Witch familiar and spell swapping

[Nikosandros]

The witch from HoFW can swap, after each extended rest, a daily attack power or a utility power. Since the rules mention no restriction, I'm assuming that you can choose any other power (provided that it is of the same level).

How do you handle that in practice? The player needs to have on hand the description of a huge quantity of powers. If you use power cards or something similar, it can become a bit of a hassle...

 

[I'm A Banana]

In practice, I would probably default to letting them swap out the powers, as long as it didn't eat up too much table-time. Yes, you can essentially have a Heisenberg's Spell, where that might mean you have "a daily" prepared that you don't know what it is until you use it. I'm generally fine with that, as I trust my players.

If I was to be inventive, though, I might make the familiar themselves have some input: "Today I will teach you Spell X. Want spell Y? I'm afraid you're not ready for that yet..."

Or maybe re-introduce the old "roll to learn a spell" mechanics, so if they fail, they might not get to swap the spell they want.

But that's mostly just screwing with the system for flavor. Since 4e is pretty fragile about that, I'd just let them pick a spell, as long as it didn't hold up the game. If you don't have access to 2 or 3 powers that you might want instead, I'm not going to pause the action while you look them up. Come prepared -- including swaps that you might want.

 

[OnlineDM]

Spellcasters in older editions have this issue all the time, don't they? There's a class spell list, or perhaps a spellbook with tons of spells in it, and the spellcaster has to decide what to prepare each day.

This is a class option that really only works for a motivated player. That player will probably want to assemble a spell list on their own, or carry around books if they prefer, or have access to the online Compendium. If they use spell cards at the table, then they'll need to print out the cards for any spell they think they might want. More realistically, they should have a "level 1 daily" card, a "level 5 daily" card, etc. and then keep track of what spell the card represents separately (written down in pencil on their character sheet, perhaps).

A player who doesn't want to do all of this will probably have a single default spell prepared for each slot, and if they get into a situation where they want to change something for the future, they can do so on a one-off basis.

 

[Drammattex]

Truth be told, my one big reservation in designing the class was the dread that the game would grind to a halt while someone flipped through a dozen rulebooks trying to optimize a power.

In practice, it's mean to be more like: the characters learn some info about the next big challenge they'll be facing. The witch calls his/her familiar and says "I need your help for what I'm about to face." The familiar aids the witch in preparing that spell, combining the right ingredients, finding the right components, perfecting the correct incantations and gestures. Now the witch knows how to cast that fire spell against the ice monsters, or has that charm prepared against the nobleman or bandit king he/she must beguile. Et cetera.

So, hopefully, the witch uses that ability in conjunction with augury in order to prepare for a known or anticipated challenge. The witch casts his/her runes, looks into his/her mirror of seeing, places his/her tarot cards, and sees the nature of things to come... and then consorts with his/her familiar to prepare for them.

That said, I really like Kamikaze Midget's idea.

 

[mneme]

Frankly, it's nothing to the nonsense that is the Soul of the World ED U26. I mean...once per day, when you hit 0, heal to bloodied, gain an additional use of Memory and gain your pick of:

A race to get a Racial encounter power from.
A class to get a U22 from.

Talk about AP (er, sorry, Analysis Paralysis)! The racial power is hard enough (but at least there are only 55 racial powers -- if you decide they only mean racial powers without a level [it goes up in power -- and in choices up to 75 powers if you allow -any- racial power]) -- but there are 262 class powers at level 22. Have fun choosing one! (and on top of that, at level 30 you get to switch an encounter power for any encounter attack power in the game during every short rest!)