An awesome witch fix?

[Ravingdork]

From Ultimate Equipment:

This life-sized carving of a Tiny animal is crafted from dark, rough stone. It has a hardness of 8 and 20 hit points. A witch can use the stone familiar to store up to 500 levels of spells (cantrips count as 1/2 level for this purpose). A witch can use the stone familiar to teach her living familiar any spells stored in it, and vice versa. A witch who identifies a stone familiar immediately knows what spells are stored inside it. A stone familiar is never found as randomly generated treasure with spells already stored in it.

Tell me what you think.

[wraithstrike]

I like it. How much does it cost?

[Ravingdork]

Not much. ;)

Sorry, I can't reproduce everything verbatim until the book is put into the PRD. Pretty sure that's a rule.

[Eideann]

What is it's name?

[Dark_Mistress]

It is called Stone Familiar and it cost 6k. So something a low level Witch could acquire fairly soon.

[wraithstrike]

Ravingdork wrote:

Not much. ;)

Sorry, I can't reproduce everything verbatim until the book is put into the PRD. Pretty sure that's a rule.

Nope, that is not the rule. They asked d20pfsrd to give a two week hiatus when they started putting stuff on their site. I think the reasoning was to give those that actually paid for it a chance to see it first. I don't think the two weeks has passed yet though.

PS:Next time give me a price and a paraphrase. ;)

[wraithstrike]

Dark_Mistress wrote:

It is called Stone Familiar and it cost 6k. So something a low level Witch could acquire fairly soon.

Thanks. :)

[Sebastian Hirsch]

Ravingdork wrote:

From Ultimate Equipment:

This life-sized carving of a Tiny animal is crafted from dark, rough stone. It has a hardness of 8 and 20 hit points. A witch can use the stone familiar to store up to 500 levels of spells (cantrips count as 1/2 level for this purpose). A witch can use the stone familiar to teach her living familiar any spells stored in it, and vice versa. A witch who identifies a stone familiar immediately knows what spells are stored inside it. A stone familiar is never found as randomly generated treasure with spells already stored in it.

Tell me what you think.

Pretty aweseome, evey witch should have one - or a lot of witches could share one to safeguard their spells.

EDIT: I pray to the dark gods that my subscription shipment will ship today ^^

[Fabius Maximus]

Maybe I'm thick or something, but I don't see how that is a 'fix' (and how witches need fixing, anyway). To me, that's just a storage device, and a device to give spells to another witch (which can be done face to familiar face). There is nothing in the description that says a witch can use that thing to prepare spells everyday.

[Alexander Augunas]

Fabius Maximus wrote:

Maybe I'm thick or something, but I don't see how that is a 'fix' (and how witches need fixing, anyway). To me, that's just a storage device, and a device to give spells to another witch (which can be done face to familiar face). There is nothing in the description that says a witch can use that thing to prepare spells everyday.

Its not really a fix so much as it solves one of the problems that people have with the witch; if the familiar dies, all of the spells she's taught the familiar (aside from patron spells) go poof. That magic item is basically a USB drive to the familiar's laptop.

[HaraldKlak]

Fabius Maximus wrote:

Maybe I'm thick or something, but I don't see how that is a 'fix' (and how witches need fixing, anyway). To me, that's just a storage device, and a device to give spells to another witch (which can be done face to familiar face). There is nothing in the description that says a witch can use that thing to prepare spells everyday.

I think the fix is regarding the problem that witches loose their entire spell book (almost) if their familiar dies.

Possible abuse of this item: Not wanting to pay the gold for scrolls, you kill your familiar, after having stored the spells in the stone familiar. Upon getting the new familiar (at a rather expensive cost), you get to pick 2 new spells from each level.

[therealthom]

I wasn't aware the witch needed fixing.

[Alexander Augunas]

HaraldKlak wrote:

Fabius Maximus wrote:

Maybe I'm thick or something, but I don't see how that is a 'fix' (and how witches need fixing, anyway). To me, that's just a storage device, and a device to give spells to another witch (which can be done face to familiar face). There is nothing in the description that says a witch can use that thing to prepare spells everyday.

I think the fix is regarding the problem that witches loose their entire spell book (almost) if their familiar dies.

Possible abuse of this item: Not wanting to pay the gold for scrolls, you kill your familiar, after having stored the spells in the stone familiar. Upon getting the new familiar (at a rather expensive cost), you get to pick 2 new spells from each level.

Not for nothing, but if I was a patron being and my worthless little mortal started killing a creature that I had generously given it to serve as a conduit of my awesomeness, I'd probably go downstairs (or upstairs, as the case may be) and chew'em out a little bit. Then maybe drop a curse on'em for good measure.

But I'm a vindictive GM.

[Josh M.]

So it's like flash/thumb drive for witches. Cool.

[Cheapy]

The alchemist also got some items that fixed a few issues with them. The Formula Alembic solves the issue of them not being able to get non-wizard spells from any way other than choosing them on level up (or finding an alchemist who chose them on level up). They can now preserve extracts indefinitely (Preserving Flask)...which might cause some serious problems, come to think of it especially since they don't count against your daily limit on days after you make them....There's also Combine Extracts: The Item! As well as a pearl of power for alchemists.

[Sleet Storm]

Cheapy wrote:

The alchemist also got some items that fixed a few issues with them. The Formula Alembic solves the issue of them not being able to get non-wizard spells from any way other than choosing them on level up (or finding an alchemist who chose them on level up). They can now preserve extracts indefinitely (Preserving Flask)...which might cause some serious problems, come to think of it especially since they don't count against your daily limit on days after you make them....There's also Combine Extracts: The Item! As well as a pearl of power for alchemists.

So this Preserving Flask thing works like a Scroll for Extracts...can it be reused...

[cartmanbeck]

Sleet Storm wrote:

Cheapy wrote:

The alchemist also got some items that fixed a few issues with them. The Formula Alembic solves the issue of them not being able to get non-wizard spells from any way other than choosing them on level up (or finding an alchemist who chose them on level up). They can now preserve extracts indefinitely (Preserving Flask)...which might cause some serious problems, come to think of it especially since they don't count against your daily limit on days after you make them....There's also Combine Extracts: The Item! As well as a pearl of power for alchemists.

So this Preserving Flask thing works like a Scroll for Extracts...can it be reused...

Yep, it can be used over and over.

Another interesting item in UE is the "volatile Vaporizer" which lets you turn a potion into a 10by10 cloud, and everyone within that could gets the effects of the potion.

[Benly]

There are two things I quite like about the stone familiar.

First, the obvious one: it makes losing your familiar less of a complete disaster. As things stand, it seems like a lot of players get so paranoid about losing their "extra" spells (from scrolls or familiar communion) that they either never let their familiar out to do anything interesting or feel forced into the most durable Improved Familiar they can find. With this, losing your familiar is a problem, but not an unmitigated disaster. (Incidentally, the same thing would happen if the witch died and wasn't raised within 24 hours, which this also guards against.)

The other thing I like, which is less obvious, is that this gives a way for witches to get "spell loot" analogous to what wizards get. When players defeat an enemy wizard and loot his stuff, PC wizards get his full spell list as part of the loot. Witches, despite sharing most of the wizard's casting limitations, don't get this reward unless the enemy decided to make scrolls of her spells - at best they can "coerce or bribe" the fallen witch's familiar into giving up a few spells in the 24 hours before it forgets them. This provides a more credible way for a witch to "loot" spells that aren't likely to be made into scrolls.

It does have the down side, as previously noted, that with your spells backed up in the stone familiar you can pick an entirely new spell list when your familiar dies. Even aside from abusive "kill your familiar repeatedly" usage, this is probably an unintended consequence.

[Cheapy]

Well, if it's specifically placed there, maybe. But there is the no spells clause for randomly generated stuff.

[Benly]

Cheapy wrote:

Well, if it's specifically placed there, maybe. But there is the no spells clause for randomly generated stuff.

What I mean is that if you fight a wizard, that wizard presumably has a spellbook. It might not immediately be somewhere you can get to it, but if you've confronted him in his lair (or, really, anywhere he's spending more than a day), odds are pretty good it's somewhere about. It's not random loot and it's not exactly placed loot, it's part of the way that wizards function, and that "spell looting" is part of the benefit wizards get for spellbook-based prepared casting being a huge pain in the butt.

Witches also use, practically speaking, spellbook-based prepared casting, and it's just as much of a pain in the butt as ever, but there was really no good way for a GM to give a witch "looted spells" other than saying "um, yeah, also your enemy wrote down a scroll of every spell she knew but then didn't use them when you fought her." Now there's a lootable equivalent that can be plausibly used for this purpose. You can consider it "placed loot", but I feel like it would be a logical thing to find on any witch who can afford it, much like you expect to find headbands when you loot NPC spellcasters or weapons and armor when you loot NPC fighters.