| To Skills |
 The School of Athens - fresco by Raffaello Sanzio (1511) Raffaello
Sanzio (1483–1520) |
Like the Craft and Profession skills, Knowledge actually encompasses a number of unrelated skills. Knowledge represents a study of some body of lore, possibly an academic or even scientific discipline.
Below are listed typical fields of study.
The following list supplements the areas of expertise accessible to anyone with ranks in the Knowledge skill
| Ink
& Quill Author Thomas Knauss Series Dragonwing Games/Bastion Press Netbook can be found on the following website The Grand OGL Wiki |
Anthropology and Archeology (ancient ruins and humanoids, ancient history, legends)
Astrology and Astronomy (constellations, planetary movement, reading of omens, stellar phenomenon) (New)
Botany (plants, fungi, sentient plants)
Chemistry (properties of chemicals, compounds, organic materials)
Demonology (New)
Law(New)
Literature (epic poems, literary devices, mythology, plays, sonnets)
Martial Arts (fighting styles, combat)
Mathematics (algebra, calculus, geometry)
Music (instruments, hymns, reading music)
Oceanography (underwater life, fishing, sailing, navigation)
Pathology and Physiology (disease, anatomy, birth processes, causes of death) Each creature type requires its own ranks, i.e., Pathology and Physiology of humanoids is vastly different to the Pathology and Physiology of dragons.
Physics (inertia, motion,
acceleration, gravity)
The Planes
Sociology (cultures, traditions, city planning, streetwise)
Toxicology (organic and synthetic poisons, narcotics)
Undead (vampires, Zombies, skeletons)
Witchcraft (New)
The only other skill necessitating additional awareness is Decipher Script. Cryptographers, masters of secret codes, use this skill to measure the difficulty class required to decipher any encrypted message. They also use the skill to decipher encrypted messages. The exact specifics on adjudicating the creation and breaking of coded messages is thoroughly discussed under the cryptographer prestige class heading.
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.
Try Again
No. The check represents what you know, and thinking about a topic a second time doesn't let you know something that you never learned in the first place.
Untrained
An untrained Knowledge check is simply an Intelligence check. Without actual training, you know only common knowledge (DC 10 or lower).
| To Skills |
The Worlds of Mankind is owned and created by Mark John Goodwin
The text on this page is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.
‘d20
System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of
the Coast, Inc.
and are used according to the terms of the d20 System License
version 6.0.
A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.