Feats for a gestalt Wizard//Factotum

[Da Beast]

I'm building a gestalt wizard//factotum (level 9, gray elf) for Tomb of Horrors but I've never used factotum before and I'm not sure what to do with my feats. Should I use them to enhance my spell casting or just pick up font of inspiration a bunch?

Edit: the DM might be letting me play a domain wizard, but I'm not sure what domain to pick.

[Eldariel]

Be Incantatrix. That'll free up your normal feats for Font of Inspiration, as Incantatrix pretty much gets all the metamagic you could ever need - they get like 4 bonus Metamagic feats. Also, use your Wizard slots to cover the rest of your needs; 1st and 5th can be martial feats (through Martial Wizard) or metamagic or item creation - although Spontaneous Divination over 5th would be really sweet - so use those slots to get your Wizard feats while Factotum goes Fontsane. You'll really want to eventually have 4-5 Fonts, so you'll want Wizard-levels to pretty much provide their own feats (a great reason to play Incantatrix).

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Font of Inspiration. Combo that with Fatespinner levels and frequent resting and you might even survive.
Abjuration, Divinitation, or Elf Generalist Sub levels are probably your best bet. Also, snag Spontaneous Divinitation at 5th if possible.

[Cuddly]

Pick up the Abjuration domain, and at 5th level take spontaneous divination from complete champion. Now you can turn your domain spells into divinations!

Also, take font of inspiration with most of your feats. Maybe even all of them.

[Jack_Simth]

9th level Wizard?

Okay.

The Tomb of Horrors is primarily about traps... and a Wizard has ways of dealing with them better than a rogue.

Build Steps:
1) Your 9th level feat goes to the Elemental Summoning Reserve Feat (complete Mage).
2) One of your feats goes to a direct damage reserve feat - Fiery Burst is probably best for this purpose (take at 3rd or with your Wizard bonus Feat at 5th). Your main goal on this is to find the one with the most range.
3) Know Permanency.
4) Use Permanency on Detect Magic (or, if you can swing your caster level high enough to pull it off, Arcane Sight).
5) Know Terran (language of earth elementals).
6) Get two wands: Invisibility, and Spectral Hand (both 2nd level spells).
7) Prepare some spells to power your two reserve feats (and never cast them. Ever).

In the Tomb:
1) Watch everything for magic (hence Permenancy). If you see something magical that isn't an item (and, to be safe, even if it is), call a halt, and zap it with Fiery Burst until it's not magical anymore.
2) Nobody touches anything. At all. Except maybe the floor (and there's ways around that - bat familiar, and Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability for Floating Disk - Bat flies with good manueverability, floating disk follows, you ride on floating disk).
3) Every round you're not in an actual battle, and you don't see any unexpected magic, you do the same thing: Summon an Earth Elemental, send it running along your intended path of travel. If it springs a trap, call a halt, and send the elemental by repeatedly until you know exactly where the traps coming from. Then zap it until it's a puddle. Then send the earth elemental by it repeatedly to make sure it's dead.
4) Anything that needs to be poked, prodded, unlocked, or otherwise handled is done by a Summoned elemental. If it dies, you replace the next round and have it do things differently.
5) If a door is in your way, call a halt, cast Spectral Hand, and then cast Invisibility on the door (seriously - it affects objects) so that you know what's on the other side. If you decide you want to be on the other side of the door, don't open the door. Zap the door until it dies. But always, always, always see what's on the other side first.

Otherwise, just play as a normal Wizard//Factorum, spending your feats on whatever is appropriate - Font of Inspiration is actually pretty good for it, due to that ability to get quite a few extra actions in a round in an encounter.

[Chronos]

3) Every round you're not in an actual battle, and you don't see any unexpected magic, you do the same thing: Summon an Earth Elemental, send it running along your intended path of travel. If it springs a trap, call a halt, and send the elemental by repeatedly until you know exactly where the traps coming from. Then zap it until it's a puddle. Then send the earth elemental by it repeatedly to make sure it's dead.

Am I the only one who thinks that setting off traps repeatedly, especially in a place like the Tomb of Horrors, is a spectacularly bad idea? There are some traps which have a large enough area of effect that you'll get zapped by it along with the elemental. There are some that will cut off options for advancement or retreat. There are some that will summon or otherwise attract the attention of creatures that can either deal with the elemental plus the wizard, or which are smart enough to recognize what the real threat is, and focus on the wizard first.

[Jack_Simth]

Am I the only one who thinks that setting off traps repeatedly, especially in a place like the Tomb of Horrors, is a spectacularly bad idea? There are some traps which have a large enough area of effect that you'll get zapped by it along with the elemental. There are some that will cut off options for advancement or retreat. There are some that will summon or otherwise attract the attention of creatures that can either deal with the elemental plus the wizard, or which are smart enough to recognize what the real threat is, and focus on the wizard first.

Trick:
The Summonened Elemental only vanishes if it's more than 30 feet from you at the end of your turn.

Each round, you advance five feet, summon an elemental at the limit of your range along your intended path of travel, and have it run along your intended path of travel. Even if corners prevent a full-out run, a lowly Earth Elemental gets 40 feet from it's summoning point with a double-move. You've got 70 feet of advance warning on any given trap. Most of them don't go that far. You can also swap out for air elementals with their fly 100 (perfect) movement rate. 230 feet of advance notice on anything not requiring you step on a particular spot, if you've a mind for it; 70 feet of advance warning on anything requiring a ground trigger. That'll get most of them.

You really want Arcane Sight over Detect Magic - Arcane Sight requires no concentration, has a range of 120 feet, and takes no time to narrow things down. Detect Magic will work, it's just a lot slower (four rounds per five-feet of travel: Three rounds to locate magical auras within 60 feet, one round to test for nonmagical traps).

And yes, while this *can* summon monsters, the monsters are usually easier to deal with. And you get advanced warning on them, too, as they'll usually react to the elemental's presence in interesting ways.

[Eldariel]

I'd frankly rather rely on the Factotum-side for traphandling. You have all the necessary class skills and with maxed Int, you'll already be better off than most. Further, you have the ability to basically ignore one trap per day with Cunning Knowledge, which gives you insane boosts to the check (not to mention, since you're already totally Int-focused, your base rolls will be awesome). As far as Open Locks goes, you get Int to Dex-checks, enough said. With your Magic to bolster your skills and to analyse things, along with Abrupt Jaunt to deal with immediate threats, you should be comparatively very survivable.

One thing worth note though that since you'll deal with skill-based challenges a lot, Font of Inspiration isn't that powerful, as you can only use Cunning Knowledge once per day for each skill (so one Lock, one Search-check and one Disable Device). It does boost your saves and AC for dealing with traps though, but such doesn't help always.

[Azerian Kelimon]

I'd frankly rather rely on the Factotum-side for traphandling. You have all the necessary class skills and with maxed Int, you'll already be better off than most. Further, you have the ability to basically ignore one trap per day with Cunning Knowledge, which gives you insane boosts to the check (not to mention, since you're already totally Int-focused, your base rolls will be awesome). As far as Open Locks goes, you get Int to Dex-checks, enough said. With your Magic to bolster your skills and to analyse things, along with Abrupt Jaunt to deal with immediate threats, you should be comparatively very survivable.

One thing worth note though that since you'll deal with skill-based challenges a lot, Font of Inspiration isn't that powerful, as you can only use Cunning Knowledge once per day for each skill (so one Lock, one Search-check and one Disable Device). It does boost your saves and AC for dealing with traps though, but such doesn't help always.

One of the uses lets you spend one point of IP to add INT to a skillcheck. Again.

[Jack_Simth]

I'd frankly rather rely on the Factotum-side for traphandling. You have all the necessary class skills and with maxed Int, you'll already be better off than most. Further, you have the ability to basically ignore one trap per day with Cunning Knowledge, which gives you insane boosts to the check (not to mention, since you're already totally Int-focused, your base rolls will be awesome). As far as Open Locks goes, you get Int to Dex-checks, enough said. With your Magic to bolster your skills and to analyse things, along with Abrupt Jaunt to deal with immediate threats, you should be comparatively very survivable.

One thing worth note though that since you'll deal with skill-based challenges a lot, Font of Inspiration isn't that powerful, as you can only use Cunning Knowledge once per day for each skill (so one Lock, one Search-check and one Disable Device). It does boost your saves and AC for dealing with traps though, but such doesn't help always.

A couple of the fatal traps have stupid-high Search/Disable Device DC's. With consequences for failure, you can't take 20 (and some of them would be out of range for taking 20 anyway, for most characters).

The "Wizardly Method" finds them all without a roll of consequence (the save and damage rolls for killing traps doesn't count as a roll of consequence, as there's nothing stopping you from trying again).

[Eldariel]

One of the uses lets you spend one point of IP to add INT to a skillcheck. Again.

Huh? We must be looking at different Factotums, mine only gets:
Cunning Insight - 1 IP, add Int to attack, damage or save
Arcane Dilettante - 1 IP, spells
Cunning Knowledge - 1 IP, gain Factotum-level bonus in a skill; usable once per day per one skill
Brains over Brawn - Add Intelligence to Strength- and Dexterity-checks and skill checks.
Cunning Defense - 1 IP, add Int to AC against one opponent for one round.
Cunning Strike - 1 IP, 1d6 Sneak Attack
Opportunistic Piety - 1 IP, heal, harm undead or turn undead Wis+3 per day.
Cunning Surge - 3 IP, extra standard action
Cunning Breach - 2 IP, ignore SR and DR of target for a round
Cunning Dodge - 4 IP, ignore lethal damage
Improved Cunning Defense - Int to AC, no IP cost.
Cunning Brilliance - 4 IP, copy stuff

None that I'd know of allows adding Int to skill checks.


Jack: I know, but some traps also collapse the whole dungeon on your head, kill all characters in the chambers that haven't been closed off, awaken monsters you can't hope to beat and so on. Basically, triggering traps is a really, really bad idea even if you're far away.

[Jack_Simth]

Jack: I know, but some traps also collapse the whole dungeon on your head, kill all characters in the chambers that haven't been closed off, awaken monsters you can't hope to beat and so on. Basically, triggering traps is a really, really bad idea even if you're far away.

Okay, so we modify things.

1) Take 20 searching everything before touching anything.
2) Watch everything for magic.
3) Back away, and have an elemental walk over everything you've searched before going there yourself.

Takes a crazy amount of time, of course.... however:
1) If you can't find it by taking 20, and it's on your intended path of travel, you'll likely set it off anyway.
2) Most of the nastiest traps are magical - which will give them away with no roll.

Fair enough compromise?

[Da Beast]

My friend's copy of Dungeonscape doesn't seem to have font of inspiration in it. Where can I find it and how many extra inspirations points does it give?

[Eldariel]

And when you're in dimension travel barred dungeon, 30 levels before earth surface with just tons of corridors behind you. Your elemental sets off a trap that collapses the dungeon on you. Are you happy? Just use Disable Device. It's in the game for that reason.

[Azerian Kelimon]

My friend's copy of Dungeonscape doesn't seem to have font of inspiration in it. Where can I find it and how many extra inspirations points does it give?

Google Font of inspiration. It's a web feat.

[Eldariel]

My friend's copy of Dungeonscape doesn't seem to have font of inspiration in it. Where can I find it and how many extra inspirations points does it give?

It's in web supplement. Search Wizards Site for it. 1 per Font, so first 1, second 2 and so on.

[Jack_Simth]

And when you're in dimension travel barred dungeon, 30 levels before earth surface with just tons of corridors behind you. Your elemental sets off a trap that collapses the dungeon on you. Are you happy? Just use Disable Device. It's in the game for that reason.

Go through the adventure sometime. There's Search/Disable Device DC's in there that are simply stupid-high for the level it's supposedly designed for.

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On page 10, there's a Search DC to locate a trap with a DC of 35.

On page 31, there's a Search/Disable Device DC for a trap listed as n/a.

On page 33, there's a Search/Disable Device DC for a trap of 32/37.

It's written for four to six adventurers of around 9th level.

At 9th, a Rogue with 18 Int, Skill Focus(Search), Skill Focus(Disable Device), max ranks in both skills, and masterwork tools has a modifier of +21. Taking 10, he'll get DC 31 stuff. Oopsie. Taking 20, he'll at least find anything with a DC of 41 or less... but Disable Device has consequences for failure, so no taking 20 there. Hope you don't attempt to disarm the wrong trap, and hope you always get rolls in excess of 10.

Oh yeah - and this is ignoring the occasional DC 45 Open Lock check (which do mean things to you when you fail).

If you attempt to go through the Tomb of Horrors using traditional roguish methods, you're very likely to lose the traditional rogue (and, quite likely, the rest of the party, too).

On the plus side, it's only the ethereal that's ... warded. The astral's fine (prepare a few copies of Dimension Door).

Also - none of the traps collapse the entire dungeon - just sections of it (listed in the trap description). And the range of those are listed - well within range for the caster using my methods to avoid. The various containment traps, likewise.

[Eldariel]

Factotum with the Int-bonuses works. 20 Int to start with, +2 item and Gloves of Thievery (or whatever), couple of them for +5-+10. You're gonna succeed with that; hence why Factotums are so good.

Also, use spoilers. This guy is gonna play the Tomb and probably shouldn't know beforehand everything that's coming.

[Jack_Simth]

Factotum with the Int-bonuses works. 20 Int to start with, +2 item and Gloves of Thievery (or whatever), couple of them for +5-+10. You're gonna succeed with that; hence why Factotums are so good.

Also, use spoilers. This guy is gonna play the Tomb and probably shouldn't know beforehand everything that's coming.

The Elixer of Vision (+10 Competence, 1 hour), Lens of Detection (+5 Competence while held and used), Goggles of Minute Seeing (+5 Competence while worn), and the Robe of Eyes (+10 competence while worn) help out with search. But then, that Search isn't as much of an issue to begin with, as

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you're permitted to take 20 on basically all the traps if you can convince the rest of the party not to touch anything or get ahead.

I'm curious where you're finding the Gloves of Thievery (or whatever) that help with Disable Device, though. Custom magic item? Not all DM's permit those.

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... and no check modifier helps with the DC n/a traps. A supply of Disposable Minions limited only by time and simultaneous count, on the other hand, does.

[Eldariel]

Magic Item Compendium has Gloves of Manual Prowess or something along those lines. They're charge-operated, but only 3000 a piece so level 9 party can afford multiples - I usually stock up on 3-4 pairs before large dungeons, and get 2 asap in campaigns where I can't get Gloves of Disable Device +X. They have 3 charges each, one giving +5 to a task, 2 giving +7 and 3 giving +10. They help Disable Device, Forgery, Use Rope, Open Lock and Sleight of Hand.

Note that Factotum again has much easier time; you get Dex and Int to Open Lock, so we're talking about Open Lock in the high 20s (7 Int + 5 Dex + 12 ranks + Mw. Tools is perfectly reasonable for a Gray Elf Factotum), and you can add Factotum-level once per day for ~35 bonuses. That's without magic beyond +2 Int and +2 Dex gear (or alternatively, spells from yourself/friendly neighbourhood caster). Disable Device is a notably larger problem as you don't get to add Dexterity to it, meaning you'll be only in the mid 20s normally and about 30 bonuses when trying. Basically, a Factotum is much better off here than a Rogue thanks to his class abilities.

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As for those traps, we're talking about a party. There's always a Wizard, a Druid or a Cleric with summons for those traps. Also, you can bypass the N/A one through other means.

[Jack_Simth]

Yes, just make sure you know exactly which traps need the charges, as you don't really want to spend that +10 bonus on a comparatively easy pit trap only to run out on the actually difficult ones.

Odd that the Factorum is a better rogue than a pure rogue, isn't it. Still, works, I suppose.

Oh, and:

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Do note: This guy IS the wizard, who is supposed to have the summons. You're full circle, now. And yes, you can bypass the N/A trap with other means - but for that, you need to pay rather close attention and guess the intent from the cryptic clues, or suffer the consequences. Disposable minions remove the consequences and let you try again repeatedly, effectively removing the guesswork.

A party of 4 PCs is expected to be able to take on an encounter with CR equal to party level + 4, not on CR equal to party level. It's expected to be able to take on 4 CR-equivalent encounters daily, so don't be surprised if they easily plow through the CR-equivalent Dragon that you thought would be a challenge

Only sorta. A party of 4 PCs is expected to have roughly a 50/50 chance of a rather Pyhrric victory against an encounter with CR equal to party level + 4 (that's the "someone will probably die" category).

[Eldariel]

Yes, just make sure you know exactly which traps need the charges, as you don't really want to spend that +10 bonus on a comparatively easy pit trap only to run out on the actually difficult ones.

Odd that the Factorum is a better rogue than a pure rogue, isn't it. Still, works, I suppose.

Well yea, but then again, a Rogue is more versatile (has more skillpoints) and is a better Striker.

Oh, and:

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Do note: This guy IS the wizard, who is supposed to have the summons. You're full circle, now. And yes, you can bypass the N/A trap with other means - but for that, you need to pay rather close attention and guess the intent from the cryptic clues, or suffer the consequences. Disposable minions remove the consequences and let you try again repeatedly, effectively removing the guesswork.

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My point is that he doesn't need to apply that to all the traps; he's a very competent trapfinder and disarmer, so he should use those abilities, lest the whole going gets monotonous. After he's located ones, he can deduct how to deal with it.

Only sorta. A party of 4 PCs is expected to have roughly a 50/50 chance of a rather Pyhrric victory against an encounter with CR equal to party level + 4 (that's the "someone will probably die" category).

Yes, precisely. The point is, the party is expected to come out victorious; it's the proper CR for that campaign boss especially if he's alone. The reason it's in my signature is the fact that many people seem to wonder why the party beats their CR-equivalent encounters easily, while that's in fact how the whole system is designed.

[Jack_Simth]

Well yea, but then again, a Rogue is more versatile (has more skillpoints) and is a better Striker.

More like the Rogue has more endurance, and is a better striker - while a Factotum gets fewer base skill points (8 vs. 6), there's more incentive to invest in Int (it powers most class features), he's got a bigger skill list, and with the Cunning Knowledge class ability, the Factotum can shore up any skill (once per day per skill, limited by inspiration points). With a relatively small handful of exceptions (skills used constantly or reactively - Search, Disable Device, Open Lock, Spot, Listen, Hide, Move Silently, sometimes UMD), the Factotum really only needs 3 ranks in the skills that the Rogue pretty much needs to max out, 1 rank in skills where the rogue needs to invest a moderate amount.

... and the Factotum can pull out save or suck/save or lose, and Direct Damage spells where the Rogue can't without expending cash to do so.

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My point is that he doesn't need to apply that to all the traps; he's a very competent trapfinder and disarmer, so he should use those abilities, lest the whole going gets monotonous. After he's located ones, he can deduct how to deal with it.

So, you're saying that "I take 10 on search" or "I take 20 on search" followed by "I use one inspiration point for Cunning Knowledge on Disable Device to take 10 to disable it" for each trap doesn't get monotonous?

At least with Summon Elemental, you get to watch all the pretty traps go off on the disposable minion (or hear descriptions of how they do, anyway).

Hmm... It's the Hench Games!

Yes, precisely. The point is, the party is expected to come out victorious; it's the proper CR for that campaign boss especially if he's alone. The reason it's in my signature is the fact that many people seem to wonder why the party beats their CR-equivalent encounters easily, while that's in fact how the whole system is designed.

Yes, but the way you phrase it, it is easy to interpret as a suggestion to routinely throw encounters with an encounter level of (Party Level +4) at the party.

[Eldariel]

More like the Rogue has more endurance, and is a better striker - while a Factotum gets fewer base skill points (8 vs. 6), there's more incentive to invest in Int (it powers most class features), he's got a bigger skill list, and with the Cunning Knowledge class ability, the Factotum can shore up any skill (once per day per skill, limited by inspiration points). With a relatively small handful of exceptions (skills used constantly or reactively - Search, Disable Device, Open Lock, Spot, Listen, Hide, Move Silently, sometimes UMD), the Factotum really only needs 3 ranks in the skills that the Rogue pretty much needs to max out, 1 rank in skills where the rogue needs to invest a moderate amount.

... and the Factotum can pull out save or suck/save or lose, and Direct Damage spells where the Rogue can't without expending cash to do so.

Yup, but I still wouldn't discount the Rogue.

So, you're saying that "I take 10 on search" or "I take 20 on search" followed by "I use one inspiration point for Cunning Knowledge on Disable Device to take 10 to disable it" for each trap doesn't get monotonous?

At least with Summon Elemental, you get to watch all the pretty traps go off on the disposable minion (or hear descriptions of how they do, anyway).

Hmm... It's the Hench Games!

That's the whole point, deal with traps in a variety of ways! Deal with some through good ol' disarming, some with summons and some with creativity (last one is preferred, of course, but only when possible).

Yes, but the way you phrase it, it is easy to interpret as a suggestion to routinely throw encounters with an encounter level of (Party Level +4) at the party.

Hah, that's not my problem. If a party dies because a DM misinterprets what is said in my signature, I'm going to savor the moment.

[Chronos]

I agree that the Earth Elemental thing is handy, and a useful addition to the bag of tricks (and if there's anyone who ought to have a wide and varied bag of tricks, it's a factotum//wizard). I just don't think you should rely exclusively on it, because there are traps that it won't pick up. I don't know precisely what's in the Tomb, but it's famous for having a wide variety of traps, and I can think of at least a half-dozen different categories of traps (all of them including nonmagical specimens) for which the elemental would be useless or worse. It seems a very foolish idea to assume, a priori, that none of those half-dozen different categories shows up somewhere.

[nargbop]

I suggest a level of arcane trickster replacing one level of factotum. Not having to fiddle with a trap directly is an incredibly good idea. [ edit ] oops. Factotums don't have sneak attack, they can spend points to do an attack like one. I've been playing a mild houserule that expending the points makes you sneak attack as a rogue of your factotum level. [/edit]
I also suggest Magic Sensitive from the Complete Mage or better Vatic Gaze from Player's Handbook II , which grant constant detect magic. Mind you, your DM will probably need you to say "I look at the room carefully with detect magic on" to indicate how you're concentrating on it.
BTW, I just looked at Mystic Backlash in Complete Mage. It's not great for this adventure, but a Sorcerer/Abjurant Champion/Spellsword with Mystic Backlash is fearsomely awesome in a high-magic setting.

[SilverClawShift]

Feats for a gestalt Wizard//Factotum

First impression?

Take Toughness as every feat. You're a wizard factotum. You're a naughty god.

[Eldariel]

First impression?

Take Toughness as every feat. You're a wizard factotum. You're a naughty god.

Naughty neutral, more like it. Swings all ways.

[Emperor Tippy]

Use the Chaos Shuffle for an extra 6 feats, and take 2 flaws for another 2.

[Nebo_]

Use the Chaos Shuffle for an extra 6 feats, and take 2 flaws for another 2.

Augh! I can't believe you can actually suggest this for a serious game. Nobody should ever use that trick, bar in the most high powered games. Just because you can do that doesn't mean you should.