The Ultimate Skill-Monkey? (Skill-Rat?)

[Maragaram]

(I accidentally posted this in Q&A at first...)

Neverwinter Nights with its expansions includes 28 different skills. All but two are usable on Arelith (Craft Armor, Craft Weapon) . Three of the usable skills are generally considered unnecessary or mostly obsolete (Craft Trap, Parry, Ride), though they still have some use. Two of the remaining skills are restricted by class, because they represent mechanical abilities that are class features in PnP (Animal Empathy, Perform). That leaves 21 skills that are available to a non-Ranger/Druid/Bard, or 23 to a character who takes levels in those classes. Having Bluff would be made obsolete by having Perform, so let's just say 22 skills total. So what if a character were to take all of them...

Without a major reward, clearly the character is question would have to be a Human Rogue with 18 base INT and +2 from the INT Gift for 20, or a Sun Elf or Drow with 20 base INT and the Gift (same number of skill points, but the Human is less likely to get a Multiclassing Penalty). Assuming Human, adding to INT at every level-up and taking Great Intelligence feats whenever possible in Epic Levels would yield 30 INT by level 20... Multiclass into Druid for the Rat Totem Path gives another +4 INT, although you lose 20 points as a result, so it would be best to get the path ASAP at level 8. So that's 34 INT at level 28. Toss in five levels of Bard to have Discipline and take Perform instead of Bluff (for the better equipment), costing another 20 skill points... Then you have 8 pre-epic feats to use for Skill Focus (or alternatively for feats that add +2 to two skills, like Stealthy and Alertness. 1 remaining epic feat and 3 rogue bonuses feats taken in epic levels would allow 4 different Epic Skill Focus feats. Altogether, that's effectively at least another 64 skill points.

Actually, considering that each Epic Skill Focus feat is worth 10 skill points, it would make more sense to only use one feat for Great Intelligence, or maybe none at all. That would be worth another +30, more than raising Intelligence by another +4 would give. So ending at 30 INT instead, with an extra ability point at level 28 to go wherever. DEX, probably.

A character like this would end up with somewhere above 500 skill points, with the 8 Skill Focus and 7 Epic Skill Focus feats on top of that, which is effectively almost another 100 skill points (so long as they aren't being put into Tumble or UMD). Let's just call in an even 600, effectively. That's enough to have an effective 30 ranks in 20 skills, but it would make more sense to spread the skill points unevenly. Some skills - like Discipline, Hide, Move Silently, Spellcraft, Tumble, and UMD - would obviously get more in terms of actual skill points, while others like Lore can probably do with a bit less (the character will already speak Common + 10 learned languages + Thieves Cant + Animal, and Identifying items isn't that difficult). The character's Disable Traps skill would be insane, especially if given 33 ranks, Skill Focus, Epic Skill Focus, synergy bonus from Set Trap, 30+12 INT from equipment (a total+16 bonus to the skill), and skill bonuses on the equipment...

If the character was a Drow instead, dealt with a hefty ECL, sucked up the 40% multiclassing XP penalty, and sacrificed some epic skill focus feats for Great Intelligence ones, they could learn to communicate fluently in every language on Arelith, but that's a hefty price to pay. Better to leave that ability in the hands of nearly-pure male Drow Wizards with 3 levels in Ranger and Rogue (they don't get a multiclassing penalty!). A Sun Elf could nearly do it, but would miss out on Drow Sign Language. Or you could just cheat and be a Bard with high Lore, understanding everything but speaking almost nothing. Anyway...

So, a master thief/linguist/explorer with a silver tongue, hawk-like senses, reasonable defenses, the ability to use any item, the ability to cast a few minor spells, and a loyal rat companion. A bit physically crippled by taking the Totem Druid Path, but they can always just turn into a rat themselves to get around.

The only remaining question is... Is it actually playable?

(Also, I'm totally going to make A Sun Elf Wizard with the Gift of Languages at some point...)

[Ork]

With 22 skills, you need 726 skill points, and that's assuming they aren't crossclassed. Verdict? Impossible for mastery in all.

[Rystefn]

Except you really don't need to max out some of these skills to count as a master. What would you even do with 33 UMD, for example? Stick it on your gear, and you can use most things with 1. At 5 or 10, you could reasonably call yourself a master. Besides the original question isn't "can you master every skill?" it's "Is this skill-monkey concept viable?"

Personally, I think it risks being locked in from day one too much, and that always kills fun for me, which kills playability. The character might be flexible enough to be fun anyway, though. Assuming you don't mind some wizard half your levels popping out the familiar and showing you up, that is.

[Marsi]

i've always been fascinated by "skill-monkey" characters. The versatility is really neat.

[Maragaram]

Personally, I think it risks being locked in from day one too much, and that always kills fun for me, which kills playability. The character might be flexible enough to be fun anyway, though. Assuming you don't mind some wizard half your levels popping out the familiar and showing you up, that is.

And that is why I'm not sure that I personally could ever play this kind of character. I'd be too afraid of getting shown up by a Wizard and their familiar. The Wizard gets a pocket Rogue and even more Intelligence, enough to potentially be a true polyglot... and then high level buffs and utility spells on top of that. Plus, the Wizard can basically say "screw it" to every other attribute and take Gift of Humility for faster leveling. The bonus Great Intelligence feats make up for the lost INT anyway.

All I want is a character who can do everything...

[msterswrdsmn]

why no love for craft traps? Am I the only one who likes making tons of cheap traps at the drop of a hat?

Keep in mind the Arelith setting; there are some skills you don't need to max. Maxed UMD, for example, isn't going to be terribly neccessary on a low-magic-item server.

Theres also some skills that aren't going to be able to beat other players no matter what you do, even if you were a level 40 character. Your set traps score, for example, is added to a traps base DC to disarm. Even with a half-hearted investment, players can set epic traps with triple-digit DC's. Just to examine. Theres no amount of skillpoint buffing you can do with your disable traps to combat that.

Same thing with open locks; if someone really, really doesn't want you to get into their quarter, they'll raise the lock DC to a level thats unattainable for 95% of the server.

Its definetly possible to make a skill rat, but it takes a lot of good working knoweldge as to what niche each skill plays on the server. Doing everything you mentioned above to crank your INT up as high as possible is going to hurt your non-skillpoints areas as well (totem druid+18 int on creation will hurt your other stats quite a bit).

You'll need to figure out a way to either put your skills to use in combat (ex: set traps+taunt+bardsong+cursesong+summons?) to make up for your weaker combat prowress.

[Razmo_de]

And that is why I'm not sure that I personally could ever play this kind of character. I'd be too afraid of getting shown up by a Wizard and their familiar. The Wizard gets a pocket Rogue and even more Intelligence, enough to potentially be a true polyglot... and then high level buffs and utility spells on top of that. Plus, the Wizard can basically say "screw it" to every other attribute and take Gift of Humility for faster leveling. The bonus Great Intelligence feats make up for the lost INT anyway.

All I want is a character who can do everything...

Play a wizard, duh. Your familiar and spells make disable trap, open lock and hide (invis) oboslete.
Going wizard/ranger/rogue lets you use arcane and divine wands, so why UMD. Tumble has also surprisingly little benefit for a wizard. As does heal.
The only trick is to know with what skills you can do with less....
And don't give up on lore, there are quite some uses out there.