| VarisianViscount |
The Orator feat allows substituting Linguistics for the Diplomacy, Bluff and Intimidate skills when influencing attitude and lying/concealing information. At the time it was written, it thus covered 1/3 of Diplomacy, 2/3* of Bluff and 1/2 of Intimidate; 4 out of 7 or slightly above half the skill applications.
*assuming concealing information refers to secret messages – otherwise it only covers 1/3 and part of the benefits does nothing.
The later released Spymaster's Handbook and Giant Hunter's Handbook added longer duration attitude influencing for Intimidate, feigning harmlessness and performing inconspicuous actions for Bluff, and the option to use Bluff and Diplomacy in concert to subtly bring a creature to think your suggestion was its own idea.
I'm pretty sure the longer duration Intimidate is covered by Orator and that inconspicuous actions and feigning harmlessness aren't, since they specifically refer to physical actions.
However, I'm on the edge on the suggesting course of action option, as it is clearly an application of verbal skill (which should logically be covered by Orator)**, but it isn't specifically called out by the feat (since the option didn't exist at the time of writing).
**you could even make an argument that you are influencing the attitude of a creature (toward a certain idea rather than yourself) and that you are lying about the source of the idea/concealing that it came from you.
Assuming both the additional Intimidate option and suggesting a course of action are covered by the feat, it would cover 2/4 Diplomacy, 3/5 Bluff, 2/3 Intimidate; 7 out of 12 or (still) slightly above half the skill applications.
So from a balance standpoint, there doesn't seem to be a problem: more skill ranks vs 2 feats for the same relative result. I'm just wondering about the rules interpretation.