Abyss Hath No Fury

[DirtyMcR]

So at my game tonight, my dm pitted us against a group of goblins. We're level 4 and plenty in number. It's like slaughtering infants at this point right? No. The goblins are immune to damage. No. Not having a damage reduction. And no, they dont have energy resistance before you ask. I'm sorry. I misspoke they are not immune to damage. They heal from EVERY source. Fire, electricity, cold, magical, and mundane weapons of every sort.
We were given literally 2 pieces of information. 1)they look like goblins and 2) they are a CR 4.
I'm certain something was done wrong. Any ideas what these things are? I want to go over it with my DM in a constructive manner.

[DirtyMcR]

Oh. And they are (seemingly) only hurt by healing.

[Thealtruistorc]

Nilbogs. An old and wonky monster from the earlier editions. Healing magic is the only way to hurt it, with anything else actually healing it. The best way to deal with them is just to hog-tie them with grapples or just ignore them (suffocating them also works, as it kills them without damage).

[animewatcha]

What are your classes? Cause sleep and coup de grace via chopping off head. Sure they might heal the damage, but goblins usually need a head to live.

But, seriously, we need to know more about your party. Sources allowed, etc.

[AvatarVecna]

So at my game tonight, my dm pitted us against a group of goblins. We're level 4 and plenty in number. It's like slaughtering infants at this point right? No. The goblins are immune to damage. No. Not having a damage reduction. And no, they dont have energy resistance before you ask. I'm sorry. I misspoke they are not immune to damage. They heal from EVERY source. Fire, electricity, cold, magical, and mundane weapons of every sort.
We were given literally 2 pieces of information. 1)they look like goblins and 2) they are a CR 4.
I'm certain something was done wrong. Any ideas what these things are? I want to go over it with my DM in a constructive manner.

This sounds very suspiciously like some advice I saw somebody give a DM a few weeks ago in regards to dealing with problematic players, though I can't recall the exact concerns expressed about the players in question. AFAICT, the suggested "nilbogs" (goblins that are healed by damage and harmed by healing spells) are basically a BS homebrew monster that's more or less anti-munchkin (because everybody knows in-combat healing is so underpowered as to not be worth taking, the best way to heal is to kill things so fast they don't ever get to hurt you back).

[DirtyMcR]

Well, being nilbogs, it doesn't matter what is in the party. The only thing that has the capability of doing hp damage is our DM run Alchemist. There are no such thing as divine spells at this time, and no, a bard cannot cast cure light wounds, there is no arcane healing.
And they have had the double HP ceiling removed as well.

[Psyren]

Did your GM give you all the chance to roll a knowledge check to identify what these were and discover their unique weaknesses? Especially once you all began noticing their wonky immunities? Because if not, that is metagaming on their part, and it's no more acceptable than when the players do it.

[Calthropstu]

Did your GM give you all the chance to roll a knowledge check to identify what these were and discover their unique weaknesses? Especially once you all began noticing their wonky immunities? Because if not, that is metagaming on their part, and it's no more acceptable than when the players do it.

To be fair, I dislike knowledge checks giving you so much information. I also dislike rare monsters being so easy to identify raw. I took the liberty of altering knowledge checks for my games (ie: epicenters of knowledges. Knowledge planes(Abyss), Knowledge planes(Celestia) etc.) You get basic knowledge planes as well, but it will only tell you basic information such as what plane, what outsider subtype, and common traits. If you want information specific to the creatures, you need up to 5 points in the specific subtype (common, uncommon, rare, very rare, unique.)
The ranks stack into basic knowledge(planes) of course. I do this for several reasons: 1, knowledge checks as written are bull****. Putting a rank into knowledge(planes) because you've been fighting demons and have learned their weaknesses and strengths then suddenly being able to identify qlippoths which you've never seen or heard of before makes zero sense. And 2, it allows me to run quests that involve rare books giving the pcs access to knowledge checks on specific monsters they might be fighting. It also increases the importance of well stocked libraries since I allow them to be used to make any knowledge check untrained.
Yes, it makes knowledge checks more cumbersome but I honestly don't care.

[Venger]

So at my game tonight, my dm pitted us against a group of goblins. We're level 4 and plenty in number. It's like slaughtering infants at this point right? No. The goblins are immune to damage. No. Not having a damage reduction. And no, they dont have energy resistance before you ask. I'm sorry. I misspoke they are not immune to damage. They heal from EVERY source. Fire, electricity, cold, magical, and mundane weapons of every sort.
We were given literally 2 pieces of information. 1)they look like goblins and 2) they are a CR 4.
I'm certain something was done wrong. Any ideas what these things are? I want to go over it with my DM in a constructive manner.
Why would you ever want to associate with this person again? He's clearly just rocks falling you. Find a different game.


To be fair, I dislike knowledge checks giving you so much information. I also dislike rare monsters being so easy to identify raw. I took the liberty of altering knowledge checks for my games (ie: epicenters of knowledges. Knowledge planes(Abyss), Knowledge planes(Celestia) etc.) You get basic knowledge planes as well, but it will only tell you basic information such as what plane, what outsider subtype, and common traits. If you want information specific to the creatures, you need up to 5 points in the specific subtype (common, uncommon, rare, very rare, unique.)
The ranks stack into basic knowledge(planes) of course. I do this for several reasons: 1, knowledge checks as written are bull****. Putting a rank into knowledge(planes) because you've been fighting demons and have learned their weaknesses and strengths then suddenly being able to identify qlippoths which you've never seen or heard of before makes zero sense. And 2, it allows me to run quests that involve rare books giving the pcs access to knowledge checks on specific monsters they might be fighting. It also increases the importance of well stocked libraries since I allow them to be used to make any knowledge check untrained.
Yes, it makes knowledge checks more cumbersome but I honestly don't care.
Yeah, that'll teach your players to try to do anything. If you want to ban the knowledge skill because you don't want your players to get the meager bonuses afforded by the actual rules, that would be a better decision. That way, your players can use the points they would've put in knowledge in skills you haven't arbitrarily nerfed into uselessness.

[kkplx]

Sounds like someone has pissed off their DM.

[Psyren]

To be fair, I dislike knowledge checks giving you so much information. I also dislike rare monsters being so easy to identify raw. I took the liberty of altering knowledge checks for my games (ie: epicenters of knowledges. Knowledge planes(Abyss), Knowledge planes(Celestia) etc.) You get basic knowledge planes as well, but it will only tell you basic information such as what plane, what outsider subtype, and common traits. If you want information specific to the creatures, you need up to 5 points in the specific subtype (common, uncommon, rare, very rare, unique.)
The ranks stack into basic knowledge(planes) of course. I do this for several reasons: 1, knowledge checks as written are bull****. Putting a rank into knowledge(planes) because you've been fighting demons and have learned their weaknesses and strengths then suddenly being able to identify qlippoths which you've never seen or heard of before makes zero sense.
Yes, it makes knowledge checks more cumbersome but I honestly don't care.

Pangolins are rare and I've never seen one, but I can recognize them pretty easily, and I know several facts about them too. I get what you're saying but there needs to be some middle ground. Books exist, songs and tales exist, poems and works of art exist. Not having met something yourself does not mean you shouldn't be able to know anything about it. It's not fair to a player who has a particularly learned or well-read character to rely on personal exposure to be able to know what something is. In fact, lots of book-learned folks take up adventuring specifically to see things in person - it's one of the oldest motivations in the book.

[Calthropstu]

Pangolins are rare and I've never seen one, but I can recognize them pretty easily, and I know several facts about them too. I get what you're saying but there needs to be some middle ground. Books exist, songs and tales exist, poems and works of art exist. Not having met something yourself does not mean you shouldn't be able to know anything about it. It's not fair to a player who has a particularly learned or well-read character to rely on personal exposure to be able to know what something is. In fact, lots of book-learned folks take up adventuring specifically to see things in person - it's one of the oldest motivations in the book.

Sure, you might be able to know that a pangolin is, but think of a perspective in a mideval setting. Also, you might know who the president of the united states is, but do you know all the congressmen without looking them up? By D&D standards, if you have 15 ranks in knowledge(politics) you should be able to recite every standing politician in every region of the world, down to the sitting sherrif. Know of anyone in the world who can do that?

The way I do it isn't useless... you still get stuff like "probably a resident of the Abyss" from basic planar knowledge. If you have an abyssal focus, you can easily identify common abyssal entities and more difficult ones with high dcs.

Keep in mind, demonology and other planar entities are going to be extremely hard to come by knowledge of. General knowledge of demons is "Demons are bad, they kill, corrupt and destroy. Prone to eating people and destroying thing, demons should be avoided if at all possible.

Knowing more than that would be restricted to those who seek them out and destroy them. Others knowing about them likely have dubious purposes, and probably try to summon them.

Celestials are likely even harder to come by knowledge of, because people giving combat information about angels are NOT going to be good people, and are highly unlikely to advertise that fact.

Hence why I require epicenters and rp reasons to gain those epicenters. Makes a lot of sense to me.

[Psyren]

Sure, you might be able to know that a pangolin is, but think of a perspective in a mideval setting. Also, you might know who the president of the united states is, but do you know all the congressmen without looking them up? By D&D standards, if you have 15 ranks in knowledge(politics) you should be able to recite every standing politician in every region of the world, down to the sitting sherrif. Know of anyone in the world who can do that?

I'm not personally acquainted with anyone who has 25 or even 21 Int, I'd wager. That doesn't mean they don't exist. The whole point of D&D characters is that they are the exceptional few. Personal Incredulity Fallacy has no bearing on that.

And yes, I also have no doubt that there are people in our world that can name all 535 congresspeople from memory. Those people are likely very few, yes, but (a) so are PCs, and (b) knowing specific individuals is different from knowing about the existence of an entire species anyway.


Hence why I require epicenters and rp reasons to gain those epicenters. Makes a lot of sense to me.

How is "I study esoteric subjects" not rp? :smallconfused:

[Calthropstu]

I'm not personally acquainted with anyone who has 25 or even 21 Int, I'd wager. That doesn't mean they don't exist. The whole point of D&D characters is that they are the exceptional few. Personal Incredulity Fallacy has no bearing on that.

And yes, I also have no doubt that there are people in our world that can name all 535 congresspeople from memory. Those people are likely very few, yes, but (a) so are PCs, and (b) knowing specific individuals is different from knowing about the existence of an entire species anyway.



How is "I study esoteric subjects" not rp? :smallconfused:

Sure, but "esoteric subjects" is vague. And the expense and stigmata of studying demonology is higher than most starting characters are willing to expend. So finding those books becomes an issue... hence plot hooks.

[Zanos]

OP your DM is probably a jerk. He removed all healing spells from the game then makes you fight something only damaged by healing? Sounds like shenanigans to me.

As for the knowledge argument, knowing some stuff about something you haven't seen before by extrapolating from previous experience is how knowledge...works.

And PCs aren't normal people. A 10th level intelligence/knowledge focused character has a superhuman level of knowledge.

[Random Sanity]

Well, being nilbogs, it doesn't matter what is in the party. The only thing that has the capability of doing hp damage is our DM run Alchemist. There are no such thing as divine spells at this time, and no, a bard cannot cast cure light wounds, there is no arcane healing.
And they have had the double HP ceiling removed as well.

This is what you call a jerk DM. He specifically set up a fight you had no reasonable chance of winning, other than reliance on a DMPC (and even then, good luck).

This is not someone you can reason with. You can only drop them and find someone else to run your games from now on.

[Mr Beer]

Were you supposed to run away or negotiate with them or something? If not then you need to grapple and tie them up or use battlefield control or whatever. After a couple of rounds of futile attacks I'd be looking at the tying-up route. If they're only goblin size and STR you should be able to manage that pretty easily unless you are badly outnumbered.

Weak-but-almost-invulnerable monsters are kind of lame, I get that. I probably wouldn't use this encounter myself as described because it would likely irritate me as a player. But also as described this is not a killer DM encounter, you can't assume every problem can be dealt with direct ultra-violence.

[Andor13]

Wow. Really guys? Nilbogs are an old-school monster, part of D&D since AD&D. They are annoying as hell, but legit.

What's with this attitude? If the encounter isn't beaten easily, with standard abilities and no thought, then you have a killer GM and should find a new game? Does he need to chew your pizza for you too?

[Venger]

Wow. Really guys? Nilbogs are an old-school monster, part of D&D since AD&D. They are annoying as hell, but legit.

What's with this attitude? If the encounter isn't beaten easily, with standard abilities and no thought, then you have a killer GM and should find a new game? Does he need to chew your pizza for you too?

Nilbogs are not a real monster in 3.x.

If the encounter is impossible to beat, your gm is a tool. Find this guy's gm and take his place at the table if you like this "playstyle"

[Andor13]

The encounter isn't impossible to beat, it's just impossible to beat with an axe. They could beat it with grappling, or running, or diplomacy, or bribery, or whatever. I fail to be horrified at the unfairness if they weren't also shooting the PCs with flamethrowers and railguns.

[Venger]

Cool story bro. Go play in this guy's campaign then.

[Psyren]

Sure, but "esoteric subjects" is vague. And the expense and stigmata of studying demonology is higher than most starting characters are willing to expend. So finding those books becomes an issue... hence plot hooks.

"Demonology?" Nilbogs are humanoids AFAIK, and low-CR ones at that. It shouldn't be much more difficult to find out basic facts about them than, say, Blues, or Bhuka or something. At the very least, the whole "hey, these seemingly ordinary goblins are healing from everything we throw at them!" should be a prompt to jog the scholar's memory, and the dice can then fall where they may (as they should.)

But even if we were talking about demons, that kind of mandatory in-campaign research should ideally be reserved for a specific individual, or at best an elite variant (read: templated, mutated or advanced in some way) of a given race. Not for the unmodified race itself.

[Mr Beer]

Nilbogs are not a real monster in 3.x.

If the encounter is impossible to beat, your gm is a tool. Find this guy's gm and take his place at the table if you like this "playstyle"

As described it's not even close to impossible.

[animewatcha]

First try to work things out OOC with DM and find out what is up. If this is a butt-hat move without proper justification, then....

Are there more PCs than gobbos ? If so, then ( and you will need to cooperate with your other party members OOC and PC with this ) match your initiatives to the goblins. Play full defensive-rearhole ( cuss word version of this ). When nilhil or whatever it is called, moves to attack then you use move action to move out of striking range at last second. Reserve actions as necessary. No attack roll from them since you weren't in the spot at the exact time of the attack. Play full defense to add AC as needed. Party members may need to move each other through appropriate actions as necessary. Point is, the enemy only hits you on a 20 at minimum amount of attack rolls. Play the combat out for HOURS. DM gets annoyed at wasting of all this time while you guys counter with BS of a heal-only enemy at that level without access to healing / some manner of finding out, etc. You get what I mean.

[AvatarVecna]

Sure, you might be able to know that a pangolin is, but think of a perspective in a mideval setting. Also, you might know who the president of the united states is, but do you know all the congressmen without looking them up? By D&D standards, if you have 15 ranks in knowledge(politics) you should be able to recite every standing politician in every region of the world, down to the sitting sherrif. Know of anyone in the world who can do that?

Gosh it's almost like real-world people are worse than 12th level characters, and skills are part-and-parcel with that inherently unrealistic aspect. Next you'll be telling me that Jump needs to be nerfed because a Human Monk 12 with full ranks in Jump/Tumble and no other spent resources can beat the all-time world record high-jump every time, or that it shouldn't be possible for an entirely non-magical person to be able to trick inanimate objects into thinking they're wizards through the power of imagination. A bit less facetiously, there was an article in the way back when of early 3e (I know, so long ago :smalltongue:) that made a decent argument for the mechanics indicating that most real people would be somewhere in the neighborhood of levels 1-3, with 6 at the absolute maximum, which is I think part of the idea behind Epic 6 as a game mode.

Additionally, I don't see why it's such a hard sell that people would be trying to learn this knowledge in-universe. In a world where the primary focus of one school of magic is forcing extra-dimensional creatures into the material world, you would think that the decades/centuries/possibly even millennia old wizarding academies would have books about these creatures, and the perils of making contact with other dimensions, and the possible strengths and weaknesses of creatures you might face if you get too big for your britches and accidentally summon something too powerful for you to control...heck, if this worked like some kinda wizarding college, there'd probably be a full-blown class focused on the planes and how magic interacts with them, and it'd probably be a required credit for somebody pursuing a Masters in Conjuring. :smalltongue: In a world where there are dozens or even scores of deities that rule over particular domains, I would think that part of ones duties as a magic-capable priest would be knowing when you're stepping out of your deities domain and into that of another.

Now, all that being said, it's definitely a harder sell with some characters than others. The backwards bumpkin hermit hunter whose been living deep in the forest for 200 years isn't necessarily gonna be an expert on current geopolitical events, but could probably be expected to know a good deal about plants, animals, fey, and other creatures you might find while living in the forest for 200 years. It's believable that a pickpocket would be a savvy, streetwise fellow who understands the subtle rhythm of the city life, but it's less believable that they'd also happen to be an expert on magical theory. I absolutely agree that some characters have less of a default RP reason to invest in certain knowledge skills. And I'm pretty sure the designers do as well, because that's why a lot of classes don't have every knowledge skill as a class skill. At double price and with half the normal cap, skill points spent on cross-class skills are 25% as efficient as they could be, but if that's how you choose to invest your skill ranks, it can be interesting seeing the reasoning behind a barbarian being a history buff, or a thief having an encyclopedic knowledge of their religion's bible.

[Peat]

I also think people are being too hasty to condemn the GM. Possible he thought it would be a fun challenge, or wanted some encounters where the PCs couldn't just go forwards full throttle without thinking. Particularly if they don't have a history of being a wazzock.

[Andor13]

Cool story bro.

I'm not even sure what this is supposed to mean. Maybe this is a grognard thing? I mean, my first D&D buy was the red box set. I've seen nilbogs. I've seen a party face monsters "that can only be hit by +1 or better weapons" when we had no magic weapons. I've seen death traps and TPKs and encounters where violence was not a good solution. I've played horror games where even learning what the monsters were would permanently debilitate your character.

I don't expect every encounter to be nicely balanced so that I can sword it to the face without thought. Sometimes the sword hits the rust monster and goes away. Sometimes the sword hit the jelly and makes more jellies. To my mind an adventurer that can't improvise is an adventurer who would have been better off staying home and farming turnips.

[Psyren]

I also think people are being too hasty to condemn the GM. Possible he thought it would be a fun challenge, or wanted some encounters where the PCs couldn't just go forwards full throttle without thinking. Particularly if they don't have a history of being a wazzock.

I don't mind a challenging or obscure encounter - what I mind is the GM pre-emptively telling the characters they flat out don't know anything, or even just not giving them the chance to see if they might know. That's the job of the dice. You can tweak the DC if you think a species of monster is rarer than the standard formula would indicate, but there should always be a chance for the team scholar or bard to shine.



I don't expect every encounter to be nicely balanced so that I can sword it to the face without thought. Sometimes the sword hits the rust monster and goes away. Sometimes the sword hit the jelly and makes more jellies. To my mind an adventurer that can't improvise is an adventurer who would have been better off staying home and farming turnips.

Again, no one is against challenge. But in game design, you have to balance challenging difficulty with punishing difficulty. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea6UuRTjkKs) It is very easy to make a punishing game/encounter. Nilbogs are a monster that can easily become the latter.

[Andor13]

I don't mind a challenging or obscure encounter - what I mind is the GM pre-emptively telling the characters they flat out don't know anything, or even just not giving them the chance to see if they might know. That's the job of the dice. You can tweak the DC if you think a species of monster is rarer than the standard formula would indicate, but there should always be a chance for the team scholar or bard to shine.

But... there is nothing in the original post to indicate that knowledge rolls weren't allowed. All we know that they know is that they look like goblins (which they do) and that they are CR 4 (which is meta information.) He never said anything about being denied skill checks.

[Malimar]

Nilbogs are not a real monster in 3.x.
Nilbogs have been published in at least one 3rd party supplement for 3.5 and (the same one updated) for PF, and even if they weren't, it would be perfectly reasonable for a DM to port them in from 2e. "Not a real monster" is an extremely bizarre thing to say even if it were entirely out of the DM's own head, which it isn't. The party's facing them, they're (presumably) not illusory, they're exactly as real as owlbears.

[Venger]

Nilbogs have been published in at least one 3rd party supplement for 3.5 and (the same one updated) for PF, and even if they weren't, it would be perfectly reasonable for a DM to port them in from 2e. "Not a real monster" is an extremely bizarre thing to say even if it were entirely out of the DM's own head, which it isn't. The party's facing them, they're (presumably) not illusory, they're exactly as real as owlbears.

The fact that you said "third party supplement" shows you know perfectly well what I was saying: they have not been published in any first-party book, web article, etc.

[Malimar]

The fact that you said "third party supplement" shows you know perfectly well what I was saying: they have not been published in any first-party book, web article, etc.
I suspect that you know perfectly well what I was saying: a DM is permitted to use any source they heckin' well please and it's all equally real.

[Psyren]

But... there is nothing in the original post to indicate that knowledge rolls weren't allowed. All we know that they know is that they look like goblins (which they do) and that they are CR 4 (which is meta information.) He never said anything about being denied skill checks.

Hence why I asked (see my first post in the thread). My remaining posts are speaking more generally, i.e. IF they weren't allowed or proposed.


I suspect that you know perfectly well what I was saying: a DM is permitted to use any source they heckin' well please and it's all equally real.

The problem is that third party tends to vary quite widely in terms of balance, quality, playtesting etc. Which is not to say that first-party doesn't - but it also tends to be pretty widespread, such that even if the designers let a turkey get through QA, the community will suss it out fairly quickly. 3PP monsters like this meanwhile have increased potential to make it to a table with an unrepresentative CR intact.

Consider that Nilbogs are CR4 - what is that number based on? For the wrong sort of party (i.e. one without cure spells) they are going to be nigh-impossible to kill. Is one really the same difficulty as a minotaur or a janni, both of whom can get taken down with regular-ass arrows, swords or damaging spells no problem?

[Malimar]

The problem is that third party tends to vary quite widely in terms of balance, quality, playtesting etc. Which is not to say that first-party doesn't - but it also tends to be pretty widespread, such that even if the designers let a turkey get through QA, the community will suss it out fairly quickly. 3PP monsters like this meanwhile have increased potential to make it to a table with an unrepresentative CR intact.

Consider that Nilbogs are CR4 - what is that number based on? For the wrong sort of party (i.e. one without cure spells) they are going to be nigh-impossible to kill. Is one really the same difficulty as a minotaur or a janni, both of whom can get taken down with regular-ass arrows, swords or damaging spells no problem?
Nilbogs are actually listed as CR1 -- either OP's DM is using nilbogs from a different source, or by "CR4" he meant "this group of 3 nilbogs is (E)CR4", or he's put class levels on his nilbogs, or he's taken into account the party's lack of healing and raised the nilbogs' CR accordingly.

Given that nilbogs have the offensive abilities of CR1/2 goblins (so many lvl 4 parties can pretty much ignore them in relative safety) and their defensive abilities are still susceptible to all sorts of tactics mentioned upthread, 4 is, if anything, too high.

[Calthropstu]

Gosh it's almost like real-world people are worse than 12th level characters, and skills are part-and-parcel with that inherently unrealistic aspect. Next you'll be telling me that Jump needs to be nerfed because a Human Monk 12 with full ranks in Jump/Tumble and no other spent resources can beat the all-time world record high-jump every time, or that it shouldn't be possible for an entirely non-magical person to be able to trick inanimate objects into thinking they're wizards through the power of imagination. A bit less facetiously, there was an article in the way back when of early 3e (I know, so long ago :smalltongue:) that made a decent argument for the mechanics indicating that most real people would be somewhere in the neighborhood of levels 1-3, with 6 at the absolute maximum, which is I think part of the idea behind Epic 6 as a game mode.

Additionally, I don't see why it's such a hard sell that people would be trying to learn this knowledge in-universe. In a world where the primary focus of one school of magic is forcing extra-dimensional creatures into the material world, you would think that the decades/centuries/possibly even millennia old wizarding academies would have books about these creatures, and the perils of making contact with other dimensions, and the possible strengths and weaknesses of creatures you might face if you get too big for your britches and accidentally summon something too powerful for you to control...heck, if this worked like some kinda wizarding college, there'd probably be a full-blown class focused on the planes and how magic interacts with them, and it'd probably be a required credit for somebody pursuing a Masters in Conjuring. :smalltongue: In a world where there are dozens or even scores of deities that rule over particular domains, I would think that part of ones duties as a magic-capable priest would be knowing when you're stepping out of your deities domain and into that of another.

Now, all that being said, it's definitely a harder sell with some characters than others. The backwards bumpkin hermit hunter whose been living deep in the forest for 200 years isn't necessarily gonna be an expert on current geopolitical events, but could probably be expected to know a good deal about plants, animals, fey, and other creatures you might find while living in the forest for 200 years. It's believable that a pickpocket would be a savvy, streetwise fellow who understands the subtle rhythm of the city life, but it's less believable that they'd also happen to be an expert on magical theory. I absolutely agree that some characters have less of a default RP reason to invest in certain knowledge skills. And I'm pretty sure the designers do as well, because that's why a lot of classes don't have every knowledge skill as a class skill. At double price and with half the normal cap, skill points spent on cross-class skills are 25% as efficient as they could be, but if that's how you choose to invest your skill ranks, it can be interesting seeing the reasoning behind a barbarian being a history buff, or a thief having an encyclopedic knowledge of their religion's bible.

All of what you said here supports my epicenter idea. Knowledge nature(Lost Woods) would tell you all the common animals in the lost woods area, and if you encounter the same (or similar) animals elsewhere you could identify them. But if you come across a seal, how the hell are you supposed to know what it is? Lo and behold, you come across a book titled "creatures of the sea" containing information on sea creatures, allowing you to take a new epicenter of (Ocean, Antarctica)

I was using Demonology as an example, not calling niblogs demons. Knowledge local follows the same principles. With base local you can identify "Elf: tall lanky people with slanted ears." With knowledge local(Silvanesti) you can identify "The elves of Silvanesti have long been at odds with their Qualenesti cousins because (details) They are ruled by a central king figure and are known for making excellent wines, archery and pride themselves on their magic. Known shops contain (these goods) and their top trading goods are..."

I actually sometimes grant epicenters through gameplay as my players visit far and disgtant lands. Epicenters keep the wonder of discovery of knowledge. In fact, one of my characters who played a character who studied esoteric knowledge went on quests to discover new knowledge and increase his epicenters, writing books to help others who would come after him.
Epicenters make great plot hooks, avoids the "I know everything about everything because I have a few skill points" eliminating any and all mystery, and lets the esoteric knowledge actually BE esoteric.

Edit: And it appears I am derailing this thread and will not comment further. My homebrew is just that, homebrew. It seems to work ok for my groups.

[Belisarius666]

DID anyone roll to disbelieve?

[Eldariel]

Whenever you can't beat something or figure out how to beat something, you can just disengage. There's always a way to defeat something and if you don't have it available, you can always try to get out and go find it/acquire information. In this game things can do anything and not all is easy to be prepared for short of something like a spontaneous Wizard with a massive spellbook. What is your party composition? Aside from tying 'em up and leaving them there (winning doesn't require killing) or walking away (they're basically Goblin Warrior 1s) or diplomancying (they probably aren't very motivated to try and kill someone they have little chance of hurting), there may be other options available. Worst comes to worst, you can always go to town and hire a Cleric (Channel Energy would be incredibly efficient against them).


All of what you said here supports my epicenter idea. Knowledge nature(Lost Woods) would tell you all the common animals in the lost woods area, and if you encounter the same (or similar) animals elsewhere you could identify them. But if you come across a seal, how the hell are you supposed to know what it is? Lo and behold, you come across a book titled "creatures of the sea" containing information on sea creatures, allowing you to take a new epicenter of (Ocean, Antarctica)

I was using Demonology as an example, not calling niblogs demons. Knowledge local follows the same principles. With base local you can identify "Elf: tall lanky people with slanted ears." With knowledge local(Silvanesti) you can identify "The elves of Silvanesti have long been at odds with their Qualenesti cousins because (details) They are ruled by a central king figure and are known for making excellent wines, archery and pride themselves on their magic. Known shops contain (these goods) and their top trading goods are..."

I actually sometimes grant epicenters through gameplay as my players visit far and disgtant lands. Epicenters keep the wonder of discovery of knowledge. In fact, one of my characters who played a character who studied esoteric knowledge went on quests to discover new knowledge and increase his epicenters, writing books to help others who would come after him.
Epicenters make great plot hooks, avoids the "I know everything about everything because I have a few skill points" eliminating any and all mystery, and lets the esoteric knowledge actually BE esoteric.

Edit: And it appears I am derailing this thread and will not comment further. My homebrew is just that, homebrew. It seems to work ok for my groups.

Can you make a post about how your system works exactly in e.g. the Homebrew forum? I find Knowledge one of the major weak points of the current skill system (social skills being the other) and I'm interested in some rewrites that don't overburden the skill point pool while simultaneously improving character precision and design depth.