I haven't had a problem getting my cleric and druid magic to work.Cleric and Druid get more complains compared to Bard whose only complain is "its boring to just use bardic performance."I don't want to see the bard nerfed. It does one thing really well. If someone wants to do that one thing really well, bard is your class.
Only two people have played bards in my group to do that one thing really well. And the rest of the party loves the bard because they do that one thing really well.
But the bard will never be the following:
1. Never top damage dealer.
2. Never top healer.
The bard buffs the party and debuffs monsters. Both of these actions make the party better, but don't do much for the bard. If you like being a buffer and debuffer, then you play a bard. Why take the one class that does something really well that someone might like to do in a party away?
It would be like nerfing the cleric for being too good at healing, when some players just want to be the best at healing.
I don't want to see that. Let the bard be the best buffer and debuffer party support class in the game. It is their niche.
I think it's not the best deal to subdivide roles when it comes to a boardgame or rpg, especially because they mostly follow the same rules of any hack and slahs.
The sooner the enemy dies, the better.
Being able to provide a boost to the whole party or even a debuff to all enemies ( dirge of doom ) will obviously result in less attacks from the enemies.
Less attacks from enemies would obviously result into less damage taken from the whole party.
Less damage taken would obviously result in less healing required.
That's why talking about "best healer" i somehow off.
On a white room scenario, the best healer will be able to refill the hp pool more times and in a better way. But if that specific point is not reached, and because so character would never require that much...
It's not really a role. It's a particular thing they do well.
Having played a bard, they sort of do the following:
1. Best buffing/debuffing abilities in the game.
2. Can heal if needed.
3. Can do some AoE damage.
4. Good at charisma based skills and can be the face man in a party.
Nothing is limited to a single role. But they might have a "thing" they do really well on top of some other stuff they bring that is just ok.
The bard has compositions that make them the best at buffing the party and debuffing groups who can be feared. Why take that away to make other classes feel better?
Instead just some up with some thing for that class to do really, really well and improve the class that way.
The wizard schtick is they cast a lot of spells, more than anyone else. It's just that isn't all that great a "thing" because it's pretty easy to expand casting power with items, great focus options, and better inherent class abilities. So you have to analyze if "their" thing works well enough to make the class stand out doing that "thing."
It should be a "thing" that someone can build an effective, fun class around.
So far the only "thing" a player of mine has found to build around is the Fervor witch because it's a healer with more combat ability than the cleric generally has. That's why the like it.
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If the witch isn't to have its own distinct mechanical identity, are there any reasons (other than the logistics) that the witch shouldn't just be thrown out as a class and exist as an archetype (or class archetypes) for spellcasters?Well, the fact that it has some mechanical identity is a pretty decent reason. Besides, what's the point of destruction? Spite? It already does exist as an archetype.
As I said, I'm not asking about the logistics. Obviously it's not going to happen and it would be pointless to actually propose it. I'm asking if the witch actually does anything that justifies it existing as its own class rather than as an option that can be layered on top of another class to trade some class identity (feats) for versatility and flavor. "Worse at being a cleric but with stoke the heart" sounds exactly like that to me. A more robust list of patrons, lessons, and feats will make it impractical as purely an archetype in the future, but I wonder if it might be more appealing that way right now.
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As I said, I'm not asking about the logistics. Obviously it's not going to happen and it would be pointless to actually propose it. I'm asking if the witch actually does anything that justifies it existing as its own class rather than as an option that can be layered on top of another class to trade some class identity (feats) for versatility and flavor. "Worse at being a cleric but with stoke the heart" sounds exactly like that to me. A more robust list of patrons, lessons, and feats will make it impractical as purely an archetype in the future, but I wonder if it might be more appealing that way right now.
Unfortunately, you cannot gain the focus cantrip through multiclass feats. You can get basic lessons at 4 and greater lessons at 12 though.
That you can get the bard's inspire courage but not the witch's hex cantrip through multiclass feats is really weird though.
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If we're talking about the Witch's specific identity, then I feel like no one is really getting to the heart of it. Yes, the Witch's role can be as a blaster, a debuffer, a healer, or whatever, but I really don't think that is the Witch's identity per say.
And honestly, looking at the way PF2 is designed, I really feel like classical "Tank/Healer/DPS/Utility/Buffer/Debuffer" roles aren't the best way to look at things, but I'm not going to get into the heavy details of that in this thread.
A Witch's role, in my opinion, is to subvert the conventional way that other classes do their jobs by messing with the flow of things with abilities that work in unconventional ways.
Discern Secrets, for example essentially lets you make a Recall Knowledge check with someone else's modifier. YMMV how useful this is, but at a table that gets a lot of use out of Recall Knowledge, it can be extremely potent.
Evil Eye is worse than Dirge of Doom, sure (it's a level 1 ability as opposed to a level 6 ability, so that isn't surprising) but it's an early way of getting fear on an enemy so that will stick for longer than a round and it's really easy to do in social situations in a way so that no one knows you are doing it (or can't prove it even if they do know).
Needle of Vengeance can do some nice damage, but it can ALSO aid in tanking and general survival by discouraging an enemy to attack a specific target. Sure, the Barbarian might have the lowest AC of the guys attacking the evil anti-paladin, buuuuuut he gets a really bad headache whenever it happens, so maybe attack the fighter instead even though he's less likely to hit...
Malicious Shadow might not be the best attack, but it can allow you to consistently attack while staying hidden and out of sight doing nothing to give your location away.
Glacial Heart is a level 5 spell that is both almost as good of single target debuff as a level 6 spell and does almost as much damage to that target as another level 5 spell. Basically nothing in the game that I can think of can do that much damage while also doing that good of a debuff. Yeah it's rare, but still, hot damn Baba Yaga...
Even objectively bad options like Wilding Word or Nudge Fate still do this. Nudge fate lets you give a +1 to a skill check that you can wait to give someone until they need and retroactively give them, while Wilding Word is a fascinating way of letting the Witch be tankier AND an unusual and interesting way of potentially inflicting sickened on someone, only held back by it's abysmal target limitations.
In my opinion, the identity of the Witch should be, and basically already is, doing whatever they're doing in such a way that it breaks the normal conventions of how to deal with it. Heck, even their "other" level 20 feat...the mobile hut. It's not mechanically the best, but what other class can give you an entire stable base of operations that can move with you.
How powerful or well balanced any of these are? Again, it depends entirely on you the player and how well you can manipulate these abilities. Some will be really good, while others will be really bad. But as more options are released it it will become easier to sparse out exactly which choices will work for different people and situations.
As I said in my previous post, the problem is not that the Witch's abilities are worse than the Bard's or the Druid's or whomever else's. The problem is that the Witch gits objectively fewer of these things to do from the start and also Witch has both less spells than the Wizard but is more fragile than the Bard or Druid.
I hold to my personal fixes for the class. Replace Phase Familiar with a Basic Lesson so that you have the same number of things to do and also give the Witch 8 HP per level and saves that look more like that of a Bard instead of a Wizard.
Do that and the Witch will be perfectly well balanced as a class with every other spellcaster and will frankly be my favorite spellcaster in the game just because of how subversive their ability set is.
{. . .}
The wizard schtick is they cast a lot of spells, more than anyone else. It's just that isn't all that great a "thing" because it's pretty easy to expand casting power with items, great focus options, and better inherent class abilities. So you have to analyze if "their" thing works well enough to make the class stand out doing that "thing."
{. . .}
If I analyzed the class descriptions correctly, Wizard just barely edges out Sorderer in this (non-Universalist Wizard gets 1 more spell from Drain Bonded Item), except for Universalist which comes out exactly the same (has 1 fewer spell per spell level, but then gets Drain Bonded Item 1/spell level to exactly catch up). Witch gets fewer spells than either, the same as a Universalist Wizard that lost (and has not yet replaced) their Bonded Item.
In 1st Edition, Witch had the same spells per day as a Universalist Wizard who had a Familiar instead of a Bonded Item, but had less restriction on the use of most Hexes than a 2nd Edition Witch (and had a LOT more choices of Hex, even considering that a lot of the 1st Edition Hex Choices were just plain bad), and would eventually end up with a lot more of them.
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As I said, I'm not asking about the logistics. Obviously it's not going to happen and it would be pointless to actually propose it. I'm asking if the witch actually does anything that justifies it existing as its own class rather than as an option that can be layered on top of another class to trade some class identity (feats) for versatility and flavor. "Worse at being a cleric but with stoke the heart" sounds exactly like that to me. A more robust list of patrons, lessons, and feats will make it impractical as purely an archetype in the future, but I wonder if it might be more appealing that way right now.If the witch isn't to have its own distinct mechanical identity, are there any reasons (other than the logistics) that the witch shouldn't just be thrown out as a class and exist as an archetype (or class archetypes) for spellcasters?Well, the fact that it has some mechanical identity is a pretty decent reason. Besides, what's the point of destruction? Spite? It already does exist as an archetype.
Witch is inherently eclectic. Most hybrid spellcasting builds require archetype.
* I want to be a Bard with a familiar: Bard with Familiar Master archetype.
* I want to be a Cleric with party buffing abilities that don't cost spell slots: Cleric with Bard archetype.
* I want to be a Wizard that can do focus spell healing: Wizard with Blessed One archetype.
The difficulty is that archetypes are a bit costly to character build. You generally only get one archetype every 6 levels (less if your archetype has skill feats).
So if you want to be a Bard/Druid hybrid, you can either be a Bard with Druid archetype, a Druid with Bard archetype, or a Witch.
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This raises a question... How do tables who like Free Archetype rules feel about Witches compared to other tables?
This raises a question... How do tables who like Free Archetype rules feel about Witches compared to other tables?
I'd be cool with that for arcane witch at least bc I could max out wizard dedication for more slots and spell shenanigans while also having cool focus spells from witch feats....if only the arcane hex cantrip was cooler
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Witch is inherently eclectic. Most hybrid spellcasting builds require archetype.* I want to be a Bard with a familiar: Bard with Familiar Master archetype.
* I want to be a Cleric with party buffing abilities that don't cost spell slots: Cleric with Bard archetype.
* I want to be a Wizard that can do focus spell healing: Wizard with Blessed One archetype.The difficulty is that archetypes are a bit costly to character build. You generally only get one archetype every 6 levels (less if your archetype has skill feats).
So if you want to be a Bard/Druid hybrid, you can either be a Bard with Druid archetype, a Druid with Bard archetype, or a Witch.
You're really going to need to explain where this "inherently eclectic" is coming from. If you're hinging the entire argument on being able to take basic lesson a few times then I really can't see it. Especially since archetypes are only costly if your class has good feats to begin with. Sure, bards and druids don't want to surrender many class feats, but wizard, cleric and sorcerer all have plenty of weak levels they can afford to use on archetyping. The wizard especially has awful feats they can use to go witch archetype and take those lessons if they want while retaining their superior casting and theses.
Also, primal sorc/bard is definitely a better way to get that nature singer combination. The elemental or Phoenix bloodlines have good bloodline spells and decent level 1 focus spells, max level polymorph and blast spells, inspire courage and crossblood synesthesia for full proficiency bonus to one of the best debuffs in the game. Being able to blast, flex melee, heal, buff or debuff at level 9 with a minimum of 2 archetype feats is "inherently eclectic." The primal witch can do the same with fewer spell slots and worse buffing and debuffing but can't even gain an occult archetype without giving up points in dex, con or wis.
Occult/ primal is a lost cause as blasting and polymorphing aren't really worth it outside of top level slots
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I loath the whole “Wizard feats are lame, so it’s easier for them to archetype” line of reasoning. Sure, I get it, but it’s presenting a bug as a feature.
Archetypes should be compelling choices that you make in exchange for your class feats for a purpose. It should never be a “Might as well!” thought.
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I loath the whole “Wizard feats are lame, so it’s easier for them to archetype” line of reasoning. Sure, I get it, but it’s presenting a bug as a feature.
Archetypes should be compelling choices that you make in exchange for your class feats for a purpose. It should never be a “Might as well!” thought.
I agree with this in concept, but the reality of the situation is that until they introduce compelling feats, archetyping is the best use of most of the wizard's class feats.
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You have no idea if that's a bug. They very well could consider choosing your spells as the main meaningful choices for casters moreso than feats.
Then we’re back the my old “Release the Dev kit!” line.
We can’t just keep invoking this presumed perfectly costed developer bible that explains every power discrepancy. Especially because we don’t see the presumed cost balancing mirrored across all classes which share similar traits.
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Releasing a dev kit is more likely to result in a negative for Paizo than positive. People that already disagree are going to just continue to complain about it, and people that don't are just going to point at it and be told the person they're talking to fundamentally disagrees with it so it's irrelevant.
It's a no-win for them.
My point actually is that the Dev Kit doesn’t actually exist. Or at least not in a way that you invoked it upthread. It’s much more likely that they have a rough set of guidelines rather than a meticulously costs system.
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This raises a question... How do tables who like Free Archetype rules feel about Witches compared to other tables?
Our impression is that the witch is perfectly good, and we've been using free archetype since the APG came out. Reading this thread though, I kind of think that the main difference is that some of these other people are undervaluing the individual focus cantrips the Witch has and the Familiar, which is making the class sound super weak when its fine-- I was talking about this with our hardcore optimizers the other day, we agreed the Bard was just top tier, but that the Witch wasn't bad by any means.
We also kind of agreed that the paizo boards are somewhat low on system mastery right now after reading the discussion here, I think PF1e expectations are holding people back-- there's a lot of discussion but a lot of it has blinders on, and they're more centered on asserting things that have a limited relationship with the meta of the system itself.
Bards for example are good, but they're not so far and away better than the other casters that you're sacrificing anything-- we actually have a player switching off bard for Sorcerer because they feel like the buffs they're giving out aren't meaningful, and they feel weak compared to my Wizard, or my buddies Eldritch Archer Fighter/Witch-- that isn't to suggest the class is bad because we think they were doing great, and how great those buffs can be, but it goes to show that its subtle enough to give someone that impression, even though they're as experienced as its currently possible to be in PF2e (we've been playing weekly since I bought the CRB day 1.)
We're seeing people who are having trouble, but also aren't really entertaining the idea that they might have some things to learn, AND are claiming to know the game super well, and sometimes even better than the designers.
We feel somewhat qualified to say that because our party can reliably handle extreme encounters, and that was before Free Archetype came into the picture. For instance, our experience is that Casters aren't particularly weak (although they are more balanced with martials, obviously) either, and if you pick the correct spells they even do quite well against +3/+4 creatures (my current Wizard is arguably our backbone in those fights, mainly from upcasting Magic Missile, but even in our last campaign where no one was using the arcane or occult lists, they were no slouches.)
I do think Free Archetype helps though, obviously, since you can use it to pick up things to fill out your action economy and bolster your spells per day and stuff.
My point actually is that the Dev Kit doesn’t actually exist. Or at least not in a way that you invoked it upthread. It’s much more likely that they have a rough set of guidelines rather than a meticulously costs system.Releasing a dev kit is more likely to result in a negative for Paizo than positive. People that already disagree are going to just continue to complain about it, and people that don't are just going to point at it and be told the person they're talking to fundamentally disagrees with it so it's irrelevant.
It's a no-win for them.
We actually have every reason to think it does, the way the designers have talked about it changes have deterministic consequences to the design-- like we know for a fact that if the finesse trait gets added to something it gets knocked down a damage die. We know that better weapon proficiency would have to bump full casters down to wave casters.
There are definitely strict rules Paizo abides by that have been calculated to make everything balanced in this game, ignoring those is a detriment to your argument.
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You're really going to need to explain where this "inherently eclectic" is coming from. If you're hinging the entire argument on being able to take basic lesson a few times then I really can't see it.
You can only take Basic Lesson once. I'm assuming that you are talking about all of the Lesson feats as a whole. The difference being that you can't take Basic Lesson again at 4th level, you have to wait until 6th level for Greater Lesson. Similar with 8th level - you have to wait until 10th for Major Lesson.
The Lesson feats are certainly a big part of it. There are also things like Wortwitch or Cauldron that can add pieces of other class roles to the mix.
Also, primal sorc/bard is definitely a better way to get that nature singer combination. The elemental or Phoenix bloodlines have good bloodline spells and decent level 1 focus spells, max level polymorph and blast spells, inspire courage and crossblood synesthesia for full proficiency bonus to one of the best debuffs in the game. Being able to blast, flex melee, heal, buff or debuff at level 9 with a minimum of 2 archetype feats is "inherently eclectic." The primal witch can do the same with fewer spell slots and worse buffing and debuffing but can't even gain an occult archetype without giving up points in dex, con or wis.
And that is my point.
Yes, there is some benefit to spending the archetype and using two core classes to get the character that you want.
On the other side, if Occult spellcasting is important to the character maybe start with Occult Witch and take Wortwitch to add the Druid flavor. It depends on what you are trying to build with this character.
And in saying that, I think that Witch also seems to work better if you start with a character that you are trying to build and then pick mechanics to match, rather than looking through the classes, skills, feats, and such for powerful mechanics first and then trying to fit a character around it.
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You're really going to need to explain where this "inherently eclectic" is coming from. If you're hinging the entire argument on being able to take basic lesson a few times then I really can't see it.You can only take Basic Lesson once. I'm assuming that you are talking about all of the Lesson feats as a whole. The difference being that you can't take Basic Lesson again at 4th level, you have to wait until 6th level for Greater Lesson. Similar with 8th level - you have to wait until 10th for Major Lesson.
The Lesson feats are certainly a big part of it. There are also things like Wortwitch or Cauldron that can add pieces of other class roles to the mix.
Also, primal sorc/bard is definitely a better way to get that nature singer combination. The elemental or Phoenix bloodlines have good bloodline spells and decent level 1 focus spells, max level polymorph and blast spells, inspire courage and crossblood synesthesia for full proficiency bonus to one of the best debuffs in the game. Being able to blast, flex melee, heal, buff or debuff at level 9 with a minimum of 2 archetype feats is "inherently eclectic." The primal witch can do the same with fewer spell slots and worse buffing and debuffing but can't even gain an occult archetype without giving up points in dex, con or wis.
And that is my point.
Yes, there is some benefit to spending the archetype and using two core classes to get the character that you want.
On the other side, if Occult spellcasting is important to the character maybe start with Occult Witch and take Wortwitch to add the Druid flavor. It depends on what you are trying to build with this character.
And in saying that, I think that Witch also seems to work better if you start with a character that you are trying to build and then pick mechanics to match, rather than looking through the classes, skills, feats, and such for powerful mechanics first and then trying to fit a character around it.
In general any balanced system is like that, the mechanical options have very different textures but ultimately balance means that the reason to pick one thing over something else is because "I want to" not because "there is some compelling reason telling me I have to"
"I want my main stat to be intelligence" is already a compelling reason to play a Witch instead of a Druid or Bard, if you want the primal or occult spell list.
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Also, primal sorc/bard is definitely a better way to get that nature singer combination. The elemental or Phoenix bloodlines have good bloodline spells and decent level 1 focus spells, max level polymorph and blast spells, inspire courage and crossblood synesthesia for full proficiency bonus to one of the best debuffs in the game. Being able to blast, flex melee, heal, buff or debuff at level 9 with a minimum of 2 archetype feats is "inherently eclectic." The primal witch can do the same with fewer spell slots and worse buffing and debuffing but can't even gain an occult archetype without giving up points in dex, con or wis.
And that is my point.
Yes, there is some benefit to spending the archetype and using two core classes to get the character that you want.
On the other side, if Occult spellcasting is important to the character maybe start with Occult Witch and take Wortwitch to add the Druid flavor. It depends on what you are trying to build with this character.
I think you missed the rest of the sentence after the part you bolded. The part that makes the whole sentence boil down to: the witch can do the same thing but worse. And that is my point. There is nothing the witch can do or combination of things the witch can do, that is not done better by a different class.
Personally, I see no reason to discuss flavor alongside mechanics. If you absolutely need the witch to fit the flavor of your character, more power to you. For everyone else though the witch is a strictly inferior option.
"I want my main stat to be intelligence" is already a compelling reason to play a Witch instead of a Druid or Bard, if you want the primal or occult spell list.
Except this right here. If your party lacks anyone interested in the INT based skills and you want that niche while covering primal or occult (wizard still wins arcane and I still don't think divine is defensible on a non-cleric) the witch can cover that.
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This raises a question... How do tables who like Free Archetype rules feel about Witches compared to other tables?Our impression is that the witch is perfectly good, and we've been using free archetype since the APG came out. Reading this thread though, I kind of think that the main difference is that some of these other people are undervaluing the individual focus cantrips the Witch has and the Familiar, which is making the class sound super weak when its fine-- I was talking about this with our hardcore optimizers the other day, we agreed the Bard was just top tier, but that the Witch wasn't bad by any means.
We also kind of agreed that the paizo boards are somewhat low on system mastery right now after reading the discussion here, I think PF1e expectations are holding people back-- there's a lot of discussion but a lot of it has blinders on, and they're more centered on asserting things that have a limited relationship with the meta of the system itself.
Bards for example are good, but they're not so far and away better than the other casters that you're sacrificing anything-- we actually have a player switching off bard for Sorcerer because they feel like the buffs they're giving out aren't meaningful, and they feel weak compared to my Wizard, or my buddies Eldritch Archer Fighter/Witch-- that isn't to suggest the class is bad because we think they were doing great, and how great those buffs can be, but it goes to show that its subtle enough to give someone that impression, even though they're as experienced as its currently possible to be in PF2e (we've been playing weekly since I bought the CRB day 1.)
We're seeing people who are having trouble, but also aren't really entertaining the idea that they might have some things to learn, AND are claiming to know the game super well, and sometimes even better than the designers.
We feel somewhat qualified to say that because our party can reliably handle extreme encounters, and that was before Free Archetype...
If you're running free archetype, you are definitely not running the classes as is and this could greatly alter the view of each class capability if you are using them when it is most advantageous for each.
Also, primal sorc/bard is definitely a better way to get that nature singer combination. The elemental or Phoenix bloodlines have good bloodline spells and decent level 1 focus spells, max level polymorph and blast spells, inspire courage and crossblood synesthesia for full proficiency bonus to one of the best debuffs in the game. Being able to blast, flex melee, heal, buff or debuff at level 9 with a minimum of 2 archetype feats is "inherently eclectic." The primal witch can do the same with fewer spell slots and worse buffing and debuffing but can't even gain an occult archetype without giving up points in dex, con or wis.
And that is my point.
Yes, there is some benefit to spending the archetype and using two core classes to get the character that you want.
On the other side, if Occult spellcasting is important to the character maybe start with Occult Witch and take Wortwitch to add the Druid flavor. It depends on what you are trying to build with this character.
I think you missed the rest of the sentence after the part you bolded. The part that makes the whole sentence boil down to: the witch can do the same thing but worse. And that is my point. There is nothing the witch can do or combination of things the witch can do, that is not done better by a different class.
Personally, I see no reason to discuss flavor alongside mechanics. If you absolutely need the witch to fit the flavor of your character, more power to you. For everyone else though the witch is a strictly inferior option.
"I want my main stat to be intelligence" is already a compelling reason to play a Witch instead of a Druid or Bard, if you want the primal or occult spell list.Except this right here. If your party lacks anyone interested in the INT based skills and you want that niche while covering primal or occult (wizard still wins arcane and I still don't think divine is defensible on a non-cleric) the witch can...
hmm? if nothing else Angel Sorcerers, and Life Oracles are both phenomenal healers, Clerics might still lead the pack, but 'non-defensible' isn't really on the table, if we were rating healers using ye olde color system clerics would be sky blue (excellent) but the others would be dark blue (good) for sure.
...This raises a question... How do tables who like Free Archetype rules feel about Witches compared to other tables?Our impression is that the witch is perfectly good, and we've been using free archetype since the APG came out. Reading this thread though, I kind of think that the main difference is that some of these other people are undervaluing the individual focus cantrips the Witch has and the Familiar, which is making the class sound super weak when its fine-- I was talking about this with our hardcore optimizers the other day, we agreed the Bard was just top tier, but that the Witch wasn't bad by any means.
We also kind of agreed that the paizo boards are somewhat low on system mastery right now after reading the discussion here, I think PF1e expectations are holding people back-- there's a lot of discussion but a lot of it has blinders on, and they're more centered on asserting things that have a limited relationship with the meta of the system itself.
Bards for example are good, but they're not so far and away better than the other casters that you're sacrificing anything-- we actually have a player switching off bard for Sorcerer because they feel like the buffs they're giving out aren't meaningful, and they feel weak compared to my Wizard, or my buddies Eldritch Archer Fighter/Witch-- that isn't to suggest the class is bad because we think they were doing great, and how great those buffs can be, but it goes to show that its subtle enough to give someone that impression, even though they're as experienced as its currently possible to be in PF2e (we've been playing weekly since I bought the CRB day 1.)
We're seeing people who are having trouble, but also aren't really entertaining the idea that they might have some things to learn, AND are claiming to know the game super well, and sometimes even better than the designers.
We feel somewhat qualified to say that because our party can reliably handle extreme encounters, and
We had a lot of experience without free archetype first and can see what effects it has by nature of the feats we're taking. For instance my Wizard is an Investigator/Wizard dual class-- even my investigator feats are all out-of-combat bonuses that don't do anything due to the GM's style, but I never use any Investigator anything in combat, so I know how well I'm performing magically relative to the single class no free archetype casters from the prior campaign (which was super far in by the time the APG came out and we switched over to FA) and our initial test game.
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We actually have every reason to think it does, the way the designers have talked about it changes have deterministic consequences to the design-- like we know for a fact that if the finesse trait gets added to something it gets knocked down a damage die. We know that better weapon proficiency would have to bump full casters down to wave casters.There are definitely strict rules Paizo abides by that have been calculated to make everything balanced in this game, ignoring those is a detriment to your argument.
Funny enough those are some of the exact things I would point to say it doesn’t!
They’ve even basically told us these are in fact some of their guidelines just, ones they have developed well after the game launched, and have broken / got wrong on a several occasions.
This isn’t isn’t a critique on Paizo by the way. You don’t need a system like that to have a game. What I am critiquing is the assumption that’s out there in the community that there is a Master Development Kit that perfectly lays out every intersecting aspect of the game and costs them accordingly. Ergo, there are mistakes in game design or class balance, we just don’t “know” the math.
Paizo can and have made a ton of mistakes, and will continue to make more. That’s okay, just as long as we see them for what they are and call them out when something isn’t working.
Ascribing everything back to some master plan that’s hidden from view and thus beyond criticism, just isn’t a good mindset
I don't really get the hype for Dirge of Doom. I've only played a mid-level bard, but I've done fine with just standard Inspire + Demoralize, which saves 1 action compared to harmonizing Courage & Dirge. Is there something I'm missing besides AoE frighten?
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Just because things slip through the cracks doesn't mean a dev kit doesn't exist.
That's like saying "bugs/typos in a game means QA/proofreading doesn't exist".
We actually have every reason to think it does, the way the designers have talked about it changes have deterministic consequences to the design-- like we know for a fact that if the finesse trait gets added to something it gets knocked down a damage die. We know that better weapon proficiency would have to bump full casters down to wave casters.There are definitely strict rules Paizo abides by that have been calculated to make everything balanced in this game, ignoring those is a detriment to your argument.
Funny enough those are some of the exact things I would point to say it doesn’t!
They’ve even basically told us these are in fact some of their guidelines just, ones they have developed well after the game launched, and have broken / got wrong on a several occasions.
This isn’t isn’t a critique on Paizo by the way. You don’t need a system like that to have a game. What I am critiquing is the assumption that’s out there in the community that there is a Master Development Kit that perfectly lays out every intersecting aspect of the game and costs them accordingly. Ergo, there are mistakes in game design or class balance, we just don’t “know” the math.
Paizo can and have made a ton of mistakes, and will continue to make more. That’s okay, just as long as we see them for what they are and call them out when something isn’t working.
Ascribing everything back to some master plan that’s hidden from view and thus beyond criticism, just isn’t a good mindset
I mean, when they've been broken, that's been more a matter of the number of hands they have on the project and things slipping through editing-- like Heaven Seeker, for instance. You've def got the air of someone using their ability to make mistakes in order to carry the burden of your argument as to whether or not they have, which is what I think we're responding to.
hmm? if nothing else Angel Sorcerers, and Life Oracles are both phenomenal healers, Clerics might still lead the pack, but 'non-defensible' isn't really on the table, if we were rating healers using ye olde color system clerics would be sky blue (excellent) but the others would be dark blue (good) for sure.
It's not so much the healing as it is the whole package. The divine list has a lot of niche healing spells that it really wants to be able to prepare in their highest slot to counteract effects. The other casters being unable to freely heighten or even know those spells as needed on top of the heal spell needing to compete with other spells for spell slot usage instead of just having 4 slots dedicated to it makes non clerics much more cumbersome to use.
hmm? if nothing else Angel Sorcerers, and Life Oracles are both phenomenal healers, Clerics might still lead the pack, but 'non-defensible' isn't really on the table, if we were rating healers using ye olde color system clerics would be sky blue (excellent) but the others would be dark blue (good) for sure.It's not so much the healing as it is the whole package. The divine list has a lot of niche healing spells that it really wants to be able to prepare in their highest slot to counteract effects. The other casters being unable to freely heighten or even know those spells as needed on top of the heal spell needing to compete with other spells for spell slot usage instead of just having 4 slots dedicated to it makes non clerics much more cumbersome to use.
huh, I guess this just goes to show how different perception is, I would take for granted that a healing build on a Divine List Sorcerer or Oracle is using Heal as a Signature Spell and would be even more flexible than a cleric in that respect.
we also haven't come across counteraction much either, especially not from team monster.
hmm? if nothing else Angel Sorcerers, and Life Oracles are both phenomenal healers, Clerics might still lead the pack, but 'non-defensible' isn't really on the table, if we were rating healers using ye olde color system clerics would be sky blue (excellent) but the others would be dark blue (good) for sure.It's not so much the healing as it is the whole package. The divine list has a lot of niche healing spells that it really wants to be able to prepare in their highest slot to counteract effects. The other casters being unable to freely heighten or even know those spells as needed on top of the heal spell needing to compete with other spells for spell slot usage instead of just having 4 slots dedicated to it makes non clerics much more cumbersome to use.huh, I guess this just goes to show how different perception is, I would take for granted that a healing build on a Divine List Sorcerer or Oracle is using Heal as a Signature Spell and would be even more flexible than a cleric in that respect.
we also haven't come across counteraction much either, especially not from team monster.
I've found that the moment you gain access to a heal staff, that flaw in the cleric goes away. Having that many extra heal casts is likely overdoing it but having four big burst heals and 2-3 smaller heals means your gm will really need to run you through a gauntlet before you run out of juice. Funny enough, you can see that the heal staff repeats many of its spells each level just to try and keep up for counteracting. That it fails because staves are always behind is unfortunate.
The cleric also has the dubious honor of lacking good class feats so it doesn't have much problem dipping into sorc to steal angel halo to stack status and item bonuses to healing or getting extra slots for buffs. I'm actually starting to wonder if it'd be worth not getting the 20 in cha to instead get 14 int to get both sorc and witch healing focus spells.
I don't really get the hype for Dirge of Doom. I've only played a mid-level bard, but I've done fine with just standard Inspire + Demoralize, which saves 1 action compared to harmonizing Courage & Dirge. Is there something I'm missing besides AoE frighten?
AoE frighten synergizes better against groups of creatures reducing attack rolls, saves, and AC.
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hmm? if nothing else Angel Sorcerers, and Life Oracles are both phenomenal healers, Clerics might still lead the pack, but 'non-defensible' isn't really on the table, if we were rating healers using ye olde color system clerics would be sky blue (excellent) but the others would be dark blue (good) for sure.It's not so much the healing as it is the whole package. The divine list has a lot of niche healing spells that it really wants to be able to prepare in their highest slot to counteract effects. The other casters being unable to freely heighten or even know those spells as needed on top of the heal spell needing to compete with other spells for spell slot usage instead of just having 4 slots dedicated to it makes non clerics much more cumbersome to use.huh, I guess this just goes to show how different perception is, I would take for granted that a healing build on a Divine List Sorcerer or Oracle is using Heal as a Signature Spell and would be even more flexible than a cleric in that respect.
we also haven't come across counteraction much either, especially not from team monster.
I've found that the moment you gain access to a heal staff, that flaw in the cleric goes away. Having that many extra heal casts is likely overdoing it but having four big burst heals and 2-3 smaller heals means your gm will really need to run you through a gauntlet before you run out of juice. Funny enough, you can see that the heal staff repeats many of its spells each level just to try and keep up for counteracting. That it fails because staves are always behind is unfortunate.
The cleric also has the dubious honor of lacking good class feats so it doesn't have much problem dipping into sorc to steal angel halo to stack status and item bonuses to healing or getting extra slots for buffs. I'm actually starting to wonder if it'd be worth not getting the 20 in cha to instead get 14 int to get both sorc and witch healing...
I would not say the cleric lacks good class feats, but rather the feats are built for very specific kinds of campaigns. If you're running a demon or undead heavy campaign, the cleric has a lot of good class feats. If you're running generic AP without much undead or fiends, then you can find some ok feats.
You can build a good healer as a cleric.
I was able to build a pretty cool cleric of Gorum using Channel Smite.
The cleric has some good builds.
The only class my players are quitting because of how painfully bad the builds are is the wizard. It's painfully limited at lower level, intelligence is not a high value stat, and the feat choices expand spellcasting most of the time which is only about 50% effective and limited by the spells you have on your list at a given time.
So you have this ability to cast the most spells in the game, but the spells are set up to fail 50% of the time. So your main ability is relatively useless for half the battles, and especially useless against boss monsters. You really have nothing else going for you.
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Personally, I see no reason to discuss flavor alongside mechanics. If you absolutely need the witch to fit the flavor of your character, more power to you. For everyone else though the witch is a strictly inferior option.
That is a pretty extreme statement.
If you don't like the Witch class, feel free to rip those pages out of your copy of the APG. But saying that everyone else should do the same seems ... unfounded.
But it doesn't feel like you are actually interested in a conversation where we can each try to understand the opposing point of view. You just want to win an argument on the internet. So ... congratulations?
Do we know if Secrets of Magic will have any new Hexes? Cantrips or otherwise?
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With all the discussion that has been going on in the last few weeks I ended up deciding to take a break from my reading to revisit the class. My experience with it was only 1 adventure up to level 6 and after that I didn't have the opportunity to play because my group and I decided to switch to Cabalist. I'm still reading the class, but I'd like to say that so far a lot of what I thought about this class has positively changed.
Firstly, the Hexes Cantrips that I previously thought were "weak" or "would never be used" proved the complete opposite. And I say this because despite not having played with Witch I still play pathfinder and in many situations during my sessions cantrips like Discern Secrets and especially Wilding Word would be very useful.
Pathfinder is still a new game for me and I'm gradually maturing my ideas. About these Cantrips, it's just a matter of the player's expectations and the GM's consideration. If you're going to play an adventure that involves encounters against megafauna, wild animals and carnivorous plants, perhaps as we'll see in Quest for the Frozen Flame, applying -2 stat penalty on an enemy with only 1 cantrip that costs 1 action and can be sustained is very strong and leaving him sickened in a saving throw failure is even better. Now, if you play an adventure like Malevolence maybe this isn't the best cantrip for you and then you have Dicern Secrets! Maybe what I said is obvious, but I only realized these things when I decided to reread this class.
As I said I keep reading and as it happened with Haxes Cantrips little by little I'm changing my mind about this class. At least if I thought of a rework before, today I see that this "solution" (maybe in a few days there will be nothing left to solve) would be too radical and extreme.
Even feats like Living Hair show me that with 14 Strength and expert in Athletics you can handle enemies of 1 level lower than yours pretty well.
Well, that was my comment to say that most of the opinions I gave previously have changed and with that I look forward to playing with this class again, now with new eyes.
What do people here think of multiclassing into Witch (from something else)? (In 1st Edition, VMC Witch was very likely the 2nd worst VMC, saved from worst only by the sheer mind-numbing awfulness of VMC Gunslinger.)
(I'll probably want to ask this again once Secrets of Magic comes out, both if it has more witch stuff in it, and if it looks like Magus multiclassing into Witch is a usable way to approximate a 1st Edition Hexcrafter Magus.)
What do people here think of multiclassing into Witch (from something else)? (In 1st Edition, VMC Witch was very likely the 2nd worst VMC, saved from worst only by the sheer mind-numbing awfulness of VMC Gunslinger.)
(I'll probably want to ask this again once Secrets of Magic comes out, both if it has more witch stuff in it, and if it looks like Magus multiclassing into Witch is a usable way to approximate a 1st Edition Hexcrafter Magus.)
It is quite good if you have a specific build in mind. Getting the Witch familiar is very nice and Elemental Betrayal is a very nice focus spell for a Sorcerer (Genie can hit them with Wish-Twisted Form to give them reduced Resistance + Weakness + take extra damage), much better on a 4 slot spontaneous caster than a Witch I think. Very good around level 8 when your martials are all dealing elemental damage with their property runes as well. Best comboed with Charred Remains and forced movement for absurd damage.
If you're going to play an adventure that involves encounters against megafauna, wild animals and carnivorous plants, perhaps as we'll see in Quest for the Frozen Flame, applying -2 stat penalty on an enemy with only 1 cantrip that costs 1 action and can be sustained is very strong and leaving him sickened in a saving throw failure is even better.
It's only -2 status penalty to attack the witch.
Also the problem with Wilding Word, is that it only target 1 creature at a time.
If you're facing a pack, all the other animals/plants can attack you with issue, and of you're facing one big creature, the Front line really should keep it away from the Witch.
It would be better if it could affect several creatures (maybe with heighten), or the first animal/plant to attack the witch while it is sustained (or even as a reaction once per minute when attacked by an animal/plant)