Feats and Traits that add class skills

[Bigdaddyjug]

So I had an idea for a PFS character and I'd like some help with it. The idea is for a ninja (or rogue, but I like the flavor of ninja better, rogues just taste like chicken) that is nothing but a skill monkey. I don't care if it's close to useless in combat, I'll throw a few points into Dex and grab a bow or something to be able to contribute a little bit and take Finesse Rogue as a ninja trick to be able to take advantage of Sneak Attack eventually.

So what I'm looking for, is traits or feats that will make additional things class skills that the ninja doesn't already have. I'm thinking the biggest problem for a ninja is going to be how few knowledges are class skills for them, only local and nobility.

The character will be human and I'm looking at a stat spread of 10/14/10/16/10/16. One of the 16s is from the +2 from being human. With this spread, the skilled human racial trait, and putting every favored class bonus into additional skills, the character would be getting 13 skills per level. Now all I need are some worthwhile skills to use that on.

Bluff, Diplomacy, Disable Device, Disguise, Intimidate, Knowledge (local), Linguistics, Perception, Sense Motive, Stealth, Use Magic Device

That's only 11 skills I could see myself sinking points into, so that leaves at least 2 more knowledges I'd like to pick up. Preferably more than that so I can alternate which knowledges I put skill ranks in each level. But don't limit yourself to knowledges. If there are feats or traits that make other worthwhile skills class skills, feel free to list them.

[Jacob Saltband]

You could try taking 1 level in a class that has the knowledges you want. One class that has all int based skills as class skills is Lore Warden. Wizard has all knowledge skills.

You should look at Deadly Range ninja trick.

[MrSin]

Extra traits and Cosmopolitan make it easy to pick up traits. Looking through the databases and guide to traits is great for looking up traits.

Thought bards made better skillmonkeys? And you would still be useful even if you wanted to be heavy into support and without a lot of investment. Not pushing it on you, just a thought. I'm partial to magic and roleplaying a bard myself.

[Bigdaddyjug]

I'd rather not dip. Lore warden is going to cost me 4 skill ranks and wizard is going to cost me 6. I guess I could dip inquisitor, that would only cost me 2 skill ranks, get me 4 orisons and a judgement which will act like weapon focus for 1 fight per scenario. And it gives me Planes, Nature, Religion, and Arcana.

I had considered a bard, and I guess i am still considering a bard, but everybody expects the bard to have knowledge (everything). Nobody ever expects the ninja to be able to make a roll to identify the hellspawn climbing up the side of the wall.

[Artanthos]

Without dipping bard makes the better monkey.

With dipping, bard would be the best choice to add missing skills.

[MrSin]

Artanthos wrote:

Without dipping bard makes the better monkey.

With dipping, bard would be the best choice to add missing skills.

Why is that? Thought the bard had more skillpoints not becuase it has many in class skills, but because they had versatile performance and they had the option not to dump int becuase they weren't combat heavy.

[Artanthos]

Bards can use all knowledge skills as trained, with a bonus based on bard level. This leaves more points free for other areas.

Bardic Knowledge wrote:

A bard adds half his class level (minimum 1) to all Knowledge skill checks and may make all Knowledge skill checks untrained.

Also, bards can be as combat heavy as they wish. I've seen a bard match a paladin for damage while fighting devils.

Truthfully though, any Intelligence based class can be a skill monkey with a minimal investment in traits and feats.

A human wizard/kensai/sage can eventually match or surpass rogues in skills/level without giving up combat ability.

[MrSin]

Artanthos wrote:

Also, bards can be as combat heavy as they wish.

I know they can, but the OP isn't looking for a combat class. Otherwise you'd see three post saying "Dervish Dance or bust!" Was just asking why they were a better dip than to stick in. They get cool bonuses for sticking with them. I'm totally going to have to make a Bard that plays like a ninja now...

[tonyz]

The Breadth of Knowledge feat gives you a +2 on all Knowledge rolls and allows you to roll on the muntrained.not quite a class skill, but pretty good. And it stacks with everything else.

On the downside, you have to be elf,dwarf,or gnome of a ceratin age.

[Dekalinder]

Versatile performance let bards max 2 skill at the price of a single one adding extra "virtual skill points" to their arsenal. And they have basically all skill as class skill with the exception of disable device. by level 6 when you get the second versatile performance you actually have the same amount of skill point then a rogue (or a ninja). With the added bonus of the bardic knowledge and the lore moster.

And as an added bonus you are also pretty usefull in combat with inspire courage and some good buff spells like good hope and haste. And they are even more elusive then ninjas with invisibility and mirror image.

[Bigdaddyjug]

I was worried that a bard and a ninja might end up playing too much alike combat-wise, and I'd prefer to play a ninja to a bard. I guess I could make a ranged bard skill/knowledge monkey and make my ninja optimized for melee combat.

[Bigdaddyjug]

Man you guys are REALLY trying to get me to play a bard. I've played in groups with a couple and just really wasn't impressed. Maybe those guys were just terrible and I can be the James Hetfield of PFS bards.

[MrSin]

Bigdaddyjug wrote:

Man you guys are REALLY trying to get me to play a bard. I've played in groups with a couple and just really wasn't impressed. Maybe those guys were just terrible and I can be the James Hetfield of PFS bards.

Yeah, most of the bards I've met in PFS play are skill monkey only. They forget they have spells or can use weapons. They just dance and use their skills. Dervish Dancing bard with the right archetype is actually pretty wicked.

Your free to try the two styles at level 1 and rebuild. That might help you decide.

[Chris Kenney]

Here's the thing I always say about bards - unless you work for it, they're not impressive on the surface.

They won't have the feats to get off that "Make heads explode" hit you see from the paladins, barbarians, and even fighters under their ideal circumstances.

They don't have the flashy control spells that render +4 CR encounters trivial with a few unlucky die rolls.

They can't drop heals all day and keep a party that's taking a beating up like a cleric or life oracle.

Even as a skill-monkey, they're really only on par with the rogue, not massively surpassing them without some serious building for it.

What the Bard class, especially Core, excels at is "the pebble that starts the avalanche." Inspire Courage is a perfect example of how this works - at first level, it's +1 to hit, +1 to damage, and +1 to a couple of circumstantial saves. But, +1 to damage is hard to come by at first level, and HP is measured in single digits on many encounters, so it's not nothing. And it will apply to (almost) every attack made, plus it makes Power Attacking from the heavy hitters a wash (so another +2 damage for their rolls). That's your damage, even though you're not the guy rolling the dice. In a six-man party with two martial-primary characters (not unreasonable), for one round of action investment you've probably dealt somewhere between 10-20 points of damage over a five round combat. A wizard can do better with Sleep or Color Spray, if the saving throw dice go their way, but it's still pretty impressive for something you can do out of the gate.

And then you've still got an excellent array of buffs (and potentially debuffs) to go before you wade in, probably no later than round three, to start adding damage directly.

That's the trick. None of these abilities is going to set the world on fire or make people sit up and take notice. But they're always there, always working in the background to make everything and everyone around you better.

[Bigdaddyjug]

By dervish dancer, do you mean Dervish of Dawn?

Edit: Nevermind, Dervish dancer is copyrighted so d20 calls it a dervish of dawn.

Edit #2: Dervish dancer replaces Bardic knowledge and Lore Master, so it seems like it's more of a combat focused. If I want to be more of a skill/knowledge monkey, vanilla bard or another archetype may be a better choice.

[Chris Kenney]

There are two Dervish-based bard archetypes. One is the "Dervish Dancer" and that really shouldn't fall under copyright. The one you're thinking of is the "Dawnflower Dervish."

To be honest, I'm not really a fan since the Alchemist and Magus do the "selfish caster" thing better, IMO.

[MrSin]

Bigdaddyjug wrote:

By dervish dancer, do you mean Dervish of Dawn?

Edit: Nevermind, Dervish dancer is copyrighted so d20 calls it a dervish of dawn.

Dervish Dance is a feat. If you wield a scimitar with one hand you deal your dex to damage instead of strength.

[Bigdaddyjug]

Chris Kenney wrote:

There are two Dervish-based bard archetypes. One is the "Dervish Dancer" and that really shouldn't fall under copyright. The one you're thinking of is the "Dawnflower Dervish."

To be honest, I'm not really a fan since the Alchemist and Magus do the "selfish caster" thing better, IMO.

Yeah Dawnflower Dervish is rebranded as Dervish of Dawn on d20. Dervish Dancer didn't show up in the list initially, but I found it. they both replace Bardic Knowledge and Lore Master, so they wouldn't fit with what I'm going for.

Archaeologist, on the other hand...

I could even call the character Andoran Smith or something silly like that.

[eakratz]

You could go to the traits section of Archives of Nethys or the Traits DB on D20PFSRD, click Ctrl+F or Command+F, then type in the skill you want. It will be highlighted and there should be an arrow in the Find box that will jump to each time the word appears on the page.

[Bigdaddyjug]

Thank you Eakratz. I normally use d20, but their traits DB is horrible and I didn't know another site that had a list of all traits.

[Karui Kage]

The other Traits site (plus much more): Archives of Nethys - Traits

[Bigdaddyjug]

Yeah, I'm seeing a problem with this idea. There are traits that add knowledge religion and knowledge nature as class skills, but both of them are religion traits, so I can't take both of them. I haven't found anything that adds knowledge arcana or knowledge planes yet.

Edit: Mathematical Prodigy gives knowledge arcana, so now i've got nature or religion covered as well as arcana. Only knowledge I can't find one for is planes. I'm really trying to avoid putting skill ranks in non-class skills, which means I may very well end up as a bard and not a ninja.

[MrSin]

Bigdaddyjug wrote:

Yeah, I'm seeing a problem with this idea. There are traits that add knowledge religion and knowledge nature as class skills, but both of them are religion traits, so I can't take both of them. I haven't found anything that adds knowledge arcana or knowledge planes yet.

Try looking at the faith and magic sections? Green faith acolyte and Ease of Faith. Religion is apparently important to traits, it comes up twice!

[David H]

Scholar of the Great Beyond is a faith trait that'll give you Knowledge planes. It's also in the Web Enhancement Traits doc so it's fair game.

Also, if you have Faiths of Corruption, Secret Knowledge grants a good boost to any 1 Knowledge skill besides making it a class skill; of course you will have to worship an NE deity for that :P

[Heofthehills]

Secret Knowledge would allow you to have ANY knowledge you want. If this is a home brew, you could pick one based off of what no one else has, if not, then you could simply the one you think is the most useful for it. Mathematical Prodigy (as has already been brought up) will be another option for you. I think those are probably the best couple to get as many of the big four as you can. As a human, you can take scholar of ruins for another one of two (Dungeoneering or Geography)and if you come from the Forest of Spirits (which is perfectly viable for a ninja) you can get Spiritual Forester (For Nature OR Planes). I think that gets you every one of the ones you would want, though you have to pick to not get one important one and it can be done legally, using one feat and your two normal traits. Good luck!

[Bigdaddyjug]

This is going to be for a PFS character and I'm trying to get as many knowledges as possible to be class skills...on a ninja or rogue. I may have to go with the rogue, since they get knowledge dungeoneering instead of the fairly useless knowledge nobility.

The problem I keep seeming to run into is that the traits that add class skills are almost invariably faith traits, so I can only take 1 of them. Although I did find a magic trait that makes knowledge arcana a class skill. For religion, nature, and planes it looks like I'll have to pick one of them to be a class skill and roll with it, unless there are traits I've missed in other categories.

[Heofthehills]

As a ninja, it's not at all out of the realm of reason to worship Norgorber and be Neutral, getting Secret Knowledge as your Religion trait, which will give you ANY knowledge as in class.

Spiritual Forester will give you Nature OR Planes and is a Regional trait.

Scholar of the Ruins is Dungeoneering OR Geography and is a Racial trait.

Mathematical Prodigy gives you Arcane OR Engineering and is a Magical trait.

Essentially you will only have to give up ONE of the big four, which is pretty awesome. I would probably take Spiritual Forester and Mathematical Prodigy for standard feats, getting Arcane and Nature, then grab Cosmopolitan as the feat (instead of Extra Traits feat) and grab any two Int skills, grabbing both Planes and Religion, giving you all four of the big four at first level and you can do it with ANY race.

[eakratz]

If its for PFS, you'll need to own the source of the trait, so just pulling it off the website won't work. Dipping another class like Lore Warden wouldn't be a bad idea. +1 BAB, +2 fort, bonus feat and all intelligence skills are class skills.