Base Requirements

• Races: Any (Female only)
• Sub-Classes: Specialist (see below)
• Ability Requirements: Knowledge 13, Intuition 13, Appearance 13
• Alignments: Non-Chaotic
• Starting Cash: By class

Weapon Proficiencies

• Weapon Slots: None
• Bonus Weapon Proficiencies: none
• Required Weapon Proficiencies: none
• Allowed Weapons: None
• Allowed Armors: By class

Non-Weapon Proficiencies:

• Non-weapon Slots: By class
• Available Categories: By class, plus Pastoral
• Bonus Non-weapon Proficiencies: Herbalism, Soothsaying, Spellcraft
• Required Proficiencies: none
• Recommended Proficiencies: Alchemy, Ancient History, Ancient Languages, Animal Lore, Artistic Ability, Astronomy, Brewing, Cooking, Dancing, Direction Sense, Disguise, Healing, Intimidation, Literacy, Modern Languages, Netherworld Knowledge, Planology, Religion, Singing, Tracking, Weather Sense, Weaving
• Forbidden Proficiencies: none

Overview: The witch is the female equivalent of the Warlock. The witch serves the feminine side of the spirit world (anima) and are almost always female (exceptions do exist though). They draw on the compromising, persuasive, but often deceitful aspect of the spirits to protect their community or foster their own ends. While warlocks give-in to the unbridled, chaotic power of their extraplanar masters, witches have concert with beings of a more lawful nature and often manage to maintain a portion of their humanity (though not without a struggle).

Though wizards typically learn the basics of spellcasting at magic academies or from learned mentors, witches learn magical skills from entities and their minions from other planes of existence, or from other witches. Occasionally, these extraplanar entities contact youthful humans or demihumans for magical instruction; other times, humans and demihumans seek out the entities through arcane rituals and petition them for instruction. The entities agree to such instruction for a variety of reasons— some hope to train their students to eventually become emissaries; some hope to use them as conduits for various forces; some hope to seduce them as consorts; and some simply share their magical secrets for their own amusement. Whatever the motives of the extraplanar entities, they exude a powerful directing influence over their students. However, a few Witches with particularly strong wills are able to maintain their own drives while using their magical skills to further their own goals. Such Witches face a life-long struggle with the forces who relentlessly strive to direct their spirits.

One common factor among witches is their dislike of Warlocks. The lawful entities which a witch serves are in a state of constant warfare against the chaotic spirits which rule the warlock. Witches, therefore, hunt down and kill any warlock they meet. They can be extremely harsh in their punishment of villages and individuals who harbor such characters, even if it was done unknowingly. Witches are often accompanied by male warriors. These warriors are charged with slaying the warlock’s undead form after the witch has killed its mortal form.

Description: Witch Diviners usually work hard to disguise their natures, dressing in whatever fashion is most common in the region they inhabit. Witches who specialize in enchantment often play up their image of the beautiful sorceress, wearing revealing gowns and paying close attention to their hair and makeup. Necromancers who practice witchcraft are typically loners-they live in isolated cottages in the wilderness and allow their appearance to deteriorate, leading many to mistake them for hags of fearsome mien. Regardless of their tastes or specializations, all witches carry some symbol of their infernal masters, much like a priest carries a holy symbol, this may take a variety of forms, depending on the beings the witch serves. Some examples includes crowns or wreaths topped with candles, dying her lips and teeth blood-red with berry juice, or necklaces or jewelry bearing a pentagram or other infernal icon.

Role-Playing: Regardless of her actual alignment, all but her closest friends are likely to presume that a witch is in collaboration with extraplanar spirits, and will shun her accordingly. There are few places where a witch is welcome, and for the most part, a witch will need to conceal her identity when traveling to assure her safety.

A witch’s PC companions need not have such fears or prejudices against her, especially after she proves herself in life-and-death situations. However, there might always be a veil of suspicion between the witch and her companions, as if they cannot quite bring themselves to trust her completely. Any player characters with suspicious natures, particularly those with primitive or unsophisticated backgrounds, may never fully warm up to a Witch and will avoid being alone with her, sometimes even accusing her of betraying the party or bringing them bad luck. (The DM is free to encourage this type of role-playing, but not to the point of disrupting the campaign.)

Although a Witch learns her magical techniques from extraplanar entities, once on her own, she learns her spells in much the same way as any other wizard. Still, her techniques for casting spells may differ significantly from the standard methods. The casting times, ranges, and effects of her spells are no different from the same spells used by other wizards, but she may use different verbal, somatic, or material components.

The general populace is so frightened of witches that most usually cooperate with them out of fear of retribution. Many witches have been killed by angry villagers whose crops were destroyed by a witch’s curse, however. The witches sometimes use their power and the fear that they are held in to further their own selfish and ambitious ends.

Special Abilities:

• A witch must be a specialist wizard, and must specialize in the schools of Divination, Enchantment, or Necromancy. Depending on their school of specialization, the witch may learn and cast priest spells from certain spheres as wizard spells. They treat these spheres as bonus Paths (they do not count against the witch’s number of paths known). The witch must abide by the normal restrictions regarding spells that belong to multiple spheres, race-specific spells, and religion-specific spells.
  • Diviner: Elemental sphere
  • Enchanter: Combat sphere
  • Necromancer: Necromantic sphere
• When a Witch is initially created, she automatically gains access to the Witch’s Path as a bonus path. This does not count against the maximum number of paths that the witch may know.
• At 1st level, the Witch can choose up to 1,500xp worth of magical items from Table 89 (Potions and Oils), Table 91 (Rings), Table 92 (Rods), Table 93 (Staves), Table 94 (Wands), and Tables 95- 103 (Miscellaneous Magic) on pages 135-139 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. These items are gifts from the Witch’s patron.
• Witches may bond with their warrior companions. This bond may be created only once in a witch’s lifetime. It allows two-way empathic knowledge (both members of the bond can tell if the other is hurt, dying, enraged, etc.), the ability to use the other’s senses once per day for 1d10 turns, and the ability of the witch to lay a compulsion on the warrior once per day with no saving throw as per the suggestion spell. The bond may only be attempted with a male character who is a member of a warrior class (multi-class or dual-class warriors are fine).
  The warrior gains one additional hit point per level and gains +2 to attack and damage rolls when defending his bond-mate. Both parties must be willing participants to form the bond, but once formed it can never be broken. If the warrior dies, the witch suffers as if she had lost a familiar.
  If either bond-mate is wounded while the sense-link is in use, they both suffer the damage, and they must both make saving throws against paralyzation. If both make the saving throw, the sensory link can be maintained. If either party fails, the link is severed. In other circumstances, the sensory link may be broken only by mutual assent or by the elapse of the link’s duration. Thereafter, the link can not be established for 24 hours.
• 3rd Level: The Witch acquires the ability to secure familiar. This is identical to the 1st-level wizard spell find familiar, except that a Witch does not need to burn 1,000 gp worth of incense and herbs in a brass brazier. Instead, the Witch must merely concentrate for one turn. If a suitable familiar is within 1 mile per level of the Witch, it will arrive within 1d10 hours. This may be attempted no more than once per week. A Witch can have only one familiar at a time.
• 5th Level: The Witch acquires the ability to brew calmative. Assuming she has access to the proper ingredients (usually available in any forest), the Witch can brew one dose of an elixir that has the effect of a sleep spell when a victim comes in contact with it. One dose is sufficient to coat a sword or any other single weapon. The elixir has no effect on victims with more than 8 HD; victims can resist the effects of the elixir with a successful saving throw. The Witch requires one hour to brew the elixir. The elixir loses its potency after 24 hours.
• 7th Level: The Witch acquires the ability to brew poison. With the proper ingredients, available in most forests, she can brew one dose of Class L contact poison sufficient to coat a single weapon. The Witch requires one hour to brew the poison. It loses its potency in 24 hours.
• 9th Level: The Witch acquires the ability to beguile any single person or monster, once per week (assuming the person is no higher than 8th-level or the monster has no more than 8 HD). Beguile is identical to the 4th-level wizard spell charm monster, except that the victim is not allowed a saving throw. To cast beguile, the Witch must merely point at the victim and concentrate for 1 round; there are no verbal or material components.
• 11th Level: The Witch acquires the ability to brew flying ointment. Assuming she has access to the proper ingredients (usually available in any forest), the Witch can brew one dose of an ointment which, when rubbed on the skin, gives the recipient the ability to fly, as per the 3rd-level wizard spell fly. The dose is sufficient to affect one human-sized subject; the effects persist until the ointment loses its potency 24 hours after it is brewed. The Witch requires one hour to brew the ointment.
• 13th Level: The Witch acquires the ability to inflict a witch’s curse on any single person or creature. This is exactly identical to the 4th-level wizard spell bestow curse, except that its effect is automatic; the victim is not allowed a saving throw. The effect of the curse persists for 24 hours unless the curse is dispelled by a remove curse, wish, or similar spell. To cast the spell, the Witch must merely point at the victim and concentrate for 1 round; no verbal or material components are required. To determine the effects of witch’s curse, roll 1d8 and consult the Table below.

d8 Roll	Curse Result
1-3	One random ability of the victim is lowered by 3 points (roll 1d12).
4-5	The victim’s attack and damage rolls are reduced by 4 points.
6	The victim becomes blind, as per the 2nd-level wizard spell blindness. The effect persists for 24 hours or until the witch’s curse is dispelled.
7	The victim loses 1 hit point per hour for the next 24 hours. These lost hit points cannot be recovered by normal or magical means until the witch’s curse ends in 24 hours or unless the curse is dispelled. If the victim is reduced to 0 hit points or less within 24 hours of receiving the curse, or before the curse is dispelled, he dies.
8	The victim immediately lapses into a state of temporal stasis, as per the 9th-level wizard spell. The effect persists unless the curse is dispelled. Otherwise, at the end of 24 hours, the victim is reduced to 0 hit points and dies.

Special Disadvantages:

• A witch cannot be multi-classed. Human witches may change to another class, but a character cannot dual-class to become a witch.
• Because of their non-conventional training, witches do not receive bonus experience points for having high Intuition scores.
• A witch gains no weapon proficiency slots, either at 1st level, nor as she advances in levels. She is always considered non-proficient when fighting with a weapon.
• Like the Warlock, a witch must sacrifice the equivalent of one large domestic animal per level to her extraplanar patrons each time she advances a level.
• Generally, outsiders are terrified of Witches. Unless an NPC is exceptionally open-minded or has extremely high Knowledge or Willpower (13 or more in either ability), the Witch receives a -3 reaction roll. If the NPC is uneducated, comes from an extremely superstitious or unsophisticated culture, or has low Knowledge or Willpower (under 10 for both), the Witch receives a -5 reaction roll. Additionally, if a Witch lingers in a superstitious or culturally unsophisticated community for more than a day, she runs the risk of facing a mob of hostile citizens bent on running her out of town, imprisoning her, torturing her, or executing her. As a rule of thumb, assume a 20% chance of a 4d6-member mob forming in a hostile community if the Witch stays for a day. This chance increases by 20% for every additional day the Witch remains; the size of the mob increases by 2d6 members.
• The Witch must periodically struggle with the extraplanar forces striving to direct her. The forces are so powerful that they cannot be dispelled; all the Witch can do is endure them. When undergoing these internal struggles, the Witch suffers penalties to her combat abilities and saving throws. If the witch has a bound companion (see above), he suffers the same penalties as he is aware of the struggle through their empathic bond.
  There is a non-cumulative 25% chance per day that the Witch will be subjected to an internal struggle with extraplanar forces. The DM determines this at the beginning of the day; the Witch is aware of the result. Throughout that night the Witch suffers a -2 penalty to her attack rolls and a -2 penalty to her saving throws.

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