Prestiging with spellthieves.

[Cranthis]

So. Any good suggestions for a 5th level spellthief to prestige into?

[hex0]

Chameleon (races of destiny), Trapsmith (Dungeonscape), Daggerspell Mage (Complete adventurer), Unseen Seer (Complete Mage), Assassin. Later on you can take Arcane Trickster for free stealing of spells with Impromptu Sneak Attack, as well. You have lots of good options. Of course you could stick to it and get Absorb Spell, which is decent.

[Cranthis]

I think I'm going to do avenger (assassin, but its good), and I will be getting Absorb spell. I'll probably take a level of Assassin, then Spellthief, repeat, then go all assassin, then finish with spellthief.

[Zaq]

Master Spellthief or no Master Spellthief, nothing but more Spellthief (disregarding the wildcards Uncanny Trickster and Legacy Champion for a moment) increases the number of spell levels you can hold at once, and nothing but more Spellthief advances your ability to steal spell effects or spell-like abilities. If you lose too many levels of Spellthief, before long, you'll find yourself scaled out of relevance.

Plus, Spellthieves actually get cool class features as they level up, in addition to critical scaling of their old features. Unless you're going for something specific (and, for instance, just wanted Spellthief as a cheap and easy way to get SA and spells), if you want to be a Spellthief, you should stick to being a Spellthief, because only Spellthief makes you a Spellthief.

[hex0]

Master Spellthief or no Master Spellthief

Isn't Master Spellthief a requirement for any Spellthief? Like Natural Spell for Druids or Improved Natural Attack for Monk?

After Absorb spell, Spellthief doesn't get too much (other than the great capstone).

I forgot Nar Demonbinder, but that is more for Trickster Spellthief.

[eggs]

After Absorb spell, Spellthief doesn't get too much (other than the great capstone).

The max level of stolen spells a Spellthief can cast is tied to Spellthief levels (not advanced by Master Spellthief - that only advances the level of spell that can be stolen), so 9 Spellthief levels are pretty much required for any build playing up the "steal and recast" ability.

But after that, yeah. The class basically dries up.

[Zaq]

The max level of stolen spells a Spellthief can cast is tied to Spellthief levels (not advanced by Master Spellthief - that only advances the level of spell that can be stolen), so 9 Spellthief levels are pretty much required for any build playing up the "steal and recast" ability.

But after that, yeah. The class basically dries up.

I would argue that in many campaigns, Steal SLA is the most important (or perhaps the most useful) ability the class gets. Unless you're fighting humanoid casters a lot, relatively few things have proper spells to steal, but TONS of things have interesting and useful SLAs. Master Spellthief doesn't increase your ability to steal them, though . . . only Spellthief levels do.

Likewise, Master Spellthief doesn't let you get better at stealing ongoing spell effects, which is another critical thing the class can do (especially since it can work on anything with caster friends, not just the casters themselves). But I'm repeating myself.

[Piggy Knowles]

I'm always a big fan of Earth Dreamer (Races of Stone) for spellthieves. Easy requirements, and gets you some very nice abilities for a stealth based character, particularly the ability to see and glide through stone and earth.

[dextercorvia]

Go straight Spellthief, and spend the feats you would have spent qualifying for a PrC on Apprentice Spellcaster and Mother Cyst (or one of the Bloodlines). Now you have good higher level spells known that you can cast if you end up stealing a Meteor Swarm or Tensor's Transformation.

[Cranthis]

I can't find the source of Apprentice Spellcaster

[eggs]

I would argue that in many campaigns, Steal SLA is the most important (or perhaps the most useful) ability the class gets. Unless you're fighting humanoid casters a lot, relatively few things have proper spells to steal, but TONS of things have interesting and useful SLAs. Master Spellthief doesn't increase your ability to steal them, though . . . only Spellthief levels do.
I'm curious about this.

I haven't seen a Spellthief in high-level play, so I won't claim to be an expert on the class, but that ability looks like it scales way too slowly to affect the SLAs you'd really want to stop at the levels that you'd want to stop them - the Vrock's Telekinesis, the Balor's Blasphemy, the Titan's Gate/Summon Monster and so on.

When you use Steal SLA, is the goal something other than disabling or commandeering the scariest attacks a target has, and is that really worth giving up faster spell progression through things like Chameleon, Arcanamach or even Trapsmith?

[dextercorvia]

I can't find the source of Apprentice Spellcaster

It is in DMGII, in the section marked Masters and Apprentices.

[Piggy Knowles]

Moving away from the SLA stealing issue, I remember seeing a build (by JaronK I think) that was a spellthief/shadowcraft mage and focused on stealing spells and using them to power heightened silent images. It was pretty cool - I'll try to dig it up.

EDIT: OK, googling around I can't find any definitive post, but he mentions going Spellthief 6/Shadowcraft Mage 5/Earth Dreamer 5 with a major bloodline in a couple of places, and Spellthief 9/Mindbender 1/Shadowcraft Mage 5/Earth Dreamer 5 in others.

[Talionis]

The max level of stolen spells a Spellthief can cast is tied to Spellthief levels (not advanced by Master Spellthief - that only advances the level of spell that can be stolen), so 9 Spellthief levels are pretty much required for any build playing up the "steal and recast" ability.

But after that, yeah. The class basically dries up.

While I agree Spellthief has a lot to offer as a base class, I will suggest many people disagree on this interpretation of the reading of the Master Spellthief Feat.

RAW, the above might be correct (I've seen reasonable arguments the other ways, and don't want to derail the thread).

RAI spelltheft loses a lot of its relevance if you cannot hold the spells and cast them later. Plus the whole Spellthief mechanic is so situational that its hardly broken. Situational in you have to have to fight casters for it to have relevance and then have to be able to sneak attack the caster. Many GMs will allow the Master Spellthief Feat to also include holding and casting of spells of higher level.

Again, not trying to start a war or change minds only trying to throw out there that many tables do allow a more liberal reading of the Master Spelltheft Feat.

[Keld Denar]

Take a couple levels of wizard, then Ultimate Magus. Master Spellthief CL stacking gets really amped when you are progressing both at once and getting free CL bumps on top of that. Start chucking out CL 30+ spells and laugh at SR.