Guest Egghead: Eric Finley
So, I’m just starting up a D&D 4th ed. game, basically as a nostalgia jag (I’m one of those snooty indie gamers from the Forge crowd – grin). And I ran across your Witch Doctor when looking for something else, and offered it to my players. One of them really likes the idea, but the whole primal-animist thing doesn’t really mesh with her background, so we’re re-skinning it. And I figured I’d share.
See full background below. (Hakeem is another PC, a cleric.) Basically, what we’ve got is an empire built around ancestor-reverence and longing for the days of power to return. And the upper tiers of what is essentially a priesthood-slash-secret-service are tiefling witch doctors … renamed for this use to Ancestor Channelers, tapping into the heavy-duty magic of the ancient days without actually having magical talent themselves.
The witch doctor’s mask re-skins to a veil, a very important part of their identity. Don’t touch the veil, trust me – can you say involuntary Infernal Wrath and Chains of Spirit? Veil of the Ancestors is of course the most common (and is our PC’s choice). The staff is more of a wizard(esque) staff, rather than a medicine stick or the like. Most of the rest of it carries across very nicely indeed.
(The player hates earthquakes but likes the Close Wall powers a lot, so I’ve also given her Twisting Fire as a fire-keyword skin over Tremor Strike. I figure the fire keyword cancels out, between possible ways to improve it and the relatively high likelihood of encountering resistant enemies, and certainly I can tweak it so that’s true.)
So far, so good. Chargen was last night, and the Ancestor Channeler’s player is very jazzed about her character. I’ll let you know how it goes, especially if the WD-specific elements end up prominent at any point.
Oh, and here’s an item I added to the adventure’s treasure (actually the best item in the set, this being a level 1 party’s first adventure). Basically it makes Evil Eye “sticky” for one instance of an effect. In theory it’s not WD-specific … but in practice it’s certainly intended to complement that class. If you’d like to use it either direct or as inspiration when fleshing out the Witch Doctor in his final incarnation, I grant you full rights to do so without compensation, as a thank-you for making this interesting class available.
[Awesome campaign background behind the cut....]
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