Recall Knowledge DC Question

[Mad Gene Vane]

How do you determine the DC for a Recall Knowledge to identify a creature?

For example, an Owl Bear is a Level 4 Creature. If a character rolls a Nature check to recall knowledge, what would the DC need to be to get information?

What would be the adjustment to the DC for Uncommon, Rare, etc. creatures?

[MEATSHED]

Mad Gene Vane wrote:

How do you determine the DC for a Recall Knowledge to identify a creature?

For example, an Owl Bear is a Level 4 Creature. If a character rolls a Nature check to recall knowledge, what would the DC need to be to get information?

They use the level-based DC of the creature's level, which is on page 503 of the core rulebook . In the case of an owl bear it uses the level 4 DC, which is 19.

Quote:

What would be the adjustment to the DC for Uncommon, Rare, etc. creatures?

The adjustments for rarities are found on the next page, uncommon makes it a hard check so uncommon creatures get +2 to their recall knowledge dc for example.

[Staffan Johansson]

Generally, use level-based DCs modified by rarity, but also apply a dose of common sense — particularly in cases where you have families of creatures.

For example, a barbazu is a 5th level fiend, so you'd need a Religion check of DC 20 to recall knowledge about them. But I'd allow a 15 to recognize them as some form of devil, and provide generally devil-appropriate information about them (vulnerable to silver and especially good, usually a bit magic-resistant and immune to fire, Lawful Evil), but not Barbazu-specific things (particular attacks and such), and a 10 to recognize them as some form of fiend (often has magical abilities and are often vulnerable to good magic).

I'd definitely lower the DC for knowing things about monsters that are just more powerful versions of older monsters, as long as the things I know are relevant both for the lesser and greater creature. It makes zero sense that I'd be able to look at a young red dragon and immediately know that it's a dragon, it breathes and is immune to fire, and being near it is scary; but then to look at its ancient mother and go "What the heck is THAT thing?" (unless, of course, we're talking about some weird life-cycle thing).

If the person Recalling Knowledge has a particularly appropriate Lore, you might also lower the DC a bit. Generally, a drop of 2 would be appropriate for a lore appropriate to a larger group of creatures (e.g. Genie Lore), and 5 for a highly specific lore (e.g. Efreet Lore). Lores can also cross over a bit — I'd allow Efreet Lore to know some things about the City of Brass, for example.

[Mad Gene Vane]

Thanks for the replies. This really clears it up for me.

[Ravingdork]

You can also use different skills where appropriate. For example, my players' characters were recently fighting a bunch of demons (traditionally identified with Religion).

However, no one in the party had Religion, and so one player asked to use Arcana. So I made the secret roll, which did fairly well, and so I told him that "they are demons, a type of fiend often summoned by evil spellcasters."

Not as useful as if they had Religion, but still informative and pertinent to Arcana.

[Nefreet]

Likewise, the Core Rulebook suggests lowering the DC if a character has an appropriate Lore, such as using Demon Lore in place of Religion, since Lores are narrower in focus.

[TheBigBlueFrog]

What about a Level -1 creature? Extrapolating from the table in the CRB, it looks like it would be 13.

[Nefreet]

Judging by THIS example, that appears to be correct.