Cackle should not be made into a base witch class feature

Bad GMs are gonna bad GM. No amount of rules are gonna change that.

On the other hand, just because a good GM can change something for their players doesn't mean that there's no reason to examine the underlying piece of content either.

I don't know if I like putting all flavor text in italics, honestly. I think it promotes the idea that flavor and mechanics aren't intrinsically linked, that the flavor designers and developers create is something redundant or vestigial. Reflavoring might be easier than house ruling, but it is no less impactful on gameplay. It should be left entirely up to the GM to decide which rules and which flavor elements should be subject to change.

I don't know if I like putting all flavor text in italics, honestly. I think it promotes the idea that flavor and mechanics aren't intrinsically linked, that the flavor designers and developers create is something redundant or vestigial. Reflavoring might be easier than house ruling, but it is no less impactful on gameplay. It should be left entirely up to the GM to decide which rules and which flavor elements should be subject to change.

But they already are.

Given the math and balance between this 2e, it seems pretty reasonable that mechanics are meant for the game to properly work, while flavor is something meant to provide a "brief" ( talking about feats ) idea of what could happen.

Players should be provided the best rules/balance ever:

- No room for interpretation
- a solid range of alternatives
- low powercreep
- etc...

then any DM would be able to decide whether to add something their own or not.

Talking about cackle, if the DM would like to make it just a laughter, on their own game, they can. But forcing this on all tables because flavor must be important as rules, is imo really bad for both flavor and possibilities.

I think this could just be solved by a blanket policy of putting all flavor text in italics.

I like the idea, the only problem I see is it will just start an endless debate over what font to use.

I personally like Cackle and was sad when it was removed during the playtest and the class suffered for it. I like the flavor of the witch invoking the power of their patron causing uncontrollable laughter, and the laughter itself can easily be flavored depending on the patron. Is it painful coughing laughter like when you laughed too long, is it joyous happy laughter like Santa, or maniacal insane laughter or child like giggles?

Rysky wrote:

Bad GMs are gonna bad GM. No amount of rules are gonna change that.

(No idea what alignment has to do with stats)

They don't have to be a bad GM, they could just be an inexperienced GM.

Cackle wrote:

You can extend one of your spells with a quick burst of laughter.

Inexperienced GM: hmm... This gosh darned ability is called cackle and very specifically says "laughter." I'd like to let you chant, but I guess there must be a reason it's so specific.

Disappointed player: well dang it! Now my extremely serious, stern faced witch has to laugh hysterically like a dum dum every time they cast a spell!

That is a bad GM by your example.

GM: I’d like to let you but…

Player: what’s stopping you, you’re the GM?

A non-bad GM would take this as a learning experience.

Rysky wrote:

Bad GMs are gonna bad GM. No amount of rules are gonna change that.

On the other hand, just because a good GM can change something for their players doesn't mean that there's no reason to examine the underlying piece of content either.

I didn’t imply otherwise. I was responding to an issue that was aside that notion.

I am completely in favor of witches having Cackle as a class feature.

If your witch conceptually doesn't laugh, then she's probably exotic enough to also not have a familiar, or is a wizard, as much of pop culture ends up calling wizards as witches due to there not being a clear cultural distinction between them, like we have within the TTRPG universe.

The most important point here is the mechanical importance of the thing. Nobody complains about the mage having drain bounded item as a class feature even if conceptually the character has nothing really establishing that he should withdraw extra powers from an item, but they complain about the witch having cackle because the character they want to make doesn't want to laugh.

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Bad GMs are gonna bad GM. No amount of rules are gonna change that.

(No idea what alignment has to do with stats)

They don't have to be a bad GM, they could just be an inexperienced GM.

Cackle wrote:

You can extend one of your spells with a quick burst of laughter.

Inexperienced GM: hmm... This gosh darned ability is called cackle and very specifically says "laughter." I'd like to let you chant, but I guess there must be a reason it's so specific.

Disappointed player: well dang it! Now my extremely serious, stern faced witch has to laugh hysterically like a dum dum every time they cast a spell!

That is a bad GM by your example.

GM: I’d like to let you but…

Player: what’s stopping you, you’re the GM?

If you're new to gming, you already have a hundred new things to learn and a billion things to focus on. Wanting to maintain simplicity at first is reasonable.

Interestingly, this is kind of the opposite of the 1st edition cackle problem. Since it was a supernatural ability, people weren't even sure if you had to make any noise, and it led to big ridiculous discussions quite like this one.

Clearly marking optional flavor text as optional actually sounds like a good way of dealing with this to me.

I am completely in favor of witches having Cackle as a class feature.

If your witch conceptually doesn't laugh, then she's probably exotic enough to also not have a familiar, or is a wizard, as much of pop culture ends up calling wizards as witches due to there not being a clear cultural distinction between them, like agent has within the RPG universe.

I am completely in favor of witches having Cackle as a class feature.

If your witch conceptually doesn't laugh, then she's probably exotic enough to also not have a familiar, or is a wizard, as much of pop culture ends up calling wizards witches due to there not being a clear cultural distinction between them, like agent has within the RPG universe.

The most important point here is the mechanical importance of the thing. Nobody complains about the mage having drain bounded item as a class feature even if conceptually the character has nothing really establishing that he should withdraw extra powers from an item, but they complain about the witch having cackle because the character they want to make doesn't want to laugh.

drain bonded item doesn't force your character to sound like a complete and utter lunatic when used. And it's not so much about never laughing. I don't know if you've ever heard someone cackle, but cackling does. Cackling isn't just laughter, it's extremely loud and extremely annoying laughter and sounds like this. Even the most stern faced people might chuckle sometimes, but they wouldn't cackle.

If you're new to gming, you already have a hundred new things to learn and a billion things to focus on. Wanting to maintain simplicity at first is reasonable.

Then just say no instead of shoving the responsibility/blame elsewhere.

drain bonded item doesn't force your character to sound like a complete and utter lunatic when used. And it's not so much about never laughing. I don't know if you've ever heard someone cackle, but cackling does. Cackling isn't just laughter, it's extremely loud and extremely annoying laughter and sounds like this. Even the most stern faced people might chuckle sometimes, but they wouldn't cackle.

The spell texts only says "With a quick burst of laughter, you prolong a magical effect you created. You Sustain a Spell". Nothing says that you need to "extremely loud and extremely annoying laughter and sounds like this". And in the end it's just a flavor text, the only thing that matters is that is verbal and that you Sustain a Spell. So don't matter! You can just smile while humming a laugh or cry instead of laugh it all will be valid to cackle!

You can also laugh like a Ojou and Sustain a Spell! :D (ohohoho)

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

If you're new to gming, you already have a hundred new things to learn and a billion things to focus on. Wanting to maintain simplicity at first is reasonable.

Then just say no instead of shoving the responsibility/blame elsewhere.

Say no to what? GMing? You have to do it to get better at it. Or say no to cackle?

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

drain bonded item doesn't force your character to sound like a complete and utter lunatic when used. And it's not so much about never laughing. I don't know if you've ever heard someone cackle, but cackling does. Cackling isn't just laughter, it's extremely loud and extremely annoying laughter and sounds like this. Even the most stern faced people might chuckle sometimes, but they wouldn't cackle.

The spell texts only says "With a quick burst of laughter, you prolong a magical effect you created. You Sustain a Spell". Nothing says that you need to "extremely loud and extremely annoying laughter and sounds like this". And in the end it's just a flavor text, the only thing that matters is that is verbal and that you Sustain a Spell. So don't matter! You can just smile while humming a laugh or cry instead of laugh it all will be valid to cackle!

The ability probably shouldn't be called cackle, then.

You can also laugh like a Ojou and Sustain a Spell! :D (ohohoho)

I'd argue that that is also cackling, so yeah definitely.

Though, slight off topic: It's been said that a cackle is to laughter what a shovel is to a face. If so, then that particular laugh is to a cackle what a cackle is to laughter.

I tried to reflavor Cackle as something else in PF1 for a silence-oriented Witch, and Paizo released an errata saying no, you had to be noisy even though it was a spell-like ability. I have yet to recover.

Yes because Cackle still need the verbal component. Make it's fully silent will break it's interaction with silent spell and with any hide/sneak interactions.

But you don't need to necessary to cackle. You can reskin it as any other spell, you just need to do a verbal component that do a similar effect. If you want to say "I'm batman" instead you can, even in PFS games! Nobody cares it doesn't have any mechanical effect in the end and noone can interfere into the flavor of your spells and action not even the GMs

If you want to say "I'm batman" instead you can, even in PFS games!

I'm not sure that that is accurate.

Yes because Cackle still need the verbal component. Make it's fully silent will break it's interaction with silent spell and with any hide/sneak interactions.

But you don't need to necessary to cackle. You can reskin it as any other spell, you just need to do a verbal component that do a similar effect. If you want to say "I'm batman" instead you can, even in PFS games! Nobody cares it doesn't have any mechanical effect in the end and noone can interfere into the flavor of your spells and action not even the GMs

Spell-like abilities didn't have verbal components in PF1. I'm talking about when Paizo errata'd the original Cackle in the first edition.

I'd much rather not have Familiars be made into a base Witch class feature than Cackle. Or even better, the Phase Familiar ability.

For what it's worth, I really like witches being primarily defined by their familiars and their patrons.

YuriP wrote:

Yes because Cackle still need the verbal component. Make it's fully silent will break it's interaction with silent spell and with any hide/sneak interactions.

But you don't need to necessary to cackle. You can reskin it as any other spell, you just need to do a verbal component that do a similar effect. If you want to say "I'm batman" instead you can, even in PFS games! Nobody cares it doesn't have any mechanical effect in the end and noone can interfere into the flavor of your spells and action not even the GMs

Spell-like abilities didn't have verbal components in PF1. I'm talking about when Paizo errata'd the original Cackle in the first edition.

OK sorry I misunderstand. I was thinking that you are trying a conversion from a specific build to 2e.

Say no to what? GMing? You have to do it to get better at it. Or say no to cackle?

Say no to reflavoring if you’re not comfortable with it rather than making it the book’s fault, going off your example.

Wait what is wrong with cackling? There is literally no issue with just having a quick chuckle.

Also chant is on no way any better when the issue a person may have is "well I don't want to do that". Which is something solved at the game table, not at Paizo.

Now if we are talking about changing the mechanic so that its a focus cantrip instead of a focus spell. Yeah, 100% do thar.

The issue with cackling is it doesn’t fit all witches

I am completely in favor of witches having Cackle as a class feature.

If your witch conceptually doesn't laugh, then she's probably exotic enough to also not have a familiar, or is a wizard, as much of pop culture ends up calling wizards as witches due to there not being a clear cultural distinction between them, like we have within the TTRPG universe.

Lots of assumptions my guy

My fervor witch for example does have a familiar and it’s a tiny sized silver dragon

Also, wizards don’t have patrons. The biggest appeal to witches for me and a lot of people is making a pact with a being and often in home campaigns GMs will try to incorporate the patron into the campaign

And even if the patron isn’t incorporated into the campaign, like if it’s PFS where you can’t do that, having your character make a pact is still cool

So yes, there’s a lot more to witches then cackling, and cackling doesn’t fit all witches

For what it's worth, I really like witches being primarily defined by their familiars and their patrons.

Sure, but not all witches walk around with a black cat (or whatever familiar choice they take), or have some special patron providing powers for them; witches have almost always been portrayed as more of a self-driven type. I'm of the opinion that this sort of thing should be opt-in by the player for their character, not unlike it is for Wizards or other classes who would want a familiar and it can be acquired via feats or class features.

Just as well, even if it should be decided that it's not opt-in for a witch, it shouldn't take up so much of the class budget that the rest of the class options are beyond terrible, or remove class choice to the point that things like Basic Lessons should be standard class features instead of de facto feat choices to the point that other feat choices get shoved to the wayside.

I think forcing an lol or roflmao on folks to be able to utilize a mandatory class feature is incredibly invasive. It is against the basic premise of open character design.

I mean, do we need to enforce a bad caricature aimed at historically socially unacceptable behavior?

Could just change it to something as basic as "Eternal Hex" if it really interferes with flavor that badly.

I'm pretty sure the reason why "Cackle" is used is because of the naming tradition used from PF1, so saying that it's a bad caricature isn't really applicable in this sense.

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

Say no to what? GMing? You have to do it to get better at it. Or say no to cackle?

Say no to reflavoring if you’re not comfortable with it rather than making it the book’s fault, going off your example.

It kind of is, though. I wouldn't have to worry about saying no or yes, were it named in a more flavor neutral way.

Rysky wrote:

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

Say no to what? GMing? You have to do it to get better at it. Or say no to cackle?

Say no to reflavoring if you’re not comfortable with it rather than making it the book’s fault, going off your example.

It kind of is, though. I wouldn't have to worry about saying no or yes, were it named in a more flavor neutral way.

This.

Less arguments, confusion and frustration if it were renamed to be flavor neutral

Or Paizo could make with better through other means that aren’t making cackle a base class feature

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

For what it's worth, I really like witches being primarily defined by their familiars and their patrons.

Sure, but not all witches walk around with a black cat (or whatever familiar choice they take), or have some special patron providing powers for them; witches have almost always been portrayed as more of a self-driven type. I'm of the opinion that this sort of thing should be opt-in by the player for their character, not unlike it is for Wizards or other classes who would want a familiar and it can be acquired via feats or class features.

Just as well, even if it should be decided that it's not opt-in for a witch, it shouldn't take up so much of the class budget that the rest of the class options are beyond terrible, or remove class choice to the point that things like Basic Lessons should be standard class features instead of de facto feat choices to the point that other feat choices get shoved to the wayside.

This is true! I think it's just a difference of POV--I see the whole "communicate with your patron via a familiar" as core to the class, and you see the familiar as more tertiary to the main "patron" element, right?

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

Say no to what? GMing? You have to do it to get better at it. Or say no to cackle?

Say no to reflavoring if you’re not comfortable with it rather than making it the book’s fault, going off your example.

It kind of is, though. I wouldn't have to worry about saying no or yes, were it named in a more flavor neutral way.

This.

Less arguments, confusion and frustration if it were renamed to be flavor neutral

Actually, there's no confusion at all.

I'd relive paizo from spending time to deal with this kind of stuff.

Temperans wrote:

Wait what is wrong with cackling? There is literally no issue with just having a quick chuckle.

Also chant is on no way any better when the issue a person may have is "well I don't want to do that". Which is something solved at the game table, not at Paizo.

Now if we are talking about changing the mechanic so that its a focus cantrip instead of a focus spell. Yeah, 100% do thar.

The issue with cackling is it doesn’t fit all witches

I understand that, which is why I think Cackle should be a feat that you can take and only works on some hexes but infinite uses.

But I don't agree with changing the name. We are talking about the WITCH class, not the saint, not the warlock, not a generic caster, but WITCH. I will always opposed changing the flavor of a mechanic because "I don't like that flavor" can be used for literally anything. Heck I hate the way they wrote certain abilities and do ask they change the mechanics, but I am not going to here and ask them to change the flavor of their own game.

(And oh boy are there some flavor stuff I would love to change, like half of Inventor)

CaptainRelyk wrote:

Temperans wrote:

Wait what is wrong with cackling? There is literally no issue with just having a quick chuckle.

Also chant is on no way any better when the issue a person may have is "well I don't want to do that". Which is something solved at the game table, not at Paizo.

Now if we are talking about changing the mechanic so that its a focus cantrip instead of a focus spell. Yeah, 100% do thar.

The issue with cackling is it doesn’t fit all witches

I understand that, which is why I think Cackle should be a feat that you can take and only works on some hexes but infinite uses.

But I don't agree with changing the name. We are talking about the WITCH class, not the saint, not the warlock, not a generic caster, but WITCH. I will always opposed changing the flavor of a mechanic because "I don't like that flavor" can be used for literally anything. Heck I hate the way they wrote certain abilities and do ask they change the mechanics, but I am not going to here and ask them to change the flavor of their own game.

(And oh boy are there some flavor stuff I would love to change, like half of Inventor)

I don’t see them making a warlock class and having that be about patrons

I personally like Cackle and was sad when it was removed during the playtest and the class suffered for it. I like the flavor of the witch invoking the power of their patron causing uncontrollable laughter, and the laughter itself can easily be flavored depending on the patron. Is it painful coughing laughter like when you laughed too long, is it joyous happy laughter like Santa, or maniacal insane laughter or child like giggles?

Maybe no laughter fits a witch? I can’t think of a single type of laugh that’s fits a fervor witch who made a pact with Apsu

I could see it as a rumbling, draconic laugh, or a joyous, peaceful laugh like that of the river spirit in Spirited Away.

I could see it as a rumbling, draconic laugh, or a joyous, peaceful laugh like that of the river spirit in Spirited Away.

A small innocent laugh, a slightly snigger, a guffaw, an outrageous chuckle, a menacing roar, a sly snicker, a symphonic hoot, a wild burst, a quiet giggle, a dorky snort, a gay/merry cachinnation, etc.

It still shouldn’t be limited to laughing, what if I want a haunting hymn or hum, or angelic singing, or whispering?

And besides, we all know by cackle Paizo meant the old hag kind of cackle

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

For what it's worth, I really like witches being primarily defined by their familiars and their patrons.

Sure, but not all witches walk around with a black cat (or whatever familiar choice they take), or have some special patron providing powers for them; witches have almost always been portrayed as more of a self-driven type. I'm of the opinion that this sort of thing should be opt-in by the player for their character, not unlike it is for Wizards or other classes who would want a familiar and it can be acquired via feats or class features.

Just as well, even if it should be decided that it's not opt-in for a witch, it shouldn't take up so much of the class budget that the rest of the class options are beyond terrible, or remove class choice to the point that things like Basic Lessons should be standard class features instead of de facto feat choices to the point that other feat choices get shoved to the wayside.

This is true! I think it's just a difference of POV--I see the whole "communicate with your patron via a familiar" as core to the class, and you see the familiar as more tertiary to the main "patron" element, right?

Pretty much.

I do believe that Paizo also views the Witch this way based on the class write-up, and I'm certain Paizo has expressly stated Witch to be "the Familiar class" when they first previewed it for the playtest, which is why I find that they have invested way too much stock into the Witch's Familiar, and far less into their Hexes and other class feats, which is what I'm pretty sure people are far, far more drawn to when it comes to playing the Witch class.

My main issue with a Witch being a Familiar class, as Paizo's vision intends, is that 1. Familiars aren't as powerful or as central to a given class as they seem to be (other than functioning as a spellbook or minor spell battery at-best), and 2. The Witch class suffers greatly when so much weight is put into the Familiar feature, and barely any was put into the Hexes and Patron abilities. And honestly, back in PF1, when the Witch's power budget was placed far more in its Hexes (and even Patron spells, letting them poach from other lists as an example), the Familiar still took a relatively backseat approach (and sometimes still had value).

Just as well, if the best that Patrons can muster is some specialized niche focus spells along the course of an adventure (which takes up class feats, by the way), and a Familiar that is the weakest feature in the game, they can't be all that powerful and mysterious as the class write-up makes them out to be. Honestly, a Blessed One dedication is far, far more potent as a "Witch Hex" ability, and that's just a dedication feat example.

It still shouldn’t be limited to laughing, what if I want a haunting hymn or hum, or angelic singing, or whispering?

And besides, we all know by cackle Paizo meant the old hag kind of cackle

That may be what they meant, but it's not in the description.

Cackle

TBH for me it's even less the flavor (although saying all witches be utilizing harsh, birdlike laughter does seem weirdly narrow) and more that I'm not really impressed by the mechanics.

Cackle as is is trading a focus point for a single action... so like once per combat you get an action back you otherwise wouldn't have. That's not a bad ability but... idk, it doesn't strike me as particularly mechanically evocative.

Core class features that are used as part of the power budget should feel punchier and less abstract.

So my refrain will be: Make the hexes better instead. Every idea for making witches stronger or better or more usable, take that energy and redirect it into punching up hexes, making the bad ones better, making the good ones cooler, adding more of them.

The things that make my Witches feel the most like a cool Witch and the least like a bad wizard or squishy druid or cleric with bad initiative is when we get to cast cool hexes. So IMO everything should be focused on doubling down on that.

Before I say anything else, I am shocked at how many of you tolerate such terrible inflexible GMing. Go find an actually good GM or start a group among your friends. You don't need to deal with terrible PuGs and power-tripping online GMs.

Secondly, I don't think Cackle is the right choice to build the Witch around. I'd much rather see patrons and their teachings take a more central role and things like cackling, familiars, and even hexes become active choices you make when figuring out what powers your patron has granted you.

Rysky wrote:

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

Say no to what? GMing? You have to do it to get better at it. Or say no to cackle?

Say no to reflavoring if you’re not comfortable with it rather than making it the book’s fault, going off your example.

It kind of is, though. I wouldn't have to worry about saying no or yes, were it named in a more flavor neutral way.

You moved the goalposts.

This argument was against a GM refusing to let players reflavor abilities and blaming the book and saying they, the GM, had no power to change it. That’s a bad GM.

Changing the base ability to open up more flavor and options is a completely different argument.

Before I say anything else, I am shocked at how many of you tolerate such terrible inflexible GMing. Go find an actually good GM or start a group among your friends. You don't need to deal with terrible PuGs and power-tripping online GMs.

Secondly, I don't think Cackle is the right choice to build the Witch around. I'd much rather see patrons and their teachings take a more central role and things like cackling, familiars, and even hexes become active choices you make when figuring out what powers your patron has granted you.

Unfortunately for a lot of us, finding a different GM or even playing PF2e in person and not online isn’t an option. (Btw what does PuGs mean?). Not to mention PFS by its very nature is very inflexible and wouldn’t let someone use cackle without having their character actually cackle.

Unfortunately these GMs are the best we can settle on, so having rules be more flexible with flavor so GMs or maybe even other players can’t use it as a weapon against our character’s flavor through rules lawyering, is for the best

In an ideal world, people would be more flexible and the goal would be to make sure everyone has fun and that we can reflavor to our heart’s content, where rule 1 was indeed the make important rule to all GMs and players, where there wouldn’t be any rules lawyers jumping in and telling us that our witch has to actually cackle and can’t sing a haunting hymn or angelic singing because any other sound than “cackle” isn’t “RAW”, or them jumping in and saying our tiefling can only be red colored and can’t be purple or green, etc. In an ideal world, we can just lead a table and easily find a new table with a different GM but a lot of us can’t because this isn’t an ideal world. I have yet to find a pbp text campaign or a westmarch server that allows battlezoo despite me really wanting to use those books for my characters

I doubt it was Paizo’s intention to limit characters flavor but seeing that it’s caused issues Paizo should try to make things more flavor friendly in these new remasters, though really the feedback in the original playtest about how people didn’t want cackle as a class feature solely for its flavor and how cackling didn’t fit all witches and not for any other reason should have been telling and should have resulted in them making it more flavor friendly instead of putting the mechanics into a focus spell

(Btw what does PuGs mean?)

Pickup group = PuG

Bad GMs are gonna Bad GM, if they were looking to weaponize something against your character they were going to do so no matter what the rules are.

Asking for the same from the other side, basically weapons/shields against the GM, isn’t going to solve anything.

Which all of that is completely separate from “should Cackle be opened up?” Yeah, call it Chant or something (although people will complain about that as well).

But again “should this ability be altered” and “help me Paizo I have a bad group” are separate things.

A lot of opinions in the thread seem to say that they want flavor text to be what their imagination is. What difference does the name of a feature make when the rules dictate its use? One may not like “cackle” because it didn’t have the flavor he or she seeks. However, “hymn” or “chant” or any other word would have the exact same issue because that word would not fit another’s style.

Being concerned or worried of what a GM may do based on flavor text or ability title is a problem of that table and doesn’t reflect the game or GMs as a whole. People are always going to disagree about flavor and style.

There are no TTRPG police enforcing the flavor as written. Tables have the power to “skin” things however they want as long as the mechanics work as written. Even then, the table is welcome to change those things. If your GM is that stubborn and unwilling to budge on narrative, then find a new GM or become one.

A lot of opinions in the thread seem to say that they want flavor text to be what their imagination is. What difference does the name of a feature make when the rules dictate its use? One may not like “cackle” because it didn’t have the flavor he or she seeks. However, “hymn” or “chant” or any other word would have the exact same issue because that word would not fit another’s style.

Being concerned or worried of what a GM may do based on flavor text or ability title is a problem of that table and doesn’t reflect the game or GMs as a whole. People are always going to disagree about flavor and style.

There are no TTRPG police enforcing the flavor as written. Tables have the power to “skin” things however they want as long as the mechanics work as written. Even then, the table is welcome to change those things. If your GM is that stubborn and unwilling to budge on narrative, then find a new GM or become one.

That's easy enough,

Witches Tone:

Making a sound utterly unique to you, often a cackling laugh but other sounds phrases, and even whistles or snaps of fingers have been recorded, you prolong a magical effect you created. You Sustain a Spell.

Now it's free to be flavored as you wish and still suggests a cackle for those who need guidance.

There are no TTRPG police enforcing the flavor as written. Tables have the power to “skin” things however they want as long as the mechanics work as written. Even then, the table is welcome to change those things. If your GM is that stubborn and unwilling to budge on narrative, then find a new GM or become one.

There's no TTRPG police enforcing anything. People at tables around the world make changes every day from minor to major. That doesn't mean people won't still have things they wish were different about the core system.

This just feels like a really weak argument, because... yeah of course we can change anything we want at our own tables.

What's surprising, in my opinion, is reading that PFS game masters expect players considering feats flavor text ( for example cackle ) as additional rule, ending up forcing them into something that is not even required ( leaving apart from a moment that every table might add/remove/tweak what they dislike)

What's surprising, in my opinion, is reading that PFS game masters expect players considering feats flavor text ( for example cackle ) as additional rule, ending up forcing them into something that is not even required ( leaving apart from a moment that every table might add/remove/tweak what they dislike)

They almost universally don't, it can be hard to know when this is the case but I'd recommend against believing everything people say 'happens' in Pathfinder Society, sometimes you'll find they've never actually even played Society at all! In the 10 years or so of Society I have played I can't think of a single GM who demanded a Witch character had to cackle, simple thematic changes that involve zero mechanical, or drastic alteration are absolutely fine in Society (yes, your tiefling can even be whatever colour you like!). I've seen witches cackle, laugh joyously, chant softly, call out prayers, and on and on. What I've never seen is some hypothetical GM call out all the demands that some people seem to think they do.

HumbleGamer wrote:

What's surprising, in my opinion, is reading that PFS game masters expect players considering feats flavor text ( for example cackle ) as additional rule, ending up forcing them into something that is not even required ( leaving apart from a moment that every table might add/remove/tweak what they dislike)

They almost universally don't, it can be hard to know when this is the case but I'd recommend against believing everything people say 'happens' in Pathfinder Society, sometimes you'll find they've never actually even played Society at all!

You are absolutely right, I am sorry.

I was kinda perplexed reading that, that I took their words for gold and wrote without considering alternative possibilities.