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I feel like there are enough red flags here that I would just be comfortable saying "no, play something else."
Like "incapable of communicating with the party" seems like the player wants to star in "the me show : starring me" which is enough of an issue, but "wanting to do things to the party that the party didn't agree to" is a hard pass for a PC (only GMs really get to do that).
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The problem is the player not the character. Either convince him that the game is more fun as a team game, convince the rest of the group not to include him, leave the game yourself, or prepare to suffer obnoxious behavior.
Those are really the only choices.
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So said player thinks his witch is going to ghost both a paladin and barbarian? Just let them kill him. The only way he succeeds if the GM is complicit. If he calls metagaming, let him.
Better yet, just bounce him and tell the other players you just aren't interested in running sleaze.
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Are you the the GM for the game, or just one of the players. At this point, it appears to me that this player will be a negative influence on the game. He has all the hallmarks of a player that enjoys messing with the other players and doing his own thing rather than enjoying the campaign itself. If you are the GM, I would frankly inform him that his character concept will be far too disruptive to the campaign, and he needs to modify it. Specifically, the two real dealbreakers in question to me can be fixed if the character learns Common and the player just accepts that his character will not feed others human meat; any attempt to do so will simply be ignored by GM fiat. Also warn him that putting the other PCs to sleep may earn his character's rear a beat-down once they wake up, and if he kills them, then by GM fiat it will not have happened and he is out of the group.
If you are not the GM, but most or all of the other players are in agreement with you, then it's time for you all to bring your concerns to the GM. After the game starts will be too late, and will just cause more problems. It's best to deal with it now and get the drama over with before it messes up the campaign once you're into it.
Sadly, not every player wants to have fun as part of a group; some just want to do their own thing, regardless of how many other players they ruin it for. Maybe him getting called out will make him rethink his choices, maybe not, but better to know now than later.
Good luck.
I mean, once the character gets high enough level to scan as evil (5th) the Paladin is totally within their rights to say "him or me" and if it comes down to that it seems clear how they are going to vote.
But why exactly was Petros Lorrimor pals with a weirdo who doesn't speak common, anyway? Like the GM could have put the kibosh on that concept from the get-go. Since the AP literally does require the characters to have a reason to have been invited to be pallbearers for an Ustalavic academic who lives in the middle of nowhere. So certain concepts (e.g. "I have never left Iobaria until now") need not apply.
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Yeah, I'd kick the player. Granted, I have waiting lists for most of my tables of people who want to play, so it's easy enough for me to find a replacement even locally. Each of the four problems can be done individually and be fun (I have done some of them myself), but all four points more towards an Evil NPC than a member of the party. Examples:
1. I've got two characters who technically cannot speak common and they've been pretty fun the the parties they were in.
The one was just a Tongues curse Oracle, so in combat the spirit of her past self possessed her and she could only speak Celestial. She was still the healer and fulfilled her party role though, just with the roleplaying aspect of being unable to understand the rest of the party. A few of them nabbed celestial though so they could explain to the character if something was a particularly dumb idea, or had been discussed prior to combat, since I roleplayed it like two seperate people. The combat warrior was more or less unaware of what the Oracle did when she wasn't in the driver's seat.
The second was a Kobold though he was more or less a Wildling, using the Hinyasi Brawler archtype and playing to the savage nature of that part of the world. He often simply hissed profanities at people in Draconic and threw rocks at things. He was played incredibly anti-social and anti-society, so he didn't really take part in social situations and more just communicated with people through universal body language. Point at the bad guy, go.
So no Common can be done right, and be a little fun. If it's used as an excuse to just explicitly ignore the other players though, that's not really fun for anyone but the, forgive my generalization, troll player.
2. Again, can be done okay with the right character, though I don't really recommend it. I had a Dhampir Gunslinger who was Lawful Evil, and she made it explicitly clear to the other party members that if any of them did anything to jepordize her end goals she wouldn't hesitate to put a bullet in them. Her goal was to rescue her half-sister from prison because she felt responsible for why she got put there, so essentially nothing that would get the party arrested (because then she can't save her sister). However she was also a bounty hunter and willing to follow her contract with the party to the letter. She was an alright time, even though she was abrasive and made her threat clear (omiting the reasoning until later of course).
3. This is a joke you make once, and not at the expense of the other PCs. An Evil PC who views humans as just an animal could be an interesting character. I've git a morally gray wizard who was willing to animate undead in order to prevent try and prevent further loss of life in the party (we had a PC death just prior to finding an Animate Dead scroll as treasure, and to be clear she didn't animate the corpse of the PC because that would have been going too far). The cleric didn't like it, but it proved its worth, later saving the cleric's life. It was fun roleplaying around whether undead made with good intentions could allow their creator some forgiveness.
In the case of cook humans, it's level 10, and a deliberate choice. It could be an interesting concept as kind of a dark secret thing, like blood bending in the original avatar series. Like the character learns it from their patron and needs to make the moral choice of using the power. Like they know there's a big fight coming up and their best chance is to use every advantage, including this new ability, or risk death. It could work, this player though seems more to want it because "oooh, I can be naughty" at which point you tell them no.
4. ... I've got nothing for this one. Positive channeling doesn't really add up with the prior described abilities, including the very evil one. If they know there's a Dhampir then if they're taking Selective Channeling I believe the feat is then fine. If it's a choice just to counter another player then kick. Even my Animate Dead with a Cleric of Sarenrae in the party, for as much as it was opposed beliefs it wasn't like deliberately attacking the Cleric (and the option wasn't something deliberately picked but a moral quandary after found). Extra healing doesn't hurt any party, but yeah... Without specific building for that no... It's just more trolling.
Too many red flags. I'd be kicking the troll. Any one of these ideas could be justified as mentioned above, but all together is just an attempt to push buttons.
The Paladin can sense Evil before he is capable of hiding evil acts. As soon as he pops up on the Paladin radar, Smite, Kill, move on.
He cannot communicate with anyone selling Magic items, sucks to be him. If he sleeps the salesman and steals the item, evil act, shows up on radar, Smite, Kill, move on.
Have common be the language used in battle, he doesn't pick up on unit tactics, gets left out to dry because he is too stupid to understand common, on purpose.
Have a random city guard be an Inquisitor or Paladin that detects his bull$#!+ and kills him because he is too stupid to explain himself.
Illiterate Barbarians are a welcome addition that the party will defend in social situations.
If your f!ck!ng Witch is trying to be difficult, just make it f!ck!ng difficult for your difficult f!ck!ng Witch.
I can certainly see the positives of Scott Wilhelm's post above. But I have to go with Isaac Zephyr on this one. The player will just bring woe unto the party with his planned disruptive behavior. I will allow a player to be cross-purposes with the party but he still has to go along for the most part until his big scene comes up. But even then no PvP is allowed.
This guy is just trouble looking for trouble. Tell him to play along and cooperate as part of the overall group or hit the skids.
Whoops, a Template, or some Class Levels on the enemies to purposefully make the Witch less effective, because screw you, buddy.
Never allow his stupid Witch to succeed.
Metagame, sure... don't be a pr!ck at my table, on purpose.
Rule Zero his thorn in the side behavior obsolete.
Let him play. Nerf him. Kill him. Tell him you did it on purpose for being an @$$hole.
We had a Stryx Gunslinger VS. Party Paladin post here not too long ago.
When people pursue these avenues of character generation, they do it on purpose.
Rather than ruining the adventure for everyone else, just ruin it for the pr!ck-on-purpose.
What?
We literally just laid out the whole plan.
Why didn't you follow the plan?
It really sucks that you can't speak the same language as the rest of us...
Maybe you wouldn't have been eaten by everything we decided to sneak around.
Stealth not a Class Skill for a Witch... Sad Face...
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The GM needs to choose one of the following: one uncomfortable conversion with the player in question, or several uncomfortable sessions before the campaign implodes. So the GM needs to do the math there, find their spine and tell the bozo to cut it out or leave. Period.
OP: if you are not the GM please feel free to show them this post or quote it to them.
tl;dr: Sounds like the player is trying to be disruptive. Sit down with everyone, including the witch player, and talk about expectations and how some of these things will be role-played. And let it be known that if the character is disruptive the player will have to make a new one. If that's unacceptable with the player then they should find a different group.
The witch players plan is specifically to mess with people in a very antagonistic way.
Friction among characters is fine, purposefully antagonizing them and having them do horrible things (like eating people) is not. If I were a GM I wouldn't allow the character. If the replacement for the character was about as bad I wouldn't allow the player.
As a player, I wouldn't want to be in the game.
Not speaking common isn't the problem. I've done that in a game and everyone seemed to enjoy it because it created some difficult and some entertaining situations.
"If he actually does this, his character will inevitably die and he'll get mad." Then let him get mad.
Now, let's try to give the player the benefit of the doubt and see what could happen...
Not speaking common might be okay. But following the party around will get them noticed and I don't think the group will sleep comfortably knowing the witch is out there. Attacking might be too extreme of a measure, but setting up a watch and being sure to keep on eye on the witch makes sense. Eventually the witch will have to sleep so going through their belongs after failed communications would make sense too.
Threats: Depending on the nature of them and what the player counts as the party doing "anything against him". If he sleeps a PC in a dangerous situation the witch is then a threat to the party and they should see him as an enemy that needs to be stopped. This concern would really depend on when the player actually does it.
Feeding people to the group: No. That is horrible and why would you even pretend to do that? And if they're still willing to do it after working with the group for 10 levels it sounds like either they'll be playing out of character or they haven't been getting along with the group well enough to last for 10 levels. (Or, at the very least, didn't work with the group well enough for 10 levels for the rest to trust him enough to cook for them and that they'd be watching everything he did and therefore would see him butchering a body for meat.)
Positive Hex Channeling: Depends on when they do it. The paladin is likely taking the most damage and if, in combat, the witch starts to damage the paladin because "lulz, sucks to be you!" then, after the second time (unless it's to directly save someone else's life), the paladin has a right to fight back and defend themselves from the witch as what's to say the witch won't keep doing it?
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So said player thinks his witch is going to ghost both a paladin and barbarian? Just let them kill him.I wouldn't be too sure about that. While it's possible that the Mr. CE IRL runs his murderous character stupid, in past encounters with such mentalities, they may and often do design their character with pure inter-party slaughter in mind, and don't mind going down if they can take somebody else with them. And, they usually strike first.
Better yet, just bounce him and tell the other players you just aren't interested in running sleaze.
<thumbs up> Although I would give him a chance, and it would be as blunt as possible. I.e., "No evil characters, and by that, it has to pass the walk/quack-like-a-duck test even beyond whatever the book says. And if you behave evil, we'll assume your character is too."