How much should a player get from one Knowledge check about a monster?

[Diego Rossi]

thejeff wrote:

Do you actually give out that information? Or assume that all the players have it memorized and will metagame it?

And falling back to DM Blake's "obvious" point, if we run into a troll and you tell me it's a humanoid and don't mention the fire/acid thing, I'm not going to be happy.

1) I gave my players a printout with the basic information about types an subtypes, so yes, when I say that a creature is a elemental they can look the abilities granted by the elemental type.

2) Read Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson. The troll regeneration come from there. And it wasn't at all a common information.
If you barely make your check (i.e. you beat the DC by 0-4) you get the basic information: name and type.
If you beat by 5-9 you get a new piece of information: it has regeneration can normally can be beaten by acid or fire.

If you pretend to get more than the basic information from a barely beating the DC you are simply greedy.

[_Ozy_]

Quote:

Players have to know the numbers OOC to understand what their characters would intuitively know IC.

++1 million.

Since the neither the players nor the DM live in the Pathfinder world, we interact with it abstractly through the mechanics and numbers in the rules. Since the GM is relaying information to the player, he needs to communicate information that's useful for the player, not the character. It's then up to the player to translate that information into 'game-world' mechanics for his character, and that is the role-playing aspect.

[thorin001]

DM_Blake wrote:

How does any GM determine what is most important or most needful or most useful? Experience, system mastery, just plain old thinking about it.

However, I think that most of the time the most obvious thing is, well, obvious.

To give an answer that is more useful, some of the most obvious stuff is too obvious and doesn't even require a roll. Dragons fly, bears eat meat, elephants are big and strong, etc. I don't count that stuff, anyone with eyes gets all that for free.

So I just ask myself, with all the legends, songs, stories, books, etc., about this particular monster, what is the one thing people talk about the most? What's the next most, etc.

So it is what pop culture thinks, not what the character actually studied.

[thejeff]

thorin001 wrote:

DM_Blake wrote:

How does any GM determine what is most important or most needful or most useful? Experience, system mastery, just plain old thinking about it.

However, I think that most of the time the most obvious thing is, well, obvious.

To give an answer that is more useful, some of the most obvious stuff is too obvious and doesn't even require a roll. Dragons fly, bears eat meat, elephants are big and strong, etc. I don't count that stuff, anyone with eyes gets all that for free.

So I just ask myself, with all the legends, songs, stories, books, etc., about this particular monster, what is the one thing people talk about the most? What's the next most, etc.

So it is what pop culture thinks, not what the character actually studied.

Since we have no idea what the character actually studied or how they learned what they know about the creature, sure. Why not?

[_Ozy_]

If knowledge is supposed to be pop-culture information, then it probably should be based off of CHA rather than INT. ;)

[thorin001]

thejeff wrote:

thorin001 wrote:

DM_Blake wrote:

How does any GM determine what is most important or most needful or most useful? Experience, system mastery, just plain old thinking about it.

However, I think that most of the time the most obvious thing is, well, obvious.

To give an answer that is more useful, some of the most obvious stuff is too obvious and doesn't even require a roll. Dragons fly, bears eat meat, elephants are big and strong, etc. I don't count that stuff, anyone with eyes gets all that for free.

So I just ask myself, with all the legends, songs, stories, books, etc., about this particular monster, what is the one thing people talk about the most? What's the next most, etc.

So it is what pop culture thinks, not what the character actually studied.

Since we have no idea what the character actually studied or how they learned what they know about the creature, sure. Why not?

The DM does not know unless he asks, but the player sure does. Thus the way to allow the DM to address character's focus of study is to allow the player to ask questions on what he thinks is relevant.

[thejeff]

thorin001 wrote:

thejeff wrote:

thorin001 wrote:

DM_Blake wrote:

How does any GM determine what is most important or most needful or most useful? Experience, system mastery, just plain old thinking about it.

However, I think that most of the time the most obvious thing is, well, obvious.

To give an answer that is more useful, some of the most obvious stuff is too obvious and doesn't even require a roll. Dragons fly, bears eat meat, elephants are big and strong, etc. I don't count that stuff, anyone with eyes gets all that for free.

So I just ask myself, with all the legends, songs, stories, books, etc., about this particular monster, what is the one thing people talk about the most? What's the next most, etc.

So it is what pop culture thinks, not what the character actually studied.

Since we have no idea what the character actually studied or how they learned what they know about the creature, sure. Why not?

The DM does not know unless he asks, but the player sure does. Thus the way to allow the DM to address character's focus of study is to allow the player to ask questions on what he thinks is relevant.

Which wraps us back around to getting mostly useless information unless the player knows the monster and metagames.

[N N 959]

thejeff wrote:

thorin001 wrote:

DM_Blake wrote:

How does any GM determine what is most important or most needful or most useful? Experience, system mastery, just plain old thinking about it.

However, I think that most of the time the most obvious thing is, well, obvious.

To give an answer that is more useful, some of the most obvious stuff is too obvious and doesn't even require a roll. Dragons fly, bears eat meat, elephants are big and strong, etc. I don't count that stuff, anyone with eyes gets all that for free.

So I just ask myself, with all the legends, songs, stories, books, etc., about this particular monster, what is the one thing people talk about the most? What's the next most, etc.

So it is what pop culture thinks, not what the character actually studied.

Since we have no idea what the character actually studied or how they learned what they know about the creature, sure. Why not?

I think people are having trouble seeing the forest through the trees. The intent with K check rules providing "useful" information is meant on a meta-game level. The idea is that the successful K check helps the characters defeat the encounter. It isn't about what someone might know or might study or is popular, it's about anything that provides a substantive benefit to the specific players that make the check. It doesn't matter if the information is useful to everyone else, it has to be useful to the specific player that made the check. Providing information that someone in the party could use to their advantage also satisfies the requirement of useful.

I think any discussion about what would be common knowledge or obvious or whatever, isn't really relevant. The K-check is suppose to help the player and if the information you provide isn't objectively (meaning that everyone would agree such information is helpful to that particular player) helpful, then you're not really honoring the rule. Yes, this involves a meta game approach by the GM to determine what is going to be useful to any particular group of players.

Grant it, sometimes there isn't helpful information. There's nothing that's truly going to help a party of 1st level fighters in defeating a Tarrasque. Nor is there any information about a common Goblin that is truly going to be helpful to a 10th level fighter. But this discussion isn't about the corner cases, it's about the nominal case.

[thejeff]

N N 959 wrote:

thejeff wrote:

thorin001 wrote:

DM_Blake wrote:

How does any GM determine what is most important or most needful or most useful? Experience, system mastery, just plain old thinking about it.

However, I think that most of the time the most obvious thing is, well, obvious.

To give an answer that is more useful, some of the most obvious stuff is too obvious and doesn't even require a roll. Dragons fly, bears eat meat, elephants are big and strong, etc. I don't count that stuff, anyone with eyes gets all that for free.

So I just ask myself, with all the legends, songs, stories, books, etc., about this particular monster, what is the one thing people talk about the most? What's the next most, etc.

So it is what pop culture thinks, not what the character actually studied.

Since we have no idea what the character actually studied or how they learned what they know about the creature, sure. Why not?

I think people are having trouble seeing the forest through the trees. The intent with K check rules providing "useful" information is meant on a meta-game level. The idea is that the successful K check helps the characters defeat the encounter. It isn't about what someone might know or might study or is popular, it's about anything that provides a substantive benefit to the specific players that make the check. It doesn't matter if the information is useful to everyone else, it has to be useful to the specific player that made the check. Providing information that someone in the party could use to their advantage also satisfies the requirement of useful.

I think any discussion about what would be common knowledge or obvious or whatever, is really relevant. The K-check is suppose to help the player and if the information you provide isn't objectively (meaning that everyone would agree such information is helpful to that particular player) helpful, then you're not really honoring the rule. Yes, this involves a meta game approach by the GM to...

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up for me. If questions are the best way to useful info, use them. Let the players metagame what questions to ask. If the GM picking gets better info out, use that, but he should key it to his players.

I'd also say, not just the player who made the roll. It's a team game. If the bard makes the roll, but there's something crucial to the fighter, tell them that. Use "useful to the one who made the roll" as a tiebreaker between pieces of info, if anything.

[Chengar Qordath]

N N 959 wrote:

Grant it, sometimes there isn't helpful information. There's nothing that's truly going to help a party of 1st level fighters in defeating a Tarrasque.

If a level 1 character made a successful knowledge check against the Tarrasque, I'd consider "This thing will absolutely murder you if you don't run away right now!" to be very useful information.

[kinevon]

Diego Rossi wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Do you actually give out that information? Or assume that all the players have it memorized and will metagame it?

And falling back to DM Blake's "obvious" point, if we run into a troll and you tell me it's a humanoid and don't mention the fire/acid thing, I'm not going to be happy.

1) I gave my players a printout with the basic information about types an subtypes, so yes, when I say that a creature is a elemental they can look the abilities granted by the elemental type.

2) Read Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson. The troll regeneration come from there. And it wasn't at all a common information.
If you barely make your check (i.e. you beat the DC by 0-4) you get the basic information: name and type.
If you beat by 5-9 you get a new piece of information: it has regeneration can normally can be beaten by acid or fire.

If you pretend to get more than the basic information from a barely beating the DC you are simply greedy.

And Humanoid (Goblin) is NOT useful information, because it is something you shouldn't need a roll to get. That little creature has a big head, lots of zits, and has a crazy look in its eyes. After all, does the sub-type include any templates applied to it? And I have seen a goblin in a module which has an added bit, which pretty much renders the humanoid stuff uncertain. Is there a standard write-up for mutant or variant as a sub-type?

And not all type/sub-type information includes enough to make a difference. Undead, as a class, have certain characteristics. Yay. Is it incorporeal? Included in some sub-types, but may not be present in all. Is it intelligent?

Again, from the Knowledge skill write-up, right here on the PRD:
A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster.

And the reason so many of us use the question-and-answer mode is because we sometimes run for different players, different characters, and different groups.

Even in a home game, what was useful for John's character last week may no longer be relevant, because John retired that PC, or it died, so he is running a totally different PC this week.

In addition, you would need to know a lot about the Knowledge PC to even have a good chance to guess what might be useful. Not just class, archetype(s), and level, but current spell load-out, if applicable, whether they have a golf-cart of weapons or some other way to handle that, and so much more. And that information can change just from adding a level.

[Byakko]

Let's be realistic here, though.

Most monsters don't have that many particularly interesting traits. It's usually not that hard to figure out what may be useful for the party/character upon a successful knowledge check.

Further, if a player knows what the creature is OCC they are far more likely to ask a "critically important" question, whereas someone who honestly doesn't know anything about the creature will often ask the "wrong" question. Thus, allowing players to ask questions actually punishes those who need it the most.

[Diego Rossi]

kinevon wrote:

Diego Rossi wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Do you actually give out that information? Or assume that all the players have it memorized and will metagame it?

And falling back to DM Blake's "obvious" point, if we run into a troll and you tell me it's a humanoid and don't mention the fire/acid thing, I'm not going to be happy.

1) I gave my players a printout with the basic information about types an subtypes, so yes, when I say that a creature is a elemental they can look the abilities granted by the elemental type.

2) Read Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson. The troll regeneration come from there. And it wasn't at all a common information.
If you barely make your check (i.e. you beat the DC by 0-4) you get the basic information: name and type.
If you beat by 5-9 you get a new piece of information: it has regeneration can normally can be beaten by acid or fire.

If you pretend to get more than the basic information from a barely beating the DC you are simply greedy.

And Humanoid (Goblin) is NOT useful information, because it is something you shouldn't need a roll to get. That little creature has a big head, lots of zits, and has a crazy look in its eyes. After all, does the sub-type include any templates applied to it? And I have seen a goblin in a module which has an added bit, which pretty much renders the humanoid stuff uncertain. Is there a standard write-up for mutant or variant as a sub-type?

And not all type/sub-type information includes enough to make a difference. Undead, as a class, have certain characteristics. Yay. Is it incorporeal? Included in some sub-types, but may not be present in all. Is it intelligent?

Again, from the Knowledge skill write-up, right here on the PRD:
A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster.

And the reason so many of us use the question-and-answer mode is because we sometimes run for different players, different characters, and different groups.

Even in a home game,...

You give out unique templates and class levels? Goblins saves and abilities depend the class levels, not on the race HD.

You do the same for humans? "He is a 3 level fighter, not a warrior, you know because you have studied human anatomy ... "

Sure, with Knowledge (local) you can say "He is Harry, a guard caravan that work in your area. A fighter." but it has nothing to do with recognizing the kind of the creature.

Or to go to the other extreme:
"Cool, it is the tarrasque, how we permanently kill it"
"So far no one has been able to permanently kill it, but you clearly recall the procedure, you read it somewhere."
"Ehi, I am an inquisitor with greater bane, what type it is?"
"Your roll was good enough only for one question. You know perfectly how to perma-kill it, but you have no idea of what is its type."

[DM_Blake]

Chengar Qordath wrote:

N N 959 wrote:

Grant it, sometimes there isn't helpful information. There's nothing that's truly going to help a party of 1st level fighters in defeating a Tarrasque.

If a level 1 character made a successful knowledge check against the Tarrasque, I'd consider "This thing will absolutely murder you if you don't run away right now!" to be very useful information.

Oh, I'll murder them anyway; I like the Chase Me game. And I like playing with my food. A level 1 paladin is just as delicious as a level 20 paladin, although the latter might have a bit more meat on his bones, but I'm not that picky.

[Chengar Qordath]

DM_Blake wrote:

Chengar Qordath wrote:

N N 959 wrote:

Grant it, sometimes there isn't helpful information. There's nothing that's truly going to help a party of 1st level fighters in defeating a Tarrasque.

If a level 1 character made a successful knowledge check against the Tarrasque, I'd consider "This thing will absolutely murder you if you don't run away right now!" to be very useful information.

Oh, I'll murder them anyway; I like the Chase Me game. And I like playing with my food. A level 1 paladin is just as delicious as a level 20 paladin, although the latter might have a bit more meat on his bones, but I'm not that picky.

I'd assume you usually have something in front of you that's tastier than a bunch of level 1 scrubs, so they at least have a chance of getting away.

[DM_Blake]

Nope, hardly ever.

I mean, now and then I get to snack on a dragon or linnorm or something. Those are yummy. I like frost giants; they taste like peppermints and I only need a dozen or so to fill me up.

But, really, gaining levels doesn't really add any flavor. A level 1 human commoner tastes like a human. A level 20 human wizard tastes like a human. It's all the same.

[fretgod99]

Level 20 wizards come with spell component pouches, though. So it's like they're pre-seasoned. I imagine that would probably taste better than a commoner.

[Saldiven]

fretgod99 wrote:

Level 20 wizards come with spell component pouches, though. So it's like they're pre-seasoned. I imagine that would probably taste better than a commoner.

Some of those spell components are kind of nasty, though.

Bat guano? Ew.

[fretgod99]

Saldiven wrote:

fretgod99 wrote:

Level 20 wizards come with spell component pouches, though. So it's like they're pre-seasoned. I imagine that would probably taste better than a commoner.

Some of those spell components are kind of nasty, though.

Bat guano? Ew.

You've seen The Holy Grail, right? What do you think Commoners are milling around in all day?