D&D 5E 5e witches, your preferred implementation?

[Crimson Longinus]

I would love to see a Wicca-inspired occultist, personally. Rituals of a cleric, nature magic of a Druid, enchantment from a Bard merged together.

Certainly that's just a cleric with an appropriate set of spells?

 

[Garthanos]

Certainly that's just a cleric with an appropriate set of spells?

Ever hear the saying one person's witch is there adversaries sainted holy worker?

 

[Voadam]

Isnt that just a Warlock?

Warlock is the masculine form of Witch after all.

The 3e warlock was mechanically an arcane class with at will eldritch blast and a few at will powers and no real spells.

The 4e warlock was a high damage dealer striker with blasts and some curse powers.

The 5e warlock has about two spells per short rest, at will strong eldritch blast and some powers.

The pathfinder witch is a full arcane caster with a different spell list and some powers.

Pathfinder 1e Witches are cousins of 5e Warlocks. They get hexes instead of invocations, and get incomplete and slightly odd casting. And are known for having a single spell they spam the living daylights out of (the pathfinder one puts you to sleep).

I'd say they are close but the full caster versus warlock spells is a significant mechanical difference. Also the difference in direct damage focus.

 

[Flamestrike]

The 5e warlock has about two spells per short rest, at will strong eldritch blast and some powers.

They have 1-4 spells per short rest, and assuming a median of 2-3 short rests per long rest (as per the DMG) it's anything up to 16 x 5th level slots per day, plus a 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th level slot, plus a ton of 'at will' invocations, a Pact with an Eldritch Being such as a Devil or an Old One, and a super Familiar and so forth.

Plus the name. 'Warlock' which is just a Male witch, and the fact they spend an awful lot of time running around Cursing and Hexing people.

 

[RealAlHazred]

The thread is about "your preferred implementation of witches." You've made your preferences clear, I've made my preferences clear. Replying to other people stating their preference with something that amounts to "that's basically the same thing as my preference!" doesn't seem helpful to the OP.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

assuming a median of 2-3 short rests per long rest (as per the DMG)

But almost no group actually follows the pattern of encounters and rests laid out by the DMG, whether it's bold faced or not.

Plus the name. 'Warlock' which is just a Male witch

A lot of people disagree with this, as has been discussed on previous pages. Google shows a lot of people very opposed to this assertion and to the idea that all witches have made pacts with otherworldly patrons.

You can't make Granny Weatherwax with the 5E warlock. You can't make the Wicked Witch of the West with the 5E warlock. You can't make Baba Yaga with the 5E warlock (even with firearm rules ).

 

[Greg K]

I'd be interested in WotC doing a survey to see how players and prospective players felt about nuking Druid and Warlock from the next edition and putting in a Witch class that would subsume them as variants, and kicking something up. Feels like a thing to me!

replace Druid with Shaman (druid can be be a subclass) and add witch as a separate class.

 

[Greg K]

Uff. Hoping to raise the conversation up a notch, there's a 2019 Time article I've been reading from Pam Grossman (a self-proclaimed witch and author) called Are Witches Real? I've found it to be a wonderfully insightful read. I don't know anything else about Ms. Grossman beyond this article, I haven't read her book, I'm not affiliated with her in anyway – I just thought she was giving voice to something I felt but struggled to articulate far better than I could.

I've drawn on a few quotes, hopefully not too out of context, which were touching when I read them.


Ms. Grossman wonderfully articulates what makes the design space around interpreting a witch for D&D so challenging and invigorating. It is a nebulous concept because the bounding box that ends up being placed around it (out of practical necessity – design "everything" and you design nothing) ends up reflecting the designer's beliefs on some level.

As much as I like the chassis of the witch from Dragon #114 by Bill Muhlhausen, maybe the lesson from Ms. Grossman is if there is a witch class introduced in D&D, the "high concept" class design needs to come from a woman who is versed in the multiplicity of feminist lenses around the witch. So, in part I'm saying we should let women speak for themselves, but further than that, I'm also saying that the right woman for that particular design challenge is probably out there.

I have not read the article. However, from what you have wrote, it sounds like she practices the Dianic tradition of Wicca which arose in the 70's and is a feminist oriented Wicca that views Wicca as "woman's religion" (Britanica.com), but is not representative of all Wiccan traditions. British Traditional Wicca (i.e. Gardnerian (and its offshoot branches such as Alexandrian) and Cochranian (which may or may not be an offshoot of Gardenian) predates Dianic Wicca. There are also other modern Wicca in addition to Dianic Wicca (e.g. 1734 which is an offshoot of Cochranian Wicca)

 

[Flamestrike]

But almost no group actually follows the pattern of encounters and rests laid out by the DMG, whether it's bold faced or not.

Roughly 270 polled.

• Roughly half (120) average 2-3 encounters.
• Roughly 1/3 (90 odd) average 4-8 encounters.
• Only 10 average more than 8.
• Less than a quarter (60 odd), play rocket tag and not DnD and average 1-2 per long rest.

Of those polled, most also conflated 'adventuring day' with 'session'.

So plenty of groups average several encounters/ short rests per long rest.

From memory, you dont, but that likely causes class balance problems and encounter difficulty issues, but that's your choice and I wont begrudge you for it if thats what you like IYG.

Regardless, its irrelevant. A Warlock is a Witch. In name and in fluff.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Regardless, its irrelevant. A Warlock is a Witch. In name and in fluff.

Engage with the rest of my post. Waving a dictionary around doesn't address the other issues and is why there are so many versions of the witch floating around out there DMs Guild, Drive Thru RPG, Kickstarter, etc.

 

[Mecheon]

Regardless, its irrelevant. A Warlock is a Witch. In name and in fluff.

I mean, if we're doing that...

Paladins should just be the twelve knights of Charlemagne's court.
Barbarians should just be, non-Romans (So basically everyone in D&D)

The modern terms of warlock and witch have evolved far beyond the days when they were just gender orientated, and witch has been used to refer to male figures in works for decades now.

The words may have ment different genders once, but that is no longer the case, and if we're applying outdated terminology to other things it looks ridiculous

 

[Flamestrike]

Engage with the rest of my post. Waving a dictionary around doesn't address the other issues and is why there are so many versions of the witch floating around out there DMs Guild, Drive Thru RPG, Kickstarter, etc.

There are other versions of the 'Warlord' and they clearly already exist as well with Battlemaster Fighters (adding in what else you want from Bard and or Paladin as well).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There are other versions of the 'Warlord' and they clearly already exist as well with Battlemaster Fighters (adding in what else you want from Bard and or Paladin as well).

... what?

 

[Flamestrike]

... what?

Vuman Battlemaster Fighter 3, Martial Adept feat, Combat superiority F/S, Noble background.

Maneuvers (6 sup dice per short rest):

Commanders Strike (ally makes an attack)
Commanders Presence (buffs Intimidation, Persuasion, Performance)
Distracting Strike (grants ally advantage)
Maneuvering Attack (moves ally into position)
Rally (heals ally)
Tactical Assessment (buffs History, Insight and Investigation)

High Cha and Str. Dumps Dex (heavy armor). Persuasion, Intimidate, History, Insight, Athletics

With an average of 2 combats per short rest, and each combat averaging roughly 3 rounds each, thats enough dice for 1 manouver every turn.

From there he can keep adding maneuvers and dice (and increasing the dice size) or move into Crown Paladin for +Cha to saves aura, Bonus action channel divinity healing of allies with turn the tide, divine allegiance HP substitution, Bless, Warding bond, Heroism, Aid etc) all fluffed as martial abilities, and very thematic.

We have a Warlord already, but that doesnt stop people from repeatedly trying to recreate the wheel.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

We have a Warlord already, but that doesnt stop people from repeatedly trying to recreate the wheel.

You know I was talking about witches not warlords, right?

 

[Mecheon]

We have a Warlord already, but that doesnt stop people from repeatedly trying to recreate the wheel.

Welllll, I'd make the argument (And have made the argument) the Battlemaster is too Fighter-y still

I'm just saying, if the Battlemaster was sufficiently filling the Warlord gap, then Kibbles Warlord wouldn't be as popular as it is.

 

[Flamestrike]

You know I was talking about witches not warlords, right?

Yeah, but my OP was 'we already have witches'.

You only seem to dislike the fact that the witches we have are short rest based classes instead of long rest ones.

 

[Flamestrike]

Welllll, I'd make the argument (And have made the argument) the Battlemaster is too Fighter-y still

All due respect, but the above Warlord BM is very different to a BM with GWM, Precise strike and Tripping attack, and they play remarkably differently.

The above Warlord BM is literally a Lazy-lord. He can forgo his attack each round for 6 consecutive rounds to grant an ally an extra one with Commanders strike.

 

[Mecheon]

You only seem to dislike the fact that the witches we have are short rest based classes instead of long rest ones.

We don't have a Witch. We have a Warlock that does different things and fills a different niche. Warlock has not universally been used as the male equivilent to 'Witch', and Witch itself has been gender neutral at times

There's certainly witchy elements to classes but there is no one Witch that encompasses the entire thing together. Frankly the Artificier and Druid are pulling more witch flavor than the Warlock does.

 

[Flamestrike]

We don't have a Witch. We have a Warlock that does different things and fills a different niche.

A Warlock has made a pact with an eldritch being like a Devil, Old One or Fey, has a familiar, and runs around Hexing and Cursing people and casting spells and 'invocations'.

The class' name of Warlock literally means this in the Oxford English dictionary:

noun

1. a man who practises witchcraft

Whats a witch again exactly?