hello there!

Wghile building a charcter, I found that knowledges are not that clear. Yes, they are, but there seems to be some heavy overlap in them. Could you use both Xenology and Underworld knowledges to learn hutt stuff?

What about the stuff beyond the rim? Is Outer Rim knowledge what you need? What covers recent galactic history?

questions ar eoriented to know what an explorer would need. Xenology and outer rim seem likely candidates 8and underworld since she is likely to be hutt-financed), but if he finds a battle spaceship graveyard of the clone wars, would that only be Warfare knowledge, or could it use other knowledges?

How do you use these?

My take would be that for example, Xenology would cover the biology of Hutts, Underworld the criminal empires of Hutts, and Outer Rim the politics and recent history of Hutts. Clearly there would be overlap, how much would depend on the GM. In practice many skills have overlap, and the general recommendation is that the GM should let the player use it if it makes sense. We tend to play it that some skills are easier to get the information than others.

The ship graveyard in the Outer Rim might have, say, Perception to notice something interesting based on appearance, Mechanics to identify ship types and evaluate damage, Gunnery to identify weapons used, Outer Rim to recall history, but Warfare might give most of that as it is more appropriate.

Be careful:
Xenologie is used to determine if you know anything specific about an race. In case of the Hutts: you could know, how old they grew, how much weight they put on in a year, that they are fluid sexual, and that most of them love riches, live in clans and / or are likely involved with some kind of illegal activities.

Underworld is used to define your knowledge of the current illegal sites on your position. in the Hutt example: you'd know that the Deslijic clan is lead by Jabba, that his rival is Durgaa of the Besadii clan, that jabba mostly makes his money with spice-smuggeling and organize gambling, you may know who is his representiv on the planet your on and what this guys favourit drink or sin is and how much it will aproximatly will cost you to get into buisness with him.

Then Outer Rim Knowledge is used to get clear how much you know about specifics of a planet or city in the outer rim: (stayin with your Hutt example) you'd find out that Tatooine is in the grip of one Hutt Cartels, you may know that you can buy a handfull of dust with your republican credits, that there are mainly four sentient liveforms: Jawas, Tuskens, moistrefarmers and scum. You now may know that Mos Espa once was the side of the gret Boonta Eve Podracing area and that the biggest spaceport is in Mos Eisley, and that there would be the biggest chance to find a job for your crew. Oh and that the beggars canyon is homested to the giant Whoomprat (up to 2 meters!! nasty little critters!)

further more Education would be for everything that could be learned in school by common people: Hutts are a species that look like snarls, Moistrefarmers on any dry planet use vaporator to gain water out of the air during the night and day temperature changes, to drive in desserts the best is to use a crawling vehicle, if you use a speeder you should think about the sand that can block your engines, you should use some kind of sun protection if you are from a planet with a weaker sun, while hot during day the nights may freeze you to dead.

For your example for the old battlefield:

knowledge Lore: You know who had been fighting here and how it ended as it been recorded, like: here the CIS and the Old Republick clashed at each other over the prime position on Felucia and it good. In the end the republic won after the sacrifice of the General Ashkulec who steered his flagship the "Fearless" into a cluster of enemy dreadnaughts.

Knowledge Warfare: you can trace the leftover traces of this old battles and may see what really happened: Ok here two legions clashed, don't know what theire symbols mean but you can see how this big ship tried to rush in to the clust of dreadnaughts but it was destroyed before reaching it... but then the dreadnaughts get under strong fire of some heavy Turbos. Oh and the absence of a second kind of Starfighter indicates that those dreadnaughts didn't have any smaller flying vessels at theire deposive. and before you guys ask we can totally use the dead dreadnaught to hide of our followers the old wrack will perfectly disguise our signature from those nasty emperial scanners!

Also... the key is overlap. Don't hem in your story or your players by being stuck in the 'you don't know that because you don't have the right skill' mentality.

Sure, Xenology is the perfect skill for that bit of knowledge, which sets the difficulty at easy. But your BH with Knowledge: Outer Rim can make a difficult skill check, and boom... your table is back on track, and he pulls out the needed info on what Hutt's like to snack on. He rolled a triumph? He even knows where to buy it...

Whereas if your Xenology sporting character rolled a triumph, he or she would know what subspecies of Tellastian mudfrog Hutts from the northern reaches tend to prefer, and that they like the small ones as opposed to big. When your Bounty Hunter strolls into the frog seller's stall, now they know just what to buy...

See what I just did there?

also remember only because there are no skill points in a skill doesn't counts as "can't perform" the skill he still can roll his inteligence which reflects on something he overheard a long time ago in place far far away...

On 10/17/2017 at 3:15 AM, MonCal said:

Wghile building a charcter, I found that knowledges are not that clear. Yes, they are, but there seems to be some heavy overlap in them. Could you use both Xenology and Underworld knowledges to learn hutt stuff?

Correct, you could potentially learn information using either skill, however what you would learn would be different. For example:

Underworld Knowledge: Succeeding at this dice pool would mean that you know presenting a Hutt with a gift of food is considered a great sing of respect.

Xenology: You know that Hutt's are violently alergic to *insert food item*, and will be suffering from projectile vomiting and diarrhea for at least a day after consuming any of it in their food.

On 10/17/2017 at 3:15 AM, MonCal said:

What about the stuff beyond the rim? Is Outer Rim knowledge what you need? What covers recent galactic history?

That would be a good assumption yes Though I would say that it's a harder difficulty if you are talking about stuff beyond the galaxy.

On 10/17/2017 at 3:15 AM, MonCal said:

questions ar eoriented to know what an explorer would need. Xenology and outer rim seem likely candidates 8and underworld since she is likely to be hutt-financed), but if he finds a battle spaceship graveyard of the clone wars, would that only be Warfare knowledge, or could it use other knowledges?

Could be Warfare, could also be Lore, or even Education. Which skill that's used, would color what information is known. Warfare would probably include the compliment of ships in the fleet they discover, perhaps letting the party know that the very specific hyperdrive core type they were trying to find, might be in one of the husks. "Guys! Those are *insert ship type* warships!! They all came with a standard issue Class Z Hyperdrive! We can totally use those to repair our cap ship!"

Lore and Education would be things like "This is the lost 134th Fleet of the People's Front of Judia! They were lost in their battle with the 431st Fleet of the Judian People's Front! They were led by the great strategist Mahn-Tee Puh-Eython! I bet we could find his records in the ships quarters of that cap ship over there!"

Depending on what kind of information they are looking for, that would instruct which type of check would be most appropriate, and how difficult.

8 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

Lore and Education would be things like "This is the lost 134th Fleet of the People's Front of Judia! They were lost in their battle with the 431st Fleet of the Judian People's Front! They were led by the great strategist Mahn-Tee Puh-Eython! I bet we could find his records in the ships quarters of that cap ship over there!"

Depending on what kind of information they are looking for, that would instruct which type of check would be most appropriate, and how difficult.

Inserting monty python references always gets bonus points.