Oracle Handbook: PF2 Class Guide

Introduction

A divine spellcaster with little or no interaction with actual divine beings,the Oracle draws their power from a mystery of some kind, and in exchange theyget divine spellcasting but also a curse which is usually (but not always)some degree of terrible.

The Oracle is an exciting concept, originally based on DnD 3.5’s FavoredSoul, then introduced in Pathfinder 1st edition, where it introduced theconcpet of the Oracle’s Curse. Throughout its history, the Oracle has been thedivine equivalent to the Sorcerer, sharing the cleric’s armor and weaponoptions but using the Sorcerer’s spellcasting mechanics. In Pathfinder 2e,that means using a Spell Repertoire like the Sorcerer while getting similarequipment to the Cleric.

Because the Oracle and the Sorcerer are so similar, it’s natural to draw some comparisons, especially since the Sorcerer can also use the Divine spell list. The Oracle’s Mystery and the Sorcerer’s Bloodline serve to distinguish the two classes thematically, and while the handful of bloodlines that use the Divine spell list will often feel similar in many ways, oracles have more room for diversity while stil using the same spell list. The Oracle’s Mystery also comes with Drawbacks and a condition track, where the Sorcerer’s Bloodline is purely beneficial, so the Oracle brings some additional complexity that can be fun to play with at the cost of additional challenges.

Playing an oracle is challenging. The Oracle’s Curse is frequently frustrating and requires a lot of tracking and cost/benefit calculations. The Focus Spells (called “Revelation Spells”) are no better than those of other classes, but come with additonal cost. The Oracle’s Class Feats are limited in number, and there are unusually many bad options.

The Oracle’s skills and saves are poor in many ways, and despite several options intended to support oracles using weapons they remain terrible at doing so. Your best bet is to play the Oracle like a weird sorcerer, and in many cases a sorcerer with the Divine Spell List will be both easier to play and more effective, if only because you’re not saddled with the Oracle’s Curse.

Introduction
Disclaimer
Oracle Class Features
Ability Scores
- Conventional
- Battle Mystery
Ancestries
Backgrounds
Skills and Skill Feats
Feats
- Oracle Feats
  - 1st Level
  - 2nd Level
  - 4th Level
  - 6th Level
  - 8th Level
  - 10th Level
  - 12th Level
  - 14th Level
  - 16th Level
  - 18th Level
  - 20th Level
- General Feats
Weapons
Armor
Archetypes

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks.

Red: Bad, useless options, or options whichare extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
Orange: OK options, or useful optionsthat only apply in rare circ*mstances. Useful sometimes.
Green: Good options. Useful often.
Blue: Fantastic options, often essentialto the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

Oracle Class Features

Key Ability: Charisma.

Hit Points: 8+ hit points is great forcasting-focused oracles, giving you more hit points than classes like theSorcerer and the Wizard, but if you’re looking at the Battle Mystery and wantto wade into melee you’ll want to invest in additional hit points.

Initial Proficiencies: The Oracle’sproficiencies are poor, which is typical for a full spellcaster.

Perception: Among the worst Perceptionprogressions in the game, and without a dependency on Wisdom you’ll alwaysbe bad at Perception.
Saving Throws: The Oracle gets the bestWill save progression in the game, but is tied for the worst Fortitudeprogression and has the worst Reflex progression.
Skills: A total of 5+Int skills, which isslightly above the average of 4+Int. Unfortunately you may need to dumpIntelligence to compensate for other deficiencies.
Attacks: Only simple weapons (unless youselect the Battle Mystery), and you’ll never be good with them. You’rebetter than the Wizard, but that’s a low bar.
Defenses: Only light armor (unless youselect the Battle Mystery), and your proficiency never advances past Expert.Spending feats to get better armor is a good idea for most oracles unlessyou’re comfortable fighting from the back lines.
Spellcasting DC: Standard for spellcasters.

Divine Spellcasting:

Heightened Spells: Heightening spells isan important mechanic in Pathfinder 2e. Many spells scale with spell level,remaining effective long past their base spell level. Since oracles use aSpell Repertoire, you need to learn spells at multiple levels to heightenthem in most cases, though Signature Spells are an exception.
Cantrips: Fantastic every time, on anycharacter, in any amount. Oracles learn 5 cantrips at level 1 and never getmore, but you can replace them by retraining or when you gain a level soyou’re not locked into whatever you pick at first level.

Spell Repertoire: Spell Repertoires areless versatile than spellcasting like the Cleric’s or the Druid’s. You know afixed number of spells which grows as you gain levels, and while you don’tneed to prepare your spells ahead of time you also lose the flexibility ofchanging your spells every day. You also need to learn the same spells atmultiple levels if you plan to heighten them, which is a difficult cost topay. Fortunately, the Oracle’s Signature Spells feature (see below) allows youto heighten some of your spells without learning them multiple times.

Mysteries: See myOracle Mysteries Breakdown.

Revelation Spells: You start with a FocusPool of 2 points for free, which is very generous. The wording of the featureis a little vague, but you do still follow the usual rules for Refocusing, soyou can only recover one point until you cast another Focus Spell, so you onlyrecharge the full pool when you rest (until you get a feat that lets youRefocus to get more points back). You also get two Focus Spells, so you havemore options for your Focus Points than most characters do at first level.

Oracular Curse: The drawback for yourRevelation Spells, Oracular curse is a sort of “death spiral” mechanic wherethings get worse for you the further you go down the track. At first level,your curse can be in its “Basic” state, its “Minor” state, its “Moderate”state, or you can be overwhelmed. Each time you cast a Revelation Spell, yourcurse increases one step. You can reduce your curse to Minor by Refocusing,but you can only get back to Basic if you rest for 8 hours. You add the“Major” state at level 11 and the “Extreme” state at level 17, each of whichadds another step before you become Overwhelmed.

Becoming Overwhelmed sucks. Don’t do it unless you’re absolutely desperate.Once you’re Overwhelmed, you can’t cast or sustain your Revelation Spellsuntil you get a full rest. That means that if you cast a Revelation Spell thatmade your Overwhelmed, you can’t Sustain that spell. You can still Refocus toreduce your curse and use your Focus Points for other Focus Spells, but yourRevelation Spells are gone for the day. Once you hit level 17 and get ExtremeCurse, you’re also Doomed 2 until you rest. Again: becoming Overwhelmed sucks.Don’t do it.

Fortunately, becoming Overwhelmed by your curse is actually fairly difficult. At first level, you get 2 Focus Points. If you spend both, you’re at Major. If you Refocus, you go to Minor and get 1 Focus Point so you can only get back up to Major.

You need another Focus Point from another source (likely from a class feat or from an archetype, but there are Ancestry Feats and items which can help, too). If you don’t get Focus Points from other sources, you’ll get a third point at level 11 when you get Major Curse, but you still can’t make yourself Overwhelmed unless you somehow get a Focus Point some way besides refocusing. I think this mechanic is in place specifically to discourage you from going beyond the maximum Focus Pool size of 3 by using items or feats which restore a Focus Point

Oracle Feats: See Oracle feats, below.

Ability Scores

Conventional

The typical Oracle needs Charisma to function offensively and Dex/Con/Wis tocompensate for their poor saves and horrible Perception progression.

Str: Dump. If you need a weapon for somereason, use a ranged weapon or a finesse weapon.

Dex: AC and Reflex saves.

Con: Hit points and Con saves.

Int: I wouldn’t dump Intelligence, butdon’t invest in it too heavily since all you get are skills.

Wis: Perception and Will saves.

Cha: Your Key Ability Score.

Battle Mystery

Battle is a difficult mystery. It doesn’t address the Oracle’s terriblecapabilities with weapons, so even if you build yourself to be good withweapons you’re going to struggle. Still, I know people want to play battleoracles.

Str: Battle clerics get heavy armor atlevel 1, so building around heavy armor and Strength is generally the way togo.

Dex: Dump. Once you can get Full Plate, theBulwark trait will replace your Dexterity modifier for Reflex saves.

Con: You need hit points if you’re going towander into melee.

Int: Oracles don’t get many skills, so alittle bit of Intelligence to diversify your skills may be helpful, but Iwouldn’t sacrifice anything else you care about to get more intelligence.Battle clerics are too MAD to make that a good choice.

Wis: Perception and Will saves. Oraclesare terrible at both, so you need Wisdom to compensate.

Cha: You are still primarily a spellcaster,and your ability scores should reflect that.

Ancestries

Because the Oracle is a Charisma-based spellcaster, innate spellcasting canbe a very effective option. Consider ancestries like the Gnome and the Koboldwhich offer access to innate spells. Just keep in mind that your proficiencyonly advances in Divine spells unless you take archetype feats which advanceyour proficiency with other spellcasting traditions.

Catfolk^APG: The Ability Boosts line up perfectly, but the Catfolk’s Ancestry Featsdon’t do anything that’s specifically useful for the Oracle.

Dwarf^CRB: A Charisma Flaw, and the Dwarf’s Ancestry Feats generally support doingthings that the Oracle shouldn’t do like trying to be a Defender.

Elf^CRB: Though they are incredibly frail, the Elf makes a decent oracle. The boostswork fine, and if you’re fine staying behind your allies the low hp andConstitution Flaw are manageable. Ancestral Linguistics and the OtherworldlyMagic feat chain are great choices for Ancestry Feats, though the Elf’s InnateSpellcasting feats are all Arcane, so you’ll want to stick to utility optionsunless you can advance your proficiency with arcane spells somehow.

Gnome^CRB: Perfect boosts and flaws for the Oracle, and much more durable than theElf. The Gnome offers numerous options for innate spellcasting, includingpotentially Divine spells, and you get access to a Familiar with the AnimalAccomplice feat. The Gnome is a great option all around to lean into theOracle’s core function as a spellcaster.

Goblin^CRB: Perfect boosts, but the Goblin’s Ancestry Feats don’t offer as manyappealing options as the Elf or the Gnome. Goblin Song is an obvious choice,but there aren’t many other feat options that appeal to the Oracle, so expectto take Adopted Ancestry.

Halfling^CRB: Good boosts/flaws, but no Ancestry Feats which directly complement theOracle. The Halfling Luck feat chain is always good, but it’s no better forthe Oracle than for anyone else. Cultural Adaptability is a great option toget Goblin Song if you don’t want to take Adopted Ancestry.

Human^CRB: An easy choice for a wide variety of builds. If you don’t want much fromyour Ancestry, options like Versatile Heritage and Natural Ambition make iteasy to get the most out of other parts of your build.

Kobold^APG: Boosts/flaws and ancestry hp which match the Elf and several interestingoptions from both the Heritage options and from the Kobold’s Ancestry Feats.Spells are an option, and the Kobold Breath feat offers a great offensiveoption if you don’t want to rely exclusively on spells. Options like Cringeand Grovel offer other interesting options with low Action costs that can letyou expand your impact far beyond what you can do with spells.

Orc^APG: Bad ability boosts, and the Orc’s Ancestry Feats are almost all about beingin melee combat.

Ratfolk^APG: Good boosts/flaws, but the Ratfolk’s Ancestry Feats do absolutely nothinguseful for the Oracle.

Tengu^APG: Workable boosts and now flaws, but Squawk is the only feat which looksappealing. Unless you really like the Tengu’s Ancestry Feats independent ofyour class, there’s little to be gained here.

Backgrounds

You want a boost to Charisma and typically to Constitution (battle oracles might want something different). Also look for skill feats which suit your role within the party. Feats for the Medicine skill and for Face skills are great choices.

If you’re having trouble deciding, here are some suggestions:

Bandit
Cultist
Pilgrim

Skills and Skill Feats

You get Skill Increases at 3rd and 5th level to raise skills to Expert, increases at 7th, 9th, 11th, and 13th level to raise skills to Master, and increases at 15th, 17th, and 19th level to raise skills to Legendary. That means that you can maximize at most three skills, and the rest of your skills might not advance beyond Trained.

You get Skill Feats at even-numbered levels, giving you a total of 10 Skill Feats (and maybe another from your Background) by 20th level. Generally, you want to invest these feats in the same skills which you are choosing to maximize, though in some cases you may want to grab feats from skills which don’t require that you be more than Trained.

Acrobatics (Dex): Surprisingly importantbecause it’s used for maneuvering while flying.
- Cat Fall: Being knocked prone whileflying is an easy way to counter flying creatures, and enemies can do itjust as easily to you as you can do it to them. Cat Fall will reduce theeffective distance you’ve fallen, allowing you to take less damage froma fall. However, the effects of Cat Fall scale based on your Proficiencylevel, so it may not be worth the skill feat unless you plan to increaseyour proficiency in Acrobatics.
Arcana (Int): A helpful knowledge skill,but going past Trained may be hard to justify without the Intelligence toback it up.
- Arcane Sense: Getting Detect Magicas a regular cantrip will be both easier and more effective. If you’rehaving trouble fitting Detect Magic into your 5 cantrips, considergetting more as innate spells from your Ancestry or take the CantripExpansion class feat.
Athletics (Str): You have little use forAthletics. Most problems which you might be forced to solved with Athleticscan be solved with spells. Battle clerics might find it more useful sincethey’re typically stomping around in heavy armor.
Crafting (Int): You don’t have theIntelligence to thrive with Crafting, and you won’t depend enough on itemsthat require repair to make Crafting necessary.
Deception (Cha): An essential Face skill.
- Lie to Me^CRB: The Oracle’s Perception progression is bad, so Lie to Me will makeyou much harder to lie to.
Deception (Cha): An essential Face skill.
- Lie to Me^CRB: The Sorcerer’s Perception progression is bad, so Lie to Me will makeyou much harder to lie to.
Diplomacy (Cha): The king of Faceskills.
Intimidation (Cha): An important Faceskill, and Demoralize is very appealing in combat as a use for an extraAction right before you hit a target with a 2-Action spell.
- Battlecry: Demoralize for free whencombat starts. It might not be a good option if you’re hiding, butotherwise it’s a free debuff at the beginning of every fight.
- Intimidating Glare^CRB: A frustratingly large number of enemies won’t understand Common, soremoving the Auditory trait makes Demoralize much easier to use.
- Terrified Retreat: Counting on acritical success is hard, but if your Charisma is very high it mightwork.
- Scare to Death: Spend one Action topick out the creature in the room the lowest Will save and kill them orsend them fleeing. Repeat until the room is cleared. At this point youonly need weapons for things that are strong enough to threaten yourwhole party on their own, and even then this can still replace theDemoralize action almost entirely.
Lore (Int): Lore skills are too vague andtoo numerous, and you likely don’t have enough skills to throw about tojustify going beyond Trained.
Medicine (Wis): You don’t have the Wisdomto make Medicine appealing, and you don’t have the abundance of skills tomake it effective. If you need healing, you’ll need to do it magically.Someone in your party should be good at Medicine, but it likely shouldn’t beyou.
Nature (Wis): A helpful knowledge skill,but going past Trained may be hard to justify without the Wisdom to back itup.
Occultism (Int): A helpful knowledgeskill, but going past Trained may be hard to justify without theIntelligence to back it up.
Performance (Cha): Too situational.
Religion (Wis): A helpful knowledgeskill, but going past Trained may be hard to justify without the Wisdom toback it up.
Society (Int): A helpful knowledgeskill, but going past Trained may be hard to justify without theIntelligence to back it up.
Stealth (Dex): The Oracle isn’t built tobe a Scout, but using Stealth can keep attention away from you and yoursmall pool of hit points, and with poor Perception you may find that Stealthis a better option for Initiative.
Survival (Wis): Too situational.
Thievery (Dex): Solve these problems withmagic, or leave it to someone who focuses on Dexterity.

Feats

Oracle Feats

1st Level

Glean Lore^APG: This is worse than a Religion check with the Dubious Knowledge skillfeat. You get the effect of a failed Recall Knowledge check with DubiousKnowledge when you roll a Success with Glean Lore using the same skillmodifier. I don’t understand why this feat exists.
Reach Spell^APG: Great for spells with Touch range or cone AOE’s.
Widen Spell^APG: Essential for blasters. Even a minor boost could mean one or twoadditional targets with a single spell, which can dramatically improve howmuch you get out of your spell slots.

2nd Level

Cantrip Expansion^APG: You only get 5 cantrips, and at low levels that’s not a lot of optionswhen you only have a few spell slots to throw around. At higher levels youmight retrain this when you’ve got more leveled spells to rely on.
Divine Aegis^APG: Too situational and not effective enough. It affects 75% of magiceffects, but only has a 10% chance of effecting your degree of success,which means that even though it’s only situationally useful, it only has a7.5% chance of having any positive effect. On top of that, there’s a chancethat it will actually hurt you.
Domain Acumen^APG: Most mysteries don’t have a second domain with a domain spell good enoughto justify this feat, and even if you do want more domain spells it’s oftensafer to take multiclass feats so that you have something that’s notCursebound.

4th Level

Bespell Weapon^APG: Probably intended for battle mystery oracles so that you can cast aspell, use Bespell Weapon, then make one Strike in the same turn. It’s aneat idea, but it doesn’t solve the issue of the Oracle’s awful weaponproficienct progression, and the 1d6 bonus damage doesn’t scale so as yougain levels it becomes gradually less useful.
Divine Access^APG: Varies wildly in usefulness depending on your mystery and the associateddomains, but since most domains are available to multiple deities, you havea wide selection of spells to choose from. See myCleric Domains Breakdown for help finding a spell list thathas appealing options.
Vision of Weakness^APG: Much faster than using repeated Recall Knowledge checks, plus you don’tneed to invest heavily in knowledge skills to make it work. It isCursebound, which is a problem, but it works in literally every encounter,which can’t be said for most focus spells. The attack bonus is decent, too,and if nothing else there are several cantrips which use attack rolls.

6th Level

Advanced Revelation^APG: Basically the default feat at this level, but the effectiveness will varydepending on your mystery. Keep in mind that you still only regain one FocusPoint when you Refocus. Keep in mind that you don’t need this feat toqualify for Greater Revelation, so if you want to skip your mystery’sadvanced spell that’s totally fine.
Spiritual Sense^APG: Situational by design. If Haunts are going to feature prominently in yourgame, if you expect to face a lot of spirits, or if your GM likes to haveshadows attack you through walls and floors, this may be worth the feat.
Steady Spellcasting^APG: The Flat Check is too difficult to make this feat an easy choice. Youhave a success rate of just 30%. If you’re in a situation where you mightlose a spell, cast a cantrip so that losing it won’t cost you anything.

8th Level

Debilitating Dichotomy^APG: I love the concept, but damaging yourself can be a huge cost.The Oracle gets the best Will save progressionin the game and you automatically get one degree of success betterthan you roll, which tips things in your favor quite a bit. Even so, make sure that youhave decent Wisdom and item bonuses to buff your Will save or you mayfind that you’re hurting yourself more than your target.If you’re confident that you won’t be drawing a lot of attacks inyour current encounter, this could be a quick way to end a fightwhile spending minimal resources, but weigh the cost carefullybefore using this rather than using it at the beginning of everyencounter.
Read Disaster^APG: I love Augury. It’s one of my favorite spells. Even if you remove “Weal”as an option (that’s the one that means good things), you can still use topredict and avoid bad outcomes. This has no cost except time, so it’s agreat option when allies are doing things between combat like using Medicineto heal or using Craft to repair their equipment. Just don’t annoy yourparty by constantly stopping to spend ten minutes to use this every time youwalk aorund a corner.

10th Level

Oracular Warning^APG: Casters are most effective when they go early in combat, and the Oracle’sPerception progression is already horrible, so if you use this you arecomfortable with the idea that you’re going to go very late in theinitiative order. Use this on allied spellcasters or allies who rely onenemies being Flat-Footed so that their first turn is more impactful.
Quickened Casting^APG: Even though it’s only once per day, this is still really good. Mostspells have a 2-Action casting time, so getting two spells out in a singleturn means that you’re doing the most important part of two turns in asingle turn.
Surging Might^APG: Situational by design, but a helpful option for the divine spell list,wich disproportionately relies on these damage types. Usually you can switchspells to get around resistances, but for creatures with multipleresistances this can be helpful.

12th Level

Domain Fluency^APG: This varies wildly by domain, but many domains have excellent advancedspells. See my Cleric Domains Breakdown for help selectingdomains and domain spells.
Greater Revelation^APG: It probably seems odd that this gives you another Focus Point sinceoracles start with 2 and Advanced Revelation gives you another, but that’sbecause Greater Revelation does not require Advanced Revelation. Beyond thatmechanical oddity, this feat will vary in effectiveness depending on yourmystery, but it’s typically very good.
Magic Sense^APG: Situational. In most situations, you can rely on casting Detect Magicnormally. It’s a cantrip..

14th Level

Forestall Curse^APG: Not good enough for it to only work once per day and be such a highlevel.
Mysterious Repertoire^APG: More versatility is excellent. You could even make this spell a SignatureSpell. Look for staple options from other spell lists which scale well withspell level. If you’re short on ideas, Fireball is a solid choice.

16th Level

Diverse Mystery^APG: You probably have plenty of focus spells already, but many mysteries haveexcellent spell options which would complement your existingcapabilities.
Portentous Spell^APG: Making targets Fascinated by you forces them to focus their attention onyou instead of your allies, which is helpful for your allies but verydangerous for you since the Oracle isn’t especially durable.

18th Level

Blaze of Revelation^APG: At this level, your Fortitude save is +22 from proficiency, plus yourConstitution modifier, plus an item bonus from your armor (hopefully +3 bynow). Let’s say that you’ve raised your Constitution to 18, giving us atotal modifier of +31. That means that you only roll a Critical Failure on anatural 1. If you can somehow raise your modifier by another +8, you can’tdie from the save at the end of this. If you can, look for ways to get areroll on the save.
With the 5% chance of immediate death in mind, this is really powerful.Spamming your best revelation spell every turn can do a ton of greatthings, but of course the usefulness depends on your mystery. If yourspells are good in combat, this is great. If they’re situational utilityspells, maybe not.
Divine Effusion^APG: Effectively one additional 9th-level spell slot and one additional8th-level spell slot. Remember that 10th-level spell slots use differentrules, so you can only get an extra from a feat that specifically does it.Even so, two high-level spell slots is a ton of extra power.

20th Level

Mystery Conduit^APG: Forget about your revelation spells. Just ignore them. Run your curse upuntil you’re Overwhelmed. As long as your curse’s highest tier isn’tcrippling (many of them are mildly helpful and only mildly annoying), thisis effectively infinite spells of 5th level and below. Spam 1-Action spellslike 5th-level Harm or Heal three times in a turn. Flame Strike everyproblem.
Being Overwhelmed removes your ability to cast revelation spells, butthere’s no other drawback, which I don’t think Paizo intended when theywrote this feat. As a GM I would rule that you can’t use this feat whileOverwhelmed, but even with that limitation I would rate thisblue because you still get three or fourspells before you hit Overwhelmed, and outside of combat you can Refocusfor 10 minutes and get three more free spells.
Oracular Providence^APG: Casting 10th-level spells is probably the cooles thing that you will everdo, but even so you should consider Mystery Conduit for just how unfairlypowerful it is.
Paradoxical Mystery^APG: A great concept, but by this level you have had plenty of opportunitiesto pick up domain and revelation spells from other feat.

General Feats

Armor Proficiency^CRB: The Oracle’s armor proficiencies are terrible. The Battle Mystery getsheavy armor, but every other Oracle is stuck in light armor and you don’tadvance your armor proficiency until level 13. One or two feats to improveyour armor options will net you +2 AC for each feat (though medium armorwill only match light armor once you hit level 13).
Shield Block^CRB: A helpful defensive option, but if you’re drawing enough fire that you’reusing it consistently you may need to reconsider your tactics.
Toughness^CRB: 8+ hit points isn’t a lot, and more will help keep you alive to keep yourallies alive.

Weapons

Every Oracle is terrible with weapons, including the Battle Mystery. Castspells instead.

Armor

Studded Leather^CRB: Likely your permanent armor unless you go for Battle Mystery, in whichcase just take the heaviest armor you can get.

Archetypes

Bard: Charisma-based spellcasting. Not asversatile as the Sorcerer, but still a decent choice if you need to expandbeyond the Divine Spell List.
Sorcerer: Charisma-based and access to anyspell list, the Sorcerer offers an easy way to add additionalspellcasting.

Oracle Handbook: PF2 Class Guide – RPGBOT (2024)