Good morning,
Has anyone written a Witch guide?
Searching the forum reveals some ideas, and someone saying they were planning on writing one, but no actual guide.
Is there no Witch guide yet, or did I just roll badly on my Forum Perception skill?
Thanks!
Good morning,
Has anyone written a Witch guide?
Searching the forum reveals some ideas, and someone saying they were planning on writing one, but no actual guide.
Is there no Witch guide yet, or did I just roll badly on my Forum Perception skill?
Thanks!
I don't think that there is one. But if i am wrong i would love to see one.
Just go over treantmonks wizard guide and understand it. It's not as if the witch's spells are that different. Only thing to add: healing during battle is regarded suboptimal, you probably don't want to base your concept on healing
As it turns out, a witch is the first character in Pathfinder that I will be playing, starting in April. I've done a lot of reading both in the rule books and on the web, about witches.
Based on what I've read, basing a witch off of a wizard character guide could lead to some problems. The witch spell list obviously is deliberately designed to exclude most of the signature wizard/sorcerer spells, especially those that do damage.
If I were to look at a core class guide to help with witch strategies and builds, I'd probably look at druid before I looked at wizard.
Witches seem designed to be battlefield controllers and buff/debuffers. Since summoning is on their spell list, they can also influence the battlefield through summoned creatures.
Looking at my own witch build it looks to me that his hexes will be much more important for his combat impact than his daily spells. Plus he is a great source of low-cost potions, which just increases his healing/buff/debuff ability.
I'd love to see a witch guide, but until I do I am planning my witch being primarily a buff/debuff character during combat, an additional healing character after battle (or emergency healing during battle) and the party "face" since he has a relatively high charisma and I've deliberately taken a trait and a familiar that boost bluff and diplomacy.
One thing I do not see him doing much of is direct combat damage. In fact my goal is to keep him as much out of combat as possible.
I played an illusionist in 4e that I played much the same way, and in three months of playing, she was injured in combat in exactly one encounter.
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The PDf Witches Brew: Advanced Feats for the Witch is a great PDF to look up from Open Design. They have three builds in the back of the PDF, and a discussion of what makes the Witch a good class to play in the front.
For $5 it is a good PDF for you to go check out.
Just go over treantmonks wizard guide and understand it. It's not as if the witch's spells are that different. Only thing to add: healing during battle is regarded suboptimal, you probably don't want to base your concept on healing"Suboptimal", that's an attitude you'll drop the first time you've brought someone back from the brink of death... because waiting until the fight was over would have meant that character DIED. There's nothing wrong with going with a healer/support concept the witch is simply that flexible even if he doesn't have all of the raw potential power of a wizard.
There are a few things I disagree on Treantmonk's standards, his opinion of healers is one of them.
IIRC Treantmonk had never said that all healing is suboptimal, he said that a dedicated healer is suboptimal.
And i happen to agree with him.my group plays kingmaker now and the party consists:
1) gnome summoner (quardpled eidolon, lots and lots of damage)
2) human rogue (dex-based TWF)
3) human cleric
4) human ranger (switch hitter)
I am playing the ranger, and up until now the cleric has been played as a dedicated healer and clearly it's a waste of space.
I don't know how much of this comes from the player not knowing how to play a cleric* and how much comes to that from being a dedicated healer. The only time that this thing might have been usefull was at 1st level when we fought a tatzlwyrm and the DM got lucky and the entire party got very unlucky. After that this character has been a waste of space. We even played a session without the cleric and we kicked some major ass, the only downside was that it costed us a little too much on gold (on healing potions) since the other two players didn't heard me when i asked them if they should pitch for a wand of cure light wounds.
*to give a small examples on that, on his "every day" spell list he memorizes comprehend languages, ant haul and remove curse.
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The only time a dedicated healer was useful was back in 3.5 when I played two characters, and one was a dedicated healer just so the party could heal.
I used the Miniatures Guide, Healer base class, and several feats that were designed to make healing spells better. I would have to look it up but I think I had the CLW spell at 1d8+18 and a Cure Critical at something like +30. The character was useless in a fight until someone was hurt (at low levels he would reload crossbows or try to intimidate the enemy.) He did have high Cha based skills and so he was the face of the group as well.
I would suspect that in your case the fault was probably with the player. Unlike the Oracle the cleric is like the wizard who can change his role by changing his memorised spell selection each day. Or perhaps insisting on that a cleric can only have "one" role. I've seem some awesome stuff done with healing clerics... because they remembered that they had more than just one type of tool in thier box.
No, no i am not saying that clerics must have only one role (quite the opposite), i am saying that a cleric who focuses only on healing is pretty much a waste of space.
Just go over treantmonks wizard guide and understand it. It's not as if the witch's spells are that different. Only thing to add: healing during battle is regarded suboptimal, you probably don't want to base your concept on healing"Suboptimal", that's an attitude you'll drop the first time you've brought someone back from the brink of death... because waiting until the fight was over would have meant that character DIED. There's nothing wrong with going with a healer/support concept the witch is simply that flexible even if he doesn't have all of the raw potential power of a wizard.
There are a few things I disagree on Treantmonk's standards, his opinion of healers is one of them.
Didn't said not to prepare a healing spell. I only stated not to base the concept on healing. That's a difference.
That may have been me, about the whole working on a Witch Handbook...
I have it roughly fleshed out, but the spells aren't finished. I have just been super busy due to moving and similar RL shite. And, I am, just this last month, finally getting to put much of my witch theory and that of others to the test as we just started RotRL and I am obv playing a witch.
I will try and spend a little more time cleaning it up and post it hopefully within the week. I doubt I'll have spells finished, but I could at least have the rest done enough and maybe just a write up on witch specific/particular spells and some APG gems.
What I can tell you for sure right now is that Human + 2xExtra Hex is about the strongest start you can have. I like Cackle, Evil Eye and Misfortune... Slumber is awesome, but I think it truly starts to shine as L2 or L4 pick, and Healing can be a real boon if you don't have a Pos Channeller. And you can make $$$ from it if you are a greedy jerk like me. :)
That may have been me, about the whole working on a Witch Handbook...
I have it roughly fleshed out, but the spells aren't finished. I have just been super busy due to moving and similar RL s@!+e. And, I am, just this last month, finally getting to put much of my witch theory and that of others to the test as we just started RotRL and I am obv playing a witch.
I will try and spend a little more time cleaning it up and post it hopefully within the week. I doubt I'll have spells finished, but I could at least have the rest done enough and maybe just a write up on witch specific/particular spells and some APG gems.
What I can tell you for sure right now is that Human + 2xExtra Hex is about the strongest start you can have. I like Cackle, Evil Eye and Misfortune... Slumber is awesome, but I think it truly starts to shine as L2 or L4 pick, and Healing can be a real boon if you don't have a Pos Channeller. And you can make $$$ from it if you are a greedy jerk like me. :)
Interesting, I am playing a witch as my first PFRPG character. I picked human and "Extra Hex" twice as my starting feats. I chose "evil eye", "cackle" and "cauldron." "Cauldron" was as much for backstory as anything else, but I do expect to be making lots of potions.
I figured slumber would be a better choice at level 2 or level 4, but I'm also looking hard at "fly." I chose not to take "healing" in part because I am hoping to compensate for healing with some potions. So far the DM is being pretty reasonable about potion making, allowing my first level character to have a limited number of pre-created potions as part of his starting treasure.
My biggest interest in a witch guide would be to see some ranking of hexes for different uses (battle, support, NPC interaction, etc...) and to see a ranking of spells for those same uses. Also I'd be interested in magic items that are suitable for witches.
So far I've been very pleased with the concept of my witch. I'm looking forward to playing him, but it's one of those once per month campaigns that is really more like twice or three times a year... We're still trying to figure out our first play date...