Haberdash the Masked: The 3.5 Kitchen Sink

[Person_Man]

As long as you're throwing in everything and the kitchen sink, you should include Incarnum effects to your arsenal. Mechanically it's rather similar to the description you've already been given of binding; it's a class ability that grants you a set of abilities usable at-will or at intervals throughout the day. You gain acces to multiple skill/ability sets as you go up in levels. The abilities are all over the place in function, from attacks to skills to mimicing the powers of some magic items. And, like binding, if you just invest a feat or two in Incarnum use, then you get a limited pick from some pretty random choices.
Of course by now in the build, Haberdash has got to be very feat-starved. What is the best way to get extra bonus feat(s)?

I agree. Unfortunately, even after reading through the various online guides, I can't honestly say that I understand Incarnum well enough to render an opinion as to what would be the best for Haberdash to take. If someone else wants to do a mini-guide for him, I'd be happy to spoiler it and include it in the main post.

Cutting really close to thread necromancy. Why were you like 10 pages in?

He's a new poster. He must have picked up on the link from another thread.

If a Mod feels that the thread is bordering on undead and needs to shut it down, I won't complain. But I don't really see a reason for it.

The absolute best way to pick up soulmelds, if your DM will allow it (and I won't blame him if he doesn't) is through Chameleon. Pick up Shape Soulmeld with your changeable feat, and shape a soulmeld. Soulmelds stay shaped indefinitely, until you deliberately unshape them (or until someone else forces them to unshape, but that's not too common), so you keep the soulmeld even after you've changed your bonus feat the next day. Repeat until you have a soulmeld shaped on every body slot.

Now that is a freaking excellent idea. You could easily go Factotum/MoM/Chameleon with this build. Giving up Factotum abilities for Chameleon ones is definitely viable at ECL 15ish or lower. Above that though, you're much better off with a strait Factotum 19/MoM 1.

As a further thought, since we're dipping Master of Masks anyway, are there any other masks that would be good to have?

Well, the Assassin Mask gives you Sneak Attack. With Craven and whatnot it would be a viable choice. But wearing it means you can't use the Gladiator Mask, where most of your combos are derived from.

Faceless is a good mask to just walk around in when you're not in combat. +5 to resist mind affecting effects, minor spell resistance against scrying, and a Neutral alignment. The other good option is archmage, which adds +2 to your arcane caster level (up to your character level). Since you can already cast, this might be your best option, especially if you go with Chameleon.

High Priest gives you Protection From Evil, which protects you from most enchantment and summon effects. Always useful to have in your pocket just in case, though you could just as easily do so with a Wand. Lich gives you Cold Resistance. Lord gives you a minor social Skill bump.

Sadly though, it's really not a playable PrC beyond the one level dip unless you're in a low power game.

[Darrin]

I have a couple more things to add to Haberdash.

First, kaorti weapons. *ANY* weapon on Haberdash's list can be made out of kaorti instead, which gives it a crit multiplier of x4. You need an EWP for a kaorti version of a weapon (even if it is already exotic), but... hey, no problem for Haberdash! Kaorti weapons (such as the ribbon dagger) are detailed in the Fiend Folio, p. 110, and the costs for making them are available on the WotC website:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031014a

My recommendation for best kaorti weapon: Elven Courtblade, which oddly enough isn't listed yet. 18-20 crit range, two-handed for PA/ST/Leap Attack nonsense, but it's also finessable. Add keen or improved crit and you get x4 crits on a 15-20 range. Hmm, any reason we're not adding three levels of Swashbuckler on top of Factotum so we can put that Int bonus on damage?

I agree. Unfortunately, even after reading through the various online guides, I can't honestly say that I understand Incarnum well enough to render an opinion as to what would be the best for Haberdash to take. If someone else wants to do a mini-guide for him, I'd be happy to spoiler it and include it in the main post.

In a nutshell: Soulmelds are a little like magic items that you shape out of your own life-energy. They are assigned to various chakras, which correspond to the various magic item locations. Each soulmeld has roughly three different power levels:

1) Shaped: You assign it to a body location. You get a basic effect.
2) Invested: You can pump essentia points into it, usually to enhance the basic effect. You can get essentia points from your class, race, or feats.
3) Bound: You bind the soulmeld to a body location, which is the same as wearing a magic item there. In addition to the basic effect, you get a more powerful effect.

A Chameleon can enjoy all the basic effects just by taking the Shape Soulmeld feat for a day. 8 hours of rest + 1 hour to shape soulmelds, and once shaped, the soulmeld is pretty much permanent until unshaped or dispelled. There are 10 chakras/body locations, and the maximum number of soulmelds he can shape at one time is determed by his Con score minus 10, so a Con of 20 means he can load up all 10 of his chakras.

Recommended race: Lesser Tiefling: +2 Int, +2 Dex, -2 Cha. Add the Arctic template for +2 Con/-2 Cha, add Dragonborn of Bahumant for +2 Con/-2 Dex. Stats: +2 Int, +4 Con, -4 Cha. Also, Grey Elf or Fire Elf would work just as well, and the latter has the added irony of an arctic template on a fire race.

Soulmelds

I went through all the basic soulmeld abilities and looked at the various chakras... this is an off-the-cuff eyeball stab at it, sort of in order of least chakras to greater chakras:

1) Crown (hat): Threefold Mask of the Chimera. While shaped, you can't be flanked. The nice thing here is unlike Improved Uncanny Dodge, there's no exception for high-level rogues.

2) Feet (boots): Thunderstep Boots. If you charge and hit with an attack, adds 1d4 sonic damage (no save). For each point of essentia invested, add +1d4 damage. Best for charger builds, otherwise consider Airsept Sandals (fly 10' but must end movement on solid ground) or Acrobat Boots (+2 to balance, escape artist, jump, tumble).

3) Hands (gloves): Lucky Dice. As a swift action, add +1 luck bonus to: attack/damage, saves, or skill/attribute checks. A bit of an oddity here, but you also roll 2d6, and if it comes up 7, the +1 bonus applies to all three options.

4) Arms (bracers): Bloodwar Gauntlets. +1 morale bonus on attacks. If you can pump essentia into it, each point gives you +1 morale bonus on damage. Kinda nickle-and-dime stuff here, but some other options: Bluesteel Bracers (+2 Init), Girallon Arms (+2 grapple), or Mauling Gauntlets (+2 Str checks).

5) Brow (goggles): Mage's Spectacles. +4 insight bonus to decipher script, spellcraft, and... wait for it... wait for it... use magic device. If your factotum has them already maxed out, try Planar Chasuble for <energy> resistance 10, based on your alignment.

6) Shoulders (cloak): Adamant Poultrons. Light fortification, 25% chance to ignore crits. If you're going all-sneaky-type, Kruthik Claws, +4 competence bonus on hide and move silently.

7) Throat (necklace): Planar Ward. Blocks mental control effects, such as magic jar, enchantment (charm) or enchantment (compulsion). It's not quite as perfect as the various protection from <blank> spells, but useful. Another option would be the Necrocarnum Mantle, for immunity to disease.

8) Waist (belt): Strongheart Vest. You've probably heard about this one from a Hellfire Warlock build, but even without Hellfire Blast it's just darned useful. Reduces any ability damage you take by 1 point. If you don't want to go that completely cheesy: Flame Cincture (fire resist 10), Necrocarnum Vest (cold resist 5), or Wormtail Belt (+2 natural armor).

Now, the Heart and Soul chakras are normally only available to high-level Incarnates, which is the only class that can *bind* soulmelds to these two chakras. However, nothing in the book says you can't shape a soulmeld on those locations. So we can add:

9) Heart (vest): Blink Shirt. Teleport 10' (as dimension door) as a standard action. You can't take any other actions until your next turn (including immediate, I think), but a good "get out of grapple free" card. You can also pump up the range by investing essentia, +10' per point. If that doesn't impress you, you can put the Strongheart Vest here.

10) Soul (robe/armor): For such a rare chakra, most of the basic soulmelds are pretty "meh". For someone smacking around things with exotic weapons, I gues I'd recommend Incarnate Avatar. However, unlike most soulmelds, you *have* to invest essentia into it to get any basic ability, and the benefit depends on your alignment: Chaotic = +1 insight bonus on ranged attacks per essentia, Evil = +2 insight bonus on damage per essentia, Good = +1 insight bonus to AC per essentia, and Lawful = +1 insight bonus to attack per essentia. If you don't want to bother with essentia, then stick the Planar Chasuble here, or try the Necrocarnum Shroud: +1 profane bonus to attack/damage for 1 round whenever any creature adjacent to you takes damage.

[Person_Man]

Holy crud, thanks for the hugely useful update Darrin. The Kaorti Courtblade idea in particular is very potent, and you sketched out some great ideas for Incarnum. Thanks.

Hmm, any reason we're not adding three levels of Swashbuckler on top of Factotum so we can put that Int bonus on damage?

Getting free Weapon Finesse and Int to damage would certainly synergize well with this build. Something like Factotum 3/Swash 3/Master of Masks 1 with a good variety of weapons would be ridiculous at that ECL. With Iajutsu Focus, Quick Draw, TWF, and the right combination of ridiculous exotic weapons, you'd have great battlefield control and damage output, plus respectable Skills. But for a long term and/or higher level campaign, I think that higher level Factotum abilities and spells would be more powerful and useful then a free feat and a damage bump.

[SilentNight]

Oh. My. God. This. Is. Awesome. Simply amazing, I love this.

[Darrin]

One last thing to add to Haberdash... stumbled on this while looking through Magic of Faerun: Heavy Weapons, p. 179.

When a weapon is made from a heavy material such as gold or platinum, increases the damage up a step... essentially turns any martial weapon into something like a bastard sword: slightly more damage, but you need an EWP to wield it with the usual number of hands without taking a -4 penalty.

For most weapons, this barely increases the average damage by 1. However, for 1d8 or 1d12 weapons, the average damage kicks up about 2.5 points.

The table doesn't cover anything larger than 1d12... so this leaves out the Flindbar (2d4), Jovar and Orc Shotput (2d6). Perfect for a Greathammer, and turns an ordinary longsword into a one-handed greatsword. Lance damage also goes up to 2d6. Even better than a lance or longsword, however:

Heavy Elven Thinblade. 2d6 damage, 18-20 x2 crit. Can't finesse it anymore, but everything a greatsword can do, plus one-handed and better crit range. (Heavy Great Scimitar, Sandstorm p. 96, has similar stats.)

Also interesting:

Heavy Two-bladed Sword. 2d6/2d6 damage, 19-20 x2 crit. Orc double-axes and dire flails would also work here, with sightly different crit stats. The laughable gyrspike also could be tossed in with this group.

Heavy Hydraflail. 2d6 damage, x3 crit. +4 disarm. One-handed. Dragon Compendium, p. 111.

Heavy Great Falchion. 2d8 damage, 18-20 x2 crit. Sandstorm p. 96.

Heavy Warmace. 2d8 damage, x2 crit. One-handed. Complete Warrior, p. 154. This does ding up your AC a smidge, but why not go the full monty here and pick up TWF with Oversize TWF. Sure, -2 to AC, but that's 2d8 damage in each hand before you Pounce/Power Attack/Leap Attack/Shock Trooper.

Start with a Powerful Build race, and a whole bunch of 1d6 weapons move up to 1d8... such as the kama (monk weapon), kusari gama (DMG), dwarven buckler-axe (CWar), annulat (Planar), and collapsing crescent fan (Sand).

And here's another scary thought... Monkey Grip + Heavy Weapon might actually be worth it.

[Thurbane]

How about throwing in a pair of Strongarm Bracers, for large, heavy weapons?

[Fizban]

Here's a useful little bit of equipment: Wand of Heroics.

Heroics is a little spell from the Spell Compendium (originally Complete Adventurer I think) that gives you any feat on the fighter bonus list for 10 min/level. You can use magic to meet feat and prestige class requirements: I think the example was gloves of dex or a ring of evaison, but in this case you could use Heroics to climb up any feat chain that you can meet the non-feat requirements for, and you can beat out the ability requirements with other buff spells. A 4,500gp wand could give you up to 50 fighter feats for 25 minutes (30 minutes-5 to use the wand up). Used more conservatively, how about a feat chain and a half (5 feats worth) for 450gp a fight?

Wraithstike is pure awesome, but keeping a wand in hand can be a hassle: make sure all your big weapons are wand chambered and keep a partial wand in any you think you'll need a Wraithstrike for. Alternatively, Spiked Gauntlets are listed on the weapon tables, and don't count as unarmed strikes: chamber it and fill it with touch attack goodness! (Of course, this could backfire if your DM counters by pointing out that if it's a weapon it's not a normal gauntlet, and you can't use anything else in that hand. You can counter with a Claw Bracer [exotic weapon, multiple books], which specifically says that it leaves your hand open, but by this point I'm just splitting hairs.... I wonder if I could wand chamber a Gnomish Quickrazor...)

Edit: AHA! Finally found where wand chambers were from: Dungeonscape. Exact entry says you need a 6" handle or hilt, so that'll eliminate the gauntlets and bracers, but a Buckler is a type of shield, it specifically doesn't fill your hand, and Wraithstrike will more than compensate for the -1 to attack from the buckler. While I'm at it, I'll recommend oil chambers too. I don't know all what useful effects there are out there, but converting a standard to swift action is an advantage, and that's what the guy's all about.

I love the mental image of this guy, walking around with six or eight exotic reach weapons strapped to him, a gigantic composite bow and whips and god knows what all else, doing the most ludicrous cartwheels and gratuitous gymnastics that clearly defy each and every law of physics in turn, and Quick Drawing a new weapon every six seconds! Very entertaining.

Now his weapons are all solid gold, with blades full of sloshing mercury, hollow hilts, and high pressure storage bottles strapped to the sides.

Re: throwing flour on invisible creatures. Dungeonscape also addresses this, treating it as a splash weapon that reduces them from full to normal concealment, which can be negated by a full round action, among other things. I'd say it's quite worth it if you can pinpoint them without slowing down, since you can toss the flour on them as part of a full attack with your last attack (so as not to waste the higher bonuses), or the first (to reduce miss chance for the rest).

[Thurbane]

Wow, just looked up Heroics in the SC (p. 113) - how the **** have I not noticed this spell before? Awesome!

Question though - would multiple castings give the target multiple feats, or would it not "stack" with itself this way?

[Flashlight]

Question though - would multiple castings give the target multiple feats, or would it not "stack" with itself this way?

I'm pretty sure they wouldn't stack. Otherwise, it also could be possible to cast multiple Bull's Strenght on a Fighter to make him equal to a cloud giant.

Which armor would Haberdash wear?
Factotum spells don't provoke ACF, so why not take two levels in Chameleon for the bonus feat and the armor proficiencies, then wear some Mithril Full Plate with enhancements I don't know that reduce armor penalty.

[Fizban]

Why wouldn't they stack? It's just like multiple castings of Energy Resistance for different types of energy: you're granting a different bonus each time, therefore there's no overlap. It's not actually that bad if you're casting it each day, only 10 min/level and unless you drop all your slots into it you won't get much out. The wand is what makes it crazy.

[Thurbane]

Good point.

So, in theory, you have a Wand of Heroics, Wand of Fox's Cunning, Wand of Cat's Grace - you could pump up a characters Int and Dex to 13+, then pile on Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Combat Expertise and Whirlwind Attack. The FC and CG would only last 3 minutes, though...

[Flashlight]

Sorry to interrupt those wet dreams.

"Same Effect with Differing Results
The same spell can sometimes produce varying effects if applied to the same recipient more than once. Usually the last spell in the series trumps the others. None of the previous spells are actually removed or dispelled, but their effects become irrelevant while the final spell in the series lasts."

Link

So except it's specifically noted that they stack in the spell description (which isn't the case of Heroics or Resist Elements), only the last spell cast is in effect.

Edit: A mithral Full Plate has an armor penalty of -3. Any idea how to reduce that?

[SilentNight]

There's a masterwork trait in dragon magazine, issue 358 I think basically it has a bunch of stuff that makes masterwork weapons more masterwork, that reduces armor check penalty by one. As far as the last two points I think you're going to need a class ability sadly.

[Fishy]

Oooh. I know the Pincer Staff is probably a million times better, but I really want to try using the Swift Escape/Escape Attack combo with Illithid Heritage and Illithid Grapple. For beating people to death with your tongue.

[Thurbane]

Edit: A mithral Full Plate has an armor penalty of -3. Any idea how to reduce that?

Levels in Dread Commando will get you Armored Ease (Ex).

[Fizban]

Sorry to interrupt those wet dreams.

"Same Effect with Differing Results
The same spell can sometimes produce varying effects if applied to the same recipient more than once. Usually the last spell in the series trumps the others. None of the previous spells are actually removed or dispelled, but their effects become irrelevant while the final spell in the series lasts."

Link

So except it's specifically noted that they stack in the spell description (which isn't the case of Heroics or Resist Elements), only the last spell cast is in effect.

Edit: A mithral Full Plate has an armor penalty of -3. Any idea how to reduce that?

I've always taken that to be referring to spells that give different result on a made/failed save.If they're going to include spells like resist elements for different energies, they're gonna have to give me an example, because frankly I thinks that's stupid.

Of course, even assuming I got an answer out of CustServ, as the saying goes, they're usually wrong, so that wouldn't mean much, commas. I concede that you have the text on your side, but I think the text is dumb in this case

[Flashlight]

As a DM, I would ok it for the energy resistance types of spells, but getting 3+ fighter feats with a wand is obnoxious at least. The spelling of the rule is pretty clear to me.

However, Person_Man, Cunning Knowledge adds the Factotum level to your skill check, not just 1/2 CL. Or do I miss an errata?

[Darrin]

Something else I wanted to add...

Having trouble deciding which exotic weapon to wield? Well, how about wielding four of them at once?

The Diopsid race (Dragon Compendium, p. 13) has four arms, similar to the thri-kreen but with only +1 LA and no racial hit dice. It also has special rules for using its four arms.

First, it has some kind of Powerful Build/improved Monkey Grip, where it can use a weapon one size category larger without any size penalty. Combine that with Strongarm Bracers for another size increase. Hmm... no easy way to increase size after that except for Expansion (via Hidden Talent feat or Psychic Warrior dip).

Second, you can use your secondary arms to wield additional shields or weapons. For shields, you incur the armor check penalty on all attacks/skill checks, but masterwork and mithril shields can reduce the ACP to zero. Hmm... I wonder if you can mount heavy shield spikes on a large-sized mithril shield? If so, 2d6 damage. If you're carrying a light weapon -4 to all attacks, or -8 for one-handed weapons. No way to get rid of that penalty... but if you absolutely have to wield 4 weapons at once, maybe the -8 is worth it. Definitely worth it for a shield with no ACP.

[Private-Prinny]

Complete Divine.
-Xavez

Really? Really? You dug up a 2 year old thread for that?

This is the most vile necromancy I have ever seen.