Steal Spell and Boosting BAB

[prufock]

Two separate questions.

Re: Steal Spell
The text for Steal Spell under Spellthief, it states "After stealing a spell, a Spellthief can cast the spell himself on a subsequent turn." At 1st level you can steal 0- or 1st-level spells. So, if you steal Mage Hand from a wizard, you can cast Mage Hand.
So does this qualify for PrCs that have a requirement such as "must be able to cast Mage Hand" or "must be able to cast spells of x level"? Is that legal, cheesy, or legit?

Re: Sneak Attack and Boosting BAB
I'm building a hypothetical character (not sure if I'll ever use it) focusing on Sneak Attacks, with the aim of getting as close to +20d6 at level 20 as possible (not including possible items, feats, etc). That means taking 1st level in a lot of classes that grants +1d6 at first level. Of course, it has the downside of severely crippling BAB.
What can I do to offset this downside? Any ideas?

[SurlySeraph]

On sneak attack: You can use the fractional BAB variant, on Unearthed Arcana. You can use non-class ways of acquiring Sneak Attack, such as casting the Ranger spell hunter's eye with lots of CL boosts, polymorphing into creatures that get sneak attack dice such as the Marrulurk. Here are plenty of useful ideas. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111626)

EDIT: Also this. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=140679) And this. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66915) And this. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3084.0)

[AstralFire]

The general rule with temporary effects is that if you lose the effect that lets you qualify for the feat or class, you lose the feat or class. This is nothing near a universally, closely applied rule due to an overly close reading breaking a few classes.

[Rabble]

If you're allowed to use complete arcane there is the skillful weapon enchantment. It will give you a minimum 3/4 BAB with that weapon.

[ericgrau]

I don't think you can use temporary effects to get into classes by RAW. You can use permanent magical effects (usually from items), but if they are removed then you lose whatever you got with them until the effect is replaced. But that's usually for ability scores and so on. I don't think waving an item for a magical effect is the same as casting it.

Conceptually (not by RAW) you'd have to have access to mage hand often enough to train in the new class. Maybe if you have a friendly caster that will let you steal spells from him during downtime your DM would let it fly.

[prufock]

Okay, looks like I'm going to have to take Unseen Seer 2 for Advanced Learning (Mage Hand).

Also, Skillful enchantment? How did I not know about this!? Granted, it's a +2 price modifier, but still worth it for excessive multiclassing.

Our group normally doesn't use fractional BAB, by the way. Though I may never use this character, I'd still like to build it to be playable in my group if I ever change my mind.

Thanks for the responses so far. As for offsetting BAB, I was also thinking Factotum 1, since Int will be maxed, to use an inspiration point to add Int modifier. Also Assassin (which I'm taking anyway for SA) gives access to True Strike. Limited uses for both, but it helps (though detracts from SA dice).

[Greenish]

Okay, looks like I'm going to have to take Unseen Seer 2 for Advanced Learning (Mage Hand).Mage Hand is not Divination.

Be a whisper gnome!

[prufock]

Mage Hand is not Divination.

Be a whisper gnome!

Ah, right you are. Oh well, dropping the Arcane Trickster portion, then. It doesn't provide SA until level 2 anyway, so I'm not losing anything in that progression.

I was thinking Strongheart Halfling for both the bonus feat and access to... what was it called? Whisperknife?

But yes, Whisper Gnomes are all kinds of awesome.