So I'm looking at having the wizard (specialist) as my "go to" arcane caster in my campaign, but I also want an alternate arcane caster as a counter balance against them. This counter class are a somewhat antagonistic group which are spontaneous casters, but I'm at a toss up if I should go Sorcerer or Witch.
The alternate class chosen will represent 1/2 of the full arcane casters available in the campaign (the wizard + 1 more) so the decision has some significance.
Either way, the class will receive their spell casting abilities via a "dark patron", be a spontaneous caster, use the sorcerer spells per day / spells known table, and use the Witch spell list. If Sorcerer is chosen only certain bloodlines (yet to be determined) will be allowed to ensure the general feel of the class maintains that "heretic witch" sorta feel.
So the question is if there are any suggestions on which class to use as my "base" and if there are any significant differences (aside from individual spells) which would show one over the other as a better fit?
There aren't too many archetypes that do what you want. The closest is the Ley Line Guardian Witch archetype, which gives the Witch spontaneous casting, although strangely its spellcasting and hexes are still intelligence-based.
Oh make no mistake, this is a home brew campaign where the assumptions i'm putting into place will simply become the new standard. Such as the class being a spontaneous caster for example. I'm not looking for an archtype, etc. to do this, it will simply be how the class plays in our campaign.
The real question comes down to the class features of things like hex / bloodlines, racial preferred class, etc. Is there a smoking gun advantage in those areas which would make for an obvious choice of basing the resulting class on one or the other?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you want a spontaneous spellcaster I'd stick to the sorcerer and just reflavor it as the heretic witch you want to portray. There are many bloodlines that could suit that role perfectly. You wouldn't even have to make any changes to the class.
Yeah, the only change that I can foresee for the sorcerer (witch) would be the use of the witch spell list and defining what bloodlines would be campaign appropriate. And of course the reflavoring of how the class actually gets its spells (dark patron).
I'll probably have to do a deep dive in the different bloodlines vs the hexes to see if any are particularly shining over the other and make the call from there.
So after taking some time to work on this I opted to simply keep the Witch class and convert it to a spontaneous caster. The familiar does not store spells like a living spell book, rather the Witch learns the spell (spells known list). The patron spells effectively acting like a sorcerers blood line, with Hexes acting like the Blood line granted abilities. Additional Hexes could also be created this way by back engineering the Sorcerer bloodlines as needed.
The alternative version of this was to go the opposite route of using the Sorcerer as a base and making their spell acquisition based upon "dark pacts" with a patron vs some genetic inheritance of ancestral power.
This might be a good time to make a true hybrid of Sorcerer and Witch (that is different from Ley Line Guardian) -- figure out how to work in all of Bloodline, Familiar, Hexes, and Familiar. Although if you build for it, it is possible (although kludgy) to do this with existing Paizo stuff (for instance, Eldritch Heritage on a Ley Line Guardian Witch, and use feats to get a Familiar -- easiest if your Sorcerer Bloodline used with Eldritch Heritage is what gets you the Familiar).
I love me a Witch!!