DM to DM...Spellfire?

[I'm A Banana]

Spellfire is fiiiiine. The worst case scenario is a friend with a wand buffing up your single-target fireball for the day. Woop-dee-doo. It's got that 'too powerful to be a feat' feel, but it's definately not unbalancing. Even if you DON'T use the written rules of they're one-in-a-million, etc. I had an entire cabal of spellfire-wieldling black mages IMC that a character was part of. Trust me, there's third level spells that work better.

 

[Shallown]

I have a player in my present campaign who has had it for a while. He's working toward a spellfire Channeler Prc I devised becuase Spellfire in nature (not mechanics so much) is different in my world. He is one of only 3 people who have it in the world. It is passed down through the ruling family and can only be passed from generation to generation y the king/queen. So even though his brother and sister have it (they are captives right now becuase they are spellfire wielders) they cannot pass it on to their children unoess they become King or Queen.

As far as how it runs in my game. He has never overshadowed the group in terms of raw power. Roleplaying wise he started out not knowing what he had so didn't use it for several levels and is just now starting to use it consistently. It is usually one good burst during a fight and he could do the same with a wand. As far as absorbing magic he very seldom if ever did. Its wasting and action or potentially wasting an action. He absorbed between fights from party casters. He also uses it to heal a fair bit when those last minutes saves have to be done and the cleric is tied up or can't make it to save someone.

The only changes I have made, both of which were quite recent, is that he cannot absorb over his con and the healing is not considered positive energy by undead. The first becuase I never liked the rules for absorbing too much as presented. There isn't a real penalty for having like twice your con but that can add up to a lot during a single fight. It was extra rolls and extra hassle to me.

The Spell fire channeler class he will use allows for him to start storing more as he gains levels in it, as well, as increase his healing and do some other neat effects he wanted. Since he is most likely the only one to ever take this class I tuned it toward what the player/character would want to do with his abilities. they are mostly support type powers.

Hope some of this babblingis useful. I don't think it is to powerful but bears watching.

Later

 

[Neo]

I don't know how spellfire is written up, but you might want to take a page out of 3.5e and say that it only absorbs spells which allow spell resistance - thus leaving them still normally vulnerable to conjurations (which use magic to conjure a real thing).

I think this might be a nice balancing act

I quite like the sounds of this also, alongisde with stored spell levels bleeding off over time I think I have my resolution to the issue.

thanks guys!

 

[BobROE]

It depends on what level you're playing at. At low levels it can be a problem if the party casters are dumping left over spells in the Spellfire character, because then the character can do like 15d6 damage to your BBEG at 2nd level or whatever and make short work of the encounter. At higher levels it shouldn't be as big of a problem.

I had a player with it, and as written it's fine. She never used it to absorb incoming magic, so she only got spell levels from the party mage (being the party cleric she couldn't aborb her own spells).

 

[Derulbaskul]

Spellfire can only be used to absorb magic targeted at the character so it can't "soak up" conjurations or even fireballs.

I would allow it as written but put a maximum damage cap of the wielder's character level.

 

[Crothian]

If I had a player that wanted Spellfire, I'd allow it. It would make a good story element and I think a player would have a lot of fun with it.

 

[LGodamus]

one thing that came up earlier in one of our games that no one considered is this: there is no way short of unconciosness to stop a spell fire wielder from using their power. With a spell caster if they are bound and gagged they are stopped ,, not so the spellfire person...they can activate their power and even use it to destroy their bonds.....they are annoying as all crap. That is why we took the npc spellfire guy to thay and gave him to a red wizard

 

[seankreynolds]

A spellcasting character with spellfire cannot use his own spellcasting ability to charge up his spellfire. Why? Because to absorb with spellfire you have to ready an action, and if you're readying an action you're obviously not casting a spell at the same time. No, quicken and haste don't help with this problem either.

It works on divine or arcane magic (after all, in FR all magic comes from the Weave anyway).

 

[Aaron L]

Funny story: The spellfire wielder in our game was being persued by red wizards all the time. Once, a red wizard found us and during the fight that ensued the spellfire wielder was polymorphed into a puppy. The red wizard picked him up and started to fly away with him, and then was bitten for a whopping little puppy bite full of like 60 points of spellfire damage. He died.

 

[Aristotle]

I'd go with the suggestion above about only being able to absorb spells that are affected by spell resistance. That sounds "correct" to me, and is basically an easier way of what I was doing when I had a spellfire wielder in my game.

The spellfire character was the first of three characters to die in my current campaign, and not because I wanted to intentionally get rid of him. I specifically stered the player towards spellfire to make up for the small party (3 characters) with no healer. The spellfire's healing ability allowed the character to fill that role quite nicely at the lower levels.