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Really wish we had an official Winter Witch archetype. Oh well, maybe when we get a manual of the northern realms of the Inner Sea.
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Baba Yaga patron has plenty of ice stuff and is, for obvious reasons, thematically appropriate for a winter witch.
i mean their is a winter patron for witches and some really fitting lessons. I suppose we could see an archetype come in eventually.
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Well, since this is kind of a wishing/speculating thread anyway, why not start with the question?
What sort of change are you looking for in a winter witch that would need to be an archetype instead of lessons, feats and spells for the normal witch class?
We haven’t really seen Irrisen in 2e other than its surprising minor role in Guns & Gears. I imagine we’ll get something whenever we do - though as others have said, the Witch already has some fitting options.
How close do we get to this as a Winter Patron witch with the Elementalist dedication?
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Agreed. I tried Geomancer as an archetype to my winter patron witch but not still not getting a Winter Witch feel.
I was hoping Secrets of Magic was going to have something that enhanced Cold spells or that we'd get any of the things you mentioned above but it just wasn't there. Hopefully in a Lost Omens book or Mammoth Lord AP they'll have an Winter flavored archetype that doesn't just slow your spell target's move speed.
The Candulhurst kickstarter has what looks like a cold/necromancy archetype that might be cool
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From that list, Increased DC is something that I would absolutely not expect to see in an archetype without a pretty significant downside to pay for it. Additional ice based spells or ice-moving abilities seem more likely, but also like things that don't need to be an archetype.
We don't really get feats that boost DCs. Maybe something that gives a bonus to damage with cold spells could be possible, but really we just need more icy spells.
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There aren't really a lot of feats that modify categories of spells in general. Not sure if that's a conscious design choice or something they just haven't gotten to so far, but it's worth noting.
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Really wish we had an official Winter Witch archetype. Oh well, maybe when we get a manual of the northern realms of the Inner Sea.
I am a little confused. We already have the ability to take the witch dedication. We have the winter patron. We have cold-based spells. We have the winter's child background. We even have the Baba Yaga patron if you want to go full on classic Irrisen winter witch. What am I missing?
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We also have no shortage of artic hertiages. Tons of ancestries can get inherent cold resistance.
There are a few specific abilities missing, but I'm not convinced that calls for a full blown archetype rather than a few new feats and spells.
Winter Patron uses the Primal list, that literally have all the cold spells.
Have skill feats on survival to do some stuff with artic environment and Horizon Walker if you want even more.
The max that I see happening is an general archetype that works like the Shadowcaster archetype.
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Really wish we had an official Winter Witch archetype. Oh well, maybe when we get a manual of the northern realms of the Inner Sea.I am a little confused. We already have the ability to take the witch dedication. We have the winter patron. We have cold-based spells. We have the winter's child background. We even have the Baba Yaga patron if you want to go full on classic Irrisen winter witch. What am I missing?
An effective one.
So far they all look underwhelming to me, I am just not seeing a good build here. Do you have a good Winter Witch build?
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Really wish we had an official Winter Witch archetype. Oh well, maybe when we get a manual of the northern realms of the Inner Sea.I am a little confused. We already have the ability to take the witch dedication. We have the winter patron. We have cold-based spells. We have the winter's child background. We even have the Baba Yaga patron if you want to go full on classic Irrisen winter witch. What am I missing?An effective one.
So far they all look underwhelming to me, I am just not seeing a good build here. Do you have a good Winter Witch build?
Why would it be underwhelming? all of the listed options are perfectly serviceable, some are even standouts, like Cone of Cold, or the Baba Yaga Patron.
As for the Primal Winter Witch, the Clinging Ice cantrip is reasonably likely to let you drop speed on a one action in addition to your other stuff, that's potentially going to enable your allies to kite depending on what the enemies actual speed was, especially with difficult terrain-- the list as a whole can heal and blast so it should be pretty strong by itself.
The Occult List has the best single target heal spell in the game, and the best control spell in the game.
Either way, a Winter Witch builds itself.
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Really wish we had an official Winter Witch archetype. Oh well, maybe when we get a manual of the northern realms of the Inner Sea.I am a little confused. We already have the ability to take the witch dedication. We have the winter patron. We have cold-based spells. We have the winter's child background. We even have the Baba Yaga patron if you want to go full on classic Irrisen winter witch. What am I missing?An effective one.
So far they all look underwhelming to me, I am just not seeing a good build here. Do you have a good Winter Witch build?
Don't all Witch builds look underwhelming to you? I thought you were one of the class's detractors anyway. Maybe don't ask people for something that you already know is impossible for them to deliver.
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Don't all Witch builds look underwhelming to you? I thought you were one of the class's detractors anyway. Maybe don't ask people for something that you already know is impossible for them to deliver.Really wish we had an official Winter Witch archetype. Oh well, maybe when we get a manual of the northern realms of the Inner Sea.I am a little confused. We already have the ability to take the witch dedication. We have the winter patron. We have cold-based spells. We have the winter's child background. We even have the Baba Yaga patron if you want to go full on classic Irrisen winter witch. What am I missing?An effective one.
So far they all look underwhelming to me, I am just not seeing a good build here. Do you have a good Winter Witch build?
Class Detractor? Thats overstating it a bit. Yes apart from a disposable familiar I am yet to see the point in a witch. I can't think of a witch concept, aside from the name, which I wouldn't prefer to do in another class. Mechanically the class is not terrible. It is just not good either.
I still would like to see an effective winter witch in the game... nothing worth mentioning so far.
Well, the difference is between the meanings of the word effective.
The-Magic-Sword posted a few ideas of Witch builds that follow a winter theme and are perfectly reasonable as far as Witch builds go. It isn't like there are a bunch of feat or spell choices in there that are thematic but mechanically bad.
So that sounds like an effective Winter Witch build to me.
But if you are wanting an effective Winter Witch build to mean that it is comparable to what you are building from a Sorcerer or Druid... That is a different meaning of effective.
Well, if you want to be a Winter *Witch* the Witch class is kind of the place to do so.
But I could go for a Druidic Order adjacent to winter, ice, etc. We got flame, stone, and wind orders in secrets of magic after all.
But I could go for a Druidic Order adjacent to winter, ice, etc.
I was also thinking of Sorcerer bloodline.
Currently there are Hag bloodline and Elemental bloodline. But neither of those really work either. Hag uses the occult tradition - which is lacking in cold/ice spells. And Elemental bloodline has the same problem that the Elementalist class archetype does. Water is the closest element that shows up in the list.
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But I could go for a Druidic Order adjacent to winter, ice, etc.I was also thinking of Sorcerer bloodline.
Currently there are Hag bloodline and Elemental bloodline. But neither of those really work either. Hag uses the occult tradition - which is lacking in cold/ice spells. And Elemental bloodline has the same problem that the Elementalist class archetype does. Water is the closest element that shows up in the list.
The Storm Order Druid with the Advanced Elemental Spell from the Wave Order is a good build. The Elemental Sorcerer is good for direct damage. I'd be happy to build a Winter Witch concept from those.
On the other hand the Hag Sorcerer has a granted spell list so bad it is only rivaled by the Marid and Janni Sorcerer.
Coming back to this thread a bit I sort of see where the issue comes from. The classic PF winter witch has both ice magic and a more traditional PF witchy emphasis on hexes and curses at the same time, because of the way the PF1 witch is built.
The problem from a PF2 perspective is that "ice magic" is generally the purview of the Primal and to a lesser extent Arcane spell lists, but Curses/Hexes/That entire brand of magic is entirely Occult.
A Baba Yaga witch, despite dripping in Irrisen flavor, doesn't really have much in the way of ice magic except Chilling Spray from the patron. Lesson of the Elements doesn't even have an ice option, despite being thematically on-point for a cold witch.
The Winter Witch on the other hand has a lot of natural Icy flavor from the Primal spell list and its innate curse, but loses out on the other end by being less than stellar at cursing and hexing in a more 'traditional' witch-y way.
It's not the end of the world, and probably won't ever go away because of the way PF2 works, but I can sort of see an issue there, because the character kind of wishes they could be one part occult and one part primal caster, but because you have to choose you either end up feeling maybe a little too druidic and not witchy enough or a little too witchy and not wintery enough.
Oddly enough, The Rune Witch might be the best approximation here, because Arcane has some overlap with Occult while also having most (maybe all?) of the game's Cold spells too. Though Rune doesn't have a very flavor appropriate cantrip, unlike Baba Yaga or Winter.
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Agreed with all of this. The thing that is really necessary for a Winter Witch, as they are seen by those who really love them, is that they need the Occult Spell list, but also Cold spells.
If the Witch had as many given spells as the Sorcerer, you could probably homebrew something easily enough, with a Patron that gave the Occult list but all the granted spells being Cold themed.
Since the Witch doesn't really naturally have that, I do think that a class Archetype is probably necessary.
I'm building one myself actually that gives the Occult spell list, as well as any spell with the Cold trait, drops to a Psychic-esque 2 spell slots per level, but also gives a few other abilities to help buff them up. They get one Hex Cantrip from any Patron that grants Occult spells, and also Clinging Ice. Their Familiar is innately resistant to cold damage and immune to cold damage from the Witch's own spells. And they replace Phase Familiar with another Focus spell called Phasing Frost, which allows them to move over and though snow and ice with no penalties, see though snow and fog, and at higher levels even phase through snow and ice as tough it isn't there (which has some cool synergy with spells like Wall of Ice).
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Agreed the way to do it would be as a sorcerer
a) Primal Sorcerer with some witch type curses as bloodline spells
b) Occult Sorcerer with some elemental ice/cold/water magic as bloodline spells
But it is better as a Witch
c) Primal Witch with some curses as lessons, and maybe a feat giving a slot with an extra curse spell in a top level slot - like Beastial Curse or Curse of Lost Time
c) Occult Witch with some cold spells as lessons, and maybe a feat giving a slot with an extra cold spell in a top level slot.
Of course the witch needs a feat like that to make it a class more competetive with the wizard.