Building a non-com PC.

[G.Cube]

I'm entertaining the idea of bu ilding a full blown skill baased non-combatant character. What are some neat or essential feats, prcs, and tricks that would work well with such a character? Slight cheese is welcome.
As a side question, is the anyway around the level plus three skill point limit?

[Malroth]

CN Bard 2, Warlock 1, Marshal 1, Binder 1, Mind bender1, Anima mage X convince anything with an INT score to be your fanatical minion as a full round action.

[Pesimismrocks]

I play one of these without cheese. Illumians as a race are good, Uurnaen with enhanced sigils at level 2 (ECL3) get +3 to all Int and Dex. Factotum Brains before Brawn grants INT to all Str and Dex based Skills. Keen intellect makes all wis based skills Int based as well as will. Therefore if you max int to the limit you'll have an awesome skillmonkey. Int of 20 without ranks means
+5 to all Str
+8 to all Dex
+8 to all Int
+8 to all Wis
Lots of fun. Take Faerie Mysteries Initiate for Int SADness.

[BowStreetRunner]

I've always wanted to figure out a way to combine Emissary of Barachiel, Evangelist, and Exemplar into some sort of ridiculous diplomancer-type missionary. I just haven't had the time for something I always felt would end up being essentially a non-combatant. If you do try it and find a way to make it work, I would love to know the result.

[G.Cube]

I play one of these without cheese. Illumians as a race are good, Uurnaen with enhanced sigils at level 2 (ECL3) get +3 to all Int and Dex. Factotum Brains before Brawn grants INT to all Str and Dex based Skills. Keen intellect makes all wis based skills Int based as well as will. Therefore if you max int to the limit you'll have an awesome skillmonkey. Int of 20 without ranks means
+5 to all Str
+8 to all Dex
+8 to all Int
+8 to all Wis
Lots of fun. Take Faerie Mysteries Initiate for Int SADness.

This is so cool!

As a side note, looking to stay away from diplomancers and one trick classes, I want to be able to use all of my skills.

[BowStreetRunner]

As a side note, looking to stay away from diplomancers and one trick classes, I want to be able to use all of my skills.
Well, the other non-combatant PrC I have always been interested in playing is a Gatecrasher (MP 26). If you find yourself in a game with lots of planar travel going on, this could be an essential skill-monkey class.

[Slipperychicken]

This is so cool!

As a side note, looking to stay away from diplomancers and one trick classes, I want to be able to use all of my skills.

I've had good experiences with Factotum; between the skills, the intelligence-focus, the casting, and the energy-channeling, the class gives you a pretty big toolbox to deal with any problem. The +level per skill per day thing is really nice, and makes it worthwhile to splash some skillpoints into rarely-used skills like Forgery or even Profession (Executioner) for when you desperately need to CDG someone.

Also, rocking the whole Sorc/Wizard list up to level 7 (without needing to learn the spell first, mind you) means you get to prep some pretty obscure utility spells, especially if you aren't worried about being a good combatant. Since the SLA thing is supposed to mimic spell-preparation, see if your DM will let you do the thing where you leave spell slots open to be prepared in the middle of the day. That would basically allow you to access any Sorc/Wiz spell when you have 15 minutes to burn.

[The Glyphstone]

What level of 'non-combatant' are you looking for? Technical Pacifism is very different from true pacifism, and the former is far easier to accomplish. D&D is, like it or not, a game where almost all advancement comes from beating/killing things (and taking their stuff), and it's very unlikely the rest of the party will be equally pacifistic, so you'll end up at loggerheads if you're too inflexible.

Obviously, dealing offensive direct damage to enemies isn't okay.
Are spells that reactively harm people hurting you okay?
Is summoning minions to hurt people for you okay?
Is buffing allies who are willing to hurt people okay?
Is debuffing/disabling enemies to make it easier for people to hurt them okay?
Is healing/shielding allies who got injured hurting people okay?

Being a skillmonkey is great, every party can use one. What you don't want to end up as is the guy who goes for a Cheetos break every time a fight breaks out and doesn't come back till it's over.

[G.Cube]

What level of 'non-combatant' are you looking for? Technical Pacifism is very different from true pacifism, and the former is far easier to accomplish. D&D is, like it or not, a game where almost all advancement comes from beating/killing things (and taking their stuff), and it's very unlikely the rest of the party will be equally pacifistic, so you'll end up at loggerheads if you're too inflexible.

Obviously, dealing offensive direct damage to enemies isn't okay.
Are spells that reactively harm people hurting you okay?
Is summoning minions to hurt people for you okay?
Is buffing allies who are willing to hurt people okay?
Is debuffing/disabling enemies to make it easier for people to hurt them okay?
Is healing/shielding allies who got injured hurting people okay?

Being a skillmonkey is great, every party can use one. What you don't want to end up as is the guy who goes for a Cheetos break every time a fight breaks out and doesn't come back till it's over.


By non-combatant I mean putting every resource I have available towards skills. The character in question would have no problem harming a threat, I just don't want to put forth any effort whatsoever at being more combat efficient.

[Piggy Knowles]

I've always wanted to play a Vigilant Sentinel of Aerenal (Magic of Eberron), with a boss Sense Motive check to use with Thought Theft. Thought Theft lets you detect surface thoughts with no save, as long as you can hit a Sense Motive DC of 10 + creature's HD + creature's Cha mod.

I would really enjoy playing an infiltrator-type with this class, something like...

Half-Elf Bard 7/Egoist 1/Vigilant Sentinel of Aerenal 3/Sublime Chord 1/Unseen Seer 8

(That's probably needlessly messy, I'm just spitballing at this point.)

Egoist would use the Mind's Eye ACF that gives him Change Shape as a changeling in place of the bonus feat. It would also give him access to Chameleon, a pretty solid utility power, as well as the ability to pick up Inquisitor, a feat that lets me blow my psionic focus for a +10 to Sense Motive checks.

Bard would include the Soothing Voice ACF (spend a bardic music use for Calm Emotions, DC = your diplomacy check), and maybe Inspire Awe instead of Inspire Courage for fear stacking, since I won't have that great of an Inspire Courage boost anyhow.

Vigilant Sentinel of Aerenal gives me permanent Nondetection, a solid disguise bonus that stacks with Change Shape, and the above-mentioned Thought Theft.

Sublime Chord/Unseen Seer should be self-explanatory.

Other fun feats would include Master Manipulator, for the ability to discover someone is lying and then force them to accidentally reveal the truth, and maybe Wanderer's Diplomacy, for the ability to make Bluff checks in place of Diplomacy as a Standard action (without taking the usual penalty).

Disguise yourself as anything, get into anywhere, read people's thoughts without a save, trick them into revealing anything you want, prevent people from attacking you walk out alive anywhere you go. Plus, you'll be casting 9th-level spells and have sneak attack on top of that.

[kulosle]

Piggy Knowles thanks for telling me about Vigilant Sentinel of Aerenal. Good class. Also give you sneak attack without first needing sneak attack. That's very rare. Good use for sense motive.

[Nettlekid]

I played a very dippy Factotum that worked well. The whole build was Changeling Rogue 1/Factotum 5 (scattered around to get class skills at the right time)/Marshal 1/Mindbender 1/Warblade 1/Shadowdancer 1/Exemplar 1. The Shadowdancer might not be ideal, but I wanted Hide in Plain Sight. Depending on the allocation of skills you could be social, but this guy wasn't (except for a good Bluff) instead focusing on Hide and Move Silently, with a Ring of Invisibility and Darkstalker to be pretty much entirely undetectable. With Mindbender and Mindsight I was a fantastic scout, though I was very much a double-dealer who would telepathically communicate with my enemies to see if selling out my allies would be convenient for me. I was pretty useless in combat, but with that Warblade dip I got access to Iron Heart Surge (great for getting rid of party-wide enfeebling effects like Solid Fog) and White Raven Tactics which let our party DPS be twice as effective. It was a very fun and useful character, and never lived up to his full potential because my DM was a bit one-dimensional and didn't have a lot of intrigue, so the secrets I learned didn't end up coming into play.

[theIrkin]

in regards to your question about breaking the lvl+3 ranks: if your game allows it, take item familiar from unearthed arcana. here's why:

-you can invest skill ranks into it
-each rank invested works normally, unless you lose your item. then you lose those ranks (and a bunch of other bad things happen)
-for every 3 ranks invested, you gain a +1 untyped bonus to a skill of your choice

pretty boss, just make absolutely sure your DM is okay with item familiars. i don't think they're OP, mostly because it's a loss of a feat and your character ends up revolving around it (and god help you if you ever lose it...), but the consensus on here is that they're character breaking.

[Nettlekid]

Also, with regard to beating 3+level skill ranks, technically taking Bloodline Levels (also from UA) should work. And the way Bloodline Levels work is that if you had a major bloodline, you could be level 1, and when you have 1000 XP to level up, you instead gain a Bloodline Level. Still level 1, so leveling up still costs 1000 XP, so you do it twice more to get the three Bloodline Levels. You're now only one level behind your allies, getting closer all the time because of the level gap (XP being a river and all), and at higher levels the difference is negligible. But technically, although Bloodline Levels don't raise your ECL, they count toward level-dependent effects (like caster level, number of times Bards can use Bardic Music or Monks can use Stunning Fist, etc), and specifically states that it counts as a normal class level (with no class skills or skill points) for the purpose of maximum skill ranks. So, if you start at level 10 or something, then even losing out on 3000 XP, you're still at level 10 too. But your max skill rank is actually 6+level, since those three Bloodline Levels add to it.

Be warned that Bloodline Levels are really cheesy and the way they work is often argued, and I expect a big debate will spring up as a result of me mentioning them.

[Fyermind]

There is a single feat which grants a bonus rank in a single skill and cannot be taken more than once. The skill in which the bonus rank is taken has it's maximum ranks forever increased by 1. The feat is in Cityscape called Primary Contact and requires another feat (Favored) as well as membership in some sort of organization.

[kulosle]

Primary contact does not up the skill cap, it simply puts one rank into any skill you choose and can, if you already had max ranks, break the limit. so the next time you level up, you can not put another point in it. The skill is only above the normal limit for one level. Now you can chaos shuffle thinks around so that you can enter into a class that has only 1 high rank requirement, one level sooner, but that is it. And there are very few good classes that only want one skill at 8 ranks, usually they want 2 or more. So this trick isn't actually that useful.

Blood lines are confusing, there is a guide (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7167) on them. Pretty good. But yes they do up the skill cap, for an xp cost, by a maximum of 3.