How does one AM SKILLMONKEY?


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In the most recent giant rogue hate thread there was mention of how barbarians can be effective skill monkeys. I'm looking through rage powers at the moment and I'm not seeing anything that makes him above and beyond the normal in skills with the exception of intimidation getting a tonne of extra mileage and FCB on trapsense making them better at trapfinding than rogues since they can just barrel through most of them unharmed (dwarves are apparently the only rogues that even have a bonus to trapsense as a FCB option while humans, half-elves, halfings, and gnomes all have it for barbarians). I mean there's the dragon totem line to get +3 to perception, chaos totem gives +4 to escape artist, primal scent gives 1/2 level to survival and perception and raging climber, raging leaper and raging swimmer add +level to climb, acrobatics and swim checks. [sarcasm]I just can't see how a barbarian can be good at skills[/sarcasm]
But in all seriousness, with the exception of intimidate bonuses and perception bonuses, the barbarian doesn't really get bonuses to skills that matter (the survival bonus is limited by rage rounds so you can't really use scent to be awesome at berry picking, and getting delicious food and fresh water is literally only a 1st level spell and a pair of cantrips away anyway so survival is a weak skill to start with, climb and swim are not important enough to blow a rage power on, etc.) so I am curious as to how he can be a good skill monkey since he's kind of replacing the essential skill monkey skills (knowledges and social skills mostly, although UMD never hurts either) with much more circumstantial ones.

Liberty's Edge

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Diplomacy am great ax.
Intimidate am great ax.
Disable device am adamantine great ax.
Ability to wield great ax am greatest skill of all.


Don't worry about rage powers. You've got 4 skills a level, maybe five or 6 if you can manage a 12 INT or human.

1) Don't look for traps. Seriously, just use your giant pile of hit points and great fort save to endure the trap. Buy a wand of CLW.

2) one point in climb and swim will do, because your massive strength will help out.

3) Acrobatics? Maybe a rank or two to keep your balance, but don't avoid AOs with tumbling. Let them swing, then kill them when you're in position.

To be the skill monkey that people are talking about, you really only need big investments in stealth and perception. That'll do for 'advance scout'.

The wizard can worry about knowledge skills, and you're not the party face. You're the front man, first through the door, and barbarian CAN do that well.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Am inquisitor/Investigator. Am skillmonkiest skillmonkey that ever skillmonkeyed.


Be an Urban Barbarian, get whatever you need for dex to attack and damage or go archery. Maybe both. Max ranks in Stealth, Acrobatics, Disable Device, and Sleight of Hand, maybe other rogueish dex skills if you're human or get bigger int. Pay a trait for Trapfinder. Use Controlled Rage to make your skill checks be better than the Rogues by 2, and later by 3. Laugh at the Rogue as much as you like.


VM mercenario wrote:
Be an Urban Barbarian, get whatever you need for dex to attack and damage or go archery. Maybe both. Max ranks in Stealth, Acrobatics, Disable Device, and Sleight of Hand, maybe other rogueish dex skills if you're human or get bigger int. Pay a trait for Trapfinder. Use Controlled Rage to make your skill checks be better than the Rogues by 2, and later by 3. Laugh at the Rogue as much as you like.

We all know the barbarian is a better rogue than the rogue, but can you build one to be a proper skill monkey? Not a scout, that's easy enough, but what about something more akin to say a social genius, or a walking encyclopedia, or a jack of all trades - master of most? That to me is a skill monkey, and they'd be able to focus on those skills without severely hampering their success in other directions. Is there a way to do that as a barbarian?

Shadow Lodge

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I don't really get the desire to be a "skill monkey." I guess if the rest of your party is fighter, cleric, paladin, sorcerer. I think it made more sense in previous editions, but in pf, 4+ skills are to be had on a lot of classes, having one character to do them all is really unnecessary.


I suggest bloodrager, rather than barbarian. Less HP, but spells and wand use give you a versatility that rage powers do not.

Acrobatics-
Jump
Certain Grip

Climb-
Certain Grip
Spider Climb (arcane bloodline can be helpful)

Perception-
Tracking Mark

Survival-
Tracking Mark

Swim-
Touch of the Sea

Some spells are extremely versatile.
Animal Aspect can give bonuses to Acrobatics, Climb, Perception, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, and/or Swim.
Heroism can help with all skills, and there's a fair chance you'll already have it cast for combat purposes.

Some spells can let you do skill monkey things that pure skills can never get you:
Blood Biography, Blood Scent, Burrow, Earth Glide, Fly, Water Breathing, most polymorph spells.

Bloodragers lose knowledge (nature) as a class skill, but gain knowledge (arcana) and spellcraft, which is more than a fair trade. Their generally higher charisma will help them with face-ish skills.

And the celestial bloodline is absolutely wonderful for a skill monkey. Reroll a poorly rolled skill check once/bloodrage. Useful both in combat with rage-cycling and out of combat just by spending a round of bloodrage for a really important check.


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DISABLE DEVICE WITH AXE!


Bob Bob Bob wrote:
DISABLE DEVICE WITH AXE!

AM SCOUNDREL


Bob Bob Bob wrote:
DISABLE DEVICE WITH AXE!

SPELL SUNDER LET AM SKILLMONKEY SMASH MAGIC TRAPS?

To clarify, by suppressing or dispelling the magic on the trap, does the trap become a valid target for Trap Wrecker?


Until the trap has been triggered, I don't think it counts as an "ongoing spell effect."


As long as the magic trap has a duration. Symbol spells do, and I don't actually know other magical traps.

Now, is hitting a CMB of 25+caster level more or less easy than hitting an AC and dealing damage equal to your average Mechanical trap's DC in one blow?


Avaron wrote:
Until the trap has been triggered, I don't think it counts as an "ongoing spell effect."

Fair enough, sunder enchantment might be able to accomplish the deed though, assuming that you can sunder a trap without triggering it.

boring7 wrote:

As long as the magic trap has a duration. Symbol spells do, and I don't actually know other magical traps.

Now, is hitting a CMB of 25+caster level more or less easy than hitting an AC and dealing damage equal to your average Mechanical trap's DC in one blow?

Well seeing as a magical trap's disable DC is equal to 25+the spell level that would be a slightly lower target to hit, but you wouldn't be able to use Strength Surge on it, which adds a greater bonus than the difference between the two, so hitting the CMD is actually easier (especially once you start throwing in feats)

Liberty's Edge

Really fun skill-monkey Barbarian build I tried once:

Go Oracle 1, then Invulnerable Rager Barbarian from there. Pick the Lore Mystery and use your 1st level Feat for Extra Revelation (your 3rd level Feat is power attack, your other Feats are mostly Extra Rage Power). Take Focused Trance and Sidestep Secret.

Dump Dex, going Cha instead. Do not dump Int (you can dump Wis a little instead due to the extra Will Save from ) Maybe take a Trait to make Bluff a class skill. Put one Rank in all the Knowledges and max out the social skills. Go with the standard Superstition/Spell Sunder/Beast Totem Rage Power lineup. Be AM BARBARIAN as well as the party face and winning all the Knowledge checks forever outside of combat.

When I did this, I also went Half Orc for Sacred Tattoo (I also took Shaman's Apprentice and Skilled), took Divine Favor as a spell, and took Fate's Favored, plus the Human Barbarian FCB, but that's not really a skill-up, just a combat buff. Also, there's no reason not to pick the Lame Curse for this build.

This doesn't replace a Rogue, it's a different kind of skill monkey (more like a Bard), and it does basically give up Come And Get Me (though almost nothing else) but it sure sounds fun. Sadly, I only got to play it for the first few levels. It was a lot of fun for those levels, though.

Liberty's Edge

johnnythexxxiv wrote:
Bob Bob Bob wrote:
DISABLE DEVICE WITH AXE!

SPELL SUNDER LET AM SKILLMONKEY SMASH MAGIC TRAPS?

To clarify, by suppressing or dispelling the magic on the trap, does the trap become a valid target for Trap Wrecker?

Gargrim am told you great ax am greatest skill of all.


johnnythexxxiv wrote:
We all know the barbarian is a better rogue than the rogue, but can you build one to be a proper skill monkey? Not a scout, that's easy enough, but what about something more akin to say a social genius, or a walking encyclopedia, or a jack of all trades - master of most? That to me is a skill monkey, and they'd be able to focus on those skills without severely hampering their success in other directions. Is there a way to do that as a barbarian?

Why bother when it is almost impossible to build a bard that isn't simultaneously all three of "social genius, walking encyclopedia and jack of all trades - master of most" without sacrificing their ability in other areas? I'm sure it can be done with a barbarian at least as well as it can be done with a rogue, but both will be so utterly outclassed by a bard that there is no point in even trying.


Alright, here's me taking a crack at AM SKILLMONKEY after scouring the interwebs

AM SKILLMONKEY
Half-Orc Urban Barbarian 5/Halfling Opportunist 1/Pathfinder Delver 1/Urban Barbarian +5/Horizon Walker 3/Bloodrager 1/ Mutation Warrior 2/Urban Barbarian +2
Str 14 +2 Racial and Level 8 and 12 stat bonuses
Dex 13 +Level 4 stat bonus
Con 12
Int 12
Wis 13
Cha 14

Alt Racial Traits: City-Raised, Sacred Tattoo, Shaman's Apprentice, Skilled
Traits: Alluring, Fate's Favored

Leveling
Legend:*rage power, **any other relevant class feature
1 Endurance, Power Attack
2 Superstition*
3 Trap Wrecker, Trap Sense**
4 Witch Hunter*
5 Racial Heritage (Halfling)
6 Trap Spotter**
7 Dilettante, Bardic Knowledge**, Master Explorer**
8 Spell Sunder*
9 Cornugon Smash
10 Intimidating Glare*
11 Combat Reflexes
12 Terrifying Howl*
13 Arcane Strike
14 Terrain Mastery (Astral Plane)*
15 Dimensional Agility, Terrain Dominance (Astral Plane)*
16 Bloodrage**, Fast Movement**, Undead Bloodline**
17 Blooded Arcane Strike, Dimensional Assault, Mutagen**
18 Riving Strike
19 Dimensional Dervish, Greater Rage**
20 Come and Get Me*

So... I accidentally made the most balanced and well rounded spell-less (two SLAs, sue me) martial I've ever come up with, and he has a tonne of flavorful abilities and options inside and outside of combat without even relying on magic items. Whoops. Go me?

Levels 1-12 show that yes, you can make a very effective skillmonkey barbarian (works best in E8 while dilettante is still relevant) and the rest of the levels turn him into a very well rounded combatant that works as an excellent debuffer. I might just have to actually play this for my next martial PC...


erg to be a halfling opportunist one has to be a, um, halfling or have the racial heritage (halfling) feat, which feat requires you to be a human.


cnetarian wrote:
erg to be a halfling opportunist one has to be a, um, halfling or have the racial heritage (halfling) feat, which feat requires you to be a human.
Have it as the level 5 feat, half orcs have the human subtype and therefore can choose human options courtesy of this FAQ and this block of text from the Advanced Race Guide
Advanced Race Guide, page 217 wrote:
Subtypes are often important to qualify for other racial abilities and feats. If a humanoid has a racial subtype, it is considered a member of that race in the case of race prerequisites.


also I don't see a source of arcane power to qualify for arcane strike at level 13 - at level 15 the Horizon Wlaker's dimension door SLA can be used but that causes problems with the Dimesnional Agility feat line, perhaps change one of the first 10 levels of Urban Barbarian to Bloodrager so that grave touch can be used to qualify for arcane strike.


Alluring (one of the two traits chosen) gives daze as an SLA, SLAs qualify as spells for feat prereqs. FAQ.


johnnythexxxiv wrote:
Alluring (one of the two traits chosen) gives daze as an SLA, SLAs qualify as spells for feat prereqs

Does that work? daze is both an arcane and divine spell so could be either but alluring is a religion trait which indicates that it is the divine form.


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If a spell-like ability can be drawn from the sorcerer/wizard list it must be. FAQ. Any other questions? My search-fu is strong today :)


well there was an SKR post on the question which pre-dates the FAQ and would indicate otherwise and SLAs from traits aren't SLAs from a race or type (or class which has a different means of determining). Not that I'm saying it isn't an arcane SLA but the SKR post seems to point to it being divine and the FAQ doesn't address traits.


I'm surprised nobody's mentioned alchemists in here yet. Especially vivisectionists.

Liberty's Edge

Darigaaz the Igniter wrote:
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned alchemists in here yet. Especially vivisectionists.

Because Alchemists are mediocre skill monkeys. They don't have the best skill list, no direct bonuses, and are significantly behind Investigators in skill points as well.

Vivisectionists are vastly better combat Rogues than Rogues are, but only about on par as skill monkeys (slightly less skills, several useful spells), which makes them mediocre ones at best.

In this thread people are suggesting either ways to make Barbarian Skill Monkeys, or actually good skill monkeys, not Rogue replacements in general.


Gargrim wrote:

Diplomacy am great ax.

Intimidate am great ax.
Disable device am adamantine great ax.
Ability to wield great ax am greatest skill of all.

I grow tired of people saying "I can inflict a lot of damage, so I intimidate you for free."

Player: "I deliberately draw my great axe, I twirl it around in right hand, clearly showing skill and strength. I look at the guy menacingly and state he better gives us the secret code to the back entrance or else..."
GM: ok, roll intimidate
Player: No, no, I menace him with the axe.
GM: still, that is an intimidation action.
Player: But I can kill him in a single round, before he can even draw his weapon, isn't that a free intimidation-succes or at least a bonus?
GM: Nope, just roll.
Player: -2 from dumping CHA. Rolls 9.
GM: Not enough. You do all the twirling and menacing, but when you speak, your inexperience with menacing shows, you stumble of your words and there is some doubt whether you wish to have a special man-loving experience and what the consequences of his refusal will be. Your stumbling also made you lose the surprise and now he has his hands no his weapons. Act any more threatening and you may roll initiative.


Subtle homophobia and missing the joke. Kudos.

Very obviously being able to tear someone's arm off and beat them to death with it qualifies you for a circumstance bonus to diplomacy/intimidate, imo.


So you get a free effect, greater than the Intimidating Prowess?

Being able to do such things does not qualify as being able to get the message across. You may very well stumble on your words, nearly fumble your axe, etc. If intimidating had only in-combat purposes, they would have said so in the rules.

Intimidation Master

Liberty's Edge

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Fjuri wrote:
Gargrim wrote:

Diplomacy am great ax.

Intimidate am great ax.
Disable device am adamantine great ax.
Ability to wield great ax am greatest skill of all.

I grow tired of people saying "I can inflict a lot of damage, so I intimidate you for free."

It go more like this.

Gargrim hit him for 44 nonlethal surprise round.
Gargrim have friend revive him and punch him with non lethal.
Gargrim ask him what he know.

Intimidate check only make shaken.
Great ax make staggered.

Gargrim see big difference.
You can am damage.
Gargrim DO AM DAMAGE.


Gargrim wrote:
Fjuri wrote:
Gargrim wrote:

Diplomacy am great ax.

Intimidate am great ax.
Disable device am adamantine great ax.
Ability to wield great ax am greatest skill of all.

I grow tired of people saying "I can inflict a lot of damage, so I intimidate you for free."

It go more like this.

Gargrim hit him for 44 nonlethal surprise round.
Gargrim have friend revive him and punch him with non lethal.
Gargrim ask him what he know.

Intimidate check only make shaken.
Great ax make staggered.

Gargrim see big difference.
You can am damage.
Gargrim DO AM DAMAGE.

I stand corrected. :-)

Can you do the same for diplomacy?

Liberty's Edge

Gargrim find people really nice after great ax to head.


Fjuri wrote:

I grow tired of people saying "I can inflict a lot of damage, so I intimidate you for free."

Intimidate is the ability to get useful information out of someone. You might scare someone into attacking you, or fleeing, or rolling up into a ball, but none of those give you the combination to the safe.

Liberty's Edge

10 minute of great ax boarding leaves a man a broken.
Gargrim am get any information out of him he wants.
If not Gargrim take him and safe and tell him he go when safe open.

Sovereign Court

On the other hand, the existence of Intimidate as a skill shouldn't be taken to imply that it's the only way of scaring people. If you cut down someone's elite bodyguards with ease, that should count for something too. Otherwise you run the risk of NPCs appearing like morons with a death wish.


Sure, there you have acted and the situation caused the intimidation effect. You cannot expect however to "look fancy/talk fancy" and get a free intimidate success.

Sovereign Court

Well, the next thing is to get a reputation. If people know what you did to the last three BBEGs, they might take you seriously even if your social skills are poor.


A circumstance bonus from waving a weapon around would probably constitute a +2. That said, a barbarian with the right trait or feat can use a different ability score, there are a lot of ways to get your intimidate working, which still fits the "intimidate am greataxe" trope.

MOVING ON, I believe this thread was about making a barbarian a skillmonkey. From what I am gathering, the barbarian can do traps, stealth, spotting, and stealing, the only thing it CAN'T do reliably while synergizing (or not hurting) AM BARBARIAN, AM DESTRUCTION is knowledge skills. Yes?


Deadmanwalking wrote:

Really fun skill-monkey Barbarian build I tried once:

Go Oracle 1, then Invulnerable Rager Barbarian from there. Pick the Lore Mystery and use your 1st level Feat for Extra Revelation (your 3rd level Feat is power attack, your other Feats are mostly Extra Rage Power). Take Focused Trance and Sidestep Secret.

Dump Dex, going Cha instead. Do not dump Int (you can dump Wis a little instead due to the extra Will Save from ) Maybe take a Trait to make Bluff a class skill. Put one Rank in all the Knowledges and max out the social skills. Go with the standard Superstition/Spell Sunder/Beast Totem Rage Power lineup. Be AM BARBARIAN as well as the party face and winning all the Knowledge checks forever outside of combat.

When I did this, I also went Half Orc for Sacred Tattoo (I also took Shaman's Apprentice and Skilled), took Divine Favor as a spell, and took Fate's Favored, plus the Human Barbarian FCB, but that's not really a skill-up, just a combat buff. Also, there's no reason not to pick the Lame Curse for this build.

This doesn't replace a Rogue, it's a different kind of skill monkey (more like a Bard), and it does basically give up Come And Get Me (though almost nothing else) but it sure sounds fun. Sadly, I only got to play it for the first few levels. It was a lot of fun for those levels, though.

I did the same thing with a Paladin. Really effective especially since it was a PFS character.

EDIT: A really cool Skill Monkey I made was Inquisitor 6/ Sleepless Detective 4 I took the Conversion Inquisition so I use WIS for the social skills. Automatically get a perception check for traps, secret doors, and clues. He is a very effective Rogue replacement.


Intimidate is subtle skill that allows you to pressure people into doing what you want them to. This can be anything from going along with your order, to giving you the correct information to your questions. The trick is knowing just how much fear to induce without making the person useless. Often times the threats may not be aimed directly at the person you are intimidating. A good example is the mobster who threatens the person’s family. The whole point of the skill is not just to scare the crap out of someone, but to get their cooperation.

Threatening someone with a great axe is a great way to scare the crap out of them. But it is more likely to induce terror and panic than to gain the persons cooperation. If all you want to do is to get them to flee then that is probably not that difficult. Getting them to betray their boss or divulge correct information about something is a lot harder. They are more likely to tell you what they think you want to hear then to actually tell the truth.

Using a weapon for damage is also another thing entirely. Often the most deadly attack is the one that is not seen. Someone who really knows how to use a weapon does not twirl or flip it, he hits like a freight train. An expert with a weapon will probably hit you before you even realize he is moving. The person twirling the weapon sounds like he is trying to get the feat dazzling display for free. I would give a +2 circumstance bonus to intimidate for using an axe to actually destroy something. It could be a crate or pretty much any fairly tough object. Cutting down a soap bubble is not going to cut it.

People who want to use a skill should invest points in it. Since barbarians get intimidate as a class skill, and a decent number of skill points, dropping a few into intimidate should not be a problem.


boring7 wrote:

A circumstance bonus from waving a weapon around would probably constitute a +2. That said, a barbarian with the right trait or feat can use a different ability score, there are a lot of ways to get your intimidate working, which still fits the "intimidate am greataxe" trope.

MOVING ON, I believe this thread was about making a barbarian a skillmonkey. From what I am gathering, the barbarian can do traps, stealth, spotting, and stealing, the only thing it CAN'T do reliably while synergizing (or not hurting) AM BARBARIAN, AM DESTRUCTION is knowledge skills. Yes?

The barbarian that I posted would have least +8 to every knowledge skill (only takes one rank for dilettante to kick in) by level 7, but doesn't have quite enough skill ranks (average 6 per level) to be really impressive on the knowledge front and dilettante is less helpful as he levels up. Still, he can hit DC 32 by taking 20 on any knowledges that are at 5 ranks, so he's still able to do reasonably well on the knowledge checks and he only needed to put one rank into disable device to be better at it than a max ranked rogue, so more skillmonkey-ing without wasting skill points there.

Admittedly it's not an AM BARBARIAN, AM SMASH build, it's a mobile debuff turret, but it still puts out respectable damage so AM SKILLMONKEY is still an solid melee combatant.


That's as good as a lot of wizards. And I assume his damage dealing is on par with a rogue, but without having to flank, yes?


Haven't run the numbers yet, but he's an effective 18 strength character 2-handing a greataxe (could be a greatsword or an earth breaker, haven't decided that yet) and power attacking with almost guaranteed flanking bonuses at higher levels (just because he can't flank with himself doesn't mean he can't flank with everyone else engaged in melee) so I can't imagine the numbers will be bad. Even if they're not great, give him a cruel weapon and most everything he attacks should be shaken and sickened and if there were enough enemies shaken to warrant it, some of them would end up panicked too, so I figure a -4 to attacks and -6 to saving throws with some enemies taken straight out of the fight would be worth a couple of lost points of DPR.


Greatsword is generally "more civilized," but I like the Earth Breaker for the charm.


So, I posted one way to be AM SKILLMONKEY, anyone else want to take a shot? Try to keep it over half barbarian and try to have the skills because you're a barbarian rather than in spite of being a barbarian if possible. Other than that, feel free to toy around with the concept as much as you'd like and bring in interesting new takes on how to build an effective skillmonkey barbarian. I know we have plenty of people that can make amazing builds on these 'boards so it should be fun to see what people can cook up :)

Grand Lodge

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johnnythexxxiv wrote:
In the most recent giant rogue hate thread there was mention of how barbarians can be effective skill monkeys.

Rogue "hate" exists only in the minds of deniers, looking to create hostility, that does not exist, as means of disguising the weakness of the class, not only to others, but also, themselves.

There is no Rogue hate. Only disappointment.


johnnythexxxiv wrote:
So, I posted one way to be AM SKILLMONKEY, anyone else want to take a shot? Try to keep it over half barbarian and try to have the skills because you're a barbarian rather than in spite of being a barbarian if possible. Other than that, feel free to toy around with the concept as much as you'd like and bring in interesting new takes on how to build an effective skillmonkey barbarian. I know we have plenty of people that can make amazing builds on these 'boards so it should be fun to see what people can cook up :)

Anyone?

Sovereign Court

I don't normally see people do a "total skillmonkey", because it's a really suboptimal build. The most-used skills are spread across Dex (Disable Device, Stealth), Int (Knowledges, Spellcraft) and Cha (Diplomacy, UMD, Bluff/Intimidate). Trying to be good at all of them will make you pretty MAD.

And why should you try to cover all of them? It's easy enough to have every PC cover 1-2 facets. Let the wizard, witch or alchemist have Knowledges, because he's got a high Int anyway. The alchemist, ranger or barbarian might have the Dex/Strength knowledges, because he's got decent stats there. The bard doesn't really even have to try to become good at any two skill roles, it just happens.

So I'm not gonna try to make a Knowledge-barbarian, because that's silly. Let's talk Human; Str 18, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 8. 5 skill points per level gets us Climb +8, Swim +8, Perception +5, Survival +5 and (with a trait to make it a class skill and get a +1) Stealth +7. Subtract a bit for armor check penalty. After a few levels, get a mithral breastplate so you can bounce around nice and fast, and don't put too much points in Swim and Climb (the DCs don't go up all that far), and at level 5 you could have Climb/Swim +7, Perception +8, Survival +8, Stealth +9, Acrobatics +7, Intimidate +3, K(Nature) +4, Ride +5

That's not a total skill monkey, but he's fairly competent without actually investing a whole lot. He can track, he's not surprised all the time, he doesn't drown, he can get better bonuses on Full Defense, can aid others on skill checks and so forth. If he's gonna be point man on any of these skills, he could buy a +5 skill magic item for 2500gp.

The nice thing about this? You have a decent Will save, your Strength is adequate, your HP and AC and Reflex/Fort saves are adequate. You were probably going to buy the mithral breastplate anyway for the movement speed, but it also helps with ACP on skills. You haven't had to spend any feats on being a skill monkey, and only one trait.

Liberty's Edge

Ascalaphus wrote:
I don't normally see people do a "total skillmonkey", because it's a really suboptimal build. The most-used skills are spread across Dex (Disable Device, Stealth), Int (Knowledges, Spellcraft) and Cha (Diplomacy, UMD, Bluff/Intimidate). Trying to be good at all of them will make you pretty MAD.

Investigators can make most of those Int based with Empiricist and Student of Philosophy (everything but Stealth and Intimidate), Inquisitors can make many of them at least partially Wis based with conversion Inquisition and Monster Lore, and Bards can make many of them Cha based (or get arbitrarily high bonuses to them, or both).

This is, in large part, why these classes make good skill monkeys. Investigators and Bards better than Inquisitors because they get other bonuses on top of that. All three can also be very good combatants or spell casters on top of that, actually.

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