House Rule: Knowledge Skills

I have been thinking deep thoughts, as I often do. My thoughts this time are about Knowledge skills. Knowledge skills provide background info for a character and might provide a profession as well. Knowledge skills also allow a GM to provide campaign info. However, skill points are valuable and most players would rather sink a point into Fighting than Knowledge: Occult. A higher Fighting die may help kill the evil priest. Knowledge: Occult may tell you that the evil priest was casting Summon Cthulhu, but that Knowledge does not make an enemy dead.

 

I’ve tried to think of ways that Knowledge: Occult would provide a +1 Bonus / +2 on a Raise. However, tracking which Knowledge skill was used, remembering the bonus number, and determining when the bonus could be applied are all problems. I am sure that it would lead to power-spanking-munchkinism as well.

 

Besides, I want Knowledge skills to be ways to flesh out your character, not just provide a bonus to a roll. There’s a difference between a character with Knowledge: Occult d6 and one with Knowledge: Battle d6. Every character should have some kind of Knowledge skill. Knowledge skills are also an easy way for the GM to provided campaign info that he wanted to give to you guys anyway.

 

So then I thought of free Knowledge skills based on your Smarts die. Totems lets a character know a number of languages equal to his Smarts divided by two. The same concept could be applied for Knowledge skills except that the number derived by dividing your Smarts die by two is the number of skill points you get to assign to Knowledge skills only. So a character with a d4 Smarts would have two skill points to spend on Knowledge skills.

 

Example: Built-Like-A-Bear is a two weapon fighter with Smarts d6. This would give him three free Knowledge skill points. He might assign the points as “Knowledge: League of the Long House d4”, “Knowledge: Weapon Making d4”, and “Knowledge: Battle d4”. Faith, a shaman, also has Smarts d6. She might take “Knowledge: Arcane d4” and Knowledge: Religion d6”. This reflects her interest in magic and religion. It also shows a sheltered upbringing, or growing up in a backwoods village, as she doesn’t know much about local events.

 

Once the free points are assigned, Knowledge skills are raised like any other skills. Built-Like-A-Bear could spend 1 skill point to raise his Knowledge: Battle from a d4 to a d6, or 3 points to a d8.

 

Gambling is renamed to “Knowledge: Gambling” and falls under this house rule. Our group hardly ever uses this skill. Maybe giving it away for free will mean PCs actually using it.

 

Knowledge: Herbalism is going to be just Herbalism and doesn’t fall under this house rule. Otherwise, every player in our game would crank this skill to the max and then spend every session making peyote and smoking hallucinogenic mushrooms.

 

Tim