Spellthief (Trickster ACF) Optimization? (Modified from "Weird stat rules...")

[McPoyo]

Magic in the Blood is the feat you are thinking of.

[jameswilliamogle]

Here's the domains available from Godsblood Spelltheft:
Law, Nobility, Planning, War, Chaos, Good, Strength, Storm, Evil, Hatred, Death, Destruction, Retribution, Dwarf, Air, Tyranny, Creation, Earth, Fire, Metal, Planning,  Animals,  Knowledge, Plants, Travel, Fate, Cavern, Darkness, Scalykind, Protection, Repose, Elf, Knowledge, Time, Deception, Illusion, Mist,Shadow, Bestial,  Luck, Trickery, Fate, Pestilence, Illusion, Knowledge, Magic, Rune, Spell, Nobility, Moon, Cavern, Portal, Trade, Scalykind, Healing

Time, Luck, Trickery, Illusion all look pretty good to me, but do I need any of them right from the start?  The idea of a little guy that has has to "charge up" by stealing a 1st level spell from someone to cast True Strike is really funny to me, but I realize its not a great tactic, lol.

[jameswilliamogle]

This game is tonight, so I'm going to go ahead and bump the thread.

Thanks for all the help; any further suggestions for the Spellthief route?  

edit:
this too much of a challenge for you guys?

[JohnnyMayHymn]

edit:
this too much of a challenge for you guys?

   yes this is too hard

[jameswilliamogle]

  yes this is too hard

I believe it.  I switch over to a Trickster Spellthief and I've gotten 2 serious posts since.

The constant CoD advice is just lazy, and half the other suggestions won't even work either from prerequisites or from stats due to Int and skill requirements (try doing the math on what you need for those SC builds - you can't do it with Int of what my stats can produce). 

Anyways, the game started.  I did NOT get to pick any of my SLAs, but there were a few good ones among them.  I played a Whispergnome Trickster Spelthief w/ TWF.  The Cleric smashed all the kobolds in one hit.  I killed a Dire Weasel w/ the aid of the flanking Cleric.  I used Hypnotism as an SLA to keep a bunch of kobolds at bay while we mowed them down.

Still plenty of room to build from there.

[Benly]

So maybe I'm missing something obvious here, but it seems like a reasonable plan would be to go Spellthief 5 (to build up requirements)/Unseen Seer 2 (to get an extra die of sneak attack and Hunter's Eye through advanced learning) and then from there either continue Unseen Seer or go Arcane Trickster for full caster progression and faster sneak attack advancement. With Master Spellthief you maintain full spell-stealing advancement at the same time you get your sneak attack back, either to deal extra damage or apply your other spellthief powers at the same time (you can't qualify for much in the PrC department without five levels of spellthief, which gets you four powers to spend it on).

Edit: Those skill reqs are going to be pretty harsh, though. I hope you have a decent int; if not an extra level in Unseen Seer would pad your skill points adequately. I'm just a little wary about Divination Spell Power since you'll probably be casting more non-divinations than divinations.

[jameswilliamogle]

Thats a decent suggestion; thanks Benly.  Of course, I want 9 levels of Spellthief to be able to hold a 9th level spell, and Arcane Sight is pretty wicked.

The more I think about this problem, the more I think that a post-3.5 Spellthief handbook is in order.  A lot of the old paradigms in sneak-casters haven't been updated since before Complete Scoundrel.  I think that Spellthieves are "tech", but since their abilities can vary so much, not much thought has been put into them.

[Benly]

Thats a decent suggestion; thanks Benly.  Of course, I want 9 levels of Spellthief to be able to hold a 9th level spell, and Arcane Sight is pretty wicked.

Master Spellthief causes your caster levels to stack for purposes of what level of spell you can steal, doesn't it? Looking over the wording I can see that it could be read to not apply to prestige classes, but it seems pretty clearly intended to let you multiclass a spellthief and still get spellthieving (especially since under that reading it would apply to prestige classes used to advance, say, wizard.) Semi-Edit: Ah, I see the issue. Personally that looks like an oversight in Master Spellthief to me but ymmv. Either way you could put those levels a bit later in the build, maybe mixing them in with AT levels to keep up with the spells you actually encounter. Arcane Sight is pretty nice but doesn't seem like a huge deal to me, while more SA dice to strip off buffs and abilities with each hit is quite good.

For my part, the last time I built a spellthief I went into Trapsmith because I love that class to pieces, but since you ditched trapfinding that's not an option. Oh Well.

[SKRP]

Get dragonmarked feats with good spell-likes and steal them from yourself. This procedure effectively grants you infinite uses of your Spell-likes. Higher level only, unfortunately.

[jameswilliamogle]

Really like that idea, SKRP; nice!

On a similar note, one thing I was thinking about was to pick up a Summon Monster spell at some point to steal the creature's SLAs.  I don't really have an idea about when that would be better than the creature just using the ability, though.

How did the Spellthief Pokemon trick go again?

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Spellthief pokemon:

Step 1: Notice a paladin's summon mount is (sp)
Step 2: Unlimited mount works!

[SKRP]

Generally to be efficient spellthief you need proper team. In groups with dragonmarked characters, dfas, warlocks, factotums, half-feys/celestials/fiends all spellthieves shine.

Here I present my list of interesting spell-likes. Regrettably, they are very rare, but maybe you will find something inspiring. They are grouped by ECL of characters capable of using them.

ECL 5
Summon undead (master of shrouds) (godlike!)

ECL 7
Channel spell (ordained champion) (awesome, become duskblade lite)

ECL 8
Summon seelie ally (wild soul) (as summon monster, narrow, but interesting list)
Alter ego (mountebank) (alter self at will)
Fist of the gods (ordained champion) (nice, nice, nice!)
Undead Wildshape (blighter) (yes, it's actually a spell-like; damn good, but blighters are sooooo unpopular)

ECL 9
Earth's Communion (Holt Warden) (as heal, not that shabby)
Eternal Charm (Mindbender) (permanent charm, mindbender offers much more nice spell-likes, but players who took more then 1 level in this class are rare, you need a cohort or npc)

ECL 10
Warding (Initiate of sevenfold veils) (best spell-like to steal, very powerful)

ECL 11
Sonic Might (lyric thaumaturge) (nice, bonus sonic damage, need bardic music to fuel)

ECL 12
Web of Life (holt warden) (minor wis bonus, divine casters regain spells! awesome!)

[Benly]

Spellthief pokemon:

Step 1: Notice a paladin's summon mount is (sp)
Step 2: Unlimited mount works!

Unfortunately: "The mount is the same creature each time it is summoned, though the paladin may release a particular mount from service." So you could summon one mount over and over, but couldn't duplicate it.

[jameswilliamogle]

Hey, so having a Paladin in the party is much more common than any of those PrCs listed by SKRP.  Unfortunately, we don't even have that.  On top of that, the powers listed are all things you'd want your fellow party members to have more-or-less all the time, ie you don't want to steal those from them, even for a round (OK, except the MoS so that I could build a shadow army).  I'll make sure to steal them if we fight some of those.

Where it shines on PCs: the 24 h buffs of Warlocks and DFAs (and the Paladin mount ability, since it doesn't require constant usage).  What else are like those?

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Unlimited usage for factotum is cool with the right spells.  Ghoul glyphs by the ton, shrink items by the case.

[jameswilliamogle]

Unlimited usage for factotum is cool with the right spells.  Ghoul glyphs by the ton, shrink items by the case.

That is pretty slick, too...

Wish I had one in the party, but them's the breaks.  (I just loved how the Cleric called the character "broken" bc I'm playing a whispergnome, and the Wizard thought steal spells should have a save, lol.)

[Epimetheus]

Unlimited usage for factotum is cool with the right spells.  Ghoul glyphs by the ton, shrink items by the case.

That is pretty slick, too...

Wish I had one in the party, but them's the breaks.  (I just loved how the Cleric called the character "broken" bc I'm playing a whispergnome, and the Wizard thought steal spells should have a save, lol.)

If steal spells allowed a save, it'd probably be a will save, rendering the Spellthief class pretty much useless. After all, it already requires a touch attack. It's a good thing that DnD has at least 1 anti-caster base class. Are there rules for spellthieving from other Spellthieves?

[SKRP]

Hey, so having a Paladin in the party is much more common than any of those PrCs listed by SKRP. 

Just catch one of them and store in your portable hole. Slavery is the base of thievery.