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So I'm sure a huge group of you out there are fans of the Witcher series (whether the games or the books) and I've seen plenty of discussions on how to build a witcher-esque character with the existing Pathfinder rules. These attempts, while close, never quite seemed to hit the mark and one was always sacrificing one part of the witcher's kit in order to play one; no class combinations seemed to do the witcher justice.
I thought to myself, "Well, hell with that! I'll just make my own." So here we are, after about a week of work, I've got a first draft that I'd love you good folks to take a look at. You all helped quite a bit on the last few homebrew classes I posted, and I would love to get that sort of feedback on this one.
I tried to leave out any actual key witcher words or phrases as to make this fall into Pathfinder without any overtly franchise specific terminology. (Sigils are witcher signs obviously). I also didn't include abilities that seemed to be more inherent to the witchers as a "race" and not their training (like their witcher senses).
Anyways, looking forward to the feedback and I hope folks enjoy the class.
Monster Hunter
Alignment: always neutral. What happens if a Monster Hunter becomes LG or CE?
School of the Viper counts monster hunter levels +1 as rogue levels for sneak attack? Um, what?
A few of those sigils are much, much more powerful than others. Water lets you get a bunch of minions (from 3rd level!), Sun is Just Say No to a great deal of magic. I think both of those should be nerfed a bit. Air >> Fire as well, one of those should change.
How many uses/day do they get of sigils?
The school capstones should be under the schools for clarity.
It does look good overall IMO.
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Alignment: always neutral. What happens if a Monster Hunter becomes LG or CE?
School of the Viper counts monster hunter levels +1 as rogue levels for sneak attack? Um, what?
A few of those sigils are much, much more powerful than others. Water lets you get a bunch of minions (from 3rd level!), Sun is Just Say No to a great deal of magic. I think both of those should be nerfed a bit. Air >> Fire as well, one of those should change.
How many uses/day do they get of sigils?
The school capstones should be under the schools for clarity.
It does look good overall IMO.
I suppose I should say "usually", I could also remove the alignment restriction (never been much of a fan of them in the first place), it's mainly in there to keep with the witcher theme. Totally not necessary though.
The school of the viper is a typo. Supposed to be 1/2 monster hunter levels + 1.
As for the sigils, they were modeled a bit on witch hexes and so I was leaving them as unlimited use. (could be limited to a number of times equal to Wis mod). I could remove charm monster from the Water Sigil and I think that could make it a bit more balanced. Either way, it's not going to create "minions" per se, as the charm spells don't give you perfect or direct control. They're just friendly.
I'll change the Sun Sigil to lesse globe of invulnerability. I could remove the immediate action part but this is supposed to be an offhanded reference in the books to one of the first moment Geralt meets Yennefer (he uses the Heliotrop Sign, the one the Sun Sigil is based off of, to block a blast she casts at him at the last second) it's powerful, but not broken.
Air and Fire are the Aard and Igni Signs from the books/games and so I'll likely keep them and modeling them after the spells seemed most convenient.
I'll update the document with those revisions in mind.
Thanks for the help!
I still disagree that the Sun sigil isn't broken. Reducing it from immunity to spells of 4th level or lower to immunity to spells of 3rd level or lower doesn't change much. There are other mechanisms available to represent such things from spell resistance to save bonuses to deflecting rays as per the Smash from the Air feat. Absolute immunity for an immediate action is a bit over the top.
Starting at 12th level, a monster hunter of the Griffin School is able to apply any meta-magic feats he may posess to his sigils. Any time a meta-magic feat would raise a sigil's effective spell level, the activation of that sigil consumes additional daily uses of his sigils equal to the number of spell levels raised. All other restrictions inherent to the meta-magic feat used still apply.
This requires that sigils have daily uses of some kind.
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I'll work on the Sun Sigil a bit more. I see what you're getting at, I'm still not too worried about it, but I'll give it some more work.
Dang. That school ability is from the original plan to have them with a limited use per day. Thanks for pointing that out! I changed the plans and likely forgot to update it.
Yeesh, what would I do without all you folks?
Thanks again!
There is also the fact that Bear school gives you Stalwart again at 12, is that supposed to be Improved Stalwart instead?
As for being neutral, it has been brought up/lampshaded that it is more supposed to be 'Stay out of politics/don't take assassinations' This has been ignored outright by the Viper school and even Geralt can get in on it in the third game. It is more of a guideline which means less and less since Witchers are dying out.
I'm just starting to skim this so I don't have any particular feedback yet, but I've been wanting to see a Witcher type of character in Pathfinder and this looks like it is well done in executing the concept from the little I see so far.
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I'm just starting to skim this so I don't have any particular feedback yet, but I've been wanting to see a Witcher type of character in Pathfinder and this looks like it is well done in executing the concept from the little I see so far.
Thanks, I really tried to make it feel like Pathfinder while still hitting that witcher-esque note.
Did you get a chance to look it over more?
I'm just starting to skim this so I don't have any particular feedback yet, but I've been wanting to see a Witcher type of character in Pathfinder and this looks like it is well done in executing the concept from the little I see so far.Thanks, I really tried to make it feel like Pathfinder while still hitting that witcher-esque note.
Did you get a chance to look it over more?
For the most part, it seems pretty solid. I would say a couple of things though.
I worry a little bit that Focused Study of the Behemoth is too specialized or too late because of it applies to giants. Maybe that isn't really as much of a problem as I'm thinking, but I could easily see someone playing through a campaign without ever encountering a giant.
Stunning Strike from the Wolf school seems like it might be underwhelming because of how late you get it.
The one most minor quibble of them all I'd make is that the school of the Dragon doesn't make flavor sense to me in its name. I don't associate dragons with firearms.
The formulae that you have to choose from for the Alchemy abilities isn't specified. But I'm assuming it's identical to that of the Alchemist?
This might overcomplicate a class that already has a lot going for it, but it would feel a little more like the Witcher if you could somehow enhance your Sigils later on.
Part of me wishes there was some way you could have a use for "mutagens" in the way the Witcher does in the Witcher 3, I.E. extracting mutagens from specific monsters you killed in order to brew special potions or directly enhance your abilities.
Just some food for thought. Overall it seems like you did a pretty sweet job.
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I'm just starting to skim this so I don't have any particular feedback yet, but I've been wanting to see a Witcher type of character in Pathfinder and this looks like it is well done in executing the concept from the little I see so far.Thanks, I really tried to make it feel like Pathfinder while still hitting that witcher-esque note.
Did you get a chance to look it over more?For the most part, it seems pretty solid. I would say a couple of things though.
I worry a little bit that Focused Study of the Behemoth is too specialized or too late because of it applies to giants. Maybe that isn't really as much of a problem as I'm thinking, but I could easily see someone playing through a campaign without ever encountering a giant.
Stunning Strike from the Wolf school seems like it might be underwhelming because of how late you get it.
The one most minor quibble of them all I'd make is that the school of the Dragon doesn't make flavor sense to me in its name. I don't associate dragons with firearms.
The formulae that you have to choose from for the Alchemy abilities isn't specified. But I'm assuming it's identical to that of the Alchemist?
This might overcomplicate a class that already has a lot going for it, but it would feel a little more like the Witcher if you could somehow enhance your Sigils later on.
Part of me wishes there was some way you could have a use for "mutagens" in the way the Witcher does in the Witcher 3, I.E. extracting mutagens from specific monsters you killed in order to brew special potions or directly enhance your abilities.
Just some food for thought. Overall it seems like you did a pretty sweet job.
Radical. Thank you so much for the advice.
The School of the Behemoth was added because I wanted to create a few of my own schools and it seemed kinda neat to have a direct way to wield larger weapons outside using an archetype. I'll definitely spend some more time with the abilities the School gets (and probably the rest of the schools as well) just to polish it up. (Wolf School's Stunning Strike included)
I like the flavor of the Dragon School using firearms. Guns outclass other weapons in so many ways, and they deliberately rely on "fire" to make them work. Sounds dragon-ish. It works in my eyes. It was also the only interesting way to include a "dragon" school without it turning out to look like the School of the Behemoth (but for dragons) or the draconic bloodline for bloodragers. Plus, the Schools never lean to heavily on the actual animal they're named after in the games/books. Just a tad.
I was playing around with ways to make the Alchemy and Mutagen features work more like the games where you get certain ones from harvesting certain creatures. I originally thought, "Oh, I'll make certain potion ingredients and mutagens based off creature type and subtypes! That'll narrow it down a bit!" But after some trial and error, I just realized it would be introducing a whole new alchemy system that I just think isn't necessary. Maybe some day I'll write a separate alchemy system that the monster hunter can use as an option. Or maybe an archetype, I dno. It would be so flavorful and cool. But in the end, I did try and make this a Paizo-esque hybrid class, and so I wanted to keep the Alchemy and Mutagen mechanics and flavor from the Alchemist. I think doing so really roots the monster hunter in being Pathfinder specific class and not just some random homebrew.
Thanks you so much for the reply and help. My homebrew material would not be nearly as good if it wasn't for everyone here helping out.
I (and my players!) thank you!