Latest News

End of August Update

08/29/2025 by Vili

Home > Classes > Handbooks >

Skills To The Max

Author: NapazTrix — Last Updated: 20th October 2025

Disclaimer

This handbook follows the same colour coding scheme which is common among other handbooks or builds guides for Pathfinder. To help with those that have difficulty with colours there is also a “star” rating, with 1 being the lowest and 4 being the highest. If any word is colour-coded then it is referencing those ratings, though in the case of blue text with underlines they are hyperlinks to the specific word’s rules or reference page.

  • Red: Bad. These are normally the worst parts of a feature or parts you should not focus on.
  • Orange: Ok. Features that function but are not generally outstanding.
  • Green: Good. Reasonably applicable and can work in many situations.
  • Blue: Fantastic. Parts you will love having or should try your best to maintain.

Introduction

Skills cover almost every action your character will take out of combat, with many being used within combat. However, you will often find you’re lacking in the skill rank department, either from having a class with low ranks per level, like Beastmaster, which only gets 4 ranks per level and also does not utilise the Intelligence attribute for its class features.

In the base Pathfinder, there are 35 skills, whereas FFd20 adds 10 additional skills while altering 4 of the base system’s. This guide will provide several avenues to increasing both your skill ranks and your skill bonuses.

You can pick out parts of the following choices to help pump up your lacking skill ranks, but note you can’t max out every single skill, as there are just far too many.

Attributes

Skill Bonus Variety

  • Strength: Strength is more of a combat skill, providing a bonus to melee attack and damage rolls, as well as your carry capacity that can be used in non-combat scenarios like lugging bags of flour around for some small coins. Strength provides a bonus to 2 skills: Climb and Swim.
  • Dexterity: Dexterity covers many skills, as well as improves your AC and ranged attack rolls, plus your Reflex saving throw. Dexterity provides a bonus to 9 skills: Acrobatics, Disable Device, Drive, Escape Artist, Fly, Pilot, Ride, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth.
  • Constitution: Constitution determines your hit points and Fortitude saving throws, but no skills whatsoever.
  • Intelligence: Intelligence is the base skill that determines your additional skill ranks per level. At 10 you gain no bonus, 12 you gain +1 skill rank per level, and an 8 means you reduce your skill ranks per level (to a minimum of 1). At level 20, a 12 Intelligence provides 20 extra skill ranks. Intelligence provides a bonus to 19 skills: Appraise, Computers, all 10 Knowledge skills (11 in FFd20), Craft (which encompasses dozens), Linguistics, Navigate, Repair, and Spellcraft.
  • Wisdom: Wisdom helps with some casting classes, but also buffs your Will saving throw, alongside helping skills for everyday travel. Wisdom provides a bonus to 5 skills: Heal, Perception, Profession (which encompasses dozens), Sense Motive, and Survival.
  • Charisma: Charisma is the face skill, famously. It helps with some casting classes, but otherwise is only for skill use. Charisma provides a bonus to 7 skills: Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Perform (which encompasses 9+ forms), and Use Magic Device.

Skill Potency

  • Strength: Climb and Swim are very situational skills, worsened by heavier armour. They are self-explanatory, determining if you can climb surfaces from tables to cliffs and how easily you can swim in harsh waters. If your game features much more 3D movement or underwater travel, these skills become an Ok option.
  • Dexterity: Acrobatics, Disable Device, Drive, Escape Artist, Fly, Pilot, Ride, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth are somewhat situational, but the breadth can make up for the lack of use. Acrobatics aids in tumbling around the battlefield to avoid attacks of opportunity, while drive won’t be used if you’re in a fantasy game. Escape artist is great for those with lower defences to get out of grapples and the like, where fly only helps if you will fly or have access to it to put ranks into. This is mostly a Thief’s toolkit, and naturally, you will have this high.
  • Constitution: With no skills options, this stat isn’t really considered for skill ranks.
  • Intelligence: Appraise, Computers, all 10 Knowledge skills (11 in FFd20), Craft (which encompasses dozens), Linguistics, Navigate, Repair, and Spellcraft cover a wide range of fields, from crafting and item management to knowing what is happening on the battlefield. Computers and repair won’t matter if your game never interacts with them, while navigate is more for sea travel. However, knowledge can help in combat to know enemy weaknesses and traits, while spellcraft is almost always used for identifying new items. Outside of the bonuses, each 2 points of this attribute grants another rank to spend in any skill.
  • Wisdom: Heal, Perception, Profession (which encompasses dozens), Sense Motive, and Survival are mostly not used if you’re not of a class that specialises in them. Heal is a good roleplay tool, but it will fall to the wayside if the party has a magical healer. Perception is used several times each session, while sense motive is a choice, and most players forget about it. Survival also comes down to whether you need to hunt for food or are investigating tracks and battle scenes. Profession can help in some skill challenges if your GM uses them, but otherwise, it does not come up outside of downtime.
  • Charisma: Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Perform (which encompasses 9+ forms), and Use Magic Device are amazing skills to have for a game that features roleplay and conversation. Bluff, diplomacy, and intimidate help you get what you need out of people in various ways. Disguise is more niche and may not come up, as is the case for perform. Handle animal and umd are a bit specific, but the latter can be used much more if you use a lot of scrolls and wands.

Classes

While classes give varying numbers of ranks, it should be known that many do give bonuses to different skills, normally flavoured by their class. Such as Archer having a bonus to Perception checks. If you’re going for a particular skill, you should look for one that gives a bonus to a skill you want.

Core Classes

  • Bad Skill Ranks: Beastmaster, Dragoon, Knight, Monk, Warrior, and White Mage only gain 4 ranks, and do not focus on Intelligence.
  • Ok Skill Ranks: Archer and Bard gain only 6, without focus on Intelligence. Bards, however, do gain Versatile Performance, allowing them to use their Perform skill for different skills, possibly bumping this up to a Good option, but it requires many levels to function.
  • Good Skill Ranks: Black Mage gets 4 ranks, but is a class that uses Intelligence for their casting, typically making this 8-9+. Red Mage gets 6 ranks, but has some class features built off of Intelligence.
  • Fantastic Skill Ranks: Thief gets 8 ranks and also uses Intelligence for some class features; they also gain a few skill bonuses and are the only class to gain Skill Unlocks.

Base Classes

Hybrid Classes

  • Bad Skill Ranks: Black Belt, Dancer, Druid, Fencer, Gunbreaker, Samurai, and Sword Saint all get 4 ranks with no particular focus on Intelligence.
  • Ok Skill Ranks: Scholar get 4 ranks, but it is a class with a minor use of Intelligence for their features, typically making this 6-7+. Ninja gets 6 ranks, but no focus on Intelligence.
  • Good Skill Ranks: —
  • Fantastic Skill Ranks: —

Races

Not many races give a particular bonus to skill ranks; instead, many grant bonuses to particular skills through a racial bonus (which stacks with itself).

  • Hume: Hume starts with the Skilled Racial trait, granting an additional skill rank at first level and one additional rank whenever they gain a level. They can trade out that for up to 3 Skill Focus bonus feats. Outside of those two, you can trade for many other alternative racial traits to give bonuses to many skills. (As a note, you cannot have Skilled more than once)

Feats

  • Cunning (General Feat): An additional skill rank per HD, retroactive too, so at level 20, you get an extra 20 ranks. The fluff text may make this seem like it’s only for evil PCs, and comes from the Villain Codex, so ask your GM if it’s alright for cunning heroes too. Link.
  • Cosmopolitan (General Feat):  Two more languages, plus two mental-stat skills to count as class skills. Not amazing, but gives +3 to two more skills if they aren’t already class skills. Link.
  • Fast Learner (Racial Feat, Hume specific): While not giving an additional skill rank if you choose that as an FCB, this does provide both the HP and Skill Rank for each level in your favoured class, or a skill point and the alternative FCB for your class that might be a bonus to a certain skill. Link.
  • Open Minded (Psionic Feat)*: Gain 1 skill point for every Hit Die you possess. As it is [psionic], it requires Power Points or Psy-Like Abilities to take. Similarly with the issues of the Cunning feat, however, as it is a Psionic Feat and comes from Psionics Unleashed by Dreamscarred Press, it is 3rd-party content, if a bit more widely used by some, Cunning is more likely as a feat choice. Assume this isn’t an option, but *ask your GM. Link.
  • Spirit Ridden (General Feat): Concentrate for 1 hour and gain your HD in ranks to 1 skill for your HD in hours, plus make it a class skill. Essentially, this is just 1 skill rank per level; however, the flavouring might work in counter to your roleplay, as the spirit influences your personality. Link.

Traits

  • Finding Your Kin (Campaign Trait)*: Also known as Finding Haleen. Gain +1 hit point and skill rank per level in your FCB in addition to your FCB choice (potentially 2 skill ranks). However, it is a conversion of a 3.5e trait and not core material. Some 3.5e content was ported to Pathfinder, but this is incredibly powerful as a trait. Assume this isn’t an option, but *ask your GM. Link.
  • Any +2 Trait or Class Skill Trait (way too many): Trait bonuses do not stack, so picking more than one for a particular skill won’t help. However, if you gain a +2 bonus and treat it as a class skill, that’s technically a +5 if it wasn’t already. Pretty much all skills are covered. You can CTRL+F on this sheet to find a skill you have in mind.

Wondrous Items

  • Crimson Sphere (Ioun Stone): Works like the headband; however, the skill ranks are free for you to use, at a much greater expense. Link.
  • Headband of Vast Intelligence (Headband Slot): Granting a +2, +4, or +6  enhancement bonus to Intelligence, this headband doesn’t give you free skill ranks; instead, the headband is attuned to a certain skill for maximum skill ranks, typically a knowledge skill. This does, though, free up those potential 3 skills for you not to have to spend your ranks on. Effectively giving you extra ranks. Do not forget, this also grants an additional language at each tier. Link.
  • Mind Plus (Alchemical Item): Grants a +1 inherent bonus to Intelligence permanently, whenever it brings your Intelligence score to an even number, that’s another +1 skill rank per HD, so with all 5, you’re looking at around 40 skill ranks at level 20. You can choose where they go; however, a bit more expensive than the headband. Link.
  • Scarlet and Blue Sphere (Ioun Stone): Functioning almost the same as the headband, but stuck at +2. Fine if you want to free up a slot, but Bad in the long run. Link.

Example Build

Without counting your class, as you may have varying ideas to slot into a party, you can choose the following:

Hume with the Skilled racial trait and Fast Learner racial feat, using your hume bonus feat to get the Cunning general feat. Pumping your Intelligence to 18 with a +2 from your Hume ability score choice for a total of 20. At level 1, that’s +8 (5 int, 1 FCB, 1 Cunning, 1 Skilled) skill ranks before your class base skill ranks, with something like Blue Mage‘s +8, that’s 16 ranks a level. Throwing on a headband and 4 inherent bonuses, that’s technically 5 more skill ranks with 3 being set by the headband.

By level 20, if you use your ability score increases into Intelligence, you’ll get to 30 (4, 8, 12, 16, 20th levels and +5 inherent). Adding it all together (10 int, 1 FCB, 1 Cunning, 1 Skilled, 3 headband), that’s 24 skills that will be maxed out, or 480 skill ranks, 60 of which are set by the headband.

Even with almost total focus on skill ranks, you can’t max them all out. Instead, you’ll be looking at skill bonuses from features and whatnot to help the numbers go higher, but as far as ranks are concerned, you can have at least 1 point in each skill rather early.