Looking to build a Resentment Witch need help


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As the subject line says, however I am not sure how effective they will be. I have heard they will be great debuffers, this is precisely what I want to be, the best at this particular one thing. I have played a Bard a few times and they are simply great, they can debuff great along with buff great, and basically do a little bit of everything else including damage with a weapon. My concern are the Witches feats, at many levels they appear to.... How do you say it? Suck. How do you build a Resentment Witch, do you spend class feats on improving your familiar (on those levels where it appears you have no stellar options or do you spend feats on acquiring Lessons even though the lessons themselves don't appear to be all that great for a FP. Wouldn't Cackle really be the only FP I need? Is this Witch a better debuffer than a Bard? And what are some major weaknesses of this Witch class since I have heard they are not at the same power level as many other classes in this game. Does this rework bring them up to par?


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I think I can say for sure that no one can answer some of your questions. The Resentment Witch has just been released and as such being able to compare it to the Bard seems a little too early.

About the feats, in my opinion you'll need to improve your Familiar. You'll need abilities like Tough (maybe even Lifelink) and Independent. To be able to extend the duration of a debuff you cast (assuming you are the debuffer) you'll need 3 actions (2 for the Spell one for an Hex) which pushes you toward an Independent Familiar so it can move 15ft. away from the enemy you debuff. And you need your Familiar to be able to survive as it will be very close to the fray.
Abilities like Flyer and Fast Movement can be useful, too, depending on the size of the maps your GM use.

Otherwise, Conceal Spell is considered very strong for non-combat encounters (I don't know if it matters to you).

And Phase Familiar seems a better choice than Patron's Puppet as the second one is hard to use to extend a Condition duration (as it happens just after your spell duration is reduced).

That's all I can say about the Resentment Witch.


Atalius wrote:
Does this rework bring them up to par?

Up to par? I believe so.

Best in class? Probably not. But that is by design. Nothing should be 'best'.

Very little about the Witch changed drastically. The two drastic changes are the Patron Familiar ability and the addition of a few new feats such as the Ceremonial Knife and the two Familiar 'attack' feats. So, honestly, while the Remastered Resentment Witch is strictly better than the pre-Remastered Curse Witch, the comparison to Bard is going to shake out about the same.

Bard still hits practically all enemies on the battlefield at once with their Composition debuffs such as Dirge of Doom, but can only have one Composition active. Witch is still single target, but can have multiple effects going at once - and the new Familiar ability that Resentment Witch has makes it even easier to keep multiple different debuffs active.

Both draw from the same tradition list for their spell slots and both have 3 slots per rank - so the only difference there is prepared vs spontaneous casting.


The real power of the Resentment witch doesn't show up until it starts casting slow at level 5. Until then it is hard to find meaningful conditions which will stick without specific teammates or debatable rulings.

You can skip Lessons if you want to multiclass into psychic for focus options. If you have free archetype, you probably either want to do that or take Familiar Master so you don't need to spend class feats on it and can take things like Cauldron instead.

Pretty much any witch becomes competitive at level 8 once they have Spirit Familiar. 6d6 damage one action, no resources or free action/one focus point with Patron's Puppet? Plus half damage as healing? Yum.

And then of course Synesthesia at level 9 is the final piece. Once your boss level opponent is Slowed 1 and Clumsy 3 for the rest of the fight your party won't care about bards.


Captain Morgan wrote:
Once your boss level opponent is Slowed 1 and Clumsy 3 for the rest of the fight your party won't care about bards.

I agree about the conclusion, but the hypothesis is a bit far-fetched, don't you think?

How do you give and maintain so many conditions? Turns have 3 actions only.

That's why I think we should wait before having definitive answers about the Resentment Witch. Sure, it can do a lot of things, it's possible on paper. Now, I'm not so sure it's that feasible. We are actually only theorycrafting it and I think we can all realize that the theory is optimistic.


Captain Morgan wrote:
Spirit Familiar. 6d6 damage one action, no resources or free action/one focus point with Patron's Puppet

I do also have to mention that it isn't quite 'no resources'. It does have a frequency limit of once per 10 minutes. So it isn't a one action ability that can be spammed for the entire fight. It is a special ability that you can do once per fight.


SuperBidi wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
Once your boss level opponent is Slowed 1 and Clumsy 3 for the rest of the fight your party won't care about bards.

I agree about the conclusion, but the hypothesis is a bit far-fetched, don't you think?

How do you give and maintain so many conditions? Turns have 3 actions only.

That's why I think we should wait before having definitive answers about the Resentment Witch. Sure, it can do a lot of things, it's possible on paper. Now, I'm not so sure it's that feasible. We are actually only theorycrafting it and I think we can all realize that the theory is optimistic.

This is done by turn 2.

Turn 1:
Independent or Patron's Puppet moves familiar from witch's shoulder into position. > Slow > Evil Eye (or hex of choice)

Turn 2:
Synesthesia > sustain Evil Eye > Patron's Puppet for Spirit Familiar.

Turn 3 onwards:
Sustain hex > whatever else you want.

All that assumes is that the witch starts their turn within 30 feet of the enemy, which is usually the case in dungeon crawls, particular since boss monsters have high initiative and tend to act first and often rush the party. If that's not the case, you're likely just spending your first turn getting into position and casting something other than slow or synesthesia that round. Then you enact the above rotation. If you used Evil Eye or some other debuff on your positioning round, you also have higher odds of landing slow.

On bigger maps, I suspect the witch to do much worse, but then again that's a danger for occult casters in general. Arcane and primal casters tend to have longer ranged spells and more ways to slow the enemy down via difficult terrain. Inspire Courage has a 60 foot range but Dirge of Doom is only 30, as well.


Finoan wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
Spirit Familiar. 6d6 damage one action, no resources or free action/one focus point with Patron's Puppet
I do also have to mention that it isn't quite 'no resources'. It does have a frequency limit of once per 10 minutes. So it isn't a one action ability that can be spammed for the entire fight. It is a special ability that you can do once per fight.

Fair, but it doesn't use up your slots or focus points (unless you use Patron's Puppet to trigger it.)


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Captain Morgan wrote:

Turn 1:

Independent or Patron's Puppet moves familiar from witch's shoulder into position. > Slow > Evil Eye (or hex of choice)

Independent + Evil Eye work fine, but Patron's Puppet + Evil Eye will not; you can only cast one hex spell per round.


Captain Morgan wrote:

The real power of the Resentment witch doesn't show up until it starts casting slow at level 5. Until then it is hard to find meaningful conditions which will stick without specific teammates or debatable rulings.

You can skip Lessons if you want to multiclass into psychic for focus options. If you have free archetype, you probably either want to do that or take Familiar Master so you don't need to spend class feats on it and can take things like Cauldron instead.

Pretty much any witch becomes competitive at level 8 once they have Spirit Familiar. 6d6 damage one action, no resources or free action/one focus point with Patron's Puppet? Plus half damage as healing? Yum.

And then of course Synesthesia at level 9 is the final piece. Once your boss level opponent is Slowed 1 and Clumsy 3 for the rest of the fight your party won't care about bards.

Awesome, will be starting this AP at level 13 and going to 20.


SuperBidi wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
Once your boss level opponent is Slowed 1 and Clumsy 3 for the rest of the fight your party won't care about bards.

I agree about the conclusion, but the hypothesis is a bit far-fetched, don't you think?

How do you give and maintain so many conditions? Turns have 3 actions only.

That's why I think we should wait before having definitive answers about the Resentment Witch. Sure, it can do a lot of things, it's possible on paper. Now, I'm not so sure it's that feasible. We are actually only theorycrafting it and I think we can all realize that the theory is optimistic.

Turn 1) Stride + revealing light

Turn 2) slow + hex
Turn 3) syn + hex

It's really not that hard to get going. Of course, if your party includes other condition sources (2nd caster, crit specs, doorknobs, debilitating shot, etc), or if the boss closes the distance first or if the encounter starts close to begin with then you ramp up faster.


Also feels worth noting that if you really want that bard juice Bless has a much bigger radius than it used to and heroism still exists. Feels a little overkill but there are options.

Ravingdork wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:

Turn 1:

Independent or Patron's Puppet moves familiar from witch's shoulder into position. > Slow > Evil Eye (or hex of choice)
Independent + Evil Eye work fine, but Patron's Puppet + Evil Eye will not; you can only cast one hex spell per round.

True. Independent will usually suffice, and you're better off using Patron's Puppet on a Sustain turn to activate Spirit Familiar instead of move.


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A sample build though,

Ancient elf - wizard

1) patron's puppet, nimble elf
2) basic lesson - life
3) adopted ancestry - human
4) enhanced familiar
5) natural ambition - cauldron or cackle
6) archetype casting, archetype conceal spell or ceremonial dagger
7) tough
8) spirit familiar or incredible familiar (opens option for a spellslime to ignore boss crits), or see 6)
9) multitalented - psychic
10) doubles double, major lesson (raise dead), or see 8)
11) fleet
12) hex focus, expert archetype casting or see 10)
13) elf step
14) see 12)
15) canny acumen
16) effortless concentration or see 14)
17) unwavering mein
18) master archetype casting or see 16)
19) Incredible Initiative
20) patron's truth

Eh, rough around the edges but it'll do. If wizard isn't your jam, anything else will also work. Rogue and gunslinger can even provide master reflex/perception if you want or you can go alch to nail that brewing witch flavor.


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Captain Morgan wrote:

This is done by turn 2.

Turn 1:
Independent or Patron's Puppet moves familiar from witch's shoulder into position. > Slow > Evil Eye (or hex of choice)

Turn 2:
Synesthesia > sustain Evil Eye > Patron's Puppet for Spirit Familiar.

In a world where bosses roll saves on a d6, I agree. But considering that for all that to happen the boss needs to fail a saving throw against Evil Eye and not critically succeed 2 other saves based on creatures' highest saves past level 10 you have... 20% chance of actually pulling it out, roughly.

To pull it out, you need to use a Sustained spell with no save or at least an effect on success. Blood Ward, Elemental Betrayal, Personal Blizzard, Veil of Dreams or Needle of Vengeance. They cost a Focus Point, so you need 2 Focus Points to get everything going. Which means that if the boss is lucky and rolls a critical success to either Slow or Synesthesia you'll need to use all your 3 Focus Points (if you have 3) to retry it. You can't retry it twice.

PS: Patron's Puppet can only be used at the start of the turn.

gesalt wrote:

Turn 1) Stride + revealing light

Turn 2) slow + hex
Turn 3) syn + hex

Morgan was speaking of maintaining both Slow and Synesthesia for the entire fight, not just for one round.


Finoan wrote:
The two drastic changes are the Patron Familiar ability and the addition of a few new feats such as the Ceremonial Knife and the two Familiar 'attack' feats.

Three familiar attack feats!

Damage (plus heal or immobilize)
Stupify AOE
Spirit damage plus drained and focus point recovery


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If you assume the enemy is going to crit save consistently, your choice of spell caster generally stops mattering outside of buffs and a few no save spells. But Ongoing Misery means you essentially have 50% higher odds of providing a fight long debuff compared to any other caster using those spells. And they were already considered two of the best spells in the game.

A CR+3 monster may have a 50% chance of crit succeeding on its strong save. That's a problem all casters have to deal with. But another caster would then also have a 45% of a regular success, and the monster might still only get a regular failure on a natural 1.

That's really, really good. Landing either spell drastically tips the fight. And if the enemy crit succeeds on one and doesn't look like the martials will kill it this round already... Then heck, just cast the same spell again. The Resentment just gets better and better the longer the enemy lasts.


Depends. A 3 martial/1 caster setup can probably rip through a +4 boss in 3-4 rounds assuming basic optimization. 2 martials are going to take a bit longer unless one of those casters is set to nova all their good slots on damage. So that by itself gets value extending a two round dazzle by 1-2 rounds and a one round slow by 1-2 rounds. If the first round to close distance isn't necessary then you go right into slow/synesthesia and extend both of those by 1-3 rounds depending on when they were cast. That's valuable enough for me, but if the party's unlucky with their dice that extends the fight and creates more value.

And then of course if any martial gets a lucky crit that's blind for the whole fight. If you have an archer fighter that's slow for the whole fight and lets you jump right into synesthesia.

Admittedly it is more valuable the worse or more unlucky your party is. Skill issue is one thing, but insurance is a valuable commodity.


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Captain Morgan wrote:

If you assume the enemy is going to crit save consistently, your choice of spell caster generally stops mattering outside of buffs and a few no save spells. But Ongoing Misery means you essentially have 50% higher odds of providing a fight long debuff compared to any other caster using those spells. And they were already considered two of the best spells in the game.

A CR+3 monster may have a 50% chance of crit succeeding on its strong save. That's a problem all casters have to deal with. But another caster would then also have a 45% of a regular success, and the monster might still only get a regular failure on a natural 1.

That's really, really good. Landing either spell drastically tips the fight. And if the enemy crit succeeds on one and doesn't look like the martials will kill it this round already... Then heck, just cast the same spell again. The Resentment just gets better and better the longer the enemy lasts.

I was just pointing out that if you want to maintain the enemy under both Slow and Synesthesia you need something else than Evil Eye as Sustained Hex.

And yes, you have to consider critical successes when you ask 2 saves to a boss monster.

I fully agree that it's really strong to be able to maintain a strong debuff on a boss. It's just your double debuff that I find highly theoretical.


Ok. I don't have the math chops to tell you the probability of multiple dice rolls going your way. But considering this is a strategy you can use on almost any target with a mind, it only takes two rounds if you're on position, and you can prepare 3 castings of Slow and 3 Synesthesia a day without "overpaying" for their slots... Feels bound to happen to me. If the first casting doesn't stick, try again.


SuperBidi wrote:
I was just pointing out that if you want to maintain the enemy under both Slow and Synesthesia you need something else than Evil Eye as Sustained Hex.

I'm confused. Why wouldn't sustaining Evil Eye work? The Hex you cast to trigger Ongoing Misery doesn't have to succeed against an enemy. You just have to cast it.

Remember that whole thread about casting hostile spells on your allies or your familiar or yourself or on nothing at all in order to trigger Keen Senses...

Captain Morgan wrote:
Ok. I don't have the math chops to tell you the probability of multiple dice rolls going your way.

Put the probabilities in decimal form and multiply them together. At least - as long as all of the rolls need to be successful. Having backup castings (retries) available makes it a lot more complicated.


What is this Revealing Light I heard about? What's it do


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Atalius wrote:
What is this Revealing Light I heard about? What's it do

It is the new version of Fairy Fire. I believe the reason gesalt like it for your positioning turn is because on a success it inflicts dazzled for 2 rounds, which means you can then extend it with Ongoing next turn instead of this one. So if you all 3 spells are less than a critical success, the monster winds up as dazzled, slowed 1, clumsy 3. Dazzled isn't as impactful but it still technically reduces the monsters damage by 20%.


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Finoan wrote:
I'm confused. Why wouldn't sustaining Evil Eye work? The Hex you cast to trigger Ongoing Misery doesn't have to succeed against an enemy. You just have to cast it.

You can't cast 2 Hexes per round, so to maintain 2 conditions you need to Sustain one. To Sustain Evil Eye, the enemy needs to fail the save first. Against a boss, it's highly unlikely.


SuperBidi wrote:
Finoan wrote:
I'm confused. Why wouldn't sustaining Evil Eye work? The Hex you cast to trigger Ongoing Misery doesn't have to succeed against an enemy. You just have to cast it.
You can't cast 2 Hexes per round, so to maintain 2 conditions you need to Sustain one. To Sustain Evil Eye, the enemy needs to fail the save first. Against a boss, it's highly unlikely.

Cast or sustain.

If the boss fails the save you can sustain Evil Eye to trigger Ongoing Resentment, but if the enemy succeeds at the save, you can just cast it on them again the next round.

Or are you thinking that you can or need to trigger Ongoing Resentment multiple times in order to continue multiple negative effects?

Patron wrote:
One of your familiar’s two bonus abilities is always the one listed here, a mark of your patron’s indelible influence. The benefit can occur only once per round when you Cast or Sustain a Hex
Ongoing Resentment wrote:
When you Cast or Sustain a hex, your familiar can curse a creature within 15 feet of it, prolonging the duration of any negative conditions affecting it by 1 round.


Finoan wrote:
Or are you thinking that you can or need to trigger Ongoing Resentment multiple times in order to continue multiple negative effects?

I have overlooked the s at the end of conditions as I must admit "Any negative conditions" puzzles my English (I'm no native English speaker). I know of any + singular but not any + plural. Does it mean all conditions? If it's the case it's vastly stronger than what I thought.


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SuperBidi wrote:
I must admit "Any negative conditions" puzzles my English (I'm no native English speaker). I know of any + singular but not any + plural. Does it mean all conditions?

I don't judge for non-native. English is terrible.

It is certainly less common to use 'any' to instead mean 'all'. I have to run right now, but I will see if I can come up with some examples that are typical.

As for the ability, I'm pretty sure that it will prolong all of the conditions on one target that qualify. They have to be a negative condition, and they have to have the right type of duration. And they may or may not need to be a named condition - not sure on that one.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I suspect it is intended to mean "choose one from among all the conditions."


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"You can call me any day of the week." Unless you have really long phone calls, you are prevented by practicality from calling on multiple days with the same call. But all days are available.

"You can take anything you can carry." Not usually limited to one item.

"You can get that in any color." Again, practicality means that you only get one color, not the choice of wording.

"Choose any that apply." I often see this in survey choices.

I'm also seeing the difference between 'any' and 'all' as the same difference between 'can' and 'must'. If you 'can' do something, then it means you can also choose to not do that. If you 'must' do something, you can't choose not to.

So "prolong any negative conditions" means that you could choose as many as you want that qualify - but you can also choose only some that qualify and decide not to prolong others that do still qualify, but that you don't want to prolong for some reason. If it said "prolong all negative conditions" then you wouldn't have that option. If you use the ability on that target, then every last one of their negative conditions would be prolonged whether you wanted them all to or not.


Captain Morgan wrote:
SuperBidi wrote:
Captain Morgan wrote:
Once your boss level opponent is Slowed 1 and Clumsy 3 for the rest of the fight your party won't care about bards.

I agree about the conclusion, but the hypothesis is a bit far-fetched, don't you think?

How do you give and maintain so many conditions? Turns have 3 actions only.

That's why I think we should wait before having definitive answers about the Resentment Witch. Sure, it can do a lot of things, it's possible on paper. Now, I'm not so sure it's that feasible. We are actually only theorycrafting it and I think we can all realize that the theory is optimistic.

This is done by turn 2.

Turn 1:
Independent or Patron's Puppet moves familiar from witch's shoulder into position. > Slow > Evil Eye (or hex of choice)

Turn 2:
Synesthesia > sustain Evil Eye > Patron's Puppet for Spirit Familiar.

Turn 3 onwards:
Sustain hex > whatever else you want.

All that assumes is that the witch starts their turn within 30 feet of the enemy, which is usually the case in dungeon crawls, particular since boss monsters have high initiative and tend to act first and often rush the party. If that's not the case, you're likely just spending your first turn getting into position and casting something other than slow or synesthesia that round. Then you enact the above rotation. If you used Evil Eye or some other debuff on your positioning round, you also have higher odds of landing slow.

On bigger maps, I suspect the witch to do much worse, but then again that's a danger for occult casters in general. Arcane and primal casters tend to have longer ranged spells and more ways to slow the enemy down via difficult terrain. Inspire Courage has a 60 foot range but Dirge of Doom is only 30, as well.

Thanks for this detail Captain. So if I had Cackle I could sustain on round 2 for free, thus giving me a single action to do what I like? What would you recommend here for a Witch?


I'm seeing limitations on this ability, I was thinking about Synaptic Pulse with it then I realized this Ongoing Misery is simply single target. It can't straight up win a combat vs multiple enemies. Still good vs single target though. Whether he's as good a debuffer as a Bard, it could be comparable?


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Finoan wrote:

"You can call me any day of the week." Unless you have really long phone calls, you are prevented by practicality from calling on multiple days with the same call. But all days are available.

"You can take anything you can carry." Not usually limited to one item.

"You can get that in any color." Again, practicality means that you only get one color, not the choice of wording.

"Choose any that apply." I often see this in survey choices.

Your examples are not using any + plural but any + singular. I understand these fine.

From Internet, it looks like it's puzzling a lot more people than just me.

Well, at least, it's not crystal clear to everyone as Ravingdork and Morgan seem to have the same reading I got (and Morgan is also fluent in latin, so I don't question their English :D).

Finoan wrote:
So "prolong any negative conditions" means that you could choose as many as you want that qualify - but you can also choose only some that qualify and decide not to prolong others that do still qualify, but that you don't want to prolong for some reason. If it said "prolong all negative conditions" then you wouldn't have that option. If you use the ability on that target, then every last one of their negative conditions would be prolonged whether you wanted them all to or not.

I trust you. But still I question the choice of any over all: Is there really a reason to extend only some negative conditions and not all? So I wonder if it could be a typo.

If it's really meant to be all conditions then the discussion on how to extend 2 of them is moot. And it's also much more powerful than I first read it. I'd still love an errata to replace any by all so it becomes crystal clear to everyone.

Liberty's Edge

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Taking cow as an example, I read "any cow" as a single cow, whichever you want.

"All cows" as the entirety of the herd : you have to take them all.

"Any cows" as any number of cows you wish, from zero to all of them.


SuperBidi wrote:
Finoan wrote:

"You can call me any day of the week." Unless you have really long phone calls, you are prevented by practicality from calling on multiple days with the same call. But all days are available.

"You can take anything you can carry." Not usually limited to one item.

"You can get that in any color." Again, practicality means that you only get one color, not the choice of wording.

"Choose any that apply." I often see this in survey choices.

Your examples are not using any + plural but any + singular. I understand these fine.

From Internet, it looks like it's puzzling a lot more people than just me.

Well, at least, it's not crystal clear to everyone as Ravingdork and Morgan seem to have the same reading I got (and Morgan is also fluent in latin, so I don't question their English :D).

Finoan wrote:
So "prolong any negative conditions" means that you could choose as many as you want that qualify - but you can also choose only some that qualify and decide not to prolong others that do still qualify, but that you don't want to prolong for some reason. If it said "prolong all negative conditions" then you wouldn't have that option. If you use the ability on that target, then every last one of their negative conditions would be prolonged whether you wanted them all to or not.

I trust you. But still I question the choice of any over all: Is there really a reason to extend only some negative conditions and not all? So I wonder if it could be a typo.

If it's really meant to be all conditions then the discussion on how to extend 2 of them is moot. And it's also much more powerful than I first read it. I'd still love an errata to replace any by all so it becomes crystal clear to everyone.

Correction: I agree with Finoan here and am not fluent in Latin. I am a professional corporate writer, though. My English chops are pretty solid.

If Ongoing Misery were meant to be singular, it should have sad "a condition" instead of "any condition." That language might have also made it clearer that this has a to be a codified condition from the conditions chapter, as opposed to anything which inflicts some kind of penalty. "Any" can be read as more open ended.


SuperBidi wrote:
I have overlooked the s at the end of conditions as I must admit "Any negative conditions" puzzles my English (I'm no native English speaker). I know of any + singular but not any + plural. Does it mean all conditions? If it's the case it's vastly stronger than what I thought.

Yes, that's how I would read it (native English speaker). Ongoing resentment sustains all the negative conditions on one target within 15'.

This is one of the reasons there has been much recent discussion about whether NPCs targeting familiars is proper in game or not. Before remaster, this was not an issue because no rational NPC would target them anyway. But now, an NPC knowing that the cat is doing so much to them might decide it's worth 1 action to take it out. So GMing 'what the NPC knows' about witches and familiars, 'what the NPC perceives' in combat as the source of their curses, as well as discussing with your witch-player in game 0 whether they will have to worry about their familiar in combat, all become more important.


SuperBidi wrote:

Your examples are not using any + plural but any + singular. I understand these fine.

If it helps, think of it as "Any (of its) conditions".

And yes, English sucks.


I thought it allowed sustaining all conditions that qualified, now I have doubts.


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SuperBidi wrote:

Your examples are not using any + plural but any + singular. I understand these fine.

From Internet, it looks like it's puzzling a lot more people than just me.

You can catch any of the pocket monsters you find in the grass.

You can kill any of the demons inside.

Any of the students can register for the race.

Do any of these make sense to you?

No shame though. This is a dumb piece of grammar. And for what it's worth, as a native speaker, I never suspected you were anything other than a native speaker yourself.


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Yeah, Super, your English is generally superb and I almost always agree with your arguments. This is just a dumpster fire of a language.

There's a form people have to fill out to apply for government benefits which has 3 boxes for income. One says "Started," one says "stopped," and one says "last pay date." The first two are clear enough. But the third is a poor choice of words because "last" can mean both "most recent" and "final." In this case, it means most recent, but people get confused and fill it in thinking "final" all the time, which can then disqualify them for the benefit because the computer system interprets that as income which they are still receiving.

This ANY example isn't quite as bad. If they intended it to be a singular condition, they should have used a different word. But if the meant multiple, I'm not sure off the top of my head what they should have wrote to make that clearer. "As many negative conditions as you like" would be more precise but take up more page space, and using more words than you absolutely need to will often cause casual audiences to lose focus and skip things entirely.


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gesalt wrote:
You can catch any of the pocket monsters you find in the grass.

Yes, I got it now :)

And clearly it's RAW, my first reading was wrong.

It's just that I feel an implication when I read "any + plural" that it should not always be "all" because of "reasons".
For example, I make a difference between "You can borrow any books you want" and "You can borrow all the books you want". Both sentences give me the choice in what books I borrow, but in the first sentence I read an implication that I shouldn't borrow all the books, that there are reasons not to take them all. But maybe it's just me and this wording I'm not used to.

And in the case of Ongoing Misery, I don't see the point in extending only "some" conditions when you can extend "all" the conditions. The sentence implies a choice but I fail to find a single case where it would be useful to not extend all conditions. That's why I wonder what is the intent of the writer. Is it a poor choice of word and "all" should have been clearer? Or is the "s" a typo that got through proofreading because it's proper English?

What makes me also doubt is that from a balance point of view extending one Condition is super strong but balanced when extending all Conditions seems out of bounds and also hard to quantify as it's extremely party-dependent (some parties can apply half a dozen one-round Conditions in a couple of rounds, crippling an opponent if you can extend them indefinitely).

Well, it's all of that. Anyway, considering the text, I'll just switch my mind to everyone's point of view: Resentment seems extremely strong, maybe even overpowered.


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SuperBidi wrote:
And in the case of Ongoing Misery, I don't see the point in extending only "some" conditions when you can extend "all" the conditions. The sentence implies a choice but I fail to find a single case where it would be useful to not extend all conditions.

The GM has specifically ruled that this particular antagonist can go through the Dying/Wounded sequence, the antagonist is now Dying, and the PCs want him combat ineffective but alive?

You're fighting next to a cliff. You want to defeat the opponent to get their stuff, so you don't want them accidentally wandering off the edge. So you keep all the negative conditions on them except "blinded"?

Sorry, those aren't good. But they're the best I can think of at the moment.

I expect the author's intent was to hedge; while they couldn't think of any situation where only extending some conditions would be useful, they didn't want to take that option away from the PC in case they missed something.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

The English language doesn't suck.

People suck; they aren't infallible and frequently make mistakes even when they have a modicum of understanding.

Our education system that's supposed to teach the English language sucks; most people aren't taught how to properly read, write, or speak the English language in the first place.

But the language itself is fine (though not necessarily great).


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Ravingdork wrote:
But the language itself is fine (though not necessarily great).

Disagree. English is a dumpster fire. At least, American English is.

It isn't even really one language. It is about 4 major languages and probably a dozen minor languages all standing on each other's shoulders and wrapped in a trench coat. Which is why there are so many synonyms of varying degrees of similarity.

The fact that it isn't taught properly in schools adds to the problem, but it doesn't cause the problem.

And what would people teach anyway?

"'i' before 'e' except after 'c' or when making an 'a' sound like in 'neighbor' and 'weigh' or in weird words like 'weird'." Well... that really clears things up.

And that is just the spelling and pronunciation rules.

Then there is the sentence structure. Changing the order of parts of the sentence usually doesn't change the meaning - but sometimes does. Similarly, any concept that you want to express can be expressed in several different ways and orders. Often the order will not drastically change the meaning, but will change the emphasis (sentence component order can change the connotation even if it doesn't change the denotation).

English doesn't use double negatives - except when it does.

Anyone want to discuss the Oxford Comma?

I am of the opinion that people who don't think that English is a train wreck haven't studied it enough.


The epitome of off the rails

Liberty's Edge

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Hey, if we want to wage a war against western norms I think we should pivot the rage to the (shudder) Imperial system of weights and measurement.

As you might expect, I could go on a whole tirade about it but five or ten-foot (where they're wider to allow multiple people to use it at the same time or to accommodate furniture) hall/passageways are NOT realistic except in the absolute most spacious buildings.

English isn't really the problem with the rules here, the issue is that dastardly villain who plagues all manner of things with this and may other game systems, natural language when strictly controlled mechanical terminology that's rigorously defined would be in every way superior to avoid vagueness or ambiguity.

Liberty's Edge

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Ravingdork wrote:

The English language doesn't suck.

People suck; they aren't infallible and frequently make mistakes even when they have a modicum of understanding.

Our education system that's supposed to teach the English language sucks; most people aren't taught how to properly read, write, or speak the English language in the first place.

But the language itself is fine (though not necessarily great).

All languages both past and present suck. That is why they keep on evolving.


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Finoan wrote:
Disagree. English is a dumpster fire. At least, American English is....

You are fighting a battle you are doomed to lose, my friend. If you had a language with unique vocabulary, the moment it comes into contact with another one they start trading terms. If you had a language with perfectly regular rules and syntax, users would immediately break it for poetic, artistic, and communicative reasons. For sure English has a huge number of different words for the same concepts, drawn from different languages. But that often served a social purpose (i.e. separating vernacular from 'high' speech), or creates the ability to communicate very fine distinctions. Lastly, the cohort of people responsible for the new use, creation, and borrowing of terms in language is not conquerors or rogue speakers, it's teenage girls. And they exist in all cultures and speak all languages. So there is not now, never has been, and never will be such a thing as a stable consistent language with fully agreed-upon and regular rules and meanings. The only reason Esperanto has been as stable as it is, is because it doesn't have much of a real speaker base. if it did, it's vaunted regularity and simplicity would've gone out the window a decade or less after it was adopted.


gesalt wrote:

Depends. A 3 martial/1 caster setup can probably rip through a +4 boss in 3-4 rounds assuming basic optimization. 2 martials are going to take a bit longer unless one of those casters is set to nova all their good slots on damage. So that by itself gets value extending a two round dazzle by 1-2 rounds and a one round slow by 1-2 rounds. If the first round to close distance isn't necessary then you go right into slow/synesthesia and extend both of those by 1-3 rounds depending on when they were cast. That's valuable enough for me, but if the party's unlucky with their dice that extends the fight and creates more value.

And then of course if any martial gets a lucky crit that's blind for the whole fight. If you have an archer fighter that's slow for the whole fight and lets you jump right into synesthesia.

Admittedly it is more valuable the worse or more unlucky your party is. Skill issue is one thing, but insurance is a valuable commodity.

Yeah. The damage output of your party definitely puts a limit on how powerful Resentment is. It does significantly improve a lot of debuffs because the Success quickly becomes equivalent to Failure, but the more you debuff a boss the faster they die (usually), so... sooner or later this all converges to the end of the fight.

I don't see this getting over two conditions (plus Sickened for Evil Eye) a lot of the time, both for reasons of things being dead, and also just having to burn spell slots for each condition (and diminishing returns of a sort - if they're Slowed, Sickened, and Blind, you probably should just start shooting cantrips at them until they're dead instead of trying to find some other debuff that'll stack onto all that)


Oh, I'm not trying to save English. It is well past the point of being salvageable.

I learned a little bit of Spanish in school. I remember learning that each letter - even the vowels - makes one specific sound. So even though I can't understand what I am reading, I can pronounce it correctly. And later we got to irregular verb conjugation, and there are like, nine of them. I remember thinking to myself, 'wait... only nine? In total? For the entire language?'

But maybe Spanish is a dumpster fire too and I just haven't studied it enough.


Is it fair to assume you could extend the fleeing on a crit fail of a Fear indefinitely?

Critical Failure The target is frightened 3 and fleeing for 1 round.

Just visualizing that it's very in theme with a Witch cackling as the enemy runs away in terror for several rounds. But I imagine the Familiar wouldn't be able to keep the enemy within the required range.


Finoan wrote:

Oh, I'm not trying to save English. It is well past the point of being salvageable.

I learned a little bit of Spanish in school. I remember learning that each letter - even the vowels - makes one specific sound. So even though I can't understand what I am reading, I can pronounce it correctly. And later we got to irregular verb conjugation, and there are like, nine of them. I remember thinking to myself, 'wait... only nine? In total? For the entire language?'

But maybe Spanish is a dumpster fire too and I just haven't studied it enough.

Spanish pronunciation as a non-speaker definitely feels easier to me too.

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