Building a crafty witch

[Douglas Muir 406]

Character concept: NE witch 10/lifedrinker 2. She lives right in the middle of town and is well liked and respected; people think she's a kindly old lady with a few minor, useful spells and a sideline in healing potions and such. It's all a horrible fraud, of course. She's a loathsome creature who preys on the homeless, the careless, and -- very occasionally -- children; basically she's a serial killer who turns people into soul gems, then uses them to craft items. Depending on how things work out, she's a potential partner, resource, or antagonist for the PCs.

Anyway: I want her to be a crafter of magic items. She uses her soul gems to pay part of the cost, and of course she has Cauldron and a couple of crafting feats and the Hedge Magician trait. I'm just wondering what else might be useful and/or thematically appropriate.

Doug M.

[Twisteminds]

Childscent Hex XD I always wanted to make a Witch with that hex.
Other than the skills and the feats and a workroom for her to make the objects, there is nothing else she really needs. Maybe some memory alteration spells to make sure no one finds her out.

[insaneogeddon]

Scar hex.

Waxen Image.

Once done can effect targets when they least expect it with a sweet alibi of sharing cake and tea with the sick of the village.

[insaneogeddon]

Oh beast eye

and skin send to protect your now freaky familiar.

[Cinabre]

Some ranks in Bluff, Perception and Sense motive. In order to spot potential victims and witnesses and to play her part.

[Chris P. Bacon]

The Sow Thought spell is pretty key for any site-based witch, as it allows her to diffuse any suspicion that may arise about her activities. What am I doing with all these foul-sounding magical reagents? Why, they're perfectly normal ingredients for healing potions. You think that raven that hangs out around my cottage has been following you lately? There are lots of ravens here, and they all look alike. You're probably just imagining it. If children keep disappearing, it may be helpful to use Sow Thought to spread the belief that a monster who totally is someone else and not me lurks in the area and is snatching children and the reason I'm around the children so much is to protect them. This phantom monster could be the reason the PCs show up: maybe they've somehow heard about it and have come to hunt it down? These little lies may start to show themselves as villagers repeat startlingly similar phrases in response to questions about certain events in town. The Dreamweaver archetype (for Changelings) is especially good at this.

I highly suggest the Scar hex so that the witch can buff and keep tabs on her minions and hirelings without having to be present.

[Douglas Muir 406]

Childscent: This is thematic but, honestly, pretty useless. If the designers had thrown in a sweetener -- tripled the range, say -- I could maybe see it.

Scar Hex: she'll have a minion or two. Does the Scar hex let you cast buffs at a mile range? I thought it was just about throwing hexes and scrying. (Most hexes are not buffs...)

Waxen Image: I already had this on the list. Should I swap it for Scar?

Beast Eye: Tempting! A great recon spell. But she only gets one major hex. I'm inclined to think either Scar or Waxen Image.

Skin Send: I don't know this one, and I can't find it in the SRD. Note that the cacodaemon can polymorph into several shapes -- scorpion, lizard, etc. -- rather like an imp.

Sow Thoughts: this is a fine little spell, and I like the way you play it out here. That said, it's basically a lower-level Suggestion. A 12th level caster would presumably use Suggestion instead, yes? It does the same thing, only more so, and with a higher save DC.

These are great. More?

Doug M.

[Zotpox]

I'll bet that she knits a mean wool golem.

[Son of the Veterinarian]

Hidden Home? It would allow her to not only disguise any evidence until she can clean it up, but also to do horrific things in plain view with no one the wiser.

[Chris P. Bacon]

Douglas Muir 406 wrote:

Sow Thoughts: this is a fine little spell, and I like the way you play it out here. That said, it's basically a lower-level Suggestion. A 12th level caster would presumably use Suggestion instead, yes? It does the same thing, only more so, and with a higher save DC.

Sow Thoughts and Suggestion are subtly different. Suggestion will get people to accomplish a task you set out for them, and has a duration measured in hours. Sow Thoughts, however, subtly changes the way people think, and is permanent.

So, with Suggestion, you can get people to behave a certain way, and say certain things - but with a carefully applied Sow Thoughts, you can get them to actually believe it, indefinitely.

I suppose the only trouble would be the fact that the permanent spells could be detected with Detect Magic, and then dispelled. For this reason it should be used sparingly, but then again, it's kind of fun to have the PCs discover something as creepy as town littered with brainwashed people.

[CalebTGordan]

Not so much a hidden home but a hidden basement. She should frequently allow people to enter her home and see that it is perfectly normal. Use of Sow Thought would help with that and it could be used to keep people away from the trap door. She might have a small little workshop in the house, but only to help explain where she works on her potions and items.

The basement is where she would do all the sinister work, and would probably have a tunnel or deep pit that can be used to move or dispose of bodies and evidence.

She needs a minion to move heavy stuff, like bodies, around.

[Douglas Muir 406]

Chris, great point about Sow Thoughts. I like it.

Caleb, she definitely has a basement. A bad, bad basement. Here's a thing about souldrinkers: you can grab a negative level from someone, and it gives you a soul point. Then, if they survive and shake off the negative level, you can do it again. For low-level characters, that may involve waiting to roll a natural 20 on the daily recovery roll. So, the basement has a number of very secure little rooms, with chains.

And I'm definitely giving her a cohort -- see my other recent thread on this forum.

Doug M.