Witchers

>>Their expertise lies in fighting magical beings: ghosts, werewolves, vampires

Wasn't the cleric made for this originally?

>Van Helsing
>No mention of pic related
Do you even know who this is?

They're really just a ranger, down to knowing some magic tricks. The only difference is no animal fuckery (unless you count Roach as Geralts AC), that Witcher signs are basic arcane magic, and the mutagens.
>They disdain ranged combat

What toff, witchers use whatever works, it just happens many monsters are more vulnerable to alchemic silver and it's cheaper and easier to have a silvered sword than to make a bunch of silver tipped bolts or arrows. Moreover their peak/super human manual dexterity, strength, and endurance means their time is more valuable with a sword jn hand.

If you were a professional you'de know their hats never actually had buckles

Yes.

>They're really just a ranger
What similarilities do they have with rangers? I mean, just look at:
youtube.com/watch?v=UD8A8qj0rxs

That looks exactly like something a ranger would be able to do (assuming the ice bomb was a fancy magic item.

Anyway, Letho is clearly an assassin. Hardly a usual witcher. I mean its in the title of the game.

They're specialist hunters of specific prey?

What differs a witcher from, lets say, an inquisitor? Asking because my toaster can't run any of the games.

There's no reason this couldn't be covered by using a ranger with a monster hunting sub-class.

A witcher owes allegiance to no god, religion, race or king.
A witcher exists for only one reason which is to kill monsters in exchange for money
A witcher does not kill humans for money
A witcher is created by infusing of certain mutagens into children to give them heightened sense and strength
Witchers are then trained at Witcher schools. These children usually come from people who give up their children to the Witcher order in exchange for the witcher saving their lives from a deadly situation, but also include orphans
Witchers are looked down upon and usually allowed within city limits only when there is need for one

Witchers are basically just Rangers with specific flavor, so not really. At most I could see an "Alchemist" archetype for Ranger that uses mutagens and toxic potions becoming baseline.

> my monster hunter original Donute von Steele

I'm not sure what you are trying to criticize here

They're tricky to stat, at least by some mainstream systems (I'm looking at you, 5e), because a Witcher is a class, race, background, and skillset all rolled into one. They're rangers with a few skill points in alchemy, limited pseudo-casting, multiclassed with maybe an Inquisitor. At some point it becomes easier to either say fuck it and fluff an existing class, or go full retard and actually try to homebrew it, at which point everything explodes because your homebrew sucks.

Witchers do kill humans for money.
Geralt espouses this many a times when people ask why he has two swords.

Witchers have extremely limited magical abilities, basically specialized cantrips. Instead they're very buff/debuff-based, having to stop and brew potions that would kill non-mutants to enhance their physical abilities or poison monsters they're after.

Ostensibly, they're also supposed to be emotionless, but I don't know if the actual reason they've garnered this reputation is because they're all depressed wrecks or because the mutation process actually makes it difficult to express emotion.

No, the steel sword is for self defence. Killing humans is a strictly prohibited action amongst witchers since they are only just tolerated in human society.

Only the cat school are assassins and are generally looked down upon by other Witcher schools for it. Geralt does kill humans, but he doesn't take contracts out on them.

He's criticizing Witchers. Duh. But the "Donut Steel" critique (that last word's a bit charitable) shouldn't be used so liberally on original IPs or official additions to franchises.

Geralt literally took a contract to kill a lord during the first area of TW2.
He hunted down and killed the leader of the Sacred Rose.
And may or may not have killed Desmond in TW3 for phat loot.

Silver for Monsters

Steel for Humans

Banana for Tigers

They're just a Ranger variant, user. Instead of bow skills and dual wielding they concentrate on Favored enemy and two-handed swords.

If you're making a witcher base them on the spooks from this book series.

>Duh
You're a homosexual, aren't you?

Witchers and witcher-like figure have always been kinda popular.
The main difference between witchers and regular monster hunters is that they themselves have superhuman abilities and most often than not their work doesn't revolve around sticking a monster with a pointy stick but lifting curses, performing rituals, solving misteries and the like.
People hunting monsters have been popular in fantasy since forever, but usually it's just normal people, albeit extremely skilled and resourceful.

Everything you're listing is setting fluff rather than something that would make a character a full-blown archetype in their own right. They're rangers.

May as well argue in favor of making followers of a certain god in a specific a setting just because you think it makes them distinct.

Witchers are a race tho, not a class.
D&D/PF speaking tho you could make a witcher class simply by picking ranger and replacing the animal companion with access to all knowledge skills.
Plus reducing their combat style to two handed swords in exchange for something else idk. Seems like witchers of all schools put a great deal of skill in agility so maybe some dex based talent

Witchers are another race as much as somebody that ritually chops off their arm is another race. They're physically altered humans, but they were originally humans and still technically are. They're not born as Witchers, they become them through training and magical augmentation, which would constitute a class.

no, because witchers were initialy made to be a joke on a old polish fairytale, and the whole witcher series was partly criticizing the reality of poland and polish fantasy. They dont really work outside of sapkowskis setting

The concept of a monster/pest-hunter and remover of curses that utilizes physical prowess and/or some kind of mystical knowledge or power, is shunned by society, and may have gone through some kind of physical transformation (that likely involves eyes and hair) is actually pretty damn old and seems to be rather universal across cultures.

The image of the Witcher itself is actually been said to be inspired by the image of a Pied Piper as well as the role of Knacker from medieval societies, but you'll also find very similar archetypes in characters such as the Kusuri-Uri from Bakeneko/Mononoke series and there is even an uncanny resemblance to Ginko from Mushi-shi.

I don't think the fiction, Witcher, however, has enough of a cultural impact or appeal to warrant an entire fantasy archetype/role that could become common among fantasy tropes. Partially because it may be simply a little late for that, as most of the tropes appearing have usually very deep roots in much older popular fiction, and partially because - as many people already pointed out - there is not much of a needed niche for it, it's role is largely already filled by better established fantasy tropes and archetypes.
So I don't see Witchers being commonly recognized and accepted table top archetypes any time soon. After all, the games were succesful, but as games tend to be, left much less of a lasting impact that books or movies tend to leave.

"You're a faggot, aren't you?"
Fixed it. And no.

>Geralt espouses this many a times when people ask why he has two swords.
Geralt makes it EXPLICITLY CLEAR that he never kills people for money in the books. In the game, several mentions are made about Witchers that turned into mercenaries or assassins, but it's made absolutely clear that this kind of behavior is not condoned, and in fact considered innacceptable and downright a betreyal of the order. It's not really difficult to figure out why, and again, both the books and the games give pretty lengthy explanation as to why exactly. In fact, it's related to what is arguably the biggest moral dilemma that permiates the whole game series.

Witchers DO kill people. They just should never do it for profit or political reasons. Always only in self-defense, vengance or other personal needs.

Witchers are Humans with the [Witcher] Template and levels in Ranger.

witchfinders are nothing like witchers
they just both contain the word witch

Let's see, Witcher template..
+2 dex, -2 charisma (inb4 but geralt pulls so much ass), +2 fort save vs poison?

I don't think Charisma is the end-all be-all to getting laid in tabletop. Even if a fighter has a whopping 8 charisma he's still a large and in charge stoic badass that has done badass shit. The local tavern wench is still going to flock to him unless there's a bard nearby cock-blocking him. Sorcerers have high charisma and I imagine they're significantly less attractive, they may have more skill when it comes to talking someone into sex but a fighter doesn't need to talk anyone into jack shit; he should just have an easy time by default.

Witchers have lots of sex because they're in very good shape, are literally fighting the nightmares plaguing your village, and are sterile in an age where contraceptives are unreliable at best.

>Witcher template

+4 Dex, +2 Str, +2 Con, +2 fort saves against poison, Immunity to Disease, Scent and Low-Light Vision (with alchemy bringing that up to Darkvision.)

Fighters satisfy 2 out of 3 of those conditions and D&D rarely dips into realms realistic enough where worrying about contraception is a plausible deterrent.

>Even if a fighter has a whopping 8 charisma he's still a large and in charge stoic badass that has done badass shit.

He'd also be potentially abrasive, shy, or awkward. Charisma is a major component in how one sells themselves to other people.

I remember reading a couple of those before.

did he get past 3-4 books?

Shit dude, read the books.

Write a story and do it.

The reason those other characters became archetypes is because other people ran with the concept, not because faggots asked about it on the internet.

If you play anything based on Elric you're by virtue of Sapkowski's plagiarism using Witchers.

The sterility and immunity to all diseases actually plays by far the biggest role, even bigger then them being generally pretty fit and attractive guys due to the nature of their job.
Seriously, it's like 80% of their appeal. It's not common in this world, to get the option to fuck without worries about the consequences.

Also, it's worth noting that Geralt himself is an exception, rather than an a common sight. Most of the other witchers don't really get much, if any, ladies attention. The whole "Witchers are sex-machines" thing is to a MASSIVE degree actually Marigold's fault, as he seriously helped popularize Geralts stories and made him a poster-child of the whole guild.

>Are Witchers now popular enough to become an archetype in themselves like Aragorn and Conan inspired the Ranger and Barbarian?
Oh fuck no.

which supports the idea of them needing their own rules to form a proper facsimile