Elder-Basilisk
First Post
Crothian and Stalker0 are right on the money. It is quite useful to have a rank--or even a half rank in a lot of skills:
Appraise? Even a half-rank makes it trained and guarantees you the result of a SUCCESFUL untrained check even on a failed trained skill check. Pretty good for a 1-point investment. The DCs aren't generally very high though so even a mediocre-int character can be quite useful with only a few ranks.
Balance? Well, if you want to run across greased icy tightrope in high winds while wearing slippery shoes and adamantine fullplate and wielding a pair of tower shields without being proficient, you have to max it. Otherwise, a few ranks and a synergy bonus is good enough. Unfortunately, only the people who don't need much of this skill (because they generally have high dex and wear light armor) get it as a class skill so it really only sees use if a character has some purpose in mind. But that's not because a few ranks don't let you succeed at most tasks.
Bluff: Getting a few ranks will make you a good enough liar to fool most people most of the time. If you want to fool most people all of the time or all people some of the time, you need to max it. That's as it should be.
Climb: My Living Greyhawk fighter/wizard PC has four or five ranks of climb and has never regretted it. Being able to climb ordinary cliff faces comes in handy every now and then. As my dwarf fighter in a home game demonstrated, max ranks, let you climb while wearing fullplate. (Ordinary mortals just take off their fullplate before trying it).
Concentration: Because D&D doesn't use concentration for much beyond spellcasting, the relevant DCs are the spellcasting ones. But ask the first level wizards how much good four ranks does them. (They seem pretty keen on those four ranks in my observation). The only thing is you want more. (This is the only class skill my (now 17th level) Living Greyhawk character has maxed--Spot is maxed too but that's cross-class).
Craft? A few ranks get you to where you can reliably create masterworks if you have a good int or other bonuses. Eight ranks should let anyone do it.
Decipher Script? The DCs are fairly low. Even one rank lets you attempt it.
Even Spellcraft is relatively easy. A normal wizard can survive his entire career on 5 ranks of spellcraft. (The DC to scribe a spell into the spellbook is 15+spell level, maxing out at 24. With a +2 synergy from Knowledge: Arcana, a wizard only needs an 24 Int (pretty easy by 17th level--start with a 14 int, increase every four levels, and buy or craft a headband of Int +6) to scribe it into his spellbook).
About the only skills you need a lot of ranks in are the defensive ones: Listen, Sense Motive, Sense Motive. And the only reason that you need a lot of ranks in those skills is that by the time you get high enough level to have a lot of ranks, you've attracted enemies who have specialized in those skills. A +10 spot check is sufficient to spot the vast majority of rogues and pickpockets and a +10 Sense Motive is enough to suss out the vast majority of con artists. But, by the time you're 20th level, you're not worrying about the vast majority of anything. Who you're worrying about are people like Gummosh (from Blackdirge's sadly abandoned storyhour) or Artemis Entreri and to spot them you do need the max ranks+items.
Appraise? Even a half-rank makes it trained and guarantees you the result of a SUCCESFUL untrained check even on a failed trained skill check. Pretty good for a 1-point investment. The DCs aren't generally very high though so even a mediocre-int character can be quite useful with only a few ranks.
Balance? Well, if you want to run across greased icy tightrope in high winds while wearing slippery shoes and adamantine fullplate and wielding a pair of tower shields without being proficient, you have to max it. Otherwise, a few ranks and a synergy bonus is good enough. Unfortunately, only the people who don't need much of this skill (because they generally have high dex and wear light armor) get it as a class skill so it really only sees use if a character has some purpose in mind. But that's not because a few ranks don't let you succeed at most tasks.
Bluff: Getting a few ranks will make you a good enough liar to fool most people most of the time. If you want to fool most people all of the time or all people some of the time, you need to max it. That's as it should be.
Climb: My Living Greyhawk fighter/wizard PC has four or five ranks of climb and has never regretted it. Being able to climb ordinary cliff faces comes in handy every now and then. As my dwarf fighter in a home game demonstrated, max ranks, let you climb while wearing fullplate. (Ordinary mortals just take off their fullplate before trying it).
Concentration: Because D&D doesn't use concentration for much beyond spellcasting, the relevant DCs are the spellcasting ones. But ask the first level wizards how much good four ranks does them. (They seem pretty keen on those four ranks in my observation). The only thing is you want more. (This is the only class skill my (now 17th level) Living Greyhawk character has maxed--Spot is maxed too but that's cross-class).
Craft? A few ranks get you to where you can reliably create masterworks if you have a good int or other bonuses. Eight ranks should let anyone do it.
Decipher Script? The DCs are fairly low. Even one rank lets you attempt it.
Even Spellcraft is relatively easy. A normal wizard can survive his entire career on 5 ranks of spellcraft. (The DC to scribe a spell into the spellbook is 15+spell level, maxing out at 24. With a +2 synergy from Knowledge: Arcana, a wizard only needs an 24 Int (pretty easy by 17th level--start with a 14 int, increase every four levels, and buy or craft a headband of Int +6) to scribe it into his spellbook).
About the only skills you need a lot of ranks in are the defensive ones: Listen, Sense Motive, Sense Motive. And the only reason that you need a lot of ranks in those skills is that by the time you get high enough level to have a lot of ranks, you've attracted enemies who have specialized in those skills. A +10 spot check is sufficient to spot the vast majority of rogues and pickpockets and a +10 Sense Motive is enough to suss out the vast majority of con artists. But, by the time you're 20th level, you're not worrying about the vast majority of anything. Who you're worrying about are people like Gummosh (from Blackdirge's sadly abandoned storyhour) or Artemis Entreri and to spot them you do need the max ranks+items.
