Aaaaand… another post working on our PF1 witchwarper! Still working on paradigm shifts, having written their category rules, and creating the warp pool. Now we’re seeing how many days we can go, converting 2-3 a day (or more!), until we run into our next design challenge.

Today, we get into the 8th level paradigm shifts.

Paradigm Shifts [8th level]

Flash Teleport (Su)
As a move action, you can expend 1 point from your warp pool to teleport (as the spell) up to 30 feet. You must have line of sight to your destination. This movement doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity.

Hobble Creature (Su)
As a standard action, you can expend 1 point from your warp pool to target a creature within 100 feet and swap in alternate physiologies or circuitry in its body in this version of existence, imposing the staggered condition for a number of rounds equal to 1/3 your witchwarper level. The creature can attempt a Fortitude save to negate this effect. You must know the disrupt creature paradigm shift to learn this paradigm shift.

Magic Deletion (Su)
As a reaction when you are targeted by a spell, you can expend 1 point from your warp pool to gain spell resistance equal to 12 + your witchwarper level until the end of your next turn.

Other than deciding to have all of those be fueled by our warp pool (rather than expending spell slots, as some did originally), again those all adapted with very little change.

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Another post working on our PF1 witchwarper. We’re working on paradigm shifts, having written their category rules, and creating the warp pool. Now we’re seeing how many days we can go, converting 2-3 a day (or more), until we run into our next design challenge.

Today, we get into the 4th level paradigm shifts.

Paradigm Shifts [4th level]

Inhibit (Sp or Su)
As a standard action, you can prevent a creature within 100 feet from taking its best course of action by overwhelming it with visions of its failures in other realities as a supernatural ability. The target must succeed at a Will save or become staggered for 1 round. At 8th level, alternatively, you can expend 1 point from your warp pool to instead use slow as a spell-like ability. Once you’ve targeted a creature with this paradigm shift, you can’t target that creature with this paradigm shift again (regardless of how you use it) for 24 hours.

Optimize (Sp or Su)
You can show a creature a glimpse of the results of its choices in other realities, allowing it to act more efficiently. As a standard action, you can touch a willing creature to increase all of its speeds by 10 feet. This is considered an enhancement bonus and is a supernatural haste effect. At 8th level, alternatively, you can expend 1 point from your warp pool to instead use haste as a spell‑like ability. Once you’ve targeted a creature with this paradigm shift, you can’t target them with this paradigm shift again (regardless of how you use it) for 24 hours.

Resist Elements (Su)
As a reaction when you or a creature within 100 feet would take energy damage, you can expend 1 point from your warp pool to grant the target resistance 5 against that energy type (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic). This resistance is applied before the damage from the triggering attack. At 8th level, the resistance granted increases to 10. At 11th level, the resistance granted increases to 15.

Shifting Offensive (Su)
As a standard action, you can touch a weapon or magic item that deals damage and temporarily change its damage type (to acid, bludgeoning, cold, electricity, fire, piercing, slashing, or sonic). If the weapon deals more than one type of damage, you can change all the damage it does (regardless of type) to the new damage type, or change just one of its damage types (leaving its other damage types unchanged). This effect lasts until the end of your next turn.

None of these needed more than some clean-up and clarification to adapt to pathfinder. Tomorrow, on to 8th-level paradigm shifts!

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Another post working on our PF1 witchwarper. We’re working on paradigm shifts, having written their category rules, and creating the warp pool. Now we’re seeing how many days we can go, converting 2-3 a day, until we run into our next design challenge.

This set rounds out the 2nd level paradigm shifts from the rulebook the Sf witchwarper first appeared in.

Paradigm Shifts [2nd level]

Push Area (Su)
As a reaction when a thrown attack with an area or splash effect, or instantaneous effect or spell defined as a burst radius that requires a saving throw with has an area of at least 5-foot-radius would be centered within 100 feet, you can expend a point from your warp pool to shift the area’s center by 5 feet before it detonates. Your allies within its area of effect gain a +2 insight bonus to their saving throws against the area-effect. At 8th level, you can shift the area’s center by 10 feet. At 11th level, you can shift the area’s center by 15 feet.

Shift Resistance (Su)
As a standard action, you can change the type of a single energy resistance (but not immunity) of a creature within 100 feet (from cold to fire, for example) for 1 round. The creature can attempt a Will saving throw to negate this effect. Once you’ve targeted a creature with this paradigm shift, you can’t target that creature with this paradigm shift again for 24 hours.

Thwart Ability (Su)
As a reaction when you or an ally within 100 feet is affected by a spell or ability that allows a saving throw and would deal damage, and fails the saving throw, you can expend 1 point from your warp pool to grant the target a new saving throw with a +2 bonus to avoid or mitigate the effect’s damage and effects (with success acting as if the original save was successful).

“Push grenade” got rewritten to be “push area,” since I expect spells and magical area effects to be far more common in Pathfinder than bombs. Shift resistance and thwart ability didn’t need any real modifications, just some tweaks to match Pathfinder rules and phrasing.

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Another post working on our PF1 witchwarper. We’re working on paradigm shifts, having written their category rules, and creating the warp pool yesterday and writing up our first two shifts yesterday. So, let’s see how many days we can go, converting 2-3 a day, until we run into our next design challenge.

Paradigm Shifts [2nd level]

Eldritch Secret
You can draw specific magic effects from other realities, allowing you to access spells normally not available to witchwarpers. Select one spell from an arcane or occult class’s spell list. It must be of a level no greater than 1 lower than the highest-level spell you can cast. (Alternatively, you can select one spell from a divine class’s spell list. It must be of a level no greater than 2 lower than the highest-level spell you can cast.) Add this to your list of witchwarper spells known.

You cannot select a spell that requires class features you do not possess. If you select a spell of a different source than your own spells (arcane, divine, or occult), it changes to be a spell of that type. You cannot select a spell available only to members of specific groups (such as worshippers of a specific deity) unless you are a member of that group. You cannot select a spell available only through archetypes, prestige classes, or class features other than “spells” (such as spells only available through an arcane school, bloodline, or domain).

Each time you gain the ability to cast a higher level of witchwarper spells, you may swap out the spell gained with this paradigm shift for a new spell of a maximum level no greater than 1 lower (or 2 lower for a divine spell) than the highest-level spell you can cast. You can select this paradigm shift more than once but cannot at any time have more than one additional spell known from this ability at each level of spells you can cast.

Overlapping Forms (Su)
As a standard action, you can overlay faint outlines of yourself from multiple alternate realities, giving yourself a +1 dodge bonus to your AC. At 5th level, you can expend 1 point from your warp pool when using this ability to instead give an ally you touch a +1 dodge bonus to AC. In either case, the bonus lasts for a number of minutes equal to your caster level. You cannot have overlapping forms active on more than one creature at a time–if you place it on a new creature while it is still active on a previous creature, the older use ends.

Prevent Wounds (Su)
As a reaction when you or an ally within 100 feet takes hit point damage, you can expend 1 point from your warp pool to prevent 1d4 points of that damage for every 2 witchwarper levels you have. You cannot prevent more damage than was dealt, and even if you prevent all damage any associated effects from the attack (such as disease or poison) still apply.

Okay, so far so good! I tweaked eldritch secret because there are SO many more spellcasting classes in Pathfinder than Sf, and the division between divine magic and arcane or occult is actually strong enough to impact spotlight time and class expertise. I also gave some general guidance to cover weird corner-case things that might have snuck into a game using other 3pp material. I wanted to split the different between allowing witchwarpers to select that paradigm shift all they want, and only being able to do so once, resulting int the “only one eldritch secret spell per spell level” rules, which I’m actually really happy with.

I altered overlapping forms to be a dodge bonus and extend its time, because the math in Pathfinder is much less tight than Sf, and while enhancement bonuses in Sf are rare, they’re common as heck in Pathfinder. This should make it useful, but not overpowering, at any level of play. I also added the one-at-a-time limitation because I extended the duration by x10.

Prevent wounds just got the note about carrier attacks, to make sure it can’t be used to shut down non-hp effects. It’s supposed to be preventative healing, not a way to negate anything that requires an attack roll.

As the project progresses, we’ll see what else crops up in these conversions!

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Another post working on our PF1 witchwarper. We’re working on paradigm shifts, having written their category rules yesterday.

I’m going to start with the paradigm shifts from the book the witchwarper originally appeared in. I was the developer for that book, and developed the witchwarper, so I have a strong grasp of the design intent behind all those abilities. Also, our Pathfinder version may drift in concept compared to its Sf roots, and beginning with a firm foundation of core abilities is the best way to make sure the end result feels like the original, without being beholden to every eventual power that class gained.

And, as if often the case with such projects, we run into a huge design consideration right off the bat. The very first 2nd level paradigm shift from that Sf book is disrupt attack, which lets you expend a Resolve Point for an ability. Our problem? Pathfinder doesn’t have Resolve Points. So, how do we balance powers with limited uses without having the original game system’s pool of points to do it?

We have some options.

We could make each power useable a number of times per day, such as once per day, or one plus one for every 4 witchwarper level. This is simple to write as a designer, but it has some tricky balance implications. At low levels, our Pf witchwarper won;t be able to use such paragim shifts as often as their Sf cousin, ebcause they’ll have very few paradigm shifts, each with its own hard limit. At higher levels, however, the Pathfinder witchwarper might have so many shifts with thier own uses/day that they never run out of options.

We could have shifts expend spell slots, like infinite worlds does. That has a note of elegance, tying into an existing class feature. But it also means we have to decide if low-level spell slots can do this at full power for higher-level witchwarpers. As currently defined, paradigm shift powers save DCs is based on class level, and if a 1st level spell slot can be expended for an offensive power with a save based on class level, that can be overpowering. Some Sf witchwarper powers do this (such as disrupt creature), but then generally tie the effectiveness of that power to the level of spell. Since none of the things originally fueled by RP have that scaling built into them, this becomes a good deal more design work.

We could create a pool of warp points, similar to an arcanist’s arcane reservoir. This has the advantage of creating a pool we can scale as we need for the right number of uses/day/level, and being easy to design and understand. It has the drawback that if a witchwarper doesn’t select a paradigm shift that has a warp point cost, their warp reservoir serves no function. On the other hand, we could allow warp points to fuel the witchwarper’s infinite worlds ability, which is currently powered purely by spell slots. That would be a bit of a power-up to classic witchwarper spell/infinite worlds balance, but very much in keeping with how arcanists and psychics (both late-era PF1 0-9th level spellcasters) handle such issues. We’d have to write the text for that… but we have good examples of how such abilities have been done in Pathfinder before.

Out of all these ideas, I like a warp pool of warp points the best. So, for our draft, let’s assume that’s what we are doing. When we bring the whole class together in the post-first-draft stage, we can change that chocie if it hasn’t gone how we’d like.

So, now we need a Warp Pool class feature, gained at 1st level.

Warp Pool (Su): A witchwarper has a pool of supernatural mental energy that he can draw upon to fuel his infinite worlds ability, and potentially powers gained through paradigm shifts. The maximum number of points in a witchwarper’s warp pool is equal to 1/2 his class level + his Charisma modifier. The warp pool is replenished each morning after 8 hours of rest or meditation; these hours don’t need to be consecutive. Points gained in excess of the pool’s maximum are lost.

A witchwarper can expend a warp point from his warp pool, rather than expend a spell slot, to fuel his infinite worlds ability. When used for this purpose, the warp point functions as a spell slot with a spell level equal to half the witchwarper’s class level -1 (to a minimum of 1st level spell slot).

Okay, with that done, let’s look at how we want to adapt a couple of paradigm shifts.

Paradigm Shifts [2nd level]

Disrupt Attack (Su)
As a reaction when you or an ally is targeted with an attack originating within 100 feet, you can expend 1 warp point to impose a –2 penalty on the attack roll. If the attack is coming from a creature, that creature can attempt a Will saving throw to negate this effect. Once you’ve targeted an attacker with this paradigm shift, you can’t target the same attacker with this paradigm shift again for 24 hours. At 8th level, the penalty changes to –3, and at 14th level, the penalty changes to –4.

Disrupt Creature (Su)
As a standard action, you can expend a warp point to target a creature within 100 feet and swap in alternate physiologies (or gears, planar energy, or whatever the creature’s equivalent to physiology is) in its body in this version of existence, imposing the shaken condition for a number of rounds equal to 1/3 your witchwarper class level (minimum 1 round). The target is allowed a Fortitude save to negate this effect. This is not an emotion, fear, or mind-affecting effect, and it does not stack with other shaken or fear conditions. However, if you target a creature that has succeeded at a save against your disrupt creature ability in the past 24 hours, it takes a -2 penalty to its save if you target it again.

Okay, I like the look of both of those. Know we can start kicking out a few paradigm shifts a day in future blog posts and see how far we get.

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Another post working on our PF1 witchwarper. I’ve defined some key class features in draft form, so I think it’s time to begin sketching out a class progression chart. Designing a class for a d20 game involves a lot of interlocking, moving parts, so I rarely try to get everything perfectly set on my first pass. Instead I tackle things I consider key to the class’s feel and/or particularly difficult to define in game terms, then build out from there. That makes it easier to hang later, less important and easier designs on earlier key choices.

That said, it’s important to be willing to change elements you defined early if you find a good reason to in later development. And to think about the implications of design choices as you make them.

For example, this progression chart has an entry for the infinite worlds class feature to get an option when fueled by 7th-level spells (since I currently see this as a full 9-level spellcaster, likely using the arcanist spell progression and casting rules). That’s not something that 6-level spellcasting Sf version can do, and my rough draft of that ability for PF1 doesn’t include it. But I can easily see creating a new, higher level version of that power, and right now that feels like the best solution for a steady and interesting progression of that power. There’s a lot of back-and-forth tweaking when you design a class, and as long as we make a pass through at the end to ensure everything lines up, it’s fine to alter your design expectations as you go through the process.

Level      BAB        Fort        Ref         Will        Special

1             +0           +0          +2           +0         Infinite worlds (1st-level Spells) 

2             +1           +0           +3          +0         Paradigm shift

3             +1           +1           +3          +1         Compound sight +1 

4             +2           +1           +4          +1         Infinite worlds (2nd-level Spells)

5             +2           +1           +4          +1         Paradigm shift 

6             +3           +2           +5          +2          Alternate outcome 1/day, compound sight +2 

7             +3           +2           +5          +2          Infinite worlds (3rd-level Spells)

8             +4           +2           +6          +2          Paradigm shift

9             +4           +3           +6          +3           Compound sight +3 (two skills)

10           +5           +3           +7          +3           Infinite worlds (4th-level Spells)

11           +5           +3           +7          +3           Paradigm shift

12           +6           +4           +8          +4           Alternate outcome 2/day, compound sight +4 

13           +6           +4           +8          +4           Infinite worlds (5th-level Spells)

14           +7        +4           +9          +4           Paradigm shift

15           +7         +5           +9          +5          Compound sight +5

16           +8         +5        +10         +5           Infinite worlds (6th-level Spells)

17           +8         +5        +10         +5           Paradigm shift

18           +9         +6        +11         +6           Alternate outcome 3/day, compound sight +6 

19           +9         +6        +11         +6           Infinite worlds (7th-level Spells)

20           +10         +6        +12         +6           Paradigm shift, reality stutter

I’m happy with all of that… except for 3rd level. On the arcanist chart, our witchwarper won’t get 2nd level spells until 4th. So while many other full spellcasters get a major bump in spell power and spells per day at 3rd, our witchwarper has to settle for +1 to one skill. The same issue kicks in at 15th level… but honestly by 15th level getting any new spells known is such a boost I’m not that worried about it.

I like elegant design, including abilities being gained or progressing in power at set, predictable rates… but that may not be the route to take here. I could add a paradigm shift at 3rd level, outside the normal progression of one per three levels, much as witches get a hex at first, outside their normal progression that starts at 2nd level.

For now, I’ll stick a pin in the idea and see how I feel about it closer to the end of design. I could also just throw in a 1-time bonus at 3rd to give some extra excitement–maybe something like Echoes of Training that let you learn something a version of yourself from an alternate reality trained in, adding a weapon or armor proficiency, and/or another class skill?

We’ll see.

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