Does Anyone Have Suggestions For Spells For the Converting Erudite? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Does Anyone Have Suggestions For Spells For the Converting Erudite?

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
hellfirewarlock
Mar 23, 2010 22:20:55 The tile says a lot, but to clarify, does anyone have suggestions for a 3.5 gestalt erudite/factotum? All 3.5 WotC books are open as are 3.0 that havn't been updated. I want the character to be able to solo whatever my dm can sensd at it. I know that psionics have blasting covered for the most part, but I want to be able to do it all. My DM has ruled that I can even learn "divine" spells from a character with the Arcane Disciple feat too. So any spell is open. A link to the online article.
#2
u-233
Mar 24, 2010 4:32:37 Gestalt factotum & spell converting erudite sounds pretty sweet. You have better skills than anything except a factotum/(rogue, marshal, DFA, or warlock) gestalt, more versatile magic than anything except another spell converting erudite or a wizard/cleric gestalt, and acceptable survivability & melee capabilities too. Plus bonus feats at 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th levels. And undead turning.

Though the spell converting part isn't worth quite as much there as it is to a regular erudite since the factotum already has access to the wizard/sorcerer spell list up to spells of almost the same spell level that a converting erudite of the same class level could cast.

You might want to ask your DM what the situation is with spell components. IIRC the converting article only discusses material components, leaving the situation with somatic and verbal components rather murky. Does a converting erudite casting a spell with a somatic component suffer from ASF? If so, would the somatic component be like a display, suppressable with a concentration check? Probably requires a DM ruling, and you might want to know while designing your character if you plan to use a lot of arcane spells. Equivalent issues apply to verbal components with gags or magical silence.

If your DM says you suffer from ASF then you may need to use inertial armor or mage armor or somesuch. Inertial armor will tend to offer a better AC, but it's probably not worth the unique power per day that would cost since you only need to cast it once or twice per day typically and you can replace it with a simple factotum spell.

As always with erudites, attempt to replace as many commonly used powers as possible with magic items. Likewise try to conserve erudite unique powers / day by substituting factotum spells when you're only going to cast them once or twice per day.

Do remember that since you can convert any arcane spell you can pick the lowest spell level available from among a variety of caster types - ie suggestion as a 2nd level bard spell instead of as a 3rd level wizard spell. Or at least that's how I read it.

There's a number of ways to play the factotum/erudite gestalt, and the spell conversion just expands the options. And for the most part you can switch on a day by day basis, just using different daily unique powers. Most of the possibilities are fairly straightfoward:
meleer: As a melee type you could probably get by with factotum melee capabilities plus repeated uses of an instant quick action spell/power (ie wraithstrike, sure strike, hustle, etc) and one or two short duration self-buffs per battle (ie vigor, trollshape, defensive precognition, offensive prescience, force screen / shield, something like that) per battle, maybe suplemented by sense danger (if it's available... so far as I know that power only appears in Magic of Eberron, which you didn't list) or cunning surge or quicken power to save an action or two when bringing up the self-buffs. If you start to run low on power points (unlikely) then stop the per-round powers/spells. Also consider the combo of truestrike + psionic weapon/shot/strike. If your DM let you use arcane strike with converted spells that might be awesome... but if I were DMing I wouldn't let anyone get away with that. Same for converted truestrike w/ lesser metamagic rods.
archer: Possible, but I'd rather act as a blaster than an archer.
blaster: I tend to prefer kineticist powers over spell-to-power stuff. If you are just doing a little blasting once in a while then you'll want to search through a variety for the one-size-fits-all-encounters-of-the-day best since you want to keep your number of unique powers per day at an absolute minimum. If you want to use blasting as your main attack then you may be able to afford to spend a few unique powers / day on several options... say, once for targets with high SR/PR, one for large groups of targets, etc. The factotum BAB at least means that your rays won't miss so much.
healing: IIRC the bard spells are much more efficient than psionic powers on a per power point basis, but you should try to stick with just factotum healing if possible to save the unique power / day.
trapfinder: Your awesome factotum skills and trapfinder ability plus the danger sense power (different from the previously mentioned power of similar name) should be more than adequate when traps are anticipated.
party buffs: as a wizard/bard, plus energy adaption and dispelling buffer.
battlefield control: as a wizard/bard
diplomacy: Factotum skills. Bard and wizard spells and telepath powers.
stealth: Factotum skills. Wizard & assassin spells plus egoist & telepath powers.
information gathering: Factotum skills. Seer psionic powers. Wizard & bard spells.
strategic mobility: phantom steed, teleport, whatever. Erudite if you want to move an entire party, factotum if you just want to move yourself.
unexpected nastiness: Either spare unique power(s) / day to spontaneously pull out a power/spell just for the suprise or spare inspiration points for cunning surge / cunning dodge / cunning defense to help you survive and escape. If your race is Elan then spare power points may work instead, and they are much easier to come by than spare uniques or insipiration.

In theory you're best off using inspiration points early and fast in each encounter since you'll recover them quicker than other resources. In practice however they are one of the better things for keeping you alive when you encounter unexpected nastiness.

Similar gestalts to consider:
DFA / erudite (invocations, blasting, skills, erudite psionics/magic)
factotum 10, marshal 10 / erudite (+cha & +dex to skills, in addition to the erudite stuff & medium BAB & auras & grant move action)
swashbuckler 3, factotum 3, hexblade 3, fighter 2, marshal 2, ... / erudite 20 (erudite stuff w/ int+dex meleer & skill bonuses & decent BAB & save bonuses & ... ; has multiclassing penalties at some levels)
#3
hellfirewarlock
Mar 24, 2010 16:17:30 Ebberon books are allowed, as are Forgotten realms books. And I can even get cleric healing spells from a wizard with Arcane Disciple, or anyother domain spell for that matter. In my campaign it will be Up/day/lvl if that matters. I'll probably need to be able to heal, blast, control the battle field and melee for the most part. I'm starting at lvl 8 but I want to have spells planed to aquire so I can give a list to my dm so he can give me access to them. thank you for your post, It was helpfull, but if anyone has other suggestions I'm always looking for new opertunities.

I have to have atleast a general list by the 7th of april so that is my deadline. But I can still fit in a few afterwards, especially the higher lvl ones.

Did you have any spesific spells or combos that are got to haves, like forcecage????

As for the lesser metamagic x wands, they wont work, but metapsionic should.

Edit: added battle field control
#4
Ethican2
Mar 25, 2010 12:09:05 divine power is nice!
#5
u-233
Mar 25, 2010 16:28:32 I guess you had said that settings were allowed, or at least you implied that. I managed to forget that while writing.

No particular spells to recommend. For the most part you can't cast anything that a party with a variety of arcane casters and psions/erudites couldn't cast. The only really new factors are the possibile combinations of on-self spells that would normally require severe multiclassing. And the incentives to minimize the variety of spells that you use in any single day. And the combination of spells/powers with uber skills. And the capability to do some very limited spontaneous casting across practically any arcane spell list. Refer to the handbooks for wizards, bards, psions, and erudites for general spell/power recommendations.

I did list a few for melee, and some of those I should have labelled as general defense / survivability (defensive precognition, shield, etc). If you could get a telepath with psychic chirurgery to help you out then it would be nice to add some low level psychic warrior powers there too (claws of the beast comes to mind as a low level psychic warrior power that works really well in melee at higher levels when combined with attack boosts like wraithstrike and a decent BAB), but that's probably not practical.
#6
hellfirewarlock
Mar 25, 2010 20:56:02 thank you for the melee suggestions, and can anyone think of any other combos i should use?

Thx again U-233
#7
awaken_D_M_golem
Mar 28, 2010 15:35:40 Erudite needs Linked Power metapsi, to work right, but it is good stuff.
Take any Wiz spell that has a casting time of more than 1 round, and have it be the Linked Power.
Cuts "casting" time down to the 2nd round.
The 2pp Aug that gets rid of Material Components, gets rid of a lot more than little Eschew.
Even better.
Lastly, you are a Spell Point Wizard, so you can "cast" a whole lot more top level spells, than a normal Wiz.

Deeper into CO, you pick some of the Trickery found in Spell Compendium, and put it on the Psi side.
It's really a matter of breaking your game, or not.
#8
hellfirewarlock
Mar 28, 2010 20:43:20 I'm definatly gonna take linked power, but does the linked power count towards UP/Lvl/day? and what trickery from spell compendium, I can always rien it in if it is too broken. Thx for the reply

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 hellfirewarlock Mar 23, 2010 22:20:55	The tile says a lot, but to clarify, does anyone have suggestions for a 3.5 gestalt erudite/factotum? All 3.5 WotC books are open as are 3.0 that havn't been updated. I want the character to be able to solo whatever my dm can sensd at it. I know that psionics have blasting covered for the most part, but I want to be able to do it all. My DM has ruled that I can even learn "divine" spells from a character with the Arcane Disciple feat too. So any spell is open. A link to the online article.
#2 u-233 Mar 24, 2010 4:32:37	Gestalt factotum & spell converting erudite sounds pretty sweet. You have better skills than anything except a factotum/(rogue, marshal, DFA, or warlock) gestalt, more versatile magic than anything except another spell converting erudite or a wizard/cleric gestalt, and acceptable survivability & melee capabilities too. Plus bonus feats at 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th levels. And undead turning. Though the spell converting part isn't worth quite as much there as it is to a regular erudite since the factotum already has access to the wizard/sorcerer spell list up to spells of almost the same spell level that a converting erudite of the same class level could cast. You might want to ask your DM what the situation is with spell components. IIRC the converting article only discusses material components, leaving the situation with somatic and verbal components rather murky. Does a converting erudite casting a spell with a somatic component suffer from ASF? If so, would the somatic component be like a display, suppressable with a concentration check? Probably requires a DM ruling, and you might want to know while designing your character if you plan to use a lot of arcane spells. Equivalent issues apply to verbal components with gags or magical silence. If your DM says you suffer from ASF then you may need to use inertial armor or mage armor or somesuch. Inertial armor will tend to offer a better AC, but it's probably not worth the unique power per day that would cost since you only need to cast it once or twice per day typically and you can replace it with a simple factotum spell. As always with erudites, attempt to replace as many commonly used powers as possible with magic items. Likewise try to conserve erudite unique powers / day by substituting factotum spells when you're only going to cast them once or twice per day. Do remember that since you can convert any arcane spell you can pick the lowest spell level available from among a variety of caster types - ie suggestion as a 2nd level bard spell instead of as a 3rd level wizard spell. Or at least that's how I read it. There's a number of ways to play the factotum/erudite gestalt, and the spell conversion just expands the options. And for the most part you can switch on a day by day basis, just using different daily unique powers. Most of the possibilities are fairly straightfoward: meleer: As a melee type you could probably get by with factotum melee capabilities plus repeated uses of an instant quick action spell/power (ie wraithstrike, sure strike, hustle, etc) and one or two short duration self-buffs per battle (ie vigor, trollshape, defensive precognition, offensive prescience, force screen / shield, something like that) per battle, maybe suplemented by sense danger (if it's available... so far as I know that power only appears in Magic of Eberron, which you didn't list) or cunning surge or quicken power to save an action or two when bringing up the self-buffs. If you start to run low on power points (unlikely) then stop the per-round powers/spells. Also consider the combo of truestrike + psionic weapon/shot/strike. If your DM let you use arcane strike with converted spells that might be awesome... but if I were DMing I wouldn't let anyone get away with that. Same for converted truestrike w/ lesser metamagic rods. archer: Possible, but I'd rather act as a blaster than an archer. blaster: I tend to prefer kineticist powers over spell-to-power stuff. If you are just doing a little blasting once in a while then you'll want to search through a variety for the one-size-fits-all-encounters-of-the-day best since you want to keep your number of unique powers per day at an absolute minimum. If you want to use blasting as your main attack then you may be able to afford to spend a few unique powers / day on several options... say, once for targets with high SR/PR, one for large groups of targets, etc. The factotum BAB at least means that your rays won't miss so much. healing: IIRC the bard spells are much more efficient than psionic powers on a per power point basis, but you should try to stick with just factotum healing if possible to save the unique power / day. trapfinder: Your awesome factotum skills and trapfinder ability plus the danger sense power (different from the previously mentioned power of similar name) should be more than adequate when traps are anticipated. party buffs: as a wizard/bard, plus energy adaption and dispelling buffer. battlefield control: as a wizard/bard diplomacy: Factotum skills. Bard and wizard spells and telepath powers. stealth: Factotum skills. Wizard & assassin spells plus egoist & telepath powers. information gathering: Factotum skills. Seer psionic powers. Wizard & bard spells. strategic mobility: phantom steed, teleport, whatever. Erudite if you want to move an entire party, factotum if you just want to move yourself. unexpected nastiness: Either spare unique power(s) / day to spontaneously pull out a power/spell just for the suprise or spare inspiration points for cunning surge / cunning dodge / cunning defense to help you survive and escape. If your race is Elan then spare power points may work instead, and they are much easier to come by than spare uniques or insipiration. In theory you're best off using inspiration points early and fast in each encounter since you'll recover them quicker than other resources. In practice however they are one of the better things for keeping you alive when you encounter unexpected nastiness. Similar gestalts to consider: DFA / erudite (invocations, blasting, skills, erudite psionics/magic) factotum 10, marshal 10 / erudite (+cha & +dex to skills, in addition to the erudite stuff & medium BAB & auras & grant move action) swashbuckler 3, factotum 3, hexblade 3, fighter 2, marshal 2, ... / erudite 20 (erudite stuff w/ int+dex meleer & skill bonuses & decent BAB & save bonuses & ... ; has multiclassing penalties at some levels)
#3 hellfirewarlock Mar 24, 2010 16:17:30	Ebberon books are allowed, as are Forgotten realms books. And I can even get cleric healing spells from a wizard with Arcane Disciple, or anyother domain spell for that matter. In my campaign it will be Up/day/lvl if that matters. I'll probably need to be able to heal, blast, control the battle field and melee for the most part. I'm starting at lvl 8 but I want to have spells planed to aquire so I can give a list to my dm so he can give me access to them. thank you for your post, It was helpfull, but if anyone has other suggestions I'm always looking for new opertunities. I have to have atleast a general list by the 7th of april so that is my deadline. But I can still fit in a few afterwards, especially the higher lvl ones. Did you have any spesific spells or combos that are got to haves, like forcecage???? As for the lesser metamagic x wands, they wont work, but metapsionic should. Edit: added battle field control
#4 Ethican2 Mar 25, 2010 12:09:05	divine power is nice!
#5 u-233 Mar 25, 2010 16:28:32	I guess you had said that settings were allowed, or at least you implied that. I managed to forget that while writing. No particular spells to recommend. For the most part you can't cast anything that a party with a variety of arcane casters and psions/erudites couldn't cast. The only really new factors are the possibile combinations of on-self spells that would normally require severe multiclassing. And the incentives to minimize the variety of spells that you use in any single day. And the combination of spells/powers with uber skills. And the capability to do some very limited spontaneous casting across practically any arcane spell list. Refer to the handbooks for wizards, bards, psions, and erudites for general spell/power recommendations. I did list a few for melee, and some of those I should have labelled as general defense / survivability (defensive precognition, shield, etc). If you could get a telepath with psychic chirurgery to help you out then it would be nice to add some low level psychic warrior powers there too (claws of the beast comes to mind as a low level psychic warrior power that works really well in melee at higher levels when combined with attack boosts like wraithstrike and a decent BAB), but that's probably not practical.
#6 hellfirewarlock Mar 25, 2010 20:56:02	thank you for the melee suggestions, and can anyone think of any other combos i should use? Thx again U-233
#7 awaken_D_M_golem Mar 28, 2010 15:35:40	Erudite needs Linked Power metapsi, to work right, but it is good stuff. Take any Wiz spell that has a casting time of more than 1 round, and have it be the Linked Power. Cuts "casting" time down to the 2nd round. The 2pp Aug that gets rid of Material Components, gets rid of a lot more than little Eschew. Even better. Lastly, you are a Spell Point Wizard, so you can "cast" a whole lot more top level spells, than a normal Wiz. Deeper into CO, you pick some of the Trickery found in Spell Compendium, and put it on the Psi side. It's really a matter of breaking your game, or not.
#8 hellfirewarlock Mar 28, 2010 20:43:20	I'm definatly gonna take linked power, but does the linked power count towards UP/Lvl/day? and what trickery from spell compendium, I can always rien it in if it is too broken. Thx for the reply