D&D 5E Divine Oracle: how can I create a character like this?

[Strider1973]

Hi everybody and merry Christmas!
I'd like to create in D&D 5 a divine oracle, not necessarily similar to the Pathfinder's same class concept, but basically a cleric, or a divine oriented character, with the gift to see things in the past and most of all to foresee to a limited extent the future: how can I do this in D&D 5?
I was thinking of:
1) Creating a mage with the Acolyte or the Eremit Background and the Divination Arcane Tradition
2) Creating a cleric with the Knowledge Divine Domain and then multiclassing to a mage with the Divination Arcane Tradition
What do you think or suggest?
Many thanks, happy life abd happy gaming, and Merry Xmas again!

 

[pukunui]

I was going to suggest either of those.

 

[Unwise]

Don't forget the Lucky feat, you can see the future after all.

I think that RAW you are on the right track, either of those suggestions would work.

What about a Background option that let you read omens, it gives you vague hints about the coming day. Making new background options is pretty easy and normal. It can't be unbalanced, because the DM determines if the divination says anything and how vague it is if it does. They can just make it be useful as often as other people's abilities.

As a DM this is the sort of thing I would be happy to homebrew something for, maybe look at the cleric features you don't think are necessary for the character and consider swapping them out for some the Divination Arcane Tradition ones. The issue there is that they happen to be some of the most powerful class abilities.

<edit> What about a Bard for Inspiration? Inspiration is a pretty good way of reflecting the fact that you have given your companions vague hints about the coming day. Also, in 4e and maybe before, Bard's had a college devoted to divination, so it is a good source for homebrew.

 

[AtomicPope]

Hi everybody and merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you too!

Oracle and Inquisitor were my two favorite classes from Mathfinder. The Oracle can be built in 5e once you understand what you want out of the class. I might suggest taking another route. Rather than looking at Clerics and Wizards, maybe you should be looking at Bards.

The Bard as a class has unique features that could mimic the Oracle:
1) A mix of divine and arcane
2) The ability to change luck
3) Some healing and some offense
4) Flexibility in skill choices
5) Curses and Charms

Remember, there's LOTS of different Oracles to choose from. A Bard can approach the Oracle archetypes by choosing skills, expertise, magical secrets and the college. The College of Lore might be better suited since you can use your reaction (as Cutting Words but you can rename it) to apply a negative modifier to your opponent's rolls. This frees up your bonus action for spells or more Bardic Inspiration (positive dice modifiers for allies).

The Bard's Inspiration ability could be an Oracle Curse - you can only see and change the fates of others, but never your own (a fluff rewording for Bardic Inspiration since you can't affect yourself). Another way to look at it: you can see everyone else's future but your own.

As a Bard, you wouldn't have to Multiclass but I'd probably do it anyway. Just pick up a few levels of Wizard for the Divination class feature and use your Spellbook for defensive spells like Shield and Mirror Image. That way you don't need a high Int, just the bare minimum 13 for Multiclassing.

 

[pukunui]

[MENTION=64790]AtomicPope[/MENTION]: That's quite an elegant solution too!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You could also blend Chaos Sorcerer with (presumably Lore) Bard, which would give a wide variety of spells and allow some otherwise-impossible tweaks of fate, good OR bad. If you start with the Acolyte background, and maybe go variant Human to pick up Lucky (or Magic Initiate--Cleric, Bless--though this is mostly if you don't expect to reach high level*), you'll have a buttload of little ways to tweak combat stuff, and still have the religious association. This also has the advantage of keeping your casting stat the same for both classes (Cha). Unfortunately, Bend Luck comes a lot later than I thought it did--Sorcerer 6--so it might be too much investment to be truly worthwhile.

*If you expect to reach at least level 6 of Bard, it's much more efficient to instead choose Bless as one of your Lore Bard bonus Magical Secrets. In fact, if you mostly select Cleric spells with your Secrets, Lore Bard by itself is almost kinda-sorta like MCing Cleric, but you get all 9 levels of spells!

 

[Unwise]

The leadership feat that gives the THP could be useful to reflect the oracle pre-warning everybody about what dangers are coming up next. It is better with high Cha so would suit a bard well.

 

[jrowland]

My 2cp:

I tossed around something similar with a Cleric build with the "Fate" domain. If you lined up the domains level by level you see a pretty consistent pattern, so its easy enough to write a new domain. For A fate/luck domain, I'd co-opt the Diviner "portent" ability as good first start and/or a class feature that resembles the "lucky feat". Domain spells would be buffs/debuffs like bane/bless or perhaps even some spells with a casting time of reaction like Shield, or hellish rebuke (ie you saw it coming).

I think that would be the best approach, since Divine Oracles are divine casters so the spell list fits

 

[hejtmane]

Hey you forgot to add Halfling

Halfing Lucky + Wizard Divination Arcane + Luck feat is the luckiest person alive