Knowledge (Local)

Description

Ability Score Used:	Intelligence
Usable Untrained?	No
Armor Check Penalty Applies?	No

You are educated in the ways of the common man and how to get along in civilized places, which allows you to answer both simple and complex questions on that topic. Specifically, Knowledge (Local) allows you to make checks to reveal information on inhabitants, laws, customs, traditions and superstitions.

Despite its name, Knowledge (Local) is not knowledge specific to a single locale. Instead, it is the street-level know-how of navigating cities, knowing the right people to talk to for gossip, the right people to sell goods of questionable origin, and the right way to behave without calling attention to yourself. A person trained in this skill can do this is nearly any city, intuitively knowing how to seek out the right people or places.

At extremely high levels of skill, a use of this skill can allow you to interact with Angels in Elysium as easily as you deal with Devils in the Abyss.

Check

Answering a question on a Local topic has a DC of 10 (for really easy questions), 15 (for basic questions), or 20 to 30 (for really tough questions).

Task	Skill DC
Know local laws, rulers, and popular locations	10
Know a common rumor or local tradition	15
Know hidden organizations, rulers, and locations	20
Identify humanoids or proteans	15 + double the monster's CR1

• ¹ If the check succeeds, the character identifies the monster, its type and alignment and one significant fact about its abilities, defenses or vulnerabilities. If the check succeeds by 5 or more, the character recalls everything about the monster in question.

Action

Gathering information, locating shady merchants, and finding hidden organizations requires subtlety and care. A minimum of 1 hour per size category of the settlement is required to perform most Knowledge (Local) checks in a settlement where the character has no prior dealings. Once they've gotten a feel for the place, however, future checks require only 1 additional hour, regardless of the settlement's size (though this does not include travel time).

Modifiers

• Familiar Territory -5 to the DC.
• Your homeland -10 to the DC.
• Inside a city or otherwise cosmopolitan location: -5 to the DC
• Unusual or rare culture: A matriarchy, perfect pacifists, within the Unterwelt, etc. +10 to the DC
• Very unusual or unique culture: Personality cult Empire, non-humanoid society, magical post-scarcity society (wishes), +20
• Utterly alien culture: Hive mind, fractal thinkers, higher-dimensional beings, deities, devils, demons, +30
• On a different plane of existence: The Ether, the Plane of Shadow, The First World, etc. +20 to the DC
• On a different and hostile plane of existence: The Hells, the Abyss, the Deep Dark, Elysium, etc. +30 to the DC

Note that many of the above modifiers may stack. Dealing with a society of planar fiends on the Prime Material would require a +30 to the Knowledge (Local) check. Dealing with the same fiends living in the Plane of Shadow would require a +50 on the check, and the same fiends in the Abyss would require a +60 on the check.

Identify Humanoids or Proteans

You can use this skill to identify humanoids or proteans and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check is double the monster's CR. A successful check allows them to remember a little bit of useful information about that monster. GM's should either read, or allow the character to read, the introductory text of the monster's bestiary entry. If a player instead beats a DC of 15 + double the monster's CR, their character knows quite a lot about the monster in question, and GM's should allow that player to look over the monster's bestiary entry in its entirety.

Try Again

No. The check represents what you know, and thinking about a topic a second time doesn't let you know something that you never learned in the first place.

Special

You cannot make an untrained Knowledge check with a DC higher than 10. If you have access to an extensive library that covers a specific skill, this limit is removed. The time to make checks using a library, however, increases to 1d4 hours. Particularly complete libraries might even grant a bonus on Knowledge checks in the fields that they cover.