Cardboard Superman class?

[Azerian Kelimon]

I've been browsing through my books for all the editions looking for THE ultimate level 20 Jack of all trades (The name "Cardboard superman" comes from a certain card from a certain game that could do a ton of different things, a la old superman. Prize to the person who gives names.), and, undecided in the end, I come to you, the great GitP forumites. Which character, from any edition (no edition mixing), would be the ultimate jack of all trades? I'm thinking a 1st edition bard, or a fochlucan lyrist exemplar savant factotum. Any thoughts?

[triforcel]

Well, I've only played 3.0/3.5 so I don't know about 1st or 2nd edition, but I'd probably go with a Rogue for simplicity reasons. You can deal out good melee damage with sneak attack, have plenty of skill points to go around, and can UMD for wands, etc. if you want spell casting. Though people probably have better ideas than that.

[Kizara]

Mystic Theruge with a few item crafting feats. Make skill and combat boosting equipment, after you have your headband and periphat +6.

Failing that, cleric (of vecna) with the trickery and magic domains.

bar 1/ftr 2/pal of freedom 2/FB 10/occult slayer 5.
What? Who needs to do other things when you do obscene amounts of damage and are basically immune to magic that doesnt do hp damage.

Make sure you take extra rage and leap attack, in addition to your PrC pre-reqs.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Remember I said jack of all trades. This means doing at least decent fighting, skillmonkeying, casting (or something of the like), and at least being able to do SOME clericish thing, be it buffing, turning, or healing, even if it is via UMD.

[Hasivel]

Chameleon PrC?

[Azerian Kelimon]

Hmm. That's nice, but can it do some casting? Or clericing?

[Quellian-dyrae]

Gestalt Beguiler//Cleric with the spell point variant. Clerics can fight better than meleers once buffed. Beguilers are almost as skillful as rogues plus they have spells that outdo skills (knock, zone of silence, invisibility + nondetection/mind blank, glibness). Arcane and divine casting. Prepared and spontaneous. Beguilers have lots of arcane utility, illusion, and enchantment, while clerics can summon, do some degree of direct damage, save or die, party buff. Battlefield control is available. Pick a full caster level progression prestige class for flavor or power as suits you.

[Ryshan Ynrith]

Factotum is exactly what you are looking for. Using a per-encounter system, a factotum can mimic spellcasting, divine powers, improve his combat ability, and has the unique advantage of having /every skill/ be class.

They are extremely versatile.

[Skjaldbakka]

Remember I said jack of all trades. This means doing at least decent fighting, skillmonkeying, casting (or something of the like), and at least being able to do SOME clericish thing, be it buffing, turning, or healing, even if it is via UMD.

So, . . . Bard?

[brian c]

Factotum or Binder. In core, Rogue and Bard are the best base class jack-of-all-trades. Of course, you'd have to be human for more skill points and the bonus feat.

[Alleine]

Factotum FTW, they truly are the jack of all trades.

[OneWinged4ngel]

3.5 CoD is probably the best single-classed jack of all trades, barring specific cheese. If they aren't #1 in the party at a role, odds are they're #2.

[Azerian Kelimon]

For clarification, PrC'ing counts as single classing, so it's viable, just so that it won't restrict people.

Oh, and the multiclassing for fochlucan lyrist counts as singleclassing, since it is required.

[Hasivel]

Hmm. That's nice, but can it do some casting? Or clericing?

Not sure who you're answering so I'm just assuming it's me by physical position of the posts.

The chameleon basically, each morning, picks his focus for that day. There's five focuses, arcane, divine, stealth, combat, or wild. It also gets a bonus feat. . . which you can swap to any other feat each morning as well, provided you have the prereqs for it. You also get an up to +6 Bonus to the attribute of your choice (which you can swap around to another attribute should you change your focus). Did I mention that bonus is a competence bonus so it'll stack with your item-based enhancement bonuses? Let's not forget "Mimic Class ability" that lets you basically yoink rage, or evasion, or smite, or sneak attack, or a host of other abilities.

Yeah, it can do casting, divine or arcane. Did I mention it can cast from any spell list? Druid spells, Cleric spells, Bard Spells, Wizard spells, just choose which ones you want. If you don't want spells turn that Int bonus into a Str bonus, choose martial focus, push that bonus feat into leap attack, mimic rage as your class ability, and suddenly you're a charge monster instead.

It only gets worse as you round out the class and reach it's high levels, where you can get more than one focus at once and can swap them around in a mere ten minutes.

[triforcel]

Where is the Chameleon from? I've never heard of it before.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Races of Destiny. It's really broken, since it can do a lot of things, but requires you to be a human or doppelganger, which cuts the options. Well, you could also be a changeling, but that's it.

[Guy_Whozevl]

I second the suggestions of Factotum and Chameleon. Both do tons of jack-of-all trade stuff.
However, the clear winner is a Bardic Knack(PHB2) Bard with Jack of all Trades(Complete Adventurer). You can essentially make a skill check for anything, ranks or not.

[BardicDuelist]

I think the most "Jack-of-All-Trades" would be the Factotum-Chameleon, even though I favor the straight Factotum in most situations.

A bard-chameleon can make a decent Jack-of-All-Trades too, but the lack of trapfinding is difficult.

Of course, the problem with both of those classes is the horrible MAD, but then I guess that comes with the turf of being a jack-of-all-trades.

An archivist, with his ability to get virtually ANY spell could do a decent job, since most spells can replace party roles (finding traps, polymorphing to fight, etc). He can be both a wizard and a cleric at the same time.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Oh, little rule: No, Artificier is NOT allowed. I said jack of all trades, not "Bigger than life and Pun-Pun when you reach level 20".

[Hasivel]

It's not quite as broken as it seems, it has an achilles heel in the form of three bad saves and it's spells only reach level 6. It really is the ultimate generalist though, provided you have any clue what's coming you can be the proper counter for it.

[BardicDuelist]

Oh, little rule: No, Artificier is NOT allowed. I said jack of all trades, not "Bigger than life and Pun-Pun when you reach level 20".

If you were replying to me, I said ARCHIVIST, not Artificer. It is in Heroes of Horror. If you were not replying to me, then ignore this.

[triforcel]

A few things.

First, I don't see the chameleon as so powerful. It only gets up to level six spells and only 4+bonus a day for each level. Furthermore it has to choose to be a divine caster at the beginning of the day, and if it wants to be arcane it still needs eight hours of rest before they get those spells. They're ability to emulate class abilities only lasts for a minute or I can assume a single attack for the smite and sneak attack. So the power of the chameleon would rely more on the base class than the prestige class which is a bit unusual for a prestige class.

As for Artificier, I haven't really poked around that much on the boards, but I'm not sure how the Artificier is such a powerful class.

[Skjaldbakka]

Artificers can do scary things with wands. There was a party split in an Eberron game I ran a few years ago, and the artificer wiped out the entire rest of the party in a round (Actually, 1 guy managed to escape, and one guy was on his side, but the other three PCs and the NPC ally were obliterated).

Of course, the artificer and the dedicated archer were hard-pressed to fight the Raksasha Lich by themselves. The artificer couldn't bypass the Raksasha's SR, and the combined bludgeoning/piercing/magic/good DR that you get from combining Raksasha Lich was impossible for the archer to get past either.

[Fax Celestis]

Incarnate 20.

No, seriously. Try to find something you can't do.

[Green Bean]

Incarnate 20.

No, seriously. Try to find something you can't do.

But can he see why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?

[Temp]

First, I don't see the chameleon as so powerful.

In which case you're missing a very important feature of the class (here's a link because nobody's posted it yet): Its spellcasting comes from any spell list in the game.

This is massive. It's the reason the Archivist is broken (but Chameleon trades access to 7th+ level spells for the ability to cast Arcane and have ten levels open).

This class also doesn't have its spell list based on direct DM fiat like the Archivist: It either prays for Divine spells or draws Arcane spells from a spellbook. The latter has access to every arcane spell list in the game via a combination of the floating feat and Extra Spell from Complete Arcane.

Also, the Caster Level of the Arcane and Divine foci (2x Class Level) is generally going to be higher than anyone else's between levels 14 and 19. This can be useful for Dispels, durations and areas of effect.

With the "Ability Boons," the saves against Chameleon spells are going to be identical to the saves against high-level Wizard and Cleric spells starting at ECL 12 (actually, they end up being higher between ECLs 12 and 16).

[Ulzgoroth]

No comment on the main question, but I think the card may be MTG's Morphling.

[Grynning]

Ah yes, I think all tournament MTG players remember "Superman."
I must admit, I hadn't seen that Chameleon class until it was linked, thanks. Very nifty.
I have always been a big fan of the Savant from Dragon Compendium, though. Unlike both the Chameleon and the Factotum, the Savant has all of their abilities all the time, though they do progress slower and may be slightly less powerful overall. So, from the "always ready for anything standpoint," I would give the edge to them. Plus, their skill assistance ability is quite handy if you're in a group, IIRC the factotum doesn't have much in the way of party-based abilities.

[Xeon]

I would have to say that the 1st ed. bard is the definition of a jack of all trades. however i dont know if you could classify it as takeing one class because of all of the classes that you have to level in just to become a bard, and I can,t remember what the max level was for a bard back then.

[CASTLEMIKE]

Sticking to a single base class for 20 levels it would probably be the Factotum or a Cloistered Cleric variant.

Limiting classes to a single class and a single PRC probably Factotum - 10, Chameleon - 10 or Ur-Priest - 10.

A super skill monkey without templates: Variant Changeling Rogue - 1, Factotum -3, Marshal - 1 (Motivate Wisdom), (Ur Priest -2, Loremaster or Thaum - 2, Nar Demonbinder - 1, MT-6), Dragon Shaman -1, Monk - 2, Warlock - 1 or Bard - 1 if taking Thaum levels instead of Loremaster.