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Even in PFS, determining the Knowledge DC for identifying a creature leaves room for a lot of table variation. Common monsters are a DC of 5 + CR, and unique or extremely rare are 15 + CR. I generally rule that uncommon monsters are 10 + CR. This means that even the 7 Intelligence Fighter with no ranks in any Knowledge can identify a common goblin for what it is, but the CR 10 demon lord will be more like a DC 25.
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.
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If the goblin gets 5 levels of "fighter", is it now harder to tell that he's a goblin?
Richard
Gets even more ridiculous actually.
The 20th level /human/ fighter? You'd have trouble even IDing him as human anymore.
Maybe thats intentional though. I doubt it.
I generally view the knowledge skills as one part identification and nine parts capability. Knowing what something is called, is different from knowing what something /is./
Minimal K:Planes check..
'Its a glabrezu.'
'What does it do.'
"Glabrezu things."
"But what is it?"
"A glabrezu. You saw a picture of it in a book with a sign underneath reading 'glabrezu,' you don't remember the other details."
Vs
'Its a glabrezu, its a demon with standard weakness and resistances that are xyz, its immune to blah blah and blah, and its capabilities are xyz, it teleports, and oh yeah, it has resistance to spells.'
I prefer to tell my players the monster's name and its type when they hit the Knowledge DC but don't get additional details. Names are usually useless, but it's pretty useful to know whether a fiend is a demon or devil, or if a shambling skeleton is actually a Construct.
Because, well, I always hated the idea of characters knowing a monster's name and nothing else.
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Don't forget that the extra things you know about it are all based on the base knowledge to know what it is, so getting that base DC right is quite important.
I would always set the base as the lowest CR of the creature which qualifies (not including the "young" template). So, for example, a DC 11 knowledge planes check identifies that the creature is a fire elemental, whatever size it happens to be, and identifying any abilities which *all* fire elementals have is derived from this base score. If you then want to know something which is specific to, say, a large fire elemental, like its specific burn damage or DC, then you would take it from a base DC of 15.
I guess that's a house rule.
Richard
I agree with richard develyn. Start with the most basic applicable DC and get what makes sense from that, then if the check is high enough, add more specific details.
With the level 20 human fighter example... DC 6 (CR1+5) to identify as human, but if you make DC35 (CR20+15), you might know something about that specific fighter, such as fighting style.