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The people who identify a Formian worker will be far more accurate about what its abilities and natures are. The people who identify a dragon are far more likely to 'know' abilities that are merely common myths.
Everyone knows what a dragon is thanks to legends. Only greatly learned people have actually sifted through the legends to know what the truth is.
It feels like we need a nested "IS A" relationship where something can be identified with higher DCs to the left and lower DCs to the right.
Marut IS A Inevitable IS A Lawful Outsider IS A Outsider
That would let people know things about Dragon creature type without knowing specific things to Red Dragons et al.
There also should be some way to tell if something IS NOT A creature type. "I dunno what that is, but it sure ain't Humanoid (Human)!"
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It may be gamist in the extreme, but at least it's easy to explain, simple to remember, and makes 'common sense'.
I'll grant you that it is easy to explain and remember but I vehemently disagree that it makes common sense.
Dangerous monsters are far more likely to be the stuff of legends and stories than weak ones that aren't a local danger.
Sorry, my Doctor Evil air quote marks were meant to imply I was making the devil's advocate argument for the 'other side' of the room.
I am in agreement with you.
There should be a provision made, for Big Damn Heroes to be be household names (whether they want to be or not) because of their Fame, and an equivalent score for villains, to reflect their Infamy.
Scaling Knowledge DCs alongside CR would lead to bizarre results, such as no-one in Metropolis having heard of Superman (Knowledge DC 40+?). Even a level 20 Lex Luthor would need regularly reminding ('A man who ...can fly? And shoot...lasers? From his eyes? Are you yanking my chain? Geddouttahere!')
Yet 'Unnamed Handbag Snatcher', who gets hospitalised in one punch by Batman, in Demented Vigilante Comics #524 would be the most famous criminal in Gotham, his name on every citizen's lips, and at the forefront of their waking thoughts. There'd be reality TV stations following the guy 24/7, and everyone would be able to beat the DC6 knowledge threshold by so much, that they'd be able to reel off his Social Security number, childhood address, favourite teacher, and his first pet. No wonder the poor sap turned to crime; his bank account keeps getting hacked.
A K. Local to know who someone is, is categorically different than the K. Local to identify the creature and its abilities. For example, you can't use K. Arcana in the same was as K. Local to learn the name or background of an individual dragon or manticore.I've never seen a GM give out individual information on K. Local checks. For example, I've never seen a GM give the spells of a creature with PC caster class levels. Is that suppose to happen based on some RAW some where?I played EotT with a Loremaster, and my GM let me roll K(Local) checks to get info on important NPCs.
He gave me background information on the characters, nothing mechanical (certainly not class levels or feats or such).
So, is there a mechanic to separate a knowledge check about a Type VI Demon from a knowledge check about Ter-Soth? Is the former 10 (or 15) + 20 (CR) and the latter a fixed 20 or 30 check for "a really tough question"?
But I've never seen a GM give out the name of any individuals on the identify check, regardless of what is rolled. Have you?
Never. I have thought it would be a neat touch to give creature information via story...
"It makes you think back to what you've read about a creature named Errtu. The Demon Errtu fought some of the mightiest of the realm's heroes. It shrugged off most of the wizard Fabulor's spells, immune to his attacks of Lightning and Flame as well as to the attacks of Kerro the Venomous. It was finally The Masked Paladin who brought the demon down with his holy sword made of cold-forged iron. The Demon Errtu then exploded in flame, killing his vanquishers."
...but combat doesn't really need any help being stretched out.
I think all the panicking and arguments in this thread are the result of people worrying about what extremes might happen more than anything that has actually happened.
I actually like reading these panic threads to get an idea of what I can expect with PFS table variation.
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To be honest, not having GMed before, I think this debate comes down to "is it using OOC knowledge to use knowledge of a common monster's weakness?"
In my view, as a person relatively new to PFS, no. There's perfectly valid reason for a character to have IC knowledge of a common creature. As others have said here, Pathfinders in the story, require training. At some point, the weaknesses and resistances of every day creatures would probably come up.
It's a little much to say that a person who's been at... Pathfinder University or whatever the term is, doesn't know how to deal with a skeleton. It's also a waste of everyone's time rolling knowledge checks for information the character should rightly have.
If it's a boss or rare monster that the character himself would have no valid reason to know about, I agree knowledge check required. But to me, it doesn't sound fun seeing a member of a party play stupid trying to deal with a monster he already knows how to handle while everyone around him gets mutilated.
And the party not having fun is far worse than the occasional, debatable, lapse into metagaming.
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To be honest, not having GMed before, I think this debate comes down to "is it using OOC knowledge to use knowledge of a common monster's weakness?"
In my view, as a person relatively new to PFS, no. There's perfectly valid reason for a character to have IC knowledge of a common creature. As others have said here, Pathfinders in the story, require training. At some point, the weaknesses and resistances of every day creatures would probably come up.
It's a little much to say that a person who's been at... Pathfinder University or whatever the term is, doesn't know how to deal with a skeleton. It's also a waste of everyone's time rolling knowledge checks for information the character should rightly have.
If it's a boss or rare monster that the character himself would have no valid reason to know about, I agree knowledge check required. But to me, it doesn't sound fun seeing a member of a party play stupid trying to deal with a monster he already knows how to handle while everyone around him gets mutilated.
And the party not having fun is far worse than the occasional, debatable, lapse into metagaming.
Several of my characters are by background 'field commissioned' agents that have stuck with the Society and as a result didn't get Pathfinder 100 classes as they haven't had the 3-4 years of 'downtime' that such would 'in-cannon' require.
Also, as I noted earlier in the thread, individuals that have an encyclopedic knowledge of given opponents is *equally* not fun when they see a given opponent, look at the party, and start dictating what to use and the like based on just the description the DM provides, without rolling some sort of Knowledge check or providing any sort of rp reason for the knowledge...
ie, "I fought some of THESE in the Gloomspires, they're kinda nasty, they do 'blah'." would work IMO
*not*
"They're *this particular monster and they're weak to x* via the Bestiary. Put *redacted* away because you'll never do anything with that."
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It's a little much to say that a person who's been at... Pathfinder University or whatever the term is, doesn't know how to deal with a skeleton. It's also a waste of everyone's time rolling knowledge checks for information the character should rightly have.
It depends; that hipotetical person has no skill points applied to any knowledge and INT 7 for the sake of being more "powerful" in combat? (I played with one of those, he only had perception, no other skill)
I can understand a GM who doesn´t want to give "free" information to someone who made a character thinking only in min-maxing his combat capabilities (Not wanting to offend anyone, but thatt´s exactly the case I know about. He didn´t even made his own character, just ask someone to made it).
Having said that, I can tell you if I GM, I have no problem if someone states is character thinks that stabbing between the ribs a creature who doesn´t have nothing between the ribs is ineffective. Or who thinks that throw fire to a creature made entirely and only of fire could be not the best idea. For me that´s commom sense and every character should have a good dose of it. But it´s not a hard written rule and I can´t enforce it in other GMs.
And if someone states he/she had fough it before in <redacted> and they had a hard time due to <whatever>, well, for me that´s roleplaying his/her character. And if that doesn´t mean an enormous advantage (or disadvantage) it will make the game better. But again, that´s my opinion, not a hard written rule.
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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?
Regarding PFS play, the general idea is that each session is independent of each other session. So you don't carry over things like this, but you also don't carry over many negative things as well.
As for non-PFS play, the general idea is a knowledge check should be required for new creatures, or just new variations of old creatures. The GM shouldn't be requiring a knowledge check for every skeleton you come across, just the first one and any that are different.
That said, I hate the Pathfinder knowledge check system. Horribly lacking. I don't need to rant on this one.
But the answer to your question is that PFS characters have their memory segmented by scenario, only able to carry info over if specifically allowed (like with multi-part adventures).
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Can you provide a quote from the PFS Guide or a FAQ that supports your assertion? I would actually argue to the contrary as 1) all boons are useable in subsequent scenarios, and 2) the Faction Journal Card is based on a continuity of character actions. In other words, things I did in a previous scenario can absolutely affect me in a current scenario.
These things you list are precisely things that you can and do record on paper. On a chronicle sheet or faction journal. There's a format for recording these things.
Not so for knowledge/monster event results. The GM running the next scenario can't look at your chronicle sheets and see what you learned about monsters.
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Can you provide a quote from the PFS Guide or a FAQ that supports your assertion? I would actually argue to the contrary as 1) all boons are useable in subsequent scenarios, and 2) the Faction Journal Card is based on a continuity of character actions. In other words, things I did in a previous scenario can absolutely affect me in a current scenario.These things you list are precisely things that you can and do record on paper. On a chronicle sheet or faction journal. There's a format for recording these things.
Not so for knowledge/monster event results. The GM running the next scenario can't look at your chronicle sheets and see what you learned about monsters.
The chronicle sheet doesn't say what stats or feats you had last scenario. In fact, it doesn't even say what class you were. So the lack of proof or recording on a chronicle sheet is not a basis for denying something unless the Guide specifically says it is to be recorded. In fact, there is no requirement to record Faction Journal Card successes on the chronicle in which they were earned. So a player could have a number of completed tasks on a FJC and you as the GM might not have any way to verify the majority of them if any at all. The whole process is governed by the honor system.
Are monsters encountered required to be recorded on a sheet?
But there IS a system for recording your character's information. There are things your character is explicitly capable of, and has explicitly accomplished. These are absolutes, even if they've been falsified and the honor of the honor system broken; there is a system for keeping that info.
There is also an intentional process for how to handle knowledge checks. It does involve a process of recording what you've fought, but that system requires your character to have spent time studying and remembering those facts. The recording is done in the form of skill points in the appropriate knowledge skill. If your character decided to work harder at improving their craft, profession, or the keenness of their sight/hearing, and neglected those knowledge skills; then they have decided NOT to spend time reviewing and retaining the nuances of fighting a particular monster.
If my players keep a journal of their adventures, and can show me where they think they fought this monster before, I let them treat it as a masterwork tool for their check. If it wasn't the same monster, they don't get the bonus.
As far as chronicles go, there are ones that give you a bonus against certain monsters, so it's not as if the "memorable" monsters can't stick with your character outside of your own choice to study; the benefit just translates differently in those cases.
There is no system for perfect recollection, because memory can always be fallible.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Lau's argument is that there is no system for the GM to verify what you've previously encountered, therefore we shouldn't allow it. But that argument fails because there is no system for recording the class, feats, etc that your character previously played under. The character sheet is for playing the current game, it is not a system for verifying what the character was in any previous game.
It's true that you're not required to have a copy of each character sheet used during any given session, but you do log a lot of that information.
- By noting your gold changes on chronicle sheets and using the ITS, you should be able to reconstruct your financial history with reasonable detail.
- Any retraining you do has to be witnessed and initialed by a GM, so you should in fact be able to reconstruct that you reached your current class/level/feat situation in a legal way.
Either it's clear that you took each feat only after qualifying for it, or you took something and later retrained that to your current selection after qualifying. You can show that how you got to the current situation is legal.
PFS clearly logs a lot of "historical" data about what happened to your character:
- Chronicles list your acquisition of gold and prestige.
- Any conditions that you haven't cleared by the end of the adventure must be recorded on the chronicle sheet.
- Most conditions need to be cleared, except for ones that may not be clearable in the time of a normal scenario (multiple negative levels) or that the next GM can ignore (no mechanical effect).
- Any significant change to equipment must be tracked on the ITS.
- Any changes to your character not covered by the normal level-up process (such as retraining) must be noted by the GM on the chronicle sheet.
- Any gear found but not recorded/bought at the end of the session disappears.
The fact that what you specifically learned about monsters doesn't figure in this list, is a strike against that knowledge carrying over.
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Now, I'm not saying the current system is good or even clear. But I do think that given all the things that are recorded, it's likely that anything not recorded becomes unavailable again.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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stuff....PFS is set up to track expenditure of resources, that's it. It is not setup to track your a character's stats. It is virtually impossible if not actually impossible to reconstruct the actual character from Chronicles and ITS sheets. Unless someone is following my character around from GM to GM, there is absolutely no way to tell what feats, class, skill points, attributes, or any other stat other than gold and prestige expenditure from scenario to scenario.
Yet...that is not a strike against reusing the same character. Why? The honor system. And the resource tracking is hardly fool proof against cheating. In fact, it's not designed to catch determined cheaters. GMs do not record character consumable use, the player does.
PFS management has no qualms with allowing things that aren't tracked or things that are believed to be accurate by virtue of the players being honest. Nor does the PFS Guide make any admonishments on allowing things that aren't trackable or provable.
The strike against previous encounter knowledge doesn't exist in spirit or letter in any official PFS document outside of the inference people have drawn regarding a 2014 boon.
The fact that what you specifically learned about monsters doesn't figure in this list, is a strike...This is technically incorrect. The Knowledge check represents what your character has "learned." The game does not attempt to manage or prohibit the player from remembering what that character has fought.
You track just about anything that has mechanical effect that carries over from one scenario to the next. What you know about monsters fits that category quite well.
I don't really like it, but outside the GM initialing your journal of what happened during the adventure, I don't think organized play supports carrying over monster lore that well.
Let me ask you point blank:
You're GMing an Adventure Path. The party kills a troll in Chapter 4 and figures out that they need to use fire to keep it from regenerating. In Chapter 6, the party is told by an NPC that a troll guards a mountain pass. The party does not bother to make a knowledge check and proceeds to use fire against the troll. Do you prohibit those actions?
Apples and oranges. If I'm GMing an AP in a home game, the whole "fresh start for the next GM" part of PFS doesn't apply. Of course I let people remember that in an AP home game.
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I agree with N N 959. There is no 'fresh start' rule in PFS, to my knowledge.
My characters reference their past exploits, have knowledge of things outside the scenario they have experienced, and remember things about enemies they have faced.
What they don't get is confirmation of their recollections without a mechanic, such as a knowledge check or boon.
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The use of the phrases, "You are educated," and "fields of study" make it unequivocal that K. checks represent education and education alone. That's right. You can invest skill points to increase your education. You can go back to school. That says nothing about what you know from actually fighting these creatures.
You are asserting a false assumption that the only kind of education one can get is through formal education. So in a home campaign, as the party makes its way through a dungeon and levels up, I am assuming you wouldn't allow them to spend skill points on knowledge skills since they can't go back to Golarion U. for more of that education.
The truth is experiential education exists. Most video games exemplify this. You can read the manual, but the manual can only get you so far. You have to try, and try different ways to learn how to win. You also have to work at it and retain that expertise. I am awful at video games because I don't focus on retaining that expertise. In a Pathfinder sense, I choose not to put my skill points there. I know other people who are very good at certain games, they so choose to put their skill points into those games. It's not that I didn't play World of Warcraft for thousands of hours, I simply didn't choose to make getting GOOD at it a priority.
There are many things that we experience daily, but most of it we don't retain, won't remember in a few days, often even when we tell ourselves "I've gotta remember that!"
Recollection is imperfect. You have to work at it, and even then, it is imperfect. If you don't put the effort in, you are less likely to recall the thing you need to. The idea that this is not (at least in part) what knowledge checks represent, I can't help you.
Let me point something out. The K. Check system was not contemplated under the PFS paradigm. The system was not designed to deal with characters who change GMs every scenario. K. checks operate under the paradigm that your character plays under the same GM throughout its lifetime or perhaps more accurately within a consistent group of players. The need to capture what you fought/encountered under a different GM was never contemplated because it never comes up in non-PFS games. K. Checks were never meant or intended to encapsulate knowledge from actually playing the game because if they were, there would be at least one reference, somewhere, that suggests what you're claiming. There isn't.
I don't disagree with the first part here. However, as to my example of leveling up in a dungeon, how do you gain an education mid-crawl if that education is not gained through what you have fought and encountered?