Factotum; Early Cunning Brilliance?

[DogBackward]

Alright, I love the Factotum. Whether you agree or not, it just seems to me to be the quintessential "Fantasy Hero". More classical, rather than the Ahnold stuff. Heroes weren't gigantic, muscle-bound monstrosities, they were agile, canny, cunning warriors who could do just about everything under the sun. For some reason, I always wanna think Mathurin Kerbouchard for the Factotum class.

Anyway, one of my favorite things is Cunning Brilliance. It's limited to (Ex) abilities and only stuff in the actual "Special Features" column, but it's still useful. The only thing is, I tend to play in lower-level games, and the last time I played a character that got to level 19 was when we all started at level 30 for a one-off epic hack 'n' slash.

So, I was wondering how bad/powerful/cool it might be to make a few watered-down versions of Cunning Brilliance for lower-level Factota. Specifically, does it truly cause a huge balance difference, and if so, what might be done to mitigate that?

Anyway, my idea now lists three levels of Cunning Brilliance. All of the rules are the same, except where a difference is noted.

Cunning Brilliance I
Gained at class level six.
As Cunning Brilliance, but you may only choose one ability rather than three, only 3rd level instead of 15th, and you use 1/2 your Factotum level instead of your Factotum level.

Cunning Brilliance II
Gained at class level twelve.
As Cunning Brilliance, but you may only choose two abilities rather than three, only 9th level instead of 15th, and you use 1/2 your Factotum level instead of your Factotum level.

Cunning Brilliance III
Gained at class level eighteen.
As Cunning Brilliance, except learned at an early level (to match the six-level progression).

 

[Asmor]

I agree with you on all counts... No idea if its balanced or not, but I think it should be.

 

[DogBackward]

Yeah, thanks. I've been hunting down some other Factotum reviews and threads and stuff, and it seems a lot of people have been noticing the same things. Cunning Brilliance is a great ability, but 19th level is a rare thing for most games. At least the kind of games I like to play, anyway. And there are a lot of complaints about early-level Factota not being able to do much. You can't choose many huge abilities at 6th level, and you don't have very high levels in them, but it still gives you another option for combat. I think the 4 IP cost is a good enough drawback, after some though, as at 6th level that's your entire allotment for that particular encounter anyway.

I'm still not entirely sure, though... any other thoughts would be appreciated.