John Falter's page

I feel that the bonus spells offered by a familiar, especially the first one offered at second level, will make a great impact on which familiar a witch chooses. However, many of the familiars offer pretty unattractive second level bonus spells which will undoubtedly affect their popularity. Spells like the fox's animate rope or the snake's shocking grasp are far more interesting and more likely to be used than the toad's or the cat's jump.

I think that familiar spells should be rethought to make all familiar options more attractive.

So, my group and I have been discussing the witch, and we feel that witch may actually be better suited as a wisdom caster.

Three reasons for this:

1) Wisdom gives the witch a niche. As it stands, not too much separates the witch from the wizard. As another intelligence-based arcane spellcaster, the witch runs the risk of stepping on the wizard's toes if in the same party. Using wisdom would differentiate game play, especially when it comes to skills, between the two classes. Also, the secondary ability score of the witch, as it is for most spellcasters who don't want to die, is dexterity, and, currently, there are few Wis/Dex character classes.

2)Wisdom is atmospheric. I can really imagine the witch being better at skills like sense motive and perception, than he is at spellcraft. It lets the witch be more spooky.

3)Intelligence implies that the witch studied their craft thoroughly like a wizard. However, under the current description of the class, the witch does not have a solid understanding of where his power comes from. Indeed, some witches apparently have no idea. A wisdom-based caster derives his power from the belief that something else is granted him power, which seems more in line with the current description of the witch class.

Eidolon is supposedly an outsider, but it has very few traits, barring a few elemental type evolutions, that hint at this extra-planar heritage. I would like to see some planar dependent evolutions like fiendish or celestial powers. While similar powers could be created through the spell and skill evolutions, for flavor's sake, it would nice to see them more explicitly stated.

I have an issue with how vague the class description is about the summoner's acquisition of an Eidolon. Now, I'm asking you: how did your summoner manage to get a being beyond their own power into doing their bidding?

Thus far, my concept's have usually been along the lines of an arcanist who made a deal with a powerful outsider, like a devil, to bind an Eidolon to them.

I'm wondering if there's any mechanical benefit to the "Gore" evolution. From what I can tell, the gore does as much damage as a bite, but cannot be upgraded, and does not serve as a prerequisite to any other evolution, as bite does to trip. Why is this a 2-point evolution?