Common knowledge questions

[ciopo]

Greetings all

During yesterday session, I had a spare question after a knowledge check to identify a monster.

I had 3 questions, and after the customary "defenses" and "special attacks" I wasn't feeling strongly about whatever else I could ask, so I asked "highest and lowest save"

a fellow player got wondering "if that's something we can ask" and we went down a little rabbit hole about how knowledge questions are or aren't codified anywhere official, but we didn't find much of anything and we didn't want to drag it out during the session.

Now that's the day after, does anybody know if some official guidelines for "identify monster abilities and weaknesses" are codified anywhere? it'd be for pf1e but d&d 3.5 is also fine

As an aside, what convention do you have in your groups? the three most common questions I've seen are defenses - special attacks - special qualities .... and that's about it, other "targeted" questions I sometimes use are rare ( such as highest and lowest save above)

Got any exotic question you sometimes ask that you?d like to share?

cheers

[pabelfly]

I have a Knowledge Devotion ranger right now. Since we're high level, I get ridiculous rolls for all my Knowledge checks, and after getting handed the monster stat block to read, I'll ask for the creature's name, just because it amuses me to think my character is so knowledgeable about the random monsters he encounters that he knows them by name.

[Saintheart]

Greetings all

During yesterday session, I had a spare question after a knowledge check to identify a monster.

I had 3 questions, and after the customary "defenses" and "special attacks" I wasn't feeling strongly about whatever else I could ask, so I asked "highest and lowest save"

a fellow player got wondering "if that's something we can ask" and we went down a little rabbit hole about how knowledge questions are or aren't codified anywhere official, but we didn't find much of anything and we didn't want to drag it out during the session.

Now that's the day after, does anybody know if some official guidelines for "identify monster abilities and weaknesses" are codified anywhere? it'd be for pf1e but d&d 3.5 is also fine

Under 3.5 there aren't, aside from the principles the Knowledge skill gives:


In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster.

For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information.

The later MMs started to introduce Knowledge DC tables for individual monsters but these didn't tend to give you much in the way of mechanically precise information.

Highest and lowest save, though, can probably be garnered if you know what the creature's type is. Once you know that, you know its Good and Bad saves, and therefore its high and low saves.

[Chronos]

Honestly, even for a creature you're completely unfamiliar with, it's usually not too hard to guess. Creature is very large, and is fighting mostly with melee attacks? Probably good Fort. Creature is very fast, sneaky, or makes a lot of ranged attacks? Probably good Reflex. Creature does a lot of magic-y stuff? Probably good Will.

[Biggus]

Being allowed to ask questions is something I've never seen done with knowledge checks, in my experience the DM just decides what to tell you. Even if you could ask questions, my understanding is that you're not intended to be given specific information like the highest and lowest saves of that particular creature. As mentioned by Saintheart, the later 3.5 books give examples of the sort of information you get: the base DC gives you all the traits of the creature's type, which includes good and bad base saves, but that's all.

That said, if your DM's the generous type who lets you ask anything you like, fill your boots...

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Just ask its creature type (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm) and maybe also its subtypes instead.

Make a note card that has each creature type, which base saves are good/bad for each one's racial hit dice, what BAB progression it gets, and any relevant traits/immunities every creature of that type gets. The information on the note card is the common knowledge that your character can easily recall, based on observations made with the knowledge check.

[Darg]

My rule is that you can't ask numbers or mechanical terms without a setting appropriate equivalent. You can ask about abilities or attacks because those make sense in context. Asking for "saving throws" is a no go, but asking if a creature has a particular weakness or strength toward a type of spell is valid.

Regardless of metagaming (just simply happens over time) keeping these things within the context of the world is important. The only time it's ok to break that is when it would be incredibly easy to piece it together. Part of the difficulty of an encounter is the puzzle it provides. If you say that the species of this type are typically more vulnerable to magic that affects the mind, it doesn't solve the puzzle for them in all cases. It could be that this particular individual is exceptionally wise for their kind and thus has higher than average wisdom and possibly picked up iron will. You shouldn't always do something like this, but it is incredibly important to occasionally subvert expectations even if the dice keeps that subversion hidden from the players.

[glass]

As far as I know, there is no significant official elaboration beyond the core-book skill descriptions in either 3.5 or PF1, so I made my own. The following is a quote from my houserule document:



Category/Question

Comments



Resistances and immunities

Other than those implied by type



Weaknesses and vulnerabilities

Will give the weakest saving throw and/or whether AC/TAC are poor for level only if there are no more-significant weaknesses.



Other defensive abilities

Displacement, invisibility



Special attacks

Will include “SLAs” or “Innate spellcasting” if any are present, but the specifics of which are their own item/question.



SLAs/Innate spellcasting

Spell-like abilities will give the specific spells. Innate spellcasting will just give a general description (“Casts as a sorcerer of a few levels below you, except that they can also learn cleric spells as sorcerer spells”) but not the specific spells (which will vary).



Special movement abilities

Including things like fly and climb speeds if they are not obvious, as well as things like teleport.



Senses

Darkvision, lifesense, etc.



Saves

As in which are strongest/weakest and whether any are particularly strong/weak for the creature’s level/CR



General threat

“Piece of cake”, “not too worrying”, “tough but doable”, “risky”, “you do not want to fight this”




Passing a knowledge check also gets the Type and any Subtype, and of course the species name, for "free". Usually, the GM asks the player which category they want, but the GM can just choose for them (generally if there are only a couple of categories which have relevant information in them).

[Troacctid]

If you take levels in urban savant, you can get more precise details.

[Pugwampy]

Monster ID roll knowledge

DC. 10 + Monster HD

+5 over DC Dm gives 1 weakness or useful info
+10 over DC dm gives 2 hints.

Knowledge
Arcana. Dragons constructs magical beasts

Dungeoneering. Abberations. Oozes

Geography. People. Races
Local customs humanoids laws traditions personalities

Nature vermin ,animals fey monsterous humanoids giants plants

Religion. Undead

Planes elementals outsiders

Bardic knowledge magic items

[Crake]

The later MMs started to introduce Knowledge DC tables for individual monsters but these didn't tend to give you much in the way of mechanically precise information.

Yeah, here's a randomly picked example from MM4:


NASHROU LORE
Characters with ranks in Knowledge (the planes) can learn
more about nashrous. When a character makes a successful
skill check, the following lore is revealed, including the informa-
tion from lower DCs.
Knowledge (the Planes)
DC Result
12 Nashrous are evil, predatory demons from the
Abyss. This result reveals all outsider traits.
17 Nashrous are difficult to injure unless struck with a
weapon of cold iron or one blessed by the powers
of good.
22 Nashrous form hunting packs. The weakest
members seek out prey, while the strongest
terrorize and slaughter victims.
27 Nashrous have a weak spot, and if you hit one in
the right spot—or just really hard—it might
simply die.

A CR2 creature. Generally speaking, just meeting the DC will give you a very basic idea of the creature, and reveal it's type, and by association, the traits of that type. Then every 5 points you beat that DC by will give you something, ranging from combat tactics, vulnerabilities, or special abilities.

It never gives you specific numbers or exact mechanical descriptions.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Yeah, here's a randomly picked example from MM4:

A CR2 creature. Generally speaking, just meeting the DC will give you a very basic idea of the creature, and reveal it's type, and by association, the traits of that type. Then every 5 points you beat that DC by will give you something, ranging from combat tactics, vulnerabilities, or special abilities.

It never gives you specific numbers or exact mechanical descriptions.

Exactly this. You know the type, and characteristics of that creature type, which includes the typical BAB and base saves for racial HD of that type.

You can typically estimate a targets HD based on your party level, most monsters have HD equal to or greater than their CR. You can ask the DC to metagame how many HD it has. For example, if you're told it's a DC 17, it has 7 HD, so it would have the BAB of a 7th level character at 1/2 or 3/4 or full, good base saves at +5, and poor base saves at +2. Edit: There are also some skills/abilities that allow you to determine a target's BAB, which you can use to reverse-engineer their total HD if you know their BAB progression.

Use that information to determine which saves to attack. If it has a high BAB and appears physically strong, you may want to avoid using Kelpstrand or similar grapple-check attacks on it. You almost always want to attack opponents' weakest base save, exceptions being things like MM3 trolls (monstrous humanoids) having absurdly high Con scores, negating their poor base Con save.

[Darg]

Exactly this. You know the type, and characteristics of that creature type, which includes the typical BAB and base saves for racial HD of that type.

You can typically estimate a targets HD based on your party level, most monsters have HD equal to or greater than their CR. You can ask the DC to metagame how many HD it has. For example, if you're told it's a DC 17, it has 7 HD, so it would have the BAB of a 7th level character at 1/2 or 3/4 or full, good base saves at +5, and poor base saves at +2. Edit: There are also some skills/abilities that allow you to determine a target's BAB, which you can use to reverse-engineer their total HD if you know their BAB progression.

Use that information to determine which saves to attack. If it has a high BAB and appears physically strong, you may want to avoid using Kelpstrand or similar grapple-check attacks on it. You almost always want to attack opponents' weakest base save, exceptions being things like MM3 trolls (monstrous humanoids) having absurdly high Con scores, negating their poor base Con save.

No, HD sizes, BAB, saves, and skill points are type features, not traits (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#outsiderType).

[ciopo]

I never tried to fish for factual numerical values with knowledge checks, not that AC is particularly obscured, it takes 2 or so rounds to know it, no knowledge check required :P

[Cygnia]

General threat

“Piece of cake”, “not too worrying”, “tough but doable”, “risky”, “you do not want to fight this”






That's the Assess Opponent use for Sense Motive from Complete Adventurer.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

No, HD sizes, BAB, saves, and skill points are type features, not traits (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/typesSubtypes.htm#outsiderType).

True, but those still go with the 'common knowledge' portion.

A professional spellcaster who casts spells with saving throws regularly will know that some targets are less dexterous, some are less physically durable, and some are less mentally durable, and that there are spells that target each of those weaknesses. Such a character would have learned that certain types of monsters are typically in one or more of those categories, as well as which specific types are or aren't. These things wouldn't even require a check, same as knowing a humanoid in leather armor holding a dagger or shortsword in each hand is likely on the more dexterous side. Hence the suggestion of putting it on a notecard. Even if the player can't remember all those different good/poor saves for each creature type, the character would know these things because that was part of their education. Noting it in terms of game mechanics is just for the player's own convenience.

[Zancloufer]

I would (as a DM) say that "Highest and Lowest Save" would not be necessarily meta-gamey. Examining a target and decided if their more vulnerable to Poison/Disease than say Mind-Effecting spells seems like if would fall under vulnerabilities, which knowledge checks by RAW say they can help a PC identify.

Sure what exactly classifies as a weakness/special ability might vary from DM to DM, or even monster to monster, but IMHO as long as your not fishing for specific numbers it's fine.

TLDR; As long as the question can be phrased in a way that makes sense in-setting and doesn't have a hard number attached to it I don't see any issue with giving out one tidbit per 5 you beat the knowledge check DC by. It's not like your asking what it's Fort/Ref/Will are, just to rank them relative to each other. Heck a creature with 20/19/18 and 3/2/1 would technically give the same answer, but the question is practically useless in either case :P

[glass]

That's the Assess Opponent use for Sense Motive from Complete Adventurer.Thank you! :biggrin:

The section I quoted is about Knowledge checks to identify and learn about a creature's species, so are about how threatening the species is (implicitly in the post, explicitly in the document its excerpted from). So two high-level human adventurers would read each other as "piece of cake" - same as any other human. Obviously, it is not particularly useful with humans, but there are lots of species who do not have such a wide power scale.

Judging how dangerous an individual is is trickier, and requires a different skill set - it has been on my to do list for a while to figure out how exactly I think that should work and discuss it with my fellow GMs. I do have CAdv but I haven't looked at that part in years, so I will give their take on it a (re)read and see what I think.

[Darg]

True, but those still go with the 'common knowledge' portion.

A professional spellcaster who casts spells with saving throws regularly will know that some targets are less dexterous, some are less physically durable, and some are less mentally durable, and that there are spells that target each of those weaknesses. Such a character would have learned that certain types of monsters are typically in one or more of those categories, as well as which specific types are or aren't. These things wouldn't even require a check, same as knowing a humanoid in leather armor holding a dagger or shortsword in each hand is likely on the more dexterous side. Hence the suggestion of putting it on a notecard. Even if the player can't remember all those different good/poor saves for each creature type, the character would know these things because that was part of their education. Noting it in terms of game mechanics is just for the player's own convenience.

Maybe, however the check DC is 10 + HD for a single bit of information on their abilities or vulnerabilities. You only get one more bit per +5 over that DC you roll. So maybe your character recalls what kind of magic their kind is usually weak against, but getting told that their will save is +13 when their base is 6 allows you to meta game your way into skipping it. Knowing that, even though your character thinks it's weak, are you really going to cast a will save spell because that is what your character would do? No, you aren't. And at that point you aren't playing your character anymore. You're playing yourself.