Knowledgeable PCs

[Magius del Cotto]

While reading through this thread, I came to a realization: according to the skills, nobody knows anything.
Seriously, Craft, Knowledge, Speak Language, and Profession are the skills that are almost never taken, for two reasons. 1) DMs don't use the skills that often because nobody ever takes them, and 2) the PCs never take the skills because the DMs never use them. Also, Wizards, supposedly the "smartest" of the adventuring classes, don't know as much as a well read rogue. Or the fact that your average barbarian "knows" as more than your average Fighter, even though the barbarians are the ones that are supposed to be uncivilized.
Because of these facts, I've decided to split the knowledge skills from the "practical" skills, with their own skill progression.

Barbarian 2
Bard 6
Cleric 6
Druid 4
Fighter 4
Monk 6
Paladin 4
Ranger 4
Rogue 4
Sorcerer 4
Wizard 8

To go along with this, I've been working on a list of "categories" for these knowledge skills (except Speak Language, which I haven't decided how to handle yet), which I'll provide here.

Knowledge: Arcane, Architecture and Engineering, Geography, History, Local, Nature, Nobility and Royalty, The Planes, Religion, Monsters

Profession: Apothecary, boater, bookkeeper, brewer, cook, driver, farmer, fisher, guide, herbalist, herdsman, innkeeper, lumberjack, miller, miner, porter, rancher, sailor, scribe, siege engineer, stablehand, tanner, teamster, woodcutter

Craft: Armorsmithing, basket weaving, bookbinding, bow making, blacksmithing, calligraphy, carpentry, cobbling, gem cutting, leatherworking, locksmithing, painting, pottery, sculpture, ship making, stonemasonry, trapmaking, weaponsmithing, weaving, poison making

Most of these can be found in the PHB, though Craft(Poison Making) is found in Song and Silence, and Knowledge(Monsters) is of my own creation. I'm also playing with the idea of using a knowledge(<specific monster>) (EG, Knowledge(Kobolds)) to grant tangible benifits against the specific monster (EG, +1 to damage at 5 ranks). However, I'm not entirely sure how to write it up, so help would be appreciated.

Knowledge(Monsters): Success shows the PC knows at least the name of the creature being faced (tentative DC = CR + DM's adjustment), success by 5 or more meants the PC knows something more specific (but still general) about the creature (normal hunting grounds, some likely tactics, etc). <Critical success increases the PC's Knowledge(<specific monster>) by one rank, not to exceed normal limits> (only if using Knowledge(<Specific Monster>))

So... What do you guys think of the system and custom skills, and how should I change it/them to make them better/more balanced?

 

[Crothian]

So people get the a certain number of skill points to spend just on these skills?

 

[Magius del Cotto]

Yeah. It works just like regular skill points, just only useable on the "knowledge" skills.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Hmm. Two things.

First, I think your premise is wrong. Every wizard I know has lots of ranks in Knowledge Arcana. All of my wizards have quite a few ranks in Knowledge The Planes and one of my Wizards has ranks in Knowledge Religion as well. I know of more than a few clerics with high ranks in Knowledge Religion, Arcana, and The Planes as well. Most bards I know of also have a number of ranks in speak language (one of my friends plays a Living Greyhawk bard who speaks almost half the languages of the Flanessse). So, I think you're creating a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. In any event, your proposal will give most human wizards 14 or more skill points per level. With that, they can max out almost every knowledge skill, a couple craft skills, and still have points for spellcraft, concentration, alchemy, and a cross class skill or two. (The net effect of this will be to make all wizards start to look alike). And, in accordance with the law of unintended consequences, your proposed solution will make qualifying for many prestige classes that have knowledge, profession, or craft skill prerequisites (Sacred Exorcist, Elemental Savant, Candlecaster, etc. a joke).

Second: Your proposed Knowledge: Monsters skill is, IMHO, a bad idea. By assigning a skill to the area that most directly applies to characters in game experience, you'll force a character whose fought a dozen trolls to make a roll in order to even recognize that he's fighting a troll and require a high success to remember that he needs fire or acid to kill it. This doesn't seem like a very good idea to me. Knowledge (Specific Monster) seems like a worse idea since you don't even give wizards enough skills per level to account for the knowledge they would gain about monsters in the typical adventuring from one level to another. One of my characters encountered troglodytes, trolls, wraiths, specters, ghouls, ghasts, ankheg, hobgoblins, ghosts, and allips between levels five and six. She learned a little bit about each of these monsters in the encounters. Under your system, however, without the knowledge (Specific monster) skill, she probably wouldn't know much more than their names despite having exploited several of their weaknesses and observed several of their strengths.

 

[Magius del Cotto]

Fair points, EB, but you are missing a few points. First, the "knowledge" list and the "practical" list are seperate, which means wizards have 2-7 practical skills, and 8-13 knowledge skills, which fits what they "feel" like. However, I don't know whether it's balanced or not, and that's why I put it up here for debate. Also, I feel that there should really be enough knowledge skills to challenge even a wizard getting them all, which obviously isn't the case yet.
Secondly, though I didn't mention this, after you first encounter a creature, you get one free rank in the skill for that specific monster, which means that you'd automatically recognize it next time you saw it. You'd also know the general strangths and weaknesses (such as acid or fire need to be used against trolls), but you wouldn't know their racial psychology or physiology, which is what the knowledge(specific monster) is supposed to simulate. Does this work? I don't know, which is why it's here for your review/critique. Honestly, what I'd like to see with this is how to do a more dynamic skill that does go up as a character gains experience, instead of assigning arbitrary numbers at character creation/level.
And that gives me an idea for something else, but that's for another time, another place...

[edit] I've also had the prereq issue pointed out to me already, and I really don't have a response to that yet.

 

[Spatzimaus]

The problem, EB, isn't the Wizards and Bards, it's EVERYONE ELSE. According to the base rules, my Sorcerer can't become an expert in history or engineering, because those Knowledge skills aren't class skills. And, skill points are in too short supply to spend a ton of them on cross-class skills, let alone their lower cap.

I've refined an idea I came up with in that other thread, see what you think:

Everyone has, effectively, two class skill lists, their Race Skills and their Class Skills. Your Race Skills never change.

Each character gets 2 Race skill points per level; at first character level you get 8. It's the same costs as for class skills (1 point for a Race skill, 2 points for any others) and same level caps (level + 3 for Race Skills, that/2 for others) It's still all one pool of skill ranks, though, so a level 7 character still can't have more than 10 ranks in any skill. Race skill points are spent before class skill points.

(Variant: your INT mod raises your Race Skill points instead of Class Skill)
(Variant: the Human +1 bonus raises your Race Skill points, not Class Skill)

Preliminary Race Skills:
Human: Knowledge (Human), Speak Language, Profession (Any), (pick any one other skill at creation)
Gnome: Knowledge (Any), Craft (jewelcraft), Autohypnosis
Dwarf: Knowledge (Dwarf, Engineering), Craft (Any), Stabilize Self
Elf: Knowledge (Elf, History, Nature), Craft (woodworking, sculpture, bowmaking), Perform

(I couldn't think of any good Professions for the other races off the top of my head, I'll come up with something later)

And so on. Each race gets a few Craft, Knowledge, and Profession skills, and 1-2 more unusual skills; for the ones I haven't listed, the unusual skills are Wilderness Lore for Half-Orcs (IMC they have a variant of Scent), "pick any one" for Half-Elves (like Humans), and maybe Jump for the Halflings.

Knowledge (Human) and its counterparts are a sort of broader Knowledge check. It covers many Knowledge fields (History, Politics, anatomy, etc.) but only as they apply to Humans. Someone with Knowledge (History) will know the history of all races, so there's some overlap; if one has 5+ ranks, give a +2 synergy bonus to related checks with the other.

Now, Bards and Wizards will still have a HUGE advantage on Knowledge skills since they'll be able to spend more than 2 skill points per level on them, and they have more selection. But this way,

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Magius,

now that I have a bit more explicit information on your Knowledge (Specific Monsters) skill, it seems more workable but awfully cumbersome. You might be better off just letting players ad lib whether their characters recognize monster X (in my experience, players tend to be pretty good about this). You could combine this with using a character level check mechanism for specific knowledge ("I don't remember, how powerful does a weapon need to be to effect a stone golem?"). Have the player roll d20 +character level +int mod and use that. It sacrifices detail but cuts down on the bookkeeping dramatically.

Spatzimaus,

I can see that this will pretty much ensure that non-mages and non-bards have knowledge, craft, profession, and language skills, but I'm not sure that that is a desirable goal. Should every wizard really be an expert in every field of knowledge? (In LotR, for instance, Saruman was the most skilled of the wizards in Ring Lore--Gandalf didn't really know a lot about that.) Perhaps even more significantly, should every caravan guard and infantry veteran be a sage in the matters of caravan supply, tactics and logistics, and a master craftsman in three different fields? Remember in a lot of craft or profession skills just a few ranks is enough to get by. Personally, I think the game is better if most fighters know how to fight but aren't experts in any field of knowledge. Really the only things I'd consider in order to allow characters more diverse skill options would be opening up class skills a bit. Sense motive, Diplomacy, Knowledge (Nobility and Royalty), Profession (Merchant), Profession (Soldier), Knowledge (War), would probably get given to a lot more classes. Other than that, I think it's actually good that any old fighter can't be an olympic high jumper, a master climber, and have the equivalent of a doctorate in theology.

 

[Tonguez]

Create a General Knowledge skill for EVERYONE

General Knowledge = Int mod + level (ie knowledge from experience) (a level 4 wizard int 16 (+3) has a General Knowledge of 7

Check D20+GK 7 vs DC Likelihood of knowing something

eg a Fighter faces a Troll for the first time, however trolls are mentioned in local legend and so the DM sets the DC at 15

Same fighter has fought 8 Trolls in the past year DM sets the DC at 5 (ie Automatically knows about fire and acid) gets 12 and also knows about effects of submersion in water

A Character with Profession Smith examines a rusty sword and makes a GK check DC 20 to tell you that the Sword was forged using the archaic Al-Damasq technique

 

[Magius del Cotto]

I agree about the fact they shouldn't be able to do everything, but it really doesn't make sense for a rogue to be able to get a broader knowledge base (base 8 at 2 ranks) than a wizard (base 2 at 4 ranks), which leads to my idea. How should I change it so it works (good points on the monster thing, BTW. It was more a side idea to this central one) without unbalancing the game? Should I cut all of it in half? What? I thank you for pointing out flaws in the system, but I I'm also after the other side of the coin (and again, I thank you for the suggested method of how to handle the specific monster skill).
Also, more knowledge/profession/craft skills are always appreciated.

 

[silvertable81]

I had a half-orc Wizard who became a "Master Chef". My DM and I built him a custom Prestige Class. Also, I'm in the middle of creating a Bard "Know it all" He's planned to use mostly Divination spells, and have ranks in several knowledge skills. I think you're opening a can of worms with your extra points system, what if EVERYONE knew everything.