yours. I hope this wrks out 4U!
Thanks! Dude, that's a good idea. AND you reminded me that Oracles+ is a thing! I'll have to talk with them about it. And I am quite grateful you are here and enjoying my brain squeezings. :D
It is good to remember that the actual benefit Flames Oracle had was better Reflex saves, the ability to target concealed foes within 30ft with only fire spells, and a 4d6 ring of fire that hurt everyone in a 10ft radius. And that last one only came online after Level 11 when you can actually GET to your Major Curses.
Your actual good flavor wasn't that helpful and that was some of the BETTER improvements you got as a dedicated Oracle. The actual benefits people would play around were the Focus Spells, the Domain Spells, and granted spells (from Divine Access), which is everything you get in the Remaster and more. I can agree that the subclasses definitely feel more generic and the loss of specific playstyles can turn away those that got really into the min-maxing of the original take, but it is just important to remember how little the people could actually use all your "flavor".
I do think they could have kept the Mystery Benefits, though. Most aren't really that major and would take the sting out of Battle being bad and Lore still being useless.
Okay you have a good point. Not all of the flavorful abilities were always useful. But it seems like they took a step backwards.
Agreed. When building my oracle, I felt like most mysteries could not fit the playstyle I had in mind, unlike other classes. As a result, instead of building flavour and playstyle on top of each other, I felt like I needed to have all the class side of my character ready before even thinking about who they were, because choosing character options based on flavour had a chance to result in a character I didn't care for playing because the curse was too disruptive and changed the playstyle too much. Honestly, I'd even say they looked like 5e subclasses, where the subclass is all the customisation you get, so they have to be extremely defined in their playstyle. We have feats here, so I'm fine having curse customisation in there
I get you and I have to agree about being shoe-horned into playing the class the way the curse dictates. I guess I don't see why we had to lose some good things along with the restrictions being removed. (Like the mystery "buffs")
Flavor is free. I’m very happy with these changes. Nothing stops a DM or player from adding the flavor of the old curses to these new ones, but the mechanics were changed to make the class easier to play.
@@troyyrob Yup
The flavor is not really a problem for me since I always tend to flavor things my own way. I personally like this version better. Sorry not sorry lol
Would appreciate hearing the flavour you use instead.
@@CooperativeWaffles That depends. I flavor all my characters very differently from each other. One thing I’d do from time to time is depending on the curse, I might choose to not suppress it for rp elements.
lol I accept that I'm in the minority on the Oracle issue; I tend to flavor things my own way as well... but while I've been given new more interesting feats with this remaster, the core class has less interest for me because it has lost some of the pieces that made it weird and special. In essence, they took away some of my toys and gave me other toys to build things out of and I'm disappointed that they took my toys. Couldn't they have JUST given me new toys?
I must say, I admire your rant restraint. Good gods and mysteries, where did my beloved oracle go? It's now "feels bad man, the class."
Yeah... yeah. I just built a Witch with Oracle Archetype and I like everything about it... except the Mysteries. WHICH IS THE SUBCLASS OF THE ORACLE. Jeez....
I think pushing old curse flavor and mechanics into feats is a great idea! Now you can tailor characters more closely to your own idea of them.
Like imagine picking waterwalk as the flame oracle and it works due to the Leidenfrost effect. I think that's really fun!
@@92ospe11 I agree that that is really fun. And you should totally do it.
The flame Oracle still lost their original ability of having expert in reflex saves and gaining concealment with fire, and they have to pay a fee in order to get their Flame aura back. I like that you can mix and match, yes. But I don't like that the Oracle who originally had the power has to pay for it now and the curses are only negative because of this. That's why I think that the archetype of the Oracle is better than the class of the oracle. Because you are no longer losing out on a benefit by taking Oracle as an archetype because Oracle doesn't get that benefit at all anyway. In fact, making a fire Sorcerer And then choosing Flames Oracle Archetype is way more badass now then choosing a flames oracle.
@@WisdomCheck They definitely went for a sort of build-a-bear approach to the class rather than the full package it was before.
My group haven't properly tried the remake so I can't really say anything about how it performs. We did struggle with the old version though as we felt it had a lot of drawbacks with nothing to show for it.
@@92ospe11 I got you. Yeah I'm reserving full judgment until I try out a couple of the things with the archetype.
Also, Paizo has confirmed that the chart is correct. They are a 4 slot caster now. BadLuckGamer was able to confirm that.
@@troyyrob Bad luck gamer has "a source". That doesn't mean he got his information directly from Paizo. I'm waiting to hear it from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
@@troyyrob and even if so that increases the power level overall but that doesn't mean that they are more interesting than the previous oracle. Spells can only add so much and it's in the hands of the player to choose the most useful spells.
For example: the combat Oracle - they took away armor and weapon proficiencies and gave an extra spell slot. That doesn't replace what was taken.
@@WisdomCheck Oh for sure. I don't think it makes them more interesting. I was just trying to provide that clarity from what I had heard.
On a side note, I personally really kind of liked the craziness of the Meddling Futures in Ancestors and I am excited that it is open to all Mysteries. I am debating about making a Bones or Lore Oracle now that is all about "gambling" and using Meddling Futures and the Level 10 Dice rolling feat. Add in Wellspring Mage archetype and let the fun begin!
Hahahah ok that makes sense. Chaos is fucking fun. I guess I tend to shy away from randomness in my builds because I like designing around a theme and randomness can sidetrack a theme. But if the theme IS RANDOMNESS it's totally perfect. ;)
One thought I had was I believe I remember nonat had a sponsor for his Oracle video that made their own third-party supplement for the Oracle when originally came out perhaps they might be able to be a font of ideas more suited 2 ur play style. I’m enjoyN every podcast of yours. I hope this wrks out 4U!
I really did like playing the Legacy Ancestor Oracle. The flavor was really strong of my character having a relationship with these ancestors and having aspects of those characters personalities influencing how I roleplayed as well. My character was in a slightly homebrew setting that used the Drow Pantheon and my "ancestors" were actually anti-Llothic gods from the Dark Seldarine Eilistraee (strikes) Vhaeraun (skills) and Kiaransalee (spells). I had her take Elven Weapon Proficiency and a Rogue Archetype to get some benefit to using the strikes and skills. It incentivized me not to use up all my spell slots so early.
Jesus. Now THAT'S how to apply flavor to your build! Ok... I totally see why this Oracle Mystery worked well for you. That is a very clever way to use the tools you're given to build what you imagine.
Oracle used to be my favorite class. I loved the punishing curses. While I felt the benefits were in many places underwhelming for the costs (cleric focus spells are on the lower end of the focus spell strength spectrum) I still liked balancing my downside with the flavor of the class. My Ancestors oracle (yes, I purposely chose to play one because of the bad rep) was often nerfed by a bad ancestor taking over - but it was fun! I will still try a Remastered Oracle but I'm nervous. The original oracle feats are not great (except the ones that gave focus spells) so there may not be too much of a loss to use class feats to take Cursebound actions. But with the current number of feats available then I'm pretty sure most Remastered Oracles are going to look a lot like EVERY OTHER remastered Oracle. Arrrgh. (Thank you for the video and causing anxiety in anticipation of getting my PC2 subscription).
And Meddling Futures is unusuable - actually worse than the previous Ancestors Curse. If you could do this at the end of one turn (so you can plan the next - like old Ancestors) or at least at the beginning of the turn do something 'this turn' then it would be okay with some benefit for the cost (the curse advancing). The 'next action' clause makes it so incredibly bad. Example - I have to Strike - but I'm not next to anyone. Or I set up to Strike and now I have to Cast - I have a spell but I have just taken the Reactive Strike to the face. I have already decided to home brew this at my table to be - THIS TURN, not NEXT ACTION. Will play RAW to know for sure.
Anyway - will still explore a real character at the table.
I feel a great swell of sympathy for anyone trying to play an Oracle in this system with that feat. My heart goes out to you sir.
That is a wise choice you made in house ruling it though.
I too was upset about removal of flavour from Oracle but after some consideration it might be for the better even if it hurts now. Oracle mysteries were quite frontloaded in terms of how they described your curse and flavour and I think it was long term detrimental to character building. With more conservative descriptions it leaves more to you how you will imagine Oracle. I was always treating PF2 Oracles somewhat as Warlock in DnD (Witch in PF2 and probably a well done summoner). There are a lot of places for mystery and your relation with divine powers and curse and it gives a lot of potential plot to work with to GM. I absolutely loved discovering secrets behind my character power together with my Team and GM as part of our journey. I didn't even need any special spotlight as you basically need some breadcrumbs and little cooperation with the GM where you want it to go to stay invested in this character.
While it's true that I picked Oracle for flavour in its description 14 levels in, I'm nowhere near the original description of my character due to constant evolution.
I would say that now depending on the rest of the Oracle description and handling guide in PC2 and how players are prepared by Paizo to play Oracle less might prove to be more in the long run but now with better tools to play the game.
For me it was hopeful thought and I now I just wish new gameplay will get to the level of my Oracle story and flavour.
I like your way of thinking about this. Like with all the characters I build, concept flavor matters much more than inborn flavor of the class. I'm playing an NPC cursed gunslinger in the Livestream who summons demons to do his bidding by playing poker with them (psychically) and uses their essence for his spells. He has a constantly-drunk squirrel spirit guide that he won in a poker game and has been blessed by a Sanddevil with the form of a Fennec Fox to help him survive in the desert when he's guiding a trade caravan for money. His Ancestry and class? Kitsune Witch (Divine).
I guess it seems unfair the way they've required a higher feat cost for the Oracle to get the flavor that they previously had, though I do understand that they can choose just about any flavor in the end. I will try to make a couple of Oracles and see if I can get excited about the opportunity to apply any flavor.
@@WisdomCheck I have trouble even figuring out how you build this character to have all elements in place :D I love the concept!
For me my GM did quite some heavy lifting with free archetypes. I was planning something rather basic. It just happened that I was taking lore for everything chaotic and potentially eldritch starting from maelstrom. My character faced a bit of a premature demise (lvl 3) when we were learning the system so I had a chance to resurrect it. I was informed that now my free archetype is a cursed maelstrom that shines in cerulean light. It was easy to figure out that it has something to do with Proteans so I was digging into what happened during that resurrection. Later one there were random voices, a strange appetite for sources of magic and golden feathers.
I was sure my character was altered, possessed, otherwise influenced by his mystery or combination of all until it turned out he was a Protean that magicly lobotomised himself and loaded onto freshly deceased to roleplay mortal.
This was an explanation for lore oracle mysterious knowledge and powers I absolutely did not expect and it was just brilliant (quite intense GM intervention into character so I guess not for everyone but for me it was 11/10 moment)
Also I love Proteans. They are probably my favourite PF2 outsider so extra points for that.
It's true however that there was a lot of guidance in basic Oracle mystery and spell description that now seems to not be there. I need to get my hands on the book when possible and see how the rest of the Oracle chapter is written. Oracle do not have decades of character concepts to work with as DnD warlock and related specs so more guidance was super useful when I was getting into PF2e.
Wow that was a shocking reveal from your DM. Quite a clever and fun angle for your character. That must have been a lot of fun to roleplay.
And yeah Proteans are just damned weird. I love that Paizo isn't afraid to delve deeply into weird crap and give us some really fun and unexpected things.
I wouldn't have touched the old oracle with 10' pole. Haven't even theory crafted 1. But might look into the remastered 1.
@@KarterAurian understandable. It is considerably easier to make one.
Ancestors was actually fun. You had 50% chance of doing whatever you want to do and still could gamble trying to go against your ancestor anyway, all that while gaining some bonuses to it
Hmm well the bonuses aren't quite as significant now, but the feat exists that allows you to reclaim your Ancestors wishy-washiness. lol :P
I vibe with Meddling Futures.
My brain can be very good at things, but rarely for the thing that I need to do at the moment.
Since it doesn't grant an action, it is mostly useless, but 1 out of the 3 spirits could help you open a door...
Hahahha yeah I get working that way in real life. But this is fantasy. I don't want to just be "me". :P
thank you for this, looking forward to hearing your thoughts. (Also my party did not get to the boss room, so I have plenty of time to evaluate and make the boss if what I had in mind still fits the oracle)
@@EngineeringDruid AWESOME! I was worried that because this was delayed a full day it wouldn't be useful for you. I'm glad to hear that it could be. If the boss is a full Oracle you might just go with the old Mysteries because they're more dramatic and use the new Feats because they're pretty powerful. Then you can have a flying boss who has a whirling wind storm around them that does fire damage and makes people deafened.
I am so happy with the current Oracle changes. Giving actual power to one of the worst classes in the game is amazing to me.
Now you get to actually use your revelation spells, your domain spells, and you have a great stacking cost/benefit option to actually use your curse.
I agree that they really needed a boost. I'm glad they did something about it too. It's also good that they made the curses tie in to feats so you could choose your effects.
Im right there with you. I took down my times oracle medic since they changed oracle so much id have to wait for the changes vis errata for ash and time mystery and the life mystery just hurst sincd you no longer get the bonus health, still have life link, and now the penalty is you level x the cursebound lvl which is a huge amount and whats the benefit?
I wont lie i do like some of the feats and i do like the extended domains related but thats it. They gutted the flavor and the feeling of cost/benefit you would get previously. What is the point... i could just play a cleric.
They should have just made the benefits attached to the cursebound feat. That way one can still choose between doubling down on their curse to gain the benefit or not. At the moment its too late in level.
I think this is what a lot of people are missing we have a dedicated caster for divine who is supposed to be the straightforward one and easy to run that's cleric. The mysteries are worse than their deity in terms of benefit. That's just sad. Them getting more spell slots doesn't stop them from feeling like all the flavor that they brought to a character is completely gone. Battle oracle is now arguably one of the better casters which is just plain stupid to consider. It's free focus spell is downright a waste of text.
YES! YES I agree. I'm very sad for your Oracles and I think we should just ignore the changes to the base Mysteries that removed flavor and function. It was very sad to me.
@18:15 Cosmos @35:21 Gifted Power
Most of it is from that feat, yes. But you still don't gain the general benefit from the Mystery and you have to spend 2 feats to get most of the curse benefit back.
The start of your video reminds me of the move from AD&D to AD&D 2nd Edition. Less crunchy and fits to video game mechanics better. Sadly this is a normal thing for TTRPGs to survive.
We learned don't trust ODD updates for Windows not EVEN updates for D&D.
@@CooperativeWaffles YES! So right on the nose.
Yes it is. BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE. Making a more generic more boring less intricate game to attract a wider base of audience DOESN'T mean that you have a good game. It means that you make more money. I'm nervous of Paizo becoming like WOTC.
WC take here chief, if you want to take down how they changed the Oracle you'll want to contend with why they changed the design, and the difficulty of the original mixed buff/nerf design space
Oh agreed; I wish I were on the design team or at least wish I was serving them coffee and cookies.
I respectfully disagree about your opinion on the flavor. From what it sounds like they did instead of having a fully made Sunday ready to go you have to build it yourself. Since the feats have cursebound now it is those feats you choose that give you the flavor and the good stuff that you want while the curse is just the bad stuff. Also having more spell slots is awesome to. Thanks for the awesome video. Love watching them.
I appreciate you showing a difference of opinion. :D
I agree they made a "build your own Oracle" and nerfed the curses. But now you have to spend a Class Feat JUST to get away MOST of what they took by changing the benefits of the Mystery. It seems like a needless sink.
I'm glad you're here and that you're someone willing to have a mature argument. :)
My battle oracle died so that my fighter with the oracle archetype could thrive! (it's the same character)
HAHAHAHHAHA ...yup. Oracle Archetypes will really thrive now. I'm actually building one right now
Please do a video on the updated swashbuckler, no one's done one yet 😢
@@Quetzelkoa Already in the works, my friend. 😁👍
Feels like this class is... cursed
OMG are you the same guy from Reddit who said this? BLargh!
There is general provision against mitigation, but what does that mean?
The Bones curse say specifically that any immunity or resistances are supressed, but the Flames Curse doesnt mention resistances at all.
If Im on fire, taking two points of damage a round,and I have fire resistance, do I still take damage ?
What if Im under the effect of a Numbing or Soothing Tonic?
The general description of the curses says they cannot be avoided or mitigated in any way. The damage bypasses all immunity.
Yes. But to clarify: you'd only take the damage CAUSED by the curse. Like with Bones Mystery you would take ONLY the weakness amount of damage if you take damage from void or vitality if you are otherwise immune to that type of damage.
@@Mazryik
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 temporay hit points?
If so are you then never allowed to heal?
Its not clearly spelled out.
Mitigate isnt a defined term in this game.
Huh. Ok you're right. It's not a game term. Fast healing would happen after the damage though, so it isn't "mitigating" anything. I think that you could use temp hp to absorb the damage. It seems as though it may be aa way around the intention, but it seems like it works fine by RAW.
@@WisdomCheck
The feat that comes with Flames isn't even that good.
I think a flat damage taken for damage done would be better.
Came for the information,
Staying for the Purr-Therapy!
lol working on the purr-vid for you.
Hey thanks for this video. As someone who was also really disappointed in the remaster Oracle, I’d be interested in hearing in depth how you would handle it going forward. Would you keep the cursebound trait on the feats and remove it from the spells while keeping the old mystery? Would you keep it as a four slot caster (which BadLuckGamer’s sources say it is now meant to be)?
BLG's sources haven't been made public and I don't trust that which I do not know the source for certain... just on general principle. So I don't believe that until it is more clearly stated by Paizo. That being said, I don't think the Oracle's uniqueness and fun has much to do with how many spell slots they have, so I'm fine reverting to the original pre-remaster number of slots, removing cursebound from their revelation spells, keeping the old mysteries (with the new remaster domain additions) and using the new feats. More options = more fun. :)
@@WisdomCheckThanks. I think I’ll propose that compromise to my GM :)
Okie doke. I'll make it a community post so it's easier for you to find. :)
It says the vid was uploaded 6min ago, maybe im first!
Otherwise, still nice to be early to the new oracle.
I foresee an enjoyably informative video!
LOL omg *headsmack* thank you. 😁
I love pfff2 as well
Yay!
I like the pick your poison nature of these feats, but I feel this new Oracle would be better as an Archtype.
The Curses are very imbalanced-being weak against forced movement is barely an inconvenience compared to being Clumsy!
@@slaplapdog lol yeah they are not balanced with each other
I always thought ancestry mystery is most fun. You clearly not a fan of building combat mages
lol I do like combat mages, but I'm not very fond of random effects when building a character.
@@WisdomCheck "I need healing" "Dice have spoken. It's shooting time" "-Censored-"
It was halarious
lol nice. Ok, that's making it more tempting for me now. lol
God poor Battle Oracle... Look what they've done to you old friend... I wonder if Oracle is just, if you'll forgive the wordplay, 'cursed' from the outset? The way 2e is designed, it feels like it's just impossible to balance a class that has a drawback built right into its class. Every +1 and -1 matters much more in 2e than it did in 1e, in 1e there was just so much nonsense that even the worst curses like deafened or reclusive could be overcome without much trouble.
But with just how tight the math is in a system like 2e, I'm starting to think it's just functionally impossible to make Oracle decent, the core design philosophy of the system feels inherently hostile to the very nature of the class. Mutagenist Alchemist had similar criticisms, having to eat a debuff to get a buff ultimately failed to grab people as a mechanic because you have to jump through hoops to get to the same level as everyone else.
The archetype tho is unimaginably powerful, some of the feats are beyond insane, this for me has easily beaten out Psychic as the best 'generically good for pretty much anyone with a passable charisma score' archetype.
Yeah I think you're right... Oracle doesn't belong in a system that's so tightly balanced. The joy and strangeness of it in PF1 was how extreme they were in one way or another. I miss my PF1 Oracles....
The Archetype for Oracle is quite good now, I agree. It brings to the surface how imbalanced some of the Archetypes are with each other.
And I get you about it replacing the Psychic in that way. I'm almost there myself except that if you can only spend one feat on it, Psychic is still just more dramatic in it's effect on your build.
@@WisdomCheck A little update on the Oracle archetype... Now that PC 2 has been here for a bit 2 of my fellow players in a game I'm in both went into the new oracle archetype, one a Monk and the other a Cleric and well... They've started performing to an insane degree.
The Monk grabbed whispers of weakness so now for one action he just knows whether tripping, grappling or intimidate is best on the enemy, what elemental stance to use, and he gets a +2 status bonus to hit. What's essentially happened is that due to a combo of making enemies off-guard in the most efficient way and the +2 status bonus to hit he gets to completely cancel out his MAP, basically getting a trip/grab+ an attack at no penalty.
The Cleric grabbed Nudge the Scales which gives him a 1 action ranged heal which has saved our lives countless times, either by nova healing someone to full with a 2-action heal+scales, or by being able to efficiently spread out healing between two people at range, and he's getting the feat that lets him grab more domain spells from the nice big list of domains they all have for even more goodies.
Whilst this is completely anecdotal, I think that this archetype is performing to such a high degree it's insane... I've already heard quite a bit around the community that "literally anyone other than an Oracle now makes a better Oracle than the Oracle" and I can fully see why. I think I can safely say this has been a colossal design failure on Paizo's part and it makes me wonder how they're gonna address this in the future, because the divine classes seem to be having a big push/role in the upcoming war of the immortals stuff.
Yeah it is a BIG problem. I changed a character to give up an Archetype to take Oracle and then I realized that he'd overshadow others in the group just because he'd be SUCH a powerful Oracle... as a Witch. It's kind of sad.
One thought I had was I believe I remember nonat had a sponsor for his Oracle video that made their own third-party supplement for the Oracle when originally came out perhaps they might be able to be a font of ideas more suited 2 ur play style. I’m enjoyN every podcast of yours. I hope this wrks out 4U!
Thanks! Dude, that's a good idea. AND you reminded me that Oracles+ is a thing! I'll have to talk with them about it.
And I am quite grateful you are here and enjoying my brain squeezings. :D