[D&D 3.5] Knowledge (local)

[kamikasei]

How do people handle this skill in their games?

Is it a single skill that grants you knowledge of local customs, laws, personalities etc. from everywhere in the world? Or is it something bound to a specific region, so that you might have ranks in Knowledge (local, Thay) or Knowledge (local, Sharn), being thoroughly streetwise in your hometown but utterly lost in a foreign land? I suppose the latter case could be partly approximated by adding ad-hoc DC modifiers to the former.

Simply put, is it a skill you boost by buying a lot of travel guides or by hanging out in one place and doing a lot of walking and talking?

It's a question that's bugged me a few times (generally when making skilled or sociable characters) and I thought I'd see what the Playground's consensus was.

[snoopy13a]

I think it only means for a specfic town. Every different town would need a different knowledge skill.

[Tehnar]

I use it on a region basis. Where in my campaigns regions are the size of smaller countries (usually one city, a couple of towns and dozen or so villages). But then my players travel a lot.

I also allow for players to switch their ranks from Know (local X) to Know (local Y) if they spend enough time in place Y.

[Jack Zander]

The rules say nothing of having subs of the knowledge local skill, and knowledge local is already a sub skill, so I doubt the designers wanted a sub set of skills in a sub skill. Treating the skill as you need one for each town also makes it almost useless for most campaigns, and it's not a very good skill to begin with.

I've always seen it as not knowing exactly what's going on in the town (that's gather information) but where to go to find information. You know that most towns have a town square and where you would most likely find it. You can tell what purpose various buildings serve. You know where to go to find the slums and where the higher class citizens live. You know that many criminal dealings occur by the docks of towns, etc.

Basically, it gives you very general information that can be applied to any town, not specific information that can be applied to the town you are currently in.

[Telonius]

Personally I allow Intelligence checks for stuff that any yokel ought to know about his hometown (laws, customs, important people, etc). Knowledge skills are trained only, but you don't need to spend a skill point to know the name of your own mayor. I consider Knowledge (local) checks to be about places the character shouldn't automatically know - basic stuff that you'd read in an almanac or a travel guide. If somebody puts ranks in Know (local), I'd treat the person as being something like a local tour guide or taxicab driver, and let them make a Know (local) check instead of an Intelligence check for stuff regarding their hometown.

For example, I live in DC. It would be an intelligence check for me to know that the mayor is Adrian Fenty, that the city has a relatively high population of African Americans, and that the Smithsonian doesn't have an entrance fee. If I had ranks in Knowledge (local), I'd be able to tell you the hours of the National Portrait Gallery, how many buildings the Smithsonian has, and the best way to get from the National Cathedral to Union Station.

It would be a Knowledge (local) check for me to know that New York City's mayor is Michael Bloomberg, that it's a very cosmopolitan place with people from all over the world, that some of its nicknames are "The Big Apple" and "The City that Never Sleeps," and that there's an old legend about alligators living in the sewers.

Gather Information overlaps a little, but not completely. It would be a Gather Information check for me to find out where "the best restaurant in town" is, even in my own city. (Though I'd probably call it an intelligence check if I lived out in a rural place and there's only one or two restaurants in town).

As far as whether Know (local) applies to more than one place, it's somewhat of a hard call. Logically, there's no reason that my knowing something about New York would mean I knew anything at all about Chicago or London or Beijing. However, there's a limited number of skill points a character has available. Requiring Know (local) ranks in every place you might encounter seems a little excessive. So just for ease in gameplay, I would say that know (Local) applies to every locale.

[AgentPaper]

I just it the same way Jack does, and the same thing for things like nobility and royalty, history, and geography. You might not know the counts and regents of every place in the land, but you know how high-class people think, and how to act around them, and how to tell who holds the power. You might not know the name of every king and emperor and what they did, or what battles happened where and what heroes did what, but you know that kings that do stuff like this tend to fail miserably, and heroes that acted like that were powerful, and commanders that use these tactics tend to win battles more. You might not know the name of every mountain region, where every river starts and ends, or what lies beyond that forest or that desert, but you know that places next to this type of environment tend to be that, or that this type of tree only grows in this climate, or that the cave you're in can't have formed naturally, and in fact looks more like the innards of a certain violet-hued worm...:smalleek:

Basically, you know a lot of general knowledge about your topic which can be applied in almost any situation or region.

[Swooper]

I treat it like the Area Knowledge skill in GURPS. You have to choose a certain area for it, and the bigger the area is, the less specific information you get out of it.

...and that there's an old legend about alligators living in the sewers.
PLOT HOOK! :smallbiggrin:

[kamikasei]

So, it seems my approach of treating it as a universally-applicable "travel guide" skill isn't as far off base as I'd feared. Do people use any sort of set bonus/penalty scheme relating to regions and obscurity, or do you guys play it by ear when it comes up?

I could swear I've seen a sub-subskill (Knowledge: local (Breland) or something similar) at least once in a WotC publication. Can anyone recall else seeing anything like that?

[Piedmon_Sama]

Well, I treat it universally too. Knowledge [Local] represents your knowledge of any given locality. So you may have never been to Anvilania before, but a Knowledge [Local] check means you know about their local Anvil Festival anyway.

I guess that bleeds into Knowledge [Geography] and Knowledge [History], but since nobody takes those anyway... >_>

[bosssmiley]

I completely disregard it. It's a non-skill designed to act as a crutch for poor play.

Every character has local knowledge of their native area as part of their background. They can just use common sense (or Gather Information checks) to leverage this into useful info. When outside their native area they're the gawping outlander. Plus disallowing Knowledge (Local) means that players actually have to engage with the game world to advance their story.

No "Do I know where the thieves guild hang out?" (*roll*) thank you very much. I much prefer to hear:

"I know the Ebon Brotherhood run protection on all the taverna in the docklands. I'll head down there with a red carnation in my hat, and pass word to a couple of likely faces that 'Cousin Orrin seeks discreet passage'.
(*DM then rolls for/decides outcome based on story requirements, local situation, divination by die, or what's most lulz-worthy*)

[Hawriel]

So, it seems my approach of treating it as a universally-applicable "travel guide" skill isn't as far off base as I'd feared. Do people use any sort of set bonus/penalty scheme relating to regions and obscurity, or do you guys play it by ear when it comes up?

I could swear I've seen a sub-subskill (Knowledge: local (Breland) or something similar) at least once in a WotC publication. Can anyone recall else seeing anything like that?

Yes, your first post wasnt that far off the mark. Knowledge local is ment to be used for a local region. Like a city, town or somthing the size of a county or two. Basicly any thing with in range of a days walk or ride. Its also used for things that not every one in a city might know. As the Washington DC example given earlyer in the thread.

However the farther you get from the character home the less usfull the skill is. This should be reflected in a higher DC. Eventualy knowledge local would be the wrong skill. I figure two to three days ride from the home town is about right. After this your in knowledge geography's territory. Geography is more than just whare does the river flow and whats the name of that mountain. It includeds trade goods, names of heads of state, and polilical systems.

I would have the players keep track of the town they have been. If they spent about two weeks in a town, or city, or traveled in a specific region alot they should make a note of it. Then start using local knowlede for that place. No skill points spent just an RP and time thing. I live neer Detroit but Ive spent two weeks for three summers in Portland Oregon. I have local knowledge of Portland.

[kamikasei]

Hawriel, that's pretty much the opposite of the scheme I was talking about. I think that applies to bosssmiley, too, a bit.

bosssmiley, well, firstly, knowing where the thieves' hideout is located would be Gather Information, which you don't voice an objection to. Secondly, is your approach that players should decide that they know various details and make them up, and then the DM decide how they affect the Gather Information check? That's how your description sounds - the PC is using his +2 synergy bonus from Knowledge: local to assist his Gather Information check.

The problem I see with that is partly stylistic - I prefer the PC to ask the DM for some details, then riff off them as necessary, rather than make up things like the habits of the Ebon Brotherhood for themselves - and partly mechanical - isn't there something to be said for having an attribute with a character-creation cost that lets you say "I can recall those kinds of details for the various places we go, and do it this well" instead of, I guess, god-modding a bit?

[bosssmiley]

bosssmiley, well, firstly, knowing where the thieves' hideout is located would be Gather Information, which you don't voice an objection to. Secondly, is your approach that players should decide that they know various details and make them up, and then the DM decide how they affect the Gather Information check? That's how your description sounds - the PC is using his +2 synergy bonus from Knowledge: local to assist his Gather Information check.

The problem I see with that is partly stylistic - I prefer the PC to ask the DM for some details, then riff off them as necessary, rather than make up things like the habits of the Ebon Brotherhood for themselves - and partly mechanical - isn't there something to be said for having an attribute with a character-creation cost that lets you say "I can recall those kinds of details for the various places we go, and do it this well" instead of, I guess, god-modding a bit?

My previous example would have been a total ass-pull by the player, whose character has (probably) had previous contact with the Ebon Brotherhood in play. All the rest is just them adding a bit more local colour to the game and cutting to the chase [cue wipe dissolve to the next plot-advancing scene]. If the character just fell off the turnip wagon the player wouldn't be able to pull a stunt like that so readily.

To some that's god-modding; to me, it's just a bit of setting detail work I don't have to do.

As for Knowledge (Local) being "Rough Guide to *", I just use the most appropriate out of Gather Info, or Know (Geography) or (History). That said, a semi-reliable local guide is only a few silvers a day...

[Greg]

I would tend to run it as a general skill. Anyone who takes ranks in knowledge (local) gets a rough idea of what an area is like.

You don't have to make specific history subsets, or geography. Knowledge (planes) covers every plane - which is far more general.