Has anyone tested the "Winter Witch"

[Invisible]

If yes, what you think about it.

[seeker1]

Like most prestige classes, it strikes me as underbaked and underwhelming. The prereqs. are weirdly stated, but it seems you can take it if you are a Shaman with the Winter spirit or a Witch with an Elemental Patron. It would be a lot better if the game had more cold spells in it, and Ascendant Element (Cold) already exists.

[Schlumpsha]

Owlcat widened the prestige class up for Shamans with the Frost spirit as well. But I wouldn't recommend it. The prestige class still focuses on cold spells. But all of the Shaman's cold spells come solely from the Frost spirit's magic. Meaning that you would only be able to cast one cold spell per spell level per day. That's... underwhelming.

Witches with the Winter patron are better off. If you want to have as many cold spells available as possible per day, then Ley Line Guardian is the way to go. Worth keeping in mind is that all of the Winter Witch's spell related features only work on actual cold spells - but not those which originally were a different element and later "converted" to cold damage via the Sorcerer's Water Elemental Arcana (or Through the Ashes' special rod).

[MjKorz]

It's bad mechanically and might as well not exist outside of roleplaying purposes.

All of the main features this class has are bad:

1. Cold Specialization: cold spells get up +3 DC relative to a pure 10 feat Witch/Shaman build. The main use of this feature is to pump Ice Prison DC. Wizard can get +7 DC to all spells in a school relative to a pure 10 feat Witch/Shaman build. Thus, Wizard has a 7-3=4 DC advantage over the Winter Witch when built as an Ice Prison caster.

2. Freezing Cold: increases cold spell caster level by up to +2. After Ice Prison has been remade to no longer rely on caster level (now it's Reflex save + consecutive repeating Fortitude saves instead of STR checks vs 15+CL), this bonus is worthless for a WW focusing on cold spell DC. For cold spells that deal damage, this bonus is virtually worthless as well, because the spells in question are damage capped at a specific value. For example: Cone of Cold caps out at CL15 and deals 15d6 damage, which means that WW will reach the damage cap for this spell at cumulative Witch/Shaman+WW level of 13 so the damage is capped out 2 levels earlier. This is basically worthless in a game where you gain levels rapidly.

3. Unearthly Cold: converts HALF the cold damage of a spell into irresistible damage. Absolutely worthless, because you will still need Ascendant Element (Cold) to make ALL damage bypass immunities and resistances. This ability would have had some value if it converted ALL cold damage into irresistible damage, allowing you to save a Mythic Ability, but it doesn't. It's absolutely worthless.

All in all, Winter Witch is a terrible prestige class that does absolutely NOTHING better than a basic Wizard. It cannot even specialize in casting cold spells better than a Wizard which is an absolute joke.

[Invisible]

Many thanks for your answers. As I am more a role player, the performance of a class is not so important (playing on normal). Sadly the requirements are very steep so Ember cannot be a Winter Witch. As a mecenary I will try it out. It remembers me of WH3 Kislev with their winter witches.

[Schlumpsha]

As Ember is a Stigmatized Witch, she isn't able to enter the prestige class by default (no witch patron and all). You could always respec her into a different Witch archetype and pick Winter patron. But that still clashes with her whole fiery, pyre-victim theme.

Winter Witch is more fun for a main character than a merc. For instance you could be a Ley Line Guardian 20, Winter Witch 10, Loremaster 10 as Legend. Being a Winter Witch Lich is also fun to play as due to various lich powers.

[Gorwe]

Edit 2: A Winter Witch: https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Winter_witch . (seems it should be a PrC, huh!)

I have and I love it. But it shouldn't be a PrC, simply an Archetype for the Witch. Tweaks have an option to pick an additional Patron(once iirc) as a Mythic and then you simply combine Elements + Winter Patrons. Frost Shaman? Hm, that's an interesting idea.

Also, please disregard mr.Korz. I won't be as militant as Desiderius on official forums, but it's fun to play in less efficient ways. You become aware of things, then there's RP and finally the sense of accomplishment. Do not ruin your game on the altar of efficiency. Korz is 100% correct, but I sometimes question whether he gets what the fun is all about. Then again, maybe "fun" is different for different people? That is a possibility as well. But playing hyperefficient won't be high on the "most wanted list" of quite a lot of players.

With that said, why don't WW turn elemental damage into Cold? Why do we need a dip for that? This is weird.

Edit: Spellbook Merge mod allows Witch to merge with Trickster as well. I've also personally been able to merge with Angel with no bad side-effects(as an LLG). So it's not only Lich.

[fox5s]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Also, please disregard mr.Korz. I won't be as militant as Desiderius on official forums, but it's fun to play in less efficient ways. You become aware of things, then there's RP and finally the sense of accomplishment. Do not ruin your game on the altar of efficiency. Korz is 100% correct, but I sometimes question whether he gets what the fun is all about. Then again, maybe "fun" is different for different people? That is a possibility as well. But playing hyperefficient won't be high on the "most wanted list" of quite a lot of players.

Woah there, don't go picking fights. He did preface basically saying that it had Roleplaying value (and not much else) and then broke down its other problems succinctly. And you seem to agree.

I have my differences with him as well but you two come at it from basically opposite ends and we don't need this same argument starting up again.

[Gorwe]

Originally posted by fox5s:

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Also, please disregard mr.Korz. I won't be as militant as Desiderius on official forums, but it's fun to play in less efficient ways. You become aware of things, then there's RP and finally the sense of accomplishment. Do not ruin your game on the altar of efficiency. Korz is 100% correct, but I sometimes question whether he gets what the fun is all about. Then again, maybe "fun" is different for different people? That is a possibility as well. But playing hyperefficient won't be high on the "most wanted list" of quite a lot of players.

Woah there, don't go picking fights. He did preface basically saying that it had Roleplaying value (and not much else) and then broke down its other problems succinctly. And you seem to agree.

I have my differences with him as well but you two come at it from basically opposite ends and we don't need this same argument starting up again.

I do agree. But I also want people to realize that there are other options except Vivisectionist / Mutagen Warrior / Divination Wizard / Demonslayer Ranger. And it can be really fun to go off meta. WW is a perfect example, I had a bloody good time with it.

[Schlumpsha]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Edit 2: A Winter Witch: https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Winter_witch . (seems it should be a PrC, huh!)

I have and I love it. But it shouldn't be a PrC, simply an Archetype for the Witch.

Nah, it being a prestige class is correct. Owlcat didn't look at the Winter Witch archetype[www.d20pfsrd.com] for inspiration. But instead implemented the Winter Witch prestige class[www.d20pfsrd.com] into WotR. Though they homebrewed the Shaman prerequisites into it. And left out a couple of its features that couldn't translate well into the game.

[Frostfeather]

If you want to play Winter Witch or something similar, you're better off using Call of the Wild for Kingmaker and doing it there. That mod adds enough spells to where it's actually fun and viable.

Because Owlcat didn't create very many cold spells to begin with, and added almost none to Wrath. Why they made a whole class around a type of magic they were too lazy to implement is beyond me. They might as well make a prestige class that revolves around guns yet not add guns to the game...

[Schlumpsha]

Call of the Wild faces the opposite problem though. While the author added the Winter Witch archetype to Kingmaker. He completely missed adding the corresponding prestige class to his mod. And that halves the fun of the experience imho. That said, it does offer a much better spell and hex selection than what Owlcat brought us in WotR.

A shame he refused to port his mod over to WotR, really. That way we would have the best of two worlds.

[Gorwe]

Originally posted by Schlumpsha:

Originally posted by Gorwe:

Edit 2: A Winter Witch: https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Winter_witch . (seems it should be a PrC, huh!)

I have and I love it. But it shouldn't be a PrC, simply an Archetype for the Witch.

Nah, it being a prestige class is correct. Owlcat didn't look at the Winter Witch archetype[www.d20pfsrd.com] for inspiration. But instead implemented the Winter Witch prestige class[www.d20pfsrd.com] into WotR. Though they homebrewed the Shaman prerequisites into it. And left out a couple of its features that couldn't translate well into the game.

??? Just random ??? . Thanks for the heads up though! What's the story between WoTR and CoTW?

Originally posted by night4:

If you want to play Winter Witch or something similar, you're better off using Call of the Wild for Kingmaker and doing it there. That mod adds enough spells to where it's actually fun and viable.

Because Owlcat didn't create very many cold spells to begin with, and added almost none to Wrath. Why they made a whole class around a type of magic they were too lazy to implement is beyond me. They might as well make a prestige class that revolves around guns yet not add guns to the game...

You made me realize that I perhaps should NOT recommend WW after all. Because people will simply be left disappointed if they realize the amount of /hackjob Owlcat did with WoTR.

[Schlumpsha]

Originally posted by Gorwe:

??? Just random. Thanks for the heads up though! What's the story between WoTR and CoTW?

Nothing much. The mod author just got fed up with modding. At one point he even pulled all mods from the nexus. They eventually returned. But, well, there is a story behind why comments on the CotW page are disabled. Don't think he had a change of heart to also mod WotR after all what happened.

[Gorwe]

Originally posted by Schlumpsha:

Originally posted by Gorwe:

??? Just random. Thanks for the heads up though! What's the story between WoTR and CoTW?

Nothing much. The mod author just got fed up with modding. At one point he even pulled all mods from the nexus. They eventually returned. But, well, there is a story behind why comments on the CotW page are disabled. Don't think he had a change of heart to also mod WotR after all what happened.

Can't fault him. Not only do you need to C++, but also fight with Owlcat "creativity". If I could, I'd homebrew so many things. Perhaps we wouldn't CoTW then because there wouldn't be so huge differences in class / archetype performance. Example of overly complicated, but conceptually simple change:

Hagbound: + Size STR -> + Other STR ; Low BAB -> Average BAB ; allow Transformation Patron.

Bet that could be changed in half an hour, but ... rip. I'll have to learn this.

[seeker1]

All I can say is, all hail the modders. What the developers won't do or provide (either because they can't or won't or just won't do now), they fill in the gaps. And they do it for free.

Yeah, there can be compatibility issues, always are, but most quickly update. Sometimes they create save dependencies - they will usually warn you if they do. In an ideal world, a tool like UMM wouldn't require me to use the Mac terminal/console to use & install it ... it does ... anyway, things are what they are.