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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2009921" data-attributes="member: 18387">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.</blockquote>

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