Working on a Spellfire Build

[RNightstalker]

So yes I'm working on a Spellfire Build...

I want to do Human Paragon and Stoneblessed for the Ability boosts, and Deepwarden for CN to AC in place of DX.

Would it be worth using a casting class of some sort, either Sorcerer or Warmage to absorb leftover spells from the previous day to keep my character "charged", which would be progressed with the Human Paragon? Would that work to begin with, and would 0-level cantrips be able to be absorbed? I'm also thinking of Swordsage to have Diamond Mind maneuvers handy since CN and Concentration will be maxed. Human Paragon will give a bonus feat for prerequisites into the PrC's and the needed skill slots as well.

What say you Playground?

[Khedrac]

So yes I'm working on a Spellfire Build...

I want to do Human Paragon and Stoneblessed for the Ability boosts, and Deepwarden for CN to AC in place of DX.

Would it be worth using a casting class of some sort, either Sorcerer or Warmage to absorb leftover spells from the previous day to keep my character "charged", which would be progressed with the Human Paragon? Would that work to begin with, and would 0-level cantrips be able to be absorbed? I'm also thinking of Swordsage to have Diamond Mind maneuvers handy since CN and Concentration will be maxed. Human Paragon will give a bonus feat for prerequisites into the PrC's and the needed skill slots as well.

What say you Playground?

As I understand spellfire this doesn't work. I admit that it has been a long time since I looked anywhere near the spellfire rules, but my memory is that you can only absorb spells that are targeted at you (targeted spells and rays), and that it is a standard action to absorb a spell.

So, this means any non-targeted spell cannot be absorbed.
And targeted spells cannot be absorbed in the round they are cast.

The way round this is with the feat delay spell or similar so you can cast the spell one round and absorb it the next, but the +3 levels of spell cost is prohibitively expensive.

Caveat - I may be wrong about the Spellfire rules.

[RNightstalker]

As I understand spellfire this doesn't work. I admit that it has been a long time since I looked anywhere near the spellfire rules, but my memory is that you can only absorb spells that are targeted at you (targeted spells and rays), and that it is a standard action to absorb a spell.

So, this means any non-targeted spell cannot be absorbed.
And targeted spells cannot be absorbed in the round they are cast.

The way round this is with the feat delay spell or similar so you can cast the spell one round and absorb it the next, but the +3 levels of spell cost is prohibitively expensive.

Caveat - I may be wrong about the Spellfire rules.

What about readying an action to absorb a swift action spell?

Also, as I was reading into the Swordsage component, on p37 of ToB it says "Think of this material as analogous to that in Chapter 10 of the PH". Would that mean PrC's that add to existing spellcasting classes like the Human Paragon could be tapped to add to Blade Magic levels/classes?

[Uncle Pine]

You don't recharge your spellfire points yourself, but rather attempt to absorb malicious spells cast by enemies on you (unreliable) or have a friendly spellcaster dump their remaining spells on you before resting at the end of a day.

Keep in mind that even without optimizing Con, Spellfire Wielder on its own means starting from 1st level you're strolling around with a 16ishd6 nuke in your pocket (Reflex DC 20 half) if you're fully charged, so squeezing a couple extra d6s on top of that will provide diminishing return unless the price for doing so is very low. As such, wasting 3 levels on Stoneblessed seems inferior to the option of simply playing a dwarf:
- by level 6, a human Human Paragon 3/Stoneblessed 3 who started with 18 Con will be able to store up to 23 spellfire energy levels (without accounting for +Con items);
- by level 5, a dwarf Ranger 3/anything 1/Spellfire Channeler 1 who started with 20 Con will be able to store up to 42 spellfire energy levels (without accounting for +Con items, whose boost is doubled thanks to Spellfire Channeler's increased storage 2).

Person_Man's X stat to Y bonus thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?125732-3-x-X-stat-to-Y-bonus) also includes an example of Constitution-focused build that wouldn't be delayed too much by adding Spellfire Wielder at 1st level and a dip into Spellfire Channeler at any point:

Dwarf

Ranger 3/Monk 2/Fist of the Forest 1/Deepwarden 2/Kensai 5

or

Warblade X/Fist of the Forest 1/Deepwarden 2

Ranger provides the Endurance feat and Skill pre-reqs for Fist of the Forest and Deepwarden. But you can swap it out for Dwarf Paragon or Factotum or various other base classes, as long as you can cobble together what you need.

Monk provides Evasion and Improved Unarmed Strike (pre-req for FotF). But you can swap this out as well.

Fist of the Forest grants you your Con to AC while unarmored.

Deepwarden grants you your Con to AC (replacing Dex).

The Steadfast Determination feat (requires Endurance) lets you replace your Wis with Con for Will Saves.

Along with various other buffs, Kensai lets you replace Reflex Saves with Concentration checks.

Warblade can replace any Save with a Concentration check if you have the right manuevers. But be mindful that they're Immediate Actions, so you can only do so once per turn, and once per encounter (until you re-fill your manuevers). He can also get his Con to damage (twice!) with Greater Insightful Strike (once per encounter until you re-charge your manuevers).

If your DM lets you use 3.0 sources, be sure to buy a Hammer of Earth for Con to damage. But with full-ish BAB and Power Attack, you won't need it.

It's also worth mentioning that the Totemist (Magic of Incarnum) gets powers based on Con, in case you want a Con SAD build.

Put them together, and you get one heck of a Tank. Your AC (including your Touch AC) should be pretty ridiculous. Your Saves should be equally ridiculous, and it's not that hard to get Evasion (and Mettle, if you really care, but it's rarely useful).

[Khedrac]

You don't recharge your spellfire points yourself, but rather attempt to absorb malicious spells cast by enemies on you (unreliable) or have a friendly spellcaster dump their remaining spells on you before resting at the end of a day.
By pure chance for one campaign many years ago one player created a spellfire wielder (with DM permission) and I created a warlock...
The DM had been going to add an NPC healer because the party didn't have one, under the circumstances he didn't bother. Unfortunately I then changed jobs and stopped being able to make the group.

[Sinner's Garden]

Spellfire absorbs spells as a rod of absorption, which I believe required an action in 3.0, but does not in 3.5, which means that Spellfire does not either.

I actually went to check, and this was incorrect. I apologize.

[The Viscount]

As mentioned, you could only absorb your own spells if they're swift actions to cast and target you. Check out the Iron Chef (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?439020-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXXII/page6) competition we ran with it. Things got wild.

[RNightstalker]

You don't recharge your spellfire points yourself, but rather attempt to absorb malicious spells cast by enemies on you (unreliable) or have a friendly spellcaster dump their remaining spells on you before resting at the end of a day.

Keep in mind that even without optimizing Con, Spellfire Wielder on its own means starting from 1st level you're strolling around with a 16ishd6 nuke in your pocket (Reflex DC 20 half) if you're fully charged, so squeezing a couple extra d6s on top of that will provide diminishing return unless the price for doing so is very low. As such, wasting 3 levels on Stoneblessed seems inferior to the option of simply playing a dwarf:
- by level 6, a human Human Paragon 3/Stoneblessed 3 who started with 18 Con will be able to store up to 23 spellfire energy levels (without accounting for +Con items);
- by level 5, a dwarf Ranger 3/anything 1/Spellfire Channeler 1 who started with 20 Con will be able to store up to 42 spellfire energy levels (without accounting for +Con items, whose boost is doubled thanks to Spellfire Channeler's increased storage 2).

Person_Man's X stat to Y bonus thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?125732-3-x-X-stat-to-Y-bonus) also includes an example of Constitution-focused build that wouldn't be delayed too much by adding Spellfire Wielder at 1st level and a dip into Spellfire Channeler at any point:

I've actually been starting to consider a dwarf to simplify the Deepwarden. Instead of Ranger, what about Dwarf Paragon for the extra CN?

[daremetoidareyo]

Dragonborn dwarf?

[RNightstalker]

Dragonborn dwarf?

Might simplify the bookkeeping from the random bonus racial stuff.


You don't recharge your spellfire points yourself, but rather attempt to absorb malicious spells cast by enemies on you (unreliable) or have a friendly spellcaster dump their remaining spells on you before resting at the end of a day.

Keep in mind that even without optimizing Con, Spellfire Wielder on its own means starting from 1st level you're strolling around with a 16ishd6 nuke in your pocket (Reflex DC 20 half) if you're fully charged, so squeezing a couple extra d6s on top of that will provide diminishing return unless the price for doing so is very low. As such, wasting 3 levels on Stoneblessed seems inferior to the option of simply playing a dwarf:
- by level 6, a human Human Paragon 3/Stoneblessed 3 who started with 18 Con will be able to store up to 23 spellfire energy levels (without accounting for +Con items);
- by level 5, a dwarf Ranger 3/anything 1/Spellfire Channeler 1 who started with 20 Con will be able to store up to 42 spellfire energy levels (without accounting for +Con items, whose boost is doubled thanks to Spellfire Channeler's increased storage 2).

Person_Man's X stat to Y bonus thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?125732-3-x-X-stat-to-Y-bonus) also includes an example of Constitution-focused build that wouldn't be delayed too much by adding Spellfire Wielder at 1st level and a dip into Spellfire Channeler at any point:

Thanks for the link, not feeling the Fist of the Forest for this build, probably still going to need armor and shield. Where is the Hammer of Earth? Never heard of it before.