What are the top 5 most used Knowledge Skill Checks?

[killem2]

In your opinion of playing 3.5? I'm building this rather strange, skill monkey/healer of a cleric. Almost infringing on rogue. (don't worry we don't have a rogue for this camp and the dm asked if I would play a 2nd character as a healer) Now that I've dug into cleric for the first time in a really really long time, Cloistered cleric, boccob as my god, I have access to many many skill points.

[Grail]

It depends on what enemies you come across the most. But I would say.

Religion
Planes
Nature
Local
Arcana
Dungeoneering

That's 6, but these are the ones that include creature info, so they have combat uses.

Of those, Dungeoneering is the one that in our games gets used the least.

[RaggedAngel]

It depends on what enemies you come across the most. But I would say.

Religion
Planes
Nature
Local
Arcana
Dungeoneering

That's 6, but these are the ones that include creature info, so they have combat uses.

Of those, Dungeoneering is the one that in our games gets used the least.

I'd switch History for Dungeoneering unless you know ahead of time that you'll be spending a ton of time fighting aberrations in dungeons. History is, essentially, Bardic Knowledge; you can find information about just about anything using it. It can even substitute for other knowledges, like Royalty or Architecture, sort of. "What's the history of this kingdom?" "What's the history of this bridge?"

[Ianuagonde]

Arcana, Dungeoneering, Planes, Religion. These give info about monsters with the most special abilities: resistances, immunities, spellcasting, spell-like abilities etc. Knowing or not knowing this makes a big difference. Nature is a distant fifth: monstrous humanoids and giants have few special abilities, fey are rare, and animals don't do anything out of the ordinary.

[inexorabletruth]

There are two approaches to this.

If you're building a Skill Monkey, try basing your Knowledge Checks on Skill Synergy.

Arcana (for Spellcraft)
Arch/Eng, unless you're an elf (for Search checks)
Local (for Gather Info checks)
Nobility (for Diplomacy checks)
Religion (for turn or rebuke checks: hey you're still a cleric)


These will give you easy bonuses to skills you will often use as a skill monkey. You could swap out Nobility for Geography or Dungeoneering too, depending on whether your campaign is mostly a city campaign a wilderness campaign, or a dungeon delver.

If you're building an Adviser who knows all the vulnerable spots on all the villains, go for the common ones:

*Arcana (constructs, dragons, magical beasts)
Dungeoneering (aberrations, oozes)
*Geography (People)
*Nature (animals, fey, giants monstrous humanoids, plants, vermin)
Religion (undead)
Planes (outsiders, elementals)


The ones with asterisks by them are the major ones. I know we all know what people are. Why would you need to roll a Knowledge check on how to fight a person? Well, it gives away their HD. The DC for a knowledge check to know a little about an enemy is 10+HD (+5 for each additional tier of information). If you nat 20 on a knowledge Geo check and get, "He looks like a human." It's time to cast expeditious retreat and find the nearest hiding place. They might as well call the check: Knowledge (BBEG).

If you're building for fun RP, then a gabby Cloistered Cleric who thinks he's Data from Star Trek: TNG is always fun to play. You'll get the most RP ops out of these:

Arcana
History or Geography
Local or Nobility
Religion
The Planes


But C. Clerics who know a little about everything and love to prattle on about it will have to work closely with their DM to make that work with his/her story. Make sure your DM is willing to work with that. Not all DMs like putting that much thought into their world, and you'll end up playing a very useless, socially inept moron with a lot of ranks in stuff no one cares about.

[Drazik]

my group is a little irregular, we don't use checks to find out about creatures that often. our knowledge checks are used to actually have knowledge about something (not saying that our way is better or worse)

the ones we use the most in order from most to least is as follows:
Arcana
History
Religion
Nature
Architecture/engineering

[killem2]

Thanks! Are there any that were released in other sources? Besides core?

[Namfuak]

My group basically rolls all knowledge into knowledge (Local), with the justification of "I know a guy who told me..."

[Spider_Jerusalem]

You know what's funny? The Knowledge Skill we use most is, by far, Knowledge(Nobility and Royalty). I'm DMing the game, and I never expected this to happen. One of my players made a knight, though, and his kingdom is at war.

Knowing who's who in each place they come across has been actually really useful for the group. This same group has never rolled a single check for knowledge (The Planes) yet, though, and I had expected them to.

[Morph Bark]

Thanks! Are there any that were released in other sources? Besides core?

Yes, but those are obsolete since they are from 3.0 and were rolled into the new 3.5 Knowledges (such as ones regarding war put into history and law into local).

Knowledges that are most common are Arcana, Religion and Nature, followed by The Planes (though this is dependant on the game, but it appears more often than Dungeoneering). Local can pop up a lot and be used a lot, though keep in mind that it is actually meant to be seperate for every different region/city.

Architecture & Engineering, Geography and Nobility & Royalty are the ones I've seen least in use and the least uses for in splatbooks.

[killem2]

Yeah arcana and planes have came up ALOT in the age of worms, and local can come up alot but hard to justify if they are not from the area.

[Gadora]

Thanks! Are there any that were released in other sources? Besides core?

The only one I know of is Knowledge(psionics), but that's obviously only going to be useful if you're using psionics. That doesn't mean that the skills may not get fleshed out a bit with new ways to use them. (Complete Warrior, for example, adds a new use for each of Architecture and Engineering, History, Local, and Nobility and Royalty.)

[Tim Proctor]

#1) combo with Collector of Stories skill trick.

Knowledge Devotion

( Complete Champion, p. 60)

Y{Scrubbed}

#2)
Armor of Scales

( Dragon Magic, p. 15)

{Scrubbed}

#3
Investigate

( Eberron Campaign Setting, p. 55)
{Scrubbed}

[Kavurcen]

Remember, according to your DM, architecture/engineering could give your character extensive mathematical knowledge. Enough that, say, you could reasonably figure out all sorts of measurements could give you a tactical advantage, in a way the player may not know.

As a DM I also like to give bonuses for all sorts of tasks. It's easier to break down a door if you know exactly where to apply stress.

[Gavinfoxx]

Look at Knowledge Devotion + Collector of stories. I a monster skill EVERY fight with that.

So the knowledge skills that cover monsters are:

Arcana
Divine
Nature
Psionics
Local
Religion
Dungeoneering
Planes

So you need 1 point in each, and 5 in one, and 2 points for Collector of Stories, for at least a +1 to hit and damage on absolutely everything, all the time, and potentially much higher. With a Cloistered Cleric dip, this is easy, with tons of other bonuses too.

[grarrrg]

Knowledge (Craft (Underwater Basket Weaving))