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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nonlethal Force" data-source="post: 2531998" data-attributes="member: 35788">To me it seems like it should be a broad skill.  I know it has been said before, but all the other skills take into account all the various varieties.  Say, for example:Handle Animal.  Now, a peson can't be familiar with all animal types.  There isn't that much time in the world!  But they can learn generalities about how animals respond and how to interact.  Essentially, they are learning how to organize what is important and what isn't about all animal behavior.Listen.  We don't have Listen: outside, Listen: Urban noise, Listen: treading of feet, etc.  And let me tell you, listening for a specific noise in the woods is a completely different ability than listening for a certain noise in the urban location, which is a completely different skill that listening for any noise to break the silence and deciphering what that skill is.  To listen in the wild means to be able to ignore the common noises of squirrels, the wind, rustling of leaves, etc.  To listen in an urban environment means to filter out everyone else' conversations and pick up the one you want to hear.  To listen for any noise to break the silence takes patience, ability to breathe quietly and sit still, etc.Disable Device: Need I go into how many devices there are out there?  First off, not all traps are the same.  Some are metal, some are stone, some are rope, some are wires, some are parts of all of these.  You can't possibly be familiar with all of them, but we allow the skill to represent all of them.Disable device allows the player to know general information about disbling something that is inteded to work in a certain order.  If we wanted to nitpick we should have different disable device checks for metal, rope, string, metal pins, rock, etc.  But we don't, because it would make the game WAY too complex.This same thing can be said for the rest of the skill checks.  [Especially appraise, I mean c'mon.  Or any of the knowledge checks.  You can't possibly know all the stuff about arcana, psionics, the planes, religion, dungeons, the different kinds of geographies, etc.]My theory is that the skill ranks basically give your character skill in dealing with and deciphering information and using it appropriately.  The disable device checks lets the rogue analyze the lock and apply a general knowledge to a specific case.  The handle animal check lets the character apply general knowledge about animals to a specific case.  The appraise check lets a character apply general knowledge about worthiness of items to a specific case.  Same thing with all the other skills.  And same thing with Kn:Local.See, as your characters roam about the land, they hear snippets of other conversations, etc.  Things that aren't roleplayed because God that would be boring to roleplay everything your character hears.  When you enter a tavern - the only thing going on isn't just what is happening to your characters, but the DM can't describe everything, either.  So what makes the most sense to me is to say that a person with a few ranks in the Kn:Local check is skilled at knowing what parts of what he hears is important and what parts are just local legend and scuttlebutt.  A character with Kn:Local has a better than average time figuring out what makes a town work, what are the townsfolks fears and joys (like local legends, etc).  They have an easier time deciphering the stories they hear and applying it to this specific situation - whatever town they are in.So, needless to say, I interpret Kn:Local broadly.  It isn't Knowledge:Locale in my book, it is Knowledge:Local.  It is not specific knowledge about a specific town ... that would be Knowledge:Locale.  Instead, it means you are skilled at understanding what the primary motivations behind a city/town/whatever is.  It means you understand how to pick up and use the hundreds of snippets of information that you receive every minute through your senses and you can apply them to understand your present location better.  That's Knowledge:Local.  That makes it a much more useful skill, and it puts it in line with the rest of the skills, too.If you make people use Knowledge:Local as a skill for a specific place, you are doing Knowledge:Locale.  If you let people use this skill as the ability to interpret their present surroundings, that's Knowledge:Local.</blockquote>

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