Knowledge Skill Variant, Need Input [Archive] - Wizards Community

Knowledge Skill Variant, Need Input [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
mythSSK
04-03-07, 12:59 AM Knowledge
(Int; Trained Only)

The Knowledge skill is subdivided into a number of disciplines, each with three subheadings. Knowledge represents a study of some body of lore, possibly an academic or even scientific discipline.

When you assign skill points to the Knowledge skill, they are converted into study points at a conversion rate of 1:3. Each study point may be spent on any disciplines subheadings in the same manner that you spend skill points on skills. Thusly, you could assign one skill point to Knowledge and gain 3 ranks in Knowledge (Natural Sciences [Chemistry]); or 1 rank in each of the Natural Sciences subheadings; or 2 ranks in Knowledge (Natural Sciences [Chemistry]) and 1 rank in Knowledge (Geography [Cartography]); depending on what areas you wish to specialise in. Treat each subheading as a separate skill for the purposes of skill checks, maximum ranks, and most other purposes. If you spend your study points completely evenly in a discipline (ie. put 1 study point into each subheading of the discipline), you may wish to simply record it as 1 rank in Knowledge (Natural Sciences).

The available disciplines and their subheadings are:

Arcana (Magical Creatures, Eldritch Phenomena, Arcane Studies)
Behavioural Sciences (Ethology, Psychology, Management Science)
Construction (Engineering, Fortifications, Architecture)
Dungeoneering (Spelunking/Cave Systems, Oozes, ?)
Forbidden Lore(The Far Realms, Aberrations, ?)
Geography (Terrain/Geology, Climates, Cartography)
Local (choose a country/area: Cities/Government, Culture/Inhabitants, History)
Natural Sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy)
Nature (The Fey Courts, Flora/Fauna, Seasons/Weather)
Nobility and Royalty (choose a country/area: Lineages/Family Trees, Heraldry, Personalities)
Social Sciences (Economics, Humanoid Sociology, Political Science/Civics)
Theology (Organised Religions, Gods/Cosmic Entities, The Dead/Undeath)
The Planes (Inner Planes, Outer Planes, Transitive Planes)
Warfare (Combat Techniques, Military Science, Tactics/Stratagems)

When distributing study points into Knowledge (Local) or Knowledge (Nobility and Royalty), you must first choose a country or area on which you wish to focus your knowledge. If you wish to choose several different areas to distribute points in, treat them as separate Knowledge skills. For example, you may take ranks in both Knowledge (Local: Australia [History]) and Knowledge (Local: Cambodia [History]). It is left up to the DMs discretion as to the minimum or maximum sizes of an area that can be focused on with these Knowledge skills.

Check: Knowledge skill checks are made for individual subheadings, not for disciplines.

In many cases, you can use this skill to identify creatures and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the creatures HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that creature. For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information.

Action: Usually none. In most cases, making a Knowledge check doesn't take an action - you simply know the answer or you don't.

Try Again: No. The check represents what you know, and thinking about a topic a second time doesn't let you know something that you never learned in the first place.

---

I'm trying to A) Make the Knowledge skill make a little teensy bit more sense; and B) Make players more likely to spend skill points in Knowledge skills (apart from Wizards in Arcana and Clerics in Religion).

Now your undead hunter can know all he needs to know about undead without knowing the intricacies of the Elven Pantheon, and without spending as many skill points, and the local skill actual has some decent guidelines for its use.

I still need another subheading for Dungeoneering and for Forbidden Lore, and any name/heading changes or suggestions for new headings are welcome. I tinkered with different systems, but I think from experimentation that the 1:3 skill point system with each discipline having three subheadings works the best - - this way, someone who doesn't want to bother with the subheadings who's playing, say, a wizard, can just put one skill point into Knowledge (arcana) and forget about the subheadings, while players who want their characters to be more specialised also have that option without unfairly disadvantaging anyone.

I am going to write up small descriptions of what each discipline/subheading covers eventually, as well as example questions with assigned DCs.

I would like as much feedback and advice as possible, thank you.
mythSSK
04-03-07, 04:06 AM Reserved post for discipline/subheading descriptions.
Tim4488
04-03-07, 07:16 AM This is a neat idea. I'm not sure if I'd use it, just because I'm not too sure how the complexity would affect my game, but I like the idea.

Dungeoneering could also apply to underground races, such as dwarves, drow, etc?

Forbidden Lore... hm. Perhaps obscure/heretical magic systems would fall under it (Binding?), though Arcana probably makes more sense. Not too sure for that one.
Tichondrus
04-03-07, 07:22 AM Really nice, but then I'd say that each knowledge type has a maximum of 3 variants then, so whenever you add a point as "1 to everything" it's exactly to everything.
For the rest, the idea seems awesome and really enjoyable for DMs with creative minds.

(If you alredy had set the 3 differents limit, then sorry, just woke up, the idea is simply great)
mythSSK
04-03-07, 07:56 AM Dungeoneering could also apply to underground races, such as dwarves, drow, etc?

Forbidden Lore... hm. Perhaps obscure/heretical magic systems would fall under it (Binding?), though Arcana probably makes more sense. Not too sure for that one.I'm not too sure I want to split up creature types for the knowledge skills, though now you have me thinking of it - - I'm including all creatures of the Humanoid type in the Social Sciences [Humanoid Sociology] subheading at the moment, but your suggestion does make a bit of sense. I'll have to ponder this a while.

I think the Arcana [Magical Studies] section covers binding nicely - - I might make it so that Magical Studies is for most binding related information, but for info on specific vestiges you'd need Eldritch Phenomena. Maybe. I'm not sure.

Perhaps Forbidden Lore [H.P. Lovecraft]... ;) now I'm just being silly.

Really nice, but then I'd say that each knowledge type has a maximum of 3 variants then, so whenever you add a point as "1 to everything" it's exactly to everything.Yeah, there's only three subheadings per discipline - I tried to make it clear that the listed subheadings were the only ones available, but perhaps i need to reword it slightly so there is no confusion.

Noone thinks there's any disciplines I may have missed?
Tim4488
04-03-07, 04:13 PM I know Magical Studies fits as well, I just couldn't think of anything.

Forbidden Lore [Things on the Internet] or [Japanese Culture you'd rather avoid]... no, you don't want to discuss ill-thought out google searches in D+D.

Forbidden Lore [Vaarsuvius's Gender], if you read Order of the Stick.

Forbidden Lore [Cults]? [Heretical Groups]? Maybe make it a foil to Religion, only for some of the nastier or underground aspects, monstrous deities, etc.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
mythSSK 04-03-07, 12:59 AM	Knowledge (Int; Trained Only) The Knowledge skill is subdivided into a number of disciplines, each with three subheadings. Knowledge represents a study of some body of lore, possibly an academic or even scientific discipline. When you assign skill points to the Knowledge skill, they are converted into study points at a conversion rate of 1:3. Each study point may be spent on any disciplines subheadings in the same manner that you spend skill points on skills. Thusly, you could assign one skill point to Knowledge and gain 3 ranks in Knowledge (Natural Sciences [Chemistry]); or 1 rank in each of the Natural Sciences subheadings; or 2 ranks in Knowledge (Natural Sciences [Chemistry]) and 1 rank in Knowledge (Geography [Cartography]); depending on what areas you wish to specialise in. Treat each subheading as a separate skill for the purposes of skill checks, maximum ranks, and most other purposes. If you spend your study points completely evenly in a discipline (ie. put 1 study point into each subheading of the discipline), you may wish to simply record it as 1 rank in Knowledge (Natural Sciences). The available disciplines and their subheadings are: Arcana (Magical Creatures, Eldritch Phenomena, Arcane Studies) Behavioural Sciences (Ethology, Psychology, Management Science) Construction (Engineering, Fortifications, Architecture) Dungeoneering (Spelunking/Cave Systems, Oozes, ?) Forbidden Lore(The Far Realms, Aberrations, ?) Geography (Terrain/Geology, Climates, Cartography) Local (choose a country/area: Cities/Government, Culture/Inhabitants, History) Natural Sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy) Nature (The Fey Courts, Flora/Fauna, Seasons/Weather) Nobility and Royalty (choose a country/area: Lineages/Family Trees, Heraldry, Personalities) Social Sciences (Economics, Humanoid Sociology, Political Science/Civics) Theology (Organised Religions, Gods/Cosmic Entities, The Dead/Undeath) The Planes (Inner Planes, Outer Planes, Transitive Planes) Warfare (Combat Techniques, Military Science, Tactics/Stratagems) When distributing study points into Knowledge (Local) or Knowledge (Nobility and Royalty), you must first choose a country or area on which you wish to focus your knowledge. If you wish to choose several different areas to distribute points in, treat them as separate Knowledge skills. For example, you may take ranks in both Knowledge (Local: Australia [History]) and Knowledge (Local: Cambodia [History]). It is left up to the DMs discretion as to the minimum or maximum sizes of an area that can be focused on with these Knowledge skills. Check: Knowledge skill checks are made for individual subheadings, not for disciplines. In many cases, you can use this skill to identify creatures and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the creatures HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that creature. For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information. Action: Usually none. In most cases, making a Knowledge check doesn't take an action - you simply know the answer or you don't. Try Again: No. The check represents what you know, and thinking about a topic a second time doesn't let you know something that you never learned in the first place. --- I'm trying to A) Make the Knowledge skill make a little teensy bit more sense; and B) Make players more likely to spend skill points in Knowledge skills (apart from Wizards in Arcana and Clerics in Religion). Now your undead hunter can know all he needs to know about undead without knowing the intricacies of the Elven Pantheon, and without spending as many skill points, and the local skill actual has some decent guidelines for its use. I still need another subheading for Dungeoneering and for Forbidden Lore, and any name/heading changes or suggestions for new headings are welcome. I tinkered with different systems, but I think from experimentation that the 1:3 skill point system with each discipline having three subheadings works the best - - this way, someone who doesn't want to bother with the subheadings who's playing, say, a wizard, can just put one skill point into Knowledge (arcana) and forget about the subheadings, while players who want their characters to be more specialised also have that option without unfairly disadvantaging anyone. I am going to write up small descriptions of what each discipline/subheading covers eventually, as well as example questions with assigned DCs. I would like as much feedback and advice as possible, thank you.
mythSSK 04-03-07, 04:06 AM	Reserved post for discipline/subheading descriptions.
Tim4488 04-03-07, 07:16 AM	This is a neat idea. I'm not sure if I'd use it, just because I'm not too sure how the complexity would affect my game, but I like the idea. Dungeoneering could also apply to underground races, such as dwarves, drow, etc? Forbidden Lore... hm. Perhaps obscure/heretical magic systems would fall under it (Binding?), though Arcana probably makes more sense. Not too sure for that one.
Tichondrus 04-03-07, 07:22 AM	Really nice, but then I'd say that each knowledge type has a maximum of 3 variants then, so whenever you add a point as "1 to everything" it's exactly to everything. For the rest, the idea seems awesome and really enjoyable for DMs with creative minds. (If you alredy had set the 3 differents limit, then sorry, just woke up, the idea is simply great)
mythSSK 04-03-07, 07:56 AM	Dungeoneering could also apply to underground races, such as dwarves, drow, etc? Forbidden Lore... hm. Perhaps obscure/heretical magic systems would fall under it (Binding?), though Arcana probably makes more sense. Not too sure for that one.I'm not too sure I want to split up creature types for the knowledge skills, though now you have me thinking of it - - I'm including all creatures of the Humanoid type in the Social Sciences [Humanoid Sociology] subheading at the moment, but your suggestion does make a bit of sense. I'll have to ponder this a while. I think the Arcana [Magical Studies] section covers binding nicely - - I might make it so that Magical Studies is for most binding related information, but for info on specific vestiges you'd need Eldritch Phenomena. Maybe. I'm not sure. Perhaps Forbidden Lore [H.P. Lovecraft]... ;) now I'm just being silly. Really nice, but then I'd say that each knowledge type has a maximum of 3 variants then, so whenever you add a point as "1 to everything" it's exactly to everything.Yeah, there's only three subheadings per discipline - I tried to make it clear that the listed subheadings were the only ones available, but perhaps i need to reword it slightly so there is no confusion. Noone thinks there's any disciplines I may have missed?
Tim4488 04-03-07, 04:13 PM	I know Magical Studies fits as well, I just couldn't think of anything. Forbidden Lore [Things on the Internet] or [Japanese Culture you'd rather avoid]... no, you don't want to discuss ill-thought out google searches in D+D. Forbidden Lore [Vaarsuvius's Gender], if you read Order of the Stick. Forbidden Lore [Cults]? [Heretical Groups]? Maybe make it a foil to Religion, only for some of the nastier or underground aspects, monstrous deities, etc.