I know what you're all thinking: "Oh great, yet another homebrew witcher class in all of its overpowered glory." Ah but this one is different... I hope!
Many of the homebrew witcher classes I have seen focus on recreating Geralt in a class. That is not the goal of this witcher class. I wanted to recreate witcher abilities in Pathfinder terms, but allow for players to customize their witcher to their liking and cater to a number of different playstyles. If you can't make it your own with endless different builds and multi-classes, is it really Pathfinder?
This class is part of a larger project of mine to bring witchers and witcher lore to the Inner Sea region. I am currently working on an origin story of witchers, some notable witcher schools and their histories in the Inner Sea region, notable witcher NPCs, and a new "iconic" witcher character. I also have plans add new feats and items for witchers and non-wtichers alike.
I've been putting this class together for a long time (since about June 2019) and have run through a lot of refinements and testing with it but I would really like to get community feedback to both sanity check me, and help give it that last bit of polish and fine-tuning it needs.
If you want to check it out, I am currently hosting it on my website at: wizardlevels.com/witcher-class
If you're an avid ✨ ✨user like myself, then you should take a look at the .user file I made that adds this class and its mechanics to Hero Lab. Check it out here: wizardlevels.com/witcher-downloads
After checking it out or playing it, I would really appreciate it if you would fill out my feedback form to help me make it better.
I will also do my best to read responses and reply.
Thanks!!
I like it, but I do find a few things a bit off.
The biggest issue I have with this class is how MAD it is. It seems you'd need good Str, Con, Int, and Wis to make this class work well (as well as Dex if you're going ranged).
The 'Witcher Oil' ability should be allow the witcher to select 2 creature types each time, not just 1. The witcher has to constantly spend money on these and he has no ability to switch them (and it also brings the witcher closer to game version). Another option could be that the witcher could study a book of monster lore and once per day swap which creatures he can create oils for. Any creature types he does not have selected but still has crafted oils for, those oils can become inert until he selects that creature type again.
Witch the 'Master Witcher' ability, it doesn't really make sense that once one witcher uses the ability on a creature, it suddenly becomes immune to all witchers. If the creature became immune to the ability used by the witcher, or any witcher from the same 'Path', that would make sense to me.
Instead of 'Witcher Mutation' giving Darkvision 60ft or the See In Darkness (60ft) ability (not clear which you intended here), I feel like it would be more appropriate to allow them to see twice as well in normal light and four times as well in dim light. This would make the 'Cat Potion' worth it (at least to me).
I'd get rid of the 'Flight Sign' completely.
Perhaps add a witcher potion that enhances a witcher's dexterity.
When I looked at the paths and saw 'Path of the Beast', I immediately went, 'eh, worthless'. I saw the two ranged options and thought, 'these are so similar they should be one path'.
Thanks for the feedback!
Yeah the MAD-ness of this class has come up a few times now from people playing with it. Do you think changing it to Wis-based for Signs/Potions, bumping skill ranks/level to 6, and moving Monster Lore up earlier would help make it more bearable? Originally it was going to be Wis-based, but I wanted to put more emphasis on skills and distinguish it further from Ranger so I re-worked a lot of stuff to be Int based.
With your suggestion to Witcher Oil, do you mean have 2 active at a time or like learn more Oils known? I am heavily debating removing the gp cost from Potions and Oils and having it be just a brew/craft time requirement. The idea was it would either cost gp to get supplies to craft them, or you could spend time gathering materials.
You’re absolutely right about the Master Witcher ability. It should be immune to that ability only from Witchers of the same Path.
… Darkvision 60ft or the See In Darkness (60ft) ability (not clear which you intended here) …
Thanks for spotting the confusing wording around darkvision coming from Witcher Mutations. (It is intended to be darkvision 60ft) Extending vision in normal and low/dim light is a good idea. Or, it could just grant low-light vision instead of darkvision. I am also thinking Cat should give a scaling bonus to perception as well.
I’d get rid of the 'Flight Sign' completely.
May I ask what you don’t like about the Flight Sign? Is it not a useful option or is it too strong or something else?
Perhaps add a witcher potion that enhances a witcher's dexterity.
I actually already have this in my to-do! Should be in v0.4 which I am hoping to release by this coming weekend.
When I looked at the paths and saw 'Path of the Beast', I immediately went, 'eh, worthless'. I saw the two ranged options and thought, 'these are so similar they should be one path'.
On the note of the Path of the Beast and Path of the Marksman, these (and all paths) are largely brought over from Ranger combat-styles. Path of the Beast is based on the Natural Weapon combat-style. Like the combat-style, it’s not a great option unless you’re playing something with access to decent natural attacks. Path of the Marksman is based on the Crossbow combat-style. It does have overlap with Path of the Fletcher but is geared towards making crossbows viable.
I’m hesitant to drastically change these, but am open to suggestions. In general I wanted to bring the good combat styles over directly, and tweak the not-so-great ones as I turned them into Paths.Again, thanks for the feedback you’ve given me a lot to think about. I will absolutely be putting some of these suggestion into changes very soon!
I think having them focus on just Str, (maybe Dex if ranged), Con, and Wis would work. To me, witchers seem more intuitive, in tune with their senses and the world around them than especially bookish. (They are bookish to some degree, but translating the characters from the books/games to a PF game just make a class MAD as hell as I mentioned.) Pulling the focus from Int and putting it to Wis instead would also help to offset, at least a little, their weak Will saves.
Simply giving them low-light vision would work. From what I remember in the game, their eyesight is very good at night and also during the day, but without the potion, they still need a light source to see in the dark. Low-light vision is common, and witchers are anything but, so I lifted my suggestion from Dragon Senses to give the witchers something a bit exotic, but not too far out there.
As for the 'Flight Sign', from what I know, Witchers don't fly, so giving this to them seems off. Part of the reason why I say that is the premise of signs being small, relatively simple magic, and flight feels as if it goes against that idea.
If something like the the Path of the Beast's abilities were granted as part of a mutagen of some sort, a temporary sort of improvement, it would fit the Witcher idea in my head, but not as a path/school.
I realize the Marksman/Fletcher are based off combat styles, but even those I find should be combined. It wouldn't be difficult to have a X or Y feat selection for path feats, for example something like this: At X level the witcher can add either Crossbow Mastery or Improved Precise Shot to his list of Path feats. It allows for each witcher to have flexibility, but does make them consider where to put their focus, without bloating the options with basically identical abilities.
Sorry, yeah, I meant for the witcher to learn 2 Witcher Oils each time. Since Oils and Potions remind me of the Alchemist's extracts, I would say just make give them a craft time but remove the GP cost.
An additional suggestion, allow the witcher, at a later level, to craft multiple oils/potions at the same time, like one additional oil/potion at 8th and 16th levels or something like that.
A different option could be to keep the skill ranks per level at 4+Int, but combine Monster Lore, Improved Monster Lore and Witcher Oils into two abilities. I did something like this for my house rules for the Fighter. (It's a bit long winded and not polished, and don't have the best ability names (I kinda suck at them), I meant to get to doing that, but it's worked so far so I haven't had incentive to fix it up.)
Whether from training or personal experience, information relevant to defeating his foes is literally or figuratively beaten into him. Because of this, at 1st level, the fighter adds his Constitution modifier on Knowledge skill checks in addition to his Intelligence modifier when making skill checks to identify a creature, its abilities, and/or weaknesses. He is not considered untrained when making checks of this nature. In addition, starting at 4th level, a fighter treats his fighter levels as ranks in Knowledge for making checks to identify a creature, its abilities, and/or weaknesses, the fighter gains the +3 bonus on knowledge checks of this kind as if they were class skills with ranks.
Like an Open Book (Ex):
At 2nd level, when a fighter successfully identifies all abilities and weaknesses of a creature using the appropriate Knowledge check, he gains a tactical bonus against that type of creature. The tactical bonus can either be a combat or social bonus. If he chooses a combat bonus, he gains a +2 bonus to either attack and damage rolls or to his AC. If he chooses a social bonus, he gains a +2 bonus to influence or affect the creature in some way (ex: Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Perform, Other determined by DM). The fighter may choose to use the bonus to aid an ally, essentially passing his social bonus to his chosen ally, but the bonus is reduced by half (rounded down). The bonus from this ability increases by +1 at 10th and 18th levels, to a maximum of +4. If the fighter identifies the abilities and weaknesses of numerous types of creatures, he must pick one type of creature to be the target of this effect.
The fighter’s tactical bonus lasts for 1 minute for every six levels he possesses (minimum 1 minute). If the fighter still has time on his combat bonus while all creatures of his chosen type have been dealt with, he may make a new Knowledge check as a free action and if he succeeds, select the new creature type as the target of his combat bonus.
A fighter is able to use this ability once per day at 2nd level, plus one additional time every four fighter levels thereafter (minimum once per day).
The 'Like an Open Book' ability appeals to me for a witcher class because even though they were created to kill monsters, that isn't always the best option, and it would grant them some out of combat use (even if it is limited).
The 'Hard Knock Wisdom' ability means the Fighter has a good chance of knowing what he needs to to fight whatever he comes up against, but it doesn't grant him any additional tangential knowledge in those areas, it also frees up his skills to be used other places (No non-spellcasting class in my games has less than 4+Int skill ranks per level).
Sorry, yeah, I meant for the witcher to learn 2 Witcher Oils each time. Since Oils and Potions remind me of the Alchemist's extracts, I would say just make give them a craft time but remove the GP cost.
Yeah GP cost needs to go and I like the idea of the time to craft decreasing at higher levels. I really looked into giving them more oils each time but I am not sure it will work. I picked a max of 5 because that is the max number of favored enemies a Ranger gets. If I up that to 10 I am worried most builds would look more or less the same in terms of oil selection. I do like the idea you had about selecting oils each day. My only concern is that if the Oil mechanic is applicable in every fight all the time, then I think mathematically this class could categorically out damage Ranger and Slayer. I did a lot of testing with base builds sans feats to test certain damage outputs and the oil can tip it above Slayer, but its situational so it's not a big concern. Basically I am trying to avoid this being flat out better than Ranger or Slayer in terms of average raw damage output. If it is situationally better, then that is fine. I am going to do some more thinking and testing, but all in all I am leaning towards preparing a few from the list each day.
... Witchers don't fly, so giving this to them seems off ...
I know it is a bit odd imagining flying witchers (hey maybe Geralt would like it better than teleporting?) but this is one of those things where I am not trying to exactly replicate witchers from the books or games. Instead the goal is to re-base things witchers do (monster hunting, signs, potions, knowing their enemy, etc) into a class that can be adapted to many playstyles/builds and characters. Like Geralt is a possible build, but so could a ranged witcher who uses flight to gain a positional advantage. Also the flight sign can be used for Feather Fall or Air Step in addition to Fly at 11th level. (General idea of signs is that they get more powerful and gain new uses as you level)
If something like the the Path of the Beast's abilities were granted as part of a mutagen ...
I definitely get where you're coming from with this, but again this isn't so much a thing all witchers should have access to but more a way to lean into a build/playstyle. This Path is almost certainly not worth it unless you're building a character that has access to natural attacks via character race, multi-class or whatever the case may be. The idea again being to make the class synergize with a bunch of different builds.
I realize the Marksman/Fletcher are based off combat styles ...
I've mis-communicated a bit here and should clarify: Paths are straight up re-branded combat styles (though a few have had their feats tweaked a bit). This class is designed as a bit of a hybrid of Ranger and Slayer and greatly pulls from their mechanics. You're completely right that they are very similar but I am more or less stuck with that unless I want to break the form of 4 feats to choose from at 2nd, add 2 to that list at 6th, and add 2 again at 10th.
... and it would grant them some out of combat use ...
This is a really cool ability! However, Studied Target already covers some of this. You get the studied target bonus on Bluff, Knowledge, Perception, Sense Motive, and Survival checks against the opponent in addition to the attack/damage.
...this class could categorically out damage Ranger and Slayer...
This I understand, at least for the most part. I've never played a Slayer, nor has anyone I know chosen it. Since I haven't seen how it plays, I can't really comment on that part. As for the Ranger part, they do have access to spells, one of which basically lets them use their favored enemy on whatever (I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head at the moment, just got off work). Their access to spells makes them fairly versatile, but I understand wanting to keep the oils from tipping it too far. Maybe make it a limited resource per day?
Another option could be to add in some mechanic for the witcher to swap out/forget a currently known oil for a different one when they gain a level (or every third level?). That way as they gain levels, their known oils have less of a chance of becoming useless/underused if they find that they are no longer fighting the same types of foes they went up against 5 levels earlier. This may put their oils slightly above the ranger's favored enemy ability, but they have Instant Enemy (I remembered it!) to get around that.
...flight sign...
I think feather fall and air step are good options, after thinking about it more, it's flight and air walk that goes a bit too far for me, though I understand your intention.
On the note of possibilities, though it may not be 'flight' exactly, I was thinking 'what else could fit thematically?' Mage Hand and possibly a deflect arrows type ability that can deflect a number of projectiles equal to the witcher's number of AoO (or just Protection from Arrows). Mage Hand would be a neat little trick, and the other could be an option to protect the witcher from objects in 'flight'. I almost suggested telekinesis, but it seemed as if it would step on Aard's toes a bit. (I wanted to suggest something like a 'Reverse Lashing' as seen in the Stormlight books, but I'm not sure how you'd be able to write that one up at all. It'd be a neat trick though.)
IIRC, Ciri is the only one who teleports, but she's also technically not a 'Witcher', just witcher trained or a Witcher as a profession/lifestyle. That said, I could definitely see it working, and I swear I can just barely remember some class ability or spell that allowed for short ranged teleportation 'hops', but I can't put my finger on where it's from (for all I know, I'm remembering something from some 3.5 book).
...Studied Target...
I forgot all about your witcher class having studied target, though I'm glad you like the one I made. A while ago in my game, it actually saved the group by pushing a failed Perform check by the monk into a success. I wanted it to be fairly broad so it could be used creatively by the fighter, giving him something he could do somewhat consistently out of combat to contribute to the group.