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Let us know! That's the point of the playtest. Myself, I'll be pushing to make patrons more interesting and significant. It should mean something different if one witch has Baba Yaga as a patron, another has Nocticula, and another has Queen Abrogail.Woo! :D Hopefully that goes through. Even if we can't have other casters as patrons(I can see why people might find non-quasi deity casters giving powers to other casters weird), I still love that idea. Maybe there can be some sort of compromise between having patrons be characters from setting and keeping them mysterious...(if nothing else, I suppose Crimson Oath's patron is kinda similar example)
I do like lesson system though, so would be nice if it sticks along with patrons themselves having more mechanical benefits specific to patron themselves.
On side note I like Patrot's Truth level 20 class feat, but I definitely would like more guidance on what is "fundamental truth" about the patron.
That's the thing for me—I don't see a patron as someone who gives anyone anything. They're not a source of power... they're an inspiration. If this were a real-world concept, a patron would be more like a teacher or an inspiring author or a politician or an activist—someone whose actions inspire you to take a specific route and to study and better yourself. Which means you can even have a dead person/deity as your patron.
I could see a mechanic whereby the patrons are listed not by name, but by role. Things like "Artist" or "Singer" or "Explorer" or "Teacher" or "Politician" or whatever. But with more flavorful names that make it sound like things a witch might be into, along with a few Golarion-flavored examples of patrons, before whatever else mechanical gets in there to do its thing. This way, the player could pick ANY NPC or whoever in any setting, potentially even for different roles. For example, a witch could pick Runelord Sorshen as a Teacher or a Politician and get different results.
Anyway... gonna step back out of the thread. Patrons are something I've always been intrigued on doing better, and I couldn't resist popping in here to chat a bit, but I'd rather let folks outside of my head help give feedback overall. So please pardon my input and distractions! :-P
I have been quite intrigued by this take on Patrons and the more I think about it, the more I see an immense potential in this.
Patrons that are not necessarily sources for the Witch's power, but ways to access it. Role models in a way. Giving keys that unlock the Witch's potential for magic.
Something I picture akin to methods of soothsaying, like reading tea leaves or tarot cards, using the yi king or communing with spirits or interpreting dreams. All those are different ways of getting answers about the unknown and they might give you the same answers but in different ways. And being skilled at tarot reading does not make you an expert at palmistry.
Choose a path, a Patron, study and meditate on them to access the secret truths of the universe through them. And thus gain magic powers.
In the end, the power comes from the Witch and their greater understanding but it is channeled, opened, accessed through the focus on the Patron. The Patron is then the How rather than the Why or What. How the Witch gains power rather than why they gain it and what that power is.
Note that this does not in any way preclude all the usual tropes about the Witch. Maybe the Patron of a Witch is also the source of their power, or it pretends to be, or another entity or several claims to be the Witch's Patron, whether true or not.
Impact of the Patron.
Because the Patron is the way through which the Witch access their power, it needs to color the power. Maybe some lessons are easier to learn if you focus on a Patron that has some affinities with those.
Impact on the familiar. The familiar is the living link between the Witch, the Patron and the power. So it makes sense that the Patron would have an impact on the familiar. Maybe through a selection on the familiar available and/or giving the familiar specific abilities.
In all case, we need to consider that some might wish for a less prescriptive Patron, and the possibility for GM and players to easily build the specifics of a Patron (say similar to how you can easily build a custom background). Makes me think that the Patron could provide Trained in a given Lore.
Why the focus on the Familiar?
I am a bit stuck on this. But the advising familiar is too present in the Witch's imagery to not try and find it an appropriate role.
Maybe the familiar is there to prevent the Witch from becoming completely unhinged. From losing their identity when they would be too focused on their Patron and risk losing their sense of self. The familiar then becomes the Witch's companion on her lonely road to knowledge and power. Helping them to always keep on progressing, understanding and mastering the lessons of the universe.
So what happens if the Witch forsakes its Patron? Based on my comparison to the methods of soothsaying, the Witch keeps their current knowledge and power but needs to find a new way to progress further. And their familiar would either adapt and keep on accompanying them or would leave and the Witch would find a more adequate replacement.
Witches and the Divine tradition.
TBH I do not see why Witches should be banned from getting the Divine tradition anyway when all the others are available.
And it makes even less sense to me if the Patron is merely the focus of a Witch's studies rather than the source of their power. Why would a Witch who focusses on plumbing the deeds, sayings, life and cult of Iomedae or those of a given Angel or those of a pious mortal figure learn to access Occult, Arcane or Primal power but not Divine power?
Tldr : beyond any other role it might have, what if the Patron is actually how the Witch gets their power, through studying it thoroughly, and not necessarily the source of the Witch's magic. Possibilities abound.
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Before he said that I always thought of it as a mentor/student relationship. I sort of liked the idea of it being a more Muse like relationship, though, I'm not sure I quite get how it would work exactly. I guess if the witch is learning magic by, essentially, copying what someone else who's good at magic does, that's kind of cool.
Maybe the familiar is there to prevent the Witch from becoming completely unhinged. From losing their identity when they would be too focused on their Patron and risk losing their sense of self. The familiar then becomes the Witch's companion on her lonely road to knowledge and power. Helping them to always keep on progressing, understanding and mastering the lessons of the universe.Alternatively, Maybe the familiar is a piece of the witch's soul crafted (metaphorically speaking) into the shape of their patron's soul. Normal Familiars
are already a part of their spellcasters soul in an animals body. This would explain why it seems to be the familiar that actually knows the spells.So what happens if the Witch forsakes its Patron? Based on my comparison to the methods of soothsaying, the Witch keeps their current knowledge and power but needs to find a new way to progress further. And their familiar would either adapt and keep on accompanying them or would leave and the Witch would find a more adequate replacement.I'm in agreement with this. Familiar Keeps their spells known, witch keeps their class and levels but needs to find a new patron before they can level up. Familiar may or may not abandon them.
I don't want the witch to have anathema at all.
It makes less sense to you under those circumstances? It actually would make more sense to me if the witch can't get god magic if they aren't actually drawing power from a god. Not that I want to reopen that argument, just not quite following you on this point.
And it makes even less sense to me if the Patron is merely the focus of a Witch's studies rather than the source of their power. Why would a Witch who focusses on plumbing the deeds, sayings, life and cult of Iomedae or those of a given Angel or those of a pious mortal figure learn to access Occult, Arcane or Primal power but not Divine power?
Thank you for your post.
About that last point, I see Divine magic as just another kind of magical energy. One that happens to be the magic deities grant to their Clerics and Champions and Oracles because of its essences. But I do not see the deities as having a monopoly on this energy. YMMV obviously.
And I find it extremely strange that a Witch who would study all the doings of a Divine figure, all their Divine powers, everything about their Divine nature, could become excellent at casting spells from Occult or Primal or Arcane when all the spells they obsess about are Divine but those they cannot get.
Thing is I do not read Divine as "god magic" that could not be studied and replicated exactly like the other 3 traditions.
Unless we consider that getting Divine powers from the study of a Divine being is what Clerics are all about, even though they are WIS-caster.
And yet that very same argument could be made about Druids and Primal, but Witches can get Primal.
Not wishing to reignite the argument either though. These are just my ideas about this in the context of the Patron as the object of the Witch's focused study.