Is that a Sourcebook in your pocket or... (Knowledge Skills!)

[Kirin]

I wanted to bring up a bit of a pet peeve of mine that occurred recently:

Roleplaying your Knowledge skills. (Or lack thereof!)

Now before you beat me up, I don't mean anybody should play completely ignorant of the adventuring world! That would be silly, and personal experience counts for a lot; almost all of our characters have tangled with a wide variety of savage beasties, been on the wrong end of a powerful mage, or been exposed to a lot of religious ideas. So even with zero rank in a knowledge skill, you don't have to be totally clueless on a subject.

But there's a difference between "street smarts" and "book smarts". If your have zero ranks in an associated knowledge skill and start reading off the monster manual for a certain foe or the FR wiki for a certain religion (other than your own!), that's a bit off-putting. I know as players and long-time DnD nerds some of us are very knowlegeable about the game world, but that doesn't mean our characters are subject matter experts.

So if your character hasn't encountered something in-game themselves before (The Outer Planes, for example), and doesn't have an associated knowledge skill for it, they probably won't know much about it outside of a rough general knowledge. And even when they do encounter it, they are probably only going to know what they personally experienced of it, or were told by other players. Just something to keep in mind.

[LuxA]

I agree. I find it difficult sometimes to remember what my character has and hasn't got points in in the heat of the moment, and not automatically refer to my own knowledge of things. But it's almost worse when my character has higher stats or supposed knowledge in something than I do and someone asks me an appropriate question.. and I frantically start searching the wikis during a brief "afk." *cough*

[Lotus]

Good post. Many years ago, on an NWN1 server, our party encountered a rust monster, and every single one of us immediately pulled out bows and kited the shit out of the thing.

The DM asked us, "How is it that all of you knew a rust monster by sight and how to deal with it?"

And we answered, "Fffffffffffff-," me especially, because my character had full plate, and full plate was extremely expensive and difficult to come by on that server. Basically, we metagamed the hell out of that encounter; none of us was really invested heavily in the NWN1 Lore skill, and none of us had encountered that monster before and seen what it does. It was a good lesson about not putting your gear or your character's "cool" points ahead of the story.

[Peridan]

Remember though, you can always make an untrained INT check for a knowledge, to RP a general knowledge about the subject.

[Fuzziebunny]

The knowledge skills always confuse me. . I never know when I am suppose to roll or what is general knowledge. I like to think I get it right most of the time, but I am always open to another player asking me how I know something or requesting me to make a roll for them.

[Kirin]

My general rule of thumb (and this is just how I personally try to do it!) is along these lines:

"Street Smarts" - No roll. This is general knowledge that my characters have learned through firsthand experience or been told by other PCs.

"Read in a book somewhere" - Lore roll, or INT roll. Sundren's wiki states that Lore can be used for a sort of general book knowledge. (On high INT characters I sometimes do this even without lore, just because high INT characters probably remember random facts well.)

"I am an expert" - These are the knowledge skills. Specific details on how things are that are probably true, involving years of study or experience on the subject.

[Kitsunestume]

It's not always strictly applicable in a free-RP type setting like Sundren, but the by-the-book (Sourcebook in my internets) source is as follows:

Check
Answering a question within your field of study has a DC of 10 (for really easy questions), 15 (for basic questions), or 20 to 30 (for really tough questions).
In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster.
For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information.

[. . .]

Untrained
An untrained Knowledge check is simply an Intelligence check. Without actual training, you know only common knowledge (DC 10 or lower).

Source: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/knowledge.htm

Unfortunately, by-the-book basically states that unless something has a CR 0, unless you've encountered it firsthand, you can't make a untrained knowledge check about it. Base 10 + CR 1 = DC 11 is above what untrained can get you. Presumably fractional CR (Such as orcs, humans, kobolds, goblins, humans, and other typical adventurer fare) rounds down to 10 though, meaning that 'really easy questions' ("Are goblins short, smelly?") are probably commonly determined, but I forget how that works all the time.

[ManUtd4Ever]

I was schooled early on during my Sundren experience while role playing a Sacred Fist without any skill points in Religion. Since then, I have invested in the appropriate points (whether they were class skills or not) based on each build and back story.

About three months ago I encountered a situation in where an epic character of mine was being sassed by someone he did not know. I rolled intimidate (his toon selected) immediately before I gave him a stern warning. What I got in return was ((How about a little role play before using that skill roll...)) Anyone should expect to be challenged if they are using foul and or intimidating language towards a character they do not know. Case in point, I was told to "piss off..." Not wise when chatting with an epic level Vampire.

I fully support and encourage RPing your skills and attribute points. Further, I ask all to remember not to dismiss someone who invested heavily in a particular skill and subsequently executes a superior roll. If you don't like it... keep it in character and don't break immersion with (()).

Cheers!

[thaelis]

Personally I'd be in favour or Int/Lore checks being limited to DC 10.

Knowledge skills require a huge investment. Someone who's put 20 points in Lore should not be anywhere near as Knowledgeable as someone who has even 10 points in all Knowledge skills (which costs them...80 skill points at least?).

As for RP'ing Knowledge, I used to make a roll if something tricky came up in conversation. However, most players don't like it and well send you a tell along the lines of "Dude, you don't need to make Knowledge rolls to know about the Demons of the Abyss/Planar bridging techniques!." This really puzzles me. I guess people don't want to feel like their characters are stupid, but didn't invest in Knowledge....so their only recourse is to ignore the knowledge skills existence entirely ><