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I've worked both ways that you describe. A lot of my players are also 4e players, and they are used to asking for Monster Knowledge checks, as 4e tends to use a lot more customised versions of standard critters.
During PF, if they think to ask for a check (becuase the critter is a little weird, or they think it might have changed from 3.5), then I'll usually give them the name, and whatever piece of info is relevant (and btw, they get another piece of info for every 5 they beat the DC by). Sometimes, the players will recognise the critter, and ask me if it has a certain vulnerability or resistance - in these cases, I'll have them make the check and specifically give them that bit of info.
It's also standard practice for the character making the check to use a free action to tell everyone else anything relevant. If the player doesn't think to do that, the others often encourage it.
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"Mmm. Sounds like you need Kal-Yik's Handy Guide to Creature Traits. Yes, yes. Good buy. Only cost you... a favor... you tell others how generous the Sczarni are. Yes, yes. Now go!"
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Yur handling it the right way. The problem I always run into is that I'm uncomfortable choosing the pieces of useful info. It seems like there should be a rule of order. I feel like they're getting more than they should if I just give them all the immunities and weaknesses, which is typically what i do since there's no official order
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Remember that the base varies depending on the rarity of the creature.
DC 5 + CR for very common monsters, probably including, but not limited to skeletons, zombies and goblins.
DC 10 + CR for common monsters, stuff that is still talked about, but not seen almost every day, including non-standard undead, like bloody skeletons or fast zombies.
DC 15 + CR for rare or unique monsters, the stuff that nightmares are made of, but are seldom, if ever, seen or heard about, like, say mythic vrocks.
Doted if more tips/informations are given.
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Yes Kinevon. Thankfully we don't see much of the 15+ type stuff in PFS.
Maybe in Bonekeep?
But, more seriously, remember that if the DC total is 10 or less, that it can be made untrained. Basically for the stuff that "everybody knows."
So, for low CR but common opponents, like, as mentioned, skeletons, zombies, goblins, etc. You may only get the bare minimum, name and the initial question, but that should, then, usually be something "of interest" to the PC who made the check, like whether it has DR or energy resistances or such.
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I let my PCs ask one question at 10 and an additional question for every 5 over 10, and I enjoy that this creates a bit of dramatic tension in whether or not they'll ask the right questions. For example, say they get a 21, and they ask how many hit points it has, what its AC is, and what will save it has. All well and good, but they missed the DR and the immunity to fire damage. I also don't include damage reduction and elemental resistances in the same category. If something had DR 5/Cold Iron and Fire Resist 10, they would have to use 2 questions to find out both of those.
RAW stats aren't useful information to a character... only to a player. The character is making the knowledge check. DR 5/- doesn't mean anything to a character because characters aren't aware they deal damage in numbers... The character might know that the creature's hide is really tough often allowing it to shrug off milder hits, but why would knowing his damage will be reduced by exactly 5 mean anything to a character?
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i understood what you meant, i just disagree that your players need specifics. i don't see a problem with telling a player "that monster has DR/-", but i won't tell the player how much because your character can't know that. in his world there is no number to represent that.
even then, i'd probably just compare it to some animal's speed.
I'm in the camp that says that the information should be given in mechanical terms. The characters don't understand the world in terms of AC, hp, and specific DR amounts, but they do understand the effects of those numbers - they know how likely they are to land a blow against a particular AC, how many times they'd have to hit something with a given amount of hp, and the difference between something with DR 5 and something with DR 10 in terms of how reduced their attacks will be. In turn, their players should be able to know if Power Attack is or isn't a good idea, if they can afford to go toe-to-toe for the number of attacks they'll need to land to kill it, and if their attacks will be able to beat the DR in the first place. Either the GM needs to know all of his PCs well enough to know, at least as well as the players do, if Power Attacking a given AC is a good or bad idea, how much damage they can do with varying strategies, and what their likelihood of powering through various amounts of DR is or he can just tell the player the real numbers. This doesn't mean that the character knows the numbers, it just gives the player equivalently useful knowledge to the character knowledge.
I work it largely the same way as others here. My tweak is that they can ask specific questions (DR, special attacks, etc.) or they can ask for general knowledge. That way if they're really interested in whether they should be using fireball or lightning bolt they can (because when their character was researching, that's what's most important). If they want what's "special" about the creature, they can go for that.
For example, the first general knowledge about a frost worm would be death throes. Trolls would be regeneration (and how to overcome it). Black pudding might be splitting. If they're more interested in immunities, that's fine too. I'm not going to force them to intuit that they should ask about what kinds of weapons have weird interactions with the black pudding, though.
On immersion vs. game terms, I'd probably say something like "It's strongly resistant to fire" for fire resist 20 (since that's enough to make decisions) and then if they wanted the specific number, I'd give it to them.
Making the base DC gets you the name, type/suptype, and maybe some other basic info. Very basic.
For each 5 points you exceed the base DC by, you get another ~ 25% of the information, generally prioritizing the most notable features or the ones the character or his party might care about the most (like fire immunity if the party has a fire mage). So, info at base DC, DC +5, DC +10, DC +15...by that point you should have just about everything short of the exact stats the monster has. If you make DC +20 or higher...I pass the stat block to the player. :D You know...EVERYTHING.
That's how I handle it. Another thing I do is for monsters that come in a "series"...for lack of a better term, if you make the DC to know about the lesser form but not enough to know (or know much) about the monster actually before you, you get the info the two iterations have in common. For example...Red Dragons... If you failed to ID the elder one before you but had enough to ID younger versions...you'd get the stuff common to red dragons, but not say...the breath weapon specifics, the additional natural attacks, spell-likes, etc...
as above, i just don't give you numbers until the point where i'd just be handing you the stat block. i.e. you beat the DC by 20.
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Mine breaks down like this when I run at home or pfs
DC to DC+4 I give them the name (either the standard or scientific depending on their discipline/character)
DC+5 I start giving them the special offensive options and then defensive options after I run out there. The logic being that more people will have seen or experienced a creatures offensive powers (like a dragons fire breath) and therefore have more written on them while defensive abilities (like it's DR magic) are something that would be a little rarer since they require researchers to actively try and trigger them or test them in the field.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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I try not to give actual stats but will use game knowledge to explain things. For example, if they wanted to know saves I would say which is higher and which is lower. If they wanted to know if they had DR I would use words like weak, good, strong, or impervious instead of numbers.
I let them decide which pieces of information are useful. I tend to give the name, type/subtype, and a bit of flavor as well as the useful information.
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Doc, that's great, but it goes completely against what the rules on knowledge skills say. The rules say if you meet the DC, you identify the creature and get 1 useful piece of information.
Actually it says,
"A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster. For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information."
That does not specify either what information it is or what useful entails. To be perfectly honest in many cases telling a common man that "That thing is a Werewolf" is more then enough useful information to tell them what they should do (which for most of them is either run screaming for help or run while shooting at it).
Seriously most information doesn't need to be more blatantly useful than that sometimes. Also I've found that it feels more organic considering the sheer amount of creature knowledge one character would have to have stored away on just creature abilities and nothing about the actual habits of the creature itself (and that's assuming your knowledge wizard did nothing but study the creature parts of his academic training in wizard school). I mean in the heat of the moment when a giant humanoid vulture man is coming down on you squawking in terrible unknown languages all you might need is the knowledge of whether it is a Vrock demon or an Avoral agathion (and what those last words mean) to tell you whether you should run, shoot, or say hello.
By RAW are these checks supposed to be Standard Actions, Move Actions, Swift Actions, Free Actions or something longer? I've always worked with the assumption that using a skill consumes a standard action unless the skill description says otherwise.
They're not an action at all.
Not all things in the game are actions to perform. Knowing stuff about something is simply something you either have or don't know/recollect. A knowledge check done as part of extensive research in a library would take quite some time (though technically it's the researching that's taking a long time; the knowledge check is just a part of that "action" much as jumping is done as part of a move action, not its own move action), but that's not how the skill is typically used. For on-the-spot "do I know anything about X?" it is NOT AN ACTION.
Action: Usually none. In most cases, a Knowledge check doesn't take an action (but see “Untrained,” below).[/url]
And if you're too lazy to check what the untrained exception is and plan to argue, "ah ha! I caught you in your web of lies!"...read on:
Untrained: You cannot make an untrained Knowledge check with a DC higher than 10. If you have access to an extensive library that covers a specific skill, this limit is removed. The time to make checks using a library, however, increases to 1d4 hours. Particularly complete libraries might even grant a bonus on Knowledge checks in the fields that they cover.
So yeah.
/has little patience for people who didn't even read the entry of the thing they're asking about.
Here's how I do it...
First of all, I use Knowledge checks to possibly nudge the PCs into the kind of encounter I'd prefer them to have with the creature. (i.e. "fight or parley.")
Make the DC: I provide the name of the creature, a little about its nature ("fluff"), any signature tactics the creature uses, and some vague information about its strengths and weaknesses. I try to avoid speaking in specific game terms-- that gets too "meta" for my GM style.
e.g.: "You're pretty sure that creature is a leprechaun: a tricksy forest creature that loves to confuse and play pranks on travelers. They say it has magical powers, and is difficult to enscorcell. You need a cold iron blade to harm them." [Fluff; creature has spell-like abilities, SR, and DR, and how to bypass the latter.]
DC +5: More general info about the creature's abilities; I'll highlight the most important ability or two I haven't already revealed.
e.g. As above, plus: "Leprechaun magic mostly confuses and distracts, but he can strike wicked blows with his shillelagh." [More specific information about the kinds of SLAs it has; hint that it has the shillelagh spell.]
DC +10: For every five more points the check exceeded the DC, I'll detail another ability, generally going down the list from strongest/most important to weaker/less important abilities.
e.g. As above, plus: "Beware any gold a leprechaun offers in trade. It will likely disappear in a few minutes." [referring to its major creation ability.]
In our home campaign's we often switch up who is running the game, and this quickly became an issue. We came up with the following that helps us to be consistent between all of us.