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You'll face some nice targets for those mind affecting hexes soon. Book 2 is a lil meh when it comes to mind affecting. Remember glitterdust works on everything, helps reveal invisible creatures =)
About the saves - some of them have rather nasty saves. What's your familiar doing, again? I suggest taking improved familiar at 7, get an arbiter(if your alignment allows). There's a spell called ill-omen, get your familiar to UMD a wand of it, before you attempt the hex. Save twice, take worst, assuming monster has no SR.
Damge dealing is generally ineffective since monsters hp>what you can blast. If your GM has buffed monsters saves(though the BBEGs REALLY do have pretty good saves), I cant do anything about it as you can't win an arms race against a GM.
If your GM lets you, combine cackle and fortune all day long. Gives your party free rerolls.
Also, timing of slumber hex. Hit Slumber when the mooks are next to your melees, before they start. I'd willingly eat the AOO for the cdg.
I am unsure if playing a wizard would make you feel any better, since our wizard still hasn't cast anything that your witch can't cast(except for grease and haste). Summon elementals? Witch can do that. Glitterdust? Witch can do that. Fireball? Element patron witch can do that. Summon lantern archons? Witch can do that too.
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ROTR is not a 5 min adventuring day AP. Some parts of it are but the bases of the bad guys are not. I don't really see how a fighter archer and a magus are dropping everything unless the magus is on full nova mode all the time.
You'd be suprised how much a little tweaking of the scales helps, I probably saved the rogue from a grisly death by being impaled on a longspear for a x3 crit by a precombat barkskin which increased his ac by 2. Just enough to prevent the confirmation.
Witches have something that others overlook - they can pick up quite some condition removal. Especially healing patron witches. So if no one is playing a divine caster...or the oracle doesn't want to use his limited spell slots known on remove blindness/deafness, neutralize poison,(with good reason, I wouldn't waste precious spells known on situational condition removal), you can cover that.
what are your witch's stats and equipment?
One thing to remember with the Evil Eye hex is that it doesn't have the text on it that limits it to once a day like some of the other hexes do. So you can stack Evil Eyes on a boss. Start with -2 saves, then start stacking -2 AC, -2 hit, etc. And because even when you save versus Evil Eye it sticks for at least one round, and you have Cackle, that means you will always be able to debuff.
If you do like the class and how it plays, but just don't feel powerful, take a good hard look at the witch spell list. There are a LOT of spells there that can fit many situations. Debuffs that target each of the different saves that you can tailor to whatever you are fighting. Fort saves on the smarties and will saves on the dextrous and reflex saves on the hardy. The ability to sew a spell casters mouth shut. A spell to steal the size and strength of a foe and give it to your toughest buddy. Vomit Swarm.
If you are looking to craft a wand, look into Spectral Hand. Now YOU can do that bestow curse from 30 feet away and the fighter doesn't have too. Or any one of the multitude of other wonderfully nasty touch spells the witch has access to. There are a lot and they are fun.
But also be aware that just maybe the witch isn't for you. Which is fine, not all classes appeal to all people (I love the witch but just can't get into the wizard for example.) Different strokes for different folks. Several times I've started playing a class with a great idea for the character only to discover the I just didn't like how it played. And there's no way to know that you won't really like a class until you play it. While it's always a little sad to realize that the class just isn't a good fit for you, sometimes it happens.
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I've been playing a witch for awhile now - went all the way through the Emerald Spire with her - and now she's just hit level 15 - and my experience has been that she's tremendous fun but there was a period of a few levels when she was pretty boring.
On the fun side: witches are incredibly versatile; spells plus hexes means that you often have a lot of good options in any given round, which means you can adapt to different kinds of encounters. This can be a huge life saver when you find yourself in a situation where spells won't work.
On the negative side: I had a stretch (maybe about 3 levels or so) where it just seemed like all I ever did was drop Misfortune on the bad guys because it was so much more effective than anything else and so that got a little boring. But eventually new options opened up.
Some miscellaneous observations:
If the bad guys are frequently making their saves against your hexes that's probably an indication that your INT is too low. Consider boosting your headband higher if you have the gold. Also, Hexing Runes is an item that can bump one hex's DC.
You are right that Evil Eye is usually not worth bothering with because most Pathfinder encounters only last 2 or 3 rounds so it's a poor use of action economy. There are exceptions though. Most recently, my group fought a baddie whose AC was so high that even our crazy optimized martials were mostly missing. That was a situation where dropping a -4 on its AC was *very* helpful. Also, remember that Evil Eye sticks even if they fail their save and you can extend it via Cackle. So in the case of this bad guy, his saves were even crazy higher than his AC, but that just meant: Standard Action: Evil Eye (makes save so one round duration); Move Action: Cackle to extend that one round duration to two rounds (this is important because otherwise the duration will expire at the *start* of your next turn, preventing you from Cackling to extend it).
The hex feats are very helpful. Split hex Misfortune and then Cackle to extend really debuffs the enemies. Accursed hex for when they do make their save. Amplified hex for boosting the DC or, especially, for when you need to get a hex off against someone who is more than 30 feet away.
Slumber is ok but has a tendency to either not work due to immunities or annoy the GM and everyone else by ending a fight before it even gets interesting. I'd say my best use of it was when I slumbered our dominated arcane trickster, right before the Balor made him rain damage on the entire party.
Charm is really great for social encounters, especially after level 8, because you can make the indifferent NPC friendly before your party face has even gotten the Diplomacy train rolling.
Fortune can be a real life saver in one of those situations where you really need the party tank to keep going and anything that takes him out of the fight is probably going to TPK everyone. I'm not a fan of the "Fortune everyone and keep it all going all day long by cackling maniacally without stopping" shenanigans but I still find it to be a great hex, though admittedly one that I often don't have the action economy to activate.
Misfortune is probably my favorite hex (at least until Major hexes like Retribution and Ice Tomb come along). Don't forget that Misfortune is not mind-affecting. Many GMs seem to think it is, probably because of its similarity to Ill Omen, which is mind-affecting.
Speaking of Ill Omen, once you get to the point where you can Quicken spells, this is a great choice to Quicken (as long as the target is not immune to mind affecting) because now you can get a similar effect to Misfortune with a swift action, still leaving you with your standard to hit them with a hex or another spell.
My witch has Quicken, Piercing, and Reach metamagic feats, along with a Staff of the Master, and Magical Lineage (Ill Omen). This means that in any given round of combat I am a) casting a quickened spell b) casting a second spell or a hex c) moving or cackling d) having my improved familiar do something (usually a wand or a scroll).
Bottom line: the witch is a great class whose fun comes from the incredible versatility that the combination of spells and hexes offers.
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Hi. Sorry to hear you're not having as much fun as you'd like. Some of the advice above is great like boost int to increase save dc.
My PFS witch has a parrot familiar that intimidates. I took evolved familiar to give it skilled. So before I give baddies the evil eye, my bird does it first to demoralize them.
Take improved familiar at 7th and find a familiar that can use wands. Since youre running an AP, I reccommend faerie dragon. Ill Omen is great vs. baddies with no SR. Take quicken spell at 9th to quicken ill omen.
Against mindless, misfortune and ill omen are the best but I would then buff (enlarge person, heroism) or debuff (blindness/deafness, accursed glare).
Int is king though. My level 5 witch was at 20 int.
Edit: just double checked. Int is 23 (18 start, 2 race, 2 headband, 1 at 4th).
Also took ancestor patron so I bless, aid, and prayer as well if I can't hex.
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There's a few magic items that might help as well, off the top of my head;
Cackling Hag's Blouse (cackle as a swift action if you have the hex)
Corset of Dire Witchcraft (allows you to increase the DC of one hex by 2)
Hexing Runes (increase the DC of one hex by 1)
A couple of those plus increasing your Int will see the DCs for your hexes getting higher and hopefully making them hit more reliably, the Witch can indeed be a powerhouse but that power primarily shines more the longer the adventuring 'day' gets, if your GM is letting you rest after every few fights you'll not be seeing it yet.
Yeah, a lot of great advice here. I just want to add that the Witch is a class that gets better the harder the battles are- all it takes to make blasting more effective is more HP, while Will saves just mean it's a bit more likely for the spell to fail, but if you are built well you still should have plenty of chance.
An enemy with a good save on average usually has their level + 3. So at level 8, they have a +11 to will saves, for example. At level 8, your hex DC without any INT boosts will be 14, so of course they'll make it often. But by level 8 you should have ~22 INT at the very least, even if you aren't powergaming, and that should raise your DC to about 20. So an enemy of your level will fail their save slightly less than half the time, I believe it's ~45%. I want to note that this is huge! The enemies that specialize in saving against you will fail every 2, maybe 3 turns, and failing one save will RUIN their lives.
Now, add in the other tricks you can use to increase your DC (ill omen, ability focus, magical items, etc) and you're breaking the 50% margin. Then the GM throws a BBEG that is 3 CR higher than you, their average save raises by 3, and you're back to somewhat under 50% chance to effect them, but not much. (sorry for the lack of hard numbers, I'm no mathematician)
So the takeaway here is that no matter what you do, you always have a good chance for the enemy to save if they have a strong save. But that's ok, because you're dramatically slashing their effectiveness with a single spell. But, it's also extremely hard for the enemy to outscale you if you built decently. And then poor enemy martials with their low saves come along and cry themselves to sleep because they're just going to fall further and further behind unless the GM specifically builds his NPCs to counter you (which is a sign that you are effective at what you do).
But again, if the battles are easy and end in 2 rounds, all this isn't going to seem like as much of an advantage. It's when you're fighting fights where there's a lot of HP, or a lot of mooks defending the BBEG that the martials get stuck dealing with, that's when you can really start to shine.
Witches don't impress me much at all. I think their spell selection is far better then a Summoner. Their Hexes are interesting enough I suppose. That being said I'd rather play a straight Wizard or Cleric over them. As far as being a Blaster you'd be better off being a Sorcerer or a Wizard or with the newest book a Kineticist.
Witch can feel like the caster version of the bard as the 5th man.
Bards are great at buffs that boost attack/damage for melee characters. Witches are fantastic at debuffing saves that makes getting in a Save or Suck all the easier (particularly enchantments- that can help make encounters funny).
Buffers and Debuffers are multipliers for the things they can work with. Unfortunately, hexes can often be more for the saves when it comes to the small encounters (in large encounters with lots of mooks, slumber hex can be like she has a 1 shot kill shotgun blasting away; fortune and misfortune also can save lives, but that might not show up in the average encounter, particularly with the steam rolling), and unfortunately this party is melee heavy and doesn't have much use for your skill set.
So going with this tack...maybe a bard would be better, since they will appreciate inspire courage. Meshes better.
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I find Evil Eye is -OKAY- at best. A -2 to AC or Skills or Saves isn't great, and then at level 8 when it becomes a -4, everyone has scaled high enough that it's STILL just okay.
Precisely.
Evil Eye is one of those abilities that's vastly overrated. So stop using that. Instead of Evil Eye the first turn and Slumber the next, just use Slumber the first turn, and if it didn't work use Accursed Hex to Slumber again. Forcing two saves is almost always better than forcing one save at -2.
And, your spells are supposed to be better than hexes, most of the time. You use hexes when you don't have a spell for the situation, or when you're out of spells. An area effect debuff (like Grease or Glitterdust) is generally better than a hex, but of course you can only do that a few times per day.
Finally, bear in mind that in a sufficiently powerful party, a support character just isn't so useful any more. Perhaps you could ask your GM to make the encounters harder.
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I wouldn't say that, my witches Evil Eye made it possible for my level 8 party to hit the CR 14 monster in Year of the Shadow Lodge. And made it possible for my Misfortune to stick, which made it impossible for the CR 14 monster to hit our Paladin. Level 8s aren't supposed to even engage the CR 14 monster in that, much less kill it, and the entire party agreed that it was the combination of Witch and Paladin that made it possible.
But that was a big boss fight, which is where the hexes shine, as opposed to minions which often don't survive long enough for it to matter.
Minions are when you use your flight hex and cast 'Flurry of Snowballs' from 30 feet up while doing Perform:Sing checks to belt out "Let it Go."
I find Evil Eye is -OKAY- at best. A -2 to AC or Skills or Saves isn't great, and then at level 8 when it becomes a -4, everyone has scaled high enough that it's STILL just okay.Precisely.
Evil Eye is one of those abilities that's vastly overrated. So stop using that. Instead of Evil Eye the first turn and Slumber the next, just use Slumber the first turn, and if it didn't work use Accursed Hex to Slumber again. Forcing two saves is almost always better than forcing one save at -2.
Well, it is overrated if you apply it to AC. That is more of a 'nothing better to do' kind of thing.
-4 to saves though, that applies even if the enemy saves... yeah, give a SoS wizard that, and it will decimate anything even while using lower level spells than usual. Throw some enchantments, and he might get the dragon to kill all its minions. Particularly when you can make that enemy reroll and take the worse result...and you can do that for any enemy, all day. Guaranteeing that an enenmy is down in one turn, using lower leveled spells than usual, is a fine thing.
Witches make much better support characters for caster heavy groups. But this is a melee heavy group, so they would appreciate bards more (Since they can get that bonus on everyone's attacks near unconditionally rather than just one target, and still have time to throw some other buffs on them right before grabbing a weapon to help clean up with the melee types).
I fully support the idea this is just a party mismatch. Support characters can be great, but only when they are giving the proper kind of support.
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-4 to saves though, that applies even if the enemy saves... yeah, give a SoS wizard that, and it will decimate anything even while using lower level spells than usual.
Yes, it becomes decent if you're (1) level eight or higher, and (2) tag-teaming with another caster.
If you're going to Eye for your own hex, you're better off just using that second hex twice. Otherwise, as the OP indicates, usually the enemy will have died before you accomplish anything.
-4 to saves though, that applies even if the enemy saves... yeah, give a SoS wizard that, and it will decimate anything even while using lower level spells than usual.Yes, it becomes decent if you're (1) level eight or higher, and (2) tag-teaming with another caster.
If you're going to Eye for your own hex, you're better off just using that second hex twice. Otherwise, as the OP indicates, usually the enemy will have died before you accomplish anything.
Oh, I agree- he doesn't have much to build off of. A multiplier without much to multiply. I think half the reason why witches have cleric-ish spells on their list was so that you could easily write off teaming up with the wizard in the classic 4 man set up.
I wouldn't say that evil eye is bad prior to level 8- more modest, sure, but it still makes it feel like the other caster has +4 to their casting stat due to it.
Witches primarily have one trick, and while they do it very well, they kind of flounder a bit when they can't use it. Not the most flexible class, but still rather useful in the right set up. But I doubt many here will argue against the idea that this is not the best set up for a witch.
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I wouldn't say that evil eye is bad prior to level 8- more modest, sure, but it still makes it feel like the other caster has +4 to their casting stat due to it.
It's not bad in the sense of "it doesn't do anything", but in the sense of "you would be more effective doing something else".
I wouldn't say that evil eye is bad prior to level 8- more modest, sure, but it still makes it feel like the other caster has +4 to their casting stat due to it.It's not bad in the sense of "it doesn't do anything", but in the sense of "you would be more effective doing something else".
Still, level 1-7 are the range where casters often carry crossbows so they can do SOMETHING once they run out of spells. So 'having something better to do' might not be that huge of an issue. I think there is a rather small crunch range where you really feel the pressure for this.
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Still, level 1-7 are the range where casters often carry crossbows so they can do SOMETHING once they run out of spells. So 'having something better to do' might not be that huge of an issue. I think there is a rather small crunch range where you really feel the pressure for this.
A caster shooting a crossbow would also be more effective doing something else.
And the witch has hexes for this purpose. If you often find yourself evil eyeing for -2 because you have nothing better to do, you'll be more effective if you use another hex. That's why you get more than one hex, after all. Evil eye is not the be-all end-all of witchcraft!
Yeah, I use evil eye on my witch, but its because of the effect on miss, and I generally use it A: for saves so I can land spells etc, and B: as a backup. (though maybe I should grab misfortune, given that my save DC is good relative to a lot of enemies, and its not mind affecting)
One thing to remember with the Evil Eye hex is that it doesn't have the text on it that limits it to once a day like some of the other hexes do. So you can stack Evil Eyes on a boss. Start with -2 saves, then start stacking -2 AC, -2 hit, etc. And because even when you save versus Evil Eye it sticks for at least one round, and you have Cackle, that means you will always be able to debuff.
There is an errata that specifically states that you can apply evil eye multiple times, targeting a different penalty with each use (as noted in your comment). If you do target the same penalty before the previous one has expired, it merely resets the timer. This is the beauty of this hex, IMO, because that little bit of text limiting it to once per day is important against the BBEG.
So, based on thoughts stemming from this thread, I retooled my wife's witch for our GS campaign on Sundays.
Hedge Witch, 6th level, 21 INT, with ability focus (evil eye), the save DC is 20, but irrelevant with cackle. Slumber and misfortune are both sitting at 18 saves that require a roll of 20 due to evil eye, which will go up by 4 when she gets a +2 headband, her 8th level INT increase, and -2 increase in penalty from evil eye.
For GS, at 8th level in book 3, high HP baddies are the norm, so they should be around long enough for some very nasty consequences: 1) evil eye DC 22, 2) misfortune DC 20 at -4 penalty while fighter moves up to baddie, 3) slumber DC 20 and -4 penalty and roll twice taking worse result followed by fighter coup de grace. Her init is +8, so she almost always goes first, btw.
EDIT: I forgot about the level based DC increase... add 1 to her 8th level DCs. The Giants are gonna have issues!
1) evil eye DC 22, 2) misfortune DC 20 at -4 penalty while fighter moves up to baddie, 3) slumber DC 20 and -4 penalty and roll twice taking worse result followed by fighter coup de grace. Her init is +8, so she almost always goes first, btw.
You do realise that if the target fails against Misfortune, it would have failed against Slumber too (taking the target out of the fight a round sooner), right? And if the target saves, well, that's what Accursed Hex is for. Slumber after Misfortune is almost never a sensible thing to do.
Of course, Ability Focus: Slumber makes way more sense than AF: Evil Eye. The literally only saving grace of Evil Eye is that the target does not need to fail the save.
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I think the main problem here is Dedicated Support Syndrome. The witch, better than most other spellcasters, excels in a support role, but more often than not it's easy to feel worthless when you aren't specifically putting out damage.
I was playing in a game once where I was playing a support character, and actually took the time to keep track of my contributions in terms of hits & damage in an encounter. At the end of the day, thanks to my buffing, I ended up contributing roughly 50% of the party's overall damage, through buffs alone, not including the other support I did on my turn.
Just a few weeks ago, I was running a campaign for my best friend, and he encountered a Bulette. He had a Court Bard in his group and the -2 penalty bestowed by the Bard imparted more proactive healing than the cleric has done the entire game up to this point.
Support matters, and it matters A LOT. You just need to remember when it does.