My players are on the way to Fantasy China as part of their current main quest - I may have mentioned this in other threads. While looking up some details on Chinese culture, folklore and mythology for world building purposes, I came across their folk magic. One specific type of magic is Wugu - poison magic. It's a form of black magic focused on deception, curses, causing hallucinations and confusion, and harming others. Thought I'd make some stuff around it.
If anybody wants to offer some advice - specifically on the archetype, feel free.
Wugu Beast
CR 6
XP 2,400
NE diminutive outsider (evil, native)
Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft., detect good, detect magic; Perception +7
DEFENSE
AC 18, touch 18, flat-footed 14 (+3 Dex, +1 dodge, +4 size)
hp 30 (4d10+8);
Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +1
Defensive Abilities DR 5/good or jade; Immune Acid, poison; Resist fire 10, cold 10; Natural Invisibility
OFFENSE
Speed 5 ft., fly 50 ft. (perfect)
Melee sting or bite +11 (1d4-3 plus poison)
Space 1 ft.; Reach 0 ft.
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 7th, Concentration +9)
Constant—detect good, detect magic
1/day—augury
1/week—bestow curse (16)
STATISTICS
Str 4, Dex 17, Con 14, Int 6, Wis 10, Cha 4
Base Atk +4; CMB -7; CMD 18
Feats Dodge, Weapon Finesse (sting or bite), Improved Natural Attack (sting or bite)
Skills Fly +11, Knowledge (arcana) +5, Knowledge (planes) +5, Perception +7, Sense Motive +7, Stealth +18; Racial Modifiers Fly +8, Stealth +12
Languages Common (cannot speak)
SQ Poison Magic
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Poison (Ex)
Sting—injury; save Fort DC 16; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d2 con; cure 1 save. The save DC is Constitution-based, and includes a +2 racial bonus.
At its option, a wugu beast can forgo using its normal poison and instead use its bestow curse spell like ability.
Natural Invisibility (Su)
A wugu beast remains invisible even while attacking. This ability is constant, but the wugu beast can suppress it as a free action.
Poison Magic (Su)
A wugu beasts’s powers come from the poison it absorbs from its grisley feeding. Its primary spellcasting score is constitution and it must sting someone to inject a spell it casts into them.
Familiar Service
Wugu beasts are created through a year-long evil ritual. A caster wishing to summon one must gather one each of the five noxious animals (toad, scorpion, centipede, spider, snake) and put them into a sealed wicker basket until all but one of the animals has been killed and devoured. Once only one of the animals remains, the caster must gather 4 more of the noxious animals (one each of the types that did not survive) and add them to the basket again. This process must be repeated for a year. Once this has been completed, the caster performs the familiar summoning ritual as normal, transforming the final surviving animal into a wugu beast.
Wugu beasts are evil spirits of poison and corruption created by evil spellcasters. It takes a form that is an amalgamation of the five noxious animals used in its creation. No two wugu beasts look alike, though they all have some means of delivering their poison, either through a stinger, or through venomous fangs.
Wugu beasts are small, frail, and mentally weak, but make up for this frailty with their natural invisibility and their resistance to physical damage sources. However, as evil spirits, they are weak to both good-aligned weapons and jade. Wugu beasts hate jade and shy away from any object made from it, or any person wearing jade on their person.
Although summoned to be familiars for wugu witches, sometimes foolish or impatient witches try to summon one before they are powerful enough to control it, causing the beast to break free and go off on its own (usually after cursing the one who attempted to summon it). Such beasts travel the world spreading curses and causing misfortune wherever they go.
A wugu beast must devour a noxious animal once per month to maintain its powers. If its master forgets to feed it, or if it cannot find food on its own, it gains one negative level until it feeds again. If its total negative levels exceeds its hit dice, the body dies and the evil spirit is banished back to the spirit world.
Wugu Witch Archetype
Patrons - Must choose deception, enchantment, insanity, or revenge as a patron
Black Spellcasting
Wugu is the blackest of black magic and cannot be easily be turned for a good purpose. Any spell that heals, buffs, or in some way aids another creature or herself takes two spell slots to prepare. However, a wugu witch gains one additional spell slot that can be used to prepare a harmful spell. A wugu witch also may not take any hex that helps or aids another and must focus on harmful hexes. This ability replaces the witch’s familiar.
Poison Use
Wugu witches are skilled in the use of poisons. At the first level, they gain the ability to apply poisons without risk of poisoning themselves and a +2 resistance on saves against poisons. This replaces the witch’s first level hex. At the 10th level, the resistance bonus increases to +4.
Wugu Beast Familiar
At the fourth level, a wugu witch gains a wugu beast familiar as if it had taken the Improved Familiar feat. At the tenth level, the wugu witch gains the ability to cast one spell upon its familiar once per week. This spell replaces the wugu beast’s bestow curse spell-like ability until the witch casts a new spell into it. The first time the wugu beast uses this new spell-like ability, it uses the wugu witch’s intelligence score to determine the DC; thereafter, it reverts to using its constitution score.
This replaces the witch’s fourth level Hex and tenth level major hex
Thinking I might need to reword the Black Spellcasting thing a bit. "in any way helps" is waaaaaaaaaay too vague and restrictive. Maybe I should just leave it at healing and buffing? As in healing damage or granting statistical bonuses? I don't want to take away the ability to use divination spells (because divination is all over every kind of Chinese folk magic), and there are plenty of witch spells that don't heal or buff, but are just general utility (Like message, or spells with similar effects). If anybody can help me come up with some more specific guidelines, that'd be great. I still want this variant to be extremely focused on causing harm over doing anything helpful, because it's POISON magic.
Making some changes again, I think. Natural Invisibililty is a hell of a thing, so I'm gonna bump the wugu beast familiar up to 6th level.
Wugu witches still prepare spells as normal for witches, but since they don't get their familiar until sixth level, I should explain that their studies of poisons and the will to use them for evil magic draws the evil spirits that become wugu beasts, who teach the witch spells until they become powerful enough to actually create the familiar body for them. Also, I'm going to specify that the spell you can cast into the familiar to change its once a week spell-like ability must be of a level three below the highest level you can cast.
Also, for black spellcasting, I'm going to specify that "Helpful spells," which require two spell-slots to prepare, means any spell that heals damage, removes negative conditions, or that grants a numerical stat bonus to them in some way. "Harmful spells" for the bonus spell-slot are the opposite, causing damage, bestowing negative conditions, or imposing numerical stat penalties. Spells that don't do either of these things are neutral and don't count either way.
I keep bumping this thread, but now that I've actually finished building a character out of this, the witch spell list is way more restrictive with this build than I thought. So, the spell list needs reworking a bit for it. For starters, gonna add some more illusions - major image and programmed image for one. For a style of magic that's supposed to be strong in causing hallucinations, it needs more illusions. When I get more time, I'll have to sit down and go over all the spell lists and see what else to add that looks good. I'll be playtesting this class as the NPC who's got the maps and notes the characters are looking for as a part of their main quest, so we'll see just how well it plays then.
If anybody else has any suggestions, I'm still open.
I like the idea. I have mostly looked at the witch archetype as I love witches.
The execution of the idea looks a bit like a first draft however.
"Black Spellcasting
Wugu is the blackest of black magic and cannot be easily be turned for a good purpose. Any spell that heals, buffs, or in some way aids another creature or herself takes two spell slots to prepare. However, a wugu witch gains one additional spell slot that can be used to prepare a harmful spell. A wugu witch also may not take any hex that helps or aids another and must focus on harmful hexes. This ability replaces the witch’s familiar."
An extra spell a level is an awful lot of extra power, I will get back to this later.
You take away the familiar then -
"Wugu Beast Familiar
At the fourth level, a wugu witch gains a wugu beast familiar as if it had taken the Improved Familiar feat. At the tenth level, the wugu witch gains the ability to cast one spell upon its familiar once per week. This spell replaces the wugu beast’s bestow curse spell-like ability until the witch casts a new spell into it. The first time the wugu beast uses this new spell-like ability, it uses the wugu witch’s intelligence score to determine the DC; thereafter, it reverts to using its constitution score.
This replaces the witch’s fourth level Hex and tenth level major hex"
Technically, you can't take improved familiar as you don't have a familiar. I suggest you leave the archetype with the familiar at level 1, which means the witches spells can work like other witches and then get improved familiar at level 4.
As to black spellcasting, you can just remove the healing and similar spells from the spell list for the archetype and add some illusions. That balances out.
Instead of the massive extra spell level/day you can either remove the advantage altogether or do something more modest, like you can increase the save for one spell/ day for each point of int mod you have by +1 for 5 witch levels.
And shouldn't you have to be evil for this archetype.
Joynt Jezebel wrote: Stuff Well, I suppose I could change the familiar restriction to just one of the five noxious animals (toad, snake, scorpion, spider, centipede) at the first level, so it mechanically works better with the improved familiar feat.
You say you shouldn't have to be evil and I don't technically require that for the archetype, but the style of magic is very suggestive of others. Part of the style of magic involves the torture of living creatures just for your own benefit, and it's all about using poisons to harm others. You could, in theory, be neutral and still qualify (though it's hard to justify a good caster being willing to do this sort of stuff), but there's definitely a strong tendency towards one direction on the good/evil axis.
The new creature and the archetype are interesting but there are a number of things that stand out for me as potential issues.
Wagu Beast:
Poison Magic (Su)- This ability itself presents several issues. First, the only precedent for the use of constitution as a casting stat that I can think of was the scarred witch doctor(witch) before it was received an errata. There was good cause for this errata. Second, the fact that in order to deliver a spell it casts, the wagu beast must succeed at stinging a target is a notable tax, but not one that negates the presence of constitution based casting. Third, making this ability supernatural is odd as most abilities that relate to altering the basic functions of mechanics are not listed with a type or are listed as Ex.
Natural Invisibility (Su):This is a rather strong ability on any creature, notably on one that is intended to be a familiar. This is the case even for a familiar that can be gained only as a 6th lvl or higher improved familiar. Why not "At will—invisibility (self only)" as a spell-like ability, like the imp?
Wugu Witch Archetype:
As written this archetype can not prepare spells until it gains its wagu beast familiar. I do see that you propose a fix:
"I should explain that their studies of poisons and the will to use them for evil magic draws the evil spirits that become wugu beasts, who teach the witch spells until they become powerful enough to actually create the familiar body for them".
This makes them seem like an odd pseudo-divine prepared caster. This also removes at low levels the class' most notable point of vulnerability, their reliance on a familiar for their spells. Aside from this, what about getting additional spells from another witch's familiar?
Black Spellcasting- This is a flavorful ability, but the wording seem slightly too subjective. For example, Harrowing is a spell that is helpful, harmful, or both depending on how the card draws. There are some other spells that are helpful or harmful depending on circumstances such as the inflict x wounds/cure x wounds spells. As for the restriction on hexes, same story. The cauldron hex for example,can be helpful or harmful to other creatures depending on how its used, and could be be used excursively for one or the other. Your clarification does not seem get around this issue.
Is this ability indented to gain only one additional spell slot for a "harmful" spell total, or one of each level the witch could cast? In the case of the former, of what level? In the case of the latter, this would be much to strong, especially relative to what is given up. Perhaps, something similar to the limited spontaneous casting possessed by clerics and druids would be more reasonable?
Wugu Beast Familiar- The class gains black spellcasting at the expense of losing a familiar. This ability undermines that exchange. You could perhaps have this ability grant a familiar(Wugu Beast) at 6th level with the familiar abilities calculated as its master's witch level -5. Or have Black spellcasting be gained later in exchange for 1 or more of the witch's hexes.
"At the tenth level, the wugu witch gains the ability to cast one spell upon its familiar once per week." Is this meant to function like a limited/specialized form of "Imbue With Spell Ability"?
Awun wrote: stuff A lot of these are decent suggestions I could go with.
Poison Magic - I could in theory just bump the beast's charisma score to make its spell-like ability viable that way, but I like the idea that it's injecting spells through its poison rather than casting them. What if I added the spell-effect working like a poison in that it could also be cured by "Remove Poison" or a magical/alchemical antidote and that bonuses against poison apply to the save? I was already thinking of adding that anyway, but since I'm finally getting some discussion on that, I guess I can ask what people think of that.
Familiar and Natural Invisibility - The balance point is one I've been thinking on. I don't know why I didn't add in the point about the familiar being caster level -5. It's how I factored it when I actually made an NPC with this. Maybe I was assuming it worked that way automatically? I don't know.
As for invisibility as an at will power, I guess that could work. I was thinking of these things as spirits. I went with natural invisibility on the idea that it's visible only on its terms. To go with an at-will power means it has to keep casting on itself, which it would have to do because in the setting, it is hugely illegal to create these beasts (penalty of death). I suppose we could just consider that part of the risk of having one within the setting.
As for the imbue with spell ability, I suppose it's like that. I just liked the idea that caster could change what spell power it's 1/week ability was at high enough level. Giving you an option to tailor your beast to your liking.
And I did suggest in a later post I could change it so the familiar selection was limited to one of the 5 noxious beasts (scorpion, spider, snake, toad, centipede) at the first-6th level.
Black Spellcasting - Yeah, see this is the one that's the most bothersome. I didn't want to have to come up with a new spell list (because that's super tedious work), but I can't seem to come up with something that fits what I have in mind that ISN'T too subjective. I mean, it's fine if the only ones doing it are NPCs, because I just pick to prepare spells that I want them to have, but my players are liking the whole fantasy China setting and want to do their next campaign there, so they may have playing this class as an option. So, now I gotta come up with something that's clear.
Frankly, I'm stumped. I like the idea of the class being heavily focused on magic that harms, but no matter what way of wording it I come up with, it just leaves too many problems. And the extra harmful spell per level does not seem to counterbalance them having to expend two extra slots to prepare a helpful spell, even if you could find a clear way to word it.
What other possibilities do we have? I've already been altering the material components required for the spells to all be centered around poisons extracted from plants an animals, but that's just flavor, not mechanics.
You suggest limited spontaneous casting. Something like that might work, but how to frame it?
How about this as an idea? Instead of black spellcasting, we call it Poison Spellcasting. The caster is drawing their magic from poisons, so they are able to spontaneously convert prepared spell energies back into poisons. They can sacrifice a prepared spell to instead cast a version of the poison spell as a touch attack. The save DC is treated as a spell of the level sacrificed, but is otherwise identical to the poison spell.
But then, what's the trade-off?
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