I'm working on a document for my Ghostwalk Campaign titled "Rumors and History" and basically, I'm setting DCs at what I think should be the difficulty in knowing or having heard or gathering the info on these rumors and history items.
btw, there's a feat (I'm giving as a bonus to Tereppek starters)called Education, so even if they don't have the knowledge history skill, I'll give them say .5 rank in history, which means they should KNOW something about said historical event, but REMEMBERING is the roll they make, and the DC is how scarce the information is or how hard it is to remember (obscurity) in actuality the feat reads like this: All knowledge skills are class skills for you. you get a +1 bonus on all skill checks with any two knowledge skills of your choosing.
(btw I like the country specific feats so much I'm including them as bonus feats, which I just mentioned, but only if they would apply to the player's class. I liked them so much I KEPT Saddleback and am adding a +1 bonus to it's +3 so it can compete with Skillfocus Ride, and hell maybe so that +4 or the original +3 applies to handle animal checks when dealing with horses. Yes, I'm a generous DM, but the Thurkasians are RAISED on horseback. I probably will give this to my fighter, but not necessarily the dwarf barbarain- it depends on his background. he does have a warpony- another freebie I'm giving to my characters, but they'll have to roleplay acquiring the horse I think in their individual sessions.)
I'm basing DC not just on obscurity of the knowledge, but on where the rumors are coming from. (that's going to take some work) As my players will be travelling from their respective cities and countries of Origin and along the Ghostwalk to Manifest...news doesn't travel that fast across borders so I really should add a specific dc to knowing something outside of your travelled area. Luckily for one Fighter, he's travelled to Bazareene from Thurkasia (and thus through Salkiria) so he'll be familiar with rumors throughout those lands, I'll probably start him off in Bazareene unless the sorceresses' boyfriend decides to play and in that case I'll let HIM be her guardian.
Anyway, I just wanted to ask ya'll how you determine DC on knowledge and gather information especially. I think Knowledge- especially other than Arcana and Religion- skills are underused in most campaigns. For instance my cleric character(mentioned in other threads), who has knowledge ranks in Geography, used it and Knowledge local to determine the possible origin of two sentries in a Mountainous terrain. he has an INT of 16, which gives him a nice little bonus on his knowledge checks.
Later he used knowledge (religion) though surprisingly enough not Knowledge arcane (on a book on how to become a lich) to find books in a library of a specific religious nature. (I'll get an email telling me just what books I pilfered, 5 in all, I picked 3 religion books, the lich book, and one good Local History book)
Anyway, while I thought that was good use of knowledge checks, I'm interested in how one might determine difficulty in situations like that.
For instance, how one would determine Gather information in a bar- depending on what patrons are in it (a mixture of locals and say 1 or 2 adventurers)
and Knowledge checks on the information that I have to see if the players know the rumors already or have gathered them along their travels...them being 1st level characters only the "Wanderer" who decided to go to Bazareene and the Elf Cleric who decided to go to Tereppek will know rumors from areas other than their own. (I gave reduced DC on certain rumors involving port cities if the characters came from or travelled to any of those cities)
I should probably make a similar DC in Manifest as the other countries for country specific information as all rumors tend to travel east along the ghostwalk and most of the significant historical events directly effected the city.
basically, what's the difference between common knowledge and specialized knowledge? just obscurity? Say a knowledge history check is rolled on information pertaining to a specific hero from a specific war (or rather for information on that specific war that was 100 years ago- for a human to remember this information). What should a first level character know, or have to have learned?
I prefer to use the DC on Gather Information as a cost/time reducer. So if they make a high DC, they pick out the right person from the first-- it only costs them a couple of drinks and a half hour to get the info. A lower roll means they have to buy several people drinks, but eventually they get passed to the right person-- it takes longer and more expense, but eventually they get the same info. That way, no one roll prevents the PCs from getting the right info, it just determines how much hassle and expense it takes to get the info.
You could do the same with knowledge and rumors; a low roll gives you a hint as to what you need to look up in the library (or buy), while a high roll lets you recall the information from study or contacts on the road.