| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So let me start off by saying that the Witch was one of my two favorite classes in PF1, with the flexibility of the Hexes, more engaging Familiar mechanics, and the narrative intrigues possible with the Patron all drawing me strongly towards the class. The name Vali Nepjarson is that of my Witch whom I have remade in every edition of Pathfinder/D&D that I have ever played.
And that is why I feel like the Witch as it exists in the APG playtest feels underwhelming to me and that makes me very sad. But I don't think that the changes that need to be made are major, and a lot of the reworks I've seen here are going far more than is needed.
So I would like to express the things about the class as I see it that should be reworked, and give some potential fixes for them in such a way that I feel would be reasonable reworks as a whole.
Problems:
1) Hexes feel very restrictive and awkward to use since they are both tied to Focus AND the vast majority of them can only be used once per foe per day. While their power feels about right, you really don't feel like you can use them anywhere near enough.
2) Kind of in the same vein, the class starts giving you diminishing returns for picking any more Lessons/Hexes after your third. Since you cannot gain any more Focus than 3, you are losing out on 1/3rd of the benefit that a Lesson Class Feat gives you if you continue to pick more after that. Looking over the options, for my primary Witch character, I can see at least 5, and when more options will be added probably MORE Hexes that I would want to pick, but I can't get up to 5 Focus for doing this. And while it's true that this is a relatively minor point as focus is so easily recoverable between encounters and you aren't likely to need more than 3 or so Focus points in an encounter, it still FEELS like you aren't getting everything that a feat promises you for picking more Lessons.
3) The Patrons are given little more than a mention. While you can KIND of pull together an idea of your patron through putting together different lessons, since the patrons are left so vague and undefined, they kind of come across as an unnecessary part of the class right now.
4) Familiars are mechanically interesting, but feel very homogenized and those mechanics lack any sort of flavor. There is nothing really to differentiate different types of familiars. This isn't such a big problem with Wizards or Sorcerers, since their possible familiars are really just there as an optional boon to do some cool stuff, but since the Witch is so dependent on their familiar and it is such a core part of the feel of the class, having so few options for flavorful mechanics hurts the fun of the Witch's familiar.
To me, these are the primary failings of the class right now, and while that all SOUNDS like a lot of woe-saying and negativity, I really think that possible fixes for these problems are very easy.
Solutions:
1) and 2) Hexes need to be broader in design and give more options. I feel like we need both Focus Cantrip Hexes AND Focus Spell hexes, similarly to how the Bard has these. This is of course not an uncommon suggestion, but I'd like to also suggest how this sort of thing should be implemented. As currently given, we have Basic Lessons, Greater Lessons, and Major Lessons. Basic Lessons currently give you a Lvl 1 Focus Hex and teach your familiar a Cantrip. I think that the Cantrip should be dropped altogether, and the Lvl 1 Hex should become a Cantrip Hex. Most of the current Lvl 1 Hexes would actually work just fine as Cantrips anyways. They're only moderately more powerful than regular Cantrips and with the restriction that creatures become immune to them for 24 hours, this more than makes up for them having unlimited uses.
Greater Lessons and Major Lessons would of course give you Focus Spell Hexes, and Greater Lessons could also give you a spell as they currently do, but I imagine that Greater Lessons would not (I'll get to why in a moment). This would also greatly lesson the potentiality of feeling like it's a poor idea to continue taking extra Lessons once you've hit your Focus cap because it would take one more Lesson to get to that cap of 3.
3) Patrons need to be more distinct and have more mechanical relevance. Rather than your Spell list being based on your first lesson, I feel like it should be based on your Patron itself. While this might feel a bit "Sorcerer-y", and that is a fair complaint, I feel that it wouldn't be too hard to differentiate the two. The Patron should give you access to a few spells not on whatever spell list it gives you. The Winter Patron being based off of Baba Yaga, for example, would actually be Occult rather than Primal, but would also give you access to several Cold spells, Cone of Cold and the like, but not one every level like the Sorc does. I'd say only 5 at the most, at levels 1, 3, 5, and 7, and 9.
The Patron would then also give an extra ability to your Familiar. Probably something passive, but pretty cool. For example, a Winter Witch's familiar could gain an ability that states that it treats all saves from your own spells that have the cold trait as critical successes, thus allowing it to walk into your Cone of Cold with no worries. A patron that had to do with life energy might have the ability where whenever either you or your familiar take healing, you can split the healing between yourself and your familiar however you like. Something to give a little something cool to your familiar that is unique to that patron. This partially deals with the next problem as well, but we'll continue with that a bit more...
4) Fixing the homogenization of the familiars is actually not something that COULD come from within the Witch itself, but similarly could also come from a General feat open to anyone that would meet the requirements of having a familiar. It would be a feat that would basically allow you trade out 2 of your Familiar abilities to transform the familiar into any Common, Tiny Level 0 creature, or trade 3 of your Familiar Abilities to Transform it into any Common, Tiny Level 1 creature.
This would come with all the powers of the creature in question, it's ability scores, any spells it has, and the creatures Health as though it were the ancestry HP of your familiar. Everything that scales with current familiars would still scale with the advanced familiar, but it would add it's Dex to it's AC, it's Con to it's health every level, and so on. Also any spells or abilities which have a Save DC would be replaced with your spell save DC if your DC is higher.
If the level 1 creature is a Fiend, Monitor, or Celestial, then it must be of the same alignment as you. So if you want a Lyrakien then by Caiden Cailean you better be Chaotic Good.
What does everyone think? Do people agree with my concerns about the Witch and do we feel like my solutions are reasonable?
I love your suggestions regarding hex cantrips and how to get them, and on board with patrons determining the spell list instead of a lesson.
I’m less sold on swapping out familiar options as you suggest. I would rather they just publish a dozen or two different kinds of familiars, including the planar ones you suggest.
I don’t want future monster designers accidentally creating an op familiar at some point. Much simpler to just write up stat blocks designed to be modified by familiar abilities and still be balancedish.
That is a fair concern, but with the much tighter math of PF2, and the stipulation that it has to be common creatures, I don't feel that it is likely that we'd get overpowered familiars.
I think it more likely that we'd run into the problems of some not being good enough to justify loosing your familiar abilities. Which would also be a problem, but far less so, and it's unlikely they'd suck so bad that it would seriously punish people who want to use them for flavor.
I just really, REALLY want a Lyrakien familiar. A Voidworm too, but for my personal Witch the Lyrakien is basically mandatory.
That is a fair concern, but with the much tighter math of PF2, and the stipulation that it has to be common creatures, I don't feel that it is likely that we'd get overpowered familiars.
I must have missed that part. Where does it say familiars have to be common?
i don't personally like the patron being known necessarily by the witch, and thus the player. really limits possibly story archs.
also, if my player picks a specific patron that i don't feel like jamming into the story it might not belong, it can be even more lack luster.
That is a fair concern, but with the much tighter math of PF2, and the stipulation that it has to be common creatures, I don't feel that it is likely that we'd get overpowered familiars.I must have missed that part. Where does it say familiars have to be common?
Sorry, I mean in my suggestion it says that you can trade out some of your familiar abilities for a Common, Tiny Lvl 0 or 1 creature.
I must have missed that part. Where does it say familiars have to be common?
Not common and the person you're asking already clarified, but just to add onto it, the default familiar rules say:
You can choose a Tiny animal you want as your familiar, such as a bat, cat, raven, or snake.
So things like imp familiars or whatever aren't legal unless you get a feat that lets you qualify.
Strictly speaking, I'm not even sure if the iconic Witch's nine tailed fox is a legal familiar.
i don't personally like the patron being known necessarily by the witch, and thus the player. really limits possibly story archs.
also, if my player picks a specific patron that i don't feel like jamming into the story it might not belong, it can be even more lack luster.
I'm not asking for specific, named patrons. I'm asking for basically the same as PF1 had, where the Patron is an archetype, and then for you to get certain examples for what that Archetype might be. So Winter Witch would be what the mechanics say, and Baba Yaga would be an example for what that might be.
Easy to ignore if you don't want to deal with it in your campaign but also more mechanically fleshed out so that every patron functions completely identically.