Skill Increases

[Crexis]

As a fighter I get skill increases at level 3, 5, 7 etc. I have about 6 skills that I'm 'trained' in.

How many skills can I move to 'expert' at level 3? 5? 7?

[Eltacolibre]

Skill increase as described at the beginning of the classes chapter increase by one skill only.

Until level 7, no skills can increase beyond expert. At level 7 you can increase a skill to Master and Level 15 can increase the skill to legendary.

So at level 3,5,7, you can increase 3 trained skills to expert.

[Crexis]

Thanks!

At level 7 I can move one expertly trained skill to master right?

[Eltacolibre]

Yes, correct so you could do:

1 master (2 increases from trained), 1 expert skill by level 7.

[Crexis]

If at level 5 I give my int an ability boost. Do I then get to add 1 more skill to 'trained' status?

[David knott 242]

Yes.

[Laithoron]

Are there any options to manually gain a skill increase outside the ones granted at odd levels? Feels like something there might be a skill feat for, but I'm not seeing anything...

[Deadmanwalking]

There are very few ways to get Skills above Trained outside the automatic stuff from leveling, though the Multiclass Rogue Feat 'Skill Mastery' does it.

[Captain Morgan]

The human Skilled Heritage does it as well.

[Claxon]

Generally speaking, barring specific exceptions, you can only "fully invest" in 3 skills (unless you're a rogue). If you look at (I think) every class except rogue they get 3 skill increases in the 15 to 20 range which is the real break point for improving skills from master to legendary.

So from level 1 - 6 most classes can increase 2 skills from trained to expert. And from level 7 to 15 you get 4 skill increases that could move a skill from expert to master. But it unlikely you got a skill to expert another way, so you will spend 1 of those upgrading a trained skill to expert.

And so you will upgrade 3 skills all the way from trained to legendary over a 20 level career.

[Laithoron]

Thanks for the break-down, Claxon, and for the pointers, DMW & Cap'n!

[Claxon]

Rogue is the one major exception I can think of, which gets a skill increase at ever level, and can have 5 skills be legendary.

There are also a few ways to get skills at expert instead of trained without using class skill increases, so you could potentially have 3 legendary skills and 1 master, and a potentially very large pool of trained skills.

It's important to look at skill usage and what's restricted to trained only though. Because there are many uses of skills that aren't restricted to trained use, and with the Untrained Improvisation feat you effectively get a bonus to it as though you were trained (technically 2 less but it's really good for at least having a chance at anything, and lets you AID with a chance of success).