How do you know how much your characters would know about enemies?

[Uncumber]

Hey everyone,

I'm not sure if the thread title is clear or not.. so I'll try and explain a little.

Today we had a situation where a low level ranger and a low level (very scholarly) wizard encountered a Troll in a dungeon.

The issue was - I knew through gaming experience what the troll was weak to, but I had no idea how much our characters would know.

Now, assuming that neither character had met a troll before, BUT considering their backgrounds (ranger, well travelled - wizard, exceptionally well read) I didn't think it was a stretch that one of them might know about a trolls weaknesses. Or even that it might be common knowledge, sort of like 'dragons breathe fire'.

How is this conundrum dealt with in-game?

Is it up to the DM's discretion how much each character knows? Is it up to us, as players, to write whilst making our characters something akin to 'my character has studied a sample of (exotic, or common etc) creatures?' Orrrrrr.....?

I hope this all makes sense and somebody can help a little.

Thanks very much for reading!

[Theodoric]

The level of metagaming you're comfortable with is one of those things you should really talk about and agree on with the rest of your group beforehand.

[th3g0dc0mp13x]

In my games it depends on the monster in question. Most of your standard stuff is a nature/history check away, golems and elementals are an arcana check, devil's and fiends are a religion check.

[Avonar]

I can see it depending, but at the same time I always assume that adventurers aren't always going into things with no knowledge whatsoever. When trolls and the like actually exist, I can see things like "Always burn a troll" being things that are just passed around. Maybe there's a children's story about it or something.

Same reason why I always think it makes sense to know what colour dragon breathes what. It's just one of those things you'd hear about.

[Damon_Tor]

Isn't this exactly what skills like nature, religion, arcana etc are for? Or did they remove that function when the editions changed?

[Prince Vine]

I can see it depending, but at the same time I always assume that adventurers aren't always going into things with no knowledge whatsoever. When trolls and the like actually exist, I can see things like "Always burn a troll" being things that are just passed around. Maybe there's a children's story about it or something.

Same reason why I always think it makes sense to know what colour dragon breathes what. It's just one of those things you'd hear about.

I've started going with this idea a little. I know a fair bit about several different kinds dragons and dozens of fairies and sea serpents and three different kinds of trolls...and they don't even exist. I imagine I could know a lot if they did.

On the other hand...I know a fair bit about several different kinds dragons and dozens of fairies and sea serpents and three different kinds of trolls, so I am not sure which set of rules apply if I actually met one. But that is more up to the GM. I think it is great fun if a GM shuffles weaknesses around in a home game and let's players find various kinds of lore and stories, some of them are accurate, some as misattributed to the wrong creature and some are completely off.

[mephnick]

I use passive knowledge ranges and decide how rare the information is on the fly, along with changing things depending on background, etc.

I rank the information on a chart of like Common, Proficient, Expert and Master, with passive DCs ranging from 0-9. So a Level 9 INT 12 Cleric would have a proficient Religion score of 5, giving them a "Proficient" ranking in Religion monster checks.

Something like "Trolls are weak to fire" is Common knowledge that basically any peon knows about.

Something like "Ultraloths can innately cast Wall of Fire" would be Master knowledge..as it's pretty much impossible to know without intense, specific study of the subject.

It's all very hand-wavey, but I have the rarity of knowledge straight in my head for my setting, so it's also pretty consistent.

[PhoenixPhyre]

As a DM, I try to make three lists: Common Knowledge, Specialist Knowledge, and Unknowns. That way, when the players ask "what do I know about X", I can simply refer to the appropriate list.

Common Knowledge is stuff that the characters would simply know just by growing up. This doesn't require a roll--I'll just tell you in my description. This may vary by area and by character--in some places, trolls being vulnerable to fire is taught along with the ABCs. In others, trolls are a mythical creature.

Specialist Knowledge is stuff you'll need to roll for. Things you might be able to remember reading/hearing about. For characters from the "trolls are mythical" area, troll weaknesses would probably fall into this category.

Unknowns are things you just can't know. Like the fact that these trolls are really one-off, special-issue heatsink trolls. They're only affected by necrotic damage, not fire at all. In fact they absorb fire.

[Teaguethebean]

I just avoid most of the wondering and you can just look at the dm and ask "would I know trolls are weak to fire" and then they could say "Yes it's rather common knowlede" or "make a nature check" I find that to usually work just fine

[Pelle]

There really are no rules for determining what you know. Int(lore) checks are for remembering what you have learned, but nothing tells you what you have learned. Just decide yourself, and use common sense. If you can justify it in-game, via your background etc, that's best. Personally, if you can convince me why it makes sense that your character knows it, I am happy.

If you want a mechanical adjudication, I like using passive Int(lore) with advantage/disadvantage due to backgrounds etc to establish if this is something you have learned once, and then roll actively for remembering in the heat of the moment.

[Keravath]

I'd suggest considering the world and the kinds of stories everyone would hear while growing up. Many of the monsters would have to be dealt with by normal villagers. And if one of these monsters started to prey on your village there would be quite a bit of lore and common knowledge passed along.

The stronger iconic monsters like trolls and vampires would likely have some of the lore of their weaknesses as common knowledge (along with some likely false information.

Examples:
- you need to burn a troll to make sure it is dead (villagers would always use torches when hunting trolls and would know that the only way to get rid of one is to burn it ... everyone would know that). If there are additional weaknesses then someone knowledgeable in the area might know or some one with the requisite skill might have heard something useful.

- vampires - you would probably know that they bite and drink blood, they can charm their victims, they can't stand sunlight, holy water hurts them, a cleric or paladin would likely know that radiant damage is effective against them. Most folks might think that the only way to permanently kill them is with a wooden stake through the heart. Unless you have studied vampire lore though you probably would not know they can regenerate or what might stop that regeneration. You probably would not know that a vampire has to be able to see its target and its target must be able to see them in order for the vampire to charm the target (magical darkness blocks charm).

It is the DM call exactly what knowledge is "common" knowledge but it is usually fairly easy to give some detail in appropriate circumstances.

On the other hand, the more exotic the creature, the less likely the character is to know anything about them unless their background has include intense studies of the creature type.

[JakOfAllTirades]

I've never had a DM get upset with me for asking "What's considered 'common knowledge' about [this monster] in your campaign?"

Most DM's enjoy telling you about their campaign.

Unfortunately, my current DM considers most folk to have little or no knowledge of monsters.

Fortunately, my current character isn't "most folk."

[stoutstien]

a few weeks back there was a very long thread on this topic but the jest of it there isn't a set point of separation between player and character knowledge. its going to change table to table or even session to session depending on experience of the players.
MY basic rule is if an encounter or game element can be bypasses by player knowledge then it was a bad encounter. so basically if the only thing making the troll a memorable encounter is the heath regen unless hit with acid or fire and the players bypass it thats on me not them.

some dm will try to control player knowledge but it never really works.

[Uncumber]

Wow thanks for all the responses guys,

You've all pretty much completely cleared up any issues we were wondering about! This will all be very helpful continuing on in our games - we're all pretty new to D&D so any information like this is just grand.

Thanks very much!

[Asmotherion]

My rule of thumb is; if you remember it your character should know it. After all you can't really remember the whole MM all the time and some Famous Monsters can be expected to be common knowlage in the setting (and your DM knowing his players should not expect you to play dump).

On the other hand if your DM calls for a knowlage check don't be that guy.

in any case the DM can always homebrew some unique or "exotic" monster that has different vulnerabilities (and abilities) if this happens too often at your table.

[Edenbeast]

You can ask the players to make a knowledge check when the characters encounter a monster for the first time. Troll would be Nature or History for example. DC 10 identifies the troll, as in name it. Passing DC 15 for knowing whether it's powerful, or smart, etc. And passing a DC 20 for knowing it's weaknesses.

Another thing you can do, when you expect the players will act based on player knowledge, is to make it a "fire" troll, with a weakness to cold instead of fire.

[mephnick]

After all you can't really remember the whole MM all the time

You drastically underestimate some of the experienced players in this hobby.

[Chronos]

A while back, one of my (non-divine-based) characters was fighting a vampire, and strongly presented a holy symbol to it, because "everyone knows" that vampires are repelled by that. Except that I hadn't realized that they'd changed that in 5e. Which, I thought, worked out pretty well, because it makes sense that a character would try something that "everyone knows" works, and that sometimes what "everyone knows" isn't actually true.

In my last session, I actually just flat-out asked the DM "Is the distinction between demons and devils common knowledge?", and he said "Yeah, probably". Someone had just told us that a particular NPC was actually a demon, but that seemed fishy to me (and, apparently, also to my character), because in our experience he seemed like he was probably more on the lawful end of the spectrum.

[Foxhound438]

yeah, typically we use an ability check to see if the character knows. Of course, there's no way to guarantee that a DC is going to be appropriate in the opinion of everyone present, but that's where the freedom of being in a homebrew world usually helps us- trolls being weak to fire might be something every adventurer in the sword coast knows about, but in post-apocalyptic Australia it might not be a common enough foe for word to get around.

[SociopathFriend]

Well it depends a lot on fluff. Is the character for example from a region with a notable Troll presence? For example a town near wild lands where the odd Troll being sighted wouldn't be unusual (Nesme for example had a ton of them attack) and so the odd bit of lore about how to fight them wouldn't be unprecedented.

Look at how many people think the way to scare off a bear is to bang pots together- 99% of the people who know about that have never met a bear in the wild and have little to no fear of encountering one. Now imagine if bears attacking settlements was actually a fairly common thing- bet you that one guy who learned fire works would tell everyone about it in hopes of getting that information to spread and they'd keep that information in mind.

Something to remember in D&D and in particular the Forgotten Realms is that Adventuring is a normal thing. So it stands to reason that tales and stories about said adventures are quite prevalent across the land. Especially when you remember that Elves and Dwarfs outlive Humans by a wide margin.

[Naanomi]

I think the ‘everyone should just know in a fantasy world’ is a bit overdone... I live in an environment with a few types of poisonous snakes, but don’t recognize all of them on sight... and couldn’t tel you much about their behavior beyond general snake stuff. There are several tribal reservations within an hour drive from my house, but I can’t name them all let alone know anything about their customs and beliefs

[MaxWilson]

Is it up to the DM's discretion how much each character knows? Is it up to us, as players, to write whilst making our characters something akin to 'my character has studied a sample of (exotic, or common etc) creatures?' Orrrrrr.....?

As DM I take the latter tack: I'm not going to restrict you, I don't mind if you restrict yourselves, I also don't mind if you just treat everything that is known to you from other campaigns as common knowledge like "vampires don't have reflections." I certainly don't promise you that your common knowledge is *correct* but it might be. Just don't get too upset if it turns out that trolls in THIS campaign have high-explosive blood instead of regeneration and that the rumors of trollish vulnerability to fire are a nasty prank or a trollish disinformation campaign (a.k.a. trolling) or even just a completely different kind of troll

But if it's more fun for you to decide that your wizard probably doesn't know that shadows are probably immune to hypnosis, go ahead. Maybe he'll even be right and hypnotize some shadows!

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think the ‘everyone should just know in a fantasy world’ is a bit overdone... I live in an environment with a few types of poisonous snakes, but don’t recognize all of them on sight... and couldn’t tel you much about their behavior beyond general snake stuff. There are several tribal reservations within an hour drive from my house, but I can’t name them all let alone know anything about their customs and beliefs

That's one of the reasons I went with my Adventuring Academy starting point--it establishes that the PCs have at least been through a "Common Monsters and Traps 101" course, so they're justified in knowing the vulnerabilities and specialties of some of the more common beasties out there. Because yes, real people are astonishingly ignorant about very common things. And surprisingly knowledgeable about abtruse and esoteric things, but that's a different topic.

[HappyDaze]

Isn't this exactly what skills like nature, religion, arcana etc are for? Or did they remove that function when the editions changed?

These skills no longer have such listed as an explicit use. They could still be associated with them, DM willing, but it is no longer the default. It is yet another reason why such skills are often considered very weak in this edition.

[Pex]

Some DMs let players use their own knowledge. Some DMs hate players using their own knowledge, so all PCs never know anything unless they encountered the monster before. Some DMs who hate players use their own knowledge let them use their own knowledge then screw them over with a gotcha when what they think they know isn't the truth for that campaign because how dare they assume to know. Some DMs want the party to research at a library or ask a sage first for roleplaying, then they are allowed to know what a monster can do before they meet it. Some DMs let players know but their character has to roll a DC check using a skill. What the DC is depends on who is the DM.

My preferred method is not to sweat the most common things players know, such as use fire or acid against a troll, don't be in breath weapon formation against a dragon, and don't touch an ooze. For more details use a skill check. DC 10 for CR up to 5, DC 15 for CR 6 to 12 (give or take), DC 20 for above that and DC 25 for unique creatures regardless of CR - any creature with legendary actions, lair actions, things meant to be the chief BBEG of the campaign plot, etc. You can allow for research at a library or sage. Give Advantage or allow proficiency even if not proficient in that skill due to campaign happenings or character backgrounds. Maybe no roll is needed in special cases. The Hermit Background special ability could be precise knowledge about the ultimate BBEG of the campaign.