Saturday, April 15, 2017

Role Aids: Witches

Long before the days of the open gaming license, the company Mayfair Games was skirting around
TSR's copyright with their line of game supplements under the Role Aids. I've dug up a few of their books over the years, and one that I particularly liked was Witches.

 The book presents a number of alternate spell caster classes based off the idea of them being various degrees in between the arcane wizard and the divine cleric. In the introduction they give the "basic" witch class that's essentially a wizard in most respects. Each chapter afterwards presents a different version of the witch tailored for potential game settings. Each one has a different spell list, including new spells for each version. In general the spell lists are heavy with wizard spells, with only a few cleric spells like cure light wounds available at higher levels  than a cleric.

The specific versions presented do provided some color of a game world. Some are more useful as potential player characters than others. The "Classical" Witch, being the generic fantasy version of such a character, would easily fit in with a PC party.Some of the other version have restrictions on their powers, that might make them challenging to play (such as the Elementalist Witch having a chance of spell failure dependent on their Charisma) While all of the variants of the witch could be PC's, some versions are more suggestive of NPC's and possible adversaries. The Faerie Witch could be a possible source of information, while the Occult Witch could be in the service of some dark powers.

In general, it's a pretty good supplement, and still readily available through used bookstores and Amazon.

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