Factotum building

[Pandyman]

I'm making a factotum with knowledge devotion collector of stories. Anyone have any creative ideas or feat suggestions, other than item familiar (since I don't want to pump too many skill points into the item and lose my jack of all trades feel. I just want combat to be my main focus.

So becoming Int SAD is a nice place to start, but maybe there are better ways to go about it. Again, any suggestions?

Before it's linked, I've read the handbook.

[Bloodgruve]

Hey Pandy,

I ran a melee focused Factotum and loved it. Used the Dark Whisper Gnome Iaijutsu Focus Int+Dex setup and did a ton of damage. If that is available to you I suggest trying it, if its too cheesy for your group then there are other things to try. Font of Inspiration is hard to beat, especially after lvl 8 and the ability to take extra standard actions, stack this feat as much as possible.

With Knowledge Devotion and Collector of Stories you could look at a TWF/WF setup and see if your DM would let you take Craven.

If you don't go with IF or SA damage you'll need to find a good way to deal good combat damage. To maximize KD and CoS you'll want to make a lot of attacks. 2H is generally regarded as better damage but may I suggest looking at natural weapons. Totemist2 dip can give you up to 7 natural attacks, 2 at full hit and 5 at -5 hit (multiattack feat for -2 hit). Alter Self is great to gain some natural attacks, movement modes and AC, especially if you're an Outsider (Teifling or Aasimar). If you can get some wands or eternal wands you're good to go. Psychic Warrior or Ardent+Substitute Power can give you Claws of the Beast for 2 natural weapons.

Class dips, Swordsage with Shadowblade feat is nice if you can get some Dex. Swashbuckler is an obvious choice. Archivist with Dark Knowledge synergies with KD+CoS. Bard and Inspire Courage, get one of these in your group.

Factotum can be a 'jack of all trades, master of none' and poor in melee or built right it can be a 'jack of all Trades, master of a few' and push damage like mad :) Very, very fun class and can be quite potent.

If you have a build in mind I have a bunch of resources for Factotum, hit me up with questions.

Blood~

[Pandyman]

This is indeed useful, i was thinking of taking one dip into Master of Masks asap. It would give me proficiency with all exotic weapons, +1 to hit and +1 to damage.

For Race I'm thinking of Lesser Chaond Dragonborn(though I may ask DM to use the flavor of Zenthyri, since I prefer lawful to chaotic. That's just a minor rp problem though, so not important for build purposes.) This will net me +2 Dex, +4 Con, -2 Cha. I'm thinking I'll take 2 flaws, and take Weapon finesse at first level.

32 pt buy system I can finagle the following stats(racials included). (fixed)
Str- 14
Dex- 16
Con- 15
Int- 17
Wis- 10
Cha- 8

If I can finagle the use of third party books, I'm gonna pick up Ptah's Cunning and/or Deft defense to get my int bonus to my AC. (This is totally DM dependent)

So by lvl 6 I'll have Collector of Stories, Knowledge Devotion(Average +3 damage with shapesand making a masterwork skill item), Weapon Finesse, Gladiator mask, +2 Dex item, and masterwork weapon. +13 Attack bonus and +6 damage.

With two weapon fighting +12/+12 and +6 damage on each of these attacks.

This isn't including craven, iaijutsu focus, etc.

I messed up the pt buy lol.

Are there any skills that require training, that i should invest more points than normal in?

[King Atticus]

Font of Inspiration is hard to beat, especially after lvl 8 and the ability to take extra standard actions, stack this feat as much as possible.

This. This all day long. You can take it a number of times equal to your Int mod and each time you take it it gets better.

[BowStreetRunner]

If your alignment choice is flexible, go LG, LN, LE or N and get a set of Scrolls of Uncertain Provenance for 8k gp to grant +5 competence on those knowledge checks and you can do away with the need for the skill trick. (They don't stack, of course.) This is an improvement on the 'once per encounter' limit on Collector of Stories.

[Bloodgruve]

If you work with IF you will do well to get Hide in Plain Sight. You can get this from Dark Creature template (ToM) which is LA+1 but can buy that off possibly. Still need concealment though. Get some Eternal Wands of Veil of Shadow for concealment and IF all day long ;) Item Familiar will effectively double a given skill, put it into IF and you'll be pushing 7-9d6 on every attack as long as you can hide which isn't hard for a dark creature, even with a -20 to hide during an attack.

GL
Blood~