Background Skills (Beta 4)

I've gone over the current classes, and revised all the "Background" sections to incorporate the use of Power Sources, for determining your Knowledge skills. (Follow the links to the classes, in the Core Rules document on the sidebar.) I wanted to touch on my ideas about those skills a bit here today.

Generally, I've found knowledge skills to be a bit situational, and so I don't want them to be "bought" with the same character-generation currency as "core skills" i.e. those which can be more actively used in encounters (particularly combat skills.) As I had mentioned in a previous post, most classes will have 2 sets of core skills; likewise, most classes will have 2 power sources, each granting them a set of 3 knowledge skills.

Here's the current list of knowledge skills I've decided to put into the game, along with which power sources grant you training in that skill:

• First Aid (Martial): allows you to treat basic injuries and identify common wounds
• Medical (Divine, Shadow): more complex medical knowledge, such as identifying remains, as well as diagnosing and treating poisons or diseases.
• Local (Martial): basic knowledge of settlements and their customs; deals with common people
• Streetwise (Shadow): pertains to the underworld within civilized locales; deals with lower-class people
• Royalty & Nobility (Divine): connections to people within high society, political structures, etc.
• History (Martial, Arcane): information about significant events of the past
• Arcana (Arcane): identifying and understanding sources of magical power
• Religion (Divine, Arcane): knowledge of deities, religions, cults, etc.
• Geography (Primal): knowledge of terrain features and landmarks
• Nature (Primal): surviving in the wilderness, knowledge of animals and plants
• Dungeoneering (Primal, Shadow): surviving in underground locations, such as ruins or caves; knowing about creatures or societies that live in such places

Now, at first glance, it might seem that these skills aren't very well-distributed. However, it is important to remember that each character will have 2 power sources, granting them a total of 5 or 6 knowledge skills.

I didn't feel it was wise to have knowledge skills tied to Basic Abilities (as Core Skills are) nor to have "knowledge" as a skillset (though that was the case in previous iterations.) In fact, a lot of times when I am tinkering with house rules for existing D&D rulesets, I often decouple knowledge skills from ability scores, in some fashion or another.

Conversely, I wanted to keep Performance skills linked to Basic Abilities. On the other hand, I didn't necessarily want to have each class that gets training with a Basic Ability to necessarily be good at the Performance skills that are tied to it. As such, the wording in the core rules has been clarified a bit to allow for this distinction. Essentially, your class' Background will specify whether you have "access" to the Performance skillset; if so, any training or Expertise you have with Basic Abilities is also applied to Performance skills that fall under those abilities (i.e. STR, AGIL, DEX, and CHA.) Some classes/archetypes may also be granted training in the entire Performance skillset (such as the Performer archetype, for the Bard class.)

Power Sources, Knowledge Skills, and Performance Skills are the pieces that compose your character's Background. Mechanically, they are less important than "core skills" or combat abilities, but they can be a good starting point for those who like to approach character creation from a more narrative angle. Similarly, characters can potentially grow from having just a background and a class die, into a fully-fledged character (if a DM and their players choose to start out at a lower power level.)