Talk:Witch (3.5e Class)

Variations

Perhaps this would be better titled Witch. This may come in different "flavours": sky, sea, desert, cave, woodland etc. (Possibly known by colours rather than terrain, eg woodland == green.) I see a progression of Hedge Witch (base: wanderer) -> Village Witch (prestige? creation/inhabitation of a Cottage, acceptance by local populace) -> Witch Lady/Lord (epic? upon marriage to Mage Lord/Lady, and the creation/inhabitation of a Tower.) --Arohanui 14:53, 15 January 2008 (MST)

You know what, I was going to comment on the same idea. I didn't want to though seeing how it was your first thing and all :( But yeah, I totally agree. Apothecary (to me) seems like a much less magical, more mundane type profession. Also I could see them living in a city and being a part of it, where a "witch" doesn't seem like someone small children would love to hang around. Also I've always thought of apothecarys to be dabblers in alchemy. =) either way. --Othtim 15:02, 15 January 2008 (MST)

That's great validation, thanks for the feedback. Actually, this class started off being much more alchemical; I seperated out the Alchemist, which I think Green Dragon ran with. I've retitled it, and will add the class progression when I figure out how that works. --Arohanui 15:46, 15 January 2008 (MST)

It was actually Cerin616 who took over Alchemist, which I'm totally happy with, since it's actually the Witch I'm interested in. I simply separated out Alchemist in the processes of concept clarification. --Arohanui 16:46, 15 January 2008 (MST)

Advancement

I see this as having a (predominately male) astral, artificial, depth-over-breadth of knowledge counterpart the Hedge Mage / Mage / Mage Lord. To reach Epic Level, a Witch would need to marry or otherwise permanently pair up with a Mage (and vice versa), the two classes complementing one another and the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. --Arohanui 15:46, 15 January 2008 (MST)

Perhaps cottage witch and witch lady should be prestige classes? (I'm still trying to figure out all the prestige/epic/elite business). --Arohanui 19:19, 16 January 2008 (MST)

Alignments

Possibly evil alignments should be possible, enabling subclasses such as blood witch (using sacrifice), bone witch (using necromancy), shadow witch (using soul capture) etc, and allowing 'evil' races to become witches. Note that I've already allowed Rakshasa; I envisaged these as entities which had 'converted' to benevolence. --Arohanui 16:50, 15 January 2008 (MST)

I don't foresee witches adhering to 'extreme' alignments, ie chaotic good, lawful evil etc, since these are too 'unnatural'. In fact, they are likely to be mild in any goodness/evilness/lawfulness/chaoticness as well, and remain quite close to true neutral. --Arohanui 19:21, 16 January 2008 (MST)

Materiel

I actually chose the word 'materiel' deliberately; it wasn't a typo. Being of French origin, materiel is plural, and its use helps differentiate the specific materiel a witch collects at utilizes from material in general. I'd consider using 'materials' if this is common D&D parlance for "stuff used in crafting". --Arohanui 13:12, 17 January 2008 (MST)

Feel free to put it back to the "materiel". I believe it was just seen as a misspelling and not seen as what it is. --Green Dragon 00:33, 19 January 2008 (MST)

That seems to be a recurrent problem, so I shall henceforth refer to it as 'craft components'. --Arohanui 21:13, 20 January 2008 (MST)

Sounds good :). --Green Dragon 12:34, 21 January 2008 (MST)

Spell List and Campaign Information

How should we treat the Witch (DnD Class)/Witch Spell List and the Witch (DnD Class)/Campaign Information? I understand why they were added to their own pages, since they made this page too long, however it is not standard for sub-pages to exist. Should we allow some deviations, or merge everything back onto this page? Ideas? --Green Dragon 20:28, 18 January 2008 (MST)

Oh gosh, sorry. Your decision really. The page was getting considerably longer than 32kB, and I was worried that other people wouldn't be able to edit it, and that if it got much longer, I wouldn't be able to either. (I've no idea how big Firefox's buffer is.) But if long is okay, I'm happy to merge the pages. Be warned though, I've still got a bunch of ideas to add in (if that's kosher). --Arohanui 22:33, 18 January 2008 (MST)

PS: thank you for all the tidying up! --Arohanui 22:35, 18 January 2008 (MST)

I say we should merge everything back onto this page. The warning really only is a problem for non-modern browsers (IE 6, etc). Also as long as one just edits sections it will never be a problem. Therefore I say merge everything back onto this page. --Green Dragon 23:49, 18 January 2008 (MST)

Will do then. Thanks for the input! --Arohanui 13:14, 19 January 2008 (MST)

Not a problem. --Green Dragon 12:42, 21 January 2008 (MST)

Balance

A witch does gain a fairly broad range of abilities, however she will likely level quite slowly since she will be crafting so many items, which will drain her xp. Any advice on balancing will be most gratefully received. --Arohanui 01:34, 20 January 2008 (MST)

The AC Bonus seems like a tight fit for the witch concept, but the Improved Unarmed Strike less so. Perhaps I should drop this, since I suspect that she currently has too many abilities. --Arohanui 05:27, 20 January 2008 (MST)

I think that that would definitely make a lot of sense to drop it. --Ramses IV 11:52, 20 January 2008 (MST)

Thanks very much for the feedback. I'll do that then. --Arohanui 13:35, 20 January 2008 (MST)

Done. Given that the witch gets a lot of specials, I'm also considering dropping the Imprint Stone and Track bonus feats. While they do fit the class well, they could simply be feats that a witch is likely to pick up, rather than bonuses. --Arohanui 13:52, 20 January 2008 (MST)

Did this as well. I'm even considering dropping at least some of the crafting feats as bonuses; the witch can choose when to pick them up but will be limited as to when by their requirements. I may also move some features to the prestige classes, eg, some of the ranger things to the hedge witch, the powers to the cottage witch, etc. --Arohanui 13:55, 21 January 2008 (MST)

If you want to fix the AC ability cap out the wisdom bonus to AC at 1 per level in Witch. The problem with the current version is that I would love to play a Monk 1/Witch X or more likely Monk 1/Witch 1/Something else X. Double wisdom to AC is really good... --Aarnott 15:45, 22 January 2008 (MST)

Thanks very much for pointing this out to me. I've not capped the wisdom AC bonus, but I have halved it. I do think a Monk/Witch would be a good combination conceptually anyway, and have created a school of witchcraft based on it. (A yogini, essentially.) --Arohanui 16:11, 24 January 2008 (MST)

Familiar or Animal Companion

The witch has become increasing animal oriented, and has divine spellcasting abilities rather than arcane. I'm starting to wonder whether she ought to have an Animal Companion, rather than a Familiar. It would fit with her somewhat druidic nature, and help protect her during her travels (since she's becoming increasing un-combat-oriented), but I'm a little worried about balance. Would an animal companion overpower her? --Arohanui 16:21, 20 January 2008 (MST)

I say it would be okay if you swapped it for the spells, powers, or even AC bonus. With spells, powers, animal companion, and AC bonus, this is quite the class. --Green Dragon 12:45, 21 January 2008 (MST)

The problem I'm having is that they all fit, and she is supposed to be breadth rather than depth, ie, good but not great at lots of stuff. I'd actually probably rather crank most of her abilities down than drop them entirely. The AC bonus could probably go though, particularly if she does have an animal that could help defend her; she's becoming less and less combat oriented. I feel that I've gone through a stage of gathering together all the things that could be relevant, and am now in the process of whittling them down to what really matters. All balancing advice very very gratefully received. --Arohanui 13:46, 21 January 2008 (MST)

Okay, I've added the Companion, but moved a lot of other abilities to the witch prestige classes. The bass class still has an AC bonus, although it accumulates more slowly than the monk's, and no longer has psionic abilites. --Arohanui 15:35, 22 January 2008 (MST)

I think it looks okay. --Green Dragon 01:36, 23 January 2008 (MST)

Thanks for the feedback. I really do appreciate having an experienced eye run over my noobiness. --Arohanui 20:57, 23 January 2008 (MST)

Dollars and Cents

I could see this class generating cash by selling mundane material components to arcane casters. --Othtim 13:50, 21 February 2008 (MST)

Good point, since she is a collector. Plus good synergy with her magician animus. Thanks for that. --Arohanui 14:18, 21 February 2008 (MST)

Craft Checks

A witch gains the ability to make Major and Superior items, but she will never be able to do anything with it, because a Craft check of 50 or even 40 is way out there. Consider lowering the required skill levels. --68.196.240.142 18:28, 27 February 2008 (MST)

Cheers, I'll do that. --Arohanui 02:11, 29 February 2008 (MST)

Animal Companion

i think a witch should have a wider range of animal companions or possibly a choice between a familiar and a companion because a witch might also have a snake or, more commonly, a cat --Xdeletedx 20:01, 18 March 2008 (MDT)