Psychic rogue vs Factotum

[Soranar]

Which one of those classes (Factotum or psychic rogue) do you think is more useful to a party?

Please do the comparison assuming Iaijutsu focus and hidden talent are banned

but

Font of inspiration and Expanded knowledge are definitely on the table

Usually I compare classes at level

1-6
7-12
13+

chassis wise, the Factotum seems like the clear winner

d8 hitpoints
better proficiencies
all skills
a few spells

but the psychic rogue might have a higher optimization ceiling due to expanded knowledge and full manifesting

[Troacctid]

I think they're reasonably well balanced against each other. There are pros and cons on each side. Psychic rogues have solid casting, and their psionics and sneak attack abilities open up synergies that are unavailable to factotums.

[LTwerewolf]

It depends on the party. The factotum is the biggest jack of all trades in the game. This becomes less and less useful if you have people that specialize in things. The more people, the less useful.

[Willie the Duck]

I think the factotum loses out in-combat, but probably is better out of it.

[atemu1234]

It depends on the party. The factotum is the biggest jack of all trades in the game. This becomes less and less useful if you have people that specialize in things. The more people, the less useful.

This. The more specialists you have in a group, the value of the factotum sharply decreases.

I'd weigh in in favor of the factotum, because of the power of arcane abilities, as well as the slightly better chassis.

[Troacctid]

I think the factotum loses out in-combat, but probably is better out of it.
Agreed. Cunning Knowledge and Brains over Brawn give so much value on skills, and you have UMD and Arcane Dilettante giving you access to a wide range of utility effects. Having all skills as class skills is an advantage too. However, the class's power is almost all focused in utility without much in offense or defense, so in combat you're basically an NPC aristocrat with a better trip mod.

Psychic rogues are great out of combat too, but they can't fill as many niches as the factotum, even if they can fill a few niches (like scouting or bluffing or mobility) a little better.

[Zaq]

Without Iaijutsu, Factotums aren't phenomenal at doing damage, since all of their +damage abilities cost inspiration (which isn't infinite, no matter how many FoI you take), and if you're spamming FoI, you probably won't have room for too many damage-boosting feats. (Their SLAs have potential, but since they get so few per day, I don't like to rely on them as a primary resource, you know?) This may or may not be the end of the world, but it's definitely something you should keep in mind. If you have a solid amount of damage in the party already and/or you don't care about being a primary (or even secondary) striker, of course, Factotums are still great support characters even in combat (a spiked chain tripper with Brains over Brawn is pretty entertaining, after all), and depending on what your GM lets you get away with, you might get some mileage out of Handle Animal abuse. But you're just not going to be doing much damage with a Factotum without Iaijutsu. So in-combat, I'd give the advantage to the PsyRogue.

As has been mentioned, a Factotum has the potential to be a total monster outside of combat, though just how much of a jack-of-all-trades they can be varies greatly with the nature of the challenges your GM likes to throw at you. The thing that people sometimes overlook is that many of the Factotum's neat "I can do that, too!" tricks only work once per day. You can only use Cunning Knowledge on a given skill once per day, and you can only emulate a given spell once per day. Yes, you can use Cunning Knowledge and Arcane Dilettante on multiple different skills and multiple different spells, but sometimes that's more helpful than others. Basically, if you can parlay a single awesome check or a single useful spell into something that will get you past a given challenge, then that's awesome, and the Factotum is awesome for you. But if you need to make a given skill check multiple times, you're not going to be any better than the next guy unless that's a skill that you're already good at, you know? If you aren't usually a silver-tongued charmer, you can Bluff your way past one guard, but not past two sets of guards. If you aren't usually a mundane Spider-Man, you can make one great Use Rope check to throw a grappling hook across a pit or up a wall, but you can't rely on Cunning Knowledge to handle both a pit and a separate wall. So if that's the kind of thing that you come across in your games, you'll still have an advantage in that you can set yourself up with any one awesome list of skills you want, but you're not automatically going to be good at everything that would ever happen to you, which I feel like some people kind of overlook. (I will not ignore the fact that Cunning Knowledge also works on skills that you're already good at, pushing them over the top into something incredible once per day when it matters the most, but I will say that after a certain level of play, most skill-based characters are going to be pretty reliable at their primary skills no matter what.)

(I'm not saying that a Factotum isn't a pretty darn sweet jack-of-all-trades, because they are. They absolutely are. But once you step outside of your typical competence zone and start improvising, your bag of tricks might get shallow faster than you might have expected.)

Now, you might be saying that the PsyRogue can't even pull a single unplanned-for moment of competence out of their rear, or at least no more than any other character could, and that's not an unfair challenge. But you know that going into the PsyRogue, and as stated, the PsyRogue has a clear advantage in combat (at least if you build for that). My point is that if you build a Factotum for a skillset that the PsyRogue is also good at, unless you're really good at turning exactly one unplanned skill roll or exactly one unplanned spell into something that lasts longer than a round or two, the PsyRogue is probably going to be functionally just as good as the Factotum for most of the things you want to do. (Now, if you want to build for a skillset that the PsyRogue isn't naturally as good at, then that's definitely a clear mark in the Factotum's favor, no argument. But there aren't a whole hell of a lot of useful skills that the PsyRogue doesn't get.)

I do also feel like the PsyRogue is more reliable at using magic (/psionics) to enhance what they like to do, since even with their middling number of PP per day, they don't have the "once per spell/power per day" limitation that Factotums do, so they're going to be smoother about pulling out what they need when they need it.

Overall, I generally like PsyRogues better, though to be completely honest, I don't feel like you'll regret either choice. Both of them have strengths and weaknesses, but it seems like you have a pretty good grasp of what those strengths and those weaknesses are. They have pretty similar baselines from a skillmonkey perspective (both of them have 6+INT skills from really broad lists, and both of them have reasons to invest heavily in INT), and they both have various tricks for making themselves better than they would otherwise be, subject to certain limitations. Just approach that character with open eyes and a good understanding of what your bag of tricks does and does not contain, and you'll have fun with either option.