I am currently a player in a Skull and Shackles campaign. I am playing a sea singer bard, but the character is not working like I thought. We are up to level 6 so I've been playing her for a while, but the more I play, the less useful my charter seems. I think she's not an asset to the party at all. I talked to the GM and he said I could make a replacement character this one time.
Because I don't want to repeat the same mistakes, I thought I would seek extra help building a new character. Here are the issues I want to avoid again: I am too specialized. I barely get to use any of my sea singer skills. The only one I've ever had the chance to use was sea shanty at the beginning of the campaign since then, there has not been any opportunity to use them where it would help anything. But there have been times the bard skills replaced would have been helpful. So I want to avoid over specializing/making a character that relies on situations to be an asset.
Other other issue, the other players are very experienced and very good at building strong characters where I am not. I want to have a strong character too. I suspect they may min/max which is fine, they seem to like it. I don't like doing that, I prefer balanced, but I need to do so while still being at their "level" so to speak. We have creatures coming at us that hit with a roll of 30 and such, and do 20+ points of damage when they hit. I need to be able to be useful when fighting that sort of thing. I don't have to be fighting, but I need to contribute something. Not just sitting back, inspiring courage and watching arrows bounce off the thing.
I think the thing that sealed it for me was the last campaign where the party took two NPCs along so they could have some healing, buffing, and magic (that should be my niche).
The only niche I fill is party face because all of them used charisma as a dump stat.
So I am trying to build something fun to play, something the party actually needs. I've played a witch before, briefly, and I really had a lot of fun so I think I want to go that direction.
The other characters in the party are a brawler (our Captain), a monk, an inquisitor, and an alchemist. So a nice full caster witch would fill a nice niche. I thought about a sea witch, but nixed the idea because I thought I was over specializing like I did with the sea singer. I could use any advice. This is a rough draft of sorts, but I want to make sure I am going in the right direction.
We have a 20 point buy. Here's what so far:
Race: Elf
level:6 witch
Str: 10
Dex: 12
Con: 14
Int: 19
Wis: 10
Cha: 14 (I would lower this and bring up Dex or even Con, but all the other players have this as dump stat. We need someone with social skills)
Feats: Extra Hex, Extra Hex, Accursed Hex
Hexes: Flight, Cackle, Evil Eye, Slumber, Water Lung, Prehensile Hair (love that the hair gives me 10 foot reach for touch attacks)
Patron: Deception
Skills: I don't know if breaking down all of them is that useful, but I put points in:
Diplomacy, Intimidate, Knowledge Arcana, Knowledge Nature, Perception, Spellcraft, Use Magic Device
Background skills:
Appraise, Craft Tattoo, Profession Fortune Teller, Profession Sailor, Linguistics.
I haven't decided on weapons and I am still going though spells. I think I like some of the touch attack spells to use with my hair like chill touch or touch of idiocy. I will take healing spells, but may mainly use wands. Not sure about the heal hex as an option too (not just to heal, we run into a lot of undead).
As for the character, I envision her as being a lot like a burnt out hippy with a quirky personality. But when battle starts (or someone makes her angry), she will turn into the opposite she will be focused and no-nonsense and be a real, well, witch. Should be an interesting contrast. She's going to be very chaotic, so her motivation is she's just bored with what she's doing now and piracy sounds like fun.
Thanks for any help with this.
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Since you want to be a social character, consider the Charm and Disguise hexes; and if you want to stand close to enemies to use your hair, then Iceplant is a good hex (but frankly, the witch doesn't have many good touch spells anyway).
And since Smallfoot mentioned undead, bear in mind that Misfortune does work on undead whereas Evil Eye does not.
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Witch is the class I know most about, so I have a few ideas.
1 Race- have a look at a bloodmarked skinwalker if allowed by the GM and the racial feat bat shape. With this you can transform into a bat from level 1. Bats can fly, its not obvious you are anything but a bat and you can use hexes in that form.
2 Archetype. Consider Ashtifah. Vanishing step at level 2 is the best thing ever. If you have both Vanishing step and bat shape you are much better equipped to avoid damage and survive.
The winter witch archetype and later prestige class makes a powerful cold specialised blaster. If that idea appeals...
3 Hexes: you have "Flight, Cackle, Evil Eye, Slumber, Water Lung, Prehensile Hair (love that the hair gives me 10 foot reach for touch attacks)"
On the last I personally don't like touch attacks. Your BaB is crap and you are squishy. Doing it at 10' is better, still would not be my choice.
I like to take the hexes slumber, cackle, fortune and misfortune asap. The last two are massive buffs and debuffs.
4 Patron: Deception
Fine choice. But have a look at the unique patrons that give you a hex in exchange for some inconvenience. An extra hex, if a good once, is a lot.
5 Feats Good choices imho. Try to find room for improved initiative.
Witch is the class I know most about, so I have a few ideas.
1 Race- have a look at a bloodmarked skinwalker if allowed by the GM and the racial feat bat shape. With this you can transform into a bat from level 1. Bats can fly, its not obvious you are anything but a bat and you can use hexes in that form.
2 Archetype. Consider Ashtifah. Vanishing step at level 2 is the best thing ever. If you have both Vanishing step and bat shape you are much better equipped to avoid damage and survive.
The winter witch archetype and later prestige class makes a powerful cold specialised blaster. If that idea appeals...
3 Hexes: you have "Flight, Cackle, Evil Eye, Slumber, Water Lung, Prehensile Hair (love that the hair gives me 10 foot reach for touch attacks)"
On the last I personally don't like touch attacks. Your BaB is crap and you are squishy. Doing it at 10' is better, still would not be my choice.
I like to take the hexes slumber, cackle, fortune and misfortune asap. The last two are massive buffs and debuffs.
4 Patron: Deception
Fine choice. But have a look at the unique patrons that give you a hex in exchange for some inconvenience. An extra hex, if a good once, is a lot.
5 Feats Good choices imho. Try to find room for improved initiative.
/gasp
<3 <3 <3 the Bloodmarked Skinwalker and Ashtifah archetype, but you can't have Winter Witch archetype as well. They both modify the Familiar feature.
Str: 10
Dex: 12
Con: 14
Int: 19
Wis: 10
Cha: 14Str point buy : 0
Dex PB : 10+2 = 0
Con PB : 1+1+1+2+2+3 = 10 from 8 to 14 stat (counting the con penalty)
Int PB : 10+2 = 0 but then 1+1+1+2+2+3 = 10 from 12 to 18 stat (assuming the level 4 bump goes to int)
Wis PB : 0
Cha PB : 1+1+1+2 = 5 from 10 to 14 statThat makes it a 10 + 10 + 5 = 25 point buy, so the limit has been breached. Either that or there's a stat equipement somewhere
I plugged it in to Herolab, but I will double check. I may have made a mistake. Although I think it might be because we are doing Automatic Bonus Progression which gives me another +2 to intelligence.
I want to personally thank everyone for the tips, but that would be a bit cumbersome with quotes. So than you all, especially Chillel.
I've been running this by my GM too and he's actually suggesting a different class that I didn't think of (Oracle). I think I will build this witch first though, then look at the other.