Is it metagaming if...?

[Uwotm8]

... you use the monster stats by CR chart or even specific monster blocks to aid in character creation?

[Bruunwald]

Need more info. What specifically are you using, and does it affect the character's knowledge in a way that is unrealistic or unreasonable in-game?

That's what metagaming is, in a nutshell. It's when your character can't possibly know a thing, but you give him that information or you play him in a way that would indicate he understands he is in a game or story.

Character creation is different. You can use your knowledge of the game to craft a character whose background can be reasonably explained to contain certain knowledge. He just won't know what a CR is, or how his knowledge translates to stats.

[Uwotm8]

Looking more toward AC, to-hit, saves, and DCs as a gauge of general survivability. No character knowledge impact.

[Auren "Rin" Cloudstrider]

it isn't metagaming unless one or more Players are using it to gain an excessive upper hand over the opposition or the DM is using the knowledge the Shaft the Party

[Arachnofiend]

I don't think there's anything wrong with looking up target numbers for stats, if that's what you're asking.

[Ms. Pleiades]

Oh, figuring out how much damage you should be doing at each level? That's more just general system knowledge starting out the gate. It's not like the person is going to know if that CR 8 creature is going to be vulnerable to cold or fire ahead of time, they just know that they should have planned out their character to be able to do X amount of damage to it per round.

I'd say it's Power-Gaming before I'd call it Meta-Gaming, and I tend not to say the PG word, I encourage my players to optimize their concepts.

[wraithstrike]

Uwotm8 wrote:

... you use the monster stats by CR chart or even specific monster blocks to aid in character creation?

No. It can be a good way to make sure your character is competent or not "too good" if you know your GM does not have time to alter things too much for the party.

Metagaming is using specific in game knowledge. As an example let's say you normally charge into melee, but monster X has an ability that will allow it to autograpple you if you get too close to it. You then decide to go with ranged attacks, even though no knowledge checks have been made.

[Deadmanwalking]

No, that's not metagaming. Not any more than choosing to buy high ratings in stats or skills you want to be good at.

[Bob Bob Bob]

Is it metagaming that I know that I'll never be in the NFL? No, it's called an "educated guess". That things get harder to hit, hurt, and hit you easier are the kind of things adventurers should be expected to know. I'd go one further and say adventurers should have an idea about what level they are and what appropriate challenges are for that level. That shouldn't preclude knowledge checks and should totally allow people to bluff, but a party of level 3s should know the difference between "dragon" and "drake" and which one would be an easier fight (though to be fair, the drakes can be pretty brutal). The common folk might not though, so there's always the possibility of misinformation. All I'm saying is that characters, in the world, should know about where they rank and what they can take. The definition of metagaming is using out-of-game knowledge in-game, and that kind of stuff should really be in-game knowledge for adventurers. Well, people who wanted to be adventurers. For others it depends on backstory. Though by the time you've fought your way to level 5 or so you should definitely know.

[Anguish]

If I'm understanding correctly, you're proposing to use the monster creation tables to understand what target AC and saves you will generally need to reach at a given level. At the same time, you're deriving what AC and saves you need to generally reach at the given level.

There's two thoughts here...

1} You want to make sure you're not dramatically out of line. It's easy to accidentally have an AC lower than it "should be", meaning your PC is going to get hit way too often. It's easy to disregard saving throws and get your PC dominated over and over.

A good DM should point out to a player when their character is under (or over) powered. I don't think it's a big deal to do this for yourself.

2} You might be trying to know what numbers to auto-succeed at. Knowing you'll be un-hittable at a given AC, or saving throw value, or knowing your abilities will auto-succeed at same is not just max-minning, it's max-min-efficiency-ing. Why waste a point of AC when you know the average monster won't hit you at one lower? That represents resources you could spend max-minning some other value, right?

In this case... well... cheese.

[Deadmanwalking]

Anguish wrote:

2} You might be trying to know what numbers to auto-succeed at. Knowing you'll be un-hittable at a given AC, or saving throw value, or knowing your abilities will auto-succeed at same is not just max-minning, it's max-min-efficiency-ing. Why waste a point of AC when you know the average monster won't hit you at one lower? That represents resources you could spend max-minning some other value, right?

In this case... well... cheese.

Still not metagaming, though.

Also, it's pretty much a terrible idea. Those numbers are averages, with many creatures having higher in some for lower in others, so calibrating your character to be 'optimal' specifically against the average is unwise, as that will, frankly, only rarely come up.

So cheese? Nah, not really.

[rainzax]

not all metagaming is bad

its only bad when you rob somebody else's fun by doing it

to a certain extent, we are all Neo in the Matrix, and not metagaming is simply not possible

[Clockstomper]

(... a gm I know (who isn't me) says, if your question begins with "is it metagaming if..", then the answer is ALWAYS YES...)

In general, players shouldn't really be looking through the Bestiary, IMHO. Part of the GM's job is giving you things to be surprised about and have fun figuring out. They've bought Bestiaries to have material that's fun for you to encounter.

If you play a bunch, you'll have encountered a lot of stuff, and part of trying not to metagame is playing your character like you haven't fought that before... so why get ahead of that curve? (hence why GM's invent homebrews or tweak monsters... or buy other material to have neat stat blocks for you to enjoy fighting).

[Uwotm8]

Clockstomper wrote:

(... a gm I know (who isn't me) says, if your question begins with "is it metagaming if..", then the answer is ALWAYS YES...)

In general, players shouldn't really be looking through the Bestiary, IMHO. Part of the GM's job is giving you things to be surprised about and have fun figuring out. They've bought Bestiaries to have material that's fun for you to encounter.

If you play a bunch, you'll have encountered a lot of stuff, and part of trying not to metagame is playing your character like you haven't fought that before... so why get ahead of that curve? (hence why GM's invent homebrews or tweak monsters... or buy other material to have neat stat blocks for you to enjoy fighting).

The reason I do it is because of the inverse of that thought. If you always enter into a fight as if you know nothing about them, then you're not playing a character grounded in the world they're in and they're likely to die from making foolish decisions. To do that they need some basic bearing about the hazards they're likely to face AND they should be capable of adapting to those hazards. This is most true for creating high level characters.

Taken to an extreme, a GM relying completely on private bestiaries as their primary means of coming up with encounters for their PCs are actively denying them any semblance of that immersion. Using a few things here or there is fine. But, that shouldn't create a fundamentally different world than the one you tell your players they're in. If you're doing that, then you should absolutely share aspects of your monsters and create a common mythos about them as Pathfinder materials already do that for players. Just look through the player companions and even the PFS field guide. They all give hints, tactics, and general info and they're squarely player focused materials.

Something a GM friend of mine told me is that he doesn't always tell players everything a character might notice. My sole question to him was how did he expect his players to roleplay their characters. I'm all for GMs wanting a level of deference from their players that says, "yes, I'm playing against fantastical creatures" and deserves a measure of awe and caution. However, there is give AND take in that back and forth (and, no, it's not all one sided) that PCs should know concrete facts about their world without having played a single second at the table. To deny that and to treat them solely as an array of stats that's used to interface with the world is one of the most role-breaking things I've ever heard of. So, I'm with rainzax in that not all metagaming is bad. Some is necessary in order to create a reasonable expectation of what the person I'm playing knows.

My particular question was just about the stats by CR table to give a generic overview as a way to gain that grounding without needing to look at particular stat blocks. But, I was also curious for concepts like a vampire hunter. If you didn't know about vampires' particular wooden stake vulnerability then why by a vampire hunter's kit? Or, if you're thinking "it's a vampire hunter's kit, it makes sense!" then if you happen to fail the knowledge DC do you suddenly not know what to do with the wooden stake in the kit? Hardly. It might make for some easily justifiable funny antics, but if that's your whole concept and you've got this kit then you're completely justified in going for the heart to begin with. Using the common mythos from the real world about vampires in general is every bit metagaming. So, it's gray and I was curious where other people stood on it.

[Deadmanwalking]

Clockstomper wrote:

(... a gm I know (who isn't me) says, if your question begins with "is it metagaming if..", then the answer is ALWAYS YES...)

In general, players shouldn't really be looking through the Bestiary, IMHO. Part of the GM's job is giving you things to be surprised about and have fun figuring out. They've bought Bestiaries to have material that's fun for you to encounter.

If you play a bunch, you'll have encountered a lot of stuff, and part of trying not to metagame is playing your character like you haven't fought that before... so why get ahead of that curve? (hence why GM's invent homebrews or tweak monsters... or buy other material to have neat stat blocks for you to enjoy fighting).

This is all valid, and I agree with it regarding reading large numbers of specific monster entries. But the original question was mostly about the Monster Creation section which is just some generic 'expect this by this level' stuff and not in the same category at all.

Looking at that or a few individual monster entries also doesn't seem like a huge deal. Especially the common ones.

[gnomersy]

Deadmanwalking wrote:

Clockstomper wrote:

(... a gm I know (who isn't me) says, if your question begins with "is it metagaming if..", then the answer is ALWAYS YES...)

In general, players shouldn't really be looking through the Bestiary, IMHO. Part of the GM's job is giving you things to be surprised about and have fun figuring out. They've bought Bestiaries to have material that's fun for you to encounter.

If you play a bunch, you'll have encountered a lot of stuff, and part of trying not to metagame is playing your character like you haven't fought that before... so why get ahead of that curve? (hence why GM's invent homebrews or tweak monsters... or buy other material to have neat stat blocks for you to enjoy fighting).

This is all valid, and I agree with it regarding reading large numbers of specific monster entries. But the original question was mostly about the Monster Creation section which is just some generic 'expect this by this level' stuff and not in the same category at all.

Looking at that or a few individual monster entries also doesn't seem like a huge deal. Especially the common ones.

I have to agree here. I mean most experienced players already have a decent idea what is a "good" to hit or AC or Will save by level X. As long as you aren't scouring the bestiary for special abilities and specifics on monsters, I wouldn't call this so much metagaming, as optimizing or build theorizing.

[voideternal]

If your table cares about game balance, it's not metagaming. If all players make balanced characters, such as by consulting numbers with the Monster Creation table, then the GM can roughly balance each encounter by choosing the right CR value. It speeds up the GM's encounter creation process, and the GM has more time to spend on other parts of GMing, such as preparing plot and setting.

If your table doesn't care about game balance, then there's not really a point looking at the Monster Creation table. You make whatever character you want and the GM throws whatever s/he feels appropriate at you. The results can't be predicted, but that's the fun of a table that doesn't care for game balance.

[Marroar Gellantara]

It is metagaming in the technical sense of the word. For the connotations normally associated with PnP RPGs, it would not be metagaming.

[glass]

Uwotm8 wrote:

... you use the monster stats by CR chart or even specific monster blocks to aid in character creation?

Yes, but it's not a problem. Character creation and advancement is inherently metagame (the character does not sit down with the ruleboosk and design themselves).

glass.