Knowledge checks to ID monsters

[J-H]

The rules say that if you make a Knowledge check DC 13, you know one or two useful facts about a 3HD enemy. I think the rules were written assuming that only the DM has the monster manual.
In reality, if you give the players the name of a monster, they can look the whole thing up.

How do you handle it? If someone makes the 10+HD check do you just give them the name and let them look up the sheet entry? Or do you give them a partial description, and then give them the actual name at 20+HD? Or _______?

[Troacctid]

Players need to be able to separate in-character knowledge from out-of-character knowledge. If your rogue doesn't know the difference between a demon and a devil, she's not going to know what kind of arrows will bypass that succubus's damage reduction, even if you, the player, have the succubus's statblock memorized from the other session that you DM'd last Sunday.

[Malimar]

Looking up a monster while facing it in play is terrible metagaming and should never be done, unless the DM gives you express permission to do so. If a player opens up a Monster Manual and consults the monster they're fighting without my permission, they're getting a DMG to the face.

The DM might grant such permission under some situations, mostly if you beat the base knowledge DC by a lot.

Here's roughly how I do it:
10+HD generally gives you the name of the monster, its type and subtypes (and all traits and features of its type and subtypes), and maybe one other fact. Each additional 5 you beat the DC by gives another fact about the monster. If you beat the DC by more 5s than there are available facts, then you can look at the statblock.

[BowStreetRunner]

It really depends on the group. If you can trust your group not to metagame, sure give them the name of the monster. Some DMs outright ban players from using the monster manual during a game. Others make heavy use of templates and other modifications to mix things up and keep the players on their toes. I've even encountered a DM who used Google Translate to 'rename' all of the monsters - he either used the actual name or a descriptive name that he then translated into different languages until he found one he liked. (Worgs were Zlovolk, which was Macedonian for Evil Wolf.) That particular DM also re-fluffed and altered the appearance of a lot of his monsters - leaving the stat blocs alone but otherwise rendering them unrecognizable.

[Âmesang]

As a note, Monster Manual V, p. 7, modified the DC from "HD + 10" to "CR + 10."

Otherwise I think you'd have to meet or beat a DC 58 Knowledge (arcana) in order to recognize the tarrasque. :smallconfused:

[Beheld]

Here's the thing. The knowledge rules are terrible. They don't actually count as rules really... they say give a couple pieces of information, but what kind of information? What counts as one piece of information? Ect. The knowledge rules don't tell you anything. Secondly, they give way too little information to the PCs.

If you roll a really good check, chances are still really good the DM might not even tell you troll regeneration, because there are tons of other things to tell you. Now, this means that PCs are incentivized to metagame, because at the levels you face trolls, you actually can't roll a high enough check to be sure about the regeneration, but not knowing is going to get you TPKed.

Also you apparently can't identify monsters except by seeing them, which is especially odd when it comes to like, Invisibly Stalkers.

So here are some actual monster knowledge identification rules, the ones that I and my friends use in our games:

Knowledge rules: Yes, we know they suck. Here are some more explicit ones:

Knowledge identifies monsters. It also identifies unique character abilities that are not spells or SLAs (these are governed by spellcraft).

When identifying a monster, you must either see the monster, be interacting with one of it's special attacks or qualities, or you must have a good description of the monster, or some of it's special attacks or qualities. If you are trying to identify the monster from a special attack or quality, you must exceed the Base DC by 10 to be able to differentiate this special attack or quality from that of other similar monsters. If you are operating from a description, you must first identify creature with a DC equal to the base DC increased by 2-10 points, depending on the quality of the description. (Telepathic contact with someone observing the creature is a +2, A limited description of the monster by a terrified commoner is +10). If you succeed on the check to identify the monster by description or base ability, use that result to determine what you learn about the monster.

The Base DC is 10 + the CR of the base monster. If you make the base DC, you gain knowledge of base monsters type, sub types, size, and name. For each point you exceed the Base DC you gain knowledge of additional features in this order:

1) Alignment
2) All Movement modes
3) Special attacks, Left to Right other than SLAs
4) Special qualities, Left to Right
5) The combat section description of standard tactics.
6) Full attack routine
7) AC Line
8) Saving throws, all three.
9) SLAs, starting from at wills with highest spell level, moving towards lower levels, then repeating for fewer uses. Each point gives all SLAs at that spell level.

If you exceed the DC by 20, you may look at the Monsters entry for the base monster.

If the monster has any templates, treat them separately from the base monster. First, add the CR increase from all the templates, then have the PC roll against a Base DC of 15+2XCR increase. Use the knowledge category of the the creatures final type if they templates would be different knowledge categories. If the Base DC is exceeded, then start giving PCs knowledge off the list for each point it is exceeded. If the Base DC is exceeded by 20, then provide all the template information.

No knowledge check grants knowledge of changed feat combinations, or other effects.

When dealing with class abilities or PrCs, knowledge checks trigger when you see an ability used, interact with an ability, or have a description of an ability being used. The DC to know of an ability is 15+the minimum CR that a character could have that ability by. When you roll. If you identify and ability correctly, as belonging to members of a class or PrC, you are aware of any other abilities members of that PrC may have that are under your check result.

For example, Haggar the Glabrezu Phrenic Half Dragon with a level in Fiend of Possession.

There are many ways you might find out about him, for example, being possessed, or noticing someone else's possession, or hearing about him.

But if hypothetically you saw him, you could roll two knowledge checks.

The Base DC of each would be 23 for the Glabrezu, and DC 25 for Phrenic Half Dragon.

A result of of 37 for each check would result in knowing fourteen things about the Glabrezu:

0) Glabrezu: Huge Outsider (Chaotic, Extraplanar, Evil)
1) Always Chaotic Evil
2) 40ft land only
3) Improved Grab
4) Summon Demon
5) Damage Reduction 10/good
6) 60ft Darkvision
7) Immunity to Elec and Poison
8) Resistances to Acid/Cold/Fire 10
9) SR 21
10) Telepathy 100ft
11) True Seeing
12) "Glabrezu prefer subterfuge to combat. However, if their attempts to entice or deceive fail, these enormous demons attack with a vengeance. They follow a confusion attack with melee attacks, hoping to finish off wounded foes with chaos hammer or unholy blight. A glabrezu’s natural weapons, as well as any weapons it wields, are treated as chaotic-aligned and evil-aligned for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction."
13) two Pincers, two claws, bite (numbers too)
14) -2 size, +19 natural
15) Fort +18, Ref +8, Will +11
16) Reverse Gravity, Greater Teleport (at will)
17) Confusion, Unholy Blight, Chaos Hammer (at will)

Then for the result on his templates 15 things:

0) Dragon (Psionic)
1) 80ft fly speed, Average maneuverability
2) Breath weapon
3) Immunity to Sleep and Paralysis
4) Naturally Psionic
5) Power Resistance 10+HD.
6) +4 Natural Armor
7) Intellect Fortress 3/day
8) Empty Mind, Mind Thrust 3/day
9) Defensive Precognition 3/day
10) Psionic Dominate 1/day
11) Psychic Crush 1/day
12) Aversion, Psionic Blast 1/day
13) Body Adjustment, Brain Lock 1/day
14) Force Screen 1/day
15) That's it. Sorry.

Additionally, if he where to go ethereal in front of you, you would be able to make a knowledge check against a DC of 19 to figure out the etherealness came from a Fiend of Possession, and if you rolled at 25 or higher, you would know the entire Fiend of Possession class, and be aware of the possibility of the creature having those abilities.

[Malimar]

As a note, Monster Manual V, p. 7, modified the DC from "HD + 10" to "CR + 10."

Pathfinder does the same thing, IIRC. It's a change I can understand, but not one I endorse -- I think of CR as a higher-order, more meta feature than HD; plus HD is more objective than wibbly wobbly usually-off-by-at-least-a-point CR.

[Aetis]

I generally write my own monsters to avoid this problem.

[Beheld]

Pathfinder does the same thing, IIRC. It's a change I can understand, but not one I endorse -- I think of CR as a higher-order, more meta feature than HD; plus HD is more objective than wibbly wobbly usually-off-by-at-least-a-point CR.

CR is just as objective as HD. A Monster has a CR, and a monster has a HD. While CR tries to tell you information about how tough a monster is, and sometimes fails, HD tells you literally nothing about how tough a monster is. Hence why even as straight monsters without using advancement rules (which just make it worse) there are CR 20s with 48HD, and there are CR 20s with 18HD, and if anything, the 48HD one is easier to deal with. Meanwhile there is a CR 13 with 19HD.

[StreamOfTheSky]

How i handle it:

If you make the DC (10 + HD), you get the name and some basic mechanical info, generally the most obvious stuff, primary means of attacking, etc...
For every interval of 5 points over the DC you get, more pieces of info are gained (special attacks, defenses, resistances, immunities, weaknesses, if it has SR, etc...).
If you beat the DC by 20+, I basically just show you the stat block.

Some monsters have traits in common but have various CR and HD versions. Like red dragons of different age categories or the traits all archons have. If you make a high enough roll to beat the DC for the lowest HD creature of such a kind but fail to make the DC for the specific creature you're actually fighting, I might reveal some of those common traits.

[KillianHawkeye]

One thing that I like to do is to have really low DCs for anything that I consider to be almost common knowledge. For example, "red dragons breathe fire" is, like, at most a DC 5 check. "Dragons whose scales look like precious metals are usually Good" is another one that I'd put below 10, along with "trolls regenerate if not burned", "snake-haired ladies can turn you to stone", and "hydras grow two new heads when you cut one off".

Of course, which monsters are famous enough to be commonly known about probably should vary from setting to setting or depend on what part of a setting a character originated from. That mysterious stranger from an exotic, far away desert land probably doesn't know that a water nymph is so beautiful that you can go blind looking at her, but he's almost certainly heard the tales of the rotting curse of a mummy's touch. In a setting where dragons don't exist but giants are well integrated into humanoid societies, the readily available info about dragons will be replaced by knowing about the common varieties of giants (like which ones are the biggest and which are the smallest, or maybe the legendary peace treaty between the fire giants and the ice giants that precipitated all of giant-kind uniting and then joining into an alliance with the human and dwarven civilizations, or whatever else you might learn if you grow up in a town where a family of giants live just down the road).

[J-H]

Thanks, this helped me decide how to handle my first ever encounter DMing.
(only 1 person made the K:Arcana roll, and just barely).

[Âmesang]

…and "hydras grow two new heads when you cut one off".
Suddenly I want an animated hydra skeleton painted red. :smalltongue:

[Darth Ultron]

Avoid easy to look up monsters from the Monster Manual. There are tons and tons and tons of 3E monsters out there to use. For example, right here on GitP do a search over in Homebrew.

Don't use the by the book monster. It is not ''just'' a wyvern, it is a fiendish wyvern or an some other template. Or it has class levels or a magic item or a spell effect. Or add and switch it's stats. It is very easy to make special creatures....

In my game ''knowledge'' checks just get you rumors, not hard facts. And ''what is in a name'', I avoid the easy to look up game rule monster names.

[Bucky]

DM: You come face to face with Ojiun the legendary blue dragon who destroyed Fort Cliche. She crouches defensively over her hatchlings.
Player: What element's her breath weapon?
DM: Can you make a DC 40 Knowledge check?
Player: Uh, no. But I can try to figure out the blue hatchlings' breath weapon? *rolls* I got a 28
DM: It's lightning.

I'd expect the legendary dragon to be easier to find information on than the individual hatchlings. But the skill doesn't work that way.

[Darth Ultron]

The skill has all sorts of weirdness to it...

The skill assumes the person has heard of and knows about every single monster in the universe...and that is just beyond silly.

The skill makes anyone an expert on monsters, but oddly the skill only works on monsters. If you see a human or an orc the skill is useless.

More thoughts:

I'd note that anytime the players ''use the knowledge exploit'' they should get less XP for the encounter, per the rules for an easy encounter.

If your a real ''by the rules'' type, you might just have to accept that like half of the combats will be ''easy'' for the PC's as they ''know everything'' about the monsters. You might even figure ''easy'' monsters at only half or less their CR.

And knowledge can be dangerous too. When Pc's ''prepare too much'' they can get into trouble. For example: The pc were headed to Trollhiem, and loaded up on fire stuff. Only to find..surprise hobgoblins lived there too. And they did not have the super weakness to fire that the players hoped to exploit...

[Troacctid]

The skill has all sorts of weirdness to it...

The skill assumes the person has heard of and knows about every single monster in the universe...and that is just beyond silly.
No, only the ones where they succeeded on their Knowledge checks.


The skill makes anyone an expert on monsters, but oddly the skill only works on monsters. If you see a human or an orc the skill is useless.
No it isn't. Knowledge (local) governs knowledge of humanoid, including humans and orcs.


I'd note that anytime the players ''use the knowledge exploit'' they should get less XP for the encounter, per the rules for an easy encounter.

If your a real ''by the rules'' type, you might just have to accept that like half of the combats will be ''easy'' for the PC's as they ''know everything'' about the monsters. You might even figure ''easy'' monsters at only half or less their CR.
That's absurd—first off, you had to invest significant character building resources into knowing that stuff, and second, knowing that the ancient red dragon has the fire subtype isn't going to do squat to stop it from kicking your 10th level tuckus three ways to next Tuesday.

[Malimar]

The skill assumes the person has heard of and knows about every single monster in the universe...and that is just beyond silly.No, only the ones where they succeeded on their Knowledge checks.

It's also not even necessarily having heard of/knowing about monsters: if you see a unique monster that's never been seen before, but you know enough about similar monsters, you can still gather e.g. whether it's a carnivore or an herbivore from its teeth, its probable speed from its stride, and so on.

If I see a big theropod, I don't need to be able to tell if it's an allosaur, a tyrannosaur, a carnotaur, or a spinosaur to be able to tell you some relevant things about it.

It doesn't matter that the mad wizard only just created the first-ever crocoppotamus in his lab; if I know some things about crocodiles and I know some things about hippopotami, I can tell you most of what's important to know about crocoppotami (except that crocodiles and hippos are knowledge(nature) and crocoppotami are knowledge(arcana), but that's what circumstance bonuses are for).

[noce]

In my party I'm the knowledge character.

When we encounter a monster, I roll knowledge and my DM tells me what my PC knows.
When I as a player know something about our enemy, I only use that knowledge if my PC knows it aswell.

If I as a player know a monster feature that could be useful to know as a PC, I politely ask the DM if my PC knows it too, just in case the DM forgot to tell me about that particular feature.

[Pugwampy]

I divide this issue between common monsters eg. Sketelon . I dont have a problem with a veteran player automatically knowing you need to smash skeletons and slice zombies .

I allow knowledge checks on wierd and wonderful once in a life time encounter monsters . To be honest in all my 8 years of gaming , I have never encountered a player who even tries to exploit ID monster trick . I think its a great idea .

Players look at it stupid but kill it eventually and then DM usually tells em what it is afterwards.

Personally I think its a huge waste of everyones time if a DM halts the game asking nerd player how he knows exactly how to deal with so and so beastie ingame .

[Âmesang]

I'd expect the legendary dragon to be easier to find information on than the individual hatchlings. But the skill doesn't work that way.
I think that's why the Monster Manual V further clarified things:
The preceding rule addresses specific creatures well, but more can to be said about creatures of general types. Consider the adaru demon as an example. It's a CR 10 creature. Identifying it specifically requires a successful DC 20 Knowledge (the planes) check. However, since lowly CR 2 demons such as the dretch are out there, sharing outsider and tanar’ri traits with the adaru, it's reasonable to assume that identifying those outsider and tanar’ri traits is a relatively easy task.

Except when otherwise noted, an appropriate and successful DC 15 Knowledge check reveals all of a creature's type and subtype traits as defined in the glossary. This often includes information about energy resistance or various immunities. For instance, a DC 15 Knowledge (arcana) check reveals that dragons are hard to kill (12-sided HD) and resilient (all good saves). They have darkvision out to 60 feet and low-light vision, and they are immune to sleep effects and paralysis effects. They eat, sleep, and breathe.

[Darth Ultron]

No, only the ones where they succeeded on their Knowledge checks.

With the broken system, PC's will make most checks...



No it isn't. Knowledge (local) governs knowledge of humanoid, including humans and orcs.


Yes, make a roll and you can ''read'' the page in the book that says ''Orc'' and learn all the basic racial stuff. However you don't ''remember learning in school'' what classes and magic items every single orc in the world has. But you get all that crunchy information about a monster. If a monster is immune to X, the PC's know...but not for races like an orc with a spell cast on them.

If any monster is immune to fear a PC can ''remember'' that from when the PC learned everything, but they can't just look at a human and ''remember'' that this particular human in front of them has X number of class levels in class x and is therefor immune to fear.

[Beheld]

With the broken system, PC's will make most checks...



Yes, make a roll and you can ''read'' the page in the book that says ''Orc'' and learn all the basic racial stuff. However you don't ''remember learning in school'' what classes and magic items every single orc in the world has. But you get all that crunchy information about a monster. If a monster is immune to X, the PC's know...but not for races like an orc with a spell cast on them.

If any monster is immune to fear a PC can ''remember'' that from when the PC learned everything, but they can't just look at a human and ''remember'' that this particular human in front of them has X number of class levels in class x and is therefor immune to fear.

You clearly are basing your complaint on some alternate system that no one else in the world is talking about.

PCs hardly ever make significant knowledge checks, because to know 4 things about a monster requires beating the DC by 20. There are 17 things I can tell you about a Glabrezu right now. If you only get to know one of those 17 things, then you basically know nothing.

Likewise, PCs do not get to know that the monster is immune to X unless that is the one and only thing they know about the monster. (Or the rolled 20 over the DC and that is one of the 4 things they know.)

[Malimar]

If a monster is immune to X, the PC's know...but not for races like an orc with a spell cast on them.

That's what Spellcraft is for.


Yes, make a roll and you can ''read'' the page in the book that says ''Orc'' and learn all the basic racial stuff. However you don't ''remember learning in school'' what classes and magic items every single orc in the world has. But you get all that crunchy information about a monster.

If any monster is immune to fear a PC can ''remember'' that from when the PC learned everything, but they can't just look at a human and ''remember'' that this particular human in front of them has X number of class levels in class x and is therefor immune to fear.

I'm not seeing what you think the problem is here?

Also, your emphasis on "remember"ing is flat wrong. Knowledge is not just memory, it's also ability to figure things out from context clues. Like the ability to figure out that the orc has a class that gives him heavy armor proficiency from the fact that he's wearing heavy armor, or that he isn't daunted at all by your opposition so maybe he's immune to fear or else he's in a barbarian rage. As long as you think of knowledge as being exclusively "learned about this individual monster in school", you're going to keep seeing problems where there aren't problems.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Well one thing to do is, don't say what monster it is. Using a vague description it might take a few rounds before the players know themselves what there fighting.


You clearly are basing your complaint on some alternate system that no one else in the world is talking about.

PCs hardly ever make significant knowledge checks, because to know 4 things about a monster requires beating the DC by 20. There are 17 things I can tell you about a Glabrezu right now. If you only get to know one of those 17 things, then you basically know nothing.

Likewise, PCs do not get to know that the monster is immune to X unless that is the one and only thing they know about the monster. (Or the rolled 20 over the DC and that is one of the 4 things they know.)

Well the skill check says you learn something "useful" If for example you tell the PC's the creature is immune to poison and electricity but the party doesn't have any abilities to deal either type of damage. You've given them no useful information. However knowing it has tree seeing so the wizard doesn't bother using invisibility or mirror image against it would be useful information.

[Darth Ultron]

That's what Spellcraft is for.



I'm not seeing what you think the problem is here?

One pointless roll and a player knows all about a monster, if it's right out of the book. But if they encounter ''just a human'' they can't use the ''know everything'' exploit and just have to play the game and figure out what the human can or can't do ''for real''.

It's a great oversight. If it's a monster the players know all about it, but if it's not a ''monster'' the PC's are stuck



Also, your emphasis on "remember"ing is flat wrong. Knowledge is not just memory, it's also ability to figure things out from context clues. Like the ability to figure out that the orc has a class that gives him heavy armor proficiency from the fact that he's wearing heavy armor, or that he isn't daunted at all by your opposition so maybe he's immune to fear or else he's in a barbarian rage. As long as you think of knowledge as being exclusively "learned about this individual monster in school", you're going to keep seeing problems where there aren't problems.

Except the skill does not work that way. It's not ''see something and figure it out'', it's just ''you know everything''. It's not like a Pc ''wastes'' a fire attack spell on a fire immune creature THEN rolls a knowledge check to ''figure out the creature is immune to fire''. All the Pc needs is the name and they can say ''I did not roll a one, Dm tell me everything about the monster''.

[Beheld]

All the Pc needs is the name and they can say ''I did not roll a one, Dm tell me everything about the monster''.

Again, that still isn't what the rules actually say.

[Tvtyrant]

I show them a picture of the creature at the start of the fight before they ID it. Then I categorize creatures based on type for IDing them.

Animals: DC15 to know everything about it, you can use the MM entry as it is a common creature.
Vermin: Same as animals, these are everywhere and people study them for fun.
Plants: Same as animals, very common.
Oozes: Same as animals.

Humanoids: You get the name of the species and some cultural stuff about them. DC20 gets you which political or religious group they might belong to. "This is a human from Tarza. Humans are a morally and intellectually flexible species who have colonized thousands of worlds and will mate with anything. This one is a strict Gorskan, a religious group which abhors violence against other humans."
Giants: Same as humanoids.
Faeries: You know what your group's myths are about them. "Dryads are known to you as annoying buggers who try to stop your forge by preventing you from gathering firewood."

Outsiders: Religious beliefs come into play here. You won't know what type it is beyond Fiend, Hallowed or Neutral unless you are a religious individual or it is very common. I rename everything to keep people from metagaming.
Aberrations: I refluff these a lot, and they are too weird and rare to actually know about them. A really good roll might get you "The thousand wings of the Targuff were last known by the adventurer Holdapple. Holdapple fought a den of them a century ago, coming out wounded and half-mad he claimed that they could read minds and eat souls through their eyes."

[J-H]

Okay, my group has defeated 3 construct-type enemies. Someone has proposed examining the bodies to see what they can learn.

They already know damage output, special attacks, HP, Reflex save, and AC (+- a few points) from 3 rounds of combat. I'm really not sure what additional information there is to give aside from the actual monster info, which includes a couple of things that they wouldn't learn from examining the bodies (I think).

I still have baby sleep deprivation and can't figure this one out.

[Aldrakan]

Okay, my group has defeated 3 construct-type enemies. Someone has proposed examining the bodies to see what they can learn.

They already know damage output, special attacks, HP, Reflex save, and AC (+- a few points) from 3 rounds of combat. I'm really not sure what additional information there is to give aside from the actual monster info, which includes a couple of things that they wouldn't learn from examining the bodies (I think).

I still have baby sleep deprivation and can't figure this one out.

I think that depends to some degree on why they're looking at them. Are they just trying to figure out more statistical stuff in case they need to fight more? You can't normally reroll knowledge checks so you're under no obligation to give more info, especially if there's nothing really observable left to learn (if there was you could justify letting them reroll because they can properly examine them now).
But if they're investigating the remains they might be trying to work out where they came from or similar - which could mean it's no longer an arcana check to identify the traits of a creature, but dungeoneering to see they're constructed from an alloy used in certain areas of the Underdark, history to know they're modeled after the Mithral Legions of Tarakar, a different arcana check to recognize they bear the rune of reclusive artificer Snori Gearbrain, etc.

[Troacctid]

They would learn that the monsters are constructs, built out of [material] and animated by magic. Examining the craftsmanship might give them clues about who built it, if they succeed on appropriate skill checks, e.g. Knowledge (local) to recognize that this type of stone is common in [town name]'s quarry, and Gather Information in that town to learn that [bad guy name] was around buying up lots of stone.

[Wardog]

Others make heavy use of templates and other modifications to mix things up and keep the players on their toes. I've even encountered a DM who used Google Translate to 'rename' all of the monsters - he either used the actual name or a descriptive name that he then translated into different languages until he found one he liked. (Worgs were Zlovolk, which was Macedonian for Evil Wolf.) That particular DM also re-fluffed and altered the appearance of a lot of his monsters - leaving the stat blocs alone but otherwise rendering them unrecognizable.

I suppose even quite small changes to the appearence could help throw players off-track.

How much Knowledge: Dragons do you need to distinguish a Black Dragon from a melanistic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanism)Red Dragon?

[InvisibleBison]

I suppose even quite small changes to the appearence could help throw players off-track.

How much Knowledge: Dragons do you need to distinguish a Black Dragon from a melanistic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanism)Red Dragon?

Not very much; black dragons have distinctive facial horns that red dragons lack.

(Your point is valid; you just picked a bad example, and I'm too pedantic to not point it out.)

[Melcar]

The rules say that if you make a Knowledge check DC 13, you know one or two useful facts about a 3HD enemy. I think the rules were written assuming that only the DM has the monster manual.
In reality, if you give the players the name of a monster, they can look the whole thing up.

How do you handle it? If someone makes the 10+HD check do you just give them the name and let them look up the sheet entry? Or do you give them a partial description, and then give them the actual name at 20+HD? Or _______?

Its pretty easy.

DC 10 +HD is to recognize the monster, like: “oh that’s a red dragon” or “that there is the dreaded night hag”
If you then can get +5 or +10 higher then it becomes: “oh that’s a red dragon, its immune to fire, but takes double damage from frost” or “that there is the dreaded night hag, it has a disease filled bite, and has some spell like abilities”
For every 5 DC extra above the 10+HD; you simply give one more piece of information. If a player was to be handed the MM, then that person would have to roll a very high number. Something like DC 10+HD+50… there are so many things that constitute “a useful piece of information” so the DC would get very high for the player to get all the information… In my opinion.

[Knight Magenta]

I think the best way of judging knowledge checks it to take a look at how much luck/investment a roll represents.

A character's knowledge check will be, on average, 10.5 + ranks + 3 + int. The base DC of the check is 10 + CR + 5/extra-question So for a character that is not int based (say 12 int), we have a success rate of about 75% to get something. A roll of DC + 5 will be achieved with a 50% chance, +10 with 25%, and so on.

This means that when a player rolls a knowledge check at DC +10, this is actually a pretty rare occurrence, or represents significant investment in that skill. Either by having a high int, or investing feats. It seems pretty crappy to tell the player "oh the troll also has rend" when that happens.

At our table, we usually split the monster's stat block into 3 parts across 2 categories: offense, defense. Each level of success lets you know about one of those parts. So exceeding the DC by 10 lets you know all relevant information about a monster. We don't really look at the statblock when this happens, cause that is boring, but the DM will give us the monster's good/bad save, its HD within 5 dice, etc...

[Der_DWSage]

Okay, my group has defeated 3 construct-type enemies. Someone has proposed examining the bodies to see what they can learn.

They already know damage output, special attacks, HP, Reflex save, and AC (+- a few points) from 3 rounds of combat. I'm really not sure what additional information there is to give aside from the actual monster info, which includes a couple of things that they wouldn't learn from examining the bodies (I think).

I still have baby sleep deprivation and can't figure this one out.

I think it'd help if you use my houserule for identifying monsters-it doesn't really do much more than codify the 'bits of information' that are given, and make it player-oriented instead of DM-oriented which information is given.

The following information is given automatically-The reach of an opponent, (Except in cases of the Lunge feat or similar, non-obvious means of gaining reach) the size of an opponent, and how many natural attacks it can make in a round.

If they make a DC 10 Knowledge check, they know the Type of the opponent-which includes any immunities from type (Such as a Dragon's immunity to sleep) and their good saves. By GM discretion, this can also include any information that is notorious for the species-such as a Troll's tendency to regenerate, or that a Red Dragon has a fire-based breath weapon.

If they make the actual knowledge check, and for every 5 points over the initial knowledge check, they may ask one question from the following.

Whether it is weak, strong, or neutral to a single element / A single non-elemental weakness, if any / How to overcome its DR / How much DR it has / Immunities to status effects that don’t come from its type / How many HD it has / 3 (Relevant) Spell-like abilities it knows / How much SR it has / Two (Relevant) special abilities or Special Qualities it has / Common diplomacy tactics against this creature (This includes what languages it speaks and what it eats)

You may want to adapt the DC 10 portion to a higher DC, but I felt it threw a bone to the people that don't invest anything-they at least know a Dragon when they see one, for example.

[Melcar]

This means that when a player rolls a knowledge check at DC +10, this is actually a pretty rare occurrence, or represents significant investment in that skill. Either by having a high int, or investing feats. It seems pretty crappy to tell the player "oh the troll also has rend" when that happens.



I kind of see your point, but again, theres is nothing wrong or strange in letting the academic types do the knowledge checks. I mean how many hours does the fighter on average spend in the library? Thats kind of how knowledge is dealt with in real life. So the wizard, or cloistered cleric could be doing the checks. And since the multiverse of D&D has so many different creatures its not a too harsh to think that its actually dificult to know what the 10 different trolls that all look alike has of abilities...