I'm looking to create a mage hunter that relies on mundane means or magical artifacts such as potions, oils, traps, wondrous items, etc. I'm envisioning something like a Witcher (NSFW - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-l29HlKkXU) that hunts wizards instead of monsters. With that, I have two questions:
- How would you go about building a Witcher (see details section below) in Pathfinder?
- What mundane items can be used to hunt (track, disable, trap, suppress, etc.) magic users?
- Playing Rise of the Runelords with a party of 4 players (not a lot of room to not really carry your weight with so few players)
- Our characters are level 8 and my character bit the dust **hard**
- I tend to enjoy characters with non-combat options more than an optimized wrecking ball. However, I also don't enjoy being utterly useless in combat either. So, I enjoy a balanced character.
The Witcher is a concept from books written by Andrzej Sapkowski and the computer games (http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Witcher). The general concept is that they're taken as children, trained to fight, and submitted to a mutation process to give them strength, speed, etc. Their purpose in life is basically to hunt monsters for pay and they do so with the following arsenal:
- Swordsmanship. They are master swordsmen. "Silver for monsters..Steel for men" and all that.
- Alchemy. Decoctions. Potions. Alchemic Bombs. Oils. Oh, my! They brew concoctions to fortify themselves (see in the dark, healing, resistance, etc.) or coat their weapons in the appropriate oil to be more effective against their enemeies
- Signs. They have limited use of magic through 5 signs that amount to flame, wave of force, trap (slowing zone?), mental confusion/control, armor
I always thought a good witcher should study their prey and go into the fight prepared.
I fully expect that a pathfinder character can't do all of the above. I would prefer a focus on swords & alchemy. This video shows one off pretty well (mostly swords, some potions, and a touch of magic):
Warning: Not Safe For Work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-l29HlKkXU
I looked around a bit, but got quickly overwhelmed by potential archetypes and such...= (.
Classes
For the core witcher concept, the following classes seem to make the most sense for a witcher who hunts magic users:
Ranger: Good skills, melee, potions through brew potions, favored enemy bonus, tends towards mundane
Alchemist: I've read that this class was inspired by The Witcher and it's certainly visible through potions, mutagens, etc. However, they seem like they get their job done through bombs more than picking up a sword.
Inquisitor: Good skills, melee, magic, literally build to track and hunt things, weapon enchants, etc, potions through brew potions, tends towards more magical
Fighter: Mundane as you can get, but seem like they'd be too narrow on skills, non-combat roleplay, etc.
Hunting Magic Casters
Honeslty, I have no clue with this. As far as I can tell, the best ways are to fight magic with magic, choke them, or kill them before they can utter a word.
There are materials, artifacts, potions, etc. that disrupt magical being and spells, provide protection to the user against magic, etc. Is there anything like this in Pathfinder?!
Thank you in advance for any help = )
Go dwarven inquistor (spellbreaker) of Torag and choose the protection domain on top of the glory of old trait and steel soul racial feat. You'll get really hard to hit with spells and if you specialize in archery you'll also get the other most effective way to deal with casters (range them down before they can hit you with some of those nasty little spells that do not allow a save).
Urban barbarian with superstition, witch hunter and spell sunder. Then maybe Inquisitor.
Lore warden fighter might serve you well here. They get more skills and a better skill list than your average fighter at the cost of a few proficancys.
Investigator. It's like an Alchemist, with more stabbing and less bombs. Or you could work bombs in the direction of signs.
In general, every single concept converted to PF is going to use more spells than the source material.
Either what Rogar Valertis or maybe Mutation Warrior Fighter with Disruptive feat chain.
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I always thought Geralt was a magus/alchemist gestalt. That being said, I'd try get longsword proficiency(heard cat school witchers are mostly pointy earred), and be an alchemist. Sadly, all your signs are all extracts/bombs. Quen = shield. Igni = firebreath. Aard = tanglefoot bomb
Ydren doesn't translate, axii is(maybe) confusion bomb which you won't get as an alchemist.
Vivisectionist alchemist or Investigator works for a witcher, I'd think. Go half-elf or half-orc for some non-sucky martial weapon proficiencies.
But honestly, if your concept isn't 'witcher' but 'Mage Hunter', I'd go Magus. One of my players in my RotRL campaign is making a magus with exactly this fluff, and it works great. Pick up the various anti-magic Magus arcana, and you can be quite effective. You really need magic to stand up to a spellcaster, is the sad truth. But then again, even the actual witcher relies more heavily on signs than anything else to fight mages, so you're not far off.
Inquisitors can get a SpellKiller inquisition for this role, and maybe an archetype. They also get Silence as a spell, which is amazing when cast on yourself before getting into melee with a caster. Bad day for them!
Feats like Disruptive/Spellbreaker and Step Up & Strike are useful to hunt casters. Distracting weapon enchantment makes their concentration checks harder. You can also get weapons that store dispel magic to target them (another spell inquisitors get). - Can also be replicated by a "Mute Dart" that can probably be made as a different ammo type.
You can also make an alchemist that uses a weapon instead of bombs without too much trouble.
You guys are fantastic! I didn't expect so many good responses in just one day. = )
Go dwarven inquistor (spellbreaker) of Torag and choose the protection domain
This could actually be pretty fun. We have a paladin of Torag in our group = )
Lore warden fighter might serve you well here
I strongly considered this when I started looking around. However, I felt like I more or less had some feats (like disruptive), brew potions, and gear enchants to help. While very possible (and kinda fun to be so 'mundane'), it really felt like I was signing up for the hardest way to do everything with little pay off. Potions seem like they've almost been forgotten and left behind in favor of class (su/sp) abilities and spells/scrolls that accomplish the same thing for a fraction of the cost.
Which is a real bummer, because it'd be fun to play an ordinary guy who has to use everything at their disposal to succeed. But I guess it's reality that they'd get their butts handed to them by more versatile classes. Note: I haven't played with potions too much, so I'm going off what I'm reading in the book..and I could be WAY OFF in their usefulness.
Inquisitor. Alchemist. Investigator. Stygian Slayer
Several of you mentioned other archetypes and/or multiclasses. I'll take a look more closely at them and just try my hand at creating a couple of ideas to play test. I knew that I wasn't going to get everything I wanted in a character, but there were some good ideas that get me most what I'm looking for!
Magical Items
I'm still trying to dig around for items, potions, materials, etc that give me an advantage over magic users. Examples include using the dreamstone or noqual material for weapons or armor, wondrous items like 'mantel of spell resistance' (though that's expensive!), etc.
Paulicus's comments about silence made me realize I'm going to probably have to find abilities, feats, items that target the requirements of spell casting (hand gestures, concentration, speech, etc.).
I think the Investigator and Inquisitor are the best picks. Investigator is best for the pure Witcher concept. You'll get potions, mutagens, insanely high skill and knowledge checks. I don't think you can get bombs but you'll be much better with a sword than an alchemist. The signs are the only real short coming.
The Inquisitor doesn't match the Witcher flavor as well but as mentioned you can turn it into quite the anti-mage. If you don't mind reflavoring Judgement to be a Mutagen and Bane to be Oils you are actually getting pretty close. You also get true spellcasting.
I haven't ran a by the numbers comparison but I expect both classes to perform pretty close to each other. The Inquisitor might win on nova damage in combat, but the Investigator will probably win out on skills and sustainable damage over the entire day. I don't expect the gap to be huge either way. Both have access to numerous skill boosts and self-buffs.
While bombs are nice for alchemists, it isn't all they do.
You could just use it as an AoE debuff (since they have some great debuffs from their discoveries; you just need a couple to generally get the job done) adn then you can wade in with a sword while mutagened up.
Grenadier is actually rather good for this. Trades out poisons, but gets a martial weapon (your sword), and it lets you apply alchemical items to your weapon (swift action at level 6).
Overall, it works fairly well for a 'protagonist'-y character. Skills from 4+int on an int caster, decent melee, buffs, some ranged/battlefield control options.
Witch Hunter is also a good Inquisitor archetype for it, and can be crossed with Preacher and/or Sanctified Slayer. Knowledgeable Defense and the Purity Judgement make for some pretty stacked saves vs. spells.
If you can manage to have a reasonably good spell DC, Persistent Instrument of Agony is a pretty brutal shutdown delivered with an attack.
Really though, if I was trying to kill potent wizards with a blade I'd be using something like a Fey Blood Arcanist/ Eldritch Knight, with Dimensional Slide to chase them down and +4DC Heightened Persistent Hideous Laughter to shut them up.
Some of the bombs will be very useful for a witch hunter. Dispelling Bomb will work very well vs spell casters. Bombs also work well summoned creatures that the casters are going to be using.
Go with Blood Rage with Arcane Blood line. Take untouchable trading you spells for spell resistance. Use the primalist to swap out some of your blood line powers that work for spells for Barbarian rage powers. Play a half-Orc with a Double axe and take Orc Weapon expertise. Take Witch hunter, Superstitious and Spell sunder. This makes for one bad ass witch hunter who is mundane.
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It is easy to play characters like a witcher(prepared and having lots of cool gizmos and whatsits to help) Go here and click on the alchemical tabs to find alchemical items(most are useful in some respect) For the build I would go Vivisectionist Alchemist with Variant Multi-Class Barbarian.
You know, it's not appropriate to the Witcher as a character, but if you want to really take down a target in spectacular and prejudicial fashion there's always the 'Wild Hunt' option.
Gain a fly speed or a power like Dimensional Slide, make the spell Unadulterated Loathing as brutally hard to resist as possible, toss it on a target, and then run the poor victim down, complete with AoOs to the back and 'herding' tactics. For the next 1 days/level, they can do absolutely nothing but take a single move action away from you per turn unless they can stay more than 60 feet away. Let the games begin!