Monster Knowledge, an alternate framework.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Tasha's gives guidance on knowing what monsters want. And I don't like it for two reasons:
* Tying the DC to CR causes Bear Lore problems. And reifies a game-level construct to world knowledge (:smallyuk:)
* Fixing the specific skills allowed by creature type is neither flexible nor accurate.

So here's (basically) how I run this issue. The intent here is to give a really quick way of determining DCs and what kind of check to ask for, while spreading the wealth and making in-universe sense.
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There are two types of information you can try to gain about a creature. The first is species-generic information. This is what you'd know about trolls, generally. There may be individual exceptions to this knowledge, but it covers the basics across the creature species. The second is individual information. Stuff about this particular specimen. The first can be learned from books; the second is more often learned from watching a particular person (although famous people/creatures may have written information about them as well).

Different types of checks (different proficiencies, mainly) give different information:



Check
Individual
Information


Intelligence (Arcana)
Collective (mostly)
Supernatural abilities, non-mundane origins, magical vulnerabilities/resistances


Intelligence (History)
Both
Specific individual characteristics, actions in the past, legendary capabilities/habits (especially for intelligent creatures). Things that might get written down in history/story books.


Intelligence (Nature)
Collective
Physiology, habitat, normal behavior patterns (especially for non-intelligent creatures), diet, physical vulnerabilities/resistances, poison/venom


Intelligence (Religion)
Collective
Relationship to gods (etc), worship status, omens, legendary capabilities/habits (especially for outer-planes beings)


Intelligence (Investigation)
Individual (Collective with enough instances)
Capabilities that can be directly observed or reasoned from observation or traces


Wisdom (Survival) (observing tracks/traces) / Wisdom (Medicine) (direct observation)
Individual
Injuries/weak spots


Wisdom (Animal Handling)
Individual
Attitudes and intent (non-intelligent)


Wisdom (Insight)
Individual
Attitudes and intent (intelligent)



Setting DCs:
Group creatures into 4 categories:
- Common (to a region). Don't bother setting a DC here for generic information. Only individual information requires a roll, and that should be pretty easy since everyone knows what to look for.

- Uncommon (to a region). DC 5 for very basic generic information, more information at 10/15/20. Individual information at DC 10+

- Legendary (in a region). DC 10 for very basic generic information, more information at 15/20/25. Failure brings false information. Individual information at DC 15+.

- Unknown (in a region). No generic information available. Individual information at DC 15+

Very basic information is things like "yes, that dragon who lives in a volcano probably is fine with fire" or "that corpse that just got up and started walking around moaning about brains probably is undead". So hitting the higher DCs gives better information.

I count "uncommon" as being things that the commoners wouldn't likely have seen themselves, but would have heard stories from people they know individually (so second-hand but not much more). Most basic undead, trolls, ogres, griffons, etc would be here.

Legendary are things that really only are known through stories. Here you can get false information, and gleaning out what's actually meaningful is more difficult.

Unknown things would be like creatures that were just created recently and no one's ever seen. You can't find information about them in books or stories, but only from individual observation. And if you're not sure what to look for, it's kinda hard.

[Unoriginal]

Tasha's gives guidance on knowing what monsters want. And I don't like it for two reasons:
* Tying the DC to CR causes Bear Lore problems. And reifies a game-level construct to world knowledge (:smallyuk:)
* Fixing the specific skills allowed by creature type is neither flexible nor accurate.

PhoenixPhyre, the Tasha's does not do any of that.

1) It is not to know what monsters want, it is to research what *a* specific monster may wants

2) It does not fix any specific skill by any creature type. The skills written in the book are explicitly only suggestions.

3) It is not a Bear Lore problem situation, since:

-It is not for knowing general lore, only for trying to figure out the desires of a specific being.

-It makes sense (IMO at least) that it's harder to figure out what offerings would satisfy a specific creature the more the creature is powerful. Since the more they're powerful, the less they need your help to get what they want.

If it was a "you need to roll above 10 to know that cows eat grass" situation, I'd agree with you, but here it's more "you wanna try and make a good first impression, what can you figure out about this one?".

I'm not saying your rules are badwrongfun or anything of that register, it's just that the situation with the Tasha's is not how you presented it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

PhoenixPhyre, the Tasha's does not do any of that.

1) It is not to know what monsters want, it is to research what *a* specific monster may wants

2) It does not fix any specific skill by any creature type. The skills written in the book are explicitly only suggestions.

3) It is not a Bear Lore problem situation, since:

-It is not for knowing general lore, only for trying to figure out the desires of a specific being.

-It makes sense (IMO at least) that it's harder to figure out what offerings would satisfy a specific creature the more the creature is powerful. Since the more they're powerful, the less they need your help to get what they want.

If it was a "you need to roll above 10 to know that cows eat grass" situation, I'd agree with you, but here it's more "you wanna try and make a good first impression, what can you figure out about this one?".

I'm not saying your rules are badwrongfun or anything of that register, it's just that the situation with the Tasha's is not how you presented it.

Printed "guidelines" become expectations. And those inevitably go beyond the stated limits (because people don't read). Look at all the people immediately jumping on them as "generalized monster knowledge" rules.

And knowing that a (slightly bigger wolf) wants meat shouldn't be substantially different than knowing that the little wolf wants meat.

If that's what you want to do, then you need a whole different framework. That still doesn't do a good job--"what does that NPC want" isn't something that should be solvable with a simple check unless it's trivial. In which case it's not worth a check.

Basically, I still run into verisimilitude blocks really really fast with that specification. If it's individual, then why are you finding information in books that addresses the question? Unless the individual is either
a) so generic that you're not really getting individual information (in which case CR isn't a good judge)
or
b) extremely famous already (so it's had books written about it). In which case CR still doesn't map to difficulty!

Basically, using CR as a proxy for anything other than what it was designed for (how hard does it hit and how many hits does it take to kill it) is horrible design. Because it reifies the abstraction in a way that utterly conflicts with any kind of a coherent world.

This is most clearly shown looking at humanoid NPCs. Take two NPCs (stat blocks in bold)--

Bob is a spy. He's done his darndest to keep true information about him out of the news. In fact, most of what gets out there is misinformation.

Jane is a champion. She's got groupies all over her and her tastes are well known (and printed all over the kingdom)--she's pretty much an open book and not particularly subtle in her tastes.

Yet by these rules, the spy is a DC 11 check and the champion is a DC 19 check. That doesn't fit my verisimilitude at all and heavily constrains my worldbuilding.

[Unoriginal]

Look at all the people immediately jumping on them as "generalized monster knowledge" rules.

I mean, you made a thread, which I'm currently reading, titled "Monster Knowledge, an alternate framework", presenting your monster knowledge rules and saying they are an alternative to the ones in the Tasha's, so yes, I am indeed looking at it.



Bob is a spy. He's done his darndest to keep true information about him out of the news. In fact, most of what gets out there is misinformation.

Jane is a champion. She's got groupies all over her and her tastes are well known (and printed all over the kingdom)--she's pretty much an open book and not particularly subtle in her tastes.

Yet by these rules, the spy is a DC 11 check and the champion is a DC 19 check. That doesn't fit my verisimilitude at all and heavily constrains my worldbuilding.

How I see things:

Bob is a trained operative but ultimately more or less the bottom of the ladder. What would please him enough to make a good impression is widely available, as any advantage, information, reward, perk, etc he can get his hands on is going to be useful to him.

Jane has a ton of people who are ready to please her, either because they're fans or because she has the means to reward others for what she wants. She receive a wagonload of the stuff everyone knows she like every day. As a result, it is much harder to figure out a gift that'll make her have positive dispositions toward you.

It's a classic "what do you give the man who has everything?" scenario.

Yes there isn't much difference between a wolf and a somewhat more dangerous wolf, but the second wolf, being more dangerous, has more capacities to get its basic needs and wants fulfilled. And so it is harder to figure out something that'll please the wolf.

It's my take on it, anyway. I don't think it's breaking versimilitude to have stronger beings be harder to please.