I personally don't believe Vrocks should be able to do Dance of Ruin while flying.
Dance of Ruin (Su)
A vrock can dance and chant as a full-round action—at the end of 3 rounds, a crackling wave of energy explodes from the vrock, dealing 5d6 points of electricity damage to all creatures within 100 feet.
He's right. In order to dance while flying they'd have to make a awesome Fly skill roll.It would seem to me to be a DC 20, and thus the vrock would have to make a 8 every time or fail. I can see making it a DC 15, but when dancing the Vrock can;t move, so the party would get run after the first hit.
And, maybe you might not know what the 'dance of ruin" is but anyone with a half-way decent spellcraft or even perception could see it made a zone of lightning about 100' across. How hard is that to see? So, the party fires away, the vrock dance, and then they zap the party (this causes what- 60 points tops, half if you save?), the party puts 2+2 together and gets out of there. You mean you made them stay?!?
And a CR 12 with a significant tactical advantage like that is more like a CR 14 or 15.
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I would consider that not fair in any game that I have run or played in. Of course your game is obviously different which is not necessarily bad.
When the wizard gets a 22 knowledge and is asking a specific question, what rational is there for giving him something which is pointedly not answering the question besides an overabundance of adherence to RAW.
Even in the face of player knowledge, I would not call the wizard asking "why are the demonic vulture people dancing?" meta. In any case, players being meta does not imply they need to be punished as so many people on these boards seem to think.
Are there a great number of DMs who would force the players to stay under the vrocks if they did not explicitly have the information about the Dance of Ruin from a knowledge check? There is no situation where that is appropriate behavior from a DM. I would think that when the wizard who is deeply schooled in information about outsiders cannot remember what the demons are doing it is even more of a reason to GTFO than if you know what they are doing. Of course when the demons start dancing it does not take a knowledge check to know you should probably leave.A few people have called the players unwise for staying under the vrocks. But look at it from a player point of view:
PC WIZ: Well, gang, I guess we don't know they're doing their Dance of Ruin.
PC TANK: DM probably won't let us do anything to get away because he'll rule we're taking actions based on knowledge our characters don't have. He'll probably make us stay under the vrocks now.
PC ROG: Yeah, guess we should just stay put and try to take 'em out from here.These were probably internally arrived at and not actually verbalized, but I can easily see players thinking that. And we were encouraged to assume all we wanted; so I have.
A couple of points.
First, the OP explicitly said that the player rolled a knowledge check to identify the Vrocks not to identify the dance. The roll provided one bit of information, and rolling randomly to determine which bit is perfectly acceptable GMing imho.
Second, if the wizard PC were to have said "What th'... those things are DANCING! That can't be good..." and group decided to move away, that would be perfectly acceptable PC behavior to me regardless of the result of the knowledge check. I can't imagine any GM forcing the PCs to stay.
I'm not going to fault the GM on this based only on what the OP has said. I would not have retconned the encounter if I had been him, but then I almost never retcon anything. Time moves on. Even gods make mistakes. It's just a game, and some of the best moments we've had in our games have been the result of GM screwups.
@Adamtine Dragon +1 mate!
The wizard did ask about the dance. When they got their piece of information about the now identified vrocks they wanted to know about the dance since their knowledge roll means that the wizard can remember one thing that they know about vrocks.
My point about too strict adherence to RAW still stands. This is not PFS, it is part of the DMs job to know when RAW is stupid and gets in the way of fairness and fun.
The wizard did ask about the dance. When they got their piece of information about the now identified vrocks they wanted to know about the dance since their knowledge roll means that the wizard can remember one thing that they know about vrocks.
My point about too strict adherence to RAW still stands. This is not PFS, it is part of the DMs job to know when RAW is stupid and gets in the way of fairness and fun.
It is a dice-based game. The dice are supposed to provide a probabilistic result based on rules. To rule that the wizard's one bit of knowledge they remembered about the Vrock was the screech is totally reasonable. There is no guarantee that the wizard's research ever discovered that Vrock's dance. In fact it is quite reasonable to rule that the dice indicate that the only reference the wizard ever found about Vrocks only mentioned the screech. Perhaps the reference was in an ancient damaged tome with pages missing. Who knows.
That's what the dice are for.
Since there's been a good bit of disagreement, I went ahead and clarified the rules of how knowledge checks will work in my game and offered the party a retcon on the battle. Thanks for the opinions, folks.
As for the people assuming facts not in evidence, assume all you want. Also, I never knew a dance required somebody staying in one spot.
That's very big of you.
The wizard did ask about the dance. When they got their piece of information about the now identified vrocks they wanted to know about the dance since their knowledge roll means that the wizard can remember one thing that they know about vrocks.
My point about too strict adherence to RAW still stands. This is not PFS, it is part of the DMs job to know when RAW is stupid and gets in the way of fairness and fun.
It is a dice-based game. The dice are supposed to provide a probabilistic result based on rules. To rule that the wizard's one bit of knowledge they remembered about the Vrock was the screech is totally reasonable. There is no guarantee that the wizard's research ever discovered that Vrock's dance. In fact it is quite reasonable to rule that the dice indicate that the only reference the wizard ever found about Vrocks only mentioned the screech. Perhaps the reference was in an ancient damaged tome with pages missing. Who knows.
That's what the dice are for.
Yes, the dice are necessary. That is why the wizard can fail his knowledge roll to remember something that he has read about demons at some point.
This hinges on the fact that I fluff rolling a knowledge check as remembering things that you have read, specifically remembering things in the heat of combat, since outside of combat you can T10 and just remember things. Gaining ranks in knowledge skills represents knowing something in the first place. So the wizard with a few ranks in knowledge places knows about vrocks, they just might not remember everything about them during combat. This is why I let players choose what their character remembers from a knowledge check. I was not aware that RAW was actually to chose randomly and I maintain that this is one instance where RAW is stupid and should work differently.
First, the OP explicitly said that the player rolled a knowledge check to identify the Vrocks not to identify the dance. The roll provided one bit of information, and rolling randomly to determine which bit is perfectly acceptable GMing imho.
The wizard rolled a 22 on her Knowledge: Planes check to identify them, which gave her one piece of useful (emphasis added) knowledge.
Adamantine Dragon, you left out the key adjective, "useful." The OP says "useful" information, not "random" information.
The very next sentence is useful context:
The player (who knew out of character exactly what the creature was and what the dance did) wanted to be told what the dance was.(emphasis added)
So the DM admits that he was aware that the player wasn't really after what the vrocks were, but what they were doing. Regardless of what was asked by the player, we should remember that the DM is the sensory input for the characters. And if you're going to say, "The players are responsible for being specific" I'm going to say that you'd better interrupt me every 3 seconds I'm DMing to tell me that your character takes a breath, because if that's not what you tell me your character is doing, I can assume he's turning blue and suffocating to death. And that's ridiculous.
As I see it, a knowledge check determines exactly what the character already knows about the creature, and seeing it do something doesn't influence what the character already knows.
So, let's say five years ago, I take a beginner's dance class. We cover the waltz (Dance of Ruin) and foxtrot (Stunning Screech). I keep up with it for about six months; then I fall off. Its now five years later and I'm at my cousin's wedding reception. And everyone's doing the waltz . Your argument is that I might just as easily remember how to foxtrot as waltz and seeing everyone doing those steps doesn't make it at all any more likely that I'll remember the waltz?
I'm going to completely disagree with that. I assert that I'd be significantly more likely to remember the waltz than the foxtrot. And, thus, to answer your original question, and modify my original answer, you were unfair.
I personally don't believe Vrocks should be able to do Dance of Ruin while flying.
Dance of Ruin (Su)
A vrock can dance and chant as a full-round action—at the end of 3 rounds, a crackling wave of energy explodes from the vrock, dealing 5d6 points of electricity damage to all creatures within 100 feet.
He's right. In order to dance while flying they'd have to make a awesome Fly skill roll.It would seem to me to be a DC 20, and thus the vrock would have to make a 8 every time or fail. I can see making it a DC 15, but when dancing the Vrock can;t move, so the party would get run after the first hit.
So a creature with wings can't fly and dance at the same time? Does that mean that a creature with legs can't dance and move at the same time? Sounds like the waltz, foxtrot, tango and many other forms of dance would be impossible. How many traditional forms of dance involve dancing in a circle while chanting or singing? If you have wings you could just do it in mid-air.
Could it just be that the Vrocks' dance is basically them flying around in a circle..... They don't have a Perform skill so it is not as though they have to succeed on a Perform (Dance) check for hte Dance of Ruin to work.
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Ok folks. I am the wizard who rolled the 22. I absolutely did not want to metagame so I specifically asked if I could identify the dance, then the DM said I can not give you the dance cause it would ruin the encounter Then out of the norm he rolled randomly to save his encounter. Whatever on that. Now I asked about the dance cause they were dancing. Why wouldnt my character do so. I rolled a 2. I failed according to his way of doing it and then I didnt run because I have never ran before and that would be metagaming. I didnt want to be called as doing so. We then got our asses royally handed to us. It wasn't the dance that killed me it was the after affects of being at zero hp because of the dance and then not being able to do anything cause the cleric was ded dead.
My question because I have been dming for years is what should he really have givin in this situation and what should be given normally because I want to make my games better too.
I agree with both sides of this forum at times but this may help give some more insight from the players perspective.
PS Plus he didn't tell how the vrocks before dancing bombarded us from the sky with their summoned dretches that knocked 3 of us unconscious in the first place. If we ran we were dead anyways from that attack we never saw coming. I think we took 4d6 per dretch and I personally got hit by 7 of them in one round. And none of this dretch business was his fault cause thats what the damn module told him to do. Freaking insane.
Wait, if I understand you correctly, they summoned dretches midair to have them fall on you for damage? Summoning doesn't work that way:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic#TOC-Conjuration
A creature or object brought into being or transported to your location by a conjuration spell cannot appear inside another creature or object, nor can it appear floating in an empty space. It must arrive in an open location on a surface capable of supporting it.
I also think it's crazy to allow Vrocks to dance midair.
For those wondering, the party is 5 characters (one of whom, the bard, was not there that day but his character was allowed to Inspire Courage and cast Haste for important combats) with WBL and 20 point buy.
4 8th level characters @ 20 PB = within the proper CR range for the encounter, especially since they were granted both haste *and* inspire courage from an unkillable NPC.
*"Useful information" about a vrock includes the following bits of useful information.
To be clear, and I quote - "You can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. ... 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."
The *BASE DC* is to identify the monster, providing this information at the base DC: "Profane champions of the Abyss, vrocks embody all the rage, hatred, and violence of that despicable realm. As ravenous and grotesquely opportunistic as the scavengers they resemble, vrocks delight in bloodshed, relishing the sounds and sensations of ripping the still-pulsing entrails from a living husk.
Vrocks generally form from the evil souls of hateful and wrathful mortals, particularly those who were career criminals, mercenaries, or assassins."
The other useful bits come from higher and higher Knowledge (planes) checks, each providing an additional useful bit of information. If a GM is being generous, one of the lesser bits from below are appropriate to include with the above information - most likely the DR/good.
- DR 10/good - "only blessed weapons deal full damage to these demons"
- immune to electricity
- immune to poison
- resistant to acid, cold and electricity
- resistant to magic
- special attack - dance of ruin
- special attack - spores
- special attack - screech
- telepathy to 100 ft.
- at will teleportation
- at will telekinesis
- 1 in 3 chance to successfully summon another vrock
- 1/day heroism
- 1/day mirror image
At a minimum - if you lump the two immunities together as one "bit" or "piece" and throw in DR/good as a freebie for making the check - a vrock requires a total Knowledge (planes) DC of 79 to "know" everything there is to know from a free action Knowledge (planes) check. At the highest - adding in the two additional bits in the list above instead of consolidating them a smidge - the DC for knowing all that you can possibly hope to know about standard vrocks goes as high as an 89.
The lowest check possible to 'pluck from memory' the vrocks' dance of ruin is a DC 24. (19 +5)
FOLLOW UP: Dretches ... vrocks can't summon dretches ... O.o
As much as I've been backing up the DM-OP, this should not have happened, the summoned dretches nonsense. Vrocks are nasty enough as it is! BAD OP! BAD! BAD! :P
If the vrocks had heroism active the could make the fly check to hover without a roll.
If the vrocks had heroism active the could make the fly check to hover without a roll.
Still, no amount of Heroism would have helped them in conjuring up some Dretches.
Ok folks. I am the wizard who rolled the 22. I absolutely did not want to metagame so I specifically asked if I could identify the dance, then the DM said I can not give you the dance cause it would ruin the encounter Then out of the norm he rolled randomly to save his encounter. Whatever on that. Now I asked about the dance cause they were dancing. Why wouldnt my character do so. I rolled a 2. I failed according to his way of doing it and then I didnt run because I have never ran before and that would be metagaming. I didnt want to be called as doing so. We then got our asses royally handed to us. It wasn't the dance that killed me it was the after affects of being at zero hp because of the dance and then not being able to do anything cause the cleric was ded dead.
My question because I have been dming for years is what should he really have givin in this situation and what should be given normally because I want to make my games better too.
I agree with both sides of this forum at times but this may help give some more insight from the players perspective.
PS Plus he didn't tell how the vrocks before dancing bombarded us from the sky with their summoned dretches that knocked 3 of us unconscious in the first place. If we ran we were dead anyways from that attack we never saw coming. I think we took 4d6 per dretch and I personally got hit by 7 of them in one round. And none of this dretch business was his fault cause thats what the damn module told him to do. Freaking insane.
Well, the dretch thing might have been horrible from a rule point of view but I'd think it is too funny to skip out of the encounter, it should hardly be the most lethal thing Vrocks can do any way.
The dance more than likely was entirely fair even without checks since heroism allows it to auto-succeed on hovering.
Now recalling a SPECIFIC piece of information on Vrock's abilities is not called out in the knowledge skill, as far as I know the random roll was fair, personally I'd call out the outsider type and typical demon immunities and resistances first then advancing to more unique abilities.
DC 19 outsider
- outsider traits
DC 24 demon, chaotic, evil subtype
- with resistances and typical demon abilities
DC 29 resitant to magic, telepathy, teleport, summoning, DR
- typical demon abilities, but not universal
DC 34 dance of ruin, spores, screech, mirror image, specific DR type
- specific abilities that are likely to be well known and used
DC 39 specific spell like abilities that are less likely known
- heroism
That is just how I would do it though..
If the vrocks had heroism active the could make the fly check to hover without a roll.Still, no amount of Heroism would have helped them in conjuring up some Dretches.
By RAW no, but if he is playing a published adventure and it is written like that personally I'd go with it too. It is probably a mix up with 3.5 abilities of a Vrock, still it seems better than having a very good chance of an additional Vrock join the combat 35% chance (x3).
Changing statblocks of creatures to match encounters I do not consider a bad thin :
- If I wanted them to dance in the air I'd probably have given them the hover feat in exchange for combat reflexes, if they couldnt already do it with a casting of heroism.
- Like mentioned, I see absolutely NOTHING wrong with having them summon dretches up instead of vrocks, technically they shouldnt be able to do in midair, possibly they could summon a few of them into a bag they carry though, but since they only use them as missile fodder.. who cares really it might as well have been large rocks, it shows off their cruelty and trivializes their summon ability to a certain extent.
Oh, wait. Party level 8 vs three Vrocks?
Asking if you were unfair with Dance of Ruin in that case is like asking if it was a slight overkill to drop a nuke on a guy when you could have just snuck behind him and snapped his neck instead. The whole encounter was so unfair it ain't even funny, so yes, you were being really damned unfair.
Oh, wait. Party level 8 vs three Vrocks?
Asking if you were unfair with Dance of Ruin in that case is like asking if it was a slight overkill to drop a nuke on a guy when you could have just snuck behind him and snapped his neck instead. The whole encounter was so unfair it ain't even funny, so yes, you were being really damned unfair.
There is that, but that had nothing to do with the way the vrocks were used. The difficulty of the encounter was way to lethal in my book, a single Vrock could be challenging, two Vrocks would be super tough, three vrocks well.. it is obvious what is likely to happen with three vrocks...
That is assuming a party of 4 players though, if they were 6 players it should have been doable.
That is assuming a party of 4 players though, if they were 6 players it should have been doable.
OP stated it were 5 characters, one of which was absent but whose buffs were benefitting the party.
Without meta gaming too much, anytime you see a bunch of nasties doing some kind of ritualistic thing its not going to be good
kill one quick and hope it breaks the 'ritual'
Instead of bringing out endless 'advanced' books i wish they would finish off the basics. One of these could be a list if what Know:X tells you about a beasties
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I agree that what is written in the book is exactly what he should have done even though it was not supported by the rules being the player in question. I wish there was a well thought out single way to do knowledge checks for the future but as you see here everyone does it very differently. Please someone (paizo) elaborate.
Assuming the vrocks made their fly checks, didn't move more than five feet per round, and the players knew that you might have some monster stat blocks changed (the dretch thing), no i don't see how you were unfair.
In my group with a 22 check on a planes check for a vrock you would get that it's a demon, we all know that demon means specific immunities, specific resistances, DR (but not specific, might be cold iron or good, might be good etc), with a mid level demon means SR (again no specific number), and greater teleport.
Now on the actual encounter, i believe that 3 (already) flying vrocks, with a very good chance to summon drenches (i assume that the chance is higher than 35%) is a bit too much for 8th level. Unless all of the players were aware of the difficulty of the game (so they could optimize their ass off) and someone who knows how to play bards was playing the bard.
I don't know if the above are true or not, but the average party of players would have ended with their characters dead in this encounter even if it was their first encounter in the day.
The party was 8th level, and 3 Vrocks is a CR 12 encounter. Yes, it's very, very tough, but they knew going in that this was supposed to be a brutal campaign (I gave them warning, and the book - don't want to spoil anything, so no names - warns that characters will die).
I disagree with people saying that "a bit of useful information" means getting an entire section (ie Defensive Abilities, Offensive Abilities, etc). This group has always ruled that each bit is one thing - ie DR, or an immunity, or one special ability, etc.
That the standar for Pathfinder Soc, Living Greyhawk, 4th ed forgetten realms, living kalamar, living eberon, living shining jewel, living city and living forgotten realms all that I played in. and All the groups that I played in for last 15 years.
"Useful information" about a vrock includes the following bits of useful information.
To be clear, and I quote - "You can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. ... 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."
The other useful bits come from higher and higher Knowledge (planes) checks, each providing an additional useful bit of information. If a GM is being generous, one of the lesser bits from below are appropriate to include with the above information - most likely the DR/good.
...
- DR 10/good - "only blessed weapons deal full damage to these demons"
- immune to electricity
- immune to poison
- resistant to acid, cold and electricity
- resistant to magic
- special attack - dance of ruin
- special attack - spores
- special attack - screech
- telepathy to 100 ft.
- at will teleportation
- at will telekinesis
- 1 in 3 chance to
DC 79 is way to high for any CR 9 monster You have to be epic to make that check.
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Knowledge checks are free actions. So long as the information is communicated to the rest of the group (typical games have speaking within reason as a free action) the next character can *also* make a check see if they remember anything else.
Most of these abilities are easy to figure out in combat: DR, SR, resists and immunities. If you want a "free ride" to just *know* everything, best ramp up those skills.
Was this ruling unfair?
Then out of the norm he rolled randomly to save his encounter.
You were inconsistent in your rolling.
You were inconsistent in order to protect the vrocks and hurt the players.That's unfair.
That may be the game you all were playing, but it is an unfair game.
Was this ruling unfair?Then out of the norm he rolled randomly to save his encounter.You were inconsistent in your rolling.
You were inconsistent in order to protect the vrocks and hurt the players.
That's unfair.
That may be the game you all were playing, but it is an unfair game.
really, to make one roll at the lowest possible DC would have been a silly way to learn, especially since it is a free action. You just keep making rolls against a DC of 19 and you know everything there is to know with a score of 18 in a knowledge skill.
The achieved result would not have been enough in nearly any game, the random roll was quite lenient to me.
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Wow people are brutal on these forums.
Everyone just needs to chill, read where the OP said they are going to RETCON this fight and lay off. This isn't your game, this isn't your GM, this isn't your campaign setting, so let the GM do what they feel is fair in their game and stop crying foul with all the rules lawyering.
alientude, I'm still in agreement with you with your original post and you are being more than fair by retconning this fight with your players to soothe their hurt feelings. The fact is, you told them this is going to be a lethal campaign and it wasn't a TPK. You went beyond what you had to with your own campaign world to back up and do it over for them and the peanut gallery here (the forum posters) just keep giving their varying opinions on how you went wrong w/o even reading the post where you said you were going to allow a do over.
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I don't really think you were being unfair. It isn't how I would have handled that and that is going to color my opinion on the matter, but the only red flag is the random way you determined the information that they got and that isn't really a red flag when I step back from my DM style.
I think I might have fudged it and given the group a heads up, especially since they had just been tenderized in the initial exchange that left three of their five unconscious. In my mind a party of five with one person absent (allowed to cast spells, but no player present) and three of the four remaining players out of the action would warrant throwing them a bone of some sort. Though I'm not sure even knowing about the funky chicken dance the vrocks were doing would have helped at all. At most the wizard who was making the check might have been able to save himself. It sounds to me like this might have been the last encounter for this particular adventure even without the dance.
I normally go with one bit of relevant information for knowledge checks, like if the dragon is huffing and puffing then I tell the player the dragon has a breath weapon and that they think he might get ready to use it (that or he decided to take the stairs rather than fly - it could go either way with dragons). Though the way Remco Sommeling broke up the information is a way I might start using.
The wizard did ask about the dance. When they got their piece of information about the now identified vrocks they wanted to know about the dance since their knowledge roll means that the wizard can remember one thing that they know about vrocks.
My point about too strict adherence to RAW still stands. This is not PFS, it is part of the DMs job to know when RAW is stupid and gets in the way of fairness and fun.
I'm going to pick some nits with you now.
I don't think this call was the result of overly strict adherence to RAW. The RAW states that a successful check will yield useful bits of info, but it doesn't say which bits of info are given.
The GM could give them at random, in order, or just pick the bits he likes. It's his call.
Actually, by strict adherence to RAW, RAW states that a knowledge check will give the answer to a question, that's how the skill works. If that question was "What are those things, and why are they dancing?" a successful check should have yielded the answer.
To be fair to the OP, though, I came to this conclusion after careful consideration, something there isn't always time for during a game.
It is a dice-based game. The dice are supposed to provide a probabilistic result based on rules. To rule that the wizard's one bit of knowledge they remembered about the Vrock was the screech is totally reasonable. There is no guarantee that the wizard's research ever discovered that Vrock's dance. In fact it is quite reasonable to rule that the dice indicate that the only reference the wizard ever found about Vrocks only mentioned the screech. Perhaps the reference was in an ancient damaged tome with pages missing. Who knows.That's what the dice are for.
To you, I ask:
If a player was witnessing a cult performing some ritual and asked what the ritual was, what would you tell them if they rolled a successful knowledge check?
The answer to their question, or some random bit of information about the cult?
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4 CRs above the party is a pretty tall order but it is doable. Provided the party has some of the best rolling they ever had. I don't think you were unfair. Party defeats happen. Too often, PCs don't retreat for the time being when that would be the sensible option. Furthermore, as harsh as it is, PC deaths do happen. The difference is whether the players can actually look past it. In this case, the DM was forgiving enough to prevent PC deaths. The only thing I wonder about is what the party was doing during that time? If you guys get zapped hard enough in the first round to take off almost half your hp but it looks like the party had barely put a dent in them, why stick around?
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Regardless of what I knew as a player, allowing a bunch of Demons to start dancing, is not something I would have allowed to continue. Just common sense.
Randomly - there were a bunch of vrocks that did start doing their dance. My players thought they were happy that the PCs were beating up the other demons and drow... and did exactly that.
They were amazed when the dancing turned out to be something horrific for them.
The dretch-bombing (violates normal rules of summoning, gives the vrocks a new spell-like) should probably increase the CR by 1. This brings the challenge from APL +4 (Epic) to APL +5 (Unfair). So it was partially the author, but your responsibility to avoid the situation that outmatches the PCs.
The fact that the PCs were pretty much dead before the Vrocks started dancing makes the whole question kind of moot. They could have simply clawed everybody to death at that point.
I don't think your handling of the Knowledge check was unfair, but perhaps a bit unwise. Personally, I give subtypes for free (so they know it has demon traits) as part of identification, plus an extra question. In this case, I'd probably let the PC know about the dance, if the player remembers off the top of their head already, it's a well-known ability so a lower DC for the character and it heads off the whole question of what behavior is and isn't metagaming. Obviously this doesn't work if the player has a TON of knowledge, though.
But again, it apparently wasn't really the dance that killed them.
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LOL, it's time to play "Pile on the OP!"
"Useful information" means information about the monster's abilities. It does not mean "information the party will immediately gain an advantage from, or will save their asses from doing something stupid."
I am just not going to pile on the OP. Even if he made two errors on the summoning, at least he had the desire to ask for help and has offered to retcon the encounter.
I assume he's learned a lesson.
Still, I really hate retconning. Really hate it. Time moves on. Even gods make mistakes. You can't change history. Learn and move on.
Saying the OP is too adversarial and should play a different game like descent is very uncalled for. He's playing tsar and he's running it as written. Those 3 Brock's can come up on a random encounter roll while exploring the Desolation even if the party is still level 7.
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The adventure specifically calls out the frocks as summoning drenches to bombard pcs from the air so everyone please stop blaming op for that. It's written by Greg Vaughn, one of the most prolific adventure authors, frequent contributor to Paizo AP's, so pretty damn official, and it's his opus. So chill. It's meant to be hard. You dies and you fool new characters in this campaign.
Edit: Vrocks not frocks, and Dretches not drenches. Lol how do I turn off the spellcheck on this iPad it's killin me
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Wow people are brutal on these forums.
Everyone just needs to chill, read where the OP said they are going to RETCON this fight and lay off. This isn't your game, this isn't your GM, this isn't your campaign setting, so let the GM do what they feel is fair in their game and stop crying foul with all the rules lawyering.
Uhm no. Pulling the "its not your game, isnt yoru GM, not your campaign so leave the poor DM alone" crap doesnt fly.
Dont want to take the heat? Dont post your questions to the general public. Once you put it in public domain, it becomes discussion fodder.
Its complete BS to fall back on "dont critize since its not your game" when you come onto a forum and post your campaign up and ask questions about it.
Thats just a flag on the play.
The adventure specifically calls out the frocks as summoning drenches to bombard pcs from the air so everyone please stop blaming op for that. It's written by Greg Vaughn, one of the most prolific adventure authors, frequent contributor to Paizo AP's, so pretty damn official, and it's his opus. So chill. It's meant to be hard. You dies and you fool new characters in this campaign.
And he's wrong. Not only is it against RAW (twice!), it's against RAI and fairness.
I'll tell him so to his face if he posts here.
What is the name of this module?
DM- you made two bad calls here. But yes, you're doing the right thing.
The GM made all the right calls. We do not even know if the person claiming to be from the OP's campaign really was. If they are, then one of the people is lying, since the OP claims that he always randomly rolls knowledge, and the alleged party member says this was an irregular attempt to save the scenario. Assuming the OP is telling the truth, everything was done perfectly fine. He was following a published adventure, he was being consistent, and the roll of a 2 was just very unfortunate. End of story :)
Now recalling a SPECIFIC piece of information on Vrock's abilities is not called out in the knowledge skill, as far as I know...
Sure it is.
Answering a question within your field of study has a DC of 10 (for really easy questions), 15 (for basic questions), or 20 to 30 (for really tough questions).
"What are those things(Vrocks) and why are they dancing?" is definitely a question pertaining to the study of the outer planes.
If you make a successful check, you get the answer.
Quantum Steve, that is not how you use Knowledge to identify creature abilities. I am pretty sure the text from the rulebook on that use of Knowledge (planes) has been quoted a dozen times in this thread. Your example would be for a question like "where is the nearest portal to the plane of fire" or some other plane related question, not for creature ID. They have these two different uses of knowledge, and describe how to use the skill in both instances.
The adventure specifically calls out the frocks as summoning drenches to bombard pcs from the air so everyone please stop blaming op for that. It's written by Greg Vaughn, one of the most prolific adventure authors, frequent contributor to Paizo AP's, so pretty damn official, and it's his opus. So chill. It's meant to be hard. You dies and you fool new characters in this campaign.And he's wrong. Not only is it against RAW (twice!), it's against RAI and fairness.
I'll tell him so to his face if he posts here.
What is the name of this module?
DM- you made two bad calls here. But yes, you're doing the right thing.
Slumbering Tsar Saga
Greg Vaughn| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
For the record I think you definitely should have told him about the dance.
The player is making an effort not to meta game, that should be rewarded.
He passed the knowledge check. Just tell him the relevant bit of info.
Think about it, what would have been more fun at the table?
Most of the time it's agonizing to know something and stay in the mindset that your character doesn't know it. For most players at least.
Like others have said, if it took away from the fun of the table, then it shouldn't have happened.