So, our GM basically foreshadowed that we will be battling some undead here in the near future (foreshadowing was in game, of course). Using this knowledge, and my witch's high intelligence, she has a knack for doing research and using tactics in order to win a fight.
As soon as she heard we were going against undead eventually, this brought a bit of anxiety to my witch as most hexes are mind affecting, and undead are not affected by mind affecting abilities/spells. Then, when turning to researching spells, my witch got even more anxious because there are barely any spells on the witch list that are effective against undead. There are the general spells to be used of course, such as black tentacles or summon monster. But what about damage, efficiently? Even most debuffs don't work as most of the debuffs are also mind affecting. It just doesn't look like there are many spells/hexes that work really good against undead. Any thoughts? Is there an obvious spell I am overlooking?
Right now we are 8th level, and sounds like we are going to be going against some undead in the near future as well as several levels down the road (vampires - yeesh).
Thanks in advance for the advice.
Undead are very tricky for a witch. I have only a few suggestions and I'm not an expert by any means.
For hexes, you can use Healing and Major Healing though according to the FAQ I believe the undead would still get a will save for half damage. That said, it is also a touch attack, which you should likely avoid--though this does depend on your build.
The Retribution Hex may serve to deal some damage to undead, but does require the target to make melee attacks and deal damage.
Witches (depending on patron) do get access to spells like Greater Heroism, Righteous Might, Divine Power, and Divine Favor. With spells like that (and buff spells like Bulls Strength), you can make yourself fairly respectable in melee. This is patron and build dependent however.
Looking at Bestow Curse, I'm pretty sure undead are not immune to it. If you combined it with the reach metamagic feat, you can stay out of melee range and give the vampire a a 50% chance to act normally; otherwise, it takes no action. Not too bad.
Greater Curse doesn't even need the metamagic feat, its close range and the DC is higher.
And last, you could always bump Use Magic Device and pick up some scrolls or wands with wizard spells that could work around their immunities.
Hope that helps.
This is one reason I took the "gravewalker" archetype for my witch. That gives a witch some effective undead strategies, which I thought was a pretty gaping hole in the witch class.
So, our GM basically foreshadowed that we will be battling some undead here in the near future (foreshadowing was in game, of course). Using this knowledge, and my witch's high intelligence, she has a knack for doing research and using tactics in order to win a fight.
As soon as she heard we were going against undead eventually, this brought a bit of anxiety to my witch as most hexes are mind affecting, and undead are not affected by mind affecting abilities/spells. Then, when turning to researching spells, my witch got even more anxious because there are barely any spells on the witch list that are effective against undead. There are the general spells to be used of course, such as black tentacles or summon monster. But what about damage, efficiently? Even most debuffs don't work as most of the debuffs are also mind affecting. It just doesn't look like there are many spells/hexes that work really good against undead. Any thoughts? Is there an obvious spell I am overlooking?
Right now we are 8th level, and sounds like we are going to be going against some undead in the near future as well as several levels down the road (vampires - yeesh).
Thanks in advance for the advice.
Witch has access to summon monster I-IX spells, and there are plenty of summons that are strong vs undead. As early as summon monster I (riding dog + trip vs some undead like zombies is good), but by summon monster III you can begin summoning rampaging aurochs. Celestial creatures get smite evil, which is good against most undead, and allow them to pierce DRs.
Vomit swarm can be devastating against most undead who rely on physical attacks, since things like wights literally have no defense against swarms.
Witches have access to cure spells, which are basically will saves vs taking lots of damage when dealing with undead. Combos with spectral hand if you don't want to melee.
Animate objects allows you to create surprisingly powerful minions who are virtually always immune to the nasty special abilities that undead possess (can't be ability damaged or drained, energy drained, dominated, frightened, etc) and you can animate objects that are made out of harder materials (iron for example) to make them really hard to destroy (remember that if you animate magic items like weapons and armor, their hardness increases by 2 and HP by 10 for every +1 the weapon or armor has).
There's also a number of damaging options on the witch's list, but yeah witches are pretty limited against undead. I like witch hexes, but wizards are better. :\
What Patron do you have?
Misfortune still works (the undead's save bonus will be massive, though), and you could always just spend all day cackling to keep Fortune going on your allies, though being good for nothing but rerolls would be pretty boring.
I agree Use Magic Device can help, you should have max ranks in that by now. :)
This would definitely be less of an issue if you were level 10+ and had Ice Tomb and/or Retribution. :(
Witch spells that could be useful:
1: Burning Hands, Chill Touch, Cure Light Wounds, Obscuring Mist
2: Cure Moderate Wounds, Fog Cloud, Glitterdust, Spectral Hand (to deliver the touch spells), Web
3: Ash Storm / Sleet Storm, Bestow Curse, Dispel Magic, Lightning Bolt
4: Black Tentacles, Death Ward, Volcanic Storm (undead are cold immune, so they're both invulnerable to Ice Storm [the elemental opposite of this] and vulnerable to fire damage), Solid Fog, Summon Monster IV
And...that's pretty much it. Wow, not only does witch have tons of mind-affecting will saves, pretty much all of the fort save spells don't work on objects. You can summon swarms, but most undead likely are incorporeal and/or have enough damage reduction to make the swarm pointless for anything other than hindering your own party.
(undead are cold immune, so they're both invulnerable to Ice Storm [the elemental opposite of this] and vulnerable to fire damage)
Um, what? O.o
Undead are not by their nature immune to cold, nor vulnerable to fire. I can think of two undead off the top of my head that have special resistances or immunities and that's skeletons (immune to cold, no weakness to fire) and mummies (no immunities, weak to fire). Burning skeletons are actually immune to fire and vulnerable to cold. Beyond that, their immunities and vulnerabilities are very specific.
On a side note, watch out for skeletal red dragons. They are immune to cold but also possess the fire subtype making them immune to fire, which makes them immune to the two most common energy types, and they're decent melee creatures due to their size, natural attacks, and hit dice. Special versions of these (such as burning or bloody skeletons) can be particularly challenging.
What Patron do you have?
I took the Ancestor Patron mostly for flavor, but really like Prayer and Blessing of Fervor for buff support.
Misfortune has been what my witch has been doing for previous encounters against the mind affecting immune (some golems, other undead). Fortunately, right now the DC is really high at 20, so it has proven useful about 50% of the time. Had Accursed Hex, but retrained as StreamOfTheSky alluded to - can get pretty boring just cackling and giving all the punchy types rerolls and watching them get all the fun (but, it is gratifying to help).
I do have a Silvanshee improved familiar that I might utilize more. She has Lay on Hands (4d6 right now) as well as incredible damage reduction and immunities that can help keep her safe. When sharing spells, she can have AC 23 and around 38 HPs usually. She has been dubbed the Super Cat among the group :) It might be worth sending her in here and there if the enemy looks low on the HPs. Maybe even sending her in with Cure Moderate wounds charged as a touch.
I didn't think of the Smite Evil ability of summoned celestials. That is good advice too.
Why can't Flame Strike be on the witch spell list ?? :)
Bestow Curse is on my list right now, so that is one that I didn't think about either.
(undead are cold immune, so they're both invulnerable to Ice Storm [the elemental opposite of this] and vulnerable to fire damage)Um, what? O.o
Undead are not by their nature immune to cold, nor vulnerable to fire. I can think of two undead off the top of my head that have special resistances or immunities and that's skeletons (immune to cold, no weakness to fire) and mummies (no immunities, weak to fire). Burning skeletons are actually immune to fire and vulnerable to cold. Beyond that, their immunities and vulnerabilities are very specific.
On a side note, watch out for skeletal red dragons. They are immune to cold but also possess the fire subtype making them immune to fire, which makes them immune to the two most common energy types, and they're decent melee creatures due to their size, natural attacks, and hit dice. Special versions of these (such as burning or bloody skeletons) can be particularly challenging.
Huh. I'm used to seeing cold immunity for skeletons and lots of other undead (in 3E, at least), guess I got confused into thinking cold immunity was a universal trait of being undead. But it's not in either PF or 3.5. Oops.
Huh. I'm used to seeing cold immunity for skeletons and lots of other undead (in 3E, at least), guess I got confused into thinking cold immunity was a universal trait of being undead. But it's not in either PF or 3.5. Oops.(undead are cold immune, so they're both invulnerable to Ice Storm [the elemental opposite of this] and vulnerable to fire damage)Um, what? O.o
Undead are not by their nature immune to cold, nor vulnerable to fire. I can think of two undead off the top of my head that have special resistances or immunities and that's skeletons (immune to cold, no weakness to fire) and mummies (no immunities, weak to fire). Burning skeletons are actually immune to fire and vulnerable to cold. Beyond that, their immunities and vulnerabilities are very specific.
On a side note, watch out for skeletal red dragons. They are immune to cold but also possess the fire subtype making them immune to fire, which makes them immune to the two most common energy types, and they're decent melee creatures due to their size, natural attacks, and hit dice. Special versions of these (such as burning or bloody skeletons) can be particularly challenging.
Fair enough. :)
It's not very useful for a witch, but if undead are going to be an issue in your upcoming sessions, I'd recommend getting some undead of your own. The best way to combat undead is with undead. Undead are universally immune to the worst weapons that undead have, including fear, ability damage or drain, energy drain, paralysis, domination, etc.
Skeletons and zombies can be armed with silver weapons on the cheap. The best ones to fight common undead with are bloody burning skeletons, because they explode when killed, inflict fire damage with their attacks (which penetrates DR), and recycle when killed.
Becoming undead makes you the most effective weapon against the undead. Options exist in core to do this, including becoming a ghoul, ghast, mummy, morgue, shadow, wraith, spectre, or devourer; through use of the create undead spell. Lich is also an option for any caster.
Threnodic spell, from Ultimate Magic. Unless you can get a rod of it, this suggestion probably isn't going to be much good to you right now, but later on when you're up against the vampires, it'll come in handy. Depending on your level when you get to those vampires, Thanatopic Spell might be handy. Thanatopic enervation? Yes, please!
Threnodic spell, from Ultimate Magic. Unless you can get a rod of it, this suggestion probably isn't going to be much good to you right now, but later on when you're up against the vampires, it'll come in handy. Depending on your level when you get to those vampires, Thanatopic Spell might be handy. Thanatopic enervation? Yes, please!
Tasty. But two slots? Yowsers. But, as I look at the 6th level spells, a Thanatopic Spell Enervate would be pretty sweet. Yet, spending a feat on a what could be anywhere from 1 to 40 encounters would be hard.
Two slots for a Thanatopic spell seems fair, since you can use the spell against people with Death Ward and the like up, in addition to undead, and the spell will still work against the living/people without Death Ward. Threnodic spells, on the other hand, can only be used against undead, and you can't use a prepared Threnodic spell against the living; I feel a two-level adjustment for that one might be a bit harsh.
Thanatopic spells might be worth it even after you get past the vampires. If you can get a rod of Threnodic Spell, you might be better off going that route than spending a feat on it. Threnodic Ill Omens are pretty good; it's a no-save Misfortune!
Instead of focusing on the undead, focus on buffing your allies. Fortune + Cackle is wonderful and fighter-types love it.
Misfortune also works on undead.
Scar is a great way to spy on the bad guys. Use it on an undead minion and when he sees his master again, you can scry on him. It is also great for using Fortune and Healing hex on your allies in battle while you are more than 30' away.
