Quote Originally Posted by Eldariel View Post
But what does any of those do against a caster? I mean, casters feast on anyone trying to deal pure damage (even if they don't bother becoming immune to damage; even simple contingencies tend to pre-empt those, as well as Foresight+immediate actions) and Spellthief gets abilities that are still inferior to what you could have if you just cast real spells yourself.
Well, it depends on what level you're playing at, and how much time the caster has spent on pre-buff. If you're playing against a high level full caster who has Foresight and Greater Celerity, then I fully concede that there is very little that a Spellthief or anyone else could do to defeat him short of using similarly abusive spells.

But presumably the DM doesn't sit down and think of ways to auto-win combat before Initiative is rolled. Instead, I would argue that most DMs do their best to come up with interesting challenges. If the DM chooses to use full casters against the party, then a Spellthief is well armed to fight against them. He can steal spells, steal currently running spell effects, steal energy resistance, steal spell like abilities, absorb spells that target him, etc. While the Spellthief is nothing special against mooks and monsters, he is custom built to defeat magic using BBEG (who the DM will likely give a ton of hit points and other defenses). Again, I fully stipulate that he's not nearly as powerful as Tier 1 or 2 classes. He's just good at taking down certain Tier 1 enemies some of the time.

On the flip side, if a player chooses to play a Tier 1 caster, the DM can challenge him by giving the occasional enemy levels of Spellthief. If the player insists on using abusive spells, then the DM can just add more class levels to his monsters until things balance out.


Quote Originally Posted by Eldariel View Post
And Incarnate's maximum spell resistance is still relatively easily pierced though it does force casters to rely on something like Assay Resistance or True Casting. Not to mention Incarnates' offense isn't very scary vs. a caster.
Yes, if your DM specifically decides to bypass your Spell Resistance, he can do so. DM is god. He can do anything.

But in most situations, the Spellward Shirt provides you with 50%ish magic resistance for a minimal investment, which is pretty darn handy in my book. It can be optimized up to Level + 20ish with a couple of feats and magic items, which is enough to defeat most (though certainly not all) non-epic magic.

I concede that the Incarnate is not an offensive class. But he has has a metric ton of defense, Skills, and a few good battlefield control and Save or Lose effects. He excels at outlasting the enemy and absorbing his effects, and giving his friends a much better opportunity to defeat them.


Remember, D&D is a game played by people, not computers. If it was just about crunching numbers, everyone would only play Tier 1 classes all of the time, and the game would be over as soon as someone achieved godhood (I think the record is level 2? I haven't read Pun-Pun in a while). But it's not just about numbers. It's about having lots of interesting options to play with. I'm certainly not advocating for the Monk or anything so silly. I find nothing interesting or fun about totally sucking. I'm just saying that there's plenty of room in the Tier 3-4 range that can keep up with Tier 1-2 builds, even though they're demonstrably not as powerful.