@Dragons: the great game. Think conspiracy theories. This is requiring clicking. You must finish it.
If dragons are political power players on that scale, then they very much belong in N&R with other rulers.
@Vermin: I find them more "gross" than most aberrations. Indeed the yardstick for aberrations is spiders.
For me it is roaches. However it is "Forbidden Lore", not "Squick Factor Trivia".
@outsiders: speaking of spiders, Kaorti (outsiders) are described similarly as a best-approximation since they come from the far realms (creatures there are outsiders) which is the ultimate place of madness.
Which is why outsiders should really be split up among several knowledge skills.
@dungeoneering: very good point. I think moving vermin to dungeoneering is the right move. It's also an incredibly hard skill to acquire without getting Know(all), so it should be a comparative heavy weight.
Plus the unnatural size should make them be treated as somewhat unnatural creatures, and not included in K (nature).
@History: you mean the monsters have histories too? We don't bother with that sort of thing in SRD D&D3.5 (which assumes players are playing humanoids...)
Technically, yes.
@monstrous humanoids. Meh there are 90% humanoid+animal anyways.
I'm not going to argue.
The category exists as a lame excuse to give certain humanoids Full BAB and two Good Saves. That's it. They even confessed using that weasel play with war trolls and it winding up a tad lame.
@fey well there is the seelie court. Mindless savages doesn't really fit fey in 3.5, but faerie queens etc are everywhere
Mindless, no.
Savage, quite a few.
The unseelie court is not a pleasant place to be.
@geography I'm trying to keep the skills balanced. A skill that doesn't ID a creature type better do some really, really great things or players will just ignore it.
I'd like to find a way geography can ID stuff, but it just isn't working.
As it goes, 3.5 deliberately cut down the number of available Knowledge skills for whatever theoretical balance purpose they thought they were serving, but with K (psionics) and Martial Lore added, subsuming Geography into Local and Nature would be a much better fix.
@dragons (again). Wait dragons have kings and castles?
They certainly have realms if they playing a great game and manipulating others.
That doesn't include Council of Wyrms (2nd ed), Argonessen (Eberron), or Asian dragons in general.
@random synergy bonii: makes sense, but I'm trying to keep skills simple else people get cranky and start doing the wrong thing for balance; combining skills.
*discreetly edges the Geography comment under the carpet while whistling innocently*
A little bit of abstraction helps keep things easy. The exception is Forbidden Lore, which is presented as a powerful, tempting skill which comes at a cost. The cost has to be worth it which is why it gets more than 2 creature types.
Give Forbidden Lore a bardic knowledge aspect.
It functions as a back up ID skill to know the "secret", ineffable, lore about various creatures, such as oozes being descended from shoggoths, serpent men ruling before humanity, and humans having blood tainted with horrific infusions from other accursed races, making them susceptible to go all Rats in the Walls on their party after walking into the wrong forgotten temple, or randomly acquiring bonus levels in Thrall of Dagon after going on a sea cruise (the Saltmarsh Look).
