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In my revised playtest document, there are 3 options: If you have an Arcane patron, you are Int based. If it is Occult, you are Charisma based. If it is Primal, you are Wisdom based. Other classes, such as Rogues and the martial classes can do it, so the Witch should be able to as well. It's just 1 more thing to help differentiate between the patron types.
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In my revised playtest document, there are 3 options: If you have an Arcane patron, you are Int based. If it is Occult, you are Charisma based. If it is Primal, you are Wisdom based. Other classes, such as Rogues and the martial classes can do it, so the Witch should be able to as well. It's just 1 more thing to help differentiate between the patron types.
NGL I kinda don't really care for this. Being able to play an Int-based occult or primal caster is a big part of the appeal.
Plus it feels weird, because just changing the type of magic shouldn't fundamentally change how you learn or access it.
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In my revised playtest document, there are 3 options: If you have an Arcane patron, you are Int based. If it is Occult, you are Charisma based. If it is Primal, you are Wisdom based. Other classes, such as Rogues and the martial classes can do it, so the Witch should be able to as well. It's just 1 more thing to help differentiate between the patron types.I’d love for an intelligence based Witch to be more like the alchemist instead of it being Arcane.
I like this idea though.
Well, they already offered a Wortwitch feat that changes your familiar into a Leshy, I can easily see an option that changes it into as Tumor familiar! In fact, just change the name to Wartwitch and it should work perfectly! (and it explains why witches are sometimes seen with a wart on their nose... "That's no wart, that's my familiar!"
The Witch is my favorite class. I loved the design from first and am excited to see it.
So this was an issue I had with the Witch class from 1st edition. Why is it Intelligence based?
They draw power from a patron similar to a cleric and their deity and a Druid and nature.
Many witches in lure are in a cabin in the woods dealing with nature, animals or viewing the night sky.
They are viewers of the future through cards, crystal balls or animal entrails.
They are the ones noticing things others can’t like spirits, breaks or distortions in time and space, the shifting of seasons.
The biggest reason I’ve seen Witches as Intelligence based is the game balance having another Int. caster.
What does everyone else think? Should there be a change? Am I not seeing something?
As already mentioned, witches don't draw power from a patron, they learn from them. The rest of it isn't specifically witch stuff and there's plenty of witchy tropes that fall under other stats e.g. Arcana, Occultism, Deception and so on.
well，high wisdom characters don’t sign powerful contracts with unknown entities.
I'm sure there's plenty of witches who don't do this either.
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Being a Witch is still a matter of academic study, it just involves a rather specific type of being as a personal tutor rather than the ordinary human instruction a Wizard receives. I definitely think that still leaves Intelligence as the most important stat for them.
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Actually I have to say Witches using Int is one of my favourite things about them over D&D Warlocks. This may or may not be more based on my own headcanons about the way certain game mechanics translated, but I like what Int implies about Witches doing as Deadmanwalking said, actually studying the magic and needing to learn it the same way Wizards do, but starting with a different premise.
I've been meaning to gather my thoughts and post in the Patrons Do Nothing thread for a while but the gist of why I appreciate this so much is because it finally offered a satisfying explanation (to myself) why witches were arcane (in 1e) and what made them different from clerics.
To give the short of it, I had/have a bit of a headcanon about the similarities and differences between the three primary casting stats and what they said about the way those classes cast spells.
Cha is somewhat obvious, particularly since innate magic is based on Cha. Cha represents using magic as an expression of one's will and creativity, sort of feeling out the magic by instinct, which is why Bards use it alongside the typical 'innate' or 'gifted' spellcasters (Sorc/Oracle, etc)
Wis being the primary ability score for divine spellcasters suggested to me that the ability to use magic granted to you by supernal beings depended largely on your awareness of the order of things in the world and your place within that order (perhaps could explain that better, but Wis isn't the point here).
Int finally is for spellcasters that must study and learn every spell manually. While Cha-casters know a handful of spells that they just 'get' and Wis-casters rely on various spiritual entities for the knowledge of each spell, Int-casters memorize by rote and cunning.
Suffice to say, that Witches use Int appealed to me because it told me that Witches don't so much as hit up their sugar entity for cosmic power as they go to these mysterious and elusive beings known as patrons to learn hidden secrets of magic--especially when one is in possession of a keen intellect but lacking in traditional academic sources of magical knowledge.
Make sense?
well，high wisdom characters don’t sign powerful contracts with unknown entities.
i don't know who you are, but i love you for this.
Honestly, high charisma types are the only ones who could fall for this sales pitch. High physical stat types have probably had to work out or practice, so "powers for nothing" is suspicious. High wisdom types wouldn't "feel right" about it. High intelligence types should figure "it doesn't make any sense for someone to offer me something for nothing." High charisma types assume everyone loves them anyway, so why shouldn't a mysterious stranger give them a magic pet....
high charisma types will of course also be horrible witches, and so witches are rare.
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Given how broad and vague they are conceptually I think it's a little pointless to try to typecast ability scores all that much.
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Being the matter of interpretation that it is, I think Intelligence works well for Witches as others have said; they study lessons from an unorthodox tutor to bend magic to their will. There is seemingly still study and learning involved despite the patron and familiar, only you trade a magic university's administration for a patron and professors for the familiar. By learning the building blocks of the world and how to manipulate them you're only limited by how well you can execute the verbal/material/somatic components and what you actually know is possible
This is different from Wisdom-based magic which to me seems more about having full access to a huge, unfathomable amount of power but having to wait for guidance on how to channel it through yourself so as to not, y'know... Pop. Wisdom spellcasting doesn't make magic, it moves magic. Deities and other higher powers turn on the tap for you, but only give so much as they need you to have or that you've demonstrated you're capable of controlling
I think Witch could work for both, but the patron/familiar relationship to me leans the class towards Intelligence. The patron doesn't give the witch power, it says--through the familiar--"Hey, kid, try wiggling your pinkie when you chant this, see what happens..." That's more like book learning; the patron doesn't channel power through the Witch, it teaches the Witch through one tradition or another, and the Witch still has to practice
