Knowledge checks on advanced monsters


Rules Questions


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If a party encounters a monster that is not stock from the books, how would you handle that information via knowledge checks?

As an example, let's say they're facing off against a hill giant with a couple levels of fighter and increased physical stats. First off, would the DC be based on the monster's current HD, or the HD of the base creature? What happens if the party rolls in between those numbers? (Well, it sure looks like a hill giant, but you can't be sure?) Certainly I wouldn't expect the players to find out *that it has fighter levels in particular*, but if the monster is using unusual weaponry and armaments how would that rank in the scale of useful information? Similarly, if the monster is, say, 4 points over the standard strength of a monster of its type, would that be something the player should be able to tell from a Knowledge check? Should it be one of the first pieces of information given? Should you exhaust the base creature's abilities before getting into that? Is all of this just GM discretion?


I don't see an issue even with telling them that a creature has class levels. It doesn't exactly take a rocket scientist to guess that this guy has levels in cleric, or that this guy has bard levels.

Make either of them into hill giants and the argument still holds.


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the dc to learn the types of things you would find out about the basic creature should not change just because that creature has taken class levels, and increased its HD. If the base creature has vulnerabilities/weaknesses - then rolling a DC that would typically give you this information about the base creature should still give such info for the advanced version.

you might not need to say the creature has 4 levels of fighter class - you can say things like:

"This Hill Giant looks to be an exemplary physical specimen of its species. Between its confident posture, and the discipline by which all of its equipment seem fashioned, you suspect this particular hill giant may have had some formal martial training"


I think this is more of a GM call. I just describe them as looking tougher than a normal version. I have never boosted the knowledge DC.


Here are three posts I recently made on this topic of monster identification with knowledge skills. Well, nearly this topic - these threads are discussing monsters with templates but your question is the same idea, a base monster with something added to it.

Here (read both posts in this thread).

And here

Hopefully that gives you some ideas that will be fair to the PCs who invest in these skills and still balanced within the intent of the skill. The PCs learn a lot if their skill is high enough, but sometimes the GM gets to keep a card or two up his sleeve to surprise the PCs.


For the Base DC, I give them the name of the creature, creature type and subtype (and anything they can garner from that information...i.e. Elementals cant be critted...), as well as their beneral perception information...if they have darkvision or lowlight.

Perception abilities like scent, tremorsense, blindsense, etc go in the list of abilities.

I'm nice. I let people ask questions. "Special Attacks", "Defenses", are a bit broad, but if they ask, I'll give them one SA or one Defense per question, and I try to tailor it to the character asking.

A fighter might know that a creature is resistant to damage from all but piercing weapons, while a wizard might now, a creature has spell resistance.

I also encourage the creation of a campaign bestiary of creatures the party have encountered and what they already know about them.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

In my games, if they meet the base creature Dc they get information from the base creature. Generally, if the creature has a common template and they beat the DC for the improved CR, I give them the template abilities as well.

I don't give out class levels but I will describe the monster's equipment if it's obvious.

If there is no way for the PCs to know how the monster is changed - for example, early mythic monsters in Wrath of the Righteous - I'll still let them know that something is "off" about the critter, i.e., "This is some sort of <monster>, and you know (x) about normal <monsters>, but there's something weird about this one in a way you've never heard of..." My players recognize this as a code phrase for "monster with unique abilities incoming." Being vague to avoid spoiling the AP.


I don't increase the DC to identify a creature due to class levels, because that leads to more weirdness than not doing so.

Cases were a commoner can't identify the 20th level cleric of Abadar that just walked in (despite being human) because of his class levels.

I also never just tell the players what class the enemies are, though I will describe what they are carrying which may or may not make it (more) obvious what they might be.


Claxon wrote:


I also never just tell the players what class the enemies are, though I will describe what they are carrying which may or may not make it (more) obvious what they might be.

I'm not sure this is altogether fair, since it presupposes a lot of world knowledge that the characters have, but not the players.

I'll offer him as an example again. It's patently obvious that he's dressed as a Catholic priest (the collar could be Anglican, but the hat is Catholic), but if all you say is that he's a man, wearing a hat, dressed in black, with an oddly-shaped collar, he could be a waiter at a Chinese restaurant. (Just put this hat on this guy.)

If someone's dressed as a cleric of Iomedae, you should say that they're a cleric of Iomedae, and maybe make the DC higher to determine that they're not really a cleric but wearing a disguise.....


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And if all the clerics of a specific faiths had a specific uniform they wore it might be one thing to know that "this is a cleric of Abadar". But so far as I know, they do not do such a thing.

If I were to describe that man I would say he was dressed in black with an odd collar, I would say that you recognize that dress to be that of a priest of *insert faith* with a successful knowledge religion, knowledge local, or knowledge history check (to recognize uniforms in general). Same applies to identifying a hellknights armor. Knowledge local will identify the wearer as human. Knowledge local or history (and possibly other skills) would identify the distinctive type of Hellknight armor including the specific order the wearer belongs to (since hellknight armor tends to incorporate specific elements based on order).

But these are distinct and separate checks to identify things about the person, not based on their race but on what they are wearer. You could make the same sort of checks to determine what the origins of a weapon are (especially since we got a book that described (in some small detail) what weapons look like from different regions of Golarion).

But as I said, we don't have a cleric of Iomedae uniform. But I can tell you that the person has lots of symbols of Iomedae, is holding a longsword, and has a shield with the inheritor's symbol on it. They're either a really devout follower, a cleric, or a paladin. And being able to narrow it down that far by just seeing them. Well, that seems just fine to me.

So no, you don't get to know the class.


Yeah, exactly. Even being in the priesthood and actually being a cleric are not necessarily the same thing. Having the trappings of one doesn't necessarily mean anything.


Saying all clerics must of deity X must wear this uniform is a bit like saying all wizards must wear this.

Certainly every cleric of a deity will have symbols of that deity about them, but that doesn't mean they're going to be dressed like soldiers in uniform.


Orfamay Quest wrote:
Claxon wrote:


I also never just tell the players what class the enemies are, though I will describe what they are carrying which may or may not make it (more) obvious what they might be.

I'm not sure this is altogether fair, since it presupposes a lot of world knowledge that the characters have, but not the players.

I'll offer him as an example again. It's patently obvious that he's dressed as a Catholic priest (the collar could be Anglican, but the hat is Catholic), but if all you say is that he's a man, wearing a hat, dressed in black, with an oddly-shaped collar, he could be a waiter at a Chinese restaurant. (Just put this hat on this guy.)

If someone's dressed as a cleric of Iomedae, you should say that they're a cleric of Iomedae, and maybe make the DC higher to determine that they're not really a cleric but wearing a disguise.....

Personally, I would not state he's a "cleric of Iomedae," I would say, "He is wearing the raiment of the priesthood of Iomedae." The party can then assume he's such a cleric, though he might be an Inquisitor, Oracle, Paladin, Sage, Warrior, or whatever who happens to be a member of that church hierarchy. Or, heck, he could be a fraud, but that's a different issue than a Knowledge check.

Though, to know what sort of priesthood he's dressed as would probably require a Knowledge Religion, right? If it's a very common god, then the DC would be really low, while a more esoteric deity might be more difficult?

Edit: Claxon beat me to that last part.


Claxon wrote:

Saying all clerics must of deity X must wear this uniform is a bit like saying all wizards must wear this.

Certainly every cleric of a deity will have symbols of that deity about them, but that doesn't mean they're going to be dressed like soldiers in uniform.

I agree. They'd only wear some sort of uniform if they were part of some specific organization that typically utilized such. Though, they probably have faith specific formal robes for important ceremonies; pretty much every real world religion has such, so it's completely reasonable for a player to expect that in fantasy worlds. There are certainly plenty of examples of such in fantasy literature.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Wouldn't you use Knowledge (religion) to identify someone as a cleric? And Knowledge (arcana) to identify someone as a wizard or sorcerer?

These would be separate checks from those to identify the creature itself, of course.


No, I would never allow knowledge religion or knowledge arcana to identify someone as a cleric or wizard.

Knowledge religion would be able to identify the deity of any religious paraphernalia they might happen to have on display though. Knowledge arcana might identify magical runes that might be on clothing or books or something that a wizard might wear. And these items might lead you to think the person was a cleric or a wizard.

But they might also be an Inquisitor or Paladin, or a sorcerer, magus, arcanist, bloodrager, etc.


Also spellcraft to identify any visible magical effects might help.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Claxon wrote:

No, I would never allow knowledge religion or knowledge arcana to identify someone as a cleric or wizard.

Knowledge arcana might identify magical runes that might be on clothing or books or something that a wizard might wear.

Or if he smells like bat guano. :-)


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

That's kind of what I meant; you would identify them by their paraphernalia and quite possibly their mannerisms. (Does he walk like a soldier, or like a pompous noble?)

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