Advice for a straight up factotum?[3.5]

[gomipile]

I'd like to play a factotum in an upcoming campaign, with at least the first 19 levels being straight factotum.

It'll be 25 point buy, WoTC D&D books only, probably no Font of Inspiration allowed.

Does anyone have any advice, do's and dont's, etc. for someone who has never played the class before?

[CockroachTeaParty]

I'd probably recommend sticking to archery as your primary combat choice. It will keep you out of a great deal of danger, and with cunning insight you can still pump out respectable damage.

Pick an area of expertise for your skill points; otherwise, just put a single rank in obscure skills and rely on cunning knowledge.

For your spells, pick either long-lasting buffs or weird spells that rarely come up, but are useful when you need them, like Animate Rope, Shrink Item, Stone Shape, etc.

[mabriss lethe]

Martial study and martial stance can give you a nice boost if you choose a more melee friendly factotum. combine it with a handful of maneuver granting items to get some juicy options.

Knowledge devotion also helps (since you're very likely to be able to ace those rolls in important battles.)

Bind Vestige, Improved Bind Vestige, and Practiced Binder can give you a rather flexible suite of abilities that you can summon up as needed.

[Prodan]

25 point buy - harsh. Grab Masterwork tools of knowledge.

[Kylarra]

Iajutsu (sp) focus might be a worthwhile trick if you can get access to gnomish quickrazors and the like.

[faceroll]

You may want to look at lesser tiefling as a race. +2 dex, +2 int, -2 cha, no LA. It's in the back of PGtF. Fairly cheesy, though.

25 point buy - harsh. Grab Masterwork tools of knowledge.

Yeah, that is pretty brutal, but factotum is probably the most SAD class there is, since you can get just about everything to key off of int.

[gomipile]

25 point buy - harsh. Grab Masterwork tools of knowledge.

What are those? What book are they in?

[gorfnab]

What are those? What book are they in?

Player's Handbook. You can make a masterwork tool of any skill as long as you can justify to your DM. A masterwork tool of knowledge would probably be a very well written book on the type of knowledge used.

There may be some info of use to you in: The Factotum's Handbook

[Draz74]

Yeah, I tend to be pretty conservative about masterwork tools for skill checks, but I approve of Masterwork Field Reference books for Knowledge skills. Of course you only get the +2 bonus if you have time to use the book. So, not when making a check for Knowledge Devotion.

Speaking of Knowledge Devotion, it's one of the first main choices you should make. It's an awesome feat if your Factotum mostly makes physical attacks (either melee or archery), and you can spare a lot of skill points for Knowledge skills (planes, nature, religion, arcana, local, and dungeoneering). But if you want your Factotum to be the type that's good at pretty much everything (Hide/Move Silently/Use Magic Device/Spot/Listen/Search/Disable Device/etc.), you may not have enough skill points to make Knowledge Devotion worth it. At least not until high levels, when your INT will be so huge that you will have pretty good Knowledge checks even just with one rank.

I guess even before that, you have to decide whether physical attacks and damage are your Factotum's thing at all. I'm convinced that, in most campaigns, a skilled player can make their Factotum matter a lot just by thinking and improvising creatively, along with the occasional spell, wand charge, or trip attack (Brains over Brawn ftw!). Oh, and clever use of a very eclectic pack of mundane items (possibly including exotic weapons). But it's a lot easier to make your Factotum matter by figuring out some way you can dish out the damage round after round.

Besides Knowledge Devotion, there's a few other ways to get massive damage like that. Many of these aren't really Factotum-specific (including my favorite one, which is decking out an archer build with Raptor Arrows and taking the True Believer (Ehlonna) feat), but they work fine.

Besides the Knowledge Devotion thing, the other damage source that is Factotum-specific is the Iaijutsu Focus specialization that someone else mentioned -- assuming your DM allows a skill from Oriental Adventures to exist. Works best when combined with Gnomish Quickrazors.

[Thurbane]

Pick an area of expertise for your skill points; otherwise, just put a single rank in obscure skills and rely on cunning knowledge.

If you can spare the feat, take Jack of All Trades, and you don't need to put ranks into trained only skills.

JACK OF ALL TRADES [GENERAL]
Prerequisite: You must be at least 6th level.
Benefit: You can use any skill untrained, even those that normally require training.

[faceroll]

If you can spare the feat, take Jack of All Trades, and you don't need to put ranks into trained only skills.

JACK OF ALL TRADES [GENERAL]
Prerequisite: You must be at least 6th level.
Benefit: You can use any skill untrained, even those that normally require training.

That pretty much scuttles your ability to use the factotum class feature that gives you a bonus equal to your factotum level to a skill check for a skill you have at least one rank in, once per day.

So putting one rank in forgery or decipher script, things you may be using only once/week, you'll be sure to make a check equal to level+1+modifiers (which is very close to having full ranks in it) as opposed to just +modifiers.