Last time, I went over how you might be able to make a warlock-esque character in Pathfinder 2e for people wanting to try out a different system while emulating a class from the old one. Over the of the next posts, I’ll give three quick examples of characters that do just that. Each character will have their character sheets available in the sidebar (or after the post on mobile).
First up is Witch. As I described last time, Witch has some big connections to Warlock. You get your powers from your patron, you get a more powerful familiar like Chain Warlocks, and you can get lots of spells and magic abilities like a Tome Warlock. Of the three builds, this one has the most power in spells and least reliance on cantrips.
The following character is an example of how you might be able to make a nature focused spellcaster with a familiar. The skills, feats, items, and spells chosen are all interchangeable if you find other options more appealing. In general, I tried to choose things for the character that fit the nature-y theme of a wild witch and/or the feeling of a warlock with chain or tome pact abilities. Making your own pseudo-warlock could prove to be very different!
THE WITCHLOCK
This character focuses on making the most out of their familiar while being relatively blasty themself, much like the Pact of the Chain lets you do. Generally, witches want to keep as high of Intelligence as possible for the spells, followed by a good Dexterity and Constitution since they don’t get any armor proficiency and have a low amount of hit points. Part of having a high INT is getting lots of skills, but only the trained proficiency. Every PF2e character by default will get three skills they can max out if you focus your increases, but even trained proficiency can do a lot. For this character, the three big skills are Nature, Arcana, and Occultism to really emphasize the magical knowledge of the witch. It’s usually a good idea to grab either Acrobatics or Athletics for some form of maneuverability, as well as Deception, Diplomacy, or Intimidation to be able to help in social encounters.
Familiars in PF2e, like most other things, are build-it-yourself. By default, you get two familiar abilities you can choose from this list. I’ve left this part off the character sheet as it’s something you can change each day, but good choices for a character like this might be to gain an extra cantrip, to have your familiar deliver spells for you, or have the familiar be able to speak one language. Witch not only gets a familiar for free at 1st level, but they also get bonus familiar abilities as they level, and you can increase this number even more with certain feats.
You can also get a specific familiar by trading a certain number of familiar abilities. Since Witch familiars get extra abilities, this is especially easy for them. If you really want to double down on familiar abilities, you can take the Familiar Master Archetype. It’s mostly for characters that want a familiar but normally can’t get one, however a notable exception is the Familiar Conduit feat. By spending an extra action, you can cast a spell from your familiar’s space instead of your own. Great for a familiar focused caster!
As far as feats go, most skill feats are basic utility options for Nature or Survival to bulk up the witch’s ability to interact with flora and fauna even without magic. The majority of class feats are used to supercharge our familiar, with the rest giving more spellcasting options like Lessons or improving Hexes.
In Pathfinder, as is the case in many games, Human is the ancestry all about versatility and variation. The Versatile Heritage lets you get a bonus general feat of your choice, so I picked Incredible Initiative to help get going in combat. There’s a fantastic option here in Adapted Cantrip, which lets you cheat a cantrip off another spell tradition. The best single target cantrip for damage – and thus a great substitute for eldritch blast – is telekinetic projectile, which sadly isn’t on our list. With Adapted Cantrip, we can get it anyway.
Most of this character’s spellcasting is built around animals, summoning, and blast damage. The primal tradition – the same that Druid uses – is perfect for this, having not only the most spells based around animals and nature but also the most elemental damage spells. In combat, you can summon an animal, fey, plant, fungus, elemental, or giant to run interference, then blast the area repeatedly with whatever damage is best. Rites of Convocation even lets you spend 10 minutes to swap out a spell you prepared for a summon spell, allowing you to get yourself a backup just in case. As a prepared spellcaster, you can also swap around any of your spells each day as you need. While the primal tradition might not have the most support spells, you get access to the invaluable heal as well as a handful of other solid options like haste, fly, resist energy, and more.
With your high Intelligence and Wisdom scores, you can use the Recall action to learn about your enemies, namely which types of damage are best to take them down. This can lead to fun situations like summoning a fire giant to fight some trolls while throwing fireballs at them, safely doing no damage to your giant.
A cool thing about how Witches’ patrons work is that you kind of build your patron mechanically through your chosen theme and lessons. This character has the Wild theme (which gives primal spells) and the Elemental and Shadow lessons. Their patron could be a tricky fey lord with an affinity for animals and elementals, but it could just as easily be a coven of primal giants that includes a shadow giant, fire giant, frost giant, etc. You could also simply not know the identity of your patron, or only have a vague inkling of their true nature. That might even be a motivation for your character, which gives the GM something to work with in the campaign.
NEXT TIME…
We’ve seen a familiar-focused patron-having pact-caster to represent a chain warlock with lots of patron focused spells. Next on the list is the blade warlock analog: the Magus. Why choose between casting spells and swinging weapons when you can do both at the same time?
Other Posts
- Filling in the BlanksI went over a method you can use to “mathematically” categorize a character concept or class. However, the class pyramid isn’t limited to this use. It can be a very versatile tool if you know how to use it.
- Make Love, Not WarlockLast in our trio of pseudo-warlocks uses the Psychic class. While there’s no exact copy of eldritch blast, Psychics are the superstars of cantrips and adding bonus effects on your spells.
- I CAST SWORD!Magus is all about combining spells and martial prowess, perfect for a Blade Warlock. Their signature ability Spellstrike has you attack a foe with a weapon and unleash a spell against them all at once.
Character Sheet
Andrew D. Geels 
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