Wanted to share my place test of the witch. As I have been my groups main DM for over 5 years I have little chance to be a player. So I took Jason's idea and created a witch as a villain. So this play-test will be from the DM's perspective of the class. Though probably not as helpful as when its a PC as NPC's simply don't last long enough to really get a feel for the class. Also many of the abilities are tailored for PC use and not NPCs.
I was inspired to use the witch when I read the Coven hex ability as my group was about to run into the three hags of Hook Mountain in the Rise of the Runelords AP. So I replaced one of the Annis hags with a little sister elven witch. She is a level 8 witch meant to take on a party of six 8th level PCs. The hags also had a Graveknight(PF26 pg84), 4 advanced ghasts, 3 advanced Dolgaunt Monks (Eberron Campaign Setting). The combat took place on a frozen swamp terrain that covered 120 squares by 150 squares. I used the frozen map from the D&D Gargantuan White Dragon(Icingdeath) mini for the terrain.
We are still mostly using 3.5 rules with many Pathfinder changes. So in example the fighter class is pretty much pathfinder and we also allow many extra books including Book of Nine swords. The group consists of the following: Half-orc Fighter(Orc Double Axe), Hadozee Scout 6/Ranger2, Gnome Warlock, Goliath Spiked Chain Fighter, Dragonborn Favored Soul(with Houserules), and a Human Warmage. The half-orc fighter is what I have to balance against most as he is +18 to hit and does a base damage of 1d8+16 plus 1d6acid damage. Not including what he does vs giants. The funny part being he was doing so much damage with Power Attack he actually removed it from his character to take Improved Two-Weapon Fighting.
The witch stats are as follows:
Little Sister
Female elf witch 8
CE Medium humanoid
Int +5; Senses low-light vision; Perception +2
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DEFENSE
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AC 19, touch 15, flat-footed 14
(+4 Mage Armor, +5 Dex)
HP 54(8d6+8)
Fort +3, Ref +7, Will +6; +2 vs enchantments
Immune sleep
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OFFENSE
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Spd 30ft
Special Attacks: Hexes DC19 - Slumber, Misfortune; Ward(+3), Coven, Evil Eye(+4)
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TATICS
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During Combat the witch tries to use her spells to hamper the PCs while her big sisters (annis hags) tear them apart physically. If time before combat starts she casts Mage Armor and Cat's Grace which are already calculated into the above stats.
Morale the witch is loyal to her big sisters, but if they are both killed she will flee and take revenge later.
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STATISTICS
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Str 10, Dex 20, Con 12, Int 20, Wis 10, Cha 13
BAB +4; CMB +4/CMD 19
Feats Weapon Finesse, Maximize Spell, Combat Casting
Skills Concentration +17, Intimidate +12, Know(Arcana, History, Nature, Planes) +16, Perception +2, Spellcraft +16, Stealth +8, UMD +12
Combat Gear Headband of Vast Intellect(+2)
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SPELLS
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1st Level: Charm Person, Grease, Mage Armor(already cast), Ray of Enfeeblement, Reduce Person
2nd Level: Blindness/Deafness, Cat's Grace(already cast), Glitterdust x2, Hold Person
3rd Level: Haste, Lighting Bolt, Sleet Storm, Vampiric Touch
4th Level: Black Tentacles, Ice Storm, Maximized Ray of Enfeeblement.
I found the hexes to be nice and very flavorful, but not as powerful as her spells. Having an unlimited ability to off-set limited spellcasting is very nice for a PC. As a NPC villain I didn't think I would have many chances to use them actually. This turned out to be true as the only ones I ended up using where the Coven hex and the Ward protection hex which she gave to one of the annis hags before combat started.
The spell selection of the witch I thought fit very well with the theme that I wanted to build. They have a good number of control or combat hindrance spells, but very little in direct damage. Where I think they really need help is some better protection spells. At 8th level her whole list of protection spells was mage armor and cat's grace.
In comparison at Fort Rannick the group took on a ogre sorcerer who had a large number of protection spells. She had so many protection spells that the party spent almost a minute(10 rounds) taking her down. So I was very worried about a witch with a low AC of 19 and no significant hit points.
To help make sure the hags and witch lasted a little while longer I put up a modified wall of force that allowed the hags to cast out of, but prevented spells and a people in. The wall required a skill challenge to take down and the party easily handled doing this once they got near it.
The Combat
This combat lasted a total of 14 rounds and took six and half real hours to play through. So not going to go into full detail of it all. The witch's spells turned out to work like I hoped for and caused numerous slow downs to the party as they traversed the frozen landscape. She had little in the way of actually stopping the party or causing significant amounts of damage. Some of this was hammered by the range of many spells as the party stayed both spread out and far away from the hags and the cauldron while they mopped up the minions.
Once the shield wall was taken down the Half-orc fighter charged in ignoring the annis hags completly and went after the witch. The half-orc used Dual Strike(CAd) and easily hit the witch doing 49 points of damage(as both ends of the double axe hits) and are witch is left with 5hp. At least the party felt threatened by the witch as the half-orc player started yelling for someone to kill the sticky elven b***. When the warmage went he hit with four magic missiles and down goes the witch.
So no real chance to use any of the hexes as she didn't last long enough at such close ranges. Not that I think she would have lasted much longer provoking AoO's. I also think that sense she had a Maximized Ray of Enfeeblement ready that she would have used that over a hex as it was better at taking the fighter down a peg and could be cast defensively.
In hind sight I should have added the 8 levels of witch to the annis hag to give her more survivability or at least more than one round when directly confronted. Though it was fun to build her as if it was an actual PC.
Hope the above helps in some way.......