What about the idea which at first looks pretty cool but end-up at worst not bringing anything to the game at worst being boring to play ?
What about the idea which at first looks pretty cool but end-up at worst not bringing anything to the game at worst being boring to play ?
Another thing that makes Oracle / Seer / Diviner characters difficult to GM for is that you need to know things in advance, where the adventure leads to etc. As one whose GMing style leans heavily into Play To Find Out that sort of characters is kind of counter to it.
That said it is highly dependent of what the player want out of such an archetype. If it is a flavour for how the character solves problems I’m all for that. Touching an item to get a vision/impression for something (adventure) related to it go ahead. That is not too different to other ways of investigating. But the player who wants those powers to get “quest markers” or to completely negate obstacles (“hurr durr I have foresight so I’ve seen the ambush”) gets hard noes from me.
Also agreeing with @dumples@kbin.social, D&D 5e Divination wizards are very well made and the divination spells work well in those kind of worlds.
@tissek
GM: You approach a small cave. It’s hard to see inside but there are signs that it might be occupied. The path continues past into a thick forest.
Oracle: I roll for divination.
(rolls 20)
GM: You see a darkened sky and lightning flashes. A bird is flying South, following a small river. A snake is singing in a tree. Good luck.
Oracle: Da fuk?
@Knitwear @dumples
Of course, if you know you have a seer in your party, you can plan ahead and come up with some prepared scenes. They don’t neccesarily have to be predicated on what’s going on near the players either; they could, for example, foresee the bbeg tormenting his captives - get some flavor about how evil he is, maybe some plot-relevant information to use later, but it doesn’t actually depend on which level of the dungeon they’re on or whatever. Obviously, this depends on the details of exactly what spells they’re using and in what system.