Venture-Lieutenant, Maryland—Hagerstown
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I was playing in an adventure and came across a creature. The GM asked me to make a knowledge roll. I rolled only enough to get the basics, name included. Luckily my character had already faced this creature.
In character " I had squared off with these before, if you have anything cold iron I'd pull it out "
Then the GM pretty much told me that I just broke a rule by using outside information or something like that. And I didn't roll high enough to know he had Dr except for cold iron. I explained to him I had fought and defeated this creature before. And in the previous fight the knowledgeable bard told me all about these thing's.
So if I did break a rule, I deeply regret this. But if you fought something before, how would you magically forget that you fought it and forget important things such as, I don't know, what it's weaknesses are?
Contributor
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I've thought about writing this sort of thing on peoples' Chronicles. It'd be cool if we got something like the Inventory Tracking sheets, but for identified creatures and such. Of course, there are a lot of drawbacks to this too (so much paperwork, potential scamming or gaming of the system, etc.)
It's quite a conundrum. ^_^
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Venture-Lieutenant, Maryland—Hagerstown
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Well I sort of do it anyway. If I pass a knowledge roll I scribble down everything on a note pad. ( all of my characters has there own). If some one else passes , I. Always ask in character, what do I need to know to kill it. And only write that down.
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Unfortunately, the answer to this issue is "there's a boon for that". There's a boon where you can record creatures you encountered and receive certain specific tidbits of information later on if you succeed at your Knowledge roll in addition to the information you otherwise get. Not sure if the boon's been in circulation since 2014.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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So if I did break a rule, I deeply regret this. But if you fought something before, how would you magically forget that you fought it and forget important things such as, I don't know, what it's weaknesses are?
Well it's not exactly a big deal, but in character your character basically only remembers specific details if you pass your knowledge check.
Given how folklore works, I'm sure your character has heard at some points that trolls are weak to silver weapons, to billy goats, to fire, and even to garlic. Without passing a knowledge check, you don't know which of these is true.
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So if I did break a rule, I deeply regret this. But if you fought something before, how would you magically forget that you fought it and forget important things such as, I don't know, what it's weaknesses are?
Nothing "magical" about forgetting. I put down my car keys and can't find them ten minutes later, and there's no magic involved. I still can't spell "embarassment," and I've been working on that for decades. I lived in New Jersey for two years, and recently discovered I couldn't remember my commuting route, despite having driven that route ten times a week. (Does anyone remember how to get from Red Bank to the Brunswicks?)
The knowledge skill captures, among other things, the fact that there are a hell of a lot of monsters out there, and they have a hell of a lot of varying weaknesses, and that you don't remember every weakness of every monster you've fought over an adventuring career. (Was this the one that was weak to silver, or to cold iron? And is that only true if you're heading north on Rte. 18?)
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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It kind of violates believability, but it's one of the annoying side effects of an organized play campaign where your current GM may not know about your PC's past or what previous GMs allowed.
So there is some attempt to "start with a clean slate" every session. On the one hand, you forget what you may have learned last time. On the other, you can try rolling a new Knowledge check which otherwise wouldn't be possible (since you can't normally retry Knowledge).
In practice, I'm sometimes more lenient with this sort of thing. For example, if the same PC ran into the same type of monster when I GMed for that player last week, I'll allow him to remember stuff. Because in that case the organized play obstacle isn't such a problem.
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That's true. To a point, I still remember that one time I locked my keys in the car with it running.
Somethings are so memorable you never forget.
Or at least your loved ones won't let you.
"I'm gonna go up and pet it"
"No throck! Remember last week!..."
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I knew I would be ninja'd, yet I still put the quotes in anyway.
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"Now, is this the northern articulated gibbering mouther... hey guys, try to see if it has a spot on it's belly..."
Unfortunately, the answer to this issue is "there's a boon for that". There's a boon where you can record creatures you encountered and receive certain specific tidbits of information later on if you succeed at your Knowledge roll in addition to the information you otherwise get. Not sure if the boon's been in circulation since 2014.
I actually have this boon, and even with it the number of monsters you can identify is severely limited. You can only remember things about the monsters printed on the boon, anything that isn't listed doesn't count. And I can't remember off the top of my head how many monsters are on the list, but its definitely not more than 20, and they're all rather common things like fire elemental or ghoul.
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I just wish there were a better way of having an idea of what characters were taught, especially because no one likes to "play dumb" with creatures they should already know about.
I remember answering a rules question from memory, and less than a week later I misremembered what I said and gave the wrong answer. Sometimes we can't recall information.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Given how folklore works, I'm sure your character has heard at some points that trolls are weak to silver weapons, to billy goats, to fire, and even to garlic. Without passing a knowledge check, you don't know which of these is true.
We have a lot of biased and anecdotal evidence indicating garlic butter works against trolls. No party carrying it has been attacked by trolls. Troll attacks have occurred against parties that previously consumed their garlic butter, however.
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Just remember this time the next time someone at the table actually gets a knowledge roll to "remember" important facts about something everyone (as players) have never encountered - or even read about, or heard of before.
Player: "So, does it have any Special Abilities?"
Judge: "Yeah, Say-how-again - spelled S-A-H-U-A-G-I-N - have 'blood frenzy' which is kind of like rage. It's triggered when they take damage."
Player: "What do they look like again?..."
I like to think it sort of balances out...
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So if I did break a rule, I deeply regret this. But if you fought something before, how would you magically forget that you fought it and forget important things such as, I don't know, what it's weaknesses are?
I think you've described a problem with the Knowledge rules in general, which extends beyond PF Society, affecting even home games with a regular pool of players.
If a player's PC dies or is retired, and they bring a replacement mid-campaign, is the GM justified in demanding Knowledge rolls, for things that should be trivial common knowledge for all low-level adventurers?
Just because this PC hasn't met a troll or skeleton, during their time on-table with this party, doesn't mean they should be treated as never having met one in their career prior to meeting this group of PCs.
Should replacement PCs be treated as a blank slate, just because the GM hasn't micromanaged their xp progression from level 1 to the present?
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I have actually seen players - experienced players, who know as players that you need to hit skeletons with blunt weapons NOT USING blunt weapons because no one at the table had Knowledge Religion - so... a bunch of experienced players felt constrained to try to prevent "meta-gaming"... They knew that the monsters weren't taking full damage, but restricted their PCs, because they knew what to do (as players) - so they didn't do it (as PCs). The player "meta" knowledge constrained their PCs ...
Except you might not even need to be trained, depending upon DC.
I could certainly see a normal skeleton (as opposed to say a bloody skeleton or a burning skeleton) being a "common" creature as it is the most basic form of undead and thus the DC being 5 + CR, so most will be DC 10 or less and thus able to be identified by someone untrained.
Even if you consider them "uncommon", the DC to id a human skeleton is still 10, so doable untrained.
But this exposes a serious flaw in the monster knowledge system.
"You encounter 4 skeletons, three appear to be animated human bones, but the fourth is the size and shape of an ogre."
I roll and untrained Knowledge (religion) check and get higher than 10.
"You are able to tell that the human bones are animated human skeletons, their bony structure contains many gaps that make them resistant to non-bludgeoning weapons."
"What about the larger one?"
"Sorry, the DC to identify that is 12, since you are untrained you can't do it."
"But it's bony too, so at least I can assume it has similar damage reduction."
"No, you can't. You have absolutely no idea what the creature is and thus what resistances it has."
"Well, they look the same so I'll conclude they have similar resistances, that at least sounds logical."
"That would be meta-gaming."
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"You identify the small, red scaled, winged reptilian creature, with the smoking nostrils, as a red dragon hatchling."
"And the larger, red scaled, winged, reptilian creature, which looks almost exactly like it, who is nuzzling the hatchling, and licking fragments of egg shell from its face?"
"You have noooo ideeeeeaaaa....."
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...have things really changed this much in the past few years?
If no character remembers anything then how do you handle making purchasing decisions? Why would a character with no ranks in knowledge:nature carry around alchemist flasks or acid to deal with swarms? Why would a low-level character with no ranks in knowledge: religion carry around alternate weapons if they don't know that skeletons and zombies have DR? Heck, how do you remember anything about the NPCs you have encountered? Do Pathfinders forget who Nigel is every time they go to the museum? Do they forget what districts are in Absalom because they don't have any ranks in Knowledge: Geography? Why on earth would a Pathfinder carry around an oil of daylight if they don't know that things cast Darkness? Come to think of it, how would a non-spellcaster even know that Daylight is the right thing to buy?
If you're really this averse to bringing in outside knowledge then I think you need to consider not having your unknowledgable characters prepare for even common dangers, because that preparation is either metagaming or derived from the knowledge you're blanket disallowing here. No alchemist's fires, no potions of fly, no oils of daylight, no alternate material- or damage-type-weapons. If you've got a zen archer or a paladin with 7 int you've got to be metagaming if you bought blunt arrows or a cold iron sword, right?
I remember reading a post in which someone bemoaned the Folklore boon and the idea that because there was an official way to remember monsters now, people would start ruling that you wouldn't be able to remember anything. I thought that was ridiculous, but I guess I was wrong. Wish I could find that thread again.
A lot of the fun of PFS or any Pathfinder game is watching your character learn and grow. They can develop relationships and rivalries with NPCs, become scared of certain monsters they've had bad dealings with, etc. I'm not sure I want to play a game that disallows that.
I personally have found the advice in this old thread much more similar to how I and my local group prefer to play... knowledges are for the details and the weird things, but remembering the basics should be fine.
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** spoiler omitted **You may think so, but there are actual rules for these things and that concept isn't in them. I wouldn't object to something like that being added, but I'm not really sure how it would fit.
Also, not everyone goes through the training. There are field commissions, after all. Not all back stories support it and probably not all players are even aware of the concept.
Aye, but there's a boon for a field commission as well. If I recall correctly it was a charity boon that let that player start at level 5. So if we're going down the road of "there's a boon for that" characters can't have field commissions because a boon exists.
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You carry the gear because you know there are creatures and situations that it applies to. Sometimes you recognize those situations in the field (make your Knowledge roll or someone does and yells it out) and sometimes you don't.
That's aggregate knowledge based on the collection of individual knowledge of which the posters in this thread seem to have disallowed. And you've ignored the rest of my points about not knowing who important people are if you roll poorly on Knowledge Local, not knowing about common regions like where you live in Absalom if you flub your Knowledge Local check, etc. Because the clause that has been pointed out is not specific to monster knowledge, it's all knowledge. You could worship Iomedae and roll a 2 on your trained knowledge religion check and not know anything about your own freakin' goddess if you consistently apply this logic.
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GM: you walk into the potion shop. The proprietor says hello and asks what he can help you with.
Player: I'm going into the Darklands. I need an Oil of Daylight. Can you help me?
GM: How do you know what the Daylight spell is? Make me a Spellcraft check.
Player: I'm not trained in that.
GM: Then you don't know what Daylight is, do you?
Player: But my friend cast that spell in Part 2 of this trilogy!
GM: The proprietor asks if you need something to create light in dark places.
Player: I do!
GM: The shopkeep offers you an oil of Light and an ioun torch.
Player: But what about my Oil of Daylight?
GM: You don't even know what the Daylight spell is or what the difference between Light and Daylight and Continual Flame is. And you wouldn't have any idea why spell level matters either. You don't have the knowledge skills for it. And hold up--do you even know anything about the Darklands? Make me a knowledge: geography check.
Player: Whelp, that's a 3. With my int mod, that's a 2.
GM: You don't even know enough to be in this shop without metagaming, sorry.
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I stopped reading halfway down, but some of the answer is actually found in the special material description your weapons are made out of which doesn't require a knowledge check--so long as you can figure out the type of the creature you're fighting.
A complex process involving metallurgy and alchemy can bond silver to a weapon made of steel so that it bypasses the damage reduction of creatures such as lycanthropes.
This iron, mined deep underground and known for its effectiveness against demons and fey creatures.
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Knowledge skills in Pathfinder are very, very broken. By the rules, most 15th level fighters know almost nothing about the monsters they've been fighting for the last 10 levels or so.
And in PFS, where there is no group memory of what you actually know, it is even worse.
Expect extreme table variation on what you know, what DCs are, what you find out with a particular result.
Personally, I'm firmly in the "Characters know a lot more than is reflected in their knowledge scores" camp.
In theory, your character went to Pathfinder school for several years. That school at least covered the basics :
If it is fleshy, use a slashing weapon
If it is boney, use a blunt weapon
ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS use a cold iron weapon if it isn't magical.
etc.
I agree with Andrew - characters know at LEAST as much as the player would if just given the description of the monster.
If a player tells me that his character has encountered a monster before then I'm fine with his character knowing more or less what the player remembers (within reason if the player has eidetic memory or the like). And I certainly do NOT expect players to lean over so far not to take advantage of player knowledge that they actively hurt themselves.
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Why is everyone assuming the players are rolling their Knowledge checks?
Why not just take 10? (yeah, outside of combat - you know, like when you are buying your weapons...)
"GM: You don't even know what the Daylight spell is or what the difference between Light and Daylight and Continual Flame is. And you wouldn't have any idea why spell level matters either. You don't have the knowledge skills for it. And hold up--do you even know anything about the Darklands? Make me a knowledge: geography check.
Player: Taking 10, I get a 9."
In fact, why would the judge even require a "roll" in this case? just assume the PC takes ten, and tell the player what he knows... (that's what I've started doing...)
It's just an example meant to illustrate my belief that common sense should be used in really obvious cases and that players should be able to assume that their characters are able to form basic memories of their adventures.
And while I agree with the outcome of your approach I don't think it's truly compatible with the argument "character knowledge from previous scenarios counts as player knowledge." We as players might think it's a DC 5 type of check to know you need alchemist's fire to fight swarms, but in practice it's probably a DC 11+ check. According to the knowledge skill entry, the Knowledge: Arcana DC for knowing drop-dead simple stuff is 10, not 9, not 5. Knowing about spells typically adds the spell level to the DC, so you'd think Daylight would be at least a DC 13 if not higher. According to at least one scenario I can think of off the top of my head, the DC for knowing that creatures in the Darklands frequently rely on Darkness spells is at least a 15. Recognizing common deities and their worshipers is a DC 10; knowing basic tenets and mythology is a 15. Sure your inquisitor has been raised in the church and has heard these stories since she was young--she can't remember any of them to save her life! Hope you don't worship Milani because unless you can hit a 20, you're not even going to know who she is or what her holy symbol looks like!
I'm not advocating for meta-gaming. My characters are typically underequipped for an encounter until they run into it. They use spells and weapons on monsters that are immune or resistant to those unless they make the right knowledge check or they see that the tactic doesn't work. If they don't have knowledge: geography, they will totally walk into Cheliax or Nidal hoping for rainbows and unicorns.
I just think the game works better when characters are assumed to have even the barest fragment of functioning memories. If your character is nearly killed by babaus a couple of times, it seems reasonable to me that they should go "Oh crap!" and reach for the oil of daylight if someone tells them that thing in front of them is a babau. The fighter who spent his early career in graveyards should probably remember to reach for his mace, not his rapier, when presented with skeletons.
There are a number of scenarios where players are asked to recount their greatest victories or most ignominious defeats. Devout followers of Gorum recount the details of their triumphs every morning. NPCs from part 1 of several recent series have knowledge checks associated with them, and characters in later parts are assumed by the scenario to be able to remember the things they learned from earlier checks and encounters. The rules interpretations promoted in this thread are inconsistent with basic assumptions in published Society material.
On a fundamental level, Pathfinder is about storytelling. And it's not just the players, but the characters, as well. To me, arguing that PFS characters' memories are determined entirely by their skills and not at all by their experiences invalidates many of the best reasons to play the game.
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Would you be more likely to recall something about a monster the third time you've encountered it rather than the first? This is something else the skill system doesn't take into account. Yes, your recollection might not be perfect so it might not be automatic, but it should be easier to recall this creature resists acid because I fought them before and saw that they resist acid than this creature resists acid because I read about it in a book once.
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It is odd to me when GMs are worried about sticking so tightly to the rules that they throw common sense out the window. And then they use the house rule of giving name, type, alignment and 1 question per 5 over the knowledge DC like it actually says this somewhere in the rulebook. This house rule seems to be used by every GM in pfs, but the rules only say
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.
When I GM and someone identifies a creature, I read the flavor description of it and tell them the appropriate number of what I think are useful bits of info.
Your character doesn't forget things about their life any more than you or I do about our own lives. The monster boon sheet is so you can ask the GM about things you forgot. It doesn't doesn't make it so you can't remember without.That aside, the DR thing gets argued over because different people have different ideas of what people know in world. Some players believe that the existence of DR is common knowledge and so any experienced warrior carries multiple weapons to be able to combat various foes. To this mindset, swapping weapons to find what hurts the beast is common practice, no knowledge required, it's just what you do. A different mindset is that the existence of DR is not common knowledge, normal people don't know that monsters exist which are resistant to normal weapons. So, to them, even having a cold iron weapon is metagaming without the proper knowledge.
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It is odd to me when GMs are worried about sticking so tightly to the rules that they throw common sense out the window. And then they use the house rule of giving name, type, alignment and 1 question per 5 over the knowledge DC like it actually says this somewhere in the rulebook. This house rule seems to be used by every GM in pfs
I don't think I've ever had a GM give me alignment. Name is pretty much a given, though. How do you justify saying to a player that just rolled their check "that looks like something that can sing and make you fall asleep, but you don't know what its name is." I've never gotten type as a freebie, either.
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I've never gotten alignment, and would never dream of asking for such a "crunchy" detail, but type when it is not obvious from the name of the creature is something I do expect to get.
eyup. For a diplomat its a pretty important piece of information I wouldn't USE the word alignment but...
It wants food, sex, shelter. (neutral)
You can bargain with it but it will turn on you with the least excuse (LE)
They're boisterous and generally good natured but don't give a flying beeep about social conventions (CG)
Its going to try to murder you with fire the second you're not looking at it and roast marshmellows over your corpse. (chaotic goblin)
The skill doesn't tell you HOW to give out the useful information. I've seen some groups do a question and answer thing which takes time, seems to get literal genie answers, and sometimes gives no information. ie, you ask about damage reduction and it doesn't have any. I prefer to go with information that wouldbe the most useful for the character: for casters what do you throw at it and for martials what do you hit it with.
If i'm out of helpful information i'll say it likes long walks on the beach.