Which Knowledge skill represents Philosophy?

[Hoihe]

A character who wishes to discuss a certain science, per the Play your Character sheet rule, needs to have an appropriate amount of ranks in said skill (preferably by the views of a DM who realizes that NPCs too do these jobs and doesn't ask for a modifier of 50 to discuss basic stuff but rather along the lines of 5-25).

With that, which skill should one rank if they want to avoid risk of being accused by more pedantic critics of not playing their sheet?

Intelligence modifier for knowledge skills only works for common knowledge, but even just 1 rank to show training opens it for higher. So what should one take that rank in?

[whatsittoya]

Well, while you might not think Philosophy is a specific discipline, its five major branches are considered specific disciplines.

Logic, Ethics, Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Aesthetics. Like any branch of study or inquiry, each have dozens of their own theories and applications, too. I'd just roll intelligence or wisdom depending on the branch.

[Arn]

I've just been relying on my character's Wisdom score for his particular brand of RP.

Otherwise, if we really want to cover our butts, I guess Lore: Religion would be the closest of the available skills. I figure the teachings of the gods are probably the basis of a lot of Faerunian philosophy.

Funny thing is, Mi-Le started off not knowing anything about the Faerunian gods. But over the years, he's gone out of his way to ask about and learn about their teachings. So I can RP that knowledge without metagaming, but I still don't have the Lore: Religion ranks to reflect it.

[Hoihe]

Now the question is if there were any historical philosophers on Faerun that one can cite in discussions!


@ chamb

Hidden: show

That's not really what the "play your character sheet rule" is about.

It's more about players portraying their characters having powers they don't have, or being of a different race, things in the broader sense that would lead to breaking immersion or metagaming information straight from the wiki or godmoding with abilities that the character doesn't have.

And it's badly written at that, the whole "and roleplaying as if you are otherwise (even under the guise of "insanity")" is rather misleading, I'm pretty sure we're allowed to role play that our gnomes believe they are polymorphed dragons because they're insane or something. It'd make 0 sense for that to be expressly prohibited, it's a perfectly valid portrayal of a character, so at the least, it could be reworded. Just my personal opinion.

But anyway back on point, philosophy isn't really a specific discipline, you can have a philosophical discourse regarding any of the domains of any of the knowledge skills.

In fact I dare say philosophizing should require 0 ranks in anything, it's just the act of discussing a matter from a transcendent perspective and not so much the ability to discern the elements or technicalities of a topic or denoting a possession of any sort of formal formation or even informal information/knowledge respective to a discipline or topic.

Like, I could philosophize about macroeconomics for hours but I really have no "ranks" in that, if that makes any sense.
Though it's possible some sourcebook makes some off handed ruling at some point in one page of the thousands of pages that there are across the hundreds of DnD sourcebooks, literally disregarding hundreds of years of valid intellectual debates and missing the point to philosophy altogether.

I know players who have such strong views on play your character sheet, that they would likely disagree with you about the fact that this is in fact covered by play your character sheet, and we all should be ashamed for not having ranks in something!

[Maecius]

Probably from these lists:

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/C ... ilosophers
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Sages

This may also be of interest to nerds, er, I mean erudite characters:

http://www.candlekeep.com/library/articles/booklist.htm

[TarnishedSoul]

On another server I've played, there was an additional Lore / Knowledge skill called "Sagecraft." Its function was as the catch-all for anything not already covered by Lore / Knowledge; players simply needed to allocate their points and inform the DMs.

[Tekill]

I remember a camp fire conversation once where my vegan elf brought up the 'meat is murder' discussion, after someone offered her stew. That conversation somehow meandered into a discusssion about whether rocks can think, then to "are good people really selfless since the goal is to get to heaven". No checks were made during this convo....was still fun.

But yeah, I have been successfully playing philosophy as all 'Knowledges Skills', as they pertain to a specific subject. It helps when I have some insight into a subject but I am not sure if my player would.

My wisdom score and alignment will reflect my characters answer as well.

A lot of the meta-physical side of things would indeed fall under lore religion.
Example:
"But what really is magic?" -Lore arcana, or lore Religion if discussing the Mystra connection.

I play it loose though, kind of a best fit when rolling between players and if a DM is around they wil make a judgment call on the skill.

If the orc barbarian with the dent in the head is trying to answer the question "What is the end state of all mortals?"
If there is not a specific "knowledge" skill he would want to tie his answer to, then give him a wisdom check. But- A Gray Orc with a head dent, might actually do okay with an answer....which is wierd....

Correct answer to the end state of all mortals, is: To kill the Gods!

[Svabodnik]

I suppose it depends on what aspect of philosophy would fall under the purview of "knowledge", exactly. Knowledge skills tend to be in regards to forms of factual information.

Knowledge (history) would probably cover knowing about great philosophers, what their views and teachings were, or about philosophical movements separate from religions dogma. For example, knowing about the Faerunian equivalent of Aristotle, Weber, or Nietzsche (if there was such a thing), the formal arguments of Stoicism, Realism, or Postmodernism (if similar things have cropped up in some part of Faerunian past), etc.

Knowledge (local) would give one information regarding cultural norms for certain parts of the world - what the laws, taboos, moral outlook, and political leanings of the place are, and the potential reasons for why such things are the way that they are.

Likewise, Knowledge (religion) would cover any actual divine tenants of faith, essentially giving an understanding of what certain deities (or demonic cults) deem holy or heretical.

Of course, any factual knowledge regarding any of the above has no actual bearing on what the character themselves would think regarding the validity of such moral codes. Knowing about 'philosophy' doesn't necessarily translate to an ability to 'philosophize' (though it may certainly help shape a character's own personal views if they know about what great minds, mortal or divine, have said about any particular subject in the past).