What knowledge skills do you never use?

[tarchon]

Nature, we used very frequently. We always had a hard time deciding whether something was K-Arcana or Spellcraft, so Arcana sort of fell into disuse.

 

[drnuncheon]

I respectfully disagree.

Glaciers, to steaming jungles, to deserts, to the bottom of the ocean - all covered by Knowledge: Nature, but underground alone is different enough to warrant a seperate skill?

One of the constant themes of the D&D "underdark" is its weird and alien nature - packed full of aberrations, mysterious civilizations (well, they used to be mysterious before they became the cool flavor of the decade), strange alterations to the laws of magic and nature, etc. As such, making it a separate skill helps underline that. If they want something to be seen as unnatural, then having it as part of knowledge: nature would sort of undermine that.

J

 

[The Madhatter]

ALL the knowledge skills are good and useful... What really bothers me is when GMs start adding new ones, like Knowledge (Elves)/(Dwarves), when Knowledge (Local) covers Humanoids, or Knowledge (Strategy & Tactics) when Knowledge (History) covers battles (and, indeed, that is what you study at war college).

Insead of Knowledge(history) or knowledge(strategy and tactics) we've been using Profession(soldier). It differentiates book knowledge from practical knowledge (we think..). A prof(soldier) check will help you find a good spot for a pitch ditch and a knowl(history) will tell you which battle the pitch ditch was first used or when it was used most effectively. A good benefit of Profession(soldier) is that it's already on the Fighter's skill list.

 

[Aesmael]

I used Architecture & Engineering just the other day. But that was as a potential source of information for an adventure so maybe that doesn't count. Otherwise I couldn't say.

 

[schulerta]

Thankfully my players don't know much about monsters and what they can/can't do, so the ones (arcana,the planes,religion,dungeoneering,nature) that deal with knowledge of certain monsters are used very frequently, at least once per encounter.

Troy