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There is no RAW support to suggest you need to identify them first. RAW needs to tell you if you have to do something, not tell you that you don't.
There's equally no RAW support to suggest that you get the bonus even if the target's nature is disguised.
Again, this is an extreme corner case as in 99 percent of the time, this isn't going to happen as in many cases it's simply not feasible. (A giant generally can't disguise away his giantness, and orcs are typically too crude and brash to even try, let alone get away with it.)
Sure.
But I really detest using corner cases to argue about what's RAW and what's not. PF is not intended to cover corner cases, that's what GMs are for. So these discussions should be in the houserule section, not the Rules Questions section, which exists to discuss what's in he rules.
No RPGS system can cover every corner case. That's why GMs exist.
In the rules section, you can only talk intelligibly about the words in the books. If you're extrapolating, it's a houserule. Which is entirely necessary at the table, but not the point of the rules question section.
And I'm not sure the consensus is universal that the RAW question was solved in 5 posts, BilliyGoat :) I agree that it was, but quite a few still disagreed.
And personally, the reason I wouldn't houserule in the case of a poly morphed enemy is that I think it would be rather cool for the ranger to go, "Hey, what's up? This elven cleric has a very familiar style of fighting that I'm finding easy to counter and defeat. Maybe this elf ain't what he seems..."
*player checks list of favoured enemies
Such arrogance in this "elf"... Jaws champing as he attacks... That lateral movement, thunderous forward attacks... Could it be a dragon in elven form?
as far as OP goes, I would say not. (except alter self, or something like... then i think i would go with certain bonuses. ie: the fighting style would be the same (possibly giving bonuses to notice cracks in the effect), bluffs for same reason, but just sight i would say he would get no bonuses just on that (same with illusion).
as far as the open rolls, had a solution when i was doing online play... i'd ask for 5 sense motive, perception, move silent/stealth(if i thought it would come up), spell craft, and knowledge checks at the start, record those, and just use them when/if it came up. That way they might know what they rolled, but it also allowed me to change what i tell them without the inevitable PC vs player knowledge.
But I really detest using corner cases to argue about what's RAW and what's not. PF is not intended to cover corner cases, that's what GMs are for. So these discussions should be in the houserule section, not the Rules Questions section, which exists to discuss what's in he rules.
No RPGS system can cover every corner case. That's why GMs exist.
In the rules section, you can only talk intelligibly about the words in the books. If you're extrapolating, it's a houserule. Which is entirely necessary at the table, but not the point of the rules question section.
I agree 100% with the sentiment that corner cases are simply something to resolve GM-by-GM, once the trivial amount of RAW is covered, I've never liked the idea of having a thread die after five posts (really, if we stuck to pure RAW, with zero interpretation, this would have been a 2 post thread) and then re-starting the exact same conversation in another forum.
It's wasteful of brain-space. Just move the thread to the proper forum, if necessary.
Or, better yet, acknowledge that you cannot discuss the meaning of rules without discussing interpretation of the wording/meaning/intent of rules. And once you're interpreting beyond the strict words of the book, you're house-ruling.
In plain English, no two people can meaningfully discuss mechanics without entering the arena of "house rules".
Yep, fair enough, it just really annoys me when folks use those corner cases to support "interpretations" of RAW that have nothing to do with the printed word, and end up nerfing players' abilities. I'm a GM pretty much all the time, and the rare times I get to play, I would hate it if the GM told me that the rules work in a way they clearly don't and my abilities don't work properly... I try to never do that to my players.
Edit: Somehow I mistyped "nerfing", and my ipad spellchecker changed it to "beefing", which ironically gave my statement the exact opposite meaning of what I was trying to say :)
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Races with racial bonus against certain creatures need not know what they are fighting either.
There are a number of class features, racial traits, and other abilities that depend on what you are fighting.
Unless you have specific wording to requires you to identify the creature, you still get the bonuses.
Following along this shoehorning of houserules for these abilities is a time consuming feat that is needless, and will limit their effectiveness.
Countering metagaming is not something that should be done with rules overhauls.
It is a discussion between players and DMs, and an understanding of mutual trust.
A good example of how using this interpretation could result in a Ranger being cheated out of his bonus would be Oni.
A Ranger will get the bonus against many types of Oni, since aside from being evil outsiders, they have a few more tags ( giant, shapechanger, native, element type ). However, since Knowledge: The Planes is the only skill which adjudicates knowledge what the heck one is facing with this type of monster and few Rangers will take that skill, the Ranger should not get his bonus?
It seems needlessly cruel for a GM to try to nerf a character in this way.
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Gnomes still get an AC bonus against Giants, even if they don't know it's a giant.
Heck, you destroy things like the Favored Defense feat, as now you have to Identify the creature attacking you from the dark, before it attacks you, to get your bonus to AC and CMD.
What about bonuses to Perception? You have to to identify it, to get the bonus for finding out it's there?
How would that even work?
For common enemies I would say: No
If an enemy try to hide his appearance or can be easily confused with another one, I would grant him a knowledge check to see through it. (as a move/free action)
I am imagining the following:
The group is marching through the forrest searching for tracks to find some monster that keeps killing the villager's livestock.
Ranger(Rolls tracking, gets a 23 while needing a 25): Hm... I found some tracks but I'm not sure I read them correctly. What did you say we are tracking?
Wizard: From what the villagers described it could be a <name>
Ranger: Don't know that. What kind of beast is that?
Wizard: It is a kind of magical beast, why do you ask?
Ranger(Now that he can add his FE bonus can add +2): Ah! Why didn't you say that earlier? Now it clear where it came from and where it went.
EDIT: And in addition, if you need to ID a creature before the FE bonus applies the racial heritage feat gets much stronger because in most cases you'll not be able to see this heritage. So using this houserule negates one of the drawbacks racial heriatage has.
agreed with BBT on the absurd consequences of diverging from RAW here and going down this rabbithole...
if a player is causing a problem for the group, that should be dealt with by the group, not conflating it as a rules issue.
somebody intentionally going out of their way, decreasing their own immersion to game the system is just that type of situation.
the idea that this (divergence from RAW) isn't reducing the power of FE is obviously disproven by the fact that one may not always pass a knowledge check (the reason for a check in the first place), and thus if you fail FE bonuses wouldn't apply to that enemy, while they DO always apply per RAW... thus a reduction in power vs. the RAW.
re: the knowledge check, it gives a CR-based DC to identify the creature and it's powers.
that's not what is relevant here. does that even give you the type of the creature? doesn't say so.
and like i said, if ALL you care about is the creature type, not the specific creature, is that easier? harder? the same?
who knows, the rules don't say. so is this really making the game run better, if we need a mountain of further GM calls,
and end up gimping a huge array of other usages of FE? (and other opponent-dependent bonuses, as BBT points out)
(humanoid race sub-types ARE the specific FE 'target', and so ID'ing the specific creature there NEARLY does correlate 1:1 there, barring variant races with a shared racial sub-type)
the idea that because the rules don't explicitly say you don't need to identify the enemy, that is some type of open door for saying it's plausible that the rules DO expect you to do so, is a joke. same thing goes for all the enemy-specific bonuses BBT mentioned. fact is, the rules cannot go into depth on what the rules don't do, they tell you what they do, and tell you any limitations.
if you want to house-rule, great, although as mentioned you will just be opening up a can of worms that i'm sure you didn't actually forsee the consequences of (although if attitudes to RAW are any indication, the idea that house-rules must themselves be consistent/coherent isn't likely to be followed either).
but there is no issue with RAW, per RAW you apply the bonuses vs. qualifying enemies, you can be totally unaware of the target (and if fact, this is the case when applying the FE bonus to perception checks vs. undetected opponents of the FE type). or is somebody going to argue that the RAW secretly implies a need for knowledge checks to determine creature type (of undetermined DC) for attack bonuses, but NOT perception bonuses? i look forward to the RAW argument for that one.