Uses for the knowledge and profession skill in the 3.5 system?

[Kafana]

Could someone please list as many possible uses for these two skills. I've read both the PHB and DMG and I've seen how knowledge arcana can be used to identify magical items or beings, knowledge nature is selfexplanatory and knowledge dungeoneering can be a life saver when the group faces various slime and mold the first time, while history and local (while we're at it, locale referees to one specific town/region/village, right?) can bring various background info. Could someone mention the other knowledges and their use?

As for profession, I can see it being used when the party is resting for several weeks, as a way to earn some money while they "do nothing" and I can see particular situations where a sailor or siege engineer can come in handy, but what about the rest? Are they mainly roleplaying skills? I can find little use for them in game unless I specifically tailor the scene for the character to be able to actively use that skill.

[Allanimal]

Knowledge (Nobility) - identify the coat of arms that guy heading towards us is wearing. Is that a friend or foe?
Knowledge (Architecture) - will this rickety bridge handle the weight of these wagons full of loot plundered from yonder dungeon?
Knowledge (History) - you say the plague of giant locusts happens every 200 years? It just so happens the last one was 199 years, 11 months and 3 weeks ago!

[TuggyNE]

As for profession, I can see it being used when the party is resting for several weeks, as a way to earn some money while they "do nothing" and I can see particular situations where a sailor or siege engineer can come in handy, but what about the rest? Are they mainly roleplaying skills? I can find little use for them in game unless I specifically tailor the scene for the character to be able to actively use that skill.

Yeah, they're mostly roleplaying, or for NPCs or low-level PCs. It adds verisimilitude, but doesn't contribute much directly to accomplishing things.

[Norin]

Also, check out knowledge devotion feat.

[Diovid]

From this list (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=269836):

Profession (barrister) [Sh 132]
Profession (executioner) [BV 39]
Profession (miner) [PH80, RDr 98]
Profession (sailor) [PH80, Sto 14, 23-32, 87]
Profession (siege engineer) [PH80, HB 95]

Knowledge (arcana) [PH78, MoI 33]
Knowledge (architecture and engineering) [PH78, CW 122, Sto 85]
Knowledge (dungeoneering) [PH78]
Knowledge (geography) [PH78, Sto 85]
Knowledge (history) [PH78, CW 122, HB 95]
Knowledge (local) [PH78, CW 122, ToB 28]
Knowledge (nature) [PH78]
Knowledge (nobility and royalty) [PH78, CW 122, RD 148]
Knowledge (psionics) [XPH 38]
Knowledge (religion) [PH78, RD 149]
Knowledge (the planes) [PH78, MoI 33]

I'm not sure if the list is complete but it's a start anyway.

[Xefas]

(while we're at it, locale referees to one specific town/region/village, right?)

Knowledge: Local refers to the legends, laws, customs, etc for all humanoid settlements. It has a very misleading name. More accurately, it might be Knowledge: Anthropology. It's your character's study of humanoid culture and civilization.

[JaronK]

Knowledge History is also knowledge of wars and warfare (Heroes of Battle) and thus grants strategic advantages in combat. A few other skills can grant those as well. This applies only to massive battles.

JaronK

[BWR]

Knowledge (religion): identify an obscure recurring pattern in a ruined temple to identify what cult used to hang out there, giving hints about what sort of things you'll meet.

Knowlege (religion) to convince the religious nut to put down the knife and surrender, based on the religion he professes to adhere to.

K. (religion) to avoid giving offense to locals on their religious holidays.

K. (planes) to remember basic hints about the plane you're on, like what sort of magic works, notable inhabitants, etc.

Profession (anything) circumstance bonus to Bluff and Disgiuse checks to pass yourself off as one of a specific profession. Alt. require PCs to roll these if in Disguise to see if they can talk the talk and walk the walk , not just look the look. Or as bonus to Diplomacy situations, showing you are not completely ignorant of the soldiers/sailors/tinkers/tailors you're trying to convince of something (common ground and interest in someone's profession go a long way to breaking the ice, and some knowledge helps even more).

Profession (soldier) - all the ins and outs of military ranks, camps, etiquette, basic care and cleaning of gear.

Profession (miner) determine what sort of natural hazards you encounter underground and how to bypass or minimize them: cave ins, poisonous gas, where it's safe to dig and where it isn't, etc.

Profession (barrister) - use to aid your own Diplomacy efforts or hinder opponents. Alt. save a fortune on lawyer bills.

Profession (anything) as an addition or replacement for Appraise: determine whether the workmanship is decent, whether the workers are taking much longer than they should, if they are actually competant.

K. (architecture and engineering) to determine if that pillar is weak enough to tumble on your enemy after a few solid blows.


Really, If you just think "would an expert in X be useful now?", you have your answer.

[bigstipidfighte]

Lots of money at no risk? A level 1 character will earn about 5-10 gold per week by RAW, which is pretty ridiculous compared to the rates for hirelings. Apparently being a PC makes your man-hours incredibly valuable even when you aren't adventuring.

As for knowledges, they come up all the time, both for knowing about monster traits and general info. Whenever we run into a new critter, our first response is generally "So what knowledge applies to this thing?"

[Darius Kane]

Profession skill is what you make of it. By RAW it allows for earning a little something on the side when you're not adventuring and answer questions about the profession, but if you use your imagination you can use such a skill in new ways during your adventures, for example Diplomacy lets you improve attitudes of NPCs, but Profession (barrister) might be used instead, but only if it's about law.

[NilsRichter]

Knowledge: Local refers to the legends, laws, customs, etc for all humanoid settlements. It has a very misleading name. More accurately, it might be Knowledge: Anthropology. It's your character's study of humanoid culture and civilization.

We decided to treat Knowledge(Local) as Knowledge(Traveller). It is roughly what you could learn from a tourist guide (keeping in mind that tourist guides are written about civilized areas).

The DM is free to give circumstantial modifiers based on the background of the character. One character in our group has spend a year travelling before the group formed, so he gets a small bonus to most tests. Another grew up in a large city, so she gets a large bonus for test related to this city.

[Slipperychicken]

Knowing what material bypasses the monster's DR and/or Regeneration.

Knowing that cave bears live in caves and attack things with their claws.

Identifying DM-homebrew magic and monsters, given a generous DM who doesn't just say "you don't know".

[BWR]

I treat Knowledge (local) as multiple skills. You choose one region or area, based on politics or geography and have it apply to that. Within this area, K(local) can replace geography, law, history, nobility/royalty and possbily others, depending on the area in question.

[Slipperychicken]

I treat Knowledge (local) as multiple skills. You choose one region or area, based on politics or geography and have it apply to that. Within this area, K(local) can replace geography, law, history, nobility/royalty and possbily others, depending on the area in question.

Knowledge(Local) has a misleading name. It's really Anthropology.


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



Definition of anthropology

(also cultural or social anthropology) the comparative study of human societies and cultures and their development.
(also physical anthropology) the science of human zoology, evolution, and ecology.

[Flickerdart]

I treat Knowledge (local) as multiple skills. You choose one region or area, based on politics or geography and have it apply to that. Within this area, K(local) can replace geography, law, history, nobility/royalty and possbily others, depending on the area in question.
And unless your PCs spend the whole campaign in one area, it's totally useless.

[Mnemnosyne]

I treat Knowledge (local) as multiple skills. You choose one region or area, based on politics or geography and have it apply to that. Within this area, K(local) can replace geography, law, history, nobility/royalty and possbily others, depending on the area in question.
This is the way it's done in the forgotten realms, a fact which suggests to me that this is likely the intended use in any setting, they just didn't spell it out clearly, assuming that the fact that it was named 'local' would be enough to make its use obvious.

I prefer to treat it like this, but have all ranks in its subskills (up to a maximum of level +3) add up in order to cover identifying humanoids, or anything else that actually makes sense to be the same regardless of area, while still maintaining it as a skill that focuses on local customs. Most DCs for local things under this system I make pretty low, somewhere around 11 to 15, so all you really need is one or two skill ranks to allow you to make checks with a DC higher than 10, unless it's an obscure custom or society. This way, people can put just a couple ranks into several local knowledges, have it add up for identification, and be useful locally but not when they travel to an alien culture.

[Flickerdart]

This is the way it's done in the forgotten realms, a fact which suggests to me that this is likely the intended use in any setting, they just didn't spell it out clearly, assuming that the fact that it was named 'local' would be enough to make its use obvious.

Except it doesn't work that way in any other setting. FR is obviously an exception, not the general rule.

[Pally din]

There are some synergys, for instance knowledge history can give a +2 bonus on bardic lore.

At least 1 spy class explicitly gives bonuses to the spy skills based on quantity of profession skill.

Clerical commerce domain gives a +10 bonus to profession for earning money.

The previously mentioned Knowledge devotion feat can give up to +5 to hit and damage.

The Artificer's dark knowledge works off of knowledge checks.

[Flickerdart]

The Artificer's dark knowledge works off of knowledge checks.
Archivist (HoH) is the class with Dark Knowledge.

[Pally din]

Archivist (HoH) is the class with Dark Knowledge.

My bad. I was looking right at the right class when I was typing, and then this dyslexia like thing snuck up and knocked me on the head.

[Zombimode]

Could someone please list as many possible uses for these two skills. I've read both the PHB and DMG and I've seen how knowledge arcana can be used to identify magical items or beings, knowledge nature is selfexplanatory and knowledge dungeoneering can be a life saver when the group faces various slime and mold the first time, while history and local (while we're at it, locale referees to one specific town/region/village, right?) can bring various background info. Could someone mention the other knowledges and their use?

Various knowledge skills cover information about creatures. Personally I value information very high. In many cases having or not having a bit of information can be the tip on the scale.
The creature knowledge skills are conveniently also those that provide the most useful other information.

But to admit Knowledge skills as a source of (vital) information is DM dependent. It takes a bit of discipline as a DM not to just hand out the information to the players. The knowledge skills exist for a reason. Reward the players with the foresight to put ranks into them.

[Gavinfoxx]

Yea, I totally hate the FR's Knowledge Local variant.

When I am playing a FR game, I ask him, "Can I just take a generic Knowledge Local that only works for identifying Humanoids, from all locations?" If he says no, I give him a list of Alter Self Humanoid creatures and ask which locations they are from, so I can make sure I have the appropriate Knowledge Local trained, for when I Alter Self or whatever. It usually costs like 6 or 7 skill points to do that...

[Telok]

Profession: Cartographer. Very useful any time you might want a good map or to assess the quality and accuracy of a map. With as often as PCs go exploring this can actually be useful to put 5 to 7 points into.

Also...
Kn (Religion): "That's not the idol of a god that they're worshipping."
Kn (Planes): "It's a statue of Scary Name the horrible demon lord."
Kn (History): "Wasn't there a demon fortress in this area a couple hundred years ago?"
Kn (Local): "It was over there between the hills and the swamp. The McDemonkiller clan destroyed it."
Kn (Geography): "The fortress isn't here now. These are limestone hills with underground springs. We should check for sinkholes, it could have fallen in one."
Kn (Nobility): "These old swords from the sinkhole have the crest of the McDemonkiller clan on them. We'll start our search here."
Kn (Dungeoneering): "A limestone sinkhole shouldn't have a 10 by 10 wall-like granite inclusion in it. We'll start digging here.

[Blackhawk748]

i remember a campaign i played once where at 1st level every rank you had in profession got you 10 gp, it gave a nice reason to have had a "job"

[GoddessSune]

As for profession, I can see it being used when the party is resting for several weeks, as a way to earn some money while they "do nothing"

Profession is a very useful skill and can be used actively all the time. A profession covers a lot of useful information. And it covers both downtime, role playing, social gaming and combat. Depending on how you use it.

During a game, a question will often come up like ''Does Dort know how to set a trap to catch wild animal?" You have two options. You can just say ''ok he can do it and he just does it.'' Or you can check to see if he has any ranks in profession(hunter) and have him make a skill check. The first is ok, but sooner or later you will run into the bumpy road of ''how much does Dort know?''....does he know about every type of trap? What does he not know? The skill check is much better as the DM can just set a DC: "The DC to know about a dragon tree trap is 30''.

And in just about any game, the question of what a character knows how to do will come up a lot.