The Savant

[Little Brother]

I was rereading my Dragon Compendium, and I noticed the Savant(p45). It is a freaking cool class. It's like a more magicy factotum, a base-class Chameleon. The issue: It sucks hard. Absolutely terrible. Is there a way to make this awesome class balanced/good? Is is there some trick to them that I'm missing? The only tricky thing about them I can see would be stacking Iaijutsu Focus and Sneak Attack, but that's...completely unspecial. The only way I could see it played as would be an inferior rogue, with a few tricks at higher(some decent casting) levels that a rogue could match with UMD(As could the savant, which is depressing), or is just useless at those levels..

If it's the former, would a good fix be progressing like a bard for arcane, and a Ranger/paladin/other half-caster for divine? Would there be a better fix?

Thanks.

[Little Brother]

Update: one of my players REALLY wants to play one of these, and the party could use a skillmonkey. The guy is familiar with factotums and such, but really likes the fluff on these guys. So should I tell him to choose something else, should let him drag behind the rest of the tier 3 party, who does, admittedly have a Mystic Ranger, but not set up to skillmonkey, or should I try to fix it?

Thanks for any help.

[Tokuhara]

The thing with Savant is that the designer tried too hard to make a Factotum. It is a prototype. So my suggestion is take what Factotum does well and combine it with what Savant does well. Savant has a greater degree of Base Magical Power while Factotum is a better skill monkey.

So:

Savant's Class Features
Decent HD
10+int skill points
Grab some good Factotum class features and plug them into Savant's dead levels

what you get is a truly skilled Jack of All Trades

[Elric VIII]

You might consider letting him take a variant of Mystic Theurge with 6+int skill points. Beguiler/Cloistered Cleric would make him a decent skill monkey. Human with Able Learner would also be advised.

The only thing is, you have to deny early entry tricks, or he will blow away the T3s as a Cleric 19 with a side of Beguiler 11.

[Little Brother]

The thing with Savant is that the designer tried too hard to make a Factotum. It is a prototype. So my suggestion is take what Factotum does well and combine it with what Savant does well. Savant has a greater degree of Base Magical Power while Factotum is a better skill monkey.

So:

Savant's Class Features
Decent HD
10+int skill points
Grab some good Factotum class features and plug them into Savant's dead levels

what you get is a truly skilled Jack of All TradesThe thing he really wanted was magic, which I support, given the party composition. There's also the fact that we might not even get past level 15, and being useless in combat is irritating for everyone. I do like those fixes, but they weren't what I was going for. I wanted to make it stand by itself, not be a factotum clone.


You might consider letting him take a variant of Mystic Theurge with 6+int skill points. Beguiler/Cloistered Cleric would make him a decent skill monkey. Human with Able Learner would also be advised.

The only thing is, you have to deny early entry tricks, or he will blow away the T3s as a Cleric 19 with a side of Beguiler 11.Uh, clerics are sotra a "no " in our group since before I've joined, so I don't' think that's such a good idea. There's also the fact that it'd get 9th level spells, which would immediately blow away everything else in the group, which isn't cool.

If anything, I might point him at the bard. It's sad, but that seems to be closer to what he's wanting than factotum. A magicy skillmonkey who *can* fight passably, rather than a fighty skillmonkey who can cast passably, which would be the factotum.

[hex0]

I was working on a Fix over in Homebrew, but haven't finished it yet. Maybe I'll have it done for you by days end...

[Little Brother]

I was working on a Fix over in Homebrew, but haven't finished it yet. Maybe I'll have it done for you by days end...Oh, sweet. Thanks.

[hex0]

Oh, sweet. Thanks.

Here you go! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=218570)

[Psyren]

The biggest problem with Savant (aside from its abysmal sneak attack progression... 3/20, WTH?) is its magic - which is so weak it might as well not even be there, and it makes you MAD to boot. 1st-level arcane spells at 5, and 1st-level divine spells at 10, are nigh-useless at those points in the game.

I think a Savant fix should make them a bit more magical than the Factotum, while lacking some of the Factotum's more mundane flexibility (no Inspiration, no Brains over Brawn, etc.) In short, rather than dabbling in and mimicking magic like the Factotum does, a Savant would actually study both wizardry and archivism.

I'm not sure they should have sneak attack at all; I mean, sure they know anatomy, but actually being able to take advantage of that knowledge seems beyond most bookworms to me.

My advice - let them have a combo spell/prayerbook using both the Wizard and Archivist mechanics. Cap their spell progression at 5th on both sides. All of their casting should be based on Int, or you could use Wis to set the save DCs on the Divine side if you still wanted it to play a role (thus that side would be more for buffs/healing.) Remove the restriction that they can't prepare arcane spells in their divine slots and vice-versa, so long as those spells are on the Savant list.

That fix is good but I think the Savant's divine power should be based more on the Archivist than the Cleric.

[hex0]

I might have to re-work it in my fix, but I don't want to make it an Archivist rip off either...

[Psyren]

I might have to re-work it in my fix, but I don't want to make it an Archivist rip off either...

It wouldn't be - it would have far less the casting ability, access only to cleric spells instead of all divines, and none of the Dark Knowledge abilities.

Also, I'd give them the Adept list - this would give them some punch at higher levels without raising their casting past 5th (e.g. Heal.)

[Elric VIII]

Uh, clerics are sotra a "no " in our group since before I've joined, so I don't' think that's such a good idea. There's also the fact that it'd get 9th level spells, which would immediately blow away everything else in the group, which isn't cool. EDIT: Actually, there is no way to get 9ths (barring early entry tricks) since you need 4 levels of Beguiler to enter.

If anything, I might point him at the bard. It's sad, but that seems to be closer to what he's wanting than factotum. A magicy skillmonkey who *can* fight passably, rather than a fighty skillmonkey who can cast passably, which would be the factotum.

Well, if he focused on the Beguiler side (i.e. - the skillmonkey side) he would get 6th level Cleric spells and 8th level Beguiler spells, so no 9ths there. Remember, MT is only a 10 level class.

Something else to consider, that I really like, is the Psychic Rogue (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723b). 6+ int skill points, 3/4 BAB, and PsiWar power progression. It's int-based, so he will be maxing that, an getting enough skill points.

It also has 1/3 SA progression. You might consider allowing him to switch this out with the PsiWar feat progression. This is similar to the UA variant that lets Rogue trade away SA for the Fighter bonus feat progression (Fighter is 1 feat/2 levels after 2nd, PsiWar is 1 feat/3 levels after 2nd).