Why Gestalt?

[Grek]

Could someone please explain to me what the appeal of gestalt classes are? What does gestalt do that is so fascinating that half the people in the PbP board request it? I've never actually played a gestalt game before; am I missing out on something here?

[SinsI]

Gestalt offers much greater versatility and better chassis. If you make a mistake in ordinary build (i.e. select spells that are situational and don't apply to the current campaign), it is next to impossible to fix it - power level of that character will inevitably go down. Gestalt allows to just use some feature of the other class instead.
More options also means you can always contribute meaningfully. Wizard that has already used his 2 spells for the encounter don't have to sit back and fire crossbow bolts into melee (poor BAB and -4 penalty means it does any good very, very rarely); Rogue won't have to feel like a loser fighting enemies immune to sneak attack, etc.

It also makes creation of some character builds that are very cool and attractive to players but are very hard to build properly within the limits of D&D much, much easier.

Some classes that are a ordinarily incredibly weak and fail to fulfill their role - like Monk - actually become very, very useful and desired when coupled with appropriate support of, say, persisted Cleric spells.

[atemu1234]

It's versatile, it's powerful, but ultimately balancing, in a way. When everyone can fulfill their niche AND have wizard casting, then you have a party of people entirely capable of doing anything, with no one feeling left out. Of course, microtiers come into play- the difference between an evoker and a conjurer becomes somehow more pronounced.

[Necroticplague]

Another thing is that some of use have interest in playing races that aren't just humans wearing funny hats. Normally, this is heavily discouraged by LA and RHD. However, gestalt means you can cram your ECL on one side and still have actual class abilities (and HD).

In addition, it has an interesting effect of making casters and noncasters more equal. Having two different spellcasting classes is pretty crappy, because of action economy issues. However, the fact that martials generally gain passive abilties means that having two martial classes is actually a pretty good option.

It also means that character concepts that require combinations can be done both from a lower level and without having to wade through mediocre prestige classes. Wanna be a person who combines divine and arcane spells? Instead of waiting until level 3 (assuming Eldritch Corruption early entry shenanigans) to go into a boring prestige class, you can get the concept you want from level 1!

[OldTrees1]

Could someone please explain to me what the appeal of gestalt classes are? What does gestalt do that is so fascinating that half the people in the PbP board request it? I've never actually played a gestalt game before; am I missing out on something here?

Imagine a variant where you only get half the class features from your classes. Gestalt is to normal as normal is to that.

[Rater202]

A lot of classes that suck much bad but have cool things, like the Fighter which has bonus feats but is out classed by almost anyone, and the monk which has lots of cool tricks but has them spread a little too thin, become much more viable in Gestalt-by itself the Fighter's d10 HD and Full BAB ontop of... Any other class almost is great. The armor and weapon proficiencies and bonus feats are just gravy.

Monk syncronizes well with divine casters, both for lore reasons and because of the shared wisdom dependancy. The Monk's unarmed strike damage and non wisdom special abilities are extra options in addition to the normal CoDzilla options, and all of the passive upgrands monks get are useful on anyone.

[Shining Wrath]

Options. You can build very interesting characters. Obviously a Wizard-Cleric or Wizard-Psion is crazy powerful, but you can get pretty far putting two Tier IV classes together.

And they make LA races suddenly attractive, because you've got one "side" to buy off the race while the other side is progressing.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

It allows PCs to do a greater variety of things, and everyone likes it when their character can do more things while still being focused on being good at their chosen role.

[Andreaz]

Ultimately, it gives you:
1) more fuel
2) better chassis to work
Through these two, interesting combinations are more viable, and some nice tricks turn on earlier.
Works best when one of the classes is relatively passive or incorporated into actions you'll take anyway, like a fighter, rogue or incarnate.

[Fouredged Sword]

Yeah, Gestalt works really well to spice up a game that many of the primary ways to win have all been sorted out by digging though the metagame. A non-gestalt metagame has been well broken down and analyzed. Gestalt shakes this up and allows players to explore new concepts and find new ways to make a character function well.

Want to play a inspiring skilled warrior who uses charisma as much as his sword? Play a fighter // marshal! Ether class on it's own is a hard sell in a normal game. In a non-optimized gestalt game, you should come is fairly well as a social skill monkey who is good in a fight using combat maneuvers.

[thecrimsondawn]

From my experience, this is what I would advise

If you have players that are not that experienced, take quite a bit of time to make a sheet to play, then Gestalt is not the best idea.

If you have a bunch of players who enjoy making sheets, for role play or otherwise, then Gestalt is not only fun to make but fun to play as well!

A couple of warnings tho

Look at what you can do with only one character. Now picture what you can do with 2! You can end up with some crazy combos that require most CR's to be boosted by 3 or 4 levels.

Remember the rules tho, you cant get a caster level higher then your hit die by taking classes such as Mystic Thurge. you CAN however do something crazy like sorc&wiz into ult magus on one side and druid and bard into Green Whisperer, giving wild shape and access to nearly every spell in the game.

The options are just way more fun to think about :)

[Vhaidara]

It allows you to create things. For example, gishing in regular play is generally complicated. Duskblade is one thing, but aside from that, gishes tend to involve at least 4 classes/PrC.

Gestalt, meanwhile, lets you take a Fighter and a Wizard and smash them together.

Also, it's great for emulating fictional characters. Nearly every media based character is better represented by a gestalt than a regular character, especially the spellblades, since you can keep their martial abilities up to snuff while having the casting on the other side.

[AvatarVecna]

Someone up-thread mentioned monks and fighters as being usually weak classes that are more viable in gestalt. Consider that, when gestalted together, you end up getting what is basically a normal monk with tons of bonus feats, a bigger hit die, and full BAB. Those things take away everything people say about monks sucking in combat, allowing monks to become much stronger combatants in general. By combining two relatively weak classes that usually fill similar roles (melee combatant), they support each other's strengths and cover each other's weaknesses better. It's certainly not on par with even a standard full caster, but it's enough of an upgrade that the monk is no longer a joke in combat and the fighter is no longer useless out of combat/if items are stolen/against touch attacks.

Another thing is the sheer variety it gives you in combos. Each individual base class has enough variety that it can fit a number of character concepts. When combined with another class that has the same or more variety, you get so many combinations that virtually any concept becomes that much more viable...

...including superheroes. It helps that gestalt characters have more power, along with being more versatile.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Remember the rules tho, you cant get a caster level higher then your hit die by taking classes such as Mystic Thurge. you CAN however do something crazy like sorc&wiz into ult magus on one side and druid and bard into Green Whisperer, giving wild shape and access to nearly every spell in the game.
Although I believe the accepted rule is that you're not allowed to take PrCs on both side of the gestalt at the same time. Dual-advancement PrCs are often banned by convention if not by actual rules.

[danzibr]

A lot of classes that suck much bad but have cool things, like the Fighter which has bonus feats but is out classed by almost anyone, and the monk which has lots of cool tricks but has them spread a little too thin, become much more viable in Gestalt-by itself the Fighter's d10 HD and Full BAB ontop of... Any other class almost is great. The armor and weapon proficiencies and bonus feats are just gravy.

Monk syncronizes well with divine casters, both for lore reasons and because of the shared wisdom dependancy. The Monk's unarmed strike damage and non wisdom special abilities are extra options in addition to the normal CoDzilla options, and all of the passive upgrands monks get are useful on anyone.
Of everything said, I agree with this the most.

So you love Monks but they suck? Want to get into that PrC with rough requirements?

[Elderand]

Although I believe the accepted rule is that you're not allowed to take PrCs on both side of the gestalt at the same time. Dual-advancement PrCs are often banned by convention if not by actual rules.

They are banned by actual rules.

[PsyBomb]

I love Gestalt rules, and they are GREAT for undersized parties or soloists who don't want to resort to T1-2 dirty tricks.

[Flickerdart]

To understand why gestalt is popular, you have to understand the context of the game.

D&D 3.5 gives characters very fast power growth, but it starts out with "barely competent proto-peasant" and ends with "world-crushing ultragod." Gestalt helps a lot by doubling up in the initial peasant phase - a bard only has one use of Bardic Music, and a barbarian only has one Rage, but a bard//barbarian (a bardbarian, if you will) gets one of each, so not only is he more versatile, he can also contribute to more encounters per day with his class features, rather than just his chassis.

But doesn't this mean that characters grow in power twice as quickly, leading to boring games? Well, no. Aside from DMs obviously presenting gestalted characters with more difficult challenges, the ultragod stage suffers from diminishing returns. A level 2 bard can play music for 2 encounters per day. A level 4 bard can play music at every encounter in an average 4-encounter day. A level 20 bard will end every day with a big stack of music remaining. This is why a mystic theurge isn't as broken as it seems at first - as Tsukiko put it, "I go to bed with more spells left than you prepare in the morning." You can have seventy bajillion (a bajillion is 1/1000th of a kajillion) spells, but you only have one standard action to cast them, barring egregious cheese.

So the end effect is that gestalt makes the game suck less when the game sucks the most, and thereafter provides more options than power.

[Brova]

The deal with Gestalt is that you want to play two full casters. That's always true, because full caster actions are better than things which are not full caster actions. The fact that your Monk can now attack with full BAB still doesn't make those attacks matter compared to a SoD. And the passive abilities of non-casters are worse than the self-buffs casters can get. So Wizard 5/Incantatrix 10/Something With Full Casting 5 || Cleric 20 abusing Incantatrix and Divine Persist to be a super powered Gish is the optimal play in Gestalt, just like doing one of those things is the optimal play in non-Gestalt. The advantage that non-casters have is that they get power by dipping into a bunch of classes, so the "no PRCs" restriction is less of a problem for them. Unfortunately, there's no number of dips that makes you better than straight Cleric 20.

That aside, you're going to try to get full BAB, all good saves, full casting, and six skill points per level. So Monk/Cleric is bad because you don't improve your BAB, you only get one more save, and you only get two more skill points per level. Compare that to Monk/Rogue which gets you no BAB improvement, one more save, and six more skill points per level. And Rogue has abilities you care about. As a result, gestalt builds should generally be straight full caster on one side and something else with prestige classes on the other side.

So your Gestalt party looks like this:

Skillmonkey - Kobold Sorcerer X (depends on what Kobold Sorcerer cheese you're allowed to do)/Binder 1/Anima Mage 10/Sorcerer X || Rogue 20. You get reasonably good saves, trapfinding, awesome skills, and Anima Mage is sweet. There's a bit of an issue where your Binding falls behind after Anima Mage finishes, but you're a full caster with extra utility so you don't actually care.
Melee - Changeling Fighter 2/Totemist 2/[Something With Full BAB] 1/Warshaper 4/Warblade 1/Master of Many Forms 10 || Druid 20. You're a shapeshifting combat monster who kills people by charging them with about a million claw attacks. You also get full casting and fast healing.
Divine - Human Wizard 5/Incantatrix 3/Bonded Summoner 10/Incantatrix 2 || Cleric 20. You're CoDzilla with backup Wizard casting at first, then you're temporarily an Incantatrix, then you get a buddy who shares spells with you and is also a huge Elemental. You heal people, buff people, and destroy people in a straight fight.
Arcane - Grey Elf Wizard 20 || Dread Necromancer/Warmage/Beguiler X (whatever you can cheese into 3rd level spells)/Rainbow Servant 10/Dread Necromancer/Warmage/Beguiler X. You cast Wizard spells as a Wizard, other spells (which may make actual specialization a better deal) spontaneously, and eventually Cleric spells spontaneously.

[Vhaidara]

The deal with Gestalt is that you want to play two full casters.

That is completely false. Full Casters make excellent use of their actions, yes. However, you get no more actions.

The most powerful gestalt is [Int based caster (Wizard/Archivist/Psion)]//Factotum.

[Necroticplague]

Um, Divine Persist and Incantatrix are redundant, since the Incantatrix already lets you persist everything for free.

[Rater202]

Of course, that assumes you're playing in a game that encourages power gaming.

I'm not judging, but I think that kind of argument is the sort of thing that gets people to complain about Gestalt being OP.

[Necroticplague]

Of course, that assumes you're playing in a game that encourages power gaming.

I'm not judging, but I think that kind of argument is the sort of thing that gets people to complain about Gestalt being OP.

OP compared to what? As long as everyone in the party is gestalt, and the challenges have been scaled to your increased capabilities, what's the problem? Gestalt does a better job giving you width (able to deal with more problems) than depth (how good your are at dealing with the problems you can deal with).

[Brova]

That is completely false. Full Casters make excellent use of their actions, yes. However, you get no more actions.

The most powerful gestalt is [Int based caster (Wizard/Archivist/Psion)]//Factotum.

First, Factotum is a nonfunctional class. You never lose the inspiration points you gain at the beginning of each encounter, so you grab a bag of rats and encounter them one at a time for omnipotence.

Second, I'm not sure that's true. At 8th level you've got 5 inspiration points and it costs 3 for a standard action. So once per encounter you can take an extra standard action. That's good, but it's not insane. Being a Factotum doesn't let you go longer, or give you better passive abilities. It just means you nova twice as hard, which isn't very helpful because a black tentacles is winning your fight in one action anyway. I'm not convinced that's better than being CoDzilla as well. You get your second action at 11th level and never get a third one (okay, you get it at 20th but no one actually plays at 20th). And factotum does nothing else for you.

Being a Factotum is an option, and it's actually fairly good. But I don't think it's the best option, because it only does anything if you can win the encounter in two actions but not one. It's literally only good in the first round of combat.


Um, Divine Persist and Incantatrix are redundant, since the Incantatrix already lets you persist everything for free.

Actually, no. Incantatrix only gets to Persist stuff for free 3 + Int times per day. Divine Persist isn't a gamebreaking advantage, but it's not like you're doing anything with your feats anyway. You can definitely find enough spells you want to persist even if you're throwing around 10 or 12 free ones from Incantatrix per day.

[Rater202]

OP compared to what? As long as everyone in the party is gestalt, and the challenges have been scaled to your increased capabilities, what's the problem? Gestalt does a better job giving you width (able to deal with more problems) than depth (how good your are at dealing with the problems you can deal with).

I'm not sure compared to what, but I know that there are some people who think Gestalt is OP because you have two classes at once, leading to broken combinations

Brova's argument where he focused on "You want gestalt because you can do these hyper optimized combination" to me seams like the kind of argument that lets a hypothetical Gestalt hater look at the arguments, pick that one, ignore the rest, then say "no, it's OP".

Again, not that I'm judging. If that's what he thinks is fun and his friends agree, then more power to them.

[Loxagn]

It also presents some interesting options, like 'Gestalt! One half must be bard, you're a band!' or 'Gestalt! Everyone is DRAGONS.'

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Given how ridiculously high the optimisation ceiling is in normal 3.5 (even if we exclude punpunesque shenanigans), I don't think the increased ceiling of gestalt presents much more of a problem. The difference between max-op and min-op character normally is so massive (compare a wizard/incantatrix/Iot7V to a straight wizard, or god forbid, a straight fighter), that giving the max-op 20 druid levels doesn't actually make much of a difference. It's like comparing a crossbow to a .308, then comparing it to a .50 - all you're adding is overkill.

The real cost of gestalt is complexity. It is not an option to be recommend if your rules-fu is not up to scratch.

[Shining Wrath]

The deal with Gestalt is that you want to play two full casters. That's always true, because full caster actions are better than things which are not full caster actions. The fact that your Monk can now attack with full BAB still doesn't make those attacks matter compared to a SoD. And the passive abilities of non-casters are worse than the self-buffs casters can get. So Wizard 5/Incantatrix 10/Something With Full Casting 5 || Cleric 20 abusing Incantatrix and Divine Persist to be a super powered Gish is the optimal play in Gestalt, just like doing one of those things is the optimal play in non-Gestalt. The advantage that non-casters have is that they get power by dipping into a bunch of classes, so the "no PRCs" restriction is less of a problem for them. Unfortunately, there's no number of dips that makes you better than straight Cleric 20.

That aside, you're going to try to get full BAB, all good saves, full casting, and six skill points per level. So Monk/Cleric is bad because you don't improve your BAB, you only get one more save, and you only get two more skill points per level. Compare that to Monk/Rogue which gets you no BAB improvement, one more save, and six more skill points per level. And Rogue has abilities you care about. As a result, gestalt builds should generally be straight full caster on one side and something else with prestige classes on the other side.

So your Gestalt party looks like this:

Skillmonkey - Kobold Sorcerer X (depends on what Kobold Sorcerer cheese you're allowed to do)/Binder 1/Anima Mage 10/Sorcerer X || Rogue 20. You get reasonably good saves, trapfinding, awesome skills, and Anima Mage is sweet. There's a bit of an issue where your Binding falls behind after Anima Mage finishes, but you're a full caster with extra utility so you don't actually care.
Melee - Changeling Fighter 2/Totemist 2/[Something With Full BAB] 1/Warshaper 4/Warblade 1/Master of Many Forms 10 || Druid 20. You're a shapeshifting combat monster who kills people by charging them with about a million claw attacks. You also get full casting and fast healing.
Divine - Human Wizard 5/Incantatrix 3/Bonded Summoner 10/Incantatrix 2 || Cleric 20. You're CoDzilla with backup Wizard casting at first, then you're temporarily an Incantatrix, then you get a buddy who shares spells with you and is also a huge Elemental. You heal people, buff people, and destroy people in a straight fight.
Arcane - Grey Elf Wizard 20 || Dread Necromancer/Warmage/Beguiler X (whatever you can cheese into 3rd level spells)/Rainbow Servant 10/Dread Necromancer/Warmage/Beguiler X. You cast Wizard spells as a Wizard, other spells (which may make actual specialization a better deal) spontaneously, and eventually Cleric spells spontaneously.

Gestalt lets you do things besides build characters that are more powerful than a L20 Tier 1 full caster.

[Vhaidara]

First, Factotum is a nonfunctional class. You never lose the inspiration points you gain at the beginning of each encounter, so you grab a bag of rats and encounter them one at a time for omnipotence.

Easily houseruled into functionality, unless you're playing at Curmudgeon's table, no GM will let you do that


Second, I'm not sure that's true. At 8th level you've got 5 inspiration points and it costs 3 for a standard action. So once per encounter you can take an extra standard action. That's good, but it's not insane. Being a Factotum doesn't let you go longer, or give you better passive abilities. It just means you nova twice as hard, which isn't very helpful because a black tentacles is winning your fight in one action anyway. I'm not convinced that's better than being CoDzilla as well. You get your second action at 11th level and never get a third one (okay, you get it at 20th but no one actually plays at 20th). And factotum does nothing else for you.

You forgot the powerhouse that is Font of Inspiration. By level 8 you should have 4 of them, for an extra 10 Inspiration, also known as being able to take 5 standard actions. And it does a lot else for you. Your Chassis is massively better (d8 HD, all class skills, 4 more points/level, good reflex, mid BAB, light armor prof in the case of Psion and Archivist) and you get Int to all kinds of things, making you truly SAD rather than just practically SAD.


Being a Factotum is an option, and it's actually fairly good. But I don't think it's the best option, because it only does anything if you can win the encounter in two actions but not one. It's literally only good in the first round of combat.

As I mentioned, you mean 6 actions. At level 8.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Second, I'm not sure that's true.
You also get Int to practically everything you care about, either for free (Brains Over Brawn, Improved Cunning Defense) or for a minor cost (Cunning Insight, Cunning Defense). You get tons of skills for when you don't want to waste spells, and the support (Cunning Knowledge, Brains Over Brawn) to use them effectively-- the Factotum isn't the best skillmonkey in the game for nothing. Your chassis improves to be decent. And Cunning Surge is the best action economy boost in the game. One feat gets you a second use every encounter. If a PrC gave you that, it'd be a no-brainer. In gestalt, there's not much you'll find that gives you better Int synergy and action economy.

[AmberVael]

And Cunning Surge is the best action economy boost in the game.

I dunno, it might have some good competition in Schism. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/schism.htm)

[Vhaidara]

I dunno, it might have some good competition in Schism. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/schism.htm)

Why pick one? Factotum//Psion, go into Thrallherd and get an StP Erudite as a thrall. For lols get 2: One StP Erudite//Wizard and one StP Erudite//Archivist.

[PsyBomb]

Doubling up full-casters is actually one of the worst wastes of Gestalting you can do, period, unless you go it with a VERY specific plan (say, using one side for long-duration buffs and out-of-combat utility). You usually lose out on Hit Die, Skills, BAB, at least one save, and your action economy in-combat blows.

Usually, your better option is going to be either to grab a good passive support side (Factotum or an Incarnum class being the best examples) or using it to soak LA before looking for chassis upgrades (grabbing Saint then going into Monk when your main side is a Cloistered Cleric, for example). Dipping for features in the first 3 levels of various classes can also help significantly.

Just watch your MAD. In Pathfinder, there are usually ways via Archetype that you can shuffle primary stats around, but it isn't so clean in 3.5.

[Doctor Awkward]

Could someone please explain to me what the appeal of gestalt classes are? What does gestalt do that is so fascinating that half the people in the PbP board request it? I've never actually played a gestalt game before; am I missing out on something here?

The biggest reason I enjoy gestalt is that it offers an opportunity to use classes you don't normally see very much of in optimized play.

For a lot of people I imagine it's a simple case of More Dakka. One can never have too many abilities with which to turn monsters into craters. More abilities also translates to more encounters per day, which is particularly appealing to players who prefer dungeon crawls with lots of battles to long-reaching stories and villains with complex psychological motivations.

Surprisingly, Unearthed Arcana (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm#balancingGestaltCharacters) did an excellent job of pointing out the biggest balancing factor of the system:


Gestalt characters don’t have an advantage in the most important game currency: available actions. Even a character who can fight like a barbarian and cast spells like a sorcerer can’t do both in the same round. A gestalt character can’t be in two places at once as two separate characters can be. Gestalt characters who try to fulfill two party roles (melee fighter and spellcaster, for example) find they must split their feat choices, ability score improvements, and gear selection between their two functions.

Now it is certainly possible to build around these limitations, like action economy boosting spells and powers, picking classes that cast off of the same ability score, and/or are boosted by the same feats, but these are the sorts of things you can monitor during character creation.

[Naez]

It allows for character concepts to work that in normal games would be terrible or impossible.

[Flickerdart]

More abilities also translates to more encounters per day, which is particularly appealing to players who prefer dungeon crawls with lots of battles to long-reaching stories and villains with complex psychological motivations.
Because you totally can't have a long-reaching story with a complex villain that also features many battles, no sirree.

[dascarletm]

Because you totally can't have a long-reaching story with a complex villain that also features many battles, no sirree.

Well the two are mutually exclusive....

[Flickerdart]

Well the two are mutually exclusive....
I'm just a simple country lawyer, but to me it seems that the longer a story is, the more likely it is that the story will contain more battles.

[Doctor Awkward]

Because you totally can't have a long-reaching story with a complex villain that also features many battles, no sirree.

Let's not do this again. Pretty please?


My point was that there are occasionally situations where a players would rather wile away a gaming session flexing the mechanical abilities of a character than engaging in immersive roleplaying. In-game time spent getting to know the characters, fleshing out their motivations, developing a world for them to inhabit, and introducing a moral or ethical conflict that they have to resolve is time not being spent in combat throwing dice and watching your enemies fall.

There are some players who prefer it that way. There is nothing wrong with that. Even I've had nights where all I wanted to do was take a build I worked up and put it through a gauntlet of challenges hand-picked by someone else to see how far it could go before collapsing.

I never said, nor was I attempting to imply, that one cannot do both.


And furthermore..., when I said "more encounters" and "dungeon crawls", I was referring specifically to the stamina of a gestalt character, such that they are often capable of handling far more than the standard four encounters per day simply by virtue of having more character resources to throw at those encounters.

[dascarletm]

I'm just a simple country lawyer, but to me it seems that the longer a story is, the more likely it is that the story will contain more battles.

Objection!!!

Roleplaying hinders Rollplaying!!!!!
I'm being facetious

[Rater202]

Now, I'm a fancy and highly educated big city Lawyer, but I'm afraid I have to agree with my simple country counterpart: there is nothing meaningful in role playing or "roll playing" that makes them mutually exclusive.

Now, any of you gentlepersons who've seen my posts in the "Things we're not allowed to do in RPGs" thread will know that my experiences are not typical, but to be honest the most fun I've ever had playing involved both strong role playing and strong optimization.

[The Insanity]

Why? Why NOT!

[Heliomance]

It also presents some interesting options, like 'Gestalt! One half must be bard, you're a band!' or 'Gestalt! Everyone is DRAGONS.'

I've played in a game that was the latter of those before. It was glorious. And silly. Gloriously silly.

[Milo v3]

Gestalt allows me to have ridiculous over the top anime-esque stuff without having to remake all the classes and without it seeming ridiculous.

But it isi also useful for just those times when my player count is low.

[Hellborn_Blight]

For my group it's has effectively been, "I've wanted to play this forever. And I've wanted to play this other character forever. I don't play in enough games. Lets just mash them together so I get a shot at both." That doesn't create very optimized builds but when you look around at the table and everybody is an arcane of some variety, optimization takes a back seat to versatility.

[Brova]

You forgot the powerhouse that is Font of Inspiration. By level 8 you should have 4 of them, for an extra 10 Inspiration, also known as being able to take 5 standard actions.

You know who else forgot that powerhouse? The internet. Literally none of the results you get googling that are the first party source. Half of them are random forums complaining that it's overpowered, and one of them isn't D&D at all. Claiming that Font of Inspiration is a thing that should be seriously discussed as component of D&D discussion is simply not credible, because there is no first-part source on it. Seriously, that content literally doesn't even exist on WoTC's website in the place people say it does. Check it out (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070606).

Beyond that, there is not any reason to believe the feat works that way. The claim that "the number of inspiration points you gain increases by 1" means "you get crazy amounts of inspiration points, because each gain increases by one" rather than "you gain 1 additional inspiration point each time you take the feat" is simply not a reasonable interpretation of the text. I mean, if we're assuming the feat works a crazy way, why don't we just say that applies retroactively? The reality is that the feat is worded in the way that makes it as unclear as it is possible to be (except that the thing I just suggested is probably not correct). Taking it a second time is the only case where the linear versus triangular distinction isn't clear, and that feat is no longer a thing that exists for WoTC to clarify.

Even if we allow the feat to work the way you want it to, you just lit all your feats on fire. You don't get to be an Incantatrix, or divinely persist spells. Your friend who picked up some actual feats is an invisible, flying, hydra that has whatever other buffs he chose to dumpster dive. You get some extra actions.


Your Chassis is massively better (d8 HD, all class skills, 4 more points/level, good reflex, mid BAB, light armor prof in the case of Psion and Archivist) and you get Int to all kinds of things, making you truly SAD rather than just practically SAD.

No, the thing I suggested was for you to be a Wizard || Cleric. You still get a d8, you get a good Fort instead of good Ref (a better deal because Fort has save or dies and Ref has "more damage"), and you are nominally proficient with heavy armor. The only thing you lose is the 4 skill points/level. Hell, if you're a druid instead of a cleric you only lose 2 skill points per level, and have class features (you do lose Divine Persist and a couple of cool cleric buffs).

Adding your Int to stuff is nice, but would you really give up divine power or wildshape to auto-pass knowledge checks even harder than you normally do? Adding your Int to climb checks is nice if you're a skill-monkey, but a lot less impressive if you're an eagle or carrying a persisted swift fly. And even if you're a Druid || Wizard or Cleric || Wizard, you still only care about two stats.


the Factotum isn't the best skillmonkey in the game for nothing.

The Factotum is not notably better than a rogue at being a skillmonkey. In fact, not getting Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting just for turning level 10 makes your damage output a lot worse. You do get to nominally have every skill, and having a nice INT lets you pick up more skills, but a rogue is not missing any of his skill checks. Seriously, what makes a Factotum better than a Halfling Hurler with UMD (setting aside Font of Inspiration cheese).


And Cunning Surge is the best action economy boost in the game.

It's up there, but it's not the best. You have to burn a feat to make it better than celerity, and you can only do it during your turn which negates the biggest benefit of celerity. It also takes a feat to make it better than being a Choker, though being a Choker for meaningful lengths of time requires some investment. But I think you can pull that off while still being an Incantatrix in Gestalt. Assuming flaws, you pick up Iron Will, Extend Spell, and Aberration Blood at first level, then Assume Supernatural Ability at third, then Persist Spell at fifth, then Aberration Wildshape at sixth. Then you just are a Choker all day, with a free move or standard action. And you can ready celerity for another action or ignoring initiative. You'd normally need Natural Spell, but Chokers have hands and speak Undercommon, so I assume they can cast spells.

[Troacctid]

Claiming that Font of Inspiration is a thing that should be seriously discussed as component of D&D discussion is simply not credible, because there is no first-part source on it. Seriously, that content literally doesn't even exist on WoTC's website in the place people say it does. Check it out (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070606).

You have the wrong link. http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070606


Beyond that, there is not any reason to believe the feat works that way. The claim that "the number of inspiration points you gain increases by 1" means "you get crazy amounts of inspiration points, because each gain increases by one" rather than "you gain 1 additional inspiration point each time you take the feat" is simply not a reasonable interpretation of the text. I mean, if we're assuming the feat works a crazy way, why don't we just say that applies retroactively? The reality is that the feat is worded in the way that makes it as unclear as it is possible to be (except that the thing I just suggested is probably not correct). Taking it a second time is the only case where the linear versus triangular distinction isn't clear, and that feat is no longer a thing that exists for WoTC to clarify.

I think it is abundantly clear what happens when you take it multiple times.


Special: You can take this multiple times. Each time you take this feat after the first time, the number of inspiration points you gain increases by 1 (for example, you gain 2 inspiration points if you take the feat a second time). The maximum number of times you can take this feat is equal to your Intelligence modifier.

[Brova]

You have the wrong link. http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070606

Fair enough. It does appear to still exist. I standby my claim that it is pointlessly hard to find, because googling it will give you precisely zero links to the WoTC source that actually work. But, it is still a thing you can find. Fair enough, and my bad.

But I want to take a second to rant about this feat, and why I think it is terrible.

I hate this feat.

It's a horribly worded, arguably effective feat, buried in fluff about an obscure class in a specific campaign setting in a web article on a defunct version of the Wizards website. It was a pointless dumpster dive before you stopped being able to find it on google and all the links people had stopped working when Wizards changed their website. And even when you dig past all that, it's not a good feat. The class it buffs can't take any level-appropriate actions, doesn't have any actual limits on its power, and is bizarrely obscure itself.

Every part of me hates this feat.

I hate it as a DM, because it embodies dumpster-diving. It's not novel, or clever. It's literally just "were you reading this specific article series when this specific post came out." There's no complexity. There's no synergy. There's no anything. It's just the question of whether or not you know it exists.

I hate it as a player, because the reward isn't something I care about. All I get is a standard action that is an under-powered spell or a crappy attack. I don't get to win the encounter by having good spells, or employing appropriate tactics, or having synergistic abilities. Instead I get to win by throwing my basic attack at the problem half a dozen times and hoping it works.

I hate it as a game designer, because it's horribly worded. It has almost literally the most pointlessly obscure meaning possible. The lack of a phrase like "as a total" or "for taking the feat" makes the wording unclear. The use of the only unclear example is a pointless waste of space. If the feat works one way, it's pointlessly weak. If the feat works the other way, it means every Factotum ends up taking this feat as often as they can and no other feats.

This is the worst possible feat because it is simultaneously worthlessly useless and vitally important. It is both a feat you will never take and a feat tax. It is awful in every imaginable way it can be awful.


I think it is abundantly clear what happens when you take it multiple times.

That is not true. The key here is that the feat doesn't bother to clarify what "the number of inspiration points you gain increases by 1" means. The phrase "the number of inspiration points you gain increases by 1" describes equally well you gaining an additional inspiration point (the total number you gain increasing by one) or you gaining an additional marginal inspiration point (the number the feat gives you increasing by one). And the example doesn't clarify this at all, because it's the only place (actually the only phrasing) where you get the same lexical ambiguity.

And, as one of the discussions I found by googling the feat points out, the stacking rules of 3.5 are such that multiple bonuses from one source means you use the largest. So even if each version of the feat gives you a number of extra inspiration points equal to the number of times you've taken the feat, you still only end up using the largest of those numbers - the same as if you gained 1 point per instance of the feat.

[Anlashok]

Yeah no. You can dislike the feat. But it's not particularly hard to find, obviously (the person you're replying to linked it less than ten minutes after you proclaimed that it probably didn't exist). Its functionality is obvious and... frankly some of your complaints feel a tad confusing. You decry it as power gaming, then in your next sentence lament that its reward is minimal and underwhelming.

At least try to have some consistency there. The whole "incoherent babbling rage" thing just kind of makes you look like an ass.

It is both a feat you will never take and a feat tax.
See. Stuff like this.

The quoted section above is literally complete and utter nonsense and not even the kind of nonsense with deeper meaning. It's just silly.

Hate a feat all you want, but making ridiculous, grandiose, foaming at the mouth proclamations about it when someone points out the feat you don't think exists does, in fact, exist and isn't the absurdist enigma you claim it to be doesn't help anyone, least of all you.

Just some friendly advice.

[atemu1234]

Yeah no. You can dislike the feat. But it's not particularly hard to find, obviously (the person you're replying to linked it less than ten minutes after you proclaimed that it probably didn't exist). Its functionality is obvious and... frankly some of your complaints feel a tad confusing. You decry it as power gaming, then in your next sentence lament that its reward is minimal and underwhelming.

At least try to have some consistency there. The whole "incoherent babbling rage" thing just kind of makes you look like an ass.

See. Stuff like this.

The quoted section above is literally complete and utter nonsense and not even the kind of nonsense with deeper meaning. It's just silly.

Hate a feat all you want, but making ridiculous, grandiose, foaming at the mouth proclamations about it when someone points out the feat you don't think exists does, in fact, exist and isn't the absurdist enigma you claim it to be doesn't help anyone, least of all you.

Just some friendly advice.

*applause*

[Brova]

Yeah no. You can dislike the feat. But it's not particularly hard to find, obviously (the person you're replying to linked it less than ten minutes after you proclaimed that it probably didn't exist).

No, it is totally hard to find, because googling it doesn't give you a link to a first party source discussing it. In fact, googling "Font of Inspiration DND" does not give you the page I was linked to in even the top ten results. That's kind of odd, because googling "Choker DND" gives you the SRD page as the first result. In fact, just googling "wizard" gives you a DND related result (the Pathfinder Wizard) before "Font of Inspiration DND" gives you a result that even claims to be Wizard's DND page.

Disclaimer: Some of this may be biased by my search history. I did those searches in incognito, but I have no idea how strong the filter bubble effect is there or if it happens at all. It's possible that the page is the first result normally, and I simply have a lot of interest in other things that are called "Font of Inspiration".


You decry it as power gaming, then in your next sentence lament that its reward is minimal and underwhelming.

Actually, you're misstating my argument. I'm decrying it as dumpster diving (I've edited my original post to clarify that). That's related to power gaming, but not the same thing. For example, finding the Samurai class in Complete Warrior is (minor) dumpster diving, but it doesn't make you more powerful even if you were previously planning to be a Fighter. Conversely, the Wish (and sort of the Word) are doable in core 3.5, but are the most powerful characters legal in 3.5. I object to the feat, because it's not very good, but is very obscure. It's a lot of work for no reward.


The quoted section above is literally complete and utter nonsense and not even the kind of nonsense with deeper meaning. It's just silly.

Actually, that objection is totally reasonable. The reason I refer to it as both a feat tax and a feat you will never take is because it is both of those things based on which of two equally reasonable interpretations of the feat's text you chose. If it gives you one IP for taking it, it's terrible, and you should take something else instead. If it gives you triangular IP based on how many times you take it, it is the only feat you should ever take. It is both of those things, because it is horribly written.

[Eloel]

No, it is totally hard to find, because googling it doesn't give you a link to a first party source discussing it. In fact, googling "Font of Inspiration DND" does not give you the page I was linked to in even the top ten results. That's kind of odd, because googling "Choker DND" gives you the SRD page as the first result. In fact, just googling "wizard" gives you a DND related result (the Pathfinder Wizard) before "Font of Inspiration DND" gives you a result that even claims to be Wizard's DND page.

Disclaimer: Some of this may be biased by my search history. I did those searches in incognito, but I have no idea how strong the filter bubble effect is there or if it happens at all. It's possible that the page is the first result normally, and I simply have a lot of interest in other things that are called "Font of Inspiration".


I'll just comment on this part and leave the rest of the discussion to other people.

It's a feat for an old system. Beach Wizards put out 5e, and this feat is not even 4e. They purged the page with the feat on it, it now only exists in archives, which is hard to hit (I'm not even sure if it's bot-crawled). It's conveniently located at "archive.<link>", whereas it used to reside in "www.<link>", so finding the original link somewhere is enough to hit the current page - you can use that for other such articles too.

You will notice that the older a system gets, the more obscure every non-core source becomes, as they become harder to find. That doesn't mean the feat is obscure by that system's standards, just that the system is old.

Also, I'd recommend doing such search as "font of inspiration 3.5", instead of "font of inspiration DND" in the future. Especially with things that exist across systems, you're going to get more relevant results.

[Brova]

You will notice that the older a system gets, the more obscure every non-core source becomes, as they become harder to find. That doesn't mean the feat is obscure by that system's standards, just that the system is old.

That's a fair enough point. But even setting aside concerns of accessibility, this is an obscure source. This isn't a published book, it's not even from an article that promises to talk about Factotums on a mechanical basis. It's literally a sidebar on an article about the flavor of Factotums and another class in a specific setting. Even in a world where that's accessible (which is a fairer premise than I initially thought), it's still obscure beyond essentially anything else in the edition.

And in terms of lost access, stuff like "Totemists" or "Beguilers" are still fairly find-able. I can get the stats on a Beguiler and the book they are nominally in from a 5 minute google search in a way I can't with Font of Inspiration. And because those classes are printed in physical books, there's likely to be a physical copy around if someone wants to play it. No matter how old 3.5 gets, the PHBII still has the Beguiler in it. That's just not true of Font of Inspiration.

Again, I reiterate, my claim that it was not possible to find the feat turned out to be unsubstantiated. It does, in fact, exist, and the objection I had to it on the basis that it did not exist is not one that is reasonable.

[Vhaidara]

Even if we allow the feat to work the way you want it to, you just lit all your feats on fire. You don't get to be an Incantatrix, or divinely persist spells. Your friend who picked up some actual feats is an invisible, flying, hydra that has whatever other buffs he chose to dumpster dive. You get some extra actions.

Incantatrix requires what, 2 feats? One of which you can buy with gold? and the others you can take with Wizard Bonus feats?



In fact, not getting Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting just for turning level 10 makes your damage output a lot worse.

Huh? Where the hell are you getting this from? All I'm seeing is a special ability gained, and none of those are anything like Perfect TWF

[Brova]

Incantatrix requires what, 2 feats? One of which you can buy with gold? and the others you can take with Wizard Bonus feats?

Okay, so now you get to spend your first level, third level, and sixth level feats on two extra actions in one round. That is exactly what my Druid || Wizard build does, and it gets other stuff. You can still be an Incantatrix, but the only thing you get from Factotum is your round one nova. You don't get full casting, you don't get Wildshape, you don't get to pick up extra metamagic feats. Your entire deal is those two actions. And because you don't have Improved Initiative, you get them a significant percentage less of the time.


Huh? Where the hell are you getting this from? All I'm seeing is a special ability gained, and none of those are anything like Perfect TWF

The key here is this section from the Rogue's special abilities:


Feat: A rogue may gain a bonus feat in place of a special ability.

That just says you get a feat, specifically a bonus feat. The section on bonus feats in the monster manual indicates that you don't need to have the prerequisites for a bonus feat. Further, the section on "bonus feats" in the fighter's class description has to specially note that the fighter has to meet the requirements for his bonus feats, indicating that the default state of bonus feats is that you do not have to do so.

Incidentally, this allows a Rogue || Wizard with prep involving Weapons of Spell Storing or Greater Gylph Seals to equal the spell output of a Wizard || Factotum. While getting sneak attack. Seriously, the Factotum is hopelessly outclassed, especially because the extra actions are basically everything it brings to the table.

[Vhaidara]

Okay, so now you get to spend your first level, third level, and sixth level feats on two extra actions in one round. That is exactly what my Druid || Wizard build does, and it gets other stuff. You can still be an Incantatrix, but the only thing you get from Factotum is your round one nova. You don't get full casting, you don't get Wildshape, you don't get to pick up extra metamagic feats. Your entire deal is those two actions. And because you don't have Improved Initiative, you get them a significant percentage less of the time.

As I showed, since you're grabbing Font of Inspiration, it's significantly more than 2 actions. And Factotum gets you Int to Initiative, which is better than Improved Initiative. You don't need Wild Shape, you have Polymorph. You don't need a second line of full casting, you have the wizard spell list (the most broken). You get more metamagic feats from Wizard and Incantatrix levels. You still get Foresight + Celerity at end game (and can use Cunning Surge during your Celerity action).


That just says you get a feat, specifically a bonus feat. The section on bonus feats in the monster manual indicates that you don't need to have the prerequisites for a bonus feat. Further, the section on "bonus feats" in the fighter's class description has to specially note that the fighter has to meet the requirements for his bonus feats, indicating that the default state of bonus feats is that you do not have to do so.

Okay, well, I'll bring up the point that Curmudgeon frequently makes about monks and their bonus feats (which, by the way, spell out that they don't need to meet the prereqs, implying that for normal bonus feats you do): Yes, you can pick them without qualifying. However, you need to meet he prerequisites in order to use a feat. So congrats, you just picked a bonus feat (using a method that is so RAW abusive that you will get a book thrown at you for it) that you can't use.

[Brova]

As I showed, since you're grabbing Font of Inspiration, it's significantly more than 2 actions.

No, you don't. There are exactly zero worlds where the feat works like that. Either it grants 1 inspiration point each time you take it, or it grants you inspiration points equal to the number of times you've taken it and the stacking rules mean you only get the biggest. Hell, the stacking rules could half-seriously be argued to give you one inspiration point at all.


And Factotum gets you Int to Initiative, which is better than Improved Initiative. You don't need Wild Shape, you have Polymorph. You don't need a second line of full casting, you have the wizard spell list (the most broken).

Quick math time. At 8th level, you'll have an Int of 20 to 24, assuming base 18. That's a +5 to +7 bonus. You're +1 to +3 over a guy running Improved Initiative. Except that he's a Choker, which has 14 Dex, meaning he gets an extra +2 for free allowing him to invest in other stats. Now, that ability does get good, and will put you ahead at any given point, but is not in any real sense overwhelmingly "better" than Improved Initiative.

You do in fact still want Wildshape, because at 8th level it lasts 8 hours while Polymorph lasts 8 minutes. And Polymorph costs a top-level spell slot, while Wildshape is just an ability Druids have.

There's not an actual reason you don't want Druid casting. It might not be as useful as it is to a Fighter, but it still grants you Save or Dies you would not have, buffs to tear through encounters where you don't need save or dies, and immunities to protect you from opposing save or dies. The factotum grants you as many extra actions as a well-played Druid does, and basically nothing else (int to initiative is nice, and potentially a bigger deal than extra actions if you aren't house ruling Font of Inspiration).


Yes, you can pick them without qualifying. However, you need to meet he prerequisites in order to use a feat. So congrats, you just picked a bonus feat (using a method that is so RAW abusive that you will get a book thrown at you for it) that you can't use.

What? The actual rules have monsters using bonus feats for which they do not meat the prerequisites. The description of "bonus feats" in no way indicates that you have to meet the prerequisites to use them:


Creatures often do not have the prerequisites for a bonus feat. If this is so, the creature can still use the feat.

That is the beginning and the end of this discussion. The specific rule that you can use a bonus feat without meaning the prerequisites trumps the general rule that you need the prerequisites to both select and use a feat. The fact that Fighters specially indicate that you do need to meet the prerequisites for their bonus feats while Monks specifically indicate that you do not means exactly nothing. A Monk is restating the general rule (because the rule is "reading the monster entries"), the Fighter is stating an exception to that rule.

I also find it profoundly bizarre that you consider it RAW abusive to do the things rules actually say, but not to ignore linguistic ambiguity and stacking rules to make Font of Inspiration work the way you'd like it to.

[Vhaidara]

Yes, it is horrible abuse of RAW to assume that you are allowed to take Epic feats with those. Why not take Epic Spellcasting at level 10? You think that was intended?

[maniacalmojo]

why gestalt? Because it makes being a DM funner.

Being a DM who has recently had a gestalt game i find that i add a bit of variety to certain situations by making monsters have class levels, sometimes only one or two added to the normal stat block but it adds a LOT more variety and hilarity and debth to situations. A dragon is a tough monster to take down normally but now that dragon has manuvers like a warblade or spells like a cleric along with everything a dragon normally has and it completely restructures how the players will go about entering a dungeon or discussing tactics. When you bump orc warriers to fighter/rogues now they become more versatile and a larger threat even if the groups is a few levels above them. It gives combat a nice change from "run up and hit it" that many experienced players will be able to predict and plan how to counter.

[Brova]

Yes, it is horrible abuse of RAW to assume that you are allowed to take Epic feats with those. Why not take Epic Spellcasting at level 10? You think that was intended?

I have no idea what was intended by anything about D&D. Fighter is supposed to be a class, but a 2nd level spell gives you Fighter bonus feats. You can get a Ring of Infinite Quickened Wishes just for what you get for waking up in the morning by 9th level as a Wizard. Artificers can loop their way to omnipotence with just their default class features. Multiple monsters take toughness multiple times. Sorcerers balance being a spell level behind Wizards half the time by not getting to use metamagic. Everything about Polymorph is incomprehensible. The Illusion rules are a million different debates waiting to happen. In short, I have absolutely no idea what the designers intended because their game does not do the things they believe it does.

As far as Epic Spellcasting specifically goes, that is a thing that works in the rules. It doesn't do anything for a straight rogue, because the benefits are decided based on what kind of spellcaster you are, and the Rogue is not a spellcaster. Even if you pick up a level of spellcaster, you may still need ninth level slots or something - I don't care enough about the Epic Spellcasting rules to care. The key distinction here is that Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting gives you access to an ability, while Epic Spellcasting gives you access to a minigame.

But yes, the RAW does bizarre things. And on a tangent, letting Fighters take Epic feats seems like it could balance them a little better.

[Sliver]

No, you don't. There are exactly zero worlds where the feat works like that.

That made me laugh. It's so wrong that I'm not sure if you are being serious or not...

[AmberVael]

That made me laugh. It's so wrong that I'm not sure if you are being serious or not...

Don't you know that we're all eldritch horrors? You see, we come from beyond the worlds, where the laws of reality don't apply.

[Cyussu]

It also presents some interesting options, like 'Gestalt! One half must be bard, you're a band!' or 'Gestalt! Everyone is DRAGONS.'

I had a DM that made us take 2 Classes + Bard for that same deal. We got to lv8 before the group had to break.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I have no idea what was intended by anything about D&D. Fighter is supposed to be a class, but a 2nd level spell gives you Fighter bonus feats. You can get a Ring of Infinite Quickened Wishes just for what you get for waking up in the morning by 9th level as a Wizard. Artificers can loop their way to omnipotence with just their default class features. Multiple monsters take toughness multiple times. Sorcerers balance being a spell level behind Wizards half the time by not getting to use metamagic. Everything about Polymorph is incomprehensible. The Illusion rules are a million different debates waiting to happen. In short, I have absolutely no idea what the designers intended because their game does not do the things they believe it does.
That's why it's a game played and run by people, not computers. People who are capable of making logical judgements when faced with ambiguity, as opposed to crashing and burning. Imagine that! People can look at the Rogue and say "the ability says nothing about prerequisites. On the other hand, there are no classes that let you pick any feat when ignoring prerequisites, and that seems weird enough that they'd probably have mentioned it if it was supposed to work that way. I guess I have to qualify for my feats, like normal." Or "Font of Inspiration has weird language about taking it multiple times. It's clearly supposed to stack, since they address the specific situation. It's not the usual 'you can take this feat multiple times, gaining an additional +1 bonus each time,' so that's probably not how it was intended to work, either. The example seems clear enough-- I gain 1 point the first time, 2 the second, 3 the third, and so on. I guess that's how it works." This is called "reading like an intelligent human being instead of a computer," often shortened to "reading."

[Eloel]

*snip*

You are talking about RAI. RAI can't reliably be debated, because nobody knows the real intention behind rules. RAW, on the other hand, is the same whoever you are, since there is only one such writing in existence.

Discussions default to RAW, since otherwise there's no point.

[Aegis013]

... RAI can't reliably be debated, because nobody knows the real intention behind rules. RAW, on the other hand, is the same whoever you are, since there is only one such writing in existence.

Discussions default to RAW, since otherwise there's no point.

Sure, this is true, but it's not uncommon that RAW is ambiguous enough that interpretation is still required on the user's side, much like Grod's examples. If that weren't the case, we'd simply quote rules text in a vacuum and never consider interactions between rules.

E.g. We can assume that Rogue's benefit requires you to meet the prerequisites because the only times you don't need to meet the prerequisites, it's explicitly called out, such as Monk bonus feats. Because an exception is called out, the general rule must be that you are required to meet the prerequisites (which is true of feats in general). After all, 3.5 is an exception based game.

[Arbane]

Why gestalt?

Obviously, because you love interminable nitpicky rules-arguments.

Oh, wait. That's ANY and ALL versions of D&D on these forums. :smallmad:

-----

Gestalt allows interesting combinations of abilities you just can't get in a timely fashion going one-class-at-a-time.

[Flickerdart]

You are talking about RAI. RAI can't reliably be debated, because nobody knows the real intention behind rules.
That's not really true. For example, we're certain that Monks were meant to be proficient with unarmed strikes, drowning wasn't meant to heal you, and so on. There are also situations where examples make the intent of the rules clear.

[Eloel]

That's not really true. For example, we're certain that Monks were meant to be proficient with unarmed strikes, drowning wasn't meant to heal you, and so on. There are also situations where examples make the intent of the rules clear.

Again, undebated. Noone will go on a spree saying monks are not proficient in their unarmed strikes.

[Flickerdart]

Again, undebated. Noone will go on a spree saying monks are not proficient in their unarmed strikes.
I take it you've never met some of the forum's more...RAW-abiding citizens.

[eggynack]

No, you don't. There are exactly zero worlds where the feat works like that. Either it grants 1 inspiration point each time you take it, or it grants you inspiration points equal to the number of times you've taken it and the stacking rules mean you only get the biggest. Hell, the stacking rules could half-seriously be argued to give you one inspiration point at all.
You are quite mistaken. The way font is constructed overrides the general rules on stacking. There's a way to construct font such that it does the thing you think it does, and this isn't it.



Quick math time. At 8th level, you'll have an Int of 20 to 24, assuming base 18. That's a +5 to +7 bonus. You're +1 to +3 over a guy running Improved Initiative. Except that he's a Choker, which has 14 Dex, meaning he gets an extra +2 for free allowing him to invest in other stats. Now, that ability does get good, and will put you ahead at any given point, but is not in any real sense overwhelmingly "better" than Improved Initiative.
How are you a choker at 8th level, exactly? Polymorph obviously doesn't require druid levels, and could be used for better things, and aberration wild shape either kicks in at 9th, or eats the 6th level feat that you'd use for natural spell, which is obviously a bad thing. You also need assume supernatural ability to use choker to grant extra actions, which means you're getting pretty expensive here.

In any case, while I wouldn't consider druid/wizard necessarily better than factotum/wizard, the two can certainly be potentially comparable. What you really want in a caster combination is one or both of a source of extra actions, and one of your sides being largely devoted to long duration passive stuff. Druid can do both to various extents, due to stuff like heart of water and wild shape for the latter, and nilshai form for the former. However, you're not getting the same action density as the factotum, nor are you getting the SAD, and wizards are plenty good enough at going first that that's not exactly a strong argument for the druid, especially because putting a 14 in dexterity isn't exactly uncommon. Another classic option for the second side is a psionic class, because they're quite capable of providing extra actions. Just having a sheer density of spells isn't going to be enough on its own for gestalt awesomeness, however.


That's not really true. For example, we're certain that Monks were meant to be proficient with unarmed strikes, drowning wasn't meant to heal you, and so on. There are also situations where examples make the intent of the rules clear.
Yeah, RAI debates are tricky as hell, but they're a real thing. You're self evidently never going to arrive at an absolute answer based on deductive reasoning, because if you could then that'd probably be a RAW solution. You just try to cobble together enough supporting evidence, like a statblock that treats monk unarmed strikes as proficient, and hope that what you have is enough to be convincing.

[Troacctid]

Bonus stacking rules are irrelevant to Font of Inspiration as it does not provide a bonus (AKA a modifier to a die roll).

There are a lot of dysfunctions with the RAW for Factotums, but Font of Inspiration not stacking with itself isn't one of them.

[eggynack]

I take it you've never met some of the forum's more...RAW-abiding citizens.
Indeed, I got into a brief argument with Curmudgeon about this one within the last week.

Bonus stacking rules are irrelevant to Font of Inspiration as it does not provide a bonus (AKA a modifier to a die roll).

There are a lot of dysfunctions with the RAW for Factotums, but Font of Inspiration not stacking with itself isn't one of them.
Yeah, that makes for a better argument than the one I put forth. Let's go with that.

[Brova]

RAI v RAW - If you're going to have a meaningfully objective discussion of character power, RAW (or consistent house rules) is the only option. However, even that requires things to be smoothed over in some places because the rules are in many ways written ambiguously. Relevant to this discussion, what the hell is an encounter and when does a factotum get his inspiration points?


You are quite mistaken. The way font is constructed overrides the general rules on stacking. There's a way to construct font such that it does the thing you think it does, and this isn't it.

Why would you ever think that was true? It does not say anything that indicates that this is true. Toughness for example rules that it stacks with itself. Font doesn't do that. And you seem to have conveniently ignored the part where Font doesn't actually say that you gain points in this crazy triangular way. If you don't claim that, the stacking rules don't apply at all and you just gain one IP every time you take it. That, for the record, is how I believe the feat is very obviously intended to work.


How are you a choker at 8th level, exactly? Polymorph obviously doesn't require druid levels, and could be used for better things, and aberration wild shape either kicks in at 9th, or eats the 6th level feat that you'd use for natural spell, which is obviously a bad thing. You also need assume supernatural ability to use choker to grant extra actions, which means you're getting pretty expensive here.

Aberration Wildshape, which kicks in just fine at sixth. You don't need Natural Spell at all, because that feat allows you to cast spells when your assumed form doesn't have hands or language. The Choker very obviously has hands and does actually speak (they naturally speak undercommon). It's possible that you'd rule that a Choker's "hands" can't be used for spellcasting, as they seem sort of tentacle-y. I disagree with that, but even if you do rule that way the Nilshai unambiguously has the ability to cast spells and still has an extra action.

As far as being expensive, you're spending three feats to do it. That's as much as it costs a Factotum to get an extra action with Fonts, and you still have the upside of a bad skill focus and turning into another aberration or any animal.


In any case, while I wouldn't consider druid/wizard necessarily better than factotum/wizard, the two can certainly be potentially comparable. What you really want in a caster combination is one or both of a source of extra actions, and one of your sides being largely devoted to long duration passive stuff. Druid can do both to various extents, due to stuff like heart of water and wild shape for the latter, and nilshai form for the former.

That is a much fairer assertion than people are making. I'm totally willing to believe that the Factotum (without FoI rule bending) is a fine class for Gestalt, just not that it's the best one. Having a bunch of extra standard actions is sweet, especially when those standard actions can be Save or Dies rather than underwhelming attacks. However it seems markedly less sweet than access to another spell list, along with all the goodies that Druid provides you. Another thing worth noting is how completely pathetic Factotum is before level 8. While a Druid is bringing healing and a wolf to the party from level one, it takes until level 3 for a Factotum to even get +Int to initiative.


However, you're not getting the same action density as the factotum, nor are you getting the SAD, and wizards are plenty good enough at going first that that's not exactly a strong argument for the druid, especially because putting a 14 in dexterity isn't exactly uncommon. Another classic option for the second side is a psionic class, because they're quite capable of providing extra actions.

You're getting the same action density, except for the one bonus action factotum gets from its class levels. Going first is probably a toss up, especially with both sides getting an extra action with celerity (note: Celerity lets you take a standard action, but does not make it your turn, so you can't Cunning Surge then). SAD is less of an issue, because you can afford to max both Int and Wis, especially because your physical stats don't matter.


Just having a sheer density of spells isn't going to be enough on its own for gestalt awesomeness, however.

That's true. And this is where the issue is. A Factotum is really good at giving extra actions. You get one every combat, forever, starting at level 8. Admittedly, a Druid gets you one every round forever starting at level 6, but whatever. You also get a sweet bonus to initiative. And that helps you a lot if your plan is to nova. You get a extra chance to throw a Save or Die into the fight. But it doesn't help you with anything else. If you decide that this particular group of enemies don't merit a Save or Die, or they manage to pass all their saves, you don't have anything going for you. A druid on the other hand has a pet bear which is willing to eat some people.


Bonus stacking rules are irrelevant to Font of Inspiration as it does not provide a bonus (AKA a modifier to a die roll).

Bonus spell slots, bonus hit points, bonus caster levels, and armor bonuses would like to have a word with you. More seriously, did you even read the part of my argument where that only comes up if we accept gains increasing triangularly rather than linearly?

[AmberVael]

Its interesting to note that Psionic Talent (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#psionicTalent) uses nearly identical wording to Font of Inspiration.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Why would you ever think that was true? It does not say anything that indicates that this is true. Toughness for example rules that it stacks with itself. Font doesn't do that. And you seem to have conveniently ignored the part where Font doesn't actually say that you gain points in this crazy triangular way. If you don't claim that, the stacking rules don't apply at all and you just gain one IP every time you take it. That, for the record, is how I believe the feat is very obviously intended to work.
If we're talking intent, why the heck did the authors bother to include all that weird language that "hints" at the "crazy triangular way?" Why not just say "You may take this feat multiple times. Its effects stack," like they do pretty much every other time they have feats like this? It (like many supposedly-contested articles of RAW) is eminently clear how it's supposed to work, and reading it differently requires a seriously bizarre leap of logic.

[Brova]

If we're talking intent, why the heck did the authors bother to include all that weird language that "hints" at the "crazy triangular way?" Why not just say "You may take this feat multiple times. Its effects stack," like they do pretty much every other time they have feats like this? It (like many supposedly-contested articles of RAW) is eminently clear how it's supposed to work, and reading it differently requires a seriously bizarre leap of logic.

Because it's the sidebar of an article written by the B or C or D team of a company that thought Polymorph was a good idea. More seriously, it doesn't "hint" so much as "allow you to interpret". That created an ambiguity which has been blown up into a truth of the game by a CharOp community that doesn't want to dig through whichever book even has the relevant stacking rules.

[Troacctid]

Bonus spell slots, bonus hit points, bonus caster levels, and armor bonuses would like to have a word with you. More seriously, did you even read the part of my argument where that only comes up if we accept gains increasing triangularly rather than linearly?

It doesn't match the rules definition of "bonus" and it doesn't use the word "bonus" anywhere. It's not a bonus. And I don't see any case for it being one, either.

[Brova]

It doesn't match the rules definition of "bonus" and it doesn't use the word "bonus" anywhere. It's not a bonus. And I don't see any case for it being one, either.

I don't have a physical copy of the PHB with me, so I am unable to look up what the literal definition of a "bonus" is. But I do have the online SRD, which includes the rules for "bonus power points", or power points gained by having a high manifesting score. It gives values by ability score crossed with class level. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/) By your interpretation, these don't get covered by the stacking rules (as they are not applied to any rolls I know of). As they are clearly not covered by the rules for stacking bonuses, do you have a level 1 Psion with 18 Int get 4 bonus power points (the bonus for having 14 Int, 16 Int, and 18 Int) or 2 (the bonus for having 18 Int)?

[AmberVael]

I don't have a physical copy of the PHB with me, so I am unable to look up what the literal definition of a "bonus" is. But I do have the online SRD, which includes the rules for "bonus power points", or power points gained by having a high manifesting score. It gives values by ability score crossed with class level. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/) By your interpretation, these don't get covered by the stacking rules (as they are not applied to any rolls I know of). As they are clearly not covered by the rules for stacking bonuses, do you have a level 1 Psion with 18 Int get 4 bonus power points (the bonus for having 14 Int, 16 Int, and 18 Int) or 2 (the bonus for having 18 Int)?

This is just a misunderstanding of the table. The table is giving results of a formula (this formula: key ability modifier × your manifester level ×½.) for any given ability score. In short, this isn't a comparison you can even make, because there is nothing being (or to be) stacked at all.

[Brova]

This is just a misunderstanding of the table. The table is giving results of a formula (this formula: key ability modifier × your manifester level ×½.) for any given ability score. In short, this isn't a comparison you can even make, because there is nothing being (or to be) stacked at all.

Okay, so you get however many bonus points for having an Int of 18. Do those stack with or override the points you got for having an Int of 17?

[Eloel]

Okay, so you get however many bonus points for having an Int of 18. Do those stack with or override the points you got for having an Int of 17?

You don't gain anything for having an Int of 17, because you have an Int of 18, not 17.

[AmberVael]

Okay, so you get however many bonus points for having an Int of 18. Do those stack with or override the points you got for having an Int of 17?

There's no stacking or overriding being done at all. This is like asking if your previous base attack bonus of 9 stacks with your base attack bonus of 10. There's no addition going on, its that you had a single variable, X, and now X doesn't happen to equal 9 it equals 10.

[eggynack]

Why would you ever think that was true? It does not say anything that indicates that this is true. Toughness for example rules that it stacks with itself. Font doesn't do that. And you seem to have conveniently ignored the part where Font doesn't actually say that you gain points in this crazy triangular way. If you don't claim that, the stacking rules don't apply at all and you just gain one IP every time you take it. That, for the record, is how I believe the feat is very obviously intended to work.
The line about the feat giving certain results on the basis of multiple takings overrides the aspect of feats that makes multiple iterations useless, and the fact that it clearly states that you gain the same quantity as the amount of iterations of the feat you have creates the triangle progression.




Aberration Wildshape, which kicks in just fine at sixth. You don't need Natural Spell at all, because that feat allows you to cast spells when your assumed form doesn't have hands or language. The Choker very obviously has hands and does actually speak (they naturally speak undercommon). It's possible that you'd rule that a Choker's "hands" can't be used for spellcasting, as they seem sort of tentacle-y. I disagree with that, but even if you do rule that way the Nilshai unambiguously has the ability to cast spells and still has an extra action.
Neither has the human-like hands required under alternate form, whether they have non-human-like hands or not. Monsters are allowed to cast spells despite such an issue, because they have spellcasting based on their own form, but that does not extend to alternate form.


As far as being expensive, you're spending three feats to do it. That's as much as it costs a Factotum to get an extra action with Fonts, and you still have the upside of a bad skill focus and turning into another aberration or any animal.
The factotum was always getting at least one extra action in an encounter. FoI can get you more than one extra in a single round. If you're not using FoI, then you obviously have more free feats alongside the normal action bending.



That is a much fairer assertion than people are making. I'm totally willing to believe that the Factotum (without FoI rule bending) is a fine class for Gestalt, just not that it's the best one. Having a bunch of extra standard actions is sweet, especially when those standard actions can be Save or Dies rather than underwhelming attacks. However it seems markedly less sweet than access to another spell list, along with all the goodies that Druid provides you. Another thing worth noting is how completely pathetic Factotum is before level 8. While a Druid is bringing healing and a wolf to the party from level one, it takes until level 3 for a Factotum to even get +Int to initiative.
The druid spell list is quite good, but it doesn't add a massive amount to a wizard. Not zero, of course, because it's a list that has its moments, but that additional skill monkey power might just be worth more on the traditionally versatility oriented wizard.


Bonus spell slots, bonus hit points, bonus caster levels, and armor bonuses would like to have a word with you. More seriously, did you even read the part of my argument where that only comes up if we accept gains increasing triangularly rather than linearly?
You haven't given much to indicate the inverse. The feat says that you gain two points at the second taking, not that you gain one point. If the second taking stacks with the first, then that's pretty much the end of it.



I don't have a physical copy of the PHB with me, so I am unable to look up what the literal definition of a "bonus" is. But I do have the online SRD, which includes the rules for "bonus power points", or power points gained by having a high manifesting score. It gives values by ability score crossed with class level. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/) By your interpretation, these don't get covered by the stacking rules (as they are not applied to any rolls I know of). As they are clearly not covered by the rules for stacking bonuses, do you have a level 1 Psion with 18 Int get 4 bonus power points (the bonus for having 14 Int, 16 Int, and 18 Int) or 2 (the bonus for having 18 Int)?
Fortunately, I can look up the definition of bonus, which is, " A positive modifier to a die roll," as defined in the glossary.

[Brova]

The line about the feat giving certain results on the basis of multiple takings overrides the aspect of feats that makes multiple iterations useless, and the fact that it clearly states that you gain the same quantity as the amount of iterations of the feat you have creates the triangle progression.

No I does not say that. It says you gain two. If the gain was triangular as you suggest, it would say you gained three. It says you gain two. So you gain two, or one each time you take the feat


Neither has the human-like hands required under alternate form, whether they have non-human-like hands or not. Monsters are allowed to cast spells despite such an issue, because they have spellcasting based on their own form, but that does not extend to alternate form.

The Choker has hands that are human, but webbed. Those hands are as human as them come. It's got basically the right number of fingers, the right number of hands, and a reasonable degree of flexibility.



The factotum was always getting at least one extra action in an encounter. FoI can get you more than one extra in a single round. If you're not using FoI, then you obviously have more free feats alongside the normal action bending.

So was the Druid. In fact, a 8th level Wizard is walking in with 1 natural spell per day, 1 for Int, and that's it unless you specialize. So two actions uses up all of your top level spells for the day. In one encounter. On another note, if you can't win your fight in one action as a Wizard you are, as they say on the internet, doing it wrong.


The druid spell list is quite good, but it doesn't add a massive amount to a wizard. Not zero, of course, because it's a list that has its moments, but that additional skill monkey power might just be worth more on the traditionally versatility oriented wizard.

The additional skillmonkey power of the Factotum is redundant with spells you can just cast. Whereas the Druid gets you cool stuff like a free Fighter, and new spells.


Fortunately, I can look up the definition of bonus, which is, " A positive modifier to a die roll," as defined in the glossary.

Okay, but the stacking rules also apply to Cloaks of Charisma and Rings of Deflection and Feats - not just bonuses to rolls. You don't get the bonus spell slots for having 16 Int when you have 18 Int, despite the fact that you still count as having 16 Int for prerequisites.

[Troacctid]

Okay, but the stacking rules also apply to Cloaks of Charisma and Rings of Deflection and Feats - not just bonuses to rolls. You don't get the bonus spell slots for having 16 Int when you have 18 Int, despite the fact that you still count as having 16 Int for prerequisites.

There are separate individual rules that say enhancement bonuses to ability scores and deflection bonuses to AC don't stack.

[eggynack]

No I does not say that. It says you gain two. If the gain was triangular as you suggest, it would say you gained three. It says you gain two. So you gain two, or one each time you take the feat
No, it would say you gain one. Gain indicates a quantity over and above the current quantity. It would, at the same time, say that you have two.


The Choker has hands that are human, but webbed. Those hands are as human as them come. It's got basically the right number of fingers, the right number of hands, and a reasonable degree of flexibility.
Really depends on how you define humanlike, cause they're pretty odd, but even if it were to work, it's still a kinda awkward feat expenditure, as natural spell is just getting you more stuff than ASA. You're basically trading off speed of access for a mass of versatility, losing three feats and most of the rest of wild shape for this one ability.




So was the Druid. In fact, a 8th level Wizard is walking in with 1 natural spell per day, 1 for Int, and that's it unless you specialize. So two actions uses up all of your top level spells for the day. In one encounter. On another note, if you can't win your fight in one action as a Wizard you are, as they say on the internet, doing it wrong.

An 8th level wizard has more spells than that. You obviously have ones outside your highest level, and even if you're just considering the max, you can still pull stuff like domain wizard and elven generalist. As for how many spells you need, it really depends on the encounter, and more difficult ones could easily require more spells. It should also be rather obvious that the difficult fights are the ones you really want to invest in.



The additional skillmonkey power of the Factotum is redundant with spells you can just cast. Whereas the Druid gets you cool stuff like a free Fighter, and new spells.
Skills aren't particularly redundant. Stuff like diplomacy, as well as spot/listen and move silently/hide pull those things off on a level that spells just can't. Moreover, they're repeatable, a nice thing to have with out of combat stuff.

[Brova]

No, it would say you gain one. Gain indicates a quantity over and above the current quantity. It would, at the same time, say that you have two.

That depends on if you assume the phrase "you gain 2" to be referring to total gain or marginal gain. Which I've said every time this has been brought up. No one has bothered to clarify why any of the text should be assumed to refer to a marginal gain.


Really depends on how you define humanlike, cause they're pretty odd, but even if it were to work, it's still a kinda awkward feat expenditure, as natural spell is just getting you more stuff than ASA. You're basically trading off speed of access for a mass of versatility, losing three feats and most of the rest of wild shape for this one ability.

I'm sorry, what? The reason you're doing Aberrant Wild Shape rather than Natural Spell is so you can Assume Supernatural Ability for extra actions. There are not, to my knowledge, animal forms that give you an extra standard action. Yes, it costs three feats, but so does getting an extra action as a factotum.

I'm not sure what you mean by losing the rest of Wild Shape. It's not like Aberrant Wild Shape overrides your Wild Shape. You only lose access in that you are not currently a Dire Bear. Nothing stops you from later becoming a Dire Bear if that is a thing you want to do.


An 8th level wizard has more spells than that. You obviously have ones outside your highest level, and even if you're just considering the max, you can still pull stuff like domain wizard and elven generalist. As for how many spells you need, it really depends on the encounter, and more difficult ones could easily require more spells. It should also be rather obvious that the difficult fights are the ones you really want to invest in.

Sure, the Wizard has more spells. But the marginal return on getting more in a single turn is not very large. The number of fights that cannot be won at 8th level when you throw down a single tentacles is just not all that large. The ability to throw out four spells rather than three before your opponents act is not very impressive. However, the fact that Druid gives you utility when you don't need to do that, or when you're mopping up opponents is.


Skills aren't particularly redundant. Stuff like diplomacy, as well as spot/listen and move silently/hide pull those things off on a level that spells just can't. Moreover, they're repeatable, a nice thing to have with out of combat stuff.

Diplomacy is terrible and broken, but the correct build for it is not a Factotum, it's a bunch of dips into every class that grants any bonus to doing it. Yes, the Factotum is "better" than the Druid, but Diplomacy is still a Druid class skill.

Spot/Listen are worse than divination. And Druid skills. Hide/Move Silently are worse than being invisible or silent. An 18 Int lets you pick up Spellcraft, Concentration, Spot, Listen, Diplomacy and three Knowledge skills. You're not disabling any devices, but that's what saving throws are for (or just having a Rogue in the party).

[eggynack]

That depends on if you assume the phrase "you gain 2" to be referring to total gain or marginal gain. Which I've said every time this has been brought up. No one has bothered to clarify why any of the text should be assumed to refer to a marginal gain.
It's assumed to refer to marginal gain because the other interpretation indicates a massive amount of wasted text. I mean, really, why would they say, "When you take the feat the first time," or refer to the number you gain? It would have been trivial to construct the feat with something as simple as, "You gain one inspiration point. Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Its effects stack." As you yourself pointed out, the template is right there in toughness. But no, the feat puts forth a strict delineation between how the feat works the first time you take it and how it works each subsequent time. Moreover, the gain of two points is clearly meant in context to replace the text of the original feat, such that on the second taking, it reads, "You gain two inspiration points." More to the point, the text of special is what is meant to operate for the new feat object, because it would make no sense for the wording internal to the second feat to dictate what happens in the double feat object.


I'm sorry, what? The reason you're doing Aberrant Wild Shape rather than Natural Spell is so you can Assume Supernatural Ability for extra actions. There are not, to my knowledge, animal forms that give you an extra standard action. Yes, it costs three feats, but so does getting an extra action as a factotum.

I'm not sure what you mean by losing the rest of Wild Shape. It's not like Aberrant Wild Shape overrides your Wild Shape. You only lose access in that you are not currently a Dire Bear. Nothing stops you from later becoming a Dire Bear if that is a thing you want to do.
I'm saying that, while you can still become a dire bear, it's not a particularly good plan. Losing magic is a losing proposition in the vast majority of cases. Similarly, you also largely lose stuff like will o' wisp's magic immunity, crazy vision mode stuff, and any number of other abilities both aberration and not, because they're just nowhere near as good if you can't cast at the same time. As for the feats, again, it does not cost three feats to get an extra action as a factotum. It costs no feats. Getting more than one extra action costs feats, and is something the druid version is largely incapable of.




Sure, the Wizard has more spells. But the marginal return on getting more in a single turn is not very large. The number of fights that cannot be won at 8th level when you throw down a single tentacles is just not all that large. The ability to throw out four spells rather than three before your opponents act is not very impressive. However, the fact that Druid gives you utility when you don't need to do that, or when you're mopping up opponents is.
The marginal returns on extra turns can be massive, because the really threatening enemies have freedom of movement effects, or teleportation, or hell, a spread out quantity of foes. If you're just fighting enemies that can be taken out with a single use of black tentacles, then why do you even need gestalt in the first place?


Spot/Listen are worse than divination. And Druid skills. Hide/Move Silently are worse than being invisible or silent.
This is just not the case. Hide and move silently are good for the same reason that spot and listen are good, because if you use darkstalker, the one is the only real counter for the other. Invisibility can be countered by any number of things, while darkstalker usually requires spot or listen, and various vision stuff can be countered by darkstalker, but not spot and listen.

[Brova]

It's assumed to refer to marginal gain because the other interpretation indicates a massive amount of wasted text. I mean, really, why would they say, "When you take the feat the first time," or refer to the number you gain? It would have been trivial to construct the feat with something as simple as, "You gain one inspiration point. Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Its effects stack." As you yourself pointed out, the template is right there in toughness. But no, the feat puts forth a strict delineation between how the feat works the first time you take it and how it works each subsequent time. Moreover, the gain of two points is clearly meant in context to replace the text of the original feat, such that on the second taking, it reads, "You gain two inspiration points." More to the point, the text of special is what is meant to operate for the new feat object, because it would make no sense for the wording internal to the second feat to dictate what happens in the double feat object.

So it means marginal, because otherwise it would waste space? That's like, I don't even know, maybe Argument from Aesthetics? If the thing it does wastes a bunch of space, it still does that thing.


I'm saying that, while you can still become a dire bear, it's not a particularly good plan. Losing magic is a losing proposition in the vast majority of cases. Similarly, you also largely lose stuff like will o' wisp's magic immunity, crazy vision mode stuff, and any number of other abilities both aberration and not, because they're just nowhere near as good if you can't cast at the same time. As for the feats, again, it does not cost three feats to get an extra action as a factotum. It costs no feats. Getting more than one extra action costs feats, and is something the druid version is largely incapable of.

First, extra action in the sense of above and beyond class abilities rather than above and beyond the normal Standard/Move. It costs a Factotum three Fonts to get an extra action in the general case (there are a couple of levels where it takes one or two based on your natural IP).

Second, you get a feat at ninth level. That can just be Natural Spell. Congrats, you matched the Factotum's rate on extra actions and still got to pick up "is a bear" for one feat. Remind me why Factotum is good again?


The marginal returns on extra turns can be massive, because the really threatening enemies have freedom of movement effects, or teleportation, or hell, a spread out quantity of foes. If you're just fighting enemies that can be taken out with a single use of black tentacles, then why do you even need gestalt in the first place?

Here's the Same Game Test (http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:The_Same_Game_Test). We'll be looking at the fights, because those are the ones where extra actions do stuff.

Round One: The Fire Giant goes down to a grease, or some other reflex based save or die. That takes one action. The Factotum || Wizard requires spells to put it the rest of the way down, the Druid || Wizard has a Dire Bear. Slight advantage Druid.

Round Two: The Factotum potentially has an advantage here, because his extra actions let him close to melee faster but that doesn't matter in practice. Either character takes it down with a Shivering Touch, which may or may not need to be empowered. You can put it the rest of the way down at your leisure, because it can't recover. No advantage.

Round Three: I'm sure there's a way to save or die this, but your actual plan is seriously to kite it with normal ranged attacks because it moves slower than you fly (persisted swift fly) and can't hit you if you stay 40ft above it. It probably plane shifts away when it realizes there's no way it wins this fight. Both options perform the same, though the Factotum || Wizard potentially kills it in less actual rounds. No advantage.

Round Four: The Vrock flies and has some pretty good saves. You could try hitting it with a bunch of dismissals, but you didn't prepare enough for that to be a real out. Maybe you hit it with a couple enervations and then a Save or Die? I haven't thought out spell selection enough to figure out what your plan is, and there's no obvious weak point. There's maybe a slight advantage for Factotum here because you get to hit it with extra negative levels, but the Druid can pull two enervations with a celerity and I'm pretty sure you didn't prepare three. No advantage.

Round Five: You are insulted by their Mind Blasts. Their normal attacks don't do a lot, and they go down to two tentacles even if they spread out. No advantage.

Round Six: This depends heavily on how optimized the Necromancer is. If he loses the initiative, he dies instantly to an attack that penetrates his defenses. There's potentially a slight advantage for the Factotum as he wins initiative more often and has a chance to try extra save or dies. I don't know the various obscure Druid spells to know if there's a spell out there that solves this problem. Tentative advantage to the Factotum, dependent on the Necro's defenses.

Round Seven: Both characters laugh at the trolls, as they have no ranged attacks. This is nastier in a closet, but then your AoEs hit all the Trolls and you don't need a bunch of actions to drop them. The Druid's Dire Bear (actually a regular bear, I just like the phrase "Dire Bear" a lot more than I should) can mop up the one or two that don't get trapped. No advantage.

Round Eight: The Druid really wishes he had been a Cleric instead. These guys are immune to a lot of the Save or Dies people throw around, but they just die to a couple of fireballs, assuming they don't evade by being incorporeal. No advantage.

That's one fight where the Druid has a distinct advantage, and one where the Factotum has a potential advantage.


This is just not the case. Hide and move silently are good for the same reason that spot and listen are good, because if you use darkstalker, the one is the only real counter for the other. Invisibility can be countered by any number of things, while darkstalker usually requires spot or listen, and various vision stuff can be countered by darkstalker, but not spot and listen.

Because so many monsters are rolling with Darkstalker. And that still doesn't address the point that the Druid is just as good at Spot/Listen. He's actually marginally better, because his Wisdom is probably higher.

[eggynack]

So it means marginal, because otherwise it would waste space? That's like, I don't even know, maybe Argument from Aesthetics? If the thing it does wastes a bunch of space, it still does that thing.

I had other arguments there, but yes, the fact that there was a much simpler template, that exists in core, that does the exact thing you're saying this much longer version that specifically suggests delineation between each taking does, indicates that the feat was intended to work as I am saying it does.



First, extra action in the sense of above and beyond class abilities rather than above and beyond the normal Standard/Move. It costs a Factotum three Fonts to get an extra action in the general case (there are a couple of levels where it takes one or two based on your natural IP).
That's an illogical comparison. We're measuring difference in actual capabilities here, rather than power compared to some baseline class ability, because the latter doesn't tell you nearly as much about which is better in a gestalt.


Second, you get a feat at ninth level. That can just be Natural Spell. Congrats, you matched the Factotum's rate on extra actions and still got to pick up "is a bear" for one feat. Remind me why Factotum is good again?
Now you've used up four feats, and the factotum has either used none, to get a comparable effect, or some, to get a much better effect.


Round One: The Fire Giant goes down to a grease, or some other reflex based save or die. That takes one action. The Factotum || Wizard requires spells to put it the rest of the way down, the Druid || Wizard has a Dire Bear. Slight advantage Druid.
Grease is a save or die now? In what universe? The fire giant is very much alive, and you need a way to press the advantage. Becoming a bear and standing right next to the giant that's still fully capable of swinging a sword at you isn't a good way to do that.


Round Three: I'm sure there's a way to save or die this, but your actual plan is seriously to kite it with normal ranged attacks because it moves slower than you fly (persisted swift fly) and can't hit you if you stay 40ft above it. It probably plane shifts away when it realizes there's no way it wins this fight. Both options perform the same, though the Factotum || Wizard potentially kills it in less actual rounds. No advantage.
If you actually want to kill it, instead of it just being an enemy that lacks any real incentive to fight you, the factotum seems rather advantaged. He can potentially dimensional anchor the enemy and put it in a bad spot in the same round, after all.


Round Four: The Vrock flies and has some pretty good saves. You could try hitting it with a bunch of dismissals, but you didn't prepare enough for that to be a real out. Maybe you hit it with a couple enervations and then a Save or Die? I haven't thought out spell selection enough to figure out what your plan is, and there's no obvious weak point. There's maybe a slight advantage for Factotum here because you get to hit it with extra negative levels, but the Druid can pull two enervations with a celerity and I'm pretty sure you didn't prepare three. No advantage.
But you apparently can't do it in one spell. That seems to be a pretty solid factotum advantage.


Round Five: You are insulted by their Mind Blasts. Their normal attacks don't do a lot, and they go down to two tentacles even if they spread out. No advantage.
Letting the mindflayers live for a decent amount of time, which seems probable given that you're running up to each and hitting them, seems rather dangerous. Yes, their tools probably won't kill you, but if they work they absolutely will. The factotum absorbs significantly less risk.


Round Six: This depends heavily on how optimized the Necromancer is. If he loses the initiative, he dies instantly to an attack that penetrates his defenses. There's potentially a slight advantage for the Factotum as he wins initiative more often and has a chance to try extra save or dies. I don't know the various obscure Druid spells to know if there's a spell out there that solves this problem. Tentative advantage to the Factotum, dependent on the Necro's defenses.
As you note, getting a perfect kill off is tricky, and the less you try to rely on a one hit KO, the more reliably you'll be able to take out the necromancer.


That's one fight where the Druid has a distinct advantage, and one where the Factotum has a potential advantage.
As I indicated at the beginning, it's not exactly easy to take out these monsters with one spell.



Because so many monsters are rolling with Darkstalker. And that still doesn't address the point that the Druid is just as good at Spot/Listen. He's actually marginally better, because his Wisdom is probably higher.
It seems more likely that you'd be the one rolling with darkstalker, and that makes for a more serious advantage against the druid that needs to put real work in to get the skills on its list.

[Brova]

I had other arguments there, but yes, the fact that there was a much simpler template, that exists in core, that does the exact thing you're saying this much longer version that specifically suggests delineation between each taking does, indicates that the feat was intended to work as I am saying it does.

That's not an argument. The "Toughness" argument goes my way, because the assumption would be that each new instance replaces the old one absent text that explicitly declares stacking. You either live in a world where they stack and each copy gives you one, or a world where they don't and each instance replaces the previous number with one that's slightly larger.


That's an illogical comparison. We're measuring difference in actual capabilities here, rather than power compared to some baseline class ability, because the latter doesn't tell you nearly as much about which is better in a gestalt.

The resource expenditure is the same for the same effect (actually the Druid gets a bunch of other cool stuff). Think about it this way. Weapon Focus is still one feat for +1 to attack, whether you're a Fighter with BAB 10 a Wizard with BAB 5. The Factotum has more actions, but it costs him the same thing to get more extra actions.


Now you've used up four feats, and the factotum has either used none, to get a comparable effect, or some, to get a much better effect.

Yes, because one standard action an encounter is comparable to one a round and two standard actions is comparable to one standard action or being a Dire Bear.


Grease is a save or die now? In what universe? The fire giant is very much alive, and you need a way to press the advantage. Becoming a bear and standing right next to the giant that's still fully capable of swinging a sword at you isn't a good way to do that.

Prone, dude. Save or Suck is maybe more accurate, but the difference feels kind of academic when you're getting wailed on by a Druid's pet bear. Anyway, that's the first-pass tactic. Thinking about it a bit, your routine (as a Druid || Wizard) goes:

1. Celerity for enervation, inflicting an average of -2.5 to saves, attack, etc. Least Dragonmark + Mark of the Dauntless ignores the daze.
2. For your normal turn, another enervation, inflicting an overall -5 to things. Maybe you move somewhere.
3. For your extra action, Save or Die of choice. Given that his will save is +4 now, a confusion seems potentially good. Kinda taxes your 4th level slots though, given that you probably want a couple of tentacles.


If you actually want to kill it, instead of it just being an enemy that lacks any real incentive to fight you, the factotum seems rather advantaged. He can potentially dimensional anchor the enemy and put it in a bad spot in the same round, after all.

It can't hurt you. Like, at all. It has no ranged attack that does damage and no ranged attack at all that hits people 40 feet away. The Wizard || Druid can dimensional anchor it round one, then kill it with arrows in the 10 minutes when it can't even run away. Considered over a 100 round encounter, one extra action a round is suddenly massively better than even six extra actions round one.


But you apparently can't do it in one spell. That seems to be a pretty solid factotum advantage.

Nope, our friend the Vrock gets hit with two enervations and a save or die. And remember that's three quarters your allotment of generalist 4th level spells as a level 10 Wizard (less with Elf Generalist, more with focused specialist). As the Factotum brings nothing to the table in terms of spells, you don't have much of an advantage with all those extra actions.

If the Vrock survives that, he has to deal with a flying pet bear, that gets a bunch of other cool buffs.


Letting the mindflayers live for a decent amount of time, which seems probable given that you're running up to each and hitting them, seems rather dangerous. Yes, their tools probably won't kill you, but if they work they absolutely will. The factotum absorbs significantly less risk.

When did I ever say your plan was to punch the mindflayers to death? You hit them with a tentacles that grapples for 11 points higher than they do, and deals a minimum of "more than their HP" damage over its duration. On average, it kills them to death in seven rounds. Oh, and I forgot, you're immune to stunning. So you can just sit there eating mind blasts all day.


As you note, getting a perfect kill off is tricky, and the less you try to rely on a one hit KO, the more reliably you'll be able to take out the necromancer.

If you hit his touch AC, the Druid || Wizard hits him with two enervations before he acts (assuming you win Initiative, otherwise it's just one). You stripped him of his highest level spells, and your bear can potentially kill him if it can find an angle to get to melee. You also have the option to drop a feeblemind on him now that his saves are all -5. Or some tentacles.


As I indicated at the beginning, it's not exactly easy to take out these monsters with one spell.

My claim was never "one spell" it was "the additional extra actions that the Factotum provides are of less utility than options the Druid provides, such as a pet bear.


the druid that needs to put real work in to get the skills on its list.

What?

Spot, Listen, and Diplomacy are all class skills for the Druid. Hell, Spot and Listen key off of his primary casting stat. There is literally zero work involved in having a Druid that can spot stuff.

[eggynack]

That's not an argument. The "Toughness" argument goes my way, because the assumption would be that each new instance replaces the old one absent text that explicitly declares stacking. You either live in a world where they stack and each copy gives you one, or a world where they don't and each instance replaces the previous number with one that's slightly larger.
Again, the indication in the special section of FoI is that the gain of two replaces the gain of one from the original feat. That would make the text of the second iteration of FoI into, "You gain two inspiration points". As for stacking, you still don't have much to indicate that that doesn't happen.


The resource expenditure is the same for the same effect (actually the Druid gets a bunch of other cool stuff). Think about it this way. Weapon Focus is still one feat for +1 to attack, whether you're a Fighter with BAB 10 a Wizard with BAB 5. The Factotum has more actions, but it costs him the same thing to get more extra actions.

The resource expenditure may be the same for the same effect under your odd interpretation of FoI, but the baseline value of factotum here is higher. Thus, so too is the overall impact of factotum greater. The factotum also doesn't have to spend feats to get the baseline benefit, so he can use them elsewhere for various neat things.


Yes, because one standard action an encounter is comparable to one a round and two standard actions is comparable to one standard action or being a Dire Bear.
Indeed. I mean, it was you that argued that the marginal value of each additional spell is greatly reduced. By that logic, getting a fourth spell in two turns shouldn't be that much better than getting a third spell in two turns. And three standards in that first turn is likely better than bear form, because you can just explode anyone in that time. Other forms may provide alternate utility, however.



Prone, dude. Save or Suck is maybe more accurate, but the difference feels kind of academic when you're getting wailed on by a Druid's pet bear.
Not really academic at all, as the giant is capable of getting up and doling out AoO's, or staying down and stabbing, or getting up and trying to leave, and any number of other things. It's a good spell, but it's not insta-death.


1. Celerity for enervation, inflicting an average of -2.5 to saves, attack, etc. Least Dragonmark + Mark of the Dauntless ignores the daze.
2. For your normal turn, another enervation, inflicting an overall -5 to things. Maybe you move somewhere.
3. For your extra action, Save or Die of choice. Given that his will save is +4 now, a confusion seems potentially good. Kinda taxes your 4th level slots though, given that you probably want a couple of tentacles.
The difference, I suppose, would be that the factotum can pull off all three spells in the first round of action, after going first naturally, or those spells and a fourth, if you're still using celerity. Notably, the druid has limited aid in the spell half of this plan, because all of these spells are wizard list, and druid SoD effects tend to come online at 5th level.

When did I ever say your plan was to punch the mindflayers to death? You hit them with a tentacles that grapples for 11 points higher than they do, and deals a minimum of "more than their HP" damage over its duration. On average, it kills them to death in seven rounds. Oh, and I forgot, you're immune to stunning. So you can just sit there eating mind blasts all day.
I thought your tentacles were, y'know, the form's tentacles.



If you hit his touch AC, the Druid || Wizard hits him with two enervations before he acts (assuming you win Initiative, otherwise it's just one). You stripped him of his highest level spells, and your bear can potentially kill him if it can find an angle to get to melee. You also have the option to drop a feeblemind on him now that his saves are all -5. Or some tentacles.
There are plenty of ways to defend against negative levels, and maybe even more ways to defend against black tentacles. It's not too improbable that a necromancer would have defenses against one or both of those things, and I would actually expect a necromancer to have decent touch AC, based on the capabilities of rays. Of course, the necromancer can pull off the majority of the stuff you've mentioned, if not at the same level of efficiency, so stopping them from using this on you through action power is a good idea.



What?

Spot, Listen, and Diplomacy are all class skills for the Druid. Hell, Spot and Listen key off of his primary casting stat. There is literally zero work involved in having a Druid that can spot stuff.
You took that out of context, as I was pretty clearly referring to hide and move silently not being present on the druid list. You need to pull nightbringer initiate, or halfling substitution levels, or something of that variety.

Man, arguing against druids feels wrong somehow. I should probably stop putting myself in situations where I have to do that. Ah well.

[Brova]

Again, the indication in the special section of FoI is that the gain of two replaces the gain of one from the original feat. That would make the text of the second iteration of FoI into, "You gain two inspiration points". As for stacking, you still don't have much to indicate that that doesn't happen.

The text "you gain 2 inspiration points if you take the feat a second time" sounds a lot like having the text of the second instance be "You gain two inspiration points."

The problem with this, and so many other RAW issues is that D&D doesn't have a precise rules language. I mean, the Factotum uses "encounter" as if it has rules meaning, when it does not. Or just anything that Polymorphs stuff.


The resource expenditure may be the same for the same effect under your odd interpretation of FoI, but the baseline value of factotum here is higher. Thus, so too is the overall impact of factotum greater. The factotum also doesn't have to spend feats to get the baseline benefit, so he can use them elsewhere for various neat things.

The deal here is that you can either spend your feats for an extra action every round (which is a super sweet deal, because most feats suck) or trade your secondary class for an extra action once per encounter (which is a terrible deal, because that's all you get).


Indeed. I mean, it was you that argued that the marginal value of each additional spell is greatly reduced. By that logic, getting a fourth spell in two turns shouldn't be that much better than getting a third spell in two turns. And three standards in that first turn is likely better than bear form, because you can just explode anyone in that time. Other forms may provide alternate utility, however.

Every single one of those fights is won easily in the actions the Druid has. The only place the Factotum has an advantage is (maybe) against a Necromancer with unknown defenses and against a dragon where he starts within his move radius but outside the Druid's.


Not really academic at all, as the giant is capable of getting up and doling out AoO's, or staying down and stabbing, or getting up and trying to leave, and any number of other things. It's a good spell, but it's not insta-death.

Well, it locks down ranged attacks. So in theory you can hit it with arrows for some amount of damage, and if you get your bear 15 foot range it kills from safety. But yes, it's not an instant win.


The difference, I suppose, would be that the factotum can pull off all three spells in the first round of action, after going first naturally, or those spells and a fourth, if you're still using celerity. Notably, the druid has limited aid in the spell half of this plan, because all of these spells are wizard list, and druid SoD effects tend to come online at 5th level.

My point is that there isn't a marginal utility to the fourth. The giant loses to three actions already, four is just burning extra spells. It's true that Druid doesn't do a massive amount, but sharing spells with your riding bear seems like it could be useful, especially given that you can extend or persist them for free. But it provides you with enough actions to just win the fight, so that's still competitive with the Factotum.


I thought your tentacles were, y'know, the form's tentacles.

Oh, sorry if that was unclear. I was referring to everyone's favorite lock down spell evard's black tentacles.


There are plenty of ways to defend against negative levels, and maybe even more ways to defend against black tentacles. It's not too improbable that a necromancer would have defenses against one or both of those things, and I would actually expect a necromancer to have decent touch AC, based on the capabilities of rays. Of course, the necromancer can pull off the majority of the stuff you've mentioned, if not at the same level of efficiency, so stopping them from using this on you through action power is a good idea.

That's the issue with the Necromancer. Arcane casters are in a weird place, what with losing to tentacles or enervation or orb of acid if they lack the appropriate defenses but having hard counters to lots of things. It's possible that the Druid's plan here is just to close to melee on a buffed up bear (I have no idea if bear is the best animal companion, you can just substitute fleshraker or what have you).

Bear in mind that the Factotum is still only rolling with Wizard spells, and that the idea of the same game test is that you do it with a set preparation list. So he has to figure out a spell setup that gets him past the Fire Giant (where enervations into save or dies is sweet) and the Necromancer (where it might not be).


You took that out of context, as I was pretty clearly referring to hide and move silently not being present on the druid list. You need to pull nightbringer initiate, or halfling substitution levels, or something of that variety.

That much is true. But when you're invisible and flying you can sneak up on most monsters anyway. The overall build I'd shoot for with a Wizard || Druid is probably a pretty standard Save or Die spammer that falls back on a crazy buff animal companion when he needs to. Share Spells + wraithstrike + Incantatrix already makes a bear (or more likely a Tiger) a monster, and that's one 2nd level slot. You can layer ten or eleven more buffs on there. Swift Fly is vital, and some Bite of the Werebeast spells are also a good deal (especially if you can convince your DM your tiger gets the extra natural attacks). That's just the stuff I can think off of the top of my head, and you're already walking, or rather flying, in with a respectable ubercharger even before you start having actual Save or Dies.


Man, arguing against druids feels wrong somehow. I should probably stop putting myself in situations where I have to do that. Ah well.

Honestly, I kind of feel the same way. I don't actually think Factotums are terrible in Gestalt or anything. It's a totally respectable life choice for a Gestalt character who has full casting already. In fact, the gap between Wizard || Druid and Wizard || Factotum is probably not even as big as the gap between a Wizard and a Beguiler in normal play. It's certainly smaller than the gap between a Wizard || Druid and even something like a Wizard || Warblade. If my opinion has come off as stronger than that, it's less a function of what I believe and more a function of the way I tend to argue.

In short, I don't think the Factotum is a bad gestalt, I just disagree with the assertion that it's better than a Druid or that FoI works the way people think it does.

[eggynack]

The text "you gain 2 inspiration points if you take the feat a second time" sounds a lot like having the text of the second instance be "You gain two inspiration points."

The problem with this, and so many other RAW issues is that D&D doesn't have a precise rules language. I mean, the Factotum uses "encounter" as if it has rules meaning, when it does not. Or just anything that Polymorphs stuff.
Worst case scenario, this may end up in ambiguous territory, and under those circumstances, I think that the argument from otherwise vastly overcomplicated language makes sense. Under any better cases, the use of the word "gain" in both the special section and the description section means that the language in the former likely does take its place in the same position in the latter.


The deal here is that you can either spend your feats for an extra action every round (which is a super sweet deal, because most feats suck) or trade your secondary class for an extra action once per encounter (which is a terrible deal, because that's all you get).
Factotum does get a bunch of other stuff. Just somewhat less interesting stuff. What it represents, overall, is one of the better sets of passive abilities that wizards can get access to, because while druid can act as a solid passive base with bat stuff, or some form adding feats, if you start using the class more actively you could probably be doing better things.


Oh, sorry if that was unclear. I was referring to everyone's favorite lock down spell evard's black tentacles.
Yeah, got that one prior to that post. It makes some sense, but you probably do need two castings to pull it off.



Bear in mind that the Factotum is still only rolling with Wizard spells, and that the idea of the same game test is that you do it with a set preparation list. So he has to figure out a spell setup that gets him past the Fire Giant (where enervations into save or dies is sweet) and the Necromancer (where it might not be).
That may well be true, but the wizard/factotum has more shots at bypassing the defenses. Maybe he uses enervation on the first shot, and black tentacles on the second, and continues on like that until he gets a hit, and the factotum can just do that longer.


Honestly, I don't actually think Factotums are terrible or anything. It's a totally respectable life choice for a Gestalt character. In fact, the gap between Wizard || Druid and Wizard || Factotum is probably not even as big as the gap between a Wizard and a Beguiler in normal play. It's certainly smaller than the gap between a Wizard || Druid and even something like a Wizard || Warblade. If my opinion has come off as stronger than that, it's less a function of what I believe and more a function of the way I argue.

In short, I don't think the Factotum is a bad gestalt, I just disagree with the assertion that it's better than a Druid or that FoI works the way people think it does.
I tend to find it problematic at least partially because present me always ends up arguing with past me. I say something against druids, like a favorable setup for a different class, and then past me is all like, "Well how 'bout some nilshai for your face," or, "I attack my future with the might of a siabrie." Thus, I wind up in situations where my arguments are harmed by my doings, which is neat but occasionally annoying. On the plus side, when I'm on the druid half of the argument, I get to give past me a constant stream of high fives, which is the opposite of awkward.

[Rater202]

Is this really the thread to be arguing about the Factotum and feats for it in?

[atemu1234]

Is this really the thread to be arguing about the Factotum and feats for it in?

No, no it is not.

[Brova]

Worst case scenario, this may end up in ambiguous territory, and under those circumstances, I think that the argument from otherwise vastly overcomplicated language makes sense. Under any better cases, the use of the word "gain" in both the special section and the description section means that the language in the former likely does take its place in the same position in the latter.

In that sort of ambiguous territory, I'd assume the DM just rules however makes the game less broken. So FoI is probably house ruled (house clarified?) to work whichever way the DM thinks is vaguely less bad. I'd be inclined to let it ride for most games, just because the actions you're getting kinda suck.


Factotum does get a bunch of other stuff. Just somewhat less interesting stuff. What it represents, overall, is one of the better sets of passive abilities that wizards can get access to, because while druid can act as a solid passive base with bat stuff, or some form adding feats, if you start using the class more actively you could probably be doing better things.

The big deal that a Druid is bringing to the part is his animal companion. At first level, it's a Wolf that goes around killing fools and maybe scouting or something. At 10th level it's a Tiger that you stack with every melee buff you can which turns anything it can charge into chunky salsa. Factotum gives you some stuff, but the Ubertiger is better than most of it. Hell, the Ubertiger is one class feature and a small stack of spell slots, and it probably solos the SGT.


Yeah, got that one prior to that post. It makes some sense, but you probably do need two castings to pull it off.

That's true, but you don't need enervations or celerity. You can also just kill the mind flayers with normal attacks, because you are immune to the AOE stun they depend on to win.

You may also be able to use Incantatrix to Shape Spell your existing tentacles into to 10 foot cubes. I think you get a bonus metamagic feat in time to fit Shape Spell in there.


That may well be true, but the wizard/factotum has more shots at bypassing the defenses. Maybe he uses enervation on the first shot, and black tentacles on the second, and continues on like that until he gets a hit, and the factotum can just do that longer.

Well, the Wizard || Druid just has his Tiger charge the Necromancer. Lets do some quick math:

The Tiger's base attack is two claws, one bite and two rakes. It gets a full attack on charge, and applies its full strength to the claws and half to everything else. It's running around with (only listing offensive buffs) wraithstrike, bite of the weretiger, greater magic fang, and Evard's Menacing Tentacles as all day buffs, along with potentially Animal Growth. That gives you touch attacks on everything, a +16 to Strength, +2 to attack and damage, the benefit of Power Attack, and two tentacles at 1d8 + strength modifier. So your attack routine is two claws (1d8+16), one bite (2d6+9), two rakes (1d8+9), and two tentacles (1d8+16), all at +19 to hit versus touch AC. That's a minimum of 116 damage unless I miss my mark, without power attack or crits and assuming you roll nothing but ones. Even if our necromancer rolled max HP with a Con of 18, he's still just dead. If his HP is average, he's dead twice or even three times.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Let's just accept that both are great options. Factotum gives an Int-based character significant amounts of SAD, extra actions (2/fight for a single feat is pretty nice, regardless of whether or not Choker form is technically better), the ability to bypass SR,* and an amazing "no" button in Cunning Dodge. Druid gives anyone a second melee character and all the power/utility/no-need-for-Str-and-Dex of Wildshape, never mind what's probably the third best spell list in the game. Druid probably gives more power at the upper end of the optimization scale, but Factotum is easier to use-- which is a factor for most players, I've got to say.

As a final compromise, how 'bout a Druid//Factotum? Take Natural Spell at 6th, Font of Inspiration everytime else. Do standard Druid power play, with a fistful of extra actions for more efficient gishery.



*The second half of the ability is gibberish, true, but the first part still works as intended.

[Brova]

Let's just accept that both are great options. Factotum gives an Int-based character significant amounts of SAD, extra actions (2/fight for a single feat is pretty nice, regardless of whether or not Choker form is technically better), the ability to bypass SR,* and an amazing "no" button in Cunning Dodge. Druid gives anyone a second melee character and all the power/utility/no-need-for-Str-and-Dex of Wildshape, never mind what's probably the third best spell list in the game. Druid probably gives more power at the upper end of the optimization scale, but Factotum is easier to use-- which is a factor for most players, I've got to say.

Totally fair. The fact that the Wizard || Factotum still knocks the SGT out of the park is ample evidence that it's insane.


As a final compromise, how 'bout a Druid//Factotum? Take Natural Spell at 6th, Font of Inspiration everytime else. Do standard Druid power play, with a fistful of extra actions for more efficient gishery.

The thing is, there aren't a lot of Druid Save or Dies and the Druid's companion is getting his mad buffs from Incantatrix Persist. The big deal for both the Wizard || Druid and Wizard || Factotum is getting multiple Save or Dies off before the enemy acts, especially with enervations to soften them up first.

Now that's not to say that Druid || Factotum is bad. Druid is already insane, and Factotum is not making it worse.

One thing to note is that neither class really wants to PrC (except Planar Shepard), so you're leaving power on the table in a way that Wizard/Incantatrix/Whatever doesn't.

[eggynack]

The thing is, there aren't a lot of Druid Save or Dies.
There's a good number, mostly coming online at 5th, as I said. The big one is baleful polymorph, with stuff like call avalanche and wall of thorns working well enough too. Of course, there's a number of things that aren't quite save or dies that do the job, like boreal wind, or plant growth. Actual biggest problems I see are the lack of SAD, and the fact that the druid feat list is really damn good.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Actual biggest problems I see are the lack of SAD, and the fact that the druid feat list is really damn good.
You can probably afford a decent Int, since you don't need Str or Dex, like, at all.

[DMVerdandi]

Lord, y'all should have spoiled all that.

Anyhow. Back on topic. Gestalt allows for character ideas that aren't as restrictive as a regular game can be. Lets get away from the idea of having a gish for now. Think about being in a setting where there isn't much magic.

Take a fighter.
Depending on which classes you add on the other side (personally, even if it isn't optimal, I like a small amount of classes taken, with the ideal of two base classes taken to 20 on each side, but that's just a thing.) that fighter can turn into many different manifestations. Examples.

Fighter//Rogue.
This guy has all of the skills and abilities of the rogue, now with a survivable hit die, decent BAB, martial weapons, and bonus fighter feats, which are a good thing because it adds more variety, while allowing for the main feats to be used for other types of feats.

Fighter//Barbarian
Now you get the D12 hit die, Rage, and all of the other barbarian goodies, as well as the fighter's. Those bonus feats also add a lot of versatility to the barbarian.

ANYWAY. Gestalt allows for the gaps of poor class design to be filled and make for a more wholesome class fused of the two.

[eggynack]

You can probably afford a decent Int, since you don't need Str or Dex, like, at all.
Decent, sure, but anything higher than a 14 is somewhat improbable, and you're probably only pulling a 16 if you're doing the whole VoP with words of creation deal.

Lord, y'all should have spoiled all that.

Eh, only the FoI argument felt particularly off topic, and that was generally accompanied by relatively on topic stuff.

[Eloel]

Fighter//Barbarian
Now you get the D12 hit die, Rage, and all of the other barbarian goodies, as well as the fighter's. Those bonus feats also add a lot of versatility to the barbarian.

To be honest, this is a bad idea. I agree that optimization is not everything, but it's a very inherent part of character building, and a Feat Rogue//Barbarian is greater than or equal to this in everything, since everything Fighter adds over Feat Rogue, so does Barbarian.

[OldTrees1]

To be honest, this is a bad idea. I agree that optimization is not everything, but it's a very inherent part of character building, and a Feat Rogue//Barbarian is greater than or equal to this in everything, since everything Fighter adds over Feat Rogue, so does Barbarian.

In general I agree. Fighter does have some exceptions going for it (Ftr 1-2 for Fighter exclusive options from Dragon Magazine, Ftr 2 for Dungeoncrasher, Ftr 3 for an extra bonus feat, Ftr 9 for Swift Demoralize).

So I might suggest Feat Rogue 1/ Fighter 2/Feat Rogue //Barbarian.

[PsyBomb]

But anyway, to answer the OP again, it opens up concepts an flexibility when otherwise unable to by the system.