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AngelOmnipotent
2009-08-26, 06:44 AM
Hello!

My current DM allowed us to roll up Gestalt characters for a small, fun game. We didn't go for intentional powergaming. The plan was to just try out a class that we'd never played before and stick it with another class we'd never played before.

Without really thinking about powergaming, I picked Factotum//Duskblade, and the other 2 people picked Druid (Shapeshifting variant)//Rogue and Warblade//Warmage.

Well this is where things started to be a bit broken when we realised how we'd actually chosen really powerful combos, even at level 5.

However, I just want to get this straight:

Factotum//Duskblade. Level 5 With feats and a 20 INT, I had 10 Inpiration. I realised, assuming I caught an enemy flatfooted, I was able to Shocking Grasp Arcane Channel into my Falchion for 2d4+5d6, with a potential 10d6 sneak attack damage on top of it.

I have a feeling I was doing something terribly wrong there as this little weedy book-reader turned into a complete boom-stick. Does the sneak attack bonus stack, and if it does is it limited to how much a Rogue of your level would get? If it is only limited by what inspiration you have, what's a good way to balance it out? :smalleek:

Eloel
2009-08-26, 06:48 AM
Factotum gets 1d6 maximum SA/attack. You got that wrong.

Saph
2009-08-26, 06:50 AM
"Gestalt" and "balance" do not belong in the same sentence. :P

I don't know Factotums very well, but I don't think you did anything seriously wrong. Gestalt characters are crazy powerful; that's the whole reason people play them. The best way to tone the power level down is not to play gestalt.

- Saph

AngelOmnipotent
2009-08-26, 06:55 AM
"Gestalt" and "balance" do not belong in the same sentence. :P

You didn't do anything wrong. Gestalt characters are crazy powerful; that's the whole reason people play them. The best way to tone the power level down is not to play gestalt.

- Saph

Gestalt is fine, it all depends on your class combos. Especially when 3 level 5 characters were in a level 8 adventure. It was a challenge if we didn't get first initiative. Afterall you only have one standard action per round (or in my case, at lower levels anyway!) and one hit point pool. I really didn't realise how much the combo was broken.

@ ozgun - I didn't read anything in the book, or errata, saying that it can only be used once per round or attack. IIRC Sneak attack stacks?

raitalin
2009-08-26, 06:59 AM
I suppose if you used all your inspiration in one shot, then yeah that works. Just don't miss. You DM will learn quick not to put you in combats involving only one enemy, or will give that enemy concealment or make it something immune to SA.

And I'm assuming you took Font of Inspiration 3 times to get all those points?

Saph
2009-08-26, 07:04 AM
Gestalt is fine, it all depends on your class combos. Especially when 3 level 5 characters were in a level 8 adventure. It was a challenge if we didn't get first initiative. Afterall you only have one standard action per round (or in my case, at lower levels anyway!) and one hit point pool. I really didn't realise how much the combo was broken.

I think your own first post disproves the "Gestalt is balanced" idea pretty conclusively. :smalltongue: Sure, you only get one standard action a round. Except that the Factotum's SA ability doesn't take an action, so by tacking it on to the Duskblade's Arcane Channelling ability, you get crazy high damage for very little effort.

I'm not sure what you're really asking here, to be honest. Are you asking whether the combo is legal, or whether the combo is balanced?

AngelOmnipotent
2009-08-26, 07:04 AM
I suppose if you used all your inspiration in one shot, then yeah that works. Just don't miss. You DM will learn quick not to put you in combats involving only one enemy, or will give that enemy concealment or make it something immune to SA.

And I'm assuming you took Font of Inspiration 3 times to get all those points?

Well after I did it once I don't like to ruin encounters so we limited it to the sneak attack that a rogue of the same level would get. It seems like a decent fix to me.

Yeah I took font of inspiration, but that was when I thought that inspiration was per day and not per encounter. Would switching to per day work do you think? With this character specifically.

AngelOmnipotent
2009-08-26, 07:07 AM
I think your own first post disproves the "Gestalt is balanced" idea pretty conclusively. :smalltongue: Sure, you only get one standard action a round. Except that the Factotum's SA ability doesn't take an action, so by tacking it on to the Duskblade's Arcane Channelling ability, you get crazy high damage for very little effort.

I'm not sure what you're really asking here, to be honest. Are you asking whether the combo is legal, or whether the combo is balanced?

Sorry for double post, but it was to ask whether it was legal, and since it's silly what would be the best course of action to knock it down a few power levels :smallwink:

Saph
2009-08-26, 07:12 AM
The best way would probably be to ban Font of Inspiration - it's a very badly designed feat, as it gives you extra inspiration in an arithmetic progression, thus encouraging Factotums to take the feat a dozen or so times and gain enough inspiration points to solo Asmodeus. I think someone posted a high-level Factotum build once that was capable of taking about 30 standard actions in one round.

Whammydill
2009-08-26, 07:12 AM
Dunno about gestalt. Never tried it, never will. Screams munchkinism to me and thats not my group's style. However if your GM let you make powerful characters, its up to him to challenge you, not for you to tone down your characters, unless he side-bars it and asks you guys to roll it back, since it is experimental for you at this stage.

Myself, if I undershoot the difficulty on an encounter and it makes sense for it to happen, I just bring in reinforcements for the badguys, and only when it's dramatically important for the fight to be challenging and not OTKs.

raitalin
2009-08-26, 07:12 AM
Well after I did it once I don't like to ruin encounters so we limited it to the sneak attack that a rogue of the same level would get. It seems like a decent fix to me.

Yeah I took font of inspiration, but that was when I thought that inspiration was per day and not per encounter. Would switching to per day work do you think? With this character specifically.

It really doesn't seem overpowered RAW to me, the DM just needs to know its coming and plan accordingly, I think. You spent (all?) of your feats on FoI, so you should be able to do something with it. Per day would be decidedly underpowered.

Like I said, if you're facing multiple combatants, undead/constructs/elementals or an enemy with concealment (any amount of concealment makes you immune to SA) then nova-ing all your inspiration in one shot isn't a great idea.

If your DM feels limiting the SA to a rogue appropriate level is called for, that seems fine, further fixes shouldn't be necessary until you get access to Cunning Surge, which should *definitely* be limited to 1/rd.

kamikasei
2009-08-26, 07:39 AM
Factotum gets 1d6 maximum SA/attack. You got that wrong.

I know of nothing to support this. The ability just says you can spend one point to add 1d6 of Sneak Attack. It's not listed as an action of any sort; there's every reason to assume you can spend as many points to gain as many die as you wish and have available.


Well this is where things started to be a bit broken when we realised how we'd actually chosen really powerful combos, even at level 5.

If you've all chosen powerful combos then you don't have that much of a problem. The difficulty with Gestalt is that the gulf between most and least powerful options is widened from the normal class system. So long as you're all able to contribute, it just means the DM has to throw harder encounters at you (or more of them). This is a fairly good sort of problem to have, as these things go.


I have a feeling I was doing something terribly wrong there as this little weedy book-reader turned into a complete boom-stick.

Your "little weedy book-reader" has full BAB, good HD, armor and shields, and is able to be a better athlete simply by virtue of being smart. He casts spells in to the bargain, drawn from a list that make him better at killing people with sharp bits of metal. You may need to realign your expectations. Duskblade on its own is famously a nova class.

The real issue is that Factotum grants a bunch of neat abilities on the assumption that you can only use them now and then or to supplement your not-quite-the-best static abilities. Pair them up with better static abilities - and especially, pair a casting class up with the "spend inspiration for extra actions" ability - and things start to unravel.

The proper course of action is twofold: restraint on your part, and rebalancing of encounters by the DM.

You might consider just dropping your Font of Inspiration feats, since as you say you took them thinking you needed much more Inspiration to get through a day than you actually do. I'd sooner do that than switch it to a per-day ability - better smaller bursts available throughout the day than the ability to burn all that inspiration in one ridiculous hypernova once per day.

woodenbandman
2009-08-26, 10:08 AM
If you are allowed to do that, it's hardly broken. A lot of things can get higher damage than 15d6 (average 51) at low levels like that. Just wait a level when the barbarians have Shock Trooper and then you'll witness the horror of 2 attacks dealing 2d6 + 20 damage each, at a + 12 to hit, no less. And a third attack for laughs. Or wait for this level, when the Psychic Warrior has Expansion and hits with his claws of 2d6 and his bite of 2d6+1d8 and whatever else. Totemists are also pretty beastly at level 5, with 4 claws and a grapple check of + 20.

You can perform that attack once an encounter, but there are plenty of ways to do that over the course of multiple encounters, or even multiple rounds.

So yeah, that's right. And if you do that, it's a powerful attack, but keep in mind it won't solve everything. Plus it's contested that you're allowed to stack inspiration effects like that, seeing as how similar effects from the same source don't stack. So you're pretty fine as far as gestalt goes, and your DM will figure it out eventually.

sofawall
2009-08-26, 10:51 AM
Factotum gets 1d6 maximum SA/attack. You got that wrong.

Wrong. It was done right in the OP.


I think someone posted a high-level Factotum build once that was capable of taking about 30 standard actions in one round.

I made one off the top of my head that could take 26 standards (I think) in a Factotum thread a while back, so with work 30 might be attainable.

Oh, wait... Embrace/Shun the Dark Chaos. Yeah, it's easy to hit 30 standard actions...

Eldariel
2009-08-26, 10:56 AM
Factotum as written gets too little Inspiration to really make use of his varied talents beyond few things in Encounter; particularly the combat capabilities are insanely Inspiration-intensive (1 point to add Int to each To Hit, 1 point add Int to each Damage, 1 point to get Int to AC, that's gonna drain you in turn or two and that's before using the more expensive abilities). Therefore, I strongly suggest not banning Font of Inspiration.

However, that does enable novas as you pointed out. While it's not RAW, I personally like to limit SA to a Rogue of equivalent level (so on level 5, you could use it 3 times per round and so on). That gives you a nice cap without stopping you from burning Inspiration fast when you feel you need to be doing lots of damage. Another key limitation is limiting Cunning Surge to Once Per Round.

Those two abilities are really the only ones that need a limit; others are already limited by stacking rules (Cunning Strike could be too, but that would make it useless), uselessness of multiple uses (such as removing DR/SR; no point doing it more than once) or actions (casting multiple spells still requires multiple actions no much how much Inspiration you've got).


Basically, it doesn't stop you from sorta going Nova, but it does limit the nova capabilities to a more reasonable level. It's also worth noting that Duskblade is a low-level damage dealer specialist class; as levels add up, it'll get progressively worse at it. So yeah, I wouldn't be at all surprised with what's going on right now and I would apply some limits, if only to keep the class interesting (it sucks to be out of Inspiration).

And no, I definitely wouldn't put a Per Day limitation on Inspiration - you have your Duskblade side giving you basic competence so it may feel like you don't need Inspiration all the time, but having played a straight Factotum, it runs out of points really fast in encounters and having to go multiple encounters with the same Inspiration pool would soon mean you'd be out of gas for the rest of the day, stuck as a medium BAB skill monkey with no combat abilities.

And yeah, few levels from now with more energy resistant opponents, harder opponents to SA and so on, your damage should plummet, so don't worry about being too strong. It's just opponents vulnerable to every trick in your gamebook that make it look like that.