The Factotum's page

Gestalt - Inquisitor//Slayer with Alchemist VMC < Pretty much sums up a Witcher to me.

Ok I posted before but I have been reconsidering it and would love to get a build working on this idea.

The class is 3.5 so I won't discuss it here, but my name kind of gives it away.

Race would be Half-Elf with the alternate racial trait to lose the Skill Focus and gain a Exotic Weapon Prof. For a Gnomish weapon (Also 3.5 so I won't post it here)

Flaw Feat: (3.5 Feat to obtain a familiar)
Flaw Feat: (3.5 Feat to gain more inspiration points)
1rst Level feat: (3.5 feat to use Knowledge to deal more damage)
3rd Level Feat: Either VMC or Improved Familiar
5th Level Feat: Improved Familiar if not taken at 3rd.
7th Level Feat: Either VMC or Familiar Spell (Metamagic) or possibly Extend Spell (Metamagic)

Does this look ok?
The VMCs are either Bard or Magus as stated in the previous thread.
Magus synches up with that class well for its focus on INT and the Arcane Pool gives a way to buff weapons early and makes up for a 3/4 BAB in combat roles. But the Arcanas that open up are pretty nice, and it does not bar taking Extra Arcana like the witch and other VMCs do.

Bard gives 1/2 Level to Knowledge rolls which will come into play more with the feat taken at 1rst level to add more damage to combat. But also Bard gives performances at later levels and could be used to help buff the party.

At one point I was going to make a half-elf investigator with pretty much zero combat capability and just max out my skills as the entire focus of my character and just RP it up because I am sick of all the crap listed previously. I may end up doing that next and see what happens.

Not sure, the Dungeon-dex is a good character to play, it gives intel but it could also result in problems as if you roll to high on the knowledge rolls, or any other skill check you could make him start giving more information then he wants to give.

The others posts who claim he might be too attached may be right. He is also probably wanting to GM for those people who are rather new or don't do anything but bare minimum for character development because it is an easier job.

Basically to keep a barbarian entertained for combat make the AC reasonable and the HP high and the Barb will have fun hacking away at the meat block in front of him. For your characters it may be that you know too well how to bring them down and so he feels that combat is not taking as long as it should.

RDM42 wrote:

Examples of the 'special perks?'?

He gave the channeling cleric a set of rings that he can pass out to party members. If they are wearing them, his channel acts as if it were selective. Yes, this one benefits everyone - so this is perhaps a minor one. This would be an INCREDIBLY expensive set of items though, and this was at level 3.

He has awared the tank character with magic armor, weapon, ring(s).

I have NO magic items, and not enough gold to buy the ones I want/need. All the loot value has been wrapped up in what he awards.

He allows people extra reflex saves and d20 rolls of all sorts to avoid danger or perform special attacks that deal extra damage or have extra effects, while he makes me REROLL saves or makes me roll additional saves to avoid dangers. He makes me call "evens/odds" all the time to determine whether or not my character does something that I never declared he did... I can't recall everything, but the idea is that this is a chronic issue.

Yeah consider my advice about the thick book and the side of his head. This is pretty bad (if true)

Cyrad wrote:

Do you roleplay at all? How does your GM run his games? Does he love roleplaying and story? Give your characters personality. I personally don't enjoy running games for characters with no likable personality.

We do roleplay as much as we can. I am the face of the party in some sense actually. I interact by far the most with NPCs and get into the story as much as I can.

The GM is a big roleplayer, yes. I thought that by getting into this more he would let off of singling my characters out, but it hasn't helped.

Then a bard is gonna piss him off more I think. Sounds like he sees you are trying to take all the fun. All the Damage and all the Talking, why do the others show up to be your backup dancers? I don't see if that way but I can get the viewpoint.

But the way you spoke made me think that you just recently got into the RP as heavily. Just talk to him, explain your not trying to take away everyone else's enjoyment.

But also, be a little firm and make sure if this is gonna be a Witch hunt then have your witch begin falling back when combat hits, don't talk to the NPCs and so forth. Pull your character back and when the PARTY begins to notice the loss explain to them why, the GM is singling you out so you are not gonna do anything to get singled out. Bet the party has words with him about it.

Just a Guess wrote:

I have had similar experiences to the OP. And most of my PCs would be laughed at by the optimizers here on the boards.

Most of the time it is not so much during the game but when handing in characters before play. Mine get nerfed while others get allowed things that are not RAW. It reached a point where I contemplated sending my pc to one of the other players so he can hand in both his pc and mine without telling which is his and which is mine to have my PC treated more fairly.

One of the reasons is: I know what my PCs can do and am often too honest about it while other players just lie to the GM pretending their PC was weak.

Another point is that I see fluff as mutable but one of my GMs sees it as more fixed than rules. He'd rather allow another player special rules than me to play something contrary to the fluff. An example is: I wanted to play a Halfling thundercaller bard but was not allowed because thundercaller is a shoanti archetype and thus only shoanti may take it.

YES - he does this too!

All my characters are within the rules of the game. I do not bend or push ANY. Yet, he has given special treatment to others by giving them unique items, allowing them to perform "special" maneuvers, etc. I drives me bonkers.

Yeah if it is as bad as that then you need to quit the group. If he is giving out special perks to everyone else and punishing you. He is being passive aggressive and is trying to make you want to quit. You can quit and call him a dick or make him the dick. Make a character that is a downright copy of a other players former character, down to copying the sheet if they still have it. Let that player know of course and when the GM starts complaining about it just give that player a look like 'See?' it will spread through the group of players that yeah he is indeed singling you out and if you are using someone elses character that is NOT optimized then it shows it even more.

Or you know.. take a nice thick hardback version and slap the s%~$ out of him with it till he learns his lesson lol.

The problem when you say you like to Optimize is that people assume Pun Pun when you say that. People assume you are looking through every book, every minute detail and trying to exploit every rules folly.

Loads of them presume that is what people mean by optimizing. Some GMs consider optimizing if you build toward a goal that makes you better. I mean if we break down the term picking a Greatsword over a Longsword is optimizing to some small degree.

For this situation yes do go and talk to the GM, explain your problem and ask what his views on.

If things don't get better make it a point to the other players that he is singling YOU out and see if they feel the same. If you bring a completely worthless character to the table and he is still giving you crap about it make it known to them that this is vindictive. Because when you leave he will likely just move on to one of them to vent any frustration out on.

But yes pick up a support class, I love them but I know some people don't like to shine. I can think of several excuses right now for why bards are too OP.

Unearthed Arcana had the Warrior class where you traded feats for class features. 1 feat granted you Evasion, so you could make someone pretty hard to kill with a class like that.

Well magus gives the arcane pool which is always useful on a 3/4bab build. Arcana can be added to add things such as precise strike onto the damage from things like iaijutsu focus and knowledge devotion.

Yeah i seems like the Investigator was suppose to be a near perfect match of the Factotum. But I do believe the designers at Paizo did make the Factotum

Ehm, what exactly are you converting if you are able to keep both the class and the feats that no longer exists in pathfinder?

Anyway, spellstrike does not work with SLA AFAIK.

Converting it over, also changing up the Opportunistic Piety ability to make it channeling.

And I did not know that, hmm.

Hello all,

Recently my group has changed GMs and the new one prefers the Pathfinder system. While I too love the system we had been playing a 3.5 Based game with Pathfinder material. Well it seems now its going to switch to a Pathfinder based game with 3.5 Material.

My character is about to become a level 6 character, our session was last night and we haven't updated characters yet.

My class was Factotum, and I have read through some of the forum and people say its a great fit into Pathfinder so I am not too worried about that. But I am stuck on which VMC to use. I am being allowed to retrain all feats to make this work.

I have two flaws
Insomniac (Must succeed on a fortitude save to get a full night's rest.)
and
Wild (Whenever entangled, pinned or bound, immediately become panicked.)

And I am human, so with those and the feats gained through normal leveling I would have 5 feats if I lose my 3rd level feat to VMC.

Now I am heavily focused on using Knowledge rolls, I had Knowledge Devotion and I think I will be keeping it. This feat in short makes use of knowledge rolls to deal extra damage.

My two main options for VMC is the Bard and the Magus.
Bard for the Bardic Knowledge and possibly the performances, it is flavorful to the Factotum style.
Magus due to the synergy with the Int focused Factotum and spellstrike can be used using his Arcane dilettante class feature. Also Arcana can be used for various effects. (even possibly adding damage via Precise Strike deed)

Any advice for me?