[JimJungle]

Is there a compiled list of Knowledge Skills? One of the pitfalls I've found for new players is picking K skills that are completely useless 99% of the time.

[BSOD]

Not that I can find, (other than those listed in the core book). although I think it may be more by design than anything. Since Knowledge skills are essentially free, it doesn't matter too much if they turn out useless.

[Tex Muldoon]

I tell new players that its weird things that they know just like sports facts and such. It seems to really help like when the hacker takes improv comedy, or the weapons specialist takes Macguyering.

[MadMaddy]

My group has had knowledge skills ranging from knock-knock jokes (he specialized in making jokes at the worst time ever) to Parazoology which helped a ton when we were in the jungle and needed to know how to deal with various dangers mundane and magical alike.

[CanRay]

Krunch and Klub, a combo Connection 1 contact that my group had (And were Ultraviolent versions of Jay and Silent Bob) showed their hidden depths a few times to the utter amazement of my group.

Klub is a heavily brain damaged Tough-As-Titanium-Nails Dwarf who is used by Krunch as, well, a club, and often is the projectile in the infamous Fastball Special.  Never shuts up, always swearing, sounds like a punch-drunk boxer who should have retired a dozen fights ago...  And an expert in Chemicals and Civil Engineering.

Krunch is this HUGE troll who never speaks, and just looms over anyone implying that violence is imminent.  And, if he's around, it usually is.  He's made street gangs back down just by looking at them with interest.  When the group phoned him in desperation, they found out that he's got an exceptionally cultured (If deep and intimidating) voice and is a professor of parazoology at the University of Seattle.

When my group found that out, they just stared at me.  I had them fully statted out and their own sheet, which I showed them to prove that this was, indeed, the backstory I had thought up for them and fully explained so.  It even showed the group members as THEIR contacts at the same loyalty rating.

I really wonder why they keep being surprised about me.  I don't make two-dimensional characters.  Sometimes they end up in four-dimensions, but never just two!

[MadMaddy]

CanRay I must say that those characters are just awesome....it makes me want to hide my backstory sheets.

[CanRay]

Jon "Money" Johnson, my Marty Sue Mr. Johnson, has often stated "You are your contacts" when groups come back to him asking for help too quickly.  His weird knowledge skills include parazoology as well, but from the "I'm going to go hunt and eat something" side of the equation, as well as firearms history.

Nas has an encyclopedic knowledge of Combat Biker, and remembers a fair bit about NASCAR and the various tracks from personal experience.  He also knows the streets of Seattle in and out, constantly driving and updating his mental map, but that's part of his job.

I'm working on a character in my head whose main ability is his knowledge skills.  He had 20-years to study...  I'll let you guys figure out why.

[baronspam]

Is there a compiled list of Knowledge Skills? One of the pitfalls I've found for new players is picking K skills that are completely useless 99% of the time.

Knowledge skills are defined by the player, there is not an offical list to pick off of.  I try to strike a balance between usefull legwork skills (be it street knowledge, academic skills, what works for the character background) and some quirky interests (encyclopedic knowledge of beer, trideo soap operas, 17th century ceramics, whatever floats your boats.  Knowledge of boat floating for that matter).

A house rule that I allow is that if a character wants an artisan skill with little direct adventure impact- the character is a skilled homebrewer, harpsicord player, performance artist, etc, I will allow this as a knowledge skill instead of an artisan skill.  Build points are alwasy so tight going "by the book" that I don't want to squash such impulses to include such things, but at the same time I don't want characters to have to cough up 18 build points for Trombone 4 (Jazz +2).

[beowulf_of_wa]

some of the best situations are where you either allow/make them use the oddball skills they have. there have been many a game where at least one player gave his character the "late 20th/ early 21st century sci fi /fantasy RPG knowledge" skill. and then the CHARACTER got to play rules lawyer, for ensuing hilarity.

[CanRay]

One PC a friend made had MMORPGs as a knowledge skill, and Shadowrun MMO as a specialization in it.

He also had his guild as a contact.

[Crash_00]

I think there was a list over at dumpshock to standardize knowledge skills a bit.

[farothel]

I always take knowledge skills based on the background of my character.  Some will be useful, others are just there for fluff reasons.  Of course, that doesn't mean you can't use them in game, if only to impress people.  Let's use the example of my combat biker orc chick I play in our tabletop game.  I've given her literature as knowledge skill.  Not really useful in a game, but one day Mr. J asks us to retrieve something at the university.  I can pretend to be a literature student and if someone asks too many questions, I can actually keep up with them.
The same goes for my PbP mage.  She speaks (and read/write) ancient egyptian and she also has a knowledge on mythology (ancient egypt as specialisation).  She's an ex-merc, but follows the egyptian tradition and has a mentor spirit (Ra, the egyptian sun god).  While I think it won't show up in this game, you can imagine her posing as a museum conservator, antique dealer or something similar and she would be able to talk about those things.

So I think that while it might be difficult for some, if you're a bit creative you can make those weird knowledge skills work for you in game as well (and impress your GM with your creative twists).

[Dr. Meatgrinder]

Here's one on this forum:  http://forums.shadowrun4.com/index.php?topic=621.0

[Shadowjack]

I was actually about to make a thread regarding knowledge skills. What do you guys think about reducing the cost for knowledge skills during character creation to 1 bp? 400 bp already feels a bit tight and I have a hard time allocating many points to knowledge skills but I think they are a really cool aspect of the game.

[Teknodragon]

One way to stretch out knowledge skills is to buy the Mnemonic Enhancers bioware. Admittedly, not good options for many Awakened or technos. There's also a couple positive qualities that provide bonuses to technical, academic, or street knowledge, depending.