Factotum/Chameleon questions: What makes it so good?

[ArkthePieKing]

I read pretty often that Chameleon is a great prestige class for the Factotum, but as a check around...I don't really see what makes it so great. I mean don't get me wrong. I love both, and I think that you can come up with something really awesome and flavorful if you played one. But it seems to me that if you were going to play a Factotum and go into any kind of prestige class it would be one to help you specialize, since you can already do pretty much everything. I don't quite see any real synergy between Factotum and Chameleon. It seems like they try to do the same thing, but in two different directions so they end up tripping over each other.

At this point I'm probably going to play one because I think its a neat idea, but I'm not convinced its optimal in any way. Anyone care to enlighten me?

[Eviltedzies]

The main synergy between Factotum and Chameleon is the sheer flexibility.

Factotum grants you all skills as class skills + 1/day boost said skills.
Factotum also gains sorcerer/wizard spells that it can change up every day.
Also at 8th level Factotum gets the all powerful Cunning Surge for extra standard actions.

One of the biggest benefits of Chameleon is the bonus feat you get at level 2 that you can change every day.
Just imagine how powerful the ability to suddenly shift a feat around could be. Want to craft magic items? Factotum counts as a caster so take Craft Wondrous Items and imbue them with some weird Sorcerer/Wizard spells from obscure sources because Factotum literally can pull them out of thin air.

The ability to take any feat you qualify for any day simply because you want to or because it is useful and then change it at your leisure is incredibly useful.

On trick people mention is using spell storing ammunition combined with using Metamagic feats on the spell you cast into them. A good example: Maximized Shivering Touch on 50 small projectiles. (That is 18 Dex damage with no save on hit.) Now other classes can do this to but it takes up a permanent feat slot or more to pull it off. Factotums can do it on a whim.
To add to the Factotum's flexibility is that Chameleon's ability to also mimic arcane/divine spells. This just gets further enhanced if you use cheesy ways to gain 9th level spells for Chameleon.

Overall the synergy between the two is not meant to specialize and be better than any one thing. It's meant to be able to do everything to some extent and if you find yourself lacking you can always just change up your Chameleon specializations for the day.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Out-of-combat you're eventually your own Magic Mart.


Something like Feat Rogue 1 with Able Learner
and then goes Dual Psi/Caster Cheese, will rather
outpace a Facto/Cham whenever it gets to PsyRef. 
But that's at full boogie C.O. gonzo levels.
Tone it down and have some fun.

[Havik_Stormcrow]

Well, now your ability to imitate class skills isn't all that limited anymore, now is it? Add on that your spells from Factotum allow you to take metamagic feats and boy-howdy, are you in business. Normal Chameleons have an issue with getting the metamagic they crave to modify the 6th level arcane AND divine casting they end up getting. Not anymore! Factotums meet the skill prereqs AND grant the spell-access you need to bone up on metamagic feats that you can use with your Chameleon abilities! Add on Kung-Fu Genius, a Monk's Belt, and more levels of Factotum and you'll be casting Factotum spells, 6th level divine, and 6th level arcane without armor but netting twice your Int bonus to AC. Let's not forget that once you get that 8th level of Factotum you get to cast two spells per round, either! I love this combo, and it makes for the ultimate spy.

[V-God]

This just gets further enhanced if you use cheesy ways to gain 9th level spells for Chameleon.

How is that? *Curious*

[zugschef]

I read pretty often that Chameleon is a great prestige class for the Factotum, but as a check around...I don't really see what makes it so great. I mean don't get me wrong. I love both, and I think that you can come up with something really awesome and flavorful if you played one. But it seems to me that if you were going to play a Factotum and go into any kind of prestige class it would be one to help you specialize, since you can already do pretty much everything. I don't quite see any real synergy between Factotum and Chameleon. It seems like they try to do the same thing, but in two different directions so they end up tripping over each other.

At this point I'm probably going to play one because I think its a neat idea, but I'm not convinced its optimal in any way. Anyone care to enlighten me?

Well, it starts with the fact that Factotum sucks without the misinterpretation of an online feat. This will probably invoke a shitstorm, but truth is that Factotum fanboys deliberately misinterpret font of inspiration although it's obviously not RAI and actually not even RAW (because of DnD's math/stacking rules).* Also, people will tell you to make use of a skill appearing in an obscure 3.0 splatbook which has never been updated to 3.5 and most people haven't even heard of. On top of that Factotums don't cast spells but SLAs which can't be combined with metamagic feats. Lastly, "stacking" cunning surge is like "stacking" RKV's divine impetus and nightsticks: extremely debatable.

So you can ignore the obscure class from an obscure source and simply enter Chameleon with levels in Rogue, Bard, Human Paragon, etc.

*The feat doesn't add 1+2+3+4... inspiration points. What it actually does when you take it more than once, is overlap with the bonus(es) of every earlier instance (1, 1+1, 2+1, 3+1...). Thus, after taking the feat four times, which a human factotum can achieve when reaching level six, you gain an additional four inspiration points which actually doubles your total amount until you reach level eight, and not ten which equals the total amount of a level 20 factotum (an obviously stupid interpretation to anyone with half a brain). This is the way stacking bonuses in DnD works; casting Mage Armor twice will give you two overlapping instances granting +4 to AC each. Now some smartass will probably cry, "But it's an unnamed bonus!" Point is though that unnamed bonuses still only stack with anything except themselves.

[edit]

This just gets further enhanced if you use cheesy ways to gain 9th level spells for Chameleon.

How is that? *Curious*

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=135.0;msg=459

[linklord231]

Font of Inspiration does not grant a bonus.  Stacking/overlapping rules do not apply.  Also, a Factotum can explicitly use metamagic feats even though they don't cast spells.

[linklord231]

Font of Inspiration does not grant a bonus.  Stacking/overlapping rules do not apply.

Unnamed Bonuses

A bonus that doesn't have a name stacks with anything except itself. This is always true, but it's sometimes hard to remember. For example, many feats provide unnamed bonuses, so don't panic when you read a feat description and it provides a bonus without a name. An unnamed bonus from a feat stacks with any other bonus; however you can't stack that unnamed bonus if you take the feat twice.

Again, Font of Inspiration doesn't grant a bonus.  I don't know why you keep quoting the rules for stacking bonuses.

And even if you wouldn't be talking nonsense, if you want to go that stupid route, what if I told you that Font of Inspiration is literally a waste of a feat? Not because the term encounter and its length is defined nowhere, no, but because the feat itself says so:

Font of Inspiration
[...]
Benefits: When you take this feat for the first time, you gain 1 inspiration point.[...]

What does it mean? You take the feat and gain 1 inspiration point. You don't add it to your pool of inspiration points because it doesn't say that and your pool of inspiration points is still bound to your class table. Thus, as soon as you spend this 1 inspiration point it's gone forever and the feat's benefit is wasted.

There's no such thing as a "pool" of inspiration points.  The Factotum has one class feature called "Inspiration," and an entry on the class table titled "Inspiration Points."  Tell me which is the more correct reading of "gain 1 inspiration point" - that you should apply that point immediately to your nonexistant "pool" of inspiration points, or that you should increment the numbers under the column titled "Inspiration Points" by one?  I'll give you a hint - it involves incrementing the thing that actually exists.  Or are you arguing that the Power Points you get from Psionic Talent are only usable once as well?

Also, a Factotum can explicitly use metamagic feats even though they don't cast spells.

That's because the rules for Arcane Dilettante concerning metamagic feats are incorrectly calling the Factotum's spell-like abilities spells: "If you wish to enhance a spell with a metamagic feat, you must apply the feat when you prepare the spell. In addition, you must be capable of using a spell of the modified spell’s level." A Factotum doesn't prepare spells because a Factotum doesn't even cast spells and you don't and can't prepare spell-like abilities. Technically, a Factotum also doesn't have spell slots so this is complete and utter nonsense. That's why there are feats such as Heighten Spell-like ability which work with this ability.

The rules for Arcane Dilettante are indeed screwy, but that doesn't negate the fact that Factotums can explicitly use metamagic feats with them.  As best I can figure, you treat them as spells up until you actually try to cast them, at which point they're treated like spell-like abilities. 

[linklord231]

[The feats don't interact with your power point and your inspiration point total, respectively, in any way.

This is the stupidest thing I've read today.  The feats give you more of a certain resource.  The rules tell you when to refresh that resource, and tell you to consult the table to determine how much of the resource you get when it's refreshed.  The specifics of the feat override the table when they say "you gain additional x." 

By the way, the stacking rules not only apply to bonuses it applies to all modifiers:

In most cases, modifiers to a given check or roll stack (combine for a cumulative effect) if they come from different sources and have different types (or no type at all), but do not stack if they have the same type or come from the same source (such as the same spell cast twice in succession). If the modifiers to a particular roll do not stack, only the best bonus and worst penalty applies.

And, pray tell, what check or roll does Font of Inspiration modify?

You're grasping at straws here.

[linklord231]

This is the third time I've pointed out that the stacking rules are not at all relevant to Font of Inspiration.  It does not grant any kind of bonus, nor does it modify any check or roll. 

[zugschef]

This is the third time I've pointed out that the stacking rules are not at all relevant to Font of Inspiration.  It does not grant any kind of bonus, nor does it modify any check or roll.

And you are wrong. Toughness. Just Toughness. But at this point I honestly don't care anymore.

[linklord231]

They made Toughness explicitly stack, even though it did already.  Redundancy is redundant. 

Why didn't they feel the need to include the explicit phrase "its effects stack" to Extra Slot or Bonus Soulmeld or Epic Essentia or Extra Chakra Bind or Extra Music or Improved Damage Reduction or...

[Bard]

Why didn't they feel the need to include the explicit phrase "its effects stack" to Extra Slot or Bonus Soulmeld or Epic Essentia or Extra Chakra Bind or Extra Music or Improved Damage Reduction or...

damn you beat me to it

[zugschef]

They made Toughness explicitly stack, even though it did already.  Redundancy is redundant. 

This is not an argument. It's a claim. And a false one at that.

Temporary Hit Points
Certain effects give a character temporary hit points. When a character gains temporary hit points, note his current hit point total. When the temporary hit points go away the character’s hit points drop to his current hit point total. If the character’s hit points are below his current hit point total at that time, all the temporary hit points have already been lost and the character’s hit point total does not drop further.
When temporary hit points are lost, they cannot be restored as real hit points can be, even by magic.

See how the rules on temporary hit points totally don't tell you that temporary hit points don't stack? Temporary hit points are no fucking modifier to a roll and after your definition no bonus. Yet no sane person stacks this shit. Only the highest bonus applies.

Why didn't they feel the need to include the explicit phrase "its effects stack" to Extra Slot or Bonus Soulmeld or Epic Essentia or Extra Chakra Bind or Extra Music or Improved Damage Reduction or...

damn you beat me to it

That's because the feat doesn't stop at saying that it's stackable, it specifies how. Try again dumbass lyer.

Special:You can gain this feat multiple times. Each time, you gain an extra spell slot at any level up to one lower than the highest level of spell you can currently cast.

[linklord231]

Temporary hit points gained from multiple applications of the same effect don’t stack. Instead, the highest number of temporary hit points gained from that effect apply. If temporary hit points are gained from multiple, different sources that stack, keep track of those sources and when they were gained separately. Any damage taken is first subtracted from the oldest effect that granted temporary hit points. When those are gone, subtract damage from the next oldest effect, and so on.

Temporary hit points don't stack because the rules explicitly say they don't - and they do stack, in some cases.

That's because the feat doesn't stop at saying that it's stackable, it specifies how.

Special:You can gain this feat multiple times. Each time, you gain an extra spell slot at any level up to one lower than the highest level of spell you can currently cast.

By your logic, Extra Slot wouldn't stack - if you chose to apply 2 Extra Slot feats to the same spell level, then you'd be getting the same "bonus" () twice.  The extra slots would overlap with each other.

[Bard]

This might be a bit more clear as an example: Extra Music

As you see, it adds something (uses of extra music), it does say you can get it multiple times, but doesn't specify how does it stack or if it does.
Following your reasoning, taking this multiple time wouldn't give you anything, or am I missing something?

[Quillwraith]

Well, it starts with the fact that Factotum sucks without the misinterpretation of an online feat. This will probably invoke a shitstorm, but truth is that Factotum fanboys deliberately misinterpret font of inspiration although it's obviously not RAI and actually not even RAW (because of DnD's math/stacking rules).* Also, people will tell you to make use of a skill appearing in an obscure 3.0 splatbook which has never been updated to 3.5 and most people haven't even heard of. On top of that Factotums don't cast spells but SLAs which can't be combined with metamagic feats. Lastly, "stacking" cunning surge is like "stacking" RKV's divine impetus and nightsticks: extremely debatable.

The class is pretty decent without cunning surge or font of inspiration, though.

(click to show/hide)

(an obviously stupid interpretation to anyone with half a brain)

Please leave out the ad hominem.

Now some smartass will probably cry, "But it's an unnamed bonus!" Please don't insult us.

And even if you wouldn't be talking nonsense, if you want to go that stupid route,

Would you please not use so many insults? It makes it hard for people to consider your posts fairly, and is kinda hurtful.

Now what's it gonna be smartass?

Technically, a Factotum also doesn't have spell slots so this is complete and utter nonsense. That's why there are feats such as Heighten Spell-like ability which work with this ability.

Again, would you mind going a little lighter on the ad hominem?

Now you can either shut up or admit that you were wrong.

Being rude really doesn't help, zugschef.

This is the stupidest thing I've read today.

I know it's hard, but you could be nicer too.

This is the stupidest thing I've read today.

You sir are stupid and should feel stupid for still interpreting a feat in a way which is obviously stupid, after having been shown the evidence why this is not only a stupid but also wrong interpretation, because DnD stacking rules, which are part of the fucking basics of the game, say that 1 + 2 = 2, if 1 and 2 come from the same source, for christ's sake.

Sorry, but I think I sould report that to the mods.

[Sinfire Titan]

Shape it up people, or this thread is getting locked.

[Jackinthegreen]

There can be multiple reasonable interpretations of what we experience and do.  To only limit ourselves to one way of thinking would be... Disastrous.

Could Font of Inspiration only provide that 1 inspiration point to be used, and then it's gone?  Perhaps, but that would be a nearly worthless feat, and one would hope feats are actually meant to be meaningful.  It's okay to not go by RAW, because as players we have the ability, and even obligation, to fill in the blanks where the designers didn't quite get things right.

[Iainuki]

When I hear factotum/chameleon, I don't think character optimization, I think perfect storm of poorly-written rules. Factotum and chameleon together are enough to make me break out in hives.  Anyway, assuming someone rewrites the classes so they work, there's not really any synergy between them, they mostly do the same things, chameleon better than factotum.