Is there an item that a character can reference to learn about a creature?
For example, if they are hunting a troll they could consult the book rather than hoping to perform well on a knowledge check.
Is there an item that a character can reference to learn about a creature?
For example, if they are hunting a troll they could consult the book rather than hoping to perform well on a knowledge check.
There's a generic "masterwork tool" that provides a bonus to any such check, which would certainly include the bestiary you describe.
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At best, it would be a bonus to a check for owning it (the assumption being that the character has read it in the past), or a generous GM might allow a character to do something like take d6 rounds to look up the character they've encountered for exhaustive information. Though, in that case, the character would still need to know the name of the creature type so they could know what to look up. If you don't know it's Alexander Hamilton on the $10.00 bill, it's a little more challenging to look up Hamilton's information in an encyclopedia.
Actually, a lot of "field guides" are structured so that you don't need to know the name of the thing you're looking up. I own guides to both birds and flowers that are roughly tree-structured (e.g., you first look in the "red" section, and then you look in a subsection corresponding to how big it is, or something like that, and eventually you find out that you're looking at a cardinal or a rose. Hopefully you can distinguish those two apart.)
I don't see any reason why a similar "Field Guide to Humanoids" shouldn't be available at any large Golarion publisher. Of course, I'm not sure you want to be taking three minutes (18 rounds) in combat flipping pages and trying to count its teeth to see what exactly is trying to eat your arm.
There are rules for settlements that give bonuses on skill checks, like for instance, a bonus on Knowledge checks if you have access to a library.
I believe there was some in the Gamemastery Guide and more in the Ultimate Campaign on these rules.
In Wrath of the Righteous, the players get access to a few different libraries that if referenced grants a bonus to Knowledge checks. The issue isn't if they exist (bestiaries exist IRL for fanciful creatures). It is perfectly reasonable to assume someone has written down this knowledge. The issue is 1) access and 2) use.
1) Access: the books exist, you just have to be in a large enough city or have access to a library that is large enough to have the book. Another avenue is being part of a group or "Society" that produces these books and gives them to their members.
2) Use: Think about how long it takes at your gaming table to look up a specific rule if there is a disagreement. You likely don't know the exact page number, let alone the specific paragraph you are looking for. More likely, you know the chapter or section the rule is in, you flip through 5 to 10 pages and then scan through looking for the info. It might take as much as 5 or 10 minutes if you are having trouble finding it. It's not unreasonable to take 1d6 MINUTES to complete this task. So the book is good for research, but in combat you better already know what you need to know.
In Ultimate Campaign it says a "Book Repository" for a specific Knowledge skill would give a +3 on your knowledge check.
... which puts the +2 for a masterwork tool that you can carry in your pocket into perspective. It gives you 2/3 of the benefit and doesn't require an inconveniently large building to accompany you into the dungeon.
I Think spending 5 minutes looking in a 3 pound book is a decent fradrog for it applying to all aspects of a knowledge skill.
That Way you Can have Rich parents and spend 500 gp on having 15 kilo of books at level 1.
And i know know how my arcanist is gonna waste a trait:)
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There are/were plenty of real world bestiarys, it's safe to assume there would be many such works written in a fantasy setting. Of course, they may or may not be all that accurate. I could see having something like a tome of Troll hunting +5. One can consult the book to make a knowledge check about the book's contents (trolls in this case) using the books modifier instead of their own. The more info in the book, the better the modifier. Alternatively the book could assist you on your own knowledge check (giving you a +2 if it rolls a 10 per normal).
In Ultimate Campaign it says a "Book Repository" for a specific Knowledge skill would give a +3 on your knowledge check.... which puts the +2 for a masterwork tool that you can carry in your pocket into perspective. It gives you 2/3 of the benefit and doesn't require an inconveniently large building to accompany you into the dungeon.This leads to an interesting question.
What would be the weight and dimensions of a "Masterwork" quality reference book that would help reference all the creatures in the bestiary?
By RAW a generic "masterwork tool" weighs 1 pound and covers (one aspect of) one skill. Since there are six skills for monster identification, this would require six books and weigh six pounds. If you wanted to bind all six volumes into a single binding, that would technically require your GM's permission, but I don't see any reason to withhold that -- and I'd even give you a weight break since you've got only one set of bindings to weigh you down. So five pounds instead.
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Depends on many factors.
The setting: In some settings interacting with certain monsters is stuff of legends and most people don't know anything on mid to higher levels monsters (Eberron). Some settings monsters are rarer, so rare in fact, it could be the adventurer who are the first one to encounter such a creature. In my setting for example, there are no information on mythic creatures at all, way to rare to be in books, people simply knows that there are some superior creatures/specimen.
Adventuring guild/society etc...: I can imagine group exchanging information about monsters or like a monster hunter group.
By default in Golarion, you literally have the pathfinders who are dealing with these kind of stuffs, so wouldn't be surprised to see many books on the subject.
Here are some:
Blue book By consulting the book for 1 hour, for the next 24 hours you gain a +2 circumstance bonus on Knowledge (local), Bluff, and Diplomacy checks to gather or use information in that city.
Book of puzzles Once you solve a puzzle, for the next 24 hours you can choose to roll twice on a single Disable Device, Knowledge, or Sense Motive skill check and take the higher result.
Footprint book By consulting the book for 5 minutes while studying a set of tracks, you can attempt a DC 10 Knowledge (local) check for humanoids or a DC 10 Knowledge (nature) check for animals to identify the animal or humanoid that made the tracks.
Heritage book Consulting this book grants a +2 circumstance bonus on Knowledge (nobility) checks.
Pathfinder Chronicle When used as a reference (an action that typically takes 1d4 full rounds of searching the text), a Pathfinder Chronicle grants a +2 circumstance bonus on a specific Knowledge check.
Tome of epics After consulting the book for 1 hour, for the next 24 hours you gain a +2 bonus on Perform (oratory) and Perform (vocal) checks and a +2 circumstance bonus on Knowledge (nobility) checks pertaining to heroic lineages.
/cevah
Rogue Genius Games has a product (Bell, Book, and Candle, I think it is) that offers some "Manual of Monsters" books. Studying for a certain amount of time gives a one-day bonus. That might be the closest to an actual bestiary.
Varian Jeggare is canonically stated to have produced a Pathfinder Chronicle titled A Bestiary of Garund.
I think the Pathfinder Chronicle is what you're looking for in-game, as mentioned earlier. And it sounds fair to call it time to search. Unless you're able to flip through all four Bestiary books quicker ...
As far as completion, that's a campaign-specific question that only your GM knows for sure :)
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Both the 3rd edition and 2nd edition "Van Richten's Guides", as well as the 3rd edition "Ravenloft Gazetteers" were supposed to be actual in-game books that the character could come across in their adventures. There were other such books for other settings as well (such as the various "Volo's Guides" in the Forgotten Realms", but the Ravenloft books were the first to come to mind.
So, the precedent is there for in-game books such as bestiaries to exist...
Back in AD&D I played a Dwarf Fighter that made his own bestiary. He wrote down every monster he encountered along with stuff he had learned about the creature.
Most descriptions lacked a name because he did not know it.
Wanted to do it again for some time but I didn't find the right game for it.
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By RAW a generic "masterwork tool" weighs 1 pound and covers (one aspect of) one skill. Since there are six skills for monster identification, this would require six books and weigh six pounds.
as GM I don't allow a MW tool for K. Arcana : as you said it's one aspect of the skill :
I might allow a MW tool on dragons species
....Tome of epics After consulting the book for 1 hour, for the next 24 hours you gain a +2 bonus on Perform (oratory) and Perform (vocal) checks and a +2 circumstance bonus on Knowledge (nobility) checks pertaining to heroic lineages....
So getting that for my bard. 50gp and an hour reading every morning for an all day +2 UNTYPED bonus on Diplomacy, Bluff, and Sense Motive.
Is there an item that a character can reference to learn about a creature?
For example, if they are hunting a troll they could consult the book rather than hoping to perform well on a knowledge check.
Short of the GM creating an in-game item that allows this to happen (and thereby eliminating part of why the Wizard is a core member of most parties) the only thing that can even come remotely close to this is a library.
If memory serves, libraries give a +4 bonus if you spend a day looking stuff up there. As the GM you could say that one of the Librarians are particularly interested in learning about said monster, and thereby do the research for the party with his own knowledge check.
Seriously, however, you don't want to eliminate important aspects of the core group. Not deciding to have a key skill should punish you to some degree: the party can't scout ahead, they can't learn of an enemy's weaknesses, they have to deal with the reality that they are unable to hide any weapons on someone before entering the big-bad's lair or they can't identify the spell the enemy caster is using. If everyone has a chronic aversion to climbing, then they have to buy specialty equipment to climb, if no one can swim then they have to build a raft (and therefore risk drowning).
Basically, if your PCs are new then don't be too hard on them. If they're all veterans then they probably know the implications of not having key skills.
In general, the best rule of thumb is to punish them, but let them continue forward. Perhaps it takes a few hours or days thinking about trolls.
By RAW a generic "masterwork tool" weighs 1 pound and covers (one aspect of) one skill. Since there are six skills for monster identification, this would require six books and weigh six pounds.
as GM I don't allow a MW tool for K. Arcana : as you said it's one aspect of the skill :
I might allow a MW tool on dragons species
Shrug. "Monster identification" is one aspect of the myriad uses of Knowledge: Arcana.
Other uses include: Identify auras while using detect magic, Identify a spell effect that is in place, Identify materials manufactured by magic, Identify a spell that just targeted you.The bestiary won't do anything for you if you're trying to identify mystic runes, for example. I don't think it's overpowering, but it's your game.
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Eh, to me the action economy cost of pulling out a book and flipping through it to look up a monster more than outweighs the +2 masterwork tool bonus. I mean, you have to use the tool on the check to get the bonus, so you are sacrificing at least a move action and a hand just to get your +2. Just carrying the book in your backpack doesn't help you out. Not broken.
This is what libraries are for. They give you bonuses to the Knowledge check and allow you to make such checks untrained.
If it takes a "particularly complete library" to grant any kind of bonus, I seriously doubt a single masterwork book is going to do the trick.
Both the 3rd edition and 2nd edition "Van Richten's Guides", as well as the 3rd edition "Ravenloft Gazetteers" were supposed to be actual in-game books that the character could come across in their adventures. There were other such books for other settings as well (such as the various "Volo's Guides" in the Forgotten Realms", but the Ravenloft books were the first to come to mind.
So, the precedent is there for in-game books such as bestiaries to exist...
The Book of Exalted Deeds and Book Of Vile Darkness are from the list of magic items/artifacts from 1st ed.
/cevah
So getting that for my bard. 50gp and an hour reading every morning for an all day +2 UNTYPED bonus on Diplomacy, Bluff, and Sense Motive.....Tome of epics After consulting the book for 1 hour, for the next 24 hours you gain a +2 bonus on Perform (oratory) and Perform (vocal) checks and a +2 circumstance bonus on Knowledge (nobility) checks pertaining to heroic lineages....
Only because you are a bard. Us non-bard types don't get that. Can you link the specific class feature?
Thanks
/cevah, diplomancer
At best, it would be a bonus to a check for owning it (the assumption being that the character has read it in the past), or a generous GM might allow a character to do something like take d6 rounds to look up the character they've encountered for exhaustive information. Though, in that case, the character would still need to know the name of the creature type so they could know what to look up. If you don't know it's Alexander Hamilton on the $10.00 bill, it's a little more challenging to look up Hamilton's information in an encyclopedia.Actually, a lot of "field guides" are structured so that you don't need to know the name of the thing you're looking up. I own guides to both birds and flowers that are roughly tree-structured (e.g., you first look in the "red" section, and then you look in a subsection corresponding to how big it is, or something like that, and eventually you find out that you're looking at a cardinal or a rose. Hopefully you can distinguish those two apart.)
I don't see any reason why a similar "Field Guide to Humanoids" shouldn't be available at any large Golarion publisher. Of course, I'm not sure you want to be taking three minutes (18 rounds) in combat flipping pages and trying to count its teeth to see what exactly is trying to eat your arm.
True, but we're living in an age of enlightenment. I can find out the average lifespan of a cane toad in ten seconds with Google. Books like that are easy to put out, easy to fact-check, and easy to gather information for—if I go up to the mountains to study predators in the modern world, the worst I'll run into is an easily-spooked mountain lion or, if I'm exceptionally unlucky, a bear. Even if I run into a bear, they aren't generally too aggressive, playing dead generally saves me from serious injury, and I can always bring someone with a gun along if I suspect real danger. Also, cars to escape quickly.
If I go up to the mountains to study predators in Golarion, the worst I'll run into is a pack of worgs, a pair of yrthaks, an owlbear, a bunch of kobolds out hunting, a cult of Lamashtu trying to destroy a nearby village, bandits, a dragon...
Try playing dead on gnolls. See where that gets you.
Books probably exist, is my point, but they're going to be much less reliable ("We were unable to burn the troglodytes. Conclusion: Troglodytes are immune to fire!"—in reality, their priestess had cast energy resistance on all of them), much less available ("This is the last copy of Professor Probbyded's famous aberration journal. Looks like there are some pages missing, and a couple are hard to read due to ichor covering them."), and much less likely to be conveniently formatted ("I can barely read this old dwarf's scrawl! Pity he died before he could get this book to an editor."). Moreover, they'll be incomplete—nobody can study every aberration, or every magical beast.
This is why it's a bonus, not an auto-success. No book can cover everything. Even in worlds with easy printing and lots of exploration like Eberron and Golarion, there is no way information is at the same place it is in the modern Earth's Global North. There's too much to study, and too much of it wants to make your skin into a dapper coat and wear your ribcage like a hat.
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The Book of Exalted Deeds and Book Of Vile Darkness are from the list of magic items/artifacts from 1st ed.
The difference, is that the Van Richten's Guides, Ravenloft Gazetteers, and Volo's Guides, read like they were written from someone living in those settings. The 3rd edition Book of Exalted Deeds and Book of Vile Darkness read like the 3rd edition rulebooks that they were...