Author Topic: Knowledge Skill Revision  (Read 1659 times)

Offline Samwise

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Knowledge Skill Revision
« on: March 28, 2016, 06:21:09 PM »
The discussion in PBMC's Sanity Handbook got me thinking about Knowledge skills and identifying such, and the issue of the ones that don't identify anything, and the redundant elements of many of them.
After some thought, I came up with the following.

Social - Local
Cultural information relating to your homeland.
buildings, aqueducts, bridges, fortifications, people, royalty, wars, colonies, migrations, founding of cities, legends, personalities, inhabitants, laws, customs, traditions, lineages, heraldry, family trees, mottoes, ecclesiastical traditions, holy symbols
You can identify creatures of your specific race, which should generally mean some kind of humanoid.

Social - Foreign
Cultural information relating to reasonably mundane places beyond your homeland.
the above cultural topics but about foreign places
You can identify giants and humanoids.

Social - Fantastic
Cultural information about weird places that normal people only have legends about.
the above cultural topics but about fantastic places
You can identify fey and monstrous humanoids.

Environmental - Natural
Physical information about the natural world.
lands, terrain, climate, seasons and cycles, weather
You can identify normal animals (not dire, prehistoric, or dinosaurs).

Environmental - Unnatural
Physical information about the unnatural world.
caverns, spelunking, the above ecological topics but about unusual environments
You can identify weird animals, plants, and vermin.

Environmental - Fantastic
Physical information about fantastic places.
all of the above ecological topics but about really magical environments (stuff with special entries in the Environment books)
You can identify aberrations, magical beasts, and oozes.

Supernatural - Native
Weird information about magic of your home plane.
ancient mysteries, magic traditions, arcane symbols, cryptic phrases, deities, mythic history, psionics, ki
You can identify constructs, dragons, undead, and native outsiders.

Supernatural - Extraplanar
Weird information about magic of other planes
the above weird topics but about the Inner Planes, Outer Planes, Elemental Planes, Ethereal Plane, and Astral Plane
You can identify elementals, outsiders, and other creatures with the extraplanar subtype.

Supernatural - Forbidden Lore (everything)
Weird information the Man Was Not Meant To Know.
all of the above topics but with horrific secrets that will destroy your mind
You can identify anything specific to planes beyond rational comprehension, and learn horrific secrets about everything else.

Research
You know how to use a library.
alphabetizing, Dewey Decimal System, Library of Congress Catalogue Number
You can identify ISBN numbers.
Seriously though, you can use a library to research any topic related to another Knowledge skill, provided the library has appropriate books. That includes identifying relevant creatures.

Note: Creatures with the extraplanar subtype require Knowledge (supernatural - extraplanar) to identify, rather than the skill for their base type.
Note: Magical Beasts with Intelligence of 5 or greater require Knowledge (social - fantastic) rather than Knowledge (environmental - fantastic) to identify.


Using This With Insanity
Knowledge is power, but power is the path to madness.
For every rank in K (social - local) or K (environmental - natural) you gain, regain 1 Sanity.
For every rank K (social - fantastic) or K (environmental - fantastic) you gain, lose 1 Sanity.
For every rank in K (supernatural - native) you gain, lose 1 Sanity.
For every rank in K (supernatural - extraplanar) you gain, lose 2 Sanity.
For every rank in K (supernatural - forbidden lore) you gain, lose 3 Sanity.

For every rank your K (social - foreign) is higher than your rank in K (social - local), lose 1 Sanity.
For every rank your K (social - fantastic) is higher than your rank in K (social - local) or your rank in K (social - foreign), lose 1 Sanity.

For every rank your K (environmental - unnatural) is higher than your rank in K (environmental - natural), lose 1 Sanity.
For every rank your K (environmental - fantastic) is higher than your rank in K (environmental - natural) or your rank in K (environmental - unnatural), lose 1 Sanity.

For every rank your K (supernatural - native) is higher than your rank in K (social - local) or K (environmental - natural, lose 1 Sanity.
For every rank your K (supernatural - extraplanar) is higher than your rank in K (supernatural - native) or any K (social) or K (environmental), lose 1 Sanity.
For every rank your K (supernatural - Forbidden Lore is higher than your rank in any other Knowledge skill, lose 1 Sanity.

(ex. Ash is blissfully ignorant, with no ranks in any Knowledge skill. He discovers and reads the Necronomicon after breaking into the Miskatonic University Restricted Section and gain 4 ranks in K (supernatural - Forbidden Lore) at once, you lose 12 Sanity for the 4 ranks gained, then an additional 32 Sanity for knowing more about things you shouldn't than things you should know, for a total loss of 44 Sanity. Ash chops his hand off and replaces it with a chainsaw.)

If you use Research to investigate a topic in a Knowledge skill you have less ranks in than you have in Research, lose the amount of Sanity you would if you had that number of ranks in that Knowledge skill.

(ex. Professor Mundane, scholar of the ordinary, has 5 ranks in each of K (social - local), K (environmental - natural), and Research. He comes across a bizarre corpse and looks up the details in his library. He discovers that it is not a deformed mountain lion, but a griffon. 5 ranks in K (environmental - fantastic) costs 5 Sanity for the ranks, and an additional 5 Sanity because he has no ranks in K (environmental - unnatural). He develops a severe twitch as he realizes the heraldry on the Baron is not as figurative as he thought it was.)

Offline phaedrusxy

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Re: Knowledge Skill Revision
« Reply #1 on: March 28, 2016, 08:28:40 PM »
    The DCs are stupid for identifying things, also. Big, giant, insanely dangerous things should be more widely known about (i.e.
easier to identify) than small, trivial, nearly harmless things. Here's the fix for the DCs that I used (the last time I DM'd... which was unfortunately a while ago...):

The knowledge skill works as described in the PHB, except when identifying creatures we're going to use the following modifications:

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I don't pee messages into the snow often , but when I do , it's in Cyrillic with Fake Viagra.  Stay frosty my friends.

Offline Samwise

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Re: Knowledge Skill Revision
« Reply #2 on: March 28, 2016, 09:29:21 PM »

Retry: You may make one retry after you've seen a creature use a special ability of some kind. Being bathed in acid by a black dragon's breathe has a way of jogging your memory. ;)


Wizard (tanks his K (arcana) check): Not just a dragon, but a red dragon. We must prepare for its fiery breath!
Cleric (nodding sagely and casting appropriate spells): We shall be ready!

(one round and acid bath later)

Rogue (looking at the puddled remnants of the dissolved wizard): I think he meant black dragon and acid breath.
Fighter (dripping acid nodding sagely): You think?