Or, what are other people's experiences with the Witch class? From the perspective of - the player; the teammate; and the GM?
The primary offensive power of the Witch is obviously its Hexes. The class is built around it, and while it does get full-spellcasting like the Wizard, it's spell list is much more limited.
The problem I have with the Witch is that its Hexes are basically scaling, non-vancian limited, auto spell resistance penetrating, save or suck "spells." Oh, yes it does receive a variety of Hexes, but the most powerful are obviously the combat oriented ones - of which Slumber is the king.
I'm coming from the perspective of this from "the teammate" I've had a friend who's played the Witch for 3 campaigns now. And I honestly think Hexes are becoming a crutch for him at this point. His character either wipes the floor with the enemy if they don't have good will saves or sleep immunity, leaving the rest of us feeling mostly useful; OR he can't do anything because the enemy have high will saves, leaving him feeling useless. (He tends to pack mostly out of combat heal spells instead of anything else)
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Sounds like the player needs to break the mold. This is a player problem, not a witch problem.
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Slumber is unfun. Otherwise the Witch is pretty fun for the table.
Just wait until the witch is high enough level to get the Ice Tomb hex. If Slumber doesn't take out a foe, there is a very good chance that Ice Tomb will.
Just wait until the witch is high enough level to get the Ice Tomb hex. If Slumber doesn't take out a foe, there is a very good chance that Ice Tomb will.
Yes, we know about it. And yes, it is part of the "kill the BBEG with one hit" sort of problem.
Eventually he will have access to split hex and accursed hex which means he can bounce his Hexes around and rehex the same target if they save. (In one campaign, our witch used the fact we had an elf in the party to extend the range of his slumber hexes by bouncing a slumber off the immune party member).
Sounds like the player needs to break the mold. This is a player problem, not a witch problem.
It's mostly because he just doesn't have the time to really build a character. He runs 3 jobs and has to take care of both his blind wife and special needs son. So we give him extra slack. Generally unoptimized characters are fine at the table, but he sticks to the same tactics so much I'm tempted to tell him to just play a Fighter (which he won't because he's obsessed with playing wizard classes but always gets swamped by their complexity).
I've played a number of witch builds and I don't take slumber ever because it's clearly a problem - a 1st level scaling save or suck with a higher than average DC isn't something the other players are going to enjoy. Because pathfinder is a team game any sensible person will note it's overpowered and pick something else.
It's boring for the DM and the other players.
Ignoring slumber the Witch class is great fun to play.
Ice Tomb doesn't come online until level 10 so the monsters at least have a chance to save against it.
I've played a number of witch builds and I don't take slumber ever because it's clearly a problem - a 1st level scaling save or suck with a higher than average DC isn't something the other players are going to enjoy. Because pathfinder is a team game any sensible person will note it's overpowered and pick something else.
It's boring for the DM and the other players.Ignoring slumber the Witch class is great fun to play.
Agreed. The slumber hex made every fight the same, I got bored playing a witch long before the other players or the GM got annoyed with the tactic.
Once I stopped using it, I was much happier.
As for the later hexes, we didn't find them anything like as boring or game breaking.
Even Misfortune is almost as powerful, as it basically wrecks martial characters.
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I agree with slumber being anti-fun. Broken? eh, can't say that. But it definitely makes the game less enjoyable for me. I've DMed slumber, used it, and been on the same team as a slumber user. Misfortune, fortune, evil eye, etc. are really fun abilities that are quite unique. I like those features of the witch and consider them 'fun' for sure.
GMed a witch with misfortune. Not going through anything similar again. Utter and complete borefest. It is all well and good to say "don't make fights against solitary opponents", but not everyone has time to revamp an entire AP.
I know that it is the "normal" opinion that slumber and Ice Tomb are OP, however from just anecdotal experience, I have not had problems with them as either a player or a GM.
Now to be completely clear, my only played character for about the last 5-8 years was a witch as I mostly GM, so that may have biased me, but the other players seemed to enjoy it as well. This was in CotCT.
Further, my group tends to be on the far right of the power curve, and usually curb stomps encounters 4 CR higher than the party. Save or die in one round is a very expected tactic and our martials base "acceptable" damage around being able to one round a CR to CR +1 opponent by themselves and survive.
This is not because we are in any way better or playing "right" it is simply the fact that we have counting myself two rules heavy individuals in the group and the rest are always excited to have one or the other of us help them optimize inside the concept they already have. All of this is without Animate Dead/Blood Money/Simulacrum/Planar Binding shenanigans.
Honestly in my last two 10+ level games I have found that characters can if optimized and played both tactically and strategically, take on CR's as high as +6 or +7, and come out with minimal chance of death. Dragons are particularly easy usually.
In short I would believe that how "fun" a witch is depends on your group, and their optimization threshold. Talk to your group and have fun both for them and yourself would be my advice.
Hope this helps.
I like it as a players. As a GM the evil eye hex annoys me more than any other hex, but not enough to ban it. As for the witch being all or nothing the player needs to be better at spell preparation.
Suggest he takes the rime spell feat and memorizes some rimed frost falls each day. That way he has a spell that deals damage (no save), has a strong debuff with a fort save and a second debuff that happens if the spell deals damage (always unless there is cold resistance/immunity).
It is an easy tactic that always works unless the target has cold resistance. And the entangle from rime spell refreshes each round if the target remains in the damage area.
I used that a lot with my witch.
And another thing for high wis enemies: Evil eye + cackle. With a save it still lasts one round. Add cackle to keep it running.
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My experiences with the witch are both from the teammates prospective and the DM's prospective.
Yes Witches are unfun.
In my opinion that is because the whole class is geared to wreck APs (or rather APs can't handle witches, like they can't gunslingers), either you go slumber, ice tomb, agony OR evil eye + misfortune, the outcome is the same you are going to be destroying encounters left and right. And the issue is that you can't really do anything else with the witch, it's a class built on the wizard's chasis with fewer spells per day but with a very neutered and weird spell list.
PS. Maybe the class is salvagable and maybe you can really create a campaign where the witch isn't a problem but the reason i play APs is because i don't have the time to create my own game.
Indeed. I will not include witches in future campaigns.
I was very relieved to see that the Shaman class in the ACG, which started off as a Witch/Oracle blending, didn't get a Slumber style hex during the Playtest. My first Pathfinder character admittedly was a Spellslinger/Bonded Witch that toted around a double barreled pistol. It got to the point where I felt dirty for doing Slumber Executions. Midway through the AP I had to ask my GM if I could remake my character because I could tell she and some of the other players were getting frustrated.
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What exactly about a Slumber witch is more frustrating than say a pouncing barbarian, or a optimized save or die Wizard?
I am not attacking anyone I am honestly curious.
Slumber is good in my opinion but it has quite a few hard counters and even when not matched with one of those unless the witch is completely optimized for slumber, I do not see where it approaches the power of say an enervation build.
I may be completely off base on this but I would really appreciate a detailed explanation. Even if it is something as simple as "I don't like one round encounters", or "I don't like the flavor of these mechanics", I would really appreciate some information so as I can hopefully understand this very popular stance.
Edit: Eveneration =/= enervation
Vs a wizard it is simple. Every time he enervates, it costs him something. A few encounters more and he won't be doing that. A pouncing barbarian is even simpler: You have a dozen or more reasonably effective counters to make some kind of variety.
With a misfortune witch, they have only one thing to optimize, and that is save DC. Add in the other pieces of the puzzle, and you end up with saving first and second round against massive will saves or suck permanently. The only thing you really can do is give your monsters massive Will saves. It gets very old. Every fight plays exactly the same. Witch within thirty feet, misfortune, cackle, and the enemy will not make saves, hit anything, or otherwise matter. "Yay we won again!" "What did we kill though?" "Who cares?"
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What exactly about a Slumber witch is more frustrating than say a pouncing barbarian, or a optimized save or die Wizard?
I am not attacking anyone I am honestly curious.
Slumber is good in my opinion but it has quite a few hard counters and even when not matched with one of those unless the witch is completely optimized for slumber, I do not see where it approaches the power of say an enveneration build.
I may be completely off base on this but I would really appreciate a detailed explanation. Even if it is something as simple as "I don't like one round encounters", or "I don't like the flavor of these mechanics", I would really appreciate some information so as I can hopefully understand this very popular stance.
The things I used to stop SoD casters are the same things I use to stop the slumber hex, so other than when I ran kingmaker before adjustements it was not an issue.
What exactly about a Slumber witch is more frustrating than say a pouncing barbarian, or a optimized save or die Wizard?
There are means of mitigating the pouncing barbarian. More ac, trips, multiple creatures, pit traps, difficult terrain, clifs, flyin opponents...
The save or die wizard only has so many spells they can cast, so they can't launch a baleful polymorph at EVERY monster they come across. If he SQUIRRELS the occasional encounter thats fine. He doesn't squirrel EVERY monster in the dungeon though.
Slumber is good in my opinion but it has quite a few hard counters and even when not matched with one of those unless the witch is completely optimized for slumber, I do not see where it approaches the power of say an enveneration build.
Ice tomb manages that. Enervation usually takes a few rounds to kill something.
Vs a wizard it is simple. Every time he enervates, it costs him something. A few encounters more and he won't be doing that. A pouncing barbarian is even simpler: You have a dozen or more reasonably effective counters to make some kind of variety.
With a misfortune witch, they have only one thing to optimize, and that is save DC. Add in the other pieces of the puzzle, and you end up with saving first and second round against massive will saves or suck permanently. The only thing you really can do is give your monsters massive Will saves. It gets very old. Every fight plays exactly the same. Witch within thirty feet, misfortune, cackle, and the enemy will not make saves, hit anything, or otherwise matter. "Yay we won again!" "What did we kill though?" "Who cares?"
Isn't Cackle really the problem there? If used as an extremely short duration debuff, as written, would Misfortune be that bad?
Vs a wizard it is simple. Every time he enervates, it costs him something. A few encounters more and he won't be doing that. A pouncing barbarian is even simpler: You have a dozen or more reasonably effective counters to make some kind of variety.
With a misfortune witch, they have only one thing to optimize, and that is save DC. Add in the other pieces of the puzzle, and you end up with saving first and second round against massive will saves or suck permanently. The only thing you really can do is give your monsters massive Will saves. It gets very old. Every fight plays exactly the same. Witch within thirty feet, misfortune, cackle, and the enemy will not make saves, hit anything, or otherwise matter. "Yay we won again!" "What did we kill though?" "Who cares?"
So you have a larger issue with misfortune than with slumber?
I would assert that when spell perfection becomes available a Wizard using an improved familiar for enervation wand use, craft wand and spell perfection(Enervation) along with Maximize spell and quicken spell would be very difficult to defeat and more of a challenge than a slumber or misfortune witch.
A regular enervation + a quickened enervation + a maximized enervation all of these using only 4th level spell slots and a wand charge is kind of brutal. This is without abusing magical lineage and waylang spell hunter which could allow you to prepare it as a 2nd by combining it with spell perfection.
So this means a Wizard will have at least 14 spell slots without int bonus and without using the traits. If you do use int bonus and traits that jumps to 29 casts per day, with necromancy specialization that is 36 casts. I honestly don't see a focused build running out.
Also a superstitious pouncing barbarian with CAGM and access to flight through boots or some other method is pretty hard to counter as well. Their only real hard counter is stuff that auto-kills melee or is immune to weapon damage and I would assert that there are more things immune to mind-effecting or sleep than are immune to weapon damage.
Now I can see the point that a witch comes into her good abilities sooner than a Barbarian or Wizard, I just still don't see how they are that much more powerful than any other optimized character at mid/late game.
So if the complaints are focused around say levels 1-6 or 1-8 I can see that, it is just my games tend to go 1-25 to 1-30, so I see a lot of higher level play.
Anyway, not trying to be argumentative just trying to understand, and I appreciate the response.
One round, once, would be okay. And sure, it is possible to houserule, but by that token, everything is okay.
BNW: I haven't had an enervation wizard yet. If it works as it sounds, that would also be unfun. Still, more encounters before rest sort of shuts down that tactic. Any character including a barbarian who needs to get into melee can be disarmed, dropped into a pit, mazed, entangled, tentacled, meet incorporeality or too high an AC, good DR, confused, dominated, weakened, whatever you feel like. It may be that it was a question of levels, I reacted at lvl 5, I think, which was when cackle got into play. At higher levels, I really can't see things getting better. You either have to take out the witch immediately, be immune, or have amazing Will saves. The issue is that roll twice and taking the worst is too powerful.
And yes, misfortune is far worse than slumber. Slumber gets you executed. Misfortune renders you powerless but doesn't end the fight. Slumber has a number of counters depending on creature, but misfortune has none.
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One round, once, would be okay. And sure, it is possible to houserule, but by that token, everything is okay.
That's true, and probably why I so rarely see the problems people bring up on these boards. :P
What exactly about a Slumber witch is more frustrating than say a pouncing barbarian, or a optimized save or die Wizard?
I am not attacking anyone I am honestly curious.
Slumber is good in my opinion but it has quite a few hard counters and even when not matched with one of those unless the witch is completely optimized for slumber, I do not see where it approaches the power of say an enervation build.
I may be completely off base on this but I would really appreciate a detailed explanation. Even if it is something as simple as "I don't like one round encounters", or "I don't like the flavor of these mechanics", I would really appreciate some information so as I can hopefully understand this very popular stance.
In my opinion, it isn't really a matter of power. I didn't find my witch to be overpowered after the first few encounters, possibly because I have a very experienced GM who varies things well.
I found it tedious to always be using the same thing every round. I'd probably get bored with an enervation specialist too. At least a pouncing barbarian gets to roll lots of dice, a slumber witch doesn't roll any.
The effect of misfortune very much depends on the guy you put it on.
While playing my witch we once had to fight a group of trolls, one of which seemed to have more brains than the rest. I managed to misfortune that one (who was in the back ranks) in a corridor, only to see him throw one bead from his necklace of fireballs at us round after round. No roll needed for that and the misfortune was useless.
Same on a lot of casters. They only need to stay out of melee and they don't really need a lot of rolls.
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In my experience as a player, the Witch's defenses seemed subpar. If the DM can get monsters near the Witch it should cause trouble.
Slumber - I think one of the best ways to "fix" this hex is to house rule Coup de Grace. In most of the games I play we've removed the Fort save vs death and just made it an automatic crit. We've kicked around the idea of increased the crit damage by 1x too. This leaves Slumber as a very strong tactic but not an instant death sentence. We first enacted the rule at my suggestion when my Witch had Slumbered a major monster (behir) and seemed set to ruin the night's fun. A nice side effect is that DMs don't feel as guilty if they have ghouls and mummies go nuts with CdG when somebody gets paralyzed.
Useless against Mindless - My Witch had some trouble with this too but solved it by getting some pet monsters via multiclassing and feats. Summon Monster spells are also on the Witch list and are a great solution to this problem.
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I played a witch, with 2 bard levels early on, all the way through S&S. She became the Hurricane Queen, and was the most fun character I've played, except for my first ever character 25 odd years ago. Yes Slumber felt boring, and as a result I didn't use it much, but that was my choice. Never took Ice Tomb hex. Misfotrune/ill omen were great and didn't seem to ruin the game for us. The rest of the party/crew was more worried about her constant use of blood transcription.
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I've been playing a witch for a while now, and the truth is, I've stopped going for the save or lose style of play. Its alot more fun to debuff/buff. I even went so far as to get my dm to let me trade out slumber for a different hex. I would much rather use my hexes and spells to aid my allies in taking out the enemy then try to do it myself.
No one has fun if a slumber hex succceeds. Not even me. I'd rather blind a bunch of enemies with glitterdust and let the rogue stab them in the kidneys, or tag them with a evil eye and misfortune. More fun for everyone.
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Witches can be great fun. I'm definitely in the "avoid slumber" camp.
A lot of the lesser used and objectively less powerful hexes are fun. Prehensile hair is great, aura of purity good, etc.
Depending on your group you probably don't have to optimize too much. You definitely do NOT want to over optimize in PFS (my PFS witch is optimized for craft painting :-) ) or you and/or your teammates will find things boring.
Would like slumber better if it had a times per day or other restriction. A druid or wizard who made bad choices preparing or casted to much beginning of the day has a serious and fair problem.
Whitches should have simular problems, now the can just cast anything they like and use slumber and misfortune the rest of the day.
Not really inspiring creative and clever playing. Would advice it for a beginner.
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I just started a Witch Cartomancer. The thing that seems the most exciting to me about the class is finally being able to 'land' all of those awesome and weird 2nd and 3rd level spells that most people never seem to bother with. Evil Eye Hex isn't an end in and of itself, it's a means to other more interesting ends.
Like:
Touch of Idiocy
Disfiguring Touch
Lipstitch
Blindness/Deafness
Death Knell
Pox Pustules
Bestow Curse
Excruciating Deformation
Healing Theif
Vampiric Touch
They all seem very 'Witch-like' and fun. I've played the strong SoD style and I think it gets kind of boring. Making enemies deal with horrible afflictions, curses, and getting their lips sewn shut in combat just sounds awesome. With a Witch, you can do all of those with relative consistency and without much in the way of optimization.
It's not going to kill anything very easily, but a Witch can make something wish it were dead.
Playing a strong SoD style with any caster type is boring. Witches may be more prone to it than others, but they are far from being at the center of that issue. The fact that it might take a bit more effort to make them non-SoD doens't make the witch class unfun, it just means that the class tends to be a little more specialized than the wizard. The bigger problem is people trying to play the witch as some kind of alternate wizard when in fact it does best when played as a distinct class with distinct strengths and weaknesses.
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I loved playing my witch. He allowed me to feel like I was effective in contributing to the encounters, both combat and non-combat, and do some really fun things.
I actually liked slumber and didn't find it unfun at all. The GM was clever and skilled in his encounter building, and made it difficult to use such save or die abilities in the first round or two without laying down some preparation. He also always had, with few exceptions, multiple foes on the field, or at least several dangers that couldn't be easily ignored. All this combined meant I had to consider action economy and the probabilities of success much more. If I tried to use slumber out of the gate it had good chances of not working, unless the target was a weaker minion or easy encounter.
I also found that there are some really cool ways of defeating a target without killing them.
From a player perspective I have a witch in PFS currently at 3rd level. I find the class rather dull and boring to play. Spell selection is poor and the DC for hexes comes across as too low. Most scenarios she uses maybe one or two spells and the ends up as a weak support character. The roleplaying of the character is fun and there is another player with a witch so may start a coven if we can find a third to join us.
As a team mate I just wish the player had picked something more useful like a sorcerer, which is the class I would suggest instead if someone asked about playing a witch.
I've never run a game for a witch PC so I have no thoughts there.
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I think that Slumber Hex might be more fun with This houserule. Makes boss fights less anti-climactic.
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[Spoiler=CotCT]1 module full of undead, a good number of fights have several strong enemies, plenty of social interactions in the first 3 modules, devils with strong will saves, main BEEG is Bard with exceptional stats and 2 good saves, plus plenty of simulacrums, almost no pure melee fight with a single adversary with bad will saving throw.I know that it is the "normal" opinion that slumber and Ice Tomb are OP, however from just anecdotal experience, I have not had problems with them as either a player or a GM.
Now to be completely clear, my only played character for about the last 5-8 years was a witch as I mostly GM, so that may have biased me, but the other players seemed to enjoy it as well. This was in CotCT.
Taking into account all the above, I see why that I see why no one had problems with a witch in CotCT
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Sounds like the player needs to break the mold. This is a player problem, not a witch problem.It's mostly because he just doesn't have the time to really build a character. He runs 3 jobs and has to take care of both his blind wife and special needs son. So we give him extra slack. Generally unoptimized characters are fine at the table, but he sticks to the same tactics so much I'm tempted to tell him to just play a Fighter (which he won't because he's obsessed with playing wizard classes but always gets swamped by their complexity).
You can suggest him to play a sorcerer. Plenty of nice powers, a limited and fixed selection of spells that still allow a good customization of the character. Relatively easy to play and, I think, more fun.
The witch to me appear unfun, she either resolve the encounter with extreme ease or she is mostly useless (rarely her hexes or spells can affect what isn't affected by the hexes).
I played one in serpents skull up to 10 th level. It was hard work so I changed characters. They are cool in theory
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it is just my games tend to go 1-25 to 1-30, so I see a lot of higher level play.As Pathfinder lack the rules for playing above level 20, you are houseruling/using earlier editions rules a lot. that change the game.
Actually I usually use this.
I also do not use any 3.5 material.
On top of that I have had several witches as players in my games and not had a real problem even when they faced opponents against which slumber was usable. Now I do homebrew all of my worlds, and I do avoid single large enemies, but this is more of a general rule rather than a response to witches.
I do see what you mean about CotCT though.
Magic can overcome challenges subtly or overtly. The witch is tilted heavily towards the in-your-face end of that scale; it may not have more power than other spellcasting classes, but it is much more geared towards expressing its power offensively by ruining the competence of prominent foes, snatching away high rolls, and other potentially GM-morale-crushing ways, depending on how the GM (and rest of the group) are approaching the game and on what sort of combats they are facing.
As such, while I have had fun with both witches I've played so far (one with Slumber, one without), I think it is a class to play with care.
And I could definitely see jacking the DC of Slumber and then spamming it every round growing really stale.
I personally find the Cackle + Fortune/Misfortune combo to be a lot of fun to pull off, and one that helps break up the monotony of the slumber hex. Using Prehensile Hair to more safely deliver touch spells can also be a bit of fun.
So yes, there are options beyond slumber, but Witches can run into the same issues Wizards do: Become really good at playing a memorization style caster and the game can become a bit boring.