Is there a better Arcane Strike out there?

[SangoProduction]

Arcane Strike is a feat that burns a spell slot for +1 to attack and +1d4 to damage, both for each level of the spell. Clearly, spell slot values are not linear, and in general this feat is just bad. Also, it's requirements for anyone who might have wanted to use it are just...oh my god.

So, I wanted to play a Spellthief (Yes, I'm starting off on the wrong foot, whatever. Dvati Spellthief just sounded cool.) Going to go in to Sorcerer (maybe a prestige class) for the rest of the levels. So, Dvati have to both spend the same action to cast spells. This makes the action economy cost of spells 2x as much as it is normally. Often times, casting is still the best move, but I want a gish not a half assed caster. (Sometimes not much of a choice, but hey)

So, I was reminded about Arcane Strike and how it can use the stolen spells and what have you. And I thought, "hmm, you know? There are a lot of spells that could be stolen that I would not care to use. Maybe." And, also, it kinda, sorta, like...doubles the effective value of the bonuses from burning the spell slot, because it applies to both of them for the duration. The DM has also basically tripled the feats to everyone, so I am not hindered by that choice. (Odd but whatever.)

So, in theory, something like this could be kinda cool. However, I wouldn't be able to 8th ECL, beelining it down sorcerer (ignore when we actually get feats). Maybe 7th, if the DM's nice and is counting as being able to cast stolen spells as counting for the purpose of that. Still, that's a really long wait, and the benefits are still rather middling.

So, I wanted to know if there wa a better version of Arcane Strike out there. There's Abjurant Champion's level 4 ability...which is actually worse, lol. But I can think of nothing else.

[Douglas]

There's the Arcane Wrath level 1 ability of Jade Phoenix Mage. It's better than Abjurant Champion's ability and in some cases better than Arcane Strike, but I think most of the time you'd be better off using the feat.

[daremetoidareyo]

jade pheonix mage? It doesn't fit in a nice feat slot, but it allows you to burn off spellthieved spells. It's the only way to make a rage mage that works. (Spell rage + master spellthief allows you to steal 9ths because you get to add your spelltheif caster level to your character level, so long as you are stealing spells from certain schools)

[Troacctid]

If you just want something to do with the stolen spells, the Spelleater ACF is pretty good.

Why 8th level? You don't get 3rd level spells at 8th level.

[SangoProduction]

If you just want something to do with the stolen spells, the Spelleater ACF is pretty good.

Why 8th level? You don't get 3rd level spells at 8th level.

1 LA dvati, 1 level spellthief, 6 levels sorcerer.

And yeah. Spelleater is a thing. Though without Gestalt Theurge, not really an option here lol. Also it's only 2 hp healing per spell level. Cool. Might be of use after the battle, but I don't think there'd ever be a time where that's the least bit relevant. Even when doubled for being a Dvati.

[SangoProduction]

There's the Arcane Wrath level 1 ability of Jade Phoenix Mage. It's better than Abjurant Champion's ability and in some cases better than Arcane Strike, but I think most of the time you'd be better off using the feat.

3 feats (none of which are useless on a gish) and a level, with only Concentration being something that'd limit entry. Not bad. (Well, not bad when you've got triple the feat slots). It's significantly better than Arcane Strike for a spell level up to 4. Past that, its attack bonus isn't progressing, but it's got 3 points of damage per spell level scaling above Arcane Strike. So, yeah, probably Arcane Strike if you steal a useless high level spell, and Arcane wrath for low level ones, or just generally spending your less useful spell slots when you've progressed.

Wait. Actually. It's for a single attack. OK, that's pointless.

[Troacctid]

If you're a 1st level Spellthief, you won't be stealing any high-level spells at all, even with Master Spellthief—or rather, you can steal them, but you can only store a maximum of one spell level, so they won't be of much use.

Have you considered using the Trickster variant? You lose a few skill points up front, but you make up for them over time, and you'd get 2nd level spells a level earlier and 3rd level spells at the same level.

[SangoProduction]

If you're a 1st level Spellthief, you won't be stealing any high-level spells at all, even with Master Spellthief—or rather, you can steal them, but you can only store a maximum of one spell level, so they won't be of much use.

Have you considered using the Trickster variant? You lose a few skill points up front, but you make up for them over time, and you'd get 2nd level spells a level earlier and 3rd level spells at the same level.

My group has no rogue, unfortunately. Storing spell levels? That's something I didn't see...*reads more closely* Well holy ****. Spellthief is actually worse than I thought. That's impressive. Regardless, there's a strong argument that that's also supposed to be developed by Master Spellthief. I doubt the DM would even bother with enforcing that rule.

[Anthrowhale]

It looks like Arcane Strike applies to only one melee weapon but an unlimited number of natural weapons?

...a melee weapon, your unarmed strike, or natural weapons...
Using natural weapons, if you pull off a shared Draconic Polymorph[twelve headed hydra] the 24 attacks might generate 540 (expected) bonus damage off a single (stolen) 9th level arcane strike spell. This is not bad considering that you also get bite damage (456 expected), and with self-flanking, you can add in sneak attack damage. Maybe consider the Craven feat there.

If you can encourage your friends to get Circle Magic you might even be able to arcane strike with a 20th level spell.

[Eldariel]

Well, you'll generally have some spell levels to waste anyways and Arcane Strike is action-free making it reasonable. There's no better option but as above, there are ways to make Arcane Strike better - the various Heighten-tricks for instance. Sanctum Spell also works though of course, mostly in the wrong direction unless you have a way to keep your Sanctum with you. And it's not worth picking up for the piddly +1/+1d4 unless you're using it for other stuff anyways. Though how this works with Sorc is a bit strange; it says you sac one of your spells per day. For a Wizard, since your slots are already metamagicked, it's trivial. For a Sorc though, unless you have something like Arcane Preparation, there's a reasonable argument to be made that you can only sac a raw slot since you apply metamagic on the fly while casting a spell and Arcane Strike doesn't involve casting the spell.

[Anthrowhale]

Sanctum Spell also works...

I don't think it does, actually. Sanctum Spell only works when cast, and you don't cast for Arcane Strike.

[Zaq]

Netherese Battle Curse (at least I think that's the name—I'm AFB, but it's in Lost Empires of Faerun) is similar to Arcane Strike in that it lets you burn spells as a free action to pump up melee attacks. Again, I'm AFB, but if memory serves, it offers a bonus to hit at the same 1:1 ratio as AS, but instead of extra d4s, it puts a debuff on the target. I forget if using higher spell slots gives a bigger debuff or if it just increases the save DC. It's still more efficient to use lowish slots than highish ones, but it's an option.

And yeah, Master Spellthief is a trap if you care about stealing spells. Only Spellthief levels make you better at holding spell levels, and only Spellthief levels progress Steal Spell Effect and Steal SLA, and unless your GM loves pitting you against casters who are strong enough to matter but who are weak enough to be ruined by simply losing a couple of slots, those are the real fun parts of Spellthief. (Okay, I think Hellbreaker also progresses Steal SLA, but whatevs.) Master Spellthief is only useful for the armor component and for the CL shenanigans.

[Crake]

Easiest way of having your sanctum move with you is to have an acorn of far travel from a tree that resides within your sanctum. Since you count as being under the tree's canopy at all times, that would also mean you count as being within your sanctum as well.

[SangoProduction]

Netherese Battle Curse (at least I think that's the name—I'm AFB, but it's in Lost Empires of Faerun) is similar to Arcane Strike in that it lets you burn spells as a free action to pump up melee attacks. Again, I'm AFB, but if memory serves, it offers a bonus to hit at the same 1:1 ratio as AS, but instead of extra d4s, it puts a debuff on the target. I forget if using higher spell slots gives a bigger debuff or if it just increases the save DC. It's still more efficient to use lowish slots than highish ones, but it's an option.

And yeah, Master Spellthief is a trap if you care about stealing spells. Only Spellthief levels make you better at holding spell levels, and only Spellthief levels progress Steal Spell Effect and Steal SLA, and unless your GM loves pitting you against casters who are strong enough to matter but who are weak enough to be ruined by simply losing a couple of slots, those are the real fun parts of Spellthief. (Okay, I think Hellbreaker also progresses Steal SLA, but whatevs.) Master Spellthief is only useful for the armor component and for the CL shenanigans.

It is an untyped penalty. So that's good. It says to perform the curse as a melee attack...but doesn't give the action for which the melee attack (and thus the curse) is applied. So, it could safely be assumed that it applies to your next melee attack. Still a pretty inefficient use of your spell slot. But I guess it is just 2 feats and some skill points.

I love the irony that Wizards of the Coast are so afraid of letting spellcasters do damage with weapons, but release spells like Toothed Tentacle.

[Anthrowhale]

I wanted to mention a modified build which might work better than Spellthief 1/Sorcerer n.

The build: Trickster[Dragon #353] Spellthief 9/Heartfire Fanner[Dragon #314] 1/Sublime Chord 1/<full caster>.

You get access to spell levels at the same character level as Spellthief 1/Sorcerer n, except L2 comes one earlier and L4 one later. Your spell selection includes Bard rather than just sorcerer (note the bard-only spells like Improvisation...). You have Spellthief 9 for full ability to steal spells and the skills that implies. Heartfire Fanner grants bardic music qualifying for Sublime Chord, Dragonfire Inspiration, and Snowflake Wardance. It also allows you to grant fighter and metamagic feats to others (!). Sublime Chord gives you L9 spellcasting. Qualifying has some difficult skill prerequisites perhaps best addressed using Apprentice[Entertainer] and Knowledge Devotion[Knowledge[Arcana]], but it all appears doable.

Overall, it seems like a potentially fun build to me.

[Zanos]

I don't agree that arcane strike is a bad feat to begin with. For Sorcerer Gish builds, who have a bevy of spells per day, burning a slot for +x to hit and +xd4 to damage for every attack they make that round as a free action is very good. You're not going to burn through all of your spell slots anyway.


Netherese Battle Curse (at least I think that's the name—I'm AFB, but it's in Lost Empires of Faerun) is similar to Arcane Strike in that it lets you burn spells as a free action to pump up melee attacks. Again, I'm AFB, but if memory serves, it offers a bonus to hit at the same 1:1 ratio as AS, but instead of extra d4s, it puts a debuff on the target. I forget if using higher spell slots gives a bigger debuff or if it just increases the save DC. It's still more efficient to use lowish slots than highish ones, but it's an option.
"If your attack hits, the target must succeed on a Will save (DC 10 + level of spell or slot expended + your Cha modifi er) or take a -2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, ability checks, skill checks, and weapon damage rolls for 1 minute. The effects of multiple battle curses don't stack, and any foe that successfully resists your battle curse cannot be affected by it again for 24 hours."

You could technically stack both of these abilities, but netherese battle curse only functions on a single attack, making it not super useful if you're using it as a big method of buffing your to hit rolls.

[Gruftzwerg]

I would suggest to maybe squeeze Enlightened Fist 5 into the build. Since you have enough feats, you could even avoid monk lvls to get the prerequisite feats.

2nd lvl gives "Fist of Energy". burn a stunning fist attempt to get extra 1w6 fire or lightning damage on your unarmed attacks for that round.

EF gives you at 3rd lvl of the prc "Arcane Fist". Spend a Stunning Fist attempt to deliver a touchspell in a full unarmed attack.

And finally at the 5th lvl you get "Arcane Rejuvenation" and can burn of a spell(-slot) to heal for the amount of the spells level. A small heal, but still a heal.

You could try to steal a touchspell. If you get one, use it in a full (unarmed) attack. If you get something else > heal.

If you even go to EF 7, you can "hold rays" and deliver em as touch attacks what brings even more flexibility for the stolen spells.

[SangoProduction]

I wanted to mention a modified build which might work better than Spellthief 1/Sorcerer n.

The build: Trickster[Dragon #353] Spellthief 9/Heartfire Fanner[Dragon #314] 1/Sublime Chord 1/<full caster>.

You get access to spell levels at the same character level as Spellthief 1/Sorcerer n, except L2 comes one earlier and L4 one later. Your spell selection includes Bard rather than just sorcerer (note the bard-only spells like Improvisation...). You have Spellthief 9 for full ability to steal spells and the skills that implies. Heartfire Fanner grants bardic music qualifying for Sublime Chord, Dragonfire Inspiration, and Snowflake Wardance. It also allows you to grant fighter and metamagic feats to others (!). Sublime Chord gives you L9 spellcasting. Qualifying has some difficult skill prerequisites perhaps best addressed using Apprentice[Entertainer] and Knowledge Devotion[Knowledge[Arcana]], but it all appears doable.

Overall, it seems like a potentially fun build to me.

hrm....lol. Interesting, actually. Not an option atm, though. Maybe in another game.