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Velaryon
2011-01-24, 03:49 PM
Hi all. I've got some questions to which I think I know the answers, but I'd like some confirmation before it actually comes up in my campaign.

My party of PCs includes a Hellfire Warlock. They are currently engaged in a battle vs. a powerful local thieves' guild, the leader of whom is a high-level Spellthief. I've never used a Spellthief before as either a PC or NPC.

I know that the Spellthief can use his Steal Spell-Like Ability to take one of the Warlock's invocations since they're all SLA's. But here's where I run into trouble:

1) If he steals the Warlock's Eldritch Blast, he just gets the straight blast, with no Blast Shape or Eldritch Essence invocations, I assume. But suppose he steals one of those instead? Can he use it at all, or does he need to steal both the Eldritch Blast AND, say, Hellfire Blast in order to be able to use them?

2) If the Spellthief steals an invocation that is already active on the Warlock, such as Fell Flight, does the Warlock:
A) immediately stop flying and become unable to fly again until he gets the invocation back, or
B) continue flying, but be unable to renew the invocation until he gets it back?

Thanks in advance.

gallagher
2011-01-24, 03:55 PM
Hi all. I've got some questions to which I think I know the answers, but I'd like some confirmation before it actually comes up in my campaign.

My party of PCs includes a Hellfire Warlock. They are currently engaged in a battle vs. a powerful local thieves' guild, the leader of whom is a high-level Spellthief. I've never used a Spellthief before as either a PC or NPC.

I know that the Spellthief can use his Steal Spell-Like Ability to take one of the Warlock's invocations since they're all SLA's. But here's where I run into trouble:

1) If he steals the Warlock's Eldritch Blast, he just gets the straight blast, with no Blast Shape or Eldritch Essence invocations, I assume. But suppose he steals one of those instead? Can he use it at all, or does he need to steal both the Eldritch Blast AND, say, Hellfire Blast in order to be able to use them?

2) If the Spellthief steals an invocation that is already active on the Warlock, such as Fell Flight, does the Warlock:
A) immediately stop flying and become unable to fly again until he gets the invocation back, or
B) continue flying, but be unable to renew the invocation until he gets it back?

Thanks in advance.
those are some excellent questions i must say... i dont know the answers per se, but i know how i would rule on them as a DM

1) i would say that if he steals the hellfireness, he also steals an eldritch blast so he can use it. or possibly that he can use hellfire in some other way, like channel it through a longspear or use it in conjunction with another spell.

2) i would rule that he steals those as if they were a buff, aka the character loses his fell flight. whether or not he can recast it is up to you

Waker
2011-01-24, 04:01 PM
1. I would think the Spellthief could steal an unmodified Blast or an Invocation (such as Fell Flight) but not any Blast Shape or Essence since those are basically the meta-magic version for a Warlock (yes, I know they can get Enlarge Spell-Like Ability and the like, hush.)
2. You can't steal an active Fell Flight according to the rules on stealing spell effects for a Spellthief. "A spellthief can steal the effect of a spell only if the spell could be cast on him by the original caster....or the effect of a shield spell (since that spell's range is personal.)" Since Fell Flight can only be used on the Warlock, a Spellthief couldn't steal the active version. But as mentioned before, you could steal the SLA directly as above.

MeeposFire
2011-01-24, 04:11 PM
Stealing hellfire would be very dangerous for the thief considering he would likely not have any way to heal the con damage it gives out.

Nate the Snake
2011-01-24, 04:17 PM
1) If he steals the Warlock's Eldritch Blast, he just gets the straight blast, with no Blast Shape or Eldritch Essence invocations, I assume. But suppose he steals one of those instead? Can he use it at all, or does he need to steal both the Eldritch Blast AND, say, Hellfire Blast in order to be able to use them?

Blast shapes and eldritch essences are separate spell-like abilities from eldritch blast. The spellthief needs to steal both eldritch blast and hellfire blast in order to use the latter, and he must steal them with separate sneak attacks.


2) If the Spellthief steals an invocation that is already active on the Warlock, such as Fell Flight, does the Warlock:
A) immediately stop flying and become unable to fly again until he gets the invocation back, or
B) continue flying, but be unable to renew the invocation until he gets it back?

C) The warlock continues flying, and the spellthief does not gain the benefit of fell flight.

Steal Spell Effect only works if the effect could have been cast on the spellthief in the first place, and warlock invocations that grant buffs are personal range.

EDIT: Spellthief'd. :smalltongue:

begooler
2011-01-24, 04:50 PM
2) If the Spellthief steals an invocation that is already active on the Warlock, such as Fell Flight, does the Warlock:
A) immediately stop flying and become unable to fly again until he gets the invocation back, or
B) continue flying, but be unable to renew the invocation until he gets it back?


I'm not sure that he can use Steal Spell Effect in such a situation, because of the fact that the effect is from a spell like ability, not a spell. However, assuming he can, he does not gain the effect, because it has a range of personal. The effect would be temporarily suppressed on the warlock.

What he would want to do is Steal Spell-like Ability and steal the warlock's Fell Flight. The spelltheif would then be able to cast Fell Flight on himself in the next round. The warlock would lose the ability to recast Fell Flight until the Spelltheif used the ability or a minute, whichever is first.



CAdv 19:
Until the spellthief uses the ability (or until the minute elapses), the target cannot use the stolen ability.

Here's what I think.
Assuming that Steal Spell Effect applied to the effect of a spell-like ability, here's how the spelltheif could steal the warlock's ability to fly, and gain flight for himself.
1- sneak attack, Steal Spell Like Ability: Fell Flight. The warlock is still flying, but now the spelltheif can do so as well if he chooses by using a standard action in a later round.
2- sneak attack, Steal Spell Effect: Fell Flight. This suppresses the warlock's ability to fly for 1 minute.

The spellthief only has to do step one if he himself wants to be able to fly.
Note that those steps in the opposite order will not work because the book says that the spellthief can only steal an ability if it is available.

Psyren
2011-01-24, 04:55 PM
Stealing hellfire would be very dangerous for the thief considering he would likely not have any way to heal the con damage it gives out.

Why do you say that? Spellthieves have UMD as a class skill; all you need is a Wand of Lesser Restoration.

MeeposFire
2011-01-24, 05:01 PM
Why do you say that? Spellthieves have UMD as a class skill; all you need is a Wand of Lesser Restoration.

Because generally speaking you average spell thief npc will not just have a wand of lesser restoration laying around. Further he will need to use standard actions to use it thus lowering his offense. Second if he does not use the wand he will lower his HP by his level every two uses that is a lot for a guy not built to use hellfire.

Also do we know that eldritch blast is even strong for a spell thief. Practiced spellcaster does not work with eldritch blast because EB is based on warlock level not caster level. I would have a hunch that spellthieves have a similar problem since they can steal for caster levels but they do not steal actual warlock levels. Same thing may apply to hellfire.

Psyren
2011-01-24, 05:07 PM
Because generally speaking you average spell thief npc will not just have a wand of lesser restoration laying around.

That's a good wand to have for a variety of reasons (It's a 2nd- or 1st-level spell that cures both ability damage and fatigue, after all), but if you plan on stealing Hellfire I'd imagine you'd want a plan in place to deal with the drawbacks.

Ernir
2011-01-24, 05:20 PM
I'm going to say the spellthief can steal and use the warlock's Hellfire Blast SLA with just one use of the Steal Spell-Like Ability class feature.

Yes, you need to have access to Eldritch Blast in order to use Hellfire Blast, as the description of Hellfire Blast refers to "your Eldritch Blast". Which would indicate that the spellthief can't use the Hellfire Blast, as he doesn't have an Eldritch Blast, but...


A spellthief can use a stolen spell-like ability once. For all purposes (caster level, save DC, and so on), treat the spell-like ability as if it were being used by the original possessor of the ability.

If that isn't saying "you can use the Hellfire Blast as the warlock can", I don't know what.

MeeposFire
2011-01-24, 11:46 PM
That's a good wand to have for a variety of reasons (It's a 2nd- or 1st-level spell that cures both ability damage and fatigue, after all), but if you plan on stealing Hellfire I'd imagine you'd want a plan in place to deal with the drawbacks.

It would be a good wand if you knew you were going to steal a hellfire blast and you knew that using it would drain your con. The NPC just happening to have it unless he knows all of that situation just starts sounding a little contrived to me. While it is possible it just seems a little engineered to me.

Psyren
2011-01-25, 01:33 AM
It would be a good wand if you knew you were going to steal a hellfire blast and you knew that using it would drain your con. The NPC just happening to have it unless he knows all of that situation just starts sounding a little contrived to me. While it is possible it just seems a little engineered to me.

Knowing Hellfire drains Con is a DC 15 Knowledge check (FC2, pg. 91.) Pretty easy to make, I'd say. Knowing Lesser Restoration restores it falls under "common knowledge."

MeeposFire
2011-01-25, 01:47 AM
Knowing Hellfire drains Con is a DC 15 Knowledge check (FC2, pg. 91.) Pretty easy to make, I'd say. Knowing Lesser Restoration restores it falls under "common knowledge."

That says "weaken" which could mean anything. But even if you knew that you would need to use a standard action to use your wand. Is that a good use of a standard action and so your round? Personally I think not.

Further I do not think anybody has answered whether spell thieves can steal actual warlock levels since eldritch blast damage is based on warlock levels (prc add explicitly for this pupose) not caster level. This is why practiced spellcaster does not work on eldritch blast. I do not know for sure but I think the spell thief steals caster levels not actual class levels. In that case what can a spell thief do with it?

Jothki
2011-01-25, 02:48 AM
I'm going to say the spellthief can steal and use the warlock's Hellfire Blast SLA with just one use of the Steal Spell-Like Ability class feature.

Yes, you need to have access to Eldritch Blast in order to use Hellfire Blast, as the description of Hellfire Blast refers to "your Eldritch Blast". Which would indicate that the spellthief can't use the Hellfire Blast, as he doesn't have an Eldritch Blast, but...



If that isn't saying "you can use the Hellfire Blast as the warlock can", I don't know what.

It could also be saying that the spellthief can use Eldritch Blast as the warlock can, that is, applying any additional invocations that the warlock knows without actually needing to steal them.

Rethmar
2011-01-31, 09:16 PM
Yeah, I would probably rule that he could steal one invocation and the eldritch blast to go with it. Not sure about the fell flight.