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Message: <blockquote data-quote="StreamOfTheSky" data-source="post: 5706272" data-attributes="member: 35909">Hexes <img src="http://mkc.planet.ee/pics/stills/mkc1/MKC/CAP469.JPG" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> "What?  Were you expecting an old hag?"One important thing to note before we begin: unless it states otherwise, hexes do not provoke attacks of opportunity.  Being specific to hexes, this overrides the more general rule of spell-like abilities provoking, so keep that in mind.[sblock]<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Blight: We begin with a stinker.  This is for NPC villains, and frankly, even they could do much better than this.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cackle: May as well call it “Crack-le,” cause once you get some hexes up, you’ll be addicted to this like…well, you know.  Obviously this is useless without having any of the agony, charm, evil eye, fortune, or misfortune hexes first.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cauldron: It’s a mediocre feat and a decent skill buff.  I’m not clear on if you need to buy an actual cauldron to benefit from this hex or its offspring’s, and if so if you gain one for free by taking this hex.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Beast of Ill-Omen: It’s…an sort of at-will Bane ability, except trickier to use.  I’d look for better stuff and keep my living spell book far out of harm’s way.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Charm: This is incredibly limited in target selection, benefit, AND duration!  Normal charm spells last hours this requires constant evil laughter just to keep up for rounds!  Pass on this.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Child Scent: This is beyond terrible.  They could’ve at least given the Scent a 1 mile range like a shark has to make up for how incredibly super limited it is.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Coven: Bleh.  Doesn’t help you find or ingratiate yourself with other hags by RAW, and I’m skeptical of how that’d work out when you’re part of an adventuring party.  Yet another weak sauce hex meant for NPC villains who get off on being ineffectual.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Disguise: This would be really awesome if the Hat of Disguise didn’t already exist.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Evil Eye: This is supposed to be the “work horse” debuffing hex, though after the first few levels when you’re not horrifically short on spells I question its value in the action economy.  Still a nice ability at low levels, at least.  Best use is probably to lower saves, though hurting the target’s attacks or AC is helpful to the party, too.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Feral Speech: Depending on campaign, this could actually be really useful.  It appears to be unlimited usage per day, though the part about needing to decide what type of creature to talk to muddies things.  I suppose it just means you can’t converse with lots of different animals simultaneously like Dr. Doolittle?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Flight: Hell yes!  Flight that can’t be dispelled is always a good choice!  You also get feather fall at will and levitate once/day.  Every Witch should take this.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Fortune: Simply put, this is not worth using for only 1 round.  If you use this on an ally, you’re going to need to keep it up with cackles for it to have been worth initiating in the first place.  The DM will probably throw a book at you for it, but technically it seems like you could just cackle incessantly to keep fortune going on an ally or allies between combats.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Healing: Nice at very early levels, though it quickly becomes worthless for in combat healing and barely superior to a CLW wand for out of combat healing.  Can be used to hurt undead, too.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Misfortune: A save negates this hex.  If you’re relying on the target to fail a save, just throw an actual save or lose at him to begin with.  Still a decent choice, just disappointing.  Gets better in games with critical fumble rules.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Nails: Ok, this isn’t even villainous, just worthless.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Poison Steep: Great for NPC villains, for PCs it seems like too much effort to me.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Prehensile Hair: Has some utility use, but it’s very borderline between average and subpar.  Assuming you can use it to strangle people with your pubic hair pushed it over the edge to green for me.  Arbane noted this can also be used to deliver touch spells from reach.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Scar: This was originally just more villain crap, but Sean K. Reynolds slipped in a <a href="http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fz#v5748eaic9oaw" target="_blank">stealth buff</a>: "Fourth, the hex could benefit from a mechanical boost. Therefore, scarring a creature with the hex has two benefits: the witch can use any of her hexes on that creature at a range of up to one mile, and the witch is considered to have a body part from the target for the purpose of scry and similar divinations."  This makes Scar utterly amazing for buffing Witches and for scrying antics!</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Slumber: THE #1 reason to be a Witch!  Sleep pretty much at will, as a standard action, no SR, and ignores HD!  It can’t get much more awesome than that.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Swamp Hag: Too small a benefit and too unlikely to come up much.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Tongues: Never have to deal with language barriers ever again!  Shame you likely dumped charisma.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Unnerve Beasts: As hilarious as it would be to use on a Druid, I really can’t recommend this.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ward: At higher levels this is garbage (due to the bonus types), but this is a great buff at the early levels that you can put up before combat.  Put it on the tank to make him feel overconfident enough to stand between you and all those nasty monsters.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Water Lung: Obviously this is worthless if the campaign never goes near the water.  When it can be helpful, though, wow is it useful!  A level 1 party could do a deep sea diving adventure (at a very slow pace, granted) if the witch has this hex, that’s really impressive.</li> </ul>[/sblock]Major HexesAvailable starting at level 10.[sblock]<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Agony: It allows a save to end the effect every single round.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Beast Eye: Potentially a cheap method of scrying and without error chance.  What happens if some of the animals in your “chain” move further than 100 ft apart after you’ve jumped between them but are still viewing?  Check with your DM.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cook People: The spell effects are rather minor, but who can say no to some good old fashioned home cooking?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Hag’s Eye: Arcane Eye is an alright spell to have some use of.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Hidden Home: I suspect this has its uses, and would be happy to upgrade my ranking if I could be provided some ideas.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Hoarfrost: Not only does it take many minutes to actually kill the target, they get a new save each minute to end it.  This is simply impractical for a PC to use.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ice Tomb: I really wish I knew how this worked, I have so many questions and it’s hard to rate without a clearer picture.  What range is this?  Does resisting all the cold damage avoid the encasement (since it’s fort, not reflex, and the text only requires failing the save, I assume not)?  Are creatures immune to being paralyzed still paralyzed since it’s due to being covered in ice?  What if the creature has Freedom of Movement active?  Can you attack creatures trapped in the ice, or is it a large solid block?  How hard is it to destroy the ice?  And more!  Seriously, this thing needs errata badly.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Infected Wounds: If you haven’t figured it out by now, PCs should not use offenses that work over the course of hours or in this case, days.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Major Healing: Gives you a slightly stronger attack against the undead.  I don't think this cuts it for in combat healing at this point, but others disagree.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Nightmares: Maybe Witch is meant to be an NPC class…</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Retribution: This can easily shut down a melee brute.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Speak in Dreams: Eh, I’d rather just use Sending or something.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Vision: Take all the DM fiat-dependence of typical divinations and add “how soon before I can buff him with it again?” to that.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Waxen Image: While impractical, at least this hex is cool, yet impractical.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Weather Control: It’s a 7th level spell effect, but one you have on your spell list anyway.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Witch’s Brew:  Faster crafting of potions is not worth a major hex.</li> </ul>[/sblock]Grand HexesAvailable starting at level 18.[sblock]<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Death Curse: Giving people heart attacks is just so stylish.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dire Prophecy:  There are much nastier things you can do to someone that fails a will save.  Like giving him a heart attack.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Eternal Slumber: Still good, but much worse than Slumber was, relative to the level you can obtain it.  Many things will be immune to sleep magic by now, and needing to get into melee touch range is a turn-off.  Still, in the cases where it can work, it’s a single save or die, instead of needing 2+ like most hexes.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Forced Reincarnation: While it's still very random and can come back to bite you, several benefits have been pointed out to me that make this the best grand hex.  At the least, this is a debuff for 2 negative levels and loss of 50% of unused spell slots for the day.  My friend also noted that on technicality, this royally screws over dragons, whose power is based on age category, and for whom, being in a "new young adult body" (Young Adult age category) can be a MAJOR nerf.  Generally when using this on non-humanoids, this is better to use on the more powerful members of a creature type, and to be avoided on the weaker ones.  For example, this could turn a Storm Giant into a Hill Giant...but it could also turn a Hill Giant into a Storm Giant.  This hex also is a hilarious way to “cure” someone’s cold.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Life Giver: Unless characters are frequently dying, the money this might save the party isn’t worth a high level class feature.  On the other hand, with this hex, you're practically immune to losing your spells due to familiar death.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Natural Disaster: Decent if you can avoid getting hit and losing concentration.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Summon Spirit: I’m not a fan of the planar binding spells, and this carries an extra cost to it – the negative level.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Witch’s Hut: I…uh…what is this for?  Anyone?</li> </ul>[/sblock]In conclusion, there is a tremendous amount of trash in the hex choices, but probably enough good options to to fill up your selections from 1-20.  Extra Hex is a decent option for the early hexes, but it's mostly dissapointment in the major and grand hex lists.  The "witches are bad" vibe seems to have gotten way too much of an emphasis in the class design, at least a third of the hexes seem like they were designed for the villain of the week.</blockquote>

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