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

[Voadam]

D&D has had a history of doing different things to get a witch concept character, often creating specific casting classes and sometimes just using existing classes and flavoring.

Pathfinder 1e had a witch class that was an arcane full caster that made pacts with a mysterious themed patron, gained specific witchy powers, and used their familiars as spellbooks.

In using my homebrew mashup setting part of it includes the Pathfinder Golarion world with the land of Irrisen, a norse area conquered by Baba Yaga who set her daughters up to be witch tyrants for a century each then to be replaced by a new daughter, and the ruling class of the country are specifically winter witches, many of whom are descendants of Baba Yaga (the current ruler is winter witch very much in the form of Narnia's White Witch).

I could see doing 5e versions of the Pathfinder witches as 5e core classes (warlock, wizard, sorcerer, and even druid could fit well).

I expect there are a number of OGL or DMs Guild products that do specific new classes or subclasses or feat options to get a witch concept.

I also expect there are a number of NPC or monster stat block options that could be appropriate too.

What have you used to get a 5e witch feel and what are your preferred implementations?

 

[Yaarel]

Depends on the kind of "witch".
• Psion
• Bard
• Warlock
• Druid

They all work fine.

 

[Quickleaf]

I have a heavily work-in-progress conversion/adaptation of the AD&D Witch class (by Bill Muhlhausen) that was published in Dragon #43 and refined Dragon #114. Those are great sources of inspiration.

Here's the conversion notes I could find, posted later in this thread.

 

[Voadam]

Dragon magazine witch classes, Role Aids Witches, 3.0 DMG witch sample new class, 3.0 Green Ronin's The Witch's Handbook, 2e Van Richten's Monster Hunting Compendium 3, Palladium FRPG, lots of options to go with for RPG inspiration.

 

[Dausuul]

IMO, the best way to implement witches would be as a druid subclass. Druids hit most of the key themes for witches; shapeshifting and transformation (both of themselves and of others), animal allies, control over the natural environment, connections to the fey.

All the subclass needs to do is provide access to illusion and mind control spells, and some kind of potion-brewing power, and you've got yourself a grade-A witch.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Warlocks are witches, but there should be an extra witchy subclass that attempts to capture the classic witch tropes. The new Witherbloom subclass seems like a pretty decent take on that concept.

 

[Stalker0]

I think Warlock is the best straight up class for this, as others have mentioned druid has some good options as well.

I can't think of anything that normal witch lore has that is so "radical" it needs to be covered as a new class, the current ones can handle it just fine.

 

[Charlaquin]

Warlock does the job for me just fine.

 

[cbwjm]

I'm a little boring, I tend to just use the term witch as one of those used for women spellcasters, typically those out on the edge of civilisation. They could be wizards, druids, warlocks, bards, or clerics.

 

[SuperTD]

KibblesTasty, arguably the most well known homebrewer on Reddit has an Occultist class, which has a witch subclass. His stuff is usually well balanced and fund to play. The Occultist is very new, so the least tested however.