What knowledge skills do you never use?

[Kalendraf]

Pretty much everyone I game with is an engineer (electrical, computer or software), yet our least used skill in the game is Knowledge (Architecture & Engineering).

One excuse could be that we're making a conscious effort to escape reality in our game.

Following that, Knowledge (Geography), Knoledge (Nobility) and Knowledge (Local) have only seen limited use. The rest show up pretty regularly.

 

[ptolemy18]

I find Knowledge: Dungeoneering to be irksome in general. Apparently nature stops at the surface; caves, rock formations, and subterranian ecosystems have nothing to do with the natural world. And spelunking has nothing to do wither either climbing or survival.

"Dungeoneering" should really be considered "Knowledge: Nature: Underground", but that would sound silly. It's a big enough category to deserve its own skill distinct from "Knowledge: Nature".

It's easy to imagine a character who knows lots about the surface but not much about the underground. Or vice versa, if you're playing some kind of dwarf or svirfneblin or other cave-dweller.

Jason

 

[JackGiantkiller]

We use everything, really. Arcana and Religion are most common, Geography comes up more rarely...I used Engineering as a dwarf to find weak points in a structure for siege purposes, among other things. It combines well with craft skills the way we use them. Dungeoneering....geeze. Now that it has its own category, we use it all the time. Newest campaign, none of the characters have it yet, (1st level) but they all want it. I strictly enforce character knowledge vs. player knowledge, and things the players knows but not the char have caused them some problems already.

 

[Saeviomagy]

We have used:
# Arcana

Critter ID, magic items etc. Lots of use from this one.

# Architecture and engineering

Whenever I cast shape stone or wall of stone to make something structural, my DM hits me with this one. Which I don't have. Damn.

# Dungeoneering

Yup. Again, it mostly seems to be used as K: Underdark, but hey.

# Geography

Never. Survival does weather prediction a few days in advance AND keeps you from getting lost, maps exist and travel magic (which doesn't care about terrain) exists too. This one seems wholly useless.

# History

Useless. No, really. Either the history in question is irrelevant, but nice flavour text, or it's just going to be given to you by the dm. And if you're really stuck, legend lore isn't that expensive.

# Local

As long as this is left generic, it's great. If a DM decides that k:local only applies to the place of your birth (or a specific area, or whatever), then it rapidly becomes useless.

# Nature

Animals, fey, giants, vermin and monstrous humanoids. Wooohoooo!

# Nobility and royalty

Eh. If a guy's the king, you know he's the king. And if he chooses to get all offended at your manners, you can probably give him the smackdown. Take it if you want to hang around in court, and that's about it. In general, diplomacy does every this one does and more.

# Religion

Undead. They're so complex, you NEED this one. If nothing else, just so you can identify that a critter is undead and can therefore be turned.

# The planes

Outsiders. See undead. And the fun you can have when you know about the planar traits... Everyone's sick? Let's just jaunt off to the positive energy plane for a bit then!

 

[JackGiantkiller]

Doublepost. Geez.

 

[Sejs]

It's a big enough category to deserve its own skill distinct from "Knowledge: Nature".

I respectfully disagree.

Glaciers, to steaming jungles, to deserts, to the bottom of the ocean - all covered by Knowledge: Nature, but underground alone is different enough to warrant a seperate skill?

 

[CRGreathouse]

We use all of the Knowledge skills in our group -- so much that we felt the need to split Knowledge (arcana) into Knowledge (magic) and Knowledge (arcana). I suppose Knowledge (local), Knowledge (geography), and Knowledge (nobility and royalty) are the least used, but even these are good to have -- and Knowledge (local) is growing in popularity.

Frankly, these are some of the most valuable skills in our campaign.

 

[Thanee]

I guess we technically use Knowledge(dungeoneering) but we call it Knowledge(Underdark).

Hehe, we actually thought about that recently, since Knowledge (local) doesn't really sit well as the knowledge to cover drow (unless you call it local - UD, of course).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Christopher Lambert]

Our adventure groups rarely put points into knowledge skills. Many of the knowledge areas seem pointless to take any ranks in except for character background reasons.

Therefore I just wanted to get a feel for what other people thought of the knowledge skills. What knowledge areas do you never take? What areas do you roll for often? Here is the list.

* Arcana (ancient mysteries, magic traditions, arcane symbols, cryptic phrases, constructs, dragons, magical beasts)

Very useful.

* Architecture and engineering (buildings, aqueducts, bridges, fortifications)

Can be useful, but usually dwarves don't need it.

* Dungeoneering (aberrations, caverns, oozes, spelunking)

Usually covered by Climb and Survival, IMO.

* Geography (lands, terrain, climate, people)

I can't think of a way of making this one useful. I guess anyone with Survival who is also well-traveled would have this. IMO it's more fun to find out these things the hard way. Or buy a travel book.

* History (royalty, wars, colonies, migrations, founding of cities)

I like this one, but in-game I don't find it useful at all.

* Local (legends, personalities, inhabitants, laws, customs, traditions, humanoids)

Useless! Really, you're not going to have this skill unless you've been somewhere for a while. At that point, you don't need to make skill checks.

* Nature (animals, fey, giants, monstrous humanoids, plants, seasons and cycles, weather, vermin)

I'm playing a ranger who maxed out the skill. It's purely for flavor reasons, however.

* Nobility and royalty (lineages, heraldry, family trees, mottoes, personalities)

Totally useless.

* Religion (gods and goddesses, mythic history, ecclesiastic tradition, holy symbols, undead)

Can be useful.

* The planes (the Inner Planes, the Outer Planes, the Astral Plane, the Ethereal Plane, outsiders, elementals, magic related to the planes)

Why have this skill when Knowledge (arcana) exists?

 

[CronoDekar]

We've always used Arcana and Religion most often with Nature and The Planes bringing in the rear -- the rest of them hardly get used at all. I'd probably take History, Local, Dungeoneering, and/or Nobility and Royality for a particular char concept or appropriate campaign, but I doubt I would ever take Architecture and Engineering or Geography.