Party Role for a Factotum?

[TheArchmage]

My GM had a rather unusual idea for a game recently: the players are themselves. Bad stuff happens. The characters must adapt to face the (heroic-level) threats that now face them. This idea translated into a story involving hivemind/ki-using/zerg-ish zombies, dimensional contamination a la The Subtle Knife, and some shenanigans involving magic origami.

My group and I have been instructed to transform our Lv.1 Expert selves into characters worthy of fighting the monstrous threat, but to stick to our own personalities in terms of class choice. I chose Factotum. The other characters in the party are a Warmage, a Crusader, and a Coglayer (Dragonmech).

My question to you is: I see several routes that I could take in terms of developing my role in the party (keep in mind this game is unoptimized in the extreme). However, as a relative novice in D&D, what is the most useful role I could assume in your esteemed opinions?

tl;dr I'm a Factotum in an unoptimized party where the other members are a Warmage, a Crusader, and a Coglayer. What should I do?

Thanks in advance!

[The Rose Dragon]

Skill-monkey. Also, probably spellcaster since you have none.

Basically, you're like a rogue with spells. And more skills. That's your role in the party.

[Defiant]

The role of the factotum is every role. The entire concept of the class is being able to fill in any role needed when that role is unavailable. Take a look at the class features.

The Factotum is the jack-of-all-trades but master of none. The rogue fell in battle? The Factotum can take over that role. Not as well, but well enough. The fighter fell in battle? The Factotum can jump in and hold his own.

What you should do is follow the idea behind the class. For example, it is useful to put 1 rank in just about every skill, using your Cunning Knowledge (or whatever the feature is called) and be able to make a decent skill check with any of those skills.

[Zovc]

Much like the Bard, the Factotum makes a great 'fifth wheel'. When a party has all of its bases covered, a Factotum makes a good addition--the party's options multiply when the group needs to be fragmented, and the Factotum is "good, not great" at doing a lot of things on his own.

If the Factotum had to fill a party role, it would most easily be the role that a Rogue is 'supposed' to fill, generally called the "Skillmonkey".

[sonofzeal]

Factotum = Rogue with less DPS and more utility.

A good Rogue can generally out-damage a Factotum, but a Factotum's going to be a lot more flexible and adaptive, and have more useful little things. "Brains Over Brawn" is key, as it adds to Initiative among other things, and completely makes up for the minor drop in skillpoints. A decent Factotum has some of the best acrobatics/athletics in the game, without even giving it that much investment. And their status as generally melee-competent means a lot of Sor/Wiz spells become significantly better in their hands. I especially like Polymorph and Nightstalker's Transformation. Even Tensor's Transformation becomes much better in that context, as it gives them more and hurts them less. The best use of Factotum spells, though, is probably for sheer utility. Grease, Obscuring Mist, Blockade, Dark Way, etc.

[nargbop]

Factotums are Rogues with extra minor powers, which you can improve somewhat through feats and DM cooperation. Your primary limitation is the number of inspiration points you have, which keep you from constantly applying your factotum bonusses to everything you do.
You cannot keep up with a fighter in to-hit or damage output without a LOT of expensive items. You can't keep up with the Rogue in Sneak Attack dice. You can't keep up with a cleric's turning, and your spellcasting is very far behind any other caster. Even the Trapsmith gets spells faster than you. By RAW, you don't qualify for Craft Magic X, and you have to use the inferior Quicken Spell-Like Ability instead of Quicken Spell.
So what are you? A Rogue who applies his class levels to his skill checks, pure and simple. A level 10 Factotum can hit 50s in his skill checks easily.

[Draz74]

By RAW, you don't qualify for Craft Magic X, and you have to use the inferior Quicken Spell-Like Ability instead of Quicken Spell.

There's a lot of things Factotum spellcasting can't do (by strict RAW), but I think you're wrong on both of these.

The only prereq for Craft Magic Item feats is usually a caster level. Factotums have a full caster level, even if they don't actually cast spells. They can qualify for crafting feats just as well as a Warlock can.

And you'd be right about the metamagic thing ... except that the Arcane Dilettante ability explicitly states that they can take and use metamagic feats. (I don't think it's worth it, though, personally, with so few spells per day.)