When Splat Classes are Neglected... OR... What Happened with the Spellthief!?

[Wik]

I fell in love with the spellthief class the second I first read about it. The class, found in a 3rd edition splatbook, was essentially an arcane thief that had the ability to steal spells and other abilities from enemy casters and monsters. It was, to put it simply, awesome. And within a day or two of reading about it, I had a spellthief made up and had convinced a bunch of friends to get together to play. I was usually the GM, but I had even sweet-talked another player into running a campaign.

To this day, it remains my favourite class.

However, it never really got any "traction" in that book, even though the other classes (Ninja and Scout, if memory serves) were supported in later releases. My beloved spellthief got only token support in Complete Scoundrel, and I don't think was even mentioned in the Player's Handbook 2.

What happened with it? Why did WotC create a class, and then funcitonally pretend it didn't exist? It certainly wasn't overpowered - if anything, it was underpowered. However, we can't say that it was the underpowered nature of the class that drove wotc away - they pumped plenty of support into the marshall, swashbuckler, and hexblade, after all.

This thread is about the spellthief. It's also about those classes from other books, or other games, that we fell in love with - and then saw fall by the wayside, rarely to be mentioned again. It's about weregators from WoD. It's about 2e Dark Sun's Templar PCs. It's about 4e's shamans and artificers. It's about Wemics, Grippli, and Tasloi. And it's about thief-acrobats.

Come, fellow ENWorlders, and let us remember the (not quite) forgotten. And debate what made these particular selections fall into obscurity while other, not nearly as interesting, classes gained a bunch of levels and took our stuff.

 

[El Mahdi]

...Come, fellow ENWorlders, and let us remember the (not quite) forgotten. And debate what made these particular selections fall into obscurity while other, not nearly as interesting, classes gained a bunch of levels and took our stuff.

Because they were buddy-buddy with the boss!

Everyone says they want the outside-of-the-box thinker, the passionate performer, the pretty peacock...But No! 99.99999999999% of the time, they'll go with the conservative, toe-the-line, shades-of-gray, make the boss happy, consistent but unexciting performer!

Butt-Kissers!

It's the economy's fault!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There are all kinds of orphaned/undersupported classes out there: most of the Psionic ones, the Incarnum/ToM/ToB ones...almost everything after PHB1 in 4Ed.

I blame it on the rain, Rio and the Macarena.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Not sure what happened, but when I was running a 3.5 campaign from late 2007 through early 2010, we had one guy who started as a thief, but then multi-classed into spellthief. He was pretty effective at times - sometimes stealing a monster's spell resistance, and later said that he should have started out as a spellthief and just done that all the way up, as a high level spellthief can steal some pretty nifty things, and I don't think he lost much in the way of sneak attack damage.

Is the spellthief in 4E? I don't recall, but maybe his abilities did not translate well into 4E?

I blame it on nargles

 

[Storminator]

I think the spell thief would be awesome in 4e. Every monster has powers! Steal away!

I'm sure writing it up would be mind bending, but it'd be very cool.

PS

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

While at first glance, the Spellthief seems a natural for 4Ed, if it wasn't done VERY carefully, it would be the most broken class out there. The key question would be *ahem*: how many spells could a Spellthief steal if a Spellthief could steal spells?

Would it only be spells? Or would it be powers of any kind? And how often? Stealing spells is a nifty mechanic in 3.5 when a given spellcaster may have dozens at his or her disposal, but with the A/E/D/U structure of the game, that's a much smaller well to draw from. Steal a foe's Daily turn one and follow by stealing an Encounter power and he may as well just slit his own throat.

Now...imagine that power in the hands of an NPC Spellthief.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

While at first glance, the Spellthief seems a natural for 4Ed, if it wasn't done VERY carefully, it would be the most broken class out there. The key question would be *ahem*: how many spells could a Spellthief steal if a Spellthief could steal spells?

Would it only be spells? Or would it be powers of any kind? And how often? Stealing spells is a nifty mechanic in 3.5 when a given spellcaster may have dozens at his or her disposal, but with the A/E/D/U structure of the game, that's a much smaller well to draw from. Steal a foe's Daily turn one and follow by stealing an Encounter power and he may as well just slit his own throat.

Now...imagine that power in the hands of an NPC Spellthief.

Make it based on keywords (fire, lightning, radiant, etc) and make the effect a "save ends" effect.

It would still be fiddly to figure out the attack and damage aspects, especially when stealing monster powers.

 

[NewJeffCT]

While at first glance, the Spellthief seems a natural for 4Ed, if it wasn't done VERY carefully, it would be the most broken class out there. The key question would be *ahem*: how many spells could a Spellthief steal if a Spellthief could steal spells?

Would it only be spells? Or would it be powers of any kind? And how often? Stealing spells is a nifty mechanic in 3.5 when a given spellcaster may have dozens at his or her disposal, but with the A/E/D/U structure of the game, that's a much smaller well to draw from. Steal a foe's Daily turn one and follow by stealing an Encounter power and he may as well just slit his own throat.

Now...imagine that power in the hands of an NPC Spellthief.

I would guess it would be limited to at-will powers - at least until you get to higher levels. However, it could be a bit tricky, as monster & NPC design is different than PC design. A PC losing their at-will can be at a huge disadvantage in a lengthy combat. Similarly, a lower level monster that loses its at-will could be crippled if they blow their one or two encounter powers early.

Or, maybe it would be that you lose access to the power until the end of your next turn, or until you save.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

There are all kinds of orphaned/undersupported classes out there: most of the Psionic ones, the Incarnum/ToM/ToB ones...almost everything after PHB1 in 4Ed.

I blame it on the rain, Rio and the Macarena.

I'm not sure how much more support ToB classes needed. They are pretty butch as written.

 

[Stumblewyk]

Or, maybe it would be that you lose access to the power until the end of your next turn, or until you save.

Until you save. I'd see it working where the Spellthief steals a power, and gains +xdy damage dice until the target of the the stolen power saves. They'd also have powers allowing them to negate creatures recharging powers, if I were designing the class.