Community

As the title says, I'm wondering if there are feats that allow a character to use ALL skills in some way or manner?

Or one that turns all skills into class skills?

There's also the Bardic Knack ability in the PHB2, which together wiith Jack of All Trades essentially lets you act as if you'd bought all skills to max cross-class rank.

To get the most out of Able Learner, take a level of Factotum, Uncanny Trickster, or to a lesser extent Human Paragon or Expert.

One comment about the Jack of All Trades and Able Learner:  Able Learner appies to cross class skills only, not specialized skills like Disable Device, where the Jack of All trades, allows for rolls against any check.  As well Jack of All Trades doesn't give bonuses to apply ranks, non-class skills still cost double. 

May 29, 2012 -- 3:41PM, aelryinth wrote:

Able Learner is basically restricted to humans. It allows them to buy skills not on their 'current' skill list for only 1 point.

Adding to this, there are a handful of feats that specifically modify other skills this way too, and they're not racially limited. The only two that come to mind now are Guerilla Scout (for Listen and Spot; also comes with an initiative boost) and Guerilla Warrior (for Hide and Move Silently; also comes with a reduction of armor check penalties).

Neither Able Learner nor these specific feats will raise your max rank in a skill, though. So if none of your classes have Hide as a class skill, you're still limited to (level+3)/2 ranks in Hide, even if you buy them at 1 point per rank instead of 2 points per rank.

Tempest is saying to use this with Factotum, etc, because a Factotum has all skills on his list, therefore gets the training bonus if he takes ANY skill points in any skill, for a free +3. If you don't have points in a skill, Able Learner does nothing for you.

You're mixing in Pathfinder here (I like the training bonus idea too, but it's not 3.5; the 3.5 thing is "max ranks = level +3 for class skills", while PF changed it to "Max ranks = your level; if the skill's a class skill and you put a point into it, you get +3", which works a lot nicer), but you have the right of it. The reason I mention those classes is because they have all skills as class skills, which alleviates the problem in my previous paragraph: you can buy any skill up to (level+3) ranks, no matter what your class, at 1 point per rank. 

Jack of All Trades lets you use a skill as if you were trained, even if you have no ranks, which is different. basically you are treated as having rank 1/2, so you get to roll, even if normally you couldn't.

Or, alternatively, it changes every "Requires Training: Yes" entry to "Requires Training: No" as far as you're concerned. (Your interpretation is what's actually going on, but as far as a player's concerned, these two are equivalent.)

It also combines very well with the Bardic Knack alternate class feature in the PHB2, which lets you use half your bard level as your effective ranks in a skill (i.e. if you have 0 ranks in Hide, a 10th level bard can use his knack to act as if he had 5 ranks in Hide). Bardic Knack doesn't work with skills that require training unless you're actually trained, which is where Jack of All Trades comes in. Put the two together and a bard 20 has essentially "bought every skill" up to nearly the max cross-class rank, which isn't that shabby (especially since he's got his actual skill points spent on the skills he plans on using often).

Jack of All Trades would also allow you to take 10 or 20 on a skill check, depending on the time avaible and the skill. This blows for skill vs skill checks, but it is great for skills like Climb, Use Rope, Swim and other skills that have low static checks.