Talk:Mystic Spellthief (3.5e Class)

Balance

How is being able to cast any spell off of the sorc/wiz spell list rogue-level? --Ghostwheel 04:58, August 2, 2010 (UTC)

While I mentioned to you before, for the benefit of any other commonets, my justification is the cost of course. The rogue with the ever-useful UMD also has access to various world-breaking powers via magical items he can UMD. Said items cost money, quite a bit if you want to use them for more than the occational useful utility spell. Since Magic Tap effectively lets you buy scrolls, it faces the same issue. Is it great for that one time you really need Stone to Flesh? It's wonderful! Is it great to have a daily preperation of Summon Rapemonster? Oh hell no. What it has boiled down to was quibbling on just how much gold is being given to consumables, and I profess that attempting to fuel your class abilities on a very long time and a lot of gold is not an effective means of going about it.

Though unlikely due to the aforementioned unfeasable nature of it, just as a logic experiment... it would require a 20th level spellthief 400 minutes, or 6.6 hours, to prepare all his spells and cost 52,550g to fill all it's slots, cantrip to 9th level spells, each day (not including bonus spells from high charisma). Yeah, while your arguement mostly hovered around ECL 10, I would still hold true that this idea does not hold water even (perhaps especially) at low levels. -- Eiji Hyrule 06:30, August 2, 2010 (UTC)

You're forgetting a few important things:

1. In order to deal with the daily number of encounters, a character only needs 4-6 spells of various levels. So that's not 52.5k a day.
2. Wealth is a river. D&D assumes that you're repaid for consumables. Also, you can get a lot more wealth with spells than the cost of a spell (flesh to salt on a cow, sell the salt for lots of mone. Fabricate. Wall of Iron, sell the iron. Etc).
3. Another character with UMD has to go and buy the crap they want. This one just visits a magic-mart by meditating for 10 minutes at a time.
4. At low levels, all you really need is a color spray or two to win D&D.

The spellthief can easily get that and more, easily blowing through very low-level encounters, and even more easily regaining enough wealth from encounters (at all levels) to power through whatever else he wants and more. --Ghostwheel 07:03, August 2, 2010 (UTC)

I did say it was a logic experiement, that was for fun. Seriously though, 4-6 spells of various level, each day, for the rest of just a single dungeon is still quite a few spells. The examples you give for gaining more wealth are all wizard-level abuses. As a DM I'd either have prepared a counter, or slap the crap out of people who'd try Sell The Mount Spell or Crafting shinanigans. I will give you that they have the advangage over the rogue in that they don't have to actually visit the magic mart for their spell, and that actually was the point. But then, we're back to quibbling over the price.

Out of curiosity, 1 spell each from 1-5, something totally reasonable probably, is 2375g. Do you spend that much gold on daily consumables? Remember, the primary benefit (and a good benefit) is providing that "boy I wish I prepared Knock" utility rather than actual spell preperation for a long term benefit. To that end, this ability fails. Even a single 5th level spell, which hosts several good game breakers, each day is over a thousand gold per day. And if you are not cheesing the system with Walls of Iron into gold and whatnot, well then that is actually pretty serious.

Incidentally if you are in a game where that stuff happens, then you have larger problems than access to needed utility as called for. -- Eiji Hyrule 07:40, August 2, 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for proving my point for me. Primarily wizard-level classes are able to use wizard-level shenanigans. Tome rules were created to deal with such shenanigans--if you want to see a balanced system with wizard-level wealth and spellcasting, check out Book of Gears. With BoG in place, this class is perfectly balanced against similar classes that can pull off such tricks as far as wealth goes, such as the wizard who'll be doing similar things. Just another reason that this is wizard-level, including the fact that it can do all the same planar binding stuff that wizards can do--things that are perfectly fine in a wizard-level game. There seems to be a pattern here. --Ghostwheel 08:09, August 2, 2010 (UTC)

Tap magic really just is: At level X you do not need to go to store to buy scrolls, also it expend a spell slot of the same level as the scroll you brought. I don't think this class is wizard-level, it not any better than a rogue with maxed UMD (especially since the rogue can get an epic feat at 10, this class cannot.) In the end, a nice little variant, really I don't see why the ability to buy scroll without going tto the store make this class wizard-level.--Leziad 08:29, August 2, 2010 (UTC)

That's the thing, that's a wizard-level tactic. A tactic that really, is done by anyone. A wizard who prepares Flesh to Salt. A rogue who uses a scroll of it, a MONK who UMDs it crossclass. Even a commoner. So the actual tactic of abusive moneymaking is not inherently tied to possessing spellcasting. Of course, being able to prepare and cast that spell for free is better than having to pay for it, but the spellthief has to pay for it. That places it's closest comparison to "anyone with UMD" rather than with the wizard who prepares such spells at his whim.

Note this arguement plays out with everything. Monks with planar binding. Monks with shapechange. Monks with Summon Rapeface. Not to mention, though this obviously goes into RAI vs RAW, those uses of the spell are pretty obviously abuses of said spell. Yes, you can do that, and you can also make a platinum demiplane or build a nuclear bomb out of a ring gate and an iron rod, but none of those things are really intended to work that way. Is there a way, an intended way mind you, to make vast amounts of cash that would negate money issues and won't get you smacked by a DM?

Well I suppose if you were evil, slaughtered a town of commoners, and sold all their mundane items that could work. I did once consider as a joke nuking a town whose "item value was 103,000g". Eh heh heh, nuking, mmmm....

Where was I again? Oh yes, that's just spell abuse against guilable DMs. The fact that it is not free puts them at rogue rather than wizard for comparison. -- Eiji Hyrule 08:34, August 2, 2010 (UTC)

Let us not forget the SGT use the appropriated Weath by ECL, so when balancing infinite money glitch should not be considered too much (unless the class has the exclusivity on it). --Leziad 08:42, August 2, 2010 (UTC)