Knowledge skill Monster lore

[ashuramarsh]

HI,

I have a question as per the title. I am not sure the GM of our current game has been running the knowledge skill correctly for determining monster lore. Every monster we have run across, he has asked for a 15+HD DC to know anything about the monster in question.

I know from reading the description it says rare monsters are that. This has been the case though for ghosts to jade golems.

So I am wondering, is there some list or way of knowing where a monster fall, aka easy, common or rare levels?

[Claxon]

There is no list, it's up to your GM.

In my opinion though, rare should be unique creatures. Individuals with unique stats and nothing else like them.

Any huamnoids should be considered common.

[shadowkras]

IMO, anything that you cant tell what it is by looking at it, should fall into rare.
Whats the difference between a skeleton and a skeleton champion?

You will know its a skeleton. But will you know its intelligent, stronger and may have spells or special abilities just by looking at it?

I treat anything they never had an encounter before as DC 15+HD, if they have fought the creature its 10+HD.

[Protoman]

I typically use: base DC difficulty of 5/10/15 + CR. Like it says in the book.

[ryric]

Protoman wrote:

I typically use: base DC difficulty of 5/10/15 + CR. Like it says in the book.

Yep me too. Common monsters are anything that's all over the place. Basic humanoids, animals, anything local to the area your character grew up, basic undead, that sort of thing.

"Normal" monsters are most of them. Also adding an oddball template to a common monster might make it this.

Rare monsters are unique critters. Monsters made specifically to use in the AP often I see as rare. Crazy extraplanar stuff that no one has seen for centuries.

Oh and I don't include altered CR for monsters with class levels. Also, monsters that come in different categories, such as dragons, I do a bit oddly. It's not harder to tell that you're fighting a red dragon just because it's older. Knowing the new abilities it has due to age, that's a tougher check. But knowing something like "immune to fire" is against the hatchling DC.

Edit: Rereading the skill, I see our group deviates a little bit from RAW. Just beating the DC gets you the name, creature type/subtypes, and the descriptive flavor text in the monster description, "This beats searches open moors for hapless victims," that sort of thing. To get combat-relevant game stuff you have to beat the DC by 5, in our group.