Bardic Knowledge vs. other Knowledge Skills

[candidus_cogitens]

Silver Griffon's original suggestion was that it should be something worthy of being written about in song OR poetry or prose, which I find more reasonable than just limiting it to stuff that can be found in songs only.

Check out some of the examples given in the player's handbook. Most of that stuff is not the kind of thing that would make good song material. Rather, it's a bunch of stray knowledge, heard through the grapevine.

Also note that those examples do not represent GENERAL information. Far from it! They are EXTREMELY SPECIFIC.

In fact, the more I study those examples, I am convinced that bardic knowledge is meant to apply to things that are entirely UNWORTHY of being written about. If they were written about, then it wouldn't be as obscure and trivial as most of this stuff seems to be.

Bard's are storytellers, not scholars. They don't READ, for information; rather, they GOSSIP!

 

[Silver Griffon]

In fact, the more I study those examples, I am convinced that bardic knowledge is meant to apply to things that are entirely UNWORTHY of being written about. If they were written about, then it wouldn't be as obscure and trivial as most of this stuff seems to be.

Bard's are storytellers, not scholars. They don't READ, for information; rather, they GOSSIP!

I really like this take on the bard! A tavern gossip. Nice. But I still like mine, too
Maybe I'll give bards a choice IMC. If they are a tavern gossip, they know mostly trivia. If they are a student of the classics, they have a narrower area of knowledge, but its more likely to be of particular importance (kings, great deeds, etc.).
hmmm...

 

[nameless]

I disagree with most of the posters so far. Bardic Knowledge is the major Bardic ability, along with Bardic Music. It should be relatively powerful. I treat it as if he had ranks in every available Knowledge skill equal to his level. So if there is a Knowledge roll to know any particular piece of information, a Bard can always attempt the roll. It is a quasi-mystical tradition of knowledge being passed between bards.

Of course, the phrasing is important when revealing the information. A wizard with Knowledge (Arcana) is going to have a different perspective on the same facts as a Bard. The wizard might actually know the specifics of a spell or magic item, but the Bard may know of the creator of that spell or magic item, and then infer how they used the magic in question.

 

[candidus_cogitens]

I really like this take on the bard! A tavern gossip. Nice. But I still like mine, too
Maybe I'll give bards a choice IMC. If they are a tavern gossip, they know mostly trivia. If they are a student of the classics, they have a narrower area of knowledge, but its more likely to be of particular importance (kings, great deeds, etc.).
hmmm...

Maybe I should have said "oral tradition" rather than "gossip," since the latter term implies that it only has to do with trivial information. I did not mean to imply that bard's don't have a genuinely sophisticated tradition of learning.

So, I don't know if that would be a third option, or what . . . but I do agree that your way sounds good. It seems that the rules are so vaguely defined that one could come up with several different ways of handling it.

I also think nameless' approach sounds fine--even though it is almost assuredly not what was intended by the creators of the game. (If bardic knowledge = all knowledge skills combined, then there would be little point in giving bards access to those knowledge skills, as I discussed above.) I agree that it should be a treated as a fairly powerful feature of the class.

 

[candidus_cogitens]

Another way to handle it would be to create a house rule, eliminating bardic knowledge altogether, and just giving bards a +2 to all knowledge checks.