Hello

As you all know ,,Knowledge is Power" but really? Do your players buy knowledge or they pump up WS/BS/S/T? I'm sure that some players do but mine don't. To help my players make mind about buying knowledge I come with home rules:

1. After passed knowledge test player receive information how to kill enemies, what are his/her/it weak/strong point. How much info he receive depends on DoS

Because after playing WH40k for long time or when your player knows fluff very well, they can know all about monsters without having knowledge. To make them buy knowledge even tho I came out with second rule:

2. After passed knowledge test player receive as many "DoS points" as he have DoS in the test. He can use them to add DoS to his passed test against creature he fights. He can also lessen how many DoS enemy scored. Player can add or lessen his/enemy DoS, up to as many ranks in knowledge -1 ha have.

Player roll knowledge eldars when fighting Striking Scorpion. He have knowledge eldars +20. He pass knowledge test By 5 DoS. Now he attacks eldar in CC Just passing test, but he can add to his tst up to 2 DoS of success. Thanks to it he scored 2 hits. Scorpion strikes back with his chain sword, scoring 5 DoS. Player reduce his DoS by 1 (to 4 DoS), negating 1 hit.

If your players are playing on and using knowledge their characters lack, they are participating in some rather heavy metagaming. As a gm, you are within your right to say "no, your character doesn't know that." when they do. That ought to motivate them to buy those knowledge skills.

If they continue to play on and use knowledge they don't have in the game, change things. Move organs, move hearts, have moves that could possibly work not work as well as they should. Because they don't know they should, so they have no ground to complain when they don't.

@ coolzyg

We don't have that problem. Usually we try to make sure all the knowl. areas are covered among the group, but often we'll overlap in case people fail checks. Knowledge checks are used to reveal clues about not only WHAT our foe is, but where, when, how. Failing a check could result in missing whole story arcs for a long time until we get another clue leading us that way. It also results in walking into ambushes and having other nasty stuff happen. Sometimes knowledge lets you know where potential caches are etc…

In other words, our GM is evil and we like to stay in the "know".

Also, just because your group knows all the fluff, it doesn't mean they know what you have planned. Knowledge skills give clues as to what your adversaries are doing, where they are staging attacks, hiding their loot. It gives PC's a window to see some of the nasty stuff the GM has planned…

So, while I like the idea of Knowledge skills giving an edge to the PC's, I don't think it necessarily has to be a mechanical one in combat. Although, if would if they learned where an enemy might be meeting and then staged an ambush….

My group still has more "session miles" in DH than any other system, so people are usually all too eager to stack up on lore skills, even in less cerebral campaigns.

I'd say, if your players prefer to solve problems with chainswords and bolters than wit and charm, let them. They obviously think it's fun shooting first and asking questions later, and having fun is the sole purpose of the exercise.

I'm always hesitant to "reward" players for spending points on things they don't want to spend points on. If the players want to be good at killing things they *should* spend points on Combat skills.

Knowledge skills are useful for knowing things, and in my experience people will buy them if they want their characters to be the sorts of people that know a lot of stuff. Besides, Forbidden Lore is cool on its own account.