My first factotum

[BIGMamaSloth]

I'm making my first Factotum (and absolutely loving it by the way!) and was hoping for some help picking some spells for day to day use. If I'm reading the class abilities right I believe I have 1 2nd level spell and 2 1st level spells each day. Anyone have suggestions?

Edit: I was also wondering if people thought it would be worth it to take font of inspiration 4 times.

[Lateral]

Generally, you want 3 to 4 Fonts, yeah. Taking a fifth is overkill.

If you're nonhumanoid, Alter Self is great. It's not broken like it would be for Wizards since you get it later and it's pretty reasonable at 5th level. Other than that, Grease is nice with Iaijutsu Focus, but if you don't have that it can still be good. Glitterdust is effective, Silent Image is good...

Pretty much any utility spell is good.

[Endarire]

Factotum Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=2720.0)

[Draz74]

Other than abusing Alter Self, there's one other Level 2 spell that's amazing for feat-starved Factotums: Heroics (Spell Compendium). Give yourself any bonus Fighter feat for 50+ minutes ... yes please! Actually, buy a Metamagic Rod of Extend Spell (Lesser) and boost that up to 100+ minutes.

[Cog]

Factotum spells are actually SLAs, so Rods don't work on them.

[Draz74]

Factotum spells are actually SLAs, so Rods don't work on them.

By that logic, normal Metamagic Feats wouldn't work either. Yet the Factotum class description explicitly says that they do.

No, that doesn't make any sense (metamagic on SLAs). What's your point? Why yes, Factotum is terribly, horribly written. Why do you ask? :smallamused:

Anyway. If I were the DM, it would be an obvious leap of logic that, if Metamagic Feats work (for some inexplicable reason), then Metamagic Rods likewise work. But I'll grant you it's a gray area. Consult your DM.

[Cog]

By that logic, normal Metamagic Feats wouldn't work either. Yet the Factotum class description explicitly says that they do.
Exactly. The feats get a specific exception, allowing them to be used. The rods don't. Factotum has its problems, but this isn't one of them

But I'll grant you it's a gray area. Consult your DM.
Drawing an analogy doesn't count as a gray area. If Power Attack works for melee attacks, why shouldn't it work for ranged? Sure, consult your DM. It might even be a good rule. It's still very much a houserule.

[Tibbaerrohwen]

I like Factotums with Knowldge ranks and taking the Knowledge Deviotion feat (get a bonus on attack and damage by making a knowledge check) and the Collector of Stories skill trick (get a +5 on aforementioned knowledge check).
Also, if multiclassing is allowed, I say take a level in Master from Dragonlance Campaign Setting: War of Lances. You can get a +2 on all knowledges and, with the Master's Knack abilities, you can treat any (I think only untrained) knowledges as having half the ranks of your highest knowledge skills for the purpose of checks (but not synergies).

[Pechvarry]

I never understood why people think it's so ambiguous with metamagic feats: you're preparing them in slots with levels, just like a wizard preparing spells. So of course metamagic can work if they say you can: you simply treat it as a higher level spell for purposes of what spell it takes up, as normal for preparing spells. By extension, I don't see why a metamagic rod wouldn't work, as what they do is supply the USER the benefits of a metamagic feat, x times/day. If the user can make use of metamagic feats, what's the problem?

This game was always intended for literate people. I don't see why we need our hands held over every syllable of RAW.

[Cog]

I never understood why people think it's so ambiguous with metamagic feats...
I don't think it's ambiguous.


...you're preparing them in slots with levels, just like a wizard preparing spells. So of course metamagic can work if they say you can: you simply treat it as a higher level spell for purposes of what spell it takes up, as normal for preparing spells. By extension, I don't see why a metamagic rod wouldn't work, as what they do is supply the USER the benefits of a metamagic feat, x times/day. If the user can make use of metamagic feats, what's the problem?
The rods have a different mechanic from the feats. An argument from analogy really doesn't apply here, when the explicit rules contradict that analogy. If they wanted Factotums to use all the same mechanics, they could easily have given the class true spellcasting. They didn't; they specifically gave the class SLAs instead.


This game was always intended for literate people. I don't see why we need our hands held over every syllable of RAW.
I'm not holding anybody's hand, nor am I telling you what to do in your game. If the RAW doesn't interest you, why do you care what others have to say about it?

[Pechvarry]

Afb and all that -- I was under the impression the metamagic rods worked like sudden metamagic feats: x times/day, you gain the benefit of a certain metamagic feat, as if you had prepared the spell with it. If you're a class that can use said metamagic feats, why would this NOT apply to you?

I never said I'm disinterested in RAW. But I don't understand how anyone could feasibly read a sentence and think "the designers thought of every eventuality and combination possible." I'm sorry if I sounded inflammatory -- I just don't think saying "the answer is no because it does not say yes" is a poor way to interpret things.

It reminds me of a little game I played in high school while reading assigned books I didn't like: until the author explicitly describes something, it doesn't exist. Thus, most of the characters with floating heads. Most would eventually attain floating hands, shirts, and pants. But feet and arms were rare. "Hey, the author never said Godfrey's hands were connected to his body!"

[JaronK]

Factotums have a very specific rule that lets them use metamagic feats with their spell like abilities, as well as specific rules that say they have to supply components with their spell like abilities. In all other ways, they just have spell like abilities. They do not have a special rule that lets them count their Sp abilities as spells.

This matters in a few ways. First, Factotum spells never take more than a standard action (see MM, RC). Second, Factotums can't ever cast inside an Antimagic Field (spellcasters can cast long duration spells, which don't do anything until they leave the antimagic field, at which point the spell is up again... Factotums cannot do this. See Rules of the Game Antimagic). Third, while Factotums have a caster level (which qualifies them for PrCs like Mindbender) they cannot cast spells of any level, so they can't qualify for PrCs that require "casts X level spells" or similar. Fourth, Factotums cannot use any magic item that relies on an ability to actually cast spells (unless they can somehow UMD around this). Fifth, Factotums can use abilities that work on Sp abilities, which matters a lot when they team up with a Spellthief and matters a bit if they want the Quicken Spell Like Ability feat.

With all that said, when we actually read the DMG, we find the following:

"A caster can only use one matemagic rod on any given spell" but also that the rod does indeed confer "the ability to use the given feat a specified number of times per day." While that first part suggests they can't do it, the second part clearly says it works... ONLY because it says the rod lets you use the feat, and Factotum special rule does allow for Metamagic feats.

TLDR: it does work, due to the specific wording, though I can understand why that might be confusing (at first I thought it didn't work either, until I noticed it was granting you a use of the feat itself).

JaronK