Know-it-all Gnome

[Morithias]

I'm making more cohorts for a campaign that my friend is running, but due to him not wanting me to deploy more than one cohort to battle at a time (to prevent me stealing the spotlight, which is kinda already happening since the whole campaign revolves around my character's goal to take over the world). I've decided to make a "plot character" aka someone who can help advance the plot, by knowing anything the DM needs to tell us in character.

Basically a person who is good at one thing, and one thing only, maxing her knowledge skills to the upper levels.

Now the race is likely going to be gnome due to the feat "trivia knowledge" which lets you roll twice, but now I need help getting feats and class abilities that boost ALL knowledge checks, and not just some of them.

I will likely be using the "Master" class from dragonlance due to it's 8 skill points, and all knowledge skills as class skills, but this campaign is gestalt so if you have any other base classes feel free to point them out.

Prestige classes can be used on both sides of the build, so if you find two prestige classes that work, feel free to offer them both!

Templates that boost intelligence or knowledge will also be helpful.

To my knowledge there are the following knowledge skills.

arcana, engineering, dungeoneering, geography, history, local, nature, royalty, religion, planes, war

Which makes 11 skills I need to get to max ranks and give bonuses to.

Thanks for all the help!

[only1doug]

You know how awful truenamers are.......

This would appear to be the exception,

[Diovid]

For a non-gestalt game I came with a build something like:

Bard 4 to 6 / Marshal 0 or 1* / Dragonfire Adept 0 or 1** / Urban Savant 9 / Paragnostic Apostle 5

*For Motivate Intelligence
**For the Draconic Knowledge invocation, combines well with the Draconic Aura and Draconic Knowledge feats mentioned below because it gives the Dragontouched feat.

The bard variant used is Bardic Sage and it is a gnome of course which is probably old, has the absent minded trait and uses the collector of stories skill trick. In gestalt it could easily be optimized more of course.

Feats you might like (besides trivial knowledge which is a given):

Breadth of Knowledge (UA)
Favored (Cityscape, needed for Urban Savant)
Obscure Lore (Complete Adventurer)
Master of Knowledge (Heroes of Horror)
Knowledge Devotion (Complete Champion)
Draconic Aura, Insight (Dragon Magic)
Draconic Knowledge (Dragon Magic)
Gnome Lore / Gnomelore (some dragon magazine)

[Cieyrin]

Go Tinker Gnome for the Int boost.

[Morithias]

Go Tinker Gnome for the Int boost.

Good idea. Also update people.

Currently this is how the build has worked out. So far it's single side, just 10 levels of master (still looking over stuff for the other side).

For all knowledge skills

Ranks: 13
Assembly (Champion): 10
Intelligence mod: 6 (18+2 level +2 tinker gnome)
Book lot (stronghold): 1
Absent minded (trait): 1
Master of knowledge (feat):1
Gnomelore (feat): 1
Breadth of knowledge (feat): 1
Tinker gnome (racial): 2
master levels (compendence): 4

This comes to 13 + 10 +6 +1 +1+1+1+1+2+4 = 40 mod on all knowledge checks.

Taking 10 on our first check gives us 50, and if for some insane reason that isn't good enough, we can then use "Trivial Knowledge" to reroll and try for a higher number.

Our "Lore" knack from the Master comes to 1d20+22 (10 levels, 6 int, 4 obscure lore, +2 history), and we can double roll on it too.

Thanks for all the help people! I'm sure given a bit more work this girl will be able to tell you practically anything!

[rot42]

Factotum is lovely for skills, of course.

Ten levels of Binder (or eight and a feat) gives you Dantalion for +8 to all your knowledge checks. The vestige also grants a thought reading ability, a sanctuary-style ability, and a minor teleport - all useful for ferreting out the unknown. Your second bind could be Astaroth (online) for Bardic Knowledge (presumably redundant with Lore, but I have not looked at the Master class) and a floating item crafting feat.

The skill trick Master of Stories (Complete Scoundrel) gives a situational +5. A good synergy with the Dragonfire Adept suggestion above is the Primal Instinct spell from Dragon Magic for +5 to any knowledge skill; it is competence, but you are looking at nearly 30,000 gold to get items for all eleven of those skills so it might be worth a wand.