NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="StreamOfTheSky" data-source="post: 4597155" data-attributes="member: 35909">Others did pretty good deconstructing this, I'll just add a technical note here: ANYONE with 5 ranks in Survival can automatically intuit the direction of true north.  So, your sample Paladin would be just fine.Another thing: As a Human, you could have taken the Able Learner feat (Races of Destiny) to pay for cross class skills at the "class skill rate" (still limited to the same cap for non-class skills, though).  That could have saved you quite a bit of skill points to pay for other nice things.  I know, I'm sorry to use all this non-core stuff.  But the Paladin, w/o a large int score especially, as others noted, was never meant to be a skill monkey.  If you stick to core, you will be much more limited in doing "abnormal" builds.  If you're able to use other resources, it's not nearly as bad.  Nymph's Kiss is an exalted feat, Paladins are just about exalted by default anyway.  With that and human, you're already effectively up to 4+int skill points.  Able Learner lets you advance without steep cost in cross-class skills.  Two feats, a common race, and...done!Want a dirty trick?  Multiclass.  One level will do.  And if you're stuck to mostly core, you'll have to do the other class before paladin (as without non-core feats you cannot leave paladin and come back).  Here's the trick: If a skill is ever a class skill for you (ie, you multiclassed), it has a maximum amount of ranks equal to your Character level +3, as if it were a class skill for all your classes.  The problem is, normally, you have to pay the cross-class (double) rate if you advance the skill in a class that does not have it on its list.  So...back to Able Learner.  With one feat, you now always pay 1 skill point for 1 rank, regardless of it being on your skill list or not.  The multiclass rules kick in, and now you can fully advance the ranks as far as you'd like.  The BEST class to do this with is Factotem (Dungeonscape), since that class literally has "all skills are class skills," but Rogue works fine otherwise.  So now, your Human Paladin x / Factotem or Rogue 1 has spent just two feats (one comes free with race, yay!) and is effectively a 4 +int skills class with every/nearly every skill opened up as a class skill.Source: <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/multiclass.htm" target="_blank">Multiclass Characters :: d20srd.org</a>"If a skill is a class skill for any of a multiclass character’s classes, then character level determines a skill’s maximum rank. (The maximum rank for a class skill is 3 + character level.) "If you mean skills are precious and everyone could use more, I'd agree.  Of course, even if left alone, that self-balances because everyone's suffering from a skill point deficiency .  I've played lots of Rogues, many with 14-16 int, and I know full well those 8 + int points are often not enough to have high ranks in every little thing the party expects you to handle.  If you want to give everyone more skill points, cool.  If not, then your Paladin may not have good Sense motive, but all but the very dedicated of liars will also not have the best Bluff check, for the exact same reason.  And even if your Paladin had the intelligence of an infant, the rules still give him 1 skill point per level (x4 at first), so if he REALLY wanted to be good at Sense Motive, nothing is preventing him from pouring all his skill points into it.As for 4th edition: Yes, you can also choose to focus on and master a few specific skills in 3E.  The 3E Paladin could easily be the best in the party at 2-4 skills, depending on race and int, if he maxes them all and they're wisdom, strength, or charisma-based.  He won't be very good at any other skills...but neither will anyone else that ignores those skills.  In 4E, he may get 1/2 level to his skills, but so does everyone else.  So...in either system, if he's not trained in a skill, he's about equal to another guy who isn't.  Not only that, but with 3E's greater degree of differentiation in *how* trained you can be, the Paladin may not also be better than the other PCs at certain skills, he could very well be better by a MUCH larger degree.</blockquote>

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