How are you guys running Spellfire Wielder?

[Melcar]

I'm simply wondering how people have ruled on how to use the feat Spellfire Wielder in 3.5?

The reason is that in 3.0 a rod of absorption required a readied actions to absorb, and absorbing spells via the spellfire wielder feat is heavily implied that it functions as if the spellfire wielder was a rod of absorption.

In 3.5 however a rod of absorption requires no activation to work... So, does this mean that using the spellfire feat also requires no activation?

What are your thoughts on this?

[Biggus]

I haven't used it myself, but most people seem to be of the opinion that spellfire is a pretty weak option, so I'd probably go with the 3.5 version.

[Gorthawar]

One of my players wanted to play a spell fire wielder and I ended up reworking the mechanics quite a bit. We agreed that the requirement of reading an action would make the feat pretty useless. Just using it as is with free action activation however was much too strong in my opinion. You can potentially store all the leftover spells of the party each night and then hit the bbeg for an easy 10d6+ damage at low levels even without any optimisation. This isn't as much of a problem later on as is the basic immunity to target magic through a single feat however. We ended up using a system similar to spell resistance and temporary spellfire charges that works for us but is definitely a work in progress.

[Melcar]

One of my players wanted to play a spell fire wielder and I ended up reworking the mechanics quite a bit. We agreed that the requirement of reading an action would make the feat pretty useless. Just using it as is with free action activation however was much too strong in my opinion. You can potentially store all the leftover spells of the party each night and then hit the bbeg for an easy 10d6+ damage at low levels even without any optimisation. This isn't as much of a problem later on as is the basic immunity to target magic through a single feat however. We ended up using a system similar to spell resistance and temporary spellfire charges that works for us but is definitely a work in progress.

The question was on a more broad scale. Like how to run that feat overall… however the specific character is question is epic…

I’m personally leaning towards just having function like a 3.5 rod of absorption as is. (With the limit of spell levels equal to casters con).
There are enough caveats to limit its usefulness, and having it be a readied action just seems too void any usability… while I can see this possibly being a problem at lover levels, I don’t see it as a problem beyond level 10-ish…

The DM can always just use AoE spells or be creative somehow this balancing it on lower levels…

Thoughs?

[Gorthawar]

The experience from running a campaign with a spellfire wielder from level 1-9 I have is that the things you can actually do with spellfire are not as much of a problem as is the quasi immunity to targeted magic. Of course I can work around it but if I always do that I might as well have not allowed the feat. In the end it means that for every encounter I design with magic users I have to consider the following:

1. Do the opponents know of the ability
2. Would they target the spellfire wielder with targeted spells (it's a wizard btw)
3. If they target them and get their spell absorbed what does it mean for the encounter.

I've never played at epic levels and I suspect that a lot of the above are standard considerations at that point anyways. However, the feat certainly does shape encounter design for me at the level we're playing at and will probably in the future too as the party is getting ready to brave the City of the Spider Queen adventure.

[Paragon]

IMO this feat isn't as bad as everyone depicts it to be.

It is on a wizard but that's only because all other options for tier 1 classes can make them game-breaking whereas Spellfire Wielder doesn't. OTOH it is a really neat feat for martial characters or even Meldshapers since Con is a hard limit. Letting them have some ranged touch attacks, circumstantial spell defense and some healing capabilities for one single feat is already pretty good.

See signature for what people have done with the Spellfire Channeler prestige class in the Iron Chef Competition

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The experience from running a campaign with a spellfire wielder from level 1-9 I have is that the things you can actually do with spellfire are not as much of a problem as is the quasi immunity to targeted magic.Considering that full concealment and cover both make you untargetable, and those are pretty easily gotten even at lower levels if you put in a tiny smidgen of effort, I don't think that's nearly as big of an issue as all that, especially if you need to spend actions to do it.

[Gorthawar]

Considering that full concealment and cover both make you untargetable, and those are pretty easily gotten even at lower levels if you put in a tiny smidgen of effort, I don't think that's nearly as big of an issue as all that, especially if you need to spend actions to do it.

We're playing with absorbing spells as a free action like the rod of absorption in 3.5 because having to ready an action to absorb a spell is terrible. Of course this is only my experience at the level of play my party and I are using that I'm sharing. And the lesson learned for me is that it has quite an impact for a single feat. You experience with the feat in play may vary and I'd be interested to hear about it and how you negotiated any problems.

[Darg]

I've been rolling around the idea to make spellfire wielder/channeler a base class. The feat on it's own is very powerful. What I've been thinking is that the basic ability does 1d4+1 per 2 class levels for 1 charge. Remove the baseline reflex save. From here you spend charges to increase or modify the ability like spending 1 charge per 1d4 to increase it's damage to a maximum amount, or 3 charges to give point of impact a 10 foot radius (5 charges for 20), etc. I haven't fully fleshed out the idea so it's pretty conceptual at this stage. One thing I definitely want to add is the ability to expend charges as a counterspell.