So, anyone got a copy of this yet, or not?
I am curious about the 'Familiar Reincarnation' bit. I have this strange idea of a witch killing someone and then reincarnating them as a new familiar...
Yes I have it. I should have a review up for it by this weekend. The feat you mention just means the familiar does not lose the spells learned if killed and brought back. Which was the biggest thing that bugged me about the witch in the APG.
Yes, now that you describe it that does indeed sound like a very good idea for a witch feat.
Kobold Press
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Yes, now that you describe it that does indeed sound like a very good idea for a witch feat.
Sigfried's concepts for feats are astonishly good, and balanced. I suspect his many years as a leader of the Netbook of Feats, seeing 1000s of feats and discussing them, mean he's got a big trove of experience.
We will probably post a sample feat on the KQ.com blog next week.
Thanks!
I always want the feats to be attractive and that means they need to either be full of flavor or have a decent impact on character performance. Those I like the best are the ones that let you do something entirely new, but they tend to be the minority and are the hardest to balance.
I feel a feat no one will take is in some ways worse than a feat that is too strong. At least someone is having fun with the broken one. A clever player can break nearly any system that has enough moving parts. None the less I do try to get the balance right and many ideas never see print because they are just too easy to abuse or are just too good.
I really like having the comment sections in this series as it lets me flag those feats that I think have potential for abuse. It really depends on what kind of players you have and what level of power you expect them to wield. Ideally you want a nice tension between players striving for success and a challenge that makes that effort feel worth while.
Hi Mister Trent,
Just want to say that I love what you've done with the Witch and the Alchemist. Can we hope to see similar PDFs revolving around other APG classes like the Summoner and Inquisitor?
Can we hope to see similar PDFs revolving around other APG classes like the Summoner and Inquisitor?
Thanks kindly :)
Yes indeed. The plan is to do a PDF for each of the APG classes. I'm working on the last parts of Summoner now which will be the next in the series and probably the largest as each build essentially involves making two characters in tandem.
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I have read it now, but have not had time to write a review yet. I will say I think this one is better than your last one. Other than the print issue, I think these feats as a whole are better.
So after you are done with the feats, when are you going to start on new class options? bombs and stuff for alchemist, hexes for witches etc?
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Kobold Press
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There's been a fair number of reviews so far. Here's one example, I'm just waiting to see one here.
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My review. Posted it here and at ENworld as always.
The Witch's Brew by Open Design
This product is 14 pages long. It starts with a cover, ToC, credits and Intro (3 pages)
Next it jumps into examining the new witch class from the APG from paizo. It looks at all the classes powers and the good and bad aspects of the witch. (1 pages)
After that it moves onto 30 new feats. (6 pages)
Ability Damage Resistance – reduces ability dmg
Counterspell Feedback – damage caster of the spell you counter
Craft Magic Tattoo – Create a tattoo with spell like ability
Delay Spell – delays the spell effect
Discriminating Spell – can choose to not effect a race or creature type.
Dispell Mastery – bonus to dispell checks.
Expert Healing – bonus dmg healed when using heal skill
Extra Familiar – get a extra familiar.
Familiar Concentration – familiar can maintain a concentration spell for caster.
Familiar Development – familiar gains abilities as if caster was two levels higher.
Familiar Feat – familiar learns a feat.
Familiar Focus – familiar abilities are based on your character level instead of class level.
Familiar Range Extension – Familiar can roam further from you.
Familiar Reincarnation – Familiar comes back knowing all the same spells.
Familiar Training – familiar can use your feats.
Guarded Casting – can fight defensively while casting spells.
Hexing Familiar – familiar may use any basic hex you know, not in the same round as you.
Improved Caster Level – cast spells as if higher level, but no higher than character level.
Infer Spell – can learn spells from spell triggers etc.
Linked Resistance – gain familiars resistance for short time
Mass Effect Spell – single target spells effect more targets.
Opportunity Counterspell – able to counter spell with out ready action.
Potent Hex – higher DC for hexes.
Rememorize – can swap out a memorized spell for another with time.
Robust Health – bonus save vs poison and disease.
Seduction – bonus to bluff, diplomacy skills and charm spells.
Serve Two Masters – gain second set of patron spells.
Signature Focus – expensive item that takes the place of materials for spells.
Soul Mate – can sense when soul mate in trouble and bonus to skill checks used on them.
Touch Mastery – may use spell casting stat in place of str on touch attacks.
Usurp Spell – When countering a spell may have it effect you instead of target.
Next it gets into character builds giving three types of witch builds to help people build witch characters. (3 pages)
Arch Witch – Focuses on dominating other spell casters.
White Witch – More healing and battle field control build
Wicked Witch – battle field control and hexes.
It finishes with a OGL.
Closing Thoughts. The cover art is use twice and that is the only artwork in the book. There is a few side bars explaining why some things was done by the author. This time unlike the last one in the series it is a lot more printer friendly. I thought the feats where better this time with none I couldn't see someone taking and many are up there with some of the better feats in the game. I don't think any are over powered though a few are on the high end of the scale with Paizo's feats.
My only real complaints about the book is, it still could have been more print friendly. The faint arcane background images look cool and would not be bad on a printer but I would have still liked to seen a true print friendly version as well. The other complaint is there was something screwy with the copy and paste. While trying to copy and paste the names of the feats to this review it kept having copy errors. I am not sure what could be causing it and none of my other PDF's have this problem. Both are fairly minor issues.
My rating this time falls as follows. For those looking for more options for witch's and advice for builds then this is a 5 star. For those just looking for some new options for the witch then this is a 4.5 star. For the rest I still say it is a 3 star as many of the feats can be used by other classes and they are well done.
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I've been really pleased with the great feedback on the series so far. I wasn't sure if the format would work since its quite a bit different from your typical feat list or splat book.
Personally I love the ability to not only write the feats, but give the story behind the feats or ideas for using them.
If the series does well I'd love to tackle the core classes. I just hope the well of ideas doesn't run dry. When this series is done it will contain 180 new feats which is close to the number in the players guide.
One of my design principles for feats is to make them as widely applicable as possible. Most of the feats in Witch's Brew would be great for a wizard or nearly any spell caster. Secret's of the Alchemist has a few feats than any fighter might drool over. Generally no more than a third of the feats will be usable only by the class covered.
A big thank you to EVERYONE who made this the #1 bestselling non-Paizo release on the site this past week!
It deserved the honor. I just wish the Summoner PDF had gotten as much love.
Added a review. Love the book. quick question tho:
Does the bonus to Charm spells from Seduction work all the time, or just against the same people the skill bonuses work with??
Added a review. Love the book. quick question tho:
Does the bonus to Charm spells from Seduction work all the time, or just against the same people the skill bonuses work with??
My intent was that the bonus applied to all charm spells regardless of the target's normal "interests."
And thanks for the review!
I have to admit, I love this book. I've been playing a witch in our current campaign, and my GM has allowed several feats here as options for our campaign. One of my favorites in this book right now is simple but effective. Potent Hex is essential for me, anything to keep my hexes DC's higher is always nice! Thanks for a great book that still gets a whole lot of use in 2012!
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I really like having the comment sections in this series as it lets me flag those feats that I think have potential for abuse. It really depends on what kind of players you have and what level of power you expect them to wield. Ideally you want a nice tension between players striving for success and a challenge that makes that effort feel worth while.
I've become intimately familiar with this product over the past couple days, and I just wanted to say that I'm noticing something I didn't appreciate the first go-round, and that's this bit above.
There are a lot of feats in here that are overpowered. I can't deny it because I wouldn't allow them at my table.
However, on almost every one that I would ban, Sigfried says as much, and then goes into why he included it anyway, and I generally agree with the reasons. He'll occasionally even list how you could limit them, and on one occasion come right out and said he wouldn't allow it at his own table.
A lot of game authors design product they want to see at their table, but Sigfried has a good sense of being able to design for everyone, not just those that agree with his sense of balance.
And I might not have figured that out if it weren't for the annotations, which do a good job of making me think about the power level first before blanket accepting/banning.
Much appreciated!
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The Soul mate feat references a Gather Information check. This is a 3.5ism and should probably reference a Diplomacy to gather the relevant information.
It probably should not be capitalized, but I believe the gather information usage of the Diplomacy skill is still referred to as a gather information check in Pathfinder. If not in print, then definitely out of habit.
Bought and downloaded this today, however rather than a PDF file I find the .zip ONLY contains an unknown ".hl" file that Windows 7 does not recognize and refuses to open. I am guessing this is the Hero Lab file mentioned above. Unfortunately it does not seem to contain the PDF I bought it for >_>
Updated to include HeroLab file. Blitterbug, please try downloading it again: it should have the HL file (which is the HeroLab data file) as well as your PDF.
Updated to include HeroLab file. Blitterbug, please try downloading it again: it should have the HL file (which is the HeroLab data file) as well as your PDF.
Got it, and thank you :D
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For those of you who've played with the Hero Lab editor, there is a quick and dirty trick to creating a "second" spellbook that's specific to the character.
see the last two posts from this thead on the Lone Wolf Forums gives a basic rundown of how to to do it. (The thread also explains why a workaround is necessary, adding a page count to your spellbook, and also making it so your new spell lists the DC required to memorize if it's from a borrowed spellbook):
Support for Multiple Spellbooks
In short:
* go into the editor
* click on the "spell" tab
* click "duplicate spell" and pick the spell you are adding to your second spellbook
* Add a notation to the name (such as 2 for spellbook 2 or Kurzog's Fireball) to indicate which spellbook it's from)
* give it a new unique ID (located next to item name)
the next time you open hero lab you should be able to add this new spell to the chracter's spellbook, essentially having two spellbooks listed in the same place. If you are familiar with creating new sources, you may want to add one labled as your characters name so you can turn the dataset off when using another PC