Oracle Guide (The Information Gathering)

[Sarone]

Ok, I would like to follow in the footsteps of Treantmon, RogueEidelon, Saph, and many others whose names I don't remember or haven't run across yet, and create an Oracle Optimization Guide.

At the moment, the only one I have played for a decent amount of time is an Half Orc Oracle of Battle. While not great, he is pretty good for what he does. However, I would like other players to pu int their two cents and help out, mostly that a new Oracle player can find out what tactics work well, what can be modified, and those ideas that should be cast to the side.

Thank you to those who decide to participate in this. Hopefully this can help guide other players on what an Oracle is and how to best take advantage of it.

[stack]

shouldn't this be in the 3.5/PF sub-board?

[Sarone]

Maybe, but at the moment it's here.

I noticed that you have two Oracles, stack. One Lore, one Life. How has it worked out for you with the Lore Oracle (since we're both in the same campaign as your Life Oracle, we'll eb seeing how that goes)?

As for myself, my first Oracle (Battle Mystery) started at level 7. Selected Half Orc with a different Ability selection (GM was going for a higher level of players, while trying to keep the power in scale).

The mysteries I took was Battlecry, Combat Healer, and Weapon Mastery. Grabbed the Clouded Vision curse. Forgotten what feats/atribute scores I had since it's been almost a year since I last played him.

Battlecry: Decent revelation, functionally a Bless spell that only last a few rounds that becomes a +2 bonus at 10. Looking back, it wasn't an ability I probably should have taken at that level, but it's ok.

Weapon Mastery: One of the better revelations, and a mostly a must for those going melee support with only one main weapon. Functions like an extra feat from the Fighters abilities, and gives you Improved Critical (Doubles threat range of your WF weapon) at 8 and Greater Weapon Focus at 12 (even though a Fighter gets it at 8). The fact you're getting two feats for free that you may not (or will not) be able to get makes it impressive.

Combat Healer: One of the best revelations for the Battle Mystery, you can only get this revelation at level 7 or beyond, but really that when you should be taking it anyway. The gist of it is this: sacrifice two equal spell slots to to cast a cure spell of the same slots as a swift action. This still leaves you with your move and standard action. Once per day 7th, plus one for every four levels later (2/day at 11, 3/day at 15, 4/day at 19) and can be increased by taking Soothsayer's Raiment (or equivelent ability on your armor) to get one more use.

Personal experience: Melee fighter gets hit by an undead dragon, goes down to negative. I go over to him, provoking an AOO (undead dragon misses). Swift action, burn two level 1 slots to put a CLW on the fighter, bringing him up to the positive side. Burned standard action on a CSW to burn the undeed dragon. One successful touch attack later, one failed will save, and the UD is done.

In order for a cleric to do the same, he will need to burn a feat and a higher slot to do so. This revelation takes out two spell slots (1st level in the example).

The rest I haven't checked out just yet or used, so I'm going to hold off judgement on it until after I tried them or someone else tried it.

As always, your mileage may vary.