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I'm working on fleshing out a new character concept:
A poppet witch who's patron is the same witch. That is to say, the patron is not a poppet or some nebulous entity of great cosmic power, but rather is a powerful witch that exists as a material person in the mortal realm and who adventures THROUGH their poppet. Something akin to the character, Cait Sith, from Final Fantasy 7. He was a construct (actually two constructs) that were remotely controlled by Reeve Tuesti from a posh corporate office.
I feel this would also allow for all sorts of cool, inclusive concepts too, such as a witch that suffers from paralysis, severe sun sensitivity, or some other physical malady that adventures vicariously through their construct. Or a witch who can't truly die because she isn't ever in harm's way, and so just sends another (perhaps slightly different) poppet construct to replace that which was destroyed. Or a witch who controls a Tiny poppet riding their familiar (just like Cait Sith riding the moogle).
Anyways, I've not played too many witches and am not as familiar with their various mechanical options as I could be, and so was hoping that the community hive mind might be willing to offer some advice on how best to bring such a character concept to life.
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A permanent poppet proxy. Cool. I would definitely split this into flavor vs mechanics.
Mechanically, there is only the poppet character. The Witch hiding at home is not mechanically meaningful. So being unfamiliar with Witch mechanics isn't all that much of a detriment.
So assuming that the Witch at home is actually a Witch and has a familiar from their patron, it could be flavored as the Witch working out a deal with the patron to accept the poppet as a substitute or proxy. The familiar would then go around with the poppet on adventures and the poppet would have some sort of powerful (possibly divine intervention) magic that permanently shifts the Witch's senses and mechanical control into that of the poppet. I am certainly not aware of anything that already exists in Witch mechanics that would allow for this permanent poppet proxy.
I would definitely have some flavor for the Witch at home to have some reason why the Witch isn't the one doing the adventuring. Some permanent physical or emotional disability or something like that. Otherwise this could run into treating the poppet character as expendable since the Witch could just take over the adventuring if the poppet is destroyed. Unless there is a good plot reason for the replacement (like in FFVII with Cait Sith staying behind in the Temple of the Ancients).
Thanks breithauptclan!
To be clear, I'm not looking for mechanics such as a homebrew patron or anything like that. (The witch patron will exist soley as abstract flavor and, mechanically, a normal patron option will be selected.)
I'm more curious to know if there are any particular abilities, feats, items, or other build components out there that would or could lend themselves particularly well to such a character concept.
Example: Taking the Connections skill feat to be able to more easily get an audience with important people, but flavoring it so that the poppet got in due to strings pulled (no pun intended) by their also-an-important-person patron rather than by anything they did personally.
Or perhaps taking a poppet familiar for my poppet witch who's patron is also a poppet witch. Then taking the Spellcasting familiar ability so that all three can be lesser spellcasters of one another. A matryoshka doll poppet character of sorts. XD
I think it works fine, the key though is that any advantages you could possibly get from your main body/consciousness being somewhere else probably need to be gained fairly through feats or class abilities or whatever.
The connections feat runs into the problem that to pull strings behind the scenes, your main body probably needs to be able to communicate and be aware and interact with people independently of your poppet, which are mechanical advantages stemming entirely from the lore/flavour of your character.
There is a mechanical solution I can think of however - make "you" (as in your actual body) be the familiar, with the manual dexterity, speech and share senses abilities, and get your GM to allow you to give it Master's Form, but with it allowing your familiar to change into the form of a regular humanoid (like a human or elf) rather than Master's Form letting your familiar (which remember, is actually you) turn into a poppet, and let the duration of Master's Form be permanent.
Essentially, you are the familiar, the alternate form from Master's Form is your actual true form, and the actual player character is the poppet witch that you are remote controlling. The very limited abilities of "you" (being technically a familiar) are explained by whatever crippling malady is requiring you to experience the world through a poppet. You still get the advantages of being able to interact with whoever comes to your house/lair/prison/whatever potentially on the other side of the world, while keeping it mostly within the bounds of what the rules already allow for a character (with only two minor changes to Master's Form).
As far as I can tell, Witch spell preparation only requires that you "commune with your familiar", which doesn't technically specify that the familiar has to be near you, but the learning a spell from a scroll thing does say that your familiar has to consume the scroll, which may be a problem.
Thanks, but I'm not terribly interested in house rules.
There is nothing specific that immediately springs to mind for the witch angle, but a variant on the Clone ritual, or even a successful use of the Clone ritual might get you close in terms of rules. Or a Clone ritual that didn't quite go right.
It would mean that you wouldn't have yourself as a living patron, but level progression could be played as the new body starting to remember more of the old life, and being able to use more power as it grows into it. Your familiar could be like a phylactery, filled with all the old memories and powers that it teaches, or allows you to access, as you progress.
Oh, another thing to consider. Poppet doesn't synergize well with the 6HP no armor caster classes. The flaw in DEX means that you either start with a 16 in your spellcasting stat, or only have one of DEX or CON at 14. The other (including WIS if that makes a difference) has a max of 12 at level 1.
Sorcerer is the exception to this since Poppet also boosts CHA, so you can immediately boost DEX to counteract the DEX flaw and end up with a 18 CHA, 14 CON, 14 DEX at level 1.
Spellcasters with armor don't have as much of a problem with low DEX. But for Witch, Wizard, and Cloistered Cleric it feels like you are taking two servings from the low HP, low AC buffet.
Edit: Ah, Poppet does also boost CON, so it isn't quite as bad. Still feels like a double-dip in fragility though. Especially with the 6 HP ancestry.
Oh, another thing to consider. Poppet doesn't synergize well with the 6HP no armor caster classes.
No it does not. I've been really struggling getting the build into a satisfactory place for exactly the reasons you stated.
Oh, another thing to consider. Poppet doesn't synergize well with the 6HP no armor caster classes. The flaw in DEX means that you either start with a 16 in your spellcasting stat, or only have one of DEX or CON at 14. The other (including WIS if that makes a difference) has a max of 12 at level 1.
Sorcerer is the exception to this since Poppet also boosts CHA, so you can immediately boost DEX to counteract the DEX flaw and end up with a 18 CHA, 14 CON, 14 DEX at level 1.
Spellcasters with armor don't have as much of a problem with low DEX. But for Witch, Wizard, and Cloistered Cleric it feels like you are taking two servings from the low HP, low AC buffet.
Edit: Ah, Poppet does also boost CON, so it isn't quite as bad. Still feels like a double-dip in fragility though. Especially with the 6 HP ancestry.
Poppet is the only ancestry with a DEX flaw.
18 CHA, 14 CON, 14 DEX is not terrible to start with. It just means you really do need to pick up armour early on.
You can get to 16 DEX by sacking say STR and INT with flaws.
You can scrap CHA to go with a a 18 INT 14 DEX character instead. So I really don't have too much problem with it. In general the flaws rules enable you to get around most of these issues
Oh, another thing to consider. Poppet doesn't synergize well with the 6HP no armor caster classes.No it does not. I've been really struggling getting the build into a satisfactory place for exactly the reasons you stated.
Things I have found:
First, this is only really a problem at lower levels. By level 10 you can put enough boosts in DEX to get AC on par with other no-armor spellcasting builds. Which still isn't a fantastic AC, but it isn't worse than expected.
Equipment:
At first level grab a shield. Especially for Primal tradition. But the +2 circumstance from an actual shield is better than the +1 from the shield cantrip.
If playing with free archetype (or a houserule to get Basic Lesson for free), Rogue dedication at level 2 works nicely. Gives light armor proficiency with the dedication and adding Nimble Dodge will let you get that +2 circumstance as a reaction instead of using an action on a shield. Picking up Rogue dedication at level 4 is still good, but there are other options by that level too. I don't recommend passing on Basic Lesson - a Witch with no good Hex spell really is just a nerf'ed Wizard.
Armor Proficiency at level 3 looks really good. You can retrain out of it at higher levels once you don't need the Studded Leather any more.
Witch of any tradition can get Mage Armor, though Lesson of Protection is not one of my favorite Lessons. It is probably the only Lesson that I consider taking solely for the spell that it gives.
Defensive Hex spells: All of these have the downside of using an action each round - just like raising a shield.
The biggest problem with Blood Ward that I see is that Humanoid is noticeably missing from the list of enemies that you can protect from. Being a status bonus, it does stack with both armor and shield/dodge/cover. Which is nice.
Needle of Vengeance can encourage enemies to attack someone else. Remember that the enemy takes damage for every hostile action taken - not just when they do damage.
Shroud of Darkness has a similar defensive result to Blur or Obscuring Mist. Though unlike those spells, it does allow a Will save.
Wilding Word has niche use. Good in some campaigns and settings. Pretty terrible in most.
Spell Slot spells:
You probably know these already. Blur, Shattering Gem, Mirror Image, Bane, ...
Oh, and Clinging Ice. I don't generally sustain Clinging Ice (it is mostly for blasting mooks). But if you can land the speed penalty on a big enemy , sustaining it can let you stay a bit closer to the battle while still keeping out of the 2-attack-action danger zone (where the enemy only needs one action to reach you and has two actions left to attack you with).
Also something to point out - a Witch under fire is more productive than a Wizard or Sorcerer under fire. Witch has more single-action offensive options (usually sustaining something or casting 1-action hex) so can often afford to spend two actions getting out of danger and protecting themselves. If a Wizard/Sorcerer has to spend two actions on defense, that doesn't usually leave enough for offense. Cackle doubles down on this - allowing one action for defense, one action for sustaining something, and a 2-action spell.
Edit: Sorcerer has some good 1-action focus spells too. So if you pick a bloodline for it, they can do quite well under pressure too.