Building a factotum


Advice


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I'm looking to make a character who can do just about anything any other character can do, at least well enough to be considered "carrying his weight." A truly versatile factotum who can fight in melee and ranged, cast spells, has lots of skills, etc.

How might you make such a character?

Liberty's Edge

A bard with a collection of wands and scrolls and a high UMD.

Or an Alchemist with a high intelligence, lots of scrolls and wands, pragmatic activator and a high UMD.


Ravingdork wrote:

I'm looking to make a character who can do just about anything any other character can do, at least well enough to be considered "carrying his weight." A truly versatile factotum who can fight in melee and ranged, cast spells, has lots of skills, etc.

How might you make such a character?

Bard or Inquisitor might be a good start. You might have to multiclass into a fighter or ranger to get a few bonus feats depending on what you want to do most. Then go back to inquisitor or bard.


Or go the GM dreaded Synthesist Summoner rout for good spells, OP melee, and lots of annoyed teammates and DM's.

Or go a full druid wildshaping, wildmagic user. Turn into a big bad monster and cast spells as you fight, with an animal companion beside you to boot.

Liberty's Edge

Assuming that you mean factotum by its actual definition, it should not require much finagling.

"a person having many diverse activities or responsibilities"

That is pretty much summed up by a few classes anyway.


off the top of my head i'd say bard--they can fight, skillmonkey, and spellsling very competently.

anything with battle dance is freaking crazy in melee if built right, but tend to lose out on non-combat utility (other than spells)


Archaeologist Bard with Pageant of the Peacock does a fine job of emulating the Factotum. You can disable traps, use Bluff to make you great at all INT skills. You aren't especially stat dependent and if you pick half-elf as your race you can gain additional performance rounds easily and when you feel you have enough pick up more spells. This also qualifies you for Paragon Surge which you can use to expand to your spell list to everything on both the Bard and Wizard/Sorcerer lists with the help of Eldritch Heritage Arcane (specifically take IEH with Paragon Surge) or pick up a clutch feat. High Dex and some bonus combat feats off your Rogue talents makes you a good archer and you can either pick Weapon Finesse + Agile weapon to cover melee or go the Dervish Dancer Route (this is feat heavy even with your extra feats from Rogue Talents). You have the required crafter level to craft and you can bluff being the best crafter for any craft. Don't forget to take Fate's Favored!

If you are willing to rely on Aram Zey's Focus for your magical trap disarming needs (or Trap Finder Trait), Dawnflower Dervish gets excellent buffs to its combat abilities and the Pageant of the Peacock/bonus spells/paragon surge can all be applied to it as well. You won't have quite as many feats to work with though since you don't get the Rogue Talents, though you do get Dervish Dance for free. Of course Dawnflower Dervish can exploit both Versatile Performance and Pageant of the Peacock to rely be rolling in skills.


Investigator is pretty versatile, but doesn't quite keep up in the magic department.

In the full caster arena:
an urban druid with the charm or knowledge domain - doesn't do magical traps, but can be a good diplomat, healer, and fighter.

Another option is seeker oracle archetype - maybe order of the flame, for the blasting. Could be a handy general purpose type.

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