Oracle as a melee fighter?

[Ixis]

On the Paizo boards someone started working on an Oracle class guide and he made frequent mention to using an Oracle like a melee fighter. This is interesting as I'm a fan of gish-types and healing spells on top of that seems fun.

A friend will be running a game soon, which is exciting because I've been hurting to play the Magus class for months and months, but the lack of out of combat utility and skills has me iffy. The Oracle, on the other hand, seems to have enough fun fluff and combat versatility to make it a stronger choice (on the other hand, the Magus' insane amount of critical hits is just as good.)

So, three-ish questions:
- Do melee Oracles work out well?
- Do Magus' have options outside of combat?
- Would a Magus multiclassing into Oracle (three levels, double-curse, fortune and maybe the Time mystery) taking tongues and maybe haunted on the Oracle archetype side, and Black Blade on the Magus side work out, or is this now waaaay too MAD? I'm thinking Dervish Dance so I only need to worry about Dex and a little Con, with Int as the highest and Cha around Dex/Con (Wis 10-ish maybe and Str 7.) I'm going to assume my friend will be running a 20-pt buy game.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

- It can work, but Cleric is better for it, IMO. It works best by far with the Battle mystery, for obvious reasons, though Earth is decent for a bull rusher if you want a niche build.

- Probably? They have good skill points due to int-focus and have arcane spellcasting. Even if most of it is combat-based, they've GOT to be better at noncombat situations that warrior classes at least, just by default...

- Multiclassing is very weak in PF, and multiclassing spellcasters is especially weak. And yes, it'd make you MAD. Even if you got finesse and dervish dance (which also starve you badly for feats), you'll still need some strength just to wear your armor w/o encumbrance. You can still do the multiclass, of course, it wouldn't be THAT bad... One other thing...Haunted is super-penalizing. If you're going full Oracle the benefits, which are basically all additions to the ORACLE spell list, is totally worth it. If you're just doing a few levels in oracle, it is absolutely not worth the downsides.

If you're doing dual-cursed, also, you want the MISfortune revelation for sure. Fortune's ok, but you can get by without it. Read misfortune carefully. It makes the creature take the 2nd roll, not the worst of the 2 rolls. That means...it can function on allies (which, as bardic music specifies, you ARE your own ally) like fortune! Use it when they roll a 1, and bam! Chances are they end up with a better result. IMO, misfortune is the only thing that makes dual-cursed worth it at all; everything else about the archetype sucks.

If you're not going straight oracle, the least penalizing curses are Tongues and Lame. You should take those and choose Lame for the advancement if doing dual-cursed oracle.

I do like Time mystery, though, it and Battle are my favorites.

 

[paradox42]

I've seen Battle Oracle in play, and it's a beast and a half. Out-damaged the single-classed Fighter in the same party easily, at levels 8-10. And interestingly enough, he too was using the Haunted curse- his init modifier was -4, so he usually went last, but MAN OH MAN did he hit hard when he got the chance.

By my estimation, the Battle Oracle is a superior choice to Cleric for trying to make and out-and-out battle priest in the vein of the CoDZilla you could do in 3.X. I've heard that Metal Oracle is also very good for melee, and a brief examination of the Revelations and spells available to it (hel-LO, Lead Blades and Versatile Weapon!) suggests that it could be, but haven't actually seen one played so can't speak from personal experience there.

As for Magus, the same player who played the Battle Oracle I mentioned above is now playing a Magus in a different (currently 11th-level) party, and although he does well enough, the Inquisitor in the same group generally "tanks" better than the Magus does. I'd echo SotS and say, don't multiclass- if you want to do Oracle, go single-class Oracle.