1) JaronK, starting level is level 5, so all this is not terribly urgent since you won't be playing that character.
I was testing the waters. The instant hostility makes me think this is not a good idea, though Tshern DMing it seems better.
2) JaronK, you have not noticed a very important aspect of Item Familiar: from the SRD: "Be usable by the character (if it is a weapon, the character must be proficient with the appropriate category of weapon)."
So in fact you must rearrange your feat order in order to even have the familiar, and with Item Familiar taken at level 6, you can only invest 53 skill points into it, instead of the 78 you invested.
Unless I swapped a Font instead, which doesn't change anything.
3) As regards losing the item familiar, actually, investing everything in his familiar is the smartest thing he could do, since if he loses it ever for any reason, then he can throw away the results for the whole test on the grounds of 'evil biased DM
I don't argue like that. Instead, I made the Familiar into something as hard to destroy as possible. Dwarvencraft gives it better saves and hitpoints. Adamantine gives it plenty of hardness. And Sleight of Hand means that enemies can't find it. Plus, in combat it's only out while I'm striking, and it's otherwise not visible, so very few things can target it.
Result: Yes, it would take a DM dedicated to taking it out to actually lose the thing, usually with an abitrary "all your stuff is gone for no reason" kind of thing. Right now, the Factotum can hide it so well even a dedicated search wouldn't find it. Luckily, however, we're talking about pregenerated scenarios, right? So that's far less likely to occur, and I honestly think the defenses I gave for it are enough to get the job done.
4) Tshern, the Item familiar is being used to gain the benefits of the Craven feat, and to gain extra XP, and to set up an area to blame the biased DM.
That last is how you operate, not how I do.
5) JaronK, where is this rogue versus Factotum stuff on some other thread?
Classes forum. It's this same Factotum, made according to Hida's challenge rules (and also the rules of the campaign I'm keeping him as a backup character for... and yes, it's already approved by the DM). His response was to post an illegal character (way over wealth) that was non functional (tried to take 10 on UMD) while claiming that Craft Wonderous Items shouldn't be legal for characters with spell like abilities (it explicitly is allowed, via a page he himself cited when trying to prove it illegal, as an example of what's allowed).
Feel free to throw in your own.
[qutoe]6) Every single person but you is against Item Familiar. I don't know how this is a biased group, certainly Uber is, and I am, though I hate Item Familiar for everyone, even Rogues who use it to gain bonuses to Hide and/or Iajitsu and/or MS and/or UMD. I don't konw if emissary or Wordslinger have been against you in the past, because I don't even know them. And if you really think Tshern is biased, well he's the one that is supposed to make sure I'm fair.[/quote]
Tshern just said it was okay. So did my DM, which is why it's there.
7) CWI. This is going to be fun.
Huh?
a) You took it at level 9 for a level 10 character, that means you spent all that XP while being the same level as everyone else in the party. You don't get more XP then them because they where level 9 and so where you. Everyone in the party for the level 10 challenge has exactly the XP to level to level 10.
b) You had more XP then them for 7 straight levels, so you would have gained less XP then them for all those levels, but I see you didn't mention that.
Unless I was spending the extra Exp on the Item Familiar (since you can effectively craft it). In which case your arguement falls apart.
c) Going from level 9 to level 10 means you gained 9000XP. Because of your additional 10% you gained 9900XP in the time everyone else gained 9000XP. Even assuming you hit level 9 at exactly the same time as everyone else, and that you spent every single XP on crafting your Item Familiar before you reached that level, you still spent 2184XP on CWI alone for that one level. So you would start the game 1284XP short of level 10.
Unless we didn't gain EXACTLY the amount of exp required to hit level 10.
Even assuming that for some reason, with more XP then your party you still managed to gain the exact same amount of XP as them, you would still have only an additional 3600XP more then them from your other 8 levels. After spending that on your CWI and your Item Familiar, you would still have 2000XP more then the rest of the party, assuming the don't take Item Familiar. And in that case, you still gain less XP then everyone else.
Okay, do I have more exp or less? You can't seem to tell.
Look, starting from whenever I gained the Item Familiar, I was both gaining extra exp per encounter and able to spend that exp on something. You can't assume I always had more exp than the group, or that I always had less, whenever it suits you.
Bottomline JaronK, if Factotums can't keep up without breaking WBL and breaking the RNG (or what's left of it) in ways that aren't included in 99% of all games, just say so. Just say, "I need Item Familiar because without it, Factotums can't keep up with Warblades of Ardents of Shugenas. I need it to not suck." But don't sit here and complain about a biased vote.
No, I just made the character. That's it. I wanted a character that didn't have to depend on getting gear somewhere else, because for the other campaign he was designed for, that's important.
Go ask any ten people anywhere on the fucking internet if a game running a party through a series of WotC modules should use Item Familiars to pay for crafting and automatically get double WBL, or if they should use Item familiars at all. That vote is always going to be against using them. Because everyone except you. That's right, fucking everyone, knows that Item Familiar is too fucking good. For anyone.
You are not the voice of the entire internet. And complaining "oh, the Factotum you made was too strong when I was trying to prove how weak they are" isn't impressive.
JaronK