[3.5] Factotum's Brains Over Brawn & Tactile Trapsmith feat interaction question.

[HaikenEdge]

I'm kind of curious as to whether the Factotum's Brains Over Brawn class feature


Brains over Brawn (Ex): At 3rd level, you gain your Intelligence bonus as a modifier on Strength checks, Dexterity checks, and checks involving skills based on Strength or Dexterity, such as Hide, Climb, and Jump.

will stack with the Tactile Trapsmith feat


You add your Dexterity bonus (rather than your Intelligence bonus) on all Search and Disable Device checks. In addition, you receive no penalty on these checks for darkness or blindness.

On the one hand, it doesn't explicitly change the key ability for the skills, so they're technically still Intelligence based, but on the other hand, it does use the word "rather", so it does sound like there's a replacement going on, so I'm not sure whether you could take Tactile Trapsmith and combine it with Brains Over Brawn, and was hoping to get a little clarity on the matter.

[Nettlekid]

I'm pretty sure you can combine them. Normally it seems that Tactile Trapsmith removes the Int bonus to Disable Device (as suggested by "rather") but by adding Dex, it makes it Dex-based (even though it doesn't explicitly say "This is a Dex-based skill." Trip still counts as a Str-based check, even though it's not a skill nor does it ever properly say "This is a Str-based check" to my knowledge.) And then, as a Dex-based check, you get Int to it, thanks to Factotum. Normally you wouldn't add both, but as you point out, this is a special case.

Seems like a lot of trouble to go to just for what amounts to getting your Dex to Disable Device checks, though.

[HaikenEdge]

I'm pretty sure you can combine them. Normally it seems that Tactile Trapsmith removes the Int bonus to Disable Device (as suggested by "rather") but by adding Dex, it makes it Dex-based (even though it doesn't explicitly say "This is a Dex-based skill." Trip still counts as a Str-based check, even though it's not a skill nor does it ever properly say "This is a Str-based check" to my knowledge.) And then, as a Dex-based check, you get Int to it, thanks to Factotum. Normally you wouldn't add both, but as you point out, this is a special case.

Seems like a lot of trouble to go to just for what amounts to getting your Dex to Disable Device checks, though.

Unfortunately, I'm the only skill guy in the party and the only face, as well as having 18 in both Dex and Intelligence, with the expectation of further boosting Intelligence due to an intention of multiclassing into Psion while retaining some of my skill monkey functionality, so I hope that I can just invest as few points as possible into Search and Disable Device as possible and try to let my skill modifiers carry me through, which was why I was looking into taking Tactile Trapsmith to quickly nearly my skill mod.

[Rubik]

I'm pretty sure it works like you think it does.

Also, don't forget masterwork tools for your skills. 16.66 gp (crafted) is fairly cheap for a +2.

[bekeleven]

So basically the question is, does tactile trapsmith change the skill to a dexterity-based skill, or is it an intelligence-based skill to which you apply your dexterity bonus?

As I don't recall a rules passage stating what defined an [ability-based] skill, I leave that one to the philosophers.

[Fax Celestis]

Unfortunately, I'm the only skill guy in the party and the only face, as well as having 18 in both Dex and Intelligence, with the expectation of further boosting Intelligence due to an intention of multiclassing into Psion while retaining some of my skill monkey functionality, so I hope that I can just invest as few points as possible into Search and Disable Device as possible and try to let my skill modifiers carry me through, which was why I was looking into taking Tactile Trapsmith to quickly nearly my skill mod.

Why don't you just go straight psychic rogue instead of a rogue/psion multiclass?