Skills

During creation and during level-up a character will receive a specific amount of skill points, that can be spent to increase his or her current skill ranks. The amount you receive depends on your race, class and your base intelligence modifier. The minimum amount you can ever receive is 1 and there is technically no upper limit, although increasing your intelligence is limited, which puts a limit on the amount of skill points you can receive.

Enhancements or effects that modify your intelligence will not modify your number of available skill points. So, equipping a Clever Item or bestowing a temporary effects (such as a Fox's Cunning spell/potion) will have no effect on your current skill points, nor during the actual level-up process.

Only your base score is taken into account to determine the modifier. The only exception is a Tome of Clear Thought, which will grant additional skill points during your next level-up if its effect at your current level increases your intelligence modifier. However, tomes do not work retroactively.

When creating a new character, he or she will receive 4 times the amount of skill points at level one. For this reason it is recommended to select the one class of your planned build that receives the most skill points at first level, as this can significantly alter your available skill points. It is as well recommended to set your intelligence to the planned final value on level one instead of increasing it during the attributes selection at later level-ups, as skill points are not granted retroactively.

For further optimizations, see also: Skill usefulness

Racial modifiers

 * Humans: +1 additional skill point. Note that the Iconic Hero Purple Dragon Knight is as well human and therefore receives the additional skill point.
 * Drow and Sun Elf: Receive +2 intelligence, which does not grant skill points on its own, but makes it easier to achieve higher intelligence modifiers.
 * Half-Orc: Receive -2 intelligence, which does not reduce skill points on its own, but makes it more difficult to achieve higher intelligence modifiers.

Class modifiers
Each class will receive its (fixed) amount of base skill points + intelligence modifier during level-up. Only the class you are currently in the progress of leveling will have an effect on the amount of skill points you can spend. The base skill points for each class are as follows:

Not all Pen & Paper skills are included in DDO and some are modified. Follows all the skills present in DDO.