Acoma wrote:
Maybe for every casting after the first/second, Signs cost 1HP to cast. Although I think that the inexhaustible supply is because Witchers have to take each Sign as a Skill (2 Skill Points/rank - very videogame-like!).
Yes, the two skills per Rank is not in keeping with the rest of the DW professions - the assassin is quite an anomaly as most professions follow the pattern of a small number of starting skills, followed by a selection of skills of the mighty at higher ranks. If you treat sigils like spells, then the Witcher could learn more at each rank, just like the magickers learn new spells at each rank, leaving the other skills to be picked at higher ranks. Higher level spells are then just more effective iterations of the sigil. Six skills ranks of each sigil? No problem - that's six levels of spells:
- Least sigil of ...
- Lesser sigil of ...
- Sigil of ...
- Greater sigil of ...
- Master sigil of ...
- Greatest sigil of ...
Witchers learn two spells per rank, may not learn a sigil of a spell level greater than their rank, and may not learn a more advanced form of a sigil they do not also know all of the earlier versions of that sigil.
After 6th rank, having unlocked (if not learned) all of the sigils, Witchers only learn one spell per rank and one of their skills of the mighty.
Witchers have 1 MP per rank, each spell (sigil) costs its spell level in MPs to cast, and Witchers recover 1 MP per combat round (or every other combat round if you want a more limited Witcher). So they can either cast one big sigil per combat or lots of little ones.
That's just off the top of my head, but
feels a little bit more balanced. Throw in a couple of starting skills with which the Witcher starts at rank 1 (something basic like tracking, etc.), balance their attack and defence scores to be more in keeping with a slightly-less-than-knight and you have a more rounded profession. If you want to add a little bit of character lore and background, etc. (esp. how it fits into the folkloric legacy of Ellesland) and you have something ready to publish in the doomed Ordo Draconis issue 3 - or here
.
I like what the original author has tried to do with the Witcher profession - remain faithful to how I assume the video game enhances the character - but a true DW conversion should convert it to fit into Legend and work alongside the existing professions, rather than try to recreate the Witcher video game in DW (unless that really is the intention, in which case just work on a Witcher RPG because the other elements and mechanics of the DW RPG will not create a Witcher-esque experience).
And it should avoid the obvious pitfalls into which some of the more recent professions have fallen, such as suddenly preventing characters from performing actions they were fully capable of performing prior to the publication of the new professions!