Extra Ranks Thought Experiment (3.5)

[penbed400]

Is this possible? I was looking through the BoED in my local gaming store the other day and that got me thinking. If you had a bard use inspire greatness along with words of creation that would give you 4 extra HD. Great for combat I suppose but isn't the max amount of ranks you can put into something your ECL+3, which is your CL+HD+3? So you can put up to 4 extra ranks into something at that time?

Of course you would have to do this before the bard's song runs out which means you need to do one of two things: level up during the song (something that would be tough to do) or have someone cast psychic reformation on you while the song is going (more plausible).

I was looking at what kind of prices this would cost and was surprised at how cheap it was. Hiring someone to cast a level 4 power (40x7=210gp), getting a bard to do something that is equal to or above a DC30 perform check (might as well pay a max of 18gp, round up to 30gp because he's doing so awesome), paying for the XP lost by the psion for the spell (50x5=250gp) and why not heal the bard for all of that damage he took for using words of creation with a cure light wounds spell by a cleric (10x1=10gp). So that would cost you 500gp if my calculations and researching was correct. This is well below the WBL of a level 2 character.

So it's possible to have a level 2 character with 9 ranks in something right? Certainly easy to get into those pesky prestige classes early. Is this right? Any criticism other than the possible limburger smell coming from it?

[Psyx]

Hire an exemplar, too. With his 'lend skill ranks' thingy...

[penbed400]

That grants a competence bonus to allies, the goal isn't to look for bonuses to skills or anything like that. That can be easily done with an Item of +30 (insert skill here). The main problem with some things is that they specifically call for "ranks" in a skill. The most common of these things being prestige classes.

[PId6]

It's been done. It's a common and incredibly cheesy method of early entry.