You enter a house. It’s old and scary, and the floor creaks loudly with every step. There is no one inside, except for several large spiders lurking in the cobwebbed corners. At first, everything seems pretty normal, but then you take a closer look… The shelves are filled with bottles, flasks, and vials containing strange mushrooms, something that looks like nails or fingers, and a host of other disturbing things. You approach a large chest, ready to open the lid to reveal the frightening truth behind this place—when you suddenly sense a presence behind you. In one quick motion, your sword is in your hand, ready to repel any danger… only to find a hunched, old woman. She lets out a hoarse cackle. Taken aback by the crone’s sudden appearance, you hesitate for a second… and fall asleep, never to wake again.

We’ve all heard stories like this before, but they’re just fairy tales, right? Wrong! On Golarion, witches are very, very real. As arcane casters, witches gain their spellcasting abilities not through study or natural talent, but by making a pact with a vague and mysterious force called a patron. This patron opens the doors to magic through a familiar, a cute animal that serves its witch as a bizarre living spellbook. Witches commune with their familiars every night to learn and memorize their spells, and to be ready for the next day.

Because of the strange source of their power, and because of the ignorance of common folk, witches are often feared and hated. Mostly, they are accused of stealing newborn babies and eating them alive, of cursing farmers’ cattle and dancing in the fields during the full moon. Well, the common folk are not entirely wrong: some witches really do such things. But in some places, people appreciate the help of a good witch: she knows herbs, heals the sick and the wounded, and calms animals in distress.

But if you happen to anger a witch—steel yourself for the consequences. Witches have the ability to use powerful hexes: special supernatural curses they can cast with a single fearsome look. Witches can make you fall into a deep sleep, turn you into a harmless animal, or even condemn you to death. But witches can also heal, protect, and even resurrect their friends just as easily. Witches can use hexes any number of times per day, but most can only be cast once on any given target (which is usually all that’s needed).

As with any class, not all witches are the same. You can be a hagbound witch, the victim of a special curse that slowly transforms them into a hag, and makes them physically powerful. Hagbound witches are capable of cursing their enemies and tearing them apart with their claws. Or perhaps you will be a hex channeler witch, who has a way of converting their patron’s powers into waves of healing energy. Not all witches use a familiar as a conduit for their patron’s powers—some, called ley line guardians, can spontaneously draw magical energies from the ley lines that cross all the planes of existence.

As a powerful arcane battlefield controller and healer, who uses both hexes and spells to keep their allies fighting and enemies unable to resist, a witch can single-handedly change the course of a fight.
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One of the greatest advantages of the Pathfinder roleplaying system is the incredible amount of customization and possible character builds. There are several crucial elements that make Pathfinder’s character mechanics so rich and rewarding, one of the best being the archetype system, which allows the player to customize their chosen class even deeper. For Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, we had already decided to increase the number of archetypes to five per class. But now, with your incredible support, we may have an opportunity to increase this number even more, to six archetypes!

And that’s great news for us: when we were choosing the archetypes for Wrath of the Righteous, some of our favorites didn’t make the cut. For example, for the fighter class, we wanted to add not two, but three archetypes. The first was the dragonheir scion, a powerful warrior with draconic blood flowing through their veins, imbuing them with the might of the great wyrms, their vitality, resilience, and resistances. The second archetype was the armiger, a future Hellknight who chooses a Hellknight order at the outset of the game and trains to resist any attempts to affect their mind. The third was the mutation warrior, who harnesses their knowledge of alchemy to physically enhance their body with mutagens and alchemical discoveries. Sadly, the last of these had to be left outside the scope of development. But not anymore!

Some of you might ask, “Hey devs, there are no archetypes in the works for my favorite class! How about an archetype that’s all about divination, or one for underwater adventuring? These three just don’t work in a video game, they’re more about social encounters and investigations, you know? What am I gonna do?!” Fear not, crusaders! We have the solution to your problem, and that solution is… to create new ones. Yes, totally new ones. We’re going to create new archetypes from scratch to fill the gaps.

For example, the arcane enforcer: a slayer archetype who is a master of special arcane tricks similar to arcanists’ exploits. While they’re not a caster and don't have their own spellbook, their understanding of arcane energies allows them to complement their martial capabilities with additional supernatural abilities. They can blast their enemies with various elements, strengthen their defense with shields, and even teleport around the battlefield, dealing strikes to the most important targets.

Every player takes their own unique approach to character creation: some decide on their character months before the game’s release, some try to find their ideal character through trials and tribulations (and, probably, through playing the first chapter of the game over and over and over), and for some, the “rule of cool” and beloved personal concepts are the way to go. But all players have something in common: we all want to make the perfect character, and the addition of new archetypes will bring us all closer to creating our ideal build.
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