Paradigm Concepts

[IanQuentin]

I was wondering of a couple of the knowledge skills could be renamed.

Heretical Lore either be renamed Heresy. Although, this may be better off as lore. It's a bit odd that the any of the organized churches would allow the 'book study' of Heresies so much to allow it to be a viable knowledge skill. Also, Knowledge: Religion would probably already cover the 'book study' allowed for determining/identifying/spouting-about heresy.

Obscure History as just History. There are some backgrounds, as well as a regional skill, that refers to just History. I assume the intent is to separate Obscure History the knowledge from Common History the lore. But I think just calling it History is enough and it's only listed as Obscure History under the Knowledge listing as far as I can tell.

Science be renamed Alchemy and Science (or Science and Alchemy). My primary character during the Coryani Chronicles had Knowledge: Science from the beginning and I believe I was only asked by a DM to make the check once during his 20 level lifetime. Most of the time when I offered to make a Knowledge: Science check, I was told to make a Craft (Alchemy) check instead and it just got to the point that I put ranks in it instead of Knowledge: Science. There is now an Artisan: Alchemy skill but that seems to be the process of 'performing it or making it' and not necessarily understanding how it all works, so I think a specific Knowledge skill is still useful.

Silence Lore should be a Lore instead as again I'm not sure how many books there would be about such a subject that I doubt one could truly study it in such a manner. And even under Lore, it may fall under Culture (nation) anyway or perhaps that could be renamed Lore: Culture (nation or organization).
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Jay Anderson - Knoxville, TN area
aka Obuasi Okoru, Altherian Priest of Althares
aka Morgan val'Virdan, Altherian War Psion (retired)
aka Ayeb, Gnomish Masseuse of Anshar (retired)
aka Liliana, the Troubled (retired)

[PaldarisQueen]

Anyone can roll a lore skill, while knowledge skills must be trained. I doubt random people even know about Heresy or the Silence, so I suspect they are in the right place. Only scholars would know enough to make a roll. IMHO. Can see your point about Heresy being included in Religion, however.

re: knowledge: science, that sounds, as we say at work, like a training issue. Since we don't have the bloat of knowledge skills that existed at one point in 3.x, it shouldn't be a problem, but authors and GMs should probably think about what the skills really are. Alchemy, to me, sounds like a subset of the skill. Not morally opposed to your change there, however.

And I thought the skills WERE Lore: Culture (nation)...

Carrie Amodio

[Hat]

I really, REALLY want to see a well-defined and limited set of knowledge and Lore skills and have that be final. Skills are really hard to come by in SE, at the very least from a competition perspective during advancement. I'd be far more inclined to have general categories for knowledge and Lore and maybe allow for a player to pick a specialty instead of a rank advancement that represented a +3 to +5 bonus.

Characters start typically with about 10 - 11 primary skill ranks (1 Race, 1 Region, 5 Archtype, ~3-4 Background). Often these double or triple up. With elective skills I'd say the max anyone is likley to start with is 6 as that would be 12 SP - double 6 stats in Logic and Resolve or the equivalent. I'm not convinced even if you had 12 SP you'd just take 6 skills rather than put at least some of those points into primary skill bumps.

With Etiquette and Lore they can at least be done untrained by anyone including Lore: Common History and Etiquette (Nation). I think that's fabulous! I think it'd be nice to give a bonus to each for home nation, but no big deal if not. At least you can try them.

There are 26 base skills including Melee, Ranged, Artisan, Perform, Knowledge, Lore, Etiquette and Arcanum all of which have multiple specializations. Arcanum probably doesn't count for this purpose as any given character would have at most 2, potentially 1 and most commonly 0.

If they want to increase the number of skills I'm ok with that as long as they at least consider increasing the number of skills that characters get.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

[IanQuentin]