Finally an Advanced Feat product dedicated to the oracle, one of the new base classes of the Advanced Player’s Guide
– and without any doubt my favorite one. The excellent flavor, the cool mix of benefits and drawbacks of the curses... all these elements made me fall in love with these spontaneous divine casters (which, in my opinion, are a perfect fit for Sword & Sorcery games).
– and without any doubt my favorite one. The excellent flavor, the cool mix of benefits and drawbacks of the curses... all these elements made me fall in love with these spontaneous divine casters (which, in my opinion, are a perfect fit for Sword & Sorcery games).After dissecting and briefly commenting on each of the class abilities, Visions of the Oracle brings 30 new feats. These new options are not necessarily exclusive to the oracle, most being a fair choice for other classes as well.
The Advanced Feats line is known for creating feats that are mechanically innovative and thought provoking. For an example, let’s take the Battlecaster feat:
Benefit: As a full attack action, after making your first attack, you may cast a spell with a casting time of a standard action or less instead of taking any additional attacks.
It’s easy to see that this feat steps dangerously into the niche of the new magus class (from the yet-to-be-published Ultimate Magic
). While a great feat by itself, this kind of design philosophy doesn’t fit well (no pun intended) with some DMs and players.
). While a great feat by itself, this kind of design philosophy doesn’t fit well (no pun intended) with some DMs and players.Another potentially problematic feat is Penetrating Spell that allows the spellcaster to ignore any energy resistance – increasing the spell slot just by 1 level. However, there are also very cool feats – like Charmed and Extra Use – and some great ideas – like Concentration Spell and Preserve Scroll.
The Conditional Curse feat is unusual in that it removes the drawbacks of an oracle’s curse in specific situations
Magic Sense is thematically fitting for the class and an interesting tactical option, but my favorite feat is Prophetic Dreamer. It literally forces the GM, once per session, to give some revelation to the character (through a dream) about dangers ahead. Called by the author a “Roleplaying Feat”, it’s based on a narrative approach very dissimilar to Pathfinder’s nature, although I can see a lot of good uses for it in the hands of GMs that appreciate the challenge.
It’s curious that there is almost no feat actually made for the oracle class in Visions of the Oracle. There are a fair number of feats dealing with scrolls and upgrading minor mechanics (like metamagic use by spontaneous spellcasters and the Heal skill). Of the former type, there are some pretty powerful like Spell Retention and Savage Critical (this one should be fighter-only).
Visions of the Oracle ends with three complete character builds. While still possessing excellent ideas and mechanics, the lack of consistency with the oracle’s theme and the number of potentially powerful feats may discourage some buyers. If strict game balance is not an issue for you, then Visions of the Oracle is definitely worth a look.
Thanks for the review! It's very thoughtful and addresses some concerns I had while writing it.
ReplyDeleteI was aware of ultimate magic while writing the feats but I wanted to avoid tying my work to it until it was out of play-test. A lot of things changed from play-test to published in APG so I tried to just go with what was available cannon "at the moment". I've a feeling that Ultimate Magic and Combat may tread ground I've already covered. It's one of the challenges of 3PP, you can't easily coordinate your work with the 1stPP work. I'm not sure if I made the right call there or not.
The last line of Conditional Curse benefits notes that you retain the curse's benefits.
It's true there are very few Oracle only feats in the book. Conditional Curse and Strange Revelation are the exceptions. Outside of its mysteries, there are no Oracle specific class abilities, and doing feats just for a specific Mystery/Revelation seemed too corner case to be useful to most players. High utility is one of my objectives with the series so I avoided mystery or revelation specific feats intentionally.
I really wanted to do an Oracle build that was a kind of master sleuth, using divination and augury to solve the "story" side of quests. Sadly, even the lore mystery didn't really support that in any meaningful way. None of the mysteries give an oracle much in the way of oracle type powers and are much more themes of divine magic like cleric domains but more so that give you a combat angle. Lore includes a lot of skill checks, but oracle is not a skill rich class or Int using so its a bit "pearls before swine." That was my only disappointment in the class itself.
I really thought it was great that your review picked up on issues I struggled with while writing the pdf, very insightful!
Hi Sigfried and welcome to my humble tower :-)
ReplyDeleteThank you for commenting and sharing your thoughts! I’m eager for more Advanced Feats products. Apologies for Conditional Curse, I already removed the mistaken observation.
A fine tower it is :)
ReplyDeleteI'm very glad you were fond of Prophetic Dreamer. I'm sure someone is going to hate it, but it's the kind of feat that as a GM I would love one of my players to take. As much as I like and obsess over the crunch, when push comes to shove I'm a story focused GM.