D&D General "illusionists and witches" in upcoming release...circa 1979

[Casimir Liber]

I recall a book talking about "new subclasses" of magic user, being illusionists and witches, but I can't for the life of me recall which one it was....(vague idea it was blue basic dnd book in 1978?)...of course we got the illusionist but witch never made it to a subclass in canon

 

[Hriston]

Yes, you recall correctly. It's on page 7 of the J. Eric Holmes Basic Set (1977) under "Additional Character Classes". I guess there were plans for a witch subclass that didn't make it into the PHB.

 

[GuyBoy]

The Witch did appear in one of the Dragon magazines. I can’t remember which one, but they were designed as opponents and were absolutely terrifying. I remember narrowly escaping a TPK from the Witches of Marmon in the Wilderlands. Must have been early 1980s.

 

[Lanefan]

They tried several versions of the Witch class back then, if memory serves, and none of them caught on.

 

[Casimir Liber]

They tried several versions of the Witch class back then, if memory serves, and none of them caught on.

I don't remember any being published in official publications though.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't remember any being published in official publications though.

None of them made it to hardcover, thankfully, but there were (two? three? more?) different Witch-design attempts that made it into Dragon over the years.

 

[Casimir Liber]

Do you know which issues (before I go consulting Professor Google

 

[Rabulias]

There were also the shaman and witch doctor in the DMG. Not really classes, but separate spell lists, IIRC.

 

[Lanefan]

Do you know which issues (before I go consulting Professor Google

Sorry, no. One was very early; another may have been a sub-class of the Shaman that @Rabulias mentioned (it too got a full class write-up in Dragon at some point), and I think a third might have come early-ish in the 2e era. But this is all from memory of ancient things I was ignoring at the time, so...

 

[SkidAce]