Brilliant Gameologists Forum
Play Like You Have To! => D&D Deliberations => : bkdubs123 September 24, 2011, 11:55:04 AM
-
Surgeon General's Warning: This is a controversial topic and I am not interested in years-old, festering ePeen wounds. I'm going to be more than a little blunt about what kind of discussion I want to have in this thread and exactly what kind I don't. I'm not interested in hearing any bullshit about Iaijutsu Focus or FAILspellslol or flask Rogues or Wizards-are-better or any other fucking nonsense. I'm not interested about hearing how much anyone hates or loves Frank Trollman. At all. With that out of the way, what I am interested in doing is producing a simple, fucking simple Factotum build, that uses as few sources as possible that is effective, satisfying, and able to run a 50/50 win/loss rate in the Level 5 Same Game Test and the Level 10 Same Game Test. And I plan on doing it without attempting any rules loopholes or exploits or other pointless drivel. Hooray honesty?
I'm not posting this in the Min/Max board, because I'm not really looking for optimization here, and because I can't trust the topic not to precipitate outlandish and explosive vitriol. I just want to tackle a mercifully forthright Factotum build without all of the cockfighting and lies and general asshattery. I am coming into this with the belief that a Factotum, without using Font of Inspiration even once, without using Gnome Quickrazors, without needing to be Undead with Mindsight and Darkstalker, will be able to achieve that 50/50 win/loss rate. And do it with dignity. But I also come at this with an open mind. Perhaps I will be proven wrong. Perhaps my interpretation of the mechanics, the game state, or other factors will be flawed. That's what I hope to expose and discuss as a community.
I'm going to build a Factotum. One build. And I'm going to do it using the SRD, Complete Warrior, Complete Adventurer, Complete Arcane, Complete Divine, and of course Dungeonscape. And that's it. Then I will use that build at 5th level to go through the Level 5 SGT, and I will use that build at 10th level to go through the Level 10 SGT. The build at 10th level will have different spells prepared. I don't want to talk about other Factotum builds until I've put mine through the tests. I never want to talk about Necropolitan Whispergnomes with a fist full of Fonts. I never want to talk about 3.0 books, Dragon magazine, web enhancements, or third-party material. I hope the community will oblige me and I hope to talk about this openly and such that useful information is presented in a clear way. If I sound like a mental health worker, that's because this topic has seriously been like a fucking tumor in threads here and elsewhere. :twitch
Anyway, let's begin!
The Build
Human Factotum 10
[spoiler]
Alignment: Any
HD: d8
LV BAB Fort Ref Will Special
1. +0 +0 +2 +0 Inspiration (2pts), Cunning Insight, Cunning Knowledge, Trapfinding
2. +1 +0 +3 +0 Inspiration (3pts), Arcane Dilettante (1 spell, 0-level)
3. +2 +1 +3 +1 Arcane Dilettante (1 spell, 1st level), Brains Over Brawn, Cunning Defense
4. +3 +1 +4 +1 Arcane Dilettante (2 spells, 1st level), Cunning Strike
5. +3 +1 +4 +1 Inspiration (4pts), Arcane Dilettante (2 spells, 2nd level), Opportunistic Piety
6. +4 +2 +5 +2
7. +5 +2 +5 +2 Arcane Dilettante (3 spells, 2nd level)
8. +6 +2 +6 +2 Inspiration (5pts), Arcane Dilettante (3 spells, 3rd level), Cunning Surge
9. +6 +3 +6 +3 Arcane Dilettante (4 spells, 3rd level)
10. +7 +3 +7 +3 Arcane Dilettante (4 spells, 4th level), Opportunistic Piety +1/day
Ability Scores (w/28pt buy)
Str 10 Dex 15 Con 14 Int 16 Wis 10 Cha 8 (at 1st)
Str 10 Dex 15 Con 14 Int 17 Wis 10 Cha 8 (at 5th)
Str 10 Dex 15 Con 16 Int 20 Wis 10 Cha 8 (at 10th)
Equipment & Gear
(I am using a variant of the suggestion for building characters above 1st level, no single item will exceed ~33% WBL)
[spoiler]
5th Level Wealth - 9000gp
+1 Longsword (2315gp)
MW Greatsword (350gp)
MW Longbow (375gp)
+1 Chain Shirt (1250gp)
+1 Heavy Steel Shield (1170gp)
Cloak of Resistance (+1) (1000gp)
Wand of Cure Light Wounds (50 charges) (750gp)
Bag of Tricks (Gray) (900gp)
Acid Flask (5) (50gp)
Alchemist's Fire (5) (100gp)
Antitoxin (2) (100gp)
Smokestick (5) (100gp)
Tanglefoot Bag (2) (100gp)
Climber's Kit (80gp)
MW Thieves' Tools (100gp)
MW Tool (Hide) (50gp)
MW Tool (Listen) (50gp)
MW Tool (Move Silently (50gp)
MW Tool (Spot) (50gp)
60gp worth of adventuring gear
10th Level Wealth - 49000gp
(I'll just add 40000gp worth of gear here; improvements to existing gear will cost the difference in gold between the old value and the new)
+1 Flaming Longsword + Wand Chamber (6100gp)
+1 Longbow (2000gp)
Cloak of Resistance (+3) (8000gp)
Amulet of Health (+2) (4000gp)
Headband of Intellect (+2) (4000gp)
Metamagic Rod of Empower (Lesser) (9000gp)
Acid Flask (10) (50gp)
Alchemist's Fire (20) (300gp)
Antitoxin (10) (400gp)
Wand of Enlarge Person (50 charges) (750gp)
Wand of Detect Magic (50 charges) (350gp)
5050gp worth of additional swag
[/spoiler]
HP: 36 (at 5th), 80 (at 10th)
AC: 20 (+2 Dex, +5 Armor, +3 Shield) (at 5th); Same at 10th
Fort: +4 (at 5th), +9 (at 10th)
Ref: +7 (at 5th), +13 (at 10th)
Will: +2 (at 5th), +6 (at 10th)
Initiative: +5 (at 5th), +7 (at 10th)
Speed: 30ft land
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+6 (at 5th); +7/+12 (at 10th)
Space/Reach: 5ft/5ft (or 10ft/10ft when Enlarged)
Attacks (5th level): +1 Longsword +4 melee (1d8+1), or MW Greatsword +4 melee (2d6), or MW Longbow +6 ranged (1d8), or Acid Flask +5 ranged touch (1d6 acid), or Alchemist's Fire +5 ranged touch (1d6 fire + Reflex DC 15 or 1d6 fire next round)
Attacks (10th level): +1 Flaming Longsword +8/+3 melee (1d8+1 plus 1d6 fire), or MW Greatsword +8/+3 melee, or +1 Longbow +10/+5 ranged (1d8+1), or Acid Flask +9 ranged touch (1d6 acid), or Alchemist's Fire +9 ranged touch (1d6 fire + Reflex DC 15 or 1d6 fire next round)
Special Attacks: Cunning Insight, Cunning Strike, Opportunistic Piety 4/day, Spells
Special Qualities: Inspiration, Brains Over Brawn, Cunning Defense, Cunning Surge
Feats
Combat ReflexesB, Deft Opportunist (1st), Skill-Focus (UMD) (3rd), Close-Quarters Fighting (6th), Hamstring (9th)
Skills
Balance +13 (at 5th) +20 (at 10th), Climb +13 (at 5th) +20 (at 10th), Concentration +10 (at 5th) +16 (at 10th), Disable Device +13 (at 5th) +20 (at 10th), Hide +15 (at 5th) +22 (at 10th), Listen +10 (at 5th) +15 (at 10th), Move Silently +15 (at 5th) +22 (at 10th), Open Lock +15 (at 5th) +22 (at 10th), Spot +10 (at 5th) +15 (at 10th), Use Magic Device +10 (at 5th) +15 (at 10th)
Spells Prepared
5th Level Spells
Grease (Reflex, DC 14)
Alter Self
10th Level Spells
Empowered Scorching Ray
Empowered Fireball (Reflex, DC 18)
Haste
Polymorph
[/spoiler]
-
Reserved for the Same Game Tests themselves and further analysis.
The Level 5 Same Game Test
[spoiler]
A locked door behind an arbitrarily high number of assorted CR 4 traps.
A huge Animated iron statue in a throne room.
A Basilisk in its desert burrow.
A Large Fire Elemental in a mystic forge.
A Manticore on the wing above a plain.
A Phase Spider anywhere. They're tricky creatures like that.
A couple of Centaur Archers in a light to medium wood.
A Howler/Allip tag team in an abandoned temple to a dark god.
A Grimlock assault team (4 members) hidden in a cavern.
A Cleric of Hextor (with his dozen zombies) in a crypt.
[/spoiler]
SGT 5 Full Analysis (Wall of text)
[spoiler]
1. Locked door + traps
This is bread and butter. It's hardly worth our time, really, the traps get disabled, we probably take a trivial amount of damage, and the door at the end, finally, gets lockpicked. Easy enough. Definite win.
2. Huge Animated Iron Statue
The second encounter seems daunting. Oh, and actually, it's impossible for you to win, I'm almost positive. I forgot that animated objects have hardness. That makes this fight actually a lot harder than your run of the mill CR 5 animated object, stupid, stupid game designers. You lose this pretty hard. Definite loss.
3. Basilisk
I don't think the Factotum can win this, but... who knows. Let's give the Factotum a small, steel mirror and see what happens.
[spoiler]
I'm going to give the Factotum a surprise round because his perception and stealth outmatch the Basilisk's. Let's say he's hidden behind a cactus at 60ft away. :rollseyes Hidden behind that cactus, even taking a -6 penalty to attack, throwing a Tanglefoot Bag is a better option than his bow. So, we'll charge out, starting the surprise round, move to 40ft, toss the bag and blow an inspiration point, giving us +10 to attack -6 for the three range increments, total of +4 vs Touch AC of 9, that's an 80% chance to hit. I'll take it. So, the Basilisk is probably entangled (-2 to attack rolls, -4 Dexterity, half speed) for an average of 5 rounds. End surprise round, start initiative, move back 30ft, fire the Longbow. That's basically how the next 5 rounds are gonna go. Stay out of Gaze range, and plink. Hitting only on a 10 or higher gives us a 55% chance, melting our adjusted average damage per round down to 2.5. Well, that's 11.5 damage down, 33.5 to go. On that last round, get the mirror out, because Basilisk is about to shake off that Tanglefoot Bag and come running. Sure enough, here he comes, and he gives us the active Gaze!
Now, one minute here. The rules for Gaze say that even on an active Gaze averting your eyes gives you 50% immunity, but then later it says that looking at the creature's reflection does not subject you to a Gaze. I don't know what the legitimate ruling for this is, but I'm going to say that the Factotum looking at the Basilisk with his mirror still has a 50% chance of getting turned to stone. It's inspiration point time, taking our total down to 2, and here comes the rolls (let's do this 5 times for completeness): 1st roll (30%, Fort 17), 2nd roll (1%, Fort 17), 3rd roll (15%, Fort 14), 4th roll (77%, we're good), 5th roll (95%, clear). Alright, the Factotum made it! On his turn, mirror, so he doesn't need to make a save vs death, run away, casts Alter Self and turns into a Troglodyte (1 inspiration point left). Basilisk follows, active Gaze again (Ugh!), so we blow that last inspiration point: 1st roll (59%, clear), 2nd roll (92%, clear), 3rd roll (49%, Fort 14), 4th roll (Petrified, Loss), 5th roll (85%, clear). Well, as you can see, we are at a breaking point. We're no closer to winning this fight than when we started and we've accrued a 10% loss. Let's just proceed as if everything was going really well.
Round 8! We run over to that son of a bitch and, looking into the mirror, we give him what for! Longsword comes in with a 45% chance to hit and deals an adjusted DPR of around 2.5, bring the beast to 31hp! Let's assume that given his two presumed failures at petrifying us, the Basilisk now thirsts for our blood, and just comes and bites us, which has only a 15% chance to hit, dealing adjusted DPR of 1. Whoo-hoo! So, if we assume a slug-fest from here out, we actually win (Longsword, Claw, Bite at 45%, 30%, and 30% respectively puts our DPR at 4, outpacing the Basilisk); however, it will take us 8 rounds. In that time the Basilisk could be slamming us with more active Gaze attacks, and without any more inspiration points, this fight is a lost cause. Unless a mirror fully protects us from active gaze attacks, in which case...
[/spoiler]
If a mirror fully protects against active Gaze attacks, then this is a definite win for the Factotum. If it doesn't, then this is a definite loss.
4. Large Fire Elemental
The fourth encounter is really easy to judge. It has DR 5/--. You can't hurt it without Acid. You don't have enough Acid. Definite loss.
5. Manticore
[spoiler]
Now, at first I thought the Manticore was going to be a definite loss, but I changed my mind, because I realized it has a clumsy fly speed. Which makes it trivially easy to chase after and hit with a Tanglefoot Bag. Begin the battle changing to a Troglodyte with Alter Self so you don't get auto-deaded by the spikes, and then fire at will with your bow. You aren't going to do much, but you have a better chance of hurting it than it does of hurting you. After he's wasted all of his spikes on you, he'll go to ground after you, because he's got a pretty impressive melee routine. That means it's Tanglefoot Bag time. With a charge we've got an 80% to hit, so four times out of five the poor guy's entangled and has a 35% chance of being rooted to the ground. If you root him, pelt him with Alchemist's Fires, you should deal him roughly 8d6 damage this way, which is a sizeable chunk of his hp. If not, just run and plink with arrows for a few rounds and then hit him with your other Tanglefoot Bag. Now, ordinarily you'd lose the ground-based slugfest, but you have the advantage of being able to withdraw and heal yourself via Opportunistic Piety (up to 39hp if necessary, turns out it very much is). From there you've got the healing, and will just go toe-to-toe with you. It's too bad we're in an open plain, because hiding to heal would be nice. The battle seems tough, but doable, but it could swing in the Manticore's favor if your rolls get bad.[/spoiler]I'll call this one a draw.
6. Phase Spider
This one is very tricky, but manageable. The Phase Spider gets a surprise round, and then goes first, so it gets two free attacks, both of which you're flat-footed for, making you very vulnerable, especially to that vile, nasty poison. You take some damage and, even if you pop an inspiration point for each save vs poison, which you should, you're almost certain to fail one of them (you have only a 55% chance to succeed even with IP). So, there goes another chunk of hp. You're probably in bad shape right now, but that's okay, because the Spider goes ethereal after it's second bite and then you run and hide. You heal yourself up, and in the meantime the Phase Spider has no idea where you are. If it starts looking for you, you will always find it before it finds you, and if it comes to a throw down, alchemist's fire + troglodyte will finish the Spider off eventually. This is a probable win.
7. A Pair of Centaurs
This one is made easier by being in a Forest where you can play up guerrilla warfare. You have lots more hp, you have far better AC, and you have the better attack bonus. You likely don't need anything here, but your bow and opportunistic piety, but, hey your other options definitely don't hurt. Definite win.
8. Howler + Allip
You'd have a hard time dealing with either of them alone, with little offensive potential against the Allip and the Howler is just a melee machine for its CR. How they thought a 6 HD Large Outsider with jacked ability scores, crazy DPR, and a nasty debuff is CR 3 is beyond me. Definite loss.
9. Grimlocks
This is really no-contest. You beat the tar out of some Grimlocks because they are newbs. Definite win.
10. Cleric + zombies
Well, this one is actually an EL 7, if we assume a Cleric 5 with 12 human zombies, but okay. The 12 zombies alone make up an EL 6 encounter... It's a toss-up, but I'll call it a probable loss. You can destroy all of the undead easily enough, but if you're up against a Cleric 5, once you're through all those you've got, y'know spells to contend with. Let's go ahead and call this a Definite loss, though... it's pretty lame to put an EL 7 encounter in the Level 5 Same Game Test. *shrug*
In closing, we've got win, loss, ? ? ? ?, loss, draw, probable win, win, loss, win, loss. So... we're close to, but not quite at 50%. That is unless we win the Basilisk encounter, which will put us a bit above 50%. I'm not going to hold my breath.[/spoiler]
The Level 10 Same Game Test
[spoiler]
Okay, so since the Level 5 test has nice environment descriptions let's assign them to this test too (added environment descriptions in purple; also added a 10th encounter, in purple, for more smooth measurement).
A hallway filled with magical runes.
A Fire Giant on a treacherous mountain pass.
A Young Blue Dragon terrorizing a small village.
A Bebilith on the hunt in a mage's guild hall.
A Vrock picking through the dead at a scorched battleground in the Abyss.
A tag team of Mind Flayers in an unlit passage of underground catacombs.
An Evil Necromancer in an overgrown graveyard.
6 Trolls in a cold, damp, cave den.
12 Shadows in a bleak, misshapen forest.
A group of NPC mercenaries (Cleric 6, Fighter 6, Rogue 6, Wizard 6) holed up in a cluttered dungeon.
[/spoiler]
SGT 10 Full Analysis (Wall of text)
[spoiler]
1. Hallway filled with runes.
Again, we handle the trap encounter with almost contemptuous ease. Definite win.
2. Fire Giant
[spoiler]
This one is going to be hard. Luckily you win the initiative/perception/stealth game so you've got the drop on him. In the surprise round you cast Haste (IP down to 4). On the first round of combat you get to go first. This is where, from what I can tell, you just want to Polymorph from hiding into a Gray Render and stay hidden. On the Fire Giant's turn he has no idea what's going on and does nothing. 2nd round you charge giving you a 75% to hit with your bite. I'll take it. Given that he's flatfooted, now might be a good time to Hamstring if you think you can afford it (costs 2 IP), but let's assume you don't and just hit him. That's some damage and a 50% chance to grab him and deal some more damage. If he's grabbed, that's awesome, he can't sword you at all. If he's not you get a new chance every round, so no big deal. Let's run some numbers. You've got a 65% chance to bite him and thanks to haste you've got 2 bites and a 40% with each claw. With the NA boost you got from the Render your AC rockets up to 30 giving the Giant only a 55% chance to hit with his first attack, 30% with the second, and 5% with the third (though it will crit). And that's ignoring the fact that he'll be grabbed some of the time. Your adjusted average damage per round is about 22 (not counting the bonus Rend damage). The Giant's adjusted average damage per round is about 25. Without those grabs you'll lose the damage race. However, you get two chances to grab per round, and at a 65% chance to hit with a 50% of grab, that's close to a 40% chance to grab each round. So, adding 40% of the rend damage to your adjusted DPR gives you 28 compared with 25. With your lower hp you'd normally lose this race, except that at a minimum of 4 out of every 10 turns the Giant can't even hurt you.[/spoiler] That sounds like a win to me, especially because I didn't even bother with using subtlety. Definite win.
3. Young Blue Dragon
This one is slightly off. If it's actually a Young Blue Dragon (CR 6), this shouldn't be much of a problem. If it's meant to be a Young Adult Blue Dragon (CR 11), then it will be significantly more difficult. I'm going to assume it's the latter.
[spoiler]
Wowie. This guy is a monster alright. Wish I had a shivering touch right about now. An absurd amount of hp, lots of powerful natural attacks, a very high attack bonus, and a breath weapon that will cut me down to size very quickly. Oh, and it casts arcane spells as a sorcerer (luckily only 1st level spells, but still). I can deal him 27d6 fire damage in short order, but that's only an average of 94.5 (interestingly that's exactly half his life total). Even the maximum damage wouldn't kill him (162). But alright, let's assume no surprise round, and the Factotum goes first, and on his first turn he Hastes and gets behind partial cover (+2 reflex). Dragon breathes lightning at him for 10d8 with a 65% of half damage and adjusted avg damage of around 30. After breathing lightning, the Dragon lands, preparing to tear us to bits with its natural attacks. So, next we Polymorph into a Will O'Wisp and take to the skies. Our AC sky rockets to to 36! And though the dragon's fly speed is three times our own, our maneuverability cuts that advantage to shreds. Now, even with our great AC, the dragon's got +24 to hit and thus has a 45% chance to hit. Thankfully, we're naturally invisible (extraordinary ability!) (stupid Polymorph) the dragon is large and we are small we can use him as soft cover (+4 AC) and to block line of effect from the breath weapon. We hit 95% of the time dealing around 9 damage per round (electricity thus bypassing DR), meanwhile the dragon only hits 25% of the time once per round, dealing only 4 damage per round. We can't keep this up indefinitely, so we'll need to hit it with our empowered blasting spells to knock out half its hp. The dragon will kill us in 12 rounds, but if we blast and keep up the hit and run tactics we'll kill the dragon in 10~11. Hard. Fucking. Fight.
[/spoiler]Whew, even with Polymorph, let's call this a draw.
4. Bebilith
Analysis to come. Without analysis we'll call this a probable loss.
5. Vrock
Analysis to come. Without analysis we'll call this a probable win.
6. Pair of Mind Flayers
Analysis to come. Without analysis we'll call this a probable win.
7. Evil Necromancer
Analysis to come. Without analysis we'll call this a probable loss.
8. 6 Trolls
Definite win.
9. 12 Shadows
Definite win.
10. NPC Party
Analysis to come. Without analysis we'll call this a probable win.
Pending analysis this bumps the Factotum up to an 80% success rate. I'm pretty sure that's good enough to call it Tier 3.
[/spoiler]
-
I like it. I'll work up some feedback and post it later. Probably Monday truth be told.
-
I'm down with the clear statement of parameters (though small point, you might want to put the books used in bold, they get buried in there). My only comment on that regard is I think you might be going a little too far in the few books direction. I just think there's a lot of space between 3.0, Dragon Magazine, weird mechanics like Iaijutsu, and the 4 splatbooks you allow.
I tend to default to just default to all 3.5, I think ... all the Races, Completes, and environment books (e.g., Dungeonscape, Cityscape), as well as 3.5 setting material (Eberron being the hardest to adapt b/c of action points).
Again, I get where you're going. You are, as you well realize, stacking the deck against the Factotum a bit just b/c one of the class' main advantages is its flexibility and ability to use tricks available to other rogue/scoundrel classes.
-
Is the criterion for semi-optimized T3 winning 50% of encounters?
I think you're trying to do something cool, but I'm uncertain of why you're trying to do this cool thing.
-
Is the criterion for semi-optimized T3 winning 50% of encounters?
I think you're trying to do something cool, but I'm uncertain of why you're trying to do this cool thing.
Basically it boils down to this: Everyone who's ever discussed the Factotum at length on any D&D forum has been a frothing, festering, conniving, deceiving lunatic. You have a ton of people in the "hate it" camp who say the Factotum is a piece of shit no better than a Monk, and you have one guy in the "loves it" camp who says Factotums are cool because iaijutsu focus, necropolitan, and whispergnome. They are all insane and so wrapped up in layers of their own delusions that none of them have any idea what the hell they are talking about.
I claim to know what I'm talking about, and I aim to show that, without optimization, loopholes, tricks, or dumpster diving through every known source, a Factotum is in fact a solid Tier 3 class that is able to kick some ass. All of you fine people get to, presumably, watch my downfall as I get sucked into a vortex of my own madness and start howling baseless accusations and compulsive lies. Should be fun. :P
-
Thank you for doing this, bub! :clap I have always been curious if the class was any good without that damned Font of Inspiration! Most games I play don't allow web enhancements or Dragon Magazines, so this is definitely a cool idea. Now, please maybe don't be so vague as "win, win, lose, maybe win, draw," because I have no idea how a Factotum not spamming their Inspiration points plays... :blush
-
Now, please maybe don't be so vague as "win, win, lose, maybe win, draw," because I have no idea how a Factotum not spamming their Inspiration points plays... :blush
Oh, I certainly plan on going over each and every encounter with a more fine-toothed comb, and give this a thorough analysis, so don't worry about that. Basically, the idea of playing a Factotum without spamming is conservation of energy. If you don't need to use your points, then don't use them. Are you hit with a save-or-lose? Pump that saving throw. Do you really need to hit right now? Pump that attack roll? Are you completely fucked and need to alpha strike? Scorching Ray + Cunning Surge + Scorching Ray (might actually work against the Necromancer). In other words, save the IP for when you're about to die. Which is often enough.
Playing this Factotum build is a whole lot of, "holy shit, whaddo I do? whaddo I do?" But it strangely seems to work, mostly because it can pull out all the stops if it really needs to. Like, in the fight against the Fire Giant, I'm starting to think that if I just Polymorph into a Gray Render that I can win the damage race. Thanks to Brains Over Brawn our grapple modifiers will be equal, except I get a free grapple every time I hit him with my bite. Which is every turn. It's a tense balancing act of relying on your impressive skill modifiers, relying on your wealth by level, and relying on your class features. The strange thing is that you sort of use your class features as a last resort. It's completely different from anything I've played...
-
fwiw, one of the people I play with has a 15th level factotum in our game. She does have a bit of the "oh well, I wonder what I do next" type of an issue with the character.
But, she uses Brains Over Brawn plus tripping, Imperious Command, poison, and a couple of Fonts of Inspiration to make the rolls she needs to make, get an extra action when needed, and avoid horrendous things. It works fine -- she's not a powerhouse, but she's extremely effective at locking down single, tough opponents. In a way, she's almost like the opposite of your typical battlefield control god wizard.
-
Full analysis of Same Game Test 5 is up. Please take a look and let me know if I'm just an idiot, or if my tactics could be improved, or any other criticisms you may have. I need to know how to resolve the Gaze attack issue in the Basilisk fight, because if the mirror works, then he straight up definitely wins. If it doesn't, then he definitely loses.
-
The 10th level version might need a different spell selection. IIRC, Factotums can't select the same spell twice in a day for Arcane Dilletante (although I may be misremembering the thing about only one spell of the highest level selected each day).
Thanks for doing this. It's nice to see what a Factotum who doesn't use every trick in the book looks like.
-
The 10th level version might need a different spell selection. IIRC, Factotums can't select the same spell twice in a day for Arcane Dilletante (although I may be misremembering the thing about only one spell of the highest level selected each day).
Ah, yes, you're right. My error. I'll just have to prep something else then (no harm, no foul). It's not like blasting is top shelf stuff anyway.
Thanks for doing this. It's nice to see what a Factotum who doesn't use every trick in the book looks like.
I agree. :)
EDIT: In doing this test, I'm realizing, I actually dislike the Factotum a lot. It's kind of a shitty class. It's only class features of note are all skills as class skills, Brains Over Brawn, Opportunistic Piety, and really shitty casting. Overall, it's probably enough to make it Tier 3, but that doesn't mean it's enjoyable to play. Sure, sure, there are a lot of more impressive things I could be doing with the class outside of the sources I'm using for this test, but that has no bearing in the discussion.
-
EDIT: In doing this test, I'm realizing, I actually dislike the Factotum a lot. It's kind of a shitty class. It's only class features of note are all skills as class skills, Brains Over Brawn, Opportunistic Piety, and really shitty casting. Overall, it's probably enough to make it Tier 3, but that doesn't mean it's enjoyable to play. Sure, sure, there are a lot of more impressive things I could be doing with the class outside of the sources I'm using for this test, but that has no bearing in the discussion.
This is about right. Except I would disagree on two points. First, as I already noted, you did use a very limited set of books, so you might be unfairly hamstringing the class. It needs to search far and wide for the most effective ways to use skills in combat, etc., and those rules are scattered liberally among D&D books. Second, while its casting is shitty, especially compared to an actual caster, it is among the best of the classes that get a handful of spells. It's worlds better than say Ranger, Paladin, and even Spellthief (I think, didn't double check) just b/c it gets access to at least one or two higher level spells fairly quickly.
Really, though, the Factotum class is all about tricks. Like, that's its thing. Your build didn't use them, which is fair enough b/c it wouldn't be "straightforward" if it did, but it does undermine the thing the class has going for it. The class is explicitly a "think out of the box" toolbox type of thing.
Finally, I'd note that the Same Game Test, unless I'm mistaken, is (EDIT: nearly) all combat encounters, which isn't exactly where the Factotum shines.
EDIT 2: I did briefly sketch out a Factotum build that I don't think uses any absurdity at all. Although it does use more sources than you do (pretty much all clearly 3.5 ones). I expect it would do significantly better, though not dominate, the Same Game Test.
-
EDIT: In doing this test, I'm realizing, I actually dislike the Factotum a lot. It's kind of a shitty class. It's only class features of note are all skills as class skills, Brains Over Brawn, Opportunistic Piety, and really shitty casting. Overall, it's probably enough to make it Tier 3, but that doesn't mean it's enjoyable to play. Sure, sure, there are a lot of more impressive things I could be doing with the class outside of the sources I'm using for this test, but that has no bearing in the discussion.
This is about right. Except I would disagree on two points. First, as I already noted, you did use a very limited set of books, so you might be unfairly hamstringing the class.
Yes and no. On the one hand, I am certainly limiting my options, but that's to rise above the dung heap that has been all previous discussion of the Factotum where the one proponent of the class used every loophole and dirty trick he could find and all of the haters ignorantly said that the Factotum is worthless without splat diving. I am compelled to create a feasibly Tier 3 Factotum build using only the sources listed. This build is a little on the weak side, but I went very conservative for the first time through because I was over confident. There is definitely more I can try.
It needs to search far and wide for the most effective ways to use skills in combat, etc., and those rules are scattered liberally among D&D books.
Honestly, in my opinion, that's one pretty clear mark of a poorly designed class. I used to love the Factotum, now I love the idea much more than the execution.
Second, while its casting is shitty, especially compared to an actual caster, it is among the best of the classes that get a handful of spells. It's worlds better than say Ranger, Paladin, and even Spellthief (I think, didn't double check) just b/c it gets access to at least one or two higher level spells fairly quickly.
I honestly think that's arguable. Well, at least when we're talking about the Paladin. Outside of core + completes, the Factotum gains access to wonderful spells. The Paladin gets some amazing stuff too, and gets casting as a swift action.
Really, though, the Factotum class is all about tricks. Like, that's its thing. Your build didn't use them, which is fair enough b/c it wouldn't be "straightforward" if it did, but it does undermine the thing the class has going for it. The class is explicitly a "think out of the box" toolbox type of thing.
That's not the way it's presented, really, and not the way I interpreted the class as needing to be used. It's presented exactly how I'm playing. To quote Dungeonscape, "Rather than train in any given field, he masters all the basics and manages to pull out something useful when the situation is desperate enough." As I always envisioned it, the Factotum was useful to a party because, with his Inspiration points he could fill in for any other party member for 1 or 2 rounds, as needed. The problem with this approach to class design is that he plays like an Expert, with slightly better skills and PC wealth, until he really needs to use his class features. He has to hold back at actually using his main class features because he doesn't have enough resources open at all times. I made a Factotum "fix" a couple years back that I'm going to have to take a second look at to see if I approve.
Finally, I'd note that the Same Game Test, unless I'm mistaken, is (EDIT: nearly) all combat encounters, which isn't exactly where the Factotum shines.
I take issue with this, and somewhat disagree with you on that point. 1) Every class should be able to pull its weight in combat encounters. That's where XP comes from, that's what 75% or more of the game is all about. If what you say is true, then the Factotum truly isn't a Tier 3 class. 2) I believe the Factotum truly can shine in combat, my build just doesn't reflect that very well (at least not so much in the Level 5 SGT).
EDIT 2: I did briefly sketch out a Factotum build that I don't think uses any absurdity at all. Although it does use more sources than you do (pretty much all clearly 3.5 ones). I expect it would do significantly better, though not dominate, the Same Game Test.
Oh, I'm sure it would do significantly better, but that's beyond the point of this thread. If you'd like to contribute a different build limiting yourself to SRD + Complete War/Adv/Arc/Div I'd be glad to talk about it though. There's surely plenty of tricks in just those sources for our fine Factotum to take advantage of. Try to avoid dodgy readings of rules and stick to RAW when you can.
-
Yes, I actually would like it if you used more books.
This is what I always allow:
Core: DMG 1, 2 PHB 1, 2, All MMs, XPH
All Completes.
Spell Compendium
Rules Compendium
Magic Item Compendium
Dungeonscape
Cityscape
All "Races of..."
ToB
Miniatures Handbook
If I'm feeling nice:
Sandstorm
Frostburn
Stormwrack
Heroes of Horror
Heroes of Battle
Libris Mortis
Lords of Madness
Unearthed Arcana
Planar Handbook
Book of Exalted Deeds
Book of Vile Darkness
ToM
Setting Handbooks
I don't think that this is unreasonable to expect. In fact, many here would thinkg this list conservative if not restrictive!
-
I don't think that this is unreasonable to expect. In fact, many here would thinkg this list conservative if not restrictive!
How in the hell is that list restrictive? That's at least 90% of all WotC published material! Nobody has all of those books (not in physical form anyway).
You're also completely missing the point. I'm trying to discuss the Factotum in a conservative, low source environment. A way that's never been done before. That is the point of this thread. Because all discussion of the Factotum up to this point has been about the Factotum with all sources available. The discussion has formerly been around two points: 1) Factotum is awesome because it can use everything from every source; and 2) Factotum is piece of fucking shit because it isn't even Tier 3 if it does use every source.
If I opened up the sources it would be as a last resort, and I certainly wouldn't open it up to All WotC, because every little bit I open up the sources makes that second point more and more true. A well-designed class shouldn't need to use more than the SRD and the book it's printed in, to be honest, but since Dungeonscape is more about actual dungeons than it is about characters I think it's perfectly reasonable to allow the first wave of Completes.
I'm trying to prove point 2 wrong, and I'm trying to do it from... from an "optimization high ground," similar to a moral high ground, from where, if I'm successful, no one can make abjectly false and ignorant claims about the class anymore. I hope I'm making sense.
EDIT: I'd still like to hear people's opinions on my full analysis of the Level 5 Same Game Test. Does that seem to be a fair analysis of my build? Does anyone have any suggestions for new tactics and strategies as they pertain to my build? Would anyone else like to offer an SRD + Complete War/Adv/Arc/Div build that they expect will perform better?
-
I understand, dude. I only thought of allowing the stuff I would always allow, but I suppose that is ignorant to your point. Yes, I suppose a wizard can work without a multitude of source, as can a Psion, a Dread Necromancer and a Crusader... Your "optimization high ground" is commendable!
Now, you analysis of the class so far is strangely lacking in social of physical challenges, such as conning kings, climbing cliffs, or traversing underground lakes filled with sahuagin.
That CR 7 Encounter is worthless in there...
I can't say I approve of the overuse of Tanglefoot bags, even though item reliance is practically built-in feature of the class. Also, why wouldn't he have some spell to deal with the Allip? They barely have any hp, almost any 2 force spells should do. Lesser Orb of Force, perhaps?
I appreciate what you are trying to do, but the same game test here doesn't seem to test a few things...
Keep trying, though! I love the high ground idea; you are headed in the right direction!
-
@Sources
A well-designed class shouldn't need to use more than the SRD and the book it's printed in, to be honest, but since Dungeonscape is more about actual dungeons than it is about characters I think it's perfectly reasonable to allow the first wave of Completes.
I just completely disagree with this statement. 100%. Materials, build resources, and rules are essentially randomly distributed through D&D books. The fact that build or class A happens to have all of its material or support handily compiled in one book and build or class or archetype B has it scattered in a dozen implies nothing.
I also use mostly SneeR's expanded list for every campaign, with the possible exception of BOED and BOVD, those I mostly use things selectively from.
You posted b/c you wanted feedback. You've gotten a large proportion of feedback saying, in effect: "we respect what you're trying to do but the restrictions strike us as both unreasonable and not fair to the class since many of its abilities live elsewhere." You're free to ignore us, but don't expect a whole lot more feedback in that case. And, saying that other people are fuckwads is not convincing to other interlocutors who are, presumably and hopefully not fuckwads. At least, I try not to be a fuckwad.
@Same Game Test in general
The more I think of it, the more I don't like the Same Game Test. But, I also don't like the Tiers system. It makes support characters seem much weaker than they are, in practice, for example.
That being said, I don't think the Factotum can easily "pinch hit" for another party member role. That's hard to do in general, and if they can it's b/c of the right choice in magic items. If that's what the class is supposed to do -- and I'm far from expert in it -- then it's a failure.
@Factotum Build
As to your build, for a combat Factotum I'm surprised that the build makes no use of Brains Over Brawn. Why doesn't it use some tripping or disarming? If it gets the drop on its enemy -- which seems possible with its Stealth and its Inspiration Points -- it can then engage in a bit of lockdown, right? Improved Trip + Sweeping Reach Weapon + Brains Over Brawn (and maybe an Inspiration point at the right moment) should lock down most melee'ers. Throw in a lesser energy assault crystal (if you can afford it, the sweeping weapon might have to go) or some of those alchemical capsules to do a little bit of damage to things with DR.
EDITed to try and make it easier to read.
-
@Sources
A well-designed class shouldn't need to use more than the SRD and the book it's printed in, to be honest, but since Dungeonscape is more about actual dungeons than it is about characters I think it's perfectly reasonable to allow the first wave of Completes.
I just completely disagree with this statement. 100%. Materials, build resources, and rules are essentially randomly distributed through D&D books. The fact that build or class A happens to have all of its material or support handily compiled in one book and build or class or archetype B has it scattered in a dozen implies nothing.
You have every right to disagree, but consider the list of Tier 3 classes (Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Bard, Swordsage, Binder (without access to the summon monster vestige), Wildshape Varient Ranger, Duskblade, Factotum, Warblade, Psionic Warrior), of those classes ALL OF THEM function perfectly well with the list of sources I'm allowing in this test. More than that, all of them can are 100% viable with no sources other than SRD and the book they were printed in. All of them, except perhaps the Factotum, which is what we're trying to establish here. In a scientific experiment you have a control sample and a test sample. The control in this case being ALL of the other classes and the control parameters being my allowed sources.
You posted b/c you wanted feedback. You've gotten a large proportion of feedback saying, in effect: "we respect what you're trying to do but the restrictions strike us as both unreasonable and not fair to the class since many of its abilities live elsewhere." You're free to ignore us, but don't expect a whole lot more feedback in that case. And, saying that other people are fuckwads is not convincing to other interlocutors who are, presumably and hopefully not fuckwads. At least, I try not to be a fuckwad.
I hope I haven't given any posters in this thread the impression that I'm calling them fuckwads. Because I don't intend to do that. I appreciate the feedback I've gotten, but, respectfully, suggesting that I use more sources misses the point. I'm simply not going to use more sources. If that means I get no more feedback, then so be it. All genius is misunderstood in its own time. ;) To open up more sources is to acknowledge that the Factotum does not stand in the same realm of usefulness as the other Tier 3 classes. I am not ready to do that. Does that make sense to you?
@Same Game Test in general
The more I think of it, the more I don't like the Same Game Test. But, I also don't like the Tiers system. It makes support characters seem much weaker than they are, in practice, for example.
That is a fair assessment with its own valid argument. I am from the school of thought that, for the most part, agrees with the purpose of the Same Game Test, which is to gauge a class' worth based on its in-combat strengths in a variety of different combat situations. Why the trap encounters are in there is a bit beyond me, and, yes, the tests themselves are sometimes poorly put together, but they are the golden standard of measurement and that's not likely ever to change now. If a class isn't viable in combat, then, in my opinion, it is poorly designed, because it, at best, performs admirably but contrary to the most integral and widespread mechanics of the game system at large. We don't have to agree on that.
That being said, I don't think the Factotum can easily "pinch hit" for another party member role. That's hard to do in general, and if they can it's b/c of the right choice in magic items. If that's what the class is supposed to do -- and I'm far from expert in it -- then it's a failure.
That's what it seems like it's supposed to be able to do in my eyes. But who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of D&D game designers? I surely don't.
@Factotum Build
As to your build, for a combat Factotum I'm surprised that the build makes no use of Brains Over Brawn. Why doesn't it use some tripping or disarming? If it gets the drop on its enemy -- which seems possible with its Stealth and its Inspiration Points -- it can then engage in a bit of lockdown, right? Improved Trip + Sweeping Reach Weapon + Brains Over Brawn (and maybe an Inspiration point at the right moment) should lock down most melee'ers. Throw in a lesser energy assault crystal (if you can afford it, the sweeping weapon might have to go) or some of those alchemical capsules to do a little bit of damage to things with DR.
Well, to begin with, I wanted to try and build that attempted to cover a few bases at a time and try to cover up some of its own shortcomings. We're seeing that this didn't turn out the greatest. Also remember that a few of your suggestions there come from outside my sources. A different set of feats, and a different set of equipment, resulting in a more specialized could certainly help out, and I will be examining those possibilities after I finish the results with this build. Tripping is definitely one of the things I aim to work on with another build.
-
It would also be nice to add a 10th encounter to this to round off the scoring. Probably another multi-threat encounter, with 3-4 creatures in it of mixed roles? I don't think I should design the encounter though, given my bias in trying to overcome the encounter, so if someone else wants to take a crack at it be my guest. If not I'll come up with something.
What about for sixth level NPCs, each of a different class (barbarian, rogue, cleric, wizard)? For speed sake, you could probably grab the pre-gens from the DMG.
Is the criterion for semi-optimized T3 winning 50% of encounters?
I think you're trying to do something cool, but I'm uncertain of why you're trying to do this cool thing.
My understanding is this uses a different tier rating system (http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:Balance_Points). It looks like he's shooting to make a rogue-level balanced PC, which would win about 50% at level 5 and 10 and not fall significantly far behind at higher levels. The other three "tiers" are monk-level, fighter-level, and wizard-level.
-
You posted b/c you wanted feedback. You've gotten a large proportion of feedback saying, in effect: "we respect what you're trying to do but the restrictions strike us as both unreasonable and not fair to the class since many of its abilities live elsewhere." You're free to ignore us, but don't expect a whole lot more feedback in that case. And, saying that other people are fuckwads is not convincing to other interlocutors who are, presumably and hopefully not fuckwads. At least, I try not to be a fuckwad.
Unreasonable or not, there's always the notion of providing feedback within the parameters of what's allowed. It's nice that he stated it up front as opposed to shooting ideas down and limiting the sources after the fact.
-
I will say that the book limitation is a pretty reasonable thing. Yeah, at this point most people who still play have, er, obtained most of the 3.5 library that SneeR listed, but because of his stated goals, limiting books to the bread-and-butter ones that he has is a good way of undercutting people who insist that the Factotum is a piece of shit that needs to dumpster-dive, as well as people who think it's awesome because of how well it synergizes with particular obscure* rules. Yeah, that's right, Iaijutsu Focus. I'm calling you out. This setup more or less lets the Factotum stand on its own merits to a fair extent, rather than how well it can access other things of merit.
*Obscure here being a relative term. I'm pretty sure that by now, everyone on the boards is familiar with everything that's gotten brought up in these arguments, but rules like Iaijutsu that are setting-specific 3.0 that was only ever updated in an issue of Dragon definitely falls into the category. I know that I actually ban Iaijutsu because it's so out of line with other skills, and I require players to ask about every 3.0 option they want to use - I don't think I'm terribly unusual in the latter area, and the sort of playground that sometimes gets brought up isn't something that can be safely assumed, even though it does come up in a lot of games as well.
-
Thanks for the support Rob and Bauglir. I was beginning to think that no one cared about what I was doing here and so I was considering just letting it die. I'll get to the Level 10 SGT sometime soon, in which I have a feeling even my un-optimized build will do just fine.
-
Definitely get going. I really like the Factotum but in my playgroup we always dumpster dive all the books, particularly 3.0 like Iaijutsu Focus. I think seeing capabilities without the far end of the optimization spectrum is of benefit.
-
Thanks for the support Rob and Bauglir. I was beginning to think that no one cared about what I was doing here and so I was considering just letting it die. I'll get to the Level 10 SGT sometime soon, in which I have a feeling even my un-optimized build will do just fine.
I've found it quite interesting (even though it reinforces my belief that the Same Game Test is a poor test). I held off commenting though, since your opening statements implied you weren't interested in hearing critique until you were done posting the details of the fights. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of your experiences =)
-
I held off commenting though, since your opening statements implied you weren't interested in hearing critique until you were done posting the details of the fights.
No, no, I just don't want to talk about other builds until the tests are over and we've talked about the upoptimized build first. If you have any feedback regarding what I've done so far, please feel free to bring it up. Think my build sucks? Let me know! (it isn't supposed to be good, really) Think my tactics suck? Tell me! Have suggestions for new tactics that my current build could/should be using? Suggestions for different gear set ups? Let me know!
I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of your experiences =)
Good, good, glad to hear it.
-
Riddle me this: are you assuming that the Factotum is choosing his spells based on what he thinks is coming up? Like he knows he will be fighting an evil outsider, so he prepares Protection from Evil?
-
Riddle me this: are you assuming that the Factotum is choosing his spells based on what he thinks is coming up? Like he knows he will be fighting an evil outsider, so he prepares Protection from Evil?
Not at all. I'm choosing spells based on his build and what seem to be generally useful spells. Grease and Alter Self are my favorite CORE 1st and 2nd level spells. Scorching Ray is my next favorite core 2nd level spell and is nice when empowered. Fireball is for shits and giggles, can be empowered, and is good against groups of weak foes. Haste and Polymorph are always good. I'm using the same spells for every encounter in the level range. To do anything else would be a poor indication of balance.
EDIT: I'm running analysis on SGT 10 now. Polymorph is proving to be the win button. I'm going to try a build next that doesn't use Alter Self or Polymorph at all.
-
One thing I've found about factotum spells, is that personal buffs tend to be the best use of the slots; obviously Alter Self and Polymorph are the two powerhouses, but even without those two, there are other buffs that can really come in handy, especially in more focused builds.
Now, caveat; I've never played a straight factotum past level 8, but for a combat-centered character without FoI, it seems to do well in two types of tactics - Trip and/or Grapple centered - built to be the lockdown for the biggest threat on the field, or a ranged build, eventually capitalizing on Manyshot. In general, you want to doing as much damage on a single attack roll as you can, so they make very poor AoO spammers.
For lockdown - Enlarge Person, with a flail or similar weapon for tripping, or some light weapon for grappling (I always grapple with natural weapons, so I'm not sure what's good outside of that:p)
For archers - Cat's Grace, Levitate/Fly, liberal use of Tanglefoot Bags to maintain distance - this option will probably be weaker than the lockdown for this test, at least the 5th level one.
I didn't see any use of Bag of Tricks in your breakdowns, did that get used at all? I usually find it quite nice to have a second body to take advantage. Dropping 9k to Empower two blasting spells also seemed a bit inefficient to me; dropping that cash on a couple blasting wands instead might make more sense, saving the spell slots for buffs or control.
Anyway, just a few comment/suggestions: I tried to stay pretty close to what you had listed, with a few minor equipment changes. I think I'll try doing this with a completely different build just to see how it works out.
-
It breaks my restriction on gear value, but a Dex-based Halfling Factotum with a Sword of Subtlety and using Greater Invisibility is appealing to me. With Dex 22 at 10th level that's an attack bonus of +20 when sneak attacking, or +16 when not. Weapon Finesse (1st), TWF (3rd), Close-Quarters Combat (6th), and Giantbane (9th) for attacking at 1d4+5+1d6 with three attacks at +18/+18/+13 seems alright to me. Adding Haste to that would make it +19/+19/+19/+14, or 80% to hit a Fire Giant with the first three and 55% to hit with the last for adjusted average damage per round of 32, though he'd only be able to keep that up for 3 rounds. And with Giantbane, even when he's not invisible his AC will be comparable or higher than the Gray Render. Not optimal by any means, but it seems fun, and it's an alternative to Polymorph.
-
Hmm, I don't know if my findings are worth posting in detail. I decided to try it out first fairly un-optimized - an archer focus, no Alter Self or Polymorph, uncomplicated feats, like what a beginner might choose
Stats:
Str 10 Dex 16 Con 12 Int 16 Wis 10 Cha 8 (at 1st)
Str 10 Dex 16 Con 12 Int 17 Wis 10 Cha 8 (at 5th)
Str 10 Dex 18 Con 14 Int 20 Wis 10 Cha 8 (at 10th)
Feats:
Point Blank Shot (1st)
Rapid Shot (1st)
Weapon Focus: Longbow (3rd)
Quick Draw (6th)
Far Shot (9th)
Gear:
The same as the OP except:
5th - Longsword enhancements swapped for Longbow, and +1 Mithril Chain Shirt, no Shield, Bag of Tricks swapped for Wand of Magic Missile
10th - Rod of Empower and new wands dropped, longsword not upgraded, and the rest of the extra money spent on Rod of Extend, Gloves of Dexterity +2, Boots of Striding and Springing, Heward's Handy Haversack, and a lot more alchemy flasks
SLAs:
5th
Shield
Cat's Grace
10th
Haste
Fly
Slow
Summon Monster IV
5th Level Same Game Test
[spoiler] HP 33 AC 24 (5 armor, 5 Dex, 4 Shield) Attacks: +1 Longbow +9 ranged, Flasks +8 ranged touch, MW Longsword +4 melee Saves: F: +3 R: +11 W: +2 Initiative: +8
For the most part, my results were similar (seriously, fuck that statue), except:
Basilisk - The "averting your eyes" for a 50% save against the gaze specifically is talking about when you are still looking directly at the creature, just avoiding it's face. So, the mirror method works fine. Or, you can run and gun against it, but it takes forever :p (~15 rounds) but you do win pretty handily. (Just remember to close your eyes when your turn is done) - Definite win
Manticore - with no Troglodyte this one hurts a bit, but you can make up for it by Fighting Defensively while it's in the air, and burn the rest of your IPs here and he only hits on a 20 for 2 rounds and only hits on a 19 or 20 the other 2 - which averages out to ~12 damage, while you do ~13 damage to it. From there, exactly as described in the OP - you should have a big enough advantage to walk away - probable win (my math says ~2/3 of the time)
Howler/Allip - guh, this one is hard - the biggest problem is actually the stupid allip - if you fail the Babble save, this is a definite loss - and even burning an IP on the save, you still lose 55% of the time. And if you do save, it gets a lot closer, but you'll still lose more than half of the time - definite loss (boo!) [/spoiler]
10th Level Same Game Test
[spoiler] HP 73 AC 20 (5 armor, 4 dex, 1 haste) Attacks +1 Flaming Longbow +11/+11/+6 ranged, Flasks +10 ranged touch, +1 Longsword +8 melee Saves: F:+8 R:+15 W:+6 Initiative +9
Fire Giant - Start off by casting Fly and Haste out of sight, followed by summoning a Lantern Archon, who casts Aid on you (81 hp), next round fly over to the giant, while the archon cast aid on itself. Position yourself and your pet 19 feet above the giant and cast Slow - that gives the giant two Will saves to make; one vs DC18 for Slow, one vs DC12 for the archon's aura. Since the flaming ability on the bow is useless, and he has high AC, it's time to break out the acid flasks, his touch AC is 8, and you make 4 attacks per round at +9/+9/+9/+4 (+1 from Aid) for an average of ~18 damage a round, while the archon blasts his rays away averaging 5 damage a round. So, that's him dead at 7 rounds. How fast does he kill me? He hits me on a 12 or better (13 if slow lands) so he averages ~9 damage per round (8 with slow) and so takes 9 rounds to kill me. It's even better if he gets hit by the archon's aura, but that's pretty unlikely. Probable Win
Young Adult Blue Dragon - without Polymorph, this one isn't winnable with this setup, I don't think.
Bebilith - has no flight or ranged attack past 30 feet. Pretty much a repeat of the Fire Giant, using Holy Water, except it takes longer and there's no danger of death. Eventually, I'm sure it Plane Shifts to get away, and I'm willing to call that a win. (Another option is to plink away with Magic Missile for many, many rounds)
Vrock - probable loss - if Slow lands (~25% chance, accounting for SR) then we're golden, otherwise, his DR/resists are too much to overcome before he tears us to shreds.
Mindflayers - Definite Win; I really am loving the lantern archon; it's Aid + a movable Magic Circle Against Evil is pretty fantastic.
Trolls - Definite Win
Shadows - Definite Win [/spoiler]
I do see what you were talking about now though, this is a much less fun class to play without a couple FoI feats, and the problem is much worse at 10th - there's a lot to do with IPs, and the resource is so limited that it feels really painful to use them, and of course being solo hurts that even more. And since I hate losing, after I finish up the 10th level write up, I'm going to go for a much more optimized build (within the OP's listed constraints) and see what I can do against the current "loss" fights. I have at least one concept that I think might do nicely.
-
Fire Giant - He hits me on a 6 or better (5 if slow lands) so he averages ~7 damage per round (6 with slow) and so takes 12 rounds to kill me. It's even better if he gets hit by the archon's aura, but that's pretty unlikely. Definite Win
Not so fast there, he throws flaming rocks that deal 4d6+10 damage, and he has a 75% chance to hit you. That's an average of 18 damage per round, not 7 meaning that he kills you in 5-6 rounds. That sounds more like a draw/probable loss to me.
Regardless, I think we're getting the point across. Even using nothing but Core the Factotum is more than capable of taking 50% of the encounters in the SGT. It just isn't fun.
-
Fire Giant - He hits me on a 6 or better (5 if slow lands) so he averages ~7 damage per round (6 with slow) and so takes 12 rounds to kill me. It's even better if he gets hit by the archon's aura, but that's pretty unlikely. Definite Win
Not so fast there, he throws flaming rocks that deal 4d6+10 damage, and he has a 75% chance to hit you. That's an average of 18 damage per round, not 7 meaning that he kills you in 5-6 rounds. That sounds more like a draw/probable loss to me.
Regardless, I think we're getting the point across. Even using nothing but Core the Factotum is more than capable of taking 50% of the encounters in the SGT. It just isn't fun.
Yeah, my bad in the write up - it should read "needs a 14 to hit (15 if Slow lands)"
But yes, the point stands.
-
Yeah, my bad in the write up - it should read "needs a 14 to hit (15 if Slow lands)"
Right, right (but wait, why does it need a 14? Shouldn't it just need an 11 or 12 with Slow?). /splitting hairs
-
Yeah, my bad in the write up - it should read "needs a 14 to hit (15 if Slow lands)"
Right, right (but wait, why does it need a 14? Shouldn't it just need an 11 or 12 with Slow?). /splitting hairs
Bah, I had to leave in the middle of doing my math on this one, and ended up adding things wrong. So, the factotum's armor is +5 armor, +4 dex, +1 haste, +2 deflection (from the archon's magic circle) = 22AC, which makes this fight a lot closer. (~9.6 damage a round, or 9 rounds until the kill) So, that probably bumps it to Probable Win.
-
So, I'm mostly staying out of this thread because you've seen my input on the subject and mostly don't need it here, but the obvious question to me is this: on the SGT at level 10, why not animate the Fire Giant (as an Animate Dead Skeleton you've got level 3 spells, I don't see why you wouldn't) and thus have a minion to provide support in the later fights? This is a totally core thing that's available. It's hardly cheesy in any way. I suppose animating the dragon if you beat it would be using Draconomicon rules and thus not core, but the Fire Giant seems well within the constraints of this challenge. Especially since you don't seem to be using stealth all that much.
Likewise, why not use Turn Undead on the Allip? That should make that fight MUCH easier, since you can take one enemy out of the fight instantly.
JaronK
-
So, I'm mostly staying out of this thread because you've seen my input on the subject and mostly don't need it here, but the obvious question to me is this: on the SGT at level 10, why not animate the Fire Giant (as an Animate Dead Skeleton you've got level 3 spells, I don't see why you wouldn't) and thus have a minion to provide support in the later fights? This is a totally core thing that's available. It's hardly cheesy in any way. I suppose animating the dragon if you beat it would be using Draconomicon rules and thus not core, but the Fire Giant seems well within the constraints of this challenge. Especially since you don't seem to be using stealth all that much.
Likewise, why not use Turn Undead on the Allip? That should make that fight MUCH easier, since you can take one enemy out of the fight instantly.
JaronK
I did consider animating, but in the spirit of the OP, which I took to be "test a factotum under circumstances no one can complain about", I went with a "each individual encounter is discrete" thing for maximum neutrality. I actually took it a step further, going straight out of Core, and (I think) avoided anything I've ever seen called cheesy or broken.
I didn't turn because the Allip's Babble effect is the same range (60 feet) and if I manage to save, I don't care about it until the Howler is dead. (my touch AC is still 15 vs the Allip's +3 to hit, and 1d3 wis damage is going to take a long time to take me down)
Now, this isn't how I play the class in an actual game, obviously. The factotum really shines in a party , and it's actually fun to play that way (my second favorite class). But this was an interesting thought exercise. If I were to try a more serious, I would probably go with a heavy UMD user - I think I could beat all of them except for the statue (unless you use sonic/acid ignores hardness rules) and possibly the cleric (assuming it is a 5th level). Of the 10th level, pretty much only the necromancer would be a challenge.
-
General comments about structure:
1) I would allow Spell Compendium as well. I think in general everyone ever who has ever seen the book allows it, and it's pretty fucking great.
2) You might want to specify that you are allowing MMI as well, since you are using Alter Self and Polymorph. Just technically true.
3) SGT is actually supposed to be run on "what you would know" grounds, so Wizards prepare spells based on likely enemies in the area. In practice, this is almost never important, because the things you are really worried about fighting (Dragons and Outsiders) can hit you in the desert/cave/ect. But for what it's worth, that's how it is. Doesn't mean they know they have to deal with a Basilisk by any means, but they can prepare in general, although, especially level 5, that hardly matters because Alter Self is going to be probably the best at any level, so you are only changing your level 1 spell.
4) SGT is supposed to be novarific. This does slightly bias in favor of some types of character over others, but as a general rule, you should be casting as many spells as your factotum can each fight. So Basilisk, start with grease instead of tanglefoot bag, and then follow up with Tanglefoot if you have to. As a general rule.
Specific fight comments SGT 5:
0) Traps, I don't know how you plan to identify all the DC 24 traps and disable them all with basically no problems when you haven't put a single rank in search, and you have a +13 Disable Device. So... I guess you can try to use Fighter style trap disarming of throwing things in front of you + ten foot pole, but that probably won't help against the First Alarm Triggered Orb of Acid Trap, or the second, or the third.
1) Basilisk: a) It's pretty clear that you get 50% for using the mirror, because you are "averting your eyes" which only ever gets a 50% reduction. As opposed to total eye closure which gets you 100%. You lose at life everyone who needs to see. b) Also, there is the passive and active gaze, so you have to roll those basically twice per round. Also, you have to give it the miss chance for concealment, even when using a mirror. c) The point of "in it's burrow" is that it wait around a corner, so you can't use range attacks, and if you ever close, you get gazed. Then it stays in the burrow if you pop a shot off and then run away. It doesn't allow kite tactics, which is why this is one of the SGTs that Wizards lose and Barbarians win.
2) Manticore: a) how are you charging into a tanglefoot throw, that's pretty silly, and possibly illegal. b) One thing to keep in mind is that creatures with clumsy fly speeds faster than their land speed can go really far in a straight line by flying at ground level and landing at the end of their turn. Allows them to turn on a dime if they choose, while maintaining speed. Probably makes Opportunistic Piety harder (once tanglefoot wears off).
3) Phase Spiders can see into the material plane from the ethereal, I have no idea how you intend to find it before it finds you. It basically comes down to a readied action each round. I'd need to see this played out.
4) Howler may prove a problem, that would be like Manticore or Phase Spider, where I'd want to roll a bunch of times or do some really complex math to see how that one really turns out, so maybe Factotum always loses to the Howler, and you did the math, but you actually do have decent offense against the Allip, Opportunistic Piety's healing energy can also be used to damage undead, so you can just kill it dead in two rounds (OP never says anything about Will save for half harmless, like most healing effects, and doesn't give any kind of range/attack roll at all. You can arguably just channel and kill some undead you don't even have line of sight or effect to, though there might be something in the Magic Overview section that prevents that, certainly nothing stops you from OPing from 120ft away, moving back 30ft, and doing it again, though I think the Dark Temple would probably involve the Allip coming out of the ground within 60ft of you anyway, giving it a surprise round Babble.)
5) Cleric + Zombies. Actually, that's not EL 7 anymore than it's EL 22 when a Balor uses it's summon to summon another Balor, or a Formian Mynarch has some dominated beatstick. CR/EL is very clear that when something gains minions through the use of it's abilities, it doesn't increase EL at all. So when an NPC Cleric uses it's spells and Wealth to cast Desecrate, then Animate some Undead, that's totally not an EL increase, just like when the PC Cleric animates some undead, they don't add to party level. It's one of the reasons Clerics are Better Than You, (for specific values of you).
SGT 10:
First build. Other than Polymorph, I think you can do better with spells. Especially because:
a) Empowered Fireball is a level 5 spell, how do you even have that, and why do you want it? Can the Factotum apply metamagic without increasing the spell level? If so, why don't you have empowered Twinned everything instead?
b) Empowered Scorching Ray is also a "why do you even want it" thing, but also a "again, can you even have this when you already have a 4th level spell?" It seems really clear to me that metamagic is not free (I can quote you if you don't believe me) and based on the way it's worded, you also can't have two 4th level spells where one is a 4th, and the other is a 2nd modified to 4th. So you have two illegal spells.
0) Again with traps. All the Symbols have DC 30+ search and disable DCs. You have a search of Int.... Search, and you have a Disable of +20, or, not 50%. So for disabling, you get to say "After the first Symbol, my character figures out what they are" (since you probably don't have read magic, and you can't make the search check, although, I think that's bullshit and you should be able to make a DC 25+level Spellcraft check to identify the spell, and even a DC 15+level check to know that the spell exists, and what it does, and operate from there, but RAW symbols are stupid).
That leaves the disabling method of... throwing a covering onto each symbol, then waiting CLX10 minutes (or arguing that you blocked line of effect), and moving on to the next one. So you have to have a lot of coverings, and absent line of effect ruling, a lot of time. You really aren't doing this any better than a fighter, because your skill bonuses are just not high enough.
1) Fire Giant. Not sure about all the stealth hiding stuff, unsure how you get concealment, and it does have a +14 spot to you +15 Hide, so it could totally end up seeing you no problem. But even if you do get into hiding and do your little Grey Render charge (PS Arcane Dilettante heavily implies you still need verbal components if they exist, which polymorph does, but I'll give you this one as RAW) you still need to rethink your strategy, possibly including some kind of grapple buff spells, because you actually a) can't succeed on your grapple initiation that often, b) Would totally lose if you did.
Are you playing with some completely different grapple rules? Because the Fire Giant has a +25 grapple mod, and you in Grey Render form have a +22 mod. You lose a lot, and his winning strategy is to just initiate the grapple himself, and then pin you, then do damage, and you will never succeed on checks enough to win. This is the same winning strategy he would use on a regular Grey Render too, so he doesn't even need to know it's a Polymorph to employ it. Instead, I think you might be better off going for something that avoids ever grappling him in the first place, because if you start with a Bite into grapple, he will voluntarily fail the initial grapple check, then Pin and win. No reason to bother breaking the grapple.
2) Well let's see, both your Empowered Fireball and Empowered Scorching Ray are illegal if you also want to polymorph. Also, there is an argument to be had about if Will-o Wisps are gaseous, as the prevention, but for simplicity sake, I'll buy it. Of course, you still start off with way less damage done, and oh yeah, you totally can't use the Dragon for soft cover against himself. He can originate the breath from any corner of his own space. So take 4 from your ref save, and remember that you only get haste for 10 rounds, and he's going to be spending a lot of time taking long sweeping breath runs at you to avoid letting you shock him, so that will probably only handle the first couple breaths.
3-6) Genuinely confused why you think it will beat Trolls, Shadows, Mind Flayers, Vrock. Vrock maybe, and Shadows, depends a lot on how damaging the surprise round and subsequent rounds are, vs how many you can turn at a time. And I don't want to do the math, especially if there's a better strategy I haven't thought of yet. But I'm starting to think you are assuming the Factotum can just surprise round everything and never be surprised himself, which doesn't seem to have any mechanical basis on your current build.
-
Kaelik...you are ... back!
(squeezes away a tear... ;) )
On topic: I'd suggest the Factotum does not use alter self/polymorph in case the purpose is to use as few of typical "winning" methods as possible.
Otherwise, a noble effort and good idea!
We need a lot more evidence for testing notions of class balance on these boards imo.
- Giacomo
-
on the SGT at level 10, why not animate the Fire Giant (as an Animate Dead Skeleton you've got level 3 spells, I don't see why you wouldn't) and thus have a minion to provide support in the later fights?
The Same Game Test isn't a string of 10 CR X encounters that you're supposed to defeat all in a row. That would be ridiculous. They are, as Mooncrow put it, a series of discrete encounters. Sure, I could have use Animate Dead, but it would do me no good.
Likewise, why not use Turn Undead on the Allip? That should make that fight MUCH easier, since you can take one enemy out of the fight instantly.
I didn't use Turn Undead on the Allip for two reasons: 1) The Allip has Turn Resistance +2, and 2) Even if I somehow managed to turn it, it would just run away for a bit, so that, if I somehow killed the Howler I would still have to contend with Allip eventually.
2) You might want to specify that you are allowing MMI as well, since you are using Alter Self and Polymorph. Just technically true.
Right, right, will do.
Specific fight comments SGT 5:
0) Traps, I don't know how you plan to identify all the DC 24 traps and disable them all with basically no problems when you haven't put a single rank in search, and you have a +13 Disable Device. So... I guess you can try to use Fighter style trap disarming of throwing things in front of you + ten foot pole, but that probably won't help against the First Alarm Triggered Orb of Acid Trap, or the second, or the third.
Honestly, that's just an oversight on my part. I'd thought that I went back and removed a few ranks from Balance and other skills like that, ones I don't need so many ranks in, to add Search, but I guess I forgot to. I also thought I had the Wand of Detect Magic in SGT 5 (because I really should have...) Though, the Bag of Tricks should help out in this encounter seeing as how I completely fucked this one over. :blush
1) Basilisk: a) It's pretty clear that you get 50% for using the mirror, because you are "averting your eyes" which only ever gets a 50% reduction. As opposed to total eye closure which gets you 100%.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree, because apparently you don't interpret (from SRD), "Looking at the creature’s image (such as in a mirror or as part of an illusion) does not subject the viewer to a gaze attack," to mean what I interpret it to mean.
Also, you have to give it the miss chance for concealment, even when using a mirror.
Where in the rules does it say that, when looking at something through a mirror, you give it concealment? How much concealment? I looked for a rule like this myself, but couldn't find it, and so I went on assuming that you attack as normal when "aiming" via reflection.
c) The point of "in it's burrow" is that it wait around a corner, so you can't use range attacks, and if you ever close, you get gazed. Then it stays in the burrow if you pop a shot off and then run away.
It waits around the corner. Of the desert. Explain to me how that makes any sense to you. No, I interpreted "in it's burrow" to mean in it's fucking burrow (http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/65513/65513,1194839768,1/stock-photo-gopher-on-guard-sitting-on-top-of-its-burrow-in-desert-6886057.jpg).
2) Manticore: a) how are you charging into a tanglefoot throw, that's pretty silly, and possibly illegal.
Of all the rules I thought might be a bit questionable, charge attacking with a thrown weapon was not one of them... :o
3) Phase Spiders can see into the material plane from the ethereal, I have no idea how you intend to find it before it finds you. It basically comes down to a readied action each round. I'd need to see this played out.
I guess I figured it couldn't see into the material plane from the ethereal (from the SRD, "Phase spiders dwell and hunt on the Material Plane"). Hmm. That's a good point, I don't know how I'd rule this given that information. Is that true?
4) Opportunistic Piety's healing energy can also be used to damage undead, so you can just kill it dead in two rounds (OP never says anything about Will save for half harmless, like most healing effects, and doesn't give any kind of range/attack roll at all. You can arguably just channel and kill some undead you don't even have line of sight or effect to, though there might be something in the Magic Overview section that prevents that, certainly nothing stops you from OPing from 120ft away, moving back 30ft, and doing it again, though I think the Dark Temple would probably involve the Allip coming out of the ground within 60ft of you anyway, giving it a surprise round Babble.)
Yeah... I'm stunned that there's no range/attack given. I filled in the blanks with it and called it gospel, to the point that I was certain it was range touch/touch attack, but nothing is given. lol. There's not even errata, a sage's advice, or FAQ for it. In the interest of trying to avoid shady rulings, and to offer an excuse for why I didn't do that, let's call it range touch/touch attack. I thought it was a touch attack, and thus I didn't use it to channel positive energy since I would have such a low chance of hitting it anyway.
SGT 10:
First build. Other than Polymorph, I think you can do better with spells. Especially because:
a) Empowered Fireball is a level 5 spell, how do you even have that, and why do you want it? Can the Factotum apply metamagic without increasing the spell level? If so, why don't you have empowered Twinned everything instead?
Metamagic Rod of Empower does it for me. Why not Empowered Twinned? Because there is no Metamagic Rod of Twinning. :P So, no I don't have any illegal spells. Why do I want Fireball and Scorching Ray? Fireball for large groups of mobs, both of them just so I have another chip on my shoulder (helps to balance out that I'm using Alter Self and Polymorph).
0) Again with traps. All the Symbols have DC 30+ search and disable DCs. You have a search of Int.... Search, and you have a Disable of +20, or, not 50%.
Hmm... good point. I assumed Disable Device +20 would be more than enough for this sort of thing, but when half the CR 10 magical traps in the SRD are 9th level spells with search and disable DCs of 34... well, a) that's pretty bullshit, and b) you're right there's no way a trapfinder can bypass these through conventional means. Stupid. I suppose we'll send some lovely little critters from the Bag of Tricks through the hallway and hope it's enough.
1) Fire Giant. Not sure about all the stealth hiding stuff, unsure how you get concealment, and it does have a +14 spot to you +15 Hide, so it could totally end up seeing you no problem.
Except the Factotum has +22 to hide/move silently? And the Fire Giant suffers appropriate distance penalties. I should have no problem sneaking up within charging distance.
Are you playing with some completely different grapple rules? Because the Fire Giant has a +25 grapple mod, and you in Grey Render form have a +22 mod. You lose a lot, and his winning strategy is to just initiate the grapple himself, and then pin you, then do damage, and you will never succeed on checks enough to win.
The Gray Render typically has a +20 mod, but with Brains Over Brawn it now has +25. Putting us on equal terms, except that for the Fire Giant to pin me he'd have to do nothing but attempt to grapple me, whereas I can just Bite him, something I would normally do anyway, and get two free grapple attempts per turn. I thought all of this was pretty clear in my analysis.
I think you might be better off going for something that avoids ever grappling him in the first place, because if you start with a Bite into grapple, he will voluntarily fail the initial grapple check, then Pin and win. No reason to bother breaking the grapple.
Would I be better off going for something that avoids grappling in the first place? Almost certainly yes, but I saw this as a fun way to win the encounter. As far as voluntarily failing the initial grapple check and then pinning, I think we'd have to get into a big discussion over the grapple rules. I'm still pretty sure the Gray Render strategy works well enough to call this a definite win.
2) Of course, you still start off with way less damage done, and oh yeah, you totally can't use the Dragon for soft cover against himself. He can originate the breath from any corner of his own space. So take 4 from your ref save, and remember that you only get haste for 10 rounds, and he's going to be spending a lot of time taking long sweeping breath runs at you to avoid letting you shock him, so that will probably only handle the first couple breaths.
I was thinking I'd enter the Dragon's space to get cover and block line of effect but I don't think I can do that, now that I'm looking back at all the rules.
3-6) Genuinely confused why you think it will beat Trolls, Shadows, Mind Flayers, Vrock. Vrock maybe, and Shadows, depends a lot on how damaging the surprise round and subsequent rounds are, vs how many you can turn at a time. And I don't want to do the math, especially if there's a better strategy I haven't thought of yet. But I'm starting to think you are assuming the Factotum can just surprise round everything and never be surprised himself, which doesn't seem to have any mechanical basis on your current build.
The Trolls are easy. Empowered Fireball, Empowered Scorching Rays, that's guaranteed to kill two of them if not more. Enlarge Person + attacks of opportunity takes care of the rest. Oh, and sure, I'll Polymorph into something if I get scared. Yeah, I'll get a little roughed up, but probably not bad enough even to warrant using opportunistic piety to heal. I'm confused as to how you have any doubt that I beat them.
The Shadows are even easier. Opportunistic Piety (hell, Empowered Fireball has 50/50 shot of killing them all). At an average turning check of 9 that allows me to affect up to a 9 HD undead. More than enough. Average turning damage (or total HD turned) of 16 means that, on average, an Opportunistic Piety turns 3 of the suckers (luckily that's just enough). From the SRD, "If you have twice as many levels (or more) as the undead have Hit Dice, you destroy any that you would normally turn," Shadows have 3 HD, and so even with their +2 turn resistance, any Shadows I turn get automatically destroyed.
The Mindflayers I'm sure I can kill in any variety of ways involving Polymorph. I had been entertaining the idea of changing into a Bulette, burrowing underground, and then Leaping out from underneath one. Four claw attacks at +15 each will kill a Mindflayer in one round. Now, maybe the other one had readied an action to Mindblast, but with Cunning Insight I still have a 75% to succeed, and then it's just another burrow + Leap.
-
Averting Eyes: The opponent avoids looking at the creature's face, instead looking at its body, watching its shadow, tracking it on a reflective surface, and so on. Each round, the opponent has a 50% chance not to need to make a saving throw against the gaze attack. The creature, however, gets concealment against that opponent.
Emphasis mine.
Its hard to hit someone you aren't looking directly at. Concealment is defined as a 20% miss chance. Total concealment is a 50% miss chance.
There you go.
-
I guess I figured it couldn't see into the material plane from the ethereal (from the SRD, "Phase spiders dwell and hunt on the Material Plane"). Hmm. That's a good point, I don't know how I'd rule this given that information. Is that true?
Looks like it is; it can stay ethereal for 15 rounds (works like Ethereal Jaunt, CL 15) though its sight is limited to 60 ft. It makes the fight pretty problematic.
-
Honestly, that's just an oversight on my part. I'd thought that I went back and removed a few ranks from Balance and other skills like that, ones I don't need so many ranks in, to add Search, but I guess I forgot to. I also thought I had the Wand of Detect Magic in SGT 5 (because I really should have...) Though, the Bag of Tricks should help out in this encounter seeing as how I completely fucked this one over. :blush
Yeah, I assumed lack of Search was a mistake, and didn't notice Bag of Tricks but CR 4 repeat Fireball traps still basically can't be beaten except through hope and guessing.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree, because apparently you don't interpret (from SRD), "Looking at the creature’s image (such as in a mirror or as part of an illusion) does not subject the viewer to a gaze attack," to mean what I interpret it to mean.
?? Are you looking at it? No. So you are averting your eyes, and fall under the 50% rules. Do you have your eyes closed? Then you can't get 100% protection. Looking at a mirror image doesn't cause the gaze, but it does quite clearly also not protect you from the gaze you would otherwise suffer because it is very specifically "averting your gaze" it's in the example of averting your gaze. Merely declaring that you are attempting to use a small hand mirror does not grant you magic immunity to something that you would otherwise have to roll if you had your eyes open, but declared yourself to be not looking at the Basilisk.
Where in the rules does it say that, when looking at something through a mirror, you give it concealment? How much concealment? I looked for a rule like this myself, but couldn't find it, and so I went on assuming that you attack as normal when "aiming" via reflection.
When in the rules does it ever say you can aim by reflection at all? Give you a hint, it's an example of "averting your gaze." The rules for concealment are in the gaze attack section, where it makes clear that for averting your gaze, you attack as if it has concealment.
It waits around the corner. Of the desert. Explain to me how that makes any sense to you. No, I interpreted "in it's burrow" to mean in it's fucking burrow (http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/65513/65513,1194839768,1/stock-photo-gopher-on-guard-sitting-on-top-of-its-burrow-in-desert-6886057.jpg).
Great. Now be slightly smarter than the average idiot and ask yourself if burrows are 2ft depressions, or actual holes in the ground that make turns and go past where you can see.
1 (http://www.eduplace.com/parents/hmsc/content/activities/shtml/act_kb.shtml), 2 (http://www.dkimages.com/discover/home/animals/mammals/insectivores/Nests-and-Burrows/Nests-and-Burrows-2.html), 3 (http://www.dkimages.com/discover/home/animals/mammals/insectivores/Nests-and-Burrows/Nests-and-Burrows-3.html) You do not appear to have line of effect to any of those burrows, merely to the opening, try again later.
I guess I figured it couldn't see into the material plane from the ethereal (from the SRD, "Phase spiders dwell and hunt on the Material Plane"). Hmm. That's a good point, I don't know how I'd rule this given that information. Is that true?
Well how do you think it manages to coincidentally go Material right next to you and get the surprise round if it can't see. The part you want is in the Etherealness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#etherealness) special ability descriptor. Specifically, "An ethereal creature can see and hear into the Material Plane in a 60-foot radius, though material objects still block sight and sound."
EDIT: Want to be clear about what an above poster said. Yes it can "only stay ethereal for 15 rounds" in the sense that at some point during those 15 rounds it has to spend a free action and a move action starting it over. But since you can't even move faster than it's move speed anyway, it will just follow you, always keeping you within 60ft at the end of every turn, and if it loses you, it just has to run under the ground/behind a rock to refresh, and start hunting again. I'm going to call it a loss for the Factotum if his response to Phase Spider is to start sprinting in one direction and never ever stop or pass go or collecting 200 dollars.
Yeah... I'm stunned that there's no range/attack given. I filled in the blanks with it and called it gospel, to the point that I was certain it was range touch/touch attack, but nothing is given. lol. There's not even errata, a sage's advice, or FAQ for it. In the interest of trying to avoid shady rulings, and to offer an excuse for why I didn't do that, let's call it range touch/touch attack. I thought it was a touch attack, and thus I didn't use it to channel positive energy since I would have such a low chance of hitting it anyway.
I don't know why it would surprise you, the class is extremely poorly designed. You are playing with a houserule for inspiration too, because the Raw is so dumb.
Metamagic Rod of Empower does it for me. Why not Empowered Twinned? Because there is no Metamagic Rod of Twinning. :P So, no I don't have any illegal spells. Why do I want Fireball and Scorching Ray? Fireball for large groups of mobs, both of them just so I have another chip on my shoulder (helps to balance out that I'm using Alter Self and Polymorph).
Well 1) You should probably clarify that under spells prepared (IE, that you did not prepare Empowered Fireball, you prepared Fireball, and you'll have to take a move action to put away your Bow if that's what you are holding, and then another to pull out your rod of empower). 2) You should probably replace Scorching Ray with Lightning Ball, unless you are really concerned about Ref saves.
Hmm... good point. I assumed Disable Device +20 would be more than enough for this sort of thing, but when half the CR 10 magical traps in the SRD are 9th level spells with search and disable DCs of 34... well, a) that's pretty bullshit, and b) you're right there's no way a trapfinder can bypass these through conventional means. Stupid. I suppose we'll send some lovely little critters from the Bag of Tricks through the hallway and hope it's enough.
Yeah, as long as the first symbol you run into isn't a death, as long as you are willing to take several hours to make it down a hallway, you can totally do it with a bag of tricks. Might want to rest, Prepare Dimension Door, and then go, it will probably be faster than Bag of Tricksing.
Except the Factotum has +22 to hide/move silently? And the Fire Giant suffers appropriate distance penalties. I should have no problem sneaking up within charging distance.
I read the level 5 numbers for this part.
The Gray Render typically has a +20 mod, but with Brains Over Brawn it now has +25. Putting us on equal terms, except that for the Fire Giant to pin me he'd have to do nothing but attempt to grapple me, whereas I can just Bite him, something I would normally do anyway, and get two free grapple attempts per turn. I thought all of this was pretty clear in my analysis.
???? So... learn the polymorph rules then get back to me? You have a BAB of +7. Grey Render's have a BAB of +10. Polymorph does not give you a Grey Render's BAB. Therefore, you have, even after Brains Over Brawn, a +22. So the Giant can win checks, pin you, and then damage you, because opposed rolls drastically favor the side with the slightly higher bonus (compared to assumed 10 DCs).
The Trolls are easy. Empowered Fireball, Empowered Scorching Rays, that's guaranteed to kill two of them if not more. Enlarge Person + attacks of opportunity takes care of the rest. Oh, and sure, I'll Polymorph into something if I get scared. Yeah, I'll get a little roughed up, but probably not bad enough even to warrant using opportunistic piety to heal. I'm confused as to how you have any doubt that I beat them.
A) Empowered Fireball plus Scorching Ray isn't guaranteed to kill two, although that is likely. But more importantly, if the very first thing you do is anything besides Polymorph into a Fire Elemental, you lose, because if they grapple you in the surprise round, or at any point before you Polymorph, you can't actually beat them, and they all start grappling with repeated Rends, and you can't break out of multiple grapples at once. If you start by Polymorphing to a Fire Elemental, you can then rely on Burn to beat them, and sure, throw the fireball to speed things up, but if you polymorph into something that doesn't both do fire damage and beat them in grapple checks, you can't even kill them all.
The Shadows are even easier. Opportunistic Piety (hell, Empowered Fireball has 50/50 shot of killing them all). At an average turning check of 9 that allows me to affect up to a 9 HD undead. More than enough. Average turning damage (or total HD turned) of 16 means that, on average, an Opportunistic Piety turns 3 of the suckers (luckily that's just enough). From the SRD, "If you have twice as many levels (or more) as the undead have Hit Dice, you destroy any that you would normally turn," Shadows have 3 HD, and so even with their +2 turn resistance, any Shadows I turn get automatically destroyed.
Fireball only might kill them if you have line of effect to all of them, and that's only likely to be the case the round after all 12 of them did their surprise round punching, and you'll have to hit yourself too, and of course, You are totally wrong about how Fireball interacts with incorporeal creatures, it has a 50/50 shot against each one, so you'll still have 6 left most likely. Turning is going to be the go to move probably, although, it may be better to start with the fireball after they ambush you, and then start turning, since they don't do HP damage, it won't matter. Which is why I said I'd have to do the math on how damaging the initial surprise round is vs how fast you can turn them.
The Mindflayers I'm sure I can kill in any variety of ways involving Polymorph. I had been entertaining the idea of changing into a Bulette, burrowing underground, and then Leaping out from underneath one. Four claw attacks at +15 each will kill a Mindflayer in one round. Now, maybe the other one had readied an action to Mindblast, but with Cunning Insight I still have a 75% to succeed, and then it's just another burrow + Leap.
Yeah... again, you find out the Mindflayers exist when they both Mindblast you at the same time. Then, they have levitation, so you'll actually want to try to burrow above them to drop down on them instead.
Did you ever read Frank running things through the SGT? He's very clear about the Mindflayers starting out hidden among the stalactites and then double blasting to start things off.
-
Averting Eyes: The opponent avoids looking at the creatures face, instead looking at its body, watching its shadow, tracking it on a reflective surface, and so on. Each round, the opponent has a 50% chance not to need to make a saving throw against the gaze attack. The creature, however, gets concealment against that opponent.
Emphasis mine.
Its hard to hit someone you aren't looking directly at. Concealment is defined as a 20% miss chance. Total concealment is a 50% miss chance.
There you go.
That's what the MMI says, the SRD adds this: "Looking at the creature’s image (such as in a mirror or as part of an illusion) does not subject the viewer to a gaze attack. "
Not sure where that comes from though.
-
Did you ever read Frank running things through the SGT? He's very clear about the Mindflayers starting out hidden among the stalactites and then double blasting to start things off.
edit: nm, not really relevant.
-
Averting Eyes: The opponent avoids looking at the creatures face, instead looking at its body, watching its shadow, tracking it on a reflective surface, and so on. Each round, the opponent has a 50% chance not to need to make a saving throw against the gaze attack. The creature, however, gets concealment against that opponent.
Emphasis mine.
Its hard to hit someone you aren't looking directly at. Concealment is defined as a 20% miss chance. Total concealment is a 50% miss chance.
There you go.
That's what the MMI says, the SRD adds this: "Looking at the creature’s image (such as in a mirror or as part of an illusion) does not subject the viewer to a gaze attack. "
Not sure where that comes from though.
That does not contradict the other part though. Looking at a mirror does not trigger the gaze. Looking in the opposite direction also does not trigger the gaze. But if you look in the opposite direction, you still have a 50% chance of needing to make a save anyway, because anyone who is within 30ft and has their eyes open has a 50% chance of accidentally looking at the Basilisk per the averting the eyes rules. This is my point, looking away from the Basilisk offers only 50% protection, so why would a mirror being where you are looking magically make that 100?
-
Did you ever read Frank running things through the SGT? He's very clear about the Mindflayers starting out hidden among the stalactites and then double blasting to start things off.
Did Frank actually write the SGT? That would actually explain a lot, including why it's a terrible test. Otherwise, I don't really care about his opinions.
No one cares about your grudge. If someone is running the SGT, and they wonder about how to set the environment for a particular fight, IE, if the Basilisk is sitting on top of a burrow, or is deep in one, or if the Mindflayers are standing around waiting for you to say hello, or hiding above your darkvision waiting to double mindblast, referring to already run SGTs made by the person who designed the encounters is kinda important.
-
Did you ever read Frank running things through the SGT? He's very clear about the Mindflayers starting out hidden among the stalactites and then double blasting to start things off.
Did Frank actually write the SGT? That would actually explain a lot, including why it's a terrible test. Otherwise, I don't really care about his opinions.
No one cares about your grudge. If someone is running the SGT, and they wonder about how to set the environment for a particular fight, IE, if the Basilisk is sitting on top of a burrow, or is deep in one, or if the Mindflayers are standing around waiting for you to say hello, or hiding above your darkvision waiting to double mindblast, referring to already run SGTs made by the person who designed the encounters is kinda important.
edit: nm, it's not really relevant. If he designed it, than yes, he has some say over how it goes. If I cared more, I would go back and re-run the test, but this has already been pretty time-consuming :p
-
Looking at a mirror image doesn't cause the gaze, but it does quite clearly also not protect you from the gaze you would otherwise suffer because it is very specifically "averting your gaze" it's in the example of averting your gaze.
I take it to mean that viewing the Basilisk through a mirror protects you from the passive form of the Gaze, but only offers the 50% "averting your eyes" protection vs the active Gaze. I can't tell if that's exactly what you're saying, or if you don't agree with that. Remember I said as long as the mirror doesn't provide full protection from the Gaze that it's a definite loss.
Great. Now be slightly smarter than the average idiot and ask yourself if burrows are 2ft depressions, or actual holes in the ground that make turns and go past where you can see.
Uh-huh, and let's see, the Basilisk doesn't have line of effect for Gaze when he's hiding down there, and has +7 Listen and Spot compared with my +15 Hide and Move Silently, so if the Basilisk is hiding in his Basilisk Hole, and being the genius Factotum that I am, I see the hole, but I do not see the Basilisk, I go ahead and sneak past the hole from a safe distance, who wants to bet the Basilisk never even comes out of that hole because he has no fucking clue I'm there? I'll take that bet. While you accused me of assuming I always get a surprise round, you seem to be arbitrarily giving all of the monsters a surprise round when they don't deserve one.
I'm going to call it a loss for the Factotum if his response to Phase Spider is to start sprinting in one direction and never ever stop or pass go or collecting 200 dollars.
The idea here was that, yes, he withdraws, sprints away, and then Hides. Since the Spider can only see 60ft into the ethereal, I'm assuming it would hunt in the material plane rather than the ethereal one. The Factotum will rely on his superior Listen and Spot checks to notice the spider before it notices him, and have a readied action to shoot at it. The spider on the other hand can ready an action to go ethereal every turn, but doing so drastically limits its ability to hunt for the Factotum, which it already isn't going to be very good at. Worst case scenario sounds like a draw to me.
I don't know why it would surprise you, the class is extremely poorly designed.
Agreed. I'm hating it more and more. I used to love it, but it's so, so poorly designed. I'm going to work on a Factotum Fix sometime soon solely because of how dissatisfied I've been running these tests.
Well 1) You should probably clarify that under spells prepared (IE, that you did not prepare Empowered Fireball, you prepared Fireball, and you'll have to take a move action to put away your Bow if that's what you are holding, and then another to pull out your rod of empower).
No... I prepared an Empowered Fireball and an Empowered Scorching Ray. The rod grants use of the feat three times per day. I use the feat when I prepare my spells (since I can't use it spontaneously anyway).
You have a BAB of +7. Grey Render's have a BAB of +10. Polymorph does not give you a Grey Render's BAB.
I facepalm'd.
Therefore, you have, even after Brains Over Brawn, a +22. So the Giant can win checks, pin you, and then damage you, because opposed rolls drastically favor the side with the slightly higher bonus (compared to assumed 10 DCs).
You might be right about the grappling strategy being such a bad idea. I'd have to run all new numbers, and with grappling rules being so damn complicated, I really don't care to do it. It would be much simpler to polymorph into something else. I'm sure there's an answer in the MM somewhere.
A) Empowered Fireball plus Scorching Ray isn't guaranteed to kill two, although that is likely. But more importantly, if the very first thing you do is anything besides Polymorph into a Fire Elemental, you lose, because if they grapple you in the surprise round, or at any point before you Polymorph, you can't actually beat them, and they all start grappling with repeated Rends, and you can't break out of multiple grapples at once. If you start by Polymorphing to a Fire Elemental, you can then rely on Burn to beat them, and sure, throw the fireball to speed things up, but if you polymorph into something that doesn't both do fire damage and beat them in grapple checks, you can't even kill them all.
Why are you giving Trolls of all things a surprise round? They have no stealth skills whatsoever and have inferior initiative. ??? I'm carrying a Flaming Longsword. I can damage them easily.
The Shadow surprise round I'll give you, but not to the extent that suddenly I'm surrounded by 8 Shadows in the surprise round. The Shadows will presumably be occupying the spaces of trees so that I can't see them, so I might be right next to a couple of them. In the surprise round only those couple that I'm right next to can try their incorporeal touches on me and even without Cunning Defense I don't have bad odds.
Yeah... again, you find out the Mindflayers exist when they both Mindblast you at the same time. Then, they have levitation, so you'll actually want to try to burrow above them to drop down on them instead.
Did you ever read Frank running things through the SGT? He's very clear about the Mindflayers starting out hidden among the stalactites and then double blasting to start things off.
No, I didn't read Frank running things through the SGT. I did assume they would be underground (since that's where the MM says they usually are), so hiding seems key. This is exactly the sort of thing the Bag of Tricks is for though. I'm human, and underground, so I can't see. I have a torch with me, but that makes me more of a target than anything else, so I have little critters with scent running around ahead of me. If I hear them getting horribly mauled by a vicious beast I know I should be ready for trouble. If I know I'm heading to a Mindflayer den I can have them track Mindflayers by scent and report back to me if they catch the scent up ahead.
EDIT: Also, I hope we can avoid getting into arguments about Frank Trollman. I respect the guy, but he's an asshole. Can everyone get over themselves and stay on topic? I hope so. It hasn't gotten out of hand or anything yet, and nobody's made a big stink, so don't think I'm calling anyone in here a drama queen or anything. I hadn't expected I'd need to add "Frank Trollman" to the list of things I don't want to discussed in this thread, but before we blow up into a tangent about how great/awful he is, I want to nip it in the bud right now. I don't want to hear about anyone's personal feelings about Frank Trollman, or any other related butt-hurt. Kaelik, you have every right to bring him up as a reference for the SGT though.
-
Looking at a mirror image doesn't cause the gaze, but it does quite clearly also not protect you from the gaze you would otherwise suffer because it is very specifically "averting your gaze" it's in the example of averting your gaze.
I take it to mean that viewing the Basilisk through a mirror protects you from the passive form of the Gaze, but only offers the 50% "averting your eyes" protection vs the active Gaze. I can't tell if that's exactly what you're saying, or if you don't agree with that. Remember I said as long as the mirror doesn't provide full protection from the Gaze that it's a definite loss.
So he loses.
The entry says nothing about being protected from the passive effect. Where on Earth did you get that notion?
-
I take it to mean that viewing the Basilisk through a mirror protects you from the passive form of the Gaze, but only offers the 50% "averting your eyes" protection vs the active Gaze. I can't tell if that's exactly what you're saying, or if you don't agree with that. Remember I said as long as the mirror doesn't provide full protection from the Gaze that it's a definite loss.
No, I mean it provides the averted gaze problems exactly, and gives a 50% chance on both passive and active, and of course, 20% concealment for the Basilisk.
Uh-huh, and let's see, the Basilisk doesn't have line of effect for Gaze when he's hiding down there, and has +7 Listen and Spot compared with my +15 Hide and Move Silently, so if the Basilisk is hiding in his Basilisk Hole, and being the genius Factotum that I am, I see the hole, but I do not see the Basilisk, I go ahead and sneak past the hole from a safe distance, who wants to bet the Basilisk never even comes out of that hole because he has no fucking clue I'm there? I'll take that bet. While you accused me of assuming I always get a surprise round, you seem to be arbitrarily giving all of the monsters a surprise round when they don't deserve one.
No, I give the Factotum a surprise round on the Basilisk if he doesn't use a light source, and probably even if he does. He just loses anyway. If you sneak past his burrow, you didn't go into his burrow and fight him, and you don't get XP or treasure. If you are admitting that every time the plot hook "need or want X, which is in a Basilisk Lair" or "kill the monster that's Ying" comes up, the Factotum has to go cry in a corner and give up, where the Barbarian closes his eyes, walks inside, and power attacks for full, then you are just admitting that the Factotum loses this challenge. That's fine, because Wizards and Rogues also lose this challenge, so he's in good company on that front.
The idea here was that, yes, he withdraws, sprints away, and then Hides. Since the Spider can only see 60ft into the ethereal, I'm assuming it would hunt in the material plane rather than the ethereal one. The Factotum will rely on his superior Listen and Spot checks to notice the spider before it notices him, and have a readied action to shoot at it. The spider on the other hand can ready an action to go ethereal every turn, but doing so drastically limits its ability to hunt for the Factotum, which it already isn't going to be very good at. Worst case scenario sounds like a draw to me.
I'm assuming as a Phase Spider with int 7, it's not retarded, and has figured out that no one can attack it on the ethereal, and better to let any prey which survives it's initial assault have a small chance of getting it away while it tracks them down then to walk around the material plane getting gang banged, especially since it moves faster than it's prey.
Why are you giving Trolls of all things a surprise round? They have no stealth skills whatsoever and have inferior initiative. ??? I'm carrying a Flaming Longsword. I can damage them easily.
Yeah, I forgot about that, I kinda wondered why you picked such a terrible weapon, but that makes sense. Still can't damage them if they grapple you. Surprise round is of course because trolls live in their dark den, and you bring a light source in, so they know you are coming, and they don't have to move, and so you can't detect them until you have line of sight. Meanwhile, as prepared as they are, they murder you.
The Shadow surprise round I'll give you, but not to the extent that suddenly I'm surrounded by 8 Shadows in the surprise round. The Shadows will presumably be occupying the spaces of trees so that I can't see them, so I might be right next to a couple of them. In the surprise round only those couple that I'm right next to can try their incorporeal touches on me and even without Cunning Defense I don't have bad odds.
a) Or they could be in the ground, because they are incorporeal, and all spring out hitting you at once, because of course, incorporeals can all stack on top of each other, and can stay in the ground at all times.
b) Don't forget that Cunning Defense is actually terrible and only applies to one opponent, making it a huge waste of IP in this situation.
No, I didn't read Frank running things through the SGT. I did assume they would be underground (since that's where the MM says they usually are), so hiding seems key. This is exactly the sort of thing the Bag of Tricks is for though. I'm human, and underground, so I can't see. I have a torch with me, but that makes me more of a target than anything else, so I have little critters with scent running around ahead of me. If I hear them getting horribly mauled by a vicious beast I know I should be ready for trouble. If I know I'm heading to a Mindflayer den I can have them track Mindflayers by scent and report back to me if they catch the scent up ahead.
Only if Mind Flayers are stupid enough to attack blind puppy dogs when they know there's a person nearby. Keep in mind you still have to handle the animals, which means you have to be in sight of them, which means you are in sight of the Mind Flayers. Also, the smell distance is pretty short, so you can probably be blasted from out of range of the dogs scent.
-
No, I give the Factotum a surprise round on the Basilisk if he doesn't use a light source, and probably even if he does. He just loses anyway. If you sneak past his burrow, you didn't go into his burrow and fight him, and you don't get XP or treasure. If you are admitting that every time the plot hook "need or want X, which is in a Basilisk Lair" or "kill the monster that's Ying" comes up, the Factotum has to go cry in a corner and give up, where the Barbarian closes his eyes, walks inside, and power attacks for full, then you are just admitting that the Factotum loses this challenge. That's fine, because Wizards and Rogues also lose this challenge, so he's in good company on that front.
Sorry, no I wasn't trying to say that sneaking past the Basilisk lair was winning the encounter, I brought all that up because it sounded like you were giving the Basilisk a surprise round to attack from beyond line of effect. I was all, "Wuuuut." Anyway, we both agree that the Basilisk encounter is a definite loss, so however we get there is off-topic. Definite loss. Okay. Moving on. :D
I'm assuming as a Phase Spider with int 7, it's not retarded, and has figured out that no one can attack it on the ethereal, and better to let any prey which survives it's initial assault have a small chance of getting it away while it tracks them down then to walk around the material plane getting gang banged, especially since it moves faster than it's prey.
So, the spider doesn't kill the Factotum and the Factotum doesn't kill the spider? Draw? Or are you saying that because the Factotum hides from the spider he loses? Because... if the spider is hiding in the ethereal plane...
Yeah, I forgot about that, I kinda wondered why you picked such a terrible weapon, but that makes sense. Still can't damage them if they grapple you. Surprise round is of course because trolls live in their dark den, and you bring a light source in, so they know you are coming, and they don't have to move, and so you can't detect them until you have line of sight. Meanwhile, as prepared as they are, they murder you.
Yeah, I picked a terrible weapon for the express purpose of picking a terrible weapon. Same reason I picked fireball and scorching ray, really. I wanted to see what a basically no-op build could do. I'd be willing to bet that the Factotum could hear the Trolls. They don't know I'm coming after all, and it's not like the Trolls are just standing stock still in their home. I really don't see the Trolls getting a surprise round here unless the DM is being really asshatty.
a) Or they could be in the ground, because they are incorporeal, and all spring out hitting you at once, because of course, incorporeals can all stack on top of each other, and can stay in the ground at all times.
b) Don't forget that Cunning Defense is actually terrible and only applies to one opponent, making it a huge waste of IP in this situation.
Good points, good points.
Only if Mind Flayers are stupid enough to attack blind puppy dogs when they know there's a person nearby. Keep in mind you still have to handle the animals, which means you have to be in sight of them, which means you are in sight of the Mind Flayers. Also, the smell distance is pretty short, so you can probably be blasted from out of range of the dogs scent.
I don't believe you do have to use the Handle Animal skill for Bag of Tricks, but I'm not up for arguing the point either (requiring Handle Animal makes sense). Without it, my plan for avoiding the insta-mindblast-death goes out the window. I'd need a way to get really good darkvision (90ft or more) and there is none that I'm aware of.
The Mind Flayers don't automatically get to know I'm nearby. My stealth skills are far better than their perception skills (setting aside Mindsight which is beyond the sources allowed in this exercise), and I'm coming after them not the other way around. So, this pair of Mind Flayers is a couple of watchmen who pulled the short sticks when it came up for duty. If I didn't have to carry a torch they'd have to spot me like anyone else. 'Course... I think I need that torch.
I suppose my plan would have to be to move at 15ft per round (forgot half speed) while carrying my torch (because aside from Bag of Tricks I can't think of a way to get around in the dark), and have a readied action every round along the lines of, "If I'm targeted by an attack or special attack, Polymorph." That way I get to see before I get Mindblast'd. Granted, you're right, without Bag of Tricks for reconaissance, I get double-blasted before I ever know the Mind Flayers are there.
EDIT: Note to self: Next build, try a Dwarf Factotum. Can you say, "no downside?"
-
I don't believe you do have to use the Handle Animal skill for Bag of Tricks
And you are right. It only mentions Handle Animal commands, not that you have to use Handle Animal.
-
I don't believe you do have to use the Handle Animal skill for Bag of Tricks
And you are right. It only mentions Handle Animal commands, not that you have to use Handle Animal.
It mentions that they'll follow the commands given in the Handle Animal description. To command an animal to perform a trick you usually have to use the Handle Animal skill, therefore, it's a reasonable ruling.
-
I interpret it as using the commands as in the skill, not the skill to command them. That's also a reasonable ruling.
-
So, I'm mostly staying out of this thread because you've seen my input on the subject and mostly don't need it here, but the obvious question to me is this: on the SGT at level 10, why not animate the Fire Giant (as an Animate Dead Skeleton you've got level 3 spells, I don't see why you wouldn't) and thus have a minion to provide support in the later fights? This is a totally core thing that's available.
Isn't animate dead a 5th level spell for wizards and thus not available?
-
So, I'm mostly staying out of this thread because you've seen my input on the subject and mostly don't need it here, but the obvious question to me is this: on the SGT at level 10, why not animate the Fire Giant (as an Animate Dead Skeleton you've got level 3 spells, I don't see why you wouldn't) and thus have a minion to provide support in the later fights? This is a totally core thing that's available.
Isn't animate dead a 5th level spell for wizards and thus not available?
4th level spell.
-
Why is your factotum not using more alchemical items in at least the 5th level encounters?
Tanglefoot bag, thunderstone, flash bang item that blinds and dazzles, or even a burlap sack as an improvized hood/garrote could get you at least some chance to win the basilisk encounter. Hell smoke sticks, Darkness, or fog cloud can negate the gaze attack, since full concealment cancels it out. At least then you're both fighting blind instead of just you.
Tanglefoot bags, vials of oil, and your flaming sword would do well against the trolls for cheap. The goal is just to stay ahead of them and keep pegging them with oil, alchemists fire, and tanglefoot bags to fall back away from them till they burn to death. slowing their speed by half is a huge advantage you aren't even considering.
How are the Shadows, hiding in the ground, even aware of the Factotum moving through the area? They can't see through the ground to see him coming. They'd take a minimum of a -5 on their listen checks to hear him and that's assuming the ground isn't stone. Even if they have Lifesight the ground would still break line of effect/sight so they couldn't see the light of his body coming.
Reading through this it almost seems like you're intentionally stacking the deck against your guy. Play to the Factotum's intelligence. He's an adventurer so would be prepared for a lot of these things, especially if he can get any forewarning.
If I have time after work I'll go through this and build a character who I think can accomplish this, with your listed conditions for books and such.
-
Don't forget to sneak-n-run with those alchemist fires. An inspiration point spent on Int-to-damage (or sneak attack with Craven, assuming you go for it) can cause a lot of damage in one go, and fire damage means they're taken out fairly quickly.
-
Reading through this it almost seems like you're intentionally stacking the deck against your guy.
That's exactly what he was doing.
-
It's too bad you've restricted them so much. You've even restricted one of the Complete books specifically made for the type of characters factotums represent perfectly, Complete Scoundrel. That's like leaving complete warrior out for fighters.
Change up some of the encounters for a city based game and that's where you'll see the factotum shine. Combat isn't the only way to gain XP, just the easiest to grant from the chart. Haggling, seducing maidens, entertaining the king, locating the town thieves guilds, are all examples of encounters that should gain you XP based on their difficulty without having to resort to killing things, at least some of the time.
Another tactic I've thought of for dealing with the Basilisk, heck any monster, a large cook pot with the inside coated in sovereign glue. . . permanent blinding for mundanes :D Good luck getting close enough to put it on reliably, but I guess that's what unseen servant is for.
-
Why is your factotum not using more alchemical items in at least the 5th level encounters?
Probably because most people instinctively shy away from tactics that wouldn't work in an actual game. In my experience, people will frown on a tactic that allows a Wizard to beat an encounter with no spells left, even though per SGT rules that's totally legal.
Likewise, any strategy that has you spend more money on a fight than treasure you are likely to return is going to be instinctively avoided despite technical legality. For example, the Factotum could almost certainly increase his level 10 success rate by declaring that he spent a bunch of money on a scroll of desecrate, some onyx, and paid tons of money for the right corpses, and then use his two Ettin skeletons in every fight to fight for him mostly, while he sneaks around and finishes off the enemies after they kill his skeletons. Now, that would cost more money per fight (and obviously, Ettin Corpses) than he gains back, so that's not a viable strategy at all for a real game, but it totally works in SGT.
And yet, in practice, SGT clerics or Wizards don't walk around with zombie minions either, even though they lack the one good reason the factotum might want to avoid that (stealth).
-
And yet, in practice, SGT clerics or Wizards don't walk around with zombie minions either, even though they lack the one good reason the factotum might want to avoid that (stealth).
To be fair, they rarely need to :p (and yes, I went and tracked down some SGT runs - including a couple mini-attempts with factotums. I've never seen such concentrated stupidity from every single person involved, ever. bkdubs, I understand your opening rant a bit better now :p)
-
bkdubs, I understand your opening rant a bit better now :p)
Given your helpful contribution to the thread I had imagined you understood it well enough already. Very glad you have a better understand of it now. ;)
-
bkdubs, I understand your opening rant a bit better now :p)
Given your helpful contribution to the thread I had imagined you understood it well enough already. Very glad you have a better understand of it now. ;)
=) Well, I read your OP, and went "well, that seems a little confrontational, but the idea is interesting", and now, I see where you were coming from^^
Overall, I have to say I really enjoyed playing my factotum in actual games, but it may be an edge case. I played that character in a group of 8 where I was the dedicated skill monkey/scout and I ended up going factotum 8/chameleon 10, and it could be I mostly enjoyed the chameleon part. /shrug
I do feel like a change though, and the group has been hinting that they want me to do skillmonkey again, so I guess it's time to see what another class can do in the same slot^^
-
I personally love the skill monkey role that factotums and rogues fill but I wouldn't consider myself a typical gamer. I analyze and over prepare for every character I play and rarely play a charater with an intelligence less than 16. Mostly so I can justify any idea that I come up with my character is far smarter than I am so would be able to do as well.
I love unconventional tactics and setting up traps for the enemies to fall into. If you've seen any of my Red Hand of Doom writeups you'll see how effective such plans can be. Don't think that I always expect them to work as planned, but if they do the expense of resources will be far below what could be expected for a challenge of that level. I know most gamers don't face the same level of danger that my groups face on a regular basis. It's common for my groups to face CR 3-6 levels higher then the party as par for course, usually a few of them per adventuring day with our characters always expecting reinforcements for the enemy to show up so we conserve our resources as much as possible.
I love the factotum class but acknowledge that there are some things they just can't do well which you've discovered. These weaknesses need to be planned for and with such can be reduced to acceptable levels. While the same game test can be an interesting mental exercise very few of these situations would actually come up with the characters by themselves. It should show the value of teamwork more than emphasize the strength of classes to go it alone.
I have seen the hording mentality in game as was mentioned, and personally try to avoid doing it with my own characters. What good is a pile of gold if your characters don't survive. Looking at the expected fights a few alchemical items would be a cheap price to pay to survive and succeed at them. Are you taking into account that the treasure for each of these fights isn't going to be split among the party per the standard arangement. If your character is out doing these by themselves they pretty much have to have a motivation beyond the loot alone. With crafting and time to do it the costs for items drops drastically as well and factotums are great at being able to just pick up a rank and then rocking out masterwork items with minimal investment compared to traditional characters.
If your character isn't getting paid in addition to the loot recieved then they can't really be in it for the wealth. People forget that the monsters themselves can be treasure. Ranks in survival are well worth it to be able to preserve the bodies of the monsters for delivery into town to sell for magic item components, hide or leather, decorations, and items to improve village pride. Normally this would be the pervue of the ranger, but 1 rank and the knowledge inspiration ability makes this trivial for a factotum to do as well. The locations can also be treasure. Hideouts, trade posts, reclaimed and cleaned temples can all prove to be valuable to the right organizations. Even caves can be useful for setting up camp grounds or starting points for mines or tunnel exploration and all such uses can be used to create further stories for the game in the future. Traps if disarmed and disassembled are stupidly valuable as parts. Most CR appropriate traps cost more than the things they are guarding. Being able to gather these assumes that you have time to do so. Games with deadlines will cut back on the additional treasure that you can pick up in these ways.
I would have had my factotum rolling Knowledge and gather info checks pior to the combats to be able to go into them expecting to fight the creatures in each. Without a chance to prepare with proper gear no factotum is going to do well in an ambush situation. I have difficulty coming at these as zero prior roleplay instances though so that may throw my perspective off. I assume that there is something that made my character be there and that he would have had time to get ready.
-
Wow, I didn't mean to kill this thread. Now I feel kinda bad.
-
Wow, I didn't mean to kill this thread. Now I feel kinda bad.
No, worries, Cage, you didn't kill it. I kinda just lost interest, because I felt like the thread had served its purpose. We discovered (through the power of mathematics!) that a horribadly built Factotum in an extremely restricted source environment is actually not appreciably worse than Rogue-level classes. Which is what I had always expected to be the case. We also discovered, through the power of playtesting, that the Factotum is a design mess that is no fun to play at all.
Is there anything else anyone would like me to explore about the Factotum?
What do the teeming masses think of my Factotum Redux (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=217570)?
-
We also discovered, through the power of playtesting, that the Factotum is a design mess that is no fun to play at all.
Which I find sad. Dungeonscape was one of the two last 3.5 books I got (two or three years ago), and a third of the reason was for that class. I never got a chance to play one, and I've been somewhat turned off from them from everything I've been reading. Oh well. At least it was a gift! :p
-
We also discovered, through the power of playtesting, that the Factotum is a design mess that is no fun to play at all.
JaronK would probably disagree.
-
We also discovered, through the power of playtesting, that the Factotum is a design mess that is no fun to play at all.
JaronK would probably disagree.
And I disagree with his first conclusion. fanboi's will be fanboi's though, and you can't stop us.
-
Well, my conclusion was more along the lines of "stripping away options from a class that's all about versatility makes it no fun to play", but that seemed pretty obvious from the start. I've actually played the factotum in games and enjoyed the class quite a bit (and yeah, it was without any iajutsu focus or quickrazor tricks). If you haven't ever played one in a real game, I wouldn't let this test discourage you from trying it out.
-
I really like my mostly-Factotum character, but damned if she isn't often frustrating and tricky to play. She tends to find unconventional solutions and ruthlessly calculates and compromises to optimize these.
The ability to get -any- spell is curiously nice.
-
I really like my mostly-Factotum character, but damned if she isn't often frustrating and tricky to play. She tends to find unconventional solutions and ruthlessly calculates and compromises to optimize these.
This ^, I believe, is a fair assessment of the Factotum class. If the goal was for the Factotum to pinch hit in any of the other character class roles with any degree of capability, then it is certainly a failure. Although that class would probably be a total pain in the ass to play anyway. I think Factotums are funky tool-box characters (no surprise there), that cater to unconventional gameplay tactics.
And, +1 Mooncrow.
-
So any fix would probably target the pain in the ass aspect alone.
-
Yeah, I've got a Warblade/Chameleon//Factotum and while he is fun and can pull all kinds of tricks he can certainly be a pain in the ass to keep up with his options and keep various bonuses added up.
-
We also discovered, through the power of playtesting, that the Factotum is a design mess that is no fun to play at all.
JaronK would probably disagree.
And I disagree with his first conclusion. fanboi's will be fanboi's though, and you can't stop us.
Well, since the point of this thread was to empirically show the Factotum's strengths and weaknesses once and for all, and since you have read the threads, I am, against my better judgement, going to try and argue the point.
I'm not sure how you can disagree. The Factotum I built was garbage, I'm not denying that, it was part of the point, and it still walks away with 40~45% success in SGT 5 and roughly 50% success in SGT 10. I thought running with a 50% success in the SGT was considered "Rogue-level" by Frank's standards. The fact that my build totally sucked and that other builds within the same limited source pool can be a lot better is just icing.
We also discovered, through the power of playtesting, that the Factotum is a design mess that is no fun to play at all.
Which I find sad. Dungeonscape was one of the two last 3.5 books I got (two or three years ago), and a third of the reason was for that class. I never got a chance to play one, and I've been somewhat turned off from them from everything I've been reading. Oh well. At least it was a gift! :p
Yeah, when I bought Dungeonscape I bought it because of the Factotum, because I loved the idea. When I first played it (only up to level 3 or something) I loved it. And I hadn't played it for a long time before I ran this thread.
I really like my mostly-Factotum character, but damned if she isn't often frustrating and tricky to play. She tends to find unconventional solutions and ruthlessly calculates and compromises to optimize these.
The ability to get -any- spell is curiously nice.
Well, I find myself wondering where her ability to find unconventional solutions comes from. Oh, her Wizard spells, yes. And that's the bulk of the Factotum's power, the ability to cast a few SLAs, once each per day. Yes, the versatility is astounding. The gameability leaves a lot to be desired.
I really like my mostly-Factotum character, but damned if she isn't often frustrating and tricky to play. She tends to find unconventional solutions and ruthlessly calculates and compromises to optimize these.
This ^, I believe, is a fair assessment of the Factotum class. If the goal was for the Factotum to pinch hit in any of the other character class roles with any degree of capability, then it is certainly a failure. Although that class would probably be a total pain in the ass to play anyway. I think Factotums are funky tool-box characters (no surprise there), that cater to unconventional gameplay tactics.
And, +1 Mooncrow.
It's not that the class can't be fun. You can have fun playing a CW Samurai. That doesn't mean that it's not a fucking pile of shit.
-
I'm not sure how you can disagree. The Factotum I built was garbage, I'm not denying that, it was part of the point, and it still walks away with 40~45% success in SGT 5 and roughly 50% success in SGT 10. I thought running with a 50% success in the SGT was considered "Rogue-level" by Frank's standards. The fact that my build totally sucked and that other builds within the same limited source pool can be a lot better is just icing.
And as I made clear, you declared a lot of things wins that I think aren't wins. Several of them could go either way, and if I were really curious, I would run probabilities or actually do the math on a well run 1/5/6 of SGT5 in order to find out whether the Factotum is 20% (what you actually showed) or 50%, because you made many highly questionable assumptions on those tests. (Including "I declare that my bag of tricks beats an encounter" which doesn't actually work for a number of reasons, which we could argue about if you want).
And then for the SGT10, you didn't even run it at all, and just declared a ton of wins with no basis, and assumed all the monsters are complete idiots, and made some more questionable assumptions (including declaring yourself the victor of another set of traps by virtue of owning a bag of tricks and taking several fucking days to make it down a hallway. Fuck, by that logic, the Fighter could just power attack through the ground and carve a tunnel and beat you to the end of the hallway).
-
I'm not sure how you can disagree. The Factotum I built was garbage, I'm not denying that, it was part of the point, and it still walks away with 40~45% success in SGT 5 and roughly 50% success in SGT 10. I thought running with a 50% success in the SGT was considered "Rogue-level" by Frank's standards. The fact that my build totally sucked and that other builds within the same limited source pool can be a lot better is just icing.
And as I made clear, you declared a lot of things wins that I think aren't wins. Several of them could go either way, and if I were really curious, I would run probabilities or actually do the math on a well run 1/5/6 of SGT5 in order to find out whether the Factotum is 20% (what you actually showed) or 50%, because you made many highly questionable assumptions on those tests. (Including "I declare that my bag of tricks beats an encounter" which doesn't actually work for a number of reasons, which we could argue about if you want).
And then for the SGT10, you didn't even run it at all, and just declared a ton of wins with no basis, and assumed all the monsters are complete idiots, and made some more questionable assumptions (including declaring yourself the victor of another set of traps by virtue of owning a bag of tricks and taking several fucking days to make it down a hallway. Fuck, by that logic, the Fighter could just power attack through the ground and carve a tunnel and beat you to the end of the hallway).
Out of curiosity, what class does beat the trap hallway? The rogue has lower disable device than the factotum, casters can't keep dispelling "an arbitrarily large number" of traps; is the only possibly win "scry and teleport"?
-
CR 5 or CR 10?
CR 5, probably, anything with constant healing, even as much as I dislike to call anything that sets off a bunch of alarms a win. The Rogue has a much higher search than that Factotum, seeing as he puts ranks in it, and that helps on the CR 5 front significantly.
CR 10, teleport is something, the other thing is that if you were building a rogue or factotum, you might want to get an item of + to search, and then avoid it/bypass it/solve it, but I'm not going to give credit to a Factotum that doesn't even put ranks in search for beating it. But if you actually want to beat a hallway like this, you want to a) be able to detect the symbols before they trigger on you, because the first on could be a symbol of death, b) once you know the symbols are there you get into really tricky arguments about ways to disable them without going within 60ft, and if those ways can be done without a disable device check.
-
I'm not sure how you can disagree. The Factotum I built was garbage, I'm not denying that, it was part of the point, and it still walks away with 40~45% success in SGT 5 and roughly 50% success in SGT 10. I thought running with a 50% success in the SGT was considered "Rogue-level" by Frank's standards. The fact that my build totally sucked and that other builds within the same limited source pool can be a lot better is just icing.
And as I made clear, you declared a lot of things wins that I think aren't wins. Several of them could go either way, and if I were really curious, I would run probabilities or actually do the math on a well run 1/5/6 of SGT5 in order to find out whether the Factotum is 20% (what you actually showed) or 50%, because you made many highly questionable assumptions on those tests. (Including "I declare that my bag of tricks beats an encounter" which doesn't actually work for a number of reasons, which we could argue about if you want).
Yes, and after our discussion, that 45-50% rating I'm talking about is after omitting wins that you convinced me were actually losses or probable losses. The shitty Factotum I built still pulls 45-50%. With a Wand of Detect Magic, and with preparing specifically for each encounter like you suggested, the Factotum will do significantly better in both SGTs.
And then for the SGT10, you didn't even run it at all, and just declared a ton of wins with no basis, and assumed all the monsters are complete idiots, and made some more questionable assumptions (including declaring yourself the victor of another set of traps by virtue of owning a bag of tricks and taking several fucking days to make it down a hallway.
No, if you actually read instead of putting words into my mouth you'd notice that not only did I never say anything remotely close to that, but I in fact said, "well, I fucked those traps encounters up, I hope my bag of tricks is good enough." Which was meant to imply that I was accepting defeat. The 50% win rate in SGT 10 (revised after our discussion) goes like this 1) loss, 2) win, 3) loss, 4) loss, 5) win, 6) loss, 7) loss, 8) win, 9) win, 10) win. I haven't gone back to alter the full analysis yet because I'm lazy and don't care.
But forget it, you're obviously just going to be a piece of shit and ignore any evidence that the Factotum, while being a horribly designed, unfun, shitty, no good class, is perfectly capable of running through the Same Game Tests at a Rogue's level. Feel free to wank all you want about how a Rogue is infinitely better, I don't give a fuck.
-
I think it's hard to infer that from one particular set of challenges with an idiosyncratic set of restrictions that a class is "unfun shitty etc". Nor do I even know how you'd "empirically verify" such a thing.
-
Yes, and after our discussion, that 45-50% rating I'm talking about is after omitting wins that you convinced me were actually losses or probable losses. The shitty Factotum I built still pulls 45-50%. With a Wand of Detect Magic, and with preparing specifically for each encounter like you suggested, the Factotum will do significantly better in both SGTs.
Which is not the same as the things that I am convinced (technically I am not convinced, but I suspect) are losses. For example, the Manticore and Phase Spider, which you count as wins for the level 5 Factotum in order to get your 45-50%.
I count 5 definite losses for the SGT5 Factotum. That's not including the Phase Spider or Manticore or traps. That's not a 50% win rate unless you can convincingly demonstrate victory on all three of those fronts.
No, if you actually read instead of putting words into my mouth you'd notice that not only did I never say anything remotely close to that, but I in fact said, "well, I fucked those traps encounters up, I hope my bag of tricks is good enough." Which was meant to imply that I was accepting defeat. The 50% win rate in SGT 10 (revised after our discussion) goes like this 1) loss, 2) win, 3) loss, 4) loss, 5) win, 6) loss, 7) loss, 8) win, 9) win, 10) win. I haven't gone back to alter the full analysis yet because I'm lazy and don't care.
2) You claimed a win because you can outgrapple something that you have a lower grapple modifier, color me unimpressed.
5) Something with constant Mirror Image, free action damaging spores that do on average 59 damage if used twice, a 35% chance of fighting two, and the ability to kite you with teleport. I'd love to see the analysis that results in a victory there.
8) A lower grapple modifier, and if any one of them initiates a grapple, they will all pile on, and you will never escape. If they attack you at all before you polymorph, you lose. But through the magic of giving the Factotum infinite preparation and surprise rounds against everything, you declare this a win, instead of a likely draw.
9) Again, without any math on the actual amount of Str damage you take, you declare this a win. Even though if they do 10 Str damage, they win, and they automatically get a surprise round on you. I would want to do math, but this is by no means clear.
10) That's not part of the regular SGT, I have no idea what their build is, and I have no idea what tactics you propose, this is a completely meaningless entry that makes no actual sense.
Actual SGT 10: 0 wins, 4 losses, 6 need maths.
But forget it, you're obviously just going to be a piece of shit and ignore any evidence that the Factotum... is perfectly capable of running through the Same Game Tests at a Rogue's level.
Before you whine about people ignoring evidence, you have to actually present it. I have regularly pointed out the flaws I find in your analysis, and expect people to be able to judge for themselves that you didn't actually present evidence, and have been often wrong. You also declared 5 wins without any analysis at all on SGT 10, and the one you did analysis on is predicated on outgrappling something with a higher grapple modifier.
Feel free to wank all you want about how a Rogue is infinitely better, I don't give a fuck.
Thanks for the outlandish and explosive vitriol. I remember when I said that earlier. Oh wait, I guess I didn't.