Knowledge fairness?

[jedipotter]

So with a couple rolls, and the right questions, a player can know everything. The knowledge rules as written leave no chance for mystery, unknowns or fun. Even if on the 901st level of the Abyss a player can make a roll to ''remember'' that in class of Abyss 101 they learned that caves with white light can be used to escape. Even if such knowledge would be impossible to know by any reasonable means. And it does not matter how high the DC is made as players just optimize and get it. But that is the rules.

But that is not what this thread was about.

Often in my games I use house rules to make knowledge useless for knowing everything. But sometimes I run games with the normal rules.

And in the by-the-book games it is common for players to use the knowledge ''too good to be true'' rule to know things they utterly, impossibly would have no way of knowing.

The Question
And that brings up the question. Can the DM roll knowledge skill checks for foes to know things about the player characters? Is it fair for npcs and monsters to remember things from school too?

[falloutimperial]

So with a couple rolls, and the right questions, a player can know everything... It does not matter how high the DC is made as players just optimize and get it. But that is the rules.

Generally the DC's provided for things like knowledge and diplomacy require tweaking by the DM. The book recommends a DC of 20 to 30 for "really tough questions" but that isn't by any means a cap. Furthermore, if it is impossible for a character to know something he/she/it shouldn't have a chance of knowing it. To do otherwise is the equivalent of letting players "climb" through thin air or "swim" through iron walls.

But if you decide to roll that way it's only fair for intelligent monsters to know a thing or two about the party. After all, there isn't much of a difference between the two. This reversal of fortune is a popular solution to players who convince NPC's with an exchange like the following:

NPC: There's no way you can go through there.
PC: I roll diplomacy. Twenty-four.

[Urpriest]

NPCs will know stuff about players anyway. Remember, Knowledge just tells you about a creature's race, not about its class levels. I'd expect most NPCs to know, for example, that an Elf is immune to Sleep effects without rolling a check. If the player is a high HD monster, then yeah, give NPCs a knowledge check, but otherwise they should just know this stuff.

[NichG]

My rule of thumb is 'Knowledge is for things that are or were known to some culture, civilization, or social group'. Knowledge skills represent an accumulation of lore, book learning, lessons from your master, etc. This can be secret knowledge - maybe only you and a few others know the three ways to kill a Damok-Re - but it doesn't extend to personal secrets like 'what did the king do last night' or things which are beyond the current level of knowledge in the world as a whole, like 'how do I refine uranium?'.

Keep in mind that the book does not list DCs for things like 'how do I escape the 101st layer of the Abyss?'. If you allow high checks to answer those questions, you are the one who decided that Knowledge can do that. It does list DCs for knowing the weaknesses and abilities of monsters, and for broad classes of knowledge, but there's no DC for 'impossible to know'.

Another thing to be careful about is that Knowledge is strictly for information, it does not combine in problem solving. 'How do I, given the tools I have right now, defeat this Damok-Re?' is not a valid question for the skill. You can ask 'what are the weaknesses of the Damok-Re?' or 'How have other people defeated Damok-Re in the past?' but you have to make that final leap to applying the knowledge.

Similarly, high Knowledge checks do not create solutions where there are none. Often the answer to something like 'What point on this creature's skin will instantly kill it if touched' is going to be 'there is no such point'.

[Alaris]

So with a couple rolls, and the right questions, a player can know everything. The knowledge rules as written leave no chance for mystery, unknowns or fun. Even if on the 901st level of the Abyss a player can make a roll to ''remember'' that in class of Abyss 101 they learned that caves with white light can be used to escape. Even if such knowledge would be impossible to know by any reasonable means. And it does not matter how high the DC is made as players just optimize and get it. But that is the rules.

But that is not what this thread was about.

Often in my games I use house rules to make knowledge useless for knowing everything. But sometimes I run games with the normal rules.

And in the by-the-book games it is common for players to use the knowledge ''too good to be true'' rule to know things they utterly, impossibly would have no way of knowing.

The Question
And that brings up the question. Can the DM roll knowledge skill checks for foes to know things about the player characters? Is it fair for npcs and monsters to remember things from school too?

I'd argue that if the PCs have made themselves well known in any capacity, then they fall under appropriate Skill Checks. For instance:

Knowledge Arcana: Could reveal information on well-known Wizard or Sorcerer PCs.
Knowledge Nature: Could reveal information on well-known Druids or Rangers.
Knowledge Religion: Could reveal information on well-known Clerics, Paladins, Favored Souls and the like.
Knowledge Nobility/Royalty: Could reveal information on PCs who are Nobility.

Generally I don't make it a check. If a PC makes themselves well-known, then NPCs will know of them. Not every NPC, but you see what I mean.

To answer your question, yes, it is fair for Monsters/NPCs to "remember things from school." And you can use it to your fullest wishes, so long as it ultimately provides more fun, or progresses your plot/story somehow.

To digress, I generally allow Knowledges to be useful. I don't allow them to let characters know 'everything.' But something they could feasibly have learned, I allow it.

[Soupz]

The Question
And that brings up the question. Can the DM roll knowledge skill checks for foes to know things about the player characters? Is it fair for npcs and monsters to remember things from school too?


Knowledge and lack of knowledge came up a lot my games. Detect Thoughts, Clairvoyance, Scry, Gather Information and Perception used by monsters and NPCs can lead to interesting difficulties designed specifically for your PCs.

Knowledge the skill is usually not a part of the knowledge arsenal.

[navar100]

It's not an atrocity for players to know things in character. I don't expect them to know everything ever that was, is, and will be, but I find it quite annoying and unfair for DMs who hyperventilate at the thought a PC knows something in character and reacts to that knowledge.

Just as players sometimes know things their PCs don't, it is just as well a PC knows things the player doesn't. The knowledge check, or sometimes Intelligence check because the Skill Point System has its flaws, is the game mechanic to help determine what the PC knowledge is the player should know about and the knowledge the player knows the PC can know as well and react. It is a feature, not a bug, that a character with a high knowledge foo check gets to know a lot about whatever foo relates.

It was a major pain in the ass (not my usual donkey euphemism) during my 2E days when DMs lauded it over players saying "You just don't know." 3E introduced Knowledge Skills just so players can finally know stuff. It doesn't matter how cool a DM's world is with all its mysteries and intricacies if he's the only one who gets to know the Grand Scheme. Let the players in on it too. Major Plot Points is a separate matter. That knowledge is to be learned through play, but a d20 roll allowing the party to know a troll is vulnerable to fire and acid is not a crime against humanity.

[rexreg]

the DC of any knowledge check is highly arbitrary
ofttimes very obscure knowledge will require a DC of 45 or 50...this scales to what I know the players are capable of hitting

unless an obscenely high die roll is made, a Knowledge check about a unique demon from the 101st layer of the Abyss will net no more than "it's a tanar'ri" or "it's an osyluth"...or, "you have a feeling it's not from the Lower Planes"...knowing even that much shows what a kind, generous DM i am

[Slipperychicken]

You should bear in mind that your PCs live in this world; they should be quite acutely aware of the creatures and hazards, especially in their areas of expertise. Not to mention that these characters are more knowledgeable than normal people could be, just like they're far better at jumping or fighting than is physically possible (but I'm certain that you don't forbid them from leaping 50ft chasms or defeating Tarrasques, even though such tasks are impossible for normal folks). By 10th level alone, a character is supposed to be capable of Herculean tasks.

You'd also be surprised by the kind of obscure facts which one can learn from study, experience, and even stories.

For example, I might never have visited a middle-eastern desert, but I do know that horses are frightened a camels' smell and appearance. I might never have seen the bottom of the Atlantic trench, but I do know that life itself may have originated from the volcanic chasms there. And so on.


So with a couple rolls, and the right questions, a player can know everything. The knowledge rules as written leave no chance for mystery, unknowns or fun. Even if on the 901st level of the Abyss a player can make a roll to ''remember'' that in class of Abyss 101 they learned that caves with white light can be used to escape. Even if such knowledge would be impossible to know by any reasonable means.

Reasonable explanations:
White light is sometimes used by demons to indicate an escape route.
Areas so rife with chaotic energy as the Abyss sometimes manifest light such that the white leads in a certain direction.
There was an account of planar explorers escaping such a tunnel via a white-lit cave.
Some researchers recorded an interview with a bound demon, in which the demon mentioned this fact to them.
An account of a demon-cult (perhaps written by a mad cultist himself) mentions this information being revealed by a demonic patron or ally.
The light betrays something about the nature of the cave (which direction, magical properties, etc) which indicate it's more likely to lead them out.

[NichG]

You'd also be surprised by the kind of obscure facts which one can learn from study, experience, and even stories.

For example, I might never have visited a middle-eastern desert, but I do know that horses are frightened a camels' smell and appearance. I might never have seen the bottom of the Atlantic trench, but I do know that life itself may have originated from the volcanic chasms there. And so on.


These however are all things that are known in the world you live in. If I ask you 'describe the mating dances of the inhabitants of Gamma Cygni IV' then at best you might be able to say 'I think you're full of it, because you don't even know if there's life there to ask me that question' or 'here is an extrapolated guess based on mating dances in human cultures'. Its not obscure knowledge, its knowledge that does not yet exist within the context of the world we live in.

I would say this is analogous to the PCs being the first ever people from their world to visit a certain layer of the Abyss. If they're Sigillian, then of course the scope of their world is much bigger and might include this. But even still, the Abyss is infinite - any given layer has a higher chance of never having been explored by a living person than of having been explored by a living person.



Reasonable explanations:
White light is sometimes used by demons to indicate an escape route.
Areas so rife with chaotic energy as the Abyss sometimes manifest light such that the white leads in a certain direction.
There was an account of planar explorers escaping such a tunnel via a white-lit cave.
Some researchers recorded an interview with a bound demon, in which the demon mentioned this fact to them.
An account of a demon-cult (perhaps written by a mad cultist himself) mentions this information being revealed by a demonic patron or ally.
The light betrays something about the nature of the cave (which direction, magical properties, etc) which indicate it's more likely to lead them out.


These are all post-facto justifications though. Having a high knowledge check result does not make any of these scenarios actually true. In general, D&D (3.5 at least) operates on the model of 'you have abilities, they do particular things for you, which you must then synthesize to resolve your situation', as opposed to the model of 'declare what skill/ability you're using, and if you hit a certain DC you can describe how it solves your current dilemma'.

Thats not to say that a DM should insist that none of those scenarios are true. But it does mean that its the DM's purview to decide whether or not such a 'reasonable explanation' exists and to use that decision to determine the DC of the Knowledge check (or if its just impossible).

There are lots of problems with this - it can push things towards a mother-may-I dynamic - but thats the consequence of the player going beyond of the listed DCs and mechanics given for Knowledge checks. The player is, in a very strict reading of the rules, asking for a house rule to allow something they consider reasonable but which the book doesn't explicitly let them do.

[Diarmuid]

They dont have to necessarily be the first people from their world to go there to perhaps have talked to planar beings who have been there, or used divinations or other magics (divine insight, lore of the gods, etc providing a bonus to skills/knowledges) to learn about the topic.

You're imposing limitations that would exist in our world on ones that wouldnt be obstacles in a high fantasty world of D&D.

[NichG]

They dont have to necessarily be the first people from their world to go there to perhaps have talked to planar beings who have been there, or used divinations or other magics (divine insight, lore of the gods, etc providing a bonus to skills/knowledges) to learn about the topic.

You're imposing limitations that would exist in our world on ones that wouldnt be obstacles in a high fantasty world of D&D.

But you don't disagree that the information needs to exist in the world first, before its a viable target for Knowledge checks?

What I'm saying is, just because you can come up with a way in which the information could be in the world, doesn't mean that it must be in the world. The decision whether it is or is not is entirely in the hands of the DM, not just because it relies on background information or because of Rule 0, but just because the rules do not say what the DC should be for every piece of information the player might want to know. If people have spoken to planar entities about this particular bit of planar real estate is not a function of the PC's knowledge check, its a function of the setting background. An arbitrarily high result on the skill check does not rewrite the history of the campaign setting such that these things were known when otherwise they had not been.

Now, you can argue that its unrealistic that no one in the world would know about something. The thing is, even in our world, which has been heavily and thoroughly explored, there are still places that people don't know about. We may have satellite imagery of the surface, but most of the undersea areas are unexplored. We don't know much about things deep within the crust of our world either, and we have only limited satellite survey-style information about most of the other planets in our system (with the exception, now, of Mars). These things represent the frontiers of our abilities and knowledge - they are where interesting exploration happens.

Take now a party of high level characters who are, for the first time, stepping out into the planes. They may be the highest level people on their world, the heroes of their material plane. Like the astronauts and deep-sea explorers of our world, they go out there to something that is largely unknown, because they are among the first people from their world who can cut it in those harsh environments. I would say that is a perfectly reasonable way to run - the PCs are the heroes, which means that not everything has been indexed and finished before they got there. Now, thats not required by any means, but lets look at the case where the PCs aren't special, aren't the first.

We're talking one layer of an infinite plane. Infinite. That means if every person on your particular prime knew the complete details of a single layer, statistically speaking the probability is zero that anyone knows about any particular layer. Thats just a property of infinity. Layers make it easy to count, but the Abyss is certainly not the only infinite plane. The Outlands are infinite in extent, the elemental planes are likewise infinite.

So there's no reason why any particular bit of the terrain should have been studied by anyone unless it has some wide-ranging importance. People will know things about layer 666, because its famous, or about the layers involving demon lords/etc that have interfered with the history of their prime plane. But some arbitrary layer? It won't happen. Even in a world with divination, Contact Other Plane, etc, its unrealistic.

Lets even put that aside, and focus on fun. Is it more fun for the players to be able to use Knowledge to get that kind of answer? I'd argue that it isn't. Combats that are solved with a single action are less fun than those in which everyone can participate. Similarly, scenarios such as 'you're stranded on X layer of the Abyss' are less interesting when a single skill check solves them. I do believe that, for sake of player choices being meaningful, the Knowledge check should give them some information on their situation, but it should be of a general nature rather than a specific nature. Instead of 'to leave this place, go to the white-light caves' which may be the eventual solution, it should be information that leads to more adventure:

"Transitions between layers of the Abyss must occur one at a time, unless one has the aid of the lord of the layer," for example. Or even broader things:

"The Veritox Demon loves to confound people by pretending to be a petitioner and giving wanderers advice that will lead to their doom. The Blood Tree knows the answers to questions regarding the layer it grows in, but requires a sacrifice before it will speak. The egg of a Simpathetic will allow you to transition upwards one planar layer when consumed."

These are all general pieces of knowledge (dealing with a type of creature rather than a unique entity or plane) that allow the skill to be useful and also lead to more adventure. This is particularly effective if these side-leads are not the main way you had planned for them to escape, as it means that the presence of the skill in the party creates a choice for the PCs - follow the main line, or follow one of these other approaches - which makes it feel like it wasn't there just to allow a DM info-dump.

[Slipperychicken]

But you don't disagree that the information needs to exist in the world first, before its a viable target for Knowledge checks?


In the D&D universe, there are entities which know literally everything, who can see both the future and the past, and people can ask them about it essentially for free. All information is fair game as a result.

[Urpriest]

In the D&D universe, there are entities which know literally everything, who can see both the future and the past, and people can ask them about it essentially for free. All information is fair game as a result.

This, and furthermore, the whole point of rules is to put boundaries on the setting. Knowledge checks aren't culture-specific because D&D is a setting in which all cultures are in communication. You need to adhere to certain concepts in order to make your setting compatible with D&D.

[NichG]

In the D&D universe, there are entities which know literally everything, who can see both the future and the past, and people can ask them about it essentially for free. All information is fair game as a result.

This is a very different mechanic than a Knowledge check though - its casting a spell, or walking up to such a being and asking them to do their divination thing, or whatever. A Knowledge check means that the character is accessing information that they already obtained somehow, during undefined periods of study in their past and using the sorts of methods that were available to them. It does not include solitary 'unique' encounters such as having a friendly chat with an omniscient being about just the question they would need answered in the future, much in the same way that a player saying 'oh yeah, Boccob now owes me a personal favor' would be outside of what would normally be considered appropriate for a miscellaneous downtime action.

Furthermore, even if the PC did speak with a Water Weird or something, there's a distinction between an entity that can seek the answer to any question and an entity that already knows everything. While there are entities who are able to divine upon any question in D&D, I do not believe there are any that actually 'literally know everything'. Even gods in D&D only know 'everything' within the confines of stuff that impacts their domain.

The important thing is that it takes someone willfully seeking this information to result in that divination occurring. A Water Weird has a method of obtaining most information, but must spend actions and time to do so. It must know the right questions to ask. Similarly, just because a wizard can cast Contact Other Plane and talk to Grazzt about the layout of the Abyss doesn't mean that he has actually done so, or that their conversation covered that particular region of that particular sub-plane.

In a given setting, the number of wizards with access to CoP might be something you can count on one hand. Even if it numbers in the thousands, thats a finite number of wizards, a finite number of spell slots, and so a finite number of questions. As such, they cannot actually know an infinite number of things, such as the details of every layer of the Abyss.

Furthermore, the existence of such entities in general does not imply that their personal repertoires of knowledge are even generally available. Grazzt might know whats on the 101st layer of the Abyss, but if he has not decided to tell anyhow, then the fact that he knows it is irrelevant.


This, and furthermore, the whole point of rules is to put boundaries on the setting. Knowledge checks aren't culture-specific because D&D is a setting in which all cultures are in communication. You need to adhere to certain concepts in order to make your setting compatible with D&D.

Knowledge checks fall under one of roughly three categories: things that have explicitly listed, fixed DCs to know about them; things that have DCs that are directly calculable (e.g. the DC to know something about a monster scales with its HD); things that fall under broad adjectives such as 'uncommon knowledge' 'rare knowledge'.

I would argue that Knowledge checks can be culture-specific even within the framework of strict RAW, because of the leeway given by those adjectives. The DM is given the job of determining if a certain piece of knowledge is 'common', 'uncommon', etc when it doesn't have an explicitly listed DC elsewhere. That decision absolutely can be made relative to a culture, particular prime plane, etc.

[ryu]

The problem with claiming that a particular piece of information that is actually relevant in any way to the setting is that by definition of the fact that these spells and semi-omniscient exist SOMEONE already has asked and knows. Unless your player is literally just randomly getting ported to some arbitrary layer no race, demon, or god has seen before someone has been there and probably learned things. From there people don't simply exist in a vacuum. They talk to each other. They divine on each other. They write books written by each other pertaining to these fantastic experiences.

A world where the PCs are the only competent ones in existence is unrealistic given the fact that several large organizations have spellcasters leveled far past the point where they can be written off.

[Slipperychicken]

It does not include solitary 'unique' encounters such as having a friendly chat with an omniscient being

The player character need not have asked the deity, or even cast the spell himself; perhaps someone else did and wrote a book about it. Perhaps the PC spoke to a Cleric who asked the deity. Perhaps an angel asked the deity, then told a professor who told the PC. Perhaps someone scryed on a conversation between deity and Cleric, then recorded it. Maybe a servant of goodness spied on abyssal territory and told someone or wrote it down. Maybe a detachment from Hell made it down there as a Blood War special operation and gathered intel. Maybe a demon spilled the beans while magically compelled. There are all kinds of ways for this information to reach the PC.

It does not matter. It is plausible that the PC could have learned the information through study or experience, so it is within the scope of a Knowledge check.

[NichG]

The problem with claiming that a particular piece of information that is actually relevant in any way to the setting is that by definition of the fact that these spells and semi-omniscient exist SOMEONE already has asked and knows.

Existence does not imply access. Perhaps all the gods know the secret of a given place. If they don't share that secret, either because they refuse to or because no one knows to ask, then it does not matter that all the gods know it. If the number of people able to access these spells and omniscient entities is small, there's the additional factor that they only have a small probability of having asked the relevant questions or even knew enough to ask a useful question about the scenario.



A world where the PCs are the only competent ones in existence is unrealistic given the fact that several large organizations have spellcasters leveled far past the point where they can be written off.

Its an assumption, not a given, that high level spell casters are common. If you're talking about an established setting like Faerun, sure, but there's nothing stopping a DM from running a setting where the highest level non-PC in the world is Lv6. Or Lv3.


The player character need not have asked the deity, or even cast the spell himself; perhaps someone else did and wrote a book about it. Perhaps the PC spoke to a Cleric who asked the deity. Perhaps an angel asked the deity, then told a professor who told the PC. Perhaps someone scryed on a conversation between deity and Cleric, then recorded it. Maybe a servant of goodness spied on abyssal territory and told someone or wrote it down. Maybe a detachment from Hell made it down there as a Blood War special operation and gathered intel. Maybe a demon spilled the beans while magically compelled. There are all kinds of ways for this information to reach the PC.


This is a lot of perhapses. But thats all they are - perhapses. That you can author a story in which something convenient to you occurs does not make it so.

Nothing in the rules compels these perhapses to be actualized. The only one who can answer whether or not these perhapses did in fact occur is the DM.



It does not matter. It is plausible that the PC could have learned the information through study or experience, so it is within the scope of a Knowledge check.

If it doesn't have a fixed DC, that plausibility is strictly given to the DM to evaluate. There are no rules about how to evaluate it, no hard standards to determine what is reasonable or plausible.

[ryu]

I didn't say existence. I said relevance. If a place has any relevance whatsoever and you aren't just porting people to random layers where no demon has ever been and no god has ever looked the information exists by nature of time and the almighty power of a world where divination are a thing.

Further you can't actually have a logically consistent world where demons and the abyss exist without high level characters besides the pcs. If these demons have been in place since the formation of the world and existence didn't spawn five seconds ago what's holding your world away from apocalyptic demon domination? A stick of glue and some hope perhaps? Gods aren't an answer because as many or more evil deities exist as good.

[Diarmuid]

The abstractness of the knowledge check is based on those perhapses though. A really high check just shows that those perhaps stars did align for the PC when making that check.

If you want to assign arbitrarily high DC's, that's your prerogative as a DM. But if your party manages to actually meet the DC's that means they've spent resources (skill points, feats, magic items, spells, etc) and you should respect that. But saying its just not available, or "moving the goalposts" isn't how the system is expected to be used.

If its your game, do what you want, but don't be surprised if your house rules aren't supported/accepted by the majority of people. Just as you're entitled to your opinion that the system is broken, so are the rest of us that its just fine.

[Slipperychicken]

Nothing in the rules compels these perhapses to be actualized.


The mechanics of the Knowledge skill represent that the PC has previously learned any information which a successful check grants him.

[Duke of Urrel]

Jedipotter's original question is easily answered. Whatever PCs can know by making Knowledge checks, NPCs can know, too. As a DM, I try to apply exactly the same rules to PCs and NPCs. Sometimes, though, it is necessary to make checks for NPCs that aren't necessary for PCs. For example, if I'm not sure whether a NPC will or won't fall for a particular trick or be tempted to do a particular thing, I may make an ability check or perhaps a luck check for the NPC. This isn't necessary in the case of Knowledge checks, because I usually assume that these automatically take 10, except in combat situations.

The question of the limitations of Knowledge skill is harder to answer. On the one hand, the D&D multiverse is magical, so there are ways to obtain knowledge not available to us in the real world. On the other hand, for every divination, there is an equal and opposite abjuration, at least in theory. Moreover, the D&D multiverse is technologically not as advanced as ours, which means that you can't just visit a public library or order a book from Amazon; books on scholarly topics are rare and valuable things that often don't have copies. (When a PC learns something new and obscure, does he or she immediately rush to publish a book about it, so that everybody else can know? I don't think so.) And finally, I don't believe any deity in the multiverse is perfectly omniscient, particularly in regard to the future, because there's a certain chaos inherent in the world order – caused by rolling dice – that makes all prediction a little foggy. (The very existence of a "Know Secrets" power that works when a deity looks at a creature implies that the deity does not automatically possess this knowledge beforehand.) Sometimes, the best answer you can get has the word "usually" or "probably" in it. "Always" or "never" may not be possible.

So I would take the side of NichG and say that there are secrets in the multiverse beyond what you can happen to know by making a Knowledge check at DC 30. Surely the secrets that high-ranking devils keep from each other fall into this category. I think it's a good general rule to assume that Knowledge skill in most fields covers only species, not unique individuals, and that even in fields that concern individuals (such as History and Nobility and Royalty), there may be some secrets that nobody knows except for the individuals themselves.

If you make a Knowledge check that scores 30 or higher with the aim to discover a secret, I think it's fair for the DM to give a clue or a partial answer rather than a full answer to a question. For example, you may not know the password to open the king's treasure chamber, but you know the name of the king's treasurer, and you know where she lives, and that she happens to be foolishly fond of young half-elven bards who play the harp. It's also always fair to give an answer that includes the word "usually" or "probably" or even "as far as anybody knows." The knowledge of NPCs should be limited in exactly the same way.

I disagree with Urpriest's statement that "the whole point of rules is to put boundaries on the setting." I think the rules are there to put boundaries on creatures – that is, on PCs, NPCs, and monsters – and even deities – but not the setting. The multiverse should be theoretically boundless, and there should be secrets known only to individuals, or only to a few high-ranking deities who choose not to reveal them to mortals – or who have never had any reason to do so until the present moment. That's what spells like Commune and Contact Other Plane are for.

[NichG]

I didn't say existence. I said relevance. If a place has any relevance whatsoever and you aren't just porting people to random layers where no demon has ever been and no god has ever looked the information exists by nature of time and the almighty power of a world where divination are a thing.


'Relevant to whom?' is the important question here. It could be relevant to some people, but just not to the people of this particular Prime plane that is the major setting of the campaign. Or maybe it would be relevant if they found out about it, but they haven't learned enough to ask yet.



Further you can't actually have a logically consistent world where demons and the abyss exist without high level characters besides the pcs. If these demons have been in place since the formation of the world and existence didn't spawn five seconds ago what's holding your world away from apocalyptic demon domination? A stick of glue and some hope perhaps? Gods aren't an answer because as many or more evil deities exist as good.

There are a number of answers to this. One is simply, yes its the gods/forces of good. Good and evil are busy fighting over other battlefields that are, for whatever reason, more important or relevant than this particular Prime material plane. For most outsiders, death isn't permanent if it happens on the Prime, so why fight a war in a place where both sides get better?

Or you have a Pact Primeval situation - the powerful forces of the universe have agreed to leave it - mostly - alone, lest they destroy it in direct conflict.

Another is, the world isn't static - maybe it will get overrun by demons, if the heroes don't adapt to the World Out There. Maybe it hasn't been discovered yet, and when it finally is, it will be disastrous unless the heroes become strong enough to defend it.

I think its a mistake to consider the cosmos as an equilibrium. Things are constantly changing, new things are being created, old things are decaying. In an equilibrium cosmos, nothing the heroes do ever matters, because they are just part of the forces keeping everything unchanging. Something that has not been relevant can become relevant. Something that has not been accessible can become accessible. These changes are the heart of most stories - its not usually 'PCs versus an entrenched BBEG who has been in charge for infinity', its 'PCs versus a new growing menace'.

Take this setting for example:

- Podunk Prime. This is the E6 world where the PCs are The Big Heroes, and the only ones who can stop that one Hezrou from conquering the entire world. This isn't generally conquered because the bigger forces in the cosmos have other things to do - maybe they don't even know about this prime. It, like a mediocre resume, has never gotten past the various lower-end cosmic entities to their superiors. That Hezrou saw it and said 'aha, ripe for the plucking', which is why he's the BBEG despite being a much smaller fish than the big boys. Maybe this Prime is newly formed, or maybe it was just very far off the beaten path. Maybe one deity in particular hid it, and that deity's power is now waning. Maybe the plane itself is an elder evil and has immunity to the divination of the gods. It could also just not be very important cosmically.

If the heroes from Podunk Prime end up in Sigil, they're dealing with the fact that their world had very little contact with the world they find themselves in. There may be many things that people of their world simply never had a chance to learn about before. Maybe a few people had even spoken with extra-planar beings in the history of their world, but they would have gotten very specific bits of information, not a wide-ranging 'everything worth knowing about everything'. This world is not highly connected, and as a result it is going to be far from equilibrium with the rest of the cosmos.

You can do this with higher-powered settings too. Take something like Dark Sun - there's basically a giant shield around the plane preventing outer-planar forces from interacting with it, to the extent that basically no gods are worshipped and clerical magic is really weak. If you ran an adventure where that wall suddenly fell, then you have interesting stories that come about because now there's an influx of new information, stuff that wasn't known before. Or if you have a character end up on the planes via the elemental planes, which are still connected with Athas.


The abstractness of the knowledge check is based on those perhapses though. A really high check just shows that those perhaps stars did align for the PC when making that check.

If you want to assign arbitrarily high DC's, that's your prerogative as a DM. But if your party manages to actually meet the DC's that means they've spent resources (skill points, feats, magic items, spells, etc) and you should respect that. But saying its just not available, or "moving the goalposts" isn't how the system is expected to be used.


Its not saying 'the DC is X' then saying 'oh too bad, that was a lie, you hit X but you still fail'; its saying 'there are things that for you, you cannot make a skill check to simply know, no matter how high your skill check gets'. I do not know where you are getting your 'this is not how the system is expected to be used' - that seems to me to be an incredible stretch. I've never seen anything in the system suggesting that 'what King Rodger is thinking right now' should be a valid target for a Knowledge Nobility/Royalty check or that 'what spells does this particular dragon have prepared?' should be a valid target for a Knowledge Arcana check.



If its your game, do what you want, but don't be surprised if your house rules aren't supported/accepted by the majority of people. Just as you're entitled to your opinion that the system is broken, so are the rest of us that its just fine.

Initially my purpose in posting on this thread was to assure the OP that he did not have to feel powerless to adjudicate Knowledge checks even when he's following the rules as written. From what I could see, the OP was operating on an assumption - not backed up by the RAW - that any and all questions were valid subjects for a Knowledge check, and that he 'had' to give players any answer they requested as a result of very high checks.

The rules do not support this, and it was his own particular assumptions that were binding him.

At this point, I'm posting more to object to this idea that somehow 'if you aren't running the Tippyverse you're doing it wrong'. There seems to be this tendency of players, especially on these boards, to build a mental image of 'the D&D setting' and then to insist that this constructed image is demanded by the rules, to the extent of browbeating other people into accepting it as the only way to play.

I very much oppose that idea, and I think its an unhealthy thing for a player to hold on to. It will interfere with their ability to appreciate anything but their pre-formed expectations, and it leads to feelings of resentment when they find that their assumptions do not hold.


The mechanics of the Knowledge skill represent that the PC has previously learned any information which a successful check grants him.

This isn't relevant to any of my points though. We're discussing how to set the DC, not how to run a situation where the PC has already succeeded on the check. I'm not saying that if the PC hits a book-listed DC for a Knowledge check, the DM should say 'no you didn't'. I'm saying that there are things for which it makes sense that there should be no DC to begin with - that it is not within the purview of the skill to answer the question at all.

[ryu]

Because a world in at least some reasonable balance makes more sense than one where everything is in a constant state of being conquered or liberated on a large scale by the forces of alignment? Borders can shift and even important fights can happen, but the world playing out like a Saturday morning cartoon and back again is silly.

[jedipotter]

Jedipotter's original question is easily answered. Whatever PCs can know by making Knowledge checks, NPCs can know, too. As a DM, I try to apply exactly the same rules to PCs and NPCs.

Sounds good to me.