Philosopher

Philosophers become familiar with the general characteristics of their world, within the limits of the knowledge available to their culture, discarding many popular misconceptions. They acquire extensive knowledge on a wide range of subjects, and are, in many ways, the encyclopaedias and expert opinions of the medieval world. Philosophers are also well versed in using the unusual and obscure indexing methods employed in medieval libraries, and so may research and answer enquiries that they do not immediately know the answers to.

Library

Any place with 50 or more books may be considered a library, for the purposes of study. Libraries are rated for the number of days that a Philosopher may study in them to answer any particular question. This rating is usually equal to Books divided by 50. Once a Philosopher has exhausted the possibilities of a library they must either find another and continue their study or attempt to answer the question anyway. A day of study is 10 hours, and is full-time work. Some libraries with specific collections may be rated higher for some Realms than others. GMs should bear in mind that the books in some libraries will be predominately in particular languages, and that if the Philosopher is not literate in that language, or languages, the library may be of reduced usefulness.

Requirements

LANGUAGE RESTRICTION: A character may not become a Philosopher unless they possess at least one language at Rank 8, and are literate in that language.

BOOKS: A Philosopher must possess (or have frequent access to) at least Rank times 10 books, written in languages that they are literate in.

Structure

The Philosopher Skill is designed as a tree-like structure, with several separate Realms of knowledge, each of which has its own Fields, which in turn, have Sub-fields.

REALMS: These are the largest and least detailed divisions of knowledge. There are 5 Realms of knowledge: the Social World, the Material World, the Magical World, the Animal World, and the Plant World.

FIELDS: Realms are divided into large blocks of knowledge, called Fields. GMs should not need to add new Fields to the Realms, but may do so if they wish.

SUB-FIELDS: Small, and quite specific divisions of a Field, these are not limited to only those suggested below. A Philosopher may learn almost any sub-division of a Field as a Sub-field, with the GM as the final arbiter. The most common Sub-fields concern a particular race or area within a Field.

Language Benefits

Philosophers gain a reduction in the Experience Points costs to learn languages. These benefits are in addition to any other reductions available to the character. Philosophers may learn to speak languages, and to read character based languages at 75% of the normal Experience Point cost, provided that the Rank being gained in the language is not greater than their Rank in Philosopher.

Knowledge Benefits

REALMS: At Ranks 0, 4, 7, and 10, the Philosopher may learn a Realm of knowledge. Each Realm provides a thorough grounding in the basics associated with it (see the individual Realms for more details). If, at one of these Ranks the Philosopher wishes to forego learning another Realm, they receive an extra 8 Sub-fields (which may be traded for Fields as below).

FIELDS & SUB-FIELDS: At each Rank above 0, the Philosopher receives a number of Sub-fields. They receive: at Ranks 1 to 4, 3 Sub-fields; at Ranks 5 to 7, 5 Sub-fields; and at Ranks 8 to 10, 7 Sub-fields. 3 Sub-fields may be traded for 1 Field. Any part of the Sub-field allotment may be retained and used in conjunction with the allotment received for further Ranks. Once a Philosopher has achieved Rank 10 they may not Rank their Skill further, but may acquire new areas of knowledge. A new Realm costs 8 weeks and 4000ep, a new Field 3 weeks and 1500ep, and a new Sub-field 1 week and 500ep.

FIELD RESTRICTIONS: A Philosopher may not learn a Sub-field if they have not already learned the Field that it is part of. They may not learn a Field if they have not already learned the Realm that it is part of.

OVERLAPS & CONNECTIONS: In some cases it is possible to reach the same Sub-fields by different routes. These duplicated Fields may be treated as identical and no benefit accrues from having the same Sub-field more than once.

Research Benefits

Philosophers may attempt to answer questions put to them. These questions may be posed by themselves, or by other characters. If the Character does not already know the answer, their chance of success depends on the difficulty of the question and the relevant Realms and Fields of the Philosopher.

DIFFICULTY: Questions that may be answered by a Philosopher fall into one of seven categories; Automatic, Very Easy, Easy, Standard, Hard, Very Hard, and Impossible. The first step in determining the difficulty of answering the question, is for the GM to determine which Realm(s) the question pertains to, and the level of difficulty of the question.

A Standard question is one of average difficulty, relative to a given Realm, as determined by the GM. They usually deal with a reasonably large sub-set of the knowledge of the Realm. If the Philosopher possesses the Realm to which the question pertains, but has no more in-depth knowledge applicable to the question, the difficulty is as set by the GM. If the Philosopher has a Field within that Realm, that the GM determines is relevant to the question, the difficulty decreases by one step. If the Philosopher has a Sub-field within that Field, and the GM determines that it is relevant to the question, the difficulty decreases by another step. If a Philosopher does not even possess the Realm of the question, it becomes two steps harder. A Philosopher will immediately know the answer to an Automatic question. A Philosopher may not answer an Impossible question.

EX: A GM determines that the question "Where do Fire Giants mostly live?" is Hard, and of the Realm: Social World. As the Philosopher attempting to answer the question has the Field : Ethnology, the question becomes Standard . The Philosopher also has the Sub-Field : The Baronies, but the GM rules that this geographically specific information will not help shed light on where Fire Giants as a group mostly live, and thus it will not help with the question.

ANSWERS: The accuracy of the answer that a Philosopher can offer is dependant on Rank and the difficulty of the question. To increase their accuracy, a Philosopher may also undertake a course of study. For each study period (the length of which is determined by difficulty), +1% is added to the Philosopher's Base Chance. A Philosopher may, at any time, attempt to answer the question. The base Accuracy, Rank bonus, and length of study period is shown on the Answer Table.

Even though Philosophers keep notes during their course of study, an extended interruption may prove a setback. If a Philosopher ceases a course of study but resumes it within Rank weeks there are no adverse effects. If the interruption is longer than this then half of the percentage amount that they had achieved from study is lost.

FINAL RESULT: If the question is of a Yes/No nature, the Accuracy is the Base Chance that the Philosopher will arrive at the correct answer. If the question is more open, the Accuracy is the amount of relevant information that the Philosopher will come up with. It is also possible that some questions (as determined by the GM) are simply unanswerable. If this is the case, the Accuracy becomes the Base Chance that the Philosopher will become aware of this fact.

Realms & Fields

Each of the five Realms is listed below, along with its associated Fields. Some Fields are followed by a list of suggested Sub-fields.

THE SOCIAL WORLD: Standard Sub-fields include: Area, Race, History. The Fields of this Realm are:

THE MATERIAL WORLD: Standard Sub-fields include: Area, Race, History, Advanced. The Fields of this Realm are: THE MAGICAL WORLD: Standard Sub-fields include: Area, History. The Fields of this Realm are: THE ANIMAL WORLD: Standard Sub-fields include: Area, Type. The Fields of this Realm are: THE PLANT WORLD: Standard Sub-fields include: Area, Type. The Fields of this Realm are:

Answer Table

 
Difficulty  Accuracy Per Rank Period
Very Easy 90% +1% 1 minute
Easy 70% +2% 5 minutes
Standard 40% +3% 15 minutes
Hard 20% +3% 30 minutes
Very Hard 0% +3% 1 hour
 
Rank 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
EP 1400 700 1400 2100 2800 3500 4200 4900 5600 6300 7000

Copyright 1999, Martin Dickson.