Not that you can really houserule a class till its out but I guess you can call these houserules for the witch in its current form.
Would apprecite your feedback on both of these rules which are both for the witch only.
Varied Origin (Class Feat)
The practice of witchcraft has a wide and varied history over many races, indeed they found more than one way to skin a cat.
Prequsite: Can only be taken at 1st Level, must be witch
Effect: You may use Wisdowm or Charisma as your spellcasting stat subsititing it for any class feature (apart from skills) that uses Intellgence.
Your Base skills also increase from 2+INT to 5+INT
(or perhaps 4+INT and you can choose any 2 CHA or WIS based skills and make them class skills)
""Reasons""
The Smart/Knowlegeable witch, the Wise/Foreseeing witch and the Pretty/eloquent/Seductress Witch are 3 archtypes which all fit the idea of a witch, and being able to have the relevant skills benefit from your primary spell casting stat just makes sense to me.
The extra skill points for a WIS or CHA build are simply to match what a INT which would get by default for having high INT (equiv to an INT of 16 in a normal build)
Empowered Soul (Class Ability)
Your familiar contains all of your spellcasting knowelge and there are ways to tap into all this knowelge at will.
Prequstie: Requires you are a witch and have a witch's familiar
Effect: Once a week you can perform the empowering ritutal this ritual requirs matierals costing 500gp x caster level.
While holding your familiar you can cast any spell from your spell list without having prepared it beforehand. The cost of this spell is spell level x current caster level x 10gp. This cost (which has already been paid for) is subtracted from the total gold vaule you spent in the weekly ritutal.
The minimum casting time for a spell cast this way is a full round action due to the extra time taken to find and draw out the knowlege.
If the spell has an expensive material compent this cost is also reduced from the avilable ritutal value.
You can use this ability up to 1 + 1/2 your spellcasting stat modifer
(in most cases this will be 2 or 3) per day.
e.g. 500gp ritutal, cast cure light wounds unprepared costs 10gp , 490gp left over the week.
""Reasons""
I see this as a great way to increase the versatility of the witch but at a price.
Witch spell casting list is limited compared to the wizards so allowing you to cast any spell from it is less powerful than it would be for a wizard.
A witch's familiar is thier spellbook, they contain all the knowlege already so it makes sense that at a cost you should be able to tap into that knowelege.
A wizard can make a supply of scrolls/wands for this purpose, spending gold ahead of time to increase thier versatility for a witch is a nice way of differentiating a witch further away from a wizard but achiving a similiar effect to a wizard.
Your caster level is always your current caster level so you can't cast "cheap versions" of lower level spells at 10th level a level 1 spell is going to cost 100gp to cast with this ability where it only cost you 10gp at 1st level.
At first level you can't acutally use this ability until you've accumulated 500 gold and perform the ritual. thus a DM can quite easily delay you using this ritutal until 2nd level at which time your 1st level spells now cost 20gp each, vs a basic scroll cost of 25gp.
At 20th level the ritutal will cost 10'000gp and using the ability to cast 9th level spell is 1800gp meaning you could only cast 5 bonus 9th level spells for the week.
""""
Would appreciate any feedback or changes to values etc
Note: For DM's running campagins with alot of downtime or travel in between fights or infrequent high intensity fights you could easily turn a week ritutal into a monthly ritutal or even a ritutal that can only be performed during a full moon so the witch can't sue this ability to simply doulbe thier.
I would hate to see this used as a way to spam combat spells when its simply intended to make a witch an exteremly verstaile character.
Stuff
I like the Varied Origin, but I wouldn't boost the skills points. The loss of skills is the price you pay for being different.
The Empowered Soul is Meh. I don't think I would use it.
Another house rule I would add is
Diverse Learning(Class Feat) - You know many ways to learn spells.
You can learn spells from wizard spellbooks. You are also able to scribe spells into a spellbook, but the spellbook will never count as being yours, and you will have to relearn spells from it normally.
This allows witches to learn from any wizard spellbooks they come across, and they can scribe spells they know to a spellbook for safekeeping, but there is a chance they fail to relearn the spell.
StuffI like the Varied Origin, but I wouldn't boost the skills points. The loss of skills is the price you pay for being different.
The reason I considered an increase in points is becuase the 2+INT was probably desgined based on the knowelge that anyone playing a casting class will have 16 if not 18 in the casting stat in this case 2+4 = 6 skills would be the norm for the witch.
for me the 2 insn't syaing a witch is unskillful its saying we don't want them to become a skill monkies becuse of the bonus skills they'll get by default.
StuffI like the Varied Origin, but I wouldn't boost the skills points. The loss of skills is the price you pay for being different.
The reason I considered an increase in points is becuase the 2+INT was probably desgined based on the knowelge that anyone playing a casting class will have 16 if not 18 in the casting stat in this case 2+4 = 6 skills would be the norm for the witch.
for me the 2 insn't syaing a witch is unskillful its saying we don't want them to become a skill monkies becuse of the bonus skills they'll get by default.
But conversely, a witch who is using charisma based casting is already getting a boost to all their charisma based skills by having a higher stat linked to those skills. The extra skill points are unecessary IMO.
It also opens up some abuse by getting a high wisdom AND int and now you are a skill monkey.
StuffI like the Varied Origin, but I wouldn't boost the skills points. The loss of skills is the price you pay for being different.
The reason I considered an increase in points is becuase the 2+INT was probably desgined based on the knowelge that anyone playing a casting class will have 16 if not 18 in the casting stat in this case 2+4 = 6 skills would be the norm for the witch.
for me the 2 insn't syaing a witch is unskillful its saying we don't want them to become a skill monkies becuse of the bonus skills they'll get by default.
But conversely, a witch who is using charisma based casting is already getting a boost to all their charisma based skills by having a higher stat linked to those skills. The extra skill points are unecessary IMO.
It also opens up some abuse by getting a high wisdom AND int and now you are a skill monkey.
Both true points although the witch has a very limited choice of class skills.
So I'd either say if you keep at 2+INT then you should allow the witch to pick 2 skills based on either WIS or CHA dpending on their choice.
Or you give them extra skill points to spend on their limited skill list
Here's a question
would the witch be overpowered if she had access to all her spells without memorizing them, i.e. can learn witch spells like a wiz and cast at will like a sorc.
with the limitation being the restrictive nature of the witch spell list.
at no cost, basically can cast any spell she know up to her casts per day limit.
Varied Origin (Class Feat)
Prequsite: Can only be taken at 1st Level, must be witch
Effect: You may use Wisdowm or Charisma as your spellcasting stat subsititing it for any class feature (apart from skills) that uses Intellgence. Your Base skills also increase from 2+INT to 5+INT
So you could take this feat and then keep INT as your primary casting stat, and still be a skill monkey.
would the witch be overpowered if she had access to all her spells without memorizing them, i.e. can learn witch spells like a wiz and cast at will like a sorc. With the limitation being the restrictive nature of the witch spell list. At no cost, basically can cast any spell she know up to her casts per day limit.
I believe that would be overpowered, her list is limited on Arcane spells but remember she gets cure spells and at 7th level, Harm and Heal. I think this gives her versatility to fill the arcane roll and be a healer. That coupled with her Hexes give her flavor and all the versatility she needs. I do agree with Charender. From what i have heard they are screwed if they lose a familiar, letting them put spells in a book goes a ways to mitigated that.
Varied Origin (Class Feat)
Prequsite: Can only be taken at 1st Level, must be witch
Effect: You may use Wisdowm or Charisma as your spellcasting stat subsititing it for any class feature (apart from skills) that uses Intellgence. Your Base skills also increase from 2+INT to 5+INTSo you could take this feat and then keep INT as your primary casting stat, and still be a skill monkey.
would the witch be overpowered if she had access to all her spells without memorizing them, i.e. can learn witch spells like a wiz and cast at will like a sorc. With the limitation being the restrictive nature of the witch spell list. At no cost, basically can cast any spell she know up to her casts per day limit.I believe that would be overpowered, her list is limited on Arcane spells but remember she gets cure spells and at 7th level, Harm and Heal. I think this gives her versatility to fill the arcane roll and be a healer. That coupled with her Hexes give her flavor and all the versatility she needs. I do agree with Charender. From what i have heard they are screwed if they lose a familiar, letting them put spells in a book goes a ways to mitigated that.
Heh good pickup on may should bereworded to "you exchange INT for CHA or WIS"
as for witch getting bonned if the familiar is lost I kinda like the looming threat hanging over the witch would make me play one very protective of my familiar to a near fanatical level. throw yourself in front of incomming pain to shield your familiar from harm.
Although one change might be the option to sacrifice the ability of your familiar to delvier touch spells for having a version of spectral hand as a Hex. So you can devlier all your touch spells at range without having to directly risk your familiar.
Or even without the familiar losing the ability just have it as an at will Hex ability you can choose.
maybe alter it so the 1d4HP you lose can't return but your not limited to how many times you can bring forth the hand per day.
as for witch getting bonned if the familiar is lost I kinda like the looming threat hanging over the witch would make me play one very protective of my familiar to a near fanatical level. throw yourself in front of incomming pain to shield your familiar from harm.Although one change might be the option to sacrifice the ability of your familiar to delvier touch spells for having a version of spectral hand as a Hex. So you can devlier all your touch spells at range without having to directly risk your familiar.
Or even without the familiar losing the ability just have it as an at will Hex ability you can choose.maybe alter it so the 1d4HP you lose can't return but your not limited to how...
The problem is that you have to be so protective of you familiar that you might as well not even have one. I keep my familiar in a little dimensional pocket and they only come out for me to memorize spells.
Letting witchs use wizard spell books fixes 2 problems at once.
First, witchs are supposed to be a lot more rare than wizards and witchs can only learn spells from witches who are friendly with them or scrolls. In our groups, the party wizard gets a lot of spells from captured spellbooks. By the RAW, these books are worthless to a witch. This means that over the course of a campaign a wizard is going to get a lot more spells than a witch.
Second, a witch who loses their familiar is screwed. Not only to they lose a ton of spells, but they also have to pay the cost of recovering their familiar. There was a thread where they costs were calculated, and it costs a witch about 3-4 times more for them to recover their familiar + lost spells than it does for a wizard to recover lost spellbooks. The difference is such that a level 2 or 3 witch that loses their familiar is better off retiring their character and starting over at level 1. With that feat it will still be more expensive for a witch to recover their familiar + spells than for a wizard to recover a lost spell book, but it keeps it from being character ending bad. You will still want to protect your familiar, but you are not looking at having to retire your character if you lose it.