Way of the Witch

[Messageboard Golem]

Written by four of the best women writers in the game industry, including Jean Rabe, Janet Pack (of Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms fame), Christina Stiles and Megan Robertson, the "Way of the Witch" is filled from cover to cover with new spells, skills, feats and prestige classes.
Delve deeper into the way of the witch with group casting rules and spells, while increasing your knowledge on the background of witch types and covens.

Cast a deadly spell this August with "Way of the Witch"

 

[Messageboard Golem]

The Way of the Witch is a 108 page, black and white hardcover book from Citizen Games. It details the Witch core class, five prestige classes, along with spells, rituals, organizations, ways of the witch, and witch-themed adventure ideas. The text is small, dense, with small margins. Very little space is wasted.

Also of note is the fact that this book was written exclusively by women, I fact I found interesting.

This book has nine chapters and a glossary. As far as I'm aware, it is all Closed Gaming Content, though it makes use of some OGC from other sources.

Chapter One: Introduction

This introduction is written from the point of view of a bard named Mirelle. On a mission to Myrra (Citizen Game's default world), she was to study witches for her employer. What follows in the introduction is her some of her account.

It includes the origin story of the witches. It could clash with established origin myths of any campaign, though it could be hammered to fit. Essentially what it boils down to is that witches get their power from their Goddess and worship the Goddess and the God. They have ties to nature and the moon. It also explains about different colors (philosophies) of witches as well as covens. It's well fleshed-out, but could be problematic for DMs who want to incorporate witches into their own world. However, as witches are presented in lore as often having a "heretical" religion, one could easily say they worship extremely ancient gods or forces of nature old beyond reckoning. The rest of the chapter is pure flavor text from Mirelle's journey to Myrra.

Chapter Two: Witch Classes

The witch core class is one that rather defies expectations. When I see a newly made core class, you can often pigeonhole it by calling it a "divine sorcerer" or a "barbarian monk" or some sort. Many core classes are simply streamlined multiclasses or modifications from existing core classes. I tried to find some parallels in the witch class and was thwarted at every turn.

The witch is a divine spellcaster (spells based on Wis), but casts spontaneously with spells known like a sorcerer. She has decent (clerical) hit dice, reasonable (bardish) skill points, and a decent class skill selection. However, she is only proficient with light armor and can only use simple weapons. All good and neutral witches follow the Witches Code, the Threefold law. It states that everything a witch does, for good or ill, returns threefold to her within her lifetime. Using directly damaging spells or other such things can force a roll on the Bad Karma table, with results ranging from penalties on attacks and skill checks to total loss of all witch powers. Using her powers in a particularly selfless manner can gain a roll on the Good Karma table, with results ranging from bonuses to saving throws to a permanent Wisdom boost. The DM determines when to roll, so a witch never knows when her past will come back to haunt or help her. Note that this code to "harm no one" doesn't prevent a witch from laying the smack down on demons, devils, or things that have an "Always Evil" alignment. However, if she makes a mistake, she'll pay for it.

One thing the witch class has that adds an element of high fantasy to the class is Iron Susceptibility. Iron weapons do more damage to a witch, and can cause the temporary loss of her powers. Perhaps a DM playing with witches in his/her campaign might want to add this onto the fey in his/her world. I think it would show the witch's connection to nature if they shared the same vulnerabilities as the fey. But that's just me. She also has a connection to her spellbook/journal, called the Book of Shadows, another classic witch theme. Being too far apart from this book hurts her magic and destruction causes problems with her magic.

The witch can make fetishes (like scrolls, but they look different), combine her magic with others for a more potent effect, and even attract things to her or affect future events (this requires a skill check, DC set by the DM, and can only be used a limited number of times per week). She also gains a familiar, though a witch's familiar (or familiars) is more versatile than a wizard or sorcerer's. She also gains a few druid-ish abilities, and can perform something called Circle Magic (protection magic) a certain number of times per day.

This class is very unique, and I was fairly impressed with it. The more powerful familiars (and the addition of certain spells on her spell list) make up for the near complete lack of the more heavy hitting combat spells. With a witch's vulnerability to iron, the front line is the last place she should be. Her role would be one of support, offering healing, protecting others, or summoning creatures to defend her from something that has attacked her first. In many respects, she's like a cleric or druid.

While having combative ability and saves nearly identical to a cleric, it's very unlikely that a witch will ever be in direct combat. As a matter of fact, if I were playing a witch, I'd be as far away from the front line as my spells would allow. You could probably safely reduce the hit dice or BAB for this class and it wouldn't be missed. The witch's power relies in her spells, familiar(s), and animal companions.

Next in this chapter are five witch PrCs. In many places in this book they speak of witches with the same "color." These PrCs provide game mechanics for these philosophies. The first is the black witch, or evil witch. By giving their soul to Ca'di-us (evil goddess) by way of the Soulless feat, black witches are not subject to the Threefold Law and can cast damaging spells with impunity. They gain the abilities to create darkness, cast additional inflict spells, cast harm, drain levels, and cast the highly damaging spells arcane casters are noted for. This class reminds me of the PrCs in the Book of Vile Darkness, very powerful, for the price of your soul. However, PrC designers take note; do not include iterative attacks in PrC. A PC has to calculate them from his prior classes, so don't bother putting them on the chart.

The second is the brown witch, which very much resembles a druid. They are called the "Keepers of Nature." They gain a passel of druid abilities, along with some other nature-related abilities.

The third is the gray witch, or the "Keepers of Justice." They're the police of the witch world, settling disputes and delivering justice. They are always neutral and the only ones aside from black witches not subject to the Threefold Law. They have several abilities related to their profession, like detecting lies, ability to cast atonement, or strip a witch of her powers or even destroy her with a word. However, they have taken vows of both poverty and fairness, and must never stray from lawful neutral alignment.

The fourth is the vitke, those who protect the coven from attacks both mundane and magical. She has a good BAB, and is even proficient with a sword, though her armor is no better than before. She gains spirit armor (kind of like mage armor), a special sword, can see into other planes, and gains damage reduction. She also continues to advance in spellcasting, or oddly enough, can begin advancing as a psion (or add to psionic levels if multiclassed). However, since one must know 4th level witch spells as part of the prereqs, I'm not sure why one would start over as a psion, unless she just wanted some more damaging powers for sticky situations.

The fifth is the white witch, healers and doers of good. What they gain is multiple spell-like abilities with several healing spells. There are no unique abilities, and despite the greater healing capacity, I found it rather boring.

I personally found all the PrCs overpowered. They have very low prereqs, all have the same or better hit dice and BAB, the same saves, and all have full spellcasting progression. There is no reason for a witch to not take one of these PrCs as soon as she has the requirements. I could understand why the PrCs would be more common among witches, as the "color" of a witch seems to be very important throughout the book. But I wish that if the designers had intended this to be that way, they would had made a note of it.

Chapter Three: Witch Skills and Feats

This details 10 new skills or uses for skills. Most d20 books have shied away from creating new skills as they usually overlap the existing skills and thus serve no purpose. However, I think there are some skills in here that work well for the witch class if nowhere else. Interestingly the Conceal skill, which works like Hide, but only for very small objects hidden on one's person, is not a class skill for the witch class or any of the PrCs.

Other skills include Detect Familiar - telling a familiar or animal companion for what it really is. I think this may have worked better as a spell, but as witches are just supposed to know this kind of stuff, it works. Detect Taint lets you tell if something has been poisoned. An Alchemy check may do just as well, but there you have it. Harvest is the only one I really have a beef about, as it lets you find herbs for a task. Wilderness Lore covers this and it's a class skill for witches. There are two new Knowledge areas, divination and witchcraft. Divination lets you get some bonuses to scry checks, but I would have liked to seen this expanded some more. Witchcraft is just like arcana, it lets you remember little tidbits from your field.

In includes a new use for Perform (bonuses to certain skills after Performing for a period of time) and a new Profession (seamstress) for sewing outfits. Ride Broom is included as an addendum to the Ride skill. The last one is Ritual, which is like a witch's Spellcraft (though she has this class skill too). Ritual allows her to do truly witchy things like combine her magic with the earth or cast spells unknown to her.

Next are the feats, of which there are thirty. Three are OGC from the Shaman's Handbook from Green Ronin. One of them is Animal Friend, which lets you gain animal companions. However, as animal friendship is on the witch's spell list, I'm uncertain of the usefulness of this feat. While it's a general feat, it basically acts like the spell. The prereqs mention nothing about having casting levels, only ranks in Animal Empathy. As the animal friendship spell is based on caster level, this is utterly useless if you don't have caster levels. While it might be a nice addition for a wizard or something, this feat is badly explained and at first glance, either overpowered or pointless.

Several of the feats give magical abilities, something to watch out for. One allows to see in magical darkness. While only available to witches, there are few cases where one wouldn't take this feat, especially because if you're willing to burn an extra feat or two, you can grant this ability to your familiar(s). The Blight feat lets someone kill plants. I have seen this ability in the lore of witches, that some could wither plants with a touch, and while I'm wary, it's not overly powerful. Besides, few aside from black witches should be taking this feat anyway.

You have your ubiquitous Brew Poison feat, as no one's made one OGC by now, so we have another one. It gives a nice table about the kinds of poisons one can brew (nearly all are real life ones, like snake poison or arsenic) at each level, along with GP cost, brewing DC, and damage. There are three crafting feats (candles, charms, and fetishes), as well as several feats that assist you against witches of opposing colors or help you when fighting with your coven or witches of the same color. There are a few feats to help your familiars, and even one to help you cope with the loss of your familiar (I'd limit this to evil or black witches, it seems heartless to simply have your familiars die then just go "ho hum" and summon another). The feat Multiple familiars allows a witch to have familiars equal to her level, though more powerful familiars require more "slots." However, it does cost XP and gold to bind additional familiars. I think any witch would be a fool to pass this one up, as her familiars are her greatest and sometimes only means of protecting herself adequately. There are a few feats relating to telling the future or the past or even the weather.

There's one feat that's actually a series of feats. By joining a specific witch's organization, one gains certain powers. However, not all are equal. Two give a witch access to bonus domain spells like a cleric, so DMs should be wary about allowing these feats.

Chapter Four: Witch Magic

This contains new witch spells, along with circle magic, ritual magic, combined magic, true rituals, fetishes, charms, and witch's broomsticks. The witch spell list is for the most part, extremely defensive. They contain mostly Enchantments, healing spells, a few druid spells (tree shape, etc), Divinations, and a few buffing spells. They also have both every Summon Monster and Summon Nature's Ally spell on the list, which is one of their only strengths. The new spells are mostly protective ones.

Circle Magic is essentially a list of protective spells a witch can cast. In includes ones like Magic Circle Against Good/Evil/Chaos/Law/Spirits (from Shaman's Handbooks again), the Wall spells (ice, fire, thorns, etc.), along with a few others (circle of protection from arrows, negative energy protection, etc.)

One thing a witch can do it combine her magic. By casting with her coven or witches of the same color, she can raise her effective caster level (pending a successful Ritual check). If she doesn't have any coven or other witches to cast with, she can combine with Nature itself to give her spells a similar boost. Also, witches can attempt (collectively) to cast spells unknown to them or of a level too high for them to cast. Casting in any of these ways is time-consuming, and dangerous if interrupted. Simply failing the Ritual check is painful. The backlash from being interrupted can be worse than that, even up to temporarily or permanently losing her abilities.

True Rituals are potent magics with a required number of participants. All require XP to be sacrificed. It can accomplish things like summoning the God or Goddess, protecting the casters from harm, or restoring the land to health. Much of this is like the rituals of Relics and Rituals (this is mentioned).

Fetishes and Charms are more fully explained; basically one is a scroll and the other a potion, though they can have different forms. Also explained is the witch’s broomstick. While she imbues it with her own spirit, to make it into a proper witch's broom (with the ability to fly), she'd have to find a friendly wizard to cast the appropriate spells.

Chapter Five: Candle Magic

The beginning of the chapter is a bit of flavor text from Mirelle, explaining how magic candles are made. While it has nothing to do with game mechanics, it offers a nice little tidbit of general info. Such things are sprinkled throughout the book.

Each color of candle has a typical purpose, and burning one of them during casting will enhance certain effects. However, this increasing the casting time dramatically, so it's best if it's done in a non-combat situation. In addition, there are also spells one can put into a candle, everything from an anti-magic candle to a candle to attract one's true love. I found this very cool and very much in keeping with the witch tradition.

Chapter Six: Familiars

When a witch summons a familiar, she doesn't get to chose what kind of animal shows up, unless she makes a special effort to search out a particular type of animal. For witches with the Multiple Familiar feat, other animals can be called that require more slots. They can even call a gargoyle or a gryphon! Also, several new animals are presented, from a large rat, to a hart, to a tree dwelling snail/snake, to three-horned tiny deer.

Also, witch familiars can be more personalized. Instead of gaining all the typical attendant abilities of a familiar (aside from natural armor, and Int and Wis increases), they have familiar feats. Some of the feats are the ability to deliver touch spells for the witch or share spells cast on her. Others are more powerful, including the ability to cast arcane spells, store spells, use psionics, go invisible, travel to the astral plane, or combine their magic with their witch's. A witch's familiar is, on the whole, more powerful than a wizard's familiar, but to be honest, she needs a more powerful familiar. But I might be wary about allowing a gryphon or gargoyle. But that's just me.

Chapter Seven: The Ways of the Witches

This chapter is told from Mirelle's point of view, as she is making her report on the habits of witches. It gives a full listing of witch rank names in the coven as well as coven organization. It mentions about how music is used in rituals, witches that marry, legends of the moon goddess, greetings and common phrases, garment making and garb (witches make their own ritual clothing), sacred holidays, accoutrements, and dressing for the weave. This chapter is full of nice little tidbits for fleshing out your witch.

Chapter Eight: Witch Organizations (Gatherings)

This has all the organizations mentioned in the Witch Organization feat in Chapter Three. There's your typical evil organization run by black witches (Circle of Shadows), those witches with an affiliation for plants (Garden Retreat), well-schooled witched (Nyla-Kon's Natatorium), and very rich witches (Highborn), along with several others. All offer opportunities for adventurers to either come in conflict with or work with.

Chapter Nine: Witch Adventure Ideas

Adventure ideas here include one for a brown witch trying to save a dying woodlands (as a twist, their own power is weakened as a result of the forest's destruction, so they have powerful incentive to get to the bottom on this), a witch with a group of adventurers protecting young witch students on a field trip, but all is not as it seems, and a rescue mission that must be completed to avert disaster to the region. All ideas are well laid out, and gives an idea about what witches are capable of in an adventuring party.

This chapter finishes off with 6 sample characters, complete with history, appearance, and personality, ready to be a PC or an NPC as the DM needs.

The book rounds off with a short glossary of typical witch terms (which can help your character sound more authentic).

A word on the art. While the authors are all female, the sole artist is male. The huge majority of the pictures are scantily clad or clingingly clad women casting spells or engaged in rituals. While I'm used to the soft-porn pictures of much of the RPG industry, I was hoping against hope to have a few more ordinary women in these pages. Perhaps one in adventuring garb? One that doesn't show most of her body? Just a thought. Despite the typical subject matter, the art is overall quite good.

Overall this book is full of highly detailed information. I found it to be well connected with the lore of the witch, as well as reasonably balanced at first glance. Some parts need some tweaking, and the PrCs need some serious ironing out, but overall I was very pleased with the book.

 

[trancejeremy]

"I was hoping against hope to have a few more ordinary women in these pages. Perhaps one in adventuring garb? One that doesn't show most of her body? Just a thought. Despite the typical subject matter, the art is overall quite good."

I hope it's not like the Mongoose book, which besides that, also picture witches in what can only be described as lingerie. That was pretty ridiculous.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Nope, not like the Mongoose books, thank goodness. There are scantily clad women, but no more scanty than say the cover of Dragon #280, Ember, or Mialee.

 

[Khur]

D&D spellcasting classes lack a solid underpinning in the cultures of differing campaign settings. Take the druid. Such a character seems to have a love of nature, and therefore nature's support. Yet, how does an elven druid differ from a halfling one? How does the druid actually acquire power for spells? Is it an intimate connection with nature itself or a connection to the divine rulers of nature? Well, the creators of Way of the Witch have endeavored to craft a supplement about a unique group of spellcasters, which remains distinctive through answering many such specific questions. It's the value to gaming of this in-depth approach, among other things, that this review explores.

The book is well written for the most part, especially in the narrative sections. This isn't surprising, since two novelists are on the author list. Even more exciting is the fact that all of the authors are female, a refreshing change from the male dominated world of gaming. The only problem with this multi-authored approach seems to be that the narrative text doesn't always match the expository text, which in turn doesn't always match the mechanics presented. For a quick example, the bard Mirelle (a character in the narrative) has witchy tendencies, and on the way to meet her first real witch, she "finds" her familiar (a wolf named Kyy). This "finding" runs counter to the ritual required by the mechanics (right out of the Player's Handbook), and would require Mirelle to have the Multiple Familiars feat (which she couldn't), due to the power of a wolf familiar. The most unfortunate fact here is that the alternative presented in the narrative is usually more interesting.

Way of the Witch's layout, though flawed in spots like the writing, is striking. In fact, it's one of the more attractive d20 products I've seen. Though some may lament the small type, this reader finds it beautiful. The 8-point face used for most of the body text also means the page count belies the actual amount of content, which must easily be over 100,000 words. Illustrations strengthen the latter point; while skillfully rendered by the sure hand of Thomas Denmark (sure to be sought after as an artist with the release of Dungeoneer), they are sparse. It's just too bad these drawings say so little, for most are simply the heads or posed figures of attractive women.

Though the art doesn't make this clear, it must be pointed out that the witches of Myrra are heavily based on the neo-pagan tradition of Wicca. Those familiar with this latter religion will recognize instantly customs and important aspects of the faith woven into this work. (In fact, the book is of high value to anyone wanting to incorporate such theology into a d20 campaign.) There's the idea of the consequences one's actions returning for good or ill (Threefold Law), a singular rule (do what you will, but harm none), creation of a "Book of Shadows", pentacles and candles, and the favoring of female practitioners and of feminine divine energies. All of this serves as a good and solid foundation for Way of the Witch, but the book builds on and diverges from this framework in interesting ways.

The witch is rendered as replacement core class with twenty levels. Endowed with a cleric's base attack progression and a suite of very nice abilities, if anything the witch is still underpowered due to built-in weaknesses. Iron susceptibility (more damage and a chance to lose spell abilities when struck), and the effects of the Threefold Law, serve to make it so witches must tread warily. While the former vulnerability is obviously derivative of fairy folklore, it seems odd for a group of beings so tied to the earth (is not iron of the earth?). This doesn't make the class bad at all, just harder to play (sic more fascinating and unique).

What makes up for the witch's overt weaknesses are powerful alternate magic systems like Circle Magic, Candle Magic, and True Rituals. Circle magic is where the defensive and nurturing nature of the good witch really becomes apparent. While a first-class attempt, it would have worked better if these abilities were created as typical d20 spells, instead of a specialized kind. Candle magic is equally appealing, and it's balanced by requiring the witch to have the Candle Magic feat. Some witch spells require candles as material components, which is nice. Unfortunately, it's not clear if the candles used as the focus of the spell have any other effect (like caster level bonuses). There are also some discrepancies between different parts of the book as to what specific candles do.

Ritual magic seems essential to the flavor of the witch, since covens play an integral part in the vocation. Covens can engage in ritual casting of regular spells (known and unknown), as well as spells that require ritual casting (based on a system in Sword & Sorcery's Relics & Rituals). However, the rules are too complex and result (unnecessarily) in great danger, especially to low-level witches partaking in a powerful work. Typical of d20 products, experience and monetary costs are utilized as a balancing factor, and (as usual) badly. For example, a simple Marriage Ritual costs 100 gold (even though this is in food and goods, it's a bit much for peasants or other lowly figures) and each caster must pay 10 XP (though the effects of the ritual do not improve if there are more casters). Such shortcomings are common in the rituals presented (and rituals in Relics & Rituals).

Like alternate magic systems (but less mechanical in nature), the karmic Threefold Law is both a welcome piece of color, a great effort at quantifying the metaphysical, and a disappointment. The rules governing the use of witch powers dictate that none may use the power to harm others, and the ramifications of doing so have clear in-game effects (such as bad luck and temporary or permanent loss of power). Yet, these rules lack regard for intent; that is, the fact that seemingly similar actions might be taken for very different reasons. The only way in which the Threefold Law does seem to apply intent is through saying a witch is not punished for harming creatures that are "always evil" per the Monster Manual. Strangely, the same law seems not to apply to how witches actually treat others (including their own kind, noting passages suggesting jealousy and rudeness), only to how magic is used. One supposes a DM is left to adjudicate when a breach really occurs. Even more peculiar, though, some prestige classes are not subject to the Threefold Law.

The prestige classes themselves seem very carefully constructed and add a lot to the culture of Myrra's witches. At first glance, one might suspect that some of the powers are too strong or come too early in the class advancement. On analysis, however, only one of the class abilities comes more than a level earlier than a counterpart from another class might be able to cast the given spell or have the same ability. In order to progress to full power in a prestige class, a witch must forgo the more potent core witch abilities. Since prestige class abilities are restricted in use by times per day, and some by other cultural ideals (such as having to commune with the Goddess before using a power), there are few problems.

Troubling issues mainly fall in the overwhelming power of destruction black witches wield and some issues with their opposites, the white witches. The ability of the black witch to deal out devastating attacks is heavy-handed and ripe for abuse should the class ever be used for a player character. That the class will be used for villains in heroic campaigns is not a defense; a level is a level for an NPC or a PC. Less skewed are the white witch's powers to heal. The problem lies not with the fact the white can heal so well, having access to powers her fellow witches can never develop. There's only the minor fact that a white witch gains the heal spell two levels before a cleric could cast the spell and three levels before any other witch could (if they could at all).

The vitke prestige class is arguably too powerful, though restricted in behavior, gaining witch spells at every level, two good saving throws, and a fighter base attack progression. Further, the witch guardian has access to a special ability at almost every level and a potent magical weapon. Of course, this class largely falls within the realm of NPCs, since the "Defender's Code" is so prohibitive.

There are also concerns with some of the skills provided in Way of the Witch. Four out of ten of the "new" skills fit arguably within the demesne of existing core skills. Conceal is part of Pick Pocket, Harvest is Profession (herbalist), Detect Taint falls into one of many skills that might be used to detect poison (Alchemy, Craft (poisons), Heal, Knowledge (poison)), and Detect Familiar would've found a better place as part of the Spellcraft skill. Knowledge (divination) is a new skill and could be out of the ordinary, only it has no clear game effect except when combined with feats.

The feats themselves fair better. Most provide major benefits, while some others are additionally great for flavor. On the other hand, a few feats should be spells or class abilities (Blight, Witch Sense--especially noting this latter abilty's use in the narrative), fall under skill usage (Brew Poison), or have other weaknesses. Great additions to the field of feats come in folklore-based item creation abilities (Craft Charmes (spelling from the book) and Craft Fetish), which have been missing from D&D all along. Equally significant are feats that provide benefits due to organizational membership.

Another noteworthy part of Way of the Witch is the way in which familiars are handled (and here is a section where more diverse art would have been welcome). Creating a familiar for a witch is more like creating another character; each familiar is unique, despite similar species. Unlike the familiar of a sorcerer or wizard, witch familiars get only a few defined abilities, accessing special familiar feats for their other talents. A system for gaining the services of a more powerful creature as a familiar is also presented, which seems to work well by basing the acquisition of more (or more impressive) familiars on the witch's level and a her possession of the Multiple Familiars feat. Though I'm not a fan of the familiar as a class ability, with these rules I could become one.

Way of the Witch has excellent depth of this sort throughout, but it does fall short in a few ways. First of all, the book mentions holy days for witches in passing (Beltane and Samhain), but never really explains what and when these days are. Sacred sites and places of power are also mentioned, but only described shallowly. While it's fine to have a several pages dedicated to narrative on coven hierarchy, seven on witch organizations specific to Myrra, and more than a page solely used for witch clothing habits, these uses of space seem imbalanced when other aspects of the culture are left out completely.

Similarly, the book's sample characters are good, but the space consumed by their inclusion is overmuch, simply because of the way the statistics are presented. These stats appear complete (besides lack of CRs), but the presentation conforms to no standard in the d20 industry. It would have been better to have the stats in Chronicle block format (as appears in Dungeon magazine) or D&D standard format (as presented in the DMG). This is especially true considering the lack of some witch information in the book, about which I complained above, and the general usefulness of some of these characters. (One is a great and frightening villain, while the others are more limited in scope.)

One other notable (if minor) foible in Way of the Witch is the lack of delineation of OGC. While one could assume, given Citizen Games' track record, that this book is all open (besides the narratives, art, and graphic design), there's no indication that this is so. Hopefully, all will be made clear on the Citizen Games website or in future printings (if any).

All told, Way of the Witch is a successful venture, but nowhere near as good as Sidewinder (in any way). Where it falters, a creative DM can provide the necessary parts, especially if that DM is versed on real-world or mythological witchery. The profundity of the work is such that witches can be a cultural force in a fantasy campaign, even standing alone as the only spellcasting class. This book is one to give a go, in addition to (or instead of), more generic books. In contrast to what some d20 companies seem to think, specific ideas and creations with life and culture are functional for gamers. Way of the Witch is excellent proof.

(3.75,

This review was originally written for Gaming Frontiers on 02/11/03.