Just playing around with possible future campaign ideas. The flavor (both from Frostburn & from Norse myth) of Midgard Dwarves strongly suggests that they shun Divine magic because they hate/are at odds with the Norse gods. This plays perfectly into the concept of Ur-Priests, and due to the non-associated class rules, I could get a Midgard Dwarf 8th level spells for only +4 to its CR (base CR 5).
The only problem is meeting the skill prereq's for Ur-Priest. Midgard Dwarves have no Knowledge skills as class skills, nor do they have spellcraft as a class skill.
Ur-Priest prereq's:
Alignment: Any evil.
Base Save Bonus: Fort +3, Will +3.
Skills: Bluff 6 ranks, Knowledge (arcana) 5 ranks, Knowledge (the planes) 5 ranks, Knowledge (religion) 8 ranks, Spellcraft 8 ranks.
Feats: Iron Will, Spell Focus (evil).
Midgard Dwarves have a +2 racial Intelligence bonus, so that helps with extra skill points to waste buying things cross-class, but without gaining Kn (Religion) and Spellcraft as class skills somewhere, it'll be 14th HD before the first level of Ur-Priest could be taken. Wanting to get into Ur-Priest as soon as possible, it's looking like the best bet is for a one or two-level dip into Bard (has all the necessary skills as class skills, and gets a decent number of skill points.)
From the racial HD, you could get to this point before any class levels:
Bluff 6 ranks, Kn (Arcana) 4 ranks, Kn (Planes) 4 ranks, Kn (Religion) 4 ranks, and Spellcraft 4 ranks
With 8 skill points in a level (assuming no more intelligent than an average Midgard Dwarf), one level of Bard only gets us to: Bluff 6 ranks, Kn (Arcana) 5 ranks, Kn (Planes) 5 ranks, Kn (Religion) 8 ranks, and Spellcraft 6 ranks,
meaning that a second level of bard (or something else, like Bard 1/Beguiler 1) would be required.
Are there any other options to do this better? Maybe ways to save me from blowing so many skill points cross-class?
Still, blowing +1 CR on getting 2 HD to qualify still puts him at 6th level spells by CR 9, and 9th level spells by CR 12 (which is gestalt CR 11, since this is for a gestalt game).
Edit: There is also a small chance I might look into adding Ur-Priest to a Frost Giant as well, but a giants meager 2 skill points per level makes that a less attractive challenge.
