Advice on how to build a Spell Thief.

[Alchemist 23]

The party needs an arcane spell caster who has nether a spell book or a familiar, so Sorcerer. Here is the catch, we also need a sneaky skill junky. So my thought was some kind of Spell Thief but I do not know how to do that and still get good spell casting levels as well as still get my blood line progression. Is there a way to link it to my character level? I know about Arcane Trickster but that does not help the blood line problem. Suggestions?
Personal preference, I really like the Stormborn bloodline.

[avr]

By Spell Thief do you mean a sneaky type who uses spells, or something like the D&D 3.5 Spellthief character class, which had an ability to steal spell effects off enemies? For the latter the sandman archetype of the bard is the only Pathfinder way I think. There's a lot of options for the former.

The Seeker archetype of the sorcerer plus a trait or two making some sneaky skills into class skills (and some investment in intelligence to have enough skill points, & maybe the cunning feat for some more) can be sneaky and use spells. No multiclassing needed. That's the simplest way to make this character.

If you want to be a real skill junkie with lots of skills you'll need to relax one of your conditions. Wildblooded (sage) makes your casting stat intelligence for example but is obviously incompatible with being stormborn. It's also possible to get moderately good skills by investing a lot of feats into increasing the effect of your untrained skills. A Magaambyan Initiate arcanist can take the bloodline development exploit and take Spell Mastery (possibly multiple times) to largely do without a spellbook. A witch with the bonded witch archetype or the wyrm witch archetype has neither a spellbook nor a familiar, and can take the PF unchained variant multiclass (VMC) sorcerer to get a bloodline. Some divine casters can get a bunch of arcane spells one way or another and can take VMC sorcerer in the same way, or the eldritch heritage feats. Some psychic caster spell lists look very much like arcane lists, and VMC sorcerer/eldritch heritage is an option for them too.

[Dasrak]

There are two Intelligence-based spontaneous arcane spellcasting options: the Sage wildblooded Sorcerer and the Ley Line Guardian Witch. Both of them are spontaneous casters (using neither familiars nor spellbooks) and are Intelligence-based so they will naturally have a lot of skills. Use a trait to get class skill in stealth, and they could fulfill your character goal.

Another possibility, if it doesn't need to be a 9-level caster, is to go with the Bard. Spontaneous, no spellbook or familiar, and gets much better skill options than a Sorcerer. If occult psychic classes are okay, the Psychic is an Intelligence-based spontaneous caster.

Arcane Trickster Sorcerers are doable, but are generally considered a bad idea for Sorcerers because you lose out on your bloodline. There is no way to recover the lost bloodline progression, which is kinda annoying and makes most PRC's just a raw deal for Sorcerers.

[Alchemist 23]

Dasrak wrote:

There is no way to recover the lost bloodline progression, which is kinda annoying and makes most PRC's just a raw deal for Sorcerers.

PRC's are a raw deal for ALL Arcane spell casters ever since they decided that you do not get your free spells added to your spell book or familiar. Pazio over balances way to freaking much.

[VRMH]

Alchemist 23 wrote:

an arcane spell caster who has nether a spell book or a familiar

a sneaky skill junky

Have you considered the Bard? It ticks those boxes.

[Shorticus]

Eldritch Scoundrel on an unchained Rogue is an interesting angle to approach this from. I'd play a pure Rogue if you did this; lets you cast spells from the Wizard spell list while still getting dex-to-damage, sneak attack, and so forth. Could make a good self-buffing melee character that uses magic for utility purposes and perhaps some rays as well. Note, this character DOES have a spellbook, but it's a very different style of play from Wizard.

The Archivist archetype for Bard makes a good knowledge junkie with enough skills do other things. You trade out Inspire Courage for +AC and +Attack and +Saves, assuming you can consistently make your knowledge checks (play a dwarf, elf, or gnome with Breadth of Experience and you can do that just fine).

A standard Bard works just fine, too, and is good at everything because Bards are good at everything. Bards are awesome, yo.

And though they don't cast spells in the traditional sense, an Investigator is a non-wizardy character with 6th level extracts and a great emphasis on skills. Can be built a TON of ways.

Sorcerer with the Sage bloodline, perhaps crossblooded with Stormborn, and then turned into an Arcane Trickster could be pretty fun. You'll need to shore up your will saves however.

If you'd rather stay pure Sorcerer, you could always take the Seeker archetype, but it costs you Eschew Materials. Ouch. Consider nabbing the False Focus feat.

And now for something completely different: BE A MAGICAL GIRL! No spellbook, though it DOES have a familiar. Decent setup. Can ask your DM if your familiar can be a Mauler familiar and if the archetype will apply to it when it's advanced, so you can fly around on a medium sized faerie dragon or the like - with DM permission.

The Cabalist is pretty interesting too. I personally don't like the Warlock, but maybe you will.

Finally, the Kineticist isn't a true spellcaster, but as I recently learned it also can learn some specific spells. Could be neat depending on the elements you choose, and the damage they deal is pretty nifty. Feels like a blaster caster, but doesn't run out of blasts.

[Moonheart]

Alchemist 23 wrote:

The party needs an arcane spell caster who has nether a spell book or a familiar, so Sorcerer. Here is the catch, we also need a sneaky skill junky. So my thought was some kind of Spell Thief but I do not know how to do that and still get good spell casting levels as well as still get my blood line progression. Is there a way to link it to my character level? I know about Arcane Trickster but that does not help the blood line problem. Suggestions?

Personal preference, I really like the Stormborn bloodline.

My opinion is that you can't make all those three things together efficiently:

- sorcerer
- skill junky
- stealthy

It's logical, if you think about it: if you could do both a perfect thief and a perfet spellcaster in a single character, nobody would play a simple spellcaster of thief.
So, trying to take on both roles will requiers you to sacrifice something:

* Sacrifying high stealth rolls to just keep average ones:
- Race: Human
- Class: Sorcerer
- Bloodine: Sage (wild bloodline)
- VMC: Bard
=> You have a pretty solid spellcaster that is int based and have a lot of skill points. Bard VMC gives you the ability to use all knowledge rolls, and adds versatile performance. You still can spend points into stealth with the right traits, and get a decent score.

* Sacrifying some skills :
- Race: Dusk elf
- Class: Sorcerer
- Bloodline: Shadow
=> A pretty solid sneaky sorcerer. While you cannot raise your stealth score to insane levels, your inate ability to plunge the whole battlefield into darkness while seeing farther than anyone else in it allows to make some sneaky tricks than even normal rogues cannot pull out.

* Sacrifying some spellcasting power:
- Race: Dusk elf
- Class: Bard
- Archetype: Sandman
=> Probably the best sneak option around here. Cumulating buffs, scalling bonus to stealth and sneak ranks, you get an insane stealth and bluff score... but will only get 2/3 of spellcasting power.
However, it's probably the option that is the most worth be called a "Spell thief" as it can be litteraly steal spells from others.

[Moonheart]

Shorticus wrote:

Sorcerer with the Sage bloodline, perhaps crossblooded with Stormborn, and then turned into an Arcane Trickster could be pretty fun. You'll need to shore up your will saves however.

You can't crossblood with a wild bloodline, and the sage is a wild bloodline.

[Dastis]

Seeker archetype sorcerer. Human. Invest 1 rank into every skill. Learn the spell bestow insight. Not perfect but you should be able to reasonably do most skill checks

[Dasrak]

Alchemist 23 wrote:

PRC's are a raw deal for ALL Arcane spell casters ever since they decided that you do not get your free spells added to your spell book or familiar. Pazio over balances way to freaking much.

In most situations it's more of an annoyance than a real handicap for a Wizard. Scribing spells has a fairly nominal cost (more money-intensive at low levels, more downtime-intensive at high levels), they usually have high availability, and you can even scribe spells before you're capable of casting them to plan ahead for an anticipated level-up.

It's still a bad ruling, however, since it can completely break the narrative flow of the game. The Fighter isn't going to call time-out from the main quest because he feels like he should have a +4 sword by now, but a Wizard sure as heck is going to want to hunt down spells to fill his spellbook if his highest level spell slots are going unfilled. The 2-free-spell rule prevents that, and ensures that even if there has been a dearth of scrolls or the downtime in which to learn them the Wizard isn't going to need to put the brakes on the story.

Moonheart wrote:

You can't crossblood with a wild bloodline, and the sage is a wild bloodline.

Not to mention that crossblood is a terrible option if you're looking for a skill monkey approach, since the loss of spells will eat into your versatility and completely cancel out the skill gain you got from going Sage in the first place.

Moonheard wrote:

- Race: Human

- Class: Sorcerer
- Bloodine: Sage (wild bloodline)
- VMC: Bard
=> You have a pretty solid spellcaster that is int based and have a lot of skill points. Bard VMC gives you the ability to use all knowledge rolls, and adds versatile performance. You still can spend points into stealth with the right traits, and get a decent score.

VMC is very feat-intensive, so I'd only do this if you really feel the skill situation is insufficient for your purposes. Presuming maximum Int investment, you'll support up to 12 maxed skills by 8th level. If that's not enough for your purposes then VMC Bard could be a good solution, but personally I'd see more than 12 maxed skills as being past the point of diminishing returns.