Weird character idea: the Everyman

[Skyrender]

I was recently going back through my 3.5e stuff, and re-encountered the Chameleon and the Factotum. In a way, these classes are both centered around the idea of a character that can do pretty much anything. They go about it in different ways, but the intent is obvious. I ended up wanting to combine the two into a workable whole.

Follow me on this.

Make sure you've got decent stats in... well, in pretty much everything. If you're using point buy, make sure you have at least 14 INT, and spread the rest pretty evenly. If you skimp anywhere, CHA or STR is where you should do it.

Changeling rogue at level 1, with the racial substitution level. Able learner is your starter feat (duh). You don't have trapfinder, but instead you have skill mastery that applies to a half-dozen skills. Oh, and you get 8 more skill points than a normal rogue, and you can shapeshift into whatever appearance you want, whenever you want.

(Side note: Get the glamered extra added to your armor as soon as possible. It'll help you assume quick disguise changes you couldn't otherwise make happen!)

At level 2, take factotum. You now have proficiency with light armor and shields, all simple and martial weapons, and the hand crossbow. You also regain the trapfinder that you sacrificed in favor of skill points and skill mastery at level 1. As the factotum has ALL skills as class skills, the changeling's natural linguist ability, and the Able Learner feat, all skills are now permanently class skills for you.

(Side note: Go ahead and do your victory dance. I'll wait.)

At level 3 and 4, factotum again. By level 4, you can permanently add your INT bonus to all STR- or DEX-based skill or ability checks (remember: initiative is technically a DEX check!). This helps compensate somewhat if you don't have great scores here. You can also use one spell on the sorcerer/wizard list, once per day, as a spell-like ability. At level 3, this is a cantrip, while at 4th, it can also be level 1.

You never know when a spontaneous feather fall might save the day.

At level 5, go back and grab another level of rogue. Evasion is a life-saver, so you should make sure to pick it up. Make sure you have 8 ranks in bluff and disguise, and 4 in sense motive and spellcraft. Also, make sure to grab at least 1 rank in all the skills that are trained-only (knowledge skills, especially. You can't pretend to be a wizard if you don't know anything about magic, nor a priest if you don't know the first thing about your supposed religion!).

If you've been paying attention, then you know this is the point you enter Chameleon. You can start building up your spellbook at level 1, but level 2 gives you a floating bonus feat that you can change every morning, and switching it to extra spell during downtime to fill out your selection is a well-known exploit.

(One last side note: Once you get to this point, look at the level 1 spell list of the trapsmith class in Dungeonscape. Thank me later.)

If your DM allows it, you can grab a level of warshaper at 8th, just so you're immune to stunning and critical hits (including sneak attacks and the like). You might even sink a second level into it, so you can boost your STR and CON... but don't go any further than that. The warshaper cheese could otherwise seriously delay your advancement as a chameleon.

By the way, if your DM does allow this, thank your lucky stars, because mine kicked me out of the group (literally kicked me, mind you!) just for suggesting it.

Once you finish up chameleon at level 15, return to factotum. Cunning Surge will be an awesome capstone, if you get to level 20.

[Mato]

I was recently going back through my 3.5e stuff, and re-encountered the Chameleon and the Factotum. In a way, these classes are both centered around the idea of a character that can do pretty much anything.Wizard 20 and Illthid savant 5 are also pretty good.

For lower levels a mystic ranger / prestige paladin with sword of the arcane order & smite to song lets you pretend you are a druid/fighter/wizard/paladin/bard and it isn't a terrible choice of classes.

[Bavarian itP]

So ... is this supposed to be a new idea?




By the way, if your DM does allow this, thank your lucky stars, because mine kicked me out of the group (literally kicked me, mind you!) just for suggesting it.



Bad DM. Because D&D is about having fun, and playing a Factotum is not fun, so a good DM would have kicked you out at level 2.

[noob]

So ... is this supposed to be a new idea?



Bad DM. Because D&D is about having fun, and playing a Factotum is not fun, so a good DM would have kicked you out at level 2.

Well if you consider playing a factotum is not fun do you play only fully optimized druids or something like that?
Also they got kicked way before level 2: the kick happened before the character was made.

[Bavarian itP]

Well if you consider playing a factotum is not fun do you play only fully optimized druids or something like that?

From Pun-Pun to paraglegic commoner in a coma, everything is funnier than a factotum.


Also they got kicked way before level 2: the kick happened before the character was made.

That was ambiguous, and I decided in favor of the interpretation that let me make a salty comment against the factotum.

[Skyrender]

In fact, the kick to my posterior occurred after getting past level 7, when I asked about warshaper. Up until that point, I had been behind the power curve - especially compared to the party's wizard and clerics - so the DM had no objection. But try to actually make use of a prestige class that gives a non-caster a bit of usefulness and utility, and you'd think I started World War IX.

[Bavarian itP]

World War IX

Now I'm intrigued.

[Skyrender]

Every player and every DM has their own image in their mind of what this game "should" be. Everyone reacts a little differently to things that fall outside their own comfort zone. Some are cautious but try to keep an open mind, some just sit there quietly stewing about the inclusion of something they object to. Others, like my ex-DM (let's call him John Doe) are loudly vocal and abusive, beyond any shred of reason. John has no trouble with tier 1 classes (as proof, we had a thoroughly optimized wizard and a couple of clerics), nor with handing out magic items like candy to our warblade. Unfortunately, the changeling-warshaper combo appears to have been a level 99 hot button for him, and I still don't know why. Yes, I understand the arguments people have against it, but simply asking him about it got a reaction that was entirely out of proportion. A simple 'no' from him would have sufficed.

[Bavarian itP]

Well, I obviously can't help you with your DM, but are you familiar with this?

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?88633-Haberdash-the-Masked-The-3-5-Kitchen-Sink

This is a similar concept to yours, I guess.

[Malphegor]

I'd probably drop the rogue level since factotum gets a lot of skill points anyway tbh.

If you're going Changeling, there's probably some merit to taking the first level in cabinet trickster, mainly for the detect thoughts spell if you don't already have it.

Since a Chameleon uses borrowed spellbooks, remember to poke any allied wizards you know to let you skim read their spellbooks- you can prepare your spells based off their spells. Also note that any arcane spellcaster's spells can be yours if they prepare it via a spellbook I guess? Which is slightly weird since most arcanists cast spontaneously, but there's a couple here and there beyond wizards that do use spellbooks, some with weird spell lists.

I always see factotum changelings as infiltrators, tricking people into believing you're totes the real deal, see, you've got the same skills as the real geezer you're pretending to be.

Also most of what you'll be doing either way will be Intelligence or Charisma based above all else, so maybe consider a dip in Marshal to inspire yourself with a boost to either's skill checks depending on what you're doing most (Charisma might be the most important given the Cabinet Trickster's DCs are charisma based)

[Psyren]

Factotum is indeed overrated - not necessarily to Bavarian's hyperbolic degree, but it's not the super-class that some sources make it out to be.

But the real trouble with these kind of JOATMON everyman builds is that D&D is a party game and thus rewards specialization. While you can be a dilettante and even be decently effective in many cases, you usually won't bring as much to the table as a character that focuses on doing one thing particularly well. The exception to that is T1 classes - and even then they are focusing on one thing, it just so happens that their one thing is a thing that can itself do multiple things (like wizard or cleric spellcasting)

[Skyrender]

In my experience, that reliance on a group of specialists, each doing their part for the group, is both the strength and the Achilles' Heel of the game. All it takes is for one player to not show up to a session, and the entire thing gets derailed.

No healer? Guaranteed TPK.

No tank? Possible TPK.

No trap monkey? Another possible TPK (assuming your DM uses traps, which not all of them do).

If you have an everyman character in the party, it becomes a kind of failsafe to help keep these things from happening. It doesn't prevent them entirely, granted, but having someone who can fill in for a missing player can help keep things running smoothly.

Take the game I recently got kicked out of. Other than me, we had a swift hunter, a warblade, a wizard, and a couple of clerics. We had all the usual bases covered: tank, traps, damage, buffs, healing. I was pretty much just there as a mascot... until, suddenly, I wasn't. One week, our trap monkey couldn't make it to the game... the one week that was intended to allow the trap monkey to shine. I remember that week pretty well because suddenly, I was useful. My decision to make a character that could do a wide variety of things instead of focusing in one area had a real, tangible payoff. I ended up disarming five different traps that week, including one that might have managed to TPK us, with one swell foop.

That is not a typo: the DM actually created a monster called a 'foop', and the trap gave it a 50% heal and made it grow one size category every three rounds. He actually created a deadly encounter, just to do a play on a verbal gag.

Point is, the strength of an everyman isn't being the star in one area, 24/7. It's more like being the understudy for a couple of different roles in a play, so you can fill in on those nights when the real star is sick... or doing an audition for the next MCU movie.

[noob]

do four clerics then.
clerics can cover most roles.

[Psyren]

In my experience, that reliance on a group of specialists, each doing their part for the group, is both the strength and the Achilles' Heel of the game. All it takes is for one player to not show up to a session, and the entire thing gets derailed.

No healer? Guaranteed TPK.

No tank? Possible TPK.

No trap monkey? Another possible TPK (assuming your DM uses traps, which not all of them do).

If you have an everyman character in the party, it becomes a kind of failsafe to help keep these things from happening. It doesn't prevent them entirely, granted, but having someone who can fill in for a missing player can help keep things running smoothly.

Take the game I recently got kicked out of. Other than me, we had a swift hunter, a warblade, a wizard, and a couple of clerics. We had all the usual bases covered: tank, traps, damage, buffs, healing. I was pretty much just there as a mascot... until, suddenly, I wasn't. One week, our trap monkey couldn't make it to the game... the week was intended to allow the trap monkey to shine. I remember that week pretty well because suddenly, I was useful. My decision to make a character that could do a wide variety of things instead of focusing in one area had a real, tangible payoff. I ended up disarming five different traps that week, including one that might have managed to TPK us, with one swell foop.

That is not a typo: the DM actually created a monster called a 'foop', and the trap gave it a 50% heal and made it grow one size category every three rounds. He actually created a deadly encounter, just to do a play on a verbal gag.

Point is, the strength of an everyman isn't being the star in one area, 24/7. It's more like being the understudy for a couple of different roles in a play, so you can fill in on those nights when the real star is sick... or doing an audition for the next MCU movie.

Oh I never said having a 5th-man wasn't a good idea - but again, that's still assuming that the rest of the party has consciously specialized.

Also, most groups I've been in simply leave "basic programming" instructions for the times they can't make it to a session, like the cleric focuses on healing/channeling if his player isn't there, the sorcerer uses her favorite blasting spell, or the DM rolls for the trapmonkey if they are absent etc.