From Dark and Darker Wiki
After reading over this wiki to better understand the game and how it works, and finally reaching this page, I feel like this is something I need to point out and see if anyone else agrees: Knowledge is a really frustrating stat because of it's inequality between martial and caster classes.
I understand that Ironmace can't just give every non-caster class a base 5 in Knowledge like Barb has and allocate those extra points somewhere more useful, but it's also somewhat annoying to see that it's not even uniform amongst the other martial classes. Rogue has 10, Ranger has 12, and Fighter has 15. Granted, Fighter has 15 in *everything*, but still, I find it strange and a little irritating that the only true "dump stat" for martials is still at least a two-digit number for everything but Barb. I know Multiclassing used to be a thing sometime before the current update, which I guess is the only reason that Knowledge might be useful on a martial class, but without Multiclassing in the game currently it just feels bad to see these points allocated into a stat that does precisely nothing for martials.
And even WITH Multiclassing, only Fighter has a base Knowledge stat comparable to any of the casting classes (Warlock in particular with their base 15) to make it actually useful in any degree - which feels wrong to me, coming from a Dungeons & Dragons background. In Dungeons & Dragons, Rangers are half-casters while Eldritch Knight Fighters are only third-casters - same as Arcane Trickster Rogues. Yet based on Knowledge in this game, Fighters are on par with Warlocks, Rangers are like half-casters, and Rogues like third-casters. I know that Dark and Darker isn't meant to be one-to-one with Dungeons & Dragons (despite both sharing the D&D/DnD abbreviation, humorously enough), but it still just feels wrong to me. Even from a purely Dark and Darker perspective, if the intent is to give some martials a little bit better Knowledge to incentivize/permit multiclassing into casting, would 10 or 12 base Knowledge even be worth it? Even base 15 Knowledge feels a little limited with it's Memory Cap of 9; a base Cap of 6, and especially 4, just sounds like an awful waste of a Skill slot and Weapon slot to me. And that's even before considering the extra Knowledge, Memory Cap, Casting Speed, etc. rolls you'd want on gear just to catch up and make multiclass casting worth it - rolls which are actively competing against the standard desirable rolls for Rogues and Rangers.
Does anyone else share this sentiment about Knowledge on non-casters being a point of contention? I almost feel like Knowledge should have some other effect that isn't specifically casting-related. After all, every other stat in the game has something it influences that makes it necessary to some degree, like Action and Regular Action Speeds. Why should Knowledge be the only one that gives absolutely no upside to classes that don't have spells, yet still have upwards of 10 Knowledge? I don't even have a proposition as to what Knowledge could influence, because everything else stat-wise makes sense and is well-thought out. Knowledge just feels really weird as a stat that's only important for casters. It almost makes me think that it should be removed, and things like Memory Capacity, Recovery, and Spellcasting Speed should be delegated to other stats. But that would be unfair to casters in the same way that it's currently unfair to martial classes (well, not the SAME way; more like the opposite side of the same coin). I don't know, maybe I'm weird for thinking about it in this way, but seeing how the other stats work compared to Knowledge, it just makes Knowledge feel somewhat flawed, without an obvious fix or solution.