UA's Skill Knowledge feat

[the Blue Morpho]

"Benefit

Choose any two skills from one of your current classes' skill lists. You now know these skills as class skills.

Special

Instead of choosing two class skills, you may choose one cross-class skill (whether you already know it or not) and learn it, treating it as a class skill from that point forward."


If I am reading this right, the feat would allow a rogue to always consider search and disable device class skills, regardless of multiclassing?

[Eonir]

The wording is strange, but that seems to be the intention.

[the Blue Morpho]

Yeah, at first I thought, "Man, who would take a feat that gives your class it's own class skills. Are they trying to see if we're paying attention?"

I guess this is a case of RAI superseding RAW.

[Larkas]

I've seen it thrown around that it would only work when using the respective rules variant, but IMHO there's nothing stopping you from using this feat in a regular game. Truth be told, though, it is much worse when not using the rules variant. IIRC, there were a couple of other feats that did more or less the same thing in a setting book or a Dragon Magazine, but I can't for the life of me remember where exactly they were :smallfrown:

EDIT: A quick search netted this thread (http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/90426-skill-knowledge-feat-ua.html). The aforementioned feats are both from 2nd party books, but make more sense in a regular game. As dcollins said there, under the variant system the Skill Knowledge feat is effectively giving you more skill points and automatic ranks in the skills selected, whereas in a regular game you are merely getting two or one class skills, which is barely worth a feat, IMHO. Anyways, the thread is a good read.

[the Blue Morpho]

If I ever run a game where a player wants to take the feat, but we are not using the variant, then I'd allow each of the two new class skills to recieve a free number of ranks equal to 1/2 ECL(rounded down to a minimum of 0)+3, at the level they took the feat. Note that Speak Language would not receive these free skill points.

So a 1st level Fighter that chose UMD and Tumble as his new class skills would also have 6 skill points divided equally between the two new skills; whereas an 18th level Fighter taking the choosing the same skills would have 24 skill points divided equally between the two.

[Thurbane]

The feat is presented in a section of UA that specifically deals with an alternate skill system, and is intended to be used with such.

However, most people are of the consensus that it works absolutely fine with the normal skill system as well...

[sreservoir]

The feat is presented in a section of UA that specifically deals with an alternate skill system, and is intended to be used with such.

However, most people are of the consensus that it works absolutely fine with the normal skill system as well...

well, it's not written in such a way that it requires the use of its alternate skill systems; nor does it call for the use of said systems.

[Larkas]

well, it's not written in such a way that it requires the use of its alternate skill systems; nor does it call for the use of said systems.

Indeed, but keep in mind that, outside said system, the feat is considerably weaker, as previously explained. Not a huge concern if you're not aiming for optimization, I guess :smallsmile:

[Slipperychicken]

If you're a Human or Doppelganger, why not just take Able Learner (http://dndtools.eu/feats/races-of-destiny--81/able-learner--16/) at first level? It does exactly what you want, only way better. The classic combo for "all skills as class skills forever" is one level of Factotum at first level + Able Learner, although it works similarly for any class skill list.

Remember, if a skill is a class skill for any of your classes, the maximum ranks is level + 3, although the cost is greater if you take the ranks cross-class. Able Learner makes the cost always 1, even if you multiclass, so that's a nice thing if you're all about the skills. If you're ALL about the skills, then you can take Factotum from 1 to 20 and call it a day. If you're a cheesy bastard, you get an Item Familiar and Cleric casting (via the Chameleon PrC or Cloistered Cleric) so you can have more skill points, toss around things like Weildskill and Guidance of the Avatar, and never fail a skill check ever again, in addition to being a caster and making many skill checks irrelevant.

[Thurbane]

well, it's not written in such a way that it requires the use of its alternate skill systems; nor does it call for the use of said systems.
True, but as with most other things, my advice would be "Check with your DM". :smallsmile:

[sreservoir]

True, but as with most other things, my advice would be "Check with your DM". :smallsmile:

well, that applies whenever you have a gm who hasn't explicitly allowed the material you're using, and doubly so since it's from ua.

[willpell]

Yeah, at first I thought, "Man, who would take a feat that gives your class it's own class skills. Are they trying to see if we're paying attention?"

I guess this is a case of RAI superseding RAW.

Not at all. What's going on is that if you previously had a level of, say, Wizard and you're now taking a level of Fighter, you take this feat and choose the skills Concentration or Spellcraft (or Decipher Script or Knowledge: Arcana or whatever else), and you can spend your Skill Points from your Fighter level on those skills instead of leaving them stuck until you take a wizard level again.

(Actually this feat would be great for a lot of my characters that have trouble with their multiclassing....)

By the way, Morpho (assuming you're still around), you probably figured this out yourself long ago, but just in case you haven't, I have an answer to This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=239706) question about the Dragon Shaman.

The Monster Manual lists skills for dragons in two places. There's a list of skills all dragons have, and Diplomacy is on that list. Then there's three skills listed under each individual dragon variety, and the Dragon Shamans get those skills if they choose that dragon as a totem. Choosing Gold gives you access to Heal, which is one of the three skills Gold dragons have the option of buying (you were probably looking at an example Gold that didn't have any ranks invested in that skill, but it is a legit choice for them, just not for dragons in general).

If you're still homebrewing new dragon shamans, I'd suggest you copy the general dragon skill list from the Monster Manual as well as that of the dragon turtle and all of the info on the dragon shaman, and try to come up with something that isn't redundant. I don't recall how the turtle works, but if there were no totems listed for one of the true dragons and you were making a list of three skills for that one, you wouldn't want to put Diplomacy on his list because every dragon already has that, nor would you want Climb, which no dragon has but every dragon shaman does. The various skills listed on the shaman's table already are likely choices, and very few remotely appropriate skills have not already been used this way at least once - the only ones I could find were Balance and a very arguable Handle Animal. On the other hand it can be interesting to find ones that are used sparingly and put them in new combinations, such as Gather Information and Hide, and come up with a new dragon and shaman that feels different from any of the existing options. This is what I'm doing in my campaign, where the players will meet a Shaman of a new dragon kind long before they meet the dragon itself.