Your weakness is always going to be fragility. Flying and some of the patron spells (invisibility and blink for example) can mitigate some of these issues, but you just don't have that many defensive options in comparison to the cleric/wizard. Keep that in mind.
This is an interesting angle and not something I'd fully considered when first reading the witch.
This is an interesting angle and not something I'd fully considered when first reading the witch.
by mid-level almost every combat with my witch ended with being KO'd or not being touched. There was no middle ground until I got a ring of friendship and was able to pass some of the beating onto the 18+ con rogue.
There was also the issue of my CMD of 14. At level 9.
That is true that the witch might need some help with defense. IF you have a cleric a shield of faith might help but does not stack with ring of protection. Also if going for a witch that crafts item do not get brew potion as a feat get extra hex (cauldron) for the +4 to craft alchemy checks and brew potion.
That is true that the witch might need some help with defense. IF you have a cleric a shield of faith might help but does not stack with ring of protection. Also if going for a witch that crafts item do not get brew potion as a feat get extra hex (cauldron) for the +4 to craft alchemy checks and brew potion.
Is brew potion any good? I dont see anything it can do that wands cant. For a cheaper cost even.
I'm playing a witch in COT she is far from underpowered or lacking in parts. The slumer hex is amongst her deadliest abilities which has ended quite a few encounters before they even started. Evil eye has really put a kink on the enemies especially when it comes to saves. The healing hex has come in handy on multiple occasions. I've managed to keep the party going and use it against undead opponent. Spell list is mainly debuff/control. Blindess and Hold have worked wonders. Only once at the begining of the adventure she got knocked to 0 hp other than that she has been scratched by enemies
I'm playing a witch in COT she is far from underpowered or lacking in parts. The slumer hex is amongst her deadliest abilities which has ended quite a few encounters before they even started. Evil eye has really put a kink on the enemies especially when it comes to saves. The healing hex has come in handy on multiple occasions. I've managed to keep the party going and use it against undead opponent. Spell list is mainly debuff/control. Blindess and Hold have worked wonders. Only once at the begining of the adventure she got knocked to 0 hp other than that she has been scratched by enemies
Then your enemies aren't fighting to win, more than likely, because your hexes have a 30 foot range, putting you well within charge, or just move + standard attack, distance of them. "Rush the caster" ought to be just above "rush the archer" in terms of "tactical priorities 101." Any enemy with a feasible amount of intelligence should be doing their utmost to get right up in your face, which means you either eat a lot of attacks, or can't else easily employ close range spells and hexes, let alone touch spells. The party's melee fighters would have to follow them to you anyway, and taking an attack of opportunity in passing one is more than worth it to get into position to get AOOs on you for casting - and thus force concentration checks to keep your spells from going off.
As far as witches and fragility... one of the patrons gets mirror image, and regular invisibility. I'm not sure I can actually suggest using any of the other patrons, considering the lack of effective 'passive' defenses in the witch arsenal and the fact that many of your hexes and spells wouldn't break invisibility. Invisibility and mirror image do at least make hanging around within 30 feet of an enemy less of a problem.
As far as witches and battlefield casting, the problem isn't that they get no good battlefield spells, it's that they get fewer good battlefield spells than any other caster, and many of the ones they do get are save-to-negate, are mind-affecting (still far and away the most common immunity), or are death spells with fort saves (the strongest save of practically every monster ever) that severely reduce their damage dealt or negate them entirely.
It makes the mid and high end witch very sparse and inflexible compared to the wizard, cleric, or even druid - she's supposed to be a full caster, but she hasn't got the spell list of one, and you're going to feel it every time you run into anything with good fort and will saves. Which is almost every appropriate-CR monster in the beastiary after level 10.
Actually the bard and Cleric usually charge in so they are taking the brunt of the assault. I stay within the background using hexes and other spells as needed.
Then your enemies aren't fighting to win, more than likely, because your hexes have a 30 foot range, putting you well within charge, or just move + standard attack, distance of them. "Rush the caster" ought to be just above "rush the archer" in terms of "tactical priorities 101."
Or maybe the group is making use of terrain and placement. There are plenty of ways to deter the rush the caster charge, a lot hallway battles after all do tend to take place in close quarters.
The witch's strength is that she's a versatile caster, she's effectively a mystic theurge done as a base class. She's the bard of magic casters able to fill various roles from healer, to support, to debuffer, to damage. This means of course she's not going to particularly stand out in any one of them.
Then your enemies aren't fighting to win, more than likely, because your hexes have a 30 foot range, putting you well within charge, or just move + standard attack, distance of them. "Rush the caster" ought to be just above "rush the archer" in terms of "tactical priorities 101."
Or maybe the group is making use of terrain and placement. There are plenty of ways to deter the rush the caster charge, a lot hallway battles after all do tend to take place in close quarters.
Overrun is a good thing, there, but then narrow quarters and broken-up terrain does a lot to hamper spellcasters without extra help from the enemy, unless they don't care about catching their own parties with their area spells. Really, your allies love tentacles!
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The witch's strength is that she's a versatile caster, she's effectively a mystic theurge done as a base class. She's the bard of magic casters able to fill various roles from healer, to support, to debuffer, to damage. This means of course she's not going to particularly stand out in any one of them.
Except she's not that versatile. It's a fake flexibility; what she gets as you go up spell levels are more of the same sorts of things, not especially new things. She gets a lot of good divination and transportation utility spells, but that's really the high point of her spell list. And a bunch of those spells are things you might only cast once every few -campaigns-, like plane shift or astral projection, or teleport object. She doesn't get many buffs, and she's notably missing key arcane buff spells like invisibility, displacement, and haste in her basic spell list. And she's missing wall spells and protection from alignment spells, too.
She gets the utterly useless 'inflict' line of spells, healing, which she is poor at for the same reason druids are (needs to pre-memorize, can't spontaneously convert useful memorizations to heals as needed), a lot of enchantments that are either useless because of enemy saves and immunities, or else are probably-redundant with the Slumber hex (which will always have a higher save DC too!), the mostly-useless glyph and symbol type spells, and a bunch of other spells that are either useful once in a blue moon, or are more 'style' than 'substance' or are better used as plot spells by (generally evil) NPCs - like cup of dust/feast of ashes.
Heck in a lot of games the only -especially- good 9th level spells she gets at all are elemental swarm and mass suffocation, and maybe her patron spell. If it's say, time stop. Everything else is at best situational, mediocre, or both. At worst it's awful (I'm looking at you there, refuge and mass inflict critical wounds).
Then your enemies aren't fighting to win, more than likely, because your hexes have a 30 foot range, putting you well within charge, or just move + standard attack, distance of them. "Rush the caster" ought to be just above "rush the archer" in terms of "tactical priorities 101."
Or maybe the group is making use of terrain and placement. There are plenty of ways to deter the rush the caster charge, a lot hallway battles after all do tend to take place in close quarters.
Overrun is a good thing, there, but then narrow quarters and broken-up terrain does a lot to hamper spellcasters without extra help from the enemy, unless they don't care about catching their own parties with their area spells. Really, your allies love tentacles!
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The witch's strength is that she's a versatile caster, she's effectively a mystic theurge done as a base class. She's the bard of magic casters able to fill various roles from healer, to support, to debuffer, to damage. This means of course she's not going to particularly stand out in any one of them.
Except she's not that versatile. It's a fake flexibility; what she gets as you go up spell levels are more of the same sorts of things, not especially new things. She gets a lot of good divination and transportation utility spells, but that's really the high point of her spell list. And a bunch of those spells are things you might only cast once every few -campaigns-, like plane shift or astral projection, or teleport object. She doesn't get many buffs, and she's notably missing key arcane buff spells like invisibility, displacement, and haste in her basic spell list. And she's missing wall spells and protection from alignment spells, too.
She gets the utterly useless 'inflict' line of spells, healing, which she is poor at for the same reason druids are (needs to pre-memorize, can't spontaneously convert useful memorizations to heals as needed), a lot of enchantments that are either...
The 'inflict' spells are not as useless as I once thought they have come into great use especially when you have wands that contain the spell. Her encahntments are neither redunant or useless. Sleep and deep slumber are still useful taking out groups of enemies and when you reach 11th level there is cloak of dreams. Hold is quite effective in battle. Confusion is a pretty nasty little spell to cast against a group. Augment these spells with spell focus and if the enemy has suffered an evil eye hex enchantments start ruling the game.
In the situation of immune to mind affecting enchantments than relie on necromantic spells and debuffs or straight up damage.
The 'inflict' spells are not as useless as I once thought they have come into great use especially when you have wands that contain the spell.
If you have a wand of it (and why would you take a wand of inflict wounds over a wand of something better?), you don't need to memorize it... sort of the point of wands there
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Her encahntments are neither redunant or useless. Sleep and deep slumber are still useful taking out groups of enemies and when you reach 11th level there is cloak of dreams. Hold is quite effective in battle. Confusion is a pretty nasty little spell to cast against a group. Augment these spells with spell focus and if the enemy has suffered an evil eye hex enchantments start ruling the game.
Hold person and hold monster are both entirely redundant with the slumber hex, except in their area forms. Actually, they're inferior, cause the hex will have a higher save DC that scales with your level.
Low-level control spells like sleep lose their relevance by the time you're past the mid-levels. Unless you like being a jerk to commoners or something. By level 15-16 you won't be using Hold Person either unless you heighten it, but if you're a wizard, druid, or cleric, you've got better spells to load into your level 7 and 8 spell slots. Witch, I'm not so sure about though.
Confusion's nasty for anyone who gets it, because it targets an area and only needs one or two enemies to fail a save. It's not unique to witches and it's not even especially better for them than for anyone else, except perhaps looking better because it has so few competitors on her spell list.
Evil eye is single-target, and if you try to spread them around a group you'll have to use cackle, sacrificing your mobility, to keep it up on everyone. It'll take several rounds to affect numerous enemies with them, and if you're fighting just a single enemy, that enemy's likely to have high enough saves to resist your evil eye too, forcing you into cackle-mode to try and leverage it.
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In the situation of immune to mind affecting enchantments than relie on necromantic spells and debuffs or straight up damage.
What straight up damage? Almost all damage spells give saves, often fort saves, and monsters have very high fort saves. I doubt your party would appreciate you dropping horrid wilting on them...
I also don't see a debuff on the spell list better than Slow, which is a save-to-negate level 3 spell (meaning it will have to be Heightened to stay relevant in the late game), except maybe enervate or energy drain. But those are all spells wizards already get, which is my overarching point:
The witch is a kneecapped wizard who's given the crutch of healing spells to hobble around on and pretend she can run. Absolutely nothing in the spell list of witches is unique, and their combination of arcane and divine spells ends up being less than the sum of its parts, not more, because the key parts - spontaneous healing, wall spells, illusions in general, spells that aren't reliant on overcoming saves, and so on - are absent.
Flux I believe my entire party would disagree with you:
They loved the fact that waves of exhaustion prevented pounce, charging and gave the enemies a -3 to hit, damage and ac, as well as a -6 to CMD.
They also greatly enjoyed the fact that the stone golem had to roll twice on everything and because of this failed to hit a single time (misfortune).
Evil Eye with it's -4 penalty to hit prevented five attacks from elementals from connecting.
The heal spell I dropped on the fighter was of huge benefit right after she was Crit'ed.
Cone of Cold on the efreeti? Yes please, that was just right.
Glitterdust on the Janni fighters and rogues? Yeah that helped too.
Pox Pustules made the gnoll king much easier to hit and weakened his attacks as well.
Status allowed me to keep up with the entire team even as we split up to cover more ground -- I was able to know when to D.Door to help the fighter, and D.Door back to help the paladin two rounds later.
Bestow Curse (persistent at that) prevented a fire giant from doing anything in a combat.
Two rays of exhaustion and an evil eye and the monk mini boss had nothing to show for his efforts.
The dragon was most displeased when his prized marble statue started attacking him (animated object).
Black Tentacles made short work of the gnoll army, while death ward made the greater shadows a joke.
Enervation absolutely killed the spells of the -- ok I'm not sure what it was but it was a caster and it didn't like the -4 to hit, saves, and caster level.
Threefold Aspect has allowed me to avoid buying a belt of physical might.
Baleful Polymorph means that whatever that thing we were about to face was -- didn't matter.
Reincarnate and raise dead have both been used once in our campaign.
Plane shift, greater teleport, and even harm have all been useful,
Horrid wilting is a target specific spell by the way which means I can leave my allies out of it, and destruction is one that they rarely save against -- due to my debuffing abilities.
Mind Blank is looking fun, Maze allows no save throw (and if they plane shift out they are 500 miles out of my way thanks to the way plane shift works), stormbolts looks like it might be neat (damage and stunning d8's instead of d6's)
And we are ignoring the fact that I still have all the classics from the wizard's list and many from the clerics -- I can teleport, summon monsters, dominate, etc.
Thanks to my endurance patron I will also have miracle available, as well as already having spell immunity, greater restoration, protection from energy (it has been useful in this campaign), and spell resistance.
My familiar is a silvasheen giving me plenty of healing back up too.
Arcane blast does give me a fall back option should I need an other supernatural ability to use up my spell slots with (or if something happens to my familiar).
Does immunity to mind-affecting effects make you immune to evil eye or any other hex?
And how would you fix the witch spell list? What is your opinion on debuffs like eyebite and irrestible dance?
Immunity to mind affecting affects some hexes -- it doesn't affect misfortune, it doesn't affect flight, healing, tongues, disguise, cauldron, and several others.
The witch has plenty of good spells and abilities to use even against mind immune and undead/constructs.
Does immunity to mind-affecting effects make you immune to evil eye or any other hex?
And how would you fix the witch spell list? What is your opinion on debuffs like eyebite and irrestible dance?
Immunity to mind affecting affects some hexes -- it doesn't affect misfortune, it doesn't affect flight, healing, tongues, disguise, cauldron, and several others.
The witch has plenty of good spells and abilities to use even against mind immune and undead/constructs.
Misfortune, evil eye, charm, and slumber hexes are all mind-affecting. I forget if the deathspell grand hexes are mind-affecting or not.
Flux I believe my entire party would disagree with you:
They loved the fact that waves of exhaustion prevented pounce, charging and gave the enemies a -3 to hit, damage and ac, as well as a -6 to CMD.
Wizards get it.
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They also greatly enjoyed the fact that the stone golem had to roll twice on everything and because of this failed to hit a single time (misfortune).
Evil Eye with it's -4 penalty to hit prevented five attacks from elementals from connecting.
The two good abilities witches get don't make up for the lack of abilities everywhere else.
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The heal spell I dropped on the fighter was of huge benefit right after she was Crit'ed.
Did you memorize it Reach, were you in touch range of the fighter, or did your GM forget that healing spells are all touch ranged? Also, what opportunity cost are you paying by memorizing Heal constantly in order to have it around for the occasional in-combat use?
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Cone of Cold on the efreeti? Yes please, that was just right.
Glitterdust on the Janni fighters and rogues? Yeah that helped too.
Pox Pustules made the gnoll king much easier to hit and weakened his attacks as well.
Status allowed me to keep up with the entire team even as we split up to cover more ground -- I was able to know when to D.Door to help the fighter, and D.Door back to help the paladin two rounds later.
Bestow Curse (persistent at that) prevented a fire giant from doing anything in a combat.
Two rays of exhaustion and an evil eye and the monk mini boss had nothing to show for his efforts.
The dragon was most displeased when his prized marble statue started attacking him (animated object).
Black Tentacles made short work of the gnoll army, while death ward made the greater shadows a joke.
Enervation absolutely killed the spells of the -- ok I'm not sure what it was but it was a caster and it didn't like the -4 to hit, saves, and caster level.
All things a wizard could have done just as well - or better if you consider he's got more spells to apply to leverage an advantage, and further, more of his spells will work without allowing saving throws and taking the chance of it failing.
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Threefold Aspect has allowed me to avoid buying a belt of physical might.
So? You don't need a belt of physical might when you're a caster, you need a belt of con and dex, eventually, regardless of what other buffs you get.
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Baleful Polymorph means that whatever that thing we were about to face was -- didn't matter.
Reincarnate and raise dead have both been used once in our campaign.
Plane shift, greater teleport, and even harm have all been useful,
A touch range damage spell is useful? Are you memorizing reach, is your DM very forgiving, or are you casting "Forget Tactics" on your enemies before every fight? ;)
Everything else is stuff you can either get npc casts of or a scroll of for the one time you need them, and/or that a wizard gets too.
And if you're telling me that your enemies rarely or never make their saving throws against your spells, and that you're in hex range without getting pummeled, then what you're telling me isn't that witches are good.
You're telling me that your GM is not giving your party very challenging encounters that are balanced against their having a highend caster.
They also greatly enjoyed the fact that the stone golem had to roll twice on everything and because of this failed to hit a single time (misfortune).
Evil Eye with it's -4 penalty to hit prevented five attacks from elementals from connecting.
The two good abilities witches get don't make up for the lack of abilities everywhere else.
Ok, so he puts up a whole list of things a Witch can do, which you dismiss as being useless because a Wizard can also do some of them, and yet in the same post you say the Witch 'lacks abilities'?
Does Not Compute.
Flux Vector wrote:
Abraham spalding wrote:
Pox Pustules made the gnoll king much easier to hit and weakened his attacks as well.
Status allowed me to keep up with the entire team even as we split up to cover more ground -- I was able to know when to D.Door to help the fighter, and D.Door back to help the paladin two rounds later.
Bestow Curse (persistent at that) prevented a fire giant from doing anything in a combat.
The dragon was most displeased when his prized marble statue started attacking him (animated object).
Black Tentacles made short work of the gnoll army, while death ward made the greater shadows a joke.
All things a wizard could have done just as well - or better if you consider he's got more spells to apply to leverage an advantage, and further, more of his spells will work without allowing saving throws and taking the chance of it failing.
All things a wizard could have done?
Pox Pustules, Status, Animate Objects, and Death Ward are not on the Wizard's spell list. I suppose he could prepare and cast Wish/Limited Wish and cast some of them that way, but I'd hardly consider that as doing them 'better'.
Bestow Curse is on the Wizard list, but Witches get it a level earlier than Wizards do, so again, is the Wizard doing it better? :D Methink not.
Flux Vector wrote:
Abraham spalding wrote:
Threefold Aspect has allowed me to avoid buying a belt of physical might.
So? You don't need a belt of physical might when you're a caster, you need a belt of con and dex, eventually, regardless of what other buffs you get.
....You do realize the game's name for a belt of Con and Dex is "Belt of Physical Might", don't you? Seriously, Look it Up
Big whoop -- so do I can I can bring them back from the dead -- wizard's can't.
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The two good abilities witches get don't make up for the lack of abilities everywhere else.
Which is incorrect -- the witch has lots of good abilities -- these two are just higher on the charts than some others.
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Did you memorize it Reach, were you in touch range of the fighter, or did your GM forget that healing spells are all touch ranged? Also, what opportunity cost are you paying by memorizing Heal constantly in order to have it around for the occasional in-combat use?
I was within touch range of the fighter -- I generally stay rather close to the front line, but it doesn't really matter since the familiar delivered the spell. Having heal around has been great in general -- and no more of a cost than what a cleric would pay. Heal is a good spell to have and therefore worthwhile -- it could have also been used against some of the undead -- if the paladin hadn't been there.
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All things a wizard could have done just...
Not at all -- pox pustules is a witch only spell, greater restoration isn't available to wizards, status isn't a wizard spell, animate object isn't a wizard spell, and the others were at the same level and DC as the wizard would have done -- which is the same not worse than the wizard. In addition to doing stuff he can't do.
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You're telling me that your GM is not giving your party very challenging encounters that are balanced against their having a highend caster.
No I'm telling you that you are incompetent at playing witches, lack ability, and imagination as well as skill with advance classes.
The GM does fine -- we just happen to be a very well running team that covers each other well. The fact that I'm the only caster in the group that will get ninth level spell access helps my case -- no other caster could do what I do in my place.
The wizard can't cover keeping the party going like I can.
The cleric can't cover the dropping opponents like I can.
With misfortune I increase my chances of a spell connecting 50% again what it originally was -- I generally have a 50/50 chance before misfortune -- the application of a single debuff before I drop a SoD puts me into the 75% range of success, I consider that very worthwhile.
Over all it seems to me you just having really looked at the witch -- you don't know the spells, you don't know the abilities, and you are running off saying that the wizard can do things better that he can only do as well as the witch.
The wizard has no magical ability to increase his save throw DC's higher than the witch and will run out of abilities before the witch does. He's in just as much trouble against the same sort of things as the witch is but doesn't have the means of helping out after stuff goes bad that the witch has.
Also -- scrolls cost money, and must have correct UMD to use (or correct class) while NPCs aren't always available or willing, etc. Basically put I could say the same thing for your wizard, "So I could get staves, wands, scrolls, or just have an NPC do it." -- your argument has no basis at that point.
Misfortune, evil eye, charm, and slumber hexes are all mind-affecting. I forget if the deathspell grand hexes are mind-affecting or not.
Incorrect on one count, Misfortune is not mind-affecting. It's just pure bad mojo, works on anything.
Of the Major and Grand Hexes, Nightmares and Waxen Image are the only ones tagged as mind-affecting.
Maybe I'm remembering the playtest version or something, because I specifically remember Misfortune being tagged as mind-affecting in one version of the witch rules. Either that or I'm confusing it with evil eye, that I think was changed from non-mind-affecting to mind-affecting between versions.
Either way, you're right, I just looked it up in my APG.
Either that or I'm confusing it with evil eye, that I think was changed from non-mind-affecting to mind-affecting between versions.
Either way, you're right, I just looked it up in my APG.
Evil Eye went from none mind affecting to mind affecting in the final -- there was some discussion on misfortune but it ended up being left alone (for the better of the witch class of course).
Big whoop -- so do I can I can bring them back from the dead -- wizard's can't.
And why are they dead? :P
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The two good abilities witches get don't make up for the lack of abilities everywhere else.
Which is incorrect -- the witch has lots of good abilities -- these two are just higher on the charts than some others.
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Did you memorize it Reach, were you in touch range of the fighter, or did your GM forget that healing spells are all touch ranged? Also, what opportunity cost are you paying by memorizing Heal constantly in order to have it around for the occasional in-combat use?
I was within touch range of the fighter -- I generally stay rather close to the front line, but it doesn't really matter since the familiar delivered the spell. Having heal around has been great in general -- and no more of a cost than what a cleric would pay. Heal is a good spell to have and therefore worthwhile -- it could have also been used against some of the undead -- if the paladin hadn't been there.
Those are things I'd almost never get away with in the groups I game with. Being close to the front lines, sending my familiar to deliver spells, etc. That'd net me a dead familiar sooner or later, and probably a KO'd witch on a regular basis.
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Not at all -- pox pustules is a witch only spell, greater restoration isn't available to wizards, status isn't a wizard spell, animate object isn't a wizard spell, and the others were at the same level and DC as the wizard would have done -- which is the same not worse than the wizard. In addition to doing stuff he can't do.
Witches don't get restoration or greater restoration in their base spell list. I know because I was looking to have mine learn it, assuming it'd be in the spell list because of all the other cure and healing spells she gets, but it's not. It's in the Endurance patron spell list, where it's one of the two particularly good spells on the whole list (the other being Miracle).
But off the top of my head the only thing restorations cure that your individual 'remove X' spells don't is negative levels. YMMV but in alot of campaigns that's not a huge issue.
Pox pustules is a single-target fortsave-to-negate debuff. It's a fairly nice debuff, especially when you get it by spell level 2, but it's going to lose most of its applicability by character level 10 unless you only you metamagick it up to keep up its save DC.
Wizards might not get that specific single-target debuff, but then, witches don't get interposing hand; by character level 10 which would you rather be using?
And if you're layering evil eyes, misfortunes, and other debuffs until you can reliably land a level 2 pox postule on a mid to high level target, why are you bothering with pox postule? You've got deathspells that would outright eliminate the same target, with the same or higher save DC, then.
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No I'm telling you that you are incompetent at playing witches, lack ability, and imagination as well as skill with advance classes.
Nice personal attack. Good to see you make reasonable facts-based arguments
Layering hexes and debuffs takes several full rounds worth of actions because you end up having to cackle to keep up the hexes. In a static battle that might work if you can keep from being attacked or have the Trickery patron, allowing you to have invis-based survivability.
In the kinds of games I've played, a caster hanging around in the thick of the battle without a miss chance isn't going to get several rounds of unmolested debuffing, especially if they aren't moving to get out of threat range when casting.
And all of that is moot when a wizard or even cleric or druid who's played with imagination, ability, and skill in advanced classes often only needs one spell to accomplish what takes the witch's hexes several rounds worth of actions.
Hold person and hold monster are both entirely redundant with the slumber hex, except in their area forms. Actually, they're inferior, cause the hex will have a higher save DC that scales with your level.
That's not strictly true. If you slumber hex the BBEG, a nearby CR 1/8 toad can wake him with a standard action unless you beat it to the punch. (Or fill in more reasonable henchman here.) Hold, not so much.
Those are things I'd almost never get away with in the groups I game with. Being close to the front lines, sending my familiar to deliver spells, etc. That'd net me a dead familiar sooner or later, and probably a KO'd witch on a regular basis.
Again I tend to remain near the front lines and the familiar was behind (and using for cover) the fighter. Of the two the fighter was more of a threat to the target. Also I generally don't use the familiar in such a way -- simply dilivering buffs though is a great way to get a buff on someone else without having to be there myself. I should also mention that I did embed an Ioun Stone of Regeneration (1hp/10 min) so actual death isn't likely. Fortune favors the bold for the rest of it. Now my witch has dropped a time or two -- and almost kicked it -- but those were situations where it probably would have happened anyways (gargantuan monster surprised the party in a stair way by coming up the middle -- no where to go, and had blindsight unexpectedly).
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Witches don't get restoration or greater restoration in their base spell list. I know because I was looking to have mine learn it, assuming it'd be in the spell list because of all the other cure and healing spells she gets, but it's not. It's in the Endurance...
I took endurance if you recall. I specified that. I also agree on miracle of course! Interposing hand as a fifth level spell or pox pustules as a 2nd? I'll take pox thanks all the same. interposing hand only provides cover -- and it doesn't always work, can be "killed" and only works on creatures sized huge or smaller (anything else is big enough to ignore it since it's only large sized) -- it also doesn't nothing against heavy monsters. Pox Pustules is lower level, helps everyone hit and survive better instead of just giving me cover.
I don't need "multiple debuffs" typically one debuff followed by a SoD works -- two turns at maximum.
As to the personal attack -- you attacked my GM first -- I returned the favor.
But hey I'm game -- I've explained my position. Now give specifics on yours -- which are these "one hit wonder" spells you are casting as either a wizard or a cleric and how are you going to do the other one's job with each?
How is your wizard going to be ready for everything out there? What spells are his "I win" spells that aren't matched on my end?
I never said I put myself in direct danger -- just that I stayed close to the front lines -- close in this case is within 30 feet for the most part -- I have overland flight, regeneration, good HP (though not great) and generally have a quickened D.Door or wand of D.Door (wands don't provoke) at hand. As such the most I generally take in one round would be a single attack.
The rest of the party includes a charge happy paladin (yeah go ahead and give the flying horse a clear line to you -- he'll be happy to deal triple damage), a mobile fighter falcata specialist with wings of flying, and an arcane duelist bard.
There is a worry about a BBEG having a familiar that would stop the sleep hex from working. It would make sense flavorwise as well the famaliar would not like to lose his master. Animal companions could serve the same purpose.
If the Gm tries using the sleep hex agianst the party the witches familiar could wake them up.
And all of that is moot when a wizard or even cleric or druid who's played with imagination, ability, and skill in advanced classes often only needs one spell to accomplish what takes the witch's hexes several rounds worth of actions.
You're missing the point. The witch's huge AoE spells are for crowds. The single-target hexes are built for individual bad guys that could be problematic or helping the party with a single baddy, and there are a whole HOST of other skills that the witch gets that add additional benefits.
I'll walk you through mid-level (we were 9th at the time) encounter with mine to give you an idea of this:
stuff:
Party: Sorceror, Barbarian, Rogue, Witch.
We were preparing to wrap our current story arch and heading to an estate commandeered by the BBEG. I used my knowledge (nobility) check modified by history to figure out who was in charge, then disguised my witch as the head of the household and used my intimidate check (I think it was +16 or so at the time and I had picked up a +5 modifier somewhere, most of my checks were in the 30s) to get the party past a few resource-eating encounters and into the important stuff. At this point the "midboss" encounter started, and the barbarian and rogue went nuts on the clericy bad guy while a pile of minions approached.
My involvement? Summon Monster IV to drop a hound archon into that fight (oh hai magic circle against evil and no mind control) and use blink to walk through a locked door into a room full of bad guys. The odds favored me and I avoided 2 of 3 attacks and managed to fire off black tentacles (on the mook caster and 2 others) and used vomit swarm to sick murderous wasps on the rest before rejoining the party. No minions for the mid-boss and we smote him.
Next encounter was the improved invisibilitied wizard and summoned/buffed minion. barbarian and rogue went nuts on the minion, sorceror threw me an assist with glitterdust, and I feebleminded the wizard before evil-eyeing the minion's attacks into ineffectiveness.
Slumber hex went off a couple times in the next encounter with some guard dogs (flight hex kept me safe on this). Healing hex fixed up all the damage we'd taken so far.
Finding no more baddies we left the house (bypassing the servants still no problem thanks to disguise and a lot of barked orders. I also had a reasonably bluff check thanks to my headband of intellect). We returned to a church we'd found and shortly after had to deal with a fire (oh hai SM 3 and water elemental) set by the vampire BBEG we'd been after.
We all went out invisible and healthy (thanks to the dozen potions I'd whipped up on the way here in the first place), and faced off against him. The final damage to the vampire? UMD check from me with a scroll of disintegrate I'd snagged from the feebleminded wizard from before (sorceror had blown his will save v. dominate earlier).
Could a wizard have done most of that? Maybe. A cleric? Doubtful.
The witch is more than a combat character, as is every tabletop character. The skill-based approach (and please don't quote 2 skills/level, by this point I was using the skill point every level for 8 points per, also known as what most skill-monkey builds have) is easier for her than the wizard, but she also has far more versatility than the sorceror or cleric.
This isn't a better than discussion. This is a different but also powerful.
My biggest problem with the witch is the lack of defensive options at higher levels. Flight and MirrorImage (patron) will only work for so long.
I've had to spring for a wand of Invis. I'm not used to buying scrolls that I couldn't scribe (like a wizard can) because they aren't on my list.
Not that it sucks but a witch really does force you to work with your party alot more (or have a dedicated planar ally bodyguard) for defensive positioning.
The wizard's as or more prepared than the witch for anything, depending on if the player is any good at planning ahead or knowing what works on what encounters. But the wizard has a broader variety of no-save spells at his disposal, especially the very powerful and useful battlefield alteration spells (wall of stone being the workhorse of these). Witches get a few of them, but in the base list they stop at level 4 with Solid Fog (and arguably, Black Tentacles, since it can serve an area-denial role though that isn't what I'd want to use it for). The wizard gets a wider variety of battlefield alteration spells throughout his career (the APG added the create pit line, even), and keeps getting them going into higher levels. Even very situational-seeming spells like Dimensional Anchor or Dimension Lock can become staple abilities if you face increasing numbers of teleport-capable foes. Like say, "most Outsiders."
Against groups of nonflying enemies Reverse Gravity is a no-save "win button" in one spell; against singular enemies who don't have exceptionally good CMDs, Grasping Hand or Clenched Fist are pretty much game over. Against highend enemies who are 'wearing their treasure', Disjunction is exceptionally powerful.
And Shrink Object is, in my opinion, one of the most innocuously overpowered spells in the entire game under a strict interpretation of its rules (shrunken boulders - or even bonfires! - could be thrown by anyone, and return to full size when they hit their target square...)
This leaves out the power available to creative users of illusions, or just plain invisibility.
Witches can access some of these spells, or ones that are close to them or part of their lines - but never all of them in the same character, and not to the same breadth and depth, because they're patron-dependent. In return, witches get hexes - which are quite powerful at lower levels but increasingly difficult to employ at higher ones because of tactical considerations and the number of actions it takes to maintain them - and healing spells. But in PF, healing is a very situational ability mid-combat, partly due to its Touch range, but mostly because enemies of an appropriate level for your party can usually deal more damage in a single full round attack than you can heal with a single spell, meaning that healing buys you a little time at best, when other spells of the same spell level could buy you a lot of time or even win the encounter.
Healing via hex is nice, but you can only do it once per day per person, meaning that having the hex is a way to handwave healing up during travel, and for emergency stabilization of the dying, rather than using for serious amounts of healing during an adventure once you're past the lower levels. But then, just having the spells or someone with channel positive energy around is a way to handwave healing up during travel, too.
It's still better to just avoid needing the heals, and that's usually best-accomplished via battlefield alteration, no matter which way you slice it. Yeah, your wall of stone or even reverse gravity doesn't kill the badguys. But used properly it makes it pretty hard for them to win, and ideally, makes it really hard for them to even do significant damage.
Against groups of nonflying enemies Reverse Gravity is a no-save "win button" in one spell; against singular enemies who don't have exceptionally good CMDs, Grasping Hand or Clenched Fist are pretty much game over. Against highend enemies who are 'wearing their treasure', Disjunction is exceptionally powerful.
Reverse gravity isn't a win button. To render something (relatively) helpless it allows a save. Archers/ranged attackers are unaffected, and you grossly nerf the significant power of the spell by hitting a group rather than levitating one dude up 130 feet and dismissing the spell.
Oh, and it's a 7th level spell. For the same price the witch can throw waves of exhaustion, which is a no save and enormously powerful.
Against low CMD bad guys black tentacles is just as much a win as grasping hand/clenched fist is, only it's a 4th-level spell slot.
I'm going to ignore disjunction, because going to a 9th level slot for a point is silly, and the witch can choose to take it anyway.
Or you know, take something else. Like Miracle without a deity alignment restriction.
But the wizard has a broader variety of no-save spells at his disposal, especially the very powerful and useful battlefield alteration spells (wall of stone being the workhorse of these). Witches get a few of them, but in the base list they stop at level 4 with Solid Fog (and arguably, Black Tentacles, since it can serve an area-denial role though that isn't what I'd want to use it for). The wizard gets a wider variety of battlefield alteration spells throughout his career (the APG added the create pit line, even), and keeps getting them going into higher levels. Even very situational-seeming spells like Dimensional Anchor or Dimension Lock can become staple abilities if you face increasing numbers of teleport-capable foes. Like say, "most Outsiders."
Witches can access some of these spells, or ones that are close to them or part of their lines - but never all of them in the same character, and not to the same breadth and depth, because they're patron-dependent. In return, witches get hexes - which are quite powerful at lower levels but increasingly difficult to employ at higher ones because of tactical considerations and...
Yes.
Witches do good hit point healing.
They do good summoning
They suck at defence....
Consider a witch build (Human)-
1 Familiar (Raven), Cantrips, Hex: Evil eye, Extra Hex: Slumber, Extra Hex- Minor Healing
2 Cackle
3 Craft Wonderous Item
4 Fortune
5 Craft Wand
6 Misfortune
7 Extra Hex: Charm
8 Flight
9 Ability Fcs (Slumber)
10 Major Healing
11 Persistent Spell
12 Retribution
13 Scribe Scroll
14 Agony
15 Quicken Spell
16 Waxen Image
17 Craft Staff
18 Lifegiver
19 Extra Hex: Death Curse
20 Natural Disaster
Now this is just and example but,
said which can do healing
other than that the majority of hexes are single target debuffs
this is not the whole list but there is little in te way of good defensive hexes.
They aren't awesome at crafting either, due to limied spellist.
Witches are cool and deadly specialist glass cannons.
Party just hit 7th level and I'm having a blast playing my witch. Granted, my damage output is ~0 but I've never had the opportunity to play a character that has such strong debuffing capabilities. Party is a Cavalier, Alchemist, Ranger, and Witch - playing the Kingmaker modules. I don't have much trouble with the 30 foot hex range.
One more thing that hasn't been pointed out is that the witch is the most resilient spellcaster versus spell resistance [Hexes aren't affected by SR and don't provoke AoO]. Not having to take the spell pen feat is pretty big as it frees up 2 feat slots to say, augment your AC or saves.
I'm rather squishy - my HP is lowest in the party even with taking the extra hit point every level so keep an eye out for that.
With regards to all the Boohoo against witch that I've just spent 30 minutes reading....DEAL WITH IT. Every class has weaknesses and its up to you party to cover up for yours. Party fights a swarm, go make a sandwich while the alchemist does 724928792847529 damage with bombs - party fights a troll, slumber and watch it get coup de graced in the same turn by the delaying cavalier.
And about non being able to spontaneously cast cure spells: so what? Your party will take damage and relying on gaining your level in HP per rest generally won't cut it. Cure spells will be cast at minimum every night you adventure so what does it matter if you have to prepare them ahead of time or not - they still get cast either way. I could argue that my fellow PCs have to play better because they know they only have a limited amount of healing to work with instead of with a cleric that can drop all spells into cure - but then why would you even need to do that as a cleric when you could just channel positive energy and heal your whole party at the cost of 0 spells.
Against groups of nonflying enemies Reverse Gravity is a no-save "win button" in one spell; against singular enemies who don't have exceptionally good CMDs, Grasping Hand or Clenched Fist are pretty much game over. Against highend enemies who are 'wearing their treasure', Disjunction is exceptionally powerful.
Reverse gravity isn't a win button. To render something (relatively) helpless it allows a save. Archers/ranged attackers are unaffected, and you grossly nerf the significant power of the spell by hitting a group rather than levitating one dude up 130 feet and dismissing the spell.
Reverse gravity only allows a save if the target has something to hold on to. Against range attackers you can largely foil them with the level 3 spell Tiny Hut, or a Wind Wall. No one spell is absolutely perfect for everything, and that isn't what I claimed. I claimed the wider variety of spells available to the wizard lets them handle varied situations better than the witch, who is largely reliant on debuffing that allows saving throws. Meanwhile, the witch's access to hexes and healing doesn't provide enough of a counterbalance to this in combat, especially because of the tactical issues (mobility loss and short range) that arise when using hexes to help surpass saves.
This plus their access to a superb list of divination spells (and a couple hexes) makes the witch an excellent out of combat caster for intelligence-gathering and 'party repair' but only a mediocre in-combat caster because there's always a risk that her spells are going to be foiled by saves, and unless she takes some specific patrons, her ability to cover the party with battlefield alteration is limited, while she has to expose herself to more danger personally than other arcane casters in order to employ her hexes and healing (the things she gains instead of a broader spell list) on the field.
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Oh, and it's a 7th level spell. For the same price the witch can throw waves of exhaustion, which is a no save and enormously powerful.
Wizards get it too. If it's appropriate for the encounter, they're just as capable at employing it as the Witch. If it's not, they've got other options.
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Against low CMD bad guys black tentacles is just as much a win as grasping hand/clenched fist is, only it's a 4th-level spell slot.
Black Tentacles have a lower CMA (caster level +4 strength +1 size) compared to Hands, which are (caster level +10 strength +1 size) and have a nosave Cover effect. Against an upper level target, it's usually a better bet to go with the spell that's got the higher success chance. Bonus points for The Hand Formerly Known as Bigby's not screwing over your own party if you use it in close quarters.
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I'm going to ignore disjunction, because going to a 9th level slot for a point is silly, and the witch can choose to take it anyway.
Only in the Wisdom patron, which is stocked with mediocre and poor spells that tend to become obsolete as you go up levels. This is a big part of what's wrong with witches, in fact - their flexibility is a lie. Like the cake. You're told it's there, but it isn't. Because if you pick Patron A, you don't get the capability that's in Patron B. "Witches" might have all this capability, but "YOUR witch" doesn't, because you can't pick all the patrons.
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Or you know, take something else. Like Miracle without a deity alignment restriction.
In most ways miracle is absolutely better than wish.
Miracle:
Spoiler:
Miracle
School evocation; Level cleric 9
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S; see text
Range see text
Target, Effect, or Area see text
Duration see text
Saving Throw see text; Spell Resistance yes
You don’t so much cast a miracle as request one. You state what
you would like to have happen and request that your deity (or the
power you pray to for spells) intercede.
A miracle can do any of the following things.
• Duplicate any cleric spell of 8th level or lower.
• Duplicate any other spell of 7th level or lower.
• Undo the harmful effects of certain spells, such as feeblemind or
insanity.
• Have any effect whose power level is in line with the above
effects.
Alternatively, a cleric can make a very powerful request. Casting
such a miracle costs the cleric 25,000 gp in powdered diamond
because of the powerful divine energies involved. Examples of
especially powerful miracles of this sort could include the following:
• Swinging the tide of a battle in your favor by raising fallen allies
to continue fighting.
• Moving you and your allies, with all your and their gear, from
one plane to a specific locale through planar barriers with no
chance of error.
• Protecting a city from an earthquake, volcanic eruption, flood,
or other major natural disaster.
In any event, a request that is out of line with the deity’s (or
alignment’s) nature is refused.
A duplicated spell allows saving throws and spell resistance as
normal, but the save DCs are as for a 9th-level spell. When a miracle
spell duplicates a spell with a material component that costs more
than 100 gp, you must provide that component.
Wish:
Spoiler:
Wish
School universal; Level sorcerer/wizard 9
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (diamond worth 25,000 gp)
Range see text
Target, Effect, Area see text
Duration see text
Saving Throw none, see text; Spell Resistance yes
Wish is the mightiest spell a wizard or sorcerer can cast. By simply
speaking aloud, you can alter reality to better suit you. Even
wish, however, has its limits. A wish can produce any one of the
following effects.
• Duplicate any sorcerer/wizard spell of 8th level or lower, provided
the spell does not belong to one of your opposition schools.
• Duplicate any non-sorcerer/wizard spell of 7th level or lower,
provided the spell does not belong to one of your opposition
schools.
• Duplicate any sorcerer/wizard spell of 7th level or lower, even if
it belongs to one of your opposition schools.
• Duplicate any non-sorcerer/wizard spell of 6th level or lower,
even if it belongs to one of your opposition schools.
• Undo the harmful effects of many other spells, such as geas/
quest or insanity.
• Grant a creature a +1 inherent bonus to an ability score. Two to
five wish spells cast in immediate succession can grant a creature
a +2 to +5 inherent bonus to an ability score (two wishes for a +2
inherent bonus, three wishes for a +3 inherent bonus, and so on).
Inherent bonuses are instantaneous, so they cannot be dispelled.
Note: An inherent bonus may not exceed +5 for a single ability
score, and inherent bonuses to a particular ability score do not
stack, so only the best one applies.
• Remove injuries and afflictions. A single wish can aid one
creature per caster level, and all subjects are cured of the same
kind of affliction. For example, you could heal all the damage you
and your companions have taken, or remove all poison effects
from everyone in the party, but not do both with the same wish.
• Revive the dead. A wish can bring a dead creature back to life
by duplicating a resurrection spell. A wish can revive a dead
creature whose body has been destroyed, but the task takes
two wishes: one to recreate the body and another to infuse the
body with life again. A wish cannot prevent a character who was
brought back to life from gaining a permanent negative level.
• Transport travelers. A wish can lift one creature per caster level
from anywhere on any plane and place those creatures anywhere
else on any plane regardless of local conditions. An unwilling
target gets a Will save to negate the effect, and spell resistance
(if any) applies.
• Undo misfortune. A wish can undo a single recent event.
The wish forces a reroll of any roll made within the last
round (including your last turn). Reality reshapes itself to
accommodate the new result. For example, a wish could undo
an opponent’s successful save, a foe’s successful critical hit
(either the attack roll or the critical roll), a friend’s failed save,
and so on. The reroll, however, may be as bad as or worse
than the original roll. An unwilling target gets a Will save to
negate the effect, and spell resistance (if any) applies.
You may try to use a wish to produce greater effects than these,
but doing so is dangerous. (The wish may pervert your intent into a
literal but undesirable fulfillment or only a partial fulfillment, at the
GM’s discretion.)
Duplicated spells allow saves and spell resistance as normal (but
save DCs are for 9th-level spells).
When a wish duplicates a spell with a material component that
costs more than 10,000 gp, you must provide that component (in
addition to the 25,000 gp diamond component for this spell).
Those are pretty darn similar, actually, the only major difference having to do with wizard specialist schools. RAW, Miracles also can't give you permanent stat increases, either. And Wishes have a higher spell component cost limit - 100 gp for Miracle, 10,000 for Wish.
So yeah, Miracle's totally better, especially in the important ways, cause you're definitely going to need to save towns from natural disasters everywhere you go. :) /sarcasm
In fact, Wish is better in the important ways - it can in fact do more and it's more forgiving on spell component costs.
Except for the "very powerful request" thing - "Alternatively, a cleric can make a very powerful request. Casting such a miracle costs the cleric 25,000 gp" and the simple fact that really, I can't remember ever having used a Wish or Miracle for duplicating another spell's effect, and actually, the +5 stat book is 144,000 gp, 5 wishes at 25k each is 125,000 gp, ie unless your GM lets you craft wondrous item your stat book for half-price without having to take all the time that price would require under the RAW, wishes are nontrivially cheaper.
Additionally, while Miracles don't have the same failure chances as Wishes, they do still have them (the 'deity alignment restriction') which isn't written as waived for Witches anyway, anywhere, and ought to be taken in the same vein as the Wish 'backfire' clause: license for your GM to control the spell's outcome when it's not used in a very clear and limited manner.
I understand what you are saying about not using wish for other spell effects, but consider this -- will you do so more now that you know that you can without cost with a miracle? It's effectively an any spell now allowing you to adjust to what you need for no cost other than the higher level slot.
Miracle is something you could actually memorize each day and use -- the same can't be said for wish. As such it has much more power in my book as I'll actually use it.
Arguing against witch further because I hate saving throw effects
No one's arguing the wizard, as written, doesn't have a broader arcane spell selection. What you (again) seem to miss is that the witch has significantly more options because of the divine list options that mix with the wizard list, the patron options, and the hexes combined with a billion skill points a level make the witch just as effective in any encounter.
The fact that a spell does or does not allow a save doesn't make it bad. I'm aware that you dislike the saving throw. That's not really relevant to advice on a witch or the utility of the witch's spells and abilities. As it's your preference.
And you know, if the spell selection is the only thing bugging you? There are rules in place for making new, specialized spells for arcane and divine casters both. The DC is 20 + twice the spell level. Otherwise known as trivial for a character with knowledge (arcana) and spellcraft as class skills and int as a primary attribute.
As your example wizard apparently has infinite funds to acquire every spell possible, there's no reason a witch couldn't research alternatives to the existing lists.
And while I've only really needed the save from natural disaster effect of miracle once, raising an entire party to refight a battle? In one action of one round? Yeah, that's something that might come up more often.
And that says nothing of the higher level hexes. Retribution can be kept on a bad guy for the entire fight and let's you do things like let the golem murder himself fighting summoned monsters.
Or that high-level bad guy that you want to disjunction? Evil eye then forcibly reincarnate him. Because it's both hilarious and removes any of those lovely SR/special racial abilities the high end bad guys have. And, you know, two negative levels.
Sure it takes two rounds within 30 ft of the BBEG, and allows a will save. But it's also hilarious.
Arguing against witch further because I hate saving throw effects
No one's arguing the wizard, as written, doesn't have a broader arcane spell selection. What you (again) seem to miss is that the witch has significantly more options because of the divine list options that mix with the wizard list, the patron options, and the hexes combined with a billion skill points a level make the witch just as effective in any encounter.
Wizards have the same amount of skillpoints, the divine list options are largely either curative (which are frequently poor in-battle spells) or redundant with arcane spells and the hexes themselves.
Further, the spells witches are missing are not just 'nice to have' they're frequently 'critical for party defense' in my experience. At lower levels your fighters can defend themselves. At higher levels, AB scales up much faster than AC, and physical damage dealt scales up much faster than hitpoints.
Characters who don't have miss chances (start becoming unable to afford to take full attacks more than once, and that's if they're lucky. Mobility, tactics, and magic has to sub in for armor and hitpoints as defense at higher levels.
The caster broadly becomes the party's "tank" in the teens and above, in short, especially because intelligent enemies are going to target him first anyway.
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The fact that a spell does or does not allow a save doesn't make it bad. I'm aware that you dislike the saving throw. That's not really relevant to advice on a witch or the utility of the witch's spells and abilities. As it's your preference.
Except saving throws for creatures - especially the fort save - scales up faster than your ability to increase your save DC in most cases.
Failed spells don't just represent the loss of a spell slot, either, they represent the loss of an action, and rounds during which your enemy is able to use their offense uninhibited.
Frequently the target of that uninhibited offense will be you, and that is not a position you want to be within 30 feet of them from the outset at.
As far as unlimited funds, hah, you don't need that. Especially because it's not the full spell list that the witch is missing (alot of is pretty redundant), it's key ones which I've mentioned, that she can access through some, but not all patrons, meaning "some" witches have "some" of this capability, but "no" witch has "all" of it.
Edit: This is all important because the PC who's using save-for-negate effects has to get lucky in every fight for an entire campaign. The enemies only have to get lucky once. Eventually your luck is going to run out, so depending on luck is strategically unwise.
That's how you end up needing those miracles to rez the entire rest of the party (though why you weren't killed off first is a good question), whereas if you opened with your initial actions using reliable, non-luck-based tactics, you wouldn't be in that position.
(As an aside, technically, Cloning the party between adventures as a precaution is IIRC cheaper than the material components of a resurrection).
Except saving throws for creatures - especially the fort save - scales up faster than your ability to increase your save DC in most cases.
This isn't true -- save throw bonuses stay at roughly the same rate of increase as save throw DC's do. The average "maximum save DC" against the average good save throw (Good save please note) has a success rate of 55% for most levels -- the most it strays is 45% and 65%.
I covered this in another thread with CoDzilla when he first showed up (again) on these boards recently.
These numbers lack only two things: spell perfection, and metamagic feat involvement.
Except saving throws for creatures - especially the fort save - scales up faster than your ability to increase your save DC in most cases.
This isn't true -- save throw bonuses stay at roughly the same rate of increase as save throw DC's do. The average "maximum save DC" against the average good save throw (Good save please note) has a success rate of 55% for most levels -- the most it strays is 45% and 65%.
For characters, not monsters. But in most games I'm fighting monsters, not characters, most of the time. A level 20 character's "Good Save" is +12 at base; a CR 20 monster's is +22 at base and heck, their base Poor save is +17.
Add in that many monsters have high Con scores (often due to size bonuses), further improving their (usually Good Progression) Fort save.
So I'd give you that targeting humanoids with class levels is fine. But targeting monsters isn't, because they've got inflated base stats in every regard. The expected success rate for going against a high-end creature's +25 to +30 "stat-improved good save" is under 50% before they start wearing their treasures as magic items, even if you have the highest possible save DC (34 for most games). And most casts are likely to be a bit behind on that save DC, since you only get so many 9th-level slots even if you involve metamagic.
And again, I mostly find myself fighting monsters, not characters. Additionally, NPC-type enemies are often starting out behind the 8-ball anyway because they don't get as much wealth (ie, gear) as the player-characters they're pitted against.
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These numbers lack only two things: spell perfection, and metamagic feat involvement.
Spell perfection just lets you apply a metamagic without increasing its memorization cost, IIRC, and doesn't improve its save DC or allow you to metamagic a spell above a 9th-level slot (so you still couldn't quicken a 6th or higher level spell with it, for example).
Metamagics allow you to boost your save DCs to keep older spells viable for longer, but the one that really shines for save-or-else spells is persistent spell. Other than persistent spells, I'd usually be more inclined to use superior higher-level spells than heightening older ones, or say, quickening them for the save DC increase as much as the action efficiency.
But say for 'zapping,' memorizing a persistent disintegrate is probably going to have better results than memorizing a polar ray, with an 8th-level spell slot.
(Which as an aside, keep in mind that many 'save or die' spells are now 'save or take alot of damage' spells, and many monsters with their high con scores are able to survive a failed save against them even so.)
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Wall of Stone has a really small area you know?
I've never needed it to have a huge one. The important thing is to make your early-fight actions as reliable and count for as much as possible, because early advantages will snowball. Ideally you want spells you can employ as offense and defense at the same time and that don't allow saving throws or spell resistances as your opening moves; spells that can be quickened are especially nice because that lets you get more done sooner.
Most of the level 10+ encounters I've played in tend to be foregone conclusions by the end of the 2nd round of effective contact, whether or not most of my fellow players (or GM) really recognize that. Whichever way they go, the question by then usually isn't which side is going to win, but how much damage they're going to take in winning. This almost always falls in the players' favor, because that's just how the game is done, but as the caster if you've adapted to the party-protector role in this phase of the game, you're looking to make 'almost always' turn into 'always' there. Cause most parties only get to lose once. :)
Save-or-else spells come more into play in this second phase of the combat in my experience, either to try and limit the damage you take during mopup, or to try and seize victory from the jaws of defeat if something went wrong in your initial contact.
For characters, not monsters. But in most games I'm fighting monsters, not characters, most of the time. A level 20 character's "Good Save" is +12 at base; a CR 20 monster's is +22 at base and heck, their base Poor save is +17.
Now you're simply making things up.
CR 20 pit fiend has +24 fort as his "good save."
He has 35 con. (35-10)/2 = 12. Meaning his bonus is 12, his base save is 12. Same as a fighter/barbarian/etc.
His poor save is wisdom at +18. - iron will = 16. - 10 points from wisdom = base save of 6.
Providing miss chance for allies is playing reactive, as you're not doing things in that round other than making your player react to what the bad guy might do (if you want to argue that you get 15 minutes unmolested to buff you and the party beforehand, I'm going to giggle). If you have to do nothing but play reactive that means you've been effectively removed from that fight, because you're letting the other guy do whatever he wants.
Debuffing the other guy by lowering his to hit and attacks/round (pox, evil eye, bestow curse, fogs, swarms, summons, waxen image, forced reincarnate) will do this AND harm him. That's a far better use of an action. And gives the bad guy a lower % chance to land attacks. How about that?
The saving throw thing is not what you make it out to be. Neither is the AC/HP issue. If the fighter eats a full attack from the pit fiend he's going to take an average of 120ish damage. He then gets to full attack it back, I use a familiar to deliver a heal spell via touch, and the rest of the party obliterates the bad guy.
Or I ignore the damage the fighter took and do something terrible to the pit fiend. Like forcibly reincarnate him into a new CR 20 devil body with two negative levels. Because the fighter is going to have way more hp at this point than the bad guy can do in a round.
For characters, not monsters. But in most games I'm fighting monsters, not characters, most of the time. A level 20 character's "Good Save" is +12 at base; a CR 20 monster's is +22 at base and heck, their base Poor save is +17.
Now you're simply making things up.
CR 20 pit fiend has +24 fort as his "good save."
He has 35 con. (35-10)/2 = 12. Meaning his bonus is 12, his base save is 12. Same as a fighter/barbarian/etc.
His poor save is wisdom at +18. - iron will = 16. - 10 points from wisdom = base save of 6.
Beastiary page 291, table 1-1, monster statistics by CR. Granted, alot of monsters from the beastiary itself don't follow that table, like the one you found, but I don't know why it's published there under "monster creation" if it's not meant to be used.
But then, we're also not getting into spell resistance much. What's that pit fiend got there? Oh, 31. A level 20 caster with greater spell penetration has a 35% chance of their direct spells just plain failing on him before going against his saves.
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Providing miss chance for allies is playing reactive, as you're not doing things in that round other than making your player react to what the bad guy might do (if you want to argue that you get 15 minutes unmolested to buff you and the party beforehand, I'm going to giggle). If you have to do nothing but play reactive that means you've been effectively removed from that fight, because you're letting the other guy do whatever he wants.
Something as simple as dropping a fog cloud isn't buffing, or reactive. It hampers the enemies from making ranged attacks against you and makes them have to maneuver against you blindly - with no save and no spell resistance potentially messing it up. A well-placed Solid Fog, or Wall of Stone, is even better because it will tend to split the enemy up. Which is the whole point of battlefield alteration. You change the shape of the battlefield to favor your side.
And heck, if you do want time to buff, you more or less just bought some of it.
But no, I'm not talking about spelling the whole party with displacement before an encounter, no, I'm talking about a character who's only got AC and no miss chance magic item, ending up being more or less auto-hit on a standard action attack, and usually being hit 4-5 times out of a full attack (depending on the type of full attack). A miss chance treats the incoming AB as irrelevant, so with even a minor cloak of displacement you go from full AB attacks pretty much being autohit, to missing 1/5 of the time.
This is a tricky proposition without custom-crafted magic items, too, because most characters would choose a cloak of resistance over a cloak of displacement with little to no second thought.
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Debuffing the other guy by lowering his to hit and attacks/round (pox, evil eye, bestow curse, fogs, swarms, summons, waxen image, forced reincarnate) will do this AND harm him. That's a far better use of an action. And gives the bad guy a lower % chance to land attacks. How about that?
Which takes multiple rounds to set up. Even if you just misfortune-evil eye-forced reincarnate that takes 3 rounds. You'll almost certainly have to cackle at least once. And during which time you're only affecting the one guy. Which is great if he's the only guy on the battlefield, but is a pretty big 'if' in my experience.
And you've got to be in 30 feet of him so it's not like he's not going to be able to tell where the bad mojo is coming from, at which point he can teleport behind you and start beating you up, or teleport out to let your hexes fall off, then back in to take a swipe at you, then back out... etcetera.
Overall though, 1/3 of spells will fail on his spell resist before they even go against his saves. In that sense this is indeed a place for hexes to shine if for some reason you can avoid him ripping you up while you're hexing him up. He's got some Reach though, and teleportation at will, so it's not likely your party's fighters can completely block him from attacking you, or threatening you with AOOs against spellcasting. It's really just not a position I'd want to be in even against a lone devil.
And I really don't expect to ever encounter an archfiend by himself unless it's one of those "plot encounters" where your party's way too low level to handle him and he's in disguise or came out to mock you or something, and basically is more of a cutscene than a fight. An enemy like that would teleport himself out of harm's way and rally allies and get his rainy day potions, wands, and so on out to fight you with if you ever did catch him at anything but his best.
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The saving throw thing is not what you make it out to be. Neither is the AC/HP issue. If the fighter eats a full attack from the pit fiend he's going to take an average of 120ish damage. He then gets to full attack it back, I use a familiar to deliver a heal spell via touch, and the rest of the party obliterates the bad guy.
Or I ignore the damage the fighter took and do something terrible to the pit fiend. Like forcibly reincarnate him into a new CR 20 devil body with two negative levels. Because the fighter is going to have way more hp at this point than the bad guy can do in a round.
Your devils don't use gear? I'd expect them to have really big weapons with +10 equivilant in tags. Just like melee characters use to generate all that nasty damage they do. Maybe my GM has been particularly aggressive, but in most of our major boss encounters, the boss definitely brought their "A" game and wore their Sunday Best magic items. The 'mistake tolerance' is pretty low as a result.
It does mean that the CR of the encounters is higher than listed, too, but that's part of the way a GM compensates for there being high tier characters in the party. Which, despite having its shortcomings, a witch still is.
But she's more like a 'utility striker' or tier 1.5-2, like a sorcerer, than she is a full tier 1 like a druid/cleric/wizard, in my opinion and experience. This is partly because of the spell list, and partly because of her focus on single-target 'striking' (via debuff leading to deathspell) instead of battle-shaping.
Edit - by the way, the one debuff I think is absolutely a winner is Slow. Quickened, Persistent Slow is quite possibly one of the best uses of a level 9 spell slot possible. Or Widened Persistent, if you have an especially large battle-space to cover.
Beastiary page 291, table 1-1, monster statistics by CR. Granted, alot of monsters from the beastiary itself don't follow that table, like the one you found, but I don't know why it's published there under "monster creation" if it's not meant to be used.
You're quoting a table that gives you a rough baseline of what that bad guy's totals should be at about that CR. Did you think his AC of 36 is a base number before stats, too? Or that the 370 HP listed is before a con modifier or feats? Was that section on a monster having HD and a good, average, and poor save based on type nonexistent in your Bestiary? Did you miss the section below this table that explicitly explains this?
Stop being silly.
Arguing SR issues as a negative for a class that has far more options to bypass SR is also relatively ridiculous. Note my method of attacking the pit fiend took longer, but completely ignored his SR and might, in fact, totally remove it depending on how the reincarnate works.
Where are you going with range? It's either an issue (in which case oh noes that 30ft range on the hex I don't use might be a problem) or it's irrelevant because the bad guy can move around (in which case I use whatever because range is irrelevant, right?).
Solid fog is an option I have, cheaper than wall of stone, and by your own argument as effective.
And you're changing your argument about every third post here. First the witch was bad because her only options were debuffs that had saves. Now that makes her a striker? Really? But weren't you just arguing that all of her glorious AOE wasn't selective enough?
You're citing poor (or misinterpreted) information and using bad claims made by others (tiered classes, battlefield control is only accomplished via x, etc) without providing one significant example of that actually being a thing. I've given you a couple actual examples of stuff the witch does that you can't, and shown you how it worked in a series of sessions.
If you want to demonstrate the wizard/druid/cleric is just better, do it. Pick one, and show me why that just flat out beats the alternative. Don't give us a series of abstracts that vacillates every third post.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
