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Strange Brew: The Ultimate Witch & Warlock (Pathfinder) By Timothy Brannan
A 256-page, full-color hardback Pathfinder book on witches and warlocks, featuring spells, ritual magic, patrons, covens, familiars, an
Strange Brew: The Ultimate Witch & Warlock contains everything you need to play every kind of witch, warlock, or pythoness you can imagine, detailing an expansive list of new options for use in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. In this fantastic new tome you'll find...
•new alternate classes for the occult
•the warlock base class
•several traditions
•innovative uses for skills
•new feats
•hexes and powers
•dozens of new prestige classes
•class archetypes
•familiars and patrons
•multi-class paths
•hundreds of spells
•ritual magic
•and more—no two witches need ever be the same again!
Make your witch much more than a distaff wizard with Strange Brew: The Ultimate Witch & Warlock!
Fantastic news!!!
Woohoo!
Its time, oh glorious be its time!
Tempting...
Pledged.
EDIT: The Backer link does not work.
I've sent a message to the Kickstarter folks about the link's wonkiness. I hope they get it fixed soon.
I fixed the $150 pledge level. It does include a copy of the Bite Me! book and PDF + the Way of the Witch Patfhinder (a revision of the old book with fresh material, too).
Tempting...
Join us... You know you want to. :)
@Christina: Sending you a PM here...
Ooo, please, put in an add-on to get a The Way of the Witch PDF...
Hey, I'd likePDFs of Way of the Witch and Liber Mysterium as well as the OSR The Witch and Eldritch Witchery
Well this is odd....I keep getting a 404 error and can't see the ks.
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Does this include advice for the GM on how to not let things like the Slumber hex ruin encounters?
I ask because while the Slumber hex may not be inherently broken, it can certainly break the game of a GM who isn't prepared for it. It's not just for Advanced Players, but also requires the GM to be more advanced.
Or would the amount of new hexes included make it possible for a GM to ban a few of the standard hexes that are griped about most, without nerfing the class too hard, because now there are enough new hexes to choose from?
Well this is odd....I keep getting a 404 error and can't see the ks.
Yes. I had this problem before and then it went away and worked, but now it has returned…
[EDIT - working again :)]
Well this is odd....I keep getting a 404 error and can't see the ks.
I don't know why this is happening, but I have pinged the KS folks.
Just pledged.
Just pledged.
Thank you, Louis!!!
Does this include advice for the GM on how to not let things like the Slumber hex ruin encounters?
I ask because while the Slumber hex may not be inherently broken, it can certainly break the game of a GM who isn't prepared for it. It's not just for Advanced Players, but also requires the GM to be more advanced.
Or would the amount of new hexes included make it possible for a GM to ban a few of the standard hexes that are griped about most, without nerfing the class too hard, because now there are enough new hexes to choose from?
We can certainly include some suggestions for that problem! Thanks for bringing that up. I've heard many woeful tales on that subject. We'll include a sidebar to address.
GMs are certainly free to ban things in their home games, though.
Please let us know of anything else you'd like to see in the book. Tim will be by later this evening to talk more about it. By all means, ask him questions!
Or would the amount of new hexes included make it possible for a GM to ban a few of the standard hexes that are griped about most, without nerfing the class too hard, because now there are enough new hexes to choose from?
This is definitely the plan - to make more thematic and favorable (and not game breaking) hexes.
I'd like to see something- maybe a sidebar- looking at variants of Witches/Warlocks from a Far Eastern perspective; a 're-skinning' if you will. Perhaps some archetype could cover that. Heck, if there were enough ideas, it could be its own book as a stretch goal/ further-in-the-line product...
If you look at the cover of the stretch goal book you'll see the Hollow Eyed Witch (archetype) flying up on the right hand side of the picture. - definitely inspired by Far Eastern "Witches". And the Tiefling Witch is the Consort (archetype), taking a leaf from the devadasi/temple dancers of India.
Nice!
Best of luck on this Christina! The book sounds really interesting ...
By all means kick in Marc! ;)
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@Christina: that's nice to hear! I think Slumber is by far the biggest "offender" - GMs upset that their BBEG was slumbered in the first round of what was supposed to be an epic battle. Though Misfortune, Evil Eye and spending an hour using Cacle-Fortune to buff people are also mentioned now and then.
I suppose the Witch is much more experimental than say, the Wizard; no decades of D&D playtesting to fall back on. I'm not surprised it's a bit rough around the edges. I don't think the powers are broken per se, but they do quickly break if the GM is expecting more conventional powers.
After a short stint of GMing with a Witch PC in the party though, I think I would welcome alternative offensive hexes, that I don't have to plan around quite so much. Because now it feels like walking the tightrope of including either too many mind-affecting-immune monsters, or letting the witch go wild. I guess slightly less powerful hexes that don't have the drastic limits of Slumber would be nicer.
---
One thing that's been keeping me from playing a witch is that the fragility of the "spellbook" scares me. I know that it probably won't be as bad in practice, but it just makes me so nervous.
So I think there's unused design space here: an archetype maybe, or a chain of hexes, to expand the power of the familiar so that you can actually use it in combat. Maybe because it respawns the next day in combat. Maybe it gets exciting new powers. Maybe also more alternatives for storing your spells in a familiar.
As-is, the familiar as spellbook is sometimes thought of as a "balance" thing, but I don't think it's working all that well. There's a big pressure to take a familiar with Regeneration to circumvent the risk. If you don't, you basically have a class feature saying "you have a cool beast, but don't you dare send it in to do anything too exciting".
Thanks everyone for your pledges!
I will try to answer any and all questions as I can. My day job is blocking all "game" sites so I can't get to this during normal business hours unless I use my phone.
Slumber Hex: No plans as of yet, but I can certainly address it in a blog post or a sidebar. Frankly the Slumber Hex is the only reason my witch survived 1st level.
Eastern Witches: Again, no plans of yet, but right now we have an over-abundance of great great content. It is certainly something that I could think about.
Banning Hexes: I am not in favor of that myself, BUT I certainly want to provide enough that if a GM wanted to only use a subset for witches, a different set for warlocks and a different set for divine witches then they should be allowed to do that. I am all about options and freedom.
Liber, Way and other books: Liber will be superseded by this book. The best parts of it will be here. We don't have republish rights for the others, but I want to work something out for the OSR Witch book at least.
Hope that helps!
Familiars: I have feats that do just that.
There are some familiar related hexes as well, but I think mechanically feats are the better choice.
Also I have other things in place to help this "weakness" like Grimories and multiple familiars.
Yep, I hear you on that Ascalaphus… I've toyed around with a few ideas on familiars, the Eldritch Menagerist being one - I think an animal companion level familiar would be interesting.
I did just submit a witch racial archetype for lycanthropes that borrows a bit from Tyler Beck's Shaman of Humanity's (Fat Goblin Games) anthropomorphic schtick also…
I think the thing that interest me in the PF Witch is the Patrons and the way they interact both flavor-wise and mechanically. If you tinker around with the nature of the Patron-link, the familiar becomes a lot more reskinnable and/or removable - either free t be it's own thing and not a spell book, or even more of an expression of the Patron. So an animal companion that gains powers by Patron is definitely on my radar for War Witches...
Familiars: I have feats that do just that.
There are some familiar related hexes as well, but I think mechanically feats are the better choice.
Sounds great Tim. Also, I'll dig up the familiar feats James Thomas did on the KQ blog...
Also I have other things in place to help this "weakness" like Grimories and multiple familiars.
Yay for grimoires and as you can see by the Eldritch menagerist I linked above, I do like the multiple familiar concept… :)
Nice!
Best of luck on this Christina! The book sounds really interesting ...
Thanks, Marc! You are welcome to pitch me something for a stretch goal, btw. :)
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P.S. Give me that winged cat O_O
Well since the Witch is probably my most hated class because of all the reasons that this book exists I went ahead and pledged $80.
I do have a question; There's going to be a Witch and Warlock base class, does this mean that the Witch class in Strange Brew has different class features from the Pathfinder Witch base class?
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Larina O_O She's... the six-year-old fledgling witch from the introduction to the 2E Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks!?
Tim, I love this book already!
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This is awesome!
If I get some extra money in the near future, I might back this.
How confident are you about the overseas (Netherlands) shipping costs? The Mage 20th Anniversary kickstarter had a lot of text about that, you only have a small note. Is that good or bad?
Not confident at all, actually. What did Onyx charge?
What kind of familiar would a winged cat have? ;)
Have witchy archetype idea... So tempting... Want... *Blargalll*
Now I just have to sneak it past the ever vigilant guardian of the vault, aka my wife.
;-)
Larina O_O She's... the six-year-old fledgling witch from the introduction to the 2E Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks!?
Tim, I love this book already!
Bardess,
You can't believe how happy it makes me that someone noticed this!
In for 25 dollars!
We thank you!
Have witchy archetype idea... So tempting... Want... *Blargalll*
Now I just have to sneak it past the ever vigilant guardian of the vault, aka my wife.
;-)
Lol! Our fingers are crossed for you. :)
Btw, just so you know, Morgan Boehringer bought in on the Bite Me! project, as did Rich Howard, and they are both doing other freelance work for me (as time allows)--Morgan did our cool banners, for instance, and he is doing the War Witch book! Note that I am a developer for Misfit Studios, Rogue Genius Games, and Christina Stiles Presents. So tell her to think of it as an investment in gaining future freelance opportunities if you prove your chops. Many a folk got in the industry that way via Open Design/Kobold Press. I'm assuming that freelancing is something you are interested in. Plus, you'll get feedback from developer Robert H. Hudson, Jr.--something freelancers rarely get because developers are very busy.
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I'm definitely in. Just need to work out how much I can pledge.
While I think of it Christina, if you or any of the others involved in the project are interested in doing an interview or discussion of the campaign/product on my blog to promote it, I'd love to help out.
The blog can be found here: The Grassy Gnoll
Easiest ways to contact me are through a PM here, or by using the Questions and Queries page on the blog.
While I think of it Christina, if you or any of the others involved in the project are interested in doing an interview or discussion of the campaign/product on my blog to promote it, I'd love to help out.
The blog can be found here: The Grassy Gnoll
Easiest ways to contact me are through a PM here, or by using the Questions and Queries page on the blog.
YES! We are more than willing to be interviewed. I'll have Tim contact you. Morgan, too.