Question about Knowledge (Planes)

[Zaarastara]

Does anyone allow a PC to choose Knowledge (Planes) and have it pertain to all Planes, or do you break it down into such sub-knowledges as Knowledge (Abyss) or Knowledge (Nine Hells). Or perhaps a broader focus, such as Knowledge (Inner Planes) or Knowledge (Outer Planes).

I have a player who is going to be following the example of Mostin, and chose Knowledge (Planes). In the past, I had it broken down into sub-categories. A player could choose Knowledge (Abyss) or Knowledge (Nine Hells), or even Knowledge (Valkrist - Heaven). In effort to streamline a bit, I decided to go ahead and allow Knowledge (Planes) to include knowledge of all things extraplanar in nature—creatures, planes, color pools, and all else.

However, I am wondering if perhaps I should have broken it down into some sub-groups. How do you handle such things?

 

[Oscar carramiñana]

I usually take knowledge the Planes for know some monsters or planes abilities
at higher levels are usefull skill if your party travels along the planes I don't thing you need break it in sub-categories.

 

[CombatWombat51]

It depends on how important that information will be in your campaign. If Knowledge: Planes rarely comes up, I'd just leave it at one skill. If your campaign was based in Sigil, I could see splitting it up in to seperate planes. It just all depends on how relevant the information is.

For example, Profession: Farmer matters little in D&D, so it's left nice and generic. It's not split into Sowing, Plowing, Harvesting, and Storing, and that's just on the green side of farming. But if the game was Fields and Fertilizer d20, I'm sure all aspects of farming would be split up.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Just leave it one skill. After all, you have Knowledge(Arcana), and not one for every School. Or Knowledge(Religion) separately for every deity.

On the other hand, Knowledge(Local) is split into several subskills, so I can imagine splitting the planes up further. If you do not want to have one skill per plane, you could make a less general distinction: Elemental/Energetic Planes, Transitive Planes, Higher Planes (everything good) and Lower Planes (everything evil).

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

We houseruled it so that you get a different plane for every rank you put into it, but the check is always with the total modifier. So if you put 10 ranks into it, you get 10 different planes all at +10 modifier (+/- Int).

If you differentiate the planes you know and then reduce the modifier to how many ranks you put into a specific plane, it's not worth it and the skill loses its value. Our method is a nice way to keep the skill useful without having someone know anything and everything about the infinite # of planes inexistence.

 

[Elephant]

However, I am wondering if perhaps I should have broken it down into some sub-groups. How do you handle such things?

The problem with splitting skills into subgroups is the scarcity of skill points for most characters. I'd leave it as one main skill - that way you don't end up with PCs spending all their skill points each level to increase their general knowledge of the planes.

 

[Olive]

I keep it as one, but if someone wanted to know about te Hells, I'd let them spend skill points on a specific knowledge skill and reduce the DCs, and perhaps let the general skill provide synergies etc.

 

[Pax]

You could borrow a page from GURPS - skill specialisations. Specifically, youpick one sub-field in which you are especially knowledgeable - you get to make rolls in that field at a bonus (GURPS uses +4, but it's a 3d6 mechanic, so +2 or +3 would be a better choice).

Every other application of the skill is penalised (in GURPS, it's a penalty of -1; forD&D, I'd suggest -2).

Thus, if you had "Knolwedge: The Planes (Elemental) at 5 ranks, with a +3 intelligence modifier, you would roll 1d20+11 for anything pertaining to the elemental planes, but only 1d20+6 for something pertaining to the Ethereal plane, or to the Lower Planes.

For KN: Planes, I'd suggest the following eight subfields / specialisations:

• Elemental (earth, air, fire, water, and positive/negative energy)
• Transitive (astral, ethereal, shadow, and all demiplanes)
• Upper (good-aligned outer planes)
• Lower (evil-aligned outer planes)
• Order (lawful-aligned outer planes)
• Chaos (chaotic-aligned outer planes)
• Alternate (other Prime planes)
• Alien (the Far planes, a la the Alienist PrC from T&B)

 

[Piratecat]

I leave it as one skill and add a circumstance penalty that raises the DC as more and more esoteric information is sought. If the PC spends a lot of time exploring or studying one particular plane, I reduce the circumstance penalty to DC for queries about that plane. It seems to work fairly well, and there's nothing to keep track of.