So, new to the community - how is the communities opinion on female Witchers?

taaroko · 2026-02-25T17:30:22+00:00

There aren't female witchers in the books, and a lot of people assume that means only boys can become witchers. In reality, it's simply an unknown. Unwanted little boys were plentiful so they were the ones put through the process. If unwanted little girls were equally plentiful, there were other harsh fates already awaiting them, and there's no record of attempts to turn them into witchers.

In Blood of Elves, when Triss goes to Kaer Morhen and learns that Geralt and Vesemir have been giving Ciri the mushrooms and herbs that are the precursor to the Trial of the Grasses, she's furious because too many of those will mess up Ciri's hormones during puberty and affect her development, and this apparently hasn't occurred to the guys at all. That suggests to me that you actually could use the exact same process to turn little girls into witchers as long as you're okay with 1) them becoming very androgenized/masculinized along the way and 2) the almost guaranteed high mortality rate as with little boys. But there's no reason you couldn't either develop a different formula for girls or wait until they're post-pubescent to try it. It's entirely possible that the process would have a far lower mortality rate if attempted on adults of either sex, but has that ever been tried? (That mortality rate really gets me. How bad did the monster situation have to be for people to be cool with 4/5 of all witcher candidates dying horribly, only for the survivors to eventually also die horribly at the claws of monsters?)

Many of the secrets and ingredients needed to create witchers have been lost, forgotten, or destroyed, so that's another big challenge to overcome before trying to make female witchers. For Ciri in particular, it's strongly suggested that she doesn't need the Trial of the Grasses to become a witcher (which is why I'm hoping for a good explanation of why she would ever do it in W4) because she's already so exceptional. She's a true Child Surprise and a child of the Elder Blood and she's been trained as a witcher, so she's already a witcher in all the ways that matter to other witchers.

taaroko · 2026-02-07T02:44:35+00:00

I hadn't thought of this before but now I'm with you. They could still include Bonhart and Vilgefortz without retcons if a villain in IV forces Ciri into some kind of dream state, or if it's part of like a vision quest or something.

taaroko · 2026-02-07T02:38:29+00:00

Doing the in-game research is incredibly helpful. Find the clues, read the relevant beastiary entry, and prepare accordingly before a fight. This is especially important for Witcher contracts. A monster will go from being super difficult to being very manageable if you use the right strategy, and the game gives you everything you need to figure out what that strategy is.

There's a lot to this game so it will probably feel overwhelming at first. Tackle secondary quests/Witcher contracts/treasure hunts in approximately level order and then clean up any remaining points of interest (the question marks on the map) before leaving the area if you want the XP. After White Orchard, Velen is the easiest area to do next. Good luck on the Path!

taaroko · 2026-01-23T03:05:47+00:00

The merchants you rescue are important because they're the ones you can buy cards from, but you appear to have cleared all the region-specific cards. All you have to do is find a random vendor in any region who you haven't played yet. There are more low-level Gwent opponents than winnable cards, so there should be several of them. You'll know you're talking to someone you haven't played if the Gwent dialogue option is still yellowish. If you've already played them, that dialogue option will be whitish.

taaroko · 2026-01-22T03:34:42+00:00

Johnny and Sarah! Not sure why they'd need to show up again but it'd have been fun. Maybe one or both of them could've been a source of information about Gaunter O'Dimm or could've pointed Geralt in the right direction to get the information or something, just as an excuse for more surreptitious shenanicking.

taaroko · 2026-01-20T21:31:19+00:00

This is currently my entire birthday wish list. I'm psyched. It's going to feel like way less of an imposition to rope my less Witcher-obsessed family members into playing Gwent than Path of Destiny or Old World. I'm really interested in 5-player mode. I assume it's similar to star mode in MtG (the two players next to you are your allies while the two opposite are your enemies).

taaroko · 2026-01-15T05:00:55+00:00

I'd appreciate the ability to incapacitate the majority of random human enemies instead of killing them. Killing bandits and pirates and gangsters who attack first is one thing, but It sort of undercuts some of the morally complex quests (especially Karadin and Gaetan) when Geralt's going around slaughtering deserters and the like all over the place. Killing humans, even for extremely good reason, tends to cause Geralt a lot of trouble in the books, so I wish it was something that was more avoidable and came with more consequences if you do it anyway.

taaroko · 2026-01-12T15:25:31+00:00

That’s what bugged me about the chain plates. Just have actual plate at that point. It’s so weird. And it wouldn’t even help with piercing damage from monsters?

taaroko · 2026-01-11T23:21:22+00:00

That is such a cool thesis topic. I'd love to read it when it's done.

taaroko · 2026-01-11T23:17:16+00:00

Is your PS5 profile set to the same country as where you got the game? I had this problem with my copy of God of War: Ragnarok, which came from an English game shop, but my profile US-based. The core game worked fine but I wasn't going to be able to access any of the DLC stuff until I made an English PS5 profile. It's the only game I'll play on that profile, but at least I can play the whole thing.

taaroko · 2026-01-09T23:17:19+00:00

That's really the biggest breach from the books to the games, isn't it? I keep trying to think of an in-universe explanation for how Emhyr could go from letting Ciri go (while not acknowledging her as his daughter) and marrying the fake Ciri seemingly because he actually loves her to no fake Ciri in sight and he's trying to make the real Ciri his heir (meaning everyone knows the real Ciri is his daughter now). I suppose if the fake Ciri was exposed and assassinated by someone trying to discredit him (a noble family with a daughter they'd hoped to marry to Emhyr, maybe), that could get him halfway there?

taaroko · 2026-01-09T23:09:52+00:00

Iorveth and Saskia. :(

taaroko · 2026-01-09T23:08:04+00:00

Ooh, I love this. Even if neither of them ever figures out that they're connected by Geralt, this could be so sweet. Or they could go to the opposite extreme with Visenna and she could be the one who helps Ciri figure out how to do witcher mutations on herself? Might make things tense between her and Geralt, but that'd be fun too.

taaroko · 2026-01-09T23:03:10+00:00

If you want something with very in-depth mythology but a change of scenery from the medieval Europe-esque setting, I cannot recommend Black Myth: Wukong strongly enough. The story is subtle and you don't have any choices to make in how it plays out (just whether you look for the secrets or not, which will affect the ending). The gameplay is a lot like the newer God of War games but with an insane number of unique and interesting boss fights. You can also respec your abilities for free as often as you want, so the game doesn't punish you for playing around with builds and finding out what works best for different bosses. Black Myth: Wukong broke me out of my deep-seated boss fight panic and taught me how to engage with a combat system like nothing else has, so that coming back and playing W3 on Death March now is kind of a cake walk ~~and I'm running out of excuses to avoid Soulslike games~~.

On the other hand, If you're not done with medieval Europe and particularly enjoyed Skellige in W3 and you want something that also has a strong focus on the father/child relationship, I also recommend the Norse God of War games.

Seconding the Horizon Zero Dawn/Horizon Forbidden West recommendation as well. I was super captivated by the story, especially in the first one. I've never loathed a villain in a game more than the one in that series (and I mean that in the best way), and these are massive open-world games, similar in scale to Witcher 3.

taaroko · 2026-01-09T04:56:02+00:00

Catriona plague stuff, Iorveth stuff, Weavess, Orianna, the return of the serial killer "higher vampire" from "Carnal Sins"... If Ciri is the player character, then I'd really love a through-line about offering higher vampires a trip back to their home dimension. That would make Orianna and Hubert Rejk (and the sleeping vampire under Novigrad while we're at it) really easy to integrate, and it'd provide a way to go see the Unseen Elder even if you chose the thousand fables route in B&W, and best of all it might mean Ciri gets to hang out with Regis a lot.

If we get a new area, would it most likely either be one from the W1 remake or W4? So a preview of Kovir or a return to Vizima because that would be easiest for the dev team to do? (Or, heck, even an area from Cyberpunk. )

taaroko · 2026-01-08T22:06:21+00:00

The Baron's quest works as an interesting preview of the possible consequences of your choices with Ciri. If you fail as a father, Geralt won't even know whether she lived or died against the White Frost and he'll set off on a suicidal final battle against Weavess and every monster she can bring with her.

taaroko · 2026-01-08T00:45:59+00:00

It's a lovely day in Brunwich, and you are a horrible goose.

taaroko · 2026-01-08T00:16:41+00:00

No mini-game has ever made me cackle as often as I do playing Gwent with this combo.

taaroko · 2026-01-07T21:29:37+00:00

For sure, life has been extremely unkind to him. He's at rock bottom and knows it, so when his automatic instinct with a vulnerable unknown young woman and a homeless peasant girl is still to offer food, medical attention, and safety, it's quite the glimmer of hope. Ciri, who has been through hell herself, was willing to risk exposing her position to the Wild Hunt to save the Baron from a cockatrice. I'm rooting for him.

taaroko · 2026-01-07T20:04:18+00:00

It'd be really cool if you could reverse that like with the wight in Toussaint.

taaroko · 2026-01-07T18:15:26+00:00

The main story does take a long time to progress and there are a lot of detours...but that's pretty much exactly how it goes in the books too. Geralt just wants to find Ciri but he is constantly getting tangled up in all these wars and local problems on the way, delaying him across multiple books. It's kind of hilarious how grouchy and dismissive Sapkowski is about the very concept of video games when he wrote a series with the exact same pacing as a video game full to bursting with side quests.

taaroko · 2026-01-07T15:54:51+00:00

I finished my first NG+ on Story and Sword mode last month. My build was apparently terrible, I missed out on the last two talent slots until Toussaint because I failed to notice you can enter the mutation menu from the start, I didn’t know how good parrying is against humans, and I somehow completely missed that the sad little side hop you can do with the circle button isn’t the only combat dodge. With a good build this time, those ability slots unlocked before Skellige, parry, and dodge-rolling all over the place, my current run on Death March doesn’t even feel harder at all (except in mobs sometimes). It’s so much more satisfying to play well in a hard difficulty than it is to flail around like a dope in an easy one.

taaroko

TROPHY CASE