Factotum VS Chameleon

[Yogibear41]

Looking for ideas for a cohort for my character once they reach a higher level and am currently exploring the idea of making a single classed Factotum or a Factotum/Chameleon, or something/Chameleon, and was wondering how peoples experiences have been with one of these classes vs another.

I'm mainly looking for utility/support/item creation, but I would also like someone who can contribute in a fight, but that would be more secondary.

[Baby Gary]

how about a warlock [12] with 2 levels in chameleon?

warlock 12 gets you fabricate item and chameleon 2 gives you a free floating feat that can be an item creation or extra invocation. also warlocks are awesome

[Yogibear41]

I've considered warlock, but one of the reasons I was looking at Factotum/Chameleon is because while my characters does have some spell casting ability he doesn't have a lot of "niche" spells, where a chameleon or a factotum can pull nearly any spell for the right situation without investing any resources, with the factotum pulling out any sor/wiz spell as a SLA, and Chameleon pulling out any Divine spells off ANY list, granted the Chameleon has to pay money for a spellbook for the arcane spells he can cast any Divine spell without investing gold, and being a cohort the more gold I invest on this character the less I have on my actual character.

[Nifft]

Factotum is icky, but if you use it, use it all the way. Factotum does not mix well with Chameleon.


Chameleon is awesome, and your best bet is to mix & match 5 levels of whatever to get the specific features you want to enhance.

Some fun pre-Chameleon stubs:


Rogue 2 / Binder 1 / Totemist 2
(Silverbrow Human) Binder 5 -- needs Int 14 or higher.
Cloistered Cleric 1 (+ Trickery domain) / Totemist 2 / Swordsage 2
Warlock 6 (for access to Lesser Invocations; then use your floating bonus feat for The Dead Walk during downtime)
(Silverbrow Human) Swashbuckler 1 / Paladin 4 -- needs Int 14 or higher, "Whatever task my Lord demands, I am His every tool: reshaping myself to attain His victory."
(Silverbrow Human + Criminal Background feat from City of Stormreach) Scout 5
Bard 1 / Warblade 4, or Bard 4 / Warblade 1


The 5 (or rarely 6) levels before Chameleon are wide open. You could have 1 level of Barbarian for Pounce + Rage (and access to floating bonus Rage feats); 1 level of Cleric for access to Turn Undead (and thus access to floating bonus Divine feats); and so on.

[Yogibear41]

To be honest I even toyed around with going Soulknife 5/SoulBow1/Chameleon 10 with zen archery for wis to hit and to damage for some form of combat ability and going with the "divine" chameleon the majority of the time. Since that way I wouldn't have to invest gold into making a spell book for him, but could if there was a particular spell I needed.


Why do you say Factotum is Icky? I've seen some people say they absolutely love the class.

[Grod_The_Giant]

To be honest I even toyed around with going Soulknife 5/SoulBow1/Chameleon 10 with zen archery for wis to hit and to damage for some form of combat ability and going with the "divine" chameleon the majority of the time. Since that way I wouldn't have to invest gold into making a spell book for him, but could if there was a particular spell I needed.
That would work would be pretty sweet. You actually only need two Soulknife levels for Soulbow; I'd replace the latter three with a dip in Cleric (for Turning and DMM) and maybe a bit of Fighter or Ranger for combat feats. Then you have the awesome archery weapon which is the Soulbow, coupled with quick access to all those badass Ranger and Justice of Weald and Woe archery spells.


Why do you say Factotum is Icky? I've seen some people say they absolutely love the class.
It's overrated. The spellcasting takes forever to kick in, and outside that it's got no reliable offense. You have to scrimp and strain and dip and fight yourself to get anything working. Iajutsu Focus? It's really hard to reliably flat-footed people without wasting half your actions. Archery? A medium BAB and no good bonus damage does not a potent combatant make. Tripping? It works, but takes a lot of feats and makes you MAD, since you need Strength and Dex for combat, now. Knowledge Devotion? It's a nice little boost, but it's not enough, not even if you dump all your skill points into it and ruin your whole generalist shtick. Font of Inspiration? It's good if you can take it a couple times, but where are you getting the feats to do so, given that you have to build an offense from scratch?

The Factotum is solid at skills*, and can eventually start pulling out some decent spells, but they've got a long, painful pit at the most commonly played levels where they basically need to multiclass into something stronger to put up a fight.

The Chameleon, incidentally, has a similar problem-- they need their entry classes to cover offense for a few levels until their casting catches up. Factotum/Chameleon is exceptionally bad at that.

[Jack_Simth]

Bard-5/Chameleon-10.

Bard gives you a caster level - take Practiced Spellcaster(Bard) to kick it up to 9th - and all the skills you'll need to enter Chameleon. Chameleon gives you more serious spellcasting (a touch below a Mystic Theurge with standard entry), and a floating feat. Now, your chameleon's daily focus can't cover prerequisites for feats or PrC's... but the bard levels can. Which means you can use that floating feat during down time for crafting (almost anything, thanks to being able to grab any divine spell). Also: Borrowed / captured spellbooks are a thing.

While adventuring: Any divine spell, any arcane spell that you've captured, makes for a nice little buff-bot.

[Fouredged Sword]

Have him craft a single blessed book. Your minion can use the floating feat for extra spell to gain access to any arcane spell so he can write it directly into his blessed book.

[Nifft]

Why do you say Factotum is Icky? I've seen some people say they absolutely love the class.

1/ It looks good on paper, but in play I've never seen one with satisfactory results. They don't have enough Inspiration to live up to the promise -- and that's true even if you focus on Inspiration (taking Font of Inspiration at least twice).

2/ It needs more Inspiration as you get into mid-to-high levels, and that's exactly when Chameleon starts. So you never get enough Inspiration for more than a round or two.


It's actually quite decent in Gestalt, and that might be where the positive reviews come from -- the ability to create a few bonus Standard actions each encounter is incredible if you are also a Wizard. Gestalt allows you to also be a Wizard (or Cleric or Druid or Psion or other primary caster).

You're not playing Gestalt, though, so all that nice stuff doesn't apply to you.

You'd only get the false hope and disappointment.

[Grod_The_Giant]

It's actually quite decent in Gestalt, and that might be where the positive reviews come from -- the ability to create a few bonus Standard actions each encounter is incredible if you are also a Wizard. Gestalt allows you to also be a Wizard (or Cleric or Druid or Psion or other primary caster).
Oh, it's phenomenal in Gestalt. Solid chassis, good noncombat options, and minor-but-useful combat options that work with just about anyone.

[Nifft]

Oh, it's phenomenal in Gestalt. Solid chassis, good noncombat options, and minor-but-useful combat options that work with just about anyone.

IMHO even in Gestalt it's merely solid.

Compare against a Warblade who could get White Raven Tactics roughly 3 levels before a Factotum gets Cunning Surge. As a DM, I would not allow you to use WRT on yourself, but it's still a bonus action for the party, and since it's a Gestalt game the party probably includes other T1 full-casters. The Warblade option is stronger and promotes team-work, unlike the self-focused Factotum which tries to do everything itself and tends to fail.

Or a Swordsage, look at all those delicious class features which don't run out after 2 rounds.

Or a Crusader, though it's not as good in terms of Int synergy, it makes you tough as nails.

Or an Incarnate.

Or a Binder.

Heck, look at Scout. Look at how juicy your Ray and Orb attacks become after level 5 when you take Improved Skirmish for +4d6 total damage after moving 20 ft. You're stacking passive benefits instead of getting limited pool of small bonuses which run out. You'd like to double that? Hello, cloud of knives. You'd like to do that damage all day? Hello, [Reserve] feats.


In Gestalt, my experience is that Factotum is merely adequate, in contrast to the competition which can be amazing.

[Soranar]

If you're using a Factotum for item creation, honestly a Chameleon will be much better at that. You do get access to any spell and the floating feat means you don't need to spend on item creation at all.

The best entry into Chameleon is highly debatable however.

If you're a fairly high level team, spellthief 8+ Chameleon means you have an insane arcane caster level through master spellthief (2x your chameleon level + 1x your spellthief level)

If you want to enter chameleon as quickly as possible, a changeling rogue (with the right ACF) is pretty damn good. It can take 10 on social skills, has tons of skillpoints , provides trapfinding and the spells make it quite versatile.

As for Factotum, I only found a handful of satisfying combat builds with it.

Build A

Factotum 8/Decisive strike Monk 1

With decisive strike your damage is doubled
Snap kick lets you get an extra attack
Attacks of opportunity also give you more attacks as do circle kick
During your double damage rounds, grant yourself more standard actions for even more damage
Play a warforged with a battlefist component
Cast greater mighty wallop on yourself at the beginning of the day
Turn into something large through alter self in tough situations

The damage can be surprising with this build:
1d6 base damage,
4 sizes increase due to greater mighty wallop which = 4d6 (at caster level 20 mind)
and then another size increase from the battlefist attachment for 6d6 damage
+STR
x2 (decisive strike)
and you get 2 attacks per standard actions due to snap kick
you can also cast alter self on yourself to become large as a warforged walker or an animated object (another size increase, now 8d6 damage per hit)
If you get to that point, you can also use polymorph or dragon polymorph for even more size increases and STR
Also, turning into animated objects is hilarious


Build B

Or, make a dwarven thrower (again factotum 8/Decisive strike monk 1)
take the manticore's sting feat (like manyshot for thrown weapons, only needs quick draw as requisite)
use decisive strike to throw shurikens
grant yourself more standard actions then use manticore's sting to shoot stuff at double damage

This combo is merely ok, double damage is great vs DR but throwing is a subpar means of combat (1d3 + STR+knowledge devotion x2 isn't particularly impressive). You need sizing shurikens to get the damage bonus from size increases and it won't be as impressive as above

Finally, my favorite Factotum build was a mounted charger

Build C

take wild cohort to get a mount
use inspiration to add INT to damage on your charge (you can do this several times per encounter)
use normal power attack + spirited charge + lance mounted combo
the damage is similar to the decisive strike melee build with far less hassle


This combo works from level 1 and it scales well
It's a pure factotum build
Brains over brawn affects the ride skill
Knowledge devotion helps
You can keep your spells for situations that mounted combat can't handle
Playing a small race is a good idea with this build (say a strongheart halfling)
Due to ride by attack you're not nearly as vulnerable as the melee monk build
The extra standard actions are not as useful since they don't grant your mount extra actions as well but you can still use them to cast spells or such

[Gildedragon]

Personally I've loved playing Factotum. It is very much a support character and a rogue substitute. It shines the brightest in more social campaigns.
I am not as familiar with Chamaleon by virtue of usually just sticking to Factotum.

Utility-Support-Item Creation might be better covered by an Artificer focused on buffing.
(Factotums are more Utility/Support, less than stellar with Item Creation)

If Artificer is too onerous may I suggest Binder