Wik
First Post
I was wondering... has anyone tried to "fix" the spellthief (from Complete Adventurer)? I'm in love with the class concept, although I found out the hard way that if you run with a GM who doesn't focus on spellcasting foes, you become a very weak class concept. In fact, I started running a few "solo" sessions where I designed optimal situations for a spellthief to work in, and even then, I found the class to be less effective than, say, a rogue.
I've got a few ideas for how I'd house-rule spellthieves, and I figured I'd run them by y'all to see if we can find some holes. Lemme know what you think:
1) Get rid of the armour. Spellthief spells should always have an arcane failure chance. The way I see it, since they'll suffer that failure chance when they steal wizard spells anyways, to put the temptation in there to wear armour is just a little dodgy. I found that I'd put my spellthief in masterwork chainmail, which meant those few times I actually got to steal spells, I'd have to contend with a spell failure chance... not cool.
2) Bardic spell progression. Up the spellthief's spell progression to something similar to that of a bards... ie, a 6 level spell progression instead of a 4 level. 4 level progressions really SUCK, as a general rule, and I figure an arcane rogue like a spellthief should have better spell access. as a way of balancing things out a bit, I would drop the typical spellthief spell list (Abjuration, enchantment, transmutation, and illusion spells from the wizard spell list) and actually make a "spellthief spells" list that removed the possibility of the spellthief picking up some higher-powered spells that would unbalance things a bit.
3) One thing I've always hated about the spellthief is that their steal spell ability actually inflicts damage. At low levels, this meant that I'd actually kill my target after stealing only a single spell. I think an option that would allow the spellthief to drop even more sneak attack damage to steal more spells would be a neat idea. In other words, you could drop multiple d6 dice to steal multiple spells with one attack. As it stands, the spellthief will spend a round or two getting into position to steal a spell, make a single sneak attack, get a single spell (and often not even the highest level spell; the wizard foe has probably already cast the "big spells"), and then retreat to a distance to cast the spell. If the spellthief were able to steal multiple spells with that one attack, the class would definately become more powerful.
4) allow for it to stack somehow with other classes. One thing I hate about the spelltheif is how there are pretty much no prestige class options. once you take levels in spellthief, about your only multi-classing option is rogue... maybe arcane trickster. It'd be nice if there were a way to allow a wizard/spellthief to exist or something.
I've got a few ideas for how I'd house-rule spellthieves, and I figured I'd run them by y'all to see if we can find some holes. Lemme know what you think:
1) Get rid of the armour. Spellthief spells should always have an arcane failure chance. The way I see it, since they'll suffer that failure chance when they steal wizard spells anyways, to put the temptation in there to wear armour is just a little dodgy. I found that I'd put my spellthief in masterwork chainmail, which meant those few times I actually got to steal spells, I'd have to contend with a spell failure chance... not cool.
2) Bardic spell progression. Up the spellthief's spell progression to something similar to that of a bards... ie, a 6 level spell progression instead of a 4 level. 4 level progressions really SUCK, as a general rule, and I figure an arcane rogue like a spellthief should have better spell access. as a way of balancing things out a bit, I would drop the typical spellthief spell list (Abjuration, enchantment, transmutation, and illusion spells from the wizard spell list) and actually make a "spellthief spells" list that removed the possibility of the spellthief picking up some higher-powered spells that would unbalance things a bit.
3) One thing I've always hated about the spellthief is that their steal spell ability actually inflicts damage. At low levels, this meant that I'd actually kill my target after stealing only a single spell. I think an option that would allow the spellthief to drop even more sneak attack damage to steal more spells would be a neat idea. In other words, you could drop multiple d6 dice to steal multiple spells with one attack. As it stands, the spellthief will spend a round or two getting into position to steal a spell, make a single sneak attack, get a single spell (and often not even the highest level spell; the wizard foe has probably already cast the "big spells"), and then retreat to a distance to cast the spell. If the spellthief were able to steal multiple spells with that one attack, the class would definately become more powerful.
4) allow for it to stack somehow with other classes. One thing I hate about the spelltheif is how there are pretty much no prestige class options. once you take levels in spellthief, about your only multi-classing option is rogue... maybe arcane trickster. It'd be nice if there were a way to allow a wizard/spellthief to exist or something.
