This was an idea I had a couple of years ago but ended up scrapping it because.....well white haired witch is like 100% garbage. The theme was cool, choke people out with your hair. fun stuff. It involved like 3 Levels of White Haired Witch, i think and then the rest in Brawler. unfortunately, because White Haired Witch doesn't get their Int to anything useful, its just garbage.
My question though now is: How do I make it NOT garbage?
2 levels of WHW is enough for the Constrict ability, which let's you qualify for Final Embrace.
Final Embrace (Combat):
Your coils are particularly deadly, allowing you to constrict opponents of your size or smaller.
Prerequisite: Str 13, Int 3; naga, serpentfolk, or creature that has the constrict special attack; base attack bonus +3.
Benefit: You gain the constrict and grab special attacks. Your constrict attack deals damage equal to your unarmed strike or primary natural weapon melee attack. Further, you can grab and constrict opponents up to your size.
Normal: You can grab and constrict creatures one size smaller than you.
(Don't forget the +4 to Grapple checks from the grab ability.)
Class Features:
Martial Flexibility
Practiced Strangler
+2d6 SA
Witch Spells
White Hair Natural Attack
Witch familiar.
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I'd then take 2 levels of Constable Cavalier in the Order of the Penitent to Tie Up people without the -10 penalty.
Expert Captor (Ex):
At 2nd level, as long as he has rope, the cavalier can tie up a grappled opponent, even if the opponent is not pinned, otherwise restrained, or unconscious, and he does not take the usual –10 penalty on his combat maneuver check to do so. When determining the DC to escape bonds secured by the cavalier, the cavalier's Combat Maneuver Bonus increases by 1/2 his cavalier level.
You'd get Heavy Armor Proficiency, a Teamwork Feat, IUS (which means you can retrain Dirty Fighting) and +1 to Grapple.
Then you could set up a combat perimeter with Enlarge Person*.
So when an enemy approaches you'll get an AoO, then a free grapple attempt (from the Grab ability). Then at your turn there is a grappled enemy next to you, which you can tie up.
*I used an Cracked Vibrant Purple Prism to avoid ASFC.
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The important part is to make those two levels of witch really count.
The king crab familiar would give you +2 to Grapple Attempts. A good choice. Or you could improve your will save even more.
The spell list is decent, with Enlarge Person being a clear winner. Keep your Int at 12 and you'll have three 1st level spells per day.
Being a Half-Elf (or human with racial heritage) and taking the Bonded Witch Archetype would switch out your familiar for a bonded item. If you then have the trait Magical Knack to raise your CL you can start crafting on an amulet at level 3. If you go the Unarmed Attack route this would halve the cost of the Amulet of Mighty Fists.
For starters, forget about Final Embrace. This is for 4 reasons.
1. The White Haired Witch's Constrict Ability does not, I'm pretty sure, make you "a creature with the Constrict Special Attack." So, it would not serve as a prerequisite for Final Embrace.
2. You don't really need it. White Haired Witches' Grab-like ability already works on any creature regardless of Size, and so does the WHW Constrict.
3. If you are going Expert Captor, inflicting lots of damage need not be your thing anyway. Don't even bother with Constrict. Just Tie Up your opponents.
4. If you really want to inflict lots of Damage with Grappling, then just wear Armor with Armor Spikes. Then you will do Armor Spike Damage with every Grapple Attack.
You could invest in Anaconda Coils, which gives you Constrict.
you could set up a combat perimeter with Enlarge Person*.
So when an enemy approaches you'll get an AoO, then a free grapple attempt (from the Grab ability). Then at your turn there is a grappled enemy next to you, which you can tie up.
Clever.
Technically, the White Haired Witch's Free Grapple Attack is not the Grab Ability, but your idea words. It's a good idea.
In a few ways, the WHW ability is better than Grab. Grab has a Size limit on the Free Grapple Attack; White Hair doesn't. With White Hair, your victim is Grappled, and you aren't. With Grab, that's only the case if you take a -20 on your Grapple Check and somehow succeed. Grab gives you a +4 on Grapple Checks, and White Hair doesn't. So go ahead and take some levels in Alchemist and grow a Tentacle, and get Grab and your +4 that way.
For starters, forget about Final Embrace. This is for 4 reasons.
1. The White Haired Witch's Constrict Ability does not, I'm pretty sure, make you "a creature with the Constrict Special Attack." So, it would not serve as a prerequisite for Final Embrace.
2. You don't really need it. White Haired Witches' Grab-like ability already works on any creature regardless of Size, and so does the WHW Constrict.
@1
Using WHW to fulfill the prerequisites for Final Embrace is a pretty common trick. It's probably brought up at least once in every thread about WHWs.
@2
While it is true that WHW's hair doesn't have any size limitation, a great disadvantage of WHW is that your Attack and CMB are derived from different abilities.
Taking Final Embrace grants you the Grab/Constrict Special Abilities, without placing a limitation on it. You take Final Embrace to get Grab on your Unarmed Strikes; using strength for both your attack and CMB.
Yeah, apparently there's been an errata (Thanks, avr). Unfortunately for me neither ArchivesofNethys or d20pfsrd have updated their information on that particular feat.
The trouble is that Final Embrace was intended to be monster-only and the errata to UC made it 'constrict as a racial ability' only. Check page 5 of that errata.
I had been thinking you might put something together cool with Maneuver Master Monk.
With Flurry of Maneuvers, you can get a free Grapple Attack as part of a Full Attack Action. So, once you have Expert Captor, get a Full Attack that includes White Hair. Then get Expert Captor, then get your Flurry of Maneuvers.
So, lets say you are a Tengu with a Bite and 2 Claws.
1 Cavalier1, Coordinated Maneuvers
2C1Monk1: Flurry of Maneuvers, Improved Grapple
3C2M1: Expert Captor, Feat
4C2M1Witch1: White Hair
The problem here is the BAB of only +2 at level 4, but if the character gets by this rough patch, the BAB will grow fast.
I was thinking of something else. This is a wicked thought. There's no limit as to how many opponents you can be Grappling in your White Hair (or any limit as to how many opponents you can be Grappling at all, for that matter. So, I'm thinking, take Great Cleave.
I was thinking, though, that a more well-rounded approach might be better.
Human
1Ranger1: Freebooter's Bane, Power Attack, Cleave, BAB+1
2R2: Precise Shot, BAB+2
A PFS character like this would be able to acquire a Wand of Lead Blades, wielding a Greatsword or Earthbreaker that will do 3d6 Base Damage, a Wand of Gravity Bow, arrows that do 2d6, and a Wand of Cure Light Wounds: strong Melee, strong Ranged, party healer.
So, this character is just Cleaving with a Greatsword or Eartbreaker at this point. With Broken Wing Gambit, she offers opponents a +2 Attack and Damage, and if they take it, she (and her allies) gets Attacks of Opportunity.
Her next level, she can take that level in White Haired Witch. She can Cleave with her Hair, and make those Attacks of Opportunity against her Grappled victims with her Hair: Remember she can still make Attacks of Opportunity. When your victims are grappled in your White Hair, you aren't Grappled. This is true even when all they are doing is making Grapple checks to free themselves!
Cleaving and Great Cleaving is a Standard Action. When she can take Greater Grapple, she can Great Cleave and Grapple all opponents adjacent to her as a Standard Action, then Tie Up one of them as a Move Action. The rest are subject to those Hair Attacks of Opportunity as they try to free themselves after you used Broken Wing Gambit. She might get Rapid Grappler eventually, Cleaving and Grappling as a Standard Action, Tying Up 1 as a Move Action, then Tying up a 2nd as a Swift Action.
Thinking of this as a PFS Character, there's not quite enough levels to make all this stuff happen in just 12 levels, so I was probably just going to go
7R2M2C2Fighter1: Lore Warden, Greater Grapple, BAB+6
8R2M2C2F1Alchemist1: Grenadier, Mutagens, Extracts, Bombs, Extra Bombs, Throw Anything
9R2M2C2F1A2: King Crab, Tumor Protector Familiar, Alchemal Weapon, Precise Bombs, Extra Discovery: Infusion
I was thinking that when she can, she can get Touch Injection, she can use Share Spells to put that on her Familiar. Then she can give her Familiar an Infusion of True Strike. She casts True Strike on herself as a Standard Action then Moves Up to her opponent. Next Round, she will Grapple as a Standard Action with a +20 from True Strike. Her Familiar delivers the Infusion of True Strike as a Readied Action, and then she Ties Up her opponent as a Move Action, again with that +20.
10R2M2F1A3: Bombs 2d6, Swift Alchemy
10R2M2C2F1A4: Explosive Missile,
Exploding Arrows are cool.
11R2M2C2A5: Bombs 3d6, Extra Discovery: Tentacle
Level 5 Protector Familiars Shield Other their masters. And since this is a Tumor Familiar, it gets Fast Healing 5.
These are all excellent ideas. I guess to give some better help i'll thrown in more information
Character: LvL 10
Goal In Combat: To Grapple and Nullify opponents, whether by strangling them, holding them still, or simply knocking them out. Crowd Control, even if it is 1 person, can help a lot.
Which brings up another question. If my Hair has a reach of 15 feet and i manage to grapple, because they have the Pull ability, the grappled opponent is not automatically pulled to me as in a normal grappling case correct? As in my opponent is grappled 15 feet away from me?
I'd recommend you try to go Dex-Based to get the same stat to both Attack & CMB if you choose to build a White Haired Witch. Weapon Finesse and Agile Maneuvers are therefore needed.
Can you choose to not use the WHW's int for your damage and grapple check if your strength (or dex with Agile Maneuvers) is higher?
If not the archetype is so idiotically bad that even dipping for one level of witch to strangle people will not be working since you would need to max int to try to keep up with CMD, and max another stat to try to hit.
Assuming the sane option of using str/dex like normal you could take Feral Combat Training and go Unchained Monk. Get Imp Grapple and Flurry of Hair to grab everyone next to you. Then since you're already a monk with wisdom get Kraken Style (just the first feat, the rest of the chain isn't worth it), which automatically deals bludgeoning damage equal to your wisdom mod every time you succeed at any grapple check. Also you can use stunning fist with your hair on top of grabbing people.
If you're trying to hold multiple enemies before you have the grapple feats you can just let go and flurry again. Go Cavalier and get the Greater/Swift Grappling feats so you can tie up people the next turn.
Can you choose to not use the WHW's int for your damage and grapple check if your strength (or dex with Agile Maneuvers) is higher?
If not the archetype is so idiotically bad that even dipping for one level of witch to strangle people will not be working since you would need to max int to try to keep up with CMD, and max another stat to try to hit.
You must use intelligence. That's the biggest reason why WHW builds are challenging.
White Haired Witch wrote:
In addition, whenever the hair strikes a foe, the witch can attempt to grapple that foe with her hair as a free action* without provoking an attack of opportunity, using her Intelligence modifier in place of her Strength modifier when making the combat maneuver check. When a white-haired witch grapples a foe in this way, she does not gain the grappled condition.
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Danzibe1989 wrote:
Which brings up another question. If my Hair has a reach of 15 feet and i manage to grapple, because they have the Pull ability, the grappled opponent is not automatically pulled to me as in a normal grappling case correct? As in my opponent is grappled 15 feet away from me?
That seems to be the case since the lv 6 ability would be redundant if they were automatically pulled to you.
Danzibe1989 wrote:
These are all excellent ideas. I guess to give some better help i'll thrown in more information
Must the build be PFS-legal? Are you using the unchained multiclass rules (fractional BAB/Saves)?
So, you can use White Hair to get a creature that can potential Grapple and Tie Up an opponent in a single round
I wrote:
1 Cavalier1, Coordinated Maneuvers
2C1Monk1: Flurry of Maneuvers, Improved Grapple
3C2M1: Expert Captor, Feat
4C2M1Witch1: White Hair
by level 4, I suspect this character will have problems due to its low BAB. Also, when you do a Flurry of Maneuvers, all your attacks take a -2. Plus, no armor, and that seems like a problem for a melee character.
White Hair seems like a perfectly reasonable add-on to a character build that already uses Natural Attacks: a 1 level dip in WHW gives you 1 more Natural Attack. That's always nice.
So for the first few levels, you have a strong natural Attack melee character using Feinting and Dirty Tricks to lock in Sneak Attack Damage for 2 Claws and a Bite. Then, when you get Quick, Great Dirty Trick locked in, you take your level in WHW and get a 4th natural attack. This character would acquire a Helm of the Mammoth Lord to get a 5th Natural Attack. This character gets an Unarmed Strike, too.
It seems that this character should wear Armor Spikes so the Hair Attack will also do AS Damage, which also would benefit from Sneak Attack Damage. If this character takes Hamatula Strike, the Bite and the Gore would also get the Grapple, AS and extra Sneak Attack. Taking Snake Style, means the Unarmed Strike gets in on the Act, then taking Feral Combat Training Claws means the the Claws get in on it, too. So, this will be a powerful character with several ways to lock in Sneak Attack Damage and multiply them by like 12 attacks/round.
But, while this character makes use of White Hair, it certainly doesn't emphasize it.
Also, I was thinking this build might benefit from a dip into Arcanist to take Dimensional Slide to lock in Sneak Attack Damage by Flanking, and also to Vanish and make Ranged Touch Attack vs. Flatfooted AC with Cantrips and a Wand of Scorching Ray, eventually taking the Greater Invisibility Nina Trick, so that might delay WHW longer. On the other hand, Mudball is a Witch Spell, and that might be a swell way to Blind opponents.
I was similarly thinking of a dip into WHW for a Druidzilla build. I was figuring 2 levels in Brawler, 2 in Fighter, 1 in Warpriest, and 4 in Druid, taking Martial Versatility as a Human so you can apply Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization on all your natural Attacks, regardless of the form you take: Allosaurus, Megaraptor, Quetzacouatlus, and Giant Octopus all seem cool. So, then dipping a level in White Haired Witch will give you yet another Natural Attack which seems kind of awesome. I'm not actually sure which would be better: a Huge Allosaurus or a Megaraptor with 5 natural Attacks. Plus, you can totally do that Hamatuala Strike thing with the Druidzilla, too. But again, White Hair is just an add-on, not a feature of the build.
Here's a Half-Elf (or human with racial heritage), dex-based, responsive build which revolves around getting AoOs with the hair and benefitting from the free grapple attempt.
If this character is supposed to level up, then Lunge, Rapid Grappler and Celestial Obedience (Falayna) are all good choices for feats.
The idea is simple. You and your familiar will use Intrepid Rescuer/Monkey style to get AoOs when your enemies attack you (or your familiar) in melee. Every AoO will be made with a +4 bonus from Paired Opportunist which will transfer to the free grapple attempt with your hair. Positioning is important since you both need to threaten the enemy.
The standard combat routine if you won initative would be to use Martial Flexibility, drop prone as a free action, and ready an action to tie up the first enemy you grapple. (And for your familiar to get in position)
Positioning and tactics:
E=Enemy
X=You
O=Familiar
1.The enemy is medium sized and attacks you from the front.
E
XO
He'll provoke an AoO for attacking you, which your Small sized Familiar gets. This in turn grants you an AoO from Paired Opportunist.
2.The enemy is medium sized and attacks you from the side.
EXO
(or)
E
-XO
Your Familiar would need to use Lunge to be able to take the AoO.
3.The enemy has reach and attacks you from the front.
E
-
XO
You'd both need to use Lunge to get the AoOs.
4.The enemy has reach and attacks you from the side.
E-XO
This could be circumvented by casting Long Arm on your familiar so that you both threaten.
Assuming you start with 62,000 gp, you could easily afford a +2/+3 AoMF with the Caster Level trick as a Half-Elf.
+2/+4 Dex belt would be great.
Dusty Ioun Rose Prism in a Wayfinder will give you +1 Insight bonus to AC, and +2 Insight bonus to CMB/CMD. -5,500 gp
Gauntlets of the Skilled Manuever, +2 to Grapple. -4,000 gp
All in all, you'd land at around +31 to your AoO Grapple attempt, whereas the average CMD for CR 10 monsters is around 32. Your CMD against grapples would be almost the same as your CMB.
Normal Grapple attempt: +27
Grapple attempt when the enemy is already grappled: +27, but the enemy have a -2 penalty to their CMD due to lowered dex.
Don't forget to buy a shield for easy AC. Since you're using the hair for all attacks, you don't need your hands.
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The one point I'm uncertain on is the interaction between White Hair and Agile Maneuvers. Both of them replaces Strength as the CMB stat, but if White Hair has priority then you'd lose quite a lot of CMB since Int should stay at around 12.
In regards to the idea: No this has nothing to do with PFS sanctioned games. Its a home game, and my DM does not like PFS games. This is also not for any current game, i'm just bouncing ideas around.
You must use intelligence. That's the biggest reason why WHW builds are challenging.
Ah, indeed! I suspect the incompetent design of making the grapple use int and everything about the archetype use str makes it literally unplayable.
Scott Wilhelm wrote:
So, you can use White Hair to get a creature that can potential Grapple and Tie Up an opponent in a single round
I wrote:
1 Cavalier1, Coordinated Maneuvers
2C1Monk1: Flurry of Maneuvers, Improved Grapple
3C2M1: Expert Captor, Feat
4C2M1Witch1: White Hair
by level 4, I suspect this character will have problems due to its low BAB. Also, when you do a Flurry of Maneuvers, all your attacks take a -2. Plus, no armor, and that seems like a problem for a melee character.
I just realized another potential problem with maneuver master: the WHW hair grabs things by attacking, not performing an actual grapple maneuver.
"When a white-haired witch grapples a foe in this way, she does not gain the grappled condition."
Since the archetype is based around incredibly stupid limitations you probably can not actually free grapple things with your hair unless you attack them with your hair. So without a way to make multiple attacks with it you can only grab one person per turn with your hair. Using a combat maneuver is exactly the same as if you weren't a WHW at all.
Ok, here is a different proposal:
Do not take the WHW archetype. Instead be a normal Witch and take Prehensile hair as your first hex. Now you can leave your strength at 10 because the hex was not written and errata'd by idiots. You take the Evil Eye hex for your second hex and use it to drop people's attack and thus their CMB/D so you can grapple better than the WHW. Your third hex is Flight, and at Witch level 5 you learn the Strangling Hair spell. Then you take a level of Unmonk and three levels of Strangler Brawler so that at level 9 you get Greater Grapple.
Game plan: You cast Strangling Hair to start strangling one person, then fly 10 feet over another person and use your Prehensile Hair to try to start strangling them. When you hit level 9 and get Great Grappling you can hover there strangling two people and keep hexing people with your Evil Eye.
Magical Knack Trait
1 Witch 1: Spell Focus Transmutation, Prehensile Hair hex
2 Strangler 1: your hair does 2d6+int damage on maintaing a grapple
3 Witch 2: Mage's/Varisian Tattoo (+1 caster level for Transmutation spells)
4-5 Witch 3-4: Spell Specialization: Strangling Hair, Flight hex
6 Witch 5: Actually get Strangling Hair and flying
7 UnMonk 1: +1 bab and Improved Grapple (strangler doesn't get IUS so you need to Monk), any Metamagic feat
8 Strangler 2: bonus combat feat= Weapon Focus Grappling!
9 Strangler 3: Greater Grapple, +1 grapple from Maneuver Training
10-11 Witch 6-7: any metamagic feat
12-13 Witch 8-9: Dazing Spell
14-15 Witch 10-11: Spell Perfection Strangling Hair - now you can apply Dazing to SH without increasing the level and when you strangle someone they get dazed for three turns if they fail a will save. Don't forget SP doubles your other feats' bonuses to SH.
Strangling Hair uses caster level in place of BAB, so the CL boosts will put it at (your level +1) at level 9. It makes grapple checks and uses your unarmed damage if it's higher than 1d6, so you should get your Strangler damage bonus and grapple bonuses. Your Hair Hex uses your BAB so it's not as good, but still uses your intelligence in place of strength for everything. A monk's robe will take your unarmed damage (which you can use instead of your hair damage maintaining a grapple) up to 1d10. Silken armor of Brawling gives you another +2 to grapple. You are better than the WHW at strangling people with your hair and have actual Witch Hexes.
