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Generally speaking, Lore checks are at a lower DC than equivalent checks with 'normal' Skills. Usually by either 2 or 5 depending on circumstances and the Lore's specificity.
That's in the base rules, and really helps make Lore workable and useful in the long term.
Generally speaking, Lore checks are at a lower DC than equivalent checks with 'normal' Skills. Usually by either 2 or 5 depending on circumstances and the Lore's specificity.
That's in the base rules, and really helps make Lore workable and useful in the long term.
Would this mean that say, finding Dandelions with Nature could be DC 15, while finding Dandelions with Botany Lore could be DC 13 or 10? (Made up numbers.)
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Would this mean that say, finding Dandelions with Nature could be DC 15, while finding Dandelions with Botany Lore could be DC 13 or 10? (Made up numbers.)
If the base DC with Nature is 15, then I'd say DC 13 for Botany Lore, DC 10 for Flower Lore, and DC 5 for Dandelion Lore.
Though I strongly suspect no one will ever have Dandelion Lore, outside of saying "I'm going to use Bardic Lore for Dandelion Lore".
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The "problem" with lores is that they are nice to have from a roleplay / background point of view, however apart from rare cases that enable auto-leveling of lores (looking at a certain gnome ancestry feat) I can't imaging people putting lots of proficiency ups into them, especially considering how "rare" those proficiency ups are in the first place. Therefore long-term a ranger, druid or similar (especially those with low int and high wisdom) will always use nature, no matter that the lore DCs are a bit lower...
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Would this mean that say, finding Dandelions with Nature could be DC 15, while finding Dandelions with Botany Lore could be DC 13 or 10? (Made up numbers.)If the base DC with Nature is 15, then I'd say DC 13 for Botany Lore, DC 10 for Flower Lore, and DC 5 for Dandelion Lore.
Though I strongly suspect no one will ever have Dandelion Lore, outside of saying "I'm going to use Bardic Lore for Dandelion Lore".
I'm taking Dandelion Lore >:(
The "problem" with lores is that they are nice to have from a roleplay / background point of view, however apart from rare cases that enable auto-leveling of lores (looking at a certain gnome ancestry feat) I can't imaging people putting lots of proficiency ups into them, especially considering how "rare" those proficiency ups are in the first place.
In any campaign where the GM indicates downtime will play a significant role, and where I didn't have Craft or Performance or wasn't going to be pumping them, I'd at least consider blowing a single skill feat on Additional Lore (which auto-levels) for something I could reliably Earn Income with. (Or using the Pathfinder Hopeful background, which gives you Additional Lore as its skill feat.) If the subject is something I can also usefully Recall Knowledge on sometimes, so much the better.
In any campaign where the GM indicates downtime will play a significant role, and where I didn't have Craft or Performance or wasn't going to be pumping them, I'd at least consider blowing a single skill feat on Additional Lore (which auto-levels) for something I could reliably Earn Income with. (Or using the Pathfinder Hopeful background, which gives you Additional Lore as its skill feat.) If the subject is something I can also usefully Recall Knowledge on sometimes, so much the better.
Can I raise some questions about Additional Lore?
When you chose it, can it be a totally different lore or does it need to be related and more specific than the original lore? The CRB is talking about subcategories, but I am not quite sure what this really means. subcategories of lores in general or subcategories of the parent lore.
So when I have lore warfare and gain Additional Lore can I chose lore legal (i.e. a totally different subcategory) or do I need to chose e.g. lore war machines (a subcategory of warfare).
And whats a little bit strange is that the original lore stays where it is but the new lore auto-levels. So if I wanted to be really good at lore dragons I would certainly not choose it during character creation, instead going for e.g. lore flowers instead, only to be able to select it later via Additional Lore (if this is possible at all, see the question above).
If they have both, you might consider letting them use both, taking the better roll or even both rolls.
They have two pools of knowledge they're drawing from after all.
Terrain might give them information on navigation while Nature might aid with weather patterns and fauna.
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In any campaign where the GM indicates downtime will play a significant role, and where I didn't have Craft or Performance or wasn't going to be pumping them, I'd at least consider blowing a single skill feat on Additional Lore (which auto-levels) for something I could reliably Earn Income with. (Or using the Pathfinder Hopeful background, which gives you Additional Lore as its skill feat.) If the subject is something I can also usefully Recall Knowledge on sometimes, so much the better.Can I raise some questions about Additional Lore?
When you chose it, can it be a totally different lore or does it need to be related and more specific than the original lore? The CRB is talking about subcategories, but I am not quite sure what this really means. subcategories of lores in general or subcategories of the parent lore.
There are no parent/child Lores in RAW; all subcategories are subcategories of "Lore" itself. I don't know why they feel compelled to call them "subcategories."
So when I have lore warfare and gain Additional Lore can I chose lore legal (i.e. a totally different subcategory) or do I need to chose e.g. lore war machines (a subcategory of warfare).
The former. The Additional Lore feat doesn't "know" that your background gave you a Lore already; you could take it even if you have some future bg that doesn't give you one.
And whats a little bit strange is that the original lore stays where it is but the new lore auto-levels. So if I wanted to be really good at lore dragons I would certainly not choose it during character creation, instead going for e.g. lore flowers instead, only to be able to select it later via Additional Lore
"A little bit strange" is an understatement. I think Additional Lore should read: You become trained in a Lore of your choice. One Lore you know (your choice, the new one is eligible) now automatically goes to expert at 3rd if it wasn't there already, to master at 7th, and to legendary at 15th. And it should be renamed to something like Lore Specialization to reflect the fact that the main point is the auto-levelling in something you really care about.
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You are saying it is by design (lore is worse than skills) and the game is better for it, I do not understand what you are meaning by better.
I didn't say that at all. I said it was better but narrower.
Terrain Lore does nothing because Nature trumps it, how is that better when the Scout will not find a use for the lore?
To reiterate, Terrain Lore is good even if your bonus is a bit lower, because the DC of checks is much lower when it applies. Which is good for the game.
To reiterate, Terrain Lore is good even if your bonus is a bit lower, because the DC of checks is much lower when it applies. Which is good for the game.
While this might work at 1st level, I still have difficulty seeing this working at higher levels, especially if there is a non-int related "true" skill that can potentially cover the lore in question.
Lets take an Int10, Cha18 sorcerer with Entertainer background, who gets Theater Lore for free and choses to invest into the Performance skill.
At level 8 his (trained) Theater Lore skill will be at +10, while his (mastered) Performace skill will be at +18.
So if the question is not super specific and the DC reduction isn't huge, I can not see the character doing a Theater Lore skill check ever again.
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That's true with a 10/18 split if you're heavily invested in the skill associated with the 18, and there's complete overlap between the skills. That's actually an unusual situation, and really only possible with Medicine, Nature, and Religion, and even then not super common.
You see, in your example, Theater Lore is always better than Performance for Recall Knowledge because there is no Recall Knowledge under Performance. Or most skills, actually, and of those that do have it, only the three above aren't Int-based.
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To reiterate, Terrain Lore is good even if your bonus is a bit lower, because the DC of checks is much lower when it applies. Which is good for the game.What am I completely misreading here? When does it apply that the DC is lower so it is better that it has lower bonus?
"If you’re using a skill other than Crafting, Lore, or Performance, the DC tends to be significantly higher."
But I do not see anywhere how I am supposed to set the DC lower for the Earned Income. Since Lore Earned Income is using a leveled/ expertise table, wouldn't the GM just use the leveled/expertise DC table for skills for Lore Earned Income. Is this something coming in the GM guide?
But anyways my issues is with Recall Knowledge, I was not talking about Earned Income.
Why in the world would I ever use the Scouts Recall Knowledge for his chosen Terrain, when he (likely) gets a better Recall Knowledge for all Terrain using Nature being that Scout bumps WIS?
DMW is talking about Recall Knowledge too.
If you have Lore: Mountains, your DC for checks on mountains is lower than your DC for the same check using Nature. An example in the book shows often by a +5 advantage. Nature has its advantages of working on all terrains, working off of Wisdom, as well as helping with monsters & magic.So is Nature better? In general, yeah.
But if it's specific to mountains, Lore: Mountains contends (depending on stats/items/campaign setting/etc.) because its specificity lowers the DC.
Much like Religion might get you good info on all undead (and much more), but somebody w/ Lore: Vampires (an example Lore in the book) can nail vampire questions a lot easier.
Edit to fix quote blocking.
This makes Bardic Lore better than I'd thought compared to standard knowledge skills, as you should always get the absolute lowest possible DC.
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This makes Bardic Lore better than I'd thought compared to standard knowledge skills, as you should always get the absolute lowest possible DC.
I don't think that tracks. Bardic Lore isn't a lore skill that counts as all lore skills (so you can say it counts as whatever is most specific in a situation), it is a special lore skill that can be used to recall knowledge on any subject - as opposed to normal lore skills that just flat can't be used to recall knowledge about things which are completely outside of their purview, even at a higher DC.
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Though I think they should have settled on -2. -5 is fairly strong as that represents lowering the training level needed to succeed. But I guess it is compensating for it being INT....eventually the class skill will outpace it unless you get more specific Lore training (possible? or just other Lore training?).
It's not always -5. They suggest Aberration Lore could be -2 on the example on p. 504. The general consensus seems to be that the more specific the Lore, the greater the difficulty reduction. Several of the adventure examples are only -2 on fairly broad Lores like Engineering, though.