Specializing on pointless skills and feats?

[maniacalmojo]

Have you ever specialized in making the most and greatest possible use of a really stupid or under-powered feat and or skill? If so what did you do?

[Extra Anchovies]

Have you ever specialized in making the most and greatest possible use of a really stupid or under-powered feat and or skill? If so what did you do?

If I have some skill points left over, I often like to put a few ranks in something weird. I played a fighter once who had a few ranks in Handle Animal and Profession (Falconer). He also had a pet falcon, but we didn't have enough in-game downtime to do much with it.

Feats, however, are much too precious of a resource to spend on something pointless. Unless you're taking the Frail flaw in exchange for Improved Toughness just to mess with your DM's head.

[Thurbane]

Two words: Profession (masseuse)...

Thank you Arms & Equipment guide! :smallbiggrin:

[ben-zayb]

Oh yeah. Few mortal characters specializing in Forgery can come in handy on political/espionage/intrigue encounters.

[Frozen_Feet]

It's only pointless if you don't make good use of it!

Speaking as someone who made a Sacred Prostitute specializing in Perform (Sexual).

[Thurbane]

On a related note, in my entire 3.X gaming experience, I have seen precisely ONE player invest ranks in Use Rope.

[ben-zayb]

On a related note, in my entire 3.X gaming experience, I have seen precisely ONE player invest ranks in Use Rope.
It's actually pretty useful (in my experience) for interrogation and torture.

Also helps that you can make complex knots like the Double Overhand Figure-Eight Fisherman's Bird Glove

[nedz]

On a related note, in my entire 3.X gaming experience, I have seen precisely ONE player invest ranks in Use Rope.

I had a party of Dwarves use it quite a bit when they were exploring some old mines — if you're hauling your mate up a shaft the last thing you want is for the knot to fail. That said it's a low level thing — once you get Fly, or even Spider Climb, it's a bit pointless (a bit like Open Lock and Knock, or even a handy Barbarian).

[Dusk Eclipse]

If I have some skill points left over, I often like to put a few ranks in something weird. I played a fighter once who had a few ranks in Handle Animal and Profession (Falconer). He also had a pet falcon, but we didn't have enough in-game downtime to do much with it.

Feats, however, are much too precious of a resource to spend on something pointless. Unless you're taking the Frail flaw in exchange for Improved Toughness just to mess with your DM's head.

Skill points left over? Does not compute... seriously there hasn't been a single character in my whole gaming life where I haven't said... wish I had more skill points... and I usually play high int (14+) Humans.

[Extra Anchovies]

Skill points left over? Does not compute... seriously there hasn't been a single character in my whole gaming life where I haven't said... wish I had more skill points... and I usually play high int (14+) Humans.

I was playing a trip fighter and rolled really well for my ability scores. Human with an Int of 14 I think. Didn't really need skills for much of anything, so I just put 5 into each of the athletic skills, a few CC ranks into spot/listen, and didn't know what to do from there. It was a short game (levels 4-8 I think), so I didn't need to do much of any long-term planning.

[The Random NPC]

I used to always max out Profession (Gourmet Chef). I kept wanting it to come up, but it seems adventures don't eat so much as discard rations to stave off hunger. That's if they picked up rations in the first place.

[Warlocknthewind]

I one had a player in ny party use Prof: Gourmet Chef to make the finest meals out his finest kills.

A half-orc barbarian with it CC and a Wisdim score of 6 has some can really stretch the mean of the word "Gourmet".

[Seerow]

Skill points left over? Does not compute... seriously there hasn't been a single character in my whole gaming life where I haven't said... wish I had more skill points... and I usually play high int (14+) Humans.

So much this. I always build my characters to get as many skill points as possible, and always seem to fall short of what I want.

And when I say build characters with as many skill points as possible, I mean it. My most recently built character with the majority of levels in Paladin and still managed 7 roughly maxed out skills (And this is in a game where I'm expecting anywhere up between 2 and 6 additional trained skills from the GM's homebrew Guilds/Organization system).

[Thurbane]

I had a Half-orc Brb/Rng/Ftr who took ranks in Craft/Profession (taxidermy), as well as ranks in Heal, Knowledge (nature) and Survival. The DM I played under had a real thing about us not being able to skin or otherwise make trophies of monsters we killed, so I tried to max out every related skill I could think of to get around his preconceptions. Even took an artisans toolkit and masterwork "skinning knife". Happy to say, he finally let my character be a trophy collector.

[Seerow]

I had a Half-orc Brb/Rng/Ftr who took ranks in Craft/Profession (taxidermy), as well as ranks in Heal, Knowledge (nature) and Survival. The DM I played under had a real thing about us not being able to skin or otherwise make trophies of monsters we killed, so I tried to max out every related skill I could think of to get around his preconceptions. Even took an artisans toolkit and masterwork "skinning knife". Happy to say, he finally let my character be a trophy collector.

Hah I had a character a while back that did almost the exact same thing (actually may be picking the game he was in up again soon...), I had a lot of fun taking trophies from everything we came across and trying to think of new creative ways to incorporate them into weapons, armor, and other gear.

Don't forget there's also a feat out there... Trophy Collector or something like that. It's a pretty bad feat, but so fitting for that type of character.

[Thurbane]

Yep, fully intended to take that feat for the character, until I read just how little benefit it gives. Still a great fit thematically though.