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Slumber Hex + Ability Focus is will be your bread and butter. Pick up Accursed Hex and Split Hex when you can. At later levels, Ice Tomb.
Flight Hex will also be extremely useful for obvious reasons.
For encounters against enemies that are immune to sleep, pick up Fortune Hex, Cackle and Misfortune Hex. Then just stand back, laugh, and let your party shine.
Ill Omen is probably the best low-level witch spell. Ready an action to cast it after the enemy's attack, not before. Then you or another caster int he group will have a much better chance of the enemy failing their next save. With a little party coordination, this can be an encounter-winning combination.
Spirit Talker is a fantastic feat that gives you access to the Shaman Spirit Hexes. Pick up Arcane Enlightenment from the Lore spirit. Now, every day you can pick a handful of Wizard spells and add them to your list of spells known.
Edit: Just saw that you'll be running this game yourself. A Slumber Witch will trivialize many encounters and make the game less fun for the players. Its a bad pick for a GMPC. Don't do it.
Barbaran mutinous with the new stance that lets you cast spells in rage and the raging vitality feat will get you +3 to your spells dc while in rage
1) Check Out this thread.
2) What's the difference between "Running a Game" and "GMing a game"? I honestly don't know the difference.
3) I played a Scarred WD in a relatively powerful game. He wasn't backseat to anyone. Slumber, Ice Tomb, Evil Eye, Fortune/Misfortune, spells, high HP + good saves, one less stat to worry about....honestly the SWD out of the box is amazing. The other will complain you are shutting down the enemies. Remember, hex's don't trigger AOO, can be used in a grapple w/o concentration checks, and SR don't apply to hexes. Go HERE and read the witch guides. Grab as many hexes as you can, and hex-feats you can.
"that I'm going to be running in... as a player -- not GMing."
Someone entirely different is going to be the GM. Sorry, I'm rather new to the whole table top genre -- trying not to take the backseat approach to the game -- rather would like to shine from the get-go.
My bad! So you mean "Playing in a game". It's all good.
I revised my post to include a link to the Guide of Guides. Go read the witch ones, they are helpful in helping you choose the hexes and spells and patrons.
You can't go wrong with the SWD, and they will complain that you always shut down the baddies before you get to them :D
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Yeah, my bad as well -- I wasn't entirely clear from the beginning. The class does appear to have its benefits; Prehensile Hair will allow a secondary ability to melee if need be. Perhaps breaking grapples if need be?
Don't bother with the hair, it's a trap (mechanically speaking). You don't care being in a grapple, you can hex them all you want (Grapple doesn't interfere with hexes), and you have high HP. They grapple you, you put them to sleep/agony...etc.
I've read a good number of the guides already; most of them point to being an amazing debuffer and controller.
Exactly. You will excel dealing with individual or small # of tough enemies. You will depend on your spells to deal with large quantity of smaller enemies, or swarms.
Would the Orc feats of Orc ferocity and Ferocious Resolve help or hinder as compared to the Shaman's Apprentice and Sacred Tattoo suggestions?
Take Sacred Tattoo. The plusses to saves are a godsend, and can mean the difference between life or death. I don't find ferocity and the like to be helpful as a PC - actually lead to one death of a fellow player who was a paladin. If he dropped @ zero, the baddy would have left him alone. But we was up and took the next attack....of course, YMMV.
Ooo! Take "Fate's Favored" as a trait. +2 to all saves. That's amazing.
Looking at the Patrons -- the favorites among what I've read are Time, Shadow, Deception, and Strength.
I used Agility and was happy with my spells. All those you suggest are good.
Would it be possible to grab the Dimensional archetype to fully separate an opponent from a group -- say combined with Spirit Hex [Heaven's Leap (Su)] to single out an opponent and just ruin their day?
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/witch
Looks like there's no mechanical reason why you can't take both SWD and the Dimensional archetype, none of them modify the same thing (look at the bottom). However, this archetype forces you to take a certain Patron. See below for link.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/witch/archetypes/paizo---witch -archetypes/dimensional-occultist
I am unfamiliar with Spirit Hex - looks like it's a an ability from a Wizard archetype? Also, Heaven's leap appears to only work on allies.
Also, note that I am unfamiliar with the Shaman and anything in the ACG. Don't want to give bad advice or advice on something I am not familiar with!
Edited to fix typos and formatting.
Slumber + any weapon with a high crit modifer can turn you into an absolute beast in melee.
You slumber a target, then Coup De Grace them, with you crazy high crit.
It is very easy for a scarred witch doctor do jump into melee, with their massive health pool.
On further inspection, at level 5 I get to add an enchantment to my Fetish Mask via Craft Wondrous Item -- is there anything that I should target? Or is it actually less open than it sounds?
Depends on DM.
If I was DMing, you could add any enchantment that another mask has that's in a Paizo book without question. For other enchantments (lets say "mask of flying" or "mask of +4 CON") I would have to see if it's appropriate (personally i would allow the flying but not the +4 con).
I was personally looking at the Halo of Menance [-2 saving throws to those in 30 feet].Im more inclined to lean more towards Voodoo/Hoodoo Witch Doctor than Diablo 3-esque Witch Doctor
Looks good man!
I would think you could enchant it as any magic mask.
I also, PM'd you -- if you don't mind. I don't know how those notifications work on here.
There's a (1) at the top of the screen, next to "Hello, UserName!" and the mail icon.
I would think you could enchant it as any magic mask.
100% agree, if I was a DM those enchantments would be accepted immediately. Any custom enchantments would be on a case-by-case basis.
Turning into a water elemental (via Elemental Body) has some of the highest Con buff potential.
It's not on the witch's normal spell list, but the Water patron grants it.
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Just found a hilarious build which might trigger some creativity.
Race: Half-Orc
Scarred Witch Doc lvl5
Feats:
Improved Unarmed Strike (1)
Healing Hex (2)
Hex Strike (3)
Slumber Hex (or whatever) (4)
(Whatever feat) (5)
Weapon enhancement (conductive) for unarmed strikes (costs total 6000gp)
First, cast the 1st level spell 'hex vulnerability' on yourself.
Then hit yourself every round with a nonlethal punch!
The punch triggers conductive and hex strike, healing: (2d8+5)x2=28hp heal.
Now enjoy the autohealed Nonlethal damage and 28hp heals.
It is a great tactic if you want to stall, with no wish of attacking :p