Post/Author/DateTime	Post
xpochian 02-20-08, 07:42 PM	a rogue-minded player of mine recently purchased this book and we're all pleasantly surprised by it, as we've felt that almost every 'stereotype' had been given its love, except the more sneaky-based ones. however, one problem. he wants to take the 'collector of stories' skill trick, it's pre-reqs are 5 ranks in any knowledge and its benefit is a +5 to identifying monsters. here's my question: is the +5 only to the 5 ranks that the character used to take the skill trick, or any/all types of knowledge the character might have. a flat +5 across the board could prove amazingly useful and i'd like to know ahead of time, as we game sunday and i told them i'd have decided on it then. thanks!
Zuractai 02-20-08, 08:14 PM	To all Knowledge Skills.
NightcrawlerMonk 02-20-08, 08:55 PM	This is stating the obvious but better to get it right then to get it wrong. The +5 is used for all knowledge skills, but your PC has to have ranks in each knowledge skill they want to use in order to get the bonus (or even use the skill for that matter).
Kouk 02-20-08, 11:04 PM	And it only applies against a creature, so no using it for figuring out what that magical contraption in the corner of the room does... It also mentions that it is to find its vulnerabilities and combat type stuff, so you can't use it to help you track down the lairs of creatures, or figure out whether a wound was caused by a certain creature, etc. If it proves too useful (is it really so much of a problem for the party to know what they are fighting?) throw in multiple kinds of new or unknown creatures. You can only use a Skill Trick once an encounter, unless you have a method of refreshing it, like some of the Prestige Classes in the book.
xpochian 02-22-08, 04:27 AM	excellent advice everyone i should've realized it was once per encounter and combat only. still pretty useful though. thanks all.
1 ton ghost 02-22-08, 12:58 PM	yeah, bear in mind most monster (Knowledge) intel rolls are contingent in actually having a rank in the relevant Knowledge dept; Religion for Undead, Nature for Giants/Humanoids, Engineering for Constructs, etc. there is one unusual rule in game though that i rarely remember and hardly anyone uses. you can technically make an Untrained Knowledge roll if the DC is 10 or less. essentially, just an Int check really. but, in many situations like those, you're not pressed or in combat, and thusly, a great many Take 10.
Kouk 02-22-08, 01:33 PM	yeah, bear in mind most monster (Knowledge) intel rolls are contingent in actually having a rank in the relevant Knowledge dept; Religion for Undead, Nature for Giants/Humanoids, Engineering for Constructs, etc. there is one unusual rule in game though that i rarely remember and hardly anyone uses. you can technically make an Untrained Knowledge roll if the DC is 10 or less. essentially, just an Int check really. but, in many situations like those, you're not pressed or in combat, and thusly, a great many Take 10. True, but common knowledge is never enough to identify a creature, without the DM establishing whether certain creatures are just so well known that they would qualify. In game worlds where there is a horrible lycanthrope problem, identifying by sight a werewolf might be common knowledge (most players assume traditional fantasy monsters are common knowledge because they personally know about them), and possibly even the weaknesses like Silver or Belladonna, but otherwise common knowledge wouldn't really cover anything related to monsters. The default monster identification DC is 10 plus HD, with a variant (which I think makes more sense personally) for the DC to be 10 plus CR. Even if you "take 10" you can't exceed a DC of 10 for common knowledge.