The Savant Standard Class from Dragon Compendium. Opinions and Experiences?

[MadMaxim]

This thread http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=188981 about the Factotum class from Dungeonscape sparked a few remarks about the Savant from Dragon Compendium being better. I have read through the Savant class and wondered if anyone had any experiences to share about this standard class or just some opinions on it? Personally, I think it's pretty cool, but I think it would fit best as a fifth party member much like a Bard. It is a real jack-of-all-trades.

 

[MadMaxim]

*BUMP!*

 

[jasin]

I don't really like either of them.

Which is ironic, since I like jack-of-all-trade types. But I like it much better when jack-of-all-trades is a role in the party stemming from abilities with a concept of their own. For example, the bard is a wandering minstrel, a jack-of-all-trades because he's self-reliant and has had opportunities to pick up many different tricks. The artificer is an item-maker, a jack-of-all-trades because he can whip up an item for almost any occasion on short notice.

I don't think many people (characters) consciously plan to become jacks-of-all-trades. And the factotum and the savant feel like classes for people who do exactly that, and so somehow feel off to me.

They're still interesting classes, though, and I can see myself spicing up many a fighter with some factotum or savant levels for a few unexpected tricks.

 

[Pants]

The Savant is... okay.

At first glance, I like it a helluva lot better than the Factotum mainly because it isn't saddled with the weird 'inspiration points' thing, but that's really it. The Savant is suitably generic, which is what it should be, but I'm wondering WHY it has sneak attack progression. It's not really a combat oriented kind of class. It just looks weird having this 'supposed' bookish concept stuck with sneak attack.

Someday I might get around to trying to rebuild it, but meh... I kinda like the bard.