Do Robots Dream of Electric Skill Points?

[unseenmage]

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to determine the cheapest method for allowing a single Effigy to succeed at a single skill check for each of it's stats at DC5, DC10, DC15, DC20, DC25, and DC30.

My difficulty is that there are so many avenues to achieve this goal that I'm getting lost trying to process them all.
Depending on the DC an Effigy needs to be able to make it is sometimes cheaper to simply increase their Int rather than the relevant stat. But not always.


An Rudimentary Intelligence (D327pg73) Intelligent Effigy has +4 Str, -2 Dex, Int 6 (min) Wis 11 and Cha 1.

Rudimentary Intelligence costs me 8,000gp, a 1 HD, medium Effigy costs 4,000gp for a MP of 12,000gp. This is our base creature.
The Effigy needs to be able to perform it's duties as a replacement for a salaried servant in my stronghold as per the Staff listings in SBG.
I would prefer to keep them at 1 RHD but if it's cheaper I will definitely spring for the higher RHD creature.


Options:
- 5,000gp for +2 to a single stat (via PF modification)
- 10,000gp for Open Minded and 5 skill points (can be taken multiple times but still limited by max ranks)
- 2,000gp for additional RHD at creation (grants higher max ranks/more skill feats, as per Effigy template)
- 2,000gp for additional HD up to 50% of it's total RHD (as above, the cheapest 1 RHD base gains nothing from this though, also PF)
- Unslotted Skill boost item.
- Several Skill boost items with different types of bonuses.
- Just mass producing oils of skill buff

- whatever I havn't thought of yet

Access to:
- custom magic items
- feats in items
- combining wondrous items
- combining wondrous items with constructs
- any 3.0, 3.5, PF, and 3rd party within reason.


Thanks regardless Playground. Sleep deprivation is eating my brain and I'm supposed to have this figured before tomorrow when the stronghold will begin construction.


Edit: Since posting this I've typed up a great big spreadsheet with some of the relevant costs on it and I've decided that item and spell enhancements for the Effigys will be built into them.
Though this makes the cost of a given Effigy prohibitive they are intended to be purchased with a Stronghold so the cost is less by comparison.

For now each Effigy is taking Skill Knowledge at 1st HD to make the x-class skill they're trying to be good at a class skill.
At 3rd HD they're taking Skill Focus because that reduces cost of the built-in Competence bonus item.
For Effigys who need to be good at 2 or more skills they either gate more HD and take Skill Knowledge again or Skill Knowledge is simply built-in to them. Whichever is cheaper (Skill Knowledge is 10,000gp flat out and additional HD are 2,000gp apiece).

[thethird]

Bestiary of Krinn has sacred guardian, I expect that 3rd party approved by WotC is within reason, it sets INT at 10 if the construct doesn't have any, and raises WIS and CHA by 4 or to 12 if it would be lower.

it only costs a 1000 gp per size category which isn't extremely expensive.

[Spuddles]

Custom magic items? Why not an item of at will Guidance of the Avatar? +20 on a skill check.

[Maginomicon]

Custom magic items? Why not an item of at will Guidance of the Avatar? +20 on a skill check.
Guidance of the Avatar doesn't let you count a skill as trained, thus for knowledge skills you can only succeed at DCs of 10 or less and for several skills you can't attempt it untrained at all.

[unseenmage]

Bestiary of Krinn has sacred guardian, I expect that 3rd party approved by WotC is within reason, it sets INT at 10 if the construct doesn't have any, and raises WIS and CHA by 4 or to 12 if it would be lower.

it only costs a 1000 gp per size category which isn't extremely expensive.

These are perfect for the Craft Temple to Gond. Thank you, I'd completely forgotten them; and never really realized it was a construct template.

But for the character's personal tower I'm still rather partial to the idea of building skill monkeys. (possibly literally, I found the monkey and flying monkey stats today and almost couldn't resist the joke.)

[Wings of Peace]

The racial subtype ritual from Savage Species should allow the Effigy to take a level in Human Paragon which not only grants a hardy number of skillpoints but also grants the very nice Adaptive Learning feature.

[Spuddles]

Guidance of the Avatar doesn't let you count a skill as trained, thus for knowledge skills you can only succeed at DCs of 10 or less and for several skills you can't attempt it untrained at all.

Lore of the Gods, Complete Champion.

[Maginomicon]

Lore of the Gods, Complete Champion.Well if you're going to go that route, use Anamensis.
Anamensis

Divination
Level: Bard 3, Sorcerer/Wizard 4
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 hour/level or until discharged (D)

By casting this spell you tap into the musings of some alien collective memory. For the duration of the spell you can perform any Knowledge skill check untrained and can make one Knowledge check with at +10 bonus. If you have the bardic knowledge ability or a similar class ability, the +10 bonus can apply to that check instead. This bonus can only be applied once, as a free action, at any time during the duration of this spell. Once the Knowledge bonus is used the spell ends.

For as long as this spell is in effect, however, you perceive noises – echoing hums, clicks, and complex rhythms – just at the edges of your senses, as if some outside intelligence were trying to communicate with you. For as long as this spell is in effect you take a -4 penalty on all Will saves. Spell weavers are not subject to this penalty.

You cannot have more than one anamensis active at the same time.

[Verditude]

You can buy Open Minded, can you buy other feats? Jack of All Trades (CAdv) may be of use, although it requires Int 13.

[Vaz]

The racial subtype ritual from Savage Species should allow the Effigy to take a level in Human Paragon which not only grants a hardy number of skillpoints but also grants the very nice Adaptive Learning feature.

Doesn't work. Only occurs for Magic Item usage; i.e "a Dwarf wielding this weapon..." etc.

[unseenmage]

You can buy Open Minded, can you buy other feats? Jack of All Trades (CAdv) may be of use, although it requires Int 13.

Yes I can buy other feats as well. 10,000gp +5,000gp per prerequisite.

[Slipperychicken]

Why not just pay a servant? It's almost certainly going to be cheaper than a robot that costs upward of 20 grand.

[unseenmage]

Why not just pay a servant? It's almost certainly going to be cheaper than a robot that costs upward of 20 grand.

Why not just buy a robot? It's almost certainly going to be cooler than a servant that costs downward of 20 small per month?

But yeah, I know servants are cheaper. That isn't the point. Discerning exactly how much cheaper, paying once and never again, and lumping the cost of the robots into the stronghold's cost are what I'm after.

I suspect the answer to my riddle is that the original Effigy's RHD should be higher than 1 so I have access to higher max ranks, more SP, and more feats.

I think that putting skill buffs and feats into a lower HD construct is more expensive than just starting with a higher RHD creature in the first place. But I'm not sure. Even with the Sacred Guardian template I need to solve the riddle as Sacred Guardians still only get 10-12 Int, not enough to hit those higher DCs.

I could really use a more rules-savvy, more math-savvy answer to reassure me before I start hammering away at the numbers again.

[unseenmage]

Do we know any more skill boosting feats than what I've found?

I've found the magic number where the RHD are more expensive than the built in Competence bonus.
It hovers somewhere between my Effigys hitting DC 20 and DC 25.
Generally speaking so long as the built in Competence bonus is 5 or less it's cheaper than RHD somehow.


Now my problem is finding Skill boosting feats for all those RHD.
- Skill Knowledge from UA lets them have a x-class skill as a class skill which is immensely helpful.
- Skill Focus lets me either drop 3 RHD or 3 points of built-in Competence bonus. Whichever's cheaper.
- Shape Soulmeld (Lucky Dice) could get them a +1 luck bonus too if Sacred Guardian Effigies qualify for Incarnum stuff.

But that's all I've got. My base creature can have up to 15 HD and I've only filled maybe half it's feat slots if it's focusing on hitting a single DC 40 check regularly.

[Vaz]

Would Item Familiar count?

[Chronos]

Wait, if the challenge is just "...a single skill for each of its stats", then can't we just choose a skill for each that can be used untrained? Then just cast spells on it that give big plusses to those skills. Total cost: None above the base cost of the effigy.

[unseenmage]

Would Item Familiar count?

That depends, how does it stack up against Skill Focus?


Wait, if the challenge is just "...a single skill for each of its stats", then can't we just choose a skill for each that can be used untrained? Then just cast spells on it that give big plusses to those skills. Total cost: None above the base cost of the effigy.

Sure can, esp if you give me a source and price for the application of said skills to the base Effigy.
Falls under the,
- whatever I havn't thought of yet part of the OP.

For now though I'm trying to only build skill bonuses and spells INTO the Effigy itself. Treating the Effigy as if it were a Magic Item for that purpose.
I'll edit the OP to reflect this change.

[Chronos]

Sure can, esp if you give me a source and price for the application of said skills to the base Effigy.
If the skills are untrained, then why would you need to "apply" them? Any creature with a Strength score can make a jump check, and any creature with a Wis score can make a spot check.

Or do you mean the bonuses? Those just require casting the appropriate spells, which if you can make effigies, you can almost certainly do yourself for free.

[unseenmage]

If the skills are untrained, then why would you need to "apply" them? Any creature with a Strength score can make a jump check, and any creature with a Wis score can make a spot check.

Getting an Effigy to hit a DC 25,30, or 40 check is hard. Really hard with Cha based skills.


Or do you mean the bonuses? Those just require casting the appropriate spells, which if you can make effigies, you can almost certainly do yourself for free.

Artificer's can't cast spells. Even when they emulate spells it's just for item crafting, which doesn't do the Effigy much good as it stands there in whatever situation the skill was meant to be used in, waiting for it's master to craft it a skill boost.
Of course the Artificer could still make the relevant skill-spell item beforehand but it's just simpler to my mind to build it into the Effigy and be done with it. Though with Item Familiar now in the works it looks like I'm going to have a misc magic item for each Effigy anyway.

(Though the image of an Int Effigy standing impatiently tapping it's foot while is hilarious to me for some reason.)