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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Marandahir" data-source="post: 8175805" data-attributes="member: 6803643">Yeah, like with the Warlord, the Ninja, and the Arcane Gish, I don't see Witch as an independent class or archetype but a series of different archetypes or character builds within archetypes that belong to various classes. Building the "witchiest" witch class is going to step on a lot of feet, tell people that their Diviner Wizard witch or Tome Helllock witch or a Shadow Magic Sorcerer or Spores Druid witch or Creation Bard (be)witch(ed) or Alchemist Artificer witch "isn't a REAL witch," and is going to always be pigeonholed into a single concept of what witchiness is (and probably lean into very unfortunate and sexist tropes D&D has already associated with the monsters known as Hags).And if you don't pigeonhole it, it ends up quite narrativeless as the Fighter is, since it's trying to be a Wizard and a Druid and Warlock and a Bard and a Cleric and an Artificer and a Sorcerer all at once. Either way, the concept is better represented by introducing a host of concepts within thosse already established classes.And most of those concepts exist as is in the game, so there was no point to bring them into Tasha's (though, notably, Alchemist and Scribes Wizard and Spores Druid and Creation Bard WERE brought into the book and are all great witchy options).Other witchy concepts will show up in future books. College of Spirits Bard seems relevant, for example.This is the same problem of what is a Troll (aka ALL Trolls are Different). D&D Flame & Acid-weak Trolls are not the same as Tolkien Stone Trolls are not the same as Gem bellybutton Trolls are not the same as skinny Warcraft Vodoo Trolls etc. We can all agree that Dwarves are ALL the same, we can all agree that All Elves are holier than thou, and we can all agree that All Gnomes are Weirder. But there are some concepts in fantasy that are rarely ever agreed on how they should be represented in the fiction. Notably, a number of these concepts are rooted in hateful discrimination, and may or may not have been "reclaimed" by some segments of the population. You get into voodoo or witchcraft, or into orientalist fantasy tropes, or into orc alignments, you're stepping into unfortunate implications territory and have to tread very cautiously. Not all are, of course, like the aforementioned Trolls that have only ever been caught up in these problematic depictions in the Warcraft fandom, and Psionics are inherent disagreements despite representing nothing offensive other than "my version of the mechanics are better than yours" (lest, again, they stray into orientalist tropes). Witches in fantasy cannot be untethered from sexist tropes against working women. That doesn't mean you can't have great fantasy that uses the witch tropes in a healthy, fun, and nonsexist way, but the history is intertwined, and using the witch archetype takes careful judgement in a table-by-table basis. Ultimately, the blowback of implementing poorly is not worth the potential profits to exploit by issuing an official witch class or subclass. And a diversity of options meets the needs and desires of the fanbase far more than a single, simple, WITCH subclass or class like we got in previous editions.One last thing: someone mentioned that 3e didn't have a Witch class. That's not true, it was in the 3.5e DMG, but only in the same capacity that Eladrin and Aasimar are in the 5e DMG (examples of how to build your own homebrew material). So yes, the Witch has shown up in every recent previous edition. But that doesn't mean it needs to show up in 5e by name. It's easy enough to create a witch with the options available. I'd much rather have it show up in a book that gives different build ideas like the Fighter builds shown in Tasha's - built from existing options, but showing how you could build various archetypes from existing options, or approach an archetype in various ways. That would be an interesting and useful chapter in a future release book.</blockquote>

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