Too meta-gamey for my tastes. My own rule of thumb is to avoid using game terms when dealing with in-character knowledge.
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Crayon wrote: Too meta-gamey for my tastes. My own rule of thumb is to avoid using game terms when dealing with in-character knowledge. The actual term 'weak save' might be a bit gamey, but whether or not some monster is weak willed or not particularly hearty or whatever is definitely the kind of information an adventurer would be interested in.
Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber
The save bonus for a creature is basically a combination of creature type and ability scores, so the GM could give you a clue by telling you something like "This creature is tough [high Con] but weak willed [low Wis]".
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Crayon wrote: Too meta-gamey for my tastes. My own rule of thumb is to avoid using game terms when dealing with in-character knowledge. I mostly agree, but sometimes it's just easier to give information the characters would know in a form that's easy for the players to understand.
Rather than me have to translate from mechanics to in-characters terms and hope they translate it back correctly.
Wei Ji the Learner wrote:
"What is their motivation?"
I've had a lot of use from "is the way its behaving normal for them?"
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Melkiador wrote: I too find basing the knowledge DC on anything other than the obscurity of the creature to be silly. For instance, most of us know a ton of information about sharks, elephants and lions, but next to nothing about skinks.
And I'd actually find it more likely that you'd know info on a very high level individual than a very low level individual. Everyone would have heard some stuff about the great hero Hercules, but almost no one in the world knows about quiet Bob who works down at the foundry.
Don't conflate "I heard a thing" with that thing being actually true. Go to youtube and you'll find a LOT of videos about how the Earth is actually flat. And the number of people making these videos isn't decreasing, but the movement is actually growing. And it's all based on "I heard a thing."
Just because someone heard something about Hercules, doesn't mean it is true. But at the same time, if you are familiar with humans and their capabilities, the chances that you correctly estimate the abilities of a typical farmer are pretty high.
Also, consider how information is spread in compared to previous eras and now. Prior to the printing press, very few people read books. In the modern era, I can flip on my TV, or look around the internet and find a wildlife expert who will spend the next hour explaining cool things about sharks. That said, you still see a lot of "I heard a thing" going on with sharks. Most of the programs about sharks talk about great whites, a smaller portion will talk about tiger, hammerhead, or a couple other species. Quiz a random person about the greenland shark, and I suspect you'll find that people have essentially no clue how that animal behaves and functions in the ecosystem.
If you spend 2-3 hours a week watching nature programs on various channels, odds are you essentially have 1-2 ranks in Knowledge (Nature). Another aspect of our modern society is that you have the time to do that. We are so wealthy that we can spend a couple hours a day on activities we choose, not just those activities that are necessary to our daily survival. A peasant in 12th century England had a very small amount of leisure time, and most of it was spent recovering from working 12+ hours a day making sure they had enough food to eat.
So not only did the average person not have access to a wide array of information, they didn't have the time to spend on it if they did.
On the flip side they would be much more knowledgeable about the flora and fauna that were common in their area. So creatures that you might see once a week, or even once a month, would be well known and people would be able to make educated predictions on behaviors and capabilities.
It's really not hard to give adequate knowledge without couching it in specific game terms, but a GM needs to know what his play group wants.
In one of my groups, they prefer a less mechanical style of game play (as in focusing upon the game mechanics as opposed to their preference to focus on game flavor). With them, I might say something like this on a good Knowledge check for a Nereid (totally random creature selection):
"You recognize this creature as a Nereid. From your studies, you recall that the creature is most well known for its ability to mesmerize potential suitors and bend their minds to its will. Pursuing these creatures romantically can be a deadly endeavor, because a mere kiss will fill a being's lungs with water. The creature is known for having a strong mind and for being very nimble; the strength of it's body, however, while still good, is somewhat less formidable."
But, as I've mentioned previously, whether you do this or just read off from the stat block is a decision the GM and play group need to reach as a whole. What one group does may not be suitable for another group.
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Irontruth wrote: Melkiador wrote: I too find basing the knowledge DC on anything other than the obscurity of the creature to be silly. For instance, most of us know a ton of information about sharks, elephants and lions, but next to nothing about skinks.
And I'd actually find it more likely that you'd know info on a very high level individual than a very low level individual. Everyone would have heard some stuff about the great hero Hercules, but almost no one in the world knows about quiet Bob who works down at the foundry.
Don't conflate "I heard a thing" with that thing being actually true. Go to youtube and you'll find a LOT of videos about how the Earth is actually flat. And the number of people making these videos isn't decreasing, but the movement is actually growing. And it's all based on "I heard a thing."
Just because someone heard something about Hercules, doesn't mean it is true. But at the same time, if you are familiar with humans and their capabilities, the chances that you correctly estimate the abilities of a typical farmer are pretty high.
Also, consider how information is spread in compared to previous eras and now. Prior to the printing press, very few people read books. In the modern era, I can flip on my TV, or look around the internet and find a wildlife expert who will spend the next hour explaining cool things about sharks. That said, you still see a lot of "I heard a thing" going on with sharks. Most of the programs about sharks talk about great whites, a smaller portion will talk about tiger, hammerhead, or a couple other species. Quiz a random person about the greenland shark, and I suspect you'll find that people have essentially no clue how that animal behaves and functions in the ecosystem.
If you spend 2-3 hours a week watching nature programs on various channels, odds are you essentially have 1-2 ranks in Knowledge (Nature). Another aspect of our modern society is that you have the time to do that. We are so wealthy that we can spend a couple hours a day on activities we choose, not just those activities that are necessary to our daily survival. A peasant in 12th century England had a very small amount of leisure time, and most of it was spent recovering from working 12+ hours a day making sure they had enough food to eat.
So not only did the average person not have access to a wide array of information, they didn't have the time to spend on it if they did.
On the flip side they would be much more knowledgeable about the flora and fauna that were common in their area. So creatures that you might see once a week, or even once a month, would be well known and people would be able to make educated predictions on behaviors and capabilities. Or even stuff that you might not see often, but that was known to the locals and potentially dangerous. The more dangerous - the more likely you'd know at least to identify it so you would know to run away or otherwise avoid it.
And of course, without a Know roll you can't even identify it, so there's no chance of knowing wrong things about it.
Melkiador wrote: If most people can tell a swordfish from a shark, I think we could expect the average adventurer to know the difference between a red dragon and some other large red lizard.
And again, some 1200+ year old dragon should be much more well known than some whelp that just hatched.
Have you ever see how many subspecies of sharks exist? This guy is a shark. It eat plankton.
And this is another shark.
We can differentiate them from a swordfish, but recognizing them as sharks unless we are experts? No.
An average adventure (that has maybe reached level 3) can recognize a red dragon from a fire drake and differentiate them from a fire lizard? (the fire lizard hasn't been ported over to Pathfinder, but was designed to be easy to mis-identify as a dragon)
About "knowing" a 1.200 years old dragon. Yes, the name will be well known. But most people that see a lizard-like big beast will think they have seen the famous dragon and identify it as such.
thejeff wrote: And of course, without a Know roll you can't even identify it, so there's no chance of knowing wrong things about it. People keep saying this, but I don't know where it comes from. From the CRB:
"You can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster's CR. For common monsters, such as goblins, the DC of this check equals 5 + the monster's CR. For particularly rare monsters, such as the tarrasque, the DC of this check equals 15 + the monster's CR, or more. 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."
The bolded section is the only part that explains what a successful check gets you. It's super vague. Heck, it doesn't even explicitly state that you get the common name for the creature at all.
There is nothing that explicitly says a lvl 1 commoner would look up in the sky at a CR 20 dragon and have no idea it's a dragon. The rules just say he would be very unlikely to have any "useful information" about it. What people call the creature isn't normally all that useful unless you're being metagamey.
In any case, it's perfectly reasonable for PC's and NPC's to recognize creatures on sight by having seen or heard of them before, but really not know anything about them.
Real world comparisons are always suspect, but they're worth consideration. Most people in the USA would recognize a kangaroo, but probably couldn't tell you much about them beyond their being from Australia (and I'm willing to bet a large percentage of North Americans would even get that wrong).
But why would it be so much easier to know that the baby dragon is a dragon and not some other kind of red lizard, and so much harder to know the old dragon is a dragon and not some other kind of red lizard? You should either know or not know what a dragon is. But somehow the more powerful the dragon gets, the less sure you can be that it's a dragon.
As Saldiven points out, you can fail the check and still know it is a dragon. You just don't know anything useful about it.
Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber
I guess that in the case of someone who tries and fails to identify a dragon, you could give that person information about the highest CR dragon of that type that he could have identified and then say "It's bigger and tougher than that."
Diego Rossi wrote:
An average adventure (that has maybe reached level 3) can recognize a red dragon from a fire drake and differentiate them from a fire lizard? (the fire lizard hasn't been ported over to Pathfinder, but was designed to be easy to mis-identify as a dragon)
About "knowing" a 1.200 years old dragon. Yes, the name will be well known. But most people that see a lizard-like big beast will think they have seen the famous dragon and identify it as such.
Unless they can identify the CR3 fire drake (or whatever the "lizard like big beast" is, in which case they'll know for sure it isn't a dragon, while still having no idea what a dragon is. :)
Saldiven wrote: thejeff wrote: And of course, without a Know roll you can't even identify it, so there's no chance of knowing wrong things about it. People keep saying this, but I don't know where it comes from. From the CRB:
"You can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster's CR. For common monsters, such as goblins, the DC of this check equals 5 + the monster's CR. For particularly rare monsters, such as the tarrasque, the DC of this check equals 15 + the monster's CR, or more. 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."
The bolded section is the only part that explains what a successful check gets you. It's super vague. Heck, it doesn't even explicitly state that you get the common name for the creature at all.
There is nothing that explicitly says a lvl 1 commoner would look up in the sky at a CR 20 dragon and have no idea it's a dragon. The rules just say he would be very unlikely to have any "useful information" about it. What people call the creature isn't normally all that useful unless you're being metagamey.
In any case, it's perfectly reasonable for PC's and NPC's to recognize creatures on site by having seen or heard of them before, but really not know anything about them.
Real world comparisons are always suspect, but they're worth consideration. Most people in the USA would recognize a kangaroo, but probably couldn't tell you much about them beyond their being from Australia (and I'm willing to bet a large percentage of North Americans would even get that wrong). That's an interesting and reasonable take and it's one I've never seen before.
I'll just re-iterate what I've said a couple of times before.
The rules on the subject are vague, and possibly intentionally so.
This is something that each table will need to discuss and decide how they want to handle. There is plenty of room for a wide variety of different interpretations, and none of them are necessarily more or less correct than any of the others.
I think there is value in discussing how other tables handle the issue in order for a GM to get ideas on how to handle it at his/her own table, but there really isn't any definitive right or wrong answer on how you do it.
Diego Rossi wrote: Melkiador wrote: If most people can tell a swordfish from a shark, I think we could expect the average adventurer to know the difference between a red dragon and some other large red lizard.
And again, some 1200+ year old dragon should be much more well known than some whelp that just hatched.
Have you ever see how many subspecies of sharks exist? This guy is a shark. It eat plankton.
And this is another shark.
We can differentiate them from a swordfish, but recognizing them as sharks unless we are experts? No. The basking shark was fished off scotland/UK for the oil from it's liver because it was used in fuel lamps and cosmetics until the 1990's.
Bluegray Carpetshark shark looks close enough to a nurse shark that I can guess it's a bottom feeding nocturnal shark that's not normally aggressive.
I'm NOT a marine fauna expert by any stretch of the imagination... Take 10 for the win? :P
If you didn't have the name handily provided for you in the link, and just saw the picture, could you honestly have identified them by name?
Saldiven wrote: If you didn't have the name handily provided for you in the link, and just saw the picture, could you honestly have identified them by name? I would have said basking shark and nurse shark if handed pictures.
Saldiven wrote: If you didn't have the name handily provided for you in the link, and just saw the picture, could you honestly have identified them by name? That's not the problem we're dealing with though.
It's that with Knowledge skills someone could readily identify the carpet shark, but not the basking shark, just because the latter is bigger and tougher. Or more relevantly, know a lot about the mostly harmless dogfish and nothing about the Great White, even when both are equally common locally, just because one is more of a threat than the other.
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thejeff wrote: It's that with Knowledge skills someone could readily identify the carpet shark, but not the basking shark, just because the latter is bigger and tougher. That's not exactly true: Identify a common plant or animal is a set DC 10 that doesn't care about the HD/CR. As such, if both are ruled common, you can take ten and know both [assuming you didn't tank int].
Now I agree that creatures with scaling HD are an issue [see dragon]. It would make sense to also set a DC for common creatures of other types to avoid the issue forgetting that walking flame is a fire elemental elemental because it got bigger even when you live next to an rift to the elemental planes.
graystone wrote: thejeff wrote: It's that with Knowledge skills someone could readily identify the carpet shark, but not the basking shark, just because the latter is bigger and tougher. That's not exactly true: Identify a common plant or animal is a set DC 10 that doesn't care about the HD/CR. As such, if both are ruled common, you can take ten and know both [assuming you didn't tank int]. Fine. You can identify it, but you don't know any useful information about it, since that comes from the Monster Lore aspect, not the General Knowledge aspect.
Or take the general case and extend to "monsters" not "animals" - you know the weak things, not the equally common more dangerous ones.
thejeff wrote: Fine. You can identify it, but you don't know any useful information about it, since that comes from the Monster Lore aspect, not the General Knowledge aspect. Oh, I agree. I'd like to see a general type/subtype category added. For instance, oozes tend to [fill in the blank], unintelligent undead react how, Giants often throw rocks, ect.
thejeff wrote: Or take the general case and extend to "monsters" not "animals" I don't disagree on your points in general, I was just pointing out that using animals/plants was a bad example.
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"Is it capable of repenting its evil ways and accepting the light of Sarenrae into its heart?"
If yes, use non-lethal damage
If no, use lethal damage
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Rogar Valertis wrote: As a GM I let people ask me for things like "special abilities", "weaknesses", "Immunities", "special attacks" and so on. I consider asking for specific numbers like Hps or saves to be out of line though. This is the way most GMs in my area do it.
thejeff wrote: Irontruth wrote: Melkiador wrote: I too find basing the knowledge DC on anything other than the obscurity of the creature to be silly. For instance, most of us know a ton of information about sharks, elephants and lions, but next to nothing about skinks.
And I'd actually find it more likely that you'd know info on a very high level individual than a very low level individual. Everyone would have heard some stuff about the great hero Hercules, but almost no one in the world knows about quiet Bob who works down at the foundry.
Don't conflate "I heard a thing" with that thing being actually true. Go to youtube and you'll find a LOT of videos about how the Earth is actually flat. And the number of people making these videos isn't decreasing, but the movement is actually growing. And it's all based on "I heard a thing."
Just because someone heard something about Hercules, doesn't mean it is true. But at the same time, if you are familiar with humans and their capabilities, the chances that you correctly estimate the abilities of a typical farmer are pretty high.
Also, consider how information is spread in compared to previous eras and now. Prior to the printing press, very few people read books. In the modern era, I can flip on my TV, or look around the internet and find a wildlife expert who will spend the next hour explaining cool things about sharks. That said, you still see a lot of "I heard a thing" going on with sharks. Most of the programs about sharks talk about great whites, a smaller portion will talk about tiger, hammerhead, or a couple other species. Quiz a random person about the greenland shark, and I suspect you'll find that people have essentially no clue how that animal behaves and functions in the ecosystem.
If you spend 2-3 hours a week watching nature programs on various channels, odds are you essentially have 1-2 ranks in Knowledge (Nature). Another aspect of our modern society is that you have the time to do that. We are so wealthy that we can ... Yup. A peasant knows it's a dragon, but the only "useful" information he knows about is that it ate Bob's family last week.
thejeff wrote: graystone wrote: thejeff wrote: It's that with Knowledge skills someone could readily identify the carpet shark, but not the basking shark, just because the latter is bigger and tougher. That's not exactly true: Identify a common plant or animal is a set DC 10 that doesn't care about the HD/CR. As such, if both are ruled common, you can take ten and know both [assuming you didn't tank int]. Fine. You can identify it, but you don't know any useful information about it, since that comes from the Monster Lore aspect, not the General Knowledge aspect.
Or take the general case and extend to "monsters" not "animals" - you know the weak things, not the equally common more dangerous ones. For this I'd go back to periodicity of encounters in which survivors obtain useful information.
Look at the real world, until the last 100 years, humans knew very little about sharks, other than small ones found in shallow waters (like the dogfish). There are recorded deaths from large sharks going back to the mid-1600's, but extremely little was actually known about them until the 20th century.
There's a lot of sailor folklore surrounding sharks that is conspicuously wrong, even though they had repeated contact and observations of these creatures.
The more dangerous the creature, the more likely misinformation will be spread as people imagine things even worse than they are.
Legion42 wrote: I tend to run a minor modification to the the base 10+CR rule. It says in the text "For common monsters, such as goblins, the DC of this check equals 5 + the monster’s CR. For particularly rare monsters, such as the tarrasque, the DC of this check equals 15 + the monster’s CR or more." I use the CR rating to determine the commonality of the base check.
CR 0-5 is common with a base DC of 5+CR
CR 6-10 is uncommon with a base DC 10+CR
CR 11-15 is rare with a base DC of 15+CR
CR 16-20 is epic with a base DC of 20+CR
CR 21+ is legendary with a base DC of 25+CR
so a character who is level 20 and has 20 ranks in a non class knowledge skill and only has an int of 14(lets say they are a fighter who invested in knowledge arcana for some reason) cant even identify a legendary creature of 1cr higher then themselves on a natural 20 as with a natural 20 they will get a total of 42 but they need a 46 under your rules
Neriathale wrote: "Is it capable of repenting its evil ways and accepting the light of Sarenrae into its heart?"
If yes, use non-lethal damage
If no, use lethal damage
what id yes to 1st half and no to 2nd do you use half lethal and half non lethal?
thejeff wrote: Saldiven wrote: If you didn't have the name handily provided for you in the link, and just saw the picture, could you honestly have identified them by name? That's not the problem we're dealing with though.
It's that with Knowledge skills someone could readily identify the carpet shark, but not the basking shark, just because the latter is bigger and tougher. Or more relevantly, know a lot about the mostly harmless dogfish and nothing about the Great White, even when both are equally common locally, just because one is more of a threat than the other. Again, this is not specifically spelled out.
The result of a successful check gives you a "useful bit of information." There is nothing that specifically states what check you need to make in order to know the common name of the creature in question. This is a common assumption people make, and is how people commonly play it, but that is not what the Knowledge Skill section actually says.
And, as for your shark comparison, if both are common in your area, the DC would be 5+ CR, making it far easier to know something.
And, frankly, even with the prevalence with Shark Week in the USA, I would argue that the VAST majority of people in the USA (even those living on the coast) really do not know a dang thing about the shark beyond their being big and scary.
Lady-J wrote: Neriathale wrote: "Is it capable of repenting its evil ways and accepting the light of Sarenrae into its heart?"
If yes, use non-lethal damage
If no, use lethal damage
what id yes to 1st half and no to 2nd do you use half lethal and half non lethal? I'm more curious about sentient constructs. Yes, they can be redeemed, but nonlethal damage won't help you any.
Saldiven wrote: Again, this is not specifically spelled out.
The result of a successful check gives you a "useful bit of information." There is nothing that specifically states what check you need to make in order to know the common name of the creature in question. This is a common assumption people make, and is how people commonly play it, but that is not what the Knowledge Skill section actually says.
Quote: You can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster's CR. It is strongly implied that without using a Knowledge skill you cannot identify a monster. This is immediately followed by a DC.
Lady-J wrote: Legion42 wrote: I tend to run a minor modification to the the base 10+CR rule. It says in the text "For common monsters, such as goblins, the DC of this check equals 5 + the monster’s CR. For particularly rare monsters, such as the tarrasque, the DC of this check equals 15 + the monster’s CR or more." I use the CR rating to determine the commonality of the base check.
CR 0-5 is common with a base DC of 5+CR
CR 6-10 is uncommon with a base DC 10+CR
CR 11-15 is rare with a base DC of 15+CR
CR 16-20 is epic with a base DC of 20+CR
CR 21+ is legendary with a base DC of 25+CR
so a character who is level 20 and has 20 ranks in a non class knowledge skill and only has an int of 14(lets say they are a fighter who invested in knowledge arcana for some reason) cant even identify a legendary creature of 1cr higher then themselves on a natural 20 as with a natural 20 they will get a total of 42 but they need a 46 under your rules That is mostly correct. They would need to use some form of additional magic (guidance, inspire, fox's cunning), library research or other way to get a buff to their base score to make a successful detailed identification. They would be able to identify basic info of a CR 22 or lower, the name and CR with just their skill total of 22. But honestly your example is not a common situation. it would be very rare for a player to dump 20 skill points into a non-class, non-primary stat background knowledge skill. Also with that skill level they can Identify all most any standard creature of CR 20 of below in good detail with a good roll on the fly, and know basic info just with a look. Besides the CR 21+ level party should have players in the party with class, primary stat knowledge levels that should be able to get that check with a better percentage. IE the wizard in the party with the same 20 skill points a 22 Int and a class bonus would be getting a 49 on a 20, or the bard that would be getting a 59.
Saldiven wrote: thejeff wrote: Saldiven wrote: If you didn't have the name handily provided for you in the link, and just saw the picture, could you honestly have identified them by name? That's not the problem we're dealing with though.
It's that with Knowledge skills someone could readily identify the carpet shark, but not the basking shark, just because the latter is bigger and tougher. Or more relevantly, know a lot about the mostly harmless dogfish and nothing about the Great White, even when both are equally common locally, just because one is more of a threat than the other. Again, this is not specifically spelled out.
The result of a successful check gives you a "useful bit of information." There is nothing that specifically states what check you need to make in order to know the common name of the creature in question. This is a common assumption people make, and is how people commonly play it, but that is not what the Knowledge Skill section actually says.
And, as for your shark comparison, if both are common in your area, the DC would be 5+ CR, making it far easier to know something.
And, frankly, even with the prevalence with Shark Week in the USA, I would argue that the VAST majority of people in the USA (even those living on the coast) really do not know a dang thing about the shark beyond their being big and scary. Sure - the sharks are just an example. We keep getting bogged down in the details to try to excuse every individual situation.
We may know little about sharks, but people living on islands in the ocean would know much more. I didn't even say either was common, just that they were equally, which could be both rare or both at normal frequency.
It's easy to handwave animals - there's a special rule for identifying them, they're usually in a narrow range of CRs, etc.
As for the identify, I did specifically comment about "knowing a lot about one and nothing about the other".
My sole and only point here is that you're not likely to know less about dangerous creatures simply because they're more dangerous. In fact, other factors being equal, those are the ones you're more likely to know about, because they're the ones not knowing about is more likely to get you killed.
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thejeff wrote: My sole and only point here is that you're not likely to know less about dangerous creatures simply because they're more dangerous. In fact, other factors being equal, those are the ones you're more likely to know about, because they're the ones not knowing about is more likely to get you killed. I agree, for common dangerous creatures. Most NPCs, however, are more likely to be killed by wolves, hyenas, or ghouls, rather than by ancient black dragons. Consequently, they're going to know a lot more about these common threats than the uncommon ones.
To most villages, a pack of wolves is a threat they can deal with. A high CR dragon is a force of nature that's going to wipe them out no matter what they do. I wouldn't be surprised if the average "useful knowledge" about a dragon was "hide in the storm cellar and hope it ignores you."
Legion42 wrote: Lady-J wrote: Legion42 wrote: I tend to run a minor modification to the the base 10+CR rule. It says in the text "For common monsters, such as goblins, the DC of this check equals 5 + the monster’s CR. For particularly rare monsters, such as the tarrasque, the DC of this check equals 15 + the monster’s CR or more." I use the CR rating to determine the commonality of the base check.
CR 0-5 is common with a base DC of 5+CR
CR 6-10 is uncommon with a base DC 10+CR
CR 11-15 is rare with a base DC of 15+CR
CR 16-20 is epic with a base DC of 20+CR
CR 21+ is legendary with a base DC of 25+CR
so a character who is level 20 and has 20 ranks in a non class knowledge skill and only has an int of 14(lets say they are a fighter who invested in knowledge arcana for some reason) cant even identify a legendary creature of 1cr higher then themselves on a natural 20 as with a natural 20 they will get a total of 42 but they need a 46 under your rules That is correct. They would need to use some form of additional magic (guidance, inspire, fox's cunning), library research or other way to get a buff to their base score to make a successful identification. But honestly your example is not a common situation. it would be very rare for a player to dump 20 skill points into a non-class, non-primary stat background knowledge skill. Also with that skill level they can Identify all most any standard creature of CR 20 of below in good detail with a good roll on the fly, and know basic info just with a look. Besides the CR 21+ level party should have players in the party with class, primary stat knowledge levels that should be able to get that check with a better percentage. IE the wizard in the party with the same 20 skill points a 22 Int and a class bonus would be getting a 49 on a 20, or the bard that would be getting a 59. Even the wizard isn't likely to have all the knowledge skills by himself. Someone's got to cover the others. And note that even the wizard needs a really good roll to get any info - CR 21 creature is a DC 46, he's got a 29 skill and needs a 17 to reach the DC.
If you don't have a bard, nearly everyone else is going to be worse than the wizard, even if it's a class skill. And the problem shows up long before 20th level: A baseline +2 Int, class skill would be a +20 at 15th level, thus needing a 16 to learn anything about a 16 CR critter. And could never get more than one bit of info - most powerful creatures have special abilities and many useful things to know.
As I said about another house ruled variation earlier in the thread: "A system like this, you'll need to really push Knowledge skills to reliably get anything useful out of them. Or more likely just not bother." This one's potentially more annoying, since they start out useful with almost no investment and eventually become nearly useless.
Cheburn wrote: thejeff wrote: My sole and only point here is that you're not likely to know less about dangerous creatures simply because they're more dangerous. In fact, other factors being equal, those are the ones you're more likely to know about, because they're the ones not knowing about is more likely to get you killed. I agree, for common dangerous creatures. Most NPCs, however, are more likely to be killed by wolves, hyenas, or ghouls, rather than by ancient black dragons. Consequently, they're going to know a lot more about these common threats than the uncommon ones.
To most villages, a pack of wolves is a threat they can deal with. A high CR dragon is a force of nature that's going to wipe them out no matter what they do. I wouldn't be surprised if the average "useful knowledge" about a dragon was "hide in the storm cellar and hope it ignores you." "That's Scarhorn. She lives up in the depths of the Black Swamp. Don't go deep in. If you see her out here, she's probably just after sheep, so stay clear and let her eat them. If she talks to you be flattering and obsequious and she might let you live."
Even for "uncommon", but not rare creatures. Or creatures that are dangerous solo, but don't work in packs so therefore aren't more of an actual threat to the village than a band of ghouls would be.
But again, sure rarity makes sense as a big factor. But the villagers will know more about uncommon weak things than uncommon dangerous ones - even before we get to the true force of nature kinds.
I like sharks. Sharks are nice if you don't annoy them.
I'd say yes its valid, however, my players never ask for that specific info, so I never provide it. Usual info given is resistances, vulnerabilities, and special attacks. Gives me something to think about.
Irontruth wrote:
Just because someone heard something about Hercules, doesn't mean it is true. But at the same time, if you are familiar with humans and their capabilities, the chances that you correctly estimate the abilities of a typical farmer are pretty high.
It pains me how many times people have referenced the Disney movie Hercules when talking about him.
Irontruth wrote:
If you spend 2-3 hours a week watching nature programs on various channels, odds are you essentially have 1-2 ranks in Knowledge (Nature). Another aspect of our modern society is that you have the time to do that. We are so wealthy that we can spend a couple hours a day on activities we choose, not just those activities that are necessary to our daily survival. A peasant in 12th century England had a very small amount of leisure time, and most of it was spent recovering from working 12+ hours a day making sure they had enough food to eat.
Medieval peasants actually had a surprising amount of leisure time. Yes, during planting and harvesting season they worked extremely hard. But during the off-seasons, they had a lot of time to sit and talk and tell stories while they mended equipment / clothes / etc. They also had a ton of holy days (holidays) throughout the year. Look up a list of saint's days some time, a church could and frequently did call those days a day of rest and celebration.
thejeff wrote: Legion42 wrote: Lady-J wrote: Legion42 wrote: I tend to run a minor modification to the the base 10+CR rule. It says in the text "For common monsters, such as goblins, the DC of this check equals 5 + the monster’s CR. For particularly rare monsters, such as the tarrasque, the DC of this check equals 15 + the monster’s CR or more." I use the CR rating to determine the commonality of the base check.
CR 0-5 is common with a base DC of 5+CR
CR 6-10 is uncommon with a base DC 10+CR
CR 11-15 is rare with a base DC of 15+CR
CR 16-20 is epic with a base DC of 20+CR
CR 21+ is legendary with a base DC of 25+CR
so a character who is level 20 and has 20 ranks in a non class knowledge skill and only has an int of 14(lets say they are a fighter who invested in knowledge arcana for some reason) cant even identify a legendary creature of 1cr higher then themselves on a natural 20 as with a natural 20 they will get a total of 42 but they need a 46 under your rules That is correct. They would need to use some form of additional magic (guidance, inspire, fox's cunning), library research or other way to get a buff to their base score to make a successful identification. But honestly your example is not a common situation. it would be very rare for a player to dump 20 skill points into a non-class, non-primary stat background knowledge skill. Also with that skill level they can Identify all most any standard creature of CR 20 of below in good detail with a good roll on the fly, and know basic info just with a look. Besides the CR 21+ level party should have players in the party with class, primary stat knowledge levels that should be able to get that check with a better percentage. IE the wizard in the party with the same 20 skill points a 22 Int and a class bonus would be getting a 49 on a 20, or the bard that would be getting a 59. Even the wizard isn't likely to have all the knowledge skills by himself. Someone's got to cover the others. And note that even the wizard needs a... That is true. I do run the unchained background skill system almost exclusively in my home campaigns so that helps some in my group, but I do see the issue you are pointing out. Also there is probably a decent bit of meta at my table so it turns the "it's a x" into oh I remember that from last campaign it does this rather than an in character issue.
Most of these comments concern random encounters more than Plot encounters. Plot encounters give the players move available pre-combat buff opportunities to gain the knowledge via checks while random encounters require the on the fly checks. Also this system implies that if you keep one or 2 knowledge skills at level that you should be passingly familiar with and CR+Stat creature equal to the party that skill covers. If you ask around town for info on threats in the area (k local) or use k geo to get an idea of threats, you can do some research to get those bonuses before you wander blindly into the wilderness. And yes I realize that at 20th level with a +0 stat bonus and non class you cap at identifying CR 20 at DC 40 on a 20 roll, but you can also take 10 and know almost everything about a CR 15 or less. It is all about skill focus (Not the feat) and where you want to be good at things. Clerics religion/planes, druids/rangers nature/dungeon, wizards/soc arcane/planes, rogue dungeon/local, fighters dungeon. And to be honest most characters are not learned scholars who spend all of their time studying and reading, they learn in the field on the fly. If your party wants to make the checks they put in the points, if they don't then they won't.
As to the becoming useless at high level you can say that about most non-class low stat skills. Healing, Intimidate, fly, acrobatics or any non-contested skills suffer from the same kind of applicable uselessness as you place skill points into them after a certain point as their DC thresholds cap out or they become "nat 20 to succeed" checks. While the variable opposed skills do the opposite and become skill offs, I have a +18 perception you have a +16 stealth who rolls the highest, type of checks.
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we can all expect table variation on this... YMMV
Here's an example of two different "variations" in understanding how this rule works meeting at the same table...
Judge: "Roll Knowledge XXXX".
Player: "34"
Judge:"Ask 3 questions.",
Player: "What can I ask?",
Judge: "Things like Special Attacks",
Player: "OK, I ask that."
Judge: "No, that's not how that works, you have to ask 3 questions".
Player: "??? ok, whatever. What does my PC know about this monster?"
Judge: "NO! you can't pull do it that way! You have to ask one of the standard questions!"
Player: "What are the standard questions?"
Helpful player: "you know, things like Special Abilities, Special Defenses, Best Save, HP - except you can't ask exact HP..."
Player: "Ok, I ask that"
Judge: "you ask what?"
Player: "what he said" pointing at Helpful Player
Helpful Player: "What are it's Special Abilites?"
Judge: "Robot Traits"
Helpful Player: "So like Construct Traits?"
Player: "What?"
Judge: "Yeah"
Player: "What?"
Judge: "What's your next question"
Player: "???"
Judge: "Ask a question?"
Player: "What does my PC know about this monster?"
Judge: "You have to ask one of the standard questions!"
Player: "... ah... what's it favorite color?"
Legion42 wrote: And yes I realize that at 20th level with a +0 stat bonus and non class you cap at identifying CR 20 at DC 40 on a 20 roll, but you can also take 10 and know almost everything about a CR 15 or less. No one cares at all about anything that's CR of (APL-5). And actually in your system you can't: That CR 15 critter is DC of 30, which your character just hits with a Take 10. At 20th level. Which means one piece of useful info, not "almost everything".
Other skills become useless at high levels, but Knowledge skills didn't. And often in the base system, simple identification became easy as players ramped skills up, high level creatures tend to have more interesting things to learn, so beating it by a lot is still useful.
thejeff wrote: Legion42 wrote: And yes I realize that at 20th level with a +0 stat bonus and non class you cap at identifying CR 20 at DC 40 on a 20 roll, but you can also take 10 and know almost everything about a CR 15 or less. No one cares at all about anything that's CR of (APL-5). And actually in your system you can't: That CR 15 critter is DC of 30, which your character just hits with a Take 10. At 20th level. Which means one piece of useful info, not "almost everything".
Other skills become useless at high levels, but Knowledge skills didn't. And often in the base system, simple identification became easy as players ramped skills up, high level creatures tend to have more interesting things to learn, so beating it by a lot is still useful. Alright so taking a look at D20pfsrd for CR 15+ non 3PP creatures there are 88 specific creatures and 101 various high level dragon types listed. We are quibbling about less than 5% of the total creature list. I look at this and think we are going to go fight Grendel-kin tomorrow using Beowulf as a guide to their abilities.
The meeting the DC of the check gives all of the info in the Attack and Defense blocks of the creature as well as the senses. This is Almost Everything relevant to a random encounter. There are very few unique one-shot special abilities that would need specific detailing with a higher check. SR is SR no matter what the values are. Also if you are random encountering APL+(0-6) CR single creature encounters you should speak to your DM about his encounter tables. That's generally fine with Plot encounters, but randoms should normally be groups that equal the CR. IE 3 CR 15's to make a CR 18 encounter or 6 CR 15's to make a 20.
If you want to look at Class level based CRs the knowledge checks almost always give you crap info about the character anyway. It won't give you feats, equipment bonuses, prepared spells, or any player choice based abilities. Knowledge local or Diplomacy(Gather info) and some research might give you some of these details, but never for on the fly meetings.
The Sideromancer wrote: I like sharks. Sharks are nice if you don't annoy them. Or you look like a seal when you swim... ;)
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If I were a high level wizard, and I often play high level wizards, I like to have spells prepared that target each of the three saves. If I am studying monsters for the express purpose of defeating them, one of the first things I want to know is what types of spells in my vast repertoire are best to use against them. Working out their most likely weak save is one of the first things I would try to discover when reading up on a new monster.
That is reflected in the questions system. You have done some reading on this monster. What is the first thing you would do your best to find out and remember?
nosig wrote: we can all expect table variation on this... YMMV
Here's an example of two different "variations" in understanding how this rule works meeting at the same table...
Judge: "Roll Knowledge XXXX".
Player: "34"
Judge:"Ask 3 questions.",
Player: "What can I ask?",
Judge: "Things like Special Attacks",
Player: "OK, I ask that."
Judge: "No, that's not how that works, you have to ask 3 questions".
Player: "??? ok, whatever. What does my PC know about this monster?"
Judge: "NO! you can't pull do it that way! You have to ask one of the standard questions!"
Player: "What are the standard questions?"
Helpful player: "you know, things like Special Abilities, Special Defenses, Best Save, HP - except you can't ask exact HP..."
Player: "Ok, I ask that"
Judge: "you ask what?"
Player: "what he said" pointing at Helpful Player
Helpful Player: "What are it's Special Abilites?"
Judge: "Robot Traits"
Helpful Player: "So like Construct Traits?"
Player: "What?"
Judge: "Yeah"
Player: "What?"
Judge: "What's your next question"
Player: "???"
Judge: "Ask a question?"
Player: "What does my PC know about this monster?"
Judge: "You have to ask one of the standard questions!"
Player: "... ah... what's it favorite color?"
This was me for the longest time... Despite having knowledge, our party didn't know much about what we were fighting. Hit it til it dies works for pretty much all creatures luckily.
Legion42 wrote: The meeting the DC of the check gives all of the info in the Attack and Defense blocks of the creature as well as the senses. This is Almost Everything relevant to a random encounter. That's a house rule, I take it?
I waffle between the 2 suggested methods from this thread as a GM. I have 3 of four PCs, all level 5, who together cover all of the Knowledge skills well with a bit of overlap. As such most monsters illicit 3 rolls, generally high ones, and yield a wealth of information.
My standard starting point is to tell anyone who at least hit the base DC what the type (subtype) of the monster is. That way if they've encountered that type in the past they've got SOME basic lore to fall back on. The typical Vermin is "mindless;" the standard Fey has a poor Fort save, etc.
From there though sometimes I rely on my players to ask questions. If they ask the wrong ones however the results can be disastrous. They went up against a fire-vulnerable undead recently and since they didn't think to ask about its weaknesses they moved slowly into melee, got terribly debuffed in the process, and did weak damage while it killed one of the PCs. All the while they had acid and fire alchemical weapons, tons of oil flasks, and were fighting over a place where the undead had trapped a fire-and-acid dealing fey creature.
On the other hand sometimes I just hand out the info. Unfortunately here too I've encountered situations where what I think would fit pertinent data isn't what my players want to know. In a previous campaign they failed to roll high enough to learn the melee tactics of a Chuul. The party charged into melee, two of which having poor CMDs, and one of the PCs was killed in that instance. Later they complained they should've known that the standard hunting method of these creatures is to Grapple opponents but I didn't prioritize that in my "additional information" to hand out.
I guess my point is - there are issues with either method. Finding a happy medium will be a table by table experience.
"'owdy! I'ma 'graic! 'ma genuine Ossirionoligister 'ere t' 'elp y' wit' y'r q'ndry! When y' see somethin' an' y' n't qui' sur' WUT it is, use wut y'r senses tell y' 'bout it. Then add '-thingie' t' it, an' y'll never go wrong!"
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