Witches & Warlocks

"Why isn't the Feywild witch a warlock build?"
A few people have asked me this question in regard to the witch in Heroes of the Feywild, and as the designer of the witch subclass I figure I should write it out so I can just copy and paste the link. I know I've addressed it briefly before, but here's a (more or less) full explanation. I'll begin by examining what a witch is, and continue on to talk about its mechanical expression, at least as far as we've seen in the preview. I can't discuss further mechanical specifics beyond the preview in any amount of detail at this point.

What is a Witch?
Heroes of the Feywild is a book based on the land of Faerie from folklore and legend. As an optional supplement, or rules expansion, it adds a different aspect to the standard D&D game, giving players the option to create characters that feel like the ones from fairy tales and Celtic mythology.

As we discussed ideas for the book, we looked at the quintessential tropes of fairy tale and Celtic myth. Witches play a huge role in both, so I bid for the inclusion of some sort of witch in the book. Rodney (Thompson) asked what a witch would do in D&D, and my task was to figure that out.

The red box had just hit store shelves. In that product, there's a spell called slimy transmutation, which turns an enemy into a toad. Classic witch territory. Every other fairy tale, from Grimm to Hans Christian Anderson to Disney to Peter Beagle to Neil Gaiman and beyond, a witch is turning someone into something else, or transforming herself into an animal (or monster). It's the classic witch thing to do. My favorite from Disney is Maleficent turning herself into an enormous black dragon. (The polymorph duel in Sword and the Stone is also fun.) So I knew that an element of transmutation was definitely going to be at the heart of the class.

Looking at other witches from fairy tales and folklore, the witches that aren't transforming creatures are enchanting them. Some control their minds, many lay down curses with special conditions. Morgan Le Fay is a good example. I like this one, from Neil Gaiman's Stardust: "Not forever," and at that the faerie girl smiled. "I gain my freedom on the day the moon loses her daughter, if that occurs in a week when two Mondays come together."

Researching further, in folklore a witch's spells are often referred to as "charms." Charms aren't strictly persuasions in this sense, but usually enchantment type spells--usually the words to invoke them are delivered in rhyme. These go hand in hand with the sorts of hexes and curses a witch is known for (I'm talking about the "crop-blighting, boils on your face, prophecy of doom upon you forever" type hexes, rather than the temporary D&D 4th Edition curse that a warlock character uses mechanically in combat; these are similar in name only). The other thing about the witch is her bad reputation for dabbling in necromancy, especially raising the spirits of the dead.

In Celtic mythology, witches are especially fearsome. Morrigan of the Badb was a goddess-like creature that transformed into a crow, predicted prophecies, and confounded the enemies of the Tuatha De Dannan. These myths are far older even than our fairy tales, and the witches therein are essentially the template for the witches that followed. The very definition.

So how did witches come about? In fairy tales and mythology, they're often magical beings with no explanation of where they acquired their power. Some of them may carry books of spells, but I was surprised at how few of them did (I actually can't name any good examples). The most formal that most witches go are rituals.

Speaking of rituals, witches in fairy tales don't use them much. They say the magic words and transform themselves and others; they work their magic. When you look to folklore and real world superstition, that's where you find stories of witches using all sorts of spellcasting paraphernalia. Unfortunately, a great deal of superstition was placed on women, especially unmarried women (wisewomen, midwives) who knew how to make herbal medicines, balms, and other such craft. Superstitions arose around such figures and their constant companions (cats, for example), their medicinal ("it's not science, it's sorcery!") practices, and so forth. Sadly, these women were probably the ancient equivalent of the modern day cat-lady. Lives alone, keeps to herself, surrounded by her cats. Superstition led to rumors about consorting with demons and devils, etc, and for a long time (and still) this was the way witches were seen. Thus, it's something that needs to be considered when thinking about a witch class.

There were other traditional elements to consider too--black witches vs. white witches, good witches vs. evil witches, for instance, and I'm not just talking about neopaganism. I'm talking about the Wizard of Oz too, the Chronicles of Narnia, and a heap of modern fantasy. The witch as herbalist and healer is incorporated, as mentioned in the preview. There's also the witch's association with a coven, with the full moon as a time for witches or the new moon (the blackest of nights); there's the neopagan association with the Goddess as a source of power--which this version of the witch presents as an option (by giving Sehanine a cameo in their story), but not a rule. It attempts to include as many options as possible so that players can tailor the witch to the archetype they most associate with it.

All of these things need to be considered when creating a witch class for the game. It's important to know what you're making the class of, what its bones are, its traditions in history, myth, folklore, fairy tale. It's hard to be all-inclusive (though the witch class in this book certainly makes the effort), but I think a designer owes it to the players that the concept of the class or race is going to be something they can culturally identify, something they can play and say oh yes, it's like this character or that character from any number of sources. It's important to nail that. With a classic archetype there's an expectation that it will behave a certain way. If the designer changes that archetype and redefines it as something else, he or she undermines that expectation.

Mechanics, Witches, and Warlocks
After a copious amount of research, it turned out that fairy tale, Celtic myth, and folklore had defined the witch pretty clearly. The definition of what they do and how they behave was relatively consistent, and came down to a few basic elements, summed up nicely at the beginning of the witch entry for Heroes of the Feywild: You practice the first, most ancient form of arcane magic, which allows you to charm, transform, and curse your enemies.

First, most ancient form of magic? Witches are down in the roots of most mythologies. You can find them in the Book of Invasions, you can find them in the Old Testament, you can find them (in most cases) long before wizards... historically speaking of course, and as we think of wizards in D&D as tome-wielding academics. At any rate, the witches of lore charm, transform, and curse their enemies; again, we must make the distinction here that a witch's curse is (in the lore) usually a kind of enchantment that the cursed have to bear. Sickness, plague, boils, transformation into an animal, bad luck, etc.

Creating a class that transforms itself and others, that casts enchantments, summons the dead--what kind of role does that fulfill in D&D? As a defender or leader, it would be a stretch. And none of those typical effects implies "megatons of damage." So striker is a pretty dubious choice unless each and every witch spell is written so that its effect equates to damage (like laying down big conditions like stun) instead of "actually" dealing damage. Polymorphing, enchanting, "necromancing," and "cursing with ill fortune" just aren't striker style abilities. Trying to make them so is to whack a square peg repeatedly into a round hole where it just doesn't fit. These sorts of things very naturally fulfill the controller role. In previous editions of D&D, witches have typically been a wizard subclass or kit, so if the witch was to be a "build" of any given class, the wizard is the best choice for it. Finally, there are few witches (I can't think of any) of myth and legend that mostly concentrate on blasting things to smithereens striker-style. There may be some, but they're definitely against type. So making the witch a subclass of a striker-oriented class like the warlock pretty well goes against most of what defines a witch.

Also, to make a typical witch into a warlock means creating a library of transmutation, charming, and control powers for that class and then giving the warlock access to them. Now the warlock has a full arsenal of wizard-like control powers, stamping out the line between the two classes. Plus, now the striker-y warlock gets a library of transmutation powers and the wizard doesn't; and now you have to justify why the transmutations do striker damage or replace striker damage.

But what about the story text? What about the witch's connection to some outside power? Isn't that what the warlock does?

Yes and no.
In fairy tales and Celtic myth, witches are usually magical beings born with power (like the D&D sorcerer in story, but very unlike the sorcerer in effect). In folklore, witches get a bad rap, consorting with demons, devils, and spirits for their power (like the D&D warlock in story, but very unlike the warlock in effect). The 4e witch from Heroes of the Feywild is defined as a being that inherited power from elsewhere, but is instructed by an emissary of that power, a familiar, as is common in our folklore and legend.

The familiar's instruction is somewhat academic; that's why it takes the place of the wizard's spellbook. The witch needs to know how to cast a certain spell, and he or she asks the familiar how it is done. The familiar instructs the witch what's necessary to cast the spell, and the witch prepares it using whatever herbs, components, eye of newt, ritual elements (or lack thereof) that you decide. At least this is the way it's presented. The relationship between the witch, the familiar, and the power source is intentionally left open (and relatively free of mechanics) so that the player and DM can choose to incorporate it as much or as little as they please. By default, there is no pact or obligation to another entity; the text even mentions fairy godparents, as well as unknown/anonymous sources. The point being, while the source of a witch's power may come from elsewhere, the witch learns by instruction much like a wizard. The spellbook just takes a different shape.

The witch can (probably, I haven't seen the whole thing yet) stand on its own as a class that, while it resembles the wizard and can borrow the wizard's spells, is its own bag of tricks. As a wizard subclass it shares wizardly abilities that it ought to possess--access to a wider range of necromancy spells, for instance, or the ability to transform into mist, and much, much more. Though archetypal witches typically transmute, enchant/curse, and charm, their catalog of abilities throughout literature and lore is so expansive that only a spell catalog as varied as the wizard's can fully support the character concept. Though the definition of the D&D 4th Edition warlock is somewhat similar to the witch's flavor, after examining the archetypal witch from every angle the warlock's mechanics don't match up to the witch's modus operandi. Aside from a similar origin and a few shared terms, a D&D warlock and an archetypal witch don't have much in common.

 As to why there are several supported wizard builds in D&D, I can't speak to that. When I designed the witch, only the original (arcanist wizard) and the mage existed. At any rate, that's the long answer for why the Feywild witch plays on the wizardly side of the arcane playground.