Swiftblade Skill monkey

[Masakan]

While not ideal can swiftblade be used in a skillmonkey build?

[DarkSonic1337]

Well, you can get into it with an int focused casting class like Wizard or Beguiler but...it's class skills aren't amazing for a skill monkey (grabbing able learner and a dip of Factotum helps though).

Of course since you're a caster there's still just bypassing skill challenges with the appropriate magic but...at that point you're not really a skill monkey.

[Masakan]

Well, you can get into it with an int focused casting class like Wizard or Beguiler but...it's class skills aren't amazing for a skill monkey (grabbing able learner and a dip of Factotum helps though).

Of course since you're a caster there's still just bypassing skill challenges with the appropriate magic but...at that point you're not really a skill monkey.

I was thinking more along the lines of multiclassing using either Rouge/wizard as a base or just a straight bard. Both would take about the same ammount of time.

[nedz]

Changeling Rogue 1 / Beguiler or Wizard 4 / Unseen Seer 2 / Swiftblade 10 / Unseen Seer +3 might work
BAB 15, 15th level casting, 4d6 sneak
But you are a bit poor for a Gish — normally you'd want BAB 16 and 9th level spells.
Being able to cast 2 spells a round is excellent

Shooting Star Mystic Ranger 6 / Swiftblade 10 / X 4
With Sword of the Arcane Order, and probably Able Learner
is Full BAB and a reasonable spellcaster with fairly good skills.

Very MAD; but is a multi-threat character.

[Masakan]

Changeling Rogue 1 / Beguiler or Wizard 4 / Unseen Seer 2 / Swiftblade 10 / Unseen Seer +3 might work
BAB 15, 15th level casting, 4d6 sneak
But you are a bit poor for a Gish — normally you'd want BAB 16 and 9th level spells.
Being able to cast 2 spells a round is excellent

Shooting Star Mystic Ranger 6 / Swiftblade 10 / X 4
With Sword of the Arcane Order, and probably Able Learner
is Full BAB and a reasonable spellcaster with fairly good skills.

Very MAD; but is a multi-threat character.
It's always been my personal belief that the 16 BaB and 9th Level thing isn't actually a gish, but a Spellcaster that knows how to use a sword.
I would also like to note that if you are using the ToB for a warrior base, the rules for gishing tend to change drastically.
But yeah Swiftblade can be used in a good skill monkey build that's all i needed to know.

[sleepyphoenixx]

It's always been my personal belief that the 16 BaB and 9th Level thing isn't actually a gish, but a Spellcaster that knows how to use a sword.
I would also like to note that if you are using the ToB for a warrior base, the rules for gishing tend to change drastically.
But yeah Swiftblade can be used in a good skill monkey build that's all i needed to know.

"Spellcaster that knows how to use a sword" is pretty much the definition of gish. The less you sacrifice from either side the better a gish you are.

And a ToB gish still has the same requirements - as high a BAB and casting progression as possible, with the addendum that you want to take initiator levels at a certain ECL to get the maneuvers you want. The only difference is that a martial adept doesn't need pounce or another method to get full attacks after movement to maximize effectiveness.

That said, you can make a somewhat passable skillmonkey with Swiftblade levels, but not a very good one. You'd probably be better off going for caster & skllmonkey or warrior & skillmonkey, not all three.
You're just losing to much casting progression to really be good at it, your skills suffer from the fact that the good gish PrCs don't grant much skill points and your role as a warrior is handycapped by a lack of BAB, meaning you make less attacks and miss more often.

All of those problems are made worse because you also have to split your feats among the three roles on a build that's already losing 2 feats for useless prerequisites.
You'll also be heavily MAD, with requirements for feats like Power Attack and Dodge that need Str and Dex competing with Int for casting and skills and the Con you'll want to shore up your small HD.

And that's before the requirement to get damage from somewhere. Strength is the easiest, but it only adds to one of your roles. You can take Arcane Strike, but your slow casting progression means you have less spells to sacrifice for your attacks. Getting Dex to damage requires feats, and to get the additional attacks to make up for the disadvantage of Dex vs Str you'll need even more for TWF. The same applies to Sneak Attack, which not only demands more attacks but will also greatly benefit from (at least) Craven.
Being a gish isn't much good if your attacks do no damage.

Cloistered Clerics can pull off the warrior/skillmonkey/full caster trifecta a lot better, mainly because of DMM:Persist and Divine Power.
A single level dip into rogue and Able Learner is pretty much all you need.

An arcane character, and especially a Swiftblade, just ends up being a jack of all trades - master of none type in a game that heavily favors specialization.
You can get away with it if your group isn't particularly optimized, but it's not a very elegant or effective build.

[Rubik]

16 BAB isn't required for gishing; however, you do need ways to make up for a lower base attack bonus.

Psychic warrior 20, for instance, is an excellent psionic gish, and it has medium BAB. It makes up for the slightly lower numbers with powers that boost its attacks and give it far more attacks than basic BAB ever could.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Well, you can get into it with an int focused casting class like Wizard or Beguiler but...it's class skills aren't amazing for a skill monkey (grabbing able learner and a dip of Factotum helps though).
Pretty much this. Human Factotum 1/Wizard 6/Swiftblade 9 (Wizard 5 if fractional BAB is on the table) with Able Learner will get you a fair number of skill points and the ability to invest them in anything you want, as well as Trapfinding and Int to saves 2/encounter. You're losing another caster level, though.

[nedz]

16 BAB isn't required for gishing; however, you do need ways to make up for a lower base attack bonus.

Well it's the usual metric, Swiftblade does make up for this a little with the extra attacks though.