itch.io

So is it a sorcerous origin or a race?

This is something that I've been puzzling over for a while. What exactly is a witch? What makes a witch different from a wizard, or a warlock, or any other spellcaster? The various different spellcasting classes have some witch flavor. Like, druids have the wiccan aesthetic, while warlocks have a more dark witch aesthetic going on. But what exactly makes a witch a witch?

My current working theory is that the defining trait of a witch is that a witch works on the boundary of things. Life and death, male and female, night and day, good and evil, divine and arcane, supernatural and mundane, all that stuff. A witch's power lies in their ability to stand on the edge of two things and influence either side. A witch is inherently "other", because they never fit into a single category, but because of that they pull together wisdom from a broad range of sources.

What do y'all think?

For example, rather than introduce an entirely new class or subclass, my approach is to have Witch be a background. This is a background that works similar to the backgrounds introduced in the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, where it gives you an expanded spell list, and in that spell list there are the iconic witch spells like hex, find familiar, magic circle and so on (bestow curse isn't in there, since that would break the Warlock class). This allows my players to approach witches from a very broad range of directions. One players could be a more academically minded witch and use the wizard class. Another can be a more wiccan inspired witch and use the druid class. Another can be a dark witch and be a fiend warlock. They can even, if they feel really creative, be some sort of witch paladin.

The background also unlocks unique feats that I'm still trying to iron out. Like being able to make your own weird magic items, a unique form of fortune telling, and the ability to form a coven with other spellcasters.

Hey y'all,  what's your approach to playing as witch?  D&D doesn't have a dedicated Witch class, but there are plenty of homebrew Witch classes and subclasses out there. Do you have a source you prefer?

Hey y'all! I don't think I'm gonna have a chance to fully participate in this,  since I already have two supplements plus a large scale adventure that I wanna work on before the end of the year, but I have a lot of useful witch themed monsters if anyone needs them. Hags (both good and evil), cool snake warlocks, firbolg witches, witch priestesses,  a five headed naga goddess, lots of cool stuff.