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My group just ran a short playtest session for a higher level Witch (level 15). The group consisted of a Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard and Witch. I've got several observations:
1. The Witch compared favorably to the Wizard. Slightly less versatile crowd control and blasting, but they get decent ones and don't feel the loss all that much. The hexes at this point set them apart and make them feel quite a bit different from the Wizard.
2. The Witch lacks a bunch of protective spells that make them excessively vulnerable, especially to other casters. I'd suggest opening up most of the rest of the Abjuration school to Witches. They have a few spells at each level from Abjuration, but it seems like the entire school could be given to them while maintaining their flavor (they are, after all, very much like wizards in their pursuit of arcane knowledge and protection).
3. The Witch's familiar is *much* more vulnerable at this level and should never be taken out of the Witch's pocket. At low levels most AoE's have reflex saves so it's tough to kill a familiar randomly (though it is easy to drop them with one or two direct attacks.) The party members usually target the weakest creatures first, and sometimes so do the monsters. Also, letting them scout ahead is out of the question. I'm not sure why Wizards do it (200gp/lvl is a lot to bank on a familiar's sneaking roll) but the Witch is going to lose a lot more.
4. Healing and Major Healing hexes are nice though they can put out a *ton* of healing in certain situations. It takes a while though, and I'd like to again suggest a fast healing alternative to make the hexes feel different than being the poor man's cleric.
5. I'm sure it's been noted in other threads, but Retribution needs a range (touch, 30 feet, 60 feet?). I would, of course, recommend range. Witches and melee combat just do not mix. Which, on a related note, turns out to be about the same as the Wizard.
6. The Witch's spell list seems a bit short. I understand there's a danger with bloating them, but they seem comparable to the Cleric/Druid spell lists rather than the Wizard spell list (for example the 5th level Witch spell list is about half as big as the 5th level Wizard). This is a problem because unlike the Cleric and Druid, Witches are primarily casters and have little other versatility to fall back on. The hexes are powerful, but I think a more robust spell list would serve them well. There are a couple of Cleric and Druid spells that fit the flavor of Witches that aren't excessively powerful (Gust of Wind, Repel Vermin, Hallow/Unhallow come to mind.) But as I mentioned above, adding most of the Abjuration school would help, perhaps even some of the abjuration Cleric spells (which are *quite* potent). Their spell list is currently pretty good, and I expect that it would be very dangerous to expand it too far. But there are a ton of fluff spells out there that would help and a couple more decent spells wouldn't hurt.
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4. Healing and Major Healing hexes are nice though they can put out a *ton* of healing in certain situations. It takes a while though, and I'd like to again suggest a fast healing alternative to make the hexes feel different than being the poor man's cleric.
I'm starting a playtest witch... what sort of circumstances? I find it odd that the witch as written can cure light wounds on 4,800 different people in an 8 hour shift, yet the bleeding fighter can only benefit once/24 hours. Fast healing idea is very nice and makes me think of homeopathic or earthy/witchy type healing, which would also fit with the 1/day idea (your body can only heal so much).
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I'm starting a playtest witch... what sort of circumstances? I find it odd that the witch as written can cure light wounds on 4,800 different people in an 8 hour shift, yet the bleeding fighter can only benefit once/24 hours. Fast healing idea is very nice and makes me think of homeopathic or earthy/witchy type healing, which would also fit with the 1/day idea (your body can only heal so much).
The situation in which a most or all of the party have some non-trivial amount of damage on them. This rarely ever happens in my experience. And so having a power that helps greatly in this situation is theoretically powerful but practically just alright.
Balanced against Channeling, the healing hexes are pathetic. But Clerics "only" get Channeling, Domains and Spells. Then again, it's not like each individual Witch gets all of the hexes, just a handful each. It seems like either something should be done to make the healing hexes more useful in the situation it's supposed to be useful in, make them more useful in a different situation, or strictly make them more powerful. As I said in my playtest, they're "nice" but they're nothing to write home about. And had I rolled low on the cure serious to heal the Fighter then I would have felt like it was completely useless. At low levels I expect that would come up more often. The Fast Healing idea makes the healing more consistent in how much is healed, which I think makes it better for doing what it was meant to do, without making it strictly more powerful.
On the note of a Witch healing 4,800 people in 8 hours, I don't much find this odd at all. No odder than a Barbarian being able to "Rage" for a specific amount of time every day or any of the other game mechanics made up. DnD isn't exactly a simulationist game, but it makes enough sense for me. And I can easily envision a "witch" at an oasis in a desert healing people's non-lethal heat damage as they pass through. Or passing through an army after a battle and healing soldiers as they walk. So yeah, I don't have any problem with a Witch healing 4,800 people in 8 hours as much as I don't mind that if you line up 4,800 kobolds in a straight line the Fighter can kill them all by sundown.