Jade Phoenix Spellthief?

[Falcos]

Hi, all!

I have concept in my mind at the moment, and I'm wondering what tips people have for making it spin.

Specifically, as you may have surmised from the title, I want to make a Jade Phoenix Mage out of a Spellthief base. I have my own ideas as to how to make it go, but I want other people's advice on how to put it together, since I am by no means the greatest player in the world.

So far, I have the thoughts of using Crusader for the Martial side of things due to Charisma-dependance, and was toying with the idea of dual-wielding something like Kusari-Gama for Sneak Attack benefits, but was undecided.

If it makes a difference, the campaign in question that I'm building this for is starting at level ten, with Elite Array in stats.

So, playground: Work your magic. Show me the obvious things I've somehow overlooked, please.

Please and thank you all in advance. :)

[BowStreetRunner]

The Master Spellthief feat on p79 of Complete Scoundrel is a must.

To get 2nd level arcane spells from Spellthief (in order to qualify for Jade Phoenix Mage) you need to reach level 4, at which point you can cast 2nd level spells that you steal. The JPM levels are going to advance the Spellthief's own meager casting ability however, which is poor.
Master spellthief allows you to stack Spellthief with levels of other arcane classes for determining what level spell you can steal. So now JPM stacks with Spellthief for Steal Spell.

You can go one step further if you take Sorcerer levels with a single level of Spellthief and then go into JPM, as you would be able to stack all three for the spell stealing. It also stacks your caster level for all arcane spells, and gives you no spell failure in light armor for your arcane spells. So now you have the steal spell ability and the better sorcerer casting.

[Falcos]

Hmm. So you think I should focus primarily on casting, and not on Sneak Attack? I was considering both routes.

Also worth noting is that my DM did agree with me that the ability to steal-and-then-cast a second-level spell counts as "Able to cast second-level spells" for PrC prereqs. Whee!

[nedz]

Precocious Apprentice can get you a level 2 spell at Spellthief 1 ?

I think that you might be trying to do too much with this build — which is a common problem with Spelltheif ideas.

Do you want lots of caster levels, or a martial focus, or a skills focus ?
The build will look very different depending upon how you answer this question.

[Troacctid]

Spellthief casting is so weak that it might not even be worth advancing, as opposed to doing a straight multiclass with Crusader or Warblade.

[Dread_Head]

If you want to advance the casting I recommend trying to use the Trickster Spellthief variant from dragon 353. It trades 2 skill points / level, a bunch of class skills and all sneak attack dice except the first for casting progression as a bard with spells as a normal spellthief + Bard spells.

Then something like Swordsage 1 / Trickster Spellthief 4 / Swordsage +1 / Jade Phoenix Mage 10 / Trickster Spellthief +4 would be decent. For feats go with Master Spellthief, Martial Stance (Assassins Stance), Ascetic Mage (to move the wisdom bonus to AC over to charisma) and then whatever else you want really. Should be reasonably competent at least, you get 6th level spells by 20, 17 BAB and some reasonably spellthieving ability. You won't be putting out much sneak attack damage though and your skills will suffer drastically.

[Talionis]

Trickster Spellthief is a good idea if Dragon Magazine material is available...

I wouldn't worry too much on optimizing Sneak attack, if you go four or five or six levels of spellthief you won't lose ninth level maneuvers, so you'll be using maneuvers for damage and your natural sneak attack to steal spells, if you are doing a lot of stealing spells and resistance than having Assassin Stance will probably still be enough and you can grab it with feats, I often pick up a Shadow Hand maneuver with my crusaders so I can teleport or become invisible, invisibility has synergy with Sneak Attack. But since most maneuvers use an attack action you won't need to full attack to get multiple hits like you would normally want to do with Optimized Sneak Attack. That being said several maneuvers in Ironheart and Tiger Claw allow you to hit multiple targets, so it's an option, especially if you are trying to help the team by stealing resistance.

Stolen Spell energy should also fuel your Arane Wrath ability which can be nice when you are more focused on maneuvers or you just get plain terrible spells stolen.

Their are a lot of maneuvers and stances that help you flank and activate Sneak Attack.

Depending on your optimization level you may want ways to add spells known to your Spellthief spell list. Their is a trick with getting Necrotic Cyst feat from Libris Mortis and using the Mentor feat from Dungeon Masters guide two to trade out the Cyst spells for better spells. JPM also fluffs nicely with having a Mentor with access to teaching you spells. Their is also a feat on the same Wizards web update with Font of Inspiration for Factotums that has the Feat God's Blood Spelltheft which basically adds a Domain of spells that you can choose instead of a stolen spell.

Crusader versus Swordsage is really up to you. I agree getting Ascetic Mage makes a lot of sense if you do Swordsage. Both recharge mechanics are playable, Swordsage knows and readies so many maneuvers that it's usually not too much of a problem and you'll want to cast spells here and there too. Often you'll cast a spell early if you have a Crusader so you'll have more maneuvers to pick from. Most of the real choice is which disciplines you want to choose from.


I applaud your choice, Spellthief is fun, but often if you aren't fighting a caster it can feel like you don't get to use the abilities, but Swordsage or Crusader will fix a lot of those problems. I do think you can build this to be very fun and interesting character for a tier three game. If you take the game past level fifteen may I Suggest Spellthief 5/ Swordsage or Crusader 2/ Jade Pheonix 10 / Legacy Champion advancing JPM or just going back into Swordsage or Crusader to get ninth level maneuvers your build really should focus on maneuvers and have the Spellthief stuff be backseat. Spellthief will remain very relevant throughout play, but maneuvers will keep you at a solid power level.

[Nifft]

Spellthief 1 / Wizard 3 / Swordsage 2 / JPM 10, perhaps?

Along with the Master Spellthief feat, you get a bunch of goodies.

[BowStreetRunner]

Spellthief casting is so weak that it might not even be worth advancing, as opposed to doing a straight multiclass with Crusader or Warblade.
While Spellthief casting is pretty weak it is the steal spell ability you want to advance. Straight multiclass with anything but an arcane caster won't accomplish this. Master Spellthief allows you to advance the steal spell ability only with a class that advances arcane casting. Thus a mutliclass spellthief and martial adept is going to want to go into JPM. However, in order to get into JPM there is an arcane casting requirement that can be met by Spellthief 4, some sort of early entry trick like Precocious Apprentice, or taking a dip into another caster class.

The key to a multiclass spellthief is to decide what you want from each part of the build and what you are willing to sacrifice. For instance, Master Spellthief only advances the original Steal Spell ability, not any of the higher level spellthief class features. The OP needs to decide whether to focus on casting, maneuvers, sneak attack, etc. and then the forum can help refine the build around that focus.

[nedz]

The trouble with Spellthief is that, even with Master Spellthief, you are limited in the number of stolen spell levels you can hold by your Spellthief level. So a Spellthief 1 / Caster X type build can only hold 1 1st level spell. If it's stealing spells you are after then you need to maximise the number of Spellthief levels. Now stealing spells is the point of the class so you need to minimise the levels of pure caster you take to not waste the JPM spell casting feature.

Something like Spellthief 4 / Beguiler 1 / Swordsage 2 / JPM 10 perhaps ?
But you lose 8 levels of Beguiler casting, as well as a ton of skill points.

As I said earlier it's easy to try and do too much with Spellthief.

[Falcos]

Well, there's been repeated requests for prioritizing what I actually want to focus on, and it would go thusly in order of what I consider important:

Maneuvers first, although with...
Stealing is a very close second
Casting is the final combat priority for me, if I have to drop one capability, that would be it.

So far, though, lots of information come out that I'm definitely absorbing. Thank you all kindly so far. :)