It seems like there is a lot of disagreement on what is a witchy spell, and what is not. This is not that surprising. Witches have a wide variety of interpretations in folklore, myth and pop culture. But the pathfinder witch has several spells that are not obviously witchy, and is missing other very witch spells.
For example, witches really should have the following on their lists: farie fire, circle of death, telekinesis (think Carrie from Steven King).
So here is a suggestion on a change to the witch. I think that it makes a witch a unique spell casting class that is powerful, but not overpowered.
Let witches familiars learn any spell from the Cleric, Druid, or Sorcerer/Wizard lists. However, a familiar can only know 9 spells of any given level. There could be a feat that lets a familiar learn 13 spells of a given level, and another feat that lets a familiar learn the spells of a given Cleric Domain.
Also, familiars would automatically know their 'familiar spells'. Note that someone has to write up the 'familiar spells' for the improved familiars.
The shtick with these witches is not that they have a particular spell list, but rather that they get access to a wide variety of magical knowledge through their familiars, but are in turn limited by their familiars magical orientation and perspective.
Note also that witch magic still retains some of the flavor of the 'classic witch' through their hexes.
I agree that there's lots of disagreement on what's a "witchy" spell. However, your idea of taking 9 spels from the druid, wizard, and cleric spell lists would be hugely imbalanced. By cherry picking the best spells of each list, you'd end up with the best spellcaster of all time, not a witch.
One part of the solution would be to expand the spell list that the playtest version has, to include some more archetypal spells.
I also think that witches should have an ability like the "Advanced learning" that beguilers, true necromancers, and warmages had. Something that lets them take a limited number of additional spells known from the wizard/sorcerer spell list, probably limited to certain schools (not evocations, for example). Maybe one new spell learned in that way per spell level, or one learned every 4 class levels.
Cherry picking would be a bit of a problem, yeah.
I think the spell list is fairly complete as is. If a player was dead-set on wanting a particular spell for their witch, I might let them swap it out, or come up with a way to research it.
As it is, the Witch spell list makes the class feel the closest I've ever seen to having a perfect Cleric/Wizard hybrid (without resorting to Mystic Theurge game mechanic balance issues).
I'm seriously considering allowing the next player that wants to be a Mystic Theurge type character (hearkening back to the good ol' days of Cleric/Mage characters), to simply pick their preferred casting method (memorize or spontaneous) and be granted this list (with maybe a few tweaks depending on the method chosen).
Atlatl Jones wrote: I agree that there's lots of disagreement on what's a "witchy" spell. However, your idea of taking 9 spels from the druid, wizard, and cleric spell lists would be hugely imbalanced. By cherry picking the best spells of each list, you'd end up with the best spellcaster of all time, not a witch.
One part of the solution would be to expand the spell list that the playtest version has, to include some more archetypal spells.
I also think that witches should have an ability like the "Advanced learning" that beguilers, true necromancers, and warmages had. Something that lets them take a limited number of additional spells known from the wizard/sorcerer spell list, probably limited to certain schools (not evocations, for example). Maybe one new spell learned in that way per spell level, or one learned every 4 class levels.
Because their spell list would be limited to around a dozen spell per level, and because they still can only prepare a limited (1 to 4 + Int Bonus) spells, I don't think it would be overpowered. Wizard spells are generally better than cleric and druid spells anyway, so its not like they would be that much more powerful. And also remember that they still must acquire most of the spells that their familiar knows.
For example, if I were a witch trying to optimize my 1st level spell list, I would try to have my familiar know:
cure light wounds, farie fire, entangle, sleep, charm person, mage armor, shield, protection from evil, magic missle. (spells I would like to add: unseen servant, detect secret doors, identify, ray of enfeeblement).
That is not at all close to the list that the 'ultimate spell caster' would have for 1st level spells. Its a good selection of spells, but a wizard is way more flexibe, and a cleric or druid (who get access to their entire list without having to select spells to 'know') are more flexible still.
What it does do is let the witch have a unique way to be a powerful spell caster-- she can cherry pick the best spells of three classes to know, but at the cost of flexibility. This is the price one pays for using a familiar spirit to gain supernatural knowledge.
I haven't really seen a ton of a disagreement on the matter. I've seen some suggestions for additions, most of which have been good. Overall, I like the list.
Your idea is cool moon, but there's just no way to balance that. Realistically, if I'm optimizing even a little bit, there probably aren't even 9 really good spells of each level in the entire book. Once your casters are picking the best spells of every class, the temptation is going to be too strong to break the crap out of the game. And, really, that's a guaranteed way to get specifically unwitchy spells into the class.
Velderan wrote: I haven't really seen a ton of a disagreement on the matter. I've seen some suggestions for additions, most of which have been good. Overall, I like the list.
Your idea is cool moon, but there's just no way to balance that. Realistically, if I'm optimizing even a little bit, there probably aren't even 9 really good spells of each level in the entire book. Once your casters are picking the best spells of every class, the temptation is going to be too strong to break the crap out of the game. And, really, that's a guaranteed way to get specifically unwitchy spells into the class.
I agree that witches would get non-witchey spells this way. That's not a big deal. Their witchy-ness is retained through their hexes. Its impossible to decide what is not a witchy spell in D&D anyway (since in folklore and myth witches are basically most any female spell caster).
I don't think you can really break a spell list that is limited to only a dozen spells, provided the levels of the spells stay the same. What would be an example of a truly broken spell list? There would have the excellent, though limited spell lists.
Recent threads in Round 2: Summoner and Witch
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