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beccaelizabethDue to real world news being Bad, I have been reading Pathfinder rules again.
... it's not a viable route to power, but being a first level spellcaster would give you a very Different set of problems.
I keep thinking about how some classes don't choose their class, it chooses them. A Sorcerer is born, not made, and an Oracle is Chosen.
In our world, as players, we choose our stats and then our class. But in their universe they don't. If the power comes to them it comes to them, even if they'll never be smart or wise or for these classes charismatic enough to take full advantage of it.
For Oracles that means some people might have an Oracle's Curse but absolutely no benefits from it. Cannot become spellcasters, just stuck with the downside.
Of course if some Powers are handing out the powers consciously then they wouldn't do that. They'd hand power to people who could do something with it. They'd know if your charisma would be up to it. It would be what attracted them in the first place.
But if it's just a thing that Happens to people... Chosen by some method less logical...
It would be the most frustrating annoying thing. Here's the call to adventure! Here's knowledge of a mystery unfolding before you! Here's... a Curse no magic can shift... tough luck there...
Spells? Oh well, maybe if you get better at being a people...
*sigh*
Oracle's Curses are problematic in the first place. Blind, deaf or 'lame' aren't anything to do with being mystically chosen, and some of the others are worse.
In universe though... You'd get people following blind people around waiting for them to do magic?
Yikes.
There are retraining rules, so with enough gold and application of... logically magic, you can retrain your whole character class and just stop being an Oracle.
In player world that's for people who aren't having fun with their class but want to keep their character, so, simples and logical.
In character world, it's people being Chosen and just noping the hell out.
Chosen sucks unless you get a choice.
So expensive or otherwise, it's good there's ways out.
But it would be weird in universe if you didn't know what was going on. You'd have this persistent disability and maybe some cantrips and like 2 spells you can cast 3 times a day but only if you had at least Charisma 11. But then you'd find someone who promised to train your disability away, and it works, but... the spells go bye bye.
Unless you retrain to a class which also has spells. But those would work completely differently.
Sorcerers have spontaneous spells but they're arcane not divine, and bloodline makes A Lot of a difference. So imagine in universe deciding you can't be having with the Curse but want to keep your magic, so you choose Sorcery. Would you get, like, an array of bottles and bloodlines to choose from? Could you just... decide to have the power of ancient gods in your veins? I'm thinking it's a major quest just to get the option.
But the rulebook has, like, 5 to 7 days per class level with a trainer and twice that without, 8 hours a day, costing 10 * your level gp per day. Or between 5 and 15 at GMs discretion. "The cost of retraining presumably includes magical or alchemical alterations to your body." At first level, that's... weirdly cheap. All the storylines about Sorcerers grappling with the dark secrets of their blood presumably mean they haven't heard of the option.
It do also say GM gets to decide if the retraining is available at all, or if it's a quest to get it.
Character: First level Sorcerer
Quest: become a first level anything that isn't a sorcerer
Cost: well you could do it with starting gold if you rolled real well, 50 gp minimum cost with class synergy.
Or course a player wouldn't do that, but a world where that is routinely done is very different from one where it simply cannot be.
I mean I'm writing a Sorcerer son of two Wizards, because arcane energies be like that, but his parents are... varying degrees of concerned, because he'll be so limited compared to them, and so much weird could happen to him.
But if retraining rules are in effect, they could just... offer to make him a wizard instead. Pressure him to. Ignore which stat is highest, there's always headbands...
You just get a very different world that way.
And the whole Harry Potter thing with preserving wizard bloodlines would be a whole different shape if you could just take a week, with or without weekend, and Changeover someone.
Most character classes make it weird to change somehow. I mean a Paladin is a favourite of a particular god, but if a fighter can retrain, what's that represent, in universe? He just makes oaths and goes for it? Or she realises which god secretly likes her? Who is doing the choosing here? Do you have to, like, talk god into it?
Also it gets weird comparing the retraining rules with the tables for what random age you can be as a starting character. Those imply some classes take years more than others to make level one. But you could start out in one of the swifter classes and then just... take a week, move along a bit, click with wizardry after sorcery and do it years before most wizard apprentices. ... which would represent converting intuitive understaning into something you could write down, but, a week still seems fast.
Mind you, once you have a first level in anything, the speed of second level depends only on experience, so you could move forward in whatever class you chose no matter what your bloodline had to say about it.
I know, it's just rules, but... there's story in it.
... it's not a viable route to power, but being a first level spellcaster would give you a very Different set of problems.
I keep thinking about how some classes don't choose their class, it chooses them. A Sorcerer is born, not made, and an Oracle is Chosen.
Although the gods work through many agents, perhaps none is more mysterious than the oracle. These divine vessels are granted power without their choice, selected by providence to wield powers that even they do not fully understand.
In our world, as players, we choose our stats and then our class. But in their universe they don't. If the power comes to them it comes to them, even if they'll never be smart or wise or for these classes charismatic enough to take full advantage of it.
For Oracles that means some people might have an Oracle's Curse but absolutely no benefits from it. Cannot become spellcasters, just stuck with the downside.
Of course if some Powers are handing out the powers consciously then they wouldn't do that. They'd hand power to people who could do something with it. They'd know if your charisma would be up to it. It would be what attracted them in the first place.
But if it's just a thing that Happens to people... Chosen by some method less logical...
It would be the most frustrating annoying thing. Here's the call to adventure! Here's knowledge of a mystery unfolding before you! Here's... a Curse no magic can shift... tough luck there...
Spells? Oh well, maybe if you get better at being a people...
*sigh*
Oracle's Curses are problematic in the first place. Blind, deaf or 'lame' aren't anything to do with being mystically chosen, and some of the others are worse.
In universe though... You'd get people following blind people around waiting for them to do magic?
Yikes.
There are retraining rules, so with enough gold and application of... logically magic, you can retrain your whole character class and just stop being an Oracle.
In player world that's for people who aren't having fun with their class but want to keep their character, so, simples and logical.
In character world, it's people being Chosen and just noping the hell out.
Chosen sucks unless you get a choice.
So expensive or otherwise, it's good there's ways out.
But it would be weird in universe if you didn't know what was going on. You'd have this persistent disability and maybe some cantrips and like 2 spells you can cast 3 times a day but only if you had at least Charisma 11. But then you'd find someone who promised to train your disability away, and it works, but... the spells go bye bye.
Unless you retrain to a class which also has spells. But those would work completely differently.
Sorcerers have spontaneous spells but they're arcane not divine, and bloodline makes A Lot of a difference. So imagine in universe deciding you can't be having with the Curse but want to keep your magic, so you choose Sorcery. Would you get, like, an array of bottles and bloodlines to choose from? Could you just... decide to have the power of ancient gods in your veins? I'm thinking it's a major quest just to get the option.
But the rulebook has, like, 5 to 7 days per class level with a trainer and twice that without, 8 hours a day, costing 10 * your level gp per day. Or between 5 and 15 at GMs discretion. "The cost of retraining presumably includes magical or alchemical alterations to your body." At first level, that's... weirdly cheap. All the storylines about Sorcerers grappling with the dark secrets of their blood presumably mean they haven't heard of the option.
It do also say GM gets to decide if the retraining is available at all, or if it's a quest to get it.
Character: First level Sorcerer
Quest: become a first level anything that isn't a sorcerer
Cost: well you could do it with starting gold if you rolled real well, 50 gp minimum cost with class synergy.
Or course a player wouldn't do that, but a world where that is routinely done is very different from one where it simply cannot be.
I mean I'm writing a Sorcerer son of two Wizards, because arcane energies be like that, but his parents are... varying degrees of concerned, because he'll be so limited compared to them, and so much weird could happen to him.
But if retraining rules are in effect, they could just... offer to make him a wizard instead. Pressure him to. Ignore which stat is highest, there's always headbands...
You just get a very different world that way.
And the whole Harry Potter thing with preserving wizard bloodlines would be a whole different shape if you could just take a week, with or without weekend, and Changeover someone.
Most character classes make it weird to change somehow. I mean a Paladin is a favourite of a particular god, but if a fighter can retrain, what's that represent, in universe? He just makes oaths and goes for it? Or she realises which god secretly likes her? Who is doing the choosing here? Do you have to, like, talk god into it?
Also it gets weird comparing the retraining rules with the tables for what random age you can be as a starting character. Those imply some classes take years more than others to make level one. But you could start out in one of the swifter classes and then just... take a week, move along a bit, click with wizardry after sorcery and do it years before most wizard apprentices. ... which would represent converting intuitive understaning into something you could write down, but, a week still seems fast.
Mind you, once you have a first level in anything, the speed of second level depends only on experience, so you could move forward in whatever class you chose no matter what your bloodline had to say about it.
I know, it's just rules, but... there's story in it.