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I think Monk makes more sense as a starting point, and offers ninja-style shenanigans sooner (if we're talking wall running, etc), but Rogue has all the skills for breaking and entering. Monks can be fine at sneaking, so kind of a wash there.

Rogue does eventually get the running on air ability, while Monk has to settle for spending focus points to fly.

Personally, I'd probably go pure monk myself. Just a shame shuriken don't get to substitute for weapons via Monastic Weaponry. But you can still mix in some melee weapons that fit the theme (e.g. Kama, and 1d6 agile trip is pretty good for a 1h).

lemeres wrote:

Certainly. I am pretty sure it is one of the best blasters, even when compared against spell casters.

I don't understand why people find Dragon's Rage Breath that good. I don't say it's not nice, but calling the Dragon Barbarian "one of the best blasters" seems way out of line to me. The Dragon Barbarian has one blast and not a very efficient one. It's only asset being that you recharge it every hour... It's thin to even be considered a blaster.

It's a big fat blast that recharges. It can't be spammed but it's not a bad way to open a fight - it scales on par with fireball basically iirc.

Yes. Going to find a cleric of Calistria to plot revenge satisfies the dragon anathema. Demanding they take it back and rolling intimidate works. Arguably failing the intimidate should be fine there.

Barbarian and monk both have strong class feats for battlefield control via athletics (or raw threat range and AoO for giant instinct), so D is underselling them. And Barbarian has some intimidate support too.

Barbarian gets the Grab action outright even.

Fighters get some good options for debuffing too, e.g. snagging strike.

I think an Impossible Lands themed year, with some version of gunslingers, psychic magic, elemental monks, and summoners all wandering in would be pretty cool.

I’m not sure what through line all of those elements would have besides “Impossible Lands”, but I’m sure Paizo can think of something.

I think an AP could bring Nex, Geb, Alkenstar, and Jalmeray into a plot pretty easily. Nex and Geb war threatens to flare up, Alkenstar is caught in the middle, and representatives are meeting in Jalmeray as a neutral ground. Predictably multiple factions are getting involved, intrigue abounds, and things eventually lead into a run into Nex's demiplane or something.

One important thing to note is that this stance is a status bonus while crane is a circumstance bonus. Shields are a circumstance bonus.

So unlike crane style, you can stack this with raising a shield for a constant +3 AC.

Maralgundi, Gnome Scoundrel
Speaks in an excited/flamboyant fashion
Dresses in fine clothes
Thinks courts are the best game ever invented.

Fey-touched Gnome Scoundrel MC Fey Sorcerer. I have four cantrips at level 2 and can swap one out to adapt to enemies. Sneak attack makes me hit harder with both melee and spells at level 4, and my slots are free for covering other bases. I can still cut stuff up well with a short sword from flank.

If anything the problem is my stat spread means my weapon damage is lacking at early levels. 1d6 for one action or 1d4+4 at range with variable element for two?

Diabolic Edict is awkward. It doesn't work on enemies, making the debuff part mostly pointless. But it has no immunity so it can be used as better-Guidance.

HumbleGamer wrote:

Gloom wrote:

Fighters and Barbarians can be decent tanks, depending on what they're doing. Fighter can get a TON of reactions for free usage of shields and attacks of opportunity.

A tank is meant to both take hit and protect allies.

A barbarian is not meant to protect allies, and given the armor lack because of rage, it is not suit able as tank.

Barbarians get to tremendous amount of hit points + damage reduction which compensate the lack of armor while raging.

Also, you only consider hits against AC. There are many melee spell attacks targeting Fortitude (Harm for example). Also, against poisoned attacks, the Barbarian will tank better than both Fighters and Champions.
And Barbarians can get attacks of opportunity to block enemies.

Barbarians can tank. They are not as good as Champions, but they can do it.

Barbarians get an action to refresh their temp HP every turn, and they're the best class at athletics checks. Grabbing an enemy means they can't go after anyone else and the barbarian can soak a lot.

Related disappointing interaction: Quick Jump doesn't help you Sudden Leap.

Accursed Hex is a feat you missed, though it wasn't relevant if you were building maximum mean.

I don't think we need 1e hexes and cackling again. Evil Eye + Cackle was stupid. Though the playtest evil eye gets partway there anyways it doesnt let you lead into misfortune and slumber like 1e for maximum crippling.

It's a fine line to walk I guess, because "negate one enemy by debuff" is easy to have slip into "instakill enemy". And if its fundamentally save or die effects... well, its either great or useless.

Hexes as the main combat contribution is the defining aspect of 1e witch I feel. Whether debuffs or the alternate natural weapon options (which are fine being class feats, though I don't know that the playtest version supports it well). This is what I want when I think witch.

Familiars are nice and flavorful but punishing to lose. I do like having one, I just wish it wasn't such a risk. In 1e I rarely get to use it as more than a stat stick (glorious massive perception)

I have no real attachment to the spell list, it was certainly flavorful. The limits on it feel like they got blurred in later supplements a bit.

Patrons were at best a build theme, being a very bare bones version of the bonus spell options of domains and bloodlines. No real attachment here.

Daze feels like a pretty decent back up option. It won't work on mindless undead, but Lance will if you're channeling good. That basically just leaves constructs as something you're helpless against, but golems are immune to so much magic anyway it almost doesn't matter.

Honestly, I think Daze is underated. Sure, the damage is lower, but it still does some on a successful saving throw, targets a save that tends to be very weak for low level enemies, and has twice the range of everything but Ray of Frost.

Daze's damage scales extremely poorly but at level one it's a constant 4 damage compared to average 6.5 of other cantrips (with telekinetic hitting for 7.5 average). Also, it's a save so it gets half damage most of the time if it fails. Non-undead mindless creatures are a problem (if you know about undead you can bring disrupt undead after all).

Divine casters can get cantrip damage, it's just much more effort because you're shifting between Daze, Chill Touch, and Disrupt Undead with possible Divine Lance. The other lists can just pick something and run with it.

The list does have issues with being too tied to worshiping a specific deity though for damage spells (spiritual weapon is glaring because it's otherwise a nice efficient option)

Idea: What if Witches had an action to refocus mid-combat?

Cackle: 1 action
Requirements: A Hex has ended since the start of your last turn
Effect: Refocus. You may only regain focus spent on Hexes this way

The hexes-only clause is to avoid any abuse cases of doing a quick hex and dropping it to reload focus for other classes' focus spells, but I'm not actually sure it's necessary if the hexes can't be used more than once per target.

A hex ending would include any of the following:
1) The hexed target dies (or otherwise becomes invalid)
2) The hex hits its max duration
3) You choose to let the hex drop

Edit: As this would allow witches to build for multiple hexes at once, I'd add: "Whenever you cast a Hex, you may sustain all your other hexes" under some appropriate name, to allow hitting 3 hexes at once going (at which point you'd be spending your whole turn maintaining them all, but I kind of like the mental image of a mage doing that to lock down enemies)

Agreed, I think it should be included in the full class for sure. Widen Spell I can live without, but Reach Spell is a strong option for caster safety.

Sudden Charge allows you to use it with any special speeds you may have, including a climb speed.

Climbing requires two free hands. Weapons generally also require free hands.

Does this mean Combat Climber is required to be able to Sudden Charge while using a climb speed, and that it is impossible to do so with a 2h weapon, or a shield, etc?

That could be tricky. Casters have the consideration of attack roll or save for damage, and AoE complicates matters (well, not really - mass nuke or disable almost certainly wins).

Spellcasters also have very progression on their attack rolls though which is nice.

The short version of this: Buff the hit rate of the guy with the highest to-hit bonus.

If they crit on a 20 only, they're getting the same benefit as everyone below them.

If they crit on more than a 20, they get a better benefit than anyone who doesn't and the same benefit as anyone else who does.

There's some diminishing returns once a 1 becomes merely failure instead of crit failure, but at that point the enemy is either a chump and you should just save the resources or a rare "can't miss this" enemy and you should be buffing damage (or just blasting it).

That said, this doesn't account for variance, which affects the distribution of damage, and doesn't account for differences in expected damage per hit (A raging Giant Barbarian at level 1 averages 16.5 damage with a greatsword hit, the fighter averages only 10.5), and that means if they're in the same growth band the bigger weapon wins (and if the fighter was using only a d8 longsword they only barely pull ahead in benefit when they're in the faster band and the barbarian is not since the barbarian hits almost twice as hard)

Historically guns were absolutely inferior to a trained archer up until repeating rifles came about. But they didn't require that lifetime of training, nor did they need the strength to load of a crossbow.

I think it needs something more exciting all together. A lot of the proposals feel too mechanical. Replacing one type of component with another might be useful, for instance, but it's a tad boring. Something best saved for a non-iconic feature.

Hexes in my opinion should still be the selling point of the witch. "You don't have to rely entirely on spells, your magic is much more than that."

I think they could remove the full action block for it and just be a blurb that "Witches can sustain a spell with cackling or vocalizations, when doing so they replace Concentrate with Auditory" if needed, but I do like it being called out.

Cackle is on the level of sorcerers not needing a spell component pouch. The issue is that Witch basically has spell slots+hexes+class feats right now, and then Cackle is called out. And people are then jumping on it as "too weak", etc. because there's nothing else big and shiny there (there's a lot of stuff on the familiar and patron because they're important, but they don't provide action options the way something like Rage does).

Now truthfully, Sorcerer actually isn't much more than that. They get their spell slots, bloodline, and eschew materials. And that's it. The key difference really is that bloodlines are a bundle of things - bonus spells (which Witch gets via Lessons), focus powers (Lessons), and bloodline arcana (no equivalent). Bloodlines feel meatier because it's a single big choice though that affects a lot of things as a package.

I don't want to bundle lessons up that way though, as the flexibility is nice. I do agree Witch needs something else, because it does feel a little hollow at the moment - in part because hexes don't really feel a lot different from other focus spells. Replacing Cackle I think comes more from it being the only obvious thing to replace, but that makes the flawed assumption that something has to be removed in order to add something new.

The other issue hexes have though is that they compare very unfavorably to Bard's compositions. 1e bards had limited (but lots of) party-wide buffing. 2e bards have an unlimited supply (albeit having to always sustain it, though they had to in 1e as well). 2e witches are going from unlimited hex ammo for debuffs to 1/battle at level 1.

In that vein, as a global Witch option:
Minor Jinx, 1 action (Concentrate)
Duration: 1 round
Target creature suffers a -1 status penalty to saves and DCs. After it is the target of an attack or makes a saving throw this effect ends and it is immune for one minute.
When you apply Minor Jinx, you may Cackle as a free action.

I'm fine with broadening the flavor of Cackle to include more options. My point was more that if something new is added it shouldn't be at the expense of Cackle (or whatever its called).

Interesting option for Hex Cantrips (cantrips with the Hex trait).

The idea being they would be cantrips you learn, and can cast, but with the requirement that you must have a focus point remaining to cast them. However, unlike focus hex spells, they do not Consume the focus point.

In this way they can be stronger than some cantrips, and definitely more flavorful, but help bring back some of the all-day nature of the first edition witch hexes.

That just makes the last focus point needlessly punishing to spend. I'm not a fan of the grit/panache 1+ stuff in 1e for the same reason. Anything that makes spending a resource more painful is bad - people already hold off on burning resources as is.

So why does Cackle need to be changed? I would agree Witch needs a little something else, but why should it remove Cackle?

And it should be noted you retain the option to use a normally sized weapon to avoid clumsy (but ony at base rage damage). If I'm remebering it right, you get no clumsy while using a bow (or, more likely) javelins, though you could build for oversized throwing weapons and take Raging Hurler with returning rune...

Personally, I could see something like this for if the Summoner class returns. By not having actual spells, the class could put more focus/power into the Eidolon and any magical ability they really needed could be turned into focus spells. Not to mention it would be highly thematic for the class to focus more on rituals and it wouldn't suffer too much in combat as a result due to the power of the Eidolon.

Absolutely. Give the summoner spellcasting of a tradition but no spell slots. So they can use wands and scrolls, they can use focus spells to bring out/support summons, and they have a unique ritual for their eidolon.

But Witch should have spell slots. I like them covering the pick a tradition prepared caster, it's appropriate as the patrons can be of different sources much like bloodlines. And it mechanically means the hole is filled for occult prepared caster, which reduces burdens future books need to carry?

I do think they need a bit more hexiness to their flavor. Possibly either through cantrip hexes so they hex more often, other abilities to stretch their focus points (moving a hex to a new target if it dies, spreading it, etc), or just getting bonuses to hex-like spells.

I guess as far as what it requires to be a patron:
1) Capable of teaching magic of that tradition (which is the easiest criteria... basically any level 17+ caster qualifies)
2) Capable of providing magic juice via familiar (Narrower, though I think legendary-proficiency casters would be able to choose to get this set up, it would just take research and rituals). Stronger entities of course can handle more of this - at the level of demigods and higher there's no real limit to how many they can be a patron of.

As given as an example above - powerful artifacts and their owners, old and mighty beings, and yes, the strongest of mages (Baba Yaga) all count.

I think the Baba Yaga example is interesting in that her level has surpassed that of her original mentor? There isn't an issue if a witch surpasses their patron - presumably this means they've learned to supplement their patron's power with other sources, possibly included their own ability akin to a wizard. But the patron still needs to be strong enough to power them along the way to that point. (And of course hexes aren't the patron providing power, so there's some innate talent there still)

I still do not understand this/cannot find it. Would someone mind telling me what skill you get in each case?

Edit: Wait, do they mean nature for primal, arcane for arcane, and occult for occult?

Yeah, it's just the standard tradition skill. The good news is it sounds like they're definitely going to make it more explicit in the final version.

Watery Soup wrote:

Duration: until the target is kissed

And not just any kiss, the kiss of a Virgin Princess!

Lawful Good only, must be of a royal line extending back at least 100 years...

My pet theory for Kineticist:

Blasts are focus cantrips.
Gather Power is a metamagic to reduce fovus cost.
Other modfiers are metamagic that consumes focus points
Class trait to allow stacking metamagic.

Burn is a class feature to take damage or something to gather power as free action.

And then you get your wild/utility/etc from some split of class feat and class features (first element acting like a path for some freebies?)

I think that covers it.

I did a build that got 16 natural attacks by combining the Druid's Kraken Caller archetype along with the feats Tail Terror and Magical Tail. The build assumes that Tail Terror allows the character to make 1 attack with each tail gained from the feat magical tail. The last time a build like this was brought up some didn't feel two feats stack that way. So expect table variation.

Tail Terror is a Kobold feat though and Magical Tail is Kitsune? Am I missing something?

The-Magic-Sword wrote:

I think it's too radical a departure from the core vision of the designers, this book is coming out to us in 7 months, and it has to go to the printers before that. Trying an overhaul like this would be a recipe for disaster.

As the OP, I essentially believe this statement is true.

But at the same time... something to toss out there.

I'll remind you of the Alchemist. While a pure focus caster or something is neat, it's not going to be the Witch.

I do think a cantrip focus based setup has potential for translating over Occultist, Kineticist, and such though down the line (in fact, I think Kineticists map quite nicely to focus cantrips and metamagic in particular) and that we'll absolutely see a class more devoted to that eventually.

Lyz Liddell wrote:

Hi, everyone! I'm seeing this discussion and a similar discussion in another thread, and I want to let you all know that Cackle is something we looked at a lot while building the class, and it's something we're very open to tweaking further based on your feedback. We want to make it a fun ability that works well with the class, and it's clear that we haven't quite hit that mark yet, so we'll definitely be making some changes.

I'm just going to pop in to say that I'm opposed to Cackle being the baked-in, definitive Witch ability not on a mechanical but on an aesthetic level. I just don't want to have to play a character who audibly laughs; it limits my ability to choose how my PC acts and sounds. I played a half-dozen witches in P1e, and not a single one took Cackle; I could make that choice. Making it baked-in means I probably won't play the class at all in P2e.

As Cyder suggests above, I'd be okay with Chant, but I don't want to have to 'cackle,' either on a maniacal-Joker level or as a Beavis-and-Butthead chuckle. It doesn't fit my image of my Witch PCs, who were mostly of the "It's the quiet ones you need to worry about" variety. To point to a pop-culture reference, Willow and Tara never cackled.

It's like if the Wizard had a 1st-level class feature called Pointy Hat. I honestly don't care if Pointy Hat gives me + half my level to Reflex saves on Tuesdays from 3 to 3:45 AM or if it is an instant I-win button where rocks fall and all my enemies die, if I just don't want to play a character who wears a pointy hat.

I could go for this. "Chant" and describe it as something like "chanting, cackling, or otherwise vocalizing to project your will and maintain your spell" Leave it wide open. A witch could be humming or whistling and it would count.

And then of course change the feat to something like "Whispered Will" and the description becomes that you've mastered projecting your intent and can sustain via Chant without making audible noise.

Does the witch need to lose cackle for their niche? Can it be something else?

Thoughts:
1) X times per day (or other limit), sacrifice a prepared spell to cast a hex heightened to the level of the sacrificed spell (flavor as a pact of paying/offering your stamina for aid from patron?)
2) X times per day, you may invoke the aid of your patron. Your familiar casts a hex you know for free, and sustains it as a free action each turn (or maybe its left to you to sustain?)

Arcane bond but for focus spells... although Oracle kind of does that with some of their feats?

Maybe you can take a hex on yourself to cast a hex on an opponent, and both sustain at the same time...? Though thats not really a witch deal I guess.

A way to spread a curse for a price? (Spell slots, more focus, take a condition? Have to spend whole turn sustaining?) The fluff being kind of... dont mess with a witch or you'll regret it? Straight up vengeance mode basically.

Maybe when a hex is maintained by cackling for at least X time, gain a benefit?

I would just say revelation spells increase curse, refocus decreases curse, you otherwise have a normal focus pool. You may cast a revelation spell with zero focus, but it makes you unconscious after.

So you can get extra juice from being a gnome but it wont reduce your curse when you do. But it would let you get another spell off before being stuck at the overcast unconscious bit.

I'd argue Evil Eye is pretty strong as well there. I can see where you're coming from though, but if I had to change something I'd probably reduce it to a flat 1 damage (and adjust heightening on it). I'm wondering though if its just that it synergizes really well with those specific classes (as the other martials dont get sneak attack or AoO at 1)

Malk_Content wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Temperans wrote:

You mean the spells every other caster gets with no difference due to how PF2 list works?

Or do you mean hexes the things that should had never been spells in the first place and they get very few uses off?

They’re casters, casting is their thing.

Not saying they can’t have more than that, but the perception that Cackle is supposed to be the Witch’s main thing is just silly.

And Hexes work great as Focus, it’s what a lot of people predicted they’d be.

I don't think people are saying that cackle is meant to be the witches thing. I'm saying that on a class that already has little meat, the presentation of a unique action thatbfunctionslly does nothing is further off putting. I'm not speaking to the power or balance but to the optics. 4 out of 4bof my players, including the one who really wanted to play a witch, have separately reported this disappointment.

Witches not getting much is a separate but valid complaint, especially with Patrons doing a whole lot of nothing.

Hmm. Do they need that much else to set them apart? I think maybe giving the lessons passive effects akin to bloodlines or something, if you want to map them 1:1 against sorcerer.

Although I would note all the existing prepared casters have something to help their flexibility. Wizards get arcane bond. Clerics get Divine Font. Druids are getting an animal companion, extra focus points, or wild shape. It doesn't feel like witch is getting something for that.

Cackle is a ribbon. It's the kind of thing you compare to knowing Druidic or not needing a component pouch.

A thought: Once per day your familiar may cast a hex. It maintains this hex each round as a free action. At level one it gives you a bit more reach on focus spells, but more importantly it allows you to multitask a fight and really lock stuff down. And of course once you have more than one focus spell it's got the same flexibility.

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

What I found after playing the witch for a session is that the hex that i had(first level, personal blizzard) didn't stay on the weaker enemies long enough to really be useful, and was most effective on the boss enemy that kept knocking out our barbarian (dead in two attacks, in fact.) It did somewhere around 20% of the overall damage to the boss I think.

I’m assuming this was personal blizzard?

Haven’t gotten to play it yet, but it looks very favorable to single targets with high hp.

I think to drive it’s versatility over single target optimum power. If they dropped the difficult terrain or conceal aspect and reduced it to flat splash damage to the chosen and immediately squares that would be at least decent BFC or possibly just extend the difficult terrain or concealment out a square but drop one of the affects.

Please do not change personal blizzard. It lets a witch single out a target at the start of a fight and completely screw with them and there's nothing they can do about it. It does not allow a save.

They lose 5 feet of movement, they lose the step action entirely (barring abilities), they take damage every turn, and they have to make flat checks to attack. It's just a whole pile of nuisances all at once, it's perfect.

Midnightoker wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Making it more powerful and making it a Feat would, I think, make everybody happier. The people who don't want it for theme won't have it, and the people who think it's too weak, or like the theme but also want a mechanical reason to use it often, will have a more powerful version available.

As long as it's good, that sounds like a solid improvement for most everybody.

The removal of the power would also open them up to giving patrons a little mechanics teeth with restrictions in lessons coupled with an additional boon.

Yeah, it could be replaced with something actually cool that is automatic lv1 feature. Preferably something that makes the witch feel more "different" than a tag on their sustain action.

I'm not really sure you get the idea of ribbons.

whew wrote:

In PF1, witches didn't cackle at level 1. (I suppose technically they could, but PF1 cackle doesn't do anything if it's your only hex.)

Take Extra Hex at level 1, so you have two. My latest PF1 character did :)

You need cackle for misfortune/fortune and almost for evil eye anyways. Extra Hex level 1 is basically the only option imo.

Why does it have to be powerful? The whole point is it's a little thing on the scale of eschew materials on sorcerers.

So only humans are allowed to cackle at level 1 is what you're saying?

Why is everyone so hung up on wanting it to be stronger? It doesn't have to be the class defining trick it is in 1e. It's okay for it to be a ribbon. They wrote it broadly enough that basically any vocalization is valid.

Leave cackle alone.

I actually worry about the Nova turn for Fire Oracles, with a 30 foot range limit you are likely going to end up having to regularly take an action to move yourself to get into range.

Why is Incendiary Aura a two action spell? Given its a revelation spell and purely a buff spell why not a single action cast?

Note that it includes a free casting of Produce Flame. So you're basically doing 1 action to buff it and then another to immediately fire it off.

Reading through this, I'd propose the following to address the issues of "not technically focus" and curses not always being on.

1-You are permanently under the effect of the minor curse. This persists even through daily prep, etc. To make up for the effective loss of focus pool, reduce the downsides on this stage and possibly add some additional minor upside (Like, flame curse could grant low-light vision or upgrade it to darkvision or something)
2-You get a focus pool. You get a clause saying your curse advances a stage when you use focus points and resets to minor when you refocus (so you can benefit from things that recharge it otherwise, but it only lets you use revelation spells more). The unconscious is changed to "you may use a revelation spell while at 0 focus points, but..."

I'm completely behind looking at some of the downsides on curse stages too - Life Oracle feels too harsh to me in particular, and as someone pointed out losing out on stats in social situations always is bad.

Actually, as an aside... maybe give life oracles permanent fast healing increasing with their curse stage as long as they're conscious - basically it's harder for others to heal them but there's a constant surge of health going.

Yep. It doesn't have the Concentrate trait, so no Reactions.

And circumvents a number of other things - e.g. Rage limitations.

Having it is better than not. I think people are hung up on how frankly insane 1e cackle is as the cornerstone of the class's ability to bring enemies to their knees indefinitely. It doesn't need to be that kind of transformative thing. I'm okay with this being a flavorful trick that sometimes lets me safely wield magic where other classes can't.

Temperans wrote:

Evil eye is one of the options and specifically one of the combat hexes. But hexes are not just for combat and focus pools doesnt translate to exploration or downtime usage.

Using cackle doesnt work either as you need to rest to restore focus points so either way you are spending 10 minutes doing what you could do every minute. Like the Water Lung hex which could be used on the whole party and lasts for a minute for each.

The utility hexes were to fill gaps in the witch's spell list, gaps that are your own fault now if you choose a tradition that doesn't cover them. And PF2 really tore up utility spell casting in favor of strengthening skills and forcing you to walk, swim, and climb places you want to go.

Really? I'm looking at the Primal list and I sure see a lot of utility spells still.

Hmm. True Strike holds up at later levels in part because the opportunity cost of using it decreases. This isn't as true of hexes.

Should Nudge Fate get something like Heightened (+3) increase the rolls affected by 1?

I think an ability to regain or store focus for you would be great, given that hexes are focus powers now.

Familiars already have the option to provide an extra focus point per day.

I'm still not sure on Nudge Fate as a debuff (mainly because Evil Eye feels like it hurts more), though it's not awful as a buff. Mainly it feels like it falls off as you level since it doesn't ever really get better than a 1st level spell.

I think Personal Blizzard could be given better heightening safely - make it +2 instead of +3 and it becomes significantly better. One thing to note is that because it causes difficult terrain instead of a speed penalty it prevents most enemies from using Step to avoid reactions. It's viable as is, I just think Heightened+3 is a joke (2d4 coming online at 7 is a bit slow).

Otherwise yeah, I think you're on point with what needs help. Given how strong hexes are in 1e I don't think it's a surprise they erred on the side of caution here.

Its possible we'll see some new options in the full APG.

Look at Feiya's art. Her fox has clearly received some buffs. Eight to be exact.