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Pathfinder officially still uses Knowledge (101 Different Things) to be able to size up an opponent.
If you want to look at a Dragon and figure out how many HD it has, thats a Knowledge (Arcana) check. If you want to look at a Vampire and figure out it has a weakness to sunlight, thats a Knowledge (Religion) check. If you want to see how many hitdice a humanoid has, its Knowledge (Local).
To be able to just watch an opponent and get a feel for how strong they are, a character must be a walking encylopedia, and that doesn't sit well with me.
I would expect a seasoned warrior to be able to watch another warrior move and get some basic idea of how skilled they are, or get a rough idea of how thick something's hide/armor is, etc, without also knowing the name of every local lord and which fishwife was cheating on her husband. Perhaps even make it so you can recognize when a special maneuver has been preformed (like say a Power Attack, or when someone is using Weapon Finesse).
How well would you think it would work to split this kind of "size them up" stuff into a new skill? Say take it away from Intelligence as it isn't a skill based on study and memorization of creatures, and make it Wisdom based like Perception?
In a 3.0 book, Sword and Fist, they presented a system to use Sense Motive to evaluate opponents. It's worked decently for me.
Edit: I just realized you meant more for monsters, I was thinking of humanoid opponents. My bad.
No, I meant it as a generalized skill that could work for humanoids and monsters. The Sword and Fist example is about studying an opponent for several rounds to get a combat bonus against them, instead of learning about them, but it is still in the same general mode of thought, so good eye.
This is where a Knowledge (tactics) would really be nice. I know you said you were thinking of moving away from Int, and more towards Wisdom, however this is how I'd look at the skill...
Think of a trained agent (like Jason Bourne), just glancing around the room, and in that instant, he can see how a person moves and carries themselves, and knows basically how well he'd handle himself in a fight.
It's not because he's memorized a list of features of specific animals or humanoids. Rather, he's memorized a list of tells and tactical applications of weapons, armor, and natural features.
The check could be used to determine some stuff like what role a monster has (combat, skill, spell or special), potentially even features/abilities like poison, regeneration, DR, magical talent, etc.
A check might show the user that, based on seeing the size of the claws and proportion of muscles given to it, it probably has a grab ability, etc.
Note, all this should be from a glance. That way you know before you start trying to smack the creature with melee weapons while it has DR or Regeneration, etc.
Toss in some other side benefits, like being able to create an ambush situation (the group using your tactics roll instead of stealth), or negating a surprise round (using tactics check in place of perception vs the enemy's stealth). And of course general tactical oriented knowledge checks, or uses in warfare checks.
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Oh, and give it to Fighters as a class skill, and give them an automatic rank per level in it. :P
Since BAB represents a character's combat skill, I suggest using d20 + BAB + INT and treating it as a knowledge skill. Just a suggestion.silence, your suggesting something that martial characters could get that upgrades without sacrificing permanent resources to get it. but seriously, that sounds pretty cool, though how could rogue better utilize such a mechanic, they seem the type to do this sort of thing just as well as a fighter.
I'd say a rogue talent.
I've taken to given the players a relative BAB comparison against humanoids, eg. "no doubt he is a spoiled aristocrat, but there are sword calluses on his hands and the years of formal training shows in the way he carries himself. You have a hunch that accepting and fighting his fair duel would be your death."
Anyone else have good systems?
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I just use Sense Motive (which I add to the Fighter's skill list for this, and other, reasons).
I'll admit, my first thought was to wrap this into sense motive as well, but there's always the nagging feeling in the back of my head that you don't want to overload any given skill. However, SM only gets used for a glorified lie detector, so its likely got plenty of room for expanded use. Fluff-wise, I imagine Sense Motive already being a great deal about reading body language and the like, which is exactly what this sort of sizing people up skill would be. Seeing the body language of say how someone walks with a sword on their belt. Even I as a modern day person can see the difference in someone who has the sword banging against them as a newbie compared to a seasoned SCA'er who has worn a sword for years and years.
But what kind of DCs would we be talking here?
About the only thing we have to go on is the various Knowledge skills listing identifying abilities/weaknesses as being CR 10+CR. Would be rather metagamey to have that apply to figuring out hitdice, considering how often hitdice = CR for humanoids.
Perhaps a straight up DC 15 to determine a single attribute of the opponent being watched? So DC 15 check to determine number of hitdice, or perhaps BAB, or AC, each one requiring a move action to determine (as opposed to a standard action so you could actually learn about your target while you were fighting them).
DC 15, or the target could make an opposed Bluff roll to hide their actual stats if they are aware of being observed.
I like this idea alot. So who gets this as a class skill?
As a hybrid of the above ideas, any character can do this with d20 + BAB + Int or Wis, but may alternately use Sense Motive or Kn. History in place of the check.
Sense Motive or Knowledge (martial) are my usual go-tos.
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Study Technique (new combat option):
As a swift action, you may study an opponent within 30 feet of you. If they use one or more feats this round, you may attempt an Intelligence check to identify those feats. The DC for this skill is equal to 10 + the opponent's hit dice.
If you have the Bonus Feats class feature (fighter and monk), you may attempt to identify combat feats specifically, and may add your base attack bonus to the Intelligence check, or use your Sense Motive bonus in place of the Intelligence check, to do so.
If you fail this check against an opponent, you must wait 24 hours to retry it against them.