Thought on Witch Cartomancer?

[Vizzerdrix]

Ive taken a look at this variant and quite like the flavor of it. I havent seen it talked about in any of the witch handbooks so I thought Id ask here what people think about it and how they would optomize it.

[Geddy2112]

It is slightly weaker than any other witch that gets a familiar, but only because it loses the power a familiar a gives. Where it does shine is a reliable way to deliver touch spells without risking your familiar or needing prehensile hair. Witches have a fantastic selection of touch spells, and being able to deliver them at longer range is very handy. Prehensile hair is only 10ft, while thrown cards are minimum 20 ft, and you can throw up to 100ft with a -10 penalty.

Overall it is a perfectly good archetype.

[Vizzerdrix]

So if Im understanding this right, I can either make a normal attack (dead eye says damage as darts plus enchantable) or make just a touch attack to deliver spells, but no damage, correct?

If so can buffs be delivered this way?

What sort of enchantments would work well on the cards? Im not too familiar with pathfinder. How about some way to use the cards to dictate the location of summons? Im picturing something akin to the character from Lost Kingdoms.

[Psyren]

Yes, you can fling buff cards at allies.

The big advantage to this archetype is that, not only are you targeting touch AC with your spells, but you can also enhance the deck itself, and Deadly Dealer lets you treat it as ammunition (i.e. enhancing all 54 cards for the price of 1.) This gives you +5 enhancement to your touch attacks among other buffs you can throw on there. Even when attacking normally, you can get a whopping +10 damage per hit (+5 enhancement and +5 Arcane Strike, before counting things like icy burst or bane), giving you a decent fallback against enemy types that normally give witches trouble like undead. Enhancing the deck also lets you overcome DR with it.

A good strategy here might be to PrC into Evangelist. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/e-h/evangelist) This will continue to advance all your Witch features (caster level, hexes, patron etc.) 9/10, and will also give you slightly higher BAB to fling cards with, as well as 6 skill points per level rather than 2 to combine with your high Int. Alternatively, you can get even more BAB via Eldritch Knight, but you give up Patron spells and Hexes by doing so.

Consider picking up a Deck of Silvering Fate (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons/specific-magic-weapons/deck-of-slivering-fate) so that you can (a) do slashing damage, which is less often resisted, and (b) so you can debuff concealed or invisible enemies. See Invis is on the Witch list, so if you spot something the rest of the party can't pinpoint, you can use your DoSF to reveal it for everyone else while also smacking it with a debuff.

Other than all that, standard witch advice applies - Evil Eye, Slumber, Cackle etc. You only lose one hex from the archetype so you should have plenty left (again, assuming you don't go with Eldritch Knight.)

[Vizzerdrix]

Oh neat. So it enchants as ammo. Can I enchant the cards seprately, or must I do the entire deck as one?

[Geddy2112]

Oh neat. So it enchants as ammo. Can I enchant the cards seprately, or must I do the entire deck as one?

Oh gosh, I forgot that once you have returning and the cards are not destroyed you can enhance them....

The problem is, a harrow deck is 54 cards and the price to enchant ammo is per 50 rounds. That said, any good DM will prorate you the cost to make the extra 4, and a really generous DM might just let it slide that since it is a deck. You can't add separate enchantments to specific cards though, since they are ammo, but you can add multiple enchantments to the cards

[Vizzerdrix]

Shoot. I was gonna get an actual deck and write each cards enchantment out, then use them randomly.

Im not familiar with pathfinder enchantments. Any recomendations?

[Psyren]

The problem is, a harrow deck is 54 cards and the price to enchant ammo is per 50 rounds.

It specifically lets you enchant the entire deck in one go. This would be an exception to the general 50 rule.



Im not familiar with pathfinder enchantments. Any recomendations?

Seeking combos well with Limning. Phase Locking is great because there's no saving throw, but you have to damage a foe (not merely hit) for it to work, so you'll be targeting regular AC.

If your goal is to use the cards to do damage then you'll probably want a damage-boosting enchant like Corrosive or Bane.