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Drow are evil. Drow are despised and hated. Drow are essentially kill on sight because they are considered a monster for all intent and purposes. The Society would likely not accept a character that looks like a Drow due to the problems that come with it.
If you want to use a disguise kit or a hat of disguise or whatever to try to look like a Drow, then it is an option. However, the reactions of NPCs will likely cause grief for the other characters and the GM is well within his or her rights to have NPCs act accordingly if they fail their perception and think the character is a Drow.
So while I'm not happy with the ruling, rules are rules and I can abide the ruling. Still, I gotta double check, it's okay for lawful/good characters to murder drow because they are considered a "monster race"?
Seems very much the opposite of the stance where it's immoral to attack sentient races without provocation. Are we supposed to attack helpless drow due to them being "Monsters."
Also, what check is used to distinguish elves from drow? Seems like they'd look pretty similar in a poorly lit room.
Which other sentient races qualify as Monsters for the purposes of ignoring moral consequences of attacking without provocation, attacking helpless creatures, and other normally immoral actions?
Or rather, which creatures (types and subtypes) can I attack without regard to alignment consequences?
Do I have to pass a knowledge check to identify, or does merely thinking the opponent is a monster race qualify it for execution?
Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Tampere
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Seems very much the opposite of the stance where it's immoral to attack sentient races without provocation. Are we supposed to attack helpless drow due to them being "Monsters."
Also, what check is used to distinguish elves from drow? Seems like they'd look pretty similar in a poorly lit room.
Which other sentient races qualify as Monsters for the purposes of ignoring moral consequences of attacking without provocation, attacking helpless creatures, and other normally immoral actions?
This actually came up in one of the very few scenarios that contain drow when it was played in my area. The party had, if I remember correctly, one character who managed to identify the drow as what they are: this was an elf wizard, who of course insisted on making sure the drow were deader than dead after combat was over. The party members that had not identified the drow were somewhat horrified, convinced he was committing some sort of hate crime, since to them the enemy appeared as funky dark purple elves. However, it was played for jokes instead of srs.
Really, though, I doubt there will ever be a PFS scenario where drow will be depicted as "helpless" unless it is due to direct action from the PCs, considering the stance of campaign management on them. In fact, I doubt they will ever be encountered in a manner that does not begin with said drow attacking with intent to kill or incapacitate and enslave.
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Alignment debate thread. Take a shot.
I can see why you'd conclude this, but it really isn't. It's a role playing question regarding which "races" qualify as monsters and should be killed on sight without regard to alignment.
Here, to rephrase:
Regardless of my alignment, which races (types and subtypes) should my PC always attack on sight? Should I also kill them when they are helpless?
"monster race"That phrase appears nowhere in the original quote.
Do you not understand the question?
Drow is a race, and the quote identifies them as Monsters to kill on sight. That is where I'm getting the "Monster Race" concept. It's not a quote, but a concept.
I was kinda under the impression that good people don't kill anyone on sight, since unprovoked killing is not one of those good character things. As the original post, I'm not debating the ruling that I'm supposed to attack certain things on sight, I'm just looking for clarification on which races this includes and how far it goes.
So, naturally, this leads to follow up, which other races are "monster races" that player characters should be killing on sight? And, how far should be we be going when dealing with them?
Examples:
Drow (or any monster race) is bleeding out. Are good characters obligated to save them (like any other dying living creature)?
If the drow (or any monster race) are helpless after a fight (non-lethal damage, for example). Are characters obligated to slay them while unconscious.
When deceased, are the corpses of monster races to be treated with respect or are we supposed to defile them in an attempt to prevent raise dead?
Are acts of torture, sadism, or other forms of cruelty excused when dealing with Drow (or any monster race)?
Are any of these affected by deity-based classes, or do all PC-eligible deities have the same stance regarding drow (or any monster race)?
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Oh the humanities! Will this hate mongering never stop?Or rather, which creatures (types and subtypes) can I attack without regard to alignment consequences?Trolls.
That objection would go better if.. well. You got something in between your fangs. I think its the peasant we're looking for.
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I don't think that any monstrous race should be killed on sight, there are many adventures in many different locations that present unique monsters that may be there to help the party. Indeed often times killing them can invalidate the secondary success condition or make the adventure all the more harder on the party.
It may be unrealistic however I would like to think that most people don't assume that everyone/thing other than themselves are evil.
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Here, to rephrase:Regardless of my alignment, which races (types and subtypes) should my PC always attack on sight? Should I also kill them when they are helpless?
Drow is a race, and the quote identifies them as Monsters to kill on sight. That is where I'm getting the "Monster Race" concept. It's not a quote, but a concept.
I was kinda under the impression that good people don't kill anyone on sight, since unprovoked killing is not one of those good character things. As the original post, I'm not debating the ruling that I'm supposed to attack certain things on sight, I'm just looking for clarification on which races this includes and how far it goes.
So, naturally, this leads to follow up, which other races are "monster races" that player characters should be killing on sight? And, how far should be we be going when dealing with them?
Examples:
Drow (or any monster race) is bleeding out. Are good characters obligated to save them (like any other dying living creature)?
If the drow (or any monster race) are helpless after a fight (non-lethal damage, for example). Are characters obligated to slay them while unconscious.
When deceased, are the corpses of monster races to be treated with respect or are we supposed to defile them in an attempt to prevent raise dead?
Are acts of torture, sadism, or other forms of cruelty excused when dealing with Drow (or any monster race)?
Are any of these affected by deity-based classes, or do all PC-eligible deities have the same stance regarding drow (or any monster race)?
Personally, I think that such questions cannot be answered for everyone together as a group. Most of my characters in PFS are good-aligned and they would have radically different answers to this. For paladins, evil outsiders, evil dragons and undead give them an extra bonus on smiting evil, and some archetypes are fixated on these creatures. It would be hard to stop them ending such beings. However, Saranrae worship dictates redemption and forgiveness. Thus, a paladin of Saranrae might give some of those a chance. (The adventure path Wrath of the Righteous is an example of a story that involves such things).
There are half-orc characters I have met who will slay orcs on sight, no matter the circumstance. It depends on the character.
I don't think there are all-inclusive "monster races" that every character will see the same way. I certainly don't want to dictate to you how your own characters should react, just as I would object to my own characterizations being dictated to me.
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Seems very much the opposite of the stance where it's immoral to attack sentient races without provocation. Are we supposed to attack helpless drow due to them being "Monsters."
Also, what check is used to distinguish elves from drow? Seems like they'd look pretty similar in a poorly lit room.
Which other sentient races qualify as Monsters for the purposes of ignoring moral consequences of attacking without provocation, attacking helpless creatures, and other normally immoral actions?
This actually came up in one of the very few scenarios that contain drow when it was played in my area. The party had, if I remember correctly, one character who managed to identify the drow as what they are: this was an elf wizard, who of course insisted on making sure the drow were deader than dead after combat was over. The party members that had not identified the drow were somewhat horrified, convinced he was committing some sort of hate crime, since to them the enemy appeared as funky dark purple elves. However, it was played for jokes instead of srs.
Really, though, I doubt there will ever be a PFS scenario where drow will be depicted as "helpless" unless it is due to direct action from the PCs, considering the stance of campaign management on them. In fact, I doubt they will ever be encountered in a manner that does not begin with said drow attacking with intent to kill or incapacitate and enslave.
People may have problems accepting the idea but in Golarion you need to keep the following in mind.
1. It IS an almost universal axiom that if you encounter drow they will be looking you as either target practise, torture practise, future slave use, and possibly all of the above. Drow are evil, and they have given the surface elves THAT KNOW ABOUT THEM, plenty of reasons to adopt a KOS attitude. While this sucks for the would-be Drizzt, the consolation is that he probably does not exist, as the Drow do a pretty good job at culling the weak from thier society.
2. Drow are an embarrassment to Elves, who keep their existence secret, much like the Vulcans kept their ties to the Romulans from their Federation allies. The elves in Kyonin even tried (unsuccesfully) to keep the Pathfinder Society from mentioning them in their chronicles. Despite this, drow do remain relatively unknown to the surface world.
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1. It IS an almost universal axiom that if you encounter drow they will be looking you as either target practise, torture practise, future slave use, and possibly all of the above. Drow are evil, and they have given the surface elves THAT KNOW ABOUT THEM, plenty of reasons to adopt a KOS attitude. While this sucks for the would-be Drizzt, the consolation is that he probably does not exist, as the Drow do a pretty good job at culling the weak from...
You also forgot 'spare parts and building materials for horrific beasts'...
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Which other sentient races qualify as Monsters for the purposes of ignoring moral consequences of attacking without provocation, attacking helpless creatures, and other normally immoral actions?
IMO any non-human race whose alignment is largely evil such as drow, trolls, orcs, kobolds, goblins, and hobgoblins. Just to name a few.
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IMO any non-human race whose alignment is largely evil such as drow, trolls, orcs, kobolds, goblins, and hobgoblins. Just to name a few.
Which other sentient races qualify as Monsters for the purposes of ignoring moral consequences of attacking without provocation, attacking helpless creatures, and other normally immoral actions?
My PCs are willing to talk to any of these "monster" races if they would rather talk than fight. In fact, the scenario I'm GMing next week is built around negotiating with one of your mentioned races.
I still remember playing in a game in which we were escorting a group of goblins. I really got to like those guys and felt terrible when, at the end, the GM told us that the society would kill them when done questioning them.
I guess my opinion is that if they are engaged in evil acts that warrant death, then kill them and forget about it. If not, don't.
Morag
The worst monsters are almost always human.
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Let's also be clear. Morality in a near Renaissance period sword and fantasy world is not the same as modern USA morality. Murder is a term differently applied. It's a very polarized world when it comes to killing. Evil beings that are currently participating in evil acts can be killed willy nilly and it's not evil or murder to do so.
Some evil is so heinous, that kill on sight is perfectly acceptable. I.e. Demons, Devils, Undead, and Drow.
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Some evil is so heinous, that kill on sight is perfectly acceptable. I.e. Demons, Devils, Undead, and Drow.This does raise an odd contradiction.
How exactly are Drow kill on sight when only a tiny handful of esoteric scholars know they exist and there is an entire elven organisation dedicated to suppressing all knowledge of their existence?
Obviously you'd need to recognize them as such. But it's also possible that some fighter isn't going to recognize a devil for what they are either. The assumption is that some form of recognition takes place before kill on sight could apply.
I've developed a very simple definition for my characters.
If you can talk to it, it counts as a person (so killing could be murder). If you can breed with it, it counts as a member of your race (so eating would be cannibalism).
Simple and logical. I might have to adopt this for my characters in the future.
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IMO any non-human race whose alignment is largely evil such as drow, trolls, orcs, kobolds, goblins, and hobgoblins. Just to name a few.
Which other sentient races qualify as Monsters for the purposes of ignoring moral consequences of attacking without provocation, attacking helpless creatures, and other normally immoral actions?
My PCs are willing to talk to any of these "monster" races if they would rather talk than fight. In fact, the scenario I'm GMing next week is built around negotiating with one of your mentioned races.
I still remember playing in a game in which we were escorting a group of goblins. I really got to like those guys and felt terrible when, at the end, the GM told us that the society would kill them when done questioning them.
I guess my opinion is that if they are engaged in evil acts that warrant death, then kill them and forget about it. If not, don't.
Morag
The worst monsters are almost always human.
That is the final information in the scenario on the fate of the goblins, nothing about them being put to death after being interrogated. Remember that the next, larger, team is tasked wioth bringing them safely from the handover in Trollheim to what is probably the Grand Lodge itself, but nothing in the scenario really says that they will be killed afterwards.
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Obviously you'd need to recognize them as such. But it's also possible that some fighter isn't going to recognize a devil for what they are either. The assumption is that some form of recognition takes place before kill on sight could apply.Some evil is so heinous, that kill on sight is perfectly acceptable. I.e. Demons, Devils, Undead, and Drow.This does raise an odd contradiction.
How exactly are Drow kill on sight when only a tiny handful of esoteric scholars know they exist and there is an entire elven organisation dedicated to suppressing all knowledge of their existence?
I asked already, but still no clear answer. What check is used to identify drow? And more so, to distinguish drow from elves? Going by creature type and subtype, there isn't a difference between elves and drow...
Obviously, elves would know the difference, but asking Orcs or Dwarves to distinguish between "evil" elves and "normal" elves seems iffy. Especially given their long standing grudges towards the elves as a whole.
So despite Drow being the "evil" versions of elves, seems like one could also conclude that elves are they soft cuddly version of Drow. Those albino surface drow....
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Obviously you'd need to recognize them as such. But it's also possible that some fighter isn't going to recognize a devil for what they are either. The assumption is that some form of recognition takes place before kill on sight could apply.Some evil is so heinous, that kill on sight is perfectly acceptable. I.e. Demons, Devils, Undead, and Drow.This does raise an odd contradiction.
How exactly are Drow kill on sight when only a tiny handful of esoteric scholars know they exist and there is an entire elven organisation dedicated to suppressing all knowledge of their existence?
I asked already, but still no clear answer. What check is used to identify drow? And more so, to distinguish drow from elves? Going by creature type and subtype, there isn't a difference between elves and drow...
Obviously, elves would know the difference, but asking Orcs or Dwarves to distinguish between "evil" elves and "normal" elves seems iffy. Especially given their long standing grudges towards the elves as a whole.
So despite Drow being the "evil" versions of elves, seems like one could also conclude that elves are they soft cuddly version of Drow. Those albino surface drow....
Well, lets take a look at the facts:
Drow are Humanoid (elf)
Knowledge (local) Identifies humanoids.
Typical knowledge check to identify a creature is DC 10 + CR. In the case of creatures that are base races that advance by character class, you most likely would not apply the CR for class levels to this check. So a base Knowledge (local) check would be DC 11. Due to a creature's extreme rarity, a check could be 15 + CR. I would likely apply this in the case of Drow. So to identify them as Drow, you'd need a DC 16 Knowledge (local) check.
That's pretty easy in the grand scheme of things.
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Well, lets take a look at the facts:Drow are Humanoid (elf)
Knowledge (local) Identifies humanoids.
Typical knowledge check to identify a creature is DC 10 + CR. In the case of creatures that are base races that advance by character class, you most likely would not apply the CR for class levels to this check. So a base Knowledge (local) check would be DC 11. Due to a creature's extreme rarity, a check could be 15 + CR. I would likely apply this in the case of Drow. So to identify them as Drow, you'd need a DC 16 Knowledge (local) check.That's pretty easy in the grand scheme of things.
But elves are not rare and drow are a type of elf (subtypes). So if I fail this check to identify the Drow as Drow specifically, do I "know" that they are elves?
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Obviously, elves would know the difference, but asking Orcs or Dwarves to distinguish between "evil" elves and "normal" elves seems iffy. Especially given their long standing grudges towards the elves as a whole.
There really isn't a long-standing grudge between elves and dwarves in Pathfinder. That's one of those artifacts from Tolkien that doesn't really have a parallel on Golarion. Dwarves and Elves in this campaign setting don't really have a super lengthy history together since Dwarves didn't come to the surface until after the Elves had left and the elves didn't return until about 2000 years ago. They also don't really compete for anything (resources, territory, etc) and don't have any history of conflict.
As for orcs, they'd probably just kill the elf on sight regardless of what color it was.
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But elves are not rare and drow are a type of elf (subtypes). So if I fail this check to identify the Drow as Drow specifically, do I "know" that they are elves?
Well, lets take a look at the facts:Drow are Humanoid (elf)
Knowledge (local) Identifies humanoids.
Typical knowledge check to identify a creature is DC 10 + CR. In the case of creatures that are base races that advance by character class, you most likely would not apply the CR for class levels to this check. So a base Knowledge (local) check would be DC 11. Due to a creature's extreme rarity, a check could be 15 + CR. I would likely apply this in the case of Drow. So to identify them as Drow, you'd need a DC 16 Knowledge (local) check.That's pretty easy in the grand scheme of things.
No. Not specifically. The coloring makes them look so "off" that you might have no idea what they are.
"Hey, that evil, nasty guy looks kinda like an elf, but he's got indigo skin. Never seen anything like it. What is it?"
"No idea Bro, some weird elf maybe, but never seen an elf that looks like that before. So maybe some kind of outsider, fey, or aberration?"
If you can't identify it based on the check the GM comes up with based on the rules, then you don't know what it is.
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Obviously, elves would know the difference, but asking Orcs or Dwarves to distinguish between "evil" elves and "normal" elves seems iffy. Especially given their long standing grudges towards the elves as a whole.There really isn't a long-standing grudge between elves and dwarves in Pathfinder. That's one of those artifacts from Tolkien that doesn't really have a parallel on Golarion. Dwarves and Elves in this campaign setting don't really have a super lengthy history together since Dwarves didn't come to the surface until after the Elves had left and the elves didn't return until about 2000 years ago. They also don't really compete for anything (resources, territory, etc) and don't have any history of conflict.
As for orcs, they'd probably just kill the elf on sight regardless of what color it was.
Hmm...no information huh?
Dwarven Racial Trait:
Ancient Enmity
Dwarves have long been in conflict with elves, especially the hated drow. Dwarves with this racial trait receive a +1 racial bonus on attack rolls against humanoid creatures of the elf subtype. This racial trait replaces hatred.
Elven Racial Trait:
Eternal Grudge
Some elves grow up in secluded, isolationist communities where generations-old slights and quarrels linger as eternal blood feuds. Elves with this racial trait receive a +1 bonus on attack rolls against humanoids of the dwarf and orc subtypes because of special training against these hated foes. This racial trait replaces elven magic.
Half-Orc Racial Trait:
Hatred
Half-orcs raised among orcs must prove themselves against their people’s enemies. Half-orcs with this racial trait gain a +1 racial bonus on attack rolls against humanoids of the dwarf, elf, and human subtypes because of their special training against these hated foes. This racial trait replaces intimidating and orc ferocity.
These are all PFS legal racial trait options from Archives of Nethys.
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Hmm...no information huh?
Dwarven Racial Trait:
Ancient Enmity
Dwarves have long been in conflict with elves, especially the hated drow. Dwarves with this racial trait receive a +1 racial bonus on attack rolls against humanoid creatures of the elf subtype. This racial trait replaces hatred.
Elven Racial Trait:
Eternal Grudge
Some elves grow up in secluded, isolationist communities where generations-old slights and quarrels linger as eternal blood feuds. Elves with this racial trait receive a +1 bonus on attack rolls against humanoids of the dwarf and orc subtypes because of special training against these hated foes. This racial trait replaces elven magic.
Half-Orc Racial Trait:
Hatred
Half-orcs raised among orcs must prove themselves against their people’s enemies. Half-orcs with this racial trait gain a +1 racial bonus on attack rolls against humanoids of the dwarf, elf, and human subtypes because of their special training against these hated foes. This racial trait replaces intimidating and orc ferocity.
This is a mistake you keep making. Just because an option is available does not mean it matches Golarion lore. If those are options found from a Campaign Sourcebook, Adventure Path or even a Player's Companion, then you have weight behind you in your claim.
But you are conflating "available option" with "Golarion Lore".
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Problem with that Jessex, as much as you may be right, PFS GMs can't just make up numbers. You still have to follow the rules.Actually the rule is " For particularly rare monsters, such as the tarrasque, the DC of this check equals 15 + the monster’s CR, or more."
So it is up to the GM's discretion.
Not really in PFS it isn't. There are many other items of precedent that table GM's don't have discretion on things like that.
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But elves are not rare and drow are a type of elf (subtypes). So if I fail this check to identify the Drow as Drow specifically, do I "know" that they are elves?No. Not specifically. The coloring makes them look so "off" that you might have no idea what they are.
"Hey, that evil, nasty guy looks kinda like an elf, but he's got indigo skin. Never seen anything like it. What is it?"
"No idea Bro, some weird elf maybe, but never seen an elf that looks like that before. So maybe some kind of outsider, fey, or aberration?"
If you can't identify it based on the check the GM comes up with based on the rules, then you don't know what it is.
There are rules there, depending on how you approach it.
First, I don't think a check is required to identify a core race, like an elf or a dwarf. You'd need one if looking for weaknesses or more details, but not to identify them.
If you consider Drow a type of Elf (which I think is pretty clearly the case), then you could do a DC 10 Knowledge Geography check to "Identify a creature's ethnicity or accent".
That check should identify them as drow, though it won't give you info about weaknesses or other details. It would be enough to know that they are called "drow" (or another nickname of drow). And then you could do other knowledge checks to learn useful information beyond that.
Knowledge history or local, probably, to get that kill-on-sight information.
The check you are suggesting is more related to identifying combat related details about the race. I don't think that check applies if just trying to figure out what an alternate version of a common race is called.
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But elves are not rare and drow are a type of elf (subtypes). So if I fail this check to identify the Drow as Drow specifically, do I "know" that they are elves?No. Not specifically. The coloring makes them look so "off" that you might have no idea what they are.
"Hey, that evil, nasty guy looks kinda like an elf, but he's got indigo skin. Never seen anything like it. What is it?"
"No idea Bro, some weird elf maybe, but never seen an elf that looks like that before. So maybe some kind of outsider, fey, or aberration?"
If you can't identify it based on the check the GM comes up with based on the rules, then you don't know what it is.
There are rules there, depending on how you approach it.
First, I don't think a check is required to identify a core race, like an elf or a dwarf. You'd need one if looking for weaknesses or more details, but not to identify them.
If you consider Drow a type of Elf (which I think is pretty clearly the case), then you could do a DC 10 Knowledge Geography check to "Identify a creature's ethnicity or accent".
That check should identify them as drow, though it won't give you info about weaknesses or other details. It would be enough to know that they are called "drow" (or another nickname of drow). And then you could do other knowledge checks to learn useful information beyond that.
Knowledge history or local, probably, to get that kill-on-sight information.
The check you are suggesting is more related to identifying combat related details about the race. I don't think that check applies if just trying to figure out what an alternate version of a common race is called.
Drow is not just an ethnicity. And it is really very different than a standard elf.
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This is a mistake you keep making. Just because an option is available does not mean it matches Golarion lore. If those are options found from a Campaign Sourcebook, Adventure Path or even a Player's Companion, then you have weight behind you in your claim.
But you are conflating "available option" with "Golarion Lore".
To take this a step further, material posted in the Core Rulebooks published under the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game line are designed to be setting neutral. The Pathfinder Campaign Setting line is Golarion-specific.
Which is why, for example, if you read the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook's entry on paladins it says that a paladin doesn't have to follow a specific god even though, on Golarion, paladins *do* need to worship a god. The specific campaign setting overrides the general setting-neutral material.
In Golarion, drow were the result of elves being tainted by Rovagug ... and apparently "drowism" is also some form of magical disease that has infected the elves since their return from Sovyria since it's possible for regular elves to spontaneously transform into drow if they are evil enough. So on Golarion, drow are quite literally inherently evil elves both by nature and design.
But none of what I just wrote is in the bestiary entry for drow because the Bestiary is a setting-neutral book.
So non-evil drow is an available option rules-wise, but it doesn't work with the lore of the Golarion campaign setting.
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Is Ethnicity really so inappropriate here?
When talking about drow as opposed to other elves, I think "infection" or "cancerous tumor" is more appropriate.
You could call aquatic, desert, Mortant Spire, and Snowcaster elves ethnicity, but adding drow to the list wouldn't really work. If a Snowcaster elf and a desert elf were to team up and become *really* evil then they could both transform into drow.
At least in the campaign setting. Outside the campaign setting, using just general non-campaign-specific rules, then you could easily play it a different way.
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Here, the monster entry for drow. They even refer to them as "Dark Elves," describing appearances as:
Drow are shorter and a bit more slender than their surface-dwelling kin, but they are otherwise physically similar. Drow have dark skin, ranging from black to a hazy purple hue. Most drow have white or silver hair and white or red eyes, but other colors are not unheard of.
Sounds like an ethnicity to me.
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Here, the monster entry for drow. They even refer to them as "Dark Elves," describing appearances as:
Drow are shorter and a bit more slender than their surface-dwelling kin, but they are otherwise physically similar. Drow have dark skin, ranging from black to a hazy purple hue. Most drow have white or silver hair and white or red eyes, but other colors are not unheard of.Sounds like an ethnicity to me.
You're quoting the monster entry from the Bestiary. Which, as I mentioned earlier, is a setting-neutral book.
On Golarion, specific to that campaign setting, there is a lot more to the distinction between drow and non-drow elves than just their physical appearance.
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Aside from the elven disassociation with drow, what is the mechanical problem using a DC 10 geography check identify that these "elves" are actually called drow (or Dark Elves)?
Besides, with a name like "Dark Elf," do you really need a fancy skill check for that? It's an elf whose skin is dark...Do I really need a check for that?
Seems like a kill-on-sight attitude would very reasonably require easy identification. You don't put kill-on-sight stamps on things that look very similar to things you don't want killed on sight (like elves).
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If drow were an ethnicity, the entry in the Bestiary would be part of the elf entry. Additionally, ethnicities don't change the power level of the base race. They just trade out some abilities for others.
Drow is a separate entry. The power level is significantly higher.
The subtype may be elf, but the are as different to elves as trolls are to storm giants (both being humanoid with the giant subttype.)
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On Golarion, specific to that campaign setting, there is a lot more to the distinction between drow and non-drow elves than just their physical appearance.
Right, but I'm going through town and I encounter a creature. It looks like a dark-skinned elf. I really can't put two and two together to call them a "Dark Elf"?
I instead take a DC15+CR knowledge and fail, so I determine that I have no idea what the creature is, despite knowing what elves are and knowing that this creature is identical to an elf with a different skin tone...
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It's not kill-on-sight for everyone, though. Even a zombie herd being prodded around by a necromancers isn't kill-on-sight if the zombies are disguised enough so that you don't recognize them.
A zombie that you recognize as a zombie, however? Probably kill-on-sight for a majority of the people/things on Golarion.
In Golarion-specific canon, which is what I assume you're asking about, not many people even know about drow. Even fewer in the "common" folk of Golarion.
A DC 10 check is something an untrained, Intelligence 10 commoner could make 50% of the time. And that isn't how drow have been presented in Golarion; instead, they are very well-kept secrets, which the elves themselves have tried to keep away from common knowledge.
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A DC 10 check is something an untrained, Intelligence 10 commoner could make 50% of the time. And that isn't how drow have been presented in Golarion; instead, they are very well-kept secrets, which the elves themselves have tried to keep away from common knowledge.
DC 10 seems pretty reasonable to identify an elf and to be able to distinguish one type of elf from another.
Even if my PC has no idea what a drow is, I should still be able to identify it as a Dark Elf, if only for the name being so simplistic.
Still, it doesn't seem like a stretch to take a DC 10 completely untrained knowledge check and know that this creature is a type of elf named for it's dark skin, a Dark Elf.
Maybe if I've never seen an elf....
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer
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Not really in PFS it isn't. There are many other items of precedent that table GM's don't have discretion on things like that.Problem with that Jessex, as much as you may be right, PFS GMs can't just make up numbers. You still have to follow the rules.Actually the rule is " For particularly rare monsters, such as the tarrasque, the DC of this check equals 15 + the monster’s CR, or more."
So it is up to the GM's discretion.
I can see both 15 + CR approach—especially when it comes to identifying a monster's powers and vulnerabilities—as well as a rounded number like 20 or 25 being appropriate for recognition of drows' existence and significance. The reason I can see either approach is that writing and developing the initial Knowledge checks in scenarios is often an art of balancing what information I want a typical group to know with the adventure's level put into a framework that usually jumps by multiples of 5 (e.g. DC 15+, 20+, and 25+). I don't remember if I included such a value in one of the first scenarios I developed (happened to include drow), but I'm likely to include one in any future publication.
Pathfinder Society GMs aren't expected to know all of the rules by heart—including the ones that allow for a bit of wiggle room, like Knowledge DCs—so sometimes one needs to make a quick judgment call of what the right number would be, play it out, and look it up later. Were I playing at a table and the GM were pressed with making up a DC to know about drow (especially something not tied directly into their mechanics), I would happily approve of something in the 16–20 range. After all, Pathfinders are a little more familiar with drow than the typical inhabitant of Golarion, thanks to a recent Pathfinder Chronicles publication that expounded on the dark elves' existence.
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Pathfinder Society Lead Developer
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As for the original topic, I like to introduce opportunities to resolve encounters—even those with traditionally villainous creatures—in a nonviolent way. I imagine that most Pathfinders' educations include warnings that many creatures are dangerous yet that those same creatures can sometimes be ready sources of information or trade for a resourceful explorer who's willing to make an effort and a bribe. Xorns, otyughs, and many neutral-yet-not-"civilized" humanoids are common examples. Even evil creatures are sometimes willing to risk cooperating with adventurers to avert mutual destruction or secure a mutually beneficial outcome.
In this way, "shoot on sight" is not necessarily a healthy approach to being a Pathfinder. Ultimately, the adventures trust the PCs' judgment by presenting several outcomes for key encounters that might play out in a variety of ways. These adventures rarely punish someone for carnage committed against [inherently] evil creatures, but remorseless bloodlust might just mean missing out on additional information and opportunities.
