Spellfire Channeler

[GutterFace]

My google machine isn't tuning up much on this Prc. Can you guys help me find the source it's from. or explain how this class works or what Spellfire exactly does.

[Kesnit]

It's from Magic of Faerun. I'm away from my books at the moment, so this explanation will be a little rough...

The Spellfire Wielder (http://dndtools.eu/feats/magic-of-faerun--20/spellfire-wielder--2719/) feat allows you to act like a living Rod of Absorption. However, you have to prepare an action to absorb the magic. You can store spell levels up to (I believe) your CON. (Not CON modifier. CON score.) Once you have absorbed the magic, you can release it in the form of blasts. (Similar in idea to a Warlock's unmodified Eldritch Blast.) You can release any number of spells, up to what you have stored, and the blast does d6 (?) for every level released. You can also use blasts to heal, though I don't remember how the healing works.

The PrC allows you to store more spell levels (up to I believe CON X 5), and gives you more options for how you can release the spell levels.



My wife and I had a plan to play a Spellfire Channeler (me, named Baby) and a Warlock (her, named Boom) in a game not long ago. She'd charge up my spell storage (since EB have spell levels), then I'd serve as a blaster/healer. together, would be BOOM BABY!!! Sadly, the DM said no to anything from Magic of Faerun.

[GutterFace]

Wow very interesting

i dig it. ill have to look into this more and try and make something fun(ny)

[Sian]

pay in mind that Spellfire Channeling is very setting focused and frankly not mechanically focused, and should be used very carefully since its not from Ed Greenwoods hand, intended to be a PC class (unless its a plotbearing PC)

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

The whole idea is a great concept with atrocious execution. The mechanics are so bad that it's not even worth considering playing.

The Spellfire Wielder feat allows you to ready an action to absorb a single spell targeted at you. If nobody casts anything on you then your readied action is wasted, or if multiple spells are cast at you only the first one gets absorbed. Ideally you want a friendly Warlock to use his at-will spell-like abilities to charge you up, and you just forget about using the ability defensively. You cannot absorb your own spells.

You can store a number of spell levels up to your Con score. You can release any number of spell levels you have stored to make a melee or ranged touch attack that deals 1d6 damage per spell level spent, and the target gets a Reflex save at DC 20 to reduce the damage by half. So you have to hit with an attack roll, and they get a save to reduce it by half. The damage is half fire and half untyped magical energy, so fire resistance/immunity applied to half of what would be dealt. It doesn't provoke AoOs and ignores SR at least.

You can also spend stored spell levels to heal with a touch, curing 2 hp per spell level spent. This is not positive energy, so it can heal constructs and undead. If you have someone with at least one at-will spell-like ability that you can absorb, you can provide healing to the party that's only limited by action economy.

So in combat, it's not exactly worth using beyond the lowest character levels. You can fire off one big shot and hope it doesn't miss or get reduce by a fourth due to the save and fire resistance. You can give someone a big dose of healing in case of emergency. Realistically it's only good if someone can charge you up and you get to top off the whole party between encounters. Luckily this only costs you a single feat, and it's only worth taking if someone in the party is a Warlock or Dragonfire Adept or otherwise has an at-will spell-like ability.


Spellfire Channeler doesn't help the above situation one bit. While Spellfire Wielder costs only a feat, Spellfire Channeler costs you its prerequisites as well as up to ten class levels. In exchange for this, you get a number of 'benefits' as follows:

You can drain spell energy from charged items (Wands, Staffs, etc.) to fill your spellfire pool. Draining an attended item allows the owner to make a Will save at DC 10 to prevent you from draining any charges. Just ignore this and take Leadership for a Warlock or Dragonfire Adept cohort.

Your spellfire storage capacity is increased by a multiple of your Con score. You get x2 at 1st level, and +1 to that multiplier per odd-numbered class level up to x5 at 7th level. So with Con 15 at 7th level you can store up to 75 spell levels. Any time you have more spell levels stored than your Con score, spell levels are automatically lost when you're touched by a creature, a magic item effect, or a spell effect, and you make a Con check at DC 10 or you take 1d6 damage. When you store three times your Con score or more, you have to make that Con check every hour/minute/round or take 1d6 damage each time you fail. You'd better have a silly Con score (28 to never fail the check) or you'll just blow yourself up over time. Plus you discharge spell levels even when absorbing more spell levels, and it blows up in an area around you at Con x4 or higher and discharges 1d6 spell levels or 2d6 if Conx4+1 or higher. Plus you can only spend your Con score in spell levels per round, so your one big shot per fight never gets any bigger.

Your healing improves to 1d4+1 hp per spell level spent, irrelevant if you're doing it between encounters.

You can fire multiple shots as a standard action, but still can't spend more than your Con score in spell levels per round, plus it becomes a volley spell so precision damage like sneak attack doesn't apply to the extra shots, and every shot beyond the first takes a cumulative -2 to hit.

At 5th level you can drain a permanent magic item to make it nonmagical for 24 hours, and gain spell levels equal to the item's caster level. You may as well get Leadership for a cohort who can charge you up.

You can spend a spell level to fly for a minute at a time, not bad but you're better off playing a normal spellcaster.

You can spend a spell level to use Deflect Arrows.

At the 9th class level you can spend ten spell levels to manifest a crown of fire, and it costs 10 spell levels per round to maintain. It sheds light as a Daylight spell, gives you DR 10/Magic and SR 32, and all nonmagical weapons that strike you are automatically melted and destroyed (but still deal damage for that hit).

At the 10th class level instead of making a single targeted shot to deal damage you can affect a 20-foot radius area centered on yourself. Allies and enemies alike take 1d6 damage per spell level spent, and get a Reflex save for half at a DC of 10 + class level + Cha mod. You still can't spend more than your Con score in spell levels per round.

The class gets Wizard BAB, HP, and base skill points, good Fort and Will saves, and its class skill list looks like the Sorcerer's plus Disguise, Intimidate, Sense Motive, and Survival. It's basically Sorcerer levels with a good Fort save and a few more class skills, but no spellcasting. You also need Endurance to qualify, which is a fairly worthless feat.

That was a bit more long-winded than I intended for it to be, but nonetheless, you're better off playing a more traditional spellcaster than a Spellfire Channeler. Spellfire Wielder isn't bad for healing if you have someone who can charge you up with an at-will ability, but it's not even worth taking otherwise.

[Skysaber]

Now I had overheard someone saying somewhere that in 3.0 you must have a readied action to absorb a spell, but that in 3.5 if you should happen to have a Rod of Absorption in hand it no longer took an action.

Does anyone know what they were referring to, or were they smoking dope?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Now I had overheard someone saying somewhere that in 3.0 you must have a readied action to absorb a spell, but that in 3.5 if you should happen to have a Rod of Absorption in hand it no longer took an action.

Does anyone know what they were referring to, or were they smoking dope?

A 3.5 Rod of Absorption (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rods.htm#absorption) does automatically absorb single-target or ray spells directed at its owner. However, Spellfire specifically says you have to ready an action to absorb an incoming spell. It does compare it to a Rod of Absorption, but unless Spellfire itself has received a 3.5 update or errata, it's still a readied action even though the rod is now automatic.

[GutterFace]

This is a lot to take in. overall the whole thing seems a tad wonky. ill have to get a copy of the book and read it in depth. and possibly play some side games with a few test characters to see how it hash's out....

but im assuming here.....trapfinding + draining = semi profit?

[Invader]

It's a shame because this is one my favorite concepts but it's just so bad. I'm sure you could find a homebrew fix that makes the class playable though.

[Melcar]

My main character, a level 30 wiz played from level 1, has the spellfire wielder feat. We have treated the "ready an action to absorb spell" as more of a stance where if you get hit by multiple spells you are able to absorb them. This is due to the fact that we actually believe it works like that. It does not specifically say you can only absorb 1 spell per round... AFAIK!

Anyways... the feat is super cool for roleplaying, but have yet to truly be effective in combat. But I have used it for a lot of cool things... against spell engines passing thought Prismatic spheres and stuff like that...

I highly recommend it, if you’re not playing an optimized game.¨

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

My main character, a level 30 wiz played from level 1, has the spellfire wielder feat. We have treated the "ready an action to absorb spell" as more of a stance where if you get hit by multiple spells you are able to absorb them. This is due to the fact that we actually believe it works like that. It does not specifically say you can only absorb 1 spell per round... AFAIK!

Anyways... the feat is super cool for roleplaying, but have yet to truly be effective in combat. But I have used it for a lot of cool things... against spell engines passing thought Prismatic spheres and stuff like that...

I highly recommend it, if you’re not playing an optimized game.¨

A readied action only gets to be used once. As soon as you use it to absorb one spell, you no longer have a readied action and cannot absorb subsequent spells.

Furthermore, you cannot use it to absorb a Prismatic Wall or any area effect, it can only absorb a single-target or ray spell per Rod of Absorption.

So it's actually even worse.

[Melcar]

A readied action only gets to be used once. As soon as you use it to absorb one spell, you no longer have a readied action and cannot absorb subsequent spells.

Furthermore, you cannot use it to absorb a Prismatic Wall or any area effect, it can only absorb a single-target or ray spell per Rod of Absorption.

So it's actually even worse.

Thats just how we have treated it. Its a flair feat, and only fair that you give it some flair.

It has never been "broken" for us, and we run some pretty low optimizing game. I suggest you, rather than passing the feat up all together, allow for some DM ruling on the feat. Because either you never take it, Rendering a cool feat crap or you bend the rules a bit for the players sake. As I have said, we have never run into any problems and 75% of the times I have used this its been out of combat... so again for the sake of roleplaying, thats what I suggest.

Hope this helps! :smallsmile:

SO in short, no its not realy worth it in terms if power, but its cool... IMO!

PS: I did do a lot of training ingame to be able to get some of the unofficial ailities out of the feat. And so the feat have become more powerful as I have progressed through the levels. We found this only to be fair and fun.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I was actually working on some homebrew to fix thia. I can post it later if you wish. A good part of it was fixing action economy on the feat.

[Melcar]

I was actually working on some homebrew to fix thia. I can post it later if you wish. A good part of it was fixing action economy on the feat.

Lets see it... then I can try to explain in game mechanic terms how we do it.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I am away from my books so I cannot give you a blow by blow now, but I ended up up (by level 10) turning the absorbtion into an immediate action, being able to absorb area spells as they are cast (if you are in the are), making the DC scale vs Con instead of being fixed, and making the healing and damage scale against channeler level.

[Rubik]

I don't believe the rules allow for readying an action outside of combat, so there's no way to charge up spellfire using an ally outside of a fight.

Stupid? Yes. RAW? Also, yes.

[Phelix-Mu]

The best homebrew for Spellfire, and I speak from a brewer's and user's perspective, is not in the hands of a caster, which is what Spellfire Channeler seemed to be invoking. A spellcaster's spell options are generally superior to spellfire. But a melee build, focused on tanking spellcasters by soaking spell levels, is much better. I made a small series of feats that improved the action efficiency of absorbing spells, and a five-level PrC designed to enhance the spellfire use of a tanky class by allowing them to channel the spellfire levels into a melee attack.

Sadly, this involves rewriting about 95% of the given spellfire mechanics, making it like a super-long range eldritch blast that is all magical energy, and adding in a couple extra feats. Homebrewer's delight, ofc, but no help for anyone looking for some joy in the RAW, which is, as Furiou put it, atrocious (and 3.0 vintage, to muddy the issue).

Strangely, Spellfire Hierophant is only about 0.5 as bad as Channeler. This isn't saying much, though, since Channeler really is an abomination.

[Invader]

It seems like a really hard ability to make work at least in terms of how it works in the books. With spell fire it's a very fine line between not worth taking and stupidly broken.

[Phelix-Mu]

It seems like a really hard ability to make work at least in terms of how it works in the books. With spell fire it's a very fine line between not worth taking and stupidly broken.

Yeah. In 2e it wasn't terrible, but I don't think it could really be ported at all. And in the books, it was stupidly OP. Shandaril, or w/e her name was, had some sick abilities. One oft-quoted bit involved her facing down a dracolich, absorbing it's spell or breath weapon or something, and then torching it with spellfire.

Suffice it to say it doesn't really work quite like that in 3e.

There are a couple things that can be done to make the feat better, tweaks that should have been implemented in 3e (especially in light of the Warlock):

1.) Axe the saving throw. If this makes you feel squicky, have it key off level and Con (DC 10+1/2HD+Con Mod.). Fixed DCs are basically a one-way ticket to obsoletion before you hit mid-levels, and 3.5 went for either attack rolls or saving throws, generally.

2.) Axe the half-fire damage. It should be all magical damage, to avoid the problem with half of the stuff that should be torchable being fire resistant.

3.) Tweak the healing up a bit. The ability is already stupidly situational and hard to set up a method of charging in any kind of reliable fashion, so it should at least allow a bit of conversion of magical energy to efficient healing. I'd keep it at a fixed number per level of spell energy.

The PrC, on the other hand, really just needs to be shown to the rubbish bin. Casters don't need it, and mundanes can't really benefit much from it (since it grants almost nothing that isn't highly situational, and fails to grant the mainstays of mundanes, decent BAB, HD, and skill points).

As I mentioned before, Spellfire Hierophant is less fail, and nice because you don't really need to take Channeler. Thus, it can dovetail well with homebrew at epic levels (and much of it is tame enough to be ported backwards into pre-epic).

[Melcar]

You can ready an action by saying "I ready my mind and body for the absorbsion of magical energy" its a confind action in combat, but surely you can til this to your DM even out of combat. Remember, your can also dungeon crawl in round fasion.

[Person_Man]

It's a shame because this is one my favorite concepts but it's just so bad. I'm sure you could find a homebrew fix that makes the class playable though.

Spellthief fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=16213338). Can steal spells from casters or spell-trigger magic items, can use stolen spells to power spell-trigger items, and can Absorb Spells on a successful Saving Throw.

[Yawgmoth]

I don't believe the rules allow for readying an action outside of combat, so there's no way to charge up spellfire using an ally outside of a fight.

Stupid? Yes. RAW? Also, yes. By that logic you can't cast any spell with a casting time of 1 standard action outside of combat because the "casting a spell" rule is in the combat section.

[Ramza00]

I am not familiar with spellfire.

That said as a houserule, but wouldn't most of the problems be solved if spellfire works like a spell resistance that you can turn on and off as a free action. Instead though make the d20 check roll part of the spell fire wielder vs a fixed caster level.

If you are subject to a spell or effect that has spell resistance, you can choose to absorb it as free action (or you can ignore it). If you got up and beyond and ready a standard action you can choose to treat the dice roll as a 20 instead of a d20.

Furthermore you can use spell fire to absorb spells that are already in existence but don't directly interact with you and thus you do not get sr checks, such as a wall of force. If you try to walk through the wall of force with no action readied it uses a d20 check, if you use a standard action to touch the wall you treat your check as a 20 roll.

Make the check something like

+1d20 dice roll+levels in spellfire channeler prestige class. Thus at level 1 you are guaranteed to stop a caster level 20 effect if you ready an action, but if you do not ready an action you have a chance of probability based off how strong your opponent is. At level 5 compared to a normal level 5 wizard you have a 75% chance of random success (without a ready action), but if the wizard is a higher level or has a caster level boost the odds go down.

---------------

Now the save for half damage should not be a fixed dc but instead something like 10+1/2 HD+Con Modifier.

Finally there should be better spellfire abilities, and one of the levels of spellfire channeler should make it completely untyped damage (it is okay being half and half for just the feat, but eventually starting level 10 or so it should be unresistable.)

[Gemini476]

By that logic you can't cast any spell with a casting time of 1 standard action outside of combat because the "casting a spell" rule is in the combat section.

The DMG is a bit more explicit on the use of Readied Actions outside combat.


Combat Actions outside Combat
As a general rule, combat actions should only be performed in
combat—when you’re keeping track of rounds and the players are
acting in initiative order. You’ll find obvious exceptions to this
rule. For example, a cleric doesn’t need to roll initiative to cast cure
light woundson a friend after the battle’s over. Spellcasting and skill
use are often used outside combat, and that’s fine. Attacks, readied
actions, charges, and other actions are meant to simulate combat,
however, and are best used within the round structure.

Don’t allow players to use the ready action outside combat.
While the above examples are all acceptable in the middle of an
encounter, a player cannot use the ready action to cover a door
with his crossbow outside combat. It’s okay for a player to state
that he’s covering the door, but what that means is that if something comes through the door he’s unlikely to be caught unaware.
If the character coming through the door wasn’t aware of him, he
gets an extra standard action because he surprised the other character, and so he can shoot the weapon. Otherwise, he still needs to
roll initiative for his character normally.

[Kesnit]

I don't believe the rules allow for readying an action outside of combat, so there's no way to charge up spellfire using an ally outside of a fight.

Why would a Warlock firing an EB at a monster be "combat," but firing that same EB at you not be?

[Amphetryon]

Why would a Warlock firing an EB at a monster be "combat," but firing that same EB at you not be?

Potentially, because Initiative and/or checks for a Surprise Round were never rolled, or called for by the DM. This quite likely varies from DM to DM.