Spell Catching (Su): At 20th level, a sandman who saves against a spell or spell-like ability that targets only him (not including area spells) may use bardic performance as an immediate action. He must attempt a caster level check (DC 10 + the spell’s original caster level). If it succeeds, the sandman can absorb the spell effect without harm and immediately recast that spell (using the original caster’s level and save DC) or any spell he knows of that level or lower. Using this ability consumes a number of rounds of bardic performance equal to the spell’s level, even if the check fails. This performance replaces deadly performance.
I have a couple of questions regarding this ability.
First of all, while the recasting makes sense for spell-like abilities, is there any way to compare spell-like abilities to a spell level, to use it for casting other spells?
Secondly, isn't it a bit prone to abuse, with friendly spell-casters casting spells on the sandman, who thereby changes them into another, which is equivalent of a higher level spell for the original caster?
Examples might be casting a 6 lvl buff spell on the bard, he recast it as irresistible dance (sor/wiz 8).
This might not be a big problem, since it is a lvl 20 ability, at which point the other spell casters might have better thing to do with their actions though.
More problematic though, is the 'immediately recast' phrase.. This would seemingly allow a duo of spellcasters cast spells with long casting time as a standard action. The Sandman might even cast another another spell on himself to lower casting time...
Does anyone have practical experience with it?
First of all, while the recasting makes sense for spell-like abilities, is there any way to compare spell-like abilities to a spell level, to use it for casting other spells?
Spell-like abilities are supposed to either duplicate a spell (e.g., fireball) or explicitly indicate in their description the level of the spell. Admittedly, this does not always happen, but that's a problem with that ability, not Spell Catching.
Secondly, isn't it a bit prone to abuse, with friendly spell-casters casting spells on the sandman, who thereby changes them into another, which is equivalent of a higher level spell for the original caster?
Examples might be casting a 6 lvl buff spell on the bard, he recast it as irresistible dance (sor/wiz 8).
This probably isn't as strong as it appears you think it is. It would still have the save DC of a 6th level spell. It also uses a lot of rounds of bardic music; a 20th level bard with a charisma of 30 would only have 32 rounds. He can do that trick 5 times a day, assuming he does not want to use bardic performance for anything else.
The caster level check is probably also about 50%. So about half the time he would waste 6 rounds of performance to do nothing.
It also appears that he has to make the save against the spell to use this. Even if the spell targets the bard's good save, there is probably a 5-20% chance that he will fail the save.
This might not be a big problem, since it is a lvl 20 ability, at which point the other spell casters might have better thing to do with their actions though.
This is probably the biggest point. If your level 20 wizard has nothing better to do on his turn than to cast like a bard, your wizard is not playing to his full strength.
More problematic though, is the 'immediately recast' phrase.. This would seemingly allow a duo of spellcasters cast spells with long casting time as a standard action. The Sandman might even cast another another spell on himself to lower casting time...
It does seem to allow that. The worst spell that I could see for this is Geas, which is not supposed to be usable in combat, since it can easily be a "no-save-just-commit-suicide" spell.
It seems straightforward to house-rule this by limiting the casting time on the returned spell. Either the casting time of the original spell, a standard action or a full round is a reasonable limit.
The full round limit would allow you to cast a full round spell with a standard action, but you are burning through several uses of bardic performance to do so, and the full round spells are certainly feasible to cast in combat.
Does anyone have practical experience with it?
Nope.