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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2009726" data-attributes="member: 172">The Witch's HandbookThe 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 LookThe 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 LookThe 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.)ConclusionAs 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</blockquote>

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