What Knowledge Skill do you use/allow?

[Claudius Gaius]

Wow. Looks like there's quite a variety of systems.

Does anyone have any sort of system where you take points in like (as an example) "Knowledge: Science: Chemistry" and "Knowledge: Science: Physics" and the overall points in "Knowledge: Science: *" contribute somehow to checks made for a specific sub-skill?

It seems like something like that would be the most realistic (if you know a lot about chemistry and physics, you'll know something about biology as a result), but hardest to design (like a better version of synergies for knowledge).

So, any ideas of where to look?

Yes: that's why the general categories: Say you have Arcane Lore 6 (the base skill), and buy a +3 Speciality in "Glyphs" for one point. I suppose if a player wanted to get detailed, he could buy a +3 in "egyptian magic". That'd give you +6 in general arcane lore, +9 in arcane lore about glyphs or egyptian magic, and +12 in arcane lore about egyptian tomb-guarding glyphs. Of coruse, most would-be scholars simply pick up an ability like Bardic Lore and take a few speciality bonuses to represent their specific special interests.

 

[eschwenke]

For the game I hope to be running in a few months, I will use the following:

Arcana
Combat
Nature
Philosophy & Religion
Peoples & Places
Politics & Protocol
the Planes
Technical

Knowledge of history of a particular field of study is included. Arcana includes Psionics and Spellcraft/Psicraft.
I'm also going to be using a specialties system adapted from things I've seen in a few places that has a player choose a sub field of knowledge for every 5 ranks in a knowledge. Checks involving a specialty the character has get a bonus; checks outside the specialty get a penalty. Specialties may be taken more than once if desired, but most players would probably prefer to diversify. Specialties can give synergy bonuses to many many things not just skill rolls. Choosing Skill Focus for a Knowledge (I'm also doing feat/level) will give the character an extra specialty.

 

[Celebrim]

Knowledge (Arcana)
Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering)
Knowledge (Arts and Literature)
Knowledge (Computation and Ledgers)
Knowledge (Customs and Heraldy)
Knowledge (Geology and Mining)
Knowledge (History and Geography)
Knowledge (Law)
Knowledge (Nature)
Knowledge (The Planes)
Knowledge (Religion and Philosophy)

There are a few subtle shifts in how knowledge is organized compared to RAW. For example, knowledge of social customs is no longer the joint concern of 'Geography' and 'Nobility'. Linages are no longer the joint concern of 'History' and 'Nobility', and meterology is no longer the joint concern of both 'Geography' and 'Nature'. The only real overlaps are within 'Engineering' which seems superficially to overlap with both computation and mining. The assumption here is that most engineering is carried out by various rules of thumb, and that sophisticated mathimatical modeling and calculation is not normally part of the engineering process. Any computation is the special province of 'computers' - professional clerks who are paid to do 'figures' - as per the original meaning of the word. As for mining versus engineering, if you dig it out it is considered mining. If you erect it, it is considered engineering. Obviously, it behooves you to have some overlap in these areas of knowledge, but its not a requirement of the system. You can know how to keep and read the books of a merchantile concern, without knowing the slightest bit about how to build a building, and you can know how to erect a building without being able to find and quarry suitable stone for that building. The probablimatic 'Knowledge (Local)' goes away. This leaves a minor hole, but currently I'm ad hocing my way around it until I can get a system described that accomplishes what the original skill was intended to accomplish.

I also have three other skills which roughly could be characterized as knowledge skills, but which go under thier own category for various reasons. For most purposes, these would be knowledge skills in any other campaign.

Astrology
Leadership
Tactics

In some ways, Leadership is to Diplomacy, what Knowledge (Nature) is Wilderness Lore or Knowledge (Architecture) is to Craft (Masonry). One is knowledge of the theory. The other is putting it into practice.

 

[Masquerade]

In my current campaign, I list the following as examples, but with the option for the player to choose any other category with GM approval.

Business
Geography
Nature
Occult
Politics
Psychology
Religion
Science
Tactics

 

[mirivor]

Does anyone have any sort of system where you take points in like (as an example) "Knowledge: Science: Chemistry" and "Knowledge: Science: Physics" and the overall points in "Knowledge: Science: *" contribute somehow to checks made for a specific sub-skill?


I actually do. Please bear in mind that I do not use D20... I have a complete homemade system.

My system dictates that all skills have basic ranks. Those ranks count toward all possible topics associated with the skill in question, say Knowledge: Undead. After a certain number of ranks in the skill, the player advances into a new category of ranks (called Expert) which entail a more detailed knowledge of a subset of topics within the main skill... we will say Knowledge: Incorporeal Undead. The player may go back and purchase more expert ranks toward a new subtopic, such as Corporeal Undead, should he desire. Once a set point is reached the ranks purchased are called Master ranks. These must be applied to a very limited topic within the main one, such as Knowledge: Undead: Wraiths.

The above method is applied to all things. My system even dictates combat as a skill, with the above method being applied to any weapon you pick up (Basic), then a group of them (say, swords), then finally a single weapon (longsword).

My players do indeed tend to be willing to advance skills. In rebellion against how poorly skills seem to get treated by most systems, I see to it that skill investment is a solid one.

Later!

 

[Sigurd]

I opt for only the core knowledge skills and really try to keep to them.

Its one of my pet peeves that so many great ideas and revisions add more knowledge skills or subdivide existing skills while the players get no more skill points.

I don't like that Wizards (archetypally wise - hence the name) don't have enough skill points to know about the world and use magic. I give my wizards an extra 2 skill points per level to use only on knowledge skills. Its either that or they have to take a level of rogue\expert to be sages.


Sigurd

 

[Celebrim]

Its one of my pet peeves that so many great ideas and revisions add more knowledge skills or subdivide existing skills while the players get no more skill points.

As indeed it ought to be. You are quite right. The two concepts are linked and you can't meddle with one without meddling with the other.

Moreover, you can't just higgly-piggly add skills the way some other game systems do. Pretty soon you have versus skills that are rightly subclasses of another skill in the same system, two different skills that allow the character to do the same thing, and some skills that are far more narrow than some other skill with much broader application. There is hardly anything worse for a skill system than loading up the best skills with more and more applications, while subdividing the more narrow skills into increasingly thin catagories.

Yes, realistically there are all sorts of narrow categories of knowledge and skill having little to do with one another, but in practice, what skills are for is the solving of specific problems within a game and nothing is worse than having a purely passive skill (like Knowledge, which depends almost entirely on the DM to be useful) which never comes up in play.

My revisions are intended to avoid that very problem while still having some division of knowledge. My main purpose is to avoid any of the above issues. I've not really created new skills so much as shuffled the distribution of application about. For example, Disguise now properly covers all physical subterfuge, so that you feint in combat with Disguise - not Bluff. My skill system is designed with the same goals in mind: try as best as possible to keep all the skills useful, while avoiding ambiguities as to which skill applies in which situation. If my knowledge skills have proliferated, it is only because other skills have been plucked away.

 

[eschwenke]

I opt for only the core knowledge skills and really try to keep to them.

Its one of my pet peeves that so many great ideas and revisions add more knowledge skills or subdivide existing skills while the players get no more skill points.

I don't like that Wizards (archetypally wise - hence the name) don't have enough skill points to know about the world and use magic. I give my wizards an extra 2 skill points per level to use only on knowledge skills. Its either that or they have to take a level of rogue\expert to be sages.


Sigurd

Not only do I decrease the overall number of knowledges, but I merge plenty of other skills as well, and give all classes an extra two skill points.

 

[Celebrim]

Not only do I decrease the overall number of knowledges, but I merge plenty of other skills as well, and give all classes an extra two skill points.

This is my pet peeve. Either one of these acts accomplishes the same purpose. I don't think this necessarily makes for a better game either. Going in this direction you rapidly get to the point where skills are pointless, because every character will demonstrate near universal competancy in at least his class skills and virtually every class can treat intelligence as a dump stat. You also relatively reduce the value of things like the humans extra skill point per level.

Again, the purpose of skills is to solve particular problems that occur in the game. But, if the solving of those problems is to be gauranteed by the wide compentancy displayed by the characters, you might as well just handwave the whole problem. Skills usually aren't extended problems. You either make the roll or you don't. There is rarely anything in the way of a player challenge. If you never want the characters to fail the challenge, then there is no point in having it in the first place. The closer you get to universal competancy, the less value you are placing on skills and as a practical matter the less value players will percieve in making sacrifices to obtain higher skill. This is a simple supply and demand issue. The greater the supply of skill points, the less value they have.

There is also a more subtle danger in increasing the number of available skill points, in that there is a tendancy for the DM to match this increase in skill by an equivalent increase in challenge so that there is no net effect in having greater skill. In other words, they tend to match the DC's to the characters skill level and you end up in a Diablo-like situation where the numbers are getting bigger, but the PC's relative strength versus the challenges he faces is always static. The skill version of this is, "No matter how many ranks you have in the skill, I'll always set the DC such that you have a X% chance of failure." If the DM has focused in his mind that players can't possibly obtain universal compentancy, it is hoped that he'll base DC's on something other than the players ranks in the skill or level.

 

[eschwenke]

First of all, the game I'm planning to run will have more skill based encounters than combat encounters; the characters need to be equipped.

Second, skills can be a great way to round out a character concept, if there are enough skill points. Usually there aren't.

Third, I'll be allowing Skill Tricks. This gives something else to sink them into.

Fourth, I'll probably be giving Humans and additional extra skill point, and maybe even one to half-elves.

Lastly, more skill points doesn't increase a character's maximum number of ranks, just his versatility. There are still plenty more skills than a character will have skill points.