Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Loki5654 06-11-06, 08:38 PM	I was thinking about how, as a DM, I have trouble encouraging my players to form a stronger connection between their characters and the Campaign Setting of Eberron. In my opinion, this is what skills like Knowledge: Local, K: Geography, K: History are for, but with the limited amount of skill points a player gets per level it is hard to convince them to spend points on these skills. What do you think of the idea of giving player's a number of bonus skill points (probably 4) per level to spend on only the following skills: K: Local (region of origin only) K: Geography (ditto) K: History K: Nobility & Royalty (ditto + Dmarked Houses) Ideas? Thoughts? Suggestions?
Dlgood 06-13-06, 03:18 PM	I don't necessarily have a problem with that. As a DM, what you could do... is have each character give you a basic character concept of theirs including where they're from and what culture/organization/background they come from and then come up with a small number of specific tailored skills that you could give them some sort of bonus to. Or ranks. For example if Bob's family has always been tied to house Kundarak and he grew up around the Banking industry offer him bonus ranks that he could apply to Profession:Bookkeeping, Speak Language: Dwarven and something else.... and he can be treated as having virtual ranks in Knowledge: Nobility and Knowledge:Local -- but only inasmuch as applies to House Kundarak and the Banking industry. The key thing would be to keep it tied to character concepts and the setting, and also if you are worried about power issues... make sure to do the same for your NPCs. As long as it serves the story without overrunning anything, it seems okay to me.
DragonWatcher 06-13-06, 04:09 PM	While I don't think that this would be game-breaking, I also don't think that it's reasonable or realistic to expect that every PC would have ranks in some/all/or even any of those skills. I mean, think about it in real life terms... How many people do you know today that can tell you the names of all of the leaders of their own country (currently, let alone historically). I mean, I certainly can't tell you the names of all of the senators in the US... and I'm fairly politically active. Likewise, how many people could point to a map of their own country and tell you where all of the local or national boundaries are? I mean, honestly for certain base knowledge there should be no roll necessary. If you're asking a player to have their character know who the current king of Karrnath is, I don't think that you're using Knowledge skills correctly. However, if you're making them roll to know something obscure about said king... well, that's the point of those skills. And at that point, it would stand that only a real scholar should even have a chance at getting that correct. I know that skill points are precious to characters, but there are a good number of skills out there that can be used untrained. Knowledge skills aren't one of them for a reason, and that's why I would not be inclined to give out free points in Knowledge skills. It undermines the fact that they are difficult to learn, and valuable (in fact, they can be the most valuable skills in the game).
DoveArrow 06-13-06, 05:09 PM	I would rather give my players a +2 circumstance bonus on those checks and allow them to make them untrained. The main reason for that is that I wouldn't want to see the 14th level fighter with an 8 Int know more about Sharn than the aristocrat on the Sharn Council with a 14 Int.
Kreistor1 06-13-06, 05:14 PM	All of my players choose one Knowledge Skill at creation that acts as a hobby skill. It is not class dependent. It ensures that the party will have a significant set of knowledge about the world as a whole.
Loki5654 06-13-06, 06:20 PM	Thank you all for your suggestions, they've given me some things to think about. I don't plan on DMing for a long while yet, so hopefully by the time I do, I'll have this idea fleshed out and ready to use, or scrap it completely.