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There was a lot of off-topic conversation here about the RAW and RAI of using knowledge skills to know about things like distant cities. I thought I'd make a more appropriate thread.
I don't think it's worth FAQing since there isn't going to be a simple rule that can please everyone, but here are some questions for discussion:
'Know local laws, rulers and popular locations' is supposed to be a DC 10 Knowledge Local check.
Does this mean 'Know local laws, local rulers and popular local locations' or 'Know rulers (anywhere), popular locations (anywhere) and local laws'? Either way, what does 'local' mean? Local to wherever you happen to be standing? Local to wherever you call home?
(I'd recommend using 'Know local laws, local rulers and popular local locations' but treating 'local' as being an abbreviation for something along the lines of 'anywhere you've been in long enough to have taken a look around, or would reasonably be expected to have read about or heard stories about in the past'.)
How cosmopolitan do you think Pathfinder characters are? Given the existence of magic, there's no intrinsic reason it needs to be harder to go into a bookshop and read about the best places to go shopping in distant cities than it is in our own world.
What about monster knowledge skills? There are different DCs for 'Common' and 'Rare' creatures. What defines common and rare? Are they absolute values? If you're from a frozen wasteland, walruses might be common and camels rare - in your experience.
Is a GM supposed to impose modifiers to these skill rolls based on whatever seems sensible at the time?
Well if you say Knowledge local is only about where you've been, what knowledge would you roll for info where you haven't been?
If local is only where you are, what knowledge is for other places?
Common and Rare are determined by the GM and maybe the Adventure path.
Knowledge (local) is a bad name that we are stuck with for historical reasons. It should have been Knowledge (people) or Knowledge (humanoids) or Knowledge (social) or something like that.
Don't read more into the name than you need to.
In 2e, there was a proficiency akin to knowledge local. You had to pick each one separately for each locale you wanted.
If you wanted knowledge local to be representative of literal local knowledge, you could house rule a requirement that each rank of knowledge local had to designate a country or defined area.
Otherwise, Orfamy Quest's suggestion is quite a decent fix. Or just ignore it and keep using the rules as written.
Although there don't appear to be any specific rules regarding knowledge (local) refering to familiar or unfamiliar places, it seems very reasonable for the DM to impose penalties based on lack of familiarity concerning a place you're new to.
May be a -5 penalty for unfamiliar but fairly standard questions, or -10 for wildly unknowable or different locales.
Or just set higher DCs. The basic rules says "20 or 30 for really tough questions". In a strange place, far more info would fall into the "really tough" category.
If you look too deeply at knowledge skills then they fail to make sense in any 'realistic' sense.
For example, you have a group of adventurers in a dungeon. They face only undead while in the dungeon and have had no time for studying. They level up and now suddenly they know more than they did about planar creatures? Yet, that is the expectation every time they level.
Don't look at the rules too hard, they break.
The relevant piece of information (read: something tenuous at best) that I could find is in the Reign of Winter AP: Snows of Summer when
the definition of the language "Common" changes based on the distance and to signify a foreign land, in so much that speaking Common doesn't cut the mustard with the locals
While this is not related to knowledge checks it does give some validity to the idea that distance away from what is considered "familiar" may lead to an enhanced DC to the check.
EDIT: With further review of the AP there is another installment titled "The Frozen Stars" and "Rasputin Must Die! in which
and neither AP makes mention of enhanced Knowledge DCs for what can definitely be agreed upon as foreign lands. While this in itself is neither confirmation nor negation of whether or not they should or should not be increased or decreased, it is a good guide.
Also it should be noted that at this point in the AP the PCs are sufficiently powerful and leveled, so maybe there is some ground for them being able to cope with "weird" and "foreign" as a result of their experiences and that's why the DCs don't increase.
Yes you've never seen it before, but you can quickly assess it based on likely things you have seen. (personal opinion)
Increasing DCs make of diminishing returns on investments and should be done lightly, prehaps a 5 or 10 increase of the significantly weird. I could see that.
'Know local laws, rulers and popular locations' is supposed to be a DC 10 Knowledge Local check.Does this mean 'Know local laws, local rulers and popular local locations' or 'Know rulers (anywhere), popular locations (anywhere) and local laws'? Either way, what does 'local' mean? Local to wherever you happen to be standing? Local to wherever you call home?
Further to previous: "Local laws" generally means [in normal discourse] "laws that cover a specific location," (as opposed to laws that cover other locations but not the one under discussion) or "laws passed by a local authority" (as opposed to laws passed by a state or national authority).
An example of the first definition, from the US State Department: "Obey the local laws of the country you’re visiting. [...] Familiarize yourself with any local regulations of antiques."
An example of the second definition, from California: "Every local government in California has the authority to adopt a local ordinance which provides regulations applicable to historic properties."
Both would be covered under Knowledge (local).
Remember, most of us probably don't have any ranks in Knowledge (Local) (Or at least I don't) and despite that can still name popular locations, rulers and to some extent the laws of places we have never been or are planning to be. And remember, the local laws, rulers and popular locations aren't exactly things people are trying to hide, if anything they will likely be making them easy to learn.
Unassuming Local Guy,
Perhaps something in your spoiler is missing, I don't see anything that indicates that Common in one region is different than Common in another region. Could you provide the quote?
Ascalaphus, I haven't seen anything to indicate that. Could you provide a reference?
Ascalaphus, I haven't seen anything to indicate that. Could you provide a reference?
I'm not Ascalaphus, but I can quote the entry on "Common" from the Modern Human Languages list found at page 251 of the Inner Sea World Guide:
Common (Taldane): One of the oldest languages still in use in the Inner Sea region, Taldane is also the most widely spoken in the area, and is used as a common tongue.
Ascalaphus, I haven't seen anything to indicate that. Could you provide a reference?
From The Pathfinder Wiki:
Taldane (Common)Taldane is the most widely spoken language in Avistan and Garund, indeed it is often referred to as Common in the entire Inner Sea region. It is a trade language which takes its alphabet from ancient Jistka and its numerals from Kelish. Most of the terms and grammar are based on ancient Azlanti, although Taldane also borrows from Varisian.[6] It is thought to be one of the oldest human languages still spoken in the Inner Sea region, and is certainly the most widely-spoken.[37] Taldane is also spoken in the north and west of the continent of Tian Xia by those who trade heavily with the Inner Sea region. It is also the national tongue of the Taldan colony of Amanandar there, and is beginning to spread to other countries in that region.[3]
Tien (Common)
This complex language is spoken by the Tian people from regions of the once great Imperial Lung Wa; its use is so prevalent, that it is often referred to as Common in that part of the world. It contains nearly 24,000 pictographs and is a tonal language with thousands of homophones.[6][37] Even though Lung Wa has long been gone, Tien remains the official tongue of most of mainland Tian Xia.[3] A pidgin Tien is spoken in the Valashmai Jungle.[44]
Also:
CommonCommon is a relative term used to denote the most prevalent human language spoken in a particular region. For instance, Taldane (see below) is the most widely spoken language in Avistan and Garund and so is referred to as Common in the Inner Sea region. In Tian Xia, however, the most widely spoken language is Tien (see below), and so that is classed as Common on that continent. It may be that on other continents, other human languages are classed as Common.[1][2]
I'll let you track down the footnotes in the page as you see fit.
Remember, most of us probably don't have any ranks in Knowledge (Local) (Or at least I don't) and despite that can still name popular locations, rulers and to some extent the laws of places we have never been or are planning to be.That is a flawed logic. You know about popular locations rulers and to some extend law of places you have never been? then you have at least 1 rank in Kn (locar) or Kn (geography).
Nope. "Common knowlege" is explicitly available under RAW, even for untrained skills.
The question then becomes whether or not it's "common" to know, for example, that London is the capital of England (or of the UK). I would argue that it is, simply from books, movies, and tales -- anyone who has read Harry Potter, for example, has picked that up. Similarly, anyone who's read HP knows that the UK (or England) has a Prime Minister instead of a President.
I'm not sure that the difference between England and the UK is common knowledge in the States, though, although any six year old could tell you that in London. And that goes doubly for Cardiff, Edinburgh, or Belfast.
Sorry Gauss, posting and working.
"Note that this far north, very few of the villagers
speak Taldane, the "Common" tongue of the Inner Sea
region. Most of Irrisen's peasants speak Skald instead. If
none of the PCs speak Skald, Nadya can act as a translator
for them in their interactions with Waldsby's residents"
Page 38 of Snows of Summer.
Thanks for the quotes, I was not looking at Golarion specific rules which it seems you are all quoting.
Or just set higher DCs. The basic rules says "20 or 30 for really tough questions". In a strange place, far more info would fall into the "really tough" category.
That's the tack I offered. When the table assigns DC 10 to a question but the GM designates it "really tough" (the pertinent example from the other thread was that of Knowledge (local) about popular spots on another planet) then the text and table are in disagreement about the proper DC, the text takes precedence, and the DC should be 20-30.
Remember, most of us probably don't have any ranks in Knowledge (Local) (Or at least I don't) and despite that can still name popular locations, rulers and to some extent the laws of places we have never been or are planning to be.That is a flawed logic. You know about popular locations rulers and to some extend law of places you have never been? then you have at least 1 rank in Kn (locar) or Kn (geography).
No, it's a DC 10 Question, which means I can make it untrained. Furthermore, I can take 10 and don't have a penalty to intelligence so I am guaranteed to succeed.
Remember, most of us probably don't have any ranks in Knowledge (Local) (Or at least I don't) and despite that can still name popular locations, rulers and to some extent the laws of places we have never been or are planning to be.That is a flawed logic. You know about popular locations rulers and to some extend law of places you have never been? then you have at least 1 rank in Kn (locar) or Kn (geography).
Being trained in a knowledge skill means you can make check DCs greater than 10. Knowing Washington DC is the capitol of the US, what football/soccer looks like when it's being played, or who Tom Cruise is are all probably DC 5-10 Knowledge(local) checks on Earth. That doesn't mean everyone knows it, since some might roll low on the d20. Now, the more detailed you get, the higher the DC, ergo a requirement of at least one rank in the appropriate knowledge skill to get above a 10 on your result. Knowing how to do multi-variable calculus requires some training and practice (i.e. skill ranks), so it makes sense that this particular kind of difficult and not ubiquitous task (which NO ONE besides presumptive and out-of-touch engineers might label as 'common knowledge') be higher than DC 10.
Now granted, this does present an oddity with Knowledge(local) being applied to common knowledge checks on other planets you might go to. Technically, it should still be used for identifying the appropriate creature types, but then it's other general use is way off. For example, if Ezren found himself on Athas, he wouldn't necessarily have a clue what Tyr was and who it was ruled by. In these instances, Knowledge(geography) is probably more appropriate during the initial visit for such things. This would be similar to how, unless you've lived there most of your life, knowing certain 'common knowledge' bits about Axis would fall under Knowledge(planes). Once you've lived / visited there enough, it could start falling under Knowledge(local).
I think something to realize with skills is that they get ridiculous really fast. Take acrobatics for example, EVERY person with a non-negative dex can take 10 to do a running long jump of 10 ft. So if basically everyone can jump 10 ft untrained why not have everyone know about local things untrained? Comparing it to our world to much will quickly ruin things because everyone is pretty super in that world.
I think something to realize with skills is that they get ridiculous really fast. Take acrobatics for example, EVERY person with a non-negative dex can take 10 to do a running long jump of 10 ft. So if basically everyone can jump 10 ft untrained why not have everyone know about local things untrained? Comparing it to our world to much will quickly ruin things because everyone is pretty super in that world.
Because the take 10 rules aren't that well thought out and/or written.
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I used to have an issue with this too, but have rethought it to make it work (In my head at least). I look as having a lot of ranks in a skill as not only knowing about it, but also having an aptitude for learning about it. So when someone goes into a new town, and they have a high Knowledge local I think of them as picking up on things right away. They ask the guard about some local places. Check the local stalls and see what the merchants say, listen to what people are saying about the dangers. That way when something comes up they can make their roll and talk about the things they have learned that other people without the skill may not have known.
Also like all skills and class abilities etc they are always practicing, so even though it may not be role-played all the time, I assume they are asking people they meet all about the areas nearby, about places they expect to be going soon, etc.
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Lumping everything local under a single skill is a welcome and necessary simplification in my opinion. A few years back, we played a 3.5 game that jumped between several countries, and every single one had a separate Knowledge (Local) skill. It might have been a Forgotten Realms thing. Getting them to useful levels was impossible if we wanted to be adequate in other skills, since every skill point was precious. Hiring local guides was an option, but they tended to be obnoxious, corrupted, charmed, or got replaced with a shapeshifting miniboss every now and then. "Surprise, it's another ambush!"
Then again, we got to interrogate the survivors, and they usually had the knowledge we needed.
Changes to the skill system were a big draw for me in PF. It's not perfect, but it is a lot better now than it was before. Just getting rid of concentration was blissful.
Knowledge (Local) tends to work fine with adventure paths and pre-planned adventures, since those are usually confined to a specific region. It gets weird in an open campaign where the players usually get to see the map and then run toward the nearest edge to find "new lands".
What weirds me out are repeated knowledge checks about the same topic. In some APs, PCs apparently need to make checks whenever they see a statue of some old power. They fail the first three, and then they see the fourth jackal-headed statue and the cleric goes, "oh, that one is Anubis, don't know about the other three doggies."
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I used to have an issue with this too, but have rethought it to make it work (In my head at least). I look as having a lot of ranks in a skill as not only knowing about it, but also having an aptitude for learning about it. So when someone goes into a new town, and they have a high Knowledge local I think of them as picking up on things right away. They ask the guard about some local places. Check the local stalls and see what the merchants say, listen to what people are saying about the dangers. That way when something comes up they can make their roll and talk about the things they have learned that other people without the skill may not have known.
Also like all skills and class abilities etc they are always practicing, so even though it may not be role-played all the time, I assume they are asking people they meet all about the areas nearby, about places they expect to be going soon, etc.
That is part of the problem with the "knowledge(local)" thing. Asking around is Diplomacy(Gather Info). The knowledge skill is knowing right away by yourself.
Personally, I have decided to solve this in my own games by having it working like this:
The player will chose a scope of the area they know. So for the Iron Gods I am running, they can choose Knowledge(Local, Torch) or knowledge(local, Numeria), or even knowledge(local, Golarion). There will be DC steps that will modify the DC based on how many steps you are away from what you are trying to know. So if you have Numeria and wanted to know local info about a specific towns customs, the DC would be 5 higher than someone with knowledge of that specific town. If they had knowledge local Golarion, then that would be two steps away (World->Region->City), so it would be +10 DC. It is still in "beta" right now, but I feel it is pretty fair. You can be very 'worldly' and dump a lot of points in Knowledge (local,Golarion) and have a decent shot and knowing stuff about any city with a DC 20 for basic stuff
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Personally, I have decided to solve this in my own games by having it working like this:
Ah, yes, a classic "solution" to something that wasn't a problem in the first place.
But we must stop skill-point starved characters like Fighters from being able to be useful! Down with martials forever!
Similarly, I think we should solve the "problem" of fighters being effective in combat by instituting critical fumble rules -- in the name of realism, of course. And similarly by instituting rules for wear-and-tear on armor -- in the name of realism, of course -- we can solve the problem that fighters are survivable in combat. And, of course, by introducing some realistic rules about infected wounds.....
Shar Tahl, how do you deal with PCs knowing about outsiders before they have ever studied or met one? Do you penalize them for that as well?
Premise: PC starts level 1 with ranks in every knowledge skill. PC then gains 5 levels fighting nothing but undead and aberrations (religion and dungeoneering). The PC never visits a town with a library, does not own any books regarding the habits of elementals.
Do you tell the Player that he cannot advance any knowledge skill but the ones his PC has used or spent time learning about?
Do you penalize the player because he hasn't ever met an outsider or had access to a book to study them?
This type of 'realism' will screw players and force them to artificially go to town just to learn stuff so that they can apply their skills appropriately.
GM: Well, you guys leveled!
Players: Time to go to town!
GM: Why?
Players: So we can get the skills we actually want rather than be forced to spend them on skills we don't want!
GM: You can spend it on skills you want, I will just assign a penalty unless you have studied that creature.
Wizard: Ok, lets spend the next 10 years to study every creature in existence.
Instead of Dungeons and Dragons we will play...Libraries and Librarians (bonus points if you get the librarian to go into the back room with you). (Yeah yeah, its Pathfinder, but that wouldn't make as good a joke.)
The point is, any knowledge is going to break down if you go for this kind of realism.
I assume reasonable adults can come to some compromise between knowledge local (The Shire) and knowledge local (Prime Material Plane) that or every intelligent creature with int 10 can rattle off a near infinite list of all the popular spots throughout the vast prime.
Next argument will probably be people saying they can ask for a near infinite list as well since knowledge checks require no action.
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Shar Tahl, how do you deal with PCs knowing about outsiders before they have ever studied or met one? Do you penalize them for that as well?
That would be knowledge planes, and the check would resolve if they have heard of them. Not sure where or what mechanic that question is directed. This is specifically for knowing things about knowledge local, with the scope scaling out on every level based on what specificity you studied, be it broad knowledge of a continent or specific knowledge of a town.
I also see a lot of what looks like folks getting upset or riled up. It's what I would do, and in no means effects anyone else. I adjust things as needed and create a fun experience for my players. Low intelligence fighters are not throwing skill points in knowledge local unless they are PFS characters. They aren't the brains of the party and spend points accordingly, so screwing the low point INT dumper classes is not there at all. Run your games the way your players have fun and you're all good.
Shar Tahl,
I am neither upset nor riled up. I am illustrating the problem using a bit of comparative logic.
Knowledge Local is to multiple locales as Knowledge Planes is to multiple creatures.
You are saying that without traveling to multiple locales you do not know about them and thus you give a penalty.
The equivalent statement for Knowledge Planes is that without study or meeting creatures they should get a penalty.
So my question to you is, considering that PCs could easily never meet outsiders or study them or have any opportunity to hear about them would you assign them a penalty when they finally do meet one?
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That is part of the problem with the "knowledge(local)" thing. Asking around is Diplomacy(Gather Info). The knowledge skill is knowing right away by yourself.
I disagree here. Gather information is more about knowledge that you can't get with knowledge skill, like who stole the monkey pet of the King's advisor. This is not find out things people generally don't talk about, and so you need to be able to coax it out of them. This is more learning the stuff that locals already have a good idea of. Best place in town to eat, who the local personalities are, etc...
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There was a lot of off-topic conversation here about the RAW and RAI of using knowledge skills to know about things like distant cities. I thought I'd make a more appropriate thread.
I don't think it's worth FAQing since there isn't going to be a simple rule that can please everyone, but here are some questions for discussion:
'Know local laws, rulers and popular locations' is supposed to be a DC 10 Knowledge Local check.
Does this mean 'Know local laws, local rulers and popular local locations' or 'Know rulers (anywhere), popular locations (anywhere) and local laws'? Either way, what does 'local' mean? Local to wherever you happen to be standing? Local to wherever you call home?
(I'd recommend using 'Know local laws, local rulers and popular local locations' but treating 'local' as being an abbreviation for something along the lines of 'anywhere you've been in long enough to have taken a look around, or would reasonably be expected to have read about or heard stories about in the past'.)How cosmopolitan do you think Pathfinder characters are? Given the existence of magic, there's no intrinsic reason it needs to be harder to go into a bookshop and read about the best places to go shopping in distant cities than it is in our own world.
What about monster knowledge skills? There are different DCs for 'Common' and 'Rare' creatures. What defines common and rare? Are they absolute values? If you're from a frozen wasteland, walruses might be common and camels rare - in your experience.
Is a GM supposed to impose modifiers to these skill rolls based on whatever seems sensible at the time?
As adventurers, you're probably the most cosmopolitan people in the city at any one time, or just behind a few merchants.
And given that knowledge skills as relates to identifying monsters relates to having prior experience, be it childhood instruction or reading in a book, the 'rarity' of the monster is more likely attributable to how easy/hard it is to find a reliable source of information on them.
You can go to any library in a city and likely pick up a book about local wolves, but finding a detailed text about a Glabrezu demon may be hard to come by.
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I generally liberally increase and decrease the DC depending on circumstances. For instance, in modern Golarion, recognizing an artistic depiction of a Runelord or Xin is a DC 25 Knowledge (history). That's fairly well-established and consistent through adventures. If you are from late Thassilon, then Xin is still history for you, but identifying him in art is probably DC 10. If you are from late Shalast and trying to identify a picture of Karzoug, that's probably actually Knowledge (local) and DC 5 or easier.
The way I would handle this is with context making a difference in DCs. I think the necessity for this is clear in monster identification more than anything else. Since I don't need universal DCs for everything, only for PCs and NPCs when I feel like this, it's not an impossible prospect.
For example, an elf knowing that elves have goofy (well, they'd say "normal") all-iris eyes would be very low DC. A human raised away from all elves would be unlikely to know it offhand. On the other hand, a hardline stance of "DCs are DCs" leads to a troll not knowing that it can regenerate or rend until it sees what happens when it hits or gets hit. Since knowledge is really the gap-filling for things we don't know our characters have experienced, it's reasonable and even important to keep in mind how they got there to figure out whether this new bit of info is something that would be obvious or obscure.
The way I would handle this is with context making a difference in DCs. I think the necessity for this is clear in monster identification more than anything else. Since I don't need universal DCs for everything, only for PCs and NPCs when I feel like this, it's not an impossible prospect.
For example, an elf knowing that elves have goofy (well, they'd say "normal") all-iris eyes would be very low DC. A human raised away from all elves would be unlikely to know it offhand. On the other hand, a hardline stance of "DCs are DCs" leads to a troll not knowing that it can regenerate or rend until it sees what happens when it hits or gets hit. Since knowledge is really the gap-filling for things we don't know our characters have experienced, it's reasonable and even important to keep in mind how they got there to figure out whether this new bit of info is something that would be obvious or obscure.
There is at least one PFS scenario where knowing about the Bleaching is listed as a lower DC Knowledge (local) check for gnomes than non-gnomes (if I recall, the DC was still above 10 for gnomes, which seemed really bad when I'd imagine all gnome parents would drill it into their children).
Well if you say Knowledge local is only about where you've been, what knowledge would you roll for info where you haven't been?
If local is only where you are, what knowledge is for other places?
Maybe Knowledge (Geography)? As a DM I would love to hear if this would be a good use for it, that's what we use in our game.
This came up in my current campaign. Near the beginning of the campaign, all of the PC's were transported to another plane, where things work somewhat differently (different humanoid races are common, all dwarves are duergar, etc.). Two of the PC's had Knowledge (local), so it became an issue whether they had any knowledge of the local plane.
What happened is that I initially suspended the effectiveness of that skill -- every answer was along the lines of "Well, they way it works back home is . . ." But after two sessions or so, I provided an opportunity for those PC's to have a long conversation with a local trader named Tamok who was wise in the ways of the world. At that point, I declared that they could now use their Knowledge (local) skill to recall information about the current world, although I always try to remind them of the source of their knowledge. ("Well, you remember Tamok mentioning that . . .")
As their skill bonuses continue to increase, I assume that those PC's are having background conversations with various other NPC's that they meet. When (and if) the PC's make it back to their world of origin, I will probably nerf their skill again temporarily until they can consult with local sources.
So I suppose the point is that I treat Knowledge (local) as the skill of *being able to find out* things about the local area. It stops working temporarily when you move to a new place, but all you need is a little time to chat with the locals to bring your skill up to par.