Disallowing people to identify specific creatures with Knowledge rolls

[Spore]

Greetings playground,

Do you think think this is valid?

Frankly I have had enough sessions where immersion was COMPLETELY destroyed by dissecting creatures's abilities with insane knowledge rolls. I play an Oracle of Lore myself but in my opinion talking about damage reduction, energy resistance and known spelllike abilities destroys immersion.

You imagine having a hulking beast before you. There are soldiers littered around it. Faces of friends, fathers and good people. And what does your table focus on? "That's an Glabrezu we know exactly how to act. How boring."

Ugh...

So which path is fair for players while keeping immersion? I have thought about giving snippets of information instead of a full screening of the abilities. So someone would know about basic immunities, creature type and basic damage reduction and how to overcome it. Specific stuff like Succubi having Dominate Person is also fine.

But I won't tell people about damage resistances, their saving throws (which saving throw is weak is a commonly asked question at our table) and so on.

[Malaqai]

At the tables I play at knowledge rolls are restricted by what would be reasonable for the character to know according to their backstory, as determined by the presiding DM. For example, in my current campaign I play a Witch who is fairly good at Knowledge Arcana checks because of her background, but because she grew up in the wilds I'd never be able to get something helpful off of a Knowledge Nobility check. In contrast, the party Bard is more knowledgeable about Nobility but not quite so well-versed with magic. And if we're facing off against a creature that wouldn't be well-understood by any of the characters in our party, then you can bet that Knowledge Nature isn't doing us any good.

Furthermore, even when Knowledge Nature is useful for us, we never get anything meta like "this creature is weak to Will Saves." We'll get something about the creature's known combat behavior and maybe a snippet hinting at its power. For example, most recently we came up against a Roc, and Knowledge Nature told us something to the effect that "Rocs tend to pick up their prey before dropping it from a great height. Fully grown Rocs have been known to lift elephants off the ground."

In all, I'd say you're on the right track to having immersive Knowledge checks.

[Alex12]

Speaking as someone who loves him some knowledge rolls, this seems like a bad idea. An adventurer with high Knowledge skills has put actual effort, and presumably quite a bit of it, into cranking that up. In-character, they've been studying monsters, maybe dissected (or even vivisected) some of them, reading books, and doing all sorts of stuff like that. For someone like that, not knowing stuff like "this monster is resistant to slashing and piercing weapons" would be more unreasonable.

[Yanisa]

Well the very strict RAW is in your favor. All a knowledge can reveal is what the creature is, what it's special abilities are and what their vulnerabilities are. And remember, vulnerabilities (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/universal-monster-rules#TOC-Vulnerabilities-Ex-or-Su-) are a defined term within the rules, damage reduction and low saves are not the creatures vulnerabilities. Also spell-like abilities are not under the header of special abilities, so cannot be identified. Besides that, knowledge check only reveals a bit of information, so it depends on the DM to say what a bit is, but it doesn't sound like a lot. :smalltongue:

Yeah strict RAW is mean to people that invest in high knowledge skill checks.

[Doc_Maynot]

Well the very strict RAW is in your favor. All a knowledge can reveal is what the creature is, what it's special abilities... Also spell-like abilities are not under the header of special abilities, so cannot be identified.
Yeah strict RAW is mean to people that invest in high knowledge skill checks.

While this is a good point I'd like to point out that in both D&D 3.5 and PF they both say "special powers or vulnerabilities," not abilities.

[Yanisa]

While this is a good point I'd like to point out that in both D&D 3.5 and PF they both say "special powers or vulnerabilities," not abilities.

So you know only identify psionics? :smalltongue:

But yeah, I missed that tidbit. Then again stat blocks are weird in naming things consistently.. Take a Nymph (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey/nymph) for example, the abilities found under the special abilities header are differently named in the stat block. Which names the abilities SQ (Special Qualities), Special Attacks and Aura's (And let's not get started of senses, special attacks, and aura's that are also Special Qualities, because having one term isn't confusing enough).

And outside creature stat blocks Special Abilities (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/special-abilities) do include Spell-like abilities. (And damage reduction, hmmm)

Bottom line, the DM decides what a "special power" is and what can be identified. Knowledge checks really depend on how nice or mean the DM is. :smalltongue:

[MrNobody]

As a DM i like to go around the problem on immersion giving players info in "in-game language". (I'm one that thinks that, in game, terms like DR, SR, and other terms related to the handbook don't exist)

That said, if the monster has skyhigh SR i'll say: "this kind of creature made history because even *insert name of famous mage here*had some serious difficulties in making his spells work against it".
DR x/- or high natural armor: "even the sword of the mighty *name of warrior* couldn't completely break through the skin of this monster".
DR x/alignement: "when one of this creatures invaded *name of city* only the energy born from the pure heart/discipline/tainted soul/randomness(?) of *name of fighter* could win the beast and bring back peace".
And so on.

Another way is to occasionally present to your player some unique foes: you can totally create it from 0 or do a template-fest on an existing monster, deciding then to treat it as an unique creature and not as a modified one.
Being the monster unique, your PCs won't have any chance of having learned something about it: you'll skip the "painful" knowledge part and add a touch of mystery to the story.

[Eldan]

What Mr. Nobody said. Pack it into fluff.

Resistance to all energy forms:
"In the Scrolls of the Second Day, it says that the archmage had to invent a new spell to slay this demon, because being an abomination unto god, it twisted all the energies of nature around itself. No fire would purify it, no water wash away it's sins."

[BWR]

While it can be annoying to have players automatically learn all the weaknesses of your encounters, the rules are there and you should be careful about removing this ability altogether - it makes several skills nigh useless and hurts anyone who puts ranks in them.

You can alter the rules a bit instead of removing them.
1. Knowledge means someone has learned of the creature and lived to tell the tale. If the creature is entirely new to the PCs and what they can reasonably have been expected to learn, you are perfectly justified in making the DC for the roll higher or removing altogether in certain circumstances - polar bears are not common in the desert so your average desert dweller should have a harder time identifying one than someone who lives in the icy wastes and a new, unique monstrosity should not be identified by a Knowledge roll, imo. Problems of similar monsters should also be a matter of increased DCs and somethings are nearly impossible to tell (how do you tell the difference between the dozen or so skeletal undead just by looking at them?).

2. You can, as others have noted, filter the information through local accounts. The roll doesn't tell you that it has Fire Resistance, it just notes that flames didn't hurt it (maybe a higher DC to note the difference between resistance and immunity).

3. The idea of Knowledges is that people encounter things and tell others about them. Whether they write dissertations on them or pass stories around a campfire, knowledge gets passed on. Assuming that this isn't the case is to my mind less probable than people knowing everything about everything. There's a lot of room between 'Knowledge tells you everything' and 'no Knowledge for you'.

If you do intend to alter the rules, make sure to announce this BEFORE the game starts. Some things need to be fixed in game but I've heard more complaints about changes made during games than about the changes themselves.

[fishyfishyfishy]

If you do intend to alter the rules, make sure to announce this BEFORE the game starts. Some things need to be fixed in game but I've heard more complaints about changes made during games than about the changes themselves.

I want to expand on this point. Be sure to bring up this alteration to your players before the game begins and have a complete write up of all the mechanics. If they wish to invest in those skills they will need to know the details. You should do this for all of your house rules. Anything less would be unfair to them.

[mephnick]

To learn a lot about any monster you have to make a significant skill point investment into 5 different skills.

Someone who does this obviously enjoys the knowledge system of the game, as I do. They are consciously weakening their social and physical skills to play a knowledgeable character.

Taking it away seems really harsh and anti-fun to me.

[Eldan]

Oh, and another thing. I'd move away from basing knowledge DCs on monster HD. It makes little sense. That way, someone with a handful of points in Knowledge: arcane, as an example, could tell apart hundreds of arcane magical spirits that all look almost the same, as long as they each have only 1 HD, but couldn't tell that this giant, flying, red, firebreathing armoured lizard-thing is a dragon and that it probably breathes fire and is weak to cold. Base it in the monster. Make a short table for each monster, like the infamous bear lore from 4E.

[mephnick]

Also remember that a simple successful check only gives you a little bit of information. To learn everything about that Glabrezu, you'd have to roll like 40+

And, only one person (usually) knows this information, it isn't shared knowledge unless he tells his companions, which may be tough to explain in detail while in combat.

[Zanos]

If people beat the DC I just tell them what the creature is. I don't tell them if I've advanced it class levels or it's spell selection or anything else.

I don't find it particularly immersion breaking that the dude who lives in a tower and reads books all day or cuts up corpses in his basement knows a whole bunch about the abilities of different monsters. It's not going to tell you that the orc you're fighting is actually cleric 5, though.

[mephnick]

A successful check of a 23 may tell a character something like: It's a demon and has been known to teleport

It won't mention the true seeing, rend, at will confusions, summons, stuns, immunities to electricty/poison, resistances, spell resistance etc etc

[fishyfishyfishy]

Oh, and another thing. I'd move away from basing knowledge DCs on monster HD. It makes little sense. That way, someone with a handful of points in Knowledge: arcane, as an example, could tell apart hundreds of arcane magical spirits that all look almost the same, as long as they each have only 1 HD, but couldn't tell that this giant, flying, red, firebreathing armoured lizard-thing is a dragon and that it probably breathes fire and is weak to cold. Base it in the monster. Make a short table for each monster, like the infamous bear lore from 4E.

For my game I treat the knowledge checks to identify a creature that has many variations as one basic check for each kind based on the lowest hit dice. Let me explain: A wyrmling red dragon has a DC17 check to correctly identify. So the base DC for red dragons is that. Each age category becomes more and more difficult to identify, as dragons become more powerful and gain new abilities with age. You might be able to realize that this thing is a fire breathing red dragon who will greatly dislike cold damage, but you're not sure if it's got any other abilities like damage reduction or spells yet.

[Eldariel]

I'll say this: Just because they can identify a creature doesn't mean they identify this individual (and always not even then). Unless they happen to know this particular Glabrezu, they don't know about his skills as a Wizard (i.e. class levels), his particularly brutal charge (i.e. the fact that he has the Shock Trooper-feat line) or about his mastery of his telekinesis powers (Master of the Unseen Hand and Meta Spell-Like Feats). Or about that Ring he's carrying or whatever. Just because they can identify something as a demon of a particular kind doesn't mean they can figure out everything it does. And even if they can't, they might not know they're walking into a trap, they are actually staring at an illusion, they've walked through a portal to dreamheart, or whatever.

Basically, just identifying a creature shouldn't defang it. Knowing what you're fighting is half the battle, true, but knowing X is a human doesn't let you know what the human's true capabilities are.

[MrNobody]

Oh, and another thing. I'd move away from basing knowledge DCs on monster HD.

The check is based on monster's CR, not HD. I's an important distinction because there are a lot of monsters with low HD but with high CR, and vice-versa.

[mephnick]

I think lots of people just play the skill wrong. It isn't "Oh you made the roll, here's the bestiary, study the page"

You learn like..one or two things, unless you blow the DC out of the water.

[jiriku]

AS a DM, I don't provide numbers when giving information about a creature. I'll say "you'll have trouble hurting this creature without cold iron weapons, and it's resistant to fire and acid." My knowledgeable players can infer which saves are likely to be high since the creature type dictates good saves and poor. However, I'm famous for applying hit die advancement and class levels and swapping out skills and feats for almost every monster I use, so if my players encounter, say, a glabrezu, they know what its base abilities will be, but it's pretty much a given to expect it to have some kind of additional power or extra abilities.

[137beth]

What Mr. Nobody said. Pack it into fluff.

Resistance to all energy forms:
"In the Scrolls of the Second Day, it says that the archmage had to invent a new spell to slay this demon, because being an abomination unto god, it twisted all the energies of nature around itself. No fire would purify it, no water wash away it's sins."

Yep. I don't normally give specific numbers (e.g., 'highly resistant to blunt crushing damage' as opposed to DR 15/piercing or slashing). The exception is if I know the DR or energy resistance is high enough that one or more of the player's options for attacking it can't do any damage even on a max roll--then I'll tell them that it is resistant enough to be immune to those particular effects

[Zanos]

The check is based on monster's CR, not HD. I's an important distinction because there are a lot of monsters with low HD but with high CR, and vice-versa.

Answering a question within your field of study has a DC of 10 (for really easy questions), 15 (for basic questions), or 20 to 30 (for really tough questions).
In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster.
For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information.
Wut? Should probably be changed though.

[Doc_Maynot]

Wut? Should probably be changed though.

Pathfinder has it be 10+CR

[Zanos]

Pathfinder has it be 10+CR
Dunno how I missed the tag. Whoops.

[NightbringerGGZ]

I would not make Knowledge checks flat out harder, as you usually make some significant investments to be good at identifying the weaknesses of monsters. Now, if you've customized the monster or it is something incredibly rare in your game world then you could probably bump up the DC a bit via a Circumstance bonus, but this should be done on a case by case basis. Remember, there are actual feat chains with abilities relying on Knowledge checks. You wouldn't want to be a player focusing on Kirin Style only to have your DCs bumped up significantly part of the way through the game.

As for how the players react, you may just want to ask your players to remember the distinction between in character and out of character knowledge. I may know that this monster has 5 DR, a Fire Cone attack and 180 hp but my character won't be thinking in terms of those numbers. If he's encountered the monster before or passes a knowledge check then he'll know that it has a thick hide, breathes fire and can take a serious beating before it dies.

I'd also remind your players that unless everybody makes the Knowledge checks, their characters don't automatically know the same things as the characters that have made those checks. You actually need to shout out suggestions and information, and there's a reasonable limit to how much can be shared in a 6 second window.

Basically, I think you can work around your concerns with a bit more Role Playing actually. :smallbiggrin:

Btw, I'm currently working on a Kirin Style Investigator (just hit level 4 last play session).

[Demonic Spoon]

How, precisely, does a character knowing about the abilities of a particular monster destroy immersion? In your Glabrezu example, is a character who is well-versed in demon lore supposed to not know anything about a common demon?


There are soldiers littered around it. Faces of friends, fathers and good people. And what does your table focus on? "That's an Glabrezu we know exactly how to act. How boring."


It seems pretty reasonable that seasoned adventurers who are staring down a powerful demon should be thinking about their own safety first and save mourning the dead for later. If you want players to appreciate the destruction being caused prior to the combat, then perhaps let them see the death/destruction before running into the creature?

[jedipotter]

Greetings playground,

Do you think think this is valid?



Yes. I'm far to the right on this one. The characters know what the players know. No knowledge checks.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Yes. I'm far to the right on this one. The characters know what the players know. No knowledge checks.
With experienced players, wouldn't that lead to more metagaming and immersion-breaking? (Character: what the heck is this? Player: that's totally a gibbering mouther. Everyone plug up your ears!)

[Necroticplague]

With experienced players, wouldn't that lead to more metagaming and immersion-breaking? (Character: what the heck is this? Player: that's totally a gibbering mouther. Everyone plug up your ears!)

Seems fair enough. Those with more experience, or who have invested more time into reading the books, are more capable of dealing with challenges.

[Dimcair]

Seems fair enough. Those with more experience, or who have invested more time into reading the books, are more capable of dealing with challenges.

Not 'fair enough'. Absolutely unfair.

And keep in mind, reading the beastiary doesn't help you know the rules and doesn't make your turn faster.
I do understand where you are getting at, I'd like it if some of my friends would finally look up the basicbasicbasic rules so they don't have to ask everytime. However that has nothing to do with this immersion issue. Different approach is better.

[ElenionAncalima]

Also remember that a simple successful check only gives you a little bit of information. To learn everything about that Glabrezu, you'd have to roll like 40+


Pretty much.

In my PF game hitting the base DC pretty much only gives you the creature's name, some of the fluff info (if the bestiary has it), the subtype and what traits come along with that.
ie) If they were fighting a zombie I would tell them it is undead and give them a reminder of undead traits.

For each 5 they exceed the DC they can ask one specific question.
ie) Does it have any immunities? Does it have any unique abilities? How good are its defenses?

Not sure about 3.5, but it would be a pretty huge skill infestment in PF to be able to consistently identify all the abilities of every creature you fought.

This works great for me, since my players never get all the info on a creature, but I always make sure they get something useful if they pass...that way the people who invested in knowlege don't feel ripped off. It also means that if two people pass they can each feel like they contributed instead of just saying, "You know the same info that he does"

EDIT:


Yes. I'm far to the right on this one. The characters know what the players know. No knowledge checks.

So, it doesn't bother you if the Barbarian with int 7, who has never left home before, knows exactly what a creature is, while the elf wizard with int 20, who spent 100 years studying before leaving on an adventure has no idea...because of player experience level?

Not only is that huge immersion issue, but it is also incredibly unfair for new players...and tipped heavily in the favor of anyone who has been a DM before.

[kellbyb]

Yes. I'm far to the right on this one. The characters know what the players know. No knowledge checks.

So the 200+ year old elven wizard whose knowledge roll of 57, which basically means he's spend a few decades going through the world's most prestigious libraries and collections of information to research everything and anything he might find in his adventures won't know how to recognize and efficiently deal with a Glabrezu?

[Kudaku]

I don't think "let's reward player knowledge" is the way to go, since you're actively encouraging them to then. Ideally a character's knowledge and understanding of his enemies should start off low when he's an inexperienced adventurer, then gradually increase as he levels up and becomes more battle hardened. If you get a moment where your level 1 fighter goes "Yeah, that's a drawing of a Cannon Golem - let me quote the stat-block", or a moment where the 15th level wizard goes "My God! What are these small green beings with giant heads and teeth??" when he faces off against a goblin army, then something's seriously off.

I played a "geek monster hunter" character with a GM who didn't understand how knowledge checks worked so I would basically get no information no matter how well I rolled, which was extremely frustrating since that was what the character was all about. After finding the character unfulfilling, I eventually retired him and played something else.

In another game a different GM picked up a 3rd party product called Monster Knowledge Cards, and would give us information from them depending on how well we rolled. Each card corresponds to a specific monster and contains tidbits of information:

Bulette – Huge Magical Beast
DC 10 – Bulettes are commonly known as “Landsharks”
DC 15 – Bulettes burrow beneath the ground and leap into the air to attack with its savage bite
DC 20 – A Bulette underground can sense prey walking on the surface above
DC 25 – Bulettes will kill but will not eat elves, and are known to dislike the taste of dwarf flesh, but love the taste of halflings

So from the above I know it's a magical beast (which means it probably has good fortitude and reflex saves, but nothing guaranteed), that it can burrow and might have a good acrobatics skill, that it likely has tremorsense, and it's probably responsible for the rash of halfling killings recently. The cards are generally useful, though some are better than others. As an example of the latter, I find it frustrating that the knowledge cards on lycantrophes don't mention a potential cure for lycantrophy.
That said, I think it's a nice middle ground between "give me the entire stat-block please" and "You rolled a 54? All right, it's a bulette".

Whatever you do though, make sure to talk to the players about it. Ideally I wouldn't change anything mid-game, but if you really feel it is screwing up your game I'd sit down with the knowledgeable player, explain your reasoning, suggest an alternate solution and offer him a full respec.

[Psyren]

Our DM lets us know between 1 and 3 facts based on the result of the check. We can choose from categories like "weaknesses," "attacks," "senses," "type/subtype" "spells" "spell-like abilities" "supernatural abilities" "ex abilities," "languages" and "feats." Some of these have a little overlap but otherwise it works well.

[Urpriest]

Honestly, for me it's immersion-breaking when the PCs don't know what something like a Glabrezu is. Sure, I don't expect to know what powers a mysterious monster that crawls out of magical wreckage has...but a fairly common and quite thematic member of the hierarchy of one of the most powerful organizations in the multiverse, heck yeah people should know what that is. Seriously, think about any movie or novel in which there are distinct types of demons (or evil aliens, or evil robots...anything that comes in types and is part of some overall evil group). As soon as something appears onstage (at least, unless it's truly unique), some exposition character is going to give at least a basic run-down of what it is. A Glabrezu showing up and everyone just referring to it as "that dog-headed thing" just feels wrong, doesn't it?

I know I've found it immensely frustrating as a DM when I put something from Core against my players and they all fail the knowledge checks to know what it is. They were fighting a Babau and they just referred to it as "that teleporting demon" because not only could they not identify the Babau, they couldn't make the check to know that most demons can teleport. That's really immersion-breaking for me, and I've been considering a houserule where basic stuff like demons and dragons can be accessed with a raw Int check or the like.

[jedipotter]

With experienced players, wouldn't that lead to more metagaming and immersion-breaking? (Character: what the heck is this? Player: that's totally a gibbering mouther. Everyone plug up your ears!)

Not at all. With hundreds of monsters to pick from, few people know them all.



So, it doesn't bother you if the Barbarian with int 7, who has never left home before, knows exactly what a creature is, while the elf wizard with int 20, who spent 100 years studying before leaving on an adventure has no idea...because of player experience level?
Not only is that huge immersion issue, but it is also incredibly unfair for new players...and tipped heavily in the favor of anyone who has been a DM before.

Having real life experience hardly makes someone an expert. Sure, they know the monster is a beholder as they fought one back in 2010, but can they name the effects of all of it's eyes....maybe, maybe not.

Well, a ''100 year elf student'' in my game would need to do ''real life studying'', and for them to get anything from me they would need to make a non-optimized powerful character, like talking intelligence feats and not just improved initiative and maximize spell. Or I'd say they were a bad student.


So the 200+ year old elven wizard whose knowledge roll of 57, which basically means he's spend a few decades going through the world's most prestigious libraries and collections of information to research everything and anything he might find in his adventures won't know how to recognize and efficiently deal with a Glabrezu?

Well, if it was a old elven wizard built character...I'd work with the player so they would have the needed knowledge. But if the player did not want to do any effort, they would be clueless.



A Glabrezu showing up and everyone just referring to it as "that dog-headed thing" just feels wrong, doesn't it?

Seems right to me. I hate the video game like ''you encounter a Glabrezu'' and the worse ''here is everything about them.'' I want the characters and the players to be clueless. It is much better for immersion and much more fun. When the characters/players don't know something, then they both have to figure it out. I can't stand the idea that they player will just sit back and roll and say ''oh tell me everything my character would know that stuff.'' The idea that Joe from Huston would know even just common things about every animal in America is silly. And worse that rank in knowledge is meant to represent more like a doctorate, so Joe the guy studied animals at collage for years.

I nerf knowledge rolls to handle three types of problem players:
1. The Optimizers(of course)
Lots of optimizers, mostly spellcasters, are only 100% effective if they know what they are in combat with. They need to know what spells, feats, abilities and so forth will be the most optimal to use. But if they don't know, they just have to guess, or even just ''figure it out''. But there is still a good chance they might waste an attack or two when they do a ''nova strike daisy chain fireball'' on a creature immune to fire damage.


2. The Encyclopedia player
The encyclopedia player. I'm more then fine with a player reading up and knowing about a monster. I'm just not going to help the player and tell them what the monster is for sure. They have to use their own knowledge to figure it out.


3. The Casual Gamer
The casual gamer. Oh one of the few types I dislike close to the cheating optimizers. Casual gamer has such a busy and important life that he can't be bothered by doing things like ''reading game books.'' He is so busy doing ''stuff'', that he can just barley make it Saturday night. Though instead of just going away, he gets obsessed with ''wanting to game''. Even with his so important busy life, he wants to game. But he has no time all week to get ready for the game, as he is so busy. Sure he can take like four hours to set up his man cave for the guys to come over and watch football, but he can't take ten whole minutes to read the player handout e-mailed to him.

Casual gamer can't even take the ten seconds to hit ''print'' and bring the player handout with him to the game. Even when he was just online for ten hours before at his computer, next to his printer.

But once the game starts, casual gamer wants his character to be an expert on everything. His character went to Monster High for 100 years and knows everything about every monster. So when he sees a monster, he just ''rolls to remember.'' Then causal gamer can sit back and text during the game and say ''oh, DM just tell me what my character should know'' and kinda half listen in-between texts. Then casual gamer does not need to use a brain cell to remember that trolls can't regenerate fire damage, as the DM will just tell him.

Worse is when casual gamer is hack and slasher. Where he could role-play for three whole minutes and talk to the NPC that lives on the edge of the swamp explain some lore about black dragons. But no, casual hack and slash gamer will be all like ''whatever, I ignore all the people and go to the swamp and look for a combat encounter...comeone we have not fought anything in like ten minutes.''




Also, without the ''roll to know'', players have to role-play to get the information. It's a great way to encourage roll play and discourage roll play.

[mythmonster2]

Yes. I'm far to the right on this one. The characters know what the players know. No knowledge checks.



Also, without the ''roll to know'', players have to role-play to get the information. It's a great way to encourage roll play and discourage roll play.

What. How do these two make any connection at all? These two are, in fact, complete opposites of each other. You say that you should only rely on OOC knowledge, then say that somehow cuts down on "roll playing"?

[jjcrpntr]

I sort of did this to one of my players. The bard and rogue broke into a workshop one night (because ya know, fk npc's that are willing to help you) and got attacked by some things. He rolled his knowledge check and got a pretty darn good roll. My response was "You can tell these are some form of constructs". Thankfully that player doesn't argue much but another guy did. After the game I explained that the clockwork/android type monsters they found in the gnomes workshop are incredibly rare. The gnomes almost never leave their village, and no outsiders have scene their creations. Therefor a bards knowledge check, which is based off of what he picks up during his travels, wouldn't include stuff about these things.

My players were totally fine with that.

[Ashtagon]

The check is based on monster's CR, not HD. I's an important distinction because there are a lot of monsters with low HD but with high CR, and vice-versa.

Even so, same problem. Just how hard is it to tell that the fire-breathy scaly wingy thing is a dragon?

[jedipotter]

What. How do these two make any connection at all? These two are, in fact, complete opposites of each other. You say that you should only rely on OOC knowledge, then say that somehow cuts down on "roll playing"?

What opposites? The characters and the players know the same things......whatever the player knows. If they encounter a monster, they both know whatever the player can recall about the monster. There is no roll for free information. No roll play.

But the player can role-play their character and ask an NPC a question. That is role-playing.

[BWR]

*nevermind*

[Kudaku]

What opposites? The characters and the players know the same things......whatever the player knows. If they encounter a monster, they both know whatever the player can recall about the monster. There is no roll for free information. No roll play.

But the player can role-play their character and ask an NPC a question. That is role-playing.

How do you feel about the climb skill? Or the swim skill? If a player can't swim, does that mean his character can't swim either?

I took basic chemistry at high school, so with a bit of work and the right ingredients I could whip up some gunpowder. Does that mean my barbarian savage who's never seen worked metal in his life can now make fireworks?
I studied social studies and psychology at uni. Does that mean my illiterate halfling ex-slave rogue has insight into the benefits and drawbacks of different forms of government, understands what the "bystander effect" is, or could replicate the Stanford prison experiment?

Linking player knowledge to character knowledge is a bad idea for a number of reasons.

It's because many players don't know things that would be common knowledge for a character who grew in medieval ages (what's the currency of Galt? I should know this, I've lived here all my life), and many players know things that a character who grew up in medieval ages most assuredly should not know (E = mc2).

It also actively encourages metagaming where, if a player wants to play a more experienced character, he literally needs to memorize the bestiaries. Which in turn means that when he eventually goes back to playing a green adventurer, cowlick and all, still wet behind the ears, for some reason he's still toting all the knowledge and experience of a 15th level character.

[Urpriest]

Seems right to me. I hate the video game like ''you encounter a Glabrezu'' and the worse ''here is everything about them.'' I want the characters and the players to be clueless. It is much better for immersion and much more fun. When the characters/players don't know something, then they both have to figure it out. I can't stand the idea that they player will just sit back and roll and say ''oh tell me everything my character would know that stuff.'' The idea that Joe from Huston would know even just common things about every animal in America is silly. And worse that rank in knowledge is meant to represent more like a doctorate, so Joe the guy studied animals at collage for years.

That doesn't happen in most video games. It does happen in most fantasy stories, though, and fantasy stories are kind of what D&D is meant to emulate. In Lord of the Rings, for example, can you think of a single monster (besides unique stuff like the tentacle-beast outside the doors) that the characters didn't know at least the name of? Wouldn't the Balrog fight have been so much dumber if the characters just referred to it as "that fire-whippy thing"? Knowing strengths and weaknesses takes higher rolls, but knowing what the monster is is kind of universal in every fantasy book you've ever read.

Come on, if you threw a Balor against the players, wouldn't it completely ruin the atmosphere you were trying to create if everybody thought it was just "some demon"?

Also, you've never played with an actual Optimizer in your life, so don't pretend you have. We've talked before about your habit of confusing the sorts of attitudes promoted on this forum with the problem players in your games, and it's frankly insulting that you keep acting as if you haven't already been corrected on that score.

[Psyren]

LotR isn't a fair example though. The party was running around with the most blatant example of a DMPC in the history of fantasy fiction - i.e. Gandalf - and he did most of the explaining. Similarly, Frodo and Sam had no idea what Shelob was, but there was another DMPC with them in the form of Gollum to give them the heads up. The one time the protagonists didn't have an expository NPC to turn to was when Merry and Pippin met Treebeard, and sure enough they had no clue what he was. Luckily he turned out to be friendly and was happy to explain himself. (And hell, even he didn't recognize them on sight - he knew what hobbits were, but either had never seen one or it had been so long that he forgot.)

[jedipotter]

How do you feel about the climb skill? Or the swim skill? If a player can't swim, does that mean his character can't swim either?

It's just for knowledge skills.



Linking player knowledge to character knowledge is a bad idea for a number of reasons.

It's because many players don't know things that would be common knowledge for a character who grew in medieval ages (what's the currency of Galt? I should know this, I've lived here all my life), and many players know things that a character who grew up in medieval ages most assuredly should not know (E = mc2).

I find it much more fun for players to learn things while playing the game, not just being told things.

And I'd call out anyone who would say ''everyone knows that''. That is silly. Does everyone in 21st century Americ know ''everything'' about the country? Of course they don't......




It also actively encourages metagaming where, if a player wants to play a more experienced character, he literally needs to memorize the bestiaries. Which in turn means that when he eventually goes back to playing a green adventurer, cowlick and all, still wet behind the ears, for some reason he's still toting all the knowledge and experience of a 15th level character.

It's not metagaming for a player to read the bestiaries and then (sort of) remember (some) things during the game. I encourage that.

[Urpriest]

It's not metagaming for a player to read the bestiaries and then (sort of) remember (some) things during the game. I encourage that.

No, that's the definition of metagaming. You may not see it as bad behavior, but it's bringing in out of game knowledge to solve an in-game challenge, which is the definition of metagaming.

[Psyren]

No, that's the definition of metagaming. You may not see it as bad behavior, but it's bringing in out of game knowledge to solve an in-game challenge, which is the definition of metagaming.

Indeed it is, but realistically, you're not going to prevent that with an experienced group except by withholding a given monster's name. People will unconsciously think things like "Hamatula? Better not use fire" even if they are playing a Goblin Sorcerer who is dumber than a sack of wet rocks.

With a less savvy group you can get away with sharing the name though, or relying on non-core monsters.

[mythmonster2]

I
It's not metagaming for a player to read the bestiaries and then (sort of) remember (some) things during the game. I encourage that.

Allow me to lay out a situation for you. I am playing Jim-Bob the dirt farmer. He has an INT and WIS of 8 and the farthest he's gone from his dirt farm is the nearby town to buy supplies for dirt farming. All he knows is how to farm dirt, and he's never seen anything stranger than an ox before. Now my friend Tim is new to this game, and is playing a Ranger whose family was murdered by strange abominations, and so he's picked Aberrations as his favored enemy, as well as putting skill points into Knowledge (Dungeoneering), to represent the studying his character has done on how to combat these monsters. However, if both of these characters were to come upon the same brown-colored giant bug with large antennas, your absurd rule would mean that Jim-Bob, who, I remind you, has never left his farm and has never seen one of these creatures, would know that this was a rust monster and exactly how to combat it, while Tim's Ranger would know absolutely nothing about this creature. How on Earth can you possibly justify such a ludicrous situation?

[Snowbluff]

Get this: people put *ranks* into their *skills* so their skills can *do something. If they have a smart character, they should know this obvious crap like "glabezru is a demon, which are immune to electricity..." I probably wouldn't give weak saves, but DR is something I definitely would tell.

You know what, why aren't you complaining about decent perception? Sense motive? They can resolve issues for players really easily.

[nedz]

A lot of the attraction of RPGs is a sense of discovery as players explore the setting, which includes the monsters. I have a mild dislike of knowledge skills for this reason. Although I own 6 monster manuals I have avoided reading them cover to cover in detail and only reference them for monsters I am going to run for this reason. In the days I used to play AD&D I got to know almost all of the monsters verbatim, but then I mainly DM'd; I decided not to do this with 3.5

That said, with experienced players Knowledge skills are preferable to metagaming, though I frequently change well known monsters for this reason. I'm fine with using these skills for characters for which they are relevant — a demon summoner should know about demons for example — but a character who just focussed on the 6 relevant Knowledge skills to make life easier would detract from an important aspect of the game. Why would you want to play the game in easy mode ?

[Snowbluff]

There's a big difference between "easy mode" and "a pain in the butt."

[Knaight]

As a DM i like to go around the problem on immersion giving players info in "in-game language". (I'm one that thinks that, in game, terms like DR, SR, and other terms related to the handbook don't exist)
Basically nobody has these terms exist in game. The one exception is spell resistance, and even then it's less "SR 19" and more "this creature resists spells".


Yes. I'm far to the right on this one. The characters know what the players know. No knowledge checks.


What opposites? The characters and the players know the same things......whatever the player knows. If they encounter a monster, they both know whatever the player can recall about the monster. There is no roll for free information. No roll play.

Right, getting free information is "roll play". Sure, the character may have lived in a town for 20 years, but if the player doesn't have the layout memorized then the character is going to wander around ineffectively, by golly. If they grew up on a fishing vessel, and the player's knowledge of sea fish is such that they known tuna in a can and don't even know that they are rather large, the character won't be recognizing a tuna. That would be terrible. If the player doesn't memorize the heraldry by description, then their character won't be able to recognize who some knight works for (or wants to look like they work for) by the symbol on their shield, regardless of how long their character spent at court. If a player from some tropical beach can't identify which desert snakes are poisonous, neither can their character. That doesn't damage immersion at all when they're playing a desert nomad. Why don't we just take this to materials too. Sure, the player might be playing some sort of bronze age farmer, but when they find a crashed space ship the character can definitely recognize things as plastic. After all, the player is familiar with that.

It seems like a ridiculous impediment to role playing to me.

[firebrandtoluc]

The immersion problem is easy to fix. Describe the knowledge in an immersive way. Characters don't know what DR is.

The DCs as listed in the skill section are silly however. DCs should be based on rarity. Rarity is setting specific though. This is a DM fiat area at our table.

When crafting your adventure, you know the characters your players use. Prepare appropriate knowledge to dispense as needed.

[Alex12]

For that matter, what about stuff like Spellcraft or Martial Lore? They're not exactly Knowledge skills, but they're Int-based and relate to stuff the character knows. Do you not require rolls for those either, since they relate to stuff the character knows?

Or do you assume that the level 5 Cleric of Pelor, who grew up an orphan in a Pelorite monastery, wouldn't be able to recognize certain rituals and symbols important to Pelor because the player doesn't? Even if the character has max ranks in Knowledge(religion), and Skill Focus (Knowledge(religion)) for good measure?

[jedipotter]

Allow me to lay out a situation for you. I am playing Jim-Bob the dirt farmer. He has an INT and WIS of 8 and the farthest he's gone from his dirt farm is the nearby town to buy supplies for dirt farming. All he knows is how to farm dirt, and he's never seen anything stranger than an ox before. Now my friend Tim is new to this game, and is playing a Ranger whose family was murdered by strange abominations, and so he's picked Aberrations as his favored enemy, as well as putting skill points into Knowledge (Dungeoneering), to represent the studying his character has done on how to combat these monsters. However, if both of these characters were to come upon the same brown-colored giant bug with large antennas, your absurd rule would mean that Jim-Bob, who, I remind you, has never left his farm and has never seen one of these creatures, would know that this was a rust monster and exactly how to combat it, while Tim's Ranger would know absolutely nothing about this creature. How on Earth can you possibly justify such a ludicrous situation?

Well, wait, how does Jim-Bob know about the rust monster? Did Jim-Bob's player Zeno read a book or two? Well then Jim-Bob has heard of the creatures. How about her heard folks talking at the barn dance? How about is adventuring brother told him? Or any of a dozen other ways.

So now Tim, playing the ranger has not even looked through most of the books, can't take the time to goggle ''aberration'' and refuses help from the DM when the DM says ''how about i make you an aberration hand out'' and Tim says "Nah, don't bother''


So.....

[Gavinfoxx]

jedipotter, what you have been saying is that you won't let Tim ask you, 'what do I know about this creature' without him, the player, opening a book. He, the player, has invested resources for his character knowing about aberrations, and when he looks at you and asks, 'what do I know about this', you have been making it clear that you won't tell him anything.

You are further saying that if the player memorizes monster stats religiously, than their characters won't ever need to put a single skill rank into any of the monster knowledges, because the character will always know about the monster because the player knows, which is the single most common definition of metagaming (ie, using monster knowledge your character couldn't possibly know).

Do you want people to use the rules to simulate characters abilities or not?? Or is the game ALWAYS a test of player skill, with no intent at simulating character abilities in a cohesive modelling way at all??

[Pex]

It is not a crime against gamedom for players to know stuff in character. Characters invest in the knowledge skills. They've earned the information gained. Adventurers are not ignorant doofuses who know nothing of the world they live in. They are right there learning and experiencing.

[aleucard]

Well, wait, how does Jim-Bob know about the rust monster? Did Jim-Bob's player Zeno read a book or two? Well then Jim-Bob has heard of the creatures. How about her heard folks talking at the barn dance? How about is adventuring brother told him? Or any of a dozen other ways.

So now Tim, playing the ranger has not even looked through most of the books, can't take the time to goggle ''aberration'' and refuses help from the DM when the DM says ''how about i make you an aberration hand out'' and Tim says "Nah, don't bother''


So.....

..... That is not only the generally-accepted definition of metagaming, but I'm pretty damn sure that at least one of the official books calls it out as such (maybe not with that name, but still). Hell, it's been recommended since the inception of the game for players to not lay hands on a MM or similar for their stint as a player to avoid this EXACT scenario, and I'm pretty damn sure THAT is in at least the DMG as well. I would not be surprised in the slightest if more than a few players have been banned from campaigns for that exact offense, one which you apparently penalize people for NOT committing.

I'm beginning to wonder if you should be reported for trolling. Nobody's this stupid.

[jjcrpntr]

For that matter, what about stuff like Spellcraft or Martial Lore? They're not exactly Knowledge skills, but they're Int-based and relate to stuff the character knows. Do you not require rolls for those either, since they relate to stuff the character knows?


See I had an issue with a PC metagaming this. He was playing a rogue when the enemy they were fighting pulled out a scroll and opened a door (homebrewed spell for flavor). Before letting the wizard in the party he stopped the game and demanded that I explain the spell used to him because he said that is not how the spells HE knows work.

I like it when players know the game, at least some of it, but when you are constantly applying out of character knowledge to a character that would have no idea it is really annoying to me.

[jedipotter]

jedipotter, what you have been saying is that you won't let Tim ask you, 'what do I know about this creature' without him, the player, opening a book. He, the player, has invested resources for his character knowing about aberrations, and when he looks at you and asks, 'what do I know about this', you have been making it clear that you won't tell him anything.

I would not tell them anything during the game, just as they rolled a 20 in a skill. I'm fine with giving them information out of the game. Like my Tim example above.




Do you want people to use the rules to simulate characters abilities or not?? Or is the game ALWAYS a test of player skill, with no intent at simulating character abilities in a cohesive modelling way at all??

Yes. I test the players, not the characters.

[Alex12]

See I had an issue with a PC metagaming this. He was playing a rogue when the enemy they were fighting pulled out a scroll and opened a door (homebrewed spell for flavor). Before letting the wizard in the party he stopped the game and demanded that I explain the spell used to him because he said that is not how the spells HE knows work.

I like it when players know the game, at least some of it, but when you are constantly applying out of character knowledge to a character that would have no idea it is really annoying to me.

Oh, I agree with at least some of this. I know I've caught myself accidentally metagaming like this, when the DM said in response to someone else's knowledge roll that something was a zombie, and my 0-ranks-in-K(religion) character switched over to a slashing weapon because I OOC knew that zombies have DR 5/slashing. As soon as the words left my mouth I realized I was metagaming and called myself on it, including asking the DM about taking that move back. In the instance you describe, I'd tell the rogue something along the lines of "make a Spellcraft check to identify the spell."

That said, my group acknowledges that I've got system mastery equal or superior to everyone else in the group. I have, on multiple occasions, said to the DM "well, actually, this ability (or effect, or whatever it is) works like this" or "Actually, he can do that, and here's how" and I can generally pull up a citation. In a few instances, I've said "there's no rules that I'm aware of that cover this exact thing, but there's other rules here that cover a similar situation, so let's extrapolate from those."

EDIT for Double-post

I would not tell them anything during the game, just as they rolled a 20 in a skill. I'm fine with giving them information out of the game. Like my Tim example above.

Wait, so in your games, if someone rolls a 20 on a Knowledge check that they have actual ranks in, you won't tell them what their character knows until after the game and the situation has passed?


Yes. I test the players, not the characters.
Okay, so using that logic, players who are physically stronger should have characters with higher strength scores.
We're done here, I'm pretty much certain that you're just a trolling now.

[TheMonocleRogue]

I use the Pathfinder rules to knowledge checks with a little lore fluffing to flesh out the monsters my PCs face. It helps to do a little background research since most [if not all] of the monsters are based on mythological creatures.

Normally the DC for a knowledge check to identify is CR + 10 but for creatures that aren't commonly known this can increase to as much as CR + 20.

Beating the DC only gives you one mundane piece of information such as how powerful the creature is by appearance (this reveals the creature's base type or race)
Beating the check by 5 reveals more factual information such as the name of the creature, where it comes from, and what it is associated with (this reveals it's name and any subtypes/traits)
If the check is beaten by 10 or more then a hint of it's supernatural/extraordinary abilities and attack patterns are revealed, as well as any vulnerabilities it may have (reveals one su/ex ability, vulnerability, or strategy plus one more for every +5). As a rule, the exact spell-like abilities of a creature aren't revealed but you can hint at the extent of their power.


For instance, lets say the party comes across a Nalfeshnee and the wizard with his +7 intelligence bonus and massive ranks in knowledge planes gets a 50+ bonus to his identify roll. This is how the PF rules would dictate this knowledge roll.

"The creature you see before you is a Nalfeshnee, a demonic creature of the abyssal planes. These outsiders are formed from the souls of greedy, power hungry mortals who served as authority figures to evil vices. Many claim dukedom over their own realm while others serve as guardians and diplomats, utilizing their unique skills to manage chaos in order to further the goals of the abyss.

Boastful and intelligent, Nalfeshnees disdain combat seeing it as below them but are prone to fits of bloodlust should the opportunity arise. In combat a Nalfeshnee never fights fair, often abusing it's unique abilities to debilitate its targets before tearing into them. It's most deadly ability creates a burst of unholy light that preys on the minds of those caught in it, hounding them with visions of their own demise. As evil creatures of the abyss Nalfeshnees shrug off most mundane forms of attacks but are vulnerable to those that are blessed by holy light."

[Ashtagon]

Maybe something like:

DC X: The creature's name, what it typically eats, how it moves, basic physical modes of attack (claws, etc.), home plane(s), anything that can be determined by looking at it. Creature is a specific type (and full details of the standard suite of abilities associated with that type).

DC X+5: Creature's typical behaviour patterns when it meets prey or threats, and what it considers to be each of these. Non-obvious modes of attack (breath/gaze weapons, spell use). Creature has DR of at least 5. Creature is a specific subtype (and full details of the standard suite of abilities associated with that subtype).

DC X+10: Life/breeding cycle details. Specific spell-like abilities that have obvious visible effects. Creature has DR of at least 10.

DC X+15: Biology/anatomy details. Specific spell-like abilities that have non-obvious visible effects. Creature has DR of at least 20.

DC X+20: Specific spell-like abilities that have non-obvious visible effects. Creature is immune to a specific energy type.

[jjcrpntr]

Oh, I agree with at least some of this. I know I've caught myself accidentally metagaming like this, when the DM said in response to someone else's knowledge roll that something was a zombie, and my 0-ranks-in-K(religion) character switched over to a slashing weapon because I OOC knew that zombies have DR 5/slashing. As soon as the words left my mouth I realized I was metagaming and called myself on it, including asking the DM about taking that move back. In the instance you describe, I'd tell the rogue something along the lines of "make a Spellcraft check to identify the spell."

That said, my group acknowledges that I've got system mastery equal or superior to everyone else in the group. I have, on multiple occasions, said to the DM "well, actually, this ability (or effect, or whatever it is) works like this" or "Actually, he can do that, and here's how" and I can generally pull up a citation. In a few instances, I've said "there's no rules that I'm aware of that cover this exact thing, but there's other rules here that cover a similar situation, so let's extrapolate from those."



I'm fine with that. I've only been dming for 6 months, and only playing table top gaming at all for 9 months. I don't know everything. If I say something that is wrong mechanically I'm fine with players questioning it because that's how we both learn and get better.

and jedi guy,

If your rules work for your players then great. But man I'd never want to play in one of your games. Having a barbarian suddenly know everything about monsters because he's played for 15 years would drive me nuts. As a new player who likes wizards/clerics. I'd be really annoyed if that barbarian got to know more about monsters then I do when I'm rolling super high and he doesn't even have the knowledge skill.

[Spore]

I'm fine with that. I've only been dming for 6 months, and only playing table top gaming at all for 9 months. I don't know everything. If I say something that is wrong mechanically I'm fine with players questioning it because that's how we both learn and get better.

That's fine and all but this COULD start to piss off other players. Example given:

My DM brings up a homebrew Monster on an skeleton templated sleipnir. By RAW it couldn't have flown. Neither could it attack with its horns (refluffed as Antlers) but the whole encounter was homebrewed. When a player started up like: "Hey how can that skeleton fly when the skeleton template disallows the use of any and all spell like abilities for the monster. That's wrong, your whole encounter is cheating."

Then I'm honestly at a loss of words. I am all for consistent design even if that means that the DM has to change rules once in a while. I am not one about to argue how standard rules work but if you start critisizing where monsters appear, what monsters should and shouldn't do and how you would DM that situation I kind of start to hate that player in that situation...

[NightbringerGGZ]

That's fine and all but this COULD start to piss off other players. Example given:

My DM brings up a homebrew Monster on an skeleton templated sleipnir. By RAW it couldn't have flown. Neither could it attack with its horns (refluffed as Antlers) but the whole encounter was homebrewed. When a player started up like: "Hey how can that skeleton fly when the skeleton template disallows the use of any and all spell like abilities for the monster. That's wrong, your whole encounter is cheating."

Then I'm honestly at a loss of words. I am all for consistent design even if that means that the DM has to change rules once in a while. I am not one about to argue how standard rules work but if you start critisizing where monsters appear, what monsters should and shouldn't do and how you would DM that situation I kind of start to hate that player in that situation...

See, that seems more like a problem with the player and not the game. The GM always has the option of bending or breaking the rules for the sake of the game, including ignoring parts of monster templates or coming up with his own versions of said templates. For example, one of my GMs threw some tough spellcasters at us who had custom ice themed spells. The player of the party Magus waited until after combat to ask which book they came from, the GM admitted he had created the spells for the encounter, and the two of them quickly worked out some rolls to see if the Magus could try to learn some of those spells. If the Magus had interrupted combat and started accusing the GM of cheating, we would have told him to stop being an ass.

[jjcrpntr]

That's fine and all but this COULD start to piss off other players. Example given:

My DM brings up a homebrew Monster on an skeleton templated sleipnir. By RAW it couldn't have flown. Neither could it attack with its horns (refluffed as Antlers) but the whole encounter was homebrewed. When a player started up like: "Hey how can that skeleton fly when the skeleton template disallows the use of any and all spell like abilities for the monster. That's wrong, your whole encounter is cheating."

Then I'm honestly at a loss of words. I am all for consistent design even if that means that the DM has to change rules once in a while. I am not one about to argue how standard rules work but if you start critisizing where monsters appear, what monsters should and shouldn't do and how you would DM that situation I kind of start to hate that player in that situation...

I see what you're saying. This doesn't happen in my group. I'm talking about if I have something wrong with the mechanics of the game not monsters and such as my group understands the homebrew element of the game.

For example. I had read the tumble rules in pathfinder and during a session a player failed his roll and I said his movement ended there and he could take his attack if he wanted. The player accepted that ruling and after his turn looked up the tumble rules. Turns out i had misread it and he could have kept going. They don't argue with me about monsters and such as, as you said, those things can be easily homebrewed.

Now that same player is no longer playing with us because we had a blow up (I lost my temper with him) because the monk in our group was part of a clan that worshiped Desna the goddess of travel. This player went on a rant about how no monk would ever follow a non-lawful god. It just wouldn't happen. He stopped the game and made a scene about it.

On the plus side it allowed me a chance to show the kid at the table, right way/wrong way to handle something with which you disagree with the dm on.

[jedipotter]

Wait, so in your games, if someone rolls a 20 on a Knowledge check that they have actual ranks in, you won't tell them what their character knows until after the game and the situation has passed?

Yes.




Okay, so using that logic, players who are physically stronger should have characters with higher strength scores.
We're done here, I'm pretty much certain that you're just a trolling now.

I test the players mentally, not physically. We are not running out over to the abandoned steam tunnels every time we fight a dragon.

Most players I have gamed with have fun trying to figure out things by themselves. Just ignore the rules where you ''roll and get told things'', and try to figure them out by yourself. It's worth it.

[Snowbluff]

Yes.


So they can't extrapolate data and the players have to bend backwards to get any information.

That pretty much makes all sentient races a lot less valuable to me. I probably would wipe them out for actually being mindless constructs merely posing as living creatures. And I just invented a crazy in-game cult that's a lot more interesting than "fireball appears slightly less effective, but I am not sure if it did less than lightning bolt so I don't know what to do."

[jedipotter]

So they can't extrapolate data and the players have to bend backwards to get any information.

That pretty much makes all sentient races a lot less valuable to me. I probably would wipe them out for actually being mindless constructs merely posing as living creatures. And I just invented a crazy in-game cult that's a lot more interesting than "fireball appears slightly less effective, but I am not sure if it did less than lightning bolt so I don't know what to do."

So you only support ''I like it when the players just sit there and the DM tells them stuff''. Ok, that is one way to go.

My way is you can learn things about the game....by playing the game. By role playing.

[Psyren]

There is a middle ground between "roll dice and know everything under the sun" (not that there is no place for this method of play) and "dice tell you nothing at all, even if your character is the love child of Stephen Hawking and Neil de Grasse Tyson" (not that there is no place for this method of play.)

"Rollplay vs. roleplay" is a false dichotomy that needs to die. Often, dice are the most expedient way to roleplay certain concepts, such as playing someone who is far smarter or far more charismatic than you yourself could hope to be. This includes playing someone who has encyclopedic knowledge of the world's monsters when the player does not.

[FabulousFizban]

Also remember that a simple successful check only gives you a little bit of information. To learn everything about that Glabrezu, you'd have to roll like 40+

And, only one person (usually) knows this information, it isn't shared knowledge unless he tells his companions, which may be tough to explain in detail while in combat.

the build in my signature can get a +60 knowledge roll once a day at level 3. Generally mystery is more desirable, but sometimes the party needs to know everything they possibly can.

[Knaight]

Most players I have gamed with have fun trying to figure out things by themselves. Just ignore the rules where you ''roll and get told things'', and try to figure them out by yourself. It's worth it.

Being able to access particular information does not remove trying to figure out things by themselves. Moreover, any description assumes that the characters have certain information, unless you stick to shapes, textures, and geometry for everything. I'm sure you're willing to describe someone as carrying "a sword" rather than "an elongated piece of stiff gray material with moderate reflectivity, in the approximate shape of a prism with a diamond cross section such that the length from one vertex to it's opposite is several times the length of the other vertex to its opposite, wherein one base of the prism is instead replaced with a point, all of which is connected to a roughly cylindrical piece of a different matte material with no sheen, with a bar of the first material between the two, and with a ball of the first material at the other base of the cylinder, which has a diameter exceeding that of the cylinder". The "a sword" bit assumes character knowledge. It's really basic character knowledge, and the second description is almost never relevant (maybe a character from some sort of far future technological place that has forgotten swords and their ilk might get the second).

The same thing applies to just about everything else. Sometimes it makes more sense to describe a character in uniform as wearing a uniform of whatever organization. Sometimes it make sense to just give the name of a species that a character is rather than describing them (humans are almost guaranteed to be in this category). So on and so forth. And sometimes there's a middle ground, where a character might or might not know these things, so bring out the dice.

Plus, recognition does not remove figuring things out. So your character is able to recognize the odd heraldry on an armored figure as belonging to a small emirate that collapsed twenty years ago. So, what are they doing wearing it? What affiliation to that emirate do they have? Your character is also able to recognize the shrine they're kneeling to, as they have some religious knowledge. It's sure as heck not a god affiliated with that emirate in any way. What is the figure doing there?

All of this is just as interesting as what the symbol is in the first place. More than that, knowing that much is what allows the situation to exist, whereas "there's some guy with an odd symbol that looks like [whatever]" doesn't really accomplish much.

[The Insanity]

So you only support ''I like it when the players just sit there and the DM tells them stuff''. Ok, that is one way to go.

My way is you can learn things about the game....by playing the game. By role playing.
Or I'll just memorize all the monster stats.

[kellbyb]

So you only support ''I like it when the players just sit there and the DM tells them stuff''. Ok, that is one way to go.

My way is you can learn things about the game....by playing the game. By role playing.

We support the players roleplaying by encouraging them to thematically use their knowledge skills in combat. You support players metagaming by (for all practical purposes) requiring them to go through the monster books before the game starts.

[Psychoalpha]

If the character has Charisma 8 and plays it up as if he's a suave Don Juan type, and you let him because he's roleplaying instead of rollplaying, he's not actually roleplaying. Roleplaying assumes you are playing a role, and your role is described by the numbers on your sheet, whether or not you're using them to roll dice.

If a character has Intelligence 20 and high knowledge skills, but is new to D&D, you are not letting him play the role of his character. You are in fact forbidding him from roleplaying the character you allowed him to bring to the table. It is functionally no different from telling someone their character can't lift a big rock despite being Str 20, because their player is a 98lb weakling. In either case you are acting counter to the player roleplaying their character by restricting or enabling their character based not on that character's sheet but on the player sitting at the table.

What someone said earlier is basically true of your game: There is zero reason to invest in knowledge skills, period, ever.

Either the player knows it and thus has no need and can invest his skill points elsewhere, or the player doesn't and thus you won't allow his skill points to matter, and can invest his skill points elsewhere.

tl;dr - jedipotter is either wildly trolling, or pretty much the worst DM in the history of DMing, and in either case as with every other thread he posts to it's probably best for all our sanity if we just ignore him.

[Alex12]

What someone said earlier is basically true of your game: There is zero reason to invest in knowledge skills, period, ever.

Hey now. There are a lot of PrCs with various Knowledge skills as a prereq. Granted, prestige classes are probably cheating, but still.

[jedipotter]

"Rollplay vs. roleplay" is a false dichotomy that needs to die. Often, dice are the most expedient way to roleplay certain concepts, such as playing someone who is far smarter or far more charismatic than you yourself could hope to be. This includes playing someone who has encyclopedic knowledge of the world's monsters when the player does not.

"Rollplay vs. roleplay" is all too real. You know or don't know. You can't do it part way. The player might know all about the creature, but not have realized that is what it is, but as soon as you do the ''oh, it's a (whatever), they now know.

It's more fun not to know and to figure out things during game play. The ''here is your free information'' is boring.

And not knowing about a creature is yet another tool to stop the over the top optimizers from ruining games: If they don't know the creature type, they might very well waste a spell, feat, ability or such. Instead of automatically knowing and obliterating everything always. They get all shocked when their awesome fire attack spell combo does nothing to the creatures. And sure, they could have spent thirty seconds role playing to find out ''the creatures are from Elemental Fire''......

[Agincourt]

"Rollplay vs. roleplay" is all too real. You know or don't know. You can't do it part way. The player might know all about the creature, but not have realized that is what it is, but as soon as you do the ''oh, it's a (whatever), they now know.



Yes. I'm far to the right on this one. The characters know what the players know. No knowledge checks.

You are in no position to advise other people how to roleplay. In this very thread you have stated that you allow, nay you prefer that players use metagame knowledge. You actively encourage bad roleplaying. You want your players to step outside of the shoes of their characters and use the player's knowledge for information that the character could not possibly know.

Generally, I am empathetic to people who want to run low powered campaigns. I just wish you would do us all a favor and stop trying to be our spokesman because you are bad at roleplaying. You play some sort of table top game where the players must guess what you, the DM, want them to do.

[Psychoalpha]

You want your players to step outside of the shoes of their characters and use the player's knowledge for information that the character could not possibly know.

To be fair, he didn't say they should use information their character could not possibly know, he said that if their player knew it there would be some reason their character also knew it.

I believe his example went something along the lines of: Since you have the stat block memorized, your character Bob the Farmer clearly overheard all the pertinent details about Dreadpocalypse Lichomancers at a barn dance last fall.

...did I use the blue right? I'm new to posting here. >.>

[Psyren]

You know or don't know. You can't do it part way.

Nonsense, of course you can. You can know some details about a creature without knowing others. Your character may have read that blue dragons breathe lightning, but either missed or forgotten the passage on their fly speed and SLAs. Based on the check result the DM can tell them W and X but leave out Y and Z.

[Agincourt]

To be fair, he didn't say they should use information their character could not possibly know, he said that if their player knew it there would be some reason their character also knew it.

I believe his example went something along the lines of: Since you have the stat block memorized, your character Bob the Farmer clearly overheard all the pertinent details about Dreadpocalypse Lichomancers at a barn dance last fall.

...did I use the blue right? I'm new to posting here. >.>

That does not make it any better. Most players have plenty of knowledge that is nonsensical in D&D or Pathfinder settings. The players know thing about automobiles, computers, or even just modern indoor plumbing. The list of metagame knowledge is endless, and there isn't a principled way to distinguish between various types of metagame knowledge. Just because Bob the player knows enough about engineering to build a trebuchet does not mean his 2nd level barbarian should be able to. (This is especially so in light of the fact that barbarians explicitly cannot read.)

Likewise, a character should know things that a player cannot know. Players may have no idea what a tanglefoot bag looks like, but their characters should.

Once you accept the premise that players know information that their characters cannot and should not know, and likewise characters know information that the players do not, then good roleplaying involves distinguishing between the two. Eliminating the distinction between player knowledge and character knowledge is simply bad roleplaying. The player is no longer thinking as a character, but instead about what he or she would do in the situation.

[Psychoalpha]

That does not make it any better.

Yes, well. I thought I'd read something about putting text in blue being recognized as a means of conveying sarcasm, but maybe I misunderstood.

Regardless... yes. It really doesn't make it any better.

[Agincourt]

Yes, well. I thought I'd read something about putting text in blue being recognized as a means of conveying sarcasm, but maybe I misunderstood.

Regardless... yes. It really doesn't make it any better.

Personally, I never use the blue text, but the way I have always understood it was that the part in blue was sarcastic and the rest not necessarily so.

Anyway, I hope you did not think my response was aimed at you, necessarily. I just used the opportunity to clarify why, exactly, I find metagaming to be bad roleplaying.

[facelessminion]

"Roleplay" vs "Rollplay" arguments aside, the initial idea in this thread is utterly terrible. If you refuse to give players knowledge that they should get from knowledge checks, you make the knowledge skills useless. You pointlessly nerf skill lines that require a very significant investment to be useful.

On the other hand, I suppose you're just telling your players to put skill points into more useful things, save themselves from having to buy knowledge skills, and dump INT, so that could be helpful for them.

Edit: To add something that's a bit more helpful and less invective, couching the results of knowledge checks in roleplay terms can help the flavor of a campaign, and make things a good bit more interesting overall. And there can be exceptions for the knowledge skill. If, for some reason, a particular monster type is nearly unheard of in your world, then adding a hefty penalty to the knowledge check can be appropriate. (One of my favorite examples of this is from a campaign I am currently in. In this campaign world, the god Orcus has deliberately hidden and obfuscated his nature. Thus, where he would as a god normally be a fairly easy knowledge check to get information about, there was a +20 penalty to the DC.)

It just has to be a very rare occurrence, and not something that happens 'just because', otherwise you pointlessly invalidate skills.

[Kantolin]

It may help increase mystery if you have the mystery be more than a given creature's stat block. Illusion/Transmutation spells can help accomplish this, but from a more basic levels simple descriptions can.

"You notice a dog thingy rob a store, drag an orphan from the store onto the street, and raise his sword to kill it" would, in most scenarios be a creative way of saying, 'So roll for initiative'.

But if you say "You notice a hound archon rob a store, drag an orphan from the store onto the street, and raise his sword to kill it"... that'll certainly cause the party cleric to go O_o Right away, it could be a fallen angel, or a dominate spell, or possession, or an illusion, or a disguise, or maybe the orphan is actually the illusion and is a succubus, or maybe this is the demon spawn of the apocalypse, or whatever.

I mean... "The demon/devil turns to you, raises an eyebrow, and vanishes in a puff of smoke." That might get an, 'Aw, he's running away - maybe to his superiors or something'.

Whereas, "The balor turns to you, raises an eyebrow, and vanishes in a puff of smoke." Results in, 'Holy crap what was a /balor/ doing here?! Why did he run?'

In fact! A third option comes from uh... 'the demon draws a sword, and holds it in a defensive stance in front of her' vs 'The succubus draws a sword, and holds it in a defensive stance in front of her'. The latter would immediately /cause/ a lot more mystery than the former - and all it took was a level or three in swordsage or warblade or knight or psychic warrior.

And then you get the nifty perks of reusing things. So the /next/ time the group runs into a succubus holding a sword in a defensive stance in front of herself, the party can go, "She must've been another of the succubi trained by the swordsage balor we've been dealing with! Everyone brace yourself, they like desert wind!"

So in short, try using the information. Not all mystery must come from 'you try to fireball the fire elemental! Nothing happens!' In fact, you have to be careful with that, as it may result in frustrating your players.

(Unless your /goal/ is to frustrate your players, which I presume it isn't).

[jedipotter]

You are in no position to advise other people how to roleplay. In this very thread you have stated that you allow, nay you prefer that players use metagame knowledge. You actively encourage bad roleplaying. You want your players to step outside of the shoes of their characters and use the player's knowledge for information that the character could not possibly know.

It's not bad role playing to ask and expect the players to read, remember and use game information. I give out plenty of game handouts, and if a player is too busy or lazy to read them, then they don't get the ''free roll to know all'' during the game.

The idea that a character somehow went to a class and learned about every single creature in the Multiverse is just about the dumbest idea ever.





Generally, I am empathetic to people who want to run low powered campaigns. I just wish you would do us all a favor and stop trying to be our spokesman because you are bad at roleplaying. You play some sort of table top game where the players must guess what you, the DM, want them to do.

Not sure where you got the idea I like a low power type game. I like ultra high powered games myself.

[Agincourt]

It's not bad role playing to ask and expect the players to read, remember and use game information. I give out plenty of game handouts, and if a player is too busy or lazy to read them, then they don't get the ''free roll to know all'' during the game.

The idea that a character somehow went to a class and learned about every single creature in the Multiverse is just about the dumbest idea ever.
Actually, that is pretty much the definition of bad roleplaying. I honestly am not sure you understand what the word "roleplaying" means. It means to pretend to be someone else. When that is done well, a person thinks through how another person would think and act. That entails figuring out what the character would know. Instead you are encouraging your players to memorize and remember all the books. When you force your players to conflate player knowledge with character knowledge, you force bad roleplaying.

And no one said anything about a character going to class and learning every single creature. The knowledge skill check is a mechanic to determine who knows exactly what and at low levels no one knows everything.


Not sure where you got the idea I like a low power type game. I like ultra high powered games myself.
I got the idea from your multiple, repeated rants against "optimizers." Maybe, you just like the high powered to be one-sided from the DM, but if you are punishing players for optimizing, you are not running a high powered game. You're running a sadistic campaign where the DM is allowed to do cool things but the players are not.

[Alex12]

It's not bad role playing to ask and expect the players to read, remember and use game information. I give out plenty of game handouts, and if a player is too busy or lazy to read them, then they don't get the ''free roll to know all'' during the game.

The idea that a character somehow went to a class and learned about every single creature in the Multiverse is just about the dumbest idea ever.
First off, it's not "free" because they put resources into actually knowing things. Second, your way encourages metagaming (which is the opposite of good roleplaying by pretty much every definition I'm familiar with).
Let's take Ed the level 1 Commoner, for example. Ed rolled poorly for stats, and has 6 Int. And he put his 1 skill point into Profession (underwater basket weaver). And he's never before been more than five miles outside his village, which is in a marshy coastal region.
Ed's player, OTOH, has been playing for 15 years, and has committed the monster section of every book to memory. By your own description, if Ed encounters a Crawling Apocalypse (Sandstorm, page 143) and instantly recognizes it and rattles off every stat and ability it has, that that's somehow good roleplaying.


Not sure where you got the idea I like a low power type game. I like ultra high powered games myself.
Ultra high-powered games where everyone is a mighty warrior with not just the +1 BAB (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17716757&postcount=375) needed to be a competent warrior, but a whole +2 BAB?

[the_other_gm]

There is a difference between in-game information that the player/character needs to know to make informed decisions and information that the player knows that the character should have no right knowing.

Knowing the social power structure of the town you're in helps when you're dealing with a chain of command. I might not know every NPC's exact name by heart, but that's because I might interact with them once or twice in a four hour span of time once a week, where in I deal with many, many fictional peoples. I might flub or mispronounce a name but the intent should be clear and I would expect my character to be far more familiar with these people then I am. The character is also more familiar with the town layout then I am as he/she would be walking down those roads in person.

On the flipside, I've been playing D&D since the latter end of 2nd ed. I know things in a few settings most characters would not know, simply because I've read the GM sections, having actually run that material first hand.

If I've run a module before hand and a buddy of mine wants to run it for me and some friends of ours, is it bad play for me to use my knowledge of the locations of monsters & traps to our benefit even though my character has no reason to know these things? Most people, me included, would say it's extremely bad form to do so.

Yet under Jedipotter this seems to be the only way to gain any knowledge on the area.

[Slipperychicken]

Frankly I have had enough sessions where immersion was COMPLETELY destroyed by GMs stonewalling in response to successful knowledge checks. I play a Wizard with lots of Knowledge skills myself, and in my opinion making excuses about how every creature is totally new and unique destroys immersion.

You imagine having a hulking beast before you. Your character has studied such beasts for decades, and is one of the pre-eminent scholars in this field. Countless weeks at libraries, many late nights chatting with contemporary scholars, reading the ancient texts, sitting through innumerable lectures, theorizing about such creatures, writing well-regarded essays about their nature, talking to explorers who dealt with them. This is his time to shine. And what does the GM focus on? "I don't care how much sense it makes for your character to know about this thing, or that you blew that knowledge check out of the park. He doesn't have the slightest clue. So grovel at my feet and praise my lazy encounter-design in rhyming verse or I'll call you a roll-playing munchkin."

Ugh...

[mythmonster2]

The best part about making Knowledge rolls completely useless is that it actually encourages you to just go with other, possibly gamebreaking things. "Sure, I was thinking about getting Skill Focus (Knowledge: Dungeoneering) so I could identify aberrations we came across, even if it's not strictly optimal, but I guess I'll just have to settle for Arcane Thesis..."

[PersonMan]

Actually, that is pretty much the definition of bad roleplaying. I honestly am not sure you understand what the word "roleplaying" means.

Jedipotter uses different definitions than most people with several words. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of them.

[Agincourt]

Someone hypothesized in another thread that English may not be his first language and he is using some sort of translation program. It would actually explain a lot about his posts.

[jedipotter]

Actually, that is pretty much the definition of bad roleplaying. I honestly am not sure you understand what the word "roleplaying" means. It means to pretend to be someone else. When that is done well, a person thinks through how another person would think and act. That entails figuring out what the character would know. Instead you are encouraging your players to memorize and remember all the books. When you force your players to conflate player knowledge with character knowledge, you force bad roleplaying.

I agree up to the ''figuring out what they would know''. I like characters to be cabbageheads , that is they ''know less then they should.'' And then the players must play the game to figure things out, and not just sit there and have the DM say things like ''the large red scaled fire breathing creature is a red dragon, it's immune to fire'' and they players saying ''wow, gosh DM, thanks, we never would have figured out what it was unless you told us. ''

And I never said I encourage players to memorize all the books. Read the books, yes, but not memorize.



I got the idea from your multiple, repeated rants against "optimizers." Maybe, you just like the high powered to be one-sided from the DM, but if you are punishing players for optimizing, you are not running a high powered game. You're running a sadistic campaign where the DM is allowed to do cool things but the players are not.

My rants are against the cheating optimizers and the over zealous optimizers, not all the optimizers.

[facelessminion]

The best part about making Knowledge rolls completely useless is that it actually encourages you to just go with other, possibly gamebreaking things. "Sure, I was thinking about getting Skill Focus (Knowledge: Dungeoneering) so I could identify aberrations we came across, even if it's not strictly optimal, but I guess I'll just have to settle for Arcane Thesis..."

It makes things really easy in Pathfinder, too! "Oh, the only skill I need is Perception? Time to get that 8 INT!"

[Psychoalpha]

And I never said I encourage players to memorize all the books. Read the books, yes, but not memorize.

By definition the way you run your game encourages that. Players will often take the most advantageous path, and you've made it clear that memorization is an advantage because you don't allow peoples character knowledge to be determined by their actual character sheet, but by their RL knowledge.

If I said that I would be determining everyone's damage rolls by how many pieces of red clothing they're wearing RL, I'm merely stating a fact about how I run my game, sure. But claiming that doesn't encourage people to wear a lot of red clothing is pretty insane.

[GreenZ]

On-topic:

I personally, as a GM, build a mental scale of relevant information when knowledge skills are used:
Common knowledge are things most learned people understand (Dragons have breath weapons).
Uncommon knowledge are things that are generally known but not widely so (Red Dragons Breath Fire).
Rare knowledge are things that only a learned individual might know (Dragons have SR).
Unique knowledge are things that only very few might know, impossibly high rolls. (Ancient Red Dragons have a few unique abilities that include...)
Unknown knowledge are things that are impossible for a character to know (Almost nobody in the setting has ever seen space travel and cannot know that a Lunar Dragon can travel through space.)

Also, unique creatures should, in my opinion, not be completely unknown as a well learned individual should be able to (with a very high knowledge roll) extrapolate knowledge just from a creature's appearance or behavior. (Creature X seems to have plating similar to a Red Dragon... it might also have similar fire resistance.)




Off-topic: (Please read this jedipotter)

I have read through some of jedipotter's posts and want to address his line of thought that many people obviously find erroneous. I would like to round up a few quotes and draw information from them.


Not sure where you got the idea I like a low power type game. I like ultra high powered games myself.

No. What you call an award, I call too much free information. The idea that if a character makes a save they ''remember'' that class in school where they learned the exact details of every single spell in the Multiverse is just silly.

Instead of automatically knowing and obliterating everything always.

These combined might be some of the cause of your problems. At high levels characters are super-human in every aspect, including knowledge. Until about 10th level (or with a knowledge dedicated character) there is no feasible way to just know everything about every creature you come across.


DM says ''how about i make you an aberration hand out'' and Tim says "Nah, don't bother''

But he has no time all week to get ready for the game, as he is so busy. Sure he can take like four hours to set up his man cave for the guys to come over and watch football, but he can't take ten whole minutes to read the player handout e-mailed to him.

So you only support ''I like it when the players just sit there and the DM tells them stuff''. Ok, that is one way to go.

You tread over this ground several times, making me thing that this is something that happened to you personally. This problem is derived from the people you are playing with and your interactions with them, not problems from the game mechanics themselves.


A player has an active character in the game and have a vested partial interest in the character. The player just plays in the game. The DM has no character in the game and is completely impartial. The DM runs and controls the game.

Though it seems I'm the only one. Everyone else says ''anything goes''. You ''can't'' cheat at D&D. And all a poor DM can do is beg the players ''I know the rules are broken(all hail the rules), but can you pretty please with sugar on top not be a jerk?" and then the player, from up on his huge high horse can say, ''Ha ha, puny DM, why yes, sure I can play the game and not be a jerk...but just remember I do so at my whim....so we both know I'm so awesome I could break the game, but i'll agree not to do so for now.''

I nerf knowledge rolls to handle three types of problem players:

Jedipotter, you seem to have a problem regarding your relationship with your fellow players. You are all players, all playing different roles of the same game, you are not enemies. The GM and the players are there together to tell a story: the players are nothing but actors and directors and the GM is little more than a playwright. Together, a game is crafted.


I can't stand the idea that they player will just sit back and roll and say ''oh tell me everything my character would know that stuff.''

Yes. I'm far to the right on this one. The characters know what the players know. No knowledge checks.

My way is you can learn things about the game....by playing the game.

Finally. I hope you realize that everyone at a gaming group is simply playing to have fun and that everyone has fun in a different way. Roleplaying is a diverse game that caters to all kinds of people, not everyone enjoys playing the game in the same way that you do.

What if I only want to play Pathfinder for a few hours on the weekend and want to ignore it the rest of the time? Your ideals punish my play.

What if I like having a scholarly character, built to be knowledgeable and well-learned in all manner of subjects but do not have the time to read through all the spells and monster entries and locations and important nobles? Your ideals punish my play.

What if I enjoy playing a character with less knowledge than me? I either have to feign ignorance or know more than I want to. Your ideals punish my play.

And what if I am mentally handicapped? Or blind? Or someone who could not read English easily? Your ideals punish my play.

The problem is not that players cannot have fun playing the game your way, as obviously your players do, but it is that not everybody desires to play in that manner. Your manner of playing is only your personal opinion and can be harmful advice to give depending on who you are giving it to.

[Genth]

You know, I just realized something....

Jedipotter's taking their players through a Choose Your Own Adventure book! Think about it, most of those old CYOA books needed the reader to stay really on top of things, recall small details that come up in the book's plot, in order to get past the obstacles! Makes sense, what with saying things like "I want to challenge the players mentally" and wanting to find out those small details in game. S'not the point of Pathfinder, but I'm sure there's a niche for that kind of game.

[Yogibear41]

Even if you roll a 1000 on your knowledge check how are you suppose to identify a creature that no one in your world has ever seen? You might be able to determine some distinctive features that lead you to believe that the creature is an abberration or something like that, but you still won't know what is it.

[the_other_gm]

Even if you roll a 1000 on your knowledge check how are you suppose to identify a creature that no one in your world has ever seen? You might be able to determine some distinctive features that lead you to believe that the creature is an abberration or something like that, but you still won't know what is it.

You (the player) tell me how! Player gets to name the thing!

Beyond that if the player is able to roll high enough to notice features and abilities of the thing, he's probably linking it to other creatures of similar type or similar abilities: "This thing's pulsating neck sack reminds me of the Firebelchers of Tor'toice I did an essay on in Wizard School. Guys, be careful, this thing probably pukes out slag! The burn marks on it's stony hide also seem to indicate it's probably immune to fire, so don't waste your time trying to burn it, 'K? As the first wizard to discover this noble beast, I will call it: Bumfarts."

[Arbane]

With experienced players, wouldn't that lead to more metagaming and immersion-breaking? (Character: what the heck is this? Player: that's totally a gibbering mouther. Everyone plug up your ears!)

I got a character killed once through good roleplaying. My farmboy turned fighter had NO IDEA what the floating spherical creature with way too many eyes was....

(Well, good roleplaying and a blown fortitude save.)


Do you want people to use the rules to simulate characters abilities or not?? Or is the game ALWAYS a test of player skill, with no intent at simulating character abilities in a cohesive modelling way at all??

I'm thinking Jedipotter would be happier playing AD&D, where player knowledge was ALL the PCs had to use. But to depend on metagaming in a game with a built-in skill system for knowing things seems perverse.


It is not a crime against gamedom for players to know stuff in character. Characters invest in the knowledge skills. They've earned the information gained. Adventurers are not ignorant doofuses who know nothing of the world they live in. They are right there learning and experiencing.

Unless they have too few skill points per level to afford any knowledge skills, in which case they WILL be ignorant doofuses. Nothing like a level 10 Fighter who STILL has no idea who these angry green people who keep swinging battle-axes at him are.... :smalltongue:


It's not bad role playing to ask and expect the players to read, remember and use game information. I give out plenty of game handouts, and if a player is too busy or lazy to read them, then they don't get the ''free roll to know all'' during the game.


Memorizing D&D books isn't a 'game', it's a _career_ at this point. How many books in just the "Monster Manual" series are there now!? And that's not even counting all of these... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dungeons_%26_Dragons_3.5_edition_monsters)

I've often been reluctant to get too deep into RuneQuest's world of Glorantha because it feels like I'd need a PhD in Gloranthan Studies to do justice to it. But it sounds like you want players to have at least a MS in Teratology. (Or to die a lot. There's a fair number of creatures in D&D where NOT knowing what they can do can lead to very rapid TPKs. A basilisk, for example.)

This comic seems relevant. (http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=8)


I took basic chemistry at high school, so with a bit of work and the right ingredients I could whip up some gunpowder. Does that mean my barbarian savage who's never seen worked metal in his life can now make fireworks?
I studied social studies and psychology at uni. Does that mean my illiterate halfling ex-slave rogue has insight into the benefits and drawbacks of different forms of government, understands what the "bystander effect" is, or could replicate the Stanford prison experiment?

Don't do it! That way lies madness. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?275152-What-am-I-supposed-to-do) :smallbiggrin:

[Vizzerdrix]

I'm okay with this to a point. If the DM is throwing the common chaff at the party (Goblins, dragons, orcs, etc.) then no. You do not get to do this.

If the player makes a high knowledge roll, then the DM needs to give clues, or accept full dakka mode from the party with no fuss about "broken campaigns".

If the DM demands something silly like Knowledge of the creature in your back story, Players retain the right to add "worked for a summer in the kingdoms zoo" to their characters back story to cover the tax. Fussy DMs will be denied any purchased foods or beverages for the duration of the session along with a ban on any home cooking that happens to be going on at the time.


I am aware I did not use blue. This is not a blue text situation.

[Slipperychicken]

Even if you roll a 1000 on your knowledge check how are you suppose to identify a creature that no one in your world has ever seen?

Then don't name it, just provide strengths and weaknesses.

Perhaps it's a creature someone wrote about in a vision or something. Or it might bear resemblance to a fictional creature, like if one of us encountered a dragon or an elf IRL. Or it resembles a creature which has been theorized might exist (like if we ran into little green men on mars). Or it resembles creatures which do already exist, from which its abilities are guessed. Or the PC's knowledge check means using its appearance and behaviors to guess its abilities (giant armor plates mean it's AC is high, skin like that of an X means it's spell-resistant, creatures in this shape often have spell abilities, the wicked gleam in its eye indicates intelligence, etc etc).


Besides, in D&D, there people can chat with the all-knowing gods themselves to gain knowledge (as well as countless lesser beings), look at any location anywhere on a whim, and travel wherever they wish instantaneously. And those people have a voracious hunger for knowledge, and routinely go out on expeditions to learn new stuff. And they also love writing books full of all the stuff they've learned, and put it in places of learning for scholars to read. Pretty much any knowledge (short of something stupid like Vecna-Blooded creatures) can be justified by such travels, divinations, and lore.

[Pex]

Even if you roll a 1000 on your knowledge check how are you suppose to identify a creature that no one in your world has ever seen? You might be able to determine some distinctive features that lead you to believe that the creature is an abberration or something like that, but you still won't know what is it.

If the creature is something that unique, new, and/or literally no one knows in the game world, that's a different story. Usually such a creature is a Campaign Plot Point. The adventure's purpose, or part of its purpose, is to learn about the creature under first hand experience. The fact that the Monster Lore expert character doesn't know anything about it is important. It could be a plot hook for future study and reference. That's perfectly fine for campaign atmosphere purposes.

[Slipperychicken]

Usually such a creature is a Campaign Plot Point.

In my experience, they're almost always a thinly-veiled excuse to deny people their Knowledge rolls.

[Knaight]

I like characters to be cabbageheads , that is they ''know less then they should.'' And then the players must play the game to figure things out, and not just sit there and have the DM say things like ''the large red scaled fire breathing creature is a red dragon, it's immune to fire'' and they players saying ''wow, gosh DM, thanks, we never would have figured out what it was unless you told us. ''

Right. So the only acceptable characters for your players to play are uninformed rubes. That's just fascinating. That example is also a fascinating choice, as it conveniently happens to be about the most boring way the DM could deliver information. The thing about description is that it will innately disclude the vast majority of information there. Take a photograph of some random room somewhere - describing the exact location of every single object would likely take a very long time. Knowledge skills provide a nice way to illustrate particular things. Say the PCs find a pile of bones. If they're all elves from some sort of super isolated vegan elf hippy commune where nobody has died and there are no dead animals, they might not even recognize the material of bone. If they're trained zoologists, they'll notice things like the length of protrusions for muscle attachment points, and know what that means in terms of torque applied to bones and thus the strength of the animal that left them.

In D&D terms that's a knowledge skill of some sort, depending on what the bones are from. While there are no zoologists per se in most campaigns, there could very well be people who are experts in the subject. While the commune is a pretty extreme example of ignorance, there are also very much those who aren't particularly knowledgeable. The knowledge skills provide a very useful baseline for what information makes it into the description, and generally it will be partial. Sure, the bones have long protrusions at which the muscles are attached, which means high torque and probably high strength, unless the muscles themselves are seriously underdeveloped. That still hardly provides exact information on every particular and removes the "figuring things out" part.

[Pex]

In my experience, they're almost always a thinly-veiled excuse to deny people their Knowledge rolls.

That is if it happens with almost every combat, then the DM is being a jerk. For the truly unique for the campaign world creature that's part of the plot or subplot and it's only for that creature, that's the fun of the mystery to be discovered.