Lore Rant (Sort of)

[TeoDeathDealer]

Following rant is given with all due respect and is not meant as a criticism to any person or persons (love and rainbows flow from Teo's invocation-stained fingers):

Lately I've had to deal with lore situations requiring lore roles in areas I, nor many others, are proficient. Doing this as the acting Guide to Candlekeep is frustrating enough, given I sit on the world's largest trove of knowledge (agreed, not 'all' knowledge) and experts who can extract that knowledge on command. However, that is a rant for another day.

This rant is about having too many lore categories. Its inefficient and stalls role play. Even a bard or wizard with a 30 int can't put enough points into all the lore categories to be a relevant lore master. And, why would we ask anyone to do so?

I recommend we whittle down the categories to a handful. This will allow players to have a better chance at making good lore roles; especially players who want to specialize as lore masters in one fashion or another.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to the gracious, well intentioned, and thoughtful responses.

[Theodore01]

......and make all these different lores useful mechanically.

Like let them all identify items (to a degree), so people can build different loremasters and still get a use outside DM events.

[chad878262]

Synergy to lore skills would be good too. Nature/ astronomy/ geography... arcana/ the planes... local/ nobility. Would allow a bit of a bonus for splitting 5 and 5 vs 10 in one.

As I said on discord, I never have enough skill points. It used to be stealth was a pain because it's 66 points. Now if you want disguise you also need bluff. And lore skills...ugh

[Tsidkenu]

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).

[Steve]

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.

Action
Usually none. In most cases, making a Knowledge check doesn’t take an action—you simply know the answer or you don’t.

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

Doesn't it seem implausible that any PC would be a master at every Knowledge-based Skill? Or at least, if they weren't a Level 30 and 30 INT Character?

[Montleberry]

I feel like it was a good idea to split them, but perhaps taken slightly too far. I see the point of no one character being an expert on everything, allowing lore focused characters to be specialists by character sheet. With the addition of a number of skills not in the base game I feel often spread a little too thin at times though. A middle ground might still prevent experts in all things while allowing lore based characters to be a bit more...sagey.

Maybe a consolidation of ten lore skills to a few less, along the lines of:

Lore: Arcana (arcana / dungoneering / planes)
Lore: Cultural (history / local / royalty / religion)
Lore: Architecture/Engineering
Lore: Natural (geography / astronomy / nature)

Something slightly more condensed like that feels like it might be somewhere between one fits all lore skill and having more lore skill options than most classes get skill points at a level up. Ten lore skills does feel like a bit more than the skills per level supports, especially with other custom skills like sense motive and so on added.

[Theodore01]

or adding heavy (10 pounds or more) specific lore tomes that grant +10 to a specific lore skill.

[DM Mercy]

Personal opinion here.

Stop aiming for max ranks in every lore skill. It's broken up so you can display different areas of study, no one is an expert at everything. Rather then trying to max one or two spread them around to represent what you have studied. 10 ranks is enough to be an expert in a field without an int bonus.

As to mechanical benefit there are lore nodes around that grant XP and little lore bits if you have the correct knowledge skill. Making them identify items would likely be hard, more then that however it's a role play server. That alone gives the skills value in my books.

[Hendrak]

Harper Priest (PrC) : Oghmas Insight = +10 to all Lore. Bardic Knowledge +1

Cleric: Prayer = +1 to all skill. Knowledge and Spell domain have spells to buff to.

Wizard: Spells (Fox Cunning, Greater Heroism, legend Lore), High INT for many skill points.

Bards: Have all spells + bardic skill inspiration + bardic knowledge

Warlocks: Eldircht lore class feature (+2 to all skills). Otherworldy whispers invocation (+6 to Lore)

I have a cleric which can self buff to 18 or 19 in each lore skill, with out having base points in it or bard levels.

There's plenty of room to play a "loremaster" for the "educated" classes (tough not so much for monk which also belong to candlekeep standard professions).

[aaron22]

an int based bard can have really good skills in all the skills and is even playable. It will even work on a int -2 race. don't ask me how I know this

[Planehopper]

an int based bard can have really good skills in all the skills and is even playable. It will even work on a int -2 race. don't ask me how I know this

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.

As it stands most characters with high intelligence can easily pick a topic or two to be really good at, and a few to know well. Characters with high intelligence that are made with a lore-based concept can know more areas better. I think thats how it should be?

A feat line of 'sage craft', 'improved sage craft', and 'epic sage craft' that offer +2, +4, and +6 (replacing the previous) in all lore skills may be a nice add.

[Aspect of Sorrow]

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

[aaron22]

i also think that players need to realize that a mod of 20+ is pretty darn good.

I would defiantly support sage feats and think that 1,2 and 4 are good numbers to apply here. there are 10 lore skills. that is a lot of points to consider.

[Montleberry]

I agree that no one should be an expert on everything, or should have to make real sacrifices to do so, and the current situation isn't some limitation to my enjoyment or anything. Neither this or my last post are any sort of complaint. I do tend to find in game the need for lore skill is a bit different than
some of the more pen and paper examples. I mostly find that when a character is using a lore skill roll would be a DM event. My experience has been DMs seem to most often set succesful skill checks for harder things around 30 in events. The roll is usually just a skill roll without take 10 type options. Being able to take 10 in game would make 10 skill feel like an expert as mentioned. I haven't ever
seen a chance to do that. My fault of course for not actually asking to do so, though sometimes it is hard to get everyone to slow down enough to make these type of requests of a DM trying to keep up and be everywhere in the chaos of events.

I got interested in this post as I am currently trying to make a highly lore focused character and it actually led me to a very RP oriented build I am very much enjoying. Level 14 with 7-13 points in all lore skills so far. I justified it to myself by making the character an elderly Oghmanite. Plenty of time to learn and total lack of tumble/spot/listen and so on reflect being frail and old.
This made me decide to go all in on being believably (to me) elderly and bottoming out Str/Dex/Con and opting for Slow and Poor Eyesight as level one feats. If I am going to RP an old woman I don't want her to be a barbarian axing down all the monsters of the server and come off as ridiculous. She shuffles around using, and very much needing, magic to enhance her physicallity enough to get around.
It has been very fun - so it is possible to make a widely knowledgeable lore character still with a little effort on making the RP fit and be enjoyable, for me to play anyway.

Old grey mare is everthing she used to be.

[Tsidkenu]

I have a cleric which can self buff to 18 or 19 in each lore skill, with out having base points in it or bard levels.

Yet such a character would not be able to roll on Lore checks exceeding a DC of 10. You require at least one spent rank in a respective lore skill in order to check for more than 'Common Knowledge' (DC 10). Hence why my former Mystran had one spent rank in every lore skill, and more in the skills of her specialisations (Astronomy, Arcana, Planes, Religion).

Use Take 10 folks! You're adventurers, not commoners!