[PF] Cleric or Oracle?

[CigarPete]

Starting a new campaign soon and I am planning on playing a divine caster - either a cleric or an oracle. I am planning for him to be a human melee fighter, wearing medium/heavy armor and wielding a greatsword.

I have seen comments a few different places here to the effect that an Oracle with the battle mystery works better for this concept than a Cleric, and I'm just wondering why that is. I would think the flexibility of the Cleric along with the channel energy ability, would work more in it's favor. I am not looking for a build, just the reasoning behind the comment.

[Benly]

Heavy armor and all martial weapons with Skill At Arms, the ability to move and full attack x/day with Surprising Charge, fantastic initiative with War Sight, and the ability to heal without losing your actions with Combat Healer. Maneuver Mastery and Weapon Mastery aren't for everyone, but they're pretty decent for what they are.

On top of the specific merits of the battle revelation, spontaneous casting does very well with a build that has a few spells it wants to cast a lot, and self-buffing battle casters qualify. They'll probably want to drop a favorite buff at the start of each serious fight (so the extra slots are good) but only one or two buffs at most per fight (which means it won't take up too many of your spells known.)

Flexibility is great, and I would say that the cleric is probably a slightly more powerful class overall because of it, but a battle-buffer cleric is going to sacrifice that flexibility anyway by preparing the buffs she needs in her slots and has fewer slots to do it with. Channel Energy is likewise a great ability, but it's not much of a combat ability because it eats your standard actions for a relatively small amount of healing, distributed across the group. (It's very nice for patching up between fights, though.)

[deuxhero]

(which means it won't take up too many of your spells known.)

Flexibility is great, and I would say that the cleric is probably a slightly more powerful class overall because of it, but a battle-buffer cleric is going to sacrifice that flexibility anyway by preparing the buffs she needs in her slots and has fewer slots to do it with. Channel Energy is likewise a great ability, but it's not much of a combat ability because it eats your standard actions for a relatively small amount of healing, distributed across the group. (It's very nice for patching up between fights, though.)

And actions.

Channel energy is handy as a requirement for Channel Smite and, more important, guided hand, but that's more of an archer thing.

[Benly]

And actions.

Channel energy is handy as a requirement for Channel Smite and, more important, guided hand, but that's more of an archer thing.

Is that "and actions" with regard to only casting one buff per fight? It's true, of course, which is why you only cast one or two buffs per fight, but I didn't mention it because it's equally true for both spontaneous and prepared casters. For the purpose of that decision, the fact that it's one or two spells but you'll be casting them often is what skews it towards spontaneous casters.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Be a cleric of Gorum and take Heavy Armor Prof. feat and Tactics (War) domain. You end up with most of the best parts of Battle mystery, with still one domain to pick and a MUCH better class chasis - prepared caster that knows his whole list, gets new spell levels one level early, channelling (useful for pee-reqs sometimes, actually useful itself at low levels), good base fort. save, and so forth. Only 1 less spell slot per level less when you factor in the domain.

Once you hit level 11, you can grab Divine Interference feat and a huge wad of 1st level pearls of power (something the Oracle can't do) and start negating crit threats of enemies left and right as immediate actions all day long.

[grarrrg]

I have seen comments a few different places here to the effect that an Oracle with the battle mystery works better for this concept than a Cleric, and I'm just wondering why that is. I would think the flexibility of the Cleric along with the channel energy ability, would work more in it's favor. I am not looking for a build, just the reasoning behind the comment.

In general the following is true:
If you have a specific goal/task/function, then Oracle will be better than Cleric at preforming that thing. But Cleric will be better at anything other than the specified task.


So for "Front-Line Melee"
Oracle (melee focused) is better than
Cleric (melee focused) is better than
Cleric (not melee focused) is better than
Oracle (not melee focused).

Also, Oracles are Spontaneous casters, so they are more flexible on a minute-to-minute basis, but may not have the correct spell for every situation.
Clerics are prepared casters, so are more flexible on a day-to-day basis, if they don't have the right spell now, they will tomorrow.

[Corlindale]

Others have covered most things, but one additional point in the cleric's favour is that it usually has much better fort and will saves than the oracle. Since these are the most important saves, this should not be underestimated.

[grarrrg]

Others have covered most things, but one additional point in the cleric's favour is that it usually has much better fort and will saves than the oracle. Since these are the most important saves, this should not be underestimated.

Actually, they both come out about even Stat-wise.

Clerics have good Fort/Will, wants high Con/Wis/Cha, have 2 Skill points/level.
Oracles have good Will, wants high Con/Cha, have 4 Skill points/level.

So Oracles need 1 less stat, and can skimp more on Int.

[deuxhero]

Because the Oracle has no Channel Energy, worse than if a cleric dumps charisma entirely.

[Ravens_cry]

Because the Oracle has no Channel Energy, worse than if a cleric dumps charisma entirely.
They can get it though.

[Benly]

They can get it though.

Battle oracle can't. Although that's basically irrelevant to the question of which is a better front-line buff-and-smash character.

[Mari01]

Going the Oracle route, what would be an optimized way of picking your revelations? I can't see not picking War Sight or Arms/Armor right off the bat. And on that note, what would ideally be the best curse to have?

[grarrrg]

Because the Oracle has no Channel Energy, worse than if a cleric dumps charisma entirely.

But of the 3 Mysteries that can grant Channel Energy, it still relies on CHA, which you already have for Casting ('Life' for normal Positive channeling, 'Bones' or 'Juju' for "Command Undead only" Negative channeling).



Going the Oracle route, what would be an optimized way of picking your revelations? I can't see not picking War Sight or Arms/Armor right off the bat. And on that note, what would ideally be the best curse to have?

Battle is not the only choice for a Front-line Melee Oracle.
Ancestor is the 3rd best choice, but it's a close race between Battle (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/oracle/mysteries/paizo---oracle-mysteries/battle) or Metal (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/oracle/mysteries/paizo---oracle-mysteries/metal) for 1st.

Shared Revelations (both Battle and Metal have them):
Proficiency with all Martial Weapons and Heavy Armor
DR 10/Adamantine 1/day (+more/day as you level)

Notable Battle Revelations:
Swift Action Cure spells (limited uses, but handy in a pinch)
Full bab with Combat Maneuver of choice, and, eventually, the Improved/Greater [maneuver] feats
Roll twice, take best for Initiative, and always act in Surprise rounds
Weapon Focus, Improved Critical, and Greater Weapon Focus with weapon of choice

Notable Metal Revelations:
No movement penalty for Medium Armor, Reduced Armor check, Increased Max Dex
+10ft. movement speed, and To-Hit bonuses if you've moved 10ft in a round
Summon/Create a weapon out of thin air for 1min/level 3+Cha/day
Steel Scarf lets you make a Melee attack/Combat Maneuver with a reach of _30_ft. 3+Cha/day

Overall I'd say Metal has the better Revelations, but Battle has the better Bonus spells.


To answer the original questions (finally)
For a Melee-Oracle, I'd go with either Lame, or Wasting.
You plan on wearing Medium/Heavy armor anyway, and at level 10 Lame lets you ignore Armor Movement Penalty (you still have the Lame penalty though), so from level 10 and up, there effectively IS no penalty (but Immune Fatigue/Exhausted aren't largely useful either so...).
Wasting is overall nicer, so long as you don't plan on being the Party Face character. Immune Sickened/Disease/Nausea is more useful than Fatigue/Exhaustion.

Battle has a LOT of "#/day" type Revelations, if you find yourself needing the effects, give them a higher priority, otherwise I'd take the "all day" type abilities first.
Start with the Weapon/Armor Prof. or Roll twice for Initiative (like you said). Then probably Weapon Mastery or Maneuver Mastery, Free feats? Yes please!
Surprising Charge is very limited in uses, but taking a "move" for an Immediate action is VERY handy.

If going with Metal:
Again, start with the Weapon/Armor prof. and Armor Mastery for no reduced speed in Medium Armor (note, the armor Check/Max Dex bonus still applies to Heavy Armor, even if the Movement ability does not)
Dance of Blades gives +10ft. movement when using a Metal Weapon, and To-hit bonuses if you moved this round. Pair with the Lame Curse for extra fun.
Once you have those 3 it depends what you want to do.
Iron Constitution helps make up for your poor Fort save.
Iron Weapon is handy in an emergency (and/or if you're in Jail or something).
Riddle of Steel is nice if you plan on Crafting.
Steel Scarf is just plain fun.
Iron Skin is nice, but can't be had until Oracle 11.

[deuxhero]

Curses that have little penalty but little gain:

Tounges is pretty meh if your entire party speaks one of the languages you are "Cursed" with, and the entire party knowing an obscure language for private communications is not a bad use of a language anyways. Only real penalty is to shut down language based spells, which are only relevant early on.

Lame is effectless if you are a mounted character.

Legalistic can be avoided with decent word choice (When offered a quest "I'll see what I can do" over "I'll do it") or just being immune to sickened somehow, but has no useful benfiit


Curses with actual penalty and actual gain:


Deaf is good if the GM lets you read lips by burning a language known (Pathfinder Society FAQ).

Haunted is good for caster oracles, but not recomended for people that need to draw a weapon and might be disarmed. Not recomended if you get the same spells through your Mystery (like Dark Tapestry).


Curses that suck:

Clouded Vision is the only one that stands out as avoid at any cost. True seeing isn't worth much when limited in range so much.

Consumed possibly too (take extra damage for two save rolls against an effect that is outdated by the time you get this ability and can be cured easily!) unless I missed something.

Wrecker offers only melee benifits against limited targets in exchange for -2 hit and -2 damage for everything, half AC bonus from armor and double ACP, and use two charges from a wand/staff.

???
Wasting depends on if you want to be the party face (with cha focus, skill points and class skills, you generally do unless someone else has gotten the role), plus is inexplicbly hurts UMD.

[ericgrau]

I had a LOT of fun with oracle special abilities. In general I like spontaneous casters better since they're much less paperwork. OTOH I've only tried the 3.5 cleric not the PF cleric. If you have a fixed concept I'd go oracle if you want to retweak it a lot then I'd go cleric.

[CigarPete]

Thanks for the responses everyone. I'm leaning strongly towards Cleric at this point. Our current campaign has been going a long time (~5yrs), so I think I will want the flexibility in the future in the new campaign. Will go with War(Tactics) and probably Glory(Honor) domain - Gorum's domains are not the best.

Is there any reason I should not dump Cha other than weakening the channel energy ability? Stat rolls are 17, 16, 16, 13, 10, 8 and I think I want to play it as Wis 17, Str/Con 16, Dex 13, Int 12, Cha 8 (character will be human) with Toughness and hold back the second feat until 2nd level to take Power Attack or Weapon Focus. (I realize Weapon Focus is not the most optimal, but it fits his fluff.)

[StreamOfTheSky]

Tounges is pretty meh if your entire party speaks one of the languages you are "Cursed" with, and the entire party knowing an obscure language for private communications is not a bad use of a language anyways. Only real penalty is to shut down language based spells, which are only relevant early on.

Maybe it's less relevant later on, but I sure wouldn't want to throw away command, Murderous Command, and other nice language-dependent spells from my arsenal... It might also limit your ability to command summoned creatures, beyond very basic instructions.


Lame is effectless if you are a mounted character.

If. Oracle doesn't exactly get any bonus feats to spend on that. And unless you have the animal companion (forget which mystery gives it) or perhaps leadership feat for a cohort to ride, your mount will have trouble staying alive.


Is there any reason I should not dump Cha other than weakening the channel energy ability? Stat rolls are 17, 16, 16, 13, 10, 8 and I think I want to play it as Wis 17, Str/Con 16, Dex 13, Int 12, Cha 8 (character will be human) with Toughness and hold back the second feat until 2nd level to take Power Attack or Weapon Focus. (I realize Weapon Focus is not the most optimal, but it fits his fluff.)

1. There is no real reason to not dump charisma, channel energy is pretty irrelevant by mid levels. That said, you might want to consider putting the 8 into Int, and using human's bonus skill points and favored class bonus to end up with 3 skill points per level despite the low int. If you only wanted a few skills maxed out anyway, might be worth doing instead. I'm confused though. Stat rolls lists a 10 but no 12, is your int supposed to be 10, or is the stat rolls portion incorrect?

2. Unless your DM made a houserule, you cannot "hold back" your feats like that.

[Mari01]

Stat rolls lists a 10 but no 12, is your int supposed to be 10, or is the stat rolls portion incorrect?

2. Unless your DM made a houserule, you cannot "hold back" your feats like that.

The human +2 went into Intelligence.

[CigarPete]

1. There is no real reason to not dump charisma, channel energy is pretty irrelevant by mid levels. That said, you might want to consider putting the 8 into Int, and using human's bonus skill points and favored class bonus to end up with 3 skill points per level despite the low int. If you only wanted a few skills maxed out anyway, might be worth doing instead. I'm confused though. Stat rolls lists a 10 but no 12, is your int supposed to be 10, or is the stat rolls portion incorrect?

2. Unless your DM made a houserule, you cannot "hold back" your feats like that.

1. 12 is the 10 + 2 racial (Human). Dumping Cha is more personal preference on my part. I don't enjoy playing stupid characters. Awkward or socially inept is fun. I'll still be using the human + favored class so it will be 5 skill points/level, which will let me do a bit more with them.

2. This is a house rule. I asked if he would waive the +1 BAB requirement since I can't meet it as a 1st level cleric, he suggested this instead.

[StreamOfTheSky]

You're much better off putting that +2 to str or wis. You have favored class bonus if you need more skill points, and human to boot.

[CigarPete]

You're much better off putting that +2 to str or wis. You have favored class bonus if you need more skill points, and human to boot.

Add to strengths rather than shore up weaknesses? Makes sense. Thanks for the suggestion. :smile: