Recall Knowledge - Be absolutely clear with your players

[Ravingdork]

beowulf99 wrote:

If the player doesn't know how a mechanic works, then it is their duty to ask or look it up themselves.

Generally I agree, but be aware that players don't know necessarily to ask about the things they aren't aware that exist in the first place.

[beowulf99]

Ravingdork wrote:

beowulf99 wrote:

If the player doesn't know how a mechanic works, then it is their duty to ask or look it up themselves.

Generally I agree, but be aware that players don't know necessarily to ask about the things they aren't aware that exist in the first place.

Sure. But what weren't you aware of in this case? You knew that the Troll regenerated, and you knew that fire turned that regeneration off.

Remember, your whole reason for posting this can be summed up as;

Ravingdork wrote:

...the GM neglected to state that the fire turns off the regeneration UNTIL THE END OF THE TROLL'S NEXT TURN.

And your whole piece of advice therein is that a GM should go into great detail into the mechanics of a situation in response to a Recall Knowledge check.

I heartily disagree. Recall Knowledge is there only to provide information to the character. Mechanics are out of character topics, and should be handled as such.

Was it a sort of faux pa to not let you know that Regeneration resumes at the end of the Trolls turn? I don't believe so. It's logical, since it would have to turn back on at some point. Why would it turn back on during or after your turn, if it's the Troll's ability?

And again, the only reason the Troll was able to get back up was because you assumed it didn't need an extra dose of flame. I do think the GM should have made an effort to let the party know the Troll wasn't completely dead however. They just didn't misuse Recall Knowledge as far as I'm concerned.

[RPGnoremac]

I have a random question from this thread. Shouldn't players know if a monster is dead or not in general? Or from now on after every combat do I have to check monsters vitals...

I really feel like a player should be able to tell if a monster is actually dead if they are in combat with it. I don't think having to manually check every body would be fun "just in case it has a mechanic"

I feel like that is why PF2 defaults to death and it is up to the GM to let players know if something isn't dead otherwise everything is just assumed dead imo. Asking every time you fight monsters "is it dead"? Just isnt fun to me.

As a player I am not sure I would be happy with this outcome personally. I really don't think anything like this should ever have happened even if it is by RAW.

PF2 has so many rules that players shouldn't get penalized for not knowing how regeneration works especially after a successful recall knowledge. Expecting players to know monster mechanics in super detail is kind if crazy to me.

I know there are rules for everything and normally I always try to follow them but this just screams not fun for me at all. This isn't really a PF2 issue, I just don't think anything like this should happen for any game.

[Malk_Content]

As a player "hold on we are still in initiative but everything appears dead" is probably the biggest give away that you aren't quite done yet. Delaying starting a 10 minute activity by 6s is never going to make a difference.

[Captain Morgan]

RPGnoremac wrote:

I have a random question from this thread. Shouldn't players know if a monster is dead or not in general? Or from now on after every combat do I have to check monsters vitals...

I really feel like a player should be able to tell if a monster is actually dead if they are in combat with it. I don't think having to manually check every body would be fun "just in case it has a mechanic"

I feel like that is why PF2 defaults to death and it is up to the GM to let players know if something isn't dead otherwise everything is just assumed dead imo. Asking every time you fight monsters "is it dead"? Just isnt fun to me.

As a player I am not sure I would be happy with this outcome personally. I really don't think anything like this should ever have happened even if it is by RAW.

PF2 has so many rules that players shouldn't get penalized for not knowing how regeneration works especially after a successful recall knowledge. Expecting players to know monster mechanics in super detail is kind if crazy to me.

I know there are rules for everything and normally I always try to follow them but this just screams not fun for me at all. This isn't really a PF2 issue, I just don't think anything like this should happen for any game.

I think the occasional monster with an iconic "look dead but pops back up" ability is OK. I don't think trolls are a good example of that, though, as flesh stitching itself back together should be visually apparent. I could see missing it if you are fighting other things, but not if it is the last thing to hit the ground.

Also, this all really shouldn't have happened. If the GM had read more of the flavor text (which is always where you should start with Recall Knowledge, IMO):

The first thing that comes to mind when most think of trolls is the creatures’ power of bodily regeneration. So potent is this regeneration that the only way to overcome it is to exploit the troll’s vulnerability to acid and fire. It is not enough to slay the troll with caustic or flaming weapons, though—even the smallest scrap of a troll’s flesh can regenerate into a full-size troll given enough time. The only sure way to eradicate a troll menace is to burn the monster’s entire body until nothing remains.

All this nonsense about turn order has very little to do with the actual problem here: poor communication.

[The Raven Black]

I do not expect a Champion's player to know basics of the Champion's god's faith such as holy days, favored colors, wording of prayers. But I do expect the Champion to know it, and thus the GM to provide the info should the player ask for it.

So, I do not expect a player to know all the details of a monster's ability, but I expect their character to know it if the RK checks gives them the info. And the GM to provide the details.

Anything else is metagaming IMO.

[beowulf99]

The Raven Black wrote:

I do not expect a Champion's player to know basics of the Champion's god's faith such as holy days, favored colors, wording of prayers. But I do expect the Champion to know it, and thus the GM to provide the info should the player ask for it.

So, I do not expect a player to know all the details of a monster's ability, but I expect their character to know it if the RK checks gives them the info. And the GM to provide the details.

Anything else is metagaming IMO.

That's an odd stance to take. So if I understand you correctly, the ideal situation to you is that the players have no knowledge whatsoever of anything a creature in Pathfinder can do? Or anything about the setting?

I'm almost the polar opposite. In my group I usually GM, but others have done so in the past to certain degrees. I can't expect them to forget what they know about creatures, and it would be foolish of me to do so.

Instead we work on the honor system. If I or another player thinks the someone is using meta-game knowledge during a combat, we'll usually call each other out on it. One of our players who GMs more than the others usually prefers characters with ample access to knowledge specifically so they aren't as hampered by that.

And a character will never know exactly how a mechanic works. RD's Sorcerer wouldn't have any reason to know that the combat he is taking part in happens in turns or that the Troll's regeneration turns back on at the end of it's turn. He only knows that the troll heals rapidly, and that healing can be countered with Fire (RD didn't say the GM mentioned Acid, so I won't either). Why should the character suddenly have meta game knowledge? Or did I not catch your point?

[HumbleGamer]

The Raven Black wrote:

I do not expect a Champion's player to know basics of the Champion's god's faith such as holy days, favored colors, wording of prayers. But I do expect the Champion to know it, and thus the GM to provide the info should the player ask for it.

So, I do not expect a player to know all the details of a monster's ability, but I expect their character to know it if the RK checks gives them the info. And the GM to provide the details.

Anything else is metagaming IMO.

To me would be pretty the opposite.

Talking about characters and players, if any player might be able to memorize the important information of a bestiary book without any effort, so should be able to do any 10+ int character.

And I might also expect that adventurers, being superhumans in terms of stats, skills and feats, might also be able to recall those information in a pretty fast way ( while a normal npc might have trouble recalling them asap during a combat ), without even the need for a recall knowledge check.

After all, being reactive for what concerns their job would be normal.

Anyway, it's just a game mechanic.
You want to know during a combat, you expend 1 action to attempt 1 recall knowledge check ( which also means that you'd like to be proficient by investing in that specific skill, in order to avoid making mistakes an get wrong information ).

[Ascalaphus]

So I had to do a book dive to figure out what people were getting so worked up over. Interestingly I was having a parallel discussion with someone about the dying rules in Starfinder which seemed to have the same issue.

You might say that the regeneration rules are all there in the Bestiary; but actually you have to go back to the CRB and re-read the Dying rules as they apply to monsters to really understand what's going on. So it's not "4 sentences", it's "specific rules across two different books".

---

So what's the big deal then? Most of us have learned that monsters die at 0HP. But what the CRB says exactly is:

CRB p. 459 wrote:

Knocked Out and Dying

Creatures cannot be reduced to fewer than 0 Hit Points. When most creatures reach 0 Hit Points, they die and are removed from play unless the attack was nonlethal, in which case they are instead knocked out for a significant amount of time (usually 1 minute or more). When undead and construct creatures reach 0 Hit Points, they are destroyed.

Player characters, their companions, and other significant characters and creatures don’t automatically die when they reach 0 Hit Points. Instead, they are knocked out and are at risk of death. At the GM’s discretion, villains, powerful monsters, special NPCs, and enemies with special abilities that are likely to bring them back to the fight (like ferocity, regeneration, or healing magic) can use these rules as well.

So what they really say is, "we don't expect most monsters to get better so go ahead and take them off the board". But if you were fighting an enemy adventuring party with a cleric with Heal spells, the GM might keep downed NPCs on the map because they might get healed. Also if your party is particularly fond of wide-area Heal spells the GM could decide to keep downed enemies on the map because they might catch some collateral healing (1E style). Since I mostly see single-target Heal spells used, I guess this isn't worth the administrative effort normally.

So as a player it's pretty normal to think, hey monsters die at 0hp. Troll isn't regenerating and went to 0hp? Dead.

Now, I think there's a dramatic place for the odd encounter with an enemy that was left for dead coming back. But as a GM you have to distinguish stuff the characters might just not know, and when are you just playing mean tricks on players by being mysterious about basic rules.

In hindsight, I think the best way to handle it would have been this:

The players fight a troll. Eventually using fire to get it to go down. They pat each other on the back and consider it a job well done. But after one round the troll's regeneration turns back on, and one round after that it heals back up to 20hp. Jump scare! But the troll really isn't subtle enough to play dead and heal up without anyone noticing. So the PCs quickly beat it down again, it's prone and at only 20hp after all. At this point the GM takes a second to explain again how the Dying rules apply to monsters with regeneration, and the players torch the beast thoroughly and now it's really dead.

[The Raven Black]

In the end, what matters is that everybody has fun and it is a shared duty. Clearly here RD did not have fun. Now may just be the perfect time for communication : players should tell the GM how they feel and why so that things will go better next time.