Originally posted here: https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2022/08/100-days-of-halloween-into-breach-witch.html

Into The Breach: The Witch

PDF. 32 pages. 1 cover, 1 title, 1 credits page, 1 table of contents, 1 OGL, for 27 pages of content. $5.99.

This book has quite a bit of good content.

There are new archetypes: Bailiwick Hermit, Bog Builder, Bulwark Theurgist, Dweomer Weaver, Foul Temptress, Gluttonous Crone, Marjara Bound, the Scorned Heart, and Voodoo Crafter.

Each archetype has a number of new associated powers.

There is a new Base Class related to the witch, the Sèvitè which is the worshiper of a lost creator god. Essentially this is a Voodoo practitioner in Pathfinder terms. The interesting thing for me is their ability to Syncretize various gods. Very interesting to be sure.

There are a couple of very interesting Prestige Classes presented as well. The Heathen and The Scarred Shaman.

Like all good witch books for Pathfinder, this one has a number of Hexes, Major Hexes, and Grand Hexes. There are also four new Patrons and quite a few new feats.

I rather like it to be honest. Lots of fun options here. The Voodoo-themed elements are nice and I would love to explore more with the syncretism of the gods.

Into the Breach: The Witch is a simple idea; provide new options for the Witch class in the form of archetypes, hexes, patrons, feats and even some prestige classes and an alternate base class. This is a pretty dense pdf with a ton of content.

despite having some inconsistancies with ‘game language’ (for example: Bailiwick hermit has an intelligent construct that functions as the witch’s spellbook, which function differently from familiars that store spells) most criticisms on this front are superficial at best and basically function as written without much clarification. As for how powerful and cool they are, nothing impresses me but nothing infuriates me. This sounds like the archetypes are only so-so but my opinion of the Witch class is that it is very bland so the amount of modularity and flavor given by these archetypes are a huge boon despite them not exactly clicking with me.

The alternate class, the Sevite, casts witch spells using Wisdom, gains a domain, gets a daily divination, the ability to get posessed by Loa thus gaining some abilities. Unfortunately I own both Pact Magic books so I’d never play this but if you don’t this is an alternate class that has a more defined flavor than the normal Witch.

There are two prestige classes. The Heathen, which probably should have an alignment restriction, I don’t like. Not because its too powerful, weak or unwieldy but seems to combine Magus and Witch in a way that feels like neither and just adds more complications. Then there’s the Scarred Shaman, a Witch-Barbarian. I like this one more (despite BAB not matching HD which is a pet peeve)

The Hexes and Major Hexes are mostly ‘meh’ but I can say that about most hexes in general. There are a few gems that either allow for new possibilities or new flavors so for the most part they’re a hit. The Grand Hexes are a more definite hit for me.

The four patrons take up all of half a page which sucks but what are you going to do, Patrons just aren’t as meaningful and flavorful as bloodlines or domains.

The feats are okay, nothing too interesting aside from the feat that allows you to swift action hexes against weapon targets, which I’ve seen so many times but not in feat form. There are plenty of archetypes that let you mix attacks and hexes so its not terribly thrilling.

So would I play with it? Probably. Overall I’m not a fan of how linear the witch is so I’d likely pick an archetype out of here to better represent the flavor I want to play, especially the Sevite. I feel that the Into the Breach series feels the strongest when it fills in holes in classes and I think that this succeeds in adding some good flavor options to a very ill defined class.

So Would I allow it at my table? As far as I can tell there is nothing unbalancing or annoying going on and everything functions as written or with minor clarification. I’d allow it. Overall I’d give it a 4 out of 5. I like it enough but nothing blows my mind.