Knowledge (local, geography, history)

[Ashtagon]

Knowledge (local, geography, history) are really the same skill in a sense. Either that, or they've been really badly named.

K/local was intended to be knowledge of the area you grew up in and it's current affairs. In other words, the here and now. It eventually mutated into K/wherever I happen to be and K/humanoid races' biology and sociology.

K/geography can likewise be thought of as a mix of "there and now" combined with navigation. And K/history can be thought of as "there and then".

Let's strip some stuff out. Knowledge of humanoid races can be placed into Heal when considering biology, or the revised K/local if considering their sociology. Likewise, the navigation aspects of K/geography work better within Survival (which already does duty for not getting lost).

The remaining common theme in all three of these is time and place.

Instead of these three skills, you may now have something like one or more of the following (using Mystara (http://www.pandius.com/) as teh example setting):

K/modern Thyatis mainland
K/3000 BC Blackmoor
K/modern Known World
K/modern Alphatian Empire
K/500 AC Ylaruam
K/1 AC Thyatis City

Any particular skill check would then suffer penalties based on:

Change of Scope: -2 per step (city/province/nation/empire or region/continent/world), assuming same location.

Change of Location: -2 per 100 miles from the political centre of your chosen focus.

Change of Era: -2 for questions that relate to events 10-99 years from your chosen subject. -4 for up to 100-199 years, an additional -2 for each extra 100 years.

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Examples:

I have K/modern Thyatis mainland, and I want to know when the last emperor ascended. That's less than 10 years ago, so I take a no penalty. If I wanted to know when King Stephan Karameikos (ruler of a neighbouring kingdom) ascended, that's about 300 miles away (-6) and more than 10 years ago (-2), for a total of -8. Suppose I was enquiring instead about the Duke of Hattias, a province within the Thyatian Empire. It's more than 10 years ago (-2) and one step down in terms of geographical area (-2), for a -4 penalty on the skill check.

Opinions?

[MagnusExultatio]

This is horrible in every single way. 3.5e needs less tiny super specific skills, not more.

[shadow_archmagi]

Geography (lands, terrain, climate, people)

History (royalty, wars, colonies, migrations, founding of cities)

Local (legends, personalities, inhabitants, laws, customs, traditions, humanoids)

They're not really the same skill. Geography is purely geography- The most it'll tell you about the people of the area is that the population is 27% Bugbear or something.

History covers major events, while Local covers minor events. History tells you that in 1927 Parliment executed the king, Local tells you that that's why any large group of people is called a killed-the-bleeding-king-good-lord-what-have-we-done

[Vladislav]

I'm using just 5 Knowledge skills:

Knowledge (Mystic) - Arcana, Spellcraft
Knowledge (Natural) - Nature, Dungeoneering
Knowledge (Social) - Local, History, Geography, Nobility&Royalty
Knowledge (Esoteric) - Religion, The Planes
Knowledge (Scientific) - Architecture, Engineering, Alchemy, Physics, etc.

It's a simplistic model, but it works. Because it's a game, not a perfect simulation of reality.

[Grinner]

Does anyone besides truenamers ever voluntarily put ranks into History, Local, or Geography?

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Does anyone besides truenamers ever voluntarily put ranks into History, Local, or Geography?Knowledge: Local powers Knowledge Devotion. It also often speeds up city plots by quite a bit.

[DarthCyberWolf]

Does anyone besides truenamers ever voluntarily put ranks into History, Local, or Geography?

5 ranks in History will give bards +2 to Bardic Knowledge.

Also, Local comes up fairly often in my game, enough to match the big three (Arcane, Religion, Planes) when not using them for creature abilities. But being in Greyhawk may have something to do with that. They like their details.

[Toliudar]

I've used history and geography several times to help speed along plot points. I use Local ALL THE TIME.

[Bahamut Omega]

Honestly I think K (Nobility and Royalty) should be eliminated and replaced with either K (Local) for recent events and K (History) for things more than a generation ago. I'm pretty its only purpose is to let people get another +2 synergy bonus for diplomacy checks.

[shadow_archmagi]

Knowledge (local) is great! Lets you know where the good taverns are, avoid praising Cuthbert in a hippie commune, avoid accidentally breaking some town's weird laws...

[Ashtagon]

Knowledge (local) is great! Lets you know where the good taverns are, avoid praising Cuthbert in a hippie commune, avoid accidentally breaking some town's weird laws...

But it breaks verisimilitude.

I've I've never been to Korea, how does my K/local let me know that the Blue Monkey is the best pub in Kwangju that caters for foreigners? Similarly, if I've never been to the USA, how would my K/local let me know which counties are wet and which are dry (let's ignore the fact that we have the Internet today; 25 years ago, we couldn't look this information up)? It strains credibility.

As for knowing when not to praise certain deities, that more logically belongs in K/religion.

[ericgrau]

Local is pretty big in a lot of campaigns, since it deals with the way humanoids live. There's a reason history gives a bonus to bardic knowledge, it likewise has a lot to do with lore. Geography OTOH isn't as useful. The goblins live in snowy mountains? That's nice.

I have a skill system that groups knowledges the same way as Vladislav, except social is 2 knowledges.

There's a lot of confusion about what "local" means. People look at the name and think it means everything around you, when really it's more like localities and peoples. Like goblins and their typical traditions and laws. If you actually live in a specific area or have been there a while you'd probably know the gist of that without any knowledge skill. But it also applies to things like typical goblin personality that don't apply to any specific region at all. Or humanoid monster special abilities.

[Lactantius]

The best way to use Knowledge (local) is the way the Forgotten Realms deal with it. It is specified to one region and in that region, you know the stuff like traditions, folklore, local heroes, local history and so on.

Sure, form an optimization kind of view, people don't like to spread their skills and even more, don't invest ranks in seldom used or adventure-non-relevant skills.

Personally, I like to invest ranks into skills which just fit the character theme, even if they are not that relevant or checked in adventures that much.

Knowledge skills for example with perfectly with my sage-like wizard, an adept of science, lore and ancient history.

He loves to invest in all kind of knowledge skills. The synergy isn't bad, too, since most scholastic classed have a high intelligence.
So, a wizard with INT 20 would have already a +6 if he invests only 1 skill point.

[Ashtagon]

There's a lot of confusion about what "local" means. People look at the name and think it means everything around you, when really it's more like localities and peoples. Like goblins and their typical traditions and laws. If you actually live in a specific area or have been there a while you'd probably know the gist of that without any knowledge skill. But it also applies to things like typical goblin personality that don't apply to any specific region at all. Or humanoid monster special abilities.

What is "typical goblin personality"? That's like having a skill about "typical human personality". The personality of the ancient Spartans has little to do with those of my local hippie commune, but both are humans.

Again, the skill breaks verisimilitude, even when you try to use it as you say it is intended.

Knowledge of humanoid special abilities? Survival, K/nature, or Heal would probably make about as much sense, depending on where you think the overlap lies.

[Malimar]

Does anyone besides truenamers ever voluntarily put ranks into History, Local, or Geography?

I've got a character who has an excess of skill points and so puts points into every knowledge skill equally, just so I can say "I roll Knowledge(all the things)" without having to ask or figure out which particular knowledge is relevant.

But I am insane.



What is "typical goblin personality"?

"Usually neutral evil". :smallbiggrin:

[Marlowe]

What is this supposed to accomplish beyond wasting skill points and making characters still MORE deplorably ignorant about the world they're in?

[Ashtagon]

What is this supposed to accomplish beyond wasting skill points and making characters still MORE deplorably ignorant about the world they're in?

Perhaps they can learn the important stuff through role-playing and interaction instead of roll-playing?

[Morph Bark]

Perhaps they can learn the important stuff through role-playing and interaction instead of roll-playing?

But we can already do that. What does this change really add?

[Thurbane]

Is there an equivalent to the Versatile Performer feat, for Knowledge? VP lets ranks in any Perform skill count as ranks in any other Perform skill (up to a number equal to your INT bonus)...

[Ashtagon]

Is there an equivalent to the Versatile Performer feat, for Knowledge? VP lets ranks in any Perform skill count as ranks in any other Perform skill (up to a number equal to your INT bonus)...

Well, bardic knowledge comes pretty close to that. This change also makes bardic knowledge meaningful, since bards would in effect get free ranks in the relevant K/local for every time and place.

[Marlowe]

In fact, role-playing is the only way to do so. Knowledge skills are already functionally broken as a source of information because there's already too many of them.




I've I've never been to Korea, how does my K/local let me know that the Blue Monkey is the best pub in Kwangju that caters for foreigners? Similarly, if I've never been to the USA, how would my K/local let me know which counties are wet and which are dry (let's ignore the fact that we have the Internet today; 25 years ago, we couldn't look this information up)? It strains credibility.


You know a friend who knows a friend who met somebody once who spent some time there. Like real-world knowledge is spread. It's not K/rocket science.

[SillySymphonies]

I've I've never been to Korea, how does my K/local let me know that the Blue Monkey is the best pub in Kwangju that caters for foreigners? Similarly, if I've never been to the USA, how would my K/local let me know which counties are wet and which are dry (let's ignore the fact that we have the Internet today; 25 years ago, we couldn't look this information up)? It strains credibility.
Either you use a region-specific knowledge (local) skill (knowledge (Korea) in your example), which would cover such minutae, or you use the knowledge (local) skill as described in the book (legends, personalities, inhabitants, laws, customs, traditions, humanoids), which does not cover such minutae, rather the customs and traditions of foreign cultures: think of it as a knowledge (anthropology) or knowledge (National Geographic Magazine) skill*. In that case, minutae like the Blue Monkey pub would be covered by character history, the gather information skill or roleplay.

Paul Artreides makes his knowledge (local) check: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueYYVRTWmjY&t=75m40s.

*Knowledge (local) is a bit of a misnomer and probably the reason why some think it covers minutae like a pub.