Monkey is given as an option for a regular (non-improved) familiar in Dragon 277 (page 65) and Dragon 341 (page 89), and familiars use your skill ranks, so …
Now, the advantage to sending the monkey instead of going yourself is staying safe. You still have to spend the skill ranks. This pretty much rules out all familiars except
urban companion, which doesn't punish you if the little guy dies. Alternately, is there a way to eliminate the penalties for other characters?
How would you get trapfinding on the monkey? You could probably get someone to manifest psychic reformation on him to give him the planar touchstone feat, but you'd need to get it done on each new monkey when the old one dies. Share soulmeld can give your familiar trapfinding if you have theft gloves bound to your hands chakra, but it only works when he's within 5 feet.
There's also a bit of trouble with class skills. Sure, the druid
could dip factotum and use able learner to keep everything he wanted maxed out, but it'd be nice if it could be done with straight druid. Hide and move silently can be gotten easily via nightbringer initiate (Faiths of Eberron, p147) for a scout. But a true skill monkey should have disable device, open lock, and search, which are much harder to get. Any good way of getting all that?
