It was mentioned on a thread around here that it can be hard at times to find uses for Lore skills during daily gameplay, and that left me thinking. The Nazi-punching funfest of Spirit of the Century had knowledge skills work in a fundamentally different and interesting way, a way that I feel fits the "worlds without number" feel of the Warhammer 40K setting.

When a user rolls a knowledge skill, unless the GM has a specific reason to deny it (say, the GM already knows that the demon king of Angbar hates the tears of the virtuous), if the roll hits whatever TN is needed, the player states that he knows a fact about whatever his skill is related to, and whatever the player states is then true .

Of course, this is a very open-ended rule, and a GM should use good judgement in all situations to prevent things from getting out of hand, but I tentatively think that such an addition could make knowledge skills a far more flexible tool than they already are.

What thinks you all?

Mystrunner said:

I love both Spirit of the Century & Rogue Trader. It is a nice idea, though I'd use the same mechanism, that is, the player must spend (not burn) a fate point to make this kind of declaration.

Lore skills are in high demand in in my games.

Very useful when you are trying to smooze someone.

Very useful when the players want to use or fix those xeno / archeo items they have been picking up.

Very useful when the PCs want to know the capability of an enemy.

Etc... the uses are pretty much only limited by their imagination.

Some examples.

1. The PCs want to get the IG lord general to like them so that he will give them troops. Make some lore and inquiry rolls to see what they can learn about him, figure out what would make the best "gift".

2. The PCs want to plan a battle, make a Tactica Imperialis roll as an opposed test with the enemy commander.

3. The PCs come across a mining camp they own with everyone slaughtered, they notice some spray painted glyphs left behind, make a mutants lore role to recognise that it belongs to the pale throng, with degrees of success giving more and more info on them.

4. The PCs find a cache of items of indeterminate origin. Are they Xeno, Archeo, Heretek, etc... make some rolls. Failure could lead to mis-identification and large cans of worms..

I could go on for a long time here but the point is, knowing is half the battle

The lore skills are some of the most highly prized in my games.

Millage may vary though as personnel combat does not play as big a part of my adventures as say the ones you find in the books (such as the one in edge of the abyss).

llsoth said:

Isn't that what Charm is for?

Fortinbras said:

Aye but if you have done some homework and found out what there personal likes, dislikes, history etc are you can be much more effective with your charm attempt. I give bonuses based roughly off the rules in edge of the abyss, it represents everything from knowing what subjects to avoid talking about to getting them gifts/bribes that they will like beyond mere monetary value.

Perhaps your lore and inquiry checks have turned up that the naval captain your are trying to sway to your thinking is an avid patron of the arts. With extra degrees of success you could learn that he especially likes sculpture and his favorite artist is Licto Norshal. So armed with this information the PC can then go get him a art / sculpture / Licto Norshal sculpture (based off how many degrees of success they got) as a token of their respect. Thus granting an appropriate bonus to the charm roll.

My PCs spend a lot of time digging up info / dirt on people to either smooze them or blackmail them.

I agree, and generally on a successful lore check I am in favor of introducing modifiers towards whatever pivotal roll is being made. I posted a thread earlier about using things like Lore [Xenos] to get a +5 or +10 on BS/WS against whatever the lore skill covered.

Outside of combat though, I tend to treat them as Pass/Fail.

Isn't this very much like the Social Interaction extra rules in Into the Storm?

MILLANDSON said:

Yes it is similar, when I said edge of the abyss I was in error, I meant the rules you are reffering to from into the storm.