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My wizard has plenty of skills. Really all he needs to do his standard shtick.
I have maxed out:
Knowledge Arcana
Knowledge Nature
Knowledge Planes
Linguistics
Perception
Spellcraft
Stealth
and I have put at least 1 point in all other class skills.
My fly skill is approaching the point where there isn't much point in increasing it.
I have put one point in Craft: Glassblowing, & Alchemy. There is no point putting more into these, because I can take 10 and get a 25 on my roll easily using the crafter's fortune spell.
So the question is, what skills do I max out with the headband (I can enchant it myself, so I get to pick).
Use magic device is a no-brainer.
What other sills would you guys recommend?
Acrobatics is always a useful one.
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How well am I likely to tumble past a bad guy, since my skill probably won't keep up with CMDs?
I'm 7th level right now (+2 dex bonus), for a total of +9
A CR 7 Medusa has a CMD of 20,
so I only have 55% chance of avoiding the attack (better than the 10% I have now I guess).
But let's take a CR 7 huge earth elemental, with a CMD of 30
Now I have a 0% chance of tumbling past the creature no matter what I do.
So I think this is kind of a waste of skill points.
Fly?
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Escape Artist is Good....very good if you aren't Shifting out of grapples like your conjuration brethren.
Diplomacy is a decent skill to get.
Acrobatics as mentioned above.
Those are some of the Better Skills. Some lesser skills:
Slight of Hand
Survival
Appraise
Sense Motive
Disable Device (still better to summon and set it off or Use Knock)
Bluff/Intimidate (I think Diplomacy is better)
Swim- If your too lazy to waste a spell
Stay away from:
Handle animal
Profession
Disguise
Heal
Climb(You should be flying)
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I'm back-filling fly with the points I don't need to keep these 8 skills maxed (I get 9 skill points per level, 10 after 8th level)
+1 - human
+2 - wizard
+1 - bonus skill per level (I don't take the HP)
+5 - 21 INT - soon to be +6 from a 22 base INT
So that's a base of +9 skill points per level.
So I have maxed out 7 skills and I have put 2 points in craft, 7 points in knowledge and 1 in appraise and 3 in fly.
My thinking is either mechanical skills (craft traps, knowledge engineering)
or
social skills (diplomacy, sense motive and/or bluff)
any other ideas?
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OK great feedback.
I am playing a conjuration/teleport wizard, so I have that covered. It is annoying to not be able to get past the front line sometimes, but then again I'm about to get the dimension door ability at 8th level, so I don't think acrobatics or escape artist are the way to go.
One interesting and seldom used skill is linquistics (which I have maxed out) because of the forgery skill (which can be very powerful at times). Bluff goes well with this. Hmm....
Diplomacy, Bluff, Sense Motive, and Intimidate are always useful imho. Even if you are not the maxed out party face, having another PC able to help detect lies, or tell them, can be very helpful.
You also have things like Profession (Sailor) if you think the campaign might go nautical. Ride isn't terrible if you are mounted at all often. Pretty much though you are in the territory of simply trying to round out your character, so its going to be pretty hard to go too wrong here. Anything you choose will be considered a bonus. Another thought is to think back over the course of the campaign so far. Have there been certain checks that were maybe not a staple of the campaign, but have been coming up every so often? Are these skills that are not really your forte? Buffing those up a bit isn't a bad thing. Basically, a lot of what you can choose now is simply dependent on your campaign and your group.
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Gargs454 said: "there been certain checks that were maybe not a staple of the campaign, but have been coming up every so often?"
Good question. Diplomacy is an obvious answer here (of the skills I don't have).
Another consideration here is that since I have craft wondrous item, I can actually craft a +2 headband for 2K, and simply customize it to max-out the skill of my choice. This is clearly NOT for day-to-day use, but if I wanted to (for example) go into clockwork creations in a big way, I could craft a headband +2 with craft (Clockwork devices) as the skill of choice. This would let me max out the skill without buying the skill.
But for "day to day adventure use" I DO want a good set of backup skills. Also, I'll eventually add charisma and wisdom bonuses to the item (probably wisdom first for the save bonuses).
Some of the other knowledge skills can be nice, especially local and religion.
Three ranks of acrobatics will give you a +6 to AC when doing a total defense. That may not sound like much but if you are into polymorphing, you can actually end up with a whopping AC. But max ranks? Perhaps not.
I would probably go UMD, and knowledge (whatever is the most common creature type for the campaign).
I personally love linguistics for the forgery aspect. I had and Alchemist/Rogue who used it with devastating effect in a kingdom building game. My group was able to take over a town and imprison the mayor/land-owner by replacing the original charter with a forgery and then calling the authenticity of the document into question. Bluff was very useful in that situation as I was the "expert" called in to validate the document (my forgery), which I exposed as a fake and blamed the Mayor for.
Gosh, I'll never forget the grin you had on your face when you proclaimed to the other players, "See! Linguistics is useful!" when you did that!
Based on this FAQ a headband should already grant you a specific language (as it grants ranks in a specific skill) per +2 of its bonus.
So a Headband of Vast Int +2 tied to Linguistics a would grant a bunch of languages from ranks AND another for raising your Int.
That definitely seems like an cool idea. Its like the Universal Translators found in many sci fi sources.
make sure it has a fish sticking out of your ear while you wear it. By the Power of Babel....