Enter lore master @ lvl 2 in 3.5

[Mr8658]

So I was talking to my dm and he said
You can't meet the prerequisite for lore master at lvl 2 I think it can but am having a hard time I am willing to take sterile and other feat giving flaws and will even go divination specialist. But would like some help. 3.5 and I need to show him rules as written in the PDF I have Dropbox and almost every 3.5 core books no forgotten realms or what have you
elf as phb races only. 
Wizard without a familiar.
I rolled 17,16,16,14,13,11 and again have flaws to have the meta feats
now I only need the skill and lvl 3 divination spell.

[SorO_Lost]

Loremaster requires 10 Ranks in two Knowledge Skills, typically this means you need 7 Hit Dice through there is a Feat that can reduce this by one. So that's a good reason to say you can't enter it by the 2nd level, through Darklight Wizard could pull this part off. And this "Darklight" by the way is in a 2nd party book you don't have access to and requires the DM to hand your 7th+ level character a Major Artifact to replay on New Game+.

There is also the 3rd level Spell requirement, you cannot legitimate meet this by the 2nd level either. You can't even really meet it illegitimately either, like a bad argument on Versatile Spellcaster even working for a Wizard or capable of meeting level-related requirements still at least requires 2nd level Slots, something you certainly don't have.

But here is my question for you. When you spoke to your DM, who obviously knows a tad more about the game than you, and he said no. Why did you want to come here and ask how to build a character to "prove" him wrong?

[Mr8658]

I have seen some broken thing from online group think like chuck e cheese and god builds pulled off this and other sites be stupid funny to watch.  Was thinking you all would know some broken get around the max ranks limit or max caster limit for a lvl one PC.

[SorO_Lost]

I have seen some broken thing from online group think like chuck e cheese and god builds pulled off this and other sites be stupid funny to watch.  Was thinking you all would know some broken get around the max ranks limit or max caster limit for a lvl one PC.

Then my advice to you is check with your DM to see if that's the kind of game he wants to run and don't forget to check with the other players at the table to see if that's just the kind of thing they want to do.

And Skill Requirements are unfortunately the hardest thing to break in 3.5. There are ways to do it but the process typically used has better applications, like if you were to use Manipulate Form to steal an Illithid Savant's Extraordinary Acquire Skill ability why stop at just Skills?

[Mr8658]

I don't want to be pun pun I want lore master as he is planning on only going to lvl 7 and wants effective PC as we only have 6 + DM and we have a healbot and 4 meatsheilds I want a batman that is a lore master I will talk to him about home brewing the skill ranks to skill focus feats and just drop the 3 lvl spell

[zook1shoe]

You might be able to use the ECLs for Epic Level Handbook + some sort of HD reducing template

[Mr8658]

Lore master is a D4 PrC and so 1 wizard 1 lore master would still only have 2 (con mod)+ 2D4
Same as lvl 2 wizard so just a matter of bypassing some of the req. Or would 1 lvl wizard 6 lvl lore master be > 7 lvl wizard ?

[awaken_D_M_golem]

First build, a Level 1 PC could do the feats for Loremaster
'cept for those annoying qualifying details, maybe build #3
takes some of the burden.

Second build is Warforged + Magic Mart + big stretch.
Warforged makes an Intelligent Item with 2 Rank 10 thingies.
Buys a -festing of Fusion.
Buys 1 (or 2) casting(s) of Polymorph Any Object.
That's an outlay of  > 10,000 gp.

Third Build is straight out of PLZ's early qualifying guide.

Fourth Builld is pun-pun, whom yea beseech forsooth thine unmeritted favour.
Pun-pun merges** builds 1 , 2 and 3 into a single "first" level build.
** we don't know what exactly pun-pun does here
but he can if so inclined, and everyone will believe that it's a level 1 build.

[Ice9]

There are ways to do it, but they rely on the first-level character in question to have some higher level and well-supplied allies that are willing to cast a bunch of high-level spells for free.

For example, you could:
1) Have a Bard with Words of Creation and Song of the Heart use Inspire Greatness on you (+5 HD)
2) Use Shapechange (via item or Magic Jar) to turn into a Barghest.
3) Eat creatures until you have [skill requirement - 3] HD.
4) Someone casts Psychic Reformation on you to reassign your skill points.
5) All the buffs end, but none of them undo the skill point assignment, so you still have it.

But that would require having a bunch more resources than a 1st level character does by default, so you'd need GM agreement anyway.

[Mr8658]

We just made my elf a lvl one lore master and is one by birth rite as both parents are 7 wizard 10 lore master so once I reach lvl 10 and can not progress in the lore master tree as it requires epic I will just have to find a class till I hit 20. Ty for your input everyone but home brewing this in is the best way. Problem solved.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Oh right, homebrew works every time.


The E6 guys did run an experiment on insta access PrCs.
So going X 1 for a caster prog / Loremaster 5 ... is what it is.

[SorO_Lost]

1) Have a Bard with Words of Creation and Song of the Heart use Inspire Greatness on you (+5 HD)

Inspire Greatness doesn't work like that.

The "bonus hit dice" it grants isn't actually "Hit Dice".
* The BHD only grant non-stacking Temporary HP instead of actual HP.
* The BHD only grant a +2 Competence Bonus to Attack Rolls, not BAB.
* The BDH only grant a +1 Competence Bonus to Fortitude Saves, not improve your "Base Fortitude", a defined term, Save.
* The BHD only count as regular HD for the purposes of Spells, Requirements & Prerequisites are not Spells nor are Skill Point figures.
There is no text supporting the idea it increases your maximum Skill Ranks nor grants Skill Points for two reasons but let's cover the first. That last one is a huge deal because it directly differentiates that Greatness's BHD != HD with the one exception of Spell calcs removing any expectation that it should.

The other part is a pretty long and detailed explanation of how D&D actually uses Hit Dice. The tl;dr: is yes per MM1 Skill Points are scaled per "HD" as a Feature of Creature Types, but Racial Hit Dice became a clear term when it got it's own glossary entry separate from Hit Dice in later supplements. There's more to it then that, quite a bit more really, but as a tiny placeholder of a point remember that the Errata/RC favors the PHB's Skill Chapter (see level used not HD) over the MM1's DM-specific Monster Creation rules anyway.

[Ice9]

You're not gaining the temp HD to get the skill points, you're gaining them so you qualify to be Shapechanged into a Barghest (6 HD).  The Barghest HD, on the other hand, are real HD and count for skills, AFAIK.

The bonus Hit Dice count as regular Hit Dice for determining the effect of spells that are Hit Dice dependant.

Edit: Also, I'm not considering the skill points from the Barghest HD to stick around (or even matter at the time); if your first level is a class with lots of skill points (Rogue, Bard, anything Int-based) then those skill points alone will be enough to get a couple skills high enough.

[SorO_Lost]

I'm not sure I understand your post at all Ice9.

I was talking about Inspire Greatness, not a 9th level Spell that fails to work below CL17 (which also means if you can cast it you can turn into a 6hd barghest). Maybe you meant Versatile Spellcaster Alter Self with Assume Supernatural Ability(feed) to gain HD under the assumption that returning to your normal from would remove the RHD.

Far to assumptive for me, a better alternative would be True Dragon Aging. However you are deeply rooted in the concept of level here for PC's Max Skill Ranks as well as maintaining that level long enough to obtain enough XP to advance into Lore Master. And there is a often forgotten metarule about leveling once per session that can be used to nerf it. So an even better alternative, specially one that assumes you've been playing the game for awhile, gaining and losing a bunch of levels to meet the goals of X, would simply be Darklight Wizard. It is official 2nd party making it just as legal as Dragon Magazine.

[Ice9]

I was trying for something first party, and with as little requirement on the 1st level character in question as possible.  So the process I envision would be something like:

1) Mentor Bard uses Inspire Greatness, so that PC count as 6 HD for spells.
2) Mentor hands PC a staff with Shapechange, and if necessary a Skill Shard of UMD.
3) PC uses staff to turn into a Barghest.
4) PC eats people until they have (for Loremaster) 7 HD.
5) Second mentor uses Psychic Reformation on PC.
6) PC assigns their skill points so they have 10 ranks in two Knowledge skills.
7) Possibly you need to have a Wight or something drain the Barghest HD away, if they don't disappear when Shapechange ends.

For Loremaster, you also need 4 feats just to qualify, and whatever you need for the spellcasting part, so some Dark Chaos Shuffle would be needed too.

You need high-level mentors and the loan of an expensive item for this, but still easier than getting an artifact.

[zook1shoe]

Why not just break WBL and buy a potion of shaprchange from a master alchemist?

[SorO_Lost]

Why not just break WBL and buy a potion of shaprchange from a master alchemist?

Hmm... So WBL for level 2 is 900gp & 3rd is 2,700gp.

So in theory you'd have the 910gp to pay for an Ability Rip through Spellcasting Services before the 3rd level to gain an Ethereal/Greater Doppleganger's identity ability for a couple hours. Technically it side steps both the entire multiple level gain & WBL limitations and allows you to obtain a copy of the abilities of say a Wizard 5 / Loremaster 10 / Archmage 5 or w/e. It just needs a nearby Greater Doppler, 13th+ level Wizard to hire, and a little graverobbing.

It's fleeting, but it's workable in as a TO nuke button if you just have to win everything in the next few hours. Through honestly Manipulate Form is a better choice.

[7h39]

Side qurestion: does Loremaster' applicable knowledge "any one feat" gives access to epic feats... Like improved metamagic (for example) ?

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

No. You have to be atleast 20th level as per other epic restrictions. You really need to look up the prereq handbook. It's in the metacompendium with everything else D&D you'll ever want.

[Ice9]

So in theory you'd have the 910gp to pay for an Ability Rip through Spellcasting Services before the 3rd level to gain an Ethereal/Greater Doppleganger's identity ability for a couple hours. Technically it side steps both the entire multiple level gain & WBL limitations and allows you to obtain a copy of the abilities of say a Wizard 5 / Loremaster 10 / Archmage 5 or w/e.

That would be a fun thing to do with followers.  Thrallherd would be particularly thematic, but really any source would work.  They do need a supernatural ability to lose in exchange, but I'm sure there are LA +0 races that have those. 

Take one of your crappy minions, turn it into a 20th level caster for the day, and send it out to destroy your enemies as the most glassy of glass cannons.  And then watch them be confused when they do some divinations and find out the enemy archmage was "some blacksmith from Waterdeep who'd never even picked up a spellbook before".