Okay, roll with me for a moment.
Did you ever read Interview With a Vampire? Remember Claudia? Or for a more modern example, Babette the child vampire in the Dark Brotherhood from Skyrim?
Thats our premise, an otherwise adult character in a child's body that uses the guise of an innocent child to get away with murder (sometimes literally), or at the very least to completely put an opponent off guard (you gotta be pretty damned messed up to attack a kid).
Only instead of being a vampire, she's a necromancer. She deceives people into believing she is a child in order to trick them into being protective of her, to believe she is weak and helpless, or to lure in predators for easy raw materials for her undead army.
Purpose of thread is to help refine the mechanics to support the concept.
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Class: Gravewalker Witch
Patron: Enchantment
Race: Halfling with Childlike.
Alternate Racial Traits: Halfling Jinx and Human Shadow
Favored Class Bonus: +1/4 caster level on patron spells (which just happen to include all of her animate/control spells)
Race Description and Reasoning:
Okay, the original build I was using for this was a Bones Oracle with the 3PP Child curse until someone pointed out the Childlike feat for Halflings, which opened up a lot more great opportunities.
Halfling is already small, and finding gear for her should be much easier (the Child curse specified that any non-magical armor had to be specially made to fit), and Childlike grants some very handy bonuses to the whole "pretend to be an innocent child" schtick, including not just a +2 to Disguise but negating the age/race penalties as well. Basically, nobody is going to question that she isn't a child without damned close inspection. Could grab Pass for Human later if Childlike proves to not be enough to cut it, or if I just run out of good sounding feats for any given level to complete the illusion.
Halfling also offers Halfling Jinx and Human Shadow for alternate racial traits. Jinx lets her throw a whammy on anyone that gets close to her to drop all of their saves -1, which comes in very handy with her patron spells (discussed later). Human Shadow lets her actively hide behind humans and other creatures larger than themselves, which is great for the "I'm a scared a little girl hiding behind the big strong grown up" bit.
Fearless is just icing on the cake.
And the halfling Favored Class bonus is +1/4 caster level for "determining the effects of spells granted by her patron", which for Gravewalker includes her Animate Dead, Control Undead, Command Undead, etc spells, so she's going to be animating greater amounts of undead than normal right off the bat. Even before everything else, by the time she gets the ability to animate anything she'll be doing it at a higher caster level than normal.
Class Reasoning:
Right off the bat Gravewalker Witch gets her poppet, which so very easily becomes a teddy bear or other stuffed animal which is already perfect for the concept.
For Patron I'm going with Enchantment primarily for the 2nd level spell, Unnatural Lust. To keep this concept more within the realm of acceptable characters for play (aka not totally evil and depraved) she hangs around bad parts of town basically luring in sickos and lowlifes who would want to take advantage of an innocent young girl. Gets around the whole morality issue of animating innocent people if she's luring out the very people that deserve to get offed and using them for "research" and spare parts. The ability to make sure and remove 100% of doubt from any witness that she was "an innocent victim", tossing a Jinx on them to lower their saves and then hitting them with Unnatural Lust to get them all handsy will come in quite handy should a guard walk by while she's killing a target. Dominate Person and Dominate Monster will also come in handy should someone see through her ruse and she needs an immediate out. For anyone wanting to use her as an antagonist, nothing says setup like casting Unnatural Lust on a PC in the presence of guards or nobility to paint the group in a really poor light, to say the least.
Hexes:
Most of her early hex slots are taken up with gravewalker abilities, but three stand out as being good candidates for her limited early slots.
Charm - Again plays into the idea of her being deceptive and luring people in. Makes her target one step more friendly, meaning they will be much more likely to not question her and possibly even act protectively towards her. She's as much about controlling the living as she is about controlling the dead.
Misfortune - Makes the target roll twice on just about anything that requires a roll, and take the lower of the two rolls? Combine that with Jinx and her charm/enchantment powers are going to be damned near unresistable.
Prehensile Hair - Not really so much to make her stronger in combat or in manipulating people, but she is Small size with a Strength penalty. The hair uses her Intelligence in place of Strength, and can be used as a weapon (even if its only 1d2) meaning she can kill commoners with it fairly easily without having a weapon on her to blow her disguise. It also acts as a limb with reach, meaning that if things go wrong or she's up against something that doesn't fall for her tricks, she can grapple it at a safe distance long enough for someone or something else to deal with it. Plus there's the cool/creepy factor of living hair.
Traits:
Convincing Liar - +1 to Bluff checks and Bluff is a class skill, required for the concept because Witches don't get Bluff as a class skill normally.
Gifted Adept (Animate Dead) - +1 caster level means more HD of undead controlled.
Feats:
Already covered that Childlike is required for the concept, and that Pass for Human is a good choice if there's nothing better for a given level.
Other than that, there really aren't any feats that I can find right away that would help with this build specifically, so there's actually a lot of leeway in feat choices.
The core aspects (animating undead and the deception) don't really have must-have feats to make them work, so about the only thing that springs to mind is Spell Focus (Necromancy) to help out with the limited direct damage spells she gets (like Inflict Wounds, Poison, Enervation, etc).
Can use the poppet to turn touch spells into ranged touch attacks, but they aren't necessarily rays so weapon focus wouldn't help...
Looks like Pass for Human may be on the table sooner than I thought!
Not really too sure on the actual build, as it looks fairly solid, but I do have one piece of helpful advice:
Be careful with how often you use Unnatural Lust. Having a childlike character (even if truly well above adult years) could create some unpleasant situations with specific people.
Basically, just know your audience. The implication of child abuse isn't acceptable for some people, even if it does serve a purpose.
Be very careful what group you're playing with. You're dealing with some sensitive subjects.
If you want some evil-child-necromancer inspiration, I've created a dhampir/gnome necromancer for a WotW game. Lilpinny Marfedelom
Not really too sure on the actual build, as it looks fairly solid, but I do have one piece of helpful advice:
Be careful with how often you use Unnatural Lust. Having a childlike character (even if truly well above adult years) could create some unpleasant situations with specific people.
Basically, just know your audience. The implication of child abuse isn't acceptable for some people, even if it does serve a purpose.
Its there more for a "Crap, I got caught and need a really obvious way to paint the other guy as a monster so that nobody looks at me twice, despite the fact I was the one trying to kill him." mechanic, so its not something that would come up that often.
And none of the other patrons really seemed to work given how many spells Gravewalker replaces. The higher level ones are very handy, just had to work the lower level ones into the concept or risk having to basically ignore the patron completely for 3/4's of the character's lifespan.
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Yeah, but you're still enchanting an adult into "taking advantage" of a "child".
All kinds of bad mojo going on there.
With respect to patrons, Fate actually fits very well, as she relies upon it a bit too keep her alive (pretty easy to just say), but also plays with the fates of others in that she raises undead and kills the living. Sort of a self-proclaimed master of fate.
2nd — doom, 4th — command undead, 6th — animate dead, 8th — blessing of fervor, 10th — greater forbid action, 12th — create undead, 14th — control undead, 16th — create greater undead, 18th — wish.
That leaves you with quite a nice suite of useful, and fate-flavored, spells that all contribute to the theme.
Of course, the undead stuff helps the undead stuff, but Doom gives a penalty to saves, Blessing of Fervor can be fluffed as you giving "good" fate to the targets, Forbid Action, Greater can be used to alter people's immediate future, and Wish is just plain ole' goodness.
Eh, I personally don't see it as a problem since its getting used on people who already had that intention in the first place, hence why there's no moral qualms of killing them and raising them as undead, but I can concede that there are people out there that would consider it to be a trigger.
I don't see Fate on the wiki list, but Potents could work.
Ill-Omen as the 2nd level spell makes them reroll and take the lower roll, with more dice rolled as it levels. Would free up the Misfortune Hex. Divination is always useful, though Foresight is a waste for the build, IMO.
Spirits could work as well, but neither of them really give the build synergy offered by Dominate.
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Yeah, I've said all I need to on the flavor of it.
As for the patron, I just use Archives of Nethys. It's much more complete, and is allowed to use Golarion-specific names for things.
I realized this may be a problem when I discovered that the Fate patron comes from the last book of Reign of Winter.
(This is definitely for a really Evil villain build.)
This build will have plenty of need for feats other than Childlike and Pass for Human (all the ones that have "Jinx" in them require the Halfling Jinx alternate racial trait in addition to the requirements listed):
Must-Haves
Area Jinx (requires Widen Spell)
Childlike (by definition in the specification of this build)
Jinxed Spell (requires 2 Metamagic Feats, and really needs Area Jinx for full effect)
Persistent Spell or Piercing Spell (required for Jinxed Spell, and expect to use it a lot to make sure that things fail their Saves)
Sluggish Jinx
Widen Spell (not to actually use it much, but needed for Area Jinx and Jinxed Spell; technically no prerequisite, but impractical if not high enough level to use it on spells of at least 1st level)
Optional
Accursed Hex (not needed for one of the other things, but useful if something makes their Save against a Hex; can be partially substituted by the spell Hex Vulnerability)
Arcane Jinxer (Witch is a bit short on spell slots to sacrifice for this, but still profitable to have in reserve against something really tough, and in a pinch could be used as an alternative to Bolster Jinx if really short on feats, which tends to be the case for this build)
Bolster Jinx (requires Great Fortitude, Iron Will, or Lightning Reflexes, but for best effect really should have all 3)
Great Fortitude, Iron Will, or Lightning Reflexes (at least 1 of these required for Bolster Jinx)
Quicken Spell (not required for any of the other feats, but important when it is necessary to apply debuffs FAST)
Worst Case Jinx (Sluggish Jinx has more of an up-front impact)
Not Recommended
Distant Jinx (doesn't have enough effect to be worthwhile, especially for taking multiple ranks of this)
Fascination Jinx (requires Bardic Performance, and this build can't afford to go VMC Bard)
Jinx Alchemy (requires Swift Alchemy, and this build can't afford the 3 level Alchemist dip)
Versatile Jinxer (requires Iron Will, and for a build that was going to dump Charisma, this would be good, but this build needs some Charisma to work anyway -- otherwise Bluff doesn't work)
So the Must-Haves already count up to 7 feats (8 if getting both Persistent Spell and Piercing Spell, although if getting both, consider Spell Penetration instead of Piercing Spell, to save on Metamagic cost).
My only comment (aside from what's already been said): Just don't try to deceive your partymembers. They're probably not going to take you along if they really think you're a kid.
My only comment (aside from what's already been said): Just don't try to deceive your partymembers. They're probably not going to take you along if they really think you're a kid.
Well no, of course not. Trying to hide something like that from the party is always a good way to screw things up.
(This is definitely for a really Evil villain build.)
This build will have plenty of need for feats other than Childlike and Pass for Human (all the ones that have "Jinx" in them require the Halfling Jinx alternate racial trait in addition to the requirements listed):
Must-Haves
Area Jinx (requires Widen Spell)
Childlike (by definition in the specification of this build)
Jinxed Spell (requires 2 Metamagic Feats, and really needs Area Jinx for full effect)
Persistent Spell or Piercing Spell (required for Jinxed Spell, and expect to use it a lot to make sure that things fail their Saves)
Sluggish Jinx
Widen Spell (not to actually use it much, but needed for Area Jinx and Jinxed Spell; technically no prerequisite, but impractical if not high enough level to use it on spells of at least 1st level)
Ooh, I never even thought about those (I think I remember skimming over them once long ago and went "When am I ever going to play a halfling spellcaster?" and promptly forgot they existed), but those work really well here.
I've also been looking at Spell Hex (Hypnotism) because Hypnotism is already the single most overpowered low level spell in the game, and giving it a scaling DC and the inability to be identified by a spellcraft check would make it absolutely monsterous.
For those that haven't figured out why, go read the spell real quick.
Seems pretty straighforwards, doesn't it? Check again, specifically this line:
While the subject is fascinated by this spell, it reacts as though it were two steps more friendly in attitude.
Combined with this line:
Even after the spell ends, the creature retains its new attitude toward you, but only with respect to that particular request.
There is no named bonus to their attitude, it just flat out says that when you cast it they become 2 steps more friendly, and that this new attitude stays in place after the spell ends. Which means it stacks with itself.
It permanently changes their opinion with no lingering magical effects that can be dispelled.
You can brainwash entire cities with this spell. And as a Hex with no components and no easy way to identify what you're doing? Hell yeah.
She'd only need to be able to fool people long enough to get a few Hypnotism castings out of the way on them to reprogram them into being Helpful (shame Pathfinder doesn't have Fanatical like D&D did) in believing that she is who she pretends to be. At which point they would actively resist the idea that she's anything other than what she pretends to be and would stop making checks against her completely.
Yes, Hypnotism is powerful and should probably be level-bumped (although that would require adjusting the HD limit so that it doesn't become useless). But keep in mind that since the wording of the spell says that the improvement in attitude is only with respect to the one request made within the Hypnotism spell duration, it would be hard to get effects to stack for more than that request (assuming that you made the same request in multiple castings before fulfillment of the request came due, and even then a GM might reasonably rule that the effects don't stack since it is the same spell), and it would come down to a battle of Infernal wits between the player and GM to find loopholes in the other's ideas of how this should work.