I have had an odd situation come up several times recently.
We have a summoner that uses summon monster fairly often. Usually use celestials, demons/devils, and elementals. Lately, the published material has us up against the exact same things he has been summoning fairly often.
But he is a summoner with zero ranks in the associated knowledge skills. By RAW he doesn’t know the lightning elemental attacking us has a high reflex save. Even though a couple days ago, he summoned a lightning elemental to fight a blasting magus specifically because it had a high reflex save.
Similarly a group has been almost continuously fighting creatures modified by the fiendish and fey templates added on to them. A bear is a pretty common creature. We can make the roll to know about bears. We have fought dozens of creatures with the fiendish and fey templates. But a fiendish fey bear is a very rare creature and we can’t make that DC. So supposedly we know nothing about them.
When I am GM, in situations like both of the above I have always let the PC’s use what they have historically learned. It seems silly and Meta the other direction to say those supposedly intelligent accomplished PC’s learned absolutely nothing the last several times they interacted with X type of creature.
Do you folks do the same, stick with RAW ignorance, or something else?
If they kept notes or have a good enough memory, I'm fine with using what is learned. I think that this is expected metagame behavior. What is not expected (and seems reasonable to squash) is using player knowledge of assorted critters to direct character behavior out of line for a particular campaign.
To be sensible, however, a summoner should be acquiring reasonable ranks in Knowledge (planes) and the languages of the creatures that the character summons and commands. Without the latter the options as to what the summons can do for the summoner are quite limited.
Edit: for example, during the WotR AP you fight a whole lot of demons. The group is going to figure out the hard way what weapons fully penetrate DR whether they have ranks in Knowledge (planes) or not by virtue of using weapons that work and weapons that don't or don't quite.
The mechanical knowledge of its abilities ... yeah, that's questionable, unless they've practiced fighting them by way of having the summoner sic a few on the other characters.
I may give a circumstance bonus, but if the character didn't put any effort into learning the stuff (ranks in applicable knowledge) then they just use it without any understanding.
Think of it like the person that uses a cell phone but doesn't know anything about electricity, radio waves, or other such subjects. Sure they can make it function but there is no real understanding of what is happening.
There are 2 ways of gaining facts as a PC. Experiencing them (and remembering) or succeeding on a roll of a Knowledge skill. If you've experienced a fact (and can remember it) you should be welcome to make decisions based on it.
The main problem here is recognizing that you are facing a fiendish fey creature. If you somehow figure that out (perhaps an NPC tells you), then applying basic information from general fiendish and fey creatures is nto hard. So here are the main ones:
Fey- weak to cold iron, some illusion and enchantment SLAs
Fiendish- stronger ones have DR/good, some energy resistences
Of course, you can always learn things through good old trial and error. Find that your hits are ineffective? Try golf bagging and getting some bless weapon oils. Once you find your hits working, it doesn't matter what your knowledge check is, you already know 'this is a creature that is weak to this'.
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Edit: for example, during the WotR AP you fight a whole lot of demons. The group is going to figure out the hard way what weapons fully penetrate DR whether they have ranks in Knowledge (planes) or not by virtue of using weapons that work and weapons that don't or don't quite.
They'll find out as soon as they go to the blacksmith and ask. A blacksmith should know why he's making weapons. And it shouldn't just be "because a PC payed me to make it."
They'll find out as soon as they go to the blacksmith and ask. A blacksmith should know why he's making weapons. And it shouldn't just be "because a PC payed me to make it."Edit: for example, during the WotR AP you fight a whole lot of demons. The group is going to figure out the hard way what weapons fully penetrate DR whether they have ranks in Knowledge (planes) or not by virtue of using weapons that work and weapons that don't or don't quite.
Not if the NPC doesn't have Knowledge (planes) ranks, given the DC for the check. If said blacksmith has stabbed demons with his wares and lived to tell the tale, that's another matter. ;)
The summoner did have the all the languages of the creatures he summoned. He also had put ranks into the couple of applicable knowledge skills. But even if he happened to roll a 20, he still couldn't get high enough for any info about the high level fiends and elementals.
The fiendish-fey bear/lion/wasp/etc... were pretty clear from the descriptions. Although I never thought about the fact that the GM could have introduced something that kinda looked like that just to throw us off. I don't know if he ever considered it or not.
That's a completely different case from the summoner having zero ranks. Aid another checks (if other PCs have at least a rank) can help with that.
Against higher CR foes, if the skills are lacking, you simply have to figure it out the hard way. One can take educated guesses based on one's summonable pets ... and of course being able to talk to the ones that have decent bonuses of their own certainly doesn't hurt.
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Not if the NPC doesn't have Knowledge (planes) ranks, given the DC for the check. If said blacksmith has stabbed demons with his wares and lived to tell the tale, that's another matter. ;)They'll find out as soon as they go to the blacksmith and ask. A blacksmith should know why he's making weapons. And it shouldn't just be "because a PC payed me to make it."Edit: for example, during the WotR AP you fight a whole lot of demons. The group is going to figure out the hard way what weapons fully penetrate DR whether they have ranks in Knowledge (planes) or not by virtue of using weapons that work and weapons that don't or don't quite.
I completely disagree.
That's a completely different case from the summoner having zero ranks. Aid another checks (if other PCs have at least a rank) can help with that.
Against higher CR foes, if the skills are lacking, you simply have to figure it out the hard way. One can take educated guesses based on one's summonable pets ... and of course being able to talk to the ones that have decent bonuses of their own certainly doesn't hurt.
Yeah, I was wrong in the first post. I asked him to be sure. He had 2 ranks, but he didn't bother rolling since the best he could get was a 24 - which isn't high enough.
I have always found it perfectly reasonable for the pc's to use knowledge gained from previous encounters with no need to roll. As long as they actually know the info without pulling out a reference guide. The difficult part is ensuring that they are only using knowledge that their character has gained and not knowledge the player has gained
I completely disagree.Not if the NPC doesn't have Knowledge (planes) ranks, given the DC for the check. If said blacksmith has stabbed demons with his wares and lived to tell the tale, that's another matter. ;)They'll find out as soon as they go to the blacksmith and ask. A blacksmith should know why he's making weapons. And it shouldn't just be "because a PC payed me to make it."Edit: for example, during the WotR AP you fight a whole lot of demons. The group is going to figure out the hard way what weapons fully penetrate DR whether they have ranks in Knowledge (planes) or not by virtue of using weapons that work and weapons that don't or don't quite.
A blacksmith gets no breaks on the DC 10 Knowledge threshold anymore than anyone/anything else does the last I heard. DC 10 covers a fair bit of information.
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A blacksmith gets no breaks on the DC 10 Knowledge threshold anymore than anyone/anything else does the last I heard. DC 10 covers a fair bit of information.I completely disagree.Not if the NPC doesn't have Knowledge (planes) ranks, given the DC for the check. If said blacksmith has stabbed demons with his wares and lived to tell the tale, that's another matter. ;)They'll find out as soon as they go to the blacksmith and ask. A blacksmith should know why he's making weapons. And it shouldn't just be "because a PC payed me to make it."Edit: for example, during the WotR AP you fight a whole lot of demons. The group is going to figure out the hard way what weapons fully penetrate DR whether they have ranks in Knowledge (planes) or not by virtue of using weapons that work and weapons that don't or don't quite.
No. I still disagree. A blacksmith would definitely know that cold iron is good against "fey and demons" from all the time they've spent working with it/buying it/selling it. It's right there in the item's description. What you're saying is whether or not the blacksmith could identify if something is a fey or a demon which is a completely different point. It's general knowledge that fey/demons are susceptible to cold iron. It's not general knowledge what specific creatures are fey/demons.
Ah - okay, we're actually on the same page, just reading it from different angles.