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But its completely within the rules.It's not at all covered by the rules. No rules say you can apply knowledge from one creature to another. It's perfectly logical, but not a rules construct. It's a logic construct.
logic and common sense trump rules
awesome trumps rules within reason
i would reward bennies for all 3. in fact, bennies are an alternate reward far more fitting than XP.
i make them, per session and award them both for playing your character correctly in a moment that fit them, such as a coward pissing themselves when they see a dragon the moment they fail their fear save and are frozen in place, or casts create water on a fire elemental to harm it.
create water deals 1d6 per caster level, no cap to fire elementals and targets their vulnerability for +50 percent damage. in my games. at least.
shatter also does uncapped dice of damage and +50% extra to creatures with hard shells, as if it were breaking glass or armor. such as a giant turtle or an earth elemental.
decanter of endless water = Ranged Dirty trick with a collosal size bonus.
logic and common sense trump rulesNope. Not in Pathfinder, not even in D&D.
for me, they do, with the exception that characters at extremely cinematic or mythological levels of power, get to do extremely cinematic or mythological deeds, and i fudge things occasionally to let those happens. well not quite fudge, but provide circumstance bonuses proportionate to the deed,
a character with a +20 Jump bonus should easily be able to jump a 25 foot chasm without problems and should be able to perform a leaping strike against a creature 20 feet above them with a full attack mid leap.
yes, i allow cinematic leaping full attacks
hell, want to do an Advent Children Homage against a Dragon? go ahead.
Which is fair and fine and great. But you do have to acknowledge that, at least without picking up some third-party stuff, the rules don't allow it.
That's fine, that's exactly what house rules are for. But don't stop recognizing that they are house rules.
Which is fair and fine and great. But you do have to acknowledge that, at least without picking up some third-party stuff, the rules don't allow it.
That's fine, that's exactly what house rules are for. But don't stop recognizing that they are house rules.
i know they are. but i let martials do cool things.
True, but Umbriere, you do not write the rules. TOZ was only pointing out what the rules say. And everyone else was going by their own interpretation. Which wasn't even the point.
i have a very different playstyle than half the people on these boards. if i could join a kirthfinder game. i would.
True, but Umbriere, you do not write the rules. TOZ was only pointing out what the rules say. And everyone else was going by their own interpretation. Which wasn't even the point.So what do the rules allow? Especially when the player doesn't know about the monster. Are any inferences or assumption metagaming?
you swing a club at the skeleton anyway, because swinging a blunt weapon at hard bone, is akin to swinging a mace against a suit of plate.
You can certainly use it.Never said you couldn't. I said it wasn't supported by the rules.
Can you show me where it requires the monster to be in view to identify it or recall abilities or weaknesses?
My point is you can make the check at any time. Regardless of whether you see the monster right now or not.
If you're making a check against a monster that isn't in the current combat, that information might not be relevant, but the game doesn't require you to do things relevant to the threat in front of you (it certainly encourages it with the threat of death though).
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^ What he said
However, you can certainly remember stuff about skeletons, but have no right to cry foul if that CR6 skeleton turns out not to be vulnerable to bludgeoning damage.
That's exactly what I'm saying! My knowledge about basic skeletons may or may not apply to this skeletonike creature in front of me, but it's not unreasonable to start with an assumption that using blunt weapons is a good idea, knowing that it might be wrong.
That's what educated guesses are all about, and that's the best I can do because I have no skill ranks, so I base my decisions on the best info I have.
Therefore, when I choose to use a blunt weapon against a creature I don't actually recognise but is described as 'a bit skeleton-ey', then I'm not meta-gaming.
Does a 20th level Dwarven Fighter knows that he is a dwarven fighter?
If the rules gives ridiculous answers or not answer at all, use intelligence instead.
Using the 20th level Dwarf Fighter as an example...
Assuming dwarves are common, it would be a DC 25 to know specific things about that individual. If you only wanted to know about dwarves in general, it would be DC 5.
For instance, you could ask "How does the dwarven ability Stonecunning work?" DC 5
But if you wanted to know if the Dwarf Fighter 20 in front of you had Stonecunning (or an alternate racial ability) that would be DC 25.
Using the 20th level Dwarf Fighter as an example...
Assuming dwarves are common, it would be a DC 25 to know specific things about that individual. If you only wanted to know about dwarves in general, it would be DC 5.
For instance, you could ask "How does the dwarven ability Stonecunning work?" DC 5
But if you wanted to know if the Dwarf Fighter 20 in front of you had Stonecunning (or an alternate racial ability) that would be DC 25.
Running off that example, what would be the DC for knowing the breathweapon type of a CR 18 dragon? 18+10, since that's the CR of this dragon.
Or something like 3+10, if the wyrmling dragon of that type is CR 3?(And I think the individual dwarf would at least count as Rare. More likely I'd probably handle individuals outside of the knowledge system entirely.)
Lets say blue dragon:
DC 13 to know that blues usually breath lightning
DC 28 to know whether this dragon uses magic to alter/modify it's breath weapon or you could even learn the damage dice for it/save DC if you wanted
I think it's fine to check to lower monster, you're just not getting a chance for specific info regarding the one you're dealing with. Since it isn't specific, it may or may not be helpful. This doesn't bother me, but I use tiered skill DC's quite regularly. If a player wants to achieve something I state the DC, if I sense hesitation, I often offer a lesser success with a lower DC (or higher success with higher DC if I think they aren't being very ambitious). It's their choice which they go for, but they choose prior to the roll.
Using Knowledge for individuals seems perfectly reasonable to me. Knowledge (Local) works for most humanoids, but for an individual it would only work if they're from, reside in or have notable events with the appropriate (Local).
I agree with Malachi, and often thought I'd like to see a better scaling method.
If we still had all the 1e statblock info, I'd base it off the "frequency" listing (maybe Common = DC 10, Uncommon = DC 15, Rare = DC 20, Very Rare = DC 30). In 3.5e, MM4 was maybe headed that way when they provided a Knowledge table for every individual critter, but that's a pain in the neck.
Maybe scale the checks based on the info to be learned?
(The following is draft only)
DC 5 - Type (humanoid, undead, etc.)
DC 10 - Name and climate/terrain
DC 15 - Orgnanization, DR (if any)
DC 20 - (Su) and (Ex) abilities
DC 25 - SLAs
In essence, you're learning everything about orc warriors (low CR) with a DC 10 check, but it takes a DC 25 check to learn everything about a (high CR) balor, even though you can get a basic ID with a much lower DC check.
Maybe scale the checks based on the info to be learned?
(The following is draft only)
DC 5 - Type (humanoid, undead, etc.)
DC 10 - Name and climate/terrain
DC 15 - Orgnanization, DR (if any)
DC 20 - (Su) and (Ex) abilities
DC 25 - SLAsIn essence, you're learning everything about orc warriors (low CR) with a DC 10 check, but it takes a DC 25 check to learn everything about a (high CR) balor, even though you can get a basic ID with a much lower DC check.
What about gnomes?
Here's a good way to annoy your GM: when you meet an ancient Umbral dragon, make a knowledge roll and ask about baby Umbral dragons. Then make a knowledge roll and ask about young Umbral dragons. Then make a knowledge roll and ask about adult Umbral dragons...
It is counter-intuitive to make it harder to know stuff about a famous 20th level hero with vast experience than it is to know stuff about a random 1st level commoner who hasn't done anything remarkable in his life.
The first level commoner is more likely to have nothing out of the ordinary about him.
The 20th level hero will have strange stories and rumors told about him, many of which aren't true.
Young Soldier: William Wallace is seven feet tall!
William Wallace: Yes, I've heard. Kills men by the hundreds. And if HE were here, he'd consume the English with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse.
I agree, a "have I heard of him" check would be pretty easy and common knowledge should be a lot lower. Specific and detailed information that is TRUE might be difficult to obtain though.
Is there such a thing as a knowledge roll to find out about an individual? Or just for a species?
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Come to think of it, it seems strange that the difficulty of knowing about a creature increases...as it gets more dangerous...!
I know a lot more about lions than I do about jerboas (they're like a cross between a mouse and a kangaroo). We are motivated to be more interested in things that present a danger to us, are big and obvious, are awesome or frightening, than we are about inoffensive, small beasties we don't and won't care about.
Surely, every boy's Big Bumper Book of Beasts is going to have a massive article on The Tarrasque, and quite a few pages devoted to dragons.
Surely Golarion's version of Sir David Attenborough will make his name through popular pamphlets called 'How Not To Get Eaten When Travelling' rather than his less popular 'Interesting Facts About Sheep'. More of a specialist market there, I think...
Really it would be more based on frequency of encounter and how often people survive encounters.
If the tarrasque only shows up every 300 years and kills all witnesses, you're not going to have a lot of detailed information. If orcs show up ever 3 years to raid, but are driven back (lots of survivors to tell the tale) information is a lot easier to come by.
It's an abstraction, but a lot of the game system is based around the concept that things get harder as you go up in levels, otherwise success is too automatic and uninteresting. Knowledge check DCs increase because that's how the game models reality, things get harder as you progress. If monster DC's decrease, than there's less incentive to increase your ranks in Knowledge skills, which is counter to the core philosophy of the game's design.
Trolls. High CR, therefore high DC for most commoners. But plenty of people survive a troll attack on a village, and I find it difficult to believe that 'KILL IT WITH FIRE' isn't known to every single commoner in areas where trolls are a danger.
And this points to why GMs should consider making adjustments to the roll (or even just outright telling the players as it's common knowledge and doesn't even warrant a roll in the first place) depending on where they're from or currently are, as well as a multitude of other situational and background-orientated modifiers.
Yeah, but the mechanics do tend to lead to commoners knowing nothing about dragons, which one assumes are still famed in song and story and much about obscure weak creatures in distant lands.
It's weird and hurts if you think about it too much, but generally suffices for the sake of the game.
An obscure creature would be DC 15+CR, so even a CR 1/2 creature that only appears in distant lands would be beyond the scope of an untrained Knowledge check.
If dragons are common in an area, it would be DC 5+CR, which again, going by my previous posts, knowing things about the dragons in general could go off of the youngest versions CR. Apply that knowledge to older dragons at your own risk.
To be fair, "KILL IT WITH FIRE" is a pretty standard response to most monsters. Unless the monster is made of fire of course.
Tim: “Eddy, Eddy, hey, Eddy”
Eddy: “What!”
Tim: “Those things, you know, those things that keep attacking the village, they’re, um, they’re on fire right, like their skin is on fire?”
Eddy: “Yesssss, Tim, they are on fire, so, what about it?”
Tim: “So, Eddy, so, I’m thinking, how come, how come it is that we keep trying to kill them, with, you know, fire?”
Eddy: (Slaps Tim on the back of the head) “Idiot, see it says right here in the villager's manual, Kill it with Fire! Duh, you’re such a moron.”
Tim: “Eddy, Eddy, hey, Eddy”
Eddy: “What!”
Tim: “Those things, you know, those things that keep attacking the village, they’re, um, they’re on fire right, like their skin is on fire?”
Eddy: “Yesssss, Tim, they are on fire, so, what about it?”
Tim: “So, Eddy, so, I’m thinking, how come, how come it is that we keep trying to kill them, with, you know, fire?”
Eddy: (Slaps Tim on the back of the head) “Idiot, see it says right here in the villager's manual, Kill it with Fire! Duh, you’re such a moron.”
I remember old story, where some simples found a crab from their net. In the end they decided to kill it by drowning.