So is the general consensus for playing the PF witch in 3.5...

Change HD to d4, use 3.5 version of all the spells, and dont make cantrips unlimited?

Everything else is cool? I'm not the most concerned person when it comes to balance in my games and between myself and my players we hardly ever notice when anything isn't balanced. I just don't want this character to be completely wiping the floor at level 1.

Since there's no word on which 3.5 spells from outside core can be used by the witch (and most of the most broken spells are core anyway) there should probably be some ruling on which spells are suitable for the witch. Which for the witch?

Witches may seem powerful enough, but a witch who uses the same broken spells over and over will probably annoy the DM. Let them branch out a little and try stuff which is unusual but not necessarily overpowered. Don't be too generous, though, since they already have an advantage with their Hexes.

Aside from that, yeah, sounds good. Don't forget to add Concentration as a skill, and change Knowledge (history) to Knowledge (history and nobility).

I would suggest doing something about the sleep hex. Unless you're fighting immune enemies, in which case the witch just uses their spells as normal, its a save or die at an always decent dc that a witch can pretty much use every round, which uses no resources.

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Originally Posted by Pink

I would suggest doing something about the sleep hex. Unless you're fighting immune enemies, in which case the witch just uses their spells as normal, its a save or die at an always decent dc that a witch can pretty much use every round, which uses no resources.

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Maybe add an "once succesful on a save cant be affected again for 24h" if it doesnt already have it?

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Originally Posted by LansXero

Maybe add an "once succesful on a save cant be affected again for 24h" if it doesnt already have it?

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It's in there, but its not much of a limit. You just move onto the next enemy, while the other party members know that there is now one specific enemy they have to focus on. By the time the witch has run out of targets to try and sleep, combat is probably about over.

Should I just take it out completely? Or maybe only let her use it once every 24 hours?

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Originally Posted by Pink

I would suggest doing something about the sleep hex. Unless you're fighting immune enemies, in which case the witch just uses their spells as normal, its a save or die at an always decent dc that a witch can pretty much use every round, which uses no resources.

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Enemies can be woken up as a standard action I believe. This isn't really helpful against groups of enemies, and at early levels, the will save is going to be rather low, so singular enemies will probably resist.

I dunno, I had a character take this in a game, and it never ended up being problematic.

Really up to you, and what you know of the person who wants to play it. If you want to leave the option in, I would say follow the domain/specialist first level formula and make it 3+ int mod per day maybe, or just int mod per day if they don't face a lot of opponents per day.

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Originally Posted by Blisstake

Enemies can be woken up as a standard action I believe. This isn't really helpful against groups of enemies, and at early levels, the will save is going to be rather low, so singular enemies will probably resist.

I dunno, I had a character take this in a game, and it never ended up being problematic.

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its still a big boon to basically take up most of two enemies turns, and the dc is always that of at least the highest level the which can cast, usually a dc 15 to start. Also, a sleeping enemy could be just taken out completely by a coup de grace before they have a chance to wake up, and a smart witch will easily take advantage of that when targeting.

It's not so much the ability itself I have a huge beef with, powerful as it is, it having that in combination with all the other many things they can do with other hexes and as full casters.

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Originally Posted by Ozreth

Should I just take it out completely? Or maybe only let her use it once every 24 hours?

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If you take it out, there are other hexes that are almost as good. Misfortune is brutal. Among the major hexes, Agony and Ice Tomb are SoL's and Retribution is a killer for melee opponents.

This would be my question. In your games, do casters regularly run out of spells to use in combat? If spells per day are an actual, meaningful limit on casters, witches are stronger than 3.5 classes. If the DM style only has one or two hard encounters per day, or if casters commonly use the many RAW tricks that allow them to never walk into a fight low on spells (Teleport, Rope trick, Focused Specialists with high int, etc...), witches aren't really significantly different from Wizards in power level. They give up some spell versatility and bonus feats for more endurance.

Remember that a well built Warlock can spam Save or Loses all day in 3.5 already, and they are tier 4.

The really huge advantage that witches have over warlocks is that most hexes are supernatural abilities. That means that they bypass SR. They can trash magic immune critters like golems. They do not provoke AOOs, so tricks like Mage Slayer do not slow them down. Most of the hexes will hit creatures immune to mind affecting, like undead. Witches are less versatile than wizards, but they are much harder to gimp in combat if that is your goal.

Edit: all that is just to think about. I would allow Witches in my 3.5 games with no modifications other than the HD issue previously mentioned.

Right, but once you get to higher levels, it really isn't that powerful compared to other options spellcasters have. In 3.5, if you're using core races, you can only get to 18 intelligence at level one, which would make the DC only 14. The first level spell sleep would probably be better considering it can take out up to 4HD, and if you're fighting enemies with more than that, they've got a good chance of resisting.

At mid levels, I can see it being slightly problematic, seeing as it scales to your highest level DC (minus one at odd levels, and not including spell focus). But then again, you'll probably fight a fair number of opponents either immune to sleep, mind altering effects, or just with high will saves in general.

I suppose the biggest problem is just the unlimited uses. Once a day seems too infrequent, though. Maybe int modifier/day?

int mod/day sounds like a good idea.

Perhaps a bit of background would have been good. I am going to be running Sunless Citadel (level 1 3.0 module) which is basically a dungeon crawl with a lot of small encounters. The characters likely won't surpass level 3.

I suppose I'll just run with it for a session or two and see if the player figures out how to mop the floor with her witch.

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Originally Posted by Pink

It's not so much the ability itself I have a huge beef with, powerful as it is, it having that in combination with all the other many things they can do with other hexes and as full casters.

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Hexes are standard actions though. Every round she's trying a trick like this is one where she isn't casting.

It's easy to fall into the "casters can do so much stuff!" trap, but without a way to truly abuse the action economy it's not as bad as it seems.

Still, limiting its per/day usage seems like a fine downgrade to me.