Skill monkey / wand blaster

[eversilentone]

So after further discussion, my new group has narrowed down party roles. I'll be joining a Barbarian and a Sorcerer, and I've agreed to be a skill monkey who makes much use of wands.

We've been told not to worry about healing but I imagine the wands can help with that. Not sure how much crafting time we'll have but would be good for that to be an option to resupply.

We'll be starting at level 10 and I wondered if folks could give me a bit of inspiration. Nothing super broken, no psionics, incarnum or dragon magazine.

I'd like to be a dual wand wielding blaster but need to fill skill monkey role first which means rogue or factotum or bard afaik? Rogue would make it much harder to be able to craft wands in the future, but I could go Rogue 5/Chameleon 5. Otherwise I'm leaning towards using Factotum as a base because I think they have similar skills but better spell access for crafting than a bard.

Can anyone help? Many thanks in advance!

[Rebel7284]

Artificer is probably the best. They get trapfinding, a bunch of skills, and lots of abilities for making magic items, including wands.

If Artificer is not on the table, Factotum is probably the best. The DM needs to make a couple of houserules on Factotum because they are pretty poorly written.
- How many dice of sneak attack can you get?
- Can you use Cunning Surge multiple times on the same turn?
Regardless of answers to those, Factotum is typically a more flexible character due to the wider spell access and better skill usage.
Font of Inspiration is useful on a Factotum.

Another interesting option could be the Warlock. A bunch of their invocations can be useful for a skillful character and they can craft without requirements at level 12. Not a lot of skillpoints, but also built-in blasting.

[Citadel97501]

Artificer with the Expert feat would be nice, and technically you could have a way to make single shot cantrip wands at 1st level.

[Thurbane]

Beguiler could also do pretty well in this role.

[mabriss lethe]

Warlock is a pretty good wand user. Cleric dips with magic domain gets you native wand use for both the cleric and wizard list

[Troacctid]

Bards do get the magic savant spell, which makes them very good at UMD.

Something that might interest you is the Prophecy's Artifex feat from Magic of Eberron. If you enter a prophetic favor as a full round action, you can then activate wands you've crafted as a swift action.

[AnimeTheCat]

Cleric with the magic domain needs no UMD check for cleric/wizard wands add rogue, beguiler, bard, warlock, etc and you can get access to the other list wands through umd.

[Tvtyrant]

As said above ^, a Cleric with the Magic and Trickery domains is pretty good at everything. Take Cloistered Cleric and you become one of the games finest skillmonkeys, are sneaky and good with magic items and their own casting.

6+Int skills, gets all knowledge skills, bluff, disguise, hide and all of the normal Cleric skills. You get a form of Bardic Knowledge, and can use wands like a Wizard (no need for UMD).

[AnimeTheCat]

You can even get away with not using any levels of rogue, bard, etc and just be a Cloistered Cleric 10 if you so chose (or CC X/PrC with Class Features Y). Either way pick the Magic Domain and, if you so desire, trickery domain. A very useful combination is to use a wand of Find Traps (level 2 Cleric Spell) and a wand of Spontaneous Search (Level 1 Wizard Spell) to instantly search 30 foot cubes for traps as if you had trapfinding, had taken 10, and with a +1/2 CL bonus to the check for traps. There the added benefit that if your Search Check exceeds the Open Lock DC of any containers, you know the contents too. It would take you 1 full round and a standard action to do what a rogue would take 216 rounds to do (6x6x6 square cube). If you put cross class ranks in to search, you improve your chances of finding things. If you play an elf, you get a +2 and a constant Detect Hidden Doors effect which is really nice for a skillmonkey type.

I played this on a Mystic Theurge recently and it was incredible for the party. We didnt' have a "skillmonkey" we had an MT with a crapton of scrolls and wands. You could, alternatively, do Bard 1/Cloistered Cleric 9, Rogue 1/CC 9, or Beguiler 1/CC 9 (each simple, without PrC) to get search as a class skill and elevate it higher for more success with that combination of spells. Bard 1 carries bardic music as a backup ability and, if your DM will be kind, stack with CC for the lore ability in addition to giving you access to all Bard wands (including spells at lower spell/caster Levels or unique spells, such as Confusion, Lesser). Rogue 1/CC 9 gives you search, trapfinding, and +1d6 Sneak Attack. Beguiler 1 gives you a mix of abilities from Bard and Rogue, including search and Trapfinding and some additional spells (but they're drawn from a unique, fixed list and will be stuck at CL 1). Of those three options, I think Bard is the best personally.

If you're not opposed to cheese, Bard 1/CC 3/MT 6 is achievable through Precocious Spellcaster and gets you Bard 7/CC 9 Spellcasting, which would allow you to craft bard, cleric, and wizard wands (wizard wands from scroll activated spells).

[BowStreetRunner]

With skill monkeys, you have a dozen or so different options to go with.


High Skill Point classes like Rogue or Scout.
Spellcasters with spells that either give bonuses to skill checks or bypass the need for a skill check altogether (i.e. Knock instead of Open Lock). Wizard or Archivist are probably the best here.
Spellcasters with high skill ranks that are sort of a hybrid of 1 and 2. Bard and Beguiler are good options here - they don't get the spell access of a Wizard or Archivist but make up for it with skill points.
A bard with the Bardic Knack alternate class feature. Spells, skill points, and knack make for a really solid skill monkey base.
Classes with access to Incarnum Soulmelds that grant skill bonuses. Incarnate and Totemist are your winners here.
Class features that enhance skill checks such as a Factotum's inspiration-based abilities or a Chameleon's aptitude focus bonuses. (Of course both of these have access to spells too.)
Classes with invocations that grant skill bonuses. Warlock and Dragonfire Adept can both skill monkey a bit.
Classes with Psionic Powers that grant skill bonuses.
Classes with familiars/psicrystals, summoned creatures, or other minions that can use skills.
Classes with abilities that can enhance other party members' skill checks enough to make them effective skill monkeys. Bard or Marshal in these roles aren't so much a skill monkey as a skill monkey enhancer.
Artificer is sort of its own category, as it's using infusions and items.
Binders can skill monkey a bit too.


A lot of these concepts can be combined to some extent, such as doing a Bardic Knack Bard who uses the Shape Soulmeld feat, Bind Vestige Feat, Obtain Familar feat, or something like that.