Are knowledge (aka fluff) skill rolls detrimental to the game?

[MicMan]

Let's take a look at Paizos own Adventures. Skills that do not offer themselves from a rules pov (such as the allmighty Perception but also UMD, Swimming and other "mechanic skills") are seldom mentioned in their adventures and it is also never mandatory to pass such a skill to suceed in the adventure.

Also if faced with the dilemma that your players all rolled low on their knowledge xyz rolls - do you withhold crucial information, do you hide an elaborate plot that you wanted to tell them? Do you find it easy to break up information they need in order to justify telling them at least something on a mediocre roll?

So isn't it detrimental to the game if you rely on fluff skill rolls instead of actually playing out the discovery of informations or simply giving it away if it is ment to be known?

[ShadowcatX]

If you lock information away behind skill rolls and require them to make the rolls or never gain information for the plot, then yes. But that's not what they're meant to be.

They're meant to be a way of gaining information about what they're facing, about what they might face, and things like that.

[KrispyXIV]

Knowledges have been, in my experience, one of the most combat relevant skills in games I've played.

The ability to know what something your being attacked by is, what its capable of, and which of your tricks its immune to is huge. And providing players with a mechanism for getting access to this information is critical.

As far as plot goes? In some cases, I've seen it where the highest relevant knowledge roll designates who gets to be the smart guy who figures out the plot point, which is good if the intent is to not be able to miss critical information.

However, making Knowledge checks crucial is a good way to encourage balanced and diverse skill allocation.

[Mok]

The major problem that I see with knowledge rolls is that the bulk of their results are halfhazardly assembled.

In an ideal situation a knowledge roll is going to provide a scaled level of clues that are advantageous to the party. It becomes a problem because you either need an excellent GM who on the fly and generate those kind of results, or the module writer has to put a lot of energy into making an array of clues that can provide advantages, but at the same time don't shut down the adventure.

So making knowledge rolls either requires raw talent, or hard work (with probably a good bit of talent thrown in). Otherwise the rolls can be just fluffy rolling to make it seem like it matters to the players, or ham fisted improvised moments that give an arbitrary bonus or penalty depending on how the roll went.

In terms of a broader detriment, it shifts away from immersive play because the player isn't "being the guy" who pokes and prods at the world to understand it in an organic way. Instead the player presses this videogame-like button to trigger a knowledge check, which is metagamey itself, but when you do or don't get information that is also metagamey. It's that strengthening of the metagame over the immersive game that I think is the biggest problem.

[Lvl 12 Procrastinator]

I struggle with this all the time. I grew up playing 1e, pre-skills, and I really like the exploration aspect of the game. So with perception, players specified where they were looking and what kinds of things they were looking for. Now players just roll perception when they enter a room and, when they roll high, expect to see the well-hidden device that will deactivate the trap. Boring.

On the knowledge front, the homebrew campaign/adventure path I run relies heavily on discoveries and revelations, especially as it regards to certain artifacts. The items themselves drive the plot. Yet every time one of these items is found, the d20's come out and people start rolling knowledge arcana and spellcraft, etc. Ugh. I mean, this is an ancient artifact that has been lost for centuries, and perhaps was never even known to the world of mortals, and yet you roll a natural 20 so somehow, miraculously, you know what this thing is? No.

If they roll especially high I'll give them a tiny hint of flavor, but to just outright tell them what the item is would ruin the suspense of the story and eliminate plot hooks around obtaining the information they desire. Yet the players did place ranks in those skills, so it makes me feel like a jerk DM. In my defense, I didn't know this was going to be the style of my campaign. We kind of stumbled into this style as things developed, but by that point it was too late, the points were spent. No complaints from the players (I have a very trusting group), but I'm not thrilled about the way it played out.

And yet, skills are useful for bluffing your way past guards or determining if you can jump over that chasm, that kind of thing. Hmm, looks like I'm rambling.

I don't think I answered your question. I would say, weave the revelations and crucial information into the fabric of the story so that you don't have to rely on the players' skill rolls.

[Shane Gifford]

I would have to disagree with Mok's apparent sentiment that using knowledge checks take away from the interaction with the world (if I understand your arguement wrong, I apologize). Rather, I think it fair that a knowledgable character should know something on certain topics beforehand. Playing an undead-hunting paladin, it would only make sense that you know something of their strengths and weaknesses beforehand, through research, instruction, etc. Telling a character who's grown up in Ustalav that he hasn't a clue as to what vampires can do is rather ridiculous, in my humble opinion. (The player will need to make sure he has Knowledges apropriate for his background, of course. Even if they don't have it as a class skill, it can still be taken.)

If played with correctly, Knowledges will add an advantage to the character's repertoire, without being a lynchpin that they absolutely must have in order to advance in the adventure. I.E. Instead of having Knowledge (local) tell the PC's where the mob boss's base is located, perhaps it tells them that the boss has bugbear guards and heavily traps his den, and the location of his base is introduced through the storyline instead.

If you want to remove some of that feeling of "press button, receive knowledge of all the enemies' weaknesses", the GM could be making unique monsters, through templates or homebrew, so that knowledge checks won't help as much with this creature (maybe giving the results of an unmodified creature).

[cibet44]

Mok wrote:

The major problem that I see with knowledge rolls is that the bulk of their results are halfhazardly assembled.

I could not agree more. I have often requested that each AP volume have a table indicating Knowledge's, DCs, and results within easy reach of the GM. I suggest either the last page of the AP or the front or back inside covers. Simple really. Paging through all the text makes it so difficult to find these checks. This is especially frustrating for me while GMing Carrion Crown since there are tons of Knowledge checks all over the AP and the inside covers of the AP are essentially wasted with those weird "atmosphere things" that I have no idea what to do with.

Aside from this I think the Knowledge rolls are great and useful and I don't think they are detrimental at all. I have always struggled with ways to share all the background info that Paizo provides with the players without having to do info dumps. The Knowledge checks really help me do this.

I do wish Knowledge checks (all skills in fact) had more impact on combat though. I often use ranks (not rolls) that players have in various skills to award combat bonuses or advantages. Some recent examples:

- Having 2+ ranks in Acrobatics allows you to ignore the difficult terrain in this battle.
- Having 5+ ranks in Knowledge(dungeoneering) will give you +2 to melee damage against this ooze creature.
- Having 10+ ranks in Knowledge(planes) allows you to critical this elemental.

I think these are really simple things to add to the adventures that the payers really appreciate, are not overpowering, are easy to incorporate on the fly, and don't take up much word space.

[W E Ray]

It depends on how the DM designs the game -- and it depends on what kind of gaming the Players like.

Completely.

I love Knowledge skills and argue that they are equally the best innovation of 3E beside the d20 mechanic.

Regarding monster strengths & weaknesses, enough has been said to overwhelmingly show that Crunch-wise, they can be an absolutely crucial part of a game and in many games (including all of mine), they are. But they don't have to be. The DM has to know how the PCs are built, whether they're gonna want to use this or that skill.

As far as the Fluff aspect of Knowledges, it does take a little work from the DM to design the game so that "crucial" info is revealed at the appropriate time whether or not the PCs make or even attempt a Knowledge check.

A DM who designs a session where the PCs MUST succeed on a Knowledge check to keep the game moving forward is just as bad as the DM who designs a session where only this spell will solve the problem or only that action will propel the PCs to the next part of the game.

It's short-sighted, bad DMing at best and Railroading at worst.

In my games PCs use Knowledges to make sure they know what they're up against (Crunch) and, as often as one Player wants to, to learn about the background or interconnectedness of various Campaign Fluff. All according to how much or little the Players want it to be part of their game.

-----------------

As for ALL Skills in general -- it's my responsibility as DM to be aware of how the PCs are built.

You can damn well be sure that if a Player in one of my games builds a PC with Skill Focus: Swimming and puts all his ranks in Swim and does everything he can to build the greatest swimmer the game has ever known, I'm gonna find a few times where the PCs are on a rough ocean or in some heavy whitewater rapids where only a DC OMG can succeed in not drowning like a baby in a bathtup.

I always look at my Players' PCs before we game so I can see what they want their PC to be great at. If a Player dumps all his Skill ranks, a couple Feats, a Trait and a huge CHA score to uber-max out his Diplomacy then I have a responsibility to design plenty of Diplomacy-necessary events.

Likewise, if none of the PCs have Knowledge History I'm not gonna make it a huge part of the Campaign, or even a medium part.

[Cheezgrater]

I absolutely love the Knowledge skills.

They provide a character with an academic background a more solid representation within game. (Not that this depends largely on roleplay. Do you just call for a knowledge check and then read off the block, or hand a note to the player and let them handle the reveal "Guys, I remember reading about this in a book I read last summer.....")

A recommendation to potentially enhance the value of knowledge checks is to make the roll *for* the player from behind the screen, so they don't even know a knowledge check was rolled. Note that I personally do not favor this method, since it takes away control of the character from the player.

The Carrion Crown AP provides multiple points where Knowledge checks/Research are borderline necessary to advance the plot. However, the AP also provides multiple methods to ensure that the vital knowledge checks can be made. Many of these can be used as baseline techniques for GMs to ensure information does not get locked up behind knowledge checks (Also listed are some others I have found to be useful):

1) Multiple skills. All of the plot-centric knowledge checks in CC have more than one Knowledge skill keyed to them. Researching the ruins the party is going to investigate could be a K(Local), K(History), or even a K(Geography). Allowing multiple different skills to access the same information makes it more likely that someone in the party will have ranks in a skill that allows for a roll.

2) Access to quality research materials. If performing the knowledge check as part of ongoing research, access to a suitable library can provide a bonus on the check. Alternatively, in place of a bonus, the library can be used to allow a character to make a relevant knowledge check *even if he or she has no ranks in the skill*. Finding ways to allow untrained Knowledge checks can also help prevent information lock-up.

3) Diplomacy as Gather Information can allow access to some knowledge checks, or could potentially be used for Aid Another.

4) If no player can get access to the information, dropping an NPC informant who charges an outrageous fee can distribute information the PCs fail to gain through checks (for a price). This can also open additional roleplay opportunities (instead of paying him off, do the PCs try to stage a distraction while the party rogue pickpockets his notebook?)

Knowledge skills are an amazingly useful part of the game, when handled well by the GM and roleplayed by the players.

[sunshadow21]

I just recently had this issue come up. The PCs were in a dungeon with brown mold, and none of them had knowledge (dungeoneering). However, several had survival and/or were used enough to that environment to isolate it from the rest of the fungi and moss growing in the room, even if they couldn't identify it. Than, after they inevitably tried fire to kill it, I allowed an untrained roll, figuring that the results of the experiment were enough to drop the DC down to 10 or lower. In the end, having that skill trained would have sped things up a bit, but even without it, they were eventually able to figure it out.

That to me is the key with all skills, whether it be knowledge, diplomacy, or any other. Having the pertinent skill trained can speed things up, and in some cases that is a big thing, but there's enough overlap between skills and each character's background that they should almost always be able to piece together enough information to keep moving, even if they don't get every detail at that time.

[Cheapy]

Skill checks don't autosucceed on natural 20s.

Just because a player rolled a nat 20 on his Knowledge roll to ID an artifact doesn't mean that he knows what it is.

It's pretty hard to beat a DC 80.

[wraithstrike]

MicMan wrote:

Let's take a look at Paizos own Adventures. Skills that do not offer themselves from a rules pov (such as the allmighty Perception but also UMD, Swimming and other "mechanic skills") are seldom mentioned in their adventures and it is also never mandatory to pass such a skill to suceed in the adventure.

Also if faced with the dilemma that your players all rolled low on their knowledge xyz rolls - do you withhold crucial information, do you hide an elaborate plot that you wanted to tell them? Do you find it easy to break up information they need in order to justify telling them at least something on a mediocre roll?

So isn't it detrimental to the game if you rely on fluff skill rolls instead of actually playing out the discovery of informations or simply giving it away if it is ment to be known?

I follow the rule of 3 when it comes to important information. That means the players should have more than one way to discover the valuable information.

I also don't much information that is "must have". I do have information that is very helpful though. By making information helpful instead of needed the players can't end a campaign by having an off day. There is an article on this, but I don't have the link for it.

[Charender]

This is kind of a house rule/adaptation, but with this knowledge skills are a great chance for the group to work together via Aid Another.

Basically,
1. I have everyone who has ranks in the appropiate knowledge in the group roll.
2. Take the highest check, and add +2 for every other player who can beat a 10, +4 if they beat a 20, and so on.
3. If there is a secondary knowledge skill that may be relevant. Have everyone roll a set of aid another rolls, and add the results to the total.
4. Add up the total, and give the results.

This encourages everyone in the group to put a few points in a couple of knowledge skills, especially the ones that are class skills.

[cattoy]

I have been told that knowing is half the battle.

[MicMan]

Knowing may be half the battle but do you regularily face the following two problems?:

-----
GM:
"You face some ugly green big mean humanoids with long noses and big teeth, about as large as two men."

Player:
"Oh, I roll my knowledge skill to see if I know that these are trolls and that we must burn them." *rolls d20* "Dang, not high enough - anyone else or must we all be on the brink of death before the GM allows us to try fire?"

-----
GM:
"You face an enormous humanoid with bat wings and covered by metallic looking red scales. Two large curved horns protude from its forehead and it swings a nine tailed whip."

Player:
"Knowledge 41".

GM:
"Oh, well, it's a horned devil also known as malebranche. It has the following weaknesses..."

Players:
"Nice, might be a two rounder."
-----

Sorry, in my book both situations are stupid. While there is certainly a merit in rolling a die to see wether you can climb that tree fast enough before the wolves get you, it seems that to roll for knowledge poses all kinds of problems.

And let's not get started about perception. This should never have been a skill but rather a score like Initiative or even a save as it is just too universally useful - the sole skill that basically everyone needs all the time.

Finally I also think that Paizo should incorporate "Knowledge-tables" in their products so that knowledge skill rolls are not all or nothing and do not leave the GM scrambling for information.

[Mok]

Shane Gifford wrote:

I would have to disagree with Mok's apparent sentiment that using knowledge checks take away from the interaction with the world (if I understand your arguement wrong, I apologize). Rather, I think it fair that a knowledgable character should know something on certain topics beforehand.

Yeah, I didn't explain how I'd want to see them used in the game.

I'd go with something like what cibet44 was proposing, where knowledge skills are more of a static value. Perhaps as just an automatic take 10 for knowledge checks, and depending on 10+bonus you either know something or you don't. That way investment in knowledge is valuable for players to select, but it allows for a more standardized metric to follow on what the character would know.

Back in my oWoD days, each character got a packet from me about the city they lived in and the vampire politics of the town. It varied from player to player dependent on their stats, type of vampire, etc. So I totally get framing character knowledge to be specific to the character. It would be great if this was something that had broad codification in the system. If both the players and the GM know the level of knowledge that the character has then they can come up with stuff on the fly that fits the character, and doesn't rely on the wildly swingy d20 roll.

[W E Ray]

MicMan,

This may just be one where we have to agree to disagree, acknowledging our playstyles (interpretation of fun) is different.

But there's nothing wrong with your two situations.

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.
.
Let's see if I get what you're saying so we can understand each other's points And share solutions:

1) You don't don't like the potential for situations where common knowledge (trolls & fire, vampires & sunlight,...) has to be rolled (and possibly failed).

It's easy enough to rule that some monster info is common knowledge even from 1st lvl commoners, and doesn't need to be rolled. Afterall, even by RAW, commoners know what vampires and trolls are -- just read any adventure ever published in the history of the universe where the PCs enter a village or farmstead with a vampire or troll problem!

2) You don't like that PCs with very high Knowledge checks "auto-know" about the Cornugon you made for a fun fight.

It ruins the atmosphere in your game.

This is tougher, BUT, not only is it OKAY (absolutely NOT "stupid"), but think about a few solutions.

First, according to RAW (which almost NO ONE plays in these situations), the PC only gets ONE bit of info, DM's choice, for every FIVE points above the DC the PC rolls. Of course, no one plays this because it really can slow the game down. So, the DC41 you gave earlier only entitles, by RAW, the PC to learn THREE facts about Horned Devils.

But why not try this, describe the Cornugon to your Players and wait until the Knowledge-PC goes in initiative before he can free-action roll and tell the others what he knows about Horned Devils.

And this, inform the Players who have the Bestiary memorized that you'll change many of the monsters' stats just a bit so that Player knowledge doesn't equal PC knowledge. And explain why.

I've been doing this for 15 years now, ever since my college group had the problem of knowing EVERY single monster by heart.

Maybe your Cornugons are immune to electricity instead of fire. Maybe your Black Dragons breathe fire. Maybe your Brown Mold can be killed with fire and healed with cold. Maybe all Hobgoblins have SR 5+HD. Maybe fire heals trolls and acid does double damage and is the only thing that keeps them from regenerating.

One final thing,
If a Player builds his PC with heavy Knowledge skills the DM really NEEDS to let the PC use them. If the party Wizard has two Knowledge Skill traits, Skill Focus: Knowledge, the Scholar Feat, and levels in Loremaster, the DM has to realize that both traits, two Feats and a PrC were chosen all because that Player WANTS to know what he's fighting and is willing to sacrifice metamagic Feats for Knowledge, evocation or transmutation spell book slots for divinations and other stuff.

He made a weaker PC, just so he can know what he's fighting.

If any DM disallows that PC to do what it was built to do, it's trumping the PC's abilities and that's bad DMing.

[Kthulhu]

I think Knowledge (local) is the skill that's the most ridiculous. Apparently "local" means wherever you happen to be at the moment, regardless of whether you even knew that place existed or not the previous day.

[Cheapy]

Kthulhu wrote:

I think Knowledge (local) is the skill that's the most ridiculous. Apparently "local" means wherever you happen to be at the moment, regardless of whether you even knew that place existed or not the previous day.

I always figured it was "streetwise", as in you knew where to look for information, how to word questions, etc.

[W E Ray]

Not ridiculous, just badly named.

Knowledge Local is for humanoids -- monsters that live near where people live.

The people of Saltmarsh know about goblins and bullywugs and orcs and gnolls.
The people of Galt know about goblins and bullywugs and orcs and gnolls.
The people of Ptolus know about goblins and bullywugs orcs and gnolls.
The people of Sargava know about goblins and bullywugs and orcs and gnolls.

When we think of Knowledge Local we typically only think of culture and society. But that means "Humanoid culture and society"!!!

What is Humanoid culture and society?
Bullywugs?
Humans?
Goblins?
Dwarfs?
Gnolls?
Elfs?
Humanoids?

[W E Ray]

Cheapy wrote:

I always figured (Local) was "streetwise", as in you knew where to look for information, how to word questions, etc.

No, that's Diplomacy.

Used to be Gather Info.

[sunshadow21]

W E Ray wrote:

Cheapy wrote:

I always figured (Local) was "streetwise", as in you knew where to look for information, how to word questions, etc.

No, that's Diplomacy.

Used to be Gather Info.

This is what I meant earlier when I mentioned that certain skills overlap. It doesn't have to be one or the other, it can be both, and the game is stronger when it is. As for the earlier complaint about knowledge DCs, the DM sets the DCs, and what information every level of success beyond the base gives out. It sometimes takes a bit of work to figure out the appropriate levels of information, but the skill itself works fine as written. If you don't want people memorizing the bestiary, tweak things here and there to keep them on their toes. Make mountain goblins have slightly different stats/abilities than the forest goblins that the PCs have been fighting for the last three levels.

[W E Ray]

sunshadow21 wrote:

This is what I meant earlier when I mentioned that certain skills overlap. It doesn't have to be one or the other, it can be both, and the game is stronger when it is.

Sure, there's nothing wrong with groups that have overlaping Skills, heck in 3E there were +2 bonuses on checks when you had another skill.

But for me, I don't like it.

When building a PC one must make choices about skills. If the Player chooses Diplomacy he should not, I feel, get credit for Diplomacy AND Local.

But lots of groups (LOTS) of groups overlap them and it's perfectly okay. Afterall, they often say, PCs that aren't Rogues get soooo few skills! (And I retort that it makes the Rogue weaker when you overlap Skills.) But it's all good.

sunshadow21 wrote:

If you don't want people memorizing the bestiary, tweak things here and there to keep them on their toes. Make mountain goblins have slightly different stats/abilities than the forest goblins that the PCs have been fighting for the last three levels.

Well, I like the way I said it better but I'm biased.

Hmmm, Mountain Goblins, I'll have to add that to my list.

[Matthew Morris]

Count me as one who thinks knowlege checks are important too.

Keep in mind, there's nothing wrong with it being 'common knowlege' that trolls are vulnerable to fire. It's also 'common knowlege' that they live under bridges and turn to stone in sunlight.

Likewise it's 'common knowlege' that vampires are vulnerable to sunlight, have to ask to be let in, that they can only be killed by a white ash stake, and that they have to stop and compulsively count grains of rice thrown at their feet.

The thing to remember about knowlege checks is they are an outlet for the players to actually use metagame knowlege. A character who doesn't have the knowlege skills to ID the troll would argue that it can't be a troll, "Because there aren't any bridges around!"

Now as WE Ray said above, as a GM you have an obligation to keep the fun going. I ran Shadows of the Last War, and the cleric had jacked up her knowlege (religion) to the max. It's also a completely useless skill in that adventure. So I started making up stuff, little details about the ruins and the like so she didn't feel useless. Finally when they encountered the BBED, I gave her lots of info about the Emrald claw, to help make up for the frustration earlier.

Now if I had a group of players who were savy enough to recognize my descriptions/minis that they didn't need the knowleges, then I'd have to mix things up to keep them on their toes. The occasional troll with the fire subtype, or vampire that is vulnerable to moonlight, for example.

Knowlege is like any other skill, it has its uses.

[cibet44]

Well, like I say above, I think the Knowledge skills work better when you use ranks instead of rolls. To me the weird thing is rolling.

The stat blocks don't even have to change. You could just apply ranks in the relevant Knowledge skill to every section of the stat block:

Troll CR 5 [Knowledge(local) 1 rank]
(player knows all this information, including above creature name)
DEFENSE [Knowledge(local) 3 ranks]
(player knows all this information)
OFFENSE [Knowledge(local) 4 ranks]
(player knows all this information)
STATISTICS [Knowledge(local) 5 ranks]
(player knows all this information)
ECOLOGY [Knowledge(local) 6 ranks]
(player knows all this information)

That's pretty much what I do. I just adjust the ranks by creature as I see fit. This also eliminates the issue of remembering what rolls the player has already made. With rolls, a player may make his Knowledge roll the first time he meets a "whatever" but the next time he meets a "whatever" no one remembers if they made the Knowledge roll before or not. With ranks it doesn't matter, you know what you know.

A skill roll should come into play for physical skills, mental skills should just be based on ranks. In fact, I think ranks in any skill should at times count for more than just additions to die rolls. I think skill ranks are an underused (unused really) mechanic that could be exploited in many ways.

[W E Ray]

cibet44 wrote:

Knowledge skills work better when you use ranks instead of rolls.

I agree that that makes more sense from one perspective but...

It's fun to roll the dice.
It's not as fun to have a static number, even though it makes more sense.

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However, there is an argument for the roll making sense -- these Knowledges are overly general: Knowledge History?! And they have to be otherwise there'd be 900 Knowledges.

Think of it this way, the Final Jeopardy category is History and you have a BA degree in history and consider yourself a history buff.

But there's still a bit of luck -- you gotta roll that d20 on Final Jeopardy. There's some luck. It may be a super specific question on WWII or a general question on Edward the Confessor or Henry II and his mom, Matilda.

I know lots of history but would do better with a specific question on Edward the Confessor or Matilda than I would with WWII on Jeopardy cuz there's soooo much out there on WWII.

Your PC may have a +33 Knowledge History (like my 12th lvl Wiz) but History is so broad and general that a roll, one could argue, is still necessary.

[voska66]

We had Knowledge skills in 1E AD&D only they were Non Weapon Proficiencies and based purely off you stat if I remember correctly. Those came out in the the Unearthed Arcana book. In 2E the cleaned those up a bit allowed you put extra slots into them to get bonuses. 3 Edition just made them skills with ranks.

Now hiding plot information behind a knowledge skill check is not a bad thing. This should be only one of several ways of getting the same information.

[sunshadow21]

cibet44 wrote:

Well, like I say above, I think the Knowledge skills work better when you use ranks instead of rolls.

Personally, I do something along these lines as well as rolling. As long as the PCs aren't in a stressful situation, I will often see what their "take 10" roll would be, and use that along with the roll to help determine how much, and how detailed, information they get. Occasionally, for stuff that would be common knowledge to someone trained in that particular field, I might even simply forgo the roll, at least as far as basic information would be concerned. If a PC wants the full details, they will always have to roll, and possibly experiment or find an expert, as well, but basic information I tend to be very flexible with.

[ryric]

cibet44 wrote:

Well, like I say above, I think the Knowledge skills work better when you use ranks instead of rolls. To me the weird thing is rolling.

The big disadvantage of using ranks is that it penalizes characters whose bonus comes from mostly non-rank areas:bards, lore oracles, characters with Skill Focus, etc. I suppose you could count those bonuses as extra ranks and it would be okay.

Though it also makes less sense to me that Derp the Doofy(int 7 fighter 5) with his precious rank invested in Kn(the planes) each level(total bonus +3), knows just as much about outsiders as his friend Smartypants the Brilliant(int 21 wizard 5) who has the same ranks and a total bonus of +13.

You could make it based off of total bonus, but then you might as well just have the player take 10 all the time and use the current system.

I do miss the little sidebars from the later 3.5 monster books that had the knowledge results for each monster, though.

[T O]

W E Ray wrote:

I love Knowledge skills and argue that they are equally the best innovation of 3E beside the d20 mechanic.

Permit me to beat a dead horse for one moment. It's only an innovation if you had an original thought. D&D 3.0 had very few of those. What they did was embrace good ideas that other people had already thought of. There's nothing wrong with that, that's part of the definition of progress and I'm all for it. But I wouldn't call it innovative.

[wynterknight]

I absolutely hate the Knowledge skills as they are right now, as they're so vaguely written and subject to GM whim and/or ability. Most other skills have clearly-written rules (you need to beat DC x to gain this specific effect), while Knowledges require too much GM adjudication. If you have a good GM, it's not usually a problem, but otherwise it can be a nightmare.

I've heard stories about some GMs who treat each encounter with a creature as a blank slate, requiring new Knowledge rolls for stuff you should already know from previous encounters ("what do you mean we don't remember trolls are vulnerable to fire?"), or others who give useless fluff information ("these creatures are popular for their soft fur") for in-combat Knowledge checks, and yet others who don't give you creature types as one of the first facts known, instead breaking it down into "it has darkvision" vs. "it's a monstrous humanoid" (which already lets you know it has darkvision, but would also let you know about its lack of vulnerability to charm personor whatever).

Some of this is due to a GM's inexperience or lack of familiarity with the rules, but sometimes it's just because the GM is trying to "beat" the players. This can be a problem with just about any rules, of course, but it can just be amplified when the rules are so vague.

I like cibet44's ideas, but might use total rank + Int mod + skill bonuses, etc. I'll have to run this by my GM.

[Kolokotroni]

wraithstrike wrote:

MicMan wrote:

Let's take a look at Paizos own Adventures. Skills that do not offer themselves from a rules pov (such as the allmighty Perception but also UMD, Swimming and other "mechanic skills") are seldom mentioned in their adventures and it is also never mandatory to pass such a skill to suceed in the adventure.

Also if faced with the dilemma that your players all rolled low on their knowledge xyz rolls - do you withhold crucial information, do you hide an elaborate plot that you wanted to tell them? Do you find it easy to break up information they need in order to justify telling them at least something on a mediocre roll?

So isn't it detrimental to the game if you rely on fluff skill rolls instead of actually playing out the discovery of informations or simply giving it away if it is ment to be known?

I follow the rule of 3 when it comes to important information. That means the players should have more than one way to discover the valuable information.

I also don't much information that is "must have". I do have information that is very helpful though. By making information helpful instead of needed the players can't end a campaign by having an off day. There is an article on this, but I don't have the link for it.

Pretty much this. There should never be only a single avenue to information that is important to the story. Knowledge checks can be one of them but it shouldnt be the only one.

And I think the article you are looking for is this

[Shizvestus]

The bonus in ranks you get from a non rank area are ranks in an of themselves, that is what they are meant fore. You are especially good at something, or are gifted in that area or you got extra training in that area ie ranks in that skill.

If you met the monster or think or whatever and otherwise rolled the knowledge skill before and got the knowledge- you still have that knowledge. A fighter with knowledge the plains would have only 5 ranks to put into it, and with an IQ of 7 lat leaves a +3 bonus to his roll.
He doesn't get any +3 for class skill, so he must have taken either the feats cosmopolitan or Prodigy or some such which would give a +3 and you can't stack those so you would only get the one +3 feat on the one skill. Perhaps a Talent giving a +1 So you get +3 from your points, +3 from your feats, and +1 from talents = +7 all together. Your Wizard the Smart guy is still +13 and with feats and bonuses probably allot higher.

[Bruunwald]

I start by writing pertinent information into the game to be found if the players are being observant enough. However, remember the game is an abstract. It is mostly taking place inside the heads of from three to six people, and not all of those people are going to come to the same conclusions or pick everything out that they might need to.

In many cases, the players may arrive at a collective decision that is completely untrue, even dangerous, basically convincing each other of the "fact."

Now, there are some cases where what they've decided is actually a better idea than what you've written, or just doesn't matter that much, and a good GM will just adapt the game on the fly to it.

However, there are other occasions where the backstory is less flexible. You can let the party go forward with their wrong idea, and the resulting failure might be fun to play out. Or, it might result in a TPK. Many players are going to be upset if the TPK results from something that at the time seemed like a very minor decision. At the other end of the spectrum, some minor misunderstandings can hold a whole game up while they are being argued.

In those more extreme cases, Knowledge checks can be helpful. If the GM is on his game, he will see which will be a problem down the road, and utilize these tools subtly to avoid major holdups.

Additionally, there are sometimes going to be players who are playing characters who are actually from your campaign setting. In other words, they are locals. Those players will expect to know certain things about the area. If the information might not be well known to everybody, a Knowledge check is a fair way to determine if the PC knows. Even better, Knowledge checks (which are supposed to be made by the GM, by the way), are great ways to insert misinformation or sketchy information. Because the GM rolls for them, the result may be anything from the PC totally believing he is completely right about something about which he is completely wrong, to not sure if he is right about something that is totally true, and every combination in-between.

[Caineach]

Knowledge rolls are some of my favorite.

As a GM, they allow me to give the players information that is relevant to them, when they ask for it. If they don't invest in the skills, then obviously they do not feel that type of information is important.

The trick is to not give them everything. Dcs should not be static. Not every character should have the same DC, and situation bonuses should play a large part. If player A has no reason to know about elven fairy tales, even if he hits a DC40 he might not get the same information as the elf who grew up in that culture and rolls a 15. That doesn't mean the person who rolls a 40 shouldn't get something useful. They might just not get exactly the answer they were looking for. Perhaps they get an answer to a question they do not ask.

Ballancing knowledge checks has been one of the easiest things for GMing that I have come accross.

[Evening Glory]

On the subject of the Knowledge skill, Libris Mortis has a passage proposing that GMs let players reroll a failed knowledge check if they uncover additional information. I personally think it would be cool to implement this across the board. For example, you may fail your check to identify the flying lizard, meaning you don't know if it's a dragon or a wyvern. After it spits fire at someone, the GM may allow a second knowledge check to see if you know that some dragons can do that and wyverns cannot, and thereby identify it as a dragon. I think that, if the GM can think well enough on the fly to handle such a thing, it could be a cool addition to the knowledge mechanic.

[sunshadow21]

Evening Glory wrote:

On the subject of the Knowledge skill, Libris Mortis has a passage proposing that GMs let players reroll a failed knowledge check if they uncover additional information. I personally think it would be cool to implement this across the board. For example, you may fail your check to identify the flying lizard, meaning you don't know if it's a dragon or a wyvern. After it spits fire at someone, the GM may allow a second knowledge check to see if you know that some dragons can do that and wyverns cannot, and thereby narrow it down to dragon. I think that if the GM can think well enough on the fly to handle such a thing it could be a cool addition to the knowledge mechanic.

I've always done that, and didn't even know it was printed in a book somewhere.