Lore and your character

[Grozer]

All this lore is great especially planar, good vs evil, demons and devils (yeah I know go figure I would like those areas the most ), but I wanted to raise an important point. I cant seem to find the original thread so can the DM's either reiterate or correct me if wrong, but I seem to recall that Many as One once made a very good post about how much of this your character should actually know.

Just because the details are here does not mean its common knowledge in my opinion. Its one of the negatives of having all this great information easily accessible and posted, not that I am suggesting it be removed at all... merely hoping players understand the difference between what you as a player know and what your PC knows. I would encourage players to learn this lore in game it can rather intriguing to say the least. Personally, I had a blast with Ranan in a certain plot that opened his eyes to the planes and a deeper understanding of the Abyss and the Hells.

Anyway just a thought...

[ancientempathy]

what grozer said is very true

hmm, MaO's specific comment should be saved somewhere I think, or just rehashed differently somewhere else..i can try to find it, but grozer still nails it

[anotherzoomie]

I know it's a discussion I've glanced at a few times in different places on the forum, but what is the protocol for making lore rolls to determine knowledge? I know that Bioware jammed Lore and Knowledge together, but I've never gotten a clear story on how we're supposed to handle that.

The average lore for my characters is 10 or so, but I know that doesn't mean they have 10 Knowledge (planes) and/or 10 Knowledge (sailing). Is there a way for us to denote which areas of expertise our characters actually know?

[ShadowCatJen]

This isn't the rule, but it's what I do.

Find yourself a file card and actually put what lore your character knows. I did that for mine and can just look at the card for reference and let a DM know how many points I have towards which lore if a lore roll is needed.

So if it's Lore concerning vampires I know my character has 5 ranks in Vampire Lore. She has 3 for General Religion and 2 rank strictly for her knowledge on cloth material. She is a tailor after all.

Just think to yourself about your character's persona and try to figure what would they know. It can be as simple as "Local Knowledge" or specific as "Arcana - Necromancy".

[ancientempathy]

Shadowcat has a nice approach

[ashaffer]

I think it's up to each player to decide what areas of lore they would know, but with the understanding that a PC knowing uncommon, or rare, lore must be approved by a DM first... Especially if the lore has to do with a DM's plot.

Making the assumption you would know about something uncommonly known, then spreading the info to other people who think you got it legitimately, is really bad form, and is basically metagaming.


DM Ancient put it well in Lore of the Lands thread in the Lore section of the forum:

One of the more important things to keep in mind is that information found within this portion of the forums isn’t necessarily knowledge a players character can always have. Please use good judgment and common sense. A good example of an unknown topic to a player’s character may include the Shadow Weave, the Shadovar, certain secretive societies, and things that are legitimately meant to be kept as secrets in general. A good rule of thumb; less is better.

If anyone ever has questions, comments, or concerns, then please feel free to contact myself or one of the other DM’s on the crew.

[ancientempathy]

Dug this up, a snipet of information that Hexer made (think this may have been what Grozer was thinking of):

No character should know anything about the planes that exsist outside of Toril's own cosmology.

The known planes are as follows:

The Abyss, Avandor, Brightw.ater, the Barrens of Doom and Despair, Cynosure (mortals don't know of this one), Demonweb Pits, Dragon Eyrie, Dwarfhome, Dweomerheart, Elemental Planes, The Fugue Plane, Fury's Heart, Gates of the Moon, The Golden Hills, Green Fields, Hammergrim, Heliopolis, House of Knowledge, House of Nature, House of the Triad, the Nine Hells (Baator), Nishrek, Plane of Shadow, The Supreme Throne, and Warrior's Rest

Only the most powerful and seasoned sages would know anything about planes beyond these (and the knowledge they gleamed from it is likely to be scant at best). Places like the Outlands, Sigil, Mechanus, Archeron, Arcadia, Pandemonium, Gehenna, etc, are not common knowledge. Your character should know nothing about them.

This does not apply to people that have learned about the planes outside of Toril's cosmology via a DM run event. The only planes I want to see players being aware of are the ones that are detailed in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. Any knowledge about the planes beyond that is metagaming info from other sourcebooks into your character which isn't allowable. Again, this does not apply to characters that have learned this from a DM run event or from a player in such an event.

Thank you.

EDIT: Players that can cast spells to summon outsiders may be able to extend their knowledge slightly. A Marut, for example, hails from Mechanus, so the player may be able to question it a bit about its home. Still, the player learns little, limited to just knowing there is a plane of law somewhere called Mechanus.

Found here:

frc.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=frclotlplanar&action=display&thread=8759

Gonna put more info up in that thread someday, but presently hybernating

[Deleted]

Myself and some of the other members of Alizarin actually have a guild section where we declare our lore ranks into different areas.

For example:

Darkharp has his ranks split between Knowledge: Alchemy, Knowledge: The Planes, Knowledge: Local-Cormyr, and Knowledge: Arcana.

This isn't the way most people do it, but I feel like it is the most honest and accurate way to handle lore ranks as the knowledge skill.

[EDM Entori]

I like to do this too, I prefer for my character at least knowledge arcana, knowledge history. with a little bit of knowledge planes.

[anotherzoomie]

Jan 26, 2009 18:42:57 GMT -5 ashaffer said:

I think it's up to each player to decide what areas of lore they would know, but with the understanding that a PC knowing uncommon, or rare, lore must be approved by a DM first... Especially if the lore has to do with a DM's plot.

That's understandable, and while I haven't sat down and really hammered it out, I doubt any of my characters have some divinely useful chunk of wisdom sitting around in the attic. I appreciate the responses that you've given, and it all sounds like good guidance, but in the end there are two things that I'd like a firmer answer on.

First, what is the mechanism by which a DM decides how many ranks of Knowledge a character has total? If the standard is "what is reasonable for a person of his/her life experience to know," then is there a good benchmark out there for just how much lore means what? For example, if I were to take ranks in Knowledge (U.S. Government), what DC would a check against knowing which state a particular U.S. Senator is from, as opposed to knowing that the recipe for Capitol Bean Soup, as originally ordered by Representative Joseph Gannon in 1903?.

Second, is there a DM-approved method for submitting the ranks of Knowledge you'd think a character would have, as not to run into a hiccup later when my aforementioned knowledge of the bean soup recipe would allow me to circumvent the great Millennial FRC Soup Recipe Quest?

If there's already a thread for the Alizarin Academy, would it be out of the question to put up a thread somewhere where players could post their guesstimates about their character's Knowledge for DM review? It could be handled like the Nit-Pick thread, where posts are cleared once a DM has approved it, or it could be left to simmer as a great source of background and (obviously-not-to-be-metagamed) character stories.

Or am I making this harder than it has to be?

[ancientempathy]

hmm..*sleeps on it*

[EDM Entori]

Jan 27, 2009 1:36:50 GMT -5 anotherzoomie said:

Jan 26, 2009 18:42:57 GMT -5 ashaffer said:

I think it's up to each player to decide what areas of lore they would know, but with the understanding that a PC knowing uncommon, or rare, lore must be approved by a DM first... Especially if the lore has to do with a DM's plot.

That's understandable, and while I haven't sat down and really hammered it out, I doubt any of my characters have some divinely useful chunk of wisdom sitting around in the attic. I appreciate the responses that you've given, and it all sounds like good guidance, but in the end there are two things that I'd like a firmer answer on.

First, what is the mechanism by which a DM decides how many ranks of Knowledge a character has total? If the standard is "what is reasonable for a person of his/her life experience to know," then is there a good benchmark out there for just how much lore means what? For example, if I were to take ranks in Knowledge (U.S. Government), what DC would a check against knowing which state a particular U.S. Senator is from, as opposed to knowing that the recipe for Capitol Bean Soup, as originally ordered by Representative Joseph Gannon in 1903?.

Second, is there a DM-approved method for submitting the ranks of Knowledge you'd think a character would have, as not to run into a hiccup later when my aforementioned knowledge of the bean soup recipe would allow me to circumvent the great Millennial FRC Soup Recipe Quest?

If there's already a thread for the Alizarin Academy, would it be out of the question to put up a thread somewhere where players could post their guesstimates about their character's Knowledge for DM review? It could be handled like the Nit-Pick thread, where posts are cleared once a DM has approved it, or it could be left to simmer as a great source of background and (obviously-not-to-be-metagamed) character stories.

Or am I making this harder than it has to be?

the idea is nice, but the issue I see as a player is the constent change in lore Ranks, and if you gain IG knowledge from a player. Now you know that fact too.

now I had lots of problems with this when I first started role playing.

Best way I was told to handle it, if your iffy on the information or the information is in any possible way rare. Ask a dm first, if its not then its based on your ideals. If your character is from cormyr he'd likely know more about the cormyrian history/region then say an elf from evermeet, that elf just knows about evermeet, and elf related history etc.

That is where I would bring ranks into it. that elf if he has 10 arcane 7 history and 10 planes, well you apply it to the history, what sort of arcane, history and planes would that character worked with?


and go with the common stuff, there are plenty of "lore master" characters in game who know oodles and oodles of stuff, that you can go to.


your idea is a good one, but the issue I see is that if everyone posts their lore ranks, and everyone levels 2 levels in the next 6months now your looking at different ranks again, that have to be submitted, approved, and deleted.

I could of misunderstood your post, but I think its more of a personal thing to break up your lore that way. Though giving a list of the different lore types would help

[Micteu]

How do Rings of Insight fit into this? Do they give their bonus to all lore subcategories? Or do we say they're just for magic item identification?

[ShadowCatJen]

Jan 27, 2009 11:31:59 GMT -5 Micteu said:

How do Rings of Insight fit into this? Do they give their bonus to all lore subcategories? Or do we say they're just for magic item identification?

This thread here...

frc.proboards37.com/index.cgi?board=roleplaydiscussion&action=display&thread=778&page=2

... talks a bit about that. Contrary to my own post there, do go with the description of the rings, that being it's just for magic item identification.

Especially if the lore has to do with a DM's plot

Very very very much agree on this. It's because of a long running DM plot that my character has so many ranks specifically towards vampires. *eyeballs a particular DM* ;D As her levels have gone up since it's started most of the lore points she's gain has been towards that.

It might be a nice idea to put the general post of lore ranks suggested, but I don't think the thread should turn into some form of "stamp of approval". The Alizarin only do it because of the nature of the guild. The members sort of need to know what the other does and that was the easiest way to keep track of it... for both other members and ourselves.

If you're not sure if it's okay for your character to have lore ranks in a particular subject don't be afraid to PM or ask a DM. You never know what sort of interesting conversation may stem from it.

[Grozer]

How about we just keep it simple. Anyone can look things up and say, "Hey I have 25 ranks in lore so I know about planar travel", but I would ask, how did your character come across that knowledge? There are so very few NPCs or PCs that have experienced that who would have explained it? Yes we can all put in our PC background that in our character's home town they met a powerful wizard that researched planar travel. But does that make sense? I also do not want to constantly bombard the DMs over every single fact.

To me lore ranks arent enough, there needs to be a realistic RP reason as to how someone acquired said knowledge. Yes I know there are those that will now say well I can make up an RP reason to "know" a particular fact, but again I would suggest is that RP realistic?

Chances are every adventurer has some idea of the basics, they know planes exist, they know things live there but specifics would be something learned. And when I say learned I dont mean google the information... learn it in character through some kind of DM interaction.

My personal rule of thumb is my PC knows basic things and acquires more knowledge as he actually learns them not as he increases his lore ranks.... to me lore ranks do not serve this purpose but that is a whole other discussion.

[Munroe]

Jan 27, 2009 13:22:56 GMT -5 ShadowCatJen said:

Especially if the lore has to do with a DM's plot

Very very very much agree on this. It's because of a long running DM plot that my character has so many ranks specifically towards vampires. *eyeballs a particular DM* ;D As her levels have gone up since it's started most of the lore points she's gain has been towards that.

The knowledge skill associated with undead is actually Knowledge (religion).

Other than that I don't have much to say about this topic. When I try to decide if Lydia knows something, I think "would it be reasonable for Lydia to know this?" If I think it's general enough, I usually go with it. I'll give her more leeway when it comes to religion (including undead), music/dance, Calimshan (culture & history), and geography.

Knowledge skills (and Lore, for that matter) are usually used to make skill checks, which is more a matter of remembering something learned than just having learned it and knowing it forever concretely. If you want to know about ... a demon prince, for example. You make a Knowledge (the planes) check and based on your roll you might remember something you learned before, or if you're doing research in a library or hall of records, you make a Knowledge (the planes) check to learn something new in your research. You might also make a Knowledge (religion) check to learn about said demon prince if he interacted with a religion you know of, or a Knowledge (history) check if he took over a kingdom and led an army of fiends in an epic battle long ago.

If the player learned something in-character then the player can remember that information without making a Knowledge check, but if the player forgets, the DM might ask for a Knowledge check to see if the character remembers (in spite of the player forgetting).

But anyway, I don't break-up my Lore skill by individual points. I never thought it was necessary. Of course my character is also multi-classed as bard so picking up a lot of stray knowledge is one of her class features.

Hmm.. had a little more to say on the topic than I thought. I don't think there's a hard and fast rule DMs use to determine DCs though.

Except for one player in particular who told me he boosted his Lore skill specifically so a DM could never tell him he doesn't know something. I have a whole ruleset just for him.

Edit: To clarify, that last sentence was a joke. I did have a player tell me that once though.

[ancientempathy]

I like Grozer's points too.

I like what Munroe says as well.

[dragonboy]

I have been reading this post a bit and think that it might be a good idea to just put a list of the diffrent types of lore and examples of each type in a thread, But only if it's easy for both DMs and players.

[Deleted]

Hmmm. Well, here they are. I may of missed a few so people feel free to post any i missed.

~Sioladuil

[Micteu]

Would math go under Archetecture and engineering (projectile flights, for example)?

Would anatomy go under Nature?

Would chemistry go under Archetecture and engineering, under Arcana, under Nature, or under something else?

[Deleted]

I would imagine that anatomy would indeed go under Nature. If there was not already a heal skill which includes a study of anatomy. Chemistry, which i would class as Alchemy really, would go under Arcana. And Math would indeed go under Architeture. Granted, this is just my oppinion. Someone else can maybe add more details.

~Sioladuil

[Munroe]

Chemistry would probably go under Craft (Alchemy). Things that would be used in specific jobs would likely be Craft or Profession checks rather than straight Knowledge checks. Knowledge of anatomy is probably best represented in the Heal skill, though that also represents a talent at healing.

Note also that in the Forgotten Realms, Knowledge (Local) is replaced by individual Knowledge skills for the different regions. So you might have Knowledge (Calimshan local) or Knowledge (Cormyr local).

[Micteu]

So how are craft and profession handled?

[brian333]

Craft and Profession are the same thing, but craft actually produces a thing, (ex. craft: basketweaving produces baskets,) while profession produces a result, (ex. profession: lawyer gets your buddy's ass out of jail.)

In situations requiring checks, they are treated the same.

[Micteu]

Okay, to clarify, how are craft and profession handled on FRC, where we don't have any skills relating to such?

[Munroe]

Feb 5, 2009 13:21:37 GMT -5 Micteu said:

Okay, to clarify, how are craft and profession handled on FRC, where we don't have any skills relating to such?

These skills are primarily a means to get wealth outside of adventuring in D&D. (Usually most of them aren't invested in much beyond the first couple levels as the payout is low.) Aside from Craft Weapon, Craft Armor, and Craft Trap, Perform, and magic item crafting (via feats), the means of gaining wealth in FRC are through RP and adventuring.

Honestly, I think trying to draw analogies for all of them between D&D and NWN is a pointless pursuit. Just pretend. :-P Craft skills are INT-based, Profession skills are WIS-based. If you really want to roll something, you can roll Intelligence or Wisdom as appropriate. If it has to do with actually making something and you can make an analogy to Craft Armor or Craft Weapon (forging or woodworking?) or Craft Trap (such as clockwork machinery), you could potentially make one of those checks instead. That's just an idea to throw out there though and I'm not providing any formal rules for that as it's a suggestion if you need to do that to enhance your immersion or judge a success or failure, not anything official. Since other uses of those skills is actually NOT what they're intended for, you could even impose a penalty to your own roll. But again, that's just an idea.

Oh, btw, Micteu, your current avatar makes me want to punch that guy in the face. Is that you or a random picture?

[Micteu]

That's me hissing like a vampire.