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Person_Man
2008-04-17, 11:51 AM
Player One wants to be a caster who focuses on self buffing. He has plenty of spells that last for hours or minutes per level, so that he can effectively make himself a demi-god before combat. He also has a few 1 round per level spells that he uses "when he really need them" in case the DM throws something particularly hard at him. Everyone else is playing a "normal" build, and feels left behind, weak, ignored, etc. The DM is frustrated, because if he makes the encounters too hard, the normal players have a really difficult time. If he makes them too easy, Player One isn't challenged. He can make heavy use of anti-magic zones and Dispel Magic, but they don't really fit in with the plot, screw other normal casters just as much, and make Player One feel like he's being picked on.

This build, either controlled by another PC or as an NPC, is one potential solution to that problem.


Athos the Buffer
"All for one, and one for all!"

Spellthief (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050107a) 1/Full Arcane Caster X/War Weaver (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=769208) 5/Full Arcane Caster Y

Spellthief gives you the ability to Steal Spells. You can steal a spell from an ally with a touch as a standard action.

The Master Spellthief feat from Complete Scoundrel allows your Spellthief levels to stack with levels of any other arcane spellcaster classes for the purpose of determining what level of spell you can steal. Use Wizard if you want to get into War Weaver quickly.

War Weaver from Heroes of Battle is a prestige class with 4/5 caster progression. It requires the ability to cast 3rd level arcane spells to get in. Their primary class ability is the Eldritch Tapestry. It allows them to connect a number of living creatures to the tapestry each day. Once part of the tapestry, you cast spells up to your class level (up to 5th level, because that's how far the War Weaver PrC goes) into the tapestry and treat all members of the tapestry as a single target.

Spells eligible for the tapestry must meet the following criteria:

1) Must target willing creatures or have a "harmless" saving throw.
2) Must target a creature that can be in the tapestry and not just their equipment like a magic weapon spell would.
3) Must not be a personal range spell. No counting all allies as "you."
4) Cannot affect illegal targets.

I won't dig into the specifics of which spells can and cannot be used with the tapestry and why - you can dig through the threads. Here's a partial list (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=622748). You'll notice that it includes most common buff spells. It also includes most healing spells.

Now, whenever Player One wants to buff himself, Athos asks if he can share it with everyone instead. Athos steals the spell, and casts it through his tapestry on the party. Athos can also supplement these with his own spells, and spells he steals from enemies. And the party's healer has to burn far fewer resources as well. During combat, Athos will often just hang out next to Player One, in case he wants to borrow and cast a spell that only lasts 1 round per level. In fact, everyone can just collectively pool most of their buffs, and share the benefits. But everyone still feels special, because it doesn't apply to every spell, and it doesn't apply to spells above 5th level.

Thoughts?

Chronos
2008-04-17, 12:34 PM
First: Master Spellthief does not work that way. You can steal a higher-level spell, but in order to cast a stolen spell, you have to store it first (even if only for a round). A spellthief can store a total number of spell levels equal to his spellthief class level, and Master Spellthief does not change this. If you steal spells which would put you over the limit, you have to immediately drop some stored spells to put you back within the limit.

So a spellthief 1/full caster X can deprive a target of high-level spells (up to level (X+1)/2), but he cannot actually cast any stolen spells higher than first level.

Second: If the spells Player 1 is using can be cast on others, why isn't he doing so in the first place? He can just take Chain Spell, or take the War Weaver levels himself, or in the simplest case use more spell slots. And if they can't be cast on others, then the spellthief can't weave them onto the party, either.