Dungeonscape Answers

[Pants]

Second, Razz, can you give a brief rundown of the 'why' of a Factotum class that they came up with? Just describing the mechanics, they sound like a flavorless "dungeon delver" class with lots of racked-up abilities, but no reasoning that would tie them together.

A wizard did it?

 

[Particle_Man]

So would just making their mount a "riding" dog that they don't ride. Having a celestial hound companion solves the problem nicely.

Well, imho, knight on horse is cooler than knight with dog or knight on dog.

 

[Mercule]

Second, Razz, can you give a brief rundown of the 'why' of a Factotum class that they came up with? Just describing the mechanics, they sound like a flavorless "dungeon delver" class with lots of racked-up abilities, but no reasoning that would tie them together.

I second that thought. Dungeonscape doesn't actually sound all that interesting to me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Well, imho, knight on horse is cooler than knight with dog or knight on dog.

Knights in real life had large numbers of hounds. None that I know of were followed around by dwarf ponies.

I don't find My Little Pony particularly heroic.

 

[D.Shaffer]

Knights in real life had large numbers of hounds. None that I know of were followed around by dwarf ponies.

I don't find My Little Pony particularly heroic.

It might help with the female gamer population, though.

 

[Razz]

City Magic feat made sense to me, despite the bashing it's received. When you cast a damaging spell, it draws in the surrounding city's debris and other environmental aspects and mixes it in with the spell, dealing damage from both sources. Considering it only works in large cities, I really didn't see a problem with its flavor, really.

 

[Ry]

It might help with the female gamer population, though.

I think odds are pretty good that if we added my-little-pony age girls to most gaming groups somebody would call the cops.

 

[DreadArchon]

City Magic feat made sense to me, despite the bashing it's received.

I can almost see justifying it as being powered off of the souls of the surrounding masses, but then again I would never take a feat that only works in major cities.

 

[Nightfall]

Factorum does sound pretty neat, and one class I'd encourage a PC to take say in Age of Worms or Shackled City.

 

[Celeblas]

@Henry and Pants
Although I'm not Razz I hope you don't mind me answering this question .
The best example for a Factotum is probably Indiana Jones (which incidentally is also used as an example in the class description). He evades and disables traps, is a scholar using his knowledge to unearth secrets and find hidden treasures, wields a whip and his gun can be translated into casting very few spells.
The factotum is something I'd call a true adventurer. Someone who is able to adjust on the spot to the threats presented.


All in all I have to agree with Razz that the book is pretty neat. Somehow I expected Cityscape to be far better than Dungeonscape and it's quite faszinating that it turns out the other way. So far I only have read bits of the book (my friendly not so local games store shipped it two days ago) but what I've read is pretty good.

Particularly I liked the Alternative Monster Feats Section, which gives a examples for a few classic monsters how to improved them just by swapping out one or two feats. This will lead to some pretty nasty surprises . For instance a group of Dire Rats becomes a fairly tough encounter if you swap out Alertness for Swarm Fighting (Complete Warrior).


@Razz
Concerning Inspiration points. What happens if a Factotum uses one of his abilities before or after an encounter? Is he stuck with the number of points left from the last encounter? Somehow I cannot find a section covering this situation. Maybe I just overlooked it.