Skill Knowledge and Psychic Reformation

[bootzin]

Hey guys, so I'm trying to do something that I'm not sure it works..

I wanna use the feat Skill Knowledge to turn Iaijutsu Focus into a class skill, that way I can invest my full ranks on it. But then, I wanna use Psychic Reformation to change my feat, picking the feat I'd normally take. Is this possible?

My friends argued that when I lose Skill Knowledge, I lose all the benefits of the feat, which, of course, would be Iaijutsu as a Class skill. Thing is, they said I'd also be unable to keep the same amount of ranks that I had, is this true?

EDIT----

Additionally, suppose I got Factotum and put 4 ranks on Iaijutsu, but then I took Warblade, that doesn't have it as a class skill. Can I spend cross class ranks on it? I mean, increasssing it to 5? Or do I have to wait until I'm level 7 to increase it to 5?

[Flickerdart]

Your friends are wrong - the benefit of the feat only matters when assigning skill points. So you lose the benefit of treating Iaijutsu Focus as a class skill, but having something as a class skill only governs how new ranks are assigned to it. Ranks in a skill, once invested, are stuck.

There are rules (IIRC in the Apprentice feats) for how the skills they grant decay if the feat is lost, but those are not general rules.

For multiclassing, once you gain a class skill, its cap is always your level plus 3, but you would still have to spend double the skill points unless you gained them from a class that has the skill as a class skill. You may take Able Learner to get rid of that limitation, so Able Learner and a 1-level dip in Factotum will give you all skills as class skills forever (so the cap is raised and everything costs 1 point). Consider Human Paragon (any 10 skills as class skills and a bonus feat you can use on Able Learner) as another option.

[OldTrees1]

1)

RAW
Savage Species gives the Illithid Savant as an example of skill ranks exceeding skill rank maximums.
Psychic Reformation lets you rechoose skills/feats/...

Honestly I see lawyer positions arguing for and against your skill rank cap changing causing you to rechoose skill ranks invested after the feat was taken if they exceed the cross class cap. Thus the real question is "what will be your DM's ruling?" (note: not "what is your DM's interpretation?"). Specifically the word "can" could say "you may respend your points and they may be spent differently" or "you must respend your points and they may be spent differently". Honestly I would go with the second since it enforces self consistency in character builds.

2)
Class skill costs and cross class skill costs reference your current class.
Skill rank caps reference whether it has ever been a class skill for any of your existent class levels.
So a Factotum 1/Warblade X is has a Class Skill cap but purchases ranks at Cross Class costs.

[Troacctid]

The Skill Knowledge feat is designed to be used with a variant rule set (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/alternativeSkillSystems.htm) that does not use skill points at all. Under those rules, you are either trained or untrained. The feat makes you trained (max ranks in the skill); if you lost it, you would go back to being untrained (no ranks in the skill).

If I were adapting the feat into a normal game, I'd try to preserve that intent.