The Power of Knowledge (optimizing Knowledge Skills)

[Shindalm]

I'm making a Bard that I really want to be all about knowledge and knowing everything he can. I'm going vanilla Bard mostly because I don't like the Archivist's flavor for him.

I was wondering if anyone could help me optimize those skills in terms of use and benefits. An example would be like the Kirin Style feat (only one I've found).

Oh, and he's Human.

[pauljathome]

There is an incredibly broken and overpowered bardic masterpiece (pageant of the peacock) that you might want to consider.

[Alex McGuire]

If you've got a decent Intelligence, the second level of the Mindchemist Alchemist Archetype allows you to add double your intelligence mod to Knowledge skills. Plus you'll get a cognatogen that you could use to increase his Int at the cost of strength. And bombs, which do bonus damage based on intelligence.

[Arachnofiend]

A Lore Oracle can take the Think On It revelation. You get to reroll your knowledge checks and you get a +10 bonus on the reroll. You only need one level for this.

It would be very difficult to fail a knowledge check between this and the bard bonuses.

Lore Keeper revelation to use Charisma instead of Intelligence for knowledge checks is also an option but probably less powerful unless you were dumping INT.

[Sarrah]

Kirin Style / Kirin Strike / Kirin Path

[Renegadeshepherd]

Assuming u want high scores for little effort take diletante feat, 1-5 skill ranks, 2 levels in mind chemist. Assuming a +4 mod in int u will have a +24 at level 20. Want it higher? Can go to +28 with diletante but that's 5 skill ranks in each. I think there is a race that adds +1 to knowledge for favored class.

[Joe M.]

Human Bard 8 / Dual-Cursed Oracle of Lore 1 / Sacred Shield Paladin 2

Str 11 Dex 7 Con 14 Int 14 Wis 7 Cha 20

Alternate racial trait: focused study

1 - Oracle, 2 - Bard, 3 - Paladin, 4 - Bard, 5 - Paladin, 6 on - Bard

Mystery: Lore
Curses: Legalistic, Blackened
Revelation: Misfortune

01 Skill Focus (Oratory), Extra Revelation (Sidestep Secret)
03 Extra Revelation (Focused Trance)
04 Versatile Performance (Oratory)
05 Extra Revelation (Lorekeeper)
07 Extra Revelation (Think on It)
08 Skill Focus (Dance)
09 Versatile Performance (Dance), Lingering Performance
11 Discordant Voice

[Shindalm]

Thanks all for your advice. I really like the Lore Oracle dip, though Im having a hard time justifying losing 1 Bard level. Although Focused Trance, Sidestep Secret and Think On It are really useful...

I'm still looking for items/feats/ect that expand on Knowledge checks. I have enough set to get as high a check as I really want. I just don't know if there are any items/feats that expand them in different ways like the Kirin Style path that I and Sarrah mentioned.

I am curious Joe, why the Paladin levels and why Dual Cursed? (Paladin saves + rerolls?)

[blackbloodtroll]

Catfolk Bard/Oracle is my favorite.

Check out this thread.

[Joe M.]

Dual-cursed: because Misfortune is broken-good.

Paladin: saves, saves, saves. And the Sacred Shield smite ability.

[Shindalm]

That thread was a lot to go through, but I think it answered a lot of my tertiary questions, thanks. ^_^

[blackbloodtroll]

Trust me, Catfolk is the most hilariously fun of them.

I ran one in an one-shot, and was quite pleased, as were the rest of my group.

[DaedalusV]

Silver-tongued human
Skill focus Bluff
Max Bluff ranks
Pageant of the Peacock @ lvl 4

4 ranks +3 (class skill) +2 (silvertongued) +3 (skill focus) +4 (peacoc) = +16 bluff checks = +16 on ALL intelligence based checks. @ lvl 4
(bardic knowledge = can make untrained knowledge skills)

[Deadmanwalking]

DaedalusV wrote:

Silver-tongued human

Skill focus Bluff
Max Bluff ranks
Pageant of the Peacock @ lvl 4

4 ranks +3 (class skill) +2 (silvertongued) +3 (skill focus) +4 (peacoc) = +16 bluff checks = +16 on ALL intelligence based checks. @ lvl 4
(bardic knowledge = can make untrained knowledge skills)

This is cheapest, but not best. The aforementioned Catfolk Oracle 1/Bard 2 can manage +28 (+2 Catfolk Bard +3 Class Skill +3 Ranks +20 Focused Trance). This is a bit more limited than Pageant of the Peacock...but in two more levels they can grab that, too.

Also, by 11th, your Pageant of the Peacock guy is just at +26...while the Catfolk is up to +44 (+24 without Focused Trance)...so only two below using no resources, and 18 above when using them. This gets even better as they level...and for an Knowledges they're actually bad at...they can use Pageant of the Peacock, since they're still a Bard. So yeah.

[Glutton]

Breadth of Experience gives +2 for gnome, elf, and dwarf options if you like.

[DaedalusV]

Why bring up non-human races/options when the OP stated it was a human bard?

Focused trance mystery works quite well, most of the time. But it's limited by 1d6 rounds of move-actions only. Furthermore, it only works on intelligence-based skill checks. Pageant of the Peacock involves a charisma based skillcheck, so the +20 bonus is not happening.. You can only do that trick a limited amount of times/day (cha mod)

You won't be able to max all your intelligence based skills so your example @ lvl 3 only works for the few knowledge checks you maxed out. (again, remember that pesky 1d6 round time-delay) The main draw of the peacock is the amount of skillpoints you save. You use fully maxed knowledge skills, that's a large amount of ressources used. Bardic knowledge is a huge skillpoint saver if used correctly, so I wouldn't funnel a single skill point into knowledge skills as a bard.

Spellcraft checks in combat: Peacocked yes, tranced no

It's the only int based skill that focused trance doesn't help, but it's an extremely useful one.

When push comes to shove, I would rather take pageant of the peacock @ lvl 4 than go oracle 1 for focused trance (there are better mysteries out there)

@lvl 10
Versatile performance (Dance, Oratory, Percussion)
Pageant of the Peacock
Max ranks in Bluff, Perform (Dance, Oratory, Percussion) = 20 skills effectively maxed at the cost of 4x10 (40) skill points.

[Gregory Connolly]

If you ever pick up Mythic Tier 1 you can take Display of Intelligence. I overlooked it the first time through, but this power is amazing because a +20 to any intelligence skill check is hard to come by. The fact that it can be used on spellcraft checks to craft magic items is a nice benefit too.

[rungok]

blackbloodtroll wrote:

Trust me, Catfolk is the most hilariously fun of them.

I ran one in an one-shot, and was quite pleased, as were the rest of my group.

Did you call him "M'aiq the Liar"?

[blackbloodtroll]

rungok wrote:

blackbloodtroll wrote:

Trust me, Catfolk is the most hilariously fun of them.

I ran one in an one-shot, and was quite pleased, as were the rest of my group.

Did you call him "M'aiq the Liar"?

Actually, he ended up as Kaspar Snazzepelli. He used a lot of 20's slang. A real Lalapazaza.

[rungok]

blackbloodtroll wrote:

rungok wrote:

blackbloodtroll wrote:

Trust me, Catfolk is the most hilariously fun of them.

I ran one in an one-shot, and was quite pleased, as were the rest of my group.

Did you call him "M'aiq the Liar"?

Actually, he ended up as Kaspar Snazzepelli. He used a lot of 20's slang. A real Lalapazaza.

... That's just as good. Carry on. :)

[MattR1986]

If you want to be completely absurd and your DM actually lets you do this:

This + This

I'm not going to figure out the math but pretty sure you could clear DC 40s (who sets any that high anyway?) in all knowledge skills pretty damn easily.