I have a Cleric in PFS who is really good at bluffing(Trickery Domain), but terrible at forgery. I want to focus on shoring up this weakness. As I see it, the only real way to make believable forgeries is with the Linguistics skill. This is problematic for me, because as a Cleric who dumped INT, I start with an intrinsic penalty and don't have many points to put into it.
So, are there any other ways I can create believable documents, or ways to quickly boost my Linguistics check? Something like, I dunno, magical paper which makes people believe whatever is written on it?
I can't find any magic items or spells that give bonuses to create forgeries (there are plenty to detect forgeries though). At least it's a class skill, and you could pick up Skill Focus...
Hire some apprentices. Have one stoke the fire, one pump the bellows, and one to help hold the item you're forging. Get some masterwork blacksmith tools.
Oh.
Wait.
You're not working at a forge, are you?
Linguistics is the skill you want. Since INT is your dump stat, maybe this is not the strategy you're looking for? If you must forge a document, maybe hire someone to do it for you, or use your Trickery mojo to deceive, bluff, charm, coerce, bribe, or force someone who IS good at forgery to do it for you.
Get a smart Cohort.
Maybe get a Headband of Vast Intellect with max ranks in Linguistics. That should get you a leg up in the forgery department. Probably some kind of Masterwork tools for this, there is for just about every other skill, but I'm not sure about this one.
Or talk with the DM that day to see if you can substitute a bluff check, say, forge your (bad) forgery and then bluff the crap out of the people you give it to, maybe to trick them into thinking it's legitimate: "What, that doesn't look like the Baron's handwriting? Well, of course not, he dictated it to me. But that really is his signature. Really. What, you don't think that looks like his signature? Well, he was really sick that day, hand shaking, sneezing, coughing. I was trying my best to heal him, but he insisted on writing this right then. Honest..."
The only other skill I could think of to use for forgery is Craft, which is also Int based (plus when Forgery was a separate skill, it was also Int based). My thought on Craft is for doing stuff like copying handwriting and signatures, which takes skill in visual arts. As well as for recreating special papers documents are printed on and such. But for doing things like creating documents, you have to know the language used to create them as well as type of paper, etc. which I guess is where the Linguistics comes in.
Anyway, you have to be smart to do something that is detail oriented like Forgery is. It would make sense for a low Int character, however, deceptive he might be, to be poor at making accurate physical copies of complex government documents. I would suggest picking up a Skill Focus feat if you want to boost it quickly.
I also like the suggestions of getting a cohort or simply hiring someone.
Is there a particular reason why he needs to be good at forging documents? After all, not all con artists are also forgers, and vice versa.
Couldn't invest in profession(scribe)? That's how I'd pad it out, since WIS is your primary and all.
A book of letters can give you a +2 circumstance bonus on Linguistics checks when creating forgeries for a specific town or region.
Couldn't invest in profession(scribe)? That's how I'd pad it out, since WIS is your primary and all.
That's a good idea.