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Does Effortless Concentration count as sustaining a hex for Witch familiar abilities or is this one of those cases where it has to be the Sustain action?

I do recommend the "___ save --> take 0 damage" familiar ability if you can afford it. Reflex is still probably the best save to pick, but you still have to succeed on the roll for it to help at all.

I was looking at that ability lately. I assume it can't be taken multiple times for each save since it doesnt say you can like with Skilled?

Yes, lifelink could save your familiar from dying by a death effect bringing it to 0 HP, as it prevents it from going to 0 in the first place. It still won't save it from an effect that says 'the target dies' or some such, but those are very rare.

Oh maan, that's relief because my party was victim to death effects jumpscares this past weekend. I forgot death effects exists as early as enemies having access to vampiric feast. Gladly no one actually got close to going down but it was still scary. Im happy lifelink doubles as a death effect preventative measure.

If it has the construct ability, it also gets that trait, which means it is destroyed at 0.

Those immunities did look too good to be true. Though I think the healing immunity is the actual dealbreaker over the no death saves. I missed that on the first reading.

Do object familiars or any familiar with the construct ability get destroyed at 0HP or do they still get death saves?

On a somewhat related note, would lifelink save my familiar from a death effect? If my familiar goes to 0HP from a death effect would I be able to lifelink it before the death effect kills it?

my remaster witch i could keep my familiar (and me) relatively safe with Armor Proficiency, Lifelink, Flight and Independant.

Flight+Independent meant that for a lot of fights it was simply flying above the enemy's reach on it's own so it was safe. Armor proficiency had my, and in extend the familiar's, AC about 2 points higher than without, meaning a lot less crits on either of us. Lifelink was used often in fights that the familiar wasreachable (aoe's, ranged attackers, etc). Usually it was used to keep it alive from the last hit, and then on my turn I would move it away from the danager.

For a second I thought I missed an Armor Proficiency familiar ability but that's just the general feat! I didn't consider that but it is better than Toughness, which I was planning on taking at 7th, in that it benefits both me and my familiar.

That sounds great for Lifelink though. Even better than what I envisioned in my head. Gonna go ahead and field test that and good thing familiar abilities are easy to switch out on the daily. And yes Flight and Independent have been MVPs so far!

Mostly, my suggestion is to get comfortable with the familiar getting sent 0HP Dying, and be ready to spend 1A to get them conscious again. Reactions can kinda be hard to dedicate to the familiar like that, and you don't want to be hurting the PC any more than you have to, especially if you're an HP6 Witch.

That's pretty much what I've landed into doing. My familiar has been KOd two times now and I felt safe letting it happen. Both times I can confidently say Phase Familiar would not have mattered. I just healed it and commanded it to safety after. Though I will admit the initiative order for those events we're a teeny bit favorable to me.

The difficulty with giving advice on this is that it is heavily dependent on both your character build and what you are doing with your familiar - and your GM. A familiar that is ending up adjacent to enemies due to using Spell Delivery or a Witch special ability that requires adjacent range is going to need more protection than a familiar that only needs to be within 30 feet for their Witch special ability or can even do their entire job from within a Pet Cache pocket dimension.

True. I have a non frontline familiar ability (Spinner of Threads) so I'm lucky there. I do wonder how thosee frontline familiars survive though. The few times I used the offensive option of my familiar ability it got immediately dicey. Now I mostly use it when I can figure my familiar being a flyer will be tough for a certain target.

I'm several games into my Witch now and one thing that's bothered me is that Phase Familiar isn't really cutting it as a familiar survival tool. The biggest tell is that I've never even had a good opportinity to use it. I've had success just healing the damage away with Soothe, medicine and most commonly Life Boost, which competes for the focus point in the first place. My GM is kindly allowing me to respec it for free since I haven't used it even once.

Before I fully commit to that though, I was thinking of using a familiar ability slot for Lifelink instead. It's a reaction like Phase Familiar but for no focus point. Yes, it doesn't really prevent damage like Phase does since I just take it all instead, but at least I'll be using it to what seems to me like the only time it has really mattered when my famiiar takes damage, when it goes down to 0 HP.

That's all in speculation though on my part. Does anyone have experience with it? Does anyone have any other familiar survival tips?

We could use a clarification on whether casting Hex spells require your familiar to be alive or present.

Currently, there's heavy implication that they do, but that's as far as it gets as far as I understand.

Oh duh! Clerics classically of course. Although I didn't realize it was ultimately on the GM on what you lose. I learned something new.

I need to get my pre-remaster books in order to see if this hex thing was just as ambiguous then. For such a big implied penalty to the witch, I can't believe I've never heard about it all this time. I'm so glad I didn't pick a frontline familiar ability!

Tridus wrote:

RAW doesn't explicitly say.

Quote:

"A hex is a spell shaped by your patron and sent to you through your familiar, rather than an ability you use directly."

You can definitely read that as "this can't happen if your familiar isn't there" since the hex has to go through your familiar rather than being a direct ability you cast.

I'll agree that it is ambiguous. I'll also take the opposing argument. I'm good at that.

Yup, thats the line I apparently missed reading it the first time. I was hoping the hex trait would have been a more direct source of a clear ruling.

The best I got from the hex trait on hexes is that it uses "your patron's direct attention and intervention." I don't know if that is enough to assert anything. Definitely less so compared to that other line.

Is it more normal that you losing access to features and abilities like that is or isn't explicitly stated?

Either way, I will let my GM know about this since there is no clear RAW. Thank you both!

I’m two games in with my witch and one thing I know for sure is that I need my familiar to refocus. If my familiar is dead, no more focus points for my hex spells other than what I have left until the next day. If I archetype into a way to refocus without my familiar, I thought, problem solved! However, after reading about hexes again, I’m getting the vibe hex spells, including hex cantrips, actually require the familiar’s presence to be used. So I’m thinking my familiar needs to be alive for me to hex. Is that true?

If your GM allows rare, Mosquito witch may be the 'upgrade' to Silence in Snow. Same tradition, similar hex, but the familiar ability is a much more easily posititioned always-on concealment for you or a friend. Constant 20% enemy miss chance for no action cost? Yes please.

I really do like how all of the familiar abilities just work with no rolls. The trade off is it’s coming from the low HP familiar.

The hex looks clunky though. Am I reading it right where the only time sustaining it does anything is if the target critically fails? Not a big deal at first since like the snow hex it’s still damage you can keep flinging around, but you cant cast this one on the same target since they become immune.

In general I think the good witches are very good and it's very obvious what each Witch patron wants to do so unlike some classes you aren't going to be locked out of the most broken combo because you didn't read the 9th level entry (hi Animist). Lessons also lets you buy good spells regardless of tradition. At the very least, at most levels with most players, it's the best Int caster IMO.

I’ve looked through the patrons and this aspect really has me hooked right now. As long as I pick a patron that has both a cantrip and familiar ability that resonates with me, I’m fairly happy. And it’s all realized at level 1!

I’m only at the core patrons right now and I’m really liking the support ones. Faiths flamekeeper and spinner of threads seem really fun and easy to grasp for me as all around number boosters. The familiar abilities not pushing me to get my familiar close to enemies feels comfy too. Some of the offense oriented ones really are tempting, but I’m not mentally there yet.

What I'm gathering so far is that a lot of power has been put into the familiar. Appropriate, but also double-edged since the familiar remains as fragile as ever. I didn't really know what to do with my familiar pre-remaster so this feels all upside to me.

Also, patron choice seems to matter a lot, huh? Is the gap really that big from the resentment patron and the rest though? How comparable is that to how the liturgist is to the animist, because I've seen that one in action?

These are all great reads in tempering my expectations, thank you.

I've wanted to play a Witch since pre-remaster but just never got to it. At last I have a game for it but before I deep dive into it, I was curious what the general vibe toward the Witch is now.

My only experience with building pre-remaster Witches and not playing them is that the main draw for me was the 1-action hex cantrips and lesson spells. At the time I was still learning how to get value out of your third action so being built into the class had me feeling cozy.

With the remaster, most of the early impressions I read is on the hyped up resentment patron, hex immunities being fixed, and familiars getting more involved. So, a lot of good things!

Needless to say I'm kind of ignorant on both Witch versions. Now that some time has passed, how well did the remaster really improve the Witch?