I will admit that I'm not the best judge of homebrew or even just how a class will work when looking at it on paper so take what I say with a healthy grain of salt. That being said....
1. Proficiency in Int save makes sense considering its the main stat for the class, but I would be curious as to your thought process on the choice to give the Witch proficiency with Cha saves over something like Con saves. I think both fit, so its more of what makes Cha saves the more logical choice for you.
2. Though I didn't look at the spell list very extensively, its seems to cover a wide range of options for any witch. If the information is true about some of the UA summoning spells getting published officially in Tasha's, some of these could also make great additions too. And of course, a witch needs their Grimoire. Rituals aren't just for the stuffy old book worms. XD
3. Witchcraft might not have anything crazy but I personally love minor abilities like this. I have had a ton of fun using Prestidigitation or the Artificer's ability to create fun little trinkets and this could be wonderful for role play flair or having memorable moments when used in a creative manner.
4. Part of me feels like only having 2 uses of your Magic Jinx ability per long rest until 10th level is a bit too limiting. Maybe having it scale with your proficiency bonus or Int mod would work. I would lean towards proficiency myself maybe. Still, I may be underestimating the strengths of the Jinx ability.
5. I really, REALLY like Coven magic. The ability to share spell slots between party spell casters could be a great way to prepare for encounters through-out the day. Preparing to fight undead? Transfer some of your slots to the divine casters so they can better handle those fights. The healer is low on healing and party protection spells? Now they can replenish their spells slots to help keep the party up in a difficult struggle. Need to use an all out spell offensive and your blaster caster is low on juice? Now they have some extra power thanks to their witchy friend. And when the party needs the Witch to hex and debuff? The other spell casters can return the favor by sharing their "life force" with you. This just seems like it can be really useful in parties with more then one caster.
6. I also really like Recycle Spell. Do you let the spell damage the enemy anyways because you need to take them down as soon as possible or do you risk doing nothing but regain that resource to use in the future? Just for clarification, does this ability specify that the spell must be a single target spell? That would be my assumption but I wanted to make sure.
Like I said, I'm not the best at critiquing or gauging how balanced something is and I tend to be easy to impressive. I hope at least a bit of this helps though.
Sabrina, Samantha, Circe... there are examples of sexy, charismatic witches
Baba Yaga or Ursula (from The Littlest Mermaid) are not sexy but nevertheless very persuasive.
I wouldn't classify Circe as a witch, she's thousands of years removed from the folklore that establish the modern concept of witch, and is a pretty dubious fit for them. Baba Yaga is a hag (she's a supernatural being, not a human) though the line between witch and hag in folklore is uncertain, and she's not really noted for being persuasive -- people pay attention to her because she's knowledgeable and horribly dangerous, not because she's persuasive.
The problem with 'the modern concept of witch' is the question 'How modern is modern?' Where exactly do you draw the line?
There's a general problem with trying to create a witch class of 'what do you mean by a witch'; you could give a 'witch' in a story the magical abilities of a artificer(alchemist), druid, sorcerer, warlock, or wizard and you'd be well within the space of what might get called a witch (bard and cleric are dubious fits). Or you could just do any class with the ritualist feat.
Gender pronoun slips in the first flavor paragraph. Overall on the flavor and framing, good witches are a thing. And here we get into possibly sensitive territory for people who have beliefs where the words witch and witchcraft have meaning beyond a role in a game. And while have said it, this next point might be glib, but let's make room for Samantha and Glenda.
I may need to give another pass through but I don't understand why the grimoire is essential to spell casting. While I'm sure people could come up with plenty of counter examples of "bookish" witches, the witches in my head practice magic through unscripted ritual, they don't really need the manual at hand. There's a primeness to a lot of representations of witchcraft and a notion that the art of witch craft is passed down through practice with ones peers, not cloistered study. Grimoires can have a rule (like a pact of the book?) but they shouldn't be essential to spell casting. Also a witch can't prepare spells that are in their grimoire? I don't know if that's written right.
The spell list itself I think is well curated but agree with those that it may need some adjustment if a greater list of summoning spells are introduced into the game.
Witchcraft, eh, ok. I mean this is all thaumaturgy equivalent stuff, why not.
Jinxes: so in general parlance jinxes are simply bad luck. Whereas what you're describing are more minor curses, maybe something more like a hex. I'd rather through in some sort of bad luck imposition mechanic, maybe something that grows in severity or duration as the witch levels. Perhaps another tier of hexes over that, where the witch can control specific cursed conditions. I'd also make this somehow in dialogue with established curse spells in RAW, others may prefer it a new magic mechanic not in dialogues with the games spell system.
Coven magic: This needs more work through. I guess one could see a coven as a sort of spell slot power transfer station. I guess I'm a bit disappointed because when I think of coven, while yeah there's implication that the experience of participating in a coven can be "empowering" for a which, covens are also associated with rites that are practiced as a coven in the moment that will produce some magical effect, not just "charge" its members. I think it needs more dialogue with the framework provided by the Hag Covens (I know different species but I'll get to that in a bit). I do think what Naresea proposes is a positive move, though it's still that "spells futures trading" and I'd like to see the coven actually be able to do something in the moment other than produce a heightened level of preparation.
More Coven: also not sure what I think about Coven benefits being available to all spell casters, that sounds wrong if we're going forward with a witch as a class. Yes I proposed earlier a softer way of incorporating witches and covens among established spell casting classes; but the feature as proposed seems to assume any spell caster in the party, and that spell caster's own relationship with magic would allow it to identify as a coven member. Covens aren't just a meet up, there's usually a greater bond there.
Dark Lines: nothing really to assess here, would have to see how they branch and what features they bring. I'd lean more to Palladin for a model than the Wizard branching, and for some reason my instincts are telling me the witch branching may get subjected to the same criticism.
Recycle spells: So if a spell misses or the target makes its saving throw, the witch can decide "nah?" I think that's too much control against the dice. I mean there was something called "hedge magic" floated out in some editions, but that's not it :). A spell is a commitment, like swinging a sword.
Sabrina, Samantha, Circe... there are examples of sexy, charismatic witches
Baba Yaga or Ursula (from The Littlest Mermaid) are not sexy but nevertheless very persuasive.
I wouldn't classify Circe as a witch, she's thousands of years removed from the folklore that establish the modern concept of witch, and is a pretty dubious fit for them. Baba Yaga is a hag (she's a supernatural being, not a human) though the line between witch and hag in folklore is uncertain, and she's not really noted for being persuasive -- people pay attention to her because she's knowledgeable and horribly dangerous, not because she's persuasive.
You may not classify Circe as a witch, but as a literary archetype she has been being considered an early expression of sorcerer and witch figures. Some witch practices claim to draw a lineage to worshipping Hecate. Baba Yaga in D&D lore fits into the Hag species, folklore wise supernatural beings can be complicated. Yes Baba Yaga stories provide room for the assumption if not delineation as an inhuman entity, but in places where she's showing a more benevolent side (this happens) one could see her as something like a Merlin figure (another magical being who's humanity or inhumanity is suspect). And these figures are always evolving, a lot of people nowadays have moved beyond the chicken legged hut and Baba Yaga now is a master of gun fu and manifests as Keanu Reeves.
In a lot of folklore witches themselves are somewhere between human and outright monstrous beings. The witches of MacBeth are evidently human ... but practice something very akin to the Hag's Eye ritual described in the MM. I guess that fluidity may be why, while I find this class endeavor interesting, my gut wants a more fluid representation of the witch, where characters can identify as such, as could other creatures and "forces."
The problem with 'the modern concept of witch' is the question 'How modern is modern?' Where exactly do you draw the line?
There's a general problem with trying to create a witch class of 'what do you mean by a witch'; you could give a 'witch' in a story the magical abilities of a artificer(alchemist), druid, sorcerer, warlock, or wizard and you'd be well within the space of what might get called a witch (bard and cleric are dubious fits). Or you could just do any class with the ritualist feat.
I've been saying essentially that, but the voices seem to be insisting they want a new class and that suggesting adapting any existing class, regardless of how well it fits any given concept, is some sort of intolerable blasphemy.
Yep, which witch is "witch". There are sensitivity concerns arguably as to some people this is a living concept. And frankly a lot of the tropes most associated with it are false tropes to those who believe there is some truth to witchcraft. It's not the same population scale, and culturally more liable to be dismissed, but we don't want to Home-brew a Curse of Strand level unintentional offense.
That said, I agree with Kotath and I could see a coven consisting of a a druid or two, a warlock or two, and an oath of ancients paladin, maybe a gloom stalker too. Give them all a coven feat that can improve on character leveling, or create a coven system amid a bunch collective party features that have dormant/awakened/altered scales like some of the magic in Exandria.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The problem with 'the modern concept of witch' is the question 'How modern is modern?' Where exactly do you draw the line?
There's a general problem with trying to create a witch class of 'what do you mean by a witch'; you could give a 'witch' in a story the magical abilities of a artificer(alchemist), druid, sorcerer, warlock, or wizard and you'd be well within the space of what might get called a witch (bard and cleric are dubious fits). Or you could just do any class with the ritualist feat.
I've been saying essentially that, but the voices seem to be insisting they want a new class and that suggesting adapting any existing class, regardless of how well it fits any given concept, is some sort of intolerable blasphemy.
Because Artificer Infusions don't make any sense whatsoever for a Witch.
Because Wild Shape makes only a small amount of sense for a specific type of Witch, and the spell list does not support the concept of a Witch.
Because Metamagic doesn't make sense for a Witch, and the spell list does not support the concept of a Witch.
Because Eldritch Invocations make sense only for a specific type of Witch, while Pact of the Chain makes sense only for a different specific type of Witch.
Because the Spellbook mechanic doesn't make any sense for a Witch, and the spell list does not support the concept of a Witch.
Are we seeing a pattern yet? The concept of a Witch -- a caster with heavy leaning on debuffing enemies -- does not fit the core mechanics of any of the existing classes. Attempting to twist any of them to make something that sort of maybe resembles a Witch comes with a bunch of baggage that thematically makes little or no sense to the character concept you are attempting to play. If you ignore that baggage, you become a liability to the party, since you're playing half a character (or less), which is itself an "intolerable blasphemy".
I am in full agreement that any new classes that are created must pass a certain bar to ensure viability. And there is a certain amount of distinct difference that must be maintained between any new classes and the existing array. But pretending that there's no design space available for new classes is 100% disingenuous. It's been demonstrated repeatedly that this is the case in this thread alone, nevermind there's an entire homebrew section of this site, and a whole slew of other 3rd party content sharing platforms overflowing with ideas for more classes. There's plenty of room. The issue is sifting through the crap to find the gems, and then refining those gems to meet the standards.
Which is what maybe 5 of us in this thread are trying to do, while everybody else is throwing their rotten tomatoes at us. If your only contribution is to throw tomatoes, perhaps you should find something better to do with your time.
The thing is with the way 5e is designed, we're approaching both the infinite options and lack of new content at the same time. That is the real flaw with 5e as a whole.
We've got an insane amount of subclasses which is leading to bloat, but mechanically they're nothing more than a fancy skin on the main class, leading to people being unsatisfied.
It's why I think the system should have been designed for subclasses to be 50/50 with the main class, rather than the 20/80 which they are now. On top of that they should be able to overwrite certain main class features to let them work mechanically different.
This could result in a system with simultaneously more customisation and a lot less bloat. DnD5e has chosen the worst of both worlds, and it's starting to show.
Maybe this could be in a subclass, but I feel witches should start with a familiar, a CR 0 beast, and that it's the familiar that is their spell repository. That means they don't have a spellbook analogue separating them more from the wizard.
For the Jynxes. I'm going to totally steal from pathfinder. I feel that they should have a save on casting and if they fail they last for one turn. This can then be complemented with a Cackle ability. On their turn, a witch can use an action or bonus action (whichever is fair) to cackle maniacally, and that causes the jynx to reroll its save. This way a witch can keep their Jynxes stuck on targets but it's costing them some action economy every turn.
Quick question to those helping with the Witch. Should it be Charisma or Intelligence based? I'm leaning towards Charisma.
Witches aren't traditionally charismatic. They are either loners or part of a coven. Neither sounds like charisma.
What if they are Constitution based?
I am currently going with Intelligence.
I know I’m a bit late to this party, but I would also vote either Wis or Int. Personally I prefer Wis.
By making it Wis, then you can keep the Saves as Wis and Cha because then they at lest get one storm save in Wis, and Cha fits so they can keep that too.
And whatever you do, do not use “Wicca” or “Wiccan” anywhere within a mile of this class. Wicca is an IRL religion. You don’t want to offend anyone.
Quick question to those helping with the Witch. Should it be Charisma or Intelligence based? I'm leaning towards Charisma.
Witches aren't traditionally charismatic. They are either loners or part of a coven. Neither sounds like charisma.
What if they are Constitution based?
I am currently going with Intelligence.
I know I’m a bit late to this party, but I would also vote either Wis or Int. Personally I prefer Wis.
By making it Wis, then you can keep the Saves as Wis and Cha because then they at lest get one storm save in Wis, and Cha fits so they can keep that too.
And whatever you do, do not use “Wicca” or “Wiccan” anywhere within a mile of this class. Wicca is an IRL religion. You don’t want to offend anyone.
The same goes for Voodoo and Hoodoo, which are also actual religions/ belief systems. It was one of the reasons I mentioned not making witches inherently "dark".
Quick question to those helping with the Witch. Should it be Charisma or Intelligence based? I'm leaning towards Charisma.
Witches aren't traditionally charismatic. They are either loners or part of a coven. Neither sounds like charisma.
What if they are Constitution based?
I am currently going with Intelligence.
I know I’m a bit late to this party, but I would also vote either Wis or Int. Personally I prefer Wis.
By making it Wis, then you can keep the Saves as Wis and Cha because then they at lest get one storm save in Wis, and Cha fits so they can keep that too.
And whatever you do, do not use “Wicca” or “Wiccan” anywhere within a mile of this class. Wicca is an IRL religion. You don’t want to offend anyone.
The same goes for Voodoo and Hoodoo, which are also actual religions/ belief systems. It was one of the reasons I mentioned not making witches inherently "dark".
Agreed. I would treat the whole “light/dark” thing as a choice like it is for the Divine Soul, but the PC’s choice based on Alignment instead of by divine edict.
We've got Kotath demanding that there's absolutely no design space left in all of D&D, that there is no character concept left in the whole entire world that cannot be done by reflavoring a Druid subclass or whichever. We've got BigLizard arguing that D&D should be a two-page pamphlet reading "Play freeform RP, but then just roll a d20 once a day. If the roll is high enough, you win; if it's low enough, you lose" while insisting that everybody else but him is too young and stupid to realize that Homebrew Is The One True God. We've got a dozen people arguing over the definition of a 'Witch' or the definition of a "Death Knight' or the definition of a 'Magus' and inventing entire class skeletons to try and get Kotath to back off without realizing that those definitions and skeletons don't matter.
We've got Gatekeeping Grandpas, Negative Nancies, "Um, actually..." Nitpickers, Professional Point Missers, Idea Vampires, and everything else all in a churning morass of idiocy so deep you need a periscope to try and find a worthwhile argument in the whole lot of it, all overseen by the final form of forum life - Frustrated Mods Wondering if They Can Drop the Guillotine Yet.
Lemme try and break this down.
'There's no more room for new classes!': LELZ. No. There's plenty of room. What that room is and which design space is worth pursuing? Not our problem or decision as players; all we can do is make our desires known and hope Wizards picks it up.
'The "Witch" class': What people want is the ability to curse a victim, some means of performing group magic, and the spooky, eerie, 'witchy' aesthetic. There are precisely TWO spells in all of ******* D&D that curse their target (Hex, Bestow Curse); one of them is exclusive to a class everybody hates and complains about, and the other requires you to walk up to the target, slap them across the mouth, and bellow "I'M CURSING YOU!!! YOU ARE NOW CURSED!!!" as loud as you possibly can, which isn't really how curses are supposed to work. That's design space left unfulfilled. Group magic - a gang of spellcasters uniting their powers to achieve with a well-timed ritual what none of them can achieve alone - is also unfulfilled design space. The aesthetic can be bolted onto other classes, but the aesthetic alone is not enough, or people would have already just gone and done the thing. It's not any specific player's job to invent that for us - it's the job of the evil corporate overlords trying to get us to constantly buy their shit to give us shit we wanna buy.
All the other, more specific 'Witch' minutiae is rife for a rich profusion of subclasses, especially if any prospective 'Witch' leans into allowing its subclasses to actually impact the base class.
'But book bloat! Book bloat! Book bloat is bad! It nearly killed the game once, so releasing anything new is bad!': If Wizards can't learn from its mistakes and find a happy medium between releasing two hundred splatbooks a year and releasing nothing ever, then they deserve to fold and we'll all move on to whoever picks up the obviously enormously profitable D&D license next. A living game requires expansion. It's not optional. Adventure books don't sell as well as sourcebooks, even when the sourcebooks are kinda terrible like Xanathar's Guide was. They will release new sourcebooks, as Tasha's Cauldron shows. Our job is to try and lobby for the stuff in them to actually be what we want, not just random junk Wizards is stuffing down our gullets because money.
"Why. Don't. You. Just. HOOOMBREEEEEWWWWW?!?!?!?!?!/1.21/.3,21l3k;2jnm4321gh4ueik23h1giyu43t12867o3t216789t3872`397u12`gt": God I hate my life sometimes...
Let me try and explain this as simply as I can. I thought I'd already done so, but clearly I was wrong. Not everybody CAN homebrew. We're not all amateur game designers; some of us do not have confidence in our skills as Design People and want the extra assurance of official Content. Not everybody WILL homebrew. Many modern DMs hate homebrew because of awful prior experiences. They will not allow it, even if the player does happen to be an excellent homebrew designer.
Homebrew is an option for some of us. Not all of us. Official books are options for all of us. Ergo, those of us for whom homebrew is not an option need official books, instead.
You know BigLizard, I have seen you mention that you don't hate/dislike 5e at least several times but with the way I've seen you describe the system here and there maybe you should check why it is so that you have to repeat that every now and then :)
Anyway, what is this one specific way of playing D&D that 5e locked us into? I have seen that mentioned several times yet not defined even once. Only that it's "one way". What way is it?
And about your 96 or so classes that you homebrewed and claim to be perfectly balanced. Can you honestly say that they are sufficiently different from one another/base classes that their existence is warranted as a separate creation instead of simple reflavor from existing material? If yes then I either doubt that they are as balanced as you claim or maybe you don't give yourself enough credit as a designer because I highly doubt it's just the merit of the system.
I may not have your experience (let's say I'm about 10 years short to your experience) but from what I've seen either something is balanced by virtue of being similar to something already balanced or it's radically different and therefore has a high chance of being inbalanced.
Touching on Yurei1453's excellent response, book bloat was a major issue in earlier editions but WotC has specifically addressed this earlier this year. That's why we get 2-3 books a year, because they saw in earlier editions, particularly 4th, that putting out a book every month or two actually hurt overall sales because people didn't have the free cash to just buy every book. The current philosophy gives a source book or two and a single adventure each year. that's rare enough to not flood the market gives enough gap that most people can buy all or most of the books.
I mean, it's been 6 years and we are just now getting the second PHB2/ spaltbook style book? I swear in 3e there were like 8 by this time. I don't think either of these classes is necessary but book bloat is certainly not the reason to argue against them.
I know some people wont like my question on the Witch is...... Why not make it another 'subclass' of the Cleric?
Take a look at the Cleric spell list......it has a lot of 'Witchy' type spells on it. Also, the Witch could have other spells like Hex, etc. added to the Cleric list just like the other subclasses have added to theirs.
I know some people wont like my question on the Witch is...... Why not make it another 'subclass' of the Cleric?
Take a look at the Cleric spell list......it has a lot of 'Witchy' type spells on it. Also, the Witch could have other spells like Hex, etc. added to the Cleric list just like the other subclasses have added to theirs.
Witches don't Channel Divinity or Turn Undead. Clerics can't curse, or use group magic, or brew potions. That's a lot of stuff to add in one subclass.
I know some people wont like my question on the Witch is...... Why not make it another 'subclass' of the Cleric?
Take a look at the Cleric spell list......it has a lot of 'Witchy' type spells on it. Also, the Witch could have other spells like Hex, etc. added to the Cleric list just like the other subclasses have added to theirs.
Because witches dont serve gods and none of the class features fit.
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“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
I know some people wont like my question on the Witch is...... Why not make it another 'subclass' of the Cleric?
Take a look at the Cleric spell list......it has a lot of 'Witchy' type spells on it. Also, the Witch could have other spells like Hex, etc. added to the Cleric list just like the other subclasses have added to theirs.
Because, and I cannot believe this has to be said for what the tenth time now, that would be making a cleric, not a witch. This is because the base classes in 5e are the thing that defines the class, not the subclass. The subclass modifies the class in subtle ways. this isn't Pathfinder where the entire class can be turned on its head by the subclass (like how scaled fist monks use charisma instead of wisdom).
The cleric comes with all the baggage of the class, you have to have channel divinity, you are based around divinity, witches aren't divine. Does this make sense?
I know some people wont like my question on the Witch is...... Why not make it another 'subclass' of the Cleric?
Take a look at the Cleric spell list......it has a lot of 'Witchy' type spells on it. Also, the Witch could have other spells like Hex, etc. added to the Cleric list just like the other subclasses have added to theirs.
Because witches dont serve gods and none of the class features fit.
Umm... Hecate is literally considered Goddess of Witches. She is referenced as such by the witches in Macbeth, who clearly worship her.
but they definitely dont get their power from her.......at least I think. Also, my second point stands. Hecate is the goddess of MAGIC not witches. there is a difference
I will admit that I'm not the best judge of homebrew or even just how a class will work when looking at it on paper so take what I say with a healthy grain of salt. That being said....
1. Proficiency in Int save makes sense considering its the main stat for the class, but I would be curious as to your thought process on the choice to give the Witch proficiency with Cha saves over something like Con saves. I think both fit, so its more of what makes Cha saves the more logical choice for you.
2. Though I didn't look at the spell list very extensively, its seems to cover a wide range of options for any witch. If the information is true about some of the UA summoning spells getting published officially in Tasha's, some of these could also make great additions too. And of course, a witch needs their Grimoire. Rituals aren't just for the stuffy old book worms. XD
3. Witchcraft might not have anything crazy but I personally love minor abilities like this. I have had a ton of fun using Prestidigitation or the Artificer's ability to create fun little trinkets and this could be wonderful for role play flair or having memorable moments when used in a creative manner.
4. Part of me feels like only having 2 uses of your Magic Jinx ability per long rest until 10th level is a bit too limiting. Maybe having it scale with your proficiency bonus or Int mod would work. I would lean towards proficiency myself maybe. Still, I may be underestimating the strengths of the Jinx ability.
5. I really, REALLY like Coven magic. The ability to share spell slots between party spell casters could be a great way to prepare for encounters through-out the day. Preparing to fight undead? Transfer some of your slots to the divine casters so they can better handle those fights. The healer is low on healing and party protection spells? Now they can replenish their spells slots to help keep the party up in a difficult struggle. Need to use an all out spell offensive and your blaster caster is low on juice? Now they have some extra power thanks to their witchy friend. And when the party needs the Witch to hex and debuff? The other spell casters can return the favor by sharing their "life force" with you. This just seems like it can be really useful in parties with more then one caster.
6. I also really like Recycle Spell. Do you let the spell damage the enemy anyways because you need to take them down as soon as possible or do you risk doing nothing but regain that resource to use in the future? Just for clarification, does this ability specify that the spell must be a single target spell? That would be my assumption but I wanted to make sure.
Like I said, I'm not the best at critiquing or gauging how balanced something is and I tend to be easy to impressive. I hope at least a bit of this helps though.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
I wouldn't classify Circe as a witch, she's thousands of years removed from the folklore that establish the modern concept of witch, and is a pretty dubious fit for them. Baba Yaga is a hag (she's a supernatural being, not a human) though the line between witch and hag in folklore is uncertain, and she's not really noted for being persuasive -- people pay attention to her because she's knowledgeable and horribly dangerous, not because she's persuasive.
There's a general problem with trying to create a witch class of 'what do you mean by a witch'; you could give a 'witch' in a story the magical abilities of a artificer(alchemist), druid, sorcerer, warlock, or wizard and you'd be well within the space of what might get called a witch (bard and cleric are dubious fits). Or you could just do any class with the ritualist feat.
Gender pronoun slips in the first flavor paragraph. Overall on the flavor and framing, good witches are a thing. And here we get into possibly sensitive territory for people who have beliefs where the words witch and witchcraft have meaning beyond a role in a game. And while have said it, this next point might be glib, but let's make room for Samantha and Glenda.
I may need to give another pass through but I don't understand why the grimoire is essential to spell casting. While I'm sure people could come up with plenty of counter examples of "bookish" witches, the witches in my head practice magic through unscripted ritual, they don't really need the manual at hand. There's a primeness to a lot of representations of witchcraft and a notion that the art of witch craft is passed down through practice with ones peers, not cloistered study. Grimoires can have a rule (like a pact of the book?) but they shouldn't be essential to spell casting. Also a witch can't prepare spells that are in their grimoire? I don't know if that's written right.
The spell list itself I think is well curated but agree with those that it may need some adjustment if a greater list of summoning spells are introduced into the game.
Witchcraft, eh, ok. I mean this is all thaumaturgy equivalent stuff, why not.
Jinxes: so in general parlance jinxes are simply bad luck. Whereas what you're describing are more minor curses, maybe something more like a hex. I'd rather through in some sort of bad luck imposition mechanic, maybe something that grows in severity or duration as the witch levels. Perhaps another tier of hexes over that, where the witch can control specific cursed conditions. I'd also make this somehow in dialogue with established curse spells in RAW, others may prefer it a new magic mechanic not in dialogues with the games spell system.
Coven magic: This needs more work through. I guess one could see a coven as a sort of spell slot power transfer station. I guess I'm a bit disappointed because when I think of coven, while yeah there's implication that the experience of participating in a coven can be "empowering" for a which, covens are also associated with rites that are practiced as a coven in the moment that will produce some magical effect, not just "charge" its members. I think it needs more dialogue with the framework provided by the Hag Covens (I know different species but I'll get to that in a bit). I do think what Naresea proposes is a positive move, though it's still that "spells futures trading" and I'd like to see the coven actually be able to do something in the moment other than produce a heightened level of preparation.
More Coven: also not sure what I think about Coven benefits being available to all spell casters, that sounds wrong if we're going forward with a witch as a class. Yes I proposed earlier a softer way of incorporating witches and covens among established spell casting classes; but the feature as proposed seems to assume any spell caster in the party, and that spell caster's own relationship with magic would allow it to identify as a coven member. Covens aren't just a meet up, there's usually a greater bond there.
Dark Lines: nothing really to assess here, would have to see how they branch and what features they bring. I'd lean more to Palladin for a model than the Wizard branching, and for some reason my instincts are telling me the witch branching may get subjected to the same criticism.
Recycle spells: So if a spell misses or the target makes its saving throw, the witch can decide "nah?" I think that's too much control against the dice. I mean there was something called "hedge magic" floated out in some editions, but that's not it :). A spell is a commitment, like swinging a sword.
You may not classify Circe as a witch, but as a literary archetype she has been being considered an early expression of sorcerer and witch figures. Some witch practices claim to draw a lineage to worshipping Hecate. Baba Yaga in D&D lore fits into the Hag species, folklore wise supernatural beings can be complicated. Yes Baba Yaga stories provide room for the assumption if not delineation as an inhuman entity, but in places where she's showing a more benevolent side (this happens) one could see her as something like a Merlin figure (another magical being who's humanity or inhumanity is suspect). And these figures are always evolving, a lot of people nowadays have moved beyond the chicken legged hut and Baba Yaga now is a master of gun fu and manifests as Keanu Reeves.
In a lot of folklore witches themselves are somewhere between human and outright monstrous beings. The witches of MacBeth are evidently human ... but practice something very akin to the Hag's Eye ritual described in the MM. I guess that fluidity may be why, while I find this class endeavor interesting, my gut wants a more fluid representation of the witch, where characters can identify as such, as could other creatures and "forces."
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Yep, which witch is "witch". There are sensitivity concerns arguably as to some people this is a living concept. And frankly a lot of the tropes most associated with it are false tropes to those who believe there is some truth to witchcraft. It's not the same population scale, and culturally more liable to be dismissed, but we don't want to Home-brew a Curse of Strand level unintentional offense.
That said, I agree with Kotath and I could see a coven consisting of a a druid or two, a warlock or two, and an oath of ancients paladin, maybe a gloom stalker too. Give them all a coven feat that can improve on character leveling, or create a coven system amid a bunch collective party features that have dormant/awakened/altered scales like some of the magic in Exandria.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Because Artificer Infusions don't make any sense whatsoever for a Witch.
Because Wild Shape makes only a small amount of sense for a specific type of Witch, and the spell list does not support the concept of a Witch.
Because Metamagic doesn't make sense for a Witch, and the spell list does not support the concept of a Witch.
Because Eldritch Invocations make sense only for a specific type of Witch, while Pact of the Chain makes sense only for a different specific type of Witch.
Because the Spellbook mechanic doesn't make any sense for a Witch, and the spell list does not support the concept of a Witch.
Are we seeing a pattern yet? The concept of a Witch -- a caster with heavy leaning on debuffing enemies -- does not fit the core mechanics of any of the existing classes. Attempting to twist any of them to make something that sort of maybe resembles a Witch comes with a bunch of baggage that thematically makes little or no sense to the character concept you are attempting to play. If you ignore that baggage, you become a liability to the party, since you're playing half a character (or less), which is itself an "intolerable blasphemy".
I am in full agreement that any new classes that are created must pass a certain bar to ensure viability. And there is a certain amount of distinct difference that must be maintained between any new classes and the existing array. But pretending that there's no design space available for new classes is 100% disingenuous. It's been demonstrated repeatedly that this is the case in this thread alone, nevermind there's an entire homebrew section of this site, and a whole slew of other 3rd party content sharing platforms overflowing with ideas for more classes. There's plenty of room. The issue is sifting through the crap to find the gems, and then refining those gems to meet the standards.
Which is what maybe 5 of us in this thread are trying to do, while everybody else is throwing their rotten tomatoes at us. If your only contribution is to throw tomatoes, perhaps you should find something better to do with your time.
The thing is with the way 5e is designed, we're approaching both the infinite options and lack of new content at the same time. That is the real flaw with 5e as a whole.
We've got an insane amount of subclasses which is leading to bloat, but mechanically they're nothing more than a fancy skin on the main class, leading to people being unsatisfied.
It's why I think the system should have been designed for subclasses to be 50/50 with the main class, rather than the 20/80 which they are now. On top of that they should be able to overwrite certain main class features to let them work mechanically different.
This could result in a system with simultaneously more customisation and a lot less bloat. DnD5e has chosen the worst of both worlds, and it's starting to show.
Maybe this could be in a subclass, but I feel witches should start with a familiar, a CR 0 beast, and that it's the familiar that is their spell repository. That means they don't have a spellbook analogue separating them more from the wizard.
For the Jynxes.
I'm going to totally steal from pathfinder.I feel that they should have a save on casting and if they fail they last for one turn. This can then be complemented with a Cackle ability. On their turn, a witch can use an action or bonus action (whichever is fair) to cackle maniacally, and that causes the jynx to reroll its save. This way a witch can keep their Jynxes stuck on targets but it's costing them some action economy every turn.I know I’m a bit late to this party, but I would also vote either Wis or Int. Personally I prefer Wis.
By making it Wis, then you can keep the Saves as Wis and Cha because then they at lest get one storm save in Wis, and Cha fits so they can keep that too.
And whatever you do, do not use “Wicca” or “Wiccan” anywhere within a mile of this class. Wicca is an IRL religion. You don’t want to offend anyone.
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The same goes for Voodoo and Hoodoo, which are also actual religions/ belief systems. It was one of the reasons I mentioned not making witches inherently "dark".
Agreed. I would treat the whole “light/dark” thing as a choice like it is for the Divine Soul, but the PC’s choice based on Alignment instead of by divine edict.
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God this thread pisses me off so freaking bad.
We've got Kotath demanding that there's absolutely no design space left in all of D&D, that there is no character concept left in the whole entire world that cannot be done by reflavoring a Druid subclass or whichever. We've got BigLizard arguing that D&D should be a two-page pamphlet reading "Play freeform RP, but then just roll a d20 once a day. If the roll is high enough, you win; if it's low enough, you lose" while insisting that everybody else but him is too young and stupid to realize that Homebrew Is The One True God. We've got a dozen people arguing over the definition of a 'Witch' or the definition of a "Death Knight' or the definition of a 'Magus' and inventing entire class skeletons to try and get Kotath to back off without realizing that those definitions and skeletons don't matter.
We've got Gatekeeping Grandpas, Negative Nancies, "Um, actually..." Nitpickers, Professional Point Missers, Idea Vampires, and everything else all in a churning morass of idiocy so deep you need a periscope to try and find a worthwhile argument in the whole lot of it, all overseen by the final form of forum life - Frustrated Mods Wondering if They Can Drop the Guillotine Yet.
Lemme try and break this down.
'There's no more room for new classes!': LELZ. No. There's plenty of room. What that room is and which design space is worth pursuing? Not our problem or decision as players; all we can do is make our desires known and hope Wizards picks it up.
'The "Witch" class': What people want is the ability to curse a victim, some means of performing group magic, and the spooky, eerie, 'witchy' aesthetic. There are precisely TWO spells in all of ******* D&D that curse their target (Hex, Bestow Curse); one of them is exclusive to a class everybody hates and complains about, and the other requires you to walk up to the target, slap them across the mouth, and bellow "I'M CURSING YOU!!! YOU ARE NOW CURSED!!!" as loud as you possibly can, which isn't really how curses are supposed to work. That's design space left unfulfilled. Group magic - a gang of spellcasters uniting their powers to achieve with a well-timed ritual what none of them can achieve alone - is also unfulfilled design space. The aesthetic can be bolted onto other classes, but the aesthetic alone is not enough, or people would have already just gone and done the thing. It's not any specific player's job to invent that for us - it's the job of the evil corporate overlords trying to get us to constantly buy their shit to give us shit we wanna buy.
All the other, more specific 'Witch' minutiae is rife for a rich profusion of subclasses, especially if any prospective 'Witch' leans into allowing its subclasses to actually impact the base class.
'But book bloat! Book bloat! Book bloat is bad! It nearly killed the game once, so releasing anything new is bad!': If Wizards can't learn from its mistakes and find a happy medium between releasing two hundred splatbooks a year and releasing nothing ever, then they deserve to fold and we'll all move on to whoever picks up the obviously enormously profitable D&D license next. A living game requires expansion. It's not optional. Adventure books don't sell as well as sourcebooks, even when the sourcebooks are kinda terrible like Xanathar's Guide was. They will release new sourcebooks, as Tasha's Cauldron shows. Our job is to try and lobby for the stuff in them to actually be what we want, not just random junk Wizards is stuffing down our gullets because money.
"Why. Don't. You. Just. HOOOMBREEEEEWWWWW?!?!?!?!?!/1.21/.3,21l3k;2jnm4321gh4ueik23h1giyu43t12867o3t216789t3872`397u12`gt": God I hate my life sometimes...
Let me try and explain this as simply as I can. I thought I'd already done so, but clearly I was wrong.
Not everybody CAN homebrew. We're not all amateur game designers; some of us do not have confidence in our skills as Design People and want the extra assurance of official Content.
Not everybody WILL homebrew. Many modern DMs hate homebrew because of awful prior experiences. They will not allow it, even if the player does happen to be an excellent homebrew designer.
Homebrew is an option for some of us. Not all of us. Official books are options for all of us. Ergo, those of us for whom homebrew is not an option need official books, instead.
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...okay. Is there anything else?
Please do not contact or message me.
You know BigLizard, I have seen you mention that you don't hate/dislike 5e at least several times but with the way I've seen you describe the system here and there maybe you should check why it is so that you have to repeat that every now and then :)
Anyway, what is this one specific way of playing D&D that 5e locked us into? I have seen that mentioned several times yet not defined even once. Only that it's "one way". What way is it?
And about your 96 or so classes that you homebrewed and claim to be perfectly balanced. Can you honestly say that they are sufficiently different from one another/base classes that their existence is warranted as a separate creation instead of simple reflavor from existing material? If yes then I either doubt that they are as balanced as you claim or maybe you don't give yourself enough credit as a designer because I highly doubt it's just the merit of the system.
I may not have your experience (let's say I'm about 10 years short to your experience) but from what I've seen either something is balanced by virtue of being similar to something already balanced or it's radically different and therefore has a high chance of being inbalanced.
This entire thing is getting way too personal.
I didn't understand how much of a sore point in the community as a whole this topic was when I made the thread.
Touching on Yurei1453's excellent response, book bloat was a major issue in earlier editions but WotC has specifically addressed this earlier this year. That's why we get 2-3 books a year, because they saw in earlier editions, particularly 4th, that putting out a book every month or two actually hurt overall sales because people didn't have the free cash to just buy every book. The current philosophy gives a source book or two and a single adventure each year. that's rare enough to not flood the market gives enough gap that most people can buy all or most of the books.
I mean, it's been 6 years and we are just now getting the second PHB2/ spaltbook style book? I swear in 3e there were like 8 by this time. I don't think either of these classes is necessary but book bloat is certainly not the reason to argue against them.
I know some people wont like my question on the Witch is...... Why not make it another 'subclass' of the Cleric?
Take a look at the Cleric spell list......it has a lot of 'Witchy' type spells on it. Also, the Witch could have other spells like Hex, etc. added to the Cleric list just like the other subclasses have added to theirs.
Witches don't Channel Divinity or Turn Undead. Clerics can't curse, or use group magic, or brew potions. That's a lot of stuff to add in one subclass.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
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Because witches dont serve gods and none of the class features fit.
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
Because, and I cannot believe this has to be said for what the tenth time now, that would be making a cleric, not a witch. This is because the base classes in 5e are the thing that defines the class, not the subclass. The subclass modifies the class in subtle ways. this isn't Pathfinder where the entire class can be turned on its head by the subclass (like how scaled fist monks use charisma instead of wisdom).
The cleric comes with all the baggage of the class, you have to have channel divinity, you are based around divinity, witches aren't divine. Does this make sense?
but they definitely dont get their power from her.......at least I think. Also, my second point stands. Hecate is the goddess of MAGIC not witches. there is a difference
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.