Greetings, brethern,
I cannot make up my mind about the following question:
What (besides being a prequisite for buying Sorcery Talents) can be done with Scholastic Lore (Occultismen) that cannot be done with Forbidden Loren (Daemonolgy or Warp) ?
Perhaps you can help me out. Thank you!
Well, as per the IH, you can use it to get a +10 bonus to Invocation tests at the cost of increased time to make the Invocation. The alternative is Imperial Creed, which isn't likely to help you if the Invocation is part of a Chaos Ritual. Likewise, Scholastic Lore (Occult) is linked specifically with Divination, such as that performed by the new Imperial Diviner class. There is also a divination-based item in the RH, the Prognosticaon, that require Scholastic Lore (Occult) to use.
Also, certain important bonuses only apply to Scholastic Lore tests, most significantly the effects of Cognator implants provided by the Calculus-Logi and Cortext Implant systems.
Aside from the basic differences between Scholarly and Forbidden Lore, Occult Lore relates to knowledge of rituals and the use of occult items in an abstract, detailed and not necessarily heretical sense, whereas Daemonology relates more specifically to knowledge such as the name of a specific Daemon, some level of understanding of the types of Daemons, etc. So generally speaking, to learn a summoning ritual, you'd need to research Forbidden Lore (Daemonology) to learn the name and nature of what one is summoning, but without Scholastic Lore (Occult), you might not understand anything about the components of the ritual (such as the Rule of Sympathy) beyond "that they work". With it and a successful check, you'd probably know several leading theories about the Rule of Sympathy, and be qualified to critique those theories. Of course, you may already have knowledge that falls into one or both fields on hand from whatever source you learned the ritual from, but you wouldn't necessarily have any way of knowing if that knowledge is accurate without successful checks in both fields.
A lot comes down to the GM, of course. Knowledge types overlap significantly, but each has a niche. I generally provide bonuses for having related knowledge feats, and occasionally penalties for lacking a significant form of knowledge related to a given test.
Likewise, I generally get the impression that the writers don't really think especially deeply about which of two closely related Knowledge tests are needed in a given situation.
While I haven't look, I expect the real differences are who can get which skill when and whether or not it's subject to penalties from Blessed Ignorance. I tend to see the overlap between various Lore's as really reflective of the "flavor" of the information. Think of Common Lore (Imperial Creed) vs Scholastic Lore (Imperial Creed)... the latter reflects a scholars understanding of the religious ideas and practices of the Imperial Cult, while the former represents the common citizens perspective. If someone needed to make an Imperial Creed test, both would be applicable but the "tone" of the information I'd provide on a successful test would be different. I'd play Scholastic Lore (Occultism) and Forbidden Lore (Daemonology) the same... they can be (often) used for the same tests but the tone of the answers would be different.
So the practical uses of "Scholastic Lore (Occultismen) which are not equally well covered by the Forbidden Lore are...
Sound to me, that if you able to take a "Forbidden" (and this isn´t ruining your character concept) you should go for "Forbidden" since it tends to give you the practical knowledge)... unless you need "just knowledge about all of it" in which case you go for Occultismen...or if you are a diviner.
As a GM to fellow GMs:
What practical use (that wasn´t covered by an FL) did you came up with by now? I was going to substitute it for FL in the case of "Defensive Wards". Know, I am thinking about penalties for "Rituals" if you are not knowing about Occultismen at all.
Hints to practical uses which will make this skill usefull to a pc in game welcome!
I fear that otherwise, one of my players will run around with a skill that will come in disuse and "surplus"
Gregorius21778 said:
So the practical uses of "Scholastic Lore (Occultismen) which are not equally well covered by the Forbidden Lore are...
That's sort of the point, isn't it... that all the practical uses of all that occult lore are forbidden because they're heretical warp-dabblings and similarly dubious notions. It's the lore of Scholars, the theories of academics (or rather, academics sane enough to not dabble in things that could get them executed in any of a thousand different ways)... not "Binding a Daemon for Dummies"
Gregorius21778 said:
When you're talking about daemons and psykers and other matters of the warp, defensive wards can easily be turned around. In the particular case of Pentagrammic Wards - used to repel and harm daemons by warding places, armour and weapons with them - a minor adjustment can turn that defensive ward into something that keeps Daemons in, rather than out, at which point you stray into the realm of Things That Man Should Not Know And Really Should Not Do.
Scholastic Lore (Occult) allows you to identify patterns and symbols and other trappings of profane rituals (useful for any investigator, as that'll tell you that Something Bad happened in a given place, even if you might not know the precise details or be able to recreate the ritual), as well things less blasphemous (and less potent for it); it's a knowledge of the occult, without pushing into the forbidden things - the forbidden being the matter of actually knowing how to summon daemons or call upon the powers of the Warp for fun and profit. More pertinently, if you're studying matters of the strange and occult, few libraries and archives will contain tomes that pertain to a Forbidden Lore, so Scholastic Lore (Occult) comes into its own during investigations, as a far greater quantity of research material relevant to the skill is available...
Personally, my inclination is more to keep a close eye on the availability and use of Forbidden Lore skills; that's not the kind of information someone should be flaunting or dabbling in too readily (even where it makes sense, knowledge is power; a Tech-Priest with Forbidden Lore (Adeptus Mechanicus) knows a lot about the workings of the Cult of the Machine... but he's not likely to share it with outsiders without extremely good reason); Scholastic Lore skills are far more acceptable for frequent and/or public demonstrations of knowledge.
N0-1_H3r3 said:
Personally, my inclination is more to keep a close eye on the availability and use of Forbidden Lore skills; that's not the kind of information someone should be flaunting or dabbling in too readily ...
Yeah, sure. But thats about the only reason. That you will get Daemonology around 7t or 8th rank (or not at all) while Occultismen is "ready for grabbing". Which IS making sense, since it is restricted knowledge.
But without this barriers, it feels to me that the Forbidden Lores are the better choice. You get the same thing benefits as plus an extra [practical knowledge].
Gregorius21778 said:
Of course they're the better choice. If they didn't cover a greater range of knowledge, some of which has practical (if blasphemous) applications, and other parts of which are simply not supposed to be known by people in general, they wouldn't be Forbidden Lores. It's all the extra stuff that makes them Forbidden...