Post/Author/DateTime	Post
SearchingShaman 12-08-04, 02:21 PM	I would like to see an article or suggestions from DMs for knowledge skill use in FR. After reading this article http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20040830a I would like the same thing for the realms. To date, I have not found an article, so I'm posting here. Thanks.
Bloodtide_the_Red 12-09-04, 06:53 AM	Knowledge DC Information about... 5 National capital or metropolis (Waterdeep,Westgate,Suzil) 10 City, major fortress, or environmental feature (Baldur's Gate,the High Forest) 15 Village or town, smaller fortress or feature (Shadowdale, the Standing Stone) 20 Hamlet or thorp, obscure fortress or feature (Snowmantle,the Well of Dragons) A successful skill check means that you can point to the location on the map and that you know basic details about it: primary industries, size, most common race among the population, form of law. More detailed information may require a higher difficulty check, as described later in this article -- or it might require Knowledge (local). ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Knowledge DC Information about... 5 Last five years 10 The Current Age(1350 to present) 15 DR 1200 to 1350 20 DR 1000 to 1200 25 DR 1 to 1000 30 DR -1 plus(Add 5 to the DC per 1000 years) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Religion Knowledge DC Information about... 10 Any greater power 15 Intermediate powers 20 Lesser and demi powers and the Druidic Cricles A character always makes checks about his own religion at a base DC of 5. In addition, a DM could choose to provide a character with a +5 bonus if his region of origin is closely linked to a particular region; someone who grew up in the Tantars should know something about Torm and his church even if he doesn't share their beliefs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Organizations Knowledge DC Level of Secrecy... 5 Character is a member of the organization 10 None (The Lords Alliance,Merchant Groups) 15 Low (Silvermoon's Arcane Guild, Adventure guild of Raven's Bluff) 20 Medium (The War Wizards of Cromyr, The Harpers,The Zhentarim) 30 High (The Cult of the Dragon, The Twisted Rune) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Knowledge (local) is covered in the FRCS and the Players guide. You basicaly pick an area, such as a country or location. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Modifying Difficulty T It's only a DC 5 check to point to Waterdeep on a map. If you want to know the name of the Captain of the Guard in the Dock Ward, that's an entirely different question. The DM should apply the following modifiers, as she sees fit. DC Modifier Information is... 0 Trivial (the name of a city) +5 Slightly difficult (the name of a Duke of Baldur's Gate) +10 Challenging (the names of all of the city councilors of Sembia) +15 Obscure (the names of the councilors' of Sembia spouses) +20 Extremely Obscure (the names of the councilor's spouses during the Godswar) BT
SearchingShaman 12-09-04, 12:24 PM	First, thanks for your estimation of DCs Consider Eberron's DCs for Knowledge history vs the DCs you have provided, however. Your FR DCs: 5 Last five years 10 The Current Age(1350 to present) 15 DR 1200 to 1350 20 DR 1000 to 1200 25 DR 1 to 1000 30 DR -1 plus(Add 5 to the DC per 1000 years) vs these Eberron DCs: (The year ranges are from memory, but they should be fairly close) 5 The last five years (993 to998) 10 The Current Age ~-4300 to 993 15 The Age of Monsters ~-30,000 to -4301 20 The Age of Giants ~-80,000 to -30,001 25 The Age of Demons ~-300,000 to -80,001 30 The Age of Dragons ~-10,000,000 and beyond to -300,001 I think your DCs are way too high when compared to Eberron. FR, to me, has more scholars, organizations, and deities that have an interest in keeping knowledge and recording events. If the DCs for Eberron are like this, then the DCs for FR should be lower than what you have. Also, how secretive are the Harpers about their goals. I know that a lot of their plans are secret, but I thought they had declared their agenda openly. Am I mistaken? Religion, Geography, History, Organizations, and difficulty are covered, how about arcana, nature, and architechture & enginerring, nobility & royalty? Btw, you hit exactly what I was considering for religion, although I would ask whether you would have all non-Faerunian pantheon deities be at a DC 15, but DC 10 base if the character making the check is of the appropriate race? Anyone else reading, feel free to jump in.
Chosen of the Dark Sun 12-09-04, 09:32 PM	Well, if you ask me, a lot of the Eberron rules don't make any sense to begin with, so the point is moot. I mean, who is really gonna know details about what happened 300,000 years ago? We in the real world don't even have huge stores of knowledge from 3000 years ago!
Bloodtide_the_Red 12-09-04, 10:36 PM	The Ebberon ones look a bit off to me. A DC of 10 for up too like 5,000 years ago? That's a huge amount of time. And even with scholars, organizations, and deities that have an interest in keeping knowledge and recording events...look at how much Fr history is forgotten by the general public. Think of how hard you'd have to dig to find even easy Realms history facts.... Take our modern world, we sure don't have history back 5000ish years. And the average person has trouble around 100 years(unless there was a recent movie made about that time). If the Dc for the last 5,000 years was ten...there would not be so much lost stuff in the Realms. Athalantar fell in that time span...good luck finding the year of that, though. How about the year Mulmaster was founded? And the list goes on.... and the idea that 80,000 some years is only 20? So smart folks know Realms history back to the founding of Everska? Bit far, no? The Harpers are not so secret, but I think there is a lot of misinformation, so I put them at medium. ..............all non-Faerunian pantheon deities be at a DC 15, but DC 10 base if the character making the check is of the appropriate race?............. ---As in non-human gods, sure thoes numbers would work. BT
Cunning Linguist 12-09-04, 11:07 PM	We lack information since writing was not invented before around 4000 years ago. Dragons had writing back when they started out, and had to write down some stuff here and there. Ever since writing became a common thing, (Greek, Egypt and later on romans) we know the happenings of things. Sure, we don't know the name of that baker on the corner shop of some street in rome, around 300BC, but we do know where wars where fought, who was the ruler and so on. After all, if humans wrote down words instead of just painting those animals on the cave walls, we would know far more about them aswell. Perhaps we would have records that traced back 20.000 years.
primemover003 12-10-04, 05:03 PM	Indeed so much knowledge has been lost or destroyed in our history we can't be sure of lots of things... For example, the languages of mayans, aztecs, toltecs, etc from central and south america still haven't been translated! If we understood the pictograms found on the pyramids there perhaps we'd know how they built them without draft animals or the wheel...
Demetrios 12-10-04, 06:05 PM	We lack information since writing was not invented before around 4000 years ago. Dragons had writing back when they started out, and had to write down some stuff here and there. The rudiments of writing were invented about 5,500 years ago, and by 5,200 years ago three complete systems of writing (Sumerian, Egyptian, and Elamite) were up and running. The first historical events of which we can be certain (the unification of Egypt) come from the latter period, between 3200 and 3100 BC. Indeed so much knowledge has been lost or destroyed in our history we can't be sure of lots of things... For example, the languages of mayans, aztecs, toltecs, etc from central and south america still haven't been translated! If we understood the pictograms found on the pyramids there perhaps we'd know how they built them without draft animals or the wheel... You should keep up-to-date with your archaeology. The Mayan script has more or less been completely translated in the last 20 years or so, so we know quite a bit about them, with more precise dating than even contemporary Old World civilizations! And it's no big mystery how to build pyramids without animals or the wheel - brute human force! And there isn't enough Toltec or Aztec script to translate, it they ever had an organized writing system in the first place.
Cunning Linguist 12-10-04, 08:06 PM	The rudiments of writing were invented about 5,500 years ago, and by 5,200 years ago three complete systems of writing (Sumerian, Egyptian, and Elamite) were up and running. The first historical events of which we can be certain (the unification of Egypt) come from the latter period, between 3200 and 3100 BC. Sorry about that, I meant to say 4000 BC, not 4000 years ago.
Chosen of the Dark Sun 12-11-04, 12:16 AM	Good points people, but, seriously, raise your hand if you can do some research and know what happened 80,000 years ago. *Looks around and sees no hands up*. That's what I thought.
Cunning Linguist 12-11-04, 12:28 PM	Good points people, but, seriously, raise your hand if you can do some research and know what happened 80,000 years ago. *Looks around and sees no hands up*. That's what I thought. Like we said, we can't do a real world comperison, since 80.000 years ago there was noone writing down stuff that happend. But in ebberon, 300.000 years ago, dragons did.
SearchingShaman 12-15-04, 03:53 PM	I concur with Cunning Linguist's opinion, but have an idea as to how we could form a better collective opinion on knowledge DCs. Is there anyone out there with some FR modules or product that details them? I do not own any FR modules, but I imagine there might be a handful of 3.0/3.5 available. I graduated with a history degree, and have more than just a casual interest in setting DCs for history for a game that I play in my spare time. I would like to reiterate that developing writing is very important for the keeping of records, so keep that in mind as you ponder what the DCs should be. I'll stop on these points for now and make a general observation. We are setting the base DCs here, not the DCs for obscure events. If we put some real world events as a knowledge skill to serve as a comparison, here is one example: The Roll of Years Year of Independence- A.D. 1776 DC 10- Major Event- The American colonies declare independence from Britain. The names of the colonies are... The name of the leader of the winning side (Washington) History does not favor the losers... Year of the Patriot- A.D. 1781 DC 15- The name of the place where the losing side surrendered (Yorktown) and the surrending general's name (Cornwallis) Names and who won some of the well-known battles like the Battle of Bunker Hill (remember that well-known and important may not be the same thing.) Various Years: DC 20-Details of smaller, less important battles and the names of the generals at those battles DC 25-The fact that the Battle of Bunker Hill was not actually fought at Bunker Hill. DC 30-George Washington had wooden false teeth, which is one reason that he didn't smile much. Also, I would give a +2 bonus regional bonus if the scholar making the check comes from the United States region. How is knowledge passed on to future generations? First, the real world. Writing- The best method. Speaks for itself. Oral Tradition- This method is effective in the short term, but usually gets corrupted over the span of a few generations, let alone thousands of years. I'm talking about the general rule here, I know there are exceptions in the real world. Inscriptions/Art/Pictures- This method sacrifices clarity of communication for durability, as stone carvings will last a long time, as we most famously have in Egypt today. Advantages of a magical society over a non-magical society for recording history. Magic: Keep in mind that the spell Amanuensis from Magic of Faerun (sp?) can copy non-magical writing perfectly, thus eliminating scribing errors if it is used. Having a magical small-scale, virtual printing press would multiply the amount of books in existence in a very short time. Since dragons developed writing a long time ago (and as a side note I am curious where this 300,000 years ago figure came from. Was that a rheotorical figure to make a point?) they would be able to record events effectively. Having a historian who lived thousands of years watching the "lesser races" would also provide a nice perspective less subject to censorship, purges, and ideology than human counterparts. A permanent illusion could have a sage relay information practically indistinguishable from the real thing (but still unable to answer questions). Long-lived intelligent magic items are another good source of information, as are benign ghosts (which one of the seven sisters is now). The Commune spell puts the knowledge of a god within the reach of a caster, an incredible resource. While limited to yes/no questions, this tool is invaluable in helping to reconstruct the past. Also, gods can put memories directly in the memories of mortals, as evidenced in the novel Elminster in Hell. Legend Lore is another good tool to get events into the historical record and traveling bards help preserve bits and pieces from various cultures. I'll stop for now for comments.