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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadence" data-source="post: 6030484" data-attributes="member: 6701124">I agree that it would be hard to create a non-spellcasting sage that was "balanced" with the spellcasters in terms of stereotypical adventuring. I'm great with magical knowledge being the pinnacle of things to be knowledgable about... and the Wizards are at the top of that heap. But I don't buy that the "sage" shouldn't have the ability to be better at the non-mystic areas of knowledge than the Wizard or Cleric could be, and actually had never considered (until this thread) that the Wizard and Cleric were viewed as the pinnacle of knowledge because they know more about everything. Is it bad that rogue knows more about brands of locks, the bard about epic songs, the ranger about a particular area of the countryside, the dwarf about styles of stone work?  The 1st edition DMG establishes that some NPCs who focus on knowledge are much more scholarly in their respective fields than the PCs who focus on spells first (although it also says that all Sages will have some random spells as a byproduct). The 3.5 Cloistered Cleric in UA is a demonstration that the standard cleric isn't a paragon of scholasticism (and all editions of the game have had the clerics expertise divided between spell casting and combat). At the least, the Cleric and Mage have at least one area they are less knowledgable than another class in... each others. Finally, if the argument is that the Mage and Cleric need to be the most scholastic, should the other classes be banned from having feats and skills that would give them at least as strong of knowlege backgrounds (or likely stronger for some versions of the bard)? I can't vouch for how well they play, but "The Black Company" d20 book by Green Ronin has Academician, Jack-of-all-Trades, and Noble PC classes, each with a list of characters in the novels with those classes (or multi-classes). The Academician has hp, weapons, armor, and attacks as the Wizard, but skill points as the Rogue. The primary abilities of the Academician include an extra Skill Focus feat at first level and every even level that have limited stacking (+2 the second time in a given skill, and +1 after that... ), extra intelligence boost that can be used a limited number of times per day, ability to add extra skills to their class skill list as they advance, and a special bonus when using books and libraries. The list in the first post at: <a href="http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=241689" target="_blank">http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=241689</a> has a lot of other "Skillmonkey" classes - is it too optimisitc to think something usable could be cobbled together as a real PC class from among them?</blockquote>

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