Knowledge skills -- what do they reveal?

[MerakSpielman]

I mean the ones nobody takes. Somebody in my PbP game took Knowedge Local, (cross-class!) and I want to make sure I reveal anything relevent when it's appropriate. Would it work locally anywhere or just his home city?

Is there a resource with what descriptions of what the more obscure knowledge skills would reveal? I'm thinking of implementing them pretty heaviliy in my next campaign.

 

[IceBear]

All I do is adjust the DC of learning the information appropriately. Let's say someone has Knowledge (History) and another person has Knowledge (Local History). The DC to learn something that happened in the past in the local area might be 25 for the first person and 15 for the second.

IceBear

 

[Mr Fidgit]

i would use Knowledge (local) as his own city (or possibly region) only

i haven't heard on any resources that would flesh this out...

 

[MerakSpielman]

Asgard 6 had a lot of good stuff on the profession skills. I was just hoping there was something similar out regarding the Knowledge skills... I can always make it up, I guess.

 

[IceBear]

I just adjudicate Knowledge skills as needed. It's not too bad, and in general you know when things to be revealed by the Knowledge skill will affect your game. The rest is just fluff.

I generally determine a head of time what DC a Knowledge skill would have to determine some information. If someone wants to use a different Knowledge skill to get the same info I first decide if it would give that info and, if so, how much to increase or decrease the DC from the base determination.

IceBear

 

[Mr Fidgit]

you could use the bardic knowledge chart as a basis, and change the numbers as you see fit (Yakuzas out of OA have this very same type of local knowledge, but the target numbers are lowered)

 

[Plane Sailing]

I would treat knowledge (local) == streetwise - i.e. good for knowing where to go to find out information in any town or city of your race. It would give synergies to gather information and bardic knowledge checks which were specifically about local government, legal policies, important people.

Cheers

 

[Malin Genie]

I Dm some Living Greyhawk, and I've found in regional modules Knowledge(Local)[city] is often a very valuable skill. Even a rank or two gives access to knowing where things are, who to go to, as well as local history, all at easy DCs (10 or so).

 

[Spatzimaus]

I think in the FR they replaced Knowledge (Local) with more specific ones. So you'd take Knowledge (Amn). I like that rule.

Knowledge skills are fun, but there's only four classes that can get them all as class skills (Bard, Wizard, Aristocrat, or Knowledge-domain Clerics). Everyone else gets only one, and it's always the one needed by their class. It's just not the sort of skill you tend to waste points on buying cross-class. You might buy one or two ranks just to allow you certain checks (the ones untrained rolls aren't allowed in), but more than that?

Now, I have a character who has ranks of all kinds of Knowledge areas (engineering, history, the planes, nobility, psionics, arcana, and two local areas) just for the heck of it. Of course, this is someone who also bought 10 languages when he could have just learned a level 1 spell, so I'm not exactly min/maxing here.

 

[Steverooo]

Uses

Knowledge (Architecture) could be used to determine the DC to bash down a door. In one mystery where a door was broken, a PC wanted to know whether or not the apprentice mage could have done it...

Knowledge (Engineering) can be used to design new equipment.

Knowledge (Nature) can be used to predict the weather.