Cleric skills

[Noldor Elf]

Is there good (balanced) ways to make cleric better in skill department?

Possibilities, that I am aware of:
Cloistered Cleric Variant (from UA). Is this any good? Any experience?
Multiclassing with rogue (That's what I am going to do). Drawbacks: limited spellcasting, as quite many levels of rogue might be needed to keep sufficient amount of skills in high ranks.

Is there options that I have overlooked? (Like playing a bard instead of cleric)Prestice Classes?

 

[drdevoid]

That's a rather tough call between a (potentially multiclassed) cloistered cleric and a bard. You'll have little combat ability with the CC and little spell power with the Bard.

You're not trying to play a thieving cleric though, right? No trap springing for you, you're just interested in being a charmer with social skills?

If you do go with roguishness, there was a Thievery domain from some 3rd party publisher which was OGC and compiled in Green Ronin's Pocket Divine Grimoire which can be found at most chain bookstores (it's 3.0, though). That combined with the Trickery domain can net you quite a few class skills. If you don't M/C with rogue, you'll be casting "Find Traps" a lot. Also you might want to get wands of invisibility (trickery domain) and silence. A knowledge, trickery, thievery deity would probably have a lot of Indiana Jones types.

Now if you just want to be a face man and healer, if you are not planning on taking a Prestige Class and don't mind using a feat on skills (big if), you might see if the DM will allow the 3.0 version of the "Cosmopolitan" feat from FRCS. That combined with a Cloistered Cleric will go along way. Between that and domains granting Class skills you should be okay.

 

[Voadam]

A couple of feats are good for skills there is one in the psionics srd (I believe its that one) that gives you a bunch of skill points. Another allows you to make a non-class skill always a class one.

One trick with the rogue multiclass is if you only want a few skills to be maxed then only take the rogue levels about every four class levels or so and then spend all the skill points on that one skill, this mitigates the spell loss a little, as does the feat practiced spell caster.

 

[drdevoid]

Another allows you to make a non-class skill always a class one.

That's what 3.0 Cosmopolitan does (as well as an additional +2), maybe the psionic feat does it better. The 3.5 version in PGtF grants a bunch of +2 bonuses to social skills.

 

[Greg K]

i suppose the first question is what you are trying to accomplish? Is there a specific type of character concept you have in mind for your cleric or are you just looking for more skill points?

 

[Mighty Halfling]

A DM could allow them to pick an additional class skill based on their domains:
For example, a character with the water domain would get the swimming skill. A person with the animal domain could get handle animal.
You might have to do some creative thinking for more enveloping domains (like War), but you get the idea.

 

[Felix]

Martin Luther thought that all priests should be able to sing well, because singing beautifully is one thing that the devil cannot do... so maybe one or a few levels of Bard would fit right in with that paradigm.

 

[Noldor Elf]

What I had in mind was indeed the thieving cleric, stealth being the first priority and then coming the "real" roguish skills (open locks, disable device, sleight of hand). Trickery domain was naturally the starting point, but even with that and reasonable INT (14) I found the idea hard to fulfil. What I am not trying to create is an assassin.

Prestige Classes are Ok, there just weren't any that came to my mind.

Right now I am seriously considering Bard/Rogue, perhaps going to the Arcane Trickster finally (any point in that?). I won't probably be the face of the party (due the practical reasons), so some Bard abilities might be wasted.

 

[blargney the second]

I had a player who wanted to play a swashbuckling cleric with some social skills. I dropped the number of turning attempts per day to 0 + Cha, and gave him 4+Int for skills. It worked quite well.

-blarg

 

[CM]

Perhaps your DM would let you trade in medium and heavy armor proficiency for 4 skill points per level, and shield proficiency for a few extra class skills? I tend to be very generous when players wish to trade in combat ability for social ability.