Monster Knowledge for Burnt Offerings [SPOILERS]

[The Rising Phoenix]

I'm trying to prepare all knowledge checks that can be made by my PCs for Burnt Offerings against the creatures they will fight in advance. I've been searching the beastiaries and other material to try and create a list in advance. Does this seem accurate to everyone? Should I add more/less to this list?

Spoiler:

Barghest, Greater - Large Outsider (Evil, Extraplanar, Lawful, Shapechanger)
Knowledge: Planes
Description: This large snarling, canine hybrid beast pads forward on all fours, its slender front limbs looking more like hands than a wolf's paws. It's skin is a dark blue, about eight feet tall and well over four hundred pounds. It's eyes glow orange when it looks at you.
DC 12 Combining the worst traits of goblins and wolves, these evil shapechangers are intelligent, vicious, and full of nasty abilities and tricks. In addition, they have a formidable number of skills to keep their opponents off balance.
DC 16 This lupine fiend is a barghest, a hybrid between goblin and wolf. This result reveals all outsider traits and the shapechanger subtype.
DC 21 A barghest can change its shape, turning into either a goblin or a wolf. It has damage reduction, but it is vulnerable to magic weapons.
DC 26 Barghests can use the following as spell-like abilities: blink, charm monster, crushing despair, dimension door, levitate, misdirection, and rage.
DC 31 When a barghest slays a humanoid opponent, it feasts on both the body and soul, making it extremely difficult to bring the creature back to life even with powerful spells such as true resurrection, miracle, or wish.

Bunyip - Medium Magical Beast (Aquatic)
Knowledge: Arcana
Description: A disturbing combination of shark and seal, this brown-furred creature has a wide mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth.
DC 15 - When the Bunyip detects blood in the water, it will begin to rage.
DC 20 - The Bunyip has a horrifying roar that will panic a large area within range.

Bugbear – Medium Humanoid (Goblinoid)
Knowledge: Local
DC 10 – Bugbears are large, furry goblinoids
DC 15 – Bugbears are surprisingly stealthy for such large, bulky creatures
DC 20 – Bugbears often worship demon lords
DC 25 – Bugbears kill to inflict pain and suffering, especially in the victim’s survivors

Goblin – Small Humanoid (Goblinoid)
Knowledge: Local
DC 10 – Goblins are malicious little creatures who almost always live in numbers
DC 15 – Goblins hate lots of things, but especially despise gnomes, horses, and regular dogs
DC 20 – Goblins can eat their body weight in food daily without growing fat
DC 25 – Goblins are universally illiterate, believing that writing steals words from one’s head

Goblin Dog – Medium Animal
Knowledge: Nature
DC 10 – Goblin Dogs are mangy canines with rat-like facial features
DC 15 – Goblin Dogs are not dogs at all, but large rodents
DC 20 – Most non-goblinoid creatures break out in itchy hives from the Goblin Dog’s dander
DC 25 – Goblin Dogs are very resistant to disease and can eat just about anything without getting sick

Skeleton – Medium Undead
Knowledge: Religion
DC 10 – Skeletons are the animated, undead bones of a once living creature
DC 15 – Skeletons with wings cannot fly
DC 20 – Skeletons are immune to cold damage, and resistant to weapons other than blunt weapons
DC 25 – Variants to “normal” skeletons include Bloody Skeletons, covered with bloody gore that lets it reform and

Boar – Medium Animal
Knowledge: Nature
Description: The boar is about four feet long and weights near two hundred pounds. IT is an ill-tempered wild pig that are often hunted by humanoids for their meat.
DC 15 – Boars will eat just about anything, even bone
DC 20 – A Boar’s tusks never stop growing
DC 25 – Boar bristles make good hairbrushes

Gecko, Giant - Medium Animal
Knoledge: Nature
Description: With large bulging eyes to spot prey from afar, this oversized, smooth-scaled lizard has splayed, padded feet and a toothy maw. It measures 8 feet from nose to tail and weighs about 120 pounds.
DC 15 - A gecko's feet allow it to climb virtually any surface, no matter how slick or sheer.

Leopard - Medium Animal
Knowledge: Nature
Description: Leopards are 4 feet long and weigh 120 pounds.
DC 15 - Healthy leopards are generally not aggressive toward humanoids, and if they aren't hungry and don't feel threatened, it is possible to approach closely without a hostile reaction.

Shadow – Medium Undead (Incorporeal)
Knowledge: Religion
Description: Barely seen out of the corner of the eye, this wisp of shadow is vaguely humanoid in outline and writhes with unholy life.
DC 10 – Shadows are incorporeal undead creatures that hate life and light, and are very hard to spot in dark areas
DC 15 – Someone killed by a Shadow will rise as a Shadow within moments
DC 20 – A Shadow’s touch drains a victim’s strength and can eventually kill it
DC 25 – Powerful Greater Shadows drain their victims’ strength more quickly, and often lead regular Shadows

Sinspawn - Medium Aberration
Knowledge: Dungeoneering
Description: Humanoid but deformed, this creature is an emaciated horror with unnaturally long arms and legs. Their hands each have two talon-tipped fingers and a thumb, and their legs bend like those of a dog. Veins bulge all over their bodies, forming dark blue or red patterns that look like twisted runes. Their flesh is pale and hairless. A sinspawn's head is curiously elongated. They have only a pair of slits for a nose, and their eyes are bulging and red, with no visible eyebrows. Yet for all this horror, their mouths are the most disturbing, for their lower jaw splits in half at the chin into pedipalps that end in tiny three-fingered hands that writhe about, eager to feed delicious morsels into an open gullet with a lolling tongue.
DC 25 - Being highly attuned to anger, sinspawn can somehow sense those who are extraordinarily wrathful, and can track them like a dog following a scent.
DC 30 - A creature bitten by a sinspawn is overcome with feelings of anger and rage towards others. Those who succumb are so overwhelmed by these feelings that they have a hard time concentrating on much else. If they are bitten a second time, these feelings can become crippling.
DC 35 - Sinspawn are created with the use of an ancient Thassilonian device known as a runewell. When an exceedingly wrathful person dies in the close vicinity of a runewell, its soul is drawn to the artifact. There its anger and frustration are siphoned off, after which the soul is released to continue its journey to the afterlife.
DC 40 - First created by the Runelord Alaznist during the ancient Thassilonian empire, the sinspawn are tortured mockeries of humans. Twisted by vile rune magic, they are consumed by an overwhelming wrath toward all others

Quasit – Tiny Outsider (Chaotic, Demon,Evil, Extraplanar)
Knowledge: Planes
Description: The tiny humanoid creature has a thin, wiry body, curling ram-like horns, and wings. It appears to be a foot and a half in height and 5-10 pounds in weight.
DC 15 – A Quasit’s claws are tipped with poison
DC 20 – Quasits can assume the form of a bat, centipede, toad or wolf and make itself invisible at will
DC 25 – Quasits occasionally serve as familiars for evil wizards or sorcerers
DC 30 - Free” quasits are usually encountered in the Abyss. However, those who fail to capture their master's soul are forced to remain on the Material Plane and sometimes they may even choose to remain there. In such cases they delight in tormenting mortals, so are typically found in urban areas where there are more targets to choose from.

Tentamort - Medium Abberation
Knowledge: Dungeoneering
Description: This squid-like creature has a small, 3-foot diameter sphere of gray, hard flesh. Two 10-foot long tentacles protrude from the upper half of its body while eight 2-foot long tentacles hang from its underside. Of the two large tentacles, one is thicker and covered with squid-like suction cups, while the other is leaner, and is tipped with a bone-colored needle-sharp barb.
DC 15 - It uses its small tentacles to crawl along ceilings and walls.
DC 20 - The stinging tentacle is coupled with a poison as well that paralyzes victims.
DC 25 - It uses the hollow corpse of its meals as a incubator for its eggs, injecting the body with black eggs that mature in the rotting carcass for several weeks until a dozen or so hand-sized tentamorts hatch and crawl out.

Vargouille – Small Outsider (Evil, Extraplanar)
Knowledge: Planes
Description: This hideous creature is a blackened, bat-winged fiend's head about twice the size of a human head. Tentacles dangle from chin and scalp, and its fanged mouth hangs agape. It has about two and a half foot wingspan.
DC 15 – Vargouilles attack by biting their victims
DC 20 – A Vargouille can let out a piercing scream that paralyzes victims with fear
DC 25 – A Vargouille can kiss a victim and transmit a disease that turns the victim into a Vargouille

Yeth Hound – Medium Outsider (Evil, Extraplanar)
Knowledge: Planes
Description: This long and skinny hairless creature resembles a dog crossed with a lynx, and is deep black in color with yellow eyes. It stands four feet tall at the shoulder and weighs about 400 pounds.
DC 15 – This creature is capable of flight and its bay can panic any creatures except other evil outsiders.
DC 20 – Yeth hounds cannot speak, but understand Infernal.
DC 25 – Yeth Hounds fear sunlight and will not venture into light, even if their lives depend on it.

Zombie – Medium (Undead)
Knowledge: Religion
Description: This walking corpse wears only a few soiled rags, its flesh rotting off its bones as it stumbles forward, arms outstretched.
DC 15 – Zombies are typically slow-moving, but hard to destroy without slashing weapons
DC 20 – Fast Zombies are Zombies that can move more quickly, and get extra attacks
DC 25 – Plague Zombies spread zombie rot with their attacks, and explode in a burst of decay when destroyed

[TempusAvatar]

I think there is a

Spoiler:

giant crab

in the final part.

[Italian FAN]

That very interesting I always have problems during gameplay to improvise things like that... grabbed and filed.

Thank you TheRisingPhoenix

[Uberfab]

Just asking for advice, do you perform the knowledge checks secretly and let them know whatever knowledge you rolled up? Or do you only roll the check if the player actively asks "what do I know about the <monster>?"

[Tangent101]

The latter. Though if the PC has experienced a monster I'll remind them "you recall that arrows don't seem to work well against skeletons" or the like. (I described one arrow shot on a frost skeleton which hit but rolled under the damage reduction as "your arrow passed straight between its ribs.")

[Fu-Man Chu]

I let my player's use a free action to know what a monster is, and they can use standard actions to rack their brains in subsequent rounds to keep "remembering" more information. This allows "non-combat optimized" PCs to continue to be very useful even in the midst of combat. It came into play at the last session when the Oracle, during the second (or third?) round of combat against Mal suddenly yelled out after making his know check - "I just recognized what it is! It's a GREATER...".

I also allow player's to use player knowledge - in that case, the old-school gamers said "GREATER?!?!" and fled the room. Other times though, player knowledge worked against them such as when they figured Erylium wasn't going to be a problem; little did they realize that a Q with class levels was an entirely different problem.

For the check itself, I pretty much use the standard, every 5 above the DC they get to basically ask "one line" from the bestiary entry; so they can ask for AC, or hp, or special weaknesses, etc. I do increase the DC by an equivalent of 2 if the creature is rare, another 2 if from Bestiary 2, and another 2 if from Bestiary 3. I do this to represent the difficulty of recalling more unusual monsters.

[SoylentG]

The Rising Phoenix wrote:

I'm trying to prepare all knowledge checks that can be made by my PCs for Burnt Offerings against the creatures they will fight in advance. I've been searching the beastiaries and other material to try and create a list in advance. Does this seem accurate to everyone? Should I add more/less to this list?

** spoiler omitted **...

I'd include the creatures that Erylium can summon using Summon Monster. Also, you might want to let the players identify she (and the Barghest) have Damage Resistance and how to bypass it.