Spell Theft and Knowledge Devotion questions that came up in our game today

[Sadrik]

We played our age of wurms campaign today. Our fighter-type died once and was raised, then nearly died again but was finagled with some arguing and survived. Age of wurms is not for the faint of heart, if you are a fighter type.

So the questions that arose today:
Spell Theft spell from complete scoundrel, spells dispelled with target personal do you get them or not?
Knowledge devotion feat, what types of damage does it add to clearly weapon attacks, but what about scorching ray, what about fireball, what about ray of enfeeblement, what about enervation, what about turn undead damage?

 

[Jackinthegreen]

The wording of Spell Theft is pretty clear. Any spell affecting the target (that you could also have in the first place) can be ripped off, and that would include "target: personal" spells too.


The usual thinking on Knowledge Devotion I've seen is its attack bonus applies on all attacks, including spell attacks, but the damage bonus can only apply on things that deal hit point damage and that require an attack roll to hit. The game breaks a bit if you have it apply to ability damage and such, so no way should that be allowed to happen. Thus it would work on Scorching Ray for both the attack and damage boosts (only once on the damage boost), but fireball would not qualify since it doesn't require an attack roll.

Ray of Enfeeblement does not deal damage, thus it does not get a damage boost. It would get an attack bonus, however. Enervation likewise does not deal damage (there is no such thing as Level Damage), so it'd only get the attack bonus.

Turn Undead is something I've never thought to apply KD to. It is explicitly called out as an attack, and it does deal hit point damage... Might have to make an exception here since it doesn't truly have an attack roll, but the flavor of taking the feat and making the required knowledge check to deal extra damage is pretty good.

The attack bonus would work for Shivering Touch, but the damage bonus would not because it does not deal hit point damage.