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Taking the focus off of combat for once, let's build the ultimate skill-build. Of course skills like Intimidate and Acrobatics will remain useful in battle, and remaining combat relevant is certainly a plus, but not the focus. It might be a lot to ask but if it were easy it wouldn't need optimizing. ;)
What I'd like to see is an amazing party face, a top-notch diplomat and a bluff with no equal. A practiced skill-monkey, perceive and disable any trap, a stealth capable of hiding in the smoke from a tea light candle and pickpocketing the sod who lit it. Street smart and book smart, knowledge of all things one could ever consider useful, and many things that couldn't be. Essentially, we want this master-of-all-trades to be as good at as many useful skills as is possible.
The earlier, the better, but any level build is fine. Let's see what the optimized out of combat character is capable of. Have at it!
-Atra
Human Bard with lots of Intelligence.
Option A: Archaeologist because Archaeologist Luck is better at self-buffing than Bardic Performance. Regretfully he loses versatile performance which is a great skill ranks saver.
EDIT: Archaeologist retains Bard's Lore adding half level to Knowledge checks and at 2nd level gets to add half the level to Perception and Disable Device checks.
Option B: Regular Bard. Versatile Performance with careful selection of Perform skills does great things to save skill ranks... Three skills for the price of one.
Option C: Archivist. Because taking 20 on Knowledge checks once per day at 2nd level is good and making untrained skill checks for all skills at 5th is better.
For characters focusing on Knowledges and Professions make it Elven Bard with Breadth Of Experience feat instead.
If I had to pick a class to fit all of that it would be an Archaeologist Bard.
Good at social skills - Decent Cha and some spells to back it up
Trapfinding as a rogue + half lvl to disable device
Half lvl to perception
Stealth - um...invisibility is the only way to roll.
Bardic Knowledge
Jack of all trades
You loose versatile performance but you also don't need the perform skill at all so that frees up a few skill slots. Overall the archaeologist may not be as strong as a normal bard socially but they make up for it in the rogue aspects.
No one does skills than a Mindchemist. Double your Int bonus for knowledges? Yeah! Be an elf, get breadth of knowledge, crank that Int bonus. At level 20, you will still have a +32 or so to all your knowledge skills without ever putting a single skill point into any of them.
Max out 14-15 other skills. Get a good headband for 3 more.
Profit.
Wizard / Rogue build. Rogue takes the talents survivalist and getaway artist and this combo now has every skill in the game, by level 5 (or quicker if you're willing to use character traits to get access to class skills without using rogue talents), as a class skill and a need for a high enough INT to be dangerous in terms of skill points per level.
Allocate the points as you wish to make whatever fancies your suit!
Somewhat relevant question:
What is the smallest amount of class dips it would take to acquire every skill as a class skill?
Or, all but 2 of them (last 2 acquired w/ traits)?
I think the best skill master will have a bard chasis, but would dip just enough to get every skill as a class skill and possibly dip Mindchemist for the double Int on knowledges.
Rogue is missing a lot more than 2 skills.
Also, I just realized Expert NPC class gets any 10 skills of your choice as class skills, so the technically correct answer is "any class missing 10 or less skills + expert."
Bard with Lore Oracle. Use your CHA for all Knowledge Skills, Armor Class, Reflex Saves, and spells. Makes you the perfect Face, all Knowledge Skills are class skills.
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Trait for disable device, and bard/Druid covers all bases as well.
I'm pretty sure urban ranger gets there as well, and is way less terrible than expert.
Well Bard + urban ranger gets us everything except fly and handle animal (I know there is a trait for handle animal)
Ranger is probably a better dip because of.. well stuff.
If we want to keep with ranger levels we even get trapfinding and 6x skills/level.
Trait: Jungle Guide gives handle animal. So if that one is important it gets us everything buy fly, so lets assume that doesn't matter a heap.
Bard OR Urban Ranger lots with a dip into the other, human with at least 14 int should get you in pretty good shape.
Well Bard + urban ranger gets us everything except fly and handle animal (I know there is a trait for handle animal
Versatile Performance (Dance) would cover Fly and thus it'd effectively "become" a class skill.
I've made and played this character as a Bard with a level of Trapper Ranger. This character was far from a combat threat, especially since he maxed intelligence, but he was still a bard. Between Haste, Good Hope, and Inspire Courage, nobody really doubted his effectiveness.
For the important part, he was getting something like 14 skill ranks/level, (played him levels 8-12) but it was really way more than that. Bardic Knowledge gave him an absurd amount of extra ranks for Knowledge skills, and Versatile Performance effectively gave him an extra couple of skill ranks on top of that. I suppose I cheated a tiny bit with Versatile Performance (Dance) to effectively get Fly as a class skill, but wouldn't you know it, it never came up. Trapper Ranger gave him all the skills a Bard misses except Fly, and of course it granted the important-if-stupid Trapfinding class feature.
Finally, with the skill bonuses inherent to a ton of spells that Bards get, they are really the best at this, hands down. (Liberating Command, Deadeye Lore, Glibness.) He was a great character. I really hope to revisit him someday.
My game has a gunslinger(mysterious stranger) 1/bard(archaeologist) x in it and that covers every skill but fly (with disable device through the trait). They do battlefield control with whip and spells and occasionally shoot somebody in the face. Now if they would have just picked a name besides Jones...
Lol, badass. Suggestions:
-Sebastian Spade
-Gideon Trumpete
-Blane Braveblade
-Seneca Kinless
-Quinn Hawk
-Bolt Johnson
-Chase Chasington
-Dirk Lonefury
-Brass Colton
-Canius Rex
-Jake Gentry
-Jedediah Jackson
-Morrison Graves
-Dirk Derickson
-Roger Thornby
-Brian Montgomery
-Franklin Frost
I would go human archeologist and take the human racial feats to get to use all skills untrained with a +4 bonus. That way you can max out those skills you really want and still have every other skill at 4+relevant stat. In the case of knowledge skills add to that the bardic knowledge bonus.
Max Power!
Taking the focus off of combat for once, let's build the ultimate skill-build. Of course skills like Intimidate and Acrobatics will remain useful in battle, and remaining combat relevant is certainly a plus, but not the focus. It might be a lot to ask but if it were easy it wouldn't need optimizing. ;)
What I'd like to see is an amazing party face, a top-notch diplomat and a bluff with no equal. A practiced skill-monkey, perceive and disable any trap, a stealth capable of hiding in the smoke from a tea light candle and pickpocketing the sod who lit it. Street smart and book smart, knowledge of all things one could ever consider useful, and many things that couldn't be. Essentially, we want this master-of-all-trades to be as good at as many useful skills as is possible.
The earlier, the better, but any level build is fine. Let's see what the optimized out of combat character is capable of. Have at it!
-Atra
I think a Ninja fits perfectly, 8+int mod skill points per level, more combat viable then a Rogue, charisma based for being a party face.
A Human Bard with Focused Study in Perform skills, Racial Heritage and Breadth of Experience. Take a rogue level if you need to disarm magical traps.
Or if you don't need to max-rank your knowledge skills (or just don't want to play a human that's over 100 years old) you can take Dilettante instead of Breadth of Experience and save a feat.
It's also kind of sad to think about a character who doesn't get their first PC level until after their 100th birthday. Talk about a late bloomer!
Also, it's -6 to str/dex/con, not -3 (aging bonuses/penalties stack.)
Max Power!
Lol!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDA-SAwz2VQ&feature=related#t=0m9s