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)