[Pathfinder] Cleric/Oracle mashup

[McSmack]

A player of mine recently asked if he could rebuilt one of his characters as an oracle. And while I don't have a problem with it, I was curious as to why he wanted the change. He had seemed to really enjoy playing as a cleric.

He told me he wasn't happy with the bookeeping. He didn't want to play heal-bot, and he was getting frustrated at having to spend so much time working on spell lists (I was allowing him access to 3.5 spells on a case-by-case basis). His cleric had been away on a side mission for the last few sessions and he'd been playing a sorcerer. He really enjoyed spontaneously casting, as opposed to spell lists, and had seen that the oracle was a spontaneous divine caster.

Now rather than try to remake his character concept to fit as an oracle, I suggested simply switching out the oracle's mode of spellcasting with that of the cleric (similar to a favored soul).

He seemed pleased with the idea. Now I'm curious about how to handle other cleric features that interact with his spellcasting, namely spontaneous converting spells to cure spells and domain spells. Any suggestions?

[CTrees]

If you're already doing that... why not just give him the domain spells as bonus spells known (he'd be getting bonus ones as an Oracle, anyway). Alternatively, let him pick which he wants as a bonus spell known. Spontaneous cures... Aren't a big deal for a spontaneous caster. Maybe just ignore that, as it's superseded by the new casting method.

[Rixx]

Oracles get access to either the entire Cure or Inflict line of spells for free.

He'll be taking a power hit - an Oracle's secondary class features are significantly more powerful than a Cleric's, since losing access to the entire spell list is a significant loss in versatility. Giving him his domain spells as bonus spells known should help make up for it.

[Rajhiim]

Yeah... you could do that, give them as bonus spells... or take the super super fancy blah blah method and just change him completely.

"Your deity has abandoned you; however, divine light still shines on you..." and base the mystery on his/her previous deity.

An Oracle with the Life mystery is an amazing healer. Choose the CURES at level 1... but there's hardly any offense. If you choose FIRE, it's like being a healing sorcerer lol =D

[McSmack]

The character in particular is an half-dragon elven cleric with the War and Deathless domains. His diety literally lives next door, so any disagreements tend to get worked out really quick.

I'd missed the bit where oracles learn either cure or inflict spells for free. So that solves that bit easily. Handy, because that's how I was thinking of fixing it in the first place.

He's going to be prestiging into Holy Vindicator asap, and we're refluffing it to have a deathless feel, so his class abilities aren't hurt too much.

Probably let him add his domain spells to his spells known list as well. Which isn't too far off from 3.5's spontaneous-domain-casting variant.

So overall he's taking the worst part of both classes, since oracle's casting isn't as versitile as a cleric's, and cleric class features aren't as good as the oracle's. Overall it's still a solid class, add on to that the awesome PF half-dragon template and Holy Vindicator's melee prowess plus 7/10 caster progression and I think this guy is gonna do well.