Spellwarped Gestalt with stats rolled in slot.

[PolShrea]

So last session my party actually reached the completion of our first campaign. We tend to drop them and start again for one reason or another, but I think we have finally nailed down our preferences as a group moving forward. Anyway, complete one campaign and our DM came to us with an idea for a new one that he had been sitting on for a bit. He won't tell us much about the story line, but he's been pretty damn good so far, and he wants us to all have a character at least mostly fleshed out by next session (probably next Tuesday if nobody cancels). He made a few changes to how the set up works from what we're used to so that will make things a little interesting. A little advice would be appreciated.

What I know;

We(our whole party) are escaped experiments of an evil wizard, we escaped while another party was confronting him, and we were somehow cast adrift in time. He(our DM) hasn't told us any more than that, but when asked he did state that it will not be a sci-fi/super tech setting.

The Evil Wizard(not sure if he's actually a wizard or what), was experimenting with his minions in order to create both perfect soldiers and a way to enhance his own capability. As such we are all Spellwarped. He says not to worry about the LA for that for now and he has most of it worked out already.

Our DM said we are allowed to pick any +0 LA race and whatever class we want within 3.5. Though he does not like super munchkining and has severely nerfed or flat out killed characters that tried.

All of our stats are rolled in slot(meaning we don't assign them). Our Dm always has us roll 4d6, re-roll all ones and remove the lowest, but this time he told us that when we were done to replace the lowest stat we had with an 18, so over all I feel I got pretty lucky;

11(15) Strength
15(17) Dexterity
17(21) Constitution
9 18(22) Intelligence
13 Wisdom
12 Charisma

The Parenthesis are the totals after spellwarped bonus.

Right of the bat I know I want Factotum on one, but I don't know if I want to go all 20 levels with it, maybe 16 for the improved cunning defense?

I'm thinking for the other side some combination of swordsage/(martial?)Rogue/Swashbuckler. Being able to add Str, Dex, and Int to damage in a TWFer sounds nice, but is it worth it?

My main goal here is to be the party's skill monkey, it's a role I tend to enjoy that the rest don't really care for. I really like the idea of using Knowledge devotion/collector of stories/etc.

As for races I'm kind of waffling between Human and Whisper Gnome(though as a gnome I could take Trivial Knowledge, but I don't really think that's worth losing 2 feats for on it's own).

I'm used to playing the rogue sneak attack/skill monkey type builds, but I want something that can hold up in combat a little better. I'm thinking Factotum(with buff spells) and Swordsage are a little more oomf but I've never actually had a chance to play them before. With my stats I should be pretty decent but not the best on my party. After spellwarped and lowest replacement here's the stats the others got;

Player 1, (14, 15, 18, 22, 7 18, 17) Knowing him probably going to go for pure spellcaster // maybe a cleric or psion

Player 2, (20, 17, 10 22, 15, 13, 14) Definitely a barbarian // something

Player 3, (21, 15, 16, 15, 12, 9 18) I really don't know what to expect, she's usually our cleric/druid type, but I don't see that happening with those stats.

Sooo, that was wordy. Any suggestions for the overall build? The DM said we're starting at level 1//1 but he wants us to give him our builds through level 10 to see where we are all going and to plan around that. According to him this campaign may go to level 20 or even slightly into the epics if we enjoy it enough.

Edit: If there's somewhere else I should be posting this let me know, I made an account just today(after being a lurker for years) for this.

Edit 2: Spellwarped only gives 2 dex not 4, fixed.

[Heavenblade]

With high int, dex and gestalt, you could pull a pretty nifty wizard/unseen seer//warblade, or if you want more sneaks and skills you can go for psionic rogue instead of wizard/unseen seer.

Obviously, a factotum works too, but gestalt is a good way for a sneak attackers to get full BaB/Spells/Powers, and if you are not focused on skills as a main part of your tactic, I feel like you wouldnt gain too much from factotum compared to a high int rogue.

[Anthrowhale]

These stats say gish. Maybe something like Ranger 1/Scout 4/Ranger 15//Conjuration Domain Martial Wizard 5/Unseen Seer 10/Abjurant Champion 5 ?

With feats:
Ranger 1: Track
Wizard 1: Improved Initiative
1 Darkstalker
3 Knowledge Devotion
Scout 4: Swift Hunter
Ranger 2: Rapid Shot
Wizard 5: Point Blank Shot
6 Improved Skirmish
9 Practiced Spellcaster[wizard]
Ranger 6: Manyshot
12 Greater Manyshot
15 ??
18 ??

That leaves you with BAB+20, full wizard casting, trapfinding, 6+int skills/level, good saves all around, Full favored enemy, Skirmish +11d6/+6AC, skirmish affects normally immune favored enemies, and you can move and trigger skirmish with every arrow in a greater manyshot.

Edit: added a few details.

[NigelWalmsley]

With those stats, if I wanted to play a skillmonkey, I'd go Beguiler//Wizard or Beguiler//Archivist. SAD Caster/Caster is about the best thing you can be doing in Gestalt.

If your heart's set on Factotum, I'd recommend going Factotum//Warblade. Factotum gives you some decent utility to flesh out Warblade outside combat, and the ability to take a bunch of standard actions every encounter is a great deal for a Warblade, whose powers refresh every encounter and mostly take standard actions to use.

[PolShrea]

With high int, dex and gestalt, you could pull a pretty nifty wizard/unseen seer//warblade, or if you want more sneaks and skills you can go for psionic rogue instead of wizard/unseen seer.

Obviously, a factotum works too, but gestalt is a good way for a sneak attackers to get full BaB/Spells/Powers, and if you are not focused on skills as a main part of your tactic, I feel like you wouldnt gain too much from factotum compared to a high int rogue.

These stats say gish. Maybe something like Ranger 1/Scout 4/Ranger 15//Conjuration Domain Martial Wizard 5/Unseen Seer 10/Abjurant Champion 5 ?

With those stats, if I wanted to play a skillmonkey, I'd go Beguiler//Wizard or Beguiler//Archivist. SAD Caster/Caster is about the best thing you can be doing in Gestalt.

If your heart's set on Factotum, I'd recommend going Factotum//Warblade. Factotum gives you some decent utility to flesh out Warblade outside combat, and the ability to take a bunch of standard actions every encounter is a great deal for a Warblade, whose powers refresh every encounter and mostly take standard actions to use.

I think I am pretty set on Factotum, I kind of fell in love when the DM pointed it out to me, plus, I kind of like it for fluff I'm going for. Absent minded + Curious(very much the Ooooh Aaaah, exploring for the fun/discovery type). The other side is more up for debate, but I prefer melee combat over ranged or pure caster. The Warblade does sound nice, but no access to shadow hand(and thus shadow blade) so my 15 str 17 dex may not be ideal, and I never played much with higher level initiators, is the dual stance worth justifying 20 levels in it? or would a multiclass on that side help more? And any suggestions on race? I guess if I end up going Swordsage then I'll probably take whisper gnome, if Warblade then human.

Edit: Spellwarped gives 2 dex not 4, fixed, And with that the draw of swordsage over warblade lessens that much more.

[Heavenblade]

Dual stance is pretty neat if you have specific combos in mind. You should check with your GM if
1. You can use factotum's "casting" to qualify for Jade Pheonix Mage.
2. If you can Dual prc.


If yes, you can take warblade/JPM//Factotum/chameleon or something of that sort.

If you want dex to damage, take a light weapon and have it feycrafted.

Edit - if you worry about damage with your feycrafted weapon, diamond mind is the discipline for you! It got a couple of "concentration instead of damage" maneuvers.

[Anthrowhale]

If you want Factotum, then the standard tricks are dumping your feats into Font of Inspiration and maxing out the Iajutsu focus skill. The former gives you bonus free actions/encounter while the latter helps you deal extra damage.

If you want the other side to use initiator classes, then the ability to get bonus actions really benefits from a solid recovery mechanic. The swordsage recovery mechanic is particularly poor while the warblade's recovery mechanic is particularly easy.

[NigelWalmsley]

The Warblade does sound nice, but no access to shadow hand(and thus shadow blade) so my 15 str 17 dex may not be ideal

It's a one point shift. You wouldn't spend a feat on Weapon Focus, so I wouldn't worry about it.

I never played much with higher level initiators, is the dual stance worth justifying 20 levels in it?

Do you expect to hit 20th level? That said, straight Warblade is a perfectly defensible choice anyway, and Chameleon may be a more tempting PrC than what you could get on that side. In terms of multiclassing, the most tempting option would be Bard, for a DFI Bardblade build.

[Maat Mons]

I was all set to suggest Beguiler // Sneak-Attack Fighter. It gives you full sneak attack, full base attack bonus, 6+Int skill points, the Rogue skill list, good Fort and Will saves, and an impressive array of Illusion and Enchantment spells.

But you have your heart set on Factotum, so I'll try to come up with some suggestions involving that. Factotum's a little weird in gestalt though. Gestalt tends to push you towards picking two specialist classes, with opposite specializations. That minimizes overlap, and thus "waste." But Factotum in very much a generalist class.

That said, the 8th-level class feature is awesome. And just gets more awesome if you have very powerful things to spend standard actions on. So Factotum // full caster gets a lot of recommendations when people ask for gestalt builds.

[NigelWalmsley]

I actually think Factotum//Caster is overrated. It's a very powerful nova, but throwing out four or five spells in a round is almost always overkill. And it burns through your resources basically instantly. ToB classes fit the Factotum much better, because they can afford to actually use all those standard actions every encounter.

[lylsyly]

A liitle outside the box but Beguiler20///Duskblade 20 would be pretty good combo and simple to build without going to extremes. perfectly playable from 1 to 20 ;-)

call it a gish in a can combined with a full casting skillmonkey

[Rebel7284]

Factotum is a good class! Sadly it's poorly written, so I am going to make some assumptions that I feel are RAI:
- Cunning Surge is usable once per turn
- Cunning Strike can't be stacked to produce Inspiration points x d6 damage

With that said, the most powerful thing you can do with a standard action in D&D is cast a spell. Factotum gives you extra actions, so gestalting Factotum with Wizard, especially with those stats, will produce an amazing character. In addition, if you take Factotum to 11, you can overcome any SR (potentially including magic immunity which is described as SR - infinity), which is just nifty! Beguilers get it as a capstone against flat footed opponents, you get it up to 9 levels early and against any opponent as long as you have inspiration left!

So one of my favorite gestalt Factotum builds looks like this:

Wizard 5/Swiftblade 1/Spelldancer 1/Swiftblade +8/X 5
//
Factotum 5/Wizard +1/Factotum +3/Wizard +1/Factotum +2/Wizard +1/Factotum+1/Y6

You end up with 3 standard actions per turn (when hasted) the ability to add int to everything, including initiative twice, miss chance and some free metamagic. Also lovely flexibility at the end of the build to customize the build to your tastes.


In general, as far as breakpoints, Factotum has the following:
1. You take it with Able Learner to have all skills as class skills.
3. Brains over Brawn is great on any build that requires those checks.
8. THE breakpoint. You get the ability to take extra actions. Nothing else before or after in this class beats action economy of this scale.
11. (Primary casters only) Overcoming SR is really nice.
19. Cunning Brilliance is good! The ability to pick things like fighter feats or maneuvers is pretty amazing. A little bit of a rules nightmare sometimes when a class ability is broken into multiple parts, but still great.

Note that I am not listing Factotum 16 as a break point. If you are fighting one or a few opponents, you can already use regular Cunning defense for a couple of inspiration points without worrying about the extra armor restrictions they introduce at level 16. It's a nice ability, it's just not worth 5 extra levels after Factotum 11, or 8(!) levels after Factotum 8. If you got this far, go for Cunning Brilliance.

If you would rather focus on being a fancy fighter with skills, Warblade 20/Factotum 19/X 1 are perfectly viable.

If you are interested in casting but do want to stay lower tier, you can try Chameleon. Normally it has fairly poor synergy with Factotum because you're either delaying Cunning Surge or getting those lower level spells later. However, in Gestalt, you can do both. You end up with 5 free levels before Chameleon for fun utility dips too.