Increasing maximum ranks?

[Ruethgar]

The Laborious Training feat from Ravenloft gets you +2 max skill ranks for Int based skills. A few of the readings of the Bloodline rules can get you some at relatively low cost. There are also several Awakened Animals that have ECL less than their RHD, letting them get up to 3 ranks past the normal limit for your ECL.

The feat Laborious Training exists for exactly this purpose (making the cap for all intelligence skills lv+5 instead of lv+3), but due to its source you may have a hard time getting it approved at any table (although not any more so than, say, Lost Tradition, I would think?)

It should be said that Laborious Training is officially licensed WotC content while Lost Tradition is not.