Just a quick question. I'm wondering how useful knowledge geography is?
It might depend on the campaign but usually its not one of the top ones.
Its pretty far down there. In PFS i think I've rolled it once (character levels 5 3 2 1) and I believe thats the HIGH side of a disproportionate sample size. I can't remember ever rolling it in a home game.
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I've always felt it's worth a single rank for Bards, Wizards, Lore Oracles, and others who can get a really high total even with just the one rank, since it'll occasionally come up, but probably not worth it otherwise.
Of course, as doc the grey says, it's likely worth more in some specific varieties of games.
I'm actually in a rural campaign. Alot of trekking in the wilderness. That settles it. Thank you all for answering my question so quickly and efficiently. Owe you guys one.
That depends on the campaign.
I'll bet it's more useful in the Jade Regent AP or Kingmaker than some others, but it really depends.
In my campaign, many of the evil attackers into the good areas typically comes from one mountain pass.
So any activity, even good people, in that pass is quickly passed along to the frontier forts on that side of the kingdom. The pass is 10-15 days away, depending on method of travel. i.e. fast horse or several wagons.
Most everyone in the good area just needs to hear the warning from a messenger riding by, 'Activity in the Pass !' to get food and water into their homes, flee to the local castle or walled town, etc.
So they know where the mountains are, and the ocean direction where trade comes from. Geography comes naturally to them.
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The other factor is how much your GM knows/is willing to write down and put into their world. With a lot of prep it can be a fun way to give players hints on what they might run into in some mountain pass (like the one Geroblue mentioned) or what hazards you might run into in some above ground jungle dungeon, thing is you need to have a lot of prep ready to make that work so you can have an answer and not feel like you're giving too much away.
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It's come up a few times for me in PFS. Mostly because my faction mission has involved either sketching a map or noting a location.
Take it equalizer. Very useful in the setting.
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Simple rule in my game: No KS: Geography? No Maps!
As my last group phased down, one of the 'I don' need no map!' players happened to get a hold of the map of the Loremaster with KS: Geo of 12 (+5 for Int) and was stunned by all the details I had passed along.
Nice. I like it. The party I am dming for at the moment, they haven't had much geography or knowledge checks till the latest char, so they have been kind of wandering around like drunken cats.
Makes it easier, plots to follow and all that, but they get lost a bit and stumble into the areas of other factions.