How to say no on a very high knowledge roll.


Advice

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In my current campaign, there is a magical artifact that is the center piece of a conspiracy, where several major characters are vying for its power. The only twist is that there is so little information about it, only a handful of people (about 10-20) know it actually exists, but no one knows where or much about it, they only know its incredibly powerful and world changing. If ya wanna know more about it, check the artifact backstory.

So my problem is this: one of my players knows of its existence out of game (we shot ideas back and forth a year or so before I set up the game and decided to stick with the idea, so he put two and two together), but their in game character, Abby, has a very intelligent character in game (int score 20). While the PC's have gotten some hints and scraps of information about its existence, not enough to paint a full picture. So this player already scored a (18 roll + 14) 32 history check and was a little bummed to find out they didn't know about it. I explained that its because its a HUGE secret and next to know one knows about it. My question is, was I right to decline them knowledge, what would be a DC to beat to know something about this super secret artifact, and how should I deal with it if they want to roll another knowledge check to beat it?

Artifact backstory because why not:

Long story short, a soldier who lost his wife, who was a wizard, during a war, wanted to be with her again, without the drawbacks of raising dead and etc. So he essentially created an artifact that could grant the wish spell, anytime, any place, without limits. When he wished to be back with his love, he vanished, and the artifact was left behind. (Essentially he created a paradise plane for him and his love and left it behind by accident).

When he made the artifact, he ensured not one soul knew what he was up to, so he set up safe zones for teleporting around the world and pretty much did everything in his power to keep it to himself. He only kept in contact with one person, an old war buddy, a gifted Elven cleric, who provided the man with supplies and magical items when needed (he knew not the purpose, but assumed he was doing military contracting work). When the soldier left to be with his love, the cleric found the artifact but it teleported away from him. Ever since that elf has been looking for it, and only a few others have discovered its potential.


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There are certain things that even a result of 50 or 100 on a knowledge check won't tell you, especially about things that are actively guarded/kept secret or that are so obscure that only very few know about.

I'd say you were right to say "no", but I also understand the PC being bummed.

The fun thing is he might actually know things, more than he thought, but in a completely different context, and has never made a connection to this artifact, and it will eventually become clearer that he knows more than he initially did, when they learn more about it.
Just an idea.


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Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

i feel knowledge check of 32 should probably net him something. :P knowledge checks aren't all you heard specifically about X, you might have infered information from other information and gleamed that an artifact may exist, or maybe that a group seems to be vying for some object of importance, etc.


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Here's my opinion.

DC 32 is a considered a pretty absurd knowledge check.

The PC should have known "something" about it. Maybe an esoteric legend. Maybe the information isn't even absolutely correct. But... SOMETHING.

When you tell a PC they know "nothing about it", you make them feel like the investment they have made into their character is pointless. This, to me, feels like a squandered opportunity for a plot hook and a devaluing of where a character has chosen to focus (or maybe even just had a bit of luck)

Allow me to illustrate the point, using your own words.

DC30: "You once heard a story about a gifted Elven cleric who once, having provided someone with materials and tons of supplies to craft a magical creation when requested, encountered an object that teleported away from him."

DC35: "He has been seeking that object ever since, and no one left alive truly knows its properties. This object seems to match the Cleric's description of that very object."

DC40: "The object sounds like it was designed to fulfill the bearer's wishes, without restriction or limitation."

DC45: "You know that such magic is rarely fulfilled as desired, and most likely would come with an unexpected or terrible cost."

Silver Crusade

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Some information just isn't available. That makes knowledge checks useless for that information. As others have said, they might get related information, but nothing about that specific artifact.


I'm with the others who said that the player should definitely receive some useful related information with a check result that high, but not the super secret information you want to keep from them.

Maybe the info the PC gets leads the party to the next stage of the adventure or leads them to some other magical items or a major bad guy who's tied to this artifact in some way.


I MAY have given him a rumor... Somebody once asked someone about an object like this... Then maybe some vague heresay... The last person to mention something like was interested in raising the dead... but he was never seen again. I don't know if this item had anything to do with it...

If the knowledge isn't there... then it isn't there. But if anyone else knows about it... knows what it does it... knows who made it... then any one of those could be a vague hint of knowledge

OR.... what we come across occasionally is "In all your studies you feel confident you SHOULD have heard about this... the fact you haven't is curious"

What I would be more concerned with is magic. What would people do with the Legend Lore spell? When you have something you want to keep secret... but there is a spell that is 'reveal DM's secrets'?

Because honestly, if the 32 knowledge check doesn't come up with something... it's usually time to go the legend lore route... then you're forced to write a cryptic poem or something ;)


'There is no info available' is a valid answer, but I'd have indirectly pointed them at one of these 10-20 people, e.g. a historian once wrote something which suggested she corresponded with someone who knew about this subject. She's dead, want to look up her heirs? That's too many to hold a secret reliably after all.

Generally a clue for the next step on a trail is better than blocking the players efforts entirely, even if it's a long trail. Also you want to encourage people to engage in world building.


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Sometimes information just isn't available no matter how smart you are. It is time to use divination spells in that case. Even legend lore may not work, but some of the other spells might.


You don't say no to a very high knowledge check.

If need be you manufacture non-vital information that can satisfy the player's curiosity and feeling of need to be rewarded for the check without revealing anything that absolutely must not be revealed at this point.

On the other side of the subject, you DO give them something useful, something meaningful enough that the player feels it was good to develop the skill on the character in question.

Dark Archive

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I would not have said "no information" I would have said instead to the player "You realize that such an item is possible to create if legends of other ancient artefacts are to be believed. This combined with no information on the subject makes you think that if someone did create it, they must have made it almost impossible to track." or something similar.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

My question has to be: what triggered the K (history) check in the first place?

There must be something, whether the name of the artifact, a description, a cryptic note, whatever. Players can't use Knowledge checks as a "tell me the plot background" device. Without knowing why the character made the check in the first place, it's hard to give advice on what they might know.


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I would say something like "Wow, you certainly are well-read on this subject, and with nearly perfect recall you arrive at only one certain conclusion: nobody has ever written anything about this item. And anything with such a strong aura should be written about, for sure, but apparently nobody has; you're quite sure of that. That can only mean one thing: this is a unique and wonderful item that has been kept as a closely guarded secret by anyone who knew of it. And believe me, nobody tries that hard to keep a secret this big unless it's a special item indeed. Unfortunately, since nobody knows what it is, you'll have to find a different way to discern this item's true nature; knowledge is simply not going to suffice."


A knowledge check that high should make her aware of the 10-20 people (or a subset of them) who are aware of the artifact, even if she doesn't immediately become one of those illuminati. People can, for example, be aware of the existence of Freemasons, even if they know none of their secrets. If information has been actively scrubbed, then she should notice there are voids in the available records about... something. Her skill roll might also yield something like: "Hmmm... I have made enough of a research effort to have found the data, or proof of its falsehood, but I found neither. It seems even the Akashic record has been altered. I wonder what this means?" In other words: Let the knowledge roll give her a good reason to care, and want to learn and explore more.
You are eventually going to have to reveal something about the item unless you spent all this time thinking about it only so you could keep it to yourself and one day end the campaign with "And nothing was ever learned by anyone about that thing you don't know, and don't even know that you don't know, and the universe now denies its existence."


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Make it a campaign goal.

Tell her it is DC 100, and each significant piece of information she picks up (notes from the cleric, the soldier's diary, witness testimony of the teleporting thing, etc.) knocks 10 off the DC.

That way, you cand drip feed her information. The more they learn, the easier it will be to get something concrete.

So, a discussion on what she finds at each point-

10 DC- it a 'thing' some people want. Or an animal. A monster?

20 DC- it is an item that is important.

30 DC- it is a unique item, one of a kind, and you know what groups want it (this gives leads, since those people might have research on it)

40 DC- it might be an artifact, or close enough.

50 DC- A magic school associated with the item (might just be the extra stuff associated with the teleportation and anti scrying)

60 DC- it teleports about. Someone put in mechanisms that make this hard to find. (maybe learn of common methods to find it that failed)

70 DC- common locations it appears at, or a general range.

80 DC- The people associated with the item (and those people can be looked up with a normal knowledge check, and that gives leads for th next clue)

90 DC- What he was attempting to do when making the item. The ostensible purpose.

100 DC- what the item actually does (incase something went terribly wrong, and it only looks like it works properly, like a cursed item). Also, the instructions on how to destroy it (maybe make that DC 10, or maybe even [your knowledge check] +10, to make them look into it more)

Just knock 10 off of each of those DCs when they find something important about it.


Helcack wrote:
I would not have said "no information" I would have said instead to the player "You realize that such an item is possible to create if legends of other ancient artefacts are to be believed. This combined with no information on the subject makes you think that if someone did create it, they must have made it almost impossible to track." or something similar.

This is a really good idea. Tell the player that his pc knows about such things, but that he doesn't know about this thing in particular, which is weird, then a little about what the wierdness might mean.


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The question is, what's the point of having a piece of information (such as the artifact's backstory) in the game, if it's so super secret there's no way for the players to experience?


jasin wrote:
The question is, what's the point of having a piece of information (such as the artifact's backstory) in the game, if it's so super secret there's no way for the players to experience?

I doubt they would never experience it.

It is just that the GM doesn't want to cut out the whole exploration, investigation, research, and search parts of the campaign due to a single good skill check. So he just said 'nuh uh' cause he was caught blind sided by that.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

I'm comfortable with saying no to Knowledge checks, but only in very rare cases. For example, if there's a completely unique new monster that has literally never been seen before - for example, an Abyssal snarl of some sort produces a entirely new kind of demon right in front of the PCs - I figure there's no way to actually know anything about it yet. Although in that example I would still let a PC know the basic demon traits.

Wrath of the Righteous spoilers

Spoiler:
I've been doing this with some of the mythic monsters in Wrath - they are unique new entities, so there is literally no way for the PCs to know their mythic capabilities. I happily give out what the base monster is "supposed" to do, while also warning that "this one looks different in way you've never heard of." Once the PC get more information about what's going on with these beasties (they are still in adventure 2) I'll relax this restriction.

But in general it's really tough to have absolutely no information leak out. Even if an artifact is the work of a lich who's been sealed away in isolation for millennia, a high enough Knowledge check could reveal that the lich exists and was working on a big project, possibly related to (whatever).

In the situation you describe, I'd give out a couple hints about things the party didn't already find out. The player shouldn't get a full history and writeup, but a check that high, to me, means he has heard some rumors or something. He can't know stuff that is flat unknown, but maybe he knows one fact that only the conspiracy members know. Honestly I'd use the check to drive the plot a bit by revealing something mysterious that the party will want to investigate.


Keep in mind that the 32 the player got might very well not be enough, there are things that are so well hidden and/or long forgotten that their knowledge DC are almost absurd, for example the knowledge DC for the Runeforge (was somewhat secret during Thassilon, 10000 years ago) start at 33 and end at 50.
Now if you believe that the 32 that the player got isn't enough then by all means don't tell him anything but my opinion (from what you told us about the artifact) is that you should have told him something.


I'm voting for the whole..
There simply isn't enough info. If things are actively being hidden over time by a powerful entity.. THey've had lot of practice and time to cover their tracks... They really won't miss a whole lot.

While 32 Sounds like a lot.. and it is a pretty nice roll, it isn't amazing world ending awesome.

In this context. With how little to no info they have at all, I wouldn't give anything except on a 20. Which would net them a spark of inspiration . a Thread to pull. like a small detail in a book they read as a kid that had an item with a similiar appearence. Written by X name. Which through much research and a treck to the library or divination spell you learn was written via a pseudonym of one of few people who have known about it. Having written to off handedly start to hide breadcrumbs.

So they they get to hunt down more works by the fake names and piece together the whole legend and history through that means.

I cited a 20 cause that is just my own marker for "super duper inspiration moments of clarity" but that roll would be easier once they learn more about said item and such. Which given that seems to be a big point of the game, means they'll gain more glimpses and scraps. It is a shame they know about it metagame wise. Otherwise I would award circumstancial DC lowering for their own clever thinking. I suppose if someone else tried they could do it..

Alternatively they could retry the roll in a library and stumble across the crumb in a kids book that leads them down the rabbit hole.

Basically. It is entirely reasonable to haven ever heard or remotely knew of such a well hidden item (hell who is to say no one ever wished for its secrecy? You could even have them run into someone who knows of it.. and once they gain the knowledge that fellow vanishes out of existance due to some past wish. Which would cause a sense of urgency because the group has been roped into something dangerous. (obviously dont delete them from existance, but you could have arunning tab of "existances that know" Each existance counts as the ones who learned at the same time. So the group is one existance, which erased another's. So if they go spreading things around it has ramifications behind the scene you can play with. Assuming your group isn't the type who just goes around telling everyone hoping it erases the enemies and not them or something.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

One thing to bear in mind is that 32 is enough to identify a moderately common CR 18-22 creature, but none of its abilities.

So, if this was a monster identification check, the character could recognise...

A kraken.
A balor.
A pit fiend.

If the information the character finds is rarer than these, it's unlikely they would have learned much of anything. Maybe give them a snippet of history relating to the artifact. But only the history, not powers, just names and rumoured events, possibly twisted by the passage of history.


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Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

You could always give information about what the macguffin is NOT.

For example, you could eliminate possibilities such as "You know it's not dwarven-made because <reasons>" or "You know it's older than <other old known object> because <reasons>".

Liberty's Edge

Sharing a name of the artifact and then pointing out that the artifact is mentioned in a single line of a single book - and nowhere else in the piles of texts our scholar has perused is a clue worth having. Highlight how much the PC knows about all these different topics, and you inform the players that recorded information does not exist on this topic, and your brainy PC is a really brainy PC. Win-win.


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Since Knowledge checks are not a binary thing - you gain more information the higher you roll - you did have the opportunity to share something about the artifact, over and above what little information they have already discovered in game.

It doesn't have to be much, but even the: "You know a lot of lore about such kinds of things, and this is even more obscure than that and will require more research/questing/etc.,..." is something. It's the perfect opportunity to point the players in a meaningful direction!


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Chemlak wrote:

One thing to bear in mind is that 32 is enough to identify a moderately common CR 18-22 creature, but none of its abilities.

So, if this was a monster identification check, the character could recognise...

A kraken.
A balor.
A pit fiend.

If the information the character finds is rarer than these, it's unlikely they would have learned much of anything. Maybe give them a snippet of history relating to the artifact. But only the history, not powers, just names and rumoured events, possibly twisted by the passage of history.

That never made much sense to me. You pick up knowledge about the big, notorious things first, whereas the obscure or day-to-day knowledge is the stuff that a master inside a field would know.

Someone who'd picked up a few skill ranks in knowledge: the planes would know much more about the demons at the top of the power structure than about the life-cycle of dretches. "Yeah, you've never heard of the giant movers and shakers of the abyss who're extremely iconic, not to mention legendary creatures" sit really badly with me.

Presumably, legends would be a primary source for knowledgeable people in a d&d society - and legends in a fantasy world would be about the really legendary stuff. Stories about Balors, Solars, great wyrms and Tarrasques seems like they'd be much more accessible than the other stuff.

Scarab Sages

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Make it a springboard for adventure: "You don't really know anything about this artifact, but you suspect you know SOMEONE WHO DOES!!" and then the PCs have to go on a quest to find the person with the answers.


Really guys? You [almost] all want to cockblock the poor player from learning anything about the artifact in question?

Definitely not how I'd go about it as GM but whatever.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

I think the point IS to cockblock the player, and that isn't necessarily a problem. I don't care what your Acrobatics check is, you can't use Acrobatics to Fly. Some things just AREN'T available.

With that said, I think this can be used to advance the plot. With a high check, I stress just how unusual it is that you DON'T know, and use that to shape the narrative. One of my players was an Inquisitor that specialized in interrogating people, but he came across a Rogue of equal level that had invested in lying (via Signature skills and the like). When he was unable to tell instantly if she was bluffing or not, I stressed that his roll was what let him know how strong of a personality he was dealing with, because 99% of the people out there would have been read easily by that roll. he'd learned about the foe through his inability to learn about the foe.

So this LACK of knowledge should be used to express the mystery of this artifact, and how unusual it is for the player to NOT know about it.


Acrobatics isn't related to flight, though. We're more in the vein of "I don't care if you've the fly spell, you're not getting across this chasm." I can see why it's a problem.

That said, there's knowledge that can't be obtained by knowledge checks.

What do I have in my pocket? A knowledge(local) check dc 100 won't let you know this.


I'd say you were in the right. High knowledge checks are already ridiculous powerful in the right hands. Just because they can't achieve one impossibly hard thing doesn't mean you're keeping them from using their high intelligence. That's like saying you'd be killing a barbarians fun if you didn't let him throw a castle at someone. It's ok for some things to be impossible.

Grand Lodge

If it really is only known by a handful of people, why did the PC make the roll in the first place? You shouldn't be asking for a roll, and they shouldn't be making it, unless there was some question that at least tangentially involves it. Expand on that connection without giving away the whole history.

Wolfsnap's answer is correct, though: give them an answer that moves the plot along, points them towards the next quest, or gives them information that iwll be useful in the next stage, or down the road. This is a resource for you as a GM to engage the players with the story. If they really aren't supposed to interact with this things story because it's so obscure, it probably shouldn't be in the game in the first place.

Here, maybe they don't know details of the artifact, but they know legends of an ancient army of powerful wizards who might have been able to create such a thing. Or they know of a library that was sacked and destroyed for researching something like this, or they know stories of an ancient wizard that was said to be in many places at once, or of an Elven cleric scouring the earth for something, or weird teleportation zones that people have stumbled in to, etc, etc.


kyrt-ryder wrote:

Really guys? You [almost] all want to cockblock the poor player from learning anything about the artifact in question?

Definitely not how I'd go about it as GM but whatever.

Prevent her from learning something about the artifact JUST because she rolled a dice?

Heck, yeah.

This is a role playing game. Play the adventure, and learn about things as the story unfolds. Something as important to the overall plot of the entire adventure as this artifact (the very goal itself) shouldn't be something that can be learned about just from a dice roll. Otherwise, why bother role playing at all?


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The Dragon wrote:
Acrobatics isn't related to flight, though. We're more in the vein of "I don't care if you've the fly spell, you're not getting across this chasm." I can see why it's a problem.

Absolutely incorrect.

It's more like, "I don't care if you can fly, you can't fly to the moon."

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, LO Special Edition, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

It seems there are two ways to play this....one everyone knows about but believes it is lost or it is legend and not accept in the established circles of knowledge.

If it is a well known item that is lost there might be books written on or accounts of the last time it was used. It would be an accepted part of the worlds knowledge but it would have a widely accepted destruction story. Meaning there is lots to know but the item is accepted as lost. If this were the case then there might be lots of information, maybe not all of it true but it would be available. But as soon is it was determined to not be lost then all hell would break loose as everyone and their brother was vying to retrieve it. Wars would be fought, countries would fall, empires would be wasted in its pursuit and lots of people would die.

If it is not well known then there is nothing for anyone to find out. The established circles of knowledge (magic schools. churches,...) would consider it superstition and old wives tales. There would be only cursory knowledge in the form of myths and tales but nothing concert. Most people in the establishment would laugh it off considering it fiction not fact. The only information I would allow would be form people out side the established circles, the crack pots and crazies that are not accepted in normal circles. (yes wearing tin foil hats!) The knowledge they would have would also include good dose of myth and legend mixed in. Making the characters determine the fact for them self

Remember a knowledge check does not allow them to know things that are not known. It lets them access the realm of known things, if only 10 people in the world no this exists, they keep it as a closely guarded secret and the PC is not part of that group there is no way they know anything about it.


Saldiven wrote:
kyrt-ryder wrote:

Really guys? You [almost] all want to cockblock the poor player from learning anything about the artifact in question?

Definitely not how I'd go about it as GM but whatever.

Prevent her from learning something about the artifact JUST because she rolled a dice?

Heck, yeah.

This is a role playing game. Play the adventure, and learn about things as the story unfolds. Something as important to the overall plot of the entire adventure as this artifact (the very goal itself) shouldn't be something that can be learned about just from a dice roll. Otherwise, why bother role playing at all?

It is a roleplaying game, and one of the roleplaying choices made was taking Knowledge:History [something useless for combat] to help the character understand the history of things around them.

Obviously I wouldn't give away critical secrets for a Knowledge Roll but I also wouldn't shove the Knowledge Check up the player's butt and tell them to wipe with it either.


Markov Spiked Chain wrote:
If it really is only known by a handful of people, why did the PC make the roll in the first place? You shouldn't be asking for a roll, and they shouldn't be making it, unless there was some question that at least tangentially involves it. Expand on that connection without giving away the whole history.

No, I think allowing the roll was the right choice. The PC cannot learn details of the item from the roll because it's outside the purview of a knowledge check, but even that is meaningful information - now the PC knows that this is a unique and powerful item rather than just some common thing of little interest.

NOT being able to get details is a great way to pique interest and call attention to the fact that this item is unique.


Zwordsman wrote:

I'm voting for the whole..

There simply isn't enough info. If things are actively being hidden over time by a powerful entity.. THey've had lot of practice and time to cover their tracks... They really won't miss a whole lot.

While 32 Sounds like a lot.. and it is a pretty nice roll, it isn't amazing world ending awesome.

In this context. With how little to no info they have at all, I wouldn't give anything except on a 20. Which would net them a spark of inspiration . a Thread to pull. like a small detail in a book they read as a kid that had an item with a similiar appearence. Written by X name. Which through much research and a treck to the library or divination spell you learn was written via a pseudonym of one of few people who have known about it. Having written to off handedly start to hide breadcrumbs.

So they they get to hunt down more works by the fake names and piece together the whole legend and history through that means.

I cited a 20 cause that is just my own marker for "super duper inspiration moments of clarity" but that roll would be easier once they learn more about said item and such. Which given that seems to be a big point of the game, means they'll gain more glimpses and scraps. It is a shame they know about it metagame wise. Otherwise I would award circumstancial DC lowering for their own clever thinking. I suppose if someone else tried they could do it..

Alternatively they could retry the roll in a library and stumble across the crumb in a kids book that leads them down the rabbit hole.

Basically. It is entirely reasonable to haven ever heard or remotely knew of such a well hidden item (hell who is to say no one ever wished for its secrecy? You could even have them run into someone who knows of it.. and once they gain the knowledge that fellow vanishes out of existance due to some past wish. Which would cause a sense of urgency because the group has been roped into something dangerous. (obviously dont delete them from existance, but you could have arunning...

Ehm... The player rolled more than the 20 you mention, he rolled a 32.


Saldiven wrote:
The Dragon wrote:
Acrobatics isn't related to flight, though. We're more in the vein of "I don't care if you've the fly spell, you're not getting across this chasm." I can see why it's a problem.

Absolutely incorrect.

It's more like, "I don't care if you can fly, you can't fly to the moon."

The player does not know this. Suppose you had a 24/7 fly spell. Suppose you had a ring of sustenance. Suppose you didn't know about there not being air pressure and really cold in space. Then being able to fly to the moon would be a reasonable proposition, right? And being told that "You make it a fair bit up the first day, then explode and freeze, in that order, as blood boils in your veins from lack of pressure, then cools as heat is radiated away from the remains of your body." would seem rather unreasonable from a player perspective, as they didn't know about space.

This is analogous to the situation - the player doesn't know that this is super secret. Being told "No." like that feels wrong to them, as they're unaware of the magnitude of the secrecy involved.

As far as they're concerned, DC 25 should let them know even obscure knowledge, and not getting it when they far surpass that is really jarring. I totally understand the player in question is agiated, even though the result makes in-setting sense.


Instead of "no information", I'd give a clue. It could even be completely incorrect, but the clue would still help drive the plot forward. Basically I'd use the clue to reinforce the importance of something they already knew, perhaps giving an advantage in an encounter with someone who does have information.


You could take a cue from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: Despite his prodigious knowledge of archeology, at the beginning of the story Indy didn't know for sure that the artifact even existed, much less where it was. There was an organization (the Order of the Cruciform Sword) that did know, but they were unknown to the protagonists at the beginning of the story. Said organization wasn't seeking the item, they were actively protecting its location and eliminating anyone who got too close to finding it. Indy didn't make a single knowledge check that revealed everything, but he got something for each phase of his investigation -- each interaction lead to another breadcrumb to follow. Eventually, his adventure lead to the library where he crossed paths with the Order and learned there was a group who knew exactly where the Grail was (confirming that it existed, if not all its powers).

So, it is possible to have this skill check give the player something valuable that moves the story forward without it being a complete spoiler. If you give absolutely zip on a 32, then you are sorta binding yourself to setting all DCs higher for further rolls.


Robb Smith has good ideas.


AntiDjinn wrote:
So, it is possible to have this skill check give the player something valuable that moves the story forward without it being a complete spoiler. If you give absolutely zip on a 32, then you are sorta binding yourself to setting all DCs higher for further rolls.

So much this. Give the player something for their check, clues and hints that can motivate further investigation.


10 to 20 people knew something = its likely that at least some small breadcrumbs of Knowledge leaked out over the years, even if just rumors or small things that only make sense in-context.

But no matter how high a knowledge roll, some things simply are not available via this route.

Doesnt matter how high your knowledge Local roll was, you'll never find out that Major Bürgermeister licks the peanut butter right out of the glass, because he only does it when he is alone, and not in quantities that are suspicious and tidies up afterwards.

Knowledge (x) is not Divination.

Liberty's Edge

I recently had the same issue. A player heard a specific name and rolled knowledge check to find anything they might know about the significant NPC. It was in the 30's as well. I told them something very superficial, but that would connect directly to other things in the module. It also gave them a bit of indirect insight into the nature of things to come. Without spoiling much here, I told the player that the NPC was related to the First World and the name was thousands of years old. Due to the long span of time most information has been lost. However, this gives them hints at fey (first world) great powers (thousands of years old). As the module progresses they continue to find first world references and further information from parties more directly aligned with the first world (fey creatures in the area).

The knowledge netted them an initial framework. The remainder of the module painted the picture of this NPC on that initial framework. However, the knowledge check did not give them any significant information, because their character simply could not know that information.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
The Dragon wrote:

That never made much sense to me. You pick up knowledge about the big, notorious things first, whereas the obscure or day-to-day knowledge is the stuff that a master inside a field would know.

Someone who'd picked up a few skill ranks in knowledge: the planes would know much more about the demons at the top of the power structure than about the life-cycle of dretches. "Yeah, you've never heard of the giant movers and shakers of the abyss who're extremely iconic, not to mention legendary creatures" sit really badly with me.

Presumably, legends would be a primary source for knowledgeable people in a d&d society - and legends in a fantasy world would be about the really legendary stuff. Stories about Balors, Solars, great wyrms and Tarrasques seems like they'd be much more accessible than the other stuff.

I always took at more of, "Sure, you've heard of the Tarrasque. Off the top of your head, you can cite ten different legends that are completely contradictory about what it even looks like, much less what it does or where it came from. You simply don't have enough of a base to really sort through and figure out which sources (or parts thereof) are right and wrong, and thus can't make any conclusions."

I mean, how many different creation myths are there in the real world? It's a major thing, and even at a low Knowledge History check, it's reasonable to have some idea, probably based on what was commonly accepted in your local culture. A bit higher check, and maybe you'll know a few different myths and can see how they're contradictory. With an even higher check, you might start to connect some things that are similar between them. Then, with a high Knowledge Engineering check, you come up with the Big Bang instead.


ZZTRaider wrote:
I mean, how many different creation myths are there in the real world? It's a major thing, and even at a low Knowledge History check, it's reasonable to have some idea, probably based on what was commonly accepted in your local culture. A bit higher check, and maybe you'll know a few different myths and can see how they're contradictory. With an even higher check, you might start to connect some things that are similar between them. Then, with a high Knowledge Engineering check, you come up with the Big Bang instead.

Sure, if that's how it happened in your setting.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
kyrt-ryder wrote:
ZZTRaider wrote:
I mean, how many different creation myths are there in the real world? It's a major thing, and even at a low Knowledge History check, it's reasonable to have some idea, probably based on what was commonly accepted in your local culture. A bit higher check, and maybe you'll know a few different myths and can see how they're contradictory. With an even higher check, you might start to connect some things that are similar between them. Then, with a high Knowledge Engineering check, you come up with the Big Bang instead.
Sure, if that's how it happened in your setting.

Well, the point being, it makes a lot of sense that with a low knowledge check, you could probably look at the Tarrasque and say, "That's obviously not the Tarrasque, because [details from your local myth about the Tarrasque]."

Then with somewhat high knowledge check, you can say, "That's probably a Tarrasque. Its physical description fits [particular myth] pretty well."

Then, with an even higher check, you can say, "Based on the available myths, the legendary Tarrasque can probably do things like [specific ability], because that's one of the points that most of the myths agree on. Some of them require a bit of reinterpretation of their culture's metaphors, though, simply because they had nothing better to compare it to."

It's perfectly valid to have a high Knowledge check really just point out that you don't know anything of value, and you're very aware of your knowledge gaps. Maybe the knowledge doesn't exist at all, or maybe there's so many conflicting stories that you don't know enough to start to meaningfully sort through them.

How much this applies to this artifact, I'm not really sure; I was just responding The Dragon's comment that it didn't make sense to him that you needed really high knowledge checks to know anything about a creature of legend that would pretty clearly cause all sorts of stories to be passed down.

(Though I will say that I've been in campaigns where we started getting information about an artifact at DC 40 knowledge checks. We didn't exhaust the information from a particular knowledge skill until DC 50, and to pick up everything about the artifact, we needed to hit that DC in 5 or 6 different Knowledges.)


It is always good to give someone something when they roll well, even if it isn't exactly what they want. The name of the soldier or the elven cleric for example could lead them to other clues, but probably wouldn't derail the plot. Myths, legends, hints on where to go next are perfectly appropriate ways to enhance the story without giving away spoilers.


Fragmentary info that while accurate, is incredibly broad, but direct/clear enough to not start them off on a wild goose chase. As a DM, you may wish to step in if they hook a red herring out of their interpretation, but avoid putting them aboard the train. So long as they are trying, its not a save or suck situation, and a DM could subtly curve the adventure back towards the general direction you feel would be appropriate.

A good roll is nice especially if they spent effort stacking modifiers to assist them -maybe the check would instead point towards a location/organization. As in, the roll wasn't enough to define item "X", but the roll indicates that "Y" may have something cool to ask/explore. Maybe a common theme... or maybe the result just seemed... fishy or suspect enough to warrant scrutiny.

It should be good enough to progress towards an accurate course of action. That way the players feel some degree of reward instead of disappointment or confusion.

As in, they trace a parallel myth/legend that would have intersected with the mystery item's destiny and have some tangential or even direct link.

Specific to your scenario, the conspiracy could be what they are rolling for, or even information about the individuals involved or affected by the conspiracy. If you start with the present, one could backwards-track the legend using cause & effect.

The item would eventually be hypothesized as a catalyst or that one thing that would have made the course of events possible.

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