Spellfire Wielder

[demigodus]

So, from what I can tell from finally looking at this feat, it honestly does not seem to be that good. I could see myself taking this for flavor reasons if I wasn't doing a feat intensive feat, or it could make for a decent opening move early on if we had a warlock in the party to power it. However, other than that, it seems to be an ability who's use is not worth it in combat.

However, when googling up about it, I found forum discussions with the consensus that this ability was game breakingly broken.

So I decided to turn to the playground on their opinions of this feat.

Do you consider the ability broken? Weak? Story breaking, but not combat-breaking?

[herrhauptmann]

Out of curiosity, have you looked at Spellfire Channeler the Prestige Class? (I'm assuming yes...)

I'd say the feat alone is half useless as far as power goes, but it makes you an instant maguffin for evil organizations out there like teh Zhentarim and Cult of the Dragon (like in the spellfire trilogy). It does have the chance of pretty much shutting down enemy wizards if you can guarantee that they're going to target or include you in their spells. Though it doesn't stop them from self-buffing, running, or targeting your allies only.

Depending on the tactics the DM uses, that first round where you eat the enemies hold person or fireball essentially lets your party go first, since you stopped his standard action. (Does have quickened spells to use of course)

[Alleran]

Out of curiosity, have you looked at Spellfire Channeler the Prestige Class? (I'm assuming yes...)
The problem with Spellfire Channeler is first of all that it's useless for any wizard or sorcerer who happens to have the spellfire feat. No spellcasting progression = AVOID, from that perspective. The other issue is that it's a class that seems designed for the squishy-wizard type (the BAB hit isn't a good thing) yet ties your abilities to your CON. Warlocks do it better (and they don't need to recharge after they've been hit by a spell, either). Nor is there much point to the party wizard charging you with his spells, because he has a better use for them anyway. You could take Leadership and get a cohort-wizard to charge you up, but why not just play a wizard in the first place? Or a warlock. Specialise in evocation and sparky-sparky-boom spells of whatever type, and refluff as necessary (particularly for a warlock).

I can see the feat potentially being a nice emergency support thing for, say, a fighter or somebody else who doesn't have spellcasting. If they have a high CON (and they should), then they could store somewhere between 18-20 spell levels and unleash them as an opening salvo. With the 3.5e adjustment to rods of absorption (free action to absorb, IIRC?), you at least won't be burning a standard action each turn to possibly absorb a spell if you're targeted with a valid one. Even then, however, it's far from the insanely overpowered ability that it's usually portrayed as.

Really, spellfire shouldn't have been made into a feat in the first place. It's simply too powerful an ability (in the setting, that is, not in mechanical terms) to be readily available to a PC, and certainly not for a single feat.