d20 Witch class books

[Kichwas]

True enough. I see and hear a lot of this from practicing witches, many of whom are gamers or geeks of another stripe, so it's not like I didn't get an informed opinion. I live in Witchcraft Central (Yes, the Twin Cities in MN; fastest growing population of pagans in the US, and home of Llewellyn Publishing) and I'm hardly without personal experience in the matter.

So...

Because you find a certain sect of a religion to be not to your tastes, it is perfectly acceptable for you to come out here and sling mud at them?

If you made those statements about any faith in the world other than Wicca, you'd get shut down by the mods here.

As I said, please...

Watch where you cast your stones...

I objected to the book as much because it's a bad gaming product as I did on the ground that it's presentation of witchcraft looks too much like pop-culture crap.

The bad gaming product issue is a legitimate one. On that angle, what is wrong with it?

Are you refering to Black Witches as too powerful? I didn't go through the prestige classes in detail but I suspect this is the one. For most games, it would end up as an NPC class so it's not much of a concern for me.

On the flavor of the book, and what topics it does cover, I'm finding it a very good match to a number of Witchcraft topics.

The rituals, such as Drawing down the Moon, are a nice touch. The threefold law is very fitting. I really liked the Candle magic section. Circle magic was a nice addition as well.

The broom flying was a little strange, but the rest of the uses for brooms and foci were very fitting.

I personally found it thematically very fitting to how I would see a translation of Witchcraft as I've studied it into a fictional setting where you have people tossing off spells and chasing down Dragons. When you adopt something into fiction for a general audience, you do have to take in a bit of a populist angle, but you can still do it respectfully and without losing the important truths. On the surface, I feel this book has managed that.

I didn't like all the new skills though. Most of them can be and in fact already are covered by existing skills. Those that aren't might work better as special class features.

However the class as it exists already gets quite a lot of features and not enough feats for those skills to be made into feats.

In fact that is one of my concerns about the class... a Witch character will never have enough feats to really shine into a lot of the Witch abilities.


I do think that overall, it presents a better package than the Green Ronin book. But that opinion is shaped from oly having the book for one day so far. I'm going to make a much more detailed analysis before I push to revise my PC.

 

[Kichwas]

the prestige classes in Way of the Witch are overpowered, as there is zero reason for a witch to not chose one once she is the appropriate level.

Circle Magic. Since reading it I've become very torn on the idea of keeping to the base class versus prestiging out.

As a contrast, in GR's Witch's Handbook, The only thing I got to keep as a base class Witch was the bonus feat every 5 levels. Nice, but hardly worth it in comparrision to the prestige classes.

I can understand that, but I think it was handled clumsily. If all witch characters take a prestige class, then why even bother making a core class with twenty levels?

This can be said about -most- of the classes in the core rules as well. Most of them have very little going on over the levels, and in many cases, what little is going on is kept intact in most prestige classes the class is likely to go into (keeping spell advancement for example-which is -almost- all sorcerers and wizards get, or keeping turning advancement, and so on...).

 

[John Smallberries]

The DMG version is good enough for my games.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Example for the class:

When I say:

Please don't criticize or threaten to criticize peoples' religions here.

Thanks.

Don't come back a few hours later with this:

So...

Because you find a certain sect of a religion to be not to your tastes, it is perfectly acceptable for you to come out here and sling mud at them?

If you made those statements about any faith in the world other than Wicca, you'd get shut down by the mods here.

As I said, please...

Watch where you cast your stones...

No, the statements about Wicca were criticized as much as the threats of rebutting with detailed examples of Christianity.

There are places to do that. None of them are EN World.

Do not touch back on that subject or this thread will need to be closed. Continue with which witch class is going to work for your world, without mentioning anyone that practices anything that is perceived by anyone to be witchcraft in the real world.

 

[DungeonKeeperUK]

Don't forget to give the NetBook of Witches a look to over at the FaNCC, chock full of stuff and been around for a long time so its had a chance to build upon itself...... and its free...

<center>

Liber Mysterium - The NetBook of Witches

FaNCC</center>

 

[johnsemlak]

RE netbook of witches

Can you post the download link for the Netbook of witches

I followed the link posted above, but the download link I found for that netbook was broken.

 

[Web Warlock]

Netbook of Witches

Hey all,

This is Tim Brannan and I am the author of the Netbook of Witches and Warlocks.

If you would like a copy there is an old (very old) one at http://home.attbi.com/~brannantim/ and one at the official homepage at http://www.dcrouzet.net/nbownw/.

But I have to point out it is old. The newest version is in playtest and is more than twice as large (167 pages).

I have brought on a great team to help me make this book the best source for witches you can get for the d20 game.

I am looking for some serious playtesters, especially ones that have the other witch books (I have purposely not bought them though I am dying too, I love witches).

Please send me an email, web.warlock@attbi.com, if you are interested.

I hope this is a version of the Witch that people will like.

Thanks,

Tim

 

[johnsemlak]

Re: Netbook of Witches

Hey all,

This is Tim Brannan and I am the author of the Netbook of Witches and Warlocks.

If you would like a copy there is an old (very old) one at http://home.attbi.com/~brannantim/ and one at the official homepage at http://www.dcrouzet.net/nbownw/.

But I have to point out it is old. The newest version is in playtest and is more than twice as large (167 pages).

Thanks,

Tim

Thanks for the link (I am currently downloading it) and your tip on the upcming witch netbook. Looking forward to it.

Download finished! (John opens file and begins to devour contents.)