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Eh that's not how it works though, the Cleric does indeed have to know what they're doing. The Deity is powering them, they're not doing everything for them though, the Cleric is the one casting the spell and has to know what they're casting.
Honestly, I don't think there's a point arguing this - because as I far as I can tell the exact specifics of how magic/spells work in general has been left deliberately vague so that Players/GMs can fill in whatever they prefer.
My point was to essentially answer why it could be possible for some Patrons to to have a Witch but not a Cleric - because it seems like granting spells to a Cleric would require more work on the deity's side and be more difficult. Witches on the other hand are at least somewhat independent, considering even if a Patron stepped slightly outside the current rules and refused to grant a new familiar when the old one died - the Witch could still potentially prepare spells from another Witch's familiar without their Patron's support. (As opposed to a Cleric who completely loses their spellcasting feature until they apologize.)
What really breaks divine only being granted for me is Monk's Ki Focus spells being divine with none of the baggage that comes to other divine casters (anathemas, curses etc.)
Is Irori a really benevolent god or something?
As a fan of xianxia novels - I can completely see why a Monk would end up having a connection to the divine tradition. (And would consider any version of the Monk class that couldn't mimic an average xianxia character as a failure of the class.) It's incredibly common for protagonists of said novels to draw power/inspiration from "the heavens" even if it is rare for them to draw power from a specific deity (the only xianxia protagonist I saw claim to do so was just trying to conceal the true source of their training technique). Translated to Pathfinder terms, that'd be like drawing/refining power directly from an aligned plane (divine) instead of going through a deity. Additionally, it is somewhat common for actually becoming a deity to be part of a cultivation path in this genre - which coincidentally matches how Irori himself is said to have become a deity in Golarion.
And as for Irori, considering he limits his Clerics to the lawful alignments and won’t even allow a true neutral cleric despite being adjacent to his LN – I highly doubt that he’s just somehow extra generous to Monks who (thankfully) no longer have alignment restrictions. So it doesn't really work to say he's the reason for a CE Monk's divine focus spells.
(i'm very interested now to discuss how undead tie into this whole divinity thing)
On the essence side – the combination of Life+Spirit seems extremely fitting to undead. However from the lore side – outside of undead, pretty much all the innately divine creatures are related to the aligned planes, which also serve as afterlife planes. Considering the description of the divine tradition mentions “belief in a power source from beyond the Material Plane” (rather than “belief in a deity”), it’d seem to me that anything to do with an afterlife plane tends to be innately divine by default. Considering most forms of undead would at least partially touch on the concept of an afterlife & likely the planes themselves (considering they’re literally “after” their own life), I’d imagine that would be why they use divine as their innate spells.
The Thing with undead of course, is if you read any entry, many undead seem to be capable of coming about without any outside intervention. like look at the Skulltaker (Bes300), it's a manifestation of lost climbers who died lost in the mountains. that's a very powerful undead to just come about on its own.
to me, this seems evidence that some outside entity must be empowering or creating these undead. probably Urgothoa but potentially just planar forces.
Potential Problem. If Urgothoa is spontaneously creating powerful undead without requiring her followers to do so - then why is Pharasma not directly exterminating those undead as a Goddess who hates them? Once deities start acting directly on the world in that way, it'd naturally becomes an arms race against competing deities.
basically, i think ki spells can be mechanically divine spells, but have no real connection to other forms of divine casting.
Sorry, but are you basically saying ki spells are divine spells, but not real divine spells? Because that's what I'm getting from this.
given 1 and 2, the ways in which someone gains power is exceedingly similar, except you no longer need a divine focus and instead have a familiar. there isn't much tactical benefit, nor reasonable approach to use a witch that can't also be done with a more loyal cleric. Clerics have anathema and thus can lose their powers on the moment of betrayal. you can keep your eyes of a cleric, but your witch may even be giving spells out to other people.
Why should every deity limit themselves to only interacting with mortals in especially one-sided relationships where they have direct power over the other party? Do deities not have any motivations other than “optimal tactical benefit?” And is it required that all deities regardless of alignment, goals, or personality think and act this way?
And on the side of tactical benefit - even if Clerics form your most elite and trusted followers, that does not diminish the benefits from gaining more followers to use. Especially if the potential Witch isn't willing to be 100% subservant like a Cleric has to be, and wouldn't help out at all / go somewhere else if that was their only choice. Depending on how much extra help the deity needs/wants, this could be a very tempting tactical option from a numerical perspective even if not every deity would be willing to commit to such. And for the non-Good aligned deities... having "disposable" followers offers plenty of tactical options without having to risk your more loyal Clerics.
4. i mean i can't prove this one, only give anecdotal evidence of everyone posting in favor of divine lists on this forum. this whole debacle i think started because someone said they wanted a devil as their patron, and thought they couldn't even though the patron section explicitly lists archfiends as possible patrons.
Even if this was true, it would seem to contradict your immediately preceding argument. Archfiends are demigods, and thus capable of granting Clerics divine magic (Archdevils, Demon Lords, and even Empyreal Lords in PF1 had domains they could grant along with favored weapons/etc.)
Furthermore, having an archfiend (demigod) as a Patron would be very different from having a non-demigod fiend as a Patron. Part of what has gotten some people annoyed is saying that a devil patron (a divine being whether or not it is a demigod archfiend) would have to suddenly grant/teach a different tradition from itself, unlike other Patrons, because divine magic is somehow more special than every other tradition of magic.
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Eh that's not how it works though, the Cleric does indeed have to know what they're doing. The Deity is powering them, they're not doing everything for them though, the Cleric is the one casting the spell and has to know what they're casting.Honestly, I don't think there's a point arguing this - because as I far as I can tell the exact specifics of how magic/spells work in general has been left deliberately vague so that Players/GMs can fill in whatever they prefer.
Not that vague.
It may be worth noting that I do remember at time when it was clearly stated that, according to Golarion canon, all divine magic came directly from a deity. For full disclosure I never particularly liked that piece of lore, as you might surmise from my support for Divine Witches (whether said witch bargains with a deity for their knowledge or not), but it has been stated [citation needed].
Well, my rather longish post about deities and patrons just got eaten by a misclick.
The hard-and-fast version while I still kind of remember what I had said:
In 1e it was canon that all divine spellcasters gained their magic from a deity, regardless whether they were also required to have a direct relationship (as in the case of cleric/inquisitor), meaning that the majority of Druids who followed the Green Faith were in fact being granted their power anonymously by deities whose ideals happened to align with them, and same for Rangers and Paladins (I always used to think that paladins gained their divine power from the ideals of justice, with the deity being optional so your mileage may vary there). While 2e has brought us Druids casting from Primal spells, no longer wondering which anonymous deity (probably Gozreh) has been granting their powers without worship, it remains a lore-valid answer that deities sometimes have reasons for empowering mortals without specific claim to that mortal's activities or veneration. The same may as well be true for deities who anonymously teach Divine magic to Witches as well as Clerics.
Meanwhile, I don't think there is anybody arguing that wizardly patrons (presuming that such a thing is meant to exist) should be able to teach Divine magic (without at least several multiclass feats). Perhaps it would be useful for the patron lore text to include clarification that the mysterious supernatural entity teaching you magic must at least know that tradition of magic. Certain patrons, particularly deific ones like Baba Yaga would likely be able to teach from more than one tradition should they so choose, while others would naturally be more limited by their own scope. I'll grant that patrons are vague, probably to preserve the Patronized by Unknown Forces style of witch, and wouldn't mind at all seeing them a little more concrete ("A fey patron teaches you primal magic, unless they're also bards in which case they might be a musician patron" / "The eldritch monstrosities from beyond the stars and/or studying the alien geometries of the tapestry teach occult magic" / "the spirit of Harrow teaches possibly occult possibly divine idk") but to me at least they're just not that vague.
I never liked how little impact the 1e witch's patron had on the Witch once I figured out what I liked about them, so I am glad to see steps in the direction of patrons determining what kind of magic you learn.
To be clear, I don't mean for the bulk of my post here to be a specific response toward any one presented argument, but rather my thoughts on the topic of whether I do or do not believe Witches should be able to learn divine magic. Skimming back through this dual-thread mess a bit to recall what the actual arguments were originally laid down in this debate, I see that indeed I do agree with Rysky on a number of things (that witches should learn magic like a wizard, not be granted it wholesale, that clerics and the like do indeed have at least some amount of learning and study involved in learning to cast magic) so I want to clarify that my position is just that I see no reason that Witches should not be able to learn divine magic from their patrons. They would not learn these spells as a cleric does, where the cleric is capable of choosing any common divine spell from the entire list, but indeed has to learn how to cast each one individually, and store that knowledge in a secret place.
I apologise if my above post(s) appear to be making a pointed argument that misses the point entirely, as I drafted it with the intent to provide additional perspective to the general question of whether divine magic was appropriate for witches and witches were appropriate servitors of a deity--aside from the specific response that I did not find it realistic that a wizard serving as a patron could be the one granting divine spells.
On that note, perhaps I should also clarify that my own understanding of patrons is as a supernatural, otherworldly entity (the likes of fey, demons, and genies come to mind, but also the eldrtich geometries of the stars, and the spirit of the harrow deck), which offers its knowledge of magic to a cunning mortal for a variety of reasons, whether it reveals its intentions to the mortal or remains distant for the time. I realise James Jacobs made a post that included such possibilities as mortal spellcaster patrons and patrons who were no longer living inspirations to witches. I'm rather more lukewarm on the idea that other mortal spellcasters can teach witch spells, and don't really like the idea of non-living patrons (at least those who are not also undead).
Except in Golarion, a non-living patron has gone on to an outer plane and, if powerful, will likely have become a powerful outsider. So still existing and capable of being a patron.
If a concept of a witch has existed many times across different pop culture, literature, or other media, then that concept deserves a place, IMO.
Some would argue that it doesn’t have to come at the beginning but in this case it would take one lesson for divine casting to allow a bunch of concepts that wouldn’t be possible without it (or at least would be lacking by comparison)
That seems like a small price to pay considering how much it allows within the base of the class without much change to the feel or design itself.
Glinda the Good Witch is a divine witch
Melisandre is also a divine witch and most of the Red God Witches would be as well
Zatana from the DC universe is probably also divine
And I’m not really here to debate what types of witches they are, but I think fulfilling the above concepts or similar would be far easier with a divine list.
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What makes Glinda and Zatana a divine witch?
Melisandre maybe (I don’t have the best knowledge of ASoIaF characters), she resurrects people, makes weapons flaming, and creates creepy shadow minions i believe?
Out of that only resurrection is on the Divine list but it’s also a Ritual so anyone can take it.
Uh Melisandre specifically serves the lord of light and she learned her shadow magic in “another lesson” from Ashai (last magic city basically). She does much more than channel fire, which she does because that’s the lord of lights actual divinity, and she only gets bits and pieces from the God, just like a witch would from a patron. No direct abilities. Melisandre is 100% a divine witch nearly to a t.
Glinda is divine because her powers are generally centered around protection and warding, but she definitely has power over some of the elements in regards to weather, but that could just mean her divine entity is the land of oz itself (which it sort of is). Her thematics and general applications of them across the books, movies, and even Wicked more or less follow this (wicked it’s weird). The only non witch aspect of her is the lack of familiar, but that’s less of an issue with the class and more of the archetype.
Zatana is tricky, because she’s more of a psionic witch sorcerer hybrid. Depending on which run of the comics she’s got spells across every list, which is why I said “probably” but I’m less committed to it.
In fact, Constantine might be closer to a witch than Zatana and Given his ward casting and protection spells, could be argued as such too. But then, just like Zatana, he has a LOT of powers all over the place depending on the run.
And that’s if we throw out the whole “devil/angel” witch concept as being inherently divine, which if that were included (and why shouldn’t it be) accounts for a lot of concepts. Not all of them would be strictly divine, but it’d be difficult to do quite a few concepts that way without it.
I figured Glinda to be primal as a connection to Fae and fairy godmother type witches with a lot of divine type lessons but it's not something I have thought about as deeply as you I think.
What do you feel makes Melisandre not a straight up cleric?
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I figured Glinda to be primal as a connection to Fae and fairy godmother type witches with a lot of divine type lessons but it's not something I have thought about as deeply as you I think.
What do you feel makes Melisandre not a straight up cleric?
Yeah just because something is called something in another medium doesn’t mean Pathfinder classes of the same name have to map to it or even enable it.
I figured Glinda to be primal as a connection to Fae and fairy godmother type witches with a lot of divine type lessons but it's not something I have thought about as deeply as you I think.
What do you feel makes Melisandre not a straight up cleric?
Three main things:
1. She uses magic other than magic of the lord of light. The lord of light is just her most significant patron, she might have even retrained for him, but she knows Shadow Magic which she specifically states is not of the lord of light (she does it as a necessity to further her cause)
2. One of her main difficulties is that while she attempts to read what the lord of light wants, she often gets it wrong. A clear communication channel wouldn’t be like that. For instance, her relationship with the Lord of Light is different from how Thorin interacts with the lord of light, who I would call a straight up cleric
3. Thematically, she is nothing like a cleric outside of the rhetoric she occasionally states about the lord of light, which is often cryptic. She considers herself a servant by necessity (to save the world) and he has chosen to bless her, but her acts for the god are typically acts of service (rarely does she pray). Clerics and Divine Witches are characterized by their relationship to the entity, and her character and themes (especially being able to learn multiple types of magic) are way better fulfilled by a Divine Witch than a Cleric
Constantine is an Investigator who Multiclassed into Occult Witch :3
The more I think about Constantine the more I’d call him a witch. He’s smug and a wise ass, smart with luck always on his side, he “rides the will of fate”, he makes deals with devils for spells and power.
He could be occult, but he just so many thematically divine spells it’d be tough.
I’d call it a Witch MCD investigator but ymmv ;)
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Except in Golarion, a non-living patron has gone on to an outer plane and, if powerful, will likely have become a powerful outsider. So still existing and capable of being a patron.
Hah, valid point! Probably a poor choice of words on my part. Celestials and Fiends constitute living and active patron options in my thought process, regardless whether an earlier stage of their life had ended, so I wasn't thinking of them in that light. When I was describing non-living (as opposed to merely dead) I was thinking in terms of creatures like Aroden or perhaps fey entities destroyed and rendered into soul-stuff.
Naturally, there are a good many types of supernatural creature with a debatable relationship to life (ancestral spirits, outsiders, the Things Beyond The Stars Which Do Not Live and Cannot Die, etc.) so perhaps a better choice of words would be non-active patrons. I meant that I wasn't a fan of the idea of the proposed idea of patrons who merely inspired the witch to learn magic as if they were a Muse rather than a true teacher.
(on that note, I'll see your ley line witch channeling energy and say this new description better fits that vision of an active supernatural force)
I mean it’s far less communicative than Thorin IMO and when Thorin uses power he often prays. The other two points are far more important. Clerics do not cast magic that’s not from their god, Melisandre specifically can do this because she knows many disciplines, the lord of light is but one patron for her.
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I mean it’s far less communicative than Thorin IMO and when Thorin uses power he often prays. The other two points are far more important. Clerics do not cast magic that’s not from their god, Melisandre specifically can do this because she knows many disciplines, the lord of light is but one patron for her.
Martin should have probably had more meetings with Bulmahn so he could have gotten Witches right then.
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TBH this feels a lot like the Champion's alignment debate during the playtest. What do people lose if Divine is opened to the Witch?
In the end, the most demanding people on both sides ended up disappointed because the devs followed the majority and designed a middle ground solution.
I think this will likely happen here too. Maybe with Divine (and maybe also other Traditions) unavailable to the base class but reachable through feats.
Me, I find it nonsensical that a Witch learning the lessons of a Divine being that knows only Divine powers would become a master of Occult, Primal or Arcane.
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For my part, I'm strongly in favour of the Witch having access to all four magical traditions. The second most prominent witch in canon is Areelu Vorlesh, who is all about demons. Demons are tied to Divine magic, so...
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Martin should have probably had more meetings with Bulmahn so he could have gotten Witches right then.
Yes, GRRM, the critically acclaimed fantasy setting author that's been publishing ASOIAF books since 1996, who is particularly known for how good he is at character writing, got one of the most iconic and popular characters in the GoT/ASOIAF universe wrong.
I mean, I would never say the creative minds at Paizo weren't extremely talented, but come on. George R R Martin has been writing fantasy, popular and critically acclaimed fantasy, since before 3rd edition was even published. I wouldn't call him infallible, but WOW what a statement.
If paizo says concepts like The Red Woman shouldn't exist, then that's their decision, but fulfilling concepts people see in literature/pop culture is extremely common (especially for those that struggle to come up with entirely novel concepts).
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Martin should have probably had more meetings with Bulmahn so he could have gotten Witches right then.Yes, GRRM, the critically acclaimed fantasy setting author that's been publishing ASOIAF books since 1996, who is particularly known for how good he is at character writing, got one of the most iconic and popular characters in the GoT/ASOIAF universe wrong.
I mean, I would never say the creative minds at Paizo weren't extremely talented, but come on. George R R Martin has been writing fantasy, popular and critically acclaimed fantasy, since before 3rd edition was even published. I wouldn't call him infallible, but WOW what a statement.
If paizo says concepts like The Red Woman shouldn't exist, then that's their decision, but fulfilling concepts people see in literature/pop culture is extremely common (especially for those that struggle to come up with entirely novel concepts).
Leaving aside the point that I think you badly missed some sarcasm in the original post...
That's a funny question, really. Should the Pathfinder witch be built to encompass all forms of popular witches throughout many cultures (and additionally cover a lot of 5e's warlock space), or should they be more narrowly defined?
Because you can expand "what a witch is" very broadly based just on popular fantasy tropes, even without digging into folklore. Personally I'd rather they stick with folklore as the primary focus. But there is a very wide spate of witches in pop culture, from Melisandre to Sabrina to Willow Rosenberg to Glenda and so on. Making a class chassis able to encompass all of these things is plausible but would it really fully hammer out an identity?
That's my inherent struggle with witches as presented in this playtest. Paizo is so focused on how many witch concepts that they can cram into one class that, in my opinion, they haven't provided anything particularly interesting or unique for the class as a whole. I've said it on the other thread, but narrowing their spellcasting focus to one tradition (maybe a tradition and a half, depending on patron or whatever), but expanding on hexes would provide a class more suited to joining the ranks of PF2 classes.
Witches as now--or expanded to include the option of divine--are too thin to warrant conceptual space in this game. Even if adjusting things makes it more complicated to play a winter witch or a white witch or a red witch, if it's unable to achieve true mechanical separation from the existing casters, it's wasted opportunity.
In my opinion.
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Witches as now--or expanded to include the option of divine--are too thin to warrant conceptual space in this game. Even if adjusting things makes it more complicated to play a winter witch or a white witch or a red witch, if it's unable to achieve true mechanical separation from the existing casters, it's wasted opportunity.
I agree. It's really seeming like having it as pick-a-list is detracting from its mechanical expression.
I would re-evaluate if hexes were brought more to the forefront, and substantially unshackled from Focus points.
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Leaving aside the point that I think you badly missed some sarcasm in the original post...
Although I'm sure some part of the comment was tongue in cheek, Rysky's unwavering loyalty to anything Paizo published definitely makes this far from unbelievable.
clearly other people are better at reading them than I.
That's a funny question, really. Should the Pathfinder witch be built to encompass all forms of popular witches throughout many cultures (and additionally cover a lot of 5e's warlock space), or should they be more narrowly defined?
We're not talking about "Any concept" though, this concept of Divine Witch is common, it was simply someone's assertion that it's not common or concepts weren't missing.
So I pointed out one of the most popular witches in the current zeitgeist is probably a Divine Witch.
And the concept of a witch is not characterized necessarily by the spell list, there are many things that are common across witches, but the spell lists themselves enable concepts to thrive.
This is not a "Witches are being made to be too broad!", Witches were already broad.
They have an opportunity to let the class fulfill its nature as a broad concept with curses/hexes, patrons, and familiars by letting the flavors of those things complement their spell lists and emphasize their identity.
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Leaving aside the point that I think you badly missed some sarcasm in the original post...Although I'm sure some part of the comment was tongue in cheek, Rysky's unwavering loyalty to anything Paizo published definitely makes this far from unbelievable.
clearly other people are better at reading them than I.
That's a funny question, really. Should the Pathfinder witch be built to encompass all forms of popular witches throughout many cultures (and additionally cover a lot of 5e's warlock space), or should they be more narrowly defined?We're not talking about "Any concept" though, this concept of Divine Witch is common, it was simply someone's assertion that it's not common or concepts weren't missing.
So I pointed out one of the most popular witches in the current zeitgeist is probably a Divine Witch.
And the concept of a witch is not characterized necessarily by the spell list, there are many things that are common across witches, but the spell lists themselves enable concepts to thrive.
This is not a "Witches are being made to be too broad!", Witches were already broad.
They have an opportunity to let the class fulfill its nature as a broad concept with curses/hexes, patrons, and familiars by letting the flavors of those things complement their spell lists and emphasize their identity.
I'm new to this forum. I don't know who bugs who around here. Just thought I'd help before you any further confusion set in.
I think where I'm disagreeing with you is that just because someone in literature or film is being called a witch, they don't need to be played under the actual witch class.
Melisandre is a priestess. How is cleric not appropriate?
Gandalf is no wizard, he's maybe a divine sorcerer.
Radagast is uncannily druidish.
Dr. Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme, is a wizard.
Aragorn is poorly served by the ranger class.
Conan really isn't a barbarian.
I dunno. I think when porting in a popular character (as if Melisandre even were... she's a much loathed side character/plot device for a series that currently is in the zeitgeist for really all bad reasons), players have to be more flexible than just basing their ideas on the names provided by sources totally independent of the game designers.
I didn't play first edition, sadly. Wanted to for a long time, never had takers. But that's another interesting question: is this class supposed to stand on its own as a full PF2 class here, or is it just attempting a rehash of the first edition one? Because Paizo considering expanding their tradition capabilities, which is a lot less interesting than spell list expansion in PF1, doesn't actually add any reason for why they are included at this time. What differentiates an arcane witch from a wizard? What differentiates an arcane witch MCD from a wizard MCD?
Adding divine, or adding arcane and primal really, is just the illusion of flexibility. You pick at creation and are locked in. It works for sorcerers because they are the base any-tradition class. But why would we need a second? Witches are not mechanically or functionally different enough, as it stands, from the other casters to even deserve their spot in the APG. They're bland and broad. And while bland and broad could be used to import any character classically labeled as a witch into the game... I dunno. You don't need to witch to make Melisandre. You can make her now, more accurately, and more interestingly, via cleric.
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Sporkedup got the joke, and the point I was making. Just because a character is called a [Class] in a work of fiction doesn’t mean the Pathfinder Class of the same name has to map exactly to it or even enable it.
Although I'm sure some part of the comment was tongue in cheek, Rysky's unwavering loyalty to anything Paizo published definitely makes this far from unbelievable.
lol wut
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Melisandre is a priestess. How is cleric not appropriate?
With all due respect, I answered that question several lines up, in fact, to the person you told me was being sarcastic, I explained exactly why she can't be a Cleric.
Gandalf is no wizard, he's maybe a divine sorcerer.
Gandalf isn't anything that can be realistically made in the game. He is a Maiar, an angel, with many powers (and most aligns with Druid as you said with Radagast).
The rest of your examples don't exactly matter, because all of them are possible to be made to some extent right now.
In fact, Conan, who is definitely a Barbarian can now ACTUALLY be Conan thanks to how the new Skill System works and MCD with Rogue.
Barbarian with Thievery and an MCD Rogue and you're golden.
Strange is basically a Wizard to a t, as you said.
Aragorn, who might not work directly as a Ranger though he clearly inspired the class, can be fulfilled in concept by 3 of the martials(ish) depending on what you want to emphasize: Champion, Fighter, or Ranger.
The Red Woman has Shadow magic, foresight, a patron of a deity who grants her fire mage, resurrection, etc.
Playing her as a Cleric? No shadow magic for you!
Playing her as a Sorcerer? She learned her magic, that's not the same thing.
She's called Witch by many, exemplifies witch themes, curses people, makes deals, is haughty and cryptic, etc.
If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and acts like a duck....
This was an example that was asked for "What Divine Witch concepts can't be made?" was the question.
And I pointed out several, but Melisandre is the best example.
There are a million other concepts that involve Divine Witches, which have been repeated and outlined to the dissenters repeatedly across this thread (and several others), Melisandre just happens to be a popular one, from one of the most critically acclaimed book series of the age.
And because of that people are trying to obfuscate the reality that a Divine Witch is not an uncommon concept, it does work as a concept in fantasy settings with gods, and people will likely want to play something like that because it's prevalent in one of the biggest media phenomenons of the decade.
shrug
Sporkedup got the joke, and the point I was making. Just because a character is called a [Class] in a work of fiction doesn’t mean the Pathfinder Class of the same name has to map exactly to it or even enable it.
You moved your goal posts again, you asked for an example of concepts, you then argued the concepts aren't valid witches until you couldn't with Melisandre (or you quit) and now you've said "yeah so what".
lol wut
I watched you 180 on the Oracle Lore definition after a Paizo member gave some explanation about how the Oracle steals there power from all the gods with a "Oh I get it, the gods aren't stupid Oracles are just crazy!"
When it comes to lore, I rarely see you dissent, but then I can't say I look that much.
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.This is not a "Witches are being made to be too broad!", Witches were already broad.
They have an opportunity to let the class fulfill its nature as a broad concept with curses/hexes, patrons, and familiars by letting the flavors of those things complement their spell lists and emphasize their identity.
And that broadness might not be a good thing.
A drawback of having the pick a list module, whether 3 or all four, is that the class doesn’t have a core default list to build upon.
I don’t want “broadness” to be the Witch’s identity. I want “Witch” to be the Witch’s identity.
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And that broadness might not be a good thing.
A drawback of having the pick a list module, whether 3 or all four, is that the class doesn’t have a core default list to build upon.
I don’t want “broadness” to be the Witch’s identity. I want “Witch” to be the Witch’s identity.
Ah yes, what I am asking for is for a Witch to not be a Witch because a Divine List would do that.
You've got it all figured out. I was over here asking the Witch to not be a Witch, which is literally impossible with pick a list casting!
Appreciate your helpful guidance in the matter.
You’re wanting a Class named Witch with very little identity unto itself because of how broad it is.
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1. She uses magic other than magic of the lord of light. The lord of light is just her most significant patron, she might have even retrained for him, but she knows Shadow Magic which she specifically states is not of the lord of light (she does it as a necessity to further her cause)
2. One of her main difficulties is that while she attempts to read what the lord of light wants, she often gets it wrong. A clear communication channel wouldn’t be like that. For instance, her relationship with the Lord of Light is different from how Thorin interacts with the lord of light, who I would call a straight up cleric
3. Thematically, she is nothing like a cleric outside of the rhetoric she occasionally states about the lord of light, which is often cryptic. She considers herself a servant by necessity (to save the world) and he has chosen to bless her, but her acts for the god are typically acts of service (rarely does she pray). Clerics and Divine Witches are characterized by their relationship to the entity, and her character and themes (especially being able to learn multiple types of magic) are way better fulfilled by a Divine Witch than a Cleric.
I apologize, have been reading through this thread as it progressed but I did miss this post.
1. Easily solved by a multiclass... I mean, how is that a sticking point?
2. Seems like while you want to broaden the witch, you dramatically want to restrict the cleric. They don't all have to be perfect holy men piously wandering around granting healing. Clerics rarely know what their gods want, in game. All they have is a couple general dos and a couple general don'ts. Clerics need an uncommon 6th level ritual or a capstone feat to learn even their deity's particular feelings on any issue. As far as Pathfinder goes, clerics just need to follow the edicts and anathema and everything else is fair game and up to their discretion! Which could include shadow magics. I don't recall there being any discussion in the books that she is violating the rules of the Lord of Light when she seeks other means to accomplish what she believes to be his will.
3. Again you're just limiting the cleric for the sake of an argument. There is not any mechanical necessity to always engaged in prayer or be the holiest holy person ever. Especially for followers of more abstract deities, it can play a lot more subtly than that. And frankly, at least as far as I can remember from the show, Melisandre talks about her religion more than just about anybody.
Frankly, your description of how a red witch would be made actually pretty closely follows what I suggested somewhere anyways. That witches be occult-only as far as a traditions go, but based on patrons get additional spells from other traditions added to their spell list. It would be a lot easier to make an occult witch with a thread of divine or a cleric with a witch multiclass than to make a divine-only witch and try to convince folks you're not just a weird cleric.
You’re wanting a Class named Witch with very little identity unto itself because of how broad it is.
Nah, you want a spooky halloween one dimensional witch.
I'm not going to continue a conversation that's inherently against good faith.
Your big rebuttal to "why she isn't a divine witch" was to check out of the conversation with a one line about GRRM needing to take notes.
Easily solved by a multiclass... I mean, how is that a sticking point?
Because shadow magic is specifically against the Lord of Light's purview. Such things would get a Cleric in trouble.
The rest of which, to be honest I'm checked out at this point.
Paizo is gonna do what they're gonna do, and I've stated my case. Let others continue the debate if they care to.
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Its not supposed to be gotcha, I'm just annoying when it comes to semantics because I loved philosophical debate class that much :p You asked Rysky to point out where you said they were lying and I pointed out that they already did few posts earlier. Its not supposed to counter your arguments, its supposed to be reminder to remember what you said earlier.
I'm not actually taking sides on this particular topic*, just pointing out the debate has escalated to the point where mods will take action eventually, the latter half of post was just about my obsessiveness related to semantics. Its annoying yeah, but I feel like learning the semantics helps sharpening the debating skills, so I prefer it when people point them out in my arguments as well. Either way, taking step back and calming down is advisable at this point.
*(its kind of irrelevant for me whether divine witches exists or not in Pathfinder setting, I'd prefer them to not exist since to me it would start muddying the water if divine magic is something you can just teach to witches since I don't really see witches being powered by faith in their patron. But whether they could exist or should exist(there are good arguments for faith magic witches) or exist in other settings, fiction or media? Like I said, not taking sides on that topic since I just feel apathetic about it.)
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That example about semantics regarding color of sky is true yeah, but what you said earlier sounded to me more like "They KNOW its not uncommon concept, but they keep claiming it is" rather than "They THINK their opinion is fact". You probably meant latter, but it sounded like former.
On whether divine witches are pop culture wise prevalent, I wouldn't know, only ones I can think of are wiccan witches on top of my head are. They might be prevalent, but not everyone knows same things from pop culture(or the same pop culture, it does matter on which continent you are).
That sentence is lie only if they know the statement they are saying is untrue instead of them incorrectly presuming to know what you meant or misunderstanding what you meant. Either way, I do agree its rude claim and its incorrect as witches having all four spell lists isn't anymore broad than sorcerers having all four spell lists.
Either way, I got my semantic obsessive fix already done(actually to be completely honest, I want to go to sleep in few hours and want to get other stuff done before going to sleep, its really hard to satisfy my semantic fix), so I avoid further semantic comments since that won't really help the heated debate calming down again.
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On whether divine witches are pop culture wise prevalent, I wouldn't know, only ones I can think of are wiccan witches on top of my head are. They might be prevalent, but not everyone knows same things from pop culture(or the same pop culture, it does matter on which continent you are).
How common does something have to be for it to be included?
Inclusion >>> Exclusion
And for the record, I am very much in the "Occult Only or all 4 lists, no in between" camp, provided the Occult Only gives a LOT more spells to the list than just what's on the occult.
I thought leaning into the varied concept of the nature of the magic of witches by emphasizing hexes, patrons, and familiars would give it more teeth, not less. Spells are just spells at the end of the day, as a Witch and a Bard are different regardless of if they have the same list due to the other mechanics they possess.
Pick a list is not the problem with the Witches lack of identity IMO, it's the complete and utter lack of any other mechanics granting the witch identity. Hexes are too infrequent, familiars are hard to use and kinda lack luster, and patrons are an enigma with no structure.
Regardless of what list they have, those other issues need to be resolved.
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I don't mind idea of prepared spellcaster with access to all four lists, but I don't like idea of witch being that class because I prefer divine magic being specific to faithful or innate ability/connection some people have(like oracles and sorcerers). Mysterious patron teaching it to you through familiar doesn't really sound like faith magic to me, it makes it sound like you could learn it at school just like arcane magic.
I've actually been convinced that "Occult with lessons giving you access to witchy spells from other lists" is probably best choice, but my actual preference is that witch should have access only to occult and primal list because arcane list doesn't really feel that witchy to me while I could see nature witch being a thing.
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I've been trying to figure out how to put this into words, but I think there's a basic divide here, among posters, but also somewhere in Paizo maybe.
What is a witch? Is the point of the witch their patron-based magic? I for one would wonder why this would be called a witch and not a warlock or something, but I see no reason to refuse divine casting to such a character.
But the rest of the chassis, with the cackles and the hexes and all that--the parts that actually are specifically "witchy"--doesn't seem to lend itself or at least require the spell list choice.
I would very much rather see the two concepts split, if we had to. So the witch as released this summer would be an occult caster with a smaller focus on their base spellcasting but significantly more centered around hexes as cantrips/focus/full spells. Deal heavily with familiars. Lean into the thematic witches of folklore, allow witch traditions to encourage a curse witch, a potion witch, a polymorph witch, a winter witch, whatever. Give it its truly own corner of the class list.
And take the patron-heavy concept of borrowing spells from a mentor entity, fluff that out in the future into a full choose-a-list prepared caster based on the kind or family of entity they have as a patron, and release that as well. Build it out so it's a broadly capable class with specific uniqueness (as in, not just the "prepared sorcerer"), and let it have some conceptual or thematic overlap with the witch.
As it stands, there are some serious conflicts over concepts of witches and patrons and all that, and I think those long-standing conflicts here might actually indicate that we are cramming a few too many dissonant ideas into one setup. The witch does not need to cover all folktale witches, all modern fantasy witches, all patron-based magics, and strange extra-religious diviners. I love the patron concept and I love the witch concept, but the two are just not marrying in my head. Try as I might.
Again, keep in mind I never got to play PF1 so I don't have the baggage from what witches meant or could do then.