I had a player tonight argue that because hes playing a bard and knows every knowledge in the book I (as GM) should be telling him what to roll (which knowledge skill aka Knowledge (religion) or allow him to roll every knowledge he wishes in his round).
In general you should be telling a player which Knowledge area is appropriate to the situation, and a character using Knowledge skills in the conventional way cannot make any sort of "blanket" roll.
The Bard's usually an exception since he's got access to all of the Knowledge skills; he can just access Bardic Knowledge with no need to specify a category, nor do you need to tell him after a successful roll what category the information came from.
I think multiple Knowledge checks in a round should be fine, but remind the player that his character might not be able to act on all that knowledge immediately.
For those times when I don't want to give away information, I might ask the player to roll a d20 and I check the character sheet myself, adding the appropriate bonus. Usually though, I just tell them which check to make. I allow only a single Knowledge check each round per character. My players have tried to diversify their characters' knowledge so that someone can identify the opponents.
To make things easy for me I told them they can make the check as a No action (dosnt count towards their actions for the round)but only ONE check per round.
No action is the correct answer. But limiting them to one/round is a strange notion, and not supported by the RAW.
You either know something or you don't. If you (truly) don't know it right now, then you aren't going to know it 6 seconds from now. So, if you try a Knowledge (Local) check to remember where to find a pub, and you blow the roll, then that means you don't know where any pubs are. In 6 seconds, the location of pub will not just pop into your head, so you can't try again.
But if you want to know where a pub is, where the lord's castle is, and where to find a blacksmith, you could try 3 Knowledge (local) rolls, all in the same round if you want. Maybe you'll know all 3, or only 1 or 2 of those things, or maybe none, but you will know it right away.
Yes, in real life, sometimes we think we know something, it's "on the tip of our tongue", but we're just "drawing a blank" and can't remember it right now. But, a minute or two later, suddenly the answer pops into our head. It was there all along, but right at the time we tried to remember it, we couldn't - for whatever reason, it took a few minutes for our brain to come up with the answer that we already knew. However, the game doesn't have any rules for this.
I suppose you could allow re-rolls on failed knowledge checks, letting the person roll over and over until they get a good roll - this would simulate what I described. But that would be a houserule, and it would trivialize almost all knowledge checks. Heck, 1 rank for a wizard or bard, assuming at least a 12 Intelligence, means they can easily come up with a 15 (even with a Take-10) which is good enough for all basic and easy questions, but if you can roll forever, sooner or later you'll roll a 20 (which would be at least a 25 for this guy with 1 rank) which will answer all but the most incredibly difficult questions. So if you do houserule re-rolls, understand that a 1-rank character will know, at first level, almost everything there is to know about that particular knowledge skill.
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To make things easy for me I told them they can make the check as a No action (dosnt count towards their actions for the round)but only ONE check per round.No action is the correct answer. But limiting them to one/round is a strange notion, and not supported by the RAW.
You either know something or you don't. If you (truly) don't know it right now, then you aren't going to know it 6 seconds from now. So, if you try a Knowledge (Local) check to remember where to find a pub, and you blow the roll, then that means you don't know where any pubs are. In 6 seconds, the location of pub will not just pop into your head, so you can't try again.
But if you want to know where a pub is, where the lord's castle is, and where to find a blacksmith, you could try 3 Knowledge (local) rolls, all in the same round if you want. Maybe you'll know all 3, or only 1 or 2 of those things, or maybe none, but you will know it right away.
Yes, in real life, sometimes we think we know something, it's "on the tip of our tongue", but we're just "drawing a blank" and can't remember it right now. But, a minute or two later, suddenly the answer pops into our head. It was there all along, but right at the time we tried to remember it, we couldn't - for whatever reason, it took a few minutes for our brain to come up with the answer that we already knew. However, the game doesn't have any rules for this.
I suppose you could allow re-rolls on failed knowledge checks, letting the person roll over and over until they get a good roll - this would simulate what I described. But that would be a houserule, and it would trivialize almost all knowledge checks. Heck, 1 rank for a wizard or bard, assuming at least a 12 Intelligence, means they can easily come up with a 15 (even with a Take-10) which is good enough for all basic and easy questions, but if you can roll forever, sooner or later you'll roll a 20 (which would be at least a 25 for this guy with 1 rank) which will answer all but the most incredibly...
For the "tip of the tongue" things (which I consider a miss of 5 or less), I have been known to allow a re-roll on missed knowledge checks when something new may trigger it.
Examples:
a PC is meeting a otyugh for the first time. For his knowledge dungeoneering roll he makes a 10 (needs a 14 to know about them). As he moves closer and gets whiff of it, I then allow a re-roll with a +2. To me, this shows the "tip of the tongue" thing well.
Ok, I am asking to have knowledge rolls cleared up.
First, how does it work. Do the players make a blanket knowledge check.
OR do I tell them to make a specific Knowledge check ( like knowledge Religion) .OR do I (as I have been) get them to make a single knowledge check of their choice.
Second, i know that a knowledge check takes no time(a free action if you will) but I want to know how many rolls they can make in a round.
I had a player tonight argue that because hes playing a bard and knows every knowledge in the book I (as GM) should be telling him what to roll (which knowledge skill aka Knowledge (religion) or allow him to roll every knowledge he wishes in his round).
To make things easy for me I told them they can make the check as a No action (dosnt count towards their actions for the round)but only ONE check per round.
Am I doing it right???
what are your house rules for example??
Knowledge rolls require no action. The amount of time it takes you to recognize something is a tiger, is nearly 0, recognizing a mephit is similar (assuming you have knowledge of it)
Since it requires no action, it is a big table time saver to say which knowledge to roll, so the players dont go through the whole list (which may be spread across multiple players). I always tell the players what to roll for knowledge if they ask 'do i know what it is?'. Raw definately supports this as does general practice from what i have scene in different groups.
I would side with your player on this one.
I had a player tonight argue that because hes playing a bard and knows every knowledge in the book I (as GM) should be telling him what to roll (which knowledge skill aka Knowledge (religion) or allow him to roll every knowledge he wishes in his round)....
The Bard's usually an exception since he's got access to all of the Knowledge skills; he can just access Bardic Knowledge with no need to specify a category, nor do you need to tell him after a successful roll what category the information came from.
Actually, in the Pathfinder rules, the Bard no longer has a "blanket" Bardic Knowledge, but rather gets a bonus to all individual knowledge skills and can make each individual knowledge check untrained:
Bardic Knowledge (Ex)
A bard adds half his class level (minimum 1) to all Knowledge skill checks and may make all Knowledge skill checks untrained.
As such, this question is not as easily dismissed, especially if the bard has put several ranks into, say, Knowledge (Arcana), but only one rank in, say, Knowledge (Religion), and no ranks in Knowledge (History). If the subject in question touches on all three of those subjects (say for example information about a particular Lich) the results won't be the same, even though each skill benefits from Bardic Knowledge. (Arcana might give general information about the Lich's magical abilities, Religion might give general information on it's defenses and creation, and History could give details about the specific Lich in question.) Regardless, the Bard needs to know which check(s) to make, assuming that the GM is in the habit of identifying the knowledge skill(s) to be used.
I've played it both ways, telling the players to make specific knowledge checks (letting them take care of the addition and potentially releasing meta-game knowledge about the topic) and keeping notes about each character's modifier to the various knowledge skills and directing the players to make knowledge rolls, but doing the addition myself and handing out information based on the results (which seems more realistic in simulation and precludes the release of meta-game data, but also can make some players feel disenfranchised).
In the latter case, if there are multiple possible checks to be made, there are two methods of dealing with the potential for multiple associated skills: have the player roll several times using a designated order, and have the player roll once and take that as the base roll for all of the associated knowledge skills, generating separate totals for whatever knowledge skills are applicable. The second mechanism seems to me to be more realistic to a simulation of "memory" but by the same token, it allows the potential for the acquisition of useful information to be more limited, which is not always a good thing.
In both of the games that I'm running right now, I call for Knowledge (specific) checks, as both games are fairly big parties and I prefer to make less work for myself by handing off the check resolution to my players. If I were aiming to create an exceptionally immersive gameplay experience, I'd probably be using the "one-roll black box" method (the player's roll (or take-10) being their "thought" about the topic and the check resolution by me being the parsing of the implications of their thoughts).
My GM uses 10+Monster CR to get base creature type. That gives the general abilities of the type of creature.
If you were facing a Shadow and you made the DC, you would know that it is a shadow and the basic abilities applicable to all undead. If you beat that DC by 5 our GM would give you a noteworthy offensive or defensive ability of the shadow.
Undead>Shadow>Shadow's Ability or Shadow's Defense.
Here is an example:
Make the DC: Creature is called a Shadow.
Make the DC: Creature is undead type.
- List general things about undead that PCs might know and could be useful. (ex. Mind affecting spells don't work)
- Don't give out GM only knowledge. (ex. Hit Dice)
Beat the DC by 5: Shadows are incorporeal.
Beat the DC by 10: Shadows drain strength.
And so on...
If it is a common monster the knowledge skill entry says use 5+Monster CR.
If it is extremely uncommon the knowledge skill entry says use 15+Monster CR.
You would have to get really really high to be able to tell the Pit Fiend Lord apart from a Pit Fiend. Rolling that high could probably give you some of the history of that specific denizen of the hells.
Our GM adds a lot more verbal flavor to it. If we roll extremely high (19 or 20), he sometimes treats it like a knowledge crit. He gives out more info than normal. To be fair, it does help when you are a loremaster and have Skill focus Knowledge Underwater basket Weaving and a really high int.
The individual knowledge skills tell you what creature types are covered under which skill. I don't remember in Nature covers humanoids, but that is what we use when we run accross an unknown humanoid.
I hope this helps.