Winter Witch Hex advice


Advice

Sovereign Court

I'm currently playing a winter witch in Jade Regent. The party is as follows:


  • Samurai with large Katana focused on dishing and taking hits
  • Drunken Master monk focused on maneuvers

I'm taking my first level in the winter witch prestige class, at character level 6th. I currently have the Hexes Misfortune, Cackle, and Feral Speech, and the feats Fey Foundling, Extra Hex, and Improved Familiar.

I'm currently looking at taking Charm, Disguise, or Evil Eye, but I'm open to arguements for other hexes.

Thoughts?

Silver Crusade

Evil Eye - trust me.


I've never been able to find much use for the Charm hex - it's nowhere nearly as good as Charm Person.

Evil Eye _is_ nice, but I'm currently down on it, as my witch is on an adventure with all-Undead enemies. (It's a mind-effecting power. :-P )

If you've already got Cackle & Misfortune, it might be worth it to grab Fortune. It's one of the few buff hexes that exists, and it can be really good.

Sovereign Court

The charm hex is much more powerful than charm person in that it is not restricted to Humanoids, and combined with my existing Feral Speech, has an incredible potential for reconnaissance, blackmail, and general shenanigans.

I'm loathe to take any Hex buffs, simply because the party just doesn't NEED buffing. If I did, though, it'd be misfortune. (as opposed to, say, ward, or healing)

Sovereign Court

Sebastian Hirsch wrote:
Evil Eye - trust me.

I'm hearing a lot of Evil Eye, but it doesn't seem action efficient. A standard action for a -2 AC? The drunken master in my party is always dirty tricking people into being entangled. -2 saves? Misfortune is statistically better, and I'm the only one with common save-dependent abilities.

My concern is that, with such a small party, action economy is king. On the other hand, so is conserving resources. Though I'd like to hear your experience with it.


Enaris wrote:
The charm hex is much more powerful than charm person in that it is not restricted to Humanoids, and combined with my existing Feral Speech, has an incredible potential for reconnaissance, blackmail, and general shenanigans.

I hadn't thought of that combination, and it would be a good one. The problem is Charm's ridiculously short duration... How does the victim react when it wears off? (Animals probably go back to indifferent. Intelligent beings?)

Silver Crusade RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Arbane the Terrible wrote:
Enaris wrote:
The charm hex is much more powerful than charm person in that it is not restricted to Humanoids, and combined with my existing Feral Speech, has an incredible potential for reconnaissance, blackmail, and general shenanigans.
I hadn't thought of that combination, and it would be a good one. The problem is Charm's ridiculously short duration... How does the victim react when it wears off? (Animals probably go back to indifferent. Intelligent beings?)

Just incase you didn't see it yet, here's a link to an updated version of the Winter Witch: Winter Witch from Paizo Blog

Sovereign Court

Right now I'm leaning towards tongues at 6th and Frostfoot at 8th, which a friend pointed out. I'll probably take extra hex at either 7th or 9th, and again at 11th. (11th is for weather control)


Enaris wrote:
Sebastian Hirsch wrote:
Evil Eye - trust me.

I'm hearing a lot of Evil Eye, but it doesn't seem action efficient. A standard action for a -2 AC? The drunken master in my party is always dirty tricking people into being entangled. -2 saves? Misfortune is statistically better, and I'm the only one with common save-dependent abilities.

My concern is that, with such a small party, action economy is king. On the other hand, so is conserving resources. Though I'd like to hear your experience with it.

Even if the enemies make their saves, they still get affected by the hex, which can be then maintained indefinitely with cackle. At 8th level the penalty doubles, and with Split Hex the action economy eases up too. Unless my party is fighting a large group of monsters, it's practically always my first choice in battle.

It does get a little less useful at high levels(though my perception is skewed considering the campaign my witch in sees progressively more undead), but I would nonetheless consider it a staple hex for witches.

Otherwise, Flight is also an incredibly useful hex considering that it allows you to split up your flight time, effectively allowing you to fly for as many encounters as you have levels (unless Jade Regent regularly has encounters that go over 10 rounds), and doesn't require a standard action to activate.

Healing hex is also an option, as your party does not seem to have a dedicated healer. I play in an all-arcane caster party (me, wizard, sorcerer, bard...), and there hasn't been a single day when I didn't exhaust my healing hex on all party members.

Slumber needs to be mentioned too. At low levels it is essentially an encounter-ender against anything that's not immune to sleep effects. At higher levels it is still deadly against anything with a low will save (and even if they don't, you can always force them to with that -4 from Evil Eye). Some DMs might have problems with this hex though, as they tend to overestimate the power of it and overlook its drawbacks(only works against single/two targets, victim just needs an ally to spend a standard to wake him up).

Sovereign Court

I've thought about flight, but I'm not a fan of flying- I will probably get some boots of.levitation to seperate myself from melee, though.

As for healing, there's an NPC cleric that tags along, and so far my use of the nonmagical heal skill has been keeping us patched between encounters. I can also cast cure spells, so the party will soon invest in a wand.

Slumber is an interesting choice to advocate. At first glance, it seemed to have a lot of drawbacks, but taking someone out of the fight instantly is obviously a huge advantage I hadn't considered.

Again, though, I'm trying to shore up the party's weaker aspects (lack of charisma, subtelty) with as little effort as possible.

But evil eye is looking better and better. I may well settle on that instead of tongues.


Defade wrote:
Enaris wrote:


Otherwise, Flight is also an incredibly useful hex considering that it allows you to split up your flight time, effectively allowing you to fly for as many encounters as you have levels (unless Jade Regent regularly has encounters that go over 10 rounds), and doesn't require a standard action to activate.

Wait, Flight doesn't take a standard action to activate? I thought all hexes did unless they say otherwise.

Even if it is, it's STILL a really useful hex, of course.


Arbane the Terrible wrote:


Wait, Flight doesn't take a standard action to activate? I thought all hexes did unless they say otherwise.

Even if it is, it's STILL a really useful hex, of course.

It's worded as 'at 5th level, she can fly, as per the spell'. Flying, as described in the fly spell, is a move action. The hex didn't imply that the witch was using a standard action to cast/activate the fly spell, and that's how my DM and I decided to rule it.

Enaris wrote:

I've thought about flight, but I'm not a fan of flying- I will probably get some boots of.levitation to seperate myself from melee, though.

As for healing, there's an NPC cleric that tags along, and so far my use of the nonmagical heal skill has been keeping us patched between encounters. I can also cast cure spells, so the party will soon invest in a wand.

Slumber is an interesting choice to advocate. At first glance, it seemed to have a lot of drawbacks, but taking someone out of the fight instantly is obviously a huge advantage I hadn't considered.

Again, though, I'm trying to shore up the party's weaker aspects (lack of charisma, subtelty) with as little effort as possible.

But evil eye is looking better and better. I may well settle on that instead of tongues.

Slumber is especially useful in your party because you have two melees that can coup de grace the enemy quite easily, and Jade Regent doesn't seem like a campaign filled to the brim with undead, unlike Carrion Crown. Even outside of combat, it's quite useful if you want to neutralize someone (say, a trouble-causing commoner or a guard doing his job that you need to sneak past) without resorting to lethal blows. This will probably cover a part of the 'lack of subtlety' you mentioned.

Sovereign Court

It would, at that. That's a pretty elegant solution, to be sure.

I only worry that it's eclipsed somewhat with Ice Tomb, which I've no choice but to take eventually. Still, the nonlethal option is nothing minor.

Silver Crusade

Slumber is a awesome hex. Evil Eye, Misfortune, and Slumber pretty much steamrolls anything not immune to mind effects. God help your DM if he throws single monster encounters at you.


Enaris wrote:

It would, at that. That's a pretty elegant solution, to be sure.

I only worry that it's eclipsed somewhat with Ice Tomb, which I've no choice but to take eventually. Still, the nonlethal option is nothing minor.

Ice Tomb and Slumber do target different saves, and that's always a good thing, considering that the witch class's save or suck is heavily based on will saves. I'd go for Slumber over Ice Tomb when I want to neutralize a giant, and vice versa if I want to keep that pesky wizard from raining fireballs down the battlefield. :)

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