Skill Point Help

[questionmark693]

So what skills are worth taking? I enjoy taking UMD for obvious reason, Survival for roleplaying and food gathering, Hide and Move Silently when I can't win the combat version of an encounter, and Tumble for combat use.

What other skills are good choices and why?

Are my current choices less justified than I think they are?

[Calimehter]

Spot and Listen are good for avoiding ambushes and the surprise rounds that result from them.

In my experience, Survival is pretty cool at low levels, but tends to get less and less useful as you level up and start using magic for . . . well, everything that survival does. Depends on the magic level of your party and your campaign, of course.

Hide and Move Silently are a lot of fun and quite useful, but fulfilling the role of scout/sneak can really tie up your feat slots and WBL if you want to be good at it. Also, if the rest of your party doesn't have a lot of investment in these, you may find yourself splitting off from the party from time to time. They're great skills, but they are really character defining, so keep that in mind if you decide to invest in them.

Bluff, Diplomacy, and Sense Motive are fun for non combat encounters.

[eggynack]

What class are you in? It looks like rogue, but it's not an explicit thing, and survival isn't on the rogue list. In any case, ideal skill selection is generally class and build dependent. For example, survival is generally pretty mediocre, but I've been thinking about its applications on a druid for the weather prediction ability. Knowing when you should prepare call lightning or control winds for maximum effect seems nifty. The knowledge (nature) synergy bonus is pretty sweet on a druid as well. For another example, intimidation is a solid skill in the general sense, but it's even better on a barbarian, because they can do the whole intimidating rage thing. Skill lists are also obviously relevant.

[ArcturusV]

Well, Swim is usually something that, due to experience I know a lot of players just consider it a skill point Tax to put a few into it. It's one of those things you'll either never need... or you will need and if you don't have a few points in in it at least it's an Autodeath.

Gather Information is handy as it's basically "Summon: Plot" as a free SLA.

Bluff and Diplomacy and worth mentioning if you, personally, are someone who can think on their feet around the table and have the sort of timing and ability to make use of it. It's something where if you say "I roll Diplomacy" or "I roll bluff" as your action, expect your DM to smack you one way or another. If you can come up with something and say "(Idea/Character Actions) ... I should make a roll... bluff right?" after you have an idea, your DM is more likely to let you effectively autowin your way past something with it.

[SciChronic]

it depends on what your role in party is. If you're a caster, you can use things like silence and invisibility to cover sneaking.. and just about everything else for that matter, so just focus on skills that allow you to cast learn said spells, so spellcraft, knowledge arcana, concentration, etc.

if you're the skillmonkey, then you are also likely the scout of your group. so you want search and disable device to remove traps, and hide, move silently, spot and listen to scout, minimum.

UMD is a great thing to have if you have it as a class skill.

gather information, survival, and knowledge skills are great 1-point wonders if you need something to dump left over points

diplomacy, and sense motive are good for out-of-combat roleplaying situations.