Knowledge (Beasts)

When looking over how the Knowledge skills can grant information about monsters I decided to change how some of it works:

Since we have a rating for how hard a monster is (and nothing that says anything about how rare or special it is), I've chosen to use CR instead of HD to determine if an appropriate Knowledge skill reveals any info. For instance, you'd have to make a Knowledge(Arcana) check vs a DC of 58 to identify the Tarrasque if going by HD. And then there are the Zombies made from huge creatures, giving some pretty basic info incomparable DC's. (IMHO.)

As The Planes don't figure heavily in my campaign, I've placed info on Outsiders in Knowledge(Religion) and info on Elementals in Knowledge(Arcana).

And here's where I need a little help: It seems strange to me that Knowledge(Local) includes info on Humanoids. For instance, I can easily imagine a streetwise Rogue with a high Knowledge(Local) who doesn't know the first thing about Bugbears, Sahuagin or Troglodytes.

Which would be a better skill to contain knowledge on Humanoids?

Maybe Survival? Or should this kind of info be kept to the Knowledge skills?

Some possible options:

Knowledge-Culture (insert Race here). E.G. Knowledge-Culture (Orcs)

Knowledge-Society (insert Species here) E.G. Knowledge-Society (Giant)

Perhaps,

Knowledge-Non-Human. E.G. Knowledge-Goblins.

The way I generally run Knowledge skills is to follow 3 basic rules:

1. You can make the Knowledge skill practically anything but General Knowledge (which is the bard knowledge ability).

2. The more specific the skill, the lower the DC's are for knowing info that falls under that skill. The most general application imaginable (monsters) would add about +10 to skill DC's, a reasonably specific application (outsiders) would maintain normal DC's, and a very specific application (vrocks) would yield a -10 to DC's. Note that races like "human" are more general than races like "green slaad", and should be rated accordingly.

3. If you have more than one Knowledge skill that pertains to the situation, and the specific skill is NOT a direct subset of the general one (knowing "monsters" will not help knowing "dragons"), the character automatically uses the skill with best chance of success and gains a +2 to the skill check per additional applicable skill.

Example: A loremaster has Knowledge (psychology), Knowledge (fire creatures), and Knowledge (dragons).

a. If he meets a hobgoblin, he'd have a very small chance (psychology DC 32) of determining its typical reactions to common situations. He'd have no idea of its combat stats or ability scores, not without more skills than are listed above anyway.

b. If he meets a Fire Lizard, a Magical Beast that superficially resembles a Dragon, he has a high chance of recognizing that it is not a dragon (dragons DC 18) but is indeed a Fire Lizard (fire creatures DC 22). Furthermore, he will be better (psychology DC 27) at determining a Fire Lizard's typical reactions than for a general monster, and has a decent chance (fire creatures DC 25) of knowing its combat stats.

c. If he meets a Red Dragon, he should recognize it almost automatically (dragons DC 12) and have a very good chance at telling what age level it is and its general combat ability (dragons or fire creatures DC 22). He also has an excellent chance (psychology or dragons or fire creatures DC 22) of knowing how a red dragon would react to common situations. How much the fact that the dragon will probably fly around and breathe fire on you next round will help you is debatable.

Squire James said:

3. If you have more than one Knowledge skill that pertains to the situation, and the specific skill is NOT a direct subset of the general one (knowing "monsters" will not help knowing "dragons"), the character automatically uses the skill with best chance of success and gains a +2 to the skill check per additional applicable skill.

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That's a neat idea, though I'd limit it to applicable skills with 5+ ranks in them and call it a synergy bonus.

Grayhawk said:

It seems strange to me that Knowledge(Local) includes info on Humanoids. For instance, I can easily imagine a streetwise Rogue with a high Knowledge(Local) who doesn't know the first thing about Bugbears, Sahuagin or Troglodytes.

Which would be a better skill to contain knowledge on Humanoids?

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IIRC, you don't simply get ranks in Knowledge(Local), but you specify which region is "local". Therefore you may have Knowledge(Thay) 4 and Knowledge(Underdark) 2 at the same time. If it works this way, you definitely use the knowledge only for humanoids who live in the region. At this point however it becomes debatable why you couldn't use it for monsters who live in the same regions.

As a matter of fact, different publishers and different authors of the same publisher have used the Knowledge skills so far in quite different ways.

A cross-side Knowledge(Monsters) or Knowledge(Creature Lore) was defined in many settings to allow questions on ALL types of monsters, but nothing else.

I like the idea to use CR instead of HD, really makes a lot of sense.

I also thought about a similar topic recently, concerning calling (planar ally/binding). The HD restriction doesn't make much sense there either and CR would be much more appropriate somehow.

Bye
Thanee

Thanee said:

I like the idea to use CR instead of HD, really makes a lot of sense.

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Thanks

Li Shenron said:

IIRC, you don't simply get ranks in Knowledge(Local), but you specify which region is "local".

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While this certainly makes sense, it doesn't explain why Knowledge(Local) should impart info on humanoids over other local critters, as you went on to say yourself.

Li Shenron said:

A cross-side Knowledge(Monsters) or Knowledge(Creature Lore) was defined in many settings to allow questions on ALL types of monsters, but nothing else.

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I have such a houseruled skill in my game. It's called Knowledge(Beasts) and applies to all monster types. (I was glad when the Beast type went away in 3.5, allowing me to use this name without any risk of confusion. It seems to be the right name for a skill for someone working on a Bestiary, no?)

But I'm still looking for an appropriate existing skill to include info on humanoids - preferably a knowledge skill.

As with the other skills, 5 ranks in this one will grant a +2 synergy bonus to the Knowledge(Beasts) skill (when facing humanoids).

Grayhawk said:

While this certainly makes sense, it doesn't explain why Knowledge(Local) should impart info on humanoids over other local critters, as you went on to say yourself.

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You can use Knowledge(Local) perhaps to know which monsters are living in the area, but you may still need a more appropriate knowledge to know about they traits. Just like someone who knows which fauna & flora exist nearby his hometown but doesn't necessarily know about animals physiology for example.

Then you can use the synergy bonus from Local to any other knowledge to answer questions about the local monsters.

The other way around, Knowledge(Aberration) won't tell you which aberrations live in this area, although it may tell which are more likely to live.

Grayhawk said:

But I'm still looking for an appropriate existing skill to include info on humanoids - preferably a knowledge skill.

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If you don't mind that it is Wis-based instead of Int you can go with Heal.

I don't usually like the idea of making up new Knowledge fields, since there are quite a lot already, and nearly any topic can be traced back to one of those broad groupings.

For humanoids, I'd point my finger at either of these two (and the reasons for each):

Knowledge (Geography): It covers the topography, water resources and agricultural capability of places, and these play a major role in settling, migrations and development (in the real world, we learn about countries, their rsources and how they settled during Geography classes).

Knowledge (History): It covers the relationships between nations, factions and power groups, so it may help know what races have lived where since when and what they do for a living (in the real world, we learn about the romans, greeks, goths, visigoths, celts, mongols, mings, indians, hindu and such in History classes).

Pick your favorite!

Klaus said:

I don't usually like the idea of making up new Knowledge fields, since there are quite a lot already, and nearly any topic can be traced back to one of those broad groupings.

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I agree. You really shouldn't make up new Knowledge (or any other) skills, if an existing skill can do the job, as that just makes for more skills to be bad at.

Claudio and Li Shenron, thanks for your suggestions on which skill to lump info on Humanoids under - all of which made at least as much sense as Knowledge(Local).

But after thinking on this a bit I've decided on using Knowledge(Nature) instead. I'm aware that it already includes 6 monster types, but in the end I think it makes the most sense here.