How to handle libraries?

[Jon_Dahl]

Let's imagine that you have a fairly intelligent character of any class, a fighter for example. This character wants to know something and he/she has access to a very extensive library. How to handle this?

My ruling has been as follows.

If you don't have the relevant knowledge:
You roll an intelligence check. Default DC for easy questions is 15.
The research takes (the intelligence check DC divided by 2) hours or 2d20 days, depending on the question.

If you have the relevant knowledge:
You can roll a knowledge check even if you already have rolled one about the same topic. If you want to make another retry, you must find a better library.
Libraries give you +0 to +4 bonus.

[Cicciograna]

There are rules on how to use libraries in the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook.

[Yuki Akuma]

Personally, I'd determine what sort of subjects the library has info on (a Wizard's library is going to contain different information than a church library or an Expert's library). Then I'd assign a circumstance bonus depending on how well-stocked the library is (possibly assigning different bonuses to different subjects if I want to get complex).

Then I'd let people make Knowledge checks untrained using the library, and using the library would take hours or days depending on the DC.

...I'm bad at assigning exact numbers to these things. Can you tell?

[Ormur]

Yeah the SBG rules are pretty sensible, depending on how comprehensive the library is it can give different circumstance bonuses on each of the knowledge skills.

Unless it's a specific book or a piece of info in the library you want to make a part of the plot then you can resolve that through roleplay. The knowledge skills are abstractions offering a chance at some relevant info and you can use libraries as simple aids but they can be bypassed.

[hymer]

About libraries in the middle ages: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lumD7rzBGVM
From about 2:12
Could be useful.

[docnessuno]

How i handle it:

A library, depending on the wealth of information on a certain subject, grants a +0, +2 or +4 bouns on the relevant knowledge check and allows untraned knowledge checks up to DC 15, 20 or 25 (again, depending on the amount of information present).

The time required for a research is (DC-5) hours (if using knowledge untrained) or ([DC-5]*10) minutes (if the character has the appropriate knowledge skill). Of course taking 20 multiplies the time required.

[Story]

If they're a Wizard and the books are nonmagical, they can speed things up a lot by learning Scholar's Touch. Preparing that in all your slots each day lets you quickly read dozens of books per day.

[Duke of Urrel]

I don't consider library skills to be a kind of Knowledge at all. In my opinion, searching through a library should require Search skill. But Knowledge skill in the right field should add a synergy bonus to your Search checks. The Search DC should depend on how hard it is to find the piece of knowledge you want. A library may not be very well organized, or it may be organized in such a way that it's very hard to navigate (at least for unwelcome intruders). You also have to consider the size of the book in which the information may be found, how much of the book the information fills, and how well the book itself is organized internally. The information may also exist only in marginal notes that some mad genius has scribbled on the pages of a book that was written by a mediocre author.

Finding really obscure and well-hidden information may take a good long time. Consider assigning a "market price" to the desired information and then use the rules governing Craft checks as a guide to determine how long it will take (possibly weeks or months) to find the desired information. Then treat Search checks (or if you prefer, Knowledge checks) as Craft checks to determine how long the search takes.

Another consideration must be the language in which the information is written. Clearly, being able to speak and read several foreign languages – or being able to cast the Comprehend Languages spell – may be important. Decipher Script skill is also useful, and I would add a Knowledge synergy bonus to Decipher Script checks you make while scanning a thick text for information.

[Slipperychicken]

Eyeballing it, I'd say it adds +2 if it's a dinky small-town library (a few rooms), +5 if it's big (occupies an entire building), +10 of it's truly massive (Sprawling an entire city block or more. Contains multiple buildings' worth of useful books). Use of a library removes the requirement that a character needs training in a Knowledge skill to achieve DCs higher than 10, and yields results as a normal Knowledge check. Some libraries may simply not contain the information desired, at the DM's discretion (for example, a school library is unlikely to contain detailed instructions to create homemade explosives).

Researching a specific subject could take 1d3 hours for a check with DC 10 or less, 1d6 hours for DC 15, 3d6 hours for DC 20, 1d4 days for DC 25, 2d6 days for DC 30, and 2d4 weeks or more for checks beyond that. This yields the normal benefit of a Knowledge check.

[Fable Wright]

Expedition to the Demonweb Pits has rules for this on page 28; when in the Library, you can spend a given amount of time (from 1 hour for DC 10 checks to 2d12 days for DC 31+ checks) researching a subject, at the end of which time you make a knowledge check about the subject with a circumstance bonus granted by the library (which decreased as the check's DC increased). It wasn't like a normal knowledge check, however; you were basically targeting one block of the normal knowledge check. For example, if you wanted to know about Vrocks, you could make a check against DC 10-15 to get the basics. If you wanted to know about their weaknesses, which would normally be bundled in with the check, you'd have to make a DC 26-30 check to get their weaknesses. The module has a table, but I can't copy it here; it was something like a +20 bonus for checks DC 10 or less, +12 for DC 15 or less checks, and up to +1 for DC 31+ checks. If you didn't find what you needed, you could try again; the answers are in the library. However, you could be stuck in the library for days, weeks, or months while taking 20 on your check, and being unable to do anything in the interim.

[JoshuaZ]

About libraries in the middle ages: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lumD7rzBGVM
From about 2:12
Could be useful.

Yes, the main point here that people should keep in mind that until relatively modern era, libraries weren't well-organized. This came up in my campaign recently, where they found a very old library, and the level of organization was not good at all (which delayed the ability to find things).

[Story]

But they also didn't have magic in the medieval ages. A Wizard could easily sort their library if they wanted to.

[Slipperychicken]

A Wizard could easily sort their library if they wanted to.

Yes, the guy whose notes are so impenetrably sloppy that it requires a cantrip, a Spellcraft check, and 2 full days of work just to copy one page. A perfect candidate to run a library :smalltongue:

[Flickerdart]

Scholars tend to communicate rather more than their contemporaries, and form a canon of works that almost all texts on the subject will refer to. Even someone with no relevant Knowledge skills will be able to easily determine what book they are after once they flip through a few books on the subject and see that they all refer to, say, Bigby's Handbook. Even a text that is not part of the canon might get a few references to it if you search long enough, and anyone following that thread of references will eventually find what they are looking for if they have all the books. If they don't, then it's an adventure to find them all!

[Chilingsworth]

There's the Research feat in the Eberon Campaign Setting. You could just let characters use that mechanic.

[mcv]

I once saw a great idea about turning the information in a library into a kind of dungeon map itself. Instead of walking into a room and choosing which door to take next, you come across some information with different leads, and you need to decide which lead to follow up. You might end up with what you were looking for, or you might find something unrelated but even more interesting.

Does take some preparation for the GM, though.

[Chilingsworth]

I once saw a great idea about turning the information in a library into a kind of dungeon map itself. Instead of walking into a room and choosing which door to take next, you come across some information with different leads, and you need to decide which lead to follow up. You might end up with what you were looking for, or you might find something unrelated but even more interesting.

Does take some preparation for the GM, though.

So basically, wikipedia?

that said, I'd totally do this if I ever Dm'ed, at least once. I don't DM, though. I'd also love to use such a system as a player.

[mcv]

So basically, wikipedia?


Basically, except with lugging books around instead of clicking on links, and therefore eating up even more time.

Some serious research in literature can easily take up weeks, as any scientist can tell you.

[Darth Stabber]

You could handle it like research in d20 modern


Research (Int)

Check: Researching a topic takes time, skill, and some luck. The GM determines how obscure a particular topic is (the more obscure, the higher the DC) and what kind of information might be available depending on where the character is conducting his or her research. Information ranges from general to protected. Given enough time (usually 1d4 hours) and a successful skill check, the character gets a general idea about a given topic. This assumes that no obvious reasons exist why such information would be unavailable, and that the character has a way to acquire restricted or protected information. The higher the check result, the better and more complete the information. If the character wants to discover a specific fact, date, map, or similar bit of information, add +5 to +15 to the DC. Try Again?: Yes. Special: A character can take 10 or take 20 on a Research check. A character with the Studious feat gets a +2 bonus on all Research checks. Computer Use can provide a +2 synergy bonus on a Research check when searching computer records for data (see Skill Synergy). Time: A Research check takes 1d4 hours.

[Slipperychicken]

You could handle it like research in d20 modern

That looks like it assumes internet access, accounting for the small time required.

[Darth Stabber]

That looks like it assumes internet access, accounting for the small time required.

Octuple it.

[Ormur]

The SBG rules assume a few hours of reading and the assistance of a librarian.