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View Full Version : 3rd Ed Factotum's SLA's abuse.



Yael
2014-12-10, 04:51 AM
After a clarification on the Factotum's Inspiration feature in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?385282-One-handed-swordsman-build/page3), I came to know of a certain level 1st spell. It is called Skillful Moment, from Dragon Magazine #350; what it does, essencially, is that you get an automatic 20 on your next skill roll, as long as it is used the next round. So, let's clarify, this spell can be used "at-will" as long as you can use Inspiration and you prepared it, to get natural 20's on every spell outside of combat...? Isn't that... Broken or something? I'm not claiming that this will rise Facotum's tier, but it is clearly an improvement to its playstyle, especially inside a wand or having a scroll of it.

sleepyphoenixx
2014-12-10, 05:18 AM
That's not how Arcane Dilettante works. You can use the SLA once before you need to rest again, and you can't prepare the same spell more than once.
One guaranteed 20 on a skill roll per day may be nice, but it's hardly gamebreaking.

Yael
2014-12-10, 05:22 AM
That's not how Arcane Dilettante works. You can use the SLA once before you need to rest again, and you can't prepare the same spell more than once.
One guaranteed 20 on a skill roll per day may be nice, but it's hardly gamebreaking.

I had a poorly read of Arcane Dilettante, thanks for the clarification. Even though, having Skillful Moment into a wand is fairly good for a 1st-level spell, right?

sleepyphoenixx
2014-12-10, 06:20 AM
I had a poorly read of Arcane Dilettante, thanks for the clarification. Even though, having Skillful Moment into a wand is fairly good for a 1st-level spell, right?

It's not bad and first level wands are cheap enough. It's usefulness is limited because of the need to cast it a round in advance, but that doesn't make it useless, especially for the low cost. If your DM allows Dragon Mag content it's certainly a worthwhile investment for anyone who can use a wand of it just for making a whole lot of non time-critical skill checks like climb, open lock or disable device trivial.

Chronos
2014-12-10, 11:00 AM
Keep in mind that, if time really isn't critical, you can often get the same result without magic just by taking 20.

Rebel7284
2014-12-10, 11:06 AM
There is a cleric 2 spell from an official online article that gives +20 and a Spell Compendium spell that gives +10, so yeah... skill monkeys want those caster dips. xD