Playing a Witch in a sea campaign (Sea Hag), need some help with Traits, Feats and general tips for playing one. I am excited to try a Witch but am a noob when it comes to casters.
Any Ideas are appreciated!!
Start by checking out the witch guides here...
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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Traits:
Look for one trait that boosts spellcraft. The other trait probably should boost Swim for a sea witch.
Feats:
Witches are not feat dependent, but a few do help out more than others.
Combat Casting can help, but even though you are often within 30 feet of your targets there are ways to keep out of reach. Only take this if your GM seems to favor targeting you.
Depending on your patron you may want to look into Spell Focus, Greater Spell Focus, and Witchknife. A +3 to the DC of a spell is great. If your patron spells are all ones that rely on enemies failing saves (like the Shadow patron), this is a great combination. If not, you should look at putting your feats to use elsewhere.
Spell Penetration and the greater version of it may be useful in later levels, but keep in mind that hexes are not subject to SR. Because of this you may only need the first feat of the two.
Metamagic feats are great. Look at the various guides for help in picking them out. Be sure to check out the wizard guides for further help.
When in doubt, go with Extra Hex.
General Tips:
Hexes are your best weapon, use them often. Evil Eye, Cackle, Misfortune, and Slumber are going to be your main hexes. Learn to use them well.
There are a variety of foes that witches just can't do much to. In those cases be sure to have a few options available for helping allies. Fortune and other hexes are good for this, but you do have a couple of spells that help allies as well, like heroism. You can always carry scrolls and wands for spells you don't want to prepare, so having helpful items should be a must in these situations.
Work with your group. You are going to be within 30 feet of the enemy, and that is a danger zone. If you have allies that you can place between you and the enemy you are one step closer to keeping yourself alive in a fight. You should also try and keep your defenses up, and I am not just talking AC. If you have another caster in your group, request spells like blur, invisibility, and shield other from them.
Focus on one enemy at a time. If you have more than one target, pick either the strongest of the group or the one the allies are not focused on. If you do it right, you can shut enemies down in two or three rounds.
Other fun hexes:
Charm: make friends
Water lung: breathe and even sleep under water
flight: free feather fall + swim bonus, eventually fly
healing: decent backup healing
prehensile hair: carry stuff with your eyebrows
Feats:
extra hex
accursed hex(get two attempts)
Playing a Witch in a sea campaign (Sea Hag), need some help with Traits, Feats and general tips for playing one. I am excited to try a Witch but am a noob when it comes to casters.
Any Ideas are appreciated!!
These are the Hexes and feats I would reccommend to anyone and when I would take them:
Human Witch:
1st - Accursed Hex
1st -
1st - Slumber Hex
2nd - Misfortune Hex
3rd -
4th - Cackle Hex
5th -
6th - Flight Hex
7th -
8th - Evil Eye Hex
9th -
10th - Major Healing Hex
11th - Split Hex
12th - (Hex)
13th - Quicken Spell
14th - Fortune Hex
15th -
16th - (Hex)
17th -
18th - (Hex)
19th -
20th - (Hex)
The Misfortune Hex is mechanically much more potent than the Evil Eye Hes, but things get closer at 8th level when Evil Eye gets more powerful. The Slumber Hex is your bread and butter, esecially early on - carry a sickle or scythe to make full use of Coups De grace. Flight at 6th level pretty much at will can't be beat, but in a sea campaign you might (might) get more use out of Aqua Lung.
For my Witch personally, I took the Spell Focuses for Necromancy, Threnodic Spell and Spell Perfection: Suffocate for some potent save-or-suck action. For Traits I took Reactionary and Focused Mind and for a Familiar I took the Greensting Scorpion for a total of +8 Initiative at level 1.
Have a fall-back plan against creatures immune to stuff...
Immune to Mind-Affecting: Undead, Constructs, Swarms, Oozes, Plants, Vermin, ...
Immune to Sleep: Elementals, Elves, Dragons, ...
Some outsider subtypes have these immunities, too.
I'm regretting my witch's choices right now in an undead-heavy campaign...
Have a fall-back plan against creatures immune to stuff...
Immune to Mind-Affecting: Undead, Constructs, Swarms, Oozes, Plants, Vermin, ...
Immune to Sleep: Elementals, Elves, Dragons, ...Some outsider subtypes have these immunities, too.
I'm regretting my witch's choices right now in an undead-heavy campaign...
Threnodic Spell is big-time for Witches in my opinion. Also, these are the situations where you want to have some solid buffs avilable for your party so that you can still be effective for them.
Threnodic Spell is big-time for Witches in my opinion. Also, these are the situations where you want to have some solid buffs avilable for your party so that you can still be effective for them.
That doesn't help with the witch's hexes. ;-)
And I can't cast 3rd level spells with that witch yet (we are level 3):
A threnodic spell uses up a spell slot two level higher than the spell's actual level.
By level 5 I'll have plenty of stuff to do against immune creatures (not just undead), but until then...?
Threnodic Spell is big-time for Witches in my opinion. Also, these are the situations where you want to have some solid buffs avilable for your party so that you can still be effective for them.That doesn't help with the witch's hexes. ;-)
And I can't cast 3rd level spells with that witch yet (we are level 3):
A threnodic spell uses up a spell slot two level higher than the spell's actual level.By level 5 I'll have plenty of stuff to do against immune creatures (not just undead), but until then...?
Oh, well geez, no one is optimized at 3rd level. Just be patient.
In truth, due to Hexes, I find Witches to be far and away the most powerful low-level casters in the game.
Oh, well geez, no one is optimized at 3rd level. Just be patient.
In truth, due to Hexes, I find Witches to be far and away the most powerful low-level casters in the game.
I thought full-casters outshine martials starting at level 1? *joking*
I hope I don't derail this thread with my comment, but I've read way too many martials-suck-nerf-casters threads lately, soooorryyyy. B-)
And level 5 is almost half the levels of a PFS character's possible max.
Since it's a sea campaign you should take Besmara as your goddess, this will let you take the ridiculously good Cheat Death trait.
I'm glad I took rime spell and defensive combat training as feats with my witch.
Rime spell turns some cold spells into great battlefield controlers. I mostely use it with frost fall and ice storm. I don't have to care if the enemiy saves because he's entangles even with a save. Combined with magical lineage (I have it for ice storm but now I'd rather take it for frost fall) it rocks.
And defensive combat training makes you more resistant to those combat maneuvers. But it isn't worth it at early levels.
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Be a gentleman and compliment her. Make sure to make eye contact and smile. Help her on and off the broom and don't be rude, or she'll turn you into a frog.
Why does no one every suggest Scar Hex.
You can have everyone in your group carry a tiny pet turtle with a Scar. That extends the range of your Hexes to 30 feet from every party member.
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Playing a Witch in a sea campaign (Sea Hag), need some help with Traits, Feats and general tips for playing one. I am excited to try a Witch but am a noob when it comes to casters.
Any Ideas are appreciated!!
These are the Hexes and feats I would reccommend to anyone and when I would take them:
Human Witch:
1st - Accursed Hex
1st -
1st - Slumber Hex
2nd - Misfortune Hex
3rd -
4th - Cackle Hex
5th -
6th - Flight Hex
7th -
8th - Evil Eye Hex
9th -
10th - Major Healing Hex
11th - Split Hex
12th - (Hex)
13th - Quicken Spell
14th - Fortune Hex
15th -
16th - (Hex)
17th -
18th - (Hex)
19th -
20th - (Hex)The Misfortune Hex is mechanically much more potent than the Evil Eye Hes, but things get closer at 8th level when Evil Eye gets more powerful. The Slumber Hex is your bread and butter, esecially early on - carry a sickle or scythe to make full use of Coups De grace. Flight at 6th level pretty much at will can't be beat, but in a sea campaign you might (might) get more use out of Aqua Lung.
For my Witch personally, I took the Spell Focuses for Necromancy, Threnodic Spell and Spell Perfection: Suffocate for some potent save-or-suck action. For Traits I took Reactionary and Focused Mind and for a Familiar I took the Greensting Scorpion for a total of +8 Initiative at level 1.
This is actually a pretty bad feat/hex progression.
Taking Slumber and accursed at first level gives you next to nothing. Slumber only lasts 1 round at this level so no CDG and if you fail 9 times out of ten the rest of the party kills it immediately.Taking Misfortune before Cackle means your target is only penalized for 1 round so YOU can never get the benefits of your own hex.
Delaying Evil Eye until 8th means you can't meaningfully help any of your caster allies until the game is almost over and major healing is just a waste of a hex.
No, A better progression goes like this:
Human Witch:
1st - Evil Eye Hex
1st - Extra Hex: Misfortune Hex
1st - Extra Hex: Cackle Hex
2nd - Slumber Hex
3rd - Accursed Hex
4th - Flight Hex
5th -
6th - Prehensile Hair Hex
7th - Improved Familiar
8th - Scar Hex
9th - Quicken Spell (for Ill Omen)
10th - Ice Tomb Hex
11th - Split Hex
12th - Major Hex: Waxen Image
Leaving your 5th level feat and one of your traits open for whatever you choose.
At this point your witch will be potent every round and can 2 round destroy any target that can be affected by your hexes. If they are immune to your current hexes you can disable them with your spells or intimidate skill. ALWAYS keep your intimidate as high as you can, it stacks with the save penalty from your evil eye and your familiar can be the one to burn the action to intimidate your target with your ranks.
Witches are very potent debuffers. Improved Initiative helps you go first and debuff an enemy before they can do anything. Of course, if you're already usually beating foes on initiative, you probably won't need this -- but it never hurts.
This is actually a pretty bad feat/hex progression.
Taking Slumber and accursed at first level gives you next to nothing. Slumber only lasts 1 round at this level so no CDG and if you fail 9 times out of ten the rest of the party kills it immediately.
Taking Misfortune before Cackle means your target is only penalized for 1 round so YOU can never get the benefits of your own hex.
Delaying Evil Eye until 8th means you can't meaningfully help any of your caster allies until the game is almost over and major healing is just a waste of a hex.No, A better progression goes like this:
Human Witch:
1st - Evil Eye Hex
1st - Extra Hex: Misfortune Hex
1st - Extra Hex: Cackle Hex
2nd - Slumber Hex
3rd - Accursed Hex
4th - Flight Hex
5th -
6th - Prehensile Hair Hex
7th - Improved Familiar
8th - Scar Hex
9th - Quicken Spell (for Ill Omen)
10th - Ice Tomb Hex
11th - Split Hex
12th - Major Hex: Waxen ImageLeaving your 5th level feat and one of your traits open for whatever you choose.
At this point your witch will be potent every round and can 2 round destroy any target that can be affected by your hexes. If they are immune to your current hexes you can disable them with your spells or intimidate skill. ALWAYS keep your intimidate as high as you can, it stacks with the save penalty from your evil eye and your familiar can be the one to burn the action to intimidate your target with your ranks.
I think you make some good points but we're just going to have to agree on some others. Perhaps that's a reflection of play-style.
In my experience, there's not a whole lot of time spent playing at 1st level, so the duration or effectiveness of a power at that specific level doesn't have a whole lot of bearing on a build to me. Also in my games, we often have more than one foe, so targeting one, even a minion, at lower levels with something like Slumber more than likely buys time for the other PC's to take down a different threat. Putting something to Sleep so that my party can kill it before moving on to something that's awake and has been attacking them the entire time doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
The benefit gained by Misfortune is significantly greater than that of Evil Eye until 8th level - significantly - and often times we only have one full caster in our group, the Witch (or Cleric or Wizard or whatever) being it.
Again, it may well have to do with play-style. We play in smaller groups that often don't have full-time healers and we don't buy wands of healing off the rack like lollipops at Ye Olde Magic & Candy Shoppe... having a secondary healer who can give everyone in the group an extra bump of healing before resting each day can be a pretty big deal.
Prehensile Hair, Scar, etc. are matters of personal preference, but there's never been a time when I've lamented the lack of any of them. They can be good options certainly, but shouldn't be put forward as 'the' right way of building a Witch.
Aspects of the build that I left out - again for pruposes of personal preference - include things like Threnodic Spell and Spell Perfection: Suffocate, along with all of its pre-req's, and I don't see anything in your build, for instance, that would allow the player to compensate for Spell Resistance.
Just saying that things should be taken into context before being pronounced 'pretty bad', not the least of which is playstyle and personal preference.
Witches are very potent debuffers. Improved Initiative helps you go first and debuff an enemy before they can do anything. Of course, if you're already usually beating foes on initiative, you probably won't need this -- but it never hurts.
This is a good point, and Initiative needs to be addressed in one way or another. In my case, the Reactionary Trait, a Greensting Scorpion Familiar and a fairly high Dexterity is more than enough... but if you're lacking, Improved Initiative is a very solid feat suggestion.