How do I play a necromancer witch with AM Barbarian in the group?


Advice


My group is still in the character creation process for Kingmaker, I want to play a witch who will basically be cursing everything and a debuffer. And someone else is a barbarian who hates magic, because he was tortured as a child.

We're a party of 3 and the other is a Magus, no clue on his story.

What's a good way to get around this so that we can both get what we want, without tearing each other apart?


Two ways: one is to coordinate with the player of the barbarian and have a back story, where due to shared experiences the only magic users he trusts is your witch and the other magus. Or maybe 'tolerates' depending on the circumstances. Maybe you all came from the same tribe or something.

The other way is for him to be an anti-intellectual, not necessarily anti-magic. He hates the magic of wizards and sorcerors because they do things like torture children if it's helpful to them in some way to gain power. The kind of witchery you practice is less about power and more about means to an end, perhaps.


i'd suggest that you explain your magic as purely psycological, and you're merely pretending to cast spells to scare the enemy. if he buys that, all good.
the other option is to have your character get it out in the open, and be very respectful of his dislike/fear of magic ("will you allow me to heal you with my magic?" "i have a spell that can help, but you're going to have to trust me...") and under no circumstances give him reason to doubt your intent.

either way, tread carefully. AM BARBARIAN is not to be trifled with, partcularly if he's right next to your caster.


What's a "AM Barbarian"?


Maybe suggest that a game system where the default assumption is that every party will have an arcane caster isn't really the place to play someone who hates all arcane casters. Some archetypes, hexes, feats, rage powers, etc. are meant for NPCs, not PCs and superstitious is arguably among them.

If two thirds of the party are arcanists and the third player hates arcanists he's the odd man out.


AM BARBARIAN is basically a build of barbarian designed to distroy spellcasters, and who hates anyone who can cast spells with a passion. in this instance the reference means a barbarian who hates spellcasters.


Well if he hates just arcane magic or could be convinced to just hate arcane magic...you can just lie to him and tell him your magic comes from the gods. I mean how will he be able to tell the difference?


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I second the talk to the player approach. Work together.

I saw someone suggest to think about the "no blocking" rule of improv, as well as the "Yes, and..." technique when dealing with conflicting character concepts. Two scenarios

A: My character hates wizards
B: Well, that's going to be a problem, because my character is a witch (block!)
A: If you play a witch, my character will kill you because he hates wizards, and a witch is basically a wizard, so don't play a witch okay? (block!)

vs.

A: My character is a barbarian who hates wizards
B: (Yes, and) My character is a witch, but maybe I saved your character's life and earned your trust
A: (Yes, and) My barbarian has grown to trust your character... maybe the hates wizards thing is more of a "wizards are guilty until proven innocent, and sometimes when the battle rage is in me I don't ask a lot of questions" thing, rather than an "I will kill every wizard ever starting with you" thing

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Blodox wrote:

My group is still in the character creation process for Kingmaker, I want to play a witch who will basically be cursing everything and a debuffer. And someone else is a barbarian who hates magic, because he was tortured as a child.

We're a party of 3 and the other is a Magus, no clue on his story.

What's a good way to get around this so that we can both get what we want, without tearing each other apart?

See the various Paladin/Evil Party member threads for insight. It's essentially the same situation. It's called learning to compromise to accommodate each other.

Besides, wouldn't he have the same problem with the magus player?


Bravo for trying to find a solution yourself, a couple of questions.

Is the player actually going to play his concept and kill player characters, or is he just distrustful of spell casters(eg. many people are distrustful of certain asians currently weather thats right or wrong but the number of people who would begin an unprovoked attack is thankfully small, i suspect in brevory just like irl people like that would be imprisoned)?
If so why would the swordlords give him a writ for kingmaker, the AP has a built in GM veto and he should use it, will the GM not deal with it(unprovoked attacks on player characters rarely make for a stable group)?
Has the player of the barbarian suggested any way around the problem, at the end of the day an all melee party can work but then he's dictating what you can and cannot play, i see it as his responsibilityto deal with the problem he's created tbh...

Finally as a witch, i'd just tell him my powers aren't magic they come from my ancestors who stand in <insert made up plane here> at the side of <insert made up patron name here> who ask him to interceed on my hehalf. Really i'm just an expert with some funky tricks.

Or for the magus...

Get the gm to give you some weird Numerian tech, its does nothing but provide your casting ability, a strange blue light shines out from between his armour and on his chest, arms and head sit vaguely spiderlike objects made from a dull blue metal. I had an accident as a child and i was saved by the Numerian priests, it hurts sometimes but look i can do this <casts shocking grasp> isn't that cool?!?

Just a couple of idea's.


Just to add a thought, if you plan on playing a plague patron witch and start animating corpses then i would give a good reason to any good party member to strike you down.
When i played kingmaker my NG ranger didn't allow the wizard to animate dead.


AM BARBARIAN was an exercise in building a powerful character without any spell casting ability. The character uses all caps, speaks in broken english, and is generally smug and badass. Some people think the AM stands for anti-magic but it's just I am being butchered. Many proponents of caster superiority posted various builds designed to "take out" AM BARBARIAN because the AM BARBARIAN method for dealing with castys was to charge any caster looking type individual at extreme distance. AM BARBARIAN doesn't necessarily hate casters the characters mount is a synthesist summoner, the character is just very effective at what it does and the idea devolved into a series of one upsmanship between AM BARBARIAN and other character types most notably casters.

So the other players character while having a back story that does make them hostile to spell casters could cause inter party conflict it's really only a role play issue and you could both probably come up with a solution as to why they would tolerate your use of magic.

Liberty's Edge

Honestly, I'd put it to the barbarian like this.

"I can animate these, the dead bodies of our fallen foes, and send them back at the people who are trying to kill the people we both care about, or we can simply send the people we care about against the people who want to kill them. I, however, want to preserve the lives of the people in our city and if that means I have to be a bad guy to do it, then that is what I will do."


ShadowcatX wrote:

Honestly, I'd put it to the barbarian like this.

"I can animate these, the dead bodies of our fallen foes, and send them back at the people who are trying to kill the people we both care about, or we can simply send the people we care about against the people who want to kill them. I, however, want to preserve the lives of the people in our city and if that means I have to be a bad guy to do it, then that is what I will do."

And one could very well hear it like this:

"I can call forth the powers of evil in order to create vile undead abominations out of the bodies of our fallen foes, who are trying to kill the people we both care about, or we can simply lead the good people we care about against the evil people who want to kill us all. I, however, want to preserve the lives of people in our city and not risk our necks, if that means i have to be an evil guy to do it, then that is what i will do."


Thanks for all the advice.

My witch won't be raising any undead, so there's no worries there. He escaped torture in a Numarian slave camp. And I'm from Ustalav, and enjoy debuffing and making others suffer, but I won't do any HP damaging.

I think I'll suggest that we were both slaves, and are more against slavery that torture, He distrusts the slavers, I embraced their actions of necromancy but not the forced labor.

I like the idea of "I'm not a wizard, I have no spellbook."


In other words, there's no requirement in the class to hate magic users, the player has just decided to be a jerk?

Tell the player- "don't be a jerk".

Liberty's Edge

"I hate everyone who uses magic" is kind of a dangerous idea for a character.

Recommend that he mistrust spellcasters, but that he should not be openly hostile to them, as immediate spellcaster hostility causes problems in two important ways:

1) You'll probably be hired by a spellcaster to do something at some point in your career
2) It's best if you don't immediately chose a character that forces everyone else out of roles that aren't fighter and other barbarian.

I mean, distrust can be a fun way to roleplay a character. I played an Occult Slayer in the old days, and it was a lot of fun "keeping an eye" on the party wizard and suggesting ways that he could "use his magic wisely" (see: buff my sword!). If your character's differences encourage roleplay instead of PvP, that's a good thing. Building a character with such a maladaptive personality trait is... shortsighted.

So anyways, suggest that he not build a character who will try to kill any spellcaster he meets, but instead use it as a roleplaying angle to just be generally distrustful of them. Even if he still wants to, make him understand that there are spellcasters in the world that are a much, much higher level than he is and that it's in his character's own interest to take an arms-length approach instead of a spearpoint approach to those who wield magic.


The barbarian could easily be a childhood friend, sibling, or some such relation that already trusts you, think Caramon and raistlin from dragonlance...


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Except Caramon didn't hate wizards. He hated black wizards and distrusted red wizards after Raistlin went black, but he allowed his son to study wizardry. That's not the action of a wizard hater.

And any fix for your witch distinguishing patron/familiar derived witchery from book based wizardry won't fix the problem for the magus who casts exactly like a wizard.


Atarlost wrote:

Except Caramon didn't hate wizards. He hated black wizards and distrusted red wizards after Raistlin went black, but he allowed his son to study wizardry. That's not the action of a wizard hater.

And any fix for your witch distinguishing patron/familiar derived witchery from book based wizardry won't fix the problem for the magus who casts exactly like a wizard.

I concede, you are right, that still doesn't mean he couldn't have that kind of trust regardless.


Atarlost wrote:

Maybe suggest that a game system where the default assumption is that every party will have an arcane caster isn't really the place to play someone who hates all arcane casters. Some archetypes, hexes, feats, rage powers, etc. are meant for NPCs, not PCs and superstitious is arguably among them.

If two thirds of the party are arcanists and the third player hates arcanists he's the odd man out.

Better yet, what's a PM barbarian?

The Exchange

I don't know for sure, but she says she only works four days a month. *ba dump DOOMP*

I'd definitely advise both caster-characters to have a heart-to-heart with the barbarian. Perhaps a promise that if Caster A ever attacks the barbarian, Caster B will help destroy Caster A - and vice versa - will win him over.


A better example than Caramon for central character wizard hating in the Dragonlance Chronicles was Sturm Brightblade.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Mirrel the Marvelous wrote:
A better example than Caramon for central character wizard hating in the Dragonlance Chronicles was Sturm Brightblade.

Be fair to the guy. If your main experience with dealing with wizards was Raistlin in his Heel Face Turn progression, you'd hate them too.


LazarX wrote:
Mirrel the Marvelous wrote:
A better example than Caramon for central character wizard hating in the Dragonlance Chronicles was Sturm Brightblade.
Be fair to the guy. If your main experience with dealing with wizards was Raistlin in his Heel Face Turn progression, you'd hate them too.

Lol good one.

Silver Crusade

Is this player perhaps a big fan of the old Unearthed Arcana barbarian or cavalier?

It's just that when one has a concept that can easily stomp all over everyone else's fun that easily falls into standard expectations, one should probably get the all-clear from the group one is playing with.


Thank you everyone for your advice, We got it all figured out.


Egoish wrote:
Get the gm to give you some weird Numerian tech, its does nothing but provide your casting ability, a strange blue light shines out from between his armour and on his chest, arms and head sit vaguely spiderlike objects made from a dull blue metal. I had an accident as a child and i was saved by the Numerian priests, it hurts sometimes but look i can do this <casts shocking grasp> isn't that cool?!?

This is a pretty cool idea, actually. I might use it myself! ;)

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