D&D 5E Recalling lore about creatures... what does it entail?

[clearstream]

As a DM I've been generous about what characters can know about creatures that they encounter, using the relevant lore skills (typically Arcana or Nature). Then I started thinking about these three class features -

Know Your Enemy - Fighter Battlemaster 7th level
1 minute observing or interacting outside of combat, to learn if a creature is equal, superior or inferior to you in two of Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Armor Class, Current hit points, Total class levels (if any), and Fighter class levels (if any).

Insightful Manipulator - Rogue Mastermind 9th level
1 minute observing or interacting outside of combat, to learn if creature is equal, superior or inferior to you in two of Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Class levels (if any); optionally also a piece of the creature's history or one of its personality traits.

Hunter's Sense - Ranger Monster Hunter 3rd level
As an action, choose one creature you can see within 60' and learn if the creature has any damage immunities, resistances or vulnerabilities, and what they are.

The presence of class features to learn those things implies that those things can't be learned without the feature. Also, I think the time or action costs on them are suggestive that recalling lore should also take time or action(s). The vagueness of some of the things learned (equal, superior or inferior HP?!) makes me feel that recalling lore perhaps shouldn't get more concrete information.

So what information should recalling lore using those skills give to characters?! And what does it require, in time or other wherewithal?

 

[5ekyu]

As a DM I've been generous about what characters can know about creatures that they encounter, using the relevant lore skills (typically Arcana or Nature). Then I started thinking about these three class features -

Know Your Enemy - Fighter Battlemaster 7th level
1 minute observing or interacting outside of combat, to learn if a creature is equal, superior or inferior to you in two of Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Armor Class, Current hit points, Total class levels (if any), and Fighter class levels (if any).

Insightful Manipulator - Rogue Mastermind 9th level
1 minute observing or interacting outside of combat, to learn if creature is equal, superior or inferior to you in two of Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Class levels (if any); optionally also a piece of the creature's history or one of its personality traits.

Hunter's Sense - Ranger Monster Hunter 3rd level
As an action, choose one creature you can see within 60' and learn if the creature has any damage immunities, resistances or vulnerabilities, and what they are.

The presence of class features to learn those things implies that those things can't be learned without the feature. Also, I think the time or action costs on them are suggestive that recalling lore should also take time or action(s). The vagueness of some of the things learned (equal, superior or inferior HP?!) makes me feel that recalling lore perhaps shouldn't get more concrete information.

So what information should recalling lore using those skills give to characters?! And what does it require, in time or other wherewithal?

I disagree on at least that bit about implying they cant be learned without the feature.

It should leave open the possibility of an ability check to know these facts.

These features cover any creature you see even totally unknown ones in some cases. Its study and figure out.

That ability does not mean or imply that it should then note be possible to know these things by other means. Its just a way to learn it on the fly.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

"Old Skool" - Whatever the Player remembers or thinks he does about the monster, his PC can use...if the Player wants to (e.g., Roleplaying considerations, for example).

I find this way of playing to be MUCH more satisfying than rolling dice and comparing numbers. With the Old Skool way, the Players and the DM have a sense of pride and accomplishment. The more a Player plays in a DM's world, the more they gain in terms of knowledge of that world, and (IMNSHO) the more the feel like the choices and success/failure of the PC is because of themselves and not the dice or the mechanical choices they made.

I don't know. I'm an old curmudgeonly grognard and know what I like. I've been "Playing Old Skool" since it was considered just "Playing" so this is second nature to me. I like it, my players like it, and well, that's the important thing, right?

At any rate, if you want to just roll dice and calculate numbers with the whole thing having pretty much no 'emotional impact' on the Player, then what you propose will do the trick...mechanically speaking. But I think you are cheating your players out of one of the greatest parts of the game: a personal sense of accomplishment in their playing of the game. YMMV.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[clearstream]

At any rate, if you want to just roll dice and calculate numbers with the whole thing having pretty much no 'emotional impact' on the Player, then what you propose will do the trick...mechanically speaking. But I think you are cheating your players out of one of the greatest parts of the game: a personal sense of accomplishment in their playing of the game. YMMV.

Do you mean that the class features I quoted from WotC official publications are cheating players out of one of the greatest parts of the game?

 

[clearstream]

I disagree on at least that bit about implying they cant be learned without the feature.

It should leave open the possibility of an ability check to know these facts.

Perhaps the existence of the features should be more a guide to the DC?

It might be that the information a 7th level fighter automatically gets after one minute observing and interacting with a creature, can be gained by character with Nature, provided they take a minute and succeed on a check against a Hard or Very Hard DC. Is that a reasonable example?

 

[Ed Laprade]

And what about the possibility that intelligent characters will make a point of looking this stuff up whenever they get the chance? And what about Bards? Shouldn't they get something special too? After all, they're singing songs and telling stories about monsters and such all the time. The rules seem tacked on without much thought, to me, so I'd take into consideration the circumstances before making any decision.

 

[5ekyu]

Perhaps the existence of the features should be more a guide to the DC?

It might be that the information a 7th level fighter automatically gets after one minute observing and interacting with a creature, can be gained by character with Nature, provided they take a minute and succeed on a check against a Hard or Very Hard DC. Is that a reasonable example?

Not to me, no.

Consider this real world example, a chef might come across a pot bubbling on the stove, smeel it, stir it, taste it then come to the conclusion about that its a pasta dish with something like a vodka sauce and it needs more peppers.

On the other hand, someone eho knows the recipe might just look at it and ask "wheres the peppers that goes in penne rustico"?

A locksmith,might figure out how to,oen a combo lock in a minute but someone with the combo can just open it.

Someone may work out a scrambled word puzzle in a minute but...

All are examoles of a direct study and working thru it and a case of someone who alteasy knows the answer.

They are different things entirely - just with similar outcomes.

Consider if your beastmaster spotted a moogletron and took his minute to figure out its "pick a trait".

If he encountered another one tomorrow would you require a minute for him to recall that info again?

What about if its just an hour later?

Key is, how long it takes you or someone else to learn something is unrelated to how long it takes to recall it - except perhaps the harder it was to learn the more you remember it - harder to forget.

 

[Quickleaf]

So what information should recalling lore using those skills give to characters?! And what does it require, in time or other wherewithal?

Generally, all that stuff in the MM that's not in the stat block (as well as years of D&D monster lore stored in my head). If they roll high like DC 15+, then I start weaving hints of pertinent stat block info into the lore, but I'll never explicitly say "troll regeneration is prevented by fire damage", for example.

I don't just consider the skill and the monster, but a bunch of other information about the character (e.g. background, race, class, story/history). For example, when a grung PC asks about details about grung society/culture or the PC's city-of-origin, I treat that as an auto-success. The PC just knows. And then play carries on.

The key to remember about making a roll – including a lore roll – in 5e is that you only bother rolling when the outcome is uncertain, in other words, when there's a chance of failure. What the rules don't tell you is how to adjudicate what a failed lore check means.

So, here's an example from actual play: My party made a tentative alliance with a NPC who *seemed* to be the estranged father of the half-elf sorcerer PC; in actuality, the NPC was a deathlock whose identity was concealed with disguise self. The NPC "father" had control over a couple wights who in turn had control over a bunch of zombies; he played this off as learning how to control undead while traveling through an undead-infested jungle. They teamed up to solve a puzzle. However, through various subtle social moves – e.g. a Deception check to discretely cast identify as a ritual on the NPC while talking, revealing the enchantment effect – the PCs had reason to be suspicious.

As they were finishing solving the the puzzle, one of the players – anticipating this "alliance" was about to go south – wanted to recall lore about wights. And several players also dog-piled on that desire to recall lore.

Previously while exploring this dungeon they'd encountered a deathlock wight and its zombie servitors. So they knew from that fight that the wight had resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from non-magical sources.

I ruled this was an Intelligence (Religion) check because wights are strongly tied to the religious mythology of the adventure. However, before the players rolled, I stipulated that if the check result was below DC 10, then the NPC would be alerted that the PCs were on to him. That deterred several of the "throw away rollers", such that it was just the grung sage druid PC making the check. He rolled a '15' IIRC.

I said something like: "You've heard stories of ancient human civilizations in the jungle whose aristocrats and priests voluntarily become undead, their wicked hearts and minds sworn in service to the dark entity that granted them undeath. While human sages and lorebooks refer to them as "wights", grung shamans know them as "desiccated men" and fear them for draining the life-giving waters that grung depend on. The ritual turning them undead makes them hateful of life and refused by the light of day. It is said that the moon was so offended by the sight of these wights crawling from their ruined cities at night that she cursed them to reveal their true forms under her light."

What I did here was introduce the basic lore of wights, tied it to deathlocks a bit, and then added a spin on it suitable to the PC's race (grung). I then strongly hinted at their Sunlight Sensitivity, provided what may or may not have been a bit of misinformation about the effect moonlight has on their disguise self, and also very very subtly hinted at the power silver to hurt them (as silver is symbolically connected to the moon in many belief systems).

 

[clearstream]

Generally, all that stuff in the MM that's not in the stat block (as well as years of D&D monster lore stored in my head). If they roll high like DC 15+, then I start weaving hints of pertinent stat block info into the lore, but I'll never explicitly say "troll regeneration is prevented by fire damage", for example.

Do you feel any concern that some class features (the ones I cited) are rendered fairly valueless by this approach? Do those features seem more or less like design errors?

 

[Satyrn]

Do you feel any concern that some class features (the ones I cited) are rendered fairly valueless by this approach? Do those features seem more or less like design errors?

I don't think they're rendered valueless. They are automatic, and that reliability counts for something (so long as the knowledge checks aren't endlessly repeatable, and thus would be essentially automatic, too).

But I also do consider them to be design errors because they come online so late. Waiting until 7th level for the battlemaster just felt far too long (especially since my battlemaster kicked the bucket at level 6)