Help me understand enemy identification?

[Zwordsman]

Howdy!

So, I love alch, Aid actions, and the new guide has a Pathfinder Agent archetype that focuses on Aid, skills, and some monster identifcation (sorta). Along with the ability to roll untrained skills at not a horrible disadvantage.

One of the abilities has to do with identifying via recall knowledge about monsters--with bonuses to what yo uget/the roll attempt for later attempts.

So, to identify a monster. it takes:
1 action (in battle anyway). to roll a recall knowledge.
Recall knowledge is dependent on random skills. Seemingly Craft, nature, religion, occultism, society? survival.

Is that about right?

Is "lore: Monster Identification" too broad or weird to use? I mean the game uses examples like Engineering for lore which is pretty broad.
Basically it'd be like the Guides in Monster Hunter. They're really good at identifying and studying monsters but not much else related to it (that falls under the botony folks or the mineral folks etc).
Would you say something like that is too open ended?

I'd adore to play the Alchemist who suports via items, aid actions, and by keeping extensive notes and writing reports and books on monsters. With ther eason he is traveling and being an adventurer expressly to do research and write books.
as knowledge is power, and with more access to monster biology the more normal evey day folks won't die fruitlessly.

Sooo.
Anyone have some good advice on this kind of idea? Monster identifier sort of thing. Current outlook for my character is Alchemist, Pathfinder Agent and Ranger dips (unsure of order quite yet)

[HammerJack]

Well, since lore skills are going to be a major point of table variation, mileage may vary. I would certainly be open fo allowing lore skills to learn about any creature directly relevant to them. That being said, there is absolutely no way that I would ever even consider allowing a single lore skill for the identification of all monsters.

[Deadmanwalking]

Given that the explicit advice is for Lore to be less broad than any existing Skill, 'Monster Identification' is about five times too broad at least.

There's actually a specific Ranger Feat for what you're looking for, called very explicitly Master Monster Hunter. It's quite good, but does require 10th level and some prerequisites.

[thenobledrake]

Since there's only 5 skills necessary to be able to identify all creature types, an Alchemist with a +2 Intelligence modifier can be trained in all of them (or you could rely on Crafting for your construct knowledge and drop Arcana, losing nothing but knowledge of dragons in the process)

I think most tables would find "this lore is relevant literally every time we encounter a creature" to be out of line though.

[Zwordsman]

I figured, it would be pretty wonky~
yeah can pick up trained in the rest fairly easily. Though honestly with the pathfidner agent's "non profeciency =Lv not 0" decent chance of managing an identification even without training.
Thanks

Here is a flavor question for ya'll.
"Lore: My beastrary" Created explicty to work with that Agent feat where you get a bonus on second identification. Would you allow a player to use that for second identification? First with the primary skill, the second with the lore (Because he's writing entire books and taking detailed notes on his experiences)

Figuring not, but might take it purely for the flavor of using that Lore to make money by selling monster handguides to local monsters and methods of pest control (The lilly of the blah family has been observed as a light deterrent to feral gnolls, it is suggested that they be planted near fences as a secondary deterrent.)
but it would be cool to be able to reference their own notes in character past downtime usage.

[Ubertron_X]

About enemy identification, how is this handled by RAW and how do you handle it?

GM describes the monster and then players decide which skill to use, possibly wasting a couple of actions because they chose the wrong skills or GM indicates which skill to use in the first place, however handing out meta-information on a platter by doing so?

[BellyBeard]

I wouldn't say GM telling the players what roll to make is necessarily handing out meta-information, as that's usually how rolls are supposed to be done (GM letting you auto fail rolls because they expect you to call out the right skill check seems to lean more towards encouraging use of meta-information to me) . Actually, these are supposed to be secret rolls, so the GM doesn't really need to tell the players what skill is being rolled.

[shroudb]

Ubertron_X wrote:

About enemy identification, how is this handled by RAW and how do you handle it?

GM describes the monster and then players decide which skill to use, possibly wasting a couple of actions because they chose the wrong skills or GM indicates which skill to use in the first place, however handing out meta-information on a platter by doing so?

RAW, it's a secret check.

Actual gameplay: secret check actually makes it much smoother and faster.

if a player "tries to Recall anything relevant" about what they're facing, i look at their skills, and roll the most appropriate out of them all.

Now, when they are facing a new type of monster, i try to desribe it as much as i can. This gives away some information, usually enough for one to guess if it's in his "field of study".

For stuff that are really common, there's already information that's widely available without even spending an action.

[DerNils]

I don't have the tables in front of me, but if Nobledrake is right, you could skill everything but Arcana and take Lore:Dragons, which is a valid sublore that should enable you to even get a lower DC on Dragons specifically.
As for your proposal, I personally wouldn't mind. You set yourself a nice Limitation in "I have to have encountered it once", so as a GM I would be ok.