Lore Adjustments

[Vlaid]

This idea came about from some talk in main. Starting with the bonus Lore from bards and continuing on from no end of random lore buffs from random buffs dependent on random various GSFs....there's a lot of very specialized building you have to do to have a competitive Lore skill.

I would suggest just removing a lot of these random lore buffs and adjusting it so everyone gets a bonus to their Lore double their base intelligence (capped by their character level) which does not stack with bardic lore. No change to bards, so they'd get to be dumb dropouts who for some reason are geniuses at lore if they want to still.

It doesn't really seem that fun to me to be so constrained on who can achieve some of these Lore DCs so maybe this would be a better system.

[I love cats]

I am not going to lie one of my main reasons for playing a diviner was the bonus to lore from clarity.

[Pandip]

I gave up on the Lore driven aspects of my character and sold all of my +lore gear. I was disappointed and dejected that it was better for me to hand all of my stuff to a random bard and then tell my astronomer friends to drop buffs on them rather than pretending I stood a chance of hitting those DCs.

I really do wish there was some kind of compromise here but understand this is probably extremely low on the list of changes.

EDIT: I do think that these should be difficult and time consuming prospects that should not be easily deciphered by a random level 6 PC with ranks in Lore and no investment otherwise. I even think the random D20 is fun and necessary despite being frustrating because it encourages you to take multiple trips to the same dangerous areas rather than relying on you getting everything in one go. I just think that the discrepancy between a bard buffed by a GSF:Divination wizard and... anyone else... is a bit of a sore point.

[Diabl0658]

The lengths I had to go through to hit those DC 70 lore checks were absurd, and this was with a primary cleric domain (knowledge) that no longer exists. All while fishing for 20s every 10 minutes, and now we require a reset to reroll a lore check. +2 lore in each slot (helped by several longer lived and an extremely wealth v5 economy), +3 lore DM loot, greater spell focus divination, and level 10 of course, all acquired over 3 months.

Its probably too early to tell if changes are needed this chapter, but Vlaid has a good point. Something to keep an eye on.

[cmenden]

I know I was the one mentioning a bunch but I think it's probably okay to wait until later since things are still early

But I do love Vlaid's suggestion a lot and think it's worth considering down the road

The hyper specific builds required to game lore definitely have made me feel either we need to add way more options so every class can do a "lore focus" or just scrap some of it and let there be other ways to max lore

If only Secondary Lore had made it to the new Chapter with us T_T

[zerotje]

I like the Lore rare and mysterious. It doesn't need to be simpler. It's not like people have a right to learn lore. If you have to roll a specific character to have the lore attainment as primary focus rather than side-objective that makes it cooler.

[Vlaid]

I like the Lore rare and mysterious. It doesn't need to be simpler. It's not like people have a right to learn lore. If you have to roll a specific character to have the lore attainment as primary focus rather than side-objective that makes it cooler.

I think you're missing what I'm talking about a little here.  All I mean is that it is way too restrictive  to singular build(s) and class for exploring lore.

Making a PC with high intelligence, taking the feats which boost lore and then hunting down the best lore equipment+getting extra powerful lore DM loot to access some of the harder to reach lore.  It should really just be this straight forward to make a lore focused PC.

[SN]

If anything, I think it's just flat out stupid that bards by default get +7 (avg level) without requiring any investment at all.

So a L7 bard with 14 int will have 11+7+2 by default. Other classes would need to take SF Lore and Magocracy and they wouldn't even be on the same level, that's 2 feats required of an investment.

I'd actually be all for removing the +lore per bard levels and make them forced to invest harder than just automatically becoming gods of understanding by purely existing, IE actually take the feats, or GSFs, and then use special songs to get an edge over the other classes.

Additionally all these bonuses to Lore from GSFs, specialized bard songs etc actually force collaboration between PCs to get some of the harder checks.

It took me great deal of time and money investment on a rogue to achieve relatively high lore scores and yet I am still far off on my own from being able to decipher some of the most esoteric things i came across (and I could have invested harder, but I didn't, and i do regret it hard!)

[AsheandCinders]

Minor Forum Necromancy here, but maybe DMs could remove the Baseline bardic knowledge feature, and just make it part of the existing Loremaster perk for bards.
It's thematic, Synergistic, and means bards are sacrificing potentially more mechanically appealing options in order to get the lore benefit while also being rewarded for that investment by getting XP from text that they translate with that boosted lore.