Knowledge Check to "know all about" monsters

[Chester]

Hello.

I was wondering if there's a certain DC or knowledge check for a player to "know all about" a monster he encounters. In other words, a knowledge check would yield everything there is to know about a monster in an encounter, including attacks, vulnerabilities, etc. (I have a player who tries to do this frequently, and I anticipate another discussion during our next session.)

EDIT: 3.5 edition

[Vizzerdrix]

Yes, that is what knowledge checks are for, for the most part. The phb should have more info on the subject.

For that level of information the check may be high though.

[Gildedragon]

Well you make a knowledge check

Arcana for constructs, dragons, magical beasts; Dungeoneering for aberrations and oozes; for humanoids it is Local; animals, fey, giants, monstrous humanoids, plants, and vermin are Kn. Nature; Religion for the undead; Planes for outsiders, elementals, and probably things with the extraplanar subtype.

Then the roll is made, the base DC is 10 + monster HD. With that you know what the monster is, with every 5 points over that you know something more.
assuming the things to know are HD, Type (subtype), Initiative bonus, Speed, AC, Base Attack/Grapple mods, its attack and full attack routines, its special attacks, its special qualities, its ability scores, its skill allotment, how many in a usual bunch...
assuming a DM that treats these as all the qualities that one can learn and doesn't subdivide them (ie requiring a +30 to learn all its ability scores), learning everything about a monster is a 70+monster HD result in the appropriate knowledge skill.

Personally I find it a bit excessive... i'd have a 30+monster HD (or CR) be more than enough to know everything about a monster.

[Beheld]

No, there is no check that tells you everything by Raw. Truthfully, the raw knowledge rules might as well be non existent.

You might roll a 40 on a CR 20 Balor and get:

1) Death Throws (everything)
2) At will Blasphemy, Dominate Monster, Greater Dispel, Greater Teleport
3) Summon
4) Vorpal Sword
5) True Seeing

or you might get:

1) 40ft move speed.
2) 90ft fly speed.
3) Whip entangles.
4) 20HD.
5) +20 BAB.

Technically, both of those provided 5 bits of useful information, and it's just down to how much your DM thinks you should know.

Knowledge rules need a complete rewrite and you are just going to have to deal with what amounts to Magic Tea Party rules for knowledge unless your DM uses something different.

[Mendicant]

Personally, I have no desire to adjudicate what exactly constitutes "a bit of useful information." I run Pathfinder, so it's 10+CR, and that check gets you basics: type and subtype, number of HD on a non-advanced creature, movement modes and speeds, and resistances/DR/vulnerabilities and signature special attacks or features such as a troll's regeneration or a dragon's breath.

If you beat the DC by 5 you get the tactics and defense blocks. Beat it by 10 and you get the rest of the monster entry.

[Beheld]

Personally, I have no desire to adjudicate what exactly constitutes "a bit of useful information." I run Pathfinder, so it's 10+CR, and that check gets you basics: type and subtype, number of HD on a non-advanced creature, movement modes and speeds, and resistances/DR/vulnerabilities and signature special attacks or features such as a troll's regeneration or a dragon's breath.

If you beat the DC by 5 you get the tactics and defense blocks. Beat it by 10 and you get the rest of the monster entry.

While those houserules sound better than the rules, I see absolutely nothing in the pathfinder rules that says that, and instead see this line again: "For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information."

[Bronk]

I wouldn't call most of the bare bones numbers in a monster's stat block "useful".

If the check is made, I tell the players what they're looking at: What it's called, if it's about to kill them, what it's weak against, that kind of thing.

[Darth Ultron]

Knowledge rules need a complete rewrite and you are just going to have to deal with what amounts to Magic Tea Party rules for knowledge unless your DM uses something different.

If by ''rewrite'' you mean ''eliminate from the game'', I agree.

I hate the ''character knows everything knowledge checks''.

[Keral]

Also, keep in mind that 10+HD might not always be the best choice to go about it anyway.

I once increased the HD of a vermin in my campaign, CR going up by 1 every 4 HD. Let's just say that if I sticked with the 10+HD rule the PC would have needed a knowledge 40 check to identify a Locust swarm X°D

[Allanimal]

You might roll a 40 on a CR 20 Balor and get:

1) Death Throws (everything)
2) At will Blasphemy, Dominate Monster, Greater Dispel, Greater Teleport
3) Summon
4) Vorpal Sword
5) True Seeing

or you might get:

1) 40ft move speed.
2) 90ft fly speed.
3) Whip entangles.
4) 20HD.
5) +20 BAB.

Technically, both of those provided 5 bits of useful information, and it's just down to how much your DM thinks you should know.


In my group, our house rule is that Hitting the base DC gets the name and type, and for every bit of useful information, the player gets to ask the DM a question.

Example:
Player rolls 15 above the DC
DM: The creature is an XYZZY. You get 3 questions.
Player: Does it have DR?
DM: legends claim that cold iron will pierce its tough scales.
P: any resistances?
DM: the bards sing tales of XYZZY's shrugging off the effects of Fire and Acid
P: Any spell-like abilities?
DM: you recall from your studies that the XYZZY are well known for creating clouds of noxious gasses.

We try to stick to the qualitative, so no asking about AC or BAB unless its "known for their very thick hide" or "doesn't rely on physical attacks" or something.

[Beheld]

If by ''rewrite'' you mean ''eliminate from the game'', I agree.

I hate the ''character knows everything knowledge checks''.

They I don't know what you are worried about because its literally impossible in pathfinder or 3.5 knowledge rule to know everything without a +500 or more knowledge check.

That said I want there to be actually good knowledge rules that tell you what your pc knows. I personally mostly dm and spend a lot of time reading monster manuals and the monster sections of variety books. If my dm wants to just slap down a random monster I will know what it is and everything about it. If I have to guess what my character knows about the monster because there are no rules then I might think I know more or less than the dm thinks I should know, and then the party loses because the dm wanted me to tell the the party about which spells effect the golden through spell immunity, or the party has to easy a time because I tell everyone that shabbolaths are made from aboleth slime so someone cast true seeing.

On the other hand if there are actual knowledge rules that work (I have my own houserules, they are better than the actual rules, but could still use improvement) I know what my character knows without it being random guess work.

[Mendicant]

While those houserules sound better than the rules, I see absolutely nothing in the pathfinder rules that says that, and instead see this line again: "For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information."

Sorry, that was unclearly written. The only part where PF is relevant is that it's 10+CR instead of 10+HD, because 10+HD is kind of silly, IMO. The rest are houserules.


In my group, our house rule is that Hitting the base DC gets the name and type, and for every bit of useful information, the player gets to ask the DM a question.

Example:
Player rolls 15 above the DC
DM: The creature is an XYZZY. You get 3 questions.
Player: Does it have DR?
DM: legends claim that cold iron will pierce its tough scales.
P: any resistances?
DM: the bards sing tales of XYZZY's shrugging off the effects of Fire and Acid
P: Any spell-like abilities?
DM: you recall from your studies that the XYZZY are well known for creating clouds of noxious gasses.

We try to stick to the qualitative, so no asking about AC or BAB unless its "known for their very thick hide" or "doesn't rely on physical attacks" or something.

This is a really good system. I'd still hand out more info up front, but as a way of handing out information this seems like it'd be less immersion-breaking and reduce exposition and paper shuffling compared to the way I've been doing it.

[Beheld]

Sorry, that was unclearly written. The only part where PF is relevant is that it's 10+CR instead of 10+HD, because 10+HD is kind of silly.

Definitely my own house rules have always been cr since before pathfinder existed. It being really hard to identify a storm giant zombie (66hd) but really easy to know everything about a pit fiend was always weird.

My current problems with my own rules are about how it should be easy to know about giant dragons, but hard to know about aboleths. Or easy to know about pit fiends but hard to know specific spas.

Don't really have a targeted solution to those problems.

[Darth Ultron]

Don't really have a targeted solution to those problems.

Well, you really can't go by CR or HD or anything else mechanical as it will never make sense. Really, like people with like Intelligence scores of like 5 know that ''red dragons breathe fire'', but that is a hard roll for a 40 HD/40 CR red dragon.

You'd really need a whole sub system of ''monster rarity'' and then go by that. So like orcs and zombies would be common, then things like xorns uncommon, things like foulwings rare and then the unique ones. Of course all the ''cool and interesting'' monsters would be rare...

[Gildedragon]

My current problems with my own rules are about how it should be easy to know about giant dragons, but hard to know about aboleths. Or easy to know about pit fiends but hard to know specific spas.

Don't really have a targeted solution to those problems.

I've had a couple thoughts about that.
1) characters have a +4 bonus towards their own type, meaning humans almost always know what humans are etc...
2) identifying a type, roughly speaking, is DC 10. Most folk, upon seeing something, can tell if "it's a magical animal" or "it's undead" or "it's an aberration against nature" etc on sight.
This only works against non-disguised creatures. Otherwise one identifies the disguise.
if untrained: fusing stuff like vermin-animal-magical beast into one category, fey-outsiders-elementala into another, and so on is useful.

[Telonius]

Yeah, the rules get a bit dysfunctional when you start dealing with higher-HD creatures. "What's that thing? Beats me. I'm pretty sure its kid there is a gold dragon, though."

[the_david]

"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."

This is from the d20 srd. It has never been "roll for every bit of info on this monster".

[Elysiume]

"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."

This is from the d20 srd. It has never been "roll for every bit of info on this monster".The OP was asking for a DC for the check, which would be DC+5*(pieces of information - 1). Up to the DM what constitutes a piece of useful information and how many there are, I guess.

[Mendicant]

Definitely my own house rules have always been cr since before pathfinder existed. It being really hard to identify a storm giant zombie (66hd) but really easy to know everything about a pit fiend was always weird.

My current problems with my own rules are about how it should be easy to know about giant dragons, but hard to know about aboleths. Or easy to know about pit fiends but hard to know specific spas.

Don't really have a targeted solution to those problems.

Me either. Depending on setting, this problem is mostly just handwaved with some mtp.

At the risk of going full Oberoni, I think that's fine. The extra granularity needed to "solve" this doesn't seem worth the squeeze.

[Zanos]

Yeah, the rules get a bit dysfunctional when you start dealing with higher-HD creatures. "What's that thing? Beats me. I'm pretty sure its kid there is a gold dragon, though."
I always ran this as that you would know the abilities of the younger dragons since they're more common, but the specific powers of a Great Wyrm escape you because they're so rare and few people survive encounters with them. So more like "What's that thing? It's bigger than any dragon I've ever heard of!"

My current DM just gives me the monster statblock when I make the knowledge check for monsters, but doesn't give any information about class levels. So "that is an illithid, you know pretty much all about standard illithids", but if the illithid has 10 wizard levels or whatever I won't get that specific information. Instead you get something like "You recognize the creature as Yglorgl, 'he's' an illithid famous for being a powerful wizard."

[Jay R]

I have a very few monsters that what people generally know is wrong. A Knowledge check will not tell you that hippogriffs can become addicted to coffee beans, and will fight furiously for whoever provides them, because nobody knows it yet. Nor will it tell you the secret weakness of ogres. If you learn it, perhaps you can sell the knowledge.

[gooddragon1]

Well, in that case I'll just homebrew a feat to officially do this later.

EDIT: Just finished homebrewing it (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?521296-Combat-Knowledge-Feat&p=21912874#post21912874).