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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Squire James" data-source="post: 1462866" data-attributes="member: 548">The way I generally run Knowledge skills is to follow 3 basic rules:1.  You can make the Knowledge skill practically anything but General Knowledge (which is the bard knowledge ability).2.  The more specific the skill, the lower the DC's are for knowing info that falls under that skill.  The most general application imaginable (monsters) would add about +10 to skill DC's, a reasonably specific application (outsiders) would maintain normal DC's, and a very specific application (vrocks) would yield a -10 to DC's.  Note that races like "human" are more general than races like "green slaad", and should be rated accordingly.3.  If you have more than one Knowledge skill that pertains to the situation, and the specific skill is NOT a direct subset of the general one (knowing "monsters" will not help knowing "dragons"), the character automatically uses the skill with best chance of success and gains a +2 to the skill check per additional applicable skill.Example:  A loremaster has Knowledge (psychology), Knowledge (fire creatures), and Knowledge (dragons).a.  If he meets a hobgoblin, he'd have a very small chance (psychology DC 32) of determining its typical reactions to common situations.  He'd have no idea of its combat stats or ability scores, not without more skills than are listed above anyway.b.  If he meets a Fire Lizard, a Magical Beast that superficially resembles a Dragon, he has a high chance of recognizing that it is not a dragon (dragons DC 18) but is indeed a Fire Lizard (fire creatures DC 22).  Furthermore, he will be better (psychology DC 27) at determining a Fire Lizard's typical reactions than for a general monster, and has a decent chance (fire creatures DC 25) of knowing its combat stats.c.  If he meets a Red Dragon, he should recognize it almost automatically (dragons DC 12) and have a very good chance at telling what age level it is and its general combat ability (dragons or fire creatures DC 22).  He also has an excellent chance (psychology or dragons or fire creatures DC 22) of knowing how a red dragon would react to common situations.  How much the fact that the dragon will probably fly around and breathe fire on you next round will help you is debatable.</blockquote>

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