Post by streamofthesky on Oct 14, 2011 2:23:37 GMT -5
Witch Handbook
This guide will cover the new Witch class in Pathfinder (PF) in detail, from class features, to feat choices, to the spell list. The guide will be limited to only Pathfinder sources, namely:
Core Rulebook (CR)
Advanced Players Guide (APG)
Ultimate Magic (UM)
Ultimate Combat (UC)
While there are other Paizo sourcebooks galore, these are by far the most “mainstream” and likely to be used in a given game. While 3E is frequently allowed in various sizes and forms into Pathfinder games, there is simply too much additional rules, and of tremendous variance in power level, to make a comprehensive, yet concise guide trying to accommodate for different “levels” of 3E book allowance. In any case, as a spell caster new to PF, it is in a Witch’s best interest to not have 3E material in the game. Every extra spell the wizard and sorcerer get to pick from due to legacy support is another reason to play one of those classes instead of Witch.
Contents:
Introduction
Race and Ability scores
Class Features (Familiar and Patron)
Hexes
Spells
Feats and Equipment
Sample Builds
Archetypes and Miscellaneous
Ranking
This guide will use a ranking system ranging from one star (*) to five stars (*****) to rate the class features and options.
* Absolutely terrible. Almost never worth considering, let alone a good idea.
** Subpar. May have occasional use and isn’t crippling to take if you like the flavor.
*** Average. There may be more powerful options instead, but this is fairly solid.
**** A good choice, above average.
***** Among the best in its class, possibly a no-brainer pick. Outstanding!
Ability Scores
Strength*: You’re a feeble arcanist, and unlike a wizard your “spellbook” carries itself around. Dump this.
Dexterity***: It adds to so many useful things, this is definitely an important attribute. AC, Reflex saves, some important skills like Fly, and most importantly…Initiative!
Constitution****: You have a d6 HD and poor Fortitude saves. Need I say more?
Intelligence*****: Your casting and hexes both feed off of this. Put it as high as you can without utterly crippling your other important scores.
Wisdom**: You already have good base will save. Perception is nice, but a small penalty won’t hurt that much.
Charisma*: No one’s going to like you for being a witch anyway.
Race Selection
I won’t list every possible choice, only those in the CR and specific choices from Bestiary I and II (BI and BII, respectively) that would be well suited for witchery. None of the core races are outright terrible choices for a Witch; a race would need a penalty to intelligence for that monicker.
Core Races:
Elf****: Bonuses to Int and Dex, but a penalty to Con. The other racial abilities are alright, not great. If for some reason your strength isn’t negative, you can use a longbow if you want.
Human****: They’re seriously great at everything. Stat boost goes to Int. The favored class option to learn extra low level spells is not worth it.
Half-Orc****: Half-Orcs are decent witch doctors. The darkvision is always nice to have, Orc Ferocity is actually handy when you can heal yourself, and the favored class option to give a skill rank (NOT point!) to your familiar means your familiar can end up exceeding the normal limit on skill ranks. Of course, a skill point spent on yourself benefits both of you, so the only reason to do this is explicitly to break the skill rank ceiling.
Half-Elf***: Like Human, but not quite as good. The best choice if you want to multiclass, but why would you? Same favored class option as Human.
Gnome**: Small size is a boon to casters, and Gnomes come with some spell-likes and an illusion save DC boost.
Halfling**: Also small sized and no Int boost. The save bonuses are nice, but I think gnome is slightly better.
Dwarf**: Despite not boosting Int, Dwarf is still a decent choice just because of how many amazing racial features it grants. The low speed isn’t as large a problem when you have flight magic available.
Bestiary Races:
Tiefling (BI)*****: Almost perfect ability modifiers, darkvision, immunity to “person” spells, and a few other nice racial features. Probably the best pick, and thematically appropriate, too.
Sylph (BII)***: It’s an Elf that’s immune to “person” spells and trades all the other racial features and variant options for electricity resistance 5, darkvision, and feather fall 1/day. It’s a step down from Elf, overall, though not by much.
Hobgoblin (BI)**: It’s a very boring race and lacks an Int bonus, but it boosts the secondary scores and has darkvision, so you could do much worse.
"What? Were you expecting an old hag?"
Class Features
Wtiches recieve:
Poor BAB*
d6 HD*
Good Will Saves, Poor Fort and Reflex Saves**
2 + Int skill points*
Proficient with simple weapons and no armor/shields**
Class Skills
Craft**: Alchemy is alright. Basketweaving has been known to destroy campaigns and is often banned.
Fly****: You will be flying a lot. Possibly on a broom.
Heal*: A 1 point wonder.
Intimidate***: If you optimize for multiple round duration, shaken is a handy debuff to setup your save or lose spells. You can demoralize from 30 ft away.
Knowledge (arcana)****: May as well max it.
Knowledge (history)**: One point wonder.
Knowledge (nature)*****: See arcana.
Knowledge (planes)***: See arcana.
Profession*: Not even worth a point 95% of the time.
Spellcraft*****: Int synergy, lets you know what enemy casters are doing, ID items, and is used for item crafting. Max it.
Use Magic Device*****: It's one of the best skills in the game, and your spell list is kinda all over the place, you may need this. Best for a (Improved) Familiar to double your casting per round.
Cross-class Skills
Perception*****: It's the best skill in the game; it's worth maxing always.
Acrobatics***: I think tumble DCs are impossible, but you'll probably have more skill points than you know what to do with, and when in trouble, some chance is still better than no chance of avoiding an AoO.
Other knowledges***: Most if not all are worth dropping a rank into just so you can make checks beyond DC 10.
As a Witch, your class features mainly boil down to spellcasting and hexes. The only other aspects to decide on are familiar and your patron, which works like a Sorcerer’s bloodline in that it gives you a specific set of bonus spells every other level. Hexes and then spells are in the following two posts. This post will cover Familiars and Patrons.
Familiars
[sblock]Despite what you may expect, a witch's familiar has no real benefits over those of any other class. In fact, considering you lack the option of an arcane bonded item and that you have the d4 HD, 2 + int skills, poor BAB mechanic going (compared to say...a Magus familiar), a Witch overall may have the worst familiar class feature in the game. Go figure. In any case, while delivering touch spells is handy, it's my opinion that you want to protect your familiar from harm at all times. Not only does obtaining a new familiar cost 2.5x(!!!!) as much for you than it does any other class (I guess that's the tradeoff for not having to wait a week...*sad face*), it's your spell book. You know, that thing wizards go all super paranoid about trapping and hiding, and making duplicates of? Familiars with high AC, tiny or smaller size (if you have a means to free them from grapples), and high speed or various movement modes to escape from danger may be the best criteria to look for. Beyond the bonus it grants to you, of course. Also, check with your DM regarding HD. If the familiar counts as your HD for things like poison save DCs, those obviously are much more useful than if not.
Bat***: The skill bonus is alright, it's diminutive, has good flight, and blindsense.
Cat**: Three primary attacks, great stealth, and scent. Shame you want to keep your familiar safe.
House Centipede (UM)***: Eww! Seriously, though, this guy is shockingly good. Land and climb speed 40, great AC, darkvision, a poison that dazes, and stealth that puts the cat to shame. If the save DC improves with HD, this might be 4 star worthy.
Compsognathus (BII)*****: It's Improved Initiative for free! That's enough on its own to make this the best choice. Has speed 40 and a swim speed, and scent, too.
Donkey Rat (UM)**: It has scent and can swim, and boosts fort saves.
Fox (UM)*: Nothing really special.
Goat (UM)*: Your familiar is not for combat.
Hawk**: It can fly, other fliers are better.
Hedgehog (UM)*: Slow and boosts the save you need least help with.
King Crab (UM)*: Why would you grapple?! Oh, it has the grab ability. For fending off pixies, I guess.
Lizard*: Climb is worthless when flight is a class feature, and the animal itself is bad, too.
Monkey**: Acrobatics is a decent skill and monkey has decent movement. If the monkey is allowed to Use Magic Device wands, this is a much better choice.
Blue-ringed Octopus (UM)***: Much scarier in real life than in PF. The jet and ink cloud abilities are very handy, making this a good choice for an aquatic game.
Owl**: Pretty equal to the Hawk.
Pig (UM)*: Just awful.
Rat***: Can climb and swim, but slow at everything. It is rather innocuous, though, has amazing stealth and scent, and boosts fort saves.
Raven***: It can fly and talk, and that's enough to be good. If it can Use Magic Devices, this is 5 stars.
Greensting scorpion (UM)**: It's not that bad, it's just that Compsognathus is so much better.
Scarlet spider (UM)**: Just as in real life, centipede wins this showdown handily. They do have insanely high dex if you absolutely insist on having a familiar to deliver touch spells, though.
Thrush (UM)**: Flight along makes this better than pig. Still pretty awful.
Toad*: Speed 5 ft?! You don't need hp this badly.
Turtle (UM)**: It's too slow to be practical in a land game. In an aquatic game, it's alright, just for its massive AC and the +1 AC boon it gives you.
Snapping turtle (UM)*: Awful.
Viper**: It can climb and swim, but nothing else of note.
Weasel**: Slightly better than fox; keep it away from melee despite the attach ability.
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Hexes
One important thing to note before we begin: unless it states otherwise, hexes do not provoke attacks of opportunity. Being specific to hexes, this overrides the more general rule of spell-like abilities provoking, so keep that in mind.
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Blight*: We begin with a stinker. This is for NPC villains, and frankly, even they could do much better than this.
Cackle****: May as well call it “Crack-le,” cause once you get some hexes up, you’ll be addicted to this like…well, you know. Obviously this is useless without having any of the agony, charm, evil eye, fortune, or misfortune hexes first.
Cauldron***: It’s a mediocre feat and a decent skill buff. I’m not clear on if you need to buy an actual cauldron to benefit from this hex or its offspring’s, and if so if you gain one for free by taking this hex.
Beast of Ill-Omen**: It’s…an sort of at-will Bane ability, except trickier to use. I’d look for better stuff and keep my living spell book far out of harm’s way.
Charm*: This is incredibly limited in target selection, benefit, AND duration! Normal charm spells last hours this requires constant evil laughter just to keep up for rounds! Pass on this.
Child Scent*: This is beyond terrible. They could’ve at least given the Scent a 1 mile range like a shark has to make up for how incredibly super limited it is.
Coven*: Bleh. Doesn’t help you find or ingratiate yourself with other hags by RAW, and I’m skeptical of how that’d work out when you’re part of an adventuring party. Yet another weak sauce hex meant for NPC villains who get off on being ineffectual.
Disguise*: This would be really awesome if the Hat of Disguise didn’t already exist.
Evil Eye***: This is supposed to be the “work horse” debuffing hex, though after the first few levels when you’re not horrifically short on spells I question its value in the action economy. Still a nice ability at low levels, at least. Best use is probably to lower saves, though hurting the target’s attacks or AC is helpful to the party, too.
Feral Speech***: Depending on campaign, this could actually be really useful. It appears to be unlimited usage per day, though the part about needing to decide what type of creature to talk to muddies things. I suppose it just means you can’t converse with lots of different animals simultaneously like Dr. Doolittle?
Flight*****: Hell yes! Flight that can’t be dispelled is always a good choice! You also get feather fall at will and levitate once/day. Every Witch should take this.
Fortune****: Simply put, this is not worth using for only 1 round. If you use this on an ally, you’re going to need to keep it up with cackles for it to have been worth initiating in the first place. The DM will probably throw a book at you for it, but technically it seems like you could just cackle incessantly to keep fortune going on an ally or allies between combats.
Healing**: If this continued scaling every 5 levels, I’d actually rate this at least 1 star higher. As it is, it quickly becomes worthless for in combat healing and barely superior to a CLW wand for out of combat healing.
Misfortune**: A save negates this hex. If you’re relying on the target to fail a save, just throw an actual save or lose at him to begin with. Still a decent choice, just disappointing.
Nails*: Ok, this isn’t even villainous, just worthless.
Poison Steep**: Great for NPC villains, for PCs it seems like too much effort to me.
Prehensile Hair***: Has some utility use, but it’s very borderline between average and subpar. Assuming you can use it to strangle people with your pubic hair pushed it over the edge to 3 stars for me.
Scar*: More villain crap.
Slumber*****: THE #1 reason to be a Witch! Sleep pretty much at will, as a standard action, no SR, and ignores HD! It can’t get much more awesome than that.
Swamp Hag*: Too small a benefit and too unlikely to come up much.
Tongues****: Never have to deal with language barriers ever again! Shame you likely dumped charisma.
Unnerve Beasts*: As hilarious as it would be to use on a Druid, I really can’t recommend this.
Ward***: At higher levels this is garbage (due to the bonus types), but this is a great buff at the early levels that you can put up before combat. Put it on the tank so to make him feel overconfident enough to stand between you and all those nasty monsters.
Water Lung***: Obviously this is worthless if the campaign never goes near the water. When it can be helpful, though, wow is it useful! A level 1 party could do a deep sea diving adventure (at a very slow pace, granted) if the witch has this hex, that’s really impressive.
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Major Hexes
Available starting at level 10.
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Agony*: It allows a save to end the effect every single round.
Beast Eye***: Potentially a cheap method of scrying and without error chance. What happens if some of the animals in your “chain” move further than 100 ft apart after you’ve jumped between them but are still viewing? Check with your DM.
Cook People**: The spell effects are rather minor, but who can say no to some good old fashioned home cooking?
Hag’s Eye**: Arcane Eye is an alright spell to have some use of.
Hidden Home**: I suspect this has its uses, and would be happy to upgrade my ranking if I could be provided some ideas.
Hoarfrost*: Not only does it take many minutes to actually kill the target, they get a new save each minute to end it. This is simply impractical for a PC to use.
Ice Tomb***: I really wish I knew how this worked, I have so many questions and it’s hard to rate without a clearer picture. What range is this? Does resisting all the cold damage avoid the encasement (since it’s fort, not reflex, and the text only requires failing the save, I assume not)? Are creatures immune to being paralyzed still paralyzed since it’s due to being covered in ice? What if the creature has Freedom of Movement active? Can you attack creatures trapped in the ice, or is it a large solid block? How hard is it to destroy the ice? And more! Seriously, this thing needs errata badly.
Infected Wounds*: If you haven’t figured it out by now, PCs should not use offenses that work over the course of hours or in this case, days.
Major Healing*: This no longer cuts it for healing, at all.
Nightmares*: Maybe this is meant to be an NPC class…
Retribution***: This can easily shut down a melee brute.
Speak in Dreams**: Eh, I’d rather just use Sending or something.
Vision*: Take all the DM fiat-dependence of typical divinations and add “how soon before I can buff him with it again?” to that.
Waxen Image*: While impractical, at least this hex is cool, yet impractical.
Weather Control**: It’s a 7th level spell effect, but one you have on your spell list anyway.
Witch’s Brew*: Faster crafting of potions is not worth a major hex.
[/sblock]
Grand Hexes
Available starting at level 18.
[sblock]
Death Curse***: Giving people heart attacks is just so stylish.
Dire Prophecy**: There are much nastier things you can do to someone that fails a will save. Like giving him a heart attack.
Eternal Slumber***: Still good, but much worse than Slumber was, relative to the level you can obtain it. Many things will be immune to sleep magic by now, and needing to get into melee touch range is a turn-off. Still, in the cases where it can work, it’s a single save or die, instead of needing 2+ like most hexes.
Forced Reincarnation**: Too random to use well offensively. It is a hilarious way to “cure” someone’s cold, though.
Life Giver*: Unless characters are frequently dying, the money this might save the party isn’t worth a high level class feature.
Natural Disaster***: Decent if you can avoid getting hit and losing concentration.
Summon Spirit*: I’m not a fan of the planar binding spells, and this carries an extra cost to it – the negative level.
Witch’s Hut**: I…uh…what is this for? It seems like you can have multiple animated huts running at once by RAW… Seriously, what would you use this hex for?
[/sblock]
In conclusion, there is a tremendous amount of trash in the hex choices, but probably enough good options to to fill up your selections from 1-20. Just not enough to really warrant Extra Hex feat or give you much in the way of difficult/interesting choices. The "witches are bad" vibe seems to have gotten way too much of an emphasis in the class design, at least a third of the hexes seem like they were designed for the villain of the week.
This guide will cover the new Witch class in Pathfinder (PF) in detail, from class features, to feat choices, to the spell list. The guide will be limited to only Pathfinder sources, namely:
Core Rulebook (CR)
Advanced Players Guide (APG)
Ultimate Magic (UM)
Ultimate Combat (UC)
While there are other Paizo sourcebooks galore, these are by far the most “mainstream” and likely to be used in a given game. While 3E is frequently allowed in various sizes and forms into Pathfinder games, there is simply too much additional rules, and of tremendous variance in power level, to make a comprehensive, yet concise guide trying to accommodate for different “levels” of 3E book allowance. In any case, as a spell caster new to PF, it is in a Witch’s best interest to not have 3E material in the game. Every extra spell the wizard and sorcerer get to pick from due to legacy support is another reason to play one of those classes instead of Witch.
Contents:
Introduction
Race and Ability scores
Class Features (Familiar and Patron)
Hexes
Spells
Feats and Equipment
Sample Builds
Archetypes and Miscellaneous
Ranking
This guide will use a ranking system ranging from one star (*) to five stars (*****) to rate the class features and options.
* Absolutely terrible. Almost never worth considering, let alone a good idea.
** Subpar. May have occasional use and isn’t crippling to take if you like the flavor.
*** Average. There may be more powerful options instead, but this is fairly solid.
**** A good choice, above average.
***** Among the best in its class, possibly a no-brainer pick. Outstanding!
Ability Scores
Strength*: You’re a feeble arcanist, and unlike a wizard your “spellbook” carries itself around. Dump this.
Dexterity***: It adds to so many useful things, this is definitely an important attribute. AC, Reflex saves, some important skills like Fly, and most importantly…Initiative!
Constitution****: You have a d6 HD and poor Fortitude saves. Need I say more?
Intelligence*****: Your casting and hexes both feed off of this. Put it as high as you can without utterly crippling your other important scores.
Wisdom**: You already have good base will save. Perception is nice, but a small penalty won’t hurt that much.
Charisma*: No one’s going to like you for being a witch anyway.
Race Selection
I won’t list every possible choice, only those in the CR and specific choices from Bestiary I and II (BI and BII, respectively) that would be well suited for witchery. None of the core races are outright terrible choices for a Witch; a race would need a penalty to intelligence for that monicker.
Core Races:
Elf****: Bonuses to Int and Dex, but a penalty to Con. The other racial abilities are alright, not great. If for some reason your strength isn’t negative, you can use a longbow if you want.
Human****: They’re seriously great at everything. Stat boost goes to Int. The favored class option to learn extra low level spells is not worth it.
Half-Orc****: Half-Orcs are decent witch doctors. The darkvision is always nice to have, Orc Ferocity is actually handy when you can heal yourself, and the favored class option to give a skill rank (NOT point!) to your familiar means your familiar can end up exceeding the normal limit on skill ranks. Of course, a skill point spent on yourself benefits both of you, so the only reason to do this is explicitly to break the skill rank ceiling.
Half-Elf***: Like Human, but not quite as good. The best choice if you want to multiclass, but why would you? Same favored class option as Human.
Gnome**: Small size is a boon to casters, and Gnomes come with some spell-likes and an illusion save DC boost.
Halfling**: Also small sized and no Int boost. The save bonuses are nice, but I think gnome is slightly better.
Dwarf**: Despite not boosting Int, Dwarf is still a decent choice just because of how many amazing racial features it grants. The low speed isn’t as large a problem when you have flight magic available.
Bestiary Races:
Tiefling (BI)*****: Almost perfect ability modifiers, darkvision, immunity to “person” spells, and a few other nice racial features. Probably the best pick, and thematically appropriate, too.
Sylph (BII)***: It’s an Elf that’s immune to “person” spells and trades all the other racial features and variant options for electricity resistance 5, darkvision, and feather fall 1/day. It’s a step down from Elf, overall, though not by much.
Hobgoblin (BI)**: It’s a very boring race and lacks an Int bonus, but it boosts the secondary scores and has darkvision, so you could do much worse.
"What? Were you expecting an old hag?"
Class Features
Wtiches recieve:
Poor BAB*
d6 HD*
Good Will Saves, Poor Fort and Reflex Saves**
2 + Int skill points*
Proficient with simple weapons and no armor/shields**
Class Skills
Craft**: Alchemy is alright. Basketweaving has been known to destroy campaigns and is often banned.
Fly****: You will be flying a lot. Possibly on a broom.
Heal*: A 1 point wonder.
Intimidate***: If you optimize for multiple round duration, shaken is a handy debuff to setup your save or lose spells. You can demoralize from 30 ft away.
Knowledge (arcana)****: May as well max it.
Knowledge (history)**: One point wonder.
Knowledge (nature)*****: See arcana.
Knowledge (planes)***: See arcana.
Profession*: Not even worth a point 95% of the time.
Spellcraft*****: Int synergy, lets you know what enemy casters are doing, ID items, and is used for item crafting. Max it.
Use Magic Device*****: It's one of the best skills in the game, and your spell list is kinda all over the place, you may need this. Best for a (Improved) Familiar to double your casting per round.
Cross-class Skills
Perception*****: It's the best skill in the game; it's worth maxing always.
Acrobatics***: I think tumble DCs are impossible, but you'll probably have more skill points than you know what to do with, and when in trouble, some chance is still better than no chance of avoiding an AoO.
Other knowledges***: Most if not all are worth dropping a rank into just so you can make checks beyond DC 10.
As a Witch, your class features mainly boil down to spellcasting and hexes. The only other aspects to decide on are familiar and your patron, which works like a Sorcerer’s bloodline in that it gives you a specific set of bonus spells every other level. Hexes and then spells are in the following two posts. This post will cover Familiars and Patrons.
Familiars
[sblock]Despite what you may expect, a witch's familiar has no real benefits over those of any other class. In fact, considering you lack the option of an arcane bonded item and that you have the d4 HD, 2 + int skills, poor BAB mechanic going (compared to say...a Magus familiar), a Witch overall may have the worst familiar class feature in the game. Go figure. In any case, while delivering touch spells is handy, it's my opinion that you want to protect your familiar from harm at all times. Not only does obtaining a new familiar cost 2.5x(!!!!) as much for you than it does any other class (I guess that's the tradeoff for not having to wait a week...*sad face*), it's your spell book. You know, that thing wizards go all super paranoid about trapping and hiding, and making duplicates of? Familiars with high AC, tiny or smaller size (if you have a means to free them from grapples), and high speed or various movement modes to escape from danger may be the best criteria to look for. Beyond the bonus it grants to you, of course. Also, check with your DM regarding HD. If the familiar counts as your HD for things like poison save DCs, those obviously are much more useful than if not.
Bat***: The skill bonus is alright, it's diminutive, has good flight, and blindsense.
Cat**: Three primary attacks, great stealth, and scent. Shame you want to keep your familiar safe.
House Centipede (UM)***: Eww! Seriously, though, this guy is shockingly good. Land and climb speed 40, great AC, darkvision, a poison that dazes, and stealth that puts the cat to shame. If the save DC improves with HD, this might be 4 star worthy.
Compsognathus (BII)*****: It's Improved Initiative for free! That's enough on its own to make this the best choice. Has speed 40 and a swim speed, and scent, too.
Donkey Rat (UM)**: It has scent and can swim, and boosts fort saves.
Fox (UM)*: Nothing really special.
Goat (UM)*: Your familiar is not for combat.
Hawk**: It can fly, other fliers are better.
Hedgehog (UM)*: Slow and boosts the save you need least help with.
King Crab (UM)*: Why would you grapple?! Oh, it has the grab ability. For fending off pixies, I guess.
Lizard*: Climb is worthless when flight is a class feature, and the animal itself is bad, too.
Monkey**: Acrobatics is a decent skill and monkey has decent movement. If the monkey is allowed to Use Magic Device wands, this is a much better choice.
Blue-ringed Octopus (UM)***: Much scarier in real life than in PF. The jet and ink cloud abilities are very handy, making this a good choice for an aquatic game.
Owl**: Pretty equal to the Hawk.
Pig (UM)*: Just awful.
Rat***: Can climb and swim, but slow at everything. It is rather innocuous, though, has amazing stealth and scent, and boosts fort saves.
Raven***: It can fly and talk, and that's enough to be good. If it can Use Magic Devices, this is 5 stars.
Greensting scorpion (UM)**: It's not that bad, it's just that Compsognathus is so much better.
Scarlet spider (UM)**: Just as in real life, centipede wins this showdown handily. They do have insanely high dex if you absolutely insist on having a familiar to deliver touch spells, though.
Thrush (UM)**: Flight along makes this better than pig. Still pretty awful.
Toad*: Speed 5 ft?! You don't need hp this badly.
Turtle (UM)**: It's too slow to be practical in a land game. In an aquatic game, it's alright, just for its massive AC and the +1 AC boon it gives you.
Snapping turtle (UM)*: Awful.
Viper**: It can climb and swim, but nothing else of note.
Weasel**: Slightly better than fox; keep it away from melee despite the attach ability.
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Hexes
One important thing to note before we begin: unless it states otherwise, hexes do not provoke attacks of opportunity. Being specific to hexes, this overrides the more general rule of spell-like abilities provoking, so keep that in mind.
[sblock]
Blight*: We begin with a stinker. This is for NPC villains, and frankly, even they could do much better than this.
Cackle****: May as well call it “Crack-le,” cause once you get some hexes up, you’ll be addicted to this like…well, you know. Obviously this is useless without having any of the agony, charm, evil eye, fortune, or misfortune hexes first.
Cauldron***: It’s a mediocre feat and a decent skill buff. I’m not clear on if you need to buy an actual cauldron to benefit from this hex or its offspring’s, and if so if you gain one for free by taking this hex.
Beast of Ill-Omen**: It’s…an sort of at-will Bane ability, except trickier to use. I’d look for better stuff and keep my living spell book far out of harm’s way.
Charm*: This is incredibly limited in target selection, benefit, AND duration! Normal charm spells last hours this requires constant evil laughter just to keep up for rounds! Pass on this.
Child Scent*: This is beyond terrible. They could’ve at least given the Scent a 1 mile range like a shark has to make up for how incredibly super limited it is.
Coven*: Bleh. Doesn’t help you find or ingratiate yourself with other hags by RAW, and I’m skeptical of how that’d work out when you’re part of an adventuring party. Yet another weak sauce hex meant for NPC villains who get off on being ineffectual.
Disguise*: This would be really awesome if the Hat of Disguise didn’t already exist.
Evil Eye***: This is supposed to be the “work horse” debuffing hex, though after the first few levels when you’re not horrifically short on spells I question its value in the action economy. Still a nice ability at low levels, at least. Best use is probably to lower saves, though hurting the target’s attacks or AC is helpful to the party, too.
Feral Speech***: Depending on campaign, this could actually be really useful. It appears to be unlimited usage per day, though the part about needing to decide what type of creature to talk to muddies things. I suppose it just means you can’t converse with lots of different animals simultaneously like Dr. Doolittle?
Flight*****: Hell yes! Flight that can’t be dispelled is always a good choice! You also get feather fall at will and levitate once/day. Every Witch should take this.
Fortune****: Simply put, this is not worth using for only 1 round. If you use this on an ally, you’re going to need to keep it up with cackles for it to have been worth initiating in the first place. The DM will probably throw a book at you for it, but technically it seems like you could just cackle incessantly to keep fortune going on an ally or allies between combats.
Healing**: If this continued scaling every 5 levels, I’d actually rate this at least 1 star higher. As it is, it quickly becomes worthless for in combat healing and barely superior to a CLW wand for out of combat healing.
Misfortune**: A save negates this hex. If you’re relying on the target to fail a save, just throw an actual save or lose at him to begin with. Still a decent choice, just disappointing.
Nails*: Ok, this isn’t even villainous, just worthless.
Poison Steep**: Great for NPC villains, for PCs it seems like too much effort to me.
Prehensile Hair***: Has some utility use, but it’s very borderline between average and subpar. Assuming you can use it to strangle people with your pubic hair pushed it over the edge to 3 stars for me.
Scar*: More villain crap.
Slumber*****: THE #1 reason to be a Witch! Sleep pretty much at will, as a standard action, no SR, and ignores HD! It can’t get much more awesome than that.
Swamp Hag*: Too small a benefit and too unlikely to come up much.
Tongues****: Never have to deal with language barriers ever again! Shame you likely dumped charisma.
Unnerve Beasts*: As hilarious as it would be to use on a Druid, I really can’t recommend this.
Ward***: At higher levels this is garbage (due to the bonus types), but this is a great buff at the early levels that you can put up before combat. Put it on the tank so to make him feel overconfident enough to stand between you and all those nasty monsters.
Water Lung***: Obviously this is worthless if the campaign never goes near the water. When it can be helpful, though, wow is it useful! A level 1 party could do a deep sea diving adventure (at a very slow pace, granted) if the witch has this hex, that’s really impressive.
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Major Hexes
Available starting at level 10.
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Agony*: It allows a save to end the effect every single round.
Beast Eye***: Potentially a cheap method of scrying and without error chance. What happens if some of the animals in your “chain” move further than 100 ft apart after you’ve jumped between them but are still viewing? Check with your DM.
Cook People**: The spell effects are rather minor, but who can say no to some good old fashioned home cooking?
Hag’s Eye**: Arcane Eye is an alright spell to have some use of.
Hidden Home**: I suspect this has its uses, and would be happy to upgrade my ranking if I could be provided some ideas.
Hoarfrost*: Not only does it take many minutes to actually kill the target, they get a new save each minute to end it. This is simply impractical for a PC to use.
Ice Tomb***: I really wish I knew how this worked, I have so many questions and it’s hard to rate without a clearer picture. What range is this? Does resisting all the cold damage avoid the encasement (since it’s fort, not reflex, and the text only requires failing the save, I assume not)? Are creatures immune to being paralyzed still paralyzed since it’s due to being covered in ice? What if the creature has Freedom of Movement active? Can you attack creatures trapped in the ice, or is it a large solid block? How hard is it to destroy the ice? And more! Seriously, this thing needs errata badly.
Infected Wounds*: If you haven’t figured it out by now, PCs should not use offenses that work over the course of hours or in this case, days.
Major Healing*: This no longer cuts it for healing, at all.
Nightmares*: Maybe this is meant to be an NPC class…
Retribution***: This can easily shut down a melee brute.
Speak in Dreams**: Eh, I’d rather just use Sending or something.
Vision*: Take all the DM fiat-dependence of typical divinations and add “how soon before I can buff him with it again?” to that.
Waxen Image*: While impractical, at least this hex is cool, yet impractical.
Weather Control**: It’s a 7th level spell effect, but one you have on your spell list anyway.
Witch’s Brew*: Faster crafting of potions is not worth a major hex.
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Grand Hexes
Available starting at level 18.
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Death Curse***: Giving people heart attacks is just so stylish.
Dire Prophecy**: There are much nastier things you can do to someone that fails a will save. Like giving him a heart attack.
Eternal Slumber***: Still good, but much worse than Slumber was, relative to the level you can obtain it. Many things will be immune to sleep magic by now, and needing to get into melee touch range is a turn-off. Still, in the cases where it can work, it’s a single save or die, instead of needing 2+ like most hexes.
Forced Reincarnation**: Too random to use well offensively. It is a hilarious way to “cure” someone’s cold, though.
Life Giver*: Unless characters are frequently dying, the money this might save the party isn’t worth a high level class feature.
Natural Disaster***: Decent if you can avoid getting hit and losing concentration.
Summon Spirit*: I’m not a fan of the planar binding spells, and this carries an extra cost to it – the negative level.
Witch’s Hut**: I…uh…what is this for? It seems like you can have multiple animated huts running at once by RAW… Seriously, what would you use this hex for?
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In conclusion, there is a tremendous amount of trash in the hex choices, but probably enough good options to to fill up your selections from 1-20. Just not enough to really warrant Extra Hex feat or give you much in the way of difficult/interesting choices. The "witches are bad" vibe seems to have gotten way too much of an emphasis in the class design, at least a third of the hexes seem like they were designed for the villain of the week.
