The Witchs Handbook

[Messageboard Golem]

The witch is a "naturalist" spellcaster who casts arcane spells using time-honored hearth wisdom rather than the arcane formulae and elaborate theories of wizardry. The Witchs Handbook, like other books in the Master Class series, presents a brand-new core class and an array of associated prestige class. In addition to the new feats, spells, and magic items that youd expect, The Witchs Handbook explores the deeper secrets of the The Craft. Learn of covens and their ritual magic, charms and their making, and herbs and their magical applications. Whether youre a player looking for a different kind of magic user or a GM looking to add something new to your campaign, The Witchs Handbook has everything you need to bring The Craft to your d20 game.

 

[JoeGKushner]

The Witch’s Handbook
Written by Steve Kenson
Published by Green Ronin Publishing
64 b & w pages
$14.95

In four chapters, Steve Kenson, the author of the Shaman’s Handbook, provides almost everything you need to know about utilizing the Witch as a core class with new prestige classes, feats, spells, and magic items.

The book starts off with the Witch as a core class. These spell users utilize arcane energies but with a restricted spell list. They are instinctive learners much like sorcerers but don’t have the ‘flashy’ fireworks type spells, instead relying on more subtle manipulations to get the job done. One of the things the book does well is provides information on how this class gets along with other core classes, how to use the class in Freeport, and ideas and restrictions for multi-classing. Those interested in covens and the use of the word ‘warlock’ will get a better understanding of the terms. As a core class, it stands on its own and is easily useable without too much muss or fuss and can probably replace the Adapt in many humanoid’s tribes.

To differentiate the Witch though, a core class might not be enough for some. Step in the Prestige Classes. There are four PrCs suitable for sorcerers or witches, two of them evil, the Infernal and Witch Hag, one of them neutral, the Shaper, and one standard, the Witch Priestestss. The fifth PrC is the Witch’s Champion, a very powerful fighter who gains strength from his patrons. The PrC might actually be a little too good with bonus feats and other options but the other options usually rely on the patron being very close by so there’ll have to be some more game testing before I can say. For the evil PrCs, the Witch Hag is the less interesting to me. It’s a nice variation where the character actually becomes more and more like the monster, the hag, but it didn’t’ grab me. The Infernal though, ah, the selling of your soul to an overpower for additional power.

Because Witch’s are very naturalistic, there are several new uses for old skills like Heal Tasks. This chart can be used by anyone with the heal skill and it provides some quick DCs for standard occurrences like identifying diseases and poisons. Knowledge skills like nature get their own list of common DCs like identifying plans and animals and predicting the weather. The use of Herbalism as a profession is touched on with four different uses: Remedy, Healing, Poison, and Spell Component. All in all, the skill section will be useful for those druids, shaman, and witches in any campaign.

The feat section is a little weak though. It might be because Bad Axe Games and Throwing Dice Games have made broad feats or template feats that do a lot of what I see here. A cool named feat with two skills getting a +2 bonus. A cool named feat with one stat substituted for another. I realize that not everyone is going to have access to the template feat but really, just put the core mechanic somewhere and provide the examples, don’t repeat the same information over and over for Canny, Empathic, Wise Defense, Wise Evasion, and Wise Precaution; All the same type of feats with different names. This is not to say that there are no new or useful feats. Take Swarm Shape. For those who have the Wild Shape ability or can cast Polymorph self, you can become a swarm of animals. Now that’s cool. Widen Spell doubles the area of a spell so now those fire balls can really get out of control, while Healing Trance allows you to double your rate of healing.

Chapter Three, Tools of the Craft, provides new ideas on herbs and herbal preparations, ritual items, and magic items. This is a nice short chapter that provides the goods quickly. For magic items, there are lots of staffs, rods, masks, candles and other goods to add a little spice to the campaign. Most useful to some though will be the table of herbal remedies, plant toxins and spell components. With a glance you see what plants are good for poison, spells or helpful.

Chapter Four, The Craft of the Wise, adapts ritual magic from SSS’s Relics and Rituals. By having groups of people, using power components, at special times of the year, in special places, with an increased casting time, you can heighten the spell in many ways. It’s a little complex, relying on divisions based on the classes involved, the items used, the place used, etc…, but it definitely adds to the campaign background and world building aspects of the GM. If you want to use these rules, you’ll have to come up with a calendar, specific sites, and other goods so that you’re players can augment their power to break curses, lay down powerful enchantments and divine the future.

Chapter four closes out with the with the Witch Spell List, including several new spells, broken down by level and then listed alphabetically, and then detailed fully out. I was a little disappointed in the number of higher level spells though. For new classes that don’t receive a lot of support past their initial release, only having eight 7th level spells, six 8th level spells, and seven 9th level spells is not a good thing. Many of these spells rely on charms, polymorping, or effecting one target klike Finger of Death. The new spells like Agony, Enhance Familiar, and Enlarge Familiar, will be of use to many characters and readers will be pleased to note that not all spells are for witches alone. I was a little surprised thought that Call the Wild Hunt, a spell that summons an elemental force with fiendish dire wolves serving it, isn’t also a druid spell.

Because there are no monsters or new templates, the book ends a little sooner than the Shaman’s Handbook. Thankfully though, they did include a Witch Addendum for their popular d20 Character Folio.

Art is doen by Drew Baker, Storn Cook and Stephanie Pui-mun Law and is top notch with full-page illustrations between the chapters. Editing is good most of the time and I only caught one minor thing while reading. Layout is standard two column with good text to page use. Internal covers are not used and the OGC takes up a page.

For me, to get a five star rating, The Witch’s Handbook would have to have ‘more’ to it. More unique feats instead of the same feat renamed. More spells. Since the class will probably receive the same amount of support the Shaman’s Handbook has (little), a proper spell list with lots of spells for all levels is vital. How about some monsters? Work on the perhaps some patrons or spirits? How about some tie ins to the rich mythology of the Book of the Righteous? Perhaps these are good servants of the goddess whose church has become so corrupted and even some of them fall pray to the lies of the devil lord and become Infernal Witches? In short, more stuff.

The Witch’s Handbook and it’s place in gaming will be measured by what you need the Witch to do and how you feel it compares against other products that offer the Witch as a core class. For me, I’ll be stealing the ritual rules, the alchemy checks, the herbs, and of course, several of the PrCs as I compare this Witch with the Witch from Mystic Eye Games and Mongoose Publishing to determine which witch is which.

 

[trancejeremy]

Cool - Storn Cook! He's one of my favorite artists. I'll have to get this.

 

[Nail]

Anybody else get this book? Any more reviews for this one out there?

 

[JoeGKushner]

I saw a review on D20 Weekly.

 

[GameWyrd]

The Witch’s Handbook is the current offering from Green Ronin’s Master Class series. This time round we see a Witch class as a core class and then a couple of prestige classes as well as new feats and spells.

But forget those. Skip to the middle of the book and start reading through the clean and smooth ritual magic rules. In just a short space of easy to understand rule suggestions the book gives you an alternative to the quick-fire casting of standard "melee magic". A ritual increases the casting time and the ingredient costs but allow you to enhance the spells in some simple but effective ways. The best feature of the handbook’s ritual rules is that they’re genuinely worthwhile to the players, the bonuses are tangible but the bonuses are not over-powered and shouldn’t alarm the GM. In fact, the way the ritual magic stacks into circle magic, places of power and times of power it makes the whole concept a mouth-watering plot generator for the GM. Circle magic – well, think witch’s coven – is a form of ritual which uses more than just one caster. The rules for circle magic extend the ritual magic rules. Circle magic is more effective if you can find other spell casters of your type (arcane, divine, other clerics of your deity, other witches…) and so again there are all these reasons for the players to get involved in interesting plots and discussions with NPCs. If you’re desperately trying to mature your players away from killing things and looting the corpse then this could just be what you’re looking for.

The rules for places of power and times of power are even more tempting for the flavour hungry GM and players. A place of power could be a Druid Grove (so that’s why they hang around there), Standing Stones, the tower where a powerful mage died, etc. The effect of casting magic in such places is noticeable again while using the ritual magic rules in that they further increase the bonus levels used to enhance the ritual spells. It’s a smashing idea but I wish they’d found more page space to list a few more examples of places of power. Times of power involve a rather more comprehensive set of rules but they’re just as elegant. The cycle of the moon is one example of a time of power. Under these rules different schools of magic receive bonus levels to their ritual magic effectiveness if cast under the right moon. The new moon is time of darkness and mystery and so the schools Conjuration and Enchantment receive their bonus. The schools that should benefit from waning or new moon after a slight disadvantage in that under another set of rules in the Witch’s Hanbook could mean that the new moon is the worst time for a witch to be casting her spells and the waning moon is pretty bad time too. It’s Necromancy and Abjuration that suffer the worry of being associated with the waning moon but they also benefit from the full moon – and I can’t decide whether that’s a typo or not. The text for the full moon says that it’s a time when good or neutral witches celebrate completion, attainment of goals and the fulfilment of promises. Does that sound like necromancy and abjuration to you? There’s more to times of power; there are special times in the year like Samhain or the Solstices that might also boost the effectiveness of ritual magic.

Honestly, it’s worth buying the book just for these extra magic rules. It’s not comic book magic stuff (fireballs and colour sprays) but a style that lends itself much more nicely to a more gritty and real feel to the magic.

What? Oh right! The rest of the book, yes, there’s that too.

The witch core class works for me. It’s a wisdom based arcane spell thrower. She has less spells available at each level than rival arcane casters do but she doesn’t need to prepare them ahead of time and this gives her an impressive flexibility. I’m not one of these people who throw weird and wonderful formulae at each and every attempt at a witch core class to prove that it’s not sufficiently different enough from Druids, Wizards or Sorcerers but if I was I’d probably be able to niggle away at it. This witch works for me though; it’s not heavy on the class abilities but when they do kick in they’re worth the wait and entirely appropriate to the class. A familiar is available at first level and then later on (much later on) the witch picks up the "A thousand faces" ability and then "Timeless body". Timeless body sprang to mind while I was flicking through the new witch spells at the back of the book and stumbled into the Restore Youth spell. You’ll need to flick to the back of the book and the spells to find the Witch class spell list too.

The prestige classes work by visiting the stereotypical visions of witches and doing something decent with them. The Infernal Witch (10 levels) is your evil seductress and with abilities like Undetectable Alignment she’s an insidious villain that’s not automatically defeated by plot annoying spells like Detect Evil. She gets a fiendish familiar with an evil alignment though. Doh!

The Shaper (10 levels) is that witch class that deals with, as you might guess, changing the shapes of things. The introductory text here says that some people speculate that the word "witch" itself comes from a root meaning "to shape" and so that helps explain where the class has come from. Again there are some tempting class abilities that seem to make this prestige class especially tempting. What about "Detect Shapechangers" as a first level ability?

A classic evil witch is the Witch Hag (10 levels) and it’s the sort of brave prestige class that I particularly like. As the Witch Hag progresses up levels she draws closer and closer to the hag transformation when she becomes a full hag (sea hag, annis, green hag), earns all the hag’s special abilities and keeps all her current spells and ability scores. Now, that’s scary!

The Witch Priest / Priestess (10 levels) is perhaps a tempting prestige class for non-witches since it offers up "A thousand faces" and "Timeless body". There’s an arcane spell casting ability as a requirement though.

You certainly don’t need to be a spell caster to qualify as a Witch’s Champion (10 levels) though. This is a nice angle for a prestige class. It certainly is prestigious and that’s an aspect of the concept all too often forgotten by games designers and the class acts as the "power up" players except a prestige class to be.

All these prestige classes end with a hefty dose of examples. Low level, medium level and high level stat blocks provide a cheap and easy way to quickly provide a suitable NPCs for those times when the players have done something unexpected.

There’s a collection of bits and pieces between chapter one and two. There’s some notes on how witch covens might work, on apprenticeships, rites of passage and even something on witches in Freeport.

The second chapter is one skills and feats. There’s just enough extra in the skills section to make it worthwhile; suggested DCs for heal checks in order to identify disease and poisons, the fortune-telling profession, a little bit on finding and preparing herbs and use of sense motive. The list of feats is just as sure to be any new d20 supplement as the new use for skills are. The feat are actually pretty good, there’s not too much in the way of "Advanced" or "Improved" style feats and the simple inclusion of "Lunar Magic" (where a spell caster’s ability ebbs and flows with the changing of the moon) can change the whole flavour of your campaign. I rather like the Lunar Magic feat.

The chapter "Tools of the Craft" is more interesting than cynical reviews might first expect. The ritual item list is terse but sufficient; the inclusion of athame and boline – the ritual dagger and components for ritual magic is nice. The alchemical preparation list reminds us of that side of the fantasy witchcraft to with its examples of contraceptive care, dye, hair growth formula and tooth care too. Magical potions come hot on the tails of the alchemical list. There’s more than just a token collection here, there are about 30 suggested potions. Memory boosting potions, lust inducing potions, lycanthropy causing potions or even the true seeing unguent which can be rubbed into the eyes in order to benefit from the true seeing spell are a couple of examples. There’s a collection of magical wands, cauldrons, jewellery and cursed items too.

It’s a somewhat back to front review of the handbook I know but just sometimes the secondary content in a supplement is more tempting than the headline offering. The witch rules in the Witch’s Handbook are pretty good, they get the thumbs up but the ritual magic rules are better and get two thumbs up.

* This GameWyrd review was first published here.

 

[netnomad]

So how does it compare to Mystic Eye's and Mongoose's versions? Not if it's better or worse but what are the differences? I’m curious since I own the other 2 books and want to know which one is right for my campaign.

 

[Psion]

The Witch's Handbook

The Witch's Handbook is one of Green Ronin Publishing's Master Class series of books introducing new basic classes for use in the game. The witch is a new basic class covered in depth by the book.

A First Look

The Witch's Handbook is a 64 page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $14.95. This is fairly typical for this format and size.

The cover of the book has a beautiful watercolor by the talented veteran CCG and RPG artist Stephanie Pui-mun Law. The picture depicts three individuals (apparently two witches and an armored man who appears to be their beneficiary) assembled in some ruin with a stonehenge type scene in the backdrop.

The interior art is black and white. Stephanie Pui-mun Law is joined by Storn Cook (whose work you may recognize from AEG's Mercenaries, Hero 5e books, and other RPG titles) and Drew Baker. All three artists have a good mastery of shading in black-and-white and the interior art is overall very good.

The interior font size is conservative, with a modest leader space and moderate-sized, readable header font.

A Deeper Look

The Witch's Handbook is divided into four chapters.

The first chapter introduces the witch base class and prestige class.

The witch base class, as described by The Witch's Handbook, is an arcane spellcaster. The witch casts spells much as a sorcerer, with many spells per day but a limited number of known spells. The witch is a little odd for an arcane spellcaster in that it uses wisdom as a spellcasting statistic.

The witch has the same hit die type as wizards and sorcerers (d4) and the same attack progression and save progression. The witch does have more skill points and a larger, more nature-oriented selection of skills.

The witch's spell list, however, is significantly more limited than that of the sorcerer and wizard. Witches do not share the same ability with evocation spells than wizards and sorcerers boast. Witches focus on spells that divine, enchant, protect, heal, and transform. Witches get a famliar and bonus metamagic feats as a wizard, and at high levels they eventually get the ability to alter self at will and (similar to the monk) the ability to prevent aging penalties.

I feel that the witch archetype is already well covered by existing spellcasting classes. If you feel like I do, there is a short treatise discussing the topic of using other classes (mainly druids, clerics, and sorcerers( in the role of a witch in your game, and most of the options presented later in the book can be applied to classes other than the witch.

The first chapter presents 5 prestige classes that represent common witch archetypes. As stated, these prestige classes are not specific to the new witch class included here, and can accomodate many spellcasting classes. The prestige classes are:
- Infernal Witch: If you want a character that fits the image of the evil witch that traffics with fiends, this prestige class fills the bill. The witch receives continued spellcasting advancement, as well as a fiending familiar, ability with poison, a dark blessing (similar to a black guard), and bonus feats and spells. All told, the package may be a little strong.
- Shaper: The shaper is a spellcaster specialized in transforming other beings or creature. The shaper receives bonus transmutation spells, and ability to detect and influence shapechangers and transformed creatures.
- Witch Hag: The witch hag is a bitter witch that slowly transforms into the monstrous form in the hag. The class is similar in structure to the dragon disciple in Tome & Blood. The class does not have full spellcasting advancement, but receives bonus spells during advancement. The witch hag receives physical enhancements and abilities associated with hags and monstrous humanoids, eventually becoming one. Overall, I think the class turns out a little weak.
- Witch Priest/Priestess: It is assumed that witches are, in general, followers of their faith but not priestesses. The witch priest/priestess is still an arcane spellcaster and has continues spellcasting advancement, but receives some of the benefits and drawbacks associated with divine spellcasters, and receives clerical domains, bonus feats, and other abilities.
- Witch's Champion: The witch's champion is a warrior chosen as an ally and protector of a witch or coven. The witch's champion receives combat related abilities and feats, as well as being able to benefit from the patronage of a witch in various ways, such as sharing spell effects with a witch.

In addition to the game material, the first chapter has some background materials on the belief structure and organization of the fantastical witch presented here, advice for integrating witches in the city of Freeport, and sample NPCs of the witch class and each prestige class.

The second chapter covers skills and feat. The skills section expands some skills and introduces more categories. For example, the concentration skill is used to perform long rituals as presented later in the book; I prefer this variant to the creation of a whole new skill the way that the Relics & Rituals book did for its own ritual rules (which the ritual rules herein are based on).

There are 16 new feats. Many of the new feats (skill wisdom, iron concentration, wise defense, and wise evasion) allow a character to substitute wisdom for another statistic for the purposes of certain checks.

Other feats of interest include:
- Sacrifice Spell: This feat allows a witch to use ability scores of a willing subject in place of level costs for metamagic; there is an explicit limitation of the total level of the metamagiced spell. The book calls this a metamagic spell, though in fact it should not be considered one, since it does not influence spell itself, just the cost of metamagic.
- Soothsay: This feat allows the character to use augury as a spell like ability once per day, and gives a bonus to fortunetelling skill checks. The feat is not overpowering, but probably should have some sort of prerequisite.
- Swarm Shape: This spell allows a character to use wild shape or polymorph self to assume the form of a swarm of creatures rather than a single creature.

The third chapter is entitled Tools of the Craft. It includes rules for herbal remedies, ritual items, new alchemical items, and a number of new magic items.

The herbal remedies rules describes a number of real and fictional herbs and associated elements that they assist in heal checks for curing. Some of the ailments are rather specific and describe conditions that are beyond the level of detail the d20 system normally handles, so the GM would have to apply some adjudication and creativity to make these rules useful at all.

The tools and magic items are largely typical of those associated with witches of folklore, such as athames (ritual daggers), candles, potions and poultices that assist in beauty and entrancement or weaken or curse a hapless victim, cauldrons, fortunetelling devices, and cursed items.

The fourth and final chapter is entitled The Craft of the Wise. It describes ritual rules, places and times of power, power components, and new witch spells.

The ritual rules presented here expand upon the ones presented in Relics & Rituals, which are a good fit for the coven-style rituals attributes to witches. The true ritual rules are not referenced; the ritual rules here combine aspects of the combined and augmented rituals as listed in the Relics & Rituals.

Under these rules, the basic ritual a character can perform alone can enhance caster level (unlike R&R, these applications affect all factors at once, not idividually), level checks, save DCs, or can be used to pay the cost of metamagic. The basic version of metamagic is more limited than in R&R since the spell level and bonus levels cannot exceed the maximum spell level that the character can normally cast.

Rituals with more than one participant are called circle magic. Similar to combined ritual magic in R&R, characters of the same class or type of spellcaster contribute more to such a ritual than spellcasters of different types. The formulas are basically the same as in R&R. However, the rules here present additional factors that add to the ritual: times and places of power.

Places of powers can add 1 to 5 levels to the power of the ritual based on the power of the site. Some sites may require special prerequisites. For example, only druids, rangers, and witches might be able to use the power of a sacred grove, while only clerics of a specific deity might be able to use a temple.

Times of power add bonuses to certain types of spells at certain times. Minor bonuses are added to certain types of spells at certain times, while larger bonuses are applied to specific days of the year (such as Samhain.)

Conclusion

As mentioned, I was unconvinced that I should be using the witch herein in place of existing spellcasting classes. However, the witch is a well assembled class with modest abilities, and could work well in a campaign if you feel it fits a feel you are looking for better than the existing classes. For example, the witch makes a great choice if you are looking for something more subtle than the fireball-tossing sorcerer. Of, if you are using the Book of Eldritch Might II sorcerer, which has a heavier emphasis on flashy spells, the witch might fill in the now missing role of a subtle spontaneous spellcaster.

Further, even if you aren't keen on using the witch class, the other material in the book is written so it is still eminently usable if you have another class filling the role of witch. The extensions to the ritual rules are nice additions to the ones presented in the Relics & Ritual book, and I appreciate that the author used the concentration skill to perform long rituals vice invoking a new, specific skill.

-Alan D. Kohler

 

[Simon Collins]

This is not a playtest review.

The Witch's Handbook is one of the Master Class Series from Green Ronin, introducing new 20-level PC classes - this one offers the Witch.

The Witch's Handbook is a 64-page softcover book costing $14.95. Standard text font size is good, though chapter and title headings are quite large. Margins are average and there is little wasted space. The internal mono art runs from poor to superb, with most being average to good. The attractive front cover shows a knight and two witches with the backdrop of an ancient stone monument on top of a forested hill. Writing style and editing are both fairly good. There are occasional but regular typos.

Chapter One: The Way Of The Witch
This begins with the 'Witch' core class. Witches have no alignment restriction, use a d4 hit die, gain 4 skill points per level, casts arcane spells from a witch spell list, can gain a familiar like a sorcerer, gains bonus metamagic or item creation feats every five levels from 5th level, can change her appearance at will from 13th level, and gains the timeless body feature at 17th level. There is a sidebar discussing using other classes such as certain clerics, druids, or sorcerers as 'witches', and three sample NPC witches at 4th, 8th, and 12th level are statted out - each with a black cat familiar.

Five 10-level prestige classes are then given, each with an example NPC statted out at mid and high level:
* Infernal Witch - a PrC who has forged a pact with an evil outsider and gains a fiendish familiar, various fiendish characteristics, bonus spells, and poison use.
* Shaper - shapechanging PrC with features specialised in sensing shapechanhers and affecting shapechanging such as inflict lycanthropy and detect shapechangers.
* Witch Hag - explanation of how hags come to exist, these evil spellcasters gradually transform into hags with increasing strength and natural armour as well as further hag-like features.
* Witch Priestess/Priest - spiritual leaders of communities with divine magic abilities, domain access, and several other features from the core witch class
* Witch's Champion - warriors who defend witches, with bodyguard-like class features such as Inspired Courage, Striking Speed, and the ability to benefit from spells a witch casts on herself when within 5 feet of his mistress.

The chapter continues with discussion on witch training and initiation, covens, and witch religion (concentrating on the natural world) as well as sidebars on warlocks (male witches) and coveys (small groups of power-hungry evil witches). The chapter ends with a discussion of Witches in a campaign setting including some discussion of witches in Freeport.

Chapter Two: Skills And Feats
In the skills section, we see Concentration as an important skill for ritual magic, the role of the Heal skill in the Witch's armoury (including identify disease and identify poison). Knowledge (Nature) is also discussed and includes Weather Prediction abilities here as opposed to using Wilderness Lore. Two professions, fortune-teller, and herbalist are discussed in more detail, including guidelines for finding, preparing, and using herbs (for remedies, healing, and as poison). There is also an extension of the Sense Motive skill to include the ability to sense whether someone is under an enchantment.

The feats section introduces a number of interesting concepts:
Lunar Magic (spellcasting influenced by the phases of the moon)
Sacrificing Spell (a willing sacrifice takes hit point damage to ignore spell-level increases from metamagic feats)
Spell Trap (a spell cast on an object or location that is triggered by certain conditions)
Sympathetic Spell (can cast spell on target regardless of distance, but must have arcane connection, takes 100 times longer to cast, and uses up a spell slot three times higher than the spell)
Other feats include such changes as applying modifiers from different abilities to certain skills, and soothsaying (using augury spell via fortune-telling).

Chapter Three: Tools Of The Craft
The chapter begins with a discourse on herbs and their uses, with a table showing which plants can be used for certain herbal remedies, plant toxins, and herbal spell components. The witch's ritual items (traditional pagan implements such as the athame (a ritual dagger), broom, cauldron, and candles) are briefly discussed, a few alchemical preparations are given (such as a contraceptive, and dyes), followed by a range of magical items (such as various potions - lust, forgetfulness, lycanthropy, youth - rune wands (one-use wands), staffs, cauldrons, a deck of divining, pentacle of power, and a few cursed items - such as the crown of blindness and the infamous hermaphromorphic girdle (which changes the wearer into the opposite sex).

Chapter Four: The Craft Of The Wise
The author states up front that the ritual magic rules in this chapter are adapted from SSS's 'Relics & Rituals'. Since I don't own this product, I can't compare the differences. For those of you who also don't own it, here are the main factors involved:
* Casting time and material components are increased, allowing the caster to increase caster level in regards to such aspects as duration, damage, or level checks, increase the DC of the saving throw, or reduce the cost of metamagic feats.
* The caster must make a modified Concentration check to fulfil the ritual's requirements, and ritual failures can give disastrous results at the discretion of the GM.
* Circle magic allows further enhancement of the spell by pooling the character class levels of all characters involved in a ritual. Different classes bring varying degrees of power to the ritual (non-spellcasters the least, spellcasters of all the same class the most).
* The ritual can be further enhanced if it takes place in a 'place of power' (an ancient grove, stone circle, temple, etc.), and at a time of month (governed by the phases of the moon) or year (solstices, equinoxes, etc.) that provides extra magical power. The moon phases and calendrical events are based on real-world mythology (Celtic/Saxon) with advice for adaptation to a fantasy setting.
* There is also advice on integrating the concept of power components from the DMG (p.96) into the ritual.
The chapter and book end with the witch's 9-level spell list (concentrating on enchantment, transformation, and divination) and 17 new spells (mainly for witches, but some are available to other classes). Notable is a discussion of extended rules for the Bestow Curse spell. There is also an index, and a Witch character sheet addendum.

Conclusion:
I freely admit that I dislike the concept of quick, flashy spellcasting that permeates D&D, and find the more subtle magic of the witch class, combined with the rules for places of power, lunar phases, sympathetic magic, and power gained from sacrifices fits my concept of magic much better. If the style of your campaign lends itself to instant magical combat, the witch may be a less useful spellcasting class than a wizard, sorcerer, or cleric.

I would recommend the witch class as an alternative rather than additional class, and more suited to a subtle, thoughtful campaign than a combat-orientated high-octane one.

In comparison to the two other 'core' witch classes presented so far, The Witch's Handbook covers all the major aspects covered by both Mongoose and Mystic Eye Games' witch (not surprising given that MEG's class is presented in less than seven pages). The Mongoose witch is a divine spellcaster, whereas GR's is arcane (MEG's is a cross between the two). Mongoose's witch prepares spells much like a wizard, MEG's like a cleric, whilst GR's is like a sorcerer. Mongoose's witch has a few more transformatory class features and more spells to choose from, whilst MEG's gives a limited Charisma bonus, potion brewing, cursing, and divination instead. In terms of the type of content in the rest of the books, all cover much the same ground. Mongoose's is twice as long as GR's, has more prestige classes, spells and feats, and a more detailed system for places of power, but GR's seems to pack a lot in its 64 pages and seems to contain more than half the amount of TQW (comparing its $15 price tag with Mongoose's $20 price tag seems to be more representative than page count).

One advantage GR's book has is that a significant amount of its content can be used without the need for the witch core class. There is advice included on applying the witch concept to an existing class (e.g druid, sorcerer) and the skill use, feats, and ritual magic rules can be applied to these other classes without too much complication. This allows a GM to bring the feel of the witch concept to a campaign without introducing another core class. Mongoose's TQW does not achieve this effect quite so well and MEG's is more limited in its aim anyway.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By Bruce Boughner, Staff Reviewer, d20 Magazine Rack and Co-host of Mortality Radio

Sizing Up the Target
The Witch’s Handbook is a 62-page soft cover accessory published by Green Ronin and is the latest in their series of Master Class supplements. Steve Kenson, co-author of Lords of the Peaks, penned this Handbook. The cover is by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law and Drew Baker and Storn Cook join her on the interior art duties and it retails for $14.95.

First Blood
While I was really waiting on the Witches supplement by Jean Rabe and Citizen’s Games, this gem came out first and being a Green Ronin product, I couldn’t resist. What can I say; I’ve yet to have a bad Ronin project and this is no exception.

The book opens on the indicia page acknowledging that they are using Sword & Sorcery’s ritual rules as the basis for some of their work. Mr. Kenson, kudos to all, this co-operation is exactly what d20 is all about.

The Witch core class opens the book, followed by 5 prestige classes, now this might seem light, but each one is very well-developed and fills a niche for a campaign that might feature witches, good or bad (anyone want to go to Oz?). No distinction is made for male or female characters, but the old adage about male witches being warlocks is briefly touched upon. Humans and halflings, gnomes and orcs and other humanoids are given the nod as ‘common’ witches; elves and dwarves are considered ‘rare’ with half-elves being given more latitude. Class skills and class starting packages round out the chapter before moving onto multi-classed witches. As one might anticipate, clerics, druids, bards and rangers are the most common combinations. Monks, paladins, warriors and wizards are restricted while rogues and sorcerers are considered to be uncommon for pairing up with the class. Some sample witches at low, mid and high levels follow this.

The prestige classes cover an interesting range of abilities, the evil Infernal witch, the shaman-like Shaper, the Hag, the Priest/Priestess and the Witches’ Champion. Each one comes with it’s own set of skills (well defined) and sample characters, also at low, medium and higher levels.

Traditions of the Witch follow the classes. Initiation, Apprenticeship and Rites of Passage are delineated, but not to such an extent that an uber-christian, (who is likely to damn the book anyway), could condemn the book in any logical way. Covens and coven structure, coveys and the Witches religion are touched upon in a way that does not violate the senses of the religious right but still impart enough information that a character or DM has enough to go on to create their own for a campaign.

A short treatise on Witches in a campaign rounds out the first chapter, how to insert them and how to utilize them. And this, being a Green Ronin book has a section on how to insert and use them into a Freeport, City of Adventure campaign.

Skills and Feats are the emphasis of Chapter Two. A heavy concentration on the benign skills is giving, herbology, fortune-telling, and healing as skills. And a similar bent is taken on feats, with feats in the above categories, but adding some meta-magic and shape-changing stunts as well.

Chapter Three foci is the tools of the trade, herbs and poisons, ritual tools like the Athame, cauldron, candles, etc and the products of such makings, alchemical results. Then it launches into one of my favorite crunchy bits, magic items, a weapon, candles, a slew of potions, benign and malignant, wands and rods, bunch of the weird stuff like magic cauldrons, masks and then cursed items (Sleeping Beauty run like the wind!) Apples of Eternal Sleep are here, among others.

Chapter Four gets into any spell-tosser’s meat and potatoes, the spells. Rules for Rituals, Circle Magic, Lunar Magic and Places of Power precede the actual enchantments. Twenty new spells are added to spells garnered from the core PHB and the Pocket Grimoire series.

The book closes with a customary specialized character sheet.

Critical Hits
As the first of the three books on Witches on the market I’m going to acquire (Mongoose’s Quintessential Witch and Citizen Games' Way of the Witch being the other two), like I said, I’ve yet to find a bad Ronin project. And this was no exception. As a history buff and also well-read on the subject matter, I found this to be very informative and not very repetitive of other magery books.

The classes here are well thought out, they add new dimension to a low to medium level campaign or one with early to mid medieval settings. The cross of good and bad witches works well for those wanting to pursue a Grimm’s fairy tale-like campaign.

Critical Misses
I found very little that was bad in this book, it’s full of crunchy bits that everyone likes. If I could fault it at all, it’s that I want more, a couple more classes, maybe relationships with monsters and the like and more items and spells.

Coup de Grace
The Witches Handbook is one that is going to stand out in a crowd of similar products. Mongoose’s more is better policy as yet hasn’t hindered their quality and I haven’t seen Rabe’s book yet but they are going to be hard-pressed to top this one. Definitely worth the price of admission.

To see the graded evaluation of this product, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.