Knowledge: Local is a strange at best, because it is the only non-universal Knowledge skill in that it relates only to a specific area. It also makes it problematic in the regard that it is highly locale-dependent, yet PCs tend to travel. Furthermore, it is also conceptually problematic because it overlaps with almost every other Knowledge: Skill, but especially Knowledge: Geography, Knowledge: History and Knowledge: Nobility and Royalty.
Because it is a skill that nobody would take, in my campaigns I have been giving 5 ranks (well, bonus of +5 and the ability to use the skill untrained) in this skill for free to all characters, related to the region they come from (or spread over multiple regions if they have travelled in the past). I am thinking of even giving them a free maximum progression in this skill instead of my +5 bonus. The initial bonus would go to their home region and they would gain subsequent ranks for any region where they spent significant time as they advance in levels.
Now onto the workings of this skill. Because of the overlap this skill has with other Knowledge skills, I have been thinking about converting it into a bonus that would be applied to rolling the appropriate knowledge skill (say Knowledge: History) when dealing with the local area/region the "Knowledge: Local" (the term should probably just be replaced with the name of the region/area and the bonus, something like - Region: Asur Surdak + 5 [to take an example from my own world]). A character inquiring about the history of Asur Surdak would then roll a regular Knowledge: History check, but would apply his regional bonus for Asur Surdak, if he has it!
I agree that this skill has always been a weird one, and I like your fix as a house rule.
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I always looked at Knowledge:Local as an ability to pick up bits of knowledge about the general area. Kinda like a version of Gather Info that takes no time to find out. You pick up little snippets of conversation and pay closer attention to signage than others to gain a certain familiarity with a locale. Sort of like how Spot and Search are. Both essentially are similar but Spot is an instant check and Search is actively trying to find stuff. Knowledge:Local is the instant check to figure out where X is (oh, yeah. Spruce street is 4 blocks over, I saw a sign!), where as Gather Info is actually chatting up people and asking directions to get somewhere or find a certain bit of info.
That's my take on it anyhow.
For our homegames, we've house ruled that all players get one point in Knowledge (Local) referring to where they currently are (unless they are complete newcomers) in which case it goes to their homeland. This free "rank" can be added to the INT bonus, but does not apply the bonus plus three a class might receive unless they also put a real rank into the skill.
I started this in CotCT, and my gms for RotRL and SD have followed suit, as it gives us a little more "oomph" out of the skill.
I have always treated it as a catch all skill regarding the subjects listed in the skill, not by specific region. I realize that doesn't seem logical however the same can be said for Common being a catch all language, Knowledge (Nobility and Royalty) working in distant lands.
Thinking about it... my only alteration I'd do is to impose a penalty on the check if a character isn't familiar with the local area in question. Say a River Kingdoms bandit who finds himself in Osirion, a normally easy question should be hard or impossible. Something like a -10 to -20 penalty on the check until he's spent some time in the area.
That would be better then creating sub-categories for a sub-category.
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I really dislike Knowledge (local). Unless you're playing an almost entirely urban campaign, in the one metropolis, in which case it is almost TOO good...it's entirely worthless or nonsensical.
I've been trying to think up a good system to expand and slightly change the knowledge skills in general, anyway, as I get rid of some skills I think are worthless and try to make the knowledge skills a little more equal. This has involved in considering changing Knowledge (local) to Knowledge (culture), as well as changing some of the other knowledges and removing spellcraft.
Without threadjacking too much, this makes Knowledge (culture) cover:
- Monster ID of humanoids and monstrous humanoids
- Commonly known laws, traditions, personalities, customs and so on of an area, the type of basic information you might recall if you'd read a travel guide or a wikipedia article in modern times :)
- Identify ethnicity, accent, tribal affiliations, etc
It takes the sociology parts out of Knowledge (geography) and combines them with a more generally focused Knowledge (local), something that will always be generally useful. We already have a skill to cover more in depth knowledge of a specific town, anyway: gather information/diplomacy.
I think that making Knowledge: Local a general skill works too, but it really treads on the ground of either Gather Information or the other Knowledge skills. I would prefer that Knowledge: Local be transformed into a regional bonus to all knowledge checks that apply to the given region.
This regional bonus could take the form of a skill or a free feat/trait or just a starting characteristic. In the latter case, each character would simply chose a starting region in the game and get the +X bonus (say +3 or +4 to begin with) to that. For example, in my world (which I haven't named yet after all these years, despite having developed it pretty substantially) some starting regions would include:
Asur Surdak
Sky Mountains
Veler(ske) Mountains
Achnaron
Etcetera...
Though it is not necessary, if we wanted to extend the system, we could say that with the advance of each level, every character could add another +1 to his bonus if he spent a substantial amount of time (the DM is the final arbiter what 'substantial' means and how liberal he is with the time requirement) in the given region, or to other regions if the character spent time there (only +1 per level in total).
I don't know much about the world of Golarion, but I am sure you could think of appropriate regional split for that world too.
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I don't think it would go too close to Gather Information. I don't think you would be able to get anything too specific. You could tell that the person who stole your purse was Varisian by their manner of dress, but you'd need to go talk to any witnesses to get a description of their face, or a name. You might know there's a famous ruin outside of town, but you'd need to spend some time buying drinks for people at the local tavern before you learnt that some people have been disappearing lately, or that Farmer Ted's house was burnt down all of a sudden the other day.
I should add that what I'm considering doing to the Knowledge skills in my games involves removing Knowledge (geography) and some other changes, but I didn't want to threadjack too much. Well, I'm undecided about the system anyway...
Regional areas make some sense though, and I do like that idea. I think it makes sense that an Osirion born person would know a little more about pyramids and mummies than your average Chelish scion. I imagine for Golarion it would be the various nations that would constitute the region splits... though I'm not sure if that would be too broad or not.
Um no...renaming it to knowledge (culture) sure fine, but removing the skill completely? Or making it an automatic or region specific skill?
No absolutely not, the question is not has my character spent time here? It's has my character spent time in/heard of/read about/studied/met someone from wherever he happens to be making the check about.
It certainly crosses over with History and Geography, in the same way that History crosses Religion, and Nature crosses Geography, and Engineering crosses Arcana. All do some of the same things, or can be construed in certain situations to give insights to the same thing.
For instance in our last gaming session it took my Wizard 6 knowledge tests to relize it was a swimming fang dragon who trashed the ship in the bay.
In succession they were Engineering, Nature, Arcana, History, Local, Engineering. All of them were looking for different things, all of them useful, in fact by the end I had enough information I could make a Perception and then an Engineering check to determine that it did in fact attack from underneath.
Knowledge Local provided me with the information that the locals did indeed have legends of a sea creature which matched a fang dragon in all particulars but the obvious one. Without it I never would have checked.
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Well, we did have along discussion about a new skill (Streewise) to replace Knowledge (Local), because it *is* a bit weird that very few characters invest ranks in it even though everyone should know something about their homeland. Furthermore, in my experience those PCs (rogues or bards, usually) that actually put ranks into Knowledge (Local) make them apply to the region they're adventuring in -- even though they had barely arrived there, resulting in them knowing more about local affairs than "resident" PCs.
In my opinion Streetwise would nicely cover Gather Information and Knowledge (Local).
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This is what I am talking about. I had suggested it be renamed to Knowledge (Cultures) many months ago. (I think I like Alice's version of without the final 's' better.) As Alice demonstrated, it can still cover everything spelled out in the description of Knowledge (Local) under the new name without the implying a specific geographic location.The only remaining problem is that many have been using Knowledge (Local) as being region specific. What to do for them?
I've always pictured knowledge local as a general knowledge of cultures, practices, and humanoids of _distant_ lands. Knowledge local in my campaigns is for characters who have studied other cultures in detail. This then makes sense why knowledge local works no matter where you have traveled. "Katapesh! Wonderful. I've heard that they have the tastiest stuff there called Pilaf. I'd stay away from the kabob vendors in the marketplace, I hear they eat dogs there. Also, the gnolls there are plentiful and are merciless slavers."
Now Ive experimented in the past with allowing use of this skill for one geographical region per skill point, but when making the check you use your full skill modifier. i.e. as you level the skill you are learning more about each region you already are familiar with as well as picking up a wealth of extra knowledge about someplace new. All in all though it didn't seem to make a big difference overall.