Knowledge skills as level checks, for everybody!

[Sravoff]

I just started a campaign yesterday, and we were fighting a lich. The only character that knew anything about it was the cleric, because he had ranks in Knowledge(Arcana). We didn;t have an arcane spell caster, and started at level 10.

But I started thinking, shouldn't each class have some general knowledge about themselves? A wizard should know something about arcane, even if s/he doesn't devout much time to its study. He is still going to pick up scraps here and there when reading other people's spell books. A warrior is going to swap tales of fights around a camp fire. I propose that each class get a level check with regards to a specific knowledge skill. Though some of these classes are easier to do than others. Some, like the ranger are both warrior and men and women of nature. Paladins are both warriors and defenders of the faith. So this is what have so far.

Barbarian-Geography
Bard-Local
Cleric-Religion
Druid-Nature
Fighter
Monk-Religion
Paladin
Ranger
Rogue
Sorcerer
Wizard-Arcana

I'm a little stumped on the others. I am thinking of giving the paladin and ranger, half their level in Religion/fighter and Nature/fighter respectivly. I heard about a knowledge skill called tactics, which I was thinking abotu giving to Fighters. I like the war bit of history, but not city foundings. Sorcerer I am a slight bit of a loss. I'm not sure about rogues, perhaps architecture and engineeering, as the study traps and such, or geography if they are more like scouts, perhaps dungeoneering if they are treasure sekers.

Alternatively, I could just let each character choose a certain knowledge skill, and let it go from there. I am thinking about letting everyone make knowledge skill checks equal to 1/2 their level, or maybe less. I think that each of us gets a certain amount of knowledge, jsut by talking to people.

The main reason for this, is that mo characters don't take knowledge skills, unless they are looking at a prestige class. I wouldn't alter the prestige class requirements, you would still have to have any requires knowledge ranks, just letting PC's get a bonus doesn't seem game breaking, and seems to fit my mind's eye of flavor rather well...

What do you think?
Thanks,
-Sravoff

 

[ChampionoftheTriad]

Seems like a neat idea...I agree that people should have some intrinsic knowledge without being scholars...I offer my suggestions to finish it off:

I think Bards should have History...they are into lore and legend

You could give Fighters Nobility/Royalty...recognizing heraldry of merc units as well as famous warriors

Paladins should be Religion...wouldn't worry about doubling up with Clerics...a lot of their stuff does anyway

Rangers...well Nature...see Pally above

Rogues should get Local...streetwise and all that...also, its the only Knowledge skill on their class list...

Sorcerors...Arcana...I understand wanting to bow to the "innate magic" and NOT give them undo scholarly knowledge...but the game already does that, and players might expect to have it, and...well...its easy...

 

[Sravoff]

Thats actually looking pretty good. I'll go with that. Thanks!

 

[papastebu]

It seems to me that anyone with combat as their mainstay should not only know about using their weapons, they should be able to do things like appraise the value of found weapons, or, in the case of some legendary weapons/armors, etc, then they might even be able to identify them and what they can do, simply because of the legend.

"I heard about this sword once..."

The same is true, in other areas, for all the classes. But that is essentially what you were saying in the first place, isn't it?

If you wanted to, you could even go so far as to make a level-based knowledge check for every skill, and the classes that are going to be best at these are the ones who use the given skill all the time, or at least most often. To go with the fighter example, they could make a knowledge check in the midst of combat to appraise the skill of the opponent. I f they get a high enough success, they get a synergy bonus. An abyssmal failure could cause the inverse reward.

 

[Nifft]

Cool idea. I also really like the idea of slicing up the Knowledge skills to reflect the interests of a class -- it shouldn't matter if a magic sword is powered by religion or arcana, a Fighter might have heard of it.

Here's some ideas:

Barbarian: Nature, Weapons
Ranger: Nature, History, Weapons, Geography
Fighter: Weapons, Armor, Architecture & Engineering
Paladin: Religion, Armor, Weapons
Monk: Religion, and pick any two

Cleric: Religion, Arcana, Armor
Druid: Nature, Geography, Elemental Planes

Sorcerer: Arcana, Dragons
Wizard: Arcana, The Planes, plus any other two

Bard: Everything (this replaces the Bardic Lore class feature)
Rogue: Local Gossip, Unusually Valuable Treasure

... and perhaps a Feat to add another one or two?
Cheers, -- N

 

[Sravoff]

Actually, that looks pretty good. I think I'll use that.

 

[Nifft]

When I thought about applying this to my group, my first thought was: how do you deal with multi-classing?

I guess you have to start tracking which classes stack... but it's still simple for single-class dudes.

Cheers, -- N