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Meh. Everyone thinks they have THE right way of doing it and everyone deviating from that is doin it rong.
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We all should keep in mind that our PCs trained for 3 years in most cases to be Pathfinders. We would know these things as characters. Not meta-gaming does not equal being ignorant about everything. I do agree with you, Jiggy, that someone taught them that, as when I started PFS, I had a few people try to have me play my character as a complete idiot, and it probably would have killed her. Explaining that she was a pirate with considerable experience previous to her joining the Society didn't work, but I had the opposite reaction it seems, as I hate it when others are trying to play my characters.
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so wait what do they teach you at the grand lodge in the three years or whatever that you are there before derping off to your confirmation
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so wait what do they teach you at the grand lodge in the three years or whatever that you are there before derping off to your confirmation
Judging from the number of skill ranks in the typical int 7 barbarian not a heck of a lot.
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so wait what do they teach you at the grand lodge in the three years or whatever that you are there before derping off to your confirmation
Apparently, they teach some people to start cycling through their anti-DR measures until damage starts getting through, while they teach others to make sure to keep using the same weapon no matter how ineffectual it is.
so wait what do they teach you at the grand lodge in the three years or whatever that you are there before derping off to your confirmation
I believe there's a lot of training on scrubbing floors, if I remember my Seekers of Secrets correctly.
More seriously... who knows what they teach you. The mere fact that members of classes with 2+Int skill ranks and with 7 Intelligence can not only survive, not only thrive, but become Venture Captains... is very telling.
It would be nice if PFS had a set of campaign-specific traits, where all PCs would have to choose a trait which reflected the knowledge gained while in their training. But we don't have that.
-Matt
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yeah so am I bad for playing my characters as having absorbed some of the stuff that they sorta most likely were supposed to have taught me in those years?
stuff that I already know like hey carry rope, or uh figure out how to see in darkness, or that certain common creatures have certain common damage reduction abilities that you should be ready for
or did they just spend three years telling me I cannot be a synthesist or skinwalker
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yeah so am I bad for playing my characters as having absorbed some of the stuff that they sorta most likely were supposed to have taught me in those years?
stuff that I already know like hey carry rope, or uh figure out how to see in darkness, or that certain common creatures have certain common damage reduction abilities that you should be ready for
That's how I play my characters: knowing that material-based DR exists (even if I don't know which creatures have what) and therefore cycling through weapons when I encounter it; knowing that swarms need to be hit with AoEs; knowing what holy water does; etc.
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We would know these things as characters.
And that is what the various "Knowledge (WHATEVER)" checks are for.
I have seen players handle this well and not so well. Let's assume, for a moment, that a character has a wide variety of weapons at his or her disposal, but almost always uses a bludgeoning weapon (say, a mace.) If that player suddenly, when encountered with skeletons, switches to a longsword, I might ask why.
The good players (and this is only my opinion, and nothing more), will have his or her character do what they routinely do, in the absence of the character knowing something different. If they have faced skeletons before, then they know what they know. If they haven't, they are free to make a "Knowledge (Religion)" check.
The problem I have with meta-gaming is the classic problem - when a player uses his or her knowledge to inform the characters, or to have the characters act differently based on information that, as characters, they would not have.
Mark
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Master Garble just runs around biting things. Seems to work, mostly. If he's tried to eat it before and it didn't taste well (or excessively hurt), he'll avoid it.
He's been prone to tie up a demon in chains and leave it, only to have it teleport away the next round. If others in the party who are more knowledgeable would assist my lord and share that knowledge, instead of spewing out things about "weaknesses, vulnerabilities and special attacks," perhaps he could be more effective.
Bottom line, just ask yourself, WWGD?
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We would know these things as characters.And that is what the various "Knowledge (WHATEVER)" checks are for.
I have seen players handle this well and not so well. Let's assume, for a moment, that a character has a wide variety of weapons at his or her disposal, but almost always uses a bludgeoning weapon (say, a mace.) If that player suddenly, when encountered with skeletons, switches to a longsword, I might ask why.
The good players (and this is only my opinion, and nothing more), will have his or her character do what they routinely do, in the absence of the character knowing something different. If they have faced skeletons before, then they know what they know. If they haven't, they are free to make a "Knowledge (Religion)" check.
The problem I have with meta-gaming is the classic problem - when a player uses his or her knowledge to inform the characters, or to have the characters act differently based on information that, as characters, they would not have.
Mark
I generally give players the benefit of the doubt. Since they don't exist in a vacuum and skeletons and undead being so common, I would assume that they would have been told basic things like Bludgeoning for skeletons, Undead are mindless, etc.
For rarer creatures, though, I generally have my players roll Knowledge. We don't really have any problems with Metagaming, though. The only time it comes up is when someone has a flawed misunderstanding of what metagaming is or thinks that other people are having badwrongfun if they don't play exactly like they do.
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At the risk of appearing shackled by the rules, the fact that skeletons are common is recognized, in game, by the DC of the Knowledge (Religion) check:
"For common monsters, such as goblins, the DC of this check equals 5 + the monster's CR."
So, maybe you think it's easy enough for a common creature they don't need to roll. I respect that, and in truth, it does speed up game play a tad by removing a die roll. I, however, don't do that - I have them roll just the same. While it is certainly within reason to believe they received some instruction as part of their training as Pathfinders, that knowledge isn't guaranteed (in terms of subject matter), nor is it 100% reliable (hence the check.)
It's table variation - there certainly isn't anything wrong in doing it your way, or my way.
I do agree with you that a large problem is when someone labels something as "Meta-Gaming" when in relating it's a just a question of someone doing something differently.
The skills checks help with the meta gaming conundrum.
Some players are more interested on creating a living story while being true to the characters first and foremost. So they feign ignorance if they do not have the appropriate skill. This also allows the character with the appropriate lore check to shine.
Should the skill checks fail the GM might grant a spot or an int check after a few round of combat to confirm to the character what they already know as a player..
It's good RP IMO and should be encouraged.
-MD
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There is a huge problem with Knowledge checks being adjudicated as per RAW, and that is, that it assumes every PC and NPC in the entire setting is a paranoid, secretive loner, who never discusses ANYTHING with anyone else.
"I'll need a religion check, before you can know anything about fighting zombies."
"Why? Why would I need to be an expert? This town has a priest, who studies religion. We have several priests, in fact. We have these priests, studying religion, for a reason. So that they can provide the rest of us with the information we need, whenever we need it. If we have a religious dilemma or need divine advice. It's the priest's job to know that stuff, so the rest of us don't have to. So we can use our rare free time to train ourselves in the jobs we are supposed to be trained in."
"But..that would mean you'd be benefiting from someone else's skills..."
"Yes. Yes it would. Because that is how non-dysfunctional societies work.
In order for the GM to be justified in demanding individual Knowledge checks for every piddling thing (and flat out denying the possibility of knowing a fact if the character is missing a rank in the skill), it requires that every single informed person be a drooling moron, or a selfish prick.
Not one of them considered it might be worth writing this essential fact down, nor ever wondered who may find the information useful, nor spoke of it with another soul in an idle moment.
No.
Let's keep the information to ourselves.
Let's watch, looking down our noses, curling our prissy lips, and tut-tutting, as our hometown is regularly ransacked by some trivial threat, that could have been easily dispatched, had someone with any practical knowledge been generous enough to share it with their fellows.
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There is a huge problem with Knowledge checks being adjudicated as per RAW, and that is, that it assumes every PC and NPC in the entire setting is a paranoid, secretive loner, who never discusses ANYTHING with anyone else.
That is certainly your opinion. I look at it differently - having even a single rank in the skill, to me, means that the character either has some formal training, or has at least learned something somewhere. You put it in an absolute term - "...never discusses ANYTHING with anyone else." Maybe that NPC did discuss it with others, but not with the person with 0 ranks in that skill (or maybe that person didn't care enough to listen to what was being passed on to him or her.) And that is only my opinion.
The larger issue, for me, is when player knowledge impacts knowledge (and I don't mean just in the sense of the Knowledge skill), when a player has a character take an action or react based solely on the player's knowledge, and not the character's. I've seen it happen far too many times (though, I don't see it frequently in PFS play - in fact, I've been at tables where a player has previously run the scenario, but none of that impacts what his or her character does.)
Mark
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Common knowledge is anything DC10 or less, which anyone can roll for even untrained. Identifying a common creature is DC 5+CR, so a skeleton is a DC 6. Even an idiot with a 7int has a good chance of making that roll. That's because it's something that most people know. Ask 4 farmers and 3 of them will know this. I wouldn't even bother asking PCs to roll for common knowledge that is relevant to their profession, I'd assume they were taught that. If you do want to enforce the RAW, then make them roll that DC6 int check.
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Common knowledge is anything DC10 or less, which anyone can roll for even untrained. Identifying a common creature is DC 5+CR, so a skeleton is a DC 6. Even an idiot with a 7int has a good chance of making that roll. That's because it's something that most people know. Ask 4 farmers and 3 of them will know this. I wouldn't even bother asking PCs to roll for common knowledge that is relevant to their profession, I'd assume they were taught that. If you do want to enforce the RAW, then make them roll that DC6 int check.
Correct, and I do stand corrected about the not having even a single rank. But I would still make them roll, even if the DC is 6. They could still fail.
"It's the priest's job to know that stuff, so the rest of us don't have to. So we can use our rare free time to train ourselves in the jobs we are supposed to be trained in."
Well, that is the knowledge. You have it, if you have listened your teachers. If you don't have it, your mind was probably in something else, like how to impress the girl sitting front of you.
"Skeletons? Dunno... What did the old hag told about them?"But I agree on that we underestimate how much people will talk. Be it rumors, useless stuff or important advices. For my games, I try to prepare many concerns, what are talked in presence of PCs and hide there some hints, then give them out randomly or when they are searching clues.
As a GM, I stopped being bothered by player knowledge of monsters a while ago.
If it's a low-level skeleton, I really don't mind one way or the other whether their character has knowledge of the best way to fight them. It's low-level stuff, there's probably tales being told in the local tavern even if they had no other way of knowing.
For higher-level challenges, if I give them something that's easy to overcome by reading the Bestiary, that's my own fault. As GM I should be giving them unique challenges to figure out. It's easy enough to switch a few resistances around or change a vulnerability to some other kind of metal instead. I'm also likely to give them some kind of roll to figure it out or to drop clues around earlier on, too. Either build unique monsters for important fights, use something relatively obscure from a 3PP, or tweak a Bestiary monster to work differently.
I don't think I like the idea of "training" players not to meta-game, or to play any particular way. I'd rather find different players that suit my playstyle than force people to play my way.
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Given that the DR/bludgeoning skeletons have is based on:
"Hey when I shoot an arrow at it it just passes between the ribs"
and
"Hey my sword doesn't have any flesh to cut through!"
It should take all of 5 seconds for someone in-character to realize they should use a club. So I think skeletons are complete non-issues when it comes to this.
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"Hey when I shoot an arrow at it it just passes between the ribs"
and
"Hey my sword doesn't have any flesh to cut through!"
This is another reason why the Knowledge rules don't work.
Identifying these issues is not, in any way, dependent on one's religious instruction. They are a matter of recognising that the physical action one intends to take simply would not work, for physical reasons.
It would make more sense to ask for a Knowledge (engineering) check.
There isn't a skill to cover 'Knowledge (how do the weapons I am fully proficient in actually work?), because this should be considered to have been covered by the instructors, when they taught the weapon proficiency itself.
1st Edition AD&D included modifiers to attack rolls for each weapon, vs armour type. This info was given to every player, to amend their attack rolls, because it was common knowledge.
"This is a scimitar. Its purpose is to slice, and it is most effective versus flesh, leather and cloth. If your opponent is wearing metal armour, the sharpness of the blade is irrelevant. You will have to strike for exposed areas such as the face and hands, making your attack less likely to connect. If your opponent is covered in chain, use a slim, piercing weapon, such as a stiletto, if they are clad in overlapping plates, a blunt weapon such as a hammer will crack bones under the plates. If you die, because you used the wrong weapon, that is your fault."
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Unless it is a CR6 skeleton. Then the DC is at least 11 and can't be made untrained.
Not exactly. The Knowledge check for knowing stuff about a monster is a single DC; the extra bits of info are granted when you exceed the DC by a certain amount.
So a 13 INT fighter (maybe he wanted Combat Expertise?) could attempt the DC 6 Knowledge (religion) check untrained (because the DC is less than 10), roll a natural 20 for a 21 total, and get a total of four useful pieces of information.
So Pathfinder training is like going to community college?
I can finally say I have some post-secondary education.
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The DC for knowledge checks is based on the creatures CR. The lowest a DC for a CR 6 skeleton can be is 11.
If my PC had no ranks in Religion, and I'm facing a CR6 skeleton, then I'd ask the DM what I knew about basic skeletons. That DC would be less than 10 so I could attempt it. The information I got would include DR?/bludgeoning. If I choose to assume that the advanced skeleton in front of me had the same type of DR, therefore I'll use a blunt weapon, I'd say that this was an entirely appropriate educated guess, not metagaming.
Especially since that advanced skeleton may be different....! It is a sane thought process, despite the risk.
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The DC for knowledge checks is based on the creatures CR. The lowest a DC for a CR 6 skeleton can be is 11.If my PC had no ranks in Religion, and I'm facing a CR6 skeleton, then I'd ask the DM what I knew about basic skeletons. That DC would be less than 10 so I could attempt it. The information I got would include DR?/bludgeoning. If I choose to assume that the advanced skeleton in front of me had the same type of DR, therefore I'll use a blunt weapon, I'd say that this was an entirely appropriate educated guess, not metagaming.
Especially since that advanced skeleton may be different....! It is a sane thought process, despite the risk.
This brings up an awkward element of the Knowledge skills. We know the DC to learn the details about a specific creature, but what's the DC to know something that's common to an entire category of creatures?
What's the DC to know that most walking skeletal structures are resistant to non-bludgeoning damage?
What's the DC to know that most things that look like dead people who are moving are affected by holy water?
What's the DC to know that massive winged lizards can usually spit something harmful across an area and so you should spread out?
How do we even decide?
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I've seen this sort of "reverse metagaming" before, and it makes me sad. Some people are so quick to pull the "MG" card and gleefully point fingers, and some DMs are so eager to punish players, that it's easy to end up in a situation in which you have to pretend your PC has an Int of 1 (regardless of his/her actual score), and cannot grasp the most basic cause-and-effect relationships in-game, no matter how obvious.
I'm not even talking Knowledge checks. I'm talking stuff that you can see right in front of you after 1 round of combat. Say you see that Bilbo's short sword and your bow are useless against the skeletons attacking you, but Father Bob's normal mace destroys them left and right. It doesn't take a genius to maybe swap out your bow for a sling and try that, for example. But some DMs won't allow it, and force people to stick with the bow. This sort of absurd bullying can cripple a player, in the long run.
An example I've posted before:
Me: "Father Bob's mace hits the tall, clawed green monster, which seems to heal instantly. The creature promptly rends Father Bob in retaliation."
Player: "I sheathe my +3 flaming sword and pull out a dagger."
Me (totally confused): "Why?"
Player: "Because I'm not metagaming. My character has no way to know that trolls are vulnerable to fire."
Me: "That's true, but you ALWAYS use your flaming sword! All your feats are longsword-specific! In the course of the entire campaign, I've only seen you use anything else once, and it was a bow! Why on earth would you suddenly pull a dagger for no apparent reason?"
Player: "I'M NOT METAGAMING!"
This made me very, very sad.
The skeleton example is a poor on. Frankly this is something that should be not just common knowledge but common sense to characters. I mean, come on:
They shoot an arrow at the skeleton.
—In character result: You see the arrow mostly pass through the skeleton's ribs without harming it.
—Out-of-character: GM has made it clear the thing did not take full damage (as the rules say he must in some fashion)
Both in and out of character it would be clear that shooting another arrow is not the best idea. Players should be allowed to figure out solution to problems as they play, and not be PURELY reliant on the numbers on their sheet for problem solving.
Back in the day, players were expected to learn what worked and didn't work against monsters. Character death was the price of not knowing/learning lessons. If you didn't want your next character to die, you had to remember how to beat them.