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Thanks everyone, i'll check with GM, just wanted to make sure there was nothing in RAW i was missing

From the core book

Succeeding on a Saving Throw: A creature that successfully saves against a spell that has no obvious physical effects feels a hostile force or a tingle, but cannot deduce the exact nature of the attack.

So if a creature succeeds in its saving throw then it knows something happened although it's not sure of the source.

There isn't any text i can find regarding noticing failed saving throws. If you fail something with no obvious physical/visible effects do you not notice?

I'm mainly asking in regard to hexes such as evil eye or misfortune. As supernatural abilities there are no verbal/somatic components meaning I can casually stand around in the middle of the room throwing around evil eye and misfortune with no obvious signs i'm actually doing anything.

If someone fails a saving throw against misfortune do they just suddenly feel clumsy for no discernable reason, or do they realise "someone just did something to me"?

What about slumber? If a guard at his post at night fails against slumber, does he think "i must have dozed off for a minute"?

Thanks for any information that anyone can give to help clarify

I must have missed bestow curse as being level 3, i thought it was 4, good catch!

Hex vulnerability is a spell i didn't know about, but definitely a good one that i could give to my faerie dragon on a wand to use with UMD (along with ill omen)

Thanks for the tips

The issue here as i'm seeing it is that player 1 wanted the longsword and figured he would get it because player 2 is small and therefore technically wouldn't be able to use it.

He feels he got screwed out of something by people bending the rules and now he's carrying a grudge against player 1 for as he sees it, screwing him out of an item he wanted. If he doesn't want the item for himself he's just being a jerk.

The DM needs to either make it clear to the player that the rules for things like size and encumbrance are guidlines in this game and not strictly enforced, or decide that they will now be enforced.

He should also tell player 1 to chill and stop being a jerk and causing in-party conflict.

So i've been playing pathfinder for a few sessions and we're about to start a second game, this time I'm looking to play witch but I haven't seen them in action so hoping for some tips on build/playstyle.

I'm very interested in the "shutdown" witch in this guide and i've also read rolling on the floor cackling and the viking irishmans guide

I'm playing a chaotic neutral halfling with a mischievous leprechaun type theme, boosting luck on allies and raining bad luck on enemies, with the ability to mess with the general populace for giggles

Build so far: (stats aren't concrete, i still have to roll them for the GM)
Str 10, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 19, Wis 14, Cha 12
Base Atk +3; CMB +2; CMD 13
Feats Ability Focus (misfortune), Accursed Hex UM, Malicious Eye
Traits bruising intellect (int instead of cha for intimidate), highlander (makes stealth class skill) shiftless (alt racial trait makes sleight of hand class skill) halfling jinx (alt racial -1 to target saves at will)
Skills Bluff +3, Fly +7, Heal +6, Intimidate +13, Knowledge (arcana) +12, Knowledge (nature) +13, Knowledge (planes) +12, Perception +4, Ride +6, Sleight of Hand +7, Spellcraft +12, Stealth +15 (+17 in hilly or rocky areas), Use Magic Device +5; Racial Modifiers +2 Bluff, +2 Perception, +2 Sleight of Hand,

Abilities
Accursed Hex Target a creature with a hex a second time that day if it made its save the first time
Cackle (Su) As a move action, extend the duration of other hexes by 1 rd.
Deliver Touch Spells Through Familiar (Su) Your familiar can deliver touch spells for you.
Empathic Link with Familiar (Su) You have an empathic link with your Arcane Familiar.
Evil Eye -2 (7 rounds, DC 17) (Su) Foe in 30 ft takes penalty to your choice of AC, attacks, saves, ability or skill checks (Will part).
Familiar Bonus: +3 to Appraise checks You gain the Alertness feat while your familiar is within arm's reach.
Fearless +2 racial bonus vs Fear saves.
Halfling Jinx (DC 11) (Su) Able to curse others with bad luck
Malicious Eye Add jinx effects to successful evil eye use
Misfortune (1 round, DC 19) (Su) Foe in 30 ft must take the lower of 2d20 for rolls (Will neg).
Share Spells with Familiar Can cast spells with a target of "You" on the familiar with a range of touch.
Slumber (6 rounds, DC 17) (Su) Foe in 30 ft falls asleep for duration, or until damaged or roused by ally
Speak with Familiar (Ex) You can communicate verbally with your familiar

I went halfling because the halfling jinx ability allows me to add halfling jinx (-1 to all saves) to evil eye
Depending on particular combat i will either share around misfortunes or slumbers on regular goons, cackling to keep it going, or if there is a big bad evil guy pile on the negatives with evil eye, intimidate, misfortune and any spells which weaken them for my team-mates to finish him off. I'm going to try and use mounts to allow me to move around the battlefield while cackling.

I have a raven familiar at the moment, but next level i intend to take improved familiar and get a faerie dragon (can use wands etc, casts as a 3rd level sorc)

I took the trickery domain and haven't taken much in the way of offensive spells and have tried to vary the save types of spells to better match each enemy. Good knowledge skills give me the ability to learn their weaknesses. Spells like alter self will allow me to pass myself off as a sweet innocent little child.
Lvl1 Beguiling gift, cause fear, charm person, ear-piercing scream, ill omen, mage armor, mount, sow thought, unseen servant, ventriloquism, web bolt
lvl2 Alter self, blindness/deafness, detect thoughts, enthrall, hold person, invisibility, vomit swarm, web
lvl3 Blink, sleet storm, stinking cloud, suggestion

Can anyone spot and glaring weaknesses or failures in my build, or have suggestions to improve?

Knotguru: Because we've already been playing (started at level 4, just levelled up to 5) i can't really rewrite earlier levels.

Riving strike is definitely an interesting one to consider, no save or opposed roll, i just have to hit them.

Extra arcane pool i just took so i can definitely retrain that, arcane strike hasn't had a huge effect (half the time i forget to add it in) so i can probably get my gm to let me retrain it.

I took flight at level 4. I could take extra hex instead of extra arcane pool to get slumber or evil eye now and slumber next level (can't take extra arcana because technically i don't have arcana yet due to hexcrafter).

Power attack/cornugon smash seems like a good combo. I'll need to buff my intimidate a bit since cha was my dump stat and i've only put one rank in so far. I could take power attack at 7 and cornugan smash at 9.

Thanks for the advice :)

Male human (kellid) magus (bladebound, hexcrafter) 5 NE Medium humanoid (human) Init +2; Senses Perception +6
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Defense
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AC 17, touch 13, flat-footed 15 (+4 armor, +2 Dex, +1 deflection)
hp 39 (5d8+15)
Fort +8, Ref +4, Will +6
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft.
Melee bloodletter(blackblade scimitar) +9 (1d6+8/18-20) and
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Statistics
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Str 18, Dex 15, Con 16, Int 20, Wis 13, Cha 12
Base Atk +3; CMB +7; CMD 20
Feats Arcane Strike, Elemental Spell APG, Extra Arcane Pool UM, Heighten Spell, Preferred Spell APG
Traits anatomist, devotee of the green, magical lineage
other Gear mwk chain shirt, +1 composite longbow, cloak of resistance +1 , ring of protection +1 , 50 gp
--------------------
Special Abilities
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Anatomist +1 to confirm critical hits.
Arcane Pool +2 (9/day) (Su) Infuse own power into a held weapon, granting enhancement bonus or selected item powers.
Arcane Strike As a swift action, add +1 damage, +1 per 5 caster levels and your weapons are treated as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
Elemental Spell (Acid) You can cast a spell with half or all its damage type replaced with this feat's
damage type.
Heighten Spell Increases spell level to effective level desired.
Hex Arcana You can substitute Hexes for Magus Arcana. Hex Magus (Su) You gain access to witch hexes.
Magical Lineage (Shocking Grasp) A chosen spell counts as 1 level lower when metamagic feats are applied to it.
Preferred Spell (Shocking Grasp) The chosen spell may be cast spontaneously, and metamagic can be added to the spell without increasing its casting time.
Spell Combat (Ex) Use a weapon with one hand at -2 and cast a spell with the other.
Spellstrike (Su) Deliver touch spells as part of a melee attack.

So I just reached level 5 and took preferred spell shocking grasp as my feat, allowing me to spontaneous cast so that i don't have to memorise it. I'm trying to work out where i go from here.
At level 6 i get either my first magus arcana or another hex. I was thinking of taking either slumber or evil eye hexes, as none of the arcana really stand out to me.

Slumber enemy gets a DC18 will save (no hit-dice limit). On a fail it's asleep for 1 round/level, can't be woken by noise or light, only by someone taking a standard action to wake it or by taking damage. Can only be used on each enemy once per day.

Evil eye gives -2 to my choice of ac/atk/saves/skills (-4 at lvl 8), can be used multiple times on the same enemy (different stat penalty each time), lasts 8 rounds unless they make a DC18 will save in which case it lasts for 1 round.

Slumber can take a bad guy completely out of the battle, but if it fails or they get woken then it's wasted. Evil eye only debuffs, but it can debuff multiple stats on the same enemy, use as many times as i want and even if they save the debuff still lasts for 1 round.

As for the rest of my build my current style is to use my knowledge skills to identify enemies and weaknesses before combat starts if possible. I then run in, preferably on one of the guys the tank is beating up and use spellstrike/spell combat with brand, or shocking grasp if it's a tough one. If the enemies are grouped up before combat starts i may throw out a glitterdust on them, but at this level not many are failing their saving throws any more. Also boosting my blade stats with arcane pool, at level 5 i can now start adding 'keen' as well as flaming/ice/shocking etc.

I plan to concentrate mostly on melee dps with spell support so i'm looking for build ideas to work towards that fit that. I've read through walters guide and got some good information from there, but i was looking for other input, especially from people who have played a hexcrafter/bladebound magus.

At level 7 i plan on taking intensified spell metamagic (+1 spell level) which allows me to increase the dice cap of shocking grasp to 10d6. Magical lineage gives a -1 to metamagic spell level and preferred spell lets me spontaneous cast shocking grasp and add metamagic without increasing spellcasting time, effectively making this a free metamagic to use every time.

At 9 i take the other hex i didn't take at 6 (evil eye/slumber). I'm not sure what feat to take here, but thinking of extra arcana/hex, or maybe something combat related.

Beyond that i don't really have a plan yet, but i'd love to hear feedback or criticisms telling me why my build is a failure and better ways to do things :tongue:

I looked at time, but i think trickery or deception might be more suitable, they both get time stop granted at level 18 too

Yeah i just looked at that, far too much of an investment just to get 1 power.

Thanks for the tips.

My biggest problem with halfling is not getting a plus to int, but malicious eye really starts to give them a big boost.

Is there a way to pick up a bloodline without taking a dip in sorcerer (or other classes)?

I'm planning on a chaotic neutral witch whose theme is influencing probability through chaos/luck, boosting allies and cursing enemies.

What traits/feats/spells/deities etc would go with this theme?

I'm aware of the halfling jinx alternate racial, but im not sure of many other things that would fit this theme other than the powers the witch already gets like misfortune.

Thanks in advance for any info

Bluecanary, your character sheet is brilliant. I (and im sure many others) thank you for all your efforts. It may have risen out of a personal need but sharing it with us all and continuing work on it to help others is very generous :)

As for a new non-excel based program, i think that would be a great step forward. At a certain point the complexity goes far beyond what excel was designed for. I would certainly be willing to pay for it, whether you charge a set rate or simply open up donations for downloads.

I have a question with the sheet (my searching for scoreforge info lead me here), is the "black blade" feature of the magus bladebound archetype anywhere in the sheet? I haven't been able to see a way to add it (or other intelligent magic items) other than to modify a normal weapon and add the alertness and other effects through the magic adjustments tab.

Thanks again for your great work

Lots of things to think about, and i'm still toying with different character concepts.

Thanks for all the advice everyone

archeologist bard would still be charisma based (for casting) but with a rogueish bent.

im not sure what the point buy will be yet so i don't know if i can afford to spread over int and cha. If it's high i guess i could take eldritch and adjust the concept to being a face character with a lesser interest in monsters as a hobby.

I'd really prefer to avoid multiclassing and level dips as much as possible though

I just realised that i was comparing the magus/bard spell progression wrong as i was looking at 0 level spells which the bard table didn't have so that made the table for magus seem to progress faster and have more per-day spells

thanks for the advice

I'm looking at joining a new group playing pathfinder but i've only played 3.5 before.

One of my favourite classes was the duskblade and while researching how to convert them to pathfinder i saw someone suggest magus instead.

The magus class looks pretty much the same as the duskblade except for their usage of wizard style prepared spells instead of duskblade/sorcerer style known spells.

I've seen the eldritch scion archetype but it means switching from int-based to charisma based which doesn't fit my "monster researcher" theme that i want to use (he tries to encounter as many different creatures as possible so that he can catalogue and research them). It also trades off a lot of spells (using the bard spell progression) in exchange for extra character features that i don't want to use.

Can anyone see any significant problems or exploits that would occur if i were to approach my GM about using sorcerer spell mechanics instead of wizard?

I would need to adjust the spells per day in line with the wizard vs sorcerer spell progression (sorcerers get spells 1 level later than wizards) or adjust the duskblade progression slightly but that shouldn't be too hard to tweak.