Bard/Spellthief? [3.5]

[kulosle]

Is there any cool way of being both a bard and a spell thief? Every way i can come up with ends up being really bad at doing both. I was really sad to learn that Spellthief isn't a prepared spell caster because i was hoping to play an Ultimate Magus. Obviously i've never played a spell thief before but i reviewed it and is it just me or is it just as bad at fighting magus as any other class or am i just missing something? And if the class is as bad as it seems, is there any fixes or common house rulings that make it better?

[Piggy Knowles]

I believe one of the Dragon Mags has something called the Trickster Spellthief, which IIRC is basically a spellthief with bardic casting.

[Waker]

Aside from the aforementioned acd, you could just dip a level of Spellthief and grab the Master Spellthief feat. You would determine the maximum spell level to steal by adding all of your arcane casting classes together.

[sonofzeal]

I believe one of the Dragon Mags has something called the Trickster Spellthief, which IIRC is basically a spellthief with bardic casting.
Yep. DM #353, if I've not mistaken. You lose a lot of your Rogueishness, but gain bard spell slots... and add all Bard spells to your spell list, on top of what you already had.

I've played it, it's fun!

[Talionis]

Aside from the aforementioned acd, you could just dip a level of Spellthief and grab the Master Spellthief feat. You would determine the maximum spell level to steal by adding all of your arcane casting classes together.

I don't think you need to go the Dragon Magazine route, it won't quite be a Bard; no Bardic Music or Knowledge.

The best way to do both is to take between 1-6 levels of Spellthief and the rest Bard and take the rest of your levels in Bard. Get the Master Spellthief feat (Complete Scoundrel) asap.

The reason for more than one level of Spellthief is two fold:

1. RAW some DM's will not let you hold to cast later more levels of spells than you have levels in Spellthief. We have always allowed Master Spellthief to allow you to Hold a spell that you steal in my games, but many here will argue you can't. (I see merit to both arguments)

2. Some of the other abilities of a Spellthief are fun to have. Being able to steal restistance and spell-like abilities can be very fun and rewarding. Plus, I like my characters to feel more like a Spellthief.

Of course taking more levels of Spellthief will slow your Bardic Casting progression so its a real choice. You also may want to spread out when you take your levels of Spellthief.

Some cool additional material that Wizards put out for Spellthief: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070606

[Fouredged Sword]

A Spellthief 1 / bard 9 / Sublime Chord 10 looses almost no casting over a bard 10 / Sublime chord 10 and gets the steal spell ability and is able to cast sublime chord spells in light armor.

[kulosle]

The main problem I keep coming across is I want to get absorb spell, IC, bard spells, and the general rogue-like abilities that spellthief gets and ideally max out sublime chord.

The best build i can get looks something like spellthief 7/heart fire fanner 4/sublime chord 9
If i take chaos music and extra music then i should be fine on the bardic music side.
Really i only want 2 levels of sublime chord, I could take a better bardic prestige class so i can get full bardic music instead of half.
so maybe spellthief 7/heart fire fanner 1/ virtuoso 3/sublime chord 2/ virtuoso 7

That actually doesn't look too shabby. That's an effective 16 for my bardic music level and an effective 16 i think for my steal spell, but i do get 9th level spells. And the jarring song makes me feel like i'm better at fighting spell casters