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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Simon Collins" data-source="post: 2009742" data-attributes="member: 9860">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 WitchThis 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 FeatsIn 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 CraftThe 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 WiseThe 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.</blockquote>

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