The REMASTERED WITCH: Outclassing the wizard in Pathfinder 2e?

Ronald the rules lawyer some of you may call this my Victory lap in my coverage of the Pathfinder remaster I call it the last damn time I make a class video on this book oh it's been an arduous Journey going through the details of every class and comparing every single word I could find but I hope it's been fruitful for you and I've learned a lot so we go on to the witch which many of you have waited for it is the class that is not currently in the core rule book and it's a very popular concept it's very understandable why they would put it in player Core 1 people coming from D and D IV certainly can't play a witch without Homebrew it's the he class the one that casts magic and does weird things though not exactly witches in Pathfinder simply have a mysterious Patron that sends them a magical familiar to Aid them in achieving their mysterious goals the other reason it's included in Core 1 is because it's a class that piso recognized could use some love to give it some more power and some more flavor I find I can explain every class and Pathfinder with a simple phrase being be a Bard if you want to inspire your allies be a ranger if you want to hunt down a single Foe and it's usually something unique to them that no other class can do nearly as well well with the witch they have been the class that has the best magical familiar they get one extra ability at level one and get a few more at higher levels but other classes can get familiars so this pitch wasn't really sexy so piso has slathered it with a layer of design love giving them a new key feature and making their Patron more directly involved in their affairs did they succeed well we'll see in this video also there's a perception that maybe they overshadow the wizard class the class that many people pointed players who were interested in the witch toward because it had some features the witch did not have so we have a little interesting as usual somewhat Petty but fascinating nerd debate over whether the witch has exceeded the wizard in power I will look into that in my closing statement so the plan for this video many people are checking out Pathfinder for the first time with the remas so I go over the basics of the witch for new players then I go over the general changes that the remaster brings to the witch the changes to the patrons their mysterious benefactors that give them their powers go over changes to the witch Feats go over the familiars and changes to them overall in the remaster and then my closing statement so we round the corner and almost are done with my pathfinder remaster coverage like subscribe ring the bell to get notified not only about the next video but further videos there are other videos that I will be doing on Pathfinder 2 eat and DND and other things that Tickle My Fancy also support my patreon I don't earn income as a lawyer with the kind of law I do the patreon enables me to continue making videos and you also get exclusive access to many videos including me going through the player core and GM core for 3 and 1 half hours with people on my Discord and also for tier 2 supporters and above you get to watch me running Pathfinder for D and YouTubers you also get early access to many of my videos so on to the main event the witch a basic overview for new players thematically you have a patron a mysterious entity who has sent you a boon a familiar a magical being usually an animal and you were able to cast magic sometimes with the Patron's direct intervention there are four magical traditions in Pathfinder and unlike all the other spellcasters in this book The Witch can do any of the four traditions and you get one of these Traditions depending on what your Patron is your Patron is your sub class your Patron gives you a magical familiar who also serves as your Spellbook unlike a wizard who reads books in the morning to prepare their spells you commune with your familiar petting your animal or other being since your being is magical you can confer it different abilities every morning some other classes can get a familiar of their own however theirs are not as powerful as yours and they have to spend a resource like a feat to get one yours is free if you're familiar dies you get a duplicate or reincarnation of your familiar with all its spells during your next daily preparations being a witch also gives you a starting hex spell what makes a hex spell a hex spell is that it's conferred to you by your Patron you can only cast one hex spell or cantrip per turn your hex spell as opposed to your hex cantrips uses your focus Point Pool which starts at one since you can recharge a focus point with 10 minutes of refocusing you can cast your hex spell several times in a day additionally your specific choice of one of the seven patrons I listed earlier furthermore gives you one of the four spell Traditions a skill proficiency a unique lesson which gives you a hex cantrip cantrips you can cast over and over again no daily limit so long as you respect the one hex per turn limit many hex cantrips only take a single action but require you to sustain them with an action every subsequent turn you gain a known spell in your familiar and you get a special familiar ability which is a new ability so I'll explain in the new stuff section you can also get more hexes through Feats such as cackle which lets you cackle and as a free action sustain a hex that you've cast in gameplay you will often find a TI advantage to position your familiar on the battlefield the way minions work is that they can spend two actions when you spend one of your three actions to command it so there's some action juggling involved with the witch also Pathfinder 2 e unlike DNZ fifth edition uses traditional vanan spellcasting at least for its prepared spellcasters as opposed to its spontaneous casters witches are prepared spell casters during their daily preparations they not only anticipate what spells they need that day but how many castings of each spell they will need that day every time they cast a spell they cross it off their list of prepared spells that day they can prepare a single spell more than one time like every pathfinder character which is get a class feed every even numbered level letting them customize their class further if you're coming from d and think warlock invocations that's what class feeds are and the player core book has 39 witch feeds to choose from each with a minimum level requirement to help the new player there are a couple of sample builds here is a sample I switch that suggests attributes skill proficiencies a patron class feeds and lessons to take with class feeds okay on to the changes in the witch in the remaster first their proficiencies witches now have a universal spellcasting proficiency like all spellcasters in the player core before they were only proficient in one of the four traditions preventing them from using their eventual legendary proficiency on spells obtained from other sources like archetypes now a non-arcane witch who has a high intelligence that is the witch's key ability intelligence by the way can archetype into wizard which is an intelligence caster and get access to Arcane spells that way works on other spellcasting archetypes of course but the wizard uses the same key ability which is also get a class DC this is the generic stat that abilities refer to when there is no other stat to refer to so the witch will not get gimped if they go far a field from their wheelhouse if they take the monk archetype for example they can stun enemies with the flurry of hair they also had the goal of making the patrons more thematic and flavorful and fleshed out so we can just compare the core rulebook version of the fervor Patron with its new version its name is different obviously and there's a lot more description there's an explanation why you can only do one hex per turn the patron does not take repeated requests kindly and if you attempt to do a second hex on that turn your familiar hisses in displeasure as your Patron rejects your call you used to have a starting hex spell of face familiar an emergency reaction to protect your familiar from harm now you have a choice between this and the Patron's puppet Focus spell this lets you when your turn begins use a free action to command your familiar though thematically it's your Patron doing so and the big news the big obvious buff for the witch is that familiars now do a special familiar ability when you cast or sustain a hex this is limited to once per round and it resolves immediately before or after you resolve the hex each Patron gives you a spell list one of the four magical Traditions a skill that you're proficient in an initial lesson that includes a hex cantrip and an additional spell added to your familiar quote Spellbook and a unique familiar ability unique to your Patron we have the same seven patrons as before and here they are listed under their corresponding magical tradition let's look at them in order by tradition the first is our Arcane Patron the inscribed one this used to be called the Rune Patron I'm only covering changes in this video something you'll notice and you'll want to keep in mind as we go through these special abilities is that the positioning of your familiar is now very important in the remastered witch when you cast or sustain a hex the letters that are on your familiar rapidly change and it's distracting allowing it to contribute to flanking as if it had a 5-ft reach the hex cantrip discern Secrets is unchanged from the original next is the Divine Patron this one is Faith's flamekeeper formerly called fervor when you Caster sustain a Hax your familiar is pleasantly warm and soft washing away worries granting a willing creature within 15 ft temporary hit points that last until the start of your next turn their hex cantrip which gives a status bonus to damage rolls has been buffed the temporary immunity of 1 minute after the spell ends has been removed this was a spell that was sustained so there was kind of a action tax if you wanted to keep buffing an ally once you got it started that is now something you can now without worry stop doing and restart if you want to next are the occult patrons and we start with the resentment formerly known as The Curse Patron I've spoken about this in a previous video saying it might be too powerful well I found that the problem may be worse than I originally thought I will leave my comment on this to the end the next one is the spinner of threads forly known as fate when you cast or sustain a hex your familiar has a spot on its body that looks like a good luck charm or a bad Omen it lowers the armor class of an enemy by one or raises the armor class of an ally by one within 15 F feet until the start of your next turn there's been a buff to the hex canant trip nudge fate this is the one that is one action and you sustain it and if the target would fail or critically fail by one this nudges them upward to change that degree of success the buff is that it no longer needs to be sustained it just has a 1 minute duration also the tempor AR immunity of 1 minute after the cant trip triggers has been removed this is similar to the guidance cant trip except that you can have this on all the time when you are outside of an encounter there is no cool down anymore I almost wonder if there's a typo involved here because these two changes together make it essentially a permanent plus one to a character outside of combat throughout the whole day or maybe it's an intended buff also it's the only hex cantrip that doesn't require sustaining next is the starless shadow Patron formerly known as Knight the spell added to the familiar used to be sleep which did not have much combat use at low levels it's now been replaced by fear when you Caster sustain a hex your familiar is spooky and seems to draw light into it and if it's concealed hidden or undetected and adjacent to an enemy it makes that enemy frightened one it doesn't have any traits attached so it looks like creatures you would think would be immune to frightened can be subjected to this the hex cantrip has been buffed this is the one that blankets the target's eyes in darkness it used to have no effect on creatures with dark vision now a creature needs to have greater dark vision to be unaffected by it lastly are the Primal patrons there is silence and snow formally called winter when you cter sustain a hex you cause ice to form in a 5-ft burst centered on a square of your familiars space since your familiar is almost always tiny I'm assuming this is a 15t Square I say this because that's not usually how 5ft bursts are measured it's usually from a corner you turn it into difficult terrain until the start of your next turn its hex can trip clinging ice which did damage with a single action and could lower an enemy speed has had its temporary immunity of 1 minute removed so this can be cast repeatedly now next is Wilding Steward forly called wild when you cast or sustain a hex your familiar immediately gains imprecise scent Tremor scent or wave sent and can point out a creature within 60 ft to the entire party as a free action very helpful in those situations when it comes up their hex cantrip has been buffed as well it used to make an animal fungus or plant reluctant to harm you and take penalties of it did so now it's not limited to those creatures it's any creature now and an animal fungus or plant now takes a minus one circumstance penalty on their saving throw also the temporary immunity of 1 minute has been removed so it can be repeatedly cast on the same creature now so substantial buff there now on to the witch Feats we have here as with the other classes they've brought together the Feats from the core rule book and the advanced players guide there are also several new witch Feats a substantial number kind of like what we got for the cleric as with the cleric War priest they have been open about wanting to improve this class and a number of these feeds Grant your familiar new actions and activities so let's start from the lowest level ones the level one feat C quadron has been buffed this is the one that allowed you well it was kind of bad I thought when you craft consumables in this game you normally can craft a batch of four the Cadron feet increased that number to Six and there was a level 10 feet called temporary potions that allowed the witch to craft two potions during their daily preparations for that particular day that functionality has now been brought to the level one feat although it is only a single potion but still it's level one instead of level 10 I'll jump ahead to the reworked version of that feet by the way given the cool name double double the Cadron feet increase the number of potions you had in the morning when your Proficiency in spellcasting increased and double double doubles that you can do two potions in the morning when you take this feat it becomes four when you're level 15 and six when you're level 19 next is witch's Armament this combines two feets that before gave you eldrich nails and living hair to make unarmed attacks with additionally it gives you the option of making an attack with your teeth iron teeth that does 1d8 damage sadly we don't have the ability that the current eldrich nails feet gives of delivering some hex's through your nails conceal spell has been buffed similar to what happens with similar Feats for other classes what used to require a check to secretly cast the spell has now been automatic this feat confers the spell the subtle trait and removes the visual manifestations and incant required to cast the spell next is basic lesson this is the feat that gives you a lesson from your Patron gives you another hex spell and another spell to add to your familiar it's actually not changed and I only mention it here because I looked at the hex's and compared them to the ones in the core rule book and it looked like there were no changes to them although a couple of hex's did remove the manipulate trait next is sympathetic strike this is a new feat requires witch's armaments when you strike strike a foe with your unarmed strike you establish a sympathetic link with the target making it easier to affect them with your hex's temporarily it's until the start of your next turn however so act fast and be in position already next is ceremonial knife this is a new feet that essentially lets the witch during their daily preparations have a wand for the day in the form of a knife that they do a short ritual over and it must be a first rank spell as you gain levels it can be spells of higher ranks significant you can overcharge the knife as you can with wands as normal however since this is a Daily Item you don't really have to worry about the consequence this time so you essentially get two castings of that spell per day next is Spirit familiar this is a new one it gives your familiar a new activity you must have a Divine or a cult Patron however but this lets your familiar Spirit leave its body for an instant fly to an enemy within 20 ft inflict spear damage and then fly to an ally within 30 ft of that enemy and heal them this can be done only once per 10 minutes so once per encounter essentially if you have time between encounters next is stitched familiar this is its counterpart for Arcane and Primal patrons this one affects a foe within 30 ft and Deals slashing damage to it does not heal an ally however if they fail on their reflex save they are immobilized for a round next is coven spell and this is a cool feat because I've never seen a feat like this before it encourages spellcasters to work together to enhance each other's effects when an ally within 30 ft casts a spell the witch as a reaction can increase the damage dealt by it or if the witch has a spell shaped feet formerly known as metamagic can apply their spell shape effect to that spell so some cool teamwork possibilities here and next is witch's broom and this is a new feet and I was surprised to see it was a new feet I'm like duh which es have brooms I'm surprised that it took this long for us to get this feet during your daily preparations you can enchant a broom or polearm or similarly shaped object with special herbs and essential oils it gives it a fly speed of 20 ft it works like the broom of flying for flying purposes at least however that's been renamed flying broomstick you can also improve it into the flying broomstick without needing the formula and if it's already a flying broomstick it gets a plus 10t status bonus to its speed there's some stuff that's Superfluous here first of all any character can craft something if it's common which the flying broomstick is well for magic items you need the magical crafting feat it probably should have said you don't need the magical crafting feat also in my opinion I think if you craft it it should get the plus 10 status bonus to its speed because you put the effort into it and you still had to pay the cost of the item anyway next is Patron presence another new activity for your familiar your Patron presence becomes felt by enemies in a 15t emanation around your familiar this makes them stupified if they fail their will Saving throw the familiar can also sustain the emanation next is Patron's claim level 18 this is a cool attack where the patron actually gets personally involved and reaches out from The Familiar mouth and does 10 d10 Spirit damage and if they fail their saving throw against it they are drained too and you can regain Focus point after having drawn that f spirit so very cool lastly is witch's Hut our level 20 ft this is that very thematic feat that gives you an abode for you and your party that can walk around on chicken legs first the ability to lock doors now gives you the ability to unlock those same doors that was a needed change but also it has a brand new ability to LEAP into the air and do a 10th rank teleport that is the version of teleport that lets you teleport to any location within the Galaxy so that is a substantial new ability and because witches are the familiar class magical familiar class I thought it made sense to cover the changes to familiars in this video first there's a change in presentation to the familiars abilities when you gain a familiar you gain the pet General feed and that feat lists abilities that you can see in animals in real life and then you get the additional ability to have a broader additional list of abilities to add to your familiar as opposed to just a plain pet and you get the ability to change them during your daily preparations however there is important language here saying that you cannot swap out abilities that are innate to your familiar for example you could not choose to not give a raven familiar the flying ability I can see some confusion at some tables as to what exactly is innate and what's not the only examples I've seen given in piso text here and in previous books is animals having some Locomotion ability like one ability is to have scent an imprecise scense within 30 ft some might argue that's innate to an animal I think this could you some clarification sadly we do not have the specific familiars from the advanced players guide specific defined creatures that if you had enough familiar abilities to meet its requirement give you something like a spell slime or an imp those live on on Archives of nethys and hopefully we can get an expansion on familiars in the player core too however this would have been the place to put them because it's has the witch this book is really big though already and there's a logic to having player Core 2 be expansions to what is in player Core 1 first I'll list some familiar abilities and master abilities that come from other books there is the elemental ability which comes from Rage of elements your familiar takes on one of the six elements and is immune to a bunch of effects however your familiar must first have the resistance familiar ability to select this and minor complaints this reminds me of how first edition Pathfinder formatted a lot of its abilities a lot of times it would put the prerequisite at the very end of the paragraph So you get very excited about something when you read it and then find out at the very end that oh this is gated this happens throughout and it would be good for piso to avoid this problem I think somehow not sure ex maybe put a prerequisite right after the name and bold okay next is Major resistance this comes from Grand Bazar are this is a buff to the already existing resistance ability to a certain kind of energy damage however unlike the previous version there is no intermediate ability that you have to take there used to be something called greater resistance that was a step between resistance and this so This ability chain has been reduced from 3 to two next is recall familiar from Grand Bazaar once per day you can teleport your familiar from within a mile to your space next is restorative familiar once per day your familiar can heal you as long as it's in your space now we have familiar and master abilities that are new to the player core book first is the construct ability this gives your familiar immunity to a bunch of things however it must have the tough pet ability to select this this and the elemental ability I believe cannot be changed from day to day since they are innate to the creature and they have prerequisites so that seems to lock in your familiar abilities especially if you only have two which other classes who get a familiar are limited to next is the fungus ability it just gives you the fungus trait instead of the animal trait doesn't give you any other abilities same with the plant ability however that at least has the Saving Grace that it allows you to take another ability called plant form for the familiar to transform itself into an actual real looking plant finally there's a new master ability called absorb familiar you get to transform your familiar into a birth mark tattoo or gem that vaguely resembles your familiar it cannot act while in this form and it's not affected by area effects but it can be affected by those who Target it however enemies will not be aware of it unless they seek it it takes 1 minute to transform it into this form and back out of it so this is a very important and Powerful way to protect your familiar all right closing statement this Wich looks like a lot of fun they definitely have buffed it in a number of areas giving the familiar a free ability that's triggered when you cast or sustain a hex a lot of the hex cantrips have removed the cool down of 1 minute so there's less bookkeeping and more freedom in using them also I did not mention the overall change to focus points where you can now refocus your entire pool of up to three between encounters so long as you have enough time to do so this frees you up to cast your focus BS repeatedly and to do that several times per day if you have sufficient time and let's not underestimate the importance of having the freedom to cackle repeatedly during an encounter also because nearly all if not all the familiar free abilities that trigger on your hex require positioning it'll be interesting to see how this affects the witch in play because you're limited to three actions and you have to spend an action to command your familiar around the battlefield add to that the fact that hex's many of them are a single action and many of the Spells you cast from spell slide cost two actions you may need to cackle a lot so while it seems like a sheer buff this ability to do something with your familiar it also leads to more agonizing decisions with your action economy which I personally think makes gameplay more interesting however I have a couple of criticisms here um one is obviously the resentment Patron I have mentioned this before and it's greater power compared to the other patrons I've already pointed out the fact that it's free effect when you cast or sustain a hex can sustain any negative condition on a creature within 15 ft as long as it has a duration and there are some very powerful negative conditions with durations like slowed sometimes stunned as a duration immobilized or clumpsy 3 and it can extend multiple negative conditions also I noticed while going through the survey of the patrons that every other familiar free ability had a duration of until the start of your next turn which has significance ESP especially since sometimes your hex is a reaction this doesn't have that limitation and what I found out recently while watching kns of last call's stream great channel is that their hex cantrip has gotten a significant buff uh evil eye has the chance of frightening a Target and after you attempt it against a creature they are temporarily immune for 1 minute well the new evil eye has removed the temporary immunity and it changes the condition from frightened to sickened sickened has the same effect as frightened it imposes a status penalty on all of your checks and DCS but it does not go away on its own it lasts indefinitely until they spend an action to attempt to wretch to get rid of the condition or lower the condition in case of sickens to and sicken also prevents you from voluntarily ingesting things like potions because the duration is indefinite there's less need to spend extra actions and future turns to sustain it also it removes the emotion fear and mental traits and so I think this is more broadly applicable to creatures than the previous cantrip now we've seen Buffs to all of the hex cantrips so far so maybe this isn't necessarily a bad thing but for me the issue is that this buff may be the most significant buff of all the hex cantrips and it's combined with the patron that has the most powerful free familiar ability so me I wasn't that happy with that I think that it's too powerful relative to the other patrons disincentivizing choosing another Patron because it fits your character concept there's kind of a pressure to pick a certain one now some tables may not see this as a problem however for a rule set there should be some more uh quality control in my opinion which is overall excellent with piso I'm not really complaining here I just think that this was a wrinkle that got through now what should some tables do if they view this as an issue well I am not going to make any proposed specific fixes I'll let people argue it out I think there's a number of possible approaches and I don't want my prominence in the community to uh make something the Quasi official unofficial change my other complaint and you probably caught this when I went through it was that there are some abilities for familiars that simply give you a trait that give you no other abilities the elemental and construct abilities gave you a bunch of resistances and immunities but these don't have any effect and I thought there should be some effect the plant arguably lets you qualify for another ability but okay first of all fungus is left out in the cold otherwise it functions as just attacks that moreover you permanently have you cannot get rid of it if anything having the fungus ability makes your familiar less powerful than other familiars and then the topic that I teased on in my wizard coverage how is the newly buffed improved witch compared to our old standard Wizard and has the witch surpassed the wizard and made the wizard redundant and lackluster in comparison because the wizard did not get that same treatment there are tweaks here and there but their new specialized Arcane School spell slot now has a more limited spell selection and the tweaks had got to some Feats that's that's no different from the treatment other classes have gotten in the remaster well the obvious point of comparison would be to look at a wizard that has the thesis improved familiar Attunement and see how that Stacks up against the witch the improved familiar Attunement gives the wizard a free familiar but also an extra ability at first level and additional abilities at higher levels and this gain of extra abilities operates exactly the same way it does for the witch from their class feature all right so our head-to-head battle while they both have an equal amount of more familiar abilities except for the fact that the witch has a familiar free effect when you cast or sustain a hex they also gain a hex cantrip from their Patron that is usually a single action that has some significant Effect one of them clinging ice does modest damage as well which scales up as you level up the wizard meanwhile has more spell slots in the day they also have the once per day drain bonded item ability to recast the spell that they have expended and if they did not specialize in a school they get to drain their bonded item once per spell rank however the witch also has the advantage of taking lessons from their class feeds these are the ones that let you gain a hex spell and we'll remember that the remaster increases your focus Point Pool every time you get a focus spell with a maximum of three Wizards however are not able to get more than two Focus points if they're only taking wizard class Feats so this combined with their hex cantrips which are I would say A step above your usual cant trip means they have more rechargeable resources that they can use in the adventuring day and there also some Feats that we saw that gave the familiar an activity a powerful activity that has a cool down of sometimes once per 10 minutes such as the spirit familiar ability that lets them attack an enemy and then heal an ally this is almost like a fourth Focus point if you think about it and it's possible if you're high level to get more than one of these abilities so while the wizard has more daily resources and spell slots the witch has more rechargeable resources that can be used regardless of their spell slots so it kind of looks like the witch is the winner here however I will point out the universal balancing factor of the action economy and the fact that everyone is limited to three actions a lot of the witch's options look like sheer additional things they can do however they all cost actions the free familiar ability only triggers if the familiar is in close proximity quite close proximity to a foe a lot of your hex's only cost a single action but you are juggling casting hex's with positioning your familiar and also casting your usual spells and a lot of those hexes only last so long as you sustain them further straining your action economy much more than the current wit you kind of have to put your familiar In Harm's Way in order to get the full effect of your class and there's an interesting choice now at level one do you want the hex spell that protects your familiar from harm as a reaction or the one that let you command your familiar for free and improves your strained action economy there is a clear message to GMS by the way using the new witch you do not want to ignore the familiar as another creature that can be harmed by area effects and targeted effects meanwhile the wizard has more spell slots and has a little more freedom to cast those spells that have long durations that don't require sustaining unlike witch's hex's so comparison between the two classes needs to look more at actual play and compare the efficacy of what a witch is doing in two or three actual rounds of actual decisions compared to what the wizard is doing a more difficult comparison that is probably usually beyond the amount of effort that is put in a usual internet argument but stepping back a bit yes the witch has more other actions outside of their spell slots and some of them cost single actions more choices for the witch but more things competing for their action economy one thing can be said pretty definitively however the wizard because they have more endurance in the adventuring day in one sense they have more spell slots once they've run out of those spell slots they don't have much else to fall back on while the witch Once they run out of spell slots has more options so thus endeth my remaster coverage of the classes the big videos I am relieved I do have one more video that I plan but I think it's a little less urgent if you want to get notified about that and future videos like subscribe and ring the bell also join my Discord we're now over 4,500 people people talk Pathfinder 2E and other games and play Pathfinder we have a drop in organized play System called endless tail Tavern also support my patreon I don't earn income as an attorney the patreon lets me continue doing what I do and you can get exclusive access to many videos including me running through the player core and GM core for 3 and 1/2 hours with people from my Discord and for tier 2 supporters and above you get to see my campaigns running Pathfinder with DN YouTubers so that's it I've been Ronald the rules lawyer signing off but I'll see you next [Music] time [Music]

Channel: The Rules Lawyer

Views: 27,485

Keywords: rules lawyer, rpg, dnd, d&d, pathfinder, pathfinder 2e, pf2, pf2e

Id: -tTR8Rtptsc

Length: 35min 36sec (2136 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 14 2023