witch build advice

[rumpelstiltskin]

my pathfinder experience is pretty much limited to the kingmaker (no pnp), and the amount of choices at character creation is a bit overwhelming, but i feel like trying a witch (witch of the veil specifically), but also think of switching to arcane trickster later. does it make sense? or just pure witch is better?

[Bastion]

if you take arcane trickster i would take a few levels of either eldritch rogue (for the spells like shield and other things witch does not get) or sylvan trickster so you dont lose out on your hexes. Hexes that are good are ice plant and potentially healing and warding, however you pick up an companion witch very early in chapter 2 and the healing hex only works once, no matter who does it. However wardings spread out are pretty good if you have the time to recast them, they have infinite duration and work similar to the shield of faith spell but they are removed if the target is hit in battle.

[Foolswalkin]

I would go pure witch or witch/winter witch (note that if you want to do that you’re limited to Winter Patron or Elemental Witch w same). Witch doesn’t have the buffing spells for a Gish playstyle, Arcane Trickster is 1/2 bab so needs those buffs, and giving up the extra non-spellcasting bells and whistles is much harder on a witch than a wizard.

I do find Witches early game so much more enjoyable than Wizard, tho. My strongest advice is take Evil Eye as your first hex, Cackle second, and Misfortune third. You can then play full-time debuffer with just your unlimited use Hexes, with spells to kick it up as needed or to heal.

[rumpelstiltskin]

Originally posted by Bastion:

if you take arcane trickster i would take a few levels of either eldritch rogue (for the spells like shield and other things witch does not get) or sylvan trickster so you dont lose out on your hexes. Hexes that are good are ice plant and potentially healing and warding, however you pick up an companion witch very early in chapter 2 and the healing hex only works once, no matter who does it. However wardings spread out are pretty good if you have the time to recast them, they have infinite duration and work similar to the shield of faith spell but they are removed if the target is hit in battle.

thanks mate. would say that having a witch main is redundant then, though? but i'm also considering using mercs (as i did in kingmaker), since everyone seems to say that pre-made companions are gimped.

[rumpelstiltskin]

Originally posted by Foolswalkin:

I would go pure witch or witch/winter witch (note that if you want to do that you’re limited to Winter Patron or Elemental Witch w same). Witch doesn’t have the buffing spells for a Gish playstyle, Arcane Trickster is 1/2 bab so needs those buffs, and giving up the extra non-spellcasting bells and whistles is much harder on a witch than a wizard.

I do find Witches early game so much more enjoyable than Wizard, tho. My strongest advice is take Evil Eye as your first hex, Cackle second, and Misfortune third. You can then play full-time debuffer with just your unlimited use Hexes, with spells to kick it up as needed or to heal.

noted, thanks; probably pure witch is a safer choice for a person with my experience anyway. also, i recall in kingmaker one of the meanest classes was vivisectionist due to sneak attack+mutagens, is it still relevant?

[Bastion]

Originally posted by rumpelstiltskin:

Originally posted by Bastion:

if you take arcane trickster i would take a few levels of either eldritch rogue (for the spells like shield and other things witch does not get) or sylvan trickster so you dont lose out on your hexes. Hexes that are good are ice plant and potentially healing and warding, however you pick up an companion witch very early in chapter 2 and the healing hex only works once, no matter who does it. However wardings spread out are pretty good if you have the time to recast them, they have infinite duration and work similar to the shield of faith spell but they are removed if the target is hit in battle.

thanks mate. would say that having a witch main is redundant then, though? but i'm also considering using mercs (as i did in kingmaker), since everyone seems to say that pre-made companions are gimped.

Tbh most are ok, the only really terrible one IMO is camelia, she just massively underperforms with heavy feat investment or taking a few levels of rogue. The witch you pick up is not bad but she cant hit with weapons for toffee, but later her spells will even hit fire immune enemies, her spells also do no really trigger friendly fire often either, except for burning hands.

[Foolswalkin]

I would imagine Vivisectionist is still pretty solid. It gets tons of choice with its medical discoveries (mix of rogue and regular discoveries), reasonable extracts, good sneak attack dice. Probably a mean trickster (for more sneak attack) or Azata (with permanent haste). I would imagine it’s luster has faded a touch with Shadow Shaman in the mix, which has fewer sneak attack dice (6 v 10) but is packing hexes (Slumber + Sneak Attack CDG you say?), invisibility, spirit tricks, a familiar, and is a full caster, but if you just want to make Rogues second guess their life choices Vivisectionist will get the job done better.

[rumpelstiltskin]

Originally posted by Bastion:

if you take arcane trickster i would take a few levels of either eldritch rogue (for the spells like shield and other things witch does not get) or sylvan trickster so you dont lose out on your hexes. Hexes that are good are ice plant and potentially healing and warding, however you pick up an companion witch very early in chapter 2 and the healing hex only works once, no matter who does it. However wardings spread out are pretty good if you have the time to recast them, they have infinite duration and work similar to the shield of faith spell but they are removed if the target is hit in battle.

i'll have to take 3 levels of sylvan trickster i guess for sneak attack 2 (don't want more, since i don't want to lose high-level spellcasting), but does switching to arcane trickster mean i'll lose the hexes (and only get another non-witch one from sylvan trickster at level 2)?

[Foolswalkin]

You can sneak in the 2nd d6 w a feat, Accomplished Sneak Attacker, as long as you have 1d6.

Yes, AT competes with hexes. Other full arcane casters give up much less. AT comes into its own fairly late in the game, and is a great damage-type build, witches are better at save-or-lose spells and hexes.

You could also grab the 1d6 via Vivisectionist, as 1 level of Sylvan Trickster won’t provide any hexes. 1 level of Alchemist is a hell of a good dip. Extract versions of Retreat, Enlarge, and Shield spells, Mutagen, Sneak attack, brew potion.

[rumpelstiltskin]

Originally posted by Foolswalkin:

You can sneak in the 2nd d6 w a feat, Accomplished Sneak Attacker, as long as you have 1d6.

Yes, AT competes with hexes. Other full arcane casters give up much less. AT comes into its own fairly late in the game, and is a great damage-type build, witches are better at save-or-lose spells and hexes.

You could also grab the 1d6 via Vivisectionist, as 1 level of Sylvan Trickster won’t provide any hexes. 1 level of Alchemist is a hell of a good dip.

hmm maybe i'll reconsider going with a witch then, since taking only a few levels of it will miss out on the better hexes i suppose. will probably just take 1 level of vivi and some normal arcane caster.

[Foolswalkin]

Check out Sylvan Sorcerer, get a companion w trip, spam rays. Take Lich or Azata. At character level 15 the build reaches a new level of room clearing.

[rumpelstiltskin]

Originally posted by Foolswalkin:

Check out Sylvan Sorcerer, get a companion w trip, spam rays. Take Lich or Azata. At character level 15 the build reaches a new level of room clearing.

yeah i actually considered someone with a companion, since companions were dope in the first game. but once i switch to AT, the companion will stop levelling, right? so i guess it'll become useless pretty quickly.
also, does AT retain the same casting attribute as the original class? i kind of wanted an int caster, but as long as it's the same cha might work as well.

[Mira113]

The healing hex is garbage since it's a small cure wounds spell and once a day per target.

Iceplant is pretty meh for an hex ability, there are better options.

Slumber is simply amazing, even more so if you get restless slumber later.

Misfortune, evil eye and protective luck combined with cackle are really good since they normally don't last long, but them being standard actions and cackle being a move action, you can keep them up indefinitely and then spread them to others or use spells at the expense of not being able to move more than 5ft per turn.

[rumpelstiltskin]

i still haven't made it past the character creation, haha (also, waiting for a couple more patches maybe). but it looks like witches aren't great arcane tricksters since they barely have any ranged touch spells. they don't even have attack cantrips:( elsewhere on forums it says arcane scholar background is supposed to give one such cantrip, but currently it doesn't.

also, i was spoilt by 5e spellcasting in solasta*, but now i realize that in pathfinder witches and wizards still have to memorize exactly the spells they will use, which i find incredibly restrictive (borderline unusable tbh, unless you use rest spam) and that's why i always played sorcerers in dnd games before. maybe i'll go with a sylvant sorcerer again. i do like the sound of spammable slumber and invisibility/teleport+invisibility of witches of the veil though.. but i guess it's not enough to make it my main char.

speaking of which, at what point/level will i be able to hire mercs?

*) in 5e you still have the memorize the spells, but then you can cast any combination of them, which is so much better, but also makes sorcerers pretty redundant.

[Foolswalkin]

Yeah. I mean, there is a cost to getting the unlimited use hexes.

There is also a Companion Witch who has one of the spont casting Witch archetypes, so you don’t have to make that your MC. I would probably only (and am, once they fix the Lich bugs) run an MC witch if I were planning on going Winter Witch.