Need to pick a skill

[Deaxsa]

Hey playground, i need some help with choosing skills. i have most of them picked out, but i have one skill remaining which i'm not sure where to put (and another soon). first off, you need to know about the houserules: A) i gain skill points retroactively when i gain a new odd even level of intelligence (otherwise is the same, i don't get skillpopints for wearing a headband of intellect or anything), B) almost every skill is open for any character, and C) hide+ms have been merged, and so have spot+listen.

now i am playing a focused transmuter (banning evoc, ench, and necro) 3/master specialist 4. since i'm 7th level, and currently have 21 INT, i'll have another skill to rank next level.

these are the skills i have ranked so far:

Bluff
Concentrate
Disguise
K. Arcana
K. Planes
Spellcraft

the idea is that i'm a CC mage who will double as the party's face (even if i have to lie to be good at it).

now, i have 1 (soon to be two) skills to pick out. these are my candidates:

-Awareness (let's be honest, these checks come up all the time, in every game. also, i have a familiar, so free +2)
-Stealth (i can cast invisibility, but will never have it prepared, honestly, and this could make for a great escape using polymorph)
-Search (with +5 from int, and no one else in the party ranking this, it could fill a gap very well. however, does not work very well with my character)
-S. motive (for the enhanced social prowess: not only will i be able to lie, i'll be able to tell when someone is lying to me!)
-Sleight of hand (to go all out on social trickery... besides, if i were to polymorph into a high dex form, this would be rather easy to pull off. also, could be useful nicking items/hair clippings for scrying)

relevant bits: my stats are 8/12/14/21/12/14 and i'm a tiefling. it's a new(ish) DM and our party has had some trouble with deaths in the past, so the dm is allowing polymorph cheese as kindof an "insurance policy" if someone really messes up, whether it's a player or the dm. also so i can cast alter self on myself for huuuge disguise bonuses (if i somehow lose my hat)

[Draz74]

I'd go with Awareness or Sense Motive, but really it comes down to character preference.

[Deaxsa]

I'd go with Awareness or Sense Motive, but really it comes down to character preference.

no offense, but can you give me a reason why? i'm looking for ammunition with which to down all but two of the skills, so i can pick those.

[Deaxsa]

any other thoughts?

[The Viscount]

Awareness applies a lot of times more frequently than other skills if you're expecting much combat. If your houserule works like that, will your familiar also gain bonus skill points for increasing int score?

[Barsoom]

Don't forget your familiar shares your skill ranks, so if you take Sleight of Hand, he can pilfer stuff for you. And awareness, as others mentioned, is always good, you can never go wrong with "not being surprised".

[Deaxsa]

Don't forget your familiar shares your skill ranks, so if you take Sleight of Hand, he can pilfer stuff for you. And awareness, as others mentioned, is always good, you can never go wrong with "not being surprised".

best mental image ever! (i have a viper familiar)

thanks for pointing out i have a familiar, lol i totally forgot about that >.<
also, if the familiar is on me, do we both get spot checks as WELL as the bonus to spot checks? (if in a social situation, do we both get to make sense motive checks?)

edit: also, is there a place where i can look at other familiar options? none of the other options on the SRD appeal to me (beyond maybe weasel or owl/hawk). for instance, a monkey is a tiny animal, and shocker lizards and pseudodragons both talk about how they are sometimes used as familiars. is there any place where the bonus is listed for those animals?

forget what i said, owls are officially AWESOME

[Draz74]

Your familiar does not get a Spot bonus from the Alertness feat it grants you. It gets to use your ranks in Spot, but not other Spot bonuses you may have.

By RAW, yes, you can have your familiar constantly helping you make Spot and Sense Motive checks. Some DMs may not approve.

Shocker Lizards, Pseudodragons, Imps, and other familiars are accessed through the Improved Familiar feat. They don't give you a bonus like the default familiars do; instead, they have magical abilities of their own.

Some other sources (Dragon Magazine is the only one I can think of off the top of my head) have listed other animals that can be used as familiars without Improved Familiar, however.

You say you have a viper familiar, then you say none of the Core familiar options suit you. I'm confused.

[Devils_Advocate]

Personally, I'd start sticking 1 skill rank each into Trained Only skills, particularly the Intelligence-based ones. Think about it: Which is a better use of a skill point, increasing a skill modifier by 1, or granting you a +7 modifier in a previously unusable skill? Several skills give synergy bonuses for having 5 ranks in them, too, so that's another incentive not to put all of your eggs in one basket, as they say.

But if you're set on just picking up one new skill (or your group house-rules all skills to be usable untrained), it's probably most useful to get something that no other member of your party is good at, rather than something redundant. Two successful checks on a skill are often no better than one. Stealth is an exception, though, being instead a skill where one failure is often no better than two.

If no one else is covering Sense Motive, that would certainly be a good choice for a social character. Probably someone else already has good Awareness.