What is a good rule of thumb for selecting creature lore skills?
Do I need to pick a specific creature, such as "hill giant" or can I pick an entire Bestiary entry, such as "giant?"
I'm guessing that if I picked "ogre" I wouldn't have to be as specific as "ogre boss." So I'm guessing "giants" (hill giant, stone giant, cloud giant, etc.) is probably okay too. I kind of wanted to get some other thoughts and opinion on that before jotting "giant" down onto my giant hunter's character sheet though.
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Giant Lore seems perfectly fine. As would Dragon, Demons, Felines (but not Animals as a whole), Constructs and pretty much whatevery creature type you can find.
You can even get stuff like Halfling Lore or Dwarven Lore from ancestry feats and I'd say both are common and varied enough to cover more than Giant Lore would.
The only exception is probably Human Lore. That would be too broad and should be Taldan Lore or something.
In Age of Ashes player guide have dragon lore for the scholar background so I guess it's ok.
Giant Lore seems like an appropriate level of specificity for a Lore skill. Fits well in line with other racial lore such as Goblin or Dwarf Lore.
And just to be clear, I'm referring to true giants, as shown on page 170 of the Bestiary, not everything with the giant trait.
I'm guessing ogres and trolls would require their own Lore Skills.
[quote: pg 247]...these categories are always less broad than any of the other skills that allow you to Recall Knowledge, and they should never be able to fully or mainly take the place of another skill’s Recall Knowledge action...
The examples they list feel very narrow but the limitation above is still really permitting. A few of their creature examples are demon, vampire, owlbear. My takeaway is that undead or evil-outsider is too broad, but something like Babau is overly specific.
In your example, recall knowledge - society will provide information on the tactics and abilities of giants, trolls, orcs and the Molthune army. I'm not sure it is too much to give Lore:giant everything with the giant trait?
As we play I'll be trying to get a feel for how many Lores the players get so that the skill can feel useful and worthwhile.
In addition to Lore, I think every recall knowledge can also be covered by either Arcane, Crafting, Medicine, Nature, Occultism, Religion, Society. So I want a Lore to be not better than the other knowledge skills, but better in a specific circumstance.
And just to be clear, I'm referring to true giants, as shown on page 170 of the Bestiary, not everything with the giant trait.
I'm guessing ogres and trolls would require their own Lore Skills.
Not necessarily. A good rule of thumb is that the more specific and narrow the Lore skill, the lower the DC when making that check. So let's use an ogre boss as an example. It is a common 7th level humanoid, so it would normally be a DC 23 Society check to identify it.
Now, if someone has a relevant lore skill, I might use the DC adjustment table like so:
Giant Lore: Easy for -2, DC 21
Ogre Lore: Very Easy for -5, DC 18
Ogre Boss Lore: Incredibly Easy for -10, DC 13.
Humanoid (Anthropology?) Lore: DC 23. This Lore is still less broadly useful than Society, so it doesn't replace it, but it is still much broader than things like Giant or Dwarf Lore. As such, the only advantage to using it over Society for the check is that you can increase it cheaper by using things like the Additional Lore feat.
All of those specific numbers are up to GMs discretion, but they seem fairly in line with what I've seen so far. I might be a little more generous with the bonuses myself, because I'd like the fighter with giant lore to not be automatically outclassed by the wizard with society. But that's why they are guide lines, not hard and fast rules.
I would be inclined to allow Giant Lore to apply to "things which are much bigger than the normal versions of those things" as well.
How to grow giant tomatoes.
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How to grow giant tomatoes.
IMO, Lores should have funny unexpected edge case uses.