Expanding Skills- Knowledge and Contacts Subskills

[Breakstone]

Hello there!

So the other night, I was thinking about D&D, and I was thinking about Feng Shui (the game, not the philosophy). In Feng Shui, skills have three applications: the actual, physical use of the skill, and two subskills- Knowledge and Contacts.

Knowledge in a skill shows how much a character knows about that skill.

Contacts in a skill show how adept the character is on finding people who are talented in the skill.

I was thinking that this would be a neat rule to bring over to D&D.

Just about every skill would have a Knowledge and Contacts subskill. Each Subskill would have equal ranks as the base skill. So a character with 4 Ranks in, say, Ride would have 4 Ranks in Knowledge- Ride (so the character would know about different breeds of horses, and how to correctly "dress" a horse with saddle and bit and all that) and 4 Ranks in Contacts- Ride (he would know stables and trainers, or how to find the best ones in a new town).

Maybe the Contacts DC would be a variable based on how familiar the character is with a town. With his hometown, the DC would be something really low, like 5. In a slightly familiar town, it would be 10, and so on.

Furthermore, you could intergrate this into the game by giving class abilities or feats that have to do with the subskills. Such as, Wizards could get "Academic Knowledge" as a class ability, in which they choose five skills, and get a +1 class bonus when using those Knowledge subskills. Maybe this would increase by 1 every four levels or something.

With the bard, you could do the same deal, but with Contacts.


What do you think of the idea?

 

[Quickleaf]

Really like the idea! How does Feng Shui handle this rules-wise?
I mean, this is the sort of house rule I've used for a while (e.g. the warrior with Knowledge (tactics) has military contacts & map-making contacts), but never really bothered to put into writing.
I'd be interested in learning how this would look written up as formal rules.

Would the "contacts" portion of skills completely replace the Gather Information skill?

Obviously, using the Dnd skill system as is, there are many skills that don't fit this mold: Listen, Search, Use Magic Device, Escape Artist, Spot, etc, etc.

The idea has merit, and makes good sense to me.

 

[Jeph]

I'm loving this idea, and I'll be pointing my GM in the direction of this thread. (Also helps that we're both Feng Shui players.)

I think it might be a good idea to have the Knowledge subskill have the normal key ability replaced by Int, and the Contacts subskill have the key ability replaced by Cha. F'rex, if you've got a Dex of 11, a Cha of 16, an Int of 12, and 5 ranks in Ride...

...your main skill bonus would be +5
...your Knowledge bonus would be +6
...and your Contacts bonus would be +8

--Jeff

 

[Breakstone]

I think it might be a good idea to have the Knowledge subskill have the normal key ability replaced by Int, and the Contacts subskill have the key ability replaced by Cha. F'rex, if you've got a Dex of 11, a Cha of 16, an Int of 12, and 5 ranks in Ride...

...your main skill bonus would be +5
...your Knowledge bonus would be +6
...and your Contacts bonus would be +8

--Jeff

Now that's a neat idea!

 

[Corlon]

I'm loving this idea, and I'll be pointing my GM in the direction of this thread. (Also helps that we're both Feng Shui players.)

Too late Jeff, I already found it .

I think it's a really cool idea, in an abstract sort of way I guess you could use the knowledge of listen for knowing a sound when you hear it or something...I dunno.

It doens't seem unbalancing at all to have some skills have it and some skills not.

Also, I don't think this destroys the need for gather information, as gather information can get information on a whole host of topics.

 

[Quickleaf]

Ok, rolling with the idea...I have to say I just worked out some ideas for the Listen skill and I'm really feeling the idea is great. However, I think there are some skills which don't really fit the mold. In fact, in this system (base skill/contacts/knowledge) a new write-up for the skills is needed. Here is my abbreviated attempt with the Listen skill (Ride would be too easy )

Listen (base, Wis): Helps you hear things. (See PHB)

Listen (contact, Cha): You know people who hear things. You must divide your Listen points into these categories. This crosses into the Gather Information skill.
- Informants [subject]: You have informants who hear about a certain person or topic, like servants in the castle.

Listen (knowledge, Int): You are skilled at recognizing certain sounds. You must divide your Listen points into these categories:
- Bird Calls/Signals: You can identify bird calls (or other animal cries) used to communicate covertly when in the wild. This crosses into the Survival skill.
- Spells: You can identify intonations and words used in Spellcasting to determine the general type of spell being cast. This crosses into the Spellcraft skill.
-Detecting mimicry: You are skilled at noticing faked sounds, even ventriloquism spells, or mimic abilities of monsters.

So, a PC with 6 ranks in Listen, Wis 12, Cha 14, and Int 16 might look like this:
Listen (base) +7
Listen (contacts) +4 [Duke Dunderhead] and +4 [Royal Cabinet]
Listen (knowledge) +5 [spells] and +4 [music]