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

Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Yup. I wish the warlock was mechanically centered around their patron rather than eldritch bolt. Heck I would rather see the eldritch bolt ability go to the sorcerer and give the warlock other things to really play up their patron. Instead they are a ranged blaster class.
Warlock really, really isn’t centered around Eldritch Blast. There is one, pretty specific warlock build that’s focused on Eldritch Blast, and it eats up most of your character build choices to pull off. But it really is a tiny portion of what the 5e warlock can do. If you’re not spending all of your invocations just to be almost as good as a fighter at shooting stuff, it’s pretty impressive how versatile the warlock class actually is.
 

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Sithlord

Adventurer
Inha
Just build a different warlock. Eldritch Blast is one, very limited, type of warlock. You can easily make a warlock that actually feels very witchy if you just let go of Eldritch Blast and explore more of what the class has to offer.
I have never seen one in play ever. And I play at a flgs with over 80 people playing on a slow night since 5E came out. I also play at home games with friends. I think players (rightfully) think they are nerfing themselves and their party if they don’t take it with agonizing hex. It’s hard to nerf yourself. At the home game we are working on homebrew options. But that is a sin to many people. One of our options for a pact with devils is changing it to fire damage which is less effective than force damage overall. And throwing in some resistance to fire a little easier since fire damage is situational and fire damage isn’t as effective as force damage.
 

Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
I have never seen one in play ever.
I see them quite regularly.
And I play at a flgs with over 80 people playing on a slow night since 5E came out. I also play at home games with friends. I think players (rightfully) think they are nerfing themselves and their party if they don’t take it with agonizing hex.
I don’t think it’s rightful at all. Eldritch Blast spam is fine, but it’s really not that impressive. A fighter can achieve the same results - better results, even - with one feat and a heavy crossbow. Instead of dumping all your invocations into enhancing Eldritch Blast, you could be doing any number of other things that frankly are just as good, if not better.
It’s hard to nerf yourself.
Going for a different build than EB spam really, really isn’t nerfing yourself. Try it some time, you might be surprised.
 

How do I imagine her?

Buff-breaker, with a sactum or special place to craft expendable or single-use magic item (potions, talismans, scrolls, tatoos or runes). With "pact magic", like the vestige pact magic but the witch has got like a mini version of cleric domain list. You can change the pact with a piece of time for a ritual. She can cast primal magic (ranger+druid).
 

Mecheon

Sacabambaspis
Personally, I would like to see a witch class and a shaman class replace the druid, but I agree with the rest of what you wrote about the witch should be a class.
Druid is a longstanding fantasy Thing these days though, particularly due to a certain World of Warcraft, so its unlikely to go anywhere.

Ol' Walrock's is my personal choice of Witch for the moment though
 

Sithlord

Adventurer
I see them quite regularly.

I don’t think it’s rightful at all. Eldritch Blast spam is fine, but it’s really not that impressive. A fighter can achieve the same results - better results, even - with one feat and a heavy crossbow. Instead of dumping all your invocations into enhancing Eldritch Blast, you could be doing any number of other things that frankly are just as good, if not better.

Going for a different build than EB spam really, really isn’t nerfing yourself. Try it some time, you might be surprised.
I have. Agree with your post. It’s just not something I see others do. And i run lots of games. But it’s cool that this is something you see alot
 


Greg K

Legend
@LuisCarlos17f mentiond what his version of a witch would be like. Here is mine


Hit Points d6
Armor Proficiency: None
Weapon Proficiency: Simple Weapons
Tools: Herbalist's Kit or Poisoner
Saving Throws: WIsdom, Charisma
Skills: Choose (x) from Animal Handling, Arcana, History, Insight, Intimidation, Medicine, Nature, Persuasion, Survival

A spontaneous wisdom based caster whose spell list is built around Illusions, Charm, Curses (including aging/stealing youth and long slumbers), some blessings (e.g. improved use of skill or tool proficiency),Transformation (altering one's appearance, polymorphing oneself, polymorph others), breaking enchantments, dispel magic, nature (animals, plants, weather), some divination (e.g. read throughts, comprehend languages, clairaudience/clairvoyance, seeing the future, scrying), some healing and curing afflictions, and some creation (e.g. food and water).
Other abilities; a familiar, brewing potions and poisons, crafting items (candles, charms), ritual magic
 

I'd probably shy away from making a Witch class. There are already many existing classes that seem to cover most of the bases. If someone said that they wanted to play a witch class in my game, the first thing that I'd have to ask them is what their vision of a witch was.

I don’t think it’s rightful at all. Eldritch Blast spam is fine, but it’s really not that impressive. A fighter can achieve the same results - better results, even - with one feat and a heavy crossbow. Instead of dumping all your invocations into enhancing Eldritch Blast, you could be doing any number of other things that frankly are just as good, if not better.
A single invocation brings you up to the level of a fighter with a feat. - But the Warlock is also a primary caster with better skills and a lot of other Invocations.
Once you start "dumping all your invocations into enhancing Eldritch Blast" you can do things that the fighter just can't.

Going for a different build than EB spam really, really isn’t nerfing yourself. Try it some time, you might be surprised.
It is a step down in raw power. For example the Celestial Warlock has a bonus to Fire and Radiant spells. - But they're still better off using Eldritch blast than Sacred Flame.

You can definitely do things with the Warlock class that don't involve Eldritch Blast. - It can be a very flexible class. But unless they have a very strong concept, many people find the drop in raw power to be a sacrifice they don't always want to make.
 

Warlock really, really isn’t centered around Eldritch Blast. There is one, pretty specific warlock build that’s focused on Eldritch Blast, and it eats up most of your character build choices to pull off. But it really is a tiny portion of what the 5e warlock can do. If you’re not spending all of your invocations just to be almost as good as a fighter at shooting stuff, it’s pretty impressive how versatile the warlock class actually is.
I don't think is quite true. You grab agonising blast and hex and you're good to go. Sure, you could improve it further, but you don't really need to, with these you will be doing pretty horrid damage.

I really wish there was an easy way to support more varied builds. One thing I did was to let agonising blast (renamed 'agony') to apply to all cantrips, which makes it slightly less idiotic to use cantrip other than eldritch blast, but that still is the best cantrip and comboes amazingly with hex. One thing I considered was changing eldritch blast so that multiple beams aimed at one target become one beam, but that seemed like a too drastic nerf. (I.e. instead of 3 x d10+Cha+hex you would have 1 x 3d10+Cha+hex.)
 

Cadence

Legend
Supporter
Are there any 5e brewing rules that give potions with a wide range of effects (beyond just the list of options in the DmG)?
 

Marandahir

Crown-Forester (he/him)
From a game design standpoint, "witch" occupies a much clearer conceptual space than "sorcerer" or "warlock" does and is more immediately familiar and understandable to a new player and the general public than almost any other class. (The general public will give you a blank stare when you mention "cleric" or "druid," for example.)

It might be that witches should have been introduced decades ago, and they've been elbowed out of the picture by this point, but they're arguably one of the biggest concepts in fantasy pop culture that doesn't have a clear specific analogue in D&D. (And no, "you can play it if you take something named something else and then adjust it in several ways a newbie wouldn't know how to do" isn't the same thing.)

For myself, I would prefer it be either a core class (replacing the sorcerer, perhaps, which has really lost a lot of its reason for being in 5E, with the wizard and warlock dividing up its 3E role) or as a PHB-level subclass of either the wizard, warlock or druid.

My wife is playing a transmuter hexblood, which is as close as she can get as a relative D&D newbie to capturing a classic Wizard of Oz wicked/Halloween witch vibe. It's not tremendously satisfying, honestly, so I might see if she's interested in playing a Witherbloom wizard instead. (She's got a real bias against druids after playing EverQuest.)

My issue with this idea is that which witch is which?

That is to say, what measure is a Witch?

Witches are like Trolls: while in continuity with one another, most depictions are in complete discord from each other (All Trolls are Different, so are All Witches). You can list a line of iconic witch tropes and I could list dozens of fictional or folkloric witches that break several of the tropes you have, or even lean into antithetical tropes.

Witches differ from each other most specifically in HOW they came into their power. D&D classes often share overlaps in conceptual space of what their power is and what it does, but rarely overlap in where it came from - how did I get from background to Level 1 class member? If the members of a class got their core powers in completely different ways, are they really the same class?

This is like the classic Magic Warrior trope - most people agree that it needs to be in the game, but nobody can agree what it looks like. A lot of people wanted a half-caster arcane magic user with access to a subset of fighting styles to parallel the Ranger and Paladin, but beyond that nobody could agree what it should look like because the origins of power for Eldritch Knights, Hexblades, Blade Bards, Bladesingers, Battle Smiths, and Wild Magic Barbarians are very much quite different. These belong as subclasses of various classes, showing what those classes can do with a little bit of arcana or a little bit of martial training gives them, rather than to a skeleton class with no unifying identity.

This is the same problem that killed the Mystic class - it was a skeleton on which various Psionic tropes were hung as subclasses that owned 90% of the meat and potatoes.

Witches are similar in nature. You've got studious wizardlike Witches like Hermione who studied really hard but also had to have that magic spark to begin with. Then you've got the historical Christian interpretation of witches who made deals with the devil. Then you've got fairy tale witches who are represented by Hags and other Fey creatures in D&D and might be better represented as a lineage than a class. You've got characters like Sabrina the Teenage Witch who is only half-witch and thus half a member of a witch species - suggesting an inheritance factor for some stories. You've got Wiccan adherents that treat witchcraft as a nature religion. You've got Mahou Shoujo who are just as likely to learn their magic from scratch (anyone can access it with the right teacher) as they are to inherit their magic. And you've got some witches like Kiki of Ghibli fame who need to maintain a belief in themselves and navigate her developing emotions and hormonal changes to maintain her powers as they slip away from her (initially she believes it's because she got distracted from doing witchy stuff).

As you might notice above, any and ALL of the spellcasting classes are reasonable choices for a witch character. That's usually a sign that a new class is not needed but rather that this is a very broad concept that is better applied as individual subclasses of various classes. See Ninjas - we have both Way of Shadow Monk and Assassin Rogue.

Alternatively, they could develop Witch subclasses that work for Bards, Druids, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards, much like the Strixhaven subclasses do. This may actually be the best solution. Do we think that the Strixhaven subclasses already serve this purpose pretty well?
 







Being divine generally implies access to healing magics... which does make some difference in function.
Bard? Yes, (some) witches should definitely get healing magic, (Witherbloom allows that) but whether they are arcane or divine or whether that's even a distinction that exist is a matter of setting lore.
 

Steampunkette

Rules Tinkerer and Freelance Writer
Supporter
I don't think is quite true. You grab agonising blast and hex and you're good to go. Sure, you could improve it further, but you don't really need to, with these you will be doing pretty horrid damage.

I really wish there was an easy way to support more varied builds. One thing I did was to let agonising blast (renamed 'agony') to apply to all cantrips, which makes it slightly less idiotic to use cantrip other than eldritch blast, but that still is the best cantrip and comboes amazingly with hex. One thing I considered was changing eldritch blast so that multiple beams aimed at one target become one beam, but that seemed like a too drastic nerf. (I.e. instead of 3 x d10+Cha+hex you would have 1 x 3d10+Cha+hex.)
Pact of the Blade Hexblade Warlock is my go-to 5e Gishy.

Green Flame Blade at low end to spread some damage to secondary targets, pile Hexblade's Curse and Hex on top of a target, and have Eldritch Blast available if I need ranged damage. Generally talk to my DM about swapping out the Accursed Specter in favor of War Magic from the Eldritch Knight, or using an Invocation Slot for something similar in place of Thirsting Blade 'cause Cantrip + Bonus Action attack allows me to do a variety of melee cantrips and still feel like a "Fighter" with that second attack. And it's self-balancing against my bonus action abilities like Hex transferral.

Squeeze Agonizing Blast in there, somewhere.

Before 6th level I'm swinging 2d6+Cha damage with a greatsword and dealing Cha mod to a nearby enemy or blasting one target at range for 1d10+Cha.

After that point it's 2d6+1d8+Cha in melee if they won't let me war-magic it. Or 2d6+Cha twice with Thirsting Blade. And if they do let me war-magic, 2d6+1d8+Cha and 2d6+Cha. Or 2d10+Cha at range.

Oh. And Hex is up, of course. So add a d6 to each of those hits. And probably Hexblade's Curse for another Proficiency Modifier in damage and wider crit range.

Eldritch Blast does pull back into the lead for maximum damage at level 11, but the average damage of the 2d6+2d8+Cha is going to be higher. And it won't pull into the lead if War Magic was made available through some method.

Also worth noting... I don't Multiclass. Pretty much ever. It's an optional system rather than core rules and, honestly, the way the game is built I sincerely feel it's better off without minmaxing class-mixing.

Of course... that's if I -want- to play up the violence.

That character also takes the Criminal Background and I aim to play skill-user-ish. Add in Pact Magic for some decent spells for AoE situations or social manipulation and you get a flexible character that burns at range and tears up in melee but is a bit of a glass cannon in medium armor.

In short: FUN AS HECK!
 

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