All Changes to Oracle in Pathfinder 2e Remaster's Player Core 2

[@theebadluckgamer]

My Sources have confirmed to me that Oracle is indeed now a 4 Slot caster, giving Oracle even more fire power than they had before!

[@Eddrian32]

HELLO??? LET'S FUCKING GO???

[@Kitusser]

@@theebadluckgamer This is great for the class but honestly wouldn't mind them staying as a 3 slot caster if they made the mysteries more flavourful and unique.

[@Nercrontyr]

@theebadluckgamer unexpected. Still not fully sold on the changes themselves. Might need to play one to see. Still concerned the penalties still outwiegh the benefits with thennew changes. Really wish they did all the mysteries. If they are going to wait then might aswell reupdate dark archives since im still awaiting my thaum update.

[@ZanderKreegan]

Can your sources confirm if the Grandeur champion’s revealing light effect is supposed to end at the start of the champ’s turn, or later? By RAW the duration is a little awkward.

[@emptyptr9401]

Hate that tbh. That was the Sorcerers thing. The Oracles thing should be working around Curses in exchange for power.

[@caihly2443]

I like curses being exclusively negative, and feats being cursebound instead of focus spells. Before, there was no clear game plan. Sometimes you wanted to increase your curse but were out of focus points, or didn't have an appropriate way to cast a focus spells. Other times you couldn't keep up with focus spells, which are supposed to be per encounter resources, because your curse was too negative or too advanced. Essentially, instead of being a "price for a reward until you can't pay the price anymore", it was "2 prices for a reward but sometimes one of the prices is also a reward and you want it more than the first reward that is actually a hinderance in some situations. also make sure you can pay both prices for the reward that is on par with what other classes get for only one price". I still do wish we kept mystery benefits though.

[@RoxxieRaeVA]

Yeah I agree. I always feel like Oracle was supposed to be this "high risk high reward" class, but they just never figured out how to pull that off. I mean heck, the 1e version when you could pick any curse you wanted, the decision maker wasn't "what negative would be the easiest to work around" like you would think it should be, it was "what one gives me the best bonuses". But yeah, do also wish they had kept in the bonuses on some level to at least give the mysteries some level of differentiation.

[@arturocastillogasca2079]

100% we could of kept the Mystery Benefit you get at level 1 and could of still kept the Curse Negative and made it work with the feats. I really hate how they nerfed my Life Oracle man, atleast let me keep my extra HP.

[@FireBowProductions]

I'd like to point out that Divine Access specifically states "Add up to three cleric spells of your choice", so you can pick Nethys, you just can't get ALL of the granted spells.

[@Cyraneth]

Weapon Trance doesn't require a melee hit. Just a hit. Can be a ranged attack.

[@theebadluckgamer]

Fair point

[@joshuaturner4602]

I would have preferred weapon trance be the other way around, Whenever you sustain this spell you may make a strike as a free action or something

[@theebadluckgamer]

Honestly I like that way better

[@xymel]

As much as you don't like foretell harm, I think the point of this spell is being missed. This is a free action curse advancer which gives free untyped damage. If you want your cursed maxed out super quick in the rounds, this plus another curse bound in the same turn, you could be at curse 4 by turn 2. With a "free force barrage" thrown in. Win win, in my opinion. Action compression for your curses, if you want it. Cursed 4 dead walk on turn 2 to execute an enemy for 16d6 sounds pretty good.

[@ori9830]

The interesting thing is the Battle Oracle losing the gishy stuff while the Animist playtest has quite a solid gishy option (along with the Warpriest buffs) feels like they want to move around which divine casters are gishy? Dunno, waiting for my copy with bated breathe to get a first hand impression

[@XamTheTheyThem]

Life oracle's curse got a lot more deadly since it lacks the "if you are unconscious, magical effects can restore you to 1 HP (but no higher)" that the old curse had. That means, if you go down, you are even harder to get back up. Your curse outpaces focus spells like Lay on Hands and at higher levels of cursebound (3 or 4), if a heal isn't cast from one of your highest slots, there is a chance if might not do anything. You need your party members and yourself to carry elixirs of life and take battle medicine to hopefully keep you alive. It's weird that life used to be the best healer and now it looks like that will be tempest since they can take all the same healing cursebound feats but don't suffer from the penalties.

[@AmbiTanque]

Feels like this would have gotten negative feedback if it was playtested.

[@Eddrian32]

Lightning Reflexes and Alertness I'm assuming are due to OGL (both were feats in 1e that also existed in 3.5e). Resolve... I guess they thought it sounded too much like something a fighter or barbarian would have? It's probably just to help flavor.

[@nikidelvalle]

Honestly I like that Cursebound was removed from focus spells, but it would've been cool if you had the option to ADD cursebound to the spells to make them stronger. It feels weird now to have reducing our Cursebound bound to Refocus, and awkward for the focus spells to exist as an extension to a kit that doesn't really acknowledge their existence. I also wish that if Divine Access was going to be a class feature that it would allow you to pick and choose spells from multiple deities instead of still being restricted to 1. Overall though, I do definitely like the rework, especially how streamlined the curse system has been. I know a lot of people miss the positive benefits from before, but it made the Mysteries we had access to very uneven. Some of them were good (like Life), some of them were utterly pointless (Tempest), and some of them were just bad (Ancestors). This format makes it much easier to pick the flavor of Curse you like without feeling like you're making a sacrifice in terms of your power or gameplay, and a lot of those things can be recreated in a more powerful fashion through feats. One thing I will note though, I really don't see Psychic as a focus spell class... because Psychic doesn't use focus spells, they use enhanced cantrips. With this Oracle rework I would say we don't really have a "focus spell" class anymore. Maybe Animist can fill this role?

[@luminousmage]

I've played a few Oracle PCs. I think the builds that shined were pretty niche builds (Battle Oracle Fast Healing + Damage Resistance caster tank build for example) and I don't question the class needing a rework to be more in line with other classes but it seems lot of the power of Oracle is now in the class feats instead of the core Class features. This reminds me a bit of pre-Remastered Witch which was part of Witch's problem before. You got a lot of the perks of Witch by multiclassing into Witch rather than choosing Witch as your base class. I kind of am afraid the current Player Core 2 Oracle might have the same issue and it becomes far worse of a multiclassing/archetype class outside of Free Archetype because you are a feat-intensive class that must pick Oracle feats to make the class choice worth it. It's still very new so I'm reserving judgement but I don't like the design direction at first glance. Of course, if the Oracle spellcasting table is correct and Oracle just now gets as many spellslots as the Sorcerer, I take everything back about the power of the class being mostly in the feats and not in its base features. Getting an entire extra spell slot per spell rank is a big powerup to the class to trade for difficult to work with upsides of the old Curse designs. I will miss the fun of trying to make them work like Battle Oracle's Fast healing and building into archetypes that give damage resistance to really make the Fast Healing shine but if it becomes a 4 spellslot per rank class, powerwise the class is fine and it would be much more user-friendly for the average player to build/play which was a real problem of the class before.

[@ryanhughes3569]

Glad to finally see people talking about the oracle remaster more in detail now! I'll give this a thorough watch and comment as I go. My first immediate comment is that it 'is' possible that the Oracle spell changes could be an error, however, just like was done with a few entries in Player Core 1, the writers/editors aren't immune to copying the original text blurb of a class and putting it into the new book, which would also explain why it was missed if they just directly compared the text from the original to the current one. That being said it is still more likely that the chart was changed in error, but I feel like between the chart and the text blurb being wrong, the chart would have been more noticeably incorrect in editing checks. So who knows? Given the amount of changes that player core 1 needed via errata that were mistakes via comparing and contrasting from the original rule book, that then contradicted or didn't make much sense under the context of the remastered rules, I also don't think it's impossible that the text is incorrect.

[@RainbowLizardOne]

I remember in the first print of the core rulebook, Wizards had an extra 1st level feat. And I think they deserve that considering how every other caster has been buffed around them.

[@ryanhughes3569]

Man... making it to the end of the video definitely was a bit of a bummer for me, I can't help but agree with you on your overall take of this remaster for Oracle unfortunately being a bit of a miss. I do think the OVERALL power and usefulness of the class generally went up, even if the increase to their spells per day IS a typo, even if that gets errata'd in the future to be what they had before, I do genuinely think that Oracle, as a whole, has been buffed for the most part, especially some of it's previously less usable mysteries. However, I do think it was ultimately at the cost of the uniqueness and overall 'fun' of the class, and I think that is ultimately really unfortunate... As someone who has been playing since pf1e, and since the class had come into 2e, Oracle has always been about it's mysteries, and how they uniquely can change how the class is not only flavoured, but they also fairly drastically differentiated different oracle characters from eachother. I was definitely open to the idea of these changes, but I do think it was a bit of a cop-out for them to have only made four 1st level cursebound feats and have two mysteries share them each, same with the 10th level ones. It really hurts a lot of the classes uniqueness as a whole. I also get that part of the problem with Oracle was that some mysteries were just clearly better than others before the remaster.. like who the hell was playing Bones or Lore over Life, Ash, Flame or Cosmos? (obviously unless you're strictly playing for the flavour and you don't care about playing something that is either unoptimal or just straight up debilitating). It is definitely cool to have their focus spells be generally more usable on average, but it is a big cost to pay to have lost so much of what made the Oracle what it was... I'm not mad, but I definitely feel a bit disappointed personally, this was honestly the class change I was looking forward to the most with Playercore 2, and it did not live up to expectation... and I guess at the end of the day there's nothing necessarily stopping people from just using the original version of Oracle instead, but coming off of changes like Witch and Alchemist, this is definitely a bit of a sad attempt in my opinion.

[@TimeOfSin]

It should be noted that NEW Oracular Warning is just the OLD Call to Arms revelations spell of the Battle Mystery, now a free action instead of a reaction.

[@TitaniumDragon]

It's also absurdly powerful and is the best of the new cursebound abilities. Initiative bonuses are super powerful and it stacks with literally everything, and in a typical party, it's giving the party 2x your level in temp HP at the start of every combat across the whole party, which is a nice little bonus.

[@Quetzelkoa]

​@@TitaniumDragon Whispers of Weakness is amazing for any martial taking an oracle archetype as well. Those two feats give a lot of power and flavor, and I think you could get a pretty cool "Battle Oracle" vibe by taking them on any martial class.

[@MrTallFrog]

​@@TitaniumDragonit's half your level not 2x

[@FhtagnCthulhu]

​@@MrTallFrogthey probably mean across a party of 4. So total temp HP is 4*0.5*level which is 2x level

[@alexpage5268]

Spell Slots: I mean its a copy paste error. Just whether you believe it is the table or the forward section that is generic for every caster. I think its equally likely tbh. In terms of justifications for the change, I think going from 2FP start to 1FP would be the rationale if you're looking for one (but that is sort of what cursebound abilities/conditions are patching). I'm not convinced either way, but giving them some more slots isn't going to break anything. Its really just the early game that it buffs. In terms of whether the community likes the remaster oracle or the older one, honestly I think the remaster is significantly improved. Its more a la carte now (reminiscent of the PF1e oracle) and decouples some of the worst/harshest curses from your mystery. I think there was a large majority of the community that would never play an oracle that might consider it now which probably is a net benefit for the game. Fundamentally, it all depends on whether person x thinks the bespoke curse/mystery combo of the old oracle was appropriately balanced. Making it more 'pick and choose' means people can customize it and avoid some of the mystery/curse combos that they would never evaluate to be worth it. Beyond that I think there is a minor buff because refocusing used to take you to to your minor curse effect, whereas now you remove the cursebound condition entirely. Revel in Retribution is actually pretty good though because of the extra reaction. That is typically a martial only thing and means you can spend your other reaction on something else. Its just hard to figure out what caster wants to be swinging weapons at that level. I'm surprised you like Thousand Visions. Blinding yourself to things outside a 30ft bubble has got to be one of the worst things you can do to handicap yourself in a TTRPG. Have you ever played a game where the GM enforces lighting on the map? Something like emerald spires floor 1? Its brutal. Its the same reason people always pick up darkvision, because huddling around a torch/wayfinder/ioun stone can be very debilitating without meta gaming. I like the waterwalk/flight feat line, it a fun build up and could be fun to RP defying gravity. Fortell harm isn't so bad, but its best on a boss with great saves/AC. As long as you pick a spell that auto hits like magic missile it lets you stack damage on an otherwise hard to hit/deal damage CR > PL monster. Its a similair reason why something like glimpse weakness isn't so bad as a cantrip (or amped cantrip). Especially if you have IRL cursed dice rolls. It is also a separate instance of damage if your spell triggered a weakness so it has some corner cases that might be worth it.

[@RainbowLizardOne]

Fortell Harm as a feat seams like it's at its best when triggering weaknesses. Unfortunately, Oracles aren't particularly well-suited to triggering weaknesses, being spontaneous casters on the Divine list which isn't exactly swimming in damage types.

[@saeedrazavi4428]

Though notably, flame and tempest oracle are the ones who get it and have access to their signature elemental damage types, for what that's worth

[@sathoon5973]

I have mixed feelings about the curses becoming exclusively bad: on one hand they feel like actual curses now and not something I have to deliberately push to the edge for the sake of it, but on the other I think them having slight upsides gave the whole class a very unique flavour. But I'm happy with focus spells not having cursebound anymore. Spray Of Stars should NOT be the reason a level 1-4 cosmos oracle gets overwhelmed, and it really loosens the slack on that mechanic for feats to do their thing. Now I can use Thousand Visions and Darkness, and still have room for a couple cheeky moonbeams.

[@Acier25997]

I'm seeing some really mixed reactions to post-master oracle now that we can see much more about it in depth... Life and Battle got absolutely slaughtered, Cosmos had its identity kinda "stripped away" and put into feats, and tempest is still just kinda mid... One of the big problems with the class pre-master was that often times the curse was not worth the benefits, you had to jump through so many hoops just to be on the same level as the rest of the party. Ancestor was the prime example, the old curse, depending on how a fight was going, could be so bad it's near TPK inducing, if you really need the fighter up but you've randomly rolled that chance to have your spells have a 20-40% failure chance, welp, tough luck guys the Gods said no. Now all the curses are REALLY bad and Paizo bigged up that by doing that they could make Oracle feats really powerful, but... Idk, I'm just not seeing it... I see some really good feats, but I just don't know if they're worth the now really painful curses...

[@Treehouse22009]

Quick correction: Lore Oracle did not gave you another spell slot. It gave you another spell for your spell repertoire. BIIIIG difference and what made Lore Oracle before SO FUCKING BAD to play: gave you nothing. Oracle is easily far better and focused of a class, but you can definitely argue they could have kept stuff like the Mystery Benefits or other boons to the subclasses to make them feel more like subclasses and not discount Sorcerer Bloodlines. It is super strange they didn't even try to give each one their own Oracular Feat and instead double-up'd on them, especially with how vague they made them flavor-wise. There just needs to be more connective tissue between your Mystery theming and the feats, and honestly I would be pretty satisfied overall. That said, JESUS they gutted Battle (which wasn't even a good Mystery anyhow) and Life. And why does Lore STILL makes you mute at max curse?!? It's somehow MORE bothersome since the spell component changes makes it hard to tell if all Concentrate spells require speech! There's a reason why all of Lore's focus spells were Somantic only, it is to bypass that stupid restriction! Paizo sometimes need to be way more open about major reworks and errata, they are not the best at playtesting their own shit at times...

[@cephalosjr.1835]

Now _all_ spells require speech, not just concentrate or manipulate ones. So Lore cursebound 4 just turns off your class.

[@hellfrozenphoenix13]

To answer for the name changes: Its just to add flavor to the character sheet and help make each feel more distinct. Which is a good thing, but can be annoying. It does switch out the easy-to-recognize nature of it for flavor, which is a side grade (its mechanics for flavor, which can be valued differently per player)

[@anarchium_wellsquest]

flavor is free, and you and your gm can work out flavor separate from mechanics by a huge margin, especially in a game like this

[@hellfrozenphoenix13]

@anarchium_wellsquest I agree. And while I understand why they are name changing these passives for flavor, I personally find it silly. However, it doesn't negatively impact gameplay as all it really does is rename a feature, which people would already be doing (and if not, that's an issue that should be addressed imo)

[@phantomsplit3491]

It's funny because they did the exact opposite for barbarian. They took out the flavorful names of these mechanics that are otherwise common across classes. Really weird

[@zanzaklaus2496]

I was kinda hoping Oracle's subclasses would be split into two, like in 1e. So you'd choose a mystery for the benefits you receive, and a curse for the drawbacks, and you could really customize how your mystery was unique.

[@NotTheEnd7766]

I'm not sure I see the negativity of removing the benefit for increasing curses from the curse themselves. I have heard Oracles often had the problem that their curse was bad and the benefit is not always useful. So when spending their focus spell they might get no extra benefit from their curse. Now you can spend your focus spells without worry. When you do get the negative of your curse you are more likely to get a benefit you can use. You will likely have multiple cursebound feats so you arent limited to a single benefit or limited to what your focus spell was.

[@Crouza]

This might be one of the only classes where I stick to the pre-remaster. I really don't like losing fun favorable abilities for more stable/dependable but generic feeling ones.

[@VileScarMind]

I think the name changes are to support the class fantasy - lightning reflexes doesn't sound to much like an oracle, but dodging attacks because of premonition helps people new to the game get a sense for the class.

[@MrDUCKMAN5555]

Oracle warning really good to level 3 with scout. Going first matters the most at those levels because of time to kill.

[@quban234]

It's easier to print false information hidden in the paragraphs of text than in the table where every value would be higher than expected. It could still go either way, but I think that Oracle having 4 spell slots isn't an error and the text from class features is from an earlier version of the class before they buffed it to 4.

[@aidankircher8865]

That was my thoughts as well. My initial thought was that they copy-pasted the old text back when they got less slots and just missed the change in text. It takes a lot more conscious effort to make that graph than it does to copy the old text.

[@Solrex_the_Sun_King]

Exactly, the fact that they missed copy pasted text twice just means they copy pasted twice. Considering they screwed up the range on roiling mudslide, I'm going to lean into copy paste. Hey Paizo, can you hire some quality control?

[@hellfrozenphoenix13]

I feel this should have been playtested more. It has so much potential but it feels...kinda half baked? The feats are good, but the actual Mysteries suffered greatly. I wished they did three things: 1) give a cursebound action for each class at level 1, that scales off of Cursebound, to give them a move only THEY can do. 2) At the cost of of a focus point and maybe an action, you can suppress your Cursebound by a value if 1. 3) Benefits for Mysteries as you level. Mysteries dont feel overall unique and I think that should be baked in. Such as Life being able to add cursebound to their next heal to increase die size to d12. Or for Battle to be able to add cursebound tontheir next strike to add a bonus to attack rolls equal to Cursebound. Things like that.

[@odex1076]

Thank you for covering this in such detail! I've been waiting for someone to do this video

[@jasonsoares326]

I had high hopes for the Oracle, which I felt needed the most work of all of the classes.

[@xenoturegaming198]

I play a tempest oracle and I watched this to get a sense for how my character will change and frankly I was already underwhelmed playing them as the only thing I can do is heal and the only thing I'm ever doing is healing, and I'm coming out of this video upset. Because I'm losing all of the most exciting parts of my mystery I never got to experience, and in place of them there's nothing new. I want to control storms and shit, to feel like I'm the center of a living typhoon, to be a living storm. I want to channel the power of the maelstrom itself, to be this powerful cursed entity that draws on cursed eldritch power. I came closer to that with the old stuff than I likely will this. I wish they reworked the class more. Oracle was feat starved and now there's more feats but nothing that I want, hell the one tempest specific thing just pigeonholes my role as a healer when I want to be competent enough to stand my ground, based on how the curse works I'll be lucky if I can even stand on my own feet. I've been using archetypes to act as filler for them foregoing class feats for oracle because they're all just... underwhelming the past 7 levels I only have 2 feats for Oracle. I just kinda wish for an occult eldritch oracle with storm/water themes.

[@os2331]

You underestimate Fortell Harm. 2 x spell level is Unleash Psyche levels of damage. It’s a good chunk even if the number seems small. Against something on level, that’s going to be an extra 5% or so of their health that gets removed for free. There is no save. In fact, it can salvage the damage of a spell where an enemy passed the save. There are not many flat-damage no save spells in the game, certainly not that put out that much damage for free. It’s a good thing that this is once per enemy.

[@Kitusser]

I dunno, it's alright but the once per enemy thing in congruence with the fact it at least seems like it can only be used on one enemy is pretty bad.

[@os2331]

@@Kitusser It really depends on the number and strength of the targets. Against enemies that have a 50% to succeed on their saving throws, a sorcerer will do a fraction of their bonus damage on average while oracles always do the flat amount. This means it will likely take them 3-4 turns of consecutive blasting against tougher enemies to catch up to the bonus damage of an oracle using this ability once. Against multiple lower level enemies, sorcerers deal more damage.The breaking points at level 5 where dangerous sorcery and foretell harm deal about equal damage is against 2 level -2 enemies, 3 level +0 enemies, and 4 level +2 enemies.

[@Kitusser]

@@os2331 These abilities shouldn't even be comparable in power. Also I think you forget that this ability only works once per target, and can only be used on one target at a time. Dangerous sorcery hits everyone.

[@os2331]

@@Kitusser How could I have forgotten that when I wrote how many enemies a sorcerer needs to hit for dangerous sorcery to do more damage?😄

[@Kitusser]

@@os2331 Are sorcerers really struggling to hit more than 2 enemies? I also need to see your math here, are you accounting for critical failures? What if the sorcerer is targeting the weak save? Another thing you're not accounting for is the fact that the damage happens after a delay, meaning that the enemy can die before the damage even occurs. This ability should be much more powerful than the ability the sorcerer literally gets for free. Removing the once per day limitation and allowing it to hit more enemies at higher curse levels should be good enough I think.

[@justmonica9253]

What kind of irks me is that without good reason some of these curses are way, way worse than others. Flames persistent fire damage is laughable. A level 5 alchemist can give you fast healing 3, which all but cancels it out. At high levels you won't notice it at all. Unless your DM makes monsters hyper focus on tripping and grappling you when you go cursebound, cosmos might never notice their curse. Meanwhile the ones that get weakness equal to their level become really vulnerable without specific preparation. A tempest oracle is liable to get smote by anything with a lightning spell, let alone something with electricity rider on their attacks.

[@bennettpalmer1741]

My general impression of this is that if you liked the old Oracle, this takes everything cool about it out and replaces it with boring generic junk. But, if you didn't like the old Oracle, this makes it more "normal" and thus more fun? I guess since a lot of people didn't like the old Oracle, they can view this as a win, but my opinion has always been that if you didn't like the old Oracle, just play a cleric or something. I don't see the need to alter a class to better suit players who don't even want to play it, at the cost of removing the unique appeal for the people who do play it.

[@bea-ti9rg]

i liked the pre-remaster oracle but not enough to be super upset at the complete rework, i will admit it seems a lil less fun than i like but i think its the kinda thing that imma need to try out before i can get my full feelings.

[@christianlangdon3766]

For me most of it are buffs. A lot of things that got removed were things that could feel counter intuitive, like battle getting higher ac only to lower it. While also getting worse at casting which ruined the point of being a gish set. Ancestors was my least favorite played them and had a whole combat where I failed to do anything for several turns becouse Ancestors dice hated me. Like that is just not fun

[@Kitusser]

Honestly, all the downsides could all be saved with some new feats that just bring back what was lost. It somewhat has already happened for some mysteries, like for Cosmos, Maybe the Divine Mysteries book will give us some new mysteries and Oracle feats, just gotta wait a few months.

[@PlatonicLiquid]

⁠@@christianlangdon3766Battle oracle getting medium and heavy armor was so you could put points into Strength and dump Dex. The +AC from heavy armor offset the -1 from your curse at the cost of being slow. The stupefied condition only came online at the major curse at level 11+. Just like the warpriest, battle oracles work best when you use your spell slots for precombat buffs, then focusing on Striking during combat. Ancestors is just straight up lethal now. You have a larger penalty to AC than a raging giant instinct barbarian at cursebound 2+, without the armor proficiency. Both Ancestors and Battle (as well as Life) are just straight up not the same class anymore, which is probably not a good thing for your remaster.

[@PlatonicLiquid]

@@KitusserYou already have to take Domain Acumen, the level 10 cursebound feat, and a passive feat to get back what you had for free on some mysteries. Those are also competing for your Advanced and Greater revelation and Domain Fluency feats. I don't know if more feats would really fix all the problems here, though it would be nice to have the option to get back more stuff they took away.

[@Kitusser]

@@PlatonicLiquid Maybe if they allowed you to pick something alongside the revelation feats, or if they just gave a few extra feats slots only for cursebound feats (kinda like the kineticist).

[@Naliamegod]

I'm actually going to "partially disagree" with the idea that the remaster took a lot of the flavor from the Oracle class. One of the biggest issues and complaints with premaster Oracle was that it struggled with flavor mechanic wise, as it not only had the fewest unique feats but a lot of mysteries just flat out failed to deliver on the premise because the class chasis didn't support it very well (Tempest most famously). I played a Time Mage, and most of what makes that subclass works, is freely available under the Time Mage archetype, which is also the best Archetype for Time Mages because it lets them full go nova on their powers AND actually gives them flavorful spells to their repertoire. Now this wasn't true for all the Mysteries (Life and Battle were solid pre-master and definitely got shafted), but I feel like people are overstating the "flavor" of a pre-remaster and ignoring that the class came off as half-finished. I think the actual issue here is that for some reason, Paizo for some reason isn't really "getting" the flavor of the Oracle and what people want out of it, and thus end up turning into a focus point/feat heavy class and hitting break walls of what unique stuff to do with it. I don't know why this is, especially when this definitely wasn't an issue with the 1E Oracle, which was both mechanically and flavor-wise one of the strongest in the game.

[@TitaniumDragon]

Oracular Warning is the best of the cursebound abilities at first level. It's not even close. +2 status bonus to initiative stacks with everything, which is a very substantial bonus to initiative (going first in initiative is basically like getting an extra action, and with your whole party getting this bonus, you're basically giving your party +0.4 turns per combat, maybe more because if you kill someone before they get to go, or mess up their movement via spells or whatever, you can gain a substantial action bonus), and giving out temp HP to everyone at the start of combat means that everyone basically has half your level of temporary HP at the start of every combat. People REALLY underestimate how good winning initiative is in this game, especially for spellcasters, who have a much easier time nuking enemies with AoE damage spells if they go first, or using control spells to split up enemy forces or mess up their movement.

[@aliciaseelentanz]

Oh wow XD literally less than an hour ago I started thinking I should look into Oracle, cos I like the lore concept but never really got along with the way cursebound works. So very happy timing to see this pop up suddenly

[@AlbinoTiefling]

Always loved Oracle, sad about the Mysteries becomings less unique, but happy about the lessening of micromanagement. All in all, positive change, if only by a small margin.

[@madhippy3]

New oracular warning is old Call To Arms which was the battle oracle specific focus spell at level 1. It was a reaction and obviously didn’t interact with curse other than to push it up one level but mostly the same.

[@austinobst8989]

Battle loosing its armor and fast healing really ruined the playstyle. Compared to both warpriest and warrior bard, it's now the most toothless hybrid with virtually 0 reason to actually use weapons.

[@legendarydigitize2523]

The dead walk I think the spirits disappear at the start of your next turn is intentional So your martial allies can benefit for the flanking when it becomes their turn to attack provided the flanked target/s didnt move out

[@eamk887]

I'm surprised they didn't make Life's d12 buff into a feat, I think they could have easily made a feat that, for example, was a free action with the cursebound and spellshape traits, that turned the next heal spell's dice from d8s to d12s. I think something like that would've been cool and fine. Or, if that's too powerful, it could have that the damage dice turn from d8s to d10s, and to d12s if the user is Cursebound 2.

[@hellfrozenphoenix13]

I agree! Or give it as a level 5/7 trait, to add Cursebound to a heal spell to increase the die size. Each Mystery before felt VERY unique and different before, now they are mostly the same and the Mystery matters more for the side effects than their benefits. Imo, this was a Paizo L. This had so much more potential.

[@Aa-su6kl]

This breaks my heart... I was hoping it would make the old oracle more fun, but this almost sounds like a different class :(

[@zacharymink6793]

I'm really bummed by the changes to Battle mostly for flavor but also because of mechanical changes. The idea of a warrior cursed to never have the divine prowess of pure martials but that gained some divine power in exchange is such good flavor. Sure it may never have measured up from a minmax perspective for a gish but this just hurts. It really feels like it make have taken a hit to make more room for the Animist to be more martial with spellcasting. Guess I'll have to wait until both are published and see if I can't workout a mix between them to make some character ideas work.

[@mobi2289]

I disagree, especially on life oracle. This feels like they took life oracle around back and beat the crap out of it. Less HP, made the curse even worse, and made it's healing is just an objectively worse version of cleric now. What did life get that was actually helpful? Nothing. This was a straight up nerf to life oracle.

[@samisgreatish]

Agreed. They need to do something or it's no longer the best Oracle healer which seems really weird. Life Link should have been buffed to do less damage to you if they were going nerf it's HP pool.

[@triforceadm7345]

Ranged 1-action heal you can spam twice per combat isn’t really a nerf, and what makes it objectively worse than cleric? Oh wow, their heals are d10’s instead of d8’s that’s crrraaazzyyy duuude

[@mobi2289]

​@@triforceadm7345 A number of things. Nudge the scales (call it NS for short) heals for 2+double your level. So let's look at level 10. 22 healing on one target, but you then reduce ALL magical healing on yourself by 10. So your standard lesser healing pot, that heals 2d8+5 for an average of 14. That is reduced to 4 on average. That is just for curse 1. Curse 2? Now you have to roll a 16 on that 2d8 just to get 1 healing. Also, the current life oracle gets to roll d12s, not d10s, and not d8s, on their heal spells. That is a huge increase in overall healing. What the current downside? At the first level of curse, you lose half your level rounded up from magical healing. So at level 10, 5. That's half of what the rework is. And what does oracle get from all of this? Basically the equivalent of a pre-nerf level 2, 2 action heal. That you can cast while reducing all magical healing on yourself by 10, then 20. At level 10... And you think that's not a nerf? Basically 2 level 2 heal spells that almost neutralizes any form including your own healing on yourself?! What do clerics get? Pretty much the same healing, but doesn't stop magic from healing themselves, and as a bonus can pick and choose who gets healed with 3 action heals. So, what would you rather have, far more flexible healing that doesn't prevent yourself from healing and gives you the ability to pick and choose with 3 action heals, or the same level of healing, but NS where you get a small amount of extra healing of allies while making all future magical heals during that combat on yourself worse?

[@hellfrozenphoenix13]

@@triforceadm7345 A lot actually. Life Oracles used to do d12s instead of d8s and get a freebie 3 action heal at higher levels, making them able to do burst healing that even cleric couldn't do, at the cost of not having all those freebie heal slots. Cleric gets 4 heals fonts, which go up to 6, meaning they have access to much stronger heals consistently, Life Oracle does not have nearly as much access to it. Their Heal is now just baseline heal, instead of the D12s that the mystery was known for, and they don't get all the great benefits to healng they used to have. Life Oracle got HARD nerfed and anyone who played a Life Oracle can tell you that. It was one of the few dedicated healers that could compete with a dedicated healing Cleric in this system. Edit: Oh, and they lost a LOT of health. Instead of 8, they got 10 per level and that was NEEDED for how they played. They would pump out a lot of healing but sacrifice their own ability to recover health, and they had a lot more ways to make their burst healing useful. Now they get a pathetic early heal (4 heal at level 1 is not really worth it, and at level 5 we are talking 12? Hell, even level 20, 42 just doens't do it. It's replacement is always an objectively weaker-than-average heal)

[@os2331]

Well, for one thing they can use lifelink without giving themselves a permanent heal absorb and can get healed by other creatures, and can use life-giving form without entering their health-hemorrhaging major curse.

[@MrRIPGarcia]

If your scouting that’s +4 to whole teams initiative that’s fantastic especially for a spell caster who always want to go first

[@alienking6182]

As an oracle main I'm loving these updates personally, I get people missing the positives of the Curses but I feel like the benefits far outweigh the losses.

[@travisbaggett2813]

I love Bad Luck Gamer's Player Core 2 coverage!

[@yanimustapha4506]

Nice work BadLuckGamer, keep it up.

[@BegravelseinBrussels]

I think this class looks fine, but it's not the Oracle I wanted to play. The feats seem to make all of the curses more generic.

[@mos5678]

I think roll the bones is a net positive to the party, the cursed possibilities looks like a 50/50 of making it a positive or negative effect but since its the highest number that decides its actually more likely to be beneficial for everyone. The even numbers on a d20 is on average higher than the odd numbers.

[@elifia]

1:04:00 This is not actually a 25% chance to screw everything up. On average, the 4th result is a slight buff. The average result of your roll goes up from 10.5 to 10.75, the chance of getting a natural 1 goes down from 5% to 4.75%, and the chance of getting a natural 20 goes up from 5% to 9.75%. The only actual downside is that it makes everyone's next turn a lot more complicated for very little effect, but that doesn't make it any weaker, just more annoying. (If anyone is wondering how I calculated it, I just put all 400 possible outcomes in a table in Google Sheets and let it average out the values and count the 1s and 20s)

[@evrypixelcounts]

If they wanted to streamline the class. . .they should have just separated the mystery and curse like it was in 1e. The mystery could have been positive bonuses, and the curses negative. . .what we have now barely even resembles it's pre-remaster self let alone it's 1e counterpart. Idk, I'm just not sold on this new version of the class. The proficiencies are tanked, the subclasses lack variety. I think I'll stick to the old version with the oracles+ book for my games.

[@GabrielMaciel-tr9kl]

Thanks for doing this.

[@jellocrystal4312]

I think the spell repertoire and table are both true, they just have less spells to cast than sorcerer. It's like if a bard had an extra slot every level without knowing another spell, idk if I'm making sense explaining it but it makes sense to me

[@valeclaw1697]

For the start- its also very possible those two entires were copy and pasted, sonce Oracles arent special casters. The only difference here being 3/4 slots now. I could still see it being an error either way. But i dont think they particularly need the slots.

[@enduni]

Thanks for the overview! Really wanted to check out the new oracle, playing a battle oracle currently. Also, just out of curiosity, is Interstellar Void still the same? :)

[@theebadluckgamer]

Yes

[@blevenox1916]

I can see Roll the Bones of Fate coming in clutch. I foresee many tales of rolling a 4 and then the allies getting all the good effects and enemies getting the bad effects

[@blevenox1916]

Though I also see many people getting mad at the Oracle when it comes up reversed

[@TheIlluvatar619]

Battle seems awsome grappler : you get atheltic 2 status bonus from focus and 2 reactive strikes that heal you each at full attack. So you can cast a debilitating spell+grab +2strikes. I'm not sure what is your pb with battle..

[@greymournings8877]

All battle oracles around the world weeping

[@Oneydjak]

Does Gift of Power grant an additional rank 10 slot at high levels? If so, Oracle might be the only class with potentially 3 rank 10 slots!

[@RoxxieRaeVA]

55:16 "What hole does the square peg go in?"

[@theebadluckgamer]

🤣

[@reinhardherbst2846]

Wait, so with flames oracle that is always on fire, does the incendiary aura just kill them faster now? 😢

[@SgtCosgrove]

Life's feat says equal to your level (minimum 1). There's a chance this could be another mistake and it should be half your level (minimum 1). There's no reason for the minimum otherwise.

[@newtmow]

Could personal rain could basically keep you safe from curse of engulfing flame by just constantly putting it out

[@theebadluckgamer]

Curses can never be negated

[@newtmow]

Ok thanks

[@christianlangdon3766]

Feel like battle took the worst of it. While i belive its revalation feat is just its focus spell, so it didnt really change. The loss of medium armor, and innate weapon proficiency, and the extra damage etc. I feel this all could be fixed by just doing 2 things, it gets a general armor feat, which gets its armor back. And the focus spell gets a status bonus damage as it upcasts but it could also stupify you. Meaning sustaining it has a reason which is to drop it when you need to cast a spell to save someone else. Sad to see there isnt really a feat to get the old battle oracle stuff vs the others like why do i want the dumb random table which was worse than all the other curses as an option but not the battle stuff. Which even if counter intuitive was still cool. The worst of it, i feel we lost flavor for power that i couldnt care for. The more spell slots is neat but thats not why i would play oracle. I liked oracle for the immeanse flavor and drive it brought to the character. It was the curses and feels bad that made me not enjoy my time.

[@Kaptinark]

Oooh yikes, that life mystery change is a massive nerf, I was hoping the cursebound feats would be a more powerful to justify it, but nope.

[@azavit]

I think the new oracle is beteer: This allows the oracle's "flavor" to be added to more play styles, builds, and concepts. You aren't "hey I'm always on fire it gets worse when I cast these spells" it's "I combust when I go beyond my limits and take the power that wasn't mine to take" which is a whole lot easier to alter for a number of different character concepts. It also no longer locks you into a play style which increases replayability. I could now see my self grabbing and playing multiple of the same oracle mysteries for different character concepts where before I would have been building an oracle purely for the subclass to try out that one specific style then never touch it again. Which sucks... especially when most of the playstyles don't even speak to you. This also makes the dedication more interesting to put onto others as well... A monk who pushes their body beyond their limits being cursed is a really cool concept to just slap on... but before it wasn't worth it as you just got a random debuff that was always active which doesn't give that "breaking in and pulling out power" that was all over the oracle's description

[@christianlangdon3766]

I would say that the class is arguably nearly all in on the dedication because they didn't change it and most of the strength are in cursebound feats which means the base class isnt even tgat much better at using the oracle things. Sure your now sorcerer forced divine, but cleric or sorcerer is just you but better at this point. Idk what they were thinking the subclasses are less than subclasses. And they are unequal to how bad they are, and now they don't even give you shit. Battles reduce ac wasn't as bad due to medium armor etc, now you just die if a caster targts you with magic barrage.

[@noname-do5wo]

I am disliking how many of the survivability options are gone and life Oracle kinda feels like its lost it's identity, its gonna be really hard too use lifelink with no bonus HP and the alternative ways of healing don't look better then the buffs to the heal spell and free healing for casting a spell, it also doesn't really sell the flavor of overflowing with life anymore

[@hellfrozenphoenix13]

I agree. They should have given more time to bake this concept and give Mysteries benefits as they level, as well as a Cursebound Action baseline. Like the heal: why isnt that just Oracle of Life? Why not give them the ability to add Cursebound to Heal to increase its die size to 12 for a cast? Why not give them more health baseline? Why not use Life Oracle, the best designed of the Mysteries, as a base for what to do?

[@noname-do5wo]

@@hellfrozenphoenix13 yeah and it feels like it will be very hard too make good use of life link anymore because of the lack of HP and the fact your self heals will be a lot weaker both because the penalty to self healing get way higher and because your healing is less bursty it has a harder time overcoming the heal penalty threshold

[@Zing05]

idk, it is free out of combat healing that you can use in addition to lifelink, so the utility is still there.

[@Sayakiko]

Is it just me or is the sound muted on this vod?

[@austinobst8989]

Foretell harm is really good for lore oracles dread secret

[@FhtagnCthulhu]

After a few days, I realize I have two main issues with new oracle: 1. The flavor and mechanical uniqueness of each mystery is vastly reduced. 2. Many of the new cursebound feats feel weak, or scale poorly. I think the job is fine, the curses are easier to work around for the most part, and they are very powerful casters... but I also no longer have as much of an urge to play one.

[@joaoveigamelo]

"Come on my frind we gonna play oracle!" "Where is my mystery benefit?" " kzbin.info/www/bejne/eISthXqilpZspZY "

[@madhippy3]

First red flag I thought with Oracle was that they were giving us four domains, but there is only one focus points at level one. So they’re taking away Oracle being the quirky, focus, spellcaster, and just giving us more choices with divine access, which, of course was an amazing feat, but that’s basically what they’re telling us to do now. Because most of them access as you can, and build your own spell list. I guess some people don’t like that maybe even most people But removing the quirky niche of our mysteries and curses and our focus spells I just don’t think I’ll play remaster Oracle, even if it is stronger

[@Mega24fun]

Would be nice to have timestamps for the different oracles.

[@purpur5]

20:50 not to mention Weapon Proficiency general feat exists, and it scales at the exact same speed as Oracle's proficiency, making this spell completely useless by lvl 3 (lvl 1 if you start Human), so even if it didn't need to be sustained it still wouldn't be worth it

[@oiman5733]

Still an extra focus point available for a domain spell or something

[@rainmceachern7156]

I did some maths to figure out exactly what rolling a 4 on Roll the Bones of Fate does the average roll with roll the bones is 10.75, so on average it's technically a buff (the weakest buff I've ever seen, but still a buff)

[@feral_orc]

My question to Paizo is "Why just one focus spell caster?", when every "normal" caster is meant to be happy sharing the full caster role with everyone else? Are Summoner and Magus not supposed to both have bound casting?

[@Nercrontyr]

What i have been waiting for. Time to see which side of the fence im on. *edit*: whelp, sucks for life. Also, sucks for my times mystery. Cant play it with the new core 2 oracle. I was waiting for this review of oracle but seem that i got to wait till paizo releases an errata post book release which sucks. On a positive note, Thank you for reviewing the class! Its good to know some of the changes regardless :)

[@SlopeOfTangent]

I know I am in the minority on this, but I kind of like the changes made to oracle. I think that simplifying the curses makes it a lot more accessible to newer players and gives them a clear identity, no more having some mysterious want their curse while others hate it. I also think it's kind of interesting to have a caster class that is feat focused (though I agree on wanting more mystery unique feats). Just because I love chaos as a GM what I will probably do with Meddling Futures is make it sustained up to a minute and the first time you sustain it on your turn you get to spin the wheel.

[@commenter1430]

I feel like this entire video is very negative towards oracle and not really discussing any of the purpose of the changes that have been made. Also, it was literally the first and only video that I have seen with a negative take on the oracle changes. I don't have any real connection to the oracle so maybe thats why the changes dont bother me as much, but to be fair the reason I don't have any connection is that I GENERALLY HAVE TOLD MY NEWER PLAYERS NOT TO START WITH ORACLE. This isn't a new take either. Oracle was not new player friendly and a bit too complicated for what it was doing. Moving the benefits away from the CURSES and focusing on allowing players to opt into complexity feels much more user-friendly.

[@AdmAmeoba]

cosmos references the nothingness domain is that new i cant find anything on it?

[@miraclemaker1418]

Hoping for a copy-paste error on the spellcasting and spell repertoire titles

[@vehemetipolygoniae2197]

I like new oracle. Old oracle was one of the most infamously shitty and overly complicated classes to play with (Being a strictly divine class didn't help because it was competing with cleric, one of the stronger casters). I get it doesn't have as much flavor but flavor isn't worth much when you are having a bad time at the table feeling useless or confused because the class had so many weird design decisions

[@hellfrozenphoenix13]

I'm not sold that it doesn't feel bad tbh. I don't mind the side effects, but it's more that the baseline Cursebound effects don't feel great. And with that, it makes each Mystery feel kinda meh in general. If they made the baseline Cursebound traits per Mystery scale with Cursebound, it could be much better. But as it stands? It feels very bad imo

[@cheezeofages]

I do like that Revel in Retribution technically can help you sustain Weapon Trance. To bad that having both up takes nearly all you FP. I feel like Battle REALLY wants to archetype Champion. Get in there and get armor, the prayer that can give back FP, be Justice so your champion reaction includes an attack to help sustain Weapon Trance. Get the Might domain spell maybe. See a duder you want to lock down and after popping your Weapon Trance you have buttons to COME ON AND SLAM and WELCOME THEM TO THE JAM, then pop Revel and recharge with prayer. Eh. Weapon Trance is kinda a big downer here. It's really awkward in the f point AND action economy. You'll definitely also want to snag the champion's new Raise Shield > Stride > Strike feat or Sudden Charge from somewhere else, also grab the spell Blink Charge.

[@ezlomacks6533]

"watch out for those players" don't call me out like that, how dare you sir

[@theebadluckgamer]

😝

[@nicolasvillasecaali7662]

All this time hoping for some Oracle improvements and now i realize... That what i really wanted is an oracle of horrors and fear and I'm still so sad that we have nothing like that! I cry rivers, for I lack fears

[@owanantbitme6233]

i had a cosmos oracle with the fear Cathartic mage archetype, which leaned into the cosmic horror stuff. granted i absolutely do not like the new oracle so that guys probably dead in the water

[@freedfalchion9860]

What did they do…..

[@RatedManatee]

My rogue will have to move away from Oracle to something else, they really lost all gishness.

[@melorbode]

Not surprising Paizo needs a pro editor...always have problems. Tell them before they do a full print.

[@damienwilliams2947]

Oracle was bad. It was confusing and complicated to play and had the worst spell list in the game. The new Oracle is straight forward to play and objectively better. Flavor doesn’t override effectiveness

[@owanantbitme6233]

this new oracle is so boring i might as well just play a cleric

[@pascalmanders5781]

Nobody loves the sorcerer...

[@niIIer1]

Finally. Thanks. God I hope the error make them hold back on Oracle and just buff the old version instead. This is the highest levels of cope I have ever inhaled but man can dream. Why didn't they release a playtest for this? WHY? This is so garbage. Worst thing I have seen Paizo do so far. Terrible changes. I will not allow remaster oracle at my table out of protest to these garbage changes. The feats are just like spells. Boring. Early strong passives are no longer possible. All the uniqueness gone for some slightly reflavoured spells. I am done with this class. Summoner new favourite class. I am coping and seething. But thanks for the video. Now I at least know.

[@vehemetipolygoniae2197]

Don't think that's happening lol. Probably just going to be an errata and that's it. Personally i like remastered oracle better, but if you prefer pre remaster you can always speak with your gm

[@niIIer1]

@@vehemetipolygoniae2197 Yeah I will definitly allow old Oracle always. It is essentially a new class. Why they didn't do a playtest for it like other new classes is beyond me. It absolutely screwed over oracle fans.

[@hellfrozenphoenix13]

My main issue with it is they didn't make the baseline cursebound actions worth using, and each could have had more flair. Example: Let the Life Oracle get a Psuedo heal effect, but it gets stronger as you get more cursebound. As it stands, the Mystery feels more impact full on "pick your side effect" which doesn't feel good imo. A playtest was needed. This had potential to be amazing, but this is not that good. I was so excited for it too.

[@a.h.s.3006]

"I will not allow remaster oracle at my table" If you do that, you will be a huge jerk. I mean, you're already a jerk by calling someone's work garbage and boring without testing them out yourself. I agree, Paizo probably should have playtest this, but it is out now, players will have their books and whether you like it or not, some will want to play it. Don't punish your players who want to playtest something that might turn out cool. Stop being afraid of liking it and just let them play, worst thing it would just be a discount Sorcerer, and at best you might actually like it. "The feats are just like spells. Boring" So Kineticist is boring and shouldn't exist? Kineticists should have probably gotten themselves spell casting. Oracle used to have no feats at all that my entire class feat structure was entirely archetypes, even with free archetypes. Now I have more expanded options for more expanded powers, this concept by itself is not "boring", it is perfectly valid and was tried and tested in another beloved class. "Early strong passives are no longer possible." This statement is variable per Mystery. Of the 8 Mysteries, only two of them had obvious strong passives, Cosmos and Battle, the others mysteries either had comparatively meh benefits, situational benefits that rarely came up, or benefits whose sole reason to exist is to offset your curse (Flame Reflex and life high HP). The passive benefits from advancing the curse were taxing and it was difficult to keep them up because you needed to refocus in order to use your focus spells and because keeping your curse up outside of combat outright killed you over time (Flame). "All the uniqueness gone" I will agree with this one. Oracle now feels like any spellcaster, with maybe an additional pool of resources that could be potentially powerful and in some way (but not always) replicates some of the same flavor. But you know what, now you can pick and choose the effects that will increase your curse, and those effects increase in power when you increase the curse, you're no longer the crippled caster who has to carefully use their focus spells as to not be completely overwhelmed, and instead of crying about not having the thematic spells you need to make your Oracle work they gave you some and added Divine Access for free if you want more. As someone else somewhere stated, the power ceiling for the entire class fell, but in return the floor was raised, there is still uniqueness and exploits you can make if you just try it out first.

[@zjplunkett]

Not allowing the class at your table is a pretty crappy thing to do. There are good reasons not to allow players to pick classes, but "I don't like the changes to them" isn't one of them.

[@melorbode]

ORACLE IS THE TOUGHEST CLASS FOR PEOPLE TO PLAY.

[@eamk887]

Not even close.

[@hellfrozenphoenix13]

​@eamk887 preremaster? It definitely is. So much to track and keep in mind at all times and with overall lackluster benefits.