I need help with contact other plane.

[Burpcycle]

I am playing a level 2 wizard/1 binder/10 anima mage/1 fatespinner. I am lawful neutral and have 25 intelligence (+7), which I am already improving using a headband of intellect +4. I need to use contact other plane to talk to greater deities. The penalty for failing (int and cha drop to 8 for five weeks) is too great to risk. The intelligence check DC to contact a greater deity is 16, which means I have a 40% chance of becoming useless for more than a month. This is unacceptable, but I need to talk these deities. I am aware of the marshal aura that improves intelligence checks, but no one in the party is a marshal and I do not have leadership to get one. I am aware of vestiges that heal ability score damage quickly, but the DM ruled that COP doesn't say it deals ability score damage, it just flat lowers your intelligence and charisma. I am aware of expensive items that improve intelligence checks, but I cannot afford them. I am also aware of expensive items that allow you to reroll ability checks, but I cannot afford them, either. The DM also ruled that limited wish does not undo the intelligence and charisma drops from COP.

I do, however, have access to a level 14 druid party member and a friendly level 17 cleric NPC. I have looked through their spell lists for something useful, but have found nothing beyond Alter Fortune, which, while helpful, still carries a risk of me failing the check a second time. It is my hope that I overlooked something.

What can I do? COP is the best possible way for me to get information on our enemies.

[Agita]

You can take 10 on ability checks.

If your DM disallows this (as it's certainly not intended), can the Cleric cast Miracle for you? You said Limited Wish cannot remove it, but what about a full Miracle/Wish?

[kitep]

If your DM allows it, there's the Guidance Of The Avatar spell, cleric-2.  It'll give you a +20 competence bonus to a skill roll.

In CAdv, there's the Divine Insight spell, which gives you 5+caster level (max +15) insight bonus.  It's clr2/pal2, but alas, it's personal range.

Heroism spell gives a +2 morale bonus.

I think if you scan the PHB and SpC for the word "skill", you'll find enough spells to cobble together a sure-fire bonus.  There's also a thread around somewhere, but I think it's on the old board.

Good luck!

Edit: but before you spend a lot of time looking, you may want to check with your DM and make sure that spells that increase skill checks will also count against straight ability checks.

[Agita]

Edit: but before you spend a lot of time looking, you may want to check with your DM and make sure that spells that increase skill checks will also count against straight ability checks.

That's the sticky wicket. They don't. Spells that affect your ability checks say so.
Moment of Prescience, for instance, specifies ability checks... but it further specifies opposed ability/skill checks, do it doesn't work here either.

[Burpcycle]

Edit: but before you spend a lot of time looking, you may want to check with your DM and make sure that spells that increase skill checks will also count against straight ability checks.

That's the sticky wicket. They don't. Spells that affect your ability checks say so.
Moment of Prescience, for instance, specifies ability checks... but it further specifies opposed ability/skill checks, do it doesn't work here either.

Unfortunately, skill checks are separate from ability checks. This would have been very easy if I could have used skill boosters.

[Concerned Ninja Citizen]

Can you hire a Marshal somehow? Have somebody make a gather info check to find one?

Spell wise, does a buff spell have to affect you for the whole 10 minute casting time to help?

Can things be cast on you during that time?

Or how about a scroll of this spell? Can you UMD at all?

[Burpcycle]

Can you hire a Marshal somehow? Have somebody make a gather info check to find one?

Or how about a scroll of this spell? Can you UMD at all?

I could easily get hold of a level 1 scroll, but I have no UMD. I am about to level up, however, and I could put a point in it, but my charisma is only 10.

[Concerned Ninja Citizen]

I think this might stack with Alter Fortune. There's a couple of similar effects if you can't use that specific one for some reason.

If you can somehow get this transferred to you, that would do it.

Ray of Hope is a small buff the cleric could cast.

[Agita]

Can you hire a Marshal somehow? Have somebody make a gather info check to find one?

Or how about a scroll of this spell? Can you UMD at all?

I could easily get hold of a level 1 scroll, but I have no UMD. I am about to level up, however, and I could put a point in it, but my charisma is only 10.

Making the UMD check shouldn't be hard, since skill-boosting spells do apply to that. If you can use Guidance of the Avatar, your Cleric friend should be able to cast that on you.
If you can get a CL 16 Improvisation scroll, you should be set, as it'll give you a +8 bonus, getting you the +15 total you need in order to pass the check on a 1.

[Burpcycle]

Can you hire a Marshal somehow? Have somebody make a gather info check to find one?

Or how about a scroll of this spell? Can you UMD at all?

I could easily get hold of a level 1 scroll, but I have no UMD. I am about to level up, however, and I could put a point in it, but my charisma is only 10.

Making the UMD check shouldn't be hard, since skill-boosting spells do apply to that. If you can use Guidance of the Avatar, your Cleric friend should be able to cast that on you.
If you can get a CL 16 Improvisation scroll, you should be set, as it'll give you a +8 bonus, getting you the +15 total you need in order to pass the check on a 1.

Oh, darn, I can't easily get a CL16 scroll. I mean, I could probably find it with a little difficulty, but I imagine such a scroll must be very expensive (I don't have access to my books to check the value of a CL16 level 1 scroll right now).

[Burpcycle]

I think this might stack with Alter Fortune. There's a couple of similar effects if you can't use that specific one for some reason.

If you can somehow get this transferred to you, that would do it.

Ray of Hope is a small buff the cleric could cast.

Ray of Hope looks very promising, thank you.

[Agita]

Can you hire a Marshal somehow? Have somebody make a gather info check to find one?

Or how about a scroll of this spell? Can you UMD at all?

I could easily get hold of a level 1 scroll, but I have no UMD. I am about to level up, however, and I could put a point in it, but my charisma is only 10.

Making the UMD check shouldn't be hard, since skill-boosting spells do apply to that. If you can use Guidance of the Avatar, your Cleric friend should be able to cast that on you.
If you can get a CL 16 Improvisation scroll, you should be set, as it'll give you a +8 bonus, getting you the +15 total you need in order to pass the check on a 1.

Oh, darn, I can't easily get a CL16 scroll. I mean, I could probably find it with a little difficulty, but I imagine such a scroll must be very expensive (I don't have access to my books to check the value of a CL16 level 1 scroll right now).

The cost of a scroll equals 25*(spell level)*(caster level). In the case of a 1st-level spell with a caster level of 16, as we have here, that comes out to 400 gold pieces. Scrolls are cheap.
Getting a ray of Hope reduces the caster level you'd need by four to 12 (and the price to 300 gp), if that helps.

[Burpcycle]

Can you hire a Marshal somehow? Have somebody make a gather info check to find one?

Or how about a scroll of this spell? Can you UMD at all?

I could easily get hold of a level 1 scroll, but I have no UMD. I am about to level up, however, and I could put a point in it, but my charisma is only 10.

Making the UMD check shouldn't be hard, since skill-boosting spells do apply to that. If you can use Guidance of the Avatar, your Cleric friend should be able to cast that on you.
If you can get a CL 16 Improvisation scroll, you should be set, as it'll give you a +8 bonus, getting you the +15 total you need in order to pass the check on a 1.

Oh, darn, I can't easily get a CL16 scroll. I mean, I could probably find it with a little difficulty, but I imagine such a scroll must be very expensive (I don't have access to my books to check the value of a CL16 level 1 scroll right now).

The cost of a scroll equals 25*(spell level)*(caster level). In the case of a 1st-level spell with a caster level of 16, as we have here, that comes out to 400 gold pieces. Scrolls are cheap.
Getting a ray of Hope reduces the caster level you'd need by four to 12 (and the price to 300 gp), if that helps.

Thank you greatly, I can easily scrape up 300 gold. This works very well, as long as I can find such a specific scroll. I'll be relying on our factotum's gather information, I suppose. There is a problem of it only working for one question, but such is life, I suppose.

[Agita]

Thank you greatly, I can easily scrape up 300 gold. This works very well, as long as I can find such a specific scroll. I'll be relying on our factotum's gather information, I suppose. There is a problem of it only working for one question, but such is life, I suppose.

I'm pretty sure you only need to roll the Int check once for the entire spell. The sentence "If you lose Intelligence and Charisma, the effect strikes as soon as the first question is asked, and no answer is received", emphasis mine, implies as much.
Even if your DM rules it to be otherwise, the Improvisation is good for four rolls total.

[kitep]

I looked through captnq's spell book and searched for "ability check"

Benediction (clr2, pal2) - reroll ability check, use the higher roll
Dragonblood Affinity (brd3, sor3) - +2 bonus on ability checks (unnamed bonus) - can only be cast by dragons and dragonblood creatures
Emotion (hope) (brd 3, sor/wiz3) - +2 morale bonus on ability checks - this spell is in the PHB 3.0, not 3.5
Focusing Chant (brd1) - +1 circumstance bonus on ability checks
Good Hope (brd3) +2 morale bonus on ability checks
Improvisation (brd1) - up to +1/caster level luck bonus on ability check - you can use various shennigans to raise your caster level
Insight Of Good Fortune (brd2, clr2, sor/wiz2) - roll twice on ability check and take better roll
Ray Of Hope (brd1, clr1) - +2 morale bonus on ability checks
Surge Of Fortune (clr5) - +2 luck bonus on ability checks.  You can discharge the spell to TREAT THE NEXT ABILITY CHECK ROLL AS A NATURAL 20.  Alas, it's personal range, so that may be a problem
Willing Sacrafice (clr3, wiz/sor3) - up to 1/2 of 1d10 profane bonus to ability check.  Use with maximize and empower to up the bonus.  Evil spell.

[kitep]

Searching for "intelligence"

Adept Spirit (clr2, sor/wiz3) - +1 insight bonus to caster level and +2 insight bonus to Int checks and int-based skill checks.  For every point of essentia you add, increase the bonus to int checks by 1.
Fox's Cunning (brd2, sor/wiz2) - +4 enhancement to Int - probably won't stack with your item
Mechanus Mind (sor/wiz2) - +2 competence bonus on int checks
Mental Pinnacle (sor/wiz6) - +4 enhancement bonus to int and wis
Necrotic Empowerment (clr8, sor/wiz8) - +8 enhancement to int.  Caster must possess a mother cyst
Polymorph Any Object (sor/wiz8) - gain Int of new form

[Burpcycle]

Searching for "intelligence"

Adept Spirit (clr2, sor/wiz3) - +1 insight bonus to caster level and +2 insight bonus to Int checks and int-based skill checks.  For every point of essentia you add, increase the bonus to int checks by 1.
Fox's Cunning (brd2, sor/wiz2) - +4 enhancement to Int - probably won't stack with your item
Mechanus Mind (sor/wiz2) - +2 competence bonus on int checks
Mental Pinnacle (sor/wiz6) - +4 enhancement bonus to int and wis
Necrotic Empowerment (clr8, sor/wiz8) - +8 enhancement to int.  Caster must possess a mother cyst
Polymorph Any Object (sor/wiz8) - gain Int of new form

Your posts are very useful, thank you! Although I thought PAO doesn't change your mental scores?

[Esgath]

PAO gives you the intelligence of the new creature and if your target didn't have wisdom and charisma, it gets them too. Only one of the reasons why it's considered broken.

[kitep]

Your posts are very useful, thank you! Although I thought PAO doesn't change your mental scores?

Thank you for the thank you!

Most of the time, polymorphing/shapechanging/etc don't change your mental scores.  PAO is an exception.

[kitep]

If you have a familiar, you can share the Contact Other Plane spell with it.  I was originally going to say then your familiar can use Aid Another to give you a +2 circumstance bonus, but I guess it could ask questions too and give you double the number of questions you can ask.  Or you could simply let it ask and take the chance of misfortune while you remain safe.