Knowledge(Local) Problem

[Beelzebub1111]

How do I explain to a long time 2nd edition player that knowledge skills are NOT specialized and he doesn't need to pick a specific reigon to specialize in for knowledge(local)?

I tired explaining what skill points mean (Effort put into learning a skill) so putting ranks into Knowledge(local) means taking time to study locales, customs, and people. And just because you put in one rank in Knoledge(local) doesn't mean you know who every mayor, custom, humanoid etc. is in the entire world.

Can anyone explain what I'm trying to say better?

[Feytalist]

I know that, especially in the Forgotten Realms guidebooks, the characters all have specialised versions of the Knowledge skills (specifically geography, history and local), e.g. Knowledge (Waterdeep local), and in fact this makes sense to me. A person may know the customs, history, map layout etc of a specific country, but not necessarily the whole world. Also, that makes more thematic sense.

Skills like knowledge (nature, dungeoneering, arcana etc) on the other hand deal with generalised groups of similar information

If that bothers you, just make a Knowledge (all history, ever) metaskill.

[Cog]

I've found a compromise that I like, though none of my players have taken Know:Local for me to test it out. The skill starts out as being local to your starting area, but when you enter a new, unknown are you can't make trained checks at first - over time, though, your previous knowledge of varied local customs lets you pick up on what's happening, and over the course of, say, a week or two you accumulate the full benefit of your ranks.

[Coidzor]

If that bothers you, just make a Knowledge (all history, ever) metaskill.

It should. After all, why should one not be able to identify a half-orc or orc or bugbear because they went 5 miles down the road?

[Yora]

I treat Knowledge (local) as applying to an entire region, my setting has about 20 or so of them.
Natives of a region gain a +5 circumstance bonus on checks for their own region and can make knowledge (local) check for their region even if they don't have any ranks.

[Cog]

It should. After all, why should one not be able to identify a half-orc or orc or bugbear because they went 5 miles down the road?

In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD
If that is merely the general case, then there are exceptions, such as the orc from five miles down the road.

[Feytalist]

If your region has no gray orcs (for example), how would you know to identify one with a general Knowledge (local) check?

Although I do second the bonuses to region idea. Or perhaps take a penalty to your checks the farther you go from your home region?

[Yora]

Since Knowledge is Trained Only, I assume it's supposed to represent specialized knowledge that goes beyonf the common knowledge of the locals. They know the local plants and animals, know who their lord is and possibly some details of his family like his predecessors and heir, and know where the local shops and temples are, without any ranks in nature, history, or local.
Making a knowledge check is required when it's assumed that you don't automatically know such things. Either because it's not part of your everyday life, or because it's knowledge that's not known to anyone but only to some selected groups.

While not every farmer outside the city wall will know it, it's probably an open secret what local merchants trade in illegial goods. The thieves know it, the guards know it, and many of the other merchants probably as well. I think it's thinks like these that are best represented by the Knowledge (local) skill.

[Coidzor]

If that is merely the general case, then there are exceptions, such as the orc from five miles down the road.

10 + 1 HD orc = DC 11 check, can't make untrained, thus if you don't have knowledge: local for the place 5 miles down the road, but only knowledge: local for the city you were in and you're playing it such that you have knowledge: local required for that level of specificity as a municipality, well...

[Cog]

If your region has no gray orcs (for example), how would you know to identify one with a general Knowledge (local) check
If your region has no green dragons, how would you know to identify them with a Know: Arcana check?

Besides, knowledge checks are a non-action. A player is free to roll them for each category when meeting a given creature.

10 + 1 HD orc = DC 11 check, can't make untrained, thus if you don't have knowledge: local for the place 5 miles down the road, but only knowledge: local for the city you were in and you're playing it such that you have knowledge: local required for that level of specificity as a municipality, well...
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exception

[Feytalist]

Then it's got a silly name. Local implies localised, in my mind at least. Then that means that for whoever has ranks in the skill, the whole world is their home region. Better to call it Knowledge (everywhere) then and be done with it.

And again, as I mentioned, the FR books stat their characters specifically with Knowledge (Amn local) etc skills.

[Vangor]

I know that, especially in the Forgotten Realms guidebooks, the characters all have specialised versions of the Knowledge skills (specifically geography, history and local), e.g. Knowledge (Waterdeep local), and in fact this makes sense to me. A person may know the customs, history, map layout etc of a specific country, but not necessarily the whole world. Also, that makes more thematic sense.

But this potential knowledge is covered under the current knowledge skills of geography, history, and local. Having ranks in knowledge local represents having come across a smattering of legends, rituals, important figures, etc., of places. Based on how specialized the knowledge is the DC will change to meet this, representing less likelihood for your character to actually know.

Dividing those skills into specialized versions makes no more sense than making knowledge arcana (dragon) and knowledge arcana (golem) distinct. At least with geography, local, and history you will likely find broad information regarding many places while you likely will not find information on dragons in a tome regarding golem artifice.

Separating those to me makes them less likely to be taken by players, and knowledge skills are wonderful to have used in a game.

[Feytalist]

If your region has no green dragons, how would you know to identify them with a Know: Arcana check?

You could argue that since dragons are intrinsically beings of magic, any magic user should know about all dragons...

Or since all arcane magic comes from dragons...

Or any wizard worth his salt would have read hundreds of tomes about dragons.

I'm just nitpicking now :smallbiggrin:

[Cog]

I'm just nitpicking now :smallbiggrin:
And you couldn't come up with similar exceptions for the orc? :smalltongue:

[Feytalist]

And you couldn't come up with similar exceptions for the orc? :smalltongue:

Pfft who writes tomes about orcs.

[TroubleBrewing]

Pfft who writes tomes about orcs.

Stan Nicholls, apparently. :smalltongue: (http://www.amazon.com/Orcs-Stan-Nicholls/dp/0316033707)

[Cartigan]

I know that, especially in the Forgotten Realms guidebooks, the characters all have specialised versions of the Knowledge skills (specifically geography, history and local), e.g. Knowledge (Waterdeep local), and in fact this makes sense to me. A person may know the customs, history, map layout etc of a specific country, but not necessarily the whole world. Also, that makes more thematic sense.

Skills like knowledge (nature, dungeoneering, arcana etc) on the other hand deal with generalised groups of similar information

If that bothers you, just make a Knowledge (all history, ever) metaskill.

Hey, if I can know information about every ridiculous mage-created creature ever with Knowledge (dungeoneering) [plus dungeon skills], then I can know about every locale on the plane with Knowledge (local)

[Amiria]

Hey, if I can know information about every ridiculous mage-created creature ever with Knowledge (dungeoneering) [plus dungeon skills], then I can know about every locale on the plane with Knowledge (local)

The ... err ... Gnome Pirate has a point there. You can know everything about the most obscure creatures that you never encountered (and probably don't want to encounter, ever) because you have sufficient knowledge skills. The same should be possible with the most obscure "locales" on the other side of the world.

Maybe make the DD harder with increasing distance and/or obscurity, like it gets harder with more hit dice for monsters.

[ClockShock]

For his purposes, the OPs view makes sense.

Putting points in Knowledge(Local) represents actual time spent learning various customs that you may not have encountered.
A Merchant will naturally study, learn about, aquire knowledge, of all kinds of places he might visit - he has ranks in knowledge(local).

The skill points don't represent inherent knowledge of being within a region (that's common sense - no skill needed) but the kind of character who note a remember the customs of places all over the world.

The more levels, the more you're likely to know. Variation still exists in the skill check (so ranks can't mean you know about everyone everywhere, there are blank spots)

To the OP:
Perhaps try to show that knowledge of just one specific region is more common sense. If you're in RavenTown, Wisdom/Intelligence/Gather Information gets you what you need. If you're travelling to the far off land NotRavenTown - then Knowledge(Local) might share some local customs that would otherwise be unkown.

Here's what my mind was looking for:
Knowledge(Local) is not knowledge of the local area, but local knowledge of any area.

[faceroll]

I know that, especially in the Forgotten Realms guidebooks, the characters all have specialised versions of the Knowledge skills (specifically geography, history and local), e.g. Knowledge (Waterdeep local), and in fact this makes sense to me. A person may know the customs, history, map layout etc of a specific country, but not necessarily the whole world. Also, that makes more thematic sense.

If they are unfamiliar with a region, simply give them a penalty.


Skills like knowledge (nature, dungeoneering, arcana etc) on the other hand deal with generalised groups of similar information

Not true at all. Knowledge nature covers plants and animals, which are far more different that two groups of nearly identical humanoids, as well as fey (and their customs and culture), giants (and their customs and culture), and monstrous humanoids (and their customs and culture). Arcana covers magical beasts, dragons, robots, and magic things.

Knowledge local seems like the one with the LEAST amount of specific, disparate knowledge.


If that bothers you, just make a Knowledge (all history, ever) metaskill.

That's the RAW, actually.

[Forged Fury]

I think the DCs for identification are messed up, personally. I'm not exactly sure what would be a good compromise though.

DC = HD to simply identify it by name with success of 5, 10, or 15 higher granting greater levels of "game" knowledge.

Even then, my suggestion of a fix still doesn't address one of the main problems. The game is called Dungeons & Dragons but, given the typical HD of a dragon and the skill required to identify them, a commoner would have no clue what the giant, flying, scaley-thing breathing firey-doom upon them was.

[Thugorp]

I will admit I didn't quite read all of this, but I keep seeing a few things that I think are just basic missunderstandings.


First, to the guy who keeps talking about identifying an Orc. This is not somethign that would be done with Knowledge(local). This would be knowledge nature, as knowledge of monstrous-humanoids falls under this skill.

Second,

Knowledge local acording to the SRD says this: Local (legends, personalities, inhabitants, laws, customs, traditions, humanoids)

now history says this: History (royalty, wars, colonies, migrations, founding of cities)

So, lets look at the difference. History covers royalty, wars colonies, migrations and foundings, these are all large and general things that affect the world.
Since this is a different skill from Knowledge(local), lets assume that the two aren't sononimis(sorry can't spell).

Now lets examin knowlage(local) with the assume that the two skills overlap as little as possible.

Local covers:
legends: well these can't have to do with Wars colonies, migrations of people or animals that really existed, but any legends about these things that are both prevalent in the area[...in question] and untrue, or prevalent for reasons having nothing to do with their truth or falsity should fall under knowledge(local) as should the reason for the legends prevalence.

Personalities: O.k. I admit it is IMPOSOBLE for things like the king of the land in question, not to overlap between local and history, so lets just assume it does. What doesn't though, are other local personalities, things like the town fool, the town gossip, the towns nebish, things of this sort.

Inhabitants: It is a bit hard for inhabitants and personalities not to overlap, but really I think this just covers any not famous residence of the local area(this actually overlaps with gather info if you want to know the truth[more on that at the end]).

laws: This one is easy, this is the stuff you don't learn unless you are from an area or study it. For example; I live in chicago. In Chcago, there are special lanes for bikes, where there aren't bikes are expeckted to hug the curb and allow cars to pass them. this is something you might not know if you weren't from here. As a suporting point, I only recently learned that in N.Y.C. apparently bikers are expected to ride in the center of the street and cars must actually change lanes to pass them(WHO NEW?!). There are few other skills that could be taken for this.

customs: In most cities you are expected to sit quetly and not make eye contact on intra-city trains I was quite taken aback when I went to michigan and people started talking to me on a light railway. In Isreal from friday night to saturday night, most elivators just automatically stop at each floor so that people do not have to press the buttons. These are things that don't overlap and that you would need specialized knowledge for. Things like people shake hands in the west but bow in the east, could possibly fall under this but it could also fall under history if it was mentioned in tellings of first contacts.

traditions: this wold be holidays and habitual behaviors that are soly localized to the area in question. If a tradition if followed widly by people of a brawed regen or the tradition has nothing to do with the gegrafic location in general it does not fal under knowledge(local). For example, in Chicago we NEVER put catchup on our hot-dogs... it's just wrong I have been told that this is not abhorred by people out side of Chicago though; there for you would need knowledge local to know not to use katsup here. On the other hand, Pass-over is a holiday celebrated by Jews, one of Chicago's suburbs has the heaviest concentration of Jews, outside Jerusalem, in the world. However, I still wouldn't need knowledge local to know about Pass-Over. This is because, even though it is a big deal in that comunity it is Celebrated by a brauder group out side of it(the suburb of Chicago), and there for not really a matter for local scholarship(although knowing that Chicago's suberbs has that high population of Jews would count).

humanoids: o.k. this one may seem confusing at first, but in reality it actually helps clarify the hole thing. Yes , "humanoids," is listed under both Knowledge(nature) and knowledge(local) so here is how that works. You live in an area... well it probably has human's in it. If you see a person who looks like a human but they are on mars you knowlage of the people from the planet you come from will still tell you that... hay that those guys on mars are human... that would probably lead to more questions... but the point is you would know what they were. Now if you went back in time and were faced with a Homo-Habilis, you probably couldn't Identify that(unless you have knowlage nature) because they don't live where you grew-up/studied. In other words if we are trying to keep this skill from overlaping with others as much as possible(and I think that should be the goal) then this could only mean that you can only identify/know things about humanoids who live where you do.


O.k. that is my 2 cents.

[Forged Fury]

First, to the guy who keeps talking about identifying an Orc. This is not somethign that would be done with Knowledge(local). This would be knowledge nature, as knowledge of monstrous-humanoids falls under this skill.

Um... orcs (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/orc.htm) are humanoids per the D&D definition. Minotaurs (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/minotaur.htm), for instance, are monstrous humanoids. There is an in-game difference between the two. Check the Size/Type entry for your misunderstanding.

[Cog]

First, to the guy who keeps talking about identifying an Orc. This is not somethign that would be done with Knowledge(local). This would be knowledge nature, as knowledge of monstrous-humanoids falls under this skill.
Quoth the SRD: "Humanoid (Orc)."

Yes , "humanoids," is listed under both Knowledge(nature) and knowledge(local)...
No, they aren't. :smallconfused:

In other words if we are trying to keep this skill from overlaping with others as much as possible(and I think that should be the goal) then this could only mean that you can only identify/know things about humanoids who live where you do.
So, to keep the skills from overlapping, we have to gimp the one that's already weakest for range of creature types identified by having it be unable to even identify a creature of that category if it doesn't live within a few dozen miles of you? I can't say I'm a fan of that.

[faceroll]

Later monster manuals and books with monsters include the DCs for relevant knowledge checks to know about monsters. In multiple cases, different knowledge skills cover the same thing, sometimes at different DCs.

I often let multiple knowledge checks cover the same thing. However, what those tell you about the subject cover different aspects of it. Know: religion & planes have a bit of overlap, for instance.

[Hirax]

I've never liked how any knowledge skill works, for the same reason being brought up for local. I apply obscurity penalties to all knowledge skills (usually predetermined). The trouble with this of course, is that it necessitates lines being drawn, and that's a bigass can of worms.

[Gamer Girl]

How do I explain to a long time 2nd edition player that knowledge skills are NOT specialized and he doesn't need to pick a specific region to specialize in for knowledge(local)?

But you do need to pick a specific region. Now granted the rules don't say that, but it's kind of common sense. You can't know 'local' knowledge of the whole world(or even a whole country or state)




I tired explaining what skill points mean (Effort put into learning a skill) so putting ranks into Knowledge(local) means taking time to study locales, customs, and people. And just because you put in one rank in Knowledge(local) doesn't mean you know who every mayor, custom, humanoid etc. is in the entire world.

A rank in Knowledge Local gets you knowledge about the local area. What you know, depends on how hard it is to know. Who a mayor is, is quite public knowledge, so that would have a DC of like 5. And most major customs fall in the DC 10 range, as would major races.


Remember the knowledge skills are there to help the player know things the character would obviously know, but of course the player does not.

For example, a character that grew up on a farm on the edge of some mostly unexplored woodlands would know something about the woods. After all the character lived next to the woods for at least 15-20 years. so they would know, for example, that 'elves are seen in the woods from time to time'.

[tyckspoon]

But you do need to pick a specific region. Now granted the rules don't say that, but it's kind of common sense. You can't know 'local' knowledge of the whole world(or even a whole country or state)


Well, that's the crux of the whole thing, isn't it? The rules don't tell you to use a region, and Know (Local) is both fairly specific (a city's idiosyncracies) and very, very broad (general identification of the entire Humanoid type) in what it covers. By the lack of direction and by comparison to the other Knowledge skills, which cover huge swaths of only semi-related topics, it seems at least to me that the intent was Know (Local) would have similarly broad coverage.. that is, not needing to be about a particular region (or, possibly, that the regions it would cover would be so large as to make little difference.)

[Veyr]

It's purely gamist of me, but I always rule that skill ranks in Knowledge (Local) cover all localities, because really, there are far too many skills vying for skillpoints as it is. I mean, if the 2+Int Wizard gets 7 or 8 skill points per level, he's going to have a hard time keeping all of his Knowledge skills relevant if there are forty of them, and two skill points per level are basically spoken for by Concentration and Spellcraft.

[Vangor]

But you do need to pick a specific region. Now granted the rules don't say that, but it's kind of common sense. You can't know 'local' knowledge of the whole world(or even a whole country or state)

What you are doing is reading too much into "local" to mean literally knowledge on what is local to the character rather than knowledge relevant to all local areas as opposed to geography, history, nobility, and architecture (and to an extent nature) of the region. Problem is, this would be the only knowledge type which has limited scope. This is despite having the least use of the knowledge checks.

To begin, the majority of what is covered under an information check is easily available. Who would really try to hide who was the mayor of the village? Would anyone not tell you what the festival was for? Laws have to be available knowledge. And so forth. Further, humanoids have few special abilities and qualities compared to other monster type.

"Local" is a category, not a description, as are the rest of knowledge skills.

[CapnVan]

What you are doing is reading too much into "local" to mean literally knowledge on what is local to the character rather than knowledge relevant to all local areas as opposed to geography, history, nobility, and architecture (and to an extent nature) of the region. Problem is, this would be the only knowledge type which has limited scope. This is despite having the least use of the knowledge checks.

To begin, the majority of what is covered under an information check is easily available. Who would really try to hide who was the mayor of the village? Would anyone not tell you what the festival was for? Laws have to be available knowledge. And so forth. Further, humanoids have few special abilities and qualities compared to other monster type.

"Local" is a category, not a description, as are the rest of knowledge skills.

Nope — again, just check your favorite FR book. They make it very clear that Knowledge (local) refers to a specific locality.

And while much of the information might be easily available, take a look at the world around you — how many of your neighbors know who the mayor is? How many know who their Congressmen is? How many know who the Vice President is?

Knowledge (local) is about depth of knowledge of a specific area. The more ranks you put in it, the more likely you are to know something specific and/or obscure. About, for example, that hidden gem that's actually the best Vietnamese restaurant in the city. About what really happened in that weird house. About who really runs the Irish mob. Etc.

[faceroll]

Nope — again, just check your favorite FR book. They make it very clear that Knowledge (local) refers to a specific locality.

Looks like that's only a problem if you're playing in FR. It's a rule variant, or optional rule. The PHB takes precedence over it.

[Vangor]

Nope — again, just check your favorite FR book. They make it very clear that Knowledge (local) refers to a specific locality.

Those are for the purposes of fulfilling regional requirements and are a variant from FRCS which explains this can be applied to regional subcategories including for history. Also mentions craft, perform, and profession potentially being used for regional variants, and the DM having the obvious final discretion. Doing knowledge local in such a manner for qualifying for region specific feats and prestige classes is perfectly acceptable.


And while much of the information might be easily available, take a look at the world around you — how many of your neighbors know who the mayor is?

This is not an argument about how less useful knowledge local is versus other knowledges. I never argued knowledge local has absolutely no use, only was the least useful mechanically.


Knowledge (local) is about depth of knowledge of a specific area.

If you are using the variant in FRCS, yes. But, what prevents a person from learning customs, legends, etc., of various locals and regions?

[Gnaeus]

It's purely gamist of me, but I always rule that skill ranks in Knowledge (Local) cover all localities, because really, there are far too many skills vying for skillpoints as it is. I mean, if the 2+Int Wizard gets 7 or 8 skill points per level, he's going to have a hard time keeping all of his Knowledge skills relevant if there are forty of them, and two skill points per level are basically spoken for by Concentration and Spellcraft.

Agreed. To take this a step further, imagine that you have a skillmonkey with a man of the world background (like a bard or rogue, with a concept like merchant trader, wandering minstrel, or spy). If, to make his concept work, this guy has to take Knowledge (Local) 5+ times, you have gutted his ability to actually do relevant skill checks and be good at his job.

[Gray Mage]

I think that knowledge (local) should cover all localities. I mean, you don't need to choose a plane for knowledge (planes), then why should knowledge (local) need a specific location?

[Kmcdswan]

In my gaming group (which has 3 DMs running 4 games and trying very hard to use consistent rules between each) we treat knowledge local as knowledge cultures and customs and we don't make characters make checks for their home countries we allow players to identify humanoids but this goes beyond race if you meet the DC (10+CR) then you get base knowledge because you saw something relevant (that orc is wearing a 3 boar tusks on his left shoulder that means he has at least 8 levels in barbarian) and yes it's gamist but it's fair consistent and player do it anyways it just takes longer if you make them guess based of context clues. We also with all monster identification skills alow every 5 point by which the DC is beaten for the player to ask a gamist question about the monster (how many Hit dice, how many Attacks, what special qualities, what is its AC, does it have DR) now we don't answer those questions with exact detail but rather with hints it's got about 15 hit dice (could be anything from 12 to 17) it's got 2 claws and a bite, it's AC is high (our fighter(s) aren't rolling for 5 or better on their first attacks) use a cold iron weapon if you've got one, but that tends to fall off a bit with Humanoids so it's general class and is this guy a joke, a threat, or a major threat.

All that said knowledge skills are so much bigger than identifying monsters and knowledge local is one of the best it can give you the reputation of an inn or let you know who to talk to if you want to met the thieves in town. As regards the comments about real world people knowing their local area to well enough not to need to make checks I agree. In fact I treat knowledge local as a knowledge skills for governing how much you know about the local customs of area's you aren't from, and just give players those details when their in their hometown.

Knowledge skills are supposed to govern a large field of knowledge so let them and if the skills doesn't feel balanced that's because its not and it's not just because it was printed poorly I'll bet that most of the player who are talking about knowledge local like it's the redheaded stepchild of the knowledge skills play in games that rarely take them into cities and when they do it's for downtime not adventuring. Now there's nothing wrong with that kind of game but it does slant the game away from knowledge checks and gather information can be used just as effectively as knowledge local if you have time to talk to the people of a village. but by the same token Architect is a recommended profession and doesn't that undercut engineering. My answer to that is not if you have a high intelligence a low wisdom and want to make clocks. Their will always be overlap in skills, but that's OK there are to many skills for any 1 character to have all of them anyways.

I love knowledge local it leads to my favorite anecdotes and not just in Pathfinder (or D&D for those of you still playing it). Anyone who knows how many testicles a Krogan has got a great taste of the flavor knowledge local can add by talking to Garus. Let knowledge local be in those details they could be useful later. In a free form Mass Effect RPG I may well have had cause to interrogate a Krogan and having 4 testicles to crush gives me twice the negotiating power. My point is that knowledge local should govern all local customs not cause the books say so or because garbage campaign settings (FR and I'm not trying to start an argument just espousing my opinion) say it should be divided. I should govern all locales because that's what makes it balanced with the other knowledge skills and a skill point should be equal regardless of what skill it's put in, that's what rule zero tells DM to do.

[Jack Zander]

But you do need to pick a specific region. Now granted the rules don't say that, but it's kind of common sense. You can't know 'local' knowledge of the whole world(or even a whole country or state)

I don't think its common sense at all. In fact, you know what they say about assuming don't you?

Does (history) make you pick a specific nation? Does (religion) make you pick a specific deity? Does (the planes) make you pick a specific plane? Does (geography) make you pick a specific terrain feature? Does (nobility and royalty) make you pick a specific lineage? Why would (local) be any different than these other categories?

I think you are misunderstanding what (local) actually does. It allows you to learn about other people's cultures and legends as well as popular and well known individuals (read: celebrities) in local places far from your own home. It does not give you a map with all of the buildings neatly labeled of every city you ever enter. The locals probably know this, but its not something one would ever make a skill check for. However, you may have read or heard about how the city you are in is uniquely set up with the roadways in a series of spirals or some such, with different districts in each quarter of Piville.

[stainboy]

I know that, especially in the Forgotten Realms guidebooks, the characters all have specialised versions of the Knowledge skills (specifically geography, history and local), e.g. Knowledge (Waterdeep local), and in fact this makes sense to me. A person may know the customs, history, map layout etc of a specific country, but not necessarily the whole world. Also, that makes more thematic sense.


That's sort of a 3.0 vs 3.5 issue. At 3.0 release you could have pretty much anything as a Knowledge, and Arcana, History, Local, etc were just provided as examples. It took a few years before things like Knowledge (Local) had defined mechanics and were referenced by other rules.

[Coidzor]

But you do need to pick a specific region. Now granted the rules don't say that, but it's kind of common sense. You can't know 'local' knowledge of the whole world(or even a whole country or state)

Common sense. D&D Rules. Usually contradictory.

[CapnVan]

Looks like that's only a problem if you're playing in FR. It's a rule variant, or optional rule. The PHB takes precedence over it.

Feel free to quote me anything from the PHB that makes it clear what Knowledge (local) is meant for.

Your reading would suggest that a peasant with 1 rank in Knowledge (local), transported to another plane, would be able to make a skilled check for legends there.

It's patently ludicrous.

[Amnestic]

Feel free to quote me anything from the PHB that makes it clear what Knowledge (local) is meant for.

Your reading would suggest that a peasant with 1 rank in Knowledge (local), transported to another plane, would be able to make a skilled check for legends there.

It's patently ludicrous.

No, because that would be Knowledge (the planes), obviously. Now if he were transported to another part of the material plane thousands of miles away, then yes, he could. It could represent some stories he heard in passing from travellers, or rumours through the grape vine, or whatever.

Edit: Finding out legends of a place thousands of miles away would likely be DC20+ though, so it's either incredibly unlikely or outright impossible for a peasant with 1 rank to know the legends. It could be possible however, depending on how difficult the DM makes it.

[Cirrhosis]

the issue seems more a problem with the label than anything else. the name "knowledge: local" implies it's about a specific area when the skill, according to the PHB, seems like it's meant to be "knowledge: the societies and cultures of the humanoid populations of the prime material plane." in short, "local" fits in the blank.

[DeltaEmil]

Forgotten Realms 3.x uses the campaign house rule that the knowledge (local) skill must be replaced by knowledge skills pertaining to specific regions, as written in the Player's Guide to Faerun. This is not the standard-D&D-rule. Eberron, an official D&D-campaign setting, does not use this rule.

So unless you specifically play in the Forgotten Realms OR decided to implement this change towards your group, it's actually not possible to take a knowledge skill pertaining to a specific region, and against the official rules.

However, if your player wants to limit himself, then let him do that. Others may take knowledge (toothbrushing), and it's up to them if they want to spend their skill-points for pointless things. However, they do not have the right to complain about the others in that case.