Is Font of Inspiration really necessary?

[Black_Zawisza]

It just occurred to me; in the Factotum section of Dungeonscape, it says:

"At the beginning of each encounter, he gains a number of inspiration points determined by his level (see Table 1–1)."

Not replenished to the number in the table, but increased by the number. With a reasonably flexible definition of encounter (fight, social interaction, trap, etc.) one could hoard almost all one's points from non-combat encounters day after day.

Considering this, does Font of Inspiration really need to be taken a gazillion times?

[Sucrose]

Usually, when Font of Inspiration is taken multiple times, the aim is to break the action economy with the 8th level ability that lets you take extra actions by spending inspiration points. For that purpose, Font of Inspiration is necessary. For playing a competent Factotum, it is not.

[Pechvarry]

It just occurred to me; in the Factotum section of Dungeonscape, it says:

"At the beginning of each encounter, he gains a number of inspiration points determined by his level (see Table 1–1)."

Not replenished to the number in the table, but increased by the number. With a reasonably flexible definition of encounter (fight, social interaction, trap, etc.) one could hoard almost all one's points from non-combat encounters day after day.

Considering this, does Font of Inspiration really need to be taken a gazillion times?

It's a simple flowchart:

Are you insane enough to rule the points work that way?
Yes --> Font of inspiration increases your action economy cataclysm dramatically. And did I mention you're insane?
No ---> Still a stupidly potent feat when taken multiple times, but not necessary to be awesome.

[JaronK]

Note this has been handled by later errata. His total amount is set to his maximum value.

Playing this way, Font of Inspiration is basically a crutch. Sure, it's handy. And it's worth taking it three times, maybe four... maybe. But there's just so many other better feats to take in general... if you're not trying to use Cunning Surge a ton of times per encounter, you just don't need it that much.

JaronK

[Zeta Kai]

Do you wanna be cheesy, & almost-myopically focused? Then YES.

Do you wanna be competent, & have a diverse skill set? Then NO.

[Vulaas]

It seems that this feat has a bad rap as being just useful for cheesy munchkins who want to do something too terrible to mention to the action economy.

Personally, I think it's a great feat for any sort of factotum.

[Boci]

It seems that this feat has a bad rap as being just useful for cheesy munchkins who want to do something too terrible to mention to the action economy.

Personally, I think it's a great feat for any sort of factotum.

I agree, I don't see how taking it is automatically cheesy. Its useful for a factotum, but then so is power attack for a melee character.

[Defiant]

I don't understand the hate on the feat - it needs a few feats before it gets good... and it gets good simply because of what can be done with it. Hate the special feature, don't hate the feat.

[Townopolis]

Taking Font once is not cheesy. Taking it twice is not cheesy, nor is taking it thrice.

Taking Font of Inspiration every time you get a feat is where it begins to get cheesy, especially if you are a Factotum 8/whatever (Warblade is popular) 12.

[Draz74]

Taking FoI once is weak. Waste of a feat.
Taking FoI twice is still kind of weak.
Taking FoI three or four times is probably optimal, and not really cheesy, but is boring compared to spending those feats on three or four interesting things, so I still recommend going without FoI.
Taking FoI nine or ten times? Now we're talking cheesy (or rather, if you're actually going to use that many Inspiration points in one encounter, you're almost certainly trying to pull something cheesy. If, instead, you play reasonably, then you'll just find that you've wasted feats because you never use all your Inspiration). And it's still boring.

Personally, if I ever DM a Factotum who really feels the need for more Inspiration, I'll houserule him a version of Font of Inspiration that can only be taken once, and gives a scaling number of Inspiration Points. Maybe 2 at low levels, up to 5 or 6 at high levels?

[Defiant]

Taking FoI once is weak. Waste of a feat.
Taking FoI twice is still kind of weak.
Taking FoI three or four times is probably optimal, and not really cheesy, but is boring compared to spending those feats on three or four interesting things, so I still recommend going without FoI.
Taking FoI nine or ten times? Now we're talking cheesy (or rather, if you're actually going to use that many Inspiration points in one encounter, you're almost certainly trying to pull something cheesy. If, instead, you play reasonably, then you'll just find that you've wasted feats because you never use all your Inspiration). And it's still boring.

Personally, if I ever DM a Factotum who really feels the need for more Inspiration, I'll houserule him a version of Font of Inspiration that can only be taken once, and gives a scaling number of Inspiration Points. Maybe 2 at low levels, up to 5 or 6 at high levels?

That sounds good actually... when thinking FoI, I'm thinking 3-5... anything more is just damn boring.

[Sophistemon]

I'm glad to see this thread.

I was worried that taking Font of Inspiration every third level was a requirement to playing a suitable factotum.

Admittedly, it was a sacrifice that I would have been willing to make, but I would have been very bored with it eventually.

[Akal Saris]

I really dislike FoI as a feat. When I really need inspiration points, it's at low levels. But that's also when I want the 3-4 feats that will define the direction that I take the character and the prestige class I want.

So levels 1-10, I want my Darkstalker and Master of Poisons, or my Point Blank Shot/Precise Shot, or my EWP: Quickrazor and Two-weapon fighter, or my power attack and cleave, or imperious command and bind vestige, etc. What I don't want is to take FoI 3 times to make it worthwhile, and then start on the feats that make my factotum different from every other one out there.

Taking it later is the reverse problem - by level 11+, I already have enough inspiration points to do most things, and taking it at 12, 15, and 18 means that the FoI feats will suck until the very end of the campaign, and then be decent.

Given the choice between the feat as it is and what I'd like, I'd rather ask the DM to make it one of the following:
+3 inspiration points, and only able to be taken once (but then it's a must-have like Natural Spell...)
2 flat inspiration, able to be taken multiple times
Taken once but scaling at +1/+2/+3/+4 for every 4 levels, up to +4 at 16th.

[Incanur]

I don't understand what's so boring about taking only FoI but then I'm not a huge fan of feats to begin with.

[GoatBoy]

For the Factotum in my current game, I just told him that taking it once gives 2 points, plus 1 for every 4 Factotum levels.

How does that sound?

[HunterOfJello]

Excluding FoI, what feats are good for a Factotum to take?

Imperious Command is good if you have 15 cha and Knowledge Devotion can always be useful.

The Factotum handbook suggests Craft Wondrous Items and Obtain Familiar, and you can gain those from spell-like abilities. Improving your sneak attack might be nice, but you don't have sneak attack to get feats for since you really have Cunning Strike.

I suppose going into feat lines to gain Power Attack, Improved Trip or the Rapid-Shot line could work, but two of those already have feat taxes to gain access to.

I can understand disliking FoI after it's been taken for the 3rd time in a row, but what good alternatives does the class that already does everything have?

[Pechvarry]

It creates a feat tax, but I like the idea of FoI as +2 IP and it's a prereq for a feat that gives you a refresh mechanic -- probably full round action to recover half Factotum level in IP. Of my 2 swordsages with Adaptive Style, I still don't think I've ever actually used it. So sometimes tax-evasion works.

[TheStillWind]

Some useful fighter feats can be obtained for free by using one of your spells to cast heroics. Potentially give you a better reason to take at least one extra Font of Inspiration than you would.

[Roderick_BR]

The way it's worded, it feels like you don't have it after the encounter is up. As you pointed out, he doesn't replenishes an existing "fuel tank". He gains them at all, meaning that out of an encounter, he has nothing. It doesn't even exists. It starts existing at the beggining of the encounter. Therefore, no encounter, no points. It goes to 0(zero/non-existant). So yeah.

[true_shinken]

The Factotum handbook suggests Craft Wondrous Items and Obtain Familiar, but you can gain those from spell-like abilities. Improving your sneak attack might be nice, but you don't have sneak attack to get feats for since you really have Cunning Strike.

Wait, there are spell-like abilities for getting a familiar and crafting items?!
Tell me more.

[Starbuck_II]

The way it's worded, it feels like you don't have it after the encounter is up. As you pointed out, he doesn't replenishes an existing "fuel tank". He gains them at all, meaning that out of an encounter, he has nothing. It doesn't even exists. It starts existing at the beggining of the encounter. Therefore, no encounter, no points. It goes to 0(zero/non-existant). So yeah.

Every time you do something is a type of encounter. So no worries. ToB defines encounter as every 1 minute outside of battle.

[Sir Swindle89]

Excluding FoI, what feats are good for a Factotum to take?

Imperious Command is good if you have 15 cha and Knowledge Devotion can always be useful.

The Factotum handbook suggests Craft Wondrous Items and Obtain Familiar, but you can gain those from spell-like abilities. Improving your sneak attack might be nice, but you don't have sneak attack to get feats for since you really have Cunning Strike.

I suppose going into feat lines to gain Power Attack, Improved Trip or the Rapid-Shot line could work, but two of those already have feat taxes to gain access to.

I can understand disliking FoI after it's been taken for the 3rd time in a row, but what good alternatives does the class that already does everything have?

I'm with you on this one. I keep thinking well i could get cleave, or i could get FoI and hit them again or a couple more times. Once youre invested into it it's hard to stop geting it.

Also people realize you can only take it a number of times equal to your int mod, right? If you don't let item bonuses count for feat prereqs it's sort of like a limitation.

[Starbuck_II]

I'm with you on this one. I keep thinking well i could get cleave, or i could get FoI and hit them again or a couple more times. Once youre invested into it it's hard to stop geting it.

Also people realize you can only take it a number of times equal to your int mod, right? If you don't let item bonuses count for feat prereqs it's sort of like a limitation.

That seems an arbitary reason as the designers say bonuses count for everything else (even temporarily Cha boosting improves Turn attempts)

[SurlySeraph]

Taking FoI once is weak. Waste of a feat.
Taking FoI twice is still kind of weak.
Taking FoI three or four times is probably optimal, and not really cheesy, but is boring compared to spending those feats on three or four interesting things, so I still recommend going without FoI.
Taking FoI nine or ten times? Now we're talking cheesy (or rather, if you're actually going to use that many Inspiration points in one encounter, you're almost certainly trying to pull something cheesy. If, instead, you play reasonably, then you'll just find that you've wasted feats because you never use all your Inspiration). And it's still boring.

Personally, if I ever DM a Factotum who really feels the need for more Inspiration, I'll houserule him a version of Font of Inspiration that can only be taken once, and gives a scaling number of Inspiration Points. Maybe 2 at low levels, up to 5 or 6 at high levels?

Pretty much this, yeah. I'd be inclined to have it either give IP equal to half your Int bonus, or something like 2 + one per four levels.


Excluding FoI, what feats are good for a Factotum to take?

Improved Trip is always good. Martial Study or a dip into a ToB class is always good. Skillmonkey-oriented feats like Quick Reconnoiter, that one feat that makes Spot and Listen Int-based, and Darkstalker are good. Nymph's Kiss is crazy good; it gives you +2 to all Cha-based checks (Iajutsu Focus! Turn Undead! Whatever!), makes fey treat you as fey, and gives you +1 to all saves vs spells and SLAs. But no one ever mentions those parts because it gives you an extra skill point per level, which is in and of itself so crazy good as to obviate the other parts.

[Dragonmuncher]

Do you wanna be cheesy, & almost-myopically focused? Then YES.

Do you wanna be competent, & have a diverse skill set? Then NO.

Er... given that you're a Factotum with a huge skill list, and given the number of things Inspiration Points can be used for, I don't think taking FoI a bunch of times is EVER going to make you "myopically focuused."

[JaronK]

Well, you can't hide at higher levels effectively without Darkstalker, so taking all FoI would lose you that option. Other tricks like using fear to drop enemies (Imperious Command) or making pretty much any useful magic item you might need (Craft Wonderous Item) also are unavailable. So there's that.

My favorite feats for Factotums would be:

Imperious Command (requires more cha than you'd otherwise want, but using Cunning Surge to make them cower as a free action is amazing. Plus, as long as they don't act at all they're still flat footed, so if you use this ability once per round on a target they'll stay that way if you're using IF. Plus, it's damn useful in general. And you can take Never Outnumbered...).

Knowledge Devotion (amazing if you're an archer. If not, less so... it does use up a lot of your skill points).

Darkstalker (Feat tax if you wanted to hide at all)

Craft Wonderous Item (there's a ton of really useful ones out there, and you have the spells on hand to make any of them. This is AMAZING if you don't have Magic Marts around every corner. If you do, then don't bother... just buy what you want).

Master of Poisons (for those assassin types who make good use of Minor Creation to make Sinmaker's Surprise or Black Lotus poison. Pick your poison based on the save DCs of what you're fighting. Both of those are made of vegetable matter. Note this isn't necessary if you're undead and an archer)

Manyshot (also good for archer types. Take an extra standard action, fire more shots when you do!)

Mindsight (taken with a one level dip into Mindbender. Yes, you qualify. It's great for any scout type)

Item Familiar (more skill points! Make sure it's on a really hard to destroy item. I prefer a Dwarvencraft Quality Blue Ice Quickrazor, because nothing specifically kills ice and most of the time it's out of sight and thus hard to attack)

Nymph's Kiss (skill points and charisma check boosting, what's not to love? Unfortunately, you have to be exalted, so this will only work for a small subset of characters. No poison for you, certainly...)

Faerie Mysteries Initiate (Int to HP! Also, combines thematically with Nymph's Kiss, so you can have in your backstory "yeah, I'm getting it on with a nymph every night." This would be awesome with being undead, but that's getting a bit weird...)

TWF (If you're going the melee route, you need more attacks, and this will help. There's gloves in MIC that will turn this into ITWF, and that's enough... and they're cheap)

JaronK

[Pechvarry]

I still want to build a Carmendine Monk/Factotum burning Standard actions on Acherun's Flurry to play lockdown. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Blood Wind will let me do this at a range by RAW. I need to find more ways to throw my fists.

[Draz74]

I still want to build a Carmendine Monk/Factotum burning Standard actions on Acherun's Flurry to play lockdown. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Blood Wind will let me do this at a range by RAW. I need to find more ways to throw my fists.

With enough Kensei levels, you can enchant your fists with Throwing.

[Ernir]

I still want to build a Carmendine Monk/Factotum burning Standard actions on Acherun's Flurry to play lockdown. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Blood Wind will let me do this at a range by RAW. I need to find more ways to throw my fists.

A throwing returning necklace of natural attacks? (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fc/20060707a)

Requires a favourable DM ruling on letting the necklace count for your vanilla unarmed strike, though...

[HunterOfJello]

Wait, there are spell-like abilities for getting a familiar and crafting items?!
Tell me more.

Factotums have a caster level equal to their level once they gain the Arcane Dilettante ability. It works as a spell-like ability and can cast spells from the Wizard/Sorcerer list. The only spells it can't copy are ones with XP costs.

Craft Wondrous Items requires Caster Level 3rd to take as a feat and nothing that I could find while looking up information on crafting mentions that you can't cast the spell as a spell-like ability. You can create items based on alternative spell sources

(The 3.5e FAQ says that the rules for this are 'vague' for Factotums crafting alchemical items and suggests allowing it. This implies that Factotums count as 'spellcasters'.)

~

As for the familiar, the feat Obtain familiar requires "Arcane Caster
Level 3rd". This could be debated, but Factotums do have a caster level and do cast spell-like abilities of arcane spells, so there's not too much to debate about.

[JaronK]

Ah, Hunter, the way you said it the first time made it sound like you were saying there was a spell like ability that just gave you a familiar, and another that gave you the effects of Craft Wonderous Items. I was wondering about that...

Note that the rulings on whether you can actually take those feats are actually in Complete Arcane (you can). It's talking about Warlocks, but it deals with the general case of spell like ability casters.

I have to agree with a lot of others in this thread that Font is actually a badly designed feat. Useless the first time you take it, you have to take it 3 or 4 times for it to be worthwhile... but when you really need it is early on, when you don't want to have blown all your feats.

Still, if you're going to take it at all, take it 3-4 times.

JaronK

[true_shinken]

Still, if you're going to take it at all, take it 3-4 times.

So two flaws and a faustian pact later, our Factotum has 10 extra inspiration points. Bring up the gruyere, baby. :smallcool:

[Ernir]

Not particularly relevant to the RAW, of course, but if a someone were to express an interest in playing a Factotum in one of my games, I'd be inclined to ban the feat and just increase the base number of IP you get. =/

[PlzBreakMyCmpAn]

Taking Font once is not cheesy.


I agree, I don't see how taking it is automatically cheesy. Its useful for a factotum, but then so is power attack for a melee character.Ur priest with good wis. Turn and rebuke. Okay.

::bark bark bark:: What's that? Four or five ninth level spells in one turn? That's what I thought you barked, Lassie. Yes I know I just ended the BBEG and all his minions before anyone else had a turn. Good thing this action economy thing can't be broken!

[true_shinken]

Ur priest with good wis. Turn and rebuke. Okay.

::bark bark bark:: What's that? Four or five ninth level spells in one turn? That's what I thought you barked, Lassie. Yes I know I just ended the BBEG and all his minions before anyone else had a turn. Good thing this action economy thing can't be broken!

I wonder how one extra inspiration point makes you break action economy so easily. They mentioned taking it once, you see?

[Foryn Gilnith]

Good thing this action economy thing can't be broken!

Yes, sir, I do surely love the Ur-Priest, paragon of balanced class design.

[Defiant]

Yes, sir, I do surely love the Ur-Priest, paragon of balanced class design.

Haha, it's funny because it's true :smallbiggrin:

[JaronK]

Ur priest with good wis. Turn and rebuke. Okay.

::bark bark bark:: What's that? Four or five ninth level spells in one turn? That's what I thought you barked, Lassie. Yes I know I just ended the BBEG and all his minions before anyone else had a turn. Good thing this action economy thing can't be broken!

Yeah, you're not casting four or five spells in one turn with a single Font of Inspiration. Or even three. Casting even four spells would take 16 inspiration points, so at least four fonts would be necessary... and you just Nova'd your entire 9th level spell selection away (Ur Priests don't have a ton).

Not saying Factotum/Ur Priest is weak mind you. Just that you're not breaking the action economy wide open like that with a single Font... or even three.

JaronK