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Witch Circle Craft

by Andrew Theisen

Here are the major elements that I have thus far come up with for the Witch Circle Craft, along with other design notes for your feedback.

Witch
Description/Flavour Text goes here
Hit Die: d4

Requirements: To qualify as a wiccan, a character must fulfil all the following criteria:
Feats: Brew Potion, Scribe Scroll
Skills: Knowledge (arcana) 6 ranks, spellcraft 10 ranks, disguise 4 ranks
Spellcasting: Ability to cast arcane spells of 3rd level or higher.

TABLE X-X: THE WITCH

Level	BAB	Fort.	Ref.	Will	Special	Spellcasting
1	+0	+0	+0	+2	Brews and Philtres +2	+1 level of existing class
2	+1	+0	+0	+3	Silver Tongue +2	+1 level of existing class
3	+1	+1	+1	+3	Doll Curse	-
4	+2	+1	+1	+4	Brews and philtres +4, witches' charm	+1 level of existing class
5	+2	+1	+1	+4	Silver Tongue +4	+1 level of existing class
6	+3	+2	+2	+5	-	-
7	+3	+2	+2	+5	Brews and philtres +6	+1 level of existing class
8	+4	+2	+2	+6	Silver Tongue +6, Shape Change	+1 level of existing class
9	+4	+3	+3	+6	-	-
10	+5	+3	+3	+7	Ultimate Possession, brews and philtres +8	-

CLASS SKILLS
The witch's class skills (and the key ability for each) are Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (alchemy) (Int), Disguise (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Speak Language (Int), Spellcraft (Int), and Use Magic Device (Cha).
Skill Points at Each Level: 2 + Int modifier.

CLASS FEATURES
Weapon and Armour Proficiency: Witches gain no new proficiencies in either armour or weapons.
Brews and Philtres (Ex): A witch gains the listed number as a bonus to her Craft (alchemy) checks.
Silver Tongue (Ex): A witch learns to speak in a very persuasive manner, as long as her arguments remain plausible. The wiccan gains the listed number as a bonus to Bluff checks used to influence others. Additionally, use of the Bluff skill is a standard action rather than a full-round action when attempting to influence others. She must be able to speak the language of those whose attitudes she is attempting to affect.
Doll Curse (Ex): The witch is able to make a replica of a living creature he or she knows, and use it to cast spells upon the target even if separated by distance. She must have a piece of the creature (lock of hair, skin, etc.) or a personal item belonging to the creature in order to establish a connection. Using the doll, the witch can cast any spell that has a target of living creature upon the target, regardless of distance separating the witch and her victim; normal chances of avoiding the spell's effects (spell resistance, saving throws) still apply. Construction of the doll takes x amount of time and money.
Witches' Charm (Sp): Witch is affected as if casting a disguise self spell at will.
Spellbinding: Improved Familiar feat for free? Or second familiar, perhaps?
Witches' Curse (Sp): Bestow Curse spell-like ability, useable x times/day.
Shape Change: The wiccan gains the ability to cast shapechange x times/day.
Ultimate Possession (Sp): Gains ability to possess others as per possession in the Book of Vile Darkness. It only works on living creatures, and it only works like the Controller aspect.

Notes:

1) Doll Curse needs some work, though I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to tweak it. It definitely needs clarification, though.
2) Witches' Charm: I don't recall offhand how this works; I'll have to check it when I get home. In any case, it seems to me that it essentially enables the Witch to use the disguise self spell at will (though in the case of OD&D, this power only worked a certain number of times/day). Needs some clarification, perhaps spread its use over a period (such as 1/day at this level, increasing at later levels?)
3) Spellbinding, obviously, I'm not sure which way to go with it. I kind of like both ideas. Have to check the specifics of the ability when I get home though- it seems to me that it might be a bit different than my notes here imply.
4) This is a good example of an ability that should probably scale with level. The initial thought was that it would be just using the bestow curse spell as a spell-like ability, but it could either increase in potency and/or number of uses per day. I should check the Hexer base class in Complete Warrior for an idea of a similar concept.
5) Shapechange. Another idea of an ability that should scale. I think it should start at a lower level, similar to the druid, with increasing numbers of usage and abilities as the Witch gains levels. In particular, I was thinking that allowing the Witch the use of Wildshape (swarm) at this level of the Craft (to reflect the higher Circle) would be good- allow the witch to assume a cat or bat swarm form as one of her options.
6) Ultimate Possession- my notes above pretty much explain what I was thinking about going for here, but this ability definitely needs some clarification/change since the magic jar spell functions somewhat differently in 3E than it did in OD&D.

Anyway, I'll try and post some of the other Crafts that I've worked on for your perusal and input.

[EDIT] Just thought of something- 2 things, really.

1) IIRC, the Witch Craft mentioned something to the effect of the witch being able to cast spells directly out of a spellbook. I think I would like to reflect this with the Craft abilities (perhaps some of the "middle" levels) by allowing such a thing, though it would still use one of the witches spell slots for the day (IE, they would be swapping out a prepared spell in order to cast a spell out of their spellbook, the casting taking bump up to the next casting time as a result; i.e., a swift spell would be a standard action; a standard action spell would be a full-round action; etc.)

2) Not entirely sold on the Caster level progression as yet. I think I would have to see the overall abilities before I signed off, but I think this class is not so powerful as to limit it to a 5 level (or lower) progression, but that it should be on the higher end.