The gm is arguing that my character is more competent than I want

[mehs]

So I have a lizardfolk raised in the wilderness. Initially I wanted it vague as to whether he was an abandoned orphan or a somehow awakened lizard. But since he is a druid, Gm insisted he had to have a teacher. So I put in a fey who lied almost all the time about pretty much everything, with much of his actual druid training being trial and error to sort out fact from fiction.

So after a while my character followed his animal companion to a place filled with undead and met up with the actual party. How I wanted to have it was that he had encountered undead, but does not know that they are called undead. He asked the party about what the undead were and got a description of "ugly, smell really bad" and my druids reaction "oh so like [animal companion] before he has his bath, i wonder how many baths the undead inside will need". At which point the GM insisted that I, with a single rank of knowledge religion, know all about what undead are. This keeps happening where the gm insists my 14 intelligence means I know about everything, rather than my preferred method of 'he has the potential to know a bunch, but he needs to actually learn it first, for now it just means he has a good memory and knowledge of forest stuff".



I have never encountered this problem before where the gm insists my character is more powerful/competent than how i want.

[Orion Hamby]

The GM has absolutely no say in your character beyond what is and is not allowed at their table, I'd have a talk with them about it and tell them how it's draining your fun, and if they don't budge you should drop the game

[Doctor Despair]

Technically you need to be able to hit a DC10 to answer even easy questions in your field, so if you roll and get a 9 or lower, your character knows nothing about undead.

Some quick Google searching yields that


Dragon #311 Dungeoncraft column "Dungeon Adventure, Part III: The Inhabitants"

includes provisions for "taking 0" in the same way a character can "take 10" on their roll, so you should hypothetically be able to choose to fail your knowledge roll as long as your skill ranks and modifiers do not add up to at least 10.

[Zhorn]

This sounds like a case where it's perfectly reasonable to respond with "my character has no knowledge of this"
The DM has authority over what is permissible, so if the situation was reversed "does my character know about [x]?" "yes/no/roll for it" that would be fine.
This case? talk to them on the side to emphasise your character is not what they are insisting.
And if they continue, offer them the character sheet next time "you might as well have this since you want it to be played a certain way"

[icefractal]

You don't need to know more than you want to, but have you told the GM this?

Because I can easily see this coming from a place of attempted helpfulness rather than control. Some GMs take a "doesn't matter what skills you have, you don't know anything until I tell you" attitude. So they may just want to assure you that it doesn't work that way in their campaign.

[Asmotherion]

technically, you're both right.

However, you're allowed to interpret "knowlage" as "I know stuff about dead things that walk, but don't know how they're called by society".

Since your DM sounds as a RAW guy, you could volunteer to respec your Religion Rank for something elese, if it's important for your RP.


You don't need to know more than you want to, but have you told the GM this?

Because I can easily see this coming from a place of attempted helpfulness rather than control. Some GMs take a "doesn't matter what skills you have, you don't know anything until I tell you" attitude. So they may just want to assure you that it doesn't work that way in their campaign.

Also true. I once had a DM who would not allow me to roll for knowing the difference between chromatic and metalic dragons, despite me having Max Ranks in Arcana, as "I never met one in the campain, and didn't metion any dragons in my backstory".

Each has it's merrits, but when I DM, I always make sure people who can elaborate on their backstory get a chance to roll for knowlage.

[enderlord99]

"Stop trying to control my character. Only I can do that. You have NPCs for that."

Might end up with a DMPC being added, but that's a risk you'll have to take.

[Twurps]

and if they don't budge you should drop the game


next time "you might as well have this since you want it to be played a certain way"

Well that's a bit harsh.

Can we assume you're DM is a human being? Human beings, whilst usually striving to do the right thing, are prone to making misstakes. And that's even assuming it's a misstake in the first place, instead of an attempt to be helpfull?

So: have you talked to your DM about this? And keep in mind talking means both the speaking and the listening part. So whilst 'telling him how this decreases your enjoyment in the game', might be a part of this conversation: 'listening to why the DM thinks it should be the way it was handled up until this point' might be an even more important part. Your DM might not even have realized, and fully agree with you and do better next time. Your DM might also have a more compelling reason for ruling this way, in which case it helps to find out what that reason is, and have a talk about the validity of the DM's reasons vs your own reasons/motivations.

Assuming your DM isn't 'evil incarnate', a decent solution/compromise should be feasible.

With equal parts of talking and listening, and a little bit of goodwill, I have found it rarely necessary to resort to the harsh measures, and never in d&d.

[Zanos]

This is an odd situation. You should definitely be within your rights to say your character doesn't know something, but I think it would be very difficult to be a druid with any ranks in kn: religion and not know what an undead creature is. You might not know the common tongue for them but it seems like you're roleplaying an extremely stupid character when your scores and stats don't really back that up. With 14 int and I'm presuming a solid wisdom as a druid, I would think you would have some idea of what undead are in general, even if your lack of familiarity with another language makes communication difficult. So, I think you're well within acceptable roleplay for your character to say that you don't know what the word undead specifically means, and for the misunderstanding that it was just communicated to you that it means something ugly and smelly. But you should probably be familiar with the idea of corpses that walk around.

If all of your training was fake, you shouldn't have any class abilities, though. That's a bit silly.




Also true. I once had a DM who would not allow me to roll for knowing the difference between chromatic and metalic dragons, despite me having Max Ranks in Arcana, as "I never met one in the campain, and didn't metion any dragons in my backstory".

Each has it's merrits, but when I DM, I always make sure people who can elaborate on their backstory get a chance to roll for knowlage.

This is a good way to get backstories that contain a lot of visits to the extraplanar zoo. Knowledge skills are abstract for a very good reason. Otherwise you get learned sages with +20 to all their knowledges that can't tell what anything is since it's not in their backstory.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Mechanically, you really are that competent. As Zanos says, it's not very likely that you know nothing at all.


I would suggest framing your knowledge in terms of metaphors that your fey teacher has never properly explained. For example, you know lots of things about undead (compared to a commoner, at any rate), but instead of talking about animating forces, your teacher talked about, I don't know, that fungus that take over ants (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyceps_unilateralis)? (Incidentally, there is a PrC that lets you make zombie plants out of creatures--Talontar Blightlord--so this metaphor might not be a metaphor at all, just a very narrowly focused lesson on juju zombies.)

[Gavinfoxx]

14 int and 1 rank of knowledge religion is how you describe someone who knows a little bit about all undead up to CR 3.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Twurps
Assuming your DM isn't 'evil incarnate', a decent solution/compromise should be feasible.

This. It’s premature to assume the DM is “controlling” the character or “running” the character. From what the OP has said, it seems the DM is going out of his way to be sure the character has enough information, but I don’t see that as an automatic problem.

It also seems reasonable that with one rank in Knowledge (religion), the character would have heard about the undead and would understand the basics about them—raised by fell magics, damaged by positive energy, etc. If the OP wants his lizardfolk druid to be unaware of these things…well, fine, but the DM seems generous here and I don’t see the need to attack him for that.

[mehs]

Mostly the thing my character is unaware of is that they are called undead. He has encountered undead before, but not people. The description they gave me about what the word meant essentially got equated with animal companion before bath time (ugly, smells bad, unholy abomination).

[Gavinfoxx]

The thing is, the knowledge skills are specifically academic, intellectual knowledge, though. Just like Knowledge Local is Anthropology.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

The thing is, the knowledge skills are specifically academic, intellectual knowledge, though. Just like Knowledge Local is Anthropology.

So there's no way to play a character who knows anything from experience rather than reading it from books or formal education? Every angel with Knowledge: Religion spent years in Angel School learning that stuff?

[Gavinfoxx]

So there's no way to play a character who knows anything from experience rather than reading it from books or formal education? Every angel with Knowledge: Religion spent years in Angel School learning that stuff?

Or just know it by divine fiat, or their experience is mixed with enough mentorship and apprenticeship so that they know the accepted jargon, yea. Knowledge skills have meaning. Basically, look at the player's Take 10 score, and what is known at that DC.

[ExLibrisMortis]

So there's no way to play a character who knows anything from experience rather than reading it from books or formal education? Every angel with Knowledge: Religion spent years in Angel School learning that stuff?
It doesn't have to be formal education in the modern sense of the word, nor do books have to be involved. For example, teaching at the Ἀκαδημία (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_Academy) and the Λύκειον (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyceum_(Classical)) were very different from modern universities. Slightly irreverently, you might call them gathering places of interested people with spare time where they engage in discussions with other interested people with spare time, sharing ideas and building a consensus about how those ideas should be synthesized into a body of knowledge (which, down the line, can be taught in schools, but doesn't have to be).

In other words: yes, you can play an illiterate character who's never been to school with major Knowledge ranks and high Intelligence, no problem. But you can't make that character and have them not know anything.


The OP's problem isn't related to knowledge as such, but to the large cultural rift they envision between their character and the rest of the party. It may be helpful to point out that you're trying to stress that difference and use it for role-playing purposes, until a working relationship with the party is established. Making things explicit helps, and it moves the discussion away from what +3 Knowledge (religion) means (which isn't very constructive) to how you want your character to be perceived (which is the issue, I think).

[Lagtime]

So there's no way to play a character who knows anything from experience rather than reading it from books or formal education? Every angel with Knowledge: Religion spent years in Angel School learning that stuff?

Mechanically, the rules don't have much of anything for Common Knowledge. Common sense would say that almost every character in a D&D world would know at least the basics about common monsters and creatures. It's a bit much to say a character has "never heard" of something common like undead. In something like twenty years of life they must have heard at least one story about undead...even just one campfire ghost story would count.

The word play does not really help. The player can dance around and say "oh my character does not know the word 'undead'" but it's just annoying. D&D uses a lot of vague generic game terms so everyone can understand what is going on. It's very metagamey, but there is no other way to do it. So having a player say their character "they don't know a word" just slows the game down. Kinda the same way the game just handwaves everyone speaking the same language. Really there is little value in wasting game time saying a character does not understand something simple.



I would also note the disconnect. If the player wanted to play a "dumb character", why not make their Intelligence like seven?

[JNAProductions]

Mechanically, the rules don't have much of anything for Common Knowledge. Common sense would say that almost every character in a D&D world would know at least the basics about common monsters and creatures. It's a bit much to say a character has "never heard" of something common like undead. In something like twenty years of life they must have heard at least one story about undead...even just one campfire ghost story would count.

The word play does not really help. The player can dance around and say "oh my character does not know the word 'undead'" but it's just annoying. D&D uses a lot of vague generic game terms so everyone can understand what is going on. It's very metagamey, but there is no other way to do it. So having a player say their character "they don't know a word" just slows the game down. Kinda the same way the game just handwaves everyone speaking the same language. Really there is little value in wasting game time saying a character does not understand something simple.

I would also note the disconnect. If the player wanted to play a "dumb character", why not make their Intelligence like seven?

They didn't want to play a dumb character, they wanted to play a character without much education.

There's a difference.

[Gavinfoxx]

They didn't want to play a dumb character, they wanted to play a character without much education.

There's a difference.

Than said character should have an int 10, no ranks in any knowledge skills, and a trait that gives a -1 to all knowledge skills so they can't make the DC 10 common knowledge checks with a take 10.

[Lagtime]

Than said character should have an int 10, no ranks in any knowledge skills, and a trait that gives a -1 to all knowledge skills so they can't make the DC 10 common knowledge checks with a take 10.

This. "Education" in D&D are ranks in knowledge skills.

[Buufreak]

Than said character should have an int 10, no ranks in any knowledge skills, and a trait that gives a -1 to all knowledge skills so they can't make the DC 10 common knowledge checks with a take 10.

Except that is trying to focus too heavily on a single definition of education. We aren't talking book learned rhystic and rhetoric, which it appears OP wants to be away from, but practicality and experience, which it appears OP does want. You can be an intelligent, insightful, well experienced entity and still have a trash vocabulary.

It's the same thing with second languages. You can have studied and gone through all the ins and out of your primary language (let's assume English, because what else would we talk in?), and still have not have a single clue as to what specific words mean in another language. It is exposure theory, they teach it with early child development. How is someone supposed to know what a word means if they were never exposed to it? Without a single day of Spanish lessons, how would one know the false cognate embarasado means pregnant, not embarrassed? Does a rose by any other name not smell as sweet?!

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Or just know it by divine fiat, or their experience is mixed with enough mentorship and apprenticeship so that they know the accepted jargon, yea. Knowledge skills have meaning. Basically, look at the player's Take 10 score, and what is known at that DC.

Who said they didn't have meaning? OP's character *knows* the mechanical difference between a Skeleton and a Zombie because of his knowledge ranks, but because it's from firsthand experience he doesn't know the Common name for them or for the Undead type. That's a perfectly valid specific gap in knowledge for someone who knows the things on the DC chart without having been formally educated on these things he's fought and observed extensively.

Where do you think that information even *comes from* in-universe if it has to be taught that specific way, always?

[Lin]

Does your character speak the language the other PCs are speaking?
The Speak Language skill has the following rule:

You don’t make Speak Language checks. You either know a language or you don’t.
So, by RAW, a character who speaks Common will know the word for "undead" in Common.

Having ranks in Knowledge (Religion) allows you to identify undead creatures you encounter as being undead, to differentiate between a zombie and a ghoul, to recite the abilities and weaknesses of a vampire, etc.
It does not, however, give you the ability to say "undead" in Elven; you would need Speak Language (Elven) for that.


In this case, I'm not sure if it's worth it to disregard the RAW: DMing is enough work as is without having to manually determine which words are unknown to each NPC, but requiring Speak Language checks every time someone talks would be absurd, because everyone within earshot of the speaker would need to make checks, too, to understand him. Common shouldn't be as tedious as Truespeak.

If you are adamant about having your character not know specific words, speak to your DM. If your DM approves your idea, I would suggest making a checklist of words your character doesn't know, and check off words as he learns them. Keep it small -- the other players are there for D&D, not a mock language lesson -- and give your DM a copy, too.

[Buufreak]

Under that logic, a commoner with 3 int that speaks common knows every bit of the intricacies of the language. Grammar, syntax, vocabulary and all.

[mehs]

To the people who are saying "why not just have a 7/10 int and drawback": stats were 3d6r1 strict and drawbacks werent allowed.

[Ashiel]

So I have a lizardfolk raised in the wilderness. Initially I wanted it vague as to whether he was an abandoned orphan or a somehow awakened lizard. But since he is a druid, Gm insisted he had to have a teacher. So I put in a fey who lied almost all the time about pretty much everything, with much of his actual druid training being trial and error to sort out fact from fiction.

So after a while my character followed his animal companion to a place filled with undead and met up with the actual party. How I wanted to have it was that he had encountered undead, but does not know that they are called undead. He asked the party about what the undead were and got a description of "ugly, smell really bad" and my druids reaction "oh so like [animal companion] before he has his bath, i wonder how many baths the undead inside will need". At which point the GM insisted that I, with a single rank of knowledge religion, know all about what undead are. This keeps happening where the gm insists my 14 intelligence means I know about everything, rather than my preferred method of 'he has the potential to know a bunch, but he needs to actually learn it first, for now it just means he has a good memory and knowledge of forest stuff".



I have never encountered this problem before where the gm insists my character is more powerful/competent than how i want.
The problem as I see it is that you built your character in a way that doesn't represent them at all.

What you have done is functionally equivalent to building a high Strength character with a superior BAB and insisting that your character is a scrawny weakling with no combat skill. The GM is just looking at what you have made. It is not the GM insisting your character is more powerful/competent than you want, it is that you built them to be just that.

From the description of your character, you're trained in Knowledge Religion, but you really don't have any reason to be. Knowledge (Religion) has no bearing on your ability to be or function as a druid. Technically neither does Knowledge (Nature). You chose to have a certain level of competency in something and then act as though you do not. In 3.x, the DC to know details about a creature is 10 + it's hit dice (with more flexibility in Pathfinder). You cannot make DC 11+ checks if you do not have 1 rank in the skill. It is literally impossible for someone without 1-rank in the skill to ID a skeleton, and nearly impossible to not understand what they are with 1 rank unless you have an Intelligence penalty.

Now certainly you can probably choose to simply ignore the stats you gave your character, intentionally fail, just like you could ignore/pretend your 18 Strength beefcake can't carry more than 30 lbs. on a good day, but the problem in this case is not your GM, it is that you built a character to have a certain level of competency and then act like they are not as competent as you made them to be.

EDIT

This keeps happening where the gm insists my 14 intelligence means I know about everything, rather than my preferred method of 'he has the potential to know a bunch, but he needs to actually learn it first, for now it just means he has a good memory and knowledge of forest stuff".
Also, Intelligence does what Intelligence does. It doesn't matter what fluff you want to doctor Intelligence up with. What you said was true (no matter how high his Intelligence, he couldn't make the DC), until you trained in Knowing About Undead, and now you do know those things. You did "actually learn it first".

[Remuko]

The problem as I see it is that you built your character in a way that doesn't represent them at all.

What you have done is functionally equivalent to building a high Strength character with a superior BAB and insisting that your character is a scrawny weakling with no combat skill. The GM is just looking at what you have made. It is not the GM insisting your character is more powerful/competent than you want, it is that you built them to be just that.

From the description of your character, you're trained in Knowledge Religion, but you really don't have any reason to be. Knowledge (Religion) has no bearing on your ability to be or function as a druid. Technically neither does Knowledge (Nature). You chose to have a certain level of competency in something and then act as though you do not. In 3.x, the DC to know details about a creature is 10 + it's hit dice (with more flexibility in Pathfinder). You cannot make DC 11+ checks if you do not have 1 rank in the skill. It is literally impossible for someone without 1-rank in the skill to ID a skeleton, and nearly impossible to not understand what they are with 1 rank unless you have an Intelligence penalty.

Now certainly you can probably choose to simply ignore the stats you gave your character, intentionally fail, just like you could ignore/pretend your 18 Strength beefcake can't carry more than 30 lbs. on a good day, but the problem in this case is not your GM, it is that you built a character to have a certain level of competency and then act like they are not as competent as you made them to be.

EDIT

Also, Intelligence does what Intelligence does. It doesn't matter what fluff you want to doctor Intelligence up with. What you said was true (no matter how high his Intelligence, he couldn't make the DC), until you trained in Knowing About Undead, and now you do know those things. You did "actually learn it first".

he is a druid. maybe all of his "knowledge religion" was in druidic, which is why he doesnt know the word for it in common. this is totally reasonable of him. theres nothing unreasonable about what he wants from his character.

[Ashiel]

he is a druid. maybe all of his "knowledge religion" was in druidic, which is why he doesnt know the word for it in common. this is totally reasonable of him. theres nothing unreasonable about what he wants from his character.
I feel like there's been a misunderstanding.

I'm trying to explain the disconnect between his expectations and the GM. By putting ranks into Knowledge Religion, he hasn't simply bumped into an undead before and thinks it's just a stinky thing, he actually knows about undead lore. He actually knows a lot about it too, since he's only about 5% off a typical Int 11 expert with 4 ranks in it due to his Intelligence modifier. I was pointing out that he built a character one way and then is suffering a disconnect because he is trying to play it another.

Going by the dialog he presented in the OP, he not only speaks common but is well versed in knowledge of the undead. Even if he did learn everything using the druid words for undead, knowing both languages would mean he would understand the crossover. The GM explained that he knew what undead were. The OP doesn't suggest that it was insisting that he didn't know the common word for undead, but that he didn't know the undead themselves.


At which point the GM insisted that I, with a single rank of knowledge religion, know all about what undead are. This keeps happening where the gm insists my 14 intelligence means I know about everything, rather than my preferred method of 'he has the potential to know a bunch, but he needs to actually learn it first, for now it just means he has a good memory and knowledge of forest stuff".

This is because he does know these things, and built his character to know these things. If he didn't want to know these things, he should build his character to not know these things. Just like if I want to build a scrawny bookworm that spends all his days indoors might imply I shouldn't put a 14 in Strength and ranks into Climb and Swim, if I want him to actually be weak and not be practiced in outdoorsy things.

EDIT: Put another way, he would be much better off not having a high Intelligence and not putting ranks into Knowledge skills. Learning things through first-hand experience is literally what low-Int characters do. You don't know the succubus is immune to electricity until after the lightning bolt. You don't need to make checks to recount what you have personally experienced. Having a high Int means you were becoming worldly, just like having a high Strength probably means you exercised.

Put, yet another way again, you can roleplay your stats however you want, because all the stat actually means is what it actually means. A 3 Intelligence commoner can be a perfectly well-adjusted human being, they just don't know much about anything outside of their field of experience. Might not be able to tell you the name of a famous noble from outside of his home, but probably knows his local landlord. Sure, you could roleplay 3 Int as a blithering idiot, or you could roleplay it as he's just not experienced in the world.

He built a character that is, and then acts though he isn't. That's where the disconnect is coming in. Solve this issue and it solves the disconnect between him and his GM and then he can get back to enjoying the game. Maybe he could even rebuild his character and dump some some of that 14 Int into a different stat. It's clear he doesn't need the extra skill points since he is intentionally avoiding the ones he has.

[vasilidor]

i would not call a 3 intelligence character inexperienced. the word is slow. or unable to comprehend information. or is easily convinced the earth is flat. if you want to see a group of people with lower than average intelligence look up flat earth videos on youtube, i would put most of the ones who believe at an 8 intelligence max.

[Lin]

Under that logic, a commoner with 3 int that speaks common knows every bit of the intricacies of the language. Grammar, syntax, vocabulary and all.
Yes, that is how Speak Language works.

This is D&D; not real life. Even the mundane rules don't always reflect how things work in reality, such as memory and eyesight improving with old age, or someone only needing 12 seconds to go from "starting to drown" to "dead." The fact that Speak Language is an all or nothing skill is just another example of rules ≠ reality.

If you want to run your campaign with houserules to make certain aspects of the game more realistic, I don't see a problem with that. I would suggest against it in the case of Speak Language, however, as that can become very annoying to keep track of as a DM.

Personally, I would be inclined to play a 3 INT character as someone who knows what other people are saying, but needs some time for his brain to process it when they "talk long" or use "big words."
He would generally avoid higher vocabulary and complex sentences, too, but he could use them if he wanted to: he just needs more time to find the words he's trying to say, and will often need to correct himself because he meant one word but said another.
There's no mechanical difference here: the character still speaks the language(s) for which he is trained in the Speak Language skill, and you wouldn't run the risk of derailing the game into an English lesson.

In the case of this thread, the word in question isn't even "higher vocabulary." "Undead" may be a specialized word in English, but it's on the same level as "animal" or "plant" in D&D. If you speak Common, there is no reason for you to not know that word from a rules standpoint.
Just knowing the word "undead" doesn't let you identify something as being undead, however: you would need either first-hand experience or Knowledge(Religion) for that.



@OP: While I'm not a fan of rolling for stats, my advice would be to accept the rolls for what they are. If you don't roll a 20 to hit and claim to have swung wide, I don't see why you should roll a 14 for INT and claim your character isn't, well, 14 INT.

[Remuko]

I feel like there's been a misunderstanding.

I'm trying to explain the disconnect between his expectations and the GM. By putting ranks into Knowledge Religion, he hasn't simply bumped into an undead before and thinks it's just a stinky thing, he actually knows about undead lore. He actually knows a lot about it too, since he's only about 5% off a typical Int 11 expert with 4 ranks in it due to his Intelligence modifier. I was pointing out that he built a character one way and then is suffering a disconnect because he is trying to play it another.

Going by the dialog he presented in the OP, he not only speaks common but is well versed in knowledge of the undead. Even if he did learn everything using the druid words for undead, knowing both languages would mean he would understand the crossover. The GM explained that he knew what undead were. The OP doesn't suggest that it was insisting that he didn't know the common word for undead, but that he didn't know the undead themselves.



This is because he does know these things, and built his character to know these things. If he didn't want to know these things, he should build his character to not know these things. Just like if I want to build a scrawny bookworm that spends all his days indoors might imply I shouldn't put a 14 in Strength and ranks into Climb and Swim, if I want him to actually be weak and not be practiced in outdoorsy things.

EDIT: Put another way, he would be much better off not having a high Intelligence and not putting ranks into Knowledge skills. Learning things through first-hand experience is literally what low-Int characters do. You don't know the succubus is immune to electricity until after the lightning bolt. You don't need to make checks to recount what you have personally experienced. Having a high Int means you were becoming worldly, just like having a high Strength probably means you exercised.

Put, yet another way again, you can roleplay your stats however you want, because all the stat actually means is what it actually means. A 3 Intelligence commoner can be a perfectly well-adjusted human being, they just don't know much about anything outside of their field of experience. Might not be able to tell you the name of a famous noble from outside of his home, but probably knows his local landlord. Sure, you could roleplay 3 Int as a blithering idiot, or you could roleplay it as he's just not experienced in the world.

He built a character that is, and then acts though he isn't. That's where the disconnect is coming in. Solve this issue and it solves the disconnect between him and his GM and then he can get back to enjoying the game. Maybe he could even rebuild his character and dump some some of that 14 Int into a different stat. It's clear he doesn't need the extra skill points since he is intentionally avoiding the ones he has.

I still don't think its right. RAW is important for rules discussions, this is about actual in play. RAW isn't that important. He's a character and needs agency. The PCs didn't say much about the undead, and their description of it could also describe lots of things (like an unbathed animal). Him knowing tons about undead doesn't mean he knows the specific word "undead" no matter how fluent he appears in "common". Going super RAW hard that players aren't allowed to have characters with knowledge gaps because the rules don't accommodate for them is not cool.

[Lin]

I still don't think its right. RAW is important for rules discussions, this is about actual in play. RAW isn't that important. He's a character and needs agency. The PCs didn't say much about the undead, and their description of it could also describe lots of things (like an unbathed animal). Him knowing tons about undead doesn't mean he knows the specific word "undead" no matter how fluent he appears in "common". Going super RAW hard that players aren't allowed to have characters with knowledge gaps because the rules don't accommodate for them is not cool.
Well, when I was new to D&D, I had this idea for a Monk who used seperate STR modifiers for each of her limbs: her overall STR would be 16, but she would have an 18 for her dominant leg, a 16 for the other leg, a 15 for her dominant arm, and a 14 for the other arm.
I thought it was a brilliant idea at the time, but my DM insisted that I follow the RAW (i.e. a creature uses the same STR score for every body part).

Was my DM a bad DM for enforcing the RAW? Of course not.
My idea may have added a little more depth to the character and made more sense from a real-world perspective, but it also makes the game a lot more complicated than it already is, so it was well within reason for my DM to say "no."


Such is the case with the Knowledge and Speak Language skills.
Knowledge skills simplify gameplay: instead of trying to figure out if any of the PCs have backstories that would grant them knowledge of the name of the third son of the Marchoness of Highbridge, the DM can just say "make a Knowledge (Nobility) check."
The Speak Language skill also simplifies gameplay: instead of having to stop to figure out who understands how much of what the elf just said, the DM can just say "You hear the elf mutter something under her breath as she walks away. Those who speak Elven understand that it was just a profanity about the Barbarian's body odor."

Personally, I would be fine with a player wanting to roleplay a character as being unfamiliar with a language ("Undead… undead… that's <word in different language>, right? Things that have died but are still moving?").
I would say "no" to a character who doesn't know some of the basic vocabulary of a language ("What's an undead? What's died? What's moving?"), however, as that defeats the purpose of the Speak Language skill.
A player may see this as pure fluff, but someone has to roleplay all of those NPCs giving the PC impromptu Common lessons, and it can become tiring fast if it's something that comes up frequently. (Plus, most of my NPCs would just walk away because they couldn't be bothered to explain, which means it's no longer just fluff.)


And, yes, "undead" is basic vocabulary. We're talking about D&D characters here, not modern humans.

A modern human who is fluent in modern English should know words like "animal," "plant," "car," and "phone."
Likewise, a D&D character who is fluent in Common should know the Common words for "animal," "plant," "undead," and "dragon." "Car" would refer to carriages drawn by other creatures, however, and the word for "phone" would be nonexistent.

[Ashiel]

i would not call a 3 intelligence character inexperienced. the word is slow. or unable to comprehend information. or is easily convinced the earth is flat. if you want to see a group of people with lower than average intelligence look up flat earth videos on youtube, i would put most of the ones who believe at an 8 intelligence max.
Intelligence does what Intelligence does. Anything more or less is simply fluff and preference. What you would peg IRL people as being is largely irrelevant to what Intelligence actually does, and by proxy what it actually means.

Put another way, a 3 Int commoner is more than capable of living a pretty normal life, even making a good living (but not as a craftsman). What he can't do is take-10 to answer any question that's more than DC 6. He'll still answer lots of questions that are DC 7-10, but it's definitely not a sure thing that he can just casually answer. However, he speaks at least one language fluently, possibly two, or in some cases three, and can be a functional member of society.

Because Intelligence means what Intelligence means, and nothing more, if you decided to make a young Paladin or Cleric who grew up in a cloistered monastery, giving them a low Intelligence score and a passable Wisdom and/or Charisma would allow them to function quite well in civilized society in most cases. The Paladin might not know the name of the local lord (DC 10 Kn. Nobility), but could just take-10 on a Diplomacy check and ask a local passerby.

At the same time, you can roleplay it as being actual stupidity if that's what you want. Because it's your option, but that's just it, it's your option. Nothing forces you to roleplay and interpret your statistics as anything beyond what they actually are. Having X Intelligence (or any stat) means only specifically what it means. Everything else is narrative.


I still don't think its right. RAW is important for rules discussions, this is about actual in play. RAW isn't that important. He's a character and needs agency. The PCs didn't say much about the undead, and their description of it could also describe lots of things (like an unbathed animal). Him knowing tons about undead doesn't mean he knows the specific word "undead" no matter how fluent he appears in "common". Going super RAW hard that players aren't allowed to have characters with knowledge gaps because the rules don't accommodate for them is not cool.
Again, I think there's a misunderstanding. I quoted the line of text that seemed to indicate this was not about not knowing the common word for Undead, but rather that he knew the Undead himself. He had and has had agency from the start, but it may be that he regrets the decisions he made with that agency, because again we are talking about a case where someone intentionally made their character of a certain competency at something and then acting as though they have a drastically lower level of competency at something; just like putting a high Strength score on a character who you intend to roleplay as a shrimpy weakling that can't carry their bag.

From where I am sitting, this has very little to do with anything going "super RAW hard", and has everything to do with a disconnect in understanding between himself and the GM. The GM is seeing what he made, but the player seems to be unaware of what they made, so the GM keeps telling him what he knows because he knows it, and if the player doesn't want to know it then he shouldn't make it so he does. It's very simple really. The player for, whatever reason, chose to make a different character than the one he wants to play.

This is one of the reasons I prefer point buy. Having the option to control which stats are low and which stats are high is not only better for game balance, but it also lets you build the character you want to play, including their flaws. Of course even if he was stuck with a high Intelligence, or just wanted the high Intelligence for more skill points, he didn't have to put ranks into Kn. Religion, because that accomplishes the very opposite of what he claims to desire (to have the potential to know, but not to know, things beyond his first hand experiences), and he would probably be better served putting that skill point somewhere else such as Kn. Nature, Survival, or something relevant to his naturalist lifestyle.

[Remuko]

I just think people should be able to separate the roleplaying and the mechanics. If I roll up a character with good stats, I'm not gonna adjust the stats, but I'm still gonna play them how I wanna play them. No one should have a right to tell me what my character does or doesnt know. People can have knowledge gaps, sometimes even things that should be "common sense" or "basic knowledge" but they dont, because thats not the same thing for everyone. Characters in roleplay should be allowed the same even if it goes against the mechanics of the game their character has rolled up. Don't tell anyone how to roleplay their character no matter how much you think their stats etc justifies you. You are always wrong. Its not your character.

[Ashiel]

I just think people should be able to separate the roleplaying and the mechanics. If I roll up a character with good stats, I'm not gonna adjust the stats, but I'm still gonna play them how I wanna play them. No one should have a right to tell me what my character does or doesnt know. People can have knowledge gaps, sometimes even things that should be "common sense" or "basic knowledge" but they dont, because thats not the same thing for everyone. Characters in roleplay should be allowed the same even if it goes against the mechanics of the game their character has rolled up. Don't tell anyone how to roleplay their character no matter how much you think their stats etc justifies you. You are always wrong. Its not your character.
I can't say my character can fly if they do not have a means to fly. That's kind of the territory we're getting into here. I didn't say that you or anyone else must or should adjust your stats. In fact, the least impactful thing about a character's narrative is their ability scores (because they only mean exactly what they mean), but in this case he put ranks into a skill to know things and then doesn't want to know them. That's just a poor choice. As has been pointed out on several occasions now, whether his Int was 3 or 30, it was choosing to know things he didn't want to know that was the problem. I recommended asking the GM to swap his skill ranks to something more appropriate for his concept.

I'm still not entirely sure why we seem to be having a disagreement. All I said was that building a character that is not like the character you want to play is less productive and more likely to creation confusion (as it clearly has) than actually building a character that is like the character you want to play.

Let me try another way, in hopes of avoiding any miscommunications. If my goal is to have a character that doesn't know how to sing, I should probably not put points into Perform (Singing). If I put points into Perform (Singing) and have the appropriate modifiers, saying that I cannot sing is just lying and also a waste. Now, you might put ranks into it to represent that they are naturally gifted with a wonderous voice and they don't yet know that they are good at singing, but that doesn't really work very well with Knowledge skills because they explicitly represent what your character knows absent direct experience. The best way to not know...is to not know.

EDIT: In further effort to clear up any misunderstandings,
This game is very robust when it comes to creating characters with a high level of fidelity, which is wonderful because it helps to ensure that roleplaying concepts can be created as accurately as possible and actually let you live and experience that. However, the rules are tools and can't really help it if you misuse those tools. If my intent is to play a small and innocuous individual who is scrawny and has a hard time getting people's attention so they have to get by on their cleverness and quick wit, choosing to be a half-giant and investing my skill ranks into Intimidate is probably not a good idea. No, there's nothing wrong with my concept, no there's nothing wrong with the mechanics I chose, they just don't fit each other.

Choosing to be a character that's 6 feet tall and roleplaying them to be 3 feet tall isn't helping anyone. It really has nothing to do with roleplaying or mechanics at this point.

[JyP]

the GM insisted that I, with a single rank of knowledge religion, know all about what undead are.
Surely D&D 3.5 system or the GM should allow some flexibility here - only one rank is not a lot of knowledge, more like basic catechism like knowing all gods and their portfolio and how not to offend them. Or if it itches too much, well, it's only one rank, you can always spend it on another skill (a faerie-raised druid can be expected to know nothing about human gods).

And it depends on the frequency of undeads in the game world - I understand mere mundanes to be scared ****less by wandering skelettons, as this is unnatural enough ! Not everyone wakes up in the Mortuary in Sigil :smalltongue:


This keeps happening where the gm insists my 14 intelligence means I know about everything, rather than my preferred method of 'he has the potential to know a bunch, but he needs to actually learn it first, for now it just means he has a good memory and knowledge of forest stuff".
I agree with you - 14 intelligence means nothing if you don't have at least one rank in the right knowledge skill. You can be bright and ignorant.

I guess it could be simulated with a Flaw like 'ignorant outsider', with a malus on diplomacy or knowledge rolls as you don't fit at all in usual society.

[Lin]

I just think people should be able to separate the roleplaying and the mechanics. If I roll up a character with good stats, I'm not gonna adjust the stats, but I'm still gonna play them how I wanna play them. No one should have a right to tell me what my character does or doesnt know. People can have knowledge gaps, sometimes even things that should be "common sense" or "basic knowledge" but they dont, because thats not the same thing for everyone. Characters in roleplay should be allowed the same even if it goes against the mechanics of the game their character has rolled up. Don't tell anyone how to roleplay their character no matter how much you think their stats etc justifies you. You are always wrong. Its not your character.
D&D is not open RP; it's a roleplaying game, with game mechanics.

If a DM wants to run a game where people can roleplay however they want, even if it contradicts the mechanics, then that's fine.

But if a DM doesn't want to do that, and instead rules that all players must roleplay with the mechanics (and not against them), that's fine, too.


Always is a strong word. IMO, the DM should be allowed to tell players how not to roleplay.

Let's say that Bob the Fighter rolls 20+4=21 to hit and 2d6+6=14 damage against an enemy with 10 HP and 16 AC.
As a DM, I would rule that Bob hit and downed the enemy, so he has to roleplay to that effect. I would not allow him to roleplay missing the enemy with his attack, or hitting the enemy without knocking him out, because that's not what happened mechanically.

It doesn't even have to be about the mechanics:
I once ran a game in a world where arcane magic is considered blasphemy by the churches, and only the most devout haters of the arcane were granted divine magic. I would not allow someone to roleplay a cleric who likes wizards in that world, because it contradicts the setting.
I've also asked a player to change how he roleplayed a character because he played a character that sexually harassed elves, and another player in the group wasn't comfortable with that.


If a player wanted to roleplay a character with limited linguistic ability and limited basic knowledge despite being trained in the Speak Language and Knowledge skills, I probably wouldn't allow it because that's not how the mechanics for those skills work in my campaign. Yes, I know that the real world works that way, but my D&D campaign is not the real world, and I don't want to add "partial" Speak Language and "partial" Knowledge to my campaign because it's one more thing I would need to keep track of.
I'm sure that many other DMs would allow it, but that doesn't mean that every DM should.

[Red Fel]

I'm... of mixed feelings on this one.

On the one hand, I agree that this is your character. You play him how you want to play him, and the DM can't tell you "You must do this." That's just a general rule, and a good one.

But on the other... why did you buy Knowledge skills if your character is not educated? That's what a Knowledge skill is - formal education in a field. It's not the potential to learn - that's the Int stat on its own. It's not passively acquired experience - that's just personal recollection. A Knowledge skill is a trained skill - it is information that you have specifically studied. Maybe not in a traditional academic setting, but it's something you specifically trained to learn.

There are skills that anyone can try. These are untrained skills. Anyone can Jump, or Bluff, or Climb. Sure, if you practice, you can get better at them, but anyone can try.

Then there are trained skills. These are skills you can only use with specific training. Decipher Script is one example - you can't translate a message in an unfamiliar language or incomplete form without first training in the field. Open Lock is another - you can't pick the lock, no matter how simple, without some study. And Knowledge is another.

If you have points in these skills, it is assumed that you trained in them. That you studied. Because that's the point - you can't use them without training, without study.

Your character is high Int. That means that he has great analytical skills, logic and reasoning. Smarts. What it doesn't mean is training. That's what Knowledge skills are for. You can be smart but uneducated - just don't take Knowledge skills. You took Knowledge skills.

So that's my question to the OP - why put points into a Knowledge skill if you planned to claim to lack knowledge?

[JyP]

So that's my question to the OP - why put points into a Knowledge skill if you planned to claim to lack knowledge?
... because knowledge in Religion implying knowledge of Undeads is non sequitur but done for conveniency in D&D 3.5 rules ?

[Twurps]

... because knowledge in Religion implying knowledge of Undeads is non sequitur but done for conveniency in D&D 3.5 rules ?

Are the rules describing which knowledge skill is required for which type of monster listed under 'convenience'? Not to my knowledge.
And even if they were: It's not like there's a different set of rules to choose from in this matter, so whether convenient or inconvenient, this is how D&D works and the OP choose to have this skill, and therefore this knowledge. (And from the limited amount of information given, it's not like there's another compelling reason to have this skill, so it would have been easily avoidable as well.)

Having said that: Most of this thread is debating RAW. RAW is, or at least can be, of limited use at an actual table. And we are WAY short on information on this issue at this particular table.

As a DM, I can see how I would be fine with the way OP wants to play it. I can also see a number of objections, such as:
-Wanting to play as close to RAW as possible. Personally: even if I make as much RAW calls as I can, I still find myself deviating more than I would like, just because of the vast amount of things that come up in a session that I don't know the answer to. My players don't mind, I don't mind, but I can see how others would mind.
-Closely related: The DM, or other players, not feeling comfortable with the amount of rules adjustment needed to make this work according to a a yet to be determined rules-set (such as: partially speaking/understanding a language.)
-other players, or the DM, not enjoying the 'antics' being pulled by the OP. Whether actual antics, or perceived as such.
-Honest misunderstanding: where the DM tried to help the OP.
-A 'gotcha' or 'can't have it both ways' moment. How lenient was OP and or the other players with this DM the last time the DM deviated from RAW to make something more difficult for the players. If the answer is 'not a lot', then I can see the DM not wanting to be lenient in return.

So to the OP: I suggested before to have a conversation with the DM about this. I hope that helps you. If not: can you elaborate on the reasoning the DM gave so we can give more specific advice?

[JyP]

Are the rules describing which knowledge skill is required for which type of monster listed under 'convenience'? Not to my knowledge.
I get the feeling I offended you somehow? I beg your pardon in this case. I mainly see it through the lens of a beginner player there. If the OP is a beginner player, we cannot assume him to know that Religion's knowledge means literacy about undeads, these lores are not associated closely IRL.

His character concept seems to be an ignorant but smart lizard man, which the DM tries to fit instead as an erudite with a mentor.

I get your objections, as this is a bit outside the comfort zone for D&D grognards. But surely there's also advantages, as it helps the OP role-play and makes the PC a memorable character.

[Twurps]

I get the feeling I offended you somehow? I beg your pardon in this case. I mainly see it through the lens of a beginner player there. If the OP is a beginner player, we cannot assume him to know that Religion's knowledge means literacy about undeads, these lores are not associated closely IRL.

His character concept seems to be an ignorant but smart lizard man, which the DM tries to fit instead as an erudite with a mentor.

I get your objections, as this is a bit outside the comfort zone for D&D grognards. But surely there's also advantages, as it helps the OP role-play and makes the PC a memorable character.

Apologies. I was not offended, nor did I mean any offense.

[Remuko]

I'm gonna bow out now. This discussion resonates too emotionally to me. I worry if I continue I won't maintain composure. I still staunchly stand by my previous positions but don't intend to leave any more comments.

[Ashiel]

I'm gonna bow out now. This discussion resonates too emotionally to me. I worry if I continue I won't maintain composure. I still staunchly stand by my previous positions but don't intend to leave any more comments.
As you wish. I'm not exactly sure what your previous positions actually were though. :smallconfused:

What I think I understood from your posts were you were concerned that his agency was being taken, but it seems unlikely since he had agency, he just chose to do the opposite of his desires with that agency. :smalleek:

[Dr_Dinosaur]

It is frankly nonsensical to equate "I can fly because I say so" to "my character is knowledgable but has never encountered this concept" and I'm shocked so many people are taking the DM's side here

[ChudoJogurt]

I suggest you ask your DM why he is so insistent your character knows things.

It may be the case that, for example, he finds you roleplaying the character learning things that all players know to be boring (for him and other players), and slowing down the game, so its easier to just say "your character already knows this" and move on to hitting things, or exploring the world, or solving puzzles , or whatever it is that he believes is more enjoyable to the group.

If that is the case -- or there is some other actual valid reason why it happens, you will need to figure out how to make a compromise on your play styles.

[mehs]

I took a rank of knowledge religion because DM is running druids as nature themed clerics where worshipping of a (nature) deity is required. I picked Tawaret on the logic that my character saw that she is represented as a lion, hippo, *and* crocodile and inferred that she was the most powerful deity. His knowledge on what gods exist is almost entirely from encountering monuments with inscriptions. I kept trying to make choices where my character would be essentially a wildling, but the current backstory is as close as dm would allow. Note, not because of setting or such, just that is as close to being a wildling who doesn't know about civilization as dm thinks a druid is able to get.

[vasilidor]

Intelligence does what Intelligence does. Anything more or less is simply fluff and preference. What you would peg IRL people as being is largely irrelevant to what Intelligence actually does, and by proxy what it actually means.

Put another way, a 3 Int commoner is more than capable of living a pretty normal life, even making a good living (but not as a craftsman). What he can't do is take-10 to answer any question that's more than DC 6. He'll still answer lots of questions that are DC 7-10, but it's definitely not a sure thing that he can just casually answer. However, he speaks at least one language fluently, possibly two, or in some cases three, and can be a functional member of society.

Because Intelligence means what Intelligence means, and nothing more, if you decided to make a young Paladin or Cleric who grew up in a cloistered monastery, giving them a low Intelligence score and a passable Wisdom and/or Charisma would allow them to function quite well in civilized society in most cases. The Paladin might not know the name of the local lord (DC 10 Kn. Nobility), but could just take-10 on a Diplomacy check and ask a local passerby.

At the same time, you can roleplay it as being actual stupidity if that's what you want. Because it's your option, but that's just it, it's your option. Nothing forces you to roleplay and interpret your statistics as anything beyond what they actually are. Having X Intelligence (or any stat) means only specifically what it means. Everything else is narrative.


Again, I think there's a misunderstanding. I quoted the line of text that seemed to indicate this was not about not knowing the common word for Undead, but rather that he knew the Undead himself. He had and has had agency from the start, but it may be that he regrets the decisions he made with that agency, because again we are talking about a case where someone intentionally made their character of a certain competency at something and then acting as though they have a drastically lower level of competency at something; just like putting a high Strength score on a character who you intend to roleplay as a shrimpy weakling that can't carry their bag.

From where I am sitting, this has very little to do with anything going "super RAW hard", and has everything to do with a disconnect in understanding between himself and the GM. The GM is seeing what he made, but the player seems to be unaware of what they made, so the GM keeps telling him what he knows because he knows it, and if the player doesn't want to know it then he shouldn't make it so he does. It's very simple really. The player for, whatever reason, chose to make a different character than the one he wants to play.

This is one of the reasons I prefer point buy. Having the option to control which stats are low and which stats are high is not only better for game balance, but it also lets you build the character you want to play, including their flaws. Of course even if he was stuck with a high Intelligence, or just wanted the high Intelligence for more skill points, he didn't have to put ranks into Kn. Religion, because that accomplishes the very opposite of what he claims to desire (to have the potential to know, but not to know, things beyond his first hand experiences), and he would probably be better served putting that skill point somewhere else such as Kn. Nature, Survival, or something relevant to his naturalist lifestyle.
Fair enough. but i have had intelligence described as a character's ability to figure out how to do things. wisdom is the ability to tell if you should do something. in example intelligence will help you figure out how to make a stick of dynamite. wisdom tells you that it is a bad idea to be to close when it goes off.

[Zanos]

Fair enough. but i have had intelligence described as a character's ability to figure out how to do things. wisdom is the ability to tell if you should do something. in example intelligence will help you figure out how to make a stick of dynamite. wisdom tells you that it is a bad idea to be to close when it goes off.
Eh, not really. Wisdom actually governs very little of a characters mental capabilities if you look at what it does mechanically. I've heard similar things, that a forgetful genius would have high Intelligence and low Wisdom, but Wisdom doesn't have anything to do with memory. The only 'common sense' it actually models mechanically is that low Wisdom characters are easier for people to lie to, since it penalizes sense motive.

[Albions_Angel]

Um, maybe I misread something, but didnt mehs say that his character DID know what undead are, but simply not by that name. And the (frankly poor) description by the party of the creatures they are fighting (Smelly, unclean, etc) reminded him MORE of his animal companion pre-bathtime than the undead he had encountered before?

I dont see the issue here.

Those of you saying that by taking ranks in knowledge means that the character can identify undead on sight and know their weaknesses are correct.

Those of you who are saying OP can play his character as not knowing what they are about to fight are ALSO correct.

The social disconnect means that OP's char is simply expecting something different to what they will be fighting. The DM may not realise thats what OP wants due to the same misunderstanding that lead to this being a 2 page thread.

This could even be a really fun plot point. The party ventures deeper, fighting undead. Despite the party believing the Druid does not understand the threat, the Druid competently deals with the undead they face. The Druid, meanwhile, is wondering where this smelly pet is, and why its guarded by so many different types of "Draugr". If the DM wants, he could even place an "upgraded" animal companion (blink dog, displacer beast, something else?) that the Druid could befriend, believing it to be the party's prize. It ends up threatened by the undead, uniting the aims of the party and the druid. Strong bonds are formed between them, and they gain a fun pet.

[noce]

Partially unrelated question, but how many DMs are there at your table?
I think they should just accept the fact that only one DM is needed.

[Twurps]

... I'm shocked so many people are taking the DM's side here

I'm not sure if you considered me as one of those people, but I will explain anyway

OP didn't ask a RAW question, where one can be wrong or right. OP posited a disagreement (however small) OP has with another person. And I'm under the assumption OP would like to resolve that disagreement. My contributions are meant to help to that end. Another assumption I operate under, is that both parties are decent human beings, trying to have fun, and not deliberately trying to annoy each other.

From personal experience, I find it helpful in these kind of situations to try and see things form the other persons point of view. As a better understanding of the other person's position will be very helpful in finding a solution to the problem. So almost by default, in order to come to a good solution, it helps to argue things from the DM's point of view. (were it the DM asking for help here, I'd argue the other way.)

Also keep in mind that all info we have on the situation comes from the OP, who, whilst knowledgeable about the subject, is also one of the parties involved in the disagreement and thus very likely biased. I'm not implying that the OP is deliberately withholding/changing information in support of his side of the argument. That would somewhat violate the 'decent human being' assumption above. Rather I'd say that operating under different sets of information is a very common and universal contributor to having arguments in the first place. (and which is why exchanging information by the good old 'talking and listening' is so often a big part of the solution)

IF this is the case here, it's not helpful to run with this limited info, confirm how right OP is, and conclude that the DM is BADWRONG. (usually followed by: 'no gaming is better than bad gaming'. seriously? you know what's better than both? good gaming! let's go for that one) So there's another reason to 'side with the DM'. Although it should by now be clear that my 'siding with the DM' here is not about taking sides at all.

[Vaern]

You should compromise, and insist on rolling knowledge checks for things that your DM thinks your character should know but you think your character wouldn't. Let the dice decide, as they should in the case of knowledge, instead of deciding off hand what he definitely does or does not know.
Spoiler: He does not know anything requiring a DC of 11 or higher in an untrained knowledge skill.

[Vampyre_Lord]

i think the root of this is: your DM is changing what it means to be a druid.
requiring a teacher? theyre a wisdom based class, and nowhere in the book does it say that.
requiring a deity? thats a cleric thing, and even they dont REALLY need one.

giving the benefit of the doubt, these are thought out and reasonable setting based choices. the unfortunate part is they strongly conflict with the OP wants to play. OP is trying his best to get that character through, but the DM is saying "no, according to my setting you would be like X"

i honestly dont think theres a right or wrong here, just maybe poor communication both on part of the DM when explaining the rules of the setting, and on the party when explaining undead.

i also really dont think arguments about how RAW applies to RP are really meaningful here, since again, RAW states that druids dont need teachers or deities so RAW is out the window from the DM.

i can really sympathize with having a character concept you really want to play but a DM saying "yeah no, that doesnt work here", so i wish you the best of luck finding a good compromise

[Ashiel]

I took a rank of knowledge religion because DM is running druids as nature themed clerics where worshipping of a (nature) deity is required. I picked Tawaret on the logic that my character saw that she is represented as a lion, hippo, *and* crocodile and inferred that she was the most powerful deity. His knowledge on what gods exist is almost entirely from encountering monuments with inscriptions. I kept trying to make choices where my character would be essentially a wildling, but the current backstory is as close as dm would allow. Note, not because of setting or such, just that is as close to being a wildling who doesn't know about civilization as dm thinks a druid is able to get.
You definitely should talk to your GM about it, but you still don't need ranks in Kn. Religion to worship a deity or to even know the core of their worship for anything that falls under DC 10 or less, which should be plenty. That said, perhaps if the GM is altering things you should ask him to alter the game in a way that makes it better rather than worse. If for some reason he is going to require you to have a certain amount of competency in a knowledge skill for your class to function, he would be better served allowing those checks untrained within the narrow sub-field and let the +2 bonus Druid grants to Kn. Nature apply to those checks as well.

Ultimately the underlying goal is to facilitate communication between yourself and the GM, so you're both getting what you want out of the game. It seems like there's some unnecessary complications contributing to the misunderstandings. :smallsmile:

EDIT
And I mean, consider that we're all trying to help but we've all been a little confused on exactly what the problem was. It's very possible that same things obfuscating the situation for us are making it unclear for your GM, and it's probably not the case that your GM is trying to make you have a bad experience (there are some GMs like that but not even most, thankfully). Just in this thread over two pages, we've had people who have interpreted the issue as confusion over semantics (do you know something by this word or that), confusion over mechanics (don't put points into X if you want to not do X), confusion over agency (is the GM controlling your choices). We've even been confused at confusion (such with Remuko and I). It is probably a safe bet that you and your GM probably have similar goals but see the elephant from different angles.