Witchwarpers Made Simple

[Zoken44]

This is not me explaining Witchwarpers, this is me begging the better players to help me understand them, both from a lore perspective, and a mechanical one. Help me understand the GENERAL rotation and play style, help me understand the class fantasy, because I will be honest... I don't get it.

[Xenocrat]

The class fantasy/lore: you are out of sync with reality in some way, and able to see/manipulate atomic quantum uncertainties at a macroscale level. Have you seen any of the Dr. Strange movies, especially the Multiverse of Madness? It's a lot like that.

You also interact with a pop-sci version/perspective on the Many/Infinite Worlds hypothesis from physics: that every time a decision is made or a quantum state resolves from two possibilities, both things actually happen and new universes are constantly spawned. When someone asked you if you wanted sugar in your coffee this morning you said yes, but also a different version of you said no, and went on to have a slightly different day and life course after that. Your spells/quantum field interact with those alternate worlds and versions of yourself and your enemies/allies.

If you're an analyst, you are able to see how probability emerges/collapses and obtain information (your recall knowledge QF abilities) from this or influence it (your focus spells to reroll saves or attacks).

If you're an anomaly, some experiment, god, cosmic phenomenon or something else sent you to an alternate reality or made you out of synch with yours so that you can (even more than other WWs) borrow effects from other worlds. So your rank 3 focus spell pulls harmful phenomenon from a parallel world where a random Wizard dropped a spell, or a planar rift happened, or a nuke, or whatever. Your rank 1 spell can pull over phenomenon from a parallel world that get underfoot - in your reality this is an empty field, but in Reality 1.5039548903x10^48395702348574 + 54930 there's a trench war going on in parallel space and a bunch of concertina wire you can partially phase in to make difficult terrain.

If you're Gap-related you did some magical/psychic/meditative research or contemplation of the Gap that somehow broke your own relationship with memory and history, giving you powers to warp minds and remove people's memory of you.

If you're a precog you're unstuck in or able to manipulate time in your existing reality a bit more than you go sideways to alternate realities - slow or speed things up, and your weird, hazy view of possible futures gives you access to the weird occult list.

Mechanics: Create your Quantum Field to buff or debuff enemies by changing the environment in your QF, which alters time, probability, physical reality by borrowing from other worlds, or breaking reality the way the Gap broke minds and physical records.

For round 1 you can free action create your QF, cast a two action spell, and have an action left. (Consider moving to cover.) Or you can free action QF, one action create a Debris Zone to make it difficult terrain and slow down your enemies, and have two actions left: strike and stride, or stand out in the open and 2a cast a spell.

On rounds 2+ you have it harder, because your have to spend an actual action to sustain your QF, if you think it's worth it. If you simply Sustain, you can move it 100'. If you cast a useful focus spell from your class, it sustains (but doesn't move) automatically. If you add a zone effect (like Debris Zone held over to round 2) that sustains it (in place). If you use a feat with the anchoring trait, like the one that makes the QF bigger, or the level 2 subclass ones that are defensive, those sustain it. If you Anchoring Strike and hit, that sustains it. At higher levels you may want to forgo casting slotted spells because you have strong focus spells and strong zone effects (Twisted Dark Zone...) you want to keep up.

You may also just want to or need to ignore the QF and let it drop sometimes because you need to cast a hard hitting 2a spell and also move or strike (or Anchoring Strike and miss) or stand still and cast a 3a spell or cast a 2a spell and activate an item, or...

When deciding whether it's worth it to maintain your QF consider: your paradox ability (RK/seek for analyst, disrupt concentrate actions for anomaly, self defense for Gap, speed add/reduce for precog), your anchor's associated condition removal if that becomes relevant (if you got stupefied or frightened and have the right anchor you'll probably want to keep your QF up to reduce the condition), any zone effects that are up and useful (if everyone crit saved out of Twisted Dark Zone it's now useless, and if no one wants to move then Danger Zone and Debris aren't really doing anything), whether you want to cast a focus spell in the future (if you cast a focus spell while your QF is up it stays up; if you let it drop and want to cast a focus spell next round you have to burn an action to reactivate your QF again first), and any feats that require you to have your QF active or be in your QF (the level 2 subclass specific feats are like this, and at least one of the "get back a spell slot" feats requires you to cast with your QF up).

[Xenocrat]

Early level Precog example with Debris Zone and Predictive Positioning feats against melee preference foes:

Round 1: Free action activate QF with most of it between you and enemies, you on the outer edge. One action Debris Zone. Two actions left for spellcasting or striking or move and cover (stay in QF).

Situation: Enemies who enter your QF to get you (1) suffer a -5 to speed, (2) have difficult terrain, and (3) if they hit you trigger Predictive Positioning and you can teleport away as a reaction a new square inside the QF. They then have to pursue you with the same speed/terrain difficulties.

Round 2: 1a cast Warp Time (rewind) for temp HP. This sustains your QF in place, no other requirements. Cast spells/strike as desired with two remaining actions. I'd keep relying on Predictive Positioning for movement.

Round 3: Decision time. (I assume your focus points are empty and you have no other good anchoring actions.) Sustain (and possibly move) the QF for an action and repeat the earlier tactics, or let it drop and free up an action for something else. If you do you lose the speed and reaction move benefits, though.

Mid to late level Anomaly example with three focus points, Anchoring Strike, Warp Wounds, and Twisted Dark Zone

Round 1: free action QF, 1a cast Warp Terrain focus spell, 1a Twisted Dark Zone, 1a take cover (alternatively you can stride if that puts you and the QF in a better spot, take cover next turn)

Situation: You have cover until you strike in a later round (try to only cast spells as long as you can), your QF is greater difficult terrain to enemies trying to get you up close, you have smoke/fog concealment against anyone targeting you on top of your cover, your QF is 2nd rank Darkness (duplicative with the fog/smoke or irrelevant with Darkvision in most cases), enemies that begin in the QF have to save or be confused for 1 round, and if you're hit you can reaction Warp Wounds to resist and transfer some of the damage.

Round 2: 2a cast Warp World focus spell (sustains the QF, is a good AOE blast), 1a to do what you want (Shield, take cover if you didn't, strike if you don't want to be in cover)

Round 3: repeat, using your last focus point

Round 4: maybe you actually want to cast a normal slotted spell, just to change it up? For your third action maybe sustain to move the QF somewhere else if need be. Or Anchoring strike if you still don't want/need cover. (If you miss the QF is going to drop, though.)

[Mangaholic13]

For some additional flavor/lore-based ideas, namely, by listing a couple different fictional characters who could be considered Witchwarpers:

Dr. Strange, Scarlet Witch, Thanos with the Reality Gem (Marvel)
The Doctor (Doctor Who)
Mister Mxyzptlk (DC)
DIO, Yoshikage Kira [Bites the Dust], Diavolo, Enrico Pucci, Ringo Roadagain, Funny Valentine, Toru (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure... Hirohiko Araki really likes giving his antagonists time/reality altering powers)
Elizabeth Comstock (Bioshock Infinite)
Link (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom) [more specifically, his bullet time and Recall powers]

I'd also recommend reading the Iconic Encounter starring Zemir, the Iconic Witchwarper:

Lost and Found

[Zoken44]

First, I REALLY appreciate all the responses here, thank y'all so much.

Second: I'm just gonna file this with the Magus and Thaumaturge as classes that may be a bit too complicated for me.

[Justnobodyfqwl]

Ok yeah, I can absolutely see how you can see massive turn-by-turn breakdowns and then think that the class is too complicated. But as someone who ALSO thinks that the Magus and Thaumaturges are too complicated for me, I think Witchwarpers are orders of magnitude more simple.

Your entire mechanical hook is one core ability: a Quantum Field. Witchwarpers are a tutorial class for players new to the PF2E/SF2E system, and they're meant to teach players what spellcasters excel at. 2eFinder casters are great at Area of Effects and Debuffs, so your entire class is built around having an AoE debuff that you can customize.

(Same as Mystics teaching players that casters are good at Healing + Buffing with a Heal That Buffs).

You get one, always-on Quantum Field effect from your subclass. You can customize it further using spells, class feats, etc. You can move it by sustaining it, or do other actions that sustain it for free.

And that's.... about it. You can also cast spells, and you get your choice of a free rider effect when you sustain your field. But the Quantum Field is the big, core, central fun part of the class.

And it's a lot of fun! It's fun to have "your spot" on the battlefield that you make good for allies, bad for enemies, etc. It's fun to be able to make multiple recall knowledge checks at a time about anything in your Quantum Field. It's fun to position yourself on the battlefield so that you can take cover, but your enemies can't hide from your Quantum Field. It's fun to make difficult terrain that keeps enemies from fleeing, or a cloud of darkness that you hide in.

The mechanical fantasy and the thematic fantasy tie together really well: you're not just someone who casts spells because you encountered otherworldly scifi stuff, you BRING that otherworldly scifi stuff to people's front yard. You're opening pockets of time and space to trap your enemies in a big AoE of Debuffs!

And I think the overall class fantasy is to capture a lot of stock scifi ideas. Alternate realities, time travel, dimensional travel, memory tampering, wormholes and quantum probability..the Witchwarper has a very general fantasy of "Victim Of Scifi Trouble", to allow for covering a lot of design tropes and ideas.

A Witchwarper can be someone who intentionally meddled in the fabric of the world, or accidentally saw too much. They can be unlucky victims, or suffer from their hubris shaking the foundations of reality.