Arestides's page

I began going through your class at the beginning of the week and writing out my commentary. I went to finish today, and most of the things I'm commenting on have changed! I had more feedback before the changes.

WHW

WHITE HAIR
You've really complicated what should be a simple ability.
1 - Remove mention of reach. A small or medium witch will have a reach of 5 ft. A larger witch will have a better reach. You can still increase the hair's reach at the appropriate levels.
2 - Why on earth would the hair have an attack bonus of 3/4 BAB + 1/2 level + ability score? If anything, I suggest 1/2 or 3/4 BAB for normal attacks, but uses her witch level in place of BAB for hair attacks.
3 - I suggest making the damage 1d6 for medium, and using Str for damage. Maybe she can select a hair ability to use Int. Having a bit of Str will encourage selection of feats like Power Attack, and such a feat will make the damage pretty good.
4 - For grapple CMB, use WHW level in place of WHW BAB, plus BAB from other classes, plus Int. For CMD, just use the standard formula and Int. Why is Dex suddenly involved? Create some hair powers that allow the witch to choose feats like Imp Grapple and Gr Grapple without the normal prereqs.

CONSTRICT
Just as you mention in Prehensile Hair that Grab functions as the Universal Monster Rule, I would do the same thing here. That way there is no confusion. Even though Grab and Constrict are not capitalized in a monster's entry, I would capitalize them here but only when specifically referring to the UMR.

COMBAT MANEUVERS
Instead of making separate abilities for various combat maneuvers, make one ability that governs any of them. Maybe at 3rd level and every four thereafter, she chooses one combat maneuver and can thereafter perform that maneuver with her hair, using one mechanic that governs them all. You can also make a hair power that allows her to choose a new combat maneuver. Or instead of making this a class feature, confine it strictly to hair powers.

1- Yes that's a good point, I've fixed that now

2- Huh, I thought that's how I had it (aside from 1/2 level witch bonus), upon re-reading what I had I saw that you are correct. I've fixed that as well.

3- Making a higher level hit die I agree with. Making the hair str base I do not. I do see where you are coming from (power attack feats and such). This was a problem in the original archetype but str was added to the to hit not damage. It makes it so there's another ability score you need high, Str, Dex (gives helpful AC and bumps up those ranged touch attacks), Con (fighting class so you still need this), and Int. That's too much in my opinion.

4- Yes.

Constrict- The problem here is the wording then? I believe I've fixed it then.

Combat Maneuvers- Okay so what if I confined all the maneuvers (disarm, pull, steal, trip) to one trick that can be taken multiple times but lets you select a different maneuver each time.

I've added two more tricks to list, these two focus on putting out more damage. They'll also have advanced and master counter parts so they can scale.

White Lance (Su):The white-haired witch winds her hair into one long tendril and lashes out at her enemies with greater force than usual. As a full attack action, the white-haired witch makes a single attack that does an additional 2d6 piercing type damage. When the white-haired witch may do this maneuver a number of times per day equal to her level plus her intelligence modifier. Using this trick immediately ends the: Climbing, Defense, Disarm, Gliding, Utility, tricks and if the witch has a creature grappled in her hair, she ends the grapple.

Rake (Su): The white-haired witch has learned to strike her foes in a way that can cut and rend flesh. As a full attack action, the witch makes a single attack that deals slashing type damage, and does 1d4 bleed damage for 1d6 rounds. A witch may perform this trick a number of times per day equal to her witch level plus her intelligence modifier. Using this trick immediately ends the: Climbing, Defense, Disarm, Gliding, Utility, tricks and if the witch has a creature grappled in her hair, she ends the grapple.

And here's what I came up with for the familiar trick.

Familiar (Ex): From the tumbles of her hair, the white-haired witch summons an animal manifestation of her patron. This ability functions exactly like the Witch’s Familiar class feature, aside from the witch still stores her spells within her hair. The familiar springs out from the white-haired witches hair as a swift action. You must choose an animal from the Witch’s Familiar list, once it has been made it cannot be changed.

I think that one could use work.

And I am not saying that the hair should get the full level. I am saying that I think half your level is too much. That is the largest accuracy bonus a medium BAB class has access to, besides the Investigator who has to spend an action to get their studied combat, and their studied combat goes away after a few rounds.

Well, monk gets their full class level bonus to their flurry of blows, sure its a full round attack. Plus at low levels that seems really low 4=2, 6=3, 8=4,that's pretty mediocre if you ask me.

A couple of ideas how about in the flavor of the class describing the witch's hair itself being the connection/manifestation of the witch's patron. Drop the framiler and comune with your patron by gromming in the morning. Think of the strands as pages and a braid here or extra curl there is a perpard slot.

Add a trick to gain the familer back that the patron can form from or dismiss into your hair.

The 1/2 level+Int unnamed bonus is clunky if you want to give another bonus give a constant automstic scaling enhancement bonus. Or give it something similar to the magus or other white witch base class idea.

Another idea could be to incorporate "virtual hands" that the hair provides. You could call them locks. Have it start at 1 scale throughout the class with a level gated and limited trick to add more. Then instead of having everything stop when you do something else have all of the tricks take a certain number of locks to perform.

I do like the big hair idea from above. Have it increase both your size for CMB/CMD and what size creature you can affect.

Flavor Idea- Great idea, adding it.

Trick Idea- Yea I'll probably add that as well, partly because the lack of having a familiar (however cool the above idea might be) is a tad disappointing.

Clunky Attack Modifier- I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

Locks- An interesting prospect, but I feel that the current set up is more straight forward, and still balanced.

Interesting timing. I was just looking at how to make a White Haired Witch viable for a new campaign that started yesterday.

I like a lot of your ideas, but have a few observations/comments:

- Spellcasting - What about leaving the witch with the same spellcasting progression, but reducing the spells per day by one per level? Several other archetypes do that. I'm not complaining about your choice. I just thought it was another way to do it without reprinting a spell progression for all the levels.

- CMD - The base ability of the White Hair states that your CMD is 10 + your CMB vs attempts to escape the grapple, but that's actually a little low. Normally, a character gets 10 + STR + DEX + BAB + misc modifiers. If you just got to use your INT instead of STR for your CMD, then it would end up higher. And taking just 1 level of Monk gets a character to add their WIS to their CMD, so your version could easily end up being a bit low.

- Flanking - because you have a natural attack with reach, you already count for flanking everything within your reach, as measured from the center of your square. Why have this trick? Or the advanced ones?

- Disarm and Steal - You already can do these maneuvers with a natural attack with reach. And they provoke, but if the opponent can't actually reach you, they can't take an attack of opportunity. There's even a feat specifically for Readying to attack something with reach that attacks you, even when you can't normally reach them. I know you get a little bonus with these tricks, but it seems like a lot of effort to just get a +1 or +2 to do something you can already do. Or am I missing something?

- Distraction - Unless I'm missing something, you already can do an Aid Another with your natural attack that has reach, can't you? Does this actually add something?

- Twin Tails - Making both attacks into secondary attacks seems a bit harsh to me. Why not just give the witch another attack with the hair, at a -5 to her BAB? I guess with your version, it...

Thank you for your criticism. It does help me with the construction of this project, however I'll try and defend some of these choices.

Spell-casting- Yes there are a number of archetypes that do this, however, I would argue that those archetypes still exemplify their class at their core. The white haired witch vanilla is so broken beyond belief, almost everything has to go/change. Being so radically different, I decided to look at this archetype for what it is, a melee spell-caster. And so I took inspiration from the class which I find to be the pinnacle of melee spell-casters of the d20 system, the magus. Also, having access to less powerful spells forces you to use your hair more, which is the goal of this archetype (or class now I guess).

CMD- Hmm, I think you are absolutely correct. I will fix that post haste.

Flanking- You are indeed correct that natural weapons threaten all squares within your reach. However, perhaps its a little unbalanced to have a character that has a 15ft-30ft bubble around, them that provokes attack of opportunity, with a good chance to grab, and without need to buy into an ability of some kind that allows them to do this. I think I'll reword it so that the hair has its reach but only provokes squares the witch would normally threaten (unless they do indeed have the Flanking Trick).

Disarm and Steal- As you've said but also replacing BAB with class level for a 3/4 BAB class is strong too.

Distraction- Another very good point. I think I'll remove it.

Twin Tails- Harsh, perhaps, but its also the beginning of a tree that has multi-attack, multi-attack mastery (removing the negative entirely) with 4 secondary attacks. I'm new at this, as I've said, but that doesn't seem so bad to me, it just starts out slow.

Climbing and Gliding- I really like those too.

I changed the CMB bonus on The Spider's Web from +4 to +8 and on the master version, The Master Web, to +10. For good measure a +2 CMB bonus on the Constrict Trick.

Now I'm a little concerned, because I included the white witch treats her level as her BAB when calculating CMB. So is including all these tricks that further buff CMB too strong?

Okay, as for the afore mentioned accuracy bonus being too strong I think I'll reduce the modifier. I'm thinking of rolling the modifier back to one third the level or even a quarter (I'll include a helpful guide on the Hair Advancement Chart when I decide).

As a side idea, I was thinking of any other tricks I might want to include and I found myself thinking of an old D&D monster called a Tako, which is basically an octopus that carries weapons in its tentacles. I considered including a Trick that allowed to carry a weapon in the witch's hair (simple ((maybe martial)), light or one handed weapons only), an Advanced Trick to use that in conjunction with twin tail, not sure what I'd have for a Master Trick. Would that be a little too crazy? Thinking about it I wonder how effective that would be at all but I'm curious as to what others think.

So I've come up with two new Advanced Prehensile Tricks that should help address the afore mentioned CMB/Bigger monsters problem.

Crushing Grip (Ex): The white-haired witch has learned to tighten her grip on her hair and use it to inflict the most pain. The witch gains double the amount of dice your constrict damage would do. This trick requires a witch to possess: 17 Int, the trick Constrict, and Weapon Focus (Hair). This ability is suspended if the witch’s hair begins using the Climbing, Defensive, Gliding or Utility prehensile tricks and upgrades.

The Spider’s Web (Ex): The white-haired witch’s hair has grown to be as inescapable as a spider’s web. The witch may now grab huge creatures. She also gains a +4 to CMB to grab and the tricks: Disarm, Pull, Steal and Trip. This ability only augments tricks the witch already possess and does not give her the ability to use abilities she does not posses.

There's to be a Master version of each but, again, being new to this I wasn't sure if I was being too generous or too stingy.

I actually really liked this.

One thing I would do though is remove the rounds/minutes per day per level for the Glide tricks.

Why do you feel that is necessary? Just have it be something they can do all the time. Heck if a normal witch took the right hex, she can featherfall all day long if she wants right? Why does this character have to be limited in that way.

And as for Advance Gliding you really think that one is going to come up all that many times when she can take the advanced tricks? Just totally remove all these per level time things.

You also have to consider that combat maneuvers get really hard to pull off as you increase in level, with all the jumbo size things out there that proliferate as you level.

Int and character/caster level to combat maneuvers isn't going to cut it. Any maneuver build needs a trick of some sort to pull it off. Whether it is something like a barbarian's strength surge, or a true strike spell (which isn't on the witch list unless a patron gives it).

You need some kind of feature like "Big Hair" that increases the size category of the hair for maneuvers, and then "Big, Big, Hair" to do it even more.

I'm not even joking. Look at the cmd of common opponents at like level 15, and tell me how you pull off a maneuver. Unless you are fighting some kind of humanoid with class levels.

While I was pulling this together I did look at this Trick and became somewhat worried for the exact reasons you've mentioned. It is also because of this trick that I removed Flight from the list of available hexes. I figured Glide and Flight used together would mean you could spend a ridiculous amount of time in the air.

I will remove the Advanced and Master Glide tricks because, as you've said, how many times is that really going to come up. And, since the hex Flight gives a president, I will also remove the timer on Glide.

Now as for this "Big Hair" idea, I actually quite like it. I wonder if it might also call for an ability like the Monk's Maneuver Training isn't also called for.

I'll come up with some rules for "Big Hair" (pending better name) and consider some kind of natural buff to combat maneuvers.

A question and a suggestion. Also I must say that I love this. Thank you for making it.

Question: Why does the witch get half her level to attack rolls with her hair?

Suggestion: You probably want to change the wording of the Patron ability. She no longer gains new spell levels every 2 levels, so her patron needs to grant the bonus spells at a new progression now.

Answer: The original ability came from Hammerblade who had written it that you add your full Witch level to attack rolls. Now, for an archetype that largely focuses on one trick (hitting stuff and crushing it with my hair) with reduced spells, I thought it fair to include the to hit buff. But, I also felt that using the witch's full level was too strong, my thinking being that her spells came at the cost of the full to hit bonus.

The Suggestion: Excellent catch, I'll change that to every 3 levels.

My link to my White Haired Witch Doesn't appear to be working this one should:

Here.

Hello, I've never really created a home-brew system of any kind as I don't feel I have the know how to create truly balanced or viable character options. That said, I've also been seduced by the White Haired Witch, Witch Archetype. I find the idea colossally creative and unique, I can't really point to anything in the rest of the Paizo library that is at all relatable.

Unfortunately, the White Haired Witch is so crippled its unplayable. Being a melee spell-chucker cross with: 1/2 BAB, two low save progressions (Fort and Ref), requiring high Str (or Dex if you take Weapon Fineness) on top of normal Witch ability scores, low hit points, low damage output, nothing but Rogue Talents waiting for you beyond 8th level (woo hoo), and no access to the standard Witch Hexes to try and augment this mangled mess makes for one of the worst archetypes I've seen in the game. This is unacceptable for an archetype this creative.

So I perused Google for other people's home-brews, and while I did find a number of fantastic ideas, I didn't find something I thought was a 100% what this archetype needed. So I created my home-brew based on a combination of, the other Paizo melee spell-chucker cross, the Magus, some home-brews I found online, and a kiss of monk (not really much of anything from monk aside from growing damage dice for the hair attacks).

By the time I thought I was finished, I realized I'd pretty much gutted the the entire class and it kind of resembled its own class more than it does an archetype. While I might still call it an archetype, it basically doesn't resemble a Witch aside from theme.

Here's the things I changed:

*BAB is now 3/4
*6th lvl Spell-caster
*D8 HP
*Use Int in Place of Str for Hair Attacks (and 1/2 witch level)
*Good Saves to Ref and Will
*Progression Increase on Damage Die for Hair Attacks
*A Number of Powers Based on the Witch's Hair (you get these like you would Hexes- choosing which ones you want as you level)
*Limited Access to Standard Witch Hexes, Major Hexes, and Grand Hexes (Some Exclusions) at very Specific Times

I feel like what I've done has captured the original spirit of the archetype, but since this is my first attempt at something like this I'm not sure I've done it well. I'm skeptical that I haven't been too generous or too miserly. So I was hoping to get some feedback from the community.

So here's my vesion of the White Haired Witch:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1deTfEDDkGBuWTTKQ6jCpNQhYhifeZ60PD7sGST9 q2BM/pub

Also here are the links to the home-brews I took ideas from:

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pqaz?Rewrite-of-the-WhiteHaired-Witch-Archetyp e

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2s03r?WhiteHaired-Witch-Base-Class

Hi I was just wondering if your still takeing on new players, in fact I'm not sure if I'll be able to join this game because I read that you guys are on central time and I'm on eastern, but if it's actually possible I'd like to join. If not, well no hard feelings.