[3.5] Knowledge skill clarifications

[Skaros]

Scooped by Olgar in his thread:

Knowledge (dungeoneering) is all about caverns, spelunking, and general underground lore. There's no Knowledge (monsters) skill; instead, "monster lore" is split up among the various existing Knowledge skills by monster type. For instance, Knowledge (arcana) covers constructs, dragons, and magical beasts, while Knowledge (dungeoneering) covers aberrations and oozes. There's also a new paragraph in the Knowledge skill that covers using the skill to identify monsters or their special powers or vulnerabilities.

I can't wait to read through the skill descriptions to see what other little tidbits are clarified.

Skaros

 

[I'm A Banana]

This is really good news for the Blue Mage....

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

I'm pretty happy that (for those of us who like to play that player knowledge is not equal to character knowledge) it seems there will finally be an "official" way to answer that age old question "Do I recognize that creature as a troll and do I know to use fire on it?"

Speaking of trolls, I wonder which skill will cover humanoids and giants.

 

[drnuncheon]

My guesses on how the monster types will map to the various knowledge skills:

Aberrations Dungeoneering
Animals Nature
Constructs Arcana
Dragons Arcana
Elementals Planes
Fey Nature
Giants ?
Humanoids Local (?)
Monstrous Humanoids ?
Oozes Dungeoneering
Outsiders Planes
Plants Nature
Undead Religion
Vermin Nature

 

[diaglo]

a list for these was already in one of the supplements. tome and blood i think.

 

[JPL]

Hmm. I always thought it would be interesting to play a sage-type character, whose only advantage was that he knew a lot of stuff.

[Maybe an expert, or bard/diviner, or port over the Smart Hero class from d20 Modern.]

And now that just became a more interesting option. Provided the players are all willing to seperate PC v. player knowledge, and provided the party encounters critters more exotic than orcs and kobolds, those knowledge ranks just got a lot more useful...

 

[drnuncheon]

a list for these was already in one of the supplements. tome and blood i think.

T&B discusses Knowledge (arcana) vs. Spellcraft, but nothing I can find about knowledge as monster lore. Masters of the WIld doesn't seem to have it either.

 

[MarauderX]

I'm pretty happy that (for those of us who like to play that player knowledge is not equal to character knowledge) it seems there will finally be an "official" way to answer that age old question "Do I recognize that creature as a troll and do I know to use fire on it?"
...

That's EXACTLY why I change the subtle things IMC. Sometimes you have to bring down that player smugness with thinking they have got things all wrapped up to trying to stay alive. I assume anything written in the books could be an old wives tale or it could be more true than they ever wished.

The Knowledge skill IMC is used when the player looks at the DM in a perplexed manner and isn't sure what to ask about an encounter or wonders if his PC has ever heard or read about such a place, thing, or person.

 

[kenjib]

This doesn't make sense. Knowledge (spellunking) won't help you identify a cave-dwelling dragon, and Knowledge (arcana) won't help you identify an aberration that is a species created through magical manipulation of other creatures or a species that is famous for it's arcane history (frex. some of the elder FR creatures), etc. etc.

 

[JPL]

This doesn't make sense. Knowledge (spellunking) won't help you identify a cave-dwelling dragon, and Knowledge (arcana) won't help you identify an aberration that is a species created through magical manipulation of other creatures or a species that is famous for it's arcane history (frex. some of the elder FR creatures), etc. etc.

DM can always make the call that K: dungeoneering gives knowledge of, say, a deep dragon, or that K: arcana gives you insight into the care and feeding of a magically-created abberations.

The fact is, you can encounter ANYTHING in a dungeon. I think oozes and abberations are logical choices, rather than having K: dungeoneering cover anything that could conceivably crawl down a hole.