Master spellthief

[shadyizok]

Hey peoples,

I've got a spellthief build that I'm tweaking for an upcoming campaign and I could use some help with the math because of the master spellthief feat.
I know there's lots of threads about this feat allready but they mostly talk about completely abusing it to get truly insane CL's. I think I understand the math for my build but I'dd like a second opinion.

Here's the build:
Spellthief 7/daggerspell mage 10/something 3

I'm using the Trickster ACF from dragonmag 353 for the spellthief giving me bard spellcasting progression. Relevent feats are master spellthief at 6.

Now at say lvl 10 would my CL be:
7 from spell thief + 2 for daggerspell mage from regular progression + another 7 and 3 CL's from the Master spellthief feat for a total of CL 19?

Thanks in advance.

 

[FEADIN]

IRC Master spellthief let's you stack levels in Arcana casting class for CL only (on top of other abilities).
Is daggerspell mage an arcane casting class....no, it's prestige class that adds levels to an existing SC, if you are Spellthief (with ACF) 7 and Daggerspell 3 your CL will be 10 if Daggerspell has a 1/1 level granting progression.

 

[krupintupple]

i know you're betrothed to daggerspell mage, but have you considered spellwarp sniper instead? it's in complete scoundrel and lets you change memorized spells into rays on the fly, but also requires sneakyness and even gives a small amount of "spell-ray only" sneak attack. since you'd need a much wider base of spell selection, the following might be better suited for it:

spellthief 1/wizard 5/spellwarp sniper 5

that is, only if you're considering master spellthief, which i'm fairly certain you are. that'd give you steal spell CL 6 and a wizard CL of 11, since spellwarp adds to an existing CL of your choice. one of the best parts of spellwarp is that if the original spell had a reflex save, the ray doesn't, which means that you could spellwarp a lightning bolt into a lightning spellray: it's now a ranged touch attack, can have sneak attack applied to it, and gives no save. considering people's low touch armours - not to mention piling sneak attack on top - it might well be a done deal!

however, my (limited) understanding of daggerspell is that it's primarily melee, so this entire post may just be me boosting spellwarp haha

 

[shadyizok]

IRC Master spellthief let's you stack levels in Arcana casting class for CL only (on top of other abilities).
Is daggerspell mage an arcane casting class....no, it's prestige class that adds levels to an existing SC, if you are Spellthief (with ACF) 7 and Daggerspell 3 your CL will be 10 if Daggerspell has a 1/1 level granting progression.

Hmm, I see your point and I will not deny it, however I disagree with you that prestige classes that add to spell progression do NOT count as arcane casting classes. However I'm not going to debate you on this, as many have done before us allready.

i know you're betrothed to daggerspell mage, but have you considered spellwarp sniper instead? it's in complete scoundrel and lets you change memorized spells into rays on the fly, but also requires sneakyness and even gives a small amount of "spell-ray only" sneak attack. since you'd need a much wider base of spell selection, the following might be better suited for it:

spellthief 1/wizard 5/spellwarp sniper 5

that is, only if you're considering master spellthief, which i'm fairly certain you are. that'd give you steal spell CL 6 and a wizard CL of 11, since spellwarp adds to an existing CL of your choice. one of the best parts of spellwarp is that if the original spell had a reflex save, the ray doesn't, which means that you could spellwarp a lightning bolt into a lightning spellray: it's now a ranged touch attack, can have sneak attack applied to it, and gives no save. considering people's low touch armours - not to mention piling sneak attack on top - it might well be a done deal!

however, my (limited) understanding of daggerspell is that it's primarily melee, so this entire post may just be me boosting spellwarp haha

I'm not at all commited to daggerspell mage, however I am commited to a fair amount of lvls of spellthief, at least 7 and probably 9. This is because I like the Absorb spell class feature they get at lvl 7 but more importantly because I'dd like to be able to use some of the spells I steal, not just deny them their chance.
Following this I will not be having the regular wizard spell list but, because of the Trickster ACF, i will have a bards spell progression with the bard spell list and the wizard spell list of the schools that the spellthief allows.
Knowing this, I don't think there are not enough usefull spells for me to convert to rays to consider the spellwarp sniper.

I am willing to look at other prestige classes though, however the most common being the unseen seer and arcane trickster which I won't qualify for until very late because of my altered skillset i have not found a better option then daggerspell mage.

 

[Persiflage]

Now at say lvl 10 would my CL be:
7 from spell thief + 2 for daggerspell mage from regular progression + another 7 and 3 CL's from the Master spellthief feat for a total of CL 19?

Thanks in advance.

Er... no. It doesn't matter which interpretation of Master Spellthief you prefer, there's no reason for you to gain extra caster levels with this build. The Trickster ACF gives the Spellthief the spell progression of a Bard, but you still only have one arcane casting class - Spellthief - which is advanced by Daggerspell Mage. You have no other "arcane spellcasting classes" to stack. So your CL in the 10th-level example given would be 9: I genuinely have no idea why you'd think that Master Spellthief would increase this, whether or not you consider a caster-advancing PrC to be "levels in a spellcasting class".

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I wish there was more information on Spellthief builds with master spellthief using legitimate, responsible interpretations that a sane DM would actually allow in his game and a non-sociopathic player would consider. I tried doing a search for builds and guides the other day, and all that's out there is a bunch of bs about double level stacking, getting CLs in the 30s and 40s pre-epic, and "the rules don't say which order you have to apply things in."

*sigh*

Anyone know a good Practical Optimization guide, where Master Spellthief's still an awesome feat, but isn't propelling your CL past your ECL?

 

[shadyizok]

Er... no. It doesn't matter which interpretation of Master Spellthief you prefer, there's no reason for you to gain extra caster levels with this build. The Trickster ACF gives the Spellthief the spell progression of a Bard, but you still only have one arcane casting class - Spellthief - which is advanced by Daggerspell Mage. You have no other "arcane spellcasting classes" to stack. So your CL in the 10th-level example given would be 9: I genuinely have no idea why you'd think that Master Spellthief would increase this, whether or not you consider a caster-advancing PrC to be "levels in a spellcasting class".

Ah but then you have to look at the poorly written master spellthief more closely. It says: '...your Spellthief and arcane spellcaster levels stack when determining your caster level for all arcane spells'. Which means you add your spellthief level, not CL lvl (7 in the example) to any arcane caster lvl you have. Which I thought would mean my entire spellthief lvl (because of the ACF) and the 3 lvl's of daggerspell mage. Which would make 17 (not sure why I thought it would be 19 before now...).

However as you can see it looks confusing this way. I'll probably just talk to my DM and ask him to just make my CL equal to the Spellthief and Daggerspellmage lvls.

I wish there was more information on Spellthief builds with master spellthief using legitimate, responsible interpretations that a sane DM would actually allow in his game and a non-sociopathic player would consider. I tried doing a search for builds and guides the other day, and all that's out there is a bunch of bs about double level stacking, getting CLs in the 30s and 40s pre-epic, and "the rules don't say which order you have to apply things in."

*sigh*

Anyone know a good Practical Optimization guide, where Master Spellthief's still an awesome feat, but isn't propelling your CL past your ECL?

That was my problem too. I couldn't find a regular handbook which discusses normal playable builds and tips for those, with maybe a side section where it tells you how to utterly abuse it. Hmm perhaps I'll have to digg into my own books a bit harder and maybe create my own handbook.


Ok new question, I'm creating a themed build for my spellthief. He's a traveler from a foreign land, based upon real world ancient egypt. Because of campaign issues the only available deities are just the core deities. My character is a devout folower of 'the benevolant sun god' (read: pelor). He's created to not be to epic on his own but be able to handle a lot of different roles in a pinch.

The first 7 lvls are going to be spellthief with the trickster acf. He will also have the godsblood spellthief (healing domain) and the spell thematics (sun) as feats. And most probably master spellthief to get rid of arcane spell failure for my stolen spells. Everything else is debatable. I'm thinking human as a race, but I'm open to ideas.

Does anyone have any tips on how to advance him? A rogue/caster prestige class would probably suit him the best but arcane trickster and unseen seer are virtualy impossible because of the skill requirements.

 

[Road_Runner]

i know you're betrothed to daggerspell mage, but have you considered spellwarp sniper instead? it's in complete scoundrel and lets you change memorized spells into rays on the fly, but also requires sneakyness and even gives a small amount of "spell-ray only" sneak attack. since you'd need a much wider base of spell selection, the following might be better suited for it:

spellthief 1/wizard 5/spellwarp sniper 5

that is, only if you're considering master spellthief, which i'm fairly certain you are. that'd give you steal spell CL 6 and a wizard CL of 11, since spellwarp adds to an existing CL of your choice. one of the best parts of spellwarp is that if the original spell had a reflex save, the ray doesn't, which means that you could spellwarp a lightning bolt into a lightning spellray: it's now a ranged touch attack, can have sneak attack applied to it, and gives no save. considering people's low touch armours - not to mention piling sneak attack on top - it might well be a done deal!

however, my (limited) understanding of daggerspell is that it's primarily melee, so this entire post may just be me boosting spellwarp haha

IIRC Master Spellthief doesn't add to the maximum amount of spell levels you can hold. Master Spell thief says it ," ... stacks for the purposes of determining what level spell you can steal," but the spellthief class description says, "a spellthief can possess a maximum number of stolen spell levels equal to his class level."

So from what I remember reading while you may be able to steal 6 level spells you can only hold 1st level spells.


P.S.: If this is incorrect (I don't remember where I read this) then please tell me because I'm also making a spellthief and this is what discouraged me from multiclassing.

 

[Persiflage]

Ah but then you have to look at the poorly written master spellthief more closely. It says: '...your Spellthief and arcane spellcaster levels stack when determining your caster level for all arcane spells'. Which means you add your spellthief level, not CL lvl (7 in the example) to any arcane caster lvl you have.

[...]


However as you can see it looks confusing this way.

Actually, I looked very closely at the "poorly-written" Master Spellthief, more closely than you did if your quotation above is anything to go by. Your alleged confusion is disingenuous at best, as you've missed out everything in the feat description that disagrees with your conclusion, which is to say: "most of it". What it says is in the sentence you mentioned is "Your spellthief and arcane spellcaster levels also stack when determining your caster level for all arcane spells."

ALSO stack. Which implies that the stacking mechanism is described previously... as indeed it is. The stacking mechanic is explained - in full - thusly:

"Your spellthief levels stack with levels of other arcane spellcaster classes (that is, levels of any class that grants arcane spellcasting other than the spellthief) for the purpose of determining what level of spell you can steal.

For example, a 4th-level spellthief/4th-level wizard could steal spells of up to 4th level, as if he were an 8th-level spellthief.

Your spellthief and arcane spellcaster levels also stack when determining your caster level for all arcane spells. The character described above would have a caster level of 8th for both his spellthief spells and his wizard spells."

So there's no ambiguity at all, is there? You're provided with an example character, right there in the feat description, which directly contradicts your position. If you were correct, the example character would have a caster level of 10 for his Spellthief spells (2 for his usual CL at 1/2 Spellthief level, 4 for Master Spellthief and 4 for Wizard) and 8 for his Wizard spells. He does not: he has a caster level of 8 for each, which is entirely consistent with the foregoing explanation.

There is plenty of cheese achievable by interpreting the Master Spellthief feat in such a way that it advances double-casting PRC's, stacks with Sublime Chord/Knight of the Weave or otherwise explodes the standard CL progression... but what you were describing doesn't fly.

Anyone know a good Practical Optimization guide, where Master Spellthief's still an awesome feat, but isn't propelling your CL past your ECL?

That was my problem too. I couldn't find a regular handbook which discusses normal playable builds and tips for those, with maybe a side section where it tells you how to utterly abuse it.

The handbook you and others are looking for does indeed exist. It provides a number of nice applications of Master Spellthief that don't drive a horse and cart into the middle of Crazy Town. You'll have to look elsewhere for the utter abuse, but that's easy enough to find.