Knowledge: Everything?

[Tyrael]

My DM and I were discussing class skills just now and I came upon something interesting: p.184 DMG, Dragon Disciple, has "Knowledge (all skills, taken individually)" listed as a class skill.

What exactly does this entail? Does the DD have knowledge of all skills? Like, does a DD know how to build a wagon just as easily as he knows which salad fork to use? Or does it mean something else?

[Rama_Lei]

It means knowledge Arcana, Religion, Dungeonerring, Nature, The Planes, Local, and Nobility and royalty are all class skills, but each skill is seprate.

[Krellen]

If you look in the PHB (or the skills list, if you're looking at the SRD), it means the Dragon Disciple has all those Knowledge (blah) skills as class skills. It translates to ten skills; it's a shorthand, instead of having to write out all ten Knowledge skills.

[Galathir]

Of course, you still would need to put skill points into them to use them, just like any other character. You just get them as class skills. I think wizard is the same way (or was in 3.0)

[Dhavaer]

The Wizard, Bard, and Knowledge domain Clerics are the same. Several other base classes and PrCs also have this.

[Devils_Advocate]

If you look in the PHB (or the skills list, if you're looking at the SRD), it means the Dragon Disciple has all those Knowledge (blah) skills as class skills. It translates to ten skills; it's a shorthand, instead of having to write out all ten Knowledge skills.

Actually, it means a bit more than that, too. You see, the Knowledge skills given in the PHB are simply "typical fields of study"; it's not meant to be an exhaustive list. So, for example, if there's some other broad category of knowledge in a given campaign world that doesn't much overlap the listed ones, then there's a Knowledge skill associated with that, and a Wizard, Bard, or etc. would have that as a class skill. Knowledge(psionics) would be a class skill for a Wizard or Bard in a campaign that included the psionics rules, for example. In addition to campaign-specific stuff, it also covers bodies of knowledge that are simply esoteric. So if you had a Wizard character highly interested in mathematics, logic, ontology, and epistemology, you could give him Knowledge(philosophy), for example.

Basically, the writers seem to have decided that sticking "Knowledge (all skills, taken individually)" in a list of class skills was easier than adding a sentence saying "In addition, all Knowledge skills are class skills for a [class]", or something similar. Now, why they couldn't have just gone with plain "Knowledge" instead -- seeing how that's exactly anologous to what they did with Perform, Profession, and Craft -- is a bit of a mystery. My guess is that the rules writers just hate being consistant. Oh, sure, it might sound like an implausible theory at first, but careful study of the books reveals a lot of supporting evidence.

In this particular case, the usage of a special notation for Knowledge leads to understandable confusion. They use each of "Craft", "Perform", and "Profession" to refer an indefinite list of similar skills, so one might understandably think that by using "Knowledge (all skills, taken individually)" instead of just "Knowledge", they meant something different/special.

But they didn't.

[Lord Iames Osari]

Well, I think that the reason they do it differently for Knowledge is because, AFAIK, there is no class that grants only Craft (pottery) or Profession (bookbinder), but there are plenty of classes that grant Knowledge (religion), Knowledge (nature), or Knowledge (blah).

[Illiterate Scribe]

The thing about Knowledge:Everything is that it's a short step along the road to Profession:Overdeity, allowing you to carry out the normal day to day tasks associated with that career.

[Saph]

Was I the only one who looked at the title of this thread, read it as the Knowledge (Everything) skill, and thought of Batman? :P

- Saph

[The_Snark]

Well, I think that the reason they do it differently for Knowledge is because, AFAIK, there is no class that grants only Craft (pottery) or Profession (bookbinder), but there are plenty of classes that grant Knowledge (religion), Knowledge (nature), or Knowledge (blah).

Loremaster gives Craft (alchemy) as a craft skill, but no others. But aside from that one, I think you're probably right.

Actually, this thread reminded me about a thread that talked about a Craft (anything) skill.