Some help with my Witch Class

[Lenarizan]

First of all, I don't know if I'm posting this in the right (sub)-forum, if I'm not, please let me know. Still pretty newish here.

What I'm basically trying to create for my campaign is a Witch Class built more on the type of witch that inhabit Terry Pratchett's Discworld.
That meaning: More of a 'screw-with-peoples-minds' type class than a 'bubble-bubble-cauldron-spellcasting' kinda thing.

But since witches are still spellcasters, I tried to merge both and tried to lean towards the DW-Witches.

In the region around the Forest of Reb and the Thedrid Woods, most of Lyrcanna's witches can be found.
They usually live near or inside small settlements, giving advice to its citizens on all kinds of matters. They are also known for their great healing powers and serve as midwives, healers and the like.
All of the witches have joined into the Coven of Altis, a witch' organisation that meets once a year for about a week during the summer solstice in the Thedrid Woods.. There, they discuss their practice, new spells and talk about themselves and the people of the villages they live near.
Outside of this region, few witches can be found. Most of those live in other parts of Vorenas or in the province of Caelmin.
An incredibly small part of the witches that live in Lyrcanna, work for the state. A few witches can be found serving the Coval or other such organisations.
Adventures: Most witches in Lyrcanna aren't that adventurous. They usually stay near their home only to come out to gather supplies and reagents or to visit people in the nearby villages. The biggest event of the year for a witch is the gathering of the Coven.
Characteristics: Witches get their divine magic from the books they read or, in some extreme cases from the gods they serve. Most of the witches live secluded lives which tends to reflect into their characters.
Witches tend to train their own. They usually look amongst the young women of nearby villages for a successor and if the girl they have their eye on shows an interest into witchcraft, they are taken on as an apprentice. It is because of this that all witches are female. There is no knowledge of there having ever existed male witches.
Alignment: Witches come in all alignments. Most of them are neutral however, tending to protect the balance of nature.
True neutral is the commonest amongst witches.
Religion: Although a lot of witches rely on their own knowledge and power, most of them worship one or more gods.
Yandal, goddess of the moon, and Thalandaya, god of nature are the two greater deities that most witches pay their respects to. Next to them, a small host of minor deities also benefit from the attention they receive from the witches.
Races: Most witches can be found amongst human societies. Because of this, most witches are humans themselves. Only a small part of the witch society is made up out of other races. Usually elves and half-elves.
Other Classes: Witches tend to keep to themselves. They don't often work with members of other classes. Clerics cross paths with witches in a lot of villages because they are in the same line of business.
Another class that might often cross paths with a witch is the druid. When witches go into the woods to replenish their stocks, druids are often encountered by witches.
Most arcane spellcasters are viewed Argus-eyed. Witches see the arcane casting as something that harms nature and thus they go out of the way of sorcerers and wizards if possible.
It isn't that witches avoid the other classes, they just don't openly try to meet with them.

Game Rule Information
Witches have the following game statistics.
Abilities: Charisma determines how powerful a spell a witch can cast, how many spells she can cast per day, and how hard those spells are to resist (see Spells, below). A high Dexterity score is helpful for a witch, who typically wears little or no armor, because it provides her with a bonus to Armor Class. A good Constitution score gives a witch extra hit points, a resource that she is otherwise very low on.
Alignment: Any, though usually witches are neutral.
Hit Die: d6.

Class skills
The witch's skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (local) (Int), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Knowledge (the planes) (Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int).
Skill Points at 1st Level: (4 + Int modifier) x4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier.

Class features
All of the following are class features of the witch.
Armor and Weapon Proficiency: Witches are proficient with the dagger, sickle, club, light crossbow and the quarterstaff, but not with any type of armor or shield.
Spells: A witch casts divine spells, which are drawn from the witch spell list. A witch must choose and prepare her spells ahead of time (see below).
To learn, prepare, or cast a spell, the witch must have a Charisma score equal to at least 10 + the spell level (Cha 10 for 0-level spells. Cha 11 for 1st level spells and so forth). The Difficulty Class for a saving throw against a witch' spell is 10 + the spell level + the witch' Charisma modifier.
Like other spellcasters, a witch can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. Her base daily spell allotment is given on the Witch Table below. In addition, she receives bonus spells per day if she has a high Charisma score (see Table 1-1: Ability Modifiers and Bonus Spells, page 8 in the Players Handbook).
Witches do not acquire their spells from books or scrolls, nor do they prepare them through study. Instead, a witch chooses a time at which she spends 1 hour each day to sit in quiet contemplation or prayer in order to better remember a particular set of spells. Time spent resting has no effect on whether a witch can prepare spells. A witch may prepare and cast any spell on the witch spell list (see below), provided that she can cast spells of that level, but she must choose which spells to prepare during her daily contemplation.
Bonus Languages: A witch' list of bonus languages includes Celestial, Abyssal, and Infernal in addition to the bonus languages available to the character because of her race (see Race and Languages, page 12, and the Speak Language skill, page 73). These are the languages of good, chaotic evil, and lawful evil outsiders respectively.

Witch Table

Brew Potion
At 1st level, a witch gains Brew Potion as a bonus feat. This feat enables her to create magic potions (see Brew Potion, page 89 of the Players Handbook, and Creating Magic Items, page 282 of the Dungeon Master's Guide).

Witch' Persuasion
Part of a witch' job is to deal with people. To this end, a witch studies to sense people's motives as it were and to bluff and intimidate when necessary. At 1st level, and every 4 levels thereafter (up until level 17), a witch gains a +1 insight bonus to Bluff, Intimidate and Sense Motive.

Summon Familiar
A witch can obtain a familiar in exactly the same manner as a sorcerer can. See the sorcerer description in the Players Handbook and the accompanying Familiars sidebar for details.

Witch' Cunning
At 4th level, and every 5 levels thereafter the witch gains a +1 to the DC of spells she casts from the enchantment school and gains the same bonus to saves she makes against spells from that school.

Bonus Metamagic Feat
At 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th level, a witch gains a bonus metamagic feat. At each such opportunity, she can choose one such feat. The witch must still meet all prerequisites for a feat gained, including caster level minimums. (See Chapter 5 of the Players Handbook for descriptions of feats and their prerequisites.)
These bonus feats are in addition to the feat that a character of any class gets every three levels (as given on Table 3-2: Experience and Level-Dependent Benefits on page 22 of the Players Handbook). The witch is not limited to the categories of metamagic feats when choosing these feats.

Mindtap
This spell-like ability functions as the Dominate spells with the following changes:
You control the creature or person completely. You see, hear, feel, smell and taste what it does and you can make it move and talk; Mindtap is dismissable at will; The range of the spell becomes Large; The duration changes into 1 minute / lvl.
The save DC against this ability is 10 + the Witch' class level + the Witch' Charisma modifier.

Empathic Enforcement
Guided by her insight into animals and people, a witch can use body language, vocalizations, and demeanor to improve the attitude of an animal or person. This ability functions just like a Diplomacy check made to improve the attitude of a person (see Chapter 4: Skills in the Player's Handbook). The witch rolls 1d20 and adds her witch level and her Charisma modifier to determine the empathic enforcement check result. The typical domestic animal has a starting attitude of indifferent, while wild animals are usually unfriendly. Most people are also indifferent.
To use empathic enforcement, the witch and the target must be able to study each other, which means that they must be within 30 feet of one another under normal conditions. Generally influencing an animal or person in this way takes 1 minute (use of this ability might take more or less time depending on the target).

Linguistic Abolishment
At this level the witch has grown herself such an image that her gestures and words can influence anything even if she doesn't speak its language. Language dependent spells lose that dependancy.

Now why were some things done the way they are?

In essence, DW Witches are the negatives of DW Wizards. They mirror them in a lot of ways. This was exactly what I thought I should do here.
For one, because it would give me a witch the way I wanted one (an 'anti-' wizard) and also because it would allow me to easily create a new class by moving some things out of an existing one and putting other things in.

Charisma was used as the main ability because that's the how I think they should do a lot of their work. Through enchanting, bluffing, tricking, etcetera. This also reflects on the skills I chose for this particular incarnation of one of the worlds most mystical professions.

Then there's the whole business with my spells.
The way I figured it, witches shouldn't be allowed to use all the spells a wizard or a sorcerer can, but I did use their spells and used them as divine spells (because a witch isn't an arcane caster). This I justified because some spells in the PHB were both arcane and divine and thus, if given a class that could allow it, I added the divine descriptor to some other spells.
I also thought a witch shouldn't be allowed to cast spells exactly as a wizard does. Wizards and spells are one and the same. But my witches also use their various abilities. So I scrapped levels 7, 8 and 9. Since some of the spells of that level were still usefull and shouldn't be missing, I put those into the lower levels as good as possible.
Doing this also helps with the DC's. The DC's for most of the witch classes are automatically lower because the spells cast are of lower level than normal. Only where it concerns spells of the enchantment school, does a witch get a bonus through her Witch' Cunning ability.



Now I ran the whole thing by a few of my friends and they gave me a few things to ponder about:

• Witch for Life: They figured that it might be a very easy class to abuse, if one would multiclass it with some of the existing classes. Thus, they suggested I'd make a level 1 entry along the lines of: "Only a character without any other class levels can be trained as a witch. After gaining one level of the witch class, he/she can not take any levels of other classes." This might even have to be true for the Prestige Classes.
• Spells: They figured that I might tweak my spells/day a bit. Either increase all so a witch would be able to cast 6 spells of each level at level 20 (and get a suitable progression in the other levels) or that I should keep a similar progression I have now, but include levels 7, 8 and 9.
• BAB. Another point that I can't shake off is the BAB. All divine classes seem to have a BAB that goes beyond the +10/+5. So I might have to make it +15/+10/+5. A witch wouldn't be a complete sissy like a wizard after all.

And below is the Witch Spell List I divised. If a spell had a higher level in the sorcerer/wizard spell list, I've made a note behind it.

Level 0

• Cure Minor Wounds
• Dancing Lights
• Daze
• Detect Magic
• Detect Poison
• Inflict Minor Wounds
• Prestidigitation
• Purify Food And Water
• Resistance

Level 1

• Blindness / Deafness (was lvl 2)
• Calm Animals
• Cause Fear
• Change Self
• Charm Person
• Command
• Cure Light Wounds
• Hold Animal (was lvl 2)
• Hold Portal
• Hypnotism
• Identify
• Inflict Light Wounds
• Message
• Obscuring Mist
• Pass Without Trace
• Pyrotechnics (was lvl 2)
• Ray Of Enfeeblement
• Reduce
• Resist Elements (was lvl 2)
• Silent Image
• Sleep
• Spider Climb
• Summon Monster I
• Summon Nature's Ally I
• Ventriloquism

Level 2

• Augury
• Calm Emotions
• Charm Person Or Animal
• Cure Moderate Wounds
• Darkness
• Delay Poison
• Detect Thoughts
• Dominate Animal (was lvl 3)
• Enthrall
• Fog Cloud
• Gentle Repose
• Inflict Moderate Wounds
• Knock
• Obscure Objects
• Remove Disease (was lvl 3)
• Remove Paralysis
• Scare
• Shatter
• Silence
• Soften Earth And Stone
• Summon Monster II
• Summon Nature's Ally II
• Summon Swarm
• Tongues
• Water Breathing (was lvl 3)
• Web
• Whispering Wind

Level 3

• Bestow Curse
• Charm Monster
• Clairaudience / Clairvoyance
• Confusion
• Contagion
• Cure Serious WOunds
• Deeper Darkness
• Discern Lies
• Dispel Magic
• Emotion
• Fear
• Hallucinatory Terrain (was lvl 4)
• Hold Monster (was lvl 4)
• Hold Person
• Illusory Script
• Inflict Serious Wounds
• Lesser Geas
• Magic Circle Against C/E/G/L
• Major Image
• Remove Blindness / Deafness
• Remove Curse
• Scrying
• Secret Page
• See Invisibility
• Shrink Item
• Slow
• Speak With Dead
• Stinking Cloud
• Suggestion
• Summon Monster III
• Summon Nature's Ally III

Level 4

• Arcane Eye
• Break Enchantment
• Commune (was lvl 5)
• Commune With Nature (was lvl 5)
• Cure Critical Wounds
• Detect Scrying
• Dismissal
• Dominate Person
• Dream (was lvl 5)
• False Vision (was lvl 5)
• Feeblemind (was lvl 5)
• Inflict Critical Wounds
• Modify Memory
• Neutralize Poison
• Nightmare (was lvl 5)
• Polymorph Other
• Polymorph Self
• Quench
• Seeming (was lvl 5)
• Shadow Conjuration
• Solid Fog
• Spell Immunity
• Spell Resistance(was lvl 5)
• Summon Monster IV
• Summon Nature's Ally IV

Level 5

• Awaken
• Control Winds
• Greater Command
• Greater Scrying (was lvl 7)
• Insanity (was lvl 7)
• Lesser Planar Binding
• Liveoak (was lvl 6)
• Mirage Arcana
• Persistant Image
• Programmed Image (was lvl 6)
• Project Image (was lvl 6)
• Prying Eyes
• Repulsion (was lvl 6)
• Shades (was lvl 6)
• Simulacrum (was lvl 7)
• Spell Turning (was lvl 7)
• Statue(was lvl 7)
• Stone to Flesh (was lvl 6)
• Summon Monster V
• Summon Nature's Ally V
• True Seeing

Level 6

• Banishment
• Binding (was lvl 8)
• Control Weather
• Demand (was lvl 8)
• Discern Location (was lvl 8)
• Dominate Monster (was lvl 9)
• Foresight (was lvl 9)
• Geas / Quest
• Legend Lore
• Mass Suggestion
• Planar Binding
• Protection From Spells (was lvl 8)
• Shapechange (was lvl 9)
• Summon Monster VI
• Summon Nature's Ally VI
• Veil
• Vision (was lvl 8)

So there you have it. A somewhat long read in, mostly, D&D Classes chapter style editing.
I hope you like it, and I hope you can help me make this a more balanced class.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think it's strong, but I would change mindtap into a spell. Good job capturing the flavor of Granny Weatherwax and Tiffany Aching.

 

[WarlockLord]

Don't allow this with archivists. If the archivist can get shapechange as a 6th level spell...

Mindtap is powerful.

What can a witch do against undead?

 

[rowport]

I like the flavor behind it, but think it is too strong as written. Comparing to the Wizard as a baseline, your Witch beats it with:
* higher HD
* more skill points
* an extra good save
* additional class abilities
* better weapon choices

It matches:
* BAB (or if you up it to moderate BAB, beats the Wizard then)
* Familiar
* Bonus Feats

It does have some balancing features:
* Neutral Alignment restriction (considered?)
* Multiclassing restriction (considered?)
* Limited spell list

So, really, the most important factors are the limited spell list offsetting the other benefits. It is not enough IMO. Eliminating or limiting the extra good save, Familiar and Bonus Feats might be enough to make the difference. Take a look at Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, or Warmage to see how those might model the balance. They are all similar in style to what you are attempting mechanically, to create a more-focused arcane caster.

Again, I think you are on an interesting path, here, and the concept is great-- it just needs to tweaking to get the balance right.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

First of all, I don't know if I'm posting this in the right (sub)-forum, if I'm not, please let me know. Still pretty newish here.

This should have been in the House Rules forum. Welcome to the boards.