Most nonsensical ban you've played under

[ryu]

How are you getting full access to all arcane spells with just Psychic Chirurgary? This is a trick I am unfamiliar with.

Transfer knowledge function cast by a spell to power erudite. Mitigate the costs involved with large quantities of ambrosia if good or liquid pain if evil. We can also render PP moot with any number of famous methods. from there it's simply a matter of either having the erudite in the party, trading relevant spell or power knowledge from party members, trading large amounts of ambrosia, or good old-fashioned payed abuse of ice assassin spells to make a copy of the erudite. Any of the former are preferred for relative simplicity, but the last one mitigates the need for consent pretty hard.

[Aquillion]

There is nothing behind the factotum other than trying to fill holes. That's all I'll say on the matter, since I've finally learned that no argument on the Internet will actually change opinions.

Putting everything else aside, though, the Factotum's ability to take extra actions is fairly unique. Even if the class is just based on "filling holes", it's actually better at that than anyone else, fitting their concept of being quick-witted and clever.

As far as their flavor goes, they're meant to be highly-skilled, quick-witted gentleman (or gentlewoman) adventurer-types, dilettantes who pick up a huge variety of talents over the course of their adventures. You might not like that kind of character archetype, but they appear all the time in fiction (Cugel the Clever, say, is probably a good example of a Factotum in fiction.) Not everyone fits squarely into traditional D&D archetypes.

And like I said, being able to "fill holes" is valuable because sometimes your party needs an extra caster, and sometimes it needs an extra skill-monkey, and sometimes it needs an extra healer, and sometimes it needs an extra fighter -- it's not as simple as "there are a set number of roles each party needs one and only one person in, forever." The Factotum can switch to whichever hole needs to be filled at the moment on the fly, sometimes filling two at once.

[Vhaidara]

As far as their flavor goes, they're meant to be highly-skilled gentleman (or gentlewoman) adventurer-types, dilettantes who pick up a huge variety of talents over the course of their adventures. You might not like that kind of character archetype, but they appear all the time in fiction (Cugel the Clever, say, is probably a good example of a Factotum in fiction.) Not everyone fits squarely into traditional D&D archetypes.

My example Factotum is usually "Every Elder Scrolls main character EVER". Eventually, you do everything at about 75% of a focused person's capacity, and then you've got the thing you've really focused on (gear, feats), and at that thing you are 125% (action economy ftw)

[Milodiah]

At this point I'm also hearing "Kill the factotum first"; after all, wouldn't you kill the enemy that can do everything first?

[ryu]

At this point I'm also hearing "Kill the factotum first"; after all, wouldn't you kill the enemy that can do everything first?

No. Kill the enemy that can do the most dangerous things better than the jack of all trades first. These would be basically any spellcaster tier 2 or above.

[Vhaidara]

At this point I'm also hearing "Kill the factotum first"; after all, wouldn't you kill the enemy that can do everything first?

No, you kill the wizard first, because you always kill he wizard. Then you kill the factotum, because the has fewer hit points and more effectiveness than the fighter. Than you capture the fighter and send him to the slave pits to fight for your amusement.

[Owl Prowler]

Transfer knowledge function cast by a spell to power erudite. Mitigate the costs involved with large quantities of ambrosia if good or liquid pain if evil. We can also render PP moot with any number of famous methods. from there it's simply a matter of either having the erudite in the party, trading relevant spell or power knowledge from party members, trading large amounts of ambrosia, or good old-fashioned payed abuse of ice assassin spells to make a copy of the erudite. Any of the former are preferred for relative simplicity, but the last one mitigates the need for consent pretty hard.

And a Wizard could turn a sorcerer into a Shadesteel golem that knows every spell in the game. That doesn't address the issue of Sorcerer vs. Psion though. It just shows that Wizards and Spell to Power Erudites are really good. Which we already knew.

[torrasque666]

And a Wizard could turn a sorcerer into a Shadesteel golem that knows every spell in the game. That doesn't address the issue of Sorcerer vs. Psion though. It just shows that Wizards and Spell to Power Erudites are really good. Which we already knew.

Sorcerer can know all Sorc/Wiz spells.

Psion can learn all Sorc/Wiz spells AND psi powers from StP Erudite.

[Anlashok]

Sorcerer can know all Sorc/Wiz spells.

Psion can learn all Sorc/Wiz spells AND psi powers from StP Erudite.

It's not quite that cut and dry though given that the latter relies entirely on DM adjudication. Ditto with Archivists learning every spell in the game. You need your DM to cooperate with you and.. that's not healthy for opfu.

[ryu]

Sorcerer can know all Sorc/Wiz spells.

Psion can learn all Sorc/Wiz spells AND psi powers from StP Erudite.

AND cleric spells, druid spells, and pretty much anything that can be accessed through direct arcane means or through less direct arcane PrCs. That's a lot of damn versatility.

[Owl Prowler]

Sorcerer can know all Sorc/Wiz spells.

Psion can learn all Sorc/Wiz spells AND psi powers from StP Erudite.

The Sorcerer can know SOME Sorc/Wiz spells.

The Psion, on his own, can learn some Psi powers. With Psychic Chirurgery, he can theoretically learn all Psi powers. That doesn't change the fact that the Sorc/Wiz spell list is better than Psionic powers. The StP Erudite has nothing to do with the Psion class, and is thus irrelevant to the discussion.

[Sith_Happens]

Having a couple of ways to cheese out your class does not make the entire Psionics system "broken."

I will say that psionic cheese is, on average, a heck of a lot more fun than magic cheese. I mean, who doesn't want to play as an all-powerful PB&J sandwich?

There is nothing behind the factotum other than trying to fill holes.

You can say that about any class.

[AMFV]

You can say that about any class.

Even if it might not be the most classy thing to say.

[Vhaidara]

Even if it might not be the most classy thing to say.

That was classic

[ryu]

The Sorcerer can know SOME Sorc/Wiz spells.

The Psion, on his own, can learn some Psi powers. With Psychic Chirurgery, he can theoretically learn all Psi powers. That doesn't change the fact that the Sorc/Wiz spell list is better than Psionic powers. The StP Erudite has nothing to do with the Psion class, and is thus irrelevant to the discussion.

On the contrary. All psionic classes became related the instant a power happened for the express purpose of teaching any manifesting character and power. Now we can argue degrees of relevance to this relation, but it's now no less there than the relation all wizards share with each other as spell knowledge repositories for money or bartered spells.

[Owl Prowler]

On the contrary. All psionic classes became related the instant a power happened for the express purpose of teaching any manifesting character and power. Now we can argue degrees of relevance to this relation, but it's now no less there than the relation all wizards share with each other as spell knowledge repositories for money or bartered spells.

There is a vast difference between the mechanic for scribing spells, a mechanic capable of being performed by a 1st level Wizard, and a 9th level psionic power with an XP cost. Even if there were not, that wouldn't change the fact that arcane spells are more powerful than psionic powers.

And this discussion is about Sorcerers and Psions. No one is denying that the StP Erudite is deservedly tier 1. To say that StP Erudites could make a Psion tier 1 is beyond the point, as a Wizard could do the exact same thing with a Sorcerer. The only thing that should be judged in a discussion on the balance of two classes is what those two classes are capable of innately doing.

[Leviting]

How are you getting full access to all arcane spells with just Psychic Chirurgary? This is a trick I am unfamiliar with.

The way I am aware of involves the Spell-to-power Erudite variant, though you'd have to ask someone else on the specifics. Instead of having total powers, the Erudite has "unique powers per day", and can simply learn a boatload of powers and Chirurgary them onto their psion friend.

EDIT: Ninja'd by a lot.

[CubeB]

My GM (who I love to bits), banned Incarnum and all related content back when he ran 3.5. Not because it was unbalanced, but because he took a very relativistic approach to alignment (What is Good from your perspective is not necessarily Good for someone else), and believed that Incarnum was too firmly tied into the concept.

He had some interesting opinions on alignment. In the setting, all alignments were relative. Part of his reasoning behind this was because he believed no adventuring party was ever really "good", especially in a murder hobo style campaign. This did lead to the Paladin being able to effectively smite everyone they didn't like, though.

In the interests of fairness, we switched to a superhero campaign which has been the most amazing and longest running campaign I have ever been in.

[Owl Prowler]

The way I am aware of involves the Spell-to-power Erudite variant, though you'd have to ask someone else on the specifics. Instead of having total powers, the Erudite has "unique powers per day", and can simply learn a boatload of powers and Chirurgary them onto their psion friend.

I know about that as well, I just didn't know smooching powers off their StP Erudite buddy was a Psion class feature. :/

And no, the fact that Psions have Psychic Chirurgary on their powers list does not mean that they automatically get a StP Erudite friend who's more than happy to give them all the spells in the world.

[Sith_Happens]

I know about that as well, I just didn't know smooching powers off their StP Erudite buddy was a Psion class feature. :/

And no, the fact that Psions have Psychic Chirurgary on their powers list does not mean that they automatically get a StP Erudite friend who's more than happy to give them all the spells in the world.

Technically, they just a Psion buddy who mooched powers from their other Psion buddy who mooched powers from their other Psion buddy who mooched powers from their Erudite buddy.

[ryu]

I know about that as well, I just didn't know smooching powers off their StP Erudite buddy was a Psion class feature. :/

And no, the fact that Psions have Psychic Chirurgary on their powers list does not mean that they automatically get a StP Erudite friend who's more than happy to give them all the spells in the world.

It doesn't have to be one erudite giving all spells anymore than it has to be one spellbook to scribe all non-level up spells from. Once erudites exist there's more than one. There are multiple ways of finding them, and even a few simple methods of obviating the need for consent or even presence from the erudite parties involved so long as they exist. Hell it doesn't even have to be erudites. Literally ANY psionic character that dabbled in these pursuits is a viable lead. You can't even claim that they'd be dead over time because the people savvy enough to attempt this are likely to correlate pretty strongly with the group of people who stumbled into any of the countless immortality methods in 3.5.

[Owl Prowler]

It doesn't have to be one erudite giving all spells anymore than it has to be one spellbook to scribe all non-level up spells from. Once erudites exist there's more than one. There are multiple ways of finding them, and even a few simple methods of obviating the need for consent or even presence from the erudite parties involved so long as they exist. Hell it doesn't even have to be erudites. Literally ANY psionic character that dabbled in these pursuits is a viable lead. You can't even claim that they'd be dead over time because the people savvy enough to attempt this are likely to correlate pretty strongly with the group of people who stumbled into any of the countless immortality methods in 3.5.

Meanwhile, my Sorcerer is living in the Tippy-verse, where through UMD abuse he's turned himself into an Elder Eidolon Demogorgon with access to both divine and arcane spells. Of course, this doesn't really reflect the power level of the Sorcerer's innate abilities, but by god he can do it anyways.

The idea that a Psion can use an Erudite's class abilities to prove how powerful Psions are is dumb. A Psion learning every spell in existence off an NPC Erudite is DM fiat, and doesn't have any place in a discussion about balance.

This is also the reason that people don't say Monks are powerful, even though they can get buffs from the Wizard. At the end of the day, spells are the Wizard's ability, and the fact that the Monk became insanely good with a Shapechange up says nothing about the power of the Monk.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

There is a vast difference between the mechanic for scribing spells, a mechanic capable of being performed by a 1st level Wizard, and a 9th level psionic power with an XP cost. Even if there were not, that wouldn't change the fact that arcane spells are more powerful than psionic powers.

And this discussion is about Sorcerers and Psions. No one is denying that the StP Erudite is deservedly tier 1. To say that StP Erudites could make a Psion tier 1 is beyond the point, as a Wizard could do the exact same thing with a Sorcerer. The only thing that should be judged in a discussion on the balance of two classes is what those two classes are capable of innately doing.

It's not that an StP Erudite could make a Psion tier 1. A Psion has access to all of the tools necessary to make themselves tier 1 native to the class (i.e. the tools necessary to find an StP Erudite with the SpellPowers they want, convince said StP to do the metaconcert/psychic chirurgery tango, and mitigate the various costs to doing so to essentially get it for the low low price of free + time invested). If you add in Thrallherd, it's even easier. This is an important distinction to make when comparing Sorcerers and Psions.

I know about that as well, I just didn't know smooching powers off their StP Erudite buddy was a Psion class feature. :/

And no, the fact that Psions have Psychic Chirurgary on their powers list does not mean that they automatically get a StP Erudite friend who's more than happy to give them all the spells in the world.

True, doing so automatically isn't a Psion class feature. It is, however, a Thrallherd class feature.

[ryu]

Meanwhile, my Sorcerer is living in the Tippy-verse, where through UMD abuse he's turned himself into an Elder Eidolon Demogorgon with access to both divine and arcane spells. Of course, this doesn't really reflect the power level of the Sorcerer's innate abilities, but by god he can do it anyways.

The idea that a Psion can use an Erudite's class abilities to prove how powerful Psions are is dumb. A Psion learning every spell in existence off an NPC Erudite is DM fiat, and doesn't have any place in a discussion about balance.

This is also the reason that people don't say Monks are powerful, even though they can get buffs from the Wizard. At the end of the day, spells are the Wizard's ability, and the fact that the Monk became insanely good with a Shapechange up says nothing about the power of the Monk.

Only reason we're bothing with psion is the unique powers per day nonsense. Would you prefer if we were doing it with erudite and using different methods to get that particular class ''feature'' permanently suppressed? That's also a thing we can do by the way. 3.5 is fun like that. Given enough time and desire I can literally turn anything into anything. The only reason I bother with picking specific classes is the number of steps involved.

[Owl Prowler]

It's not that an StP Erudite could make a Psion tier 1. A Psion has access to all of the tools necessary to make themselves tier 1 native to the class (i.e. the tools necessary to find an StP Erudite with the SpellPowers they want, convince said StP to do the metaconcert/psychic chirurgery tango, and mitigate the various costs to doing so to essentially get it for the low low price of free + time invested). If you add in Thrallherd, it's even easier. This is an important distinction to make when comparing Sorcerers and Psions.



True, doing so automatically isn't a Psion class feature. It is, however, a Thrallherd class feature.

And a Thrallherd Psion would probably be tier 1. But my point is this:

Sorcerers can break themselves. Gate in an Efreet. Go to town. Cast Shapechange. Go to town.

Psions can also break themselves- but doing so requires a class that is not a Psion, and that a Psion would be required to find. Finding an Erudite- outside of Leadership and Thrallerd shenanigans- depends on there being a Erudite to find, which is completely up to the DM. For these reasons I do not consider it to be an indication of the Psion's inherent power or versatility that they can maybe steal another class's abilities.

Only reason we're bothing with psion is the unique powers per day nonsense. Would you prefer if we were doing it with erudite and using different methods to get that particular class ''feature'' permanently suppressed? That's also a thing we can do by the way. 3.5 is fun like that. Given enough time and desire I can literally turn anything into anything. The only reason I bother with picking specific classes is the number of steps involved.

I'm not sure I understand you. Psion's manifest powers differently, but that doesn't really have a mechanical impact beyond the class being easier to play, and the occasional infinite pp abuse.

Yes, I completely agree that anyone can do anything in 3.5, given enough abuse. That's why, when attempting to determine how powerful a class is, you don't look at factors beyond what a class is inherently capable of. Without UMD. Without support from other classes. A Psion that nabs every spell in existence from a StP Erudite is powerful. A sorcerer that uses Circle Magic to boost his CL is powerful. A Commoner that uses Gather Information to locate the nearest Candle of Invocation is powerful. Should these incredibly DM dependent things that say nothing about the power of a class, and everything about the power of a few broken mechanics tell us which class is better? My answer is no.

[ryu]

And a Thrallherd Psion would probably be tier 1. But my point is this:

Sorcerers can break themselves. Gate in an Efreet. Go to town. Cast Shapechange. Go to town.

Psions can also break themselves- but doing so requires a class that is not a Psion, and that a Psion would be required to find. Finding an Erudite- outside of Leadership and Thrallerd shenanigans- depends on there being a Erudite to find, which is completely up to the DM. For these reasons I do not consider it to be an indication of the Psion's inherent power or versatility that they can maybe steal another class's abilities.



I'm not sure I understand you. Psion's manifest powers differently, but that doesn't really have a mechanical impact beyond the class being easier to play, and the occasional infinite pp abuse.

Yes, I completely agree that anyone can do anything in 3.5, given enough abuse. That's why, when attempting to determine how powerful a class is, you don't look at factors beyond what a class is inherently capable of. Without UMD. Without support from other classes. A Psion that nabs every spell in existence from a StP Erudite is powerful. A sorcerer that uses Circle Magic to boost his CL is powerful. A Commoner that uses Gather Information to locate the nearest Candle of Invocation is powerful. Should these incredibly DM dependent things that say nothing about the power of a class, and everything about the power of a few broken mechanics tell us which class is better? My answer is no.

See the thing is I realized exactly how faulty and blurry that line was a long time ago. The only things relevant to power are the number of steps involved, the likelihood of success as derived by multiplying the success rate of every step, time investment, amount of system knowledge required, and of course the final amount of power achieved. A commoner has to do a lot more to become power than a wizard, has a drastically lower chance of success, and doesn't have his tools handed to him as easily as most classes. A commoner needs to know about chicken infested, have information gathering sufficient for the given task, AND find someone powerful enough to have crafted a candle of invocation without being smart enough to have used it already. This is assuming the opponent in question is also capable of being threatened by a commoner. Wizards, psions, clerics, druid, artificers and so on though? They have to be stopped by creatures of deific power from almost the onset of their career to not almost immediately become competitive with said gods.

[Aquillion]

This reminds me of the old argument about how Monks were an awesome class because they can cross-class UMD a scroll to polymorph into a dragon.

Anyway, I think it's reasonable to say that Psions trying to get powers learned via StP Erudites is several orders of magnitude more difficult than wizards just using the class features they come with out of the box. You can argue with your DM about how every other Psion in their setting should already be doing this and, therefore, try to convince them to change their setting to make it easier for you to exploit this obscure highly-specific loophole, but ultimately that's not anything remotely close to the default setting for most games.

For example, I could similarly argue that large-scale Candle of Invocation cheese makes anything I desire common in the setting; but the DM is not required to follow that logic, and the default setting clearly assumes that Candles of Invocation are never used in significant numbers. Similarly, you can argue yourself blue in the face about how there should be other psions who already know all these cool powers, but that doesn't change the default setting one iota.

(Another comparison would be trying to use real-world supply and demand to argue that specific items in the books should be available for less than their listed values. Maybe, maybe not! But it's useless for optimization-talk, because that's not really optimization so much as game-specific worldbuilding; your DM is the one who decides how their NPC Psions behave, how many they are, who they've met and what they've done, etc. Not you. If you have a plan that depends on widespread behavior that clearly isn't reflected in the books or setting materials, it's at least a somewhat dubious plan.)

[Kalaska'Agathas]

This reminds me of the old argument about how Monks were an awesome class because they can cross-class UMD a scroll to polymorph into a dragon.

Anyway, I think it's reasonable to say that Psions trying to get powers learned via StP Erudites is several orders of magnitude more difficult than wizards just using the class features they come with out of the box. You can argue with your DM about how every other Psion in their setting should already be doing this and, therefore, try to convince them to change their setting to make it easier for you to exploit this obscure highly-specific loophole, but ultimately that's not anything remotely close to the default setting for most games.

(For example, I could similarly argue that large-scale Candle of Invocation cheese makes anything I desire common in the setting; but the DM is not required to follow that logic, and the default setting clearly assumes that Candles of Invocation are never used in significant numbers. Similarly, you can argue yourself blue in the face about how every other psion should already know all these cool powers, but that doesn't change the default setting one iota.)

The difference between Commoner Candle of Invocation bootstrapping and Partially Charged Monks with Cross Class Wands of UMD is, the Psion gets this power, see. It's called Psychic Chirurgery (and Psychic Reformation, for that matter), and there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for a Psion of ML17 or higher not to have payed to have it put on them. And it then allows them to get every power ever printed as a power known. But then, there's this conveniently available (so long as WotC hasn't buggered their site recently, which is something of a recurring issue, I'll admit) ACF which allows all Sorc/Wiz spells to become powers. If we're assuming a RAW, all books are open environment (which is as good a default assumption as any, and better than most), there are StP Erudites out there. Our Psion has the tools to find them; she has the tools to convince them to dance the Psychic Chirurgery/Metaconcert Tango. Yes, it may take some doing, but that's what downtime/flowing time demi-plane shenanigans are for, right? And with the Thrallherd, a PrC that's as close to core as anything else Psionic, it's even easier. So they have the tools, in class, not available to everyone and their adventuring grandmother, to get every spell and power in the game, all available all of the time.

I'll grant you, this may not work in an environment in which the DM has eliminated or otherwise limited the StP Erudite. But has no bearing on their absolute power level in the RAW/ABAO environment. Basically, in any setting where there is at least one StP Erudite, the Psion has the means to find them and get every power and spell ever printed grafted onto their powers known list. All it takes is time and resources built into the class itself.

So, while there's some superficial similarities to Bootstrap Bill, Commoner, Esq. and the Giacomonk, the parallels do not continue past the surface.

[KillianHawkeye]

I never used the word broken here? That was all you. I merely pointed out that psions are equal to or greater than tier 1. I'm just fine with that.

What the heck? That was NOT all me. That was the person who I was responding to in this post.

Then you decided to come along and argue against me for who knows what reason.

[JohnnyCancer]

...so he basically banned being able to hand a guy 100 gold and say "come fight bad guys with us and I'll pay you 100 gold again."

See, when someone bans doing something both possible and realistic, like the concept of mercenaries, I have to start losing my respect for them. Was he just afraid you guys were going to break his lovingly-crafted encounters by adding a few more swordswingers into the mix?

Well it's been a couple of years, so I don't remember the specific reason, I think he just didn't want the added complication of extra dudes. We were playing Shackled City, one of Paizo's pre-Pathfinder APs. We pretty much broke it wide open thanks to the changes in item creation between 3.5 and Pathfinder anyways, and I was able to get an Improved Familiar eventually, which ended up being a Storm Elemental from Pathfinder which also tended to break things open thanks to it's crazy bonuses versus things wearing metal.