Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Tsidkenu wrote:You require at least one spent rank in a respective lore skill in order to check for more than 'Common Knowledge' (DC 10).

I'm not sure this applies (or even can be applied) on bg Tsid.... How is a DM to know if you spent one rank in a given lore skill or are wearing an item which enhances it? If I were a DM I would not want to look at each player's sheet, all equipment, feats, and add up what the skills are without any spent games just to figure out if they spent a point on a given check.

Could maybe add a little info dump to a lore roll that says trained maybe if possible?

The DM will know I have spent rank in lore skills because I'm honest and I'll tell them at the time a roll is called for

Tsidkenu wrote:You require at least one spent rank in a respective lore skill in order to check for more than 'Common Knowledge' (DC 10).

I am glad this came about. I assumed otherwise and know now to put a point in the ones that are cherry-picking off feats and stats.

Aspect of Sorrow wrote:

Planehopper wrote:I agree. I like the current system. You can play a sage-type character if you build it that way. INT based bards or lore-focused wizards may not win any medals for efficiency but you don't have to be mechanically superior to level successfully. I think that concept is lost sometimes as we all try to optimize our builds.

+1

+2

1) You don't need max ranks in every lore skill, as stated below. DMs won't be asking for DCs in the 50s like other skills, unless its to know that Ao exists or something.

2) Your character isn't going to know everything about everything off-hand, unless you build for it. Sorry to break that to you.

3) Use take 10, as Tsidkenu has repeatedly noted.

Knowledge skills are perfect ATM.

chad878262 wrote:

Tsidkenu wrote:You require at least one spent rank in a respective lore skill in order to check for more than 'Common Knowledge' (DC 10).

I'm not sure this applies (or even can be applied) on bg Tsid.... How is a DM to know if you spent one rank in a given lore skill or are wearing an item which enhances it? If I were a DM I would not want to look at each player's sheet, all equipment, feats, and add up what the skills are without any spent games just to figure out if they spent a point on a given check.

Some skills "fail" to roll unless you have one point in them aka you've been trained in them. Maybe this could be implemented for knowledge rolls as well.

Overall, its not a big issue though. We could even houserule that for BG you don't need to have 1 point to roll it, that would be in line with current mechanics. DMs rarely (never been asked myself) ask you if you are trained to roll anyway.

You don't need 33 in each skill. Hide/ms might need 33. Tumble/spellcraft are nice at 30. Lore skills can be 10 and have a good shot in most events I have seen.

I did have one time when Maxwell the Halfdwarven saw an item on the ground, stated what it was, and then was told he didn't know what it was because the lore DC was 70. Of course having 33 + 10 from int + 20 from spells would have made the roll possible at that point I realized the dm simply didn't want Maxwell to know so I decided to avoid that event chain.

Which brings me to my conclusion. Most players on the server are better off not being able to be a master in all lore. Candlekeep is the exception. Find the acolyte/seeker with the highest skill. Ward them with skill buffs. Chances are a DM would let an expert in the field take a 20 in a peaceful setting with many days to research in the worlds largest library. A DM will succeed it to continue the plot or fail it to continue the plot. Chances are Candlekeep won't miss out on anything because a DM thinks your level 30 should have more than 20 points in something vaguely related to balduran fishmongers or something.

Or just roll a bard.

Tsidkenu wrote:1 point in a lore skill means you've studied it professionally and can attempt checks exceeding a DC of 10.

You can take 10 on any lore check in general circumstances (ie can't fail general knowledge questions of DC 10 even if untrained).

You can take 20 on any lore check if you have proper resources at your disposal (ie. Candlekeep's Library) and a DM lets you. DMs should also be granting significant circumstance bonuses for having access to Candlekeep's Archives (I'd say a minimum of +10).

Add INT mods and other bonuses, you don't really need more than 5 ranks in any lore to beat DC 25 (hard question) checks.

Categories are perfectly fine as is, no changes are needed there. No-one is a know-it all (except bards, but they're special).

Here's the problem:

DMs are not exactly known for following P&P DCs.

I've had one DM outright tell me they simply look at the character's level and add 10-20 to it depending on how hard they want the roll to be.

Cue DC of 40 to know navigate from Waterdeep to BG using Knowledge (Astronomy). DC of 40 to know about basic gods. DC of 40 for basic questions of engineering, of nature.

So you carefully use the P&P DCs to allocate your points according to your vision of your character - just 1 point all over to indicate good general education, then 10 in a few where your character is a journeyman, 15 in others where your character is an expert, 20 in the remaining one or few where they're an expert.

With 10 int bonus and 15 points indicating you're an expert, you'll never pass the DC for "average difficulty question" asked by the above DM.

And also, most people don't know about the existence of take 10 or even take 20. Nor about frequently re-rolled skills (which eliminates elven advantage to detection skills, since their advantage would be increasing the chance of rolling high..)

It's an online environment wit lots of different people. Expecting everyone to have and follow the same knowledge is a pipe dream. Communication with DMs and other players is key. Ad hoc events are tough to discuss before hand but planned/ requested events can be discussed prior via PM or discuss pretty easily.

chad878262 wrote:It's an online environment wit lots of different people. Expecting everyone to have and follow the same knowledge is a pipe dream. Communication with DMs and other players is key. Ad hoc events are tough to discuss before hand but planned/ requested events can be discussed prior via PM or discuss pretty easily.

^ Pretty much this.

We're probably not going to establish a huge "Bible of DCs" that all players and DMs are expected to follow. It would be an enormous effort and not provide much bang for the buck. Moreover, many DMs and players would simply disregard it or not know about it after a little while (as often happens with general reference pages on the forum).

For the same reasons, even a "formula" for determining DCs probably won't be adopted, though that's up to the DMs.

My advice is to treat it like you're going to your real life D&D table, and discuss with the DM what you're trying to achieve and what you feel might be a fair DC. Be prepared to negotiate and compromise. Avoid walls of text that might not get read in whole or understood fully by a hurried DM.

On topic: The point of breaking apart the lore skills is to allow for specialists. You can modify your rolls by accessing reference tools (like books at Candlekeep), but it used to be that someone with 33 Lore could RP as being a master of everything. Now there is room for world-class astronomers, architects and engineers, and so on. Not just one dude named Lord Mage Wikipedia.