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So, I GM'd my first scenario over the past weekend and have a question regarding monster stat/ability reveals using knowledge checks. I know the CRB lists basic creature types related to each knowledge skill but is there a more detailed list somewhere that I can reference when GM'ing, and if not could someone maybe post a list for me? Also, maybe it's posted somewhere and I just missed it but, in scenarios that don't specifically say it, what is the DC for said checks? Thanks in advance.
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First, I only allow a PC to make a Knowledge Check when their turn in the initiative order comes up. This prevents metagaming by the other players. The DC of the check is based on 10 + the monster's CR. For example, a ghast is a CR 2 monster, so the DC to identify it is 12. All that tells the player is it is an undead creature known as a ghast. If the Knowledge check exceeded the base DC by 5, the PC remembers a piece of useful knowledge about the monster. For every increment of 5 they get another piece of knowledge.
Arcana (constructs, dragons, magical beasts)
Dungeoneering (aberrations, oozes)
Local (humanoids)
Nature (animals, fey, monstrous humanoids, plants, vermin)
Planes (outsiders)
Religion (undead)
You have several choices, all which are acceptable.
1) Many GMs allow the player who made the Knowledge check to ask specific questions, such as "What's the creature's Damage Resistance?" or "What are its Special Attacks?".
2) You can make your own answer sheet up as part of your scenario prep, such as:
Ghast [Undead CR 2]
Knowledge (Religion)
DC 12 – Undead traits (see below). Ghasts are more powerful cousins of ghouls.
DC 17 – A Ghast’s bite transmits a disease that can kill. Victims rise as ghouls or worse.
DC 22 – The stench of death and corruption surrounding a Ghast can overwhelm those nearby who don’t possess a strong stomach.
DC 27 – A Ghast’s bite or a rake from its claws can paralyze its victims, even elves.
Undead Traits: Darkvision 60 feet. Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms). Immunity to bleed, death effects, disease, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, and stunning. Not subject to nonlethal damage, ability drain, or energy drain. Immune to damage to its physical ability scores (Constitution, Dexterity, and Strength), as well as to exhaustion and fatigue effects.
3) You can purchase a 3PP like 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming's GM's Aid VIII: Monster Knowledge Cards. This covers the Bestiary only, however.
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The check DC can also be modified from -5 (common monsters, like goblins or ghouls) to +5 for rare monsters (soul eater, tataka). Of course, "rarity" is subject to GM fiat, and most GMs simply use the flat 10+CR difficulty.
Still, if you have a rare sort of monster in a scenario, and you'd like to reserve some surprises for the PCs, it's well within RAW to set the DC as 15+CR!
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So putting it all together:
GM: As you approach the ancient doorway in the side of the cliff, you fail to notice a figure lurking in the field of boulders adjacent to the your pathway. The figure springs from the shadows, quickly advancing to menace you. Roll initiative please.
[Rogue goes first]
Rogue: What does the figure look like now that it's out in the open?
GM: What Knowledge skills do you have?
Rogue: What for? I'm just sizing it up. Knowledge Local is all I have.
GM: It looks like a filthy male human, dressed in scraps of clothing. There are jagged, broken teeth in its mouth and its fingers seem unnaturally long, ending in sharpened nails. It makes no sound as it approaches, except for the ominous scrape of its bare feet on the rocky ground.
Rogue: Icky. Alright, for my move action I'll use Acrobatics to get behind it, drawing my rapier on the go. As my standard action I'll ready to stab it somewhere painful when I have a flanking partner. Free action, I'll yell "It doesn't look friendly, let's see what color its blood is!".
GM: As you move closer you catch a whiff of some of the foulest body odor you have ever smelled aside from a Yu-gi-oh Tournament. Make a Fortitude save please.
Rogue: [Fail]
GM: You stop in your tracks as your stomach revolts against the stench. It's all you can do to choke back the vomit. You have the Nauseated condition. You may complete any movement you have left, but that's all. Cleric, it's hard to believe but you're up next.
Cleric: OK, so happy I wasted a nat 20 on my init... I am pretty sure what this thing is but I'll make a Knowledge check to be sure. Religion, yes?
GM: Thanks for asking. Go ahead.
Cleric: A 23. It's a ghast, of course. What else do I know?
GM: You guessed right. It's undead, so you'll know most of what won't work against them. Ghasts are more powerful cousins of ghouls. A Ghast’s bite transmits a disease that can kill. Victims rise as ghouls or worse. The stench of death and corruption surrounding a Ghast can overwhelm those nearby who don’t possess a strong stomach.
Cleric: Thanks, I'll relay this information to the rest of the party.
Rogue: A little late for me...
Cleric: Sorry! I'll say a quick prayer to Sarenrae to protect me from this unholy spawn, cast resistance and for my move action I'll get myself between the ghast and the rogue to try and divert its attention. I rolled a 17 on my Fort save.
And so on.
GM: As you move closer you catch a whiff of some of the foulest body odor you have ever smelled aside from a Yu-gi-oh Tournament. Make a Fortitude save please.
Rogue: [Fail]
GM: You stop in your tracks as your stomach revolts against the stench. It's all you can do to choke back the vomit. You have the Nauseated condition. You may complete any movement you have left, but that's all. Cleric, it's hard to believe but you're up next.
Cleric: OK, so happy I wasted a nat 20 on my init... I am pretty sure what this thing is but I'll make a Knowledge check to be sure. Religion, yes?
GM: Thanks for asking. Go ahead.
Cleric: A 23. It's a ghast, of course. What else do I know?
GM: You guessed right. It's undead, so you'll know most of what won't work against them. Ghasts are more powerful cousins of ghouls. A Ghast’s bite transmits a disease that can kill. Victims rise as ghouls or worse. The stench of death and corruption surrounding a Ghast...
This is my pet peeve with pathfinder knowledge rules as I've experienced them. Notice how you told the players pretty much what they already know? Undead have undead traits. Oh look the rogue is nauseated by being close to the ghast. I guess ghasts can do that.
The only thing I see being gained is that this undead carries a disease, which isn't at all unusual as undead commonly carry disease.
The ghast is famous for its stench and paralyze abilities because those are the most immanently dangerous for people that encounter them. Making the dangerous and most remarkable abilities the hardest to know about is exactly counter to how real world knowledge functions.
Real experience in a game: I once rolled a 25 or so, and I got 2 bits of information for beating the DC by 10. The monster was obvious some form of zombie judging from its a slow plodding walk and bits of flesh coming off of the body. It had some funky hard to pronounce name ending with zombie. I asked what made this funky zombie different from a normal zombie and the DM said I couldn't ask that. I then asked for special resistances, thinking I would get possible DR, and the DM rolled randomly and came up with "undead traits" I was like, "oh, it's an undead zombie. That's nice to know." I then asked for special attacks, and he rolled and got "slam attack." You know that attack zombies do if they flail their arms about.
I then asked the DM, "so with a 25 I know what particular kind of zombie it is, including its incredibly hard to pronounce name, but nothing that separates it from the zombies I've been fighting since level 1?"
DM: Yep.
I've used knowledge in other times and was told things like those big claws and teeth that you can see, it can attack with those......
It's equivalent to telling someone with a 25 knowledge local that the big famous warlord that is wielding a sword in his hand can attack with that sword, and leaving out the part about being a famous flesh eating high level cleric of a god of darkness.
Do note that hitting the DC on the nose also gives the player a bit of useful information as well, you dont have to exceed by 5 to get a question.
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.
Generally I figure the players will remember the sorts of things they might heard other adventurers talk about at a bar: "Oh I was fighting this umbral dragon and first I was petrified with fear at the sight of it. Then it breathed a painful blast of negative energy killing Skivi the poor halfling wizard. Then as we closed in on it it breathed a dark cloud that sapped our strength and blinded our rogue, making it difficult for everyone to continue the fight. It then summoned a cloud of darkness to hide within, but happily my dwarven eyes didn't fail me. I then swung my axe deep into its flesh, which sent it crying home to mama"
However, the more basic point is that your are supposed to tell "a bit" about the monster and that this bit should be useful.
There is table variance on how big a "bit of knowledge" is. In other words, is a bit a category such as all resistances, or is it just once resistance that the creature has? I tend to do some combination of the two. For example, a bit of information for me might be "immune to negative energy and cold" or "resistance 5 to fire and cold" instead of just one or the other.
How I do knowledge:
Say you encounter a strange dark dragon.
DC= It's an Umbra Dragon. This is a dragon that seems infused with shadows. I then ask "are you interested in something particular, like resistances, or do you want to know what it's famous for, like their breath shape and damage type?"
For each 5 they beat the DC by hey get another thing their famous for, like this kind of dragon can damage their strength, or another thing the player particularly wants to know.
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This is my pet peeve with pathfinder knowledge rules as I've experienced them.
Dear Furious,
Doug gave an example to help the initial poster. It doesn't wholly represent the rules. In your situation it wasn't a rules problem it seems like a GM problem who defers to dice to make his/her decisions. I've played for many years at many conventions and game days and rarely come across this issue like you explained. A person should have a very good idea what they're facing with 10+ over the DC to identify a creature. That's how I've experienced it when playing.
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Thanks guys, some good info there. I may invest in those cards. I like those sort of resources.
Also, I am under the impression that it is the character that is knowledgable of the creature, not the player. They may be a GM and know every little detail about the creature but if their character has never encountered it before then they know only as much as a skill roll may reveal/recall and should play it thusly and not start pulling out, for example, a silver weapon without any in-game reason to believe they may need it. Am I correct in this assumption?
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You nailed it Anthony.
Keep in mind players may argue that their character has encountered the monster in a previous scenario and identified it then, so they already know all about it. I'd let that pass for the common monsters. A very diligent player would keep a log of these Knowledge checks, but until I had a reason to believe otherwise I would trust a player in this situation. However, in the case of rare monsters such as aboleth or a faceless stalker I would insist on a Knowledge check.
I think that metagaming is one of the biggest problems in Pathfinder. Experienced players have a very hard time not doing it.
This is my pet peeve with pathfinder knowledge rules as I've experienced them.
Dear Furious,
Doug gave an example to help the initial poster. It doesn't wholly represent the rules. In your situation it wasn't a rules problem it seems like a GM problem who defers to dice to make his/her decisions. I've played for many years at many conventions and game days and rarely come across this issue like you explained. A person should have a very good idea what they're facing with 10+ over the DC to identify a creature. That's how I've experienced it when playing.
I've experienced a lot of table variation, even among otherwise excellent DMs. What Doug described is pretty common in my experience, as everything is useful in a vacuum but commonly doesn't provide any helpful information they don't already know.
For example, last time I fought ghasts in a 1-5 mod, the first bit of information, just like with Doug, was that if you die from a ghast you come back as an undead. That was all we got. I don't think we got something about disease, but that's pretty much assumed with undead anyway. As the party already knew they should avoid dying, as we couldn't even afford a raise dead, that decent knowledge roll didn't change anything. We then got hit by the stench and then the paralyze....both of which really surprised some party members and nearly killed someone as a result.
Just for reference, the DM was someone I classify as a pretty good dm.
Also, I am under the impression that it is the character that is knowledgable of the creature, not the player. They may be a GM and know every little detail about the creature but if their character has never encountered it before then they know only as much as a skill roll may reveal/recall and should play it thusly and not start pulling out, for example, a silver weapon without any in-game reason to believe they may need it. Am I correct in this assumption?
Player knowledge and character knowledge is very different. With that said, pathfinders go through years of training. In this time, they are given basic information about how to fight common types of monsters. Just like children in the real world know that werewolves are killed by silver, pathfinders should all know common information about how to fight common or famous types of monsters. For example, swarms are commonly immune to weapons. Evil outsiders commonly have skin that is hard and might need cold iron, silver, and/or holy weapons to pierce. Skeletons fall better to a mace than a sword. If something keeps getting up, behead it. If it still gets up, burn it.
The book on being a pathfinder (Seeker of Secrets?) has a whole bunch of this sort of general information in it.
It's pretty common to see players "go looks like a devil or demon" and when their sword doesn't go through their skin very well, or even before that in lower level games, they pull out cold iron or silver weapons. That's not metagaming, that's simply what the characters were trained to do.
Knowledge skills reflect knowing actually what the creature is and knowing actually, for example, what if any DR the creature has.
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Yeah, I perceive knowledge of monsters to be the result of either extensive study on that particular group of creatures or knowledge gained through experiences growing up. For example, A ranger with knowledge (nature) you can say got his wisdom from years of living in the wilderness and encountering and/or witnessing other people encounter such creatures or he could just be enthusiastic about nature and thus spent time reading chronicles of other adventurer's exploitations.
Either way you should still reveal things in subtle ways that they may not know. Like saying "your normal arrows seemed to have not caused as much damage as you know they should have." Hinting to the fact that the creature has some sort of immunity or DR. So after the fight they should have a very good working knowledge of that creatures abilities and weaknesses...that is, if they survive. :)
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Bringing this topic back up.
I've been one of the GMs that does what Doug originally indicated, I used to do the "ask me X questions about it" line.
Problem is, with certain groups of players (not all players mind you, but you'll know the ones I'm talking about) this just turns them into walking death machines because they always know how to pinpoint the weakest point first.
So that ends yesterday (yes literally yesterday).
From here on out I'll look at the creatures before hand, identify how many "useful tidbits" you can find in their stat block, assign each a number, and randomly roll for it.
So, while you still don't know the specific values, you'll reveal something random your research has identified such as normal attacks, defenses, even mating habits (which is sometimes VERY useful knowledge to know). I'm cutting out the problems I've begun to see with the question/answer method.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Bringing this topic back up.
I've been one of the GMs that does what Doug originally indicated, I used to do the "ask me X questions about it" line.
Problem is, with certain groups of players (not all players mind you, but you'll know the ones I'm talking about) this just turns them into walking death machines because they always know how to pinpoint the weakest point first.
So that ends yesterday (yes literally yesterday).
From here on out I'll look at the creatures before hand, identify how many "useful tidbits" you can find in their stat block, assign each a number, and randomly roll for it.
So, while you still don't know the specific values, you'll reveal something random your research has identified such as normal attacks, defenses, even mating habits (which is sometimes VERY useful knowledge to know). I'm cutting out the problems I've begun to see with the question/answer method.
Random tidbits stike me as odd, as you could potentially know the details of their special abilities without even knowing that it's undead. Personally, I approach each knowledge check from a viewpoint of "When another adventurer talked about what it was like to fight this thing - whether in a reference book, an oral history tale, or while swapping war stories - what's the first/main thing they'd have mentioned?" From me, you'll almost always get something like types/subtypes/traits for the first tidbit* and then the next is something like "it's most known for its ability/tendency to...", and on down the list.
For instance, if you ID a ghoul, the first thing you get is that it's undead. If you're better informed than that, you'll know that its attacks can paralyze you, because most people who have fought them have encountered that, so it'll be more pervasive in public knowledge. Fewer people have likely dealt with ghoul fever than with the paralysis, so that takes a higher check result. And when your result is high enough to represent having done some real research or encountered a very thorough account, you'll be aware that they're intelligent.
Knowing that a ghoul is intelligent without knowing that they can paralyze you or even that they're undead seems... weird. :/
*Many GMs seem to forget that the first piece of useful information comes with meeting the DC; exceeding it by 5 gets a second tidbit, 10 is a third, and so forth. Same thing with bull rushes - folks sometimes seem to count up the 5's and then forget that there's a unit at 0 as well.
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Random tidbits stike me as odd, as you could potentially know the details of their special abilities without even knowing that it's undead.
Jiggy, I think you misinterpreted. You hit the DC on the head and I tell you "It's a ghoul, an undead creature that enjoys feasting on flesh" or "it's a Xill, a type of evil outsider that lives on the etheral plane". It's the rolling 5-higher tidbits that I'm changing.
In our group, we divide the monster's abilities into offence, defence and special. The DM sorts all the monster's abilities into those categories. Meeting the DC gives you the monster's type and one question. Categories with a lot of information might have two questions worth of abilities.
If a player beats the check by about 20, then they know everything there is to know about the monster, and the DM will answer any questions about it.
Usually, the DM won't give numbers though. For example: "it is resistant to cold" not "cold resist 10."
I've always felt it kind of silly when I play PFS, roll a 35 against a DC 15 creature and get to find out "It does not have fire resistance, cold resistance or DR. It is weak to acid." (4 questions.)
When I think about this, I also think a DM can alter what sorts of information he gives on a successful check depending on which class made it, within reason.
For example, A cleric or wizard successfully making a dc check about a monster, while they could have picked up the information in a bar, or around town, in my mind most likely read about it in a tome (even more likely for the wizard). Wouldn't this tome give specific information on the weaknesses and effects of the monster?
If I went to the library and studied bears, I might find their tactics, dangers, and weaknesses. The same could be applied towards most monsters (maybe not all) that players will face. If a Wizard runs into a huge fire elemental and beats the dc by a fair amount, and asks "What kind of spells is it weak against" I think a fair answer would be "You recall reading that while also being weak to any cold based attacks, this type of elemental is particularly weak against spells effecting the mind, and agile enough to dodge most spells if given the chance"
What that tells the player if they are listening carefully? It has cold vulnerabilty, low will save, and high reflex. Nothing game breaking and you didn't give numbers, but useful information that can assist them in the fight.
Now my example is for a wizard, but I am sure you could expand this.