I need to either be able to get three hexes at Witch level one without being human, or be human but be able to access Catfolk-exclusive spells. Can anyone figure out a viable path?
J
Why?
Any specific Hexes? Any specific spells?
There are very few racially exclusive spells. Most “Racial Spells” are just normal spells that are not commonly known by member of other races. Unless a spell affects a racial trait that other races do not have, they can be learned by other races. The Advanced Race Guide specifies that for other characters to learn them require GM approval, but that is about it.
How easy it would be to learn a “Racial Spell” is going to depend on the nature of the class.
Prepared divine casters don’t really learn spells, they have a list of spells their deity is willing to grant them. When they prepare spells, they are essentially asking their deity to grant them a specific power. As long as their deity is willing to grant them the spell they simply have to ask. If they don’t know of the existence of the spell obviously asking for it would be difficult. Prepared Arcane casters actually do learn spells and can learn any spell on their list they are physically capable of. All they need to learn a spell is the right source.
Spontaneous casters are a little different. The character often has no choice in the spells they learn. Divine spontaneous casters are granted their spells based on what the source of their power wants them to have. For arcane spontaneous casters they are born with the ability to do magic and just need to learn how to control it. The PLAYER is free to choose whatever spell they want from the respective spell list, but the actual character might not have any say in the matter.
Easy enough, so long as you aren't adamant that the third hex be a specific one.
Human
Bonus Feat: Racial heritage
Level 1 Witch
Any Hex you want
Level 1 feat:
Extra hex: Any hex you want
Patron (Unique Patron)
Bonus hex based on your choice of Patron
Choices contain: Ward, Tongues, Charm, Feral Speech, Coven, Misfortune, Disguise, Scar, or Unnerve Beasts.
If you find the hex you need on the unique patron, you can do away with the Human bonus feat and just be a catfolk.
My plan is to take a level of witch and get the fortune, Protective luck and Cackle hexes. The rest of my levels will be in cleric, focusing on buffing/debuffing. In the process of this I ran across two Catfolk spells, bit of luck and nine lives. I'd love to have them, and there's a question in my mind as to whether Racial Heritage would work for that as casting race specific spells wasn't mentioned. I'm pretty sure my GM will go along with it. Since it doesn't need to be taken at level 1 (which honestly I think it probably should), that solves my problem.
J
Get misfortune instead of fortune.
You can still use the reroll on an allies poor roll as an attempt to improve it.
You may want to reread misfortune… roll twice keep the worst… so if you use it on an allies poor roll it can only get WORSE… you will never improve their roll with misfortune.
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I think Name Violation was thinking about the Dual Cursed Oracle revelations.
My plan is to take a level of witch and get the fortune, Protective luck and Cackle hexes. The rest of my levels will be in cleric
Why would you need to get all three hexes at 1st level, then? You could just take Extra Hex later on, even when you take a level in Cleric.
Unless your GM lets you get away with hardcore cheese (maintaining the hexes between combats by cackling every single round), your build isn't practical, though. Soothsayer fixes that by letting you pre-cast hexes. Be aware that Fortune only works once per 24 hours per target, which makes it only really sueful if you know when tough fights (e.g. boss fights) are incoming. Protective Luck has no such limitation.
Oh, and for the future, start with the information of what you actually want.
Not sure why you need to get three hexes at first level. You can use the feat extra hex at any level. The only requirement is that you have the class feature Hex. As long as you have at least one level in Witch (or another class that grants the Hex class feature) you can take the feat at any level.
Have you thought about playing a Shaman instead of a cleric? Shamans get Hexes and the DC scales up so you have more freedom to choose the Hex. Fortune only affects a target once in a 24 hour period so it is of limited use to aid the party. Misfortune can also only affect a target once in a 24 hour period but since it is used on your enemies, that is less restrictive.
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I think Name Violation was thinking about the Dual Cursed Oracle revelations.
yes
Misfortune (Ex): At 1st level, as an immediate action, you can force a creature within 30 feet to reroll any one d20 roll that it has just made before the results of the roll are revealed. The creature must take the result of the reroll, even if it’s worse than the original roll. Once a creature has suffered from your misfortune, it cannot be the target of this revelation again for 1 day.
Hmm, yes, don't know why I thought I had to take all the hexes at level one, good point. Also Soothsayer is a nice hex. Letting Fortune go (and Soothsayer with it) makes sense unless one of my party is a crit-fisher, and I still have the option if I want. Later on Rod of Voracious Hexes will even allow me to split my hexes. If someone can show me how one level of Shaman will be an improvement over Witch to my buff/debuff build I'd love to hear it.
Primarily I'm very interested in creating a cleric to have access to the cleric spell list and domains. I particularly like the Madness domain, as abilities like Visions of Madness & Aura of Madness will crank up the debuffing and is one of the major goals of my build. Darkness is another nice domain (Groetus and Tsukiyo have both). Clerics are already great at buffing, but I really like the idea of amplifying my abilities with Madness and one or two unblockable Witch options.
J
Another option might be to go with VMC instead of dipping. You would have to wait until 7th level to get your hexes, but they would scale up. The Witch VMC does not seem to prohibit you from taking extra Hex.
Fortune requires you to use the Hex on the target before they can gain the benefit. That combined with the once in 24 hours is going to make it a lot harder to setup.
Yeah so a couple of things.
1. As someone said, take 1 level of Oracle instead using the Dual-Cursed archetype and take the Misfortune revelation. It's a slightly different mechanic but it does the same job. Bonus points there's no save involved, it's an immediate action and your Oracle Curse levels up with non-Oracle levels at half speed .
Alternatively, would a Shaman work? It doesn't have the same spell list but you're a WIS-based 9th-level Divine caster with Hexes.
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I was going to suggest the Stargazer as well. I would go:
Witch 1/Cleric (separatist) 5/Stargazer 10/Cleric 4
The separatist archetype is necessary because a Stargazer must worship Pulura, and Pulura does not grant the Madness domain (or Darkness, so you'd have to choose one).
If your GM is amenable, she might let you take Extra Hex without taking a witch level (you don't technically have the "Hex class feature" but you get hexes and your Stargazer levels count as and stack with witch levels when determining the effects of hexes). That would be a house rule - but a reasonable one in my opinion. In which case you can skip the witch level altogether.
That's a matter of philosophy of course. Many players and GMs think that prestige classes should be better than base classes. But Paizo's official policy was that base classes should be the default and prestige classes should not be better. Just different.
Another option might be to go with VMC instead of dipping. You would have to wait until 7th level to get your hexes, but they would scale up. The Witch VMC does not seem to prohibit you from taking extra Hex.
It does. Its location is just a little... poor.
Patron: At 1st level, she chooses a patron. She never qualifies for the Extra Hex feat.
Thanks for all of the wonderful advice. I think I'll stick with one level of witch. After having played Wrath of the Righteous, the name of the game for debuffs is no save, no SR. That's what I love about Protective Luck. I'm also happy taking a familiar (probably taking greensting scorpion). It will also be nice to cast Ill Omen.
I've played D&D 3.5, and I remember how powerful PrC's were. I have no objection to them being more powerful, especially since you have to jump through hoops to qualify for them!
Separatist Cleric is a great idea, and Stargazer is perfect, I never would have thought of it.
What do you think about my stat distribution? Right now I'm planning on being Human:
Str 12 Dex 10 Con 14 Int 11 Wis 16(18) Cha 12
I need an 11 Int to cast Witch spells, and I know I want a high Wis, other than that I'm fairly flexible. In terms of weapons I was thinking of just a heavy mace and a shield. A reach weapon could be nice for my touch attacks, but I haven't decided.
After taking Extra Hex I also have feat available. I could take something else, or possibly be a Hellspawn Tiefling to play against type.
J
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Stat distribution looks fine, I'd tweak it a bit, but that's me. What is the 12 Charisma for? I think in a Witch/Cleric/Stargazer build all that is doing for you is one extra channel a day. Which is nothing to sneeze at, mind you, especially with the Mother sidereal arcana boosting the level.
I'd personally drop strength down to 10 (relying on ant haul) and boost Int to 13. That gives you an extra witch spell per day, an extra skill point per level (especially helpful since Stargazer requires a lot of skill points), and opens up a bunch of feat options that require 13 Int. All you're really giving up is +1 to melee attack and damage.
What ability are you using to deliver touch spells through a reach weapon?
You're right, I can't think of a way to deliver touch spells with a reach weapon as a witch or cleric. It was the Lunging Spell Touch feat that would extend my ability.
J
Okay, that might save me the trouble of figuring out how to get 5 ranks of spellcraft and losing AC.
Whenever I think of prehensile hair or the White-Haired Witch it always reminds me of the movie The Bride with White Hair. If you guys haven't seen it, it's pretty cool and it's where the staff at Paizo got the idea.
J
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There are also the Ashiftah, Cartomancer, and Gravewalker witch archetypes which all get an ability that lets them deliver touch spells as ranged touch at level 3… but of course that requires going for a three level dip… ignoring those options you could always take the Boon Companion feat to treat your witch level as 4 higher for determining the abilities of your familiar therefore getting the deliver touch spells feature, of course you will want to be very selective of what type of familiar you take if you plan to do this…
Things to keep in mind if using your familiar to deliver touch spells:
1) your familiar is treated as holding a charge, and therefore does not provoke when it makes the touch attack to deliver the spell since the spell has already been cast.
2) your familiar is a tiny creature, and therefore must enter another creatures square to deliver the touch spell, this will provoke but only from the creatures who’s square it has entered.
3) familiars are very easily killed, so have safeguards in place for them.
4) flying familiars can usually cover a lot more distance in one move action, and therefore tend to be better candidates for delivering touch spells.
5) because of the combined implications of points 1&2 using your familiar for beneficial spell delivery is the best option.
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Assuming you go Stargazer, the Stargazer levels would add to witch levels when determining the abilities of your familiar.
Qualifiers on Chell's points:
1) Remember that if you cast another spell while the familiar is holding the charge it loses the spell it is holding.
2) There are some small familiars (goat, etc.) but none that fly.
3) Yep.
4) Yep.
5) The most usage I ever got from a familiar was as a divine caster. Delivering buffs and heals around the party. (It could fly, so that was very helpful.)
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Fun little tidbit I've had with familiars:
I played a Sorcerer/Druid (way back before Shamans were a thing... think Rise of the Runelords original release in PF1) that was intending on making its way to Mystic Theurge-dom, and I used my familiar to deliver a touch spell to my animal companion that was currently engaged with a giant spider on the lower level of a barn. I cast the spell and THREW the familiar at my animal companion (GM said tossing something that isn't actually an attack was move-equivalent, since I was only 'moving it'). Little guy landed easily and scuttled over to deliver my buff spell.
At the risk of necro-ing my own thread, I have a rule question:
Is it possible for me to use Protective Luck with Soothsayer on each member of my party in the morning? Then when combat begins and they get activated, I could just Cackle during combat maintaining it?
J
At the risk of necro-ing my own thread, I have a rule question:
Is it possible for me to use Protective Luck with Soothsayer on each member of my party in the morning? Then when combat begins and they get activated, I could just Cackle during combat maintaining it?
J
Yes. You'd have to Cackle the round they get activated though, since it only lasts 1 round unless you take more Witch levels.
And then right after the fight finishes you can give them a new Protective Luck for the next combat.
Also the way Soothsayer works is that it's triggered when that player is attacked, so if player X isn't attacked until round 4 of combat then their Protective Luck will still be in effect, regardless of whether or not you Cackled. So if none of your allies are attacked in the first round you can do something else with your move-action.
Is it possible for me to use Protective Luck with Soothsayer on each member of my party in the morning? Then when combat begins and they get activated, I could just Cackle during combat maintaining it?
Yes, that interaction is what makes the combination so powerful.
Note that a Soothsayer'd hex activates at the earliest time it could affect something. Protective Luck becomes active whenever an opponent makes an attack roll against the hexed ally, so you can't prevent it from e.g. triggering in a surprise round where you can't act (and thus can't extend it with Cackle). Fortune automatically activates whenever the recipent attempts any ability check, attack roll, saving throw, or skill check, although only those made in combat.
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Fortune automatically activates whenever the recipent attempts any ability check, attack roll, saving throw, or skill check, although only those made in combat.
Agree with the rest of your post, but can you walk me through why Fortune wouldn't activate when you attempt a perception check to search a room (for example)? Why only in combat?
can you walk me through why Fortune wouldn't activate when you attempt a perception check to search a room (for example)? Why only in combat?
"When the witch uses the evil eye hex, fortune hex, misfortune hex, or retribution major hex, she can choose to delay the effect. If she does so, the hex takes effect the next time the target makes a roll that could be affected by the hex [...] or is affected by an action that could be modified by the hex [...], whichever comes first (ignoring actions that are not in combat and actions that have no penalty for failure)."
Alright, that's what I wanted to know. The Protective Luck/Soothsayer combo seems very powerful, so we'll see if my DM has an issue with it.
Fortune is, of course, a great hex. I initially thought if no one in my party is a crit-fisher it may not be worth it. However, if its effects stack with PL it'd be amazing.
J
Gotcha. Somehow I was skipping over the last clause of that (very long) sentence in the Soothsayer hex.
No harm done. I'm not sure I've ever consciously read that part before yesterday, either. Indeed, I had actually already written text about how Fortune should only be applied shortly before a fight, but thankfully I went back to the hex description to check and saw that part.
Fortune is, of course, a great hex. I initially thought if no one in my party is a crit-fisher it may not be worth it. However, if its effects stack with PL it'd be amazing.
In tougher fights you probably want to save it for saving throws anyway (as it's once-per-round), and since Fortune only works once per 24h, you likely only really have it online during such fights.
The Protective Luck/Soothsayer combo seems very powerful
It is. In my rating of all Witch hexes, only nine hexes got the top rating of 5 (and only four that're usuable early on), and SS+PL are two of those.