How to be a skillmonkey

[Trandir]

I was considering this: half-elf Rogue 1/ College of Lore Bard X.

With this as early as 5th level you'd get: 5 expertise, 8 proficiency and the last 5 skills would still have half proficiency and still a respectable Cha 16, Dex 16, Con 14 even with the standard array.


Any idea if this is actually even good? OoC probably yes but what about in combat?

[Keravath]

You'd be pretty much a bard in combat except for tier 1. Levels 1-4 you might use a bow with sneak attack for damage, after that probably cantrips and spells. Slowest level is likely to be 5 before you get 3rd level spells at 6.

As far as I can tell though, you'd only have expertise in 4 skills - 2 from bard and 2 from rogue.

At level 1 you start off proficient in 8 skills (4 rogue, 2 half-elf, 2 background), at level 2 this goes to 9 skills with +1 from bard MC. At level 4 this goes to 12 skills with the extra 3 from lore bard.

If you want even more of a skill monkey, take a level of knowledge cleric for expertise and proficiency in two knowledge skills. Knowledge cleric also lets the bard wear medium armor and use a shield. This will delay your spells by another level (but spell slots by only 1 level) but you gain two more skills for 14 total and 2 more expertise for 6 total at level 5.

If you went all in on skill monkey, scout rogue to 3 gives nature and survival skills with expertise. So at level 7 you'd have 16 total skills and 8 with expertise. On the other hand, with a 3 rogue/1 cleric/3 bard level distribution, your combat effectiveness might suffer a bit but it could be a fun character to play anyway.

P.S. There are 18 skills listed in the PHB.

[Trandir]

With the ASI you get at 5th level you take prodigy.

Also is the scout 3/ knowledge cleric 1/bard X a bit too much of multiclassing?

[Dork_Forge]

With the ASI you get at 5th level you take prodigy.

Also is the scout 3/ knowledge cleric 1/bard X a bit too much of multiclassing?

You'd be very MAD but you'd definitely hit the skill monkey theme, "too much multiclassing" is really subjective. It depeneds what you want to achieve and how your DM feels about multiclassing.

Combat wise you'd be above average in traditional combat, you can use a rapier with the added d6 damage (if you really wanted you could take a SCAGtrip with your magical secrets) and have Shatter etc. at your disposal, but the build is more focused on support/buffing etc. since you're primarily a bard.

[Lunali]

What is your goal as a skillmonkey? As a pure bard you can get moderate skill in everything just through jack of all trades with some specific areas you're particularly good at. If you're aiming for more than that, like if you want to be consistently successful at higher levels, nothing beats eleven levels of rogue. Another route would be artificer 7, adding an extra int bonus to anyone's skill check.

A big part of the decision should be the DM's style. Do you get automatic success on some things because you're proficient? Is it impossible to attempt some rolls if you aren't? Does everyone in the group get to roll, or just the 1-2 that speak up first?

[MrStabby]

I would also pitch the idea of knowledge cleric 1, rogue (arcane trickster) X.

As a near single class your abilities will be pretty damn close to par without the multiclass.

Knowledge cleric will give you a few more points of expertise, rogue will pick up four more. With bard you have jack of all trades which is a little bit wasted with loads of proficiency and expertise - fewer chances to use it.

Arcane trickster +knowledge cleric will give you a lot of spells that are really good to supplement the skills. Mage hand, healing word, identify/detect magic...

This, all in all, should give you some solid combat prowess, loads of skills and just the right set of spells to supplement it. As a lot of both the spells from AT and Cleric dont need their casting stat to work you needn't be too MAD.

[Chronos]

You can't get good enough at skills to really fill the skillmonkey role properly without rogue 11. Bounded accuracy means that nobody can ever get reliably good at anything, which means that, when your life depends on a single good-enough roll (which it often does, for a skill-monkey), eventually you're going to die.

[Dork_Forge]

Knowledge cleric will give you a few more points of expertise, rogue will pick up four more. With bard you have jack of all trades which is a little bit wasted with loads of proficiency and expertise - fewer chances to use it.


It's worth noting that Jack of All Trades also applies to things like Initiative and Counterspell/Dispel Checks.


You can't get good enough at skills to really fill the skillmonkey role properly without rogue 11. Bounded accuracy means that nobody can ever get reliably good at anything, which means that, when your life depends on a single good-enough roll (which it often does, for a skill-monkey), eventually you're going to die.

I'd disagree with that, just don't dump any stats to -1, pick up as many skills as you can and Jack of All Trades patches the rest reasonably well. Combine all of that with Guidance and you can expect to hit over ten on non expertise skills the vast majority of the time, though I don't know how often a skill check is actually life or death, skill monkey or not.

[Throne12]

Half elf bard .

[MrStabby]

It's worth noting that Jack of All Trades also applies to things like Initiative and Counterspell/Dispel Checks.



I'd disagree with that, just don't dump any stats to -1, pick up as many skills as you can and Jack of All Trades patches the rest reasonably well. Combine all of that with Guidance and you can expect to hit over ten on non expertise skills the vast majority of the time, though I don't know how often a skill check is actually life or death, skill monkey or not.

I am not disagreeing with that, just commenting that a major class feature to help with skills is less good the more you invest in skills.

[Lunali]

It's worth noting that Jack of All Trades also applies to things like Initiative and Counterspell/Dispel Checks.



I'd disagree with that, just don't dump any stats to -1, pick up as many skills as you can and Jack of All Trades patches the rest reasonably well. Combine all of that with Guidance and you can expect to hit over ten on non expertise skills the vast majority of the time, though I don't know how often a skill check is actually life or death, skill monkey or not.

Depends greatly on your DM, but for me being able to consistently hit a 10 is almost meaningless as DC 10 or lower checks are very rare. Reliable talent means I can hit 15-19 (depending on which skill) without even a possibility of failing.

[Languid_Duck]

For the ultimate skill monkey

Half Elf- 2 skills
Point buy an array of 9 13(+1) 14 10 13(+1) 14 (+2) for an initial spread of 9 14 14 10 14 16
Background- 2 skills
Start as Rogue- 4 skills and 2 Expertise. 8 total skills

Warlock 2- 2 skills (Beguiling Influence invocation) and combat relevance with Eldritch Blast. 10 skills total
Knowledge Cleric 1- 2 skills, Expertised, Guidance for 1d4 on most skill checks, and Medium Armor + Shield for combat relevance. 12 skills total
Bard 1- 1 skill, 15 skills total
Bard to 3- 2 more Expertise, College of Lore for +3 skills.
Rogue to 3- Scout Archetype for 2 skills, Expertised. 14 skills total

For proficiency in all 18 skills by level 11, 8 of which have Expertise. You're decent in combat thanks to Agonizing Blast and reasonable AC and have 3 classes worth of Cantrips. From there, take the rest of your levels in Rogue to be better at skills (+2 Expertise and Reliable Talent) or Bard for spellcasting with eventual Expertise.

Though frankly, the skills are overkill as, again, you have party members who can also cover skills. A Half-Elf, Tabaxi, or Kenku Scout Rogue 3/ Knowledge Cleric 1 already has 12 skills and 6 Expertise at level 4. Continue with Rogue for essentially normal progression and Reliable Talent to be the master of 2/3 of all skills. Arcane Trickster is an option as well, since the spells open options that you wouldn't have at the cost of 2 skills/Expertise.

[Amechra]

For the ultimate skill monkey

Half Elf- 2 skills
Point buy an array of 9 13(+1) 14 10 13(+1) 14 (+2) for an initial spread of 9 14 14 10 14 16
Background- 2 skills
Start as Rogue- 4 skills and 2 Expertise. 8 total skills

Warlock 2- 2 skills (Beguiling Influence invocation) and combat relevance with Eldritch Blast. 10 skills total
Knowledge Cleric 1- 2 skills, Expertised, Guidance for 1d4 on most skill checks, and Medium Armor + Shield for combat relevance. 12 skills total
Bard 1- 1 skill, 15 skills total
Bard to 3- 2 more Expertise, College of Lore for +3 skills.
Rogue to 3- Scout Archetype for 2 skills, Expertised. 14 skills total

For proficiency in all 18 skills by level 11, 8 of which have Expertise. You're decent in combat thanks to Agonizing Blast and reasonable AC and have 3 classes worth of Cantrips. From there, take the rest of your levels in Rogue to be better at skills (+2 Expertise and Reliable Talent) or Bard for spellcasting with eventual Expertise.

Though frankly, the skills are overkill as, again, you have party members who can also cover skills. A Half-Elf, Tabaxi, or Kenku Scout Rogue 3/ Knowledge Cleric 1 already has 12 skills and 6 Expertise at level 4. Continue with Rogue for essentially normal progression and Reliable Talent to be the master of 2/3 of all skills. Arcane Trickster is an option as well, since the spells open options that you wouldn't have at the cost of 2 skills/Expertise.

Amateur. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24046427&postcount=234) :smallbiggrin:

Granted, I was just trying to get proficiency in all skills ASAP. Your build is probably more generally useful.

[strake]

I think it's very important to decide early precisely what type of skills character you want to be:
Good at a bunch of the skills (for ex, most of the Int and Wis skills)
Decent at all the skills (jack of all trades with 12/14 in every stat)
Great at many skills (as many expertise on good stats as possible)
All the skills, all the expertise (the 4 or 5 multi-class that tries to get everything)

It is very easy to put together a solid, good in combat character who has a whole bunch of high skills from two stats. Pretty much any class with a multi-class dip that pulls in a skills sub-class plus the skills feat at some point will let you build towards 16 or better in two of your stats, and all the skills you want that use those 2 stats. There's a bunch of great examples of these in this thread.

If you want to be at least decent at all the skills, then the only question is how many levels of bard are you planning to take with whatever else you are doing. 2 for Jack of all trades, 3 for lore bard, 4 for lore bard + skills feat.

Being great at many skills, gets a little trickier. Now you have to look at your stats, figure out how MAD you are willing to get, and/or how well you rolled. You'll want to look specifically at dipping for expertise (or using rogue as a base), and using that expertise on skills where you have a good base stat. Knowledge Cleric 1/Scout Rogue 6 for example, could have most of the Int/Wis/Dex skills and 8 of those with expertise but now you have the balancing act of which stats are most important. In this example, probably push Dex and get Int/Wis to 14.

If you want all the skills and all the expertise, there are many ways to do it, but they require at least 13 Dex, 13 Wis, 13 Cha, and a willingness to multi-class like crazy. Some excellent examples have already been shown earlier in the thread.

The first two types of skill character are easy to play and build and lose very little (if any) combat usefulness in order to gain a bunch of out of combat usefulness. The last two are trickier. If you are trying for that type of skills character you definitely have to be careful with what you're doing, or be accepting of the fact that you're not going to shine in combat. (helpful, useful, sure. But you're never going to shine the way the combat built chars will).

[Undyne]

I was considering this: half-elf Rogue 1/ College of Lore Bard X.

With this as early as 5th level you'd get: 5 expertise, 8 proficiency and the last 5 skills would still have half proficiency and still a respectable Cha 16, Dex 16, Con 14 even with the standard array.


Any idea if this is actually even good? OoC probably yes but what about in combat?

Don't forget the Prodigy feat once you hit level 4 in Bard, it gives one extra expertise, tool, language, and skill.

[Trandir]

Don't forget the Prodigy feat once you hit level 4 in Bard, it gives one extra expertise, tool, language, and skill.

I already counted that in. That's the 5th expertise and the 13th proficiecy, without it I would get only 4 expertise from rogue and bard.