I have never seen any game ever made in which some segment of the population didn't complain loudly and emphatically that some aspect / class was "overpowered". Usually while simultaneously insisting that their own pet class should receive outrageous buffs.
Rouges are overpowdered.
And by this I mean that people get too caught up in their own desires and forget to enjoy the experience for what it is. Only you can decide to enjoy your experiences. It does not really matter what the state of the game is.
Unless the game can accurately simulate the functionality of garments, we'll continue to see "tools" designed with visual aesthetic as foremost priority.
What I mean is that the medium is purely non-physical and there aren't any real reasons to design armors as anything but costume. You could give the same stats to a sandwich board as full plate. Players have no in-game motivation to care about the real-world efficacy of their armor.
It's the strangest thing. On the body of each victim is a note containing a single non-word:
"Nihimon'd".
God willing, we'll be able to manufacture in-game post-its and write notes on them...
Bluddwolf wrote:
This is very short sighted, just think of how much rum and ale we will drink in your taverns, in celebration of another successful day of banditry.
Who owns the tavern after it's been taken over by the bandits?
I fail to see how I can profit by this.
Unless we postulate a purely fictional old maid pining the day away in a lonely kitchen, dreaming of molestation by a horde of roaming rascals who, upon seizure of the lodging, make good their lusty inclinations.
Purely fictional, mind you.
Willing to bet GW is planning a rather less... blue-lit gaming experience, though.
First described in one of Jack Vance novel and then adopted by D&D - that's system of spell slots and spell levels. No contingent mana pools, fixed spell stats etc.
More specifically, the concept of spells as "grenades" or "packets" which are prepared and then expended as if they were some sort of item or object or consumable ammunition. It feels like the wizard is irrelevant. As if the wizard is just a stupid ape who can call lightning and summon devils without doing anything that couldn't be done purely accidentally. It takes away the special-ness of the character.
It's excruciatingly counter-intuitive to me. Contrasts sharply with "mana" based systems or, really, any system which tries to depict "energies" in a sort of quasi-thermodynamic manner. I wonder if it's because the former seems so alien and the latter resembles the real universe so much more? Regardless, psionics and other systems manage to portray characters as being "special" and "powerful" in some way, in their own right, rather than just dumb pipes. And characters are appealing to me in a way that dumb pipes ... aren't.
Bluddwolf wrote:
There is nothing like the rush you get by playing a scoundrel. Pirate, thief, rogue, smuggler, just about any profession that is a bit on the seedier side of life, but always rooted in the belief that it is all in the cause of being free.
I primarily played thieves, during my earliest days of PnP D&D as well. There is just something I've always liked about being sneaky and mischievious, and greedy!
In MMOs the added potential for PVP, when you steal from another player, just jacks up the thrill to new heights.
I wonder if there's something about the concept of a "class system" which is deeply connected with the human condition? I've observed that players do tend to identify much more strongly with a specific character class or archetype than any other. Jung eat your heart out.
Agree the danger of eg heal-bot for one char in a dungeon might cause problems because it's least popular etc if mandatory.
Requiring specific player abilities (like cold spells or polymorph) to progress is bad. What if you can't find someone with that ability to join your party? Sorry! You can't do this dungeon!
In general, "you must be this tall to ride this ride" takes decision-making away from players -- and that's the definition of bad game design. You want to allow players' decisions to be what drives action, you want their decisions to be what decides success or failure, you want players to feel that sense of agency. If the "game" is simply a matter of having the correct combination of abilities available in the party, then it's not a game. It's an obfuscated novel.
Now, the way to go about, for example, dungeon design in a way that is healthy and good, is to reward players to varying degrees based on how closely aligned their gameplay decisions are with what you (the designer) intended as healthy for your game (multiplayer games have to deal with a radically different set of "healthy behavior" than single-player games, and MMOs are really just super-scale multiplayer games. There isn't a difference of kind between them in this sense).
This is in sharp contrast to the aforementioned philosophy of putting insurmountable "road blocks" in the way of a player party that can only be unlocked with a boolean comparison to their range of abilities. That is, "Do you have X skill? Yes? Then you can go. No? Then leave, you can't get past this point".
For example, maybe you did put a lever behind that wall, and the Druid could Wild Shape into a rat to run through and trigger it, but the mage could also cast Far Hand to do the same thing. This is a much better way to design the scene -- though still not too far in the "everyone can do everything" direction. Ideally, you'd want as wide a range of "viable" or "possible" parties as you can get so that you can have a reward available for any given set of players who wants to engage with your game.
After all, what are players playing your game for if they can't succeed at it? Players want and expect to succeed based on their own agency, and it's up to the game designer to satisfy that desire within the framework of the game systems he's designing.
Give the warriors some cold-enchanted weapons so that the party doesn't absolutely have to have a mage along. Maybe your artistic license wants mages to make that part of the dungeon much easier -- and that's fine. But this has to be recognized as "magnitude" rather than "kind". That is, a mage would be nice to have along, and the majority of wise adventuring parties will seek to diversify their "repertoire" as a group, but a mage should not be required. See?
At the table, magical healing is far from necessary -- it's definitely nice to have, but healing is not the only thing a Cleric can do, and a Cleric that restricts himself only to performing the tasks of healing is a waste of space on your party roster. At the table, a shrewd and resourceful adventuring party is made up of adventurers who are at least able to take care of themselves if they have to. Will they function better as a group? Of course! But they aren't absolutely helpless if (gods forbid!!) they're split up. Of course, at the table, there's a great deal of freedom in character design -- and the misconceptions of players and the DM alike can lead to situations that would be capital B bad for someone's experience.
Video games are necessarily more rigidly defined experiences. There is little or no opportunity for human intervention (or "fudging") to remedy an unforeseen situation that would be unsatisfying for players.
No video game that we can realistically design and publish right now will ever hit the shelves in a state of perfect ideal game design. But GW should seek to minimize the extent to which a player feels incapable of accomplishing whatever he so desires within the framework of PFO's systems. The degree of success a player finds within PFO should be very much decided by that player's strategic and tactical decisions.
But players shouldn't be punished without regard to what decisions they make. Weak success or lack of success is already perceived by players as "punishment", and serves as motivation and feedback for their future decisions.
What I mean is that a player shouldn't feel jealous of someone who made different decisions. Not quantitatively better decisions, just qualitatively different ones.
Mages shouldn't feel hobbled with arbitrarily complicated and restrictive resource management that they don't see anyone else having to deal with. Warriors shouldn't feel useless by comparison to the Masters-Of-All spellbook-wielders because they were only given the ability to swing a sword. Priests shouldn't feel as though doing anything besides healing is a waste of their resources. Sneakers shouldn't feel obsoleted by any of the others.
Rock-Paper-Scissors is very difficult to balance, and is -- by definition -- always imbalanced from the perspective of an individual player. All RPS-based systems' main design challenge is to minimize the frustration that individual players feel since they are in a constant state of fundamentally unsatisfying gameplay.
In Rock Paper Scissors, the system as a whole is balanced. And this is fine for games in which the player controls a complete system of rocks, papers and scissors (like strategy games). That is, the players are all equivalent to each other, and the game is about their decision-making in how to utilize their rock/paper/scissor units.
But in an MMOrpg where each player has to choose whether they will be a Rock, a Paper or a Scissor for the rest of the game... That player's decision doesn't matter, even if the game as a whole is perfectly balanced, it's still absolutely terrible game design. Rocks will always win over Scissors, and they'll always lose to Paper. The Rock's decisions are meaningless. It isn't a game.
Developers often misunderstand this key concept since they are considering the entire game as a whole more often than they are considering the experience from an individual's point of view. World of Warcraft is a famous example which ran into huge problems, and most (all?) MOBAs are the embodiment of this bad design.
PvE games have a different version of this conundrum based around players being jealous of someone else's performance. PvP games, though, bring this problem into very sharp focus as the relationship between one's self and any other player is immediately obvious with either implacable defeat or easy victory.
GW necessarily must avoid a design which makes each player into what's known as a Poor Predictable Rock. Being specialized within a group's dynamics does not have to mean that you're playing a "PPR", but that's often what does hit the store shelves because developers are lazy, incompetent, poorly funded, rushed or all the above.
The slower, turn based (6 seconds), action that GW is planning for PFO is by far one if the more innovative ideas I have heard in an MMO for quite some time.
Innovative??
EQ1 used "ticks" and NWN1 and 2 used rounds of 6 seconds as well... Lots of games use segmented time systems, in fact. I suspect that PFO's time system will resemble Wakfu under the hood and will play like EQ1.
Don't confuse utility slots with utility spells. If your spellbook has several utility spells in it, when you activate the spellbook those will replace weapon slots.
What could go in those utility slots that aren't spells? Do you mean "spell-like abilities" as in the case of the Paladin's Detect Evil which I think was the example given?
Quote:
Refresh Slots
Most combat abilities that are not tied to weapons are Refresh abilities, and they're placed in slots 7–10. These are things like spells, rage abilities, etc. If a character has a spellbook equipped, it can go into one of these slots; activating the spellbook turns all weapon slots into spell slots determined by the spellbook. Wizards will have to find and equip different spellbooks to get access to different spells, with some books being more valuable or rare than others.
This is also worrisome. Essentially the only benefit of playing a spellcaster -- their versatility -- is being reduced to just a gimmicky, often ranged, weapon. Nothing infuriates me more than highly limited "spellbooks" in a game. Oh, look, I can choose between three different palettes for my "do damage" spell. It comes in electric or icy blue and just plain red. How exciting!
I remember when spells could do things, important things, besides just dealing damage. And I'm definitely on the edge of flat out refusing to play any RPGs that don't offer utility powers. I can play Quake3Live if I want some "point weapon, deal damage" gameplay. RPGs are not shooters. And I deeply resent the trend of various shallow dev corps hijacking the term "RPG" just to steal my money with what amounts to nothing more than a bait and switch.
Here's hoping the "utility slots" can be used for things like a Hooded Lantern in your off hand, or a bag of caltrops or of course a grappling hook.
Nihimon wrote:
Aunt Tony wrote:
... looks like I won't be playing PFO.
I'm skeptical of that :)
I am half joking, but half not. PFO is still very early in the design / development phase of production, and there's good ideas being claimed for it.
But there's also bad ones.
Nihimon wrote:
I was not thrilled with this decision either. It's much too far toward the "video game" end of the "video game / simulation" spectrum for my tastes.
Exactly. I question how sandboxy a game can be when focused almost exclusively on combat and item crafting. EVE is not really a sandbox at all. And this worries me a great deal indeed.
Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition was released not long ago... And supporting Overhaul makes it much more likely they'll be able to secure the rights to and then update Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment...
We're in the middle of quite an agonizing lack of RPGs at the moment. The industry as a whole is in a "race to the bottom" to provide the most widely-appealing experience. Which means bland and empty stories, mind-numbing push-button-get-bacon gameplay, and obnoxious, overproduced eye-candy.
And hyphens. Lots of hyphens.
Bluddwolf wrote:
It is like the world has too much color or perhaps it is just too cartoony for me.
Overproduced. Too much effort wasted on graphics, almost nothing spent on game design and gameplay (two different things). GW2 is the victim of a larger trend in the industry driven by risk-averse publishers seeking the largest market possible. Money.
Contrast this with works of Art which are created to make something enduring and meaningful.
Such games are still made today, don't get me wrong, but such games are not MMOs lately.
PFO Isn't a theme park and it isn't a MOBA. what it is a fantasy sandbox with a strong PVP element. It's fantasy eve but without the social commentary that CCP has used as a reason to allow the rampant griefing that is in Eve.
The impression I get from other EVE players is that most of them migrate to EVE precisely because CCP allows the behavior you would call "griefing".
Griefing is only "a thing" in MMOs with a population that has a false sense of security and an unenforceable sense of etiquette. So the term just doesn't apply to EVE. EVE players know that it's all PvP all the time and that the economy is "fair game" since... the economy is the game.
Griefing is what happens when so-called "carebears" (a derogatory term, I believe) are forced to share a world with PvPers while under the impression that environment (the game) is "supposed to be for 'them'" (the carebears).
If that makes any sense at all. Good lord, these antihistamines are nuts.
Sometimes they don't want to take the time to figure out the rule because the on the fly method is faster and every one is still having fun.
And what if your enjoyment of the game is ruined because the GM is abusing his fiat?
karkon wrote:
As a rules lawyer myself I have learned to keep my mouth shut unless the DM is being consistently unfair in his rulings.
You should instead learn to find a better gaming group. Unless you're one of those poor souls who lives in the boonies and can't find anyone else to play with.
Some people's "fun" hinges in a large part on being rewarded for the effort they've put into understanding the game. How do you suppose it makes such a player feel when their effort is ignored or denigrated in favor of hand waving and arbitrary shortcuts? The point still remains: why buy the books if you won't read them? Why claim that it's a Pathfinder game when, in fact, it's just "let's play pretend according to whatever whim strikes the GM's fancy at any given moment"?
And of course the elephant in the room: arbitrary "on the spot" rulings are almost never good for the health of the game no matter what your attitude is toward the boogeyman of Rules Lawyers.
It's the very stamp of a bad GM to ignore or marginalize the established rules of the system, most especially if there's a player who derives enjoyment from being able to know them. The correct and mature way to handle ignorance is to accept new information as it is found. Not power tripping around, steam rolling the concerns of everyone / anyone else at the table. Ignoring the rules without getting consent from everyone in the group is, in essence, railroading. It removes the players from the game. Every time. I don't tolerate such cavalier abuses of my time and energies. If I want to sit and watch the GM masturbate and blow hot air... Oh wait. I don't want that. I want to play a game called Pathfinder, not "story time with Aunt Tony as captive audience". I don't give free book reviews either. The GM is welcome to compile and publish his own roleplaying game if he would like it to compete as a product, but until then, I'm into playing games. I'm not into watching the GM play make-believe with himself.
A GM worth playing under will say
Quote:
Oh! Thanks for pointing that out for me, I can't possibly remember everything myself and your input as a human being sitting in on this collaborative experience is valued and respected as such.
The GM is poorly named, in my opinion, and always has been.
The GM is not a god. He's not my master, he's not anyone special. He's a member of the group just as the players are. His task is to be the arbitrator and moderator. That's his role in this role-playing game. Nothing more. As Abed says in that one episode of Community, he has to remain objective or the game has no damn meaning.
In my experience, GMs who get uppity are suffering from a few conceits they would be better people without. The GM is not necessarily responsible for the story being collaboratively created. Though it seems many groups are comfortable bestowing a rather unfair portion of this job upon him, the fact is that your game doesn't have to be plot-driven; it can be "sandboxy" or PvP or just one-off combats every time you get together -- and probably more styles I've never heard of. Giving huge amounts of responsibility and power to the GM is just an absurd way to run a game, and unfair all the way around. Unfair for the GM to have to be responsible for so much work, unfair for the players whose input is thereby marginalized, unfair for the people who derive enjoyment from aspects of the experience which are excluded from the table for whatever reason.
"Rules Lawyer" is really just a derogatory term for someone who enjoys playing games and expects them to remain the game they originally anticipated playing. They're a type of gamer. Just like Powergamers. Just like Roleplayers. Just like anyone else.
The thing to do a personality conflict arises at the table is to handle it like adults. And adults don't usually find themselves in high regard in the real world when they exclude, marginalize or denigrate others.
What did you pick as your Patron? Deception can provide you with access to Invisibility (which combines marvelously with Flight -- not only can walkers not melee you, they also can't really shoot at you until you directly target them with a hostile effect. So drop your Webs and spam Fortune with impunity). Shadows provides Deeper Darkness (as well as the Shadow Conj/Evoc family) which is absolutely amazing as a defense against anything because even Darkvision can't pierce it if you can drop the illumination level down to Supernatural Darkness levels. And Trickery provides Mirror Image and later Mislead. Even Winter can provide you with Wall Of Ice, Agility provides Freedom Of Movement (no more grapples!!) and Time gives you Silence and Haste.
Also remember that UMD is a class skill for Witches. Almost all protective spells can be UMD'd as effectively as they could be cast (for the purposes of in-combat defense anyway). Spells like Invisibility (or even just Vanish!), Blur, Protection From <Alignment> and Protection From Arrows can be quite cheap as Potions, but cheaper still as Wands or Scrolls which you should be able to UMD pretty easily even at low levels. A Ring of Invisibility may be expensive and higher level foes will be packing See Invisibility more frequently, so... your call. There's a cloak that provides Blur as long as you're wearing it. Remember that, unlike Displacement, Blur makes you immune to Sneak Attacks.
Even just the Witch list has a few important self buffs. Heroism boosts your saves (morale bonus, so it stacks with Cloak of Resistance), Reduce Person improves your AC (if you're already Small... what happens? ;D), Death Ward is on your spell list, and you can even Shadow Step to outrun chasers.
Mostly though, the Witch is expected/designed... uhh... FORCED to be incredibly offensive in order to stay alive. Pick targets for your SoDs according to which ones threaten YOU. Shooters probably will be your number one enemies of course, but if there's a BSF edging toward you, don't be afraid to take him out. The idea is to drop a battlefield control spell in between you and possible chargers (Solid Fog is great for this! Especially if you have, as someone else mentioned, an item or ability which allows you to ignore the cloud...), and then spam SoDs (probably Slumber unless they're immune) on any hostile target in range. For those who aren't within 30' of you, you should have spells like Blind/Deaf and Feeblemind (medium range) and Sleet Storm (long range) ready to go. There's a very important spell to remember: Spectral Hand. Deliver touch-range spells at range without ever endangering your Familiar or yourself! That would be Bestow Curse, in case you're wondering. But also, you could use it to deliver Cure Wounds (in an emergency) without standing next to the big, muscled boys slinging sharp metal at everyone nearby.
I'm not going to go too far with this, since it leads directly to the standard optimization/roleplay flamewar.
Then why'd you start it?
Look. It's not a secret that there's more than one type of player. To rant and rave about how the game ought to be played is the very exact thing guaranteed to destroy the experience for everyone.
The goal ought to be ensure that everyone enjoys the game -- regardless of what each individual sees as the "goal" of the experience. Be it roleplay, rollplay, or more commonly, a combination of the two -- everyone should be enabled to have fun.
So when roleplayers get that churlish little pout going on about how powergamers should be arbitrarily limited just to suit the power level of whatever precious mary sue they're playing, I simply can't feel anything but rage and hatred. Go be selfish somewhere else.
If I'm at a table, I expect everyone to be included. And yes. That may mean that the powergamers get to be powergamers. Too bad. Why should you care? Your goal is roleplay, isn't it? So roleplay. His powergaming shouldn't have anything to do with how you behave. Let him have his fun in his own way, and you have your fun in your way.
There isn't a right and wrong way to play this game unless it's to assert that someone else is "doing it wrong".
Interesting and well-thought out. Not sure I agree with all of it, or even most of it, but then again I've spent only a fraction of the time that you have thinking specifically about this class.
Thank you, but I won't take credit for all of the work.
Cheapy wrote:
I particularly like the idea for the Slumber hex replacement. I was toying around over lunch a few weeks ago with the idea of having the hex need two successful uses to put an enemy to sleep, where if they fail the first time they get a pretty big hindrance, but not as severe as Slumber.
I don't see Slumber as being all that powerful a condition to inflict. My main problem with the Hex is that it monopolizes players' turns, but I think this is more (not entirely) because her other options to spend actions on are just not as good.
Cheapy wrote:
Originally, the witch's bonus spells were based on her familiar. This was changed to the patron concept that you dislike, so perhaps you could explore the previous design space.
I do not dislike the idea of Patrons, I dislike their execution. That is, I hate that they are nothing more than tags followed by lists of spells, most of them inconsequential. I think, to the contrary, that it would distance the Witch from the Wizard's Arcane Bond class feature if her Familiar and Patron were decided with the same action.
Cheapy wrote:
I also recall that the shape changing abilities were specifically left out of the spell list, although I don't recall the reason.
Because of the Druid.
That's the only and entire reason.
Paizo probably encountered a conversation that went something like this:
Spoiler:
"But if the Witch can cast Beast Shape, what's to prevent her from using all her spell slots for shapechanging and relying on her Hexes in human form?"
"You mean like the Druid does with party support when she's not in Dire Bear form?"
"Yeah"
"Well, nothing I suppose..."
"Wouldn't that render the Druid obsolete finally? Are we ok with that?"
"Our marketing department says we can't delete the Druid."
"Ok then."
"If you want to look at it from the perspective of modern game design, all the spell lists should be collapsed into a common pool which we then re-divide into a few completely new classes so that these new spell casters are each only capable of a specific range of roles within the party dynamic."
"Our marketing department says we can't delete any of the Core Classes."
"Ok then. The game will continue to have the same problems that 3.5 had and we'll only be compounding on them."
The Witch is lucky, though: she is very close to what an ideal d20 spellcaster should be. What she lacks would be pitifully easy to put in, and would largely result in an increase in her power. Maybe I have it all wrong -- maybe the opposition I'm encountering isn't from Witch players, but from Wizard players who feel threatened.
Shame on Paizo, shame! Shame on Paizo for cashing in on the unrequited love of the WotC playerbase instead of doing what is necessary to make the game the best it can possibly be. Paizo only put the money in for the bare minimum of an iteration, not enough for a full evolution. Pathfinder is an improvement over 3.5, there just cannot be any arguing that, but it did not go far enough.
In my houserules, witches pick from three archetypes and that determines their casting stat.
Youth/Maiden = Charisma
Father/Mother = Wisdom
Elder/Crone = Intelligence
Developing entire archetypes is something that should be done after the base class has reached a satisfying level of balance and completeness without the silliness that is Slumber spam every round of combat for 8 levels followed by 12 levels of Cackle and SoD du jour. Because right now, as effective as that may be for the majority of combats -- the game is not only about one-off encounters and theoretical duels. The class can and should allow for more than just one spammed gimmick, which is what her Hex and spell list really amounts to.
And this is not, in fact, mutually exclusive with the goal of having highly stylized spellcasters, I say. =)
Down with One Wizard To Rule Them All, let's have an actual variety of powerful and differentiated spellcasters, please! The Witch was a watered down taste and I want more.
Starting by doing the Witch proper justice.
Helaman wrote:
Patrons just additional 'free' spells, some of which are more useful than others - sorcerers suffer from the same issue.
But the purpose of the Witch's Patrons is not just to grant some random spells that you don't have to buy. They can, should and were meant to be more than that -- but weren't.
So I dropped these here for the community to use if you please.
Helaman wrote:
I think not all hexes are created equal and thats a bit of an issue for me but overall I think its a decent class. The only thing I'd reflavour is 'Cackle' - sure its stereotypically expected but some times you want a different feel for your witches.
I don't think it's possible to say that a player may want "a different feel for the witch" and that Cackle is the only thing holding the class back from that.
Helaman wrote:
As for your new Patron offering? Nice work - they fit the witches mythos and are pretty decent.
I want these four to serve as a sort of benchmark for what all Patrons should be:
1. Flavorful, with background and yes mythos to establish them as an important factor in the Witch character's life, not just an ignored blurb barely scribbled in haste on the margin of a character sheet
2. Provide for fundamental expansions of the Witch's capability to reward character building in a healthier way than "you have to choose the Deception Patron if you don't want to just pick an outright horrible choice"
3. Inspire characters to be more intense than just simple paper cutouts of dungeon-punk murder hobos
I don't like the Witch class. I love the Witch class for the flavor, concept, the potential -- but I hate the way a lot of it has been implemented. Frankly, she needs polish, so-called "quality of life" changes, and overall balance to bring her in line with her established role and theme, especially if compared to the venerable staples of D&D spellcasting, the Cleric, Wizard, Sorcerer, Druid and Favored Soul / Oracle.
Spoiler:
The Slumber Hex is both too powerful and yet underwhelming at the same time. An at-will Sleep effect with no HD limit sounds powerful on the surface, until you discover that this means a subject can be awakened with a simple standard action, that sleep immunity is exceedingly common starting around mid levels, that immunity to [Mind Affecting] is the most common immunity in the game, and the Hex still doesn't allow you to try again. It is powerful, though, because Coup de Grace around level 1-5 is quite nasty. Having a strong crowd control effect available for every encounter is very handy, certainly, and it is universally agreed that Slumber is what low-level Witches will spend the vast majority of their turns using... which is bad game design when one "option" is so clearly "the best" that there is no real choice about whether to use it or not. I've seen a great many people suggesting modifications to Slumber's mechanic, the one I like the most would be Save or Fatigue 1st round, then Save or Exhausted 2nd round and finally Save or Sleep on the 3rd round (which is a much more organic, flavorful way to handle a creature "falling asleep" rather than instantly dropping to the ground, and yet Fatigue and Exhaustion are themselves useful status effects to cause while waiting for "the big one" to give you a Coup de Grace). This puts it more in line with such spells as Hold Person (keeping in mind that Slumber doesn't cost a spell slot to use, so it's fine if it would be a bit weaker), the Sleep spell itself would therefore be a better option for instant incapacitation at level 1, which gives the Witch other options to spend her "opportunity currency" on without them feeling like "trap options". Further, this would allow Slumber to scale better into end-game as Fatigue and Exhaustion are much less common immunities than Sleep after level 10 (preventing the Witch from feeling like she has wasted a Hex slot after she's leveled up).
The Flight Hex is incomplete. Compare to the school powers of an Air-specialist Wizard (which was published in the same book as the Witch class debuted), it seems obvious that at-will flight is missing around class level 10 or 11 (which is established through other sources to be the character level at which permanent flight can become available. For reference, see the Sylph race in the ARG or the spell Overland Flight which has an hours-per-caster-level duration providing de facto all-day flight for Witches without needing to spend a much more valuable Hex slot). I think simply bestowing at-will flight at her base land speed (similar to Overland Flight the spell, perhaps a bit slower) at Witch level 11 would be perfectly fine considering what characters around that level are capable of through items or class powers or spells. She would still have the option of using her minutes of the Fly effect if she wanted to move faster, and none of these options allows her to affect anyone but herself with the Hex, still. As a class, she relies on flight incredibly heavily for defense in combat, and it is easily countered with a simple bow and arrow... or a thrown rock.
The Healing Hexes are also unsatisfying. It would be entirely reasonable to allow the same Hex to scale with the Witch's class level rather than requiring two Hex slots to underperform. The theory goes like this: it's "free" healing, even though it can't be used more than once-per-day-per-target, and even though the Witch herself had to spend a Hex slot to gain the ability. If the player will use it often, the Hex could be "worth it", economically, compared to, say, a Wand, but it cannot really allow a Witch to do anything she couldn't already, or that an Oracle, for example, could not. That is, spending actions in combat to cast a Cure spell at touch range is a horrible horrible trap so the Hex does not provide power, only convenience. Spending a Hex slot for convenience wouldn't be all that bad -- if the Hex would continue to be convenient. Notice that Healing and Major Healing are separate Hexes. In other words, if the Witch wants a Cure Wounds Hex that remains relevant at all, she has to continue spending valuable Hex slots even though at Witch level 10 (when Major Healing becomes available) she's already able to cast Cure Critical Wounds, though the Hex doesn't scale to Cure Critical until level 15 when she's been able to cast the vastly better Heal spell for two levels already... If she didn't have to spend a second Hex slot to continue the scaling (a "rank up" in the Cure effect every 5 levels) then the plain ole Healing Hex might be an attractive option to compare against the likes of Misfortune and Slumber (because it does still have to compete for those Hex slots!). The Hex would still not scale very well through the character's career, but at least the player wouldn't have to pay twice for that crappy scaling. The convenience of on-demand emergency healing (remember, once per day per target...) is flat out not worth two Hex slots, one of them a Major Hex slot. It's a very plain Hex, could be quite fitting for a pure healer Witch, but power gamers knows that it's just not worth the slot until all the other "core" Hexes have been acquired, by which time, there aren't really any slots left for little luxuries.
Another oft-overlooked Hex is Ward. Since the bonuses it provides are typed, it does not stack with gear that targets may be wearing, and since the Witch cannot target herself with it, she can't use it to defer buying gear for those bonuses. At level 1-4, it might provide a little boon, but characters are very soon able to buy better gear for themselves which would overlap this Hex, and the worst is still to come: when the subject is hit or fails a save, the effect is dropped! Meaning that the Witch will have to spend an action in combat to reapply the Ward which simply can never be as effective as spending that action on Slumber or some other "stop doing damage to my friends right now, please" effect. I would propose a few changes to this one. One possibility is to make the bonuses un-typed, but remove the scaling and add a duration (perhaps Int Mod turns or Witch class level rounds) and allow it to be extended with Cackle. If you feel that a measly +2 is negligible at level 16 (when the Hex as-written would provide +4), then just allow it to scale again (because, really, +4 is still weak at level 16!) and give it a shorter duration (perhaps set at 3 rounds or something similar). Or remove the clause which drops the effect once the subject has been hit -- because a "protection" that disappears as soon as you start needing it isn't much of a protection. And she can still have only one Ward up at a time.
The Speak In Dreams and Nightmare Hexes really seem like they should be folded into the same Hex slot, and the spells which they duplicate should be much much lower level spells than they are currently, too. Not that they are plain bad, just that they are overrated in power, in my opinion. Giving the Witch Speak In Dreams early on (with communication scaling up as she levels, allowing her to communicate with more people or more often or whatever?) and then Nightmare somewhere around level 10 would make this (if it were a single Hex) much much more competitive for its slot. Really doesn't seem attractive that a character designed around haunting targets dreams (already a pretty weak choice for a PC to spend character build currency to do) would have to spend two Hexes to be able to do it.
The Cook People Hex is also underwhelming, having very limited effect, and being altogether too specific. I think it should be generalized into a more flexible "cooking" style Hex, and combined with the Poison Steep Hex, wherein the Witch can proffer various vittles for a variety of other effects if eaten. For example, Shrink and Enlarge Person (a la Alice In Wonderland), Charm Person/Monster (a la the turkish delights in Narnia), to provide Lesser Restoration or Cure Blindness (in line with the Neutralize Poison and Cure Disease effects of the original Hex) and other things like that. The requirement of literally consuming humanoid corpses is a little bit too specific, making the original Hex simply more suitable for an NPC than a player character. The requirement of the Cauldron Hex really should relax this "food" Hex to simply producing these morsels, perhaps limited times per day (a number of cookies based on Witch class level?) or with a simple gold piece cost. Perhaps name the Hex something like Enchanted Confections Hex and ta dah! Your Brew Potion Feat finally became worth something because you can create temporary consumables for a small range of very specific effects. A Major Hex that can be worth its salt compared to the likes of Waxen Image and Hoarfrost. Wouldn't make the Witch any more powerful really in combat, but would serve to expand the convenience factor of her out-of-combat party support and utility in a unique and, dare I say it, flavorful way.
Hidden Home and Witch's Hut should be merged into the same Hex and moved down one "tier" each. Weak though theoretically functional effects, they are neither of them worth a Hex slot on their own though they're too flavorful to give up entirely. Compare to the Mage's Magnificent Mansion type spells and keeping in mind that a Witch is giving up combat power to choose this Hex. Trying to make the class more PC-oriented rather than a pure NPC Villain template. At first she just hides her cottage (Mirage Arcana is a mid-level spell because you can cast it quickly enough to make use of it, not so a Hex which takes a full day to "cast" which has other limits), and then around level 10, the House kicks down a wall to build the Chicken Legs wing... scaling and flavor, all in one juicy Hex.
New Hexes have been recommended from time to time on Paizo's own forums, /tg/ and elsewhere, and I do think that more, balanced, options could only help, especially since the Witch is still limited in her total selection. I think the Disney movies probably have a lot of potential in there somewhere if we could figure out how to stat them in a balanced way. Overall, I feel that the Hexes should all scale better over the course of levels as most of them become obsolete soon after they are available with the ones which don't being the clearly superior choices. Some examples, some better and some worse than existing options, but all have interesting character implications and none worse than, say, growing long finger nails or sniffing children:
Transfixion Hex (Su): Target within 30’ makes a will save or is unable to make a move action for a number of rounds equal to the Witch's level. When the Witch reaches 8th level, a transfixed target is unable to travel using dimensional means, as per the spell dimensional anchor. A creature that successfully saves against this hex is immune to it for 1 day.
I like this one, it's not nearly as immediately powerful as Slumber and yet serves well for its particular purpose. One can easily imagine the Witch "pinning" the target's shadow to the ground or some such fluff, and it's also the sort of thing Witches in myth are often seen to do. It's perfectly fine even at level 1, keeping in mind that Hold Person forbids any actions at all and is available at character level 3. A 30' range is still a harsh limiter on his Hex, but overall not too bad.
Drawing inspiration from the various spell lists, some effects strike my fancy as being easy to duplicate and re-scale to be suitable as Hexes--
Wind Walker Hex (Su): The Witch can assume a gaseous form (as the spell) for 1 minute / level, divided as she sees fit, in 1-minute increments. She can only target herself with this Hex. At level 11, the Witch can spend 2 minutes of this Hex to gain the benefit of a Wind Walk effect, as the spell, for an hour. This Hex is similar in function to the Flight Hex, but compliments, rather than overlaps. Unlike Flight, this Hex is pure defense and utility, and not very usable in combat. It allows the Witch to sneak around a little bit, perhaps, and to travel quickly at later levels (keeping in mind that she can cast Teleport the spell at level 9, this Hex provides a cheaper but slower means of self-only fast travel at a later level). Gaseous Form is not normally available to a level 1 character, but when compared to Slumber or other Hexes, this is definitely not one of the strongest effects available to a power gamer Witch, and is much more flavor and roleplay oriented in purpose.
Weather Control should start out offering minor effects like Alter Winds at first, and then gradually adding a few more like Hurricane Blast and the calling of stormy lightning bolts using a common pool of charges per day based on the Witch's class level (for example 1hr/level = 1 windy blast = 1 lightning bolt), spent 1 charge at a time as is usual for Pathfinder. And then finally giving the Witch Control Weather as usual for the Hex (keeping in mind that it's already a spell on her spell list, so spending a Hex slot just to be able to use a highly situational spell was a trap option). Even with all these, Druids would still be just plain better at controlling the weather with way more and better spells to accomplish the task. Still, the narrative archetype of the "weather witch" is very firmly established, and if some of the un-thematic spells like Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning were removed from the Witch's default spell list, this Hex would gain a lot to make it an attractive option. Combines well with the Flight and proposed Wind Walker Hexes to make a great secondary theme for a character. Possibly this Hex should be bundled into a Class Archetype.
Visions should be more rigorously defined, though I like the basic idea. The problem is that so many similar auguries already appear on the Witch's spell list and perform much better. Perhaps redefining the Hex to function more like a seance, once-per-week calling forth a spirit to give pronouncements and answer a number of questions (Witch's Int mod?) posed by the group, allowing social skill checks to affect the replies... Such a thing sounds much more in line with what a mid-level PC diviner should be able to do. Contrast with the Summon Spirit Grand Hex which calls forth a ghost to actually do things, this Major Hex would only get answers to questions like an Augury or Commune spell. Compare to the evil queen in Snow White who performs similar feats, asking the spirit bound to her mirror to answer questions of various sorts.
Curse of Petrification, Fort Save or Petrify target within 30' sounds like a fine Grand Hex, considering that the spell would have been available long since (level 11) in the character's career and that it couldn't be attempted again for 24 hours. Compare to the other Grand Hexes like Death Curse, Eternal Slumber and Forced Reincarnation. This Hex has more than a bit of Jadis, the witch of Narnia fame, again. Or if rock hard men isn't really to your liking, an identical Hex of Baleful Polymorph is just as fitting and similarly effective. The spell is normally available to Witches at level 9... Witches of myth and legend are very commonly said to transform those who displease them into small helpless animals.
Pox, a regular Hex which maybe should replace the Infected Wounds Major Hex, would duplicate the effect of the Contagion spell, though perhaps at a range of 30 feet since it certainly isn't more powerful than even the revised Slumber or Evil Eye regular Hexes, though it does cause real Ability score damage like other Major Hexes can. This is with the Blight Hex in mind to give some options for the more pustulent malefactor character type. Greater Contagion is on the Witch's spell list, though the lesser version is not for some reason, even though it's not a particularly powerful effect. Keep in mind that the Hex would use the Witch's Hex save DCs, not like the spell which could be much higher (due to GSF:Necro and Heighten, on top of the +5 from using the Greater Contagion version of the spell).
Terrorize, a Hex similar to a single-target Fear spell, is very thematically appropriate, and mechanically sound given the usual restrictions of Hexes (30' range, one attempt per target per day, and so on). I can easily see this one being a regular Hex, but a good argument might be made for it being a Major Hex -- I'd be fine with either. Though if Fear would be made a Major Hex, that's a damn good argument for bumping Slumber up a tier into Major as well since the Sleeping condition is way more serious than just panic.
Figments, a Major Hex allowing the Witch to create Illusions on a time-unit-per-class-level basis. She can replicate the effects of a Mirage Arcana for 1 minute per class level, split up as she chooses in 1 minute chunks. Probably a different type of Illusion spell effect, taking care to not provide a rank of the Image family of spells too early or too late. Probably just Persistant Image for 1 minute per Witch level per day, divvied up as she likes. It just strikes me as silly that the class so focused on "deception, manipulation and dark magic" gets almost no Illusion spells at all...
You have to keep in mind that there is quite a limit to how many Hexes a Witch can actually pick up, and they are all competing against each other for those slots. The rest of the Hexes, the ones which aren't obvious jokes / for NPCs only (like growing your nails out, sniffing children (uhh... ew?) and reading Tarot cards), aren't too terrible, and with the above changes, a Witch should be much better able to keep up as a party's "primary caster". I just think there is so much space available to make some really interesting gameplay with the Witch's Hex class feature, it just doesn't seem like the developers took the opportunity to make the class as fleshed-out as it could be with a little more work. All one has to do to see how the Witch needs changes is to ask what she can do that a Wizard with ranks in UMD for wands or scrolls of healing -- can't. The options for customization and specialization could be there, and if implemented, the Witch would be a very interesting class.
Provided...
That something is done about the Patrons.
Just as universal as the whining about Slumber is the complaint that Patron options suck. Deception, Time, Healing and Shadows are almost the only viable options since all the others offer either trash or spells which the Witch already has access to via her spell list. Worse, there isn't really any overarching theme for them with most Patrons offering spells seemingly at random with no regard to the Witch's class theme or whether the Patrons can compete amongst each other.
So I'll propose four Patrons for the Witch based on a coherent and cohesive flavor chunk:
Spoiler:
The lunar triumvirate of Maiden, Matron and Crone, represented as the Gibbous (youth or growth), Full (peak of life and maturity, light) and Crescent (bitter wisdom and doom) moon, respectively, seems to lack an important element in the portrayal of Witches and the phases of the lunar cycle. Interestingly, the seasonal and solar cycles also have a fourth phase, and all of these various cycles are commonly referred to or revered in myths, legends and lore about Witches and "the ancient way".
The Missing Phase: the New Moon.
Why is it that only a triumvirate is usually mentioned as metaphor for the phases in life? It is evident after only a little thought that there still remains a fourth aspect: the aspect of non-existence, being either pre-birth or post-death, and it is strongly suggested by the nature of being a cyclical or circular arrangement, that these are in fact simply different ways of looking at the same thing.
The New Moon is both the repose of the previous cycle and the burgeoning genesis of a new one.
It is also a time of mystery, of the unknowable. The New Moon is invisible, departed from the cosmos, absent from the court of the heavens. In this way, the New Moon is an embodiment of mystery and secrets, both at once potential revelation, a secret preparing to be shared, and a hidden face, the covering-up of what was once plain to see. It is perhaps apart from the other phases of the Moon because they are all three visible, available to be interacted with, while the New Moon makes its presence felt in the world both in spite and because of its absence. The Triumvirate is often depicted as three women standing such that two of them present their profiles, but this still allows room for a fourth who stands hidden from view behind the three who are in the foreground and presented for view.
A goddess of the mysterious, the occult, the hidden, she represents the ultimately unknowable, that which is beyond, before and after life itself. In this way, she completes the cycle which living beings recognize as youth, adulthood and decrepitude. Variously represented by an empty, often ragged circle (the eclipse, or birth) or by a black disc (the void and oblivion) or even just as a shrouded woman facing away, she is a goddess which values her privacy, secrets, occult knowledge, and that which is hidden. She completes the cycle as the link between ending and beginning. The Maiden is youthful vigor, innocence and sex appeal, she is beginning and excited by the experience of life, full of ambition, changes, passions and desires. The Matron is mature, industrious and nurturing, the head of her family and home which she protects with all her being. The Crone is wise, experienced and bitter, for she feels death's approach.
Thus, the sacred Torc has an opening, even as it is a circle. It represents the severely Crescent Moon which is both the end and the beginning of the lunar cycle, and yet also encompasses the space between them, continuous as a circle despite an apparent gap.
New Witch Patrons:
The Maiden:
2nd -- Protection from Arrows
4th -- Resist Energy
6th -- Beast Shape I
8th -- Freedom of Movement
10th -- Beast Shape III
12th -- Joyful Rapture
14th -- Greater Polymorph
16th -- Earthquake
18th -- Wish
The Matron:
2nd -- Endure Elements
4th -- Lesser Restoration
6th -- Protection From Energy
8th -- Restoration
10th -- Life Bubble
12th -- Antimagic Field
14th -- Greater Restoration
16th -- Protection From Spells
18th -- True Resurrection
The Crone:
2nd -- Anticipate Peril
4th -- Defending Bone
6th -- Halt Undead
8th -- Malicious Spite
10th -- Breath Of Life
12th -- Undeath To Death
14th -- Control Undead
16th -- Create Greater Undead
18th -- Energy Drain
The Veiled:
2nd -- Vanish
4th -- Undetectable Alignment
6th -- Blacklight
8th -- Greater Invisibility
10th -- False Vision
12th -- Antilife Shell
14th -- Sequester
16th -- Orb Of The Void
18th -- Time Stop
Note that these four Patrons expand the Witch's spell list thematically and with useful spells, all, for purposes which the Witch finds herself otherwise lacking in capability. The Maiden provides the exceedingly valuable defensive spells Protection From Arrows, Freedom of Movement and Resist Energy, shoring up the glaring weakness of the Witch's spell list: defense. It also provides Wish and three shape-changing spells which mythological Witches are almost always depicted as being capable of, but which the default Witch spell list conspicuously lacks. Being spells, and thus subject to all the rules that spellcasting implies on top of costing spell slots per day, a Witch of The Maiden doesn't step on the Druid's Wild Shaping toes too much, though it would make the two classes perform similarly. And there's nothing wrong with that.
The Matron provides the Restoration family of spells (just like the pre-existing Healing Patron does) to allow a focused Witch to serve the party in place of a Cleric (which the Druid and Oracle are both able to do, but the Witch could not otherwise with her default spell list), and also a variety of other highly-situational defensive options in Antimagic Field and Protection From Energy. True Resurrection is another very important "healer" type spell which even a high level Witch with the Life Giver Hex could not duplicate. Not as powerful as the general-purpose Wish, it is still a far more functional spell for a high level healer to have, suiting the Matron's design purpose of collapsing the Healer Patron into a more satisfying "support Witch" role.
The Crone doesn't appear at first blush to really hold a candle to the previous two until you realize that defense and healing are not the Witch's only weaknesses: she is also incredibly vulnerable to the undead because they are immune to a vast majority of her abilities and spells. The Crone offers a low level Witch the all important Halt Undead spell, without which a Witch could be taken down with nothing but a mob of weak skeletons. Defending Bone is there for a smattering of defense for the Necromantically-flavored Crone Patron, and there is also Breath Of Life so that she can provide at least a little (thematically appropriate) emergency support to her allies without stepping on the toes of The Matron. Undeath To Death and Control Undead bring to maturity The Crone's confrontation with the implacable, inevitable dead. For late game, Energy Drain is what the wise debuffer will use early and often, but the Witch class, for all her focus on debuffs, somehow does not have by default.
The Veiled is an intimate, personal, selfish Patron, providing spells which benefit the Witch herself and shoring up still more holes in the Witch's spell list. Invisibility does not appear on this Patron's list, leaving that crucial Illusion to the other arcanists in the party, but she does still get Vanish for emergency defense and Greater Invisibility which serves as her token, if flexible, support spell. Seemed strange that Witches, a class all about offensive battlefield control and "dark magic" wouldn't get any Darkness spells, so Blacklight makes an appearance to provide the Witch with more flexibility (though she still cannot counter Darkness effects on her own!). Other spells on this Patron's list serve to make this the Patron of secrets: Undetectable Alignment and False Vision do a little to alleviate the Witch's lack of ability to be the sort of "behind the scenes manipulator" that her spell list and Hexes strongly imply she should be. Sequester and Orb Of The Void provide some situational offensive punch while remaining thematic, and Antilife Shell and Time Stop give a Witch of The Veiled crucial breathing room for end-game fights that would overpower her quickly otherwise. I felt that Time Stop was highly thematic and yet also prevented this Patron's spell pool being too weak when compared against the others.
It may seem as though these four Patrons provide "too many good spells" all total, but keep in mind that a Witch can only choose one!
All four shore up a specific weakness in the Witch class, but since she can only choose one, this group of Patrons provides for satisfying build options while also avoiding the pitfall of removing all the class's weaknesses. This forces the player to make tough choices and rewards her for it better than the default Patron lists which all feel like traps or "half-assed" options, i.e., like no good choices at all. Further, these Patrons force/allow the player to specialize in a way that Wizards or Clerics do not need to, which I think we agree makes for much more satisfying spellcasters both in terms of game balance and character design. Choosing how to augment your character's abilities is always gonna feel better to a player than choosing "how to suck the least".
Same could be said for a majority of the Witch class in general. It is a poorly designed class, despite the eyebrow-raising power of two or three of the Hexes.
Indeed, I think it is the Hex design and wording which gives this fact away.
In my opinion, "RAW is king" is an imaginary concept :)
RAI has always trumped RAW.
There is a reason why GM's don't allow Bag-Of-Rats Fighters.
And this is why, if the GM dares to pull this crap on me in actual play, he will be bludgeoned to death with a Type IV Bag of Holding containing many Fighters, each holding bags of rats... before he finds someone else to play with.
Furthermore, as was said already, the classes are not in competition with each other.
Except when you fight enemies with PC class levels.
If the DM wants to overpower you, his choice of NPC class levels is the least-important tool at his disposal.
And if your DM considers himself to be playing "against" the PCs, then you have much more dire problems on your hands than whatever esoteric flaws you perceive in the mechanics of the game itself.
I've always been so confused about the anti-caster sentiment among d20 critics.
It's not a PvP game. It's a team game.
And Fighters have their role to play, just as Wizards do, in making sure the party can achieve its goals. A party of just Wizards is a weak party indeed.
And and and -- it's not as if players are assumed to always start out at level 20. Most campaigns and adventures never venture past level 15 at the highest, and what's wrong with theoretical class power shifting with levels, even if it could be established that this is so? Low-level gritty adventures should suit the Ranger, Rogue and Barbarian, that's precisely where they're designed to shine, and shine they do indeed. What's more pathetic than a spellcasting-focused Wizard at level 1? Do we hear a cacophony of whiners about how weak spellcasters are at the low levels where the vast majority of play actually takes place? And what about the restrictions of Time and Money on spellcasters? Those material components don't just afford themselves, you know. It's a bad DM who simply gives a Wizard all the time in the world to set up as elaborate a plot as he pleases: why do you suppose the Lich is such an archtypical BBEG? It's because he's had a thousand years to prepare for one epic combat. Behind every complaint about spellcaster power is a lazy or ignorant DM who won't or can't enforce the Rules As Written and/or can't or won't be intelligent about the world he's supposed to design.
Regardless of where the classes end up in terms of the nebulous, unquantifiable quality called "power", characters must still survive and gain "power" throughout their adventuring careers -- don't just assume that all characters will do so! Early game survival is still a balancing factor. Those d10 HD and that Full BAB and that Full Plate Mail shouldn't be written off so casually.
Sounds like someone doesn't have nearly as much experience with the 3.X or d20 system as he thinks.
Split pulling was necessary in EQ because crowd control was scarce. It might be fun to see split pulling return as an interesting mechanic, but I would never want to see it become "the strategy" ever again. An option, sure. Required, no.
It wasn't required in EQ, either. Clerics had the Calm/Pacify spells, Druids had Harmony, and the entire Enchanter class was dedicated to crowd control.
Crowd control did exist, and most classes had some form of it, it just wasn't easy to use without communicating with your group. Which is as it should be.
I would personally kill anyone you pointed to if it would bring us a crowd control, buffs, debuffs and utility class like the EQ1 Enchanter.
