Knowledge (Local)

[Water Bob]

I've been playing this skill as a character's knowledge of an area of which the character is familiar. For example, Knowledge (Local) would apply to a Barbarian's clan territory, but the skill would not apply when the Barbarian ventures into a modern city for the first time--or even if the Barbarian spent time in the lands of another clan.

I've read some stuff recently that made me think I might be playing the skill wrong.

Is the skill, Knowledge (Local) supposed to be used for local knowledge regardless of whether the character is new to the area or not?




EDIT: I'll give you an example.

How I've been playing it - Barbarians use it for myths, legends, and curiosities that have to do with their own clan territory. The skill is not used once the PCs travel from their clan territory.

How I think I should be playing it - The skill is used for myths, legends, and curiosities for any area the Barbarian travels to, regardless if the Barbarian has been there before.

 

[Sekhmet]

It is the second.

 

[Spatula]

Knowledge (local) covers legends, personalities, inhabitants, laws, customs, traditions, and humanoids, according to the SRD. I think in 3.0 you had to pick a specific area to apply it to, or maybe that's just how we played it. In 3.5 it's general knowledge.

 

[Water Bob]

It is the second.

In 3.5 it's general knowledge.

Interesting. I like the skill with a broader base....but...

A Barbarian living north of Ice Wind Dale would know some persnickety detail about a small villiage in Comyr?

I guess this is where GM common sense and modifiers come in.

 

[Spatula]

The barbarian has traveled and/or talked with travelers, and was interested enough to make the stories of foreigners into a source of study. Penalizing a skill for its intended use just teaches players not to invest resources into it, and you lose an interesting character hook/quirk (it's not a class skill for barbarians, so that's a little unusual). YMMV, of course.

 

[Grogg of the North]

You could always give the barbarian a small bonus on checks made in his home area. I've done that in the past.

Or you could say that after spending sufficient time in a new area, the player can use the skill there.

 

[Water Bob]

The barbarian has traveled and/or talked with travelers, and was interested enough to make the stories of foreigners into a source of study. Penalizing a skill for its intended use just teaches players not to invest resources into it, and you lose an interesting character hook/quirk (it's not a class skill for barbarians, so that's a little unusual). YMMV, of course.

Does regular D&D have the rule where skill points derived from INT bonus can go into a Cross Class skill without penalty (doesn't cost double)?

My Conan game has that. Thus, a Barbarian with INT 13+ can easily have Knowledge (Local) without spending double the cost.

But, lets say it is a cross class skill. Even then, the player thought it important enough to have to spend double the points--yet he can use it anyplace he goes? What if the Barbarian isn't that traveled?

And, it really doesn't matter what the character class is--it's an almost unbelieveable wide-ranging skill.





Still, that said, I think I will use it as intended. If modifiers aren't your cup of tea, I could always just adjust the DC.

A character from the Free City of Greyhawk will have a harder time knowing the local personages in charge in the tribal areas of the jungles of Chult. That means higher DC.



EDIT: Can't XP you, but the comment about teaching players not to invest in it is well said.

 

[Sekhmet]

While knowing a local leader in an undeveloped area in Chult, having lived all your life in the Spine is impressive, the DC would be 30 (a really tough question), and most likely outside of the consistent grasp of your Barbarian.
The same Barbarian would treat questions about his own tribal leaders with ease, making them a DC 10 (very easy question).

 

[Li Shenron]

How I've been playing it - Barbarians use it for myths, legends, and curiosities that have to do with their own clan territory. The skill is not used once the PCs travel from their clan territory.

This is how we've always played it, in fact we would spend skill points in Knowledge(Thay), Knowledge(Waterdeep) etc. separately, not Knowledge(Local) which is a placeholder name useful to determine who gets it as class skill and who gets it as cross-class skill.

The other way makes no sense to me, but that's because if you have one or more Knowledge(Local) in our games, you really get some benefit out of it.

Truth is, it's all a matter of usefulness. If you think in your game a PC has invested in a skill but is not finding enough benefit from it, it's good to try and make it apply more broadly.

Overall the idea behind Knowledge skills in 3ed was that each DM could make additional ones dynamically, so that you could have Knowledge(Geography) apply to the whole world (e.g. Toril), then have more specialized ones e.g. Knowledge(The North) and so on until the smaller scale, and the DM would make a trade-off between the versatility/width and the precision/narrowness so that the wider the region, the less likely (i.e. harder DC) you know a specific fact on the smaller scale. Knowledge(Geography) and Knowledge(Local) then is a differentiation only to decide if it's e.g. your party's Ranger rather than the Rogue to have easier access to it.

 

[Water Bob]

While knowing a local leader in an undeveloped area in Chult, having lived all your life in the Spine is impressive, the DC would be 30 (a really tough question), and most likely outside of the consistent grasp of your Barbarian.
The same Barbarian would treat questions about his own tribal leaders with ease, making them a DC 10 (very easy question).

That's pretty much what I was thinking.

This is how we've always played it, in fact we would spend skill points in Knowledge(Thay), Knowledge(Waterdeep) etc. separately, not Knowledge(Local) which is a placeholder name useful to determine who gets it as class skill and who gets it as cross-class skill.

Yeah, the reason I'm turning from that is because skill points are a fairly rare resource for the characters--therefore, most skills, in order to be useful, should have broad influence.

The Conan RPG description of the skill reads both ways. My initial interpretation was like you say above. But now, upon second thought (and seeing the skill used this way in an official Conan adventure), I think I'm going towards the more broad defintion but using the common sense DCs that will make it hard knowing stuff that character really shouldn't know.