D&D 4E How to do a 4e Spellthief?

[Nifft]

Consider: When you remove the ability of a monster to use a power, that IN AND OF ITSELF is a pretty useful benefit. Thus any OTHER benefit the character gets from this needs to be VERY minor.

Yep yep yep. This is exactly why IMHO you can never steal a monster's power directly, all you can do is impose Controller-ish conditions on it and grant yourself Striker-ish bonuses by doing so.

Note that in 3.5e, the Spellthief could always have used a stolen spell to power one of his OWN spells known -- but he had few, and they were weak. I like that mechanic far better.

Cheers, -- N

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yep yep yep. This is exactly why IMHO you can never steal a monster's power directly, all you can do is impose Controller-ish conditions on it and grant yourself Striker-ish bonuses by doing so.

Note that in 3.5e, the Spellthief could always have used a stolen spell to power one of his OWN spells known -- but he had few, and they were weak. I like that mechanic far better.

Cheers, -- N

Here's just a thought then. Why not make the class really a LIFE stealer? Base its powers and features heavily around using healing surges. Then allow the stealer to steal surges. Its powers could also of course 'steal' other monster 'stuff' like powers, but everything would be converted to a surge or possibly some TempHP (surges maybe being to granular in some cases). Other powers could do things like steal 'strength' (weaken monster for some period of time, etc).

There could also be some kind of power that would give you the ability to GIVE a surge to someone else, providing a bit of a leaderish ability. That might actually be kind of interesting. There are a LOT of strikers out there already, but not so many leaders. So having a 'rogueish leader' kind of class would be pretty distinct. Depending on how the powers were designed it could lean more in the controllerish or strikerish direction, but I would envisage it as basically a rogue-like class with a hybrid leader/controller role.

 

[Nifft]

Here's just a thought then. Why not make the class really a LIFE stealer?

IMHO that's a Paragon Path.

Life Stealer
Luck Stealer
Mind Thief
Thief of Time

Cheers, -- N

 

[chronoplasm]

Rather than a lifestealer, why not make the Spellthief a Mime?

 

[Omnifarious Grey]

The "spell" in Spellthief does not have to necessarily stand for someone who steals spells, but could in fact be someone who steals using spells. This could be the conceptual standing for the spell thief.

I would have to say to be careful with making at-wills that can take powers and do damage at the same time.

I suggest making it a class feature for taking powers, perhaps even be able to use it with your allies. Otherwise it might work best to have abilities that emulate other powers instead of trying to deal with steal them.

 

[Garthanos]

Just a quick thought, how about one round you block there use of an attack power (like a parry they must have failed on it) then you do your riposte the next round with the same power they used against you... technically you didn't deprive them of it. If its an encounter power you are expending your own encounter power to do it. Mirror / Mimmic ... looks like stealing.

 

[Wik]

Hm. Some very good points have been raised that I didn't see.

I like the idea of stealing a creature's power and using it directly - that's the fun part of the class. But, it could be done in a better way - you use an encounter, and the attack and damage code is predetermined... you're simply stealing the tack-on effect. Or, you could have dailies that steal encounters... and the rest of the class would be stealing to power your own effects (like Nifft mentioned).

 

[Dragongrief]

Random thought jumped into head... what if it was handled like a charged Channel Divinity?

You get to choose 1 or 2 abilities at 1st level and can gain more options by spending feats.
A class feature allows you to "steal" an encounter or recharge power (making it unavailable for 1 round), and charges the Spellthief ability. Usable a certain number of times per day.

 

[Nifft]

I like the idea of stealing a creature's power and using it directly - that's the fun part of the class. But, it could be done in a better way - you use an encounter, and the attack and damage code is predetermined... you're simply stealing the tack-on effect.

There's some problems with the old way of doing stuff.

1/ Monster powers no longer have a level. This is huge. Monster spells and spell-like abilities always had a direct comparability to PC spell level -- those that didn't just replicate PC spells had their level stated explicitly.

This means you can't really tell which powers are appropriate to steal. The 3.5e dude had a level cap on his spelltheft for a reason, I'd assume.

2/ In 4e, monster attacks tend to cluster by "theme", since PCs can't just pile on buffs even when they know what to expect. Thus, a fire giant's attacks will do extra fire damage, and he'll resist fire damage, and this is okay. However, it means stealing an attack power will often suck -- no more blasting an Ogre Mage with his own Cone of Cold; instead, you're more likely to find undead throwing necrotic damage at you, which won't really hurt if you throw it back at them.

3/ Recharge. They're neither at-will nor encounter; and worse, there are varying degrees of rechargeable, which imply some powers are stronger for their monster's level even within the group "recharge", which is assumed to be somewhere between at-will and encounter in strength.

So yeah. I don't think the system supports "balanced" theft in the way 3.5e did.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Omnifarious Grey]

One idea may be to instead of directly "stealing" a ability or power, you could instead hamper an enemy's recharge capability or resistance to instead gain charges (which could be a class power) that could be used to amplify your powers. This would mean that the spellthief could be a watered down rogue/wizard who can excel at those powers if he hampers foes to boost his abilities.

For example, lets say you have an at-will as a minor action against an enemy. If you hit you deal no damage but instead the enemy cannot use an encounter power until your next turn -or- cannot recharge a power until your next turn, and you can gain some static charge. Then lets say you use one of your at-wills that deal 1[W] + Dex damage and you expel a [charge] in order to deal an extra 1d6 damage for the attack.

Thoughts?