That's why Witch is getting reworked in the Remaster.
I remember way back in the playtest when people were tossing around random ideas - one of the ideas I put in was having a generic base character that was the lowest baseline that all characters would have. Then you would use the Archetype system to bolt on whatever themed feats, skills, improved stats, and other features that you wanted.
The Raven Black wrote: Temperans wrote: That shows you didn't understand the point.
The point is that if there is tactics A all classes should be able to meet a minium level X of achieving it. Yes a class can be better at the thing it specializing, but no class should have it be impossible or out right worse at it. How the class goes about A matters because it changes how the character plays, but the overall result should be about the same when compared with other comparable abilities. So a Rogue using Sneak Attack should do about as much damage as a Monk using Flurry of Blows, both of which are about as much as the Barbarian raging.
Nobody is saying that class abilities should be the same. People are saying that they should have equivalent effectiveness. Bard has an at-will single action 60-ft AoE that makes everyone frightened 1 no save. A witch having an at-will single action single target frightened 1 (2 on crit) that makes targets immune after targetting should have an effect that is much better than what the bard gets. A barbarian using its feats to upgrade demoralize and only single target should have an effect that is stronger than what the bard gets. But this is not what the game currently does.
Variation does not mean that things have vastly different effectiveness. It means that they have different ways to activate effects p how strong those effects are. Its why people who think casters are bad are complaining that an effect you can do twice a day at most (10th level spells slots) are worse than a focus spell or a martial.
Before bashing others, you might want to read what you are talking about a bit more. The Bard does not have a 60ft AoE that makes everyone frightened. You're confusing Dirge of Doom and its 30ft with Inspire Courage and its 60ft. Completely different, as anyone playing a Bard could tell you. I think it should be equivalent in a different way myself. The hex cantrips are as important to the witch as composition cantrips are to the bard.
Deriven Firelion wrote: The Raven Black wrote: Temperans wrote: That shows you didn't understand the point.
The point is that if there is tactics A all classes should be able to meet a minium level X of achieving it. Yes a class can be better at the thing it specializing, but no class should have it be impossible or out right worse at it. How the class goes about A matters because it changes how the character plays, but the overall result should be about the same when compared with other comparable abilities. So a Rogue using Sneak Attack should do about as much damage as a Monk using Flurry of Blows, both of which are about as much as the Barbarian raging.
Nobody is saying that class abilities should be the same. People are saying that they should have equivalent effectiveness. Bard has an at-will single action 60-ft AoE that makes everyone frightened 1 no save. A witch having an at-will single action single target frightened 1 (2 on crit) that makes targets immune after targetting should have an effect that is much better than what the bard gets. A barbarian using its feats to upgrade demoralize and only single target should have an effect that is stronger than what the bard gets. But this is not what the game currently does.
Variation does not mean that things have vastly different effectiveness. It means that they have different ways to activate effects p how strong those effects are. Its why people who think casters are bad are complaining that an effect you can do twice a day at most (10th level spells slots) are worse than a focus spell or a martial.
Before bashing others, you might want to read what you are talking about a bit more. The Bard does not have a 60ft AoE that makes everyone frightened. You're confusing Dirge of Doom and its 30ft with Inspire Courage and its 60ft. Completely different, as anyone playing a Bard could tell you. I think it should be equivalent in a different way myself. The hex cantrips are as important to the witch as composition cantrips are to the bard. The Bard does not get a boosted regenerating familiar for free though.
Nor do they get to choose their casting list.
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Easl wrote: Temperans wrote: By your logic all the martial classes are bad because they all do "hit people with stick" the same (except fighter). But they don't. Rogue, Bar, Magus, Champion etc all use very different tactics because of their different feats and class abilities. And evil eye fear vs bard fear is a difference in feats (and level). Which is exactly what I'm talking about. The Ranger and Monk use tactics that involve many attacks. The Rogue uses tactics that maximize chance to hit with their high-damage attack. So why do you want the Bard and Witch to both be using the same tactics and the same debuffs at equal effectiveness?
Quote: When you are designing a game you determine what is the core playstyle(s). Every single core playstyles needs to have the same effectiveness or else the game is not balanced properly. The core playstyle of casters is casting from the four core spell lists. Yes? And their proficiency progession in casting is the same. Yes? So how does your argument have anything to do with things like class abilities like hexes and compositions? Why should they be the same?
Geez, you all complain endlessly that you *don't want* casters stuck in the role of debuffer, but here you are, *defending* and *insisting* that all casters be made equivalently good at debuffing.
Quote: There is one individual not wanting to encourage build variation... Two: you and Deriven. You both evidently want this 1st level Witch hex and a 3rd level Bard composition to function with the same effectiveness, and both to function with equivalent effectiveness as a CHA-based feat, Demoralize, right? While I want some classes to have strongly effective fear abilities and others to have weaker effective fear abilities, balanced by giving the second class strong effective something-else abilities and the first class weak effective something-else ablities.
The latter is "build variation." The former is not. The former is "every class is equally effective at fear, and every... Hex Cantrips are the core class mechanic of the witch class. It should be incredibly strong as Hex cantrips are what differentiate witch's from bards or sorcerers. They should advance as well.
If the core class mechanic of a given class isn't equally as effective as other classes, then that is a failure of design.
Not sure why you're trying to spin it any other way.
You're talking about the witch's hex cantrip as "just some ability." It isn't. It is the very ability the witch gets that sets them apart.
Nothing else they get sets them apart from another class with a familiar or another class with occult spells.
So if you want one class to be good at fear, it should be a witch using Evil Eye as that is their main class ability for choosing that patron.
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The Raven Black wrote: Deriven Firelion wrote: The Raven Black wrote: Temperans wrote: That shows you didn't understand the point.
The point is that if there is tactics A all classes should be able to meet a minium level X of achieving it. Yes a class can be better at the thing it specializing, but no class should have it be impossible or out right worse at it. How the class goes about A matters because it changes how the character plays, but the overall result should be about the same when compared with other comparable abilities. So a Rogue using Sneak Attack should do about as much damage as a Monk using Flurry of Blows, both of which are about as much as the Barbarian raging.
Nobody is saying that class abilities should be the same. People are saying that they should have equivalent effectiveness. Bard has an at-will single action 60-ft AoE that makes everyone frightened 1 no save. A witch having an at-will single action single target frightened 1 (2 on crit) that makes targets immune after targetting should have an effect that is much better than what the bard gets. A barbarian using its feats to upgrade demoralize and only single target should have an effect that is stronger than what the bard gets. But this is not what the game currently does.
Variation does not mean that things have vastly different effectiveness. It means that they have different ways to activate effects p how strong those effects are. Its why people who think casters are bad are complaining that an effect you can do twice a day at most (10th level spells slots) are worse than a focus spell or a martial.
Before bashing others, you might want to read what you are talking about a bit more. The Bard does not have a 60ft AoE that makes everyone frightened. You're confusing Dirge of Doom and its 30ft with Inspire Courage and its 60ft. Completely different, as anyone playing a Bard could tell you. I think it should be equivalent in a different way myself. The hex cantrips are as important to the witch as ... No, but they get spontaneous casting and signature spells to make up for the prepared casting to change the list. That is the balancing point for spontaneous versus prepared.
It can easily get a familiar with a variety of feats or archetypes. You should also have to prove familiars are worth having.
So that should not be what makes the hex cantrip worse.
Because the bard gets a base strong composition cantrip and a ton more composition cantrips to improve that ability. As well as an added spell to their repertoire and a quality feat like Lingering Composition for a Muse.
A witch for choosing a patron gets Hex Cantrip. It should be enormously strong.
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Maybe instead of arguing yet again over what the primary strengths of the current Witch class should be (aren't there enough threads about that already?) we should wait until the Remaster/Reworked Witch class arrives.
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I'm sure there will be plenty of griping and complaining about the new Witch too, so no worries there.
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breithauptclan wrote: Maybe instead of arguing yet again over what the primary strengths of the current Witch class should be (aren't there enough threads about that already?) we should wait until the Remaster/Reworked Witch class arrives. Yeah that seems fair lol.
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The Bard does not get a boosted regenerating familiar for free though.
Nor do they get to choose their casting list.
Ehhhhh. Choosing your casting list is sort of questionable value unless you think that there's a list out there better than occult (I happen to think they're all of similar value, except maybe divine which lags the pack).
Like. If witch could choose their casting list from day to day that'd be a different story. But "you get to choose your casting list at chargen" isn't a versatility boost, since you're still stuck with it for the rest of your career just like the bard (also, the comparisons made were with Curse Patron [evil eye] and with Fate Patron [nudge fate] which are both occult list anyway. So it's sort of hard to make the "well the witch gets to choose their spell list so they're better" argument when we're picking out specific hex cantrips...which correspond to occult list patrons).
And I do think that comparing to witch (and bard) is a little rude, as people have mentioned, and so maybe we should focus on other casters that are less extreme and which people don't have a consensus around "yeah this is the best/worst caster in the system"?
I think that the situation with Bards and to a lesser extent Cleric/Druid and other casters is a great example of how casters are poorly thought out. The only reason those three classes are seen as okay is because their focus spells are so good that you can ignore all the issues the actual spellcasting side would have.
Wizard is in no better position with the only worth while focus spell being Force Missile, and that one is just a worse Magic Missile. Cleric is entirely dependent on you picking the right domain, but at least gives you 1+Cha auto heighten Heal/Harm. Druid is virtually a martial when using Wildshape while keeping full casting, and if not they can get some actual blasting via Tempest Surge. But still notice how non of that is the spell slots?
People say "oh but you should not expect a lv 1 ability to be as good as a high level ability". But then most martial abilities are evergreen and focus spells are generally evergreen, so why can't spell slots that have 4 uses per day per spell level? Why is it that certain classes can pick any theme and do it well, but another class needs to pay 3 arms and a leg just to be worse?
breithauptclan wrote: Maybe instead of arguing yet again over what the primary strengths of the current Witch class should be (aren't there enough threads about that already?) we should wait until the Remaster/Reworked Witch class arrives. The witch is being used as an example of how badly designed mechanics lead to problems in the overall game.
They are one of the biggest misses for the design method in PF2 which I refer to as effective variation where classes do similar things in different ways that are equally effective.
This is what created the careful balance of PF2 while still making classes feel different and unique.
The witch is an example of a big miss in the effective variation design method PF2 employs where the witch ended up imbalanced in a way that made it feel very underpowered compared to other classes.
I certainly do hope it is fixed with the Remaster along with the wizard, swashbuckler, investigator, and to a far, far lesser degree the monk and ranger.
Temperans wrote: Wizard is in no better position with the only worth while focus spell being Force Missile, and that one is just a worse Magic Missile. I'd note that Warped Terrain (at least, haven't studied other wizard focus spells) is not bad also. It's unlimited per day illusion on all surfaces in 15 ft burst of basically everything. Yes, mechanical effect is only difficult terrain (which is terribly overvalued by designers), but so what? It's a free-form illusion with the standard disbelieve rules. From char level 7 it's even a 3D illusion! Though you have to make it to not obstruct vision...
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I kind of saw Investigator and Inventor, along with Alchemsit, and maybe even Thaumaturge as more "Support" oriented classes. Like, they get to shine most outside of combat where their other abilities can do things those combat oriented classes can't.
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Temperans wrote: So a Rogue using Sneak Attack should do about as much damage as a Monk using Flurry of Blows, both of which are about as much as the Barbarian raging. I'm gonna say tentatively I disagree. If someone's playing a tactical fantasy combat simulator like Gloomhaven, this is a good balance goal. For a sandbox TTRPG, it is not necessary nor even always a design goal to have every class do about the same damage per round using their preferred/idea tactic. Because some classes can be designed to have their strength, their 'best thing', be non-combat scenes. Exploration, info gathering, etc. And some classes can be designed for high-risk high-payoff strategies and others for steady reliable effect strategies, which will lead to very different individual combat performances even if over hundreds of sessions the dpr might be similar. (I say *tentatively* because PF2E is pretty combat heavy. So maybe you want to stay within a band of performance unless a class gets some truly excellent non-combat benefit). Casters, in most ttrpgs, rock the socks off fighters in non-combat scenes. To the extent that is true in PF2E, it is not necessarily important that their dpr be equivalent to a fighters'. However, if you are a person who lives and breathes tactical combat scenes in your ttrpgs, I can see how non-equivalence in combat scenes could be frustrating. Non-equivalence is not necessarily bad design though or a problem to be fixed. It is a design choice. When systems make it, it's likely a hint to the GM and the table "we the designers expect adventures to include a fair amount of non-combat scenes, so we are giving you classes that truly shine in them." In PF2E, maybe the best example is the Investigator. It's definitely not doing the same damage as some other classes. But the reason is right there in the class name: this is a class with a strong scenes-that-are-not-combat strength. If your table lives and breathes combat scenes, this class could be frustrating and perceived as unbalanced. If, however, your typical game session is 1 hr of combat and 2 hrs of intrigue and mystery solving, she probably shines.
Quote: People are saying that they should have equivalent effectiveness. Bard has an at-will single action 60-ft AoE that makes everyone frightened 1 no save. A witch having an at-will single action single target frightened 1 (2 on crit) that makes targets immune after targetting should have an effect that is much better than what the bard gets. Agaian though, the Witch feat is level 1, the Bard feat is level 3 (first gained at level 6 of play). So your argument is that all induce-fear feats available at level l should be just as effective as all induce-fear feats avaiable at character level 6? I must disagree. IMO higher level feats, spells, and class abilities should be more effective than lower level feats, spells, and class abilities that do something similar. A level 3 fear spell sould be superior to a level 1 fear spell. If we want to draw any equivalence, it sohuld be between the *heightened* version of the level 1 spell and the level 3 spell.
Please note that I have no argument with the *theme* comments that many posters have made about how Witches should be better at both hexes in general and inducing fear spefically. I hope the remaster *makes* them better. But as long as we are discussing fear as an example of a general concept, I must say I disagree with you. Classes do not have to be equally effective at all abilities. And a 1st level ability to do a thing does not have to be equally effective as a 3rd level ability to do that same thing.
Quote: Variation does not mean that things have vastly different effectiveness. It means that they have different ways to activate effects No, it can include both. Two classes could have different ways to activate an effect which then has the same impact, or two classes could activate the same effect which then has a different impact. I think it is a flawed analysis to insist the latter ought never happen or is bad design.
That flaw comes from doing a head-to-head single ability analysis, because those fail to take into account the classes' strengths and weaknesses as a package.
Two classes do not have to have induce-fear spells that are equally effective, if the class getting the less effective induce-fear spell is getting a more effective induce-X spell as part of their package. As I said before, not every class need get an A in fear. Some classes can get B's or C's in it, so long as they get a balanced amount of A's elsewhere.
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breithauptclan wrote: I remember way back in the playtest when people were tossing around random ideas - one of the ideas I put in was having a generic base character that was the lowest baseline that all characters would have. Then you would use the Archetype system to bolt on whatever themed feats, skills, improved stats, and other features that you wanted. I very much doubt it's going to happen, but PF2E is pretty close to a system that could do that.
I bet you could homebrew a generic character template pretty easily. You get A weapon/armor/spell proficiencies; assign them freely. If you assign a spell proficiency, select a school and gain a basic spell progression chart. You get B save proficiencies; assign them freely. Get feats every C levels, weapon/armor/spell proficiencies every D levels, and save proficiencies every E levels. Again, assign them freely given some level restrictions (e.g. "you must be 5th level to take Expert in any proficiency"). For feats, you'd probably have to go with either a linked progression ("to take feat B, you must first take A") or pyramid type progression ("to take an advanced marial feat, you must have 3 basic martial feats") which would encourage some specialization. But in the short term, if a table wanted to go this way, "your GM must approve your feat choice" is probably all that's needed. For the icing on the cake, you'd then - as you say - bolt the really special or odd things on as archetypes.
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Easl wrote: Agaian though, the Witch feat is level 1, the Bard feat is level 3 (first gained at level 6 of play). So your argument is that all induce-fear feats available at level l should be just as effective as all induce-fear feats avaiable at character level 6? I don't think you are quite understanding the complaints against the current Witch design.
Evil Eye isn't a level 1 feat. It is the entirety of the subclass benefits.
And everyone has "an at-will single action single target frightened 1 (2 on crit) that makes targets immune after targetting". Not sure why this is considered a unique ability for Curse Witch. Most characters just have to do the rolling themselves with Demoralize rather than let the enemy roll a save.
Easl wrote: Temperans wrote: So a Rogue using Sneak Attack should do about as much damage as a Monk using Flurry of Blows, both of which are about as much as the Barbarian raging. I'm gonna say tentatively I disagree. If someone's playing a tactical combat simulator like Gloomhaven, this is a good balance goal. For a sandbox TTRPG, it is not necessary nor even always a design goal to have every class do about the same damage per round using their preferred/idea tactic. Because some classes can be designed to have their strength, their 'best thing', be non-combat scenes. Exploration, info gathering, etc. And some classes can be designed for high-risk high-payoff strategies and others for steady reliable effect strategies, which will lead to very different individual combat performances even if over hundreds of sessions the dpr might be similar. (I say *tentatively* because PF2E is pretty combat heavy. So maybe you want to stay within a band of performance unless a class gets some truly excellent non-combat benefit). Casters, in most ttrpgs, rock the socks off fighters in non-combat scenes. To the extent that is true in PF2E, it is not necessarily important that their dpr be equivalent to a fighters'. However, if you are a person who lives and breathes tactical combat scenes in your ttrpgs, I can see how non-equivalence in combat scenes could be frustrating.
Quote: People are saying that they should have equivalent effectiveness. Bard has an at-will single action 60-ft AoE that makes everyone frightened 1 no save. A witch having an at-will single action single target frightened 1 (2 on crit) that makes targets immune after targetting should have an effect that is much better than what the bard gets. Agaian though, the Witch feat is level 1, the Bard feat is level 3 (first gained at level 6 of play). So your argument is that all induce-fear feats available at level l should be just as effective as all induce-fear feats avaiable at character level 6? I must disagree. IMO higher level feats,... Having a slight difference in effect is fine, I am not talking about getting exact same effect just comparable effect.
Evil Eye vs Dirge of Doom is only 1 example. You also have Nudge Fate (lv 1) vs Inspired Courage (lv 1) where Inspired Courage is clearly better. That is not even considering just getting good support for your abilities in general. Tell me, why is it that Bard can get access to things Pied Piper, Fatal Aria, Inspire Courage, etc but other casters can't?
Yes higher level abilities should be better, but no one class should not have a monopoly on a type of combat. Nor should other classes be punished for trying to do a theme that by all logic they should have access to.
breithauptclan wrote: I don't think you are quite understanding the complaints against the current Witch design. I not only understand them, I generally agree with them.
But Temperans and Deriven are using this as an example of a larger argument for 'equivalent effectiveness' of abilities across all classes. I get that argument too - but I disagree with it.
If Paizo decides that the Witch will get a truly excellent ability to induce fear as one of the classes' signature abilities, I'm all for it. If, instead, Paizo decides pace Temperans' request that all methods of inducing fear - demoralize, evil eye, dirge of doom, other spells and abilities - should be made 'equivalent in effectiveness', I would probably not be for that. At a minimum, that would drive me to ask what *other* excellent cool thing they are giving to the Witch, so that it is not just a bag of 'equivalently effective' abilities the other classes can access too. The class packages should be balanced in ability to contribute to the major scene types the designers envision will happen in their game. That does not mean Bard and Witch must be equivalently effective, head-to-head, in each effect both can cast.
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Easl wrote: breithauptclan wrote: I don't think you are quite understanding the complaints against the current Witch design. I not only understand them, I generally agree with them.
But Temperans and Deriven are using this as an example of a larger argument for 'equivalent effectiveness' of abilities across all classes. I get that argument too - but I disagree with it.
If Paizo decides that the Witch will get a truly excellent ability to induce fear as one of the classes' signature abilities, I'm all for it. If, instead, Paizo decides pace Temperans' request that all methods of inducing fear - demoralize, evil eye, dirge of doom, other spells and abilities - should be made 'equivalent in effectiveness', I would probably not be for that. At a minimum, that would drive me to ask what *other* excellent cool thing they are giving to the Witch, so that it is not just a bag of 'equivalently effective' abilities the other classes can access too. The class packages should be balanced in ability to contribute to the major scene types the designers envision will happen in their game. That does not mean Bard and Witch must be equivalently effective, head-to-head, in each effect both can cast.
Okay lets assume your idea that classes should not be as effective with their abilities as other classes. So what should the witch exclusively good at that nobody else can do as well? What about people who want to play witch, but they want to play a different theme then the one you picked? What about the archetype, how much should that give? How much stronger is it going to be to compensate for being worse at everything else?
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Doesn't need to be exactly the same to have some sort of equivalence. AoE saveless bard fear1 could be contested by single target witch fear2, or something or fear1 on crit success down to fear4 on crit failure or have a feat/focus spell that doubles witch hex values to mirror inspire heroics.
There are plenty of ways the witch could have not sucked compared to most anyone else, but here we are, hoping the remaster salvages it.
my own idea for Evil Eye is that it should have at least scaled.
givng fear 2 on rank 3 and fear 3 on rank 6 as an example would keep it competitive.
same for all the hexes.
You want the Bard to be the aoe buffer/debuffer? Cool. Then make the witch the single target one, and since it's single target vs AoE, it stands to reason that the single target effect should be stronger than its aoe counterpart.
That should give the class a niche.
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Zoken44 wrote: I kind of saw Investigator and Inventor, along with Alchemsit, and maybe even Thaumaturge as more "Support" oriented classes. Like, they get to shine most outside of combat where their other abilities can do things those combat oriented classes can't. Rogue has so many feats and skill feats and can take the support stuff from the investigator pretty easily for out of combat stuff.
Each class should stand on its own in the roles it is well made for including combat. I don't bother much about the cleric because the cleric is strong support and healing in combat. And if you want to sell out hard on damage, you can build that way too with Channel Smite.
Bard is the same way for combat.
Thaumaturge from what I understand is good in combat.
Investigator is terrible in nearly all aspects of combat from support to healing to damage dealing.
I don't mind damage being weaker for some classes if they have some other role in combat they do well. But they should all have some kind of role you can build for in combat that is equally effective even if the mechanics are different.
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Easl wrote: breithauptclan wrote: I don't think you are quite understanding the complaints against the current Witch design. I not only understand them, I generally agree with them.
But Temperans and Deriven are using this as an example of a larger argument for 'equivalent effectiveness' of abilities across all classes. I get that argument too - but I disagree with it.
If Paizo decides that the Witch will get a truly excellent ability to induce fear as one of the classes' signature abilities, I'm all for it. If, instead, Paizo decides pace Temperans' request that all methods of inducing fear - demoralize, evil eye, dirge of doom, other spells and abilities - should be made 'equivalent in effectiveness', I would probably not be for that. At a minimum, that would drive me to ask what *other* excellent cool thing they are giving to the Witch, so that it is not just a bag of 'equivalently effective' abilities the other classes can access too. The class packages should be balanced in ability to contribute to the major scene types the designers envision will happen in their game. That does not mean Bard and Witch must be equivalently effective, head-to-head, in each effect both can cast.
Equivalent effectiveness is the entire basis for PF2 design. If you want to call it something else, go for it. The entire reason this system is so well balanced while still having a lot of variation is abilities have been designed in such a way that they are equally effective while accomplishing that end in a mechanically different way.
Come up with some other name if you want. But I like the way PF2 can take different mechanics and that lead to a similar outcome in terms of damage dealing or support or what not.
Given there are only a few misses like the witch and wizard, they've done a pretty good job of it so far.
Easl wrote: breithauptclan wrote: I don't think you are quite understanding the complaints against the current Witch design. I not only understand them, I generally agree with them.
But Temperans and Deriven are using this as an example of a larger argument for 'equivalent effectiveness' of abilities across all classes. I get that argument too - but I disagree with it.
If Paizo decides that the Witch will get a truly excellent ability to induce fear as one of the classes' signature abilities, I'm all for it. If, instead, Paizo decides pace Temperans' request that all methods of inducing fear - demoralize, evil eye, dirge of doom, other spells and abilities - should be made 'equivalent in effectiveness', I would probably not be for that. At a minimum, that would drive me to ask what *other* excellent cool thing they are giving to the Witch, so that it is not just a bag of 'equivalently effective' abilities the other classes can access too. The class packages should be balanced in ability to contribute to the major scene types the designers envision will happen in their game. That does not mean Bard and Witch must be equivalently effective, head-to-head, in each effect both can cast.
I can get behind this, I think. The only caveat I'd add is that it's important to make the thing you're good at, well, important.
For instance, witch doesn't have to be the best at inducing fear. They don't have to be the best at inspiring their allies. They don't have to be the best at curses, they don't have to be the best at blasting, and they don't have to be the best at battlefield control.
But they do have to be good at something , and that something has to be something useful, relevant, and fun. It cannot be, for instance, making them the undisputed "master of dancing lights" or "king of detect magic" or some other sort of novelty that, while vaguely interesting as a general concept, doesn't balance at all with sorcerer-level blasting, bard-level buffing, or rogue-level damage. What's not acceptable, I repeat, is to give them a small and unimportant niche to lord over that doesn't actually make anyone want to play them.
This is the current issue with witches, for the record. They're theoretically the lords of "sustain spells" (almost every hex is sustained). But those spells aren't actually that good, and they're not very good at making them better, either (cackle is fine, sort of, but it's nothing to write home about).
So yes, by all means balance things by giving each PC class a different little role to play. Just make sure that each of those roles actually matters, and that some of them aren't relegated to casting "dancing lights" and cheering on the sidelines.
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