Forums » RP Discussion » The Spellthief in RP: Your Takes

When someone says the word, "spellthief" what typically comes to mind? I imagine a mage, witch/wizard, or sorcerer dressed in attire meshed of cloth and leather with various trinkets on their person designed for one purpose: siphoning the magic of their enemies to be used for their own benefit. These enchanted devices contain the spells pilfered from the unfortunate caster until their user sees fit to utilize them. When you can "borrow" the powers of your foes, why bother to learn much more when they can do it for you? (completely rhetorical)

I'm curious as to what the magical community on RPR makes of this elusive and relatively untapped character/class concept.

What do you think of when you think of a spellthief? Does it have to be a caster? Can it be someone in heavier armor if suitable? If you have a spellthief, how are they designed and what are the limits to their abilities?

I've been contemplating creating one myself and while browsing the web to find d&d homebrews, I was curious about all of your suggestions as well!

I think a heavily armoured spellthief could totally work-- they could charge into battle and absorb whatever magic was thrown at them or their companions. Maybe redirect it after charging to a certain point.

Possible limitations: they can only absorb so much at once/their device only lets them steal one spell at a time, they can only work with spells of a particular type, if they try to contain magic that's too powerful it can backfire and destroy their device or harm them. In the case of physically absorbing magic, maybe too much at once wrecks their body (is arcane body horror a thing? it is now)

I've never played a spellthief before, though, so this is just me throwing ideas around.

That's actually a really good idea with a neat drawback. It definitely makes you want to think about what spell you're effectively nicking and how much of it your device can take before it backfires. In certain combat situations it would definitely turn into a risky gamble.

It's funny I saw this topic, because one of my character's actually is a spellthief. Though she's a rogue by nature, and steals spells from other spellcasters minds, to use them against her enemies later. basically the only spells she had she stole directly from other casters minds, and then had to then use the stored magic to write them on scrolls to add them to a spellbook. So I suppose she started as a rogue only to gain spellcasting later on, but its nothing like a true full class spellcaster as far as dnd terms are concerned.

Never the less you can totally make a heavily armored spellthief. Something more like a battle hardened mage hunter type. Or an arcane paladin who only gains their spells from taking them from the casters who try to use them against him.