[3.5] Monster Knowledge Checks Q&A

[Thurbane]

I have some questions regarding using Knowledge checks to identify monsters that I've never gotten a clear RAW answer to. These come up in my game surprisingly often:

1. If a monster is disguised (either by mundane means like the Disguise skill, or magic methods like a Hat of Disguise) as a different creature type (say, a Nymph [Fey] disguised as an Elf [Humanoid]) - do i need to roll a spot check to overcome the disguise first? If I don't penetrate the disguise, do I roll a Knowledge check against the apparent type?

2. Templated monsters: how do I handle these? Say i have a Half-fiendish Ogre. The required skill is K(TP) - on a successful roll, they know it's a half-fiend, yes? So what, if anything, do they know about the base creature type? Do they need to also have K(N) for Giants? Or because it's type has changed, is there literally know way to use Knowledge to determine what the non-Fiendish half is? What about someone with K(N) but not K(TP): do they have any chance of recognizing it as some kind of Ogre hybrid?

3. I generally roll the checks in secret, to see if the PC knows anything or not. However, even doing so, they player's may still still able to work out the creature type depending on whether I make a roll or not (i.e. if no-one in the party has Knowledge Dungeoneering, and the creature in question is an Aberration). I guess the best option is just to roll in secret regardless of whether anyone has the required skill or not. Any thoughts or suggestions? Should players get the same info (or lack of info) from a failed roll as not having the relevant skill at all?

All throughts and feeback most welcome!

Cheers - T

[AlanBruce]

1. If a monster is disguised (either by mundane means like the Disguise skill, or magic methods like a Hat of Disguise) as a different creature type (say, a Nymph [Fey] disguised as an Elf [Humanoid]) - do i need to roll a spot check to overcome the disguise first? If I don't penetrate the disguise, do I roll a Knowledge check against the apparent type?


If nobody in the party can make a successful Spot check or has some way to see through illusions ( as in the case of the hat of Disguise), in your example, the party would believe they met an elf.

If, in the course of their traveling or fighting said elf, party members begin to get blinded or stunned by just looking at it, then I'd call for the relevant check to ID it as the real creature, but only if it has given the party enough reason to suspect it isn;'t what it appears to be.

Of course, all this becomes moot if the party succeeds at a Spot check early on and has he ranks to ID a nymph. Without such info, they might know it's a "pretty elf maiden, disguised as a regular elf."


2. Templated monsters: how do I handle these? Say i have a Half-fiendish Ogre. The required skill is K(TP) - on a successful roll, they know it's a half-fiend, yes? So what, if anything, do they know about the base creature type? Do they need to also have K(N) for Giants? Or because it's type has changed, is there literally know way to use Knowledge to determine what the non-Fiendish half is? What about someone with K(N) but not K(TP): do they have any chance of recognizing it as some kind of Ogre hybrid?


In the above example, I ask players to roll 2 sets of knowledges, assuming they have ranks in either Nature and/or Planes.

The party wizard with enough ranks in Knowledge: The Planes might know it's a half fiend, and reveal all the abilities, strengths and weaknesses of the creature. He would even know that they are the result of infernal paramours with creatures of the material plane, begetting said offspring.

But if he lacked ranks in Knowledge: Nature, he'd realize it's a half fiend, but of some unknown, large race.

Of course, if the party has been fighting ogres for awhile, he might make an educated guess and assume the half fiend is the leader of the recent ogre encounters in the area. That last part being circumstantial and up to the DM and his game.


3. I generally roll the checks in secret, to see if the PC knows anything or not. However, even doing so, they player's may still still able to work out the creature type depending on whether I make a roll or not (i.e. if no-one in the party has Knowledge Dungeoneering, and the creature in question is an Aberration). I guess the best option is just to roll in secret regardless of whether anyone has the required skill or not. Any thoughts or suggestions? Should players get the same info (or lack of info) from a failed roll as not having the relevant skill at all?



Some players prefer for the DM to roll in secret. Others like to do the rolling on their own, because they built their PC to know as much as possible.

Be aware that depending on the party's level, some creatures may be mundane enough to be common knowledge to all. Everyone in town- even a commoner- might know what a dragon and a giant is. Whether they know any particular specifics, that;'s up to the knowledge checks.

In the case of aberrations, these are obscure monsters that rarely interact with common folk and if they do, most of these creatures make sure none is left around to talk about them, so it falls on how common you what a type or particular race of creature to be in your setting.

[Venger]

1. If a monster is disguised (either by mundane means like the Disguise skill, or magic methods like a Hat of Disguise) as a different creature type (say, a Nymph [Fey] disguised as an Elf [Humanoid]) - do i need to roll a spot check to overcome the disguise first? If I don't penetrate the disguise, do I roll a Knowledge check against the apparent type?[/spoiler]
Remember you only roll vs a disguise if they have some reason not to take it at face value. If that's the case, they get a spot first and if they botch it roll vs apparent type. if they succeed roll vs real type if it's different.

[quote]2. Templated monsters: how do I handle these? Say i have a Half-fiendish Ogre. The required skill is K(TP) - on a successful roll, they know it's a half-fiend, yes? So what, if anything, do they know about the base creature type? Do they need to also have K(N) for Giants? Or because it's type has changed, is there literally know way to use Knowledge to determine what the non-Fiendish half is? What about someone with K(N) but not K(TP): do they have any chance of recognizing it as some kind of Ogre hybrid?
RAW, you roll against the creature's current type, period. for a half-fiend ogre, you roll planes. if you succeed, you learn the monster: "half-fiend ogre"

while it's not RAW, allowing someone who had the knowledge germane to the base creature is definitely a good idea.


3. I generally roll the checks in secret, to see if the PC knows anything or not. However, even doing so, they player's may still still able to work out the creature type depending on whether I make a roll or not (i.e. if no-one in the party has Knowledge Dungeoneering, and the creature in question is an Aberration). I guess the best option is just to roll in secret regardless of whether anyone has the required skill or not. Any thoughts or suggestions? Should players get the same info (or lack of info) from a failed roll as not having the relevant skill at all?
while the impulse to reduce metagaming makes this seem logical, I strongly advise against it.

first of all, it slows down play a ton. it also, as you said, lets the players know when something's up. the primary reason you should let players roll it themselves (aside from letting players roll it themselves always being a good idea, it makes them feel more connected to their successes and failures) is that you won't know whether or if the party wants to expend resources (renewable or otherwise) to identify monsters. you may also not remember every static and dynamic bonus applicable to the roll, while they probably will, such as knowledge devotion, call to mind, or collector of stories to name a few.

[KillianHawkeye]

I guess the best option is just to roll in secret regardless of whether anyone has the required skill or not. Any thoughts or suggestions? Should players get the same info (or lack of info) from a failed roll as not having the relevant skill at all?

One of the best tricks I have as a DM is to pretend to do things behind the screen in order to throw the players off. This includes rolling when a roll isn't necessary. If the players roll Sense Motive and the target isn't lying, pretend to roll Bluff anyway. If they roll Spot/Listen and nobody is there, pretend to roll Hide/Move Silently anyway. If there's a lull in the game, starting rolling a handful of dice or call for a saving throw for no reason just to get their attention.

Probably my best example is when I pretended to write down damage in my notebook when the party was fighting an illusion (an aboleth using its project image SLA) to avoid giving away that it wasn't real. The players can't see my notebook, but they can see whether or not I'm writing in it.

Sometimes DMing is like poker. You're playing the other players as much as you're playing the game.

[Thurbane]

How does the overcoming a disguise deal interact with KNowledge Devotion? Do you roll against the "apparent" form, but secretly roll against the true form? Does the character know whether he is doing extra damage or not?

[AlanBruce]

How does the overcoming a disguise deal interact with KNowledge Devotion? Do you roll against the "apparent" form, but secretly roll against the true form? Does the character know whether he is doing extra damage or not?

Reading on the feat, the PC must succeed at the Knowledge check to apply the benefits granted by Knowledge Devotion.

If the PC in question cannot see through the disguise (in the case of the nymph looking like an elf), he has no reason to roll a knowledge check to ID it and so, would not gain the benefit of the feat's extra damage.

[Darth Ultron]

Sadly, 3.5 E is very bland and mechanical. Really to save time you should just tell the players what everything is and let them read the stat block and/or write-up.

The rolls to ''know everything'' are beyond broken, and are really made for the casual gamer who never pays attention. So Jerk Jimmy can play on his phone for like an hour during to boring role playing parts of the game, and then just roll a d20 to know ''everything'' as soon as a monster pops out and the real roll playing begins.

And even if you ''try'' to go ''by the books'' the players will just get upset at best when they ''did not remember(aka have the DM tell them)'' that, for example, fire gaints have the fire type and they could have done a ton more damage if they did ''X'', all because they missed a roll by one.

[Venger]

How does the overcoming a disguise deal interact with KNowledge Devotion? Do you roll against the "apparent" form, but secretly roll against the true form? Does the character know whether he is doing extra damage or not?

Again, it comes down to it being easier to let the players keep track of their own niggling bonuses.
e.g.
Player's knowledge bonuses vs fey is +10
Player's knowledge bonus vs humanoid is +2

Again, you don't know 100% how your player may choose to use resources against something like a knowledge DC, especially when it's an important monster. During a boss fight, for example, if we were fighting something that probably had a lot of hit dice and was some kind of homebrew monster or what have you, I would have my character expend collector of stories for the encounter for the +5. it's also equally conceivable that a player might expend it for a type where his bonus isn't very good in order to activate knowledge devotion's higher echelons.


Reading on the feat, the PC must succeed at the Knowledge check to apply the benefits granted by Knowledge Devotion.

If the PC in question cannot see through the disguise (in the case of the nymph looking like an elf), he has no reason to roll a knowledge check to ID it and so, would not gain the benefit of the feat's extra damage.

But that effectively tells the PC that the nymph is in disguise when he failed his roll to know she's in disguise. That doesn't make sense.


Sadly, 3.5 E is very bland and mechanical. Really to save time you should just tell the players what everything is and let them read the stat block and/or write-up.

The rolls to ''know everything'' are beyond broken, and are really made for the casual gamer who never pays attention. So Jerk Jimmy can play on his phone for like an hour during to boring role playing parts of the game, and then just roll a d20 to know ''everything'' as soon as a monster pops out and the real roll playing begins.

And even if you ''try'' to go ''by the books'' the players will just get upset at best when they ''did not remember(aka have the DM tell them)'' that, for example, fire gaints have the fire type and they could have done a ton more damage if they did ''X'', all because they missed a roll by one.

leaving balance aside, don't do this, it'll slow down play too much.

I agree for any player who knows anything about monsters, the rolls to know the rudiments of type are pretty worthless. That said, it is useful when the gm gets fancy and decides to do a custom monster. in this sphere, metagaming won't help. even for the printed ones, it's easy to forget from posting on the forum heavily, many people who play the game are casuals who'll forget things like minotaur being immune to maze or what exact specific spells bypass a golem's magic immunity

[Stealth Marmot]

How does the overcoming a disguise deal interact with KNowledge Devotion? Do you roll against the "apparent" form, but secretly roll against the true form? Does the character know whether he is doing extra damage or not?

Actually that is a very good question and it came up when I was thinking about your original post.

First thing to keep in mind: Is the different form an illusion, or some sort of transmutation/polymorph. Think of Knowledge Devotion being things like knowing where veins and arteries are, where pressure points could be, or knowing the weaknesses in a physiology. An example would be knowing that a crocodile can crush bones in its mouth while closing it, but a child could hold its mouth closed since it had very few muscles to open it with.

But part of it would also probably be behavioral, knowing how a creature would act or react to a stimulus. "Elves favor and lean on their dominant foot" or something like that. It's likely that such aspects would at least partially transfer in a transmutation. If it's a transmutation or other actual physical change, then the bonus would apply to its new worm, and in fact you would probably need to roll different knowledge checks after they change such forms.

If it's an illusion or a disguise though, then the person would be completely mislead and the knowledge would be useless or even counterproductive.

If it were me running the game, I would say you would need to pierce the disguise before you could make the adequate knowledge roll, and your other roll, no matter the result, will end with a +0 to attack and damage. HOWEVER, with a high enough roll, you might get a clue or indication that the creature is in disguise, and thus get either an extra spot/sense motive roll or a bonus on the initial spot/sense motive roll.

As for your attacks, you probably would notice they were less accurate than they should be and not hitting the right points after a couple of attacks, but that would be a spot or sense motive or wisdom check in itself.

[Dagroth]

The way I deal with Disguise or Illusion vs. Knowledge Devotion is rather simple. If, for example, a player rolls enough to get +3/+3... I simply give the creature an effective (not actual) AC that is 3 higher and subtract 3 from the damage amount the player tells me. If the player gets the same to-hit roll as another player who did hit, I say something like "the creature seems to be avoiding your blows specifically".

[Venger]

The way I deal with Disguise or Illusion vs. Knowledge Devotion is rather simple. If, for example, a player rolls enough to get +3/+3... I simply give the creature an effective (not actual) AC that is 3 higher and subtract 3 from the damage amount the player tells me. If the player gets the same to-hit roll as another player who did hit, I say something like "the creature seems to be avoiding your blows specifically".

what exactly does "effective" mean in this context?

[Dagroth]

what exactly does "effective" mean in this context?

It means that if Knowledge Devotion gives them +3 to hit (and they're calculating that when they roll their attacks), I increase the monsters AC vs. them by 3. Thus, effectively 3 higher.

Until they figure out that they've been fooled by a disguise/illusion and make the correct Knowledge Devotion roll, of course.

[Venger]

It means that if Knowledge Devotion gives them +3 to hit (and they're calculating that when they roll their attacks), I increase the monsters AC vs. them by 3. Thus, effectively 3 higher.

Until they figure out that they've been fooled by a disguise/illusion and make the correct Knowledge Devotion roll, of course.

That seems to create a lot of extra work for the gm.

As a player, I probably wouldn't think to ask to roll knowledge devotion again, since it's normally 1/encounter.

[KillianHawkeye]

That seems to create a lot of extra work for the gm.

Well, sometimes DMs have to do some extra work, especially when you want to trick the players along with their characters to avoid giving away a surprise. This is normal.