How do you deal with knowledge skills in your campaign? For example, if a player has many ranks in knowledge religion and asks you what he knows about vampire vulnerabilities. Let's say he gets a high result (e.g. 30+) - how much do you tell him? Do you ad-hock it entirely or do you have some sort of system/guidelines that you use to decide what to tell him?
How about if he asks you a more general question, such as... "What do I know about demons?" and rolls his 30+ on knowledge planes.
So what do YOU do with knowledge skills?
How do you deal with knowledge skills in your campaign? For example, if a player has many ranks in knowledge religion and asks you what he knows about vampire vulnerabilities. Let's say he gets a high result (e.g. 30+) - how much do you tell him? Do you ad-hock it entirely or do you have some sort of system/guidelines that you use to decide what to tell him?
How about if he asks you a more general question, such as... "What do I know about demons?" and rolls his 30+ on knowledge planes.
So what do YOU do with knowledge skills?
Well, you can say: "what exactly do you want to know?" but they are at least entitled to the "monster's abilities and weaknesses" as long as they role high enough(10 + monster's CR.)
I think that it's fine just to say: "your character knows everything in the bestiary entry about that specific creature."
Most of my players might already, actually, know(meaning that there trying not to metagame(applause)) and there would be no need to be coy.
For the religion check, "obscure" things chime in around DC 20. For a 30 result, I'd say they have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of what vampires are, in that instance anyway. To me, DC 25 would include little-known facts. DC 30 would include things that are considered "secrets." DC 35 would be "deep secrets." DC 40/45 might represent knowledge of vampire history, artifacts, how vampirism works, etc that was otherwise thought to be lost to time, etc. DC 50+ would be things that perhaps reflect a sort of "vampire god" level of insight into all things vampire.
I agree with Kyrt about general "what do I know" questions. However, if the character is trying to concentrate on a specific area of knowledge then a 30+ check might reveal the specific type of creature and some details in how it operates since DC 20 only let's you identify the plane of origin which is a pretty generic piece of information, to me, that relates to nothing about specific creature types of the plane.
Comparing the two, planes definitely seems like the "harder" knowledge skill versus religion.
If one of my players were to ask me, "What do I know about demons?" I'd just give them a pretty general answer since it's a general question. That'd be like asking an avid sports fan, "What do you know about football players?" Even a really knowledgeable sports fan isn't going to come up with much more than generalities for that type of question.
There are guidelines, as someone mentioned already, for identifying weaknesses of things.
Usually, in groups I'm in, your ranks in a knowledge skill determine general things you know without a roll, really. In specific instances we use an actual roll. Speeds things up overall, and you don't get those weird failed rolls on things that your character would obviously know. (It's kind of like taking 10 on knowledge checks, really....but we never specifically do that. It just seems an odd things to do, though I guess it's really just a more complex way of doing what we already do.)
I do indeed tend to give general answers to general questions, but often I think the players are looking for sufficient background on the subject to gain as many additional clues to the plot as possible beyond what I already gave them. I am then at a dilemma as to how much more to divulge. At other times, I would just prefer more consistency than my ad hoc disbursement of information.
As to the specific questions, again, I ad-lib it and give out information essentially on a whim, paying general attention to the number rolled. I guess it works, but again, I would like to generate some additional consistency.
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I like the idea of being able to take 10 on the easier stuff.
I'll disagree with Buri's assertion that check results over 30 are any better than 30. The Core Rulebook entry for the knowledge skill seems to imply that 30 is the upper end of the DC range for tough questions.
Also, I didn't remember this, but in rereading the entry for knowledge skills, it says that they can't be used untrained unless the DC is 10 or lower. That exception is worth noting. As a DM, I probably wouldn't let anyone take 10 if they weren't trained, so they'd have to roll an intelligence check, but at least that gives them a shot at knowing common knowledge stuff.
If they invest resources in knowledge skills, I make sure they have a return on investment.
I like the idea of being able to take 10 on the easier stuff.
I'll disagree with Buri's assertion that check results over 30 are any better than 30. The Core Rulebook entry for the knowledge skill seems to imply that 30 is the upper end of the DC range for tough questions.
Also, I didn't remember this, but in rereading the entry for knowledge skills, it says that they can't be used untrained unless the DC is 10 or lower. That exception is worth noting. As a DM, I probably wouldn't let anyone take 10 if they weren't trained, so they'd have to roll an intelligence check, but at least that gives them a shot at knowing common knowledge stuff.
The reason I stated what I did is that if you look at the example DCs for Knowledge, it appears to be very relative from one type of check to another. As I stated, "obscure" facts reign in around 20 for religion checks where as "plane of origin" (which carries no real significance unless you have spells or abilities that pertain to creatures from a certain plane which is not very common, unless, of course, you're a ranger who has taken outsiders as favored enemies) is the same result for planes. This tells me to get "obscure" facts from planes it would take a much higher result. If you evaluate the entire table as the same difficulty then I can see your conclusion. However, different areas of knowledge are inherently more or less complex. That much is common sense. I don't see why it'd operate differently here, where conditional modifiers are practically the name of the game. To further illustrate this, to simply identify a spell that's in effect is an arcana DC 29 for a 9th level spell and the DC can go up to 34 easily for a 9th level spell and that's not with any "plus caster level" modifiers in place. Again with arcana, identifying an aura, not anything specific about it, just the aura itself, is a DC 24 minimum for a 9th level "thing." So, I'll generally disagree with your assessment that checks over 30 are essentially meaningless.
If they invest resources in knowledge skills, I make sure they have a return on investment.
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This here is a key point I think for DMs. I have players who ignore putting ranks in Knowledge because they don't think the return on investment is good ... their loss ... those who do put ranks in it, I make sure they feel like they're getting their ranks' worth.
I also will note what their Knowledge + is ... for instance if someone with Knowledge Religion 15 asks a question about what they know about zombies, I wouldn't make them roll ... I would say they know everything, since the DC is lower than 15, due to priestly training or what have you.
For instance we just finished with Haunting of Harrowstone ... I have 3 of my players with Knowledge Engineering. Weird right? Course that particular skill actually comes up a few times in that module. They had enough ranks that a roll of 10 would succeed on the DC ... so I just told them, without them making a roll, and explained that due to their background as a dwarf, or training or whatever they recognize blah blah blah.
if he has 30+ on his check I generally hand him the bestiary and say "enjoy".
there are exceptions like special demons
However only special attacks and fluff will be true, most stats like exact hp, attack bonus, Ac is slightly variable.
For my campaign I use the 15+CR of the monster will give you all the weakness/strengths/etcs of a critter. If they are a little low I leave off a few things, and if they really score high, I'll give them some additional flavor text that sometimes will have a temporary +1 or +2 to fighting a critter.
You can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster's CR. For common monsters, such as goblins, the DC of this check equals 5 + the monster's CR. For particularly rare monsters, such as the tarrasque, the DC of this check equals 15 + the monster's CR, or more. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster. For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information. Many of the Knowledge skills have specific uses as noted on Table: Knowledge Skill DCs.
Fairly straight forward I think. We handle it exactly like that, with a "useful bit of information" being resistances, immunities, weaknesses, special abilities and so on.
