Knowledge (War) (INT; Trained only)

(Oriental Adventures variant, p. 57)

Description

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. With your DM's approval, you can invent new areas of knowledge.

  • Arcana (ancient mysteries, astrology, magic traditions, arcane symbols, cryptic phrases)
  • Architecture and engineering (buildings, bridges, fortifications)
  • Barbarian lore (lands outside Rokugan, their people and customs)
  • Geography (lands of Rokugan, terrain, climate, people and clans)
  • History (royalty, wars, colonies, migrations, founding of cities)
  • Local (legends, personalities, inhabitants, laws, and traditions of one clan or small region)
  • Nature (plants and animals, seasons and cycles, weather)
  • Nobility and royalty (lineage, heraldry, customs, family trees, mottoes, personalities, laws)
  • Religion (ancestors, Shintao, the Fortunes, rituals, sacred symbols)
  • Shadowlands (goblins, ogres, nezumi, other Shadowlands creatures and dangers, maho, the Taint)—Rokugan only
  • Spirits (spirit creatures, the spirit world)
  • War (military history, strategy, tactics, war machines)

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).

Also appears in

  1. Sword and Fist: A Guidebook to Monks and Fighters

Required for feats

Feat name