Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ace" data-source="post: 2472446" data-attributes="member: 944">Unorthodox WitchesDisclaimer: I was given a review copy of this product.For a class that is basically an afterthought in the Dungeon Masters Guide, the Witch has had a tremendous number of D20 products written about it, some good, some bad. With this offering The Le games tosses its pointy hat into the ring.Appearance:Unorthodox Witches comes in a zip file just under 3 megabytes in size. The PDF is 50 pages with a color cover. It has nice layout as do all of the Unorthodox line. The internal art is stock but decentUnfortunately the cover is eye gougingly bad. The ugly man faced hook toting witch is without a doubt the worst D20 supplement cover I have seen. It is however technically decently done.  Content:This PDF has 6 core classes, The Beguiler, The Crescent Flyer, The Gyria, The Moon Dancer, The Shade Summoner, and the Wyrd One. Following this up is 1 prestige class The Intuitive Arcanist, and more Baubles and Urus, little artifacts that  are rather like Diablo 2 gems or runes.One feature that all of the core classes except the Gyria (which has a partial spell progression) and a the Moon Dancer have in common is that, rather than treating them as a separate class, they are treated as specialty wizards. Honestly I don't think I care for this feature. Its fair and balanced but I find it fails to carry the flavor of the class as it  leaves out healing and other witchly powers that the class should have. Individually the classes cover a lot a gameable archetypes. The first, the Beguiler is a charm specialist. The class has a number of bonuses with skills, slippery mind, a rather clever  kind of "charisma rage" called Bedazzle and a rather overpowered "Stolen Moment" ability that has a permanent Enamor effect. Minus that gaffe the class is pretty decentThe crescent flyer is a good concept, a hag and monster hunting flight specialist wizard. The class gains favored enemy and Greater Perception which is a stacking variant of alertness.  Alas the class does have some bad construction. First for a class that is supposed to be about flying it has very few flight based abilities. Second instead of innate abilities the class is given automatic magic items. The items are not unbalanced but this is not a good design decision in my estimation. Magic items should not be granted to a core class. A  prestige class, sure but not a core class. This is easily fixable though and other than those minor gaffs I like this class. The Gyria is a Gypsy Witch with some cool dagger fighting abilities, bardic lore and luck based abilities. The luck powers   allow the class to reroll dice in exchange for minor penalties on fellow party members bless and curse. This class also has a minor spell progression, roughly between a bard and a ranger. I like this class. It looks fun to play and decently balanced.The Moon Dancer is a divine caster with the usual d8 hit dice and medium BAB. In addition to a custom spell list the class  gains venom immunity, resist nature lure and an animal companion. The class also has a wide range of "buff" dances, with abilities like  granting spells to the participants, boosting combat abilities and other neat effects. My only quibble was the silly names Dance Evolution and at 20th level Prance Prance Revolution. Dated and silly aren't my cup of teaDespite the quirks this class makes me think how fun a group with one of this class, a Bard and a Basiran Dancer (from Kingdoms of Kalamar) would be. An adventuring dance troupe sounds really cool to me. I love it when a class suggests ideas to me.The Shade Summoner is a conjuration specialist (in this case Ghosts) class with a with Wheel of Time like madness track, a ghost familiar and a few spell like abilities. The class concept is pretty sound and I like the idea of a witch that is a dabbler with the dead. I am a little concerned about the Ghost template being added to summoned beings though.   Also the class makes the common mistake of balancing class abilities with role-playing limitations. In general it is not a good idea for game play reasons. I like the concept of this class but I suspect it is overpowered and I wonder of the class would have been better as a prestige class. The last core class is the Wyrd one which is a Shakespearean type Fate Witch with a huge array of divination based class abilities and some minor "luck" reroll powers. By and large even with the extra powers the class is pretty balanced especially compared to say a blast wizard. The flavor is also excellent and a I can easily imagine a covey of hags with class levels as a neat encounter.The only prestige class is a ten level prestige class that is rather fascinating even if it is not Witchy.The class gives full spell progression, 3 bonus meta magic feats and several abilities that reduce cost (and for spontaneous casters) time of meta magically enhanced spells and allow slots to be combined into a new slot with a slight penalty. This class look amazingly fun to play but frankly it concerns me a bit as a DM. The notion of medium level mages casting spells with multiple metamagic feats might be dreadful for game balance. Also the class fails the "everyone would want it" test. I can't think of many reasons a Sorcerer wouldn't take this class. That is not a feature a prestige class should have. D&D is after all about choice and trade offs and no class should be a automatic pick. Still in a higher powered game I would be tempted to try it, just becauseThe Baubles and Urus  like most of the other Baubles and Urus in this line they are fun little synergy items that have pretty much nothing to do with the theme.  They are  as follows Far Sight, Head Reduction, Holding, Regeneration, Blood Rage, Critical Fire and Elixirs.  If you think of them as bonus content they are pretty nice to have. The book closes with 3 appendixes, Sorcerer/Wizard Spells, Sun and Water Domain and familiars and the OGLAt the price of a magazine ($5)  Unorthodox Witches is a decent purchase especially for DM's who would rather stick close to the well understood Wizard class instead of a more custom classes in various books. If you want Witches, and are on a budget, grab this and the free Liber Mysterium and you would be set.</blockquote>

Verification