Eldritch disciple question

[morkendi]

Starting a new game this week. I like to get a game plan together for atleast the first few levels. I am thinking cloistered cleric and warlock. I started looking into builds, and see people doing cleric 3/ warlock 1 into eldritch disciple. My question is, how are they getting 8 ranks in knowledge religion? The only thing I see that seems legit is laborious training from revenloft legacy of blood which allows the max of intelligence based skills to increase by 2. Maybe primary contact is another option, but that would require I also take favored. Is there any other options I am not seeing?

[tyckspoon]

If people are just posting stubs and not full build plans, the simplest answer would be that they aren't, and the build is illegal - likely people remembering/paying attention to the prerequisite for casting and being able to use invocations but inadvertently or not failing to notice or disregarding the skill rank.

[morkendi]

If people are just posting stubs and not full build plans, the simplest answer would be that they aren't, and the build is illegal - likely people remembering/paying attention to the prerequisite for casting and being able to use invocations but inadvertently or not failing to notice or disregarding the skill rank.

So the way i posted originally with laborious training is legal then? If I go human cloistered cleric with that as my bonus feat and able learner, then I can legally enter at 5th?

[Darg]

Starting a new game this week. I like to get a game plan together for atleast the first few levels. I am thinking cloistered cleric and warlock. I started looking into builds, and see people doing cleric 3/ warlock 1 into eldritch disciple. My question is, how are they getting 8 ranks in knowledge religion? The only thing I see that seems legit is laborious training from revenloft legacy of blood which allows the max of intelligence based skills to increase by 2. Maybe primary contact is another option, but that would require I also take favored. Is there any other options I am not seeing?

Basically, the combo allows you to trade 1(2) feat(s) for +1 level of warlock until level 15. Personally, I don't think the trade off is very worth it, but it does let you get your warlock side off the ground earlier if your build would benefit from that.


Wizards of the Coast published several options:

A level of Bloodline (Unearthed Arcana) raises the maximum ranks in all skills, depending on your interpretation of the rules, you may pay off the 3 levels of Bloodline required by a major Bloodline at your own discretion. It's advantageous to pay them as soon as possible (between levels 1 and 2) and, then you have +3 maximum ranks.
The feat Primary Contact (Cityscape, p. 61) gives you +1 rank in a specific skill (depending on the organization), and may push you over the max ranks limit.

Otherwise, 3rd party publishers also added their own:

The feat Signature Skill (AEG, Feats, p. 73) gives you +1 rank to a skill of your choice.
The feat Refined Skill Focus (AEG, Feats, p. 67) gives you +2 ranks to a skill of your choice; you must have at least 2 ranks in that skill already.
The feat Laborious Training (Ravenloft - Legacy of The Blood, p. 92), available to descendants of Mordenheim, augments the maximum ranks of an Int-based skill of your choice by +2; you must have at least 13 in Intelligence and 5 ranks in a Knowledge skill.
The feat Prodigy (Planewalker), taken at level 1, makes the skill a class skill and raises the maximum skill rank by 3.



So the way i posted originally with laborious training is legal then? If I go human cloistered cleric with that as my bonus feat and able learner, then I can legally enter at 5th?

Yes.

[Inevitability]

Note that the Primary Contact way is a bit awkward if you don't buy the reading that it permanently increases your skill cap. If so, you need to get it at level 4 exactly, because getting it at level 3 means you still can't get your 8th rank until level 5.

Typically, the easiest way to select a feat at level 4 is to have 13-14 dex and a feat with a 13 dex prerequisite, become a dragonborn at the right time, and replace the now-illegal feat per the rite of rebirth rules, but Eldritch Disciple is quite alignment-based so forbidding three out of five possible alignments is quite rough.