If not,what Knowledge's would bardic Knowledge cover?
[RPG] Does Bardic Knowledge Encompass all other knowledge skills
barddnd-3.5eknowledge-check
Related Solutions
Knowledge (royalty) I'll give you. It's dumb and should get stuck into Kno(history) or (local) unless you are running an all courtly intrigue all the time game. But Knowledge (nature) is used for "monster ID" of animals, fey, giants, monstrous humanoids, plants, and vermin - it's one of the better ones! And Knowledge (local) has been invaluable in my games, especially city-based ones. (And it's used for humanoid ID.)
Knowledge skills should let you get an advantage if used right. If you are wandering around and find a cave with a scratched up tree outside it, Knowledge (nature) should tell you that's probably a bear's cave and since it's December it's probably hibernating. Of course this requires the PCs to not just happily run from random encounter to random encounter like they're grinding in WoW. Think "Man vs. Wild" or most of the other shows on those channels for this skill. There is overlap with Survival, but that skill is just tracking and eating and avoiding natural hazards and that's it. If it's plant or animal or whatnot it's Kno(nature).
Similarly, knowledge (local) tells you that guy in the bar flirting with the waitress is a local enforcer for a crime boss and he's killed guys a lot more skilled than you - so you probably don't want to mess with him. Or even that he has a weakness for dwarven stout, if you want to chat him up. Heck, this is the one skill most people in my game have, because they get sick of waking up in bathtubs full of ice in inn rooms with a note about how they need to get to the local temple since they're out of kidneys now.
To the best of my knowledge, a complete list:
Class | Spellcasting1 | Source |
---|---|---|
Ardent Dilettante | 9/10 (all except 1st) | Planar Handbook |
Citadel Elite | 2/5 (evens; replaces bonus feats) | Sharn, City of Towers |
Dark Scholar² | 9/10 (all except 1st) | Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde |
Fochlucan Lyrist³ | 10/10 (arcane) + 10/10 (divine) | Complete Adventurer |
Harper Agent | 4/5 (all except 1st) | Player’s Guide to Faerûn |
Harper Mage | 5/5 | Magic of Faerûn |
Harper Priest⁴ | 5/5 (divine only) | Magic of Faerûn |
Loredelver³ | 9/10 (all except 1st) | Races of Destiny |
Loremaster | 10/10 | Dungeon Master’s Guide |
Moonstar Agent | 5/5 | City of Splendors, Waterdeep |
Olin Gisir⁵ | 10/10 | Lost Empires of Faerûn |
Ollam | 3/5 (2nd, 3rd, 4th) | Complete Adventurer |
Paragnostic Apostle⁶ | 5/5 | Complete Champion |
Prestige Bard⁷ | 10/15 (all except 1st, 3rd, 6th, 8th, and 13th) | Unearthed Arcana |
Urban Savant⁵ | 9/10 (all except 10th) | Cityscape |
The Spellcasting column indicates how many of the class’s levels progress spellcasting: n/m indicates the class progresses spellcasting n times over m levels, and the following parenthetical indicates which levels progress spellcasting. For example, ardent dilettante reads “At each ardent dilettante level after 1st, the character gains new spells per day (and spells known, if applicable) as if she had also gained a level in a spellcasting class to which she belonged before adding the prestige class,” hence a spellcasting entry of “9/10 (all except 1st).”
Has scholarly lore class feature, which functions like bardic knowledge but does not explicitly state that it stacks with levels in bard.
Cannot be entered as a single-classed bard (Fochlucan lyrist requires arcane and divine spells as well as evasion and knowledge of the Druidic language, loredelver requires trapfinding).
Requires and advances divine spells. Could still be useful to a cloistered cleric or divine bard.
Does not add level to bardic knowledge checks, but does get bonuses to bardic knowledge checks. Amounts to 4/10 and 3/10 progression for Olin Gisir and urban savant, respectively.
Levels count double towards check.
Is intended to be a replacement for the regular bard, so probably shouldn’t be advancing bard.
Honorable mentions to harper scout, merchant prince, and sublime chord, which progress bardic knowledge and have their own spellcasting. Sublime chord’s spellcasting is a substantial upgrade over bard, having 4th- through 9th-level spells from the bard and sor/wiz lists.
But for bardic knowledge/lore, the big winner here is the paragnostic apostle, which counts double (and has full spellcasting and some other solid class features to boot).
Best Answer
Bardic knowledge is, effectively, about stories.
So bardic knowledge can supply information you could know from any Knowledge skill, but it will only provide information that’s famous, interesting, funny, or so on—it will only provide information that makes for a good story. It will not provide technical details, boring treatises, or full family trees or organizational charts—unless those details form the climax of a story or punch-line of a joke.
Things that could be obtained with relatively low Knowledge skill checks thus may be unavailable to bardic knowledge, or else only available with a relatively high check. On the flip side, bardic knowledge covers a much broader array of fields to know something about.