Bell, Book, & Candle: A Pathfinder Oracle Guide

Bell, Book, & Candle: A Guide to the Pathfinder Oracle

Table of Contents

• OCL101: The All-Seeing Eye
• OCL102: The Making of a Seer
• OCL109: The Oracle Grows
• The Chassis
• Core Races
• Selected Other Races
• OCL240: The Oracle Fights
• OCL351: The Gift of Mystery
• OCL700: Dips, VMC, Prestige, Gestalt
• OCL751: The Oracle Perfected
• OCL900: Back Matter

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OCL101: The All-Seeing Eye

Introduced first in 2010 with the release of the Advanced Player’s Guide, the Oracle class has quickly risen to the top of many players’ “Favorite Class” lists. I happen to include myself among those players! Mechanically, Oracles feel like an almost perfect marriage of the Sorcerer and Cleric classes: Mysteries feel and play a lot like Bloodlines, and both Sorcerers and Oracles are spontaneous casters; and yet, Oracles share their hit die, BAB progression, and divine spell list with the Cleric. In terms of flavor, well, Oracles can be anything you want them to be, from raging seers who channel the raw bloodshed of battle, to the traditional smoke-veiled mystics spinning prophecies from the movements of planets, patterns of bones, and whisperings of the wind. Thanks to the immense range of Mysteries and Curses available, there is no such thing as a “mainstream” Oracle: every combination of Mystery, Curse, and spells known will feel and play entirely differently from any other. You’re a snowflake, kid.

Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t trap options and wrong turns that players, especially players new to Pathfinder, can take when building an Oracle, but then again, that’s what I’m here for: to guide you through the best of the best and the worst of the worst, explain what I can, render my judgments, and hopefully leave you with a sense of cohesion at the end of it all. We’ll go over some of the Prime Directives that govern the inner workings of the class in the next section, The Making of a Seer, but for now, let me just say that I hope you enjoy the guide. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me on Reddit, where you can find me at my handle, /u/Allerseelen, as well as in my professional capacity as the head of All Souls Gaming on Patreon and Twitter. And with that, let’s get started! Happy hunting, my friends.

All my best,

Chris

OCL102: The Making of a Seer

One of the first impressions that experienced players might start to get as they review the Oracle class is, “Holy crap, how is the power curve on these guys so high?” And it’s true, Oracles pack a lot of punch. Between full casting, a d8 HD and ¾ BAB, medium armor proficiency, and the various Revelations and bonus spells granted by your Mystery, there’s practically nothing you can’t do with some degree of success, so long as you’ve focused your build on it. That’s not something every class can boast of: no matter how you build a single-class Wizard, for example, it’s unlikely that she’ll ever become a capable melee combatant. Here are a few important, universal points to consider as you build and play your Oracles:

• Some Oracles are dependent on CHA, and some are not. Some roles that Oracles fill need to have high CHA scores in order to take advantage of better Spell Save DCs; these roles include anything that primarily targets enemies, such as Debuffers or Blasters. If you intend primarily to buff your team or yourself, the need for CHA diminishes, as you won’t be plowing through enemy saves to get to your goal. Regardless of your build goals, all Oracles should try to start with at least 15 CHA, then bump up to 16 at their earliest convenience. You are locked out of casting your spells unless your CHA score is equal to 10 + the spell level, and you don’t want to reach 6th-level spells at Level 12, only to discover that you didn’t invest enough CHA to even cast them.
• Oracles are meant to be secondary combatants, not primary combatants. Mysteries like Metal, Battle, Godclaw, and Outer Rifts can turn you into a pretty hardy attacker; this does not mean, however, that the Oracle class was created with full-on martial status in mind. Without your self-buffing, you’ll always be squishier, less accurate, and less fortitudinous than nearly all of your martial cousins. Don’t tempt fate here.
• Make sure you know why you’re picking your spells known. Spontaneous casters are primarily limited by their choices of spells known, and even Favored Class Bonuses like the Human’s don’t do much to alleviate the problem. Oracles and other spontaneous casters can only afford to select the best of the best spells, because whatever they pick, they’re stuck with. You can determine which spells might be qualified candidates by submitting them to the following litmus test: ask yourself, Will I use this spell every day? Can this spell affect multiple allies or enemies? Does it last long enough to be effective? Which save does it target, and is that a strong save for enemies at this level? Even if the enemy passes their save, will it give me a partial effect? Will this spell be effective several levels from now? If you find yourself giving negative responses to any of those questions, view the spell with extreme suspicion. Building a spontaneous caster is like becoming a bodybuilder: you’ve got to be as lean as possible if you want to win. Not an ounce of fat, remember?
• Some Revelations are always, always good; some are almost always bad. Blast Revelations and touch-range damage Revelations suck almost universally, whereas Revelations that increase your AC or grant you novel movement modalities like flight or Earth Glide are almost always excellent.
• Pick your feats carefully. Oracle is one of the few classes in Pathfinder that receives no bonus feats of any kind, barring specific Revelations like Weapon Mastery (Battle) or Starlight Agility (Solar). As with spells known, you can’t afford any fat in your build where feats are concerned: feats like Combat Expertise are nuisances for Fighters, but they’re absolute poison for you.

OCL109: The Oracle Grows

Throughout this guide, you’ll see feats, spells, class features, etc. rated using a color coding system that was first introduced by Treantmonk and since copied in many other guides. Everyone tends to use their own colors, though, so here’s what we’ll be working with:

• Blue abilities are the absolute best of the best: options that define the way an Oracle is played, or that otherwise provide some exponential leap in effectiveness. Try your utmost to pick up these options.
• Green abilities are almost universally useful, a good pick for nearly any build. If they’re not gamebreakingly powerful, they’re definitely holding up the line at a solid B+.
• Yellow abilities are our C standard, neither good nor bad. A yellow rating can also denote situational abilities that might be useful to some playstyles but not others.
• Red abilities are the traps. Stay away from these.
• Black ratings are mostly used in the spell selection guide to point out spells that make for poor spells known, yet serve their purpose admirably as scrolls or wands.

The Chassis

• d8 Hit Die: Like their brethren the Clerics, Oracles are built to be able to withstand at least a moderate amount of pain, getting a d8 HD and ¾ BAB progression while retaining full casting. It’s pretty good, considering most Oracles won’t go too heavy on martial combat.
• ¾ BAB Progression: On par with Clerics, Inquisitors, Warpriests, and most of the divine casters. Nice that you get ¾, instead of ½ like the Wizard or Psychic.
• Full Casting Progression: Full, spontaneous, divine casting! Although Oracles aren’t as flexible as Clerics in what they can prepare for a day’s adventuring, spontaneous casting ensures that you’ve got as many instances of your best spells available to you at all times. And with a CHA casting stat and the ability to pick up Use Magic Device as a class skill through traits, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be stealing other classes’ wands and scrolls for your own use.
• Armor Proficiencies: You're proficient with light armor, medium armor, and shields. A Mithral breastplate is more than enough for your purposes, as again, most Oracles won’t be frontline fighters. (Ascetic, Battle, Dragon, Godclaw, Lunar, Metal, and Nature are the likeliest exceptions to this rule.) Do note that many Mysteries grant Revelations that provide armor bonuses; if your GM rules that these Revelations stack with spells like magic vestment, they’re ideal replacements for traditional manufactured armor, and can save you a bundle. Watch out for those antimagic fields, though...
• Good Will Save, Bad Fortitude and Reflex Saves: Will is by far the most important save to have in your back pocket, but the bad Fort save does make me uncomfortable. Fortunately, with the Cleric spell list at your fingertips, you’re about as prepared as you could be to treat diseases, purge poisons, and generally shrug off the effects of failed Fort saves. The Great Fortitude feat isn’t a bad investment at all, especially if your Curse predisposes you to fail saves against Fortitude-based effects.
• Skills: You get 4 + INT, and your list is pretty sparse, at least before Mysteries get added to the mix. Given that Intelligence will probably be one of your dump stats, you can’t count on having many skill ranks available. Thank goodness full casting helps alleviate that pain somewhat.
• Weapon Proficiencies: Simple weapons only. That’s okay: most Oracles will be able to get along with a longspear, a morningstar, or a light crossbow. Mysteries that really want you to jump into the thick of it will provide the means, and plenty of races offer their own ways of acquiring proficiency with better weapons.

Class Features

• (1) Mysteries and Revelations: Mysteries and Revelations are the absolute core of the Oracle class: along with your Curse, they define your theme, your bonus spells, your role in the party...everything, really. Mysteries are your innate connection to the Divine, and as such grant extraordinarily powerful abilities called Revelations. You will receive only six of these gifts from your Mystery over the course of your career, so it’s important to choose wisely—that gap from 3rd to 7th levels can feel like forever, if you’re not careful.
• (1) Curse: The combination of Mystery and Curse is what really makes the Oracle class for me. Most classes have a straight progression, growing constantly and consistently in power. That’s good game design, after all, right? In exchange for their full casting progression and powerful Revelations, however, Oracles have to pay a steep price in the form of their Curse. These can range from figuratively crippling setbacks (being unable to leave one small plot of land forever) to literally crippling setbacks (the Lame Curse) to minor roleplaying annoyances (being unable to lie with the Legalistic Curse). If constantly pushing to overcome debility or inconvenience seems like it would ruin the class, well, fear not, the curses get less and less curse-like as you go, eventually turning into boons for the Oracle in the form of extra spells known or special powers. As far as I’m concerned, though, Paizo knocked it out of the park with this one: give a character a strength, and you’ll remember them for a day; give them an interesting flaw, and you’ll remember them for a lifetime. Our main goal with Curses (discussed more in OCL360: The Curse of Sight) is to get some amount of flavorful flaw without completely trashing an Oracle’s usefulness, in combat or out. It’s not so hard!
• (20) Final Revelation: How you’d ever get to 20th level is anyone’s guess, but if you do, there’s some cool stuff waiting for you. For Oracles, you usually get some overt manifestation of the divine that permanently changes you, supercharging your godly energies. Yadda yadda yadda.
• Alternate Capstones: The new book Chronicle of Legends came out on Archives of Nethys recently, and one of the coolest features it added is alternate capstone powers for just about every class. Here are some of the highlights:
• Deep Magics: Not worth it. Nine spells known is a lot, I get it, but this is 20th-level we’re talking about! Most Oracles will try to massage their way into the Human FCB anyway, alleviating the pain of limited spells known.
• Diverse Mysteries: Dark Secrets (Shadow) and Temporal Celerity (Time), anyone? You can do a bunch of crazy stuff by picking up Revelations from other Mysteries, and to my knowledge, this capstone is the only, I repeat only, way to accomplish that.
• Perfect Body, Flawless Mind: Nothing like immediately increasing your CHA score by 8 to brighten your day, eh? Pushing your spell save DCs and spells per day up by a wide margin is a worthy goal.
• The Boss: It’s hard to imagine where an Oracle might fit into society--they’re usually marginalized figures on the fringes. I don’t like it quite as much as the two capstones above, but no one denies that Leadership is extraordinarily powerful.
• With This Sword: Another solid capstone, and one that you could use to layer on a bunch of gold-only skill enchantments with. As an example, the greater shadow armor enchantment will run you about 33k gp. How’d you like a permanent +15 to Stealth?
• Won’t Stay Dead: Mainly saves money if you keep adventuring, as there shouldn’t be many circumstances at 20th level where you’re caught without access to potent resurrection magic. I say go for things that money can’t buy, like Diverse Mysteries or permanent attribute boosts.

OCL210: Prophecy Made Flesh

Core Races

Now that you’ve read through the Oracle’s abilities—broadly speaking—and you’re on board for the class, the next item on the docket is to select a race. Core races are the most widely accepted at tables, and the friendliest for PFS play, so I’ll review all of them, regardless of their suitability to oracular escapades. Later on, we’ll get to a review of selected Featured and Uncommon races that can hold their own with the best of them.

Dwarf

Pro Con

Good racial traits. Dwarves get some of the best racial traits around, Hardy being a stand-out. Your Will save is already pretty solid, but having it as high as possible is never a bad idea.

Mediocre favored class bonus. Weapon proficiency isn’t much to write home about, even exotic weapon proficiency. Because most Oracles will be of one casting bent or another, no one but Battle Oracles will need to be picking up other weapon proficiencies.

Racial darkvision. Lower base movement speed. Yeah, it’s the pits. At least that your speed is never reduced by armor, which again, will help out the Battle Oracles going for heavy armor proficiency.

CHA penalty. Ouch. WIS is a pretty irrelevant score for Oracles, and CHA is crucial. Not a great set-up.

Other Features

Unstoppable patches your Fortitude save and gives you an extra bundle of HP. Spiritual Support might work well for a Life or other healing-focused Oracle. Iron Citizen pairs nicely with your CHA focus, and aids you in being the party face. Fey Thoughts opens up your limited skill selection. Barrow Warden and Death’s End are mutually exclusive racial traits that will help you against Undead.

Final Thoughts

Everything that makes Dwarves wonderful Inquisitors, Druids, and Monks makes them disappointing Oracles. A penalty to the main casting stat on a full caster is simply not going to work out in your favor in most cases; that said, however, the stat distribution might not be such a hit for non-casting focused Oracles. Any playstyle that focuses on self- or team buffing without using enemy-targeted spells can make a slightly lower CHA score work—it’s always going to be a slog, though, so just be prepared for that.

Elf

Pro Con

Weapon familiarity. Elves get access to a good variety of weapons, especially ranged weapons. If you also spend a feat to get martial weapon proficiency, you can access the Elven Curve Blade and Elven Branched Spear, two of the best melee weapons around.

Low-light vision, but no racial darkvision.

Elven Magic. As full casters, at least part of an Oracle’s job is to cast spells targeting enemies. This brings us face to face with Spell Save DCs and Spell Resistance, both of which you will have to overcome in some way. Elven Magic gives you a decent headstart on the second item.

Inconsistent favored class bonus. Even if you took the FCB at every level from 1-18, you’d still only see a 3-level bump in effectiveness. Probably best used on the various armor Revelations.

Poor stat distribution. +2 INT really does nothing for us, although +2 DEX isn’t bad for ranged attacks and AC.

A penalty to CON is pretty terrible, though, considering you’ve got a d8 HD and a slow Fortitude save progression.

Other Features

Crossbow Training might prove useful, essentially being a free feat for a weapon you’re already proficient with.

Dragon Magic could be pretty cool when paired with the Dragon Mystery: worship Apsu today! Fey-Sighted is good for anyone. Moonkissed shores up all your saves, which you could do with.

Final Thoughts

Elves have always been strong ranged combatants—and they’d have to be, with a penalty to CON. As long as you’re okay with being frailer than most other races, the Fair Folk actually don’t do too badly as Oracles. Certain Mysteries (Lore, primarily) and archetypes (Ancient Lorekeeper, which is Elf-only; also Psychic Searcher and Enlightened Philosopher) can make good use of a high secondary INT score, so it’s worthwhile to consider whether you can make INT work for you as an Oracle, rather than lament the lack of a CHA bonus.

Gnome

Pro Con

Excellent stat distribution. STR won’t be of much use for casting-focused Oracles, making it ideal for a cut.

Unusual favored class bonus. For some Oracles, increasing the speed at which their Curse improves is incredible (Clouded Vision, e.g.) but for others, the Curse isn’t a big deal (Covetous, Legalistic). I’m a fan of this FCB for Dual-Cursed Oracles, who can’t ever progress one Curse and should therefore be interested in making the Curse that does progress less of a nuisance as soon as possible.

Small size. I think I can safely mark this in the “Pro” column for Oracles—casters generally want higher AC.

Low base movement speed. This isn’t nearly as big a problem as it would be for melee characters.

Other Features

Of your racial traits, only Keen Senses and (possibly) Gnome Magic are worth retaining. Let’s start with one must-have: you must have Nosophobia, which greatly patches your Fortitude save while sacrificing next to nothing. Charming Diviner, Faerie Dragon Magic, and Fey Magic are cool and highly thematic for an Oracle. Eternal Hope’s bonuses vs. fear effects probably won’t come into play too often, but the free reroll 1/day on a Natural 1 is great. Fey Thoughts can and should be used to get UMD and Perception on your class list, regardless of your Mystery.

Final Thoughts

Gnomes are certainly a top-shelf Oracle race, especially among the Core races. You’ll find yourself loving all the SLAs and little buffs to casting they sling around, and Nosophobia/Eternal Hope can give you a little more defensive oomph. Certainly, having a bonus to CON is a welcome change for a caster! I’m so happy to be able to rate these little guys well—I think they’re one of my favorite races, but they’re absolute garbage for WIS-based classes.

Half-Elf

Pro Con

Ancestral Arms. Getting access to any martial or exotic weapon is extremely strong.

Low-light vision, but no racial darkvision.

Great favored class bonus. Again, more spells known = more flexible casting. Never say no except in the very first levels when you’ll have access to orisons only.

Paragon Surge. This Half-Elf-only spell allows you to gain an extra feat that you qualify for when you cast it; this, it turns out, opens the door to a whole bunch of shenanigans we’ll get into down in the spells section.

Jump!

Free skill focus feat or bonus to Will saves.

Adaptability or Dual-Minded are great alternatives to Ancestral Arms if you don’t envision yourself in melee.

Floating stat bonus. Always good to have the option; yours will most likely go into CHA, but DEX is another strong option if you’re fighting at range or using an Elven Curve Blade build with Weapon Finesse.

Other Features

A free Skill Focus feat isn’t a gamechanger for Oracles unless you’re pursuing the Eldritch Heritage feat line, so feel free to trade Adaptability away. Dual-Minded is an easy buff to Will saves if you’re going with a casting build; combat specialists will want Ancestral Arms. Fey Thoughts is a no-brainer unless you’re multiclassing, in which case you’ll probably want Multidisciplined, not Multitalented.

Final Thoughts

Half-Elves almost always make a good showing in racial selection, and the Oracle is no different. Floating stat bonus, excellent FCB, and the ability to grab better weapon proficiencies make this race a strong choice.

Halfling

Pro Con

Ideal stat distribution. Especially for ranged combat, you’d be hard-pressed to come up with a better stat array than +2 DEX/CHA, -2 STR. Nothing but upside here.

20-foot movement speed. You can and probably should rectify this with the Fleet of Foot alternate racial trait.

Adaptable Luck and Fate’s Favored. This combo is just a wee bit cliched at this point, but there’s no denying that it works: three flexible +3 (Luck) bonuses to any check throughout the day is amazing. If you prefer a slower and steadier style, stick with the base Halfling Luck.

Unusual favored class bonus. As the Gnome FCB: some curses will hardly slow you up, and some can wreck you before you’ve gotten a bunch of levels under your belt.

Small size. You might occasionally curse your short stature if an enemy goes to Grapple or something, but overall, the bonuses to hit, AC, and Stealth are way too good for full casters.

Other Features

Danger Detection covers the most obvious and pressing uses of Perception, so some may choose to trade away Keen Senses for it. If you really want to be a rocketized animal, you can grab both Fey-Quickened and Fleet of Foot, which will boost your speed to 30 ft., improve your initiative, and give you the Run feat. (You really should get both of those.)

Final Thoughts

Halflings are tanky, stealthy, and hardly any slower than a Medium-sized race. Assuming you’re going to build your Halfling for any kind of casting-focused role and not straight-up melee combat, you really can’t do better.

Half-Orc

Pro Con

Bonus weapon proficiencies. Falchions, greataxes, and orc hornbows are amazing martial weapons that are absolutely a step up from what Oracles usually get. And because they’re coming to you racially, Half-Orcs taking the Battle or Metal Mysteries won’t need to spend a Revelation picking up proficiency. Chain Fighter can work to provide bludgeoning weapons, but I’d probably stick to falchions (if you have a means of picking up Improved Critical, as from the Weapon Mastery Revelation) or greataxes (if you want to pump STR sky-high).

Human favored class bonus. “And I, I took the FCB less taken, and that has made all the difference.” Giving yourself more spells known is the single best thing you can do for yourself as an Oracle.

Racial darkvision.

Floating stat bonus. It’s not quite as spot on as other, more focused attribute bonuses, but hey, it’s flexible.

Other Features

The Acute Darkvision and Dragon Sight alternate racial traits are good ones to grab (Dragon Sight especially, if you're not demoralizing professionally) for improved darkvision, although Shaman’s Apprentice can also be a contender to replace Intimidating if you see yourself doing a lot of wilderness exploration. I've never been a fan of Orc Ferocity, so if you’re like me, you'll be looking for replacement traits, two of which jump out: Toothy (for a primary natural attack, 1d4) or Sacred Tattoo (which grants a +1 luck bonus to all saves, boosted to +2 if it’s Wine and Cheese Hour and you take the Fate's Favored trait).

Final Thoughts

With their innate weapon proficiencies, darkvision, and exceedingly good FCB, Half-Orcs should almost always be in strong contention for your Oracle builds. Those sporting the Battle, Metal, Godclaw, and Outer Rifts Mysteries will be hardened, scary, lethal combatants.

Human

Pro Con

Free bonus feat. Oracles are strapped, strapped, strapped for feats, especially those who want to be able to fill multiple roles on a team. One bonus feat can be the difference between life and death in a build.

No darkvision or low-light vision.

Free skill point every level. You don’t get many of them.

Enjoy it.

Amazing FCB. Half-Orcs and Half-Elves learned it here, folks. Every casting-based Oracle will want to at least consider one of these three core races.

Other Features

The alternate racial traits are only rarely worth it, except in situations where your bonus feat mimics one of the alternate racial traits (e.g., the Spell Penetration feat and the Unstoppable Magic racial trait—you can't get SP twice, but if you take UM as your replacement for the bonus feat, you can pick up SP later on).

Final Thoughts

Losing darkvision isn’t ultimately too much of a hindrance. You have light as an orison, and GMs are mostly too busy keeping everything else on the rails to nag you about concealment.

Selected Other Races

A complete treatment of every Pathfinder race would be exhausting and minimally fruitful. I'll cover some of the highlights among Golarion's less common peoples, but there are a few criteria that you can use to make your own selections:

• Stat spread. The only must-have quality for most Oracles will be a bonus to CHA, the all-important casting stat. Bonuses to CON are beneficial to everyone, thanks to a d8 HD and poor Fortitude save progression, and DEX or STR might also be valuable, depending on your build. INT and WIS are your dump stats, though it stinks that you’re forced into a choice between skill ranks and a good Perception score/Will save. The Unbearable Lightness of Multiple Attribute Dependency, alas.
• Favored class bonuses. Spells known are obviously the most valuable resource for full casters like Oracles; coming in close behind, however, are FCBs that allow you to make progress on your Curse faster than usual. 15th-level Curse perks are often quite good, but come too late to change the game—so what if you could get them at 10th level, instead? The biggest stinkers of the lot are the ones that allow you to advance a single martial weapon proficiency or Revelation. These are entirely too slow for your purposes, and should be swapped out for HP or a skill rank at every level-up.
• Base speed. It should be evident why 30 feet is preferable to 20 feet.
• Size. If you’re going with a build that hangs its hat in the bloody scrum of melee combat, a medium-sized race is for you—better CMD and damage. Ranged and casting-based Oracles have some numerical advantages as small-sized races, but the matter is left to your preference.

Aasimar

Pro Con

Awesome stat spread. A bonus to two scores without any drawback attribute is unique among Pathfinder races...and hey, look at that, one of the scores is your casting stat! If variant heritages are allowed, Angel-Blooded Aasimar do amazing work as Melee Oracles, while Peri-, Azata-, and Agathion-Blooded Oracles excel at Skill, Ranged, and Tank roles, respectively. There’s so much to like among the variant heritages.

Bad FCB. Spending six FCBs to advance the bonuses of one Revelation by one level should trigger an automatic gag reflex in you. If not, start cultivating it now. Assuming your GM rules that the Scion of Humanity trait lets you take the Human FCB, this con becomes a major pro.

Racial SLA, 1/day. Base Aasimar get daylight, a good 3rd-level spell, while other variants get different SLAs. Remember that racial SLAs, even 3rd-level SLAs like daylight, don’t qualify you for Evangelist early.

Innate energy resistances.

Racial darkvision.

Other Features

If you're going to be fighting any undead in your campaign, take the Deathless Spirit alternate racial trait instead of Celestial Resistance—the resistance to negative energy and boosts to saves vs. energy drain, negative levels, etc. are simply too good to pass up. Heavens and Solar Oracles will also want to browse over the Heavenborn trait for the +1 CL when casting [light] and [good] spells. Check out Scion of Humanity below!

Final Thoughts

Even the base Aasimar chassis is really, really strong, and gets even stronger if variant heritages are on the table. Also check with your GM about whether Scion of Humanity allows you to take the Human FCB. If it does, get it, because it opens up a whole new realm of self-buffs affecting only Humanoids (not Native Outsiders) and gives you all those tasty spells known. No real drawbacks here!

Catfolk

Pro Con

Amazing attribute distribution. +2 DEX, +2 CHA, -2 WIS is truly as good as could be wished for.

Low-light vision, but no racial darkvision. Can’t cats see, like, really well in the dark?

Human FCB. The rich get richer, eh? Yeah, Catfolk are one of the few non-core races to get more spells known.

Cue the fireworks.

Decent racial skill bonuses. You can always trade out these skills for face skills under alternative racial traits.

Cat’s Luck. Your Reflex save really isn’t great, making Cat’s Luck ideal for shrugging off the occasional fireball.

Access to a Climb speed. You wouldn’t normally be investing much into Climb, but getting a speed innately is a great deal, and absolutely better than Sprinter.

Other Features

Sprinter should be traded out for Climber in 100% of cases. Cat’s Claws fits in well with natural attack-based Mysteries like Lunar, and Clever Cat subs face skills for exploration skills, if that’s more your speed.

Final Thoughts

Jokes about furries aside, Catfolk make exceptional Oracles, ticking all the right boxes of FCB, stat spread, skill bonuses, and movement modalities. They’re also highly thematic for Mysteries like Lunar and Shadow, although my flavor-favorite has still got to be the Solar Mystery build that revolves heavily around basking in the sun for hours on end.

Dhampir

Pro Con

Good stats. The hit to CON is rough. Consider Great Fortitude or Toughness if you plan to mix it up in combat.

No FCB. There’s a 3rd-party option to improve your concentration checks when casting [curse] spells, which would make you a great debuffer. It’s a balanced option, as Goblins get the same Paizo-official FCB for spells with the [fire] descriptor.

Flat immunity to level drain. Negative levels can very quickly consign a PC to oblivion. Dhampir simply shrug them off at the first opportunity.

Light sensitivity. You’ll likely take Dayborn to mitigate this problem.

Racial darkvision and low-light vision. I think most people treat darkvision as an upgrade to low-light vision, even if it’s technically a sidegrade.

Treated as Undead for Positive/Negative Energy effects. Buy a wand of inflict light wounds for your own cures, and one of cure for everyone else’s.

Other Features

Dayborn is a no-brainer to avoid getting dazzled by any location that’s not Seattle. Personally, I like Heir to Undying Nobility. Command isn’t great, but charm person certainly comes up much more often than detect undead.

Final Thoughts

Thank goodness you’ve got no FCB to be monkeying around with, because Dhampir need all the HP they can get their hands on. Some good resistances to disease, [mind-affecting], and level drain help elevate the race above a crowded field, however, and there’s no one I know who doesn’t secretly want to play a half-vampire.

Fetchling

Pro Con

Great attributes. DEX, CHA, and a penalty to WIS are all right where we want them.

Highly mediocre FCB. Nah, nah, nah. Just grab a skill rank or hit point, or swap it for Bound to Golarion and the Human FCB if you’re not intent on the Shadow Mystery.

Plenty of defenses and SLAs. Shadow Blending is potent against opponents without darkvision, and the SLAs help you scout and disguise.

Darkvision and low-light vision. Would you expect anything less of the race most associated with darkness?

Other Features

Bound to Golarion would be great, but it conflicts with Shadow Magic, and you’re taking Shadow Magic if you’re a Shadow Oracle; if for some reason you’re playing a Fetchling who’s not a Shadow Oracle, sure, get Bound to Golarion and take the excellent Human FCB. Unnerving Gaze is my preferred alternative racial trait for debuffing; if you’re in the mood for a few more layers of defense, however, Gloom Shimmer is the way to go.

Final Thoughts

Call it tacky, call it trite, call it cliche: I like my Fetchlings best as Shadow Oracles. The +1 to Illusion spell save DCs from Shadow Magic is simply too good to pass up, and they can make the most hay out of concealment buffs and darkness tactics.

Geniekin

A Special Note

Previously, I would have said that Ifrit were the only elementally descended race that was worth your time as an Oracle, and left it at that. The Plane-Hopper’s Handbook introduced variant heritages for Ifrit, Oreads, Sylphs, and Undines, however, and some of them are well worth taking a look at. Sunsoul Ifrit are the STR-based complement to the DEX-based Ifrit chassis; Gemsoul Oreads make amazing Melee Stone Oracles, or Rock Throwing-based Stone Oracles, when given a belt of mighty hurling; lastly, both Smokesoul and Stormsoul Sylphs get bonuses to CHA, which is all we need to get rolling. Undine are, unfortunately, still out of luck on CHA bonuses—the Waves Oracle concept will have to wait a while longer. Oh, and Suli! Suli get bonuses to STR and CHA, perfect for our purposes, and can function admirably as elemental-themed Oracles.

Pro Con

Mostly Human. Take Mostly Human for the sweet, sweet FCB.

Affinities don’t apply to you. It’s bogus, I know, but you have neither a Domain nor a Bloodline. Leaves you free to trade away your Affinity racial trait, but it would really be a nice boon if it somehow applied to Mysteries.

Barring Mostly Human, mediocre FCB. But you’ll be taking Mostly Human, won’t you?

Novel movement modes. The Geniekin races like to introduce novel movement modes into play: burrow for Oreads, flight for Sylphs, and swimming for Undine.

Racial darkvision.

Other Features

Throw away the various Affinities for whatever alternative trait seems best to you: Ifrit don’t have great replacements, but Crystalline Form and Gem Magic for Oread are excellent, and Breeze-Kissed is better than nothing for Sylphs. Undine can paddle on. Wildfire Heart, Granite Skin, and Like the Wind are all worthy replacements for your energy resistance, which can be duplicated—then surpassed—with resist energy. Nearly all geniekin should get used to taking Mostly Human in order to access the excellent Human FCB.

Final Thoughts

The Geniekin have more to recommend them to would-be Oracles than not; however, the non-Ifrit races are reliant on an open-minded GM. Beyond that, well, these races are the embodiments of the elements, as are Oracles—the fit is as natural as natural can be.

Kitsune

Pro Con

Wrecking Mysticism. Magical Tail is a flavorful, powerful feat for Kitsune; without bonus feats, however, it takes a long time to build into. The Wrecking Mysticism Curse

Low-light vision, but no racial darkvision.

gives you the option of swapping out bonus spells for Magic Tail, which in turn grants heaps of Enchantment SLAs that benefit from Kitsune Magic. Can’t go wrong, especially if your Mystery’s spell list is on the weaker side.

Great stat array. A penalty to STR is more easily shrugged off even than WIS or INT.

Stinky FCB. Blah. Kitsune were meant to be casters, not martial characters. /u/The31stEnding points out that I missed a FCB bonus available to all Kitsune players: ⅙ of a Magical Tail feat. Especially in conjunction with the Wrecking Mysticism curse, this FCB can easily turn a red into a blue.

Kitsune Magic. Increases to Spell Save DCs or caster level should never, ever be passed over lightly. So long as you get your Magical Tails (and you simply must do that) you won’t lack for Enchantment spells. Many of the best debuffs and soft control spells on the Oracle list are Enchantment, anyway.

Disguise and face skills. Kitsune are hard to catch in a lie, between their shapeshifting and high CHA scores.

Other Features

Gregarious is an option if you’re positive that Face skills will be in higher demand than, say, avoiding AoOs. Otherwise, leave everything right where it is.

Final Thoughts

The foxfolk strike gold as Sorcerers and Oracles. No surprises there, right? As with Fetchlings, I think there’s a case to be made that the empirically best way to play a Kitsune is with the Wrecking Mysticism Curse, a Debuffing / Control / Support role, and whatever Mystery feels most comfortable to you.

Tiefling

Pro Con

Variant heritages. There are many more good variant heritages for Tieflings than there are for Aasimar. The Demon-Spawn (+2 STR/CHA, -2 INT), Div-Spawn (+2 DEX/CHA, -2 INT), Kyton-Spawn (+2 CON/CHA, -2 WIS), and Rakshasa-Spawn (+2 DEX/CHA, -2 WIS) are all excellent choices that provide unique SLAs and skill bonuses.

Shoddy stat distribution. This applies to the base Tiefling only. You're golden if you can take a variant.

Racial darkvision.

Other Features

I'd recommend Prehensile Tail, Scaled Skin, and potentially Maw or Claw (if you're looking for another attack on a melee build) for just about any Tiefling. Too useful.

Final Thoughts

Variant heritages are a make-or-break deal for Oracles, as the base Tiefling doesn’t give you anything we want. If those are allowed, yes, Tieflings can be good casters, but don’t provide much else that the Geniekin or Aasimar couldn’t, potentially with a lot less in-game racism and prejudice.

OCL240: The Oracle Fights

Because of the tremendous flexibility of Mysteries, Curses, and the various archetypes available, there’s no such thing as a “standard” Oracle: the class can really become anything you want it to be, from an ironclad melee juggernaut to an elusive battlefield controller to a hard-hitting debuffer. The Cleric spell list limits your roles, of course—Oracles will never be able to blast quite as effectively as Sorcerers, for example. In this section, we’ll go over everything you need to get started in a particular combat role: the best Mysteries, the best Curses, the best spells, the best feats, the best races, the best everything for your playstyle. I’ll give my general rating of how well I think the role suits the Oracle, and then you can pursue the more in-depth information about Mysteries, spells, etc. later in the guide. I have (most helpfully, if I may toot my own horn) given rankings in each of the Mysteries of how well they facilitate each of these roles, so you can know exactly what you’re getting in each. Go ye therefore!

Anticaster

Role Description

The Venn diagram for the Anticaster role has quite a lot of overlap with other specialties. Why? Well, there are lots of ways to make a caster’s life hell. In order to be considered an Anticaster, I believe that a PC has to have some too many of the following elements: 1) the ability to nullify or outperform other characters against common caster tricks such as mirror image, blur, invisibility, deeper darkness, and obscuring mist; 2) access to novel movement modes that negate battlefield control spells like walls and pits; 3) bonuses to Will saves, increased AC vs. rays, Spell Resistance, or other defensive mechanisms; 4) the ability to close the distance with a caster, then prevent them from escaping with fly, dimension door, mislead, or other teleportation magic; 5) some means of punishing or penalizing defensive casting; and 6) access to debuffs that cause the staggered, stunned, nauseated, blinded, or paralyzed conditions in order to make offensive casting all but impossible. It’s not a foolproof formula, and dispel magic or break enchantment will cover most of your bases if you don’t want to dedicate much build space to wholeheartedly pursuing the role. Given that nearly every enemy at high levels is some brand of caster, however, you want to consider it carefully.

Pro Con

Casters are dangerous. Self-evident, no? Casters are by far the deadliest enemies you will fight in Pathfinder, capable of all manner of nasty surprises like baleful polymorph, hungry pit, maze, dominate person, etc. They’re higher-priority than other targets.

Takes a few more feats to do well. Step Up, Following Step, and Step Up and Strike should all be considered, as well as the Vital Strike line for those times when you need to take a move action. Oracles unfortunately don’t get access to Disruptive, but Nature Oracles can take Disruptive Companion for a little more defensive casting debuffing.

You’re a full caster already. Nobody hunts casters like other casters! Casters have tools at their disposal that martials simply don’t, and when you’re up in a caster’s face, there’s very little difference between ¾ BAB and Full BAB. Your ability to self-buff, dispel and counterspell, maneuver around obstacles, prevent teleportation, and harry the invisible or ethereal gives you some major advantages. Plus, you’ve got a good Will save progression—beefy Fighters usually have trouble with those.

Top Mysteries

● Blue-Ranked Mysteries: Dragon, Godclaw, Lunar, Spellscar, Time, Whimsy

● Green-Ranked Mysteries: Ancestor, Bones, Dark Tapestry, Heavens, Outer Rifts, Shadow, Solar, Winter

Top Spells

1. Barbed chains, liberating command, protection from [alignment], summon monster I, sure casting

2. Ashen path, drunkard’s breath, recentering drone, resist energy, silence, summon monster II

3. Bestow curse, channel vigor, daylight, dispel magic, shield of wings, summon monster III

4. Baphomet’s blessing, dimensional anchor, enchantment foil, freedom of movement, spiritual ally, summon monster IV

5. Break enchantment, cleanse, heretic’s tongue, spell resistance, summon monster V, true seeing

6. Animate objects, banishment, chains of light, greater dispel magic, source severance, spellcrash, summon monster VI

7. Ethereal jaunt, greater bestow curse, spell scourge, summon monster VII

8. Antimagic field, divine vessel, euphoric tranquility, summon monster VIII

9. Etherealness, miracle, summon monster IX, wooden phalanx

Top Archetypes

Spirit Guide lends itself fairly well to this style, as you’re able to access the Bones Spirit and others that help you augment your summons. Otherwise, just avoid trading away your feats, and you’ll be fine.

Control

Role Description

Battlefield control abilities or spells are those that allow you to decide who gets to go where, when. Still confused? Let me give you an example: a Big Bad Evil Guy and a bunch of minions on the opposite side of a large room, with open space between you. Charge lanes are open, and it won’t take long for the minions to reach you, distracting your damage dealers while the BBEG buffs or blasts from the back of the room. Now cast ice storm in between you and the minions! An area 40 ft wide is a no-go, charge lanes are closed, and minions have to decide whether they want to maneuver around the storm—potentially splitting the party or moving in single file next to the walls—or pass through it, risking damage. Then you wall the BBEG off with a wall of clockwork. In addition to wasting the BBEG’s time or HP as he tries to escape or dispel your wall of rotating knives, minions are going about their business unbuffed, and you’re not getting blasted. Last step: you toss down ashen path and obscuring mist on your location before doing any of this. The BBEG can’t attack any of you directly, minions have no clear targets to shoot at or charge, all the while you suffer no tactical disadvantage.

Pro Con

Pinnacle of the action economy. Full-BAB martial characters will always out-DPR you, so your best bet for making a contribution is to stack the odds ridiculously in favor of the martials. Funnel enemies through chokepoints, block line of sight from archers and casters, force a choice between the rock and the hard place—one single spell can do so much in the tide of a battle.

Doesn’t rely on failed saves, for the most part. Most battlefield control spells are from the Conjuration school, and a good number of Conjuration spells simply don’t allow a save. If you’re on the other side of a wall, there’s nothing to save against—it’s just there, between you and where you want to be. Another critical element that makes control strategies so effective.

Decent support on the spell list. Your list isn’t quite as well-suited for Control as the Wizard, say, but you’ve got more than enough walls, fogs, and darkness spells to get the job done.

Some damage potential. Many battlefield control spells like wall of fire, wall of clockwork, and haunting mists come with damage pre-packaged. This damage often does better than a blast anyway, so you should appreciate it!

Minimal spell use for the effect. The advantage that martials have is that they can do what they do all day long. So why are you burning spell slots trying to blast all day long? Set up the alley-oop for your martial allies with one or two control spells, then let them handle the beatdown.

Top Mysteries

● Blue-Ranked Mysteries: Battle, Outer Rifts, Shadow, Waves, Winter

● Green-Ranked Mysteries: Dark Tapestry, Stone, Time

Top Spells

1. Barbed chains, obscuring mist, shadow trap

2. Burst of radiance, drunkard’s breath, light prison, mortal terror

3. Chain of perdition, dark-light, mind maze, wind wall

4. Dimensional anchor, hallucinogenic smoke, wall of bone

5. Greater forbid action, heretic’s tongue, holy ice, wall of clockwork, wall of stone

6. Blade barrier, chains of light, geas/quest, wall of silver

7. Maddening oubliette

8. Euphoric tranquility

9. Overwhelming presence, polar midnight

Top Archetypes

Spirit Guide, if anything. The Oracle doesn’t need a lot of help with battlefield control.

Debuffing

Role Description

The “Bad Touch” playstyle has been a mainstay of offensively oriented Clerics for a long time. The Prime Directive of a debuffer is to make your opponents as puny as possible. There are many reasons you might want to do this: weak enemies can’t hurt your allies effectively, minimizing the need for emergency healing or expensive resurrection magic; weak enemies also tend to die more quickly, before they can ramp up breath weapons, nasty (Su) abilities, or other diseases, poisons, curses, and conditions of their own. The tie-in between Debuffing and Control is that some debuffs can also prevent enemies from moving or escaping effectively. The size and STR modifier of that huge sword doesn’t matter if it can’t reach any of your teammates to hit them.

Pro Con

Permanent disability. The best debuffs on the Cleric list—bestow curse is the classic example that I use all the time—force the opponent into a permanent disability, at least until the effect is dispelled. Even if they run, teleport away, etc., enemies might not be able to rid themselves of your debuff right away.

Takes up more spell slots than a Control approach.

Not many, but a few.

Can flexibly target enemies’ weaknesses. Debuffs should ideally be chosen to target a variety of saves and provide a variety of effects. A good debuffer will know how to pinpoint an enemies’ weakest save, then select a spell that uncouples them from their most effective battle tactic.

Facing a Cyclops with Fighter levels? Target Will, then deny mobility, blind, strip away its weapon, or instate a rough miss chance. You get the picture.

Relies heavily on failed saves. Metamagic feats like Persistent Spell can really, really mitigate this weakness, but the fact remains that a worst-of-two reroll mechanic doesn’t solve much if the opponent can pass a Fort save on a roll of a natural 2.

Excellent spell list support. Your spell list couldn’t really be better for this role. Only the Witch does it better.

Top Mysteries

● Blue-Ranked Mysteries: Dark Tapestry, Heavens, Outer Rifts, Shadow, Succor, Time, Waves, Whimsy, Winter

● Green-Ranked Mysteries: Ascetic, Bones, Godclaw, Intrigue, Juju, Lunar, Occult, Spellscar

Top Spells

1. Bane, face of the devourer, obscuring mist, shadow trap, strand of the tangled knot, touch of bloodletting

2. Bloody tears and jagged smile, burst of radiance, drunkard’s breath, instrument of agony, mortal terror, silence

3. Archon’s aura, bestow curse, dark-light, forced mutation, mathematical curse, sands of time

4. Aura of doom, baphomet’s blessing, calamitous flailing, debilitating portent, fleshworm infestation, terrible remorse

5. Greater forbid action, heretic’s tongue, major curse, siphon magic, unleash pandemonium, wall of blindness/deafness

6. Banishment, chains of light, demon dream, geas/quest, greater dispel magic, spellcrash

7. Greater bestow curse, holy word, maddening oubliette, spell scourge

8. Euphoric tranquility, frightful aspect, greater spellcrash

9. Energy drain, overwhelming presence, polar midnight, scourge of the horsemen

Top Archetypes

Dual-Cursed or Possessed Oracles are fantastic options here.

Melee

Role Description

Yes, full casters can be melee combatants! Sorcerers and Wizards really suck at it, between their crappy armor/weapon proficiencies and d6 hit dice; Clerics are a little better, bumping up to a d8 and medium armor proficiency, but otherwise lack support for heavy melee fighting. Oracles, though—Oracles do it right! You’ve got long-lasting armor Revelations in nearly every Mystery that can supplement or replace manufactured armor; you’ve got natural weapons, bonuses to hit or damage, and even CHA-to-AC mechanics that let you go all-in on STR and CHA during point buy. You won’t ever be as awe-inspiring on the battlefield as your martial brethren, but with full casting as a consolation prize, you shouldn’t be too disappointed. The Melee role often synchronizes pretty effortlessly with Anticaster tactics, too: all of the blue-ranked Mysteries in this category make excellent magehunters.

Pro Con

CHA-to-AC. Can’t overemphasize how cool this mechanic is. Reducing the need to pump DEX leaves you free to invest heavily in both STR and CHA, to the great delight of your damage output and casting.

No bonus feats. With the exception of Revelations like Weapon Mastery or Maneuver Mastery, you don’t get any feats for free, which locks you out of a lot of cool stuff.

Even paths that are only mildly feat-intensive, like Finesse fighting, are out of reach for Oracles, as there’s no easy way to reach them until 5th level or later.

Self-buffing synergy. Oracles rock at buffing themselves, pure and simple. With even a little prep time, Mysteries like Battle and Metal can become truly terrifying.

BAB-locked. Some ¾ BAB classes like Warpriests get to ignore their BAB when selecting feats. No such luck for you.

Minimal feat investment. All a melee fighter really needs to be effective is Power Attack. Sure, you can add Cleave, Vital Strike, or passive damage buffs like Big Game Hunter later, but PA is really the core of the playstyle. This minimal investment usually leaves you free to branch out into other playstyles like Tanking or Anticaster tactics.

Good positioning for touch-range buffing/debuffing.

A lot of good debuffs, heals, buffs, etc. only function at a range of touch. Because Melee Oracles are already comfortable going toe to toe, there’s no need to change positioning mid-combat.

Top Mysteries

● Blue-Ranked Mysteries: Ascetic, Battle, Dragon, Lunar, Metal

● Green-Ranked Mysteries: Ancestor, Elemental, Godclaw, Shadow, Time, Wood

Top Spells

1. Bless, divine favor, fallback strategy, hedging weapons, magic weapon, protection from [alignment]

2. Align weapon, grace, instant weapon, ironskin, resist energy, weapon of awe

3. Blood rage, channel vigor, deadly juggernaut, second wind, shield of darkness, shield of wings

4. Blessing of fervor, divine power, freedom of movement, mighty strength, spiritual ally, wrathful weapon

5. Cleanse, geniekind, righteous might, smite abomination, spell resistance

6. Dimensional blade, eaglesoul, emblem of greed, heal

7. Bestow planar infusion III, particulate form

8. Divine vessel, greater angelic aspect

9. Mass heal, miracle

Top Archetypes

Warsighted deserves a mention, but for me it’s Spirit Guide and Hermit that take the cake. Spirit Guide can help shore up your self-buffing even more (Mammoth makes for a great, Shaman-only addition to your capabilities, but Ancestors and Battle are also viable) and Hermit gives you a bunch of mobility behind enemy lines.

Ranged

Role Description

Funnily enough, there’s not much indication that Oracles were meant to be ranged combatants. First, you’ve got no martial weapon proficiency without a Revelation or feat, for the most part ruling out weapons like composite longbows that occupy the core position of a ranged combat playstyle. Second, you’ve got no bonus feats—an even bigger deal here than in the Melee role, as ranged combat takes up far more feats than does melee combat. Precise Shot, Point-Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, and Rapid Reload (if you’re shooting a crossbow) are a minimum, and barging through four feats eats up a significant portion of the Oracle’s allotment. Third—and compounding your weapon proficiency crisis—is the fact that you don’t have the BAB to take advantage of feats like Deadly Aim/Rapid Shot or the casting proficiency to pick up Arcane Strike, severely handicapping your damage output. The exception here might be the Wood Mystery, which can select Wood Bond to boost to-hit with bows and crossbows up to full-BAB levels, albeit with the caveat that you’ll be shit out of luck if, say, an allied Bard starts using Inspire Courage (competence bonuses don’t stack, remember). The Stone Mystery can select Rock Throwing, which should probably lead you to a belt of mighty hurling and high STR scores, at least in the later game.

There’s no shortage of flight Revelations among the Oracle Mysteries, which you’d think that would translate to ranged prowess; the hard math of feat selection and BAB, however, has no mercy on Pathfinder’s more martially restricted classes.

Pro Con

Keeps you out of melee range. Oracles and Clerics may be able to take a hit better than a Wizard, but that doesn’t mean they should deliberately call trouble down on their heads. Staying out of melee means staying out of most devastating attacks, melee touch spells, and auras.

No significant benefit to gaining more attacks. Classes like Inquisitor want as many bonus attacks as possible, because more attacks = more Bane damage. Oracles don’t have the same incentives beyond more chances to hit.

Support from the spell and Revelation lists. Some of the best self-buff spells affect only melee attacks, but many help out ranged characters, too. And don’t forget all the flight Revelations out there! Easy to get out of melee range with those.

High feat investment. Being good at ranged combat means a lot of feats. Precise Shot, Point Blank Shot, and Rapid Shot are necessary at the very least, and Rapid Reload is also a must if you’re a crossbow user.

Restricted to crossbows, pending feat selection.

Speaking of which, you don’t actually have access to longbows or shortbows, barring some means of acquiring martial weapon proficiency. Crossbows aren’t bad; however, they require even more feat investment than longbows to become useable on a regular basis.

Top Mysteries

● Blue-Ranked Mysteries: Stone

● Green-Ranked Mysteries: Battle, Heavens, Volcano, Wood

Top Spells

1. Bless, divine favor, hedging weapons, obscuring mist, protection from [alignment]

2. Ashen path, cat’s grace, grace, instant weapon, resist energy

3. Channel vigor, daylight, prayer, shield of darkness, shield of wings

4. Blessing of fervor, debilitating portent, freedom of movement, divine vessel, greater angelic aspect, holy aura

5. Angelic aspect, cleanse, fickle winds, smite abomination

6. Antilife shell, heal

7. Particulate form

8. Divine vessel, greater angelic aspect, holy aura, mass heal, miracle

9. Winds of vengeance

Top Archetypes

Hermit works even better here than for Melee or Anticaster Oracles, given that your whole schtick is staying away from other people.

Recon

Role Description

At least in my mental schema, “Recon” can mean one of two things. First, there’s the classic sneaking and scouting. This path is always fraught with danger, at least a little bit, because you can’t take Clanky McFullplate along with you, and you’re in trouble if you get caught by an enemy with no support from your team. The Dice Gods being what they are, there are bound to be some unlucky Stealth checks of yours that coincide with excellent Perception checks from your enemies, and then it’s all over but the inevitable hue and cry. (This problem is also typically compounded by players and GMs not applying Stealth and Perception penalties properly.) Now, specific Mysteries—and here I’m thinking of Shadow in particular—can certainly challenge this paradigm, and Oracles are in some ways much better suited to scouting than the traditional Rogues because of their ability to cast their way out of sticky situations while not being significantly squishier.

The second route available to you, and one that Oracles receive a lot of help for on both the Revelation and spell lists, is casting spells from the Divination school to spy on enemies, get answers to questions, and learn information without ever actually coming into contact with danger. Most Mysteries have at least one Revelation that lets you use a Divination spell for free 1/day, and other Mysteries like Occult lean all the way into mystic reconnaissance. Any effect that directly affects an enemy only works pending a Will save, of course, and GMs being sneaky sons of bitches (I should know—I’m a sneaky son of a bitch myself) are under no obligation to give you useful information about what your Divinations reveal. Before you go all-in on scrying and augury, it might be a good idea to sit down with your GM for a frank conversation about how willing they’re going to be to feed you metainformation about your foes. If the answer is “Absolutely willing, as long as my monsters get to spy on you, too,” then sure, up your ante. If the answer is less encouraging, then you need to look elsewhere for your character’s role. One potential way to turn around your GM’s opinion of Divination magic is to give them a list of questions, topics, or enemies that you intend to find out about in your next session. That way, you don’t force your GM to improvise useful scenes or answers—they can pick and choose which bits you get without feeling on the spot.

Pro Con

(Divination) Scry from a safe distance. A very few spells excepted, you’re not subject to retaliation for any of your Divination spells.

(Divination) No combat utility. Don’t get me wrong, gathering better intel about your enemies is a valuable and viable strategy, but it doesn’t directly help you kill them.

(Divination) Try, and try again. Debuffing and blasting spells get only one chance to succeed against enemies, whereas Divination will often be used every day; the law of mass action will surely drive a few of those saves into being failures.

(Divination) Information quality depends on your GM. Not every GM wants to root around in the old brain-house for a cinematic description of what you see when you cast legend lore. Can you blame us? Again, talking to your GM beforehand will mitigate this problem immensely.

(Stealth) Plenty of support from armor enchantments and, in some cases, Revelations. Only Shadow truly has the chops to sneak by monsters, but Wind can fly you to a good vantage point, Streets can set up illusions while you monitor enemies, and Intrigue’s disguise abilities can fool most Humanoids. Check out the shadow and creeping armor enchantments for better Stealth scores.

(Stealth) Extravisual senses will screw you every time. Scent, blindsight, tremorsense, etc. can royally mess up your day, and they become more and more common as your PC grows up.

(Stealth) Sometimes you fail your Stealth check. Now, if every GM followed the Perception skill rules strictly, you might be in a better situation, but those rules are tedious, and many GMs will just say that a low roll means a failed Stealth check. Not always fair. :(

Top Mysteries

● Blue-Ranked Mysteries: Dark Tapestry, Intrigue, Occult, Shadow, Streets, Whimsy, Wind

● Green-Ranked Mysteries: Ancestor, Lore, Lunar, Solar, Stone

Top Spells

1. Blend with surroundings, detect [alignment], hide from undead, speechreader’s sight

2. Augury, darkness, muffle sound, night blindness

3. Blood biography, deeper darkness, enter image, greater hide from undead, speak with dead, water walk

4. Air walk, divination, hallucinogenic smoke, speak with haunt, transplant visage, traveling dream

5. Commune, dungeonsight, lesser astral projection, plane shift, scrying

6. Dust form, speak with soul, wind walk, word of recall

7. Ethereal jaunt, greater scrying

8. Discern location, soulseeker

9. Astral projection, etherealness

Top Archetypes

Too many, really. Enlightened Philosopher is the best at mundane scouting, but Cyclopean Seer, Keleshite Prophet, and Seer all place a heavy emphasis on Divination magic. I’d recommend Cyclopean Seer most highly, followed by Seer and then Keleshite Prophet.

Skills

Role Description

INT-based classes are normally the skill monkeys of the Pathfinder world, thanks to their large number of skill ranks and innate mastery of useful checks like Spellcraft and the body of Knowledge skills. Oracles don’t receive a large number of skill ranks; compounding your low floor is the fact that you can’t boost every stat at point buy, so INT is more than likely going to be a dump stat for most Oracles. Some exceptions exist, of course: Lore Oracles can add points onto their INT score through the Mental Acuity Revelation, and archetypes like Ancient Lorekeeper and races like Elves can and do make a splash as Oracles. It’s not a role that the class gives wide support for, however, so you’ll need to play either an Ancestor or Lore Oracle to make skill mastery a workable role, and even then, you’ll get there by emulating INT-based classes. Plenty of reasons to want to be good at skills: first, they’re an infinite resource, so you have some way to contribute when spell slots start to run dry. Second, an ounce of guidance, direction, or knowledge is worth a pound of action. If you can spot the secret door, identify the screaming enemy that just popped up, or piece together clues on who murdered the king, your ensuing actions are much more likely to yield positive results instead of missed treasure, dismemberment, or civil war.

Pro Con

Non-depleting resource. Skills are excellent investments because they can be used at any time, all day long. They may not be able to accomplish many things that spells can, but they make great adjuncts.

Never quite as good as INT-based classes.

Unfortunately, Rogues, Alchemists, Occultists, Investigators, and Wizards are always going to be better at skill use than Oracles, at least without help from spells.

Them’s the breaks.

Top Mysteries

● Blue-Ranked Mysteries: Ancestor, Lore

● Green-Ranked Mysteries: Streets

Top Spells

1. Aspect of the nightingale, egorian diplomacy, face of the devourer, fallback strategy, know the enemy, liberating command, lucky number, tap inner beauty

2. Ancestral communion, beloved of the forge, cleromancy, find traps, page-bound epiphany, savage maw, tears to wine

3. Bestow insight, channel vigor, discovery torch, find fault, revelation, voluminous vocabulary

4. Bit of luck, rags to riches, tongues

5. Ancestral memory, army across time, hunter’s blessing

6. Bloodsworn retribution, eaglesoul, invoke deity, sarzari shadow memory

7. —

8. —

9. —

Top Archetypes

Enlightened Philosopher and Ancient Lorekeeper both do modestly in the Skills arena; it’s the Psychic Searcher, however, that really outperforms—Inspiration and Psychic Talents simply boost your efficacy too much.

Summoning

Role Description

Ah, summoning. So good that Paizo had to specifically go back and nerf the class that was built around it. Nearly any caster can summon, but it takes a bit of specialization to summon well: Spell Focus (Conjuration), Augment Summoning or Evolved Summons, and Summon [Alignment] Monster are probably the three core feats I’d pick in order to get the essentials out of the way, though of course more is possible beyond that. Summons are ridiculously good for a few reasons: first, summoned monsters act as meat shields, and in later levels are often immune or resistant to many of the effects you’d hate to be targeted with personally. Once they go back to their home plane, they take all the damage they sustained with them, which then translates to damage that you don’t have to reactively heal. Second, summons come with their own actions. Make a Pathfinder PC as strong as you like—you’re never going to have more than one standard, move, and swift action in a round. Summons reshape the action economy in your favor. Third, summons at higher levels tend to come with their own pools of resources for you to exploit, usually spells and SLAs. In some cases these resources are fairly uninspiring, but in other cases you can start to rack up serious healing or buffs; /u/CMEast points out that buffs don’t last beyond when summoned creatures disappear, but healing certainly does. Fourth and most importantly for spontaneous casters, summons are flexible. You don’t just choose one monster that you always summon: when you choose a summon monster spell, you get access to every monster on the list, which can then be expanded through feats. Assuming you know your Bestiary entries well enough (and I can’t recommend the Master Summoner app from Redrazors highly enough for this purpose) you’ll always have the perfect tool for the combat at hand.

Summoning, at least for Oracles and Clerics, also includes the animate dead spell and its necromantic cousins, as well as the planar ally suite. Undead in the Pathfinder universe are always Evil-aligned, and the revised version of the Juju Mystery removed any wording suggesting that Undead could be Good- or Neutral-aligned. Sorry, white necromancers, it just doesn’t play here. Undead serve you permanently—a major advantage—but otherwise tend to be a bit weaker, slower, and less versatile than normal summons. You also have to expend material components to raise the dead, a feature shared with planar ally. The planar ally spells are...complicated. They always cost quite a bit of money, and they always last until the task you set is completed—best used for end-of-book boss fights, major heists, the like. Summoning Good-aligned Outsiders is also safest, as these creatures are the least likely to want your head as punishment for your impudence.

Pro Con

Breaks the action economy in your favor. As mentioned above, putting more summons on the field gives you more actions, which are the One True Commodity in combat. Accrue a large enough action advantage, and the day is yours.

Mastery takes high feat investment. Just as anyone can whistle, anyone can summon monster. If you want to get good at summoning, however, you’ll need Spell Focus (Conjuration), Augment Summoning, Summon [Alignment] Monster, perhaps Versatile/Evolved/Superior Summons, and more. You can go down the rabbit hole as deeply as you’d like.

Summons soak damage and aggro. This should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: if a summoned creature takes damage, you don’t take that damage. Same goes for other nasty effects like level or ability drain.

Short duration, at least for summon monster. Most summons last only rounds/level. One encounter = one spell slot. Animated Undead and planar allies last longer, of course, but you’re paying handsomely for that privilege.

The definition of flexibility. You can summon different creatures every time you cast summon monster. If you know the list of available options intimately, you’ll never lack for the perfect tool, whether what you need is flight, touch attacks, DR penetration, energy damage, or anything else.

Use their resources, not yours. Summon monster lasts for only a short time, so a reasonable use of the spell slot is to summon creatures with SLAs or spell slots that can heal you, buff you, etc., then let them return home.

Top Mysteries

● Blue-Ranked Mysteries: Bones, Juju, Nature, Shadow

● Green-Ranked Mysteries: Lunar, Outer Rifts

Top Spells

1. Protection from [alignment], restore corpse, summon monster I, unhallowed blows

2. Alter summoned monster, desecrate, gird ally, summon monster II, unliving rage

3. Animate dead, final sacrifice, flesh puppet, greater unhallowed blows, magic circle against [alignment], summon monster III

Top Archetypes

Spirit Guide lends itself fairly well to this style, as you’re able to access the Bones Spirit and others that help you augment your summons. Otherwise, just avoid trading away your feats, and you’ll be fine.

Support

Role Description

In this guide, any effect that makes your team more powerful falls under the Support heading. Now, Clerics don’t have any trouble with this, as the spell list lends itself naturally to amazing buffs like righteous might, blood rage, tears to wine, communal resist energy, and prayer. Apart from perhaps the Extend Spell metamagic feat (or associated metamagic rod) there’s really nothing else needed to get started with this role, and it benefits from not needing to beat enemies’ saves in order to function. What else can I say? Oracles and Clerics were born to buff.

Pro Con

You’re already great at it, so there’s low opportunity cost. You’d be picking up many of the best Support spells and Revelations anyway; all Oracles can and should do some amount of buffing.

Honestly? No cons at all. Solid all the way around.

Effortlessly improves team survivability. Support Oracles are the Arm in the Arm-Hammer-Anvil model, beefing everyone else up for crushing attacks or keeping them alive long enough to batter away at foes. A little buffing goes a very long way in Pathfinder.

Doesn’t rely on failed saves. Your spells are focused on allies, not enemies, so there’s no call to invest heavily in your Spell Save DCs or SR penetration.

Makes your team love you. Everybody loves buffs and healing. Everybody will love you for providing said buffs and healing.

Top Mysteries

● Blue-Ranked Mysteries: Ancestor, Life, Succor

● Green-Ranked Mysteries: Streets

Top Spells

1. Bless, brightest night, infernal healing, liberating command, lucky number, magic weapon, moment of greatness, protection from [alignment], remove fear, remove sickness, shield of faith

2. Align weapon, ashen path, communal protection from [alignment], lesser restoration, recentering drone, resist energy, tears to wine

3. Beacon of luck, blood rage, communal align weapon, communal resist energy, magic circle against [alignment], nap stack, prayer, protection from energy

4. Blessing of fervor, communal protection from energy, freedom of movement, greater shield of fortification, healing flames, purify body, restoration, wrathful weapon

5. Break enchantment, breath of life, life bubble, spell resistance

6. Heal

7. Greater restoration, particulate form, resurrection

8. —

9. Mass heal, miracle, true resurrection

Top Archetypes

Pei-Zin Practitioner jumps out immediately; it’s your best investment if you’re looking to heal and remove status conditions.

Tank

Role Description

The old adage is that there’s no way to tank in Pathfinder, and that’s true in the World of Warcraft sense—there is indeed no surefire way to prevent enemies from attacking your allies. Here, then, we’ll focus on the modern military sense of a tank: an ironclad fighter that’s extraordinarily resilient and tough to take down. In some ways, Oracles are pretty flimsy tanks. Lower HP and CMD scores, bad Fortitude save progression, and proficiency with medium armor aren’t exactly awe-inspiring, compared with the competition. And it’s true, you won’t hold up to direct fire as well as a Fighter or a Barbarian or even a Ranger. What you will do is surprise enemies with a lot of unexpected strengths. Targeted by an effect that forces a Will save? Surprise! That’s your best save. Tossed into a pit? Forget that, you can dispel it or cast shield of wings to fly out. Bad condition got you retching? Shake it off, T-Swift—you’ve got cleanse. Oracles don’t make the world’s best tanks in the classical sense, but the addition of full casting to respectable off-tank abilities really ratchets up what you’re capable of. Break yourself upon me!

Pro Con

It’s more survivability. Do you need an explanation? Buff spells are for me. Because you aren’t as innately hardy as other martial allies, it will become evident very quickly that you need to self-buff if you want to survive.

Element of surprise. Just as you have a preconceived notion of what constitutes a tank, your GM and enemies will have a preconceived notion of what constitutes a tank.

And you, my shining star, will break free of every one of those notions.

Relies on armor proficiencies or Revelations. Medium armor proficiency alone won’t cut it: you need either heavy armor proficiency (Battle, Godclaw, Metal) some good armor Revelations (Ancestor, Ascetic, Heavens, Shadow, Wind, etc.) or CHA-to-AC powers (Lore, Nature) to really stand a chance as a tank. Mysteries like Time that have constant defensive abilities should try to avoid this role.

Not uniquely built for classic tanking. A d8 hit die and poor Fortitude save progression have their limitations.

Top Mysteries

● Blue-Ranked Mysteries: Godclaw, Metal

● Green-Ranked Mysteries: Ancestor, Ascetic, Battle, Dragon, Lunar, Nature, Outer Rifts, Spellscar, Stone, Time, Waves, Wind

Top Spells

1. Entropic shield, fallback strategy, hedging weapons, infernal healing, protection from [alignment], shield of faith, strand of the tangled knot

2. Bear’s endurance, grace, ironskin, lesser angelic aspect, recentering drone, resist energy

3. Archon’s aura, channel vigor, communal resist energy, deadly juggernaut, magic circle against [alignment], magic vestment, protection from energy, second wind, shield of darkness, shield of wings

4. Debilitating portent, enchantment foil, greater shield of fortification, healing flames, freedom of movement, purify body

5. Angelic aspect, cleanse, geniekind, righteous might, spell resistance

6. Antilife shell, dust form, eaglesoul, heal, invoke deity

7. Ethereal jaunt, particulate form

8. Divine vessel, greater angelic aspect, holy aura, nine lives

9. Mass heal, etherealness, winds of vengeance

Top Archetypes

Hermit again takes the cake, although Warsighted adds a layer of versatility and flexibility to the overall picture.

Utility

Role Description

I know, I know, it’s a nebulous role. What the heck is “utility,” anyway? I scarcely know myself, but I suppose if you put a gun to my head and forced me to define it, I’d say it’s the ability to flexibly provide what’s needed in any given scenario. Mysteries like Shadow get the ultimate nod here, because their host of shadow [magic school] spells can become damn near anything you want them to be. Ancestor, meanwhile, can buff, debuff, scout, move objects with telekinesis, attack incorporeal enemies, etc. Like I said: flexibility is what it’s about here.

Pro Con

Lends a bit of versatility to the mix. That goal is self-explanatory, right?

Hard to really “build for.” You’re always going to be a spontaneous caster with static feats and Revelations; you’re not a Brawler (unless you’re Warsighted!) and you’re not an Arcanist. Utility mostly comes down to your ability to use existing abilities creatively.

Top Mysteries

● Blue-Ranked Mysteries: Ancestor, Lore, Shadow

● Green-Ranked Mysteries: Ascetic, Heavens, Intrigue, Nature, Occult, Solar, Streets, Time, Waves, Whimsy

Top Archetypes

Spirit Guide, hands down. Don’t even bother looking elsewhere.

OCL351: The Gift of Mystery

Mysteries and Curses are what make an Oracle who they are. Whereas Clerics receive their powers from deities, and Druids receive their powers from nature itself, Oracles receive their powers from concepts, ideals, themes that govern the arc of the world. Whereas a Cleric of Sarenrae might love her goddess for the warm fire and cleansing light that she brings, an Oracle might be dedicated to the fire or the light itself, transcending the petty squabbles of deities. To be an Oracle is to dedicate oneself to an immortal mystery of the world, and dedication always bears fruit.

Regardless of their provenance, all Mysteries confer several benefits: the greatest among these are abilities called Revelations. Oracles receive these gifts at 1st, 3rd, 7th, 11th, 15th, and 19th levels—only six throughout their entire lifespan. These thematic class features are typically quite a bit more powerful than feats, and should be considered carefully! Second, all Mysteries grant bonus spells suited to the unifying concept of the Mystery. In some cases, these spells will be on the Oracle/Cleric spell list already, and simply save you from spending a spell known to learn them; in other cases, the spells will come from outside your spell list. Either way, spells granted by your Mystery will always be available, so it’s important that they serve you well. Third and finally, all Mysteries grant bonus class skills to supplement what is available to the Oracle chassis. As with spells, these skills may be useful or not, but almost always hint at a role that Oracles serving that Mystery would excel at playing. Alright: let’s dive in.

Ancestor

Role

Ancestor Oracles get access to a large number of Divination and team-/self-buffing spells, melee combat and skill bonuses, and spells/Revelations that allow them to become incorporeal or ethereal. They operate best in a Support role, providing guidance on what adventuring steps to take next, buffing teammates and letting them take the spotlight, helping out in combat as a backup combatant and summoner, and engaging in proactive problem-solving for the team.

Skills, Support, Utility > Anticaster, Melee, Recon, Tank > Control, Summoning > Blasting, Debuffing, Ranged

Bonus Skills

Oracles of the Ancestor mystery receive access to Linguistics and all Knowledge skills. Linguistics is not, generally speaking, a well-regarded skill, but it can have a use for those who wish to become the party face without investing too many skill points: with the Skill Focus (Linguistics) and Orator feats, an Oracle can use Linguistics in place of most social checks. This feat path essentially triples your skill point investment by allowing one point in Linguistics to serve as a point in Bluff, Intimidate, and Diplomacy—not to mention getting access to new languages without using tongues. Adding every Knowledge skill to the class list is also a tremendous perk; despite not having many skill points to work with, Oracles can reliably max out one or two Knowledges, and Ancestor Oracles would be well advised to try to get at least a +1 INT modifier to take advantage of their skills. Higher INT scores also boost Linguistics for synergy with the Orator feat.

Bonus Spells

(2) Unseen Servant: Unseen servant is a pretty nifty quality of life spell that has real world applications setting off the occasional trap, picking up unattended objects, and giving you foot massages at the end of a day. The spell isn’t on your list, so hurrah for poaching some arcane spells!

(4) Spiritual Weapon: Spiritual weapon is a nice little spell. As a [force] effect, it hits incorporeal creatures with no loss in power and penetrates DR. Its power and accuracy will never be high, but it will continue to plug away at enemies with no further action input from you, similar to summoned creatures. I call that a win.

(6) Heroism: Another excellent buff that’s not naturally on your list! Heroism gives somewhat rare (Morale) bonuses (well, rare unless you have a Bard on the team) making it scale nicely throughout the levels. It’s got a long duration, too. Perfect.

(8) Spiritual Ally: Casper the Friendly Ghost flanks, attacks incorporeals for full Force damage, and generally helps out around the battlefield. Great pseudo-summon.

(10) Telekinesis: Telekinesis is a wonderfully versatile spell that Clerics and Oracles certainly don’t get on their spell list. Blasting, combat maneuvers, and slowly shunting enemies off cliffs are all possible with this spell, although the concentration does get hard to sustain sometimes. Good get.

(12) Greater Heroism: Just like little brother, but better. Can’t say no to that!

(14) Ethereal Jaunt: Handy spell for progressing laterally through dungeons, infiltrating hard-to-reach areas, attacking incorporeal beings directly, and much, much more. By the time you get it, you’ll be able to move about 300 ft. while invisible and ethereal—that’s a lot of mobility to work with.

(16) Vision: I’d rather have legend lore, to be honest—how often do you need to recall a bunch of legendary information about a place or person within the span of a standard action? It could be useful in some instances, just not every day.

(18) Astral Projection: By the time you reach 9th-level spells, you will basically be a deity yourself, and deities get up to all kinds of planar hijinks! Travel via astral projection is generally safer than via plane shift, because you’re not physically entering the new plane; any damage you take, even if it’s enough to kill you, only wakes your original body up and deals out two negative levels. That said, your enemies at this level also tend to be of deity-level power, so you need to protect your slumbering body extraordinarily well if you feel there’s a chance that others will come after you while you sleep. If someone cuts that silver cord, it’s game over. If you die in the Matrix, you die in real life.

Revelations

(1) Ancestral Weapon: Ancestor Oracles have at least a decent chance of holding their own in melee, so this Revelation isn’t entirely out of the question. The bonus progresses slowly, though, and ghost touch isn’t an expensive enchantment to get. In general, I’d say you’re better off sticking with your normal weaponry.

(1) Blood of Heroes: It’s basically a self-only heroism, and won’t stack with that spell. Heroism is good, and you want it on you as much as possible, but this Revelation is still probably slightly lower priority. If you want it, getting it at 7th level would be my recommendation. Rating probably goes down to yellow if you have other sources of (Morale) bonuses that are reliably available, such as a Bard teammate with good hope.

(1) Phantom Touch: There’s no save attached, I suppose, and it does last for a while, but that’s about all that can said for Phantom Touch. Shaken is, overall, a minor inconvenience for enemies. Not really worth one of your precious Revelations.

(1) Sacred Council: Untyped bonuses are good, multiple uses per day are good. The only issue is that the bonus is small, doesn’t scale, lasts only 1 round, and takes a move action to activate. Out-of-combat skill bonuses are probably the best application.

(1) Spirit Shield: It would take you a while to fully supplant normal armor with Spirit Shield, but the armor bonus is strong and can be used in 1-hour increments, making it easy to slap on at the start of a fight. Getting total concealment from rays and ranged attacks at 13th level is a gamechanger; at some point, AC stops mattering, but a miss chance is always a miss chance.

(1) Voice of the Grave: Nice little quality of life Revelation. You’ll never rue the opportunity to ask your corpses a few questions.

(1) Wisdom of the Ancestors: Another strong contender for 7th level, Wisdom of the Ancestors gives you access to great Divination magic, without all the finicky and costly spell components. Plus, how flavorful is this ability!?

(7) Storm of Souls: Blasting isn’t the greatest use of actions in Pathfinder, and the damage isn’t fabulous. Still, a 20-ft. radius is quite large, and Undead are common enough that you might want this. Yellow if you really don’t envision yourself fighting many Undead. Ancestor Oracles are buffers, back-up melee combatants, and skill monkeys, but not great blasters.

(11) Spirit of the Warrior: Ho ho ho. Ho ho. Now here’s a buff! For a few precious seconds, you will be damn near untouchable. Use this power when you’re up against the BBEG of the day and want to get your hands dirty.

(11) Spirit Walk: It’s ethereal jaunt, packaged as a Revelation. Just as good, too—you should definitely be okay with getting access to a 7th-level spell for free several times per day.

Apocalypse

Role

Apocalypse Oracles were clearly designed with a Blasting role in mind, but their Revelations don’t provide any support for that role, instead focusing on combat skills and maneuvers that are unlikely to be useful without heftier defensive abilities. Overall, one of the weakest Mysteries, along with Reaper.

Anticaster, Blasting, Control, Melee, Tank > Debuffing, Ranged, Recon, Skills, Summoning, Support, Utility

Bonus Skills

Apocalypse Oracles get Bluff, Disguise, Stealth, and Survival added to their skill list. Stealth and Bluff are probably your best bets here.

Bonus Spells

(2) Deathwatch: Thematically appropriate, mechanically questionable. Deathwatch doesn’t really tell you anything you couldn’t find out with a good Perception check.

(4) Summon Swarm: There’s some debuffing potential here, some damage potential, certainly. You’ve got to be on the lookout for the swarm attacking your own allies, although, I suppose an Apocalypse Oracle would be just fine with that outcome. The swarm is, if nothing else, an effective damage sponge, so put it out there and let enemies waste turns trying to hit it with weapons.

(6) Explosive Runes: Relatively weak blast. No save for those in the immediate vicinity, and [force] damage ignores DR, but how often do you expect to be able to spring this trap?

(8) Ice Storm: It’s middling damage, but the spell does receive some credit for providing battlefield control in the form of difficult terrain. No save, either.

(10) Insect Plague: A bunch of CR 3 creatures aren’t likely to do much damage. And they’re stationary. And enemies will auto-succeed on the save vs. poison to deal DEX damage. Never liked this spell.

(12) Circle of Death: No creature with 9+ HD can be affected, and you get it at 12th level. Silly, silly, silly.

(14) Vision: See the Ancestor Mystery: good information to have, but not worth the fatigued condition you take when “upgrading” the spell from legend lore.

(16) Incendiary Cloud: It’s battlefield control and area damage rolled into one. It’s a damn shame you have to wait until 16th level to get something good, though.

(18) Meteor Swarm: You can cluster your meteors to deal some decent damage, but as with incendiary cloud, this is 100% fire damage, and many enemies at this level will be outright immune. Thank goodness you only apply resistance at the end.

Revelations

(1) Defy Elements: The resistance won’t stack to anything phenomenal unless your campaign revolves around a single energy type (Reign of Winter, certainly, or I guess something like Legacy of Fire) but it’s still a nice protective ability. Stacking it on top of racial resistances would be a good idea.

(1) Dust to Dust: Sunder has its problems as a maneuver, starting with the fact that it breaks or destroys the equipment that you’re going to be using or selling right after you kill the people carrying it. I’m not sure whether Dust to Dust bypasses hardness, but it probably should—iron and steel weapons have a hardness of 10, which means that you could easily use this ability, only to have the damage get completely soaked up.

(1) Erosion Touch: Ah, much better. If you’re going to Sunder, you might as well do it properly. Erosion Touch is cool because it can also destroy walls, doors, etc., allowing you to bypass obstacles or progress laterally through dungeons.

(1) Near Death: Insight bonuses are relatively hard to come by, and the bonuses definitely apply to good things,[mind-affecting] effects being at the top of the list. I wish the bonus were larger, but beggars can’t be choosers. (Unless they’re begging for more choices.)

(1) Pass the Torch: As resistances, HP, and the relative dangers of being in melee range scale with level, this Revelation will see less and less use. Just too weak. It would probably be pretty good—if dangerous to use—in the early levels, though.

(1) Spell Blast: First, you’ve got to roll a Natural 20 on an attack roll with a spell. Then, you’ve got to confirm that attack roll. Then, you’ve got to succeed at a CMB check against the enemy. And remember, you’ve got ¾ BAB and are unlikely to have great STR scores. You’ll be able to count on one hand the number of times this Revelation does a damn thing in your campaign.

(1) Unstoppable Overrun: The issue with the Apocalypse Mystery is that, unlike Battle, you don’t get any kind of defensive abilities to make being in melee a smart move. You’ve got Pass the Torch and a couple of blasting spells; that does not a combat maneuver specialist make.

(5) Power of the Fallen: I like it, actually. You get it plenty of times per day, death knell lasts a while, and you can pick the attribute that won’t overlap with someone’s existing Enhancement bonuses to physical stats. It’s not gamechanging, but decent.

(7) Destructive Roots: On principle, I’m in favor of any ability that allows you to manipulate the battlefield, but Destructive Roots is slow, requires concentration and continued move action input, and requires you to stand still. It might be useful for setting up an “oh no no” zone for you to cast from safely, but determined enemies will run, fly, or teleport in, and then you’ll be trapped in the middle of your own difficult terrain.

(7) Doomsayer: I promise that there are more effective ways to debuff enemies than Doomsayer. As with Destructive Roots, you’re sacrificing a huge portion of your action economy for a weak effect.

Ascetic

Role

Ascetic Oracles do their best work in a hybrid Melee/Debuffing role, where their unarmed and Spellstrike abilities can operate at max capacity. Oracular Spellstrike is really the lynchpin of the Mystery, enabling Ascetics to deliver crippling melee touch debuff spells as part of a flurry of unarmed attacks. There are a couple exploration and utility spells in the bunch, but the majority of the Mystery’s spells and Revelations go toward increasing your offenses and defenses in combat. Take note that, unlike the Monk, you’re not required to wear zero armor in order to get your bonuses (except the Fleet Revelation—that requires no armor) so it’s likely that you’ll actually want to wear medium armor, leave DEX somewhat low, and focus on STR, CON, and CHA. As an aside, Ascetic really benefits from a one- or two-level dip in Scaled Fist Unchained Monk, which nets you better BAB, a better Fortitude save, a bunch of bonus feats (including Dragon Style!), and a Flurry that actually scales well with your level.

Melee > Debuffing, Tank, Utility > Anticaster > Blasting, Control, Ranged, Recon, Skills, Summoning, Support

Bonus Skills

Ascetic Oracles get some of the more standard Monk skills added to their list. Escape Artist and Acrobatics are eternally useful for classes who don’t have high CMD or AC, respectively, and Climb and Swim are the original one-rank wonders.

Bonus Spells

(2) Stone Fist: You’ll need stone fist before you get access to Improved Unarmed Strike, as many of the Revelations in Ascetic are focused around unarmed strikes, and you can’t go around provoking AoOs. Drops off pretty steeply in usefulness after you get IUS.

(4) Glide: Falls, crits, drowning, and a couple other things are the major death dealers in Pathfinder. If you envision yourself getting into a fight anywhere near a high drop, glide is your first cast, no questions asked. Becomes a little less important if you grab the Absence of Form Revelation.

(6) Force Punch: Dealing with incorporeal creatures is an enormous pain, but force damage hurts them normally. Having a spell in your back pocket to push someone away from you (and potentially into obstacles, off cliffs, etc.) is extraordinarily useful when paired with Oracular Spellstrike.

(8) Ethereal Fists: And now you can really beat the shit out of ghosts. Given how lethal incorporeal encounters can be, I’m not the slightest bit mad that you’ve got several options for dealing with them.

(10) Contact Other Plane: Oracles have a CHA focus, not an INT focus, so your ability to hit that DC will never go up substantially. And it hurts—there is absolutely no way that you can afford having your CHA and INT scores reduced to 8 for weeks at a time.

(12) Legend Lore: You’ll almost never need vision, your 7th-level spell, when you have legend lore. It’s a good downtime spell, useful for GMs to pass along plot hints or background info that you wouldn’t have otherwise, etc., but otherwise harmless. Because it’s a downtime spell, you’ll never really need the speed that vision affords.

(14) Vision: As I mentioned above, you don’t really need to get legend lore’s information within the space of a standard action.

(16) Frightful Aspect: Amazing self-buff for melee Oracles, which Ascetic Oracles will always be. At minutes/level, you probably won’t be able to stack it across multiple combats, but it’s still an excellent end-of-campaign spell.

(18) Iron Body: Another tank spell that makes you very sturdy, especially when combined with frightful aspect.

Revelations

(1) Absence of Body: It’s not strictly bad, just unnecessary. There’s a reason many Monks try to trade away the same ability.

(1) Absence of Form: Getting a little warmer. Falls are never good, so having a means of dealing with them perpetually at your fingertips is nice. Less essential than other Revelations.

(1) Ascetic Armor: Ascetic Armor will most likely be your 3rd-level Revelation choice. Oracular Spellstrike is a must-have at 7th, and Martial Disciple is needed at 1st. Like all armor Revelations, it starts as a relatively tame ability and gains quickly in usefulness. The DR comes a little later, but will actually scale well into endgame—because it’s not DR/Magic, Alignment, Adamantine, etc., enemies won’t be able to blow past it with high enhancement bonuses.

(1) Fleet: Extra speed has never been a bad thing, right? You have to be unarmored in order to get the speed boost, which in your case means taking Ascetic Armor. Up to you whether you’d like to wear armor and ignore those two Revelations, or take them and lean into the unarmored fighting style.

(1) Martial Disciple: Pretty essential to gameplay as an Ascetic Oracle. You’ve got lots of spells that improve unarmed combat; you’ve got Oracular Spellstrike, which only works with unarmed attacks; it makes sense that you would want a reliable means of improving your unarmed strike damage. Unless you have a really compelling reason, this is your 1st-level Revelation.

(1) Rapid Convalescence: With full access to the Cleric spell list, Rapid Convalescence is less appealing than it would be for a martial character. As with Absence of Body, not bad, just unnecessary.

(7) Oracular Spellstrike: Spellstrike is an amazing ability. Magi specialize in damage spells, of course, but you, you with the Bad Touch Cleric spell list at your disposal, you can specialize in debuffing. How’d you like to be able to do your full unarmed strike damage combined with bestow curse? That’s just for starters. Do note that you lack Spell Combat so you can’t full attack and cast; even so, Oracular Spellstrike keeps your damage output up there even while you waste foes.

(11) Spell Deflection: You don’t have to sacrifice spells in order to counterspell, which is cool, but depending on how you’re built, the DC might be difficult to hit, and you can’t counterspell all spells with this ability. By 11th level, however, you’ve probably sucked the marrow from your Revelation list. Might as well get something a little more niche!

Augmented (All Souls Gaming)

Role

Let’s get the disclaimer out of the way first: yes, I wrote the Augmented Mystery, and yes, it’s third-party. Wait, wait, don’t slam the door, baby! Let’s try to work this out. As far as I know, the idea for the Augmented Mystery came to me in a dream. I keep a small notepad on the floor next to my bed, and occasionally when I wake up from a particularly vivid dream I have the presence of mind to write down a word or two about what I dreamed before falling back asleep. I woke up one morning to see that I had written “ROBOCOP ORACLE” in big, block capitals in my notebook. Well, then, Sleep-Chris, a Robocop Oracle it shall be. Augmented was my vision of what it would be like for an Oracle to surrender increasingly important pieces of their humanity in exchange for bio-mecha-arcane power. Mechanically, I’ve heightened Oracle Curses even more by asking the question, What if every Revelation came with a price, but was made more powerful to compensate? The Augmented Mystery gives you DR, movement speed increases, constant misdirection, a Fly speed, and powerfull energy blasts, true—but you also get Light Blindness, poor Reflex saves, concentration checks, and INT penalties. Are the gifts that you receive from the Great Beyond worth the horrifying cost you’ll pay as you surgically or magically alter your body beyond all recognition? That’s something only you will be able to decide. Engage your piston boots, run over to the Patreon, and if you like what you get for free there, toss some money at me! I didn’t ask for this!

Melee, Tank > Recon > Anticaster, Blasting, Control, Debuffing, Ranged, Skills, Utility > Summoning, Support

Bonus Skills

Disable Device is an unusual pick, but has quite a bit of synergy with the Omnitool Revelation, which amps up the Circumstance bonuses from Masterwork Thieves’ Tools and can make you a decent off-Rogue. Fly is crucial if you’re going with your Prototype Thrusters. Knowledge (Engineering) is the most dispensable of the bonus skills, but at least Perception rounds things out nicely.

Bonus Spells

(2) Long Arm: Normally one of the best 1st-level extracts for Investigators and Alchemists, long arm will never go amiss in a melee build, increasing your threatened area and synergizing nicely with Combat Reflexes.

(4) Alter Self: In addition to acting as a great disguise ability, alter self can also grant you access to Swim speeds, darkvision, and a bunch of other polymorph goodies.

(6) Force Punch: Some decent force damage that hurts incorporeal enemies and bypasses DR is a good chassis for the spell, and then you start layering on battlefield control and positioning. It’s not mind-blowingly powerful, but it is one of my flavor favorites (flavorites?) from the Ascetic Mystery.

(8) Adjustable Polymorph: And now, in keeping with your ability to Inspector Gadget every portion of your body, you can change your polymorphed shape at any time! If you suddenly need scent, darkvision, etc., adjustable polymorph is your spell.

(10) Wall of Force: The OG battlefield control spell. Wall of force is incredibly hard to destroy, easily shaped, and doesn’t stick around for an annoyingly long time.

(12) Transformation: Losing spellcasting for the duration is obviously troublesome, but the upside is that you suddenly become a full-BAB martial character...while retaining access to all your Revelations. Augmented Oracles can lay out some serious pain while transformed.

(14) Telekinetic Sphere: Reflex negates—easily the weakest of all enemy saves by level, however. And in return, you get to move allies, move equipment, and most importantly, move enemies about as if you were Syndrome from The Incredibles.

(16) Iron Body: A peerless buff for melee characters, which I’m assuming most Augmented Oracles will be. Get in there and smash.

(18) Shapechange: Shapechange is anything you want it to be, when you want it to be. Naturally continues the alter self and adjustable polymorph theme from earlier levels.

Revelations

(1) Alloy Plating: In exchange for permanent armor bonuses, you lose out on quite a bit of your already weak Reflex save. DR is great, sure, but what’s going to happen if you get targeted with a fireball or chain lightning? What if your GM targets the element of your Elemental Projectors? There’s less power here than it initially appears.

(1) Ocular Hybridization: The real question is, what do your Elf-eyes see? They’ll be seeing a lot, but you’ll also have to deal with blindness and the dazzled condition, with no easy way to mitigate those penalties through magic items. Still strong enough to be a green, but man, watch those penalties.

(1) Omnitool: One of my favorites that I’ve written, if I may toot my own horn. Adventurers don’t tend to carry a lot of mundane equipment on them, which is a pity, as there’s so much cool stuff you can do with skill kits alone! Omnitool goes a long way toward shoring up some of your weaker skill checks, and provides utility for days, but that standard action to draw a weapon is trouble unless you go for an unarmed strike build.

(1) Radioulnar Implants: All the Unarmed Strike damage and accuracy you could want...along with some self-damage and vulnerability to metal-based effects. I tried to make these Revelations as balanced as possible between power and penalty, and I think Radioulnar Implants is another one that succeeds. Notable for allowing you to sidestep the main penalty from Omnitool.

(1) Spliced Consciousness: Early access to arcane eye is kind of a big deal if you’re looking to scout out dangerous locales before stepping in yourself, but you’ve got to be prepared to expend charges of lesser restoration or do some resting if you want to use it consistently—that WIS damage won’t heal itself.

(1) Piston Boots: You can rack up some truly ridiculous bonuses to Acrobatics with this Revelation alone—a +40 to jump by 20th level, if my math’s not off—and get unparalleled mobility. You’ll need to stand firm in order to cast, however, as the vigorous motion concentration check is surprisingly hard to beat without feats like Combat Casting.

(3) Prototype Thrusters: Fairly mediocre to begin with, Prototype Thrusters only get better with age, and can combine with the Flyby Attack granted by Piston Boots to nice effect. Definitely a must in later levels.

(7) Elemental Projectors: Q: How do you make Oracles good at blasting? A: Give them a blasting Revelation that’s actually good, but presents a real potential for self-inflicted damage. Elemental Projectors will do their job, and do it extraordinarily well, but a dedicated GM with access to Divination magic and blast spells like elemental assessor will have your ass unconscious in a second. Tread carefully, and remember the theme of Augmented: power comes with a price tag.

(11) Pacifying Ray: The Slumber Hex is powerful indeed, but Pacifying Ray places a hard cap on how often you can use it without screwing yourself over. You’ll want to partake responsibly.

(11) Mind Bastion: Your GM may not use Divination magic too heavily, but if they do, there’s no substitute for misdirection and mind blank. I think that permanent INT penalties are more than compensation.

Battle

Role

Battle Oracles, are, unsurprisingly, Combat specialists, and usually excel in melee roles thanks to a variety of self-buffs, free feats, and upgrades to maneuvers or initiative. What is surprising is the amount of battlefield control spells Battle Oracles receive: fog cloud and wall of fire are very much not part of the standard Cleric/Oracle package. With this host of self-buffs and no-save control spells, Battle Oracles are thankfully well-suited to having lower casting stats than other Oracles; this attribute prioritization allows them to pump STR and other damage-dealing mechanisms. The over-emphasis on STR-buffing spells doesn’t make Battle well-suited to ranged combat; you may want to investigate the Wood Mystery for its synergy with bows.

Pro Con

Pinnacle of the action economy. Full-BAB martial characters will always out-DPR you, so your best bet for making a contribution is to stack the odds ridiculously in favor of the martials. Funnel enemies through chokepoints, block line of sight from archers and casters, force a choice between the rock and the hard place—one single spell can do so much in the tide of a battle.

Doesn’t rely on failed saves, for the most part. Most battlefield control spells are from the Conjuration school, and a good number of Conjuration spells simply don’t allow a save. If you’re on the other side of a wall, there’s nothing to save against—it’s just there, between you and where you want to be. Another critical element that makes control strategies so effective.

Decent support on the spell list. Your spell list isn’t quite as well-suited for Control as the Wizard, say, but you’ve got more than enough walls, fogs, and darkness spells to get the job done.

Some damage potential. Many battlefield control spells like wall of fire, wall of clockwork, and haunting mists come with damage pre-packaged. This damage often does better than a blast anyway, so you should appreciate it!

Minimal spell use for the effect. The advantage that martials have is that they can do what they do all day long. So why are you burning spell slots trying to blast all day long? Set up the alley-oop for your martial allies with one or two control spells, then let them handle the beatdown.

Top Mysteries

● Blue-Ranked Mysteries: Ascetic, Battle, Dragon, Lunar, Metal

● Green-Ranked Mysteries: Ancestor, Elemental, Godclaw, Shadow, Time, Wood

Top Spells

1. Bless, divine favor, hedging weapons, magic weapon, protection from [alignment], blasty etc.

(continues with a full catalog of spells and archetypes across the Oracle Fights section)