I'm starting another group planning to run rise of the runelords. I have a player who wants to play a class that lets them use their hair as a weapon. ive been trying to explain to this person how the game works and searched the internet as well as tried to give them advice about the character. my concern is will this class be able to keep up throughout the story? I've never dm'd for a witch up to that level so i honestly have no clue how good the class is. the classes we have are Wizard, magus (dex),slayer, and this person. Everyone else is experienced . While doing researched we found that it seems like the easiest thing to do is go hex crafter magus. Im just worried that having two magus in the group will cause one or the other to feel inadequate. I've never dm'd for two of the same classes either. The player really just wants to be able to use her hair as much as possible while still being useful.
The build we have so far with a 15 pt buy human
STR: 13 DEX: 14 CON: 11 INT: 16 WIS: 10 CHA: 7
1 (Witch 1) (White Haired Witch archetype) Feats: Rime Spell, Combat Reflexes
(King Crab familiar, Strength or Wisdom Patron)
2 (Witch 2) - Constrict
3 (Magus 1) Spell Combat, Arcane Pool Feat: Power Attack
4 (Magus 2) Spellstrike
5 (Magus 3) Arcana- Arcane Accuracy Feat: Final Embrace
6 (Magus 4) Hex Arcana- Prehensile Hair
7 (Magus 5) Feat: Cornugon Smash Bonus Feat: Extra Arcana (Flight Hex)
8 (Magus 6) Arcana: Spell Scars
9 (Magus 7) Medium Armor, Knowledge Pool Feat: Lunge
10 (Magus8) Improved spell combat
thank you for your time.
ARC
Why not just play full Witch? Right now you don't have a healer and Witches at least can use the ever-present Wand of Cure Light Wounds. Witch may not be as outright powerful as the Wizard but you can build them with more versatility. There are a lot of fun archetypes as well, although vanilla witch is plenty interesting. There's nothing outright tricky about witches you need to worry about I'd say.
If you really want to beat people with your hair, shaman can take prehensile hair, and they can actually handle melee adequately. You could use a bow, and use hair for attacks of opportunity. Probably with frostbite.
Shaman also thoroughly covers the gap in divine casting you appear to have.
I would just dip a level in White Haired Witch to get the Hair attack, then build the martial or gishy character.
White haired witch is just fine, unless she wants to melee alot.
Jeff Morse wrote: White haired witch is just fine, unless she wants to melee alot. The whole point of WHW is that she loses ALL her hexes in exchange for the hair, so if she doesn't intend on meleeing there's zero point in choosing it. In our Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign, one player's first character was a WHW...did some VERY solid damage for low levels, but ended up getting wiped out by two not-actually-that-lucky hits.
Edit: Arcasus, One big issue with WHW is that the main benefit is actually to allow the Magus to hold a metamagic rod or a shield in one hand and still have the second hand free for Spell Combat. You can't RAW enhance the hair as you could a weapon, which means you have zero uses for your Arcane Pool. You also need to spend another arcana on Natural Spell Combat just to use the hair with Spell Combat, meaning you're at least one arcana down from a regular Magus and not any more effective. Power Attack is ABSOLUTELY a trap for this character when Spell Combat takes another 2 off your accuracy and you're already a 3/4 BAB class (and can't claw back the difference with your Arcane Pool).
Furthermore, you did a two-level dip in Witch, which will give you a few extra spells per day (which you can't even successfully cast in your armor), but once you get to higher levels you're going to feel the pain of being nearly a full spell level behind a straight Magus. Yes, you'll get an extra...five? damage on a successful hit by getting that second level dip in Witch, but now you can't even take real advantage of it (by pairing it with Frostbite, for instance) until character level 4. Seems like you're giving up a LOT for not a huge gain.
JiaYou wrote: Jeff Morse wrote: White haired witch is just fine, unless she wants to melee alot. The whole point of WHW is that she loses ALL her hexes in exchange for the hair, so if she doesn't intend on meleeing there's zero point in choosing it. In our Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign, one player's first character was a WHW...did some VERY solid damage for low levels, but ended up getting wiped out by two not-actually-that-lucky hits.
Edit: Arcasus, One big issue with WHW is that the main benefit is actually to allow the Magus to hold a metamagic rod or a shield in one hand and still have the second hand free for Spell Combat. You can't RAW enhance the hair as you could a weapon, which means you have zero uses for your Arcane Pool. You also need to spend another arcana on Natural Spell Combat just to use the hair with Spell Combat, meaning you're at least one arcana down from a regular Magus and not any more effective. Power Attack is ABSOLUTELY a trap for this character when Spell Combat takes another 2 off your accuracy and you're already a 3/4 BAB class (and can't claw back the difference with your Arcane Pool).
Furthermore, you did a two-level dip in Witch, which will give you a few extra spells per day (which you can't even successfully cast in your armor), but once you get to higher levels you're going to feel the pain of being nearly a full spell level behind a straight Magus. Yes, you'll get an extra...five? damage on a successful hit by getting that second level dip in Witch, but now you can't even take real advantage of it (by pairing it with Frostbite, for instance) until character level 4. Seems like you're giving up a LOT for not a huge gain. Like I was saying!
You could try to give the witch a VMC of battle oracle, so it can get easy access to Eldritch Knight.
I have a build I'm fairly confident about that uses White Hair. My idea is to play a Tengu with Claws and a Bite. Take levels in Warpriest and make your Natural Attacks your Sacred Weapons. Eventually, take a level in White Haired Witch so you can add the Hair Attack to your Full Attack. Eventually gain a Gore Attack through an Animal Mask, a Helm of the Mammoth Lord, or maybe just 2 levels in Barbarian. I'm thinking that if you are getting a Gore Attack as a Rage Power, then you should make your first level a level in Barbarian so you get that 12 hp kick at level 1 and you can start off getting a Strength bonus that you can immediately apply to your many, many attacks.
Give her a bow. Removing and putting a hand back on a Bow is a Free Action. This character now has a Ranged capability, and she doesn't have to put down her Bow when she engages in melee. This doesn't give her the ability to shoot in melee: that would require more feats.
Wear Armor Spikes. You do extra damage with every successful Grapple Attack, and you get a Grapple Attack every time you hit someone with your Hair. Take Weapon Focus with your Armor Spikes, too, and they also do Warpriest Sacred Weapon Damage instead of the usual 1d6. Take Hamatula Strike, and your Piercing Attacks--Gore and Bite--will also get free Grapple attacks with every hit. There are 2 ways I can think of to get your claws to do Piercing Damage: Feral Combat Training + Snake Style and there is another Feat the name of which I can never remember: martial or flexible grip or weapon or something.
Eventually, this character will be able to cast Enlarge Person and/or Righteous Might, doing even more damage.
So this is a character that gets lots of attacks per round that do a respectable amount of damage that scales up as the PC levels up with tremendous potential for self-buffing and supporting and healing the rest of the party.
The problem is that this is hardly a White Hair build: this is a Natural Attack Build that uses White Hair.
Hahahahaha your builds are always wild, Scott. I'm not too familiar with the specifics but I don't think you can make ALL natural weapons Sacred Weapons without dropping a LOT of feats on Weapon Focus...
And if you take one level of WHW, Enlarge Person is a first level spell for Witches :) the problem you've got with relying on Righteous Might is that if you're a Warpriest, with at least two levels of dips you're looking at level 15 before you finally get that spell...
So, what would happen if I took my Natural Attack Warpriest build and made it a White Hair Build?
Your Hair would start off doing 1d6 instead of 1d4, and would improve with level.
When you have only 1 Natural Attack, you get to do +1.5 X your ST Mod in Damage instead of just your ST Mod.
Warpriests can wear Heavy Armor and use Shields. Now you have good AC.
Be a Divine Commander Warpriest. You get a bonus Teamwork Feat and Tactcian. Take Broken Wing Gambit. That way any time anyone in your party gets Attacked, everyone gets an Attack of Opportunity. With your White Hair, you'll be able to Grapple people you hit as an Attack of Opportunity, including people you already have Grappled in your Hair. Yes, you do still get Attacks of Opportunity when you have opponents Grappled in your 'Hair: when you are Grappled, you can't make Attacks of Opportunity, but when you have someone Grappled in your 'Hair, only they are Grappled, not you.
Take 2 levels in Cavalier, Order of the Penitent. That will let you Tie Up someone you have Grappled--not Pinned--and you don't take the normal -10 on the Tie Up Grapple Action.
Take Cleave and Great Cleave. There is no limit as to how many people you can have Grappled at the same time. With Great Cleave + White Hair, you can theoretically Grapple everyone around you. Great Cleave is a Standard Action. Grappling with your White Hair is a Free Action.
Making a Grapple Check with Greater Grapple is a Move Action.
Making a Grapple Check with Rapid Grappler is a Swift Action.
Accumulating levels in Warpriest will increase the Base Damage of your Hair so that eventually it will be worthwhile to take Vital Strike Feats.
JiaYou wrote: Hahahahaha your builds are always wild, Scott. I'm not too familiar with the specifics but I don't think you can make ALL natural weapons Sacred Weapons without dropping a LOT of feats on Weapon Focus... Thanks, man! And you do have a point. That's true what you said about Weapon Focus. This will be partially mitigated by the fact that the Tengu Bite Attack already does 1d6, so there is no need to take Weapon Focus Bite until at least the character has 5 levels in Warprist. Another way to mitigate this would be to select a deity that has a Natural Attack as a Favored Weapon already. For that Natural Weapon, you get Sacred Weapon Benefits without having to take Weapon Focus. Another possibility would be to be a Human and take the Human Feat Martial Versatility, which would allow you to apply Weapon Focus to all your Natural Attacks in 1 go, unlocking Sacred Weapon that way. The problem there is that Humans don't have any Natural Attacks, so you have to figure out ways to get some, probably through extra levels in Barbarian and White Haired Witch, of course.
JiaYou wrote: And if you take one level of WHW, Enlarge Person is a first level spell for Witches :) the problem you've got with relying on Righteous Might is that if you're a Warpriest, with at least two levels of dips you're looking at level 15 before you finally get that spell... That is fair to say. And you can't cast Enlarge Person as a Witch Spell when you are wearing (decent) Armor, but you can use a Wand of Enlarge Person. You could also dip a leveling in the Living Monolith Prestige Class and Enlarge as a Spell like Ability as a Swift Action. You can get Righteous Might as a Living Monolith Ability, too, but you are right that RM can be a long time coming.
When I want my character to have a high Grapple Bonus, there are 2 Alchemal Discoveries I consider essential: Tentacle and the King Crab Tumor Familiar. The Tentacle gives you a +4 on your GMB via the Grab Ability, and a King Crab Familiar gives you a +2. I suppose you might not need to take Tumor Familiar since Witches also get Familiars.
I had a PFS Grappling character that had a Full-Time GMB of +30 at level 9.
Lelomenia wrote: If you really want to beat people with your hair, shaman can take prehensile hair, and they can actually handle melee adequately. You could use a bow, and use hair for attacks of opportunity. Probably with frostbite.
Shaman also thoroughly covers the gap in divine casting you appear to have.
I honestly think this is the best way to go around it.
Prehensile hair is great. I had it. Using it for so many things. But in the end you're a low BAB character.
Shaman isn't. And covers a few things you're missing
I'm normally not gung ho on shaman but this is honestly the best choice.
If you want a second choice? Hex crafter magus. All the magus AND hexes. It's an excellent archetype. Covers a lot more offense, still get that hair and some other options.
Since, your party already has a magus, I'll also agree with Shaman. I guess the big question may be, "What kind of shaman?". I've only dabbled with them.
Yeah I cant help there either.
But I'm not afraid of doubling up on a class in a game where archetypes make 2 different classes.
All this Player wants to do is attack people with her hair and still have a great time role playing. she doesn't care how she does it she just wants to do this while being useful in combat. I will look into the shaman and see what I can come up with.
If you need help just post again. I played a witch for 17 levels I can help a bit and many have played shamans.
Cavall wrote: Lelomenia wrote: If you really want to beat people with your hair, shaman can take prehensile hair, and they can actually handle melee adequately. You could use a bow, and use hair for attacks of opportunity. Probably with frostbite.
Shaman also thoroughly covers the gap in divine casting you appear to have.
I honestly think this is the best way to go around it.
Prehensile hair is great. I had it. Using it for so many things. But in the end you're a low BAB character.
Shaman isn't. And covers a few things you're missing
I'm normally not gung ho on shaman but this is honestly the best choice.
If you want a second choice? Hex crafter magus. All the magus AND hexes. It's an excellent archetype. Covers a lot more offense, still get that hair and some other options. The problem with Prehensile Hair is that it is a Secondary Natural Attack: -5 on your Attack Roll, 1/2 ST Mod to Damage. White Hair is a Primary Natural Attack with no penalties.
There is that Natural Attack Rule though that if you only have 1 Natural Attack, it is always Primary, and you get do +1.5 X St Mod to Damage instead of just regular Strength. A Stegosaurus Tail is a Primary Natural Attack even though Tail Attacks are normally Secondary. Technically, I guess Prehensile Hair is good as a Primary Natural Attack, but I can easily seeing a GM not allowing it.
Also, Prehensile Hair does not get that Bonus Grapple thing.
Quote: If a creature has only one natural attack, it is always made using the creature's full base attack bonus and adds 1-1/2 the creature's Strength bonus on damage rolls. If your GM doesn't allow things that are clearly in the rules, then we can't give meaningful advice in the first place, because we don't know what is true and what isn't for your table.
Prehensile hair also takes a standard action to activate and is limited to minutes/level per day. The white hair is always active. For PFS, where a lot of fights are predictable, that’s not as big of a deal. But for a module or AP it can be tough to predict when you’ll need the hair active, which means often needing to spend an action at the start of combat to activate it and not getting to attack until round 2 (when a lot of things may already be dead).
Prehensile hair does have the advantage of using INT to-hit and damage, while white hair only uses INT for damage.
I’m running a tatterdemalion witch multiclass. I ended up going into Evangelist to continue progressing Witch, but also getting 3/4 BAB.
The secret for natural attack build is to get as many natural attacks as possible with as high a static damage boost on them as possible.
claw/claw/bite/gore/hair all as primary natural weapons, all with large +damage will shred through most things even if half the attacks only do a d4 base damage.
Slyme wrote: The secret for natural attack build is to get as many natural attacks as possible with as high a static damage boost on them as possible.
claw/claw/bite/gore/hair all as primary natural weapons, all with large +damage will shred through most things even if half the attacks only do a d4 base damage.
That's the tactic for more martial builds. But with full casters, I think it would work more like a reach cleric who casts spells on his own turn and tries to get attacks of opportunity when not on his turn.
natural weapons don't give you any more AoO's than any other melee attacks.
Generally people who want a white haired witch want it for the natural attack, if you are building a caster witch, WHW is a terrible archetype.
Reach on the white hair and Combat Reflexes is, I think, what Melkiador is talking about.
The problem with White Hair and Prehensile Hair is that they are much more effective as the only attack. In the case of Prehensile Hair, being entirely INT-based you don't need to have high physical stats, and when it's your only natural attack, you get 1 1/2x INT (there's a designer post somewhere confirming that). If you add claws into the mix, now you need STR or DEX, and your hair goes to 1/2 INT for damage.
White-Haired Witch being able to grapple without being grappled, constrict, etc. is great. You don't need additional natural attacks for that. But since it's a primary attack, unlike Prehensile Hair, you can have the other natural attacks without hurting the attacks from the hair too much. They go to 1x INT instead of 1 1/2x INT, with no -5 for being secondary.
Slyme wrote: natural weapons don't give you any more AoO's than any other melee attacks.
Generally people who want a white haired witch want it for the natural attack, if you are building a caster witch, WHW is a terrible archetype.
hair with 10’ reach gives you a healthy dose of AoOs; if you have frostbite attached to it you can make it matter.
And as Melkiador says, that leaves standard actions available for hexes / spells / whatever (I mentioned archery as an option earlier).
Thats based on the OP desire of a hair attack oriented build. I think the WHW builds are going to trend toward natural attack builds, which in turn will discover they are more effective without the 1-2 levels of WHW.
Melkiador wrote: Quote: If a creature has only one natural attack, it is always made using the creature's full base attack bonus and adds 1-1/2 the creature's Strength bonus on damage rolls. If your GM doesn't allow things that are clearly in the rules, then we can't give meaningful advice in the first place, because we don't know what is true and what isn't for your table. I'm the gm and I'm pretty open minded about rules as long as they are not game breaking and the entire party as a whole are having a good time.
Arcasus wrote: Melkiador wrote: Quote: If a creature has only one natural attack, it is always made using the creature's full base attack bonus and adds 1-1/2 the creature's Strength bonus on damage rolls. If your GM doesn't allow things that are clearly in the rules, then we can't give meaningful advice in the first place, because we don't know what is true and what isn't for your table. I'm the gm and I'm pretty open minded about rules as long as they are not game breaking and the entire party as a whole are having a good time. My statement was more general in scope and in reply to Scott Wilhelm's conjecture that a DM may try to apply the secondary natural attack penalty to the hair, when it is the only natural weapon. A single natural attack doesn't take that penalty by the rules that are printed, hence you should never assume that the DM wouldn't play it that way by default.
Melkiador wrote: Arcasus wrote: Melkiador wrote: Quote: If a creature has only one natural attack, it is always made using the creature's full base attack bonus and adds 1-1/2 the creature's Strength bonus on damage rolls. If your GM doesn't allow things that are clearly in the rules, then we can't give meaningful advice in the first place, because we don't know what is true and what isn't for your table. I'm the gm and I'm pretty open minded about rules as long as they are not game breaking and the entire party as a whole are having a good time. My statement was more general in scope and in reply to Scott Wilhelm's conjecture that a DM may try to apply the secondary natural attack penalty to the hair, when it is the only natural weapon. A single natural attack doesn't take that penalty by the rules that are printed, hence you should never assume that the DM wouldn't play it that way by default. Pathfinder Society GMs and Pathfinder game designers violate the rules all the time, and it is literally their job to follow them.
The possibility that any GM might violate the rules is a thing that should be mentioned from time to time.
Scott Wilhelm wrote: The possibility that any GM might violate the rules is a thing that should be mentioned from time to time. That's true of any rule in the game though. There is no special reason to expect a DM to go off the rails here compared to anywhere else.
I have a single-class WHW in PFS, and while she's usually a great deal of fun to play, it has been a struggle to maintain her effectiveness in combat.
At low levels, her hair lacked reach, so the main challenge was making a full arcane caster survive being in melee combat. Mage armor and a good Dex was critical for defense, plus a decent Con so she didn't get one-shotted. Because she needed the Dex anyway, I gave her Weapon Finesse to help her attacks, which let me get away with a low Str. (I also applied pregen credit to her until she was 2nd level, so I could skip that squishiest period, and have constrict as soon as I started playing her.)
Naturally, her familiar is a king crab, to maximize her grapple checks. (It spends 99% of its time in an aquarium ball so it won't suffocate.)
After a few levels, she had reach, which made her much more of a threat, and gave her more breathing room for spellcasting. (She took Combat Casting very early on.) She also learned spectral hand, which let her deliver touch spells when she was unable--or unwilling--to close within hair range. She spent the majority of fights with spectral hand for hitting at distance, her hair striking foes who closed with her (and/or offering allies flanking), a wand in one hand, and the other hand free for spellcasting.
By 6th-8th level, the hair had become less central to her repertoire. Her attack bonus wasn't keeping pace with enemy AC, and it was getting more and more risky to stand near the monster of the week. But at the same time, she was finally coming into some effective area-control and save-or-suck spells.
She's just reached 10th. I would dearly love to be able to get off a strangle attack on an enemy spellcaster; she's had that ability since 8th, but so rarely risks melee with the big bad any more that it hasn't come up yet.
I'm not sure if I will keep playing her once she reaches Seeker tier. She's likely to be a bit too fragile for those adventures (she's died once already), and she lacks the raw firepower of a wizard or sorcerer. But she's had a long and storied career, kicked all kinds of Aspis butt in the Bloodcove/Kaava region, and set herself up as a successful Trade Princess, so retiring her at 12th would not completely suck.
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