daremetoidareyo
2020-10-06, 08:14 PM
INTRODUCTION
Look, I'm no Piggy Knowles, but I love his showcases, and like him, I have years of spare build parts and ideas strewn across my digital storage. My particular focus of interest in optimization isn't really where the rules work to make solid builds, but more of the opposite: where the rules as written are a little insufficient and experimentally exploitable to create whole new optimization frontiers of ridiculous and unanticipated results. This edition of D&D has over 127 books, numerous web add-ons, and scores of authors between them, and with that comes strange redundancies and synergies that are just delightful to toy with.
So here is a dedicated effort to flesh out some of these build exploits into full write-ups, workshopped with other character optimization enthusiasts to show off a fancy new TO type trick and spur discussion, all in an homage to Piggy's Showcases.
In general the intent is to create something that can be played theoretically, if you get permission from whomever is running your game, as the results of this munchkinry aren't fair to foist onto an unsuspecting DM. If the undergirding suppositions of how these rules work as written are accepted, a reasonable level 1 to level 20 build is provided.
Again, the goal is discussion, so feel free to discuss the build, talk about other options, make suggestions or tear it all to shreds. Also, feel free to use anything showcased here in any of your campaigns—and let us know how they work out if you do!
Right now the group consists of myself, the Viscount, Akal Saris, Venger, WhamBamSam, Darrin and the inestimable Piggy Knowles. Typically one of us writes up the build concept and possibly a stub, the others share feedback on Discord or in some of the shared documents we have, and together we refine things until we’re happy with the final product.
For this showcase, it’s time to take a good long look at the sleep rules. Here is the Sleepless Beauty
https://i.imgur.com/OlJVvzW.gif
Sleepless Beauty
Now THAT's what I call a power nap!
BACKGROUND
This began with me copying all of the effects that alter resting times, sleep, and natural healing into a sheet to see if we could do anything with it.
This build is what ultimately grew from that.
It's only later that I found this microguide (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?189716-Boosting-Rest-Based-Healing-A-Microguide-3-5) and apparently it needs a few entries added. Notably, wakefulness, bloodthirsty spell (dragon comp.), hibernate (dragon comp), rapid metabolism (xph), cyre scout, child of night, and shadowcaster.
Dragons of the north, the online archive, has a feat under the Balagos (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/wn/20020130a) edition called wakefulness:
Wakefulness [General] You need less sleep than others of your race to function. Benefit: You need only half the amount of sleep per night normal for your species to get a good night's rest. You can recover from fatigue after 4 hours of complete rest. You can move from exhausted to fatigued after half an hour of complete rest. Normal: Most creatures need 8 hours of sleep per night. A character can recover from fatigue after 8 hours of complete rest. An exhausted character becomes fatigued after 1 hour of complete rest.
When paired with draw from the land, a regional feat from unapproachable east
Draw From The Land (Unapproachable East p. 43) [General] You can draw strength and sustenance from the land itself.
Prerequisite Ethran.
REGION: Rashemen,
Benefit: Before resting, you may draw upon the power of the land to revitalize your body and mind. This allows you to recover 2 hit points per day of light activity, or 4 hit points per level for each day of complete rest, and 2 ability score points per day, or 4 ability score points for each day of complete rest. This stacks with the benefits of long-term care provided by someone with the Heal skill You may also use the energy of the land to fuel your body's need for food and water. This gives you a +10 bonus on Constitution checks made to avoid subdual damage from hunger and thirst. Finally, you may use the power of the land to refresh your mind and body as a supplement to sleep. You require half as much sleep as normal (although you still have to rest a full 8 hours to prepare spells or regain spell slots). Outside of Rashemen, you must make a Concentration check (DC 10 + 2 per 100 miles from the border of Rashemen) to activate this ability. If you fail, you cannot retry for 1 day.
You can get your daily sleep needs down to 2 hours.
The ring of sustenance (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rings.htm#sustenance) sets your sleep needs down to 2 hours.
Combine all three, and you can get a nights full rest in 30 minutes.
An elan (expanded psionics handbook) needs only to trance for 4 hours to achieve 8 hours of rest. Bringing our rest time down to 15 minutes. And that's achievable, ostensibly, at will.
Elans do not sleep as members of most other races do. Instead, an elan meditates in a deep trance for 4 hours a day. An elan resting in this fashion gains the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep. While in this trance, an elan concentrates on suffusing her body with psionic energy, healing the hurts of the day, and restoring animation and resiliency to her tissues.
The bard spells healthful rest and summon elysian thrush both double your natural healing rate. I'm not sure how they'll fit into the finished build, but they allow some massive healing after 15 minute trances that give you the benefit of 8 hours of sleep.
When discussing this with the hive mind, it was pitched that we find a way to regenerate spell slots with all of that resting. Unfortunately, tucked away in caster rules is this: recent casting limit. (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/arcaneSpells.htm#sorcererRecentCastingLimit)
All of the base spellcasting classes have that. Manifesters do also. It took some searching, but then we found a pseudo-caster without that limitation: the Factotum
And so, it was born. The Sleepless Beauty.
But First, at level 1, we have to navigate a rules morass.
Draw from the land is categorized as a regional feat in Players Guide to Faerun. It has a prerequisite feat of Ethran, which is also a regional feat. According to the rules for regional feats, you may only select a single regional feat at first level. So it's technically impossible to take Draw From the Land.
However, the prerequisite named in Draw From the Land is also a title for an initiated Rashemen human witch. So that is the reading of the pre-requisite we are using to assert that this feat can be taken by anyone from the Rashemen region who can get that title, instead of the regional feat entitled Ethran. To rule otherwise means that no one can ever take Draw From the Land and the game designers just wasted a bunch of text for no good reason.
A pleasant outgrowth of this interpretation is that it is possible for an elan to take the feat. Because they begin as humans and are then later psionically born into being an immortal elan, they can become an Ethran (an initiated human witch), do Ethran things and just before class levels kick in, be psionically born as an elan.
The Build
I am going to deviate from typical showcase style because this build is basically a narrowly tailored exploit, it likely involves over 100 skill points, the entirety of the sorc/wiz spell lists, all of the feats in the game due to the chameleon prestige class and some static early game choices followed by taking the Font of Inspiration feat as many times as possible.
Instead, you are getting stubs connected to a Dichotomous key.
So here's the key:
Are you allowed flaws?
If no, continue down there under the subjecting entitled "no flaws"
If yes, continue here:
HERE
Elan (good alignment)
1. Factotum: Draw from the land, flaw: human heritage, flaw: able learner
2. Factotum
3. Factotum: ancestral relic (ring of sustenance)
4. Factotum
5. Factotum
6. Chamelion: wakefulness
7. Chamelion
8-20: factotum: fonts of inspiration
So there's a few things happening here. With flaws, we can remove any doubt that we are human enough to take able learner, and reassert that we are human enough to be an ethran, therefor a viable candidate for the draw from the land feat. Everything aligns nicely. You bang out 5 levels, dip chameleon for two or three levels, and go back to factotum and collect four Font of inspiration feats between levels 9-18.
This build is rules legal. Due to the fact that factotums don't cast spells and their arcane dilletente ability only requires 8 hours of rest to recharge. Our wakefulness feat, the elan trance, and ring of sustenance all reduce the rest requirement down to 30 minutes of trancing. Ironclad RAW. Which is the internet equivalent of this being allowed at every table everywhere. ;)
Draw from the land doesn't reduce spell preparation time or regaining of spell slots, as called out in the feat. Now, preparing spells is a game defined term as are spell slots, neither of which factotums do. Further, the language of the factotums arcane dilletente ability interchangeably uses the words "select" and "prepare" to address what spells they access as SLAs. But again, he isn't preparing spells, but a spell like ability based on spells. If you accept this argument, it takes 15 minutes to trance and reselect your factotum spells. If not, you're stuck with 30 minute trances.
So any sorc/wiz spell that lasts for hours that you have access to is now something you can pre-buff your adventuring day with: E.g. Mage armor, protection from arrows, protection from ranged weapons etc.
Further, you can load up on quick potions, available via a second level spell available at level 5. Fill them with shorter duration 1st level buffs drawn from your spell list. See the spells section at the end.
A wizard has to study for an hour every morning, so you can just use that time to load up the 4 potions you need for the next 5 hours with a few 15 minute trances in between castings.
The increase in utility for this build is pronounced: You can cast a few spells per encounter, instead of per day now. You have a utility belt of potions to handle your inevitable inspiration point drain. And you can trance your casting back in between encounters. This makes the factotum a bona fide tier 2.
Chameleon offers two things: a floating feat and other spell lists. Grab those bard spells that double your natural healing rate and craft them into wands using the floating feat. Now do the same with acorn of far travel from the druid list so you can access your draw from the land ability anywhere.
As a bonus, you get your character level multiplied by eight back from natural healing with every trance.
Blade of blood should be in your short list of spells. In fact, you should get a wand chamber and put this in whatever weapon you're fighting with.
It's probably best to save chameleon casting days for magic item production (using that floating feat for the item creation feat prereq). On adventure days, do combat focus, but consider nabbing ocular spell as your floating feat. You can store 2 spells in your eyes for up to 8 hours. And you can apply metamagics to SLAs granted by factotum. Granted, ocular spell is a +2 spell level metamagic, so you're stuck with 0 level ocular spells until level 10.
No Flaws allowed
If you can get elan to count as human to satisfy the ethran as a position in society requirement for draw on the land feat continue to further down to the section subtitled as "Section 2B" below.
If you can get the sidebar on page 150 of races of Destiny to allow a half elf to count as a human for feats (like Draw From the Land or Able Learner) without the necessity of taking the human heritage feat, proceed immediately below to "Section 2A"
Section A:
You're a half elf (good alignment)
1: Half-Elf Paragon 1: Draw from the land, Able Learner
2: Factotum 1
3: Factotum 2: Ancestral Relic (Ring of sustenance)
4: Factotum 3: Group trance team work benefit
5: Factotum 4
6:Chameleon 1: Wakefulness
7: Chameleon 2:
8-20: Factotum: allnfeats are font
To take chameleon, as well as to mitigate sleep needs, you need two feats at level 1: Draw From the Land and Able Learner. To count as human, you need to have the half human sidebar from page 150 in races of Destiny to be in effect. It's not an unreasonable request to make, I mean, it's right there as an offered variant.
One level of half elf paragon grants a bonus feat. At level 1 you can take able learner and draw from the land.
Continue for 4 factotum levels. At level 4, you can take team work benefits. Get group trance as team leader. Weirdly, it's the only way for a half elf to trance like an elf, and it reduces your rest needs from 8 hours of sleep to 4 hours of trance.
From there, just continue the build as if you're an elan. With ancestral relic ring of sustenance at 3rd level and wakefulness coming online at level 6, your sleep needs are replaced by a 15 minute trance.
Section 2B
If you cannot get either concession, go to section C.
Elan no flaws
The only reasons you need Elan is a baked in 4 hour trance. So a half-elf with one rank in concentration and the group trance teamwork benefit can avail themselves of this build.
A presupposition is that draw from the land isn't human only because it isn't overtly stated to be the case as a prerequisite, and the only source demanding that you be a human is a feat that you can't take along with draw from the land anyway, and even then, both half elves and elan are mostly human and move in human societies anyway. If an elan was an ethran at level zero, and got draw from the land just pre-class level and racial elan birth, it still works.
So, without the allowance of flaws, but the presence of the ability to take draw from the land, this build will work around the problem by cutting out the chameleon. The losses aren't hugely significant, you lose The floating feat, bard spells, and the acorn of far travel.
But: you still have the ancestral relic ring of sustenance. You might be able to price the acorn of far travel effect into the ring anyway via the ancestral relic feat, as well as the bard spells. Remember that miniguide to natural healing and sleep at the top, some of those items and magical effects can be incorporated into that ring or supplement all of this to replace the loss of healthful rest and elysian thrush, but unlike another build around astounding natural healing, the primary focus here is reloading arcane dilettante on the fly.
Remember, without draw from the land, your trance time simply goes up to 30 minutes. Which means you can mid day trance for a pick me up probably once a day while adventuring, and you can absolutely spend an hour and a few rounds prepping in the morning for your quick potions, you got time to kill because you don't really sleep anyway.
So the stub is
Group trance ethran positioned half-human Half-elf or elan
Factotum 20
1: draw from the land
3: ancestral relic (ring of sustenance)
6: wakefulness
9: font of insp
12: font
15: font
18: font
Section 2C
Decide if a 30 minute trance is enough to make your sleepless factotum. This puts a dent in serious adventuring day adaptability.
Race: Elan, half elf, or elf
All have a trance that replaces 8 hours of rest with 4 hours of trance.
Factotum 20
1: wakefulness
3: ancestral relic (ring of sustenance)
4: half elf or elf gets group trance teamwork benefit
6-18: any factotum advancing feats
Easy enough.30 minutes of trance = 8 hours of rest, you can choose new arcane dilettante spells.
If you pump wisdom, or dip cleric with two turn pool producing domains, consider extend and persist spell for maximum buffing. This ability is limited by a per day statement though.
Spells
I went through the spell lists for the first three/four spell levels to make a little list of ideas for yall. I fully intended to do the whole 7 spell levels available to factotum, but honestly, I completely ran out of steam. They are in the spoiler below.
Can you use spells that only exist on one list? E.g. Arcane fusion, mnemonic enhancer? We assume the answer is: no, you can't.
We have 3 tiers of spells:
Long Duration Spells, which you cast on yourself a few times a day, or once a day and then trance to regain your dilletente uses. Selected useful options are itemized, below, with them being separated into perception, protection, combat, and utility. These spells are at least 1 Hr/lvl.
Short Duration Spells/ Quick Potions: these spells are unlisted. These are typically measured in minutes per caster level. These are candidates for quickpotions. Choose spells that are worth a standard action if you need them in combat, or have multipurpose utility for quickpotions.
Nova spells: combat spells that you can use in combat with inspiration points. Powerful conflict resolution spells go here. After combat, you can trance for 15-30 minutes and get their use back. These are standard action cast times or shorter that either deal hp damage or help you do your other things better.
1st Level Spells
Long Durations
Perception
Appraising touch (SC) 1h/lvl +10 to an appraise check
Low-light vision 1 h/lvl
Protection
Ectoplasmic armor (SC) 1 h/lvl: +5 AC vs incorporeal
Endure elements: 24 hours
Mage armor: 1 h/lvl +4 AC
Combat
Ghostly reload (races of Dragon) 1 hour
Utility
Alarm: 2hour/level
Ancient knowledge (magic of eberron p.94): 1 hour/level +5 to a knowledge check
Bigbys helpful hand (phb2) 1 h/lvl. A little helper construct
Create trap (races of Dragon) 12 hours
Distracting shadows (magic of eberron): 24 hours: -5 to search for traps
Darsons cooling breeze (shining south) 1 h/lvl: light 9mph wind
Hoard gullet (dragon magic) 1 h/lvl: stash stuff in your gut
Mount: 2 h/lvl
Sea legs (shining south) autopass dc20 balance checks
Tensers floating disc 1 h/lvl
Unseen servant: 1h/lvl
1st level quickpotions
Fist of stone
1st level Nova spells
Blade of blood
Instant of power
Blockade
Color spray
2nd Level
Long durations
Perception
Chain of eyes; hour/lvl
Spymasters coin:HR/lvl
Allied footsteps: day/level
Speaking stones:24 hours
Marked object:day/lvl
Misdirection, misrepresent alignment, & obscure object
Protection
Create magic tattoo: 1 day
Protection from arrows:HR/lvl
Silver dragonmail:HR/lvl
Spawn screen:HR/lvl
Indiffetence:HR/lvl
Major resistance:HR/lvl
False life: HR/lvl
Combat
Sense weakness:24 hours/activate
Create magic tattoo
Utility
Unseen crafter: day/lvl
Heart of air: HR/lvl
Rope trick: HR/lvl
Fools gold
Quick potion
2nd Level Quickpotions
Balancing lorecall
Jaws of the moray
Insight of good fortune
Dimension leap
2nd level nova spells
Energy darts
Whirling blade
Ray of stupidity
Scimitar of sand (see whirling blade)
3rd level Spells
Long duration
Perception
Disobedience: HR/lvl
Nondetection
Protection
Greater mage armor
Mass mage armor
Heart of water
Golden dragonmail
Combat
Crown of might:HR/lvl
Greater magic weapon:HR/lvl
Greater mighty wollop: HR/lvl
Tongue serpents
Utility
Anticipate teleportation: 24 hr
Regal procession
Servant hoard
Phantom steed
Suggestion
Sepia snake sigil
Shrink item
4th level spells
Perception
Treasure scent
Superior darkvision
Psychic poison
Mass darkvision
Detect decrying
Protection
Heart of earth
Utility
Suspension: 1d4 days+day/lvl
Celestial brilliance
Lesser geas
Charm monster
Mass unseen servant
Treasure scent
Minor creation
Leomunds shelter and carriage
Ice ship
Open least chakra:24 hours
Attune form: 24 hours
Force chest: day/level
Distort summons
Sources
Book of exalted Deeds: ancestral relic
XPH: Elan
Players guide to faerun: Draw from the land
Races of Destiny: human heritage, chameleon, Able Learner
PHB2: Group trance teamwork benefit
Web: font of inspiration, wakefulness
Look, I'm no Piggy Knowles, but I love his showcases, and like him, I have years of spare build parts and ideas strewn across my digital storage. My particular focus of interest in optimization isn't really where the rules work to make solid builds, but more of the opposite: where the rules as written are a little insufficient and experimentally exploitable to create whole new optimization frontiers of ridiculous and unanticipated results. This edition of D&D has over 127 books, numerous web add-ons, and scores of authors between them, and with that comes strange redundancies and synergies that are just delightful to toy with.
So here is a dedicated effort to flesh out some of these build exploits into full write-ups, workshopped with other character optimization enthusiasts to show off a fancy new TO type trick and spur discussion, all in an homage to Piggy's Showcases.
In general the intent is to create something that can be played theoretically, if you get permission from whomever is running your game, as the results of this munchkinry aren't fair to foist onto an unsuspecting DM. If the undergirding suppositions of how these rules work as written are accepted, a reasonable level 1 to level 20 build is provided.
Again, the goal is discussion, so feel free to discuss the build, talk about other options, make suggestions or tear it all to shreds. Also, feel free to use anything showcased here in any of your campaigns—and let us know how they work out if you do!
Right now the group consists of myself, the Viscount, Akal Saris, Venger, WhamBamSam, Darrin and the inestimable Piggy Knowles. Typically one of us writes up the build concept and possibly a stub, the others share feedback on Discord or in some of the shared documents we have, and together we refine things until we’re happy with the final product.
For this showcase, it’s time to take a good long look at the sleep rules. Here is the Sleepless Beauty
https://i.imgur.com/OlJVvzW.gif
Sleepless Beauty
Now THAT's what I call a power nap!
BACKGROUND
This began with me copying all of the effects that alter resting times, sleep, and natural healing into a sheet to see if we could do anything with it.
This build is what ultimately grew from that.
It's only later that I found this microguide (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?189716-Boosting-Rest-Based-Healing-A-Microguide-3-5) and apparently it needs a few entries added. Notably, wakefulness, bloodthirsty spell (dragon comp.), hibernate (dragon comp), rapid metabolism (xph), cyre scout, child of night, and shadowcaster.
Dragons of the north, the online archive, has a feat under the Balagos (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/wn/20020130a) edition called wakefulness:
Wakefulness [General] You need less sleep than others of your race to function. Benefit: You need only half the amount of sleep per night normal for your species to get a good night's rest. You can recover from fatigue after 4 hours of complete rest. You can move from exhausted to fatigued after half an hour of complete rest. Normal: Most creatures need 8 hours of sleep per night. A character can recover from fatigue after 8 hours of complete rest. An exhausted character becomes fatigued after 1 hour of complete rest.
When paired with draw from the land, a regional feat from unapproachable east
Draw From The Land (Unapproachable East p. 43) [General] You can draw strength and sustenance from the land itself.
Prerequisite Ethran.
REGION: Rashemen,
Benefit: Before resting, you may draw upon the power of the land to revitalize your body and mind. This allows you to recover 2 hit points per day of light activity, or 4 hit points per level for each day of complete rest, and 2 ability score points per day, or 4 ability score points for each day of complete rest. This stacks with the benefits of long-term care provided by someone with the Heal skill You may also use the energy of the land to fuel your body's need for food and water. This gives you a +10 bonus on Constitution checks made to avoid subdual damage from hunger and thirst. Finally, you may use the power of the land to refresh your mind and body as a supplement to sleep. You require half as much sleep as normal (although you still have to rest a full 8 hours to prepare spells or regain spell slots). Outside of Rashemen, you must make a Concentration check (DC 10 + 2 per 100 miles from the border of Rashemen) to activate this ability. If you fail, you cannot retry for 1 day.
You can get your daily sleep needs down to 2 hours.
The ring of sustenance (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/rings.htm#sustenance) sets your sleep needs down to 2 hours.
Combine all three, and you can get a nights full rest in 30 minutes.
An elan (expanded psionics handbook) needs only to trance for 4 hours to achieve 8 hours of rest. Bringing our rest time down to 15 minutes. And that's achievable, ostensibly, at will.
Elans do not sleep as members of most other races do. Instead, an elan meditates in a deep trance for 4 hours a day. An elan resting in this fashion gains the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep. While in this trance, an elan concentrates on suffusing her body with psionic energy, healing the hurts of the day, and restoring animation and resiliency to her tissues.
The bard spells healthful rest and summon elysian thrush both double your natural healing rate. I'm not sure how they'll fit into the finished build, but they allow some massive healing after 15 minute trances that give you the benefit of 8 hours of sleep.
When discussing this with the hive mind, it was pitched that we find a way to regenerate spell slots with all of that resting. Unfortunately, tucked away in caster rules is this: recent casting limit. (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/arcaneSpells.htm#sorcererRecentCastingLimit)
All of the base spellcasting classes have that. Manifesters do also. It took some searching, but then we found a pseudo-caster without that limitation: the Factotum
And so, it was born. The Sleepless Beauty.
But First, at level 1, we have to navigate a rules morass.
Draw from the land is categorized as a regional feat in Players Guide to Faerun. It has a prerequisite feat of Ethran, which is also a regional feat. According to the rules for regional feats, you may only select a single regional feat at first level. So it's technically impossible to take Draw From the Land.
However, the prerequisite named in Draw From the Land is also a title for an initiated Rashemen human witch. So that is the reading of the pre-requisite we are using to assert that this feat can be taken by anyone from the Rashemen region who can get that title, instead of the regional feat entitled Ethran. To rule otherwise means that no one can ever take Draw From the Land and the game designers just wasted a bunch of text for no good reason.
A pleasant outgrowth of this interpretation is that it is possible for an elan to take the feat. Because they begin as humans and are then later psionically born into being an immortal elan, they can become an Ethran (an initiated human witch), do Ethran things and just before class levels kick in, be psionically born as an elan.
The Build
I am going to deviate from typical showcase style because this build is basically a narrowly tailored exploit, it likely involves over 100 skill points, the entirety of the sorc/wiz spell lists, all of the feats in the game due to the chameleon prestige class and some static early game choices followed by taking the Font of Inspiration feat as many times as possible.
Instead, you are getting stubs connected to a Dichotomous key.
So here's the key:
Are you allowed flaws?
If no, continue down there under the subjecting entitled "no flaws"
If yes, continue here:
HERE
Elan (good alignment)
1. Factotum: Draw from the land, flaw: human heritage, flaw: able learner
2. Factotum
3. Factotum: ancestral relic (ring of sustenance)
4. Factotum
5. Factotum
6. Chamelion: wakefulness
7. Chamelion
8-20: factotum: fonts of inspiration
So there's a few things happening here. With flaws, we can remove any doubt that we are human enough to take able learner, and reassert that we are human enough to be an ethran, therefor a viable candidate for the draw from the land feat. Everything aligns nicely. You bang out 5 levels, dip chameleon for two or three levels, and go back to factotum and collect four Font of inspiration feats between levels 9-18.
This build is rules legal. Due to the fact that factotums don't cast spells and their arcane dilletente ability only requires 8 hours of rest to recharge. Our wakefulness feat, the elan trance, and ring of sustenance all reduce the rest requirement down to 30 minutes of trancing. Ironclad RAW. Which is the internet equivalent of this being allowed at every table everywhere. ;)
Draw from the land doesn't reduce spell preparation time or regaining of spell slots, as called out in the feat. Now, preparing spells is a game defined term as are spell slots, neither of which factotums do. Further, the language of the factotums arcane dilletente ability interchangeably uses the words "select" and "prepare" to address what spells they access as SLAs. But again, he isn't preparing spells, but a spell like ability based on spells. If you accept this argument, it takes 15 minutes to trance and reselect your factotum spells. If not, you're stuck with 30 minute trances.
So any sorc/wiz spell that lasts for hours that you have access to is now something you can pre-buff your adventuring day with: E.g. Mage armor, protection from arrows, protection from ranged weapons etc.
Further, you can load up on quick potions, available via a second level spell available at level 5. Fill them with shorter duration 1st level buffs drawn from your spell list. See the spells section at the end.
A wizard has to study for an hour every morning, so you can just use that time to load up the 4 potions you need for the next 5 hours with a few 15 minute trances in between castings.
The increase in utility for this build is pronounced: You can cast a few spells per encounter, instead of per day now. You have a utility belt of potions to handle your inevitable inspiration point drain. And you can trance your casting back in between encounters. This makes the factotum a bona fide tier 2.
Chameleon offers two things: a floating feat and other spell lists. Grab those bard spells that double your natural healing rate and craft them into wands using the floating feat. Now do the same with acorn of far travel from the druid list so you can access your draw from the land ability anywhere.
As a bonus, you get your character level multiplied by eight back from natural healing with every trance.
Blade of blood should be in your short list of spells. In fact, you should get a wand chamber and put this in whatever weapon you're fighting with.
It's probably best to save chameleon casting days for magic item production (using that floating feat for the item creation feat prereq). On adventure days, do combat focus, but consider nabbing ocular spell as your floating feat. You can store 2 spells in your eyes for up to 8 hours. And you can apply metamagics to SLAs granted by factotum. Granted, ocular spell is a +2 spell level metamagic, so you're stuck with 0 level ocular spells until level 10.
No Flaws allowed
If you can get elan to count as human to satisfy the ethran as a position in society requirement for draw on the land feat continue to further down to the section subtitled as "Section 2B" below.
If you can get the sidebar on page 150 of races of Destiny to allow a half elf to count as a human for feats (like Draw From the Land or Able Learner) without the necessity of taking the human heritage feat, proceed immediately below to "Section 2A"
Section A:
You're a half elf (good alignment)
1: Half-Elf Paragon 1: Draw from the land, Able Learner
2: Factotum 1
3: Factotum 2: Ancestral Relic (Ring of sustenance)
4: Factotum 3: Group trance team work benefit
5: Factotum 4
6:Chameleon 1: Wakefulness
7: Chameleon 2:
8-20: Factotum: allnfeats are font
To take chameleon, as well as to mitigate sleep needs, you need two feats at level 1: Draw From the Land and Able Learner. To count as human, you need to have the half human sidebar from page 150 in races of Destiny to be in effect. It's not an unreasonable request to make, I mean, it's right there as an offered variant.
One level of half elf paragon grants a bonus feat. At level 1 you can take able learner and draw from the land.
Continue for 4 factotum levels. At level 4, you can take team work benefits. Get group trance as team leader. Weirdly, it's the only way for a half elf to trance like an elf, and it reduces your rest needs from 8 hours of sleep to 4 hours of trance.
From there, just continue the build as if you're an elan. With ancestral relic ring of sustenance at 3rd level and wakefulness coming online at level 6, your sleep needs are replaced by a 15 minute trance.
Section 2B
If you cannot get either concession, go to section C.
Elan no flaws
The only reasons you need Elan is a baked in 4 hour trance. So a half-elf with one rank in concentration and the group trance teamwork benefit can avail themselves of this build.
A presupposition is that draw from the land isn't human only because it isn't overtly stated to be the case as a prerequisite, and the only source demanding that you be a human is a feat that you can't take along with draw from the land anyway, and even then, both half elves and elan are mostly human and move in human societies anyway. If an elan was an ethran at level zero, and got draw from the land just pre-class level and racial elan birth, it still works.
So, without the allowance of flaws, but the presence of the ability to take draw from the land, this build will work around the problem by cutting out the chameleon. The losses aren't hugely significant, you lose The floating feat, bard spells, and the acorn of far travel.
But: you still have the ancestral relic ring of sustenance. You might be able to price the acorn of far travel effect into the ring anyway via the ancestral relic feat, as well as the bard spells. Remember that miniguide to natural healing and sleep at the top, some of those items and magical effects can be incorporated into that ring or supplement all of this to replace the loss of healthful rest and elysian thrush, but unlike another build around astounding natural healing, the primary focus here is reloading arcane dilettante on the fly.
Remember, without draw from the land, your trance time simply goes up to 30 minutes. Which means you can mid day trance for a pick me up probably once a day while adventuring, and you can absolutely spend an hour and a few rounds prepping in the morning for your quick potions, you got time to kill because you don't really sleep anyway.
So the stub is
Group trance ethran positioned half-human Half-elf or elan
Factotum 20
1: draw from the land
3: ancestral relic (ring of sustenance)
6: wakefulness
9: font of insp
12: font
15: font
18: font
Section 2C
Decide if a 30 minute trance is enough to make your sleepless factotum. This puts a dent in serious adventuring day adaptability.
Race: Elan, half elf, or elf
All have a trance that replaces 8 hours of rest with 4 hours of trance.
Factotum 20
1: wakefulness
3: ancestral relic (ring of sustenance)
4: half elf or elf gets group trance teamwork benefit
6-18: any factotum advancing feats
Easy enough.30 minutes of trance = 8 hours of rest, you can choose new arcane dilettante spells.
If you pump wisdom, or dip cleric with two turn pool producing domains, consider extend and persist spell for maximum buffing. This ability is limited by a per day statement though.
Spells
I went through the spell lists for the first three/four spell levels to make a little list of ideas for yall. I fully intended to do the whole 7 spell levels available to factotum, but honestly, I completely ran out of steam. They are in the spoiler below.
Can you use spells that only exist on one list? E.g. Arcane fusion, mnemonic enhancer? We assume the answer is: no, you can't.
We have 3 tiers of spells:
Long Duration Spells, which you cast on yourself a few times a day, or once a day and then trance to regain your dilletente uses. Selected useful options are itemized, below, with them being separated into perception, protection, combat, and utility. These spells are at least 1 Hr/lvl.
Short Duration Spells/ Quick Potions: these spells are unlisted. These are typically measured in minutes per caster level. These are candidates for quickpotions. Choose spells that are worth a standard action if you need them in combat, or have multipurpose utility for quickpotions.
Nova spells: combat spells that you can use in combat with inspiration points. Powerful conflict resolution spells go here. After combat, you can trance for 15-30 minutes and get their use back. These are standard action cast times or shorter that either deal hp damage or help you do your other things better.
1st Level Spells
Long Durations
Perception
Appraising touch (SC) 1h/lvl +10 to an appraise check
Low-light vision 1 h/lvl
Protection
Ectoplasmic armor (SC) 1 h/lvl: +5 AC vs incorporeal
Endure elements: 24 hours
Mage armor: 1 h/lvl +4 AC
Combat
Ghostly reload (races of Dragon) 1 hour
Utility
Alarm: 2hour/level
Ancient knowledge (magic of eberron p.94): 1 hour/level +5 to a knowledge check
Bigbys helpful hand (phb2) 1 h/lvl. A little helper construct
Create trap (races of Dragon) 12 hours
Distracting shadows (magic of eberron): 24 hours: -5 to search for traps
Darsons cooling breeze (shining south) 1 h/lvl: light 9mph wind
Hoard gullet (dragon magic) 1 h/lvl: stash stuff in your gut
Mount: 2 h/lvl
Sea legs (shining south) autopass dc20 balance checks
Tensers floating disc 1 h/lvl
Unseen servant: 1h/lvl
1st level quickpotions
Fist of stone
1st level Nova spells
Blade of blood
Instant of power
Blockade
Color spray
2nd Level
Long durations
Perception
Chain of eyes; hour/lvl
Spymasters coin:HR/lvl
Allied footsteps: day/level
Speaking stones:24 hours
Marked object:day/lvl
Misdirection, misrepresent alignment, & obscure object
Protection
Create magic tattoo: 1 day
Protection from arrows:HR/lvl
Silver dragonmail:HR/lvl
Spawn screen:HR/lvl
Indiffetence:HR/lvl
Major resistance:HR/lvl
False life: HR/lvl
Combat
Sense weakness:24 hours/activate
Create magic tattoo
Utility
Unseen crafter: day/lvl
Heart of air: HR/lvl
Rope trick: HR/lvl
Fools gold
Quick potion
2nd Level Quickpotions
Balancing lorecall
Jaws of the moray
Insight of good fortune
Dimension leap
2nd level nova spells
Energy darts
Whirling blade
Ray of stupidity
Scimitar of sand (see whirling blade)
3rd level Spells
Long duration
Perception
Disobedience: HR/lvl
Nondetection
Protection
Greater mage armor
Mass mage armor
Heart of water
Golden dragonmail
Combat
Crown of might:HR/lvl
Greater magic weapon:HR/lvl
Greater mighty wollop: HR/lvl
Tongue serpents
Utility
Anticipate teleportation: 24 hr
Regal procession
Servant hoard
Phantom steed
Suggestion
Sepia snake sigil
Shrink item
4th level spells
Perception
Treasure scent
Superior darkvision
Psychic poison
Mass darkvision
Detect decrying
Protection
Heart of earth
Utility
Suspension: 1d4 days+day/lvl
Celestial brilliance
Lesser geas
Charm monster
Mass unseen servant
Treasure scent
Minor creation
Leomunds shelter and carriage
Ice ship
Open least chakra:24 hours
Attune form: 24 hours
Force chest: day/level
Distort summons
Sources
Book of exalted Deeds: ancestral relic
XPH: Elan
Players guide to faerun: Draw from the land
Races of Destiny: human heritage, chameleon, Able Learner
PHB2: Group trance teamwork benefit
Web: font of inspiration, wakefulness