Peeping on the celestial bodies

[Silas North]

I have my 1,273,834th idea for a character (which still puts me WAY behind Maevan). The question I have is regarding navigation. The survival skill is normally used for finding your way through forests and other areas. It seems it has always been used for determining tracks, noticing trails, etc.

However, what about a cartographer? What about someone that uses celestial bodies and tools like sextants, topography maps, sea charts, star charts, spyglasses and similar items? What skill would help them do what they do?

Is that still survival? Or is that more like Knowledge: Geography or Knowledge: Nature? Does the search and/or spot skill come into play as well?

If this should have been placed in the character request section, I apologize

[DM_Equinox]

But unlike you, Maevan actually CREATES the characters.

As for your question, I'd say making a map requires Knowledge Geography.

[Silas North]

But unlike you, Maevan actually CREATES the characters.

You got me there. :P lol

[cdnspr]

If you're going after the purely scientific aspect of the stars, ie atronomy, then I'm inclined to agree that knowledge geo is the skill to take.

If you want to mix in astronomy's mumbo-jumbo half-brother astrology (ie predict the future, know who should be doing who), then pump knowledge geo and knowledge religion. knowledge the planes would be desirable too, seeing as how alignments will likely involve bodies beyond what the average guy can see in a telescope / bomb with a satellite.

This is all keeping in mind, of course, that at one point, astronomy and astrology were the same thing. Wiki says they've only really seperated in the 17th century (post Isaac Newton). I've tried posting BS to wiki before and they've consistently redacted me, so I would trust this. Given D&D's medieval influence, its more than likely that your star-gazer would have an interest in both the astronomical and astrological significance of the stars (and thus should probably take all three skills), though I would leave that to you to decide.

[Doubtful]

I’ve never understood this bizarre desire to play dozens of character concepts. I much prefer to play one, maybe two, characters as a maximum.

I do quite like the idea of a cartographer though, but I tend to like engineer style characters in general. I suspect there could be a lot of fun to be had for a group of surveyors, demolitions experts, designers and landscapers. The Viridale would look a lot better with Exigos new capitalist utopia rising out of its newly remodelled parklands.

Now, skills for a cartographer…

I’m going to assume from the tools you mean to map the actual terrain of an area, not any of the fancy other mappable things such as texture, politics, race, religion or any other specific theme.

Personally I’d want to see a mix of skills – mostly Knowledge: Geography for the actual technical stuff of understanding how geography works, but with a couple of points here and there in supporting skills – some knowledge: architecture, arcane religion nature and local, though not necessarily all of them. In a PNP campaign I’d also have expected you to put a point or two into Profession: Cartographer.

Of course, being able to actually interpret the world around you into a functional and detailed map (I’m sure most people could rough up a vague map) is one thing, surviving in it long enough to make a map is another. In that regard having a few points in survival would be handy, or enough money to pay a bunch of people to ensure you don’t die out in the wild.

On a related note, have a poke around on Strangemaps
http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/200...of-true-names/

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/

http://www.kalimedia.com/Atlas_of_True_Names.html

[Thief Of Navarre]

I have litteraly hundreds of character concepts. I just never get the time to make them all

[cdnspr]

personally, i usually only play the one concept, bael, but since joining i now have several characters, of at least four of whom each get regular face-time. i find it refreshing to expand my roleplay horizons and attempt to represent someone drastically different from the one i'm used to. i think it's starting to make me into a better roleplayer: at the very least, it helps me understand how others are playing their characters and why; it's a bit of an excercise in empathy.

but yeah, we're taking this off-topic...

[Phantom Lamb]

I’ve never understood this bizarre desire to play dozens of character concepts. I much prefer to play one, maybe two, characters as a maximum.

I've deliberately forced myself to take on multiple characters and found I'm much happier. As a DM, I've found that players who offer the most "challenge" (*ahem*) are often single-character players. It's very easy to get overly-attached to characters if you're on them 24 / 7, and drama seems to creep in more often for these types of players. This certainly doesn't apply to everyone, but I didn't want to fall into that category myself.

[GodBeastX]

I've found the opposite. I've found people with one or two characters tend to be the easier to DM for. Especially when involving them in a longer plot because I can rely on their re-appearance for future continuations.

I've already had to redo plots because people vanish or switch characters left and right. However, that's from my position. It might be more rewarding for the players themselves, I don't know. I'm just putting out my view.

[Silas North]

Seems Knowledge: Geography is the generally agreed upon skill for land direction and/or mapping.

Would you say this is true for someone using the stars still?

Say you're lost in the forest and rather than rely upon dirt trails or what side of the rock moss grows on, you rely upon the skies.

What skill would that be?

[Cornuto]

Survival + Knowledge Nature

[Silas North]

I think I have the answer. Thank you everyone

Upon studying precisely what each knowledge covers, Knowledge: Planes talks about the various planes of existance, which seems to include planes as a WHOLE, universe and all.

So, it seems a person using the celestial bodies and other pre-determined points of measure and distance (such as land and sea horizons for sextant measures) would need both Knowledge: Planes and Knowledge: Geography.

Not the most entertaining element of a pc I confess, but I want to make sure I am not just pulling his talents out of my ass, even if they are not necessarily the main 'theme' of my character . Thanks to all of you who assisted me in this.

[Urithrand]

That was an interesting turnaround

[cdnspr]

glad to help.

i rather like the idea of someone measuring angles between planes of existence, etc, in order to produce maps and such. it's kinda steampunk / scifi-gothic. it could also lead to him employing some interesting instrumentation in his work.

if you ever want to roleplay designing/building such instrumentation, i have a gnome with craft: contraptions and knowledge: planes who can help

[Urithrand]

Also, just for the record, the thread title made me think this thread was something about deific voyeurism... nice choice