Prestige classes

[Wyvernhand]

Favored Contact + Primary Contact from....Cityscape? increases max ranks in one skill by 1. It would work sometimes for a PrC that requires one skill at max ranks, but not for one that requires multiple skills at max ranks like...Sublime Chord.

There are some other...tricks. They work by RAW, but they might get you beaten about the face and head with a DM's Guide. The easiest is simply to gain temp HD via an effect like Inspire Greatness or by Polymorphing/Metamorphing into a Dusk Giant with the Assume Supernatural Ability feat. Temp HD don't normally GRANT skill points, but they should affect your max ranks. While under the effects, be the recipient of a Psychic Reformation power. It allows you to redistribute skill points, among other things, up to the max allowed by your new improved HD. Once the effect ends, you lose the HD, but nothing about temp HD references losing the skill points, since skill points aren't normally something you even adjust.

Your total number of skill points wouldn't change, so you'd have to make sure you had some extra points in a random skill to canibalize, but it works. Inspire Greatness normally caps at 2 levels early, but with words of Creation + Songs of the Heart, I think you could squeeze in 5-6 leevels early, depending on stacking order of those 2 feats. The Dusk Giant trick works with any number of levels, assuming you can actually get the spells cast and have a suitable number of proper HD corpses to consume.

Again, for game balance, skill limits are there for a reason. There ARE a few work arounds though, if you get creative. Caveat Emptor, however, as I will not be responsible for any DM inflicted injuries that result from trying to use one of them in an exploitative manor.

 

[Omegaxicor]

I see the requirements as what they are, with classes that are part of an organisation they are the minimum requirements that that organisation will accept from its initiates before training them (starting from Masterwork clay as it were)

with classes that are drawn from training yourself (I can't really think of examples off the top of my head) they are the minimum requirements for you to be able to begin your training

either way, people often confuse "levelling up" method with a spring of power gained in an instant after a fight, in reality (well you know what I mean), it is an acknowledgement that your training has paid off (I suppose your should be able to use an ability before you level up but with a 50% failure rate or something) and you have perfected the abilities of another level in whichever class you choose.

Think of it like being a Cleric has the requirements of knowing your deities portfolio and history, contained in a book I suppose, but just because you have read that doesn't make you a Cleric you must still practice your abilities, such as spellcasting, to gain a level of Cleric

I wondered about the reasons behind this, and other class mechanics, for awhile before I understood them