Variant Rules and Recall Knowledge

[mrdavidgrossman]

I may possibly just be looking in the wrong place for such info, but what is the ruling when it comes to identifying creatures as they are versus what they are based on? As an example that comes up often in Gatewalkers, there are many creatures that differ heavily from their original.

Creature example:

such as Ogmunzorius, a Uniquely named level 11 variant of an Uncommon level 8 creature

In an example such as the one above: Let's say a player rolls to recall knowledge and their roll fails on a unique creature of that level, yet would have easily succeeded against the lower DC from the slightly more common, lower level creature it is based on. Would they successfully identify that it is akin to something similar to the base creature, or would it overall still be considered a failure?

[Curaigh]

I have allowed the 'it looks like X, but isn't X'. So I give out a little about the common creature, but I make sure they know it is not quite right either. I don't think a critically failure on the unique creature could still succeed on the common version, but if it did I would make sure the resulting information was wrong. The dice are there to add unpredictability to the game after all. :)

For example, cold iron was not as effective as hoped based on the 'success' of the demonic looking thing.

I am a little more lenient with the Inspector in my group (that is their stick and he is a new player) and a lot less lenient with the meta-gamer in our group. Who often details the 'common' critter regardless of the roll. That is just knowing my table though. :)