The More Feats! PDFs introduce a single page of themed feats for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Every PDF contains a full page of high quality content (no fluff or filler)!
Feats of Witchcraft includes ten bewitching new feats, each of which lists specific witch patrons among their prerequisites: Eerie Presence, Forked Tongue, Heart of Ice, Nightshade Brew, Patron's Promise, Pierce the Veil, Shimmering Illusions, Terrible Transformation, Wise Words, and Witch of the Wilds.
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As terrible as the other two witch PDFs from the same author. That pretty much sums it up.
These are supposed to be feats, but power wise, they are more like traits...or weaker than traits.
For example there is a feat that adds bluff to your class skill and grants you a bonus to "influence" indifferent or better creatures. I'm not sure why the term "influence" is used here, because that's a diplomacy term...otherwise, this is nearly the same as any of the "add class skill to your list" traits. Except this comes with a disguise penalty.
Other lack luster feat options include the ability to see ethereal undead, and identify them as ethereal undead. Note that this does not grant you the ability to identify the exact type of undead, just that they are ethereal undead. So its like a free see invisibility spell that only works on ethereal undead, unless your character is too stupid to recognize a ghost as, well, some kind of undead.
Another example that the author is not well versed with the rules and cannot be bothered to do a quick search in the SRD is this feat here, which allows you to cast healing spells on allies with spell resistance, without requiring them to lower said SR, assuming the witch can meet the WIS requirement. SR does not in any way prevent you from healing your allies.
So far 3 PDFs from this author look like they were rapidly put together, with zero playtesting involved and without basic understanding of Pathfinder rules that can be easily found on any SRD. I would strongly suggest staying away from this author.
Herein are ten feats for witches, all based around whoever the witch has selected as her patron. Some are quite narrow in application, but all help develop a witch character into a distinctive if not unique individual rather than merely yet another witch. Power levels are a bit variable as well, which may disturb those who pay attention to game balance.
Some take 'traditional' things that witches are said to be able to do and codify them. For example, Pierce the Veil allows a witch with an ancestors, spirits, time or portents patron to both see and identify ethereal undead creatures; whilst Nightshade Brew enables the witch to create particularly potent poisons - yet as the prerequisites for this feat include the Brew Potion feat and six ranks of Craft (Alchemy) you might think she's pretty good at them already without using up another feat slot.
One delight is Forked Tongue, which not only empowers the witch to be very good at bluffing but also actually gives her a forked tongue... something that might draw unwelcome attention, particularly in a society that's wary of witches and their powers already! Consider developing disguise skills and keeping your mouth closed...
Patron's Promise is perhaps a bit too powerful as it confers advantages to both attack rolls and against disease. Wise Words, on the other hand, doesn't do much - it just reduces the spell resistance of someone on whom you're casting a healing spell.
Witch of the Wilds gives you some really sharp fingernails, claws really, to enhance your unarmed combat. Terrible Transformation is quite scary, if you cast a transmutation (polymorph) spell on someone and it is ended prematurely by countermagic or a save, there's a chance the poor victim may gain an insanity and end up not in their right mind even once they've been restored to the right body! Heart of Ice makes enemies you demoralise suffer further disadvantage...
There is no overlap of patrons here, whatever patron you have chosen there will be but one feat in this collection available to you. The effects may be quite cool, but I recommend thinking seriously about whether they benefit you sufficiently to be worth a feat slot. Interesting but perhaps a little limited.
3.5 stars - patron-specific feats, some a bit too weak, some a bit too strong
All right, you know the drill – 3 pages of content, 1 page front cover, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 1 page of content for 10 new feats dealing with witchcraft, so let’s take a look!
Taking a cue from Super Genius Games’ patron-exclusive hexes, many of these feats are only available to witches with certain patrons, adding some unique tools to the respective witch’s arsenals.
-Eerie Presence: Ignore negative cha-mods you may have, gain +2 to cha-skills to influence unfriendly outsiders and aberrations.
-Forked Tongues: +2 to Bluff vs. indifferent, friendly and helpful creatures and bluff as a class skill; double the bonus when the creatures are under a mind-influencing effect.
-Heart of Ice: When successfully demoralizing foes, double the penalty to fort, ref or will-save depending on the patron. Cool!
-Nightshade Brew: You can lace potions with ingested poisons, increasing the DC for either by +1. Rather weak and circumstantial.
-Patron’s Promise: When using unarmed or natural attacks, you deal additional damage equal to the highest level patron spell you have prepared. Also get this bonus to saves versus diseases.
-Pierce the Veil: See ethereal undead creatures. This one is overpowered as hell for my tastes. Not gonna happen in my campaign.
-Shimmering Illusion: Add an eerie glow to your figments, letting them emit a bit of light and adding +2 to the disbelieve DC. Cool one, albeit a bit on the weak side.
-Terrible Transformation: When one of your transmutation polymorph-effects is removed/dispelled, the target suffers from an insanity effect on a failed save. Does this extend to such spells cast on allies? The feat fails to specify this, though I assume so. Also: Quite powerful for my tastes.
-Wise Words: When speaking words of wisdom while casting conjuration (healing)-spells, you may reduce effective spell resistance by wis-mod. Can be useful, but rather limited in its application.
-Witch of the Wilds: Count your nails as primary weapons and qualify for the elemental or stunning fist feat depending on your patron.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good, I didn’t notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to Abandoned Art’s 2-column standard and the pdf has no bookmarks, but at this length needs none.
The feats in here are nice and I like that they develop further distinction between witches of different patrons, but they also more than once fall a bit on the relatively weak or relatively powerful side of the power-scale, offering very circumstantial bonuses that would make them rather weak choices for a feat-slot or going a bit too far for my tastes. Combined with the fact that none of the feats herein truly blew me away, I’ll thus settle for a solid verdict of 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3 for the purpose of this platform – a good offering that could have been stellar if the patron-exclusive feats had been developed in a slightly more inspired way.
Another example that the author is not well versed with the rules and cannot be bothered to do a quick search in the SRD is this feat here, which allows you to cast healing spells on allies with spell resistance, without requiring them to lower said SR, assuming the witch can meet the WIS requirement. SR does not in any way prevent you from healing your allies.
I do not own this PDF and I am not particulary interested in it I just want to point that this claim is just false.
SR do indeed interfere with benefitial casting from your allies, particularly healing spells, so, at least this part of the review should be edited.
Question - Hello again, my toughest-of-customers. Thanks (as always) for taking the time to author a review. I'm sorry that you found the witch products so disappointing, and even sorrier to see that thrice now you've advocated that other consumers avoid purchasing Abandoned Arts' products; I've never had the benefit of a reviewer quite as critical! Still, as ever, I appreciate consumer feedback in whichever shape it takes.
Unfortunately, - while you're entitled to your opinions of the author (me!) and my proficiency with the rules - this particular review contains a few objective (read: technical) mistakes. I'd like to address some of your specific, mechanical criticisms, if I may.
Firstly, whether or not a character is "too stupid to recognize a ghost as some kind of undead" isn't actually relevant to the Pierce the Veil feat - it generally takes a see invisibility spell or similar effect (like this feat) to detect automatically whether or not a creature is ethereal or simply invisible, and a Knowledge (religion) skill check to identify an ethereal creature as a ghost in particular. Not all ghosts moan and rattle chains! : )
To quote the see invisibility spell:
the Pathfinder System Reference Document wrote:
Such creatures are visible to you as translucent shapes, allowing you easily to discern the difference between visible, invisible, and ethereal creatures.
Second, as Nicos has pointed out above, spell resistance does (unfortunately) apply against healing spells (all the healing spells that I know of, anyway). Third, the relevant feat (Wise Words) does not at all do what you suggest that ti does - it does not permit a character to gain the benefits of healing without lowering his or her SR; that would be a bit out of line for a relatively accessible feat. Rather, it grants the witch a small-to-moderate bonus on caster level checks made to overcome SR when casting healing spells on spell-resistant targets.
See the SRD, under "When Spell Resistance Applies:"
the Pathfinder System Reference Document wrote:
Targeted Spells: Spell resistance applies if the spell is targeted at the creature. Some individually targeted spells can be directed at several creatures simultaneously. In such cases, a creature's spell resistance applies only to the portion of the spell actually targeted at that creature. If several different resistant creatures are subjected to such a spell, each checks its spell resistance separately.
You'll also notice that healing spells universally list "Yes" under the Spell Resistance header.
Cheers and happy gaming in any case, Question; I hope your next purchase leaves you more satisfied!
