Nyeshet
First Post
I do not see as much of a problem with this. I have often seen the Bard as a sort of jack of all trades where lore is concerned. The lore ability was okay, but it lacked the breadth of knowledge that I would expect of a wandering bard. He should not only be able to make checks about local persons and lore but also about nearly anything he comes upon - albeit not so easily as one who has made their life the study of such. Odd bits of lore might fall under religion, arcane, nature, history, and so forth.Johnny Angel said:
So the idea of a bard able to make any Knowledge check at +3 is not so bad - especially if the bard does not need a rank in the Knowledge to make the check. Granted, I might house rule that this initial +3 bonus increases by +1 every third level thereafter (such that a Bard 18 would have +9 to all Knowledge checks), but otherwise this works just fine for me.
Yet even ignoring potential house rules for the moment, if the bard can make any Knowledge check even without skill ranks invested and with a +3 class bonus, that goes a long way towards being a jack of all trades in knowledge. Recall also that most Knowledge check DCs are only rarely higher than 30. If the class skill bonus (+3) that comes from investing a single rank in the knowledge stacks with the class +3 ability (which seems likely, as otherwise the +3 from the class is worthless once a single rank has been invested), then this means a +6 (not including Int mod or skill ranks) from level 1! Presuming, say, Int 14 and max skill rank(s) at first level, this means a +9 (+3 class ability, +3 class skill, +1 rank, +2 Int) before the d20 is rolled, for a minimum roll of 10 and a maximum roll of 29.
With this type of roll - from only 1 rank, the bard becomes able to answer nearly all simple questions asked of him - and likely most questions of moderate difficulty as well - at first level. Just investing 1 rank a level for the first few levels in various useful knowledges will be enough to last through perhaps 5th to 10th level. By then I expect the bard will know the type of knowledges his group will most often have a need - and thus know where to place that 1 or 2 skill points per level so as to nearly max out (10 ranks is about the most needed for just about any question - for a bard, at least).
So, say a Bard 10 with Int 14 exists. We can likely presume 6 + Int skill ranks, so that works out to 80 skill ranks. Say the bard invested only 15 ranks into the 10 Knowledge skills: 4 ranks each in 2 Know, 2 ranks each in 2 more Know, and 1 rank each in 3 other Know. So in 3 Knowledge skills the Bard has no ranks and only gains +5 to said Knowledge checks. In the remaining skill ranks the Bard makes checks at +7 (3 Know), +8 (2 Know), and +10 (2 Know). A non-Bard would have had to have spent an extra 3 skill ranks per each of the 10 Knowledge skills to have similar ability - 30 skill points, for a total of 45 skill ranks spent at level 10 to accomplish this feat.
No other class could or would attempt such except perhaps the Wizard - whose Int score should be high enough that not as many skill ranks need be spent. Yet the lack of Wizard skill ranks means that even it would have to spend virtually all of its bonus skill ranks from Int on Knowledge skills to match this feat - something that is not entirely likely.
Thus the bard is the master of many Knowledge skills to a degree that even a Wizard would have trouble matching, even having spent less than 20% of their total skill ranks on Knowledge skills, thus leaving open the remaining 80% of skill ranks for other skills.
This analysis presumes a few things (+3 from class ability stacking with +3 from class skill and being able to use said +3 from class ability even if no ranks are placed in the class skill), but these are not unlikely presumptions. Yes, a 10th level bard might wish to spend more skill ranks in a single skill, but the upper limit of knowledge (~30 to 35) means that any + before rolling needn't be greater than perhaps 15 or 20 to all but guarantee success, or 10 to 15 for a fair chance of success even against the worst they are likely to roll against. With the stacking +3s (for +6) and a moderate Int bonus (+2), they are already half way there at first level if even a single skill rank is used, and likely no more than 4 to 6 skill ranks are needed even at level 10 for a good chance of success against any knowledge challenge he may come upon.
In any case, I am rambling now - likely due to the late (early) hour, so I will finish this up and sign off for the night.
