Author Topic: The Factotum's Handbook  (Read 338832 times)

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Ivory Knight

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #400 on: July 08, 2011, 08:15:13 AM »
Given the wording of Cunning Brilliance, wouldn't the called Unicorn disappear after 1 minute(since it clearly is a benefit of the chosen ability)?

stanprollyright

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #401 on: July 08, 2011, 09:44:36 AM »
Ok I was looking up more EX abilities to use in conjunction with the Factotums Cunning Brilliance ability. Here is what I came up with...

*Advanced Learning (Ex)
*Mantle (Ex)
*Sustaining Shadow (Ex) No need to eat, sleep, breathe, immune to nonmagical poison & disease.
*Elude Touch (Ex) Bonus to touch AC equal to Charisma.
*Unicorn Companion (Ex) Haha 1/day call a a Unicorn for 2 hours/level. The kicker is at higher levels we can summon a Lammasu, Gynosphinx, Water Naga, Androsphinx, or a freaking Couatl. (Psionic Plane Shift and Ethereal Jaunt AT WILL? Hell yes!)
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Now during my searching I came upon an interesting question which I do not believe I have seen answered. If an EX grants you a permenant increase of some kind, does that increase remain even after the 1 minute time limit. By strict RAW interpretation of the ability I believe it would work. It specifically states that you "gain the benefits and drawbacks of one chosen ability for 1 minute."

Gaining the benefit of the ability will give us a permenant stat bonus; however, one could argue that now that bonus point to your stat is a permenant addition and no longer attached to the ability. Therefore if the ability goes away the stat increase would stay. Obviously this interpretation is highly cheesy and more than likely it boils down to a legal terminology war. Either way here are some nifty abilities that could be useful assuming we can permenantly add stat bonuses.

*Dragon Augmentation (Ex) Permenant +1 to Str, Dex, or Con? Of course.
*Knowledge Focus (Ex) The effect is a permanent +3 untyped bonus to any knowledge skill. (All you gods of knowledge eat your heart out.)
*Expanded Soulmeld Capacity (Ex): Permenant +1 increase to your essentia capacity of your soulmelds. (Given time and the proper feats I see much abuse.)
*Totem's Protection (Ex) +4 untyped bonus on saving throws against supernatural abilities of magical beasts. (Once again this is a permenant bonus)
*Still Mind (Ex) +2 bonus on saving throws against spells and effects from the enchantment school. (Permenant untyped bonus.)

Please do correct me if there has been a Customer Service ruling on this or if my interpretation is blatently off.


Considering the bonuses ARE those abilities, why would they last any longer than the ability itself?  The bonuses are only permanent if the abilities are too.

Further, if it did work that way, a factotum would just infinitely stack all those untyped bonuses.

Agita

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #402 on: July 08, 2011, 10:09:05 AM »
I don't see how a bonus granted by an ability could be permanent if the ability itself isn't.
Stacking the bonuses, at least, isn't possible, as they would all come from the same ability - so even if the bonuses are permanent (which is doubtful, at best), you can't stack then to near infinity.
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The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #403 on: July 08, 2011, 03:28:32 PM »
Given the wording of Cunning Brilliance, wouldn't the called Unicorn disappear after 1 minute(since it clearly is a benefit of the chosen ability)?
Possibly not.  I imagine it'd be a like a spellthief stealing a paladin's (sp) Summon Mount ability - he only has the summoning ability for a minute, but he can keep the mount around after he no longer is able to summon it.
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JaronK

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #404 on: July 08, 2011, 04:18:02 PM »
It seems to me that abilities like "summon an X" will last beyond the duration of Cunning Brilliance, because the ability was to summon it, and you did that in the minute time.  Likewise, gaining the ability to cast a specific spell or Sp ability might go away after a minute, but the spell itself won't go away.

But for stuff like Still Mind and would go away, because the bonus is the ability.  It's like a permanent effect... removing the ability again removes the bonus.

With that said... Advanced Learning just adds a spell to your spell list.  It functions much like an instantaneous effect.  That could theoretically be permanent (it would matter for spells that require experience costs) but that seems sketchy at best.  I'd say in the end it's just stuff like spells, Sp abilities, and such that you can keep past the one minute, while permanent bonuses won't stay.

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #405 on: July 08, 2011, 04:24:55 PM »
Even so, the ability to summon a creature with at will planar and ethereal travel capabilities is not too shabby for an EX ability.
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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #406 on: July 08, 2011, 05:26:11 PM »
What about using Cunning Brilliance to emulate a fighter's feats, then casting (Permanencied) Mirror Move?
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Jackinthegreen

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #407 on: July 09, 2011, 02:51:54 AM »
Check the errata.

Quote
Page 80: Divine Metamagic feat
The boldface text needs to be added to the Benefit paragraph of the feat description:
When you take this feat, choose a metamagic feat that you have. This feat applies only to that metamagic feat. As a free action, you can take the energy from turning or rebuking undead and use it to apply a metamagic feat to divine spells that you know. . . .

Curse you Errata...  In that case, here's something that is guaranteed to be useful for a Factotum, among many other classes:

Combine Imperious Command with the Fearsome armor enhancement (both from DotU in this case.) Fearsome armor allows a character to Intimidate as a move action and due to the armor spikes from Fearsome, a character with Reach still threatens adjacent squares.  Add in Death Blow from Complete Adventurer, allowing the Factotum to Coup de Grace as a standard action.  A Guisarme works well for this with its x3 crit mod, but a Lucerne Hammer with its x4 mod is ideal since it's reach as well.  This method is particularly effective for a Factotum due to Cunning Surge and Never Outnumbered.  Make one Intimidate, scare a bunch of creatures to cowering/helpless, then proceed to Cunning Surge one or more extra enemies to death.

Edit: I post this because the OP didn't really do this strategy justice given how little he said on it.
« Last Edit: July 09, 2011, 03:08:30 AM by Jackinthegreen »

stanprollyright

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #408 on: July 09, 2011, 02:59:59 PM »
What about using Cunning Brilliance to emulate a fighter's feats, then casting (Permanencied) Mirror Move?

According to RAW you have to observe another person using the feat for Mirror Move to work.  But it doesn't sound like a difficult sell on the DM if he's already allowing permancied Mirror Moves...

bigdaddy843

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #409 on: July 31, 2011, 05:11:06 PM »
Is there any reason why we should use EWP: Quickrazor rather than simply the quickdraw feat?

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #410 on: July 31, 2011, 05:33:41 PM »
What about using Cunning Brilliance to emulate a fighter's feats, then casting (Permanencied) Mirror Move?

According to RAW you have to observe another person using the feat for Mirror Move to work.  But it doesn't sound like a difficult sell on the DM if he's already allowing permancied Mirror Moves...
Yet another trick for dvati twins?
[spoiler]Masculine men like masculine things. Masculine men are masculine. Therefore, liking masculine men is masculine.

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JaronK

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #411 on: July 31, 2011, 06:48:22 PM »
Is there any reason why we should use EWP: Quickrazor rather than simply the quickdraw feat?

Because the Quickrazor can also be sheathed as a free action, which is critical for Iaijutsu Focus.

Also, Gnomes (and Whispergnomes) get free proficiency in that weapon, so it doesn't cost a feat.

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #412 on: July 31, 2011, 06:51:14 PM »
If you don't want to be a gnome and you don't want to use a feat, there's always an aptitude quickrazor.
[spoiler]Masculine men like masculine things. Masculine men are masculine. Therefore, liking masculine men is masculine.

I dare anyone to find a hole in that logic.
______________________________________
[/spoiler]I'm a writer. These are my stories. Some are even SFW! (Warning: Mostly Gay.)
My awesome poster collection. (Warning, some are NSFW.)
Agita's awesome poster collection.
[spoiler]
+1 Lycanthromancer
Which book is Lycanthromancer in?
Lyca ... is in the book. Yes he is.
 :D
shit.. concerning psionics optimization, lycan IS the book
[/spoiler]

snakeman830

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #413 on: August 01, 2011, 12:17:23 PM »
If you don't want to be a gnome and you don't want to use a feat, there's always an aptitude quickrazor.
which has the issue of requiring a different Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat...
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Nachofan99

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #414 on: August 01, 2011, 07:30:24 PM »
Does "Standard Character class" preclude the ability to use Cunning Brilliance for any Racial Substiution levels?

Jackinthegreen

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #415 on: August 01, 2011, 08:28:54 PM »
Does "Standard Character class" preclude the ability to use Cunning Brilliance for any Racial Substiution levels?
This one would probably be up to the DM.  He might rule you have to be of the appropriate race to do it, otherwise it doesn't work.  No Alter Self shenanigans either.

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #416 on: August 03, 2011, 07:51:31 PM »
Does "Standard Character class" preclude the ability to use Cunning Brilliance for any Racial Substiution levels?

From what I've seen, yes.  In a few cases, ACFs in general are referred to as being options instead of "standard classes" which indicates that a standard class is any class that can be entered at level 1, is 20 levels long (not counting Epic), and is not using an ACF.

Dungeonscape, PHBII, and DMG all use the notation "Standard Class."  Note that Base Class actually seems to be just the 11 PHB classes... that word gets used wrong a lot, though it doesn't matter in the rules as far as I know.

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #417 on: August 04, 2011, 03:57:16 PM »
Note that a factotum can't use the ability to grab the psionic feats of a psywar or psion. Those are Su abilities. He could grab the psywar feats that are fighter feats, but you might as well grab fighter feats instead, unless you plan on stacking them all together.
[spoiler]Masculine men like masculine things. Masculine men are masculine. Therefore, liking masculine men is masculine.

I dare anyone to find a hole in that logic.
______________________________________
[/spoiler]I'm a writer. These are my stories. Some are even SFW! (Warning: Mostly Gay.)
My awesome poster collection. (Warning, some are NSFW.)
Agita's awesome poster collection.
[spoiler]
+1 Lycanthromancer
Which book is Lycanthromancer in?
Lyca ... is in the book. Yes he is.
 :D
shit.. concerning psionics optimization, lycan IS the book
[/spoiler]

Eviltedzies

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #418 on: August 09, 2011, 07:27:35 PM »
Question 277: The Factotum ability Cunning Brilliance states "By spending 4 inspiration points as a free action, you gain the benefit and drawbacks of one chosen ability for 1 minute." and shortly after it states "You can use each chosen ability once per day."

My question is about the wording of the ability.
Does this mean we can copy the feats of a level 20 fighter, but that we could only use each feat once? If so, why would the ability stipulate that you gain the benefit and drawbacks of the chosen ability for 1 minute?

OR

Does this mean that if I choose Sneak Attack, Fighter Feats, and Manuevers as my list of mimicable abilities for the day I can only use each ability 1/day instead of say using Sneak Attack twice and Fighter Feats once?

The odd wording has me slightly confused.
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Jackinthegreen

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Re: The Factotum's Handbook
« Reply #419 on: August 10, 2011, 12:24:20 AM »
Just think of it as you can use each of the abilities for 1 minute each day.  In the case of copying Fighter feats, you can use them as much as you want within the 1 minute time frame.

In the case of choosing the same extraordinary ability twice, I'd say that they can't be used at the same time, but can be used within the same 24 hour period.